Embedded Files
34
Mr. Berkley is pleased with my designs but he wants a couple of changes made. I suggest he sends Magenta because she has been here before, but it's obvious that Berkley is desperate to be the one who comes to Burnleigh Hall.
"Well, okay. Why not get Magenta to drive you here?"
"And what are you doing there, young man?"
"My flat got wrecked and Sar - Lady Pinke-Burnleigh is putting me up for a while." I am so used to being here now that it doesn't occur to me how such familiarity must sound. " Of course, I could always come to you."
"No, no, no! I can bring them round in a jiffy." I'll bet he can. Then I back-pedal a bit and lie - I don't want to appear flash, make him jealous and thus alienate my source of income.
"Of course, I am only staying in a little room in one of the remote cottages on the edge of the estate. I shall be at the main house when you arrive, though - it's easier to find."
"See you in an hour!" I put the phone down. It's not often I have a flash of inspiration but it happens occasionally and I dial Sarah again who picks up her receiver and listens patiently.
When Magenta arrives with Berkley, the police have finished at the Hall and the Daimler has been rolled out on the drive with the bonnet up. The car was one of Adlington's pending projects - I also know he was scrupulously organised and would have got in spare parts as the job was, according to his immaculate desk diary, next on the list. On arriving, Magenta leaves Berkley to grovel to Lady Pinke-Burnleigh and makes a bee-line for the car which just happens to have been conveniently left in the place she would be most likely to spot it.
"Ooh, can I have a look?"
I shrug noncommittally.
"I expect so. I'm afraid it's apparently not working, and that really is a terrible shame because there's nobody round here who can mend it." Magenta gets in and tries the dead car before tutting and sweeping an impatient hand past her pencil skirt, jacket and white blouse. As an animal smells blood, she has smelt oil and is yearning to dismember the metal innards buried under the bonnet.
"Any overalls?" Pointing out a small pair which, of course, just happen to be hanging in a prominent place, I look over to Sarah who nods back surreptitiously and turns to apologise to my boss.
"I'm so sorry Mr. Berkley, but in the absence of a mechanic this seems too good a chance to miss. If you go and see Nicky she will make you some tea and, as you are a visual man of taste and refinement, you might like her to show you the paintings in the ballroom and then perhaps the library? I do hope this isn't too inconvenient for you?"
"Oh, no, your ladyship, not at all. Indeed, no, no indeed!"
I stand next to Sarah as various metal organs get removed from the depths of the Daimler and placed on a tool trolley. I have never heard Magenta whistle before, but it is very tuneful and there is an extra little chirpy warble as each nut is brought to the surface. Magenta turns to us and beams, her carefully applied make-up rendered nonsensical by the random streaks of oil her hands have deposited on her face. Sarah smiles back and leans close to whisper.
"Look at her on tip-toes - she can barely reach. If she leans any further she's going to fall in. Do you think she's okay doing that?'
"Happy as Larry." Magenta rummages around the shelf marked 'Daimler, parts, for the use of'' and opens a small cardboard box. Taking out a gleaming metal something or other, she holds it up to the light and practically swoons before kissing it. Sarah is grinning, shaking her head.
"Now, I'm pretty sure that's something Adlington never did - not in public, anyway. Just think, whoever opens that engine up next is going to find lipstick on that whatever-it-is."
"And it might be her?"
"Whoa, boy, we haven't heard the engine go yet - and we haven't seen her drive that thing, either." As if on cue, Magenta closes the bonnet and pats the mascot on the front. Getting into the driving seat she turns the engine over.
"All done, your ladyship!"
"How can I thank you? Perhaps take it for a spin, just to make sure. May we join you?" Putting a pile of manuals on the seat so she can see over the dashboard, Magenta makes a couple of circuits of the fountain to get used to the gears and sets off down the drive. Now realising that Magenta is not going to demolish all in front of her, Sarah stops gripping the seat of the limousine, leans back and relaxes. "You seem very confident about driving this monstrosity."
"My dad used to do weddings. He had a Bentley." Sarah looks wistfully out of the window towards the wood.
“Yes, so did I… Once. How's your licence?"
"Spotless as a virgin, your ladyship. Would it be okay to go on the road, please?" Sarah nods and, failing to suppress a giggle, slips down in the seat and hides her face behind her hand. The ride is smooth and the glide back up the drive is stately. Magenta parks the car in the garage and gets out.
"That was AWESOME!"
"I'm glad about that because I need a chauffeur, or possibly a chauffeuse, or whatever a girl one is called. You up for it?"
It is a week later that Magenta turns up for work, Sarah having eschewed the usual grey uniform for a cerise number with a pillbox hat instead of a cap. Magenta's concession is to put her hair up in a bun and tone down the make-up a little, but the general effect is still quite a shock after having been used to Adlington and Sarah is taking time to acclimatise.
"I keep thinking she is going to stand up in the car - gracious, she's so small there is almost enough room to do it - and wave her arms around, show me the emergency exits and demonstrate the oxygen mask." We watch as Magenta, whistling merrily, passes a duster over the chrome of the Daimler's grille. "You realise she has to have a booster cushion?"
