by Lucy Lord
‘Told you he were a clever bastard!’ Mikey grinned. ‘No way any of us can catch up now.’
‘It’s not about the winning, it’s about playing the game,’ said Sienna, looking and sounding ridiculously posh, despite the band T-shirt and leather hot pants. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, her posture was perfect.
‘Oooh, listen to the public schoolgirl,’ teased Mikey, leaning over to kiss her. ‘Were you a prefect? Or vice captain? I like to think of you as captain of vice.’
‘Head girl, actually, until I was expelled.’
The boys looked at her in delight, all their St Trinian’s naughty schoolgirl fantasies made flesh.
‘What for?’ Sam asked, giggling – the dope was strong, and already working its magic.
‘Oh, nothing major. I got pissed and shagged the gardener. I’ve always liked a bit of rough. QED …’ She stretched her long pale arms out and they all started laughing.
‘You’re my Marianne Faithfull,’ said Mikey fondly.
‘I’m so glad you’re taller than Mick. Though I probably wouldn’t have said no when he was younger – there was something about him, wasn’t there?’
‘I’ve always liked Keef,’ said Sam, drawing deeply on the joint.
Dan, who was taking seven more tiles out of the green bag, looked over at her.
‘Thought you’d be more of a One Direction kind of a girl.’
‘Oh, piss off! Just ’cause I’m from Romford, doesn’t mean I like boy bands.’
‘What do you think we are then?’ Dan looked at her again, his gaze challenging.
Sam looked straight back at him, her heart starting to beat a bit faster.
‘Well, you’re boys, and you’re in a band. But you’re not a boy band. You’re proper rock’n’roll, and when you’re older, you’ll be legends, like Filthy Meadows.’ Her horrible day seemed worlds away now. Despite the grungy surroundings, beer and dope, everything seemed so much more wholesome than the Soho environment she’d just left.
‘You’ve just passed the test, Sambo.’ Dan smiled at her, making her feel like the only person in the room, as only he could.
‘As if there were ever any doubt,’ said Sienna, leaning over to put an affectionate arm around Sam’s shoulder. ‘Sam’s one of us.’
And as incongruous as the ‘us’ sounded, when it comprised a billionaire’s plummy-accented daughter, three wannabe rock stars from Manchester and a student-cum-glamour model from Romford, it was an ‘us’ that Sam was more than happy to be part of.
Several hours later, surrounded by overflowing ashtrays, empty beer cans and takeaway pizza boxes, they found themselves looking up Disney songs on YouTube. Olly had passed out on the floor, underneath an old checked blanket that Sam (under Dan’s watchful gaze) had draped over him. Sienna was snuggled on Mikey’s lap in an armchair, Sam curled up at one end of the holey old sofa and Dan perched the other end, as he manned the controls of his thirty-six-inch-screen Mac.
They had already had the best of The Jungle Book – ‘The Bare Necessities’ and ‘I’m the King of the Swingers’ (Sam’s choice, which everyone had applauded), ‘Everybody Wants to Be a Cat’ from The Aristocats (Dan’s choice) and ‘Once Upon a Dream’ from Sleeping Beauty (Sienna’s choice).
‘You’re so gay,’ had been Mikey’s comment on the last. Sienna had responded by telling him it was a Tchaikovsky waltz, calling him a philistine and leaning over for another snog. They looked like a couple of beautiful fallen angels together, thought Sam – Sienna with her white-blonde waves, high cheekbones and bruised dark blue eyes; Mikey with his golden fringe and pretty, pouty, girly face.
Now it was his turn. ‘I always liked Snow White,’ he said, through the dope smoke.
‘And you just called Sienna gay?’ said Dan, and they all erupted in stoned giggles. ‘OK, Mr Hard Man, which one do you want?’
‘“Whistle While You Work”.’
‘Oh, the one with all the birds and the animals,’ said Sam, smiling dreamily as she accepted the joint from him. ‘I always loved that one too.’
‘Actually,’ said Mikey, ‘you look a bit like Snow White, Sam, with your dark hair and enormous eyes …’
‘Except Snow White had enormous blue eyes, shit-for-brains,’ said Dan as he scrolled down the YouTube list. Then he started laughing. ‘Well, for some reason the only version of “Whistle While You Work” I can find is in Dutch, with subtitles. Will that do?’
