I’d always been wary of men and fiercely determined to treat them with the contempt they truly deserved. Where to start? You’re more likely to find a Bedouin camel in my Gucci purse before you chanced upon a man who was honest and competent. Even, if you did find that elusive camel, it’d have to be wearing an embroidered bandana bib and a halo, meticulously hand-crafted out of hula-hoop crumbs, for you to be anywhere close to the probability of finding a man who wasn’t incredibly selfish, absurdly opinionated and patently unreliable. If you could show me a man who wasn’t a pretender, a cheat, a charlatan and a self-obsessed reptile, then I’d show you an eminent walrus in a Savoy dinner Jacket. In short, my pompous view was that a man was without soul or conscience, and that was just the way it was.
I’d have known, of course, because I used to be one. Thanks to Dr Heinrich Weinberg’s fantastic plastic surgery skills, I’d made a startling transformation from William McCheng - that odium of Basildon, to the adorable Veronica Jones who was the decisive queen of glamour. The good doctor had gone to work on my face and body with those expert hands and magic scalpels, and he’d chiseled a goddess out of a sick cave creature that sucked sewage sludge and wallowed in slime. He’d turned a ghastly duckling into a gorgeous swan. Gone forever was the wet-nosed, dim-eyed William, the door knob on his face, which masqueraded as a nose, now a regal object of classic beauty. Gone were those square, McCain chips that used to be his fingers, now manicured into elegant digits that flexed with aristocratic grace. The abominable scarecrow of Essex was finally flushed down the lavatory of antiquity on the 4th of April 2005, which was my 24th birthday, taking with him his stiff, square shoulders, his pathetic wobbly voice and his loathsome eyebrows. Even the surname McChen had to go. It was a stupid conflation of my mom’s maiden name McCarthy and the name of my dad, who I never knew, and of whom my mom told me precious little, except that he might have been of Chinese ancestry. Veronica Jones would be resplendent, confident, adventurous, bubbly and everything that William McCheng was never going to be. All that’s left of poor William was his penis (or, maybe I should say ‘my’, since it’s still attached to me). It was the one memento that I’d been reluctant to part ways with. It was an endless source of amusement to bask in the admiring gawk of horny male students, stunned by my ravishing looks, without the slightest idea what their sex idol carried underneath.
As things stood, I got more attention from the girls, all wanting to be seen with me just to boost their street cred. I set the standard in make-ups, latest fashion accessories and clothes. When I started wearing Jean Paul Gultter Ma Dame, all the other girls started wearing it too, which was how I came across Janet who let me stay in her dorm room, pending the outcome of my application for student accommodation. She was starting to get too close, and I was tempted to show her a little surprise.
East London University campus was packed with its share of wayward lecturers and promiscuous yo-yo trouser professors, and the girls jostled and vied savagely for their attention, but I was streets ahead of any of them – Whoever I wanted, I got. And the top scalp this semester was Professor Alan Dixon, an ardent serial womanizer, a prolific liar, a meticulous hypocrite and a perfect scoundrel, but, more importantly, he was no ordinary professor. He was fabulously wealthy too. I’d finally decided that it was about time I popped up on his radar and gave him a ride on the Veronica Jones’ wheel of misfortune.
I loitered around the corridor of the Applied Science department on the 5th floor of the Science faculty building, within view of the entrance to LAB7A, keeping a heavily mascaraed eye on Professor Dixon’s office door. I did not have to wait for long, for, sure enough, he appeared, a bespectacled balding man in his late 40s, with an intelligent drooping moustache.
‘You must be one of the new students’ his voice was syrupy; if the taste of caramel could be converted to sound, that would be his voice. ‘If you’re here for the Biology tutorial, I’m afraid you’re 45 minutes too early.’
‘Oh’ I feigned surprise, fumbling with the lecture time table which I’d taken from Janet.
‘Of course, you may wait in the laboratory while I set up my slides’
‘Oh thanks’
He held the glass paneled swing door open with his free hand, and I stepped into the brightly-lit hall with several tables and bar stools. A large table in the front served as the demonstration platform. He plunked the compact projector he was carrying on the table and deftly set about his task.
‘We haven’t been properly introduced’, he said, ‘I guess you already know I am Prof Dixon but, please don’t call me ‘Prof’ like the rest of the plebs round here, just call me Alan’
‘I’m Veronica Jones’, I said, ‘First year Applied’
I dully allowed my hand to go lame in the grip of his handshake. He lingered just slightly too long.
