The Stars’ Tennis Balls

right buttons’ and ‘sent the right signals’.

This evening, this hero of ordinary decent law-abiding citizens was watching a BBC special on the ‘Dot Coin Phenomenon’ chiefly in order to see how much of what he had said in an interview to the producers of the programme had been cut, mangled in meaning or entirely omitted. When footage of Simon Cotter appeared he laughed contemptuously at the accompanying hyperbolic journalese, but his ears pricked up at the reports that Cotter was coming home to England. He opened his laptop, keyed in his password and made an instant note in his journal.

Like Winston Churchill, I find that sometimes it is enough just to read or hear ‘patriotism’ ‘England’ or ‘home’ for tears to spring to my eyes. I believe that ‘senile lability’ is the phrase for it. In my case it seems to have come early. What a turnaround … as a teenager, my prick used to twitch and leak at the mere sight of words like ‘youth’ and ‘boy’. In middle age ‘family’, ‘hearth’ and ‘country’ are the words that jump from the page and it is my eyes that do the twitching and leaking. Different symptoms of the same sickness, no doubt…

This Simon Cotter interests me. He has not nailed his colours to the mast. He thrives on enterprise and must perforce be a natural Tory, for all his hippy-happy appearance. Now that the glamour of New Labour is wearing thin he must be caught and cultivated. It is probable that he will instinctively see my bill as a threat. If I ask to see him however … suggest that I value his input, am anxious to consult all interested parties, canvas all views, hear all opinions, weigh all options, include not exclude, etc. etc., he may be flattered into some sort of cooperation. What a catch he would be.

Ashley closed the lid and looked up at the television screen once more. His Private Member’s Bill was being discussed. Some lank-haired millionaire yob in a tee- shirt was accusing Barson-Garland of trying to create a sterilised intranet that would cut Britain off from the rest of the world.

‘Cyberspace is like a giant city,’ the scrofulous oaf insisted in vowels that made Ashley wince and an intonation that rose at the end of every sentence as if everything this poltroon said were a question. ‘Along with the shopping centres, galleries, museums and libraries, it’s got its slums and red-light districts. Sure. That’s true in Amsterdam, New York, Paris, Berlin and London. It’s not true in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia or Montgomery, Alabama. Where would we rather live, London or Riyadh? Amsterdam or Alabama? Think about it, yeah? Wherever there’s freedom, you’ll find sex, drugs and rock and roll. The internet’s no different.’

Ashley snorted with derision. ‘And wherever there are sex, drugs and rock and roll,’ he said, ‘you will find desolated communities, dysfunctional families and moral wastelands befouled by gibbering nonentities like you.’

He was pleased with that and added it to his diary entry for the day.

Rufus Cade let himself into the flat and flopped onto a sofa.

‘I’m getting too fucking old for this,’ he told himself with a heavy sigh.

He could see the answering machine light flashing and ignored it. Probably Jo, Jane or Julie moaning about money. Why couldn’t he have married a girl whose name didn’t begin with a J? Just for once in his life at least. Given it a try. Lucy at the office, she was a good girl. A good girl and a damned good shag and all. Zoл too. And Dawn. They didn’t threaten him with court orders and solicitor’s letters. They called him ‘Roofy’ and teased him about his weight. In his next life he’d run a mile before speaking to any Js. Whining bitches the lot of them. School fees, health insurance, holidays. Every child, he thought furiously as he tapped out the last of his coke onto the glass-topped coffee table, every last sodding child has to have work done on their fucking teeth. Some bastard in Soho has decided that braces are now cool and there isn’t a teenager in the land without expensive multi-coloured metalwork wired across their front fucking snappers. Bollocks to the lot of them.

He picked up a newspaper. A new-laid pubescent dot.com millionaire grinned out from the front page, acne flaring.

‘Cunts,’ muttered Rufus. ‘How the fuck do they do it?’ Rufus had sent Michael Jackson, Madonna, Marilyn Monroe and the Prince of Wales to the launch of another new e-commerce company (e-tailers they called themselves now, ho, fucking ho) at the Business Design Centre just the week before. For some reason the people behind the launch – CotterDotCom, who bloody else? – had asked Rufus to turn up too, which had annoyed and puzzled him. He had better things to do than watch Madonna spilling wine and Michael Jackson having his hair pulled by drunken journalists. Why the hell did they want him there? He could hardly argue with them. Who pays the piper calls the tune and all that, and CDC paid better than anyone. Most people thought his agency was already over the hill (too eighties, sweetie, so vieux chapeau) which meant that the imprimatur of a hot shop like CDC took on special value. Rufus would have jumped naked through fiery hoops if they’d demanded it.

