Heartbreaker (12 page)

“You mean you’d rather have that chubby heap than me? You can’t be serious! He looks like he just fell off the back of a lorry!”

As I speak voices have been ringing out in the hall, and at this point footsteps, lots of them, start to thunder up the stairs. “Carta darling!” screeches the first visitor as he erupts into the living-room. “How
are
you, angel?”

Carta has no choice but to turn away but I stay where I am in amazement. These three visitors are all gay and two of them are the in-yer-face type, always gasping to scream about their rights to any media microphone in reach. The first one’s what I call a frothy number, but the froth is almost certainly camouflage to disguise the fact that he’s articulate, smart and streetwise. These militants are a tough bunch. His in-yer-face chum could be his partner but not necessarily. This bloke’s flamboyant too but harder and smoother, probably more of a diplomat. He’s flaunting one of those godawful moustaches and displaying a taste in leisurewear so old-fashioned that you almost expect to hear Abba belting in the background. Like Sad Eric he badly needs to update.

But it’s gay visitor number three who interests me most, probably because he’s such a familiar type in my professional life. He’s Mr. Pass-for-Straight. He’s tall, dark, not bad-looking in a low-key way, with a friendly face, sensitive and intelligent, the kind of face that makes you think: he looks a nice bloke, I wouldn’t mind passing the time of day with him over a lager. His clothes are hopelessly conventional, but at least they don’t make you think of Abba. A school choir would be more in keeping—or my mum’s favourite, Cliff Richard, crooning about his unimaginably innocent summer holiday.

How do I know Mr. Pass-for-Straight’s gay when he’s looking like every suburban matron’s dream of a reliable son-in-law? Because he glances at me and nearly faints beneath the onslaught of the testosterone surge. The other two are vibrating like whacked gongs too, but Mr. Pass-for-Straight’s the only one who looks like a starving man scenting a square meal.

“Hey!” calls Eric Tucker as he follows his guests into the room and finds them all boggling at me. “Time to go—you’ve had your look at the view!”

I’m incensed. Imagine not introducing me to the guests! Imagine humiliating Carta by treating her new acquaintance—a friend of Richard Slaney’s no less—as rubbish which had to be put out for the garbage truck! Well, I’m sorry but I’m not standing for that kind of behaviour, no way am I going to stand for it. I’m going to shock that bastard rigid, I’m going to make him want to pass out with embarrassment, I’m going to see he reels as if I’d smashed his teeth in.

Radiantly I smile at the gays. “Well, hul-
lo,
sailors!” I purr, sashaying towards them as if I’ve never shagged a woman in my life. “My name’s Gavin Blake and I have a flat in Austin Friars near—wait for it, guys!—
Old Broad Street
which is the kind of address you don’t forget when you’ve got sex on your mind, but here’s my card—” I gyrate my hip to ease the wallet from my back pocket “—to drill the memory home. Just call to make an appointment! I take all the major credit cards—”

All hell bursts loose as Sad Eric finally combusts. “GET OUT, YOU SCUM!” he bawls, but I keep right on.

“—so darlings, if you drop-dead gorgeous guys want to fuck—and I mean fuck—F-U-C-K—”

“PISS OFF!” roars Sad Eric, hurling himself at me, but I just laugh and dodge out of his reach.

Golden Girl immediately fears for my safety. “Eric, don’t!” she cries, but at once I call back to reassure her: “Relax, sweetie, he’s past it—I could floor him in no time flat!”

At that point Sad Eric almost froths at the mouth, but before he can hurl himself at me again someone yells: “WAIT!” and we’re all diverted.

It’s Mr. Pass-for-Straight, making a surprisingly authoritative intervention. “Cool it,” he says quickly to Sad Eric while grabbing his arm and stepping between us. “I think Mr. Blake will be willing to leave of his own accord now you’ve demonstrated how deeply he’s upset you. No, Carta, leave this to me. Mr. Blake, allow me to show you out, please.”

As a parting flourish I fling down my business card on the coffee table, but the gays cringe, horribly embarrassed on behalf of their hosts and hating themselves for longing to jot down my phone number.

“This way,” says Mr. Pass-for-Straight to me in a firm voice, and the next moment I’m sweeping triumphantly down the stairs ahead of him.