‘I can assure you a head start in this course, seeing that you’re such a keen student’ he winked. He took a business card from his jacket pocket. ‘Be sure to call me if you need any sort of help.’ He hesitated, ‘Perhaps we can catch up for dinner at some point?’ It was more of a question than an invitation – a speculative gambit, but I did not reply. Instead, I smiled sweetly.
A fast worker, by the end of the encounter, he’d extracted my mobile number and a promise to meet up later for dinner. I couldn’t wait to tell Janet, and see her consumed with envy.
But, of course, I had no intention of honoring his invitation. That was not the way to play the game. Instead, I’d picked up Tony Difranco, a 2nd year Physics Major geek who I’d met in the SUB in my first week in the campus. He was only too eager for an impromptu date and had no idea the role he was about to play. We went to Henryz, just next door to the posher Crusties, where the Prof was waiting. I snuggled close and giggled at the top of my lungs as we gamboled past, Tony, roared with laughter and enjoying his unexpected luck which was not going to last more than 15 minutes. I could feel the heat of his Prof’s gaze as we swept past, but I did not turn back to look.
I did not attend lectures for another four days, but on Friday, I had to meet up with Mel outside the Library at 3:30pm for the new Freeman’s summer catalogue. I was startled by the caramel voice of Professor Dixon. I almost dropped my books.
‘Ha, there you are… Standing your lecturer up like that isn’t a particularly smart way to go about a successful scholarship, is it?’ his rugged face loomed out of nowhere, and his almost benevolent expression did not match the implication of his words. It was clear that he’d only said them in mock threat.
‘Oh, sorry I forgot’ was all that I could say.
‘Never mind, Veronica.’ he said, ‘I’m glad I ran into you, perhaps you can make up by coming out with me for dinner at The Grand Plaza later tonight. I’ll pick you up at 7:30pm.’
‘Sure’, I said. Not just anyone ate at the Grand Plaza. That was The Playboy featured restaurant for the last three months running. Everyone wanted to be seen entering or coming out of the Plaza. It was the kind of place you took a girl you were desperate to impress at all possible costs. And you didn’t go anywhere near the place if you didn’t have money to burn. I’d been there before with some bloke called Martin who was so utterly besotted. He must have spent his life savings on the dinner that night. He’s probably busy fending off bailiffs and debt collectors, since I never heard from him ever since then.
The Grand Plaza was not the sort of place where you turned up in a pair of jeans and cheap, grandmother cardigan, so I put on my favorite low-cut, red, silk Freeman’s number, showing my shoulders and luscious assets. The simple pearl necklace and matching miniature celandine droopers must have cost a massive fan of mine an absolute fortune. I opted for my Crocodile Birkin because it was an instantly recognizable fashion rave and it had all the space I needed for my shoal of makeup accessories. My host arrived punctually, his in black Brioni dinner suit looking like a badly drawn version of Pierce Brosnan in Tomorrow Never Dies. His hair was brushed back but thrown forward at the front to create a Donald Trump effect which might have worked if he’d had enough hair in front.
He gesticulated profusely with his moustache, which gleamed in the dim, soft light, as he drawled on and on about his current work in Molecular Biology and Cell signaling. When the waiter arrived, he ordered the R. Renaudin Brute Rose L’Espiegle NV, confidently assuring me that I would soon see why it was his favorite wine. I heard a familiar voice and turned round to see a couple walk past. The man was Marcus Mathews, the popular TV presenter whose popularity was benefiting from a recent sex scandal he was involved in. The Prof waved in their direction, and they waved back.
Another gentleman stopped by our table and pumped the Prof vigorously by the hand. When he cast a wooden bow in my direction, I smiled back, and inclined my head in acknowledgement. He and the Prof chatted sundries for a while, and he was soon on his way. ‘That’s Ed Kyritz’ said the Prof, as the man disappeared up the ornate flight of stairs to the left of the main entrance, ‘He owns the restaurant.’ I recognized the name; of course, I’d just never seen him before.
I opened my Birkin and fiddled about with my base foundation compact as he went on about the jazz number that was softly jamming in the background. It was an adaptation of the Roberto Solero’s new rap mix with 50 cents. The Prof had a few things to say about Hip Hop, RnB and garage, and I thought that for a man of his generation he had a surprising grasp of contemporary music.
