It felt like a New Year sort of encounter – at any rate, it certainly firmed up my resolution. I mean, what was I going to resolve to do in 2024? The answer is clearly: be more resolute – and, on a consistent basis, adjure myself to be so, much as President Lincoln adjured the Native Americans to “endeavour to persevere” after the Federal Government had taken all their land.
I walked into Davidoff, the high-end cigar merchant in St James, with a view to buying some tapering pipe cleaners for a crafting project. (Others get mullered on the Eve, I get manual.) The young man behind the counter – a gentle, adipose-looking fellow, grown mellow from years of discussing finely aged cigars – said, “Good to see you, sir, you haven’t been in for a while.” And as he did so, slid back the panel behind him, to reveal the packets of tobacco and cigarettes that it’s been illegal to publicly display for a decade now.
“I finally managed to get you Auld Kendal rolling tobacco, sir,” he continued, smiling. “Not the Kentucky dark, but the mild and medium blends.” He raised his eyebrows expectantly towards the wall of packets and looked at me invitingly. Of course, given the sumptuary laws of the land, every single one of these little packages was adorned with a vivid photographic reproduction of a portion of cancerous tissue in the maxillofacial region of the human body.
I goggled at the fellow: I mean to say, this was customer service – albeit fantastically grotesque, as well as a little tardy: this broadly-beaming, healthy-looking young man, standing in front of an attractive display of human flesh corrupted by aggressive neoplasm. Choosing my words carefully – there were no other customers in the shop, and I had the attention of all four staff, one of whom was loitering at the entrance to the walk-in humidor – I replied, “That’s very good of you, but unfortunately for you, I gave up smoking – and indeed, consuming nicotine in any way, shape or form – almost six years ago…”
Then I waited for a very long beat – more of a fermata, really, during which once more I allowed myself to float, indolently, in the blue-grey volutes, cupolas and forever assembling, dispersing and reassembling traceries bodying forth from a contented exhalation of tobacco smoke – before adding: “Oh, and I have cancer.”
I know – naughty of me. My cancer, myelofibrosis, is of the blood – it may have been triggered by my smoking tobacco for, gulp, over 40 years; but then again, it may have been triggered by all the other things I’ve smoked. I mean to say, in my years of crack addiction, grovelling around on the floor for crumbs of smokeable cocaine, I’d often end with a lungful of… burnt toast. Or, indeed, since I have the genetic predisposition for this cancer, it may have been activated by any number of factors. Personally, I find those ghastly little puffa-gilets City boys have taken to wearing as waistcoats under their suit jackets… carcinogenic.
Anyway, we’re still in that frozen moment, with all four tobacco vendors facing the man with cancer. I wonder if they felt in that moment like the drug dealers they so manifestly are? I mean, in my years of active drug addiction there was absolutely no love lost between me and the purveyors of the drugs I felt I needed simply to put my pants on in the morning. Which is how tobacco smokers also feel.
I wanted to ask all these broadly-smiling and unctuous men if they were smokers, and to then adjure them in Lincolnian tones to endeavour to desist, lest they end up as I have. But another part of me felt as hostile towards them as I’ve always felt towards cocaine and heroin dealers. I mean, ones who don’t use the drug themselves are a pretty callous lot by definition – but for the most part, even those who partake have little sympathy for their strung-out clientele, so intent are they on their profits.
I’m sure not a scintilla of this affects the Davidoff corporate ethic. (The marque has actually been owned by Imperial Brands, the giant British tobacco company since 2016, which is the same year the parent company changed its name from Imperial Tobacco, to try and pretend they weren’t principally fag manufacturers.) I mean, we all have to take responsibility for our actions in life – even the ones that have harmed us. It’s no good trying always to blame global heating, or tobacco-related cancer, on some numinous higher authority – whether it be a corporate or a government.
I mean, when I stop to consider it, the predicament of cancerous smokers is a bit like that of Brexit voters: we all did something fucking stupid, knowingly, and now we’re paying the price. Big time. Happy New Year.
