Howard Jacobson: Pussy

‘I have to say this is not the impression I get from his parents. His mother talks of him as a beautiful boy.’

‘Parental love is blind.’

‘I thought you said his parents are unable to love him.’

Yoni Cobalt crossed her legs and slowly brought one wing of her long split skirt over her knees. The swish made Probrius feel just a little light-headed.

‘They don’t love him,’ she said, ‘in the sense that you and I use the word love. But the immoderately wealthy, like the monarchs of earlier times they emulate, are biologically programmed to look upon whatever issues from their loins, as with whatever issues from their wallets – offspring are just another investment, are they not? – as perfect. Imperfect doesn’t compute with the success they have made of their lives. Not to love what they give birth to is not to love themselves. That’s why you and I are here. They fear there’s been a fracture in the pipes. They can smell the shit. It’s our job to fix the plumbing.’

Professor Probrius laughed. Yes, without doubt, he had never liked as woman so much, not only on first acquaintance, on any acquaintance.

‘Consider this, Your Highness,’ Professor Probrius told Fracassus on their first morning together, ‘as a getting-to-know-you session. But first, if Your Higness has no objection, I’ll open a window.’

‘You can’t.’

‘You mean you won’t let me?’

‘You can’t. There are no windows. It’s to stop people jumping out.’

‘So how do you get fresh air?’

‘I don’t want fresh air.’

‘What if somebody who isn’t you wants fresh air?’

‘They can go somewhere else.’

‘Do any of your father’s buildings have fresh air?’

‘Ask him.’

‘What about when you build? Will your towers have windows that open?’

Fracassus couldn’t hide his impatience. ‘Fuck, nigger, cunt,’ he said.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Is this an interview?’

‘I’m curious, Your Highness, that’s all. I’ve read that you are looking forward to working with your father on a new casino with golf courses and saunas and giant televisions in the pools, and I wonder if they’ll have windows that open?’

‘So that people can throw themselves out when they’ve lost their money?’

‘Would that bother you?’

‘Not if they’ve paid the bill.’

Professor Probrius paused to write something down in his notebook. ‘Talk to me about yourself,’ he said, putting his pen down.

‘Like what?’

‘Well you tell me. Who are you?’

‘I’m me.’

‘You are, but remember I don’t know you yet. What are your interests? What do you like to do in your spare time?’

‘Not prostitutes again…’

Professor Probrius looked alarmed. ‘Explain that to me.’

‘Dr Cobalt likes me to talk about prostitutes.’

‘ Likes ? Are you sure? When did she last talk to you about prostitutes?’

‘She didn’t talk to me about prostitutes. She wanted me to talk to her about prostitutes.’

‘And what did you tell her.’

‘That I know nothing about prostitutes.’

‘And what did she tell you?’

‘I can’t remember. Other words. Dr Cobalt is crooked.’

‘That’s a serious charge.’

‘Don’t worry, I won’t tell my father. He’d lock her up if I did.’

‘Would you like her to be locked up?’

‘I don’t care. It doesn’t matter what she does. She’s a failure like all teachers.’

‘You think I’m a failure?’

‘I don’t know you yet. Probably.’

‘Well let’s get back to knowing you.

Fracassus was sitting in an executive chair at an executive desk in front of an executive sized television monitor. He had, to Probrius’s eye, the look of a small monarch of a country that had no population. ‘Perhaps we should have that off,’ Probrius suggested.

‘I always have it on.’

‘Well for today, let’s try without.’

Fracassus tapped his keyboard. On all two hundred and seventy floors of the Palace monitors coughed and went to sleep. If he couldn’t watch he didn’t see why anyone else should.

‘Ok, well that might be a good place to start,’ Probrius said. ‘Why do you always have your television on?’

‘I like watching it.’

‘Do you have any favourite programmes?’

‘Wrestling. Wars. And people being told to do stupid things.’

‘Who by? Comedians?’

‘Sometimes. And hypnotists. There was someone on like you a few nights ago. An uptight guy. So this hypnotist gets him to take his clothes off and crawl around the floor and bark like a dog.’

‘And you enjoyed that?’

‘Who wouldn’t?’

‘What else do you enjoy?’

‘The guy who makes my bed. He’s spastic. He’s all right when he’s making the bed but when you speak to him he’s like – ‘ Fracassus did his imitation of a badly strung marionette to show Probrius what Megrim was like. He let his tongue loll out and dribbled.

‘Aren’t you sorry for him?’

‘Why should I be? He’s lucky to have a job. That’s it.’

‘Tell me about the last thing you saw on television.’

‘It was a thing about Nero.’

‘Not the coffee shop, presumably.’

‘I don’t know any coffee shops. I’m not allowed out.’

Probrius tried a little ingratiation. ‘Maybe we can fix that,’ he said.

Fracassius seemed not to care. ‘Out’ interested him, but ‘out’ with a Professor did not.

‘So the Roman Emperor Nero?’

‘Him. Yeah.’

‘And you liked that why?’

‘The naked Roman hookers.’

‘You’re only saying that to shock me. Was that how you got round to the subject with Dr Cobalt?’

‘You seem interested in Dr Cobalt.’

‘She’s my colleague.’

‘Lord, lordy,’ Fracassus said.

‘I don’t know what that means.’

Having done his spastic marionette, Fracassus could see no reason not to do his horripilated black Mammy. ‘Lordy, lordy, Miss Scarlet.’

‘I don’t recognize who you’re being.’

‘You should watch more television.’

Professor Probrius was content to leave it at that. They’d made satisfactory progress, he thought.

Sipping cold lemonade, Professor Probrius reported a censored version of the morning’s conversation to Dr Cobalt. ‘Well, whatever else he is or isn’t, he’s not a pushover,’ he said, wiping the perspiration out of his eyes.

‘I’ve been thinking the same,’ Dr Cobalt said. She too was finding the winter weather oppressive. ‘Do you think there could be some sewer rat cunning there?’

They were eating an organic salad in a restaurant that had a lot to say for itself – a resturant with a pleonastic menu, it amused him to think – at the far side of the city. Probrius had not wanted to go there because it was frequented by university people and he did not want to see anyone he knew and answer questions about what he was doing now. But it was a favourite of Yoni Cobalt’s and all things considered he didn’t mind being seen with her.

‘I’m not inclined to think so,’ he replied. ‘In my experience we feel we have to grant some atom of intelligence, even if it’s only vermin intelligence, to the very stupid. It’s a way of castigating ourselves for thinking of them as stupid in the first place. Once it was a mark of civilization to revel in the inanities of fools and blockheads. Now we worry about what made them blockheads in the first place – an unfair education system, some abuse suffered in childhood, a bang on the head. With blame culture comes the end of stupidity as a concept. I find it regrettable, myself, that no fool is allowed to attain his full-blown folly entirely on his own.’