Stark (4 page)

18: MORE DINNER IN LOS ANGELES

A
s Sly took his seat his sense of satisfaction had not left him, how could it? Now he was really at the very centre of everything that mattered. He had been accepted, accepted as a colleague — a colleague in a great conspiracy. But what was the plan? Sly had no idea for what secret and shadowy purpose the group had come together. Certainly to make money; colossal, unimaginable, utterly meaningless sums of money, of that he was certain. They were there to make money.

He was wrong.

But he had to wait to find out. For these slavering corporate predators prided themselves on being civilized. Business must wait until after dinner.

There were no menus at ‘California Dreaming’. You ordered what you wanted. Sly, in a mood of jolly bravado, ordered swan. It had always intrigued him that in England apparently only royalty are allowed to eat swan. On this very special night Sly felt like a king himself and reckoned he deserved a slab of Her Maj’s exclusive tucker.

The maitre d’ — a svelte figure who gracefully exuded that peculiarly Californian air of superiority that made one embarrassed that one was not oneself a homosexual — accepted Sly’s order with a rather deflating matter-of-factness. His manner suggested that he rarely took orders for anything but swan. That tiny flick of his eyebrows seemed to say ‘if just one more person asks me for swan I shall go and work for Col. Saunders.’

It’s a strange thing about waiters, because while Sly could happily have faced down a corporate takeover bid from Ghengis Khan, that one bloke’s offhand acceptance of his magnificent self-indulgence made Sly feel like a piece of shit.

In the kitchen, the maitre d’ hastily consulted with the cook. They decided against pigeon because there was a good chance he’d recognize it. The same reason ruled out grouse. Eventually the chef had a brain-wave and slaughtered the cat. Poor Tiddles yielded a goodish portion of tough, light brown meat which the chef pan-fried in garlic butter and mushrooms. A lady guest in the public section of the restaurant had arrived in a beautiful coat layered with hundreds of ostrich feathers. A couple of these discreetly pruned, plus a duck’s beak, completed the picture and Sly was duly served his swan.

‘To tell you the truth it tastes worse than a dead cat,’ said Sly in reply to the polite enquiry from his neighbour.

As it happened, the talk about the table was far too interesting for Sly to worry overmuch about what he was eating. Conversation normally bored Sly, he always felt like he knew what people were going to say. This made him very irritating to talk to as he never let anyone finish a sentence. He would normally say ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah’ at machine gun speed within five seconds of anybody saying anything. This, of course, meant that Sly never learnt anything. If somebody were to shout at Sly, ‘Sly, the building we are standing in is on fire’ Sly would probably say, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah’ and burn to death.

That evening, however, Sly did not feel his usual need to forcibly stamp his personality on the gathering. He did not do his normal thing of wriggling with discomfort until he was able to prise open an opportunity to say something wry, witty, pithy or tough, just to show everyone what an impressive bloke he was. For instance, he never felt happy at major political dinners until he had contradicted the Prime Minister. It didn’t matter what he said, just as long as he scored a point. His proudest moment to date had come at a dinner party in Canberra, when the Prime Minister, commenting on the primitive Australian economy, had said: ‘Us Aussies are still riding on the sheep’s back.’

Quick as a flash Sly responded, ‘You stick it in what you like Bob, just leaves more birds for the rest of us.’ This had got a huge laugh and firmly established in Sly’s mind the idea that he should go into politics. He was, in his own opinion, a top-class racon-fucking-teur.

But that night at ‘California Dreaming’ Sly was definitely prepared to sit quiet and listen. After all, these were not politicos — vain little scumbags with a small talent for middle management. The men Sly was facing (for there were no women at the dinner) were men of real power: power that would last. What did they want? What were they doing dining together? When would he learn of the great plan, whatever it might be? Perhaps the unofficial chair of the evening sensed Sly’s tension for, as the coffee came round, he made the introductions.

19: ATTILA THE HAMBURGER SALESMAN

G
entlemen, few of you have had the opportunity to meet our Australian friend socially,’ said the fat, affable American who had recently sold his eighty billionth hamburger. ‘Although,’ he added chuckling, ‘he’s burnt a few of your asses in the futures market.’

Sly flushed with pride, it is very rare that the mega-rich receive genuine praise. If you crap on people for a living you can’t really expect a great many heart-felt tributes to come your way. So it was particularly gratifying that this important and brilliant man should treat him with such friendly esteem.

And Tex Slampacker was a brilliant man. His insight into the human soul had made his hamburger marketing uncannily successful. He had elevated the manipulation of people through retail outlets into an art form. It was said of Slampacker that he could sell shit if he wanted to, which was, of course, exactly what he did.

His outlets are the same all across the world, identical in every detail. Frontier forts of an occupying army riding rough-shod over the myriad ancient cultures that they have colonized; sneering at the quirky individualism of their subject races; laughing at those who waste time considering choice and variety when they could be making money. From the deepest depths of Islam to the heart of Christendom, the Slampacker invasion is complete. Napoleon couldn’t hold Moscow but Slampacker could and did.

