Romance is Dead

Chapter 7 Bess #2

"Never underestimate the sexual experience of your father's eccentric aunt. When I lose my virginity, I want it to be really memorable."

I do laugh at that. "Wait. You are kidding, right?"

"About which bit?"

"About your virginity. Not about letting Pauline Westerton-Whatsherface ride you like an angry cowgirl."

Ed holds his hands up in a 'who knows?' gesture. After a pause, he says, "Angry? Why angry?"

"She just looks like someone who'd get turned on over hostile negotiations."

He nods and says with solemnity, "Just my kind of lady."

We drink in silence for a minute.

Eventually Ed says, "So, what are you going to do with the letter?"

I have absolutely no idea. I want to keep it, but it's not mine to keep.

"Hold onto it until we can find out who it belongs to?

The person who threw it away can't be the owner.

You'd treasure something like that. It would be an heirloom.

Something precious that belonged to your parents or grandparents. "

"Or great-grandparents. The war ended eighty years ago."

"True."

“What’s your plan to find out who they are?”

“Seeing as you won’t help with the CCTV footage, I guess I just have to wait until they return, having seen the error of their ways. Or hope someone who knows who it belongs to sees my TikTok. Both seem like a long shot.”

"I don't know. How viral did the video go?"

"Imagine the population of China. Now imagine them with a child policy last seen in Catholic countries."

"That big, huh?"

"No word of a lie."

"I smell a pantload."

I grin into my glass before taking a sip. "I love the colourful way you call me out on my bullshit. Not many other people do."

"Call you out or do it creatively?"

"Both."

Ed smiles. "Well, it's my pleasure. There's just so much bullshit to choose from, Bess. You spoil me with the generosity at which you deliver it."

If he were closer, I'd give him a playful punch on the arm. "You find it endearing."

He settles lower into the lounger. "Unfortunately, I do."

After a beat, I say, "All I know for certain, is if someone wrote me a letter like that, I'd probably be in love with them in a heartbeat. Vetting be damned."

Ed chokes on his mouthful of gin.

"Are you okay? Want me to slap you on the back?"

He holds up a hand and shakes his head. When he has control of his breathing, he wipes his eyes. "Sorry. I'm, ah, just shocked to hear you express the sentiments of 'love' and 'willingness' in the same sentence."

"You can't be surprised. I've been lobbying for men to show this kind of romantic behaviour since I've known you."

"And yet, here I am." He pushes himself out of his lounger.

"Are you leaving already?"

"Yep," he wheezes out, followed by a cough.

"Really? You're not going to pass some droll comment about my aspirations, or offer a treatise on men not needing to go to extraordinarily lengths to prove themselves, or something? It's like I've scared you off."

Ed's smile looks brittle. "No. I just...have things to do before our art group tonight."

"Okay," I say without bothering to hide the suspicion in my voice. "Bye then."

He walks off with a controlled casualness that I'm ninety-nine percent sure is one hundred percent affected.

I offer the evening air a "Huh" and wonder if something is going on with Ed, or if I'm reading into things. Surely he'd tell me. I'm his best friend, after all.

I dismiss it. Ed is exactly the kind of person who's a proponent of clear and honest communication. If there was none, then there's no issue.

I close my eyes and drift back into the world of the letter.

The curved ridges of sand, miles of smooth undulations, look almost sensual. Like the naked body of a sleeping woman. Of you.

It's hot stuff. Poetic, but undeniably hot.

The sun lounger beside me squeaks.

"Did you forget something?" I say without opening my eyes. "Or could you not bear the thought of being without my company for the next hour and a half?"

My nostrils are assailed with the unapologetically bold aroma of a rugged, crisp blend of caramalised sugar and cardamom with notes of grapefruit and bergamot a split second before Theodore Pinkerton laughs out, "Ah, neither?"

I whip my head around. "What are you doing here?"

He flashes me his hyena grin. "I own most of the building, chica.

Ergo, I am entitled to be present in its presence.

" He waggles his head like he's imparted the witticism to end all witticisms and a bolt of anger flashes through me that feels at once totally reasonable in its presence and totally unreasonable at its intensity.

"Not without giving the tenant sufficient notice, you're not."

The Odour pffs and is about to tell me that law probably doesn't apply to tenants who are also their own co-landlord, but I head him off at the pass. "I'm finished business for the day, Theo. Work is over and, ergo, any conversations about it and the premises it inhabits. Why are you really here?"

"I wanted to have a deep and meaningful without interruption from the punters or the help."

The sun disappears behind a cloud. As if things weren't already ominous.

"You're the silent landlord, remember? No 'deep and meaningfuls' are necessary."

Theo says, "That's the thing," and the high I'd been riding all day disappears from underneath me with savage suddenness. I refuse to go into freefall, but his following, "It's time to have a review," doesn't help things.

