Heartbreaker (18 page)

CHAPTER TWO

Gavin

In particular, people with “borderline” or antisocial personality disorders, or addictive or impulsive traits . . . [have] a fragmented sense of self and lack of empathy for others, and an egocentric need to gratify their desires or to discharge inner tension . . .

A Time to Heal
A REPORT FOR THE HOUSE OF BISHOPS
ON THE HEALING MINISTRY

The iceberg finally melts. My brand-new career as an undercover fundraiser has ensured I’m no longer filth trading on a connection with Richard Slaney. I’m Richard’s white-knight friend who works for a Christian cause. Eat your heart out, Eric Tucker! I’m on the kind of roll where over-the-hill podgy heaps don’t stand a chance.

“Name the place!” I say to the melting Ms. Catriona Graham when she offers to buy me a glass of champagne.

“The Lord Mayor’s Cat between Cornhill and Lombard Street,” she answers, trying to sound businesslike, but her voice can best be described as dulcet. I like that word. It conjures up images of sexy sirens sipping brandy alexanders in between crooning dirtily into snow-white phones.

“The Lord Mayor’s Cat?” I say amused. “That eighties dump past its sell-by date? I’ll meet you at One-for-the-Money in Angel Court at six-forty-five!” And I blow a kiss into the receiver before hanging up.

I feel like a superstud. Dammit, I
am
a superstud! But no, I’m better than a superstud because I’ve got brains as well as balls—and now, thanks to my brilliant battle plan, I’ve also got Golden Girl undulating on the hook.

But even as I’m freaking out on this genuine non-chemical ecstasy, the phone rings again. This is tricky. Can’t ignore it—she’d only call again later.

Gingerly I pick up the receiver. “Yep?”

“Darling,” she says, “it’s me. I’m calling about next weekend, just as I said I would. Do you know yet whether you’ll be free? I could do either Saturday or Sunday . . .” Moira falters, voice wobbling.

Hell.
“Sweetie, I’d love to see you, but this weekend’s no good.”

“Well, couldn’t we at least talk on the phone?”

“Uh . . . It’s kind of complicated because the woman I live with’s so jealous.”

“You’re sure it’s not a man?”

“You’re doing my head in! You think I don’t know the difference?”

“Oh Gavin darling, please don’t joke about this! Listen, I’m not asking you to ditch her, but—”

But that’s the long-term aim, of course, the plan that’s been evolving in Moira’s head ever since the funeral and that chic fuck which should have been a one-off. I should never have agreed to meet her at Richard’s flat for a second round, I know that now—well, I knew it at the time, but the trouble was that after I decided to play the white-knight fundraiser it seemed to me I had a kind of moral duty to stay close to Moira to see that she made good on Richard’s promise to give twenty thousand quid to St. Benet’s. I mean, I extended the fucklet for the very best of motives, I really did. I just didn’t foresee Moira diving so deeply into a lifestyle where toyboy-on-toast is always dish-of-the-day on the weekend menu.

“I’ll call you next week,” I lie firmly, but to my horror I hear a muffled sob. Shit! How could she play her cards so wrong? I thought she was smart and sophisticated, well able to handle a shag-snack on a no-fuss, no-mess basis, but here she is, behaving like a needy housewife who can’t get enough of the window-cleaner.

“Gotta go, Gorgeous—talk t’ya later,” I mutter at top speed, and hang up just as the buzzer blares. High noon at Austin Friars and never a dull moment.

I sprint to the entryphone to admit Iowa Jerry. I’ve got two American clients at the moment who are called Jerry so I tag them by their home states in order to avoid the leisure-worker’s nightmare, the unprofessional mix-up. They both have short hair, nice suits and capped teeth, but it’s vital to distinguish these two blokes from each other because they like totally different bedroom routines.

Iowa Jerry’s a big bore at the moment because he thinks that the donation to St. Benet’s by his firm’s charity committee means I should be giving him a freebie. I’m currently stringing him along by saying it’ll take a while to work a freebie into my schedule, but the bloody thing is I know I’ve got to give him what he wants in order to shut him up. So far he’s mellow. He’s taken on board the fact that my fundraising has to be top secret—obviously no Christian cause would want to be openly associated with a leisure-worker—and he even enjoyed the cloak-and-dagger business of making sure Richard’s name got mentioned. (My signal to Golden Girl.) But if I refuse him the freebie he could get stroppy and complain to Elizabeth, and then I’d be well and truly up shit creek.