He had stood like a fat lemon watching his models move around the room with drinks and canapés. He listened to a presentation that bored and irritated him and he got drunk. Mind you, he did score, so it wasn’t entirely a wasted morning. Come to think of it, he reminded himself, checking his watch, John should be here soon.

Weirdest thing. Just coming out of the cubicle after a nice toot and there’s this big fat old guy combing his hair in the mirror.

– Got some more if you want it.

– More what? Unlikely he would be law, but better safe than sorry.

– If you’re not interested, no worries. Very pure, very cheap. Try a line.

The guy hands me a wrap, just like that. Incredible. And fuck me, was it ever wild gear. Whooh! Nearly blows my fucking head off.

– How much? I ask, coming back out of the crapper, eyes watering, heart pumping like a locomotive.

– Fifty a gram.

Fifty. I mean, what? It was sixty fifteen years ago. Fifty. There’s got to be a catch.

– Come on, man. What’s the catch?

– Need you to take an ounce at a time. Got to get it off my hands.

– Look, I don’t have much cash on me at the moment.

– Got a card?

– You’re kidding. Thought for a second he meant a credit card. Oh, right. I give him my business card.

– Faces? What’s that then?

– Model agency, the waiting staff out there. They’re mine.

– The look-alikes?

– We call them featured stand-ins in the business.

– Yeah, right. Look-alikes. And there’s me thinking that really was Prince Charles. The name’s John. Give us a call.

And off he goes, leaving me with over two grams in the wrap which he doesn’t even ask for back. Don’t remember much more of that day, I can tell you. And next day a whole ounce for only five hundred and fifty quid. That soon went, twenty-eight grams in five days. Thirty grams if you include the initial freebie. You’re burning the candle at both ends and the middle, Rufus.

The door-bell chimed and he got up from the sofa and went over to the entry-phone.

‘John.’

‘Oh hi. Come on up.

By the time John had got to the top of the stairs his face was streaked in sweat and he was wheezing like a perished accordion.

‘Christ,’ he gasped. ‘Haven’t you heard of lifts?’

‘Mm, sorry about that, mate.’

The flat was on the second floor but even Rufus, flabby, overweight and unfit as he was, could usually manage it without heaving and panting like a dying walrus.

‘Get you a voddie?’

‘Nah, I’m driving.’

Rufus poured one for himself and watched, out of the corner of his eye, as John took a baggie from his pocket and dropped it on the coffee table.

‘Chop one for yourself,’ said Rufus.

‘I’ll love you and leave you, mate.’

Oh, such bliss. So many dealers liked to hang around. Worse still, so many stayed at home and forced you to visit. It was the part of drug life that Rufus most hated. The enforced pretence of matiness. If you want a pork chop, all you have to do is go into a butcher’s shop, he reasoned. You order and walk out with the fucking thing in a bag. No chit-chat, no shit. No ‘cheers mate’. Visit a dealer for a supply of charlie on the other hand, and you’re in for an hour of droning views on music, sport, politics, genetically modified crops and the evils of the World Bank. A sensitive social dance had to be danced, to show that you didn’t think of the guy as a servant or social inferior. You had to pretend that the whole transaction had something to do with friendship and mutual studenty Bohemian cool. It was a relief that he got none of that bullshit from John.

Still, he thought, it would be nice to see him take a line just once. Just to show that he did. Dealers who didn’t use always made Rufus nervous and guilty.

‘Can I ask you something?’ John said as he stood in the doorway, ready to leave. He looked a little nervous.

‘Sure. Ask away.

‘You don’t fancy coming in with me on something bigger, do you?’

‘Bigger?’

‘It’s my brother, see. He keeled over with a heart attack a couple of weeks ago …

‘Oh, bummer,’ Rufus said. ‘I am sorry.’ And you’ll soon be following him, he added to himself. Not so much a gene pool, more a lard pool.

‘No, it’s not that. He was a streak of fucking piss as it goes. Couldn’t stand the sight of him. Only, fact is, he didn’t have no family besides me and I’ve inherited five kilos of his bleeding gear and I don’t know how to shift it. Found it in a cupboard when I was clearing his flat out.’

‘John, I’d love it. Believe me, I’d love it, it’s great gear but I don’t deal. I wouldn’t know where to begin.'

‘No, what I’m saying is that I heard tell of some guys up in Stoke Newington who might be in the market. Turkish boys. Thought you could come up with me and help push it through. I’d go sixty-forty with you.’

‘If you already know who these people are, why do you need me?’

‘Well, I don’t want to get ripped off. You, you’re a businessman, you’ve got the public school accent and all that, touch of class. They wouldn’t dare do the dirty on someone like you. Someone like me, they’d probably just take the stuff and dump me in an alley, you know what I mean?’