The Calligrapher. Edward Docx

thing, I could perhaps have submitted the results for exhibition myself; perhaps a showing in ‘History Memory Society’: ‘People from All Over the World Leaving in Uncertainty’ (Jasper Jackson, calligrapher and video artist).

      Of course I didn’t actually know that Cécile’s name was Cécile as I fell into place three or four people behind her. (Jostle, jockey, joke and jostle all the way down six flights of unapologetically functional fire stairs.) I didn’t know anything about her at all, except that she had short, choppy, boyish, black hair, a cute denim skirt cut above the knee, thin brown bare legs and unseasonable flip-flops, which flapped on every step as she went. And that she had (quite definitely) winked at me as we circled Rodin’s Kiss.

      Outside, safely asquare the paving slabs of the South Bank, I looked hastily around. The light was thickening. St Paul’s across the Thames – a fat bishop boxed in and stranded flat on his back – and two bloated seagulls, making heavy weather of the homeward journey upstream. Crowds continued to eddy from the building but there was as yet no sign of William or Nathalie or Lucy’s adorable light-brown bob. Still, I had to act quickly.

      Cécile was standing with her back to me, looking across the river.

      ‘Hi.’ I said.

      She turned and then smiled, an elbow jutting out over the railings. ‘Oh, hello.’

      ‘That was quite exciting.’ I returned her smile.

      ‘You think there is a fire?’

      I looked doubtful. ‘Probably terrorists or art protestors or rogue vegetarians.’

      ‘I wonder what they save from the flames?’ She bent an idle knee in my direction and swivelled her toe on the sole of her flip-flops. ‘The paintings or the objets?’

      ‘Good question.’

      ‘Maybe in an emergency they have an order for what to keep – and they begin at the top and then descend until everything is burning too much.’

      ‘Or maybe,’ I said, ‘they just let the bastard go until it’s finished so that they can open up afterwards as a new sort of gallery: Burnt Modern. A new kind of art.’

      ‘Perhaps that’s what the protesters want – a new kind of art.’ She was a born flirt.

      I met her eye and moved us on. ‘They evacuated the building very quickly.’

      ‘Yes. But there are some people still coming out, I think.’ She gestured. ‘I like how in an emergency everybody starts to talk. As if because there is a disaster, now we can all be friends happy together.’ She looked past me for a second. ‘Will they let us back in, do you think?’

      ‘I’m not sure. But I am supposed to be going to a restaurant at eight so I don’t think I will be able to wait. This might take a couple of hours.’ I paused. ‘I should find my friends and see if they are OK.’

      ‘Me too. I have already lost them once today – when we were on the London Eye.’

      ‘How long are you in London for?’

      ‘I live here.’ She frowned slightly – amused disparagement.

      I pretended to be embarrassed.

      She relented. ‘I am teaching here.’

      ‘French?’

      ‘Yes.’ A pout masquerading as a smile.

      ‘You have an e-mail address?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘If I write to you, do you think that you’ll reply?’

      ‘Maybe. It depends what you say.’

      

      I found William sitting on a bench with a diesel-coated pigeon and the man who had earlier been selling the Big Issue outside the main entrance.

      ‘Jasper – Ryan. Ryan – Jasper. We haven’t thought of a name for this little chap yet.’ He indicated the creature now pecking at a chocolate wrapper.

      ‘Where’s Lucy?’ I asked, acknowledging Ryan.

      ‘She’s fetching her bag with Nat. Did you meet anyone nice’ William winked exaggeratedly ‘– in the toilets?’

      ‘Yes, thanks.’

      William did an American accent: ‘I hope you were real gentle with him.’

      Ryan snorted and got up. ‘See you Thursday, Will mate,’ he said, ‘and let’s hope this new bloke knows how to deal with those fucking tambourine bastards.’

      ‘See you later.’ William raised an arm as Ryan left.

      I sat down and was about to speak but William motioned me to be quiet.

      ‘Here they come,’ he said, ‘they’ve seen us.’

      Lucy and Nathalie were making their way towards the bench. William addressed the pigeon: ‘You’ll have to piss off now, old chap, but we’ll catch up again soon, I hope. Let me know how the diet works out.’

      

      Before we go much further, I should explain that William is one of my firmest friends from the freezing Fenland days of my tertiary education. (Philosophy, I’m afraid, man’s most defiant folly.) I can still remember the pale afternoon, a week or so after we had all arrived for our first year, when we were walking back from a betting shop together and he came out to me. It was going to be very awkward, he confided, and he was at a bit of a dead end with the whole idea because – apart from his sister, who didn’t count – he hadn’t really met any women before now, but – how could he put this?– he was rather worried that he might not be homosexual and – as I seemed to be rather, well, in the know on the subject, as it were – had I any suggestions as to next steps vis-à-vis the ladies?

      Unfortunately, several centuries in the highest ranks of government, church and army had left the men in his family quite unable to imagine women, let alone talk to them. Indeed, William suspected that he was the first male child in sixteen generations not to turn out gay. As I could imagine, this was a severe blow both to him and his lineage but he had tried it with other boys at school on several occasions and there was absolutely nothing doing. The truth of the matter was that he liked girls; and that was that. And as he was now nearing twenty, he rather felt that he should be getting on with it. Could I offer any pointers?

      Naturally, things have moved on a good deal since then and these days Will is regularly trumpeted by various tedious publications as one of the most eligible men in London. He is an invaluable ally and well known on the doors of all good venues – early evening, private and exclusive as well as late night, public and squalid. I regret to say, however, that his approach remains erratic and hopelessly undisciplined. Though many women find him attractive, the execution of his actual seductions is not always the most appropriate. It is as if a strain of latent homosexuality bedevils his genes – like an over-attentive waiter at a business lunch.

      All else aside, William is the most effortlessly charming man that anybody who meets him has ever met. He is also genuinely kind. And though he claims to feel terribly let down by the astonishing triviality of modern life, this is merely an intellectual arras behind which he chooses to conceal a rare species of idealism. He does not believe in God or mankind but he visits churches whenever he is abroad and runs a music charity for tramps.

      On the subject of William’s relationship with Nathalie … Back in March, he claimed that it was purely platonic and I have to say that I think he was telling the truth. Under light questioning, he explained that it was only in this way that he could maintain the exclusivity of their intimacy since – of the few women who shared his bed from time to time – Nathalie was the only one with whom he was not having sex. They were therefore bound together by uncompromised affection and happily unable to cheat on one another. (She, too, I understood, was at complete liberty.) This approach, he confided, was an ingenious variation on the arrangement his forefathers had shared with their