From the hallway, there came the sound of the front door being opened and, a moment later, George stepped into the room.
‘Hello,’ he said, surprised to see a stranger sitting there. ‘Who are you?’
‘I’m a ghost,’ said the ghost.
‘Splendid. Hello, darling,’ he added, leaning over and kissing Beverley on the cheek. ‘Pleasant day?’
‘No. Terrible.’
‘Trust me, it couldn’t have been as bad as mine.’
‘Anyway, we’re just finishing up here. I’ll see you out, dear,’ she added, standing up and leading the ghost towards the hallway to retrieve her jacket, which looked as if it had been sourced from a skip behind a homeless shelter. ‘It’s been a pleasure meeting you,’ she said.
‘So should I wait to hear from you?’
‘Philippa will send a contract through, but I’m happy to go ahead if you are. I get a good sense from you. I think we can work well together. Just stay away from London Zoo, all right? If something ridiculous was to happen to you, too, it would simply be more than I could cope with. I’ll text you later tonight, as I’ll need to meet you at Selfridges tomorrow morning.’
‘Selfridges?’ asked the ghost, uncertain why they would be going shopping, but before she could ask any further questions, the door was closed in her face.
Returning to the drawing room, Beverley was confronted by a frowning George.
‘There’s a tortoise in a box,’ he said, nodding towards the corner of the room. ‘Just over there. A tortoise. Where no tortoise should be.’
‘I know,’ she replied. ‘He’s come to stay for a little while. You don’t mind, do you?’
LOVE WHISTLE
Dr Twyla Oristo, tall, slim, the recipient of three separate PhDs, sat down opposite Nelson in her office, a pad and paper resting by her side, wearing the inscrutable smile she’d been perfecting since her earliest days as a therapist. Originally from Jamaica, she had come to England in 1979, on the same morning that Mrs Thatcher was first elected to high office. Although Nelson had been her patient for only eighteen months, she considered him the most likely to be upset by what she had to tell him today. For this reason, she had decided to hold off breaking her news until the end of their session.
‘So tell me about your week,’ she began.
‘It was terrible,’ he said. ‘I joined a gym.’
‘But that’s wonderful,’ she replied, brightening up. ‘I’m sure you’re familiar with the phrase mens sana in corpore sano?’
‘Healthy men make healthy soldiers?’
‘Well, not quite. But are you enjoying it?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘I’m afraid I’ve already been banned.’
‘Oh.’ She paused and tapped the end of her pen against her knee. ‘Are you going to tell me why?’
‘Why I joined or why I was banned?’
‘Either. Both.’
Nelson shrugged his shoulders and looked around the room, as if he might find the answer in one of the paintings on the wall. ‘The thing is, I’ve seen men and women go to gyms in movies,’ he said. ‘They always have flirtatious and amusing conversations that lead to dinner dates and sex, so I thought I might give it a try.’
‘Remember how we talked about not confusing real life and movies?’ said Dr Oristo.
‘Yes, but I thought this might be one of the occasions where films were based on true events. Like Titanic or Gandhi or Avengers: Endgame. So, I decided to give it a go. I even went out and spent a lot of money on the … what do you call it? The workout clothes.’
‘What did you buy?’
‘Green Lycra shorts and a matching tank-top.’
‘Lycra isn’t always the best idea for a man. And a tank-top often looks better on someone with more definition in their upper arms.’
‘I thought I looked rather good in it,’ replied Nelson, slightly offended. ‘Although there was a clear outline of my … you know. In my shorts.’
‘Nelson,’ said Dr Oristo, smiling benevolently at him. ‘You know we don’t use by-names in therapy. We call things what they are. We’re both adults, after all.’
‘Still, I’d rather not,’ he said.
‘Then I’m afraid I won’t be able to understand what you’re talking about.’
‘I’m sorry I brought this up now.’
‘We don’t have to talk about the gym if you’d prefer not to.’
‘But I do want to. All right, then. There was a clear outline of my gentleman’s part in my shorts.’
‘Your what? Your gentleman’s part?’
‘My phallus.’
‘Better,’ said Dr Oristo. ‘But not quite there yet. Try again.’
Nelson sighed. Names from the pornography he occasionally watched ran through his mind but none seemed appropriate to use in front of a woman.
‘My family jewels,’ he said.
‘You were carrying rings and bracelets about your person?’
‘My disco stick.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘My meat and two veg.’
‘Nelson—’
‘My love whistle,’ he said.
‘Oh, for pity’s sake!’ she shouted, throwing her hands in the air in frustration. ‘Just say penis, can’t you?’
‘My penis,’ he muttered, looking down at the floor. ‘I’m sorry, I think I got carried away there.’
‘Yes. But we’ve established in the past that anxiety makes you do that.’
‘You’re the one who made me say it.’
‘I know, and I am filled with regret. Now, tell me what happened when you went to the gym.’
He sighed and threw his mind back to an afternoon a few days earlier that he would rather forget.
‘Well, as I said, it was my first time there so I didn’t know quite what to do. I wasn’t intending to exercise, after all, but to find love. So I walked up and down a couple of times and, after a few minutes, I saw a nice-looking woman standing on one of the mats doing stretches. She was pulling a leg behind her in a way that seemed erotic.’
‘Did you find it erotic?’ asked Dr Oristo.
‘Not really, no. I thought it looked quite painful.’
‘All right. And what did you do?’
‘I did what you always tell me to do. I told myself that I was a pleasant and attractive young man, that there was nothing to be frightened of, and I went over to speak to her.’
‘While she was stretching?’
‘Yes.’
‘And what did you say?’
‘I told her that I had been admiring her calf muscles from afar and wondered whether I might be allowed to touch them.’
‘And what happened then?’
‘She told me to f-word off.’
‘And did you?’
‘Of course. I f-worded off to a different part of the gym, where I saw another woman on a rowing machine, and she was sweating terribly so I offered her the use of my towel. She declined and, since we were then engaged in what I thought was an agreeable conversation, I asked her whether she might like to have dinner with me at the restaurant of her choice.’