The Heartbreaker

by Susan Howatch

  “You mean you’re worried about what would happen to you if anything went wrong!”

  “Now who’s being sceptical! No, I’m not worried about myself. If Gavin doesn’t participate, I’m not involved . . . But don’t let’s quarrel, there’s a pet, life’s too short. How about another gin and tonic?”

  Stiff with horror I creep away.

  “Hey, Junk-Hunk.”

  “Piss off, Trash-Tart.”

  After spending a lousy night and an even lousier day agonising about Gilbert Tucker it’s a relief to get home and start baring my teeth at Susanne. In times of stress there’s comfort in a familiar routine.

  Taking no notice of my half-hearted order to piss off, Susanne demands: “Why’s everyone so hyped up over this Gilbert creature? I’ve had Tommy bellyaching about having to splice the Gilbert tapes in a rush for the Cobra. I’ve had Elizabeth oozing into the phone to the Gilbert that he’s going to get a jumbo discount in the future. And now I’ve had to bump the Greek geek off the Thursday late-shift so that the Gilbert can get a prime slot! What’s going on?”

  “Ask Elizabeth.”

  “You joking? She doesn’t employ me to ask the wrong questions when there’s something weird going on, and anyone can see this Gilbert business is totally weirdissimo. Why’s the Cobra frothing over like this?”

  “Overloaded with venom. Wants the multiple orgasm of the big bite.”

  “Don’t we all, pet, as Elizabeth would say . . . Hey, you’re looking flaky, you know that? Dark circles under the eyes, skin too pale, hairline looking more moth-eaten—”

  “Shut it, slag!”

  “You’d better perk up before Friday when Sir Colin takes you to the opera! Is he planning to grope your bits in his box?”

  “So what if he is? At least my bits aren’t pervy, like those bowling-ball boobs you lug around!”

  “At least my bits are mine to do what I like with, which is more than you can say for any of your bits!”

  “I have a whole army of people queueing up for my bits because they think they’re great! Who’s queueing up for yours?”

  “God, you are so pathetic—”

  I slam the door of the office and hurl myself upstairs.

  Somehow I get through the rest of the working week, but on Friday night I can’t relax because I have to do this bloody escort duty with Colin. It should make a difference that I’m going to Covent Garden, but I know he’ll make it impossible for me to concentrate on the music, and to make matters worse the opera is Die Frau Ohne Schatten, which is definitely not some schmaltzy concoction which one can take in while dozing. Although I’m not too keen on the music of Richard Strauss I always feel it’s worth making an effort to be keener, but this new production of DFOS is hardly about to mark a breakthrough for me.

  Haitink’s the conductor, emphasising the chamber-music quality which infiltrates the score, and yes, I can see he’s doing a good job, but I don’t go for chamber music. Anna Tomowa-Sintao plays the shadowless woman of the title, and yes, she sings well and yes, she looks even better, but she doesn’t make me want to grab her. And as for those David Hockney sets . . . No, no, no, as far as I’m concerned the whole junket’s off-key, blah, a disappointment . . . but maybe I’d have felt differently if I wasn’t being forced to accept it as a prelude to gay sex.

  In the interval we’re just sipping champagne, the way one does at those sort of plush raves for the snobs who know their opéra bou fe from their bel canto, when there’s an interruption. A slim bloke, fiftyish, well dressed, a little above medium height, with pale eyes, pointy features and pin-thin lips, drifts past us idly before doing an elaborate double take and wheeling back.

  “Sir Colin Broune?” he croons. “What a coincidence! I was just talking about you the other day with my friends—” He reels off two big names in the City, both former clients of mine who wound up members of GOLD “—and we were all saying how much we admired your takeover of United Sulphides. May I introduce myself? The name’s Asherton.”

  Colin’s in an expansive mood, willing to be courteous, and after they’ve shaken hands he asks him if he too works in the City. Asherton says he does, he has a number of directorships and of course follows the fortunes of the most distinguished captains of industry very closely.

  “Oh yes?” says Colin blandly, but I’m sure he’s preening himself after this smooth little tribute. “By the way, may I introduce my friend Gavin Blake?”

