NyLon! - CHAPTER 3

At the Party headquarters in Cowley Street, worried Gary and Tim greeted me, Gary especially was nervous.

- Hurry up, Charles has been waiting for you in his office for over an hour

- But it’s 9 sharp, I’m on time as always. What does he want? And what is he doing at work so early on a Saturday?

I worried. It was quite unusual for the leader to be at work at dawn. However, I calmed down when he offered me a double shot of single malt. He was the same old Charles. I politely refused – it was too early even for me -, casting a glance at the party treasurer’s legs. In her forties as well, but carried pretty bad, swollen for too many single malts courtesy of the leader, whom instead as a brave Scotsman seemed to better absorb all those double shots. But it could be told by the well-shaped legs that she wasn’t bad at all when younger. Janine began to speak to me, fluttering the Financial Times that everybody knew she pretended to read, about the issue they discussed lengthily with Charles.

– We are in an expansion cycle, we sail from 20 towards 25 percent of the British market, which is going to be saturated. It is time to expand with a prestigious acquisition abroad, and the optimal cash flow allows us to do so. We have singled out the prospective purchase but we only have a couple of months in order to launch a hostile takeover before their shareholders’ meeting

She paused and looked at me as if she already said everything I should know. I looked back at her inquiringly, but she kept silent. Apparently, my look wasn’t interrogative enough. I had therefore to patiently express myself orally

- Shareholders of what the dick of a cock of the duck are you talking about?

- Italian radicals

- Never heard about them I replied turning to Charles, meaning that I expected from him the clarifications of political nature. Charles swallowed and explained

- They are a young small movement – “liberal, liberist and libertarian”, property of the transnational radical holding, which in turn is controlled by an Atanasio Pannella, very popular in Italy and other hopeless countries such as Walloon, Moldova and Lucania. To gather documentary evidence our information department advises the reading of “Pannella and Bonino Plc”, an excellent book by a famous newyorker journalist you’ll find in any nearby political bookshop. After which you will infiltrate yourself in their movement in order to better understand their financial situation, inner dynamics, sexual habits, if someone is blackmailable, in short I want to be kept constantly updated 

- Ok, fine, but why me?

- Obviously we have chosen you because I’m told you speak Italian well enough. Moreover, because your role here, although very important and I emphasize important, is rather, er, little known…

- Poor and dark, so that they won’t suspect that I work for us

- … and if you need anything else just ask me. Except for money, for the money ask Janine. Cheers I left in search of the book, found it, and seated on a park bench in the cloister of the ancient Westminster convent, looking at the gate on the courtyard of the homonymous school, I rolled a small spliff observing from far away the teenagers in microskirt and began to turn the pages in order to pass the time learning something while waiting for lunch with Vladimira, a Bulgarian friend who works nearby at Sky’s political newsroom. We lunched happily – the spliff made me hungry – and didn’t feel the need to do anything else. We haven’t had sex in over two months – we were no longer attracted to each other – but from time to time it was nice to gossip about her Bbc colleagues on the upper floor of the same building. Building which was off-limits for me because in the Beeb’s political newsroom there was Liubomira, another Bulgarian friend of mine with whom I hadn’t had sex in over four months – we were no longer attracted to each other – but from time to time it was nice to have a few pints and gossip about her Sky colleagues on the lower floor. They didn’t know about each other, that I knew them both, thus it was inappropriate for me to visit 4 Millbank. I goodbyed Vladimira with a customary French kiss, I should rather say a Bulgarian one, and resumed brooding on my mission walking the narrow lanes on this half of the political citadel west of the parliament, the half with parties’ and TVs’ headquarters, opposite to the width of Whitehall and the ministries that showed themselves on the other side in direction of Trafalgar Square. On Channel 4 modern building camped a massive ad of their new show NyLon, which first episode was due the following Tuesday. Nice pun. By association of ideas, I recalled Raffa’s heels and my erection. I sped up the pace towards home with a feeling that soon a new chapter would have opened up.