One hundred and eighty-one days ago, at 7:48 a.m., in room 303 in the Hotel Cipriani, Venice, I woke up face down in the pillow, and I knew without looking that Stephen was already gone.
After a half hour shuttling back and forth between Central and Kowloon, watching the orderly draining and refilling of passengers, I am flatly damp. I disembark, make my way past the busy shops with their the doll-like mannequins, hips and waists so slender, feet like babies’.
My step is slow in the thick air as I reach Mandarin and the doorman bows, his gaze lingering just a second too long as I lurch a little to the right and into the lobby chill. And there, walking quickly towards me and checking his watch, is Stephen. I stop dead as if I could be camouflaged by remaining still. The bell chimes faintly, the lift doors slide open behind him and he looks up to catch me with my mouth hanging open. A waiter’s airborne tray glides between us and then Stephen draws level. His eyes as brown as ever, head tilted in the interrogative, the faint chin cleft is unfilled: he has been preserved intact, immaculate and exactly as I remember him.
‘I might have known.’ His smile is hesitant but it is warm, the slight dimple appears as he closes the gap between us and I catch the air rush of a familiar scent.
‘So you’re after my clients now?’
He grins. ‘I should have guessed Felix would tell you I’d called.’
‘You do know he only agreed to meet you out of curiosity?’ And he frowns, his Stephen puzzle-furrow. ‘Felix just wanted to check out the guy who dumped me.’
‘Nothing could surprise me after all you told me about him.’ Stephen smiles – kindly, unruffled, unshakeable as ever. He is looking right at me, so I look away. Please let me not be churlish now. Let me rise to the occasion and show how much I have grown.
‘So how’s Rex?’
‘He’s fine.’ Like you care. ‘Great, happy as a lab.’
‘Lisa looking after him?’
‘No, she’s away.’ Like it’s any of your business.‘He’s with a guy from work,’ and for a fleeting moment I am tempted to invent a new boyfriend who is not only gorgeous and rich but babysitting Rex as we speak. ‘Actually, it’s Pie Man, the quant guy.’
‘The fat guy?’ Why am I admitting to hanging round with fatboy?‘A last minute thing for this trip. Rex sort of knows him.’ I don’t have to explain. You left us, remember?
‘So you just got in today?’
‘I’m not even supposed to be here. I was here last week, got back Saturday and then got sent out again.’ And suddenly I want Stephen to know that I am travelling up the food chain, not just selling water to ducks these days. ‘On a Special Mission.’
‘Really.’
‘For one of your heroes, in fact.’
‘Oh yeah?’
‘Kapoor, actually.’ Go on, look surprised. And Stephen does in fact seem to miss a beat, I know him well enough to notice the slightest double take before he inclines his head in graceful acknowledgement.
‘Well, well.’
‘She must be going up in the world, is what you’re thinking.’
‘You were always destined for stardom, Geri.’
But that wasn’t enough to stop you from dumping me, was it?
‘So are you here for a few days?’
‘I’m done. Flying back tonight.’
Me too, but I don’t say this.
‘You busy now?’ He gestures with his hands, looks around and it seems like a genuine enquiry rather than a protocol line.
‘I’m due in the office. To report on my Special Mission.’
‘Oh, right.’
‘Why?’
‘I thought perhaps we could – that I could take you out for a drink. If you had time to kill and if you would – like to?’ And I am struck by the awkwardness in a rare rephrasing from the man who so fluently despatched me in Venice. There is a steady drift down the lobby into the Captain’s Bar and the promise of an afternoon buzz, the red hide is snug and softly animal and invitingly kitsch. But it pulses with the reminiscence of other warmer times and since this chance encounter is an opportunity to rewrite my own ending, I do not trust myself to navigate safely out of reach of the past.
‘Yes, I’d like to. But not here.’
Out in Repulse Bay the clifftop air at the American Club feels lighter but isn’t. Executive wives in tennis skirts thrash around on the pink courts, gathering in G&T clusters in the terraced heat to discuss the relative merits of birthing in Hong Kong or Tokyo, trying to pretend that dim sum is really nice once you get used to it and that all the slender young Asian girls don’t bother them. A couple of years in expatriate nirvana before rock fever sets in. The island is a playground, a watering hole.
