Corporate Bodies by Simon Brett

Author:Simon Brett [Simon Brett]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Severn House Publishers
Published: 2012-09-29T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

OUT OF THE corner of his eye, Charles kept catching movement on a television screen high in the corner of the marquee. White figures moved against a green background. The volume had been turned down low; applause sounded like distant sea-wash. But the picture was still distracting. He moved his chair round a little so that the screen was out of his eyeline.

This had the unintended effect of bringing him closer to Shelley. She raised her eyebrows in a quizzical, half-mocking challenge.

‘I’m sorry. It’s just, er, that monitor, sort of putting me off my stroke.’

‘Ooh. Can’t have that, can we, Charles?’

She had an engaging way of saying his name. In her husky Cockney, it came out as ‘Chowss’.

‘Look, I didn’t mean –’

‘Don’t worry. I’ve never complained about fellers getting too close to me.’

‘Ah. Ah,’ said Charles. He wasn’t used to this kind of heavy innuendo, certainly not from someone presumably in her mid-twenties. He adopted the traditional British method of taking the heat out of any situation. ‘Lovely day, isn’t it?’

She agreed that it was a lovely day. ‘Nice to be down here, and all.’

‘Yes. You’re a Londoner, aren’t you?’

‘Mm. Mind you, one of the disadvantages of being married to the Top Salesman in the North-West Area is you have to live up there.’ She grimaced. ‘We’re in Preston.’

‘Is it that bad?’

‘No, the people’s quite friendly and that, but all my mates is really down here.’ She put on a pious expression. ‘Still, the little woman has to go wherever Hubby goes. And do whatever Hubby tells her to, and all, doesn’t she?’

Shelley even managed to imbue this with a sexual overtone.

‘I didn’t think women thought like that nowadays. Thought you were all more liberated.’

‘Oh, don’t worry, Chowss, me and Daryl are a very liberated couple.’

He somehow didn’t think they were both using the word ‘liberated’ in the same sense.

‘And the thing is, a “liberated” couple can always find people of similar interests wherever they are. Even up in Preston. Quite a lot of “liberated” people we’ve met up there, you know.’

Charles nodded casually, not quite sure that he was hearing right. Shelley seemed to be saying that she and Daryl were into some kind of partner-swapping. In fact, her whole conversation could have come straight out of a soft-porn magazine. He had a sudden vision of the bookshelves in the Fletcher sitting-room – rows of Custom Car magazines, interleaved with Penthouses and Escorts.

‘So are you going to be stuck up there long?’ he asked uncontroversially. ‘I don’t know a lot about Daryl’s kind of work. Is it the sort of job where you move around a lot?’

‘Yeah. Lot of salesmen do. Daryl’s been with Delmoleen for a long time, working his way up, like, but now he’s got Top Salesman, it’s probably as far as he can go in the company. You know, he’s not Sales Manager material – well, not yet, anyway – so he’ll probably start looking for something else soon.’

‘Something down South?’

‘Hopefully, yeah.’

One of the discreet uniformed waitresses appeared beside them.

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