by Anna Maxted
Of course, the ultimate test of her skills – on a real penis – was yet to be achieved. She was working on that. The last time she’d stayed at Fortelyne Castle, she’d asked Timmy if he’d ever kissed a girl. ‘No way!’ he’d replied. ‘Girls are disgusting.’ He’d paused, and added gallantly, ‘Present company excepted.’
She realized she’d had a narrow escape. Timmy wouldn’t get his blow job until she was a pro. There would be brothers of friends to practise on, although maybe … not just yet. She should probably wait until she was at least eleven. And it was important to let Tim experiment first, with that stupid clutch of interchangeable Sloanes who trotted around after him with their tongues hanging out. A few orthodontic braces caught in his foreskin and he’d appreciate a girl with finesse.
Emily was going to marry Tim and be queen of the castle, even if he didn’t know it yet. She’d have to be quick, or he’d be matched with some buck-toothed heiress whose father owned Wales. The trouble with Timmy was he was so shy and quiet, he’d obey Pat and Fred even if he loathed the girl. Well, she’d prevent this tragic romance from ever taking place, by getting in there first. You had to make your own luck. Daddy had always said it; his reason, Mummy said, for refusing to offer Claudia a job. (And quite right, lazy cow!)
Emily was smart as well as hot. She was probably the only girl her age who didn’t give a toss about Wet Wet Wet. What could Wet Wet Wet and all the other old men who made a pile out of giving teenagers wet dreams do for her? Nothing! Her father liked Wet Wet Wet – need she say more? Who had time to waste lusting over nobodies? If she listened to pop, it was the classics: Tears for Fears and Soft Cell and Simple Minds – those men were baboon ugly, but their music was beautiful. Her favourite song: ‘Don’t You Forget About Me’. She played it to Tim. He’d been force-fed Wagner since the age of two, so he was blown away.
Timmy was her destiny; he was a sweet boy, and the heir to a wonderful, privileged life. Her life had been shit-hot so far, and she was terrified of losing that. She didn’t think she could cope if she wasn’t somebody. The great relief of being born rich was, you didn’t have to try. You could piss on their coffee table and people still found you charming. She was charming, however, because she always got her own way. She had her own Wardrobe Maid, a woman employed to colour scheme her closet, dry clean her clothes and maintain her shoes and bags.
In the holidays, she travelled. NY was always fab, and Positano was so chic, but her favourite was Spyglass in French Polynesia. She loved surfing and reef-diving, and her instructor didn’t know it but that winter she was going to show him just how well she could breathe through her nose. The place itself was a little shabby – Daddy had lost interest – but it was always deserted, and the staff treated her as a goddess. It was Emily’s secret. She loved to be around people – she needed to have people around her – but Spyglass was her annual retreat from civilization.
She had three vast pink bedroom suites with adjoining bathrooms; she had three homes, all in gorgeous, luxurious postcodes in the hippest cities in the world. She attended a fucking bore of a school – it was, after all, school – but you paid a fortune for them to make it as bearable as school could be. Her problem was, she was too clever. Some of the girls in her class couldn’t read Shakespeare – they couldn’t read Smash Hits without their mouths moving.
Mummy indulged her. Whatever Emily wanted, Emily got. Claudia was the solid, stupid, black sheep. No one cared about her. Very occasionally, Emily felt a twinge of pity, but then, Claudia shouldn’t be so feeble. If she stood up for herself, instead of cowering, Emily would have more respect for her. She was eighteen, trying to be a ‘journalist’ – like, maybe she couldn’t be an air stewardess – and she was a total party pooper, with a face as long as a horse. She didn’t even know how to apply eyeshadow. I mean hello! Yeah, Emily had had it good.
Which was why she’d had the shock of her pampered life when she’d realized all that she had, all that she was, could vanish – poof! – tomorrow.
It was a few weeks ago. She’d hoped to see her parents bouncing on the bed together. They were shagging, she knew that. It fascinated her. It was quite icky, but it gave her a warm feeling. Her friends at school shrieked and shuddered at the very idea of s-e-x, but Emily had seen it and it looked wild.
