скачать книгу бесплатно
‘I’ll show you later. First, there’s the small but pressing issue of your answers, Richard Stonehill.’
‘And then you’ll show me?’
‘Then I’ll show you.’
NINE
‘Richard Stonehill, thirty-five, architect, new-age man and all round good-looker, what is your idea of perfect happiness?’
‘Yachting in Australia.’ You, Sal.
‘Ever done it?’
‘Yes, I have.’
‘What is your greatest fear?’
‘Multiple sclerosis.’
‘With which historical figure do you most identify?’
‘Byron.’
‘How pretentious! Which living person do you most admire?’
‘Bob.’
‘Bob-and-Catherine Bob?’
‘Yes.’
‘What vehicles do you own?’
‘An Alfa Romeo Spyder and a Cannondale mountain bike.’
‘What is your greatest extravagance?’
‘Silk ties and olive oil that’s as expensive as the former.’
‘What objects do you always carry with you?’
‘Why, my little black book of course.’
‘Am I in your little black book?’
‘You are in my little black book.’
‘What makes you most depressed?’
‘Housing estates. Oh, and nylon.’
‘Hear hear. What do you most dislike about your appearance?’
‘My legs.’
‘Your legs?’
‘Too skinny.’
Richard, they’re gorgeous, unquestionably masculine, you vain old thing.
‘What is your most unappealing habit?’
‘Moi? Rien!’
‘Ri-chard!’
‘Okay, I pick my nose, fart and belch.’
‘Big deal.’
‘Simultaneously. In the bath.’
‘Gracious Good Lord. What would you most like for your next birthday present?’
‘You. Wrapped up in brown paper and red ribbons.’
‘When is your birthday?’
‘June the second.’
‘I’ll see what I can do. What is your favourite word?’
‘Telecommunication,’ proclaimed Richard. ‘Well, it sounds nice, doesn’t it?’ Sally raised an eyebrow. ‘Oh, all right then – copulation.’
‘Later. What or who is the greatest love of your life?’
‘My mummy!’
Laughter erupted and Sally tickled Richard into saying ‘Architecture’ and finally admitting ‘Food’.
‘Ooops, watch that cup! What do you consider the most overrated virtue?’
‘Etiquette.’
‘What is your greatest regret?’
‘That my father and I did not get along.’
‘It’s never too late for a reconciliation.’
‘He’s dead.’
‘Oh. Poor Richie. Mine died when I was fifteen. When and where were you happiest?’
‘Finishing the London marathon three years ago.’
‘What single thing would improve the quality of your life?’
‘A housekeeper-cum-therapist-cum-masseuse-cum-sex-goddess. Want the job? Seven-fifty an hour?’
‘Ten? Done! Which talent would you most like to have?’
‘Telepathy.’
‘What would your motto be?’
‘Bien faire ce que j’ai à faire.’ Sally nodded, earnestly hoping to veil the fact that she had not the faintest idea what that meant.
‘How would you like to be remembered?’
‘As Sally Lomax’s favourite lay!’ As Sally Lomax’s favourite.
‘Thank you, Richard Stonehill, for your co-operation and honesty. Would you like your reward now or after lunch?’
‘What do you think?’
Richard and Sally explored each other’s bodies with a new inquisitiveness and a new depth. A new tenderness, too. Richard found how Sally’s personality shone through; her breasts spoke of it, her fuzzy bikini line proclaimed it. She spent a long time caressing his legs, with hands, lips and eyes, showing him that they drove her wild. She whispered ‘telecommunication’ as she chewed and licked his ear lobes. He hummed Genesis and sang ‘Turn It On Again’ after she came. She came again. She felt more fulfilled than she had with any other man, not that there had been that many. Now they both wanted to give, not merely to take. To give and to receive, to linger and to lap it up.
What is it that I am feeling? thought Sally as she showered, alone, in Richard’s bathroom. What is it? she wondered, as she swathed herself in Richard’s thick, burgundy towelling robe. What is it that feels so, well, nice? she asked herself as she padded across the bedroom to gaze out of the window at nothing in particular.
They lunched and munched together, snuggled deep in Richard’s voluminous sofa; du pain, du vin, du Boursin. Later, they browsed and tinkered at Portobello Market. He bought her two pounds of Cox’s Orange Pippins, she bought him half a pound of pear drops which tasted of white paper bag, just like they had in childhood, just as they should. The weather was as crisp as the apples, their noses were reddened and noisy, their fingers chilled. They thawed out at the Gate Cinema and were warmed by coffee, carrot cake and a Louis Malle matinée.
