She tells me what she wants.
Setting aside all my worries I focus my whole being on pleasing her.
When I bring her breakfast in bed, she’s propped up on the pillows and reading Hello! magazine. One of the celebrities interviewed consulted her when she had her psychic healing business in Fulham. As I pour out the coffee she idly recalls his sexual problems.
“. . . oh, and by the way,” she adds after laughing at the memories, “talking of men in the sex-for-beginners class, how did you get on with Mr. Moneybags yesterday?”
Casually, very casually I start to butter some toast for her. “Fine,” I say, “but he’s got it into his head that he has to take me to the opera . . . Marmalade or honey?”
“Marmalade today, I think, dear . . . Well, he’ll have to think again. I won’t have you overstrained by doing escort work unless it’s essential, as I said to Asherton only the other day.”
I do a quick think. It’s no good pushing the opera further at the moment or she’ll get suspicious. What I have to do is start lukewarm and then become keener when I find out what opera’s on offer.
“As a matter of fact,” Elizabeth’s saying, still thinking of her mega-pervy chum, “I’m rather worried about Asherton.”
I’m startled. “Why?”
“The GOLD rituals are getting iffy. He’s importing too much SM— quite against my advice, I may add—and I think there could be a real danger that GOLD might decay into something the vice squad would want to mop up. Such a shame! It’s always been a lovely little earner without being iffy at all.”
“Are you going to fight with Asherton on this?”
“One doesn’t fight with Asherton, pet. That’s not a good idea. One can state one’s views as firmly as one wants, of course, but if he takes no notice one simply melts away and follows the example of that sensible gentleman in the Bible.”
“Sensible—”
“Pilate, dear. The hand-washer. I’m thinking of washing my hands by resigning as GOLD’s consultant on the occult.”
“But you adore GOLD! You invented it—it’s the jewel in your crown!”
“Yes, dear, but I don’t adore the vice squad and I simply haven’t got where I am by being sentimental. I’ll tell Asherton my business interests are expanding and I no longer have time to give GOLD the attention it needs.”
I suddenly see where this proposal’s going. “Does that mean I can give up recruiting?”
“Yes, but we’ll have to work up to that gradually so that Asherton doesn’t get miffed.”
“But how would you get me off the hook?”
“I’d say you’ve become so successful that it’s silly for you to go on doing piecework.”
My heart gives a great thump of excitement. “You mean I can retire?”
“From piecework, yes. Now that you’re so experienced I’m quite sure you could make big money—even bigger than you make now—as a film star. The other day I was watching that tape you made with what’shis-name, the young Swiss bloke, and I said to Tommy: ‘We could make more money in this field,’ I said, ‘than just running our little export business with these poor-quality tapes.’ With state-of-the-art video cameras it’s easy to make high-quality products, and if I could link up with the right producer to achieve the best marketing opportunities—”
“But why can’t we both just retire and—”
“Always grasp golden opportunities, dear! It’s the key to making lots of money, and we can’t be happy without lots of money, can we? And besides, this would be so different from your present filmed piecework. This is the movie business we’re talking about now! This is art!”
The phone rings.
“Hullo?” enquires Elizabeth, taking the call, and then she exclaims: “Oh, it’s you! Talk of the Devil.” Covering up the mouthpiece she says quickly to me: “Asherton, wanting to know how you got on with Mr. Moneybags yesterday.” And she adds to him: “As far as I know there’s nothing new but I haven’t yet heard the details. Let me check.” Turning to me again she murmurs: “I suppose there’s no little crumb of comfort you can give him?”
Zapped by Elizabeth’s porn-film pipe dream, my brain starts to flicker like a faulty light bulb as I once more skim over my options. Should I backtrack on my decision to keep my trump card about Colin’s religious interests up my sleeve till next Tuesday? I could use Asherton’s help here to pressure Elizabeth into letting me go to the opera. Got to go to the opera to trigger Colin’s donation to St. Benet’s. Mustn’t let Elizabeth know I’m keen to go or she’ll smell a rat. But on the other hand I still need my trump card to neutralise the mess I’m in over Gil Tucker. On yet another hand I can probably talk my way out of the Tucker mess without a trump card now that Elizabeth’s forgiven me. No, wait a moment, since I’ve kept quiet so far about Colin’s religious interests I’ve already implied to Elizabeth that there’s nothing to report—and oh my God, I was totally forgetting that the news I have about Colin means he’s of no interest to GOLD anyway—which in turn means Asherton won’t give a shit about whether I go to the opera or not. So no, I must keep on keeping my mouth shut—everything has to wait till Tuesday just as I planned, everything, the opera, the trump card, Gil—I can’t cope with another scenario now, my metaphorical jockstrap’s in such a twist that I’m practically a eunuch.