We were halfway through the main course – Lobster Thermidor for me and Venison with Port and Red Currant Sauce for him - when he suddenly fixed me with a curious gaze, and said, ‘Well, Veronica, I’ve been doing all the talking so far. Tell me about yourself.’ which was the worst question anyone could have asked me. It was like handing you a rifle and saying ‘go on, then, shoot yourself’. But it wasn’t something I couldn’t handle. I’d gotten my story about my adoptive rich parents and dynastic Chinese roots all sorted: I was used to the unspeakable luxury of an incredibly wealthy household from which I had to flee for the sake of my sanity, and had turned down Cambridge for a less distinguished university, because I wanted to live with real people in a real world.
He listened, with his head resting against his clenched fist and his right elbow supported by the table, his dark grey eyes a mesmerizing pool of deep concentration and perfect attention. When I finished he said ‘yes, I know what you mean by breaking free from the manacles of indulgence. I had a similar upbringing too. I have enjoyed working with the underprivileged people, with whom I’ve had the most impact, without necessarily consigning myself to outright poverty.’
The dinner would have been absolutely perfect if he had not ruined it when, once loosened up by the wine, he rambled on about his vintage cars, his yachts and his numerous luxury apartments scattered throughout London and Paris. And then he boasted about his connections, ‘I’m on first-name terms with the most powerful people in the world, let alone this country. … and the second most senior Police Office in UK…Sir Alex Dixon...well, that’s my brother.’ He was on the Government’s Science Advisory, and he received annual seasons greeting from Buckingham Palace without fail.
Okay, the guy was super rich, and he had serious connections. I was more than impressed. I lost my appetite at once and opted to skip desert. We both had coffee to finish, during which his moustache twitched, and a curious look suddenly came upon his face. I’d seen that look before, and I knew that when you saw it on a man’s face he was either about to propose or he was about to break wind. But as he did not propose, I could only assume that he had done the latter.
‘So what about us?’ he asked.
I busied myself with reapplying my makeup and closely inspecting my face with my compact looking glass, while I considered his question. Exactly what kind of ‘us’ was he talking about here? I thought. Was it a long-term ‘us’ or an ‘us’ that only lasted for one night? I wondered how many ‘us’es’ he had on the go. What number would my own ‘us’ be? ‘Us’ No. 101? How did the ‘us’es’ stack up? Was my own ‘us’ bigger than, say, Janet’s ‘us’? How big was poor old Mrs. Dixon’s, or had it shriveled up disappeared altogether? When would the Prof eventually run out of ‘us’es’?
But I was spared when his Blackberry began to ring. He picked it up with a frown that deepened as listened to the phone, muttering intermittently in response. Finally, he said ‘OK, I’d better be on my way then’ with a voice laden with resigned irritation. Then he turned to me, ‘Sorry, apparently, I’ve been having so much fun tonight that I’ve forgotten a crucial appointment. Let me drop you back at the Halls.’
As we approached the car, he said, ‘How come you didn’t tell me about your accommodation issue’ which certainly took me by surprise. I wondered who he’d been talking to.
I experienced a minor panic; the last thing I wanted was for him to start poking round and getting involved in administrative matters on my behalf. But it turned out he had something entirely different in mind. ‘I did tell you that I own some apartments. There’s one you can use in the mean time if you want to. It’s not exactly student accommodation, but it’s a roof over your head, and it’s only a few tube stops from the campus.’
I was struck by his offer, but I was sure that it couldn’t be altogether altruistic. ‘Oh, I couldn’t possibly…’ I protested ostensibly.
‘It’s OK, don’t worry, it’s not occupied at the moment anyway, and I just hate to see it go to waste.’ He gave me a set of keys on a leather key ring. ‘34C Justin court, off Grosvenor Street, five minutes’ walk from St James Park Tube station.
He was right when he said it was not ideal student accommodation. It was more like a top-of-the-range crib for a high flying City worker on a three figure salary, a fat cat bonus and a playboy lifestyle. There was a manned entrance with a concierge in smart blue uniform who nodded politely as I went in. The lift car was perfumed, and the walls were spotless mirrors. The corridor on the 3rd floor that led to Flat 34C overlooked the finely tended courtyard with an elegant marble water feature at the center. The double doors for the flat were of some heavy, dark wood, inset with gleaming chromium bars, and the handle was like a precision component with hydraulic leverage that could have been designed by an aeronautics engineer.