But instead of trotting upstairs, her mother marched into the blue lounge, in sharp jerky moves. Daddy, who looked untidy, followed her slowly, his hands in his pockets. She knew there wasn’t going to be any s-e-x. She pressed her ear to the door. Their voices started off low, but fast got loud and shouty.
‘I knew this would happen!’
‘Oh shut up! The Chairman of Lloyd’s and all the other financial geniuses who’ve worked in the business for forty years couldn’t foresee this happening, but you – the woman who didn’t even finish school – you foresaw it. You just knew that all those miners dying of asbestos poisoning decades ago, you knew that one day their grandchildren would claim reparations and break the most famous, most reliable, most failsafe bank—’
‘It’s not a fucking bank, it’s an insurance firm, and you calling it a bank says it all! I knew, because unlike you, I wasn’t blinded by a desire to be a nob! When you became a Name, the rumours were just beginning, and because I made discreet enquiries of the right people, I discovered what most people had no clue about – that in the very near future there was the possibility of huge, unimaginable loss, and I tried to warn you, but you didn’t want to know, you didn’t want to hear – you were too vain, too eager, too determined to—’
‘Shut up. So you told me. And I didn’t listen. And now we are about to be raped of everything I own. I may lose the business – the liabilities currently stand at seventy-eight million. However, you win the moral victory. Congratulations. Is that it?’
‘Of course it’s not it, you stupid fool.’
It was horrible to hear Mummy and Daddy arguing like this. She knew it was about money. Then Mummy’s voice went quiet – Emily could hear her murmuring, on and on. Then silence. Then a great roar from Daddy that made her almost jump out of her skin.
‘YOU THIEVING COW – YOU – IMPOSSIBLE! HOW? EVERYTHING! I CAN’T BLOODY BELIEVE WHAT I’M HEARING!’
Emily tried not to bite her nails. It was her only fault. Nanny would have to buy some more of that anti-bite stuff.
Mummy screamed back, ‘It was my only option! Better me than them!’ And then, ‘I can’t believe you’re reacting like this! You’re so fucking ungrateful! I’ve saved your stupid skin! I’ve saved your future! I had to do it! For you – for us – for Emily!’
Mummy was such a user.
More murmuring. She pushed her hair out of the way impatiently. And then, Daddy: ‘They’ll take everything back from you.’
‘They can’t. Because you made the transfers, as far as they know, before you became a Name. In other words, you made the transfers thinking that everything was lovely and profitable at Lloyd’s – because if you didn’t think that Lloyd’s was a failsafe, then of course you wouldn’t have become a member shortly after. So that proves you didn’t make the transfers to avoid liabilities. You didn’t think you would have any. Yeah? They were a wedding gift, as far as anyone needs to know. Darling, I had to do something to cap your losses. This way, you sacrifice a little rather than the lot. Let them hate you – you’ll be crying all the way to the bank.’
‘You think you’ve got me by the balls, don’t you … Sharon?’
Sharon? Who was Sharon?!
Mummy laughed, a scary cackle of a laugh that made Emily’s spine tingle.
‘You think you’re clever, Sharon. And you are, you are. Because yes, you have everything now. And I see that there’s nothing I can do but go along. If I report you to the authorities, we’re both left with nothing. I can only maintain my lifestyle by your grace. If I want to have any part in running my empire, it can only be as an unpaid figurehead. I’m forced to toe the line. Hat off to you, Marshall. You got what you wanted. Y
ou had me fooled. I really bought the lie wholesale.’
Bugger it, Daddy! Speak up! Emily’s heart was pounding wildly. It was serious. It was, like, Daddy had lost all their money, and maybe Mummy had got it back, but no one seemed sure or happy about it. Would she still be going skiing in Verbier this winter?
‘I say again, because you appear to be deaf: without me, you would have lost everything, don’t you get that?’ And then, calm, amused: ‘Darling Jack. Think of me as your guardian angel. A-ha-ha-ha!’
Emily felt sick, and her head was pounding.
Then something smashed, and Daddy hissed, ‘Laugh now, sweetheart, but I swear to you, you won’t be laughing for long.’ And he laughed, a nasty, bitter laugh that made her want to cry with fear. What could he mean? There was silence from Mummy – rare – which meant that she didn’t know either. Maybe he was just pretending because he was cross.
