Here's Looking at You (19 page)

Patrick rapped the door, stuck his head round.

‘Permission to enter Avengers HQ?’

‘Permission granted,’ Anna said.

‘Fancy a cup of tea?’ he asked.

‘Cor, yes please,’ she said, eyes half on the screen.

With James’s reply open, she saw the Luther photos again and giggled.

‘What’s that?’ Patrick said. ‘Student come out with another Dumb Britain? Do share, I’m thinking of compiling a list. Roger had someone spell Savonarola “Savannah” and “Roller” the other day. Presumably this was the huge wheeled machine he used to crush heretical texts.’

‘Oh, no. Photoshop funnies. Remember James from Parlez?’

‘The nasty schoolboy?’

‘Yes. I saved his cat from being run over. He sent me a funny email about it.’

‘Oh,’ Patrick raised an eyebrow.

A slight, ever so slight, cool wind blew through the room.

‘He’s grown on you?’

‘A little. A tiny little bit.’

‘Remember when people like him are being charming, it’s usually in pursuit of their own ends. Ends which will only become clear to you at a later date.’

Patrick’s head abruptly withdrew.

Anna’s smile faded, and she was left with the mild discomfort of thinking Patrick’s cynicism might well prove to be justified.

An email ping. BDSM Neil. You can’t keep a good man down.

‘Thanks for doing this, pal,’ Laurence said, as they nursed lagers in the squeezed environs of the Donmar bar, pints that would surely be trying to make a break from their bladders within five minutes of the curtain going up.

‘No problem, I quite fancied seeing this,’ James shrugged. He wasn’t at all sure of the wisdom of helping Loz with a set-up.

‘You liar. As if. You’re back in the game, and I for one am glad of it. Who’s she bringing?’ Laurence said.

‘Not sure,’ James said, and had a shiver of apprehension about how Laurence would behave.

Actually, Loz was half right. The media fuss and star casting aside, James thought
Friction Burns
looked like an incredibly pretentious waste of time. And it was about the impossibility of romantic relationships, a topic he could live without exploring at the moment.

But the tickets were going begging and no one else who happened to be free was over thirty, or understood the point of seeing something without 3D, flying lumps of CGI or Jason Statham.

James was grumbling that letting the tickets to
Friction Burns
go to waste was ungrateful and they should at least return them to the Donmar, when a plan had formed that suited various agendas all at once. First and foremost, the
dumped James not sitting in feeling sorry for himself
agenda.

And he owed Anna for her efforts during LutherGate. It was only once they were chasing the dim bugger that he’d realised that his death would have felt like it symbolised the end of everything with Eva. Possibly literally as well as symbolically. She’d have gone
ballistic.

He’d half wanted to warn Anna that Laurence was on the prowl, but decided against it, given that it was a trifle patronising. She was a woman in her thirties, not a teenager, and Laurence had hardly disguised his amorous interest at the school reunion. She could more than look after herself, if their interactions had been anything to go by.

A tap on his shoulder. Anna, black of hair and bright of eye in that grey students’ coat, and a sight for his sore eyes after an hour of Laurence’s innuendo and office gossip.

She was accompanied by a friend she introduced as Michelle, and her sister, Aggy. Michelle had generous features, an equally generous shelf of bosom, and short hair in a shade of cochineal red. Her resting expression made her look permanently poised to utter something confrontational. Michelle was not quite who James would’ve pegged as an Anna friend, somehow.

Anna’s sister was less beautiful than her older sister, in James’s opinion, albeit more dressy and made-up. She was full of that vivacious nonsensical chatterbox energy that some men found beguilingly bubbly and others found extremely wearying. He was in the latter camp.

Did he imagine both of them looked at him in a slightly hostile way?

Laurence did pop eyes behind their backs as they went to the bar and James’s stomach muscles tensed.
Please don’t be an arsehole.

