envy she could engender in him. But now she would often back out when the clique's prattling became prurient, take Richard by the arm and draw him away.
Richard also knew he was on a slippery slope. Things at work were getting sticky. The Editor had told him flatly to buck up his attendance, and get both himself and his pages to bed earlier, or else there would be some radical downsizing of Richard's career prospects in the new year. The Editor lectured Richard quite severely, made reference to sightings of him with Bell's clique in the Sealink. ’He may be able to run through life at that kind of pace,’ he said, squinting at Richard through his absurd, pentagonal, designer spectacles, ‘but he's pulling down two hundred grand a year and filing x thousand words a week . . .’ – the pause hung in the inefficiently filtered air; Richard thought, I'm a sick, sick man, in a sick, sick building – ‘. . . and what are you for?’
Richard was, he decided, ‘for’ being tormented by Bell. Although he had come to despise Bell and everything he stood for, he couldn't stop himself stickingto the tacky man. It was getting to the point where Richard's revulsion from Bell was becoming physical as well. He no longer contemplated that massive, dense body with anything like awe or curiosity; instead it frankly disturbed him. The thought of the texture of Bell stubble, the heft of Bellflesh, the odour of Bellfluents and Bellsecretions was foul. The idea of touching the fingers that had typed all those bigoted opinions, those tendentious assertions, those unwarranted insinuations! Of pressing to one's own lips the waspish lips that had uttered such slanders, and feeling the tongue loaded with venom press against your own!
Richard dreamed this – and woke up screaming in the cold, clammy, winter predawn.
As if both to engender and to bank up this malaise, Bell's media ubiquity had never been so evident to Richard. There seemed to be more and more of the billboards advertising the phone-in show. There was one on Charing Cross Road, one in the Strand. After the one on the Euston Road – which Richard invariably passed on his undulant cab rides home at three, four and five in the morning – there was a chain of the damn things, like beacons of reminder taunting him back to Hornsey.
If Richard chanced to pick up an old copy of the Standard while on the tube, it was always folded so as to display Bell's column. This was set out in a series of snide little paragraphs such as: ‘No need to ask why the fragrant Jasmine Phillips is taking such an interest in the resident combo at Grindley's Upstairs. After all, it's a jazz band – and our Jasmine can't go for long without blowing someone's trumpet . . .’ In between each of these casual calumnies, acting as a running subhead, was the single piece of onomatopoeia ‘BONG!’. No one was ever saved by this Bell – only sacrificed to the alienation and indifference of five million commuters.
Bell's chat show was put on an extended pre-Christmas run. Every night the Minotaur sat in his plastic labyrinth of a studio and drew his ‘guests’ into querulous quadrilles. A repeat of each show was also screened the following morning, so that inattentive viewers, addicted to the remote, would find themselves breathing the Bellosphere, and jump-cutting the very fabric of space-time itself along with their thaumaturge.
Richard thought of home and going there. His father, a retired solicitor, would enjoy seeing him. They would play chess, and walk across the sodden fields to the localpub for a pint, while his stepmother put on the dinner. His father's retriever would scamper ahead, rooting in the hedgerows. His father's pipe smoke would bunch and coil in the night air. They would discuss what had happened in London fully and frankly. His father would turn out to have hidden reserves of wisdom concerning people like Bell and the things that they did. As the first draught of real ale gushed
Richard also knew he was on a slippery slope. Things at work were getting sticky. The Editor had told him flatly to buck up his attendance, and get both himself and his pages to bed earlier, or else there would be some radical downsizing of Richard's career prospects in the new year. The Editor lectured Richard quite severely, made reference to sightings of him with Bell's clique in the Sealink. ’He may be able to run through life at that kind of pace,’ he said, squinting at Richard through his absurd, pentagonal, designer spectacles, ‘but he's pulling down two hundred grand a year and filing x thousand words a week . . .’ – the pause hung in the inefficiently filtered air; Richard thought, I'm a sick, sick man, in a sick, sick building – ‘. . . and what are you for?’
Richard was, he decided, ‘for’ being tormented by Bell. Although he had come to despise Bell and everything he stood for, he couldn't stop himself stickingto the tacky man. It was getting to the point where Richard's revulsion from Bell was becoming physical as well. He no longer contemplated that massive, dense body with anything like awe or curiosity; instead it frankly disturbed him. The thought of the texture of Bell stubble, the heft of Bellflesh, the odour of Bellfluents and Bellsecretions was foul. The idea of touching the fingers that had typed all those bigoted opinions, those tendentious assertions, those unwarranted insinuations! Of pressing to one's own lips the waspish lips that had uttered such slanders, and feeling the tongue loaded with venom press against your own!
Richard dreamed this – and woke up screaming in the cold, clammy, winter predawn.
As if both to engender and to bank up this malaise, Bell's media ubiquity had never been so evident to Richard. There seemed to be more and more of the billboards advertising the phone-in show. There was one on Charing Cross Road, one in the Strand. After the one on the Euston Road – which Richard invariably passed on his undulant cab rides home at three, four and five in the morning – there was a chain of the damn things, like beacons of reminder taunting him back to Hornsey.
If Richard chanced to pick up an old copy of the Standard while on the tube, it was always folded so as to display Bell's column. This was set out in a series of snide little paragraphs such as: ‘No need to ask why the fragrant Jasmine Phillips is taking such an interest in the resident combo at Grindley's Upstairs. After all, it's a jazz band – and our Jasmine can't go for long without blowing someone's trumpet . . .’ In between each of these casual calumnies, acting as a running subhead, was the single piece of onomatopoeia ‘BONG!’. No one was ever saved by this Bell – only sacrificed to the alienation and indifference of five million commuters.
Bell's chat show was put on an extended pre-Christmas run. Every night the Minotaur sat in his plastic labyrinth of a studio and drew his ‘guests’ into querulous quadrilles. A repeat of each show was also screened the following morning, so that inattentive viewers, addicted to the remote, would find themselves breathing the Bellosphere, and jump-cutting the very fabric of space-time itself along with their thaumaturge.
Richard thought of home and going there. His father, a retired solicitor, would enjoy seeing him. They would play chess, and walk across the sodden fields to the localpub for a pint, while his stepmother put on the dinner. His father's retriever would scamper ahead, rooting in the hedgerows. His father's pipe smoke would bunch and coil in the night air. They would discuss what had happened in London fully and frankly. His father would turn out to have hidden reserves of wisdom concerning people like Bell and the things that they did. As the first draught of real ale gushed
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