Sheer Abandon

by Penny Vincenzi

  They snorkelled and then sat on the beach in the sun; one of the girls passed round a spliff and this time Clio took it—it was obviously so boring not to, and she inhaled, felt an easy warmth, a heady spinning of her senses. The girl wandered off down the beach, her small, perfect bottom moving very gently from side to side.

  “She’s nice,” said Clio, looking enviously at the bottom.

  “She’s OK,” Josh said, beginning to roll another spliff, “not as nice as you,” and gave her a kiss on the top of her head. They smoked together for a few minutes, Clio feeling increasingly wonderful. And then he said that she was burning. “Why don’t we move round there, into that sort of cave thing, you’ll be sheltered there.”

  That had done it, really. She had known this was it, now, here, at last: a man wanted her and she wanted him. She was suddenly sexy and confident and they were away from the others at his instigation, so surely he felt the same too. She turned to him and pulled his head down to hers and kissed him on the mouth. She could feel him first hesitate, and then respond; he was a very good kisser, she thought confusedly, a lot better than anyone who had ever kissed her before.

  She found she was experiencing a lot of strange things, strange sensations. There seemed to be some link between her mouth and a place deep within her, a dark, sweetly soft place, that moved every time he kissed her, and her heart was racing. She felt warm and relaxed and excited all at the same time, and she could feel a longing that was exactly like hunger—or was it thirst? Somehow the two fused together—to have Josh there, meeting the place—and she turned on her back and tried to pull him onto her.

  “Hey, now,” he said, very gently. “Careful, Clio.”

  But she was beyond being careful, beyond sense, beyond caution or anything, she just wanted him; she could feel his penis stiffening against her, and he was kissing her again, but very gently, and she tried desperately with her free hand, the one that was not holding his head to hers, to pull off her bikini pants.

  She thought he would go on kissing her, but he had stopped. Maybe he was going to take his shorts off; she lay back, breathing heavily, looking at him, then pulling his head down again, pushing her tongue into his mouth, wondering how to find his penis, urge it into her, and all the time this fierce, strange, violent sensation: but then, suddenly, it was different. He was resisting her, pulling his head back slightly, and he said, “Clio, not now, not just now. Calm down.” And then he stopped and gave her a half smile, and even through the booze and the dope and her own ignorance, she knew. He didn’t want her—not now, not ever. She was being rejected, turned away as she always was, as she always had been. She felt fat again, naïve, uncool, and looking over his shoulder she saw the girl, the other girl watching them from the other side of the rocks, a half-amused look on her face. Hot with shame and misery, she turned away from Josh, pulled up her pants, and ran fast, as fast as she could, down to the sea and into it, careless of the coral hurting her feet, and if she’d had the courage she would have walked on and on until she could be seen no more, but it was no good, she couldn’t do that, and finally, she turned and looked for him on the beach, but he had gone and was walking towards the long queue forming to get back to the boat.

  They were on their way back; Josh was standing with a group of friends at the bows of the boat; he saw her looking at him, waved awkwardly, and then turned away, staring out to sea. A girl joined him, put her arm round his waist, pushed her hand into the pocket of his trunks, and it physically hurt Clio to see them, it was like a twisting wound in her stomach. The journey back seemed endless.

  That night, as they all sat on the beach, Clio desperate for an excuse to go inside to bed, still watching the group miserably, expelled from it by her own foolishness, it happened. A boy—quite a nice-looking boy—asked if he could join her, offered her some drink, and after a little while started to kiss her and stroke her breasts, and then to push his hands down into her pants, probing into her pubic hair and further still; and after only a very little time, she was leading him into their hut, giggling deliberately loud, making sure that Josh was watching. Already a little of her humiliation and sense of worthlessness had gone.

  It was not a good experience; the boy was inside her swiftly, far too swiftly, and it hurt dreadfully, but she felt healed and restored and less humiliated, all at the same time, and she hoped against all hope that Josh might realise someone did want her, and assume that he had been alone on the beach and on the boat, and even in the whole of Thailand, in being foolish enough to reject her.

