Style

by Joseph Connolly

Genres: General Fiction; Humor & Satire

Synopsis

Terence is sick of people making a fuss of Alexander. His looks. His money. His fame. Who wouldn't resent so successful a son? Even if he is only ten years old. Joseph Connolly's brilliant new comedy of manners weaves together a domestic tableaux of characters - those with old-fashioned manners, tabloid manners, and no manners at all - in a satire on oedipal envy, neighbourly rivalry and the shameless stupidity of our fame-fuelled society.

Release date: March 5, 2015

Publisher: RiverRun

Print pages: 496

Sample

Chapter Eight

WAITING FOR
THE MAGICAL HOUR

Still dark. The very next morning, when I practically ran away from home (that’s how it felt – and what a true and head-spinningly magnificent feeling that was, I can tell you – felt so young, felt just dangerous enough, and I was charged to the verge of explosion with an uncut and beautifully boyish lust, thrilling in itself, as I was hugging to my heart this one big secret venture) . . . yes and I only realised as I closed the front door as softly as I had the patience to be bothered with, that still the sun had yet to rise. When was the last time that had happened, I’d like to know. Christ – can’t even remember the last time I was returning at so unthinkable an hour, reeling and gaga, following a roaring and gaudy night on what I so very much adored to call the toot. And even that early in the morning – can’t have been six yet – there were hanging around on the pavement a few young girls in the cold and yellow light of a street lamp, shivering in inadequate clothing, their faces quite gorgeously tarted up: obviously young and generally tiny, but no less exciting for that. In the old days, I would have been on to them, it just has to be faced. But today, today . . . ooh, sod all of that, sod just anything – because I just had to get back to K.T: my K.T, and her studio flat . . . can’t imagine how last evening I ever dragged myself out of the door . . . and already the essence of her was flowing so hotly, bubbling up in my veins. Oh Christ . . . finally – a life force: that necessary, thudding and so frighteningly pervasive a thing. Nothing like it for letting you know – telling you straight to your face with quite shocking energy and the wagging of a cautionary finger, just how very worryingly close to dying you had come. Within, I mean: all hope, closed down. And before I had left her, K.T, after that actually miraculous, thoroughly alcoholic, and practically delirious afternoon – and then after, when at last she had taken me home . . . before I finally left her, peeled myself away from her with pain, she had whispered almost as if the thought had just come into her head that the following day she did not have to work. I nodded, and didn’t believe her. Because what she meant was . . . well this is what I am absolutely sure she was meaning: that she wanted more, more of this, a great deal more of all that we had, all that we were sharing, and so therefore tomorrow . . . well tomorrow – work could just go and fuck itself. Because . . . unless I truly know nothing any more, and there is no way at all that that can be true . . . we had become ignited. Lit, yes – a thing I had hardly hoped for. Hadn’t dared even to think about. And life now, you know . . . it has suddenly spun me. Twenty-four hours ago, I was a desperate and laughable idiot (I cringe away from the thought, the memory of all my contortions) who was besotted with some or other thing called Portia – so therefore deranged – and coming so very dangerously close to being arrested and charged with her physical assault.

Now . . . well now, I am back in love with my very rescuer, the woman who has taken me away from all of that, the woman whom I never even for a moment have ceased to adore . . . and yet the daily, hourly memories of her, over how many years, only served to leave me burnt. Well of course they say it, don’t they? There’s a saying: ‘What a difference a day makes.’ Is that a song, or something? Bit of a lyric? Or just a trite old adage? Sort of thing anyway I’ve never really had the time for – yes because look at it: in life, one bloody day is pretty much like any other, isn’t it? Same old thing. Whole point: why we’re all just sick to death. But just as tragedy can strike in an instant (no one leaves his home in the morning expecting to be hit by a bus) so then, very mercifully, can something else entirely. Winning the lottery – that, I suppose, would be the undreamt-of instant that most people will crave. But it’s nothing, that. Not really. All that can mean is that you’re the same old bugger, with added cash: all ready and primed to make a world-class fool of yourself. Love . . . real love . . . there is the true transformation. And I hadn’t actually fallen into it, of course, because already I was right up to my neck in it – yes and have been for just about ever . . . since first I had met K.T. Simply now it is gloriously undammed, the river of love, and no longer do I feel mauled, and bit by vicious teeth. Love laps up and into me now, and so richly, with such lavish indulgence: I am warm, and kissed all over. Being with her . . . just to be with my own K.T . . . oh – it’s wonderful, so wonderful: simply no other word for it. And yes, people say that – I know, I know . . . people in love, they say and say it, don’t they? Their eyes all a-dazzle, as they constantly and genuinely irrepressibly will continue to tell you, oh . . . all of this sort of nonsense, seemingly pap, until frankly you need to just slap them, and beg for the bliss of silence. Yes and the reason for that is because you are an outsider, you see: it’s the way of it. You cannot know, you cannot even hope to understand remotely any of what a lover is meaning, feeling, nor all that he is relentlessly, compulsively trying to convey to you from within the shudder of a rapturous cocoon. No . . . you simply cannot know what it’s like, nor how it is. Well then let me spell it out . . . it’s like this, you see: this is how it is:

‘Christ . . . oh my Christ . . . oh Jesus, K.T . . . that was just . . .!’

‘I know.’

She leant across the bed then, her lips lightly brushing my forehead, just that little touch of warmth setting me ablaze. I heard my gasp as her breasts were tumbling into me. The sweat that glistened just stickily within the hollow of her collar bone, it smelt so sweet. The whole of her body was utterly hairless, a thing I love, and so much more than smooth – sheeny, and even polished, its softness beneath the hover of my tentative fingers so utterly yielding, and at once alarming. Then I could study that perfectly wondrous sweep, the length of her spine, the notching of each of her vertebrae, as she turned aside and was scrabbling about among all of her bedside clutter, I just knew for a cigarette: scraped alive this turquoise plastic lighter – sucked in smoke, so greedily.

‘I’m surprised that you have a . . .’

‘I know. I terribly want this quite amazing Dupont. Gunmetal. Until then, anything’ll do, really.’

‘Yes, but of you I would have thought . . .’

‘Yeh – well I did go through a Swan Vestas phase. For the box, obviously. But they rattle. In your bag. They rattle. Annoying. Tom, shall I make us some . . .?’

‘Not really hungry. Are you? I wouldn’t mind a, um . . .’

‘Is it too early for a . . .?’

‘Christ, K.T – I would have said so, but . . .’

‘Well champagne, then – that doesn’t really count, does it?’

The fridge – Westinghouse, stainless steel, tall and double-doored, with a water dispenser and some sort of a green electronic screen. And I somehow had registered even last evening, from amidst the shadowy, then quite hurtfully jagged perspectives that cast such strange and menacing shapes, and then were invasively piercing my quite staggering drunkenness . . . that this fridge, it was pretty much jammed with it, champagne. Clicquot, the whole lot: a drink for lovers – I see it like that, because here is a drink that we used to drink. So . . . a gift? Left over from one hell of a party? Does she drink it on her own? With someone else? And who would that be? And how is the sex between them? Better than with me? Yes because even from within the tremor of those bending and alcoholic distortions, the blur of fragmented imaginings, these are the tainted questions that had immediately assailed me. And now . . .? Doesn’t matter. Now . . .? Couldn’t care. She’s with me, you see. I just know that she is. It all starts here. Again. The past . . . is over. It’s the way of the past: it’s absolutely how it goes. All I have to do . . . I’ve just got to get her to . . . well: she just has to say so. That’s all.

‘I’m so-o-o lazy . . . too lazy to move . . .’

‘I’ll get it if you like, K.T. And shall I do us a bit of . . .?’

‘Gets in the bed. All the crumbs. I’ll fix us some eggs, or something. Later on.’

‘K.T . . .’

‘I know.’

‘I haven’t said anything . . .’

‘I know.’

‘But you . . .? What I was going to . . .?’

‘I do.’

‘And so you . . . what do you think? Will you . . .?’

‘Get the champagne, darling . . .’

‘I will, K.T. I will. But do you . . .? Are you . . .?’

‘Champagne first.’

‘Okay. Okay, fine. But do you, K.T . . .? Think we could . . .?’

‘I think I could . . . drink a whole bottle of champagne. Oh go, Tom . . .!’

