Gigolo

by Ben Foster

  ‘Just under a tenner, babe,’ I said. ‘Hope that’s enough.’

  ‘It’s never enough.’

  ‘I’m sorry . . . ’

  ‘I’m not complaining. Just commenting. The prices go up and the wages stay the same.’

  ‘It’ll get better.’

  ‘Can’t get any worse.’

  She turned. The light was behind her. She wasn’t angry or irritated. She was smiling. It was going to be another hot day. The kitchen door was open. The sun was pouring in and she looked like an angel with the light in her hair. I gave her a hug.

  ‘Love you,’ I whispered.

  It was coming up to seven and I was drained. I kissed the kids, climbed the stairs, stepped over the safety gate and fell into the warm bed Kelly had vacated. Ollie went to a playgroup run by Carly, a neighbour who had a little girl the same age. It was Kelly’s task to keep the little-ones quiet so I could get some kip.

  I’d got through another Thursday double shift. It was Friday. My appointment was at three that afternoon.

  2

  BETTER NEVER LATE

  The sun was baking, hotter than ever. I must have lost a couple of kilos jogging in Crane Park with my shirt off and getting a suntan. I was back in time for lunch with the family – scrambled eggs on toast, and I scoffed down every crust and crumb the children left on their plates, the yogurt sticking to the sides of the plastic pots, the bits of orange Claire had spat out.

  ‘You’re not hungry by any chance?’ Kelly said.

  ‘Better in me than in the bin.’

  ‘You are the bin, Ben,’ she remarked and George laughed.

  ‘Bin Ben, Bin Ben, Bin Ben,’ he repeated.

  Claire giggled. Her first words had been Ma Ma. She had quickly mastered Da Da, and was now fixated on No no, No no, like a mantra she sang in her sweet little voice as she moved around the kitchen.

  I scooped her up on my knee.

  ‘Da Da. No no. No no.’

  She kicked and wriggled until I put her back down and she continued on her way. Claire already had a strong independent streak; she was going to need it with two older brothers and the big bad world out there.

  I cleaned my teeth, kissed the kids and set off in pressed whites just after two. I had given myself more than enough time unless there was a major problem and, needless to say, that day, of all days, there was a major problem. There had been an accident. I counted six police cars and an ambulance with flashing blue lights. A lane was closed and I sat in the heat for twenty minutes watching the seconds tick by knowing I was going to be late for my Friday massage.

  Rufus Bradley was thirty something, thin with fine, pale yellow hair and, at six foot, the same height as me. He lived with his mum at home – who wouldn’t, given the choice? Home was a Georgian mansion close to Kempton Park Race Course with stables and rolling meadows as far as the eye could see. He paid me £20 plus £5 expenses for a 45-minute back rub, the persistent pain caused, as far as I could tell, by lying about on the goose down couches, or sofas, I should say, chatting on the phone with his girlfriend, the English actress Annabel Lee Hartley, who had just got some big role in an American TV series.

  The money certainly came in handy and I enjoyed my weekly journey into this world so alien to my own. The roads were chock-a-block. Fumes in a haze obscured the sky, but the moment I turned off the main road, I entered a quiet country lane shaded by trees. The house was the same style as the public library in Twickenham, but ten times as big. The rooms were vast with high-ceilings, portraits of men in uniform and, on one wall, a display of swords and old guns. Everything sparkled, the windows, the porcelain in polished dressers, the faces of the clocks that all showed different times and chimed out of sequence as if in this house time had a different significance.

  There was a rose garden with statues covered in moss and the horses in the open field stopped at the fence to watch as the van crunched over the white gravel drive. Every time I entered the tall gates I thought to myself: how can some people have so much when there are so many people who have so little? This was not political or philosophical, even envy, just a fleeting thought that vanished from my head immediately I pulled up at the entrance.

  I unloaded my folding table from the van and heaved my bag of candles and oils onto my shoulder. The main doors were open and a girl on a platform ladder was cleaning the chandelier when I walked in. She was pretty in a pink gingham uniform and had a long face as she pointed upwards as if to heaven.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said.

