JANE GORDON

My Fair Man

For Jack

I shall make a duchess of this draggletailed guttersnipe

George Bernard Shaw, Pygmalion

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Glossary of Geordie Words and Expressions

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Also by Jane Gordon

Copyright

About the Publisher

Chapter One

It was raining when they came out of the Opera House. A misty but insistent drizzle that soaked through Hattie’s clothes. She shivered and Toby took pity, ordering her to wait with the others beneath the protective canopy of the theatre whilst he went in search of a cab.

Hattie hated opera. She had never understood why so many of her friends regarded it with such reverence. Try as she might she had never managed to progress beyond the Opera Made Easy CD that Toby had bought for her at the beginning of their relationship. It seemed to her that most of the three-and-a-half-hour so-called great works could be condensed into one memorable three-and-a-half-minute track (Pavarotti singing ‘Nessun dorma’ was her favourite). But this particular evening’s epic – Aida – didn’t contain a single moment that could move her.

In the interval, as she and Toby had stood sipping drinks with Jon and Claire in the opulent bar, Hattie’s mind kept slipping back to the child she had seen at work that day. Opera, she had long since concluded, had no place in the real world.

‘It’s all so élitist,’ she complained, ‘and I don’t just mean the £100 seats and Princess Michael in the royal box and all these awful Radio 4 types pushing and shoving their way to the white wine. I mean the storylines. Why do operas fall for the same old class clichés? Why is there always some peasant love interest who will eventually be exposed as an aristocrat? Why can’t a peasant be a peasant and not the noble son or daughter of some exiled king?’

‘Because, Hattie,’ Jon had replied in that tone that made her want to slap him, ‘despite all your fantastic socialist theories the truth is that life is like that. If Aida had been a real slave girl no one would have cared what happened to her.’

‘Why should where she came from – who she was – matter?’ said Hattie, rising, as usual, to Jon’s taunts.

‘Class, Hattie,’ said Toby. ‘It wouldn’t have worked, would it, if they had been from different social classes?’

Class had always been a great divide between Hattie and Toby, the subject of some vehement arguments. She had always managed to hang on to the notion that all men were equal. What separated them, she passionately believed, was not their DNA make-up, or their genetic heritage, but the place and the circumstances in which they were born. And the way in which, during their developmental years, they were nurtured and cultivated by those closest to them. Lord knows, she had seen enough evidence of the damage done to the human pysche by neglect, cruelty and irresponsibility. In her work she had come to understand that what really mattered was not money, or privilege, or the cultural claptrap that Toby so revered, but love. Although of course Verdi – and the rest of tonight’s enraptured audience – didn’t see it like that.

Even now, as they fought for territory outside the Opera House amidst the teeming crowds and the relentless rain, she still felt angry about their interval discussion.

‘Let’s shelter over there,’ said Jon. ‘We’ll never see Toby through all these people …’

They moved across the street and huddled in the deep doorway of a branch of the Halifax. While they waited, the constant fine rain spraying onto them as cars and cabs swept past, Claire turned to Hattie.

‘You’re too sensitive,’ she said gently. ‘You always want to see the best in people. I mean, I understand what you are trying to say about opera – it has become a kind of symbol of cultural and social superiority. But Toby and Jon are right – you take things too seriously. It’s not real, it’s just a silly musical fairy tale. Besides, I don’t think that even you – with your high moral principles – really believe all that nonsense about nurture ruling over nature …’

‘Of course I do, Claire,’ Hattie protested. ‘I don’t just believe it, it’s what I’ve spent the last ten years of my life trying to do, I don’t want to be boring, I know I take things too seriously, but I do wish that sometimes you would listen to me. I know what I’m talking about. I’ve seen the way in which kindness and consideration can made an abused, tortured child blossom—’

‘What the hell has that got to do with a night at the opera, Hattie?’ said Jon, glancing over at Claire and raising his eyebrows. ‘Why don’t we leave the discussion for dinner? That’s if they hold on to our table. If Toby doesn’t hurry up and find a cab we’re going to be half an hour late.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Hattie said contritely, ‘but I’ve had a terrible day …’

She knew – because of patient confidentiality – that she couldn’t tell her friends the distressing details of her day or attempt in any way to justify her mood this evening. Instead she smiled at them and tried to swallow her pride – and her principles.

Then, as the three of them backed further into the darkened doorway, a piercing yelp erupted behind them.

‘Christ Almighty, I’ve trodden on something!’ shouted Jon.

‘What was it?’ said Claire, clearly alarmed.

‘A bloody dog.’ Jon jumped clear of the doorway.

Seconds later they heard another noise – a gutteral explosion that was definitely human – from behind them.

‘Haddaway, man …’

‘Pardon?’ enquired Jon.

‘Haddawayanshite,’ came the reply in what Hattie thought might be some northern provincial accent.

‘I think,’ said Hattie in her clipped, cut-glass English, ‘he is telling us to shut up and leave him and his dog alone.’

‘For God’s sake,’ said Jon irritably as his eyes made contact with the shape that had emerged from a pile of old bags and clothing behind them. ‘Why doesn’t he move on?’

There was, Hattie noticed as the man came closer to them, a horrible smell in the air that she sincerely hoped came from the dog skulking beside him. The figure’s hair hung in dreadlocked clumps around his face, obscuring his features and making it difficult to discern his age, though Hattie suspected he was very young.

‘For heaven’s sake, Jon, have you no compassion?’ she whispered, anxious not to offend the poor misfit before them. ‘Can you imagine what it would be like to be homeless?’

‘Oh spare me any more social comment this evening, please, Hattie.’

The man seemed unconcerned by their presence. In fact, Hattie realised as he slumped back against the cash-dispensing machine, he seemed oblivious to everything but the mongrel dog he was now comforting.

‘Perhaps, Hattie, he can’t get his card in the machine. Maybe his swipe’s gone,’ Jon whispered.

Hattie was incensed by Jon’s sarcasm. Moreover, the contrast between this sad, stinking stranger and the splendour of the Opera House over the road heightened her feeling of alienation from this whole evening.

‘Maybe he is trying to tell us something about ourselves,’ she muttered, bending down to stroke the whimpering dog but recoiling quickly when it snapped angrily at her.

‘Are you trying to imply that he’s making some kind of political statement, Hattie? Homeless man living in the doorway of a building society?’ said Jon.

‘For God’s sake, you two, stop arguing. Here’s Toby with the cab,’ said Claire impatiently.

Hattie held back as the others ran towards the taxi, unsure now whether she could bear to sit through dinner this evening.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she said plaintively to the figure propped up against the wall. ‘I wish I could do something to help you …’

‘Bugger off,’ he spat back at her.

‘Here,’ said Hattie, searching in her bag for some money to give him, ‘take this …’

She was aware of his surprise at the generosity of her offering. He looked closely and steadily at her from large, unusually bright, blue eyes and then began hunting through a series of carrier bags that were situated, she could now make out, beside his sleeping bag.

‘Ha this, hinny,’ he said, thrusting a dog-eared copy of the Big Issue at her.

‘Hattie!’ screamed Toby from the cab. ‘Will you hurry up? We’re late enough as it is.’

She jumped in the back of the cab and pulled down one of the little seats. As the taxi moved away from the kerb she glanced back at the man, crouched down and gently stroking his dog, and wondered what tragedies in his life had led him to that doorway.

Even Hattie was cheered by their arrival at the restaurant. She wasn’t sure what had chilled her more this evening – the relentless rain, the pathos of the homeless boy or Jon’s behaviour. But warmed by the bright lights and the prospect of food she determined to forget about the incident in the doorway.

It was the kind of place that Toby loved, not for its food, but for its fashionableness. On the way to their table he had been acknowledged by several people – fellow lawyers, and political contacts Hattie presumed – whom he knew.

As they sat down Jon turned to Hattie and smiled in a placatory way. ‘Hattie, let’s forget our differences for the rest of the evening.’

She smiled back at him even though, however amusing he might be, she knew she could never forget their differences. Jon was a partner in one of the most successful advertising agencies of the moment – Riley, Toppingham and Futura – with a reputation as one of the best creative brains in the country. But despite his apparent political affiliations – he had been responsible for a recent highly praised campaign for the Labour Party – Hattie was wary of him. She disapproved of his professional devotion to what she saw as the brutal business of manipulating the public and she found his bleak cynicism depressing. But as he was Toby’s oldest – and probably only – friend she made an effort to tolerate him.

Hattie was rather fond of Claire, Jon’s companion this evening, despite the fact that she too made her living out of hype – or at any rate out of securing good publicity for a series of rather dubious clients. She was far preferable to any of the other empty women that Jon usually had in tow. Claire – an ex-girlfriend whom he had somehow managed to turn into a friend – had only joined them this evening because the latest woman in Jon’s life was, somewhat typically, married.

Hattie was very hungry, and eager to see the menu and order. There had been no time for lunch that day and she was not even sure that she had eaten breakfast, but her companions were more intrigued by the other diners and the décor.

Hattie, who had no curiosity about the famous, or infamous, was becoming aware of the dampness of her hair and the rain-spattered state of her clothes. Muttering her excuses she made her way down the brightly lit steel stairs to the loos.

She stood and looked at her reflection in the mirror for a second and pondered on the differences between herself and the sleek females who surrounded her. She didn’t really belong in this chic place, or rather she didn’t really want to belong. She was as uncomfortable here as she had been in the Opera House. And as much an outsider as the man camped in the Halifax doorway.

Not that Hattie wasn’t vain, in her own way. It was just that it wasn’t the way of these women. She didn’t really care about clothes or make-up, and she certainly wouldn’t put herself through the agony of wearing the kind of shoes – curious spike-heeled mules – that she had noticed a number of the women struggling to walk on.

Pushing a comb through her hair and putting a touch of Lipsyl on her dry mouth, she straightened her dress, sprayed herself with scent and made her way back up the slippery steel stairs. As she moved towards the table several other diners nodded in recognition.

‘Hattie spends so much of her time worrying about life’s underdogs that I always forget she has such a splendid pedigree herself,’ Jon said as he watched her dodging between tables.

‘Give her a break, Jon. It’s not as if she has ever really bothered with all her good contacts,’ said Claire equitably, ‘and nor has she profited by them.’

‘But Hattie doesn’t need to profit by them, does she? What with the trust fund and—’

‘Jon!’ said Claire, darting him a warning look as Hattie sat back down at the table.

At this point the food arrived and the distribution of the various designer dishes (‘French Vietnamese,’ declared Toby in an authoritative manner) prevented further argument. Hattie ate hungrily as Claire attempted to lighten the atmosphere with the kind of gossip that she loved.

‘Did you see Nigella’s review of this place in Vogue?’

‘I am sure that Hattie doesn’t read Vogue,’ interjected Jon with a wicked little smile. ‘In fact I’d say that the copy of the Big Issue that Hattie has peeping out of the top of her bag is much more to her taste. While all the other women here spend most of their lives searching out things that will confer on them the kind of exclusivity that Hattie was born with, she chooses to carry – not, what is it now, a Prada handbag? – but a battered old briefcase and a magazine that clearly signals to the world that here is a woman with a social conscience.’

‘That man gave it to me. The man we disturbed when we were waiting for Toby,’ said Hattie a little defensively.

‘I bet he bloody did. It’s my own personal belief that there are more people selling the Big Issue than there are homeless. There must be two dozen in Kensington High Street alone just waiting to trip you up. It’s brilliant marketing, though. You have to admire the way you can package guilt …’

Claire, in an effort to deflect Jon’s comments, continued to give them a potted version of what Nigella had thought about the food at Vong. Undeterred, Jon continued with his diatribe against the Big Issue.

