Eleanor Pt. 07

SIXTEEN

There was good and bad news from the company's meeting with Avian. The bad news was that they remained unconvinced about the viability of quantum technology at the present time. The good news was that Kate Birdwell wanted to schedule more meetings with company representatives, or more accurately with Eleanor along with Jordan and Michael, the principal developer from the IT department and his colleague. (Yes, they always used to get a lot of basketball jokes when they worked together on projects.) This time the meetings would be held over a weekend at her home in Brecon and divided into two sessions. The first session (on the Saturday afternoon) would comprise the two technical teams, while the second session (on Sunday) would consist of just the two decision-makers.

When she heard of these arrangements from Bob, something very like a bolt of electricity surged through Eleanor. Not only could she silence all the doubters in the company by clinching the deal, but she could discover if those meaningful looks that the widow had directed at her had been invested with as much significance as she had taken them to be.

Naturally, much of the next month was spent working with her team fine-tuning the design of the system and launching beta versions. This proved to be a more than useful, if at times frustrating, exercise, as a number of glitches were discovered, the resolution of one of which provided the key for a reappraisal of a protocol which had been a subject of some disagreement among the team. By the time they were ready to travel down to South Wales on the Friday evening (it had been decided that they would spend the night at a local hotel so they would be fresh for Saturday's session, which had been slated for 1pm), Eleanor was pleased with the progress that had been made but nervous about the next couple of the days. In a very real sense, her future with the company and in the industry depended on the success of this venture.

When they arrived at Kate's place on the Saturday, they were greeted by the lady of the house herself. If she had any live-in help, it appeared that she had given them the weekend off. Given the size of the place (the house had three floors and must have had at least five bedrooms, and the grounds appeared to cover several acres), Eleanor couldn't believe that the widow ran the house on her own. Perhaps she would find out later, but for now it was all about business.

The big difference between this meeting and the ones they'd had with the Avian technical people in Manchester was that Kate attended the session herself - all five hours of it. Not that they ran straight through from one o'clock. At her suggestion, they took an hour's break at three thirty, which meant they were able to have dinner together at the local Michelin-starred French restaurant at eight. Kate wanted to pay for everybody, given she had kept them at it so late, but Eleanor put her foot down on principle and insisted that she covered the cost of her people. In the end, they decided that the simplest thing to do was to split the bill and pay half each.

Although the afternoon had not been without its problems (with a new glitch cropping up - fortunately, not a major one, as was recognised by Kate's chief engineering officer), it had gone as well as might have been expected. The computer model which they had painstakingly constructed based on the algorithms that they would be adopting in the finished product produced the kind of numbers in terms of energy savings that Avian had been pressing for. In terms of security against bots and other unwanted disruptors, it exceeded their specifications. Although Eleanor couldn't have known this, security had become Avian's number one criterion as a result of a DDoS attack that had disrupted their systems only a fortnight previously.

When she finally flopped onto her bed shortly after eleven that evening, Eleanor knew she was only half way to her goal. She still needed to persuade Kate to make the investment, and to make the investment with them. Happily, she would be able to sleep in, as the time of her meeting had been put back from ten to twelve noon. Kate had told Eleanor that she would be the recipient of a rare treat - her own cooking. It would only be simple ('brunch' is what she called it) but, having checked with her guest what she would like ('anything would be great'), she would be donning an apron for the first time in many moons. Or so she claimed. Eleanor, it has to be said, didn't quite believe her, especially as she had let slip during the break between meetings that she hailed originally from Grenoble in France.

'All French women from the provinces must be able to cook,' thought Eleanor - not without reason, as it turned out.

Realising that this could turn out to be the most important day of her professional life, Eleanor took great care with her appearance before setting out for Kate's place about fifteen minutes by taxi from her hotel in town. She'd brought along two possible outfits for the crucial Sunday meeting: a mid-length button-up dress in autumnal shades, which she had worn several times before and felt very comfortable in, and a trouser suit ensemble, consisting of a black V-neck T-shirt, a white zip-up peplum jacket and black crepe trousers with a tapered leg. In the end, she decided to go with the latter, pairing them with a pair of tan colour ballet flats.

