Will Self - The Quantity Theory of Insanity - Reissued

‘What happened, Jim?’

‘Well, I was coming in to work. I’d stayed the night with Carlos in Acton and it was only about half-seven. I was on the Westway and everything told me that I’d be clear to go the full length and come off at Marylebone rather than taking the Paddington exit. But when I got to the top of the Marylebone Flyover the traffic was backed up solid, at half-seven in the morning! I don’t know, I guess I just felt humiliated. I sat in the stack waiting to get off for about five minutes. It was infuriating, the sense of being contained to no purpose, and it was all the fault of an intellectual decision. If I’d tranced the way Carlos taught me, I’d have been all right.’

‘What happened, Jim?’

‘Well, I was coming off the end of the flyover at last, when this character tried to muscle in from the left, from the slip road that leads to the Edgware Road. He was a short, fat creep driving one of those midget Datsun vans. I remember it distinctly, it had a dirty cream paint job and a badly stencilled sign saying, “Exodus Fruiterers, Crouch End & Stanmore”, then a phone number. This character was all pushy and hunched over the little wheel. A bundle of senseless dingle-dangles swinging from his rear-view mirror, rinky-dink bazouki music blaring out of the window, eugh!

‘I’d been in that jam for five full minutes! So I just sort of herded this little van man with my front bumper, just sort of herded him … across on to the side of the road. I didn’t damage his stupid van at all, just a scrape of paint, really, but he went absolutely mad, came out of it like a sweaty little grub. “Why you do that! Why you do that!” Over and over and poking me as well. I told him, “Because I felt like it.” And this enraged him more. He was a nothing, he was a Waiter, he meant nothing. So eventually I hit him, just to shut him up.’

‘Just to shut him up …?’

‘Like I say, he was a Waiter, he was a nothing.’

‘So explain why you’re pleading insanity?’

‘Well, when the police took my statement I told them the truth and they started grinning at each other and making silly faces — so it sort of suggested itself, logically, as it were. Let me tell you, this could be a lot more than a stupid assault case. This could be the end of waiting for a lot of people.’

There was a lot more of the same before I managed to get shot of him. I wasn’t convinced. I was becoming more and more inclined to think that he was bad rather than mad. The bizarre trip I’d been on with Jim and the fluting failed albino stayed in my mind as something sinister. I didn’t like Carlos and I didn’t like his influence on Jim. Jim was becoming twisted and distorted; he was a personality viewed in a ‘fun house’ mirror. His mechanical arms were getting longer, his epicene hips wider and fuller.

I resolved to write Jim his reference, but not to turn up at Snaresbrook, unless he showed a willingness to break with Carlos and the whole perverse philosophy of waiting that he had built up. I wanted Jim to admit that he needed help — and use it.

Over the next couple of weeks I called Jim a number of times, both at home and at his office. He was always out. Carol was very distant, but not unsympathetic. I think she felt as I did, but with the added twist of having shared a bed with the man for five years. I modified my position and told her that I would write the statement, but I still wouldn’t turn up in court unless Jim showed some willingness. I told her to give Jim the message. He never called back. I left messages for him at his work; he must have ignored them. Eventually, I washed my hands of the whole thing.

Mr Clifton wrote and thanked me for my statement — which stated quite clearly the way I felt about Jim Stonehouse — and told me the date he was due to appear and the court number. I did my best to forget this information. But on the morning itself I sat in my office completely distracted. I wandered around the room picking up the Post-it notes that were stuck to every available surface and mashing them up into thick wadges of yellow paper and tackiness. I knew I was right not to go to court, I knew it was the strong — and ultimately caring — thing to do. At 9.30 Jim called up.

‘Just called to say goodbye, I don’t expect I’ll be seeing you for a while.’

I was choked with salty guilt. ‘Jim, I’m sorry about this…’ I was about to relent.

‘No, don’t be sorry. Clifton’s got his own little ideas, but, really, I’d positively like to go down. Carlos was inside for a couple of years and he says it was the formative experience that really made him fully understand the nature of the millennium. It’s waiting in a class of its own!’ There was an exultant, manic edge to his voice. He was laughing when we said our goodbyes and hung up.

As soon as I’d put the phone down it rang again. This time it was Clifton.

‘I really would like to make one last appeal to you. Ignore what my client says; he is undoubtedly an unstable man. I have personal reasons for believing that he has fallen under the influence of people who are …’ his voice trailed off ‘… evil. I urge you to come to Snaresbrook for 10.30. Mr Stonehouse needs help. He is not a man who will adjust well to prison.’

When Clifton had rung off, I sat at the desk spasmodically ripping up my wadded Post-it notes. After a while I looked at my watch, it was 9.50. I ran out of the office and down into the street. I was on the Gray’s Inn Road before I managed to find a cab.

‘I need to be at Snaresbrook Court by 10.30 — do you think we’ll make it?’

‘Hard to say, mate.’ It was a flat, laconic statement. The cabby’s hand circled lazily and brought the cab neatly into the traffic stream. ‘We could do it, it really depends on getting through past Clapton.’

‘Why not head north and cut across the Marsh to Leyton.’

‘Nah, nah, not worth it.’

‘But …’

‘Trust me. Anyway, what’s the hurry?’

‘It’s a friend, he needs me as a character witness, he could go down.’

‘Oh, I see.’

We sat in silence. The cab juddered its way through the morning traffic, purring noisily like a vast, bronchitic panther. I fidgeted with my lip, my cheeks. Smoked and flicked, squinted out the window at the facades of buildings growing and retreating. The cabby took my advice after all. We turned off Green Lanes and cut across Stoke Newington to Tottenham High Road. The rows of semis and villas gave way to unfinished areas of warehousing and light industrial premises as we dog-legged round on to the Lea Bridge Road. It was 10.25. I sat forward in my seat, willing the traffic ahead to part for us.

‘What’d he do then, this friend of yours?’

‘He got fed up with waiting.’

‘Ha! If that was a crime we’d all be bloody banged up, wouldn’t we?’

‘Yeah, well, I suppose so. He reacted rather drastically though. He shunted some bloke’s van and then took a poke at him, then when the Bill came to get him he took a poke at them as well.’

‘I bet he did. Listen, that’s nothing. I was at this wedding on Saturday down the Roman Road, and one of the guests took a knife to the bride’s father ’cause he couldn’t stand waiting for a drink.’

‘Really …?’

‘Straight up. Gave him it in the neck. Poor man’s still in a coma. The bloke then ran out into the road. But some of the other guests caught up with him. They held him down and then one of them ran him over in his car. Now he’s in a coma too.’

‘Too?’

‘Like the bride’s father.’

‘Nice friends you have.’

‘Well, they weren’t anything really to do with me. The groom was a mate of my son’s. I just went along for the hell of it.’

‘That sounds about right.’