Heartswap

by Celia Brayfield

  ‘Welcome home, darling,’ he murmured, crushing the bouquet into Georgie’s arms.

  Four people apparently wanted to view Dillon’s flat on Saturday morning. He went out early to buy a loaf of bread. His mother had advised him to put a fresh loaf in a warm oven when buyers were expected, to give the flat a wholesome and appetising atmosphere. ‘All the smoke from the kebab shop blows straight in your windows,’ she warned him. When he first received that advice, Dillon resolved immediately to ignore it.

  On Saturday morning, however, a stale smell of the previous night’s kebabs seemed to permeate the whole building, so he reconsidered. Freshly baked bread that actually had a smell was thin on the ground around Madagascar Basin. The nearest bread was a shelf-full of sliced loaves wrapped in plastic at a petrol station. The next nearest bread was a stale and scentless old baguette at a corner shop that was waiting for its weekend delivery. The supermarket was too far away. Dillon went back to the petrol station and bought a cheese and bacon croissant, which smelt reasonably attractive if not precisely as wholesome as fresh bread.

  Feeling martyred because he had had no breakfast, Dillon put the croissant in the oven and waited for his first viewing at 9.30.

  By 10.50, when his bell rang, the smell of the croissant had made Dillon ravenously hungry but he had not dared to eat anything for fear of making the kitchen look more sordid than it was. Nobody had come to see the flat. Nobody had called.

  ‘It’s me,’ announced Des’s voice on his state-of-the art security device, which buzzed as ferociously as a wasp but refused to unlock the door to the street when Dillon pressed the button.

  ‘Bit of a bummer.’ Des began a hectic gabble as soon as Dillon opened the street door. ‘The thing is, they’ve blown you out.’

  ‘What, all of them?’

  ‘Well, the first three. Taking a rain-check, decided to go away for the weekend, offered on another place down at Millennium View. Sorry, but what can you do? It’s a buyer’s market at the moment. Got number four here.’ He jerked his head rapidly in the direction of his car, which contained an elderly Asian couple. ‘But they’re my fault. Bit of a mixed message coming over. They’re looking for a shop and a flat together. Flat above. Should have seen the commercial department, not me. I’m doing what I can.’ He let his hair flop cutely into his eyes and gave Dillon an appealing smile. ‘Gotta run. It’s madness in the office Saturdays. Give you a phone in the week.’ He whirled back to his car and drove away.

  Back upstairs, the powerful smell of browning cheese had obliterated the whiff of stale kebab. Dillon was on his way to the kitchen when the telephone rang. It was Des once more. ‘Madam wants you to call her,’ he said.

  ‘Flora?’

  ‘She’s coming back tomorrow,’ Des told him.

  ‘I thought the conference was two weeks,’ said Dillon, then realised he was talking to a dead line.

  The phone sounded once more. Assuming that Des was courteously finishing their conversation after getting cut off, Dillon answered it by saying, ‘What time is Flora coming back?’

  ‘Flora?’ said the voice of Smiley-and-Beefy. ‘I didn’t know she was away.’

  ‘She was at some conference on space clearing in Cornwall.’ Dillon assumed he was talking to a friend whose identity would become clear shortly. At least someone wanted to talk to him. Since getting engaged, he had neglected his friends.

  ‘What, again? She went to that last year. Must be bored already with that sad suit she’s decided to marry. No surprise there, anyway. She doesn’t let the grass grow, does she? I didn’t know you knew Flora.’

  ‘I’m the sad suit,’ said Dillon with annoyance. ‘Who are you and what are you calling me for?’

  ‘Oh God. I’m terribly sorry.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘I’m jealous, that’s all.’

  ‘Don’t mention it.’

  ‘Kind of you. It’s the Messenger Gallery. So you were going to give Flora “River Number Four” when you got married?’

  ‘We are getting married. What do you mean, I was going to give her “River Number Four”?’

