by Freya North
‘Fen,’ James mused.
‘McCabe, short for Fenella, bit of a mouthful,’ said Margot Fitzpatrick-Montague-Laine, ‘we were in the same year at the Courtauld. She was the class swot. Mind you, it gained her the sole double distinction that year.’
James didn’t feel like telling her that he knew exactly who Fen was, that he had just been enthralled by her lecture, by her passion. But he was surprised just how pleased he was to learn her first name. How fortuitous it was that he could contact her. And he was surprised that, suddenly, he felt very hungry again.
‘Think about it,’ Margot said whilst ignoring James, and Adam and Eve, to flip through the documents on her desk, ‘call me.’
TEN
Otter observed Matt trying to settle. He watched him stroke his chin, scrunch his already short scrunched ochre-coloured hair, rummage through sheaves of paper, tap a number on the phone with a pencil but not make the call, take the pencil to his mouth and drum his teeth lightly. With his spectacles now replacing the pencil and hanging off his lips, Matt had his eyes fixed at absolutely nothing going on outside the window. His mind, Otter mused, was not fixed on the job in hand.
He should be thinking about editing that article on Kandinsky and Schönberg? But I rather think he’s thinking about sculpture. But there again, I should be writing the side bars for the Antony Gormley article. And I’m thinking about Jorgen who is twenty-five, Scandinavian and just happened to be listening to the same sculpture lecture at the Tate as I was.
‘How’s the Kandinsky piece shaping up?’ Otter asked Matt, to distract himself from the distraction of the shapely Jorgen. Almost begrudgingly, Matt turned his head, dragging his eyes around, looking slightly baffled. ‘And Schoenberg,’ Otter prompted helpfully. Matt gave him a slow, thoughtful nod backed up by a noncommittal noise from his throat that told Otter that Matt had given the article little attention.
Matt stretched and yawned in a way that was far too considered to be natural. ‘We should ask Fen to write a piece on Fetherstone,’ he said in a tone he was employing to be nonchalant but which was far from it. It was four o’clock and Otter felt ready and entitled to a jolly little gossip about Fen, Jorgen, whomever, but Matt was already walking from the room.
‘To talk articles with Fen,’ Otter said to his computer screen. ‘Go on, lad, ask her out for a drink.’
Matt chastises himself as a soft sod for hovering, even for but a second, outside the door of the Archive. That he can hear her rustling makes him want to ease the door open and observe her unseen. See her on tiptoes wrestling with boxes; see her sitting on the floor, making piles; perhaps standing with her back to one of the shelves, engrossed in some catalogue, or comfortable in her chair, mesmerized by a fan of black-and-white photographs. He doesn’t knock.
She’s sitting on three of the toughened boxes. With her toes turned in. Matt can see down her top.
‘How timely,’ Fen says, who’s had a most productive afternoon and has given little thought to anything but the contents of 1952. ‘Have you ever seen these?’ She offers him a clutch of old photographs. He looks at them and, from his vantage point, he glances down Fen’s top again.
‘It’s my father,’ he says, locking on to her eyes and realizing for the first time that they are blue. ‘Who’s the old chap with the beard?’
‘Matisse!’ Fen all but whispers in deference and excitement.
Matt scrutinizes the photos, sneaks another look at Fen’s breasts. ‘I really enjoyed your lecture,’ he tells her.
She’s blushing! The girl who practically masturbated herself on a stone man – and woman – is blushing.
‘Thanks,’ Fen mumbles, feeling the need to study a Post-it on a box that says ‘Misc’.
Go on, Matt – ask her for a drink after work. Make it casual – a Trust thing; no ulterior motive, a trust thing. Have a little flirt!
‘Maybe you could write a piece on Fetherstone for Art Matters?’ Matt asks.
‘Sure,’ Fen replies briskly, tucking hair neatly behind her ears, back ramrod straight. Archivist. Art historian. Colleague. Art is what matters.
Fen pouted and rested her head on Abi’s shoulder. Abi stroked Fen’s hair, stroked her shoulders, and thought that now was not the time to ask Fen what on earth she was doing wearing her Paul Smith top. Gemma came back from the bar with vodka and Red Bull for each of them.
‘Fen’s sulking,’ Abi said to her, ‘don’t quite know why – here lovey, have a little sippy to help lubricate your vocal chords.’
