1982 Janine (41 page)

Everyone wanted the moon until one day a great nation became wealthy enough to woo her. So scientists and technicians went pimping to this great nation and got rich by selling a quick moonfuck. A slow moonfuck would have been more satisfying but would have got the pimps fewer fast bucks, so the pimps hyped up their pay by inventing THE MOONRACE, they pretended Russian rapists might bang the moon first, which was impossible. By the late sixties the Russian lead in space technology was far away in the past. In space technology, oil technology, military technology she is a decade behind her opponents because compared with us she is too few and too poor. Sure, she can poison our planet several times over in a few hours, but for a quarter-century The Free West has been able to do that
much faster and more frequently. So we summoned the energy to jump to the moon by deliberately scaring ourselves with our own shadow, and we said, “Hiya moon! This is a proud moment. Have a flag. Have some recording equipment. And now I must get back home to the dear old arms race. So long!” and the peoples of the earth said, “So what?” and now nobody wants the moon. She holds nothing human but shattered rockets and rundown machines that litter her crust like used contraceptives proving that Kilroy was here. The moon is still a dead world and nightly reminder that technological men are uncreative liars, mad gardeners who poison while planting and profit by damaging their own seed, lunatics who fuck and neglect everything in reach which has given them strength and confidence, like … like …

(Like Jock McLeish fucking and neglecting Denny for a woman he could not fertilise?)

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

We fear responsibility, you see, so inaccessible bodies attract us most. We neglect the ground below our feet and gaze at the stars hoping they are peopled with nasties so horrible that we will look decent beside them, by goodies so wise that they will take us by the hand and guide us on to The True Way. Aliens must be our inferiors or superiors, you see, because we do not believe in equal partnership, in equally shared goods and responsibilities. Small communities live by such equalities but only the French and Russians tried to create them on a big scale and they FAILED hahaha FAILED hahaha FAILED and we are glad: we are sure that only the poor and hungry will benefit from a free and equal society.
Free and equal society
. These words stink of the vilest votecatching rhetoric, they mean as much as
love
and
peace
do in the prayers of an army chaplain.
Freedom equality love peace
are now nothing but embarrassing words, so if the scientists of the world learned today that microbes live in the dust of the Crab Nebula they would feel a completely unselfish delight. Life has a chance in the universe if it exists where we cannot reach it.

We confess to thee we have done that which we ought not to have done, and have not done that which we ought to have done, and there is no health in us.

(Where did you learn that, Jock?)

Lighten our darkness we beseech thee o Lord, and by thy great mercy protect us and save us from all the terrors and dangers of this NIGHT we are making. I don't know where I learned these things. Perhaps I heard them on the wireless when I was wee, for I know there was a time when you were worshipped as an extraterrestrial Big Daddy who would one day screw up the earth like bumpaper and flush it down the stank because too many bad boys and girls used it: after which you would make a nice clean earth for the nice clean boys and girls you had allowed to survive the old dirty one. But it is practical, scientific, technically-minded business and military and political folk who are treating the earth like bumpaper and if we flush it down the stank there will be nobody to replant the desert we make. For you are not extraterrestrial. You are the small glimmer of farseeing, intelligent kindliness which, properly strengthened and shared, will light us to a better outcome. Lead kindly light amid the encircling gloom.

(Sentimental rot.)

How dare you adopt that negative tone? It is I who am the cynic, the external judge and condemner of everything. I only believe in an opposite like you to keep a sane balance in my head. If you cross into my corner of the ring you will drive me into yours, and honestly, G, I lack the strength to be useful, farseeing, kindly.

(Strength comes with practice, sir.)

Don't try to teach me anything, G. Only arrogant people try to improve themselves morally. Moral self-improvement is antisocial. It disturbs those who are improving themselves financially.

(How remarkably witty, sir! You really are in sparkling form this morning.)

Morning?

Morning. Switch light off. Between bluebell window-curtains, a vertical crack of cold grey dawn. Selkirk? Peebles? Get up. Step to window. Gently pull curtains.

Dawngrey sky, dawngrey sea, grey mountains between them. Where am I? High window this. Grey motorway below, then docks, sea etcetera. This is Greenock, why? O God, now I remember. Meeting last night at I.B.M. plant. Bad.

Shortly after start I went absentminded. Later on I tried to concentrate and could not understand what they said to me. I could hear each syllable with great distinctness but it might have been Chinese for all the sense it made. I was being asked questions. I tried nodding intelligently then nearly blacked out. Recovered and, “Glass of water please?”

“Cretinly, cretinly,” they said (must have been “certainly”, actually).

