Vanity

by Lucy Lord

  ‘Right then, Sambo. How much do you want to fuck me?’ Dan had the hideous ego of any would-be rock star, but Sam didn’t care. All she wanted was warm, human contact – anything to make the pain go away. But she wasn’t going to beg.

  ‘How much do you want to fuck me?’ she countered.

  In response, Dan grabbed her by the hand and dragged her into what she assumed was his bedroom. It was pretty much empty save for a large mattress on the floor and a poster of himself on one wall.

  They started snogging again, breathlessly tearing at each other’s clothes. When Sam pulled her top over her head, revealing her amazing breasts, Dan caught his breath.

  ‘Oh, my God.’ He bent his head to suck her nipples, one after the other, until Sam was moaning loudly, head thrown back, long red hair streaming down her back.

  But then she realized that tears were streaming down her face, too. It was all starting to remind her of things she had done with Mark. She pulled away.

  ‘I’m sorry, Dan. I’m really sorry. I like you so much, but I can’t. I just keep thinking about Marky.’

  Dan watched as she picked up the sheet off his bed and wrapped it around herself, suddenly self-conscious, and started crying again.

  He was tempted to tell her to piss off – he had enough girls interested in him, after all. But then she said, ‘I really didn’t mean to be a prick-tease. I’m sorry, Dan. You’ve been such a good friend to me. I’ll go now.’ As she started to put her clothes back on, Dan felt a wave of compassion. He wanted to protect her, he realized.

  ‘Don’t be silly, Sambo. It’s your loss.’ He tried to make a joke of it, and Sam gave a grateful hiccup of laughter. ‘And you can stay here for a bit, if you fancy it. How about we just get stoned instead?’

  As he started to roll the spliff, he resolved that however much he liked Sam, he would never try it on with her again. They could stay friends, for sure, but he’d never been turned down twice by the same girl before. His ego simply wouldn’t stand for it.

  Chapter 12

  ‘Oh, Philippe, I do not want to do ze washing-up,’ pouted Rosaline. The ridiculously pretty blonde French au pair that Philip’s ex-wife, Lucinda, in a masterstroke of bitchiness, had seen fit to send out to Paxos with their teenage children, was standing at the kitchen sink wearing only a white crochet bikini and an ankle bracelet. She looked like nothing so much as a young Bardot.

  ‘Don’t you worry, Rosaline,’ Philip smiled, trying not to look at her bouncing young bosom. ‘Alison will do it. You go out and enjoy the sun.’

  ‘Oh, merci, merci! You are verrrry kind!’ Rosaline leant up to kiss him on the cheek and skipped out into the garden.

  Paxos, the smallest and most beautiful of the Ionian islands, lies 11 kilometres from Corfu, a shimmering beacon of peace and tranquillity in a glittering turquoise sea. Philip, Alison, Toby, Imogen and Rosaline were staying for two weeks in a luxurious bougainvillea-covered villa that had been built around an old olive press. It was a short car ride to the nearest unspoilt beach (they were all unspoilt, really – in complete contrast to Philip’s children), but there was a large pool in the villa’s extensive grounds and plenty of scope for spending day after heavenly day just relaxing in the sunshine.

  Not so for Imogen and Toby. Imogen’s constant refrain was, ‘Daddeeee, I’m bored.’ She didn’t seem capable of lying in the sun with a book, splashing about in the pool, playing cards or backgammon with her brother, or indeed taking pleasure in anything but constant whingeing. This morning she had been pestering Philip to take her paragliding, on a beach the other side of the island. For once, Philip had refused to pander to his darling daughter’s demands, pointing out quite reasonably that, having spent the previous two days water-skiing and windsurfing, it was time to make the most of the expensive villa he had hired for them all.

  Toby, in the meantime, was proving to be a sadistic little tyrant. Alison had her suspicions that he might, actually, be a psychopath. The previous evening she had found him dissecting a live frog with his Swiss Army knife, his spotty face contorted with glee as the hapless creature writhed and gribbeted under his merciless hands. Alison had tried to save the frog, but it was too late. Closing her eyes, and holding her breath, she’d killed it as quickly as she could.

  Both teenagers were unspeakably vile, too, to Maria, the villa’s middle-aged housekeeper, treating her as a serf, calling her ‘it’ and never saying ‘please’ or ‘thank you’. Their petulance, sarcasm and sense of entitlement knew no bounds. Today was Maria’s extremely well-deserved day off, hence the washing-up issue.

