‘Can you work chopsticks?’ Jane shook her head. ‘Well there’s time for the crash course before we head off. I think there are a few cornflakes left.’
Jane dashed into the icy kitchen, tipped some cornflakes into a curved saucepan lid – the single remaining clean thing in the cupboard – and found a pair of chopsticks in the dresser drawer (one said Ley-On, the other Lotus Garden). The next half hour was spent tweezing the stale yellow flakes out of their bowl and into the ashtray.
‘It’ll be easier tonight. The sauce glues the stuff together. You can always attack it with a fork if you get desperate – loads of people do – but it’s much more impressive this way. They like it when you know all the tricks.’
They. The men who bought dinner.
‘Do you ever go Dutch?’
‘Go Dutch! Wash your mouth out! Look, darling. They’ve got a pretty girl on their arm and a kiss and a cuddle on the way home. Dinner’s the least you should expect. Dutch! You are funny. So. What’s he like, this conquest of yours?’
‘Young. Private school.’
‘Public school,’ corrected Suzy. Snobby cow.
‘Quite nice-looking. Tweedy.’
‘Sounds all right. Sounds virginal. But it might be fun. Where does he live?’
‘Not far. Round the back of the BBC somewhere, I think.’
The planned Claridge’s get-up was switched for tight, low-cut black sweaters (Glenda had three of these) and full felt skirts. They didn’t leave the flat till gone eight. The streets were deserted and apart from the odd thirty-watt twinkle from St Anthony’s Chambers, there was no light from any of the surrounding buildings. Down in Oxford Street the fancy window dressing sulked unseen in the lightless displays. The taxi was surprised to find a fare at all – particularly one that only wanted to go four hundred yards but Suzy didn’t really believe in walking. What was the point? You just arrived with sore feet and a red nose. The cab let them know you weren’t a cheap date and with any luck Janey’s tweedy little friend would pay for it anyway.
He hadn’t much choice.
Chapter 14
The whole date through she will want to
be treated like Someone – ideally Lady
Someone. That means red carpet under
every footstep, waiters on best behaviour,
everything she wants before she realises
she wants it because you, Dream Man,
will anticipate her every whim.
Michael Woodrose was wearing out the pavement outside Ley-On when they arrived. He looked really cheesed off at being expected to fork out for the taxi.
‘Oh that is kind of you,’ gushed Jane.
‘I was afraid you weren’t coming.’ Idiot. Since when did a date arrive right on the dot?
He was almost handsome in a baby-faced sort of way, in his I-went-to-a-good-school uniform of tweed jacket, checked shirt and knitted red tie.
He had been slightly dreading the ‘friend’. In his (limited) experience decent-looking girls usually had a fat, spotty companion with a Sloppy Joe pullover and a hairy mole. Suzy was a rather wonderful surprise. They both were. He led the way into the cavernous restaurant in a happy wet dream. Waiters, who normally snubbed him, seemed to jump to attention at the sight of Jane and Suzy and treated him with new respect – and envy. Michael Woodrose sat opposite the pair of them, gazing from one to the other in happy disbelief. The waiter buzzed round him annoyingly.
‘Do you both like Chinese food? Or would you prefer something from the English menu?’
This was, in fact, a trick question. Michael was a terrible snob and always sneered delightedly at anyone who ordered plain roast chicken in an exotic restaurant, or ate their spaghetti with a knife and fork, or drank red wine with fish. It hadn’t dawned on him that there was a parallel universe of prejudices in which he, with his tweeds and well-drilled chopsticks, would offend on numerous counts: drinking halves of bitter; wearing ties with pullovers; tipping exactly ten per cent; bathing only once a week; poncing about in a college scarf.
Suzy was enjoying herself.
‘Whatever you say, Tiger.’
The waiter’s face twitched very, very slightly while he wondered what this seven-stone weakling had to offer these two. Tiger? Did he take them both at once? In the waiter’s hot and sour little mind a mental picture sprang up of some delicious English sandwich. He could barely concentrate on the order.
Michael Woodrose had been looking forward to ordering. A year in the pronunciation department had given him the basics of Cantonese inflection which he very much liked showing off. Even the normally poker-faced Chinese waiters found it hard not to laugh when he said ‘chow mein’. But today’s waiter wasn’t amused.
‘You give numbers. Numbers more quick.’
‘Oh. I see,’ sulked Michael, ‘Well in that case we’d like three 12s, a 17, a 23, a 28, a 36, one 41 and three 62s.’
‘Bingo!’ exclaimed Jane.
Michael Woodrose thought that this was really a bit common but then maybe not. The other one was laughing out loud and she wasn’t common at all. Very few fillings. By now he just wanted the waiter to go away so that he could concentrate on this amazing double vision of loveliness. Because they really were lovely. More paint than his mother would have liked but he didn’t mind that. If anything, he was flattered that they’d made the effort. Big eyes – two brown, two blue – soft pink lips and surprisingly large breasts. Padded? He hoped not.
Michael thought about breasts quite a lot. Breasts. The very word made him grateful for the generous cut of his flannels. He had a little collection of artistic photographs back at the flat. And some not so artistic that he’d bought from a Maltese chap in Old Compton Street. He hadn’t much experience of the real thing. A schoolfriend’s fourteen-year-old sister – an early developer – had allowed thirty-second gropes (timed mercilessly with the second hand of her gold-plated Timex) in exchange for sherbet lemons and there had been grudging fumbles under chunky jerseys while he was at Oxford but he was – as Suzy had suspected – a virgin. He had no plans to remain one. Indeed, only last week he had been lured to an upstairs room in Wardour Street by the promise of a ‘busty young model’ only to scuttle back down on finding a desiccated old tart picking her teeth on a dirty candlewick bedspread. And now here he was with two busty young models. And the irony of course was that he only needed one. But which? He watched them both, pinching fastidiously at their chop suey.
They were really very alike. Suzy seemed the livelier of the two. She was asking him something about D. H. Lawrence – there had been an article in one of the Sundays and she had absorbed it very cleverly. Give her a few of the learned weeklies and you could probably introduce her to colleagues. He imagined their faces. Brian, this is Suzy. And those soft red lips would smile – a slightly pitying smile at Brian with his stained tie and his dandruff and his flat-chested girlfriend (a primary-school teacher from High Wycombe). And Suzy would read and digest Encounter and Nation and then quietly dazzle with a few smart remarks about the modern novel – not too smart, obviously – Don’t waste time trying to be ‘smart’ with a man.
But of course the other one was rather lovely, too (if less chatty) and she did seem to have a narrower back. He imagined slipping that low-cut jumper off her shoulders and scooping one of those ripe young breasts from its black lace brassière (he had glimpsed the strap when she reached for a spring roll). He shifted into a more comfortable position.