by Liza Cody
‘The film?’ he croaks.
‘Maybe,’ I say.
‘Maybe?’
‘I never looked,’ I say. ‘There’s stuff I haven’t looked at for years. Life goes on.’
Yours did, he wants to say. You went off with the next brightest star as if Jack never existed. He wants to say that as far as he’s concerned, I am one of the vultures. Oh he really wants to say it. Poor puppy. I smile at him. He’s coming to loathe my sweet smile.
He controls himself. ‘So you might have it somewhere?’
‘Don’t know. Possible.’
‘Where?’
‘Oh there’s stuff all over the place.’
‘Can I look?’ he says.
‘Certainly not,’ I say. ‘Anyway, it’s probably not in England.’
‘Not …?’
‘No. Look, Barry, I’m tired – I’ve been travelling all day. And as I’m only spending one night in London I want to get up early tomorrow. There are people I want to see before I leave.’
‘But you can’t leave,’ he says. ‘Nothing’s settled.’
‘That’s your problem. You’ve been badgering me to come and talk to you. I came and talked. Now I want to go home.’
‘I don’t even know where you live. How can I get in touch?’ He is almost wailing. ‘You haven’t finished dinner yet. You haven’t heard my proposition.’
‘Yes I have – you said “final offer” when you were talking about production fees. And the food’s cold.’ I reach for my handbag. There’s something emblematic about a woman reaching for her bag. It frightens Barry to death.
‘Wait,’ he says. ‘I didn’t mean final final offer. Birdie, sit down, will you, please?’
I sit down again, sideways on the edge of my chair, where he has an intimidating view of my legs and the fuck-off shoes. Long legs, S-M shoes, ready to walk, Barry, out of here or all over you. Your choice.
‘When I said, “final offer”, Birdie, I just meant the programme budget. It’s the programme which has a limited budget, Birdie, I don’t. If that film exists, the sky’s the limit as far as I’m concerned.’
‘Lawd, lawd, lawdie,’ I say. ‘I had no idea …’
‘You could buy a fair few frocks and take a couple of luxury cruises on what I have to offer – if the film exists.’
‘Tempting,’ I say. ‘But I’d have to take a few cruises to find the damn thing first. It could be anywhere. For instance, after Jack died, Mick Jagger lent me an island and I left stuff there. And then I was in LA and I left stuff there too. And, who was it? – I don’t remember – but he had a big house on Paxos, or was it Naxos? I got around. You know that.’
He knows that. Everyone knew about it. The paparazzi chased me all around the world – Birdie in full flight – and told everyone all about everything.
I say, ‘And I’m not going to re-run that trip just to suit you, Barry.’
‘Lent you an island?’ Barry is appalled and impaled, as usual, on a superstar.
‘Don’t you believe me?’ I say. ‘Well, darling, you know all the old faces. Ring him up and ask him to look for your film. Maybe he can afford the time and trouble. I can’t.’
There – message delivered, loud and clear. It reaches Barry and he sits staring at me with embarrassment, greed and social intimidation leaking from his forehead and upper lip. He’s wondering why, after all these years, he still can’t afford me. He should have me over a barrel: I’m an ageing broad and everyone knows they mean less than nothing. He’s offered me biscuit and a little media attention, so I should be licking his hand and wagging my tail. Age should have softened me and made me malleable.
Instead, I walk, I stalk, I shimmy out of Café D’Arte and disappear into the night. Walker by name, walker by nature. I don’t even need a lift.
Except that I did need a lift. My feet hurt. Pride and adrenaline don’t last long these days. I was tired. I took a cab back to the Savoy, ditched the shoes, loosened the zips and straps and lay down with Memphis Slim on my Walkman. Then I rolled a joint and went to bed, hustled out. Risks taken, pitches pitched, nothing to do but wait and see how much Barry wanted to redeem himself in his own eyes. A lot? A little? Not at all?
