Nirvana Bites (2 page)

The Zippo roared into life once more as he paused to light yet another Gauloise.

‘Then someone spread a load of stickers and cards with my phone number all round the Scene. It was on the Web too. Offering my services,' he said with a grim laugh.

He drew hungrily on the cigarette.

‘OK,' I said. ‘So you presumably changed your phone number and e-mail address. What next?'

‘Break-ins,' he replied woodenly. ‘Except there was no evidence of forced entry, and the alarm was always on.'

‘Did they take stuff? Vandalise?'

Again his mouth twisted in that sideways grimace and he shook his head. Our eyes locked again, but his were filled with horror. He swallowed hard, his Adam's apple jiggling up and down the V of his shirt.

‘Stan,' I insisted, ‘I know this is hard, but if you don't tell me, I can't help.'

Hard? It would be easier to get blood from a pebble, but now I'd got myself into this, I felt I had to persevere.

When he spoke, it was so softly I had to lean forward to catch his words.

‘I had an aquarium,' he murmured. ‘Massive great thing, stretching across half the living-room wall. Fifteen different kinds of tropical fish. All chosen for their compatibility as well as their beauty.' His eyes glazed momentarily, then his body jerked with a convulsive shudder. ‘Last Monday, I came home and found them all floating. The fucking bastard had stapled them. Every single one.'

Sometimes, usually at the most inappropriate moments, I experience an overwhelming urge to giggle. This was such a moment. I clenched my jaw and swallowed hard.

‘Were they stapled together or individually?' I eventually managed to ask, and then had to go straight back to grinding my teeth.

Stan looked at me through narrowed eyes.

‘Individually,' he muttered in sepulchral tones, daring me to be less than horrified, but I was back in control.

‘Did you call the police?' I enquired.

‘Oh, come on, Jen,' he said reproachfully.

‘Yeah, sure. Nuff said,' I replied. ‘So what was next?'

‘More fucking staples. Everywhere. Every day. In my bed, my shoes, buried in the butter, floating in the milk. One day all my mail arrived smothered in staples. I didn't know what to do. I was at my wits' end.'

He ended on a shrill note of panic. I thought he might be about to burst into tears.

‘Well, that's understandable,' I sympathised. ‘Has your wife picked up on any of this?'

Catherine Highshore was a Tory MP for a safe seat in Surrey, where she lived most of the time in a detached ivy-covered so-called cottage, while Stan lived in the Docklands penthouse. They had met at school and married young – before Stan had discovered his sexual inclinations. Stan had told me once that his marriage was now essentially one of convenience, and his wife was aware of his proclivity for having sharp bits of metal stuck in his manhood. Well, she would have been, wouldn't she? A marriage would have to be so convenient it was pre-cooked and shrink-wrapped for her not to notice something like that. He had told me, without identifying her of course, that she was prepared to tolerate his lifestyle so long as he was meticulous in preventing any breath of scandal. Otherwise, she had warned darkly, she would subject him to pain so far beyond pleasure it would be from a different galaxy.

So how, you are probably wondering, could Stan be appearing regularly on the S&M scene and remain discreet? The fact is, I had never met anyone who had seen Stapled Stan's face. He had always been clad from head to foot in black leather, including a full face mask. The only bit of Stan I had ever seen in the flesh, so to speak, was his penis, which protruded from a slit in the leather. Maybe you're thinking, Hang on. If she never saw his face, how did she recognise him when she came into the room? Well, you may recall that I described Stan's member as ‘not insignificant'. The truth is, he was hung like a stallion. And with his trademark heavy-duty staples standing proud, with earring-type backs clipped where they emerged the other side, his was a shlong once seen, never forgotten.

‘I've only seen Catherine twice in the last three months,' Stan replied gloomily. ‘Each time for lunch at the House between sittings. To discuss business – the boys' education, investments, property, that sort of thing. Staples didn't come into it.'

‘OK. So what tipped you over the edge today?'

Stan sighed so deeply I was scared he'd hyperventilate. Then with a sudden explosion of anger he yelled:

‘I wasn't even on this fucking interview panel. They were just using my office, ‘cos they can't use the production suite. I only came in to get my laptop so I could work from home. And then – this.'

