On The Market Chapter 35: Will's POV5 - Entertainment Value, a pride and prejudice fanfic

'Jesus that was tedious,' Will said, 'And you're telling me they've already shown these films once? Wasn't that enough?'

Dean gave a good-natured shrug.

'Which one was it your brother helped finance?'

'The one about the goat,' said Dean.

'OK that wasn't the worst. And which one's Lily here for?'

'The one with all the black squares.'

'What the hell, Dean! What the fuckin…'

'Wait 'til you meet her,' Dean smiled, 'And anyway, before you start slagging off my new girlfriend: how are things going with your pet quant?'

'She's not my…' Will started automatically, then stopped himself: '…bah who am I kidding: I wish, right?'

This small admission got Dean so excited he started pushing his glasses up his nose, but:

'Dean, it's not happening, you realise that, right?'

'But you'd like it to.'

'Like you said: wait 'til you meet her... Anyway we're cool now, I think I've worked it out.'

'Have you now?'

'Yeah, for a while I worried that broker Rob had gone and broken my toy but it's OK, he hasn't. Actually it's kind of good. Turns out I still do like it when I mess with her, it's just when other people do that I don't like it.'

'Oh my God, Will…'

'What?'

'What are you: some kind of caveman? What do you think you're playing at? Are you going to…what, drag her off the desk by the hair some day? So you can have your evil way with her on the reception desk?'

'Tempting.'

'Will!'

'Oh come on, Dean, it's just a bit of fun. Nothing she can't handle, believe you me.'

Dean shook his head.

'I'm actually being nice to her these days – mostly.'

'Will…'

'No no, you'd have been proud of me. Just earlier today I gallantly rescued her from self-immolation in front of the Toad.'

'Could you not have prevented, rather than rescued?'

'Honestly? Not sure, no, not this time…' Will said, glossing over that other disaster which he could have prevented, but had chosen not to. Bah, that was only a piddly little trade…

And today, objectively, no, there was nothing he could have done to prevent disaster, because:

'You know, Dean,' he said, 'now I've seen how she goes about trying to charm people over to her point of view, in hindsight I'm feeling pretty blessed that she never took any interest in my interview.'

'You exaggerate for effect, Will. You always do. No one is that socially inept.'

'Don't be so sure, Dean: why should someone with her superpowers suck so bad at world domination?'

'Hmm, true...'

'But it sure is fun to watch.'

'Will!'

'I swear to you, Dean, I'm being good! Turns out being good's even better fun anyway.'

Dean shook his head.

"For my next trick I'm going to make her smile with me. Rather than at me, if you see what I mean.'

'I think I do, yes…' Dean said, still very much in the manner of someone who disapproves.

'Don't get me wrong: her French fuck-off smile is good, it's very good,' Will said, 'Does things to me, for sure. But her good smile? That is… ' Will couldn't quite say what that was like, because she'd not indulged him with it yet, but some day… 'some day I'm going to make her crack that one for my benefit.'

'Why?'

'Sorry, what?' Will asked, who was still reminiscing about the quant smiling at her screen that time, during that brief period of her trade when she'd mistakenly thought she was on top of the world.

'Will, what are you playing at? What's this in aid of? What do you think it's leading to, in the end?'

'Who knows? If I'm very lucky and I get her drunk at one of the Christmas dos…'

Dean shook his head again.

'…but hey: if that fails there's always your plan. You know: sheer brute force? I'm a lot bigger than her.'

'Will,'

'What?'

'Don't you two have a trading system to build?'

'Aha, oh, talking of which: if anyone asks you about trouble with central IT at your old place, it's something I said to Toad get us out of a hole - sorry.'

'No worries,'

'Believe me it was a crater-sized hole she'd dug us into.'

'Yes, yes,' Dean said with uncharacteristic impatience, 'You know I've got your back, Will. But this poor quant of yours: she didn't ask for any of this. It's not her fault you choose to look at her that way,'

'Who said I had any choice in the matter?'

'Even so, Will, this isn't fair to her. Even if that's how you feel, you can't make it her problem. Sounds like she's got enough to deal with as it is.'

Dean had that annoying habit of being right a lot, especially when he, Will, was being stupid, or mean, or selfish, or childish, or reckless and over-confident – or all of those at the same time. In short Will often wished he could be more like Dean, i.e. be a better man.

