by Alexis Hall
As we drew closer, trying not to look too much like we were staging an intervention, I realised we were even more fucked than I thought. Because Dr. Fairclough was talking to, or rather at, Kimberly Pickles. And the problem with Kimberly Pickles—which I knew well from having painstakingly developed her and her wife over the last year and a half—is that she did not give a shit about beetles, and she did give a shit about lots of other things. Things that she felt very strongly her incredibly wealthy partner would be better off spending her money on.
“…can’t be sure whether you’re being wilfully ignorant,” Dr. Fairclough was saying, “or simply ig—”
“Kimberly.” I swept in. “How lovely to see you. I don’t think you’ve met my partner, Oliver Blackwood. Oliver, this is Kimberly Pickles, who you might recognise from—”
“Oh, of course,” he said, not cutting over me, but kind of gliding in effortlessly. “Your recent miniseries on child sexual exploitation was remarkable.”
She beamed, but sadly not in a “totally disarmed” way and said, “Aww, fank you” in the broad Estuary accent that, ten years ago, would definitely have kept her off the BBC.
“And this is my boss”—I indicated Dr. Fairclough warily—“Dr. Amelia Fairclough.”
“It’s so good to meet you.” Oliver didn’t bother extending a hand for her to shake, which I initially thought was uncharacteristically impolite. But he must have realised that Dr. Fairclough would have (a) not given a shit and (b) seen the requirement to engage in a pointless social ritual as a waste of time. “Lucien’s told me all about your monograph on rove beetles.”
She subjected him to her… I was going to say her most intense gaze, but her gazes were almost all equally intense. “Has he?”
“Yes. I was wondering if you could clear up some of the finer points of their behavioural relationship with ant colonies.”
My God. Was this what love felt like?
“I’d be delighted to.” Dr. Fairclough looked the closest to happy I’d ever seen her. Which wasn’t very. “But it’s an intricate subject, and there are too many distractions here.”
Oliver drew Dr. Fairclough gently aside in search of a better rove beetle/ant colony interaction discussing location, leaving me awash in gratitude and hopefully better placed to salvage Kimberly Pickles.
“That Dr. Fairclough,” she began, “is a right cow.”
It wasn’t language I would have personally used, but I could see where she was coming from. “I’m afraid academics can be quite single-minded about their interests.”
“No fucking kidding. She genuinely finks that dung beetles are more important than people.”
I offered a conspiratorial smile. “I’d say you have to get to know her, but no. She genuinely does.”
She didn’t smile back. “And you really fink it’s right, do you? For people to give their money to you instead of a women’s shelter in Blackheath or fighting child mortality in sub-Saharan Africa.”
Thing is, she wasn’t totally wrong. CRAPP wasn’t a cool charity, and it wasn’t even high up on those effective-giving lists that help nerdy mathlanthropists evaluate exactly how to save the most lives per dollar. But it was my cause, and I’d fight for it, and from what I knew of Kimberly Pickles, she liked a fighter.
“Well,” I said, “if I worked for a women’s shelter in Blackheath, there’d be people asking me why people should give money to that instead of malaria prevention or de-worming initiatives. And if I worked for a charity that tried to prevent child mortality in sub-Saharan Africa, there’d be people who asked me why they should be sending money overseas when we’ve got problems enough over here.”
She relaxed a bit, but she still wasn’t buying it. “It’s fucking dung beetles, mate.”
“It is.” I gave a you got me kind of shrug. “And although they are ecologically important, I’m not going to pretend we’re saving the world here. We’re not even saving Bedfordshire. But your missus isn’t going to run out of cash any time soon, and she clearly enjoys throwing it at slightly silly things that make her happy.”
“She does enjoy laughing at you,” Kimberly admitted.
“Yes, so do a surprising number of our donors. It’s why we’ve never changed the acronym. Well, that and because Dr. Fairclough would never let us because she feels it’s the most accurate and succinct description of our operation.”