  “How do you do, Mr. Blake.”

  “How do you do, sir.”

  Colin enquires how Asherton met those two former clients of mine.

  “Ah, it’s interesting that you should ask me that! We all met—but perhaps this isn’t quite the moment to discuss the occasion. May I buy you a drink some time at—” He names one of Colin’s clubs in St. James’s.

  “I’m a member there!” says Colin, all benevolence.

  “Then I trust it’s all right if our secretaries talk to arrange a date? Let me give you my card . . .”

  As Colin takes the card I feel as if I’m watching a healthy man swallow a mouthful of food riddled with E. coli.

  “And now, if you’ll excuse me . . .” Asherton glides away, mission accomplished.

  “Smooth sort of chap,” comments Colin, “but he seems to move in the right circles. What did you think of him?”

  “Not my type.”

  Colin laughs and gives me a leer which is meant to signify excited affection.

  The evening drags drearily on.

  Colin takes me afterwards to some stuffy swill-palace for the rich which is dead boring for anyone under thirty but which allows him to display me as his latest high-gloss accessory. Poor deluded bastard. I’m aware of people staring at us, just as they did in the opera house, and I know they’re thinking: oh God, look at that fat old fart with the smooth young leisure-worker, what a pathetic sight. Or at least . . . No, that’s not what they’re thinking. They’re telling themselves: oh God, look at that ugly old bugger with the upmarket sex-worker, what a laugh. But no, I’ve got it wrong again. Face it, Gavin, face it, what they’re really thinking is: oh God, look at that sad old man who’s being taken to the cleaners by that despicable money-guzzling PROSTITUTE—pass the sickbag, please.

  “What’s the matter, Gavin?”

  The forbidden P-word is still corroding my mind like acid on metal. “Nothing. Sorry, I’m not used to escort work.”

  “But you know me! You’re not talking to a stranger!”

  I think: you’re the one who’s talking to a stranger, chum, and you don’t even know it.

  I spend the whole dinner longing for it to end.

  I’m so exhausted that I oversleep the next morning and only wake up when Elizabeth buzzes me on the intercom. “I don’t like being stood up, pet. How long are you going to keep me waiting in my negligée?”

  My brain retrieves the fact that it’s Saturday. Bolting out of bed I don’t stop to shave. I just rush down to her kitchen to make the early morning tea, but that turns out to be a case of more haste less speed.

  “I’m not having my face scraped!” says Elizabeth crossly after I’ve arrived with the tea and given her a kiss, so I rush upstairs to my razor, but when I hotfoot it back again my coordination’s askew and my control’s shot.

  “You deliberately drank too much to pay me back for insisting you did escort work for once!”

  “No, I didn’t, I swear I didn’t—” I somehow manage to appease her, and by the time I bring her breakfast in bed my multiple apologies have been accepted.

  She gives me a peck on the cheek. “Did you enjoy the opera?”

  “No.”

  “Oh, what a shame! How did the pick-up go?”

  “Dead smoothly, but I still can’t see Colin falling for GOLD. If Asherton laces it with pervy stuff, Colin won’t stand it for a moment.”

  “Oh, neophytes are always handled with care, dear! Don’t be misled by all this ridiculous attention Asherton’s paying to Gilbert Tucker.
That romp’s just for the senior hierarchies.”

  “Hierarchies?”

  “People work their way up to different levels, according to their rate of spiritual progress. It’s only when you’re fairly advanced that you learn how to satiate the body so that the spirit can be fully liberated.”

  “Well, I can’t see Colin ever getting beyond the first level!”

  “Nonsense, he’ll be longing to ascend! The truth is that although the GOLD rituals need a complete makeover, we’re still promoting a version of an ancient Gnostic tradition which has always been attractive to spiritual seekers. And what’s wrong with being a spiritual seeker?”

  “Seeking in pseuds’ corner.”

