To Catch a Creeper (9 page)

‘Yes, of course,’ I quack. ‘I’m fine.’

‘What are you thinking?’

‘What am I thinking?’ I say surprised. ‘I’m not thinking anything. Or rather I’m just trying to work out what this lunch meeting’s about.’

‘Does it have to be about anything?’ His smouldering eyes stare into mine, as if searching behind them for some sign of life. Only thing that’s going on is a great need to yell out, ‘
Don’t panic, Mr Mainwaring! Don’t panic!
’

What is it about Turks that makes me so ill-at-ease? His intensity, his attempts at psyching people out? The fact that he’s my employer? Sexy rubbery lips and cool attitude or…?

‘Can’t a boss take a member of staff out to lunch,’ he adds, pulling a stray hair off Alice’s borrowed black jacket, ‘without there being an ulterior motive?’

‘I wasn’t meaning… I didn’t…’

‘Hey, relax, honey.’ He rocks back in his chair and puts both palms in the air in an ‘I never touched you gesture’. ‘Don’t think I’m unaware of the reputation I have around Younger’s.’

‘I know nothing. I mean, I know loads of things, er, obviously, but I haven’t heard about any
reputation
as such.’

‘Well,’ he says slowly as the waiter fills our glasses, ‘some people in the office say I’m a real letch. Not true. But let them think it. In many ways it puts me in good standing.’

‘How so?’

‘Everyone assumes I know more than I actually do,’ he laughs before sipping his wine and nodding his approval to the waiter. ‘They believe I have the ears and eyes of every female in the industry. No-one dares say too much about me – just in case.’ He gives a strange hollow laugh. ‘Little do they know. Boy oh boy.’

***

An hour later. We’ve finished our meal and are propped up at the bar side by side on high stools.

‘…only been one person I’ve ever truly truly loved,’ Turks slurs.

‘Your wife?’ I sip my White Russian, relishing its creamy taste.

‘I’m not married.’ His face is now quite ruddy and he’s leaning against a pillar with his elbow which keeps flopping down when he puts too much weight against it. (His elbow not the pillar.)

‘But I thought…’ I’m positive Rosa told me he was married.

‘Always been a bachelor. Probably always will.’

‘What about the girl – the one you loved?’

‘Didn’t love me back.’ A flash of pain streaks across his face before he takes his third glug of brandy. ‘Schtill, water under the bridge, eh, darling. All too late. Keep it under your hat.’ He pats his Stetson which is perched on his head at a jaunty angle. Did I mention that he always but always wears a cowboy hat?

‘Of course I will.’ I pat my bare hair.

‘You realise Cathy, Cath Cath,’he taps at my knuckles with the tips of his fingers like he’s playing a little tune. Maybe Yankee Doodle, but I can’t be certain,‘since Rosa’s
been in hospital, you’re the only person I trust round Younger’s. And,’ he shuts one eye and leans towards me, ‘I think you can take on more than you’re taking on.’

‘No, no.’ I begin shaking my head robustly, which is not a good idea as Turks isn’t the only one who’s had a few too many bevvies. ‘I’m rushed off my–’

‘Don’t say, no, no, no, no, no.’ He pats my shoulder in a fatherly way. ‘I’m not saying pile the work onto you. I’m saying…change your work.’

‘Change my work? You mean take me off the boring brochure stuff?’ I say hopefully.

‘Yesh,’ he slurs again. ‘I’ve hired another recruit to the department. Trainee. Name’s Honour. Newly graduated. Bit of a boffin but seems very keen. Wasn’t clear in my mind how she might fit in, but now…’ He clicks twice with his tongue and gives a slow wink. So slow it takes a good few seconds before the lid lifts again.

‘So she’s going to work with me?’

‘Under you, my dear,’ he smiles through watery eyes. ‘What you were saying, the other day, it made sense. Woman on the street.’ He crosses his fists like they do on the X factor. ‘Power to the housewife!’ He stops and seems to think a moment. ‘You know what, little Cathy, Cath Cath. I’m gonna give you and Rosa the RNW account.’

***

‘Babes, what are you doing here?’ A dressing gown clad Rosa opens the door of her Islington flat and glances after the black cab that’s speeding away.

‘Bye Terry!’ I call after it. ‘Hello darling.’ I kiss her cheek and waft in like Elizabeth Taylor might.

‘It’s two o’clock,’ she smiles and follows me down the hall. ‘Why aren’t you working?’

‘Sacked me, didn’t they?’

‘Not again.’ She laughs and so do I. It’s our little joke. With the success of our campaign earlier this year, our jobs are rock solid.