‘Oh, yeah!’ They all laughed in agreement, and soon they were singing along to Snow White, trying to make the English subtitles sound Dutch, giggling like loons. Sam couldn’t remember a time she felt happier.
‘Oh, this is so much fun,’ she said, when the song came to an end. ‘Thanks for making me feel better. It’s really lonely in halls at the moment, and after today I don’t know how much more I can stand doing modelling.’
‘I wish you’d give it up,’ said Sienna. ‘Surely you can get another student loan? I can easily lend you some dosh to tide you over in the meantime.’
Sienna never tired of offering Sam money, and Sam never tired of refusing.
‘Thanks, but you know I can’t. It’s going to take me years to pay off the student loan I’ve already taken out, anyway. And I’ve got to pay next term’s hall fees any minute, too. It’s going to be even worse there without you next term, Sienna. I’m dreading Josh coming back.’
Sienna had nearly completed on her purchase of a million-pound flat in Notting Hill. She’d have offered Sam a room in an instant, but her canny self-made father, always aware of people taking advantage, had insisted she bought a flat with only one bedroom. His hard-earned filthy lucre was not to be used to support hangers-on.
‘I hope you’re not going to let Josh be too vile, without me to stick up for you,’ Sienna was starting, when Dan interrupted.
‘I can’t believe how fucking stupid we’re all being. Why don’t you move in here, Sambo? You can have Ross’s old room. It’s a tiny shithole, mind, but dirt cheap. Then you can save on next term’s rent, stop doing so much of that crap modelling, and concentrate on your studies.’
Sam was staring at him, delight starting to creep over her face.
‘It’ll be shit, like, having you around.’ Dan grinned. ‘But you can earn your keep doing a bit of cooking and cleaning …’
‘Can I? Can I really?’ Her head swivelled from Dan to Mikey, both of whom were smiling and nodding. Sienna, from her feline position on Mikey’s lap, was giving her a wink and a double thumbs-up.
Sam glanced over at Olly, snoring slightly on the floor. ‘You don’t think Olly would mind?’
‘Sam,’ said Mikey. ‘When will you realize that we all bloody well like you?’
Sam looked over at Dan again. He was saying nothing. But he was smiling.
In her luxurious home in Eaton Place, Alison frowned as she looked at the evidence. She should be feeling ecstatic: she was home from the holiday from hell, and her evil stepchildren had at long last gone back to boarding school. But even though she should be feeling happy that the little fuckers were incarcerated once more, she couldn’t. The case she was working on was just too disgusting. Could she really defend these bastards, when what they were doing – and seemed to have been doing for years – was quite so despicable? Tales of the imprisonment, rape and torture of underage girls, year after year, going back for decades, leapt off the screen at her.
She couldn’t ask Philip: he was too much a professional lawyer, and also a man. He would tell her that everybody was entitled to a legal defence, and she couldn’t let her emotions get in the way. She had always thought that her professionalism was second to none, but now she found that her emotions were getting in the way. She couldn’t understand what was wrong with her.
She sighed, and put her face in her hands, completely at a loss for the first time in her life. Then something occurred to her: she could ask Andy. He would know what to do. They had hardly been in friendly contact since he had discovered she was cheati
ng on him in the run-up to their wedding the previous year, but he was one of the only truly decent men she knew. What was more, he had worked on similar cases for his newspaper; if nothing else, it would be good to unburden herself to somebody who understood the depths of filth to which she now found herself exposed.
With a deep breath, she picked up her phone and dialled his number.
Chapter 16
Bella pottered about her kitchen, chopping onions and garlic, picking rosemary and thyme from her window box and pouring herself a glass of the red wine that she was going to use in the boeuf bourguignon. Andy had worked late every night that week – the bloody people trafficking story seemed to be taking over his life – but he’d promised he’d be home in time for dinner tonight.
Once she’d browned the meat in a separate pan and added it, with some stock, the herbs and the rest of the bottle of wine, to the casserole, she put the whole lot in the oven, which she had preheated to 140°C: for maximum tenderness, the beef needed to be cooked slowly.
