Smut: Stories (12 page)

‘Your hands are very soft for a panel beater.’

‘I apply a protective cream.’

It was all coming back to Graham.

‘You’ve gone up in the world.’

‘You think so?’

‘This place, it’s a gated development. Last time you were just in a flat.’

‘Nothing but the best,’ said Kevin, stroking his belly, ‘only Toby – you set too much store by material possessions.’

Not a panel beater, thought Graham. An interior decorator, maybe.

‘How’s Shirley?’

‘Who?’

‘Shirley,’ said Graham. ‘Your girlfriend. You fuck her on Fridays.’

‘No such person. I couldn’t have anything to do with a girl called Shirley, Friday or any other day of the week. I’m not sure I’d even get it up.’

Graham noted that Gary had exchanged his chain and label for a pair of dog tags.

‘These are new,’ said Graham.

‘Only to you. I like them. They add that whiff of combat. We could be in the Falklands. Or a tent in the Western Desert.’

He was leaning on his left elbow idly tracing a circle round Graham’s navel.

This wasn’t a scenario Graham had much interest in pursuing. He and Betty had once done it in a tent overlooking Nidderdale, and area of outstanding beauty though it was it had not been a success and a vile tea in Pateley Bridge had not redeemed it.

‘I hope you’re being diligent and conscientious in the performance of your marital duties. Is she still getting it twice a night?’

Graham who was not dissatisfied with his record in this department smiled complacently.

‘She know you play for the opposition?’

‘Yes’ would have been the prudent answer.

‘No,’ said Graham. ‘No idea.’

‘Would she mind, do you think?’

‘Of course not,’ said Graham, learning from experience. ‘Not these days.’

‘That’s right, Toby. What’s gender? Spread it around.’

‘Time I was off,’ said Graham.

He reached for his clothes neatly folded on the bedside chair.

‘Don’t fancy a supplementary?’

Graham looked at his watch.

‘Can’t I’m afraid.’

‘She won’t mind. Tell her you were kept late at the bank.’

‘I didn’t say I worked at a bank.’

It’s true he hadn’t, but casting his mind back he couldn’t remember where he’d said he worked. ‘You’re in a bank. I’m a panel beater. That’s how society works. Speaking of which I’m afraid I’m going to have to charge you for this one. Shall we say, £100.’

‘A hundred? Fuck me.’

‘I wish I could say I just had but that’s where you draw the line, Toby, remember?’

‘You’re lucky I’ve got it,’ said Graham, handing over the notes. ‘I don’t carry much cash.’

‘Why should you?’ said Kevin. ‘You work in a bank. Nice car.’

Coming away Graham felt uneasy. Had he said he worked at a bank? Had he said which bank? It was this element of risk that was supposed to give these encounters their edge but this time Graham didn’t like it one bit.

Besides it was expensive. The gates slid open.

Back in the room Kevin was feeding the number of Toby’s new car into his mobile.

FOR THE MOMENT things are looking good for the Forbes family. Graham’s marriage is more satisfactory…and more satisfying…than he could have hoped and he is also making progress at the bank, playing squash with executive clients, sitting in on property deals which, it’s true, he doesn’t always quite understand but which his wife with a few seemingly naive and common-sense questions helps him to sort out without jeopardising her status as ‘the little woman’.

Meanwhile Betty’s internet business thrives. For the moment the question of a baby has been shelved though the actual shelves are still being taken care of by Ted, which is to say Mr Forbes senior.

If there is an absentee from this general felicity it is Graham’s mother. Naturally she sees much less of Graham married than she did him single. Occasionally he has supper at home if Betty is going out to a concert, say…she is a keen music lover…a passion she doesn’t share with her husband (‘I prefer light classical’) but which she has communicated to Graham’s father who sometimes escorts her, thus leaving mother and son to indulge in their old relationship. But however much she enjoys such occasions they also bring home to Mrs Forbes how empty her life has become.

