[Makes coffee] It’s funny to think how aggrieved I was when Pickering foisted Laurence on me in the first place. All the mags and sports sections were scrambling for unlikely literary football supporters at the time; there was a lot of pressure on; we were getting desperate; blimey, when I remember how close we got to approaching Beryl Bainbridge. And then Pickering says, “Get Laurence Swann.” He’d met him at some posh charity dinner and found out he was a Chelsea man, which was more than enough for Mr P the Publisher with his blue and white scarf. “You’ll hate him, Sue,” he said, “but I think you’ll find the readers will love him.” Which turned out to be one of those predictions that turned out a bit like the left foot thing – same words, different order. I ended up mad about him, while the readers truly loathe him. [Amused] And Jeff can’t stand him. He reads Laurence’s copy with his jaws clenched and tears in his eyes. “He’s got Celtic and Rangers mixed up, Sue! He doesn’t even understand the offside rule! The man’s a complete berk.” And I have to say, until I met him finally at the Football Media Dinner last summer, I not only thought so too, but mentioned Laurence Swann’s intolerable berkness to Pickering at every chance I got.
But then came the fateful dinner at that big Bayswater hotel, where I’d been obliged to seat him next to me, although of course it was the usual seating plan for a sports do – boy, girl, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy. Big names from the world of football milled about in expensive yet somehow awkward-looking suits. Laurence wore sea green linen and a collarless shirt and approached me looking both worried and puzzled. I suppose it must have been the out-of-context protuberances on my chest that took him aback, halfway between my neck and my waist; no one else in the vicinity appeared to possess them. “I’m Sue Tranter?” I yelled above the hubbub, extending my hand. “I invited you?” And he looked round at the ranks of tables, each groaning under the weight of booze, the place already reeking of lager, testosterone and acrid male toiletries, and drawled with an air of self-amusement, “My goodness, how VERY unlike the Booker Prize!”
And I fell in love with him. I don’t kid myself he’s in love with me because – well, because he’s a bloke, a married bloke. And there’s a few rules about relationships like this – but the main one is, if the mistress dodges past the married man’s defences, a flag goes up and the ref stops play. Jeff says I just like the fact Laurence is unavailable; the other night when we stayed late at the Plough he said the trouble with me is I’m a commitment phobe, to which I said, “Listen to Kilroy, here! And I always thought you were just an anorak with a keyboard.” There’s a bit of truth in it. But it’s because he’s out of my reach in other ways that I love him. I mean, I love him for not knowing much about football, and for writing a really stinky column about it. I love him for his weird books – magical realism; real magicalism – whatever it is, it seems to mean incredibly old South American women with names like Esmerelda suddenly being able to jump over buildings. [She obviously hasn’t read them] Oh you know. I love his voice. And he’s just so different, so OTHER, from all the other blokes I know. “How VERY unlike the Booker Prize.” I could never get him to do the Fee, Fie, Foe. In fact, when I think of Laurence, I feel quite ashamed of how much I enjoyed the Fee, Fie, Foe. Laurence has no place in the world I live in, I know that. He sent me a round-robin e-mail once and all the other names were Seamus Heaney and Peter Carey and Saul Bellow and so on. Jeff said he did it just to show off, and he was probably right, but I told him to make a note of Beryl Bainbridge’s e-mail address, because I haven’t quite given up on that idea, if I’m honest.
And the thing is, I can hardly blame Laurence for not studying football with more attention, can I? Not when, on alternate Saturday afternoons, [she’s very happy about this] when Chelsea are playing at home, Laurence hops off the tube a couple of stops early and comes all guilty and sweet to see me instead! I mean, I think this might account for that not-really-there problem that Jeff regularly detects in his copy! And it gives a whole new meaning to the expression “forty-five minutes each way”, I can tell you. [Happily coarse] Stand UP if you hate Man U! He arrives at the flat at three, I look at my watch and blow a whistle, and we go straight to bed. Which is where we stay, with Radio Five on the clock radio, for exactly an hour and three quarters, with a fifteen-minute break for cups of Bovril at half-time!
