Staying Alive

I am so over her. I am more over her than any man has ever been in the millennia-long history of jilted blokes. Want to know just how over her I am? She could—even as we speak—be having deviant, unprotected sex with the entire Bar Council and I really wouldn’t give a damn.

‘I’m doing OK,’ I say.

‘So why all the time off lately? You haven’t really had the flu again, have you?’

Course not. I have the constitution of an ox; an exceptionally big and strong ox; Super Ox. Disease sees me walking down the street and hides in a shop doorway.

‘Not…exactly…I just needed a break.’

‘Well, it’s done you good. Mind you, Niall isn’t too chuffed.’

‘When is he? Fancy a trip to the toilet?’

‘Excuse me?’ She’s shocked.

I tap the side of my nose.

‘Oh, for that,’ she says, knocking back her Breezer. ‘I’d never do coke.’

‘If they made it in a range of six fruity flavours, I bet you fucking would,’ Vince says as he crashes between us and into the bar with the impact of a Scud.

‘You what?’ Jakki asks again.

‘Narco-pops,’ Brett says, completing Vince’s thought as he, too, joins us. ‘Top way to market toot to the teenies.’

‘Bacardi would love it,’ Vince says, slapping his partner on the back. ‘They could hand out little sachets at the school gates.’

‘Or at Busted gigs.’

‘Or free with Happy Meals.’

‘You two are sick,’ Jakki says.

‘No, we’re marketing professionals, darling,’ Brett explains, ‘and our highly paid minds never sleep when it comes to seeking an edge for our clients’ brands.’

‘Stop giggling, Murray,’ Jakki says. ‘You’re only encouraging them.’

‘Leave him alone, Jakks. He’s all right. He’s our flexible friend,’ says Vince.

Jakki’s brow furrows so Brett explains. ‘As in, “Barman, do you accept Account Supervisor?” Talking of which, you gonna get some drinks in, Murray?’

I pull myself together and order two more of the blackcur-rant-flavoured Belgian beers that are tonight’s novelty choice—an alcopop for those too cool to ask for an alcopop. I’ve already put my one remaining card behind the bar and I’m running up an Enron-sized tab.

My one remaining card: an RSPCA Visa. I got it because the idea that a small proportion of my profligacy might help some abandoned puppies and half-starved donkeys appealed to me. When the card arrived and I saw the fluffy kitten on it I let out an involuntary aaah. But the first time I used it—slapping it on the bill at a client lunch—I was laughed off the table and—wimp that I am—I banned it from my wallet. Now it has made a comeback. Well, in the absence of Barclaycard, Morgan Stanley et al, it’s saving my (and with it, I hope, some poor animal’s) bacon now.

I hand over the drinks and give Vince a discreet look. Brett spots it, though, and says, ‘You sure? You’ll do your schnozz a serious mischief.’ It’s as if he can sense that I’m a rookie and his concern is quite touching.

‘Leave him alone,’ Vince says, coming to my support for the second time in the space of less than a minute. ‘First rule of the market economy: it’s the consumer’s inalienable right to fuck himself over.’ He slips me another wrap.

I have one of those moments. You know, those moments. The moments that overwhelm you when you’re exceptionally drunk. The sort of moment where nothing else matters except the here and now, and that is invariably accompanied by a slurred, spit-spattering I love you guys, I really fucking love you. Brett is sober enough to see it coming and he leaps in to cut me off: ‘Go on, fuck off to the bog.’

10.28 p.m.

I close the cubicle door and, despite the fact that this is my second such excursion tonight, I immediately have an anxiety attack. It may be my second time tonight, but it is also only my second time ever. What am I doing here? This is not me. Locked toilets, rolled-up banknotes and white powder that may have arrived in Britain inside someone’s bottom. I’m not even properly equipped. No Amex. All I’ve got to cut the stuff up is a Homebase Spend amp; Save card. How un-cool can I get? And the lack of hipness is the least of my concerns. What if the card swipe machine at Homebase can somehow sniff cocaine and automatically cancels the reward points I’ve painstakingly accu-mulated before summoning the manager? ‘ We’re sorry, Mr Colin, but we can’t allow you to leave the store with that Black amp; Decker hot air gun, which is clearly intended as a weapon in a drug turf war.’

