‘People will always need chairs,’ she said vaguely, wondering why Flora hadn’t mentioned this.
‘That’s what my mother used to say. Then she said, “But you can’t possibly make a living out of that.”’ The new light took to its position happily. In a few more minutes he was tightening the last screw. ‘There!’ He stood up and felt pleased with himself for a job well done. ‘As good as new.’
‘You like a drive?’ Georgie invited him rapidly, opening the driver’s door.
‘Uhhhhhh …’ He who hesitated was lost. ‘Could I really? Would you trust me? Well, why not? Just around the block, maybe.’
‘No, not around the block,’ she insisted. ‘You got to drive fast to enjoy this car.’ And she incited him to sprint down the underpass to Westminster and then over a bridge and around Battersea Park, which was as much driving excitement as the city can offer. The weather cooperated with a fast-moving Constable sky.
‘I love these evenings in London,’ she informed him, sticking her head out of the window to let the wind blow her hair. ‘Everything is so beautiful! You can feel free here!’
‘I suppose you can,’ he agreed, anxious to be tactful with a refugee from poverty and oppression.
As they approached Battersea Bridge, she spotted the tea stall and demanded that they stop.
‘English tea!’ she improvised. ‘I love it. I drink it all the time.’
‘How long have you lived here?’ he asked while they leaned against the balustrade and waited for the scalding beverages to cool.
‘What does it matter?’ she demanded, panicking because she had not invented a cover story for Merita. ‘I am here now, that is the only thing that is important.’
‘What about your country? Your family? Are they still …’
‘My art is everything,’ she declaimed with an inclusive arm sweep which splashed tea into the river. ‘My life is nothing. I can’t talk about my country. It makes me sad. When I am sad, I make my art!’
‘I must go and see it.’ Dillon found that he was feeling good, meaning younger, fresher and less tired than usual. In addition, it was somewhat exciting to be with this woman. The handful of people standing around the tea stall were looking at them benignly. Life seemed to contain possibilities. He could not remember discussing happiness or sadness with anyone before. He realised that he had not thought of a gerbil for almost an hour. He felt he could do with a second cup of tea. And perhaps a fried egg sandwich by way of dinner.
Georgie reached towards him, shut her eyes and grabbed. She opened her eyes and found that she was clutching a chunk of Dillon’s jacket and the wrist of the hand that held the styrofoam cup. ‘I think you are very sexy,’ she announced. ‘Will you go to bed with me?’
‘Huh?’
‘Go to bed with me!’ she repeated wildly.
An extremely foolish laugh broke out somewhere behind Dillon’s tie. ‘Let me put my tea down,’ he suggested, playing for time. Was she serious? She seemed extremely serious, she looked suddenly deadly earnest. Would she be more insulted if he said no or if he pretended he thought she was kidding? If she was insulted, would she hit him? Or scream? Or claim he was attacking her so he’d be locked up and interrogated on suspicion of being a serial rapist?
‘Look,’ he said, instinct telling him to try the reasonable approach. ‘I should have mentioned it before. We hadn’t talked for long, it didn’t come up really. But I’m getting married. I am engaged.’
‘You are … engaged?’ Oddly, she seemed to like this idea.
‘Well, yes. Very much so, as a matter of fact.’
‘Very good!’ Definitely, she was pleased. She was even smiling, a sort of all-purpose, life-affirming smile.
Dillon felt violent relief. He was not going to be charged with sexual harassment after all. ‘Yes, I’m getting married. I’m sorry …’
‘Why sorry?’ Georgie felt violent relief. It was over. He’d passed the test, he was OK, whatever voodoo Flora had performed on him had worked, this man was no longer a victim of his hormones. ‘It is I who should be sorry. I make mistake.’
‘Please – look, we can forget it. Shall we do that?’
‘Yes. We forget. You go home, I go home, we forget.’ She rolled her Rs outrageously. Merita was a lot of fun, she was going to miss her.
They set off back to the car with one will. ‘But I’ll go and see your paintings,’ Dillon promised in consolation.
‘Not paintings!’ Georgie exclaimed. ‘Art! Works on metal and glass. Very noisy when you fall in them.’