It was dark already and pissing down outside, and Bella felt sad that summer really did seem to be over. They’d only had a few weeks’ sunshine in London, and she and Andy hadn’t been on holiday since Poppy’s wedding, right at the beginning of May. Andy had told her, apologetically, that he couldn’t go anywhere until he’d got to the bottom of his bloody story. She tried cheering herself up by thinking of all the yummy things she could cook – wild mushrooms, and game, and celeriac – and of how cosy the autumn nights drawing in could be (if only there was somebody to share them with).
With this in mind, she turned the central heating up, the overhead lights down, and lit every lamp in the flat, so that it would be warm and welcoming, as well as full of delicious smells, when Andy got in. Then she opened another bottle of wine, poured herself a glass and settled down with a glossy magazine. She flicked through an interminable piece about ‘autumn’s exciting new trends’, the main gist of which seemed to be that if you didn’t spend obscene sums of money on coats, boots and handbags, you were a deeply unfashionable loser.
Even though she was now commanding quite high rates for her canvases, phrases such as ‘I’d happily pay double for something decent, rather than a bleurgh, mid-priced nonentity like this’ (for a perfectly nice-looking bag costing £250) and, ‘I do hope this little beauty [£850 from McQueen] doesn’t fall into the perma-tanned, French-manicured hands of the Essex mob’ really stuck in her craw. They were in the middle of a fucking recession, for Christ’s sake. Where did these moronic fashion chicks get off?
Her phone rang and, as ever, her heart leapt when she saw Andy’s name and photo flashing up.
‘Hello, darling,’ she said warmly. ‘Are you on your way home?’
‘I’m really sorry, Belles.’ Andy sounded slightly nervous. ‘But I’m going to be a bit later than I thought.’
‘What? But Andy, you promised …’
‘I know, and I’m really sorry,’ he said again. ‘But I’ve just had a call from Alison, and she says she’s desperate to talk to me about the case she’s working on … It sounds like she’s dealing with similar people to the ones I’m investigating, and—’
‘You’re going to meet ALISON?’
‘I’ll only stay for one drink, I promise …’
‘So, let me get this straight –’ Bella tried to keep her voice level, but it was rising by the second – ‘I’ve been slaving over a hot stove all evening making our dinner, and now you tell me you’re going to meet your bitch of an ex, but I’m not meant to mind, because it’s only for one drink?’
‘Oh, don’t be like that, Belles, please. You love cooking, and you’re making boeuf bourguignon, right? Surely that improves the longer you cook it? I won’t be that late – there’ll still be time for us to eat together. Alison sounded really distraught – if you knew what these people—’
‘I know what these cunts do, you’ve told me enough times. What if I don’t want to wait for you to get back? What if I’m bloody starving now? What if I am SICK TO DEATH OF FUCKING PEOPLE TRAFFICKERS?’
Andy’s voice went cold. ‘Can you please stop being so childish? There are some things that are more important than your hurt feelings, you know. I’ll be home by 9.30 at the latest – is it really such a big deal?’
If you loved me as much as you say you do, you wouldn’t think that my hurt feelings were so trivial.
But all Bella could say was, ‘Oh, just fuck off, you pompous twat.’
‘Fine. I will.’ Andy sounded angry as he hung up.
Bollocks. Bella hadn’t meant to lose it like that, but she had been reminded all of a sudden of similar evenings when she had been waiting around for hours for Ben, while he cavorted with models and, on one particularly memorable occasion, ballerinas. It was shortly after that that she had found him in bed with Poppy; it wasn’t surprising she was insecure.
But Skinny fucking Alison?
Just as she was debating whether or not to call him back and apologize, her phone rang again.
‘Hey, Pops.’
‘Belles! How’s it going? You OK? You don’t sound your usual self.’
Bella hadn’t meant to launch into her tale of woe immediately, but she couldn’t help herself. ‘Andy’s gone out for a drink with Skinny fucking Alison. He hasn’t been home in time for dinner a single night this week … I don’t understand why he’d ever want to see her again …’ She stopped, and took a deep breath to stem the incipient flood of tears.
‘Well, it can hardly be because he wants to get in her knickers, can it? Come on, Belles, he must have told you why?’