The smell of leather and Pot Pori greeted as I entered. The floor was covered wall-to-wall with a soft cream shaggy rug. The first room was the lounge which was a fair size. There was a glass stool in the center with an exotic Persian flower vase on top. There were three other doors, two opposite the main entrance and one to the side that led to a full featured kitchen with shinny brown worktop, an electric cooker and an oversized American-style fridge-freezer.
One of the doors led to a tastefully furnished toilet and bathroom and the other lead to the bedroom fit only for a princess. The flat had almost everything I could only wish for. Only one thing was missing - A party. Without any undue prevarication, I contacted Tim Guthrie. If anyone could fix a party in a hurry, that was the guy. A further call to Janet and Spotty Alexa, and the drinks were sorted. If the fairy godmother thought her magic wand was cool that would be because she didn’t know about the iPhone.
The first guests arrived at 9pm, two guys in leather jacket and jeans. I’d never seen them before. They came because they’d heard there was a party. In the space of 30 minutes, the whole place was heaving. Tim had brought his MC kit and disco lights and transformed the lounge into an excellent dance arena.
It was one of the most spectacular parties I’d ever had. It went on right through until 2am when the neighbors must have had enough and called in the police. They were unsurprised about the level of misbehavior that had taken place there. In spite of the heady stench of marijuana and the presence of syringes and needles littered everywhere, no one was arrested. It appeared they were only interested in moving the troublemakers on with the least possible fuss.
By the time I woke up at around 11am there was no sign of Janet, who had stayed behind after everyone had left. She had an assessment test at 9am. I was glad I wasn’t the one who had to sit for an exam after the sort of night we’d had. My ears still buzzed and my head hurt like hell. But when I got up and saw the amount of damage that had taken place, my head cleared up at once. The whole place had been thrashed. The paintings on the wall had been ripped. Where the wallpaper had not been scratched or ripped, there were filthy stains all over the walls all the way up to the ceiling, and the whole place reeked of stale beer and vomit.
The kitchen door had been taken off its hinges. I tiptoed warily on the slippery floor and surveyed the unwholesome mess on the worktop consisting of pizza and cigarette butts. The fridge door hung open at a jaunty angle, and it was obvious it would never close properly again. I wasn’t curious enough to look in the bathroom. My immediate impulse was to flee the place. There was no way I was going hang around in that stink-hole. So I packed my bags and headed back to my old spot in Janet’s room.
What was I going to tell the Prof? We’d would just have to play cat and mouse until the brown smelly stuff finally hit the fan. Every time my mobile rang I froze with apprehension. I grew a pair of highly sensitive invisible antenna, and checked before I entered the library or any of the lecture rooms. He filled up my voice mail and sent several text messages which I did not reply. After three days, I began o relax. He’d stopped trying to get in touch. I guessed he’d finally written me off as a rotten brat. So I was completely unprepared when I stepped out of the library and caught sight of the Prof’s Black BMW X6 parked in front of the Library entrance. Without turning round, I knew he was not far behind me.
‘What a delightful surprise’ he said quietly.
I recoiled and wished I possessed the magic powers of Houdini.
‘Found you just in time. We’re having a departmental luncheon tomorrow for the visiting lecturers from China, and I want you to be there as my star pupil.’
What could be more exciting? I thought.
‘But before that, what about dinner at the Grand Plaza, later this evening?’
‘Sure, why not?’ I said.
‘Pick you up 8:30’. And he was gone. Quick business. It was all conducted like an illicit exchange of contraband between two drug dealers. But I looked forward to bragging to the girls about another big date with the Prof.
This time we had a table by the window overlooking the streets. The proprietor was even more congenial on this occasion, planting a kiss on my outstretched hand as he oozed charm and complements.
Prof did not talk as much initially, but he smiled and listened attentively when I delved into an elaborate treatise on the latest in handbags and shoes. He loosened up a bit after a couple of glasses of Rose and embarked on a lengthy rant about Chromosomes and Telomeres, laughing in places where he thought it was funny. But he had the sense of humor of a dead fish, and what actually made me laugh was the antics of his dancing moustache. That was entertainment in its own right.
