By this time I was actively guzzling my champagne. When I came up for air I said: “This conversation’s way out of control!”
He laughed. “No, the control’s all here but I’m exercising it, not you—and I bet that was a future you didn’t predict when you invited me for a drink this evening!” He drank too before adding briskly: “Okay, so much for religion. Now, Ms. G, before we go any further I yearn to satisfy a burning curiosity. Will you slap my face if I ask you a personal question?”
“I think I can just about control my itching fingers.”
“Then I’ll chance it, here goes: no British parents ever called their daughter Carter. What’s your real name?”
Regarding my fingers with interest to see if they developed a life and will of their own, I said flatly: “Catriona.”
“But that’s pretty! Why don’t you use it?”
I curled my fingers into the palms of my hands and thumped my right fist hard on the table. “You just try using it!” I hissed. “You just try! You’ll find that in no time at all you’ll get called Cat or Catty or Kitty or Kit-Kat or even—even”—I sucked in my breath before spitting out the syllables—“ Pussykins. Finally I rearranged the letters and came up with CARTA. I adopted a more familiar spelling for the sake of convenience.”
“But ‘Catriona Graham’ sounds so attractive—like the heroine of a gothic novel—”
“—which was exactly why I flushed it down the john. I was pissed off with being an underrated fluffette . . . What do you think of your own name?”
“I’m better off than my brothers.”
“What names did they get lumbered with?”
“Athelstan and Gilbert. As my father’s a professor of early English history, he couldn’t resist naming Athel for the Saxons, Gil for the Normans and me for the Vikings.”
“Did your mother have no say in these brutal decisions?”
“She was supposed to name the daughters but she never had any.”
“God, how women get short-changed! What do these brothers of yours do?”
“Athel’s an accountant, married with three kids and living near my parents in Winchester; he’s spent a lifetime rebelling against that name by being as conventional as possible. In contrast Gil’s a gay activist.”
“Help!”
“You’re anti-gay?”
“No, no—I’ve just never been able to see the point of homosexuality, that’s all. I mean, it’s never been on my list of things to do. I mean—”
“You mean you’re heterosexual.”
“Yes, but—”
“—you don’t want me to think you’re a queer-basher. Quite. I’m not anti-gay either, but activists of any sort always drive me bananas and sometimes after a row with Gil I feel like the worst homophobe in town . . . Do you have brothers?”
“Just two much younger half-sisters.” I told him briefly about my family. Then the conversation changed course again, zig-zagging in and out of our life-histories and spinning off at various tangents as if we were engaged in an elaborate dance which we had to compose from an enormous variety of steps.
“Let’s have some more fizz,” said Tucker. “My round this time, but I’ll let you order because I want to write down the wording you used. I might put it in a book one day.”
So I said to the waiter: “Two more tankards of the Widow, please— maximum bubbles, minimum froth and cold enough to chill hell,” while Tucker scribbled in a notebook, and afterwards we snuffled and giggled like two teenagers and agreed what a relief it was that we no longer had to swap quips with straight faces in the name of office propriety.
“Tell me about this big jungle-cat you’re married to,” demanded Tucker when the champagne arrived. “The rumour mills at Curtis, Towers say he’s some kind of American who’s purred his way to power at a global investment bank.”
“He’s a British subject but you’re right about him being a big cat. He’s king of the legal jungle at Graf-Rosen . . . Are you married?”
“Not with my breadline income, no.”
“You might have married a rich wife! No, wait a minute—if you had a rich wife, you wouldn’t be hacking it in temporary work, would you?”
“Oh yes, I would! I’d never consent to being kept!”
“But have you never been married?”
“I’ve never been in a position to keep the kind of woman I like in the style to which she would long since have become accustomed.”
“Well, of course if you just want some fluffette who expects to be feather-nested—”
“Not all women have your brains and earning capacity, Ms. G! Spare a thought for the weaker sisters who need plenty of male support when they’re making a home and bringing up the kids!”
“Well, sure. But—”
“As a matter of fact I gave up fluffettes years ago.”
“What do you chase now? Married sizzlerinas?”
“No, I’ve abandoned them too—although I must say I’m sometimes tempted to take them up again. What’s left on the singles’ shelf isn’t so hot.”
“God, that’s a sexist remark!”
“Yes, isn’t it? But I was suddenly overcome with the urge to dynamite all that cool control of yours and see you get wildly, heart-stoppingly angry—”
“Dream on, buster! Listen, how do you know so much about people?”
“I’m a novelist. People are my business.”
“Yes, but to penetrate as far as you did just now when you were analysing me surely requires—”
“I’m into penetration.”
“Tucker, I feel a slap coming on—”
“I feel all kinds of things coming on! Ms. G, if you weren’t newly married and if I hadn’t given up married sizzlerinas—”
“Every finger of my right hand is now flexed!”
“—but since you’re still virtually on your honeymoon and I’m about to live a life of rigorous austerity in order to write my new WWII book—”
“I’m the ship you pass in the night, Tucker. No question about that.”
“But such a ship! And such a night!”