  She used the same finger to mime cutting her throat.

  ‘You’re welcome,’ she replied, and I climbed the stairs.

  Rufus had a suite of rooms with a view over the paddock at the front of the house. He was, as usual, lying on a sofa, reading with a towel around his waist. He didn’t look up when I clattered in with my table.

  ‘Afternoon,’ I said, and stared at the cover of a book that hid his face. It was Kate Moss: Model of Imperfection.

  ‘I didn’t think you were coming.’

  ‘Sorry I’m a bit late. You wouldn’t believe the traffic.’

  He lowered the book. ‘I don’t think you are privy to my beliefs, or lack of them.’ He took a long breath and waved his hand towards the shady area between the two sets of open windows. ‘Now you’re here, I suppose.’

  I laid the table face down to extend and fix the legs in place, then flipped it over. We had already established that he didn’t like the smell of the aromatherapy candles or the flowing rivers and wind chimes of my massage music. I left them in the bag and went through to his bathroom to wash my hands. The room was massive with a bath on legs like animal claws and a shower bigger than my entire bathroom. I dried my hands.

  ‘Ready when you are.’

  He got up slowly like a cat and sidled across the room towards me.

  ‘I suppose no one ever thought to tell you: You don’t get ahead by getting behind. Every moment lost is never recovered.’

  ‘It won’t happen again.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Sorry . . . ’

  ‘I love that. People think by saying that trite little word that their actions don’t have consequences. Here.’

  He gave me his towel, which I spread over the surface of the table. I was going to say time is a banana, quoting Marley, but he wouldn’t have appreciated it. I held the side of the table steady and Rufus climbed up in his boxers. He made his head comfortable in the face hole, stretched out and tucked his arms into his sides. I ran some drops of almond oil down his spine and added a dab to my palm. I rubbed my hands together, warming them, and began to work the muscles and soft tissues, each slow steady stroke reducing tension and stiffness.

  I’d felt a stab of anxiety being late. I thought I was going to lose my only client, but the anxiety faded the moment I started the massage. As I relaxed, the feeling transferred to Rufus. I applied pressure to his lower lumber region, digging in with the heels of my hands, and his breathing became steady, slower and deeper. In a few minutes, he was sighing contentedly.

  Massage develops and restores the muscular, circulatory, lymphatic and nervous systems, assisting the body to heal itself of disorders while increasing general health and well-being. Each patient is different. It is vital to establish the optimum amount of pressure: too much and the muscles grow tense, too little and there is no benefit. With experience, you grow to know through your fingertips where there are areas of pain and soft tissue problems. He wriggled.

  ‘Yes, right there,’ he said, pointing at a spot just above his waist on the right side of his body. ‘What is that?’

  ‘It looks like a bite to me, probably a mosquito.’

  ‘Mosquito,’ he repeated. ‘I doubt that very much.’

  ‘It’s nothing serious, Rufus. Try not to tense up.’

  He settled down. I added more oil; it was pale yellow, the same colour as his hair, and had the sweet smell of almonds.

  As you find the rhythm, your mind drifts
off. My view through the open window was of trees lining fields, a turquoise sky without a cloud. I was joined to Rufus by my fingers rubbing oil into his shoulders and back, but that was the extent of our connection. While he inhabited a world I couldn’t even begin to imagine, my reality was a relentless struggle just to survive. I had a feeling that massage was going to be my future, I’d felt that from the day I started taking courses, but finding regular clients in the circles I moved in had been impossible.

  I had fixed up my own spa at home. Ollie and George shared a bedroom and, while Claire was still in a cot in our room, I used the box room as a massage centre. Carly, who ran the playgroup, had a herniated disc. It is not something you can cure, but she came for treatments twice a week and it certainly relieved the pain. Pete Taylor, the postman, another neighbour, had a fine ear for tuning cars. He pounded the pavement every day. I’d give him the occasional foot rub and he’d kept the Red Beast, my van, running long after it was ready for the breakers. No one I knew had spare cash to pay for a massage. I did a lot of skill swaps, but when someone was in need, I was happy to treat them for free.