Fen had more than Abi’s suggested sippy, she practically downed her drink in one. Gemma and Abi regarded her expectantly. ‘First, I go and bloody blush,’ she said.
‘Well,’ Abi started, wondering why the facts should amount to a pout of such proportions. She wasn’t quite sure how to continue so she took a long slug at her drink and filched a fag from Gemma.
‘Then,’ Fen pouts, ‘then I go and get all disappointed that all he wanted was an article from Fen Fen the Fetherstone Fan.’
Gemma and Abi smoke their cigarettes contemplatively.
‘I was primed, ready and willing to say, “Why, I’d love to have a drink with you”,’ Fen said, ‘instead the only sane answer was, “But of course, how many words and when’s the deadline?”.’
‘Yes, but …’ Gemma started. If that had been me, she thought, I’d have suggested discussing word limit over a drink. But it was Fen. And she’s as predictable as I am.
Fen, having finished her drink and having no need for a cigarette (she’d smoked without inhaling as a teenager and inhaled when she was at university, just the once, before throwing up quite spectacularly), was suddenly lucid. ‘No!’ she exclaimed, ‘the point is that I quite wanted him to make a pass.’
‘Cool!’ Abi said. ‘You fancy him.’
‘About time too,’ said Gemma.
‘Could be dangerous,’ Fen muttered.
‘Or the start of something very beautiful,’ Abi jested.
‘A good old flirt is quite good fun,’ Gemma shrugged.
They all nodded. Fen, though, still looked a little perplexed.
‘Another drink?’ she offered, though no answer was needed.
Abi and Gemma spied her at the bar, having a surreptitious look from her left hand to her right. And though this affectation often irritated them, tonight they praised it as they saw that her eyebrows were no longer knitted together in a furrow of discontent. No doubt she’d be ordering doubles all round. A shot for the right hand, a shot for the left.
It’s not just Otter who wants to play a part in bringing Fen and Matt together. And it’s all very well Gemma and Abi encouraging Fen to the hilt. And Jake banging on about the merits of a zipless fuck, the necessity of The Rebound. More fortuitous, though, Fate is set to lend a helping hand too. Just like in the movies. Eyes meeting across a crowded bar and all that.
‘Crown and Goose?’ Jake suggested to the five-a-side team as dusk descended on Regent’s Park. ‘Who’s coming?’
‘Sure,’ Matt said, slightly disgruntled that he was in jogging bottoms and an old rugby shirt while Jake had brought along a change of trousers and a clean top. ‘Are you just vain or merely more organized?’ he asked.
‘I’m always fastidiously prepared for all eventualities,’ Jake countered, slightly irritated that their team-mates were sloping off to wives and partners and a civilized glass of Chardonnay, ‘plus I had lunch with a firm near us so I nipped back home.’ Matt regarded him nervously. Jake smiled and slapped his back. ‘Fear not,’ he assured Matt, ‘there was no bunny boiling on the stove, no messages on the answerphone and the flat was just as we left it.’
‘Three days of silence,’ Matt said. ‘Perhaps she’s genuinely cool about things. Or do you think she’s planning something?’
‘Your wedding?’ Jake glibly suggested. ‘Or your death,’ he tempered, on observing Matt’s horror.
‘Come on,’ Matt said, walking into the Crown and Goose, ‘lager?’
; ‘Actually,’ says Fen, looking imploringly at the barmaid and darkly at Jake, ‘I was next.’
‘Two pints of Carlsberg,’ Jake ordered, momentarily and conveniently deaf; looking squarely at Fen before turning on the charm for the barmaid. Giving Jake an accidentally-on-purpose jab with her elbow and a look of utter distaste, Fen raised her eyebrows at the barmaid in a ‘Men! Pah!’ kind of way, hoping to appeal to her feminist proclivities or sense of conduct at the very least. The barmaid, however, was silently praising God that the softball season had started early and, though it gave her no satisfaction to blank Fen, it gave her much pleasure to serve Jake, even more so because she had pipped Sonia, who’d worked there longer, to the post. Fen started humming Aretha Franklin’s ‘Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves’ but the irony was lost on the barmaid who was engrossed in Jake’s tip and smile; both disproportionate to the service she had provided.
‘Come on come on!’ Abi implored Fen when she returned with what were definitely doubles, ‘more Matt!’