Part 1
Introductions
‘When the music starts to play, she slides out on the floor, Dancing without a partner …’
Keb’ Mo’
I
First Impressions
When George first met Linnet Walker she seemed to sail through his window like an exotic bird out of a clear blue sky. In fact, it was a grey day and she walked through the door like everyone else. She didn’t perch on the edge of his desk and sing, or preen iridescent feathers – but afterwards, George could never quite lose the impression that she did.
He was not an impressionable man. His partner, Tina Cole, was, if anything, even harder-nosed than he was.
‘CV?’ Tina asked. ‘Did she leave a CV?’
‘She didn’t even apply for the job,’ George said, still bemused. He blinked as if adjusting his eyes back from bright to dim light. ‘I think she just came to look us over.’
‘She wants a job but she thinks we might not be suitable employers?’ Tina said. ‘Bleeding nerve!’
‘She isn’t exactly a school leaver spraying applications all around the neighbourhood,’ George explained. ‘She’s a …’
‘She’s a what?’
But George didn’t answer that one. He polished his glasses and said, ‘How many have we interviewed, Tina? And how many of those can write a simple letter? Spell even halfway correctly? Read a spread sheet? Fill in a client form? Operate this labyrinth of a computer? Is there a single one of them you’d want answering the phone?’
‘This isn’t a straightforward job. We might have to do some in-house training.’
‘What management manual did you find that euphemism in?’ George looked at his colleague with a mixture of affection and exasperation. ‘Do me a favour and explain if by “in-house training” you mean we’ll have to teach some adolescent how to spit out her gum and hide the cigarettes before telling a client to “park his arse”.’
Tina snorted with laughter. ‘Oh, George,’ she said, ‘we have interviewed some lulus.’
‘And we haven’t found one we’d even trust as a receptionist – never mind give access to confidential files. We’re in the security business, for God’s sake. We’re supposed to be secure. And confidential. And tactful. And don’t say, “It’s early days.” It’s been five weeks, and we’re still hanging on by our fingernails without any office help.’
It was nearly eight in the evening. Outside, the traffic was quiet and sleepy. All the other businesses in the street had packed up and gone home except for the Chinese takeaway and the pub, where trade was picking up. The street was in its night-time mode. But Cole-Adler Security still had a lot of catching up to do.
Tina sighed and said, ‘Go home, love. You look shattered, and Fay will have my guts for garters. We’ll sort it out in the morning, you’ll see.’
For once, it was Tina who cast herself in the parental role. Usually George was the one who soothed, sorted and sustained. But methodical, calm George was tired. His comfortable flesh looked almost too heavy for him to carry.
‘Go home,’ Tina said again.
‘You too,’ George said. ‘We’ve both reached the point of diminishing returns.’
He was right. They were both tired of running on the spot, of never getting anything done because of the time wasted answering phones, chasing invoices, buying stamps. Cole-Adler Security needed help. Cole-Adler needed a competent office manager.
On his way home, riding the rickety blind worm called the Misery Line by those who knew it best, George thought about Linnet Walker. She was not the sort of woman you’d want to meet when you’d just dropped your cheese and pickle sandwich into the laser printer. He knew what a man of his age and weight looked like from behind, and he knew that the sight was not improved by bending over t
o scoop mature cheddar out of sensitive electronic equipment while swearing softly and repetitively. But, he reflected sadly, that was exactly what Linnet saw when she walked through the door.
He was expecting to interview a job applicant. He was also expecting a woman who wanted a burglar alarm. He was expecting, too, the accountant for the annual audit. In fact he had triple-booked himself by mistake and it was too late to put it right. Then he’d made matters worse by trying to print out the sheets of incomings and out-goings which the accountant would need.
George was no whizz-kid. Gadgetry mystified him, and it was many, many years since he qualified as a kid. Pen and ink was his technology. Left in charge of the electronic memo system he remembered nothing, triple-booked himself, and fed his lunch to the laser printer.
He heard Linnet come in and, without straightening or turning, he said, ‘Just a minute. Sorry. Bugger. Are you the job, the alarm or the money?’
A soft amused voice answered, ‘Which would you like me to be?’
