Carnivore: The most controversial debut literary thriller of 2017. Jonathan Lyon

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СКАЧАТЬ woke being poked in my stab wound.

      ‘Get up, cunt,’ said a stranger.

      Mint nails were beckoning me out of the cab. I followed the sheen of a cream cocktail dress upwards to a throat bared beneath gaunt cheeks, green insolent eyes, and a bob of auburn hair. I rose as ordered. Eva stepped around this other woman to support me onto the curb.

      ‘How are you helping him?’ the stranger asked, unmoving as I tried to focus on the building behind her.

      The wall spelled out ‘Impluct’ in tall letters above a crowd of smoking attendees. A poster beneath announced this as the vernissage of Lars Vasari’s ‘DREAM TRAUMA’ exhibition.

      ‘My opinions have changed,’ Eva said.

      ‘He ruined your relationship.’

      ‘Francis ruined our relationship.’

      ‘Eva, Francis cheated on you – with him,’ the stranger insisted.

      ‘And I cheated on Francis with him too.’

      ‘Good evening,’ I said with a bow, as though I’d been invited to introduce myself. ‘I presume you are… Iris?’

      ‘Just… it’s different to how I thought,’ Eva continued. ‘Not completely different… Francis still needs to answer for himself. But maybe earlier I expressed my anger in a… homophobic way. Or bi-phobic, whatever. But that’s not how I’m going to express my anger anymore. And I’m not angry with Leander, he needs… Let’s just go inside. We both need a bit of numbing.’

      ‘I can numb you,’ Iris said, though her stare was still hostile. ‘Do you need to be carried?’

      ‘Yes please,’ I said, pretending not to understand her sarcasm.

      And so, my arms spread across the two women’s shoulders, I limped towards the gallery entrance. Iris was colder than Eva, perhaps having waited too long without a coat, and my skin in contrast seemed feverish.

      The crowd watched us with a reverence that we didn’t warrant. I had expected curiosity, but not this fascination. Possibly this was the effect of Eva’s fame. The two bouncers at the door parted without speaking or referring to a list.

      ‘Can you come unlock the kitchen, please?’ Iris asked the one on the left.

      ‘Does your guest need help?’

      ‘Actually, can you take him?’

      I was transferred to the studier grip of the guard. The women led us quickly into the foyer – and as our entrance rippled through the gallery-goers, they paused in their mingling to gaze at us, with a nervousness that suggested they desired to approach but dared not. The main exhibition began up three steps in a wide white room, but we instead walked down a side corridor, towards a dove-grey door. The guard shifted his support as he took a key from his pocket and unlocked it.

      ‘Thank you,’ Iris said, conclusively, and the guard understood this as a cue to leave.

      I was lowered onto a chrome stool beside a chrome table and gladly slumped into it, my head filling with sediment – which looped in a figure of eight. With my eyes closed, I could only hear some of what the women were saying. But I gathered that water was being boiled in a saucepan, and Francis had arrived half an hour ago. I let my thoughts lull into incomprehension.

      ‘Leander!’ Eva said, with an odd urgency, as though afraid I would not wake. ‘Leander!’

      I lifted my head. Iris placed a white plate on the table. At its centre was a circle of fluffy, whiter shards. The plate’s underside was steaming still, from resting on the saucepan. She crushed the cooked ketamine with an Oyster card and divided it into three thin lines.

      With a twenty-pound note rolled up her nose, Eva bent daintily to the plate, and insufflated an outer line. As she jerked back up, she blinked tears towards the ceiling, and passed the note to Iris. Iris did the same and passed the note to me. I breathed out in preparation, securing the makeshift straw with trembling fingers, and snorted the remainder.

      It cut at my sinus with an enticing specificity – reducing the rest of my body’s aches to vagueness. The bitterness mixed scent and taste into a string that dripped into the back of my throat, which my mind saw inwardly as having the feathery blue-green of a mallard’s head. I sniffed again, able to sit more upright, my sense of self dispersing.

      ‘Can I have more than that? I asked.

      ‘Not right now,’ Iris said, her voice less severe, distracted by the loaded blood crossing her brain. ‘This is pure. We need to be able to talk still – we just want to be a little wonky so we can deal with the pretentious fucks outside. It’s human ketamine, not for horses – it’s from a hospital.’

      ‘When do you get this in hospital?’ Eva asked.

      ‘When you’re giving birth.’

      Eva laughed. ‘And so tonight you’re giving birth to —’

      But I didn’t hear the rest. The slurry of melt-crystals behind my eyes slurred my vision, and a gossamer began to replace my skin.

      ‘What – and you’re giving birth to your… revenge?’ Iris smiled, entirely now in a lighter humour.

      ‘Yeah. And what are you giving birth to?’ Eva asked me.

      I cricked my neck as my nerves flowered into levity. ‘I’m giving birth to a baby swan called Winter, who can see ghosts, but he’ll never find a mate.’

      ‘Lucky him,’ Eva said. ‘I think I need to leave… What’s your laptop password?’

      ‘There’s no password,’ Iris said. ‘Just ask the guy at the door to let you into the studio.’

      ‘What you doing?’ I asked, drifting my head against the wall, smiling at Eva in innocence.

      ‘I’m going to edit a film,’ she said.

      ‘Of what?’

      ‘A video me and Francis made before he met you. You said the best revenge is erotic. So. I want to show it to everyone…’

      ‘What, like a sex tape?’ I asked. ‘You know they aren’t usually that embarrassing for the man.’

      ‘This one will be very special highlights.’

      ‘And then what?’ I asked. ‘How are you going to show it?’

      ‘Wait and see.’ Eva stood up, smiling.

      She kissed Iris on both cheeks and kissed me on the forehead, stroking her finger under my chin until I lifted my lips towards hers and kissed her back. The feathery green-blue of the ketamine rose again in my mind, and fell back into a low note plucked on a cello.

      ‘I decided you’re a paradox,’ Eva said, her nose against mine. ‘It’s your opacity that’s attractive. You’re an act inside an act. What are your motivations?’

      ‘Motivations are for the artless,’ I said.

      She СКАЧАТЬ