Yearn (14 page)

She pressed him back onto the grass, the crushed scent of it drifting up, the heavy weight of his erection now resting on his stomach. He still couldn't believe it was her as her face dipped down toward his penis, erect and thick. He could see both the young Janey in all her eager beauty and the adult Janey in the planes of her face, her laughing eyes, the wry mouth that closed over his cock as she sucked him hard, her tongue circling the tip in maddeningly sensual circles. He half sat up, pushing her long hair away from her face, unable to help his fascination as he watched her take him. Now kneeling, she slipped her hands under each of his buttocks and played his anus as if she were taking him, as if she were the man. He caught his breath; there was genuine abandonment and delight in both her face and movements, as if she were as erotically aroused as he was by the fellatio.

His mind flashed to Cynthia's face when they made love, an act that always seemed to entail Eddy serving Cynthia's needs over his own, the heiress's sense of entitlement extending to the bedroom. With Cynthia, Eddy always had to resort to imagining he was with someone else to bring himself off—it was hard not to resent her passivity, the way she lay back as if it was an honor for him to even be in the same bed as she. Janey was entirely different; her enthusiasm was almost as erotic as the extraordinary things she was doing to him with her mouth and her fingers. She was now taking him faster and faster, deeper and deeper, and he could feel his orgasm building. He sat up and pulled her away from him. He looked at her flushed face, a blush mottling her pale skin, her eyes bright, her mouth swollen as if bee-stung. “That was for Eddy at sixteen,” she said, grinning, “but Eddy at twenty-six is beautiful too,” at which they both started laughing until, unable to wait any longer, he pulled her onto his lap and plunged into her, the pleasure making both of them gasp. Slowly she moved up and down, clenching him as she swiveled her hips in a slow, sliding dance. Deeper and deeper he lost himself in her, over and over, all his anger, humiliation, disempowerment of that evening vanishing with each new thrust. Then he moved faster and faster, the race, the galloping hunt, the cock and cuntiness of it all searing through him in a sudden epiphany. This is where he really belonged, in her arms, her legs wrapped around his hips. And in the blinding moment that he came he knew that for the first time in years he was completely and profoundly authentic.

 • • • 

Later they walked hand in hand like love-drunk teenagers, her shoes dangling in his left hand, his jacket draped over her shoulders. The dawn light was breaking over Mayfair. Outside the Savoy some of the night hotel workers were changing shift with their day counterparts. A garbage truck was crawling down the road. Already the day smelt of summer, and Eddy was charged with the kind of excitement he hadn't felt since he was a child. “Oi, mate!” he yelled after the dustbin men. Three minutes later they were hitching a ride down to Piccadilly Circus, hanging off the sides of the large truck, laughing at the bleary-eyed who were just emerging from the nightclubs. At Piccadilly Circus they both climbed up onto the plinth and had their photo taken by a German tourist as they embraced Eros, Janey showing the top of her thigh as she wrapped a leg over the bronze boy god as the sun, now rising up between the buildings, caught the glass and the reflective steel in a sudden shower of light. Staring across, Eddy thought to himself all was possible now; he was going to win, score that perfect goal over and over. He was never going to compromise who he was or where he'd come from for anyone ever again. Laughing, he swung Janey down from the statue.

“I am greater than Eros,” he thought, “greater, bigger, more fucking successful. I am a god!” he felt like shouting, staring down Piccadilly with the wealth of London flanking the broad promenade, Janey's lips now on his neck as she kissed him. “I am invincible”—the notion resounded through his very cells, his psyche, as they climbed down to the pavement and he took in Janey's tumbling and disheveled hair, small tufts of grass still tangled among the blond strands. “You 'ave made me invincible,” he whispered. But the roar of a passing delivery van masked his words and Janey, not hearing, smiled back blankly.

It was now five a.m. and Eddy knew his father would already be setting up his stall. They walked down to Berwick Street Market. Larry Jenkins, dressed in an old pullover that Eddy recognized from years earlier, stood with his back to them, unpacking fish from freezer boxes onto his stand. A small radio propped up on a nearby milk crate gave the track running order for the races later that day, while down the lane all the other stalls were setting up, the owners bantering and teasing each other while unloading boxes, fruit, flowers, and cheese: it was a rapport so familiar that they didn't even bother to turn their heads toward the object of their ridicule. The humorous exchanges flew above their heads like errant darts as Eddy and Janey wove their way along the street, dodging handcarts and barrels, toward the fish stall.