I came to full attention when the moustache began to twitch uncontrollably, because I’d come to realize that it was an early warning signal for a change of subject. But I was still unprepared for what he said next.
‘Christ. What happened in the apartment?’ the thing had obviously been biting him all the while, he’d just been keeping a lid on it, pretending that he was not bothered. ‘I couldn’t believe my eyes, the place was an utter mess.’
‘Oh’, I said, ‘we had a little party’
‘Must have been one hell of a party, that’
I shrugged. No point creating the impression at this point that I was petrified, or, in the least remorseful. ‘We had fun.’
‘I guess you moved back to the campus accommodation’
I had nothing to say in reply.
‘OK’ he said, ‘Let’s swap your key for Apartment 7B. Fortunately, the tenant there has just left. Do go easy on the partying this time, will you.’
‘Oh!’ I said, astounded by his reckless generosity. I thought it was a shame that he wasn’t going to get whatever he might have thought he was going to get in return.
He offered to drop me at the apartment, but I told him that I had to meet up with Janet to complete an overdue intermediate Physiology essay.
Later that night I arrived in my new apartment which was just as tastefully furnished as the first one. This one had exquisite dark brown laminate flooring with a small square Persian rug in the middle of the lounge. The bathroom was larger, and had cream colored wall tiles. I ran some warm water in the copious bathtub. While I stared at the ornate Tin ceiling, I wondered how long the ride was going to last. I could feel a sense of guilt coming on. Anytime I felt guilty, it was William McCheng’s voice I heard. Go away, William. I won’t let you ruin the party with your pathetic whining. I shut my eyes and savored the light touch of the foam bath and the soothing, warm water. After 30 minutes, my mobile began to ring. I let it go on until it stopped, but it soon started ringing again. Some people never gave up, and I just couldn’t be arsed. Still, it was assuring to know that some smitten lover boy was desperate to make contact.
The following three days were occupied with meticulous schemes for avoiding the Prof. He sent an army of text messages and voice mails, none of which were duly reciprocated. The concierge presented me a massive bouquet, with a note from the Prof, on my arrival from a particularly late outing. He remarked that, in his 25 years of service, it was the biggest, most beautiful bouquet he’d encountered. He was honoured and delighted to be handling such a thing of beauty, and he offered to lug it to my flat.
In that period, apart from the massive flowers, I’d been pelted with a onslaught of expensive gifts: Designer perfumes, a Harrods voucher. A pair of Alligator boots, an Emporio Armani watch, a couple of leather handbags and an Ivory manicure set. And the messages and the gifts kept on coming. It appeared that he had embarked on an expensive strategy of wearing me down with his assault of gifts but the effect was not a sudden, overwhelming desire to jump into bed with him, but a growing guilt. William McChen’s voice raged in my head until I was ready to scream.
But I had no intention of giving in. The game was not won by giving in at the slightest twinge of conscience. Prof Alan Dixon was not the first, and he was not going to be the last. There was Dr Richard from University of Leicester who had been equally besotted. He was not as wealthy, but was just a generous; within the limits of his widow’s mite (if over £5000 worth of gifts and flowers could be regarded as such). His had carried on for more than two months before I thought it fit to put him out of his misery. From the moment, he’d set his eyes on me in the auditorium he’d turned into a fawning poodle. His weak, beady eyes twinkled, and his fat sweaty nose flared as he gushed around me.
He put me up at the Meridian Hotel at £400 a night, but at no time did he make any bold advances or explicit demands. He was too decent for that, although he was not decent enough not to cheat on his wife and conduct an affair with someone his daughter’s age.
I met Henrietta Richards at the SUB, and we’d been getting along before I met her father. It soon turned out that Henrietta had gotten it into her pretty little head that we ought to me more that soul mates and was getting alarmingly amorous. Sure I wasn’t that way inclined, of course, but I could not resist the climax of the showdown in a cleverly hatched plot.
When I finally acceded to Dr Richards’s subtle, but, nevertheless, relentless overtures, he was overjoyed beyond imagination. His fawning made me sick with irritation, but I did not let it show. I’d told him to meet me at the hotel room and promised that there was to be no disappearing acts or feigned lapses of memory this time. I’d switched on my most seductive voice, and told him I was going to be there, waiting for him, and it would be a day he would never forget.
