The Information Junkie Page 3

  But of course B prefers to drink and grab an Indian not in a crowd. Sounds like a happy ending? Well, you've got section four yet. And you have one further character to meet. And no: not female.

  By the way, when B moved in my hemmies started to ease. Honey—you've shrunk my piles. True Love Cures Painful Arse. Doctor love?

  When I sat at my keyboard I sometimes felt as if I were at the top of a mountain; at other times as if I'd just reached a plateau. I was an OUTSIDER. I envied youngsters their perfect teeth. Have you noticed the way the sun shines through perfect teeth? Belinda's are and it does.

  Keep your powder dry, cyberbuddies. Keep your software safe. Always save onto a backup disc. And don't logoff till you have.

  I must end on an UP note:

  Wow—buddies! What a trip this has been. Are you fit for the final furlong? Can you manage the extra mile? Listen. It's all—no, I mean ALL—resolved in section four. Section four for the Big Finish, so...

  ...keep your chakras cleansed and your options open; find the balance between feeling and thought. Hang loose but hang in there...

  4

  But the doc had already delivered his heavy load, his vast cargo, his megajuggernaut.

  'As you get older, bits of you don't work so well.'

  'But doc, that's not in my script. I demand a rethink.'

  Silence.

  'Doc, that I do not like.'

  'That's the script,' said the doc. 'And that's your life.'

  'You cannot be dog-star.'

  Silence.

  'Sure?'

  He nodded.

  'This is not an auditory hallucination?'

  He shook his head.

  'There must be some mistake...'

  The doc laid down his pen, removed his other hand from the keyboard and sat back into his chair, the full open-body posture.

  'Doc, what's up?'

  'Mr Jones...'he glanced at his screen...'Charles, I have to certify death. I have to give bad news. It is the part of my job I least like.'

  I looked into his eyes; they held a story. The story had been there for some time and constantly retold. Right from medical school when he'd been introduced to all those EXQUISITE stunts the human body can pull, and from the moment he had sliced his first cadaver. The mystery of life had shot out of HIS life before adolescence had delivered its final rush. No wonder medical students drank and smoked so heavily. No wonder they laughed so raucously. It's GALLOWS humour. Wow! We're all going to die: some of us nastily, others spectacularly, most pedestrianly.

  'Charlie,' he said, 'people die every day.'

  I said, 'Yes. But that's OTHERS. And at least they're doing it discreetly.'

  He left another silence. It was one of those professional silences: the type designed to make you feel uncomfortable and naked. One of those YOU are compelled to break.

  'Is there any cure, doc?'

  He shook his head and looked at his watch.

  I squeezed my brow: time up already?

  He nodded. And it was a sage nod. It was a nod that told me I had seen nothing, heard nothing, done nothing. But I still had the time: I should now use it.

  There was another silence which was broken by a teeny voice which said:

  'sorry.'

  It was that small. It just said:

  'sorry.'

  The sound came from my vocal chords but the voice was someone else's. It was the voice of a dead person.

  No, not Hardy, Huxley or Bertrand Russell; not V. Woolf, L. Woolf or The Big Bad Wolf; not Rodin, Robespierre or any Impressionist; not Harold Wilson, Harold Macmillan or Adolf Hitler; not Henry James, William James or Jesse James; not Messrs Rowntree, Cadbury or Needler; not Elvis, Marilyn or JFK; not Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper or Glenn Miller; not Alice in Wonderland; not Wendy, Peter Pan or J. M. Barrie; not Tinkerbell; not Zarathustra or Herbert von Karajan; none of the Strausses; not Stanley Kubrick, not Peter Sellers, not...

  It was the voice of a little boy having his first haircut. The barber has placed a board over the arms of the chair and has sat the boy on the board.

  'Mummy, I'm scared. Mummy, I don't understand.' And tears form.

  'Charles, I'm scared too. And, Charles...no one understands.'

  Yet despite the fear the boy submits to the indignity.

  'Could you keep your head up, sonny?'

  'sorry.'

  I stood, told the doc I was sorry I had overstayed my time.

  'That's okay,' he said. 'How's your bum?'

