by Anna Maxted
“Princess,” says Chris, interrupting. I stop talking so fast my mouth shuts with a clack.
“Sorry,” I slur, wobbling my glass at him. “One sniff of the barmaid’s apron and I start babbling.”
As I say this, I moan inwardly. One sniff of the barmaid’s apron! When I’m nervous I start talking like a granny in a BBC sitcom circa 1973. And Chris is so deeply darkly sexy that my intellect is melting. I am so square and he is so carelessly cool that the harder I try to match him, the more I blurt out ninety-degree blunders like “pertaining to.” I may be possessed by a demonic bureaucrat.
“Princess,” says Chris again. We are sitting in a cold sleek bar and he is stroking the inside of my wrist. “You’re like an icicle scared of melting.”
An icicle scared of her boyfriend walking past. I glance furtively at the huge pane of red glass that divides us from the street.
“You know what you remind me of?” he adds, leaning close. I shake my head.
Chris taps his ash onto the granite floor and declares, “An urban fox. You’re so…watchful. And wild at heart.”
I know this is a compliment, but as the only urban fox I’ve ever seen was an orange creature so obese from foraging through bins that it wheezed, it takes me a while to look pleased. I bend over the mean stub of a candle on our gray Formica table, light a cigarette, then say, “Oh, thank you…. Um, you never told me what you do.”
Chris swigs his White Russian. “I manage a band,” he says, gazing at me with sleepy brown eyes. He grins and adds, “I’m a servant to rock.”
As such a preposterous claim could only be made in jest, even by Ozzy Osbourne, I expel a puff of air through my nose in amusement and—it snuffs the candle! “Sorry,” I say, hastily re-lighting the candle with a match. “On nonfox days I moonlight as the Big Bad Wolf.”
Chris laughs, and I feel ridiculously gratified. I feel I could live on the sound of that laugh. I scrabble to think of something else to amuse him.
Silence.
I soon realize that Chris is blissfully unfettered by the normal constraints of polite conversation (the necessity to talk). So I say, “How do you know Simon?” Chris looks mystified so I add, “the groom.”
“Uh, Simon was one of those geezers who was, like, around. Can’t say I think he’s done the right thing. He’s an all right bloke, Simon, but he’s twenty-five, he’s still a kid. You’re big mates with his missus.”
I think this may be a question. “Yes. Babs. She’s lovely. It’s weird, her being married. I know it sounds awful, but I feel like I’ve been robbed. Did I tell you she’s a firefighter?”
Chris grins. “Do you reckon she carried him over the threshold, then?”
I giggle. “So what’s the name of your band?” I say in a rush of confidence. “Should I know them?”
“Blue Veined Fiend,” he replies proudly, like a new mother revealing the name of her firstborn. He rummages in his pocket and pulls out a crumpled flyer. “You will know them. They’re going to be massive. They’ve got the vibe.”
“They sound great,” I say, knowing that Tony would spit on them. (“You can always judge a band by its name. If they don’t have the inspiration to give themselves a good moniker, what else can they do?”) “Which label are they signed with?”
Chris replies, “I’m on the brink of a mega-deal.”
I glance at the flyer. The Fiends’ last gig was at the Red Eye, near the Caledonian Road. To put it kindly, this is the music industry’s equivalent of Off Broadway.
“That’s brilliant,” I say carefully. “Have they played anywhere else?”
“The Orange,” says Chris. (Off Broadway, turn left, over the roundabout…)
I don’t repeat what I know from Tony: an unsigned band should not continually play gigs uptown because “the A&Rses will only go and see them once.” (Tony is not a fan of A&R men, as he has to—and I paraphrase—“work their rubbish.”)
I say, “I’m sure the Prodigy will be their support band in no time.” Chris smiles, sunshine after rain. “I’ll play you their demo,” he says, his sandpaper voice dark with passion. “You’ll love it.”
I beam. Suddenly I feel more hip. (Last week, Saul and I queued with a frankly aggressive swarm of seniors to hear the BBC Concert Orchestra play Bach at the Hippodrome in Golders Green.)