‘Yes,’ said Gemma, ‘details.’
Fen, all of a sudden slightly sloshed, was happy to oblige. ‘I was chuffed that he came to the lecture. I think he was genuinely interested, his father championing Julius and all.’
‘Oh God, not that bloody bloody sculptor,’ Abi cried, swiping her brow as if a mammoth headache had descended.
‘Come on,’ Gemma nudged, ‘vital statistics.’
‘I told you,’ Fen said, ‘he’s tall. Ish. And good-looking. Ish. And blond.’
‘Ish?’ asked Gemma.
‘Well – dark blond. Ish?’
‘Natural?’ asked Abi.
‘I would hope so,’ said Fen primly.
‘God, for an art historian, your powers of description are terrible,’ Abi teased.
‘Just because he’s flesh and blood and not stone or metal doesn’t excuse you from technicolor detail,’ Gemma added.
‘I’ve only been there four days!’ Fen remonstrated. ‘I just quite fancy him. Not specifically for his looks. Or his personality. He just seems …’ she stopped and her jaw dropped.
‘Just?’ Abi prompted.
‘Seems?’ Gemma pressed.
‘Over there,’ Fen said.
Thank God the bar was noisy enough for the ensuing squeaks of delight and giggles of excitement from Fen’s group to go unheard. Thank God the bar was crowded enough to dissipate the heat from three sets of eyes burning into Matt.
‘Oh God,’ Fen cried, ‘what do I do? Smile? Wave? Ignore? Die? Loo? Home?’ Gemma took Fen’s left hand and gave it a quick but tight squeeze. ‘Has he seen me?’ Fen asked. ‘Has he?’
‘Delicious,’ Gemma said, not quite knowing if she should be raising a glass to Matt or his friend.
‘You certainly haven’t done him justice,’ said Abi, ‘you didn’t say about the facial hair.’
‘The other one, the other one!’ Fen said, wishing she could just stare at one spot and keep her eyes from continually flitting over to the boys.
‘I rather like the look of the-other-one-the-other-one,’ Gemma said, ‘I’ve never had a man with a goatee. I quite like them. I rather think they could tickle my fancy – if strategically placed.’
‘I’ve had one,’ Abi declared, ‘very strategically positioned. In fact, it tickled my fancy so much, I had a fit of the giggles and fanny-farted in his face.’
‘Shush!’ Fen pleaded. ‘Stop! Where are you going?’
‘Over there,’ Gemma said.
‘To make our acquaintance,’ Abi said, ‘to see if he passes muster and whether he warrants our seal of approval and, therefore, whether we grant you our go-ahead.’
‘Oh God, he’s seen me. I’m going to the loo,’ said Fen, who didn’t need to go and didn’t know why she wanted to disappear. She went, though, and stood by the sinks for a while trying to compose herself, compose what to say. She was simultaneously excited yet felt a certain timidity too. She was bemused.
Abi and Gemma were also bemused.
‘Shy? Fen?’
‘Why?’
‘That girl has spent far too long persuading herself that art nourishes her every need,’ said Gemma.
‘And she’s spent far too long listening to us bang on about the Inevitable Bastard Element Of All Males,’ said Abi, ‘though it’s a risk she’ll just have to take. I mean, we do, don’t we?’
‘We do,’ Gemma confirmed, ‘and it’s often Fen who picks us up when we’re in pieces.’
‘But we invariably go for the wrong ones,’ Abi rationalized.
‘And Fen doesn’t go for anyone at all,’ Gemma continued, ‘so, though Matt might not be a Wrong One, she probably doesn’t want to find out the hard way. Hence taking the easy route direct to the loo. Or home. Or back to the bronze of a nineteenth-century sculptor’s studio.’
‘Oh blimey,’ Abi sighed, ‘she might so be missing out!’
‘That’s the risk she’d probably rather take,’ Gemma qualified.
‘She won’t let us give her a helping hand,’ Abi mused, ‘so let’s just shove her right in there.’
Gemma regarded Abi, knowing the idea would be fine if it was she whom Abi was setting up, but just slightly concerned that they were meddling too deeply, too fast, for someone like Fen.
‘Feeling brazen?’ Abi asked slyly, eyeing up Jake just as much as he was eyeing her.
‘When am I not?’ Gemma sighed as if it was some great affliction, eyeing up Jake just as much as he was eyeing her.
