Heartbreaker (22 page)

By midnight I’ve reasoned myself into a better frame of mind. My trump card, I soon realise, is that I’ve obtained the crucial information for Asherton about Colin’s religious interests, and once Elizabeth knows that, she’ll forgive me for being “slippery” over Gil Tucker. So what I’ve got to do is withhold this trump card until I have to confess I lied about Gil’s age and appearance. When do I do the big confession? Best to leave it as long as possible to give Elizabeth time to cool down, so . . . yes, I see how to do this. Colin’s next appointment is on Tuesday, the day Gil gets the wake-up slot, and I can claim that
this
is the day when Colin comes clean about his religious interests. It’ll all dovetail, I’m sure of it. Happy ending.

At that point I hope I may be able to sleep but no, my thoughts are still racing around producing insomnia. I’m thinking of Carta now, rerunning every word of our conversation. How I wish I was taking Carta out tomorrow night instead of Serena, that college-educated tramp who’s dumb enough to think escort work’s a dead easy way to earn a buck. Just wait till Norah propositions you, jingle-bells, after softening you up with all this free accommodation, free health club vouchers, free manicures and free kisses from those spooky chihuahuas! If you flunk it at payback time, Norah will sack you and withhold as much of your earnings as she can, and if you object she’ll just say: “Sue me!” and mail your nude glamour-pics to Mum and Dad in Goring, that arch-respectable seaside town they’ve picked for their retirement. But if you go down the payback route what have you got to look forward to? Money? Sure, but not as much as you’ve been led to think, and meanwhile it’ll be all Sapphic frolics in between the shags with the old men and the pervy foreigners and the drunken businessmen and the sickos who don’t give a shit. And after a while it’ll become a bit stressful, not much, just a bit, so you’ll start boosting your alcohol intake and doing a line of coke every now and then, but very soon the drink will escalate and the coke lines will multiply and gradually your prized bank account will get a moth-eaten look until in the end you’re in debt with a dud liver and a duff nose and you’ll have a nervous breakdown because no escort agency will take you on and you can’t face selling out of your pants on the street. Believe me, Serena sweet pea, the leisure industry’s not for wimps and you haven’t got what it takes! Stop trying to hit back at Mum and Dad in Boring Goring and get yourself out of Norah’s world PDQ . . .

At last I manage to sink into a stupor which has a good chance of ending in unconsciousness, and as the images begin to flicker surreally before my eyes I see the shepherd in fancy dress looking out over the Needles. But the little sheep’s not tucked up on his shoulder. I think: where’s that little lost sheep that was found? And the next moment I realise I’m covered in white fleece. Then I hear Asherton whisper as he fingers his long knife: “Time for your shearing, my dear!” and as it dawns on me that he wants to take off not just my fleece but every inch of my skin, the world ends and the sun blacks out and I yell and yell and yell for the help that’s never going to come . . .

A thousand miles away Nigel urges: “Gav, wake up!”

I sit bolt upright, sweating and gasping. “I was being skinned by Asherton—”

“It was a dream, mate, only a dream. Asherton doesn’t do snuff movies . . .”

I realise I’ve been yelling loud enough to bring Nigel down from the attic but I’m too traumatised to be embarrassed. Shuddering from head to toe I grab his hand and whisper: “Dear old friend.”

Then a very strange conversation takes place. Later I dismiss it as a conundrum, but I don’t forget what was said. I think I do but I don’t.

It starts with Nigel saying: “Gav, you know I’d do anything for you, don’t you? I mean that. I love you.”

I think automatically: yeah, yeah. But I’m so shaken up that I say something else. I mumble: “Thought you only went for kids.”

“That had to stop. I faced up to it in the end. In the programme I was on in prison the psychiatrist called it ‘coming out of denial.’ ”

“Didn’t think those programmes cured kiddie-fiddlers.”

“You don’t get cured but you can get healed, like an alcoholic who makes it in AA. But I had to come out of denial, see, before any of that could happen. I used to say I was doing nothing bad, but finally I was able to stand up before the group and say: ‘I’m a paedophile and what I did was wrong.’ ”

“Cool.”

“No, just truthful. It’s the truth that heals, you see, not the lies you tell yourself to keep going. Denial’s like a jail, keeping you locked up in a bad place.”

“Uh-huh.” I decide it’s time to get him out of my bedroom. “Okay, leave off now, Nige, there’s a good bloke—I can see you’re some kind of hero, but I can’t take ‘Thought for the Day’ in the middle of the night.”