“I like you, Chris,” I blurt. “You’re fun. It’s like”—I can feel the champagne bubbles popping in my head, deleting brain cells as they go—“it’s so nice to be sitting in this bar, you know, talking, and, I mean, look around, I bet, I bet not one of these people is mar—”
Chris stops me by pulling me to him and kissing me. He tastes illicit and delicious. Lip to lip, he murmurs, “A little less conversation, a little more action, please.” And the fact that I know that Elvis said it first doesn’t make it any less appealing. I am weak with desire. I stand up and let Chris take me home.
The radio harangues me awake at 7:45 A.M. and it takes me a second to realize why I feel like a slug on Demerol. I gingerly approach my conscience to see if I feel guilty and—quite rightly—it slaps me round the face. I bite my lip. What time did he leave? I wriggle under the duvet and dream of last night. Kissing in the taxi like rampant teenagers (though as a real teenager I was more dormant than rampant), tumbling into my baby blue flat, then realizing that beneath my retro skirt and saucy boots lurked a timeless contraceptive: knee-highs.
“Wait!” I screeched, peeling Chris off me, “I’ll be back, I’m just going to”—I racked my brain for a cute excuse—“the toilet.” I ran into the bathroom, and when I ran out eight minutes later (after a futile attempt to erase the sock marks), Chris seemed manic with excitement. I was wondering whether to explain that I hadn’t actually been on the toilet all this time, when he yanked me to him and ripped off my clingy pink shirt! A bold maneuver that would have been all well and good had we been Hollywood film stars, getting it on in our latest blockbuster, where all our designer items came courtesy of the wardrobe department. I was so horrified, I nearly protested. My new shirt, sacrificed for the sake of two seconds’ showing off! I’ll never be a rock chick, I thought, staring at the scatter of pink buttons on the carpet. The first time Saul kissed me, he asked respectfully, “May I have a kiss?” Chris didn’t ask. He kissed like a demon sucking out my soul. His stubble rubbed my chin but—as other body parts rubbed more pressingly—I didn’t care.
“You’re getting a cold,” I said, kissing his nose.
“And you’re getting hot,” he purred. “Come here and be corrupted.”
I shuffled toward him.
“Lie down,” he whispered, “I want to eat you.”
I blushed and couldn’t say it back. I tried not to think like a nanny (now, boys and girls, have you washed your privates?) and let him push me onto the kitchen table. At first I was as relaxed as a lobster in a pot. I kept slamming my knees shut and squeaking. It didn’t help that Saul rang at this point and left a message. (“Nat, the Royal Shakespeare are staging Coriolanus, I thought we might book tickets, the midrange seats are fairly reasonable.”)
Chris paused from his toil and muttered, “How do you stand the pace?” I covered my eyes and cursed Saul for tarring me with his midrange brush. Saul never goes down on me—I vetoed it and he’s too polite to protest. Chris wasn’t.
“Come on, darlin’,” he said in the creamy voice one might use to coax a small kitten down from a tree. “Just relax, it’s going to be beautiful.”
And, to my surprise, it was. I felt like a piano being played by a genius. What can I say? It’s like admitting to a criminal record or collecting stamps. The sordid truth is that I’ve tried to love sex, but we’ve never clicked. It’s always been a gauche tangle of arms and legs and “excuse me”s. Probably my fault for shaking off my virginity with a man who exclaimed, “You’ve got hairs on your bottom!” But then maybe I’d have been a disappointment even with a bum like an apricot. Babs couldn’t understand it. She bought me a vibrator and a filthy
book entitled The Joy of Self-loving—Sex for One.
“You can’t wait for a bloke to make it happen,” she scolded. “You might as well hang round a convenience store waiting for the Messiah. You need to know how to make it happen yourself.”
But the harder I tried the worse I got, until my knickers froze if I overheard the word coffee. The one time I successfully thawed, the guy pinkly jiggled out of the room in a huff and bawled from the corridor, “It’s like trying to get blood from a stone!” After that I preferred to fake it. (I screamed and screamed and raked my nails down their backs.) And now, from nowhere: Chris Pomeroy, purveyor of the big bang. It was so unexpectedly glorious, my eyes watered.
“You didn’t look like a girl who was getting any,” Chris murmured later as we shared a cigarette. “You’re built for it, princess, you’ve been wasted.”
I scruffed up my hair so it hid my face but he smoothed it back.