‘Are people supposed to fall in them?’ Dillon enquired, wondering if she would still let him drive the car back. She seemed to find the question hilarious. He had to drive because she was laughing so much. She had, he noticed, a very deep laugh. For no reason at all he thought of hot dark chocolate.
Flora visualised Felix, his silk polo shirt and his flashy watch, the home in Notting Hill and the office in a Portakabin in the hospital car park. Into her meditative mind came an idea. She booked a table at the most expensive restaurant within a quarter of a mile of the flat where Felix lived with Georgie.
‘I do hope you will stay in touch with us,’ she told him. ‘However our funding proposal is received. At Pforza we believe in bringing together the best minds in medicine on a regular basis. Being a new company, we know we need to make friends. Part of my remit is to organise a conference every few months or so. Nice places. Five-star hotels. People think much better when they know their physical needs will be taken care of.’
‘Oh, yes,’ Felix commented.
‘Our last conference was at Monte Carlo. We gave the delegates a thousand pounds each to go gambling in the evenings. Instead of just eating and drinking. One of them was a pretty mean player. He went home quite rich, I think. Entertainment is tremendously important, it stimulates creative interaction.’
‘Absolutely,’ said Felix.
‘It would mean so much to me if you could join us. We were thinking of going to Capri next. Or maybe Istanbul. Which would you prefer?’
‘I’d go for Capri,’ he said, dragging his eyes away from the menu. ‘As a man, I’m never really comfortable in a Muslim country. Even though Istanbul is a cosmopolitan city. The assumptions people make about you, the things you know are going on, the beliefs you know people hold … I suppose the bottom line is I just can’t feel happy somewhere where women still wear the chador.’
‘So sensitive,’ she murmured. ‘Do you have a lot of sisters?’
‘Oh no,’ he confessed, ‘I’m an only child.’
‘But you seem to have extraordinary understanding of women.’
‘Perhaps because of my mother We’ve always been very close. Things were tough for her, she was widowed when I was still quite small. I identified so much with her, struggling to make a home for us. Until I was able to start discovering the female in myself, my mother was my anima. So she was closer, really, than a sister could ever be. My mother made me a feminist.’
Flora considered saying, ‘If I give her the wool, will she make me one too?’ but she felt that Felix did not admire flippancy. ‘How fascinating,’ she breathed. ‘I sensed it, you know. When we first met. You have this rapport with the female, don’t you?’
‘That’s hardly for me to say.’ At last, Felix had the decency to blush. Or perhaps he was merely hot. Flora’s flattery had inflated him like an amorous frog and his jacket seemed tight around his shoulders.
She disdained to open her menu and caught the eye of the waiter, thinking that this whole affair was turning into a long luxurious picnic. ‘Do you have escalope de toro?‘ she demanded.
‘Oui, madame.’ His accent was a veneer of Geneva over several generations of Capetown.
‘It’s the bullfight steak,’ she told Felix, waiting for a reaction. He blinked, but that was all. ‘They have it flown in from Andalucia. Utterly delicious. The tenderest possible meat, because the death was instantaneous and the muscle fibres are completely relaxed. A
nd not hung too long, so the taste is out of this world. I’d like mine rare,’ she informed the waiter. ‘And the oysters to start.’
Felix was gazing at her with large eyes. ‘The same for me,’ he said obediently. Flora felt she could certainly help him with some of his integrity issues.
Flora commanded the most expensive Burgundy on the list. Then she poised her chakras in perfect alignment, summoned the kundalini serpent coiled in her solar plexus, moved to invade the border of Felix’s personal space and asked him, ‘What was it, Felix, that led you to explore your feminine side?’
Ninety minutes later they were elbow to elbow and the last spoonful of his chocolate sorbet was sliding between her freshly reddened lips. She looked at him moodily and, under the camouflage of the tablecloth, went for the nuts.
‘Please,’ he said. At least, the quick hiss that escaped his lips sounded like that word. The matter in Flora’s hand tightened eagerly. She smiled and applied delicate fingertip pressure.
