The Information Junkie Page 4

  Confusion now hath made his masterpiece!

  —Macbeth Act 2, scene 3.

  *

  Anyone who isn't confused

  doesn't understand the situation.

  —Ed Murrow (1908–65), on the Vietnam War.

  6

  I thought when they finally discharged me that I'd be okay. That all those fictional people, viz., the Cybernurse, Ffion and Martin would disappear and I could win back Belinda to lead a normal life.

  Wrong again, buddies.

  Have you ever noticed how unstraightforward life is?

  Okay, I'm going to tell you the rest of the story without any exaggeration or embellishment this time. I will not substitute the real for the fictitious or vice versa.

  I was real, Belinda was real. That's all I needed to hang on to. And by the time they'd cleansed all my paths—physical and mental—that idea was clear. I walked out of the place a new person, with CERTITUDE.

  But at that point it all began to fracture because as I emerged there was the Americar. And who was behind the wheel?

  Martin.

  I thought of turning back but faced the fear and walked on.

  'Tough time, mate?' he said.

  His feet scarcely reached the pedals; he sat there in his well-cut suit over an open-necked shirt.

  I sighed, then smiled: 'I'm okay, now.'

  Martin flicked the ignition.

  I wanted to say, 'How's Ffion?' but remembered, just in time, that she was not real. And anyway Martin got through chicks at such a rate that he'd have discarded half a dozen in the six months I'd been away.

  He looked well-fed, prosperous. He favoured an automatic. Isn't that odd for a big-balled kind of guy? He had imported this one from America.

  Martin drove assertively and at ease. As we turned into the main road and the sun hit the windscreen he lowered his visor; I lowered mine too. I knew everything was going to be okay. I knew it.

  He'd been keeping an eye on my place while I'd been away.

  'I've got to tell you, Charlie, that I've been using your gaff to spread the mustard.'

  I smiled.

  'I mean, you don't drop biggies on your own bandstand. Do you?'

  I smiled again.

  'I've had all your stuff laundered. No stretch or skid marks there.'

  This was a brittle relationship: Martin would have to go.

  'Everything's gonna be okay,' said Martin. 'Got a feeling everything'll turn out just fine.'

  'And my life will become clearer, Martin?'

  His eyes remained on the road, his expression unchanged:

  'It'll all become clear.' He paused. 'In the end.' He corrected himself: 'At the end.'

  I smiled, happy to be driven by him.

  'Still writing?' he said.

  'I make a few notes, jottings. Just thoughts, only ideas. They encouraged it—in there.'

  '"Write it all down, Mr Smith." ? "Let it all out, Mr Jones." ? "Don't hold back, Mr Brown." ?'

  'Close enough.' Had he ever been inside that place himself and not told me?

  'Got a surprise for you at home,' he said.

  I crinkled my brow.

  He turned. 'Just a few friends.'

  We stopped for petrol. The price of gas had shot up during my absence. Martin flashed his Aristocard: he was a founding cardholder.

  As we continued on our way Martin said,

  'Any tasty talent in there?'

  I thought of Cybernurse but wanted to keep the memory of her special, yet couldn't resist the urge to boast:

  'Yes,' I said. 'There was a nurse on the late shift with a vigorous bush who slipped between my sheets one night. Climbed in starkers. We did the biz there and then and while all the others groaned in their sleep we groaned with pleasure.'

  'Knockout, mate.' He was silent for a while then: 'This babe you're going to meet is a star in the sack.'

  But I wanted to talk about something else:

  'Martin...?'

  'Mm...?'

  'I feel like a character in a Christopher Priest novel.'

  'But six months ago you felt like someone in a Martin Amis novel.'

  'No, that's not strictly accurate. I didn't feel like a character. I felt like an actor condemned to play a rôle in an early Martin Amis novel.'

  'Comic, then.'

  'Comic yes, but manic too. But with Priest it's sombre and unsettling.'

  'Wow, mate,' said Martin. 'I thought they were supposed to cure you in there.'

  'They can't cure you of reality,' I said.

  Then I knew who was waiting for me at home. Or at least I thought I did. He said he'd invited a few friends. I dreaded that one might be Ffion. But supposing there were Ffion and the Cybernurse; Martin Amis, Christopher Priest, B. S. Johnson; and Thomas Hardy for good measure? I mean, you'd go bonkers. Wouldn't you?

