The Promise

The Promise Pt. 01 of 4

If Vanity Fair's Becky Sharp reappeared in the modern world as an ageing rock chick affecting the gravitas of a Whitehall mandarin, she could possibly be mistaken for the heroine of this story. But she'd have to work hard to be as unpleasant.

Our story

is set

in London in 1992.

Mobile telephony, Internet based communications,

and digital photography were all things which

effectively did not exist

for the greater mass of people. Another aspect of these bygone days was the calm of Sundays, due to the fact that most shops were shut in accordance with the Sunday trading laws then in force. Let's drop into the office of a dingy Further Education college at that time... on a Thursday afternoon, the day before the end of term staff party...

**********

"But will the adorable Rob be there? Pinned into the corner for a tonsil inspection by yet another hormonally challenged matron? You fairly hemmed him into one last time, Linda. I thought his young cork was going to pop, then and there."

Linda shifted her bulk, tripping across the floor of the School office like an overweight fairy in a pantomime, and posted a register in one of the pigeon holes before replying.

"Huh. Some chance of that. He's more married than the married folk that one. They have all these personal contracts, you know, him and his girlfriend; like the safe sex one."

"What's that? She teaches Secondary doesn't she?" said Ell, her spare frame stiffening awkwardly.

"Maths."

"

Maths?"

"She can play chess blindfold, so he says, with more than one opponent at the same time."

"Dear god... O brave new world, that has such people in't!"

"Anyway, she told him that if he can't keep it in his kecks

—

and he always can

—

on any amount of alcohol as well

—

he's got to promise never to do it without a condom. Oh

—

and you're not looking so

sprightly

yourself, Ell

—

but don't let that stop you having a final feel of that cute little arse before we lose it to Higher Education. Meanwhile, we stay here forever to deal with those who'd like to work in a bank, if we could only teach them how to spell it."

"What's he doing there?"

"Media Studies," snapped Christine as she filed some invoices. "Linda? While you're here? I don't suppose I could have the copies of your requisitions to Greater London Supplies? And the ones for '91?"

"I thought I gave them to you last week."

Christine peered with basilisk eyes over the horn rims of her glasses. The long bobbed hair seemed to swing forward in emphasis over the arctic landscape of her blouse.

"'Thought' isn't good enough."

"Oh well, I'll do them again then and file them in triplicate. Are you going to the staff do, Christine?"

"I was thinking about it," she said. Her heels tapped and the navy pleated skirt flicked smartly as she moved to the counter of the reception area. "I think Roy expects me."

"Yes.

I

was

thinking about it

.

I'm not so sure now..."

Once outside the School office, Linda hissed at Ell and a passing Carol:

"God that woman is intolerable."

"She's certainly picked up the essence of the role: petty despot afflicted with

folie de grandeur

; patron saint:"

"Adolf Hitler!" they chorused.

"You know how she's got those front teeth, long but not very wide?" said Carol. "I think she's like a mouse or a rat. I really do."

"A year or two ago she was picking up the phone in a cab firm," said Ell. "Now she thinks she's an arbiter of politics in FE and an expert on the caste system in the college—oh—and the country as a whole. I still don't understand why Roy appointed her."

"I'll tell you why, Ell." Carol lowered her voice in case there were any students passing by. "Blow job in the interview. You can't keep a good woman from going down."

"Sad old bag. Never mind going down; she's probably got nothing else going on," said Lin.

"Shh. Something wicked this way comes," said Ell as the office door sprang open.

"So. Just what is the price of cheese, ladies?" Christine threw this away over her shoulder as she click-clicked down the corridor away from them.

"When shall we three meet again? In thunder, lightning, or in rain?"

"No, Ell," said Carol "As you're going on the factory visit and not going to the staff do, it'll be Sunday, for our bye bye dinner for Rob."

**********

Christine lived four bus stops away from the college. Generally, she would walk, which would take her past a branch of Boots the chemist. That day, on the way home, she stood in the queue there, with a smile of inner, private contentment, as if she was certain that something very good was about to happen. In her basket lay a tube of pillarbox red lipstick, a couple of spools of photographic film in yellow Kodak boxes and a twelve pack of Durex.