Provided only that he could still have his fun. And on very rare occasions he almost managed to do both:

'Today I actually helped her, I'll have you know. I talked her through what went wrong with the Toad afterwards. She didn't like me one bit for it, but I think lessons were learnt. With a bit of practice, some day she might be able to hold a meeting without self-detonating. Wasn't that very good of me?'

Dean stared at him, looking for the "but". And soon finding it too:

'So you didn't do any of this because you enjoyed having one over her, by any chance?'

'Maybe that too, but still, I was good to her. Very good. She even said so herself, she said I was very good,' Will remembered fondly. She hadn't meant it that way at all, of course, but it had still been lovely to hear.

Whatever Dean tried to make it sound like, and however impure Will's intentions might have been to start with, he did believe that he had been good to the quant today. Yes, of course he'd enjoyed calling her cheap and pig headed - who wouldn't? But if he thought about it - and he had, he had thought of their little atrium chat a lot - not least during that stupid effing not-short-enough film with all the black squares over people's faces and no dialogue whatsoever - what Will had enjoyed best of all was watching the quant fight him back. How even at her lowest she would find something sharp to throw back at him, like that bitter but oh-so-sweet Glad we're finding stuff to agree upon….

So no, whatever Dean thought about him right now, Will had not actually enjoyed humiliating Raj's pet, not at all. But he had enjoyed watching her work things out. And to his own surprise, he'd really enjoyed seeing her come out on top. Will hadn't been lying or even bullshitting either, when he'd said he didn't want to get on the wrong side of her. Because seriously, once the woman cracked the basics of "working around humans", she was going to be one hell of a force to be reckoned with.

Now, as to why Will had gone and mentioned bloody War and Peace to her in the lift: there was a Marmite move if ever there was one. Will's best guess was that for all her faults, the quant just didn't strike him as a grand moralising Moby Dick kind of person. She was, however, very much a Pierre Bezhukov: bumbling through life, misguided, but full of enthusiasm. And of pure-hearted abandon.

Be that as it may, in hindsight Will was incredibly lucky: it hadn't sounded like she'd already read it. He'd also been quite incredibly stupid to mention "either" of Tolstoy's novels, because assuming her curiosity was piqued it wouldn't take the quant long to realise he'd written more than two. And then, if she chose to overlook that and actually give War and Peace a go, then she was either going to love Leo, or hate him, Fitzwilliam Kingsley-Darcy that little bit more for bringing him up.

No great change here, then. Seriously, what a...

Someone appeared, carried on black pleather platform boots and a heady waft of perfume, mint, and about 200 cigarettes a day. Her skirt was non-existent, and her jacket… was she actually wearing Big Bird's hide? After Big Bird had turned white with shock at the sight and smell of her and then died. Yes, that made sense.

This creature proceeded to give Dean the briefest of kisses on the lips, thereby confirming Will's worst suspicions: (1) she must be Lily Cheng, and (2) she wasn't nearly as smitten with Dean, as Dean was with her.

For his friend's sake, Will now started smiling hard. Very hard. He could smile extremely hard indeed, when he put his mind to it. Lily took his effort as her due and didn't bother to smile back, while Dean proceeded with the introductions.

'Sowhadwereyouguystalkingabout'nyway?' she asked, all one word, and with a faint American affectation to her diction too. 100% irritating, hence 200% up Dean's street. When was the boy going to learn?

It was clear Lily was already bored with Dean and what do you know, Will was already bored with her too. But for Dean's sake he smiled on while Dean, being Dean, attempted to keep his latest beloved entertained:

'We were talking about a very pesky French quant who's making Will's life a misery at work,'

'It's really not that bad, Lizzie's great entertainment value,' Will said with his best show of indifference, i.e. a very persuasive one. There were limits to what he'd do in the name of friendship, even his friendship with Dean, and abusing the quant for this Lily Cheng's amusement was at present beyond the call of his duty.

'D'ye work with Lizzie Bennet, then,' Lily said in just the same tone.

Excuse me, what?

Dean was the only one to find this amusing, but very amusing he seemed to find it too:

'That's very interesting, Lily,' Dean said, 'do you happen to know this Lizzie Bennet?'

