“You just want a slave is all.”
“There’s that, too.”
Neal snorted, then removed something foul from his moustache, which reminded me: “Actually, you’ll have to completely shave off your disgusting fucking beard and moustache, too. Deal-breaker.”
Neal stared around at his Samsung box with evident fondness. He’d drawn cupboards and windows on its inside with a Sharpie. “I’m not quite sold yet, Raymond.”
“Two short sweet months, one thousand quid and afterwards Dollywood.”
Neal patted the walls of his soon to be former home. “I’ll miss you, old box.” He stood and I could see invisible wavy stink lines rising upward from his carcass.
“I take it that’s a yes.”
“It’ll be an adventure.”
“Good. I’m two blocks away.”
“Don’t you have to stop and get some of that lice cream first?”
“That’s okay, I’ve got some at home.”
Neal froze.
“No, Neal, stocking liberal amounts of anti-nit cream is not part of my regular regime of recruiting and eventually murdering vagabonds. A sexually active man simply has to take a few precautions.”
Neal snickered. “You? Sexually active? Sorry, Ray, I figure you haven’t had proper physical contact with another person’s body since Friends went off the air.”
“Spare me your editorializing. Do you speak any other languages?”
“No.”
“Any other skills you’re keeping hidden from the world?”
“I can juggle. And do tricks with coins. That’s probably it.”
“Perfect skill set. You’ll do just fine.”
We approached my building and went around back. “Your first job as personal assistant, Neal, is to pick all this crap off the ground and bring it upstairs.”
“All of it?”
“Not the bottles and take-away food refuse. Just anything resembling clothing. And there’s a throw pillow over there. Give it a shake to freshen it up.”
“It looks like there’s a kickass herb garden underneath all this stuff, Raymond.”
“I know. Herbs: what would we do without them? Nature’s little survivors.”
“If I’d known about this garden, I’d have changed my diet weeks back.”
“Rosemary sprigs on your tinned cat food?”
“Look!” said Neal. “Half a pack of uneaten Starbursts!”
“Yes, Neal, that is correct: life is good.”
05
I was in the hire car’s rear with Fiona en route to the airport, a generous gesture on her part, but a gesture made only because Billy let it slip during a phone call that she was jetting to France at roughly the same time as I was leaving for Los Angeles. In any event, we first had to pick up Neal a few blocks from my place, where he was getting a facial to tidy up his complexion, which hadn’t been exposed to sunlight since the Spice Girls ruled the pop charts.
“So Raymond, I hear you managed to rustle up an assistant.”
“Only fitting for a man in my position.”
“Darling, how on earth did you find someone willing to put up with you?”
“Well, his name is Neal and he has a long track record of living and working in the, um, outdoors.”
“You’ve always wanted a slave, Raymond—and frankly, a slave would be a nice boost to your ego. You’re so insecure. No wonder you haven’t been properly laid by a non-whore in ages.”
When did everyone become an evaluator of my private life?
“By the way,” Fi added, “I Googled Kiribati—it’s lovely.”
A chill came over me. “Fi, you won’t actually be physically coming to the Pacific, will you? Not that I wouldn’t love to see you and all.”
“Darling, you know me better. I’ll just sit here and collect fifteen percent of what you make.” She paused to stare out the window. “Who is that … fascinating man up ahead?”
“Who?” The car stopped beside Neal, who sat on the curb staring into another discarded Caffè Nero paper cup as if it contained dancing pixies. His diseased Chewbacca locks gone, and some ghastly white shaved areas contrasting with a decade’s worth of windburn, he looked like the sort of relative everyone dreads showing up at a wedding: off his meds, without loyalties and perhaps possessing a bit more insight than is good for him. Some dishtowels repurposed as scarves gave Neal his preferred dash of eighties style.
I was about to call for him, but Fiona shushed me and rolled down her window. Her overture to Neal was preempted just then by two scrumptious schoolgirls, who stopped to bend over him. “Sir,” one of them asked, “Are you all right?”