Free Armadillo by William Boyd Page A

modular BSc degree course in Applied Mathematics and Fine Art at the North Caledonia Institute of Science and Technology (now the University of Ross and Cromarty).
    Employment history: Trainee Insurance Assessor, Clerical and Medical (3 yrs); Insurance Valuer, Fortress Sure (2 yrs); Loss Adjuster, GGH Ltd (5yrs). Hobbies:
    collecting antique helmets.
    The Book of Transfiguration
    It was dark by 4.30 and Marlobe’s flower cabin had its lights on – a warm, brilliantly coloured cave, all shades of red and yellow, mauves and flame-orange – when Lorimer paused to buy a rare bunch of white tulips. Marlobe was in loud and cheery humour as he talked to one of his regulars, a thin young man with an oddly dished face caused by the absence of all top teeth. As Marlobe selected and wrapped the bouquet, Lorimer divined that the topic for discussion this evening was ‘The Ideal Wife’. Marlobe could hardly get the words out for laughing.
    ‘– No, no, I tell you she has to be stacked, right? Dead heat in a Zeppelin race, yeah? And she’s got to be three foot tall, right? For easy blow-jobs. And she’s got to have a flat head – right? – so I can put me beer bottle down while she’s sucking me off.’
    ‘That’s disgusting, that is,’ the young man slushed.
    ‘Wait on. Also, also, she’d have to own a pub, right? The pub would be hers. And, after sex, she’d have to turn into a pizza.’
    ‘Gaw, that’s disgusting, that is.’
    ‘Those do not merit the designation “flower”, mate,’ Marlobe said to Lorimer, still chortling. ‘I wouldn’t wipe me arse on those. Don’t know how they crept in.’
    ‘I get it: turn into a pizza,’ Slushing-Voice said. ‘So you can eat her, right? What about a kebab? Kebab would be great. I love a kebab.’
    ‘A steak pie,’ Marlobe bellowed, ‘even better.’
    ‘I happen to like white flowers,’ Lorimer said, bravely, impassively, but he could not be heard above the general merriment.
    92. No Deep Slumber . After your firstfew visits to the Institute of Lucid Dreams Alan had a better idea of your problem. The electroencephalogram – the EEG – is the tool that unlocks the sleeping persona, is how we discover the electrophysiology of sleep. The printout of your EEG patterns shows us what is the nature of the activity going on in your head. Alan told you that when you are asleep your EEG patterns show that you seem to be in a near permanent pre-arousal state, that it is very rare to see any EEG stage 4.
    – EEG stage4? you asked, alarmed.
    – What we call deep slumber.
    – No deep slumber? I have little or no deep slumber? Is that bad?
    – Well, nothing worth writing home about.
    The Book of Transfiguration
    Lady Haigh ambushed him as he was going through the post in the hall. Bill, bill, circular, freesheet, bill, circular…
    ‘Lorimer, dear, you really must come and see this, it’s extraordinary.’
    Lorimer obediently entered her flat. In the sitting room her ancient dog, Jupiter, lolled panting on a hair-clogged velvet cushion in front of a soundless black and white TV. Lady Haigh’s imposing, cracked-leather, winged armchair was flanked by two single-bar electric fires and lit by an early-model cantilevered reading lamp. The rest of the furniture was almost invisible beneath piles of books and sheaves of magazine and newspaper clippings – Lady Haigh was an avid snipper-outer of articles that caught her interest, and loath to throw them away. Lorimer followed her through into the kitchen, its antiquated components burnished and scoured to museum-standard levels of cleanliness. Beside the thrumming fridge was a plastic basin full of Jupiter’s dog food – giving off an astringent, gamey smell – and beside it a cat-litter (for Jupiter, also, he supposed; Lady Haigh detested cats, ‘Selfish, selfish creatures’). She wrestled with the numerous locks and chains on her back door, opened them and, picking up a battery torch, led Lorimer out into the night,