"I'm not finished. After you've sheared away that viral beavers' nest, you are going to apply lice cream to your head-no, your whole body-and then shower it off. After this, you will don clean garments supplied to you by me. You will take vitamins, drink a gla.s.s of milk and then, at six o'clock from Heathrow, you will be flying along with me to the islands of Kiribati in the South Pacific, where you'll be working as my personal a.s.sistant. I've just scored a gig as a cameraman on some dreadful American TV show where real-life people, not celebrities, s.h.a.g each other for a few weeks and then turn into cannibals in front of my camera."

"One of those survival shows, then?"

Hallelujah. "Exactly."

"Why do you need an a.s.sistant?"

"Is it wrong to care about other people, Neal? Is it wrong to want to help?"

"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 f.u.c.king 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 carca.s.s.

"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 s.e.xually active man simply has to take a few precautions."

Neal snickered. "You? s.e.xually 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 a.s.sistant, Neal, is to pick all this c.r.a.p 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 kicka.s.s 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 a.s.sistant."

"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-wh.o.r.e 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 Caffe 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?"

"Me? Oh yes, why thank you, girls. Kind young women like you make my day."

The duo blushed. "Oh, sir, anything to help."

"You sweet, sweet girls. Thank you."

The charge in the air was almost p.o.r.nographic. I swear, if the three of them could have orgied right there on top of the McDonald's litter and a squished c.o.ke Zero can, they would have. A new chill came over me: Neal was one of nature's born studs.

Didn't see that one coming.

I evaluated this new piece of data: was it a plus or a minus for me? I decided to break the mood and yelled out the window, "Neal, load your bag into the boot, you crazed s.h.i.tpig."

He looked up and smiled.

Fiona said, "That's your slave?"

"It is."

"He is sitting next to me."

Oh f.u.c.k.

I got out so Neal could slide into the middle beside my ex-wife, and we left for Heathrow.

LHR to LAX = 10 h, 55 m

06.

So I'm standing at the business cla.s.s check-in counter for the Los Angeles flight when I hear the words, "Mr. Gunt, I'm afraid there's been a mix-up in ticketing."

Reduce the temperature of my blood by twenty degrees.

"Oh?"

"I'm afraid your seat has been deleted."

"Deleted?" Okay. I'm reasonable. Did I say that I like people? I like people who like people. "What do you mean by ... deleted?"

"The physical seat itself, sir, has been removed from the plane for reconditioning."

"So there is simply no seat there at all?"

"Oh, thank you, sir, I'm glad you understand."

I dropped my eyes to her name tag. JENELLE. "Jenelle, is it?"

"Yes, sir." I might add here that Jenelle is a gruesome creature, her sullen jaws most likely sore from chugging her wedding-averse boyfriend's k.n.o.b for ten long years. "What other seat shall I be seated in?"

"Let me check ... you're in 67E, Mr. Gunt."

"67E?"

"Yes."

"An E seat-is that an aisle?"

"No, sir. I believe an E seat on that aircraft is the second seat in a row of four."

"Jenelle, you do understand that I am in business cla.s.s."

"Yes, Mr. Gunt."

"Do you have a seat map here at the desk?"

"Yes, sir." Jenelle handed me the map.

"Let me look here. Ah-67E." I pointed to 67E, a centre seat sandwiched between two lavatories.

"It's a full flight, sir. No other seats are available."

Suddenly, from behind me in the coach cla.s.s international check-in, there came a series of childish screams so horrifying and so loud that even the most sinister baby-hating citizen would worry about the health and sanity of the child, as well as its parents. Jenelle looked up with a smile. I stared at her. "How can you possibly be smiling?"

"Those children, sir. It's heart-warming. They're off to Los Angeles to undergo a new surgical procedure that could save their lives."

I turned around and across the hall saw a telethon's worth of ... atypical-looking children. Okay, tards, actually. Fifteen, maybe twenty of them.

"Jenelle, can you tell me more about these, um, children?"

"They have Bunuel's syndrome."

"Oh?"

"Children with Bunuel's syndrome have no ability to control their emotions. Unfortunately, almost everything they experience is perceived by their brain as a threat, yet the ensuing fear isn't funnelled through the checks and barriers we normal-I'm sorry, statistically average-people use to keep a scrim between society and us. So they basically live in a state of perpetual agitation and their voices inform the world of this."

"I see. Might they be on my flight?" I asked.

Jenelle tapped away at her keyboard. "What a coincidence, sir-the Bunuel Children for a New Start party is seated in rows 65, 66 and 67. I can only imagine how thrilled they'll be to have someone as compa.s.sionate as you near them in what can only be a long and terrifying flight-possibly the most frightening event most of them have had to endure during their most likely short and sad little lives."

"Yes." Okay. "Jenelle, do you have some sort of supervisor or something?"

"That'd be Tracey, sir. Would you like me to page her?"