The Immaculate Read online

  “Thanks,” said the woman, and did so with a sigh of relief.

  “Have you been shopping?” he asked, gesturing at the large canvas—obviously heavy—shoulder bag that she dumped on the floor by her side.

  The woman ran a slim hand through her short black hair; Jack loved the way the glossy hair fell back into place in the wake of her raking fingers.

  “No, I’m a relief teacher. I’ve been taking a class of nine year olds all morning in Kilburn. Absolute horrors. I dread to think why their normal teacher’s off school. Probably knife wounds or head injuries or maybe they let her off lightly with a nervous breakdown.”

  “Oh dear,” said Jack. “You don’t have to go back this afternoon, do you?”

  “No, thank God. I’ve been there every morning this week. Hopefully by Monday their usual teacher will be back.”

  He nodded and gave a sympathetic smile and tried to think of something else to say. He was saved from having to do so by the arrival of his main course. The waitress gave the woman a menu and took her order for a pineapple juice. Jack added pepper, chili seeds and parmesan to his food and began to eat.

  Normally he relished this meal, but today he felt self-conscious. One errant strand of tagliatelle and his chin would be smeared in greasy sauce. Not that it really mattered. Half an hour from now he would leave the restaurant and never see the woman again. All the same he ate his meal slowly and carefully, taking pains to ensure that nothing slid from his fork at just the wrong moment.

  “That looks good,” the woman said. “I don’t think I’ve ever had that before.”

  Jack looked up at her, swallowing quickly. “It is good,” he said. “I usually have it when I come here. I always arrive determined to try something different, but this is so tasty that as soon as I see it on the menu I have to order it.”

  The woman laughed. Her tongue was small and pink, her teeth very straight and white; Jack wondered what it would be like to kiss her. “I’m just the same,” she said. “I always go for the seafood pizza and side salad. Maybe we ought to swap meals just to be more adventurous.”

  Jack shook his head. “Thanks, but I couldn’t. Not seafood.”

  “You don’t like it?”

  “I don’t know how anyone can. All those tentacles and unidentifiable rubbery bits.”

  “You don’t know what you’re missing. Fried squid in garlic butter. Absolutely delicious!”

  “I’ll take your word for it.”

  “No, no, I’m serious. Look, if I order a seafood pizza will you promise to try a bit?”

  Jack pulled a face. “No,” he said apologetically. “I couldn’t, honestly.”

  The woman looked at him with a half-smile on her face. She was very beautiful. Jack had to make a conscious effort not to gaze at her for too long. Her eyes were large and dark. She had little smile lines around her mouth. Jack would have loved to have been able to reach out and stroke her face just to feel whether her skin was as soft as it looked.

  “Well, that’s very narrow-minded of you if you don’t mind me saying so,” she said, but her tone was light, almost playful.

  Jack shrugged. “I know. I’d love to try lots of different foods, but something in here”—he tapped his head—“won’t let me.”

  “Perhaps you need a psychiatrist,” she suggested teasingly.

  “Ah, zo you sink my food phobias are buried deep in my subconscious?” he said, narrowing his eyes to complement his comic Freudian voice.

  “Could be. Did your parents ever used to beat you around the head with baby octopuses?”

  Jack tried to laugh, but her question, asked in fun, was too close to home and it emerged as a hard and hollow sound. He shrugged and sat up straight as though pulling back from the game. He twirled his fork in the tagliatelle and lifted it to his mouth.

  “I’m sorry, did I say something wrong?” the woman asked.

  Jack looked at her, re-establishing the eye contact he had broken abruptly when she’d mentioned his parents. She looked a little confused and genuinely concerned.

  “No,” he said with what he hoped was a convincing smile. “It’s just . . . no, it’s okay, forget it.”

  She was silent, as though uncertain whether to apologise or change the subject. The waitress arrived to take her order and the woman said, “I’ll have what he’s having. With a side salad.” When the waitress left, she said, “See? I’m being adventurous.”

  Jack glanced up at her and saw she was grinning at him. He grinned back. The awkwardness between them passed.

