by Freya North
Mark Sinclair didn't play squash but he was happy to guide Saul on playing the stock market. Mark was more than flattered when Saul asked to interview him for GQ magazine, an article entitled ‘Barrow Boys and Bowler Hats: Who Stocks the Stock Market’ and they had a jocular but productive lunch on expenses. The other therapists Thea worked alongside at the Being Well welcomed Saul's impromptu visits. He usually came bearing gifts: fresh juice and brownies, a poinsettia for reception, magazines for the waiting room, a smile to Thea's face. He also made it his business to recommend the clinic to friends and colleagues moaning about bad backs, tiredness and stress.
Alice had rehearsed an acerbic soliloquy starting ‘Let me tell you about Thea’ and ending ‘so, hurt her and I'll kill you’. However, she was actually pleasantly surprised that she took to Saul, though it meant her soliloquy remained unperformed. She decided not to be suspicious of his good looks and she detected no cockiness in the fact that he was naturally outgoing. She respected him for sparring back when she tried to provoke him. She liked it that they could talk about their industry. Most importantly, he appeared very taken with Thea. How fortunate that her best friend's boyfriend had the potential to become a friend in his own right too.
Thea was instantly liked by all to whom Saul introduced her. Karen Soon-to-be-Ashford had to concede to Jo that Thea was great and would fit right into one of their girls' nights out. Even Lynne took to her, despite having to keep Molly shut in the downstairs toilet for the duration of her visit. Lynne's husband was so impressed with a five-minute speed treatment Thea gave his interminably stiff shoulder that he booked an appointment, then another and also gladly took Thea's advice to see Souki the acupuncturist. Staff and patrons at the Swallow gave her a warm nod of acceptance. Marco from the Deli slipped her a complimentary muffin and slid Saul a knowing wink underscored by appreciative insinuations in throaty Italian. Dave the paper man soon called out to her by name whether or not she was buying an Evening Standard. None of them resented Saul taking his custom to Crouch End for half the week. It evened out anyway, because Thea invariably accompanied him when he returned home.
Thea surprised herself at holding her own amongst Saul's editors and fellow writers at dos down in Soho, even calling the bluff of one cocky columnist who asked her if she gave ‘extras’ with her massage. ‘Of course I do. But I don't give them,’ said Thea most levelly, ‘they cost.’ He was just about to lick his lips and ask for a price list when those standing near roared with laughter and called him a dickhead. Alice was at that party. Neither married life for her, nor new relationship fervour for Thea, had imposed any constriction on their friendship. Alice decided it was serendipitous that Thea had met someone whose path crossed naturally with her own. And with Mark travelling so regularly it seemed daft not to attend events when Thea and Saul would be there too. What would she do otherwise? Work late? Sit at home showing people around her flat? Simultaneously, Alice's world became smaller and Thea's broadened.
‘Saul,’ Alice phoned Saul out of the blue, ‘can I tickle your fancy?’
‘That's a rather tempting offer on a grim February morning,’ Saul laughed.
‘Let me buy you lunch and whet your appetite,’ Alice continued, her desk diary open, red pen to hand, prepared to rearrange anything already booked.
‘Wednesday?’ Saul suggested.
‘Perfect,’ said Alice.
‘It's a date,’ said Saul, tapping the details into a Palm Pilot.
‘Top secret,’ said Alice.
‘You can trust me,’ said Saul.
Quentin
‘No one knows about Quentin,’ Alice told Saul over a covert sushi lunch near Liverpool Street. She lit a cigarette and replenished her green tea, aware that puffing one and sipping the other was vaguely contradictory.
‘I thought you only ever smoked at parties,’ Saul remarked.
‘And over clandestine lunches about top-secret things,’ Alice said, her eyes glinting. ‘Don't tell Mark. He hates cigarettes.’
Saul pulled an imaginary zip across his lips. ‘OK, Mrs Sinclair,’ he said, ‘tell me about Quentin and where I come in?’
‘Heggarty today,’ said Alice, ‘I've kept Heggarty for half my life. And Quentin, well, Quentin is my baby.’
Saul popped slippery edamame beans out of their salty pods. ‘Quentin,’ he mused.
‘Code-name: Project Quentin,’ she whispered, adding hastily, ‘you know – after Tarantino, rather than Crisp.’
‘So, we're talking a men's mag, hetero rather than homo,’ Saul surmised. He split his wooden chopsticks and rubbed the one against the other to smooth any shards.