Nigel patters obediently away.

Four hours later I’m celebrating Saturday by arriving in Elizabeth’s bedroom with the early morning tea. I’m nervous in case she’s still displeased with me, but after I’ve apologised again she says I’m forgiven.

“You do love me, don’t you?” my voice says.

“Of course I do, pet! You’re very handsome, very sexy and wonderfully amusing and clever,” says Elizabeth indulgently, kissing the tip of my nose. “Now let’s do something really fun today! I feel in the mood for—”

She tells me what she wants.

Setting aside all my worries I focus my whole being on pleasing her.

When I bring her breakfast in bed, she’s propped up on the pillows and reading
Hello!
magazine. One of the celebrities interviewed consulted her when she had her psychic healing business in Fulham. As I pour out the coffee she idly recalls his sexual problems.

“. . . oh, and by the way,” she adds after laughing at the memories, “talking of men in the sex-for-beginners class, how did you get on with Mr. Moneybags yesterday?”

Casually, very casually I start to butter some toast for her. “Fine,” I say, “but he’s got it into his head that he has to take me to the opera . . . Marmalade or honey?”

“Marmalade today, I think, dear . . . Well, he’ll have to think again. I won’t have you overstrained by doing escort work unless it’s essential, as I said to Asherton only the other day.”

I do a quick think. It’s no good pushing the opera further at the moment or she’ll get suspicious. What I have to do is start lukewarm and then become keener when I find out what opera’s on offer.

“As a matter of fact,” Elizabeth’s saying, still thinking of her mega-pervy chum, “I’m rather worried about Asherton.”

I’m startled. “Why?”

“The GOLD rituals are getting iffy. He’s importing too much SM— quite against my advice, I may add—and I think there could be a real danger that GOLD might decay into something the vice squad would want to mop up. Such a shame! It’s always been a lovely little earner without being iffy at all.”

“Are you going to fight with Asherton on this?”

“One doesn’t fight with Asherton, pet. That’s not a good idea. One can state one’s views as firmly as one wants, of course, but if he takes no notice one simply melts away and follows the example of that sensible gentleman in the Bible.”

“Sensible—”

“Pilate, dear. The hand-washer. I’m thinking of washing my hands by resigning as GOLD’s consultant on the occult.”

“But you adore GOLD! You invented it—it’s the jewel in your crown!”

“Yes, dear, but I don’t adore the vice squad and I simply haven’t got where I am by being sentimental. I’ll tell Asherton my business interests are expanding and I no longer have time to give GOLD the attention it needs.”

I suddenly see where this proposal’s going. “Does that mean I can give up recruiting?”

“Yes, but we’ll have to work up to that gradually so that Asherton doesn’t get miffed.”

“But how would you get me off the hook?”

“I’d say you’ve become so successful that it’s silly for you to go on doing piecework.”

My heart gives a great thump of excitement. “You mean I can retire?”

“From piecework, yes. Now that you’re so experienced I’m quite sure you could make big money—even bigger than you make now—as a film star. The other day I was watching that tape you made with what’shis-name, the young Swiss bloke, and I said to Tommy: ‘We could make more money in this field,’ I said, ‘than just running our little export business with these poor-quality tapes.’ With state-of-the-art video cameras it’s easy to make high-quality products, and if I could link up with the right producer to achieve the best marketing opportunities—”

“But why can’t we both just retire and—”

“Always grasp golden opportunities, dear! It’s the key to making lots of money, and we can’t be happy without lots of money, can we? And besides, this would be so different from your present filmed piecework. This is the movie business we’re talking about now! This is
art
!”

The phone rings.

“Hullo?” enquires Elizabeth, taking the call, and then she exclaims: “Oh, it’s you! Talk of the Devil.” Covering up the mouthpiece she says quickly to me: “Asherton, wanting to know how you got on with Mr. Moneybags yesterday.” And she adds to him: “As far as I know there’s nothing new but I haven’t yet heard the details. Let me check.” Turning to me again she murmurs: “I suppose there’s no little crumb of comfort you can give him?”