Magenta's first job is to ferry Sarah to and from her predecessor's inquest. Adlington's death was uncomplicated - he was consistent to the end - so it isn't, to Sarah's relief, a long, drawn-out affair. Magenta's next task is to decorate Adlington's old 'office' and it is soon a little oasis of pink heaven, Regimental memorabilia replaced with photographs of Troy, photographs of her and Troy, photographs of her with her car and Troy, soft toys and a sound system for her iPhone. Even the car manuals don't escape; these she covers in glittery sticky-backed plastic.
"Much easier to keep clean than all that grotty old cardboard. The ones with the teddy bears on are the cars in this garage and the hearts are for the other one." It doesn't take long for Magenta and Nicky to find each other and it is more than once I find Sarah looking towards the garage wistfully as cackles and pop music seep from under the double doors of her cars' once silent lodgings.
"Why couldn't I have been normal?"
"Yeah, well, do you think I am?" Her Ladyship barely manages a smile. "Sarah, what's up?"
"Oh, nothing. Tell you what, I fancy going out to eat tonight. That's what normal people do, right?" There is only a slight tone of sarcasm in her voice - it is a fairly alien activity to her, after all. "Do you fancy accompanying a sad spinster? She'll pay. So, where's the best place?"
"Sarah, you're talking to someone who thinks that going to Maisie's is an event." Sarah shudders. "John and Valery Flanders are always going out; I'll ask them."
Half an hour later, I knock on Sarah's office door.
"They've invited us over this evening. For a meal." I know Sarah - she is sharp and already mulling over the significance of inviting 'us' over to eat with them. "You see, they said I could bring someone and I mentioned you." I also now know that expression on her face.
Oh shit.
"Thank you." I am reading the runes and I think I have spotted sarcasm again but there is none, apparently. "That would be lovely." Okay, I thought I knew that expression.
"You don't mind the fact that they might think we're, well, a couple? Sorry, I didn't think."
"Should I? Do you? I think we're both grownups." Sarah looks towards the garage again. "Magenta's on standby tonight. Do you think I can ask her to drive us over? I've always assumed, after her time at the town hall, that she is pretty watertight."
"She is if she likes you."
"I'll just have to keep on the right side of her then, won't I? By the way, I’ve decided - as I'm now dragging myself reluctantly into the twenty-first century – that it’s not going to be surnames any more, so I've decided she's ‘Magenta’ - why waste such a cool first name? Anyway, I can't pronounce her marital surname, splendid though 'Son Of The Sheerer Of Black Sheep' sounds when she says it in Greek."
Later that morning, Sarah calls me and wants to talk about going to dinner. I begin to wonder if she has had second thoughts about going to the Flanders'.
"Far from it - it has kicked me into action at last." Sarah pauses to gather herself. "We shall be talking to Mr. Flanders about your sculpture. I saw how much it made you come alive, how much it spoke to people. What you have is a very special gift and I would like, with your permission, to nurture that. Maybe it was a one-off, but I don't think so." The following pause is very long, but it's not that ominous as I can hear gravel crunching, a click and a hacking cough, the now-familiar aural code for ‘fag break’. "I know it didn't work for you before, but things are different now, possibly?"
"That's very kind." Me and my words. "Sorry, that sounded like 'thank you Auntie for the socks, they're just what I wanted'. What if I start and I just don't have it anymore? What if I never really had 'it' and it was just a happy accident? And anyway, what do you have in mind?"
"Firstly, it really wouldn't matter if you never welded another nut (or whatever you do). Secondly, it wasn't just a 'happy accident' and, thirdly, I'd love to build you a studio - I've got a whole chunk of house not doing anything at the moment and I’d like to see it look as if it at least had some kind of purpose. I've already phoned a certain Mr. Flanders and sent him photos, too. If he doesn’t think it's a totally mad notion then it’s all systems go."
“Sarah, that’s so generous, an amazing idea... Thank you. It sounds as if I don’t really have a say in the matter?”
“No, not really.”
It is getting dark when we arrive at the Flanders'. Magenta sees Sarah turn to me and pulls the communication window tightly shut before tactfully 'spotting' an imaginary smear on the bonnet which, of course, she has to get out of the car to deal with. Sarah watches her.
"Damn, she's good. Poor old Adlington would never have seen this coming."
"Seen what?" Sarah kisses me.
"That." I hesitate, knowing this is a no-turning-back moment. I take a deep breath and return the kiss.
"Well, I never saw it coming, either."
"Good gracious, man, there’s been enough hints. Nicky knew - do you remember the office kettle incident? The cinema? Why do you think I helped you muck out your flat?"
"Because, despite your best efforts to hide it, you're actually quite a nice person?" Sarah bats me and laughs. Then she goes all serious again.