Hattie shifted uncomfortably in her seat, determined this time not to rise to the bait. She had often wondered if Jon’s shocking comments and his black sense of humour were something of an act, designed to cover up a deeper sensitivity. Part of her suspected that he was as bored as she by Nigella and Vogue and all the idle chatter that seemed to fascinate Toby and Claire. Then, perhaps unaware of just how much the incident in the doorway had upset her, Jon began a diatribe on homelessness and the ‘underclass’, many of whom, he said with a provocative glance at Hattie, somehow ‘defied Darwin’s theory of evolution’.

‘Do you know, Jon,’ said Claire quickly, ‘just for a minute I thought you were talking about your ex-girlfriend before last – you know, the blonde with the frontal lobotomy …’

‘You’ll have to remind me which one you mean,’ said Hattie, grinning. ‘I thought all Jon’s girlfriends shared those characteristics – lots of blonde hair and one brain cell. Apart from you, Claire.’

‘You know I’m the only intelligent woman Jon ever went out with. Nowadays he’s hopelessly drawn to women whose vital statistics add up to more than their IQs,’ said Claire, exchanging a smile with Hattie.

‘Anyway, Jon,’ said Hattie with gathering courage, ‘I don’t go along with all this business about an underclass. If there is a growing number of people who are slipping through the net educationally and socially it’s because of lack of opportunity and poverty. If any of us around this table had been born into different circumstances we too might have become a part of your underclass.’

‘Not with our genetic advantages,’ said Jon, smiling patronisingly at Hattie. ‘All those things we have got – our intelligence, for example – are locked into our genetic make-up waiting to be passed on to the next generation.’

‘No, Jon. Let me quote Professor Steve Jones, the man on genetics, on this one. “The single most important thing that a child can inherit from its parents is money,” he says. You might like to think that you have the kind of genes that could triumph over poverty but in fact I doubt that they are any more interesting – let alone superior – to those of that man we stumbled across tonight. All men are born equal,’ said Hattie.

‘But some, thanks to their genes, are born more equal than others,’ said Jon with another one of his infuriatingly patronising grins. ‘People are either born with good genes, like mine and like yours, Hattie – if, of course, yours aren’t too inbred – or with a DNA of doom. Why do you think that man’s on the streets while we are in this restaurant?’

‘Money,’ Claire said. ‘Your parents bought you the privileges you enjoy. The best education that money can buy. And the right contacts.’

‘Meanwhile,’ continued Hattie, ‘his parents were probably living on Government handouts and threw him out when he was no longer eligible for child benefit. If he had been given your advantages I dare say he’d be doing something more intelligent than you are now – attacking the defenceless—’

‘Here we go again, back to Hattie’s charitable mission. Do you really believe that that vagrant in the doorway could, in any circumstances, be transformed into a useful member of society?’ Jon asked.

‘Why not?’ Claire and Hattie said in unison.

‘In my work, Jon, I am only too aware that it is perfectly possible to take even the most desperate, desolate and destitute being and help them to achieve their potential,’ said Hattie earnestly, thinking of the little girl she had encountered that day.

There was an uneasy silence, during which Jon looked intently at Hattie.

‘If you really want to impress me, prove me wrong. I bet that you couldn’t redeem that man we tripped over tonight,’ he said.

‘What do you mean?’ said Hattie, sitting up in her seat.

‘What I say. I bet you couldn’t redeem that man – as a kind of wager. You can walk into a betting shop and put money on anything from man walking on Mars to England winning the World Cup. I’m prepared to bet you that you cannot change that man. That it wouldn’t be possible to take him off the streets and turn him into someone who could join us at this table for dinner. That it wouldn’t be possible to transform him into a man of worth.’

‘A real bet? A financial bet?’ Claire asked, as suddenly interested as Hattie.

‘Well, I know money’s not important to Hattie – or you really, Claire – but I’m sure it’s bloody important to that man. So yes, let’s do this properly. Let’s put some money on it. Prove to me that I am wrong about him in – let me see – three months from today, and I’ll pay him £5000. If you don’t then I’ll have this month’s interest from your trust fund,’ he said to Hattie with another of those grins that made her want to hit him.

Hattie glanced at Claire, unsure whether Jon was sober enough to be serious.

‘What is your definition of worth, Jon?’ asked Claire.

‘Someone you could pass off in polite society.’

‘You mean at the Royal Opera House and a pretentious restaurant? Someone that the chattering classes would perceive as one of their own?’ said Hattie sneeringly.

‘Yes. But more than that. He’d have to be employed, or at any rate employable. He’d have to be able to carry out a civilised conversation. He’d have to have an appreciation of the finer things of life and be able to satisfy me that he is intelligent. He would have to look, behave and react as if all this were natural to him. And he would have to pass a test that I would devise,’ said Jon, swinging back confidently in his chair.

‘God, you are so arrogant,’ said Claire sharply. ‘It would give me so much pleasure to prove you wrong that I would happily risk losing any amount of money. What kind of test would it be?’

‘He’d have to be able to prove to a room full of people like this – the chattering classes if that’s what you insist on calling them, Hattie – that he was the genuine article. A man of worth.’

‘Three months?’ mused Claire

‘Your chance, Hattie,’ said Jon with a slight sneer, ‘to put into practice all your wonderful theories of nurture ruling over nature. And your chance, Claire, to get back at me …’

‘Just twelve weeks,’ said Hattie doubtfully.

‘So you don’t believe it’s possible either?’ said Jon with glee.

‘Of course it’s possible!’ Hattie exclaimed, glancing at Claire for confirmation that she was still on her side.

Oh the back of a menu Jon began to write out, in fountain pen, his version of a betting slip.

‘I promise to pay £5000 if in three months from this day, 16 May, Claire Martin and Hattie George can transform a tramp into the talk of the chattering classes, signed Jon Riley.’

‘Take it or leave it,’ he said.

‘We’ll take it,’ said Hattie.

‘Then write out your response,’ he said, passing the pen across to Claire.

‘Claire Martin and Hattie George promise to pay Jon Riley £5000 if, in three months’ time, they have failed to prove him wrong …’ she said aloud as she wrote the words beneath those of Jon. ‘Here, Hattie, now you sign.’

Hattie took the menu from Claire and signed it. Then, very carefully, she placed it inside her battered briefcase where it lay nestled against her still damp copy of the Big Issue.

Chapter Two

The strip of light that had worked its way through the crack in the shutters told Hattie that it must be morning. That and the fast breathing of Toby who had been too weary and drunk to make love the night before and was now attempting to redress his usual balance (it was Saturday after all) with some fairly basic foreplay.

She wished he would stop. She didn’t like sex first thing in the morning before she had brushed her teeth or showered. But then she probably didn’t like it that much last thing at night either. She was, though, far too kind to upset Toby by telling him that she didn’t want him. Or to break it to him that the earth had never really moved for her, that in fact when it came to sex she was a founder member of the flat earth society, unable to imagine that, even on its axis in space, it could ever achieve motion.

Claire had recently confessed how she had once told some man, in flagrante, to get off her and go home. He had sat weeping into his wilting manhood at the bottom of her bed. But she had not relented. If Hattie were as honest as Claire she would probably have told Toby on more than one occasion to go away and leave her alone. But Hattie approached her partner in rather the way that she approached her patients. The only kind of passion she really felt for him was the occasional bout of compassion.

It wasn’t that Toby was unattractive. He was good-looking in a clean, smooth-skinned, bookish way. He wore little round steel-rimmed glasses that had made her think, when she had first met him, that he was sensitive and deep. Now she thought that one of the main reasons she had been drawn to him was the fact that he was physically more boyish than manly – his thin, underdeveloped body was entirely hairless – which made her feel that somehow she would be safe with him.

How long, she wondered idly, would he go on this time? Aware that he was waiting for some indication of her own abandonment she muttered something he might take as an endearment. Then she went back to making out her imaginary Sainsbury’s grocery list – her own reason for making a strong connection between sex and shopping. When Toby made love to her – at least on Saturday mornings – she would take a mental trip down the aisles of her local superstore: Two kilos of Cox’s Orange Pippins, a bunch of small bananas, one kilo of seedless grapes, butter, a pack of Yakult …

‘Yes, yes, yes …’

She lay still for a few minutes after he had finished. She was always impatient, after sex, to get up and off but she knew that sexual etiquette decreed that she lie for a while panting and looking sated – even if she was, in her mind, just making her way down aisle 10 towards the bakery. She was always amazed when Claire, at the outset of some new affair, would admit to having spent two or three whole days in bed. She didn’t mind sleeping in the bed next to Toby but lying next to him in a conscious state was terribly taxing for her. Particularly when, as today, there was so very much to do.

It was at this moment, almost as she had reached the checkout in Sainsbury’s with her imaginary trolley, that she remembered the bet. Had Jon really meant it or had he been joking? Grabbing her robe from the chair by her bedside she got up and made her way down the flight of stairs and through to the kitchen, the only closed-off part downstairs of her otherwise open-plan loft apartment.

And there, at the very top of her Samsonite briefcase, tucked alongside that copy of the Big Issue was Jon’s hand-written wager.

‘Do you think he was serious?’ she asked Toby as he joined her.

‘The terrible tragedy is that even when Jon’s joking he’s serious,’ commented Toby, ‘and he’s always been a gambler. He’ll bet on anything. Years ago he had a bet with Chris and me on the number of orgasms he could achieve in one night with a dreadful slapper we all knew. She had to swear an affidavit before we gave him the money …’

Hattie looked at Toby and realised that after six years together they barely knew one another. It genuinely surprised her that the word ‘slapper’ was one he was – well – familiar with.

‘Toby, you know I really want to do this. It would be like the ultimate sociological experiment for me. I might even write a paper on it. Profit professionally as well as getting considerable satisfaction proving that dreadful fool wrong,’ she said as she made her way through to her minimalist bathroom.

Minimalism appealed to Hattie because she had grown up in a dusty, cluttered, overdecorated stately home which was a virtual shrine to hereditary possessions. Every nook and cranny of her childhood home had been filled with rare antiques, paintings and objets d’art, most of which – despite her father’s assertion that they were ‘priceless’ – were all about money and the ostentatious presentation of their family wealth. The fact that her own choice of living space – almost entirely empty of possessions – was now fashionable was not important to her. What she loved most about her bare white surroundings was the way in which it contrasted so totally with her ancestral home. It fitted perfectly with her general philosophy on life – which had caused such grief in her teenage years – property is theft. Jon’s favourite joke at Hattie’s expense involved him saying that when it came to her own apartment that ridiculous phrase was true – the 3000-square-foot loft-style property, he would say, had been absolute daylight robbery when she bought it three years previously.

Sitting on the edge of her sandstone bath Hattie picked up her portable phone and rang Claire, who agreed that she thought Jon had been serious.

‘Toby tells me Jon always wins his bets,’ Hattie said carefully to Claire who had, after all, once lived with the man.

‘Not this one he won’t,’ said Claire confidently, ‘although I think that we will have our work cut out. For a start we have got to find that man again. And then we’ll probably need Rentokil and an intepreter when we do,’ she finished with a giggle.

It wasn’t going to be as easy as Hattie had thought. The woman at the customer service desk inside the Halifax had been most unhelpful. They had absolutely no idea who – or what – lay in their doorway after closing hours, unless, that was, they happened to know his account number. Why didn’t madam try the Salvation Army?

Hattie was disconsolate.

‘For Christ’s sake, Hattie, it doesn’t have to be that homeless man. It could be any old vagrant. Let’s go down to cardboard city and find another one,’ said Claire.

