by Frances Pye
A FEW minutes later, Sean was walking through Stoke Newington. Taxi after empty taxi streamed past him, splashing rain puddles over the pavement, all on their way back into town to pick up another fare, all of them happy to take him home, but he ignored them. He needed to walk. To let the nowdry, cold air blow away the beer and allow him to try and make some sense of what had just happened.
He wanted to call his reaction to the kiss an aberration. The result of an emotional day, a late night, and too much to drink. But he couldn’t. Okay, he wouldn’t have reached for Terry if he hadn’t been drunk, but no beer he’d ever heard of turned a simple comfort kiss into a sudden need to carry a female friend off to bed and not emerge for days.
No, it had been real. He’d touched her and he’d exploded. And for a moment there, he’d thought she felt the same. Until she pushed him away and ordered him to leave her alone. Of course, he could’ve been mistaken. It could’ve just been him, overtired and far from his most perceptive, reacting to what had not been there. And even if he hadn’t made a mistake, even if she had responded, it made no difference. Whatever she had felt, she didn’t want to pursue it. And it would be best to forget all about it himself.
But he couldn’t. Those few seconds were acid-etched on his mind. He kept playing them back, over and over, as if he had a VCR in his head. Only this video came complete with memories and sensations and touch and feel as well as pictures….
But she didn’t want him. That was the bottom line. She’d not said it in so many words, but she had as near as damn it told him to fuck off. It was clear that he had to stay away from her. He didn’t want to drop Paul, but he could arrange to see the kid separately from his mother. And if he ran into her when he was with Lily, then he’d be polite and keep as far away from her as possible.
Lily. Hell. No wonder Terry had pulled away from him like that. He was going out with Lily. Terry’s best friend. God, she must despise him. He was a real shit. He couldn’t keep his hands off his lover’s best friend. No wonder she’d been so angry. He’d betrayed Lily. And with her.
He’d always thought of himself as a decent guy. No saint, but no major sinner either. Okay, he’d slept around a bit after the boys disappeared, but he’d been free to do so and he’d hurt no one. He’d been faithful to Isobel when he’d been married to her, even though he hadn’t loved her, at least not toward the end. But now, when he was with a woman he did claim to love, he had gone out and slept with one of her closest friends and made a move on another. All in the space of a month. It was obvious he had been deluding himself all these years. He wasn’t the faithful, honorable man he’d imagined he was. Instead, he was a chancer, without any true sense of loyalty or commitment or principle.
By now, Sean had reached the upper limits of Islington. Hardware stores began to give way to chic little bistros and posh fish shops and expensive knickknack stores. Cabs were still speeding past, but he continued to ignore them. He wasn’t ready to go home yet.
He couldn’t change what he’d done, couldn’t take back the kiss. But nor could he ignore what had happened. He had to apologize to Terry. Not now, not tonight, not tomorrow even, but sometime soon he had to pick up the phone and call her and tell her how sorry he was. Sorry that he’d upset her, sorry that he’d betrayed her friend, sorry that he wasn’t the person he’d thought he was. Hopefully, she wouldn’t notice that he didn’t apologize for the kiss. But he didn’t feel he could do that. Because despite how bad he was feeling, despite the unwanted insights into his weak character and the gut-clenching pangs of guilt, if he was honest with himself, he had to admit that he wasn’t sorry. He wasn’t sorry at all. The kiss had been wonderful.
BEEP.
“Hi, Terry, this is, er, Sean. Just wanted to say hi. I’d love to talk to you, er, explain the other night. So give me a call if you get a chance. Um, well, ’bye, then.”
From the moment Terry walked in the door from work and heard the annoying, off-rhythm beep of the answering machine, she had known who it was going to be. As she’d listened to Sean’s fumbling, embarrassed voice, half of her had been delighted, half scared.
Delighted to hear his voice. And scared of the effect it might have on her. Because she’d been having a hard time fighting off the urge to call him herself, to tell him she’d made a mistake, that she did want him. The temptation to believe that there might be one last chance for her was almost too strong to resist.
