The Heartbreaker

by Susan Howatch

  “You’re not supposed to call clients at work!”

  “Hey popsicle, you’re just the secretary, remember? You don’t tell me what I should or shouldn’t do!”

  “Piss off, pinhead!” says the bitch and hangs up.

  I try to do some relaxation exercises but I can’t stop thinking of Richard and suddenly my memory gives me such a jolt that I freeze. I’ve remembered the photos. If he dies and all his things get sorted . . . But he’s not going to die, is he? It’s the poor who die of coronaries. The rich get the best treatment and live.

  I fritter away some time by watching TV again, but I soon find I’m watching the clock instead. Will Ms. Priggy call or won’t she? She does. At four-twenty-five precisely the bell jangles and I leap up, panting for what’ll probably be good news. He must be out of intensive care.

  I grab the receiver. “Yeah?”

  “Carta Graham.”

  “Great! What’s new?” I say, relaxing in anticipation of the progress report, but all she says in that same crisp, efficient voice is:

  “He died.”

  I’m gutted. I can’t believe it. I actually say to her: “I can’t believe it.” But why the big surprise? Do I seriously think there’s something out there called God who guarantees that the good blokes survive? Forget it. But I’m still shocked to pieces. Despite all his cigarettes and booze and high-stress lifestyle, I never really thought Richard would die at forty-nine.

  Apparently he had another coronary, and even though he had instant medical attention the heart refused to restart.

  “How do you know all this?” I blurt out but add quickly: “I’m not doubting your word. I was just wondering if you were there.”

  “I wasn’t but Moira was. She called my boss, Nicholas Darrow, the Rector of St. Benet’s, and he’s gone to the hospital to be with her. Well—” She’s preparing to end the call “—sorry to be the bearer of bad news—”

  “Wait.” I’ve remembered the photos. “I need your help. Richard kept some photos in his Mayfair flat and they’ve got to be junked right away.”

  “Photos of you and him?”

  “No, just me, but they’re not the kind of pics a hetero family man would keep, and since Richard’s big obsession was that his kids should never know he was gay—”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Get a set of keys from Moira. Then I can lift the pics as soon as she’s gone back to Compton Beeches.”

  “But what the hell am I going to say to her?” she demands, but adds before I can reply: “Maybe I can work something out with Richard’s PA.”

  I jack up the charm. “Brilliant! Thanks a million. Can you call me back at six-thirty to tell me if you’ve fixed it?”

  She says she will.

  She calls back at six-thirty on the nail. This babe’s a real dynamo, and when she’s not ball-bustering around playing Mrs. Thatcher’s illegitimate daughter she’s hoovering up messes like a triple-star contract cleaner.

  “Gavin Blake?” she barks, reminding me of my headteacher in kindergarten.

  “Yes, ma’am. Thank you for calling back,” I say, determined to be well-behaved, but I just sound like one of those poor sods who operate in call centres and gradually get turned into robots. Good morning, thank you for calling London Leisure-Workers, this is Gavin speaking, how may I help you achieve your multiple orgasm today? Thank you, Gavin, this is—

  “I’ve got the keys.”

  I wipe the fantasy. “Congratulations!”

  “It turned out he kept a spare set at the office, and when I told his PA I needed to retrieve some papers connected with the Appeal she offered me the keys right away.”

  “Cheers. Where’s Moira?”

  “Staying overnight at the flat. Then she’s supposed to go back to Compton Beeches, but I’ll have to double-check later to make sure she’s gone.”

  “So when can I meet you to get the keys?”

  “Let’s say this time tomorrow. But I’m not handing the keys over. I’m coming with you to the flat.”

  Wow! How green can a light get? Blowing a kiss into the phone I murmur in a double-cream-suitable-for-pouring voice: “Can’t wait!”

  “You’d better behave!” she snaps back. “The only reason why I’m coming with you is because if I let you get into that flat, I’m responsible for what you do there. How do I know you won’t start nicking things?”

  What kind of lowlife does she think I am, for God’s sake? I bet my upbringing was far classier than hers.

  “Maybe we could nick things together,” I say innocently. “Then we’d be a pair of nickers.”

