Paul Murray - The Mark and the Void

Was it always a scam?’ I hear myself say.

‘What?’ he says irritably.

‘The book. Your book. Did you ever intend to write it?’ Even as I speak the words I know the question is futile, irrelevant, like asking the person breaking up with you whether they ever really loved you.

Paul looks up at me, suitably disgusted. ‘Seriously?’

‘I thought maybe in the beginning …’

He waves a hand, cutting me off. ‘I don’t do that shit any more,’ he says.

‘What shit?’ I say. ‘You mean writing?’

Paul shrugs, returns his attention to the floor show. Inch by inch, thighs quivering, the dancer has bent back so that her dark hair sweeps the floor and the spotlight shines directly athwart the sad little heart she holds between her fingers; from behind, the noise of the unseen crowd breaks over us, cheers and applause as if the vagina were a famous diva hitting a high C.

‘You don’t write at all?’

Paul casts about him and signals to a passing girl, pale with a mane of chestnut hair.

‘Private dance?’ she says, coming over.

‘I have to go,’ he says to me.

‘Wait.’ I reach out, grab his arm. ‘Why me?’ I say.

Paul looks back at me with a mixture of pity and guilt and exhaustion. ‘I have to go,’ he says again.

I release him; the chestnut-haired girl takes his hand; I watch him follow her away towards the honeycomb of rooms at the back. Onstage, the dancer takes a bow; a moment later, a dolorous attendant trudges out with a spray and a flannel, with which he wipes down the pole and the dance floor.

‘There ’e is!’ One of the hobbits grabs me in a loose headlock as I slide back into our table. ‘You ’orny little fucker, I fough’ you was goin’ to crawl righ’ up that bird’s minge!’

I smile, take a sip from my repulsive fluorescent drink and put the encounter out of my mind. Glancing around the table, I gauge our progress. The smallest and most earnest hobbit is speaking animatedly to Chris Kane, whose face exhibits the mixture of fascination and panic characteristic of one whose efforts to feign interest are undermined by his inability to hear what’s being said. The burly boy who put me in a headlock rambles to Jurgen and Kevin about football; his curly-haired colleague, now wearing his tie wrapped around his head Rambo-style, is talking to Ish in a low intense voice that requires her to lean ever closer. Of Howie and James Harper there is no sign, but I spot Howie’s Bulgarian friend from earlier moving through the crowd in the direction of the toilets. That is where the deal will happen, if there is one; our job now is to run interference, keep the others happy so Howie can work uninterrupted.

I order a fresh round of drinks, take a surreptitious look at my watch. The next dancer has come on, a synthetic blonde with breasts like warheads who humps the pole slowly and then, as if at the flick of a switch, at double speed. Her siliconized body and its clumsy imitations of love put me in mind of an early iteration of a new technology, those first, oxymoronic mobile phones the size and weight of breeze blocks.

‘So’ — with a suddenly businesslike air, the burly boy now places his elbows on the table and leans in — ‘BOT’s based in Dublin a good while now?’

‘Almost ten years,’ Jurgen says. ‘The regulatory climate here gives our clients many options not available to London banks.’

‘Ten years,’ the burly boy considers. ‘And in that time’ — he looks around at each of us in turn — ‘’ave you ever seen … a leprechaun?’

Hilarity engulfs the visiting party. Their faces are rubicund and sloppy with drink, and looking at them I have the incontrovertible certainty — as if it were inscribed over the scene, like the motto of a Hogarth print — that we are being taken for a ride …

And then a shadow falls across the table.

A girl is standing there: a black girl, easily six foot tall, lithe and muscular and making no pretence at affability. ‘Private dance,’ she says. She pronounces it like a death sentence. The visitors look at each other; we look at them looking at each other. Chris Kane readies the credit card.

‘You ge’ off wiv ’er,’ the curly-haired boy says.

It takes a moment for Ish to realize he is talking to her. ‘Excuse me?’

He nods up at the lap dancer. ‘Go on, give her a snog,’ he says.

Ish, for once, is speechless; she stares back at him agape.

‘Why not, she’s gorgeous,’ he persists. ‘You been givin’ me the brush-off all night, maybe this bird’s more your flavour. Come on, I’ll pay.’ He reaches into his jacket pocket and takes out his wallet. From the fold he removes a wad of bills and counts them out on to the table. Ish turns to Jurgen, but he sits there as if frozen, grinning glassily at thin air.

‘Go on! Go on!’ the boy’s comrades urge Ish, laughing. The lap dancer waits motionlessly at the tableside, her face utterly blank.

‘Fuck off,’ Ish says. The other two make mock-appalled Oo! sounds, but the curly-haired boy is undaunted. ‘I’m not saying you have to lick her out, just give her a kiss. ‘’Ow much to kiss ’er, wiv tongues?’ This latter is directed at the lap dancer.

‘Come on, don’t be an old biddy,’ the burly boy joshes Ish. ‘Walter told us you lads knew how to have a laugh!’

I get to my feet. ‘I am afraid we have another appointment.’

Jurgen’s eyes flash at me from the banquette; I ignore them, reach for Ish’s hand, which she gives me dazedly, though she remains in her seat.

‘Wait,’ the curly-haired boy says. He has stopped laughing. The others stop too and look at him. He licks his lips and says slowly to Ish, ‘If you get off wiv her, we’ll sign wiv BOT.’

Over our table, in the midst of the thudding music and the barracking laughter, a dome of silence falls. Ish hunches miserably in her chair; Jurgen carefully examines his cufflinks; Kevin gawps as if he’s watching the Wimbledon final; and the lap dancer continues to look on, impassive as a Japanese mask. Then some kind of fracas starts up at the top of the room, a man and a woman shouting. Everyone turns to look; I take advantage of the distraction to tug Ish to her feet and drag her away. She appears conflicted: at the door, she turns to me. ‘Maybe —’

‘Go,’ I say, hustling her up the stairs.

The shouting voices get louder. Craning my neck as I make my way through the crowd, I can see the chestnut-haired girl from earlier berating a punter. His back is turned, but there is no doubt who it is. A bouncer storms past me to intervene; I find myself hurrying after him.

‘What’s going on?’ the bouncer demands.

‘He take my money!’ the dancer says accusingly.

‘I didn’t!’ Paul protests.

‘You take!’

‘It was a simple misunderstanding,’ Paul says to the bouncer.

‘I no misunderstand!’ the dancer counters, in a voice like a circular saw. ‘I understand very well! This man is thief!’

‘Would you just let me explain? What happened was, I wanted to tip her, but I only had a twenty, so I put the twenty in her G-string, and then I took out a ten as change —’

‘He take my money!’

‘As change — what, I can’t take change?’

‘Right, mate, you’re out,’ the bouncer says.

‘But I’m a regular!’ Paul cries. ‘I have a loyalty card!’ This does not sway the bouncer, who twists his arm behind his back and shoves him down a gauntlet of jeering drinkers towards the exit. I give chase, reaching street level just in time to see Paul propelled over the asphalt to land in a heap on the kerb opposite.

‘You’re barred!’ the bouncer shouts after him.

Crossing the road, I help him sit up. ‘Are you all right?’