The Terrible Privacy Of Maxwell Sim

‘Oh, yes,’ said Poppy. ‘Big money.’ (She stretched the word ‘big’.) ‘Honestly, you’d be surprised.’

‘What sorts of people?’

‘All sorts. Unhappily married people are everywhere. But still, the fees are rather steep, so we tend to attract a certain sort of clientele in particular. Investment bankers, professional footballers, that kind of thing.’

I was struck by the insouciance with which she was telling me all this. Titillating though I found the idea of an ‘adultery facilitator’, I also thought it rather shocking.

‘What about …’ I said, trying to choose my words with care, ‘what about the moral dimension?’

‘The what?’ said Poppy.

‘I just wondered if you had any qualms about it. You know … the fact that you’re helping people to cheat on other people. Does it bother your – your conscience, at all?’

‘Oh, that.’ Poppy stirred up the froth at the bottom of her coffee cup and sucked nonchalantly on her plastic spoon. ‘I’ve gone past the stage where I bother about that kind of thing. I got a First in History from Oxford, you know. And do you know what kind of jobs I’ve been doing since? The shittiest of the shitty. The best was PA to the director of a lapdancing club. The worst was … Well, you don’t want to hear about the worst. And that’s without the months of unemployment in between. This job gives me easy money, and it’s regular work, and it allows me plenty of time to sit around reading, and watching films, and going to galleries, which is what I really like doing.’

‘Yes, I know things are … difficult out there at the moment. I just thought –’

‘You know, you’re starting to sound just like Clive. This is exactly what he said to me when I told him about this job. And do you know what I said back to him?’

Of course, I didn’t know what she had said back to him. I didn’t even know who Clive was. But my first – and indeed, only – thought at this point was that I wasn’t happy another man’s name had been introduced into the conversation already.

‘Well, I lost my temper with him,’ Poppy said, ‘which I very rarely do with Clive. I said to him: Do you realize that, if there’s one thing people of my age cannot stand hearing, it’s people of your age giving us lectures on morality. Look at the world around you. The world you’ve bequeathed to us. D’you think it allows us any scope to do things on principle? I’m sick of hearing about how my generation has no values. How materialist we are. How lacking in any political sense. Do you know why that is? Take a wild guess. That’s right – because that’s how you brought us up! We may be Mrs Thatcher’s children, as far as you’re concerned, but you were the ones who voted for her, again and again, and then carried on voting for all the people who came after her, and followed exactly in her footsteps. You’re the ones who brought us up to be these consumerist zombies. You chucked all the other values out of the window, didn’t you? Christianity? Don’t need that. Collective responsibility? Where’s that ever got us. Manufacturing? Making things? That’s for losers. Yeah, let’s get those losers over in the Far East to make everything for us and we can just sit on our backsides in front of the TV, watching the world go to hell in a handcart – in widescreen and HD, of course.’ She sat back, looking faintly embarrassed for having spoken so passionately. ‘So, anyway – that’s what I said to Clive, when he told me I shouldn’t be doing this job.’

Well, it was certainly all very interesting. Poppy had raised a lot of issues there, and given me plenty to think about. In fact, she had touched on so many important subjects, it was hard to know where to begin.

‘Who’s Clive?’ I asked.

‘Clive? Clive’s my uncle. My mother’s brother.’

I breathed a sigh of relief, and said: ‘I’m so glad to hear that.’ It came out before I could stop it.

‘Glad?’ said Poppy, bemused. ‘What are you glad about? You’re glad that my mother has a brother?’

‘Well … yes,’ I said, fumbling hopelessly. ‘It’s not good to be an only child. I mean, I’m an only child, and I wouldn’t recommend the experience …’ This was ridiculous. I would have to change the subject as quickly as possible. ‘Your agency’s fees must be very expensive,’ I said, ‘if they have to cover the cost of you flying all over the world on a weekly basis.’

‘They are expensive,’ said Poppy. ‘But that’s not the reason. Actually it doesn’t cost that much for me to fly out here and back. I do it on standby, you see. It’s slightly unpredictable, because you never know if there’s going to be a seat available – sometime you end up having to sleep in the airport, which isn’t so great – but usually it works out.’

‘And were you lucky this time?’

‘Well, it was a close thing. I’d got my eye on this BA flight …’

‘7371?’ I asked, hopefully.

‘That’s the one. Is that your flight?’

‘Yes. Did you get on it?’

‘I didn’t think I was going to. At first they told me it was full up. But apparently, a seat’s become available, for some reason.’

A beautiful certainty suddenly took hold of me.

‘Did they put you in Premium Economy?’

‘That’s right. Why?’

‘I think you’re going to be sitting next to me.’

‘What makes you think that?’

Should I explain to her the circumstances of Charlie Hayward’s recent demise? It would mean telling her that she was going to be taking the place of a dead man. Did she look the squeamish type? I wasn’t going to risk it – I wasn’t going to do anything that might throw a shadow over the journey home that the two of us were about to enjoy, side by side. Out of nowhere, after all, fate had dropped this lovely young woman into my lap, and now it seemed we were going to be bound even more closely together. Not to mince words, for the next twelve hours, we were going to be sleeping together. And on our first date!