EQMM, September-October 2009

by Dell Magazine Authors

  I'd survived the first week, formed opinions, and set them in concrete. The pack wanted to know every detail. We were hopelessly nosy like that, all of us. Shamelessly intruding into the “innumerable little lanes and courts” of each others’ minds.

  "The chief executive officer's a professor of organic chemistry,” I told them. “Travels a lot. Kind, fair. And a brilliant scientist."

  The pack “ooh-ed” approval.

  "Then there's Mr. Bloor, the agronomist, who tests everything. A widower. Wears shiny suits that're a bit crumpled. He's writing a scientific paper on weed control in potato crops."

  "Dear old Mr. Bloor,” Vonnie mimicked, through a mouthful of salt ‘n’ vinegar crisps. “Sounds a right bore."

  "He has a military background. Is totally eccentric. And has a passion for counter-espionage."

  The “oohs” racked up several notches.

  "Professor Higgins and Colonel Fancy, double-oh-seven.” Caris was always a wit. “Should keep you out of trouble, Rosie."

  "There's a third. The company sales manager."

  No one spoke for a second or two. “Go on,” urged Bridget, eventually.

  I waited until Vonnie lifted her dry martini to her lips.

  "The Right Dishonorable Algernon Sharpe."

  Several of us wore dry martini after that.

  "How dishonorable, Rosie?” Mitch, man-about-the-pack, considered himself the muscle. He was really flexing.

  "Smarmy, but harmless,” I assured him. “Calls me Flower. First day there he offers me an invitation to take dictation, sitting on his knee."

  "Oohs” turned to “erghs."

  Only Christina's baby-blue eyes flicked to high beam. She was a bit younger than the rest of us. “Whatever did you say to the creep, Rosie?"

  "Said I'd love to, if only my boyfriend didn't insist on carrying a knife."

  Chrissie's head was swiveling. “But, you don't have a steady boyfriend."

  Mitch didn't need a set of diagrams to explain my meaning. “Still employed?"

  I described the glorious IBM with reloadable cassettes. “I'm staying, even if it means stretching my diplomatic skills to the max."

  Within two days, the pack had split. The “brilliant value” hotel immediately lost its shine. The travelers who moved in to replace those who'd left were fresh and green as newly minted coins. Unlike me. I was already on first-name terms with the kebab-sellers in the Lebanese pastry shops fringing Queensway.

  The Kensington bedsit was advertised that Saturday, in one of the travel magazines we Australians swooped on for news from home, sports results, the stuff of life. I'd spent the morning inspecting dingy cupboards advertised as “studios.” Then I saw the ad. By some miracle, I was first cab off the rank. The landlady lived in the basement flat. She was from Queensland, and had worked in London long enough to have developed a Chelsea accent. The tiny room felt right, safe. It was mine as soon as I supplied a couple of reliable character references.

  "Hiya, Rosie?” A familiar face appeared around the door.

  "Hey, Phillip!"

  The landlady did a double take. “You two know each other?"

  She didn't bother checking out the character references. Phillip had a room upstairs. Model tenant. Never a peep. I paid the deposit and two weeks’ rent, collected my keys, and moved in.

  Later that afternoon I walked down the Portobello Road and bought some crocus bulbs and an elderly, sit-up-and-beg bicycle. A busload of Russian tourists took photos as I rode it home, the basket brimming with fen carrots, broccoli, and leeks.

  I capped off a memorable day by bussing in to the half-price ticket booth in Leicester Square.

  There was a busker with a performing dog and budgies on a perch. The dog was some sort of terrier, in a peaked cap and green jumper. He held the perch in his mouth, and the budgies did tricks. Got tickets to The Sound of Music with Petula Clark and June Bronhill.

  The bedsit was clean and white. It had a hand basin, a desk, and a small bookcase for my growing collection of rare and antiquarian books. In pride of place was a tea-stained but treasured copy of Sopwith Scout 7309, an account of life in the Royal Flying Corps. I'd forked out a week's rent on a first edition.

  Now I could cycle to work. I traded the walking boots for low heels. Often I took soup for lunch, in my tartan thermos. The route took me through Kensington Gardens and alongside Rotten Row, to Hyde Park Corner. Trees were flaring every shade of autumn.

