The Insult (27 page)

Sometime later I watched him from the window as he walked off
up the street, his shoulders hunched inside his donkey jacket, his scalp showing through the usual thinning mist of hair. Yes, I felt sorry for him – but what could I do?

During that same week I noticed a dramatic alteration in my vision. I was watching the door one night when a kind of whiteness flashed in front of me. I didn’t think of TV interference, not right away, but later I realised that that was exactly what it had been like. There’d been a buzzing, too, loud at first, then fading to nothing. And suddenly a woman was standing in front of me. She was holding a packet of soap powder. And she was smiling, as though she knew me.

My first instinct was to climb on to the chair. But even as I did so, I realised it was too late.
The woman was already inside the apartment.
I looked down at the woman. Her smile didn’t seem to be affected by the sight of me standing on the chair. She didn’t seem to find it peculiar, or even funny (she didn’t make any jokes about mice, for instance). I was about to ask her who she was and what she was doing in Loots’ living-room and, more to the point,
how she’d got in, for Christ’s sake,
when I noticed that it wasn’t his living-room that she was standing in. It wasn’t a living-room at all, in fact. It was a kitchen. And not his kitchen either. Slowly I lowered myself back down to the floor.

The woman showed me a soiled T-shirt. She seemed downcast, dismayed. I’d no idea why she was showing it to me. It wasn’t mine. And it didn’t look as if it belonged to anyone I knew either. I could hear her talking about stains. I heard the words
grass
and
blood.
I watched her put the T-shirt into a washing-machine and add some powder from the packet she’d been holding. When she took the T-shirt out again, only seconds later, it was clean and white. She held it up for me to see. Her plump cheeks shone with happiness. It occurred to me that I was watching TV, even though the TV wasn’t on. I was watching TV
inside my head.

I tried to stay calm, establish what was happening. It was a commercial channel, but not one I recognised. When the commercials
were over, I was returned to a film which had something to do with police corruption. It had all the usual car chases and shoot-outs and, every twenty minutes, there were more commercials: cars, beer, holidays – and soap powder, of course. I saw the woman with the T-shirt so many times that night that I knew almost every second of the thirty seconds it took her to find happiness.

When Loots came home, he found me pacing up and down in a state of disturbed excitability. The skylight was still open, and the chair was facing the door. The woman was about to take the clean white T-shirt out of the washing-machine again.

‘What is it, Martin?’ Loots said. ‘What’s going on?’

But I couldn’t find an answer for him. I just stood at the window, staring out.

‘Is it dark, Loots?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It’s still dark.’

I stared out of the window, but I couldn’t see the chimney-pots in their uneven clusters, or the slanting, tiled rooftops greasy with rain, or the pale, dome-shaped glow of the city sky beyond. I couldn’t see them, even though I knew they were there. All I could see was a beach of pure white sand and a girl in a blue bikini.

So it was true. Some kind of transposition had taken place. It wasn’t vision that I was getting, not any more. It was television.

What I was beginning to believe was that the eye clinic was affiliated to some government agency – one of those secret research establishments, rows of long, low buildings protected by attack dogs and electric fences. Visser worked both for the clinic and for the agency, though in what precise capacity I couldn’t be sure. There was something a bit too smooth about him, a bit too seamless – I’d always thought so. This new theory of mine explained the misgivings I’d had about him, misgivings I’d never been able to justify in rational terms.

Visser had lost contact with me in the physical sense, but his mental hold on me was as strong as ever; if anything, he’d tightened it. It appeared that they’d found a way of feeding TV channels
directly into my brain. They were broadcasting on my own internal screen. I’d become a hybrid – part human being, part television. And someone else had the remote.

One night I watched the same channel for hours. The next night it was twitch-time: a different channel every five seconds. As to why this might be happening, I had no idea. I was sure of only one thing. I had no control over it. None.

I talked to Visser again. I decided beforehand that I would keep it short and to the point; after all, I didn’t want the call to be traced.

‘Visser here.’

‘It’s working, Visser. I just thought I’d let you know.’

‘Is that you, Martin?’

‘That’s right. It’s me.’

‘Good,’ he said. ‘Because the last call ended, how shall I put it, somewhat abruptly.’