‘Turks gave me the rest of the afternoon off.’ I follow her into her sparkling clean kitchen with its pristine work-surfaces and immaculate tiles. Everything’s new and glossy, like the rest of her flat. She bought it when she was single and living with us while the builders refurbished it, but by the time they’d finished, her and Alec had become a couple. ‘I went out to lunch with him. Had a few drinks.’

Her head moves over towards mine then jerks back as if in shock. ‘Gosh, you really have, haven’t you? You stink of Kahlua. So he made a move on you? Tell all.’

‘Oh come on, you’re as bad as Alice. He just likes to keep his reputation intact. It’s all a front. He told me everything about it.’

‘And you believe him?’

‘Actually,’ I pull up a stool, ‘funnily enough I do. And he said there’s only one person he’s ever truly truly loved.’ I grin widely and give a little wink. ‘I’m pretty certain he was referring to you.’

‘Me?’

‘Come on, you might be all pregnant and bovine, but you can’t have forgotten how het up you were around the time you were renting our attic. “My boss, my married boss, he’s after me” you used to groan. “He’s got a crush on me and I’m not sure how to handle it”. And that’s the other curious thing, he isn’t married.’

‘That’s right.’ She smiles and switches on the kettle. ‘He isn’t.’

‘But you said he was.’

‘Oh, Cathy, you know how everything went a bit pear-shaped with us around then. I had to lie. You didn’t approve of Alec, thought he was stalking you and stealing your
beer…and I don’t remember what I said. I just wanted to cover things up until I got my head straight. You lied as well, you know, making up friends you didn’t have.’

‘Only one,’ I say grumpily. ‘And she was
very
real to me. And far healthier than your imaginary friend
who was always sick
.’

‘Look, let’s make a solemn vow. No more lies between us, OK. Ever. Spit.’

‘Spit to you.’

We spit and shake hands.

‘Now what do you think? Boy or girl?’ She stands up and turns her profile to me. ‘People say that if it’s sitting out front it’s a boy, but then if you vomit a lot it’s a girl because it’s the mother’s hormones mixing with the girl’s.’

‘But you’ve not been vomiting, have you?’

‘True. And it’s not sitting out front so that means…what?’

‘Dunno. Although apparently if you stop making love for a few days before ovulation, then the fastest swimming sperm, i.e. the boys, have piled into the front and so by the time the egg arrives, they’ve perished and only the future daughters remain. Do you remember having a break from sex at all, just before ovulation?’

She laughs out loud. ‘Oh, Cathy. You do make me die. We’d only been going out together a matter of weeks when I conceived. We were shagacrazy.’

I go all misty-eyed a moment before I remember the reason I’ve come here this afternoon. ‘Oh, but I’ve got the most
fabulous
news! Turks wants us to take on the RNW account!’

‘Oh.’ She wanders through to her lounge and I follow, eager for her reaction. She flops onto the sofa and stares hard at her toenails. I flop down next to her and wait, breath bated. Is she going to explode with happiness or…? Nothing happens.

‘Oh?’ I exhale eventually when my lungs can’t bear it any longer. ‘That’s all you can say, oh? The account we’ve been rooting for? The account you said was the best one in the world? The biggie? And how if we managed to wangle it, it’d be absolutely fantastico? The account we did all that visualisation for? And it’s just a lowly old oh?’

She looks pained.

‘Oh… Ohh…’ She grimaces. ‘Ahh.’

‘Are you OK?’ I clutch at her arm. ‘Not the baby, is it? It’s not coming again, is it?’

‘No! Get Orf!’ She digs me in the ribs with her elbow. ‘You’re on my bloody leg.’

I shift my bum over. ‘Sorry about that. But what’s wrong, Rosa? You don’t look, what’s the word? Exhilarated. Or anything?’

‘I should have told you.’

‘Told me what?’

‘Oh, Cathy, I hate to do this. I keep meaning to ring you, let you know.’ She hesitates, then her eyes close and her head drops. ‘I’m not coming back to work.’

***

‘What, ever?’ Henrietta gasps down the phone.

‘That’s what she said. The doctors advised her to have complete bed rest until the baby’s born. Something about her placenta being above the uterus…or below the womb…or something. And then afterwards, she’s decided, she wants to just stay home with the baby. Not go back at all.’

‘Well I guess we always-knew-there-was-a-possibility-of-that,’ Henrietta says this very fast. Having a phone call with Henrietta during office hours is rather like playing a game of German spotlight. She has to time her calls between her doddery old boss making his way down to the dusty musty cellar, where he stores his dusty musty archive files. He’s so miserly that he hates her making personal phone calls.