While Iowa Jerry’s being winched up to my flat the phone goes again. Normally with a client almost on my doorstep I’d ignore the bell, but my life’s so complicated at present that I find I have a nervous urge to find out who’s calling. Leaving the front door open for Jerry I sprint back to the phone.

“Hullo?”

“Hey, Mr. Cool, it’s Serena! When do we get to meet up for some more r-&-r?”

Oh my God, it’s Norah’s slag, the one I’m shagging to make Elizabeth think my weekend sex life’s in perfect order! “Serena sweetie, can’t talk now, gotta go, big love—” I slam down the receiver, hoick the cord from the jack and turn to greet my client.

“Jerry!”

“Gavin baby . . .”

The lunch-time shift grinds remorselessly into gear.

By three o’clock I’m exhausted, a state of affairs which makes me worry that I might be getting too stressed out. That’s definitely not what I need in order to perform well. I need a well-regulated life, just as an athlete does, and a nice home where I can find security, peace and a woman who tells me I’m wonderful. I’m a very straightforward bloke really, that’s the truth of it, and I’m not cut out for a life in which my stomach muscles go into spasm every time the phone rings, a life where I’m some kind of double agent, a life where one false move could send me on another trip to Asherton’s Pain-Palace . . .

But it’s best not to think of Asherton.

After my last lunch-time client plods off I’m so knackered I barely have the energy to change the fitted sheet. But I do. I’m not having a nap on soiled cotton polyester. And I wash my mouth out before I collapse. I’m always washing my mouth out to get rid of the taste of condoms and the tang of sweaty skin. Gays hate using condoms for oral numbers, and so many clients try to tell me there’s no risk of AIDS in this kind of sex, but the truth is there
is
a risk, it’s very small but it does exist and I’m taking absolutely no chances. Sorry, guys, but if you want someone who’ll risk all for love, you’ve come to the wrong person.

But my chief worry is that scientists will discover HIV’s present in sweat. Dr. Filth says it’s impossible to catch HIV from sweat, but what does that wanker really know, especially if the virus is clever at mutating?

The trouble is my clients usually like to be kissed somewhere along the line, and it’s difficult to plan satisfactory choreography without any mouth-to-skin contact. And the skin’s usually got sweat on it. Naturally I don’t do mouth-to-mouth, and that’s not just because HIV is blood-borne and my clients are at an age when their gums bleed easily into their saliva—which could then infect any nick in my own mouth, even a nick so tiny that I’m unaware of it. I also don’t do mouth-to-mouth because of all the other stuff you can catch. The other stuff might not be life-threatening but it could still put a dent in my career—even the humble head cold can represent a financial loss, and whenever I get a bug I run straight to the doctor to get it nailed right away.

The last time I did this the doctor hit me with such a shot of antibiotics that I passed out (maybe there was more than antibiotics in the syringe) and when I came to he had his fist . . . no, let’s forget that, it’s too shitty to think about. Where does Elizabeth dredge up all these bloody people from? But it’s wonderful the talent she has for spotting bargains in the human basement. Dr. Filth, for instance, has good qualifications, but Elizabeth knows too much about him—which is why Dr. Filth only charges rock-bottom prices for my regular check-ups and makes sure my blood samples are tested in the best labs.

Having changed the fitted sheet and washed out my mouth I drift into sleep beneath the duvet I keep for naps, but I’ve hardly been snoozing for ten minutes when the phone starts to ring again. I reconnected it after the last client left.

I want to ignore the noise, but the caller’s almost certain to be Elizabeth. Carta, Serena and Moira are all under orders only to call at certain times, and for them three-thirty’s taboo.

Opening the drawer in the bedside table where the extension phone lives out of sight of clients I grab the receiver. “Yeah?”

“Well, take your time!” snaps that bitch Susanne, Ms. Bowling-Ball Breasts of 1992. “I was thinking your last punter had left you tied down to all four bedposts!”

“I was asleep!” I yell, but I’m aware of a soothing wave of relief. Here at last is someone who has no desire to have sex with me, and the reason for the call, though bound to be work-related, is also bound to be trivial. If it was serious Elizabeth would call me herself. “What’s the problem?” I ask, sounding almost chummy.

“Elizabeth wants to check if you’ve ever heard of a man called Gilbert Tucker.”

I feel as if I’m riding a lift and the cable’s just snapped. “Who?”

