Chapter 3: Salad Days

Whether or not Julia had guessed the reason behind Henry’s nickname, it had been overheard and soon spread throughout the department.

He tried to ignore the odd teasing remarks which had started up almost as soon as he had started work on his report for Sylvia: the Librarian had asked him if had found what he wanted “after all your burrowing”. The last straw had been in the canteen yesterday when one of the servers had asked him whether he wouldn’t be happier with that day’s salad option.

‘Bunny’ as he was now known throughout the department it seemed, was setting up the room for the follow-up meeting that Julia had set up and trying to put all that out of his mind.

At least Julia had been happy with his first briefing paper and luckily hadn’t asked him how come he knew so much about this sector of the British economy.

The meeting was billed as a “Discussion on Government Consultancy Frameworks”. There was too much discussion going on these days, Henry felt. He had preferred it when Ministers made up their mind what to do and then got on with it. Either that or they’d left it to their PPS which was even better. Now it seemed a department couldn’t even cough without asking someone else’s say so.

There would be four of them, Julia had said, Ms Courten and one other plus herself and the Minister. Oh and would he mind awfully taking the minutes? Yes, I would, thought Henry but said nothing. He didn’t feel able to explain why he would find it so difficult being in a meeting with Raven Courten. Nobody, he thought would understand how strange he found the idea of his sitting down in her presence.

In the centre of the meeting room was a great oval mahogany table surrounded by a dozen heavy high backed chairs in the same dark wood. Henry laid out in front of each seat the usual accoutrements of a ministerial meeting; pads of paper, pens branded with the department’s logo and a glass ready for filling from either the still or sparkling water bottles arranged in groups along the table’s length.

He’d only just finished his work when the door to the room opened. Julia, Sylvia, Raven and the others came in.

He had known that Raven Courten would be at the meeting but he was still startled when she appeared, accompanied by Julia and the Minister. Henry almost dropped the last of the water glasses as he saw her. Raven had brought someone with her as expected. Henry knew who it was; Miss Jane, the woman that ran Raven’s web site and video sharing service and acted as her PA – the woman that he had spoken to on a regular basis whenever he had wanted to book an appointment with Mistress Raven

Raven had evidently decided that the relatively conservative apparel that she had adopted for her last meeting with the Minister could be replaced with something a little more exciting for the discussions today. This time she was wearing a zip-fronted, black, leather jump-suit together with a pair of platform sole, stack heel boots that added still further to her height. The suit was tight and cut in such a way as to sculpt her body, slimming her waist and emphasising her thighs, buttocks, breasts and hips. Henry bit his lip. It was as much as he could do to prevent giving out a sigh of appreciation. Jane, in contrast and in common with Henry’s experience of the was she did her job, was a picture of prim professionalism.

If Julia Fain or the Minister were shocked by their visitor’s appearance they said nothing. In fairness, Henry thought, the sort of full-on fetish wear Raven was got up in was not so different from what you could see in the street any day now. Henry sat quietly trying to stare at his notepad and pencil as if they were the only things in the room.