The Information Junkie Read Online Free PDF

'how much do I owe you?'
    'I'll bill you,' he said.
    I slipped out of the surgery and took the velvet Underground to the pub near Piccadilly Circus where I'd arranged to meet Martin:
    'Where have you been? Haven't seen you for millennia. You've ignored my E's.'
    'Got a confession, Charlie,' he said. I looked at the table: there were two half-empty glasses. I searched his eyes and started to feel a sorrow. 'I've been parting the Red Sea.'
    'You've been to the Middle East?' I said hopefully, desperately, confusedly.
    'No,' he said. 'A lot closer to home.'
    Oh, buddies. Started to get the picture. Saw the Fierychick: famous Ffion. Saw him parting the Red Sea. Saw him playing in a saffron pasture. Saw him meandering in the crimson meadow. Saw him undulating in the auburn area. Saw him ploughing a red furrow. Saw him paddling the pink canoe. Saw him playing the pink elephant with Ffion.
    'Yeah,' I said, 'you told me you liked her, you told me you fancied her, you indicated she was beddable. But don't you think—since I invented her—that I have first choice?'
    'No, mate,' he said. 'You've got to think of B, think of Belinda. You're married.'
    What was it I felt—envy, jealousy, resentment? Perhaps all three.
    'Let's be strictly accurate here, Martin. You haven't been parting the Red Sea. You've been sampling the saffron, stimulating the stigma, caressing the crocus. Haven't you?'
    He looked at me in that big-balled way, legs widely splayed:
    'Charlie,' he said, 'I haven't been able to cross my legs for twenty years. Know why? Afraid of bruising myself.'
    Only this time I didn't laugh. And then there she was beside him: gold pendant round her neck, violet-coloured top, knitted tights; and hair—Niagaras of flame—pouring down her back. What could I say? I just stood up and left. As I walked away I could feel both their eyes on me, and her hand pulling him closer. Without looking I saw an arm slip round his back and watched their differences disappear.
    Oh, buddies, whence this dark tone, this new development?
    Ffion had told me she held a degree in Romance Languages; I'd seen metres of books to prove it. Martin had only a little French; why the attraction?
    He was still acting titan-testicled when it was no longer fashionable to do so. Yet he was perceptive:
    'Angst,' he said.
    I crumpled my brow.
    'Age, mate.' He smiled dourly. 'You've been on the planet too long.'
    And, of course, Martin was right. I had suspected it for some time: it was all to do with age. Didn't like being old; didn't want to be older; knew I was older; couldn't face it. Hence the fantasy chicks.
    Yet that didn't explain Ffion. If I had created her how could she appear with Martin in a pub near Piccadilly Circus? I didn't dare go back to the doctor; I couldn't say, 'Hey, doc, think I'm going bonkers.' Because he'd just look at me, then glance at his watch.
    And we were all too old now to go out, get lagered-up and splatter the sidewalk with tomato skins. So, resolution of a different sort was called for. Oh, dear buddies, I don't like this vein at all. It's like a funeral after several weddings: three couplings and a derailment. I knew that previous tone was too manic. I could not sustain it. I started that just before a full moon when my monthly cycle was at its peak. I always get uptight at full moons. (Or, is it fulls moon? Fool's moon?) And what lies behind mania? Something you want to escape. But can't.
    So, babes, there we are. I had to get rid of Martin. Then I'd have Ffion all to myself. Trouble was, that would complicate the succession of our companies because Martin owned fifty-one per cent. He wasn't married, never had been; he'd shacked up with a lot of chicks including, in the last six months, a teenage, badly-bleached blonde who had a ring through her eyebrow. Why? I asked. To keep her brains in , said Belinda.
    So, Martin would have to go. How could I dispense with him?
    Then Fiery dropped me a vellum. It was a cream, A4,