‘No, Claire, it’s got to be that young man. Jon specifically said that man. And anyway I believe it was somehow fated. I’ve just got to find him …’

‘But you probably wouldn’t recognise him if you did stumble across him. It was dark and I certainly only remember the smell of him.’

Hattie didn’t say anything but she knew that she would instantly recognise the man. His eyes, even in that dingy doorway, had a quality about them she knew she would never forget. And however much Claire might sneer she felt increasingly there was some, well, some cosmic link between him and herself.

‘We have two options open to us. We either come back here tonight and hope that he turns up or we could go down to the mission and see if he’s there.’

But he wasn’t at the mission either and they had so few clues as to his identity that there was precious little more they could do. An earnest young man on duty suggested they try a couple of haunts that were frequented by the homeless young.

‘Otherwise you could try the offices of the Big Issue on Monday. If he sold you a copy he must be registered with them,’ he said.

Claire was all for this latter course but Hattie wouldn’t think of it. And when Hattie made up her mind about something they were both generally carried along by it.

It was, Hattie said later, a depressing day on a number of levels. They trudged around soulless cafés and drop-in centres encountering, along the way, a new awareness of the meanness of the city they lived in.

By late afternoon Claire was ready to give up.

‘Look, Hattie, I’m going to some dinner tonight. I’m going to have to get back to get ready.’

‘Someone special?’ said Hattie, who was always rather intrigued by Claire’s relationships.

‘No, only some friend of mine – another PR – who has lined up this man she just knows is right for me. As if I haven’t heard that a million times before. His CV sounds hopeful though – good-looking, intelligent, divorced, successful …’ she said wistfully.

‘Sounds like the prototype of every man I’ve ever known you get involved with,’ said Hattie. ‘Take care, won’t you, and er, take it slowly …’

‘If I took it slowly, Hattie, I’d never take it at all,’ answered Claire, kissing her friend on both cheeks as she prepared to leave her. ‘You going home to cook dinner for Toby?’

‘No actually, he’s got some squash thing tonight. I think I’ll carry on looking for a while. I’m not ready to give up quite yet,’ she said.

‘Well, be careful. The streets are no place for a nice girl like you,’ warned Claire as she climbed into a cab, wondering, not for the first time that day, if this whole business of the bet hadn’t been a terrible mistake.

There were ten of them at dinner. Three couples and four ‘singles’ as Antonia insultingly called anyone without a live-in lover and a joint mortgage. Claire was rather hopeful about the man who had been placed beside her at Antonia’s long, bleached wood table. But then when it came to men she was a hopeless optimist.

‘Hi,’ she said as they took their seats, ‘I’m Claire Martin.’

‘Chris White,’ he replied.

He was tall enough, she reckoned, and if not quite as good-looking as Antonia had promised, he wasn’t unattractive. He had mid-brown hair and grey-blue eyes and very good cheekbones so that when he smiled, as now, he looked really rather fanciable.

The only vaguely worrying thing about him was his goatee beard. Claire wasn’t very keen on facial hair. But, hey, she reminded herself, you can’t have everything.

‘Antonia talks about you a lot,’ Chris said.

‘She does?’ Claire looked across at Antonia with surprise; they were not exactly close friends.

‘Yes, she’s always saying how you would be perfect for me.’ Chris was also looking across the table at Antonia.

‘She mentioned something similar to me,’ Claire replied.

He poured her a glass of wine, and then another of fizzy mineral water.

‘Are you a friend of Steve’s?’ she said, unsure of Chris’s connection with Antonia.

‘I was best man at their wedding. Known him since I was a child.’ he said.

He was very attentive, filling her glass – just that little bit too often really – and virtually ignoring the woman on his other side. He wasn’t particularly witty or overly fascinating (he was, after all, an accountant) but he seemed pleasant enough.

And when the meal was finished he sat next to her on one of the sofas in Antonia’s living room, one hand, very casually, slipped behind her. Signalling, she thought, some kind of intent.

It was going well, Claire decided. He was successful and established – he had one of those lovely little Georgian cottages in that network of streets between Notting Hill Gate and High Street Kensington – and he had been divorced for just about the time a man should be before he considered remarriage.

At the end of the evening, as the other couples tumbled out into their cars, Claire asked Antonia, within earshot of Chris, for the number of a local cab company. Antonia looked at Chris meaningfully.

‘I’ll take you home,’ he said. ‘It’s not far out of my way.’

She smiled, thanked him, and nipped into the loo on her way out to retouch her lipstick and check that she looked OK. In the car they talked a bit about the other guests and when he drew up outside her mews house he stopped the car and turned off the ignition (another sign of intent, she thought).

‘Can I come in?’ he asked.

She remembered Hattie’s advice, earlier that evening, about taking it slowly. But Claire had reached an age – and if she were honest a state of desperation about ever finding a man she could really love – when caution was pointless. If she said ‘no’ she would probably never hear from him again. And if she said (as she probably would later) ‘yes, yes, yesss’ she would probably never hear from him again. There was nothing to be gained, and nothing to be lost, in being coy.

He didn’t waste any time. Within seconds he was passionately kissing her. Telling her, whenever he surfaced to take in a gulp of air, that she was beautiful, hot, wild, the best – the usual gamut of meaningless compliments induced by male sexual arousal.

She broke off for a second, as she considered only proper, to offer him a drink. She didn’t want him to think that she was inhospitable (which, of course, he didn’t).

‘Is there anything you want … wine, brandy …?’

‘Just you,’ he said, falling on her again with a ferocity that rather overwhelmed, not to say irritated, her. What was the hurry?

‘Well, I’ll just put on some coffee,’ she said, struggling free and rushing into the kitchen, pulling the zip up on the back of her dress as she went so that it didn’t fall off her completely.

Claire hadn’t lived with anyone since she had broken up with Jon five years ago. In truth she hadn’t really had what you might call a regular partner for three of those five years. There had been a few married men with whom she had enjoyed brief affairs that would involve a couple of weeks of frenzied clandestine sex (what she called her fortnightly men). And there had been two complicated relationships that had – over a period of a couple of months – never quite come to anything.

For some reason she didn’t seem to meet men in the way she had a few years ago – at parties, through friends, in clubs. Most of her female friends (and she didn’t have many) seemed to be caught up in long-term relationships so there was no one to go clubbing with, and anyway she was so caught up in her work that really, finding time to develop relationships – let alone draw up some strategy on how to meet decent men – was almost impossible. Of late she had got rather used to snatching, as it were, whatever sexual action was on offer. She had a strong, growing feeling that this Chris was not going to be the love of the rest of her life, but what the hell? She wanted sex, even if she wasn’t sure if she wanted him – and that horrid little goatee.

By the time she got back to the sofa he was so sexually charged that she wasn’t sure there would be time to guide him up the little staircase to her bedroom. If she didn’t hold him back for a minute it would all be over before the espresso machine had finished.

‘Chris, Chris …’ she said, pushing him back a little, ‘let’s go upstairs …’

They part walked, part stumbled, part fucked their way up the stairs.

‘Oh GOD!’ he cried within seconds of reaching the bed and fully entering her. ‘Oh GOD!’ he screamed again. And then there was silence apart from the ticking of her bedside clock and the beating of her own disappointed heart. Then they lay there in what she could only describe as postcoital gloom for several minutes.

‘Are you going?’ she asked, astonished at the speed with which he had then got out of bed and dressed.

‘Yes, I think it’s best,’ he said. ‘Look, I’m sorry about this. I never meant it to happen …’

Oh that’s nice, she thought, so what did he think would happen when he asked to come in for a drink and then jumped on me?

He sat down on the bed and put his head in his hands.

‘What is your problem, Chris?’ she said.

‘Antonia,’ he replied.

‘What’s Antonia got to do with this?’

‘Everything. We’ve been having an affair for two years. It’s the only way we can get to see each other socially without Steve catching on. If she invites another single woman …’

‘How many of her single friends have you fucked in the cause of perpetuating Antonia’s marriage to Steve?’

‘Oh, you’re the first,’ he said, looking at her with what he obviously thought she would interpret as sincerity.

I’ve heard it all now, she thought, ‘Oh, you’re the first.’ She wondered if it weren’t innate in men to come out with that phrase whenever they were caught in an awkward situation with a woman. It seemed to spring to their lips as automatically as a yelp if they were kicked in the balls or, in Chris’s case, the name of the Lord when he reached his sexual climax (if you could call it that).

But then, she thought, perhaps she had been the first of Antonia’s decoys to fall for the cheap lines Chris had thrown at her. Probably he never thought she would invite him in and when she did some automatic male instinct had taken over. However much in love he was with Antonia he wasn’t actually going to turn down ten minutes (or was it five?) between the sheets with another woman. Men are like dogs, she thought as she watched him shuffling awkwardly beside her bed, that eat every meal regardless of their hunger just in case it’s their last. Chris had approached her like an extra tin of Chum that fortune had thrown his way. And now that he had partaken of her he looked as if he were going to be sick.

‘You won’t say anything to Antonia about this …?’ he said hesitantly.

He had a nerve.

‘Perhaps it would be more relevant if I talked to Steve,’ Claire said coolly.

‘Oh Christ, no!’ A tone of real desperation entered his voice. ‘He’s my oldest friend.’

‘Isn’t he the lucky one?’ Claire turned over in the bed and closed her eyes, hoping that when she opened them again he would have gone.

After an hour or so of tortured self-examination she finally fell into a fitful sleep that was punctuated by odd, recurring dreams of Jon in that brief period of her life years ago when she had felt in some way emotionally fulfilled.

Hattie had no intention of giving up on her mission, even if it took her all night. She spent the evening drifting round a savage network of streets in King’s Cross, trying to get a better idea of the world the homeless man inhabited. She felt strangely diminished by the experience, as if she, in walking through this sad nether world, were somehow homeless herself. And that feeling made her all the more determined to find the man whom fate had placed in her path on the previous evening.

At nightfall she decided to return to the beginning, the doorway where the argument resulting in the bet had started. In almost every entrance she passed there were bodies in sleeping bags and boxes. She wondered if these people came to the same place each night or if they selected their pitch by chance. If so, she thought as she approached the Halifax, it was unlikely that she would ever find him. There were three bodies lying amidst a clutter of carrier bags and clothing, and her heart began to race. Moving into the entrance she peered down to see if she could identify the boy.

‘Thank goodness I’ve found you,’ she said aloud, relief and hope flooding through her as she recognised him, his hand clasped round a length of blue rope on the end of which was his thin, nervous dog.

They both flinched when Hattie approached them, the dog setting up a high-pitched squealing bark designed, she supposed, to protect his master. The boy didn’t recognise her at first and when he did he thought she had come for her change.

‘Yous give me a tenner,’ he said, taking a few coins from his pocket and holding them out to her. At this the dog began to growl and jump up at Hattie, a menacing look in his eyes.

‘Doon, boy, doon,’ the boy said firmly yet gently to the insistent dog.

‘I meant you to have that money,’ she said.

‘But it’s only 80p …’ he said, looking at her suspiciously.

She realised now, as she stood before the boy, that her interest in him must seem, at the very least, odd. She couldn’t possibly tell him about Jon’s bet because, she realised, it was insulting and patronising and would, in any case, make her seem like some rich, bored socialite looking for a diversion. There was a silence between them – punctuated only by the squealing of his dog – whilst she searched for a way to appeal to him.

‘The thing is I want to help you. I really do,’ she stuttered. ‘My name is Hattie George and I want to help get you back into the real world …’

He looked her up and down, wondering if she had any conception of what the real world was like but he didn’t say anything. One of the other figures camped by him sniggered loudly. Hattie felt ridiculous.

