Topaz opened the door. She wore a mustard yellow velvet trouser suit and no make-up. Her hair fell around her bare neck in dark ringlets. She looked fabulous, wonderful, perfect, an angel.
‘Hello. You look nice,’ said Johnathan.
Topaz nodded, the compliment expected. ‘Thanks for coming at such short notice.’ She leaned forward and made smacking noises with her mouth about four inches from both sides of Johnathan’s head. ‘Haven’t seen you for ages. Come in.’
Johnathan proffered the bag. ‘A little something.’
‘Oh, how lovely. Thanks. You really shouldn’t have,’ said Topaz, examining the bottle. ‘Terrific,’ she said after a while, thrusting it back into the bag. ‘Well, we can’t stand here and chat all night. Come and join the party.’
She turned and walked slinkily down the corridor towards the kitchen. Johnathan shut the front door behind him and watched Topaz’s buttocks rise and fall delectably as she moved. There was something about velvet, something excessively sensual, that made Johnathan’s mind fuse with desire. He sighed, deeply, and followed the buttocks down the corridor.
Topaz’s kitchen was large for London. It was about the same size as Johnathan’s entire flat. Sitting around a chrome and glass table were six impossibly glamorous people. The scene looked like a Vogue promotional shoot.
‘Everyone,’ said Topaz. ‘This is Johnathan Burlip.’
The impossibly glamorous people eyed Johnathan dispassionately from behind a veil of cigarette smoke.
‘Johnathan,’ said Topaz, ‘this is Jonny, Mark, Gavin, Sibby, Kibby, and Libby.’ The names came out in rapid staccato, as Topaz jabbed the air vaguely with a manicured fingertip. ‘Drink?’
‘Thanks.’ Johnathan shifted uneasily from one foot to the other and plunged his hands into his pockets. One of the girls, Libby or Sibby, regarded him silently as a thin coil of smoke trickled out of her left nostril and spiralled gracefully upwards. She was dressed in what looked like a chiffon nightie. Her skin was almost white, apart from some dark, brutally applied make-up around her huge, doe-like eyes. She was unquestionably beautiful, if rather corpse-like. She was also tiny. Her waist was about the same size as Johnathan’s wrist.
‘Johnathan’s a lawyer,’ called Topaz from the other side of the kitchen. ‘Aren’t you?’
‘Well, yes,’ said Johnathan apologetically.
‘What sort of law?’ asked one of the men, who spoke with an accent that made Leslie Phillips sound like an East End barrow boy. He wore a thick roll-necked sweater and a fashionably tatty green corduroy jacket.
‘Commercial stuff, generally,’ said Johnathan. ‘Buying and selling companies, that sort of thing.’
‘Do you do any Legal Aid work?’
‘Well, not really, no. We don’t do any of that sort of stuff.’
‘Oh. Why not?’
‘Well,’ said Johnathan as politely as he could, ‘we just don’t.’
‘So you’re one of life’s takers, then, not one of its givers.’
Johnathan reeled. What was this? Bash a Lawyer Week? Before he could reply, Topaz appeared by his side, and handed him a glass of what appeared to be Listerine. ‘There you go,’ she cooed. ‘Tell me what you think of that.’ Johnathan eyed the green, viscous liquid suspiciously, and sniffed it. It was Listerine.
‘It’s Listerine,’ he said.
Topaz laughed. ‘No, silly, it’s TAG 69. It’s this amazing drink Libby found on her last assignment in Paris, wasn’t it Libby?’
The girl in the nightie nodded.
‘It’s just like crème de menthe, only more so,’ continued Topaz enthusiastically. ‘We can’t get enough of it now, can we?’
The girl in the nightie shook her head.
‘Well, I’d better leave you to it,’ breezed Topaz and swept off towards the stove with a regal wave. Johnathan took a hesitant sip of his drink, uncomfortably aware that Libby was staring at him with a disarming directness. The drink was intensely minty, very sweet, and clearly very alcoholic. OK, thought Johnathan, so it’s worse than Listerine.
‘What was your assignment in Paris for?’ he asked Libby, ignoring the man in the corduroy jacket.
‘I’m a model,’ said Libby.
What for, Crematoria R Us? wondered Johnathan. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘What sort of stuff do you model?’
‘Clothes,’ said Libby, lighting another Marlboro.
He changed tack. ‘Did you enjoy Paris?’
‘Yeah.’ Puff puff. In contrast to the dazzling sparkle of Topaz’s jade, Libby’s eyes were a lifeless blue. They flickered dully when she spoke, weighed down by half a tube of mascara on her eyelashes.
‘Did you get the chance to go to any of the museums? Paris is full of wonderful museums.’ Please say yes, prayed Johnathan. The conversational options were rapidly dwindling.
‘No,’ said Libby.
‘Oh,’ said Johnathan, defeated.
‘I don’t go for museums much,’ said Libby.
‘Did you know that the French Government puts as much money into the Louvre as the British Government puts into all of the museums in England put together?’ said the man in the corduroy jacket.
‘Really,’ said Johnathan. There was a pause. ‘Well,’ he continued affably, ‘it is a pretty large museum.’
‘I suppose the British Government has better things to spend taxpayers’ money on,’ said the man. ‘Illicit payments, backhanders, jobs for the boys. Greasing the palms of corrupt officials, or bent lawyers.’
‘Careful Gavin. Your nostrils are flaring,’ said one of the other girls. ‘It’s not very attractive.’
‘Neither is the sight of the rich getting richer, parasites feeding off the carcass of the nation while everyone else is suffering.’
‘God, give it a break, will you?’ said the same girl. ‘Change the record. Any more of life’s iniquities and I’ll throw up.’
‘Your trouble is,’ said Gavin, ‘that you’ve just given up fighting the status quo.’
‘Wrong. I haven’t given up. Because I haven’t begun. Nor do I intend to. Politics bores me.’
‘This is more than just politics, Kibby. This is about life.’
‘Well, yes, I suppose you’re right, if life, as you so dramatically put it, is about the sort of vapid banalities that you obsess about.’
Gavin sat back in his chair, too mortified to reply. Johnathan decided that he liked Kibby.
‘What about you, er, Libby,’ he said to the waif next to him. ‘Are you interested in politics?’
Libby ground her cigarette in the ashtray. ‘Not really,’ she said. ‘I don’t go for politics much.’
‘Shan’t be long,’ shouted Topaz cheerfully as she crashed around on the other side of the kitchen. ‘What are you lot talking about? Can’t hear from over here.’
‘Gavin is presenting his blueprint to salvage the country from the clutches of the filthy capitalist pigs who are bleeding society dry,’ said Kibby.
‘Jolly good,’ said Topaz. ‘Best to get it out of the way now while I’m doing this.’
‘Ha ha,’ said Gavin.
There was an embarrassed silence as