The Sweet Smell of Psychosis Read Free Page B

form a veritable basis of denim and whipcord, all supporting a Martini glass. ‘We were up in the top room, herherh, and young Richard spotted this character hanging around outside the knocking shop opposite, h'herherher . . .’ Reiser was a once-and-future film director who – naturally enough – made adverts. With everyone he was brusque to the point of rank rudeness – everyone but Bell, that was. ‘. . . So, we thought we'd get a little bet on, as to whether he'd actually go in and poke one of the brasses, herherh'her . . .’ He paused to take a slurp of his drink, and Bell's inky tones stained the atmosphere.
    ‘How much was the bet?’ As ever, Richard was shocked by the measured evenness of the man , s voice.
    ‘The bet!’ Reiser started. ‘The bet, well, er . . . a fiver, wasn't it Richard?’
    ‘That's right.’
    ‘Anyways, this prannet goes in, trudges all the way up three flights of pokertunity. So I'm thinking I'm quids in – because that's the way I'd figured it – when he turns tail and comes barrelling all the way back down again, h'herherher . . .’
    Even Reiser's sniggering exploited women, Richard thought – but then, irresistibly, the opportunity to exploit them himself began to hold sway. ‘Actually,’ Richard dropped into the short-term maw that had opened up to receive this anecdote, ‘he didn't head for home.’
    ‘Oh no?’ Reiser crammed as much snot as he could into the two nasal vowels.
    ‘No, he came into the club.’
    ‘In here? Into the Sealink?’ This was from Ursula. She was talking to Richard – sort of His heart sang.
    ‘Yeah, in fact, he's standing right over there, gabbing to Julius.’
    Six pairs of calculating eyes dipped, panned, and unobtrusively zoomed, so as to get a view of this John, this consummate mark. ‘H'herherh'her,’ Reiser tittered, ‘well I'll be buggered, young Richard's right!’
    Everyone ignored him, because by certain subtle, even obscure, movements, Bell was indicating that he wished to speak. ‘OK,’ he pronounced, ‘let's have a little fun. Slatter, go to the front desk and find out bald boy's name. Reiser, you go with him. Once you've got hold of the handle, you go across the road. You say he went up to the top floor, well, it's obviously the whoreup there who he either wanted to see, or couldn't bear the sight of Give her some dosh, and get her to come back across here, sign herself in as baldy's guest, come into the bar and faire un petit rendezvous. That should stop us all from expiring with boredom, huh?’
    Richard was stunned with a vibrating, cacophonous silence. He felt as if someone had clubbed him round the head with a two-pound fillet of wet fish.
    He was still stunned three hours later, sitting on a stool in the farthest corner of The Hole, an illegal drinking club in a sub-sub-basement beneath a porn ‘n’ poppers shop on Old Compton Street. Richard was stunned by the sheer, wilful malice of it. He could still remember the expression on the poor man's face when the whore had come into the bar, sidled up to him, put her bruised arm through the epaulette of his trench coat, nuzzled her peroxide brow into his shoulder. Richard remembered the man's face, myopic, hurting, as the red had suffused from his neck, up through the sparse roots of his sparse hair. And Richard felt the shame he had provoked.
    Now, he sat morosely, hanging on to a small plank of sobriety, while all around was a choppy sea of inebriation. Bell was there as well. He was standing

    now, standing and chatting, completely at ease, with two huge black guys dressed in string vests and dungarees. Bell was in his element, adjusting his posture to match theirs, and – Richard could just make this out above the background roar – adopting some of their tags, their Whadjas, Safes and Seens, to customise his patter, make him accessible to his listeners.
    Ursula was there too. She was still pristine, even at this late hour. Richard could see no reddening of her