That made her cackle like Adele. “Awight, but tell your boss to stop insulting donors’ wives.”
“Sorry, what was that about insulting my wife?”
Not the best time for Charlie Lewis to rock up. I’d met her through the James Royce-Royces, because she and James Royce-Royce had briefly worked for the same terrifying investment bank doing terrifyingly complicated mathematics with terrifyingly large sums of money. She was built like a fridge, wore her hair like Elvis, and had glasses like Harry Potter. And, right now, did not seem happy with me.
“It’s nuffin, babe.” Kimberly turned and kissed her wife on the cheek. “Just the professor being weird.”
Charlie gave a heavy sigh. “Not again. Why does she bother trying to talk to bipeds?”
“I think,” I suggested, “she feels it’s expected of her. If it’s any consolation, I know for a fact she hates every second of it.”
“Maybe I’m not as ’orrible as you, Luc, but it doesn’t ’elp.”
“I’m helped.” Charlie smirked. “I like the idea of people who cross my wife being miserable.”
Kimberly whacked her affectionately on the arm. “Will you stop being such a fifties patriarch? Which one of us sits in an office all day moving other people’s money around wiv a bunch of prats who went to Oxford? And who spent the last three months interviewing coyotes in Central America?”
“Yes, and you’ve got back and an annoying woman is being rude to you at a party.”
“Yeah, a party you made me come to. Because you still want to spend money saving bugs that eat shit.”
I hoped this was cute partner banter, not the start of a blowup that was going to jeopardise their relationship or, more relevant to me, our donation. “As a representative of the shit-eating bug community,” I said, “we’re very glad you’re both here.”
Kimberly made a conciliatory gesture. “I’m awight really. I like the male voice choir. There’s one in Bangor does really good work with disadvantaged teenagers.”
Okay, I was pretty sure salvaging had been accomplished. And, actually, from what I knew about her, Kimberly wasn’t the sort of person who’d sabotage a charitable donation in a fit of pique. If anything, she was the opposite of that sort of person, and in the interests of maintaining independent identities, she and Charlie tended to very pointedly champion different causes. Even so, there were limits. Of which “insulting your wife to her face about her deeply held beliefs” was a fairly obvious one. Obvious, that is, to everybody except Dr. Fairclough.
“Let me leave you to it for now,” I said. “I’d love to catch up after dinner.”
Charlie gave me one of those city bastard handshakes. “That’d be splendid. If not, let’s do lunch some time. And give my love to James. There’s always an opening for him at CB Lewis.”
“Will do.”
Leaving them bickering happily about their various life choices, I took a meandering route past several other important donors to the nook into which Dr. Fairclough had managed to manoeuvre Oliver. She was still, as far as I could tell, talking about the behavioural relationship between rove beetles and ant colonies and, if I knew her at all, wouldn’t have paused for breath in the last ten minutes. I’d been in Oliver’s position myself a bunch of times because Dr. Fairclough seemed genuinely unable to comprehend that other people might not find beetles as fascinating as she did, and I’d never mustered even half as much poise, grace, or straight-up sincerity as Oliver was showing right now.
It was jus
t so fucking…heart emoji that I actually had to take a moment.
And then I realised that the longer I stood around in a sea of swoon, the longer Oliver was going to have to talk about bugs. So I went to rescue him.
Chapter 42
“…using pheromone trails,” Dr. Fairclough was saying.
Oliver didn’t even flinch. “Oh, how fascinating.”
“If you’re attempting to employ sarcasm, I assure you I’m quite immune to it.”
He thought about it for a moment. “I don’t know how to answer that without still sounding like I’m trying to employ sarcasm.”
She, too, seemed to think for a moment. “Yes, you appear to have identified a difficult paradox. If it’s any help, when I was an undergraduate, my housemates found it convenient to make this signal”—she laid a single finger on her cheek—“to indicate that they were not to be taken seriously.”
“I shall endeavour to make use of it. But please do continue.”
