Sally. Freya North

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      FIVE

      ‘He’s late today, isn’t he? Most unusual. Did he have a meeting? Check for me, will you? I don’t think I could stand these butterflies all day!’

      ‘No, Sandra, no meeting for him. Maybe he’s sick? Or maybe he’s eloped.’

      ‘Stop it, Mary, that’s not fair.’

      ‘But you’ve been working here over two years and you get the same courteous “Good Morning, Good Evening, Merry Christmas” as the rest of us. You know he’ll only ever be married to his work. He’s probably a lousy lover anyway. No one female ever rings for him. You never know, maybe women aren’t his thing anyway.’

      ‘Oh, shut it. Let me have my hopes and fantasies. It’s all right for you, with your mortgage and your steady Steve and your … oh my God, he’s coming! Oh my Gordon Flipping Bennett. Keep cool and sophis, San. Hello, Mr Stonehill!’

      ‘Good morning, Sandra. Morning Mary.’

      Morning, morning. Mourning.

      Sandra’s gaze followed him down the corridor. Mary watched her closely. Smitten. Sandra absorbed every detail, storing it for later, for the arduous journey that she would make, always made, seatless and depressed, back to High Barnet.

       I love that navy suit, I love the way he walks. His hair lifts slightly with each stride, the trousers outline his calf muscles with every step. Why was he late? How can I find out? Please, please, please not a woman in his life. Pretty please a gas leak or something. One day, me, please. One day, me. Or, for one day, me. All I ask.

      0181 348 6523. No answer. Of course not, Sally’s at school. But does she have an answering machine? Richard wonders, hanging on. Obviously not. But does she go home for lunch? he wonders two hours later as he re-dials. Obviously not. Does school end at 3.30 nowadays? No, apparently it does not.

      Richard has done little work. As the working day nears a close, his drawing board remains irritatingly bare. He just could not seem to settle down to concentrate on the plan for the quasi-Georgian building commissioned by the Americans. Instead, he doodles and a Play School house stares back, with a chimney, a door, and windows; one, two, three, four. You never know the Americans, they might like it. He twirls around in his swivel chair; his jacket is off, his shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbow revealing beautifully tanned forearms brushed with a down of flaxen hairs. He clasps his hands behind his head and places his left foot on his right knee. Fine ankles can be discerned beneath Ralph Lauren socks. Out of the window he sees the river, a pleasure boat, captivated tourists on board, the guide changing her microphone from hand to hand as she points to the left, to the right. On the opposite bank, a crane performs its slow-motion task. Up river, Waterloo Bridge straddles south and north banks. Matisse is showing at the Hayward Gallery, he read the review in yesterday’s paper. Maybe Sally would like to go? Maybe Titian at the Royal Academy is more her thing? Something to find out. 0181 348 6523. Was that dialled correctly? 0181 348 6523. She’s his first 0181 girl.

      638 5454. ‘Bob Woods, please … Bob? Hey! Fancy a sesh at the gym? Great. In an hour? Fine.’

      Keeping at a constant 80 r.p.m., Bob and Richard tackle the simulated hill programme on the Lifecycle. They’ve broken the twenty-minute, red-face barrier and are working through into the serious sweat zone. Speech comes in staccato gasps, whole sentences interspersed with long pauses. However, having worked out together for many years, Bob and Richard have brought such conversation to a fine art, barely comprehensible to those uninitiated but utterly intelligible between these two.

      ‘So, you and Sally Lomax left together and then what?’

      ‘What do you know about her?’

      ‘Not a lot. Friend of a friend of Catherine. Met her once before, about six months ago. So, you left and then what?’

      ‘Does Catherine know her?’

      ‘And then WHAT?’

      ‘What?’

      They pedalled on, then pedalled down, then stopped. Both leant forward and dropped their heads on to folded arms and huffed in unison for a few moments.

      ‘Stairmaster?’

      ‘After you, I’ll work on my abs.’

      Delts, quads, glutes, abs. Half an hour later, they met up over the bicep curls, heaving their limbs, exhaling and grimacing in such perfect time as to make any synchronized swimming corps envious. They were, unknowingly, the centre of attention, the brawniest there, the handsomest. Admiring women, in fluorescent, up-the-bum all-in-ones, strutted their well-toned stuff in the hope that they might be seen and even achieve a date. Less brawny blokes were suddenly inspired to work harder, to up the level on the Lifecycle, to increase their weights by 10 Ks. Today, like any other day past or to come, Bob and Richard were unaware of their audience. To them, the gym was less a place to see and be seen as it was their sanctuary where they could dissolve the pressures of work or relationships and simply enjoy their easy friendship which spanned well over a decade. And keep their bodies in peak condition too, of course.

      Over the gush of the shower, the waft of shampoo-conditioner and the clatter of lockers, Bob picked up where Richard had left off.

      ‘Have you phoned her?’

      ‘Who?’

      ‘Who-my-arse!’

      ‘Sort of.’