Free Stark by Ben Elton

her. Limpish, tired individuals, endlessly discussing how screwed up the world is, without apparently having very much intention of doing anything about it.
    ‘They’re dull, Colin,’ CD could not get her to call him CD. ‘Your friends are dull. They’re not going to save the world.’
    CD could only shrug, beginning to wonder whether in constructing the fiction that the people from the community bookshop and local theatre collective were his soul mates, he might not have made a mistake. Right from the beginning he had pretended that he knew them all much better than he did.
    ‘Hi, Todd,’ he had said, casually to the bloke at the peace bookshop the first time he had taken Rachel down there. CD had checked out the name beforehand, he knew that if you address someone with sufficient familiarity the chances are very good that they will presume that they know you, especially if the person is a hippy. The plan had worked perfectly, except for the fact that Todd had turned out to be a bit of a boring wanker and CD now had to live with the fact that Rachel thought he was Todd’s mate. CD, sensing his tactical error, had decided to try and distance himself from the wet types he had pretended to be so close to. There would be no more ‘Hi Todds’. He intended to remodel himself as a hard, practical man, looking for hard, practical solutions. He was even considering buying a pen-knife. That was his plan anyway, unfortunately the whole thing was ruined by the return of the dreadful Karen.

38: THE RETURN OF THE DREADFUL KAREN
    C D had been innocently sitting in a cafe with Rachel when suddenly and without warning he and his cappuccino were enveloped by a mass of frizzy hair.
    ‘Hi-i-i-i,’ Karen cooed, and then demanded, ‘Hug please.’
    It made him ill to do it but CD was obliged to provide a weak little squeeze. Uninvited Karen plonked herself down, bags and hair everywhere. She liked to effect the attitude of always being in a slightly scatty rush, as if a great many people depended on her.
    ‘Can’t stop,’ she said, stopping. ‘Christ CD haven’t seen you since we got busted painting the road, what a night, man!’
    ‘Since I got busted,’ replied CD, his heart sinking. He desperately hoped that Rachel had forgotten that he had slightly exaggerated his crime when they had first met, claiming that he had been arrested for trying to break into a US naval installation to prove that any terrorist could steal an atom bomb. ‘Was that the same night you tried to break into the naval installation?’ asked Rachel. ‘Is this your new lady?’ said Karen, giving Rachel what was intended to be a smile of radiant sisterly love.
    If there was one thing that Rachel hated it was the term ‘lady’. ‘Why don’t you bring your lady?: May I introduce my lady. Rachel would almost have preferred anything; girlfriend, bird, she would rather have been someone’s casual fuck than their ‘lady’. May I introduce my casual fuck…
    ‘No,’ answered CD, ‘this is Rachel, a friend of mine.’
    ‘I see,’ said Karen with a touch of girlish innuendo, as if to suggest that CD was concealing all sorts of delicious secrets but that she wouldn’t pry. ‘CD and I were nearly an item ourselves, weren’t we?’ she confided in a nauseating frank manner which was designed to suggest a modern woman who combined independence and vulnerability in equal measures. Karen stared at people when she spoke to them, at least they thought she was staring at them. She thought she had a disarmingly frank and open countenance.
    CD wished that the floor would open up and swallow him, even if it had been eating garlic and hadn’t brushed its teeth for three days.
    ‘You look a bit uptight, love. You need a hug,’ Karen said. Then she delivered her knockout punch. ‘I know, I’ll give you a massage.’ It was a vicious blow and she delivered it below the belt. CD was down, the umpire was counting him out. He dragged himself back from the