STEVIE LOVED to swim. If there was one thing he loved more than swimming though it was swimming in someone else’s pool, some Russian guy he’d never heard of, on a beautiful morning, in a gated villa on one of the Canary Islands.
Midwinter: the water was cold, like the chill of the ocean, only a few hundred metres away, but Stevie was in his element. After a few brisk laps he pulled himself up to the side, smiled at his girlfriend who was sat, lounging and reading and fiddling with the shark-tooth necklace she’d found, looking beautiful.
“Hey you, get in here!” he chided, slightly too bold. Mary demurred. She was in on the whole thing of course, Stevie was sure, but not entirely comfortable, especially after what happened a few months ago. He could tell.
Mary put her book down and looked around, though there was nothing to look at, just high walls and blue sky. “Come on,” said Stevie, not giving up. He grinned, removing some of the sting... his smile was irresistible after all. Mary sighed:
“OK...” She stood up. “I’ll get changed.”
“Nah” said Stevie, feeling cheeky. “Why bother...? Who’s going to see?” She thought about it and eventually smiled, excited. He was right. “Come on...!” he said once more, sealing the deal.
It was their first trip abroad. Stevie had wondered if they could pull it off in another country. It seemed they could. Stevie now reckoned it was universally applicable if they did it right.
B E G I N N I N G
THE FIRST pointer that set Stevie on this path was his upbringing. An only child, his Mum was a single parent and jobbing researcher. They were poor in means but rich in ambition, a mixture of comparative linguistics and beans on toast every night. His Mum encouraged him to do whatever he wanted, “just don’t become an academic...”
So she was happy when, instead of going to university, he enrolled in drama school. It was there Stevie went up in the world. Mixing with public school kids he realised he could survive in this environment. Some classmates looked down on him, a bursary student, some even dropped occasional jibes. Some, more sympathetic, would defer to the Authentic Voice of the Working Class. He didn’t mind because he learned something interesting.
Their teacher, Professor Selachi was bohemian, open-minded and on first name terms with everybody. She taught method acting and more, beyond Strasberg, role-play and hot-seating and into depersonalisation, deep cover, blood-rites and intense psychoanalysis.
“Never forget in the process of creation you are becoming the character by refashioning elements of your psyche...” Selachi explained. Her class was gathered round, sat in a semi-circle, watching her. “It’s the assumption of a role yet, the role was always there...” She breathed in deeply. Professor Selachi was sat in the middle of a chalk pentangle, staring intently at the picture she held, of Queen Elizabeth the First. “Don’t lose momentum… and...” another deep breath. “I’m in!” she exclaimed. The class gasped. Professor Selachi now was Elizabeth, her power, her assurance, her remoteness. “That is how one does it...”
Everyone was impressed. Stevie was also intrigued. He put two and two together. London was a city full of possibilities but guarded. There was so much enclosed space yet often all that was enclosing it was a single person or even just a sign: no entry. Stevie wanted to live well. In between bit parts, plays and adverts and day jobs, like so many other Londoners Stevie was running to stand still. Instead of just turning his talents to getting better jobs Stevie figured he’d go for the real prize. His classmates confidence he knew was just front. They were constantly acting. Everything they did was performance. If it was all up for grabs Stevie would take it, using the Professor’s method. To live well he’d become the Personification of Capital.
S T E V I E A N D M A R Y
NOT LONG after graduating Stevie met Mary at a house party in Newham. They saw each other across the room. Each looked away, embarrassed before looking back again, intrigued and beguiled. There was natural electricity. The conversation flowed. Mary was an exhibited artist, a sculptress, a little older than him, not by much but enough that Stevie wanted to impress her. Out came the routine. He told her he was a pioneering director of expressionist scratch theatre.
They didn’t hook up that night. Fate in the form of friends who were high, over the edge, got in the way. They swapped numbers. She eventually called him. Stevie told her he had expected it. Boasting was a bold move. He also confessed that he wasn’t what he said he was before, another risk, but twenty minutes later he managed to convince her to have dinner with him that evening.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked on the phone, still surprised at herself. Stevie just said:
“Somewhere nice, really nice...”
Mary was even more surprised when she saw Stevie standing in Villiers Street, under a street light, well-framed, looking like Dapper Dan, a Jazz Age hipster with slick, dark hair a sharp suit and a close shave. He’d looked utterly bohemian the other night. Seeing him Mary said, “I know where we’re going, the 1920s!” She smiled.
“Nearly right,” said Stevie and he flashed a grin, semi-shepherding her along the pavement. “We’re going to the Corinthia,” he said putting on a voice, crisp and unaccented, posher. “But don’t worry...!,” Stevie added, hastily, “just to the restaurant... but we’re charging it to Room 34.”
“I don’t understand,” said Mary, now actually worried. “What do you mean?” They stopped walking. Stevie fixed her gaze:
“Trust me,” he said, with a deep and profoundly sincere look.
“I hardly know you,” said Mary. Stevie smiled at her again and she felt suddenly at ease. “But, I think I’m going to” and she started walking. “Come on!” she said without looking back.