"To show... To show I care about you. I could have got in my cleaners, but it's like when you saw me in my 'flat' for the first time - I wanted you to see the vulnerable me, the unvarnished me. Also, yes, I simply wanted to do something for you that really cost me in the way that money never does." Sarah slips her arm through mine and shakes her head at the sight of Magenta busying herself outside the car. "Poor girl, if she adjusts that wing mirror any more it's going to come off in her hand. Let's put her out of her misery." Sarah waves to her driver.
Magenta opens the door and is expressionless as we get out, but maybe that was the merest flutter of a wink? Sarah looks back at Magenta and grins as she squeezes my hand, but she then gives me a fleeting look of apology as she notices a figure through the frosted glass of the front door and hurriedly pulls her hand away from my palm. Smiling, she proffers it to a man who is not wearing a pullover and slippers this time but shiny brogues, a jacket and a tie.
John grabs our coats, gets us a drink and whisks us away to his den. Putting down her gin and tonic, Sarah puts her hand on my arm and explains why we are there. John fires up his computer and, with the aid of diagrams, explains about gas feeds, reinforcing floors, ventilation, fire-proofing, emergency exits, the whole deal. I can't say I'm paying much attention as I am looking at Sarah's face in the glow - until, that is, she knocks my foot with hers and coughs.
After the meal, I help Valerie with the dishes as Sarah and John have another chat about pricing. The studio is a present from Sarah and they are about to talk money so it's a good time to disappear. As I pass the hostess her soup tureen I see she is smiling.
"Blimming heck - is it that obvious, Valerie?"
"Is what obvious? I’m sorry, you’ve lost me there.”
35
It is a couple of days later that Hettie phones me.
"THAT EVIL FUCKING BASTARD!" As openers go, it certainly grabs the attention. It is also concise and efficient, just the kind if you're too busy to sit on the phone for hours. I tell her I am busy because I have my alterations to make to the Christmas tights, not to mention getting cracking on the Easter range. Of all my social handicaps, I think making feeble, unintentional puns ('cracking') has got to be up there with my limited range of small talk (banjos/snooker/repeating patterns) but this one stays in my head and goes no further, so no real harm done. It’s then I remember that this is the phone call I have been half expecting and, surprisingly, half hoping for. Anything that can flesh out the bones of the other night's tragedy is probably going to need a face-to-face with Hettie which, although not fun, might be illuminating.
Finding Hettie's house - the Mayor's old house - is easy as it is in the same part of town as the Flanders'. Unlike the Flanders' three-bedroom semi, the house is detached, fortified with large iron gates and has a Mercedes parked conspicuously on its fake Disney Mediaeval 'cobblestone' drive. The pillars either side of the faux mahogany Regency door are hollow fibreglass and I'm just testing one out with a good rhythmic beat when Hettie greets me at the door. She looks round and it's not clear whether she is relishing her snooty neighbours having to witness a scruffy percussionist at her door or dreading having to explain me at the next bridge evening.
“Oh, him at the door… Yes, wasn’t he dreadful?
I’m not sure... Some hippy, or whatever they call those young criminals nowadays. You have to watch his type – I think he was what they call an artist. I’m not quite sure what an ‘artist’ is, but it sounds like a euphemism for either doing nothing all day or committing something positively obscene.
Not quite what we want here, thank you.
Did he come to your door, perchance? He looked like the sort to beg for food. Such a shame they've done the bins - some of last night's coq au vin.
Your turn to deal.”
Hettie has certainly managed to make the place her own. In fact, there is a thin veneer of Hettie everywhere, from the mud ground into the cream carpet to the cigarette butts scattered across the glass-topped dining table like down-and-outs crashing a smart party.
I wander round the large drawing room like a TV camera that is unable to ignore over the anomalies and quirks of a man (the Mayor) who had to have a bit of everything, the bizarre taste of a man whose romp through Western Civilisation took in a red and gold ‘Baroque’ drinks cabinet, a flat-screen television the size of a garage door and a shoulder-high ceramic gorilla with an arrangement of two coconuts and a banana that would be too obvious for most but patently struck a chord with the self-proclaimed town hall stud. Hettie notices me looking at it.
"Cute, isn't he? Remind you of anyone?" Hettie pats it and, taking one last drag from her cigarette, grinds the stub into the point on top of the primate's hard, shiny head. Judging by the number of butts surrounding the base of the snarling ape, this is one of Hettie's favourite spots... But so, in that case, is the huge cactus in the Chinese pot next to the tatty Che Guevara poster pinned to the purple and gold flock wallpaper.
"The poster - yours, possibly?" Hettie nods triumphantly. Like Nature reclaiming an opulent temple in the jungle, this new queen's dormant filth has woken and it is fertilising an active neglect. While the décor is hardly my thing, it’s the grime and the stale atmosphere of Hettie’s smoking that is making me depressed and, having shoved a pile of pizza boxes to one end of a sofa, I then decide not to sit so I can exit quicker. Moving us slowly to the door, I get to the point.
"Well, what's he up to now?" Hettie runs a cigarette-stained finger over the dust on a black marble pineapple and wipes it on a voluminous drape.
"What's up is that our illustrious friend the former Mayor is having a construction vehicle delivered to that field." Hettie stands tall, folds her arms and looks satisfied that she has divulged something significant.
