Strangers in a Garden

by Deanna Maclaren

  ‘No, she doesn’t do hotel visits but you can come here for £500 a night, plus £25 administration charge. Tuesday at four? Perfect. We’ll look forward to meeting you.’

  ‘What’s this twenty five quid administration charge?‘ Hugo said, as she put down the phone.

  Marla shrugged. ‘Don’t know, really. They always cough up, though.’

  Hugo laughed and went to the bathroom. Marla and Laura lounged on the bed, sipping champagne. ‘Aren’t you afraid… I mean, how do you know who’s coming through the door? You could get beaten up…’

  She said calmly, ‘Oh no, it’s never been a problem. All my clients come by personal recommendation or if they’ve found me through a card boy –‘

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Kids I pay to put my card in the phone boxes. So if someone rings up through that, Vera insists on a contact phone number and we call them back. I get a lot of repeat business. They always come back and,‘ she slipped off Laura’s robe, ‘they have nice friends.’

  Laura had never had a woman touch her breasts before and to ease her embarrassment she asked, ‘Why do you do it? For your children, or to pay off big debts or what?’

  Smiling, she slid Laura back against the dark red satin pillow. ‘The plain fact is, Sue, I just like sex. Lots and lots of lovely sex.’

  ‘Naughty girls, starting without me.’ Hugo squeezed Marla’s stockinged thigh and sat on the bed as she began an intense tongue lapping of Laura’s breasts. Laura studied the cardboard boxes on top of the wardrobe. There was one for a salad spinner, another for a typewriter and, puzzlingly for a third floor flat, a box for a garden hose.

  Penny howled with feral mirth. ‘You didn’t like it, did you? Having a woman do all that to you?’

  ‘It was only twenty minutes out of my life,’ Laura said, peering in the fridge to see what there was for lunch. ‘I was curious to see what she’d do.’

  They were, unusually, a full house for lunch that Monday. Normally, Peter and Janet would have gone home that morning and Richard would have lunched at the school. Although it was half term, many of the pupils were too far from home or too disturbed to return to the bosom or barbs of their families, so Richard and the staff organised recreational activities. Art therapy was usually popular but was off the curriculum today with their teacher hugging the gin bottle and refusing to let go.

  ‘What happened afterwards?’ asked Penny, as Laura began to mince the cold lamb for shepherd’s pie. ‘ Did you go and have dinner together and talk it all over, or is it too embarrassing?’

  It amused Laura, in a tight sort of way, that Penny was asking all the questions that had led her to Marla’s in the first place. Women are curious about prostitutes. The only difference, Laura thought, between herself and other women was that she had been given a convenient opportunity to meet a hooker and watch her at work, and she had taken that opportunity, instead of spending the rest of her life wondering what if...

  In fact, Laura had been hacked off with Hugo when they left Marla’s. She had expected they would have drinks, and supper and talk it all over. It had been quite an experience for Laura and in anticipation, she had prepared her mother’s carer to stay all night if she missed the last train.

  But as they left Marla behind, Hugo said, ‘Now let’s pack you into a taxi.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you like a drink, Hugo?’

  He obviously didn’t, but led the way to a pub where office girls finishing an honest day’s toil were beginning to drift noisily in.

  ‘Now did you enjoy that?’ he asked, when Laura was settled with her gin and tonic.

  ‘Yes and no. I was surprised you caned her. And so hard. It must have hurt like hell.’

  ‘Oh, she enjoys it. Well, it’s the position more than anything. When she’s bent over, all her skin goes nice and taut, especially if she’s apprehensive of the cane, so she’s pleased she’s presenting herself well to me. And I’ve known her ten years. She knows she can trust me.’

  ‘So you left the pub,’ said Penny, ‘and he kissed you goodbye and you both went off as if nothing had happened?’

  ‘Hugo never kissed me. Never, not once. Well why should he? We weren’t in love. And Marla never kisses either. Hugo told me. Most prostitutes don’t kiss.’

