The Emperor Waltz. Philip Hensher
ain’t bad,’ Nathan said. ‘Vodka/Coke, it’s sick, man. But I want something better, me, I want me a safe ting.’
‘Happz, man?’ Nick said, and made that gesture with his hands, a casting down of a viscous liquid, like Spiderman throwing jizz to the floor.
‘Alie,’ Nathan said. ‘I want me a safe ting.’ He wailed upwards as if in song.
‘Oh, my God,’ Anita said. ‘Keep it down or my dad’ll be up and he’ll like know you’ve been drinking, it was like at my friend’s house once, this is my friend Alice, I was just saying, we brought in this bottle of voddie and asked her mum just for a couple of cartons of Tropicana, and we like just, this is like four of us, me and Alice and Katie and Alice, the other Alice who we don’t really like that much, you know what I mean, but we were like getting out of it, and making all this like noise, you know what I mean, and suddenly there’s this amazing noise on the stairs, like a herd of buffalo coming upstairs, and it’s like Alice’s dad telling us to keep it down, but we managed to like shove the bottle under the bed just before he came in so that was just about OK.’
‘I want me a safe ting,’ Nathan said, still crooning what he had said, but more quietly.
‘Here it is,’ Nick said, standing up. His jeans hung down below his buttocks, showing a pair of red 2XL underpants; he reached down and from his back pocket extracted the small bottle labelled Jungle Juice.
‘Well, you’re not going to get at all drunk on a tiny bottle of that,’ Basil said, in a mature, scoffing voice.
‘You don’t be drinking it, man,’ Nathan said. ‘You watch and learn, my friend, watch and learn.’
‘I can’t believe that you’ve brought some poppers out with you. It’s like we’re in a gay disco circa 1996,’ Anita said. ‘Where did you get that, your boyfriend?’
‘Fuck you, man,’ Nick said, giving it to Nathan. ‘Ain’t no gay ting.’
‘That is like so gay,’ Anita said.
‘It’s safe, man,’ Nathan said. He grinned; he unscrewed the lid of the bottle. He placed one forefinger against one nostril, and put the bottle to the other where he sniffed noisily. He put another forefinger to the other nostril, and sniffed in the other nostril. He clamped his thumb to the top of the bottle, and handed it to his twin. Nick did exactly the same, going from right nostril to left.
‘That stuff smells awful,’ Basil said. ‘It smells like disgusting old socks or something. Why would you want to smell that to enjoy yourself?’
‘I’m going to have to open the fucking window now,’ Anita said. ‘My God, I can’t believe it.’
‘But it just smells so awful,’ Basil said.
‘Safe, man,’ Nick said, smiling in a watery, wobbly way to Nathan. They raised their fists and, with some care, managed to bring them together.
‘You’ll like it when you get old enough to try it,’ Nathan said to Basil.
‘I look forward to that,’ Nick said. He was quite serious, but Nathan shook his head and laughed.
‘I look forward to that. Man,’ he said. ‘This stuff is the stuff.’
‘Yeah, the gay stuff,’ Anita said. ‘You have literally no idea how gay you look, passing that stuff between you.’
‘It gets you high, man,’ Nick said. ‘It ain’t no gay ting.’
‘Don’t you know what it does?’ Anita said. ‘It’s a gay sex thing, you sniff it and it makes you want anal sex. That’s why gays always sniff it like the whole time. You get it in gay sex shops.’
‘Yeah, that’s it, my girlfriend, she always wants to sniff it before we have anal sex,’ Nick said. ‘She can’t get enough of that gay anal sex, man.’
‘Yeah, mine too,’ Nathan said. ‘She’s like I wanna sniff that and then I want it up my backdoor pussy, Nathan, yeah, I don’t know if I can take it, it’s too big, man, oh, yeah, I love that gay anal sex, man.’
‘She loves anal sex once she’s had some poppers, you see,’ Nick explained.
‘What in the world is anal sex?’ Basil said. ‘I’ve never heard of anal sex. I know all about sex, we had that in class last year, but we all knew about it anyway – I heard about it from Mummy when I was maybe seven or eight, and then some boys in the playground tried to tell me, but they got some of it wrong. But I’ve never heard of something called anal sex.’
Nathan went through it, his head lolling back and forward. When he had finished Basil said nothing.
‘That was like a horror story,’ Anita said. ‘You’d never guess in like a million years that anyone did that because they thought they would enjoy it.’
‘Yeah, you’ve done it, I know you have,’ Nathan said. ‘Yeah, like Basil here, sitting on a massive organ and loving it.’
‘That is none of your business, little boy,’ Anita said. ‘What Marco and I do in the context of a mature loving relationship is really none of your like business.’
‘Yeah, she’s done it a million times, the sket,’ Nick said. ‘Yeah, ’cause you don’t get babies if he jets his beans up your curry-chute, is it. Hey, Anita, have a sniff on it, it’s good stuff, it goes with your Mr V and Mrs OJ.’ He made an unkind imitation of her voice.
‘Oh, I can tell,’ Anita said, ‘that I’m just not going to have any peace until I have some of your awful drugs. You know what my friend Alice says, the other Alice, the one who lives in Crimond Road? She says that if these drugs are legal, they’re basically random, they’re bound to be rubbish, even if you buy them in like a gay sex shop. The only good drugs are illegal drugs, according to Alice, you know what I mean?’
‘We didn’t buy this in a fucking gay sex shop,’ Nick said. ‘We got it off Chris Garry’s older brother Kevin, he gets it off the internet and sells it to us.’
‘So what do I do?’ Anita said, taking the bottle from Nathan. ‘I have a sniff here –’ she made a ladylike little noise ‘– and a sniff—’ and another one. ‘Ow,’ she said. ‘That stings,’ and holding one hand up to her eyes, she held the bottle out. ‘Put the lid on quickly, it smells awful.’
But Nick held back: he let Basil reach out and take the bottle, and in a quick, puzzled way, he sniffed too, first with one nostril, then the other.
‘Wagwarn!’ said Nathan.
‘Wagwarn!’ said Nick.
‘Wagwarn!’ said Nathan.
‘Wagwarn!’ said Nick.
‘Safe, man,’ Nathan said, taking the bottle from Basil and capping it. ‘Basil, my man, you did it, man. You is the bossman, Basil, respect.’
‘Oh, that is strange,’ Basil said. ‘I feel all wavey now.’
‘Wavey, man, he said wavey,’ Nick said, laughing.
‘No, I really do, I feel wavey,’ Basil said, ‘my hands are almost wobbly, I don’t know why. But I don’t feel that this is like being drunk would be, well, maybe a little, but I feel wobbly, I don’t know why.’
‘I can’t believe you just like gave—’
‘I know why you is feeling a little bit wavey,’ Nathan said, ‘it is because ten seconds ago you had a massive snort off the poppers. Now give me
‘and in the end I suppose I spent about forty-eight hours on it,’ Carraway was saying. ‘It was a whole weekend, dawn till dusk, and in the end,’