  No laugh. Not even the hint of a gurgle. She’s bursting a blood vessel trying to give me no encouragement.

  “I’ll meet you outside forty-nine Austin Friars at six-thirty tomorrow night,” she says in a voice designed to freeze hell, and hangs up, probably quivering at the thought of a date with someone so depraved. How I’m going to enjoy our first snog! She’ll be begging for it in the end, of course. They always do.

  Sighing with satisfaction I head home to Elizabeth.

  The shock of Richard’s death hits me again that night. I lie awake remembering our six sailing trips and reliving them one by one while in my head Pavarotti sings my favourite aria from Die Zauberflöte. Finally I reach the last voyage. Richard and I are sailing down the Solent towards the Needles, the cliffs are stark white, the sea’s wine-dark—and suddenly the lost past comes pouring back, recaptured, restored, redeemed. Even Hugo, rooted in that crevice in my mind, is silenced. I feel so special when I remember that moment, so unified, so all-of-a-piece. But does that mean I usually feel a broken-down mess? Course not! I’m highly disciplined, strongly motivated and totally focused on stashing loadsa-money in my Cayman Islands bank account so that I can retire in two years’ time and sail away into the golden sunset. Life’s great!

  “It’s a terrible life you lead,” says Richard in my memory, and feeling narked I say: “So’s yours!” but the thought that his lifestyle could be criticised so infuriates him that he gives me this passionate speech about being a pass-for-straight gay. I make no attempt to interrupt. The fact is that as I’ve long since dropped all my preconceived notions about gays I’m interested in what he has to say. I don’t mean I’m a dripping-wet liberal and I don’t mean I’m a pro-castration homophobe. I just mean that I’ve realised all the talk by the activists on both sides of the gay debate has little relation to what really goes on. Homosexuality’s much more complex than the two-dimensional propaganda spouted by the fanatics, and the gay activists in particular should try listening to alternative gay views instead of shrieking nonstop about coming out. Here’s Richard, letting it all hang loose about his right to be the kind of gay he feels he is.

  “I haven’t slogged and sweated through a lifetime of keeping quiet about one aspect of myself only to have a bloody activist tell me that coming out will transport me to gay heaven! Gay heaven’s the last place I want to be, thanks very much, and these mindless shits who say people like me should be open about their private lives have no right to deprive me of my right to choose what kind of life I want to lead! I chose long ago to be silent about my sexual orientation, but I didn’t lie to myself about it. I faced what I was and I made a rational decision about what I wanted from life—I wanted marriage and a family, I wanted to be well-respected in my local community, I wanted to get on in my profession, I wanted the kind of things a whole load of other men want, and why should I have my ambitions skewed just because of something I can’t help and never wanted? God almighty, no one in their right mind could want to have feelings which are the cause of so much misery—and if that’s not politically correct, fuck it, I don’t care! This is my life, to live as I’ve lived was my choice, and if homosexual rights are to mean anything at all they must include the right to pass for straight and pick a mainstream lifestyle!”

  In my memory I nod as I listen to him. I don’t argue when he stops speaking. He’s entitled to
his views. There are many homosexualities, just as there are many heterosexualities, and why shouldn’t he be allowed to speak up for his particular brand?

  “I’ve lived out my own truth,” he adds, “and if that means I’ve never had any kind of deep relationship—if that means I now choose to pay for sex in order to stay in control and avoid a mess—then so be it. The handicapped usually have to pay for sex anyway—and if any activist wants to query my use of the word ‘handicapped’ I’ll smash his teeth in! No politically correct bastard’s going to deprive me of the freedom to describe my sexuality in any way I please!”

  He finally stops talking. He’s emotionally exhausted. Taking his hand I grip it tightly and say: “I think you’re bloody brave, Richard, to fly in the face of fashion in order to pursue the truth as you see it.” Of course we both know the fascist activists would call him a coward and spit on him. “There’s a Byron quote I’ve always liked,” I add before he can reply. “It goes: ‘Yet, Freedom! yet, thy banner, torn, but flying, streams like the thunderstorm against the wind.’ You know that one? Byron didn’t give a shit for fashionable opinion either and he too lived out his own truth.”

