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Starchaser 
a novel by
John Lake
‘A traditional novel may be usefully compared to an old air chamber deflating after being placed in an ocean. A generalized and rather weak flow of air like a trickle of pus ends in arbitraryand indistinct nothingness.’ 
Michel Houellebecq,
H.P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life
‘Hollywood, I know your middle name,who inspires your fabled fools,that’s my claim to fame.’ 
Steely Dan, ‘Glamour Profession’
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One
When Matthew followed Hoop past the bouncers and emerged into the low-lit, airport-likeexpanse of the party lounge, the only face they noticed across the room was Jack Nicholson’s.Hoop looked round at Matthew to check, and saw it plainly on his adult yet boyish face: that brief, rapt expression that he’d grown to mistrust – soon abandoned for a different act,tempered in the coldness of his blood and replaced by an affected nonchalance.
 Let’s face it 
, thought Hoop,
who wouldn’t notice Jack bloody Nicholson first?
He did.As some talking head on the TV’d once said, Jack Nicholson had the only grin in the worldyou could see from space. A great, wide, shit-eating grin. That’s what your eye wasimmediately drawn to. That’s how you knew it was Jack. Apart from the fact that he was probably the most famous man in the world.Certainly in Matthew’s world, Hoop imagined.Matthew elbow-nudged Hoop surreptitiously in the ribs and deftly hooked the stem of a champagne cocktail from a passing silver tray, proffered aloft as if from the gods on ayoung waiter’s stiffly trained arm. Then he gazed over to the other side of the party – andswallowed.‘Let’s go meet Jack,’ he said into the bowl of Hoop’s ear, at the same time graspingHoop’s arm and starting to sashay vaguely Jackwards across the room full of beautiful people.‘Matthew, for God’s sake,’ Hoop muttered, resisting the other man’s tug.‘What?’ said Matthew defensively on an indrawn breath, backing off and raising hisoutspread palms to frame his face like innocent angel wings: a bad mimicry of some faux-shocked Hollywood hairdresser. Christ, Hoop could just imagine what he’d be like if hewangled his way over there with him. Hoop emphatically did not want Matthew to come tothe States. Hoop didn’t even know if he was going to the States yet. It was just a possibility, acontingency he needed to prepare for. But if it did come off, he knew that he did not wantMatthew along. But where did he take his protestations from there? Wherever it was, heknew he didn’t have the stomach for it – not right now. Probably not ever. But now was no
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time to let his mind wander away down that road. He was here. It was now. This was it. Hewas here strictly to do business. So he had to calm down his emotions, and calm Matthew’smood-swinging giddiness down too.‘Listen,’ said Hoop in a low, private, but also placating tone, trying to muster somefalse but appropriate sincerity. He made himself sound as if he believed he had something toatone for (which, of course, he did, but not to Matthew). ‘Don’t say anything about the book,’he continued. ‘Gerry’s not officially put it on the table before Jack yet, as far as I know––’‘Ohh,’ said Matthew with a comic knowingness, the exact same tone he often shrillyadopted at moments like these, and which reminded Hoop so much of that awful actor inthose dreadful
Carry On
films – Kenneth somebody. The familiar annoyance at theresemblance burst the bubble of his intended ploy of confidence. A double annoyance wasthat, not remembering the
Carry On
actor’s surname, he’d be trying to thinking of it all night.‘So it
is
“Jack,”’ Matthew prattled on. ‘You never told me you’d met him. So come on!Where
did 
you meet him?’‘I
haven’t 
met him, you––’ Hoop spluttered. He consciously checked the barrack-hutvulgarity that’d nearly slipped out, attempting to calm himself down – once again. Muchsooner than he thought would’ve been possible. Matthew should win a medal for windinghim up. Matthew could wind people up for England.Matthew watched Hoop’s fists unclench as he visibly controlled his anger.‘Temper temper,’ he trilled like an operatic lovebird, arching his eyebrows, his voicehigh up in the camp registers, the fat lady singing. ‘Temper temper,’ he said again, but leaningin close to Hoop’s face this time, so far in that Hoop unconsciously leaned back, andconsciously hoped no one around was watching this, because then it might not be real. Nothere, not now. Matthew’s expression – not just his expression but his entire demeanour, hiswhole bulk – had suddenly morphed from sweet, smiling soprano to evil and overdevelopedschoolyard bully, his voice now growling and Rottweiler-deep. It was all part of Matthew’sact, Hoop recognised – the fandango he danced with himself to obscure the person he washiding inside. But no matter how much, or by whatever manner, Hoop chose to rationalise it,it still scared the hell out of him.
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