Boyfriend Material(9)

She gave a curt nod. “Yes. When we took you on, you told us that was behind you.”

“It was. I mean, it is. I just made the mistake of going to a party the same night my dad was on ITV.”

“The consensus among the press appears to be that you were lying in a drug-fuelled haze in a gutter. In fetish wear.”

“I fell over,” I said flatly, “in a pair of comedy bunny ears.”

“To a certain class of person, that detail adds an especial element of deviance.”

In some ways, it felt almost like a relief to get angry. It was better than being terrified I was about to lose my job. “Do I need a lawyer? Because I’m beginning to think this has more to do with my sexuality than my sobriety.”

“Of course it does.” Dr. Fairclough made an impatient gesture. “It makes you look like entirely the wrong sort of homosexual.”

Alex had been watching the conversation as if it was Wimbledon. And I could now hear him murmuring “wrong sort of homosexual” under his breath as he scribbled.

I did my best to offer my reply in the most reasonable tone I could muster. “You know I could really hard-core sue you for this.”

“You could,” agreed Dr. Fairclough. “But you wouldn’t get another job, and we’re not strictly firing you. Besides which, as our fundraiser, you must be acutely aware that we don’t have any money, making litigation rather pointless from your end.”

“What, so you just brought me here to brighten my day with a little casual homophobia?”

“Come now, O’Donnell.” She sighed. “You must know I have no interest in what variety of homosexual you are—incidentally, did you know that aphids are parthenogenetic?—but unfortunately several of our backers do. They, of course, are not all homophobic, and I think rather enjoyed having a delightful young gay wining and dining them. That, however, was rather predicated on you being essentially nonthreatening.”

My anger, like every man I’d ever been with, didn’t seem inclined to stick around. And had left me feeling tired and pointless. “Actually, that’s still homophobic.”

“And you may certainly call them up and explain that to them, but I somehow doubt it will make them more inclined to give us their money. And if you are unable to get people to give us their money, then that rather limits your usefulness to our organisation.”

Well, now I was scared again. “I thought you said I wasn’t going to get fired.”

“As long as the Beetle Drive is successful, you may go to whatever bars you please and wear whatever mammalian appendages you like.”

“Yay.”

“But right now”—she cast me a cold glance—“your public image as some kind of barebacking, coke-snorting, buttockless-trouser-wearing pervert has scared away three of our biggest donors, and I need not remind you, our donor list is straying perilously close to single digits.”

Maybe not the best time to tell her about the emails I’d received this morning. “So what am I supposed to do?”

“Rehabilitate yourself fast. You need to go back to being the sort of harmless sodomite that Waitrose shoppers can feel good about introducing to their left-wing friends and smug about introducing to their right-wing friends.”

“For the record, I’m really, really offended by this.”

She shrugged. “Darwin was offended by the Ichneumonidae. To his chagrin, they persisted in existing.”

If I had a single gnat’s testicle of pride, I would have walked out there and then. But I haven’t, so I didn’t. “I can’t control what the tabloids say about me.”

“Of course you can,” piped up Alex. “It’s easy.”

We both stared at him.

“Friend of mine from Eton, Mulholland Tarquin Jjones, got into a terrible pickle a couple of years back over a misunderstanding with a stolen car, three prostitutes, and a kilo of heroin. The papers were beastly to him about it, but then he got engaged to a lovely little heiress from Devonshire, and it was all garden parties and spreads in Hello from then on.”

“Alex,” I said slowly. “You know how I’m gay, and this whole conversation has been about me being gay?”

“Well, obviously I mean a boy heiress, not a girl heiress.”

“I don’t know any heiresses of either gender.”

“Don’t you?” He looked genuinely confused. “Who do you go to Ascot with?”

I put my head in my hands. I thought I might be about to cry.

Which was when Dr. Fairclough took control of the conversation again. “Twaddle does have a point. With an appropriate boyfriend, I daresay you’d become endearing again very quickly.”

I’d been trying very hard not to think about my abysmal failure with Cam at The Cellar. Now the memory of his rejection flooded me with fresh humiliation. “I can’t even get an inappropriate boyfriend.”

“That is not my problem, O’Donnell. Please leave. Between the emails and this conversation, you’ve already taken up too much of my morning.”

Her attention snapped back to whatever she was doing on her computer with such intensity that I half thought I’d actually stopped existing. Right about then, I wouldn’t have cared if I had.

My head was swimming as I left the office. I put a hand to my face and discovered my eyes were wet.