Janice Gentle Gets Sexy (45 page)

'I did.' She smiled. Suddenly she felt as old as the universe itself. She smiled again. 'And you are Morgan Pfeiffer, the man who is going to publish it.'

'I am?'

'Why, yes.' She blinked her pale eyes, round and distant in their unfocused mistiness. 'Of course. It is very simple. You wanted me to write you a book. And I have done.' She pointed with her plump finger again, a finger that looked infinitely suckable to Morgan Pfeiffer. He could almost imagine its cushiony flesh pressing on his tongue.
'Ecce
liber:
she said, 'as Christine de Pisan told her queen some six hundred or so years before, and on this very saint's night, too. Behold my book. With which I
honour
you.
Fidem
servare,
Mr Pfeiffer,
fidem
servare
:

He thought about the marketing department. He thought about the Moral Majority. He felt he had commissioned a swimming-pool and been given the unbiddable sea.

'You were magnificent,' he said. He moved a little closer. He touched her hand, lig
htly
and fleetingly, to be sure she was flesh. She
was
flesh. 'Miss Gentle?'

'Mr Pfeiffer?'

'I don't suppose . . .' - he held up his forefinger and thumb to

indicate a tiny mote - 'I don't suppose you could see your way to changing a
fraction
of it?'

'Not one whit, sir,' she said, and shook her head. Her full, white neck shivered as she did so. 'Mr Pfeiffer
...'
she said, sniffing the air, drawing even nearer. She was sure, she was positive, that she could smell chocolate and Turkish delight - with perhaps, just perhaps, an underscent of jelly babies. 'Do you happen to have anything of a
sweet
nature upon you?'

And he, with the delight of one who has waited too long, withdrew from his pocket a handful of sugared almonds. In another pocket he had a heart-shaped box of chocolates and jelly babies, but he would save those for later.

'Oh,' said Janice
Gentle
lasciviously. 'Oh oh oh.'

He held them out, then withdrew them slightly. 'Not even one very small fraction of it?'

'Oh no,' said Janice. 'Not one particle.' She took a sugared almond, placed it on her tongue, smiled up at him with pleasure.

Morgan Pfeiffer knew that he was sunk.

Above them someone gave a satisfied sigh. In the firmament, Christine de Pisan relaxed back into her couch of clouds. Never underestimate, she wrote, the value of both the strength and the weakness of women. Here was her sister scrivener, susceptible to sweetmeats, rock-like in conviction, ready to be loved. The Perfect Triumvirate, the Golden Ideal. Well - she yawned, feeling pleased - she had never really doubted the outcome. So now she could go back to her real task in hand, which was, as always, to defend women against defilement of their essential qualities, which, sad to say, still seemed to occur .
..
She had learned a new phrase in her heaven that day, from a new arrival, a Ms Sylvia Perth. 'Sleeping with the enemy,' this woman had said and had got very hot under the stomacher (or whatever they called those garments nowadays) about it. Christine had listened, as one should, and then used one of the words she had come to learn and love just rece
ntly
. 'Bullshit,' she said.

The woman, who had expected her companion to say, at the very worst,
'Non
Blast
ange!
'
was surprised into silence.

'Bullshit?' said the young woman eventually.

'But you might prefer "Cowshi
t"?' asked the unblinking Christi
ne. 'Hmm?'

'But why?' said the woman, who chose to ignore the suggestion.

'Because sleeping with the enemy is a no more substantial notion than the dew drying in April sun. The enemy is first within ourselves. It is ourselves who must stand firm. After all,' she said finally, 'I have seen little change down the centuries. No, no. Go for love, my dear. Love, after all, is truth.'

Reminiscing now, Christine de Pisan smiled. The newcomer would change in time. There was nothing like living in an atmosphere of absolute equality to purify belief. We are, after all, but one flesh. Get that under your girdle, she thought, as she swished off to Mr Ibsen's eyrie, and you are free to explore much more interesting paths. Christine herself was almost up to date — only the twentieth century left to go. And then what? she wondered. What then? Another form of looking-glass to distil the age?

*

Rohanne Bulbecker was asleep when the truck reached its destination. The driver let her rest while he sat having a smoke, safe and warm in his
little
cab, looking out on to the seething darkness. He could just make out the ramshackle public house. He had always thought of it as a quiet place, but tonight it took on the activity of a shaken ants' nest. First had come a wild man running down the path, over the fields, shirt-tails flapping, hand to his head, going as if the banshee itself were after him. He was followed through the broken gate by a large man in a pale coat who called and hollered and raised a murderous arm. But the fugitive ran on, away to the sea. Then came two others, walking slowly, deep in conversation, seemingly indifferent to the winds that whipped about them. He watched them disappear into the darkness, and then climbed out of his cab, stretched himself, and shook the sleeper awake.

'Journey's end,' he said.

Rohanne Bulbecker got down from the truck and looked about her. It was as if she had reached the edge of the earth, empty of everything but the roseate light from the pub. The storm was dying, and the clouds, moving on, left behind them tranquillity and starlight. In the distance another bank of clouds rose up, slow-paced, ready to cover the firmament, but for a time there was the moon to guide her. She breathed deep and, whispering to herself
Vous
ou
Mort
for courage she did not feel, walked up to the half-open door. She would defend Janice Gentle to the uttermost. From now on Janice Gentle would be hers.

In the warm light of the room she saw the writer and the publisher in apparently harmonious debate. Janice looked up, her face smiling with surprise, her eyes alight.

'Rohanne, my dear.' Janice extended her hand. 'Are you, too, here to berate me for what I have written?'

