On the Floor (14 page)

‘You know Kierkegaard once wrote a piece called “The Unhappiest”?'

‘Ever met a happy philosopher?'

‘I'm agreeing with you. I mean that was his advice. The happiest were those who lived in the present. Kierkegaard said—'

‘
Stop!
Don't turn this into an existential crisis. That would be too dull. Remember what I told you last night. You've got to face up to the real reason why you don't want to go to Hong Kong.'

A bird wheels wildly in the window behind her. She rubs my upper arm briskly and then squeezes it, pinching the bone. ‘And go eat something, will you?'

‘I'm out of here.' I turn away from her, wave in the air and head off down the corridor.

‘Ring me when you get back,' she calls out. ‘And good luck. Do the right thing.' By which she means let go. Stop waiting for Stephen. But Zanna does not know how bad things are. She does not know the extent of my shame. How I can lie on the bed in the darkness and trace a finger along my collarbone, let my hand slip down, imagining it is his touch, soft, warm, barely slipping down to my breast and already an urgent pulse between my legs as I press my thighs hard together and apart, and thrust upwards, my fingers sliding easily into my own hot wet grip but Stephen flees at this point and my fingers are a poor imitation, bringing only an empty coming that leaves me hollowed out. And I have reached the ultimate humiliation in my own bed, jerking off to the remembered touch of a man who has chosen the most unequivocal departure.

Jesus Christ, am I ever going to cut loose?

‘Sorry for shouting at you earlier,' I stop by Pie Man's desk. ‘But you caught me at a bad time.'

‘No problem.' He nods, the flesh wobbling around his chin. ‘I just thought you'd find that article interesting.'

‘I know, I will read it.'

‘I didn't mean to badger you. Just, it's very relevant to your – eh – your talent.'

‘I've just been really tired. All the travelling.' He bobs his big pale head and smoothes his hands unseeing across the desk, knocking a pack of Marlboro to the floor.

‘Didn't know you smoked,' I bend to pick them up.

‘Oh, no, I don't. Someone left them here and—' Pie Man watches me open the pack and fish out the lighter inside. ‘They'll do,' I exhale.

One of his geek mates across the way looks up, staring straight through me at some calculations on his inner eye. The desks here on SPUD look curiously naked because they don't have Reuters or Bloomberg and they don't have phone boards, instead they have the yellow plastic phones that mark you out as a non-producer. Rob will make a big play out of the fact that the geeks don't have equipment and he occasionally wanders down and picks up a handset and bangs it hard against the desk then holds it to his ear and goes
Hello, hello, is that you, Mum?
while Dr Who makes a great show of pretending not to notice.

Pie Man twiddles with a stubby little pencil. His own desk is littered with pages of his even and beautiful script, almost calligraphic, as if the calculations are an aesthetic homage, the numbers flowing left to right, horizontal, vertical, in perfect alignment.

‘It's like artwork,' I pick up a page.

‘Oh, that's just an algorithm for—'

‘Yeah, I know, I meant your handwriting. It's beautiful.'

‘Oh,' he blushes, looks down and sticks his little stub in the sharpener.

‘How come you always write in pencil when you never rub out?'

‘I like to leave the full trail, to see how I got to a point. If I have all the steps then I can trace it back.'

And he raises his head, glances at me briefly full face. I think of Piggy in
Lord of the Flies
, or Billy Bunter, but there is a razor edge to Pie Man. Beneath the blubbery lids, his eyes are a sharp blue. Youthfully clear, though his age is hard to decipher since the swollen flesh disguises all clues. He looks away, brushes at some crumbs on his sleeve. Soon he will be off to the canteen, shoulders hunched beneath the monstrous craving that propels him forwards up the stairs. Sometimes he returns with three pre-packaged sandwiches that he eats methodically, large slashing bites with his head angled sideways. I have seen him masticate even when his mouth is empty as if in involuntary reflex response to the thought of food. And I wonder how these habits developed unchecked into adulthood, if Pie Man's mum and dad are like him, the three of them weighed down by the burden of a ravenous hunger, slumped at a kitchen table groaning with food. Perhaps the impulse that tells you are replete can malfunction, smothered by an avalanche of food that keeps slipping down your gullet.