"And which field might that be, Hettie?" The smug smile disappears. "Not the one where -"
"Fuck you! I don't have to tell you any of this." I slowly nod an apology. Hettie's eyes are moist now - perhaps her brain does have more settings than just 'Off' and 'Mine'.
"Okay, sorry. And you know about this... How?"
"My new best friend has a tame hacker. He helped Nomad into Madame Pinke-Burnleigh's emails and now he's going through my former husband's."
"Ah, Nomad. There's a memory."
"More than a memory; he's upstairs, asleep in my bed."
"He tried it on with Sarah, too." Hettie is furious.
"Trying it on? He loves me!"
"Sorry, yes, of course he does. I really hope it works out – after all, you two were made for each other." Hettie slits her eyes and looks at me sideways. "No, really, I do hope so."
"And he didn't 'try it on' with your Lady precious Pinke-Burnleigh, either. He wouldn't have even if he wanted to because he said he could tell she was frigid." Hettie, seeing she has gone too far, shrugs and pours a large tumbler of whiskey from a cut-glass decanter as a peace offering. The gold and tortoiseshell longcase clock reminds me it's only half past nine in the morning and, when I decline the drink, Hettie shrugs again, downs hers with a single tilt of the head and holds the other up to the light before reuniting the measure with its sibling.
"I tell you, he's hiring a bulldozer or something." Hettie throws a tumbler into the marble fireplace and laughs raucously as it smashes. Tossing me the other one, she nods across the room at the florid brass grate and waits for me to follow suit, emitting a knowing 'huh' as I gently place the glass on a coffee table and confirm her worst suspicions that I will never be a daring, exciting rebel like her. Collapsing onto a sofa, she indicates the one opposite, spins her laptop round to face me and prods a finger at it as she lets out a triumphal 'Hah!" I gawp at the email from a private hire company to the Mayor.
"And," continues Hettie, "he hasn't asked for a driver. He’s going to do it himself."
When I get back, I find Sarah in her little flat and she is tucking into a plate of sandwiches while perusing a couple of newspapers spread out on the kitchen table.
"So what else did she say?"
"Not a lot, except that she doesn't know when he's going to pitch up." I hesitate and draw a deep breath. "And that Nomad's been hacking into your email account for the Mayor. Sarah, perhaps it's time to stop making enemies."
"Uh huh."
"You're not bothered?"
"My emails? Nah, money is dealt with elsewhere, so that's safe. It'll be messages to my florist, hate mail to the Mayor - which the little runt's seen anyway - and my Amazon orders. I hope Naughty Nomad enjoyed getting a handle on my reading habits, though I'm not sure 'The genius of Coco Chanel' or 'Inter-war French Haute Couture' is quite his thing." Sarah pulls out a chair for me and shoves the sandwiches my way. "Made them myself - quite the Domestic Goddess." I pretend to choke on a ham and cheese and get my arm punched for it.
"Now, young man, I'll have you know I can actually cook. What are you doing this evening?"
"Sorry, tonight's out - I've got to tidy the paper in my folder and straighten the pencils on my desk." Sarah looks me up and down.
"And tidy your sock drawer, no doubt, talking of which Nicky says you aren't sending anything to the laundry." There was a time when I would have resented this as intrusive, but now it is the statement of one who cares, of someone who, like me, is getting used to having someone to worry about her. The reason for no laundry is that I don't have enough clothes to let any go for a whole week before they come back again. Saying nothing, I cast my mind to the hand-washed socks, pants and tops on the towel rails in my bathroom. No, this isn't a meddler; it's someone who has given up her splendid isolation because she is discovering that she actually likes people. I lean over and hug her, suddenly overwhelmed with a fondness I can't explain. Sarah kisses me and then winces as she picks at a wayward paint fleck on the faded sleeve of my 'Meat Is Murder' tee shirt.
"Soppy boy. Tell you what, let's go shopping!" Grinning at the thought, she picks up a handful of the local rag again and it falls open at the letters page. Sarah stops smiling and it's half a minute later before she moves again, her finger on the 'Star Letter Of The Week'.
"Here, listen to this."
"Who does that 'Lady' Pinke-Burnleigh think she is? Not satisfied with ruling the roost round here she allows violence to achieve her own ends. So, she would lose a bit of land? That still leaves her with a few thousand acres, surely big enough for even her ego.
I'm not saying she ordered the killings, but she didn't stop them either. Why hasn't she been arrested? Because she is stinking rich, the biggest employer round here and the cousin of the Mayor. Well, Your Ladyship, YOU DON'T SCARE ME!
Yours (name and address withheld)."
"Sarah, please don't take anyone seriously who says 'you don't scare me' and then doesn't have the bottle to have his name printed." Sarah smiles weakly, speed dials Magenta and looks at me pleadingly.
"How about disappearing to London for a few hours? This place feels a bit small all of a sudden."