Scene Two; sound of football commentary on radio in background
Chelsea are at Southampton today; Laurence will be in Bond Street with Yolanda. “Orenz, look at diz, I vant eet!” I thought I’d do something constructive like sort my Bovril jars into expiry date order and phone my mum. It’s funny, years ago I used to have proper boyfriends I could go out with on a Saturday afternoon; I lived with Simon for twelve years, for heaven’s sake; we used to go to Heal’s and buy beautiful furniture and oh, you know, toothbrush mugs and fancy soap, and things like that. I can’t remember the last time I dithered in a soap department on a Saturday afternoon, saying, “Isn’t this lovely, darling?” and waving rose-scented Crabtree and Evelyn under my companion’s nose. [Falls into fantasy dialogue] “Smell this lovely Bronnley lemon!” “Wow.” Then we’d have coffee and go all gooey about the things we’d bought, and then go and see a really mindless film in the West End. I used to love buying things for Simon. I still see cashmere jumpers that would suit him. Whenever I see that coloured glass he collected, I still feel this urge to reach for the credit card. He used to justify buying so much of it by saying, “Of course, this is for both of us, Sue.” And then, when we split up, he copped the lot, the git.
Then I got the job as launch editor of End to End, and from then until I met Laurence, my love life was rubbish. No sex for three years, if you can believe it. No cashmere jumper purchasing. Mum says I put men off because I’m so successful, because I compete with them in a man’s world. And I say, Mum, I mean, really, sod that. I turned forty around the same time, of course, which didn’t help. The day I turned forty I actually heard my waistline go “twang”. I was staying at Mum’s having my birthday fry-up and there was this twang, and I thought, what’s that melancholy sound? Is it a faraway lift-cable snapping? Is it the cat brushing softly against my old guitar in the wardrobe? And then I tried to hold my stomach in and it just wouldn’t go, and I thought, of course. Bugger. It’s all over. Elasticated waistbands from here on in.
Mum thinks my job must be a marvellous way to meet men. And that’s certainly true. I meet thousands. But unfortunately, at the same time, they don’t really meet me. Jeff is a good mate – I mean we had the thing in the taxi but it didn’t mean anything. He rang me a couple of times afterwards and I said, “Let’s be friends” and it’s been fine. With the blokes in the office it’s all right, too: I’m a sort-of Mother Goose figure, I think. Jeff and I are mummy and daddy. But generally, in the world of football, well – there ought to be scientific studies, actually. Because you know how cats can see only movement? Well, blokes in the world of football have a very similar sort of visual refinement. They can only see women if they’ve got 22-inch waists and are dancing semi-naked on a table.
It’s absolutely true. If a woman of any other description heaves into their field of vision, the eye tells the brain to see a weird unfocused blur, while also, and this is the truly amazing bit, triggering an urgent need to discuss the sexual merits of women they have shagged and women they would like to shag, and what makes a woman shaggable, so as to offend the weird unfocused blur and make it go away. Mum said I should be careful, she read in the paper that taking an interest in football has an effect on your hormones, your testosterone goes up, you start turning into a man. And I thought, well, surely not, I’ve still got those sticky-out bits that Laurence likes. But on the other hand, if I did start to grow a long grey beard and never put the loo seat down, it might be worth it to start registering on some retinas.
Jeff rang just now. He wanted to remind me there was a documentary about Glenn Hoddle on BBC2. He said if I wanted to talk about it afterwards he’d be up till about one
, or even two. I’m beginning to think he hasn’t got enough to do with himself, our Jeff.
Scene Three: it’s a week later. The football results are on the radio, that famous voice that goes “Heart of Midlothian five” and tells the blokes it’s about 5 p.m.
So Laurence finally came round. That’s the good news. I was beginning to think I was going to have to bid some sort of symbolic farewell to my sex life – drown my whistle in the fish tank or something. So at least he showed up, which was great. Five to three I put the door on the latch and hopped into bed with the curtains drawn. Radio Five softly in the background. Everything hunky dory. I’d even had a bath. Three o’clock he puts his head round the door and says, “Sue?” and I know just from the way he says it that we’re in trouble. “Over here!” I call. Or did I growl it? I think I did. [Deep sexy voice] “Over here!” And then I see he’s got a suitcase and I shoot out of bed saying, “What’s that?” And he says, “Yolanda—” and he sits down on the edge of the bed and starts to cry.