‘You remember we came here that time with Tom Castigliano?’ Stephen gestures with his wine glass. A rare collision of travel schedules three years ago had us overlap for twenty-four hours in Hong Kong and I watched from the viewing gallery while Stephen and Tom played squash, thinking which of the two is the most fuckable, legs slamming across the wooden floor, shouts bounding off the glass, Stephen doing a Borg kneel when it was over and both waving up to me before they disappeared to the showers. And while I lay back in the shaded heat, I could feel the soft sweep of Stephen’s hand under the fold of my skirt, trace the smooth slide of his fingers along the inside of my thigh, taste the heat of his tongue as my lips parted and I pressed into the surge of him swelling deep inside me until the light blackened behind my closed lids. My eyes opened onto their double silhouette against the sudden sunset and Stephen said, Time to wake up.
I run my finger around the steaming ice bucket.
‘You want to go inside?’
‘I’m fine.’ The terrace is sticky. Drips trickle down the neck of our second bottle into a small, damp pool on the stone.
‘Felix is insisting I move out here.’
‘Well, I guess that was always on the cards.’ Stephen nods over the rim of his glass. ‘But?’
‘Who said there was a but?’
‘So you are keen on the move?’
‘There are worse places.’
‘You don’t sound too enthusiastic.’
‘Obviously there’s Rex to think about.’ And even as I say this I know how pathetic it sounds. This vision of me home alone clinging to a fucking Labrador. A surrogate child, like Zanna says. But Stephen just smiles, a slight twist of the mouth – this is what happens when someone knows you so well they can write your script; in fact they do write it. And then they stop listening. Arrested development, a relationship on autopilot. You no longer grow.
I am nailed, explored and accounted for. ‘You remember Diane down at the Abingdon Vet clinic, who looked after Rex that time? Well, I spoke to her about finding a home for Rex.’ This is a total lie, I didn’t, I haven’t, but it occurs to me right now that this is a moment that’s heading my way.
‘You found someone?’
‘Diane said no problem, they’d be a queuing up for a dog like him.’
‘So you’ll be moving out here soon then?’
‘I haven’t said yes yet, though Felix thought I’d come to see him with the good news today. When in fact I was sent out here to get a simple answer to a simple question.’
‘So did you get it?’
‘Mission accomplished. Geri got the simple answer to the simple question.’
‘Congratulations.’
‘Which I really should deliver.’ I grind my cigarette out in the ashtray. ‘But you know what? Fuck them.’ I am seized by a sudden fury at being catapulted around the globe at everyone’s whim. ‘They can wait. I‘m tired of playing messenger. And for all they know I could be having a late lunch with Felix.’ Stephen smiles indulgently at my little show of force and I reach for my wine glass and knock it back as if this adds conviction. Is there nothing in my repertoire that he hasn’t seen before?
The waiter brings another margarita. And water. And more wine. And for a moment I want to lunge forwards and rip the smooth skin from St
ephen’s face just for being so adult about our unexpected meeting, so utterly relaxed, holding out a way forward where we can be ex and civilised.
‘I need sunglasses, the white tablecloth hurts my eyes.’ Stephen reaches into his pocket, brings out a pair of Ray-Bans.
‘So typical of you to come prepared.’
‘You know me, always at the ready.’
‘How about a cognac?’
‘You don’t like cognac.’
‘Zanna told me I need to start liking new things. So I’m practising.’
He raises his glass and something in his easy charm makes me want to jab him. ‘So how’s the family, Stephen?’ He gives me a sardonic arch of the eyebrows. ‘I’m guessing your mother was gutted when you told her we were history.’
‘Oh, you know Lucy, she will never like any woman I bring home. But let’s not go there, Geri.’ He rises from the chair with a smile, a little rap on the knuckles, a gentle warning about picking sores in public.