So I did. I did that. There’s food too, in the fridge. Good stuff, naturally. Some proper foie gras – not goose, but still. Cheeses, a few, in greaseproof paper. What looks like a decent cut of breadcrumbed ham. Yogurt. Eggs. In the freezer, just a sack of peas, and vodka. Two martini glasses and a couple of Baccarat flutes. She is . . . an independent woman. She always was, of course . . . but here, clearly, is someone who lives her life the way she likes to. So how open would she be, I wonder . . . to a shift in that? Maybe, after some, or quite possibly a very great deal of champagne, she will tell me. But even as I was dealing with the cork, though – all I was thinking was that I had to, just had to get back to her: if soon I could not touch her, feel her – fill up both my hands with just all she has to offer . . . then I think I might just wither, diminish; either that, or simply disintegrate: here, and right now, all over the chequerboard floor . . . shattered splinters and hard particles, scattered in a glossily crimson pool of all my yielding parts.

I gathered all I could carry, and more or less cantered back to the bed – immediately struck and startled, then . . . simply gloating upon the form, the swell and curve of her, beneath a tangled sheet – that fabulous tousle of all her hair betraying only the peeking rudeness of her glinting, warm and gloriously rounded shoulder . . .! I nearly dropped the bottle: I nearly yelped out loud. I hurtled the Clicquot into an icy flute as she knelt up to take it: the sight of her body as the sheet just was clinging to those, oh – quite mind-numbingly arrogant breasts of hers, before it fell away . . . it brought me close to tears, and then a boiling desire. We drank and spilt the wine – set aside the glasses, and just anywhere, certainly to topple over and hiss out their resentment as the champagne set to seeping in, or ran away . . . and then we were rolling and clutching and so quite breathlessly consumed, truly an act of feasting as we hungrily devoured just everything we needed – and those great and wide black eyes in her reddened face were excitingly shocked as I rammed back with joy into the heaven and heat of the only place on earth where now I can truly any longer belong. It all was so . . . so just like the old days – and yet, very invigoratingly new . . .! That alone would make me dizzy.

And after . . . K.T, she said something quite wholly surprising:

‘I’m sorry . . . he didn’t get the . . .’

‘What? Who? What are you . . .?’

‘Alexander.’

‘Oh. Him. Forgotten all about that. Doesn’t matter. Probably good. Doesn’t matter.’

‘I just want you to know that it wasn’t . . .’

‘I know. Of course I know: nothing to do with you – I know that, K.T. Doesn’t matter anyway. As I say. Look – never mind all that. Listen, K.T . . .’

‘Let’s just enjoy it. Can’t we . . .? Don’t have to speak . . .’

‘I am. Enjoying it? Christ I am. I’m in heaven. I’m at home . . .’

‘Not, though – are you?’

‘Well . . .’

‘You see, my darling Tom? It’s the same old thing, isn’t it? Here we are again, the two of us – doing what we always used to. And loving it, oh yes sure. But you, Tom – you’re going to go. Aren’t you? Like you did last night. Like you always did. When you’ve had enough, when you’ve had everything you want, you’re just going to get up and leave. It’s that that broke me: it’s that that I simply couldn’t bear any more . . . not again. This, maybe . . . all this that we’re doing, now . . . it’s maybe, I don’t know . . . maybe all a mistake . . .’

I turned to look at her. I well remembered that expression, how it used to flicker with hurt and uncertainty, fusing with all of the tenderness in the light of her beautiful face: the look, it is one of gentle resignation – indulgence, against a backdrop and the familiarity of despair. Her eyelids were half closed and heavy, simply with the weight of knowing who I am. And I said to her:

‘No.’

She held my gaze for a good long time. And then she blinked.

‘No . . .? What do you mean “no”, Tom . . .?’

‘I mean no, K.T – no I’m not going to leave. Unless you want me to. And actually – maybe not even then, if you’re really asking me. Because I want to stay. I do. I need to. I mean it. Really mean it. This time. I do. It’s us, K.T – it’s us, just look at us, can’t you? We were always, well – we were always just meant. Weren’t we? Weren’t we? You know we were – you know it’s true, you’ve got to. Who else . . . what other two people have you ever met in the whole of your life, K.T, who just have so much . . . style . . .?’

My eyes, I think they must have been wide in my eagerness to impress her with all that had suddenly rushed up and into me, all that I was striving so desperately to even half adequately express. And those eyes of mine, maybe blazing . . . she held them, K.T, in the steadiness of her gaze.

‘You do . . .? You really do . . .?’

I nodded at her then – yes, and with what felt like an unnervingly ferocious vigour.

‘For ever.’

She laughed, and kissed my cheek. She reached across me for her glass of champagne. Mine was rolling around the floor. She fumbled then in the packet for a cigarette.

‘It is pretty ghastly, this thing . . .’

