your lawyer.’
Zoë remembered Joe saying Poland did this. She didn’t suppose Joe caught many coins.
Flipping it back, she promised: ‘You’ll do that once too often.’
‘You’re saying we’ve got a future?’
‘We’ll see how it goes.’
And as things go, so had this. Occasionally, Poland had been of use; often, he’d taken her money. And frequently she’d wondered if he weren’t a mistake, because there was an underlying ugliness to their exchanges. It came down to sex, like most things were supposed to – he was pissed off she’d never responded to his advances. That was something else about men (the list headed ‘Men’ was very long): rejection wasn’t a thing they forgave easily. And definitely something practice made them worse at.
But now they were miles distant, and getting further apart by the second. She told him: ‘I’ve a couple of names for you,’ and gave him Caroline Daniels’ details, including that she was dead. Then Alan Talmadge, though with no accompanying colour.
‘Some kind of spook, huh?’
‘Some kind.’ Then she realized he meant spook – a spy. ‘That hadn’t occurred to me.’
‘Sounds pretty fucking likely though, don’t it? James Bond porking some old lady from the typing pool.’
‘This particular old lady was younger than me.’
‘Yeah, well, that was bound to happen, wasn’t it? Sooner or later.’
Instead of replying she swung abruptly into the fast lane to overtake something redder and sportier than her.
‘I’ll do what I can,’ said Poland. ‘But if he’s a spook, you’re screwed. And it’s the same rates for failure.’
‘If we didn’t have those, you’d starve to death.’
‘And I didn’t have a sore head, I’d laugh.’
‘That’s nature’s way of saying Too Much Beer.’
‘You kidding? Charles Parsley Sturrock’s underground.’ He belched loudly. ‘Every blue in the country’s tied one on on the strength of that.’
‘Real nice, Bob. I can tell you’re in touch with your feminine side.’
‘I tried that once. My phone bill went through the roof.’
‘Boom boom.’
‘You know what your problem is, Zoë?’
‘Mostly it’s hating being told what my problem is.’
‘Also, you smoke too much. But your real problem, you’re one of those people with a case of the not-to-be-fucked-withs. Makes you kind of bitter, know what I mean?’
‘Tell me when you’ve run those names.’
‘Business, business. Maybe I’m not the one needs to get in touch with his feminine side.’ He broke the connection.
Zoë realized her foot was approaching horizontal, and eased up.
The red sporty number cruised past. There was a kind of insulted arrogance in this – like it was pointing out, she wanted to race with the grown-ups, she’d have to concentrate every step of the way.
And she remembered something else Bob had once charmingly told her, picking up on what he’d called her tortoise mentality:
The big thing about a tortoise isn’t that it carries its armour round with it. The big thing about a tortoise is, it winds up on its back, it’s fucked.
iii
She hit an easy run into the city. Even getting lost didn’t take as long as it usually did. When the two highrises broached the skyline, she steered by them as if they were hills seen from the sea.
And the lift worked, which showed that the universe was sometimes benevolent.
Remembering her moment of near-vertigo, Zoë did not look down from the fourteenth balcony; she was anyway struggling to keep her grip on the television, which was gaining weight by the minute. When Joseph Deepman opened the door, he seemed not to recognize her; the look on his face suggesting that one or the other of them was seriously out of place.
But when he spoke, he said, ‘You’re back.’
‘I’m back,’ she agreed. ‘Can I put this down?’
He stood aside, and she carted the TV into the sitting room; set it carefully in the space where the lost one had sat. Deepman gazed on this
Zoë remembered Joe saying Poland did this. She didn’t suppose Joe caught many coins.
Flipping it back, she promised: ‘You’ll do that once too often.’
‘You’re saying we’ve got a future?’
‘We’ll see how it goes.’
And as things go, so had this. Occasionally, Poland had been of use; often, he’d taken her money. And frequently she’d wondered if he weren’t a mistake, because there was an underlying ugliness to their exchanges. It came down to sex, like most things were supposed to – he was pissed off she’d never responded to his advances. That was something else about men (the list headed ‘Men’ was very long): rejection wasn’t a thing they forgave easily. And definitely something practice made them worse at.
But now they were miles distant, and getting further apart by the second. She told him: ‘I’ve a couple of names for you,’ and gave him Caroline Daniels’ details, including that she was dead. Then Alan Talmadge, though with no accompanying colour.
‘Some kind of spook, huh?’
‘Some kind.’ Then she realized he meant spook – a spy. ‘That hadn’t occurred to me.’
‘Sounds pretty fucking likely though, don’t it? James Bond porking some old lady from the typing pool.’
‘This particular old lady was younger than me.’
‘Yeah, well, that was bound to happen, wasn’t it? Sooner or later.’
Instead of replying she swung abruptly into the fast lane to overtake something redder and sportier than her.
‘I’ll do what I can,’ said Poland. ‘But if he’s a spook, you’re screwed. And it’s the same rates for failure.’
‘If we didn’t have those, you’d starve to death.’
‘And I didn’t have a sore head, I’d laugh.’
‘That’s nature’s way of saying Too Much Beer.’
‘You kidding? Charles Parsley Sturrock’s underground.’ He belched loudly. ‘Every blue in the country’s tied one on on the strength of that.’
‘Real nice, Bob. I can tell you’re in touch with your feminine side.’
‘I tried that once. My phone bill went through the roof.’
‘Boom boom.’
‘You know what your problem is, Zoë?’
‘Mostly it’s hating being told what my problem is.’
‘Also, you smoke too much. But your real problem, you’re one of those people with a case of the not-to-be-fucked-withs. Makes you kind of bitter, know what I mean?’
‘Tell me when you’ve run those names.’
‘Business, business. Maybe I’m not the one needs to get in touch with his feminine side.’ He broke the connection.
Zoë realized her foot was approaching horizontal, and eased up.
The red sporty number cruised past. There was a kind of insulted arrogance in this – like it was pointing out, she wanted to race with the grown-ups, she’d have to concentrate every step of the way.
And she remembered something else Bob had once charmingly told her, picking up on what he’d called her tortoise mentality:
The big thing about a tortoise isn’t that it carries its armour round with it. The big thing about a tortoise is, it winds up on its back, it’s fucked.
iii
She hit an easy run into the city. Even getting lost didn’t take as long as it usually did. When the two highrises broached the skyline, she steered by them as if they were hills seen from the sea.
And the lift worked, which showed that the universe was sometimes benevolent.
Remembering her moment of near-vertigo, Zoë did not look down from the fourteenth balcony; she was anyway struggling to keep her grip on the television, which was gaining weight by the minute. When Joseph Deepman opened the door, he seemed not to recognize her; the look on his face suggesting that one or the other of them was seriously out of place.
But when he spoke, he said, ‘You’re back.’
‘I’m back,’ she agreed. ‘Can I put this down?’
He stood aside, and she carted the TV into the sitting room; set it carefully in the space where the lost one had sat. Deepman gazed on this
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