Seven Women

'Mikey looks vaguely familiar,' Jamie said when they had retreated to Maggie's bedroom.

'Sir Michael Romans,' Maggie said. 'He's the head of one of the merchant banks. The one that Angela works for. You've probably seen him on TV. Angela is his personal assistant.' And Maggie smiled.

In the wee small hours, Jamie, naked, padded out to the kitchen to get some cold sparkling water from the fridge. 'After you, old chap,' a voice behind him said. It was Mikey. Also naked. 'We had a pizza. Anchovies. Salty little blighters. Oh, well.'

'They taste good at the time though,' Jamie said.

Mikey smiled and nodded. 'They do. Yes. Oh, well.'

At the end of the year, Maggie went out to Sydney to present a paper on The Emerging New Media at the K2 Australia conference and Jamie made his annual Christmas pilgrimage down to Dorset.

'Did you hear that Howard got remarried?' his mother said.

'No.'

'I thought that Jennifer might have mentioned it.'

'No,' Jamie said. 'But then I haven't seen her for a while. The run up to Christmas is a really busy time for them. They look after a couple of toy ranges. I'll probably catch up with her when I get back to town.'

'I'm surprised that she hasn't remarried,' Jamie's mother said. 'She's not getting any younger.'

'She's not that old,' Jamie told her. 'And, anyway, some people are just too busy,'

'Is that your excuse?'

'I can't remarry. I haven't even been married the first time,' Jamie said.

'You know what I mean,' his mother said.

When Maggie arrived back from Australia, it was with a suntan and some bad news. Well ... bad in one sense. 'They've offered me a transfer,' Maggie said. 'They've asked me to run the Melbourne office.'

'Gosh,' Jamie said.

'It would be a step up. I'm not getting any younger. It might be my last chance.'

'You must have made an impression,' Jamie said. 'When do you have to ...?'

'By the end of the month.'

Jamie sort of knew what Maggie's decision would be.

'You could come,' Maggie said. 'I'm sure that there would be agencies out in Oz tripping over themselves to have you on their team.'

Maggie went. Jamie didn't. 'Maybe at some point in the future,' he said.

For their final Fucking Friday, Maggie invited Angela to join them.

'What's happened to Mikey?' Jamie asked. 'He hasn't been around lately.'

'He's decided to pay a bit more attention to his wife. Her toy boy was that racing driver who was killed test driving for Mercedes recently.'

'Oh. I didn't realise,' Jamie said.

Maggie nodded. 'I think that it's the right thing to do,' she said. 'He and Angela were just a bit of light entertainment.'

'I suppose so,' Jamie said.

Stretched out naked on the bed, Angela reminded Jamie vaguely of sun-bathing Lynette from long ago. She had the same slightly muscular body; the same plump outer labia enclosing her frilly inner lips.

Jamie noticed that while the threesome with Julia had been very much a threesome, the session with Angela was mainly about him and Angela. It was as though Maggie -- ever-smiling Maggie -- was just there as the voyeur-facilitator. Jamie had the feeling that he was auditioning for a new part in life. And perhaps, in a sense, he was. When they gathered in the kitchen the following morning to make scrambled eggs on toast, Jamie felt like saying: 'Well ... did I pass?'

Jamie got an answer of sorts a couple of weeks after Maggie had left for Australia. Angela phoned. 'I wondered if you felt like meeting up for a glass of wine,' she said.

'Sure. Anywhere in particular?'

'You can choose,' she said.

Jamie had to be back at his place in the late afternoon to sign off on the work that the tilers were doing in his new kitchen, and so they agreed to meet there.

'This looks great,' Angela said when she arrived.

'It's getting there,' Jamie said. 'But everything takes two weeks longer than promised and costs 25 percent more than the original estimate.'

'Only 25 percent? That sounds quite good. Have you heard from Maggie?'

'A brief fax.'

'And?'

'Oh ... you know ... all the usual moving stuff. Multiplied by ten. But I guess that's to be expected.'

