Espresso Tales - Alexander Hanchett Smith [33]
“You look in good shape,” he said. “Have you started going to the gym?”
Gordon blushed. “As a matter of fact, I have. Nothing too strenuous, of course. A bit of weight training and those running machines – you know, the ones which make you sweat. I do about two hours a week.”
Matthew raised an eyebrow. “Do you go by yourself ?”
Gordon hesitated before he answered. “Actually,” he began,
“I have somebody who goes with me. She does aerobics and I do my running and pushing weights.”
Matthew said nothing for a moment. She. That would explain the change. He had found a girlfriend. “Good,” he said, after a while. “It’s nice to have company. Who is she, by the way?”
Gordon moved across the room. He continued the conversation as he leaned forward to examine a painting.
“Nice landscape this,” he said. “She’s called Janis. I met her a few months ago at the Barbours’. Remember them? They send their regards. Anyway, Janis was at a dinner party there and . . . and, well, we hit it off. I’d like you to meet her.”
Matthew looked across the room. Why was it so hard to imagine one’s parents having an emotional life? There was no reason why this should be so, but it just was. And his father, of all people! What could any woman possibly see in him . . . apart from money, of course?
66
Second Flowering
“What does . . . what does Janis do?” he asked.
“She owns a flower shop,” said Gordon. “It’s a nice little business. People still buy flowers, you know. She says that flowers are all about guilt. Men buy flowers because they feel guilty about something. About neglecting their wives, about all that sort of thing . . .” He tailed off. And what about neglect of sons?
he thought. What about that?
Matthew listened to this information. A woman who owned a flower shop? There was nothing wrong with that, of course, but he could picture her – alone in her flower shop, amidst all those carnations and bunches of red roses, waiting for her chance. And along comes his father, with his GBP 11.2 million (or that was the figure that Matthew had last heard) and, well, it would be infinitely better, would it not, than selling flowers to guilty husbands. Gold-digger, he thought. Gordon turned round from the painting he had been examining. “I’d like you to meet her,” he said. “How about dinner in the club this Friday? Would that suit?”
There was something almost pathetically eager in his tone that made Matthew regret what he had been thinking; more guilt, but this time the son’s rather than the father’s. There was so much guilt in Edinburgh, everywhere one turned. Everyone felt guilty about something. Guilt. Guilt.
“Yes,” said Matthew, guiltily. “I could be free. What time?”
“Seven-guilty,” said Gordon, and then rapidly correcting himself, “I mean seven-thirty.”
“Fine,” said Matthew. “I look forward to meeting . . .”
“Janis,” supplied his father. “With an is, not an ice. ”
Matthew wondered whether this made a difference. He had a very clear idea of what she would be like, however she spelled her name. Blonde hair. And sharp features. And a nose for money.
They moved on to other subjects. Gordon had recently sold off one of his businesses and told Matthew about what had happened to it in its new hands. Then he related developments at the golf club, where a new secretary had been appointed and had upset some of the members by unilaterally changing the Demographic Discussions
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date of the annual dinner dance, a small thing perhaps, but a big thing for some.
And there was more of that sort of news, although Matthew paid even less attention to it than usual. He was wondering: what if I didn’t have my father behind me? What if somebody came along and took all that support away from me? How would I react to being done out of my inheritance? Badly, he thought.
21. Demographic Discussions
Pat came into the gallery to find Matthew at his desk, sunk in thought. She looked at her watch. “You’re in early,” she said brightly. Matthew looked up at her and mumbled a goodmorning. Since his father had left ten minutes earlier, he had been sitting