Boyfriend Material(106)
“You shouldn’t have to.”
“It’s exactly what you needed me for.”
Well. Didn’t that feel all complicated and confusingey? Because he was right—having someone who could convincingly fake an interest in me and my donors had been the whole plan. But seeing it in action, especially now I genuinely liked him, made the whole thing…icky. “You’re better than this.”
“Better than what, Lucien?” His eyes gleamed softly at me. “Better than being polite to people I don’t particularly care about at my partner’s work event?”
“Um, yes?”
He brushed his lips against my brow, hiding his smile. “I’ve got news for you. For those of us not raised by ’80s rock legends, this is just…life. It’s fine. I’m happy to be here with you, and later we can go home and laugh about it all.”
“When we go home,” I told him firmly, “there won’t be time for laughing. You have no idea how good you look in those trous—Oh shit.” Across the room, I saw to my horror that Dr. Fairclough was interacting with a guest. Which never, ever ended well. I grabbed Oliver by the elbow. “Sorry. This is an emergency. We have to go.”
As we drew closer, trying not to look too much like we were staging an intervention, I realised we were even more fucked than I thought. Because Dr. Fairclough was talking to, or rather at, Kimberly Pickles. And the problem with Kimberly Pickles—which I knew well from having painstakingly developed her and her wife over the last year and a half—is that she did not give a shit about beetles, and she did give a shit about lots of other things. Things that she felt very strongly her incredibly wealthy partner would be better off spending her money on.
“…can’t be sure whether you’re being wilfully ignorant,” Dr. Fairclough was saying, “or simply ig—”
“Kimberly.” I swept in. “How lovely to see you. I don’t think you’ve met my partner, Oliver Blackwood. Oliver, this is Kimberly Pickles, who you might recognise from—”
“Oh, of course,” he said, not cutting over me, but kind of gliding in effortlessly. “Your recent miniseries on child sexual exploitation was remarkable.”
She beamed, but sadly not in a “totally disarmed” way and said, “Aww, fank you” in the broad Estuary accent that, ten years ago, would definitely have kept her off the BBC.
“And this is my boss”—I indicated Dr. Fairclough warily—“Dr. Amelia Fairclough.”
“It’s so good to meet you.” Oliver didn’t bother extending a hand for her to shake, which I initially thought was uncharacteristically impolite. But he must have realised that Dr. Fairclough would have (a) not given a shit and (b) seen the requirement to engage in a pointless social ritual as a waste of time. “Lucien’s told me all about your monograph on rove beetles.”
She subjected him to her… I was going to say her most intense gaze, but her gazes were almost all equally intense. “Has he?”
“Yes. I was wondering if you could clear up some of the finer points of their behavioural relationship with ant colonies.”
My God. Was this what love felt like?
“I’d be delighted to.” Dr. Fairclough looked the closest to happy I’d ever seen her. Which wasn’t very. “But it’s an intricate subject, and there are too many distractions here.”
Oliver drew Dr. Fairclough gently aside in search of a better rove beetle/ant colony interaction discussing location, leaving me awash in gratitude and hopefully better placed to salvage Kimberly Pickles.
“That Dr. Fairclough,” she began, “is a right cow.”
It wasn’t language I would have personally used, but I could see where she was coming from. “I’m afraid academics can be quite single-minded about their interests.”
“No fucking kidding. She genuinely finks that dung beetles are more important than people.”
I offered a conspiratorial smile. “I’d say you have to get to know her, but no. She genuinely does.”
She didn’t smile back. “And you really fink it’s right, do you? For people to give their money to you instead of a women’s shelter in Blackheath or fighting child mortality in sub-Saharan Africa.”
Thing is, she wasn’t totally wrong. CRAPP wasn’t a cool charity, and it wasn’t even high up on those effective-giving lists that help nerdy mathlanthropists evaluate exactly how to save the most lives per dollar. But it was my cause, and I’d fight for it, and from what I knew of Kimberly Pickles, she liked a fighter.
“Well,” I said, “if I worked for a women’s shelter in Blackheath, there’d be people asking me why people should give money to that instead of malaria prevention or de-worming initiatives. And if I worked for a charity that tried to prevent child mortality in sub-Saharan Africa, there’d be people who asked me why they should be sending money overseas when we’ve got problems enough over here.”
She relaxed a bit, but she still wasn’t buying it. “It’s fucking dung beetles, mate.”
“It is.” I gave a you got me kind of shrug. “And although they are ecologically important, I’m not going to pretend we’re saving the world here. We’re not even saving Bedfordshire. But your missus isn’t going to run out of cash any time soon, and she clearly enjoys throwing it at slightly silly things that make her happy.”