Peter Carey - Bliss

'Almost.'

'Harry, Harry, everyone will be so happy. You wait till you see them smiling. Nothing against Joel, but it's not the same. It isn't fun without you. What we miss, Harry, is your bleeding blind optimism.'

'Come and sit down, Alex.' Harry slipped into Alex's office before he could be stopped. He picked up the conference reports. Alex, flustering in behind him, tried to act as if they were nothing important, told himself to make no move towards them, to draw no attention to them. He was pleased to talk to Harry but he felt like a radio tuned to two stations at once.

'You look so well. You've lost your belly, you old bastard.'

'I've been walking.'

'And swimming. That tan makes you look ten years younger.'

'Sometimes I go to the beach with Lucy,' Harry flicked idly through the conference reports.

'So how is Lucy?'

'Mmm.'

'And Bettina?'

'Fucking hell, Alex, what's all this?'

'Nothing, Harry, just a joke.'

' You told them that saccharin causes cancer? You told them that, Alex?'

'It's a joke, Harry, that's all. I was just having fun.'

Harry sniffed. He could smell Alex's fear. He saw the big slumped sad man with his red shirt showing through his gardening sweater and saw him light one more Low Tar Cigarette. 'This isn't a joke, Alex. You're not doing this for a joke.' His eyes narrowed, wondering what category of torment was contained here. 'Tell me the truth, old mate,' he said, using his genuine affection as bait in the trap.

Alex sat down behind the desk and looked up at him.

'Oh Harry, you know me…' Alex felt as if someone had filleted his soul and thrown it on the desk. It was pale and slippery, a pitiful thing.

Harry was still reading through the conference reports with astonishment.

'Harry, it's not real. I didn't do it.'

'What happens when you send this out? We lose the busi-ness? Is that it?'

'No, no, Harry you don't understand. Here, take this key. Take it. It's the only one. You open that filing cabinet behind you. That's the key to it. Go on.' He waited while Harry did it. 'There are seven years of conference reports with stuff like that. They don't get sent out.'

'But why?'

'I guess I'm crazy.' He tried to smile, the smile of a fat schmuck who thinks he's a fat schmuck.

All Harry could see was his pain. It was almost a visible aura, a pale trembling force that burned around him. 'No,' he said, 'you're not crazy. You're frightened.'

'Harry, Harry, I'd rather you found me sucking cocks.'

'Alex, tell me...'

'How can I tell you, it's so crazy.'

'You've got to tell.'

'I can't damn tell you,' Alex thumped the desk and a tear ran down his shining face. 'I can't damn fucking tell you. It's ridiculous. It's my punishment, Harry, that's all.'

Harry sat down carefully on the edge of the desk 'Pun-ishment for what?' he said.

Alex was really crying now and Harry handed him a handkerchief impatiently.

'Punishment,' Alex said, 'for what we do here.'

'Ah.'

'You'd never understand. You're right. You're the normal one, Harry. I know you're right and I'm wrong, but I'm just crazy. It upsets me. I write… I write these conference reports for when they come to get me… to punish me.'

Harry felt cautious. He didn't move quickly. He accepted his wet handkerchief back and didn't say a thing. He was like man watching a splendid bird perform rare rituals in deepest forest.

Even when he spoke it was softly, and very carefully, as if the jab of a consonant or the scratch of a vowel might break the spell.

'Come on,' he whispered, 'let's go and get a drink'

He walked softly on his white sandshoes and Alex squeaked behind him carrying a box of Kleenex tissues. They went first to Harry's office, where they found ancient layouts stacked all over the desk The refrigerator was missing and two dirty glasses and a quarter of a bottle of campari were gathering dust in the once-generous bar.

'Joel's got the fridge.'

Harry nodded. 'Tell Tina to tidy this up and stock the bar.'

'Joel fired Tina.'

They went to Joel's office and found the refrigerator locked inside a newly built cupboard. It wasn't much of a lock. They broke it with a screwdriver and went back to Alex's office with a bottle of Scotch and a big bucket of ice.

Alex sat down in the chair behind the desk, and Harry lounged in the low guest's armchair. He crossed his legs and put the tumbler of Scotch on the arm of the chair. He looked like a man on holiday. He looked handsome.

'Tell me who is punishing you?' he said.

'Don't, Harry... please.'

Harry saw the humiliation in his eyes.

Alex stood up and shut the door, but when he sat down again he obviously didn't know how to start talking. 'I guess,' he said, and then stopped. 'I guess I'm just punishing myself.'

'I don't think you're crazy,' Harry said softly. 'I don't think you're punishing yourself.'

'Then you're crazy too,' Alex said sourly.

'No,' Harry said and narrowed his eyes.

'O.K., O.K., don't get mad.'

'Do you believe in Good and Bad?' Harry asked.

A slight hint of irritation showed itself on Alex Duval's face, and for a moment it was possible to see he was also an arrogant man. 'You know I do,' he said. He took out a cigar-ette, worried about it, and put it back in the packet.

'And you're being punished for being Bad?'

The simplicity of this made everything sound so childish that Alex Duval was almost angry. 'Yes,' he said. 'If you want to put it like that.'

'So,' Harry stood up. He was smiling. 'So we'll be good.'

'Oh Harry, that's very nice, but not very sensible.'

'Sensible?' Harry's eyebrows rose alarmingly. 'Sensible? How isn't it sensible? We'll be good.'

'We.'

'Both of us.'

Alex blinked. 'You'll be good?'

'Alex,' Harry sat down again, but he hunched over his legs and looked down at the floor, 'Alex I'm a bit crazy too. I think I'm in Hell.'

There was a silence.

'You're the first person I've told. I don't know who to trust. I've been trying to work out what to do.'

'You mean you know you're in Hell.'

'Yes,' Harry said.

'Oh Christ,' Harry.

'You think I'm crazy.' Harry stood up. He looked bereft. His face was suddenly very white.

'No,' Alex Duval said quietly. It did not for a second occur to him that Harry meant everything he said literally. He was distressed merely because Harry was the last person he had ever expected to reveal deep unhappiness.

'Since when?' he asked.

'Since,' Harry smiled encouragingly but his voice was choked off with emotion. 'Since I was in hospital.'

'Ah yes.' Alex remembered that it was at about this time that Joel and Bettina's affair became public knowledge.

'It's good to talk to you, Alex.'

'It's good to talk to you, Harry.'

The two men lapsed into an embarrassed silence. Alex Duval finally lit his cigarette and Harry ate the ice in the bottom of his glass.

'I have a theory,' Harry announced when he had finished the ice.

'Tell me.' Alex lit a cigarette.

'There are three sorts of people in Hell. Captives, like us. Actors. And Those in Charge. What do you think?'

'Who are the Actors?'

'Most of them. They work for Those in Charge.'

'To persecute the Captives?'

'Yes.'

'They're Actors; acting; not what they seem.'

'Mmmm. What do you think?'

'Brilliant,' said Alex Duval pouring himself another Scotch. 'Exactly right.' As he sipped the Scotch he wondered if he and Harry might finally end up being friends, real friends, after all these years. He liked Harry's theory. There was no room for optimism in it.

'Joel is an Actor?' he asked.

'Definitely.'

'And Bettina?'

'Yes.'

'We are Captives?'