The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher(18)

“Of course,” I said, rather coldly. “Are you in some sort of trouble?”

“Not here,” she said, looking around.

“Meet me at one-fifteen,” I said. I told her how to find the French place. They’re even cheaper at lunchtime.

I was there first. I drank some water. I didn’t think she’d come, thought she’d lose the address, lose interest; her problems were easily soluble, after all. One-thirty, she came flouncing in—cheeks pink with self-importance, coloring when the waiter took her cheap little rain-proof jacket. They brought the menu; she took it without seeing it; she pushed her curly fringe from her forehead and—as I could have forecast—burst into tears. It’s been a long, difficult summer. It came to me what Mrs. Bathurst said, about the need to move on: I said, “I suppose you’ll not be with us much longer, Bets?”

She locked her eyes onto mine; this surprised me, to see those great blue-violet orbs assume a purpose. “You don’t realize, do you?” she said. “My God, when were you born? Don’t you realize I’m seeing Bathurst, most nights now?”

Seeing, indeed. I kept a very judicious silence: that’s what you should do, if you don’t quite know what people mean. Then she did something odd: her elbows on the table, she put her fingers to the back of her neck, and seemed to massage the scalp line there, and raise her roseate hair. It was as if she were trying to show me something. A moment, when her eyes challenged mine, and then her hair fell back against her short white neck. She shivered; she drew one hand across her shoulder, slowly, and allowed it to graze her breast, brush her nipple. One of the old waiters passed and scowled at me, as if he were seeing something he didn’t like.

“Oh, come on Bets, don’t cry.” I extended my hand, let it cover hers for a moment. Okay, so you’re that way; I should have known, shouldn’t I, when you came into my cave to giggle about sexual perversity? “Lots of people are like it, Bettina.”

“Oh, Jesus,” she said. All her sweetness had gone; she was foulmouthed, sweating, pallid. “It’s like an addiction,” she said.

“There are support groups. You can ring up and get advice, about how to come out. I wouldn’t have thought it was a problem these days, especially in London. It must be easy enough to find people with the same … orientation.”

Bettina was shaking her head, her eyes on the check tablecloth. Perhaps it was her family at home she was thinking of; different mores in Melbourne? “Think of it like this—maybe it’s just a phase you’re going through.”

“Phase?” She lifted her head. “That’s all you know, Todd. I’m like this forever, now.”

Setting aside my prejudices—which is not easy, and why should it be?—I have to say I have no high opinion of Mrs. Bathurst, though as a work colleague she’s a lot brighter recently. Now she’s hooked up with Bettina, she’s energized, brisk. Her eyes are bright and she keeps looking at me. Wants to make amends, I suppose, for attacking me in the street. She’s asked me to visit her next weekend. I don’t know if I’ll go or not. Come for a bite, was how she put it.





OFFENSES AGAINST THE PERSON





Her name was Nicolette Bland, and she was my father’s mistress. I’m going back to the early seventies. It’s a long time now since he was subject to urges of the flesh. She looked like a Nicolette: dainty, poised, hair short and artfully curling; dark, liquid, slightly slanting eyes. She was honey-colored, as if she’d had a package holiday, and she looked rested, and seldom not-smiling. I put her at twenty-six. I was seventeen, and filling in the summer before university as a junior clerk in my father’s chambers. Deviling, he called it. I never knew why.

I used to watch her type, clip-clip: little darting movements of her pearlescent nails. “They say, Wimmin, never learn to type!” I offered.

They were just beginning to say it, round 1972. “Yes, do they?” she said, a hand hovering for a moment. “Don’t start, Vicky. I’ve a lot to get through by dinnertime.” She made a little swatting movement, and got right back to it, clippety-clip, clop-clip.

I was fascinated by her feet. I kept hanging my head upside down and peering at them, side by side under the desk. Spike heels had gone out of style, but she stuck by them. Hers were black and very highly polished. Once, when my father came out of his office, she said without looking up—clip-clop, clickety-clop—“Frank, do you think we could get a modesty panel affixed to this desk?”

By the time I came back, at Christmas, I got her desk because she had gone to work at Kaplan’s, across Albert Square. “Something of a supervisory element to it,” my father said. “Also broader scope of work—her experience here, you see, being mostly confined as we are to conveyancing—”

“Road traffic offenses,” I said. “Offenses against the person.”

“Yes, that sort of lark. Plus I understand young Simon offered her the extra hundred a year.”

“Probably Luncheon Vouchers,” I said.

“I shouldn’t wonder.”

“Occam’s Razor shaves you closer,” I said. I had only begun to suspect something when he began multiplying explanations. My foot shot out—this happens, when I see the truth suddenly—and hit the modesty panel with a dull thud.