But by the time I reach the hall I’m feeling uneasy. It was great the way Carta begged that chubby heap not to hit me, but on the other hand she didn’t look too keen when I bragged I could floor him. And was I being fair to the gay bystanders when I used them to launch my attack? No, I wasn’t. By soliciting so offensively I mocked them in front of their friends. There’s a paradox here and it’s this: although gay activists campaign for sexual freedom, many of them take a high moral line against leisure-workers. They see them as the subversive shits who help closet gays to stay closeted, and worse than any subversive gay shit is the subversive straight shit who ought to be wiped from the scene and sent back to the straights in instalments. However at least Mr. Frothy, Mr. Macho-Retro and Mr. Pass-for-Straight were spared the ultimate humiliation. As they almost passed out with the desire to shag me, they never guessed I qualified for dismemberment as the lowest of the low.

Which is a fact that Carta knew right from the start. Oh my God! What have I done?

With horror I finally see—as the rage against Sad Eric dies away— that I must have reinforced all her prejudices against me. I made a deliberately disgusting scene
in her house
in front of her friends, and now she can say to herself: “I was right. He’s filth. I never want to see him again.” Fucking hell, what an own goal! I must have been mental, but stay cool, don’t panic, even a catastrophe can be put right. I’ll just have to bust a gut to push a repentance scenario, and I can start by being extra nice to this bloke Mr. Pass who deserved my trashing even less than his boring companions did.

“Hey,” I say to him urgently, “I behaved like a headbanger back there—please could you tell Carta I’m sorry? Tell your friends I’m sorry as well—and let me tell
you,
one to one, that I’m very sorry indeed I played the leisure-worker from hell. I shouldn’t have let myself get needled by that bastard Tucker treating me like shit.” (I think this last remark can be classed as fair comment. And I do need to explain why my brains got scrambled.)

Mr. Pass says: “It’s hard to turn the other cheek sometimes.” I can almost hear him panting painfully, but he’s exercising such self-control that his hand never even trembles as he pushes back his thinning hair. He’s older than I thought he was. Forty, maybe more.

“Well,” he says, opening the front door, “I’m sure you want to be on your way.”

I do, but I’m determined to send him a message that says SORRY in capital letters. It would help to have him on my side and pleading my cause to Carta.

On another card I scribble down the number of the Austin Friars flat. “Here, take this,” I say, shoving the card at him. “I’ll give you a freebie as compensation, but don’t tell the other blokes, this is just between you and me. Call that handwritten number any day Monday through Friday at four-twenty-five and we’ll make a date.”

Mr. Pass takes the card gravely and says, bemused, “I’m not sure why I’m being singled out for special favour.”

“No?” I say. “I’ll tell you why. You called me Mr. Blake. You treated me with respect. And more important still, you stopped that braindead scene of mine upstairs from getting even worse than it already was. So I owe you, Mr.—” I pause.

“Tucker,” he says wryly.

“Tucker? ”

“Gilbert Tucker, yes, I’m his brother. He’s a bit hot-headed sometimes, but he’s a good chap when you get to know him.”

I just say: “You’re the good one, chum. Look, I mean what I say—it’s all free for you, and I guarantee there’ll be no risks of any kind.”

Mr. Gilbert Tucker looks as if he’d like to believe me but can’t. I probably shan’t see him again, but he’ll put in a good word with Carta now, I’m sure of it, and that has to rank as a big plus.

The other big plus is that at least Elizabeth will never know I was dishing out a freebie while chasing the St. Benet’s fundraiser—and by the way, why do I keep doing things which would give Elizabeth a fit?

I know this is a question I need to answer, but I also know this isn’t the moment to brood on it. I need to focus on making a dignified exit, and after saying a polite goodbye to Gilbert the Good I walk quickly away from the Wallside house and Monkwell Square.

Back in the car I start the task of figuring out why I’ve acquired this taste for high-risk behaviour, and after a while I dimly realise that I’m feeling negative about Elizabeth. Then I see that in reality I’m not just amazed by her “lovely arrangement” with Norah about the escort girl. I’m feeling . . . no, not angry. I couldn’t be angry with Elizabeth, I owe her everything, she’s so wonderful to me. But I feel sort of . . . well, sort of hurt, know-what-I-mean, sort of sad. And that’s not just because I don’t like being told who to shag on weekends. It’s because unless we’re on holiday I don’t get to shag Elizabeth more than once a week.