  'I'm holding my own.'

  His ballpoint was poised above the prescription pad. 'Any more?'

  'Not for the moment, thanks, doc. I've got it all in hand. I'm biting the bullet.'

  And then I did a strange thing. I shook his hand. Isn't that odd? And he responded. He'd given me something; some communication had taken place. I then made a soft exit.

  I'd gone into the consulting room a youngster and emerged an oldster. Canny folk these docs; they know there is more than one way to defur a bunny.

  When I got home I went straight to the keyboard and after half an hour Belinda brought up a cup of tea which she placed on the spare mouse mat. She knew not to talk when I was immersed but dropped me the usual note. On it was an X and an O. She left without speaking but knew to return in half an hour when she expected to see another X, and something added to her O. The O was the elephant's head and I would have added a trunk pointing either downwards or skywards.

  Oh, good. You're smiling again.

  Mm? Pardon? I'm not telling you. Why? Because Belinda is real. Oh, I know you think the Cybernurse is a bit of a fantasy and the Fierybird is a bit of a dream. I made both of them up. But Belinda is real. That's why I tell you less about her. I certainly do not report how she looks when she drops her nix, although she has told you about me. PC?

  No, let's not start that again.

  Right. It's time to tell you the truth. I've told you that Cyberchick and Ffion are inventions and that Belinda is real. So you'll want to know a few more details before I logoff. By the way, I've enjoyed your company. It was a fun ride although the destination has surprised me.

  Okay: I write software for a living. For a major financial services company but I work from home. B used to be a P.A. to a certain captain of industry—you don't really expect me to tell you his name—but gave that up just before we married. She decided to work on her kitchen skills. No, I'm only joking. She's a superb cook and that first meal was just a fiction. But the slip outside Boots was real enough.

  As a sideline I write software for computer games. A friend—Martin—and I do the scripts as well. But, as I say, that's just a hobby at the moment although it does pay disgustingly well. Our games are based around the types of characters in fantasy comics. There could be some adult ones but we're still at the pencil and paper stage.

  We've also done a little software for commercials. Do you know that one where a monkey morphs into a glass of beer? That's me. And Martin. That's us. (Pays extremely well.)

  Well, folks. Now I've told you my story. And some of it's real and some of it isn't. Please feel free to E me—my address is at the end. I have enjoyed speaking to you and sharing a few ideas. Isn't life a gas?

  *

  Thought Cybernurse was a little farfetched. Too obviously an adolescent male sexual fantasy. Speaking of which will you give Belinda a long wet one from me?

  Quite like your ideas, though, for the graphics for "Seven Nights with Cyberbabe".

  We don't seem to have had a drink or a curry for bloody ages. E me with a date.

  See you around.

  Martin.

  P.S. About that other thing—it's survivable.

  5

  Why are you still reading? I told you it was all resolved in section four. Mm? Oh, you like the piece? You want more?

  So, after the foretaste you want the FULL story?

  Fabuloso!

  Okay, buddies. Come with me: I'll give all the facts; the whole story, the full SP.

&nb
sp; I am going to tell you more about Ffion because she's been playing on my mind. And Martin's.

  Gonna be a monster, mates. Thought when I started that we were looking at a ten-sheeter. Tell you what, buds, reckon it's going to be nearer a hundred and ten. Wow!

  Babes, this is the REAL thing.

  So, adjust your dress, hang on to your straps. Gentlemen, lift the seat. Ladies, slip off your tights, slacken your bras. Gents: loosen your belts and drop your suspenders. Here we go:

  So I edged into doc's evening surgery:

  'I want to be eighteen again.'

  'That's not an illness.'

  'No medication for that?'

  He shook his head.

  'If you can't make me eighteen can you make me feel eighteen?'

  'That's not a clinical problem.'

  There was a silence.

  'Doc, I'm desperate.'

  The silence continued. I broke it:

  'It's me, doc, isn't it?'

  Doc nodded imperceptibly and gave me the full open-body posture again. He was saying: 'Give it all to me. I can soak it up. Anything you can throw at me, anything you present I can absorb.' He left a silence. 'All those tricks,' he said, 'I'll fix them, I'll hex them...' He paused again before looking at me then said, '...apart from this one.'

