The Buddha of Brewer Street (28 page)

‘You’re Mr Goodfellowe.’

‘Tom. Please call me Tom.’

‘As in Dick and Harry!’ She laughed. Or did she say Hurry? He could’ve sworn she said Hurry.

‘How long have you worked here?’ he enquired, feeling the eyes of the Dragonaria burning like night scopes into his back.

‘’Bout five months.’

God, a fast little worker. Hadn’t taken her long to settle in.

‘Your name is Andrina?’

‘Andy.’

‘I’m sorry we haven’t met before. Would you have time for a drink one evening, perhaps a bit of supper? I’d like to know what you think about this place.’ He threw his arms around expansively, trying to sound like an opinion pollster out on a canvass.

‘Sure.’

‘Er, tonight?’

‘Be fine.’

And that was it. He’d picked up a date. Out of the blue. He hadn’t done that in – well, since about the time Andy had been born – and he’d come to imagine it would be more like storming a medieval castle, all battering rams and boiling oil, defying wave after wave of repulsion before breaking down the final resistance. He’d expected more obstacles than ‘Sure’ and ‘Be fine’. It had rather taken him by surprise and before he had recovered he’d invited her to dinner at The Canasta in Charlotte Street. Four times what his normal noodle-fest would have cost him. Impulsive fool.

But the evening had brought out the sun. Charlotte Street was abuzz with pavement diners and Andy turned out to be a delightful companion who held views and amusing gossip about almost everyone in the House. He listened attentively – after all, he reminded himself, her views were so well informed. Only two things marred the progress of the evening. Over the wild cherry soup he discovered that she was only twenty-two. Then, too late, he remembered that the restaurant was managed by a friend of Elizabeth, one of those he’d met at her dinner party and who, after Goodfellowe’s initiation of the debate about adultery, had walked out no longer speaking to his wife. Now he had spotted Goodfellowe. And Andy. Suddenly she was looking extraordinarily adolescent.

‘Tom! Unexpected. But a delight. No point in asking how you are, you’re clearly in very good spirits.’ The restaurateur deliberately allowed his eyes to linger on Andrina a fraction too long. ‘And you, young lady, are in very experienced hands.’ He allowed the thought to twist and turn for her inspection before shifting his attention to their starter, one of the cheapest items on the menu. ‘I hope you’ll enjoy the evening. Why not try the lobster, miss? I can recommend it. Know Tom enjoys it. Flown in from Maine today. First class.’ And a price to match. A small revenge for what Goodfellowe had served up with the lobster at Elizabeth’s dinner party. ‘Be happy!’ He turned to leave before throwing in his final offering. ‘Oh, I’ll be seeing our mutual friend later in the week, Tom. I’ll be sure to tell her we met up. Bye now.’

It seemed that in a few short words the restaurateur had taken a meat cleaver to both his love life and his wallet. Still, he’d find an explanation for Elizabeth. He doubted whether he would be able to satisfy his bank manager as easily.

It was with a mixture of pain and rising apprehension that he paid the bill and they left the restaurant. Their conversation had been relaxed and flowing, but as the purpose of the exercise began to preoccupy his thoughts he found it increasingly difficult to discover the appropriate opportunity to ask her back to the apartment. It had been too long since he had approached sex simply as a shag rather than as an expression of a relationship. He and Andy didn’t have a relationship and weren’t going to develop one, and the words for this sort of situation failed him. He had to find the right vocabulary, and quickly, before they got into the taxi.

He was rescued by the fact that there were no taxis. Bloody no man’s land. ‘Let’s walk,’ he suggested. ‘Let’s walk,’ she agreed. So they set off as dusk was falling and London was beginning to glow with pride. Twilight fell across the city and the frenetic pace of day slowed to one of intimacy, a time when hands were held and bonds were built. Not that Goodfellowe had any intention of holding hands with Andrina, but they were able to stroll and laugh – she laughed most readily – lost in the anonymity of the crowd and without being conscious of the passage of time, until they had wandered through the gaiety and tinselled grime of Soho to a point where they were at the fringes of Chinatown.

‘Coffee?’ he suggested.

‘Coffee,’ she replied.

He marvelled. As simple as that. At this rate he reckoned he could become a stud. He climbed the stairs two at a time and threw open the door. ‘I don’t often bring people up here,’ he found himself apologizing.

She looked around. ‘I can tell.’

