Esme didn’t.
‘Bring your own,’ Cece explained.
Cece poured the spirit and knocked her shot back in one gulp. Esme followed suit and sat back, nestling her bum into the dip of the bean bag. She took a lit cigarette from Cece and dragged deeply.
Donna Summer felt love and the dance floor filled, spilling out and into the seating areas. There was an unbridled energy where everyone seemed to feel like a star. People didn’t couple up. They danced alone or in groups. Everyone was equal in joyous abandon. So, this was people-watching, thought Esme. It was soon impossible to single out an individual as the crowd became one writhing mass of flesh and limbs. That was when she saw him.
There was nothing gaudy or flashy about him, which is why he stood out. Dark brown curls and a big smile. He wore a creased T-shirt and a velvet jacket with an old pair of jeans. There was something in the way he moved that made both sexes part to let him through. An easy grace that was fundamentally masculine. Esme felt her tummy gallop as he hugged Cece. This must be Dan. He turned and gave her a perfunctory nod and joined Cece on her bean bag. Cece waved for Esme to join them and she pulled her bag nearer to theirs.
‘Hi, I’m Dan.’ He smiled.
‘Esme.’ But her name dissolved into a collective whoop, as metallic confetti flew from a cannon-like cylinder above the dance floor. Thousands of gold and silver flakes fluttered down, blanketing the club in glistening dreams.
Esme tipped her face to the ceiling, and tried to catch pieces as they fell around her. Before she knew it, she was swept onto the dance floor by the disco boy in his posing pouch from earlier and they disappeared into the throng. Anonymous hands groped, caressed and twirled her. Every few minutes she had a new dance partner. At first self-conscious, she felt herself liquefy into the music, not caring who, what or where she was. Although she’d never been promiscuous, right then, Esme felt she could be. The sexual atmosphere touched pretty much each of her senses. All that mattered was the moment, the feeling of being present right there and then. She felt part of something epochal. By the end she was dancing with the entire club. She was euphoric.
‘Look at you go, Miss Independent,’ said Cece, as Esme peeled herself away from a Diana Ross look-a-like and made her way back to the bean bags.
‘Oh Jesus, give me a drink!’
‘Have mine,’ said Dan, passing her something cloudy on the rocks. It tasted of coffee and cream. This was a cocktail of character.
‘Delicious. Oh Cece, that was so much fun. These people know how to dance.’
‘They are all frustrated cheerleaders,’ said Dan.
‘Not everyone here is gay, Dan. You’re not, for starters.’
‘Don’t get me wrong. I am eternally grateful for the welcome,’ said Dan. ‘And grateful especially to all the hairdressers here – they bring the models for straight guys to feast upon. And the music in gay clubs is the best.’
‘Cece is much more fun than any brainless model – and sexier,’ Esme said, in a burst of loyalty.
Dan looked at Cece.
‘Much sexier,’ he said, nuzzling his face in her neck.
She kissed Dan on the mouth, taking in his probing tongue. Esme admired her nerve. She would never have the guts to kiss a guy first. She remembered Charles-Antoine. He’d called her ‘concrete knickers’, not because they fell down easily but because it had taken him three months to get them off. What a waste of her virginity, that was. He dumped her when he found out she wasn’t the heiress he assumed she was. To be fair she talked about Culcairn Castle as if it was her home. It had been, to a degree. She had told Charles-Antoine he was her first but he didn’t believe her after the deed was done.
‘Why is there no blood? You have no blood.’
She explained that it wasn’t unusual in girls who had ridden since they could walk.
He said, ‘My first girlfriend was a rider and she had blood.’
‘Maybe she didn’t have a fat pony like mine. It was like doing the splits every time I got on his back.’
The Belgian boy had laughed at that and the ice was broken, even if her hymen had long since been torn.
‘I need a wee,’ announced Cece bluntly, bringing Esme back to the present. ‘Look after Dan for me.’
As she left, Dan joined Esme on her bean bag. Although she had already drunk more than she normally would, she went to pour herself another vodka from their secret stash. More Dutch courage was needed now she was alone with this man who would probably be bored by her company. She felt she hadn’t experienced enough of London life to have anything interesting to say. What could she talk about? Ponies and sponge cakes at the Highland show wouldn’t cut it with a writer probably used to reporting the darker side of the city. Reaching for the bottle, her bag slipped to the floor, depositing its entire contents. Dan looked like she had deliberately tipped out a set of garden tools.