‘Oh Jesus, I am such a fucking idiot.'

‘What's the matter?' Pie Man looks up alarmed.

‘I completely forgot about Rex.'

‘What?'

‘I've just remembered my dog walker won't be able to take him tonight because she does these stupid Shih Tzus in Chiswick on Mondays. And I have to catch a plane.' I turn away towards my desk. ‘
Fuck
.'

‘Wait, wait, maybe I could help.'

‘You know a dog sitter?'

‘No, but—'

‘'Cos Rex hates kennels.'

‘No, I mean, what about me?'

‘What about you?'

‘I mean I could look after Rex for you.'

‘Thanks anyway, that's kind, but—'

‘He knows me.'

‘No he doesn't.'

‘Yes he does. Remember that time I bumped into you in the park? I even threw his ball.'

And I do recall a dingy Sunday morning, not long after Stephen, and Venice, when Pie Man suddenly appeared by the Round Pound. He stood there inside a massive green anorak like a parachute had collapsed around him, hurling the tennis ball over arm with a surprisingly long bowl, Rex barrelling after it.

‘Remember I told you I used to have a dog when I was growing up?'

‘Denis. The black and tan mongrel who ate worms.'

‘That's right,' he nods happily.

I park my butt back on the edge of his desk and Pie Man scrabbles to move a jumble of papers to one side. ‘You only met Rex for a few minutes once.'

‘You said he liked me.' And it's true, Rex did like him but of course Rex likes everyone who tickles his tummy and scratches his head although I don't say that; I look at Pie Man's earnest face while I'm formulating a no, then I think well it's not as if I have many options – and it's not as though he'll go out clubbing and leave Rex locked up indoors. In fact, Rex would love Pie Man, plus they have interests in common like eating and lying on couches.

‘I wouldn't be back till Wednesday morning.' I am still scrambling for another last minute non-kennel option but there are none because there are no other single women in the City stupid enough to own a dog.

‘That's OK. No problem. Really.'

‘I guess I could get Lisa to drop him over to your place later only you'd have to leave work early.'

‘I can work at home. I sometimes do, so it wouldn't be—'

‘Are you really sure about all this?'

‘Yes, yes. It would be great to have him.'

‘I don't know. Maybe I should do the kennel. Maybe he'd be OK this time.'

‘No, don't, he'd hate it. I'll look after him really well. I won't go out or anything.'

‘Well, OK then. Thanks a lot. You're a lifesaver.' And Pie Man beams like he's won a prize. He pushes back the chair and stands up as if this adds extra weight to his commitment. Smoothes his hands over his stomach, hitches his trousers. He is all business now.

‘So where are you going?'

‘Hong Kong.'

‘But you just came back.'

‘I know. Just can't get enough of the place. So give me your number and your address and I'll give it to Lisa.' He writes on his pad with his little pencil.

‘Hot date, Pie Man?' Rob sticks his head over my shoulder.

‘Oh, fuck off, Rob,' I say.

‘Remember the Daleks, boys,' Rob say. ‘Would have taken over the whole fucking universe if only the designers had given them legs.' But no one in the SPUD hub is listening. Rob's wit is not theirs. Anyway, mostly they ignore all of us, they think we're like show dogs at Crufts, all posture and veneer, and this is true. But in this business of peacocks, if you're not showing your tail you're invisible.

‘That's one hell of a tie you got there, Pie Man.' Rob gives it a little tug. Livid squares of purple and orange checkerboard like a howl for the Seventies. ‘But seriously now, I've got an important scientific question for you.' Rob gives a mischievous smirk and squeezes his arm around my waist. ‘Let's put your PhD in astrophysics to use.'

I shrug him off. ‘Actually it's Maths.' I know this because I saw Pie Man's CV lying on his desk one day. His thesis was ‘Binomial Modelling of Stock Market Returns: Estimating the Probability of Various Outcomes of Future Prices on the Stock Market'.

