CHAPTER 34
“A trip, Eddie? Where did you go?”
“To hell and back,” Eddie said turning his back on the reception staff so they couldn’t hear his slurred speech, see his unfocussed eyes or watch his struggle to stand upright. Two minutes later, Eddie staggered into Isobel’s room.
He collapsed onto a sofa by the window with a panoramic view of night-time, high rise Kuala Lumpur and a curious confidence flooded over him that if he jumped out he could fly around for a while before returning through the window like Superman.
“Do you have a glass of water?” he asked realising that Superman would never have said that on arriving in a lady’s bedroom. He watched her open a small fridge beneath the TV, take a bottle out, pour water into a tumbler and hand it to him. He missed her hand the first time. The second time he almost spilt it so she steadied his hand and forced his fingers to hold the tumbler as if he was a recent stroke victim.
“Did you enjoy your dinner?” he slurred. “Jeffrey’s meeting Pascale from the airport. They’re going to Majorca. No, Mecca. No, Malacca. I’ve organised for Professor Buss to test Mark’s samples. Thank you. I decided on items for our discussion over this evening but I apologise that in the end, I didn’t make it. Did you enjoy your lunch? Dinner?”
Eddie was vaguely aware he was rambling and repeating himself.
“It was lonelier than expected,” Isobel said. She may have spoken softly but to Eddie it sounded like a church bell heard from where the pigeons sat in the belfry. He lay his woozy head back and closed his eyes but could still feel the room going around.
“Why did you sniff it after telling me not to open it?”
“Why?”
“How long ago?”
“Curiosity.”
Are you feeling better now?”
“About four hours ago.
“Just lie there, a while. Let it wear off.”
“A little better but my head is…”
Eddie felt movement as she sat on the sofa next to him. Then he felt something cold and wet being pressed to his forehead.
He was not sure how long he lay there. It may have been a minute or it may have been an hour but when he opened his eyes Isobel was leaning over him still holding a wet towel to his head. He tried to sit up and heard her speak.
“You look better. Can you see me?”
Eddie could certainly see her. She was just inches away. Her big brown eyes with the neat black eyebrows, long eyelashes and dark circles reminded him of a patient Jersey cow he’d once tried to milk by hand on a farm in Dorset but he didn’t say that. The rest of her seemed more elegant. “I took the liberty of removing your boots, Eddie.”
Alarmed, he struggled to sit up. He’d been wearing the same socks since the flight out. He couldn’t remember when they were last washed but instantly remembered a terrible poem. ‘Those dirty socks that mattered not, smelled of cheese and morbid rot.’
When he’d finished, he wasn’t sure if he’d spoken it aloud or merely thought it? “Perhaps I’d better go,” he said struggling to stand. “Get a good night’s sleep. Perhaps it’s jet lag. Or heat stroke. Or maybe the crab.”
“You’ve taken a hallucinogenic drug, Eddie. You’re not in a fit state. Relax.”
Isobel was right, of course. It was another hour before he began to feel normal. By then he had been manoeuvred into a horizontal position on the sofa with his head on a cushion and his bare feet hanging over the arm. The wet towel was on the floor. Slowly coming to, he heard a phone ring and realised it wasn’t Isobel’s silver one with the folding cover one but his old, black Nokia.
“Shall I answer it for you?”
“Yes please.”
Eddie didn’t know it possessed a speaker device but Isobel did. He heard Mark Dobson’s voice. “Isobel? Where’s Eddie?”
“He’s with me, lying down. He’s had an unusual experience.”
There was an unnaturally long pause. “Did you see a CCTV camera when you were at PJ Cosmetics?”
“No.”
“There’s a chance there was one.”
“But no-one knows us.”
“Peter Lester does.”
There was some more but Eddie’s brain was still unravelling itself and Isobel then switched off. “Can you sit up, Eddie?” She helped him into a sitting position. Blood that had concentrated in his head flowed into his limbs and his brain cleared. “That was Mark. Did you see CCTV at PJ Supplies?”
Eddie shook his head. “I looked but didn’t see anything - unless it was hidden.”
Isobel was in the chair next to the coffee table with the ‘Things to do and see in Malaysia’ brochure she’d been reading while Eddie was semi-conscious. “Coffee, Eddie? Tea? The kettle’s boiled twice.”
Eddie sensed a sly reference to their first meeting. “Tea,” he said. “Any biscuits?”
“None I’m afraid.” She poured hot water onto the Tetley’s tea bags. “Did you decide on a list of items you wanted to discuss this evening?”
Eddie looked at her from the corner of his eye and caught her doing the same. “Yes,” he said.
She squeezed the tea bags and handed him a cup. “So, what are your questions?”
