Collecting
A friend of mine had an
extra ticket to an upmarket whisky-tasting at an upmarket saloon and offered it
to me for free, so what the hell. This particular fashionable boozeteria was
down an alley and to the left off the main drag. The tasting was up a flight of
stairs in an open room looking down on the bar itself, which was no doubt
either made of recycled timber or constructed of some exquisite material; I
never got close enough to look.
We turned in our
tickets and received a little stemware glass each, then found a couple of
places at a cluster of small, round, knee-high tables. I felt just as much at
home as I would’ve at a Gloriavale dinner sampling Kool-Aid flavours or a
skinhead-and-swastika pissup swilling Double Brown. The master of ceremonies, a
shortish, wiry young entrepreneur with a standard-issue sternum-length beard
and waxed moustache, complemented by that shaved-behind-the-ears side-pompadour
hairdo, walked around the room uttering smooth patter whilst pouring everybody
a sip-or-so of an elderly single-malt from some remote Hebredian island into our
little glasses. It did go down most pleasantly, thank you. He told us how much
we could buy it for, special with club membership.
It wasn’t that pleasant.
I made a little joke
about that and the people sitting near me grinned or tittered or looked askance
at me or all three.
The well-dressed bloke
sitting to my right had ordered up a big plate of the bar’s gourmet hot chips
and invited all of us at the round-table cluster to help ourselves, so I
scooped up a handful. They were indeed yummy. My friend, engrossed in dialogue
with a Swedish woman, didn’t even notice the chips. Everybody in the room but
me seemed to be engaged in chummy chatter.
My occasional witty
little observations to nobody in particular were like dancing with a broom.
Then Our Genial Host
made the rounds again, this time with some artisan bourbon, which wasn’t all
that much to my taste, but I still had no trouble getting it down. It prompted
me to try my hillbilly accent when commenting on its qualities. No laughs for
that.
Damn, that was a tough
audience.
Even with club
membership, though, that fancy corn liquor was also out of my range. As if I
cared.
I grabbed some more
chips.
My friend turned to me
and snapped, ‘Don’t eat up all the chips. Why don’t you leave a few for the
people who bought them?’
This triggered one of
my big psychological disorder reactions and I threw the chips that were in my
hand into my friend’s face.
One good thing about
whisky tastings is that people ignore shit that in other settings would cause a
scene. My friend just turned with a sniff back to the breath of fresh air from Scandinavia . The general mumble-shuffle-humba-jumba of a
couple dozen conversations continued to susurrate about
the room without a
hitch.
Another smooth whisky
of some sort – Irish, if I remember correctly – available with club membership
at an astronomical price.
The bloke who’d bought
the chips smiled and introduced himself to me. Len. He said that my friend had
been a fuckwaddle.
Len had a blonde
moustache-beard-and-hair combo stamped from the same cookie-cutter as the
grog-flogger’s and those of about half of the men on the premises. He was
wearing a charcoal-grey-with-chalk-stripes three-piece suit that fit him just
fine, a baby-blue-and-white striped shirt with a white collar, and no tie. He
couldn’t have been much over 40, but he had those engaging grin-wrinkles at the
corners of his eyes. A charmer.
A waiter showed up with
a bowl of edamame beans Len had ordered. He told me to tuck in. I looked over at
my friend, then back at Len, who shrugged.
Len
did property development, he told me. I confessed to being a freelance editor.
He told me that his girlfriend Holly, sitting to his right, was also an editor,
currently working on a book written by an old school chum of Benazir Bhutto. ‘Y’know
– used to be Pakistan
Yes, I knew.
She and I exchanged
nods. She was decorative, of course.
We all agreed that
editors are an odd bunch, compulsive as hell anytime they see anything in
writing. We laughed about it.
The Man made another
circuit, this time with something Japanese. We drank to each other’s health.
My credentials as a
compulsive word-worker established, and the cumulative effect of the various
whiskies ensconced in my bloodstream, I launched into the history and etymology
of the word whisky. Len actually didn’t seem bored. He knew about uisge-beatha, an old Scots Gaelic word
for what came to be known as whisky.
‘Family heritage,’ he
told me. ‘My last name’s MacNaughton. Highlanders.’
‘It’s wonderful how
many words we have for whisky,’ I mused. ‘Not as many as for penis or vagina,
maybe, or fucking, but there’s plenty of them.’
Len said, ‘Grog.’
I took off a bit before
getting a hold of myself. ‘Liquor, spirits, hooch, booze, firewater, rotgut, poteen,
sauce, white lightening, wee dram, drop of the pure, aquavita, hooker’s
toothbrush …’
Len laughed. ‘Fuck, you
know a shitload of them. Whisky must loom large in your life.’