‘So riddle me this,' Rob continues. Pie Man stiffens, fingers the pencil. ‘Why would being strangled give someone a better orgasm?'

Pie Man blushes and lip chews, fingers a thumbnail in his ear, all the textbook litany of tics, and I wonder if he would trade it all – the whole giant IQ, the whole big brain thing – just for one day to feel what it's like to be Rob, to be stroking the silken inner thigh of some slender arm candy, hovering in a perfume sweat cloud above Laila in the back office or Claudia in Fixed Income or Annabel in Private Clients or any one of Rob's other ex-fucks.

‘Come on, mate.' Rob's neat torso bounces athletically in a series of desk level press-ups. ‘You're the scientist. There must be a biological explanation.'

‘Well,' Pie Man does the coughing thing again, ‘oxygen deprivation.'

‘Yeah, we know all about that round here, don't we?' Rob nods his head at Al who is doing his sales march around the corner perimeter, the cord stretched taut behind him. But Al ignores him; he is busy pitching something that, luckily, does not sound like Vulkan or MSTAR, though of course my lips are sealed: I cannot say anything. ‘Come on then, let's hear it.'

‘Possibly because,' continues Pie Man, ‘oxygen deprivation causes increased blood flow to – eh – to certain parts of the—' and he flicks a sideways glance at me.

‘Don't worry about Geri, she's a big girl.'

‘Increased blood flow to the – eh – organ.'

‘Wahey. Thank you, my man.' Rob backslaps him.

‘Julie's looking for you about some travel.' Al saunters towards us with his Columbia water bottle and nods at me.

‘You off again, G?' asks Rob.

‘Back to Hong Kong.'

‘What's up?'

‘Need to know basis.'

‘So you taking Pie Man with you to carry the bags?' Rob nudges Pie Man's shoulder.

‘Actually he's offered to look after Rex for me,' I smile inclusively.

‘Well, well, so you're coming up in the world now, Pie Man. Dog-sitting for old G while she jets off to see the Cat?'

Pie Man nods uncertainly.

‘So what's cooking at SPUD then?' Rob picks up a page from the desk. ‘What's this? A blueprint for a new rocket?' He taps at what look like semi-circles with scribbles but are actually volatility curves.

‘You wouldn't understand it, Rob,' I say. Pie Man watches anxiously as Rob lets the page drift downwards.

‘Seriously though. Tell us, how is the power plant at SPUD? Have you built the model that's going to make our fortunes?'

Pie Man looks from Rob to Al to me and smiles, a bland spread of the lips as if he is mimicking someone else's rules of discourse. ‘We're working on a new project.'

‘Oh yeah, what's that?' asks Al.

‘We're, eh, looking at convertible bonds.' He casts a quick eye at Rob.

‘My babies!' says Rob. ‘You need to get me involved.'

‘Yeah,' I say, ‘'cos Rob's got a PhD in maths so he'd be a big help to you all.' Al snorts into his water bottle.

‘So tell me this, G,' says Rob, ‘how come you're slumming it down with us at the coalface when you could be breathing in all this pure mathematical air? Is it 'cos you want to be where the real money is, by any chance?'

‘Geri could easily be the best in our quant group,' Pie Man blurts out.

‘Only she doesn't really have the figure for it,' Rob winks at Pie Man's belly. ‘Joking apart though, tell us what you're up to with my convertibles.' But Pie Man hesitates, he's wary of ambush tactics. Sometimes
Rob nabs him on his way, back grabs a bag of Cheese 'n' Onion and waggles it,
Now, that's not going to help you get the girls, is it, mate?

‘So tell us then.'

‘We're building a pricing model. There's nothing any good out there.'

‘You mean some Black and Scholes options thing.'

‘No, no, something much more sophisticated than that. Black and Scholes is basically primitive.' Pie Man hurls all caution to the wind and begins to elaborate on the finer points of theoretical value, his enthusiasm growing so that he forgets his audience and launches into a mini-lecture on volatility estimation and binomial pricing.