  My life began ticking like a well-oiled clock, and soon I had the office running to a comfortable beat. I'd arrive early, sort through the mail and catch up with any filing that needed doing, then work on typing up Mr. Bloor's handwritten scrawl. Bless him.

  A steady pile of spent cartridges began accumulating in my bottom drawer. I wrote the date on each with a permanent marker, a legacy of my training as a journalist, I guess. We'd been well-drilled in the importance of keeping notebooks, meticulously dated, in the event of having to verify the source of a quote or fact. Now I filed cassettes instead. Like a squirrel, hoarding nuts.

  The professor was so absorbed with his chemistry, he didn't appreciate my mundane but necessary office habits. A bit like Mr. Bloor. So wrapped up in his “azines” and “quats,” I could have been doing anything, rattling around at my desk. And poor Mr. Sharpe was too busy leering to take a blind bit of notice of my secretarial splendour.

  "Smashing frock,” he'd say, often with a wolf-whistle chaser. Or: “Sex-x-xy ankles,” if I wore tights with a diamante motif at the ankle. Tragic, really. He'd hit forty hard; a dangerous age for a man.

  His behavior disgusted the gentleman professor and the upstanding Mr. Bloor.

  When the princess we still affectionately called Lady Di turned on the Christmas lights in Regent Street, Phillip phoned his girlfriend, Julia, specially to tell her. My room was right over the stairwell and I couldn't help smiling at his sweetness. Holly was already in berry in Kew Gardens. Another portent of a cold winter, according to my reliable source down Portobello Road.

  The next Monday, I cycled to work with cold clawing at my throat. I'd recovered by the time Algernon Sharpe made one of his grand but increasingly rare entrances. His standard dress was a porkpie hat, tailored suit, and red satin waistcoat. And shiny, patent leather shoes, with pointy toes. I could never work out if he was ahead of the fashion or behind it. He reminded me of a cock robin. All chirp and show.

  "Good MOR-ning!” He side-stepped in, entering stage left, like a vaudevillian. Arms outstretched, doing the shuffle, the whole catastrophe. He held an umbrella in one hand and his briefcase of samples—pure alligator hide—in the other.

  Mr. Bloor simply huffed into the strong black tea, two sugars, I'd just made him. He'd been scribbling since eight, hard at his draft. He was quietly excited because the professor had made “an agronomic breakthrough that would revolutionize management of broadleafs.” Not that I'm at liberty to discuss details. I had, of course, signed a confidentiality agreement.

  My own response to the entrance was a bit out of character. Something I blamed, later, on The Sound of Music.

  "GOOD MOR-NING, MR. SHARPE!” I flung back in my best soprano. June Bronhill would have been chuffed, honestly. It certainly surprised Mr. Sharpe.

  Mr. Bloor said later I was “a real cracker.” I didn't have the heart to tell him that in Australia a “cracker” is a sheep that's past its use-by date. And usually toothless. He'd have been the last person to offend. Working close as we did, Mr. B. and I were starting to meld at the hip. Another loyalty was springing up. I realized later that he felt protective of me, in the same way I felt protective towards Phillip. No funny business, mind. He was old enough to be my father and I'd taken a vow of celibacy in the interests of an uncomplicated life.

  I didn't hold Mr. Sharpe in quite the same esteem. Honestly, he never stopped trying. It was pathetic. Even followed me home, once. The professor was always apologizing for his behavior.

  One didn't have to be Sigmund Freud
to work out that Mr. Bloor despised Mr. Sharpe, too. He began abbreviating his moniker to “Algy,” as if he were a slimy, low-growing plant.

  In return, Mr. Sharpe started openly stating that Mr. Bloor was “bent as a hairpin, and a right nutter with it.” The latter's passion for counter-espionage didn't help. Just that week he'd been on the telephone quoting the cost of a scrambling device for his own.

  My gran would have said Mr. Sharpe had the gift of the gab. He was becoming increasingly late, always with an excuse. Black ice. Mislaid keys. Shocking traffic snarls on the M4.

  I had the honor of delivering these telephone messages, po-faced, to the professor. He'd purse his lips, arch one eyebrow, and steeple his hands, as if he was deep in thought about the molecular structure of a new product.