  On we drove, the sun shining through the windscreen.

  Oh, buddies, I write this with great reluctance, real pain.

  'You've gone quiet, mate,' he said.

  'Martin, I've got to get this sorted.'

  'Could you just run it by me again?'

  'Yes—I feel like a character in a Christopher Priest novel and did feel like an actor condemned to play a rôle in an early Martin Amis. I also feel a little like an Anthony Burgess or B. S. Johnson narrator...'

  I watched Martin's face as he negotiated the traffic: it was impassive.

  'What happened in that place, Charlie? What did they do to you?'

  'They corrupted my data,' I said.

  'Look, mate,' he said. 'I think you've been indoors too long. Here's the deal: come back, meet some new people, socialise, get into circulation again. Straighten yourself out.'

  'They encouraged me to write, in there.'

  'You're not in there any more, mate. Charlie, I know what you need. You need a good lay. Listen: this piece I'm introducing you to. She's Welsh, but don't let that put you off.'

  'Anthony Burgess's first wife was Welsh.'

  'Look, Charlie, do me a favour. Forget about the literary. Okay? You're reading too many books. Concentrate on reality.'

  'But, Martin...' There was a silence which he didn't fill. So I asked him: 'What do you want to do?'

  He gave me a puzzling smile but turned quickly back to concentrate on driving. He'd have to go.

  The automatic gears changed down with a lurch as we came to a nasty snarl in the traffic.

  'I'm scared, Martin.'

  He didn't reply. On we drove through the sunny afternoon.

  'Martin,' I said. 'I'm scared of what you've got for me at home.'

  'No worries, mate.'

  So, what was waiting for me? Was it the Cybernurse and Ffion? Was it Belinda? Was it Martin Amis and Christopher Priest? Was it Charles Dickens? Was it Charles Hawtrey? Was it Charlie Drake? Was it B. S. Johnson? Was it James Joyce? Was it William Joyce? Was it Uncle Tom? Uncle Tom's Cabin? Or was it myself?

  Buddies, I was flying on rice paper.

  'One of these friends I'm introducing you to,' he said, 'is a bit of a disappointment in the tit department.'

  'Oh...?'

  'Doesn't have any, mate. You know the type: has to stick a couple of bits of scrunched-up toilet paper onto her vest. Wizard in the sack, though.'

  'When you come up with these things, Martin, are they planned or spontaneous?

  'I shouldn't go down that road, Charlie.'

  I said, 'Have you seen anything of Belinda?'

  'It'll all become clear when you get home.'

  Had I been away too long? Probably. What had they done to me? What had they really done to me in that place?

  On we drove through the sunny afternoon. The sun beat down. So I was looking for a resolution. Could Martin help me? Could the people waiting for me at home help me?

  'And another thing,' I said to him: 'I feel, as if I have to justify everything I do.'

  'I thought,' he said, 'that they'd given you the full datacleanse? Let's recap: you said you felt like an
actor playing a part in an early Martin Amis novel?'

  'Yeah.' I paused. 'The problem is that I'm not adolescent. I'm middle-aged.'

  'Ah!' said Martin. 'Now I see where all this is leading. It's MLC. Isn't it?'

  'Midland Light Chamber? Millicent Loves Coffee? Melvyn Likes Chat? Mellifluous Little Chubbies? My Little Charlie? My Lovely Chocolate? My Love Chunders? Millicent Loves Charlie? Etcetera. Etcetera.'

  Martin didn't even smile.

  MID-LIFE CRISIS!!!

  Phew, buddies! It was plumbiferous. It was worse than a heavy vellum. It was fiercer than that painful parchment which Ffion had laid on me. And it was accurate: it had the ring of truth.

  'I've told you before, mate. It's survivable.'

  'Even an amputation is survivable. But I don't want anything cut off.'

  'You already have had, mate.'

  'Yeah. My bloody youth.'

  'It's not your youth that's gone. Is it? It's your energy. It's that limitless energy which youth squanders.'

  'I mean, I can't keep this up, Martin.'

  'Here's the deal,' said Martin. 'Get back to your software. Return to your job.'