‘My friend and I – well, we want to get you back on your feet. Find you somewhere to live, a job, new clothes, you know the kind of thing …’

There was a huge guffaw now from the two other men but her man still didn’t say anything. Her tone of voice became more beseeching and desperate as she continued with her plea. She realised that she must seem hysterical and maybe even a little deranged. But she was determined to convince him.

‘I’m on the level, honestly. Please don’t think this is some kind of trick,’ she said.

The two men beside him, friends of his perhaps, made some comment she couldn’t quite make out. But the man she had come to see ignored her and began to spread out his sleeping bag.

‘Aren’t you listening to me? I want to help you,’ she said despairingly.

‘Listen to her, man,’ said one of his friends.

‘Why?’ he said, looking at them and then back at her with haunted and uncomprehending eyes.

‘Because I can help you,’ she said again, faltering a little for fear of offending him.

‘Why me, like?’ he said in his surprisingly strong and rich accent which, she thought now, was a little like that of that footballer who was always making a fool of himself.

‘Look, why don’t we go and have a coffee somewhere and talk about this? It’s very important to me that you understand,’ she said.

‘Coffee?’ he said blankly.

‘Well, I don’t know – can’t we sit and talk somewhere?’

‘This is me home, like. Sit doon here,’ he said, indicating his sleeping bag on which the growling dog was now sitting.

Hattie crouched down beside him, self-consciously aware of the enquiring stares of passers-by and the inquisitive attention of his two friends. Behind the three men, nestling next to a rucksack, there were several cans – some empty and overturned – of Special Brew. Seeing her glance at them he took hold of one and passed it to her. She shook her head and then thought that it was probably rather impolite to refuse so reached her hand out and brought the half empty can to her mouth, wondering if he would be offended if she first wiped it with a tissue.

‘What’s your name?’ she asked as she handed him back the cold can.

‘Why d’ ye wanna know?’ he said in the lilting tones that she now found oddly attractive.

‘Because if I am going to help you I will have to know everything about you.’

He laughed at that, laughter that was echoed by his incredulous friends.

‘I don’t want your help, hinny.’

‘Of course you do. You can’t want to go on living like this,’ she said.

‘Why not?’ he asked.

‘Because it’s such a waste. Because I – we – my friend and I – we can give you the life you have always wanted.’

‘And how do you know this isn’t what I’ve always wanted, like?’ he said.

There was something very proud about him, Hattie thought as she sat watching him. Despite the grime that covered him, and that awful smell, he had an unmistakable dignity. And she had been right about the eyes – they were astonishing. Brilliant – almost turquoise – blue with long black fringed eyelashes that were almost beautiful. She was curiously excited by the idea of getting to know him, if he would let her. But she was aware of his ambivalence towards her. How could she convince him to allow her into his life?

‘Look, please come with me and meet my friend and listen to what we have to say,’ she said, reaching out to stroke his dog, which snarled and spat at her.

The boy leant over to grasp the dog.

‘Doon, boy … Na, hinny, I don’t want your help,’ he said, turning away as if to indicate that this was the end of the matter.

‘Look, you must have had dreams, you must have had hopes. You surely didn’t imagine that you would spend your life sleeping rough in dirty doorways?’ she said plaintively.

‘There’s worse than this, pet,’ he said, an edge creeping into his voice.

She went quiet then because she felt foolish. How could she have expected to put her own values, her own aspirations, on to this man who had led a life of such obvious deprivation. Why had she imagined that she could impress him with talk of clean sheets, hot meals and a regular job? She had no idea how he had got here and no conception of the suffering he had seen.

‘You can help me, darlin,’ slurred one of the other men, hopefully. ‘You can take me home with you …’

‘Nah,’ said the other man, ‘it’s Jimmy she wants. It’s always Jimmy they want …’

‘Jimmy,’ said Hattie, pleased to learn his name. ‘Look, Jimmy, here’s my address, my phone number, my name. You can reach me any time on my mobile, and there is a day office number and a home number. Think about what I’ve said and call me …’ She handed him a card, which he reluctantly took.

As she left she heard his friends begin to tease him about her interest and she wanted to cry. For the tragedy of his life and her own stupidity in imagining she could save him from it.

Chapter Three

In the days that followed, Hattie made it a habit, on her way home from work each evening, to detour via the streets of Covent Garden on the off chance of running into the boy called Jimmy.

But he seemed to have moved on or moved pitch because although she saw many other homeless people camped out in doorways near the big theatres she didn’t see him.

She did, though, encounter one of the two men who had been with him on the day of her ill-fated proposition and she attempted to persuade him to pass on a message asking Jimmy to contact her.

But still there was no sign or word from him. In desperation on the Thursday afternoon she took two hours off work in order to visit the offices of the Big Issue in the hope that they might be able to help her to reach him. But they were very nearly as suspicious of her motives as Jimmy had been himself, although they did eventually agree to leave a message pinned on their notice board.

Her mood of desolation was beginning to irritate Toby who was, in any case, totally against the idea of her rising to the bait of Jon’s bet. Her tender-hearted concern for others had been one of the things that had drawn him to her when they had first met, but nearly six years on, at a time when he was beginning to enjoy unexpected professional acclaim, he regarded her continued devotion to lost causes as naïve and unrealistic. Lord knows he was himself a devoted socialist – well, at any rate an ardent supporter of the ideals of New Labour – but he did not relish the idea of cluttering their lives – let alone their flat – with this latest sociological experiment of hers.

Besides, he was in the middle of a major case involving one of the biggest corporations in the country and he felt that he was in far greater need of support and sympathy than Hattie. Although they enjoyed what he claimed to be an equal relationship he secretly retained many of the attitudes and values of his own middle-class parents and believed that the female role in a partnership should be far more domestically rooted and nurturing than that of the male. He shouldn’t have to come home, as he had tonight, to an empty flat and fridge. Some innate sense in him thought that Hattie’s priorities were wrong, that she should put his comfort before that of the redemption of some hopeless stranger, and that his life should be more like that of his father’s – a man whose role at the head of a respectful household Toby now privately envied.

He recognised, of course, the dramatic difference between his father’s circumstances and his own. Their flat did, in fact, belong to Hattie, having been bought, several years before, with some of the income from her trust fund. His own flat – kept on but rented out after they had moved here – was a substantially less impressive property, so unimpressive that currently he was having trouble finding a tenant for it. So while his own mother had been dependent on his father (which probably did encourage a greater degree of respect) Hattie was a woman of independent means. But just because she wasn’t dependent on him for a roof over head didn’t mean that she could ignore, as she persistently did, the domestic details of their life. That weekend he was hosting, at Hattie’s apartment, a small dinner party for the more important people involved in the important case at work. And although the food was being prepared by discreet caterers – Hattie had no interest in cooking – he was concerned that in her present distracted state the dinner would be a disaster.

This feeling of doom was compounded by her arriving home, that Thursday night, at nine thirty with a bleak expression on her face, after having been on yet another hopeless search for her homeless boy.

‘Oh Toby,’ she said in a dejected voice, ‘it breaks my heart to see all those poor people with nowhere to go. I must have spoken to a hundred of them tonight and some of them looked so lost.’

‘Hattie, at the risk of sounding like Jon I really do think it’s time you gave the homeless issue a rest. I appreciate your concern, I know you’re anxious to prove him wrong, but for Christ’s sakes can’t you just get a life?’

‘I have a life, Toby,’ Hattie said coldy as she made her way through to the stainless steel kitchen in search of food.

‘There’s nothing in the fridge, Hattie. It might have been nice – after the day I’ve had – to have come home to something. A piece of hard cheese, a crust of stale bread, a rotten apple …’ he sulked.

‘Look, Toby, I just haven’t had time for any of that this week. And actually I haven’t had such a brilliant day either. I’ve got a particularly difficult case on my hands at the moment,’ she said, thinking of the little girl, Lisa, who had – when she wasn’t searching for the homeless man – occupied her thoughts in the past week.

‘Spare me the details, Hattie. The only way I could have got your attention in the last few days would have been to turn up at one of those soup kitchens with a sign round my neck saying “Homeless and hungry”. That way you might have offered me a little sympathy and I’d have got a hot meal …’

It wasn’t difficult for Toby to make Hattie feel guilty and inadequate. And even though it did flash through her mind that Toby himself might have nipped into M&S on his way home from work, she turned to him with a remorseful expression and put her arms round him in a placatory way.

‘I’m sorry, Toby.’

‘Look, Hattie, I’m going through a bad time myself at the moment. Saturday night’s very important to me and I want you to help me with it—’

‘Saturday night?’ Hattie asked blankly.

‘The dinner, darling. For the Chairman of UCO and all those involved in the case. You know how important it is to me – the first time I’ve hosted something for business at home. Surely you haven’t forgotten?’

‘Of course not. I’m sorry,’ Hattie said, although, in fact, the events of the last week had put his dinner completely out of her mind.

‘I want you to be the perfect hostess on Saturday, Hattie. In the morning we’ll have to go shopping – flowers, candles, a dress that will fit the occasion. You will be co-operative, won’t you?’

‘Of course,’ she said, offering him her most radiant smile.

Toby ordered a takeaway and they ate it whilst he gave her brief biographical details of the guests he had invited to the dinner and offered her – in a ten-point note he had carefully written out – various suitable topics of conversation. Hattie looked at the list with growing alarm. She knew very little about any of things Toby had deemed acceptable – the Millennium Dome, the redevelopment of the Opera House, EU economic policy, cars, Bill Gates, cricket, rugby, shooting (hadn’t they banned shooting?), skiing and trout fishing.

‘I’m not sure I’ll be able to say a great deal, Toby,’ she said.

‘Well, try and read up on those things. The Chairman is a member of Lords and heavily into field sports,’ he said commandingly.

He was very relieved that Claire was going to be there, in her capacity as the corporate PR for UCO, to help him keep an eye on Hattie. He had also invited Jon, not as a partner for Claire (heaven forbid) but because he had, of late, become something of a celebrity in business circles. He was the current enfant terrible of advertising, responsible for a series of shocking campaigns – most famously the nineties relaunch of a fifties-style uplift bra that had featured a number of provocative posters that had been outrageously successful. His presence round the table would impress the Chairman (who would probably also be happy to talk about uplift bras).

Toby was a little worried that Hattie might get into some awful philosophical debate with Jon that might cause problems but he felt sure that Claire would be able to deflect any trouble.

Hattie was so keen to make amends for her behaviour that week that she offered, when they had finished their meal, to run him a hot bath and give him a massage. Whilst he sat in the bath she warmed some aromatherapy oil and turned down the lights in their bedroom.

Sensuality did not come easily to Hattie. She had been, her mother had always said, a late bloomer sexually. Her periods had not started until she was nearly sixteen and she had never had the kind of teen crushes enjoyed by her female peers. Toby had been her first serious boyfriend. Her obvious lack of experience and confidence – she had grown up in the shadow of her mother’s legendary beauty – had never really left her, and at times like these – massaging her man as an obvious prelude to sex – she felt as if she were only playing at being grown-up. She was doing – out of a sense of duty really – what she had read women should do in the women’s magazines she occasionally, rather furtively, bought. It didn’t give her any sense of pleasure. In fact she felt rather absurd, sitting astride Toby’s back, working warm oil into his well-toned body. But even though she doubted the skill of her touch he seemed to like it and within a very few minutes he had turned over and grabbed her so that, feeling even more awkward and ill at ease, she was sitting astride Toby’s front working his cock into her pale, slender body.