‘Sorry, just kidding.’ But I’m not and I fumble for a cigarette in my handbag and watch him walk away across the terrace towards the loos, stopping to murmur something in the waiter’s ear. I used to wonder if Stephen and I would still be together if we could have stopped arguing about things like the fact that I think his mother hates me.
She doesn’t hate you, he said, slamming the car door on the end of what turned out to be my last visit to Esher just over a year ago.
I am NEVER EVER EVER going to that fucking house again, I announced, unaware that my prophesy would soon come true because I would never again be invited.
This car stinks of dog, he snapped.
Your mother is such a bitch, I replied, leaning my head back into a night-drive fantasy about Lucy being strangled by the pearls that Stephen bought her for Christmas, reliving the strained aperitifs in the hand-mottling cold of the dining room. Lucy ingesting little bird bites of food into the black O of her perfectly made-up mouth, demonstrating her mastery of the art of elegant eating and me using my fork like a shovel because my mum never told us not to; the effort of being on my best behaviour driving me to drink far more than everyone else, Lucy slicing into her husband’s monosyllabic contentment to say, Geoffrey darling, why don’t you pour Geraldine another glass of wine. Stephen making a throaty snorting sound while his red-haired sisters swivelled their bobbed heads to take in my empty glass. Lucy’s mouth creased into a straight line, eyes narrowing as I struggled for an amusing put-down when she asked about my little flat. Like I lived in some bedsit in Catford.
All this time Rex wasn’t allowed into the dining room because of the cream carpet and I could hear him whining out in the hallway. Then there was a sudden furious scratching and everybody froze because Lucy just had all the doors refurbed, so I said It’s OK, but got up too quickly, felling my glass. Oh, shit, I’m so sorry, and Stephen said Shit and jumped to his feet, wine snaking towards his trousers and Lucy said Geoffrey and Sister One was already rushing for the door and Rex came flying in and I was tugging at his collar saying, I’ll get you a whole new set, Lucy, don’t worry. They’re antiques, she murmured and Stephen snapped, It doesn’t matter, as I was overwhelmed by an urge to whip off the tablecloth and carve my initials into the slab of rosewood with a silver fork.
She doesn’t hate you, she just finds you difficult, said Stephen, sinking into the couch back at my flat, but I could never resist the pointless pursuit. Do you find me difficult? He flung his head into the cushion. Let’s not get into this. But I hacked on. So you do? And then he lost it and it just got louder, forcing Rex to hop down from the couch and stand whimpering in between the two of us until Stephen said I might as well leave now.
‘So tell me, Geri,’ Stephen slips back into the chair, ‘why don’t you want to live in Hong Kong?’
I hear Zanna’s home truth from a couple of nights ago. I know why you don’t want to go.
‘I guess I’m running out of reasons to object. And Felix is getting impatient. In fact the simple-answer-to-the-simple-question that I have not yet delivered comes with a price tag attached.’
‘Contingency?’
‘Oh, Felix didn’t exactly spell it out. He just reminded me he owns my ass.’
‘You mean if you deliver your answer you will be committed to moving out here?’
He picks up his glass and holds my gaze just over the rim, those knowing eyes. Behind him the hazy sun seems to lurch suddenly to the east but it is me, slipping, the collision of margaritas and wine and whatever the fuck else that is sloshing around in my sleepless drunken brain. And I need the loo but the terrace seems like a perilous crossing, the effort of rising from the chair too much to contemplate. I’m sticky with sweat, my hairline warmly damp and a comforting trickle down the back of my neck.
‘Fact is Felix can pull the plug on my career any time he wants. All he has to do is stop giving me business.’
‘He likes you.’
‘You mean he likes toying with me. Just like you did.’ Stephen inclines his head and I light another cigarette. ‘Sorry, scratch that – NO – don’t say a word. Just think of it as my cheap jab with a sharp object for leaving me in a hotel room.’
‘You’re right,’ he says solemnly. ‘That was unforgivable.’ His hand hovers above mine and he hesitates, giving me time to pull away. But I appear to have no neural signals, all transmission has failed and I don’t move, just watch his hand slip over mine like a holster. Looking like a perfect fit. And we are both staring at this still life when the waiter returns with the cognac. Stephen lifts his head to my shaded eyes, removes his hand and turns away to look out over the terrace and a gathering haze. He is gently biting on his lower lip now, an old habit of thoughtfulness.
