‘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.
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.