  ‘Ah.’ For the first time, Smiley-and-Beefy seemed embarrassed. ‘That was why I was calling. I contacted Merita Halili and I’m afraid she doesn’t want to do it. The River series was her first big success, you see, but she did begin making them about five years ago now, and she says she’s explored the idea as far as she can and doesn’t want to go back to it. She’s doing trees now. You’re welcome to go round to her studio and—’

  ‘But I know her. I’ve spoken to her already,’ Dillon broke in. ‘She was delighted. She said the best thing was to commission through you and she’d – ah – talk to you about it.’

  ‘Oh. You’ve spoken to her,’ said Smiley-and-Beefy, speaking slowly and with caution. ‘She is pretty volatile, I suppose. She never said anything to me. When I got in touch with her, she didn’t know anything about it.’

  ‘Did you give her my name?’

  ‘Possibly not. Artists don’t often want to know who’s buying their work. It can upset them.’

  ‘Well call her back and tell her it’s for me,’ Dillon instructed him.

  No home. No present. Dillon felt that he was failing Flora on all fronts. He needed to do at least another six hours on the Marmeduke Whiskers report to get it ready for Monday morning. He called Flora and left a message with her voicemail. He called Merita Halili and left her a message too. Her English seemed to be getting better and better.

  He was hungry enough to eat a chair. In the oven, the former cheese and bacon croissant had cooked down to an oily, dark brown crust. He threw it away and decided to go over the road for a kebab before he started work.

  In her bed at 17A, Flora pulled the quilt around her chin and listened to the sound of Saturday. Weird that the London noise was just as loud even though nine-tenths of the people who worked in the City were at home and three-fifths of the East End was still a wasteland of building sites and new property waiting for tenants.

  Next door, the people with the Turkish flutes seemed to be rehearsing a new song. On the other side, they were screaming at each other in Bengali. Someone out on the street was trying to start a car whose engine would not fire. Further away some builders were hammering. Summer was just beginning and the holiday jets were circling above the Thames.

  From the middle distance, she heard Des roll out of bed, wallow in the shower, crash downstairs to the kitchen, rattle the plates in the dishwasher, pick a fight with the ironing board then rush out of the door and slam it behind him. None of this was what she needed to hear.

  Flora was tired. The kundalini serpent had gone down its burrow and was coiled up in a coma somewhere in front of her coccyx. The silver thread connecting her to the cosmic flow felt frayed. Her arms were heavy and her neck was stiff. The phone had been ringing all morning and she hadn’t had enough energy to turn it off. Dillon, of course. He never stopped to think that she might not be in the right place to talk to him.

  The idea of making Des bring her some tea was forming, but the effort required to decide what kind of tea she wanted was too much. Then she remembered that Des had gone out and the idea of tea dissolved.

  She decided to focus on her tiredness and make it disappear. What shape was it? It seemed to be flat. And long. Narrow at the foot end. About the same shape as a coffin lid. It was hard and dense. It was heavier than wood, heavier than MDF, nearly as heavy as stone. Or metal or something. It did not seem at all organic.

  What colour was it? It was brown. Red-brown. Very dark red-brown, darker than rust, almost black. Perhaps it had black speckles. Veins, black veins. Maybe it was some kind of marble. The kind people once used for gravestones. It was also cold. It crushed her to the bed, pressed on her chest and slowed down her breathing. Deadly tiredness, in fact.

  In her imagination, Flora coated this marble slab with golden light. She created a picture of it bathed in radiance, losing its weight and its coldness. She visualise
d it floating upwards past her wind chimes in a golden cloud. She made it pass through the ceiling and disappear. She took several deep breaths and sat up. A desire for lime flower tea became identifiable. But Des was still out. For a gay man, he could be very selfish sometimes. Flora flopped back on her pillows.

  The next time her telephone rang she forced herself to roll over, shake it out of her bag and answer it. ‘I hear you’ve been away,’ said the voice of Smiley-and-Beefy.

  ‘You’re having a slow morning then,’ she deduced.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘You must be desperate if you’re trying to talk to me.’

  ‘I had to talk to him. Your man. He told me you were back.’

  ‘Des told you I was back?’

  ‘No, no, no. Whatsisface. That sad suit you’re marrying.’

  ‘Oh, Dillon. When did you speak to him?’