  'Yeah, but I lost it all before. Didn't I? Lost my job, I lost... hang on a minute: you sacked me. You bought me out from our companies.'

  Martin turned, looked and said: 'What companies, Charlie?'

  I said, 'The games software companies that we owned.'

  He said, 'What are you talking about? We don't own any companies.'

  The ice was melting. Martin didn't have much longer.

  'I'm your old mate, Charlie. Remember? We used to go out for bellyfuls of beer and curry then redecorate shop doorways.'

  'Yes, that was pre-MLC. Wasn't it?'

  'Certainly was, mate. We're friends, Charlie. Okay? Look, I told you at the time that I couldn't come to visit, and that's all going to become clear when you get home.'

  'So, we've never had companies?'

  'No. We haven't, mate. You write software.'

  'What do you do, then, Martin?'

  'Oh, come on. You know that,' he said, 'I'm an actor.'

  An actor? Yes, of course—Martin the chameleon. It was starting to come back now. I recalled that the last thing which I'd seen Martin do was a commercial in which he morphs into a monkey and the monkey morphs into a glass of lager. He told me it had paid disgustingly well. You remember the catchphrase—don't you?—Go Ape For a Monkey's Bum.

  'Sorry, mate,' I said. 'I wasn't reading papers—we weren't allowed newspapers or TV. What are you doing at the moment?'

  'At the National,' he said.

  Okay. I could accommodate this: if Martin was an actor and I was a software writer, a programmer, then my life was building again. It was becoming clear. I was starting to remember what really was true and what was made up. Goodness me! I must have been bad for a long time, buddies. Don't you think?

  'Been out of circulation too long, mate,' he said. 'Got just the thing for you at home.'

  I could picture him at my gaff: spreading the mustard. Made me recall the day, just before I went away, that they dug up the tarmac at the entrance to my block of flats and resurfaced it with a terracotta preparation.

  'What's that for?'

  'Anti-skid coating, sir.'

  Well, I thought, I could do with some of that in my Y-fronts.

  'I act,' said Martin. 'You programme.'

  'Who's the Cyberchick, then? Who's the Cybernurse?'

  'Well, you laid her in hospital. You laid her in there. Didn't you?'

  'Course I did, mate. And Belinda...?'

  'She left you, mate.'

  'And Ffion?'

  'It'll all become clear.'

  I was still trying to sort it all out, mates. If I had felt like an actor in an early Martin Amis novel and I was sitting next to a guy called Martin who was an actor and he was telling me I was a programmer, then was I programming all this? Talk about circles within circles and wheels within wheels. Had I got my wires crossed down the bidirectional highway? Had my data been completely wiped and substituted with somebody else's? Or had it been corrupted and they couldn't properly reconstruct it?

  Oh yes, buddies. They're very good at breaking you down but they can't build you up again, in that place which some people call home.

  Buddies, I'm telling you how it is; I'm telling you how it was, as we sped home and the sun bleached the car.

  And then he talked in that big-balled way. He said:

  'Charlie, get yourself laid. Never mind about that Cybernurse. Get your bloody leg over, spread some mustard.'

  'Belinda...?' I said timorously.

  'Got an idea about Belinda,' he said. 'Leave her on the back burner.'

  'Leave Belinda on...? '

  'Yeah. Put the dish on a low light.'

  'PENSIVE PROGRAMMER PUTS BEAUTIFUL BLONDE ON BACK BURNER.'

  Babies, I'm gonna tell you how it is. That's all I can do. How it was. So I was going home. Martin, an actor, was driving me and there were some friends there he wanted me to meet. The Cybernurse wasn't real but Belinda was. Martin was definitely real which left only Ffion. And Ffion I remembered was the Fierychick, the one who torched the sheets, the one with the fire in her thighs. The one who, when she did the letter V with her legs, set the bed alight and sparked the meadow ablaze. She'd got under my skin. Some of her data had strayed into my program. A little of her information had leached into my database. Her amber had...

