Will Self - My Idea of Fun

The glass door swung open and with it came a pungent tropical blast of strongly vegetative tobacco smell. The Fat Controller was sitting on a large reproduction-Empire armchair. He was surrounded by cigars and cheroots, shelf upon shelf of open boxes. The cigars were of all shapes and sizes, ranging from the automatic clips of small-calibre Brazilian cheroots, through the bandoliers of Honduran panatellas, to the big ones, the bazookas and groud-to-air missiles of Cuban full coronas, each one housed in its aluminium launcher.

In his hand The Fat Controller held an Upmann number one the size of a baby's arm. He was dressed formally, like an old-fashioned British civil servant, in black-and-white needle-striped trousers and a black frock coat. The Windsor collar made his immense head appear, more than ever, like a football placed for kick-off. On the floor next to his chair there was a top hat.

‘Is that you, Souvanis? Come in, man! Don't hover like that, you're letting all the goodness escape.’ The door swung shut and the two of them were left alone together, in close damp proximity. The Fat Controller immediately grabbed a fold of Souvanis's belly, quickly and adroitly, the way that any other man might snatch up a poker card. ‘Getting a little tubby, aren't we,’ he snarled. ‘Have you heard me talking to you?’

‘Ow! Yes.’

‘Good. Talking to you through your fat — that's the ticket, eh? Splendid, splendid. And have you tendered for the D.F. & L. job?’

‘Yes, I have. Please let go.’

The Fat Controller released him and fell to examining his cigar. ‘Big, isn't it?’ he said at length.

‘Yes, it is rather — look, what's this all about, sir?’

‘Don't call me “sir”, Souvanis, you're not at school now. We're colleagues. You can call me “Master” if it makes you feel more comfortable.’

He put the Upmann back in its box and pulled a small cardboard packet of Toscanelli cheroots from the watch pocket of his waistcoat. He stuck one in his mouth. It was dwarfed by the smooth expanse of his face, rendered as tiny as a toothpick.

‘Match me, Sidney,’ said The Fat Controller.

‘But, Master,’ said Souvanis without quite knowing why he dared, ‘I thought connoisseurs always lit their own cigars.’

‘Harumph! Well, I suppose strictly speaking that is true. However, it's a mistake to assume that sensual experiences are merely enjoyable; they can have wider importance, a political significance even. In this case you are not simply lighting my cigar, you are paying homage. Now do it, match me!’ He did so. The Fat Controller inhaled deeply and blew the smoke out hard, strafing the room. He watched it billow about the discreet strip lights set into the top of the cigar shelves. Watched it critically, rapt, as if in the throes of some profound aesthetic rumination.

‘I'll tell you what this is all about, Souvanis,’ he resumed. ‘It's about a man's soul, a man's moral faculties, a man's inbuilt reason, his intuition, his sensibility and his self-esteem. In short, it's about his fate.’

‘Oh, I see.’

‘No, you don't see, Souvanis, and you never will. For twenty years now I have cultivated this man, pruned and shaped him, submitted him to a kind of metaphysical topiary. Now it is time to take stock, to, as it were, tie up some loose ends.’

‘So how has D.F. & L. got anything to do with this? What's with this “Yum-Yum” and these standing booths —?’

‘Booby! You know I cannot abide a booby. It's not for you to speculate on my methods, my little playlets, my masques and contrivances and conceits. You are nothing but a familiar, a fat little cat.’

‘Yes, Master.’

‘I have need of you, Souvanis, to be my bag man, my button. So, you had better get that brother-in-law of yours in to run Dyeline. I'll be needing you for the next few days. And now’ — he stood up — ‘I've booked a table at the Gay Hussar — let's eat.’

Souvanis didn't really want to eat at the Gay Hussar. The very thought of all that paprika made him feel dyspeptic. He tried framing a statement of the form: ‘Actually, I'm not really that hungry, why don't I have a cheese sandwich somewhere and join you later?’ but looking at The Fat Controller gnashing his black fang of a cigar, Souvanis thought better of it.

At the end of that week, when Ian went for his next DST session, Dr Gyggle found him much changed. The marketing man had a sloppy grin on his face and he was lying sensuously on the examination couch in the little cubicle as Gyggle swept in, hypo in hand.

‘Well, lan, you look very comfortable.’

‘I am.’

‘Not worried about the DST? About going back to the Land of Children's Jokes?’

‘No.’

‘Oh, and why's that?’ Gyggle supported the axle of his pelvis on the couch and peered down at Ian.

‘Because I don't think I'm going back. I think I've cracked it. You see’ — he blushed — ‘I met this girl — woman — and well, you see, we made love. And it didn't happen. It didn't come off.’

‘I do see,’ said the shrink, a smirk oozing out from behind the beard. ‘That is interesting. But there's a lot more to achieving full genitality, Ian, than the one apparently successful roll in the hay. You appreciate that, don't you?’

‘Yes, of course, that's why I'm here. I've got something to live for now, something other than products. I want to be one hundred per cent fit — ’

‘Rid of all the old bugaboos?’

‘Exactly,’ said Ian, grinning at Gyggle's use of language.

‘Good. I'll give you the pre-med then.’

There are many different ways of using drugs, many giddy variations on the basic theme of intoxication. Who can doubt that a vicar sipping a gin and tonic in the rectory garden isn't a million miles away from the urban crack head, searing his flesh with flaming acetone? Or that the psychotropic trances of the Sibundoy Valley shamans are not separated by many worlds of possibility from the monoxide-promoted drone of those who take the Silk Cut challenge? That being noted, The Fat Controller used drugs in the only way that really matters, to manipulate and distort, to retard and stunt, to cajole and control. He had a kind of drug-thing going in London. It was useful to him and it involved Richard Whittle, Beetle Billy and all the other no-hopers who hung around Gyggle's DDU. They were unruly participants, unsurprisingly. But that wasn't a problem, for he had one of his most trusted confrères in situ.

As Ian lay on the couch feeling Gyggle's Omnipom flood into him, Richard Whittle and Beetle Billy were coming out of the Tube at King's Cross. They found themselves bang in the middle of the wide-paved apron that runs in front of the station and along the Euston Road. It was covered in people, paper sellers, commuters, art students, immigrants, refugees, justices of the peace, articled clerks, nutritionists, cricket fans, loss-adjusters, cooks and junkies. Junkies singly and in huddles, junkies walking briskly on serious business and junkies idling, mooching along trying to appear relaxed, interested in their surroundings like ideal tourists.

Within twenty yards Richard and Beetle Billy were accosted by a short Italian with a knife-slash on his cheek and an English brass on his arm.

‘You lookin'?’ asked the Italian out of the corner of his mouth. He had the occupational skill of street junkies the world over, an ability to project his voice into another junky's ear from some distance, whilst remaining inaudible to the general public. Richard looked at Beetle Billy — the stupid car-repair man was wise to at least one event. His conjunctival eyes looked at Richard and filmed over still further.

‘Nah,’ said Richard.

‘Whassermatter!?’ the brass screeched after them. ‘Iss reely good gear an’ that.’ But they were already too far off.