‘Shit,’ she muttered, trying to scoop up her scattered keys, make-up, money and shoes.
‘Here,’ said Dan. ‘Let me help you.’ He picked up a small lamp from the table and shone it on the floor. ‘These yours?’ he asked, picking up a packet of condoms.
‘No!’
Esme was mortified.
‘I’m only joking, Esme.’
He remembered her name.
‘I can tell you’re not that kind of girl,’ he said and discreetly put them in Cece’s jacket pocket.
He didn’t look at her, allowing Esme free access to analyse his features. Individually they were quite heavy; meaty nose roofing a deep groove to a mouth that was full-lipped and languid. It was unusual for someone so dark to have freckles, she thought and wanted to touch a mole on his right cheek. His rich curls framed his face and olive skin. She had never liked sideburns but on Dan they added to his virility. His hands were the most perfect Esme had seen on a man. From wide knuckle bones grew unexpectedly elongated fingers, capped by porcelain-fine nail beds. Languid and expressive yet capable of violence.
‘Cece tells me you are a journalist,’ she said, not knowing what else to say.
‘If you can call writing for the Camden Echo journalism. I’m still waiting for that big story. The one that will make my name. Then I can write my novel without being yet another faceless wannabe.’
‘It must be exciting.’
‘Once you’ve written about one missing cat, you’ve reported on them all. Or dogs, in my case. I’m being sent off my patch to write a piece on Battersea Dogs’ Home soon.’
‘Poor things,’ said Esme. ‘I’d love to go there – except I’d want to adopt every waif and stray.’
‘Well, I’m sure I could smuggle you in as my assistant,’ laughed Dan. ‘I’ll be there on the last Friday of the month. But don’t expect Pulitzer Prize material from a visit to a dog refuge. I mean, I love writing – but fiction is my real thing. It’s like meditation; a safe place where I feel free to be myself,’ he said, looking out into the flashing darkness. ‘Do you have a safe place?’
Esme could tell him about the old summerhouse between The Lodge and the castle she used to escape to when she wanted to be alone, but the words dried up in her mouth as she decided it sounded like a child’s den rather than the refuge she’d truly found it to be.
‘Not really,’ she said. ‘I’d love to be able to write but I’ve always felt more at home with pictures rather than words. They seem to say what I can never manage.’
‘You can if you want to. Think of an emotional memory. Something that made you feel scared, sad or excited. It’s a good place to start.’
‘What’s your memory? Your starting point?’ Esme wanted to keep the conversation off her – she didn’t want to go delving into her emotional memories – they were too painful.
‘Nothing and everything. Many of my memories are brought back through music.’
Now they were on safe ground.
‘I’m music mad. Have been since I was a little girl. My nanny let me watch Top of the Pops. She was so cool – until my parent
s discovered she was moonlighting as a prostitute.’
‘You’re kidding?’
‘No. I remember a stream of men coming and going from our house when my parents were away. She said they were her brothers and cousins. I ought to have clicked because none of them looked anything like her, but I was only six at the time.’
That got his attention. His liquid brown eyes held hers.
‘What music do you like?’
‘David Bowie. The Stones. Never got The Beatles.’
She had grown up listening to country music. Her father loved Willy Nelson. Her mother, Patsy Cline.
‘They are all pretty mainstream. I review emerging bands. You find raw talent that way. Actually, I discovered The Clash.’
‘The Clash?’
Dan put two fingers under her chin to close her mouth.
‘I understand life better lyrically, musically,’ he laughed clearly pleased he had impressed her. ‘I’m thirsty for the amazing. Anything I can’t transform into something marvellous, I let go.’
Esme hoped she was marvellous or at least someone he could transform.
‘I find that kind of music a bit scary. Punk and everything.’
‘Try Yellow Magic Orchestra. Japanese band. Electro-pop.’
He was showing off, she knew, but she was still spellbound.
‘I’ll check them out.’
Dan sipped his drink.
‘Did your parents travel much?’ he asked.