“Or,” I said quickly, “we could go and eat because they’re serving food now.”
Another thoughtful pause from Dr. Fairclough. “No. I’d rather stay here and talk to Oliver.”
“Um…”
“I believe…” Once again Oliver slipped into the conversation like…something lubricated. Or maybe a swan. Y’know, graceful and smooth “…Lucien was attempting to politely inform us that we need to go and eat now.”
“Well, why didn’t he say so?”
“Because not saying exactly what he means is his job. Otherwise he’d have spent the entire evening going up to people and shouting Give us your money at the top of his voice.”
“It worked for Bob Geldof.” She wrinkled her nose disdainfully. “I don’t see why everything has to be so complicated.”
And with that, she swept off to the staff table with me and Oliver trailing behind.
The food was one of the perks of the Beetle Drive. The donors had paid a lot of money to be here, so you couldn’t skimp on the catering, and while Barbara Clench had briefly tried to insist we should make separate arrangements for staff so that we didn’t have to waste good food on, well, ourselves, that did actually turn out to be more expensive. I had to eat really quickly so I could get back to the guests, but since it was nearly always nouvelle cuisine bullshit, I only had about three mouthfuls to get through on any given course.
Everybody was already settled in, mostly with their plus-ones. Alex had brought Miffy, of course, who was looking ravishing in an ensemble that probably cost more than anything I owned and which she almost certainly hadn’t paid for.
“Lovely to see you again, Clara,” said Oliver, claiming his seat. “Dior?”
She blinked. “Do my what? Oh, I mean yes. Good eye.”
“Fuck.” I threw myself exhaustedly down next to Oliver. “I need to do introductions again.”
Barbara Clench glared at me across the table. “Language.”
“I think I’ll stick with English, thanks.” To be honest, I should have been nicer to Barbara. Without her, CRAPP would probably have bankrupt. But hating each other was our whole deal, and you didn’t mess with a system that worked. I gestured at her. “Oliver, this is Barbara Clench, our office manager. And her husband, Gabriel.”
Probably the most impressive thing I’d seen Oliver do that evening was look in no way surprised that Barbara Clench’s husband was a six-foot, golden-haired Adonis, about ten years her junior, who seemed genuinely and mythically in love with her. It made no sense. She wasn’t rich, and I’d met her so it couldn’t be her personality. But, y’know, what? Fair fucking play to her.
“Alex and Miffy you already know. This is Rhys Jones Bowen. And…” Rhys always brought a different date. I had no idea where he got them from. “Sorry, I don’t think we’ve met?”
“This is Tamsin.” Rhys did his best game-show pose. “She’s from my Zumba class.”
I tried to process that. “You’re in a Zumba class?”
“It’s very good cardio.”
“Ahhh.” Alex made a sound of slowly dawning comprehension. “I assumed you’d met at work.”
“Alex,” I said, “we all work in the same building. And none of us have ever seen this woman before in our lives.”
“Yes”—Alex was nodding slowly—“it did seem a tad peculiar. But I didn’t recognise the one from last year either.”
I could feel myself about to step over the precipice of Alex’s nitwititude. But, for some reason, I let it go. And maybe I just didn’t want to be a dick to my colleagues in front of Oliver but, the truth was, they’d come through for me tonight. They always came through for me. Not in any way anyone else would recognise as helpful, but here we were.
“Look,” I began, not quite believing what was coming out of my mouth, “I know I can sometimes be—”
“A total bellend?” That was Tamsin. I’d never even met Tamsin. How did Tamsin know I was a total bellend?
I glared at Rhys Jones Bowen. “Rhys, is that the first thing you tell people about me?”
“Pretty much.” He was doing the beard stroking he did when… Actually I’d still not worked out what it meant. “I mean, to be fair, I usually say, ‘Apart from that, he’s a pretty decent fella’ straight after. But people do seem to get stuck on the bellend part. Then again, you don’t do yourself any favours.”
