B= They Ate the Truth (2)

"Is this over ? " I ask her, as I tip the burned-up bugs into an
ashtray. They still look pretty crunchy and they smell like - well, not
anything I've ever smelled before, but if you imagine sticking wad
after wad of bright pink bubblegum into a doll's hair and then setting
that alight - rather like how that might smell.

I don't want this to be over. It's a very long time since I felt
curious. I'm more interested in concealing than finding these
days.

"You want to get something to eat ? " she asks.

I tell her yes, hell yes. She's the most interesting person I've met in
months. Someone with the guilty memories chewed right out of them -
she's a whole noir film come to life and sitting in my office in a
light-grey herringbone suit that shows off her legs to perfection. A
friend of mine once said admiringly of Molly Ringwald (hey, it was a
long time ago) "I'd drink her bathwater. "

I'd never really got that until now. This woman, and in my head she was
already becoming "this dame", was someone you could imagine
worshipping, becoming deeply besotted with, spending your days dreaming
up grand gestures to impress.

I've fallen in love with a client before and it did me no good at all.
So I did a sort of wiggling of my fingers, shaking out the romance
vibes onto my thin-pile carpet.

"Call me Lorrie, " she says.

We end up in a place she knows, nearby. Maybe it is a chain, I'm not
sure. Not somewhere I've heard of. The front of it looks more like a
tobacconists, cards in the window, a sign that looks dated and has red
letters on a white background "Scotch and Sandwiches".

We sit down at a table and pick up plastic-covered menus, big ones that
are as tall as a broadsheet newspaper. Lorrie looks at it quickly and
says to the girl who is standing with a licked pencil, "Hot roast beef,
with rocket, on rye. And Laphroaig, no ice, just a little water.
"

The girl writes this, probably in five letters, and looks at me. I'm
still reading the first bit of the menu.

"Er, the same sandwich as her - not too pink with the beef though. And,
ah, a coke. "

"No Coke, " says the girl.

"Mineral water ? " I say.

She sighs, she'd be pretty if she wasn't stuck in a job that is so
hateful to her, "Sir, the restaurant is Scotch and a Sandwich. You'll
see all of the varieties we have listed in this column of the menu.
"

"But I don't like Scotch, " I lie to her.

She sighs again, worn down with the stupidity of someone who comes into
a diner marked "Scotch and a Sandwich" when they don't like
Scotch.

"That's all we have sir, " she says. When did the word 'sir' become as
charged with contempt and hatred as words like 'customer' and 'client'
?

Lorrie is looking at me now, and I know that this is a turning point.
How I deal with this lays out whether or not I'm going to see this
woman after the cheque clears. And I want to see her again, I'm in no
doubt about that.

"You do Scotch on the rocks, right ? "

The girl says yes. Lorrie is half-smiling, she has no lipstick
whatsoever on any of her teeth.

"Fine, " I say, "I will have a Scotch on the rocks, hold the Scotch.
"

"That would be a big glass of ice, sir, " she says.

I hand her the menu, the conversation is over. The sandwich, when it
comes, is damn good. The ice is cold, and transparent, which is as much
as anyone can ask of ice.

"Sorry, " Lorrie says to me, as I slip an ice-cube in my mouth and move
it around like a wine-taster, "I didn't realise you were an alcoholic.
"

"That obvious ? "

She says to me, "When I was young, I used to be fascinated by the idea
of countries. In particular, whether they were floating in the sea, or
whether they went all the way down to the bottom of the sea - solid.
Could someone swim under Britain, if they got down deep enough ?"

Interesting idea. "Which theory did you favour ? "

"Oh, " she says, "I knew they were floating. You can just tell. Britain
in particular. It floats - it may go down a way, but there's sea
underneath Britain. Why, if you could just figure it out, you could use
it as a boat and steer us down to the Med, put us next to Cyprus.
"

"Archimedes said something similar about the world, " I say, "A lever
big enough could move the earth, if you could just find somewhere to
stand. "
"When we went to the coast, I would always try to swim out then dive
down, to see what was underneath, to see if I could prove my theory.
But all there seemed to be was sand. Now, either I was wrong, or else
Britain is just bigger than it looks. There's more under the sea.
"

"Like an iceberg, " I say automatically.

She finishes the Scotch and lifts the glass, for someone to come over
and fill it. "Right. Talking of which, do you want some more rocks ?
But the problem is, if Britain is all sand at the edges which then
finishes and turns into something the sea flows under, then that leaves
us with a fuzzy country that nobody really knows the size of. And that
made me feel uncomfortable too - I didn't believe that was right.
"

The girl comes with the bottle of Laphroaig and doesn't make
eye-contact with me.

"I don't know why that's come into my head, " she says, "I just get
these memories and feel the need to talk about them. Do you ever get
that, memories from your childhood. "

Boy, this is a lunch for the big issues.

"I'm a panmnesiac, " I say, "I remember everything. Every detail of any
conversation I've heard, book I've read, movie I've seen - it all stays
in my head. Sometimes it takes a while to retrieve but - French
Connection ! "

"What ? "

"The opening sequence in the French Connection - in Marseilles, the
camera pans down a street, full of Tabacs and that sort of thing, and
one of them has a sign "Scotch and Sandwiches" . That's where they got
this place from. "

"So you remember every detail of your life ? That must either be really
great, or really awful. "

"Yes, " I say.

She tells me that since the Cleansing, these old innocent memories have
been coming in more and more. Maybe it is the Nature Abhors a Vacuum
principle - take out those guilty memories and something rushes in to
fill the space.

"How much did they take ? " I ask.

"Put it this way, " Lorrie says, "Between November and May, I remember
just one evening, when I was reading Catch 22 in the bath and dropped
it and the pages got all swelled up. That's it, up until the point
where the men explained to me that I'd been Cleansed and squashed the
bug in front of me. They showed me something I'd signed, a consent
form. "

"Have you still got that ? " I ask, "Maybe from that, I can find out
who was involved, and what it was they were removing. "

"It was in the house, " she says, "Your burnt bugs ate it. And besides,
you're missing the point. I don't want to find out what I did. I'm
happy not knowing. "

The girl comes and takes away our plates. Lorrie leans forward.

"You know, " she says, "If we were to kiss now, you could taste the
whiskey on me. Would you like that ?"

I say, weakly, "I can't get involved with a client. "

She says, "Then how about if I sack you ? "

She sacks me. I don't feel too bad about it.