Janice Gentle Gets Sexy (9 page)

She dials the familiar number, keeping her eye very firmly on the screen. Just for once Janice intends to assert herself.

*

In her office near Claridge's Sylvia Perth has been giving an idealistic young author a pep-talk. And while the idealistic young author has been upturning her pretty flower-like face to the desk, perching Sylvia has been attempting, with moderate success, to look down the neck of the idealistic young author's blouse.

Sylvia is fifty-four. She has spent most of her working life persuading publishers to publish books enthusiastically, and authors to write them in the same spirit. Sometimes she wondered whether the two kinds even occupied the same planet. But now she represents only one author, Janice Gentle, from whom the pickings have been gratifyingly good. Sylvia Perth feels that she has given up quite enough of the joys of ordinary mortalhood to be compensated in this way. She has given up the possibility of marriage, children, friendships, in pursuit of her career, and she has absolutely no qualms about either her business methods with her author or her attempts to look down the blouse of the young woman opposite. 'I might be a smutty old dyke,' she says with wry amusement to herself, 'but at least my author is pure and honest and squeaky clean.' She rather likes the oppositional comparison and the dot, dot, dottiness of the activity left unsaid. Janice's books have a purity about them which makes Sylvia — who, in many ways, and despite objectively knowing otherwise, views herself as rather soiled - feel better. By this one act of honour in representing Janice she feels she has bought herself many pardons. In other words, though she would never admit it to a living soul, the only thing Sylvia Perth is involved with that feels clean and wholesome and good is Janice Gentle's books. And when she is approached, as she has been rece
ntly
, to take them from their shell of honesty and inject them with a vein or two of gratuitous smut, she takes a warm, righteous pleasure in refusing. Not that sex in literature offends Sylvia Perth, for literature reflects all manner of life, but she is wise enough in the world of books to know that the best of such writing is organic and that you had as well try to attach a dried flower to the glass over a Chardin painting as to put a hot-bed scene in one of Janice's books. Since Janice constantly refers to them as her children, it would be like offering them up for paedophiliac rape. The goose was laying golden eggs. Why on earth risk a change that could seriously lead to dross?

There were other reasons why Sylvia preferred to leave things unchanged — reasons not at all connected with literary integrity, reasons which Sylvia chose not to contemplate and which she kept tucked well away in the darker recesses of her most private mind.

Sylvia sighs. How pretty is the idealistic young author, and what indulgence it is to listen to her tinkling away about whatever it is she
is
tinkling away about. She might be able to do something for her, she supposes, put in a good word somewhere; there was always the possibility of future gratitude. Temptation creeps up Sylvia Perth's spine, but she suppresses it. She has already made one error of judgement at lunch today with a beautiful ash-haired American girl - a cardinal Perthly sin, that was. No, no, she had better stick to just looking on from a distance. She is lucky to have a preference for breasts, for in a male-oriented culture there is never any shortage of
th
em.

The idealistic young author pauses for breath. To be in the presence of a real-life literary agent who seems interested in her work is wonderful. She does not normally smoke but accepts one of Sylvia's strange-looking cigarettes with a flourish of abandon and leans forward for it to be lit.

Sylvia momentarily loses mental equilibrium and asks, 'Are you married?' The idealistic young author looks surprised. Since she was at that point setting out her views on the meaning of meaning, it seemed a substantial non-sequitur. The cigarette gives her a kind of confidence; Sylvia Perth has screwed up her eyes against the smoke and is smiling encouragingly, sleekly.

The idealistic young author also screws up her eyes, though of necessity rather than design, and says, 'Married? I should think not. I'm only twenty-three and I want to express myself through my writing.'

Sylvia puts her hand on her chin and nods sagely. 'Well, quite,' she says.

'It is experience which counts. Every possible, conceivable,
imaginable
experience
...
At the centre of the voyage of literary discovery is oneself.
..'

Sylvia has lost track completely of what is being said. After the words 'imaginable experience' she has given herself up to a wonderful fantasy in which hand-warmed massage oil makes an appearance.

'. . . break new ground, push out the boundaries.'

'Oh yes, yes,' says Sylvia, though in quite another connection.

Good heavens, thinks the idealistic young author, we are getting on well. 'May I come again?'

Sylvia, to whom this phrase has arrived a little early in her fantasy, returns to the real world. She faces a pair of round, dark,
ingenue
eyes and says the first thing that comes to mind. 'You have immense talents.' She looks at the girl's chest.
'Immense.'

'Really?' says the girl, leaning
even further towards the pinken
ing dampness of Sylvia Perth's face.

Sylvia leans towards her and taps the delicious scrubbed rosiness of her cheek with her fingertip as if to say, 'Naughty, naughty
.
..'
They are practically nose to nose when the telephone rings.

It is Janice
Gentle
.

'Yes? What?' she snaps down the phone.

The irritation which subdued itself a
little
as Janice dialled surfaces again at the abrupt snappishness of Sylvia's answer. 'Sylvia, it is Janice.'

Sylvia immediately takes her eyes off the delights before her and concentrates, as much as she can, on her caller. 'Janice, my dear.'

'I wonder if you could come over for tea?'

'Certainly.' Sylvia looks at the pretty flower-like face upturned towards her, rosy and keen. 'When?' The agent flicks open her diary. The idea of dinner is still buzzing about in her head.

Janice's little irritation flares. 'Now. For
tea?
Sylvia understands the signal. Just for once she hesitates. 'Not tomorrow?'

Janice is astonished. She had expected, as ever, instant response. She is ready to do battle for her two-word title. By tomorrow both the impetus for that, and the scones, will be stale.