Once upon a time Mrs Forbes had had hopes of the internet, thinking it would serve as a substitute or, as she put it, ‘a hobby’. These hopes, though, have gradually petered out as she has proved persistently incapable of mastering the technology.

‘It’s really quite simple,’ said her teacher, patiently, but since her teacher is her husband he makes sure that essential keys remain unpressed and connections unmade.

‘It’s a man’s game,’ he says kindly, which, bearing in mind the use to which he puts it himself, is quite true, the snake-hipped dusky beauty in Samoa (but who actually lives in Clitheroe) safely sequestered from Mrs Forbes’s questing but untutored fingers.

Kindlier women than Mrs Forbes might have taken some consolation in an expectation of grandchildren but there seemed to be no sign of them and looking in the mirror and smoothing down her plaid skirt over still shapely hips Mrs Forbes doesn’t feel quite old enough for that yet anyway. Instead on these long afternoons she dreams, sometimes rehearsing a scene in which she receives news of her husband’s unexpected death, sinking bonelessly into a handy chair, a handkerchief clutched in one hand the only sign of emotion. Having absorbed the shock but giving no hint of her true feelings (grief something that belonged behind closed doors) she sees herself as rising magnificently to the occasion, drawing on reserves of confidence and courage unsuspected by any of her friends…or indeed by her dead husband. Then, the funeral over (hers a lone figure following the coffin) she takes charge of her life, selling the house and moving into a flat, buying scarves and going to the theatre, life suddenly sunlit, roomy and accommodating.

Upstairs…and on the few occasions he wasn’t round at his daughter-in-law’s…Mr Forbes is finding release in scribbling notes on a saga of torture and rape in Renaissance Italy which he plans to work up on the internet for the benefit of another unseemly friend he has found for himself in Paterson, New Jersey.

People would have said this was a happy marriage, which it sort of was.

Mrs Forbes poured herself another sherry.

HAVING JUST COMPLETED a tour of the bank’s east of England mortgages ripe for repossession Graham was driving through Peterborough when his phone rang.

‘Hi, Toby. It’s Gary. Where are you?’

‘Peterborough.’

‘Peterborough! Some people have all the luck. Having a good time?’

‘No,’ said Graham shortly.

‘Why? It says here it has a Norman cathedral.’

Not being an imminent mortgage risk the cathedral had not figured in Graham’s itinerary. ‘How’s the lady wife?’

‘I can’t hear,’ said Graham. ‘You’re breaking up,’ and he put the phone down.

Somewhere around Newark it rang again.

‘Where are you?’

‘About fifty miles north of where I was before and I’m not sure I like this.’

‘Like what?’

‘You calling me all the time.’

‘All the time? Twice by my calculation. You should be flattered.’

‘Why?’ said Graham. ‘I pay, remember.’

‘That is crude. That is unworthy of you, Toby. A person has feelings.’

‘Anyway,’ said Graham ‘I can’t today. I don’t have any cash on me.’

‘We could make it a freebie.’

Careful about money an offer like this would normally have appealed to Graham but even he could see that acceptance risked turning what was a transaction into a relationship.

‘No. I’ve just found some in another pocket. Where shall I meet you?’

It was dark by the time Graham pulled alongside the waiting Gary in an empty car park, Kevin giving Toby a brief hug before walking him to the side door of a dark, oldish building where he punched in a code and let himself in.

‘Where are you taking me?’ said Graham as they walked down a bleak corridor lined with identical doors. It seemed to be some sort of hostel, the room Gary let them into furnished with the bare essentials…bed, washbasin, locker and with no evidence that it was occupied even by Gary. It was suffocatingly hot.

‘You’ve come down in the world,’ said Graham.

‘This?’ said Kevin mildly as he took his trousers off. ‘No. It’s the workplace.’

‘And what were the other places. The luxury apartment. The house in Roundhay?’

‘They were the workplace too.’

‘What do you do?’ said Graham.