  Then Richard breaks down and says he loves me and the whole scene goes off the rails, but I’ll never forget how much I admired his guts for defending his right to be a certain kind of gay.

  Off the rails, did I say? God, no phrase could begin to metaphor how that scene ended up. It was at the end of our final sailing trip ten days ago, and he didn’t just say he loved me. He said he was crazy about me, he’d never been so in love with anyone before, he thought about me day and night. No wonder I gave him a freebie. I was willing to give it because I owed him for the sailing, but my prime intention at that moment was to shut him up before he started saying things he’d really regret. Fat chance. In the end he went totally off his trolley despite all my efforts to stop him. “I’ll give up everything,” he said. “I’ll leave Moira. We’ll live together. I can’t believe you don’t love me,” he said. “The sex is so great that I just can’t believe you’re not switched on at the deepest possible level.”

  Poor sod, how he blew it! I liked him so much when he was kicking the gay activists in the teeth and being brave as hell. But with those last sentences he caved in, he sold out, he became the stereotype the gay activists whine on about—the bloke who proves he’s been only half alive as a non-scene pass-for-straight buried deep in the closet. Yet in Richard’s case any attempt to come out would have led him straight to hell. He’d have wrecked his family, dislocated his career, alienated most of his straight friends and invoked the contempt of the homophobes. Worst of all, any affair with me couldn’t have lasted more than a week and so the whole move would have been futile. He was right to imply that I’m bloody good at gay sex, but any sexual activity, gay or straight, is a skill which can be acquired—it’s a contact sport like rugby or sumo wrestling. The idea that I must have been in love with him deep down or I wouldn’t have been able to turn on the high-octane sex was just romantic nonsense.

  But I never said this. I didn’t jeer, I didn’t act smart, and above all I didn’t brush him off. I just looked at him and I kept my face grave (because love’s a serious matter) and respectful (because I was his friend). I looked at him and he looked back and of course he knew then just how matters stood.

  Lightly he said: “I’m pissed, aren’t I? Time for black coffee!” And he laughed, ending the scene gracefully.

  Richard had such style.

  And now he’s dead. No more sailing with him on the wine-dark sea past the stark-white cliffs of the Needles. But I’ll always be able to say to myself: I was a friend of Richard Slaney’s, a friend he chose to spend non-bedroom time with on weekends, and that friendship puts me in the same league as Carta Graham, who looks down her nose at me and thinks I’m shit. It puts me in the same league as any number of smart people who don’t understand that leisure-workers perform a valuable service and make an important contribution to society.

  I’m going to go to that funeral.

  After such a churned-up night I reckon I need to get to Austin Friars early so that I can have longer for meditation. I always meditate before work. It switches me from one mode of being to another, from the straight mindset to the gay.

  I sit cross-legged on the floor and I close my eyes and I listen to myself breathing and then I phase out Gavin Blake Ordinary Bloke and ease in Gavin Blake Superstud. Finally Gavin Blake Ordinary Bloke leaves the body and goes somewhere else so that Gavin Blake Superstud’s in control. Once that’s happened I get up and play some opera. I’ve made a special tape of twelve excerpts and I’ll play a different one every morning until I decide it’s time to make a new tape. Before I start work I have to have a dose of something beautiful, just as most of us like to have our gum numbed before the dentist coseys up to us with his drill. I don’t do drugs so I do opera instead.

  Top-grade leisure-workers organise their schedules in different ways—we all have to find the method which suits us best. Some blokes just hire themselves out for a whole night, or maybe for an hour at a time in the evening. I couldn’t do that, I’d go nuts. I need to have my evenings to myself and if I spend the whole night with a bloke I wind up wanting to castrate him. I’m not saying I never work at night, but my God, I have to be well paid if I do! Elizabeth understands just how I feel, which is why she devised this three-shift schedule, specially designed to cater to City businessmen and prevent me going mental. I never see anyone for too long (unless they book a mega-expensive double-slot) and I get plenty of relaxation between shifts.