'Do you miss her?'

Did he? 'A bit, I suppose. To be honest, we were only really Friday fuck buddies. How's Mikey?' Jamie said.

'He said to say hello.'

'Oh?' Jamie was a bit surprised. 'Did you tell him that you were coming to see me?'

'He has a lot of time for you,' Angela said. 'He even wondered if he could find somewhere for you in the bank.'

'Me!?'

'It's OK. I told him that I thought you were very happy in advertising.'

'I don't know the first thing about investment banking,' Jamie said.

'That's OK. Mikey likes to have a few outsiders. He reckons they bring in new ideas, new ways of looking at things.'

Jamie pulled the cork from a bottle of New Zealand Merlot Cabernet, and poured a glass for each of them.

'Actually, I might be moving on,' Angela said. 'I'm being head-hunted for a tech start-up in Cambridge. I'm usually a bit wary of start-ups. But this one has some serious backers. And I think it might be easier for Mikey if I wasn't in his line of sight every day.'

Jamie nodded. He could see that, at one level, it made sense.

'So ... are you going to take me on a tour?' Angela said.

Jamie kept the bedroom until last. He knew that, once they got there, they could be there for some time. And they were.

Jamie made it a sort of rule not to rank his fuckees. Everyone's different, he told himself. Everyone is what they are. Putting them in some sort of order doesn't change that. Nevertheless, if he was making a league table, Angela would have to be right up there with the best.

Jamie and Angela enjoyed a spring that would have put some of the most rampant rabbits to shame. And then Angela moved to her new job in Cambridge, and it all became ... well ... just a bit too difficult.

For the next six months or so, most of Jamie's spare time and energy went into the renovation of his Notting Hill house. And then, in the autumn, he met -- or should that be re-met? -- Louise.

Randal Tan, an old schoolmate who had tracked Jamie down through an article he had read in Campaign, had invited Jamie to a Kentucky Parkman concert at the Royal Albert Hall. Randal was working for the company that was handling Kentucky Parkman's publicity while he was in the UK. There were six people in Randal's party: Randal and his wife, Doreen Smythe and her partner (Doreen was Randal's investment advisor), Louise (who worked with Randal's wife), and, of course, Jamie. They met up at a nearby pub. 'Jamie, this is Louise,' Randal said.

'I think that we may have met before,' Jamie said.

Louise smiled. 'Gosh, you have a good memory.'

'Not really,' Jamie said. 'But I make an exception for pretty faces.'

They had a round of heart-starters, and then they walked down to the Royal Albert where Randal had seats front and centre.

Jamie had heard Kentucky Parkman on the radio. Who hadn't? But the opening act was an American country-rock singer who was totally foreign to Jamie. She was also totally awful. And Jamie didn't seem to be the only one who was unimpressed by her.

Relief came from the most surprising quarter: the fire alarm sounded. The awful singer and her troupe of players quickly vacated the stage, and a smiling man in a tuxedo that looked as though it might have had a starring role in the 1930s appeared in her place.

'If I may have your attention, ladies and gentlemen. That sound is the fire alarm. I must now ask you to leave the hall, in an orderly manner, by the nearest clearly-marked exit. And then if you will please assemble across the road in Hyde Park. Thank you.' By the time that Randal's party had made it across the Kensington Road, the hall was surrounded by fire engines and ambulances and police cars.

'Well, I thought that she was pretty bad,' Tom, Doreen Smythe's partner, said. 'But setting off the fire alarm? Maybe that was taking a little too far.' And they all laughed.

It was a comparatively mild evening but, after half an hour or so and no word, many of the concert-goers started to move off.

'Shall we go and find somewhere to get a bit of supper?' Randal suggested.

'I think that I might just call it a night,' Louise said. 'If I can find a cab.'

'Where are you headed?' Jamie asked.

'Paddington. Well ... Bayswater really.'

'Just across the park,' Jamie said. 'We can walk.' And they did.

