The Pink and the Grey (29 page)

She turned on her heels and looked back teasingly towards him.

“Follow me,” she said. “You’ll have to squeeze yourself in the back way, honey.”

We watched him waddle after her, a sheen of damp already upon his forehead. The rear entrance to St Paul’s was dedicated to deliveries and maintenance, and not for daily use by the student population. Vehicles approached cautiously through the jungle of the bus terminal and waved the appropriate device or signal to cause the wide gate to unlock and swing open and beckon them through. The gate led to a small unloading bay cut into the north-easternmost corner of New Court, where it merged with Top as seamlessly as Arthur’s poor hairpiece.

The glamorous Cody and her heels, pursued by Geoff, took the Christ’s Lane path around to the back gate. The Archivist and his elves switched cameras to view their progress. Cody always kept two or three lengthy paces ahead of the editor, glancing back to chivvy him along like a recalcitrant child.

I learned that the back gate had been configured to accept what must have been a recently manufactured college ID card in the name of Cody. The rough oak gates were the nineteenth century originals, still flecked with dull remnants of the grey and pink college colours that once adorned them splendidly. A smaller human-sized doorway was embedded within them: we saw Cody press her ID card against the reader fixed there. A light flashed, and the door clicked unlocked.

She pushed through, and Geoff forced himself through the narrow doorway after her. We saw a brief infrared shot cutting through the darkness of the loading bay: curious and unfamiliar greys, with shining cat-eyes. Then we followed them on the New Court overview screen along the rectangular path surrounding the lawn and across to — not Jonathan’s room, I was sure.

The Archivist had anticipated my question. “We have configured an unused room on Q Staircase. Arthur is quite the dab hand at boy band posters, you know. Very
a la mode
.”

A question formed but melted away as I watched the screens. The cameras jerked in all directions keeping them in vision into Q, up one flight of stairs, along a listing corridor — all corridors along that side of New were distinctly off the level — to room five. All the while, Geoff remained a pace or two behind Cody, a fat shadow on her tail.

Cody’s ID card unlocked the door. The screen on the monitoring station that had heretofore remained dark glowed a brilliant white as she flicked on the lights, then faded to resolve the duller colours of the room.

A new microphone was mixed up. The voices sounded thinner, more metallic.

“Make yourself at home,
Bugle
boy,” said Cody, still with the sultry faux-American tones. “Excuse my laundry, won’t you. I believe you’ll find the little wooden chair is made for a more delicate frame than yours, and the springs on the armchair tend to… dig in to unsightly places. The bed, however, is just right.”

She tousled a strand of blonde and teased the end into her mouth. “Goldilocks right.”

Geoff rested his weight on the side of the single bed, which rather groaned in panic. From our camera, tucked discreetly into the corner above a drab college wardrobe, we saw him scan the room with his dodgy journalist eyes: desk, chair, wardrobe, kettle, mess. Standard-issue untidiness. Multi-coloured posters of the year’s manufactured closet-case musical grouping stuck to the wall alongside a well-tended and mildly pornographic calendar, all dutifully breaking college rules of some kind or another. Low scattered piles of books, spines intact. A teddy bear, missing an eye, on a single pink pillow.

“Nice place you got here, love,” said Geoff.

Cody fussed around with the coffee.

Part of my brain prodded an awareness into me. “Archivist,” I said quietly, “If Burnett had been doorstepping college for just an hour, how has all this—”

“It is my job to prepare. I do my job very well. Cody’s photo was in the forged intranet seen by the newspaper. Her ID card was prepared. The room was prepared. We anticipated these tactics.”

This silenced me for a second. “What else have you—”

“Pay attention.”

Cody’s coffee was instant. She joined Geoff on the bed, sitting along the end, across a corner from him — within groping distance but with sufficient time to dodge should he pounce.

“How’s your coffee, Mr Burnett?” she asked.

“Piss-awful, love, but I ain’t complaining. I haven’t been in a student room like this for bleedin’ years.”

“Is it just how you remember, honey? Knickers and boy bands?” She giggled.

“Fuck off. I didn’t have no bleedin’ teddy, neither.”

