A Compromising Position

by Carole Matthews

  Most of the people here seem to be happy gyrating to the thumping beat of the music, which has all the subtlety of being hit very hard with a ten-pound sledgehammer over and over again, but it’s giving me a humdinger of a headache. There’s something very self-conscious about standing and swaying on your own. It makes you look one step away from a strait-jacket and I’m already considering that I might be a candidate for one after agreeing to come here by myself.

  I’ve been wandering round in Temptation for nearly an hour – woefully unaccompanied. It’s way beyond Jonathan Gold’s scheduled time of arrival and there’s no sign of him anywhere. If this is his idea of being fashionably late then he’s clearly a trendsetter. I’m beginning to wish I’d thought of putting his telephone number into my mobile directory – but I didn’t, of course. All this wonderful technology and you can never quite dial out human fallibility.

  I’ve had a few more drinks, which may or may not be a good idea. Why is it that when you’re standing on your own clutching even the most delicate of glasses, it seems to take on the size of a large household bucket? I’m painfully aware of every casual sip I take and when you’ve no one to talk to, it’s amazing the rate at which you can glug through booze.

  This is not how I’d imagined it all – which seems to be happening more and more frequently in my life. By now, I thought I’d be drifting round on my PR guru’s arm, being dazzling and enigmatic. I could actually hear the whispers of, ‘Who’s that girl?’ following me. I was going to be all smiley and charming to Hampstead’s answer to the paparazzi and by next week I was going to have been offered my own chat show at the very least. What bollocks!

  The people here seem very friendly though, which is unusual in a London wine bar. Usually everyone ignores you. Perhaps this is down to it being a private party, but loads of people have smiled widely at me as I’ve squeezed past them and, after resisting the urge to check that they weren’t grinning at someone behind me, I’ve actually begun to relax and smile back. The Hunk has also smiled at me several times over his glass of champagne, although he’s still ensconced with his posh-looking girlfriend.

  I feel like a real idiot hanging round here on my own and I don’t know how much longer to do it for. I could ring Cara and get her to come early for me, but there’s something very defeatist about abandoning my debut foray into the big, wide world. How can I make glib statements about wanting to regain my independence, if I fall at the first hurdle?

  I decide to gird my loins again and pop off to the loo. That’s always a good move to while away ten minutes of spare time. Making my way towards my previous eyrie at the top of the stairs, I pass The Hunk and I can feel his eyes following me. What on earth his girlfriend must be thinking about this, goodness only knows.

  Needless to say, there’s a queue for the ladies. When isn’t there? It snakes back from the door, down the stairs and I join the end of it, thankful for the first time in my life that I’ll have to wait. That’s another five minutes ticked off my ordeal-by-celebrity party. I wonder what some women do in the loo. I think they take the time to fill in their tax returns or knock off a quick novel or contemplate the theory of Big Bang.

  I lean against the wall and take up a stance for the duration. The queue is full of ABBA women – All Boobs, Brain Absent. And for the first time I realise that I might well be viewed like that by the casual observer. I think I’d like a badge that says: Actually, I’m a schoolteacher. And then it hits me that, actually, I’m not one any more.

  This evening is giving me far too much time to contemplate how my life has changed over the last few weeks. This is not the giddy whirl of excitement I expected. As I glance down the stairs, The Hunk is coming up towards me. He appears to be looking for someone, and my heart has a little adrenaline rush as I wonder if it might be me.

  I grit my teeth. Suppose he thinks I look like the sort of woman who would consider chatting up a man who’s already with someone else? As he comes level with me in the queue, he looks up and seems genuinely surprised to see me standing there. And then he looks flustered and his pale cheeks take on a bashful glow. I love men who can do bashful, don’t you? They are a dying breed. He takes a quick glance up and down the queue and all the other women ignore him. I would like to take some playing-hard-to-get lessons from them.

  The Hunk presses his lips together and then smiles uncertainly. ‘Hi,’ he says.

  My mouth has gone dry, despite the zillion glasses of champagne I’ve swigged. ‘Hi,’ I respond as sexily as possible given that I’ve only had a few moments’ notice. The other girls in the queue look at me as if I’m letting the Sisterhood down.