‘There’s been a new development,’ I said, ‘as I’m sure you’re aware.’ I was using his phrases deliberately. I wanted him to taste his own medicine.

‘A new development?’

‘You’ve really surpassed yourself this time.’

There was a silence.

‘I’m getting pictures,’ I said. ‘Images.’

The silence lasted. It was an uncomfortable silence on his part. Guilty, I would’ve said. He knew I was on to him.

‘I’m getting signals,’ I said.

‘And what’s your interpretation?’ he said at last, struggling to sound objective, to remain uninvolved, aloof.

‘I think it’s television. I think I’m receiving electromagnetic waves and internally reconverting them into visual images.’ I paused. ‘Strange thing is, I don’t recognise any of the channels. I think I must be getting cable.’

‘Extraordinary,’ he muttered.

‘That’s what I thought. You must be pretty proud of yourself.’

‘Martin, I’m worried about you. I’ve spoken to your parents. They’re worried, too.’

I walked to the window. Though I could feel the cold glass beneath my fingers, all I could see was a game of football. I’d been getting a sports channel for some days now. There was a team in a red strip playing a team in white. I couldn’t identify any of the players; it was probably some foreign league. In any case, the score was 0-0 and the red team was in possession, on the halfway line.

‘The trail’s gone cold on you, hasn’t it?’ I said. ‘You don’t know where I am.’

‘I think you should tell me, Martin. I could help you.’

Smiling, I turned back into the room. I’d lost him. That was all I needed to know. Perhaps I could allow myself a little more freedom now. Perhaps I could even venture out at night. As for the rest of it, Visser was no different from Arnold. He wasn’t going to admit what he was up to. There was too much at stake. Maybe he’d even signed some kind of official secrets act, forbidding him to talk about his work.

‘I’m going now.’ I grinned to myself. ‘I just wanted to make sure you were all right –’

‘Martin, wait –’

Against the run of play, a white forward beat two defenders and drove the ball into the top left-hand corner of the net. A brilliantly taken goal. Mouth wide open, arms outstretched, he raced towards the touchline. The red team stood around with their hands on their hips, looking at the ground.

‘One-nil,’ I said. Then I hung up.

That night I watched thirteen hours of TV – thirteen hours without a break; the titanium plate was hot, it had been on so long. I liked the game show best, though I forget what it was called. The host was a middle-aged man with a sun-bed tan and a toupee. He flounced. He twirled. He was constantly opening his eyes too wide, or flapping his hands, or rounding his lips into an O. He got on with everyone – but
that was because everyone had been told to be nice to him. He was like an invalid, I thought, or a dictator. My favourite moment came when he revealed the prizes, when the contestants learned that they’d won a holiday for two in a resort nobody had ever heard of. Or a set of crystal glasses and a travel rug. Or luggage. How I longed for somebody to bellow,
What? Is that all?
But no. They whooped, they punched the air; they shook both fists at the same time. One woman even cried. Appearing on TV was clearly a powerful homogenising force.

My mind jumped sideways. If this was an experiment, then what kind of experiment was it exactly? What was the rationale behind it? What were its aims and goals? It was difficult to concentrate with a game show going on in my head, but that, in itself, set me thinking. The way I saw it, there were two possibilities (or maybe they were different applications of the same basic principle). Firstly, it was an attempt at social engineering. Ideally, everybody would be fitted with a small titanium plate. It was a simple operation. The scalp healed in no time, the hair grew back. By feeding people with TV – intravenously, as it were – you could keep them distracted, pacified. It was lobotomy on a grand scale. There would be no crime, no violence. You’d have a nation that was incapable of rebellion or dissent.

The second possibility was no less sinister. Obviously, this new generation of television (drip TV, as I had started calling it) could be used as a form of persecution. It’s hard to think when there’s a TV on inside your head. It’s hard to have much of a sense of yourself. People could be driven mad that way. And perhaps that was what was being explored. The use of visual images in psychological warfare. Torture by satellite. TV as a weapon. No wonder Visser didn’t want to talk to me: either I was part of some hush-hush weapons research programme, or else I was the first in a long line of passive citizens (or PCs, as they would doubtless come to be known).

