Dorian by Will Self Read Free Book Online Page A

ramifications; at any rate his old, lizard eyes were being occluded by near-transparent lids.
    If the Ferret had been God it would have explained a lot. The occurrence of evil, for one thing, and the extent to which it thrived, because for much of the time he left the world to its own devices and slumbered, a curiously willing victim of narcolepsy. So it was on this occasion: the window of the Ferret’s consciousness was slowly pulled to, and his brow declined towards the smoky truffles. ‘Perhaps, pour m’sieur un petit cachou ?’ Wotton mimed pill-popping for Jon’s benefit.
    ‘I was gettin’ one, mate.’ He went to the sideboard and selected a pillbox from a display of bibelots and knick-knacks.
    ‘What’s he on nowadays?’ Wotton adopted the hobbyist’s tone he used for serious drug talk.
    ‘Same as ever, five-mil Dexies in the day, tombstones or bombers if he’s out on the razzle.’
    ‘Spares?’ A twenty-pound note appeared in Wotton’s hand and was exchanged for the pillbox less the required dosage.
    ‘C’mon, Fergus me old love…’ Jon cradled the Ferret’s head with surprising tenderness, and as the jowls sagged open, deftly inserted a couple of Dexies ‘… ’ave a little shampoo to wash ’em down…’
    ‘Gaa! Oh – gaa! This is bitter.’ He came round abruptly.
    ‘It’s always bitter – when you crunch ’em.’
    ‘But I like crunching them – more Champagne… ah, better… much.’ As the Ferret slurped, Jon continued to cradle his warty head. The lizard eyes flickered, opened and then focused on the twenty, which was still tucked between the ‘N’ and the ‘T’ on Jon’s left hand. ‘You young people imagine money will get you everything,’ the Ferret said, without rancour.
    Wotton reflected that he was a noble queer of the old school, who rather than paying his servants preferred that they steal from him with panache. ‘And old ones like you know it full well.’ He ostentatiously munched a Dexy of his own and snapped the box shut.
    ‘You still here?’ said the pocket Morpheus.
    ‘I’m not going until you tell me what you know about Dorian Gray.’
    ‘That would take simply hours…’ the Ferret disengaged himself from Jon’s arms ‘… I’m not prepared to have you remain for a fraction of the time necessary – you consume so much, Wotton, it’s like having elevenses with a high-class bloody renter. Still, I was right about recognising him, I knew his bloody father – I know his bloody mother too. As a matter of fact he lives virtually next door to me… across the river behind Battersea Park –’
    ‘Fergus, I know where his flat is, what I want to know doesn’t appear in the A–Z. He’s distinctly cagey about his family.’
    ‘As well he might be.’ The Ferret yawned expansively, stretched, rose and walked to the mantelpiece, which, instead of leaning upon as any average man might, he tucked himself beneath. ‘Dorian’s father was a peer and a curly-wurly. An habitué of the Grapes, he liked a bit of scarlet as we all did in the war –’
    ‘The war?’ Wotton was incredulous. ‘Which war – the Crimean?’
    ‘No, the Second. You youngsters take so much for granted, you know nothing of the way we were, the tenderness that can exist between men from quite different stations in life…’ Reaching up above his head, the Ferret selected a photograph in an ornate gold and ivory frame from among many similar. It showed a young man in pillbox hat and frogged jacket. ‘Ah well’ – his eyes grew misty – ‘I’m wandering. Dorian’s father, Johnny Gray. He was a gambler and a drinker, part of the set around Lucky Lucan. What passed for a man of the world in the days when the world – for that sort of man – was the size of a schoolroom globe. He put on a grand show, indeed he did. Very upright, didn’t want any whispers –’
    ‘So how did you know he was queer?’
    ‘Like I say, we had similar tastes. Must I elaborate? Anyway, he