“What’s the matter?” demands Elizabeth.
Shit, I’ve blown it! Okay, don’t panic, keep calm—
“Ash, I’ll call you back,” says Elizabeth abruptly and hangs up. “All right, dear,” she says to me, “talk. But it’d better be good.”
“Darling, I’m sorry! I just didn’t want to give you bad news last night when you were mad at me about Gilbert Tucker, but the truth is Colin’s a write-off, not GOLD material at all.”
“Why?”
“He’s a strict moralist, hates Christianity and worships science instead—he banged on and on about his passion for truth and his inquiring mind.” I’m on a real knife-edge here as our reconciliation teeters on the brink of the tubes.
Elizabeth stares at me. Then she grabs the phone again and taps out Asherton’s number.
“Ash? You’re in business, dear. Sir Colin’s a seeker with a thoroughly religious temperament and a closed mind about Christianity. What could be more perfect? I’d say he was tailor-made for GOLD . . .”
I’m still pop-eyed when she hangs up, but I freeze in anticipation of a major slap. No need. She just laughs and kisses me. “Silly boy!” she says fondly. “You have trouble spotting the religious temperament, don’t you?”
This is true. I’ve had previous clients who seemed to me to be totally unsuitable yet were pounced on greedily by Asherton. But I really did think that Colin, railing away against religion hard enough to burst a blood vessel, was right out of the GOLD ballpark.
“It’s science he worships!” I protest. “Surely—”
“A very inadequate religion, pet, because it was never designed to be a religion in the first place. The ancient system of religious thought which I’ve adapted for GOLD is far more suitable for a religious seeker . . . Now, go and run my bath for me, would you, there’s a pet, because Asherton’s coming over for a blow-by-blow account and he’s definitely not someone I want to see when I’m wearing only my negligée.”
I stagger to the bathroom in a daze.
Later when I’m dressed I go downstairs and find Elizabeth in the hall with Tommy, her minder, who lives in the basement flat. Long ago when Norah moved into the Pimlico house and wanted to feel safe from all the nasty men who might try to get in, Elizabeth cast around among the locksmiths and selected well-qualified Tommy. Simultaneously, with her talent for spotting potential even among sewer-rats, she saw endless uses for him. They were never lovers, since Tommy has no sexual interest in females, but he still performs some husband-functions. He fixes things that go wrong in the Lambeth house. He washes Elizabeth’s car and waxes it. He mows the little lawn in the back garden. Elizabeth feels he’s a us
eful sewer-rat to have around.
And he has other functions. He installed and now maintains the hidden cameras at the Austin Friars flat. He edits the marketable videos, and when Elizabeth took her mild-porn, medium-porn and dead raunchy photos of me, it was he who turned them into glossy ten-by-eights. He’s in charge of replicating the videos which are mailed to our subscribers in the Third World. Tommy made some valuable international contacts back in the seventies when he worked for a major firm of locksmiths at various embassies. Foreign workers like to kill their homesickness with heavy doses of the Western porn that’s either banned or hard to get in their own countries.
As I come down the stairs and see him talking to Elizabeth he gives me a wave. “Hi, Gav,” he says casually, but I just grunt. I hate seeing Tommy nowadays. When I first arrived on the scene he was jealous of me for getting so much attention from Elizabeth, but once Elizabeth had instructed me in gay sex to a commercial level she put away her sex aids and ordered Tommy to give me the required hands-on experience. Tommy automatically threw a tantrum but soon decided it would be more fun to do as he was told. Meanwhile I wasn’t arguing—I just wanted to get competent enough to earn a decent living and please Elizabeth, who’d so magically rescued me from the hash I’d made of working for Norah’s escort agency. Tommy and I started practising. I got competent. Can’t say more than that, it was too horrible.