Oh God, no!
Fen?
Cows!
What’s the problem?
They’re over there – with Matt and that bloke. I’m not prepared.
You can’t map out life like you plan a lecture, you know. See – Matt’s spotted you. He’s raising his glass. He’s grinning. They all are. Just a bunch of people chatting. Go and join them. Go on.
Sometimes, a good cliché is hard to beat. Sometimes, it’s priceless, especially if it is obvious that the person delivering it is doing so quite intentionally. Even more so, if they are doing so because it is quite obvious that they need it as a prop, a shield, without which they wouldn’t quite know what to say. Therefore, Matt’s opening line of ‘Fancy seeing you here’ – though it was met with Jake raising his eyebrows and Abi and Gemma swallowing down a snigger – made Fen grin.
‘Do you come here often then?’ she countered.
Refusing to be out-clichéd, Matt retorted, ‘What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?’
Gemma couldn’t resist, ‘What makes you think that Fen is a nice girl?’ and Fen, who was floundering for a cliché to bat back, didn’t mind this in the least.
Jake murmured to Abi, ‘Can’t really say that nice girls are my bag. I like them naughty.’
‘I’m downright dirty, mate,’ Abi responded, staring at him straight before turning her back on him to give Matt the Spanish Inquisition.
‘What does Abi do?’ Jake asked Gemma.
‘She edits a teenage girls’ magazine,’ Gemma told him. ‘And you?’
‘Advertising,’ Jake said, ‘I’m afraid. You?’
‘I,’ said Gemma, pausing to make sure her lips were parted to great effect and that her eyes had darkened, ‘do most things. But I draw the line at animals.’
Matt and Fen talked mainly about work. But they nattered nineteen to the dozen and were excessively interested in what the other had to say. Even though some would argue that a noisy pub in Camden Town wasn’t quite the venue for a lecture on Fetherstone’s deconstructionist foray 1927–29. Nor was it a convivial setting for Matt’s stories of homesickness at boarding-school from the ages of nine to eleven. But the anonymity of the setting, the background noise, beer and vodka, the unexpectedness of it all, made it seem safe. Fun too.
‘See you in the morning, then,’ said Matt, because last orders had been and gone and the bar staff had stopped begging the punters to leave and were now demanding they do so.
‘Mine’s a cappuccin
o,’ said Fen cheekily, ‘and a pain au chocolat.’
She winked, did Fen McCabe. She even winked. She didn’t even think to marvel at the disappearance of all that previous timidity. But Gemma and Abi did. And they knew it could not be attributed to vodka alone. The girls walked home, Fen swelling with pride and joy as her friends assured her that Matt didn’t just pass muster but scored very highly on their excessively exacting set of standards.
‘Stringless sex?’ Jake tosses casually as he and Matt make their way down Parkway hoping to hail a cab before they reach Camden Town tube station and have to suffer the Northern Line to Angel. ‘Zipless fuck?’ Jake bandies yet detects a momentary discomfort in Matt. ‘Fanbelt Macbeth?’
Matt shrugs. ‘Taxi!’
‘Well, if you don’t, mind if I do?’ Jake hazards, not because he has any designs on Fen, but merely to elicit a response of more satisfying proportions from Matt.
‘Yes, I bloody do!’
Aha! Jake thinks. ‘You couldn’t have stringless sex with her anyway,’ he declares.
‘Why not?’ Matt says defensively.
‘Because she has you nicely knotted up already,’ Jake defines.
‘Sod off,’ says Matt, unnerved by Jake’s perception.
‘It’s true!’ Jake says. ‘So my advice is not to venture to Vanilla McCabe until you’ve had a good poke elsewhere.’ Matt hopes that his expression doesn’t register “why ever not?” but obviously it has. ‘You do need time out,’ Jake defines. ‘You can’t go from one straight into another. It’ll be out of the frying pan into the fire.’ Jake assessed it was time to lighten up. ‘If she’s out of my bounds,’ Jake says, with a change of tone, ‘what about her flatmates then? The raven-headed sultry Gemma; the feisty blonde sprite, Abi?’
‘Be my guest,’ says Matt, relieved to deflect the attention away from himself and Fen. ‘Which one?’
‘Either,’ Jake shrugs, as is his way.
Matt raises his eyebrows.
‘Both,’ Jake shrugs, as is his way.
