Dying Fall (20 page)

Dean's body, on the other hand, showed how seriously he took his job of building bodies. I'd never seen muscles in places where he had them. Except on Jools, of course. Despite his immense shoulders and fearsome dreadlocks, Dean was uniformly gentle, even with the most awkward clients. Other young men, clearly aspiring to Dean's physique, clustered round the Multi-Gym, Lycra lads exchanging heavy belts and leather mittens and selecting the heaviest possible weights without necessarily using them. Elsewhere, a couple of middle-aged women rowed hard for the receding shore of youth.

At the rear of the gym was a pleasant area where you could buy drinks, have a sauna and a shower, and generally return your body to normal. There was quiet music – the Bee Gees' greatest hits, this particular day – and some easy chairs with newspapers to hand. Of course, to sit down after a gruelling session was to run the risk of never becoming vertical again.

I waited for Dean to leave the gym floor and come and rebuke me for not coming as often as I should. It was a ritual. What I wanted to do was ask how often Jools came. And then get the subject round to her body building. But I had to be reasonably tactful – Dean had heard me express myself pretty forcibly about the subject when he'd tried to get me to build mine, too.

He exchanged a few words with Chris, now on the ski machine, and patted his shoulder lightly before jogging over to me. I accepted his rebuke with good grace, as he expected, talked about West Bromwich Albion for a few minutes, and then, not very subtly, asked about Jools.

‘What about her?' he asked.

‘Just that I wonder if she's overdoing it a bit.'

‘Overdoing what?'

That wasn't the reply I expected. I looked at him, eyebrows raised.

‘Come off it, Sophie. You know as well as I do she's taking stuff. Keep telling her she shouldn't. Bet you have too. Told her, I mean.'

I nodded. ‘She says it's just vitamins and mineral supplements, but it's got to be steroids, hasn't it?'

‘Bloody stupid cow. She doesn't get them from here, Sophie, so don't go putting that into the pig's head. What're you doing, going round with the filth, Soph?'

‘Friend. Nothing more. Or less.' I owed Chris that, and Dean would have to put up with it.

‘OK by me. So long as he doesn't go sniffing round.'

‘It's me that's doing that, Dean. You heard about that accident at the Music Centre?'

He nodded.

‘Well, I reckon it wasn't an accident. And I'm wondering about Jools and her drugs and – well, I'm just wondering.'

‘If Jools –? Bloody hell, Soph!'

‘No. Not that. She's a friend of mine, Dean! But I just thought: if she could get access to that sort of drug, if she could be getting hold of something else. And maybe – oh, I don't know.'

He looked at me, holding my gaze longer than was comfortable. At last he smiled, crookedly, reluctantly. ‘You want me to find out where she's getting it. I don't like it, Soph, but I suppose I owe you one. Or two. Give us your phone number, and I'll see what I can do.'

I'd been wondering how to get rid of Chris, who was lingering unconscionably over his third mug of tea. We weren't saying all that much, but if I looked up I'd find him eyeing me. Perhaps he was wondering if he could ask me what Dean and I had been talking about. I hoped he wouldn't.

Then Tina reappeared. She switched on the radio as soon as she stepped into the kitchen. Chris reached across to flick it off. ‘Get yourself a bloody Walkman, for God's sake,' he said. He pulled in his arm a good deal more cautiously. ‘Hell, I'm stiffening up already. Fitness centre,' he added.

She peered in the pot and poured in more water. ‘Which one?'

‘Down Bearwood.'

‘Not the one with dishy Dean? He's gorgeous! How d'you get to know all these sexy young men, Soph?'

‘Mostly I teach them,' I said. ‘And I feel old enough to be their mother.'

‘Did you teach Dean?' Chris pounced.

‘Not only taught him,' said Tina, helpfully, ‘she got him out of some stink at the college.'

I wished Tina would shut up.

‘No point in looking like that,' said Tina. ‘Might as well tell him, Soph.'

‘Past history,' I said.

‘No. This teacher kept on picking on Dean, see, and Soph helped sort him out. Racial harassment.'

