Moxyland - Lauren Beukes [57]
'Toby!' I'm scandalised, but Damian shrugs it off.
'S'cool. I don't mind. I signed up for the freakshow.' He turns his back to us and yanks down the collar of his shirt to reveal the faint radiance of the glowlogo between his shoulderblades.
'That doesn't seem exactly high vis,' Toby says.
'Not now, but I have a tendency to take my shirt off on stage. I get hot, okay? It's not like some sex-appeal thing. Hey, are you recording this?'
'Sorry, bad habit. I'm a junkie for collecting vid. I can delete it if you want.'
'No, it's cool. Shouldn't we be heading back, anyway? Aren't there supposed to be speeches and shit? And I know Andile wanted to say what's up.'
'You go ahead, we'll catch up,' Toby says, laconic, and this suddenly strikes me as a very Jonathan thing to do.
'I think I'll go with Dame. We've been gone a while.'
The gallery seems even more oppressive, but I'm less freaked now, even when I see Andile talking to Jonathan. Luckily I get side-tracked by Mr. Muller.
'Congratulations. It's wonderful. Wonderful. Although I'm not sure about this messy animal thing. It's very Damien Hirst. Cheap shock-treatment stuff. Yours is infinitely superior. And people will see that, take my word for it.'
I'm still basking in the afterglow, when I overhear some over-groomed loft dwellers giggling into their wine. 'And this. I'm so tired of Statement! Like she's the only angst child ever to embrace the distorted body image.'
'Oh Emily. I quite like the undeveloped. Because she is. You know, still young, coming into herself. The artist in flux, emergent.'
'Well, precisely. It's so young. You can't even tell if it's technically good or not, it's all so… damaged.'
'Don't let the heathen savages get to you.' Toby has popped up again, speaking loud enough for the woman to hear, but I'm more amused than insulted. I'm about to point out that under the black of Self-Portrait is a photograph of a photograph, clutched in my fingers, captured in the mirror with a reflected flash of light. That it's all meant to be damaged. But then I realise I don't have to. I don't have to make my motives transparent.
Damian appears at my shoulder with the astonishing blonde, who he introduces as his girlfriend, Vix, a fashion designer for her own small label. Vix distracts Toby, the two of them heading off to the bar to lay in supplies for all of us, leaving me with a convenient gap to ask Damian if he's experienced any weird side-effects. He seems puzzled.
'Like what? I had really mif flu for about four days. Sinuses and sweats, but it worked its way out.'
I try and tell him about the thing with the Aito, but it comes out all garbled.
'It doesn't sound that freaky,' says Damian. 'You felt sorry for her. You stopped to help. That's pretty awesome.'
I'm miserable that he doesn't get it. 'It wasn't empathy or altruism or anything. It was like I had to, like a real compulsion.'
The same way we're compelled to drink Ghost, I think but don't say. Damian isn't paying attention. He's watching his girlfriend across the room, trying to get through to the bar while Toby clowns around, making her laugh.
It makes me feel desperately alone. There are all these people circling, like Johannes Michael's swirl of paper atoms upstairs, but the connections to me are only tenuous.
'You know the dogs also function on nano?' Damian says, ripping his eyes from Vix. 'Maybe you got crossed lines,' he jokes.
'Maybe.'
We're cut short by a flurry of activity at the door. I've been aware of a low peripheral clamour, but now it erupts. There are people shoving, wine spilling from glasses and yelps of dismay.
'This is a private function!' Jonathan of all people yells, spouting clichés at the rush of people in black pushing in through the crowd, their faces blurred like they're anonymous informants in documentary footage. It is so disturbing, that it takes me a second to catch on that they're wearing smear masks. Another to realise that they're carrying pangas and a prog-saw.
A few people