“Dad!” Eddy cried out. Larry Jenkins swung around. Smoking and hard work had aged him a great deal since the last time Eddy had seen him, and for the first time he became aware of his father's frailty. He felt a pang of guilt, as he hadn't visited him in over a year, yet he walked past Berwick Street Market every day on his way to work.

“Eddy!” Larry Jenkins spun around to the other stall owners. “See, Shirley, me boy 'as come to visit me!”

Shirley, a plump, dyed redhead who owned the flower stall next to his father's, waddled over, her gaudy makeup unchanged since the 1980s.

“Eddy? My handsome lover Eddy?” she crackled. Pushing past Janey, she pulled him into a hug, her powdery perfume sending him back decades. “'Asn't he grown—he looks proper smart. Oh, Larry, you must be proud.”

“Course I am, Shirley, course I am—when I get to see the cocky bastard. Come 'ere, lad.” And he pulled Eddy into a pungent embrace of fish and tobacco emanating from his fishmonger's apron. Eddy pulled back, overwhelmed.

“We'd thought you might 'ave set up so we could 'ave breakfast wiv you—you know, the usual?”

“My pleasure, lad.” Larry winked at Janey. “You know Eddy, a right elitist bugger he's become, but occasionally he likes to slum it wiv his old dad, like the good old days.”

“I remember, Mr. Jenkins,” she replied, smiling.

Taken aback, he studied her. “'Old on, I know you. . . .”

“It's Janey Lewis, Dad—you know, my old school friend . . .”

“Janey! Why so it is! Tell you wot, girl, you broke my lad's 'eart, you did.”

“I did?”

“Dad!” Eddy tried to shut him up, but Larry Jenkins would not be deterred.

“Gave it all up after that. Could 'ave gone to university, that boy. First in the family, could 'ave done something for society. Instead off he went and become a capitalist, a bloody paid-up member of the Tory party.”

Aghast, Janey turned to Eddy. “Is that true, Eddy, you ran away because of me?” He could not meet her eye, instead turning back to his father.

“C'mon, off your soapbox, we're only 'ere for a fry-up, not a bloody lecture.” Eddy punched his father's shoulder good-naturedly and the three of them walked down to the last of the traditional greasy spoon cafés in Soho, a place where Larry Jenkins had been having his sausage and eggs every morning for over twenty years. Over baked beans and toast with a kipper staring up at her from a side plate, Janey leaned over.

“You haven't answered me, Eddy. Did you run away after that night when nothing happened between us?”

His father coughed with embarrassment, then buried himself in a copy of the
Morning Star
while a blushing Eddy folded his paper napkin over and over.

“Did me no harm. Look where I am now, eh? If I wanted I could buy out Dad here and the rest of Berwick Street Market, for that matter.” Eddy couldn't keep the defensiveness out of his voice.

Janey and his father stared at him, neither smiling.

“And wot would that achieve, lad, eh?” his father finally answered softly, then turned back to Janey. “See, no hope for the boy. It's all pomp and circumstance with him, all golden balls and hot air. Money don't matter that much, Eddy, not in the grand scheme of things.”

In lieu of an answer Eddy turned on his BlackBerry, which had now been switched off for ten hours. To his horror, he noticed that there were 120 messages for him. Two were from Cynthia, no doubt wondering where he was. The other 118 were from the Asian offices of his investment bank, and that was far more worrying. He looked at his watch—six-thirty a.m.; Asia had been open for five hours, and his meeting with the Chinese businesswoman was at ten. Cynthia could wait. He turned to Janey.

“Quickly, give me your mobile number.”

“07325 678710.”

He tapped it into his phone as she spoke, then, after standing and giving her a quick kiss on the forehead, moved toward the door.

“See he doesn't steal any of me toast,” he joked, indicating his father. He stepped out of the café into the morning light now sharpening with the sun, flicked his phone open, and pressed the direct number to his counterpart in the Singapore office, who answered immediately.