‘Sister’s another person of interest. Not sure about the other one – Maximum Baggage Allowance. Quite the upholstery. But what’s that hair colour, Russ Abbot’s “See You Jimmy” Scotchman?’ Laurence whispered.

‘
Loz,
’ James hissed, face growing warmer.

Laurence laughed, clearly taking James’s objection to mean that they might overhear, as opposed to embarrassed anger that he’d said it at all.

‘I’ve got a question for you,’ Laurence said to Anna, when they reassembled. ‘Your cousin Beth’s leaving do. How was it?’

‘Oh. Er …’ Anna looked startled. Her sister’s brow creased and James could swear she mouthed ‘Who’s Beth?’

‘You didn’t go! You blew us out and then you legged it!’

Anna carried on looking dumbstruck whilst Laurence continued, ‘But Fate has thrown us back together.’

‘Or, James,’ Anna said, finding her voice again.

‘Well Fate had to throw you two together at work, so really he’s Fate’s intermediary,’ Laurence said. ‘He does Fate’s admin. Fate’s tea boy.’

James smiled tightly and thought the four letter f-word on Laurence’s mind was hardly fate.

Oh my God but the play was awful. Just awful. James sank lower in his stalls seat every minute. In fact, ringside seat took on a whole new meaning, given the utter ringpiece who was centre stage.

No wonder so few people went to the theatre. He had half a mind to call the Arts Council and complain.

The worst of it was that by arranging the tickets, he somehow felt entirely responsible for the content. As if he’d shouted
hey guys get a load of this!

And, oh woe, the discomfiting and frequent nudity. He really would’ve liked a warning that Little Dylan Kelly (the even littler one) was going to make more than one appearance. James tried to gaze at the stage impassively while Dylan waved it around, so he didn’t look like a prude who hated art.

He snuck a sideways glance at the row next to him. Anna’s sister seemed to be oblivious to the horrors of the play, and was rapt, lips slightly apart, eyes wide, lost in every word onstage. Anna’s friend looked indifferent, hand digging in her bag of wine gums. Laurence was doing his fake-intellectual concentration scowl, chin on one hand. Anna was … Anna was smiling? She must’ve felt his gaze on her as she turned towards him. James smiled back. James discreetly mimed gun in mouth and firing. Anna’s smile widened into a grin. He turned back to the stage, feeling significantly better.

‘What truth is there in love?’ Dylan Kelly prowled into a spotlight, addressing the crowd, as the play rattled to its staggering conclusion that everyone and everything in life was crap.

‘Love is the drug. It’s an opiate, an analgesic to ease the loneliness of the human condition. And like all painkillers, it dulls the senses. Love is what we call it when we find someone else, but lose ourselves.’

Oh shut the fuck up and put some trousers on
.

‘That was very thought-provoking,’ Laurence said.

‘Yes, provoking the thought of how shit it was,’ James said.

Anna knew James to be pitiless in his wit but she had to admit, he had a point here.

‘You didn’t like it?’ Laurence asked, in what sounded like a telephone manner version of his real voice.

‘I haven’t felt that much resentment towards an Irishman screwing people since I last flew Ryanair.’

Michelle guffawed and James grinned at her. Anna was glad they seemed to have hit it off. However, Aggy’s nerves seemed to have made her dafter than usual and she’d said a few things that had left James staring blankly.

Laurence had suggested a post-show drink and they’d ended up crammed into a Covent Garden pub for out-of-towners – all leaded windows, London bus red gloss paint and polished horse brasses – holding warm alcohol in cloudy glasses.

‘I tell you what I learned. That Dylan Kelly is packing a kidney shifter,’ Michelle said.

James and Laurence grimaced.

‘Warm room,’ Laurence muttered.

‘He was so lush though,’ Aggy said, fanning her face with her programme.

‘Really, you think?’ James asked, genuinely.

Aggy would usually squeal in response to a question like this, about such a subject. Instead she mumbled and fell slightly quiet and nodded. Anna thought it was amazing that James Fraser’s powers could silence her sister. It created a slightly awkward pause, however.