  Sessions on the early shift are shorter than the ones on the lunch-time and late shifts, but to be fair, the clients aren’t demanding. They just need a rush in order to face work. Some City workers get it with coke, some get it with vodka, some get it with double espressos, but my bunch get it with sex. Well, it takes all sorts to make a world.

  At ten o’clock I head off to the gym. I work out three times a week and I’d like to do more because I get such a charge out of it, but my trainer says no, I have to avoid it becoming an addiction. No steroids, naturally. Why blokes get into steroid use and abuse beats me. You wind up with shrunken equipment and scrambled brains.

  After leaving the gym I stop at Rafferty’s for a grade-A breakfast to supplement the grade-C breakfast (C for Cornflakes) I had before leaving home. Today I eat half a grapefruit, eggs, bacon, sausages, mushrooms and wholemeal toast and wash the lot down with a large pot of coffee. I also read The Times. I like to follow the fortunes of my clients in the business pages, but of course I read the regular news as well. At the moment all the news seems to begin with an M: Maastricht (as in the treaty which aims to sort out Europe), Major (as in our prime minister, poor sod, who’s trying to sort out Maastricht), and Mayhem (as in the Balkans—where else?). The Euro-sceptics are bellyaching away about Maastricht, but personally I think anyone under thirty is pro-Europe and can’t see what all the fuss is about. I’m all for a United States of Europe— provided we Brits run it, of course. Face it, the Frogs and the Krauts just don’t have the track record. I mean, have we forgotten Hitler? Have we forgotten Napoleon? No bloody way, mate, I say, and I’m not even a rabid nationalist, I’m just a sensible bloke with an interest in history.

  Back at the flat at last I change the fitted sheet and pillowcases. The last client’s going through a phase of putting anti-baldness stuff on his scalp and at least one pillowcase now looks as if it’ll defeat every laundry in town. Elizabeth doesn’t let me put anything on my head because she says mousse and gel are a sexual turn-off—no client wants to run his fingers through my hair and wind up with gooey hands. But the truth is she needn’t worry because I’d never risk putting anything dodgy on my scalp. I even use baby shampoo because I’m so afraid of chemicals triggering a meltdown which leaves me bald as an egg. I watch my hairline like a hawk and every week I check my crown with a mirror. It’s a tense moment but so far so good. I’m not getting a transplant,
though, even if the stuff drops out in clumps. I’ve had clients who tried hair transplants and their scalps wound up looking like bug-eaten lawns in a drought.

  I’ve just dumped the dirty linen in the laundry bag when Frosty-Puss calls to confirm we’re all set for tonight.

  “T’rrific!” I say. “Hey, how about dinner after we’ve nabbed the pics?”

  “I’m busy.”

  “Your bloke keep you on a short leash, does he?”

  The line blips out.

  The lunch-time shift’s marred by the Kraut, who puts me in a foul mood for the rest of the working day. To cap it all, the last client on the late shift has halitosis. It’s so bloody aggravating when clients have bad breath. Why don’t their wives tell them they reek? (Most of my clients are married.) In disgust I fling open the living-room window as soon as the client’s gone, and as I stand there fumigating my airways I see Ms. Shaggable loitering below. She’s early. Opportunity knocks.

  “Hey Pussycat!” I yell, making her jump. “I’ll be ready in ten minutes—come up and have a glass of wine!”

  She looks furious but gives a curt little nod and tries not to rush to the front door. I press the buzzer. Up she comes, and by the time she reaches my landing I’m waiting with my jeans half-unzipped to welcome her. I could see yesterday that my sub-navel strip turned her on.

  “Red or white?” I enquire as she walks out of the lift.

  “Neither. I came up for one reason and one reason only—to tell you how much I loathe men who call women ‘pussycat’!”

  “How about PussyCarta?”

  “Forget the Pussy!”

  “You serious?”

  There’s a snuffle. She’s trying not to laugh. I think: GOTCHA! and give her an encouraging smile before saying sociably: “What’s your real name anyway? Cartographa?”

  “Catriona,” she says severely. “When I was growing up I got called Catty, Kitty, Kit-Kat and even Pussykins, so you can see why I’m sensitive to nicknames . . . Now can you get moving, please? I didn’t come here to listen to you practising chat-up lines.”