‘A brain surgeon,’ George said. ‘I think I’m performing a frontal lobotomy on this printer, but I don’t know where to find the front.’
‘Front is my specialty. Let me look at that. My hands are smaller.’
At which point George’s reading glasses slid down his nose and joined the cheese and pickle sandwich. He stood up in despair and allowed an angel to redeem him.
Later, at home, when he tried to describe the incident to Fay, he could only say, ‘God, I hope she takes the job. She’s like an answer to a prayer.’
‘I hope so too,’ Fay said. She was patting moisturiser on to her face, getting ready for bed. ‘You’re exhausted. You shouldn’t be working like this. Not now. What’s she like?’
But George, justly renowned for his careful, police-trained accuracy, couldn’t seem to remember.
‘She’s good with gismos,’ he said. ‘She cleaned the printer and she figured out the bloody computer.’
‘Well, that’s worth a week’s wages,’ Fay said. ‘The way you talk about that machine anyone’d think it was a landmine. What’s she like with people?’
‘Even better.’ George was remembering that when the accountant arrived he had still been flustered and afraid he’d miss the client.
‘I’ll wait for the client,’ Linnet said. ‘Don’t worry.’
And ten minutes later, with the accountant settled in his office, George returned to find that not only was the client happily leafing through brochures but the information the accountant needed was printed up and ready to take through. He felt suddenly that the placidity which was his normal response to life might one day come back to visit him.
‘Maybe she won’t come back,’ George said, climbing wearily into bed. ‘Maybe she took one look at the mess I made of the printer and decided she’d rather scrub toilets.’
But two days later, Linnet did come back for a meeting with Tina.
‘Bloody hell,’ Tina said afterwards, ‘I only just stopped myself chaining her to the desk to prevent her leaving. Has she got a black belt in charm, or what?’
‘See what I mean?’ George said, happy to find out that hard-nosed Tina could be as susceptible to charm in a woman as he was.
‘No CV though,’ Tina said. ‘And only two references. Although I suppose that’s what you’d expect from someone who’s been looking after her mother for the last ten years.’
‘I’ll check the references,’ George said.
‘You won’t,’ Tina said. ‘I will. I don’t trust any man as desperate as you.’
When she rang the first of the referees she found herself talking to a French restaurateur.
‘Linnet?’ he said. ‘Oh you mean Chouette. I always call her Chouette. She is my darling of darlings.’
‘Er yes,’ Tina said, ‘but can you tell me what capacity she was employed in, and how reliable she was?’
‘She saved my life,’ the extravagant voice told her. ‘Without Chouette I would be peeling potatoes still. I would be bankrupt. My friends would be weeping at my graveside …’
When she put the phone down and sorted fact from hyperbole Tina decided that Linnet had been employed as a general business manager. She must have walked into a restaurant with absolutely nothing to recommend it but a talented, flamboyant and hopelessly disorganised chef. She set up a system which allowed it to flourish, and had a pudding called the Bombe Chouette named in her honour.
‘So I asked why she left,’ Tina told George who was grinning from ear to ear. ‘And he said, I quote, “Oh but what more could she do? Ze seestem is fulepruf. She merst fly away.” ’
In the end, it was George’s grin which made up Tina’s mind. She realised she hadn’t seen it for months, and she felt responsible.
He said, ‘For God’s sake, Tina, let’s get Linnet in here and see if she can set up a “fulepruf seestem” for us. I’m tired of being worried to death.’
‘And just hope she doesn’t fly away wiz ze petty cash?’ Tina said. ‘I’ll call this other referee first, if you don’t mind.’
She called and reached a freelance photographer who was equally fulsome in his praise of Linnet.
‘She put him on the map,’ Tina reported back to George. ‘It seems she was exceptionally good at getting him work. Oh, and did you know that she’s “remarkably photogenic”?’
‘And did she fly away with the petty cash?’
‘No,’ Tina admitted. ‘OK, OK, she’s a saint and a genius. But I can’t think of one good reason why a saint and a genius would want to work for us.’