  “Have you ever tried sushi?” the woman asked, swirling the remains of the juice in her glass.

  “An editor took me to a Japanese restaurant once,” Jack replied. “It was a disaster. I hated everything.”

  “Jeez.” She rolled her eyes. “You’re a real fussy eater, aren’t you?”

  “No, I’m not,” he said indignantly.

  “Yes, you are. What do you mean, editor? Do you work in publishing?”

  The abrupt change of subject threw Jack. He hadn’t realised he’d said editor until she pointed it out to him. Shit, now he’d have to explain that he was a writer. People tended either to get all starry-eyed when he talked about his work or they treated him like a freak. Some of his friends still could not accept that writing was his job, that it was what he did for a living. Sometimes they would say, “Hey, Jack, I’ve got a day off on Thursday. Do you fancy a game of squash?” If he told them he had too much work to do, they would look puzzled for a moment and then say, “Work? Oh, you mean writing your stories. Yeah, but you can do that any time, can’t you?”

  “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

  “Pardon?” said Jack.

  “Whether you work in publishing. If it’s a secret it doesn’t matter.”

  “Oh . . . no. Sorry, I was miles away. I . . . sort of work in publishing.” He leaned forward a little and subconsciously lowered his voice. “Actually, I’m a writer.”

  The woman looked at him a moment as though waiting for him to elaborate, then she replied, “You mean a working writer? You do it full-time?”

  Jack nodded.

  “That’s great. What do you write?”

  “Well . . . mainly horror, fantasy, science-fiction . . . that kind of stuff.”

  He expected her to recoil, to turn up her nose; it was the reaction he got from most people. However, she said again, “That’s great. What name do you write under?”

  He always hated this bit. He would say his name and she would give him a blank look and there would be embarrassment all round. “Jack Stone,” he said quietly.

  “You’re joking! Oh my God, I read Song of Flesh earlier this year. I liked it so much I went out and bought Bleeding Hearts and read that, too. And now I can’t wait for Consummation to come out in paperback. November, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” said Jack, surprised and delighted. “Beginning of November. I think Cormorant want to cash in on the Christmas market.”

  “Cormorant?”

  “My publisher.”

  “Oh, yeah, right.”

  The woman beamed at him and Jack smiled back. He hoped she wasn’t going to get all reverential. He lowered his eyes to his plate and scooped up a forkful of chicken and tagliatelle. The sauce was beginning to congeal a little. As he raised the fork to his mouth, the waitress arrived with the woman’s food. Jack glanced up, and a sauce-laden gobbet of chicken slid off his fork and into his lap. “Oh, shit,” he groaned. The creamy sauce left a white smeary trail on the crotch of his jeans. Opposite him he could hear the woman trying to stifle her giggles.

  “Bloody hell,” said Jack when the waitress had gone, “I knew that would happen.” He wiped at his crotch as surreptitiously as he could with a wad of napkin.

  “Never mind. What’s a few stains between friends?” She raised a piece of chicken to her lips and began to chew it daintily. God, thought Jack, she’s gorgeous.

  “Not exactly cool though, is it?” he
said ruefully.

  “Thank goodness. People who think they’re cool are normally utter prats.”

  Jack shrugged. Probing in what he thought was not an unsubtle way, he asked, “I’ll bet I’m not quite what you expected, though, am I?”

  The woman raised dark eyes to look at him. “How do you mean?”

  Jack reddened a little. “Well . . . my books are . . . I mean, they’ve been described as . . . sort of . . . you know . . . nicely written, subtle, complex . . . evocative, sensual, all that kind of stuff. And yet look at me: a clumsy oaf who throws food all over himself.”

  The woman had stopped eating and was looking at Jack half-smilingly, waving her fork in the air. “Are you fishing for sympathy or compliments?”

  Jack felt his blush deepening. “Oh, Christ. See what I mean? Subtle as a house brick. I think I’ll just crawl under this table until you’ve gone.”

  The woman put another forkful of food in her mouth. Chewing, she said, “I’ll tell you what my mental image of you was, shall I?”