‘Turquoise plastic: of course it is. Your only slip-up, K.T. The one disappointment.’

‘I’m ashamed . . .’

‘No you’re not. It’s not within you – and nor should it ever be. You know . . . I . . . love you, K.T. I really, really do. Always have. Always will. Simple as that, really . . .’

‘Will you buy me a gunmetal Dupont lighter . . .? Love me enough for that . . .?’

‘I will, K.T. I will. I do – of course I do. And you . . . will you stay with me now, and for the rest of my life?’

Her eyes were gleaming as very deliberately she exhaled a column of thin blue smoke.

‘Will you . . .? Answer me, K.T, for the love of God. I mean it, K.T. Will you . . .?’

She eyed me sidelong, a finger flicking at the cigarette’s tip.

‘You mean it . . .? You really do mean it . . .?’

‘K.T – just look at me, for Christ’s sake . . .!’

‘Well then I . . . will. Yes, Tom. I will . . .’

‘You . . . will? You will? You really will, K.T . . .?’

‘Oh Christ yes, Tom – I will I will I will . . .!’

And then she hugged me tight. We were laughing so appal-lingly uproariously, the two of us bonded into a mass, and rocking in each other’s arms. As she kissed me repeatedly, I licked with hunger at the tears that were jolted out of her.

And so for all who simply cannot know what it’s like, nor how it is . . . well then: it’s like this, you see: this is how it is.

 

‘Where you off to, then?’

‘Told you Damien, didn’t I? Why don’t you never listen? Late shift, yeh? Remember I said?’

‘Yeh but why you all got up like that, then?’

‘Bloody hell. Maria – gel there, yeh? Birthday, ain’t it? Told you, Damien . . .! She having a little bit of a drink and that, after we come off. Be nice.’

‘Yeh? So, what – you going to be like late then, or what?’

‘Don’t know, do I? See how it go. Just make sure Kenny in bed by nine, all right? Don’t go playing all of them stupid games with him into the bleeding night.’

‘What about my tea?’

‘There’s a ready meal for the two of you. Pasta bake. Freezer. Got sausage in. Got to go – all right?’

‘Yeh. Suppose so. All right.’

‘Yeh and have a lovely time, Dolly, won’t you? You going to say that to me, are you Damien? And don’t go working too hard, will you Dolly, hey? You going to say any of that to me, are you? Nah – because you never.’

‘I work and all you know, Dolly. Sometimes I reckon you forgetting that.’

‘No, Damien – I not ever forgetting that, am I? On account of you never stops telling me it. Why don’t you remind me we got a mortgage, while you about it. Might of slipped my mind, yeh? Anyway – I’m out of here.’

What I were wanting to say to him, bleeding pig, is that I never had no shift at all in the hotel tonight – tonight, it one of my nights off. Not Maria’s birthday neither – crap, all of that. I going up West, you want to know – up West, yeh . . . and with a older gentleman, all well dressed and with proper grown-up style what is going to take me out to dinner – real like dinner of an evening time – and only in one of them restaurants what’s coming up all of the time in blogs and the magazines what I get, I just so can’t believe. What I got on is a Jasper Conran at Debenhams black sort of maybe what they’s calling a cocktail dress because it ain’t no tea dress which has got flowers on and it not tea I going to, it dinner. It got sequin sleeves, and I never thought when I got it that I’d get to wear it ever on account of it ever so glitzy, but not too showy, I reckon – I not looking like some slag on the pull. It were on the very last day of the sale and there were only the one of them hanging on the rail there, and then I seen it were my size (10 now – I starved and puked myself back down to a 10) and it were ever so cheap, like less than a third of the original price, and so I just thought oh fuck it – I get it, yeh? And now I ever so glad I did because look at me, okay? I only going up West – I only going to Scott’s for my dinner, which is where outside of it on them smoking tables what they got there that bleeding creepy Saatchi bloke gone and strangled lovely Nigella couple year back, and then he pick her nose, or something – how creepy can you get? But you sees all sorts coming and going in and out of it in the magazines, and all of the Hollywood set when they in London, they going there all of the time on account of it ever so expensive and if you want to smoke a fag or a posh cigar or something they got these tables outside of it where you can go and choke your wife, you want to – no, just kidding. George Clooney and Sandra Bullock and Scarlett Johansson and even Brad and Angelina . . .! Oh my God – what if I goes and walks right bang into Brad and Angelina . . .?! Reckon I like die on the spot, you know? And I got black tights, they called midnight mink but they black tights basically, and a little red handbag what is Asos and I telling you it is so like Céline, and dead high heels which I not too used to so I got to go easy. And it only now in the taxi I putting on all of the slap – blusher, eye shadow, mascara and real red and shiny lippy, yeh? I looking pretty good, I says it myself. Haven’t had no time to get nervous about it, nor nothing: I not crapping myself. Don’t know what I going to do though, don’t know how I going to handle it if the, I don’t know – doorman or waiter or whoever go and get all right sort of sniffy with me, don’t know what I going to do. Just got to see what’ll happen. I wish I got in couple elocution lessons: only bleeding thing I can say good is How Now Brown Cow, and that not about to come up, is it?

