‘Feeling OK?’ Sebastian asks.
‘Great!’ I say.
‘Not tired?’
Is he kidding me? This is as easy as falling off a log compared to trying to hold the concentration of Years 10 and 11 armed only with the delights of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing.
‘No,’ I say and shake my head in such a ridiculously dramatic way that Sebastian snaps away again.
Jonathan, who has stayed out of the way until now, pops his head round the door. ‘How’s it going?’ he asks.
‘Wonderfully,’ I say breathily. Grief, even my voice is getting into this.
‘Nearly finished,’ Sebastian says. And do you know, I actually feel disappointed. I rather like prancing around without my clothes on, I’ve decided. It’s what happens to the photographs next that rather scares me.
Sebastian click-clicks for a few minutes more and then stands away from his camera. ‘I’m done,’ he states.
I resist the urge to say: ‘Oh!’
‘Put your things back on, Emily,’ Jonathan Gold says, ‘and then we can have a quick look at the results.’
Ah. My confidence sinks down to somewhere round my knees, my make-up resembles a clown’s mask and I suddenly feel very, very vulnerable.
‘Don’t worry, darling,’ Sebastian says with a roguish wink. ‘You’ll look fabulous.’
I only wish I was as sure as he is.
Chapter Eighty-Five
Adam hauled his bin bags through the side gate marked Private and into Toff’s secluded garden. The thought struck him that he was going to have to invest in a lawn-mower if he was intending to involve himself in grass-cutting duties. Still, it would be worth it. Adam took in the mature, weeping trees, the crush of lush shrubs, none of which he could name. This would be a beautiful green haven in the midst of the London smoke. At the word smoke, Adam had a vision of himself barbecuing sausages for him and Josh. It was a very nice vision. He might invite Barry to join them. When he’d had a bit of practice.
The flat had its own entrance, up a flight of ornate wrought-iron stairs, which meant that Adam didn’t have to trail through the studio and disturb Toff every time he wanted to get in. Not that anything much disturbed Toff. It felt strange having a new key in his hand, so much more symbolic than a mere tool for opening a door. Adam tried it in the lock. The door fitted tightly, neatly, expensively. It was unlikely that anyone would be able to put their knee through it as they could through the door in his old flat.
Adam didn’t think anyone had lived here for years, so goodness only knows what kind of state it would be in. It might be deeply optimistic to think that he could move straight in. Perhaps he should have thought to bring a tape measure as he’d have to buy curtains and stuff, maybe even carpets. As he edged in through the door, there was a faint whiff of furniture polish rather than the stale odour of damp he had grown used to. He resisted the urge to shout, ‘Hello!’
A small hall led into one large room that stretched out in front of him in a vast expanse, and a vast expense, of oak flooring. It held two navy-blue sofas huddled round a wood-burning fire and a huge, square coffee table that would be great for doing jigsaws on. Adam felt his jaw slacken. This wasn’t quite the poky, decaying flat he had envisaged. Did he always imagine the worst because that was what he usually got? Somewhere inside his mental processes he needed a long-overdue clearout.
The kitchen area was fitted with gleaming stainless steel units and sleek black marble tops which Adam trailed his finger over to make sure he wasn’t imagining it. The fridge, when he opened it, still had the operating manual in a plastic bag sitting inside. Next to it was a six-pack of Budweiser with a gift tag attached which said: Welcome to your new home. Sebastian.
A large picture window, overlooking the garden, dominated the far end of the room. In front of it sat a glass-topped table and six chairs that matched the sofas. Someone had even put fruit in the waiting bowl. Adam went to take in the view. At the end of the long, slender garden, the Heath stretched out before him and this time he didn’t have to stand on the toilet seat to see it. He felt like a man in the middle of a dream.
Still clutching his bin bags like a security blanket, Adam wandered through to the bedrooms. The navy theme continued into the main room, which had its own shower room complete with a fluffy new set of navy towels. Adam checked behind the door to see if there was a matching dressing gown. There wasn’t, but it rather surprised him.