‘I do wish you'd pronounce it correctly, Tina. That's the American way. The English pronunciation has the stress on the first syllable. Doesn't it, Chris?'

I caught his eye and held it: the message was to let it all drop. He nodded. Message understood. But I knew he'd want me to tell him about it one day. In the meantime, since I certainly didn't need two police escorts, he smiled, drained the last of his tea, and let himself out.

My too, too solid shadow refused to melt away. Of course, she was only doing her job, and doing it conscientiously. But she developed an irritating habit of putting her head round my bedroom door and wishing me ‘Night-night', and offering to turn off a light I've only ever turned off myself, apart from the Kenji episode. And on Monday morning she surprised me in the middle of my Canadian Air Force sit-ups with a cup of distressingly milky tea. In other words, she was a totally nice person doing kind and indeed motherly things, and to the grit of my irritation was added a thick layer of guilt. She drove competently to work, parked immaculately, and insisted we both use the lift.
The
lift, as it happened. Apart from that she accompanied me, of course, even to the loo, and I was regaled, on my return to our staff room, by a psychology teacher with a long story about a man who couldn't pee if he thought anyone might hear him. My sessions in the class room involved Tina sitting at the back and asking questions that amused the students, if not me. She had a very poorly developed sense of discretion, and wanted to be in every conversation. I knew she smoked, and hoped she'd be unprofessional enough to join the little group puffing away illicitly outside the staff room – there was only one door, after all, and she'd have been able to intercept any stray visitor. But since I wouldn't let her smoke in my house, she saw it as an opportunity to give up what she inevitably called the ‘filthy weed'.

Shahida came over to my desk at break to make sure I was all right and, she claimed, to make sure I hadn't cancelled the dress she'd helped me choose. And she stood over me while I phoned my hairdresser for a quick appointment between classes. When I suggested the much cheaper Beauty Two group she reminded me of the last woman lecturer who'd trusted herself to their ministrations and had walked down the aisle with her face covered in hives. Stobbard was not to be embarrassed by a pink and lumpy face.

So on Tuesday, with Tina persuaded to sit not at the next basin but in the small waiting area, I was given the treatment. I even allowed Roy to ask the beautician who operated from an upstairs room at his salon to make something of my nails. She made neat, short, pink shells, which might never have done anything more strenuous than tap a word-processor. And as I looked at them I saw them rooting among the rocks in George's garden, and I winced so hard the woman asked if she'd hurt me. But at last we all beamed at each other with pleasure at a job well done. I smudged one of my nails writing a cheque, and Sarah made me wait while she did it again. And I had to promise to return with the outfit I was hiring.

I'd rather it had been Shahida exclaiming over it, the narrow black dress and its heavily beaded bolero top, but it was nice to have Roy and Sarah enjoying it. That's one thing I missed in my newly solitary life – someone to share those moments of excitement. That's why I couldn't at bottom understand my dislike of Tina – she was happy to share, and very vocally too, when I waited for Stobbard to collect me. I'd spent a least five minutes making up my face, so I was a little disappointed to hear the faint note of surprise in Stobbard's voice when he at last arrived – too late for a drink: ‘Hey, Sophie, you look really good.'

I looked as good as I was ever likely to: I suppose my ego would have liked a little effusiveness.

Stobbard, of course, looked entirely delectable. His dinner jacket had presumably been tailored for him, and even his shirt didn't seem to have come from the ranks at Marks. He was wearing some of the cologne that had so attracted me after the inquest on George.

I would be too embarrassed to give a blow-by-blow account of the evening. There I was, sitting next to the most desirable man in the whole auditorium, and all I could do was desire him. I did try to follow the rather dotty plot, and I should have admired the grace and athleticism of the dancers. But I was disconcerted by the noise they made. I'd only ever seen the odd
Nutcracker
on Christmas TV, when I was too gorged to switch channels. TV ballet has mikes to catch the music but none to pick up heavy landings. It stands to reason that even a ten-stone man leaping magnificently across the stage will make some noise, but I was illogically disappointed.