  ‘In the end,’ said Penny in a glazed way, ‘neither do most wives.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  Penny went to bed early that night. Janet tidied the linen cupboard and told Laura she’d been to see Kay in a nursing home that was almost a hotel. ‘There’s a choice of bath salts and Kay’s very happy watching cartoons on TV. For exercise, they play with something called a Frisbee. It’s supposed to keep your hands active.’

  Downstairs, Peter and Richard struggled for a strategy to allow them to lead a semi normal life while under siege from two dozen reporters, photographers and TV crews. They were at least now herded back outside the gate – Peter had contacted the Press Council – but the phone still rang incessantly if they didn’t leave it off the hook.

  Peter insisted that Laura was not to be seen. The curtains were to be drawn, and in any case, she was not to go near any windows. She was to stay in the kitchen and take charge of the cooking, give Penny a break.

  ‘I have to get to work,’ said Richard. ‘Not easy with cameras and fluffy microphones invading the car.’

  ‘They might behave less like animals if we gave them some tea,’ Janet said, drifting through with a pile of pillowcases.

  Peter assented to this, but in view of his stricture that no one should say a single word to the Press, no one could decide who should be tea monitor. Laura was ruled out as she had to be invisible, and Peter said he wouldn’t trust either his wife or daughter not to break under Press pressure. Richard said that as acting head of the school, he could not be pictured on TV carrying a tea tray. Peter refused to do it because he was, well, just Peter.

  Penny staggered into the kitchen, in a chenille dressing gown, looking for aspirins. ‘Mrs Percival. W.I. President. Number’s in the book.’

  One would expect the Women’s Institute President to be an admirable organiser. Mrs Percival was also an expert horsewoman. Prompt at eight the following morning she arrived on Mackenzie, a black 16-hand stallion. She was accompanied by her daughter who had a trailer containing three dozen mugs and ten flasks of tea. The cold, thirsty members of the Press were obliged by Mrs Percival to buy the mugs at £5 each as a contribution to the Village Pond Dredging Fund.

  The Press, of course, were shouting questions all the time. Editors back in London don’t take kindly to TV shots of their reporters sipping tea and chatting cosily to a woman on a horse about pond life.

  So they bawled at Mrs Percival. Did the W.I approve of Laura’s behaviour, would they have her as a member, what were the views of the W.I on prostitution? But at the sound of intrusive voices, Mackenzie had an unfortunate habit of rearing up and making a noise that wasn’t a simple neigh, it was more like a cross between a dragon and the sound coming from an angry cow.

  Laura couldn’t blame the Press for hanging on to a story that was sending newspaper sales soaring. The trail of events that had led reporters to Marla, Hugo and herself had unfolded each day with the drama of a suspense novel and if Laura hadn’t been personally involved she would have found it as fascinating as the rest of the British public.

  The whole thing had been triggered by Jeremy, the young City banker furious at his colleagues for not cutting him into their pools win. Drowning his sorrows in the pub he had blurted to one of the blokes at the bar how his three-man syndicate had chosen their pools numbers.

  The winning line was 1 9 17 20 21 36. No, not based on their birthdays or favourite Chinese takeaways.

  2136 was a number familiar to a fair number of London (and Jersey) men.

  Marla’s telephone number. It had also greatly entertained the lads that 36 happened to be the size of Marla’s tits.

  Jeremy’s new pub ‘friend’ turned out to be Simon Govett, a
rookie reporter anxious to make a name for himself. He rang Marla’s number and spoke to Vera, posing as a new client. Having been tipped off by Jeremy that Marla only worked on personal recommendation, Simon said he was a friend of Piers, one of the others in the syndicate. One of the two who had refused to share his winnings with Jeremy.

  Simon duly turned up at Marla’s, planning to get his story and then ‘make his excuses and leave.’

  He was asked in by Vera, wearing her usual alluring saggy top and baggy trousers. She said that Marla was just freshening up but that she, Vera, had something to give Simon that would interest him very much.

  Then she socked him. A fist to the jaw, a slammer to the solar plexus and a deadly knee to his balls.

  Simon went down, sick with pain and tasting blood.