  As a doc he could either soak it up or deflect it. That was his job. Or he would hex it. But one thing he couldn't do was handle my stunts.

  'Doc,' I went on, 'how much do I owe you?'

  'I'll bill you,' he said.

  I slipped out of the surgery and took the velvet Underground to the pub near Piccadilly Circus where I'd arranged to meet Martin:

  'Where have you been? Haven't seen you for millennia. You've ignored my E's.'

  'Got a confession, Charlie,' he said. I looked at the table: there were two half-empty glasses. I searched his eyes and started to feel a sorrow. 'I've been parting the Red Sea.'

  'You've been to the Middle East?' I said hopefully, desperately, confusedly.

  'No,' he said. 'A lot closer to home.'

  Oh, buddies. Started to get the picture. Saw the Fierychick: famous Ffion. Saw him parting the Red Sea. Saw him playing in a saffron pasture. Saw him meandering in the crimson meadow. Saw him undulating in the auburn area. Saw him ploughing a red furrow. Saw him paddling the pink canoe. Saw him playing the pink elephant with Ffion.

  'Yeah,' I said, 'you told me you liked her, you told me you fancied her, you indicated she was beddable. But don't you think—since I invented her—that I have first choice?'

  'No, mate,' he said. 'You've got to think of B, think of Belinda. You're married.'

  What was it I felt—envy, jealousy, resentment? Perhaps all three.

  'Let's be strictly accurate here, Martin. You haven't been parting the Red Sea. You've been sampling the saffron, stimulating the stigma, caressing the crocus. Haven't you?'

  He looked at me in that big-balled way, legs widely splayed:

  'Charlie,' he said, 'I haven't been able to cross my legs for twenty years. Know why? Afraid of bruising myself.'

  Only this time I didn't laugh. And then there she was beside him: gold pendant round her neck, violet-coloured top, knitted tights; and hair—Niagaras of flame—pouring down her back. What could I say? I just stood up and left. As I walked away I could feel both their eyes on me, and her hand pulling him closer. Without looking I saw an arm slip round his back and watched their differences disappear.

  Oh, buddies, whence this dark tone, this new development?

  Ffion had told me she held a degree in Romance Languages; I'd seen metres of books to prove it. Martin had only a little French; why the attraction?

  He was still acting titan-testicled when it was no longer fashionable to do so. Yet he was perceptive:

  'Angst,' he said.

  I crumpled my brow.

  'Age, mate.' He smiled dourly. 'You've been on the planet too long.'

  And, of course, Martin was right. I had suspected it for some time: it was all to do with age. Didn't like being old; didn't want to be older; knew I was older; couldn't face it. Hence the fantasy chicks.

  Yet that didn't explain Ffion. If I had created her how could she appear with Martin in a pub near Piccadilly Circus? I didn't dare go back to the doctor; I couldn't say, 'Hey, doc, think I'm going bonkers.' Because he'd just look at me, then glance at his watch.

  And we were all too old now to go out, get lagered-up and splatter the sidewalk with tomato skins. So, resolution of a different sort was called for. Oh, dear buddies, I don't like this vein at all. It's like a funeral after several weddings: three couplings and a derailment. I knew that previous tone was too manic. I could not sustain it. I started that just before a full moon when my monthly cycle was at its peak. I always get uptight at full moons. (Or, is it fulls moon? Fool's moon?) And what lies behind mania? Something you want to escape. But can't.

  So, babes, there we are. I had to get rid of Martin. Then I'd have Ffion all to myself. Trouble was, that would complicate the succession of our companies because Martin owned fifty-one per cent. He wasn't married, never had been; he'd shacked up with a lot of chicks including, in the last six months, a teenage, badly-bleached blonde who had a ring through her eyebrow. Why? I asked. To keep her brains in, said Belinda.

  So, Martin would have to go. How could I dispense with him?

  Then Fiery dropped me a vellum. It was a cream, A4, one-pager:

  Charlie, Never want to see that look of hurt on your or anybody else's face. Ever.

