Beta Male (10 page)

*

The next three days dragged a little bit, to be honest, especially after the excitement of Lisa's wedding and Edinburgh, not to mention the multifarious events of Thursday night, which had combined to give me a three-day hangover. Not for the first time I had failed to reconcile the thirst of a teenager with the liver of a twenty-nine-year-old actor. Alan vanished from view from Friday morning onwards, leaving for work long before we woke up and not returning for days. Maybe his nasty boss Amanda was punishing him for saying yes to Jess in public, or maybe Jess was punishing him for not saying yes quickly enough, or perhaps his father was giving him grief for not asking her first, or his Mum, who had never liked Jess much, was telling him to find someone else, or maybe Alan was punishing himself for all of the above. None of us really knew, although it was almost certain, ventured Matt, that he was being punished for something.

In Alan's absence, Matt took it upon himself to move into his room and dress in Alan's remaining accountantweekend-wear which Ed hadn't already taken home with him for his new hermit-like existence. Matt called Ed repeatedly, increasingly worried by the lack of response, until we finally remembered that Ed's mobile battery was making its slow journey through the London sewage system back to our taps as
drinking water. So on Sunday evening, after I'd finished speaking to Mary, Matt and I went round to Ed's miniscule flat in Hackney and found him sitting in his pyjamas amid a mountain of Tara's discarded clothes and watching
Sex and the City.

‘I'm planning an elaborate revenge,' he declared, idly pinging a bra across the lounge. ‘Hell hath no fury like a man scorned.'

‘Do you want some company?' I asked.

‘No,' he said, pausing
Sex and the City
to scribble down a few notes on a pad resting on the arm of the sofa. ‘I am researching how women think so I can plan my elaborate revenge.'

We left him in peace, if peace was what you'd call it, and returned to Alan's, where Matt installed himself in his ‘war room', the name he'd given the small cupboard in the corridor containing a computer which Alan, in turn, liked to refer to as his ‘home office'. This, explained Matt, would be the base from where he would conduct his campaign to snare a rich wife.

Ever the conscientious armchair general, he was already in place on Monday morning as I was leaving for a temping job that had become available through the agency last thing on Friday evening.

‘You know what the most embarrassing thing about your house-husband scheme is, Sam?' said Matt, swivelling on Alan's expensive leather chair to face me.

‘The fact that it's so embarrassingly simple that Ed and Alan will hate us for not having done it themselves?'

‘No. What's really embarrassing is the fact that you've thought of it but I'm going to be so much better at it than you.'

‘What do you mean, failed medic boy?'

‘What I mean is, “most gifted actor of his generation currently heading out to a minimum-wage filing job”… ' Matt lowered the fingers he had raised like bunny ears, then lifted them again to continue, ‘“Heading out, that is, in one of his flatmate's borrowed shirts over which he's already spilled his coffee.”' I looked down at Alan's stripy, stained shirt. Matt was
right, the bastard. He continued: ‘What I mean, Sam, is that you have to haul yourself into the twenty-first century. What are your tactics? How are you going about this? You're attempting to hook up with a born-again trustafarian on the basis of her rich-sounding surname. It's not a very scientific approach, is it?'

‘I don't like science,' I said. ‘Anyway, seduction is an art.'

‘Not this sort of seduction. This is definitely a science.' Matt swivelled back to face his screen and tapped ferociously on the keyboard. ‘Your problem, Sam, is that you're limiting yourself by sticking to people you've actually met in the flesh. How many is that over a lifetime? A few thousand at most? And how many of those are going to be even vaguely suitable? A hundred, if you're lucky? Less, if you apply the rigorous criteria you've chosen.' He jiggled the mouse around and clicked a few times. ‘You wouldn't choose a job on the same basis, would you? Or somewhere to live? So what I'm doing is opening up the search to the entire world. Or the entire worldwide web, to be precise.'

‘Has anyone ever told you that you're a complete gimp?' I said.

‘Often,' replied Matt. ‘But a gimp who's about to beat you.' He tapped a few more keys, pressed ‘return' with a flourish and pointed at the screen. ‘Here, look at this.'