Ouch. Still, he couldn’t pretend it was designer territory. Utilitarian, second-hand, a little threadbare, so unmistakably Goodfellowe. Anyway, she was up here, that was the main point. He felt relieved that he still had the candles, and guilty when he lit them. They had been meant for someone else. For Elizabeth. Still, needs must. By this point his hormones were beginning to blur the moral niceties. A little music, a bottle of something Chilean – to hell with coffee – and they were sitting on his small sofa, knees brushing.

‘You have very beautiful eyes,’ he offered. It would have sounded trite, except for the fact that he so obviously meant it. And they were. Almond, green, like a cat’s but not cold.

‘You’re very sweet, Tom. Not at all like most of the rest.’

‘How so?’

‘You’ve noticed my eyes. Been looking at them all evening. Not just staring at me below the neck.’

‘Doesn’t mean I haven’t noticed.’

‘Of course you have. But you had the decency to start at the right end.’

‘Decency scarcely comes into it.’ He swallowed half a glass of wine. ‘Hell, I’m almost old enough to be your father.’

‘You’re older than my father, actually.’

He swallowed the other half to dull the pain. ‘And that’s a turn-off.’

‘Why should it be? I haven’t been out with anyone as old as you before, Tom, but you’ve got all your hair. Most of your teeth. The rest of you looks in reasonable shape …’ – he gave thanks for the hours of agony in the gym – ‘and I suspect it all works.’

Was she teasing him? he wondered. Was this part of her turn-on technique? Andy had come with Mickey’s mileage guarantee, yet she seemed so natural, so new. With a sudden burst of insight he realized Mickey had set him up, but not in the way he had first imagined. This was going to be a deliberate disaster. Mickey and Andy were in it together and would be sniggering over him in the morning, with the rest of the Dragonaria joining in by lunchtime. Humiliation was to be his punishment.

‘Although you wouldn’t pass my mother’s scrutiny.’

‘Why not?’ he demanded – as if he needed to ask.

‘Before I came to work in Westminster she gave me very firm advice. If I’m to make it into
Hello!
magazine, I’m to make sure it’s with nothing less than a rich hereditary peer.’

So that confirmed it, she was mocking him. He needed a drink, but his glass was empty. ‘Another glass of wine?’ He made to rise.

‘No. No thanks.’

There was a pause as she looked into her glass. He knew she was finding the words to say not on your life, old man, and goodnight. Then she’d have a bloody good laugh in the taxi home. A little part of him was relieved, most of him was furious, although all of him still wanted her.

‘No thanks, Tom,’ she repeated. ‘I don’t want to have too much to drink. Not if you’re planning to take me to bed.’

He sat speechless. A little awkwardly she reached out for his hand, then stretched and kissed him. It was a tentative, clumsy kiss. She drew back almost immediately, her eyes full of questions. Goodfellowe knew what was going on. Mickey’s plan was to take him to the limit. To bring him right up to the very peak of the mountain and show him all the sights. Then push him off the top.

Now Andy was back, this time not so tentative but soft and warm, her tongue wriggling, greedy, hungry for more. She was up for it. He could feel every masculine instinct within him responding, and had no doubt she could feel it too. She used her own body to urge him on. He felt desperately overdressed. He was still wearing his tie.

And he kept it on. Something within him turned, the bowstring snapped. He drew back. He still wanted her, more than ever. But not like this.

‘Sorry, Andy. I can’t. I mean … I won’t.’

There was no disguising her expression of disappointment.

‘Forgive me, but I’m not going to feel right about this in the morning.’

‘Why not?’

He took a deep breath, not certain of what he would say. ‘Hell, I’m not very good at this but… There’s somebody else. Somebody I think I love. I want to give that a chance. This would only confuse things.’

‘She wouldn’t know.’

‘But I would. And I can’t respect you or anyone else by not respecting myself.’

She thought about this for a moment, searching his troubled eyes. ‘I said you weren’t like all the rest.’

‘Sorry. Hope I haven’t misled you.’

She leaned forward. ‘You haven’t. And I’m the one who’s sorry. But not angry.’ She kissed him again, very gently.

‘Please understand, Andy, this is my problem, it’s not because of you. I guess you probably noticed I’d like to sleep with you very much.’

She smiled. ‘I noticed. And thank you. Perhaps some other time. If things don’t work out elsewhere.’

‘I suppose you’d like to go.’

‘No, not particularly. I don’t want our evening to end just here, in embarrassment. You offered me another drink. I’d like to have it now, if you don’t mind.’

And so he had opened a new bottle and they had sat and talked and been friends until well after two, when it became apparent to them both that she was far too tired to go home. She slept on the sofa.

‘It’s been a wonderful evening,’ she offered sleepily as she made herself comfortable under the spare sheet. ‘Everything turned out perfectly for me.’

