Brand New Friend

by Kate Vane

  ‘You know he bought British Gas shares,’ she said.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Dhanesh.’

  The British Gas privatisation was at the forefront of the Thatcher revolution. She had sold off this valuable piece of national infrastructure at a knockdown price in the name of ‘efficency’ even though it was already profitable (otherwise no one would have bought).

  ‘Ratman’s got British Gas shares,’ said Paolo.

  ‘Didn’t his gran put them in trust or something?’

  ‘He didn’t refuse them though, did he?’

  ‘He said that if he didn’t get them, some other fucker would, and he’d have lost out twice. Once when his share of a national asset was taken from him, and again when he didn’t get a dividend.’ Claire was laughing now. ‘But that’s different. Dhanesh actually believes in privatisation. He says Britain is the lazy man of Europe.’

  ‘He was probably just winding you up.’

  ‘Why do you defend him when you know I’m right?’

  ‘Where’s Isabel?’ he asked, partly to change the subject but also because he always wanted to know about Isabel.

  ‘Out,’ she said tersely. They hadn’t been getting on well lately. He wasn’t the only one to notice. Dudley had commented on it, saying it must be that time of the month, which Paolo had ignored as Dudley was rolling them a joint at the time.

  Then Kev turned up with a mate and a keyboard, glared at the cassette-radio which was turning its way through ‘Famous Blue Raincoat’ and said, ‘That won’t get the party started!’ and switched it off.

  They set up the keyboard and launched into song. Kev’s reedy speaking voice gave no hint of his rich baritone and his mate had quite a nice falsetto. While their version of ‘I Feel Love’ owed something to the Mark Almond and Bronski Beat cover, they brought an energy to it that was all their own. They filled the room, they made Paolo want to get up and dance. So he did. And Claire did too.

  ‘I think I love you,’ he told Kev when they finished the song. Kev gave an ironic bow. Even Claire was smiling.

  Paolo’s head was whirring as he thought about how he loved music and its strange alchemy which could transform even Kev from irritant to minor deity when he stopped talking and started singing.

  Then Kev’s mate said he was in a band which Paolo had never heard of, but Claire said she knew someone who knew someone who knew their drummer and that she had seen them once when they supported The Wedding Present. Kev carried on playing, Velvet Underground, Pet Shop Boys, some songs that Paolo didn’t know.

  Graham popped in and had a cup of tea and gazed adoringly at Claire. She kept her eyes fixedly on Kev and his friend. Graham eventually said he had to go and study and he’d see them later. No one answered. Kev and his friend finished jamming and plonked either side of Claire. She had put a Talking Heads tape on as it was the only upbeat album she had. Mark turned up and sat on the arm of the sofa.

  ‘How was the demo?’ Paolo asked Mark. They hadn’t spoken much since Mark called off the action but Mark had told him the week before he was going up to Faslane for a public protest at the peace camp.

  ‘Good,’ said Mark. ‘Strong.’

  ‘Oh. Good,’ echoed Paolo.

  Then he turned to Claire and the others. ‘We should go the pub,’ he said. He was restless. Fiona had gone back and he was missing her. Or maybe he was just missing sex. He wasn’t going to find sex here, getting thriftily pissed on cheap cider while listening to two gay crooners. Who knew who might be in the pub? The pub meant life, incident, drama.

  So they went to the pub and an hour later Mark, Claire and Paolo traipsed back (Kev and his friend were going back to someone else’s house) and they ended up in Paolo’s room. Isabel had lent him her record player at the weekend and hadn’t got round to reclaiming it yet (Isabel was incredibly casual about possessions, perhaps because she had so many) and Paolo suddenly had to put on Ocean Rain by Echo and the Bunnymen. They all sat and listened and Paolo watched Mark, while also thinking mournfully about the woman on his course who he kind of liked.

  He had seen her tonight wrapped around a guy in a U2 T-shirt. How he had misjudged her! He wouldn’t say he was heartbroken but the drink was making him both horny and maudlin, not a good combination.