‘Well, he came up with some crap about how she sounded really desperate to talk to somebody about some fucking case she’s working on … but why couldn’t she talk to her bloody sugar daddy about it? She’s living with him, and he’s a hot-shot fucking lawyer.’
‘I’m sure that if Andy thought it was necessary to talk to her, then it was,’ said Poppy patiently. She was used to Bella’s outbursts of insecurity. In fact, she felt partly to blame – Bella walking in on her shagging Ben had probably scarred her for life.
‘I’m getting too fat, that’s why he doesn’t want to spend time with me any more.’ Bella morosely squeezed the flesh around her middle and took another huge swig of red wine. She had been getting rather too used to drinking on her own. ‘Not a fucking ounce of flesh on Alison, is there? Evil cow has far too much self-control for that.’
‘Belles, listen to yourself. You’re not fat, and you’re being ridiculous.’ How would you know? You haven’t seen me for months, thought Bella mutinously. ‘I’ve never known a happier couple than you and Andy, and I’m sure he’s just being nice. Skinny’s not exactly his favourite person, remember?’
‘Yeah, but he wanted to marry her, and he certainly doesn’t want to marry me.’
‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, you know why he’s wary of marriage. It’s because of her. Belles, you’re being ridiculous …’
‘You’ve already said that …’
‘I think you know it too. Come on, lovey, get a grip.’
After a long pause, Bella pulled herself together. She was really starting to annoy herself.
‘Sorry, Pops. Can we start again? What are you up to? Any gossip? Everyone’s still absolutely raving about PTM here …’
Poppy Takes Manhattan had hit the UK properly a couple of weeks after the episode they’d all watched at Olivia’s house, and had been both critically and popularly received. Poppy had had the inevitable offers of nearly naked men’s magazine shoots as a result, but had refused all of them. This was partly out of loyalty to Damian, who had been left so badly in the lurch by the men’s magazine world for which he had worked so brilliantly. Partly, though, it was because she didn’t think that getting her kit off for cameras should be part and parcel of her job; also, cannily, she thought that, even though she’d no doubt look just fine in the shots, her street-cred would be immensely improved by not going down that route. Just beca
use everybody else did it, it didn’t mean that she had to.
‘Ooooh, yippeeee! Thanks for telling me, Belles! I still can’t believe I’ve got such an amazing job! Actually, at the moment, I’m in LA …’ Of course you are, thought Bella. ‘… PTM is up for a Pluto award, so I’ve got to get all tarted up in a few days’ time. I bet they try to put me in some hideous gown with borrowed diamonds, but I’ll try to stay a bit me, if I can.’
‘Old Converse underneath to scruff it up a bit?’
‘Oooh, good idea. Not. A touch Lily Allen circa 2005?’
Bella laughed. ‘OK, that was a crap idea. How’s Damian?’
‘Not great. We’ve been arguing pretty much nonstop ever since we got to New York. He’s so bloody jealous and touchy about everything, I simply don’t know what to do about it. It’s not exactly how I envisioned married life.’ And Poppy told Bella about Jack Meadows and the jocks in the Hamptons jerking off over her show.
‘Well, you can hardly blame him for being jealous, can you?’ Bella hated herself for not being more supportive, but Poppy seemed so bloody pleased with herself. Film stars trying to snog her? Random strangers telling her that they wanked over her? Jesus H Christ.
‘I KNOW THAT! But for fuck’s sake, Belles, I can’t go on apologizing forever, can I?’
Bella looked around at her empty flat, out at the rain pouring down outside, and pictured Poppy, blonde, aglow and beautiful in the LA sunshine, about to receive an award for something that came so naturally and easily to her, just as everything came so naturally and easily to her. Then she pictured Andy sitting in some cosy pub with that skinny bitch Alison, and squidged the unwelcome flesh around her middle again.
‘Oh, I don’t know, Pops. Whatever.’
When they hung up, both friends felt sad.
Andy, sitting with his pint of Guinness in the Antelope, just off Eaton Square, was feeling sad too.
He couldn’t understand why Bella was being so ridiculously needy. Compared to the disgusting things he was currently immersed in for work, they had such a lovely life together; her mood swings were starting to become pretty tiresome.