Having applied some eye shadow and lip gloss, she got in the cab that she'd ordered the evening before and set off for the fine Georgian house. As on the previous day, she was met at the front door by Kate, who was, fittingly, wearing a stripy blue apron. But rather than traditional vertical stripes, this one had hoops (broad hoops too). Eleanor noted that the Frenchwoman had lost no opportunity to draw attention to her slender figure, wearing calf length jeans under the apron along with a long-sleeved white T-shirt. Metallic flat sandals, with a distinctly French flavour, completed the ensemble.

It was as well that Eleanor had eaten nothing that morning, because when they finally sat down to brunch some minutes after one o'clock Kate had put on a veritable feast, with croque monsieur, French bread covered with avocado spread and topped with poached eggs, and crispy cornetto-style croissants stuffed with hazelnut-chocolate cream, as well as a selection of fresh fruit. This was all washed down by freshly squeezed orange juice and coffee to die for - a cappuccino for Eleanor and an espresso for her host.

During breakfast, they didn't talk shop at all. Kate initially quizzed Eleanor about her interests before Eleanor's compliments about the house and the beauty of its surroundings led the older woman to talk about her former husband, Logan. Then had met in France when Kate was only eighteen. It was a most improbable story, as Kate admitted with a laugh. She had run away from Grenoble because she found life there so boring and she felt that her creativity was being stifled. Logan was at the time the Parisian representative for a multinational pharmaceutical company and unmarried. He spoke serviceable French and used to spend his weekends playing rugby and two or three midweek evenings training. It was his great passion in life, and remained so until he died. For the last five years of his life he had been the chairman of the local rugby club, which he had supported since moving to Wales with Kate more than 15 years ago now.

'You must excuse me while I change,' said Kate. 'Would you like to sit in the garden? Let me show you the way.'

She led her guest through a couple of reception rooms to the French doors that led onto the terrace.

'What a view!' said Eleanor, looking across to the Brecon Beacons just as the sun broke through the clouds overhead.

'I'm sorry,' Kate said. 'I didn't offer you a drink. Let me remedy that for you.'

'Honestly I couldn't eat or drink another thing for an hour at least. I'll be fine just sitting here and enjoying the sound of the birds and the sight of the clouds scurrying past the mountains.'

Eleanor was so comfortable in her padded garden chair that before she knew it she had nodded off. When Kate returned after 20 minutes, she was all set to apologise for the delay, but saw she had no immediate need to. Deciding to let the exhausted executive enjoy 40 winks, she headed inside and prepared a pitcher of lemonade she had made in advance of the visit. When she returned a few minutes later, she found Eleanor walking on the terrace in an obvious attempt to stave off the tiredness she was feeling.

When Eleanor saw Kate, she received once again that thrill which had affected her in this woman's presence several times already. Kate was wearing a black blouse with a deep V neck and a very fetching black leather pencil skirt with metal grommet details, together with a pair of heels (at least three inches, Eleanor reckoned) in a marbled grey colour with a matching ankle strap. She looked somehow younger and more mature at the same time.

'That's a beautiful skirt,' Eleanor said. 'Did you get it in Paris?'

As opening lines go, it wasn't very good but it served its purpose. As it happens, it had been bought in Birmingham. Eleanor suddenly thought of Justine and her French lesson.

'Je vais baiser ta douce chatte.'

Would she be able to use that line today, she wondered? After standing for a while, Kate invited Eleanor to take the weight off her legs. They sat down in chairs offering vistas over the mountains with the sides slightly turned into each other, so they could carry on a conversation without straining their necks. It didn't take long for the talk to turn to Eleanor's personal circumstances.

'So what about your life outside work?' Kate asked. 'Do you have what you English are pleased to call a Significant Other?'

'You don't have a similar expression in French?' asked Eleanor, buying herself a little time.

