Jackson. The experiment is at an end. At an end. I can no longer stand by. This isn’t the way the system is supposed to work. You’re supposed to notice, go elsewhere, refuse to purchase. As a guinea pig, you are a failure. At five pounds and sixty-nine, you are being … you are being … you are being fleeced, Mr Jackson. It’s daylight robbery.’
‘I had no idea, I mean –’
‘Listen to me.’ He leant forward over the counter and lowered his voice threateningly. ‘For the next few weeks I want you to buy your cashew nuts elsewhere … I want you to take your cashew custom away … I want you to …’ He waved his arm, mortified, close to breaking down, lost for words.
‘Eschew your cashews?’ I said, helpfully.
‘Exactly. Exactly. That way I can build up an unacceptable surplus and that will force me to have a half-price sale to clear stock and that will bring the price back down to more or less what it should be and that will get us out of this … this mess.’
A single lick of thick black hair had come loose and now looped across his shiny forehead. He thrust the blue plastic bags across the counter. I left in chastened silence, the shop bell jingling behind me as I went out.
A Renault was parked at the end of the street. The female driver was talking into a mobile phone. For a heart-splintering moment, I thought it was Lucy.
I slogged all the way back up to the Himalayan summit of number 33 and managed to crawl, breathless, teeth-gritted, sinew-strained, up the last few steps into my own hall. Instantly, the telephone began to ring – as though it had been sitting there like a pining dog, waiting for my return. I put my bags and my laundry down quite slowly by the hat-stand and then stood, eyes shut, breathing deeply, and counted to five.
I snatched up the receiver.
‘LUCY, FOR CHRIST’S SAKE! PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE STOP RINGING ME UNLESS YOU WANT TO TALK. PLEASE. I WILL TALK TO YOU IF THAT IS WHAT YOU WANT. OR WE CAN MEET UP OR I’LL COME OVER BUT FOR GOD’S SAKE STOP CALLING ME EVERY TWO SECONDS. I DON’T –’
‘Jasper?’
‘– KNOW WHAT I AM SUPPOSED TO –’
‘JASPER. JASPER!’
It was a man’s voice.
‘What? What? Sorry, who is it?’
‘What’s going on?’
‘William?’
‘What?’
‘Is that you?’
‘Of course it’s me. Will you stop being an arse and tell me what is going on? What are you doing with your phone? You’ve been out of order for a week and a half and when you do pick the fucking thing up you start calling me Lucy.’
‘Sorry, Will, sorry. Things have been a bit awkward lately. She’s gone insane. I am being harassed and silent-called. Almost stalked.’
‘Well, you’d better do something about it and quick or else the few friends you do have will give up on you for the worthless fucker you are.’ He took a sip of something. ‘So, has the sham come to an end and everything fallen apart?’
‘Yes. Totally.’
‘Do you care?’
‘Of course I care. I mean, I know it wasn’t going to last forever … But I wasn’t intending … Oh Christ, Lucy more or less found me in bed with that girl from the fucking Tate. Now she’s ringing me up all the time … I think she’s in quite a bad way. I care about that.’
‘Very nice of you.’ He sighed. ‘Jesus, Jasper.’
‘What can I do?’
‘Kill yourself on television. Wrap big apology signs around your head, explaining how you are sorry for being such a low-rent human being and behaving so disgracefully all your miserable life. That should do it. Give us the nod as to when you plan to go ahead and we can all tune in and watch. I think a burning tyre around your chest, that sort of thing, or maybe –’
‘And how can I help you today, William? Is there something you would like to share with the rest of the class?’
‘Yes, actually. I want you to get yourself to Le Fromage by eight sharp tonight, young man. I have a little treat for you.’ He hesitated. ‘But – well, we can do something else if you …’
‘I’m fine. Go ahead.’
‘Really, it’s OK if we need to leave it awhile. I’m only planning on a –’
‘There’s nothing I can do, Will. I’ve written a letter. It’s a motherfucker; that’s all.’
He clicked his tongue. ‘OK. So, do you remember those two girls that we ran into last time we were there?’
‘No.’
‘Well, they have finally had the decency to call me back and –’
‘You mean you called them.’
‘Precisely. They are prepared to meet up with us tonight. And for some reason unfathomable to humankind they want you to be there.’
‘Well, I’d better come along then. Refresh me as to their names?’
‘Tara and Babette.’
‘The Czech girls?’
‘Actually, I’ve found out their real names. When they aren’t on the catwalk in Paris or Milan or Rangoon – they’re called Sara and Annette. They have confided in me.’
‘Oh God.’
Le Fromage is William’s name for his club. (I have no idea what the real name is – ‘Settee’ perhaps?) Situated in a fashionably dismal Soho back-alley, it is silted up most days of the week with the detritus of humanity – fabulously talentless men and women, who ooze and slime through the half-light in a ceaseless search for the dwindling plankton of each other’s personalities. On Saturday, even the regulars avoid the place. Only William would ever sink so low as to organize a date there.
In the event, however, there were no celebrities around to degrade the dinner and things went surprisingly well. Well enough to occasion a group expedition back to William’s house for further drinks and what he insisted on billing as ‘an exciting midnight party’.
But thereafter we found ourselves becalmed. And had you happened to look into the wine cellar of an old house in Highgate at around one o’clock in the morning, you would have seen two figures crouching in the claustrophobic semi-darkness: one, sandy-haired, blue-eyed, the product of thirty generations of inbreeding, cradling a bottle of fino sherry; the other holding a bottle of Sancerre. Had you also stooped to listen, you would have heard the following hushed exchange.
‘You can’t make them take all their clothes off and pour sherry on their heads, Will. I don’t care if you’ve got to get rid of it –’
