Dorian Read Online Free PDF Page B

buying them. He understood, of course, that the aesthetics of drug-dealing left much to be desired. This painfully petit bourgeois little flat, marooned eight storeys above Marylebone High Street, its chintz-wrapped windows looking out over the Westway flyover, was no mud-bricked stall in the walls of an ancient citadel. No, this was no caravanserai, or souk, and nor was Honey – a stringy blonde, in loose white smock and tight black leggings – a noble spice merchant, with a scented beard and indigo robes. Her conversation with her customer displayed no elaborate courtesies, nor alluded to prices with great subtlety, hiding them in invocations of the Prophet. On the contrary, the two of them sat rapping in front of a glass-topped coffee table, upon which she unceremoniously weighed up the product using jewellers’ scales.
    ‘Yes,’ said Wotton, ‘I remember that fifty quid owing, but I sorted it out with you the day before yesterday.’
    ‘Nah,’ Honey sniffed, ‘your mate came by and racked up a g on your slate yesterday evening.’
    ‘Christ – I’ve got to take more drugs than I want just to keep up with that bastard. All right, here’s a hundred and seventy.’
    Dorian turned from his careful examination of a modular wall rack, which contained compartments for picture books, pot plants, pen pots and potpourri, to see Wotton laying notes down on the table, while Honey poured powders into envelopes and neatly folded them.
    ‘Not these two.’ Wotton stayed her hand, took two of the envelopes, deftly married their contents, withdrew a small capsule from his capacious pocket, unscrewed it, poured in a tiny dun cascade, screwed it up again, and dropped it in a waistcoat pocket; the drug wraps were tucked in another. All these actions were neat, precise, focused. They spoke of concomitant thought processes – fold, wrap, tap, snort, shoot, walk, pay – going on in the Wotton psyche, while the sweat simmered on his brow. ‘Right,’ Wotton rapped, ‘that’s that. But before we go, chère Miel , my young friend would love to see your splendid collection.’
    Honey rose, and, gums smacking, nails scratching, she led them out of the room, down a short corridor stinking of air freshener and into a back bedroom. The entire room had been crammed full of stuff. On three freestanding Dexion shelving units reposed irons, televisions, stereo units, tape recorders, kettles, food blenders, and all – as Wotton had said – still in their packaging. There were also rails hung with polythene-wrapped clothes, and many many stuffed animals. Honey garbled a wired commentary on this materialistic superfluity, while massaging the shoulders of a trouser press. ‘Not that I need all of ’em, yuh, but these Corby ones only have three pressing settings, whereas these Danish ones have five…’ While she rattled on, Wotton felt for Dorian’s hand and took it, a gesture the younger man found simultaneously tender and subversive.
    Back in the car, as they barrelled down Park Lane, Wotton yanked the little capsule out, fiddled with it, stuck it up his nose, honked noisily, repeated the fiddle, then passed it to Dorian. ‘Just hold it up your nostril and sniff – go on.’
    ‘I’m not sure –’
    ‘Go on, I insist. It would be bad manners not to.’
    ‘Oh, all right.’ And he did, he sniffed. Dorian had decided to absorb as much of Henry Wotton as possible through whichever membrane presented itself. He knew his own limitation: he had money but no real style. His upbringing had been here and there, on the fringes of film sets, in foreign hotels, in transit, sitting at tables with hired, pan-European staff. It had given him polish but no shine. He lacked the deeper lustre of someone like Wotton, who by remaining in situ had acquired cultural verdigris.
    The Jaguar coasted to a halt at some traffic lights. The stereo was cranked right up and belting out ‘Too Drunk to Fuck’ by the Dead Kennedys. It was amazing that the duo