“Cool it, fireball!” I knew then how right I had been to keep our relationship at the office within strictly formal limits. The trouble with men is that once you give them an inch they’re panting all over everywhere. What can it be like to live with all those unpredictable surges of testosterone? No wonder boardroom debates are so often littered with impulsive judgements and rash decisions.
“Shall we go?” I suggested politely in my most businesslike voice, but I was unable to avoid a small sigh of reluctance.
“I think the question is can we stand.”
“Perhaps we’d better pay the bill first.”
“Good thinking. I always feel weak at the knees whenever I see a bill for champagne.”
“You’re not paying.”
“Yes, I am!”
“Oh, don’t be so macho, Tucker!”
“But you love it! You’ve no time for wimps, have you? You like backbone, you like balls, you like—”
“Okay, bring me the head of the waiter on a silver salver but make sure the bill’s attached.”
We continued to joust over the bill but finally agreed to split it fiftyfifty.
Then we floated outside into the golden light of that May evening.
V
“I’ll walk you home,” said my squire, resurrecting an era of feminist pre-history.
“No, this is 1990,” I said. “I’ll walk you home—or rather, to your tube station. Which one is it?”
“No tube, Ms. G! I too live in the City.”
I was most surprised. The City is not primarily a residential area. “You live in the Barbican?” I said puzzled. The Barbican is a huge complex which contains over twenty blocks of flats as well as offices, schools and the Arts Centre, so it would have been quite possible for both of us to live there without encountering each other, but I thought it strange I had never seen him if for two weeks we had been pounding
the same path to work.
“No, I live in Fleetside,” he said. “My brother Gilbert, the gay activist, lets me have a room and bath on the top floor of his house there.”
“Fleetside . . . I can’t quite remember where—”
“It’s one of those lanes off New Bridge Street between Ludgate Circus and the river.”
I could not recall any houses in that area but my knowledge of the western reaches of the City was not as comprehensive as it might have been. I worked in the eastern reaches, lived on the northern boundary and seldom roamed west or south of St. Paul’s.
We drifted down Cornhill to Bank, that throbbing heart of the City where several roads meet by the Bank of England, and crossed the junction into Queen Victoria Street. To escape the traffic fumes we eventually veered into the maze of streets south of the Cathedral before moving down into the valley where the Fleet River had once flowed above ground into the Thames. Neither of us was bothering to talk much by this time. Gliding along on our tide of champagne we savoured the warmth of the evening and occasionally exchanged idle remarks.
“Did Shana the Shag-Queen ever get you to expose your forearms?”
“Hell, she wanted me to expose a good deal more than that!”
“But you didn’t.”
“No, I’m allergic to silicone. What’s all this about my forearms?”
“The fluffettes thought the skin there might decide whether you were a true redhead or just a brownhead with auburn aspirations.”
“Well, I can tell you that I’m quite definitely not a redhead! I made up my mind about that at a very early age.”
We reached New Bridge Street and paused to cross the road. To the right the traffic roared across Ludgate Circus and to our left the statue of Queen Victoria, another high flyer with a superb record of reducing the world to order, presided over the approach to Blackfriars Bridge.
“Do you ever expose your forearms in public, Tucker?”
“Why are you so mesmerised by these forearms of mine?”
“Well . . . always encased in those snow-white shirts . . . always so mysterious, so fascinating, so suggestive—”
“ ‘Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful’?”
“How well you put it!”
“That wasn’t me, that was Alfred, Lord Tennyson.”
“Oh.”
We reached the lane called Fleetside and immediately stepped out of the golden sunlight into deep shadow. Out-dated office buildings crying out for demolition rose on either side of us, and towards the end of this forlorn canyon stood a blackened Victorian church, probably some folly built by a religion-crazed City dignitary and long since closed. I was still gazing vaguely at the building when I noticed that next door there stood a house, a tall, dreary pile with steps which led up to the front door and railings which were set in the pavement above the basement. The house was the only one in the street.
“So this is where you hang out!” I exclaimed intrigued. “Your brother must be doing well if he can afford such a huge place!”
“It comes with the job.”
“What job?”
“He’s the vicar of St. Eadred’s Fleetside.”
I stopped dead. I was still staring at the house. I stared and stared until I realised I was staring at the plaque which proclaimed: “THE VICARAGE.” Beyond the house the church now seemed to be towering aggressively over the narrow street.
“You look fascinated, Ms. G! Have you never seen a vicarage before?”
I turned to face him. I took a deep breath. And I finally managed to state the obvious. “You’re a Christian.”
“Yes, but don’t let it bother you, I’m not a very good one yet.”
“I suppose I’d already realised . . . you mentioned God earlier . . . when you were talking about . . .” My voice trailed away.
“When I was talking about embracing the chaos and living dynamically—yes, we had a great talk about our religions, didn’t we? I enjoyed that. Hey, come on in and meet my brother!”
“Thanks, but I’ve got to be getting back,” I said automatically. However, I was still so bemused that I stayed rooted to the spot. “How can a gay activist be a clergyman?” I asked. “Isn’t that breaking the rules?”