Sarah spends the first half of the trip on the phone, joining in a conference call about one of her factories. As she talks millions of pounds and hundreds of jobs, I've got the cocktail cabinet open and I'm making a little man with bandy legs out of drinking straws. Sarah takes out her fountain pen, draws a Western desert with cacti on a piece of paper as a backdrop and, as she finalises a deal to build a three million pound extension to a plant, smiles, draws a speech bubble with the word 'Howdy!' in it and props up the sheet behind my plastic cowboy in the back of the cabinet. Then the Mega Industrialist takes a laptop out of her bag and hands it to me.
"Be a dear please and check my emails… Username, tintrumpet at Googlemail dot com and the password is Charlotte1 , capital 'C' and a number one." I must look puzzled but, there again, I am puzzled. "It's because my dad used to call me his 'Little Tin Trumpet' when I was young... I was really loud, apparently. Personally, I find that hard to believe."
"No, not that, you just told me how to log into your account. You trust me that much?"
"You mean it's okay to trust you with my innermost thoughts but not with my password? I've never not trusted you - I trusted you as soon as I met you."
"That's stupid of you - I'm really a mole from the Mayor's office." Sarah chokes on her wine.
"Yeah, right, Matahari. While you’re in there, see if my 'American Lingerie of the 1940s' has been dispatched yet."
36
By the time we reach Marble Arch, Magenta is petrified. She has already negotiated the outskirts without too much bother, but the proliferation of buses, taxis and cars has the same effect on her a riot must have on a rookie police horse. Pulling up in Park Lane, she pauses and opens the communication window.
"I'm terribly sorry for stopping, your Ladyship! And you, er, sir." Poor Magenta with her double whammy; not only has she been thrown to the traffic lions, she is also having to cope with how to address the man her husband once shackled to a bronze Victorian homosexual Mayor. Sarah lifts a drowsy head from my shoulder and looks around, her eyes still half shut.
"Ah, London. Excellent, Magenta!" Opening her eyes fully, she sees Magenta's tears and twigs the situation, a situation that hasn't occurred to her. "Do you mind if I take it from here? It's ages since I've bullied this beast and a good blast round Hyde Park Corner would wake me up a bit."
Sarah tanking it round Hyde Park Corner is a bit like the chariot race from Ben Hur and it's not until we reach the underground car park on the other side of Park Lane that she slows down. Magenta is not sure whether to scream or laugh, but at least her tears have gone.
"Awesome, your ladyship!"
"I like to think so.” Sarah looks at her new driver and smiles. “By the way, perhaps fix that mascara, Magenta? No chauffeur has ever driven for the Pinke-Burnleighs with makeup running down his face and we're not starting now." Sarah asks for her handbag and takes out two fifty pound notes. "I don't know how far that will get you, but Selfridges is only up the road - perhaps include a nice waterproof mascara, as well? It's not right you should spend your own money on cosmetics for work – mind, it isn’t something we Pinke-Burnleighs have ever had to consider before. I don't want any change back, see you here at five and don't worry about driving us round town - that's what taxis are for."
"Did you bring a packed lunch?" Magenta shakes her head timidly. "Good." Taking out another twenty, Sarah presses it into her hand. "And have a look at their menu, too."
This is the day I am reinvented.
Oh, I have tweaked a little (the black suit) and I have even done rash things to try and cover my tracks (burning the memoirs), but never has there been a wholesale purging of the scruffy man who lives in the little flat.
I have come to London with my inner boy and I am being given men's clothes. In Jermyn Street I am choosing shirts and in Savile Row I am smelling the newness of fine cashmere suiting as it is unrolled and recalling the woman in the monocle who, at Burnleigh Hall so long ago, laid out five bolts of cotton before me. That woman is here now and not even paying for the three suits that will be delivered to Burnleigh Hall because she apparently has something called 'an account', an arrangement established by her great-great-grandfather and still serviced by the pedigree of a solid gold DNA.
In another emporium – obviously a more run-of-the-mill establishment because they have the cheek to ask a customer for payment before he leaves the shop – it is while looking at myself in a dinner jacket that I overhear Her Ladyship is an exception and that her word is her bond. I reflect, on straightening the bow tie, that her word is my James Bond but even I keep my feeble puns - and the temptation to hold my hands like a revolver - to myself, such is the paternal presence of hushed money that soothes the wood-panelled air.
As we sit in the tearoom at Fortnum and Masons (Harrods being deemed too vulgar for us), I wonder where I will sport the Tuxedo, the tweed three-piece, the dark blue lounge suit and the two-piece in light fawn linen. I panic. Am I entering into an agreement? If a Pinke-Burnleigh buys one clothes, is one bound to a contract of some form? Sarah senses my thoughts.
"It's okay - those outfits won't cast you into an Eternity of dinner dances, grouse shoots and expeditions up the Congo." Sarah could easily touch my hand at this point to reassure me, but it's just the thing that wouldn't, as this shopping trip has come so fast after the declaration of whatever this is that is stronger than mere friendship. "Do you want me to cancel them?" I feel so ungrateful but, at the same time, nervous: perhaps a hypothetical lifetime with Sarah would mean me having to accept a permanent default of Gratitude? Sarah, never one to flinch from an oncoming complication, not only grabs my hand but my collar as well.