On her way home she stopped at a chemist. And bought a new toothbrush. She had not forgotten to take hers home, nor had she planned to leave it. She did not leave it accidentally-on-purpose, nor had she connived with herself in the bathroom mirror. She had done no grinning at the toothbrush. It was in the same beaker as Richard’s but they were not touching. His was an angle-poised, hard bristle; hers was small-headed and soft. She had left it merely because it had looked just fine in the beaker with Richard’s. Richard was not madly excited to find it there later, but certainly he was happy that it was there. That night, alone but not lonely in their respective beds, they did not think of each other but of themselves. Friday nights and Saturday mornings were to become an institution, not that they knew it then. If waves of contentment can travel, then the vibes from Highgate and those from Notting Hill would have met, crashed and fallen to earth somewhere around Regents Park. Which is precisely where, three days later, Sally and Richard next met.
TEN
With the future of the Zoo uncertain, schools all over London chose it over Hatfield House or Madame Tussaud’s for their annual school outings.
With the future of the Zoo uncertain, a team of architects was consulted over proposals for a building dedicated to research and conservation of endangered species. The idea was to promote the Zoo as a foundation, a trust dedicated to understanding and preserving and improving the future for threatened wildlife. It was to lose its image of merely housing bored tigers and sloping-shouldered eagles in cracked concrete. The hope was, that if seen as environmentally aware and ecologically sympathetic, funding from all sectors would be more readily available. In theory alone, the proposal had been met with great enthusiasm from the public and the government had given it a quiet nod or two already.
The Zoological Society, placed as it is in the outer circle of the Park, affords a sweeping vista. Especially from the wide window from which Richard gazed, plastic beaker of instant coffee in hand, waiting for the first, crucial meeting with his potential clients. He watched nostalgically as a human crocodile of ten-year-olds made its haphazard approach to the main gates, sections of its vertebrae frequently slipping out of alignment. He remembered well the joy of walking hand in hand with a best friend, the despair of having to hold hands tightly with an enemy, the humiliation of holding hands with the most unpopular boy in the class. The crocodile’s nose was black and red, because those were the only colours Diana Lewis wore. Its body was a multicoloured jumble of school children in mufti. Its navy tail caught and captured Richard’s attention.
The tail of the crocodile was Sally Lomax.
‘Good morning, Mr Stonehill, we are sorry to have kept you waiting. Shall we start?’
But I want to see the crocodile!
‘Mr Stonehill?’
I don’t want to be in this stuffy building, I want to find the crocodile and watch its tail swish.
‘Gentlemen, lady, this is Richard Stonehill from Mendle-Brooke Associates.’
‘Good morning,’ said Richard somewhat reluctantly, as he took the head of the table and began unravelling the roll of drawings, crocodiles still foremost in his mind. However, as soon as his design unfurled itself, Richard was totally focused. His personality, his gifted presentation and the skill of the design itself kept his audience rapt. An hour and a half shot by. Had they had the money there and then, they would have pressed cash into his hand and given him carte blanche to start immediately. Reality, however, would impose a minimum two-year wait.
‘I think I’ll just have a wander,’ Richard informed his hosts as everybody shook hands. ‘It’s the crocodiles that fascinate me.’
The children were having a lovely time, especially Marsha and Rajiv who were still holding hands long after the crocodile had disintegrated. Sharp, sweet wafts of dung and straw were filtered by the chill air and were pleasing to the nose. The bellow of the camel was impersonated very well by Marcus who was offered a ride by the keeper. Squeals of delight filled the air as the dromedary lunged and lurched itself up. The children’s zoo proved very popular too; little hands gently petted even littler furries and packed lunches were shared illicitly with the bleating, pleading, pocket-nuzzling deer and goats.
Around Miss Lewis, a band of keen young artists had gathered to sketch the elephants.
It was cold, cold, but clear. Everyone was in a thoroughly good mood.
‘Oh, children, the light’s just perfect! Simply perfect. I’ve brought charcoal and 4B pencils and some waxy crayons. Who wants what?’ The waxy crayons were the first to be snapped up followed sharply by the charcoal. The pencils were the last to go because Miss Lewis forbade erasers – ‘Work through your mistakes, make your errors a part of your design’ was her oft-chanted dictum. Experience had taught Class Five that any child caught smuggling a rubber would have it ceremoniously confiscated and, worse, would have to contend with Miss Lewis’s inconsolable hurt.