“I’d value more of your opinions on the cosmetics business,” he said wondering if he still had enough powers of concentration to analyse her opinions or even remember his own.
Isobel sipped her tea for a moment and put her cup and saucer down so gently it hardly made a sound. “I have given this a lot of thought, since we first met, Eddie. Once we sort out the problems, I would like to change the way Vital operates. I can do very little about the rest of the industry. Next question?”
Eddie wracked his brain. “Ah yes. Are women more susceptible to emotional persuasion?”
“Yes. Women concern themselves with personal relationships more than men. They are easily taken in by adverts that identify emotion. They don’t always see the subtlety of adverts, after all it is not just the written or spoken words in an advert but its tone. Women are affected by adverts that promote feelings of guilt and inadequacy. They compare themselves to other women far more than men compare themselves to other men. Does that answer your question?”
“Generally speaking,” Eddie said. In truth, he had hoped his questions would stimulate a far more rousing discussion not a capitulation. He moved on.
“What is your opinion on adverts that fabricate evidence and make untrue statements? Statements like ‘our award-winning product’ when there is no evidence of any award ever being made. Statements such as ‘the best lotion in the world’ when not a single test has been made on any other product. How about ‘Inspired by ground-breaking DNA research’ when they can’t even tell me what DNA is? And one of my favourites: ‘Dermatologists recommend Radical X for treating breakouts’ when no-one in their so-called customer service department can tell me what Radical X is or define a breakout.”
“Absolute nonsense,” Isobel said before Eddie could add to his list, “We should combine innovative marketing with evidence-based facts and higher ethical standards.”
To Eddie it sounded like the sort of comment made at a marketing symposium but at least it seemed Isobel was planning for the future. “The problem is proving benefits that apply to every individual user not just one or two isolated cases,” he said. “Double blind trials and such like – tests that would take for ever with such subjective measurements as are used in cosmetics, anti-ageing products and so on.”
“Yes, I agree.”
Well, that’s progress. Eddie thought. In truth he’d still been expecting a far more robust fight back, not a submission. He tried another tack. “What is to be done about the environmental impact of cosmetics ingredients?”
This time Isobel’s tea cup landed more audibly in the saucer. “We must use more natural ingredients, Eddie,” she said more as a suggestion than a proposal.
That was better. The sky above opened up and a raft of arguments floated past Eddie. “But it’s been tried, Isobel. Companies actually cash in on using the word natural They think that by putting a few natural ingredients in their product makes their product safe and ecologically friendly – even though it is laden with other synthetic chemicals and toxic ingredients. They seek out natural products just so they can put the word ‘natural’ on their bottles. Another problem is that if you want more natural ingredients then you’ll also want cheap, mass production of those ingredients. You’ll need different farming methods and land-use changes when the world is already running out of space for food-farming. Tell me. What is more important? Food or eye make-up?”
Isobel nodded despondently but Eddie’s confidence was now growing. He sat up straight.
“And then there’s packaging – bottles and tubes have to be strong but what happens when they’re empty? Many of them float out to sea and take years to degrade and, in the meantime, release all sorts of toxic particles and chemicals that work their way back up the food chain. Did you know that plastic microbeads contribute to the eight million tonnes of plastic that enters the ocean each year?”
Isobel was staring at him in a way that reminded him of that increasingly rare sight – an over-eager student.
“There’s an opportunity, Isobel,” he said. “There are plans to ban microbeads used in so-called rinse off cosmetics and cleaning products but cosmetic companies complain there aren’t enough alternatives. Tough luck., I say. They should never have been allowed to use them to start with. It’s their fault. They should have seen bans coming and been ready.”
As he talked Eddie’s thinking became so clear that he wondered whether it might be a positive side effect of his accident. His eyes, too, seemed to have improved as if he no longer needed spectacles. He looked at Isobel with her jet-black hair, long eyelashes, the shiny red lips and her perfectly proportioned features and, yet again, wondered what she’d look like without the makeup. Meanwhile, the big brown eyes stared at him with an unexpectedly sad look as if she might cry at any moment. He wondered whether he should say what he next wanted to say in case it upset her further, but it needed saying.
“Take a look at some chemicals as examples,” he said. “P-phenylenediamine is commonly used in dark hair colouring and lipsticks.” He deliberately looked at her hair and glossy red lips “It’s a dangerous chemical derived from coal tar with long-term toxic effects on aquatic ecosystems. It diminishes the animal plankton population, alters fish behaviour and causes death in many aquatic species.