She hadn’t even dared tell Lily about the kiss. Not because she believed her friend would be upset by what had happened but because she thought Lily would encourage her to go for it. And it was hard enough stopping herself calling him without her friend egging her on to do it.
Terry had tried to make herself hate Sean. She’d tried to tell herself that any man who would attempt to seduce his girlfriend’s best friend wasn’t worth even a tin of beans, but it hadn’t worked. Because, when she thought about the way the group of friends had used him, his kissing her when tired and emotional didn’t seem like anything at all.
No, they were the more likely villains. She, Lily, and Jules. They’d manipulated and exploited him with no real thought to his feelings. Now that she looked back, she wasn’t sure they’d ever even discussed how he would feel. They’d just taken it for granted that their needs were paramount. And he, what had he done? Only taken her out, introduced her to his friends, saved Paul’s life, that’s what. Even Minnie, who’d never liked a single adult male in her entire life, loved Sean.
Terry was going to miss him. A lot. She looked longingly at the telephone, even reached out for it, picked up the receiver, and got halfway through dialing Sean’s number before she managed to pull herself back. No. She was not going to call. She was going to stay well away from him until she could be sure that she’d managed to block out all memory of that night. Until her life was back on its usual even, passionless keel. She would be happier that way. She was sure of it.
fifty-one
“Things have changed a lot, pet, I’m afraid. You’re still beautiful, I’ll say that for you, but you’re…thirty-three?” Mrs. Grenville put down the delicate, flower-painted porcelain teapot and handed Mara a matching cup and saucer. “Sugar?”
“No, thank you. I’m thirty-six.”
“Always so honest. That’s retirement age nowadays.” The tall, angular, conservatively dressed woman offered Mara a plate of chocolate Bath Olivers. It had always been that way. Mrs. Grenville might have made her money selling flesh, but she insisted on living more like a society matron than a successful madam. If you saw her before five, it was the formal tea, complete with napkins and tiny plates and finger sandwiches. After five, it was sweet sherry in minuscule glasses.
It had been eleven years since Mara had sat in just this chair, sipping tea out of just this cup, telling Mrs. Grenville that she was finished. Yet the room felt and looked the same. There was the same dark, heavy, prewar furniture, the same gas fire lit even on the warmest day, the same shelves cluttered with the same little multicolored glass animals and pillboxes and antique dolls. And the place still positively glowed with respectability. There was absolutely no hint as to Mrs. Grenville’s profession. Or what went on day and night upstairs.
“Thank you.” Mara took a biscuit and put it on the plate she was trying to balance on her knee. “I was always very popular. You remember. You said I was your best earner.”
“That was then.”
“Things can’t be that different?”
“There’s no call for older. So many babies pouring in from all over. No need, you see.”
“Please, Mrs. Grenville.” Mara knew that going back on the game was potential disaster if the Moores found out—she had made sure that no one would follow her on her way to her old employer’s house, jumping on and off tube trains as they were about to depart and doubling back on herself like an experienced cold war spy in case her in-laws had hired someone to watch her—but her options were limited. The Moores had written back to Robin Heath saying th
at they intended to take Mara to court as soon as possible. She had to do something. She couldn’t deliver the warm, close family the lawyer had advised her to find; she had to improve the house. The roof was perhaps asking too much, but she had to find at least the £1,200 needed to get the central heating fixed or she ran the risk of losing her daughters for good.
“Not down to me, pet. It’s what the customer wants. Why d’you want to start again anyway? When you left, you said nothing would make you come back.”
“I know. I need the money.”
“There are easier ways.”
“I’ve tried. Don’t you think I’ve tried?” Mara heard the desperation creeping into her voice and struggled to pull herself together. She had enough strikes against her; Mrs. Grenville wasn’t going to employ her if she weren’t calm and professional. “Of course I’d prefer not to do this. But I need a lot of money. And soon.”
