Jane Gordon - My Fair Man

Shock took over from anger then as he realised that she meant it.

‘I can’t leave you alone with this man. He might do anything,’ said Toby.

‘I really don’t think, Toby, that he will do anything more tonight but sleep,’ said Hattie coldy.

‘I must say that was a great finale to the evening, Hattie. Something only you could have thought of.’

‘I didn’t organise it, Toby, it happened.’

‘Christ knows what Tom Charter thought,’ said Toby, running his hands through his hair in a gesture of despair.

‘I don’t give a damn what Tom Charter and his ghastly wife thought,’ said Hattie.

‘You don’t give a damn for anyone but yourself.’

‘That’s absurd, Toby. I spend my whole life bloody well thinking of others—’

‘Sad strangers maybe, but not the people you should be concerned with. Not the people who love you. Not me or your family. All you care about are social inadequates like that creature on the sofa. You are incapable of showing any affection or consideration to anyone that you might consider your own equal. You spend your whole life administering to the poor and needy and deluding yourself that in doing so you are escaping from your élitist roots when in fact all you are doing is being the lady of the manor, albeit a bloody great big manor like London,’ he said with disgust.

Hattie’s silence informed him that he had hurt her.

‘It isn’t just the disadvantaged that need warmth and emotional comfort, Hattie. Or support for that matter. It might not mean anything to you but tonight was very important to me. My success didn’t come easily to me; I was not born with your advantages. My daddy didn’t buy me a £300,000 flat, I don’t have a trust fund and no doors are opened for me at the mere mention of my father’s name. My parents worked hard to get me a future that was denied them. You might dismiss their values as misplaced and middle class but, my God, you can afford to, can’t you? You have everything, Hattie, and you have the nerve to arrogantly deny me the chance of achieving what I want. Which, compared to what you already have, is bloody nothing.’

But Hattie, partly because she didn’t want to hear any more and partly because she was so absolutely exhausted, had turned away and was watching the now sleeping body of Jimmy.

‘I’m tired, Toby, you’re tired. Let’s leave this now. We can talk tomorrow,’ she said softly.

Hattie woke just before nine to sounds of distress from somewhere below their bedroom. Leaving Toby sleeping soundly she pulled on a wrap and made her way down the stairs. Jimmy was standing in the kitchen with a blanket pulled around his shoulders.

‘Is anything wrong? Are you in a great deal of pain?’ asked Hattie anxiously, noting the bruises that had emerged across his face during the night.

‘Nh, pet,’ he said, looking round the steel kitchen as if it were the futuristic galley of some strange space craft. ‘Rex needed to go out and I thought I’d make meself some tea, like.’

‘Peppermint, Camomile, Lapsang Souchong, Earl Grey, Darjeeling?’ Hattie responded, helpfully pulling open one of the cunningly disguised cupboards to reveal the wide selection of specialist teas and coffees that she and Toby had accumulated. Jimmy looked so confused. She made a pot of her normal breakfast tea gestured to him to sit on one of the stools while it brewed.

‘Owt for Rex?’ he asked, indicating his dog, skulking beneath the table, and who was, Hattie thought, in very nearly as dreadful a state as his master. His coat – short and coarse-haired – was a salt-and-pepper grey through which you could clearly see the outline of his ribcage. Here and there across his body were sections of hard skin and small round patches of baldness.

‘I’m not sure what I’ve got that he’d like. There are a few scraps from last night but it’s not quite Pedigree Chum,’ she said as she took from the fridge a plate of sushi and a bowl of linguine con cozze and scraped them together into a dish.

‘Here, Rex,’ she said.

Rex took one look at her, growled savagely and then retreated back beneath the table, whimpering pathetically and looking up appealing at Jimmy.

‘Eee, man, I’d better give it to him,’ said Jimmy, taking the dish from Hattie and placing it close to Rex under the table.

The dog cautiously sniffed at the offering and, with one wary eye on Hattie, eventually decided to eat.

‘Now, breakfast for you, Jimmy? I think I’ve got pain au chocolat, brioche, pain au raisin and croissants,’ Hattie said, eager to make him feel welcome.

He looked at her as if she were speaking a foreign language which, she realised with some embarrassment, she was.

‘Ee, I’ll just have a tab,’ he said, pulling a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and lighting one.

Toby would be horrified. He didn’t allow anyone to smoke in the flat. In fact, smoking had been a major issue in their relationship. When they had first met, Hattie had a twenty-a-day habit that Toby had insisted she give up. Now and again, when Toby wasn’t around, she would sneak a cigarette – she kept a packet hidden at the bottom of her underwear drawer – but she had always been too anxious to smoke here. The only time Toby had relaxed his no smoking rule had been the previous night when his odious client had lit a fat cigar. Lord knows what he would say when he saw Jimmy smoking.

‘Would you like some toast?’ she asked.

Jimmy nodded as she pulled a loaf out of the fridge, sliced it and put it into the big Dualit toaster. Then she opened another cupboard and began to bring out a selection of expensive preserves, conserves and confitures.

‘Any jam, pet?’ said Jimmy, looking through the jars before him, most of which were labelled in a language (chiefly French) he was unable to decipher.

‘I’m so glad you came, Jimmy. Did you get my messages?’ Hattie asked tentatively as she sipped her tea and watched him devour five slices of toast covered in the entire contents of a jar of Toby’s favourite Tiptree redcurrant jelly. She wished he would close his mouth while he ate. Her view of his masticated toast – and more unpleasantly, his stained and twisted teeth (one of which, the important front left incisor, was missing) – was repulsive.

‘Noowhere to go, like, that’s all. I’ll not be staying long.’

‘No, you mustn’t go. You’re not fit to go anywhere, least of all out on the streets again. You must stay here.’

‘And him?’ Jimmy moved his head to indicate the bedroom upstairs where Toby still slept.

‘Oh, he doesn’t really mean you any harm. He was just eager to impress those people that were here last night,’ she said.

There was an uneasy silence.

‘What really happened to you last night?’ she said eventually.

‘Some kids, looking for someone to kick aboot. It happens,’ he said as he lit another cigarette.

‘You mean they attacked you for no reason?’ He nodded.

‘Jimmy, that need never happen to you again. I can make sure of that, if you’ll only trust me,’ she said.

He looked at her with his astonishing eyes and she, for some strange reason, had to look away.

‘Why me, though?’ he asked.

She couldn’t tell him about Jon’s bet. It would hurt him and might even frighten him away. He couldn’t think that she wanted to help him just in order to win a wager thought up over dinner in some smart restaurant. It was better, she persuaded herself, to make him believe that it was a professional matter, to do with her work. Which, in a way, it was.

‘It’s very important to me, Jimmy, for my research, and it could be life-changing for you,’ she said, not daring to meet those eyes again and instead fixing her gaze on the series of earrings that punctured his left ear.