'We shared halls for postgrads. I introduced her to her flatmates.'

'Flatmates?' Dean asked.

'Friends of mine from Oxford,' Lily shrugged, as if that were the question.

'Why would she need flatmates,' Will said, but made sure not to ask, so this time Lily did answer:

'Yeah no, she was living with her boyfriend obviously, before she moved to New York, right? But then she had that one-night stand with that Swedish painter guy at that opening so she moved out, but she's still paying the mortgage or something…'

'Well isn't that just fascinating?' Will heard Dean say some time later. God only knew how long, but not nearly as long as Will needed to wrap his head around this: Raj's pet quant, the quant, his quant, with the glasses and all the numbers and the spreadsheets and things, she had, what? Two-timed her boyfriend with a Swedish fucking painter?

She went to gallery openings?

'How long had she been with her boyfriend for?' Dean asked.

The trouble with being able to hide your pain sometimes, is that your friends have no idea what they are putting you through. Dean, Will remembered, was a gentle soul who would never hurt him or anyone this bad, not on purpose.

'She met him when we were doing our Masters, Lily volunteered, 'he was finishing his PhD, in economics I think.'

Aaaand: thwack! PhD, hey? But of course, trust the quant to keep high academic standards.

But one-night stands?

With a painter?

That Lily liked spreading gossip was by now obvious, but as to why Dean thought Will would want to hear any more? There was a mystery never to be solved.

'So is she seeing anyone at the moment?' Dean asked, 'Will was saying she's seemed a bit off colour of late.'

'Oh she's got this thing with the guy who used to have her room.'

'Aha?'

'They've been winding each other up for weeks, but I'm pretty sure he'll make his move before he goes to Estonia.'

'And… why Estonia?' Dean persisted.

Why indeed? Why did he persist?

'Tom never really worked since we all graduated,' Lily said, 'Old money, you know, he doesn't need to. But then he went and got this job in routers or something to try and impress her and now they're sending him to Estonia. Kindaironic, no?'

Ironic? No it wasn't sodding ironic, it was fucking excruciating, is what it was. So Will checked he was still smiling and Lily was still buying it. He was, and she was, the evil gossip-spreading, muppet-murdering cow.

'So Ben's well pissed off with her 'cause he was going to start a band with Tom and now…'

Now a band: right! A fucking band, ladies and gentlemen. But of fucking course! Old trustafarian sodding wanker had to be a sodding musician as well: why the hell not? The quant had standards, remember, Will? Standards so high, that artistic young men were taking fucking jobs in fucking routers, not because their ancestors had gambled away all but their title and the family seat, as Grandad Darcy had, but purely to try and impress the one and only pet quant: Lizzie Bennet.

Fucking fuckeddy fuck.

'Well that'll explain it,' Will said, meaning all sorts of things, but in particular and most painfully it explained that smile the quant had had again a couple of times when she was reading emails. Sodding fucking wanker, what was it? Tom? All those fucking beautiful smiles, wasted on some Tom via a fucking screen…

'Why, is she being a pain in the ass then?' Lily asked, evidently fishing.

'Not at all, she's great,' Will replied, not about to bite. 'She's a quick learner and like I said, she can be pretty funny,'

'Right,' Lily said, clearly disappointed. Tough shit: not as disappointed as he was.

'Hey look, Dean,' she said, 'sorry gotta go and catch Mark over there, d'ye mind?'

She could have offered to introduce Mark instead, whoever he was, but Dean did an admirable job of pretending neither to notice, nor indeed to mind.

'I'll call you,' she probably lied, and left with barely another peck on his cheek.

Five minutes ago they'd been doing fine without her, and now:

'Did you have to?' Will asked.

'No, but you had to hear it,' Dean said, 'What were you thinking, Will?'

'What?'

'Did you really think your quant was just sitting there writing code and waiting for you to make her smile?'

'When you put it that way…'

'I tried to tell you, Will. She was never yours to mess around with.'

Truth be told, Lily doesn't exactly look smitten with you either, mate, Will thought, but didn't say. Instead he started totting up the odds against him. PhDs: zero. Musical talent: slightly less than nil according to Georgie, who knew a thing or two about that. His French was appalling and until they started exhibiting paper tickets or old running shoes he'd never open any art galleries either. In summary his chances with the quant lay somewhere South of zilch.