Okay, so I’m bloody lucky she wants us to shag at all, I realise that. I know I don’t deserve her, I know I was nothing when she picked me out of the gutter and I know I’d go back to being nothing if she kicked me out of the house. But since she’s apparently happy for the shag to continue, I don’t see why it can’t happen more often. I mean, it’s not as if she doesn’t get good value. Thanks to her, sex is the one thing I do really well, but she’s determined to restrict me to Saturday mornings, and I mind, I can’t help it, I just do. I feel not only sad but frustrated—and suspicious, okay, I admit it, I admit I’m bothered that she might be having it off with someone else, even though I don’t really believe she is. Why did I ask her this morning if there was someone else when the common-sense answer was that there wasn’t? I suppose I was in such despair that I lost sight of my common sense and allowed my knee-jerk suspicion a free rein.

What makes me believe there’s no one else? Well, there’s no one around who fits the job description. It certainly isn’t Asherton—if he performs with women at all, he’s probably only interested in carving patterns on them, and Elizabeth’s no masochist. She’s not having any kind of lesbo-love-fest with Norah either. They tried that back in the Swinging Sixties, Elizabeth says, but by 1970 they’d decided to be just good friends. Elizabeth has a wide range of acquaintances, but I think she’s very careful who she shags. That’s because she always has to be the one in control—and yes, let’s face it,
this
is what the sex-on-Saturday-mornings-only rule is all about. She keeps me short to keep me on the hook.

So what do I do with this insight? Can’t whinge, can’t nag, can’t sulk, and I certainly can’t criticise—how could I after all she’s done for me? I mean, what kind of an ungrateful bastard am I, for God’s sake? If I love her—and I do—I must accept everything she does. It’s the very least I can do after she’s been so wonderful to me.

Fair enough, but in that case why am I secretly rebelling? It’s something to do with Richard, don’t know what, but whatever it is, Richard started it. And though he’s not here any more I’ve now got Carta instead. Which means that whatever it is can’t be connected solely with the sailing. Bloody hell, I can’t unravel this mystery, it’s so peculiar that it’s doing my head in. What I know for sure, though, is that if I’ve got to shag an escort slag I’m going to work all the harder to compensate myself with Golden Girl despite Elizabeth’s paranoia about St. Benet’s.

But I’d better be bloody careful. I’d better not forget just how dangerous rebellion can be.

I glance at my Rolex. I’ve still got the whole evening ahead of me. Driving over to the West End I prepare to go grazing again in Covent Garden.

Well, Elizabeth didn’t explicitly forbid it, did she? And God knows I need some fun before Sunday lunch at Norah’s when I get to meet the tart Elizabeth’s chosen to be my regular weekend squeeze . . .

This new filly in Norah’s stable isn’t bad-looking and she’s moderately shaggable but she’s what the gays call TTH—Tries Too Hard. I like the babes who play cool and hard to get. More of a challenge.

Also at lunch are three not-so-new fillies, Victoria, Chloë and Lara, who are all billeted beneath Norah’s roof. Norah operates the escort agency out of an office in Kensington, a fact which means her large Pimlico home has the space to house the new girls who need to save money on accommodation while they get started.

I’m surprised today to find that Susanne’s been hauled up from the basement flat to join us for Sunday lunch. She chomps the roast beef, looks mutinous and says nothing. Yuk. The chihuahuas have smart new coats from Harrods and look like genetically engineered rats. Doubleyuk. I flirt overtly with new girl Serena, covertly with Victoria, Chloë and Lara, and try not to die of boredom.

I wonder what Golden Girl’s doing with Sad Eric. I wish to hell I hadn’t made such a fuck-up of that scene on Wallside yesterday.

I also wish I’d been smart enough to note the number on Carta’s phone when I was at the Wallside house, but I was too busy serving up my gay monster act. I’ll call her at the office tomorrow in the hope that Gilbert the Good’s told her I’m radiating contrition from every pore—and maybe if he’s Gilbert the Best he’ll have pointed out to her that my bad behaviour was all Eric’s fault anyway.

Monday dawns, and after the early shift I call Carta to deliver my well-rehearsed apology, but some sort of granny-gizmo with a postmenopausal voice tells me that Ms. Graham is unavailable. Shit! I call again before the lunch-shift but Ms. Graham is still unavailable. I leave my number and request a call back but nothing happens. Shit again! Okay, so she’s trying to teach me a lesson, but I’m not going to get depressed because I know she’ll eventually be panting to see me again.