And Stobbard was there, close enough for me to feel the warmth of his arm on the rest between us. Instead of resenting his claim on it, I left my hands demurely in my lap. But I was willing Stobbard to reach across to take one.

If I looked down and to the right I could see the length of his thigh; if he crossed his ankles the other way, inevitably his foot would find mine, just waiting to be found. I don't think he shifted position for the whole of the first half.

At the interval, he took my elbow in a terribly impersonal way and guided me to the bar. I was so subdued I didn't even carp at the notice:
INVITED GUESTS ONLY
.

Chris would probably have given me a provocative nudge just to set me off in my condemnations of a tautology I particularly loathed. Stobbard, however, was more concerned with acquiring our champagne and smiling very public smiles. I smiled too. He was, after all, on behalf of what he would no doubt call the Midshires Symphony, an ambassador, out to cultivate the captains of Birmingham's little remaining industry whose sleekness threatened to overpower his. None of them seemed to have anything discriminating to say about the performance, either, though presumably their lack of concentration stemmed from another cause than mine. They were in no hurry to return to their places, and would no doubt expect to be waited for. George had once fulminated about an out-of-town gig when the sponsors had not thought it necessary to enter the auditorium until the orchestra, the leader, the conductor and the soloist were all on stage.

Another hour of the ballet to look forward to: people being bored, people leaping around the stage, people feeling randy. OK, me feeling randy. I still had no encouragement from Stobbard. I assumed it must be professional interest that was keeping him going, but a covert glance at his face suggested he might be asleep. And there was no George to tell.

Suddenly, in the midst of all the braying voices and champagne, he turned to me. ‘Jesus, who are all these goddamn people?' he demanded, taking my arm in quite a different way. I'd been flirting with a man old enough to be my father and rich enough to buy the college a minivan if I'd worked just a little bit harder. I'd been describing the antics involved in getting football and hockey teams across to other colleges on buses that demanded the correct change. The Principal, I was saying, seemed to think we should use Barclaycard.

‘But,' said my elderly flirt slowly, ‘buses don't accept Barclaycard.'

‘Perhaps we should try American Express.'

At this point Stobbard appropriated me, the young stag defeating the old without even a clash of antlers. Now every time he took a step he contrived to brush my breast. My nipples stood to attention; my vagina was salivating so much I could hardly walk. He slung my coat across my shoulders: no doubt he considered the chic rather than the practicalities of keeping warm on a frosty March night. ‘Come on, let's get the hell out of here. I could use some jazz.'

‘Jazz?'

‘C'mon, there must be somewhere in this city where you can hear jazz?'

I tried not to dither, tried not to notice that someone had taken our cab.

‘Ronnie Scott's?' Nice and close to the Mondiale, after all.

‘Something real, that's what I want.'

A real curry sprang to my mind. Too much champagne and too few nibbles to mop it up. But if the man wanted jazz, the man wanted jazz. ‘The Cannonball,' I suggested at last. ‘Down Digbeth.'

‘Digbeth?'

‘We could walk. Just.'

Foolish Sophie. In this wind? At this time of night? The pace he set might have warmed me, if only I'd been able to keep up in my silly evening pumps. We cut through the Chinese quarter to St Martin's. At last we started down Digbeth High Street. Bugger real jazz. If only he'd been charming and gracious it might have been quite romantic. But he was neither.

At last he must have noticed the wind, which was blinding me with tears.

‘OK. Let's skip the jazz. Say, don't they have cabs in this goddamn dump?'

Taxis in Birmingham generally wait in ranks for you to go to them. Or you phone and they come. They don't, like London cabs, cruise round helpfully looking for you, and in any case Digbeth at this time of night is not the safest place for taxis. Or people, for that matter.

‘Know the number?'

As it happened, I did. But what was the use of a number without a phone? Any public telephone round here was bound to have been vandalised. I had reckoned without his tiny mobile phone. And at last, at long last, he discovered an excellent way of getting me warm.

At first the warmth of the Mondiale was blissful. His suite, however, was baking. While I waited for him to use the bathroom, I hunted for a radiator control. But he emerged before I could find it. I wished he'd waited till I'd got up from my hands and knees.