In the course of their walk, Jamie and Louise somehow managed to tell each other an abbreviated account of their lives so far.

'Well, this is me,' Louise said when they reached the door of her flat. 'Would you like to come in? I probably have some wine in the fridge.'

'Umm ... thank you. But no. I have an early start tomorrow. But if you'd like to have a drink later in the week ....'

'That would be nice,' Louise said. And she found Jamie a business card with a telephone number and an email address.

'Email?' Jamie said. 'Gosh, you're right up with the times. I'll call you.' But he didn't. The following morning, he sent her a new-fangled email explaining that what was left of his week had turned to total custard and enquiring if she might feel like joining him for a glass of something cold on Saturday afternoon. 'It's time that I christened my new courtyard,' he wrote.

Louise replied saying thank you. She would love to join him on Saturday. And would she need to bring scissors to cut the ribbon?

On Saturday it rained, and so Jamie and Louise toasted the newly laid courtyard from the shelter of the kitchen-diner. 'Sorry about the rain,' Jamie said.

'Not your fault. It still works. You know ... sitting in here looking out there.'

Jamie agreed. 'Yes. It does, doesn't it? But I think it needs some plants. Do you know anything about plants?'

'A bit,' Louise said.

'Good. I thought that you might. Perhaps next weekend?'

It turned out that Louise knew a great deal about plants. The following Saturday morning, shortly after nine, Louise arrived at Jamie's house armed with an A3 pad and one of those laser measuring tools that builders use. 'We need a plan,' she said.

'What do you need me to do?' Jamie asked.

'You can make the coffee,' she said.

A little over an hour and a pot of coffee later, Jamie and Louise stood in the open doorway to the courtyard and Louise explained her surprisingly professional-looking plan to Jamie. 'I think we need to paint that wall,' she said. 'Something soft and neutral. I'm thinking a sort of faded brick colour. Or, possibly, a soft moss green. In front of that, we need something with a bit of height -- but not too tall. I have two or three plants in mind,' (and she rattled off some Latin names) 'but let's see what they have at the garden centre.'

By the end of the day, the courtyard was transformed into something resembling a double-page spread from a house and garden magazine. 'Brilliant,' Jamie said. 'Absolutely brilliant. I think that we need a glass of something to celebrate.'

'I think that I need to get myself cleaned up a bit,' Louise said.

'We could have a shower,' Jamie suggested.

'We?'

'It's a big shower. And we don't want to waste water. Got to look after the planet.'

There was something about the cascading warm water and a bit of soap that made the transition from 'just friends' to 'new lovers' almost inevitable.

Jamie's initial excuse was that he was just checking to make sure that she hadn't got any specks of potting mix (or anything else) into any of her special crevices. But she seemed to enjoy the search more than the report of 'nothing found, ma'am'. And so Jamie kept on keeping on. And on. Until, after ten minutes or so, Louise was yelping like a delighted puppy. And then Louise returned the favour: ensuring that Jamie's cock was also scrupulously free of any evidence of an afternoon's gardening. In the process, she inadvertently caused his cock to gush a generous amount of pearly cum.

'That's impressive,' she said.

When they had both calmed down, Jamie went and found a couple of towelling bathrobes.

'What's this?' Louise asked, as Jamie handed her one.

'I thought that we could wash your shirt,' Jamie said.

'Won't people think it a little strange if I walk home dressed in a bathrobe?'

'You're not planning on going home, are you?' Jamie asked.

Louise did go home. But not until the following evening. 'Work tomorrow,' she said. 'And I need to sort out what I'm going to wear.'

It was immediately after he returned from his tradition Christmas visit to Dorset that Jamie suggested that Louise should 'move in'. 'You said that your lease was up at the end of January. And I'm worried about the courtyard plants,' he said. 'After all your good work, I don't want them to die. I suppose that I could read a few books. But it might be better if I -- that is to say we -- had a live-in gardener. What do you think?'

