Norman didn’t immediately strike Jen as a handsome man. He was quite short, only slightly taller than her five feet six inches, and he wore glasses. They were, she noticed upon closer inspection, Armani glasses and they did look quite stylish when he smiled. He was well dressed, in an expensive Hugo Boss suit, but she spotted a few flakes of dandruff on his shoulders and in his copper red hair. His blue eyes, however, were bright and intelligent, and his face had a boyish smoothness that suggested he wasn’t the type to feel stress.
She normally went for tall, attractive men, who looked like they knew what they were doing in bed and might have enough money to show her a good time. When she was drunk a lot of this went out of the window, but Norman still didn’t meet any of her criteria for what a man should look like. Her natural politeness at social events meant that she smiled warmly when he’d introduced himself and then Norman had surprised her.
His conversation sparkled, one minute she was nodding sympathetically as he told her all about his last girlfriend who’d left him to go and do volunteer work and had just been arrested for drug trafficking. The next she was laughing hysterically at his recollection of an incident at boarding school that involved tying up a new boy and hiding him in the boot of a teacher’s car. A quick phone call to the police and the teacher was arrested as he drove home, leading to the expulsion of three boys.
Throughout the evening, he kept finding excuses to come and speak to her, finally asking if he could call her. Jen had given him her mobile number. She’d received a text message from him the same night saying how much he’d enjoyed speaking to her and that he’d call soon. She hadn’t expected anything else to happen, but two days later Norman had rung and asked to see her. They arranged to go for a curry, Jen’s favourite food, and had met at eight o’ clock the night before at Rajdoot in Albert Square.
The meal had been fantastic, it turned out that Norm was something of a curry connoisseur, having travelled extensively in India where he’d acquired a taste for them. He spent the entire evening regaling her with tales about his life, all of which Jen found fascinating. He’d spent six months in India, originally going over with a friend who’d returned after a fortnight because he was homesick, leaving Norm to fend for himself. He’d become friendly with a market trader who let him sleep above the shop in return for doing general handyman work.
After returning to Britain for Christmas with his family, his uncle was apparently a Lord somebody or other, Norm had decided to go to America for a while. Eighteen months later he’d come home under instructions from his dad, who’d secured him a job with a merchant bank in London through various contacts. The job lasted two months before Norm left to pursue a career in art. He hadn’t decided exactly which direction he was going to follow as yet, but was enjoying what he assumed to be the lifestyle of an artist. His mother had assisted with the purchase of a nice flat in central London, allowing him to be close to various galleries and museums while he pondered his next move. Luckily, his uncle, the Lord, knew someone who owned a gallery in Manchester, so Norm had moved to the city on a three month trial to see if he liked the job.
‘So what exactly do you do at this gallery then?’ Jen asked between mouthfuls of
Chicken Jalfrezi.
‘Good question.’ He paused to scoop some more Lamb Biryani on to his plate. ‘To be honest I haven’t done much as yet. I spend every day cataloguing pieces and looking round the gallery.’
The night had progressed well. Norm was interested in Jen’s life, asking lots of questions about her work and her family and she found his life gripping. She’d come to expect discussions about computers, football, ex-partners and sex. Norm didn’t know much about computers, supported whatever team were winning at the time and, apart from the drug trafficker, didn’t seem to have had many girlfriends.
‘Right then,’ Norm said, waving a hand at a passing waiter, ‘I’ll get the bill.’
Jen looked at her watch and was amazed to see that they’d been in the restaurant for almost two hours.
‘God, I can’t believe how long we’ve been in here. Do you want to go somewhere for a drink or are you sick of me now?’ Come on, she thought, take me for a drink, you’re the nicest bloke I’ve met in ages.
‘Yeah, okay.’ He handed a plain black credit card to the waiter. ‘Where do you fancy?’
Jen was silent for a moment, still taking in the sight of the credit card. She’d read an article about them recently in a magazine. The black ones had been introduced recently for those customers who wanted to be even more exclusive than platinum cardholders. The only people who had them were film stars and multi-millionaires and there was supposedly no spending limit on them.
‘Erm. Anywhere. We could just wander until we see somewhere we like the look of,’ she suggested.
Norm nodded. ‘Excellent. If we find a good cocktail bar I’ll ask them to make up this one I had in Germany. Evil drink.’
They picked up their jackets and strolled around the city centre, eventually settling on an intimate jazz bar with a late licence called Matt & Phreds. They went inside and chose a table away from the stage where a three-piece band was playing, to allow them to talk further. Norm went to the bar and returned several minutes later with two tall glasses containing a blue liquid.
‘Is this the cocktail?’ Jen asked as he handed her the drink.
‘Yeah, it’s close enough. They had everything except the lime.’
She tried a sip and coughed, the cocktail burning her throat.
‘What the hell’s in it? She spluttered.
‘Half a dozen spirits and a couple of liquors,’ he answered, taking a mouthful. ‘It’s the chilli and pepper vodka that burns, the lime helps with that, usually.’
They stayed in the jazz bar until it closed at two in the morning, getting to know each other, clapping between songs and becoming extremely drunk.