  ‘This is for you to pass on to your friends,’ his attacker yelled. ‘The fucking shits who won a fortune, using our phone number. And who haven’t even thought to send Marla so much as a packet of Spangles. Your fucking friend Piers even rang up to gloat about how clever they’d been.’

  Seconds before the boot crunched into his head and he passed out, Simon heard the change of voice and realised something everyone else had missed.

  The maid wasn’t a she. The maid was a he.

  For Vera, read Vince.

  Vince dragged the unconscious reporter to the lift and got him into the interior garbage area in the basement. The door could only be opened from the outside, by the janitor or one of the keyholder residents.

  Vince slammed the door and headed, the Press discovered, for Heathrow and Spain. Marla had taken an earlier flight, needing to stop off in Milan to buy shoes.

  In the garbage area, Simon began to come round. He was young, fit and played rugby. He was used to being duffed up on the pitch – though not to this extent – and had fast powers of recovery. It was dead dark. When he found the door and discovered it wouldn’t open, he searched for the light switch. In vain. The light, too, was controlled from the outside.

  The janitor heard him banging, and wanted to call an ambulance.

  ‘No,’ croaked the reporter, ‘I need a phone box.’

  He hobbled there. As soon as the news editor learned the connection between the winning pools line and the prostitute’s phone number he ordered an immediate call to the other winner that week – Hugo Monteith, MP.

  Hugo was robust in his denial. ‘Complete co-incidence over the numbers. They were chosen purely at random. In addition, I have assured my wife, the Prime Minister and my constituents that I have never knowingly associated with a prostitute. I can only suggest this Vince individual is confusing me with someone else. To the best of my knowledge, I have never met, or before today heard of this Marla woman. That is the truth and I shall sue anyone who suggests otherwise.’

  And with that statement, poor Hugo effectively dished his political career. Because Vince had contacted Rex Salter, the photo-journalist Laura had first noted outside the Norfolk gates, the one with the matinee idol hair. Vince said he was prepared to name names and swore he could prove everything he said. For the right price. The Daily Mirror was happy to stump up.

  In the days that followed, the nation learned that Vince was an ex con who had met Marla, yes, at the races. He wasn’t her boyfriend. Sex, he alleged, was for the birds. So he wasn’t a pimp in the sense that he found her clients or kept her bound to him with beatings and drugs. What he sussed was that all her talk about never worrying about violence from clients was guff. He’d seen the bruises on her. He suggested a deal whereby he posed as her maid and acted as her protector and manager.

  There was no doubt he was genuinely fond of her. Laura could understand that. There was something so friendly about Marla, you did warm to her immediately. Laura could imagine Marla and Vince counting the day’s takings and having a right good laugh over some fish and chips.

  What Marla didn’t know, however, was that Vince was not just useful with his fists, he could also handle a hidden camera. While Marla was entertaining a client, Vince was industriously recording all the details in a book he kept in the broom cupboard. The camera was cunningly situated in the hall, providing mug shots of everyone who came in.

  ‘Why not the bedroom,’ Vince was asked on day one of his Mirror interview. ‘Surely you’d have got some interesting shots of famous people?’

  ‘Nah. I’d have got endless shots of Marla’s bum, or half a judge’s leg, or his cock but no face. You have to pose people quite carefully for those sort of pics and it would have meant telling Marla and she’d have gone crackers.’

  Instead, what Vince had done was match the mug shots to the info on his broom cupboard file, adding in what he had learned from Marla about the real identity of the client. This is where events took a serious turn for Hugo.

  ‘This chap. Came for years. Good suit, public school accent. Always polite, never any worry to Marla, always left twenty quid for me in the box. Real gent. His face seemed familiar but I couldn’t place it somehow. Then he brought a bird along –‘

  ‘How long ago?’

  ‘Oh, couple of weeks.’

  Laura sat up.

  ‘Skinny thing she was. Hot for no-holds-barred sex.’

  Laura sat at the kitchen table, blushing. By now, the entire nation was aware of what ‘no holds barred sex’ meant. Laura’s flush deepened. He couldn’t mean her! She wasn’t skinny and she had never let Hugo fuck her in the way Vince was talking about.