  You and I are temperamentally unsuited. I have a free spirit and Martin makes no demands. You are a controller.

  Hear this Charlie: I am my own woman and whatever your brain wants me to do, my heart says I will not. Charlie proposes; Ffion disposes. I'm elusive, babe, do my own thing. I'm unpredictable. You just wanted a happy, a neat ending.

  Well, real life ain't like that, babe.

  You told me you loved the phrase Romance Languages. I think you've misunderstood the term Romance.

  Tighten up, Charlie. Think of your wife & your responsibilities. Concentrate on your job. You'll never be able to grasp that elusive thing you spoke of.

  Charlie, I adored our evening together. But that was it. That was all. I'm independent.

  By the way, Martin thinks very highly of you, both professionally & personally. Don't take it too badly, cutie.

  Don't take it so personally.

  Don't ever, EVER, project that hurt look at anyone again. You need an outlet, sweetie. Channel it all into your work.

  Charlie: here's the deal: pretend I'm not real. Figure I'm a construct. Imagine Martin is too, if that helps. But never believe you are. We had a fabulous—I know you'll disapprove that choice of word—evening together. You set me ablaze; now set me free.

  P.S. Persevere with Proust. He's worth it.

  Posh parchment, buddies? Vivid vellum, folks? Pre-eminent papyrus, friends?

  Nice chick, eh? No: she's not a chick. She's a woman. A REAL woman. ALL woman. And, with her fountain pen, she forms not lazy crosses but elegant ampersands.

  Oh, well, I suppose I'd better press on with my job. Software. Funny word. The disc or tape is hard but the essence is soft: just thoughts, ideas.

  That was Belinda, just now, with a cup of coffee and the usual note. I add the obligatory X and give the elephant a trunk rampant. Yes, must concentrate on the real, the actual; not the fantasy, the imagined. Odd, though, how the two can become interleaved and difficult to separate.

  Now I'm digitising: laying down machine code—my zeros and ones—to enable a financial process to run more smoothly. I'll continue with my games software too. Must keep those ideas coming. You need a good flow of ideas, but only one to torch the world.

  *

  The final E from Martin:

  I'm writing you out, Charlie.

  [Arty arrogance! Only I write characters out.]

  I had to re-read that verb. What he actually wrote was:

  I'm buying yo
u out, Charlie. Robert will send you the legal stuff. For God's sake, get yourself sorted. You've already lost B and your sideline. If you're not careful you'll lose your job too. Then it's skid row.

  Think carefully. M.

  *

  Yes, folks, Belinda had left too. Said she was a cyberwidow. That I spent too long tickling the keys rather than her.

  However, chums, here I am. Oh yes, buddies, still playing the keyboards, still flicking a mean riff to keep the Aristocard cardholders sweet. I'm often tempted to slip in a little subroutine which would... But no, that's another story.

  Hey, gals and guys! Wow!! Isn't life a gas?

  Anyway, you asked for a story. I gave it to you. You requested an introduction, a development and a dénouement. Well, I gave an exposition, a sizzling development, and three preliminary conclusions. Now you want the Biggy. Don't want much, do you? Now, listen, buddies: gonna give it to you straight: the old one-two-three. See how this grabs you:

  Shortly after B left I did lose my job and ended up, with my corpus full of tubes, in a place which some call home and with a screen perched above my bed; keyboard and mouse at hand level.

  Then one day I called up Cybernurse. Wow! What a chick! And caring... Before she inserts the needle of the drip she always gives you a local.

  By the way, did I ever tell you the one about the nurse, the patient and the redhead? I didn't...? Well:

  Ffion: (Welsh) the colour of red roses or foxgloves.

  Foxglove: plant of the genus Digitalis producing bell-shaped, typically purple flowers.

  Digitalin: the pharmacologically active ingredient of digitalis.

  Digitalis: very toxic drug prepared from the dried leaves of the foxglove. A heart stimulant.

  Digitalise: to administer digitalis to a patient.

  Digitise: to convert data into digital form.

  Data: information.

  Fact: a truth, reality.

  Fiction: falsehood, invention, romance.

  PART TWO

  Confusions of a Crimson Fish