In Josh’s room there was a raised bunk in stainless steel reached by a ladder. Underneath it a computer, ready to run, waited patiently. The ceiling was navy blue and littered with silver stars. A CD player that made Adam’s look like it had come out of the Ark, sat next to a portable television and PlayStation console. Adam’s emotions bumped around inside him like Dodgems. Toff had thought of everything. More than everything. In true Toff style.
Wandering back through to the living room, he looked around again, unable to take it all in. It was like something out of Homes & Gardens magazine. Like something out of the estate agents’ windows in the High Street. Like something that was way, way beyond his normal price range. And Toff had made it all available to him and his son, complete with every creature comfort. Adam looked down at his black sacks. He had not been taking care of himself for too long, he realised. Now he would look after them both, himself and his son, properly. Josh would make this immaculate, ultra-cool palace look like a bombsite within five minutes flat. He would fill it with skateboards and Britney Spears and noise and laughter and love. As Adam let his bin bags sink to the floor, his knees buckled and he joined them in a crumpled heap. He would be forever indebted to Toff for his kindness. And as a wave of gratitude, sheer joy and relief swept over him, he cried for the second time that day. Life simply could not get any better.
Chapter Eighty-Six
I can’t believe how fabulous I look. ‘Wow,’ I say as Sebastian clicks through the images he has taken, enlarging them on his computer screen.
‘I knew you’d be pleased, darling,’ he says with a satisfied smile as Jonathan Gold and I huddle round him.
‘They really are great, Emily,’ Jonathan agrees.
Somehow he’s managed to get me looking sexy, sultry and demure all at the same time. I wish it was a look I could pull off without the aid of a camera lens.
‘So what happens now?’ I ask. This is the bit I’m nervous about – although appearing in the News of the World won’t lose me my job or my house this time. I do suspect that my mother might never speak to me again though.
‘Sebastian will print these out and we’ll send a selection to the newspaper,’ Jonathan says with the authority of a man who’s done it all before. ‘They’ll want to send a reporter round to interview you and I think we’ll do that at my office so that I can help you to control the content.’ He notices that my eyebrows shoot up in question. ‘I don’t want it slipping out that you were a lap-dancer in a former life.’
I laugh.
‘You weren’t a lap-dancer in a former life, were you?’ Jonathan asks somewhat nervously.
‘No.’
‘Just checking,’ he says with a sigh of relief.
‘Would it bother you?’
‘No.’ He gives a chuckle. ‘But I would need to know!’
‘Rest assured,’ I say, ‘that I have never been anything more interesting than a teacher.’
‘Be grateful for that,’ my guru says.
Sebastian clicks my photographs from the screen. ‘I’ll get these over to you tomorrow,’ he says to Jonathan.
Jonathan nods. ‘We must go,’ he says. ‘I’ve got an Entrepreneur of the Year dinner at the Grosvenor tonight.’
‘Candidate?’
‘No,’ Jonathan says with a hearty laugh. ‘But one of my clients is. He’s made fifty million out of selling frogs’ legs to the French.’
‘There’s a rather nice irony to that,’ Sebastian observes.
‘I’m organising the life-story splash in the papers
,’ Jonathan continues. ‘If he wins.’
‘Good luck,’ Sebastian says. He comes and kisses my cheeks. ‘Nice to meet you, Emily. Finally.’
‘Thanks, Sebastian,’ I say. ‘I can’t believe how much I enjoyed this.’
‘You could make a career of it,’ he suggests. ‘You’re good enough.’
And I think that’s stretching the imagination a bit when I have cellulitic thighs and ankles like a sturdy Chippendale – and I mean one of the tables, not one of the male strippers.
‘I’ll give it some thought,’ I say with a laugh.
‘Come on, Emily,’ Jonathan Gold says, directing me into my jacket. ‘I’ll drive you home.’
I follow him out into the darkness, the air cold and damp after the fuggy warmth of Sebastian’s tropically heated studio.
‘Where to?’ he asks as he unlocks the Porsche which is miraculously parked directly outside the studio, and I give him directions to Cara’s house.
As I slide into Jonathan’s car, the leather seats feel cold against my back and I huddle my arms round me.
‘OK?’ he queries.
