The Condition of Muzak (8 page)

He had decided, once his new equipment was installed, to open up the convent as a kind of health-farm. Sooner or later London would come back to a version, at least, of its old self, and this time he would be ready for it.

He paused once more beside the mirror. “I could be happy with you,” he sang, “if you could be happy with me.” He gave himself a big kiss and left a smear of makeup on the glass.

The convent was coming along a treat. Jerry had signed a formal lease for the place and had been lucky enough to secure the services of some ex-nuns. He had left the outside pretty much as it had always looked, but the buildings inside had been thoroughly restructured. Now wide picture windows looked out into old English gardens where pious and apple-cheeked Poor Clares worked with hoe and rake as they had worked since time immemorial. Jerry expected his first customers soon. So far his only client had been his financial backer, his sister’s friend Constantin Koutrouboussis, the young Greek millionaire who had inherited the family business on the death of his older brother Dimitri. Koutrouboussis was rarely satisfied with anything but miracles and Jerry hadn’t been in business long enough to gain experience enough to provide them. But when the Americans started arriving things should look up.

Koutrouboussis stopped off one day, on his way through to his Soho headquarters. He was carrying a new line in riding crops and was keen to show one to Jerry. “Look at that!” He swished it through the beam of dusty sunlight which entered Jerry’s spacious office by way of the half-closed blind. “The secret’s in the weight of the handle.”

Jerry was searching white plastic drawers in his desk. Of late he had affected a great deal of white. He wore a surgeon’s smock at this moment, and a chef’s hat. It contrasted nicely with his freshly stained skin. “What?”

“The handle.” Koutrouboussis put the crop back in his case. “How’s your sister keeping, by the way?”

“Oh, all right. I checked this morning.”

“Are you sure—?”

“There are no certainties in this business, Mr K.”

“I suppose there aren’t. A science in its infancy.”

“It’ll stay that way, if I have anything to do with it,” Jerry promised. “Adult science doesn’t seem to produce a satisfactory variety of results.”

Mr Koutrouboussis fingered his new beard. His hands wandered down to his expensive collar, his neat lapels, his dapper buttons. “You won’t tell the clients that?” He moved towards the wall and stared at the tastefully framed French prints showing characters from the
commedia dell’arte
.

“There aren’t any clients for our kind of science. You’re too much of a cynic for this sort of clinic…” Jerry stopped himself quickly and inspected his watches. “A drink? I’ve a wide selection of Scotches…” He gave up.

“No time.”

Jerry wondered why Koutrouboussis always made him feel aggressive. Maybe it was the tension the man carried with him; it could even be that Jerry resented his financial involvement, his power.

Mr Koutrouboussis reached the door and lifted his gloved hand in a moody wave. “No time.”

“I’ll be seeing you,” said Jerry.

Koutrouboussis chuckled to himself. “At this rate you’ll be raising me, too. Cheerio for now, Mr Cornelius.” As an afterthought he said from the passage: “And if you should discover the identity…”

“I’ll let you know.”

“I would be grateful.”

Jerry put his elbows on his desk and rubbed at his face. One thing was certain: he was under an obligation and it was making him uncomfortable. Then he consoled himself with the knowledge that Koutrouboussis was no idealist. His interest in the whole affair was connected with Catherine alone and justified by a profit motive. If Jerry was going to make his clinic in any way successful he would have to forget both his sister and her admirer for a while. He was sure he was on the right track this time around. He had found hope again. If these new machines couldn’t beat the human condition then nothing could.

A tasty young nun knocked and entered. “You’re looking tired, sir. You’ve so much on your shoulders.”

He straightened his back. Automatically he checked his lapels for nits. “Lice,” he murmured, to explain.

“The world is full of them, sir. But the truth shines through.”

He glanced at her faithful face. “The trouble is,” he said, “that we’re all at least a hundred and fifty years old. How many generations need to comply in a fallacy before it becomes accepted as truth?”