“Dioxane is another. It is a carcinogenic, endocrine disruptive chemical that contaminates many cosmetic ingredients. Companies could, if they wished, remove dioxane contaminants but it’s costly and time consuming so they don’t bother. Dioxane is in cream based cosmetics, shampoos, moisturizers, soaps and bubble baths. It’s present in Vital products. I know because I tested it. When washed down the drain and into aquatic ecosystems it can, in quantity, alter fish growth and behaviour and reduces their life expectancy. Dioxane can kill insects and plankton and plankton is at the very bottom of the food chain. “
Isobel was, he now noticed, nervously fingering her cheeks with her red, well- manicured nails but it only served to remind him of another chemical.
“Dibutyl phthalate – DBP - is added to nail polish to keep it from becoming brittle. DBP is a plasticizer used to make PVC pipe. It’s not a natural chemical but highly toxic to the ecosystem.”
Isobel’s eyes were blinking more than usual and, because she then looked away from him, Eddie stopped talking. He heard her sniff and thought he may have gone too far, but he never learned. Unlike Eddie’s disappearing head of hair, the environmental activist in him had never disappeared. If he was twenty something he’d be out there right now demonstrating, but the majority of modern students were, he thought, utterly apathetic. Every day, he tried to stimulate anger, dissatisfaction and alternative thinking but it was useless. Eddie had concluded it started in schools. They had been brain washed by petty political correctness. They believed that failure was impossible and had become depoliticised by their closeness to comfort, luxury, wealth and material excess.
Isobel had pulled a tissue from a box next to the tea tray and was dabbing her nose. Eddie stood up, put his empty cup on the tray and then realised he’d left the saucer on the floor. He picked it up and retrieved his glasses that were also lying close by.
Isobel stood. “I have to say, Eddie,” she said, “You certainly know how to make a woman feel uncomfortable.”
“Perhaps it equates with the feeling I experienced when I realised that you’d removed my socks?” Eddie replied.
She smiled at last. “Your short poem was very accurate.”
Eddie felt a cringing despair at realising he must have spoken it aloud. “Where are they now? My socks I mean.”
“I washed them. They’re hanging in the bathroom. Your boots are in the corner.
“That’s way beyond the call of duty if I may say so.”
“My pleasure, Eddie. it’s refreshing to be with someone so genuinely honest, who sees and says things as they really are.”
She sat on the edge of the sofa he’d just vacated. Eddie took the chair by the tea tray. “I’ve been lucky I suppose,” she continued. “A good education because my parents could afford it, money to invest in a few businesses, no need to worry when one of them folded, family connections that led to public roles and unearned publicity. But you know what, Eddie? For years, I’ve always found life a bit of a sham. It seems artificial, unreal. It’s as if we’ve lost sight of our destination, our purpose. I agree with you. We expect too much and we’re given too much but we don’t really earn any of it. We give back very little because we respect very little.”
Eddie nodded. “Greed is an unsavoury character of all men – and women. We should only take what we need not what we want.”
“That’s it, Eddie. Most people want too much. But you don’t, do you? You take out so little. You put in far more than you take out. How many times have you mended those socks?”
“I forget,” Eddie said, amused but impressed by how she’d brought the subject of human excess down to a pair of socks. “I’m a dab hand with a needle and thread or, in the case of woollen socks, a needle and a short length of wool left over from an old grey jumper. But you see, Isobel, by darning my socks and patching the elbows of my jacket instead of buying new ones I’m destroying jobs. By eating cheaply and living frugally I’m not circulating what I earn. I am paid far too much for my needs. And what do I do? I teach. I am paid to transfer what I already know and what I discover to students.” He paused.
“Socrates said that he couldn’t teach anyone anything. All he could do was make them think. That’s what I try to do. I try to make them think, to criticise, to think laterally if you like. Those I teach are selected because they are the best at passing exams. They are the children of a have it all, expect it all, generation. Why should they bother? Why should they want to see things in a different way or change anything?”
He paused again, looking at Isobel. “Socrates is still remembered. As for the somewhat less famous Professor Eddie Higgins he was once heard to mutter that knowledge is one thing, doing something with it is quite another.”
Isobel looked at him and smiled. “I was quite right when I said you were the most depressing man I’ve ever met. You told me once you weren’t married. Have you ever been married, Eddie?”
To Eddie it was as if being married would have changed him from a natural pessimist to an eternal optimist. Normally he would have ignored it. “Once,” he said. “It lasted a year. Melissa couldn’t stand me. Perhaps it was my socks.”
Isobel laughed.
“I still live in the same house,” he added. “It took me years to buy her out.”
“Mark told me your old nickname was Huggy.”
“True. My student days were spent on demonstrations, shouting myself hoarse and tying myself to trees. Forty years ago, my concern was environmental destruction by big corporations and unsustainable population growth. Looking back my only achievement was a police record.”