Blue with Black Dots (The Caprice Trilogy Book 2) (22 page)

She did her best to focus on her work, the increasing responsibility.  She was allowed to sit in on conference calls.  The conference calls were recorded.  The irony was that Georgia was responsible for transcribing the recorded conference calls.  Her assignment from the Agency was to retrieve meeting minutes from Owen. 
Roizman
assigned her to produce the same.  She almost laughed as she played back the conference call through her studio quality headphones.  She could stop and rewind the cassette as often as she needed.  She was in a room by herself, used for transcribing.  She had a table and chair, a cassette player and a typewriter with extra sheets of blank paper.  There was also whiteout, for mistakes.  There was a manila folder and a permanent marker so she could label the minutes when she was done transcribing.  It was the most jocular task she had been given since being briefed.  She came back to seriousness when she was almost finished transcribing.  She realized she hadn’t gotten anywhere close to the meeting minutes that she was looking for.  The irony turned to frustration.  She decided not to wait two weeks.  She would call Owen on the weekend. 

•••

The phone rang but wasn’t answered.  It was a cold Saturday but she didn’t want to stay in Isleworth, partly because Owen hadn’t answered his phone.  There was an overdue call from Mark, who hadn’t checked in with her since the New Year.  She had literally nothing to report because she hadn’t talked to Owen since before Christmas, on December 19
th
.  It was Saturday, January 8
th
.  There were two weeks that Mark would consider blank.  Nothing moved forward.  Georgia had to do everything in right amounts.  If she were too forward with Owen, he might pull back.  Something made her think her managers didn’t see it that way.  Owen wasn’t a party boy.  He was a focused man.  It wasn’t going to be the kind of thing that he would pursue as a passive fancy.  If Owen wanted Georgia, he wanted her active in his life or nothing at all.  He was self-contained.  He drank while reading political anthologies in his own corner, in his own pub.  He didn’t display the characteristics of a man overly concerned with what people thought of him.  He did life on his terms.  He didn’t let himself get drawn into things.  That’s how he had done it as an MP.  That’s how he maintained the approval of his constituency.  If Georgia were to draw him in, she had to do it without him noticing.  That meant infrequent phone calls.  She did what any self-respecting twenty-four year old, with a new job, would do.  She went shopping.  She passed several phone boxes on her way to the city center.  Georgia spent most of her morning going in and out of shops on the east end of Pont Street.  Even though it was the middle of winter.  London was dry.  There should have been some form of precipitation hitting the ground at some point during the day but there wasn’t.  The sun even made a brief appearance in the early afternoon.  The weather and the purchase of a wintergreen sweater, a new scarf and a faux-leather weekender bag put Georgia in a better mood.  She thought she would need the bag assuming Owen invited her to Leeds for the weekend.  She decided to splurge a little more.  Her agency salary was meager but she’d be earning a little more when her money from
Roizman
was remitted to her.  She went to a cake shop and tried a chocolate mousse with mint, apparently made in-house.  She spent time flipping through a lifestyle magazine and enjoyed the feeling of being off grid.  She couldn’t be reached by Mark or Owen.  The Director himself couldn’t have reached her.  She was at a small café on Pont Street and hadn’t announced it to anyone.  It didn’t mean she was no longer an agent in play.  It meant she didn’t have to feel like one.  She didn’t have to make excuses for herself about her lack of conditioning.  The chocolate mousse didn’t help anything but that was partly the point.  She didn’t want to think about herself as agent.  She was twenty-four.  She had a starting job in the City of London, and she shopped on the weekend.  To her, that sounded about right.  Before going home, Georgia stopped by a beauty supply store and bought a DIY hair dye kit—auburn color.

Georgia let another two weeks go by before she tried to call Owen again.  He no doubt noticed she had already tried to call him.  She decided to let him wait.  If he wasn’t there to pick up the last call, let him wait a while for the next one.  He did.  She did.

              It was Friday, February 4
th
, the next time Georgia phoned Owen.  Mark had called her the last two weeks wanting a progress report.  The conversations were short.  Mark had a firm hand but had trouble making demands.  Georgia insisted he trust her.  He did but he was her manager.  The program had to have the appearance that he was on top of things.  He made sure she called Owen sooner rather than later.  This time he did answer the phone.

              “Hi,” said Owen.

              “How are you?” asked Georgia.

              “I’m good,” said Owen, “I was wondering when I’d get to hear from you.”

              “I called a few weeks back,” said Georgia, “Just to see how things were; it being New Year’s and all.”

              “Yeah,” said Owen, “I could have been hung over lying in a ditch somewhere.”

              “You know how to party,” said Georgia, “I remember.”  Owen laughed.

              “Sorry, I missed your call before,” said Owen, “I was busy getting everything sorted out for my lecture series this spring.  I have two courses, which is three lectures a week.  I just wanted to shuffle and make sure all my notes were where they needed to be and I was checking a lot of journals to update information.  It’s a lot of time in the library so I was away from a phone for the majority of the time after New Year’s.”

              “Sounds like some of the skills you’ve learned as an MP have paid off,” said Georgia.

              “How do you figure?” asked Owen.

              “Well you seem to want to have the right information at your finger tips,” said Georgia, “That’s useful for an MP.  Some professors have given the same lectures for so many years they don’t care to update themselves.”