“Well, Gil’s certainly not the Bishop of London’s favourite poodle, but he’s a good priest and he believes in God, which is more than some of the Church of England’s employees do these days, so the difficulty isn’t as severe as you might think . . . Come on, change your mind—let me fix you some coffee!”
“No, I’ve really got to go—”
“You think Gil’s going to do a Dracula and sink some fangs into your neck? Or are you just allergic to Christianity?”
“Of course not—on both counts! After all, everyone can believe what they like now, can’t they, since absolute truth’s been abolished and each truth’s considered to be as valid as any other truth—”
“—as the trendy nihilist said, laughing all the way to the asylum! Okay, Ms. G, if the moment to part has finally arrived may I thank you for the champagne, the job offer and the raising of my masculine consciousness, and say how much I’ve enjoyed working with you?”
I at last succeeded in pulling myself together. Achieving my warmest smile I said graciously: “You may! Many thanks for all your help, and good luck with the new novel. May I sign off by finally using your first name?”
“Only if you’ll allow me to do likewise! So long, Pussykins,” he said poker-faced, and then ran laughing up the steps to the front door before I could leap forward to commit assault and battery.
VI
Having taken a cab from Fleetside I reached Harvey Tower and soared up to the thirty-fifth floor shortly before eight-thirty. The effects of the champagne were still so potent that I felt I hardly needed the help of the lift.
“I called up for a pizza,” said Kim on my arrival, “when I discovered the fridge contained nothing but a dead radish.”
“But I had a wonderful meal planned from the freezer!”
“Forget it, we’re eating pizza. It’s keeping warm in the oven.”
I had to confess I was happy to abandon my plan to cook.
“So how was Tucker?”
“He turned me down.”
“I don’t believe it! He was trying to jack up the pay!”
“No, he’s not interested in money.”
“Everyone’s interested in money! What is he, some kind of nutcase?”
“He’s a novelist.”
“Well, there you are. He’s a nutcase.”
“No, he’s not! He’s clever and amusing and tough and brave—it takes guts to fly in the face of convention!” I retorted hotly, still too spaced out to be as careful as I should have been when commenting on my heterosexual male office companion of the last two weeks.
Kim finished his Scotch and said in a voice designed to chill a boardroom: “What’s so gutsy about being a failure and a drop-out?”
“He’s not a failure and a drop-out! He’s a damned good secretary and he’s also a published novelist!”
“If he was any good as a novelist he wouldn’t have to hire himself out as an office drone! What kind of a life does he have? What are his prospects? And why are you getting so dewy-eyed all of a sudden about some guy who’s obviously a natural-born loser?”
Automatically I reacted as I would have done if I had been attacked by a dinosaur at the office. The first stage always consisted of holding my ground and continuing to push my case in the firmest possible voice, but if this approach failed to work I moved with lightning speed into the second stage which I called “the slammer”: I bawled the offender out as if I were a sergeant-major addressing a raw recruit on the parade ground. Men are usually so dumbfounded when a woman exhibits this kind of behaviour that they lose their momentum, and during this moment of stupefaction I can step in and gut them with a short, sharp, silken put-down. Some female high flyers, I know, like to turn on the tears in order to achieve this wrong-
footing of the male aggressor, but I think they run too great a risk of being dubbed “hysterical”—the favourite word in the tiger-thumpers’ vocabulary when dealing with a woman who gets the better of them.
Launching myself into stage one I held my ground and said politely but in the firmest possible voice: “Tucker doesn’t see things the way we do because he marches to a different drum. He’s a Christian.”
“Ah well, that explains it—Christians invert everything! Success is failure and death is life and poverty is riches and—”
“Why have you suddenly got so hostile?”
“Maybe because I’m damned hungry and want to eat. Maybe because I’m pissed off because you’ve spent half the evening getting drunk with some jerk you obviously find cute. Maybe because—”
I wasted no more time but launched straight into the slammer. “You’re being a real pain, Betz! Shape up, wise up and grow up, for God’s sake, before someone gives you a one-way ticket back to kindergarten!”
“—maybe because I’m remembering that prophecy about flirting with the enemy!” Kim hurled back, not only outshouting me but slickly side-stepping my attack by ignoring it. “And maybe because I’ve just been having a meeting with Mrs. Mayfield!”
Wholly outflanked I slumped down on the stool by my telescope and listened to the shattering silence which followed.
VII
“Okay,” said Kim abruptly at last. “We’ve had our spat. Let’s eat.”
“But Kim—”
“I said let’s eat.” He moved into the kitchen, took the pizza out of the oven and began to carve it up. As I joined him I was aware that my champagne high had vanished with the speed of Cinderella’s coach at the stroke of midnight. I felt taut with shock.
“It’s the pizza de luxe,” said Kim, dissecting the pizza with surgical precision. “I ordered extra mushrooms for your half and extra salami for mine.”
Managing to keep my voice level I said: “If you were lodging a complaint against Mandy Simmons, why couldn’t you just ring up?”
“I want five minutes of absolute quiet while I eat this.”
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