‘He looked like a pervy roofer who’d inflate his quote, flirt with your missus and eat all your good biscuits, to me.’

Anna laughed but felt a shiver at James’s snobbery. Roofer? Her brother-in-law-to-be was a decorator. Not all honest toil took place on laptops, you know.
You with your Macbook Airs and graces.
Michelle asked Aggy if she fancied nipping out for a smoke, leaving Anna feeling vaguely relieved.

‘What did you think of it?’ Laurence asked Anna. He looked at her over the rim of his glass and she got the distinct impression this was a set-up.

‘Uhm,’ Anna put her head on one side. ‘It was a bit … I think it tilted at these big revelatory truths and didn’t deliver. I mean, why did he end up going back to the art gallery owner Eloise woman who’d treated him like crap?’

‘Because we’re all suckers for punishment?’ Laurence said, with a rueful laugh.

‘There was nothing to her though. She was so cold.’

‘Sometimes it’s the ones who treat you the worst that you like the most.’

‘Yeah, that’s fine when you’re twenty-two. But this character was meant to be in his mid-thirties. I don’t think you can carry on being hung up on an icicle in a push-up bra indefinitely without it saying something about you.’

She glanced at James, who was staring determinedly in the direction of the jukebox. Anna had a belated twinge that he might be making a connection with his own situation. She’d never met his ex-wife though, so how could it be personal?

‘You know. There comes a point when unlikeable people having a lot of sex is just unlikeable people having a lot of sex. I wasn’t sure why I was meant to care about them,’ Anna concluded.

‘Heartily agree,’ said James.

‘I’d love to write something like that, but better,’ Laurence mused.

‘Hahaha,’ James perked up. ‘About scoring with lots of women?
The Shag Wangler
. From the mind of Laurence O’Grady.’

Laurence failed to smile and seemed irritated.

‘You’ll be like that pick-up artist guy who wrote
The Game
. The British seaside version.’

‘No need to make me sound so shallow. I do a fair bit of navel gazing.’

‘Yeah, I think it’s meant to be your
own
navel you’re gazing at,’ James said, and Anna laughed even though Laurence didn’t look best pleased at this.

James’s phone went and Anna tried to concentrate on Laurence’s chat instead of overhearing what was an obviously tense exchange.

Well my mum wasn’t to know … seriously Eva, now? I know the beast’s stupid but I don’t think it’s going to commit suicide before I get home … oh for fu—alright, The Lamb & Flag. Yep sure bye.

He rang off, pausing Anna and Laurence’s conversation.

‘Erm. Eva’s read something about lily pollen being poisonous to cats and wants to go round and remove a plant my mum bought. Apparently two hours’ time isn’t good enough. She’s coming to get the keys from me.’

Anna had a shiver of curiosity at getting to meet the ex-wife. If she really was ex – for all she knew, James and Eva were into those stormy tempestuous relationships where you split up every five weeks to keep it spicy.

‘She really uses that Ewok creature to pussy whip you, doesn’t she?’ Laurence said. ‘
Pussy
whip … cat … get it? Haha.’

James grimaced.

‘Hang on,’ Laurence said. ‘When did you tell her the house was going on the market?’

James’s eyes flickered to Anna’s. She knew he wasn’t comfortable discussing this in front of her.

‘Today?’ Laurence persisted. Anna sensed Laurence rather liked the embarrassment boot being on the other foot now.

James nodded.

‘You know what she’s doing, don’t you? She’s checking out who you’re with this evening, and going back to the house to see if there’s any signs of
a struggle
, if you know what I mean. Bedroom-wise.’

James looked intensely uncomfortable, shrugged. Anna looked away. Laurence was referring to him seeing someone in particular, she guessed. It didn’t quite fit with the slight air of melancholy she’d scented round at his, but then, maybe he was able to nurse a broken heart and run a furious rumping schedule at the same time.