“Cretinly? Wery vitty,” said I, grinning Hisloply, and I could no longer remember why I had come there. I told them so. Apologised. Recent overwork. Understanding smiles. “Don't worry, Jock, we'll get a car to take you to the station.”

They did. Why am I not in my own bedroom? Glasgow only forty minutes from Greenock. Ah of course. Car got me to station twenty minutes early for train. Nipped into pub while waiting. Missed train, missed next train, missed last train, hence here. Seems decent hotel. Saw I was gent in spite of state. But I have lost my last illusion, the illusion that nobody knows I am an alcie. By ten or eleven o'clock Reeves will have been told, but ninety minutes till breakfast call at 8.15. I can always grab his ear first if …

I feel sincerely tired now, tired and clean and sad, why clean? Lie down again. Lie down (I do) sincerely sad and clean, why sad? What a lot I have lost: a little pencil sharpener shaped like the world, Denny, Alan, mother, father, wife, many familiar streets and buildings, whole districts and industries suddenly not there any more. Listen. A bird is cheeping.

Not sensible. A shore is the edge of the land so there must be land. A shore is the edge of a sea so there must be water. And if someone goes a long way to prove something then they must like it a lot, even if they never discover it. But the verse seems to mean more than the words, it keeps running in my head. Warble on, Hislop.

Too many things have gone from us without being noticed.

Hm. Hmn.

She sat in the exact centre of the back seat of a Rolls-Royce and idly turned the pages of a fashion magazine. She once raised her head to say a few discontented words to the driver, a young man wearing cowboy boots, jeans, waistcoat and hat who cannot have been me but he felt like me. She amused him, so he was not exactly her chauffeur, though she behaved as if he was. She glanced back at the magazine where she saw something interesting, I think it was an illustration. She read some words underneath it and was astonished. Her astonishment was so exciting that I wakened with this erection which has only just subsided. Oh I wish I had not wakened. That was nearly a wet dream, the first since boyhood days before I met Denny. I used to dream I was filling a fountainpen from a breast and wake up ejaculating. Who was that woman and why is CATTLE-MARKET a magic word bringing feelings of deliciously exotic helplessness in the grip of deliciously exotic strength?

Remember. If you cannot remember, invent. The whole dream was inside the car. She was Janine, a rich Janine wearing CATTLEMARKET cowhide breeks. She discovered
she was reading a story about what would happen when she left the car, hence her astonishment and my excitement. Yes, the dream is returning and so is my erection. (Excuse me sir) go away God.

Janine was never an actress, never a housewife, never had to work. Such folk exist. She has always been able to buy the things she likes but never likes anything for long, hence her accusing Jane-Russell-in-the-publicity-photo-for-
The
-
Outlaw
pout. Hence her love of tough, casual, slightly ugly clownish clothes expertly cut from eyecatchingly expensive material in order to suggest that she does not care a damn for her appearance. Hence her thick leather yellowbrown breeks (excuse me sir) be off, I'm busy with her thick khaki cowhide pants tied tight by a knotted white rope round so slender a waist that surely her bum CANNOT be plump enough to fill all that baggy leather but how tantalising if it is. Each trouserleg tapers to a snug little turnup cuff six inches above each naked ankle, no, no turnup cuff, a zip on each side keeps it tight. Feet sockless in white canvas sannies, no, sneakers, no, white canvas baseball boots without laces. I mean, they could be laced, they have eyeholes for laces but no laces in them stop grovelling at floorlevel soar HIGHER, remember Janine's slender waist with big breasts in white silk satin almost unbuttoned shirt no bra wide open collar at throat, then that sweet sulky face I know very well but her hair? A great cloud of blonde golliwog locks, not tightcurled but expanding her head as extravagantly as the breeks seem to expand her bum. And small diamond studs on her earlobes. Pause for breath.

(Excuse me sir) I will not. She leafs discontentedly through sumptuous magazine on her lap,
Cosmopolitan
or
Vogue
probably
Vogue
because she is bored with glossy pages of exquisitely posed and lit models advertising clothes/shoes/ clothes/lipstick/clothes/hairspray/clothes/jewellery/clothes/ perfume/clothes and Chef Gropier's surprisingly cheap little recipe for caviare, truffles and diced toadfish served on a blanched cabbageleaf. She sighs, looks up and asks the driver, “How are you feeling tonight, Frank?”

“Fine,” he says, “why ask?”

“Because the last night we spent together was not fine at all from my point of view. You are a nice-looking guy, Frank, and as a masseur you have no equal, but I did not start meeting you socially because of your hands. I can rent those any time. Some of my best friends rent your hands. I go out with you evenings for the pleasure of those extra seven or eight inches, and of late you have been giving short measure in your delivery.”

