by David Carter
The room was on the ninth floor. The hotel had only been built five years before so everything was still new and worked, and room 908, he could still clearly remember the number, no one would ever forget such a thing, was a large and expensive room that looked out across the city. Being Saturday it was available at a special discounted rate, not that Norma Whitlock gave a fig about that, because she had no intention of paying the credit card company, not one single penny. Zilcho!
She opened the door and went inside and threw her bag in the corner and leapt onto the huge orange clad bed. Kevin gently closed the door behind him and stared down at Norma who was grinning up at him.
She was lying on her back with her head on the pillows, her arms linked behind her neck, and when she stared up into his eyes, she couldn’t help thinking the poor love looked awfully nervous… but didn’t they always?
Then she said: ‘I strongly believe the man should do the undressing.’
‘Yeah,’ said Kevin, through a dreadfully dry mouth, now standing at the foot of the bed, self consciously unbuttoning his shirt.
‘Not you, you pillock. Me!’
‘I know!’ he said, ‘I was just getting meself ready.’
Despite his shaking hands off came the heavy skirt, he was glad to see the back of it, and that revealed the full extent of the amazing leather boots that went all the way up to her thighs.
‘God almighty! Where did you get a pair of boots like these?’
‘Special mail order job. Do you like them?’
‘They’re amazing!’
‘You can leave them on if you like.’
‘I will.’
But Kevin was suddenly thinking of something else.
‘I haven’t brought any protection.’
‘Who cares! I don’t. I can’t wait to have kids. Always preferred bare back riding anyway.’
‘You’re amazing, Miss Whitlock.’
‘Everyone says that. Now come on, get on with it before I change my mind.’
For the remainder of the day, and the next eight Saturday afternoons and evenings, Kevin furthered his education in the St John’s Hotel at the hands, and in the arms of Norma Whitlock. By then she had taught him almost everything she knew, and if truth be told, she was becoming weary of the kid, and more than that, she’d set her eye on another young man, a certain Leroy Watts, who was a year younger even than Kevin.
Not long after that Kevin was out, and Leroy was in.
No doubt a modern shrink would have a name for her extraordinary behaviour, somebody’s complex or other; they will call it. No doubt they will also be able to explain why she felt the need to attract and seduce young men, always younger and shorter than herself, men untouched by women, but Kevin never once regretted the hours he spent in the St John’s Hotel with Norma Whitlock. What healthy young man would?
He’d had plenty of girlfriends before Norma, going right back to primary school, but they had only been kiss and cuddle girls, maybe a little touchy-feely girls, but nothing beyond that. Norma Whitlock opened his eyes as to what was possible. Norma Whitlock set him up for life and he would always be grateful, and would remember her forever.
He lost touch with her after she hauled Leroy away to her wicked towers, though even that brief relationship was destined to run into troubled waters. Back then Norma had two obsessions in life, bedding young men, and spending other people’s money, and she soon exhausted her credit. The card was refused, and six months later Norma Whitlock became the youngest person in the county, up till that time, to be officially declared bankrupt. She didn’t care one jot about that either; and never returned a single penny. Three years later the American finance house gave up trying, and wrote off the entire debt.
Ten years after Kevin and Norma had danced their final Saturday away together in the St Johns, he bumped into her best friend who told him of how things had turned out. She said that after he’d left the hotel to catch the last bus home, Norma would buzz room service and order a sandwich, and compromise the startled bellboy. Apparently he was too good an opportunity to miss.
A couple of years later Norma eventually caught the eye of one of the Carnac Welding directors, a chap called Harry Watley. He was in his early forties even back then, and this time the roles were reversed, it was he, the older man, seducing her.
Her head was turned by his gleaming Jaguar with the aromatic white leather seats, and his fat kangaroo leather wallet. The fool even gave her a new credit card, and pretty soon after that, she fell pregnant. The only surprising thing about that was it hadn’t happened long before.
They married and he bought her a brand new four-bedroom house in the suburbs with two pink en suites and in fair exchange, she presented him with four matching pink and unruly sons. Delivering four big boys into the world, demanding children who would drive their parents crazy, played havoc with her figure, and she never recovered that slim willowy look.
Perhaps inevitably, Harry began looking elsewhere, and the gossip had it that he was about to shack up with this year’s model of Norma Whitlock, rumoured to be only twenty. Norma still has the house of course, and the hungry, untamed boys, who will forever drive her to distraction.
Gringo found he was thinking more and more of Norma Whitlock, which wasn’t like him at all, and he had no idea why. The future is where happiness lies, for the past always seemed to be filled with melancholia, he knew that well enough, and it can never be any different, or so he thought at the time. He still had a lot to learn. These days Norma Whitlock never once thinks of Kevin Greene. She couldn’t even remember his name. Why on earth should she? He was no different to all the rest.
Gringo tumbled into a deep sleep still thinking of his Saturday afternoons and evenings at play in the St John’s, and then he remembered that overnight bag she’d brought. Fresh clothes inside, you might think? Not a bit of it. The silly bitch had crammed the holdall with sandwiches and bananas and energy drinks, just in case he should begin to flag. Homemade cheese and bloody pickle sandwiches, for God’s sake. You couldn’t make it up. He began snoring loudly, but he wasn’t to enjoy his sleep for long.