As they wobbled out of the bar and headed for a taxi rank, Jen was expecting what happened next.
‘Do you want to come back to my flat?’ Norm ventured.
‘For coffee I suppose?’
He looked surprised. ‘Oh sorry, I don’t drink it. I’m a tea drinker myself. I was actually going to show you some of my stuff from abroad. You seemed quite interested earlier on so I thought…’ He paused, embarrassed.
‘No, I meant…it doesn’t matter. I’d love to come and see your flat, Normy.’
His face brightened as she linked her arm around his and they joined the queue for taxis. After waiting for about twenty minutes, they were at the front of the line. Norm instructed the driver where to go and Jen became worried when she noticed they were heading out of town.
‘Where on earth do you live?’ She slurred up at him, her cheek resting on his shoulder.
‘It’s on a little estate a bit further on. I have a flat in a house.’
Jen nodded. She should’ve known it was too good to be true. She hoped the estate wasn’t too rough, especially since she hardly knew Norm and she’d have to get home at some point.
Ten minutes later, they turned off the main road and the driver stopped outside some large iron gates.
‘Here will be fine thanks,’ said Norm, handing over some money and helping Jen out of the door.
He opened the gates and they walked along the private road for a few minutes before arriving at a very large, very old looking house.
‘Jesus! You live here?’ Jen was amazed.
‘No, I have a flat on the second floor. This all belongs to my uncle.’
He let them in through a side door and led her up into his flat, which consisted of several enormous rooms, all beautifully decorated. He pointed to a large, four-seat sofa for her to sit on while he disappeared through a door on the far side of the very long room. The ceilings were extremely high and had ornate detail around the edges. There were two paintings hanging from the walls, both of a distinguished looking man dressed in a suit and an army uniform respectively.
Jen was staggered
. She’d never been anywhere like this except on school trips years ago. A moment later, Norm came back with two mugs of tea. He handed one to her and sat down at the other end of the sofa.
‘This is amazing,’ she said, still staring around the room.
He looked embarrassed and shrugged.
‘Who’s the bloke in the paintings?’
‘Oh, that’s my uncle Robert.’ He explained, as if everyone had life size oil paintings of their family hanging in the living room.
‘Cool.’
‘Look at this,’ he said, jumping up and dashing over to a large chest in a corner of the room.
She turned to look and burst out laughing, spraying tea on to the couch. Norm was standing there, with a large wooden mask held over his face, trying to drink his tea through the mouth hole.
‘You’re nuts!’
‘It’s a tribal fertility mask. My uncle got it from the chief of some tribe when he went to Africa years ago. You should see his weapons.’
For the next three hours, Norm showed her countless items and artefacts from all over the world, some valuable and some just weird. She tried on various helmets and a jewel encrusted gauntlet and saw dozens of manuscripts and paintings.
‘Of course, if anyone knew my Uncle had half this stuff he’d be in trouble. A lot of it technically belongs to various governments and museums.’
‘So how did he get it all then?’
‘Presents from people who he’s done favours for. He bought a lot of it too, not always from the owner though. Here, you won’t believe what’s in here.’
He took her hand and led her into a separate room. The room was small and bare, apart from a small safe set into one wall. Norm twiddled the combination and opened the safe door.
‘Oh my God! Is that what I think it is?’
‘Yep! Pretty cool eh?’
‘But that’s been missing for years.’
‘Yeah I know. But Uncle only got it a couple of years ago. Cost an absolute fortune, but he thinks it’s pretty cool to have one. Mick Jagger’s got one you know. Some nutter sent one to Jeremy Paxman not long ago too. Either way, I’ve no idea how it works, but if you need any codes breaking then this should do the trick.’
Jen stood, open-mouthed, hardly able to believe the things she’d seen. I certainly got more than I bargained for coming back here, she thought.
It was almost dawn when, eventually, Norm announced he felt tired and said he was going to bed. He looked a bit awkward so she made it easy for him and said she’d like to join him. He grinned like a child and led her up a very wide flight of stairs and down a corridor to his room. Jen wasn’t surprised to see that his bed was a four-poster, and that there was an en-suite bathroom. Norm went to change into his pyjamas and came back wearing just the bottoms.
‘It’s quite warm isn’t it? I can never sleep if I’m too warm.’
Hmm, Jen noticed, not a bad body. He obviously does some exercise.
‘You look better without your glasses.’ She commented as she undressed.
‘Really? I do have contacts but I thought my eyes looked funny in them.’
Jen stripped to her underwear, past experience dictating that it was matching and sexy, and slid into bed next to Norm, quite prepared to sleep with him after such a wonderful night. He surprised her again though, by kissing her lightly on the lips and wishing her a good night, then turning out the light. Jen curled up next to him, wrapped her left leg over him and draped her left arm over his chest.
She lay next to him, listening to his breathing grow deeper, watching him sleep as her eyes adjusted to the darkness. She was lying in bed, in a stately home, with someone who could well be a member of the aristocracy, was obviously loaded and seemed to like her. She couldn’t wait to tell Katie about this one.