She was untroubled. “Can I bring you a nice cup of tea, doctor?”

“It would certainly help.”

“Your machines…”

“They’re not oracles, you know. They just get rid of the demand for oracles. Abolish the future and you lose the need for faith. Familiarity, by and large, banishes fear…” He clutched, again, at his head. “I wish I knew how the damned things worked.”

“I was going to say. They’re moaning again.”

“They haven’t got enough to do.”

“Soon,” she reassured him.

“The whole idea is that we should do away with ‘Tomorrow’…”

“I’ll make the tea immediately.” The door closed on her whispering gown.

He got up and drew the blind so that he could see into the quiet garden. “Heritage. Inheritance. The secret’s in the genes. Chromosomes. Chronos zones. It always comes down to those fucking flat worms.” He really needed a chemist at that moment, but he was buggered if he was going to bring his brother back. Frank would have a vested interest in the status quo; his whole identity depended on its preservation. The same could be said for Miss Brunner and the rest. He couldn’t blame them. They thought they were fighting for their lives.

The phone began to ring.

He uttered a disbelieving laugh.

With only a few reservations Jerry watched the new arrivals as they were herded from the big white bus through the narrow gates of the convent. There were only three men; all the others were women under thirty—or, at least, they resembled women. Some of the patients, he gathered, had already made a few faltering steps towards a crude form of self-inflicted transmogrification, some of it involving quite terrifying surgery.

He had decided not to present himself to his patients until the evening, during the Welcome Ceremony (which would be held in the ballroom, once the twin chapels) since, at this stage, he would be bound to make them feel self-conscious. Even as the white bus disappeared into the new underground garage a black Mercedes two-tonner took its place, unloading amplifiers and instruments, music for the ball. He stepped back from his window. As the population increased, so, in direct proportion, would his clients. He went over to his new console, turning the master switch to make every television monitor screen work at once, showing a clinic now satisfyingly busy. He was particularly pleased with the way in which the nuns had adapted to their new nursing work. He looked for a moment at the reception desk where guests were cautiously signing their names (mostly fictitious) in the gold-embossed green leather register. Their faces, haunted by hope and anxiety, were familiar to him. For many of them the treatment, even if partially successful, could not come too soon.

The thing he was looking forward to, however, was the ball. It had been a long while since the Deep Fix had played together. As soon as he could he would go down for the soundcheck. It would be good if he could get some rehearsing in before the event.

His eye was drawn back to the screen. He was sure he had seen the old military-looking character quite recently. He recognised the frayed cuffs. “We are all offered a selection of traditional rôles,” he murmured. “The real problem lies in finding a different play. In the meantime we attempt to console as many of the actors as possible by finding them the parts in which they can be as happy as possible.” His voice was carried over the PA to all parts of the building, interrupting the Muzak.

“You’re becoming a regular telly freak, ain’t ya, Mr C.”

Shakey Mo Collier now stood there, arms folded, most of his weight on one leg. He was wearing a yellow-and-red paisley shirt, a light suède waistcoat, filthy with the remains of a thousand fruitful meals, a tattered green-and-blue Indian silk scarf, patched and faded jeans and scuffed cowboy boots with white decoration. His hair was longer than when Jerry had last seen it and he had grown a mandarin moustache. Jerry was pleased to see him. “Where have you been, Mo? The first I heard you were around was when someone brought me your postcard.”

“I’ve been asleep, haven’t I?” said Mo. “Up in the Lake District mostly. It’s nice up there. Good roads. Plenty of shale. All dead. Lovely. You want to go.”

“I know it. Grasmere. Daffodils and dope. Or that’s the way it used to be.”

Mo was unusually astute. “That scene’s shifted, hadn’t you heard? To Rydal. But the best days are over.”

“Well, a word’s not worth much these days. I heard the town had gone all chintzy.”

“Quincey?”

“Chintzy.”

They giggled together. Mo sat down on the posh carpet, cross-legged, and began to roll himself a joint. “Anyway you seem to be doing all right with this lot.”