‘Yes,’ said Alice, ‘we all know the market for men's mags is huge. We're not going for anything ground breaking. The main focus is absolutely no compromise on quality. From clothes to cars, columnists to celebrities – quality.’
‘Quality?’ Saul remarked. ‘Sounds pretty ground breaking to me when you think of the tat that makes up most lads' mags. Talking of tat, where do you stand on tits?’
‘Again,’ shrugged Alice, ‘quality breasts. But not on the cover. We're pitching at a slightly older market – ABC1 men, thirty to fifty. Not too blokey, but not too staid, of course. Men like you. The covers will be icons, not babes. Someone has practically guaranteed us Clint Eastwood for the first issue if we get the go-ahead.’
Saul raised an eyebrow. ‘Pierce Brosnan had acupuncture with Souki at the Being Well when he was in town.’
Alice raised her green tea. ‘Pierce can have issue two, then.’
‘And David Bowie's mum and my mum were at school together,’ Saul said.
‘David Bowie?’ Alice had to swallow a squeal. ‘Has Thea told you how complete our teenage love was for David darling Bowie?’
‘Yes,’ Saul confirmed with an overly compassionate expression and a tone of utter pity, ‘I know all about sending red roses to his dressing room at Wembley; that you both promptly fainted when the show began and spent the entire concert sipping tea with the St John's Ambulance crew.’
‘And the mural,’ Alice laughed, ‘did Thea not tell you about our mural?’
‘No,’ Saul said patiently, ‘though she told me you both saved all your pocket money to buy one pair of blue contact lenses to share between you so you could both have Bowie eyes.’ He poked the tip of his chopstick into the lurid green wasabe. The horseradish shot tears into his eyes and fizzed heat through the bridge of his nose. Fantastic.
‘We did this incredible mural on my bedroom wall – based on the “Scary Monsters” LP cover,’ Alice reminisced. ‘My mum went berserk. Mind you, we hadn't even been able to smuggle in the paint pots past Thea's mum at her house. Anyway, if we had Bowie as cover for issue three, I'd be happy to sweep floors for the rest of my career. But I digress. Project Quentin is our big secret – and potentially the company's biggest launch to date.’
‘What's the timescale?’ Saul asked.
Alice cleared her throat. ‘Dummy in six weeks, then into research, and if we get the green light, first issue will be June out May.’
Saul calculated dates and weeks in his head. ‘Who else knows?’ he asked. ‘Nat Mags? IPC? Because I know that EMAP are developing too, at the moment.’
‘Will you tell me?’ Alice asked with a coquettish pout and a beguiling wriggle in her chair. ‘Tell me about silly old EMAP? I promise I won't tell a soul. I swear on David Bowie's life. Trust me?’
‘Absolutely not!’ Saul laughed, inadvertently shaking a piece of sashimi at her. ‘Like I said – if I'm given a secret, I keep it. No matter how absolute your love for Bowie is. Suffice it to say, I'm not involved.’
Alice contrived to look sulky and offended but her enthusiasm for her project soon overtook. ‘Initially, I was hoping you'd work on the dummy with us, Saul,’ she said, still in a whisper, ‘basically oversee editorial – it would mean committing three days a week for the next month or so. Take the dummy into research, then head up the launch issue if we get the go-ahea
d. With, of course, absolutely no guarantee of a staff position at the end.’
Saul laughed. ‘I know the score,’ he said, ‘and I'd love to be involved.’
‘Fan-bloody-tastic,’ Alice beamed.
‘Alice, you haven't eaten a thing,’ Saul observed.
‘I can't eat when I'm excited,’ Alice declared. ‘Great for weight loss, though.’
Saul thought aren't girls silly sometimes.
Apart from Thea, of course. Saul didn't think her silly at all. Her fear of dogs was understandable, her propensity for weeping during ER or re-runs of Cold Feet he found quite endearing, her belief in drinking only juice until noon each day he thought eccentric. But he didn't think her silly.
‘She's not a calorie-counting, chardonnay-swilling, Mui-Mui obsessive,’ he quantified to Ian Ashford over a pile of poppadams and a mound of chutney, ‘but then neither is she a drink-your-own-pee, salute-the-sun and wear-hessian-to-Pilates type either.’
‘Does she do Pilates?’ Ian asked.