  It was just before Christmas when the snow really hit.

  ...George down Portobello said yesterday it was cold enough to snow. Last night it did! In the shower upstairs this morning it was as though someone was sitting on the roof tipping soap flakes against the outside window. The street looks like a Christmas card. Walked outside and nearly broke my neck.

  Back at the house that weekend, I was planning to cut across Kensington Gardens to the Royal Albert Hall. Vonnie was coming in for a carol concert. Phillip had declined. He had a new roommate moving in.

  He did the introductions on the landing.

  "Rosie! Meet Harley."

  Harley was swarthy, short, chunky, and bouncing on the balls of small feet which were snug in designer trainers. Like he was warming up for an international athletics event. His hands were thrust into the pockets of a distressed, tan-leather bomber jacket, which I coveted at first sight. His smile was white and straight, like an “after” picture in an orthodontist's waiting room.

  "Ro-sie!” He flung his arms wide and grabbed me in a bear hug, as though we were old friends meeting after some considerable time apart.

  "Harley's rooming with me over the winter,” Phillip said.

  "Great.” I was genuinely pleased as I rubbed the back of my neck. “You'll save heaps, for when Julia gets here."

  I turned to Harley. “Where're you working?"

  He laughed as if I'd recited a particularly killing punch line at The Comedy Theatre.

  "I work for God, Rosie."

  "Great!” I managed. Just. My neck was still spasming. Besides, Harley didn't look humble enough. Designer trainers. Designer teeth. That fabulous jacket.

  Phillip eagerly explained that Harley was a pilot, from Cape Town. He'd given up life as he knew it to answer The Calling. He'd be setting up the “youth arm” of a religious group I'd never heard of.

  "Great,” I heard myself repeat. I issued a vague invitation for coffee sometime later and hurried away to the Royal Albert Hall.

  ...saw a robin in the snow. Kids sledding down a hill near the Round Pond. Roasted chestnuts a disappointment; too floury. The Duchess of Kent (presents Wimbledon trophy) was in the Bach Choir. A dusting of snow as we emerged. Dried hair kneeling in front of the oven, door open...

  Harley caught me next morning.

  I'd popped out to buy the Sunday papers and had left my door ajar. I was only gone a few minutes, but when I got back he was fingering the spines of my old and antiquarian books. Sopwith Scout 7309 lay open on my bed. He'd even put the kettle on, ready for “that coffee you promised."

  "Shouldn't you be in church or something, Harley?"

  "God bless you, Rosie.” His smile was blinding. It lit up my entire personal space. “The world is my church. This room is my church."

  I made him coffee and endured an hour of philosophical debate. Harley had Gran's “gift of the gab” real bad.

  If I hadn't issued another vague promise to let him read my precious first edition at some undisclosed future date, he'd probably still be there.

  After he'd gone, I couldn't even concentrate on the Sunday papers. And that really rankled.

  But it was nothing to how I felt next morning when I found myself alone in the office with Algernon Sharpe. The professor was addressing an agribusiness conference in The Hague. Mr. Bloor had dashed down to Kent due to some sort of crisis with his trial plots.

  With my usual confidant away, I heard myself babbling about Harley and his irritating, forward manner.

  "Scoundrel,” the Right Dishonorable growled sympathetically. Well, it takes one to know one. “Sounds like someone needs to shake him down a peg or two."

  He didn't indulge me long. He had a mound of paperwork for me to move. The firm really extracted its seventeen pounds’ worth of flesh that day. Used up the best part of a cassette, that's how much typing I did.

  I was due to finish at Christmas, mind, so I guess poor Mr. Sharpe only wanted to make use of my services while he could. He could see I was pushed, and said not to bother doing copies, to save time.

  That was not standard office procedure, as I felt obliged to inform him.

  "I think the professor..."

  Mr. Sharpe cut me off by stroking my cheek. “You're not paid to think, Rosie."

  That night, Phillip was on the phone again to Julia. They were moving in different directions, he told her. Greece was off.

  God moved in mysterious ways that week. On Friday, Phillip's yellow ten-speed racer was stolen. He was heading up to his room, then straight down to the police station to report it, when we met on the stairs.

  "It'll be in some motorway car park, on its way to being someone's flipping Christmas present.” His pale face was red and his Adam's apple was bobbing like a Cox's orange pippin in a tub at a fair.