“Weird name, isn’t it, sounds pervy.
Gilbert Tucker.
Says he’s a friend of yours.”

A voice in my head mutters: oh my God. Swinging my legs off the bed I sit tautly on the edge and grip the phone hard enough to bust it as I muse idly: “Gilbert Tucker. Yeah. Right.”

“Elizabeth wants to know what’s going on. She says you don’t have friends she doesn’t know about.”

“Ah well, this bloke’s not a friend, just an acquaintance.” My imagination finally clicks into gear. “I met him at Richard Slaney’s funeral.”

“You weren’t supposed to chat to people there!”

“Oh, butt out, Barbie-Boobs! Here, let me talk to Elizabeth—”

“She’s not here, and if you call me by that bloody nickname one more time I’ll kick you so hard when I next see you that you’ll wish you were a tranny on the eve of the op! Now listen, pinhead. I have to check this perv Gilbert because he’s calling back at five and we have to make a decision on him—which is why I’m interrupting your snooze. Elizabeth thinks he could be a time-waster because he asked for the cheapest possible slot, and when I told him the price for the wake-up wank—”

“Let me stop you right there,” I interrupt, managing to sound brisk and businesslike in six authoritative syllables. “This has got to be a wind-up. Give me his number and I’ll set him straight.”

“I told you, he’s calling back, wouldn’t leave a number. Why are you so sure it’s a wind-up?”

“He’s a social worker. They never have any money.”

“Oh shit! Okay, no need for you to be involved, we’ll switch him off right here at the main.”

The call ends but I go on sitting on the edge of the bed. The last thing Elizabeth needs to hear is that I met Gilbert Tucker at the house of Carta Graham, fundraiser for St. Benet’s, and later gave him a freebie to compensate for a gay-monster act. I’ve got to get hold of Gil to make sure he keeps his mouth zipped—and what the hell does he think he’s doing anyway, contacting my office? After the freebie he himself admitted he could never afford to pay to see me.

Abandoning all hope of another snooze I go downstairs and dig out the phone book. It only covers Central London so if he lives outside that golden perimeter I won’t find him, but I don’t think he’s the suburban type. After he confessed he was a social worker I asked him which area he covered and he said: “Shoreditch”—which was a plausible enough reply as there’s a fair amount of local authority housing north of the City—but his slight hesitation in replying made me doubt he was a social worker. My guess was that he was a doctor, a professional who had to be careful of his reputation. Or he might have been a lawyer, not the usual City fat-cat but one of the dedicated band who work for peanuts to help the disadvantaged.

I reach the list of Tuckers in the phone book. There aren’t many Gilberts around nowadays, so provided he’s not listed just as “G. Tucker” he should stand out like a beacon—and he does. Or someone does. “Rev. Gilbert Tucker” is listed as living at St. Eadred’s Vicarage, Fleetside, EC4, but of course this can’t be Mr. Pass-for-Straight who has at least two blatantly gay pals.

Or can it?

The Church of England at present is all screaming misogynists and squealing earth mothers as the ordination of women issue comes up for the final debating round in November’s General Synod, the dog-collar parliament. I know this because I read
The Times.
I also know, since I’m in touch through my clients with gay views on topical subjects, that there are a few clergymen who are brave enough not just to come out as gays but to oppose the anti-women lobby because they’re opposed to all forms of discrimination. This seems like an attractively ballsy stance on the one hand, but pretty damned naive on the other. First there’s the outing question: out yourself by all means but don’t expect to win any Brownie points later when you’re pushing your pet cause. I mean, any gay who opts to be a clergyman (and no one’s twisting his arm) is seriously off his trolley if he thinks the huge non-gay majority is ever going to prefer him to a plonker with a wife and two kids.

And second, there’s the women priests question itself: if the gay clergy now support women in the hope that more toleration will come their way, they’ve got their wires crossed, because although the gays’ cause and the women’s cause may look similar, the similarity’s an illusion. Women constitute half the human race, and a woman is a woman is a woman—unless it’s some sort of hermaphrodite or an athlete pumped full of the wrong hormones, but there are medical tests available to determine whether these popsies can still be called female. On the other hand, how on earth do you define what’s gay? There’s no medical test, and although there are lots of theories about what causes homosexuality, no one knows for sure, just as no one knows for sure how many gays there are. How can they be sure when people have such wildly differing ideas about what constitutes a gay? And don’t ask the activists. They’re the last people who’ll give you a straight (excuse the pun) answer.