Stark by Ben Elton Page B

forests. ‘And where is the oxygen to come from, without trees?’ the tobacco king added.
    The whole evening sounded more like a gaggle of green Euro MPs having a whinge than a cabinet meeting of the World Government of Money. It wasn’t that Sly disapproved of worrying about the environment — he didn’t like having to swim round clusters of old rubber johnnies when he went for a dip in the sea, any more than the next fellow. But what had it got to do with them? Jesus, if they wanted a donation why hadn’t they written to him? Sly was no longer simply disappointed, he was angry. If there was one thing Sly couldn’t stand it was whingers.

31: A QUESTION OF PRINCIPLE
    I n the cab Rachel had asked if CD was a vegetarian. It was a very tricky moment. What to reply? CD loved meat, his idea of vegetables was tomato ketchup. He was the sort of bloke who reckons not fishing out the bit of gherkin in your hamburger counts as eating your greens. But what did Rachel think? Was she a veggie? She was into peace, but that wasn’t conclusive. Jesus had been into peace but he never said anything about having to eat rabbit food or multi-grain when you fancied a hot dog. What should he say? People were very touchy on this subject. If he said no would she throw red paint over him and say she refused to share the same cab as a murderer? Those animal rights activists did not mess around. He didn’t want the first time Rachel visited his place to be when she came round to put dog shit through his letter box. CD knew these people. Once, at a folk concert, he left his jacket on a seat and some bastard had written on it in lipstick: ‘There used to be a dumb animal inside this leather jacket. There still is.’ The annoying thing had been it was only imitation leather. Served him right for going to a folk concert of course. But, how to answer? Maybe she wasn’t a true fanatic, maybe she was a conscience-stricken would-be veg, that was worse. That would mean a mind-numbing, tedious six-hour discussion on degrees of personal responsibility.
    ‘Well, I’m prepared to wear leather shoes but I wouldn’t personally harpoon a whale.’
    ‘I’m basically a vegetarian, it’s just I get this craving for half a pound of bacon every morning.’
    There were so many opinions on the subject, so many chasmic pitfalls to be circumnavigated. It’s all a question of degrees. Some people are quite happy to eat a raw chicken stuffed with a couple of shoals of fish but consider it an offence against God to toy with a chop. Others would eat anything, great steaks dripping with blood, raw suchi, sausages, bloater, black pudding, haggis, unwary family pets, anything, and yet would call the police if they caught you even considering veal.
    ‘You know how they make it don’t you? They tear the baby cow foetus from the mother then artificially fatten it by feeding it napalm and electrocute its testicles to make the meat whiter, then cut its head off and stuff it up its arsehole while it’s still alive!!!!’
    People just take their pick on the subject of vegginess, draw their line where they feel like it. It’s not about conventional morals. Hitler, after all was a veggie, but he didn’t mind cooking Jews. There is absolutely no logic on the subject, but you cross people at your peril.
    ‘Are you a vegetarian?’ she had said it so simply, so casually, as if it was of no consequence.
    No consequence! Ha! As CD squirmed and writhed and desperately tried to compute the chances of various answers being acceptable, he knew that his entire sex life could be hanging on his reply.
    ‘Because I fancy a hamburger,’ Rachel continued.
    He could have kissed her.
    Neither of them had much money and there was only an hour until the film and so they decided to dine at Slampackers. They did this knowing that it would probably make them feel sick, knowing that the stuff had much the same effect on the complexion as napalm had on North Vietnam and also knowing that it