  “Really, Gavin, I don’t know what’s got into you this morning! First you oversleep, then you come down unshaven, then you lose the erection, then you get the erection but come too soon—”

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry—”

  “—and finally you behave like a stupid little boy by being cheeky about matters you’re much too young to understand! Well, I’m very put out, dear, I really am. I don’t see why I should have to suffer just because you’re out of sorts—run off and take some Alka-Seltzer, for God’s sake, and don’t come near me again until you’ve remembered how to behave!”

  In shame I slink away.

  I go to the local health club to work out and get my body functioning properly. I’m thinking how braindead I was to criticise GOLD. Elizabeth may have made up her mind to kiss GOLD goodbye, but she’s still got an emotional stake in that fake religion she’s hatched, and if I knock it she’s always going to take the sneer personally. And while on the subject of GOLD, don’t let’s forget that I’ll be asking for trouble if I start to whinge about how bored I am with GOLD’s current Great White Financial Hope, Sir Colin Broune. If Colin fails to join GOLD, a furious Elizabeth might think I was to blame because I didn’t try hard enough to keep him happy—and when Elizabeth’s really furious with me anything can happen.

  I found that out right at the beginning. It was when Tommy was training me and I decided I couldn’t stand it any more. I’d fluffed a move and Tommy had taken the opportunity to hurt me. Bloody sadist. Anyway, I lost my temper, knocked him out and disappeared for the weekend to Amsterdam where I drugged and drank till I dropped. When I ran out of money I came back—couldn’t live without Elizabeth, my only hope of getting a life—but I found the Big Boys were waiting to take me to the Pain-Palace.

  Never again.

  God, how did I ever dare do any fundraising for St. Benet’s? I must have been out of my skull. Carta’s just a beautiful dream, I can see that now. She’ll never go to bed with me. She’s prepared to be friendly because of the fundraising but deep down she still thinks I’m scum. Well, I am, aren’t I? I can’t even protect myself now by using the word “leisure-worker,” and that’s because something’s happened in my mind. Hugo’s still yelling out the P-word from his crevice, but I’m used to muzzling Hugo and this new shift of consciousness has nothing to do with him. It’s as if being offered a job—being treated as a real person—forces me at last to face the truth about the work where I’m treated as meat.

  I feel I want to say to myself in the manner of a recovering alcoholic: my name’s Gavin Blake and I’m a prostitute. But of course, unlike a recovering alcoholic, I could never say such a thing out loud. The P-word’s so putrid. It makes me feel I don’t count, I don’t matter, I’m just filth.

  When I return home from the gym Elizabeth says she’ll give me a second chance, and in bed I find I’m fully recovered. Thank God. Crisis over.

  Now at last I can relax in the knowledge that I’m completely safe . . .

  I’m in excruciating danger and I feel as if I’m travelling in a plane that’s just been hijacked.

  It happens on Tuesday when Colin has his next session with me. I’m just wasting another kilo of baby oil on massaging the blubber when he murmurs: “By the way, I made a decision about that charity of yours.”

  The plastic bottle slips out of my hand and thumps him between the shoulder blades, but luckily it’s almost empty. Scooping it up I say in a casual voice: “Oh yeah?”

  “Yes, I decided I liked the idea.”

  “Ah . . . I thought as you hadn’t said any more about it—”

  “You came to the opera with me, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, but I wasn’t dumb enough to think that guaranteed—”

  “It guaranteed I read the brochure. Then this morning I made the decision to explore the situation further so I rang them up and demanded to speak to the Rector. He was very civil, said we should meet.”

  I’ve stopped massaging. As I watch my hands I notice with fascination that they’re unsteady.

  “So,” says Colin, still unaware that I’m in shock, “I’ve asked him to come down to the Hall on the weekend after next, and I thought it would be an excellent idea if you were there too.”

  I panic. “No, that’s not possible—Elizabeth would never allow it— don’t even think of approaching her—”

  “I phoned her this morning,” says Colin.

  I nearly pass out. I have to squeeze my eyes shut for a moment before I can ask: “What did she say?”

  “Oh, she went through all that rigmarole about you not doing escort work at weekends, but I took no notice. I said it would do you good to have a little holiday in the country, and finally she agreed.”

  “Colin . . . did you mention Mr. Darrow?”