  His smile widens. ‘Did you know that you’ve got a big blob of pesto sauce on your nose?’

  I immediately take the opportunity to go into a catatonic trance. ‘No,’ I say through frozen lips. And when I regain control of my limbs I push past him and the rest of the indignant queue and barge my way into the toilets, unheeding of the angry shouts of ‘Oi!’ and ‘Do you mind?’ that follow my progress.

  Elbowing some more women out of the way who are taking time to carefully reapply layer-upon-layer of crimson lipstick to their immaculately painted faces, I fight my way to the mirror.

  ‘Oh, fuck,’ I say out loud when I see my reflection. Which is not really fitting language for a teacher, but believe me it’s the only word suitable in the circumstances.

  I do, indeed, have a very large portion of pesto sauce balanced with sculptural accuracy on the bridge of my nose. I must have acquired it when the guy nudged me when I was holding my canapé. Which means that I’ve been parading around looking like this for the majority of the evening. Next to me, women are nudging each other and giggling, and I realise that’s what people have been doing all night. They weren’t being unseasonally friendly. They’ve been laughing at me. Even The Hunk.

  Snatching a tissue from the box by the sink, I wipe the smear from my nose. Believe me, I could weep. Just lie down on the floor of the loo and weep. Tears hover dangerously on the brink of my eyelashes and I think that if I hadn’t engendered such anger in the queue already, I’d just bolt into one of the cubicles, lock myself in there and never come out ever again.

  Instead, I turn on my heel and rush out again, pushing past a sea of smirking faces. And as I break out of the door, I see The Hunk waiting. There’s a vaguely stricken expression on his face. He’s leaning against the wall and looks as if he’s hanging around waiting for me. And, although I can see some merit in the fact that he actually bothered to tell me that I looked like a prize prat, I’m not feeling magnanimous enough to acknowledge it. I just want to be out of here. Out of here fast!

  I run down the stairs, spilling drinks as I make my exit. I burst out onto the street and it’s freezing cold and I regret the absence of a coat. In my haste to be a hot sex kitten I’ve forgotten that creature comforts in the form of a woolly over-garment might have been a good idea.

  Shivering, I reach into Cara’s beaded bag and fish out my mobile. It’s turned off and when I switch it on, my message service rings and there is a voicemail from Jonathan Gold.

  ‘Hi.’ Jonathan’s recorded voice crackles over the airwaves. ‘Emily, I’m going to be late. Wait for me. I’ll be there about eleven. Sebastian Atherton will be there and I want you to meet him. Ask Paul behind the bar to point him out to you. Sorry about this.’

  The line goes dead. I look back at Temptation. Nothing on God’s earth is going to persuade me to go back in there again. Not the chance of a date with Jonathan Gold. Not the chance of meeting a society photographer. Not the chance of a chat with The Hunk. Nothing. Not even the offer of a night of sensational sex with Brad Pitt would clinch it.

  I punch Cara’s number into the phone. The Vodaphone I have called is switched off. Damn! Knowing Cara, she’s decided to retire to her bedroom for the night to meditate.

  Then my luck changes. Perhaps the crystal quartz has decided that it has a job to do, after all. A cab whizzes down the road
and even stops as I jump off the kerb to hail it.

  ‘Where to, love?’ the cabbie says as I hurl myself inside.

  I give him the address and settle back down in the seat. As we pull away from the wine bar, I look back and The Hunk comes crashing out of the doors. He scans up and down the street and then his shoulders sink as he sees my cab disappearing.

  I turn to face the front and force myself to study the back of the cab driver’s head. He has a very large bald spot with a dark brown mole slap bang in the middle of it.

  The cab driver looks in his rearview mirror. ‘Had a good night, love?’

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ I say. And then I mentally go through every single swear word I can think of.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Adam and Josh were cycling along the Thames Cycle Path which skirts the southern fringes of the Greenwich Peninsula. They were working their way down from the crush of tourists circling round the Cutty Sark, pushing past the developing acres of ritzy new real estate thrusting into the skyline and towards the deserted outreach of the Thames Flood Barrier.

