Not 'til the Fat Lady Sings

Not ’til The Fat Lady Sings

An Amorality Tale

FCJ Lloyd

Copyright 2018 FCJ Lloyd

Published by FCJ Lloyd at Smashwords

1st Edition

This is a work of fiction. Moreover, it is a farrago of utter nonsense, so any resemblance to reality in any way, shape, or form, now or in the future, would be a) surprising and b) quite flattering.

All the chapter sub-heading poems are by the poet-painter, William Blake. The one that isn’t is a palpable forgery.

With thanks to

RL Adams, Patrick Clark, Jeremy Hullah, Kath Pyke, Anna Gawley, Daphne Fallieros Potter, Amber Johnston, Richard Rogerson, Geoff Parkinson, Chris Tacy, and Alxe Noden for reading early drafts and giving me invaluable feedback.

Dedicated To Robert James ‘Jim’ Lloyd

Thank you for downloading this ebook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from their favorite authorized retailer. Thank you for your support!

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 – A Party

Chapter 2 - The Office

Chapter 3 – Colorado

Chapter 4 – Derbyshire

Chapter 5 – Asia

Chapter 6 – Aspen

Chapter 7 – Douglas

Chapter 8 – Wales

Chapter 9 – At Home

Chapter 10 – Hospital

Chapter 11 – Another Party

Chapter 12 – Beijing

Prologue

What is it, daddy?

It’s a brooch. A sort of good luck charm. It’s made of jade

It looks like grandma’s necklace

Very well spotted, my lovely

Can I have it?

I’m afraid not, my little princess. It doesn’t belong to me

Is it grandpa’s?

It is, yes

The little girl absorbed this information for a long moment

So do we have to hide it?

We do, yes

Will grandpa ever come back to see us? Will he want his things? Suppose we aren’t here and he can’t find them?

Then he’ll have to find you and ask you where you hid them, won’t he?

A Party

The selfish, smiling fool, and the sullen, frowning fool

shall be both thought wise, that they may be a rod.

What is now proved was once only imagin'd.

The rat, the mouse, the fox, the rabbit watch the roots;

the lion, the tyger, the horse, the elephant watch the fruits.

You find me at a 'works do', the annual J&J Christmas party held by Our Illustrious Chairman at his little place in the country. Throckmorten Hall, far from being little, is a vast ancestral pile from the Gothic Horror school of architecture, complete with gargoyles modeled on close family relatives, tepid hot water central heating and, one suspects, a first wife in the attic. Attendance is optional unless you want your job. All staff and their significant others are present and correct in best bib and tucker and acres of gooseflesh undulates in all directions.

In Dickensian glamour, the halls are decked with boughs of holly, tra la la la la, and the senior lechers are strategically placed under the mistletoe. A massive fireplace dominates the far end of the main hall, but by some architectural miracle the fireplace defies the laws of physics and doesn’t emit any warmth but instead sucks the heat from the room. At the first Christmas party I attended at Throckmorten Hall, I became convinced that the fire was a hologram and to prove it, I went and stood in the fireplace (it’s large enough to spit-roast a couple of sturdy peasants) discreetly looking for evidence of a hidden projector. Patrick, Lord Throckmorten, saw me peering closely at the mantel and mistaking my interest to be architectural, treated me to a fifteen minute discourse on 19th Century wood carving (feel free to ask me about linenfold strapwork. Go on, I know you want to). As this isn’t my first rodeo, I’m wearing a low cut gown of heavy velvet in bottle green. It’s supposed to be fairly snug: form-fitting as my dressmaker puts it, but I’m wearing cashmere underwear to keep the chill at bay and now it is very snug indeed. I look like a blow up Morticia Addams doll. A warm one.

There are probably eighty or so of us mingling with enforced gaiety, swilling down the Christmas Punch. J&J is a both a private insurance company and Fine Art public auctioneer. It’s not a big firm, not like Christies or Sotheby’s, who, by the way, are only auctioneers, not insurers, but J&J has satellite offices in New York, Zurich, and Buenos Aires, and employs some fifty or so people here in London. I’m one of their insurance agents. I love telling people I'm an insurance agent and watch their eyes glaze over. In truth, I'm an insurance actuary and Asian art specialist on the Fine Art side of the business.

There are four senior staff in the Fine Art department and we are all here tonight. It’s our chance to make a good impression on the next levels up of management i.e. The Board. The head of our department, Bernard, is becoming increasingly unwell (by which I mean that no one can any longer cover up the fact that his drinking is causing J&J severe problems and the limit is fast being reached) and we, the sharks, smell his blood in the water.

Like a tanker pulling a reluctant tug boat, Out Illustrious etc. Lord Throckmorten, call me Patrick (subtext: If you dare), is doing the rounds closely followed by a young man who must be a grandson that I’d missed somewhere along the line. I’m keeping my eye on Patrick’s progress as I want to be discreetly in his way so that he has to notice me. Tracking him isn’t a difficult task, for a start he’s preternaturally tall and sports a monumental quiff up top, much like a Mr. Whippy on the move. The crowd parts around him like waves around ship, the Brownian ripples telling me where he is at any given moment. I circle discreetly, moving both Patrick-wards and bar-wards. Along my circuitous voyage, I find myself washing up next to a small Chinese woman.