  ‘I’m not washing up any bloody dishes,’ Alison said angrily. ‘If you think it’s too much work for Rosaline, then you can do them yourself.’

  The following evening, she was sitting in a lively tavern on the waterfront with Philip and the brats. It was Rosaline’s night off, and she had sauntered out of the villa wearing white denim hot pants and a tight, faded indigo T-shirt, leaving Philip gazing wistfully in her fragrant wake.

  ‘I hate Greek food,’ moaned fat little Imogen. ‘Bloody moussaka, bloody fish, bloody salads.’

  Don’t eat it then, thought Alison. Won’t do you any harm to stop stuffing your face for a bit.

  ‘Oh, darling, I’m so sorry,’ said Philip. This comment was directed at his grotesque daughter, rather than at Alison. ‘Shall we see if they can get you a steak and chips, instead?’

  ‘They probably won’t do it right. Oh, God, I’m sooo bored.’

  ‘Surely there are some bars you and Toby could go to, after dinner?’ Alison suggested, just wanting to be shot of the little horrors and wanting Philip to herself for a bit.

  ‘Oh, no, they’re full of greasy Greeks.’ Imogen wrinkled her podgy nose. ‘Why couldn’t we have gone to Ibiza, Daddy, or Saint-Tropez, or anywhere all my friends are? You know I don’t like to go to places full of council people.’

  ‘You can hardly call this a place full of council people,’ said Philip mildly. With no airport, and popular with the international sailing community, Paxos had a reputation as one of the more upmarket Greek islands.

  ‘Oh, shut up, Daddy. Old foreigners then. You don’t go on holiday to meet old foreigners. I wish I was hanging out with Clemency and Arabella on the Fulham Road.’

  So do I, thought Alison vehemently. Or possibly in the Amazon, being pursued by hungry crocodiles.

  Looking away from Imogen, she noticed that Toby was chucking stones at stray cats under the table, a demonic gleam in his almost lashless eyes. She was starting to think that hooking up with Philip had been the biggest mistake of her life. She had loved Andy – a thoroughly decent man, who, vitally, didn’t have repugnant offspring – for nearly thirteen years. She realized that she missed him. What was he doing right now? she wondered.

  ‘I hope Mum and Dad are going to behave themselves today,’ said Bella, looking out of the car window at the pretty Oxfordshire landscape. The narrow country lane, flanked by overgrown, honeysuckle-scented hedgerows, had wound its way through golden poppy-strewn rectangles of corn, virulently mustard-coloured rape fields and lush green daisy-dotted meadows teeming with teenage lambs. Now it was approaching Lower Piglet, the ridiculously picturesque village in which she’d grown up. Higgledy-piggledy houses of warm Cotswold stone lined the way to the village centre, which boasted a Norman church, a sweet primary school, a duck pond and two pubs, one of which dated back to the Civil War.

  Andy, in the driver’s seat, laughed. ‘They’re usually OK with Bernie around, aren’t they? He seems to be a pretty good moderator.’

  ‘True enough.’ Bella turned to look at him, tall, dark and handsome in his jeans and navy-blue Guernsey sweater. It was one of those summer days where the puffy meringue-like clouds chose to drift across the sun just as you were starting to get warm; Bella herself had thrown on a vintage biker’s jacket over her summer frock, hoping it gave her a bit of street cred, as well as stopping her freezing to death.

  Justin was staying w
ith Olivia and Bernie for a few days, as he’d flown over from Mallorca to do a shoot for French Elle – provisionally, and unoriginally, entitled La Style Anglaise – at nearby Hambledon Hall. Accordingly, Olivia had invited Bella and Andy for Sunday lunch, saying how lovely it would be to have a family get-together (Bella’s brother Max was currently travelling around the world with his boyfriend Dave, and was sorely missed by all).

  ‘And don’t forget, your mum said that Justin’s bringing a guest,’ Andy added. ‘Presumably, fresh blood will help avert any potential disasters.’

  ‘Hmmm. Depends how young and stupid she is.’ Having run the gamut of more of her father’s girlfriends over the years than she cared to remember, Bella was sceptical.

  ‘You never know – he may surprise you.’ Andy smiled reassuringly as he turned off the road into the slightly ramshackle tree-lined drive that led to Bella’s childhood home, a late-seventeenth-century former mill house. ‘We’ll find out soon enough anyway.’

