A Compromising Position

by Carole Matthews

  ‘It could be worse,’ Chris said.

  ‘How?’ Adam couldn’t wait to hear this one.

  ‘You might have persuaded the lovely Emily to join you in a threesome and now you’d have two of them after your testicles.’

  ‘Mmm . . .’ Adam said thoughtfully. Emily. Perhaps Cara had confided in Emily exactly what she was thinking. She might be willing to help him out. Goodness only knows how, but Chris might have hit on something there. Maybe, just maybe he’d give Emily a call.

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  My first job today – and I have quite a few on my list – is to take Cara’s pink number to the dry cleaners. It, unlike me, escaped the Temptation launch party unscathed by a pesto sauce experience. However, it does reek of booze and cigarettes and general unpleasantness, so I am, quite rightly, treating it to a well-deserved wash and brush up at the local Perkins dry cleaning emporium.

  Buckling up my sensible winter coat against the cold, I get ready to face whatever the weather has to throw at me. One of the few advantages of the British winter dragging on and on and on, is that it provided me with the perfect excuse to go out dressed in the entire contents of my wardrobe. But no more. All the people that were previously hanging round on our pavements have gone. There’s not even a token reporter left, and I’m already settled back into the routine of not having to disguise myself before I go out or fight my way through hordes of marauding journalists. A quick glance at myself in the mirror and I decide that, very soon, even the Chestnut Burst can go. Although it makes me look demure, I do not feel like a brunette.

  It is actually a very fabulous winter day. The sun is shining. There are no birds tweeting, but then they’re probably all sunning themselves somewhere nice and hot. And all is reasonably well with the world – if you don’t count the fact that I have no job, no home, no money and no man. I’m not going to risk saying that things could be worse, because whenever I do that they invariably and immediately become worse. Today there is a spring in my step, small buds of hope blossoming in my heart and two chocolate croissants I found in the bread bin resting in my tummy.

  The High Street is just waking up. At this hour the main crush of commuter traffic has passed through and has now been replaced with a crush of shopping traffic. London would be a really great place if you took away all the cars. If you’re a resident in Hampstead you can buy a parking permit for less than a hundred quid a year. If you are just an unfortunate visitor it costs round about that to park for an hour. Whatever time of day you drop in here, the High Street always has a lively feel. Lively, at the weekends, means that there isn’t a square inch of pavement left to walk on. It has a cosmopolitan atmosphere with posh designer dress shops, upmarket chain stores, a few glitzy little cafés, some great bakeries and restaurants far too expensive for the average pocket. Dropping the dress off at the dry cleaners, I lash out on their one-hour service, even though I have nothing to lash out with. To fill the time, I decide to take a long walk on Hampstead Heath and make the most of the crisp, clear day.

  Dropping down into the back lanes, I wander through the narrow cobbled streets and the tightly packed terraced houses, picking my way back towards the open expanse of the Heath. I stroll through the snarled-up car park and past the green slime that is the winter coat of the Hampstead Ponds, and head up towards Parliament Hill.

  I like being up on the Heath, as high as I can get. It’s basically a huge green hill peeping its head above the canopy of trees, aloof from the rest of London. When you’re up here, right at the top, it’s easy to forget that you’re still part of a busy, bustling city. And it’s nice to think that people have been using this same spot for recreation for hundreds of years. There are always folk up here flying rainbow-coloured kites, kicking a ball, reading a book. This is also serious dog-walking territory, as the handful of ever-present Westies, Yorkies, Corgis, Alsatians and Labradors will testify. Compared to the melting pot of the High Street, this is a typically British patch of land and helps give the area its character and unique atmosphere. I reckon it’s the nearest you can get to village life and still be on the Underground line. At a price. I’m good at this, aren’t I? Perhaps I should consider becoming an estate agent?