Tommy’s in his forties, thickset, dark, hairy, with a weakness for studded denim. Pathetically macho, he reads magazines on guns whenever he isn’t sweating over hard-core porn. He ought to be terminated—and I say that not because he’s gay but because he’s scum of the worst kind, just as bad as anything hetero.
“I was asking Tommy for the videos of your session with Sir Colin yesterday,” Elizabeth’s saying, “but he hasn’t yet picked them up from Austin Friars. Can you pop over and get them, Tommy dear? As it’s Saturday there’ll be no traffic and it won’t take you long.”
The shit-for-brains filth slouches off just as the bell rings and I open the door.
“Good morning, my dear!” says Asherton, all smarmy charm, and snakes forward over the threshold into my home.
“But of course Gavin must go to the opera!” says Asherton twenty minutes later.
We’re drinking coffee in the living-room. Elizabeth and Asherton are sitting facing each other in the white leather armchairs while I’m perching on the matching footstool at Elizabeth’s side. There’s a CD playing softly in the background as if we need to be tranquillised with Muzak, and some ancient American warbler’s droning about how he left his heart in San Francisco. Elizabeth adores all that mulch. I suppose it reminds her of her youth.
“I don’t want my boy overworked by doing escort duty,” she’s saying toughly, but adds: “He’d need compensation.”
“Of course!” says Asherton, very soothing. “But surely Sir Colin will be all too ready to pay?”
“I think we’d need some compensation from you too, dear! After all, this’ll be a big boost for GOLD, won’t it?”
They haggle away, enjoying themselves.
“Well, as Gavin likes opera,” says Elizabeth at last, “I’ll be content with that sum from you, but if Sir Colin wants more escort duty, I’ll want more money.”
“Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it,” says Asherton, and they loll back satisfied in their armchairs.
“Gavin pet,” says Elizabeth, “pour Mr. Asherton some more coffee.”
“Thank you, my dear,” says Asherton to me, and as the coffee streams into his cup, he remarks to Elizabeth: “I must say, the thought of Sir Colin’s quite whetted my appetite! Are there any other exciting new clients?”
“Gracious me!” exclaims Elizabeth. “How greedy can you get? A new client did come our way this week, as it happens, but he’s got no long-term potential. Poor Mr. Tucker’s only a social worker, so he’s hardly in our financial league.”
Asherton’s spoon pauses over the cream-streaked mess in his cup. “Wasn’t there someone called Tucker,” he says, “who was mixed up in the Betz fiasco?”
“This is a different Tucker,” Elizabeth answers at once. “This man’s Gilbert. The Tucker in the Betz fiasco was Eric, and he was involved with that blonde bitch of a second wife Betz had, the woman who called herself Carta Graham.”
Coffee jerks out of my cup and runs all the way down my sweatshirt to my jeans.
By some miracle neither Asherton nor Elizabeth pays any attention to this giveaway that I’ve been zonked. Elizabeth’s watching Asherton, and although she must be aware that I’m trying to mop up a spill she’s obviously assuming I’ve just had a routine accident.
It’s only when I’m able to draw breath again that I realise how startled Asherton is. That’s why he and Elizabeth, immersed in their dialogue, are paying me no attention.
Swinging to face me he demands: “Is Gilbert Tucker fortyish, tall, dark and good-looking?”
Disaster. All I can think is that I daren’t lie again about Gil’s appearance or I’ll really be up shit creek when Elizabeth sees the tapes of the Tuesday wake-up slot.
Swallowing quickly I mutter to her: “I’ll explain everything later,” and before she can comment I’m saying to Asherton: “Yes, sir.”
“Well, well, well!” says Asherton with a little smile, and bright-eyed he takes a sip of his coffee.
Meanwhile Elizabeth’s grasped my iniquity but she’s not going to interrogate me in front of Asherton. Instead she looks straight at him and says: “You’ve met this man?”
“I have indeed. Do you remember Bonzo, who was so good at recruiting chickens for me?” (Asherton’s not, of course, referring to birds but to the victims in his S&M games, the poor sods who end up in cages in his dungeon.)
“You mean that steroid-junkie who got AIDS and popped his clogs? But what’s Bonzo got to do with Gilbert Tucker?”
