by Mavis Cheek
'Can't remember, really. Meat, I suppose.'
'Please,' said Rohanne briskly, 'could we just get back to sex?'
'I could show you,' said Erica thoughtfully. 'I wouldn't mind doing that if we got a decent man. I mean, sometimes I like to imagine I'm doing it in front of a whole crowd of people, anyway. At a theatre or something, and they're cheering me on . . .'
Gretchen O'Dowd went pale. Here was the object of her desire, the princess of all dreams, offering to expose herself quite shamefully. She glared at Janice Gentle, who immediately understood. She put up a plump hand. 'Oh no, dear,' she said to the daisy-faced Erica, 'I couldn't possibly . . .'
'Yes, yes, well, well,' said Rohanne tartly, for Erica had just described one of her own pet fantasies (she favoured Ephesus, surrounded by thousands of happy tourists snapping away with their cameras), and the thought that this von Hyatt person, woman of no abode, destitute, arrant liar, should share such imaginings was distressing. 'I think perhaps the idea of watching some sort of film is best. And it had better be a fairly explicit one - given how little you know. Now, does anyone here know about videos?'
'Oh yes,' said Gretchen O'Dowd. 'I used to watch them all the time. You hire them from shops.'
'Good,' said Rohanne Bulbecker. 'Then you must go and get one.' She fixed Gretchen with a penetrating eye. 'You know the kind of thing we want?'
Gretchen O'Dowd, much relieved that her princess was not to perform, nodded enthusiastically.
'Excellent,' said Rohanne Bulbecker. 'That's all settled, then. Just make sure it's something really explicit.'
And Gretchen left, plucking bravely at her moustache.
'I am suddenly reminded of that bit in Langland - you know it, I'm sure - where the silken-tongued Friar tries to extract money from Lady Meed, she who represents the power of the purse for both good and evil.' Janice looked innocently at Rohanne. 'And because the aristocracy is his likeliest hope for getting funds, he feels bound to justify their exigencies.'
'Ah,' said Rohanne.
'So he says smoothly, "It is a freletee of flessh." A frailty of flesh, which, he says, is found in books. Interesting how seeing anything in print, even five hundred years ago, seems to justify anything. . .'
'Hmm,' said Rohanne Bulbecker, keeping her eyes wide and clear.
'And, Langland goes on to say it is a fact of Nature through which we all get born; if you can survive the slander, then the harm is soon forgotten. It is the easiest absolved of all the Seven . . .'
'What is?' said Erica von Hyatt, confused still. 'Sex,' said Janice Gentle promptly. 'Amen, and let's hope it is relevant to me.'
Rohanne found it immediately necessary to remove herself. She established that there was a video machine, a television, and that the two remaining players in this bizarre intermezzo knew how to work them. Then she made her excuses and left. She was beginning to ponder the disturbing philosophical point, 'Who is the more gross, Janice or me?' and she wished not to do so. She walked. 'Frailty of flesh, indeed!' She shook her head. The leathers felt nasty, sticky, hot. She wanted a bath and she wanted to be on her own for a while. Sometimes it was hard being the fixer; sure, it meant that you held all the controls, but it also meant that no one, ever, could do the fixing for you. Right now she would have liked to lean on someone else for a change, a requirement she knew would pass, for it always did.
The hotel was quiet and soothingly anonymous. She went up to her room and ran a bath and let the scented water caress her. She felt perplexed about something and she was unsure what. As she lay there, observing her toes, wiggling them occasionally, she pondered. And then it occurred to her. She had just been given the run around by a fat, middle-aged virgin, made to bend to her will rather than bend her to her own . . . She sat up and threw the sponge across the room so that it landed with a sadsfying splat against the door. Then she leaned back under the water and laughed. I'll be damned, she thought, I'll be damned.
*
Gretchen O'Dowd was much flustered by the time she found the right sort of shop. It did not look the right sort of shop, having the latest Michael Douglas on one side of its window display and a newly cut version of Dumbo on the other. Nevertheless, this was, according to the taxi-driver, exactly the place. It was Erica who had suggested that a taxi-driver would know where to obtain the kind of movie they needed, and it was a taxi-driver, indeed, who had tapped the side of his nose and said, 'Say no more,' when bringing her here. She smoothed her moustache with damp fingers, squared her shoulders, took a very deep breath, which enhanced the solidity of her substantial chest, and shuffled in shyly.