Henrietta was even more excited than her father when I told her I’d found a place where we could be alone together to spend some long overdue quality time. She had read far more into that than any decent, innocent young person would have done. Her shrill giggle left me in no doubt about her lustful expectations, and as I’d expected, she arrived before her father. She was wearing her favorite large white T-shirt with a pink motif of two interlocking key symbols. She smiled coyly and fidgeted with her short, spiky hair to give her restless fingers something to do.
‘Come in at once! You have no idea how much I want you’, I baited.
She was frantic. White T-shirt was discarded without delay, and, even as we thrashed about on the bed, disentangling ourselves from our clothing, I could hear footsteps approaching the door, intentionally left ajar. A shadow was cast on the floor, and I turned with William in full tumescence, pointing at the horrified intruder like an accusing finger. That was when Henrietta saw it, too. She emitted a petrified cry which she stopped abruptly when she saw who was at the door. Dr Richards dropped the flowers he was carrying. I wondered which shocked him more, that his object of infatuation was a girl with a penis or that he’d caught his beloved daughter in bed with another girl. Whichever one it was, it had certainly knocked his usual self assured eloquence out of him and had turned him into a goofy statue. Henrietta slapped on her clothes and bolted of the room. Her father hesitated briefly and then lumbered after her like a zombie. That was the last I saw of the pair of them but, for a long time, I amused myself with the thought of what they had to say to each other in the car on their way back home that night.
I was always doing Doctors and Professors. There just was no shortage of them, although I had one Architect, instead, in 2007, called Jeremy Pike. He was a true pillar of society in Slough. He was on the board of the institute of ‘this’ and the Chairman of ‘that’. He’d parted with more than £10000 in cash and kind before I showed him William. As always, the reaction was to turn into an awestruck moron, lose their power of speech, and slither away, never to appear again. It just gave me a perversely delicious sense of power to be able to cause such an extraordinary effect on men.
I was playing the game the way it ought to be played. No matter how much they pined, I’d bring it to a close only in my own time and on my own terms. But this time it was a bit different. There was too much pity, too much guilt, too much William. This guy had put me up in an expensive apartment, bought me expensive gifts and flowers, he’d spent a stupendous fortune on me. He’d been exceedingly polite and had not directly demanded anything in return, never alluded to his obvious intentions, and he hadn’t shown any sign of frustration despite my evasiveness. His only response was to shower me with a steady downpour of generosity. It was starting to get to me, and I finally resolved to set him free. I was ready the next time he called, ‘Wow! I got through!’ he stuttered slightly, ‘I was preparing to leave a message on your voice mail as usual.’
‘I’m terribly missing you’, I said in my sweetest possible Marilyn Monroe voice, ‘Could you pretty please come to the apartment?’
‘What? You mean now?’
He was there in 20 minutes. The only way he could have done it was if he’d used a helicopter or if he’d walked through walls. He had on a dark brown suit and white shirt. His brow glistened with sweat, and he was slightly out of breath. He’d even managed to grab a modest sized bouquet and a bottle of Bollinger on his way in.
‘Come here, you’ I snarled, as he put down the flowers and champagne on the centre table. He stood obediently still as I undid his Purple and yellow multi daffodil silk tie. ‘Come, let me show you something sexy.’
It was all over within seconds. His face was a death mask of shock and bewilderment when he saw William. At first his eyes widened, and then he turned an unearthly shade of grey as the blood rapidly drained away from his face. He uttered a strange choking sound as if he’d been punched in the stomach. And then he slowly gathered up his trousers, picked up his coat and daffodil tie, a profound image of abject defeat, he slid quietly away. I could not suppress the delirious chuckle that frothed in my throat.
That was it. I thought I’d never hear from him again and he’d gone the same way as the other ones I’d done. He’d be too ashamed to breathe a word of it to anyone. It was time to get myself out of the apartment back to Janet’s pad for another couple of months, till the end of the semester, before moving on. He was a nice guy, in a way, though. But I was sent to this world to teach men - men like him - a lesson.
I called Janet to tell her I’d be crashing on her spare bunk that night, but there was a certain tremulousness in her voice that I did not take seriously the time. It was as if she was trying to hide something from me. The concierge stared at me as I carried my bag across the exit lobby. I waved at him, but he did not wave back. He simply turned away towards the small TV set behind the counter.