Angry footsteps approached the door, and she leaped up and ran. As she hurled herself into her bedroom and slammed the door, there was one thought in her pounding head: Snow White married the prince, and they lived happily ever after.
However, she knew now that you had to choose your prince with care. Boys were more stupid than girls, so they needed you to marry them. Emily would choose a prince who could take over where Daddy left off. She would help the prince stay rich, just as Mummy was helping poor Daddy now. Except she wouldn’t let her prince lose so much as a penny. She would choose a sensible, obedient prince, who wouldn’t argue or be difficult like Daddy.
Aged ten, Emily chose Timmy.
NEW YORK, 1993
Innocence
Jamie scurried over, nearly tripping over the pedicurist in his haste. ‘It’s Mr K., madam.’
She wrinkled her nose. He wrinkled his nose. She sighed and put out her hand for the phone. ‘Darling.’
‘What the fuck are you doing? Bermuda just called to say two point six million has been debited from the account – two point six million on baubles. Are you nuts? And today! When we’re under media and government surveillance. And from the offshore account – the offshore account – that’s money that shouldn’t exist, and you’ve blown it out of the water, you stupid cow. You don’t even have access to that account – at least, you shouldn’t, so tell me, whose cock have you sucked, who do I have to fire?’
‘Oh, simmer down, Jack, keep your knickers on. You know I can’t bear’ – Innocence twisted her head to get a better side view of her pink bouffant – ‘vulgarity. Of course I wanted to blow a little cash before I can’t afford to!’
‘You can’t afford to now! They’re repossessing our house! They’ve taken the Aston Martin, all the Porsches, the Bentley, and the Range Rovers. They’ve taken the Picasso, the Pissarro, the Monets, and my favourite Giacometti – today I have lost forty-two million quid. Gone, goodbye. No – thanks to you, I’ve lost forty-four point six million quid, and the assets that my accountants have worked so carefully to secure are now in jeopardy. I wonder, is this because you are such a thoughtless, selfish brat of a woman, or is it more sinister?’
‘How dare you.’
Since her confession, their relationship had gone sharply downhill. It hadn’t been fabulous before – it hadn’t been fabulous since Jack had realized the extent of her ambition – but after she’d told him about her own secret brand of financial planning, his attitude towards her had changed entirely. He wasn’t only questioning how well he knew his wife, he seemed to be questioning whether he knew her at all. She didn’t let this bother her. He’d already put a private investigator on her and discovered that Miss Innocence Ashford and her aristocratic heritage was a crock of shit, that in fact he’d married plain old Sharon Marshall off a Hackney estate. So what? There was nothing he could do! He was stuck with her.
‘I dare, because I have little left to lose.’
Innocence considered the truth of this. She giggled. ‘You have some.’
There was a sharp intake of breath at the end of the line. ‘You’ll pay for this. You wait.’
‘Like you’re paying now?’ she said sweetly. Her voice turned harsh. ‘Listen, Jack. I did what I had to do to save us both. And to save Emily.’ She didn’t bother to include Claudia. She was tired of pretence.
She was tired of being the only clever one in the marriage. She was tired of being the caretaker and getting no credit for it. Around the world, he hit the headlines. His six Élite Retreats were booked solid by the rich and famous for the next eight years. Each time she’d made a suggestion – about the service, the design, the food – he would get a sniffy look on his handsome face, as if she was an idiot, babbling nonsense. On her next visit, she’d discover that her idea had been implemented – always with great success. He was profiled in Vanity Fair: they asked her along for the shoot but only because her cleavage would shift copies. She knew they saw her as the Yoko to his Lennon. The more serious publications ignored her, as if she were a bad smell. He was never going to grant her any power voluntarily, so she’d been forced to snatch it.
‘I’d like each toenail painted with the Stars and Stripes. Yes.’
‘What?’ snapped Jack. ‘Where are you? You better not be somewhere frivolous. The fucking Mail would love to splash you over the front page sticking two diamond-encrusted fingers up to your supposed impoverishment.’
