Stretch, 29. Damian Lanigan
‘Sadie, this is Frank I was telling you about.’
‘Hi.’
Uninterested, now she’d actually seen me.
‘Yes, he thinks he can get you a couple of weeks at his restaurant.’
‘Oh really! Great!’
I shuffled around uneasily and stared at the carpet. It was the colour of marzipan.
‘Yerr, we get pretty busy over the holidays. Have you got any experience?’
‘A bit.’
‘More than enough.’
‘When shall I turn up?’
‘Dunno. Can you do tomorrow?’
‘Yes!’
‘You won’t get paid much.’
‘As long as I get something, I’m not that arsed.’
‘You’ll get something.’
‘Sorted, then.’
We were on the fringes of the stereo group. I was too sober as yet to join the conversation. Whitney Houston was doing her airbrushed Brünnhilde act from the speakers. I scanned the CD rack. Opera highlights, U2, Motown’s Greatest Hits, the odd jazz sampler. Music for people who don’t like music. I felt a soft jab in the ribs. God, ginger, a public employee and sexually voracious, what a nightmare.
‘Hello, Frank.’ Friendly and open, but maybe with a whiff of patronising irony.
It wasn’t Sadie.
‘Oh, hi, Sophie.’
A power Sloane from Oxford days. She moved to mwah me, but I evaded. A tanned man I didn’t know in a sharp cornflower blue shirt was holding court. Sadie and the other two were maintaining shit-eating smiles. If he was boring this lot, he obviously had some special talent for awfulness.
Sophie put a bony arm gently round my back.
‘I don’t think you know anyone.’
Don’t remind me.
‘This is Nick and Flora …’ The shit-eaters mouthed silent hellos.
‘This is Sadie …’ I couldn’t bring myself to look at her, but kept my head high to prevent my double chin pouching too badly.
‘And this is my husband Colin,’ indicating the cornflower ponce.
‘Oh, Colin. Like Colin Bell, the footballer,’ I said mock-brightly as we shook on it.
He scowled a little. ‘Yes, I suppose so. It’s a family name, actually – Scottish.’
‘You don’t have much of an accent. What part of Scotland are you from? Govan?’
Nick and Flora snickered. I still hadn’t looked at Sadie, so couldn’t judge her reaction.
‘No, not Govan, but quite near Glasgow.’
‘Celtic or Rangers?’
‘Chelsea, actually. I went to school near London.’
‘Near Slough, no doubt.’
‘Hmm. Quite near.’
Sophie tried to move us on.
‘How’s your job going, Frank? Are you still in stockbroking?’
I wish she hadn’t said that. Three years ago, in the interregnum between the Post and O’Hare’s, I had spent six months working as a postboy on the trading floor of a big stockbrokers. If my memory served me, I had somewhat overstated my role to her. To what extent, I couldn’t recall. German equities analyst? Chairman?
‘No, I’m in the, er, restaurant trade now.’
In the same way that an usherette’s in the film business.
‘Oh, interesting. You were a media industry analyst, weren’t you?’
Was I? I had no idea how my mind had come up with this lie, but I cursed it filthily.
‘Well, yes, sort of.’
The ponce moved in, sensing my discomfort. ‘Sort of? What do you mean?’
‘I was training to be a media analyst, but I left before I did any actual, you know, analysing.’
‘So, what kind of work were you doing?’
‘Oh, précis-ing reports, general dogsbodying.’
‘Which firm?’
‘Gellner DeWitt.’
The ponce was warming up.
‘Interesting. I know people there. Did you know Tim Locke?’
Why, certainly. Fat loudmouth, third seat up on the Japanese warrants desk, the ‘character’ of the trading floor. Always had a pint of Guinness on his desk in the afternoons. Never said a word to me in six months, though I doled mail out to him four times a day, hoping to get noticed.
‘No, I don’t remember a Tim Locke.’
A mistake. You would have to be the veteran of the nursing home not to remember Tim Locke.
‘How strange. Most people remember Tim. How long were you there for?’
‘Only a few months.’ Give it a rest, Colin.
Lucy joined the group. The ponce continued.
‘Lucy, you know Tim Locke, don’t you? He was the year above Tom at school.’
‘Oh, yes. Big noisy chap. Stockbroker.’
‘Well, Frank here worked with him for six months, but doesn’t remember him.’
Lucy looked puzzled. ‘Where did you work with him, Frank?’
‘Gellner DeWitt, apparently.’ Come on, leave off, Lucy.
‘Oh, was he in the postroom, too?’
‘I don’t know. As I say, I don’t remember him.’
The ponce was down on me like the Assyrians.
‘The postroom. So you were a postboy, I see. No, you probably wouldn’t remember Tim, then. Not a very memorable name. I don’t suppose our postman would remember our name, would he, Sophie?’
Sophie nodded judiciously, but looked embarrassed. To the credit of their sex, all three girls looked embarrassed. I hazarded a look at Sadie. She looked mortified, the blessed little creature. The ponce left me pinned and wriggling, and turned the conversation back to himself. Floored, I took a bottle of champagne back out into the courtyard for another ferocious assault on a Lucky. I perched on a twee little garden bench and sparked up.
Lucy put her head round the door from the kitchen.
‘Have I said something wrong?’
‘No, Luce. Don’t worry, I’m fine.’
‘You can’t stay out here. It’s freezing.’
‘No, I’ll be fine. Really. I need to smoke.’
She looked at me with eyebrows raised for a moment with what could have been either indulgence or displeasure.
‘Have you met Tom’s dad yet?’
Tom had arranged for me to be interviewed for a menial job on a men’s mag his father was setting up.
‘Not a squeak.’
‘I’m sure he’ll get in touch. He’s probably pretty busy.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Come on, Frank, get inside, we’re leaving for the restaurant in a minute.’
‘Look,