‘Please don’t.’ His voice cracked a little. She felt increased eagerness and awarded it a feathery caress. She leaned towards him and blew gently on his ear. Felix opened his mouth but had difficulty finding words.
‘Why don’t you take me home?’ she whispered, cradling possessively. ‘Just for coffee. I promise to behave.’
‘No.’ It was nearly a moan. ‘No. I can’t. It wouldn’t be right.’
‘I’ve never felt anything so right in my life,’ she suggested.
‘Right for me,’ he explained, settling the knot of his tie with an uncertain hand. With downcast eyes, he coughed. Flora felt the movement and responded to it, smiling some more as she felt the substance in her grasp increase.
‘Just right for me,’ she repeated softly.
‘I’ve worked so hard to transcend my conditioning.’ Felix paused for a battle-weary sigh before continuing. ‘I believe the emotional quality of a relationship is everything. It’s much too precious to compromise at the beginning by falling into stereotypical roles. Don’t you agree?’
Flora translated this as ‘we don’t know each other well enough’, high on the list of her own top ten favourite strategies for playing hard to get. The correct response was obvious. Lightly bur instantaneously, she removed her hand. ‘You must forgive me,’ she said with gracious regret. ‘Suddenly, I just wanted you so much. You are an extraordinary man.’ The pliancy drained from her body, she sat stiffly upright and gestured at the waiter for the bill.
Outside the restaurant she gave him a cheek kiss as quick as a kingfisher’s dive and said, ‘It’s been a wonderful evening, Felix. I’ll call you tomorrow.’ Then she slipped into the Mercedes and was gone without a backward glance, leaving Felix on the pavement with an uncomfortable degree of turmoil in several different regions of his being.
10. April 26
‘Flora, you were right.’ Georgie kicked off her shoes, dropped her briefcase on the floor and dived into the aromatic depths of Donna’s suede sofa. ‘That man is all yours. I made the most outrageous pass at him and he nearly died of terror.’
A warm giggle came from Flora in the kitchen area. ‘That doesn’t sound like my baby boy at all.’ She appeared in the doorway, swinging a crystal on a silver chain. ‘Blow by blow, come on. What the hell did you do?’
‘Grabbed hold of him and told him he was sheer sex on legs and how about it?’
‘You didn’t!’ Flora shrieked. ‘Way to go!’
‘Des inspired me. He was right, I was just pussyfooting. Men don’t faff around, do they?’
‘And where was this?’
‘The tea stall on Battersea Bridge. I was letting him drive my car.’
‘You let him drive Flat Eric! Are you crazy? You love that thing. Dillon’s useless with cars. He didn’t hit anything this time, I hope?’
‘I think he enjoyed it,’ Georgie said artlessly, not noticing the green flash through Flora’s eyes at the word ‘enjoy’.
‘You’re a star,’ Flora assured her. ‘More balls than me, anyway.’
‘I wouldn’t say that.’
‘Well, I’m getting nowhere fast with your Felix. It’s like smooching a glacier.’
‘Funny, I never saw that side of him.’ Georgie stretched her legs and wiggled her toes complacently.
‘I keep vamping him and he just sticks to business.’
Georgie sighed happily. ‘That sounds like my baby, all right. Unless you’re talking to him about Lightoller’s Syndrome, he doesn’t hear a word you say.’
‘So,’ Flora proposed. ‘Twelve days to go and no progress on either front.’
‘That’s right,’ agreed Georgie with satisfaction. Too much satisfaction, Flora considered. Just as she had failed to declare her game plan, or mention that the affair of Felix had progressed precisely as she had hoped, so she reasoned that Georgie had to be holding back.
‘Where shall we go for these honeymoons Donna’s going to be paying for?’
‘Felix will never take time off. He’s a short break man, it’ll be a weekend in Venice if I’m lucky.’
Flora twirled her pendant, making rainbows over the glass tabletop. ‘You can do better than that. Motivate yourself, woman! I was thinking about one of those houseboats in Kerala. Drifting through the giant waterlilies to the temple of a thousand gods. Dillon will get bitten to hell by the mosquitoes, I expect. But I’ll enjoy it.’
‘What’s the crystal for?’ Georgie enquired, hoping to get Flora off her case.