Thirty-Eight
Gringo’s phone rang at 1.32am. He woke up after four rounds of heavy ringing and grabbed it while still half asleep. The same story unfolded. An American voice, an especially trained happy slappy Yankee voice, as she went through the preliminaries to ascertain which idiot was about to foot the bill for this long distance call.
‘Gringo?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Did I wake you?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Sorry.’
‘No worries, you can wake me any time,’ he mumbled, sitting up and rubbing his eyes and putting on the light.
‘Are you all right?’ she asked.
She seemed to be pussyfooting around as to why she’d called, as if she had something to tell him, as if she were uncertain as to whether to tell him at all.
‘I’m fine. You?’
‘I’m all right.’
She didn’t sound so certain. There was a short silence as if she was thinking of what to say next. He heard her sigh, imagining her lying on the bed high up in her eyrie in Lincoln Heights, New York. She wasn’t her usual perky self at all. There was something different about this call.
Then she said: ‘Gringo, I’ve got something to tell you.’
Bingo, Gringo! He knew it.
When a young woman says: Gringo, I’ve got something to tell you, and especially if that woman was Glenda Martin, it meant one of four things.
Gringo, I’m pregnant.
Gringo, I’m getting married.
Gringo, we’ve got married.
Gringo, I’ve decided I’m never coming home.
He just knew it. He hadn’t felt so certain of anything since he’d met and conquered Sarah Swift. If he had to pick a favourite of the four he would choose the first, it wouldn’t be the first time she would tell him such a thing. The last occasion was after a holiday in Barcelona
involving a brief holiday affair with some smart arsed Spanish waiter predictably called Pedro, though that thankfully proved to be a false alarm. Fact was, none of the four would have surprised him, and maybe it was a combination of several.
‘What is it?’
And then she really did surprise him.
‘I’m thinking of coming home early.’
For a second he was stunned to silence. He wanted to yell something like Thank God for that! But was ever conscious of not revealing his inner feelings, especially to her, so he offered back a pretty weak: ‘Why, Glen?’
‘I get so lonely here. Sometimes Harry goes out before eight in the morning and often he doesn’t come back till half ten or eleven at night. The flat isn’t huge, and I don’t like going out on my own, there isn’t really anywhere to go, and I don’t have loads of money, and he’s a bit stingy with cash. All I do is sit and watch the TV all day, pretty amazing TV it has to be said, but it gets so boring by myself all the time. Elena works all hours at the hospital and it isn’t easy to make friends. Every man you meet thinks you are just an easy thing if you show them the remotest sign of friendship, I am just so fed up with it all.’
‘Fair enough, kiddo, come home.’
‘It isn’t as easy as that.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because there are other things to consider.’
‘Like what?’
‘Well, there’s the sisters for a start and…’ and she left the thread hanging in the air, as if expecting Gringo to fill in the missing pieces.
‘You mean you’d lose face in front of your sisters?’
‘Yeah, something like that, only more so.’
‘You mean if you came home early from your romantic holiday in the States without a rock on your finger it would let you in for untold ribbing that could go on for months.’
‘Yes, that too. How come you are so perceptive? Sometimes you seem to be able to read my mind.’
‘It isn’t that hard.’
‘It is to me.’
‘Anyway, I don’t see the problem at all,’ said Gringo. ‘Come and stay with me.’
First, she giggled, and then there was a short silence, and then she said, as if suddenly thinking more of it: ‘Oh yeah, and what would the sleeping arrangements be?’
‘I’d get the front bedroom ready. You can have a room of your own.’
‘And you’d pick me up from the airport?’
‘Sure.’
‘And what would happen on the day I was really supposed to go home?’
‘Whatever you like. I could either take you and drop you in the city, or I could drive you all the way home, or I could order you a cab, or I could take you back to the airport and drop you there.’
‘It would have to be that.’
‘Whatever you think, Glen, it’s not a problem.’
‘And what would I do all day? You go to work just as Harry does. I’d be bored stiff.’
‘No you wouldn’t. You could watch TV, listen to some music, make my dinner; I could take some days off, or maybe you could write that book you’ve always talked about.’
‘Funny you should say that.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I have been writing a bit lately.’
‘There you are, then.’
‘Only in my mind, you understand, but it’s coming on well. It’s about a womanising New York banker who makes enemies for fun.’
‘Sounds familiar.’
‘And one day he’s brutally murdered.’
‘Like a whodunit?’
‘Yeah, a whodunit, but I didn’t do it, if that’s what you think.’
Gringo laughed aloud and then said: ‘You can use my computer, I could get you one of those memory stick jobs, you could save it on that and take it home with you.’
‘Do you mean all this, Gringo?’
‘Of course I do. I told you once before, there will always be a bed for you in this house.’
‘And it would just be as friends, you do understand that, don’t you, Gringo? No hanky panky.’
‘If that’s what you want.’
‘It is. Look, I’ll have a think about this and ring you back tomorrow.’
