to see many kinds of softened and soulful shapes beneath that sharp telegenic sheen. Her eyes, in particular, genuinely are violet — playful and tender-natured eyes too.
It all happened one morning last week. I was at my desk, tricked out with an unusually desperate hangover (I had even bought a tomato-takeaway as opposed to a coffee-no from Dino’s, always a bad sign) and conductinga jangled, queasy hate-talk with Wark, the mad Stalinist. His floppy bum parked on my low filing-cabinet, and with a more than averagely plastic-and-offal lilt in his mealy new voice, Wark was deploring at length the proven inability of the urbane Lloyd-Jackson to make any stand against John Hain over the coming rationalization. I was just about to agree with him when the pooh-poohing ex-copywriter himself pushed open my cubicle door and, a shapely half-smile on his neat little lips, announced,
‘Ah. Two birds with one stone — or “rationalization”, as it’s now called. We have a new temp. Now this is Geoffrey Wark … and this is Terence Service.’
And this is she: in tight jeans and loose T-shirt, slouching (her arms folded, a habit of hers, as I said), a shy scowl on her face and a short-sighted ripple between her indigo eyes.
‘And this,’ he said, ‘is
Jan
.’
How like Gregory he sometimes is, I thought, straightening in my chair. Wark nodded with emphasis in the direction of the doorway, then turned to gaze unflappably out of the window. What could I say that would adequately indicate my disaffection from the values here personified by Wark and the intelligent Lloyd-Jackson, my shrewd sympathy (and it wasn’t a hypocritical one, either) with the casual, more strictly functional nature of her position here, the fact that I was nice, extremely friendly, and would make a fine husband? Leaning forward with arrested gusto, I said,
‘Hi.’
‘Hi,’ she said, and smiled.
‘How long,’ I asked her, ‘how long do you expect to stay here?’
Jan flared her oval nostrils. ‘Weeell. A month or two.’
‘That ought to do the trick. Come along, two more to meet,’ said Lloyd-Jackson indulgently, preceding Jan through my door.
‘See you,’ I said to her.
‘Right you are,’ she said back.
‘I’ll take you through the motions in a few minutes,’ Wark damply added.
Which is how it all began. Later that same morning I strolled from my hot tube into the main office, pretending to be in search of the back-invoices to check off against the sales-sheets I had nonchalantly brought along with me — ‘Ooh, I don’t know where those are yet,’ Jan pleaded — ‘Here, I’ll show you,’ I said — and together we stood over the cardboard concertina for perhaps ninety seconds, the air about us full of zestless currents, sudden shadows and pinpoints of bright humming dust … Oh boy.
Do I dare? There’s nothing for it.
A donnish, twinkly ‘Let me take you to a place where cash can be exchanged for alcohol’? A frank yet slightly literary ‘Why not let me take you to the pub’? A casually speculative ‘Coming over The Crown’? An abruptly plebeian ‘Fancy a drink?’?
It was 5.25 precisely. Wearing a smartly cut Forties suit and purple stockings (the first time we’d got a proper look at her legs), Jan was ransacking her nosebag-like reticule in the unsystematic, indeed purposeless fashion which habitually preceded her exit from the office; any moment now she would stand up, stretch and yawn, and march round the central table hooting goodbyes. Jan got on famously with the lame young permanent secretary and the old fucked-up permanent secretary, and she tended to hobnob with them briefly before flouncing off. This was her eighth day here: it was also, therefore, the eighth evening I had spent gazing at her in gingery longing from behind my half-shut door. On the previous seven occasions she had been firmly engaged in chat with her two friends, which had of course rendered any kind of direct approach utterly
It all happened one morning last week. I was at my desk, tricked out with an unusually desperate hangover (I had even bought a tomato-takeaway as opposed to a coffee-no from Dino’s, always a bad sign) and conductinga jangled, queasy hate-talk with Wark, the mad Stalinist. His floppy bum parked on my low filing-cabinet, and with a more than averagely plastic-and-offal lilt in his mealy new voice, Wark was deploring at length the proven inability of the urbane Lloyd-Jackson to make any stand against John Hain over the coming rationalization. I was just about to agree with him when the pooh-poohing ex-copywriter himself pushed open my cubicle door and, a shapely half-smile on his neat little lips, announced,
‘Ah. Two birds with one stone — or “rationalization”, as it’s now called. We have a new temp. Now this is Geoffrey Wark … and this is Terence Service.’
And this is she: in tight jeans and loose T-shirt, slouching (her arms folded, a habit of hers, as I said), a shy scowl on her face and a short-sighted ripple between her indigo eyes.
‘And this,’ he said, ‘is
Jan
.’
How like Gregory he sometimes is, I thought, straightening in my chair. Wark nodded with emphasis in the direction of the doorway, then turned to gaze unflappably out of the window. What could I say that would adequately indicate my disaffection from the values here personified by Wark and the intelligent Lloyd-Jackson, my shrewd sympathy (and it wasn’t a hypocritical one, either) with the casual, more strictly functional nature of her position here, the fact that I was nice, extremely friendly, and would make a fine husband? Leaning forward with arrested gusto, I said,
‘Hi.’
‘Hi,’ she said, and smiled.
‘How long,’ I asked her, ‘how long do you expect to stay here?’
Jan flared her oval nostrils. ‘Weeell. A month or two.’
‘That ought to do the trick. Come along, two more to meet,’ said Lloyd-Jackson indulgently, preceding Jan through my door.
‘See you,’ I said to her.
‘Right you are,’ she said back.
‘I’ll take you through the motions in a few minutes,’ Wark damply added.
Which is how it all began. Later that same morning I strolled from my hot tube into the main office, pretending to be in search of the back-invoices to check off against the sales-sheets I had nonchalantly brought along with me — ‘Ooh, I don’t know where those are yet,’ Jan pleaded — ‘Here, I’ll show you,’ I said — and together we stood over the cardboard concertina for perhaps ninety seconds, the air about us full of zestless currents, sudden shadows and pinpoints of bright humming dust … Oh boy.
Do I dare? There’s nothing for it.
A donnish, twinkly ‘Let me take you to a place where cash can be exchanged for alcohol’? A frank yet slightly literary ‘Why not let me take you to the pub’? A casually speculative ‘Coming over The Crown’? An abruptly plebeian ‘Fancy a drink?’?
It was 5.25 precisely. Wearing a smartly cut Forties suit and purple stockings (the first time we’d got a proper look at her legs), Jan was ransacking her nosebag-like reticule in the unsystematic, indeed purposeless fashion which habitually preceded her exit from the office; any moment now she would stand up, stretch and yawn, and march round the central table hooting goodbyes. Jan got on famously with the lame young permanent secretary and the old fucked-up permanent secretary, and she tended to hobnob with them briefly before flouncing off. This was her eighth day here: it was also, therefore, the eighth evening I had spent gazing at her in gingery longing from behind my half-shut door. On the previous seven occasions she had been firmly engaged in chat with her two friends, which had of course rendered any kind of direct approach utterly
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