  “Oh God, this’ll depress me.”

  “No, it won’t. Don’t put yourself down so much.”

  Jack pushed his plate aside, folded his arms on the table and leaned forward. “Sorry,” he said. “Go on then. I’m listening.”

  The woman smiled. “Okay.” She looked thoughtful for a moment and then said, “I thought you’d be taller.”

  “Oh dear.”

  She ignored the interruption. “I thought you’d be . . . gangly, with short blond hair receding at the front, a thin face, little round glasses. I thought you’d dress more formally than you do. I thought you’d be . . . quietly confident, intellectual, very sensitive, very aloof. I even had a feeling you might be gay.”

  “Really?” said Jack, breaking into a grin. “Why?”

  She thoughtfully drew back her lips and licked her upper teeth. Jack thought again how gorgeous she was. He could quite happily stay here all afternoon talking to this woman. He was beginning to feel very relaxed, very comfortable, in her presence.

  “Because of the sensuality, the sensitivity, in your work. Despite some of the nasty stuff that happens, your good characters are very gentle, very caring. Through your work I imagined you having this shell around you, keeping publicity at arm’s length, but inside I thought you’d be like your good characters—very tender, very, very gentle.”

  She’d cupped her hands while saying this and brought them up to her chest as though she was holding this inner core of gentleness in the form of a delicate flower. Jack felt strangely moved. He wanted to reach across the table and hug her.

  “Sorry to shatter your illusions,” he said, smiling to show he was only half-serious.

  She raised her eyes heavenward. “There you go, putting yourself down again. You may not be how I imagined, but that doesn’t mean I’m disappointed.”

  “Doesn’t it?”

  “Of course not. You’re hunkier looking for a start, and you’re much friendlier and more approachable than I thought you’d be.”

  Jack gave his soppiest grin. “Shucks, thanks.”

  “But don’t take that as a chat-up line,” she warned him. “I’m not some fame-hungry groupie, you know.”

  Jack laughed and she laughed along with him, causing a few people to turn and look at her. Jack hoped they thought she was his girlfriend or wife. He hoped they were envious.

  “Hey,” he said suddenly, “I don’t even know your name.”

  “Gail,” she said and held out her hand for him to shake. “Gail Reeves.”

  Jack took the hand. Her skin was smooth and as warm as it looked. He would have liked to have maintained this contact for a while, but he released the hand almost as soon as he had touched it, as if concerned his desire would somehow translate itself to her.

  “Very pleased to meet you,” he said with mock formality. “Would you care to join me in a cup of coffee?”

  “Do you think there’ll be room for both of us?”

  “Oh God, I was hoping you wouldn’t say that.”

  She laughed and apologised. Over coffee Gail asked Jack more questions about his work. She was intelligent and witty and genuinely interested without being overawed, and he found after a while that he was actually enjoying talking about himself. He asked her about herself, too, and discovered she owned a flat in Tottenham, five minutes walk from Seven Sisters tube station. She was twenty-eight years old, had been a relief teacher for four years, was an avid cinema-goer, loved reading though was so busy she only managed one book a month (though she had read Song of Flesh in less than a week!), and ate out more than she could really afford to. Jack wondered if she had a boyfriend; she didn’t mention one and the traditional engagement/wedding finger was ringless. He couldn’t remember the last time he had hit it off with someone so quickly. Certainly after only an hour in this woman’s company he’d established more of a rapport with her than he’d ever managed with Carol. Despite his intention to remain unattached, Jack found himself attempting to pluck up the courage to ask Gail for her address or phone number. He spent an agonizing twenty minutes trying to contrive a situation whereby he could do so before she conveniently provided him with one.

  They had returned to the subject of his latest novel, Consummation, which had been published in hardback but would not be released in paperback for another six months. Gail had asked Jack to tell her what the book was about. “Whet my appetite,” she’d said, “but don’t give anything away.”

  “You don’t want much, do you?” he said, smiling, and then had launched into a stumbling, long-winded explanation of the themes and ideas behind the book. Usually the question, “What’s your book about?” made him want to run in the other direction. Jack thought all plots, especially of the books he wrote, sounded incredibly silly when summarised. It was how they were written that brought them alive, that made the outrageous credible.

