The History of Us

by Jonathan Harvey

  Also, another part of me was fascinated to see how he reacted to the scenario.

  Basically, Mal Kerrigan wanted me to dump him. I had to pretend to be his girlfriend and finish with him, so that he would no longer feel guilty about having finished with her.

  I know. Go figure.

  I stood at the other end of the room to him.

  ‘Tell me when you’re ready!’ I called.

  ‘Hang on!’ he replied. And with that, he quickly slipped out of his chinos and folded them neatly on the back of the settee. He then did the same with his underpants, revealing an erect penis that jutted out angrily in front of him in a strange boomerang shape. He then laid back on the settee, the monstrous appendage swaying in the non-breeze like one of those golden cats you got in Chinese restaurants, with the waggly paws. OK, so it was his waggly paw.

  He pointed to an empty space next to him and said, ‘That’s my phone.’

  I nodded.

  I saw him gather himself in, focus, get ready. He closed his eyes meditatively for a second or two.

  When his eyes snapped back open again, he smiled over. ‘I’m ready.’

  I did a thumbs up gesture. And then got ready to roll.

  I did exactly as he’d asked me to do.

  I paced the room a bit, murmuring to myself. ‘God, I really need to finish with Mal. God, he’s such a wimp.’

  I could tell that behind me he was masturbating. He was loving this. So I went off script a bit.

  ‘What a loser. The sooner I finish with him, I’ll no longer have to look at that boomerang of a tentpole ever again.’

  I heard his rhythm getting faster. He liked my improvisation.

  ‘Think I’ll call him.’

  I then mimed lifting up a phone. I pretended to dial a number, and then I made a ringing noise.

  I heard him say, ‘Oh, that’s my phone ringing. Wonder who it could be?’ And I watched as he mimed picking up a phone.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hi, is that Mal?’

  ‘Yeah. Bridget?’

  ‘Sure. Look, Mal. We need to talk.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘I can’t do it over the phone. I’ll come over.’

  ‘How are you going to get here?’

  ‘I’m going to ski.’

  ‘OK. See you in a bit.’

  ‘See you in a bit.’

  We both mimed putting our respective phones down.

  I then mimed pretending to ski across the floor, dragging my feet and waggling my arms a bit.

  I could hear him wanking again. Whatever I was doing, I was hitting the spot.

  I then stopped in front of the settee. Mimed dismounting from my skis. And as I turned to him and said, ‘Mal. I’m going to have to finish with you,’ he came all over my leather skirt.

  I stood there.

  So much for no contact.

  He closed his eyes, let out a massive sigh, and smiled. When he opened his eyes again he said, ‘Thank you so much.’

  ‘My pleasure.’

  ‘Let me get you a cloth. Then I can call your driver.’

  Ker-ching. And five grand in the bank to one Miss Jocelyn Jones.

  I had changed my surname to Jones when I’d embarked on my glamour modelling career. I saw it as an astute move now, for one so young. I’d made it at the time so that I couldn’t be linked back to my folk in Liverpool, nor they me. The last thing they’d ever have wanted for their go-getting high-flyer would be to be found doing semi-pornographic shots in a rara skirt for glossy magazines.

  The same driver who had done the round-the-world trip with myself and Kathleen earlier drove me to the George V. It had to be one of the most sumptuous hotels in the world. And something I could very easily get used to. Staying there was like staying on the set of a movie. A rom-com in which the heroine sips champagne on her balcony and the camera picks out the Eiffel Tower in the background. However, although there was some com in my current situation, there wasn’t much rom as I stood on my balcony in my fur and sipped on a glass of bubbly. I was more Pretty Woman than When Harry Met Sally, but there was no Richard Gere to sweep me off my feet and tell me that working girls were OK and that he loved me, and why didn’t he give me a makeover?

  I retreated into my room and slipped out of my working clothes and into the fluffy white robe that lay invitingly on the bed, along with some white slippers with the hotel crest monogrammed across the toes. I ran myself a bath, finished my drink in the bath, then put on something more modest and headed down to eat in the restaurant. As I crossed the vast circular lobby, all white and pale-gold marble, I caught the eye of a man in his late thirties who quite, quite took my breath away. He was with a woman, possibly his wife; but our eyes met, and he knew instantly that I was trouble.