‘Yeah okay, but try and ring a bit earlier, eh?’
‘I’ll try, and thanks, Gringo, I’ll have to go.’
They said goodbye and Gringo was left staring at the silent phone. He put out the light and lay down, but sleep would be a long time coming. The other bedroom would need sprucing up and Gringo already had some ideas about that.
It would just be as friends, you understand that, don’t you?
He could still hear her sweet voice seeping into his ear. Of course, darling, but once he had her in the house, there would be nothing to stop him making a play for her; she could never stop him doing that, never stop him trying. No one could. He couldn’t stop himself.
Thirty-Nine
The next morning as Rebecca strolled down the office toward him Gringo detected there was something different about her. She walked like a catwalk model and he hadn’t noticed that before. Perhaps she was growing up. The pink cords were back on parade and she looked as cute as hell. She paused nervously at his office and knocked on the open door and looked down at him.
‘Morning Mister Boss, mail for you.’
‘Thanks Becky, come in, close the door and sit down for a second.’
‘Er oh… and what have I done this time?’ she said, flashing her eyelashes and sitting in the chair.
‘Nothing that I know of,’ said Gringo. ‘No, the thing is, I think I may owe you an apology for bawling you out for ringing me in the middle of the night. I now know it wasn’t you. I’m sorry about that.’
‘I always knew it wasn’t me,’ she said, grinning, and then she added, ‘no worries, no harm done.’
‘Good,’ said Gringo, slowly bobbing his head. ‘So how is life treating you, Miss Walker?’
‘I’m good,’ she said, ‘actually I’m better than good. I have a new boyfriend and he’s a right honey. Colin’s his name. He works downstairs in that MBD’s or whatever they’re called, accountants I think they are.’
‘They are,’ confirmed Gringo, wondering who this new Colin bloke was, who for the time being seemed to have stymied his plans.
‘Actually come to think of it,’ she said, ‘he’s more than a little like you. I hadn’t thought of that before, only he’s quite a bit slimmer and ten years younger.’
Great, thought Gringo.
‘He sounds nice.’
‘Oh he is, tell you the truth I’m beginning to think he might be the one, he’s hot you know, if you get my drift.’
Gringo nodded again, not quite knowing what to say.
‘Are you signing up for the blood job, Gringo?’
‘What blood job?’
‘The brochures all came round the office the other day, weren’t you here? No, come to think of it, you may have been away. Princess Alexandra’s watchamacallit’s nursing, something like that. More than half of the staff have already signed up.’
‘No, Becky, there is no chance of me signing up for any blood donor programme. Gringo Greene and needles do not see eye-to-eye.’
‘I never put you down as a scaredy-cat.’
‘I’m not; I just don’t care for needles; that’s all.’
‘That’s what all the scaredy-cats say,’ she pouted. ‘Anyway, here’s your mail. Can I go now?’
Gringo took the letters and nodded her toward to door.
The top letter was an official looking manila envelope. He instinctively knew it was from the tax office, and he was right. He ripped it open and scanned the letter. Just as he thought, his second appointment had finally been set. They’d reached their conclusions, and he’d been summoned to reappear at the same office at 2 o’clock the following Friday. He couldn’t wait to get there, and not because of any company VAT matters, because he didn’t give a fig about that. No, he wanted to see Ms Cairncross again, he wanted to…
but his thinking on that subject was interrupted by Julian (your days are numbered) Smeaton coming in and sitting down and insisting on reviewing certain figures and results, and that took Gringo’s mind completely away from the incredible Ms Julie C.
The nursing team arrived to take the staff’s details at three o’clock. Gringo clocked the curvy one long before she tapped on his door. He smiled up at her and she smiled back through perfect tiny teeth.
‘Are you joining us too, mister er…’
‘Greene’s the name, Gringo Greene, but sorry, I think not,’ as he beckoned for her to take a seat.
‘Oh come along, you look a perfectly healthy specimen to me, and we are so desperate for blood, we’ll take even yours,’ she flirted, ‘and you’ll get a chocolate biscuit afterwards. We can’t say fairer than that.’
‘You don’t pay us then, for the blood that is?’
‘Good Lord no, people donate it out of the kindness of their heart, and perhaps because they believe that one day they just might need it back. We can all be involved in accidents, Mister Greene. It’s like putting money in the bank for a rainy day.’
Gringo wondered how often she had issued that line. He watched her as she spoke in her singsong voice. She possessed a killer mixture of sweet voice, pretty face, smart uniform, and shapely body. Her auburn hair tumbled down over her shoulders and occasionally she would grab it as if it annoyed her, and toss it dismissively behind her back. The tight blue uniform suited her well, and the buckled belt secured by a large antique silver fastener, emphasised her waist perfectly. She crossed her legs and flashed a dash of black stockinged flesh, as Gringo began to wonder if she was using her charms to gain access to his vital fluids.
‘So what does this entail, exactly?’
‘Giving blood?’
‘That’s what we’re talking about.’
‘First of all I will ask you a few simple questions to ascertain if you’re a potentially suitable donor. That’s what we are doing here today.’