“Okay. Fine. As I was about to say, despite being a total bellend, I’m incredibly proud of all the work we’ve done, and tonight wouldn’t have happened without every single of one of you. So thank you and”—I actually picked up a fucking glass—“here’s to you lot.”
Everyone joined in with an only slightly reluctant chorus of “to us lot.” Except Barbara Clench, who’d been busily making out with her disturbingly attractive husband and looked up afterwards to say, “Sorry, Luc, were you trying to tell me something?”
While I was finishing off my artfully presented pile of seasonal vegetables and foam, and wondering if I could eat anybody else’s, Ben and Sophie drifted over as part of the general pre-dessert mill.
“Well.” She lifted her wineglass in a toast to me. “You got us.”
Oliver stood and kissed her cheek. “Lies. You just wanted another evening away from the kids.”
“That too. These days, I’d go to a fundraiser for the Society for the Abolition of Kittens if it got us out the house for five minutes.”
“I take it,” I said, “you’re having a nice time then?”
Sophie cackled gleefully. “Darlings, I’m going to give you all my money. I’m having the best evening. A ninety-year-old earl tried to get me to go to Vienna with him, a very strange woman told me we were all going to die unless we drastically increased our investment in entomology, and—as you quite rightly predicted, Luc—when I told my irritating leftie friends that I was supporting a dung beetle charity, they shit themselves with virtue envy.”
“You can also,” I offered, “bid on a Fortnum & Mason hamper in the silent auction.”
“Fuck that. I’m going for the rove beetle book.” She grinned Cheshire cat–style. “I might give it to Bridge for Christmas.”
“Oh, Soph.” Oliver shook his head. “You’re a terrible human being.”
“You can’t say that to me anymore. I support dung beetles.”
Since Sophie and Ben were wandering, that probably meant I should be wandering too. Semireluctantly, I got up and offered Sophie my chair. “I’ll leave you to catch up for a bit.”
“I’m happy to accompany you,” Oliver said. “I see far too much of these two as it is.”
Ben’s eyes widened in outrage. “You bloody well don’t. I know we’ve been out twice in two weeks, but Jennifer’s birthday was my first night off since we forced the grandparents to take the little shits for Boxing Day.”
“What about the Alternative Valentine’s Day party that Br
ian still insists on doing even though he’s married now?”
“Sophie came to that. I was at home because Twin B had chicken pox and Twin A was about to get chicken pox.”
I patted Oliver on the shoulder. “You stay. You’ve been heroic enough this evening.”
“Don’t say that.” Sophie winced. “He loves playing the hero, and the last thing he needs is encouragement.”
Oliver shot her a sharp look. “That’s not true. I just think it’s important to be useful.”
“Useful, dear, is for dogs and crescent wrenches. Friends and lovers should care for you even when you’re not a blind bit of good to anybody.”
“Okay.” I gave an exaggerated side step out of an imaginary firing line. “Now I’m definitely leaving you to it.”
Having given his wife what he clearly considered a sufficient grace period, Ben claimed my chair. “Don’t worry. This is how they relate. Can I have your dessert?”
“What?” I spluttered. “How dare you? You’re taking advantage of the fact it’s my job to be nice to you.”
“Yes. I absolutely am. I had to scrub poo out of this tie to be here tonight. I think I deserve another panna cotta.”
“Okay. Fine. I can see your need is greater than mine.”
He pounced on my spoon in preparation. “Oliver has chosen well. We shall be friends.”
I gave Oliver a “you’re still my hero” kiss and went to, y’know, work. The rest of the evening unfolded smoothly—funds were raised, things were auctioned silently, nobody was too horribly insulted, and we managed to catch the earl just as he was about to get in a taxi to Heathrow with a companion into whose background we did not look too deeply. By the time we’d cleaned up, packed up, and given up, it was slightly after two and I let Oliver pour me into a taxi and take me home.
“Thank you for tonight,” I told him, somewhat slurrily, resting my head against his shoulder.