Read Online A Week in December by Sebastian Faulks - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Sebastian Faulks
Tags: Fiction, Literary, General, Fiction - General, Christmas stories, London (England), English Contemporary Fiction - Individual Authors
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roared, there came a buzzing, relayed from the front door. Finbar went unsteadily to the stairhead to go down and let the pizza man in.
He had heard his parents come and go half an hour before, but didn't bother to leave his room. Talking to them was an ordeal. His father never knew what to say and seemed anxious that he might betray some ignorance of Finn's life; neither had quite recovered from the moment the year before when John Veals inadvertently revealed that he thought Finn had already taken his GCSEs. Finn presumed his parents had gone out to their usual Sunday evening dinner at the Simla Rest House, a maniacally overpriced Indian place in Mayfair.
Back in his room, he opened the pizza with extra sugar-dusted dough sticks, Italian dressing and a litre and a half of Coke. The smell of white dough and tomato paste made him salivate as he tore the first slice from the half-yard-wide disc. He'd gone for the Margherita, because although he pretended when in company to prefer the American Hot with extra chilli, he really still preferred the simple cheese and tomato he'd first encountered as a toddler. He wondered in his ravening, post-skunk hunger whether even a family-size pizza would be enough.
Chewing avidly, he let his gaze drift to the screen. He fast-forwarded a bit, then hit the resume button and sat back. A new contestant had come on. He was a schizophrenic of about fifty, called Alan, who had spent twenty years in psychiatric hospitals but had been released into a 'care in the community' scheme when his asylum, one of the original Victorian ones, had been closed by the government, bought by a property developer and turned into 'luxury apartments with state-of-the-art gym and sauna facilities'. The prospectus described the place as having won 'two architectural design competitions', Alan said, without mentioning that the first had been for a county lunatic asylum in 1858.
For the last fifteen years, Alan had been without a permanent home. He said he hadn't liked the hospital, it was loud and dirty, but at least he'd felt safe there.
'So,' said Terry O'Malley, 'as far as your accommodation's concerned, it seems you're in two minds about it.'
The audience laughed. 'Schizophrenia ... in two minds ...' O'Malley underlined his joke for the slower ones.
'That's not what schizophrenia means,' said Alan. 'That's a misunderstanding. It's nothing to do with a "split personality" or--'
'Sorry,' said Barry Levine. 'Which one of you said that?'
Finn drank some of the Coke. The huge bottle was unwieldy and some of it washed back over his chin and down his tee shirt.
Beneath the knockabout surface, the programme got to grips with important issues. Its premium-rate phone lines allowed the public to interact democratically, their opinions counting every bit as much as those of the 'self-proclaimed experts'. The climax of a series came when the contestants were dispatched to spend a weekend together in a remote but well-appointed one-storey house (the so-called Barking Bungalow) whose exact location was kept secret. Hidden cameras followed them, watching them sleep and eat and clothe themselves, scrutinising their attempts to communicate with one another.
Alan, the schizophrenic, was losing his way as he tried to explain to Lisa how the voices in his head both mocked and instructed him.
'It's like being nagged, all the time, by four or five people,' he said.
'Can't you just ignore them?' said Lisa.
'No, the voices are too loud.'
'Blimey, love, you should try being in a girl band. It was like that all the time with Girls From Behind. Lee and Pamilla were the worst. Nag, nag, nag!'
Finn relit the last inch of his spliff, not wanting to waste it. The pizza had done the business in the end, leaving him happily bloated. He left It's Madness on in the background while he listened to some music he had downloaded on to his compact, gunmetal grey player. 'A First Step in Dying' by Shanghai Radio Gang came through the earpieces
He had heard his parents come and go half an hour before, but didn't bother to leave his room. Talking to them was an ordeal. His father never knew what to say and seemed anxious that he might betray some ignorance of Finn's life; neither had quite recovered from the moment the year before when John Veals inadvertently revealed that he thought Finn had already taken his GCSEs. Finn presumed his parents had gone out to their usual Sunday evening dinner at the Simla Rest House, a maniacally overpriced Indian place in Mayfair.
Back in his room, he opened the pizza with extra sugar-dusted dough sticks, Italian dressing and a litre and a half of Coke. The smell of white dough and tomato paste made him salivate as he tore the first slice from the half-yard-wide disc. He'd gone for the Margherita, because although he pretended when in company to prefer the American Hot with extra chilli, he really still preferred the simple cheese and tomato he'd first encountered as a toddler. He wondered in his ravening, post-skunk hunger whether even a family-size pizza would be enough.
Chewing avidly, he let his gaze drift to the screen. He fast-forwarded a bit, then hit the resume button and sat back. A new contestant had come on. He was a schizophrenic of about fifty, called Alan, who had spent twenty years in psychiatric hospitals but had been released into a 'care in the community' scheme when his asylum, one of the original Victorian ones, had been closed by the government, bought by a property developer and turned into 'luxury apartments with state-of-the-art gym and sauna facilities'. The prospectus described the place as having won 'two architectural design competitions', Alan said, without mentioning that the first had been for a county lunatic asylum in 1858.
For the last fifteen years, Alan had been without a permanent home. He said he hadn't liked the hospital, it was loud and dirty, but at least he'd felt safe there.
'So,' said Terry O'Malley, 'as far as your accommodation's concerned, it seems you're in two minds about it.'
The audience laughed. 'Schizophrenia ... in two minds ...' O'Malley underlined his joke for the slower ones.
'That's not what schizophrenia means,' said Alan. 'That's a misunderstanding. It's nothing to do with a "split personality" or--'
'Sorry,' said Barry Levine. 'Which one of you said that?'
Finn drank some of the Coke. The huge bottle was unwieldy and some of it washed back over his chin and down his tee shirt.
Beneath the knockabout surface, the programme got to grips with important issues. Its premium-rate phone lines allowed the public to interact democratically, their opinions counting every bit as much as those of the 'self-proclaimed experts'. The climax of a series came when the contestants were dispatched to spend a weekend together in a remote but well-appointed one-storey house (the so-called Barking Bungalow) whose exact location was kept secret. Hidden cameras followed them, watching them sleep and eat and clothe themselves, scrutinising their attempts to communicate with one another.
Alan, the schizophrenic, was losing his way as he tried to explain to Lisa how the voices in his head both mocked and instructed him.
'It's like being nagged, all the time, by four or five people,' he said.
'Can't you just ignore them?' said Lisa.
'No, the voices are too loud.'
'Blimey, love, you should try being in a girl band. It was like that all the time with Girls From Behind. Lee and Pamilla were the worst. Nag, nag, nag!'
Finn relit the last inch of his spliff, not wanting to waste it. The pizza had done the business in the end, leaving him happily bloated. He left It's Madness on in the background while he listened to some music he had downloaded on to his compact, gunmetal grey player. 'A First Step in Dying' by Shanghai Radio Gang came through the earpieces
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