Jane Gordon - My Fair Man

Hattie was touched by the way in which Jimmy tried to calm him, singing to him and gently drying him with one of her expensive white waffle towels. When he had finished and the dog had calmed down enough to stop shivering and whining Jimmy turned to Hattie.

‘I’ll need me stuff, like,’ he said, ‘if I’m staying a while.’

‘Your stuff?’ said Hattie, who had assumed that all Jimmy had in the world were the clothes he had once stood up in, his sleeping bag and the couple of carrier bags she had noticed when she had first encountered him.

‘Yeah, me bits an’ pieces, like. They’re in a left luggage box at King’s Cross,’ he said, pulling a key from the pocket of Toby’s jeans.

‘Well, of course we should get them,’ Hattie said, smiling at him. ‘Now, if you want.’

‘OK,’ he said, jumping up.

Outside in the street Hattie hailed a black cab, to the astonishment and wonder of Jimmy who had not, it quickly emerged, ever travelled in one before. On the journey to the station he was enchanted by the two pull-down seats and moved from one to the other in the excited fashion of a small child on a big adventure.

Indeed, Hattie thought as she paid off the taxi and followed Jimmy through to the dirty, depressing station interior, he had many of the more endearing qualities of a child. He was enthusiastic, questioning, responsive and direct. He said what he meant, even if on occasion she could not quite understand his dialect or comprehend the words he used.

‘This is where I came when I left home, like,’ he said thoughtfully, pointing up at the departure board on which a dozen or so inter-city trains – coming from Northern towns she had never heard of, let alone visited – were indicated.

‘When was that? How old are you, Jimmy, and how long have you been in London?’

‘Must be going on five years now. I’m twenty-three,’ he said, lighting up his third cigarette since they had left the flat.

‘And what did you think of this place when you arrived?’

‘Big,’ he said simply, drawing on his cigarette.

Hattie wondered what he had expected of London, and if he was disappointed by what he did find.

‘Where did you go when you arrived? Did you know anyone here?’ she asked him gently.

‘Na,’ he said.

‘So what did you do?’

‘I got by, did a bit of labouring, like, now and then. There’s people, like, that offer you a place to stay.’ He paused and looked across at Hattie. ‘Not people like you, mind. Hard people, mean people, what pretend they’re going to help you and just sook ya in, like …’

She was aware of the fact that the young and homeless were often preyed on by unscrupulous shadowy men who led them into desperate and corrupt lives. She wondered a little guiltily, too, if what she was doing – in going along with Jon’s bet – wasn’t just another form of the kind of exploitation Jimmy had encountered since he arrived here.

‘But you didn’t get sucked in by those people, Jimmy?’ she said.

He looked at her with those penetrating blue eyes and shook his head. ‘Not for long, hinny.’ He glanced away quickly.

She sensed that he did not want to talk about his past and she stopped her questioning and followed him silently towards the left-luggage area.

Inside his box was a cheap black leatherette holdall, a cardboard box that was tied together with string and a small zipped child-sized canvas case. Hattie was moved by his evident excitement at his reunion with this odd collection of possessions. She held out her hand to grasp hold of the black bag but he would only allow her to carry the small case, and then not before he had gravely warned her that its contents were ‘breakable, like’.

In the taxi he was rather more subdued than he had been on their outward journey. He didn’t attempt to open any of his luggage but he glanced at the three pieces that he had carefully placed on the floor of the cab as if their reappearance in his life was an unexpected piece of good fortune.

Hattie felt like an intruder and, when they were inside the flat, she left Jimmy stowing away his booty, and made her way to the kitchen where a dour-faced Toby was sitting reading the papers.

‘Picked up the Vuitton cases, I see,’ he said, raising an eyebrow sarcastically in the direction of Jimmy’s Japanese screened room.

Hattie looked at him with contempt. She was beginning to think that Toby was even more insensitive to the feelings of others than she had ever realised (although, of course, their sex life had been a bit of a clue). The thought of Jimmy’s few material possessions – probably worthless in Hattie and Toby’s terms – being pored over in the corner of her elegant home had touched something deep within her. Perhaps even sparked in her, she thought as she remembered the childlike qualities she had noticed in him earlier that evening, some sort of frustrated maternal instinct.

In her work she regularly came across injured children who would arouse a strong need to nurture in her, but she was never able to indulge it. She could only go so far in helping them which, for her, was never quite far enough. At the end of their sessions she could only send them back to their foster homes or their families. With Jimmy it was different. He wasn’t a patient; she wasn’t restricted by the rules and regulations of her profession. She could go further, do more, nurture in the way she wanted.

She was already conscious that Claire’s approach to Jimmy was, rather like Claire herself, a little superficial. She even suspected that her friend might have some hidden agenda in her own interest in Jimmy’s transformation. But Hattie felt that she had a deeper and more profound reason for wanting this young man to succeed. He would be the means by which she proved – not just to Jon but to herself – that she was right in her theories. All men, she thought, as she glanced past Toby towards Jimmy, were born equal.

‘I thought I’d cook us some supper,’ she said, moving towards the fridge and taking out some pasta, some mushrooms, a large onion and a piece of fresh Parmesan.

‘That’ll make a change,’ Toby said snidely.

Just because Hattie didn’t often cook didn’t mean she couldn’t. She just wasn’t focused on food. And besides, there was never any real need to feed Toby because he had a business lunch every day. But having Jimmy here changed that. She was overwhelmed by the need to care for him. To give him some decent food, clean clothes and a place of safety in which to live.

She sliced the onions and fried them in some extra virgin olive oil that Toby had brought back from Umbria. Then she threw in the exotic mushrooms and some garlic and finally mixed the lot with some fresh penne she had boiled, sprinkling the finished dish with freshly grated Parmesan and chopped parsley. She even remembered to put some part-baked ciabatta in the oven so that when the pasta was ready she could serve it with crispy, hot bread. She laid the table in the kitchen for three and opened a bottle of red wine.

Toby, who had been looking on in wonder at the sight of Hattie happily cooking, put down his paper and came over to the table.

‘And is our guest going to deign to join us?’ he said, in the sneering tone he adopted whenever he referred to Jimmy.

She went to the corner of the room where he was camped and coughed gently. ‘Jimmy?’ she said softly. ‘Supper is ready.’

‘Oh aye,’ he said, putting his head round the corner. ‘I was just sorting me things out, like.’

Hattie glanced down behind him and noticed the array of possessions that littered the bed: a collection of Newcastle United programmes, a scrunched up and soiled Everton duvet cover, some rosettes, a silver-plated cup, some medals, a pile of photographs and, beneath them, numerous other half-obscured trinkets. She didn’t ask him about them although she was aware of a growing curiosity. She wanted to know more about him, his family, his origins, but she smiled for now and went back to the kitchen.