  Mark was edgy too, perhaps that was the effect of being sober around pissed people, but he must be used to that. He sat near to Claire and when Paolo came back from taking a piss he appeared to be trying to talk to her, with a kind of urgent whisper, but she seemed to be edging away from him.

  Perhaps he’s nervous, thought Paolo, clearing his throat, feeling a little rush of tension himself.

  ‘Fiona went back to Faslane the other day,’ he began. ‘She called her mate before she left.’ (They had this complicated arrangement where one of her friends from the camp would be at a particular phone box at particular times each week in case anyone needed to speak to them.) She said the protest that you said was “strong” was cancelled because of flooding at the camp.’

  Mark didn’t speak. He was looking at the floor. Claire looked at Mark. Then he said, ‘I didn’t want to tell anyone this. But I know I can trust you two. My ex-girlfriend’s mum lives near Oban. She’s got cancer and my ex-girlfriend is caring for her. I said I’d go and see her, give her some support. I meant to call in at Faslane but the traffic was bad and I didn’t have time.’

  ‘That’s really sweet!’ said Claire. ‘Isn’t it, Paolo?’

  ‘Sweet’ wasn’t a word that he used very much, but he nodded reluctantly. His Columbo moment had passed without significant revelations. He had been sure that Mark was away planning action of some kind. Bigger, better action than he had ever suggested to them. But Claire seemed to have accepted his explanation and he had nothing to counter it.

  Claire was funny that night. She had that brittle liveliness she sometimes had when she was pissed. She had a light flush in her cheeks and she’d done something different with her make-up, that Audrey Hepburn thing with eyeliner that Isabel sometimes did, which was looking a little smudged now but still, it was exciting, being both Isabel and not-Isabel. For a moment he pictured a scene, Isabel in front of Claire, looking intently into her eyes, maybe sticking out her tongue a little as she concentrated, running the pencil along Claire’s eyelids which were closed as if in supplication as she felt the sweet, sweet breath of Isabel on her face...

  He looked at Claire again. She was telling him a story. She was actually funny when she wanted to be. And her eyes had a depth to them that he’d never noticed before. Then Mark began to speak but Paolo wasn’t listening. His drunk eyes hadn’t managed to move and they were still on Claire and suddenly she saw him looking and she looked back, that look, and he thought, God, I’m going to have sex with Claire. A thought that was absurd but exciting and suddenly inevitable.

  The inevitability, though, had clearly not communicated itself to Mark. He was still here, sipping his water from a pint glass. Paolo wondered idly if it was the same one he’d pissed in the other night when he was too tired to get up and climb the two flights of stairs to the bathroom. He had rinsed it under the tap, hadn’t he?

  Mark was starting to get on his nerves. His solidity, his refusal to be swayed from his essential Markness which Paolo generally admired, was tonight a source of irritation. Couldn’t he feel the vibes? More than that, Paolo wasn’t sure if it was Mark’s refusal to leave or Paolo’s disappointment that the raid was called off which annoyed him.

  He supposed you couldn’t blame Mark if it hadn’t worked out but it made him wonder if Mark was as confident as he seemed. What had he actually done? He was a good organiser and he knew all about sabbing tactics and he was always willing to drive the van to a demo, but did he actually have the balls when it mattered?

  Mark was saying something but Paolo wasn’t listening. ‘The Killing Moon’ was playing.

  ‘I love this one,’ Claire said reverently, and it was as if she’d read his mind.

  Mark
stopped speaking and the silence ran on, right through ‘Seven Seas’, and then Paolo and Claire bickered about the merits of the title track (she loved it, he thought it was a dirge) and whether Paolo’s hair looked as good as Ian McCulloch’s, subjects on which Mark apparently had no opinion.

  Finally Mark got up to go and Mark asked Claire with a meaningful stare into her eyes if she wanted to come with him to pick up that book she wanted to borrow which he had at the flat. Really? Now? Was Mark trying to get off with Claire? Would she respond? Was the look just a remnant of an earlier look which in fact had been directed at Mark?

  Claire said she was too tired and even did a little muffled yawn and Mark finally left.