  This is why the rich and famous still flock here to live, I guess. There are loads of celebs who live in Hampstead – and once upon a time I even used to teach some of their kiddy-winkies. I can’t divulge who or where, because now I appreciate why they try to guard their privacy preciously – except when they have a new book, film or TV show to promote, of course. There are also loads of famous dead people who once inhabited Hampstead. A walk through any of the lanes will show you that the place is a veritable banquet of blue plaques marking historical moments from the lives of Constable, Dickens, D.H. Lawrence, Keats, Sigmund Freud and Florence Nightingale among others. All famous for much more cultured escapades than getting their bottoms out on the Internet. How times move on.

  I trudge up through the trees which clasp their bare fingers together above me, listening to nothing else but the crunch of my boots on the path. The view from Parliament Hill is spectacular. London in miniature is spread before me. Canary Wharf peeps out above the tree-line against a back-drop of wild, massing dark clouds teasing the populace as they decide to rain or not to rain. The slender needle of the Telecom Tower eases effortlessly skywards whereas the mighty dome of St Paul’s Cathedral struggles to find its space on the skyline as it competes with the office blocks springing up around it. I wish Sir Christopher Wren had got his way when he wanted to redesign London on symmetrical lines after the Great Fire. It would be a lot tidier than it is now. I snuggle down into my coat and enjoy the view. On a clear day you can see as far as the Crystal Palace Television Transmitter.

  A jogger struggles stoically up the hill aware of nothing but the pounding of her feet. I head for my favourite bench – the one inscribed to Cid and Maurice, The Armchair Philosophers. I think there are a lot of those in Hampstead. Sitting down, I let the cool air rush over my teeth and fill my aching lungs. The jogger puffs past me and I realise that I am definitely not as fit as I should be. I feel knackered just watching her. A career as a personal trainer is out of the question, although I could probably do with employing one myself. I realise my mind is turning to all things concerned with employment and take that as a sign that I’m getting better, getting on with my life. Getting desperate, more like.

  What does an unemployed teacher, who hasn’t got the remotest chance of getting a good character reference, do? If I went for another teaching job, would my notoriety as an international Internet porn star have preceded me? Would my interviewers already be familiar with my credentials? I don’t think I’m keen to find out. I have considered going for auditions for Soap Stars or Pop Idol but, aside from the fact that I can’t sing and have absolutely no acting talent and/or experience, I hate queuing up.

  I also considered, at some length, an insane get-rich-quick scheme similar to those favoured by my ex-boyfriend, Declan Up-to-the-eyeballs-in-debt O’Donnell. I thought about joining a Women Empowering Women pyramid. The craze seems to be sweeping the country quicker than space-hoppers did in the 1970s. Britain is officially pyramid-crazy. I suppose it’s a very noble idea – if a little flawed. Loads of women who have more cash than they know what to do with buy ‘hearts’ in order to donate to others who are more needy, and then they get loads back themselves as a bonus. Nice, if it worked. But it’s like one of those chain letters where you’re supposed to send six of your friends a pair of knickers and they send six of their friends knickers, and they send six people they hardly know six pairs of knickers, and those people in turn send six total strangers six pairs of knickers – along with a lot of innocuous threats of disasters that will fall upon your house if you don’t comply with their lingerie demands. Then one day, when your postman least expects it, you get more knickers than Marks & Spencers have in stock, as not one single person has broken the chain because they were all too fearful of the plague o
f locusts that was promised to them if they did. Do you see where I’m coming from?

  With this particular chain reaction you’re expected to stump up three thousand quid to buy into it – and that’s where I hit my first problem. If I had three thousand pounds to buy into it, I wouldn’t need to buy into it in the first place! And it’s like most things that seem too good to be true. It is. You’d have to be mad, desperate and unemployable to consider it. And even though I’m all of those I still wouldn’t touch it with a barge-pole.

  But that leaves me with the vexed question of what I would touch with a barge-pole and what barge-pole would touch me. By now, I’ve decided that I’m going to take up Jonathan Gold’s suggestion and ring the saucy photographer Sebastian Atherton. Cara will go ballistic, I know that much. She will rant on about feminist principles and exploitation and all that stuff I have gone through in my head a thousand times. It hasn’t been an easy decision. In fact, my fingernails are chewed to ragged little stumps because of it. But the truth of the matter is that I am utterly, utterly strapped for cash and I am being offered a very slender window of opportunity through which I can grab a load of it and secure my future – which is currently looking decidedly wobbly. Wobblier than my bottom. Which, incidentally, I feel owes me a favour. So? Do I stay principled and impoverished or get my kit off and clear my debts? What would any sane woman do, faced with this choice?