'Oh, heavens, no! We do not take affairs of the heart in such a businesslike way. We would say "lover" or "mistress". Even "partner" is not popular in France.'

'It must be less stressful, in many ways, to live in a place where political correctness hasn't taken such a strong hold. You don't have to be forever worrying about whether what you're saying will be misunderstood or not.'

'No one really cares, you know. People are expected to hold opinions about issues, and as long as they get along with other people, no one would dream of interfering with their right to express those opinions. Every high school student takes philosophy (you might call it "critical rational discussion") as a compulsory subject. Teenagers are thus encouraged to gather information, consider alternative interpretations, and made a conclusion based on their findings. You must understand that France is not a society prone to "group think". People are both individualistic and private, and everyone respects the right of others to have their own private life.'

'Yes, a schoolfriend of mine who has lived in Paris for ten years or so tells me that privacy is guarded jealousy. Neighbours feel no need to do more than nod at one another. Anything else would be considered prying.'

'Mais bien sur - excuse me! - of course, you are brought up to be uninterested in the intimate life of others. Anything else would be considered wrong, un-French, if you like. When President Mitterand's daughter by one of his mistresses was photographed in Paris Match, it provoked outrage - directed not at Mitterand but at the magazine for intruding into his private life.'

'People are quite frightened in England now - always looking over their shoulder, scared to say what they think about things that don't really matter. First it was Brexit (which people would virtually go to war over), and now if you even appear to criticise the near compulsory use of gender-neutral pronouns (as my poor mother did once), you can find yourself in a firestorm.'

'Were these young people who attacked your mother for what she said?'

'Yes, they were. Students at the local university - well, technical college, really. They were in the same queue as her. She was with a friend. I needn't tell you they left and found another place for a coffee and a chat.'

'It is becoming a little bit like China during the Cultural Revolution, where children were encouraged to criticise their parents, even to put the - I don't know how to say it - in French we say bonnet d'âne (the hat of the donkey)...'

'Dunce's cap,' said Eleanor.

'Yes, thank you. So children put the dunce's cap on the head of their father or mother. And they wonder why they have so many problems with public order and rational thinking in China! After you have turned something upside down, it takes a long time for society to turn it round again, and you have lost the balance which is so important for a healthy society.'

Eleanor nodded and indicated for Kate to continue. It was interesting to get an outside perspective on such matters.

'I think that in England political correctness ("Wokeness", as my husband called it) has become the new religion. It is not the just the Christians who wish to evangelise and make converts; it is the now the atheists too. They preach their religion as if it were the only correct one, as Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox have done before them. Like them, they don't realise that their views are merely a matter of taste. The important thing is to make other people conform to your opinions.'

'Anyway, you were asking me about "significant others",' Eleanor said with a laugh, taking a sip of the lemonade, which she expressed her approval of with a 'mm'.

'I was married once, but only for a couple of years. It was selfish of me really, as I knew it was a dead duck from the beginning, but I liked Hayden. We could talk about so many things and had a similar sense of humour. But, at the end of the day, I guess, it was never going to work because -'

'You preferred women,' Kate finished the sentence for Eleanor, her intonation indicating it was a statement not a question.

'Yes, indeed. Actively from the age of around twenty. A long time now, anyway,' she said with a laugh.

'I was living with a woman when I met my husband in Paris. She was married, but separated from her husband. I was just nineteen and she was around Logan's age - in her mid-thirties. I was lucky because I never had to hide who I was from him. We had a marriage that many people did not find normal but it was good for us. Once we knew we could never have children, it meant we could invest our energies into our careers. I had lovers (you meet many beautiful women in the world of fashion) but I think Logan was always faithful to me. I always teased him, because a French man would have held it as a matter of honour to have mistresses. But he said I was enough woman for him. I guess you could say that I didn't deserve him.'

Eleanor was silent for a minute as she reflected on the fact that this was how she had often described her relationship with Hayden. She had been so happy when she learned that he had remarried and later when she learned that the couple were expecting their first baby. Talking about children was easier for Eleanor than talking about her ex.