Stevie and Mary began their adventure together that night in the hotel. They were swept along. It felt right. Stevie had been going with the flow for a while but now he had someone riding in his wake.
“I’m impressed…” said Mary later on as they stepped into the night.
“You’re meant to be.”
“Teach me…”
“What…?”
“Show me how you do it,” Mary demanded. “I want to know.”
There was something about her, Stevie could feel it. Mary was sensitive and intuitive. She fit around him very well he thought.
L E S S O N S
“CONCENTRATE...”
“I can’t help it” Mary laughed. It was the following morning. They were sat at a table in Stevie’s flat, facing each other, holding hands and looking, or trying to look, into each other’s eyes for at least five minutes. “This is just too...”
“Silly?” asked Stevie. “Yes it is,” he said, assured. “That’s self-consciousness working. The ego is a tenacious concept,” he said, one of Selachi’s observations, “but the ego is a thin film where desire and repression meet. You want to change, you want to adopt a persona then you have to dissolve that boundary... OK...? Look into my eyes...” They settled again. “I will look into yours... It is safe... Remember, you’ll probably feel me... before I feel... you...” A minute or so passed by then Stevie gasped and looked away for a moment.
“What is it” Mary asked, “what did I do?”
Stevie looked at Mary again. He looked awestruck. “Your eyes... I wish you could see them... They’ve gone… black.”
I N T O T H E R O L E
APART FROM this they lived an ordinary life, at least to begin with. They had day jobs and a commute, friends and a social scene. After three months they moved in together, to a modest flat on the outskirts of the city. They met each other’s parents. The acting and the artwork fell away however. Then the friends and social scene shrank and they spoke less and less to their families. Only work remained, the last connection to their old lives and even that wasn’t so important. They were swept along, together, the two of them with what they did, what they really did together.
Together they strolled into magazine launch parties, bowled down red carpets, sauntered into VIP lounges. They spent weekends and nights in luxury apartments, sprawling mansions and hotel suites. They did all this for free. Not exactly stealing, they didn’t take anything that would be missed, a picture, a book, a shark-tooth necklace, that sort of thing. They ate good food, drank fine wines. They showered and bathed and swam and played table tennis and watched TV and had occasional discrete parties with high-class dupes.
Together Stevie and Mary explored what they found. All this wealth was lying around, unused. They used it and they were not caught and they did not feel bad about it one bit. It was a heady rush. They had to be careful however.
“The role that you adopt is part of you, a dimension that you draw up across your outward persona.” Stevie remembered Professor Selachi’s warnings. “Always repersonalise after every session… if you go deep you must decompress…” The defining characteristics of Capital, Stevie realised, were superficial charm, a tendency to manipulate, anti-social behaviour, a lack of remorse, a lack of long-term planning and so on. It wasn’t difficult to drive people away with such attributes. There was also the possibility that if they took it too far, chewing the scenery, that their cover would get blown.
There were warning signs. Little cruelties slipped in every now and then, like being rude to waiters, sending concierges on ridiculous errands, promising tips and then ‘forgetting.’ Then character slips began emerging off-stage, such as making crank calls to estranged friends, laughing at beggars or pointing at fat people on the tube. The on-stage character development got more decadent, such as watching an RSC production stoned or using corporate tickets to Wimbledon to cruise lower depths of the bar for contacts then ending up taking a taxi to the midnight zone with a group of Spanish tourists and Russian sports administrators at a drug/drink/sauna/swimming pool orgy.
What brought it home was the Incident with the
Photograph.
T H E P H O T O G R A P H
“WHAT’S THAT?”
“Hmm?” Stevie had been thinking about something, something that he immediately forgot. Mary was standing over him, pointing:
“Who is that?” She sounded anxious. Up until then they’d been having a nice, relaxed Saturday morning in, decompressing, coming down from a small adventure the previous weekend. They had snuck into a wedding reception, sorry we missed the service, traffic was appalling, you look lovely, kiss, kiss, here’s your present and so on.
Stevie looked at the picture he hadn’t realised he was holding. It was a girl, maybe eight or nine years old, in a swimming costume. She was happy, beaming and clutching a tiny trophy, too small, even for her hands, second prize. “It belongs...” Stevie recalled, “belonged to the Minister, the one, we borrowed his flat a while ago, the secret flat, you remember?”
“Him?” said Mary, remembering. “You know you’re not supposed to steal” Mary chided. “You told me that.”
“I’m sorry,” said Stevie, face flexing with anguish. “I think,” he sighed, “it looked so stupid. I think I was going to smash it.”
From then on Stevie and Mary got out of the deeper waters, spaced out their escapades, detoxed, repersonalised, hot-seated and covered their tracks... They reconnected a little with friends and family. They even renewed some of their artistic pursuits. Mary started sculpting, Stevie went up for roles. They had got away with it. Now was the time to consolidate. They did not think of themselves as criminals but, like all great and successful outlaws, the lure of their brilliance proved too great.
Though less frequent their temporary borrowings got more audacious, like the trip abroad. An old contact, an upmarket estate agent who still owed Stevie a favour or two helped them. He also passed on a tip about an abandoned palace up in Hampstead.