'I want a video for a friend,' she said.
The man behind the counter looked knowing. 'They all say that, dear,' he winked. 'And what sort of thing is your friend interested in?'
'Sex,' said Gretchen boldly. And then she went scarlet. The man recognized the need for delicacy. 'What.. . er. . . kind?' Gretchen remembered. 'Explicit,' she said. 'Very explicit.' The man looked irritated. 'They are all that,' he said. Gretchen looked behind her at Dumbo. 'Are they?' she said. He followed her gaze. The little big-eared elephant stared back innocently. 'But not animals?' he said jovially. Gretchen shook her head. 'For a friend you say?' Gretchen nodded. 'A close friend?'
Gretchen shrugged unhappily. 'Well, she may be one day.' He raised a finger. 'And no particular interests?' 'I don't think so.'
He rubbed his hands. 'Then I have just the thing for you.'
Gretchen tucked the brown package into her jacket breast and hurried back to Dog Street. 'Sorry I've been so long,' she said.
'That's all right. We've been talking,' said Erica von Hyatt proudly. 'Or, rather, I've been talking. Janice has been listening. And writing.' Janice Gentle put down her notebook and took the proffered parcel. 'Thank you,' she said and stared at its plain wrapping.
'He said it was just the job,' Gretchen muttered. She set up the machine and then, taking Erica von Hyatt by the hand, she led her to the door. 'Erica,' she said firmly, 'you and I are going out.'
'Oh, why?'
'Because. . .'
'Because what?'
'Because I don't want you getting corrupted.' Erica's laughter echoed up the stairs.
Janice smiled at the sound. Then, before pushing the switch, she picked up the empty case, considered the picture on the cover for some time, shrugged, put it down, polished her glasses, took up her notebook, and waited for the show to commence.
Rohanne had changed into a skirt and shirt, twisted up her pale, damp hair and scrubbed her face clean of the day and clean of cosmetics. It gave her a nice sense of innocence.
Back at Dog Street, she tiptoed in to find Janice sitting alone and thoughtful. 'Gretchen has returned the film,' she said.
'Good, good. How did it go?'
Janice smiled.'Quite well, I think. I learned quite a lot about the art of love.' She smiled. 'And it all fits in rather well with this particular story.'
'Excellent,' said Rohanne, and she hurried off to the tiny little kitchen. 'How about a cream cake?' she called. 'As a reward for effort?' And she returned with a plate piled high with Harrods' best. She held this out, and Janice was just doing 'eeny meeny miny mo', when Rohanne asked, 'Now, when do you think we can have the book? Mr Pfeiffer will need to know a deadline.'
'Oh, not long at all’ said Janice. 'I know exactly what I'm going to write' - her outstretched fingers prepared to descend upon a strawberry tartlet - 'and you can have the manuscript just as soon as I have found Dermot Poll.'
The strawberry tartlet was whisked from under her grasp. She looked up inquiringly.
Rohanne's smile resembled a death mask, and for a moment she distinctly heard Sylvia Perth laughing in her ear. 'What?' she said.
'Well’ said Janice Gentle evenly, 'it seems safest. Given the way I have been tricked in the past.'
Yes, distinctly, Rohanne Bulbecker heard Sylvia Perth cackling away. She took several very deep breaths. Keep smiling, she told herself. Keep smiling. And
still she held the cakes out of reach. 'Couldn't we have the manuscript, anyway?' she asked. 'And then find this . . . er . . . Poll man?'
Janice shook her head. 'I think not,' she said. 'Once bitten, you know.' She looked yearningly at the plate.
Rohanne nodded. She understood completely. No doughbag at all. No Dermot Poll, no book. She kept the cakes hovering just out of reach.
'Otherwise there is really no point.' Janice blinked up at her. 'Is there?'
When Gretchen O'Dowd and Erica von Hyatt returned, they found the interesting tableau of Janice, Rohanne and the cakes. 'I'll bet I know exactly where he is,' said Erica. 'Oh?' said Janice. 'Where?' said Rohanne.