‘Yes, thanks.’ And I think I am. I feel jittery, but there’s a calmness at the centre of it for the first time in ages. It may not be an ideal situation, but at least I feel I’ve done something towards moving my life forward. There are a lot of things I can do with two hundred thousand pounds – even after taking Jonathan’s commission off, it will still be a substantial amount of money – and I begrudge him not one penny. I can pay off my debts and get on with my life. I may never be a teacher again, but I could be an awful lot of other things. Limitless possibilities stretch before me and it feels nice to have a different set of problems to confront.
Jonathan’s car heater blows out hot air with industrial strength and I can feel my eyes rolling. I hope that tonight I will enjoy a deep and dreamless sleep. An unbroken night where I’m not having nightmares about busking in Oxford Street Tube station or castrating Frank the Headmaster for sacking me or arguing with the Bank Manager about my spiralling overdraft whilst dressed in a saucy Santa outfit.
‘I’m sorry that I missed you at Temptation the other night,’ Jonathan says as he effortlessly steers his car through the traffic.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ I say. ‘We got there in the end.’
‘We could have had some fun.’
‘Yes.’ As it was I had a miserable time, but I won’t go over that ground again.
Jonathan pulls up outside Cara’s house and turns in his seat to face me.
‘Perhaps we could go out to dinner sometime to make up for it?’ he says, fixing me with a questioning gaze.
‘Maybe,’ I say with a smile, but I don’t meet his eyes, and we both know that I mean probably not.
‘No conditions,’ he says. ‘And we do have something to celebrate.’
‘You’re right,’ I agree. It would be churlish not to. ‘Thanks for getting me out of this mess.’
‘Thanks for getting into it,’ Jonathan says with a disarming smile. ‘It’s been a pleasure to help.’
‘I’ll wait to hear from you,’ I say.
Jonathan nods and I go through an awkward moment where I don’t know whether to kiss him or not and I sort of lean forward in an undecided way and we clash heads.
‘Ouch,’ he says and rubs his forehead.
‘Sorry.’
‘You’d better go,’ he says. ‘I don’t want to turn up to Entrepreneur of the Year sporting a black eye.’
‘Sorry,’ I mutter again. This is a man who was once rumoured to have dated Elle McPherson. But then if I was a PR guru, I’d start rumours like that myself. I get out of the car, before I do something stupid and head-butt him again.
‘I’ll phone,’ he says.
And I know this time that I can rely on him to do so – how often can you say that about a man? I watch the sleek love machine roar off down the street. Jonathan Gold is gorgeous in an older, smoothie sort of way, but he’s out of my league and makes me behave like a gauche teenager. The Hunk in the wine bar is much more my level, and now that I’m going to be a woman of independent means, perhaps he’d be more inclined to fall at my feet. If only I could find him.
Chapter Eighty-Seven
Adam stuck his head round the studio door. Toff was shuffling papers. ‘Mate,’ Adam said warmly, ‘how can I possibly thank you?’
He came across to Toff and hugged him gratefully. His friend patted his back paternally.
‘By taking most of my workload off me, sweetheart,’ he replied.
‘That place has got to be worth at least half a million,’ Adam pointed out. ‘More. You could rent it out for a small fortune.’ It was a rare slice of prime Hampstead real estate. Toff could have named his price and, instead, he was charging Adam the same as he was currently paying for his crumbling bedsit.
‘Adam, darling,’ Toff said, ‘do I look like a man who’s in need of money?’
‘No,’ Adam admitted.
‘Then let’s talk no more about it and have a beer to celebrate instead,’ Toff said, reaching two beers from the fridge. ‘It’s nice to be able to do a friend a good turn.’
‘I’ve just moved my stuff in, mate. I can’t believe how you’ve done it out for us. Josh will be knocked over.’
‘Good,’ Toff said. ‘You both deserve a little comfort and joy.’
‘We’ll really look after it for you,’ Adam promised.
‘Fine,’ Toff said. ‘I’ve organised a cleaner for you. She’s called Maria and she’s Armenian. Doesn’t speak a word of English, but she’s a devil with a duster.’
‘Toff . . .’ Adam began to protest.