Because of the seriousness of the crime that Lisa had committed – the actual charge was attempted murder – Hattie was seeing her three times a week. It was, she thought, probably the most difficult case of her career. Generally her patients tended to be either adolescents involved in less severe criminal cases (referred on by juvenile courts) or young children who were the victims of some kind of abuse. It was unusual to encounter a child of Lisa’s age – she was just nine – who had been involved in a violent crime.

They had already fallen into a routine in their sessions. The first half an hour or so they would sit together on the little sofa in Hattie’s office and look at the books. Lisa loved books, probably because they had been denied her by her parents. Each time she came she would pick a book for Hattie to read. And then, if it was progressing well and Lisa was relaxed, they would try to talk about those things that might have a bearing on her behaviour – her parents, her siblings, their Church, her isolation at her school.

Today she had picked out a Roald Dahl book for Hattie to read – The BFG – and, as she had opened the first page, Lisa had crept up and sat on her lap looking uncertainly at Hattie, fearful that she might – like so many other people who knew the details of her crime – recoil from her.

Hattie smiled at her, eager to encourage the trust she was building up with the child. She had come to see Lisa as she might any other patient – as damaged, vulnerable and in desperate need of affection and acceptance. She put one arm around her as she read and Lisa laid her head against Hattie’s shoulder.

She seemed genuinely absorbed in The BFG, smiling at the funny bits, looking a little concerned about the frightening moment when the heroine, Sophie, was snatched from her bed by a twenty-four-foot giant.

‘He’s like Goliath …’ she said.

‘Who, Lisa?’

‘The BFG,’ she said eagerly, ‘and Sophie is like David.’

Lisa’s allusion to the story of David and Goliath was the only indication in her reaction to Roald Dahl’s sometimes sinister story that gave Hattie any inkling that she was at all different from any other child of her age. Most nine-year-olds had a fascination for the macabre, the gruesome and the grotesque. It was just that for Lisa the bloodcurdling stories that had ruled her early life had not been taken from the fairy tales of regular children’s fiction. They had come from the Bible.

‘I’ll have to finish there, Lisa, because we have run out of time. But we’ll read some more next time.’

‘Oh please,’ said Lisa, giving Hattie such a sweet smile that she was suddenly moved to hug her.

‘Are they being kind to you at Linton House?’ Hattie said gently.

Lisa looked down at the floor.

‘Don’t you like it there?’

‘They don’t let me play with the other children …’ she said, tears falling down her face, ‘and when Mummy comes to see me I don’t want her to go.’

It was the first time that Lisa had cried and Hattie leant down and held her, and attempted to offer her comfort. After Lisa had left, led reluctantly away by a social worker, Hattie replayed the tape she had recorded of that afternoon’s session.

Some days, and this was one of them, Hattie found her work emotionally exhausting. God knows, she thought as she prepared to leave the office later that evening, how she was going to cope with Toby’s dinner party. As she put Lisa’s notes in her briefcase to take home to study further, she wondered if she would be able to put aside her work – the fate of this little girl – in order to be that weekend the woman Toby wanted her to be.

Hattie emerged from the changing room wearing the dress Toby had chosen. The way in which she hunched her shoulders made it quite obvious – at least to the sales assistant – that she wasn’t comfortable in the tight cream sheath, but Toby loved it. Although it would never have occurred to Hattie to buy such a dress (and she was nervous of looking at herself in the shop mirror) it was, in fact, perfect on her.

Hattie’s lack of sexual confidence extended to her choice of clothes, and she felt now, as she finally examined her reflection in the softly lit mirror, like a little girl wearing her mother’s clothes, a ridiculous impostor pretending to be a woman.

Claire, who spent a great deal of time, money and artifice on her own appearance, was often amazed at Hattie’s disinterest in clothes and make-up and astonished by her lack of vanity. Claire had long since given up trying to persuade Hattie that she was beautiful. She understood that her friend had some deep-seated physical inferiority complex prompted by the fact that she was so very different from her infamously lovely mother and her celebrated sister.

While Hattie’s mother had brilliant blue eyes and straight, shiny white-blonde hair (even now at fifty-seven) her younger daughter was born with brown eyes and thick, dark curls that she struggled to control. And while both her mother and her elder sister, Arabella, were tall but shapely (they had breasts where Hattie had the merest hint of pectorals) she was short and skinny.

In company her mother had referred to the teenage Hattie as ‘the changeling’ or would say, when anyone remarked on her daughter’s looks, ‘She is a genetic throwback.’ And as a result Hattie had never been able to see her own particular beauty.

‘It would look good with a high heel, I think,’ the fawning shop assistant now said to Toby as they studied the embarrassed Hattie. ‘Suede stilettos …’

Inwardly Hattie groaned at the thought of having to wear this dress and high heels. Had she been able to get away with a pair of black opaque tights and some loafers she might have felt happier but the idea of being forced to wear a pair of sheer glossy stockings and stilettos made her feel even more the child at a fancy-dress party. But she went along with Toby’s wishes – and the awful sales assistant’s advice – because she just wanted to get the whole thing over with.

As well as Hattie’s dress, shoes and a selection of underwear, they bought various props for her empty home: a vast bunch of long-stemmed red chillis to put into plain glass vases, new cutlery and crockery for the table and a number of large church candles. That evening, before their guests arrived, Hattie felt as if both she and their minimalist flat had been sullied and cheapened by the way in which Toby had chosen to adorn them.

‘Put on a little lipstick and smile, darling,’ said Toby when he saw her. And with a heavy heart she went into the bathroom, put aside her trusty Lipsyl, and painted her mouth the same scarlet colour as the chillis that decorated the table. When she emerged Toby was temporarily stunned by her beauty.

‘You’ll do …’ he said, with so little enthusiasm or expression that instead of suffusing her with confidence his off-hand compliment compounded her conviction that she looked terrible.

She had decided, minutes after the arrival of Toby’s client, Tom Charter, and his lovely second wife, that the only thing to do was to drink. That way, she thought, she might achieve a little of the sparkle Toby desired.

For once she was quite relieved to see Jon, who arrived a little later than everyone else. The other guests – a senior partner in Toby’s law firm and the QC advising them on the UCO case, together with their partners – all seemed to know each other and made Hattie rather nervous. It was her own fault, of course, because she was rarely free to enjoy – or for that matter interested in – the social events that punctuated the working lives of these successful men. And Toby’s own reservations about Hattie’s ability to indulge in the right kind of small talk had made it easy for her to escape the dinners and cocktail parties that came with his now burgeoning legal career.

Toby had long since discovered that the name of his girlfriend – that is, her family name – was of more use to him in his career than the woman herself. Her inability to play the social game was a bitter disappointment to him because he knew that in the circles in which he now mixed – and in which he longed to become further enmeshed – Hattie’s family connections would be an enormous asset.

Still, tonight she seemed to be more the woman he secretly wanted. He could tell that Tom Charter – who had played an important part in Toby’s recent elevation within his firm – was taken with her, and he crossed his fingers under the table and quietly prayed that she kept to the list of subjects he had suggested the evening before last.

Claire was carefully installed on the other side of their most important guest so that she could deflect anything that might offend the great man. Tonight she was in full professional mode, partly because Charter’s company – UCO – was one of her most important corporate accounts and partly because, following the events of the previous weekend, she had vowed (not, of course, for the first time) never to allow herself to be used by a man again.

‘So tell me what you do with your days, Hattie?’ Tom asked innocently and affably.

‘Oh, I work at this and that,’ said Hattie, aware that clinical psychology and the decline of the NHS was definitely not on Toby’s conversation list.

Unfortunately, Jon, who was incapable of resisting a quick jab at Hattie, was not going to allow her to escape closer personal scrutiny.

‘Yes, Tom, instead of being the kind of socialite her parents had expected, Hattie has turned into their family’s social conscience. Instead of living up to their upper-class expectations, she prefers to devote herself to administering to the underclass.’

‘Doing what, exactly?’ asked Tom. ‘I’m a clinical psychologist, specialising in children, although most of them nowadays tend to be teenagers. My patients are usually referred to me by the juvenile courts and I have to make an assessment of them. Jon says I have a social conscience but if I have a conscience about anything it is that I don’t do enough, I can only go so far in my work …’ she said, breaking off as she caught a warning glance from Toby.

‘What did your parents want for you?’ asked Tom.

‘Well, I think ideally they wanted Prince Edward,’ said Hattie, her face flushed by her unusually high intake of alcohol. ‘They didn’t really envisage my wanting to do anything much more than my mother or my elder sister had done. Which was, and still is really, to look good and party.’

‘Which,’ said Claire with enforced gaiety, ‘is great work if you can get it.’

‘And makes your choice of career all the more noble,’ said Tom.

‘Not to the nobility,’ said Hattie with a bitter laugh. ‘I am something of an embarrassment to them. They regard me as a sad eccentric’

‘But your family is famous for its eccentricity,’ prompted Tom.

‘My great-aunt’s divorce case – the citing of the entire English cricket team – and my grandfather’s insistence on sleeping in a silk-lined coffin for the last twenty years of his life – were what you might call conventional acts of aristocratic eccentricity. What I do – working with the mentally displaced and socially deprived – makes me a much more peculiar animal.’

There was an awkward silence.

‘But surely your parents are at least proud of your academic achievements? Blue stockings match well with blue blood, don’t they?’

‘I think they are much prouder of my sister, whose only qualifications in life are her looks and her ability to attract the attention of the gossip columns.’

Tom Charter and his wife, rather like Hattie’s family really, were far more interested in her sister, Arabella’s, outrageous lifestyle than they were in her own rather dull existence. In fact Mamie Charter clearly found the subject of Arabella’s love life – which only that month had involved an infamous ageing rock star – fascinating. Much to Toby’s relief.

‘You must meet Bella,’ he said enthusiastically.

‘You’d love her,’ said Claire. ‘She’s an absolute hoot.’

Hattie fell silent. Her earliest childhood memories involved cruel comparison with her glittering elder sister. And although she had no desire to compete on any level with Arabella she nevertheless resented the way in which her sister – and of course her mother – haunted her life and made her feel, at least in situations like this, wanting.

Curiously it was Jon who rescued her.

‘Bella has always reminded me of those Persian cats that used to feature in carpet ads. A woman whose lush beauty – vast eyes, wide, full mouth and big hair – distracts the viewer from what lies beneath: a skinny, spoilt creature of very little brain.’

Hattie, rather pleased by Jon’s unusually perceptive description of her sister, began to clear the table in preparation for the entrance of the main course. All in all, she decided when Toby smiled at her, things were going quite well.

Mamie Charter even complimented Hattie on the food, and although such dishonesty was foreign to her she smiled modestly as if in acknowledgement of her culinary skills. Clearly Mamie’s husband, who had taken centre stage at the dinner and was relating a series of elaborate stories to an enraptured (if somewhat obsequious) audience, was enjoying himself enormously. Leaning back in the Bauhaus chair, puffing on a Monte Cristo No. 4, and laughing uproariously at his own punch line – which totally baffled Hattie but reduced the rest of the table to helpless merriment – he declared it a great evening.

It was at that point, as Hattie was beginning to anticipate the departure of her guests and relishing the thought of finally kicking off her horrid high heels, that the doorbell went.

‘It’s probably Tompkins,’ said Mamie nervously to her husband.

‘Didn’t you tell him to just wait in the car?’ said her husband, an edge of savagery entering his voice as he addressed his wife.

‘I must have forgotten,’ she said meekly.

‘Well, let him bloody well wait,’ said Tom before beginning on another of his long anecdotes.

The bell rang again and Hattie got up, despite Tom and Mamie’s protestations. She made her way to the door secretly rather relieved by the interruption.