‘Kind of. My mother was away a lot and my father went with her.’ She thought that was enough detail to sound convincing but not so much as to invite further questions. She wanted this evening to be about the present, not the past.
‘Thought so. You have that rare combination of strength that’s born from vulnerability.’
Esme had never thought that about herself but felt it was true. How did this virtual stranger read her so well?
She nodded.
‘Was it a terribly difficult childhood you had?’
This conversation had gone from zero to furtive psycho-analysis in minutes. She was unused to gentle probing. No one had been concerned or interested in who she was – to most of her set, she already came with enough labels and preconceptions. This curiosity was unfamiliar to her and she felt someone was ‘seeing’ her for the first time. But she still didn’t know if she wanted the ‘real her’ to be seen. She’d enjoyed playing the glamorous party girl for a night.
‘My mother has been ill for a long time.’
‘Cancer?’
Esme was disappointed that he drew an obvious conclusion. People were always so quick to make assumptions.
‘Kind of. She’ll never get better.’ She didn’t want his pity by going into details.
‘Tragic,’ he said, his thick brows bowing under the weight of apparent concern. He sat back and lit a cigarette and regarded her indolently, his eyes crinkling through the smoke.
‘Sorry, guys.’
Thank God. Cece was back.
‘Hope you don’t want to go to piss. The queue is horrendous. Went outside in the end. Behind a car. Not yours, Dan, don’t worry. Wouldn’t cock my leg on your Cortina.’
Dan pulled her down next to him and rummaged for the condoms in her pocket.
‘Naughty,’ he said, holding them up to her.
Having shone under the spotlight of Dan’s attention, Esme was suddenly an outsider in their foreplay. She felt guilty and decided it was time to leave them to it. Cece was on track to consummate her liking for this man and she didn’t want to tread on her toes. She had got there first and Esme wanted to respect that.
Not wanting to cause a fuss, she said she was going to the loo and didn’t come back, instead returning to the welcome anonymity of the dance floor.
Chapter Ten
The morning came around too quickly. Esme felt her head was clamped in a flower press. Every time she tried to move it, the grip tightened. Her mouth was parched as an oyster abandoned by the tide and her eyes were filled with grit. An invisible weight pushed her into the mattress. What had happened last night? She couldn’t remember getting home. Her arm made an agonizing sweep of the floor by her bed. She felt inside her bag. Nothing was missing.
She carefully levered open one eyelid and shut it fast to block a sunbeam slicing through a gap in the curtains which made her brain bleed. Her head felt like it was being squeezed and pushed out, wailing in protest. She groaned and turned to face the wall. If only sleep would soak up the remaining alcohol trying to escape her shrivelled veins, but its residual sugar rush made her twitchy.
‘Urgh.’
She kicked her bedcovers off and curled up into a ball. Nausea made an unwelcome arrival in her throat. She stumbled to the loo, dizzy and disorientated, and chucked up. She put her head under the tap and rinsed her mouth before gulping the tepid water. It did nothing to quench her thirst because it was too warm but she knew her dried-out stomach would appreciate the hydration. When she was sure she wouldn’t throw up again, she tossed two Disprin into a tooth mug with a splash of water. The pills dissolved with a ‘sigh’, creating a chalky froth that hurried up the sides of the cup. Esme knocked it back knowing the medicine wouldn’t take long to work. Until it did, she lay on the bathroom floor next to the bin, just in case.
The cold tiles felt good and drew the heat out of her like a compress. She allowed her body to relax into the hard floor and thought back to last night. While she couldn’t remember details, the legacy of Dan’s attentiveness made her hopeful. She knew he was out of bounds, but it had been her first real step towards cultivating a worldly persona – even considering that she could be of interest to that kind of man made a smile flash across her face. She wanted to get as far away as possible from the battery-blonde expectations of her to marry into the right kind of family by the age of twenty-five. Bugger that. She had shown herself that she could fit in where she wasn’t meant to; in a culture beyond the fringe of what was deemed by her parents as ‘acceptable’.
Looking at the plasterwork surround of her bedroom ceiling, simple and elegant, she wondered what the house had been like before it became a gallery. Had this always been a bathroom? Her bedroom had perhaps been servants’ quarters or a child’s room holding a cot and bed for its nursemaid. The round skylight had spokes like a wheel. Perhaps this had once been a staircase? Peering up, she could make out blue sky punctuated by fat, lazy clouds floating towards a rainy day somewhere else in the country.