Great dress, Lin.

Linda Wang was wearing a floor length Cheung-sam in jade green with embroidered silver dragons and a slit up the side. Real silver thread, I noted. You don’t think it might be a tad clichéd? I continued.

Lin gazed at me. See this? This is my inscrutable smile. Later I shall stab you with a chopstick pulled from my hairdo. Lin’s parents escaped from China with Lin’s grandmother just before the Cultural Revolution kicked off and somehow wound up in Britain. They militantly adopted British customs and are bewildered by their daughter’s obvious delight in her heritage. Lin made a decision fairly early on in life that she was going to be Chinese, stereotypically Chinese, and ‘though she doesn’t actually speak in pidgin English, you know she’s itching to. It wouldn’t surprise me if she binds her feet on weekends, which would go a long way to explaining why she is reluctant to nip out and get me the espresso coffees I so desperately need to keep going during the day.

Lin is my personal assistant and has been since I started at the firm some years ago. She’s been at J&J forever and is fiercely loyal and frighteningly smart. I have no idea how old she is, in fact there’s a distinct whiff of the Dorian Grey about her, but her experience is ancient. If she wasn’t so utterly invaluable I dare say I might rebuke her for her cheek. As if. She’s terrifying.

Who’s the puppy following our Dear Leader around? I ask her.

That’s Jonas. He’s going to be our new boy.

Really? I didn’t know we were getting more staff.

Lin sighs. Don’t you ever read your emails?

Is that rhetorical? Because you know I don’t. I expect you to read them and tell me what’s going on.

Yes, I do. But that system only works if you read MY emails.

How terribly ingenious. Did I come up with that plan or did you? I must make a note. Remind me, will you? Lin closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, but before she can launch into A Speech, I quickly ask who will he be working under, do you know?

Bernard, I expect. His thesis was on some dreary iconography of color in 18th Century Portuguese watercolors.

Ah. My knowledge of Portuguese watercolors is limited, to put it mildly.

Knowing me as she does, and always keen to display her superior knowledge, Lin launches into a lecture tour of what the colors represent. Red for the establishment, blue for reformist elements, etc. etc.; the colors of religious subversion. Before she can get completely carried away, I hold up my hand and say

Stop. Everything is on a need to know basis, and I really don’t need to know. What I really need to know is when The Board is going to suggest Bernard spends more time with his hepatologist. Can’t you find out?

Before she can answer, Lord Throckmorten hoves into harbor and drops anchor next to her.

Louise, Lin, I'd like you to meet Jonas. Patrick maneuvers the terrifyingly young man in front of us. Jonas will be joining us in the New Year, and I thought this would be a terrific opportunity for him to meet his future colleagues under more relaxed circumstances. Jonas seems to be exactly the sort of hire you would expect a three hundred-year-old private insurance company to make. One Of Us. I greet Patrick and Jonas with a full wattage smile and say

Welcome, Jonas! Forgive me for not being around for your initial interviews, but I read your resume and was impressed. Your thesis was on Portuguese watercolors I seem to remember. I was just telling Lin about the importance of the color blue in Catholic schism theory. She was fascinated and I’m sure you can tell her more.

I can almost hear Lin’s teeth gritting as I continue smoothly, we’re so looking forward to having you on board. Do let me know if you need any help settling in, questions I can answer and so forth. An insouciant spray of acne lingers on Jonas’ cheeks, denoting his status as Still A Virgin. I touch his arm and allow him a view of my cleavage, ensuring that he’d die of embarrassment rather than come near me again. Jonas blushes an unbecoming shade of puce and stutters incoherently. The social ineptitude of the youth of today is quite staggering. I blame the growing temperance movement.

Absolutely, I say, I recommend the punch, you can’t go wrong.

Jonas can, of course, go horribly wrong with the punch. It’s made with industrial strength Everclear, because J&J through long experience, knows that in a social setting, tipsy sociopathic employees are easier to deal with than sober ambitious ones.

Having impressed upon Patrick my grasp of employee care and management skills, I’m rather pleased with myself. Annoying Lin was just icing on the cake. I’d pay for it later, of course. I always do. As Patrick and Jonas move off into the crowd, I turn to Lin

He really is very young. Bernard will eat him alive. I give him two months, tops.

Less, if tries to explain his thesis to me, says Lin dryly, and, as I see Charles advancing upon us, I’m going to leave you to it.

My voyage towards the bar thwarted, I turned and watched as Charles oozed his way through the well-heeled mass like butter on a hot crumpet, the gel in his white blonde hair glinting festively. We’d worked together, or rather in the same department, for some ten years and I trusted him about as far as I could throw him. I didn't dislike Charles and in some ways quite admired his abilities with overly exacting clients, but had never really warmed to him. His flamboyantly gay persona seemed to me to be a mask for what I suspected was a really vicious little thug. Reggie Kray with an Eton education. Charles is Oils, specialist subject Religious Painting of the 15th Century. He is definitely joint favorite in the running for Head of Department.

