Outrageous Fortune

by Lulu Taylor

  Coco was quiet. Falling in love. That was something she’d never imagined would happen to her again. After Jamal, she thought that was over for her. She gave herself a mental shake. Fancying someone does not mean love, she thought. But she couldn’t dislodge the rather wistful feeling that came over her.

  After lunch Xander wanted to go into town to see some of the sights. Will had lent them a car, and Xander persuaded her to go with him to Venice Beach. They drove down Sunset Boulevard, past the Sunset condos, the Beverly Hills Hotel, and then got on to the 405 south past the Getty Museum. The roads were so long and straight, and there were thousands of cars. The city ought to have been familiar from movies but somehow it wasn’t: it was so big, and the blazing blue skies and the endless palm trees made it seem even more unreal. When they eventually arrived at Venice Beach, Coco didn’t like it much. Some people might enjoy the carnival atmosphere and freak-show vibe, but she wasn’t comfortable with the drugged-out weirdos, the outsized body builders, the hair plaiters, the tattoo artists and the crazies proclaiming their new-age religions. Xander seemed fascinated by it all: the roller-skating gurus, the cheap-looking models in miniscule bikinis sashaying around, trying to get noticed, the drag queens and the women who’d been plastic-surgeried into freaks.

  ‘Let’s go somewhere else,’ Coco begged, but Xander wouldn’t go anywhere until he’d sat down and shared a joint with a chilled-out Rasta guy, while Coco amused herself looking at tat on the nearby stalls. When Xander had finished his smoke, he said he wanted to go to a bar, although Coco thought he looked far too spacey to start drinking.

  ‘Boy, strong stuff,’ he said, looking white around the lips, as they walked down the street looking for somewhere to get a beer.

  ‘Xander, are you OK? Are you going to be able to drive?’

  ‘Yeah, sure,’ he said, but Coco wasn’t convinced. She felt nervous. They found a bar and settled down on stools at the counter. A football game was playing on a small television suspended above the bar and most people seemed fascinated by it, though it meant nothing to Coco.

  Xander quickly sank a beer and ordered another while Coco watched him anxiously. ‘You know, you shouldn’t drink if you have to drive. They’re pretty strict here, aren’t they?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he replied, staring up at the screen as though he knew what was going on. ‘We’ll leave the car here if we have to. Or you can drive.’

  ‘I can’t drive. I haven’t got a licence for one thing.’ Coco was cross with him for being so irresponsible. She ordered herself a Diet Coke and drank it slowly while she tried to think over the options. The only thing that occurred to her was to walk him round until he worked the beers and the skunk or whatever he’d smoked out of his system. She’d just resolved on this when he made a strange moaning sound.

  ‘Are you OK?’ she asked, reaching out to put a hand on his shoulder.

  ‘I … feel …’ Xander pulled in a breath. ‘Not so good.’ Suddenly, to her surprise, she saw his eyes behind his sunglasses roll back in his head, and the next moment, he’d slipped from his stool and fallen heavily to the floor.

  ‘Xander!’ she cried, getting down next to him and shaking him. He appeared to be out cold.

  ‘Whass goin’ on?’ demanded the barman, peering over. A few other people stopped watching the game to observe the action. ‘He need an ambulance?’

  ‘No, no,’ Coco said quickly, ‘don’t call anyone. He’s just had a bit too much sun, that’s all. He’s English. Not used to it.’ She shook Xander again, and he groaned. ‘Wake up, wake up!’

  He opened his eyes briefly, then shut them again and seemed to slump back to unconsciousness.

  ‘Lady, you better get him up off the floor, or I’m gonna call an ambulance, or the police, or both,’ said the barman, wiping off another glass.

  ‘OK, OK.’ She managed to pull Xander up to a sitting position, leaning him against the counter. She felt inside his jacket pocket and pulled out his phone. Scrolling through the address book, she found Will’s number and pressed dial.

  ‘Mate!’ came Will’s voice in a moment. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Will, it’s Coco. Xander’s been taken ill in a bar, can you help me?’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘I don’t know – by Venice Beach somewhere.’

  ‘Find out the name of the place and text it to me. I’m on my way.’