  There was something about being in Paris, doing the job I’d just done, knowing there was money heading into my bank account, staying in this expensive hotel, that just made me feel very, very naughty. And a little bit sexy. Which was strange, as sex was something I just wasn’t interested in.

  I suppose most people would assume that working girls are obsessed with sex and can’t get enough of it. I, however, think it was my relative lack of interest in penetration that made me perfect for the gig. I wasn’t bothered about my own gratification. Sometimes it was as interesting as pegging out washing. A repetitive task that I could do over and over, up and down, up and down, but who cared? I was being paid for it. Sometimes it was arousing, sometimes it was fun. But oftentimes it required the icy detachment I had perfected since my teens. I mean, the last thing Mal Kerrigan would have needed was for me to squeal at the end of our session, ‘Now . . . now . . . now you bring me off! Please?’ I’m sure there were women like that who worked for Tina. But not this pussycat, no sirree.

  I was a cat – I could step back, appraise, watch, and seem completely disinterested – but it wasn’t a mouse I was after. It was cold, hard cash.

  I had once heard Tina describing me over the phone. ‘One of our very special bookings is the breathtaking Shirley-Rose. As black as the ace of spades, she walks like she has diamonds at the top of her thighs and when she talks . . . well . . . it’s like hot honey dribbling down a gangplank.’

  She sounded like a cross between Maya Angelou and Barry White.

  ‘Do I really walk like that?’ I remember asking her when she hung up.

  ‘Fuck off do you. I read it in a book. Anyway, we’re selling the fantasy. Shut up and be grateful I’ll have you, you rotten old whore.’

  Which had made both of us laugh. A lot. She was one of the few people on this planet that I would allow to be so rude to me.

  I ordered oysters for dinner, followed by lobster and salad. I had two glasses of wine, and throughout the whole meal the sexy man from the lobby stared at me. Oh, occasionally he’d look at his wife, give her the time of day. But he’d positioned himself so that she had her back to me, and he was looking directly at me.

  I liked it. It turned me on. I rarely felt that so I enjoyed it. Besides, it was going nowhere. He was with his wife. It wasn’t like he was going to follow me to my room and then knock. Was it?

  No, it wasn’t. Once dinner was over I retired to my room, half expecting to see him join me in the lift, or hear footsteps following me down the lushly carpeted corridor. None of this happened. I sat on my bed, staring at the door.

  Of course. He was a gentleman. He was married. Not all guys wanted the services of Black Orchid.

  Like me, he never came that night.

  Returning home, there was no need for me to don the fur-coat-and-no-knickers look. Even though I was sitting in the nose of the plane – the poshest place on board – I dressed down in some Muji sweatpants and hoody. My message to the world was, ‘I do this all the time. I don’t need to dress to impress.’ And it was partly true.

  I flicked through the in-flight magazine as we readied for take-off. I could hear a stewardess moving between my fellow first-class passengers offering them a
shopping list of pampering massages, complimentary drinks – you name it, with this airline they did it. I was trying to decide which film to watch. A bit of Shakespeare in Love? Life is Beautiful? Or maybe even Gods and Monsters? They had the latest offerings. Well, it’s what we paid for. Well, it’s what Mr Kerrigan had paid Black Orchid for.

  And what had he had in return? My good self, clip-clopping round his room making imaginary phone calls.

  Good work, Jones!

  As I turned the page to inspect the TV offerings, I could hear a man slipping into the seat on the opposite side of the aisle. I could tell instinctively that he was a man; I knew by now the smell of most men’s aftershaves. And this man was wearing the very woody Rochas Man Rochas scent, which hadn’t long been on the market. God, I loved that smell. A proper man’s smell. I didn’t look over. For all I knew he’d be a sixty-stone businessman in loafers, and why give him the gift of my interest? I just listened as the stewardess fawned over him.

  ‘Can I give you a hand with your attaché case, sir?’

