Patrick Parker's Progress (47 page)

Then there were models of many designs - some contemporary like the fragile rniniature of Chepstow Bridge made by Isambard's own hand - some newly made like the massive model of the
Great Eastern,
his biggest ship, his biggest success, that the Design and Engineering faculty had constructed entirely from recycled cardboard. This towered over the room and even Madame Koi gasped inelegantly when she saw it. Patrick was entranced.

'Oh,' he said, and ran his hands over a swag of chains fixed to the wall nearby. It was Madame Koi's turn to feel - somewhat warm -watching those familiar hands trace the massive links.

"The originals, wouldn't you say?' said Madame Koi. 'From the stern checking drum.'

'Yes,' he said a little testily. 'I do know that.'

She could not resist touching t
he metal too. 'Oh,' she said, B
ut the links are as thick as a man's thigh -' She touched his briefly. 'And high as his calf - nothing cardboard about
them.'

'No,' agreed Patrick. He loosened his tie.

At the far end of the room, set out on the floor, lay two lengths of railway line -

'Ah!' said Madame Koi, 'the famous track beds. The Gauge War. They've got the four-foot-eight-inch gauge and the seven-foot beside it. Quite a difference - yes? Your Mr
Brunel
's Sacred Cow.'

The four-foot-eight-inch gauge preferred by
Brunel
's rival, Stephenson,' she read aloud from the plaque. 'Preferred by everybody actually,' said Madame Koi sharply. 'Except your old Isambard.'

'It was a Great Design Revolution,' said Patrick firmly. '
Brunel
was never wrong.'

He could have sworn he heard her mutter, 'My arse.' In curiously familiar tones.

Next to the four-foot gauge lay a length of Isambard's massive seven-foot replacement gauge
as preferred by Mr
Brunel
.

'Here we have the triumph of the intellect over the puerile,' announced Patrick. 'Stephenson had no conscience about human train travellers being shaken to hell and back by such an inadequate gauge.'

'Nonsense,' she said briskly. 'It was just another case of
Brunel
's self-deception and godlike condescension. And quite unnecessary. It didn't make the slightest bit of difference what gauge was used for the comfort factor.'

Patrick was about to defend his hero until Madame Koi did something quite peculiar with her knees - moving them sideways in a strangely seductive gesture - and then bent down. 'But still. . .' she said as she ran her hands over the seven-foot gauge. 'It is so big and strong and thrusting that -' She smiled up at him. "You could hardly blame him
...'

'There's Chamber Three,' he said suddenly, in a voice that seemed slightly high. 'So there is,' she said.

She smiled that affecting smile again and he helped her up. By the elbow. Intimate, he thought, and squeezed it just a little.

She noticed, said nothing, except. 'Chamber Three. In we go then.'

As she opened the door he reached up and slid back the slot above the handle to reveal the word
Engage.
So did she. Their hands met. Both of them smiled. And in they went.

14

The
Brunel
Strip

Apsu
pondered the problem of being young and female in her chosen profession. Which was - though she was laughed at when she said it - the design and building of bridges. Well
...
it would be
...
one day. It was not going to be easy. There were still people who thought they had better not invest in her because she would one day stop building and make babies, and that her vision for the future was necessarily clouded by the problem of which sort of nappy to use for them. Not that anyone would dream of saying such a thing to Apsu. To her they said that civil engineering was as open to women nowadays as it was to men. But this was only theory. So far no woman had had sole responsibility for the design of a bridge. Except, of course, back in the mists of time, when the placing of stones or the plaiting of grass or hemp or agave or the mud-plastering of bent reeds was considered women's work. Back in those days, she thought, everyone knew how to build bridges. In the best way possible to get to the other side.

What she saw as she looked about her increased her determination. All the British Development Corporations so far set up to help the regeneration of the inner cities had ruined their efforts with poor design - there was talk of competitions - there was talk of a woman being among those chosen to be part of the team in the proposed London Docklands Development - but when it came to it, Apsu doubted the woman would be in the forefront
.
*

The room was about ten metres square and quite plain, with a long white chamois sofa next to the low window that looked out over Paris.

*
Author's note: She wasn't.

There were three straight-bac
ked chairs behind a plain white
desk at the far end of the room, and multi-coloured metal stacking chairs around the edges. At the windows there were pale grey blinds. It was all very cool, very Rennie. There was also a water machine that made little bubbling noises. Evidently, since no sounds penetrated beyond this, the room was virtually soundproof. 'Perfect,' she said again. She turned the lamps on low and pulled the blinds down one by one. Patrick took off his jacket and threw it nonchalantly over his shoulder, to show how casual he was. Madame Koi thought he might be sorry for having done that, later.

Patrick was staring very fixedly at the water machine. State of the art. He knew every inch of it. Somehow it seemed to offer safety. Whatever was happening, and something definitely was happening, it would certainly be a very strange interview. But then,
Nexus Tokyo
was known to reflect the wilder world of design. Influential though, certainly influential.

Madame Koi shuffled her way to the sofa and sat down, straight-backed and formal.

‘I
have a proposal,' she said.

