Will Self - My Idea of Fun

Without mentioning it to me Mother effectively torpedoed this submarine of rumour by putting it about that Mr Broadhurst was my guardian. The first I knew of this was when, seeing his bollard shape through the wrought-iron railings, my old humiliator Holland turned to me and said, placing predictably his malicious emphasis, ‘There's your “guardian”, Wharton, come to take you off for some wanky-wanky, as usual.’

A ‘guardian’ was a distinctly posh kind of relationship for me to have with anyone. Possibly my mother viewed the subterfuge as merely part and parcel of her continuing social climb. Could it be that, or was it more likely that she and Mr Broadhurst had agreed it between them? If so, what was in it for her?

My second hypothesis concerned Mr Broadhurst himself. I couldn't be certain, not having observed him closely before, but either Mr Broadhurst was not like other old people, or else he wasn't really old at all. In my new proximity to him I was able to see that his hands were neither wrinkled, nor dotted with liverish spots. When we walked together up the steep streets of Brighton Mr Broadhurst never wheezed. And, on looking into the lambency of his hooded eyes, I could detect no whiting-out, no glaucoma or cataract.

He still granted himself the licences of old age — even if he wasn't entitled. He had given up his voluntary work at St Dunstan's in November claiming that it was ‘too fatiguin’ for him to carryon with. But be that as it may, he no longer moved with the calculated languor that I remembered. Instead he fairly hustled his big body along, as if it were a laggardly prisoner he was escorting down death row. He was growing feistier and spryer by the month — I wondered where it would all end.

Wondered as one Sunday in February at our appointed hour, I bearded him in his caravan. My ritual cataloguing had come to a halt. So feeble had my efforts become that my last entry was concerned with nothing less than my manner of dribbling.

‘Good, good, very good!’ exclaimed Mr Broadhurst — he was flicking through the second book. ‘This is excellent, lad, and I do believe that this exercise is having a beneficial side-effect, namely an improvement in both your grammar and the general ordering of your still-immature intellect. This is all as it should be.’

‘But I'm finding it harder and harder.’

‘Harder? Harder to what?’

‘To think up habits — I mean rituals.’ I hung my head, glad to have a pretext to hide it from my mentor. For recently the random eruptions and scattered pustules that had decked my chin and brows for the past year had begun to mass, forming formidably ugly scarps and weeping lesions.

‘Well, that's as may be, lad, although you haven't tackled masturbation yet, not properly at any rate.’

I blushed hard, Mr Broadhurst ignored me. I thought of my mother, she would probably be baking scones, her apron dusted with flour. Women in ugly hats would soon be Hosanna-ing on the telly. ‘Erm. . Mr Broadhurst. . P'raps I should be — ‘

‘Nonsense, lad. I can see that you're sensitive about this. Don't be. Masturbation is critical to our enterprise, for it connects the most repetitive and mindless of actions to the inducement of ecstasy. Now, I observe that you are shamed and discomfited by your acne — am I right?’ I nodded. ‘Of course I am. Now, you are too young to be aware of this but in the past there was held to be a linkage between so-called “self-abuse” and the sebaceous rigours of your time of life. I propose an advance on your future status that will assist you at this point and hold you fast to our mutual course. If I tell you that I can rid you of the damned spots will ye do what I say?’

I tried to think what I might be prepared to do to achieve this and concluded almost anything. I wasn't a brave boy, not physically, that is, but then it was unlikely Mr Broadhurst had anything physical in mind.

‘OK, Mr Broadhurst, what should I do?’

‘Excellent. You are amply fulfilling the weight of expectation I have placed on you. Now then, when you masturbate do you ejaculate semen?’

‘Y-yes. I s'pose so.’

‘Capital! I had feared that you might not be sufficiently developed. Pay attention. When you next indulge in self-stimulation, instead of summoning up the prone and panting form of some nymph of your fervid fancy, at the moment of climax I want you to contemplate your own dappled visage. Form a tight eidetic image of it, d'ye see? Then freeze it for as long as it takes. Can you do that? Of course, I know that you can. Collect your emission in a handy receptacle and then bring it here to me, yes? Got the photo? Capital! Capital!’

I returned to his caravan the following afternoon after school bearing my load, which was by then little more than a dusty stain on the inside of a beaker. Blushing, I handed it over.

‘Is this all?’ said Mr Broadhurst. ‘Not much there but as long as you followed my instructions it will do.’

The big man arose from the bed and took a turn around the caravan, humming to himself. Then he opened one of the doors of the fitted cupboards. This was wholly unexpected. The interior of Mr Broadhurst's caravan had remained unchanged during the four years it had been sited at Cliff Top. The cut and blown glass ornaments were still set on their mirrored shelves in exactly the same positions as when he had unwrapped them. The miniature stainless-steel kitchenette looked as if it had never been cooked in. Mr Broadhurst's caravan was as unlived-in as an imaginary room constructed to display furniture in a department store.

Although I knew I probably shouldn't, I couldn't help looking as he rummaged through the marvellous things in the cupboard. Dusty robes hung from hooks. They were made out of silk and embroidered with dragons, butterflies, monkeys, each one an entire chinoiserie. On the various shelves were set items of laboratory equipment: retorts, beakers, distilling tubes and burners. These were jumbled together with what looked like pieces of electrical — or electronic — equipment, circuit boards, plasticised grips, LCD read-outs. There was also a stuffed fox and a human skull. Much more stuff was in there but Mr Broadhurst's buttocks, each the size of a chronic beer drinker's gut, obscured the rest.

When he turned to face me he held in his hand a small spherical flask with a tube coming out of it at an angle. He unscrewed the glass stopper to this receptacle, and, having filled my beaker with water, poured the solution into it.

He approached me across the marbled swirl of shag carpet, looking like a prelate pumped up with helium, and solemnly intoned, ‘Now, lad, cup your hands, here comes the anti-chocolate.’ I cupped my hands and Mr Broadhurst poured the fluid into my finger bowl. ‘Repeat after me,’ said the Magus of the Quotidian, ‘I washed half my face — ‘

‘I washed half my face — ‘

‘In new semen soap — ‘

‘In new semen soap — ‘

‘For half a week — ‘

‘For half a week — ‘

‘The effects were shattering!’

‘The effects were shattering!’

‘Do it — wash your face!’ I did as I was told. The watery fluid plashed against my cheeks; as it did so I felt a novel sensation, a sloughing, pulling and slipping of the skin. ‘That's it, that's it,’ he chided me. ‘Rub it in well. Now. . stop!’ I left off having but didn't dare look at my hands.

‘Look at your hands!’ commanded Mr Broadhurst. I looked at them, they were smeared with blood and worse. I felt faint. He pulled a small mirror from his pocket and held it up to me. At first I simply couldn't comprehend what had happened, for all my spots were gone, dissolved, had vanished. Not only that but my face was unscarred, unpitted. It was as if the acne had never been.