Chapter Eight
Katie was sitting in her office, a small square room with a square light panel in the middle of the ceiling illuminating the hyacinth blue walls. She stared out of the single, tall window, looking at nothing, pushing and pulling the lid off of her pen with her teeth. It had been an unusual day so far and it wasn’t even lunchtime yet. Since arriving at work that morning two things had happened that, to Katie at least, seemed utterly unexpected and had completely shunted all thoughts of doing any work from her head.
She’d arrived at her desk, and was immediately summoned to the director’s office where she was offered a promotion into Fontaines upper middle management. This was to be effective by the end of the week since the chap whose job she was being given had collapsed over the weekend and died. As soon as the funeral was out of the way the job was hers. Unsure how to respond in such a situation she’d simply uttered a few words of thanks and left the office in a state of mild shock.
The second thing happened about half an hour later while she was sitting behind her desk, trying to absorb the news of her sudden appointment due to an equally unexpected death. A receptionist appeared saying that a courier had dropped off an enormous bouquet of flowers for her. The card, which was in a little envelope buried between a couple of carnations, informed her that she had lovely eyes, particularly when she smiled. It was signed with a little cross to signify a kiss but no name.
Since this, Katie had done nothing except wonder who’d sent her the flowers. Even the promotion was pushed into second place as she tried to compile a list of suspects in her head. Whoever the flowers were from they’d made her smile; it had been so long since anyone had sent her flowers. In fact the last person to do anything like this was Dave. When they’d first started seeing each other, when she was still meeting him at the bar for after hour’s drinks, he’d sent flowers to the office. She remembered that he’d signed his name on the card and had written that he couldn’t wait to see her again. Katie supposed that he was sending gifts to her replacement now. Git!
By lunchtime she’d only managed to come up with two people who may have sent her flowers and neither of these seemed very likely. One was a chap who worked as part of her team who she’d caught looking at her a few times and the other was a bloke she had met at one of Jen’s parties the week before. He’d been nice but a bit quiet. He would spend a couple of minutes just staring at her and then seem to realise he might be scaring her and start to talk again. They’d discussed jobs and so he could easily have had flowers sent to the office. He didn’t seem to be the type though, especially after one conversation at a party.
At the end of the day, having done little other than look at her flowers and feel very conscious of her ‘lovely’ eyes, she went home. There was a message from her mother on the answering machine so she called back.
‘Katie dear, I left you a message.’ Her mother began.
‘I got flowers,’ said Katie, completely ignoring her mother’s statement of the obvious.
‘Flowers? From whom? Not that loathsome Dave character I hope.’ Her mother asked, her tone judgemental.
‘I have no idea, the card wasn’t signed. Apart from the kiss,’ she added. A wide smile spread across her lips.
‘You always were easily pleased dear. I mean really, living with a barman in a flat above a pub. It’s so…unnecessary.’
‘Mum, can we please not talk about Dave, it’s done with.’
‘Well who else could it be then that impresses you so much with a small x scribbled on a card?’
‘Well, I did meet a chap at a party last week but he didn’t strike me as the flower sending type.’ Katie ventured.
‘And you’re in the habit of giving out your work address to total strangers at parties?’
‘No mother, I’m not.’ Katie was beginning to wish she hadn’t called her mother and was keen to change subject. ‘Oh and guess what else. I got a bloody promotion today as well.’
‘Try not to swear dear.’
‘Apparently some bloke collapsed at the weekend and died. They need someone sharpish and it’s mine at the end of the week.’ She laughed. What a totally crazy day.
‘I cannot believe you�
��re laughing at someone else’s demise. And taking their job too.’ Katie’s mother clearly disapproved.
‘I know. But it’s been such a bizarre day. I haven’t done any work.’
They discussed the promotion and Katie only half-listened while her mother rambled on about the goings on in the village where she lived. Her attention kept wandering back to the vase of flowers she’d placed next to the telephone. After promising to ring soon with any positive life developments she put down the telephone, lay on the large, futon-style, sofa and switched on the television to watch the news.
After an uneventful evening spent doing nothing Katie opted for an early night. After all, if she did have a secret admirer who had a thing about her eyes it wouldn’t do to have big bags under them in the morning. She didn’t want to put off whomever it was before she’d even had the chance to give him the once over.
She awoke early the following morning and switched off her alarm before it unleashed Radio One into her room. She made a special effort with her hair and was very careful with her eye make-up. First, she applied a layer of coffee coloured Clinique eye shadow, then used a crème shade over the top to lighten the effect. Next, a line around her eye with black eyeliner, finished off with a few strokes of black mascara, also Clinique.
Having spent an extra half an hour getting ready for work due to looking for the outfit that best complimented her eyes, as well as one that didn’t make her bum look any bigger than it was, Katie finally headed into work. Once there she switched on her computer and was surprised to find an email from one of the girls who worked in the office next to hers.
She went to find out what the girl wanted, curious since she’d only worked with her on a couple of occasions.
‘Morning,’ Katie began, ‘I got your email…’
‘Oh right, yes,’ said the girl. She looked a bit embarrassed and Katie wondered what she was going to say. ‘It’s my idiot boyfriend. I had a right go at him but he says it wasn’t his fault.’
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