With not much more than an ear or tusk completed, the children began to complain of cold toes and numb fingers. Miss Lewis had overcome that problem by investing in a pair of red mittens, the tips of which could be folded back to reveal black, fingerless gloves. She sat on the bench surrounded by the hastily dumped materials of her protégés (off to see the yeuch! spiders and urgh! beetles) and breathed in the coarse, sweet smell of elephant. Wielding a 4B as a conductor might his baton, she began to draw fervently, making any mistake a committed part of the overall design.
Sally, who had just finished a quick chat with the polar bear (he had winked at her, slowly and wisely), contemplated the scamper and flurry of her class, released from the greyness of school and its buildings. She felt a little sad, imagining how the animals too would kick up their heels and squeal with delight if they were turned out into pastures new, let alone to their native habitats. She thought it cruel how the children teased the rhino for being so ugly, the way they grimaced and growled at the motionless lion, chattered and jumped around in front of the chimps and tapped the glass of the aquarium to see if the fish would budge or the clam slam shut. She walked past birds of prey and couldn’t associate the moth-eaten raptors with those she remembered from her childhood holidays, soaring in majestic abandon over the hills near Aunt Celia’s.
Miss Lewis had a hushed audience about her. All over her scarf (black) and her jumper (red) were chunks and furls of wood and lead: ‘Never use a sharpener, gives a ghastly line. Scalpel. That’s the answer. Super edge. Absolutely not, Marcus, only I can use it. Horribly sharp. Trust me.’ The children were wowed into silence by the skill with which Miss Lewis brandished her 4B, the verisimilitude of her drawing. The keeper recognized the sage old face immediately as Bertha. Richard Stonehill had glanced at the picture, greatly impressed. But he looked more intently at what had been the nose of the crocodile; he wondered what her name was and how well she knew Sally. Bertha, with unarguable dignity and grace, nevertheless answered the call of nature with an extremely ripe-smelling and resounding thud. The keeper didn’t smell it at all any more but the children shrieked with delight and bolted away, proclaiming ‘Poo! Poo!’ for the uninformed. Distracted, Miss Lewis looked up momentarily, caught Richard’s eyes, smiled fleetingly and returned her undivided attention to Bertha who was, she decided, the most beautiful creature she had ever seen. Richard wandered off in search of a sandwich.
Sally wandered over to Diana.
‘Lunch?’
‘Mmm? Nyet. Iniminit.’ Sally wandered off in search of a sandwich.
Every corner Richard turned, every enclosure he went to see, he felt sure he would finally come across Sally. His adrenal glands were in overdrive and he had demolished the sandwich in seconds without tasting it. Now it sat in his throat in a stodgy lump and felt as if it further protruded his Adam’s apple. Swallow as he might, he could not shift it an inch lower nor soften it at all. A drink was a possible solution.
The kiosk was a round structure with only one serving hatch. As Sally bought her cheese and pickle sandwich and carton of Ribena and walked away anticlockwise, Richard came from the other direction and exited clockwise. But there was no Chaplinesque crash and they each remained oblivious to the tantalizing proximity of the other. Sally had already disappeared behind the pandas and was wondering what bamboo tasted like.
Richard went to the reptile house to look at the crocodiles.
Are those Sally’s kids?
‘What time did Miss Lomax say we were to meet at the penguins?’
Yes, they are.
‘Two o’clock. Ten minutes’ time.’
The penguins, two o’clock, nine minutes’ time. As he stared at the crocodile, it flickered its eye shut, opened it again and stared back at Richard. He found it rather disconcerting and decided to arrive early at the penguins to ensure the best possible view. As he approached he could see Sally from the back, a posse of children surrounding her. They held her hands and all hopped from foot to foot – whether this was a bid to keep warm or an imitation of the penguins was not altogether clear.
They seem to like her, she’s probably their favourite teacher. Lenient, no doubt, but commanding respect and obedience.
Richard was puzzled at just how nervous he was, hands clammy and the sandwich had reappeared to pester his Adam’s apple. The contents of the butterfly house had taken residence deep in his stomach and the sawdust of the possums’ cage appeared to be in his mouth. As he approached he could hear her voice.