Frank grins and says, “Janine, tonight you will have more of those extra inches – more of everything – than you ever thought possible.”

“Is that a fact?” says Janine sceptically, and yawns.

“It surely is.”

“What did you say this place is called?”

“The Cattlemarket.”

“It had better be good, Frank,” she says, turning a page,

“What kind of people use it?”

“The rich and the beautiful. You know some of them.”

“Well it had better be good,” she says, looking at an illustration on a back page between small adverts for sunbeds and French holiday homes. It heads an extract from
Sheriffs and Hookers
, a controversial new novel by Norman Mailer or John Updike. It seems to be a photograph of a patio party on a millionaire's ranch, but the clear edges of the figures, the supersmoothly graded tones and colours, the absence of wrinkles which ordinary strain imposes on most flesh and cloth all show it is a skilful airbrush painting based upon a photograph. Nearly everyone looks too handsome, too sexy, too laughingly cheerful to be possible, and nearly everyone wears cowboy boots, jeans and denim waistcoats. Even the women wear these, excepting several who wear denim skirts of the button-through or stud-fastened kind, some more, some less unfastened than others (excuse me sir) come back later I am being astonished/excited by women with button-through skirts more or less unbuttoned white silk satin shirts no bras and sulky apprehensive faces. Unlike the laughing tightjeaned cowboylike women who stand around with technicolour cocktails in their hands the skirted apprehensive women have their wrists handcuffed behind them (why not their elbows?) idiot it is anatomically impossible to handcuff
someone's elbows behind them, the chain is too short (the police handcuffed Superb's elbows behind her) shut up you are trying to spoil my fun again, where was I when you interrupted?

Oh yes.

At first Janine does not notice these particular details of the illustration. They are in the background, and she is studying something even more peculiar in the foreground. In the foreground stands a woman seen from behind, her legs, her feet planted firmly astride astride astride on the patio flags. Since everyone else is looking at her she seems to be causing the gaiety of the majority, the apprehension of the rest. She wears hugely baggy khaki cowhide breeches tapering to snugly zipped cuffs above her slender naked ankles, the feet in laceless white canvas baseball boots (baseball boots cover the ankles) all right laceless white sannies/sandshoes/sneakers stop grovelling soar UP to the slender waist, are her breeks tied round it by a white knotted rope? Impossible to tell. Her waist is hidden by her arms and hands, the wrists being handcuffed behind her. Does she wear a white silk satin shirt? No. Above the waist she is completely nude. What is her hair like? Impossible to tell. The head is invisible because the top of the illustration is level with her shoulders. Only the pants and sneakers are familiar to Janine but the coincidence fascinates her. Being impatient with beginnings she skips a few paragraphs and starts reading the story a quarter way through. After reading a few sentences she finds they are giving her a queer woozy dreamy sensation. She stops reading and tries to make sense of it. She says, “Frank! Do you know Upman

Maildike?”

“Who?”

“Upman Maildike. The novelist.”

“Sure I know him. I've been drunk with him more than once. Why do you ask?”

“He has a story in this month's
Vogue
.”

“What is it like?”

“A character in it has your name. He is also dressed like you.”

“My God! What does this character do?”

“So far he is simply chatting up a chick.”

“That could be me, I guess. What happens after that? Read it aloud.”

But Janine has become too engrossed in the story to read it aloud.

The story is about a girl called Nina who works in the jeans section of a big department EXCUSE ME PLEASE store where she one day serves an eager handsome rich young guy who is buying cowboy EXCUSE ME PLEASE pants and waistcoat for a denim-only party being given by a rich friend who EXCUSE ME PLEASE I will not excuse you if I keep a tight hold on this small dream I will manage to pack all my obsessions into it Nina helps Frank choose these clothes for a denim-only party being given that night by a millionaire friend of his, the party is that evening, Frank is in great haste having received the invitation only an hour earlier on arriving home from an Alpine ski holiday. Nina is so charmingly helpful that Frank says, will she think him pushy and unchivalrous if he asks her to accompany him to this party? Because he is lonely and his friend's parties are always a lot of fun. And since Frank is charmingly shy and hesitant and rich Nina says, well, I have nothing planned so all right, and Frank says swell if Americans still say swell when they mean hooray, and he immediately buys for her, they need not leave the store for him to do so, a little button-through denim skirt which I INSIST THAT YOU HEAR ME, DID WE RIDE THROUGH THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH JUST TO LET YOU TICKLE YOURSELF INTO ANOTHER WANK? Dear God, you know I need these absurd elaborations to fool myself into believing I can once again clasp the body of a woman. DID WE BREAK OUT OF THE DUNGEON OF DESPAIR JUST TO LET YOU TICKLE YOURSELF INTO ANOTHER WANK? I cannot change things overnight, God. WRONG. WRONG. WRONG.