‘I just love to fuck
with words,’ I told him. ‘I work with words; I play with words. I have a word
collection.’
‘Really? A word
collection?’ This seemed to impress him. ‘I’m into collecting, too. Absorbing
stuff. A word collection, eh? Hunh.’
He got up to go to the
loo, stopping to schmooze with one well-dressed whisky sampler after another
every few steps. Like my dog stopping every few metres when we walked to sniff
where other dogs have peed. Holly smiled seductively at me before heading to
the loo also.
A dozen or so words in
English for urination sauntered through my mind.
The next time I saw Len
MacNaughton was at a civic reception at the Gardens. He was brilliantly turned
out in a three-piece 1930s-ish suit; the loose-fit jacket and pleated,
high-waisted trousers were of a light-fawn-to-sand-coloured material that
looked like a linen blend. The waistcoat was of a deep caramel hue, the shirt cream-coloured,
and the silk-looking cravat in earth-tones paisley. He was indeed something to
behold.
He was chatting with a bureaucratic-looking
woman in a dark business suit, but when he saw me he waved, excused himself,
and worked his way through the pack of nattering freeloaders to where I was
standing. He did the glad-to-see-you thing flawlessly. I actually felt guiltily
honoured. A fucking property developer.
After the human
equivalent of sniffing each other’s crotches he said, ‘How’s the word
collection coming along? Y’know, I’ve been thinking about that a lot.’
More flattery. I love
flattery. ‘How so?’
‘Fascinating stuff,
collecting. Been doing it most all of my life.’
‘Really? What do you
collect?’
‘Well, when I was a
kid, y’know, just the usual kid stuff – bottle caps, Indiana Jones crap – but
somewhere early on there I started thinking about collecting, y’know? The whole process. Why I did it. What effects
it had on me, and on the people around me, and on things in general.’
‘This was when you were
just a kid?’
‘No. No, it wasn’t all
at once. Just bit by bit.’
‘Like most things.’
‘Like most things. When
I was in my early teens, like some of the other boys in the neighbourhood I
started collecting detailed scale-model miniature zinc-alloy warships. World
War Two only. And of course after I had five or six I was hooked and started
badgering my dad to front me the readies to buy at least one or two or three of
those suckers a month.’ He took a good sip of the regulation reception merlot.
‘Well, they weren’t
cheap.’ He half-shrugged. ‘Now, my dad, he was pretty well fixed, and tended to
be agreeable, but after a few months he started getting uber-grumpy about it.
He couldn’t see the point, but he could see that I’d never have enough of them
and, like I said, they weren’t cheap. Also, he’s not a collector, so he just
didn’t know.’
He poured the rest of
the contents of his wine glass over his dry-from-talking throat, and I
suggested that we seek out refills.
‘So what happened?’
‘Alf Carpenter.’ We
touched glasses. ‘Alf Carpenter never seemed to lack money to buy more of those
fuckers. We had this naval-warfare strategy game that we played with dice on the
tile floor of the Carpenters’ game room. Or the Richters’. Bill Richter also
collected ’em’
We drank.
‘It was an obvious
lesson: it doesn’t matter how good you are at strategy when you’re hopelessly
outgunned.’
I nodded. ‘Obviously. That’s
why military budgets suck money away from what non-military people need.’
‘Yeah, I suppose.’
He didn’t seem
interested in the depredations-of-the-military-industrial-complex angle. I
didn’t press it.
‘But the real lessons I
learnt were about collecting, not navies.’
‘Interesting word,
collecting.’
‘Yeah, isn’t it?
There’s all kinds of collecting, and people collect for all kinds of reasons.’
We drank.
‘So you started a
collection collection in your mind.’ I approved of this. It tickled me. ‘Whatever
happened to your miniature warships?’
‘Bugger me if I can
remember. Always losing our battle games got old soon enough.’ He grinned.
‘Then it got good. When I was at uni my dad, who did know about some things, bought me an antique 1961
MGA Roadster, mint condition, so like Don Giovanni, I collected sexual
conquests.’
‘A rich white boy with
a flash car and no feelings for anybody but himself, uh, keeping score?’
‘That’s it. The
Communist Party could’ve used my example to recruit revolutionaries.’ He shook
his head contemplatively. ‘But it felt good. It felt fucking good!’
‘But was promiscuity a
real collection?’
‘Oh yeah. I used to
write up the particulars of each score right afterwards. Took keepsakes. Kept
’em in a file.’
‘Didja keep the file?’
