Working It Out. Alex George

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      ‘Not much,’ said Kibby. ‘Doesn’t need to. He’s fantastically rich. His father owns an extremely successful detergent manufacturing business.’

      ‘Very nice.’

      Kibby leaned towards Johnathan, a small heap of lasagne balanced on her fork. ‘What we tend not to mention is that Daddy’s business has recently been castigated in the national press for committing some of the worst ecological industrial abuse in the country, despite repeated fines and warnings from the authorities. Daddy has taken the view that it is more economical to pay the fines than to change the manufacturing process and institute a clean-up operation to rectify the damage he’s already caused.’

      ‘But he can’t do that,’ said Johnathan.

      ‘You can,’ said Kibby, ‘if you indulge in a little “greasing of the palms of corrupt officials”.’

      ‘Oh,’ said Johnathan. He looked up the table at Gavin. ‘Presumably he’s turned his back on his father’s business in disgust.’

      ‘Not exactly. Gavin’s dad wouldn’t give him the sort of job that he felt he deserved. Gavin thought that three years of doing absolutely nothing at university qualified him for a position on the main board. When his father offered him a position as production supervisor in the Coventry factory, Gavin had a bit of a tantrum. Hence the railing against the evils of capitalism.’

      ‘Sour grapes.’

      ‘As sour as they come.’

      ‘So has he severed paternal links in his pursuit of the life of the righteous?’ asked Johnathan. He poured some more wine into Kibby’s glass, and then his own. He noticed that the bottle he had brought was not on the table.

      Kibby snorted. ‘Of course not. The detergent business might be morally reprehensible and it might serve to perpetuate the interests of the rich over those of the under-privileged, but it comes in handy to pay for the flat in Chelsea and the insurance premiums on the Porsche.’

      Johnathan’s eyebrows shot up. Kibby burst out laughing.

      Her laugh was extraordinary. It was not remotely what Johnathan had expected. He had imagined a light, crustless cucumber sandwich of a laugh. What he heard was more a pie and gravy with dollops of mash laugh. It wouldn’t have been out of place in a working men’s club in Macclesfield on cabaret night. It ripped through everyone else’s conversations like a cyclone. It was wonderful.

      ‘And you,’ said Johnathan, after the cyclone had died away. ‘Are you one of us or one of them?’

      ‘Not sure,’ said Kibby. ‘Gavin would doubtless say I was one of you.’

      ‘What do you do? The suspense is killing me.’

      ‘I work for a film production company.’

      ‘Sounds glamorous.’

      ‘Ha. Not really. I make the trailers you see in the cinemas.’

      ‘The trailers for the films?’

      ‘Yup. I get presented with two hours of dross and have to cut it down to two minutes of interesting and exciting footage which is going to fool people into spending their hard-earned cash to go and see it.’

      ‘Sounds quite a job,’ said Johnathan sincerely. It sounded a lot more fun than drafting legal agreements. ‘To capture the essence of a film in that amount of time must be a challenge. Presumably you really need to understand the film, get under its skin and live its, sort of, quiddity.’

      ‘Not really,’ said Kibby. ‘You just take the best jokes and the most violent bits, and stick them together. And if there’s any nudity, you put it all in. Tits sell.’

      ‘Oh,’ said Johnathan.

      ‘Basically, it’s incredibly rare that there’s anything worth watching in a film which wasn’t in the trailer. I get to act as a sort of crap filter, if you like. Of course on occasions the films are so awful that I have to stick crap in the trailers too. Would you mind reaching over and passing me that enormous phallic thing, please?’

      Johnathan reached for the pepper grinder. ‘What do you think, Libby,’ he said, turning to his right. ‘Do you like films?’ Libby had been staring vacuously into space having demolished her walnut-sized portion of lasagne in a matter of seconds.

      ‘I don’t go for films much,’ said Libby.

      ‘Christ, what a monstrosity,’ said Kibby, as she struggled to control the pepper grinder.

      ‘That sort of thing makes men feel terribly inadequate,’ said Johnathan lightly.

      Kibby looked at him. ‘Do you know why Topaz bought it?’ she asked.

      Johnathan shook his head.

      ‘She uses it as a sort of litmus test for prospective boyfriends.’

      Johnathan stopped eating. ‘Go on.’

      ‘Basically, if Topaz can’t decide whether or not she’s going sleep with someone, she invites him home and cooks for him. At the relevant moment, she plonks this thing down on the table in front of him. And if he makes a remark about the grinder resembling a large penis, she won’t sleep with him.’

      Johnathan swallowed.

      ‘Topaz’s theory is that if they make that sort of fatuous remark that means they’re either hopelessly unoriginal or have very small dicks, or possibly both. Are you all right?’

      Johnathan looked stricken. That was it. This was why. He even remembered the moment. He had thought he was being rather witty at the time. He stared blankly at his plate.

      ‘Hey, you two,’ called Topaz from the other end of the table. ‘Stop canoodling, you flirts. Have some salad instead.’

      

      A few hours later the party had moved to Topaz’s sitting room, where people were drinking coffee. A smog of cigarette smoke hung over the room. The conversation had veered between a variety of obscure and unrelated topics. Kibby, Johnathan noticed, took little part in it, preferring instead to sit back and listen.

      Kibby wasn’t exactly pretty. Not in the same way as Topaz. (Not many people were as pretty as Topaz, and those who were didn’t get invited to dinner.) She had big, unfeminine eyebrows, which Johnathan liked. She had laughter-lines stretching in tiny deltas away from the edges of her eyes. Her nose was a bit flat at the top. She had a large mouth. Overall, Johnathan thought, she was all right.

      Gavin got up to go. He had not spoken another word to Johnathan since their opening exchange. He surveyed the room with a supercilious air. ‘Lift, anyone?’ Sibby and Libby stuck up their hands together, as if they were being worked by the same puppeteer. There was a general murmuring and shifting of bodies and suddenly everyone was standing, muttering their excuses and preparing to go in that odd way people do at the end of parties, as if they had just been waiting all along for someone else to mention leaving first.

      ‘Right then,’ said Topaz, ‘let’s form a leaving committee. Where did you put your coats?’ She got up and strode purposefully СКАЧАТЬ