  Paolo and Claire were alone. There was still time to get out of this. He could just yawn as well and say goodnight. He stretched out on the bed. She put down her drink and stood up.

  ‘Come here,’ he said.

  ‘In a minute,’ she said and walked out.

  He undressed quickly while she was gone and got under the covers. He wondered if she would even come back but he heard her tread on the stairs, light but emphatic.

  She turned out the light and got into bed still fully clothed, then undressed herself without a word. He listened to her rustling, her methodical manoeuvring, and awaited his doom. He could no longer picture the Audrey Hepburn eyes, the lips that had been touched by Isabel’s breath. Just Claire. In his bed.

  It was the best sex he ever had.

  49

  The Fifth Floor! Home of the language services of the BBC World Service. How he loved to come here.

  The World Service had been a constant in his life since long before he worked for the BBC in Cairo, long before he worked with Salma and then fell in love with her. When he was home it made him dream of abroad. When he was abroad, it reminded him of home.

  Over the years he had gone from painstakingly tuning his portable radio to listen through the crackle of static, to listening through the night at home when Radio Four signed off, to digital and internet and podcasts. Wherever he was, if the domestic news channels had a story and he wasn’t sure if it was true, or if it mattered, he would turn to the World Service for their analysis.

  He was here to see Layla, one of his and Salma’s closest friends, who worked for BBC Arabic. Layla had set up a joint meeting with a colleague from the Russian service. They’d been working on a story for a while. He’d offered to buy them both lunch but Layla said that Vera preferred to have a working lunch in a meeting room.

  He found Layla at her desk after stopping to greet various friends at the Arabic Service. Here, among his erstwhile colleagues from Lebanon and Jordan and a newcomer from Algeria, he felt he had come home.

  Layla smiled and looked up from her desk. She had been in Cairo during the Arab Spring, had watched as he and Salma had each made their choice. She, like Paolo, had stayed with the BBC, maintained the mantle of neutrality, but he knew it had not been an easy choice.

  After they’d exchanged greetings, she said, ‘Tell Salma we must meet for lunch soon. Or she can stay at my place and we’ll go to dinner and the theatre. It’s been too long. Even a great novelist needs a break.’

  ‘You can always come to Suffolk,’ he said, covering his confusion. He thought Salma had seen Layla recently.

  Layla smiled with amused condescension at this patently ridiculous suggestion. Londoners do not visit people in villages. The traffic could only be one way. He couldn’t say anything. Salma would have thought the same before their move.

  ‘Vera is meeting us in the room.’

  Vera Makarova was striking, with a sharply cut crop which highlighted her heart-shaped face and dark eyes. Eyes that were assessing him and were clearly not impressed.

  Vera had already started eating her home-made salad in a Tupperware box. Her whole posture spoke of impatience as Layla made joky introductions and talked about their past, but she was polite and attentive.

  Then they began. He explained how he was working on a story about corporate espionage following a tip about ZKI.

  Vera said, ‘You do this for Breakfast?’ She gave a small, cautious smile, as if she had thought of a joke she couldn’t share and he liked her better already.

  ‘Newsnight,’ he said. ‘If anything comes of it.’

  She nodded. ‘We hope to make a documentary. If anything comes of it.’

  ‘So,’ said Layla. ‘You wanted to talk to us about ZKI.’

  He told them a little about Sid and his suspicion that he was working for an agency that was contracted to ZKI. He also told them that he thought Sid had recruited Mark.

  ‘Your source is reliable?’

  ‘I don’t know. I need corroboration. That’s why I thought I’d talk to you.’

  Vera spoke. ‘This is the way with this company. Lots of people know things but nobody quite has enough.’

  She began to tell him what she knew. Some of it echoed what Salma had told him, how Yevgeny Petrov had made his money in the time-honoured oligarch tradition. How he had diversified, buying up legitimate companies worldwide and owned them through holding companies in various tax havens.

  ‘My colleagues and I have been trying to unravel the complicated company structures he has set up. We believe his CEO and former finance director, Dhanesh Gupta, is responsible for much of the complexity. What we do know is that ZKI has significant interests in oil and gas and has moved into fracking in the US and here. That and mining.’