‘She feels dreadful about it and says she’ll help me all she can on the concept, but I’ve got to do the presentation. All on my own. In front of people. You know how bad I am at that. Can’t even give a half decent speech at our girls’ night out.’

‘No but after a few glasses of wine you can stand up on a restaurant table and grind your hips while singing old country and western songs.’

‘So all I need to do then is get drunk, yeah? No, it’s no use. I’ll tell him I can’t do it. Suggest he passes it on to someone else.’

‘Well-if-you’re-not-confident…?’ Henrietta’s voice speeds up again. ‘By the by, have you done anything about the…er, lambswool situation?’

‘Lambswool sit… Oh, God, no, sorry. Not yet. But I am thinking on it.’

‘He’s really really worried.’

‘Well, we’ll just have to–’

‘It’s just not good enough,’ Henrietta interrupts in a sudden mean harsh tone.

‘Don’t be horrible, H, I’m doing what I can. Look, I promise I’ll–’

‘£40 overdue!’ She cuts in again sharply. ‘I’ll have you know, Mrs Eccles, that that statement was sent well over a month ago.’ Then her voice drops. ‘Promise what?’

‘Promise to catch the Creeper.’

***

‘I knew he’d got it wrong. I just knew.’

‘Got what wrong, who?’ I place four mats onto the table, followed by four sets of knives and forks.

‘Darwin,’ Declan taps the article he’s reading in
The Independent
, ‘he saw there was a problem with the origin of life.’

‘Oh yeah. Well he’s not the only one with problems.’ It’s meant to be a relaxing Sunday, but all weekend I’ve fretted about a) how to sort out Henrietta now that I’ve stupidly promised to catch the Creeper and save Neil being outed as a tranny, b) how I’ll manage at work without Rosa covering my back and c) how to stop my bloody husband harping on about all these silly ideologies which he’s been spouting since Hugh’s death. Hopefully after tomorrow’s funeral, he’ll put it behind him.

‘Can you call the kids?’ I plop a knob of butter into the swede and begin mashing as the timer on the cooker starts bleeping.

‘In a second. You see it had to begin with creatures capable of producing other creatures non-identical to their parents.’

‘Uh-huh.’

He follows me down the hallway.

‘Josh, Sophie?’ I bellow up the stairs. ‘Will you turn off that Playstation and come down, please.’

‘Listen,’ he starts to read a bit more, ‘it’s out of the question that the first living matter evolved out of dead matter.’

I head back to the kitchen, open the oven and extract the shoulder of lamb, succulent, juicy and then the meatloaf, dry, overcooked, black on top. Serve Declan right for turning vegetarian. Such a bore.

‘There must have been something else,’ he continues solemnly, a deep frown furrowing his forehead as he stares down at the article. ‘There really must.’

I pull out some plates and start ladling roast potatoes onto them.

‘And then it goes on about the Cambrian explosion five hundred and forty million years ago.’ He adjusts his reading glasses.

‘Josh! Sophie!’ I shout up the stairs again. ‘Your dinner’s getting cold!’

‘You know I’ve always wondered about the Cambrian explosion.’

‘You’ll have a Cambrian explosion on your hands if you don’t help me dish this lot up!’ I head down the hallway again. ‘JOSH! SOPHIE! HOW MANY BLINKING TIMES DO I NEED TO CALL YOU! HAVE YOU BOTH GOT CLOTH EARS OR WHAT!!’

‘I was only thinking about this yesterday when I went to renew my mobile phone and you know after it was invented… Well, at the beginning there were hundreds of different types, all shapes and sizes and then slowly they became similar.’ Both his hands make fists as he rubs at his dark ringed eyes. He hasn’t been sleeping lately, twisting and turning in the night which also helps keep me awake. ‘In other words, the best models survived.’

‘All I know,’ I say exasperated as I hand him a carving knife, ‘is if no-one’s here in five minutes, I’m chucking this whole ruddy meal in the bin!’

Just at that moment, both my offspring appear together.

‘Thank God for that. Now sit down both of you. Sophie, you can be head girl. Josh, go back and wash your hands. You could grow potatoes under those nails.’

‘Cars for instance.’ Declan begins carving. ‘When someone first thought up the technology…’

I’m struggling to follow as he harps on comparing, as far as I can make out, Darwin’s theory of evolution with the Ford motor company. ‘Do you know what I’m saying?’

‘Yes,’ I say evenly, dropping some peas on the floor which Josh promptly treads into the carpet, ‘I know what you’re saying. I mean, I hear the words. But I don’t understand you. Sit down now, Josh. Knife and fork, Sophie.’