Read Neurotica for Free Online Page A

to be weaned onto solids the night
Kennedy was shot, I'm all yours.”
    She typed another couple of sentences and broke off yet
again. She didn't know why she was bothering to go to the funeral.
She hadn't seen Uncle Henry or Aunty Yetta for donkey's years, but
on the phone the day before, Gloria had laid on the guilt, saying
that she should go for Bubba's sake. Anna pointed out that Bubba
had been dead for eleven years and, as a former person, had
forfeited all rights to a sake. Gloria, who was desperate to show
Anna off at the funeral and introduce her to Uncle Henry's family,
who hadn't seen her for years, as “my daughter the important Fleet
Street journalist who once interviewed Maureen Lipman,” then
instantly changed tack. Suddenly she became an expert on funeral
etiquette, a sort of sarcophagal Miss Manners, and warned Anna
ominously that if you didn't go to people's funerals, they wouldn't
come to yours. Faced with this priceless piece of Gloria-esque
logic, Anna gave in.
    She wasn't surprised when Dan announced he would not be
coming. He'd given her some involved explanation about having to
drop off a stool sample at the doctor's surgery and then having to
go on to Newport Pagnell for lunch with a trade delegation from
Venezuela. As soon as Anna heard the words “stool sample,” her
eyes glazed over and she stopped listening.
       
    A nna took another look at her watch. It was just after one. She bashed out a lackluster final paragraph and faffed irritably
with the modem, which, as ever, threw a wobbly and refused to work
if she was in a state any more stressful than one of sublime,
bucolic repose; indeed, to function properly, the modem would have
preferred Anna to be sitting with her feet on her desk, straw in
mouth and humming “One Man Went to Mow.” After fifteen minutes of
sending and resending, roughly as long as it would have taken to
dictate the story to an old-fashioned copytaker, Anna's article was
finally ingested by the
Globe
's computers.
    She took her latest Sweet FA black jacket out of the wardrobe
and put it on over a tight white top and boot-cut black pants. She decided,
even though she was going to a funeral, that the outfit needed a
bit of a lift. She also retained an adolescent urge to shock at
important family do's. So she went to her jewelry box and took out
a brightly colored four-inch-long wooden brooch she had bought a
couple of years ago at a market when she was on holiday with Dan
and the kids in Tobago. It was a carving of a naked, dreadlocked
African painted in ANC colors with a huge red erection and a joint.
She pinned it to her left lapel, patted it and giggled. Then she
grabbed her bag and keys off the desk, bolted downstairs and out to
the car.
       
    D an thought a stroll might calm him down. As he turned left
out of the
Vanguard
's office and headed down Kensington
High Street towards Holland Park, he realized he had never been so
humiliated in his life. It was nearly four hours since the incident
in the doctor's surgery, but his entire body was still bright red
with embarrassment. Even his internal organs felt as if they were
blushing. He couldn't face lunch. It was just as well the
Venezuelans had canceled.
    The day had begun routinely enough. He had dropped in at the
office just after half past eight to check his messages from the
previous night, before popping out to hand in the stool sample at
the surgery round the corner. There was nothing on the voice mail.
All that had come through overnight was the fax from the
Venezuelans postponing lunch until the following Tuesday, but
inviting him to a performance of
Die Meistersinger
at
Covent Garden that evening, as they had been given some free
tickets. He sent back a fax confirming the new lunch date, but
politely declining the opera as Wagner always gave him this
irresistible urge to annex the Sudetenland.
    Ten minutes later he had strolled into the crowded doctor's
waiting room. He realized it had been months since he