Visser didn’t want to talk to me. It was only to be expected. Strangely, this realisation didn’t depress me. In fact, there was a sense in which it cleared the air. If I wanted to get at the truth, there was only one way to do it.
The doorbell jangled as I walked into Sprankel’s shop. I’d waited for a break in transmission before leaving Loots’ apartment, so I was able to see that Sprankel had changed his layout in the past two months. Instead of plastic waste-bins there were TV aerials. Hundreds of TV aerials. They were dangling upside-down on lengths of string, twisting slowly in the dark air near the ceiling.

‘Sprankel?’ I called out. ‘Where are you, Sprankel?’

‘I’m right here.’ His head appeared above the cash-register, which, reassuringly, was still lined with Astroturf.

‘There’s no need to hide from me, Sprankel. I’m not going to hurt you.’

‘I wasn’t hiding, sir.’

Poor old Sprankel. It was embarrassing, really.

‘I need two pairs of gardening gloves,’ I said, ‘a torch, and something to cut glass with.’

Sprankel’s eyes began to twitch and hop behind his glasses. I knew he was curious – a glasscutter? gloves? a torch? – but probably he remembered how stern I’d been with him the last time.

‘Before you start guessing, Sprankel,’ I said, ‘I’ll tell you. I’ve got a job.’ I tapped the side of my nose. ‘A job. Know what I mean?’

‘No, sir. I –’

I threw my head back and laughed. The tips of a thousand TV aerials reached towards me, glittering and complicated.

‘I’m going to be doing a spot of burglary, Sprankel. Yes,’ I said, ‘there’s something very important that I’ve got to steal.’

Sprankel was chuckling almost before I’d finished the sentence and he went on chuckling much longer than I expected him to, much longer, in fact, than I considered necessary. Surprised at his sense of humour, a little puzzled, too, I stared at him. I’d never realised how small his teeth were.

‘If you don’t give me a good price,’ I said, ‘I might have to make you an accessory.’

He was still chuckling.

‘And will you be needing any black paint today?’ he asked me.

‘Oh no,’ I said. ‘Those days are over.’

‘Those days are over,’ he repeated, half to himself.

He wrapped my purchases and I paid for them and put them in my bag. On the way to the door I paused, turned back.

‘By the way, Sprankel, I like your display,’ I said, pointing at the ceiling. ‘Very imaginative.’

The following afternoon I was woken by what I thought was someone knocking on the door. I lay quite still, my body heating with anxiety. Sweat collected on my chest, behind my knees. Surely it couldn’t be Gregory again? But after listening carefully, I realised the knocking sounds were coming from inside the apartment. Also they were grouped in sixes. It wasn’t someone at the door at all. It was Loots, throwing knives at Juliet.

I wrapped myself in a blanket and moved towards the corridor.

‘I’m sorry,’ Loots said. ‘Did I wake you?’

‘No, no. I was just dozing.’ I watched his knives fit snugly to the curves of Juliet’s hips and thighs. ‘Gregory called round the other night.’

‘Yeah? How was he?’

‘I don’t know. I didn’t let him in.’

Loots lowered the knife that was in his hand and stared at me, his eyebrows high on his forehead, like they were when he was dancing.

‘I asked you not to tell anyone where I was,’ I said.

‘But Gregory’s a friend –’

I stepped closer to Loots. ‘I trust you, Loots. That’s why I’m here. But there isn’t anyone else I trust. I certainly don’t trust Gregory.’

Loots didn’t speak for a while. Then, finally, he said, ‘You’d better tell me what all this is about.’

‘I’m hiding from someone.’ I saw his eyebrows lift again. ‘Don’t worry. It’s not the police.’ I turned back into the living-room. ‘If you get me a drink, I’ll tell you everything.’

I had no intention of telling him everything. That was the mistake I’d made with Nina. I was in possession of secret knowledge, but unlike most secrets, mine had a foolproof quality. Each time I tried to
tell it to someone, it became unbelievable, untrue; it was like a command built into the substance of the secret itself, that it could not be shared. I would tell him as much as I could make him believe, and no more. I sat down on the sofa. He handed me a small glass of his uncle’s peach brandy. I thanked him and swallowed it in one. I felt its quiet fire rise through me. I wondered how to begin. I thought I’d use words that had worked with him before – the words of Anton the clown.