  ‘Just now. He knows my artist, so he says.’

  ‘Dillon knows your artist?’ Flora recalled Georgie’s undercover identity for the Heartswap affair. She laughed, a little bitterly because that source of entertainment had come to an end. ‘Oh, yes, that’s right. Well, he thinks he does, anyway.’

  ‘What do you mean, he thinks he knows her? I mean, he does think he knows her. She can’t remember him. Did you bring him to the opening or something? I don’t remember.’

  ‘He thinks he knows her but he doesn’t really,’ she explained, making it as simple as she could.

  ‘What’s that about? He’s not the sort of saddo that has an imaginary girlfriend, is he?’

  ‘Oh yeah, like I’d definitely be hanging out with one of those. No. He’s sad, but not that sad.’ Flora felt mildly malicious. She felt a little more awake. She sat up and folded her legs in the lotus. ‘I can’t tell you any more. It’s complicated. But believe me, he does think he knows her and really he hasn’t any idea.’

  A meaty sigh sounded in her ear. ‘Speaks for most men nowadays, I suppose.’

  ‘Give me a break.’

  ‘How’s your friend?’

  ‘Which friend?’ Flora knew perfectly well who he meant. She knew perfectly well that for all Smiley-and-Beefy had the hots for Georgie, he would not be able to remember her name.

  ‘The one you used to work with. The one with the hips. Although I thought she was looking a bit skinny last time I saw her. You know the one. You said she was leaving her boyfriend.’

  ‘They got back together.’ Flora took pleasure in telling him.

  ‘Blast,’ he responded. ‘What are you doing tonight? I suppose you’re getting together with your fian-say and he’s taking you out for champagne somewhere flash with all his disgusting money.’

  ‘I’ve got one more night of freedom. He thinks I’m coming back tomorrow. I’m going to have dinner with Donna.’ With the excitement suddenly drained from their lives, they had made a half-hearted date for the evening. ‘We’re going to check out this new place that’s doing Cambodian cooking with Pacific Rim influences.’

  ‘The Pol Pot, I suppose.’

  Flora computed the man’s entertainment value. He was a trier. He was new blood. He was tall. He was not known to be gay. He was not actually bankrupt yet. The word was he was something of a shagmeister. ‘It’s off London Fields. Why don’t you join us?’ she invited him.

  ‘You and Scarey Power Woman?’

  ‘And Des.’

  ‘You and Scarey Power Woman and Flop the Fop at the Killing Fields?’

  ‘I’ll guarantee your safety,’ Flora promised him. She yawned. She stretched her legs. The kundalini serpent raised its head and tasted the air. ‘It’s called Le Khmer Bleu. Get there about nine.’

  16. May 2–6

  London started to get silly. The winter had gone on for too long. Irrationally, a couple of sunny days gave people hope. For another year they dusted off the belief that living could still be a pleasant experience. Trees, where they could be observed, shook out their clean new leaves. Currents of fresh-smelling vapour swirled in the atmosphere; occasionally, it was possible to think that oxygen rather than hydrocarbon gases was the dominant note in the air.

  Those who could cleaned their grimy windows. The tube trains rattled cheerfully through their tunnels. The buses were almost nimble as they lurched round Hyde Park Corner. Near Georgie’s flat the Brazilian café put out new parasols and the boutiques redressed their windows with silly floral frocks, bright coloured sandals and mad straw hats.

  The torpor of work lifted and people stepped lively in the streets. The surging crowds at crossings got daring and ran red lights for the hell of it. It seemed good to linger, to talk, to be together with other human beings. In the long light evenings people sat out on their steps, their balconies and their patios, wondering if it was going to rain. The clientele of the pubs spilled out on the pavements in heedless chatting mobs, clutching bottles of foreign beer by their necks, while restaurant reservations were forgotten and the theatres were yielded to the tourists. Men put on their shorts. Girls asked their friends if they could really wear vests. The lucky some took holidays. God willing, there would be a summer.

  The mid point of the year appeared on the horizon of the diary. The new season caused folk to review their commitments. Have I spent six months, with this woman already? Will I last five weeks in Thailand with this man? Can I be seen on the Tahiti Plage with him? Can I face another year with her? The sunshine let people see each other clearly, perhaps too clearly to keep them happy.