The little irritation becomes a bonfire. She tears with her teeth at a paper wrapper from a chocolate in the bowl she keeps by the telephone. Sylvia sent them. Sylvia is always very good at sending Janice
little
treats. She sinks her teeth into the centre. It is gritty. It is marzipan. The confectioner's mistake, not Sylvia's. Nevertheless, Janice hates marzipan. It was beneath the icing on her seven-year-old's birthday cake the day that Daddy left. She spits it out. The horrible taste lingers. The vexation grows.

'As a matter of fact, Sylvia,' she says, 'I've got a real problem with the title . . .'

Sylvia tries to bring herself back to the matter in hand. 'Just a moment,' she mouths to the idealistic young author, and to Janice she says, 'Well, dear, you don't really have to worry at this stage, do you? Why don't you just get writing and the title will come later. . .?'

Janice, raw with the series of irritations already, is made more so by the dismissiveness. Sylvia always acts as if it is so
easy.
'Actually,' she says, 'I am so stuck and so fed up and so - well, so
something
that I don't know if I shall ever write again. I may well go into retirement. I think I've had enough of it all. Yes . . . very possibly
...
I have had quite enough. You see I - hallo . . . hallo? Sylvia? Sylvia . . .?'

. . . But Sylvia has put down the phone. Janice has never spoken to her like that before. Janice is benign, bovine, bonded. Sylvia must go, fly, be there.
Now.
What are the twin orbs of sensual delight and fantasies about warm rosemary oil compared with this? No more Janice, no more rosemary oil, anyway.

In complete confusion the idealistic young author reels as the air before her nose is rent by whirling agent, and the scent of Arpege mixed with attar of roses. Like the flying saint of a

Tintoretto, Sylvia Perth exits. As she goes, she says something, but her companion cannot swear to its identity. It may possibly be that she is wishing
her
good luck.

Sylvia picks up her coat. Her heart, once so light, is now heavy. The impassive blonde at the reception desk looks up, smiles, says, 'Goodbye,' in the elegant way she was taught at finishing school and appears to notice nothing unusual, also a skill learned at finishing school. In years to come she will marry someone very rich and very well bred, and when she finds him in the afternoon shrubbery with the nanny she will apply these same skills and take her tea alone.

Sylvia Perth frantically hails a taxi. Her face has darkened to the colour of a plum and there are spots dancing before her eyes. She sinks into the seat. She is deeply afraid.

Janice is feeling contrite and she has put out the scones, jam and cream.

While she has been setting out the repast, Sylvia Perth has been caught up in traffic, and having palpitations. Sylvia is not having an easy menopause and has a tendency to get very warm under stress. She is very warm and very, very stressed at the moment. Eventually exhausting her store of expletives, which were good enough to make the taxi-driver blush, she leaves the cab and sets off on foot. At that precise moment the traffic clears and Sylvia is left standing on the kerb, twitching with fury, flapping her arms, mouthing obscenities and looking like an immaculate bag lady. The palpitations scarcely diminish when she finds another cab, and she sits in it with her chest feeling as if it were bound in steel. Her breathing exercises do not work.

What has happened? What has gone wrong? From where has Janice Gentle suddenly got this new-found streak of resistance? At the very thought of it the pain tightens and only the shallowest of breathing is possible. 'Janice!' she cries. 'Janice! I am coming. Wait for me!'

Janice presses her entry phone and awaits the noise of the click to say Sylvia Perth is inside the building. At least the lift is working today.

She is feeling even more contrite, since two of the scones have now disappeared. Still, Sylvia never eats very much, anyway -though how she can resist it . . . Janice sticks her finger in the cream and then licks it. She waits to hear the whine of the lift and the noise of the doors sliding open. She takes another swift scoop of the cream and she smiles. All her crossness and irritation have melted away and she is looking forward very much to seeing Sylvia's face when she tells her that all is well, that the new baby is on its way, that she is resolute about the title but apart from that she is ready and poised to begin . . .

Come on, she thinks, hurry up or - lick, lick, lick - all the cream will be gone.

But Sylvia Perth never arrives. At least, not in any useful condition. The lift doors slide open, but instead of stepping out, Sylvia Perth rolls out. Purple-lipped, white-faced, in the last twitching spasm of her death throe and on her way to meet that great publisher in the sky.

Her body lies between the lift and the passageway and the doors close and open, close and open, confused by their inability to go on their way. Slide, bang, they go as they hit Sylvia's torso; slide, bang, as they try and try again. And Janice, waiting, lost for a moment in the opening sentence of Red Gold's first words - Tt seems a very long time ago that I was kissed beneath the apple tree on that blossom-scented night. . .' - is disturbed.

The rhythmic thudding from the hallway is disturbing. That Sylvia has not yet rung her doorbell is . . . disturbing. She goes to her apartment door, opens it and looks out. What she sees is also disturbing. Seriously disturbing. What she sees makes her let go of the scone she holds, which falls cream side down (Sod's law yet again) and brings her back from that balmy night in early summer (does apple blossom actually smell? Check this), and she gasps.

The unthinkable has happened. A thing most terrible in its potential effect. Sylvia Perth, agent, financial adviser, friend, counsellor, upright woman of the world and guiding star, is rolling around on the floor and, it appears, stone cold dead.

Janice, first picking up the scone, pads across the passageway

and looks down. The doors go on with their rhythmic dance, using the rolling torso like a punching-bag. Janice kneels and puts a creamy finger on Sylvia Perth's cheek. There is no doubt about it. Even the latest exhortations by
Harper's
or
Vogue,
whose advice Sylvia had valued so much, could never have recommended blue lipstick, parchment cheeks, demonic eyes. And the tongue -how extensive these things are when distended — the tongue, lolling, is red. Too red.