“Where the fuck have you been, Ed?” Jeff, a brash Jewish New Yorker, was not renowned for his hysteria—Eddy's first thought was that there'd been another 9/11.

“What are you talking about? It's just gone six-thirty here.”

“I don't give a shit, Edward, two major banks went down today, there are rumors from Sydney to Shanghai, everyone's expecting the Dow to crash through the fucking floor. I've never seen it this bad. They're saying it's going to be worse than twenty-nine—more like 1890! They're talking the end of the financial world here—get to your fucking desk! I have clients here who are threatening to kill me first and then themselves. Edward, do you hear me? Edward?”

But Eddy was already running for a cab.

 • • • 

The trading floor was mayhem, a flurry of panicked shouting and running suits. Some of the traders had worked all night; some were already slumped over leather armchairs catching a nap between markets. At the central hub there was a huddled bunch of anxious-looking young traders with eyes glued to the canopy of monitors that blinked down at them as they screamed into their phones. All the flashing figures on the screens were in red—the plummeting share prices from Tokyo to Shanghai through to Sydney—hemorrhaging funds as if the money god himself had slashed his wrists and now stood waiting atop the New York stock exchange like King Kong, blood cascading down onto the pavement below.

Eddy bolted to his desk, splashing his hand with scalding hot coffee from the Starbucks container he clutched—he barely noticed. Once at the desk he booted up his monitors and began selling and selling and selling. . . . The world was in freefall; it was like clutching at snow. Eddy watched blue-chip stocks melting in value before his eyes as the switchboard was jammed with panicking clients trying to get through to their traders.

Just before ten in the morning the Chinese businesswoman's assistant phoned to tell him she was canceling but not to sell any of her employer's portfolio—in fact she ordered him to buy up gold, silver, and iron ore. Shouting over the raised voices of his colleagues, Eddy asked if she was serious about not selling the stocks that were plummeting. At the other end the phone was handed to the businesswoman herself.

“I tell you . . .” she said—he could barely understand her heavy accent—“you are to buy now. Ignore panic. The calm captain does not sink the ship. My assistant will text you the stocks.” Her melodious voice seemed to narrow the chaotic room around him down to a desert island on which he was standing holding the phone.

“You are sure?” he ventured.

“I am sure. I never do anything without great calculation—at least not business,” she replied somewhat enigmatically.

A minute later his phone beeped to announce the texted instructions. In the ten minutes he spent purchasing the shares they devalued by fifteen percent, but a grain of curiosity had been planted, one he put at the back of his mind in order to deal with the ensuing chaos. It was bedlam. At one point he had the head of the biggest iron ore exporter in the world on hold while he calmed down the majority stockholder of the same company on the other line. But strangely, despite his lack of sleep, Eddy had never felt such clarity and emotional integration; it was as if the barrow boy, starving in his ambition, desperate for reinvention, could now openly triumph with his street sense and chameleon abilities. He was himself, he noted as his fingers flicked wildly over the computer keys. His body, although exhausted and now starving, still glowed with postcoital warmth. He'd come home.

Just before the market closed, Eddy glanced again at the list of commodities the Chinese woman had bought into. Using his own cash, he had purchased a considerable number of shares, which were now trading at half the price he'd bought them at three hours earlier. He then left the office whistling, much to the astonishment of his fellow traders, many of whom were contemplating their own demise in the fallout that was bound to follow.

 • • • 

Eddy caught a cab to Cynthia's Chelsea Mews cottage and arrived unannounced. Cynthia was curled up on the couch, drying her toenails while watching a reality TV fashion show. She leapt up as Eddy entered the room.

“Where have you been? I tried ringing last night. What happened, sweetie? I was really worried.”

“I walked around all night. I had to sort out some things in my head, and then the stock market this morning . . .”

Eddy collapsed onto the small chaise longue that he had previously associated with good taste but, for the first time, now recognized as chintzy. It was also extremely impractical and uncomfortable, characteristics he'd tolerated before, assuming one had to suffer for style. Now he found himself craving the old battered leather couch that was the one piece of furniture his father prized.