Fireproof (3 page)

Physically, John stood about five foot four. His big slab of a belly spilled over the buckle of his belt and what hair that hadn't receded had turned a tatty salt and pepper colour that never looked clean. His permanently flushed face burned in an angry red glow. His sloped forehead and oversized nostrils gave him an apelike countenance. This caricature was not helped by his obsession with cleaning out his nose with chubby, hairy digits and fumbling in his underpants to check on his genitals at regular intervals. Casanova, he was not.

"Actually," John said, "I'm not really in the mood for this case and I don't know what I should pick up instead. You look even paler than usual. Want to go for a bite to eat? Put some colour in those cheeks?"

It was only eleven o'clock, and Cathy had eaten breakfast at her desk at nine, but she agreed to go. She thought it the easier option. She could put up with John's lecherous comments and his tendency to lean a little too close when he asked her a question, but she was not in the mood for one of his sulks today. She had polished off a bottle of Tesco Merlot with her microwave dinner-for-one and a fiftieth viewing of Luc Besson's Leon the previous night, and she felt too delicate to put up with aggressive body language and snide comments. Solicitors were much too well trained in these skills, and seem to use them as reflex. Besides, John always paid for her meals to make himself look like a sugar daddy. Sometimes it felt like a second cousin to prostitution, but mostly she just enjoyed the food.

They ate at Clements, a small and classy coffee shop in the city centre, not too far from the office building. Cathy still marvelled at the Americanisation of Belfast in the last few years. It was a sad sign of a television culture gone wild. Kids walked about in baggy jeans, carrying skateboards that they couldn't actually ride. Plastic surgery clinics advertised in the local Sunday papers. The University no longer split their academic year into terms, but now called them semesters. The Golden Arches called to the masses for a quick fix of fat food, and families arrived in their thousands with overweight kids and high cholesterol. But the most irksome thing of all was the growth in flavoured coffee in pretentious little shop units on the high street of Belfast city.

It was enough to make her poker-straight hair curl.

Patrons could buy vanilla coffee in a giant, white cup with a honey and prune scone, smothered in low fat cheese spread, and gabble about the latest artistic flick showing in the Queen's Film Theatre, as they sat in uncomfortable plastic and chrome chairs around too small plastic and chrome tables. This privilege cost most customers half of what they would earn that day, but that didn't matter because it was all so chic.

Cathy watched one such crowd as she tried to avoid eye contact with John. She faded out John's monologue about the pressures of work and weakness of the Northern Ireland judicial system and tried to pick up the conversation from another table. Three middleclass female students sat around the table behind John. Cathy could tell they were middleclass by their North Down accents. They spoke in nasal and bratty tones that smacked of privileged childhoods.

The three well-fed and well-groomed students discussed Big Brother, the current reality TV show, from a psychological point of view, each opinion punctuated by wild gesticulations and dramatic facial expressions. A boring way to talk about a boring television show.

"Cathy," John said, "I'd like an answer."

"Sorry, John, what did you say?"

"Weren't you listening?"

Cathy leaned forward conspiratorially. "Actually John, I really was trying my hardest, but those young ladies behind you are drowning you out a little. They're awful rude, aren't they?"

A smile tugged at the corners of Cathy's mouth, but she kept it in check. She knew John hadn't noticed the table behind him, lost as he was in his own self importance, but she also knew he hated anyone to be distracted from the great and mighty John Fisher. She sat back and watched him go.

John turned his chair one hundred and eighty degrees and faced the three young women. They noticed him and their conversation stopped. Cathy couldn't see his face, but she knew he wore that patient smile he always faked before he blew up at an inept employee.

"Can I help you?" one of the three asked. Her face was the picture of disgust. Cathy imagined how this expression must have humiliated so many young men who had dared to approach this suburban princess at the student union bar. Cathy allowed herself a smile.

"I was hoping you would ask me that," John said.

The look of disgust faltered. The princess had not expected that answer. "Excuse me?"

"Well," John said, "I'd hoped to enjoy a nice brunch with my colleague here." Cathy grimaced a little at this association, but nodded at the student when she looked at her. "And I'm afraid that you and your two friends have made it quite impossible for us to communicate. Perhaps you would be so kind as to lower the volume?"

After a slight pause the student said, "We have every right to relax here too." Her two cronies nodded along with her in agreement.

"Oh, yes," he said. "You have that right. However, you do not have the right to piss me off during one of my few breaks from trying to solve the problems of middleclass kerb crawlers, who aren't getting a proper seeing to at home from the type of wife you pathetic little girls are almost certainly going to become. So here's my suggestion, if you're interested. Take yourself off to that corner over there, so you're out of my sight, and keep the noise down to a banshee shriek so I can hear and be heard."

John didn't have to raise his voice; he could inject poison into his tone at any volume. He hadn't caused a big scene in the half-filled coffee shop. However, the three young women were stunned. Pale-faced and shaken, they lifted their coffee cups and handbags and shuffled over to the table John had pointed to. They did not look in John and Cathy's direction for the rest of their stay.

"Well done, that needed to be said," Cathy said.

"Yes, I know." John let a dramatic pause hang in the air as he put on the regal expression of one who has just performed a noble service to humanity.

As much as she loathed her boss, the vulgar pig did come in useful. She rewarded him by paying undivided attention to his crap conversation until the bill came. He took care of it as usual.

They'd spent an hour and a half away from their desks but didn't rush back to the office. Why should they? John ran the place.

As they strolled back to work, careful to avoid the hazards of pedestrians on a half hour lunch break, sniffing out sandwich shops like bloodhounds on the hunt, John struck up an old and tired conversation.

"You know, you could do very well at our firm, pet."

"Is that right, John?"