Richard the Lionheart was halted long before he saw the gates of Jerusalem; Slampacker just walked right in without a fight. Life-styles and customs that had stood for centuries, fiercely resisting the attempts of foreign powers to subvert them, had fallen to Slampacker in a decade.

Tex Slampacker knew no French (except of course the words franc and centime) but had he known any, the phrase vive la difference would have completely mystified him.

20: COMING TO THE POINT

L
et me fill Mr Moorcock in on our principal concerns at this point in time, gentlemen,’ said the burger king, ‘because, as you are all well aware, the day is fast approaching when action must be taken and we are very much hoping that Mr Moorcock will be joining us in our endeavours.’ As Tex Slampacker rose to speak Sly felt an incredible expectant thrill. More than ever now, the enormous potential of the evening hit him. Here he was amongst the very biggest players in the world, the Yanks, the Japs, the Arabs…Clearly something was afoot and he, Sly Moorcock, the Aussie street kid made good, was to be a part of it. Countless billions must be involved, the power and influence that sort of money represented was mind-boggling. It must be global, that was obvious thought Sly feverishly as Slampacker wiped his brow. God knew what…What the hell were they planning to do…? Buy the Society Union, maybe that was it!! Christ this lot could afford it, and make it pay.

Suddenly Sly was sweating. Brief-cases and computer terminals had appeared on the table. Shadowy figures materialized from nowhere to guard the doors…The situation was colossal, the potential for profit beyond computation…Slampacker, the first man ever to make a million dollars in under five seconds was addressing them all for his benefit! The utter strangeness of the situation almost enveloped Sly. All these predators, all these mavericks, men dedicated to personal and individual gain, joined together in one room! Conspiring! What could it possibly be about?

‘Gentlemen,’ said Slampacker. ‘Fourteen individual species of butterfly have become extinct since this meal began.’

There was a significant pause during which Sly tried to work out what he presumed was some tortuous Yankee metaphor. It wasn’t. Sly could scarcely believe his ears but Slampacker, a gung-ho, hard as nails mega-cynic, began to talk like some kind of damn hippy. He spoke of the ozone layer. He spoke of the greenhouse effect. He dwelt at great, and what Sly considered unnecessary, length on the various types of waste that are floating about in the world’s water system. He seemed particularly concerned about trees. Slampacker, a man whose never-ending need for beef pasture had made him responsible for cutting down more trees than all the shipbuilders, furniture-makers and carpenters in history put together, spoke with dull passion on the subject of the destruction of the forests.

Sly itched to shout ‘who gives a fuck’ at him, but the atmosphere was wrong, people were listening and, to Sly’s astonishment, they looked scared. Eventually, to Sly’s relief, one or two around the table began to shift about a bit and fidget.

‘Good,’ thought Sly, ‘somebody’s going to tell the fat old bastard to save his hang-ups for his shrink.’

But, to Sly’s further aggravation, those who wished to chip in clearly wished to do so because they felt that Slampacker was not pitching the case strongly enough. Various world-class money men, men who Sly would have bet a chain of breweries cared more about hair restoration than reforestation, started to whine about the death of trees. And it wasn’t just trees either. They were worried about a mystery virus that had made an eighth of the world’s moles impotent for Christ’s sake! One fellow seemed to be almost pervertedly interested in a mystery fungus that had appeared under the wings of sea birds.

Sly squirmed with annoyance. All the way from WA to hear some arsehole waffle on about a gull’s armpits? Somebody’s going to skin up a doobie in a minute and they’ll all start singing ‘Blowing in the Wind’, he reflected bitterly. Bottling up his boredom and disappointment Sly sat waiting for a moment when he could decently take his leave.

21: LOVE AND CONFUSION

O
f course, if Sly thought he was experiencing frustration, he should have tried sitting in CD’s trousers.

CD was definitely surprised. He had thought he’d been in love before but clearly he hadn’t. Nothing he had experienced so far in life had prepared him for the gutful of emotions he had been at the mercy of since that moment at the Pissed Parrot. It was extraordinary. At first he thought he must be ill.

CD could not understand it, all that stuff that claims to be about love; mushy stories; wet songs; unpleasant childlike cartoon figures holding hands and saying, ‘Love is doing the washing-up even when it’s not your turn’. These things CD now discovered had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with love as he was currently experiencing it. In the world of pulp publishing, pop charts and greeting cards, even when love hurts it usually hurts in a nice and tasteful way; yearning glances; attractive anguish and broken hearts. The truth is, it’s a pain in the guts.

And that was another thing. Why is it that the heart has been singled out as the seat of all emotions? OK so it occasionally misses a beat, but what’s that compared to the long sleepless hours of dull stomach ache? The guts are unquestionably the seat of the emotions, that’s where CD felt the pain. But of course it wouldn’t look so good on the Valentine cards; eight feet of small intestine with an arrow through it or a cute little cartoon figure feeling queazy and saying ‘Love is wanting to go to the lavatory.’