  ‘Thanks so much,’ she said, flooded with relief, but he had already hung up. She got the address from the barman, texted the address, and twenty minutes later, after Xander had come round and was moaning about his head and stomach, Will walked in. She was delighted to see him.

  ‘Hey, trouble,’ he said, putting a strong arm under Xander’s shoulders. He smiled at Coco. ‘Come on. Let’s get you home.’

  His black Porsche was parked outside and he pushed Xander into the narrow back seat, where he at once slumped down, then Coco climbed in the front as Will got behind the wheel. He flashed her a kind look. ‘You did the right thing. I wasn’t sure if you knew about Xander’s propensity for getting himself into trouble, but I guess you do now.’

  ‘Has he always been like this?’

  Will threw a look over his shoulder at his friend, who seemed to have fallen asleep. ‘This? This is nothing. You should have seen him at university. Always had a self-destructive streak, our Xander.’

  Back in Beverly Hills they managed between them to get Xander out of the car, through the house and out to his cottage. Will slung him on the bed.

  ‘Do you think he’ll be OK?’ Coco asked anxiously.

  ‘Sure. He’s just smoked some weed stronger than he’s used to and now he wants to sleep it off.’

  ‘He won’t be sick?’ she said. Xander had flopped out on the bed, one hollow-looking cheek turned upwards, his lashes curling down towards it. He looked about ten years old and very helpless.

  ‘If he hasn’t puked by now, I don’t think he’s going to.’ Will glanced at her. ‘What about you? Are you hungry?’

  ‘I … yes, I am actually,’ said Coco, realising that it was now a long time since lunch.

  ‘Let’s get some dinner then. Maria’s gone home. I don’t cook. Shall we go out?’

  ‘I don’t want to leave Xander here on his own,’ she said doubtfully, although the idea of dinner out with Will was more tempting than she dared admit to herself.

  He smiled at her. ‘You’re right. We’ll order in. Do you like Chinese? Or Thai?’

  An hour later, they were sitting cross-legged on the floor of Will’s fancy sitting room, surrounded by a detritus of boxes, eating the most delicious Thai food Coco had ever tasted. Everything seemed fabulous, fresh and delicious: the salt-and-pepper squid, the chicken parcels, the red duck curry and fragrant jasmine rice. They wolfed it down, with bottles of ice-cold beer, while Will told her funny stories about Xander at university.

  ‘So were you two really good friends then?’ she asked. She felt amazingly alive when she was with Will. Perhaps it was the way her whole body tingled and reacted to his presence. Tonight, for the first time, he unbent a little and appeared relaxed, smiling and funny, and the effect on Coco was delicious. She knew that her eyes were sparkling and that she was laughing at everything he said. She was putting her head on one side to show him her long, slender neck and shaking out her hair so that it tumbled about her face, but she was barely aware that she was doing these things. All she knew was that she felt good and that all her nerve endings were coming to life, hoping to be useful to her later.

  ‘Me and Xander?’ Will shook his head, probing in the bottom of the pad-thai box for one last shrimp. ‘Not really. We were in some clubs together, we had some mutual friends, but I wasn’t into his crowd as much as he was. Some real wasters in there. I knew I wanted to be successful, and that meant working. His gang weren’t really into that – most of them inherited their money and didn’t have to think about working.’

  ‘And you didn’t inherit anything?’ she as
ked innocently.

  He stopped chewing for a moment, looked over at her, then carried on. When he’d finished, he said, ‘Well, my dad had some money, it’s true. But I didn’t want any of that. I wanted to show him I could make my own.’ He shrugged. ‘And I have. So I’m not like those kids. I always wanted to prove myself.’

  ‘What you’ve achieved is amazing,’ Coco said sincerely.

  ‘Mmm.’ He looked reluctant to agree. ‘There’s still a way to go. I don’t want to stop until I can show my old man exactly what I can do without him.’

  ‘Don’t you get on?’ Coco paid close attention to picking up the jasmine rice and spooning the last bits into a bowl, hoping she seemed suitably casual and unconcerned about his answer.

  ‘No,’ Will said tersely. There was a pause and then he said, ‘What about your dad? Do you get on with him?’

  ‘Oh …’ She was taken by surprise. She hadn’t expected her own questions to be thrown back at her and she had no answer prepared for this one. ‘My dad … yes … yes, we get on fine.’