  Over the next few months, she slept with a great many boys, some of them extremely good-looking and sexy, some of them less so; sometimes she enjoyed it and sometimes she didn’t. The important thing seemed to be that she could persuade them to want her. She had become, she supposed, that much-despised creature, a slag, and she also supposed she should despise herself, but she didn’t; she felt very little about herself at all. She was simply running away from the plump, dull, innocent person she had been and was so afraid of; and every time she had sex with someone, that person was further away from her.

  A new Clio came home, the old one left behind in the sun and the islands or perhaps in the hill villages of the north, or even the glittering ostentation of Singapore: a slim, even thin Clio, with sun-streaked hair and a deep tan, a Clio who could attract men quite easily, but who was still anxious, still eager to please, still very far from sexually confident.

  And the new Clio did not know, had not even considered, that she might carry a legacy from those dangerously careless days, which would damage her for the rest of her life.

  “I wondered…I wondered if we could meet.” It was Kate’s unmistakable little voice, rather shakier than usual. Clearly she was nervous. “Have lunch or something, like you said.”

  “Of course.” Jocasta smiled into the phone. “It would be lovely. When did you have in mind?”

  “Well, Saturdays are best. Because of school.”

  “I can’t do today. Next week? Where would you like to go?”

  “Oh, I don’t mind really.”

  “Shall we say the Bluebird? In the King’s Road? It’s really fun there, specially on Saturday.”

  “I’m not sure. Is it very expensive?”

  Jocasta’s heart turned over. What a baby Kate was. How could she be even thinking about—? Well, she wasn’t. Of course she wasn’t.

  “Kate, this is on me. I suggested it, didn’t I? Do you know where it is? Right down the end, near World’s End.”

  “I think so, yes. I’ll find it anyway.”

  “Good girl. Oh, Kate—” Jocasta, don’t. Don’t do it…

  “Yeah, what?”

  “When’s your birthday?”

  “August the fifteenth. Why do you want to know?”

  “I was just thinking about your work experience, you know. OK. See you on Saturday. How’s your gran?”

  “She’s fine, thanks. Bye, Jocasta.”

  Jocasta put down the phone and sat staring at it for quite a long time; then very, very slowly, as if someone was physically holding her back, she called up the Sketch archive site on her computer and typed in August 15,1986.

  Chapter 18

  Carla Giannini was one of the great tabloid fashion editors. She understood precisely what fashion meant to tabloid readers: not so much silhouettes and hem lengths and fabric and cut, but sex. She ignored the collections and the couture designers; using upmarket photographers, she had them shoot sharp trouser suits and dresses from Zara, Topshop, and Oasis, shoes from Office; jeans and knitwear from the Gap, on young, long-legged, bosomy models, who preened themselves on her pages, saucer-eyed and sexy.

  Carla was herself a beauty, dark-eyed and slightly heavy-featured, in the style of a young Sophia Loren, the child of an English aristocrat mother and an Italian car mechanic father. It was, against all odds, a very happy marriage, lived against the background of industrial Milan; but at seventeen, Carla had left home and moved to London and a new
life—she hoped—as a model. She established herself quite quickly as an underwear model, which she hated, but she made enough money to do an evening course and became a sought-after makeup artist. She didn’t like that much either, but she made a lot of very good contacts in the business and from there managed to move into what she realised she really wanted to do: fashion journalism. After a few years establishing herself on women’s magazines, she finally found her true home—newspapers. Chris Pollock installed her in an office at the Sketch on her thirty-ninth birthday.

  Carla’s office was just off the newsroom, and Jocasta’s desk was nearest to it. They were not exactly friends, but they fed each other cigarettes and quite often compared their extraordinarily different problems at the end of the day in the nearest wine bar, and occasionally Carla invited Jocasta to go with her to health farms like Ragdale Hall and Champneys, whose press agents invited journalists for the weekend in the hope that they would write about them or, better still, use them in photographs.