**********

"I'm glad you made it on to the pub, Robert," said Roy, the following evening. "I wanted to let you know how delighted I am. Not to see the back of you

—

ha ha

—

but no, it's a great thing when you see able young people spreading their wings."

"Climbing the greasy pole of compromise, eh, Roy? You and me both."

"Shut up, you cheeky blighter. I haven't sent off your reference yet."

Roy, the Dean of school, was standing with Rob in the bustling space of the Mitre, near a table annexed by their colleagues. After the stultifying regime of the staff social, it felt close to enjoyable.

Roy's grey suit, dreary and baggy, was signalling gravitas. Rob was in his own way equally stuck, with a Marty McFly look based on denim and plaid which sat uneasily with his rolling dark Shelleyan curls. He was not making the gesture of the mud coloured tie he threw on round the lumberjack collar for the classroom.

"Well, it'll be a challenge. They get their money's worth out of junior lecturers in HE now. Gone are the days when people like my uncle Derek used to go trekking in the Himalayas all summer. Still it's a step up the ladder

—

"

"Uh surely that's 'the greasy pole of compromise'? Is your wife pleased?"

"My

partner,

Roy. Well naturally. Although we won't get the same holidays, anymore. Steph's just going up to see the grandparents now, with Randal. Get it out of the way at the start."

"Good luck anyway, Robert. Hope you'll come back to see us before you become

Dr

Cumberland—maybe in here."

A small salute and Roy turned away to continue his working of the room.

Rob's new head of department had been dealing with the dispiriting consequences of having erudite staff who were employed as lecturers, but who thought that university staff could get by with the teaching abilities of a jellyfish. Rob was therefore fortunate in his timing, as he could now point to a track record of just such abilities as others lacked, and a commitment to getting students through public exams. The Prof was prepared to cut him some slack about his current lack of attainment academically, but he knew that he'd have to put his best foot forward with the PhD and was inwardly fairly exercised about this. Rob's part time study had already put quite a lot of strain on his home life and he was anxious about the thought of even more of it.

Just then, there was a piercing laugh.

"Who's that?" said Rob to Carol.

"Some large friend of Christine, called Sam. She was waiting in here when we arrived. Bodyguard, probably. In case one of us tries to do her in."

Christine, sitting next to Sam, gave them a little wave.

"Rocking the rock chick look there, Christine," Rob yelled at her. Christine was barely recognisable in her long leopard print dress and heavily darkened eyes. She smiled and the corners of her rouged lips went up in a way that harmonised with the heart shaped line of her face.

Smiling suits you,

thought Rob, while Linda stared at her in disbelief.

Sam, who looked like Mrs Gamp, was still there at chucking out time as people started to reach for coats and bags. "Hi!" she shouted. "We're walking down towards the Green. Gets a bit mobbed down there of a Friday. Would any of you scholarly gentlemen care to accompany a couple of shivering ladies, see them home safe?"

"Looks about as helpless as Ma Barker," Linda drawled loudly. "But you go that way to catch your train don't you Rob?"

**********

"She's a dear soul, Sam. She's been a tower of strength to me since I moved back into the area. Brr! Getting a bit nippy now," said Christine, slipping her arm into Rob's for comfort.

As they walked on, it occurred to him that a casual observer might take them for a couple. He recalled from his teens and student days the sense of portent in a shared footfall when you don't know what that could lead to. For a second, he pictured the back vent on her dress open up to reveal the black seams running over her calves as she sashayed into the toilet at the Mitre.

They would make for an odd couple. Apart from anything else, she must have been at least two inches taller than him, even without heels.

"Well. Here it is: Chateau Christine. Da-da! Thank you, kind sir," she said and kissed him smartly on the cheek. "And the other one. Mwa!" He felt her breath as she crossed over to his right cheek.

She giggled. "Oh dear. I've covered you in lipstick. We'd better get that off you before you go home." She produced a tissue and started wiping, then leaned in, the better to see what she was doing, and peered at him through the large fronds of her false eyelashes. Rob felt her other hand settle softly on his shoulder, resting there for balance. "It's only a good look on babies. And what would your wife say? Mmm. What did you say that shade meant?"

"Well. Firstly my partner's gone away to the grandparents. Secondly I think I said that bright red lipstick signified 'kiss me'. Not perhaps the profoundest of insights."