'But it doesn't matter, does it, Will?'

Sorry, what?

'It doesn't matter because she's nothing to you, correct? Just a bit of fun,' Dean said, pushing his glasses up his nose.

Will looked down.

'Hell, Dean, if this is what this love thing is all about, then it's not what it's cracked up to be,' he said, looking back up some time later.

Dean nodded. He'd always been very good at knowing when to shut up, and Will had always liked that about him. Starting back at uni, when there weren't too many young men around, who could stop going on about themselves for five minutes. But now that they were both paid to talk crap over the phone all day, the moments of silence between them seemed even more precious.

'I really don't see what all that poetic bloody fuss is about. I want my old life back,' Will said however long later.

'Do you, though?'

Well of course he did! His nice easy fun life, with dB catering to the only non-material needs Dean or his own family didn't qualify to meet. What was wrong with that?

'You're telling me you wouldn't miss the highs? You'd rather not get floored every time she gives you even just her "fuck-off" smile?' Dean said, who had to mime quotation marks because, like the quant, he didn't do swearing.

Will thought about it for about half a second and what do you know, Dean was right again. The quant's fuck-off smile was like the H-Bomb, you couldn't un-invent it. The damage was done, and his old life was no longer an option.

'What the crap do I do now?'

'You carry on being nice to her - like you were going to be anyway,' Dean added with evident irony.

'Why, what's the point of that now?'

'If you're very lucky, one day, she might let you be her friend,' Dean said, this time with neither irony, nor indeed meanness. I.e. Dean meant very well, but somehow his very kindness made things even worse:

'I don't want to be her friend,' Will said.

'I know that. But do you want to be that bloke she loves to hate?'

Well no, not anymore.

'So this is what it's going to be like?' Will asked, thinking of the days and months stretching ahead of him, watching the quant smile at some Tom through her screen, instead of at him.

'Perhaps not. Perhaps if you're extremely lucky Tom won't make it back alive from Tallinn,' Dean said with a smile. The other great thing about him was that he always travelled hopefully. How else would he have accumulated such a collection of disastrous exes?

Dean's smile vanished:

'You know I've been there many a time before, Will, and as my best friend always says: this is going to be exactly as hard as you make it on yourself, mate. Your call entirely.'

Will stared at him in silence first, struggling to take in the very advice he'd dished out so many times before. Then he felt the beginning of a smile wash over his face: only a bitter sort of half-smile, but Dean was right. Of course he was, when was Dean ever not right?

When he decided to date Lily Cheng, evidently. And all the other psychos before that. But other than that…

Other than that, in Will's book and next to gloating, there was nothing worse than self-pity.

He was fucked. He'd lost this one. He'd lost it before he'd even realised he was playing for it, which was frustrating, but all the self-pity and navel gazing in the world were never going to make it better. And it sure wasn't going to make the quant smile with him.

Mind you, seeing him in this kind of state over her precious self might very well make her smile at him. Privately, of course - or perhaps when she joked about it of an evening with sodding Tom? Because as Will now bitterly remembered, the quant "didn't want to end up on the wrong side of him", right? So from here on even her fuck-off smile might become a thing of the past.

But hell, at this stage? Maybe it'd be easier that way.

OK then, yes: he'd play nice. Maybe, if he threw the odd kind word and decent coffee the quant's way, maybe eventually he'd manage to convince not just her, but more importantly himself, that he wasn't quite the great fucking caveman arsehole he felt right now.

And come on, it wasn't as if Will had never lost before. He'd fucked up plenty of times, and in greater style too. Crap fucking cox in his last year at Cambridge had lost them every single one of the May bumps. Even Dean's boat had bumped them, and he still had the oar to prove it. Never would let him forget it. And Will's first trading error? That hadn't been for five hundred quid either.

So what did you do? Answer: the only thing you still could, once you were down. You tried not to make even more of a nuisance of yourself, or more of a laughing-stock, or both, than you already were. You dusted yourself off, and you put your game face on and you carried on, right?

What else is there to do?

For those readers not familiar with that wonderful if divisive product, Marmite's slogan since 1996 has been "You either love it or hate it." "Marmite" things coalesce people at the extremes of opinion, there's just no middle ground.