Read Online A Week in December by Sebastian Faulks - Free Book Online
Authors: Sebastian Faulks
Tags: Fiction, Literary, General, Fiction - General, Christmas stories, London (England), English Contemporary Fiction - Individual Authors
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disposable lighter showed up his smooth face with its half-dozen spots on the chin, a child's long-lashed eyes and a mess of brown curls. His bedroom was a twenty by twenty foot den, lit by dimmed and recessed ceiling lights, with a tight-weave grey carpet and an en suite wet room with imported American fittings and a shower as forceful as a Yosemite cascade. Framed posters of Wireless Boys and Evelina Belle bisected the wall spaces. Through the windows Finn could see the raised stone parapet that ran along the back of the house. He flipped open his phone and hit the pizza number for a delivery. He wasn't hungry yet, but in forty minutes' time, post skunk, he would be.
Channel 7 was about to start his favourite programme, It's Madness . Finn settled down to his solitary entertainment, easing back the ring-pull on a can of lager. He didn't really like beer, but he was trying hard to acquire the taste, since smoking made him thirsty first, before it made him hungry. He didn't really like smoking either, if he was honest, but he loved the effect of skunk: the sand-filled sock to the back of the head, the drying mouth, the sense of muscles in heavy motion, of a nervous quickening that couldn't be translated into action because everything was slowed down - as though time had ceased to operate, leaving him luxuriously alone to savour the last sound wave of the ringing cymbal or aching voice of Shoals, or Weir of Dunkeith - or, as now, the modern comedy of Channel 7.
The first patient on It's Madness was suffering from 'bipolar disorder'.
'Sounds like something you get in the Arctic,' said Lisa, one of the celebrity judges. 'Is it anything like frostbite?'
The audience began a long helpless chuckle as the patient - a red-faced, bedraggled woman in her twenties - explained her symptoms. 'Sometimes it's like me 'ead's on fire, there's so much to say and do, like not enough time in the world to say all I've got on me mind and I can't sleep, I'll go like ten weeks without sleeping properly and I'll walk the streets at night at four or five in the morning, talking away to meself cos--'
'Because no one else is up at that hour, I imagine,' interrupted Barry Levine, another of the celebrity judges, amid more laughter.
Finbar sucked on the joint and held the smoke in his lungs. Barry Levine was one of those all-purpose TV stars who cropped up on too many programmes for his liking; they'd roped him into It's Madness when some writer woman turned out to be too long-winded; she hadn't really got the joke - the whole point of the programme - which was that it was a comedy.
Lisa, who'd been lead singer with a successful but short-lived band called Girls From Behind, was better. She played the dumb-blonde part and was quick to get the wrong end of the stick - so quick, in fact, that Finn suspected it was thrust into her hand before the show began. Television was all a con - everyone knew that - but It's Madness worked because, in the words of the programme makers, it was 'there to make people think differently, to challenge their preconceptions'.
The bipolar woman, who'd now been given the nickname Captain Scott, was explaining how at other times she was caught in a downswing that could last for months. 'Then it's like I'm in a world which is only black and white before colour had been invented and I'm like so tired I can't move, I just want to stay in bed for days and days.'
'Yes, Scotty, we've all had days like that,' said Terry O'Malley, the boss of the panel. 'It's called a hangover.' He waited for the laughter to subside before saying, 'All right, everybody. It's time for ...'
He stood up and opened his arms to the audience, who shouted back as one: 'The Men in White Coats!!!'
Finbar didn't like this part of the programme. Two psychiatrists (though he doubted they were really qualified) gave an assessment of what treatment the patient needed, how much it would cost and whether she should be admitted to a hospital. While the debate
Channel 7 was about to start his favourite programme, It's Madness . Finn settled down to his solitary entertainment, easing back the ring-pull on a can of lager. He didn't really like beer, but he was trying hard to acquire the taste, since smoking made him thirsty first, before it made him hungry. He didn't really like smoking either, if he was honest, but he loved the effect of skunk: the sand-filled sock to the back of the head, the drying mouth, the sense of muscles in heavy motion, of a nervous quickening that couldn't be translated into action because everything was slowed down - as though time had ceased to operate, leaving him luxuriously alone to savour the last sound wave of the ringing cymbal or aching voice of Shoals, or Weir of Dunkeith - or, as now, the modern comedy of Channel 7.
The first patient on It's Madness was suffering from 'bipolar disorder'.
'Sounds like something you get in the Arctic,' said Lisa, one of the celebrity judges. 'Is it anything like frostbite?'
The audience began a long helpless chuckle as the patient - a red-faced, bedraggled woman in her twenties - explained her symptoms. 'Sometimes it's like me 'ead's on fire, there's so much to say and do, like not enough time in the world to say all I've got on me mind and I can't sleep, I'll go like ten weeks without sleeping properly and I'll walk the streets at night at four or five in the morning, talking away to meself cos--'
'Because no one else is up at that hour, I imagine,' interrupted Barry Levine, another of the celebrity judges, amid more laughter.
Finbar sucked on the joint and held the smoke in his lungs. Barry Levine was one of those all-purpose TV stars who cropped up on too many programmes for his liking; they'd roped him into It's Madness when some writer woman turned out to be too long-winded; she hadn't really got the joke - the whole point of the programme - which was that it was a comedy.
Lisa, who'd been lead singer with a successful but short-lived band called Girls From Behind, was better. She played the dumb-blonde part and was quick to get the wrong end of the stick - so quick, in fact, that Finn suspected it was thrust into her hand before the show began. Television was all a con - everyone knew that - but It's Madness worked because, in the words of the programme makers, it was 'there to make people think differently, to challenge their preconceptions'.
The bipolar woman, who'd now been given the nickname Captain Scott, was explaining how at other times she was caught in a downswing that could last for months. 'Then it's like I'm in a world which is only black and white before colour had been invented and I'm like so tired I can't move, I just want to stay in bed for days and days.'
'Yes, Scotty, we've all had days like that,' said Terry O'Malley, the boss of the panel. 'It's called a hangover.' He waited for the laughter to subside before saying, 'All right, everybody. It's time for ...'
He stood up and opened his arms to the audience, who shouted back as one: 'The Men in White Coats!!!'
Finbar didn't like this part of the programme. Two psychiatrists (though he doubted they were really qualified) gave an assessment of what treatment the patient needed, how much it would cost and whether she should be admitted to a hospital. While the debate
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