"Oh that's right. You said she had. Well, I don't think you need to worry about being a bit late then. Come up for a minute and I'll get you cleaned up properly." She gestured with her head in the direction of the familiar brown bricks of an LCC block and the stairs which they then mounted to her flat.

Christine opened the front door. He followed her in and waited in the hall. Presently she returned from the bathroom with a wipe. She applied it to his cheeks with slower and slower strokes till she stopped, as if she had fallen into a reverie.

"Know what? I'm going to have a gin and tonic. Do you want a drink?"

He started to look at his watch, but he knew that without an actual timetable, trying for a Tube now would be a gamble. On the other hand if he stayed for a drink it would definitely be too late. Fuckit. It would have to be a night bus. The tide was already nearly in...

"Yes, please," he answered. Is that a favourite, G and T?"

"Yes it is. And I make them wickedly well."

"Alrighty. That I cannot refuse. One of your wicked G and Ts please. It's just as well you brought me up."

"Why's that?"

"Because I'm absolutely busting for a piss."

"Be my guest—there. And then—in here." She switched on the light in the living room and gestured at it.

After he emerged from the bathroom, he stood there scanning the room for cultural signifiers, while she bustled somewhere further into the flat.

"Well you could have put the lamps on," she said, returning and handing him his drink, proceeded to do just that. She cut the overhead and walked over, now shadowed in the lamplight.

Their eyes met as the glasses clinked. She swallowed a mouthful, and he saw the tip of her tongue, all pink as it flicked over her lips. She'd only just turned on the heating, so they kept their coats on. He noticed how the lapels and the turned up collar complemented her face, emphasising a heart shaped quality: 'The Queen of Hearts' as he'd styled her down the pub.

"That's a Dansette you've got there," he said, pointing at the suitcase styled record player.

"Yup. My faithful old music machine."

"Where did you pick it up?"

"I didn't 'pick it up'. I've had it since I was fifteen. Saved up from doing Saturdays at Woolie's. And it still works too, thanks to a little man down the road who fixes things in his front room."

"Oh. Can we play it?"

She put her drink down and went over to the machine and lifted its lid. She pulled out a small plastic crate from somewhere which once held bottles of Schweppes but was now full of 45s. Her hands flicked through, pulling out records, and she stacked her choices onto the changer and set it to play.

"It's not too bad a sound," he said to the relentless off beat of some scratchy ska record. "What is this?"

"The Wailers

—

Simmer Down. Think you could take your coat off now."

"The Wailers—that's the seventies, this must be the sixties surely?"

"It is. 1964 I think."

"Oh, I didn't know they were around in the sixties. You don't have a system then?"

"No. We had a hi-fi but my ex-husband kept that, like he kept everything else. Never really liked it. He used to play 'Dark Side of the Moon" on it. Things like that. Too brainy for me I guess."

"Huh. I don't think so."

"Well the music of my time sounds fine on the Dansette. What do you like?"

"Oh, well you know... classical, Beethoven, Brahms, all the old stuff, the Beatles, Talking Heads and that, and from now, the Pixies, Nirvana..."

"I used to like Blues bands... still do... Alexis Korner, Eel Pie Island, Crawdaddy Club, saw the Stones there... seen a lot of them playing different bands, different places before they was the Stones. Right little scholars actually. Then. More into their music than causing trouble in those days."

"Christ, Christine, you really

are

a rock chick."

How old is this woman? he wondered. Before they were the Stones... When was that? Early sixties, must be before, what, 1964? He started to calculate. 1992 minus what, 1962 say, that's thirty years. She couldn't be less than fourteen, to go to places like that. So the youngest she could be now in '92 was forty four, but it was probably more like fifty. Why did it matter?

Another record went splat on the Dansette, some sixties thing he didn't recognise; and another.

"Were you a 'mod'?"

"I wasn't a mod or a rocker, I just liked music

—

oh, come on!"

She leapt up and pulled him off the couch, as a prowling rhythm section built to declamatory horns. Her arms and hands were weaving patterns in the air around him as they danced.

"Sam and Dave: 'You Don't Know Like I Know'," she said before he could ask. She moved in close to put her mouth into his ear, as if the music were really loud. "Used to love this. Still do. Used to make me go all funny." She didn't withdraw and her hands continued to move mesmerically in the space around him. She was so close, he felt that at any time her breasts could bounce against him, something which could, at the one and same time, be both awkward but not unpleasant.

