Will Self - Shark

it’s not fair! . . he came home the following evening with a whole box of buglers, enough for a ridiculous tootling platoon . Their shiny uniformity repelled Michael — by then he’d fallen a little in love with his own bugler’s imperfections, and he spent more and more time with him at the field hospital while the others got on with the war. The Scots Guard became a sort of one-man welcoming committee: as the farmhouse roof rose and a new patient was lowered down, he lifted his battered bugle to his chipped lips. . and tootled , he lifted his battered bugle to his chipped lips. . and tootled . — The bastion would be in the nursery pyramid — the bugler would too, entombed together with every issue of the De’Ath Watch, Kins’s carefully ordered back numbers of Night and Day and Film Fun, and Michael’s of Model Maker. Somewhere near the apex of all this stuff, Michael pictured Darsing, the straw-stuffed Old English sheep dog that the brothers had cuddled when they were babes. A Bumbly relative had once painted Kins holding Darsing. She was a dotty maiden aunt who spoke to the boys through the agency of her glove puppet — a creepy silk-robed mandarin with long lacquered fingernails she called Sonny Jim — and she’d rendered the little boy with bright pink cheeks and pouting lips surrounded by blond tresses, so he appeared rather less lifelike than the dog. This queer memento was doubtless also somewhere in the house. . for nothing’s ever discarded . — At breakfast, Sirbert sat sipping his messery and sorting through a cardboard box full of linen-bound octavo notebooks. Fascinating, he said, I do believe your maternal grandfather catalogued in these every single household expenditure — right down to, and including, individual stamps — made between 1853 and his death. Michael produced the noises Sirbert had undoubtedly anticipated , then, without saying anything, went off to see the recruiting sergeant. He’d expected. . what? A thoroughgoing bollocking perhaps — but there was simply his muddling absorption into the great ball of blue-grey serge. A fortnight later he was pulled out of the trench he was digging and told to go wash up. In the latrine he rinsed the earth and dried urine from his hands — in between unmerciful raggings the regulars had shown this much decency. . and told us piss was the best blister prevention . After that he picked up a travel warrant from the base commander’s office. At the Selection Board no one seemed to have the slightest interest in any youthful idealism he might once have evinced, nor any knowledge of tribunal decisions. All they cared about was. . Golf? the wing commander asked — on his long top lip perched a dappled moustache. . thrush’s breast . Yes, sir, Michael answered. The wing commander gently pressed him, Decent handicap? Well — Michael shook his head regretfully — only a five or a six, I’m afraid, sir. . He had almost blurted out: My brother’s scratch! Shuffling his papers, the wing commander said, Five, six — good as scratch so far as we’re concerned. Important thing is we’ve people who can keep their eye in — that and the habit of command, obviously. How many hours d’you have? Michael said, Twenty-seven, sir, most of them in Oxfords. The wing commander sought clarification: Twin-engined? And after Michael supplied this, he puffed out his. . breast hair and said, Jolly good, you’ll only need another hundred-odd, then we’ll give you some wings! — It had all seemed to be going. . swimmingly , until the man sitting next to the wing commander stated: You were at Lancing. Michael replied tentatively, Yes, anticipating some snobbery — after all. . it was hardly top-drawer . Instead the man said, Time was the service thought the only necessary qualification to command men in action was a decent public school education, but we don’t see it in those terms any more. There’re already Poles trickling over from the Continent — men who’ve flown in combat. We’ve got some pretty wild colonials queuing up to do their bit — Americans as well. The last thing we need are first-eleven heroes wet behind the ears who imagine they’re going to be batting in some thrilling match. . The man was jowly, and, although clean-shaven and well-dressed, he had a dissolute air — a pale-yellow silk handkerchief spurted from his breast pocket, while he held his cigarette cupped in his palm so his knuckles smouldered . Later, when he rose awkwardly to shake this hand, Michael was shocked to discover how short its owner was, no more than five feet with peculiar blocky built-up shoes. Registering Michael’s consternation, the man had said, quite blandly, Feet chewed off by a Camel’s prop in ’18 — my own bloody fault entirely, boffins couldn’t be expected to synchronise blades so bodies passed through ’em — only bullets. Michael saluted him, the wing commander and the third member of the Board, a Fleet Air Arm officer in blue and brass — then, in the stark stairwell, he took two quick steps and, launching himself at the brown-paper X on the window. . Going out? Look out — Blackout! . . crashed out into the starker daylight. Banking hard, Michael came back round through the cloud of glassy shards towards the bland façade of Adastral House. The brass hats were standing by the broken window, commenting favourably on his coolness. He saluted them again before rapidly gaining altitude and passing over the tiled peaks of the Aldwych. He set a southerly course by. . dead reckoning , and presently reached the extremities of London, where the coagulations of Croydon and Carshalton untangled into arterial roads winding through downland valleys. — Michael flew away from the Selection Board through space and time to the Channel, where he saw spread out beneath him a magnificent diorama : steamers and merchantmen, their decks teeming with the Expeditionary Force as they smashed through the waves in a welter of valiant spray! towards the tricolour of blue sea, red land and white sky. — But, as he dipped down to buzz the hopeful faces, his victory roll tore the flesh from them , leaving behind only grinning skulls rattling in tin helmets. Now he heard the Stukas’ whistling howl as they circled above the piles of human ordure dumped on the beaches ahead. . carrion that took it in turns to swoop low. . and feed . Losing height, Michael checked the fuel gauge: there was a noxious smell in the cockpit of my head while knees dug sharply into his ribcage. Twisting round, he saw this dissolute teddy bear squatting on his angelic back: Winnie! with his sewn-on red button of a nose, his spit-damp cigar stuck between his two stuck-up fingers. . Winnie! who, as they stalled and began to spin down to the ground, cried out, I’ll ’ave a Baby Guinness! — Wh-What? Michael is flummoxed — the Marquess has filled up so rapidly that in between deciding to go to the bar and standing to do so, the intervening fifteen feet has been packed out with a queer crowd : a mixture of Guardsmen and obvious homos . . all of whom seem to be. . getting on famously . Then there’s this very young girl, who a moment ago plonked down on the pew seat between the two brothers and without any ado applied her heavily lipsticked mouth to Kins’s damp lips. . a real smacker . . then said, I’ll ’ave a Baby Guinness! Her red nails dig into Michael’s sleeve, her merry green eyes invite his into her unbuttoned blouse. Her habit of command is easily explained: she’s two pips up! Kins says, Moira, this is my brother, Michael, he’s with the United Airmen don’tcha know. And Moira says, Ooh, ’e can bail out with me any time he fancies. — By the time Michael has relayed their drinks back from the bar, his seat has been taken by a sallow-faced man wearing a heavy overcoat with a lamb’s-wool collar and an Astrakhan hat that he touches lightly with his splayed fingers. .Читать дальше