Dead And Buried

‘Ahh, as in down the toilet, I take it.’

‘You hit that flush on.’

‘My, Lexy, you are in good form tonight.’

‘I’ve been better, but never mind. Let’s call a cab, and finish these while it’s on the way.’ She picked up the phone and pushed a single button: the taxi company number was programmed into the memory.

‘How long have you been in your new place?’ he asked, as they sipped the cava.

‘About a month.’

‘Is that all? You told me back in May that you’d bought it.’

‘It’s new, Guy: I chose it off plans in February. That gave me plenty of time to get rid of my old place.’

‘How’s the market here?’

‘Active. It’s not London, but it’s pricey.’ As she spoke, the buzzer sounded. She sealed the cava bottle with an airtight stopper, put it in the fridge, then fetched her coat from her bedroom.

Christmas was approaching and so Nargile was busy even though it was mid-week. They were shown to a table for two in the window, positioned so one diner could see the crest of Hanover Street, with its Georgian statue, and beyond, the lights of Edinburgh Castle. ‘You sit there, Guy,’ said Alex. ‘You’re the stranger in town.’

‘Thank you, Lexy dear. How very thoughtful of you.’

One more time, she thought, as the name ground on her. On the other hand, he is paying, and he’s not bad looking.

‘How long will you be here?’ she asked, as the waiter brought menus.

He glanced at the wine list and ordered a bottle of Muscadet. ‘Just a couple of days,’ he replied. ‘I got here yesterday. By Thursday the task will be mapped out; at that point I’ll leave my assistant to carry on with it, and head back south.’

That’s fine, she thought. ‘What a pity,’ she said.

‘Yes, and I’m really sorry about it, but we really are busy in London. It’s sad but true: third-term governments usually mean a bonanza for us insolvency practitioners.’

‘I can’t say I’d noticed that. Most of our corporate clients are doing really well . . . thanks to the quality of our advice, no doubt.’

‘Naturally. However, if any of them do happen to have a hard time, or you hear of anyone who is, you’ll keep me in mind, won’t you? I’m also responsible for corporate recovery within the firm, remember.’

She looked at him across the table with a gleam in her eye, as he tasted the wine and as the waiter poured it. ‘Guy,’ she murmured, when he had gone, ‘this isn’t a new business pitch, is it? Will dinner be chargeable to the firm?’

He managed to look genuinely shocked. ‘God, Lexy, you don’t think that, do you?’

Too right I do. But she smiled, letting him off the hook, then raised her glass. ‘If I did, sunshine, I wouldn’t be settling for this when there’s Moet on the list.’ She took pity on his awkwardness. Okay, he was a clothes horse, and he fancied himself to death, but he was single, he wasn’t that bad, and after the few days she had endured, he was there. ‘Tell me something,’ she said. ‘When you chose this place, were you hoping for the same outcome as the last time we ate Turkish?’

He had the decency not to look her in the eye when he lied. ‘Oh, Lexy, of course I wasn’t.’

‘How nice to hear that. You know what, Guy? There’s just a chance that virtue might not be its only reward.’

Forty-six

As she lay there in the darkness, listening to his wheezing snores, she remembered what it was that had put her off Guy Luscomb. He could talk the talk all right, but that was as far as it went.

She had not slept with anyone since their last time together, such had been his effect on her. Alex thought of herself as a modern woman: she did not class herself as promiscuous, but if she met a man she liked physically and who amused her enough, she would have sex with him. It had been that way since she was eighteen, and in her first year at Glasgow University, in the light of the only piece of fatherly advice she had ever received on the subject. That had been along the lines of ‘Not in your own backyard’, but actually it had been unnecessary, as none of the boys she knew at school would ever have dreamed of ‘trying it on’ with Bob Skinner’s daughter.

Even with those years of experience behind her, and her time spent living with Andy Martin when they were engaged, she did not regard herself as a sexual connoisseur. However, she knew what she liked, and she knew what she had a right to expect from a partner.

And that was a hell of a lot more than thirty seconds.

It wasn’t as if the man had been drunk: they’d shared one bottle of wine in Nargile and the cava had stayed in the fridge when they’d got back to the flat. She had her first inkling of how it was going to be when she had gone to hang up her dress, and he had gone into the en-suite to take his turn to brush his teeth. She had turned, still in her underwear and looking to be helped out of it, to find him already in bed, grinning at her from under the slightly tented duvet.

She had tried to interest him in some foreplay, until she recalled that in Guy’s mind that was a type of golf. Instead his leg had come over and he had set to work, teeth gritted. In spite of himself, he had hit the spot, and for a few seconds she had thought it was going to be all right, until his face had contorted, he had let out his patented squeal (God, the memories that come back!), she had felt the condom (hers, not his: that had been a difficult moment) twitching a little, and it had been over.

At least he hadn’t asked how it had been for her. They had listened to Radio Forth for a while, until he had indicated, not in so many words, that he was ready to try again. And she had let him, more in hope than in expectation that it would be better. It had been worse: second time round he had missed the spot completely, and she had endured a full fifty-four seconds . . . she had timed him, secretly, on the bedside clock . . . of pounding before he squealed again and spent himself.

When he rolled off her, shortly afterwards, and started to snore, she had to fight off the urge to laugh hysterically as she remembered something that Gina had said on a night out a few months before. ‘The saddest moments in a girl’s life are, one, when her partner can’t find her clitoris, and two, when he finds it.’ It had been an hour before she had fallen asleep.

The radio alarm kicked into life on the stroke of seven; the bright morning voice of Spike Thomson, Andy’s friend, filled the room. Guy grunted and started to waken: it took him a while, but eventually he was with her and his surroundings. ‘Morning, lovey,’ he mumbled. ‘Sleep tight?’

‘Not a lot,’ she told him. ‘It was a bit noisy in here for a while.’

He grinned, slightly uncertainly. ‘You mean me? Ah, sorry.’ A hand reached for her. She caught it before it found its mark, entwining her fingers with his. ‘Fancy some morning glory?’ he asked, undeterred.

‘Darling, you’ve worn me out.’

‘Ah, come on, fit young thing like you.’ He raised the duvet with his free hand. ‘See? I’m up for it.’

She felt her annoyance gauge approaching the red line. ‘Barely,’ she said. ‘Anyway, I’m out of condoms. Incidentally,’ she added, ‘it’s taken me two years to shag my way through that box.’

‘I thought all you girls were on the pill these days.’

Alex propped herself on an elbow, pulling the duvet round her breasts. ‘When was the last time you got laid, Guy?’

He frowned. ‘What sort of a question is that?’

‘It’s a straight one, now answer it.’

‘A couple of months ago; no, six weeks.’

‘Who was the lucky lady? A steady or a one-off?’

‘Someone I met at a reception: a Lithuanian girl.’

‘Did you use a condom then?’

‘Bareback,’ he answered.

‘Seen her since?’