Wrong?

Yes, on second thoughts I certainly can change things
overnight. Wait for me Nina, I have to do a job before you put on that skirt for me. Reach down to floor. Fumble under bed for suitcase handle. Got it. Pull out, lift up, lay on top of neatly folded clothes on bedside chair, I am glad I maintained neat habits on a night when they could easily have slackened. Open case. Remove notepad. Close case. Lay case on top of bedclothes on top of thighs, lay pad on case-lid as if upon desk. Take pen from breastpocket of good grey Harris tweed jacket hanging on chairback. Unscrew cap of Rotring Rapidograph with point four nib, a good designer' pen. Glance at digital-watch-calendar for time, date. And now, the truth.

7.50 a.m. 26 March 1982
The Blank Hotel, Greenock

The Installations Manager,
National Securities Ltd,
Waterloo Street,
Glasgow

Dear Reeves
,

I am tendering my resignation as installations super
visor for the Scottish Region, and regret that I cannot offer the usual
four week' warning before withdrawing my services. At the
important I. B. M. meeting last night I suffered a minor stroke
which forced me to withdraw before our business was touched upon.
As you know, I am one of those frequently mocked individuals who
are proud to have never lost a day's work through illness in their
lives. In twenty-five years of service this is the first time I have
jeopardised a National Security contract. This resignation ensures
it will be my last. The cause of the seizure has still to be diagnosed
(Liar) (I don't care)
but if the accountant needs a medical certificate
before arranging my pension and severance pay I will contrive to
produce one
.

As to replacing me, Eliot and Mitchell are obvious choices on
grounds of seniority, but your best man is young Saunders. He is
quick, skilful, inventive and still finds the work interesting. If
promoted at this stage of his career he will annoy the hell out of
everyone but produce invariably good results. I realise, however,
that the company will probably promote someone from south of the
border. From General Electrics to the National Coal Board more
and more top jobs in Scotland are being given to Englishmen,
presumably because those who run the country want key men who
are more loyal to foreign bosses than to their colleagues and the
public. But I may be mistaken. Maybe we native Scots are indeed a
gang of stupid incompetents who lack the qualifications to manage
ourselves
. (You are getting overheated, cut that out.) (No, let it stand.)

I enclose herewith all schedules and documents relating to extant
business. Should you or my successor need further information I
may be contacted at my home in Glasgow
.

Yours faithfully
,

John McLeish

What can I do now? I have no plans, none at all. May I return to Janine reading Frank buying Nina a skirt/shirt etcetera? Does anyone oppose that motion?

Silence.

Right. Frank asks Nina, would you wear these when I pick you up tonight because this is an all-denim patio party. Nina asks, why denim? Frank blushes and says, well, the party has a theme. Has Nina ever been to, or heard of, a Tarts and Vicars party? She has not been to one, but yes, she has heard of fashionable masquerade balls at which the men dress like priests and their wives and girlfriends dress like prostitutes. Frank says, yeah, that's the idea, it's a British idea, and his millionaire friend who needs a name, Hollis will do, Frank's millionaire pal Hollis gave such a party once, and it was such fun that tonight's party will be on a similar theme, but more American. It will be a Sheriffs and Hookers party with a Wild West frontier flavour. The women are dressing like frontier whores and their escorts like sheriffs who are taking them into custody. Does Nina object to that? Nina laughs and says no! and anyway she sees nothing whorish in a simple skirt and shirt. Well, says Frank, Hollis finds these a turn-on and he is our host so the girls dress to please him even though there is indeed nothing whorish in skirt and shirt, though many of them add accessories that produce a very strong impact but there is no reason why Nina should compete with these, if she does not feel like doing so. He arranges to pick up Nina at her apartment in a couple of hours. He says he will not
be alone – his friend Tom and Tom's wife Sherry will be driving down with them to Hollis's ranch, this story is becoming overloaded with new people but I need them to surprise me with new ideas which will keep me not quite able to foresee the end though it will inexorably turn into the usual dull old business. For twenty-five years my sexual daydreams and loneliness and drinking and work for National Security have propped each other up. Without the work the first three must increase until they destroy me. Could they fall into a looser order with room for something new to grow? No. Nothing new will grow in this mind.