I looked. On the screen was a picture of Matt, looking effortlessly tanned and handsome on holiday the previous summer. Below was a short biography which mentioned the word ‘doctor' at least three times and the more truthful word ‘unemployed' not once. The website was called something like
www.obnoxiouslytinyworlddating.com
or
www.weonlyshagotherrichpeople.net
. Clicking through the other profiles, Matt treated me to a cascade of square-jawed private equity directors and glossy-maned blondes who all seemed to have ‘boutique fashion' businesses and first names ending in ‘a'. The advertising was expertly tailored for Amelia, Olivia, Antonia, Alexandra and their friends. Chat forums
included such pressing topics as the best new luxury car dealers in Knightsbridge, the tastiest caterers for weddings in Wiltshire and the most trustworthy heli-skiing guides in Courchevel. The recession clearly hadn't hit this part of the web yet. There were more Russians and Arabs than you could shake a mouse at.

‘Fling your options wide open and then narrow them down again according to your own criteria,' explained Matt with a grin. ‘A rich, grateful patient of mine got me onto the site. It's invitation-only. If you can't beat them, join them, eh?'

‘I've always preferred, “If you can't join them, beat them”.'

‘Well, good luck with that, mate. And have fun at work today. I'm sure the glamorous city sharks will be falling over themselves to sleep with and marry the guy doing their photocopying.'

With what I hoped was a suitably supercilious snort, I left Matt to his sad online games and ventured into the Square Mile to do an honest day's work.
Pah
, I thought, as I crammed in with the rest of the commuters on the Tube.
If that's the way he wanted to do it, then good for him
. I knew my strengths and weaknesses. Both lay in the real world.

After thirty minutes of inhaling eau d'underground, I was in a slightly less upbeat mood. I didn't like the real world much, I concluded, as I trudged wearily up the long escalator at Bank station. It looked as though my fantasy restoration of the way things used to be would be short-lived. Alan had disappeared to an unknown location, Ed had vanished into himself and his memories, and Matt had swapped the normal world for a shadowy online existence where the only thing that mattered was the size of your trust fund. So much for us all seeing more of each other.

Still, in times like these I had Claire, my reserve bloke. Her permanent office was very close to my temporary one so I rang and arranged to meet for as early a lunch as possible. She was looking well – suspiciously well. In my experience girls only look that happy when they're having a great deal of sex with
someone they actually like. It's a cruel trick of nature that women should look the most appealing when they're the least desirous of your attentions. Why can't they look their best when they're sad and lonely and haven't slept with anyone for six months?

‘You're looking well, too,' lied Claire after I'd complimented her. I looked distinctly green, having just spent ninety per cent of my morning wage, before tax, on a sandwich. ‘What are you up to?'

I explained that I had taken the advice she had given me in Edinburgh to heart and was attempting to find a suitable lifelong partner before gravity took its toll, no one fancied me any more and I was too poor and infertile to have any children.

‘Oh, Sam,' she laughed. ‘I was only joking.'

‘I'm not.'

‘So how are you going about doing it?' she asked.

I explained my scheme, but it only made her laugh more and more uncontrollably until our lunch resembled the restaurant scene in
When Harry Met Sally
. Other customers stopped and stared at us, wondering perhaps who this comic genius could be. Claire, however, was most definitely laughing
at
me.

‘Sam, you are without doubt the most ridiculous person I know.'

‘Thank you,' I said, graciously. If the only compliments you receive are unintentional, I don't see any reason why you shouldn't still take them.

‘And if you ever need a helping hand, you know where I am.'

‘How kind. But why would I want help from you? I have it all sewn up already.'

*

Wednesday arrived, as Wednesdays do, and I met Mary after work as arranged. Work for her turned out to be a part-time job, which curiously she had never mentioned before, in the
bookshop of an evangelical church in a posh, leafy part of Clapham. Perhaps I should have smelt a rat when she texted during the afternoon to ask if I could meet her there.

‘So,' she enthused, greeting me with an enthusiastic kiss on both cheeks. Mary was always enthusing about something. ‘Are you ready to come and meet my friend?'

I looked in the direction in which she was nodding.
Jesus.
She was nodding towards the church.
Did she want me to come and meet Jesus?