So I paying the taxi – can’t hardly believe what it costing me, ain’t been in a taxi since I can’t remember, can’t hardly believe what he charging me, this bloke: maybe a cabby I want to be, then – they all of them pulling down film star money . . . yeh and so anyway I pays off the taxi and it were twenty-one quid something, you want me to tell you, and I only got two tenners and some bits on account of I never thought, did I? And I gives him the tenners and I says hang about, I only got bits, have to find them, and he say that okay, twenty’s good, which nice of him, I suppose. It look ever so classy, Scott’s do – and when I come up to all of the doings, there this geezer in all like a top hat and a coat with brass wossnames all down the front of it and he open the door and he kind of like salute me and I only just stop myself saluting him back – and I sure I seen him, this very bloke, in the pictures in my magazines when all of the stars is leaving. ‘Good evening, madam,’ is what he say to me: ‘Welcome to Scott’s.’ Well blimey. I give my coat to the gel there – even the hall, whatever they calls it, it ever so lovely, and all sort of with what look like crystal twinkly lights and that. I pleased to be shot of that coat, you want to know, because it were spoiling the whole of my outfit, but I don’t got a good coat, not nothing I really want – it only a mac what I got in Primark what look like a Burberry if you practically blind, but it ever so thin . . . yeh and the gel there what I give it to, she got beautiful hands and long sort of real dark red nails and I don’t know if it just in my head but she sort of go all funny when she take it: don’t reckon she ever touch a cheap coat before. Then there this bloke, ever so tall and with a suit and tie and everything and he say to me, ‘A very good evening, madam. Mr Cleveden is at his table, and looking forward to the pleasure of your company: may I escort you?’ And I go yeh go on then – but I thinking, how the bleeding hell he know that who I meeting? It like he got radar.

So I follows behind him, yeh – and I trying to do like a thousand things at once: I trying to do that walk like what the models on the catwalk do, yeh? Sort of with the top of me – it kind of like hard to describe it, but sort of with the top of me further back than what my hips and legs is, you get what I meaning, and then this long sort of loping, really – like a animal, and my face, it got to look real pissed off with just about everything – yeh but them heels, they well high you know? And if I goes and falls over with all these like people watching, then I decided I got to crawl off to the Ladies’ and just top myself: end of. And also I wanting to have a good look about me – if Brad and Angelina’s around here somewhere, I don’t want to be missing them, do I? Yeh well I nearly done the journey, and I got to stop looking like an angry mare now because I got to the table and I want to be smiling all nice for my new gentleman friend, don’t I? Only polite. And here he is now, look – he stood up for me, and he looking ever so handsome for an old person. Lovely clothes he got on him, as like he always does. Cartier watch, he got – bit like Terry’s. Last time, it were a Jaeger-LeWossname: blimey. The table – oh, it just lovely: sort of a snug little corner it is, and you can see the whole of the restaurant and this amazing sort of bar thing they got right bang in the middle of it – but it ain’t a bar, not really, it really beautiful, and all of the people up on them stools all around, they not just knocking back beer like in a boozer or something – they eating: all of these silver like plates and towers of big pink seafood with bottles of bubbly in all of these shiny buckets. It only then I remember it famous for fish, this place – and that okay: I don’t mind a nice bit of fish of an evening time. It then I get a fit of the shivers: I just can’t believe I here . . .! I just can’t believe I doing this . . .!

‘Dolly, my dear. How very good it is of you to have come. You look quite perfectly delightful, if I may say so. Extremely beautiful. If it isn’t actually illegal to compliment a lady, these days. Please do sit, won’t you? There: all right . . .? Now – what, I wonder, can I get for you? Champagne, possibly? Glass of champagne? Something else?’