“Well, when I first went to see Bonzo in his AIDS hospice he spoke very highly of Mr. Tucker, who specialised in visiting people there. Then on a later occasion, just as I was holding Bonzo’s hand and wondering how long it would be before The End—” Asherton sighs, perhaps genuinely moved by this creepy picture he’s painting “—this Mr. Tucker arrives at the bedside and introduces himself to me. He was a very attractive man, which is one reason why I remember him, but there was also another reason why I remember him so well.” As Asherton pauses for full dramatic effect all the hairs stand on end at the nape of my neck. “Mr. Gilbert Tucker,” he purrs, “is a clergyman in the City with a Guild church not too far from St. Benet’s-by-the-Wall.”
Instantly I say to Elizabeth: “I never suspected. He gave nothing away.”
Elizabeth ignores me. She just says to Asherton: “All right, I’ll take care of this. I’ll cancel the Tuesday appointment.”
“But my dear, I’m not sure I want that at all!”
“Too bad! I’m not having my boy mixed up with anyone who knows that man Darrow!”
“Aren’t you being a touch paranoid? Do you seriously think we need to be afraid of Mr. Tucker, a gay clergyman who’s been so very, very unwise as to fall for our beautiful boy?”
Sweat starts to prickle on my back.
Elizabeth says: “I’m not sure what you think’s in it for you, Ash, but I’m not doing blackmail.”
“Who said anything about blackmail? You’ve told me he has no money! But he’d be wonderful fodder for GOLD.”
There’s a pause while I feverishly try to work out what “fodder” means in this context, but at last Elizabeth says: “He’d know Darrow’s the specialist in fighting organisations like GOLD. He’d run to him straight away.”
“Not after I’d finished with him.”
Elizabeth says after a pause: “If you want to use my boy to hook this fish you’ll have to bloody pay.”
“My dear!” says Asherton fondly. “Did you seriously think that I wouldn’t?” He glances at me as if I were no more than a trained animal. “All right, my lovely—off you go. I
want to talk further to Elizabeth about GOLD.”
Elizabeth says roughly, pressing a hand down on my shoulder to ensure I remain seated: “You don’t order my boy about in my house. I give the orders here.”
“My dear, forgive me! I’m so excited by the thought of the divine Gilbert that I was quite carried away!”
“Gavin,” says Elizabeth colourlessly, “wait upstairs in your sitting-room.”
I spring to my feet, muscles aching after being clenched so hard for so long, but I’m feeling nauseous. My head aches and my mouth’s dry.
Stumbling upstairs I try to prepare myself for the big scene with Elizabeth.
Nigel’s out. On Saturday mornings he takes Elizabeth’s car and drives to Austin Friars where he restocks the liquor cupboard and the fridge, cleans the flat and picks up Friday’s dirty linen for the laundry service which calls at the Lambeth house. Tommy does the linen pick-up Monday through Thursday when he collects the day’s tapes and checks the video equipment. I used to do all the housewife stuff myself, but the more successful I became the more Elizabeth rewarded me by delegating the chores elsewhere and nowadays Nigel’s weekend time off doesn’t begin until Saturday lunch-time.
So I’m alone as I sit in my living-room upstairs and try to get my brain to work. I feel as if everything’s suddenly veered right out of control, and it’s not a good feeling. In fact I soon work out that the only way to kill the nausea is to throw up, so I go to the lavatory and stick my finger down my throat. At least I can control my stomach contents even if I can’t control anything else.
Meanwhile Asherton’s still downstairs, probably viewing the latest instalment of the Colin tapes. I wouldn’t have thought there was anything there to amuse Asherton, but I suppose he can’t resist the chance to gloat over the big fish while he dreams of GOLD’s future bank balance— if he isn’t too busy dreaming of Gil Tucker.
I start to feel sick again despite the barf-binge, so I divert myself by marvelling at the coincidence of Carta having a leading role in the Betz fiasco. But I come to the conclusion it’s not such a coincidence after all. We’re all connected to the City, that tight little area at the heart of sprawling metropolitan London, we’re all simmering in the same Square Mile stockpot, and “coincidence” is just the word which means our lines of connection have suddenly snapped tight.
The Heartbreaker Page 21