She did.

‘I know it might seem bizarre,' she guessed, accurately, noting the look of sheer blasphemous horror on my face. ‘But you and I got off to such a strange start and I need to be honest with you. This is part of me, a really important part of me. And it is important to me that you understand that. Do you understand?'

‘No' would have been the simple, honest answer. But she was such a sweet, enthusiastic, pretty, filthy, confusing girl that I really did want to understand her. Wouldn't anyone be intrigued by an otherwise rational person wanting someone they'd met at a wedding to meet their dead, Middle Eastern friend? Plus, there was the money. Or the Money-Barings, to be precise. That's what I really wanted to understand. Had the Money come first or the Barings? Had Mr Money met Miss Barings and declared it a match made in financial heaven? Had Barings married into money? Or were the Barings simply sitting around one day thinking,
Fuck me, our name doesn't sound nearly posh enough as it is, let's add ‘Money' in front of it so that no one is in any doubt just how rich we are
.

Maybe I would get a chance to ask her during the evening, just after a sermon about the rich man and the camel trying to get through the eye of a needle.

We linked chaste hands and ventured inside.

The church was old and echoing, with vast pillars stretching up to a high wooden ceiling. The evening light slanted through a giant stained glass window above the altar, catching an antique silver crucifix. Yet an effort had clearly been made to make everything feel as modern as possible. The chairs were arranged in small groups, facing inwards towards a stage. Plasma screens were attached to the pillars. There was a hum of anticipation among a well-dressed, mainly young, congregation of about two hundred. U2 blared out from the hi-tech sound system.

Mary introduced me to a small group, most of whom had the beatific smiles and put-upon demeanours of long-term Christians and therefore had to be kind. Everyone took an intense, apologetic interest in me, explaining how they met every Wednesday evening (‘a bonus bit of worship') as well as on Sundays. I joined in as well as I could, listening politely as the guy on my left – a confusing mixture of wide-boy City trader and wide-eyed evangelist – explained how he liked to ‘say a little prayer' at work before embarking on each multi-million-pound deal. I wondered, silently, how such a little prayer might go: ‘Dear Lord, who was born in a stable and worked as a carpenter, who befriended fishermen and threw money lenders out of the temple Dear, dear saviour, please give me the courage to screw over this small company in this deal I'm about to make, for your compassionate name's sake, amen.'

‘It's a pithy description of the Trinity, isn't it?' I said instead, aloud.

‘What?'

I gestured at the speakers. ‘Bono's lyrics: “You're one, but you're not the same”.'

Stock Market Christian laughed. ‘Yeah, that's good. Mary told us you were funny.'

‘Mary told you about me?'

I could see Mary waving her arms frantically and mouthing ‘no' behind us, but Stock Market Christian ploughed on regardless. ‘Yes, we had a little prayer session last week in which
the leader suggested we shared the burden of sin weighing on our consciences.'

‘The leader?'

‘Yes, the prayer leader. And Mary had some thoughtprovoking experiences at a wedd – '

‘What are you guys talking about?' Mary had given up on her semaphore and bounded over to intervene.

‘The burden of sin,' I said. ‘It's fascinating. Although, personally, I must admit that I've never found it much of a burden.'

Stock Market Christian clapped me rather too hard on the back and patted Mary rather too gently on the knee. ‘Oh, Mary,' he said, ‘I don't know how you find them.'

‘Find what?' I was beginning to take an intense, borderline violent, dislike to Stock Market Christian.

‘I'm sorry, Sam,' said Mary, hastily taking one of my hands in hers. ‘Nothing gets people more excited here than the prospect of a reformed sinner.'

‘Who says I'm reforming?'

They all laughed again, a little sadly this time, giving me a chance to take a proper look at Mary. She was attractive, certainly – not as stunning as Lisa, but striking, nonetheless. She had a good figure, full, red lips and the kind of glossy blonde mane that posh girls with too much time on their hands are good at cultivating. She was diplomatic, too, if the last few exchanges had been anything to go by. So why hadn't I called her myself after the wedding? Did I only like her because she had got in touch with me? Could this really work? Wouldn't her brassy self-assurance drive me mad?
Was it just the surname
?