Chapter 30
30
Connor wondered if any journalism assignment between now and his retirement would ever be as weird as this one. Turning up at a glamorous apartment with toiletries, a couple of suits, his gym trainers and a coat, intended for one evening’s display only. The very Manc-sounding taxi driver said: ‘Got serious ’as it?’ nodding up at the address and down at Connor’s clutter, and he said: ‘Something like that.’
He was dreading tonight, somewhat. It was one thing to perform an assumed identity in the melee of a party and another to lie directly into two people’s faces all evening. As if a dinner party with strangers would be easy at the best of times, and this one would require him to safety check his every utterance as it left his alcohol-marinaded brain via his mouth.
Bel answered the door, music in the background, St Vincent maybe? Her hair piled up in a mound on her head and wound round, like rope on a bollard. She had a dab of flour on her cheek like she’d been styled as the kooky girl in a sitcom.
‘Before you give me one of your looks about my outfit, I will be getting changed,’ she said, wiping at her face and gesturing at her baggy T-shirt and clinging leggings, with a striped apron over the top, tied tight enough to cinch her waist. Connor could imagine, in fact, with the way it simultaneously concealed and revealed her figure, that some men would be very into it. Luckily he wasn’t some men.
‘One of my looks?’ Connor said, mildly perturbed.
‘Yes, one of your Dear God Who Got Her Ready winces.’
‘Wow, now my face is in the dock for silent crimes,’ Connor said and she laughed.
He’d styled it out, but actually he was unsettled. She was right in what she’d said last weekend– he’d been way more obvious dispensing disapproval than he thought. And if it had been so evident, Bel’s hostile response to him might be more … explicable?
‘Will what I’m wearing be OK?’ He gestured to a navy jumper and black jeans.
‘Absolutely.’
‘I’m going to unpack my scenery props,’ he said, as Bel returned to a large lump of meat in a double-handled roasting tin on the kitchen island.
‘Do it,’ she said, wielding a pepper grinder. ‘Treat the place as if you live here. Make a mess.’
‘You want me to piss on the floor by the loo? Message understood.’
Bel guffawed. It occurred to Connor she enjoyed laddish humour in a way women he’d previously known had not. That was journalism for you, coarsening to the soul. (He could hear Aaron saying, ‘Ponce.’ And Bel saying, ‘Chauvinist.’ Both justified on this occasion.)
Connor stamped up the spiral metal stairs and unzipped his duffle bag in the immaculate bedroom. The exposed red brick in this place made him feel like he was in a late-night member’s club, and territorially marking a female colleague’s sleeping quarters with stray possessions was deeply odd.
Bel’s bed was a football pitch-sized piece of furniture with a black headboard and a collection of about eight jute-coloured pillows of varying sizes, arranged in rows, hotel style. The wrinkle-free coverlets were in shades of ‘shingle beach’. A trio of framed black-and-white photographs above depicted quintessential Manchester scenes of yesteryear: kids on cobbles playing under gas lamps, grimy, smoke-belching chimneys, the one of Ena Sharples in a headscarf standing on a balcony, looking out over a monochrome 1960s Salford.
He knew the décor wasn’t Bel’s choice, but what a strange and somehow appropriative juxtaposition: industrial poverty as style accessory in your grand-and-a-half a month shag pad.
Connor wandered between the built-in wardrobes and the bathroom, depositing relevant bits and bobs.
‘Your en suite,’ Connor said, appearing back downstairs to the scent of lemon and garlic in the air. ‘Astonishing. It’s huge. I always think of wet rooms as smaller spaces and you’ve got some sort of beautiful, tiled sanitorium. With a walk-in shower and copper slipper bath.’
‘Nuts, isn’t it,’ Bel said, wiping hair out of her face with her elbow. ‘It’s the distressed silvered mirrors I like best. They take six to seven years off you.’
‘You’re free to be impressed that I’ve chosen a side of the bed and left two books, cufflinks, a spare watch and a glass of water on the table. Impeccable staging.’
‘Oh, the glass of water. Chef’s kiss,’ Bel said.
‘I went for the bulkiest clothes so if they snoop the wardrobes on a tour, it looks full.’
‘Yeah, it occurred to me on a quick scan they’ll not be assessing ‘my things versus man things’ ratio so a few pairs of shoes and a suit and tie, we’re good.’
‘My thoughts too. No need to turn it into my mate Dave’s flat, which is like a terrorist cell’s hideout with a PlayStation.’
‘Hahahaha.’
‘What’s the plan for this evening?’ Connor said. ‘Both meanings. I could do with a sit rep on the iPad one, as well as the menu. What can I do to help?’
‘OK, if you want to get a seat here …’ Bel ushered him onto a stool at the kitchen island. She set down, in turn, a chopping board, knife, a packet and two jars. ‘Cut this cheese into cubes, then these peppers into strips, and we can bung olives on the cocktail sticks and call it pinchos. Pile ’em up and I’ll find the serving platter.’
‘Got it.’
‘As for the main plan, the mission tonight is try to get them to talk about the Airbnb. It’s not impossible they’ll say “hey, don’t pass it on but the Mayor uses it as a bonking shop”, and boom, there’s the story. There’s the baby delivered into our lap.’
‘Not impossible but also mad on their part? As facilitators?’
‘Yeah, but it’s gossip. Never underestimate how much people like to gossip, something I learned doing the podcasting.’
Bel’s phone on the counter started flashing. She mouthed: Amber and answered.
‘Hi there!’ Bel’s body language had changed. Connor remained impressed at her versatility.
‘Uh huh … eesh, tricky … oh God! That’d test any guest’s popularity. No, definitely, bring her! I’ll risk my soft furnishings and Connor will love her … Honestly– promise, she’ll be on his lap all night. Yep, seven, see you then.’
She rang off.
Connor frowned.
‘I’m being pimped out now?’
‘Gertie, their pug dog, is suffering terrible separation anxiety and did a dump on her babysitter’s Persian rug as they tried to leave. I said you knew dogs and you’d take it all in your stride.’
‘You’ve offered me up to be shat on?’
‘Your view of the Manchester internship experience in a nutshell, am I right?’
Connor laughed. ‘You said that, not me.’
God, he’d had no poker face at all.