"Look, you make me alive whenever I am with you. I might swear at you, I might be a spoilt brat and throw my little coronet at you - and I might want to hammer you into the ground with my handbag - but I can never, ever repay you for what you give me; I wouldn't even attempt to and that is not what I am not trying to do so today. That's right, this is as much about little me… Me me me me ME!" I try to pull back slightly but Sarah yanks me close again.
"Sarah, I don't give you anything."
"Oh, but you do."
"What?"
"Buggered if I know, but you do. Now, stop interrupting." Sarah smiles as she strokes my lapel. "Probably best not to analyse these things. Not only that, of all the men I have met you are the only one who has not been impressed by my wealth and my status, the only one to show wilful annoyance and put me in my place and, by golly, I know I need it sometimes." Sarah sniffs and I watch her eyes gloss over as they moisten.
"No, don't you dare get emotional on me."
"Shut up! I shall do as I please, thank you - and at least this mascara's waterproof." pulling me closer, Sarah wipes a tear from her eye and then, very gently, dabs one from mine before she kisses me.
Sarah has a Master Plan and we are drilling down strata of indulgence, Savile Row giving way to New Bond Street, Bond Street and Regent's Street until we end up in Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road.
By two o'clock we have finished shopping for clothes and gadgets. While Sarah has bought herself nothing, she has, she says, loved every minute of watching me come out of changing rooms in a variety of trousers, shirts and a couple of wetsuits.
The final two hours are Culture and it is half past four when we come out of the National Gallery, the day already settling down for the evening. Paying the taxi driver at our destination, we stand still with our backs to the busy city to contemplate the wistfulness of the neglected, dirty pink glow over the silhouetted trees and to peer down the dark, deserted avenues of Hyde Park. We are silent but I know that Sarah, too, is convinced that everybody else is too busy to have noticed the view, that nobody will be looking at it as we are.
Getting back to the car, we find carrier bags on the front seat and a cerise-uniformed figure stretched out in the back, asleep, the huge leather seats ample room for a petite woman, not to mention one who has probably had enough trauma for the day. Sarah puts the day's plunder in the boot, closes the lid gently and glides the Daimler slowly up the ramp into the melee of a city going home to tea.
The biggest surprise of the day is pulling up outside a white house in Chelsea and Sarah unlocking the bright red front door. Having given me a tour of its five bedrooms, two sitting rooms, dining room and kitchen, she kisses me on the cheek and sits me on a sofa in a room looking out onto a small, dark garden. Holding my hand, she looks down at the carpet as she gathers her thoughts.
"Well, this is a strange to-do. First we move you into my place and then we start going out - weird, even by our standards. Your flat is going to be ready this week and you'll be able to move back into it." I nod because I know what she is saying but I'm the one to make a clumsy effort of articulating it.
"We've both seen this coming, I think?" Sarah nods agreement. "Things changed even more today, didn't they?"
"Yes, I agree; things changed even more today." Sarah looks round the room and I follow her eyes as they alight on pictures of her as a little girl, a painting of her parents, a pencil drawing of Sarah as a teenager. "I'm sorry, it's only for a couple of days. Perhaps you'd rather be in a hotel back home?" I do the calculations and shake my head: my home town is nearer Sarah, but then, although sixty miles away, this house is Sarah.
It is while we are having a final embrace on the sofa that we hear a plaintive cry from outside like a cat mewing for its human. Sarah sighs as the door of the house next door opens and there is a brief exchange on the pavement before the inevitable ring of her own front door bell.
"Oh, the poor woman.” Sarah is sitting still as if taking stock. Her eyes travel the room again and she stares at the pencil portrait of the young girl with the early makings of an aquiline profile before snapping out of her reverie and glancing at her watch. “Er, right, I think it’s time Magenta and I vamoosed." Sarah shows me a drawer with a bundle of 'emergency' cash and a debit card in before handing over the house keys and showing me a pin number on the back of the kitchen calendar. "And Mrs. Bendetti will be popping in the day after tomorrow for a quick hoover. I'll warn her there's a strange man here."
"Is that 'strange' as in -"
"All part of your charm, petal."
"And which bedroom?"
"I've slept in my bed a few times so perhaps not." But she knows it's the one I want.
"Okay, pervert. No wearing my clothes, though - not in public, anyway. The V and A is just twenty minutes' walk and there's a little Italian place round the corner whose seafood is to die for. If you want to eat in, there is a deli round the other corner but there’s no beans in the kitchen so I’m afraid you'll either have to buy some, change your diet or starve."
After one last kiss, Sarah gets in the car, looks back and gives me a little wave. It is a slightly disheveled Magenta who pulls away from the kerb and a very obscured Sarah who gazes out at me from behind the reflection on the car window of the white-painted frontage with the bright red door.
Sarah is right; the seafood is wonderful. As I drift off to sleep, I contemplate the mystery that might be my future, count the number of pink and white stripes in the wallpaper before it turns the corner of the room and breathe in Sarah's perfume and the scent of her body as I lie in her room, as I lie in her bed and yet without her.