  ‘That’s good. What does he do?’

  ‘Er … nothing special … he’s …’ She thought of what her schoolfriends’ dads had done, those who worked – builder, taxi driver, council worker – none of that was right for Coco, not any more. ‘He’s a … a stockbroker.’

  ‘Oh, right.’ Will nodded, accepting this. He put down the pad-thai box. ‘Hey, shall we watch some TV?’

  ‘Sure, sure,’ Coco said, disappointed. She felt an important moment had been lost because she hadn’t been prepared enough. I’m going to have to learn to keep asking the questions and not get sidetracked.

  The phone rang. ‘Hold on,’ he said, getting up, ‘I’ll just get this.’

  ‘OK.’ Coco starting gathering the empty boxes together. She didn’t want the rest of the rice now. She’d lost her appetite.

  ‘Hi?’ Will said down the phone from the other side of the room. ‘I wasn’t expecting to hear from you.’ He went very quiet for a while and, when he spoke again, his voice was full of rage. ‘This is fucking … fucking appalling! How low can he fucking go?’ There was a pause while the person at the other end of the line talked. ‘No. Look, I’ll have to talk to Sarah, all right? I’ll call you tomorrow. ‘Bye.’ He put the handset down and stood for a moment without moving, his shoulders bowed.

  Coco got up and walked towards him. ‘Are you OK?’ she asked softly. Was there another chance here to make some discoveries? ‘Can I help?’

  He turned round and she saw tears in his eyes. ‘Will!’ she said, moved and concerned. She rushed over and put her hand on his arm. ‘What is it?’

  ‘I … I had some bad news a while ago,’ he said, his voice harsh and choked. ‘My sister has died recently in a diving accident.’

  Coco stared at him, astonished. No one had said that Sarah was dead. When had this happened?

  ‘Didn’t Xander say anything?’ Will said, noticing her expression.

  She shook her head dumbly, trying to process this new information.

  ‘He gave me his condolences when you two arrived. It happened a few weeks ago. The thing is, my fucking father didn’t even think to tell us!’ He pushed his hands to his eyes and took a deep breath. ‘Poor, poor Daisy. She was only twenty-six.’

  Coco gaped at him, trying to take this in. No one had mentioned another sister called Daisy. ‘I didn’t know,’ she said without thinking, ‘they didn’t say.’

  ‘What?’ Will took his hands from his eyes. ‘Who didn’t say?’

  She recovered quickly. ‘Your father didn’t say anything to you? That’s weird, isn’t it?’

  He shook his head. ‘We haven’t spoken in years. But honestly – to say nothing! Daisy was my half-sister and I hadn’t seen her for a long time, but even so … My sister Sarah found a report in the paper. I’ve got a representative in London trying to get more information. That was him on the phone just now, telling me that my father’s side are clamming up about Daisy’s death, refusing to give us any details. I was trying to track her down not long before the accident and they wouldn’t help me then either.’ He stared at her, hurt and vulnerability in his eyes. ‘What kind of an evil bastard would do that, Coco? Not tell us our own sister had died? Not even invite Sarah and me to the funeral?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said truthfully. She was entirely confused by the death of a sister she’d never heard of. What was Margaret playing at, keeping something like that a secret from her? Then she pushed the thought out of her mind, concentrating only on the pain Will was obviously feeling. ‘I’m so sorry. This must be an awful shock.’

  His face contorted. ‘I want to ring that shit and give him a piece of my mind!’

  ‘Don’t do that, you’ll only regret it. It won’t change anything and you’ll wish you hadn’t.’ She went over, put her arms round him and hugged him. ‘I’m so sorry, Will. It’s terrible.’

  She felt him relax into her embrace. The feeling of her arms around his strong body was divine. She closed her eyes and inhaled: just as she had anticipated, the scent of his skin was wonderful, like fresh sea air mixed with something sweet and warm. His shoulders shook as he let himself surrender to the emotion of the moment, then he was still, breathing deeply. She luxuriated in the sensation of holding him close, not wanting to let go or for the embrace to come to an end. Then, she realised that she could feel his mouth against her neck. He had stooped just a little and his lips were now touching her skin, which burned and tingled beneath his touch. Then he moved his head so that his lips slid lightly over her neck. Moving instinctively, she turned her head to meet his, and an instant later they were kissing. A rushing noise filled her head as her lips touched his, and she felt as though she was flying through the air, even though she hadn’t moved at all. Then she was centred again, all her consciousness focused in the place where she and Will were joined together. The kiss was all-compassing, intoxicating and wonderful.