Zapped by Elizabeth’s porn-film pipe dream, my brain starts to flicker like a faulty light bulb as I once more skim over my options. Should I backtrack on my decision to keep my trump card about Colin’s religious interests up my sleeve till next Tuesday? I could use Asherton’s help here to pressure Elizabeth into letting me go to the opera. Got to go to the opera to trigger Colin’s donation to St. Benet’s. Mustn’t let Elizabeth know I’m keen to go or she’ll smell a rat. But on the other hand I still need my trump card to neutralise the mess I’m in over Gil Tucker. On yet another hand I can probably talk my way out of the Tucker mess without a trump card now that Elizabeth’s forgiven me. No, wait a moment, since I’ve kept quiet so far about Colin’s religious interests I’ve already implied to Elizabeth that there’s nothing to report—and oh my God, I was totally forgetting that the news I have about Colin means he’s of no interest to GOLD anyway—which in turn means Asherton won’t give a shit about whether I go to the opera or not. So no, I must keep on keeping my mouth shut—everything has to wait till Tuesday just as I planned, everything, the opera, the trump card, Gil—I can’t cope with another scenario now, my metaphorical jockstrap’s in such a twist that I’m practically a eunuch.

“What’s the matter?” demands Elizabeth.

Shit, I’ve blown it! Okay, don’t panic, keep calm—

“Ash, I’ll call you back,” says Elizabeth abruptly and hangs up. “All right, dear,” she says to me, “talk. But it’d better be good.”

“Darling, I’m sorry! I just didn’t want to give you bad news last night when you were mad at me about Gilbert Tucker, but the truth is Colin’s a write-off, not GOLD material at all.”

“Why?”

“He’s a strict moralist, hates Christianity and worships science instead—he banged on and on about his passion for truth and his inquiring mind.” I’m on a real knife-edge here as our reconciliation teeters on the brink of the tubes.

Elizabeth stares at me. Then she grabs the phone again and taps out Asherton’s number.

“Ash? You’re in business, dear. Sir Colin’s a seeker with a thoroughly religious temperament and a closed mind about Christianity. What could be more perfect? I’d say he was tailor-made for GOLD . . .”

I’m still pop-eyed when she hangs up, but I freeze in anticipation of a major slap. No need. She just laughs and kisses me. “Silly boy!” she says fondly. “You have trouble spotting the religious temperament, don’t you?”

This is true. I’ve had previous clients who seemed to me to be totally unsuitable yet were pounced on greedily by Asherton. But I really did think that Colin, railing away against religion hard enough to burst a blood vessel, was right out of the GOLD ballpark.

“It’s science he worships!” I protest. “Surely—”

“A very inadequate religion, pet, because it was never designed to be a religion in the first place. The ancient system of religious thought which I’ve adapted for GOLD is far more suitable for a religious seeker . . . Now, go and run my bath for me, would you, there’s a pet, because Asherton’s coming over for a blow-by-blow account and he’s definitely not someone I want to see when I’m wearing only my negligée.”

I stagger to the bathroom in a daze.

Later when I’m dressed I go downstairs and find Elizabeth in the hall with Tommy, her minder, who lives in the basement flat. Long ago when Norah moved into the Pimlico house and wanted to feel safe from all the nasty men who might try to get in, Elizabeth cast around among the locksmiths and selected well-qualified Tommy. Simultaneously, with her talent for spotting potential even among sewer-rats, she saw endless uses for him. They were never lovers, since Tommy has no sexual interest in females, but he still performs some husband-functions. He fixes things that go wrong in the Lambeth house. He washes Elizabeth’s car and waxes it. He mows the little lawn in the back garden. Elizabeth feels he’s a useful sewer-rat to have around.

And he has other functions. He installed and now maintains the hidden cameras at the Austin Friars flat. He edits the marketable videos, and when Elizabeth took her mild-porn, medium-porn and dead raunchy photos of me, it was he who turned them into glossy ten-by-eights. He’s in charge of replicating the videos which are mailed to our subscribers in the Third World. Tommy made some valuable international contacts back in the seventies when he worked for a major firm of locksmiths at various embassies. Foreign workers like to kill their homesickness with heavy doses of the Western porn that’s either banned or hard to get in their own countries.

As I come down the stairs and see him talking to Elizabeth he gives me a wave. “Hi, Gav,” he says casually, but I just grunt. I hate seeing Tommy nowadays. When I first arrived on the scene he was jealous of me for getting so much attention from Elizabeth, but once Elizabeth had instructed me in gay sex to a commercial level she put away her sex aids and ordered Tommy to give me the required hands-on experience. Tommy automatically threw a tantrum but soon decided it would be more fun to do as he was told. Meanwhile I wasn’t arguing—I just wanted to get competent enough to earn a decent living and please Elizabeth, who’d so magically rescued me from the hash I’d made of working for Norah’s escort agency. Tommy and I started practising. I got competent. Can’t say more than that, it was too horrible.