'I never had any interest in having children. And then, in the last few years - since I turned thirty - I have begun to think about it a bit differently. It's not just that I'd like to make something that carries on after I am gone, but I sometimes worry that I will be quite lonely in my old age, especially once I have retired. I've always thought of packing work in at 55 (60 tops) so I have enough time to do things and to travel while I'm still fit enough to enjoy it.'

'A child would turn your life upside down,' said Kate. 'And presumably you'd want to embark on that phase of your life with a partner - or a wife, as they call it now!'

'Yes, and there's no point in bringing a little one into this world if you are going to disadvantage them by splitting up and having different homes, and different mums and dads. I couldn't do that. I guess it's just a matter of finding the right person, and I'm not very sanguine about my chances of finding someone who fits me for a lifetime and someone who I would fit forever too.'

'Being on your own has its advantages certainly. Some people think I must be lonely living here by myself, but I enjoy my own company and also this place reminds me of Logan. I don't think I could ever leave. Not until I am much older, anyway.'

'I envy you having this place with its roots and its associations. Lately I have been rethinking my plans to retire early - I mean, I know it's a long way off, but all the same I'm not sure that travelling on my own in my sixties is what I'd really want to be doing.'

'But you have time on your side. You may settle down and even if you don't you have years in which to make the type of friends you'd feel comfortable travelling with.'

'Yes, and then I'd only go abroad and I'd be thinking all the time, "Why did I go with this person?", "Why are we staying at this place?" and "I never really wanted to visit this country in the first place"!'

'I think you are too hard on yourself, Eleanor,' said Kate, bridging the gap between their chairs with her arm and taking hold of the Englishwoman's hand.

Aware that it had to be business before pleasure on this of all days, Eleanor, while letting her hand remain covered by Kate's slim hand - it would be rude to do otherwise - reminded her host that perhaps it would be a good idea if they talked about yesterday's meeting and the direction Kate was thinking of taking Avian in, having heard Eleanor company's pitch.

'Talk?' replied Kate, turning to look at Eleanor. 'There is nothing to talk about.'

'Oh,' said Eleanor, unsure how to take this unforeseen gambit from the Frenchwoman.

'Your company will receive a call from my CEO on Monday morning to the effect that we will be installing your operating system. We only need to talk numbers now, and that's not your department, right?'

'Gosh! Yes - I mean no. That's wonderful news. I don't know what to say.'

SEVENTEEN

'I think the time for talking is over, Eleanor. We have the rest of the day in which to get to know each other in the way that both of us have been yearning for from the moment we set eyes on each other in the boardroom.'

With this, Kate got to her feet and extended her hand to Eleanor, who followed her into the house and up the stairs to her bedroom. The first thing Eleanor noticed was how bright the room was - predominantly white, with shades of tan and grey. Two large windows looking out onto the garden afforded magnificent views of the mountains, over which the clouds scurried faster than ever. The curtains were open and the bed - its white duvet crossed near its foot by a folded tan counterpane - was bathed in sunlight, as if a performance was about to begin.

Kate stopped Eleanor at the foot of the bed and helped her out of her jacket, tossing it casually on the bed.

'Lift your arms,' she said with a quiet authority that couldn't be contradicted.

Eleanor did as she was told and stood there defenceless as T-shirt joined jacket on the bed. Kate nodded with appreciation when she saw the younger woman's lilac lace bra. Whether this was because she liked the style or the colour, or on account of the fact that Eleanor was wearing one in the first place, the Englishwoman couldn't be sure. On balance, she felt it was because she had avoided what the classy Frenchwoman might consider the slutty look favoured by so many of Eleanor's countrywomen.

Kate noticed that Eleanor had shuddered; and she had hardly touched her. She knew at this point that the sex would be everything she had been hoping it would be. She hadn't misread this young woman. Far from it. She knew this was going to be an afternoon she would never forget.