  ‘Philip. He said his name was Philip. Marla and me used to crease laughing, thinking of Prince Philip. Anyway, he said over the phone to have some dirty mags ready for this bird. He got her to strip to her stockings and she flicked through the magazines. Some daft bloke in a wig sticking it up two birds and Philip played around with her and Marla played around with Philip. I went to the kitchen, and I heard the girl really getting what for. I knew it wasn’t Marla getting it. She never makes a sound when she’s caned. Philip was taking it out on the bird, I think because she’d dumped him for a year and then come crawling back.’

  The mistress, Laura thought. Back from America. Well, well. You have been busy, Hugo.

  ‘Anyway, lover boy was so keen to get her on the bed, he left his jacket in the lounge. And what do I find? A House of Commons pass. Name of Hugo Monteith.’

  On the morning this appeared in the Mirror, Laura was cutting up chicken for supper later when Richard arrived unexpectedly from work, breathing fire and sounding Arctic.

  ‘I had a call. AT THE SCHOOL. From Monteith.’

  ‘I’m sorry Richard.’ They had the house phone off the hook still.

  ‘Monteith is going to ring you in fifteen minutes. I gather he has something very important to say to you.’ He slammed upstairs.

  Was ten forty five too early for a drink? No, damnit. En route to the gin bottle, Laura put the phone back in its cradle. She was on her second stiffie when at eleven o’clock sharp, the phone rang and Hugo came on the line.

  ‘Laura? Please apologise for me to your brother for intruding on him at work. It was just that I had no choice.’

  ‘Hugo –‘

  ‘I am with my wife in her solicitor’s office. He is listening on the extension. She has asked me, in his presence, to give a solemn undertaking never to contact you again. This I freely do now. And my wife wishes you to know that under no circumstances whatsoever are you to contact me. Will you give that undertaking now, please?’

  Laura realised he was in a corner with not just his balls tied up but his cock as well. She muttered appropriate words, hung up, found Richard and grovelled.

  Hugo rang again just as Laura was dishing up supper. With wordless fury, Richard fetched her to the phone.

  ‘I’m in my office. Sorry about this morning.’

  ‘I understand. Has anything been heard of Marla?’

  ‘Well she’d planned to have a holiday in Spain anyway, before Vince lost his head so –‘

  ‘So stupid of him to go public. Now Marla’s lost her inco
me.’

  ‘No, they’ll be in this together. He’ll give her a take from the Mirror money, and she’ll either settle in Spain or go back on the game. Another town, another country.’

  ‘What about you? Your career?’

  ‘On the skids, I’m afraid. I’ve been caught not just visiting a prostitute but lying about it. The PM’s furious, my wife is outraged and so are my local party. I don’t think I’ll survive.’

  ‘Oh Hugo. It was just harmless.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I’ll hole up quietly in the City until it all dies down. But Dinah’s said if I’m deselected she’ll leave me.’

  Oh really? Diddley Om was pushing 50. If Hugo resigned and she left him, she’d have no status, no husband and no career. And they gave most of the pools money to charity.

  Still, she could always get a job as a private dick. She’d proved she’d be good at that.

  As for me, wondered Laura, what the hell am I qualified to do?

  Slowly, she walked back to the kitchen, to face the fried chicken and her family.

  PART THREE

  LES RESIDENCES LILAS

  Chapter Fourteen

  ‘Laura, do you know what keeping your head down means?’

  Chance would be a fine thing, Laura thought salaciously, watching Penny grappling with fried egg, bacon, sausage, fried bread, toast, tea and coffee. It was, Penny said, the worst meal of the day because everyone had different ideas about what breakfast was. Richard liked a full fry-up. Penny’s parents had grapefruit. One of Penny’s daughters always wanted scrambled egg, and the other insisted on cake. Young John had a screaming fit if he didn’t get banana mashed up in milk. Janet and Peter preferred brown toast with thick-cut marmalade. Richard had white toast with a pot of marmalade from the Women’s Institute Saturday stall. Laura would have liked porridge except she didn’t want to bother Penny and she also had a ghastly feeling that she might imagine herself back at Arundell House and start looking round for something to steal for her lunch.