‘Yes, with her mates Sally and Alice,’ said Saul, ‘and she has a gorgeous figure because of it. But my point is she may drink only juice until lunchtime but she's also partial to a Marlboro Light with her vodka-tonics after dark. She makes soup with organic produce – but her preferred lunch is Pret a Manger egg mayo sandwiches and a Coca-Cola.’
‘What's with the juice-till-noon thing?’ Ian asked, wondering whether it might be a good regime for his acid and thinking that the madras he ordered probably wasn't.
‘She simply doesn't have an appetite until then,’ Saul explained. ‘I bought her a juicer for Christmas because she was spending a fortune on smoothies.’
‘What you're talking about is balance,’ Ian said, spooning pilau rice onto his plate.
‘I am,’ said Saul, ‘a girl who balances M&S socks and a top she's had for ever with an Anya Hindmarsh handbag. Do you know how much those bags cost? But balance, yes – she connects with the yin and yang and whole shebang of meridians and energy flow and shiatsu stuff – but her CD collection is more the White Stripes than whale music.’
‘She's at ease with herself,’ Ian defined, passing the dhal to Saul.
‘It's one of the most attractive things about her,’ Saul nodded, passing the Bombay aloo to Ian.
‘Does she keep Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus under her bed?’ Ian asked suspiciously.
‘No,’ Saul laughed, ‘Heat magazine.’
‘So what's she like in the sack?’ Ian posed, working his fork dexterously through the curry and rice like a bricklayer trowelling cement.
‘She's great,’ said Saul evenly, ‘for all the same reasons – sometimes it's deep and meaningful lovemaking. Other times it's fast and furious shagging. She doesn't pester me to whisper sweet nothings but she writhes when I talk dirty. She doesn't sulk to the other end of the bed if all I want to do post-coitally is roll over and snore, and I'm just as likely to wake up to a blow-job as to Radio 4.’
‘Sounds like you've hit the jackpot, mate,’ said Ian. ‘I'd suggest you snap her up and put your name on her, quick.’
‘You know how with some women you end up playing along with them just for peace and quiet,’ Saul mused, ‘and you find yourself apologizing for the bits that make us blokes?’ Ian nodded with the weight of someone most familiar with such a syndrome. ‘You know how some women fulfil one part of our criteria but are so sorely lacking in other aspects?’ Saul continued. ‘Beautiful but boring? Interesting but just not sexy? Horny as hell but dumb as fuck? Well, it seems incredibly simple, but I like all of her a lot.’
‘To Thea,’ said Ian, raising his bottle of Kingfisher beer and telling himself he really did not need that last rip of nan bread. He'd do juice until noon the next day, he decided.
‘I wasn't looking,’ Saul mused wistfully, ‘I was just on Primrose Hill and she came into view.’
‘Good luck,’ said Ian, presuming the evening to be subliminal payback for the time he'd droned on about Karen.
‘It is,’ Saul agreed, ‘it is very good luck.’
‘So that's it then?’ Ian said slyly. ‘Temptation can lead you by the balls and you'll resist?’
‘Thea inspires fidelity.’ Saul paused. ‘In my heart and mind, at least!’
Ian and Saul looked at each other for a moment and then chuckled into the last of their curry.
‘Not on a full stomach – surely not!’ Ian said.
‘Your wife's footing the tab,’ Saul laughed, taking Mark to a restaurant that still believed in starched linen at lunchtime. ‘How was Hong Kong?’
‘Knackering,’ Mark said quietly, ‘but essential. Hong Kong is crazy – but the business is a dream for us at the moment. Tokyo next week.’
‘I guess the bonus will be your bonus?’ Saul said.
Mark tipped his head and chinked glasses with Saul. ‘I need to keep my wife in Jimmy Shoes.’
Saul wasn't sure whether to correct Mark. He let it go. ‘You get what you pay for!’ he said lightly instead.
‘Actually, Alice is brilliant at blagging,’ Mark confessed. ‘I always offer to buy stuff but she always declines and says she can call in favours at work. I think she gets more of a thrill from getting a bargain or freebie than from the item itself. Have you seen those monstrous rocks in her ears?’
‘The diamonds?’ Saul said. ‘You can't really fail to notice them.’
‘Three carats?’ Mark suggested. Saul shrugged. He had never bought a diamond. ‘QVC,’ Mark said triumphantly.
