Out of the Loop

The word came out before there was time to censor it. Top shelf hardcore. A full frontal wrapped in plastic. A grotesque horror show. “Fucking hell,” the Editor said. The Editor, whose entire professional dignity rested on his ability to arrive before anything improper became…

The automatic doors open slowly. “It’s quiet. Too quiet,” says the Man, hand signalling to the Editor to cover his back. They pause at the threshold. Fluorescent light. A hum that feels like surveillance. Or a device for pea refrigeration. “Easy,” says the Editor. “Bananas…

“Celeriter nube, otiose paenite,” says Lacan, because he cannot help himself. Marry in haste, repent at leisure. “Seriously?” says the Boy. “Latin? Is Caecilius still at the atrium?” “’Fraid so, old fruit,” says the Editor. From atrium to lake. The polar bear continues his dance:…

It begins in Lewes, naturally. Not in a church hall exactly. In the Meeting House. Friars walk the mean streets. The Boy sits beside his mother on a hard wooden chair beneath the pale windows. The room is full of people making very little noise.…

“Go on,” Shankly says. “Tell me what you think is wrong with you, then. You’ve got five minutes. Emlyn’s knees are my priority this morning.” He does not say this to the Boy. He says it to the Man, who is already standing half-turned, already…

“I stopped drinking,” he says too quickly, and hears the weakness in it at once. Lacan doesn’t even bother to smile. “No. You paused. A pause preserves the route. It is the loop catching its breath.” “I was drinking too much,” says the Man. “Too…

Freud is already there. Not conjured, simply there as the tram rounds a bend. Black coat, gloves, beard, a dark hat carried rather than worn, looking like a consultant from another century who has arrived to inspect a badly run business and found, with weary…

Lacan leaps into the scene in a navy tracksuit. The tracksuit is cheap, slightly shiny at the knees, the sort of thing an Eastern European coach might have worn in 1975 while smoking furiously on the touchline. He has also found a whistle. It hangs…

He arises from the depths of Moorgate tube station into that hard London air, wearing his flimsy bomber jacket, an old skin that is still too thin. The Barbican rises around him, walkways crossing above water, towers standing with their blank faces turned away. Willoughby…

Just beyond the edge of the lake, the therapists gather in a gaggle. Not so much Greek chorus as supporting cast in an amateur production of West Side Story. Perhaps in Eastbourne. The Editor is busy checking the plural noun for a group of therapists.…