  For once, my mobile phone is blessed with a signal. I dial the number before it decides to give up the ghost, and am answered immediately. Which is sort of a shame because I haven’t quite decided what to say.

  I try, ‘Hello.’ Too timid by half. ‘Is that Sebastian Atherton?’

  ‘Yes.’ He sounds scary and terribly posh.

  ‘This is Emily Miller,’ I stammer. ‘Jonathan Gold asked me to phone you. I’d like to make an appointment to have some photographs taken.’

  ‘I’ve been expecting your call,’ he says.

  ‘Oh.’ Have you? I wasn’t sure I was going to ring at all.

  ‘Let’s see when I can fit you in.’

  I bite my lip as I hear Sebastian Atherton shuffling through the pages of his diary trying to find a vacant spot for me.

  ‘I could see you tonight at nine,’ he offers. ‘If that isn’t too short notice.’

  ‘No,’ I mumble. ‘It’s fine.’

  ‘I’ll look forward to it,’ Sebastian Atherton says.

  Will you? I don’t think I will. And I hang up sharply before I can change my mind.

  The sun scoots behind a big, black cloud and the hope of a warm spring is crushed in one blow; I shiver as the cold wind cuts straight through me. I’m not sure whether I’m going to cry or not, but as I look out over the rooftops of London, I wonder what on earth I’ve done.

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  ‘Where’s Adam?’ Cara said as she slung her coat and bag over her chair. ‘I thought he was working today.’ She gave a quick glance at her shift rota which showed that, indeed, he was.

  ‘He’s out on a job,’ Chris shouted over to her. ‘It’s World Milk Day. He’s gone to snap some school kids dressed up as cows.’

  ‘Oh,’ Cara said and flopped down at her desk. She was physically and emotionally exhausted. She still felt subdued after last night’s traumatic visit to the crash scene, plus elated because she and Adam had finally got it together on both a sexual and deeply spiritual level. However, Adam’s pre-dawn departure had prematurely darkened her post-coital rosy glow. Why did modern-day relationships have to be so fraught and complex? Her stomach sloshed around with a mixture of utter joy and fear. ‘Did he say anything?’

  Chris sat himself down on Adam’s chair and whizzed it over to the front of Cara’s desk. He leaned his elbows on it and smirked. ‘About what?’

  ‘Anything,’ Cara snapped. She still hadn’t forgiven Chris for his hard stance on featuring Emily on the front page, and she noticed that the blown-up festive poster of her was once more above his desk.

  ‘No,’ Chris said. ‘But he did look really, really, really knackered.’

  Cara’s head shot up and Chris gave her a leery grin. Perhaps he suspected something, she thought. Well, if she and Adam were going to be a couple from now on, everyone in the office would just have to get used to it.

  ‘We were out late covering a bad smash,’ Cara said.

  ‘Yeah,’ Chris replied. ‘He told me.’ He winked at her and with a little trickle of alarm, Cara wondered exactly how much Adam had told him. Surely he hadn’t confided in him? Chris’s middle name was not, after all, discretion.

  ‘Haven’t you got anything better to do, Chris?’ Cara growled.

  ‘As a matter of fact, I have,’ he said, standing up grandly. ‘The Prime Minister is paying a visit to our humble little outpost. He’s coming to the launch of a new Saturday-morning film club for over-privileged children.’

  It certainly helped that this part of North London had more movie stars per square inch than a Hollywood studio when they wanted to attract big gun politicians for publicity.

  ‘All part of a developing arts drive,’ Chris continued. ‘And yours truly is orchestrating the coverage.’

  Her colleague, one of her reporters, beamed widely. Cara looked at him open-mouthed.

  ‘If you look at your in-tray, you’ll find some copy pertaining to it,’ he said smugly and started to walk away with the air of someone who has managed to get one over on someone else.