  Flora saw Dillon and he annoyed her. He was a ball of tension until his goddamn presentation, after which he became a pool of ick. She turned off her phone and complained to Donna that he was all over her like a rash.

  Donna saw both Flora and Georgie as inferiors. She always saw Flora that way, although Flora was amusing. Georgie could have worried her. The inferiority was a revelation but a comforting one. Donna felt good when she could feel superior.

  Des saw Flora and she irritated him. When people found that her mobile was turned off, she got calls at the house: calls from Dillon, calls from Felix, calls from the man-mountain in the art gallery, even calls from her mother. She didn’t want to talk to any of them so she made him do it and lie for her. There had been a lot of work involved in taking Dillon’s flat off the market as soon as it had been offered. There was good commission there for him. Some of the punters had given him grief. His lovingly worded details were lying wasted in the file. He didn’t care to be foxing around the office keeping up a smokescreen story about the seller changing his mind. Flora could be a real madam sometimes.

  Georgie saw Great Lats and thought he was a nice kid but a bit boyish-looking. Particularly his legs. Specifically his thighs. A bit slender, a bit shapely, a bit Michaelangelo’s David. Really nice thighs made you think of grabbing hold of them in a flash of passion, of how your hand wouldn’t go round their mass very far, of how your fingers would only sink into the flesh a tiny way before getting hold of the solid muscle. And how solid that muscle would be. Yum.

  Unfortunately Felix had been quite far back in the queue when God was handing out thighs. Frankly, with the white skin and everything, he sometimes made her think of the chickens at Planet Organic which had given their happy, active lives so that people could hold low-cholesterol dinner parties. But of course, it was not appropriate to evaluate your partner on the same scale of day-to-day recreational lust that you might use to fill up the boring moments at work. There seemed to be a lot of boring moments at Eon plc.

  Dillon saw himself and was disgusted. How could he have put so much juice into the idiotic Marmeduke Whiskers business when it amounted to swindling children out of their pocket money? How could he have felt proud when the Shagging Cow told him he’d done a great job? And now that was over, and with any luck he’d never have to go down that road again, his mind was running on that artist woman the whole time. He’d lost her. The phone number she had given him was taken out of service, he couldn’t even leave a message. The art gallery man must be
thinking that he was a complete prat.

  Underneath all the bewilderment and frustration, setting aside the fact that he wanted to give Flora a present, he had been looking forward to seeing her. He liked her. She was fun. She was interesting. She had a great car. OK, she was sexy. Really sexy. And he was engaged. It was all wrong.

  To make up for this infidelity of the heart, Dillon tried to be extra nice to Flora, but Flora went off in a frost. She seemed to have one of her instincts about the thing. Dillon was sitting at his desk feeling mildly wretched when the call came.

  ‘We need to talk. Come into my office,’ said Donna. No ‘Golden Boy’. No ‘Wunderkind’. He shivered and complied.

  It was obviously as bad as he could have imagined. The whizz-kid from Human Resources was already there. Donna had closed down all the charm circuits and was looking like a total witch.

  ‘Direct Warranty is a company with a commitment to ethical relations in the work place,’ Donna began the instant that Dillon’s backside made contact with the chair seat. ‘Our policy is set out in your contract of employment. Unfortunately you have not been able to maintain the standards of conduct to which you committed yourself when we offered you this job.’

  ‘Someone has made an integrity report about me, haven’t they?’

  Donna ignored him and half-turned towards the other man. ‘Human Resources have devoted a considerable amount of time to planning your career path within the group. There was a strategy for you, Dillon. At a personal level, I regret that you have been unable to fulfil the hopes we had of you.’

  ‘Huh?’ said Dillon, not sure he had grasped her meaning. She handed him a thin white envelope.

  ‘We have carried out an internal investigation as is required by the group employment directive in the case of a breach of contract.’ Human Resources stepped forward to assure him of this. The movement seemed threatening. ‘We have worked out a package for you in line with the circumstances.’