I see you’ve been introduced to the new blood. As if Jonas wouldn't give his left nut to be working for J&J. And he'll be smitten until someone tells him you're gay.

No doubt that'll be you, Charles.

Charles craned sideways past my shoulder that happy experience is to be denied me I'm afraid. Pretty sure Bea has beaten me to it judging by the expression on laddie-boy's face.

What a witch that woman is. Ah well, probably just make him keener. Most men seem to be under the impression I haven't met the right man yet, and that man is himself.

I tell myself that all the time, said Charles earnestly and do you know, I’m almost always right?

Escaping Charles, I make beeline for the bar schmoozing my way among the guests, all the time being careful to keep a woman in a blue dress in my peripheral vision. She has dark hair sleekly cropped to her lovely head. Single diamonds suspended on thin chains hang from her perfect ears, matching the single diamond nestling at the base of her throat. The illusion of poise is belied by the tension in her fingers. I idly wonder if the stem of the flute she’s holding will snap and if it did, would she?

I promised myself I’d resist but as always, I find myself helpless in the face of temptation. Such a lovely face too. Emma is channeling Sophia Loren in a strapless midnight blue gown that magnifies and underpins her plump little breasts. Like a baby’s bum under her chin.

Emma! How are you? How’s Duncan?

I’m coping. Barely. Duncan’s *this* close to being sued for workplace harassment.

I lean in and whisper, dump him and come back to me.

Emma is Duncan’s wife. Duncan is the Chairman’s nephew, de facto heir apparent, and a relentless sexual predator. Despicable Duncan is the sort of man who sniffs cocaine off toilet seats and fingers women in crowds, whilst Emma is adorable, clever and funny. Our affair had been perfect. A ripe plum in an icebox on a hot summer morning.

Do you really mean that?

I watched a flush rise across her chest and up her neck. A flush of desire. The diamond at her throat bobbed along with her pulse.

Yup.

Her sigh flutters across my cheek and I inhale it. It almost stops my heart.

I move back into the throng buoyed by that flush. It occurs to me that I might be in love with Emma. But there again, the road to hell is paved with broken hearts and maybe mine shouldn’t be one of them. Fortunately, another vision of loveliness floats across my path and puts Emma quite out of my thoughts.

Saphira. As radiant as ever.

I, like everyone else, had a massive crush on Saphira. She was magnificently arrayed tonight in a coppery sequined off the shoulder number with a burnt orange under slip that matched her flame hair and the lipstick on her bee-stung lips. The dress was a slightly unfortunate choice as it was eye-poppingly apparent she was cold. Bronzes and military artifacts were her specialty. She had arrived in the department almost a year ago in a perfumed cloud trailing a husband in her wake. That hadn’t stopped me before, but we quickly established that she wasn’t interested in playing for the other side. However, I live in hope.

I feel terrible, I should have warned you about the temperature at these things. How many passes have you had to fend off?

Including the Despicable Duncan?

Ugh. How mortifyingly repellent. Is it you who is reporting him for workplace harassment? I joked.

No, but I should. She was clearly angry.

Seriously? That bad? I’d heard some fairly appalling stories, but Duncan usually confined himself to secretaries so I was surprised.

No. Well, yes actually. He grabbed my…. she gestured downward, but I want my career, so I’m not rocking the boat.

Sensing an opportunity I said, no one should have to put up with that. Leave it to me. It won’t happen again.

Nominally I am Duncan’s equal, apart from the whole nephew of the Chairman thing, so I could have a word with him without it being out of turn. I wouldn’t describe myself as a leading member of the Sisterhood, but enough was enough, #metoo and all that. Handling staff grievances isn’t in my job description, but it couldn’t hurt to start marshaling allies. I felt the mantle of battle settle across my shoulders. I knew something about Duncan, and it was time to remind him of it. I’d be a shining star to Saphira, Duncan would drown himself, and with any luck Emma would be thrust back into my arms. The drowning was highly unlikely, but a girl can dream.

Slightly lost in my reverie of Being A Heroine, I jump as a voice mutters in my ear.

Do you ever think you’ll burn in Hell, Louise?

Flicking the slopped gin from my fingers, I say good grief Bea, what sort of party chit-chat is that?

I saw you whispering in Emma’s ear and from her expression, guessed what you might be saying to her. Your guilty start confirms my suspicions. Take my advice and don’t. These intra-corporate affairs never end well.

You should have been a careers counselor, Bea, I say lightly to cover my annoyance. I had to quell a sudden urge to add and anyway you’re too late just to see her flinch in the face of reality.

To reflect the party mood Bea was wearing a long cotton skirt, no doubt made by a tragically poor but picturesque peasant, which looked as though it needed a damn good wash and iron. Draped over her left shoulder and tied on her right hip was what can only be described as a loosely woven burlap sack, although, mercifully, this covered her lurching bosom. Bea reminds me of a relentlessly hippy art teacher I had at school. All basket weaving, tie dye, knitting one’s own jam, and a mistrust of supportive undergarments. She flows in all directions. I suspect she