  Carla’s major problem was finding girls to photograph; she liked real girls, not quite off the street, but singers, actresses, designers, anyone with more of a story to them than their statistics and their model books. She used friends, daughters of friends, her boyfriends’ sisters, even her own sisters; she had tried to persuade Jocasta to model for her, with a complete lack of success. Jocasta said she was too old for it and that it was so much the sort of thing she hated. “And I don’t think Chris would like it.”

  “Of course he would,” said Carla briskly. “You know how he loves the whole personality thing. You have such a great look, Jocasta, and for God’s sake, Elle is pushing forty, Naomi’s no spring chicken, and look at Jerry Hall!”

  “I know,” said Jocasta, “but the big difference between them and me is they all really care about how they look and know how to make the most of themselves. I don’t. I mean, I can’t even remember when I last more any makeup, apart from on my eyes.”

  “Yes, and that’s a story in itself,” said Carla and sighed. “Well, I’ll just keep nagging on.”

  She was walking past the Bluebird Café at lunchtime one Saturday when she saw Jocasta sitting at a table, talking earnestly to one of the most beautiful young girls she had seen for a very long time.

  Anna Richardson called Clio again.

  “We’re off tomorrow. Look, do think about applying for that job at the Bayswater. They asked me if I’d mentioned it. They really want you.”

  Clio said she would think about it. Hard. And poured herself a glass of wine to celebrate. At least somebody wanted her. And not just any old place but one of the best teaching hospitals in London. It made her feel quite different. Happier. Sleeker. Less of a disaster.

  After drinking another glass of wine, she sat down at the table and starting drafting a letter.

  Martha had told Paul Quenell about her new life. She felt she must. He had been surprisingly sympathetic and very interested; and far from saying she must resign, that her work for Wesley’s was sure to suffer, he told her that as long as it only encroached on her life at weekends, then it was fine by him.

  “Although I suppose if you get elected, you’ll be leaving.”

  “Well, yes. But I won’t be elected, I’m sure.”

  “I certainly hope not,” said Paul, and then he smiled at her. “I wonder if I could sue them for enticement?”

  He was a tall, stylish man, very slim, with thick grey curly hair and a rather ascetic face; his smile, which rarely came, was a minimal affair. He was forty-five years old, divorced, without children; that was the sum total of what anybody knew about his personal life.

  “I don’t think so,” said Martha very seriously.

  “What a waste,” he said. “If you go, I mean. But I’m full of admiration for you. Well done. I thought of going into politics myself once, you know.”

  “Really? Why didn’t you?”

  “Mostly because I couldn’t face the considerable loss of income. Anyway”—he walked over to the fridge set into one of the tall cupboards that lined his walls—“I think your success thus far should be celebrated. Champagne?” She was so astonished by the whole encounter that she could hardly swallow the glass of extraordinarily good Krug that he poured for her.

  “No,” said Jocasta. “No, no, no, Carla. You can’t. You are not even to try to, OK?”

  “But Jocasta, why not? She’s gorgeous. Beautiful. Please. I’ll take you to Babington House for the weekend. I’ll buy you dinner at Daphne’s. I’ll let you borrow my Chanel jacket—”

  “No,” said Jocasta.

  “But I’m not going to sell her into white slavery, for God’s sake. I’m just going to put some clothes on her and take some pictures. Who is she, anyway?”

  “I’m not going to tell you. She’s just a girl I’ve met.”

  “She seemed rather young to be a friend.”

  “Don’t be so rude,” said Jocasta.

  “Well, darling, it’s you who’s always going on about your wrinkles. Actually, she looked a bit like you—she could have been your younger sister.”

  “Yeah, right,” said Jocasta, and then: “Funny, Sim said that as well. Oh shit.” She stared at Carla and prayed she hadn’t taken in what she had said. Her prayers were not answered.