Like the clouds, the day sprawled out ahead of her, empty of plans. Suki had gone to see ‘Mummy and Daddy’ rather than staying in her little London pied à terre, and Cece, was, no doubt, spooning with Dan. Yet Esme didn’t feel lonely because she was alone through choice. There was a difference. At boarding school, she had been lonely. Sleeping in a dorm of twelve girls, she had never felt more isolated. At The Lodge when her mother mentally took flight, she felt abandoned. Today being on her own was a gift to do exactly as she pleased with. Where most people of her age wanted constant social interaction, there were times when Esme actively sought solitude.
The aspirin was starting to do the trick. Her headache had gone from sledgehammer pain to a dull ache and the nausea had been replaced by hunger. Time for food and a walk, where she would allow her feet to dictate the route.
She threw on a linen skirt and a T-shirt. It was too hot for jeans. If she had been in Scotland she wouldn’t have bothered with shoes so espadrilles were the next best thing. Any attempt to keep her room tidy had passed. Her minimal wardrobe was strewn all over the floor. She hadn’t done any washing for a week and if she didn’t sort it out she would be down to wearing used pants inside out. ‘Dirty linen, disorganized mind,’ Mrs Bee always said. She felt a piercing homesickness and longed for the cool comfort of The Lodge. Well, there was no Mrs Bee in Mayfair, not even a washing machine. And it wasn’t like Jermyn Street was full of launderettes. Still, convenience was an urban bonus and M&S sold an affordable line in plain white bikini briefs. They wou
ld do for now.
She washed her face and moisturized. Since she had turned twenty, she had taken slightly better care of her skin. Her mother’s bottle of Clinique was old and, some might say a bit rancid, but made it feel less dry. Unscrewing the cap, she wiped the bottle neck clean. She tipped the yellow cream onto the palm of her hand and wiped it over her face leaving a greasy sheen. It will soak in, she thought, aware that she had no powder. Cece had opened her eyes to the power of make-up and how war paint gave confidence. No matter. At least it would be nice to get some colour on her pallid body. It hadn’t occurred to her to bring a swimsuit when she packed for London, but if she found a quiet spot in the park her baby-blue bra and knickers could be mistaken for a bikini at a distance, she decided.
Saturday was a good day to make a packed lunch and wander the streets of London. Anyone she knew had fled town for the weekend. Tourists of all nationalities hijacked the city for themselves and they didn’t care that she was alone.
Jermyn Street was empty of everything. A light breeze blew down the street and Esme half expected a ball of tumbleweed to bowl along the pavement but instead the pages of a lone newspaper took flight, its printed wings curling and twisting up and down like an agitated bird. There was nothing refreshing to the wind, its breathy consistency hot as a hairdryer and smelling of tarmac. A vacant taxi slowed down hoping she might want a ride. Esme smiled and shook her head, following it on foot down the road towards Christie’s. Turning right onto King Street she passed the imposing entrance to the auction house, its immense doors shut and alarm winking, alert and watchful. Esme knew no treasures were left on site, the majority being housed securely under the vigilant eye of Norman over at her father’s warehouse.
On St James’s Street she turned left towards the park, stopping to look through the window of Lock & Co Hatters. It was the oldest hat shop in world and held a double royal warrant. It had furnished the likes of Winston Churchill and Lord Nelson with his bicorn which he wore into the Battle of Trafalgar. But she also knew that only the uninformed, dazzled by its reputation, bought their hunting caps here. Peerless but overpriced, it was Patey’s where those in the know sought their made-to-measure riding hats. The quality was just as good and there was no waiting list. It had been her heart’s desire as a young girl to get her own Patey’s hat. But the visitors on the street were too busy to stop, instead they were all drawn to the most impressive of landmarks in the Queen’s borough. All the tourists hurried towards the splendour of Buckingham Palace and the Life Guards standing on watch for hours in their little huts. There was a bunch of holidaymakers circling a young soldier holding sentry under the weight of his bearskin outside Clarence House. Must be hell in this heat, thought Esme.
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