It was dark in the hallway outside the apartment door. Despite the fact that this was one of the most exclusive developments in west London, the communal areas were badly lit. At first Hattie couldn’t make out the shape of the man who stood nervously before her, although she realised at once that it could not possibly be the Charters’ poor oppressed chauffeur. Opening the door wider to let the brilliant halogen lighting from her apartment flood the hallway she gasped with a mixture of delight and shock when she finally recognised the late night caller who was standing hunched before her.

‘Jimmy!’

He didn’t move for a moment and when he did pull himself up it was clear that there was something wrong. He was hurt or ill.

‘What’s wrong, Jimmy?’ she said.

‘Help me, hinny,’ he said in an unsteady voice that indicated he was in some pain.

She moved towards him and supported him as he made his way into the flat, completely forgetting the guests who were straining to see what the commotion was all about.

‘What is it, Hattie?’ said Toby in alarm.

‘It’s Jimmy,’ said Hattie, ‘and he’s hurt. Help me, someone …’

Claire rushed forward and the two young women led him over to the pure white sofa in the corner of the living area.

Tom and Mamie Charter looked on in horror as Hattie made her way past them, her beautiful Dolce and Gabbana cream dress covered in the blood of a grubby and dishevelled stranger. Trailing behind them, and whimpering pathetically, stood a thin, nervous mongrel on the end of a length of blue rope.

‘Another eccentric relative?’ enquired Tom as he stood up to leave.

As if on cue the rest of the guests scraped back their chairs and, offering the odd furtive glance in Jimmy’s direction, made their excuses. Within minutes they had all gone, ushered out by an effusively apologetic Toby.

Chapter Four

It was Jon who attempted to calm a furious Toby on his return from helping Tom and Mamie into their chauffeur-driven Bentley. And it was Jon who drove Hattie, Claire and Jimmy to the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital and helped to carry him into Accident and Emergency – although it pained him almost as much as Jimmy to do so.

Even at this hour and in this place they made a curious bunch, he thought, as he noticed their reflection in the plate-glass automatic doors. The tall, good-looking sophisticated man accompanied by the two young women in the bloodstained designer clothes, carrying between them the dishevelled, wounded homeless boy.

The woman behind the reception desk eyed them all sceptically.

‘Name and address?’ she commanded.

Jimmy grunted uncomprehendingly.

‘No fixed abode,’ said Jon pointedly as they stood waiting for the woman to fill in the necessary forms.

‘Well, where did you find him?’ she asked, glancing at Jimmy with evident distaste.

‘He came to my—’ Hattie began but Jon quickly intervened.

‘We just saw him lying by the road,’ he said hastily.

‘Good Samaritans,’ said the receptionist cynically to Jon before turning her attention back to Jimmy. ‘Social security number?’

‘Why are you so obsessed with names, numbers and roll calls? This man needs to see a doctor urgently,’ said Claire angrily.

‘So does everyone else here. He’ll have to wait,’ the woman replied dismissively.

They sat down on the mesh metal chairs and waited, aware that even amongst the motley collection of people gathered here – many of whom seemed to be drunk or drugged or mentally challenged in some way – Jimmy was an unwelcome outsider. The ranks of waiting patients moved apart in disgust in order to let them have more space.

‘We should have given my address,’ said Hattie anxiously as they waited.

‘I don’t think that would be a very good idea. Although I have to say I think he might have been seen sooner if he had a fixed abode,’ said Jon.

‘Well, he’ll have to come home with me after they’ve seen to him,’ said Hattie nervously.

‘You can’t be serious,’ Jon began.

‘Of course I’m serious. He can hardly go back on the street in this state. And you know they don’t keep you in hospital nowadays unless it’s terminal. Where else can he go?’

‘Some sort of hostel, Hattie. You can’t possibly take him back to your flat. Toby would go mad.’

‘Well, he can’t come back with me,’ said Claire quickly.

It became clear in the next couple of hours that Jimmy was very low down on the casualty department’s priority list. A nurse did come over and attempt to take some more details but it was obvious from the expression on her face – somewhere between exasperation and contempt – that since Jimmy’s injuries were not life-threatening he would just have to wait. Gradually the chairs began to empty as one after another the people were taken away for treatment.

It was gone four in the morning before the nurse returned with her clipboard and took Jimmy away to a curtained cubicle within the treatment area.

‘I think we should go now, Hattie,’ said Jon.

‘I can’t just leave him here, Jon.’

‘Of course you can.’

‘Can’t you imagine how awful it would be to find yourself in Jimmy’s position? No home, no life, no job, no family. And no compassion from your fellow human beings.’

‘But I never would find myself in that state, Hattie.’

‘Oh Jon, how do you know that? It could happen to anyone—’

‘Hattie, let’s not argue about this here and now. You know my feelings. And perhaps now you’ve seen the hopelessness of Jimmy’s case – Christ, he can’t even make himself understood – you’ll forget our stupid bet. Let’s call it quits and I’ll take you home.’

‘I wouldn’t think of it. I’m even more keen now to prove you wrong. And to show these people that Jimmy does have some worth. But you can go home. I’ll get a taxi when they’ve finished with him here.’

‘Rather you than me,’ said Claire, who was, with every passing moment, wishing that she hadn’t got caught up in this whole bet business.

‘I’ll wait and see you home. And I’ll try and find out how he is,’ said Jon insistently, getting up at the exact moment that Jimmy walked back through to the reception area. Apart from a nasty cut above his eye – which required three stitches – the rest of his injuries proved to be superficial. He looked dreadful though, his face bruised and pale and his clothes spattered with blood.

‘You’re coming home with me, Jimmy,’ said Hattie gently as she guided him through the door and back into Jon’s car.

‘Is Rex there?’ he asked.

‘Rex?’ Hattie replied blankly.

‘My dog, like. Rex …’

They had been in such a rush to get Jimmy to hospital that Hattie had scarcely paid any attention to the dog that had followed him into her flat.

‘Yes, I’m sure Rex is back at the flat with Toby,’ she said, although she rather doubted it. Toby hated dogs.

Toby was so angry that even when he was finally alone with Hattie and the prone figure on the sofa, he could barely speak.

‘You’re not leaving him and his bloody dog here?’ he said.

‘What else do you suggest,’ said Hattie, ‘that we carry him up and put him in our bed?’

‘That we carry them both to the door and throw them out,’ said Toby angrily.

‘I’d rather throw you out than him,’ she said with an unexpectedly hard edge to her voice.

‘You might have to. If they stay, I go,’ snapped back Toby.

At this Jimmy attempted to pull himself up as if to leave, but Hattie pushed him down, placing a crisp white pillow beneath his bruised and battered head.

‘Well then, you’d better go,’ said Hattie to Toby.

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.

He was looking round the huge flat as if taking an inventory of her and her life. And if her range of teas, coffees and confitures had invoked in him some kind of culture shock her home was even more incomprehensible to him.

‘Where’s your telly?’ he said.

‘It slides away into the wall,’ she said, moving across to the living area to demonstrate.

‘Why d’ya wanna do that?’ he said incredulously.

‘Because, Jimmy, the person who designed this place suggested it. It’s funny really but televisions – in the circles I mix in – are something rather shameful. We hide them away in the way that other people might hide things that they think might betray basic instincts in them that they would not like others to see – like pornography or Jeffrey Archer novels …’

‘What?’ he said, his face creased up with confusion.

‘I like bare space,’ she said, suddenly thinking how very pretentious the term ‘minimalist’ was.

‘I like places to be a bit more cosy, like,’ he said. ‘No offence, mind.’

Gradually she began to talk to Jimmy in rather the way that Toby spoke to their Bosnian cleaning lady: very slowly, choosing her words carefully so as not to baffle or confuse him. It wasn’t that she thought that he was stupid, just that he came from such a different world to hers that it really was as if there were some international barrier between them.

‘Can I watch it, like?’ he said, indicating the television.

‘Of course. I’m going to get dressed and then we can talk some more.’ Hattie handed him the remote control.

In the bathroom she rang Claire, who sounded a little grumpy, and insisted that she get herself over as soon as she could. When she emerged, bathed and dressed, she found Toby making himself some coffee in the kitchen. His mood, she instantly surmised, was no better for a good sleep, and she had to suppress a smile.

‘He’s still here then?’ He nodded his head towards the figure of Jimmy who was flicking from channel to channel on the remote control, a fag burning in his other hand.

‘Yes, and so are you,’ Hattie said sharply.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ he replied.

‘Oh Toby, I haven’t the energy for another row. Claire is on her way over to help me with Jimmy. If we get our way he’ll be staying here for a while.’

‘You aren’t seriously saying you’re taking Jon up on his bet?’

‘Ssh, the boy doesn’t know about the bet. He thinks that he’s helping me with some research paper I’m writing,’ she hissed.

‘But does he have to stay here? Does he have to take up residence with us? Christ, Hattie, he’s smoking in there!’ A look of disgust and horror passed across Toby’s already disgruntled face.

They were saved from further argument by the doorbell and the arrival of Claire, now in high spirits.

‘Well, where is he, darling?’ she shouted as she came through the doorway.

‘Ssh,’ said Hattie. ‘He’s watching television.’

Jimmy had given his channel hopping a kind of rap rhythm. With split-second timing he wove between terrestrial and cable programmes, oblivious of the two women who stood watching him or the irritation he was causing Toby, who was clearing up in the kitchen, washing up last night’s glasses that would, he always claimed, be ruined in the dishwasher.

‘Hadn’t we better clean him up first?’ said Claire, her enthusiasm dimmed by her first glimpse of Jimmy in daylight.

‘I didn’t know quite how to raise the subject,’ said Hattie in a whisper. ‘I didn’t want to offend him.’

‘Leave it to me,’ said Claire, walking across to Jimmy and grabbing the remote control from his hand.

‘Hi,’ she said. ‘I don’t expect you remember but I was here when you arrived last night. I’m Claire. I bet you would like a nice hot bath, and a shave. I’ll go through and run one for you.’

Jimmy’s eyes lit up. ‘I divvant know if she had one, like. What with the telly in the wall and all. I had to pittle in the sink this morning …’

‘Pittle?’ said Claire in a bemused tone.

‘Eeee, you know – pittle, piss …’

At this Toby, who had been rinsing the last of the glasses, threw in the mop. ‘Christ, I can’t take any more of this,’ he said, looking distastefully into the murky waters of the kitchen sink. ‘I’m going out.’

Hattie was enormously relieved to see him go and smiled encouragingly at Jimmy whilst making a mental note to rewash the glasses that were standing on the stainless-steel rack in the kitchen.

Claire was organising things in the bathroom, pulling from the concealed cupboards an assortment of pungent bath oils, soaps, shaving foams and razors for Jimmy.

‘Don’t forget to clean behind your ears,’ she said, glancing with disgust at his matted hair as he walked in, his face wide with wonderment at Hattie’s bathroom.

‘Eee, man …’ he said as he looked around him.

‘The towels are in the cupboard by the loo,’ said Hattie in a maternal fashion as they closed the door on him.

The two of them stood cautiously outside as Jimmy wrestled with the power shower that pounded down into the sandstone bath.

After what seemed like an age, but was probably closer to half an hour, the door opened and from the steamy interior Jimmy finally emerged with a waffle towel wrapped round his waist.

There was about him, the two women suddenly realised, an extraordinary beauty. There were, of course, physical indications of the life he led. A series of tattoos covered various regions of his body – girls’ names entwined in hearts on both arms, a dagger in the centre of his chest and, across his back, a prowling tiger. And there were a number of vivid scars and bruises gained, Hattie guessed, during his time on the streets.

