The brass plaque on the door of his half of the building said simply ‘Robin Quick’. No ‘Limited’ or ‘Enterprises’ or
‘Associates’ or even explanation of what he did, If Robin Quick had been her agent for more years than either of them would admit in public.
Since she had been a star, at any rate. That long. They had courted each other,
professionally speaking, when she was doing a season at the Old Vic. He was the new kid on the block, the hottest young agent in town and she had recently come down from Cambridge trailing glorious clouds and a string of reviews in the national papers that were to die for. They grew together, feeding off each other’s contacts and helping to make one another’s reputations.
When her star waned, his continued to grow from strength to strength.
He’d taken on the top people: Hopkins, Finney, Bates, Dench and a whole brood of Redgraves. He hadn’t made the mistake of taking time off for ‘personal reasons’. His
own marriage, to a rather brassy girl from Caerphilly, had quickly fizzled out and he’d channeled all his energies into the agency.
He described himself now as a ʼtriffid’, more
sexually interested in plants than people. Sometimes Kate wondered if he was a closet case, but in their profession, he would have had more to gain by coming out than
staying in so she doubted it. There was something of an upmarket Kenneth Williams about him; arch, ascetic and
acerbic.
Outwardly warm, he was quicker than anyone with a ‘thank you’ card or a phone call of condolence, but under the surface was a distant froideur, He gave nothing of himself away. His spindly body could have belonged to youth in mid-puberty but served him well enough, a fastidiously precise and elegant man of fifty-something.
“Kate, darling, what a joy to see you. How kind of you to pop in. You look marvelous. Mwa, mwa!” They kissed on both cheeks without touching.
“Will you have tea with me? I was about to anyway.”
“I’d love a coffee, Robin.’
“Do you think you should? It can be very harsh on the Stomach, you know. How about a Barley Cup?”
“Yuk. No thanks. Tea will do fine, the same as yours.”
“Marcia, my poppet, would you make it two of the Rosehips? Thanks, ” he said to one of his ‘angels’ in the outer office and then gave her his total concentration.
“Loved you on “Lunchtime Live” just now. So dignified, so cool. George doesn’t appreciate you, does he?”
“Tell me about it.” She sighed. Robin knew what George was really like, of course. He was one of the few people who did. He had known the Great Man from University days.
Robin had advised her to drop him, he was a dead weight around her neck, annoying people on newspapers and in television by telling them constantly, I’m Kate
Fitch’s boyfriend, you know.’ ‘So what?”, was their usual response. ‘What can you do?’ He could hustle, he knew how to talk his way through closed doors and make it
easier for the top brass to say ‘yes’ to him straight away than ‘no’ another dozen times.
‘That irritating little runt, Kate Fitch’s boyfriend’ had grown up to be the top
Now Kate was ‘George King’s wife’.
“Without you at his side that nauseating Housewives Choice image wouldn’t count for half as much, you know. But he won’t realize that until the day you leave him.”
“Oh no, it won’t come to that, Robin. Not now” Kate was used to this from him. He felt she was never taken seriously in her own profession because of always appearing in George’s shade. “There was a time… But we’ve come through too much together to be split apart by…”
She smiled sadly at what she had to admit, “by the fact that our marriage is now a hollow sham.”
‘
“Quite.”
Marcia brought in the tea and a plate of various strange objects.
“Thanks, my dear. Katyusha, have a carob cookie. Or a piece of dried rhubarb? How about some sunflower seeds?”
“Pass, thanks, it’s too healthy for me.” She was looking forward to something really gooey later on.
