S. K. Tremayne - The Assistant

Looking at my flatmate, I force a smile.

‘I’m good, Tabs. Working. Bit bored. You know you’ve come back to the coldest winter since mid-period Charles Dickens.’

She shudders.

‘I noticed. There were penguins in the Arrivals Lounge.’

‘So how was it?! How was the documentary, the jungle, the trip? What’s the Amazon like? I’ve always wanted to go. God, you’re so lucky!’

She chuckles.

‘Insects.’

‘Sorry?’

‘That’s what the Amazon is like, babe. Insects. You don’t see any wildlife because the jungle is too thick, a wall of endless green. But my bloody God you see insects – mosquitoes like buzzards, killer centipedes, spiders that exude poison.’

‘OK …’

‘Fire ants literally attacked my rucksack. Seriously. They tried to eat it. It’s got little white marks all over it, from the formic acid where they bit. And then at night that’s all you hear.’

‘What?’

‘Insects! Shrieking. They actually shriek .’ She knocks back her own glass of bubbles. ‘Also giant rats. Lois hated the whole thing. Said we had to do Greenland next. Anywhere with zero insect life.’

Lois is her presenter. The star of the nature documentary series that Tabitha co-produces.

‘The only interesting bit was when a tapir fell in the swimming pool.’

I gaze her way. Wide-eyed. Tabitha always has adventures and tales. We used to eagerly share these adventures: backpacking together through Bolivia and Colombia, fending off overly persistent tantra masseurs in India, then life caught up with us and we had to get sensible. I stopped travelling; she still travels for her work, and comes home with stories. And I need good stories tonight, to take my mind off my flat, to take my mind off my mind.

‘You had a swimming pool? I thought you were like, lost in the wilderness, surrounded by piranha – wasn’t that the idea?’

Tabitha nods, chuckling.

‘Yeah. But towards the end we got so bored of the tents and the mozzy bites we went to some hotel near Iquitos which had a pool. But the pool was right on the edge of the jungle and a tapir wandered out of the forest and tried to have a drink and then fell in the pool. And then the tapir panicked and did a humongous poo in the pool and no one knew how to get the poo out. Have you ever had a swim in a pool full of tapir poo? It’s not ideal.’

I am laughing, loudly. Maybe too loudly: showing my inner angst. But it’s great to have Tabitha back. A genuine friend. My old friend. How I have lacked this.

For a while we politely rejoin Arlo, but the bankers are talking about cryptocurrencies, and Tabitha and I exchange knowing glances – and then she kisses Arlo decorously on the cheek and says,

‘Nipping out for another vape, sweetheart. Don’t put too much money into Aetherieum, it will crash.’

He half acknowledges her; while she murmurs to me,

‘Wanna come with? They’ve got patio heaters.’

Openly relieved, I follow her outside into the pub garden. It is bitterly cold but yes there are red-glowing patio heaters. Staring at them, I say,

‘Greatest invention since—’

Tabitha interrupts:

‘Facebook?’

She is grinning, playfully. Making a point.

‘Don’t. Please. Please don’t.’ I sigh, feeling helpless. ‘Oh God, Tabby, I do try and get along with him, but … he’s from such a different world. I mean, you’re posh enough but he’s basically like the Queen. He probably looks down on the Queen, coz she uses Tupperware.’

‘Yesss,’ she drawls, in her amused voice. ‘Plus he thinks you scuppered his inevitable ascent to becoming Emperor of the Internet,’

I raise a cold hand in protest,

‘I didn’t!’

Tab smiles her perfect, regular, white-toothed smile. I have quite nice teeth but they are a bit crooked. Thornton Heath teeth.

‘I know, darleenk, I know. But you remember how he is. And now he’s got that bonkers start-up ready to kick off, he’s convinced it will be the next unicorn. Make him a billion. Like he needs more money. Anyway he’s particularly touchy. Don’t pay any attention to him.’

I want to ask her: what do you see in him? But I can’t. She genuinely loves him. She’s told me. I know they have good sex. I know they go to fashionable sex parties. Killing Kittens, Kinky Salon. Maybe that’s all it is: sex. Also, Tabitha can be, for all her confidence, oddly insecure, at times. She has panic attacks. Her dad left home when she was ten or so, upped and walked out the door with a new mistress half his age. Therefore Arlo’s wealth thus gives her an extra level of security. Plus the sex.

Tabitha is smoking an actual cigarette; not a vape.

I stare at her.

‘Uh, thought you’d given up?! You practically put on a West End musical about it: Tabitha Gives Up! ’

She giggles, shrugs. The red glow of the patio heaters gives her pretty face an eerie redness, looming and ominous. And I can’t help staring at it. This devilish cast to her face. A beautiful red demon face in the dark of an eighteenth-century Highgate pub garden, in the deep dark cold of a harsh London winter. Where sad and lonely women drag their little children through the snow.

‘I started again in Peru, I thought the fag smoke might drive away the mosquitoes. It didn’t, but I got hooked. Don’t tell Arlo – he’ll be scandalized, and refuse to go down on me.’

Her face is still very red from the heaters. Demonic. Satanic. Or is this image in my head? She speaks, the teeth even whiter, contrasting with the red. I think of fangs. Vampiric fangs. Sucking blood from my neck as I sleep. Tabitha. Who was there in the tent with me that day. I wonder if she has told Arlo about what happened with Jamie Trewin, all those years ago? I long to ask. Instead, I say,

‘Guess you’re staying at his place tonight?’

She nods, and frowns my way, refusing to be embarrassed.

‘Yes. You know, I am allowed to, it is my choice.’

‘Oh?’

She sighs smoke. ‘You think he controls me.’

‘No. I think he infantilizes you. Like he’s your parent. He looks after you. Punishes you for infractions.’

‘Well, yeah,’ she says, exhaling unconcerned coils of smoke quite exuberantly. Breathing demon fire. ‘Sure. WhatEVAH. Look, let’s not have some hideous falling out, darling, not on my first day back. And please don’t tell Arlo about the smokes. He would definitely give me a telling off if he found out.’ She fumes more smoke into the cold night air. ‘The fact is, Jo, I don’t mind being looked after, even ordered about, when I’m off duty. You see? You do understand why? I have to be super-controlling in my job, so when I get back to town I quite like being the little woman. Or the princess.’ She smirks shamelessly. ‘Isn’t that terrible? I actually like to let him do everything . Let him take care of me, let him decide which restaurant we go to. Let him choose the wine, even the food. Then I let him pay. Is that so very bad? Am I a terrible feminist? Oh well. Fuck it.’

I try not to see the unsettling red glow of her face and instead I gaze in her friendly eyes and think: maybe she’s right. Someone to look after you? I consider the idea of someone to look after me . I’d love that. Someone special, someone of my own, someone who makes me feel secure. Someone to buy me a nice meal in a nice restaurant then make love to me, nicely.

I sigh. Defeated. ‘You’re right. And I’m hardly in a position to criticize: my love life is a desert. The bloody Atacama. You think I should get a sugar daddy? He’d have to have his own hair though.’

We fall silent as she finishes the cigarette. I feel a need to say something about what is happening. We’ve been talking for ages and I haven’t even touched on it. And somehow it’s 10 p.m. and I might not get another chance, if she’s going back to Arlo’s tonight. Later I will walk down silent solitary Jackson’s Lane, listening for footsteps behind me, to get the lonely Tube at spooky Highgate. I hate Highgate Tube, buried like a tomb under that little enclave of snowy urban woods. Like a place in a frightening fairy tale from Romania where there’d be wolves. Loping. Howling.