Venus Envy (15 page)

The worst thing about it was that Seamus was so persistent. He was tempting me with something I really wanted to do.

Sometimes I had lucid moments. I stepped outside myself, like I was watching a film. I got detached. I thought, hang on, you didn’t even know him for that long. But then the emotions returned and I felt swamped with longing.

Inevitably I gave in. It was .less than a full week before I was having dinner with him again: deux in his flat, with pale pink rosebuds in tiny vases by our plates, and something delicious on the table, and Seamus in the kitchen singing ‘The Fair Maid of Connemara’, even though I’ve never even been to Dublin.

‘Don’t I satisfy you?’ I asked when he’d collapsed on “

12”5

top of me. No, I didn’t bring the subject up over dinner. I didn’t want to ruin the mood, see?

‘What a question.’ He dropped a slow, sexy kiss on my bare shoulder, a gesture that pleased me far more than all his grunting and groaning of a moment ago. ‘Didn’t I just get satisfied?’

‘I don’t mean that. I mean, just me.’

‘Oh, God.’ Seamus rolled away, annoyed. If he’d smoked, I was sure he’d have reached for a fag right now. ‘Are we back on this again? I thought I’d finally got through to you.’

‘But it’s not natural, to want so many people.’

‘Sure it’s natural. It’s the male sex drive. About

which you had no complaints a second ago.’ That’s what you think, buster.

‘Dolores understands my needs.’ And you don’t, his tone accused. I wondered silently if that was true. What Dolores would say if she knew where he was right now. I hated him mentioning her name in my presence. I thought vicious thoughts about tucking one of his love-notes to me in the pockets of all his suits, of sneaking out and spraying all his shirts with perfume, kissing their collars to leave lipstick marks. But I told myself that was not right. I knew it was screwed up to blame Dolores, to want her to find out. ‘Alex, my dove. We have a great time like this, don’t we? Enjoying each other, just for pleasure, no strings attached?’

A chill shot across my skin like an arctic blizzard. Oh no, no! He’s saying, you’re a great fuck, honey, this isn’t a love affair! How can men put the most heartrending cruelties into compliments, and expect you to love them?

‘ “Tread softly because you tread on my dreams,” ‘ I quoted miserably.

Seamus gave a friendly laugh. ‘You crack me up, Alex!’ He slapped my bare ass. ‘This is my dream!’

12.6

And then I had to let my dream of a reprieve go. I could twist myself into a rubber to please Seamus, but I couldn’t make him love me back. What came next was almost a surprise, I’ve been such a stranger to self respect.

I jumped out of the bed and pulled on my dress. ‘I don’t want to see you ever again,’ I wept. ‘Ah, honey, come on, now.’

‘No. And you better transfer me to another department, Seamus. I want my job and I don’t want to be around you.’

‘Maybe I can’t work without you,’ he said slyly. To him we were still flirting, jousting with words.

‘Transfer me and .it never happened. Otherwise, I swear I will tell Dolores everything,’ I managed, and then I got out of there before he could explode into threats and. curses.

Jenny Robins came to see me when she heard of my transfer.

‘You’re going to work for Gloria Huntington,’ she said, sounding anxious on my behalf. Great, Gloria Huntington, known around the firm as Glorious Thunderbum. A strapping, tweedy, horsy dame in charge of Personnel. Since most Hamilton Kane high fliers are recruited by headhunters, her job consists of firing postboys and buying company cars. She is also known to have a fetish for high-fibre diets and to fart unashamedly all day long, bellowing ‘Perfectly natural’ in a pukka voice.

This was Seamus’s revenge. He winted to asphyxiate me.

He made the last days in his department sheer hell. Loading me down with work and indifference. It was bad to have him pushing me, but it was worse to have him stop. Why didn’t he care? Why wasn’t he gutted? Was I so unlovable? I looked at my record and it was

so miserable it didn’t bear thinking about. Eddie ‘the eagle’ Edwards was better at ski-jumping than I was at dating.

‘Sounds interesting.’

‘I knew he’d do it to you too. I tried to stop it,’ Jenny said mournfully, unbending to me now it was over.

I stared at her, horrified. ‘What do you mean, to me too?’

‘Oh. You know. Seduce you, then let you down,’ she said primly. ‘Alexandra, I thought you’d have more sense. He does it to all the pretty girls. Didn’t you know we’ve had fifteen girls in your job over two years?’