‘Oh, look – here comes
the mayor wanting to do what mayors do in situations like this.’ He took out
his phone. ‘Here, give me your number. We’ll do lunch in a few days, okay? You
deserve to hear the rest of this, and I wanna tell it.’
The mayor huffed and
puffed and Len introduced us. Told him I was working on writing a book about
one of his projects. Winked at me.
Sure enough, Len called
me the next morning and arranged for us to do lunch the next day. I thought it
was kinda creepy, this sort of sudden, mismatched matey friendship, but
curiosity is my most distinguishing personal characteristic, so I went along –
cautiously.
He was already waiting
when I arrived at the Ho-Hum Café or whatever they called the generically la-di-da
joint that he’d chosen for the event, resplendent in a double-breasted blue
blazer, white ducks, two-toned shoes and a mostly magenta paisley cravat. He
greeted me as if I were his favourite brother just home from a couple of years
in the Papua New Guinea
We ordered coffees and
some fancy tucker – Len some kind of prawn and black bean salad and me the
chicken-liver pate. Chicken-liver pate always does it for me.
‘I imagine that you’re
wondering what I’m on about.’
‘Well, I may be
socially introverted, but I do have an enquiring mind.’
‘It’s that word
collection of yours.’
‘Yeah, what about it?’
‘The things you’re
collecting don’t cost any money!’
‘Well, there’s internet
access, and depreciation on my desktop, and a share of the power bill, too, of
course …’
‘Oh, stuff it! You’d be
paying that anyhow, especially with your job being what it is …’
‘True,’
‘… It doesn’t divert any
money from other needs! It doesn’t sequester scarce resources! It doesn’t
involve any sacrifice!’
The serving person
arrived with our flat whites – mine with soy milk, thank you. We enjoyed a bit
of companionable silence as we stirred, preparing the coffees and ourselves for
that first too-hot sip. Len was clearly able to tolerate higher-temperature
liquids in his mouth than I could. He
sucked in an impressive slurp, wiped his moustache with the back of his hand,
gave me what I supposed was a meaningful look – although what it was supposed
to mean I couldn’t fathom – and began ruminating.
‘After cashing in on the
first serious development I’d done without my dad I bought a 1940s art deco
house in Ham West, near the lake. Huntly brick, curved walls, glass-brick back
porch balustrade – and lighted niches in the halls just crying out for art deco
statuary.’
‘And you just couldn’t
let their cries go unanswered.’
‘I filled every niche
in the house and had a bloke in to build in a few more niches. Bought some
bauhaus tables and put figurines and statuettes on them – bronze, ormolu,
porcelain, spelter, pounamu, mixed media with chrome, marble, stainless steel,
ivory, ajoite, onyx, ebony, you name it – and definitely not the cheap stuff. I
went to auctions in London and Berlin Limousin
‘And?’
‘It was good. I’d
wander around the house at night in a teal satin smoking jacket with a cocktail
in one hand and a doobie in the other just grokking on them. It’s not just the
artistic talents of the sculptors. There’s a certain luscious richness about them, an aesthetic of
extravagance – did I mention that they all date from the 1930s?’
‘No.’
‘Such glibly
extravagant outlays on frills when all around millions were suffering from
want. The insensitivity is breathtaking …’
The waiter arrived with
the food. We tucked in.
‘So,’ I asked between
heavenly mouthfuls, ‘where is this taking us?’
He chomped on a prawn
and delicately set the tail aside. Me, sometimes I swallow the tails. I’m
terminally uncool.
‘Well, I decided to
take my collecting to the next logical level, and the house really wasn’t big
enough, so I bought a bigger place way back a long and shaded drive off River Road
‘And the next logical
level was … ?’
‘Mint-condition 1930s
luxury cars.’
‘The market has been
good for property development, then?’
‘Well, we’ve expanded
from our base in Hamilton
‘And a thick skin?’
‘Let me tell you about
my cars. I’ve built a jumbo garage for them on the River Road
Okay, he was focused on
collecting, not developing.
‘And of course,’ I
cooperated, ‘the cars exude an even greater disdain for people who were
struggling to make ends meet …’
‘Not just then. Now,
too. One thing the global market has taught me is that – who was it who said
it, Jesus? – The poor you have with ye always. Well now, in addition to
“always” we can add “everywhere.”’
We both chewed
thoughtfully for a few moments.
Then Len wiped his lips
with the paper serviette and gave me another of those puzzling meaningful
looks. In my mind I practiced what I’d say – polite and respectful but
unequivocal – if those looks were just a bit of gay grooming: Len definitely
didn’t do it for me in that way. Or it could’ve been him trying to suss out my
probable response to an offer of cocaine or something more exotic.