'He'll be in Skibbereen, where he first came from. You can bet on it.'
'But what about Charlie Chaplin?' said Janice, which was ignored.
'I'll find Dermot Poll for you,' said Erica very positively, 'while you get on with your book.'
'We,' said Gretchen, 'will find Dermot Poll for you . . .' She looked at Erica. 'I shall never let you out of my sight again. And I will follow you to the ends of the earth.'
*Well, for the time being,' said Erica, looking a little hunted. 'And it's only to Ireland. One day at a time, you know. One day at a time.'
'And when we return, I shall find us a little house all of our own,' rhapsodized Gretchen, 'where we will live happily after . . .' Erica von Hyatt said nothing, just smiled. She had heard it all before.
Chapter Nineteen
I
N Oxfordshire Gretchen bought wool at the little haberdashery. She would knit them each a jumper. Their trip to Ireland would take place in the depths of winter and she did not want her fragile beloved to catch cold. As usual, the woman in the wool shop was very nervous at selling what she considered to be the mysteries of female accoutrement to this man who seemed not to find them a mystery at all. Macrame, tapestry, tatting - he had mastered them all, and now he was going through the pattern books as if it were the most natural thing in the world. It was no consolation to know that the Archbishop of Canterbury also enjoyed working with wool, for he had a very high voice and she had always had her suspicions. As usual, the woman in the haberdasher's was jolly relieved when the choice was made, the money paid and her customer departed. Gretchen left with a cheery bounce, elated by the singing blue and sturdy brown she had chosen for their respective jumpers, and the fact that she had the whole of the autumn ahead with her loved one in the Queen Anne house. Rent-free, which was better than nothing, though it should by rights have been hers. As she passed the pub, the barmaid, breasting a window-ledge, leaned out and waved. Gretchen walked on with no more than the slightest response of recognition. That sort of thing was all in the past now. Once again she had someone of her own to cleave to and care for.
As she crunched down the gravel of the drive, she saw the faerie figure of Erica von Hyatt gathering blooms until she was all but hidden by them. There was a distinctly surreptitious quality about the way the girl garnered the flowers, a constant looking over her shoulder, a nervousness, despite Gretchen's telling her that she was welcome to pick as many as she wanted. Now the house was full of blossoms, scattered around in vases and bowls, looking dumped and forlorn.
She waved. The human wall of blooms attempted to wave back. Fronds of gladioli and chrysanthemums parted to reveal that delighted, adorable smile. Suddenly Gretchen knew exactly what to do. She would teach Erica the skills her own mother had taught her. Erica would not only pick the flowers and garner the fruits, but she would learn how to display them beautifully, too. Gretchen sighed with satisfaction and gave her moustache a loving little tickle with her fingers. What could be more companionable than that?
*
The Little Blonde Secretary was feeling very put out. She had assumed that the decision was as good as the deed, and yet here she was again, checking the calendar, checking the temperature chart and preparing for yet another attempt at Making it Happen. The Vent-Axia was whining irritatingly as she bent over the basin to wash her hair, but she had put the issue to one side for the moment. A harmonious body makes a harmonious child, she had been advised, so altercations over something so trivial (and which could be removed - and would be once she was safely pregnant) were counter-productive. Instead, she thought sweet thoughts and continued with her toilette. Derek was hardly what you would call ardent any more, and she found it extremely irritating to have to make the running all the time. If he had once tried to surprise her with something like roses or bath salts, it would have made things a bit more romantic, but he didn't seem to understand. She had even read him out the closing passage from Scarlet Ice where the hero comes back to the heroine and produces a filmy red nightie wrapped in black tissue-paper, but when she shut the book and sighed meaningfully, he was already asleep.
She rinsed her hair with scented lotion and thought of one day having a sweet little girl, in her own image, holding her hand in the supermarket and being complimented by everyone in the queue. She began pinning careful little curls and dangly bits all over her head - something that the magazine article said held an enticing hint of danger about it. Her little girl would never have a runny nose or grazed knees, nor howl for chocolate buttons and throw tantrums on the floor. She would leave the likes of that to the lump in Reception, with her stodgy smile and her tight jumpers that showed every line of the growing bulge. When she, Little Blonde Secretary, got pregnant she would show her how to do it attractively. At least nobody - except Derek - knew how long they had been trying . . .