“If he bothers you,
Bugle
boy, I’ll have him face the wall. He only has—” A glance at Geoff. “—one good eye.”

“How did he lose the other one?”

Cody put her coffee mug on the floor. “First night of term. All the girls in here, a little whiskey, a little frisky, and it just— popped out. I think he saw a little more than he bargained for.” She licked her lips. “You know what I’m saying?”

“The girls?”

“The girls. And the boys. I ain’t so fussy. I like… all shapes and sizes. What do
you
like, baby?”

Geoff’s adam’s apple quivered. “The wife…”
 

Cody inched toward him, her voice lowering. “The wife is for life. But Christmas is coming. And Cody, here, well, she wraps a present
real
good.”

“I don’t think—”

“You don’t like me, baby?” She shrank back. “Am I too… inexperienced for you?”

“I like you, I like you. I just—”

“Then what’s the problem?” She gave him a look. “Nobody will know,” she whispered to him, to me, to the Archivist, to a room of rapt elves, and to a frantically spinning disk. “Nobody will find out.”

Geoff’s eyes darted left and right, his brain evidently overloading.

I began to worry: was Cody prepared to persist with this approach? Was there not a chance—

“Archivist,” I said. “You must reveal the plan to me. This is a tactic not without risk.”

“I know what I am doing,” he said evenly.

“In the next room, you have a team?”

The Archivist merely indicated the screen, and smiled.

Geoff had begun, slowly and uncertainly, to lean towards Cody.

She licked her lips. “Yeah, baby,” she said.

His lips puckered and quivered as he approached her. A hand began a hesitant journey toward her leg. His bulk rotated upon the duvet to present his front oval to her.

She brought a soft finger quickly to his lips: “Dance for me, honey.”

“What? I— Fuck that.” He pulled back.

“Dance. I like to see your moves before I see your moves, know what I’m saying?”

“I don’t dance, love. I haven’t danced in fifteen fuckin’ years.” This was a softer voice, a gentler Geoff, with a chuckling finish. He was remembering those earlier days. His face smoothed for a moment, its lines fading.

“You like to dance,
Bugle
boy?”

“Used to. Made a great Prince Charming in my day. A right dandy bleedin’ highwayman.
Adam and the Ants
, ever heard of ’em? Ancient history to you, I bet.”

“Show me, honey. Show me. I like to see history comin’ alive.”

He laughed and shook his head slowly. “I couldn’t.”

“Do it,” she said, almost a whisper, a hand on his arm. “Do it for me?”

The Hub crackled with electric tension. We had all unconsciously leaned a few degrees toward the screen as their conversation became more personal, more intimate. We willed him to his feet. Thieves might have been making off with the college silverware, nobody paid the slightest attention to any of the other screens.

“There were these moves,” said Geoff. “You make a cross with the arms. Even had Diana bleedin’ Dors in the video.” Still on the bed, he balled his fists and raised his arms into an X shape level with his head.

“How did the song go, baby?”

He cleared his throat and began an embarrassed mumble: “Prince Char
ming
,” emphasis on the
ming
, “Prince Char
ming
, ridicule is nothing to be scared of. Something like that, weren’t it.”

“Sing it, baby. Dance it. For me.” Her voice was even lower, barely detectable by the microphones.

Hesitantly, Geoff rose to his feet and turned to face her. An elf quickly switched cameras so we could see his face. He shook his arms as if loosening up, and a small smirk came on his face, as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was about to do. Neither could we.
 

“It was… here we go, like this,” he said. And then quietly but clearly, a warble: “Prince Char
ming,
” he sang, one arm raised above his head almost in salute. “Prince Char
ming
.” The other arm joined with the first to form an X. “Ridicule is nothing to be scared of.” Both arms down, and now into a strutting pose.

I gave the Archivist a confused smile. Is this what we had been waiting for? His eyes did not waver from the screens.

Cody was laughing and clapping, excited feminine claps with hands close to her chest as in prayer. “Another!” she said.

He obliged, at first reluctantly and then less so. For the subsequent five minutes he introduced us to excerpts from a medley of what I remembered as eighties hits, gaining in confidence and becoming more vocal and more outlandish in his dance moves. Cody responded with ever greater enthusiasm. She flicked back her hair repeatedly in non-verbal encouragement. Her body language communicated precisely what we knew he wanted.