‘Oh yeh, Richard – that’d be lovely. Yeh lovely – thanks ever so much.’

You hear what he said? He said I were beautiful: extremely beautiful. That what he said. And that he were complimenting a lady . . .

‘So, Robert – a couple of glasses of the Laurent-Perrier, I think. Rosé, yes?’

‘At once, Mr Cleveden. And I shall leave you with the menus. Although for you, sir, I expect it will be your customary order . . .? We already have a particularly fine one waiting . . .’

‘Ah, Robert – you know me too well. But you never can be sure though, can you? This might well be the evening when I surprise you! And so Dolly, my dear – I hope you are comfortable? Table to your liking? Have you been here before, I wonder?’

‘No. No I never. I heard of it. But no. No I never. It ever so nice. Really really nice. And, like – from what that waiter were saying, you coming here a lot then, yeh?’

‘A fair deal, I suppose. If I’m in town. When you get older, you know – you’ll have to take my word for this, Dolly, young little thing such as yourself – but when you get older, your parameters, they tend to shrink rather, you know? There are three, maybe four – yes: four, I’d say, four restaurants that I seem to return to regularly. And why not, actually? That’s what I say. I have my usual table, the welcome is warm . . . good grief, they even know what I’m going to order . . .! So why risk somewhere new? Very dull of me, I daresay, but there it is. Now then – have you an appetite, my dear? That’s the question. I do so very much hope so, because the food here, I have to say, is really quite wonderful . . . but it’s actually rather funny: although the fish and so on is clearly the thing . . . ah, Robert . . .! Wonderful, wonderful. There we are. Splendid, splendid. A toast then, Dolly . . .!’

‘Lovely colour. Isn’t it a lovely colour?’

‘Very pretty indeed – though not nearly so pretty as you, if you’ll permit me. May I propose a toast, then . . . to you. To Dolly. Welcome – and may you have everything in life that your heart desires.’

‘Ha! Bit of a tall order that would be, Richard. Ooh – it’s lovely. Ain’t never had fizz like this before. Tickle your nose, don’t it? The bubbles, like.’

You hear what he said? He said the champagne, yeh? It pretty, but it not nearly so pretty as what I am. That what he said. And he want me to have everything what my heart desire.

‘So you harbour ambitions, do you Dolly? Things in life you aspire to?’

‘Yeh. Yeh, you could say that. I want stuff, yeh. All the bleeding time, you want the truth of it. Sorry if I’m, like . . . oh my God . . .! Oh look, Richard – look at that! Blimey – look at that! That’s that woman, ain’t it? What’s her name? It’s that woman, sure it is . . .’

‘Long sight isn’t too great, I’m afraid. I’m anyway not really too up in all of this celebrity business. Is that what you mean? Somebody famous, is it? I’m told they do come here – I really wouldn’t know. Doubt if I’d recognise the name even if you said it to me.’

‘Oh yeh I know! I got it! It’s that Carol Vorderman. Off of that programme she ain’t on no more. Bloody hell . . . that Carol Vorderman sitting over there, having her dinner . . .! Bloody hell. She look lovely, don’t she? Ever so glamorous. Beautiful eyes. Sorry, Richard – what was you saying? Was you saying something? Oh look . . . only I got to be honest with you, okay? You know I just ordinary. Yeh well, course you do – stick out a mile. You know what job I got. So being here, right . . .? It a thrill for me, you know? Can’t describe. A right thrill – can’t hardly get over it. I ain’t never been nowhere like this in all of my life, you want to know – and I ever so grateful to you, Richard. Because this . . . all of this . . . well it part of what you was saying to me earlier, yeh? All of what I want. Yeh well – all this. What I want. Style. Real style, yeh? Well that’s it. That’s it, basically. What I want. What I always did. Oh look, Richard . . . you must think I’m so . . . I’m really sorry if I’m, like . . .’

‘No apologies required, I do assure you. We can maybe have a bit of a chat about it all – a little later on, shall we? You never know – I might even be in a position to help, in some way. But why don’t you glance at the menu in the meantime? Can’t have you going hungry, can we? Oh yes – that’s what I was saying, I remember now: mind like a sieve. Yes – you see, although Scott’s is probably one of the two most famous fish restaurants in London, whenever I am here – and you will think this most frightfully absurd – but whenever I am here, I tend to order a steak. Well: I say tend to – I always do, actually. Is not that quite thoroughly per