'Certainly not,' said Rohanne. 'I have come to defend you.'

'There is no need,' said Janice simply. 'I have defended myself.' She took Rohanne's hand. 'Did you like my
magnum
opus?

'Like it?' said Rohanne. 'Like it? Mr Pfeiffer, if you have any principles, you will publish and be damned.'

Morgan P. Pfeiffer looked at Rohanne. It "was not the look she expected. It was an acquiescent look, the look of a conquered man.

'Oh,' said Rohanne Bulbecker, setting aside her shield of faith, which was, apparently, not required. 'You are?' 'I am,' said Morgan Pfeiffer.

'Have a chocolate,' said Janice, offering the heart-shaped box. 'Everything is going to be perfectly all right now.' She smiled a little wicked smile. 'Just like in my books.'

Rohanne took a chocolate. Outside snow had begun to fall, covering the land in a blanket of purity. 'Well,
what do you know?' she said, biti
ng into the rich, dark sweetness.

*

Erica stood looking out to sea. The snow fell in soft white lumps that melted in the churning water. She felt very small and very ordinary despite the fact that a whole book had been written about her.

'I am not anybody's princess,' she called to the waves. 'And I am glad of it.' She laughed and threw a pebble into the sea. Her eyes, screwed up against the cold spray, were mischievous. They had all believed that bit about the dog - every one of them. She thumbed her nose at the waves. As if she
would.
You had to make
some
things up now and again, didn't you? Otherwise it would all be so dull. And, anyway, it only went to prove that you couldn't believe
everything
that was written in books.

She wondered if one day Dawn would read it, and if so, what she would make of the tale. A tear joined the foaming sea. Well, at least she would never know it was her own mother who had professed to having eaten dog. Janice said Dawn might trace her one day if she left word of her address with the authorities. Another tear fell, plop. What address? Care of third cardboard box, South Bank? It was even more impermanent now they had started recycling the stuff. Quality cardboard was not what it used to be. Nowadays it just fell apart. Ah well. That was life. They were saving the planet, but who for and why?

She turned to follow Gretchen O'Dowd's footprints back towards the pub. She could murder a cup of tea. Bugger the drinking, she thought, and never again. Free once more, Erica, she told herself. Free again.

Her foot hit something soft. She looked down, screwing her eyes against the darkness. Dermot Poll lay on the wet sand, in the purpling dawn. He looked very peaceful, with snowflakes covering his nose, quite at rest, not moving at all.

'A terrible night,' said the officer who took charge. 'Did he often go walking like this?'

Deirdre buried her head in Gretchen's shoulder.

'He liked to go out and sing in all weathers, officer,' said Janice Gentle, replacing the covers as she knelt on the sand. 'This was not the first time.'

Th
e officer looked down at the moti
onless tea towels and sighed respectfully. 'Maybe not,' he said softly, 'but it'll be his last.'

Chapter the Penultimate And a tying of ends. . .

J
anice
lay in an almond
-scented bath in the sugar-pink
bathroom of Morgan Pfeiffer's suite. Outside the door, Morgan
Pfeiffer
paced, listened, paced some more. He looked hungrily at the ruffled bed
. He wanted to keep her in beauti
ful surroundings with silken sheets the colour of apricot jam (Janice had specified this) and walls the colour of pistachio and mint. He wanted her there, always, ready to entertain him, to fill up his gaps — available, loving, eating, grateful, existing solely for him. He wanted her seated at a table full of good things, smiling benignly on his guests as she played queen to his king, and later, when alone, he would wrap his arms around her melting extensive-ness and sleep the sleep of a couple's harmony. He heard the water running away and the sound of his lady singing as she made herself ready. He put his ear to the door, for she was singing very low.

'I have a gentil cock

Croweth me day;

He doth me risen early

My matins for to say.

'I have a gentil cock

Comen he is of great;

His comb is of red coral

His tail is of jet.

'I have a gentil cock

Comen he is of kind;

His comb is of red coral

His tail is of inde.

'His legs be of azure

So gentil and so small;

His spurs are of silver white

Into the wortewale.

'His eyes are of crystal

Locken all in amber

And every night he percheth him

In my lady's chamber.'

Impatience made him peevish. Songs about poultry at a time like this?

Janice gave her powdered flanks one last pat.

Morgan Pfeiffer, ear pressed to the door, closed his eyes in anticipation. 'What are you singing?' he called.

Janice smiled and came out of the bathroom in a vapour of scented steam, padding through the doorway, a sweet, damp-scented serving of comely melting flesh. Morgan Pfeiffer licked his lips. He was ready to adore. She smiled more wickedly. 'Just a
little
Middle English rebus,' she said, 'that I had forgotten I ever knew
..
.'

He embraced her and she was like the sweetest fruit on earth.

'So much more vigorous than those shallow, affected Elizabethans, don't you think?' The warmth of his naked skin was pleasing. Instinct told her this was no time to discuss medieval riddles. 'Proserpina, indeed,' she muttered. 'Who needs
her?’

He had no idea what a Middle English rebus might be, nor Proserpina, nor why the strange song pleased her. But he thought she would probably teach him in time. He just hoped that Mrs Pfeiffer, deceased, would understand why her commemorative imprint was publishing the sort of thing she would have found offensive. 'Forgive me, Belinda,' he murmured into Janice's soft neck, 'but I have to.' And, after all, he had been very good about the cigars. Never lit one
once
before noon. 'A man cannot mourn for ever,' he murmured, as he led Janice Gentle to the apricot ruffling.