Finally he returned to the bed, in anticipation of his reward. He breathed out heavily. “I’m all warmed up now,” he said. “Was that good, love?”

“Delicious, honey,” Cody replied. “One more, for me?”

“No more.”

“Strip for me, honey. Dance off your clothes and shake your booty for me.”

“I’m not a bleedin’ stripper. Your go now. Come here, give us a kiss.”

“Strippin’ before kissin’ in my house, baby. Show me the goods or my lips are sealed, know what I’m saying?”

“Enough,” he said, and his mood darkened, and my heart skipped a beat. “Give us a kiss and stop all this American shit.”

Cody hesitated. I thought I saw her mask begin to slip. “No kissing, honey. Time for you to go.”

“You’ve had me dancing like a prick and I get nothing?”

“You’ve had my coffee and my company, and I don’t like your tone, so you can please now leave.” Her voice was firm but I detected a hint of fear. I became unsettled. The Archivist, though, watched on impassively, eyes narrowed.

“I’m worried,” I said. The Archivist ignored me.

Geoff spoke again, more angrily. “One kiss. Fucking students, pissing you around. I’ll have this college, bitch.”

Cody stood and pointed to the door, still in character. “Leave now.”

Geoff got off the bed and moved towards her: short, slow steps. “I’ll take this college down. You think this is a fucking game, don’t you.
Dance for me
. I’ve been dealing with fuckers like you for twenty years, and believe me—”

I grabbed the Archivist’s arm: “Do something!”

“—Believe me, I know what I’m doing.”

Cody backed away from him. “I’m not afraid of you,” she said, her character unravelling, her voice deepening.

That was enough. I bolted, almost slipping on the dark tiles of the Hub. I ran out into the anteroom, through the secure door into the corridor and out to the stairwell, and rushed up to the ground floor and the threatening grey outside. Straight across the lawn and through the arch to New Court, students pressing against the stone at my shout to allow me by, then sprinting along the path to Q Staircase. I hustled past the few people milling outside. Crashing through the doors and up the steps and along to room five, in less than a minute, I was banging on Cody’s door, shouting her name. I didn’t wait. I threw myself at it violently, once, twice. On the third hit it splintered open and I clattered through, red and puffing and dander well up.

Geoff was on the bed, face smushed into the pillow, with an arm wrenched high behind his back. Cody kneeled upon him. Her wig was half askew and authentic Jonathan peeked out from underneath.

He saw me and grinned, somewhat flushed. “Strike three,” he said.

Knowledge is power. With great power comes great responsibility, or so said a man in spandex climbing up a wall a decent few years ago, and my great responsibility was to avoid revealing to Geoff — when he arrived late and subdued to the office on Thursday morning with his wrist wrapped in bandages — that I’d been told
all about
what had happened at the college and had, literally, rolled on the floor laughing. Were it possible to laugh your arse off, I’d have done that too.

I’d woken up specially early to prepare a page of wrist-sprain jokes. It was going to be one of those unforgettable days, like your first kiss, or your last kiss, or the time the posh girl at school farted during class and for some reason it was the funniest thing
ever
.

I’d struggled not to let Manish in on the secret — we’d have both been giggling in the corner like a couple of old maids. And Simon was either pulling the straightest of faces — although he was hardly a smiler at the best of times — or he was just as in the dark as I wasn’t.

The previous afternoon, Geoff had never come back to work after his “stakeout”, as he’d called it. According to Spencer he’d barely recovered from the shock of being beaten up by a beautiful, petite boy in a mini-skirt and a wig when he realised that the only way Spencer could have known what was going on and crashed his way in to save Cody’s honour was if the pair of them were being watched. Jeez, I’d have paid money to see the fat man rolling around begging.
My wife’ll kill me
and
I wasn’t going to hurt her-him-her
and
I’ll drop the story
and everything. And all
that
would’ve been on camera too.

Of course, he now knew
for sure
there was an Archivist, but — like everyone else who knows
for sure
— he thought it was a subject best left well alone.