‘I wasn’t talking to you. I am now. You should be grateful that forty-two million is all you’ve lost, and you know it. The house had to go, in a big blaze of publicity and woe, to show that you, like all the other Names, have lost everything. The truth is, you’ve only lost a fraction of your wealth. Those offshore accounts are untouchable – well, Lloyd’s can’t touch them. And our – sorry your business is still intact. People might hate you, but they can’t touch you.’
‘Forgive me if I don’t entirely agree. Forgive me if I’m not quite as chipper about the business as you are.’
‘Darling, you know that what’s mine is yours. Whereas what’s yours is Lloyd’s.’
Thousands of miles away as he was, she was sure she could hear him grit his teeth. Innocence sighed, and cut him off without a goodbye. ‘Could those stripes be pink instead of red, sweetie?’
LONDON, 1994
Nathan
She’d wanted to take him to the football; after all, wasn’t that what all sixteen-year-olds wanted to do, apart from shag and drink and smoke and piss around with their mates? He’d agreed, because he did like to tick all the right boxes. People, especially her, couldn’t cope with anything different. Different was weird. They couldn’t handle it. So he smoked, and drank, and shagged, and pissed around with other boys his age – the perfect image of a teenager – and he went to the football. He enjoyed it, but not for their reasons.
But for the special day itself, a Saturday, he asked if she’d take him to see a show. Of course, she was delighted.
She’d been so proud when he’d played the title role in the school’s performance of King Lear in front of all the parents, teachers, casting agents, talent scouts. He found her pride offensive. After all, his talents had sod all to do with her! Her only role was as facilitator. She had enrolled him in a famously arts-orientated school; if a pupil did a particularly splendid fart important people applauded. All she had done was to put him in a place where his genius would be discovered. His jacket pocket was solid with business cards. Everything was going to plan. After today, he’d make some calls, and his future would be assured.
After today.
His mother’s delight had vanished when he told her the name of the show he wanted to see: Annie.
Her emotions were curious to him. They were so loose … like diarrhoea. She was a person with no self-control; she had no idea how to rein herself in. Everything she felt, you saw. Nothing was private. It was like watching a car crash. She thought she was sensitive to his needs and feelings, but like everyone in the world, it was really all about her. Her needs. Everything he said to her had to be relayed through her Me Filter before it bounc
ed back to him.
So when he asked his birth mother – the woman who’d abandoned him when he was a day old – to take him to see a West End musical about an orphan, her face had flattened in dismay. Perhaps he wanted to see it for the same reasons that millions of other people had gone to see it – it was a thoroughly entertaining, harmless bit of fun. Perhaps he wanted to see it because when he was a kid, one of the girls in the home had been given a tape of it, and they’d all belted out the songs together – oh, the irony!
But no, all that wouldn’t occur to her. His needs, his desires were the afterthought. Her immediate reaction was: how does this request relate to me? It must be about how I dumped him when he was a newborn and made him an orphan who suffered untold pain at the hands of evil adults even though I, his mother, was alive and well. This request is therefore hurtful to me, and my face is going to sag with self-pity, and I’m going to reply in a small wavering voice, ‘Oh. Oh, yes. I’ll take you to see Annie. If that’s what you want.’
As it happened, this time her Me Filter was right.
He felt a rush of excitement. He’d waited so long for this. He allowed her to stroke his hand, even though it made him want to batter her. But it was good for him, all of it: an exercise, a dress rehearsal for the rest of his life. He sat beside her in the theatre, savouring her discomfort throughout the matinee performance. At one point he could tell that she was wiping away tears – not, you could be sure, tears for his pain and misery. He was sick of her tears. Other people had blood running through their veins; she had salt water.
‘Mum, that was top, thanks so much,’ he said as she hailed a taxi, grey-faced. It had been torture for her – or so she’d be telling herself in her self-obsessed drama queen head. Torture! She had no idea. He loved it when she was like this, the silent, suffering martyr. He made a point of being super-cheerful, ignoring her agony as if it were invisible, feeding off her despair, grinding it deeper like a screwdriver through her heart, chattering away blithely, pressing her to buy the cassette so they could listen to it when they got home – oh, just his little joke!