  But he'd calmed remarkably by next morning. On my way to buy the vegetables I asked how he'd fared with the police.

  "Didn't bother,” he said, beatifically. “Harley explained that it was God's will my bike was stolen."

  "Did he, Phillip?” I croaked.

  ...Sprouts have gone up from sixteen pence to thirty pence per pound with the cold snap; carrots from six to twenty pence per pound. Last night I left the window open and someone in the street threw a snowball right into my room!

  Mr. Sharpe phoned to say he was delayed again on my last day before Christmas. I sat dredging up memories of particularly grim funerals, before striding in to the chief.

  "Mr. Sharpe's been delayed. His radiator hose has popped its connections."

  I watched the prof's right eyebrow slowly arc and his fingers start to steeple. “Fourth radiator hose to go in a year,” he said tiredly.

  Poor Mr. Sharpe was too late to join us for a slap-up turkey buffet. So he missed the professor's Christmas surprise.

  "Enjoyed your time with us, Rosie?"

  "Brilliant,” I said.

  "Off to the wilds of Cambridgeshire for the festive season?"

  "My mother's cousin, Prof."

  "And then?"

  "I'll be back in London, temping until May. A few of us are going to hire bikes and cycle around Holland."

  "Excellent!’ He slapped his knee, as though it was all settled. “Then you must come back here."

  I didn't argue. It wasn't every office that had an IBM electric with cassette ribbon and auto-correction facility.

  "Love to,” I said.

  Dear old Mr. Bloor looked like the cat that'd swallowed the canary.

  I gained two kilos in eight very festive days, and when I got back to London all hell had broken loose.

  ...Bridget broke her leg skiing at Bad Gastein and is in hospital in Salzburg. Caris has flown to assist. Job with dogs didn't work out. One bit her and she kicked back...

  Things were little better at the office. I walked in on a screaming row. Someone had been selling off company secrets. It was in all the papers.

  The usually calm professor was going off like a bag of crackers. And the language! Viologens, diquarternary derivatives, sulfates, paraquat, diquat.

  They didn't even notice me slip behind my IBM and pop my soup thermos on the floor with my tote.

  "You're the trials expert, Bloor.” Mr. S
harpe's charm had dissipated somewhat. His accusations were swarming like wasps. “My job's selling the muck."

  "Yes, Algy.” I flinched at how hard he pronounced the “g.” “Seems you've been selling to the wrong side, you grubby little traitor."

  When I eventually cleared my throat, it was as if I'd thrown a bucket of water into a dog fight.

  "Pleasant Christmas, Rosie?” The professor looked on the verge of a stroke.

  "Still here!” Mr. Sharpe didn't look much better. He looked even more surprised than he had that morning when I'd greeted him in my best soprano.

  But Mr. Bloor had puffed like an adder. “We managed to persuade Rosie to stay on."

  "Marvelous.” Mr. Sharpe flashed me a particularly dazzling smile. “Bloody marvelous."

  He left the office shortly afterwards. To buy a “wretched radiator hose,” or so he claimed.

  Mr. Bloor was dreadfully upset about the whole sorry business. “If this mud sticks, I'm finished,” he confided. “I'm an old man, Rosie. Scrap heap for me, if they let me go."

  "They'd never do that,” I assured him. “Bet you've never done anything improper in your life."

  He was still wallowing in misery when I took the morning bits and bobs in to the professor.

  "You might want to see this.” I set a used typewriter cassette on his blotter. It bore a recent date in my unmistakable neat printing.

  With cool efficiency, I picked up his diary and flipped to the appropriate date.

  "Oh look,” I indicated that day's diary entry. “You were addressing a conference in The Hague. Mr. Bloor was down in Kent. Any typing I did must've been for Mr. Sharpe."

  The professor's eyebrows had already arched. But his fingers weren't steepling. They were too busy fiddling with that typewriter cassette. When he pried it open, he'd be able to read what he needed to know.

  By the time Mr. Sharpe got back, his hands covered in engine grease, Prof's spirits had lifted. He invited both gentlemen to lunch at The Savoy.

  Dear old Mr. Bloor sloped out like a dog about to get a bullet.