Tim stopped me just before I reached the dorms. He rushed across the road to me. His eyes were twinkling with excitement and he breathed heavily.
‘What have you gotten yourself mixed up in?’ He asked. ‘Some strange-looking guys have been asking questions about you.’
‘What do they want? Are they still in the premises?’
‘They’re currently questioning the guys in Wing A, including Janet. You’re not in any kind of trouble, are you?’
‘I don’t know’, I said, looking frantically around, feeling more helpless and scared than I’d ever felt before. ‘Well, thanks for telling me’ I stuttered as I turned back. I had no doubt that Prof Dixon had wasted no time in letting the law loose on me. He must have called his high-ranking Police brother. What a killjoy. Why did he have to take it all so seriously, the spiteful bastard? I had no idea what they wanted me for, but I knew that they wouldn’t have to try too hard before they got enough on me to put me away for a long stretch. Lying about your age and sex to other people might not have been a criminal offence, but using other people’s name, their birth certificate, their passports and their credit card was clearly against the law. It was all going so well until the wicked vengeful Prof got mean and put the old bill on my trail. It was over for me. I took out my mobile and tapped out a text message to him. I wanted to say ‘GO, ROT IN HELL’ but simply said ‘IM SORRY’. I was walking aimlessly on, with no clue where to go next or what to do. I couldn’t go to my mom in Basildon, not since I’d sent her a nude photo of myself, with William in prominent display, and she’d written back to me, in more than crystal clear terms, that she no longer wanted anything to do with me.
I did not get very far, anyway.
‘Veronica Jones?’ a stern, mirthless voice caused me to swing round. He was in a black police uniform. Upon seeing my face, his voice softened slightly, ‘We’ve been looking for you in connection with a series of accusations relating to Impersonation and Identity theft. You must come with us to Leyton Police station for questioning.’
I followed him to the parked Scoda Estate Police van parked a few meters away. It appeared they’d been driving behind me all along. At the police station, I was ordered to remain at the reception. It turned out that they were waiting for a female officer to carry out a body search. The burly officer at the counter could not take his eyes off me; he had that look of despiration that was common in near-starved laboratory mice. Two other officers came in. One of them whistled when he saw me, and other younger one winked. He asked the officer at the counter what I was doing there, and then offered to conduct the body search, but was harshly told get lost.
PC Sally Guthrie did not appear until 20 unbearable minutes later. She'd been briefed about me. She apologized politely for the delay and took some initial details. The she said she was sorry; she would have to frisk me before we went into the interrogation room.
‘OK’, I muttered, a little bit flustered.
‘Are you pregnant?’
‘No’
‘Are you wearing a pacemaker or any internal metallic device for health purposes or otherwise?’
‘No.’
I went through the security frame and then she commenced the frisk. Her gloved hand felt strangely comforting as she patted around my shoulders, briefly cupped my breast, felt around my middle and my hips, her face remained bland and unalarmed until she patted around my groin. That was when I felt her suddenly tense up.
‘Christ what’s that?’
‘I’m a ...’
‘Fuck, why didn’t you say so?’ she exclaimed, stepping back and holding her hands away from her as if they’d been contaminated with high grade plutonium dust.
The officer at the counter gave me a funny look, and then burst into a brief round of laughter. ‘I knew there was something dodgy about this one the moment I saw her. Come on, Sally, what are you frightened of? It won’t bite.’
‘How the hell can you tell?’ she retorted, ‘You go ahead and search him if you want to.’
‘No, not me ma’am’ the officer sniggered. ‘You started the job, you’d better, bloody, finish it.’
‘Follow me’, Sally said, maintaining a wary distance as she led me to a flood lit room with a table in the centre and two chairs on opposite sides. She motioned for me to sit on the chair further away from the door, giving me a wide berth as I made my way to the chair.
‘I have a ridiculously long list of charges of offences against you from right across the country. It looks as if you have been going round universities and colleges posing as a student under various names.’
I had nothing to say. Obviously I was sure a comprehensive dossier would have been rapidly put together as a matter of top priority. There was nothing that couldn’t be achieved if you pressed the right buttons with the powers that be, and I was sure that was what the Prof’s brother had done. No stone had been left unturned in other to trace all my activities in the last 10 years.