“You can’t make a grand a throw anymore. It’s the young ones get that.”
“But you can find me something?”
Mrs. Grenville looked hard at her visitor. “It’ll be the kinky end, pet.”
“Kinky?”
“You know, two girls, three girls. Fetish stuff. S and M.”
“Oh.”
“Even then, you’ll be lucky to get two hundred and fifty pounds.”
“That’s all?” Mara was horrified. She had been hoping not to have to do it more than once or twice.
“It’s good money. Most places pay a lot less.”
“Most places? Is there a lot of call for…you know?”
“It’s the older gentlemen mostly. Can’t get it up, you see. Need a bit of extra push. Something unusual.”
Visions of gray-haired, wrinkled, flabby old men drooling over leather-clad women flashed through Mara’s brain. She’d never taken part in a staged performance, never been to bed with other women, never had a man watch her having sex. Her looks had protected her from that end of the business. Until now.
She tried to tell herself that it was just another job, that it made no difference what she was expected to do, that she had to do it for the girls.
But she knew she couldn’t. Not even if it were just her and a client for an evening. She’d managed to bury her head in the sand, persuaded herself that what she had done once, she could do again. But she’d been wrong. Eleven years had passed since she’d last had sex for money. Eleven years of Jake and the girls, eleven years of a normal life, eleven years of love. She was no longer the Mara who had sold herself to man after man. She might be a dreadful mother, she might be tossing away her best chance of keeping her girls, she might be letting her beloved Jake down, but there was no way she could return to her old life and then go back to Moo and Tilly and carry on as normal. Though she knew the girls would never know, knew they wouldn’t even see her until she had scrubbed every vestige of what she had done from her body, she felt she would be soiling them as well as herself if she sold her body again.
Worse, should she cross that line and prostitute herself once more, all the things the Moores had said about her would be true. And they would be fully justified in taking Moo and Tilly.
Mara put down her plate and teacup and saucer and stood up. “Thank you for the tea,” she said. “I’m afraid I’ve wasted your time. I…I made a mistake. This isn’t for me.”
“That’s right, pet. Leave it to the young ones.”
Mara looked down at the old woman who had played such a huge role in part of her life. Who had recruited her, trained her, and sold her. And felt an odd sense of release. As if only now had she truly gotten free of her. “Good-bye, Mrs. Grenville,” she said, then turned and left.
fifty-two
“Lily?”
“Hi. I was just thinking about you.” Lily was sitting at her desk at home, in front of her computer, trying to work on an idea for a new sitcom. Though Channel 4 was eager for another series of We Can Work It Out, she felt she’d taken it as far as she could for the moment and wanted to try something different. And while a small part of her was still tempted by the idea of a countrywide stand-up tour, she had decided against it for now. Even though Sean hadn’t heard her the other night, and so his reaction meant nothing, Lily couldn’t forget it. Or how lame and embarrassed she’d felt standing there, listening for laughs and hearing none. And that had been in her own home, in front of her own lover. It would be magnified a thousand, a million times if she were to fail in public. Hence the new sitcom. But it was turning out to be easier said than done. Inspiration was scarce and thoughts of Sean, flashes of him making love to her, kept intruding. “We’re still on for tonight?”
“That’s what I was calling to say. I’m sorry, I’m going to have to work. The new specs on the building, er, Terry and I found have just come through and I need to go over them before this meeting in the morning. Can I take a rain check?”
“Oh. Okay. No problem. Saturday, then?” Lily sounded as if she were fine about it but underneath she was seething. Seething and worried. Sean’s excuse sounded lame at best, as if he were only going through the motions and couldn’t be bothered to think up a good story. She was beginning to think he had lost interest.
“Yes. Of course. Saturday.”
“Here at eight?”
“Fine.”
“I’ll think of something interesting for us to do.”
“Whatever you like.”
“Something in the bedroom.”
“Right. Wherever.”