With a dramatic flourish he yanked open the top drawer of his desk. I stood and leaned over so I could see inside. The drawer was filled to the brim with staples. In a small dip in the centre nestled a Perspex frame edged with gold tinsel decorated with tiny red paper roses. From the frame itself Stanley and Catherine Highshore smiled out, clad in evening dress at some charity function. I recognised the photo as having been clipped from a copy of
Hello
magazine that I'd flicked through on a recent trip to the dentist.

‘I just flipped,' he shrugged. ‘I don't know what was going through my head. Maybe I was just trying to wrench back a semblance of control over my own life. I used the ladder to reach the top bookshelf. I ripped my clothes off… Well, you know the rest,' he said ruefully.

His story told, Stan slumped in the chair and lit another Gauloise.

‘Right. This is what we do,' I said energetically, hoping I sounded more confident than I felt. ‘Is there any way at all you can stop the other three talking?'

‘Shit. I don't know. I think I might be able to persuade Susie Marchant. But the other two?… I really don't know.'

‘Well, you have to try. Because if you can't, there's not a lot we can do to stop the shit hitting the fan. Go and see them now. Tell them you're having a breakdown or doing some research or something. Then go home. Don't open the door, and screen all your calls. Give me your card so I can contact you. I've got a lot of thinking to do.'

The irony of my having come for a lowly research job and two and a half hours later giving brusque instructions to the executive producer was lost on Stan. His eyes beseeched me.

‘Do you think you can help?' he implored.

‘I'll damn well do my best,' I replied. ‘I'll be in touch in the next day or so.'

At the door, I paused. ‘By the way, Stan. Why couldn't they use the production suite for the interviews?'

‘Haven't you heard? It was totally wrecked the other day by eco-warriors.'

3

I CAME OUT
of the Beeb into the watery April sunshine and jumped on to two connecting buses. Anyone who has ever used public transport in this city will testify to what a rare occurrence that is. What with that and the promise of some serious remuneration from Stan, maybe my luck was changing.

Shit! As I fumbled through my pockets, struggling to make the £I fare and coming up with just enough coins – more brown than silver – I realised the serious flaw in this rosy vision. At no point had Stan and I ever mentioned money, as in would I get any? And, if so, when and how much?

Even so, life felt good as the bus crossed the river going south towards Peckham and home. ‘Home' was a one-bedroom, short-life flat in the Nirvana Housing Co-op. Nirvana consisted of three adjoining terraced houses, each converted – if somewhat flimsily – into two flats.

Advantages of living in a housing co-op:

1. it is like being part of an extended family

2. five other people have access to your home, but respect your personal space and will only use your key in an emergency

3. assorted weirdos and misfits (and I do not exempt myself from these categories) who might otherwise end up homeless, or worse, find a home and a community of sorts

4. you have some degree of control over your life

Disadvantages of living in a housing co-op:

1. the problem with members of an extended family is that you love them dearly, but they also have the power to drive you to hair-tearing distraction

2. what constitutes an emergency requiring use of your key is surprisingly subjective. To Maggot, who lives downstairs from me, running out of milk would suffice. Whereas to Frank the Wank next door, attack by a sizeable herd of rampaging buffalo armed to the teeth with AK-47s could be dismissed as nothing untoward

3. the weirdos and sub-culture misfits will probably have nothing more in common with each other than their individual alienation from wider society

That means the advantages outweigh the disadvantages by four to three, leaving the control bit as crucial. The fact that such a bizarre mix of anarchists, New Agers, eco-warriors and assorted radicals managed to organise anything at all is nothing short of a miracle. To organise rent collection, bill-paying, repairs (if somewhat rudimentary) and an annual party with a cast of hundreds in the enormous communal garden is worthy of massive respect in my book. At one stage, we even thought of declaring ourselves a republic, whereby anyone entering our territory would have their passport stamped with
YOU HAVE ENTERED THE STATE OF NIRVANA
, but the cost of the rubber stamp defeated us. (Though we pretended it was because we had decided it was reminiscent of imperialism and ideologically unsound.)

I was pondering all this as I walked down Kirkwood Road and under the railway bridge. I was within sight of sanctuary when I was accosted by a bent figure with bright orange hair.