“I can’t complain. There’s no profit in it, though.”

“Aren’t they paying?”

“All the takings go to my sleeping partner, Mr Koutrouboussis.”

“Well, well.” Mo licked his papers. “So, really, you could leave here any time you liked?”

“I’ve got responsibilities, Mo.”

Mo looked at him in some disappointment. “Blimey!”

“How long has the group been back together?”

“Not long. We all met up in Ambleside. Tried out a few things—acoustically, of course. You can get some of those old reed organs to sound just like electronics if you work at it. But we needed power, so we trucked back to London, hoping we’d find some. Of course we hadn’t realised everything was coming alive again. We picked just the right time, for once. We must be the only beat group around. We’re getting a lot of work. Too much, really. The tensions…”

“It’s done your ego a lot of good,” said Jerry. “You’re your old cocky self again.”

“Thanks. I feel cocky. Yes.” His grease-stained fingers explored a waistcoat pocket for a match. He lit his joint. “I just wish they’d bring back the money system. All this fucking bartering’s getting beyond a joke. Half our wages rot before we can eat them and we can’t trade them because nobody’s got the kind of stuff we need.”

“I don’t know what you want.”

“Cheap tat, of course. And weapons. Just like the old days. Colour tellies. But don’t worry. This gig’s free.”

“We’ve got a few new drugs.”

“Nar,” said Mo. “We’re not into drugs any more. Well, not at the moment, anyway. We’re into beer.”

“You don’t mind me…?”

“Smashing. It’ll be like the Friendly Bum days. You remember?”

“My memory isn’t what it was.”

“It’s a fucking opium den now. For the tourists.”

“I’ve been staying away from the centre. My work…”

“Oh, sure.” Mo was suddenly embarrassed. Hesitantly he offered Jerry the joint.

Jerry enjoyed a drag. He went to sit on the ledge of the open window, looking towards Blenheim Crescent then up into the sharp blue sky. “I think we should see an improvement, soon. It’s a bit early, though.” He cocked an ear to the east, detecting a whine. He smiled. “They’re here, at last.”

Mo joined him at the window as the first black wave of Starlifters shrieked in at minimum altitude, banking slowly until they had located Heathrow.

“Far out!” said Mo in delight, as soon as his voice could be heard. “Those jobs carry over a hundred and fifty troops apiece. There are thousands coming in. Oh, it’s all going to liven up! The Yanks are back!”

Jerry moved to the intercom. He must warn his staff to be ready for the extra volume.

Jerry rubbed more of the dye into his skin, regretting once again that his machines simply weren’t up to handling his own problem. It was high time that they were overhauled, anyway, since the convent had been placed off-limits to all advisory forces: though it had only been civilian auxiliaries who had been coming in the first place; patronising the clinic now counted, on General Cumberland’s orders, as fraternisation with hostile personnel.

Jerry couldn’t complain. It meant he could expand his own activities if he wished. In the meantime the money system had been reintroduced, Koutrouboussis had been paid back and was receiving an excellent dividend; Jerry was no longer beholden to the Greek who had, on his own initiative, formed a consortium together with his younger brother Spiro, to exploit the Cornelius patents worldwide, offering Jerry a flat commission on every client, including those who wished to change nationalities as part of their transmogrification. Jerry intended to take more of an interest in this international aspect of the enterprise now that the original clinic was running so well. Spiro, by mutual consent, would act as chief liaison man.

When he had finished with his face he picked up a tangled sheaf of traumograph printouts, leaving black smudges on the semi-opaque paper, and crammed them into one of his desk drawers. He was wearing a white German suit, black shirt and no tie, as part of his current disguise. His hair was bleached bone white. For the moment, too, he had discarded his needle gun and wore the more comfortable vibragun which, he felt, was a trifle better in tune with the zeitgeist. Currently, he felt, the world could accept any ambiguities so long as he retained a certain dramatic resolution to events.