And from then on it was ghastly. I felt trapped. What are you supposed to do when they cry? [Impatient] I mean, I know it sounds selfish, but I was looking forward to this afternoon! I’d been looking forward to it for two weeks! On Radio Five Live, Manchester United versus Newcastle. Cans laid in. Everything perfect. And now Laurence was sitting on the end of my bed snivelling into a tissue, and I thought well, I couldn’t help it, I thought honestly, is this supposed to make me fancy you? It was terribly confusing. Something Mum said kept flashing into my mind: “Sue, don’t get involved with a married man; you won’t be able to stand all the tears and heartache.” And it was true. Here I had a married man weeping all over my candlewick and I did not like it at all.
I didn’t know what to do. On the radio, Paul Scholes scored with a thirty-yard volley from Beckham, bringing his premiership total to twelve for the season. [Sing-song] “Laurence,” I said. “Laurence?” He sniffed and wiped his face. [Sing-song] “Has something happened?” I really tried to sound caring. “Is it Yolanda? Did she find out?” He nodded, still apparently too overcome with emotion to speak. [Making light] “She’ll get over it,” I said. He looked up at me like a funny old faithful doggie or something. “I told her I was in love with you,” he said, quietly. “Oh,” I said. I pulled away. “A nice cup of Bovril and we’ll sort all this out,” I said, and I went to the kitchen and shut the door.
Well, a lot of questions raced through my mind as I made that Bovril, I can tell you. Had I done anything to deserve this? Was the kitchen window big enough to climb out? Could Newcastle pull back before half-time? Was a shag still out of the question? When I went back in, Laurence had taken his clothes off and got into my bed. “I’m OK now,” he said. “Can we have a cuddle, please?” I said of course and got in beside him, kissed him on the forehead, smoothed his hair. “That sounded like a great goal from Scholes,” I said. He kissed me. He snuggled down and put his head against my shoulder. I could feel my shoulder getting a bit wet, but I didn’t say anything. This man in my bed; I wanted him, didn’t I? Why wasn’t I happy? We lay there and listened, and in the end he fell asleep. Newcastle equalised before half-time, and then Man U got a penalty in the fifty-ninth minute, which Andy Cole drove into the bottom right-hand corner.
Scene Four: the office, background clatter
Jeff’s been very odd since he heard about Laurence moving in. Sometimes I think these chestal protuberances of mine have got a lot to answer for. One minute Jeff and I are mates, the next we’re all over each other at the Christmas do, then I’m bossing him about and he’s loving it; then he’s doing a green-eyed Othello – I tell you, I don’t know where I am sometimes with blokes. Pickering’s just as bad. Sometimes I’m his token woman editor, then I’m one of the lads, then I’m a little delicate flower, then I’m a shoulder to cry on. There’s only one thing I won’t stand for, and that’s when his secretary passes on my grievances, and they miraculously stop being grievances and become “worries”. I say, tell Pickering I’m not putting up with this production schedule, and when he comes back he says, “I hear from Janine you’re worried about something.” I say, “Worried, Janine? Did I say I was worried?” But it’s ingrained in him. Pete who edits Hits-a-Million is allowed to be angry. John at Bigguns is allowed to be furious and snort coke in the lift. Gerry at Fast and Wheelie can be incandescent with rage. But Sue can’t be angry; she has to be worried. Poor old worryguts Sue just can’t sleep at night.
Of course the office found out straight away about my adulterous love-nest when Yolanda came storming in on Monday morning accusing me of stealing her husband. Not a trace of foreign accent, I’ve no idea where I got that from. She could say “Laurence” with the “L”, in fact she said it with the L several times. She also called me a bitch with a B and a whore with a W and she threw a cup of tea over me. Not a natural blonde, I think. Apparently she gave Laurence her child-bearing years, and now wishes she hadn’t. She wanted to get a look at me, find out what Laurence saw in me. I said she was welcome, but she should bear in mind I wasn’t usually drenched in tea, so make allowances. And then Jeff saw her out and told Ernie in reception not to let her in again if she tried to come back. Apparently as she was leaving she shouted something about complaining to Pickering. So I went straight up to Pickering and told him my side of the story first. I even got one of the Five-a-Side to throw some more tea over me, to enhance my cause. “Don’t worry, Sue,” he said, as I was leaving. And for once I let it pass.