‘Me too,’ he lied.

While Andrina dreamed, he lay awake thinking of Elizabeth.

Of her time in the security services. Wondering whether she had ever ‘sacrificed herself’ in the public interest. Wondering why he couldn’t. Wondering whether he could ever tell her, and whether she would understand. And worrying how on earth he was going to explain all this to Mickey.

In the morning he felt the age gap with a vengeance. Andrina rose with the sun, bright and brimming with youthful energy while he felt and looked like the bottom of a laundry basket. After she had bade an embracing farewell, still friends, he decided he had to do something drastic to come to terms with his dehydration. Time for tea. He took himself off to Chou’s. The restaurateur appeared glad to see him, scurrying over in a cloud of tobacco smoke that reminded Goodfellowe of Woodbines tainted with diesel oil. At the back of the restaurant the fishmonger and Chou’s wife were already locked in combat and taking no prisoners.

‘Mr Minister! Mr Minister!’ Chou greeted. ‘You arrive at difficult time. Yesterday’s swordfish was defrost not fresh. My wife want to chop me up and lock me in freezer with it. I am a coward. Hide me, please.’

Goodfellowe waved him into a chair. ‘Sun Tzu wrote that he who fights for victory in front of bared blades is not a good general.’

‘Sun Tzu very wise man,’ Chou acknowledged, gratefully accepting the seat with his back turned squarely against the hostilities.

‘So, Mr Chou, how’s business?’ It was meant as no more than a pleasantry. His mind was elsewhere. On Andrina. On Mickey. On Elizabeth. At times there seemed to be too many women in his life. So how could he feel so lonely?

‘Business bad, Mr Minister, but plenty of it. Which is good business, you understand.’

‘What bad business?’

‘The child. You must have heard of child. Everyone heard of child. Everyone looking. Big money for finding him.’

Goodfellowe felt the veins in his temple beginning to throb.

‘Back home in China this boy regarded as great religious leader. But he lost, so Government wish to find him. Put word out on street. Offer big reward.’

‘So why is that bad business?’ he asked, very slowly.

Chou lowered his voice. ‘Because word put out by bad men.’

‘Which men? Who is putting the word out on the streets, Mr Chou?’

The Chinaman looked around nervously, as if to check whether anyone was eavesdropping. ‘You know, Mr Minister.
Bad
men.’

‘You mean criminals? The Triads?’

Chou didn’t deny it. Madame Lin cast a long shadow.

‘But why is the Chinese Government using such bad men?’

‘Big hurry. Everything big hurry. Want child very quick.’

‘So who are these bad men? Who is organizing this search, Mr Chou?’

Chou’s thin lips were working furiously, as though nibbling rice crackers. This was a
gweilo
, but a senior and very influential
gweilo
. One he wanted to impress. Chou was torn between his instinct for caution and the desire to share a confidence, to show that he. Chou, was important enough to know about such matters. It was a finely balanced judgement, but one that in the end was resolved by nothing more complicated than commercial rivalry. Jiang was growing altogether too haughty, his dining tables too crowded. He had just bought another vanity number plate, and a new Audi coupé to carry it. The time had come to pay for it all. Chou shrugged his shoulders. ‘It’s Jiang.’

‘Jiang’s one of the bad guys? The Triad?’

‘He should stick to things he knows,’ grumbled Chou. ‘Like credit cards. His gambling den.’

‘He runs a gambling den? An illegal one?’

‘In basement below travel agency.’ Chou had lost eighteen hundred on the tables almost a fortnight before and he was still sore. ‘But nobody gamble there any more,’ he lied.

Except that it was not a complete lie. Several of the illicit gambling dens had closed in recent years, clobbered not so much by the law as by growing competition. The legitimate casinos in Leicester Square and Shaftesbury Avenue had come to realize that nobody gambled with the intensity of a Chinese kitchen hand, particularly one who worked seven days a week and slept amongst boxes of lychees and water chestnuts in the storeroom because he had no entry visa. They had nowhere else to take their money. So the legitimate operators had thrown out their prejudices and their normal dress codes and opened their doors to small-stake Chinese waiters in T-shirts and jeans. Everyone could join in. There was one snag, however, which threw a lifeline to establishments like Jiang’s. In order to keep their licences the casinos were required to run games of chance whose rules were recognized by the licensing authorities, like roulette and blackjack. But these were not always to Chinese tastes, and the dens that survived were still the only places to get an authentic game of
fau-ten
or
pei-gau
in which you could win – or lose – an entire business overnight, Chinese style.