It did not matter what happened in this room, she decided, nor what he thought, nor what he did. And that was the point. Once she had cared and now she would show herself that she did not. He could spit in her eye and walk away and it would not matter one jot
.
..
But she knew him well enough. He would not. She chose
Nexus Tokyo
because it was one of the world's most prestigious international design magazines. And because she knew he would probably float upside-down in a vat of rancid butter to get his blessed Babylonian ziggurats featured.

'Would you like to come and sit here?' she said. 'Otherwise we shall be shouting at each other. I'd like you closer.'

He had indeed moved further away from her and nearer to the water machine. It bubbled away at him softly.

'Proposal?' said Patrick.

'Yes, Mr Parker, a proposal.'

'Call me Patrick,' he said.

"Very good,' she laughed. 'And you must call me Koi-Koi.'

What Madame Koi - Koi-Koi - suggested as her proposal was quite extraordinary. Patrick found himself focusing really hard on the water dispenser throughout the telling of it. It was like something out of the sixties, an Event, a Happening, the sort of thing they all thought was so cool when they were young and green and nine parts stoned. But he had clocked up half a century now and it didn't seem to go with the dignity of age. On the other hand -

Isambard himself, of course, would be whizzing in his grave - but Patrick would put up a stout defence of him. You
bet
he would. For the Koi-Koi woman had suggested that it would be interesting and entertaining (you could say that again) to run a piece deconstructing his hero
Brunel
. And - for the sheer hell of it - why didn't they have some fun along the way? When she offered a man some fun, she implied, it was seldom refused. Patrick saw the point. He listened to her suggestion in a kind of embarrassed wonder. For Madame Koi proposed that, during the interview, every time she managed to undermine one of Patrick's testimonials to his hero
Brunel
, Patrick would remove an article of clothing. Every time he managed to counter her sophistry and win the point for
Brunel
, she would remove an article of clothing. She called it the
Brunel
Strip.

'
Brunel
's reputation is unassailable,' he said.

'Shoes and socks count as one,' she said laughing. 'Do you agree?'

He smiled, folded his arms and nodded.

'Good,' she said. "Then let battle commence.'

They settled themselves at each end of the sofa and Madame Koi began.

‘I
sambard Kingdom
Brunel
was invited, as you know, to design a bridge at Balmoral for the newly married Queen. For her and her beloved Albert to drive out of their private grounds in their carriage and pass across on to the public thoroughfare. Yes?'

Patrick nodded. 'And very fine it is too.'

Madame Koi coughed with irritation. 'Queen Victoria was a happy young woman in love, both with her country and her husband - and she was very feminine. She wanted something light and pretty and decorative. What he built for her - wagging his patronising finger and saying I Know Best - was a single span, wrought-iron, plate-girdered
box.'

'It was modern. It was a little revolution,' Patrick said, feeling quite comfortable in his clothes.

'It was slightly cambered - a Utile too cambered for the carriage -and very springy.' She tapped his arm playfully.
'Very
springy,
Patrick. Too springy for Her Majesty you remember. Every time she travelled across it wobbled so much she thought it was going to fall down. She had palpitations. Mr
Brunel
would not budge. That is what he designed for her, and that is what she got.'

'Your point?' asked Patrick comfortably.
‘I
hope you are not suggesting that a man should compromise his design principles just because he has the patronage of the Royal House of Hanover and Brunswick?'

She smiled, pityingly. 'He misjudged his client. Even a whore kn
ows that you can't ignore the cli
ent's wishes entirely. And certainly not if the client happens to be the Queen of England. That is not clever - that is arrogance.' She licked her lips and looked him straight in the eye, and pouted.
‘I
believe,' she said sweetly, 'that
faux pas is
worthy of a shoe and a sock at the very least.'

Patrick was amused enough to oblige her by removing both his shoes and both his socks. After all, he would not be removing much more.

'Look,' he said comfortably, '
Brunel
was a genius. He showed the way when everyone else was taking that desiccated Ruskin's line. He overruled the old-fashioned ideas and produced a little gem of modernity. Geniuses do not fail. They forge. Even with that little bridge he was merely showing the way forward, rather than looking back -' He wriggled his bare toes at her as if to say with them, QED.

'But surely,' she said, leaning forward and speaking in a strangely husky voice that went to somewhere around the centre of him, 'a man of real genius would know how to compromise?'

'Our job is to influence, not to stand still.'

'Sometimes,' she said, 'you get there faster by taking little steps.' 'Hah!' said Patrick.

She remembered: he always said that when he was lost for a reply. Good.

He crossed his legs defiantly. His feet looked white and familiar and just a little silly poking out from under his dark blue trousers. She leaned down and ran her fingertips over them. His toes moved involuntarily. 'Sweet,' she said.

Patrick shivered. 'Little steps?' he said. 'You were saying?'

'Quite simply, Patrick, your Mr
Brunel
cut off his nose to spite his face. Because he didn't please the Queen she never used him again. End of Patronage. Very silly, very stubborn man.'

'Hah!' he said again.

'Never again was there a Royal Commission. Imagine what that meant in those days of Royal Patronage and Empire and the highest watermark of British Industrialisation. With Prince Albert at the forefront. And
Brunel
turns his back on it. No further commissions for England's greatest living designer? How could that be?'