'We'd probably need to get a few house plants,' Louise said. 'You know ... to keep the gardener busy over the winter.'

'Yeah. We could do that,' Jamie said.

A couple of weeks later, Jamie and Louise were sitting in the kitchen-diner, drinking coffee and watching the snow falling on the designer courtyard, when Jamie suddenly said: 'You know, I was 20 when I moved to London. In another two weeks I shall be 30. Where on earth did all those years go?'

'Gosh. Thirty?' Louise said. 'Mind you, I shall be 30 myself next year. Are you going to have a party?'

'I don't think so. I don't think that I'm really a party person.' And then Jamie said: 'Although ... one of the women at work was telling me about this brilliant riverside pub. Near Henley. The Blue Drake -- I think that's what it was called. Apparently, its restaurant is festooned with rosettes and Michelin stars. Maybe we could have a party for two. What do you think?'

Jamie's first attempt to book a room and a table was not as successful as it might have been. 'We can do the room,' the woman who answered the telephone said, 'but I'm afraid that the restaurant is fully booked.'

'Fully fully booked?' Jamie said.

The woman laughed. 'Well ... we do sometimes get a cancellation. Perhaps if you leave me your telephone number.' And, sure enough, the following Wednesday morning she phoned. 'It's Moira. At The Blue Drake. I have good news for you, sir. You have a table for two. At seven-thirty on Saturday.'

'Thank you,' Jamie said. 'Thank you.'

The Blue Drake looked as if it might have started life as a coaching inn. Jamie and Louise's room was not on the river. It overlooked a cobbled courtyard. 'I guess this was once something to do with the stabling,' Jamie said.

'It's nice,' Louise said. 'I like it.'

Jamie thought that the meal that evening may have been the best that he had ever had. The maître d' had brought them the menus, but Jamie had just handed them back. 'You know this place better than we do,' he said. 'Please ... just bring us dinner. Not too much. But enough to leave us with happy memories.'

The maître d' smiled. 'And would you like to see our wine list?'

'I should probably leave that to you too,' Jamie said. 'But if you were going to serve something that might suit a red wine, I do rather like Chateau Lynch-Bages. I also like wines from the Hawke's Bay. Gimblett Gravels?'

The maître d' nodded and smiled. 'I think that we can find you something, sir.'

It wasn't the first occasion on which Jamie had dined at a Michelin-starred restaurant. A couple of Peter Gould's favourite 'new business' restaurants also held Michelin stars. Peter Gould sometimes took along the agency's creative genius. But Jamie was always aware that he was there to hint at conjuring tricks, not to enjoy the food. That night at The Blue Drake was different.

The other thing that was different was Louise. Or maybe it was Jamie himself.

Christina had been a sort of an experiment. Jamie and Christina had both been new to the big city, both just getting started in their chosen careers and, yes, both new to having sex more or less 'on tap'. It had been fun; it had worked out well; but then it had fallen apart.

Maggie -- the first time -- had been a total surprise. Jamie had just been there to make up the numbers. And the second time? That had just been about fun sex: Fucking Fridays with finger food and champagne on the side.

In between, there had been Lisa: posh totty on a stick. Lisa too had been mainly about sex. It wasn't as if she and Jamie were ever going to become Mr and Mrs or anything like that. Well, not with each other, anyway.

Funnily enough, Jamie's relationship with Angela might have turned into something more than just sex -- had the circumstances been different. But the circumstances were what the circumstances were.

And now Jamie was celebrating his 30th birthday with Louise -- who he almost got to know ten years earlier.

Five years later -- to the day -- Jamie and Louise made a return visit to The Blue Drake. And they made another visit five years after that. For that particular visit, they travelled not from Notting Hill but from Upper Beecham from where Louise was running her garden design business and Jamie was working on a follow-up to his award-winning novel 'When The Devil Drives'.

'Forty,' Jamie said, raising a glass of Craggy Range Gimblett Gravels Merlot. 'Can you believe it?'