Cock and Bull

  They were drinking champagne. Alan always kept a bottle in the fridge for special surprise occasions, and this was one. He and Naomi had always said that they wanted to have a large family. They had an awareness that although the world might not need that many more children, it did need children that were brought up by overwhelmingly conscientious and committed people. Since that clearly meant them, there was something of an obligation on them to fulfil a better than average quota.

  And in this new life, he could find himself a new beginning. Alan raised his glass, toasting himself as much as Naomi. (We have remarked before on Alan’s awful soliloquies. And here was an excellent opportunity for one.) Shocking things still shot in front of the new father’s eyes, but they were fading. He knew that in time, once he had weathered Bull’s fury, that they would disappear altogether. He scrutinised the pretty features of his good wife. So that explained the eggy smell, she was creatin’. And Alan found that once he was actually aware of his wife’s pregnancy his physical repulsion began to abate. He could even imagine them making love again. Perhaps even very soon. Maybe as soon as they finished the champagne.

  Outside in the garden Bull saw everything. He shifted, feeling cramp in his right leg, and the swelling discomfort in his left. Hot tears rolled down his pudgy cheeks. A hot flush crept down from the roots of his ginger hair. He saw them smile together; he saw them hug one another; he saw them kiss; he saw them drink champagne. How the hell was he to know, as he watched the tragic dumb show, that this wasn’t just any old ordinary evening for the Margoulieses. So Alan had lied to him about his marriage as well! He had said that it was all over, that he felt nothing for his wife, that he would up sticks and live with Bull, were it not for the possible career repercussions. And here he was carousing, with that very look in his eyes that Bull had seen before. The look that immediately preceded Alan adopting a pseudo-rural accent and saying to Bull, ‘Why don’t you roll over now, m’dear’.

  Bull crouched and shuffled backwards out of the yard. He felt shamed and ashamed. And as he straightened up in the dark street he looked up, and over towards Archway. There it was, arching across the night. Its single span perhaps offering some sweet relief. Suicide Bridge.

  He parked in a nearby street and walked out on to the bridge. Below him the lights of London spread away in a wash of low wattage. Their dimness gave the lie to the very vastness of the city. Bull heard its distant roar, its night-time sough, its terminal cough.

  It was the betrayal he couldn’t stand. Everything else he could have borne—even the ghastly thought of his coming, elephantiatic confinement—but not the betrayal. He no longer wanted to live in a world that harboured such duplicity. He clutched the thick, old bronze of the safety rail and made ready to hoist himself over in one, swift, practised bar vault (he was, after all, a fairly competent athlete). He was ready to meet him, or her. Whoever the sick joker was, whom he must perforce call his maker.

  Epilogue

  BUT BULL DIDN’T kill himself. Instead, hiding his pregnant leg inside a pair of hopelessly unfashionable loon trousers that he found in the bottom of his wardrobe, he fled to San Francisco.

  There, by the Bay, where the light quality alone assists in the suspension of disbelief, and people are more accustomed to the bizarre, Bull had his and Alan’s love child. It was a boy, and Bull, in some lurch of atavism, had it baptised an Episcopalian.

  The clinic’s exorbitant fees and even more exorbitant hush money were, surprisingly enough, paid in full under Bull’s special rugby injury policy. Which just goes to show that actuaries really have their work cut out for them nowadays.

  If you’re ever passing Cardiff Arms Park—not that that many people do just that—drop in and visit the sports goods and memorabilia shop there. A large, gingerish man will welcome you. And even if you quite clearly aren’t going to buy anything, he’ll make you feel at home with his easy charm and his frank and open features.

  Although not a Welshman, Bull has become entirely accepted here. His enthusiasm for the great game is never in doubt. As a single parent he did arouse some comment amongst the sporting community when he came to live in Cardiff. But over the years his large and darkly handsome son Kenneth has become popular with the local kids, very much one of the boys.

  A NOTE ON THE AUTHOR

  Will Self is the author of four collections of short stories (the first of which, The Quantity Theory of Insanity, won the 1992 Geoffrey Faber Memorial Award), five novels (of which How the Dead Live was shortlisted for the Whitbread Novel of the Year in 2002), and four non-fiction works. He is a regular broadcaster on television and radio and as a journalist a contributor to a plethora of publications. He lives in London with his wife and four children.

  A NOTE ON THE TYPE

  The text of this book is set in Bembo. This type was first used in 1495 by the Venetian printer Aldus Manutius for Cardinal Bembo’s De Aetna, and was cut for Manutius by Francesco Griffo. It was one of the types used by Claude Garamond (1480–1561) as a model for his Romain de L’Université, and so it was the forerunner of what became standard European type for the following two centuries. Its modern form follows the original types and was designed for Monotype in 1929.