another fuck?’
This was one of his best evenings with her and he was amazed to find how much more he was enjoying it than his visit to Flaxborough Hall. He felt a twinge of pity for the eighteenth Earl, who would never hear anything about Hair Hunters of Hackney. The meal had been much better than usual, really quite edible, and she had worked hard over it, and it would have seemed heartless to have said, after that, ‘Mandy, this can’t go on, you know.’ So he didn’t.
This time he relished her unfashionable fleshiness, her large untrendy breasts, her full cheeks, her generous lips, the pleasure in her pale blue eyes. She once, in a rare moment of post-coital candour, had told him that his power turned her on, that it was exciting not to have been entered by her friend, the traffic warden, but by a man who had eleven manufacturing outlets in England alone. (Not to mention his property portfolio and his ancillary activities, though she hadn’t mentioned those on that occasion.)
This second coming was so gentle, so relaxed, so slow, so synchronized, so lovely. You really could almost have believed that there was real emotion in it. You could almost have believed that he felt real affection for her. You could almost have believed – oh, he hoped not – that she felt some kind of love for him.
He didn’t want to go home. He really did not want to go home. But he would, he almost always did, and when he didn’t he almost always regretted it.
As he took his shower, washing all traces of sexuality off him (not that Christina would come near enough to him to notice, but this was one risk that wasn’t worth taking), he felt really quite sad that he was destroying all the evidence. It seemed … tactless. Ungracious. And using her hot water too.
This was the moment when, if he was to tell her at all, he would have to tell her.
She mouthed her farewell kiss at him, careful not to undo the good work performed by the shower.
As he walked down the stairs he found himself wondering how a hairdresser could have such awful hair. But he actually found that quite endearing, and, as he stepped into the taxi that would take him to the Dorchester – in order for him to look as if he was coming out of the meeting he hadn’t been to, so that Kirkstall could drive him to darkest Surrey and suspect nothing, although actually he suspected that Kirkstall suspected everything – he was really extremely glad that he hadn’t given way to those insidious doubts.
Perhaps we have intruded enough
The dusk is pulled across the London sky like a merciful shroud drawn over a dead body. The short day is over. The long night is beginning. Nights are very long on the London streets, in winter.
For one of the men on the streets this Saturday evening, however, the night is perhaps not going to seem as long as usual. He has found a marvellous position, not exactly the best seat in the house, but the best space on the pavement. He has found a little corner, below pavement level, where warm air is being pushed out from the extractor fan of a posh London restaurant. He does not know the name of the restaurant. He does not know the name of any restaurant. He has not been in a restaurant for more than twenty-five years.
Before he settles down for the night he takes a swig from his bottle. The rawness of the alcohol warms him. He runs on alcohol. He starts each day with alcohol. It is the only thing that can cure his hangover. Maybe tonight, though, he will sleep right through, and need no alcohol. He certainly hopes that he will sleep until the restaurant’s kitchen closes.
He puts the bottle down beside him, where it will be handy if he needs it during the night. He wraps his old stained rags around him and lowers himself carefully on to the ground. He will be relatively cosy, tonight, in his own sunken grotto.
Just as sleep is about to envelop him, there are two loud bangs from somewhere nearby. He is irritated rather than alarmed. He knows what they are. They are not the signal to start a revolution. They are not the first shots in a gangland battle. They are fireworks. Tonight is Guy Fawkes Night. He knows this because he knows that November the fifth is Bonfire Night, and he knows that it is November the fifth because he always knows the date. There are often pages of newspapers bouncing in the wind along London’s dirty streets, and although he may look half drunk and extremely filthy, he still has a good brain, and he has very little to feed it, so he grabs what scraps he can.
Now sleep will not come. He thinks back to all those Bonfire Nights in Dudley, watching the municipal fireworks display with his brothers, gasping with shared astonishment, which was about the only thing they shared. They weren’t allowed to have fireworks themselves. There were a lot of things they weren’t allowed to have. They weren’t allowed to go to the swimming pool in case they contracted polio. He enjoyed the Saturday-morning film shows but his two brothers had grown out of such things, if indeed they had ever been into them. His elder brother almost certainly hadn’t. He had no sense of fun. There hadn’t been any point in playing games with him. He had no talent for games.
The middle brother, now, he had been different. He had been rather good at games, at make-believe, but he had never had the time. He had never had the time for anything, really, except for making money. He used to go to the baker’s, buy cakes, take them home, and cut them into pieces – rather small pieces to be honest – and sell them by the slice. He preferred that to any game, which was a pity.
Does the man in the privileged position beside the warm-air outlet welcome these reminiscences, or are they an irritation which prevents him from sinking into the unconsciousness he craves, if indeed he does crave it? How does he feel about his lifestyle? Is he happy? Is he sad? Is he resigned? Is he bitter?
What goes on inside his head is actually the only privacy he has left in his life. Perhaps we have intruded enough.
Staring at himself with astonishment
This was the bit that he liked best – the moment before anybody arrived. He stood in the middle of the enormous drawing room, rich in plump settees and elegant standard lamps, two of them in the art deco style – who said he was a philistine? On the walls hung a Cézanne, two Pissarros and a Stanley Spencer – again, who said he was a philistine? Log fires crackled gently at both ends of the great room. They were known as the west fire and the east fire. Some people described this as affectation, but Lady Coppinger said that it was necessary in order to give definite and simple instructions to the servants.
He walked slowly through the ground floor of his ‘cottage’, and every prospect pleased him.
The rosewood (what else?) dining table, the long rustic table in the far kitchen and the trestle tables erected for the occasion in the conservatories were all beautifully laid with plates of rare beef, pink lamb, pork with liberal crackling, smoked duck, venison sausages, five moist whole salmon that had once been wild, six stuffed trout that hadn’t been too pleased either – the old jokes were the best in Sir Gordon Coppinger’s book. It was all so quintessentially British, to use Peregrine Thoresby’s favourite word. Not a salami or a snail in sight. Good old Siobhan.
In the vast entrance hall with its anachronistic Doric pillars, the two lovely Pembroke tables were bedecked with all the rich promise of alcoholic excess. On the table to the left were bottles of champagne and long antique flutes. On the table to the right bottles of red wine stood opened and breathing and were surrounded by glasses of a size to cheer the most sombre of hearts. All the wine was British. It pained Sir Gordon not to be able to serve great French wine, but his reputation as a patriot was paramount.
The serving staff stood at their posts, young enough, smart enough, alert enough and attractive enough to pass muster even to this stern critic. Good old Siobhan.
Oh, it was wonderful. The food elegant and untouched, the bottles full,