My Fair Man. Jane Gordon

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СКАЧАТЬ women that Jon usually had in tow. Claire – an ex-girlfriend whom he had somehow managed to turn into a friend – had only joined them this evening because the latest woman in Jon’s life was, somewhat typically, married.

      Hattie was very hungry, and eager to see the menu and order. There had been no time for lunch that day and she was not even sure that she had eaten breakfast, but her companions were more intrigued by the other diners and the décor.

      Hattie, who had no curiosity about the famous, or infamous, was becoming aware of the dampness of her hair and the rain-spattered state of her clothes. Muttering her excuses she made her way down the brightly lit steel stairs to the loos.

      She stood and looked at her reflection in the mirror for a second and pondered on the differences between herself and the sleek females who surrounded her. She didn’t really belong in this chic place, or rather she didn’t really want to belong. She was as uncomfortable here as she had been in the Opera House. And as much an outsider as the man camped in the Halifax doorway.

      Not that Hattie wasn’t vain, in her own way. It was just that it wasn’t the way of these women. She didn’t really care about clothes or make-up, and she certainly wouldn’t put herself through the agony of wearing the kind of shoes – curious spike-heeled mules – that she had noticed a number of the women struggling to walk on.

      Pushing a comb through her hair and putting a touch of Lipsyl on her dry mouth, she straightened her dress, sprayed herself with scent and made her way back up the slippery steel stairs. As she moved towards the table several other diners nodded in recognition.

      ‘Hattie spends so much of her time worrying about life’s underdogs that I always forget she has such a splendid pedigree herself,’ Jon said as he watched her dodging between tables.

      ‘Give her a break, Jon. It’s not as if she has ever really bothered with all her good contacts,’ said Claire equitably, ‘and nor has she profited by them.’

      ‘But Hattie doesn’t need to profit by them, does she? What with the trust fund and—’

      ‘Jon!’ said Claire, darting him a warning look as Hattie sat back down at the table.

      At this point the food arrived and the distribution of the various designer dishes (‘French Vietnamese,’ declared Toby in an authoritative manner) prevented further argument. Hattie ate hungrily as Claire attempted to lighten the atmosphere with the kind of gossip that she loved.

      ‘Did you see Nigella’s review of this place in Vogue?’

      ‘I am sure that Hattie doesn’t read Vogue,’ interjected Jon with a wicked little smile. ‘In fact I’d say that the copy of the Big Issue that Hattie has peeping out of the top of her bag is much more to her taste. While all the other women here spend most of their lives searching out things that will confer on them the kind of exclusivity that Hattie was born with, she chooses to carry – not, what is it now, a Prada handbag? – but a battered old briefcase and a magazine that clearly signals to the world that here is a woman with a social conscience.’

      ‘That man gave it to me. The man we disturbed when we were waiting for Toby,’ said Hattie a little defensively.

      ‘I bet he bloody did. It’s my own personal belief that there are more people selling the Big Issue than there are homeless. There must be two dozen in Kensington High Street alone just waiting to trip you up. It’s brilliant marketing, though. You have to admire the way you can package guilt …’

      Claire, in an effort to deflect Jon’s comments, continued to give them a potted version of what Nigella had thought about the food at Vong. Undeterred, Jon continued with his diatribe against the Big Issue.

      Hattie shifted uncomfortably in her seat, determined this time not to rise to the bait. She had often wondered if Jon’s shocking comments and his black sense of humour were something of an act, designed to cover up a deeper sensitivity. Part of her suspected that he was as bored as she by Nigella and Vogue and all the idle chatter that seemed to fascinate Toby and Claire. Then, perhaps unaware of just how much the incident in the doorway had upset her, Jon began a diatribe on homelessness and the ‘underclass’, many of whom, he said with a provocative glance at Hattie, somehow ‘defied Darwin’s theory of evolution’.

      ‘Do you know, Jon,’ said Claire quickly, ‘just for a minute I thought you were talking about your ex-girlfriend before last – you know, the blonde with the frontal lobotomy …’

      ‘You’ll have to remind me which one you mean,’ said Hattie, grinning. ‘I thought all Jon’s girlfriends shared those characteristics – lots of blonde hair and one brain cell. Apart from you, Claire.’

      ‘You know I’m the only intelligent woman Jon ever went out with. Nowadays he’s hopelessly drawn to women whose vital statistics add up to more than their IQs,’ said Claire, exchanging a smile with Hattie.

      ‘Anyway, Jon,’ said Hattie with gathering courage, ‘I don’t go along with all this business about an underclass. If there is a growing number of people who are slipping through the net educationally and socially it’s because of lack of opportunity and poverty. If any of us around this table had been born into different circumstances we too might have become a part of your underclass.’

      ‘Not with our genetic advantages,’ said Jon, smiling patronisingly at Hattie. ‘All those things we have got – our intelligence, for example – are locked into our genetic make-up waiting to be passed on to the next generation.’

      ‘No, Jon. Let me quote Professor Steve Jones, the man on genetics, on this one. “The single most important thing that a child can inherit from its parents is money,” he says. You might like to think that you have the kind of genes that could triumph over poverty but in fact I doubt that they are any more interesting – let alone superior – to those of that man we stumbled across tonight. All men are born equal,’ said Hattie.

      ‘But some, thanks to their genes, are born more equal than others,’ said Jon with another one of his infuriatingly patronising grins. ‘People are either born with good genes, like mine and like yours, Hattie – if, of course, yours aren’t too inbred – or with a DNA of doom. Why do you think that man’s on the streets while we are in this restaurant?’

      ‘Money,’ Claire said. ‘Your parents bought you the privileges you enjoy. The best education that money can buy. And the right contacts.’

      ‘Meanwhile,’ continued Hattie, ‘his parents were probably living on Government handouts and threw him out when he was no longer eligible for child benefit. If he had been given your advantages I dare say he’d be doing something more intelligent than you are now – attacking the defenceless—’

      ‘Here we go again, back to Hattie’s charitable mission. Do you really believe that that vagrant in the doorway could, in any circumstances, be transformed into a useful member of society?’ Jon asked.

      ‘Why not?’ Claire and Hattie said in unison.

      ‘In my work, Jon, I am only too aware that it is perfectly possible to take even the most desperate, desolate and destitute being and help them to achieve their potential,’ said Hattie earnestly, thinking of the little girl she had encountered that day.

      There was an uneasy silence, during which Jon looked intently at Hattie.

      ‘If you really want to impress me, prove me wrong. I bet that you couldn’t redeem СКАЧАТЬ