‘Jane. Jane,' she muttered, clutching at my sleeve with gnarled fingers ending in filthy, yellowing nails.

‘Hi, Mrs Vance,' I sighed, resigned to my fate and not bothering to correct her on my name.

‘Someone's breaking in next door, lovey. Just seen him going in the front window. I'm just going in to call the police.'

I groaned. ‘Mrs V,' I said with infinite patience, ‘was he tall and thin, with long hair in a plait?'

‘That's right, lovey. Right low-life by the look of him. Come with me to call the cops.'

I knew from personal experience that resistance was futile. I allowed myself to be propelled into Mrs V's shop. (I use the term loosely to describe our next-door neighbour's establishment.) I took a deep breath of cleanish outside air as she pushed me through the door. Even with that precaution my senses were immediately assailed by a heady olfactory cocktail of nicotine, piss, dog and must.

Quite why Mrs Vance ran this place was one of the great mysteries of life. It certainly couldn't have taken more than a few quid a week, if that. She sold milk in bottles – an anachronism in itself – cigarettes from a machine and some ancient bars of chocolate produced before sell-by dates were introduced. In the grip of an uncontrollable fit of the munchies, I had once bought a bar. It was truly horrible. I ate it all. But I didn't enjoy it. She also had a rail of greasy second-hand clothes. An old-fashioned wooden counter, pock-marked with cigarette burns, ran the width of the shop. Behind it presided Derek, Mrs V's middle-aged son, who had severe learning difficulties (‘Brain-damaged at birth,' according to his mother) and Tyson, a sixteen-stone Rottweiler, intended to deter the local kids, who couldn't resist a target weaker than themselves. In fact Mrs V was far more formidable than the dog. She must have been well into her eighties, with a truly filthy sense of humour. But she was a wily old bird, if somewhat forgetful. She, Derek and Tyson lived behind the shop in a certain degree of squalor. But then who am I to talk?

I allowed myself to be bobbled along, cork-like, on the inexorable wave of Mrs V's energy, but when she reached for the phone I took it from her and replaced it on the cradle.

‘Stop, Mrs V. We've been here before. It's not a break-in. It's Robin.'

‘I know he's robbin', love,' she squealed. ‘I saw him go in.'

I groaned. ‘Robin, Mrs V. He's Nick's friend.'

‘Robbin'. Nickin'. Don't matter what you call it. I'm calling the police.'

It took me another ten minutes to convince Mrs V that we knew Robin and that he wasn't actually breaking into Nick's flat. Robin had been living in squats for so long that he'd lost the habit of using front doors to get in and out of buildings. What made the process of explaining this to Mrs V so particularly frustrating was that it happened with monotonous regularity as Robin visited at least twice a week and often stayed over.

I succeeded eventually, though Mrs V still looked dubious. After much soothing and reassurance, I managed to extricate myself and get the key into my own front door. I clattered up the uncarpeted stairs and entered the art installation known as Murder in a Battery Farm. Also known as my hall. When I decided to decorate a couple of years ago, I had painted all the walls white in preference to magnolia – those being the only bulk emulsions Frank the Wank had ripped off during his short stint working at Do It All on the Old Kent Road. I had been so pissed off at his lack of imagination, I had forced him to work an extra shift so he could nick some nice bright gloss, so I wouldn't feel like I was living in a sterilised igloo. The walls in the hall had been the last to submit. The ceiling was so high and the crumbling plaster so disintegrated, it presented a huge challenge. I had been dolloping paint on an inch thick with a roller tied to a broom handle in an attempt to glue the plaster together. It was exhausting and the effect was fairly hideous. In desperation I had shrieked to Maggot, who was in my bedroom, putting the final touches of Crimson Fire gloss on the door:

‘I need help here! I can't take any more.'

Mags had burst through the bedroom door with her brush heavily laden with blood-red paint, took one look at me standing on a sodden chair holding a dripping broom aloft and howling like a wounded wolf, and did what any considerate mate would do under the circumstances. She flicked the brush with a flamboyant sweep of her arm. Red paint arced through the air, splattered across my chest and the wall behind me and dripped gruesomely downwards.