  I knew what I was going to face. I knew. I knew. I KNEW. Because I was beginning to remember Martin from the old days. I knew that when I walked through that door she was going to be there. But there was more to it than that. Wasn't there? Because Martin's always been a fixer. He's always been able to set up tricks, pull stunts. I'd open the door and see George Orwell standing there, with a sour smile on his face. Or would it be Anthony Burgess? Or would they all be there? Burgess, Priest, B.S.J.; Hardy, Dickens, Sterne; V. Woolf, L. Woolf, the Big Bad Wolf; Little Red Riding Hood, Big Red Riding Hood; any size Riding Hood.

  Martin said: 'Are you sure you had the full job in there?'

  'Yeah,' I said. 'They cleansed all my data.'

  He said, 'Sounds like they've done just half the job: they've only given you a datascrub, a datascrape.'

  There was a pause while I considered. Then Martin turned, smiled generously in that thick-lipped way he had, and said:

  'Do you think they're beginning to see through me?'

  'I think they already have.'

  'You mean,' he said, 'that I'm a fictive device?'

  'Yes.'

  'So you'll have to jettison me?'

  I nodded.

  'Okay. Let's wait for the next lay-by.'

  'Martin, I think you've misunderstood.' His face blanched. 'You must leave whilst we're moving.'

  'You're joking,' he said.

  'No, I'm not.' I paused a moment. 'But not yet...' I continued. 'Not so near the end of a chapter.'

  7

  Got to tell you, babes, that it is possible. Especially in an Oldsmobile. Here's how you do it:

  'So, Martin, open the door, edge yourself from the seat, keep your foot on the gas and your hands on the wheel.'

  I start to move sideways and take over the wheel so all Martin has to do is retain pressure on the accelerator. I say:

  'Now I'll place my foot on the pedal and, when I tell you, move yours off.'

  So Martin is now hanging on to the open door, ready to jump. I say:

  'I'm going to slow down now.' I ease off the juice. 'Right,' I say: 'Jump!' And he jumps.

  Do I hear him shout, 'Good luck!'? Or is another driver swearing at me?

  So, buddies, now I'm driving.

  Okay. Who's waiting for me at home?

  After negotiating the M25 I start to get into the thick of London traffic and my block of flats comes into view. I pull up, park the car. For a moment I pause because I realise I have Martin's Americamobile. How can that be? However, I dismiss that temporarily and ap
proach the communal entrance, noting there the terracotta anti-skid surface and making a mental note to obtain a tub of it to spread in my underpants.

  But I don't have a key. What am I going to do? The doors are protected by an entryphone. I know: I'll ring the bell:

  'Hi, Charlie,' says Ffion. 'Is that you?'

  'Yeah.'

  'Are your contacts clean?'

  'Yeah.'

  'Coming up for a one?'

  'Mm?'

  'Fancy a slow burn?'

  'Yeah.'

  Knew she was going to light my touch-paper.

  The front door buzzed, I entered and took the lift for speed. I walked along the corridor. She was waiting for me at the end, door open, extending one of her thin, red-downed, freckly arms. I noted again the perfect nails as she waved me in.

  I blinked before going through the door and there they were. A few turned. A tall man with badly-cut dark hair, a thin moustache and deeply-lined cheeks caught my eye. He seemed unsure but as I approached he warmed a little. After I'd introduced myself he said:

  'Was it beastly? Was it horrid?'

  I said I preferred not to talk about it now, but we shook hands and looked at each other for a long moment; his eyes twinkled. I said,

  'But I know you.'

  He said, 'Call me George. Have you met Tom?'

  I turned and there was Hardy as large as life—well, larger; he shook my hand in a polite Victorian manner. There was a pause before he said,

  'Have you met the upstarts?'

  I looked round and in the corner sat a smallish man with a scowl on his face. Thomas said,

  'That's Martin Amis.'

  I said, 'Who kicked his balls?'

  For a moment Thomas registered shock. I said,

  'It's okay. You're allowed to say that now.' He looked unsure. I went on: 'Thomas, if Jude or Tess were published today they'd be considered very tame.'

  I looked around. Martin Amis continued to glower. He glanced my way for a moment, looked me up and down perfunctorily before turning back to a man who kept slipping in and out of focus. I overheard part of their conversation. Martin was saying:

  '...but, Chris, you're doing the splits across two genres—or, at least, one genre and the mainstream... But because of the system you end up inhabiting neither...'