Staying Alive. Matt Beaumont

it on the budget for their last commercial. He even put the agency mark-up on it.’

      ‘At least you weren’t ripping anyone off.’

      ‘More fool me, Jakki. If I’d been ripping someone off I’d have probably got a rise…Anyway, I need to go through a year’s worth of billing now.’

      ‘I’ll give you a hand.’

      ‘You don’t have to do that.’

      And she doesn’t. As secretary to four other account supervisors besides me she has enough bum-numbing rubbish to deal with.

      ‘I don’t mind. You’ll be doing me a favour. If I go out I’ll only end up buying a double cheese and sardine melt and something with triple-choc in its name. No bloody willpower.’

      I let her pull up a chair next to mine. She could do with losing a little weight.

      2.09 p.m.

      ‘Well, I can’t find anything,’ I say.

      ‘Hmm,’ Jakki murmurs. She lost interest some time ago. She’s still sitting beside me, but now she’s looking at the pictures in Italian Vogue.

      ‘The independent Murray Colin Commission hereby concludes its investigation into the administrative record of Murray Colin, and hereby finds that Murray Colin has billed impeccably.’

      ‘Hmm,’ says Jakki.

      ‘That was one too many herebys, wasn’t it?’

      ‘Uh-huh…What do you think I’d look like in this?’ She holds up a picture of a model who’s thinner than the paper she’s printed on. She’s wearing two squares of chiffon, each the size of a pocket tissue.

      ‘Gorgeous,’ I say.

      ‘Who am I trying to kid? I’d look like Mrs Blobby. God, I can’t hold out any longer,’ she announces, standing up and pulling on her coat. ‘I’ve got to get food. Want anything?’

      ‘You could get me a Mars.’

      ‘Is that all?’

      ‘Yeah. Hang on, I’ll give you some money.’ I stand up and reach into my trouser pocket. I freeze as my hand touches something—it isn’t loose change.

      ‘What’s up?’ Jakki asks.

      ‘Nothing…Nothing at all. You go. Forget the Mars.’

      Well, I’m not going to tell her I’ve just found a lump, am I?

       three: fifteen weeks, four days and an indeterminate number of hours

      tuesday 4 november / 7.44 p.m.

      At least, I think it’s a lump.

      I stand in front of the long mirror in my bedroom and lower my trousers and underpants. I unbutton my shirt and lift the tails out to my sides to reveal myself in seminaked glory. Nothing glorious about it, actually. My body is thoroughly average. No flab to speak of, but no corrugated sheet of abdominal muscles either. Just a gently bowed curve of stomach descending to an untidy clump of mid-brown hair. Every once in a while I consider shaving it off. Nothing to do with vanity. No, the thought appeals to my sense of neatness. But…shaved pubes. There’s something pervy about that. A bit porn star. And I can’t stomach the idea of being knocked down by a car, getting rushed to Aamp;E and the medics discovering that I groom down there.

       Doctor: Take a look at this, nurse.

       Nurse: My God, a depilator. Is he a porn star?

       Doctor: What’s it say on his admission form?

       Nurse: Advertising executive.

       Doctor: He’s most likely just your run-of-the-mill pervert.

       Nurse: Shall I call social services?

       Doctor: We’d best be sure first. I mean, he could be a pro cyclist. I understand they shave. Something to do with aero dynamics, apparently.

       Nurse: No, he hasn’t got the six-pack to be a cyclist.

      As a rule my sense of neatness is pervasive, all-consuming, but in the ongoing face-off between shaggy and trim, shaggy wins every time.

      My eyes travel down a little further to my…You know something? I don’t know what to call it. I’ve never felt comfortable with any of the standard terms. Penis sounds too formal—a bit sort of Presenting His Excellency Lord Penis, Duke of Genitalia. Willy, of course, is too cute. Cock? Too blunt, macho, in-your-face. There are dozens of other words for the thing—well, thing for one. Then there’s knob, todger, schlong, pecker, love trun-cheon. Love truncheon. Not even in my dreams. None of them feels right. And before anyone suggests it, I am not going down the road of personalising it, giving it a pet name. So I’m not left with much. But I’m looking at it now. Like the rest of me, it’s nothing special. Thoroughly average, I suppose, though I’ve never taken a ruler to it. But that isn’t why I’m staring at myself in the mirror, my trousers round my ankles. I reach down to my…Balls? Bollocks? Knackers? Testicles? Same problem. I’m stuck whenever I have to refer to anything in the…er…meat ’n’ two veg region ( meat ’n’ two veg—truly horrible). My solution to date has been to avoid any reference if at all possible. It has worked well enough for thirty-one years, but now…Well, I’ve got a lump. Or something.

      I think I read somewhere that men should check themselves once a month, like women are meant to examine their breasts. I also read that you should check the batteries in your smoke alarm on a regular basis. I’ve never done that either. Frankly, I’ve never felt happy about the idea of self-examination, and only partly because I’m not especially fond of molesting myself. My principle objection is that the doctors—men and women who, let’s not forget, undergo only slightly less training than architects and London cab drivers—are advising the rest of us—a bunch of barely informed amateurs—to do the checking. Where is the logic, please? Why the billions blown on teaching hospitals the size of Devon if they end up making us do the work?

      But I’m checking now. Feeling with my hand. Very tentatively. My left one…Just say the word, Murray. My left testicle is lower. Though I’ve never paid it the kind of attention I’m giving it now, I think it has always been lower. It’s also bigger. Definitely bigger. I don’t think it has ever been that. I take it between my fingertips and roll it gently as if it’s a bingo ball and I’m looking for the number. There it is. My fingers weren’t deceiving me in the scrabble for change at lunchtime. I quickly let go. Drop it like a red-hot pebble. As if I’ve turned the bingo ball and seen the number.

      Six, six, six.

       I’ve got a lump.

      11.38 p.m.

      I’m in bed, but I can’t sleep.

      I feel dreadful. Hot and sweaty, bunged up, achy. It’s the flu. But that isn’t what’s keeping me awake. I’ve got a lump. My mind is racing, looking for explanations. Alternatives to the obvious and deeply unpleasant one. Until a moment ago none had offered itself. But the one that does now is so blindingly obvious that it practically switches on the light and yells Eureka!

      Megan left weeks ago. Three weeks, two days and (quick glance at the alarm) just over nine hours ago since you ask. It was weeks—OK, precisely twelve weeks and two days—before that when we last did it. That makes fifteen weeks, four days and an indeterminate number of hours without sex. That’s over a quarter of a year without any kind of release. Nothing so much as a…Say the word, Murray…Nothing so much as a wank.

      The lack of sex has surely caused the lump. I must be backed up, overstocked, whatevered—there’s almost certainly a correct