The record stopped. It was the last one on the changer. They resumed their seats and, turning towards each other on the couch, they rededicated their drinks to each other. As they clinked, her eyes met his, with a flicker of false eyelashes caked in mascara. Her spectacle of grotesque, overdone glamour had made him feel embarrassed to be linked with her when he was walking her home. Now, in private, it was suddenly different. In private, this show of jungle cat femininity was entertaining, a little bit exciting even.

No one could

have

fail

ed

to notice her,

he thought.

She made sure

of that.

But why?

"So, did I miss you snogging anyone this evening? I thought that was your party piece, getting chased round the staff do by your adoring fans."

"Oh, Ell and Linda. They like playing games. They'd make me do things like crossword clues and if they beat me, I have to pay a forfeit which seemed to always be a kiss."

"I'm a bit miffed. Not only shall I miss your charming little visits to the School office, but you're going to vanish without ever bestowing your favours on me

—

moi

—

La Christine, before you go off forever."

"I kind of admired you from afar, Christine. You do cultivate a rather forbidding persona in the workplace."

"What about now?"

"Err, no. You don't now."

"No. I mean do you fancy a snog?"

"You mean now? As in right now?"

She smiled, the lipstick spreading around her teeth, laughter lines showing around the blue eyes. Suddenly she glided up the couch and took his glass and placed it with hers on an occasional table standing by.

"Come on. Before you vanish and leave us in sorrow," Her voice dropped in pitch and volume as if they were sharing a confidence. Her mouth hovered near his.

"Christine, that was at staff parties. This is in your home."

"Don't worry. I'm very discreet," she said, then leant over slowly and planted a kiss on his lips. He sort of 'hrrumphed' as if he was reluctantly humouring her and she placed another, and another, as if falling into a rhythm. He found this quite soothing, rather sleep-making in fact and he started to expect them.

But then she paused, staring into his eyes for a second or two before moving in again very slowly. Her hand seemed to have appeared on his shoulder out of nowhere, and it cruised round the back of his neck. He could feel an electric trail where her finger tips had brushed his skin, then the touch of her lips on his again. To his utter disbelief, she was pushing her tongue slowly through them.

Her grip on him was really strong, and she caught him as he made to turn away. She held his head and forced her tongue right in, eyes wide open all the time. Quite quickly, she seemed to take possession of him and his resistance fell away, as her tongue filled his mouth. Her other hand swept slowly up his body, then paused where his shirt was buttoned at the top. His flesh tingled and he fell into expectation.

Then her eyes flicked up and suddenly she broke, and fell away back into the couch. "I've shocked you into silence. I didn't know I was that good."

"Wow. Err... I wasn't expecting..."

"Tongues?"

"Err well yes... I mean we're in a private residence."

"Takes two to tongue go. Hah! Oh I see what you mean: we don't have a chaperone to keep us in line. Rob," she looked at him reproachfully, "we're both over 18... in my case considerably over it... But you've got to admit I'm a good kisser."

"Yes, almost too good—no," he snorted with the laughter of embarrassment as she made to approach him again. "No. That's enough."

She sat back, relaxed and indulgent, as if she were overseeing a naughty child. "I don't see how you can be too good at anything. I've been told I speak in tongues... Don't you kiss your wife like that?"

He felt more than a bit awkward, felt bad, really. He'd rebuffed her, when all she wanted to do was to let her hair down with a bit of horseplay. He had been on the point of leaving. But now, if he did, it would look like a snub and he felt uncomfortable about that.

He was also entertained and somewhat flattered by the fact that the glacial Queen of the Office, not only

could

let her hair down, but had chosen him to demonstrate it.

She must have been waiting for me to leave,

he thought, while wondering when he was going to find the right moment to get out of there.

Christine had leaned back on the other side of the couch, arms folded, her legs extended. The change in body language signified another chapter in the conversation.

"Rob, what's this about this 'arrangement' that you and your wife have?"

"Arrangement?"

"Hey, I know I'm a nosy bitch but... I overheard something you were saying earlier about an arrangement

—

at the pub."