What Paul hadn't done, and what he wasn't going to do (because of those ambitions), or at least not yet, until he was sure which way the tide was flowing (also because of those ambitions), was to risk disobeying a direct order.
(Good management is finding someone else to take the risks, namely, Mrs Frances Fitzgibbon.)
She rolled the car forward to the five-star pump.
The young man looked at her, and then the car, and then at the pump. And finally back at her. He was young and beautiful, and he wore an incredibly patched pair of jeans which appeared to have been poured on him, and a dark blue sweat-shirt bearing the legend 'Oxford University'.
Frances looked down at the fuel gauge: it had registered under half-full when Paul had turned over the car to her yesterday, a long way north, but it was still not quite on empty. It was that sort of car.
'Can I help you?' He smiled, and was more beautiful, and the accent went with the sweat-shirt.
'Do you take Barclaycards?'
'Barclay and Access - not American Express, for some obscure reason. But you won't get any Green Shield Stamps, they're only for hard cash, I'm afraid.' Still smiling, still looking down at her, he tossed his curls towards the great garish poster above his shoulder. 'It's all in the small print. Though actually our petrol is cheap at the moment -
you're supposed to come in for our extra special offer, plus quintuple stamps for cash, and then think better of it and buy a new car instead, with a full tank and a million stamps, or something.'
He really was lovely, thought Frances uncontrollably. But he was ten years too young for her - in another ten years she'd be old enough to have a son of his age - and as unattainable as a shaft of sunlight.
'Should I be tempted?' She knew that it was the temptation of make-believe, if only for a moment, to which she was surrendering.
The smile compressed itself with mischief. 'There's a couple of salesmen back there just waiting for me to give them the signal ... Actually, the cars aren't bad at the price, though the spares are a bit pricey. Myself, I'd rather have a Honda Four-hundred-four.'
'A motor-bike?'
'A bike, yes.' His eyes glazed at the thought, blotting her out, and when they saw her again they were no longer interested in her. 'Four star, you want?'
The gossamer moment was over. She was just a woman customer in a nondescript car and he was a young petrol pump attendant, a strange face glimpsed for an instant in passing, and then gone forever.
Yet, in a strange cold way, Frances had the feeling that she was the stranger, the unreality, not this boy. For he belonged to the warm-blooded world of friends and car salesmen, and pay on Friday, saved towards his Honda Four-hundred-four, which was a real world beside which hers was a shadow country of ghosts and memories. Simply, she had caught his warmth for an instant, as any ghost might warm its pale hands on the living, and that had made her substantial enough for him to see. But now she was fading again, and the sooner she faded away altogether, the better - the safer - for them both.
'Five star, please.' She reached decisively into her bag for the right Barclay card, neither Fitzgibbon nor Fisher, but her own very private untraceable Maiden Warren.
'Five star?' He controlled his surprise just short of disbelief. 'How many gallons?'
She no longer saw him. It was curious that she had pretended to herself for so long that she was in two minds about the phone call, even that she'd half-blamed Paul for setting her to it, when she'd intended all along to make it, since last night. Paul had merely added reason to her instinct for disobedience.
'Fill her up.' She passed the card across without looking at the boy, and opened the car door. 'I'm going to make a phone call.'
* * *
She pressed the button and the coins dropped.
'Saracen.'
It was a rough East End voice. But then, the Saracen's Head was a rough East End pub, David Audley had said, where the beer was as strong as the prejudices and it didn't pay to ask the wrong question or support any team except West Ham.
'I'd like a word with Mr Lee.' Out aloud 'Mr Lee' sounded rather Chinese, or even Romany, certainly not Israeli.
' 'Oo wants 'im?' the rough voice challenged her.
'A friend of a friend of his,' replied Frances obediently.
'Oh yus? Well, 'e ain't 'ere.'
Recognition sign.
'Mr Lee owes my friend six favours, for services rendered.' She wondered as she spoke whether that meant anything or nothing; with David's quirky sense of humour it might even be a genuine reminder.
'Is that a fact, now? 'Old on a mo', luv.'
Frances waited. Through the smudgy window of the phone box she saw the young man take the nozzle of the petrol hose out of the tank. He peered at the numbers registered on the pump, and then back at the car. Then he scratched his thatch with his free hand. Then he bent down and looked underneath the car. Then he straightened up and stared towards the phone box. Then he reinserted the nozzle into the tank again.
Frances cursed her carelessness, which had quite unnecessarily turned him from an uninterested, disinterested young man into an interested young man. And more, a sharp young man (as it was November, and term had