  “Pretty dumb, huh?” he said ruefully when he had finished.

  But Gail’s eyes were shining. “No,” she said, “it sounds wonderful. Oh, wow, I can’t wait to read it.”

  Jack saw the opening he had been waiting for suddenly appear, a great gash of light in his mind’s eye, and he went for it before it could close up again. “Tell you what,” he said, hoping his motives would not seem as transparent to Gail as they seemed to him, “as you’re so enthusiastic, why don’t I send you a copy of the hardback, then you won’t have to wait another six months?”

  She stared at him, dark eyes wide and breathtakingly appealing, and then slowly her lips spread into a stunning grin. Jack felt that light must be blazing from that grin, brightening the whole restaurant. She said, “Oh, wow, that would be lovely.” Then a small frown appeared. “But I can’t ask you to do that. You must think I’m incredibly pushy. I wasn’t trying to drop hints, you know.”

  Jack shook his head, feeling a little guilty. “I never thought you were. Really, I’d love to send you a book. I’ve got loads at home. It’s not as if you’re depriving me of my only copy.”

  This wasn’t strictly true. Of the dozen complimentary copies that Cormorant had sent him, Jack had only three left. But that’s okay, he told himself. He’d be fine with one for people to look at and one to keep on the shelves in pristine condition, and it wasn’t as if he couldn’t get more if he needed them.

  “Okay then,” she said, “if you’re sure. You’ll need my address, won’t you?”

  “It would help,” Jack said, “unless you want me to drop the package at some secret location?”

  Gail rewarded him with another stunning smile and wrote her address in tiny neat letters in his notepad. Jack zipped the pad into the inner pocket of his leather jacket, and five minutes later he and Gail paid their bills, said their good-byes and went their separate ways.

  Jack felt certain he would never see her again. When he arrived home the first thing he did was write a brief note to her that read, “Dear Gail, Thank you for brightening up my lunchtime. Here’s the book I promised yo
u.” He held his pen poised hesitantly over the page for a moment before signing, “Love, Jack.” Trying to make it look casual but as legible as possible, he then printed his address and telephone number in the top right-hand corner of the page. Only then did he listen to his answering machine, which contained a single message from Frank apologising for not turning up.

  “That’s okay, Frank,” Jack said, looking out of the window at the bright blue sky and feeling very good inside. He took one of his three copies of Consummation down from the shelf. “That’s very okay indeed.”

  He was disappointed, but not entirely surprised, when the following week passed without even an acknowledgement from Gail that she had received his book. Then on Friday evening, at twenty-five past six, the telephone rang. Jack was lying in the bath, snoozing. Beside him was a square wicker basket into which he dumped his dirty washing, and on top of the wicker basket was an empty mug that had contained tea, a half-eaten packet of digestive biscuits, a collection by Robert Aickman called Powers of Darkness (which was, in fact, one of the secondhand books that he had bought the previous Friday), and the telephone, the long lead of which snaked out into the hall. Jack came fully awake on the second ring. His arm and hand came out of the bath like a brontosaurus in miniature, water streaming from it. He quickly towelled the hand dry and snatched the phone up. “Hello,” he said.

  “Is that Jack Stone?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Hello, Jack. This is Gail here. Gail Reeves. Remember, we met last week in the restaurant?”

  As if he would forget! “Gail, hi. Of course I remember. How are you?”

  “Very well, thank you. You?”

  “Oh . . . fine. Listen, Gail, did you get the book?”

  “Yes, I did. Thank you so much. I was so thrilled. Actually that’s why I’m ringing. I’m sorry I didn’t ring earlier, but I wanted to read it before I spoke to you again.”

  “Oh, right,” Jack said. He felt a little surge in his heart. So she had intended to ring him right from the beginning! It wasn’t just guilt or politeness that had prompted this call.

  “I thought it was superb,” she said. “I really did. Your best one yet. I actually cried when the little boy died.”