  We were all working families on the estate. Everyone was hard up, but there was a sense of community. Some people said it was dying out, but it wasn’t, it was there, just below the surface.

  There are spiritual, psychological, even mystical aspects to massage, qualities I had not thought about when I began taking courses, but it is those qualities that become important, even central. Massage is the oldest form of healing. The word in English comes from the French massage, but exists as massa in Greek, Latin and Arabic.

  In Saqqara, close to the famous Step Pyramid in Egypt, stands Tomb Akmanthor, also called the Tomb of the Physician, built more than 4000 years ago and containing beautifully preserved murals that show men having their feet massaged. Hippocrates – the Father of Western Medicine – wrote: ‘The physician must be experienced in many things, but assuredly in rubbing.’

  I had barely finished a book since I left school, but I’d read everything there was to read about massage. It is a way of life, a vocation. Massage creates a sense of care and communication. After treating a client, your connection becomes intimate. Yet, although I’d known Rufus since my time giving free massages at the gym, we had never gone beyond the relationship of employer and employee. I did my 45 minute treatment – more often than not it was closer to an hour – and picked up the £25 that he never actually gave me, but left on one of the side tables.

  The same thing happened that day. Not even a thank you. Rufus wrapped the towel around himself, fluttered his fingers across the room and I zipped the money in my back pocket – new shoes for Claire and groceries for the weekend.

  I was packing up the table, when I heard voices like tinkling tea cups rise up the stone walls and through the window. I glanced out and saw several ladies followed by three men enter the main doors below. Parked in a semi-circle were four cars that I had not heard pull up while I was finishing the massage: a black Rolls Royce Phantom, two black Range Rovers and a yellow open-top Ferrari with white leather seats. It was like a display at a motor show made ridiculous by the sight of my battered old van with the post office insignia painted out.

  I turned back to Rufus

  ‘Me and my big mouth,’ he said.

  ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘You, that’s what’s happened. Mother wants to meet you.’

  As he was speaking, there was a double tap and the door swung open to admit a tall, marble-skinned woman who was obviously in her fifties and could have passed as Rufus’s sister. She wore a fitted white dress with a pattern of red and blue roses, high heels on slender feet and carried a hat with a red and white polka dot ribbon. Her perfume reminded me of strawberries and cream, summery and fresh.

  ‘Ah, how wonderful!’ she exclaimed, her voice soft, refined, but with an accent I couldn’t place. ‘You must be the amazing masseur we’ve been hearing about.’

  She turned, wide-eyed to Rufus.

  ‘Yes, this is Benjamin Foster. Benjamin, my mother, Lady Catherine.’

  ‘Ben,’ I said.

  ‘Catherine,’ she responded. ‘Among friends.’

  Our eyes met for just a second and the way she then looked me up and down reminded me of the wholesalers inspecting the catch when I was on the trawlers. She held out her hand, which I wasn’t sure whether to shake or kiss. I did the latter, bending forward to plant my lips on her soft skin.

  ‘I’m pleased to meet you.’

  ‘You are such a gentleman,’ she said, and I gathered by the way she said the word ‘gentleman’ that she was American. ‘I have some friends downstairs who would love to meet you.’

  ‘I’m sure Benjamin has better things to do,’ said Rufus.

  He looked embarrassed for some reason and all the tension I’d spent an hour working out was back in his narrow face.

  ‘Nonsense,’ she said and turned to me. ‘He wants to keep you all to himself and that’s not fair, is it?’

  ‘No, I suppose not.’

  She glanced briefly at Rufus. ‘You see,’ she added, dropping her hat over a table lamp and wrapping her arm through mine. ‘Come, this is going to be such fun.’

  ‘What about the massage table?’ I said as we were leaving the room, and she threw out her free hand.

  ‘Someone will bring it.’

  We walked arm in arm down the wide curving staircase. It felt as if we were being filmed for a movie.

  ‘Now, do tell me, before you get lynched by the mob, how is Rufus’s back?’

  ‘I’d say it was in pretty good shape. His spine’s straight and most of the knots have gone now.’