, ‘Was it that obvious?’ I said. My guts felt like a racoon was gnawing through them. Fifteen girls? Was he the world record holder? It didn’t even register that she called me pretty. Jenny is one of those forgiving older women, who calls you ‘the young people’, when you’re all thirty-eight.

‘Please, young lady. I’m not stupid,’ Jenny retorted. I tramped upstairs to the ghetto of Personnel.

Touchy-feely, unimportant, forever writing mission statements and digging out token black employees for the company reports, that’s Personnel departments. Unimportant to the bottom line. Ever been in trouble with your firm? Ever wondered at the sadistic delight those bitches take when they hector you and hand you your written warning? You’re not paranoid, they do hate you. You have a real job, whatever it is. You work in marketing or sales or finance. They don’t. They know everybody looks down on them. Managers ignore their hiring advice: the key players are sought by executive search vultures. They are napkin folders, corporate window-dressers with nothing better to do than organise holiday rotas. That’s why there are so many women in Personnel, just like PR. It’s a non

IZ8

bottom line thing. And they know it. And they hate you.

And now I was one of them. But hey, my life sucked in every other way, why not go the whole hog?

‘Welcome to Human Resources, Alex,’ Glorious Thunderbum beamed, and volleyed off the most tremendous fart.

I giggled. She reddened.

‘Oh, do grow up, it’s perfectly natural. Fibre keeps you regular. Now, today we’re looking at costing for the Christmas party. I’d like you to collect last year’s receipts…’

I started doing as she asked and trying to hold my breath at the same time. Oh man,what had I ever done to deserve this? I wondered. The figures were just rows of blinking green lights to me; all I could truly see was Seamus’s face.

‘Alexanc[ra, it’s your mother on the phone,’ Gloria said, screwing up her face as she squeaked out one more tiny fart. For luck, perhaps. ‘Do try and tell her we discourage personal calls.’

Oh, so do I, when they’re from my mum. ‘Mother?’ ‘Alexandra. Why are you working in this department?’ demanded Mum shrilly. I instantly saw her there, at the end of the phone, her puffy face and brittle, neatly coiffed hair. I am terrified I will turn into my mother some time so.on, start looking at people’s cars to see if their insides are kept neatly, or suddenly feel a great desire to take up golf or stand for the local authority.

‘I’ve always wanted to work with people.’ What rubbish, but what else do you say? I’ve always wanted to. work with clockwork sea lions? I so admired Keisha for blowing one job interview. The sanctimonious Personnel woman asked her to describe why she loved working in a team. To which Keisha replied that she hated teams and liked to work on her own.

‘You can work with people in Seamus Mahon’s office. Darling, he’s a frightfully big cheese. I’m sure he knows lots of lovely single men. And Fiona Kane said he might introduce you to Dolores!’

‘Even for a treat like that, Mum, I—’

‘Honestly, it’s like talking to a brick wall. Gail says you mope around the flat and never have any boyfriends. Full many a flower is born to blush unseen…’

‘And waste its sweetness on the desert air, yes, Mum, I know.’ Mum quoted that bloody line to me every time we talked. Sometimes I felt her presence behind me, holding up a clock and wagging a finger. I used to be last in the egg and spoon races, now I was

last in the boyfriend races. I felt the tendrils of a , migraine start to crunch around my temples.

‘Is there anything else, Mum? I’m really busy.’ ‘Oh yes, you’re always too busy for your own mother. If it wasn’t for me you’d still be in that filthy squat. Actually, I’m calling to remind you about that wedding invitation.’

A wedding, umm. Just what I was in the mood to go

tO.

‘Don’t give me that silent treatment. It’s Charles Drummond.’

‘Tom Drummond’s brother?’

‘Of course Tom Drummond’s brother. You’re due to go down to Gloucestershire next weekend for the house party.’

Over my dead, rotting body, I was about to say, but Ma cut in. ‘And don’t think of making any excuse. I RSVPed Mrs Drummond last month, and said you couldn’t be more delighted.’

‘Charles Drummond’s getting married?’ Gall protested. And not to me? her tone implied.

I sighed. ‘Gail, you’ve met Charlie exactly twice.’ ‘But we got on so wonderfully. He agreed with

. everything I said about better to go naked than wear

fur,’ Gail pouted.