  ‘Can I fetch you a complimentary glass of bubbles, sir?’

  ‘Would you like me to ease down your slacks and nosh you off, sir?’

  OK, so she might not have gone that far, but she may as well have done. After a while she was offering him the massage, the wine list, but he shushed her with a very abrupt,

  ‘I’ll just have two litres of Evian and some lightly steamed asparagus.’

  I nearly spat out my tongue.

  I suppose by now I should be used to this ‘New Man’ thing – despite smelling like woody, proper men, doing unmanly things – but still that working-class part of my DNA lingered. You could take the girl from Liverpool, but you couldn’t take Liverpool from the girl, they said. And right now I had to try not to laugh. Men where I came from would have asked for beer and a kebab at the Last Supper. And here was a man who was asking for . . . run that by me again?! . . . two litres of Evian and some lightly steamed asparagus?!

  I had to see him. I turned to see him.

  Oh, shit. I saw him.

  It was the sexy man from the lobby from the night before. He saw me looking as he settled back in his seat, and the smallest smile sharpened his lips.

  My eyes flitted to the seat behind him. Where was his wife?

  Looked like he was travelling alone.

  Instinctively I went to say, ‘I love asparagus.’ God knows why. But I couldn’t even get that out, because the air stewardess was blocking our eyeline; my vision was completely blocked by an aubergine coloured suit-skirt. And then, instead of offering me a bewildering bevy of amazing in-flight treats, she was instead saying:

  ‘Oh my God! Fancy seeing you here!’

  I looked up.

  Oh my God, indeed. The stewardess was none other than Kathleen.

  ‘What a wonderful surprise!’ she gasped, ‘What have you been doing in Paris?!’

  What? Sorry? She knew what I’d been doing in Paris. I’d told her last night.

  ‘Job interview.’

  ‘Wow. Amazing. What was it for? How did it go?’

  The penny dropped. She had no recollection of last night.

  Give her her due, she looked to be in amazingly robust health for someone who, thirteen hours previously, had been thirty-three sheets to the wind.

  What should I say? Embarrass her?

  Kathleen. I saw you last night. I spent about an hour travelling round Paris with you, trying to find your hotel.

  Maybe she’d appreciate me telling her. Maybe she’d have woken with the horrors this morning wondering what she’d done the night before, and wondering how she’d found her way back to her hotel.

  Or maybe she was just rewriting history.

  Yes. I know you saw me pissed last night. But I’m at work now. The last thing I need is you mouthing off about how bladdered I was when I’m working in First Class.

  Maybe that was it.

  I suddenly realized she was literally humming with Anaïs Anaïs. Or Anus-Anus, as I called it. I couldn’t stand the smell. There must have been Christmas stockings full of the stuff up and down the country last year, because every woman you met seemed to be wearing it. Including Kathleen.

  As I mumbled some incoherent claptrap about the job not working out and how I didn’t really want it, she leaned in to me.

  ‘What d’you think of my new nose?’

  ‘It’s gorgeous!’ I replied.

  So she had no recollection of last night. Either that or she was a very good, and bizarre, liar. She grabbed my wrist.

  ‘I’m gonna get you a bottle of champagne. Make this a flight to remember.’

  ‘No, Kathleen. I don’t drink on planes.’

  She looked at me oddly, but it was true. Flying to me wasn’t the once-a-year treat it was for most people. I’d done enough high flying to know that it just didn’t suit me. The notion of rolling off the plane and heading home tipsy and dehydrated wasn’t one I cared to recreate. With the sort of work I found myself doing I had to try and keep a clear head at all times, so I wouldn’t be out of control and in danger. Like Kathleen had been last night.

  Eventually Kathleen had to go as we prepared for take-off. I looked across at Mr Lobby. He appeared transfixed by a book that nestled in his lap. He’d put on some glasses to read and, for reasons of the ‘I find you attractive’ variety, I found this impossibly cute. He was quite a bit older than me. I was nearly thirty. He was forty plus, I’d have said. His hair was cut close at the sides where it had gone grey, and slightly less cropped on top, where it had more of a sandy brown colour. He had cheekbones Paul Newman would have been proud of, and his eyes were a startling green. His nose, on which those frameless reading specs were perched, was not that strong, and not that dissimilar to Kathleen’s new one. But to me, every inch of him was perfect.