‘Can you think of a good reason why we shouldn’t ask her to?’ George said.
‘I don’t want to pay anyone who’s more photogenic than I am,’ Tina said. ‘Oh go on, George, give her a tug. I know you’re dying to.’
So Linnet Walker came to work for Cole-Adler Security, and George regained his good humour. He went back to being the kindly, placid, methodical George Tina relied on. He even looked younger. If that were the only change she noticed, Tina would have been happy to pay Linnet’s wages. But the change to George came about because of changes in the office.
First, Linnet cajoled the computer into a simpler, more humane attitude towards its owners. She also kept a handwritten diary on the desk to log appointments and calls. This was specifically for George, but Tina found herself preferring it too.
Then she arranged their days for them so that they always had time to talk to each other. She made good use of their time, and she seemed to know by instinct which partner would suit which client and vice versa. The clients responded miraculously by paying up at the first time of asking and practically thanking her for the privilege.
Conversely, the suppliers seemed suddenly to become very lenient about their payments. Cole-Adler no longer had to pay for their hardware up-front or cash-on-delivery. Bills came in a leisurely fashion and at last a balance was struck in the war between income and expenses.
‘I don’t understand it,’ Tina said. ‘Last month these bastards were practically dunning us. Now they’re sending us free samples and purring.’
‘Don’t understand,’ George said. ‘Enjoy and shut up.’
‘It’s her confidence,’ Tina said. ‘Have you heard her on the phone? You’d think she was sweet-talking an industrial giant – but you know it’s only the warehouse foreman so he’ll send us a gross of window locks tomorrow instead of next week. And she seems to know how to talk to everyone from ponce to pauper. As if she’s at home in any bloody situation at all. I wonder how old she is.’
‘Didn’t it say on her CV?’
‘No CV. Remember? Oh well, maybe I’ll ask her.’
But in the end Tina didn’t ask and Linnet’s age remained a mystery. She was clearly a mature woman but she moved quickly and gracefully like a girl. Clothes, however cheap and simple, looked exotic on her. Her vocabulary was racy and up-to-date, but the letters she wrote were models of restrained, educated phrasing.
It’s all contradictory, Tina
thought, but she was busy so she didn’t think about it for long. After the first week she began to relax and think that Linnet could cope with anything and everything. There was no need to watch her or check up on her, so Tina took George’s advice: she shut up and enjoyed.
II
The Sister
My sister was up in the loft, making something from diamonds of coloured silk. Robin is always making something. She always leaves the back door open too. The crazy lady trusts people. No matter how many times she’s been ripped off, she believes in the perfectibility of mankind, the essential goodness of her neighbours. Either that, or she has a memory like a lace condom. She even trusts me.
‘Hey, Robin,’ I said. ‘Leaving the door unlocked is one thing, but leaving your handbag on the kitchen table as well, that’s just asking for it.’
‘Lin!’ She turned, scissors in one hand, swatch of cloth in the other. She dropped everything and came around her work table to give me a big hug.
‘You never said you were coming. You look fantastic. Are you staying? How are you?’
I put my arms around her, feeling the softness of her shoulders, the silky greying hair on my cheek. Life must be so much easier when you give up on your looks.
The warm welcome took us down to the kitchen where she made coffee and offered me home-made chocolate chip cookies. When her kids were small, she used to make chocolate chap cookies for Jimmy and chocolate chick cookies for Grace. She was that sort of mother.
The house is Victorian and it’s the only one in this street which hasn’t been broken up into flats and bedsits. It’s much too big for Robin since her dumb husband left her and the kids went to college. But she won’t move out. Jack bought this house for Mother when Dad died, and Robin would never sell anything which has the slightest connection with Jack.
Robin adored Jack. I mean truly. It made me laugh, because usually she was utterly resistant to my friends and my way of life. Usually, when she met one of my men you could see her thinking, Oh yeah – another flashy talent, another narcissist, all mouth and image but no substance. Robin was into substance. She was always looking for someone I could settle down with. She never accepted that settling down was her thing, not mine.