No, I’m being silly…Pathetic…I’m being Murray. Like I said, this is my second excursion tonight. Obviously the first hit is wearing off and that’s what’s causing my wobbles. I can handle this. All I need is another blast. I tense my hands to stop them trembling and take the wrap from my pocket. I tip some powder onto the lid of the cistern, chop it up with the card and coax it into two little lines. Then I snort them up through the rolled tenner. I lean back against the cubicle wall and feel…Nothing, as it happens. I’m about to leave when I have a flash vision of Casino and a stoned James Woods dementedly massaging coke residue into his gums. I smear my index finger over the cistern lid to pick up the last few grains before popping it into my mouth and—

Hang on, this is Sleazy Junkie Land, a place I’ve never been. The anxiety kicks in again, because, apart from the culture shock, the coke has a horrible bitter medicinal taste and no amount of frantic salivating seems to be shifting it. Something else. I’m in a bog and I’m as good as licking the porcelain. Doesn’t this raise some grave hygiene issues?

I’m breaking out in a cold sweat when the rush saves me, washing over me at the exact same moment as I’m being struck by the ridiculous, black irony of that last thought.

10.34 p.m.

When I get back to the bar I find Brett and Jakki in conversation. I pull up a stool and sit down next to them. I don’t tune in, but instead watch Vince, who has made his way to the far side of the room. He’s harassing Juliet, the public face of Blower Mann. She has a perch in reception from which she welcomes all and sundry with a shimmering Miss World smile. Vince, being Vince, is the last person to care that Juliet has a fiancé. He should be a little less blasé though, because her beloved is a scaffolder or a meat porter or a circus strongman—something that involves brute strength, anyway—and he’s built like a concrete fallout shelter…And right now he’s standing ten feet away with his back to them.

You really don’t want to be putting your hand there Vince.

Juliet is obviously of similar mind because she shrieks and pushes him away as if he’s diseased—which he may well be. Fiancé turns round, takes one look and wades in. I must say he’s pretty light on his feet for a fallout shelter.

Jakki must have been watching as well because she says, ‘Jesus, he’s a complete bloody idiot. He’s gonna get himself killed.’

‘You’ve got to understand that Vince operates by a simple code,’ Brett explains calmly. ‘It only runs to one rule—he doesn’t have the memory capacity to take in any more. It goes like this: F.E.A.R.’

‘ Fear?’

‘Fuck Everything And Rumble, darling. Live each day as if it’s your last.’

‘But he’s got his whole life ahead of him,’ says Jakki, wincing as Vince ducks his wiry five-seven frame beneath a heavy right from fiancé.

‘Yeah, but who’s to say he isn’t gonna step under a bus? Or get his head ripped off by an irritated scaffolder? He’d hate to take his last gasp in the knowledge that he’d missed out on something by showing restraint. Oh lordy, lordy, the mibs are here.’

Security has arrived. Three black-clad bouncers are attempting to subdue fiancé while another two are slamming Vince’s face into the wall.

‘Of course,’ adds Brett as a parting comment before he goes to his partner’s aid, ‘the corollary is that by living each day as if it’s his last, he dramatically increases the chances that it actually fucking is.’

Now, this strikes me as the funniest thing I’ve heard all night, a view that I demonstrate by falling off my stool with the force of my laughter.

‘Murray!’ squeaks Jakki.

‘I’m fine, I’m fine.’

I am as well. Somehow—luck not judgement—I managed to prevent my broken fingers from taking any impact. Jakki sticks out her arm and I take her hand. But she’s had too many Breezers to mount a successful rescue effort and I bring her crashing down on top of me. She lies there panting for a moment, her plump breasts moulding themselves over my face. The coke and the alcohol—as well as the fact that the sensation is unde-niably pleasant—cause my brain to fast-forward through some fairly disgusting thoughts before guilt and shame regain supremacy and press stop. ‘Thoffy, Thakki,’ I say—a soft pad of boob is pressing onto my mouth, preventing normal speech. She won’t be able to see me blushing but surely she can feel the heat from my cheeks that’s threatening to melt her bra. She manages to peel herself off me and then attempts to push herself upright by planting a hand first in my stomach and then in my groin. Her face breaks into a drunken grin and she says, ‘My God, you’re big.’

You do not know the half of it, darling.

She sees I’m not smiling—anything but—and her grin fades. We look at each other in embarrassment. Her hand is still somehow welded to my groin. We’re saved by an explosion. A thunderous crack followed by the tinkling of a thousand fragments of glass hitting the pavement outside. Something—a table? A bouncer? An art director with a death wish?—has gone through a plate-glass window.

two: you work in advertising. you earn more in a week than the average filipino takes home in a year. what do you know about crisis? (#ulink_1c6ba9d5-bd2f-59e3-9a29-7d3df92169f7)