He then almost murmured,
‘You wanna see them, mate? They’re gob-smacking. Just seeing my 1932 Daimler
Double-Six up close puts you back into a world in which privilege wasn’t
shameful, and climbing inside is like stepping into another universe – and my
deco-streamlined ’37 Talbot Lago T150 SS Figoni and Falaschi Teardrop Coupe … ’
His voice trailed off as his soul took flight just thinking about it. ‘And I
also have a Duesenberg, a Bugatti, an Isotta-Fraschini …’
‘Relics of fascism.’
‘That and titled
snobbery. I sit in the back passenger seat of my ’38 Bentley limo and imagine
my uniformed chauffeur driving me to a weekend house party at some stately home
in the Cotswolds where everyone dresses for dinner, Lord Belchbottom gets
poisoned, and Hercule Poirot solves the mystery.’
‘I’ve thought about
that when watching old Poirot YouTubes.’
‘Good. Good.’ The
crinkle-eyed smile.
‘All that civilised
taste and stateliness,’ I mused, ‘financed by fortunes first made from slavery
and the depredations of empire.’
‘And don’t forget the
viciousness and debauchery concealed by gentility …’
‘… and enabled by an
exploited army of domestic servants, grateful for the opportunity to grovel.’
He chuckled just a bit
at that.
We finished our plates.
‘Do you think that
whoever it was that you bought these cars from donated some of what you paid
them to Oxfam or Save the Children?’
‘Haven’t a clue.
Listen, why don’t come over for a weekend house party? Experience the cars. Do
you have a partner?’
‘Nah. I doubt if I
could even get a date.’
‘That’s okay. You
remember Holly, right?’
‘Yup.’
‘And she remembers you.
Well, she’s got a twin sister, Polly. We could pair her off with you – to start
with – and don’t worry; she’s easy on the eyes. Used to do beauty pageants …’
‘Oh, like Trump?’
He laughed. ‘And she’s
got a degree or something in art history. She can tell you stories about those
art deco statues’ sculptors that’d curl your hair – if it wasn’t already curly,
which she likes,’ he smirked. ‘There’s another couple coming – uber hip and
good-looking. I guarantee you a great time.’
‘Guarantee, is it?’
‘When I say “party”,’
he smirked, ‘I aint talking about the Greens.’
He got up to pay the
tab for lunch, then gave me a big latin abrazo
as we left to go our separate ways.
‘I’ll call you when
it’s all worked out,’ he said as he turned away, ‘but don’t make any other
plans for the weekend.’
Walking back home
across the bridge, I paused to appreciate the polychrome grey of the
winter-afternoon sky, the tingle of the breeze on my skin, the dateless flow of
the river beneath me, and considered what Len was up to.
Obviously it involved
group sex.
Now, I have no objection
to group sex on any ideological level. I enjoyed it enormously the one time that
my ex-wife set up a scene with a couple she knew. It also, however, helped to fuel
the process of her becoming my ex. And although I have no objection to
homosexual activity in the abstract, the prospect of being a part of a bisexual
daisy chain with Len didn’t exactly make me bubble over with anticipation.
Still, I thought, a
cock’s a cock, and Len’s couldn’t be that much different to mine, with which
I’m thoroughly familiar, even if it was attached to him and not me. Could I get
it on with it in such a detached, impersonal way – cock in the abstract and not
as part of a man?
Huh.
Sure, sex has always felt
good, in my experience – no startling headline, that – but safe sex is an
illusion. That’s because sex is connected to myriad other things, such as
emotions and personal connection and the exercise of power.
The invitation probably
involved cocaine, too, if I had him sussed right. It’s a rich man’s drug, after
all. I’ve never been particularly fond of cocaine. It’s a dickhead’s drug. It follows. Rich men tend to be dickheads.
As I began walking again
I realised that in this case sex was a red herring rather than the anchovy of
bait. The real point was that I didn’t want to see Len’s wankermobiles, let
alone sit in them. And certainly not fuck and suck in them – or on them – or
snort coke off of them. Polly may indeed have been a beauty queen, and the
unnamed other couple good value for money, but Len gave me the creeps.
I read somewhere that
people dying in hospices tend to refuse to regret things that they’d done, and
overwhelmingly tend to regret things that they’d chickened out of doing. If I
do end up regretting not having engaged in an orgy with beauty-contest
competitors and a rich prick, oozing with entitlement and privilege, who gets
off on collecting luxuries only if it denies desperately poor people decent
lives, then I guess that’s the sort of person I’ll be when I die.
I wasn’t that sort of
person then. I’m not that sort of person now – I think. Anyway, I took out my
phone and blocked further incoming calls from Len’s number.
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