"It's not. We don't need a review. Things are ticking along nicely."

"But we could grease that tick. Get it tocking real nice."

And I know one of two things. One: This is not a review. Theo has already made up his mind about the change he wants. Two: His charitable temperament has lost its used-by date.

"There is no 'we' here, Theo. I don't need to change anything."

"Well." Theo gets up from the lounger and sits on the edge of one of the long-dormant chimneys so he can face me. "I now find myself in a position where I need to parlay." He stretches his long legs out in front of him and looks down at his shoes.

I also look at them. They look brand new. The label "Tom Ford" is designed for maximum visibility on the tongue.

"I see you've noticed my haute shoeture. Nice, huh? You seen beaters as savage as these?"

I put a lot of meaning into my silent reply.

He holds his hands up like he's looked inside my head and seen the imaginary gun I'm about to shoot him with. "Don't hit me with those stank eyes."

I break. I can't hold back the deluge building on my tongue any longer.

"'Parlay'? What the fuck is 'parlay'? Can you please stop fancying yourself as some Idris Elba character from The Wire and behave as if you are in touch with your own reality, which is being a nobby, white dude wearing trainers in chocolate-box-ville fucking Devon. "

"Aight."

He's so close to the edge of the roof. Three steps and a decent shove and I'd never have to hear his voice ever again. After the scream on the way down.

The Odour clears his throat and tries again. "Alright. Let's talk straight."

"Thank you."

He crosses his arms. "I need money."

Right. Of course he does. Which means this is the stuff of worst-case scenario imaginings for the very good thing Port Derrum artists currently have going on.

I cover my inner panic with my usual go-to around Theodore Pinkerton. Mockery. "You? Mister 'I have so much money I need to find a pet cause to patronise for the sake of my social media feed' need money?"

"Yes."

The silence that descends is leaden and extremely volatile.

"How?"

"I...made an error of judgement. And now I find myself in a bit of a financial hole."

I get up then, so I can do some good quality pacing. "You entered into a dodgy deal and now the entire artistic community in this town is going to pay the price to cover your arse?" I say, "You are not going to raise the rents," at the same time as he says, "I need to raise the rents."

I stop pacing and lock eyes with him. "Over my dead body."

"You only own thirty percent of the building, Bess. Or should I say, your business only owns thirty percent of the building. Both of us bought this building through our companies, which means I am the majority shareholder. I think I can raise the rents if I want to."

He's right. He absolutely can. And there's nothing I'll be able to do about it.

"They need to be at market rate."

"Market rate? Do you have any idea what impact that will have?

I'll have to increase the percentage the gallery takes from sales, so less money for artists.

I'll have to cut staff, so fewer jobs for artists.

The people currently living in the flats won't be able to afford the rent, so no housing for artists.

This place is the one thing propping up this community.

It'll be gone overnight. Sixty years of being the artistic centre of Devon, gone.

And all because you did some dodgy backroom deal, and you have the poor grace to come here and drop this bombshell in brand new, designer fucking shoes. "

He has the decency to allow an expression of embarrassment to pass across his features. It is fleeting, however. "I didn't do a dodgy backroom deal. Don't be presumptive. I am a gentleman."

I snort. "I've met many a true gentleman in my time, even some who earned the title and were not born into it. None of them are standing on this roof."

"Look. I'm sorry, okay? I really am. But the financial situation I now find myself in is...difficult and I need to turn a charitable investment into one that, well, behaves like a normal investment. I have no choice but to make money off this building."

"No. Go and cry to daddy instead."

Folding his arms, The Odour says, "Don't be ridiculous. I'd never cry in front of my father."

"I bet you're too scared to ask him for a bail out, because this isn't the first time."

He says nothing.

I throw my hands up in the air. "Christ. Why on earth did Olympia suggest you as someone who might be a patron?"

The Odour drops his voice. "Olympia wouldn't have known about that. The matter was between me and my father." He sniffs. "Anyway, I paid him back. I'm not a total flake whatever you may think of me."

"Sell your share then. I'll find another patron." It's complete bluster. It was difficult enough finding the first arts patron who was willing to spend a lot of money for little return. I'd have better chance at successfully terraforming a colony on Mars.

"I need to prove to my father I can manage my money in perpetuity. Selling assets to cover one's arse is short-term management."

"You'll have turned a profit."

"Not enough of one after two years."

I stop pacing and stand in front of him. "Are you really willing to risk the demise of a whole community, because you have daddy issues?"

His eyes harden. "Don't be dramatic, Bess. You'll be alright. You said turnover was up seventy percent."

"I did say that. But the crucial thing is, Theo, it needs to be to account for winter turnover running at a loss. Income is seasonal in this town. It's a very different world from your life in London."

The Odour looks down at his new shoes and says nothing, like the shame-faced fucker he should feel.

Eventually, I ask the only question left. "How long have we got?"