37
The sun is shining through the window and it's hitting a Disney picture of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Being Sarah's, it is no mere print but an original hand-painted celluloid from the film. There are other vintage children's effects, too, such as an ancient teddy bear, tinplate clockwork robots and a Victorian doll’s house. Nestling next to the dressing table mirror are a Hippie Barbie doll next to an Action Man, a red-coated guardsman with his plastic rifle and bearskin hat. Picking up the dolls, I see 'MUMMY' and 'DADDY' written in a childish hand on the soles of their feet, a much younger script but unmistakably Sarah's. This motley collection is no rich collector's fancy but a memory that the patch left by the Sugar Bear sticker (with even that gone now) could only ever dream of being.
If a Super 8 film of Sarah as a little girl were to be thrown by a clunky old projector onto the wall, it would not have the vividness - nor the pathos - of the two words scrawled on the moccasin shoe and the shiny army boot. I see now that our kiss in the tearoom was nothing to the trust I have been shown by allowing me to stay in this place which is even more private than the little flat at Burnleigh Hall. I put the dolls down again, replacing them where they came from with the acute feeling that it is a worse intrusion than rifling through her underwear drawer and finding a packet of condoms.
Ah, yes, sex. The Great Unmentioned that hasn't even been hinted at - it hasn't been studiously avoided either but it's just not been deemed to be that important... yet. Sex isn't the driver of our particular limousine, merely the cocktail cabinet in the back that neither of us is desperate to open. I look at the iron bedstead with the pink and black roses on the duvet cover and wonder if this will be the first place; if, indeed, I will be the first one. Despite the popping up of Nomad, there has been no hint of past men - or women - beyond a give-away remark about Charlotte.
Should it be Charlotte here in this room instead of me?
And what does Sarah see in me? As she says, it is probably best not to worry that one.
My mobile rings and it is Sarah on the way to work to report she didn't sleep very well because she was thinking about us. The blood drains from my head and I feel faint; she is having second thoughts. No, she tells me she is missing me and, when I don't answer, she stays quiet and then there is a hesitant 'hello?'
"Sorry, Sarah, that just knocked me - in a good way, of course."
"Of course? There's no 'of course' about it, especially with you stuck there in London which, I have to admit, was my doing. I hope you have been okay there?" I tell her that, yes, the seafood was delicious, the bed was comfortable and that I picked up the dolls and I hope she doesn't think I was snooping, but -.
"No, I'm glad you found them. My dad was in the Grenadier Guards and my mum was the hippy he rescued from an eternal life of lentils when his company was on standby near the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square. She was protesting there - along with about ten thousand others - against the Vietnam War."
"And now you're rescuing this hippy." That was supposed to sound funny but, as usual, I hadn't thought it through and I am relieved when Sarah laughs.
"Listen, why not stay with your mother? You're too far away there!"
Too far away... She actually said 'too far away'. I don't say anything because I am trying to take it all in. I stare at the pink and white wallpaper which has the sun streaming onto it and it’s sugary horticulture is now the most beautiful pattern in the world. I gently touch the Barbie and the Action Man and imagine that the guardsman has 'Sarah' written on the bottom and that the girl in the fringed waistcoat is called 'Me'.
"Yes, Sarah, too far away." After breakfast, I first call my mother and then phone Paddington Station to book a ticket before taking a long, delicious shower.
It is Sarah's suggestion I travel First Class. I put down my cappuccino, take a break from seeing the countryside fly by and look at the man on the other side of the aisle with the laptop. He is surrounded by papers which no doubt contain mystical properties that magic money from thin air. I imagine the elegant, suited gentleman in a fez on television with an assistant dressed in fishnets and a sparkly silver leotard, the two of them dazzling us with their perfect white smiles as they reach into our pockets.
But I’m being incredibly naïve here and judging him without a fair hearing, as he is surely only doing what Sarah does? Just as we whole-heartedly endorse those whacky multi-millionaires who entertain us, it is easy to come to the conclusion that Sarah making pots of money is actually rather endearing because she dresses like an eccentric while the man opposite me is the devil incarnate for earning a crust because, although he earns far less, but does it in a conventional shirt and tie.
Then I look closer and I see his bookmark is an ancient strip of fabric sewn by a child, that his iPad desktop is a picture of two teenagers wearing paper party hats, that he has a wedding band on his finger, that his tie has a repeat pattern of rugby posts and leeks.
And you’d think I’d have learnt after John Flanders.
This real person opposite is - shock horror - the new me, except that I don't even have to sully my hands with his act and I’m going to be quite happy to live off a woman who owns whole factories while I just swan around between London and Burnleigh Hall. I am perhaps exaggerating – and jumping the gun somewhat - but it all seems to be getting closer to the scenario that my conscience may have to confront sometime. Sarah has been Sarah: charmingly quirky and sensitive, with a generous heart which I, of all people, seem to have discovered. After all, it's not as if she is some evil tyrant.