  His arms were wrapped around her, the hard firmness of his body pressing against hers. She felt as though she would do anything just to stay close to him and carry on enjoying this delicious feeling.

  Coco didn’t know how long it was before he pulled away and blinked slowly at her.

  ‘I … I didn’t expect that,’ he said wonderingly.

  ‘Neither did I.’ She smiled back.

  ‘I … don’t know what to say.’ He closed his eyes, a bewildered expression crossing his face. Then he looked at her again and said, ‘This has been a bit of a strange evening.’

  ‘I just want to … be with you,’ she said, touching his face softly.

  ‘I want that too,’ he said longingly. ‘There’s something about you, Coco. I felt it as soon as we met. There’s something between us, isn’t there?’

  ‘I felt it too,’ she breathed, excitement coursing through her again. ‘It’s like a power surge or something, whenever I come near you. It’s crazy.’ They both laughed.

  ‘Yes, yes, that’s just it. Like we can’t resist it.’ He nuzzled into her neck again, sending a thrill rushing over her skin. ‘God, you smell amazing.’

  ‘But … your girlfriend …’

  Will lifted his head and gazed at her. ‘I think that’s over. I think it was before you arrived – on its last legs anyway.’

  That was all she needed to hear. ‘Then,’ she murmured, ‘what are we waiting for?’ She reached for his mouth again, unable to spend another moment not savouring the incredible intensity of his kiss.

  They moved together to the sofa and sank down in one another’s arms, utterly lost in each other, thinking of nothing else but the delicious sensation of their mouths meeting. She never wanted it to end.

  Coco woke later, with Will’s arms wrapped around her. She nuzzled into his chest and sighed softly, still half asleep. He was carrying her out to the cottage, pushing the door open with his feet. After hours of delicious kissing, they had fallen asleep together on the wide white sofa in the sitting room, she remembered th
at. They hadn’t gone further: her tentative attempts to push things forward had been met with a tender but firm rebuff. Kissing and embracing was all he wanted. It had been intensely tantalising, leaving her burning with longing, but also wonderful. The sense that he wanted no more than to be close to her filled her with happiness. Now he was laying her tenderly on her bed, taking off her shoes and pulling the goose-down duvet over her.

  ‘Good night, Coco,’ he said softly, dropping a kiss on her cheek.

  ‘Don’t go,’ she murmured, snuggling down into her bed.

  ‘I’ll see you in the morning,’ he said. ‘Get some sleep.’

  She drifted off, feeling more content than she had in years.

  59

  IT WAS COLD. Very cold. The air hit Daisy with a fierce blast of ice the moment she climbed out of the helicopter. She was wearing a thick insulated snow jacket, a fur hat, fur-lined gloves and heavy thermal boots, and every piece of skin except for her face was covered up, and yet she felt chilled to the bone immediately.

  A man she assumed to be Sergei Anatolski was waiting for them by the landing area, waving at them, his dark blond hair ruffled in the wash from the helicopter blades. As they approached, he came forward to greet them. He had a weathered face, as if he spent a lot of time outdoors, and strong features: a jutting chin, a nose with the hint of a healed break at the bridge, and hooded blue eyes. He was a man of great presence. He could be any age between thirty and forty-five, but she had the feeling he was in his late-thirties.

  ‘Ross, my friend,’ he shouted, ‘how wonderful to see you. Welcome, welcome!’ His accent was strong with an acquired American twang.

  ‘This is my colleague Daphne Fraser,’ explained Darley as he shook the Russian’s hand.

  ‘Wonderful.’ Sergei took Daisy’s hand and shook it hard, revealing bright white teeth as he smiled. ‘You are very welcome too. Any friend of Ross’s is a friend of mine. Come, let’s get inside.’

  He led them over to a nearby hut. Inside, to Daisy’s great relief, it was warm although she shivered for some moments before she could relax. If a few minutes in the Siberian air could do this, how could anyone bear to be outside for long spells?