T I P - O F F
THE MOST Powerful Man in London had just bought Witanhurst Palace. It had been abandoned for years, held in some complicated trust, largely because no one could work out who owned it but the Most Powerful man cut through by putting down an undisclosed sum. He had it renovated. The Most Powerful Man would be flying in on the following Monday. He had never set foot in the UK before, Until then it would be free, at least to someone like Stevie.
“I just thought you’d like to know,” said the Estate Agent, smiling.
“Who is this ‘Most Powerful Man?’” asked Stevie. They were sat together in a restaurant-cafe near Green Park, two coffees steaming away.
“I don’t know,” said the Estate Agent, “OK I do, but I can’t say. I can only tell you that he owns a lot of property round here, a lot.”
“Property that you manage for him I presume?” The Estate Agent didn’t reply, just looked askance. Stevie took that as a yes and asked, “Which properties?”
“I can’t tell you,” the Estate Agent laughed softly then shook his head. “Come on...”
“Fair enough,” said Stevie, “though you did tell me about Witanhurst... and the Spanish thing…” He could see a pattern developing. “Why?” Stevie asked. “I mean, how do I know what you’re saying is true?” The Estate Agent drank a little coffee then fetched something from his pocket:
“Because I have the keys to the house,” he said.
“He let you have the keys?”
“My client trusts me,” said the Estate Agent. “Here,” he jangled them in front of Stevie who made to take them. “One thing,” he withdrew. The Estate Agent looked away. Stevie tried another Golden Silence. It didn’t work. The Estate Agent wasn’t forthcoming. Stevie changed tack:
“What can I do for you?” he said, unleashing a warm, welcoming grin. The Estate Agent practically melted in his seat.
“There is one thing…” he said.
T H E P A L A C E
“IT’S AMAZING,” said Mary as they stepped through the door. It was amazing too. “So beautiful…” Stevie and Mary found themselves in a huge sun-flooded hall. It was early morning, spring and getting warm, even up in Highgate, London’s stranded reef. The many tall windows were open. A gentle breeze sweeping through, billowing the curtains. The sunlight filtering through cast shadows like waves on a clear ocean floor. It was beautiful but Stevie was on edge.
“Someone’s been here,” he said.
“Of course they have,” said Mary, glancing round the room. “It’s an old house.”
“No,” said Stevie, “I mean recently. This place is empty. There’s no furniture, no wreckage and there’s hardly any dust.” He hadn’t told her about the deal.
“But we’ve been through every room,” said Mary. “There’s no one here.” She said, “Wow,” taking a turn, “imagine living here. It would be like something out of the Great Gatsby.”
“Jimmy Gatz died in water,” said a voice suddenly. A man stepped out from behind a curtain at the far end of the room. “Funny really,” he said, “I was just contemplating how I could have pool installed.” He started walking toward the pair who were frozen on the spot, no point in running. “I’ve also been enjoying the view.” He spoke with a crisp, unaccented voice. He was well-dressed, short and indeterminately aged. “My name is Akula Chelovek.” He held out a hand. “I own this place.”
He shook hands with Stevie. “You are Stephen Quint.” He turned to Mary. “And you must be his consort, Mary Bellis.” He clutched her gently by the shoulders and then brushed a kiss against each cheek. Mr Chelovek took a step back and glanced over Mary with the faintest of leers. “I see you still have my shark tooth,” he said and smiled with honed humility. Mary clutched her chest. “I fear my mode of address may be a little off… still,” he clapped his hands; “now I am here I must learn.” There was an awkward pause until Mr Chelovek interjected. “See,” he said. His voice relaxed a little. “It is that easy to establish dominance through correctly applied intimacy. I was told by my agent that you two could talk your way into and out of anything yet you stand before me... dumbstruck.” He shrugged.
“We’re sorry,” Mary blurted. There was strange electricity in the air. Mr Chelovek smiled and laughed softly:
“Sorry for what? You’ve done nothing wrong except light trespass and maybe a little petty theft,” Chelovek said, pointing again to the necklace, “but do you think you are any more or less guilty than the miserable bottom dwellers you exploit?” He shrugged again, disdainfully. His eyes blackened. Stevie and Mary both recoiled though still stuck fast. “There are plenty of scavengers in this world, yes...” His skin glistened. “I, on the other hand, am a rare species,” he said.
“What are you?” Stevie asked though he knew, deep down.
“I am a predator,” said Mr Chelovek, “and you two have been swimming in my pool.” He walked around the pair once, looking at them, appraising. An oceanic chill swept the room. “Yes, I am offering you minnows a choice,” he said. He seemed to grow in stature. “Talents like yours should be put to good use.” He stopped pacing. “Work for me, swim in my wake... People have noticed what you do, dramatists, hoteliers, tourists, sports administrators, ministers of state...” he left the sentence dangling for a moment. “You are lucky,” he said, pointing to Stevie, “lucky that my agent got to you first… Work for me,” he said to the pair again.
“Or what?” said Stevie, pushing through the horror, surfacing momentarily. “You said we had a choice.”
Mr Chelovek laughed again, baring rows of serrated teeth. “Or I will eat you both alive.”
Image by the Born Again Labor Museum.