‘You should be careful with Kapoor, Geri.’
‘I’ve had close shaves with bankers before.’
‘Touché.’
‘Anyway, Felix says, as usual, that the answer lies with Kant.’
Stephen grins. ‘Remember the time you said that to the Grope?’ We laugh. It is almost like the old days. He stops laughing and squeezes my hand. The sun seems suddenly much lower.
‘I’m glad we met,’ he says.
‘This doesn’t mean anything.’
‘There’s always history.’
‘So let’s drink to that.’
Stephen sits on the high stone wall while we wait for the cab. ‘Not a bad place to be I guess, if things do get worse.’
I nod, drop my cigarette on the drive.
‘Two days to expiry,’ he makes a small explosion with his mouth and hops down to the ground in a confident no-hands way, landing in exactly the spot he had targeted, a true investment banker. I lift my head, but he’s already looking down at me, standing so close that I am level with the second unfastened button of his shirt.
In the cab I sit at one side of the back seat, a full person-gap from Stephen who is staring straight ahead with his elbow in the open window, and it feels like all the air is being sucked out of the car by this stretch of leather in between us. When the cab pulls up at the Mandarin and he takes my elbow, the steps are somehow deeper, wider, longer; there’s the blur of a doorman between the closing doors. The bell sounds, the lift shudders, I’m standing with my back to the wall as we ascend and Stephen guides me out onto the soft hush of the corridor, pulls me forward, stops to slide a hand over my breast and I am looking up only at his eyes, then we slam against the door and somehow get inside and I let his shirt follow the curve of his shoulders and flutter to the floor. Stephen grips my arms from behind, turns me over to lay face down on the cool sheet, his tongue drawing a hot slow line down the middle of my back, both hands curve over my cheeks and I thrust my ass upwards and backwards, spread my knees as his fingers glide in to check what I already know, that I am wet and ready, and for a while I cannot tell what is sliding and pushing so deeply inside me, except that the moment is coming and we are hurtling headlong towards it as the Peak glitters and sparkles in the window.
&n
bsp; In the wakeful aftermath I lie in the crook of his arm, my leg slung over his. Lights burn away the dusk, quick and fleeting in its sudden transition. Stephen raises his arm and sweeps the hair gently back from my forehead and I close my eyes to the release that deadens my limbs, the onset of an exhaustion that might actually lead to sleep. Now, here, safe, returned to something resembling peace.
‘So you’re worried that Felix will force your hand,’ he says and I wish he hadn’t spoken. That we could just lie here mute and close and still.
‘I dunno. That’s the kind of weird fucked-up person he is.’
‘You think he has you over a barrel with the simple answer to the simple question?’
‘Felix has something that Steiner’s wants very badly. And of course the only person he will talk to is me. So that’s why they sent me out here. The Grope’s bright idea to fast track his route to the board.’ I sigh. ‘All I have to do is deliver the goods. And then the Grope can tell Kapoor to tell his client he can have what he goddam well wants if he pays up 30%.’
Stephen does not respond, he lies beside me breathing evenly, my head resting still on the steady rise and fall of his chest.
‘Or else I could stay in London and go down in history as the saleswoman who threw away her monster client all because she didn’t want to go to Hong Kong.’
‘You could always find some other clients.’
‘I could always leave the City and start a puppy farm.’
He laughs, ‘Come here,’ and pulls me in tight and on top of him. My hair falls forward and he pushes it back. I look down on his face, there as it should be, but what were the odds?
‘Geri,’ he says, a little frown rippling across his brow.
‘Shh,’ I warn, ‘don’t speak. I don’t want you to speak.’
‘I’m sorry.’ And I want to ask what for? Is it for the old past or this present moment that is already fading, or is it even for some future that has not yet come into view?
But ‘Shh,’ I dip my head. I kiss him into silence.
On the Floor Page 17