‘And someone will come and do the garden,’ his friend interrupted. ‘We’ll put the bills through the business, so no worries there.’
‘This is too much,’ Adam said, beginning to feel emotional again.
‘You haven’t seen how hard I’ll work you yet,’ Toff laughed. He held his beer up and clinked it against Adam’s bottle. ‘To our new working arrangements,’ he said. ‘You might be begging for your old job back soon. All those hours of drinking coffee in Café Blanco will disappear.’
‘I’ll give my notice in tomorrow,’ Adam said. ‘Tonight I’m meeting Cara to give the glad tidings to her.’
‘How will she take it?’
Adam sucked in his breath. ‘Don’t know. If there’s one thing that you can rely on with Cara it’s that she’s totally unpredictable.’
Toff gestured towards the studio. ‘Her friend was in here earlier.’
Adam frowned. ‘Emily?’
Toff nodded.
‘I thought she’d decided against it?’
‘Another change of heart,’ Toff said. ‘She’s doing a spread for the News of the World under Jonathan Gold’s caring direction.’
Adam’s eyes widened. ‘I really didn’t think she was the type.’
‘Is there a type?’ Toff countered. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘I suppose not,’ Adam said. ‘She just seemed so devastated when her boyfriend posted those pictures of her on the net.’
‘Perhaps that was more to do with betrayal than baring all?’
‘Yeah.’ He just ought to recognise, Adam thought, that he would never, ever, as long as he lived understand the workings of a woman’s mind.
‘I still don’t know if Cara’s aware of it, darling. Best not to mention it,’ Toff cautioned. ‘Although she’ll know soon enough.’
‘Yeah.’ Adam snorted in agreement. ‘And I wouldn’t like to be in the firing line when she finds out. She did all she could to keep Emily out of the local paper, never mind the nationals.’
‘We are talking large sums of money, here, darling,’ Toff said. ‘It can turn a girl’s head. And, let’s face it, she has no visible means of support at the moment.’
‘True,’ Adam said. ‘I guess if you’ve got it, you might as well flaunt it.’
‘She certainly has got it,’ Toff said rather wistfull
y. ‘I’d have called you down to meet her if I’d known you were upstairs. She’s nice. Surprisingly shy. Great body.’
‘Let’s have a look at the photos,’ Adam said, sliding along the desk.
Toff indicated his computer with the neck of his beer bottle. ‘Logged off, old fruit,’ he said. ‘And I’m out of here in two minutes.’
‘Romantic assignation?’
Toff nodded. ‘Hermione.’
Adam didn’t think he’d heard of that one before.
‘We’ll have a look at them next time you’re over. I’ve got to do the prints for Jonathan tomorrow. He seems to have taken quite a shine to our Emily.’
Adam pursed his lips. ‘I’d better get a wiggle on too,’ he said, swigging back his beer. ‘I daren’t keep Cara waiting. I’ve got to go and pick her up.’
‘You might get to see Emily at Cara’s.’
‘Yeah,’ Adam said, ‘you never know. Though, at the moment, she seems to be more elusive than the Scarlet Pimpernel. We seek her here. We seek her there. We seek the lovely Emily everywhere.’
‘Not for long,’ Toff said. ‘On Sunday, you’ll see an awful lot more of her.’
‘I can’t wait,’ Adam said and he realised with a strange little shiver that only part of him was joking. Good grief, he was turning into Chris.
Chapter Eighty-Eight
I haven’t got one foot over the doorstep before Cara pounces on me.
‘Guess what?’ my friend shrieks.
I put my finger to my lip, feigning deep thought. ‘Brad Pitt’s sitting in the lounge waiting for me.’
‘Don’t be stupid,’ Cara says with a tut. ‘It’s better than that!’
‘Adam’s taking you out tonight.’
Cara’s face falls with disappointment. ‘How did you know?’
‘Well, I can’t think of anything else that would put a grin on your face like that.’
Flinging my coat on the end of the banister, I trail through to the lounge. I am suddenly weary right down to my bones. Cara follows and sits down, edgily, as I collapse full-length onto the sofa. ‘I’m knackered,’ I announce and before I think, add, ‘I’ve had one hell of a day.’
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