Hattie had noticed his eyes right from the start but the rest of his features had been obscured beneath grime and facial hair. With his dreadlocks shampooed and slicked back from his brow, and his chin clean-shaven it was as if one man had gone into the power shower and another had come out.

‘My God,’ whispered Claire breathlessly, her interest suddenly and dramatically aroused.

And if the beauty and sensitivity of his face was a surprise, exposed at last beneath the dirt and hair, his body was, well, a revelation.

Perhaps that had something to do with the fact that now he was holding himself upright – rather than crouching down as he had been when they had first seen him – and was no longer swaddled in the thick layers of filthy clothes that now lay, in a horrid heap, on the bathroom floor, destined only for the rubbish bin.

Hattie and Claire looked as blankly at him as he had looked at them when they had first disturbed him in his own mean quarters on the streets. As if it were now they who were inferior creatures, not him.

The silence was broken by a long laugh from Claire.

‘Hattie, do you remember what you said that night with Jon? You said that you believed that all men were born equal. Well, you were wrong and Jon was right. Some men are born more equal than others. But not Jon or Toby …’

Jimmy suddenly became self-conscious and crouched down again to reclaim his old clothes.

‘Oh, don’t put those back on,’ said Claire. ‘You can wear something of Toby’s, can’t he, Hattie?’

Hattie went upstairs and retrieved a white Paul Smith T-shirt, some Calvin Klein Y-fronts and a pair of Toby’s button-fly jeans, and handed them to Jimmy, who moved back into the bathroom to get dressed.

‘I really don’t think our task is going to be too difficult,’ said Claire confidently when Jimmy was out of earshot. ‘I mean, what was it the bet said: “make him a man of worth”? I think that most women would count him that after a simple bath. Just as long as he didn’t open his mouth to reveal those teeth.’

Hattie was quiet for a moment as she took in the flushed face of her friend. It would be just like Claire to mess this whole thing up by bringing sex into the equation.

‘I think you’ll find that we will need a great deal more than soap and water to help Jimmy achieve his potential,’ she said curtly.

‘Oh Hattie, don’t be so prim. In the right clothes, with the right props, with a few very cosmetic changes we could pull off this bet tomorrow. He’s bloody perfect,’ said Claire with a wistful smile.

‘But he is lost, Claire. Can’t you see that? I think he has had a very limited education and if he is to be more than a gigolo or a bloody rent boy he can’t just rely on his looks.’

At this point Jimmy came out of the bathroom dressed in Toby’s clothes. They were too small – Hattie hadn’t realised how tall he was – so that the jeans were far too short and the T-shirt was strained around Jimmy’s unexpectedly muscular body. But the effect, despite the tightness of the clothes (or perhaps because of the tightness of the clothes) was devastating.

‘We’ll have to take him shopping,’ said Claire in wonderment, ‘and he’ll need a good haircut and some radical dentistry …’

The two women continued to appraise him as they all made their way down to the kitchen, Claire making some mental notes on how she might – with her renowned taste and styling skills – effect a transformation.

‘We’ll start tomorrow. I’ll try and clear some space in my diary and make some appointments. I know this wonderful cosmetic dental surgeon just round the corner from Harrods. He’s done them all …’ she named a couple of celebrities, taking command in a way that slightly irritated Hattie.

‘That is, if Jimmy agrees to go along with all this,’ Hattie said, glancing across at Jimmy who was beginning to look more at ease – at home even – in her flat.

‘Will you help me with my research, Jimmy?’ she asked.

‘Aye, man, why not?’ he said as he opened the fridge and surveyed the contents. ‘Where d’ya keep the brown sauce?’

Chapter Five

Hattie and Claire spent most of that Sunday afternoon making lists and notes on how Jimmy’s makeover would best be achieved. First of all he had to have somewhere to live. Hattie knew that his continued presence in her flat would agitate and alienate Toby – who had still not returned home – but she was unwillingly to allow Claire to take him back to her own cramped mews house. She wanted to be in control of what happened to Jimmy because she was a little suspicious of the motives of her friend, whose values were not always her own.

They agreed that if they were going to win Jon’s bet they would have to be prepared to invest some of their own money in the project. Hattie agreed to put up half the figure wagered – £2500 – to cover the initial costs of buying clothes and making the cosmetic changes Claire deemed necessary.

But to win the bet it wasn’t enough to have his hair cut, his teeth straightened and to buy him new clothes. If Jimmy were to fit in with Jon’s definition of ‘a man of worth’ he was going to have to be able to make some sort of living. And whilst Jimmy himself was eager to continue selling the Big Issue on his pitch near the Opera House – ‘so I can pay my way a bit, like’ – Hattie wanted more for him.

Rather more, in fact, than Claire, who was even now hooting with laughter as she tried to understand Jimmy’s Geordie idioms.

‘Haddaway, man?’ Claire said in mocking imitation of Jimmy’s pronunciation of his favourite phrase. ‘What the fuck does that mean?’

He was clearly shocked by her language. In fact, Hattie had already discovered, he never resorted to using the guttural expletives that commonly punctuated Claire’s conversation. The worst words in his albeit limited vocabulary were ‘shite’ and ‘bugger’.

There was, as Hattie had hoped and suspected, something rather dignified about the man Jon would dismiss as worthless.

‘“Haddaway, man”,’ said Hattie, ‘means “Get away with you” or “Would you ever?” Am I right Jimmy?’

He looked across at her gratefully. She had become an interpreter for him in this strange new world. For he found the language of these women totally incomprehensible. He was fascinated by Claire’s transatlantic accent – and rather disappointed to discover that it was Canadian – but she spoke so fast that he found it difficult to keep up with her words. In fact there was little about either of the women that Jimmy understood. The women in his own life – those in his vast dysfunctional family – were very different creatures and whilst he was at times mesmerised by the attention of two such attractive and confident females, he didn’t trust them.

He was sufficiently worldly, though, to realise that going along with Hattie’s research could be of benefit to him even if, along the way, he had to endure their mocking patronage. And if he had to choose one of them as his protector, then it would be Hattie, even if it meant staying in this odd place and accepting the disapproval and contempt of her man. So he agreed to their plans, and to staying on in her flat.

When Claire departed for home late that afternoon Hattie set about creating Jimmy his own area within the vast living space. Although their home was the height of fashion – what estate agents now described as a New York loft – it was ill-suited to house guests. There were no doors on the ground floor except to the kitchen and just the one big bedroom and bathroom upstairs so that Hattie had to fashion Jimmy a room by putting together two Japanese screens and offer him a foldaway futon to sleep on.

‘There is one thing, Jimmy. Toby really doesn’t like smoking. I don’t mind, in fact I used to smoke before I met him …’

‘Aye?’ he said.

‘So when you want a cigarette, do you think you could go and stand outside the front door … so the smoke doesn’t pollute the flat…?’ she said nervously.

Then she turned her attention to Rex. The dog, she explained, would need to be a little more house-trained if he were to live with them.

‘But he pittles in street,’ said Jimmy.

‘I know he does but he, well, he smells rather dreadful, Jimmy. Couldn’t we give him a bath?’

‘Rex hates water,’ said Jimmy.

Rex, Hattie was beginning to suspect, hated everything apart from food and Jimmy. He growled every time Hattie or Claire inadvertently went near him, and he barked in a shrill, neurotic fashion every time the doorbell or the phone went. Worse, he clearly had a digestive problem which – perhaps aggravated by the sushi he had eaten for breakfast – resulted in regular emissions of offensive ozone-eroding wind. Hattie had grown up with dogs – her father had always had a brace of Labradors for shooting and her mother was never parted from her beloved West Highland terrier – but try as she might she could find nothing about Rex that was remotely attractive. She accepted, though, that the dog represented the closest thing to family in Jimmy’s life and she supposed she would have to establish some sort of relationship with him.

‘We have to clean him, Jimmy. We’ve got to do something to try and remove the bad smell from under Toby’s nose,’ she said, although she doubted if pickling the dog in Chanel No. 5 or Eternity would make Toby more tolerant of him.

Hattie ran a bath filled with pungent bubbles and Jimmy carried the reluctant, whimpering dog and immersed him in the warm water.

There followed a terrible scene in which Rex fought, scratched, clawed and finally bit his way out of the bath, displacing gallons of water over Hattie, Jimmy and the floor, before disappearing back into his favourite place under the kitchen table.

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.

She indicated that he should sit down – something she had noticed he didn’t like to do when he ate – and he slipped onto one of the steel chairs next to Toby. Rex, who followed his master like a particularly distorted shadow, slunk beneath the table.

‘Christ Almighty – he’s got my fucking clothes on!’ exclaimed Toby, who had, until now, not focused on the newly cleaned up and beautiful Jimmy. ‘That’s the last fucking straw …’

‘Eee, man, I’m sorry,’ said Jimmy, his wonderful face blushing with embarrassment.

‘Don’t be sorry, Jimmy,’ said Hattie shortly. ‘Toby has got at least a dozen pairs of jeans and, to my certain knowledge, over fifty plain white Paul Smith T-shirts—’

‘That’s not the point, Hattie,’ said Toby, who was experiencing, Hattie suddenly surmised, stirrings of what was probably deep sexual jealousy.

His eyes ran across the face of the unwanted intruder and down his torso to the crotch of his tight Tommy Hilfiger jeans.

‘Besides, Toby, they look much better on Jimmy – even if they are a little too small,’ Hattie added with a merry laugh.

There was an awkward silence during which it seemed as if Toby might leave. But something – the idea of this beautiful stranger sleeping so close to Hattie, or the delicious aroma of the pasta – made him stay and eat.

Jimmy – who had been studying the food with a wary eye – watched Hattie and Toby begin to eat, in the mannered way that they did, with just their forks in their right hands. Picking up his own fork and his butter knife he began gingerly to taste the pasta on his plate.

Alone with the two women Jimmy had been far more relaxed, but in the presence of this hostile stranger he was obviously intimidated. He stopped eating, switched his fork into his right hand and slowly attempted to imitate the way they so expertly ate their food. Very carefully he managed to prod his fork through the pasta and lift it to his mouth. His progress was slow, painful and noisy.

‘I’ve had enough,’ said Toby, pushing his half-empty plate away. ‘I think I’ll watch some television and get an early night.’

‘In the bedroom?’ enquired Hattie.

‘Well, I wouldn’t want to intrude on our guest’s space,’ said Toby, moving to get up. ‘JESUS CHRIST! That bloody dog bit my leg!’

‘He’s a wonderful guard dog,’ said Hattie defensively.

‘It’s probably bloody rabid,’ Toby said, moving quickly out of Rex’s way. ‘It should be muzzled.’

It occurred to Hattie that Toby and Rex had a lot in common right now. Both were behaving in a territorial fashion that was positively primeval. They both needed muzzling, growling and snarling as they sought to demonstrate their supremacy.

Toby’s exit up the stairs had a liberating effect on Jimmy, who jumped up, reached into the cupboard and returned to the table clutching a jar of crushed sun-dried tomato paste, the closest thing to ketchup he had yet found in this strange, foreign kitchen. Standing up, with the plate in his hand, he began to eat the food – now covered in the rich, red sauce – with more enthusiasm while he walked up and down the room.

Hattie suspected that long before he was reduced to squatting on the streets Jimmy had got used to eating wherever and whenever he could. And almost never at a table. He was happiest, she had already noted, pacing up and down while he ate.

‘Why don’t you finish that in front of the television, Jimmy,’ she said, ‘while I go and check up on Toby?’

Putting her own plate on the sheet steel work surface she left him alone and went upstairs.