‘I told you. I’m a panel beater.’

Putting his shoes neatly by the side of the bed Graham noted the dust and fluff on the floor. ‘Aren’t you going to lock the door?’ said Graham.

‘What for? There’s nobody else here.’

Some clients might have been turned on by the institutional nature of the surroundings but not Graham.

‘Where are we?’ he said.

‘I’ve told you. Work. Take your shirt off.’

Reflecting that he was the one who was supposed to be calling the tune Graham nevertheless took it off and his pants too. Unsurprisingly it was a less satisfactory session than they had had in the past, at one point even getting acrimonious when Graham drew the line, and quite early on in the proceedings Graham resolved that however keen Gary was this wasn’t going to happen again.

Gary was leaning on his elbow while Graham lay on his back.

‘What are you thinking about?’ said Kevin.

Graham was actually thinking how much, other things being equal, he preferred his safe, cosy marital bed but he had the sense not to say so. He was also wondering how long it had to be before he could decently take his leave. Though before that there was the question of payment.

‘How’s married life?’

‘Fine.’

‘How’s the bank?’

‘The bank is fine.’

Kevin considered.

‘Tell me. Does your mother know you’re gay?’

‘I’m married. That’s all she knows.’

Graham reached for his shirt and started to put his clothes on though Kevin seemed in no hurry to do the same.

‘They’re always supposed to know, mothers.’

‘You don’t know mine.’

‘True,’ said Kevin, ‘but what if she were to find out?’

‘How would she do that? How much do I owe you? Same as last time?’

‘How much do you love your mother?’

Graham stood, money in hand.

‘What sort of a question is that? How much do you love your mother?’

‘My mother knows.’

Graham had had enough of this.

‘Same as before then?’ and he put down some notes.

Kevin looked at them distastefully.

‘Oh, I think we should say more than that. This is your mother, after all.’

‘Oh no,’ said Graham. ‘Oh no,’ and he picked up the money and put it back in his wallet.

‘I’m not having truck with any of that. Any of that and I’ll go straight to the police.’

‘Very sensible,’ said Kevin, hands clasped behind his head. ‘And you wouldn’t have far to go. I am the police. Now, take your clothes off and before we talk business perhaps we could reconsider the proposal I made you earlier.’

Graham had meant it when he had said he would go to the police and an hour later when he had made his escape he considered going straightaway. He then thought he should sleep on it and ideally talk it over with Betty. Sensible though this was it was obviously out of the question and in the event a week or two passed before, steeling himself for the inevitable embarrassment, he took steps to report the culprit.

The police station was unexpectedly civilised, tubs of geraniums on the doorstep with automatic doors sliding open on a bland reception area, a print by Van Gogh on one wall and one by Lowry on another, the ambience saying more about customer satisfaction than it did about law enforcement.

The desk sergeant, a kindly looking figure with white hair, was already dealing with a woman at the counter.

‘I’m just seeing to this client but I shan’t be a moment.’ He indicated the reception area. ‘Take a seat. There’s coffee on the go though you’ve just missed the croissants.’

He turned back to the woman.

‘Now what was he like?’

‘Who?’

‘The gentleman who assaulted you. Did you notice if he was black at all?’

The reassuring atmosphere notwithstanding Graham was still nervous and went in search of the loo.

This, too, turned out to be surprisingly upmarket with distant music that Betty though not Graham would have been able to identify as
The Lark Ascending
.

Then someone had been thoughtful enough to position a bowl of potpourri on the window sill, another touch which, had Graham not been preoccupied, would surely have got a tick.

As he came out the desk sergeant was just finishing with his customer while a woman PC waited to take charge.

‘And shall I put you down for counselling?’

‘What do you think?’

‘It’s good to talk,’ said PC Valerie and took her off down the corridor.

‘We can’t always solve the crime,’ said the sergeant, ‘but at least we can make it easier to bear. Now, sir. Sorry to have kept you waiting. How can we help?’