For a couple of blissful hours I delved into the public library, Fifth Avenue west side, looking up California and various people, with patchy success. Nice library, though the white marble and the smug lions by the steps cloy, and its marble candelabra are a bit much. I loved it. No sign of Zole at the corner, so I used the public phone. Still amazed by the cheapness of the USA phone system —ours in UK’s three times dearer.
“Lovejoy. Locations, please. Moira Hawkins, Sophie Brandau.”
“One moment.” And, less than five seconds I swear, the girl gave me both.
“Ta, love. I’m going to the latter.”
Moira at a hotel restaurant in which, surprise surprise, Denzie Brandau happened to be chairing a campaign fund-raiser. Sophie was at home, so I phoned her, asked her could I see her urgently in strictest confidence. I got a taxi to Park Avenue, where the doorman fawned. Flung to the penthouse by a lift that just managed to judder to a halt before crashing out into orbit, I rang the bell. Sophie herself came to the door.
THE Theory of Sexual Understanding is mine. I created it. It works between a man and a woman. It’s this: everything’s up to her. I coined it years ago over a bird I fell for over some antique she said she owned. God, I slogged, broke my heart, agonized, plotted, just to get near her. Nearly four whole days. I finally gave it up as hopeless on a rainy Thursday at an antiques auction. She came in, offhandedly told me she’d brought along her Roman mosaic glass bowl, about 10 AD. (These small objects, astonishingly difficult to fake, are still pretty common.) I shrugged and went with her to the auctioneer’s yard.
In her car, she practically raped me, whimpering and ripping at my clothes. The car windows mercifully steamed up and the auction was under way so nobody saw us. I hope. Her preoccupied husband was at the same auction. See what I mean? I’d set out to win her affections, against all odds, and failed. Then she decides on frontal assault, and it’s the halleluiah smile. Of course, the lying cow really hadn’t got a Roman mosaic glass anything, so my love didn’t stand the test of time and I ditched her for a vicar’s widow whose collection of Continental barometers came up for sale about then.
My ToSU worked the second Sophie opened the door. I myself am never quite sure when a woman takes the decision. But I am certain it’s always up to her. We blokes just trot along obediently hoping the whim’s in the right direction. But I knew I was favoured. Not that she did anything to suggest she was about to. I mean, her reception of me was almost exactly the same as Gina’s, by which I mean an erg above glacial. She looked imperial, gowned as if for an evening do.
No maid, I realized, but that incidental’s never more than half a clue, and open to misinterpretation.
“No, thanks.” I declined the offer of a drink. “I didn’t come because of your antiques, Sophie.” I didn’t need to mimic hesitation. I was worried enough. “It’s that something’s really wrong. But I want to help, any way I can.”
“I know.” She didn’t mind her hand in mine.
“Look, love. I’ve been taken on the payroll by Gina, to advise on antiques. I’ve been told it’s to do with the California Game. I’m telling you this, well, because.”
“What are you saying, Lovejoy?”
Why ask me? I wasn’t really sure. “Anything I can do for you, love, I will. I promise.” Aghast, my brain shrieked caution, not to make frigging promises that might get it killed. I wallowed on just because of the way she was looking at me.
“I need help, Lovejoy.” Tears welled in her eyes. She suppressed them, came to.
“I don’t mean I’ll help Denzie. I mean help you.”
Drive a harder bargain, you pillock! shrieked my brain in a panic. What’s she giving in return for lobbing us both in jeopardy?
“Please, Lovejoy. He’s not a bad man. Honestly. I promise you. He’s just… wayward, driven by ambition. He’s a consummate politician, capable, kind. Everybody’Il tell you. He’s in line for the next presidential nomination. People don’t know Denzie. I don’t know which way to turn, not since Moira inveigled him into taking a half share in the Sherlock stake.”
I let her talk through her exhortations, hopes, fears. I rose and went to stand, as if in deep tortured thought, before a decorative shelf of pewter tankards that pulled me like a magnet. I’d been dying to inspect them ever since I’d stepped into the flat. I was so excited by what I saw I almost shouted the joyous news to Sophie. In the nick of time I remembered I was in spiritual anguish, and just loved that dulled glowing metal. They were stupendous, the only complete set of Channel Isles tankards I’d ever seen. The giveaway is the measure, for obstinate old Jersey people still use the “pot”, which is a cool 69.5 fluid ounces. All six stood there, each with cunning little double acorns on the thumb catches. I stood, warmed with love. How many ancients had drunk from them in their two centuries? You don’t get love like that any more —
“Lovejoy?”
Sophie was asking me something. She’d come to stand beside me. I turned away from the pewters, heartbreak coming easy.
“Shhhh.” I put my finger to her lips. “I promise I’ll help Denzie.”
“You will?”
My brain resigned, stormed out of ken shrieking abuse and insults. But what could I do? She was closer, letting her hands touch my jacket and gradually raising her gaze from my chest towards my face and then opening her mouth ever so slightly and keeping her eyes fixed on my mouth as she gave the gentlest of tugs so we were closer than ever and what could I do when it’s women decide every single time?
“DARLING?”
Sophie moved with a woman’s awkwardness from sin into confession. I never have any problem shifting these gears. They do. Mmmmmh?
Women’s greatest—maybe only—mistake is to chatter straight after love’s made. Beats me why. What’s there to say? But they find something, anything. If ever I find a woman willing to stay mum during that transitory death after loving, I’d love her for nowt. I know I keep on about this.
“Darling. I didn’t… you know? Just to… y’know, Lovejoy?”