Toby was lying in bed channel hopping in a slightly less furious fashion than Jimmy had done earlier. He looked up at her with a cold hard face.

‘How long is this going to go on, Hattie?’

‘Well, I’ve got just under three months to achieve the transformation,’ she said gaily, ‘so I suppose till about August.’

‘That’s ridiculous. I’m sure Jon wasn’t really serious about that bet. He certainly wouldn’t expect us to put up with this kind of upheaval for some bloody wager about a brain-dead bum like that.’

‘It was you who said that Jon is always serious about his bets. And anyway, what makes you think he’s brain dead?’

‘Those teeth for a start.’

‘You mean no orthodontic care when he was a child might indicate a low IQ?’

‘Low life, Hattie. He’s low life. Anyone with any sense could see that. Christ, he eats like a pig. He can barely speak, for Christ’s sakes. And what he does say is virtually unintelligible.’

‘He’s limited by his education, Toby. He didn’t go to Charterhouse—’

‘It’s more than that, Hattie. He’s on the same evolutional level as his bloody dog. He’s not even house-trained. He pees in the sink, he smokes and he can’t sit still to eat. And it’s quite clear from this evening that he’s rarely come into contact with a knife or fork before.’

‘You are so fucking bourgeois, Toby. All you are saying is that he is not what you would classify as civilised. But that’s just conditioning. You can teach people to eat with a knife and fork and to pull the chain on the loo – which incidentally you forget to do every morning when you pee – but what you cannot teach anyone is sensitivity. It’s insensitivity that makes a man into an animal, Toby …’

‘You really are serious, aren’t you? You’d really put that animal before anything else in your life – our relationship, my happiness. Can’t you see it’s intolerable for me to have to live with him in my home?’

‘It’s my home, Toby …’

‘You always used to say our home, Hattie.’

‘Oh Toby, you know this means a lot to me. It might strike you as absurd and selfish behaviour but actually I am trying to help Jimmy. To take the animal – as you call it – out of the man and give him a chance to be something else than a creature that skulks around the streets and sleeps in shop doorways.’

‘Fine but not here, Hattie.’

‘Do you know something, Toby, this boy has awoken something in me. Oh, I know that I have always had what you and Jon sneeringly used to refer to as a social conscience but I have never before been able to make the difference in the way I can with Jimmy. Every day I see people who are so damaged by what has happened in their lives that it is almost impossible to help them. But I can only do so much for them. With him I have the chance to really achieve something. I believe that beneath that animal you see there is a fine human being with the potential to achieve great things. It’s as if he were new, do you understand, raw, waiting to be transformed into something special? If you don’t like it you can go back and live in your flat for a while.’

‘He could turn out to be Frankenstein’s monster.’

‘Oh, I hardly think so, Toby. Look at him. He has, apart from those teeth and tattoos, a quite extraordinary beauty.’

‘So that’s it then? That’s what you see in him?’

‘Don’t be so stupid, Toby. I am not the slightest bit interested in him in that way,’ she said with a giggle as Toby confirmed the jealousy she’d earlier suspected. ‘I am just saying that he has outstanding natural grace and beauty. And more than that, he has got – I don’t quite know how to express it – something.’

Toby’s face softened as his fear of Hattie’s attraction to Jimmy receded. His insecurity – so rarely expressed by a man who carefully controlled all his emotions – touched what was left of Hattie’s love for him.

‘Is that your only objection, that I might find him attractive?’ she said, laughing and reaching a hand out to hold his in the comforting way you might take the hand of a small, unsure boy.

Toby leant across and kissed Hattie passionately, thrusting his tongue into her mouth in a way that he hadn’t since they first met. Kisses had slipped out of his sexual repertoire long ago and she found herself unusually aroused.

Toby fought to unbutton her shirt and undo her bra, without releasing his mouth from hers.

‘Do you want me, Hattie?’ he said urgently. ‘Look at me, look how big I am …’

He pushed her hand down to touch his penis and then started to grab at her jeans, unzipping them and pulling them down quite roughly. When she was naked he entered her and began to make love more powerfully than he had done since their first days together.

‘I’m going to fuck you and fuck you and fuck you,’ he roared.

‘SSH! Toby, he might hear us …’

‘I want him to fucking well hear us. This is our home, not his,’ said Toby as he thundered into her, and the bed, unaccustomed to such frenzied action, banged against the wall in an unmistakable rhythm that she felt sure could be heard above the sound of the television in the room below.

Chapter Six

An hour or so later, after Toby had fallen into a deep and obviously contented sleep, Hattie got up, slipped on her dressing gown and went downstairs. She felt unduly anxious about Jimmy. She supposed her concern about his overhearing their noisy lovemaking was linked to the maternal instinct he had aroused in her. At any rate she couldn’t think of any other explanation for the need to check if he was all right before she herself slept.

Since there were no lights coming from the big open space living area she assumed he was asleep and made her way to the kitchen. She turned on the dimmer switch and noticed that Jimmy had made an effort to clean up. The plates were washed and stacked on the draining board and the pans were soaking in the sink.

It wasn’t Jimmy who lacked house-training, it was Toby. The real animal here, she thought as she made her way to the bathroom, was the man she lived with. Marking out his territory with that loud display of his sexual prowess. She shuddered in recollection and experienced an added pang of guilt for the fact that, for the first time in she didn’t know how long, she had actually enjoyed sex.

She poured some oil into the bath and turned on the taps. She wasn’t the kind of woman who had any particular beauty regime but she felt the need to deep cleanse herself tonight and she fished around in the big drawer for an old tube of face mask which she carefully applied. The effect was, she thought as she examined herself in the mirror, oddly depersonalising. The greeny white paste obliterated her features and held her face in a fixed expression.

She lay in the bath and thought about the ways in which she might be able to help Jimmy. She needed to establish what kind of education he had and obviously – professionally and personally – she wanted to know about his family and his upbringing. Then she could begin to find out if there was any latent talent in him that might be encouraged. Claire was masterminding his physical transformation, which would begin the next day with a massive shopping expedition. But that, as today’s brief clean-up had proved, wasn’t going to be a particular problem. Hattie had felt rather gleeful, earlier on this evening, when Jon had rung to ask what was happening. It had given her some pleasure to tell him – out of Jimmy’s earshot – that not only was the bet on but also that they were now even more confident of winning.

She let the water out of the bath, put on a deep-pile towelling robe and made her way back to the kitchen to make a drink. As she filled the kettle at the sink, she heard a sudden noise behind her that sent a wave of fear through her.

‘Oh Jimmy, you frightened me. I thought you were asleep.’

‘I was outside having a tab,’ he said, a look of shock and wonder on his face.

‘Oh my God, my mask,’ she laughed, realising how ridiculous she must look. ‘It’s a strange female ritual that probably has primitive roots. Neanderthal woman daubing her face with mud …’

He looked at her quizzically with his perfect blue eyes and she felt even more uncomfortable.

‘Would you like a drink? I’m making some tea.’

‘Aye, OK,’ he said, watching her curiously.

‘Tell you what, why don’t you make the tea while I clear this stuff off my face? Then we can sit and talk.’

He nodded and she went back into the bathroom to rinse the dried mask from her skin and put on some pyjamas so that she would be properly decent beneath her robe.

When she returned he was sitting on the sofa with a pile of his things beside him and Rex lying protectively at his feet, growling. On the table there were two mugs of tea and a packet of cigarettes.

‘Eee, man, that’s better. Ya look reet pretty again.’

Hattied blushed unexpectedly and pushed her wild, curly hair back off her face in a gesture of unaccustomed vanity. She went over and sat next to him, Rex’s growl turning to a low hostile moan, whilst Jimmy shuffled through his possessions.

‘Your man doon’t like me or Rex, does he?’ he said.

‘No really, it’s fine. Toby will get used to you.’

He smiled at her and again she pushed the hair back from her face. She picked up her mug of tea – which was so strong the milk had turned it orange – and sipped from it.

‘Do you think I could have a cigarette?’ she asked, glancing covetously at the packet.

‘Eee, man, in here?’ he said, with a gleam in his eye.

‘Why not?’ she said with a smile. ‘Toby’s asleep.’

He gave her a cigarette and took one himself and they sat smoking together in a manner that Hattie found, well, almost clandestine.

‘Tell me about your things,’ she said, drawing on the cigarette as if it were some dangerous narcotic.

‘Just stuff from back home.’

‘And where exactly is back home?’

‘Meadow Well.’

‘Is that near any town?’

‘It’s the estate, Meadow Well …’ he said, clearly amazed that she didn’t know of it.

‘Is it near Newcastle?’

‘Naa, hinny. It’s in North Shields. Must be six or seven miles away from Newcastle.’

‘And do you have a family?’

He was silent and reflective for a moment. Then: ‘There’s me mam and me brothers …’

‘Have you got a picture of them, Jimmy?’

He began to sort through the pile beside him and eventually picked out a couple of photographs and passed them over to her. The woman could have been aged anything from thirty-five to fifty-five. It was difficult to tell because her face was hard and quite starkly made up, and her luridly red hair was very tightly permed. Round her neck she wore a gold cross and three or four other chains. She had none of Jimmy’s beauty. In one picture she was standing by a beach with the sun in her eyes and in the other she was dressed up with a flower in her lapel, perhaps for a wedding.

‘And your father?’

‘Never knew me dad,’ he said, blushing slightly.

‘Your brothers are older than you?’ Hattie asked.

‘No, me brothers are younger. Me mam had me when she was seventeen.’ He paused for a second. ‘She said me dad was a Norwegian sailor. She met him down The Jungle on the fish quay. It was love at first sight. Only he never came back …’

A Norwegian father would probably explain the astonishing blue eyes, the pale hair and the big, muscular body, Hattie thought as she looked from the pictures of his plain mother to Jimmy’s own startling face.

‘And your brothers? Are there photographs of them?’

He began to search through his pile of pictures and eventually produced three separate photographs. His brothers – five of them, aged between about four and seventeen – had the same mean, cold expression as his mother, although none of them looked quite like the other. It was possible, Hattie thought as she studied the photos, that they all had different fathers. And not that unusual, she supposed, nowadays.

Jimmy himself appeared in one of the pictures. It must have been taken when he was about twelve years old and he looked, surrounded by his rough and rowdy siblings, as if he were a changeling. Which of course she supposed he was. The family group was standing in the front garden of a run-down, grey, pebble-dashed house surrounded by inner-city litter – car tyres, bits of old metal, abandoned toys and disintegrating black rubbish bags. To the right of the picture it was possible to see the next-door house, which was blackened by fire and boarded up. It was the kind of place that Hattie had seen in newsreels and documentaries on urban decay but had never glimpsed at first-hand. One or two of her friends lived in small ‘worker’s’ cottages – two-up, two-down, in places like Wandsworth, where the outside privies had been turned into conservatories – but with her own privileged background she had no experience of the kind of deprivation Jimmy was showing her.

‘Do you miss them?’

‘The littleun. He’s nine now. I miss him a lot,’ he said.

‘Fourteen years younger than you?’

He thought for a moment, screwing up his eyes as if making a difficult calculation. ‘I suppose …’

‘How did you get to that doorway that night? Why did you leave your home and your family?’

He sighed and looked at her as if to say that the reasons were too plentiful and the story too long and painful to tell.

‘Me mam got a new man and there was no room. Wha aboot you, like? What aboot ye family?’ he said, clearly trying to deflect her from any further discussion of his own origins.

‘I have a family, a sister. You might have heard of my sister, Arabella.’

‘Is she famous, like?’ he said in tones of awe, offering her another cigarette which she quickly took.

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