‘Janice Trent, Psychology, in the University of Surrey; Miranda McDonald, Literature and Drama, Portsmouth College; Sue Collins, Math, Leeds; Sharon Davies, Biochemistry, Exeter; Liz Martins, History Major, Birmingham.... In all, we found 26 student ID cards in your possession.’
I felt a fresh lump of remorse ascend my throat, there was no way I was going to get out of this one.
‘If you have no answer to these charges, I’m afraid we have to keep you here until we complete our investigations. Is there someone you wat us to contact and inform on your whereabouts, and if they could arrange legal aid and bail?’
‘I have no one’ I sniffed.
Sally glared balefully at me. There wasn’t a hint of pity in her eyes. ‘In that case, I have no choice but to keep you here for the time being’ she said flatly. An alarming chill came over me. I couldn’t afford to be separated from my makeup and HRT kit for too long. The consequences were just not worth thinking about.
All sense of time was lost while I was interned in the Leyton Police solitary cell. All my worst fears were realized. The place had no windows, and the lights were on all the time. It was a small, bare, square room that consisted of a bed that was built into the wall, a well used WC and a grime covered wash basin with a single cold water tap that was hard to turn. A faint noisome smell hung in the air. Its memory would be a forbidding sentry against future thoughts of the sort of actions that had led me into my predicament. Food was passed through a hatch at the bottom of the steel door. Another smaller hatch above that, at about waist level, popped open at random intervals, and a pair of eyes peered in to see what I was up to.
That was the lowest point in my life. There was nothing to do except to be filled with anger and regret. Perhaps I should have gotten rid of William altogether. But I couldn’t let go, he was my soul and my conscience.
When I touched my upper lip and my chin I felt the sharp scraping bristle of my growing moustache and my beard. I thought I must have looked a mess. I felt my chest, and found that my breasts had all but disappeared. I’d turned back into William McChen. If I ever got out, I’d start from the beginning. I’d do a degree and get a decent job, and then I’d hire someone to fix the Prof.
The PC who let me out of the cell was the same guy who was at the counter in the reception on the day I arrived. Now it was obvious what I was, they no longer needed PC Sally to attend to me.
‘You should see yourself, mate’ the Police officer sniggered.
I had no aggression left in me to answer back with an appropriate insult, so I just followed him obediently.
‘Well, the good news is there’s someone here to see you’
‘Who?’ I couldn’t imagine. Perhaps Janet had contacted someone to find out where I was, I wondered vaguely.
I heard his voice before I saw him. It was the first time I’d seen him without his suit, except for the night in the apartment, of course.
‘Jesus!’ he exclaimed, ‘What happened to you?’ he looked as if he’d seen a ghost.
Yes, I’d been in there for three days and grown a beard, but it didn’t mean I’d turned into Jesus. Well, I knew I’d wronged the Prof, but I thought I’d suffered enough for it, and it was not necessary for him to turn up and gloat. My mouth was dry, and all I could do was to remain tong-tied, with my head bowed.
‘I came here the moment I heard you’re in trouble. A lecturer in the University of Leicester hired a private investigator to probe your activities. I wonder what you’d done to upset him.’
‘What? So it wasn’t you?’
‘Dear, surely not. Do you know Dr Richards?’
‘Oh.’
‘Well, I’ve had a little confab with him, and we’ve both come to a common agreement, so he’s abandoned his comprehensive agenda of revenge’
‘But what about_’
‘I’ve also sorted out your bail with the police; I’m hoping that all this misunderstanding will soon be resolved’
‘I’m so sorry...’ I sobbed
‘Never mind, come, I’ll drop you at the apartment. You can stay there for the time being.’
I stared at him incredulously through tear stinging eyes in and then asked, ‘But why?’
‘Don’t you worry about it’ he said, ‘just go and sort yourself out, will you?’
……………………………………………………………………………………………..
Next Story:
Due date: 20 Apr 2011
Working Title: The Rolls Royce of Poverty
Rough synopsis:
Lamid is blissfully aware of his poverty until his friend, Abdul, arrives from his brief trip to the US and introduces him to the wonders of a different world.
Amira, Lamid's wife is deeply unhappy about the situation of her household and has decides to take some drastic steps, against the pleas and advise of her parents.
Bello is their 8 year old only son and the narrator of the story who tells of the sequence of events that leads to a profound change on his own life.