Then he added, “I’m going to have to love you and leave you, Gorgeous Girl—things to see, people to do.”
I felt a flutter of panic, but he said he’d call me. Minutes later I was as deeply asleep as if I’d been hit on the head with a bin lid.
I grin at the clock—it’s 9:20 A.M. Guilt about Saul briefly squeezes my insides, but thick lust stifles it. I’ve never felt this sort of longing before. The sex is not enough, I want to infuse myself with Chris, wallow in Chris. And a small mean part of me feels triumph—you can’t do this anymore, Barbara, you’re stuck with the same man, the same thrills, but I am free—hang on a minute: 9:20?—shit! I ping out of bed, run to the wardrobe, and drag out clothes, I’ll be late for work, I am never late for work, never, I can’t be, I won’t, Chris Chris Chris what have you done to me, I race to the tube. Do I look different? I have a creepy suspicion that people are staring. I race from the tube, and hurl myself into the office at 10:15, panting like Paws after the trek from his food bowl to the sofa. It’s deserted.
There’s a message on my voice mail from Matt, saying he’ll be out all day in meetings, but the chief exec has okayed the Telegraph press trip to Verona (we’re paying), so “Thunderbirds are go.” I grin. Matt’s happy absence surely marks the rebirth of my reputation. I compose a treacly letter to the Italian State Tourist Board press office outlining our plan. I also spend an inordinate amount of company time dribbling and sighing over Chris. I am loath to use the phone for work purposes in case he calls.
I am dawdling between the words magnificent and majestic (schmoozing is a precision art) when the door creaks open and a pale child with black pigtails and a petulant mouth peeps around it.
“Melissandra,” I say, snapping to attention. “How are you?”
Mel glides in, her gossamer form muffled by leggings and tights, a thick jumper, and a mysterious wraparound item, possibly a skirt or shawl.
“I’m tho-tho,” she says, gazing at me through lowered lashes.
“Oh dear!” I say. “Why’s that, can I help?”
Mel frowns and replies, “Pothibly.”
I smile encouragement. Mel might look like Pippi Long-stocking, but she is twenty-nine years old. She is a good dancer but, allegedly, not as good as she thinks she is. Matt’s verdict on seeing her as Clara in The Nutcracker was “A bit glacial for me,” and the critics agreed. Melissandra Pritchard, they wrote, is technically perfect but parched of passion: the Gwyneth Paltrow of ballet. The company consensus is, she adds nothing of herself to a role (confirmed when a ballet mistress begged Mel to “interpret” the movement, and she snapped, “I’m a dancer, not a choreographer!”). But she is beautiful. She looks as fragile as spun glass.
“Would you like some water?” I say gently.
“No thanks,” lisps Mel prettily, bending low over my desk and lifting one leg up and up and up until it is vertical. “Did you hurt your face?” she adds.
“My faith?” I splutter. “Oh, my face”—please, I think, don’t hold back! The eye bags must be worse than I thought—“Um, no, I just didn’t have a chance do my makeup yet.”
Mel shoots me an odd look. She says, “I’ve got some cover-up stick.” I try not to show offense.
“It’s so sweet of you,” I reply. “But I’ll be fine. More important, tell me what I can do to help you.”
Mel extends a slender arm and tugs gently at her raised foot (which is currently hovering above her head). This impossible maneuver requires no effort at all. I gaze at her and wish I could do that. Unfortunately I am as pliant as a dry twig. I’ll go to the gym tonight.
“I am upset,” announces Mel, lowering her leg, and pulling anxiously at her red pigtail ribbon. “I respect Julietta, I think she’s a sweet dancer, I won’t have a word said against her…”
—I brace myself for the torrent of slander that always follows this phrase—
“…but it’s not fair that she hogs all the publicity, she’s always in the paper, every day there’s a massive picture of her showing off her nice swayback legs—which I must say are so hyperextended they’re practically deformed!—and I can’t see how she ever has time to rehearse—she seems to spend all her time talking to journalists! I’m a principal too, why can’t they interview me?”
Mel’s lower lip wobbles. I feel a rush of pity.
“Don’t be upset, Mel,” I urge, “I’ll sort something out for you,” I add rashly.
Mel claps her hands and—to my surprise—flings her arms around me. It’s like being hugged by a bag of nails.
