‘Jesus fuck,’ she said, putting a hand to her chest. ‘Don’t creep up on me like that.’
‘Sorry,’ he said, backing away and holding his hands in the air. ‘That was wrong of me. I should never have touched you without your permission.’
‘I don’t mind you touching me, Wilkes, I just don’t want to have a heart attack when you do it.’
He shook his head and looked as if he was about to cry. ‘No, I’m entirely to blame,’ he said. ‘That was a non-consensual incursion on your personal space, and I should have asked first. I’ll totally understand if you feel that you need to take the matter further.’
She stared at him, remembering previous boyfriends who had treated her body like it was theirs to molest whenever they felt like it and how distressing that had been. But at the same time, this level of chivalry was a bit much. Couldn’t there be some happy medium? And who would she take the matter to, even if she wanted to? She was hardly going to report him to the Metropolitan Police.
‘I forgive you,’ she said. ‘But learn from this moment, Wilkes, all right? Be better. Do better.’
‘I will,’ he said. ‘I promise. I appreciate you.’
‘And I appreciate you too. But if I’m going to die young and beautiful, then I want it to be on a beach in Dubai with a frozen Margarita in one hand and a Cecelia Ahern in the other, not ladling out gunge to a bunch of strangers at the back end of Brixton.’
He smiled, his sanctimonious, ghostly white face glowing like a five-watt bulb. Elizabeth hated being one of those women who only felt valued if she was with a man, but the truth was that she’d had a boyfriend every day of her life since she was fourteen years old and couldn’t imagine being single, and Wilkes was, to date, the one she liked the most. It wasn’t just that he paid more attention to her pleasure in bed than his own – he preferred not to orgasm in her presence, believing it was a symbol of male dominance over women – or that he had the kind of empty mind and childlike expression that she found so devastating in a man. Nor was it his understanding of all the world’s injustices and his determination to address them. She was all in favour of that, naturally, although she didn’t think he needed to talk about them quite so often or to be constantly writing in a notebook that had the words Global Inequalities, by Wilkes Maguire (he/him) scrawled across the front. No, the thing she liked most about her paramour was that he was neither impressed by her wealth and privilege nor repulsed by it. In the past, some of her exes had come to her home and spent more time with her father than with her, luxuriating in the pulsating glow of his celebrity, while others had scoffed at the five floors and the expensive artworks, while partaking of the pleasures of all. Wilkes, however, never seemed to notice his surroundings. He was like a puppy, full of energy, desperate for attention and with a surprisingly weak bladder.
‘So, what’s up?’ asked Elizabeth as they sat down at an empty table, facing each other. She leaned forward, placing her elbows on the woodwork, before immediately regretting it. The tables hadn’t been washed down after lunch yet and the sleeve of her blouse attached itself to the surface. She peeled it off, making a mental note to throw it away later.
‘An opportunity has presented itself,’ he said.
‘Does it involve ESPA Life at the Corinthia?’
‘No.’
He reached into his back pocket and removed a piece of paper, passing it across with so much reverence that it might have been a scan of their first child, which, he had already informed her, would be brought up gender neutral. In fact, it wouldn’t even be allowed to look at its own genitals until it was eighteen.
‘Have a read of this,’ he said. ‘And try not to get too excited.’
‘I’ll do my best,’ she said, unfolding the page and scanning it quickly, trying to avoid looking at the picture that accompanied the article. It didn’t take her more than a few moments to know that she would rather bore a hole to the centre of the Earth with her tongue than have anything to do with it.
‘A leper colony,’ she said quietly, more as a statement than a question. She couldn’t remember ever having used these words before and they didn’t sound quite right as they emerged from her mouth. It was as if she was talking about something that she was ninety-nine per cent sure didn’t actually exist but that just might have in the distant past. Dragons, for example. Zombies. Honest Republicans.
‘That’s right,’ replied Wilkes with a wide grin. How did he have such white teeth, she wondered? He claimed never to use whitening strips, saying they were bad for the environment, but those gnashers sparkled like a clutch of blood diamonds hanging around Naomi Campbell’s neck.
‘You want me to go to a leper colony?’
‘Well, not on your own, no. I want us to go together.’
‘We couldn’t just go to Paris?’
‘I don’t think there are any leper colonies there. If there were, I’d certainly consider it.’
‘But I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘I thought leprosy had been eradicated.’
‘It has been, for the most part,’ he replied. ‘But, luckily, there’s still a few small pockets of the world where the disease is rife. I found this small island just off Indonesia where they’re crying out for help. I know it sounds a little frightening, but just think about it. How many people in the twenty-first century get to spend time around lepers?’
‘Kevin Spacey’s lawyers?’ she suggested. ‘Prince Andrew’s boot boy?’
‘This isn’t funny, Elizabeth,’ said Wilkes, frowning. ‘Leprosy is a horrible disease that affects tens of people every year and we as a society do nothing to help them. There hasn’t been a march, a charity record, there’s not even an awareness ribbon for supporters of the disease.’
‘Well, you’d hardly support it, would you? You’d be opposed to it.’
‘Support the obliteration of it, I mean. AIDS has a red ribbon, breast cancer has pink, bladder cancer has yellow. The cancers have it all sewn up, to be honest, and they haven’t left much room for anything else. Perhaps I should create one.’
‘You could go for something with nasty red splodges on it.’
‘Or spots!’ said Wilkes, feeling he’d had a Eureka moment. ‘You know, as in—’
‘I’m pretty sure that’s leopard,’ said Elizabeth.
‘Oh, right.’
‘But isn’t it all a bit …’
‘A bit what?’
‘A bit gross? Aren’t lepers covered with scars and open, pus-filled wounds? Don’t their arms and legs fall off without any warning?’
‘I don’t think that happens,’ he replied. ‘Although, naturally, we’d have to take precautions so we didn’t contract it ourselves. I still have a bunch of hemp masks left over from last year, so they should help. But you have to admit, if we arrived back in London and stood in the middle of Trafalgar Square ringing bells and shouting “Unclean! Unclean!”, it would really make people sit up and think. I bet your father’s never had a leper on his chat show.’
‘He had Gary Glitter on a few times back in the day.’