Will Self - Shark

as if he were raising it . I do wery much beg your pardon, zir, he says. His accent is mushily foreign, but he makes no attempt to move, only sits there. . insolently touching things: his flowing Lavallière cravat, his sunken cheeks, and then Kins’s arm — his brother cries, Get your mitts off me, Kraeplin! before turning to the girl: Well, have you seen her this evening? Moira says, She was in the Burglars’ ’alf an hour ago, but you’ll ’ave to be sharpish if you want to nab ’er — she’s with that thumping bore, Willie Mackeson. Kins moans, Oooh, I’d like to slosh that Mackeson, the stout bastard! Kraeplin strikes a parliamentarian pose, fingers petting his woolly lapels . . Mit ze eggstream gravity of ze international situation, he says, wiolence cannot be contemplated! Then he Winnies on . . Ve haff vwelcomed ze Czech Provisional Government into our bed, unt ve haff made ze restoration of Czech plezzures vun of our principal vorr aimz! All three laugh crazily — Moira drains her Baby Guinness and cries, Chin-chin! as she rubs the brown fluid from her sharp little chin with a handkerchief pulled from the sleeve of her tight black jacket. Hooding her finger in cotton, she says, Ooh, lookit yer, then rubs at the red lipstick on Kins’s pouting lips. Michael sits, ashamed of all their foolery. They should, he thinks, take a turn on the bloody parade ground — bit of square-bashing’d knock ’em into shape! Then he too is embarrassed by his own. . cod , and the hollow sound of his own propagandising: We’ll show the Nazzies what Britons can do when we really roll up our sleeves! Still, this Moira is awfully false and pretentious, while as for Kraeplin, Michael doesn’t know what to make of him: What is he, some Bethnal Green kike pretending to be a refugee? The high-backed pews press them all closer and closer . . and the advertisement plastered on the dull mocha wall is. . upsetting . I’ll Take Cover in a Bols! cries a khaki-uniformed lemon, running down the street towards a gigantic and salvational yellow bottle. One of the Guardsmen at the bar cries out, The Luft-fucker’s flying boot was stuck on a chimney pot! And in the close atmosphere Michael can see the drinkers’ beery guffaws. . plain as iron filings round a vulcanite rod . From a far-off place, stinking of pot’ permanganate , comes the fluting execration of Mister Etchingham, gassed at Wipers , who always compounded his own torture by his choice of words: Stop your bally gassin’, boys! You’re black men — d’you see it? Lotus eaters! Circe’s swine! Idle savages, only too happy to lie there gassin’, hopin’ the breadfruit will drop into your bally gassin’ mouths! — They catch up with the girl Kins is chasing after in another pub that might be the Wheatsheaf. Annette’s tall with broad shoulders and elbows that stick out at exaggerated angles no matter how she arranges them. Her reddy-auburn hair has been set severely into two side curtains and a rolled pelmet, and her strong features declaim woodenly from the stage of her face. Everything about her speaks volumes . . of. . Methodist sermons, coal tar soap and cold tapioca . Michael cannot for the life of me imagine what she’s doing with such a louche crowd — nor what his brother can possibly see in her. Kins sits with his head tilted back against a patch of tartan inset in the oak panelling, he’s yet another fag lit, and he shouts smoke at Annette, together with the rest of the story he had begun to tell Michael several pubs earlier: T’was the gamekeeper, of course! I’d to own up to what I was! He’d’ve bloody well shot me if I hadn’t! Every phrase has to be flung across the ever-widening gulf between him . . and everyone else . Here’s the thing! He approved! Yes, approved! Poor bugger’d been at Dunkirk — a tank-basher! — Annette has a tight smile and the expression of a DC observing the jiggy-jiggy dancing of some. . idle savages . It was plain to Michael as soon as he saw her. . she’s N. B.G . The chap with her, Mackeson, has white-blond hair lying lank on his collar, and washed-out eyes that swim about behind the thick lenses of his horn-rimmed spectacles. He was introduced to Michael as one of the organisers of a programme to help refugees. With medical care, Annette explained, and — she drew the words out proudly — psy-cho-log-ical supp-ort. . It’s plain as day that in the contest for her aff ections Kins has already lost . Nevertheless, he keeps on with his shouting: The officers all piled into a staff car! Not so much as a cheery-bye to their men! They were down at the port and taken off before the Nazzies even got there! That’s what my gamekeeper said! Made ’im turn poacher! — Over at the bar Kraeplin is talking to the landlord, a flaccidly saggy fellow in his shirtsleeves who holds fast to the taps and stares out through the mists of tobacco smoke. . towards some fatal shore . You wouldn’t guess it from the landlord’s distant expression, but it seems that Kraeplin has a way with him , because he barges back through the Guardsmen carrying a tray full of liqueur glasses. Slivovitz, he says, mein host, ya, has — you say ziss? Ya, he has been zitting on it zo he haff it for our conquerors ven zey chip up. . So. . so. . for all bodies? He offers the tray round and everyone takes a glass except Annette — Kins bags hers, then shouts, Prost! and Mackeson says very drily , Here’s how. Kraeplin mutters, Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen. . The cherry-bomb incendiary in Michael’s throat is the bright-red wax droplet on the candle, the flame-shaped bulb of which flickers behind a furl of parchment. . Fake, fake, fake — all fake . — They’re out in the street. . caught in the spotlight . Kins has manoeuvred to take Annette’s arm, but as the pub door swings shut the scene ends . . with her refusing it, and Michael’s eyes prickle with. . blips and celluloid scratches . Mackeson says, It helps to be a little pie-eyed if you want to find your way in the blackout — how’s about Oddenino’s? We could get some more drinks there, and sandwiches on the extension — for my own part, my fire-watching stint don’t begin ’til midnight. — They revolve up the road and tumble along an alley. The big dog of war has ambled this way, lifting its leg and jetting fluorescent paint at lintels, doorjambs and kerbstones. They stagger and trip, colliding with. . the darkness itself made flesh and bone . Someone remarks, They’ve salami and potato salad there — French bread too, all off the ration. — In what Michael surmises is the Tottenham Court Road, his companions’ faces acquire an odd luminescence as they sop up the blue emanations of buses grumbling along the carriageway, and the silvery ones from the bashful moon. . grabbing at clouds to hide her nakedness — it’s a peek-a-boo night . Only a few minutes can have passed, but already the blackout has jumbled up time, so he can no longer remember if the proposal to provision at an Italian delicatessen, then hold an informal supper party at Kraeplin’s digs, came before they left the pub or only now — in response to the sirens and the steady rumbling of approaching bombers. . coming to drop salami and potato salad on us . The lights of a nearby battery shoot up — the 20th Century blood drums in his ears, Brrrum-bum! Brrrum-bum! The Foxfare blares, Baa-b’-b’-baaaaa! and Michael thinks, This is utterly thrilling! He can hear Kins some way ahead, refusing to let go of his yarn : Told me the whole sorry tale over a breakfast of roasted pheasant — with bacon! Best damn meal I’ve had since the beginning of hostilities —. Pack it in! An ARP man has fallen in the middle of them at precisely the moment they register the first detonations — dull crumps that sound. .Читать дальше