  ‘Asbestos,’ said Paolo.

  Layla nodded. ‘And how does this relate to the murder of Sid Jenkins?’

  ‘I don’t know if it does.’

  Vera looked at Layla who gave a nod.

  ‘There is something else,’ said Vera. ‘Two people have died who campaigned against the company’s asbestos interests and its effect on the workers and the wider community. One a journalist, the other a local politician. Both appear to be random killings. Street robberies. We have a source who says they were killed by operatives paid for by ZKI. Recruited via an agency, of course.’

  ‘Fargold?’

  She gave an involuntary nod. ‘That’s all I can say. We don’t have enough to substantiate the allegations.’

  Paolo’s head was spinning. Fargold was the agency that Sid – and Mark – were working for.

  ‘This means something to you?’ asked Layla.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  50

  Paolo hadn’t got out of bed yet. He had that almost ecstatic sense of ennui you got on an overcast afternoon with a hangover and an essay due for which you have done no preparation but have actually been looking forward to writing. He just hoped he had the books he needed because there was no way he’d make it to the library.

  He thought he was the only one in – he had heard the front door slam numerous times, had woken then drifted back to sleep – but there was a knock at his door. It was Isabel.

  ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I didn’t think you were here.’ As if she were disappointed. Who or what else had she hoped to find? His stash? Not that he would blame her. They regularly ‘borrowed’ each other’s booze and drugs, and he got the better end of the deal as she generally had more than he did.

  She stood in the doorway looking languid and bored, as if she were his current mood personified. She was wearing a new silky robe, this one the colour of jade, tied at the waist, and a towel twisted like a turban on her head.

  ‘Come in if you want,’ he said.

  ‘Are you decent?’ But she was already sitting on the bed beside him.

  He put aside his Traidcraft recycled lined A4 pad. The paper was scratchy and grey and cost three times more than the standard pads in the Union shop. He hadn’t written anything anyway.

  ‘Have you got any drink?’ she asked. She looked flushed and pink, not like her usual cool ivory. She must have got out of the bath. This was how he imagined she would look post-orgasm. The thought made him flush too. Her skin was smooth with a light sheen and she smelt expensive, a new smell
to him in a woman, despite his growing inventory of scent memories – from ‘natural’ earthiness to non-animal tested functionality to cheap chain-store eye-liner and hairspray, never removed, only reapplied.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ve got vodka. I’ll go and get it.’

  He barely had time to throw on some clothes and turn on his cassette-radio (it still had one of Claire’s Bob Dylan tapes in it but that couldn’t be helped) before she was back with Blue Label vodka and two mismatched glasses. He didn’t much like vodka but he was willing to compromise on this occasion.

  She gave him the larger of the two, lit a cigarette, drew deeply, poured vodka in the glasses with nonchalant splashiness and only then looked round for somewhere to flick the ash.

  Paolo had an old saucer which he usually kept for friends who smoked but he had hidden it because one of the few things that broke Fiona’s relentless amiability was the sight of cigarettes. He reached under the wardrobe and pulled it out for her.

  Isabel watched him fixedly. She flicked ash in the general direction of the saucer which he had placed exactly at arm’s length for her. It fell to the carpet, adding to the slow, implacable accumulation of dust.

  ‘I’m moving out,’ said Isabel.

  ‘We all are, aren’t we?’ They were all going their separate ways next year. Their contract ran till the end of June but they would probably leave earlier, depending on exam commitments. He would be in Cairo next year and the others would have to find houses, probably not together.

  ‘I’m moving out at Easter. Sooner if I can.’

  His first thought was, ‘What about Claire?’

  ‘She’ll get over it.’

  He had thought it might be awkward after that night with Claire. That she might want to talk. Claire always wanted to ‘talk’ about everything, especially when she’d had a few shandies, but she just treated him with the same exasperation as always. He’d thought about what he needed to say. Yes, they’d had a good time (at this point his imaginary speech was derailed by unbidden images, scents, sensations) but they were just mates and they shouldn’t let this spoil their friendship and – The speech was never given because Claire gave him no opportunity.