‘Shopping,’ said Flora. ‘Des wants to cook us dinner. I thought I’d swing by Planet Organic and buy some vegetables. You use the crystal to dowse them. The freshest ones have the most energy.’
‘Oh, right.’ Georgie sat up, suddenly in the mood for play. ‘This I have to see. I’ll come with you.’
As they waited for the glass-walled lift in the marblefloored hall, Flora said casually, ‘So what’s your next move with Dillon, then?’
Georgie had no intention of making another move. As far as she was concerned, she had played her part, honour was satisfied and the game was over. Nor did she wish to incite Flora to move any more towards Felix. Flora was a great mate but she could take things too seriously sometimes. ‘I’m going for the strategic withdrawal,’ Georgie said. ‘I think I scared him off. The thing to do now is give him back the initiative.’
‘Good. I don’t want you sending my poor boy into cardiac arrest before I can be a grieving widow. That’s where I’m at, too. Time to back off. Give him space.’
The lift arrived and the doors opened, sighing along with Georgie as she observed, ‘They do like their space, men, don’t they?’
Through the half-open door of her office, Donna watched Dillon moving around his desk. Three days without Flora and the man looked different. Thinner, perhaps. More confident, maybe. Dominant, even. She could see a lean, mean, boss Dillon emerging from the bright but undirected young man she had hired. He was morphing into one clever bastard. She had handed him a poisoned chalice and he had come back with a Holy Grail, rot him.
In the presentation suite that afternoon, Dillon had unveiled his concept for the small-pet policy. The all-animated Marmeduke Whiskers Home Page, projected on the wall of multiple screens that Marketing used for their TV commercials, had wowed everyone. The minute Dillon had finished, people had jumped up all over the room with ideas for sales, for publicity, for merchandising, for franchising, for export, for God-knows-what. They’d made so much noise, the managing director had looked in and sealed Dillon’s success.
For the first time in her life, Donna had found herself powerless. She had visualised the event as a damp squib, an embarrassing exercise that would have left everyone muttering apologetic monosyllables and remembering urgent appointments. Instead, Dillon had triumphed. There had been nothing to do but sit there and let the man bask in his victory. Now she was stuck with the Marmeduke Whiskers policy, which had argued itself into her development strategy on its graphics, in defiance of business logic. Her own ca
lculations insisted that the product couldn’t possibly be viable financially, but there was no way she could tell that to the MD when his brain was full of jumping gerbils and hippity-hoppity bunny-rabbits.
Donna wanted a cigarette and she didn’t even smoke. She walked around her corner office looking for things to put in their places, but everything was already in its place. She had long ago mastered the nitty-gritty habits of success. There was no paper on her desk because she read every item of print and actioned it immediately. Archives, research, resources – they were for underlings. She gloried in minimalism. Her desk was naked. Her floor was bare. She had spent prime time on buying furniture that effaced itself and choosing a paint colour that seemed to dissolve the walls. Ideally, Donna would have liked to exist in a vacuum. Things just slowed you down. People were worse.
The floor-to-ceiling window was lined with a blind which allowed her to see out but prevented outsiders from looking in. Over at the product design desk, Donna saw her wunderkind preparing to go home. He scooped papers into his wastebin, tossed, pencils back in their pot and closed down his terminal. He was preparing to leave her sphere and take up a life beyond her control. Even before he moved to take away Flora, there had always been something wayward about Dillon, something subversive, inaccessible. A bubble of rage exploded in her mind. As he stood up and prepared to leave, Donna pulled open her office door and raised her voice to coo, ‘Golden boy! I want to talk to you.’
‘I’m here,’ he said, with that irritating Superhero smile she thought she’d buried with a stake through its heart. Lean, dominant and somehow more mature. All at once Donna could see Dillon as an MD. A popular one, at that. More popular than she would be. Such men were dangerous. She made her way through the desks towards him.
‘Brilliant presentation. Absolutely brilliant,’ she said.
‘Thanks,’ he answered.
‘Have you got a moment?’
‘Sure. I’m meant to be playing squash, but not for an hour.’
Heartswap Page 11