CD had been prepared by countless juke boxes to feel exhilarated, tearful, turned on by love, he certainly had not expected to feel sick. It was as if he had gone mad. He was acting in a way that he despised himself for. It was fifteen years since he had tried his hand at poetry. He had thought that shameful, inexcusable episode in his life was over and forgotten forever. There is absolutely no excuse for amateur poetry writing, it should be against the law. Teenagers, CD reluctantly accepted, should be allowed a brief foray into this repulsive, self-indulgent activity. After all, every kid in the world goes through a period when they are under the impression that they are the only person who has ever suffered, the only person who has ever really truly understood confusion and rejection, and exam revision and acne. Obviously this horrid time needs an outlet other than vandalism and hence, while it lasts, every kid is clearly entitled to pen the occasional teen-anguished epic. But these should be decently burnt within a year and the habit soon dropped. At the age of fifteen CD had decided to ditch poetry to leave more time for masturbation and had never had cause to regret the decision.

But now what had happened? Here he was trying to find a rhyme for ‘Rachel’ and coming up with ‘bagel’. Sitting there, alone, his eyes prickling, his guts churning, trying to write something that should it ever get out would force him to commit suicide out of sheer embarrassment.

And this was not the only alarming symptom. Everything was changing, CD was definitely not the same person he had been a week before. Conversations had become a means to bring the subject round to how much he loved this girl. He didn’t want to do it, it just seemed to happen.

‘Are you going to watch the footie then, CD?’

‘Yeah, maybe, you know I’ve met this girl called Rachel. I think she’d like footie. She’s an extraordinary girl, you know I really think I’m in love and I don’t know whether to be happy or sad or what.’

He felt an absurd affection, even loyalty, for Carlo Criminal Court, where he had first set eyes on her. He had bought a copy of ‘Money for Nothing’ which had been on the juke box in the Pissed Parrot when he had tried to make conversation. It was ridiculous but when he played it, which was often, he always felt he had to listen to the very end or somehow he was letting her down. She would never know, and she certainly wouldn’t care, but he still had to listen to every bloody note.

It was so weird he had only met her on a couple of occasions and yet now he thought about her literally all the time, constructing little fantasies to himself as he wandered about. Lacking almost any knowledge of Rachel at all he filled in the gaps himself. Sometimes she was Doris Day, a happy little housewife with whom CD would share the domestic chores and construct a normal life. In this dream he even had a proper job and kids were on the way. She was chirpy, devoted and, of course, insatiably saucy. Other times she was a tough, committed alternative woman intellectually brilliant, artistically innovative, courageous, combative and, of course, insatiably saucy.

These fantasy characters bore no relation to the real Rachel and, of course, they did not need to for CD had fallen in love with her whatever she was really like and it only remained to discover what he had let himself in for. This was one thing CD did know about love: it can happen regardless of personality. How often had he noticed couples who seemed totally mismatched struggling through their lives together. Couples that made you say ‘I never would have thought he was her type’, and yet there they were, a Zen Buddhist and a female mud-wrestler applying for a mortgage and looking at curtain material. CD was discovering now for himself that love is not logical. He didn’t know anything about Rachel, why was he so certain that she was perfect? And why when, as he knew he must, he discovered that she was not perfect, did he know he would forgive her? Clearly because love hates logic, it cannot be planned, it cannot be created and it cannot be stopped. It will, at all times, do its own thing like a hippy on the dance floor or a back-packer’s bottom when it gets to India. One thing was clear, if there’s a part of the body less involved with love than the heart, it is the head. This is why CD was in such a state of disarray. He was a cleverish, cynical person, and he was out of control. Captain Love had taken command of the ship and CD was heading for the rocks.

Clearly it was time to form a plan. CD could not go on listening to ‘Money for Nothing’ and having trouble with his bowels for ever. He had seen Rachel once since the encounter at the Pissed Parrot and it had not been a conspicuous success. All he had done was crack jokes and try to catch another tantalizing glimpse through the tiny gap that gaped between the second and third buttons of her blouse. One of the great male delusions is the belief that girls are unaware when they are being ogled. No one has ever managed to discreetly eye a cleavage. You might as well put out bunting saying ‘I am getting a stiffy’. On the other hand taking a sneak peak doesn’t necessarily mean that the peeker is falling in love. Blokes do it on instinct. So despite being acutely conscious of his staring, Rachel remained unaware of the immense turmoil that she was causing in CD’s stomach and in his trousers.

Poor CD. Most girls suffer the subliminal harrassment of being ogled in silence but Rachel was made of sterner stuff. She could handle the embarrassment of confrontation.

‘Stop staring at my boobs!’ she had snapped and CD had never felt so mortified in all his life. For the rest of the evening he had been in danger of cricking his neck in his efforts to demonstrate that he was staring at the ceiling.

But, CD was an optimist, he reckoned that there were grounds for hope, after all, they already had quite an intense relationship. So far Rachel had embarrassed him, made him feel sick and turned him into a bore, there was certainly an emotional bond developing which he felt he could build on. What he needed was a plan.