  It was a bright, sunny but bitterly cold day and loading the bikes onto the rack on the back of the Vectra to take them out of the confines of Hampstead had been a chore of mammoth proportions. Adam couldn’t help wondering how warm it would be in Australia at this time of the year.

  Sundays were always spent with Josh. Unless, of course, Laura decreed otherwise. Thankfully, she seldom did these days. His ex-wife had gone through several irritating phases of trying to cock up all of his access days by cancelling them for a variety of feeble reasons. Laura did phases well. This one, it appeared, had passed. Now, Adam thought, she seemed to be glad of the break from Josh.

  Not that Josh was difficult to entertain, he just had more pent-up energy than your average Power Station. In full flow, he could make a man at the prime of his life feel like a puffed-out pensioner within ten minutes. That was why Adam tried to make sure that he and his son did challenging, character-building stuff. Boys’ stuff. Stuff, basically, that Josh didn’t seem to do any more. Barry the building society manager was a good substitute father in a lot of ways. Josh liked him. Well . . . that was about it, really. But Barry’s idea of a wild time seemed to be sitting at home watching The Simpsons with Josh. Still, it could have been a lot worse.

  It scared him sometimes that Josh seemed to know more about life as lived through EastEnders, Brookside and Coronation Street than he did about life in the outside world. Thus, despite having a huge headache, a small croaky voice and an aching void where his heart should have been, Adam was braving the elements to bring the sights of London to his son. Dragging up some enthusiasm from the depths of his jollity reserve, Adam flexed his fingers to try to force some blood back into them. If only he could be as irrepressibly bright and bouncy as his son. These days it seemed to take a lot more to get Adam’s red corpuscles knocking about excitedly.

  Escaping Hampstead was one of the things that perked him up considerably. Even the twee expanse of the Heath could feel constricting at times, and once you’d kicked a ball about for a bit and maybe flown a kite on the top of Parliament Hill, there was little else to keep a burgeoning teenager amused. Adam loved to head for the river, battling his way through the traffic of the Elephant and Castle, The Old Kent Road and Deptford, through the tatters of South London, to hit the open stretch of the Thames where it started the long wind out of London on its way to the English Channel. In contrast to the claustrophobia of over-population, it felt wide open and positively coastal here. It was the closest you could get to being at the seaside and still be within the city.

  Once they were out of the narrow back lanes of Greenwich, the air was as fresh as it possibly could be in an area that was still very much a working dockland, despite years of decline. There was a tang of yeast and chemicals in the air rather than ozone, but emotionally it had the same effect. Adam threw caution to the wind and filled his lungs. Cormorants perched expectantly on the dilapidated, weed-infested piers, before diving lazily for fish in water the colour of Brown Windsor soup. Shelducks and teal bobbed on the choppy, wind-whipped waters alongside the scattering of tiny, coloured yachts anchored just beyond the reach of the green-black mud flats and the receding sliver of shingle shore.

  Josh had his head down against the chilly wind and an expression of supreme concentration on his face. Adam smiled to himself; just looking at his son could warm him through inside. ‘You all right?’

  Josh took his eyes off the pavement and grinned. ‘Yeah.’ His legs were pedalling round determinedly. ‘You look a bit wasted though.’

  ‘I am,’ Adam said, feeling the cold air whistle through his teeth. ‘Heavy night.’

  ‘Yeah?’ Josh brightened. ‘Where did you go?’

  ‘A new wine bar in the High Street.’

  ‘Was it good?’

  Adam nodded. ‘So-so.’

  Sometimes, when the weather was warmer, they stopped and enjoyed a soft drink outside the Cutty Sark pub – one of the many inns in London that claimed to be the oldest – and watched the day-trippers take in the sights from the water. Today they pushed on, the path narrowing as they moved past beached wooden river barges and the rusting hulls of long-defunct passenger ferries and pleasure boats. They whizzed past Josh’s favourite part, the gaudy, artistic graffiti scrawled on the corrugated-iron fences protecting the backs of the chemical companies and refineries of this tattered industrial stretch. The towering glass structures of Canary Wharf loomed high over the river, windows glittering in the sun. Brash new business facing off against the old, fading ways.

  Josh got his breath back. ‘Did you go with anyone?’

  ‘Yeah. Toff.’