“That’s true,” said Owen, “Sadly, it’s to the detriment of their students.”

              “You treat your students like constituents,” said Georgia, “As if they could vote for you, which they can’t but it makes you a better professor that you seem to want to serve their interests.”

              “You know something?” said Owen.

              “What?” said Georgia.

              “I never actually looked at it that way,” said Owen.

              “How were you looking at it?” asked Georgia.

              “I looked at it as if that was the job,” said Owen, “If I’m going to talk about companies and corporate structures, well a company is a living thing.  So it’s good to take the pulse every now and again.  It’s even true with companies that have gone bankrupt.  Sometimes they emerge from bankruptcy and go on to have quite the profitable business.  So you can’t just go with what was true from four years ago.  A lot can happen in four years, especially when you’re talking about a company.  You’ve got due diligence ahead of you always.”

              “I couldn’t agree more,” said Georgia, “I had a question for you.”

              “Ask away,” said Owen.

              “It’s the same as before,” said Georgia, “When will you be in London next?  We’ve got catching up to do.  I wanted to tell you about my new job here.”

              “London,” said Owen, “London, London, let me see.  I have a conference at the same time of year in July/August with a bunch of political wigs but it doesn’t look like I’ll be in town before then.”

              “Hmm…,” said Georgia, “That makes things difficult.  There’s some things I wanted to run by you but I wanted to do it in person.  I don’t know when I’ll be back in Glasgow.”

“God, I wouldn’t have you travel all the way from London to Glasgow,” said Owen, “I don’t even think you’ve got your flat here still.”

              “I don’t.  I’ve sublet it,” said Georgia, tightening the noose of options.

              “I’ll tell you what,” said Owen, “How about we meet halfway?”

              “What do you mean?” asked Georgia.

              “You’re in London,” said Owen, “I’m in Glasgow.  Leeds sits right between us.”

              “Ok,” said Georgia.

              “How about you come round to my place in Leeds?” said Owen, “You can be my houseguest, maybe give me some decoration pointers.  I’ve been thinking of redressing the place.”

              “I don’t want to impose,” said Georgia.

              “You wouldn’t be an imposition at all,” said Owen, “You know I really do like Leeds as a city.  I would love to show you my place there.  It sits on the River Aire.  I like it.  I could show you around the city if you like.  Have you ever been there?”

              “Leeds,” said Georgia, “I can’t say that I have, maybe in my childhood.  I’m not sure but if so I can’t remember.”

              “Well, let’s hope this time you do have some memories of your time in Leeds,” said Owen, “Good memories at that.”

              “I’ll do the best I can,” said Georgia, “When do you think you could accommodate me?”

              “Well,” said Owen, “We’ve got spring holiday coming up in March.  How about we shoot for then?”

              “I’d like that,” said Georgia, “Let’s make it a weekend because I’m not at uni anymore and I won’t necessarily have time off.”

              “That’s not a problem at all,” said Owen, “Let’s look at the desk calendar.  I see a weekend more or less perfect.  I’m looking at Friday, March 11
th
to the 13
th
.  I’ll come down from Glasgow that Friday, and maybe you can come up from London.  Then we head back Sunday evening.  It’ll take you a little over two hours to get hear by train.  It’ll take about three and a half or maybe four hours for me to drive down from Glasgow depending on traffic.  I’ll leave in the morning after my lecture so I should beat you there.  You’ll be coming in at Leeds Station.  Just give me the time and I’ll meet you out front.”

              “Ok,” said Georgia, “I’ll get my ticket tomorrow and then I’ll call you back with my arrival time.”

              “That sounds good,” said Owen.

              “Ok,” said Georgia, “Talk to you tomorrow.”

              “Cheers,” said Owen.  Georgia hung up the phone.  The weather changed.  She was feeling all wet before.  But she dried up immediately.  Her idea was a good one.  She knew because it worked.  And it worked just as she expected and more likely quicker than following the Agency’s original program.  If she were in Glasgow, it would have taken a lot longer for Owen to get the idea to invite her to Leeds.  With her in London, meeting in Leeds made the only sense.  She called Mark.

•••

              Leeds Station wasn’t as stately as King’s Cross Station in London.  But it didn’t mean to be.  The difference was the brick.  Leeds Station was mostly steel and glass and it wasn’t as well lit as King’s Cross.  It made a difference at night.  But for Georgia, there was more doing in Leeds than in London so she walked outside and looked for the almost unmissable, tall, salty-haired man.  She carried her rucksack over her shoulder.  It was the one she had for university but never used because she only used library books.  Even after her books arrive she just read in the library and carried her notes to lecture.  She decided against carrying her new weekender bag.  She thought it made her look like a field agent—a fresh weekender bag for the weekend.  It had certain obviousness to it.  She walked along the cross walk, looking for Owen in the dim light.  As he saw her approach, he got out of the car on the driver’s side and lean on the door.

“Georgia,” he said waving.  She saw him out of the corner of her eye and walked in his direction smiling.  Her smile was something natural, but affected by the fact that she knew she was on the job.  Owen took her rucksack and loaded it in the boot of his 1968
Opel Kapitän
.  The car was maroon and stood out from others.  Owen closed the boot and hugged Georgia.  It was somewhat awkward because she usually hugged people closer to her own stature.  She was wearing low shoes which made the near 1-foot height difference echo.