  “Sim? Sim Jenkins the staff photographer? Jocasta, has this girl got anything to do with that story about the old woman on the hospital trolley? She’s not the granddaughter, is she?”

  “No,” said Jocasta firmly.

  “I’m sure she is.” Carla’s vast brown eyes were amused.

  “Yes, all right, she is. But her parents are very protective of her, they didn’t want her even in that shot, and anyway, she’s not sixteen yet.”

  “Why are they so against it?”

  “I suppose they mistrust newspapers. Quite right too. He’s a teacher and she’s a full-time mum, they’re real innocents abroad. So you are not to do anything, Carla. Absolutely not to. We’re talking important things like people’s lives here. Not just some cruddy fashion pages.”

  “I don’t do cruddy pages,” said Carla with dignity.

  “Anyway, I must go,” said Jocasta, standing up, pulling her tape recorder out of her drawer. “I’ve got to interview this girl—woman—I used to know. Well, I didn’t know her really; I travelled with her for a few days when we were eighteen.”

  She was feeling edgy, nervous; she told herself it was because this interview was important, but she knew it was nothing of the sort. Gideon Keeble had phoned her that morning, asked her if she would like to take him up on his invitation to stay with him in Ireland.

  “I’m here for a few days and my doctor has told me to rest.”

  “Gideon, you’re not ill, are you?”

  “No, no, just a little tired. Now I’m not compromising you, of course. It’s the pair of you I’m after, you and your lovely boyfriend.”

  “You sound much more Irish than usual,” she said laughing. “Is that how you talk when you’re over there?”

  “Maybe. What do you say? Could you consider it, even? Just a few days, around this weekend.”

  Jocasta considered it. The very idea of spending any time at all in Ireland, under the same roof as Gideon Keeble, excited her. That he wanted to spend time with her—and Nick, of course—was amazingly flattering. And she did find Gideon horribly attractive. It wasn’t just the aura that all powerful men trail around with them—when he looked at her, with those amazing blue eyes of his, she wanted to get into bed with him. At once. Without further ado. And she was sure he recognised it.

  God, she wanted to go, wanted to say yes. But Nick was away. For the weekend. So what should she do? And more important, what should she say?

  “Nick’s away for the weekend,” she said. Leaving it up to him.

  “Then,” he said, and she could feel him refusing to do it for her, “Jocasta, it is entirely up to you. But I would love to see you.”

  And knowing with absolute certainty that if she wen
t, she would never see Nick again, and summoning up every shred of willpower (weakened considerably by the image of Gideon, the sound of his voice), she said, very quickly and before she could change her mind, that she thought it would be better not.

  “A pity,” he said. “But you know, I have to tell you, Jocasta, that I am encouraged by your refusal.”

  “Why?” she said laughing.

  “Well, if you had said you would come, I would have assumed you saw me as a nice old gentleman who would not disturb your relationship or trouble you in any way. And I think we both suspect that is not the case. Goodbye, Jocasta. Thank you for considering it.”

  She put the phone down and had to take several deep breaths before she could even stand up.

  “I told her. I told her everything. And she’s going to see what she can do. She was great.”

  “Told you.”

  It had been Sarah’s idea: for Kate to talk to Jocasta, tell her everything, get her to write about it, so that her mother could get in touch with her. Since the detective agency idea had never got off the ground. “And do your mum and dad know?”

  Kate looked discomfited. “No. Jocasta did say I should talk to them some more. She said she wouldn’t like to do anything until she was sure they were happy.”

  “Oh I wouldn’t take any notice of that,” said Sarah. “She’s a journalist and they’ll do anything for a good story. Honestly, Kate, if she wants to write about you, she will. She won’t wait for you to ask your mum.”

  “I…think she will,” said Kate. Her heart was beating a little faster than usual.

  “Kate, she won’t. Anyway, what’s it matter? I thought that’s why you told her in the first place.”

  “Yes, it was. But, well, in the end, I think I would want to talk to Mum about it. It would be awful not to. She’d be really upset. Jocasta said that as well,” she added.