Worst. Person. Ever(2)
“What is?”
“The food trapped in my esophagus. It’s in my stomach now.”
“Fucking hell, that’s disgusting, Fi.”
“How is that disgusting, Ray?”
“It’s like you’ve just taken a massive shit inside yourself.”
Fi burst into a cackle. “Sometimes I miss your childlike take on the world, Raymond.” She smiled at me.
“Fi, look, just give me a fucking shooting assignment. I’m three months behind on my rent.”
“Stop throwing your money away on dildos and Asian preteen porn, darling. Then you won’t always be broke.”
“I don’t go to Thailand, dear. Nor am I into goats and gerbils.”
“So what did you really spend all your money on?”
“Fi, need you be such a raging twat?”
“Coke bill overdue?”
“Coke’s a bit out of my league these days.” I glanced over at her door to see a pink silk ascot tied around the knob. “Hmmm. What about you—into autoerotic asphyxiation these days?”
“Oh, don’t mention autoerotic asphyxiation to me! Fucking entertainers! All these actors and musicians ever want to do is strangle themselves while they’re getting off. I can’t believe more of them haven’t died.”
“How does that whole strangling thing work, anyway? I mean, do actors recite a bit of Hamlet, sing a song or two and then suddenly, Oi! I’m famous and I think I’d better go strangle myself while I come!?”
“Pretty much. And you’d think they’d hire someone to babysit them while they do it.”
“Yes, but that would wreck the fun, wouldn’t it? ‘Ooh! I can’t breathe! Help me! Help me!’ Not very sexy at all. Chances are your babysitter would be so repulsed by your lack of commitment she’d let you hang anyway.”
“I keep the ascot there to give my clients proper hanging lessons. The DIY sites on the Internet are hopeless, and a dead client is a client who’s no longer making me money.”
I looked at Fiona’s beloved onyx coke box with sad beagle eyes.
“Blow!” said Fi. “Excellent idea.” She dived in.
God only knows how badly I was salivating at this impudent display of purchasing clout. She vacuumed two rails, wiped her nostrils and said, “I like to see you grovel and be deprived of drugs. Life is good.”
“You ball-curdling witch. What is your problem?”
“My problem is you, Raymond darling. I don’t like having you in the same city as me.”
“Can’t say I like it much, either.”
“Yes, but the thing is that you, darling, are a failure. When people bump into you, they justifiably equate me with you, and you have to imagine how that makes me feel.” She put the coke box back into her drawer. “I really can’t have that, at least not until a few more years have gone by and all memory of you and your rapidly accelerating downward failure spiral has faded away like a pensioner’s capacity for long division.”
“I see.” I leaned back in my chair. “I seem to remember a much younger version of you making bedroom eyes at me from the floor of the 1992 Daytime BAFTA Awards when (if I may pat myself on the back here) I accepted my trophy for Best Hand-held Camera Work in a cooking or DIY home-improvement show.”
“You have to stop living in the past, Raymond.” She made her oh-why-not face. “How would you like a camera gig in the sun-kissed Pacific, ogling young beauties all day, just you and your shoulder cam?”
I kept silent, awaiting the catch.
“There’s no catch, darling.”
“What’s the catch?”
Fiona sighed. “Paranoia has never looked good on you, Raymond. Here I am offering to rescue you from your prison cell of a life and you make me sound cruel and vindictive.”
“What’s the catch?”
“I don’t know if I’d call it a catch, per se …”
“What’s the catch?”
“Darling, you would have to work for Americans.”
“Jesus fucking Christ.”
“Sorry, darling, but take it or leave it. A friend, Sarah, handles the people for a U.S. network and she owes me a favour.”
“Who’s this Sarah, then?”
“She’s—well, I’m hoping one day she’ll become my … special friend.”
Doubtless some filthy labia-chewing swamp raccoon. “For God’s sake, you’re not still tinkering with lesbianism, are you?”
“If trying to grow as a person is a crime, I stand accused.” Fi clasped her hands together on her desk like a schoolgirl. “Sarah, like me, is only trying to expand her world, and I like to think of myself as a nurturing, mentoring woman.”