  ‘No one else?’

  ‘Josh,’ Adam said, ‘they don’t ask you as many questions as this on The Weakest Link.’

  ‘They do.’

  ‘Do not.’

  ‘You never tell me anything,’ Josh complained.

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Do not,’ Josh said. ‘I tell you everything.’

  ‘That’s different.’ Gulls cried out, wheeling above them in the air currents. Adam could feel the full force of the persistent wind easing the collar of his shirt apart and blowing down his neck. It was the first thing that had blown down his neck in a long, long time, he thought regretfully. ‘You’re a kid. Kids are supposed to do that.’

  Josh looked unconvinced.

  ‘It’s true,’ Adam said. ‘You’re not supposed to give me advice about my love life.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘You’re supposed to come to me for advice. When you’re older.’ Adam avoided looking at him. ‘Much, much older.’

  ‘Oh.’ His son’s legs worked at his pedals as he considered this revelation. When he spoke, he sounded puzzled. ‘Don’t you want to know about my girlfriends then?’

  ‘Yes,’ Adam said. ‘Of course I do.’ He grinned at Josh. ‘How is Britney Spears?’

  ‘Imogen,’ Josh supplied. ‘She’s all right.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘I’d like to marry her when I’m a grown-up.’

  It was nice to think that just because his parents had made a complete hash of living in the traditional bounds of a marriage that it hadn’t deterred Josh from seeing it as his ideal. Or perhaps he was hoping that he might make a better job of it. ‘Does she feel the same way?’

  ‘No,’ Josh said. ‘She doesn’t want to settle down and have children until she’s at least twenty-two.’

  ‘Oh,’ Adam said.

  ‘She wants to have a flat in Kensington with Leanne Connolly and break through the glass ceiling,’ his son said earnestly.

  ‘Oh. And what does that involve?’ Adam asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Josh said. ‘I thought it best not to ask.’

  Adam nodded. ‘Probably a good idea.’

  ‘So did you have a date last night?’ the boy asked, thinking that as he’d unburdened his soul on the subject of women it was his dad
’s turn to do the same. ‘Or was it really just Toff?’

  Clearly Josh was unwilling to take the strong hint that this was a taboo subject. Adam sighed, but the wind whisked it away. ‘I had a date.’

  Josh grinned broadly at him. ‘I knew,’ he said, trying all of his bike gears in rotation for no apparent reason. ‘I could tell.’

  ‘Well, that’s very perceptive of you,’ Adam said, smiling back.

  If Josh hadn’t been hanging onto his handlebars for grim death, he probably would have rubbed his hands together with glee.

  Adam mused for a few moments as they wheeled round the new path bordering the beautiful saucer-shaped white elephant of the Millennium Dome. Whatever you thought of the Civil Servant-created contents of the ill-conceived structure, Adam decided, the outside was a wonderful transformation of what was once nothing more than the derelict wasteland of a former gasworks. Now the magnificent and controversial structure lay abandoned, the too-few visitors replaced by skips, diggers, deserted car parks and ripped-up tarmac – its future still in jeopardy. It was a crime to see it standing neglected and decaying, returning slowly but surely to its previous state, Adam thought. Such a bloody waste.

  ‘Was she nice?’ Josh asked.

  He glanced across at his son. ‘No,’ he said sadly. ‘She wasn’t very nice.’

  ‘Oh Dad!’ Josh was totally exasperated. ‘You never like anyone!’

  ‘I do,’ Adam protested.

  ‘You do not.’

  ‘I do. I happened to meet someone I liked very much last night.’ Adam pushed harder on his pedals. ‘She just didn’t happen to be the woman I was on a date with.’

  ‘Ooo,’ Josh said, eyes widening.

  ‘You can stop that now,’ Adam said.

  Adam gazed out at the murky water. A floating glass restaurant pottered out towards the barrier, filled with people concentrating more on the delights of their roast beef than the history of a river that had once frozen over enough for men to play football on it. A river that Londoners had swum in long before the fish decided it was too unclean. It was said that drinking a teaspoon of the polluted Ganges or the Nile would be enough to kill a man – Adam wasn’t sure that he’d want to take his chances with the Thames either.