  As if he could feel me looking, he glanced up, away from the book and at me. I held his gaze. He’d held mine enough the night before at dinner. And I immediately felt that familiar stirring, between my legs, but deep inside me. He smiled. I smiled. Then he returned to his book.

  I knew what would come next.

  Five minutes later, after we’d taken off and once the lights came on indicating we could move around the plane, he unclipped his seat belt, left his book on his seat, and walked to the back of First Class. I gave it a few minutes, then unclipped mine. I looked to his seat and saw that he was reading Girl with a Pearl Earring.

  A classy bloke, then. I liked to think. Well, at least he wasn’t reading something smutty like The Girl with the Pearl Necklace. That was a book of a whole other nature.

  I found him sitting at the small circular bar that sat between First and Business. It was a free bar, so you could help yourself, and it was unmanned most of the time. He had a glass of champagne in front of him and the same next to him. I sat down.

  ‘I heard you don’t like drinking on planes,’ he said. Well, in his case I was prepared to make an exception. ‘So I got you a ginger beer. That way I can at least pretend you’re having a good time.’

  I took a sip. ‘I’m sure there’ll be no need to pretend. Where’s your wife?’

  ‘Wife?’ He sounded taken aback. ‘I’m not married.’

  That old chestnut.

  ‘So who was the woman you were with at the hotel last night? Your sister? You were giving her a lot of attention if she was.’

  He let out a soft chuckle. ‘Would you believe me if I said she was my mother?’

  ‘Not at all. She was younger than you. Unless she has a particularly good surgeon.’

  ‘Good. Because of course she wasn’t. She was Karen Paterson.’

  ‘Karen Paterson? Is that meant to mean something to me?’

  ‘Not necessarily. She’s a make-up artist of mine.’

  OK. That threw me.

  ‘You need to wear make-up?’

  ‘No. At least, I hope not.’

  I shook my head.

  ‘I’m a hair and make-up artists’ agen
t.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Karen is a world-famous make-up artist. Now lives in Paris.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Step up from when she was a data inputter from Hamilton.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘When I first met her. That’s what she did.’

  ‘Sorry. You’re her agent?’

  He nodded. I knew he could tell from my tone that I had no idea what this involved; but it intrigued me that someone in that sort of job could earn sufficiently good money to need an agent. He told me all about his job, and I was enraptured. Mind you, he could have been a bin man and in that moment I’d have been enraptured by that too.

  The more he told me about his clients, the more unsettled I became. I honestly thought that working for Black Orchid was one of the most lucrative jobs in the world. And yet his clients were demanding astronomical figures and were flown round the world to do the hair and make-up of front-cover, red-carpet celebrities. It was fascinating. And I was a little bit jealous. Jealous that they earned their money from a talent they’d spent years perfecting. And, OK, jealous that they got to spend time with this heavenly man beside me.

  Kathleen passed with a large bottle of Evian water.

  ‘Ah. Sir. I was just bringing this to your seat.’

  She glanced at me with a look of, what was that? Jealousy? Did she have her eye on Mr Lobby too?

  ‘I’ve changed my mind on the water front.’

  ‘I love that film!’ Kathleen chirruped. ‘On the Waterfront.’

  Oh, do shut up, Kathleen, I thought.

  Turning to look at me, he continued, ‘I think I’ve got everything I need right here.’

  That cast a warm glow, I had to say. Kathleen bristled. ‘I see you’ve changed your mind about drinking,’ she said to me through pursed lips, and then did a little giggle as if she’d meant it as a cheeky joke.

  ‘It’s ginger beer,’ he said. ‘Now if you don’t mind, we were in the middle of something.’

  ‘Of course. So sorry. So is that a no to the lightly steamed asparagus, too?’

  ‘No, you can still bring that. And some hollandaise. We can share.’

  Kathleen looked befuddled. She was definitely jealous.