The thing is, if Laurence went back to Yolanda, I really wouldn’t mind. He’s not bringing out the best in me. I had a nightmare last night about Bronnley lemons, I was buried under them, suffocating. And he’s being such a sap. One night Laurence said, “I’m so happy.” [Sigh] And I snapped, “It’ll pass.” He’s been writing stuff every day, which makes it worse. I’m not his wife! But he reads me bits in the evening about incredibly old South American women who suddenly lift donkeys in the air or give birth to iguanas while parrots form feathery rainbows above their heads. I mean, [really impatient] what’s all that about? I’m scared to go home. I go to the pub after work each night with the Five-a-Side. He phones me at the office and I don’t phone him back.
Scene Five: Saturday afternoon footie on radio, abruptly switched off, with “Oh shut up”
Well, there’s good news and bad news. Laurence left on Wednesday – that’s the good news. He went back to Yolanda, leaving me a letter saying he would always love me, he’d never met anyone like me, tear-stained, you know. And then Pickering called me in on Thursday and sacked me. There had been a tiny piece in a paper on Monday about Laurence falling prey to a vampish and busty hackette, and that was enough. “The man is unbalanced,” I objected. “He thinks having casual sex means being in love. That’s not reasonable, is it?” But sexual harassment is what Pickering called it, and seemed positively ecstatic to point out sexual harassment applied as much to women as to men. He started saying, “What’s goose for the gander” and then stopped because he couldn’t remember it. “Laurence doesn’t actually work for me,” I pointed out. “Ah, but he’s not the only person who’s complained,” Pickering said. He said I should take the money, go home, and in a couple of weeks he’d see if I wanted a less high-profile job on another title, possibly taking over the ailing magazine they set up in competition to Gardening Which – which they called Gardening What. I was dumbstruck. [Incredulous] They wanted me to save a magazine called Gardening What?
It was too much to take in. Especially when I got back to the office and found Jeff ensconced. Of course. The complainant. The snog. “Pickering has asked me to take over,” he said. “It’s much better for the magazine this way, Sue.” He emptied some feminine toiletries out of my office drawer, with the look of someone who’s never seen anything like them before. He probably thought Tampax was the name of a side in the Greek second division. He didn’t admit he’d been plotting my downfall. All he said, rather sadly, was, “You used to be really nice.”
[Radio switched on for the football results] So here I am. I just kept thinking, “How would this look if it were the other way round?” But I can’t sort that out, it’s too confusing, I just feel sort of double-crossed. There ought to be a book called Men Who Want Women to be Men, and the Women Who Go Along with It. I’ll write it if no one else will. Men do want women to be like them, you know. It’s not just Professor Higgins. And I’ve worked out why. Men want women to be more like men because then they don’t have to feel guilty about dumping on us. And then, the gits, they dump on us anyway.
[Results in background] I had a little cry last night about Laurence. But how could I let him say he loved me? [Distracted] Blimey, five-nil, that’s a turn-up. In the old days when a Bronnley lemon was a romantic highlight, it would have been nice to think I was loved. But as I said to Mum last night, I’m sorry, I’ve reached a certain age and I just can’t be vulnerable to blokes any more. I know how their minds work, Mum. I know too much about them.
[Recovers] Gardening What, I ask you. Gardening Why more like it. I’ll tell you what though. Mendelssohn got stretchered off on his first appearance this afternoon. [Laughs] His left foot was superlative, apparently; even his left leg was special. The fans were thrilled, fifteen million well spent. But after a quarter of an hour he collided with his own keeper, and his right leg broke in three places. Like pistol shots apparently. Crack, crack, crack. Fifteen minutes they got out of him; a million quid a minute. I’m wondering if I might ring Chris Eubank later. I know his number, after all.
The Pedant
ALASTAIR works in a rare book shop in central London; he is generally in despair at the stupidity of other people, and does not disguise this very well. He’s not posh; in fact, a lot of his attitude comes from the fact that he is largely self-educated. His small flat in Covent Garden is rent-controlled and full of books. He hasn’t had a girlfriend for many years. When he quotes other people, he has a tendency to give them a stupid voice.