  ‘Who said you were to cover this?’ Cara asked. It was her job to allocate stories.

  ‘Martin.’ Chris flicked a cursory glance at the Editor’s office. ‘He was really pleased with my coverage of the Saucy Santa schoolteacher exposé,’ he continued with barely suppressed glee. ‘I was the obvious choice.’ And, he failed to mention, he’d been in Martin’s office begging to be allowed to do it since first thing. ‘If you have a problem with that,’ Chris added slyly, ‘take it up with Martin.’

  ‘I don’t have a problem,’ Cara said and Chris, grinning like the cat who had got the cream, waltzed off.

  Cara fumed quietly and scrabbled through the pile until she found the story about Tony Blair’s impending visit to Hampstead. Yes, she did have a problem with Chris covering the story. It wasn’t that his capabilities were in question, he just shouldn’t have gone over her head to bag it for himself. And although she hated the fact that her friend was the subject-matter, his coverage of Emily’s story had been first class. The ridiculous twist was that she probably would have allocated this latest story to him. But she wanted to do it. That was what she was paid to do. She was his boss.

  Cara scanned the story. Pretty routine, but interesting nevertheless. Chris would be perfectly capable of covering it. The visit was scheduled for tomorrow. It was a shame they hadn’t been given more notice about it, but in these days of tightened security, the Premier’s plans were often shifted, postponed, cancelled or arranged and rearranged at five minutes’ notice. They would have to do follow-up pieces to add the background colour, instead of previewing it.

  She needed to talk to Adam about the photographs. She needed to talk to Adam full stop! Cara took anxious little nibbles of her fingernails and gazed at her mobile. Now wasn’t the right time to ring him. Their first conversation after ‘the event’ needed to be in private – or, at least, not in the middle of a busy newspaper office with everyone’s ears flapping like Dumbo.

  Cara tried to settle to her work by re-reading the piece on Tony Blair and pretending that she was making extensive plans for his visit in her head, and by chewing the end of her pen as if she was deep in thought. But it was no good, she couldn’t think of anything or anyone but Adam. In the end, Cara gave up trying to think and gazed blankly out of the window. She would give anything to know how he was feeling right now.

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  Adam was feeling like a bagful of shite. He rubbed his hands over his eyes and prayed for someone to give him superhuman reserves of strength. He was at a nursery school surrounded by ch
ildren dressed in black and white. Some of them sported complete cow outfits and black, bovine splotches on their cheeks. There were World Milk Day posters all round the walls of the classroom confirming the reason why he was here.

  Three tiny belligerent children sat in front of him in various stages of scowl. If the superhuman strength didn’t arrive soon, he was going to belt one of them over the head with his Nikon. And he knew exactly which one.

  ‘Charlene,’ the teacher coaxed gently, ‘hold the carton up to your mouth.’ She held up a brightly painted milk carton complete with stripey straw.

  ‘No!’

  ‘Just pretend you’re drinking the milk,’ the teacher advised, inching the carton further towards Charlene’s mouth which was clamped firmly shut.

  Charlene was obdurate. ‘I’m not drinking it,’ she said without opening her lips. ‘It comes from a cow’s bottom!’

  The teacher appealed wordlessly to Adam for help. Adam closed his eyes and sighed. What he really needed now was sleep. Deep, dreamless sleep. Lots of it. He’d only decided to do this job instead of sending one of the juniors so that he had an excuse to get out of the office and delay his first encounter with Cara after doing the big It. ‘Can’t you just get another child?’ he suggested, silently adding, ‘Before we all die.’

  ‘But Charlene has such a lovely smile,’ the teacher pleaded.

  The little girl briefly bared her teeth. Teacher’s pet, Adam thought. It was very hard to imagine Charlene’s lovely smile as he eyed the uneven bunches in her hair and her cow jumper and her eyebrows in a dark, stubborn line above her eyes.

  ‘I’ll take some photos with the milk on the table in front of her,’ he said and proceeded to snap the other children to Charlene’s left who were marginally less belligerent, cutting her out of the photo completely. With a Prime Minister’s visit in the offing, it was unlikely that children drinking milk would make the paper anyway.