In the lounge she reorganized the growing pile of books and magazines on the subject into proper order. The ones about getting pregnant, the ones about being pregnant, the what-hospital guides and the parentcraft guides. She had built up quite a library and there wasn't a lot left to know. All that was required was the one essential; she fervently hoped that tonight would do it. She had rung Derek at work to remind him to be here promptly, and something told her - she hummed as she dotted Loulou behind each ear - that tonight really would be the night. She hoped so, because with that out of the way she could concentrate on the conference in Birmingham next month. The Boss Masculine was very keen and she wanted to be at her efficient best. Organized, she liked to be organized. And with that she began to concentrate on thinking nice thoughts. Not long now until he got home, unless the five-fifty-two was delayed for some reason . . .
In the bedroom she slipped a Barry Manilow moody-music cassette into the machine and practised turning it on at exactly the right place. Derek's lateness was most likely due to travel problems, London was chock-a-block nowadays, but she refused to get wound up about the progress of the clock. He would be here, in good time, because she had told him it was an important night. He had said, 'What, another one?' Which had made it quite hard to keep her smile down the telephone. But keep it she did, just.
She slipped into her filmy new nightie dangerously filmy, the assistant had said), clipped on her ear-rings, wriggled her little painted toes into her boudoir slippers, and went down to the kitchen to wait. While she waited, she pottered, washing the vases, which she liked to do by hand, being careful to wear her yellow rubber gloves. The clock continued to try to make her feel cross, but she would have none of it. After the vases she washed the inside of the drainer cupboard. And after that she began on the windows. She hummed and underlying the hum was the consoling thought that he could bloody well have a sandwich when it was all over, and not the very nice fish pie and peas that were ready for heating up.
Derek slapped Ken's back, missed and, since Ken was not insubstantially built, took this as a sign that he had drunk enough
perhaps even too much. He decided not to look at his watch so that he could honestly say he had lost track of the time. He had told Ken all about the high heels and skimpy underwear and the Asti Spumante that - he had dared to say it after pint number two
caused him nothing but dread. After pint number four he had even dared to go further and confess that he often found the whole thing
quite deflating, making it sometimes - well, difficult to perform. And after pint number six he had told him, shakily, that sometimes he didn't — not at all. Just grunted and pretended. Ken was unable to make out much of this last speech, but he felt he had the gist. He slapped Derek firmly on the back and told him he should look on the bright side. At least he was getting it now and then, wasn't he? Not like most husbands. Enjoy it, Ken urged, it'll be over soon enough.
When he got home he opened the front door with difficulty and had a sense of foreboding that was not entirely to do with the odd slooshing sensation in the pit of his stomach. He looked up, focused, and saw his wife. She was smiling at him, or at least her mouth was, and she looked - he blinked - she looked - well, frightening. The light of the kitchen behind her showed the outline of her perfect little body beneath the nylon stuff that draped it.
Her dainty little feet were encased in what appeared to be bits of fluff, and her face glowed like a film star's beneath a powder puff of blonde curls that looked as if they had exploded. But all that, disturbing as it was at whatever time of night, was nothing compared with the final embellishment, the ultimate horror, the last thing he noticed before sinking to the floor and into thankful oblivion - she was wearing a pair of bright yellow plastic gloves, and he could not, would not, bring himself to imagine what she might do to him with them . . .
It was, as she later reflected, a good job she had other fish to fry in her life. At least the conference was coming up soon and that would take her mind off things. Derek would have quite a lot of time to reflect on his naughty ways, and she spent several nights staying with her mother just to be sure.
The Boss Masculine let her cry on his shoulder for most of the rail journey. There was something really very pleasant about having such a pretty little thing so vulnerably in need. His wife was vulnerably in need, but she was neither young nor little. And, so far as he could make out between the sobs and the story, there was another vital difference: his wife cried at the very existence of sex, the Little Secretary was crying at the lack of it. Of the two he knew where his own sympathies lay. He resisted going into the buffet to fight a cigarette, and put his arm around her small shoulders instead. Even when she cried, she looked pretty.