‘He’s the Master of his local beagles,’ I said flatly. Tom’s kid brother Charles was one of those faceless, horsy typs I thought should be first against the wall, come the revolution, back when I believed in revolution. Now I got furiously incensed when strikes caused my Tube trains to be overcrowded. But I knew I still wouldn’t care for Charles Drummond, who called me a ‘mongrel’ and an ‘unbroken filly’ when we rowed about Mrs Thatcher. He had none of his brother’s sense of humour or natural dominance. He was obsessed with class. He liked to hang out with the younger sons of dukes and Old Etonians, and he had watery eyes and a braying laugh. It was true he hadn’t contradicted Gall, but then he hadn’t been listening to her. Anything a woman said was just so much woolly bleating, as far as Charlie was concerned, ‘I’ve only been invited because Tom insisted.”

‘You mean I’m not?’ Gail shrieked in outrage.

‘You go instead of me. Mrs Drummond won’t know the difference.’

‘But Tom will,’ Keisha pointed out.

This was sadly true, so I rang Tom up at his London flat, desperately scrambling for an excuse to get out of

I3I

it. Right now, my bruised heart couldn’t take a bloody wedding. And anyway, Saturday lunchtimes were Notting Hill brunch times, sacred to me, Keisha and Bronwen: scrambled eggs and fried bread and a big pitcher of Buck’s Fizz on some ivy-covered terrace overlooking Ladbroke Grove. We would sit and bitch about other women’s dress sense and our jobs and life in general, pig ourselves, go window-shopping and go home. It was great and it took -all day. Now, would I rather do a girly brunch and wallow in grief, or spend a fortune on a suit and hat and have

to grin like a skull for two days?

‘Tom?’

‘Alex!’ He was so warm, I instantly flooded with guilt. Not only was I letting him down, Tom had been there for me and I still hadn’t made the effort to see him. Not once. ‘We’re so thrilled you’re going to be coming down. Can’t wait to catch up.’

‘But Tom, I don’t think I can.’ His hurt silence was dreadful, so I gabbled on. ‘My mother accepted for me and I’d already promised my flatmates I’d stay in and hold their hands - they’ve had sort of heartbreak crises,’ I said.

‘Alex, you can’t. Mother has already worked out the seating plan. And your bedroom, and everything, it took her hours,’ Tom insisted. My heart dropped. Oh, God, I’m going to have to go. Tom knew exactly the one thing that would force me into being there. I could muck him about, we both sort of knew, but I couldn’t muck his mother about. His mother was a civilian.

In the friendly war of niggles between Tom and me, I sometimes flinched at the idea Tom might still be keen on me. He never said anything of course, but… how screamingly embarrassing that would be, oh my God.

‘I understand about your friends, though. Bring them too.’

‘I don’t think it would be their sort of thing.’

To my horror, Keisha was halfway across the room, her slim ebony legs racing like a panther. She grabbed the receiver. ‘Tom, hi, this is Keisha Roland. One of Alex’s mates … oh, she has? Great, well, me and Bronwen would love to come. And so would Gail.’

Gail practically ripped Keisha’s wrists off as she snatched the phone. ‘Oh, Tom.’ Bloody hell, her voice had gone all breathy and little-girl-lost, up two octaves. She ignored my jabbing finger in my mouth and my pretend vomiting. ‘How darling of you to ask us all, it’ll be such a thrill, and so many congrats to Charlie …’

Eventually she permitted me tO get the phone back. Thank God he couldn’t see me because I was as red as a red pepper in tomato sauce. Those bitches! I was so embarrassed I could hardly speak.

‘Everyone seems very enthusiastic,’ said Tom, with supreme unconcern. He didn’t even sound like he was taking the piss. ‘So you’ll be there, that’s wonderful news. We should be quite a house party, all sorts of

guests, bound to find someone you’ll get along with.’ ‘Looking forward to it,’ I muttered.

‘Lots of our old crowd from Oxford,’ Tom said. Marvellous, and will there be stocks in the garden so they can pillory me properly? That’s the cherry on the sodding cake, the idea of all my old college friends, most of whom are probably supermodels or interstellar researchers, gathered together to crown me Biggest Loser of All Time.

I hung up with a knot of anxiety filready forming in my guts.

Bronwen sat heavily on the sofa. ‘Oh, God, if only I could bring Dick. He’s so brilliant at weddings.’

‘Bronwen,’ Keisha said, ‘you need professional help:’

I was inclined to agree. Bronwen had developed selective amnesia. She no longer remembered Dick

33

forcing her to go through the Penthouse routine, or telling her she was really just a slag who loved it. The mists of time - about two weeks - had shrouded Dick’s faults and now all Bron remembered was the chiselled jaw and snappy dressing. Women are so forgiving, except to themselves.