"Yes it is. You work hard and you don't phone in regular sick days like the other girls in the office. You seem to care about your job, and of course your pretty face is a much welcome distraction in times of stress."

Cathy forced herself to smile at this last remark.

John continued, "With a bit of extra schooling you could even get more involved in the important work. Perhaps a course on research or the like would make you even more valuable to us. The work would be more challenging and we'd probably have to reward your commitment with a bit of a pay rise."

Cathy nodded in a thoughtful manner. This was John in a good mood, his belly full and walking down the street, seen by many, with an attractive young woman. He had sold the same pitch to all the pretty faces in the office. He thought it was motivational to dangle this kind of carrot in front of them. What he didn't realise was that none of the girls took it seriously any more. Money was never offered for these wonderful research courses. When a girl built up the nerve to ask about the possibility of funded study, all they got was a confused expression. John never actually promised to pay for the girls to take these courses, and become all that they could be. He assumed that they would pay the steep college fees and invest their own time into scholarly pursuits, and then apply for the research jobs as and when they were advertised by the firm. Of course, the firm was too tight-fisted to actually hire a researcher and so the girls did the work for John and the other solicitors on a legal secretary's salary. They were fools to accept this treatment, but they were fools with jobs.

Cathy played her part. "If only I could afford the fees."

"Where there's a will there's a way," John said.

Cathy went beyond her part. "And where there's a blow job, there's a chance that your boss might pay for your course and give you a pay rise for showing some initiative."

John stopped dead in his tracks and eyed Cathy with suspicion. "That's a good point, Miss Maguire. Would you be interested in dinner tonight?"

"Only if we eat at your house and only if the other girls didn't find out about it. I don't want them to get jealous. They'd give me the cold shoulder."

"Okay, I won't tell a soul," John said. "You know where I live, don't you? Be there at eight o'clock, and if you're serious about this pursuit into self-improvement, wear very sexy underwear."

Cathy nodded and John smiled. They had reached the door of their building.

"You show a lot of promise Cathy; I think you'll go far."

"I'll go as far as it takes."

John's already flushed face reddened to a darker shade. He held the door for her and let her enter first. She felt his eyes on her behind as she made her way to her desk. He was caught; hook, line and sinker.

***

She popped a bottle of Chardonnay and had her first glass as she ran the bath. She wanted to enjoy the build-up to this life-changing event.

When the working day ended at five o'clock, she'd been the first to leave the building. She had to prepare for her appointment with the boss. She wanted to look her best and the only way to do that was to take her time. She hopped into a black taxi and made it to her house in the west of the city in no time.

The bath, and her second glass of wine, left her so relaxed that she was in danger of slowing down too much. She wanted everything to go well from the start, and was determined not to be late. She squeezed the cork halfway back into the neck of the bottle and livened up her pace. She ran downstairs to put the bottle back in the fridge, thinking that she would want a cool glass of wine when she returned from John's. Before she went back upstairs she selected a wickedly sharp filleting knife from the knife block on her kitchen worktop. It was the perfect size to slip into the little red handbag she knew matched so well with her red high-heeled shoes.

With her makeup perfect, warming her pale skin with a subtle foundation and a butterfly-kiss of blusher, and her clothes on the cusp of classy and sluttish, Cathy was dressed to kill.

***

Cathy stood at John's doorstep at exactly eight o'clock. Her finger had just left the doorbell when the door opened. John stood there, clean-shaven, suited and booted in designer labels, and steeped in expensive-smelling hygiene products. He was still the most repulsive man she had ever met. She smiled at him.

"Come in, Brown Eyed Girl," John said.

"Thank you, John."

"It'd freeze the fucking tits off a brass witch out there, wouldn't it?"

Cathy chuckled at his rapier wit. "It certainly is cold. I thought this was meant to be the first day of spring."

They rattled out some more small talk as John put Cathy's black leather coat on a brass cup-hook under the stairs, and led her to the dining room. The smell of overcooked beef and stewed cabbage wafted through the house. The man really knew how to work a woman's appetite.

John pointed to a seat. "I'm preparing prime steak fillet, served on a bed of boiled vegetables. I thought that a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon would wash it down nicely. What do you think of that?"

Cathy sat at the seat he had indicated. She noticed that the forks didn't match the knives. "That sounds lovely, John. I'm salivating in anticipation."

"Well I'm sweating like a fucker, but I think it'll be worth it." John cursed more outside of office hours. He really was making this too easy for Cathy. She had expected a doubt or two to surface before she did the deed, but John just kept on giving her more assurances that she had picked the right subject.

"I'm really looking forward to dessert too," Cathy said.

"Oh fuck, I didn't get any."

"That's all right. I'm providing the dessert tonight. Remember?"

It seemed that subtle innuendo was not something a vulgar man like John understood. "What did you bring, pet? I hope it isn't cheese cake. That stuff gives me the shits."

"No John, it's a different kind of dessert." Cathy tried to give him a hint, "In fact, I'll be the only one eating, if you know what I mean."

"What? That's a bit… Oh, wait; you're talking about…" John laughed his filthy laugh. "You are a dirty bitch."

"Can I have a drink please, John? Something very strong would be good."

John bustled off as fast as his little legs would take him. Cathy rested her head on the table. The temptation to bash her skull off the edge of it was great, but she resisted. She would have to calm down if she was to savour this moment. One more second of that conversation would have spurred her into hasty action. An old stress relief trick that she had learned at school surfaced in her memory. She closed her eyes and thought of a blue energy being drawn into each part of her body, starting at her toes and circulating to her head, while she breathed deep and slow. By the time John returned with what looked not far short of a pint of vodka, Cathy had regained a modicum of calm.