  Andy parked and took their overnight case, and two carrier bags clinking with bottles, out of the boot. He’d booked Monday morning off work, as lunch with Olivia tended to become so boozy that driving back to London was never an option.

  They walked past the magnificent horse chestnut tree that concealed the house from the drive, to be confronted by a splendid sight: Bernie, resplendent in a sharp pin-striped suit, open-necked, wide-collared shirt and flash Gucci shades, his teeth clamped around an enormous cigar, was posing for all he was worth in front of the creaky oak front door. He cut an incongruously Mafioso figure against the ivy-clad stone façade of the lovely old mill house, the climbing roses around the door framing his portly figure.

  ‘Yeah – just like that, mate! Hold it, Bern, hold it – you’re a natural!’

  Justin was crouching on the lawn, snapping away at his ex-wife’s lover with his trusty vintage Leica. He had no truck with digital photography – an attitude that afforded him a certain kudos in the biz (though it quadrupled the work for everyone else involved). As Bella and Andy approached, he leapt to his feet, chucking his beloved equipment onto the grass without a moment’s hesitation.

  ‘Angel Face! So groovy to see you, sweetheart! How’s my precious little girl, then?’

  Bella found herself running into her father’s outstretched arms, laughing.

  ‘Hey, Daddy! Lovely to see you.’

  ‘A minute apart from you is a minute too long, baby. And Andrew, great to see you too, Vicar.’

  ‘Likewise, Bishop.’ Andy laughed, shaking Justin’s hand.

  ‘Just give me a hug, mate.’ Slightly awkwardly, the two men hugged.

  ‘Hi, Bernie!’ Bella ran across the lawn to hug him too. ‘So Daddy’s got you posing at last?’

  ‘Yeah. Why not?’ Bernie took off his shades and smiled at her, his beady little eyes crinkling up so much they practically disappeared in his big round face. ‘He’s good at what he does, and I always admire talent.’

  Bella smiled back. Anyone could see that Bernie was lapping up the attention.

  ‘Run on in then. Your mother can’t wait to see you. Looking prettier than ever, I must say …’

  ‘Who? Me or Mum?’

  ‘Both of you, though nobody can eclipse your mother’s place in my heart.’

  ‘I know. That’s what makes you so great for her.’ Bella grinned. ‘So what’s Dad’s latest like?’

  Bernie opened his mouth to say something, then shut it again.

  ‘Not my place to say, Princess. Go on in an’ see for yourself.’

  So Bella hurried through the house, through the sitting room and kitchen and out of the kitchen stable door to the back garden, where she knew her mother and the mysterious guest would be having drinks on the terrace.

  She stopped in her tracks.

  ‘Mark? What the fuck are you doing here?’

  ‘Aw-right, Belles.’ Mark grinned awkwardly, getting to his feet.

  ‘Hello, darling,’ said Olivia. ‘That’s not a very nice way to greet our guest, now is it? How was your journey?’

  ‘Hi, Mum.’ Bella automatically gave her mother a hug and kiss. ‘Journey was fine, thanks. But what’s he doing here?’ She nodded over in Mark’s direction.

  ‘Your father asked if he could bring a guest, and I said yes. I must admit, I was expecting somebody more – er …’

  ‘… female?’ Mark laughed sheepishly.

  ‘I don’t know how you can stand there so brazenly.’ Bella turned to glare at him, hands on her hips. ‘Do you know how devastated Sam is by what you’ve done?’

  ‘You mean I can’t get you to put in a good word for me?’ Mark gave another nervous laugh.

  ‘So that’s why you’re here?’ Bella’s voice rose incredulously.

  ‘Please, Belles. I miss her so much; it was a moment of madness …’

  ‘And you should have seen that girl,’ chimed in Justin, who had just walked through the back door, followed by Andy and Bernie. ‘Really, you’d ’ave to be made of stone to resist Karolina …’

  ‘Justin, I really don’t think that’s going to help,’ said Olivia, rolling her eyes. She was right. Bella rounded on her father, the father that only minutes earlier she had been so delighted to see.

  ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake, Daddy, I should have known that you’d be involved. You bloody men have no idea how much pain you cause when you can’t keep your fucking dicks in your trousers.’ Bella was on the verge of tears and everybody fell silent, knowing she was thinking of Ben and Poppy. ‘So, no, Mark, I’m not going to put in a good word for you. You should have seen the state Sam was in. Poor little thing said she’d never be able to look at you again without picturing you fucking that slapper on the boat. So maybe you should have thought about that …’ She turned to her father, her voice rising again. ‘However irresistible she was, Daddy.’

  ‘OK, darling, I think we get your point,’ said Olivia gently. ‘Why don’t you come into the kitchen and help me get this lunch together. Bernie, darling, make sure everybody’s got nice big drinkies, please?’

  ‘Course I will, Princess.’

  And Bella followed her mother into the kitchen, leaving Mark gazing forlornly after her, Andy looking at his feet in embarrassment and Bernie busying himself pouring drinks. Justin sat down at the white wrought-iron garden table, looking sad for a few seconds. Then he shrugged and started to roll a joint.

  Olivia’s kitchen was large and sunny, the heart of the family home. Faded checked curtains in shades of green, yellow and cream framed big sash windows that faced south onto the back garden. A wooden bookshelf crammed with well-thumbed cookery tomes stood next to the old, chipped cream Aga, and a couple of armchairs that used to be overstuffed sagged fatly either side of the fireplace – one upholstered in a shabby cream-and-green Regency stripe, the other a sprigged floral pattern of tiny blue flowers with green leaves on a pale yellow background. The scrubbed pine kitchen table was large enough to seat eight comfortably, and the double ceramic sink made light work of the mountains of washing-up Olivia liked to create with the elaborate meals she prepared (of course she had a dishwasher, but it was terribly old and never really got things as clean as she’d like them). Worn flagstones underfoot and mismatched jugs of flowers from the garden on almost every available surface added to the room’s welcoming air of warmth and comfort.

  ‘Sit down and have a drink, darling,’ said Olivia, opening the fridge and taking an open bottle of white wine out of the door. ‘And for God’s sake, calm down.’

  ‘Calm down? Mum! I don’t understand how you can be like this, after the way Dad treated you. Fucking bastards are all the same …’

  ‘Just listen to yourself, darling.’ Olivia handed Bella a wineglass filled almost to the brim, and Bella took an enormous swig. ‘Oh, God, I think I probably indoctrinated you too well when you were little.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Oh, Belles.’ Olivia shook her head sadly. ‘I know I used to say that all men were bas
tards, because I was so jolly well hurt by your father’s behaviour …’

  ‘See? That’s exactly what I mean …’

  ‘Try not to interrupt, darling, it’s terribly bad manners.’

  ‘Sorry, Mum.’

  ‘But that was years ago, and I’ve come to accept that that’s the way he is. I think that some men are simply incapable of being faithful to one woman – I’m afraid that Mark’s one of them too. The thing is to find one who’s a keeper. And you and I are lucky enough, now, that we’ve done so.’

  ‘How can you be so sure, though, Mummy? I mean, I think you’re right about Bernie, but how do I know that Andy’s never going to fuck around on me? He’s been working late so often recently that he could easily be shagging someone in his office …’

  Witnessing Sam’s devastation, just over a week ago now, had burst something of Bella’s bubble of joy with Andy. It had brought back all those feelings of pain and suspicion she had felt after the Ben debacle; in fact the distrust of men that she’d had her entire life, really, after observing her father’s behaviour over the years.

  Olivia hooted with laughter.

  ‘Andy? Having an affair? Now you really are being ridiculous. He’s absolutely devoted to you, and you really need to start appreciating what you’ve got.’

  Bella gave her mother a rueful smile. ‘I am being silly, aren’t I?’

  ‘Yes, you are. And, for the sake of a harmonious lunch, I’d like you to go outside and make it up with Mark …’

  ‘Bu—’

  ‘I told you, darling, don’t interrupt. Mark is a far older friend of yours than Sam is; he hasn’t cheated on you; and however sorry you feel for the girl, it’s not your position to judge his behaviour.’

  ‘Oh, all right then,’ said Bella sulkily, draining her glass in one gulp and reaching for the open bottle on the table in front of them to top it up again.

  ‘And awful though I know Sam must be feeling now, she’s very young, and very pretty. I can’t imagine she’ll be devastated for too long. What she needs is a nice boy of her own age, not a 30-something lothario who gallivants around the fleshpots of Saint-Tropez with your father. Really, it was a disaster waiting to happen.’