  ‘That is such good news. Maybe you could treat one to a massage?’

  I wasn’t sure if ‘treat one,’ meant she wanted a free massage, or whether she wanted a treatment. Not that I gave it much thought.

  ‘I’d be honoured,’ I replied.

  We reached the bottom of the stairs. The girl must have finished cleaning the chandeliers and the ladder had been removed. Shafts of intense light pierced the windows and shimmered from every surface, making it difficult to see. We entered what they called the Great Hall and my life spun like a flipped coin and changed forever.

  3

  THE COMMITTEE

  Numerous chairs and sofas were arranged around a walk in fireplace where a group of ladies in pastel outfits sat with legs elegantly crossed as if waiting to be photographed.

  Including Lady Catherine, there were ten women of various ages. I would have said they were foxy. But that would have been inappropriate. They were beautiful, by far the most attractive and best-dressed women I had ever seen in one place all at the same time.

  At the far end of the Great Hall were three men, two in shorts and casual shirts, the third in a white linen suit with a white straw hat. They were too far away for me to hear what they were saying, but when they laughed their big voices boomed and echoed over the high ceiling.

  The moment we entered, one of the women approached with her hands pressed against her chest as if in shock. She was thin, but shapely in a pale lemon dress with masses of chestnut hair and green eyes – the sort of woman once seen is not easily forgotten. She took my free arm.

  ‘Now who do we have here, Kate? Have you been keeping secrets?’

  ‘What is a woman without secrets?’

  ‘Do tell. You know what they say about a secret shared . . . ’

  ‘Yes, it’s no longer a secret.’ She smiled. ‘This is Ben Foster, darling. He’s the one who’s been rubbing the knots out of Rufus’s back.’

  ‘Lucky Rufus.’

  The woman smiled at me.

  ‘This is Lady Margaret,’ Lady Catherine continued. ‘But you,’ she said, stressing the you, ‘can call her Maggs.’

  ‘He can call me any time he wants,’ Lady Margaret said, and the other women laughed. She squeezed the muscles on my right arm. ‘You seem terribly strong. Is it from all that massage?’
/>   ‘I run every day, and work out.’

  ‘That’s marvellous.’ She quivered and looked around at the seated audience. ‘I’m tingling all over.’

  ‘That’s too much champagne on an empty stomach,’ said a woman sitting on a high-backed antique chair.

  Lady Margaret threw up both hands.

  ‘Is there any other way to drink champagne?’ she replied, and turned back to me. ‘Let’s ask Ben what he thinks?’

  ‘I’m not much of a drinker, to be honest,’ I replied, and again she gave a little shudder.

  ‘That’s so praiseworthy,’ she said and I blushed as she rose up on her toes and kissed the corner of my mouth. ‘You are obviously not Irish?’

  I shook my head. ‘No . . . ’

  ‘You have that wild Irish look, blue eyes and dark hair. It is something I have always found attractive.’ She paused. ‘Now, come and sit down and tell us what sort of massage you do.’

  I sat on a grey sofa with red tassels. The women leaned forward with surprised expressions and big eyes as if I were a rare breed of dog or a Roman coin dug up in the garden. I felt awkward, self-conscious, out of my depth. But, at the same time, I had a sense that I wasn’t gazing through a window into another world that excluded me, I was on the inside, the centre of attention. Nothing like this had ever happened before. I had never spoken to a ‘Lady’ in my life, and here I was speaking to two on the same day. It was like being at an interview and I would come to realise that that was exactly what it was.

  ‘Now, do tell?’

  I took a breath. ‘Mostly I do Swedish massage with what I call an Oriental twist,’ I said, and the women erupted in laughter.

  My cheeks burned and they were still laughing when the three men made their way through the hall towards us. While the other two continued, the man in white stopped and slipped his hands into his jacket pockets. He looked familiar. I wasn’t sure from where. He studied me over half-moon glasses and our eyes met.

  ‘How wonderful to hear the sound of women’s laughter,’ he remarked.

  I wasn’t sure what to say and it was just as well that Lady Margaret came to the rescue, although what was said was puzzling.