  “No, Darrow’s visit’s none of her business.”

  “And you didn’t mention that I’d given you that tip about the Appeal?”

  “Of course not! What we say in the privacy of this room is confidential—I rely on your discretion and you can certainly rely on mine. Besides, while I’m exploring the possibility of making this donation I want to treat the entire matter as top secret.”

  I start to breathe evenly again. “Thanks . . . The truth is Elizabeth’s very anti-Church and she’d be furious if she knew I was championing St. Benet’s.”

  “Of course she would! She’s against the Church because she’s a thoroughly corrupt woman, and I won’t rest until I’ve persuaded you to leave her and come to live with me . . . You’d like to see my country house, wouldn’t you?”

  “Uh—”

  “Then that’s settled. I don’t care what I pay. It’ll be worth it.”

  I restart the massage, thank my lucky stars for Colin’s discretion and wonder if there’s any way I can avoid not only the stupefying boredom of forty-eight hours in his company but the insane risk of another encounter with Nicholas Darrow.

  When the late shift ends I recall the numbers engraved on my heart and call Carta on her mobile.

  I’ve decided it’s best to keep quiet about my own invitation to Colin’s country house. If Nicholas knew Colin’s prostitute was going to be there he might feel he had to cancel, and if Colin really is going to give money to St. Benet’s without any further effort on my part, I don’t want to queer the pitch. Anyway, I hope to wriggle out of this bloody invitation. Elizabeth knows I need to recuperate at weekends and she knows the last thing I need right now is more escort work.

  “Hullo?” says Carta suddenly in my ear.

  “It’s Gavin. Sorry I haven’t been in touch. How are you doing?”

  “Fine . . . Gavin, is this really you?”

  “Think so. Let me check. Yep, it’s me. Why?”

  “You’re not calling me dumb sex-names. I think this is a hoax call!” she says joking. “Say something to convince me you are who you say you are!”

  “We held hands during a special moment in a church crypt last week. Listen, friend. The big fish is on the line and he tells me he and Nicholas are planning to meet.”

  “Oh wow—you mean—”

  “Yeah. Him. The one with the place in the country and the invitation for the weekend after next. Check it out with Nicholas.”

  “He’s already told me. Can’t wait to see the lavish Wi
ltshire mansion!”

  My heart gives a great thud. “You’re going with him?”

  “Of course! This is major fundraising!”

  “Cool!” I breathe, reeling from the testosterone surge. “Keep me posted, huh? Take care.”

  As I sign off, my equipment feels ready to bust out of my trousers. What a wimp I’ve been, saying I’m scum and wallowing in the P-word! The truth is I can still play the superstud like no other bloke in this town, and if Frosty-Puss and I spend the night under the same roof I’ll score. After all, do I or do I not have a talent for sex? And is she the Golden Girl of my dreams or isn’t she? If this were a book, I tell myself fiercely, of course the hero and heroine would finally get together and shag themselves senseless in an orgy of you-name-it-we-do-it stud/babe gymnastics.

  And the chore of doing escort work on a weekend? No problem! In fact now I know Carta’s plans I can hardly wait for that nice little holiday in the country . . .

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Carta

  The challenge in pastoral care here is to identify with suffering people and to offer companionship on their journey . . .

  A Time to Heal

  A REPORT FOR THE HOUSE OF BISHOPS

  ON THE HEALING MINISTRY

  I

  “Nicholas,” said Lewis, “you shouldn’t touch this invitation with a bargepole.”

  We were at the Rectory after Gavin had called to tell me that my latest hot prospect was none other than the client he had marked as the major donor-to-be. Lewis, Nicholas and I had agreed to meet immediately and were now closeted in Nicholas’s study.

  “I don’t understand,” I said to Lewis, making a huge effort to cling to my patience. “Why do we have to handicap ourselves by keeping this donor at arm’s length?”

  “I’m not saying we have to do that. I’m saying that all negotiations should be conducted at St. Benet’s. That’s because once you and Nicholas cross Sir Colin’s threshold you step into his private life and run the risk of condoning the relationship with Gavin.”