“Something like the Royal Oak.” Lily had amazing memories of the nights the two of them had spent there. If suggesting they repeat that didn’t rouse him out of his strange semi-stupor, nothing would.
“Okay. No problem.”
“No problem? Did you hear what I said?”
“Um…Sorry. I’m on-site. Delivery truck just arrived.”
“I was talking about when we went to the Cotswolds.”
“Oh.”
“And what we did there.” They’d hardly left the bedroom. No way he could mistake that reference. Or have forgotten what it was like. “How it was. How we can make it like that again.”
“Good. I’ll see you in a few days, then?”
“Good. That’s it? That’s all you can say?”
“Well, yes. What should I say?”
“Oh, nothing. I’ll see you Saturday.” And Lily slammed the phone down, furious with Sean and with herself. What the hell was she doing cajoling him like that? Shit. There was nothing more humiliating than trying to entice a man who was uninterested. And Sean had definitely appeared uninterested. Okay, he was on-site, he was distracted, but even so she’d have expected him to pick up on the reference to the Royal Oak. The fact that he hadn’t, even though she had underlined it—she hadn’t really said they could make it be like that again, had she? Fuck, how undignified—suggested that she was losing her appeal. That he no longer cared the way he had.
And that thought hurt much more than was comfortable. Little by little, piece by piece, day by day, Sean had become important to her. She still didn’t want him all the time, but she didn’t want to lose her allotted nights either. And it was beginning to look as if she would.
Okay, it wouldn’t be a complete disaster, of course she’d find a replacement and probably pretty quickly too, but she didn’t see why she should have to. Barely a month ago he’d been crazy about her. And he could be again. She wasn’t going to lie down and just accept this. She’d fight back. She’d show him what had attracted him in the first place. And seduce him all over again.
fifty-three
Clive drove at around five miles an hour down the street, the noise of his car’s slow engine fading into the surrounding hum of the late-night city. It was dark and cold, rain dripping from wrought-iron balconies onto the mounds of black plastic rubbish bags left neatly stacked outside every house. Opposite Jules’s door, he stopped the battered old Ford that he kept for such excursions. He’d left his real car, a Porsche he’d bought with the bonus he�
�d been given after his exclusive story about a cabinet minister’s three-in-a-bed romp had raised his newspaper’s circulation by over 100,000, at home in newly fashionable Clerkenwell. He might regret his lost TV career, but no question there was a lot of money to be made in the tabloid world. And the power to make or destroy careers; the cabinet minister in question had been forced to resign.
He jumped out and grabbed the three bags that had been piled up in front of Jules’s house. He hurled them into the back of the car to join the two other bags he had already collected from behind Lily’s home in Hampstead, got back in the Ford, and drove off.
Technically it was an offense, stealing trash, but Clive had been doing it off and on for years and had never come close to being caught. People seemed to want to ignore the existence of their garbage the moment it had been laid out for the bin men to collect. And it was amazing what you could learn from a few bags of old rubbish.
Yes, you had to have a strong stomach. Particularly in the summer. The smell of things like fish heads and chicken bones and prawn shells left to rot in the sun tended to linger long after the garbage itself had gone to the dump. But Clive had had wonderful success delving in what celebrities threw away. He’d been the first to know when a soap star was pregnant because he’d found the successful test amongst her vegetable peelings and coffee grounds. He’d scooped the rest of the tabloids when he’d found a good-bye letter from a certain TV presenter detailing his breakup with his pop singer girlfriend of two years’ standing.
So he took the risk that no one was going to be upset if their black bags mysteriously disappeared. And usually they weren’t.
He still had no idea what the Sean story was. He was spending as much time as he could trailing the builder, but things seemed to have gone quiet. Since storming out of Jules’s office about two weeks earlier, Sean had seen Lily once. Gone to her house, stayed the night, left the next morning. Nothing there. But he hadn’t seen Jules, or Terry. At least as far as Clive knew.