And that’s the moment a penny (that should have dropped ages ago) throws itself at me one last desperate time to try and make me realise that, yes, I’m going to be well-off.
Except that I’m not – I’m just going to be with someone who’s well-off. You would, all the same, think that there is now no need for me to now feel intimidated by this man as he sizes me up: after all, he’s only doing that because he is nervous.
But I do.
You would think that being 'involved' with Sarah would come with a protective layer of self-confidence but I am still the jobbing designer in the tee-shirt and army overcoat, along with all the angst that goes with it. I suspect my new clothes will either help me on the road to a new confidence or provide me with a box-fresh, tissue-wrapped set of neuroses to replace the old ones, but neither is going to happen at the moment as Sarah went off with my new-found identity in the boot of her Daimler and I am wearing the same garb I had on yesterday. With that in mind, it is not surprising that the man is looking at me the way he is.
Especially as I have been staring at him.
When the ticket collector comes round, the man talks about me, frowns: I can tell he's talking about me because they both look my way. My producing a First Class ticket does nothing to soothe the man - in fact he looks even more disgruntled and it is a good job he won't see Magenta pick me up in the Daimler because that would probably prove terminal.
Uneasy, I get out of the train, walk down the platform and smile at the small woman in the cerise uniform on the other side of the barrier. How is all this going to pan out? Would I fit into Sarah's world? Would I get on with 'her kind of people'? What a ridiculous question, as there is no 'her kind of people' - she's a one-off and that's part of her attraction.
Magenta turns, smiles and asks me where I want to go. Settling down in the back seat, I realise I could ask to be driven anywhere I please. My needs are modest and we are neither going to town nor to Burnleigh Hall – there is a place I have to go to before either of those.
When I get to my mother's, she is in her front garden arranging rocks around a concrete gnome armed with a pickaxe. That she is telling him/it to stand still does not surprise me because I know she has conversations with her 'Little Wee Men' and that they are very real to her; indeed, if this one magically hewed the stones into pieces overnight her only reaction would be that he should have broken them smaller. Such is their number, that the gnomes have taken over the drive as well, the border of their swelling empire stopping perilously close to the public footpath where at least one of my mother’s elite brigade has fallen victim to a dog adding its efforts to the little misshapen lump of concrete.
Magenta is stunned, transfixed at the sheer scale of the vista before her: although I spot her reflection mouthing the words 'fucking hell', she manages to somehow resist intoning out loud as she gazes on the multitude of knee-high freaks. My mother, on the other hand, is genuinely bomb-proof and hardly seems to notice as a woman in a cerise uniform opens the door of a huge limousine for me.
"You're late!"
Waving to the departing car, I follow my mother on a hazardous course up the relatively empty garden path and into the box-like space upstairs where I spent much of my childhood. When she leaves the little room, I look in the near-empty chipboard drawers for underwear and chance upon a long-lost pair of pants with Robocop on; they are a little tight, but at least they're clean. Washing the ones I have been wearing, I drape them over a radiator, pray for a speedy drying and go down to join my mother for a sandwich in front of "Bargain Hunt' where each antique that comes into view is accompanied by the observation that 'I bet Her Ladyship has one better than that'. Quite why Sarah would have a better Winston Churchill portrait made out of stamps or a superior example of a tin tray emblazoned with a Soviet cigarette factory is open to conjecture, but at least my mother is happy.
I want to talk to my mother about Sarah, to tell her the news that we are going out, but as she has already believed that for a while now it seems fairly pointless. My only other news is that I witnessed Adlington blow himself up in the Bentley but as that pales next to my deranged father being catapulted into a burning tractor plant by a speeding fire engine I say nothing and then watch as my mother pauses, spreads newspaper on the dining table, opens a pot of paint and asks me if I want to help her paint the Duke of Edinburgh, a magnificent specimen destined to join the pink and gold Queen Elizabeth by the front door. This is unexpected because it is my mother making a supreme effort, an estranged woman sharing her most precious with me, her way of levering a crack under the portcullis that is between us.
Later, as evening falls, I accompany my mother on what is her nightly round of the garden and watch with wonder as she names each of her subjects. I ask about the odd one, realising at last how amazing this woman is, amazing because she has been treated so cruelly in life and yet still preserves a zest for something so vital without giving a damn what anyone thinks. That's not true, though, because I now realise she gives a damn about what I think and she nods sagely because she now believes that I am someone who has, at last, seen the light.
My little mother stands tall and supreme among her creations, the artist in slippers and an apron who has found something that stops her going round the bend with loneliness. It is with a mixture of pride, guilt and love that I hug her spontaneously in the twilight glow and she smiles a smile I haven't seen for a long time. Telling me not to be so soppy, she reaches up to smack me gently round the head. The defensive, distant face that has drawn a protective veil around itself for so long looks serious again and searches mine for clues.
"Are you happy, son?"
"With life, or right now in particular?"
"What have I told you about being a smartarse?" Cuffing me - and smiling - again, she takes my arm and we go indoors and sip cocoa as we watch yet another repeat of 'Zulu'.
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