‘Is that the sparkle factor or the colour clarity?’ Saul asked, trying to sound like someone who'd bought diamonds.
Mark roared with laughter. ‘QVC – the shopping channel! Alice is forever buying stuff from QVC. Those earrings were £29.95 – and she got a hideous suedette presentation box for being one of the first hundred callers.’
‘Are the Jimmy Choos fake too?’ Saul said subtly.
‘Unfortunately not,’ Mark groaned, ‘they're bona-fide Jimmy Shoes shoes.’
‘I suppose it evens out,’ Saul said lightly. ‘Think how much you'd pay at Tiffany for gems that size.’
‘Hey, I'm not complaining,’ said Mark, ‘Christ no. I have the most beautiful wife – I was about to say “I could ever dream of” but in fact she is the beautiful wife I always dreamt of.’
‘You've known each other ages,’ Saul recalled.
‘Since school days,’ Mark said, ‘friends for years. Confidants. And then one day, Alice says to me, “If you ask me, I'll say yes.” I hadn't a clue what she was on about. I mean, I hadn't even kissed the girl, let alone taken her to bed. I just stared at her gormlessly. She proposed. It wasn't a leap year. I hadn't bought diamonds from Tiffany or QVC. I was washing up and, calm as you like, she turns to me and asks me to marry her.’
‘And you still can't believe your luck?’ Saul laughed.
‘That's just it,’ said Mark, ‘it's not about luck. To me, the more you love someone, the more you deserve them – and I'd loved her for a long, long time. Albeit from afar. I hadn't resented the fuckwits she dated though I hated them when they hurt her. I hadn't found anyone special and was happy to see women in a non-committal way. And then Alice decided she'd like to marry me.’
‘So, you have this gorgeous woman, successful in her career, who buys her own diamonds, no matter how fake they are, and simply stings you for a pair of Jimmy Choos every now and then,’ Saul quantified. ‘Can life get much better?’
‘Well, I'm looking forward to the bonus,’ Mark laughed, ‘which will hopefully coincide with the next Jimmy Shoes sale!’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Anyway, are we here about Quentin?’ he murmured covertly, with a wink and a surreptitious tap of his nose.
‘We are,’ Saul nodded, privately bemused that such an expensive restaurant hadn't bothered to fillet his monkfish. ‘Now, because we're pitching at a slightly older market – not so much aspirational, as can afford it anyway – I was thinking of a City section. You know, investments, portfolios,
gift horse and traps; lively overviews on finance and our times, a note of light relief from the Financial Times.’
Mark nodded. ‘Interesting,’ he said, ‘how can I help?’ He glanced at his watch again. ‘I'll need to make tracks in half an hour, Saul. But I'm back from Tokyo at the weekend.’
‘You bastard,’ Richard Stonehill panted, hands on his knees, his squash racket between his feet, ‘you bastard. You're just a jammy bastard.’
‘And you're a bad loser,’ Saul laughed, wiping sweat from his brow onto his T-shirt. ‘My game, my match – your round.’
‘Let's make it the best out of seven then,’ Richard said, slashing a ball against the court.
‘Fuck off,’ Saul laughed, returning the shot perfectly. ‘What would your wife say when I call her to say you've thrown yourself into Highgate Ponds with concrete in your pockets because you lost five–two?’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ Richard said, ‘you're younger than me. Anyway, I have a cold coming. But next week I'm going to roast you, mate, roast you. Annihilation.’
‘I look forward to it,’ Saul said, slicing the ball and intentionally missing Richard by a hair's breadth.
‘You won't even make it to Highgate Ponds,’ Richard said, returning Saul's ball impressively, ‘you'll do the hara-kiri thing right here on court.’
‘And on that note,’ Saul said, ‘let's go for a drink.’
For a moment or two, both men just gazed at the pints of pale, chilled lager with unreserved affection before raising the glasses to their lips and taking a long, well-earned drink. They said ‘cheers’ to each other, chinked glasses and then downed what was left. ‘My round,’ said Richard, going to the bar at the Swallow and ordering sausages and mash for them both. ‘How's Thea?’ he asked, on returning.
‘I had a set of my keys cut for her just today,’ Saul grinned. ‘And Sally?’
‘It's our wedding anniversary this weekend,’ Richard said, ‘five years.’
‘Cheers!’ said Saul, with admiration.
‘Who'd have thought a crazy fling would lead to marriage,’ Richard marvelled wistfully.