“Do you promise?” she cries. “Thank you so, so much!” She pauses, then says, “I know! Why don’t we go for a coffee and talk about it? You could sit in on rehearsal on Friday, then we could go out. Out of the building! I don’t know anywhere around here but I’m sure you do! It would be fun, oh please say yes!”
I’m shallow enough to be flattered at the chance to chitchat with a star. I am also mesmerized by her eyes, so huge and blue and doleful, how could I refuse? I agree and watch her skip out. She sings Tori Amos’s “Cornflake Girl” all the way down the corridor.
I grin and realize my chin hurts. A spot. Great: my first orgasm and I get a rash. I force myself not to touch it or look—this place is made of mirrors and frankly I’m sick of the sight of myself. Then at 6:03, after a day of sullen silence, the phone rings. I grab it like a drowning man grabs at a twig.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Natalie, it’s Sally at reception.”
“Hello, Sally,” I reply, trying not to droop.
“I have a gentleman here to see you.” Her voice drops—“I guess he’s to blame for your intriguing appearance today”—and then at her normal pitch, “Shall I send him up?”
The comments on my lack of lipstick are starting to unnerve me. Maybe I suffer from inverted body dysmorphic disorder and am twice as ugly as I think I am. But lust conquers all and I cry, “Yes, yes, oh thank you, send him up now!” I feel ashamed of doubting him.
“My pleasure,” says Sally with a giggle. “He’ll be right with you.” I slam down the phone and start running in different directions—I fumble for my makeup bag but it is wedged at the bottom of my bag by that great big bully of a book, Stalingrad, lent to me by Saul (I keep meaning to start it). Finally I wrench Antony Beevor’s spiteful opus out of the way and tug out the makeup bag. I am poised to click open my powder case when I hear a gentle knock. I stuff it out of sight and rake my hands through my hair.
“Come in!” I croak.
My caller strides in, clutching a large bouquet of deep red roses, and my heart sinks.
He looks at me and the smile dies on his face.
“What,” says Saul in a voice I’ve never heard before, “is that on your chin?”
5
IT’S POLITE IN MODERN SOCIETY NOT TO GROW A beard. (In the name of equality this applies to women too.) Beards are musty cornflake-ridden things and should only be grown in emergencies. Designer stubble in particular is hazardous and should be banned. If it were, my chin wouldn’t look as if it had been attacked by a cheese g
rater and Saul wouldn’t be staring silently ahead and driving his Lotus at a more geriatric pace than usual. I feel menaced. I slide low in my seat and twiddle with my hair. The last ten minutes have not been fun.
“What’s what on my chin?” I’d whispered, a slow curl of fear unfolding. My hand flew to conceal the offending spot. Except it wasn’t a spot. It was a red patch of crusting scab. An injury sustained by fierce and prolonged rubbing against an unshaven jaw. I had stubble trouble.
“There’s something I should tell you,” I said in a small voice. I waited for Saul to smash his fist into the wall like a normal well-adjusted male and scream, “You bitch! I’ll kill him!” but all he said was, “You forget that I’ve booked us a table for seven-thirty at the Oxo Tower Brasserie. We can discuss it there.”
I opened my mouth, then shut it and nodded. He held open the door for me and I cringed as I ducked under his arm. As we reached the car I realized he’d left the roses to die on my desk.
“How was work?” I shrill.
“Good,” replies Saul, and starts whistling softly under his breath. I think it’s Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On.”
I squeeze my hands tight to prevent them shaking. The tension is hideous. I might pop like a balloon and splat his interior in shards of red rubber. Until recently I thought Saul was a pushover, about as scary as a Meg Ryan film. Now, I revise my opinion. He’s Dirty Harry with an abacus. I keep glancing at him sideways to check he hasn’t morphed.
“Can I turn on the radio?” I bleat.
“I’d rather you didn’t,” he says. I quickly withdraw my arm, which has already reached out to turn the dial. I realize that if ever I’ve wanted something, Saul has agreed to it. When he broke a dirty plate and I asked him to wash it before putting it in the bin because I couldn’t relax knowing it wasn’t clean in there, he scrubbed it with dishwashing liquid and said fondly, “We’re two of a kind!” He also bought me a new plate. He is kind and forgiving. I hope.