Tom McCarthy: Remainder

“No! No way!” Greg held his hand up and turned his head away. “It’s all yours. Spend it on yourself. Yeah: what are you going to do with all that money?”

“I don’t know,” I told him. “I haven’t thought about it yet. What would you do?”

“I’d…well, I’d start an account with a coke dealer,” said Greg. “I’d tell him: here’s my bathtub, fill it with cocaine, then come back in a few days’ time and top it up until it’s full again, then same again a few days after that. And find me a girl with nice, firm tits to snort it off.”

“Hmm,” I said. I turned to Catherine and asked her: “What would you do?”

“It’s totally your call,” she said, “but if it were me I’d put money towards a resource fund.”

“Like savings?” I asked.

“No,” she said; “a resource fund. To help people.”

“Like those benevolent philanthropists from former centuries?” I asked.

“Well, sort of,” she said. “But it’s much more modern now. The idea is that instead of just giving people shit, the first world invests so that Africa can become autonomous, which saves the rich countries the cost of paying out in the future. Like, this fieldwork I’ve been doing in Zimbabwe: it’s all about supplying materials for education, health and housing, stuff like that. When they’ve got that, they can start moving to a phase where they don’t need handouts any more. That Victorian model is self-perpetuating.”

“An eternal supply,” said Greg, “a magic fountain. And I’d tell him to find another girl with a rock-solid ass so I could snort the coke off that when I’d got tired of snorting it off the first girl’s tits.”

“You think I should invest in development in Africa, then, rather than here?” I asked Catherine.

“Why not?” she said. “It’s all connected. All part of the same general, you know, caboodle. Markets are all global; why shouldn’t our conscience be?”

“Interesting,” I said. I thought of rails and wires and boxes, all connected. “But what do they, you know, do in Africa?”

“What do they do?” she repeated.

“Yeah,” I said. “Like, when they’re just doing their daily thing. Walking around, at home: stuff like that.”

“Strange question,” she said. “They do a million different things, like here. Right now, building is very big in Zimbabwe. There’s loads of people pulling homes together.”

Just then the barmaid arrived with the champagne bottle and three glasses. She asked me if I wanted her to open it.

“I’ll do it,” I said. I wrapped my fingers round the top, trying to penetrate the foil cover with my nails. It was difficult: my nails weren’t sharp enough, and the foil was thicker than I’d thought.

“Here, use my keys,” said Greg.

I wrapped my fingers round his set of keys. Catherine and Greg watched me. I moved my hand back to the champagne bottle’s top, made an incision in the foil, then pinched the broken flap and started pulling it back, slowly peeling the foil off.

“Shall I help?” Catherine asked.

“No,” I said. “I can do it.”

“Sure,” she said. “I didn’t mean…you know, whatever.”

I peeled the foil right off and was about to start untwisting the wire around the cork when I realized we still had our beers.

“We should knock these off first,” I said.

Greg and I started gulping our pints down.

“Whole villages are getting housing kits,” said Catherine. “These big, semi-assembled homes, delivered on giant trucks. They just pull them up and hammer them together.”

“And they all slot in just like that?” I asked her. “Without hitch?”

“They’re well-designed,” she said.

Greg set down his beer and burped. “There’s a party this Saturday,” he said. “David Simpson. You know David Simpson, right?”

I nodded. I knew him vaguely.

“Well, he’s just bought a flat on Plato Road, off Acre Lane. Just round the corner from here. He’s having a house-warming party Saturday, and you’re invited. Both of you.”

“Okay,” I said.

I gulped the last of my beer and started on the wire around the cork. It was a pipe-cleaner wire frame, like the frame beneath those dresses eighteenth-century ladies wore. I had to pinch it between my fingers and twist it. I managed this and started working the cork with my thumbs, but it wouldn’t go.

“Let me try,” Greg said.

I handed it to him, but he couldn’t do it either.

“You have to…” Catherine began, but just then the cork flew out with a bang. It only missed my head by half an inch. It hit a metal light clamped to the ceiling and then fell back to the floor.

“Woah!” said Greg. “You could have had your accident all over again. If that light had fallen on you, I mean.”

“I suppose so,” I said.

“Do the honours, then,” said Greg.

I poured the champagne and we drank. It wasn’t very cold, and it had a weird smell, like cordite. Catherine still had two glasses on the go, the champagne and the beer. She alternated, taking sips from each.

“You could do both,” said Greg.

“I’m sorry?” I said.

“Live like a rock star and give to these housing projects in Kenya. It’s enough money to do both.”

“ Zimbabwe,” Catherine said. “Yeah but it’s not just housing. Housing is a vital aspect, but there’s education too. And health.”

“Hey,” Greg said, “did I tell you about the time I took coke with this rock band? I was with this…”

He stopped and looked up. Catherine and I looked up too. Greg had stopped because the weird guy who’d been on his own had shuffled over to beside our table and was glaring at us. We looked back at him. He shifted his gaze from one of us to the other, then on to the table and the champagne bottle, then to nowhere in particular. Eventually he spoke:

“Where does it all go?”

Catherine turned away from him. Greg asked him:

“Where does what all go?”

The weird guy gestured vaguely at the table and the bottle.

“That,” he said.

“We drink it,” Greg answered. “We have digestive systems.”

The weird guy pondered that, then tssked.

“No. I don’t mean just that,” he said. “I mean everything. You people don’t think about these things. Give me a glass of that stuff.”

“No,” said Greg.

The weird guy tssked again, turned round and walked away. Other people were trickling into the bar. Music started playing.

“Does this champagne smell of cordite to you?” I asked.

“What?” said Greg.

“Cordite,” I said, raising my voice above the music.

“Cordite?” Greg said, raising his voice too. “What does cordite smell like?”

“This,” I answered.

“I don’t think so,” Greg said. “But look: that time, I was with this friend-well, with this guy I knew-and he played in a band, and…”

“What time?” Catherine asked. She’d finished her first glass of champagne and had poured herself another.

“When I took coke with this band,” Greg told her. “We all went in a van, to an after-gig party. It was somewhere up in Kentish Town, Chalk Farm. There were-hang on…” He poured himself another glass as well. “There were…”

“Wait,” I said. “Say I were to give towards this reserve fund…”

“Resource,” Catherine corrected me.

“Yeah, right,” I said. “Well, could I…I mean, how would I fit in?”

“Fit in?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said. “How am I connected to it all? Do I need to go there? Even if I don’t, could I go anyway, and watch?”

“Maybe you could take the virgin with the firmest ass as collateral,” said Greg. “And then another with the firmest tits as interest on your investment. Then, each time you snort a line off her: bingo! instant connection.”