Gigolo

by Ben Foster

  There were more people in Jermyn Street and I noticed several heads turn to watch us as we crossed the road to Vivienne’s Ferrari Spider, hood down and gleaming like a streak of sunshine on the grey asphalt of the road. She removed the plastic sleeve containing the parking ticket from the windscreen and added it to the pile of identical plastic sleeves in the glove compartment.

  ‘I don’t mind the fines, it’s just the bother paying them.’

  The engine roared like a lion. She eased through the gears and wove through the back doubles to Dean Street where she parked outside a pale grey building with limp flags on flagpoles and no name plate as far as I could see. The doors stood open, letting in the sunshine. A man and a woman, both young and attractive, rose from behind the reception desk with eager expressions.

  ‘Be a sweetie,’ Vivienne said to the man. ‘If you see a warden trying to fine me again, tell him I’ll be two minutes. Can you do that?’

  ‘Be a pleasure. Are you dining?’

  ‘We’ll be at the bar. I can pop out. Thank you so much, you are a darling.’ She glanced at me. ‘This is Ben Foster, my favourite person in the whole world.’

  The girl opened the inner door and I followed Vivienne into Groucho’s.

  12

  GROUCHO’S

  We sat on high stools at the far end of the bar.

  ‘Are you hungry? I’m starving,’ Vivienne said.

  ‘Me, too.’

  ‘I wouldn’t care if I never saw the inside of another shop again.’

  ‘I was thinking the same. Great minds . . . ’

  ‘Great bodies,’ she said with a little shimmy. She placed her finger on her lips and her expression became thoughtful. ‘In our own way, we are all masterpieces. Everyone is unique.’

  She kissed her finger and placed it on the tip of my nose. It was strange and thrilling.

  If unique means a one off, no one I knew fitted that description better than Vivienne. She looked like an exotic bird perched at the bar, back straight, legs hooked behind the metal ring of the stool. Beautiful women usually give off a vibe that says stay away, don’t touch, I’m much too special. Vivienne wasn’t like that. She radiated an energy people were drawn to and made everyone feel comfortable. Just being with her made me feel more alive, more able to reach beyond myself.

  We were the only two people sitting at the bar. A couple speaking in low angry voices shared a table with unmatching chairs. A man in black, an actor whose name I couldn’t recall, was bent over a manuscript like a vulture about to swoop. He kept grunting and taking small swigs from his beer like it was cough syrup. The music drifted in softly from another room and I could just make out the gravelly deep voice of Leonard Cohen.

  The barman emerged from attaching a new barrel under the bar. He was short and broad like a boxer with strong features and green eyes, an actor between roles, I imagined. Vivienne ordered two spritzers, ‘the way I like them,’ she said, and he tapped his temple to show he remembered. He put measures of white wine in two glasses, added slices of lemon, ice cubes and filled them to the brim with soda water. He placed them in front of us with a pair of red and white striped straws.

  ‘Voilà,’ he said.

  ‘Vous êtes trop gentil.’

  ‘That’s about as far as my French goes,’ he admitted.

  ‘Mine too,’ she replied, and glanced at me. ‘I know what I fancy, a BLT?’

  ‘Sounds good to me.’

  I was going to eat it, whatever it was.

  The barman strode off with the order and Vivienne said she would be back in two ticks. The actor with the manuscript continued to grunt. The couple hissed at each other like snakes. I studied the stranger reflected back at me from the mirror behind the bar. My thoughts were like a handful of confetti thrown in the air on a windy day. My conversion from care worker to a guest at one of the most exclusive clubs in London had taken less than a week. I was suffering vertigo.

  Just as there was more to Vivienne than first meets the eye, I had a feeling that Groucho’s was the same. It was an iceberg, more hidden than could be seen floating on the surface. The blue walls were hung with different sized paintings. The wood floor reminded me of a ship deck. Natural light seeped in through frosted windows that allowed no one to look in from outside. It could have been any club in the West End. But it wasn’t any club. It was an oasis where actors and actresses, writers and directors, megastars and their lawyers could chat without being bothered by their fans, the public, the great unwashed, as Rufus Bradley had called members of the gym where we’d met, the group to which, in his eyes, I obviously belonged.

  I glanced back at my reflection. My hair was tossed about from the open car, but it went with the casual chic of the white shirt and jacket. I looked like someone who would be taken more seriously than the man who had left his house that morning in a Gap shirt and five quid sunglasses. Like the new car, the new clothes gave me a look of composure I didn’t really own. The white suit was a disguise, the Emperor’s New Clothes. Packaging over content.

  Why Vivienne had arranged for me to have a new wardrobe – paid for in some covert way – and why she enjoyed my company, remained a complete mystery. The scars on her back defined her passions, her pleasure in intense, uninhibited sex. But why me? A woman like that can sit at a bar and go home with any man she wants. Apart from massage, I had nothing to offer. Nothing at all. It made it all the more ridiculous that, in some way, paranoia most likely, while I was doing all the taking, I felt as if I were being used.

  I kicked these thoughts around my head without reaching any conclusions. In truth, Vivienne had done nothing except make me feel good about myself. The way she looked into my eyes when she was speaking put me at ease and created a mood I only ever felt when I was giving someone a massage. I relaxed. I became serene, assertive, and transferred positive energy to the person I was massaging. I knew I was good at my job. People came away from treatments on an emotional and physical high. The massage table was my home turf. When I closed the table, my confidence drained away. I became me again, the monkey with the wandering mind and low self-esteem.

  There is a difference between self-confidence and self-esteem. Self-esteem is how you feel about yourself. Self-confidence is how you project that feeling to others. With self-confidence, you trust in your decisions, believe in your abilities, and learn to accept your limitations. In the yoga books, the first lesson is ‘be yourself’ or ‘be true to yourself.’ It is difficult to know what that means exactly, or how to put it into practice.

  Was I being myself sitting at the bar in Groucho’s? Or was I playing the version of myself I wanted to become?

  It was hard to know and the thought fled from my mind the moment Vivienne returned with a new sparkle in her eyes. She climbed up on the stool, crossed her long legs and sipped her spritzer.

  ‘That tastes so good.’

  We clinked glasses and sucked at our straws. Then she turned with an intense expression.

  ‘I was reading the other day about an experiment at Cambridge,’ she began. She rocked her hands from side to side. ‘They put lots of metronomes on a stage and set them in motion at different times. You’ll never guess what happened.’ She took a breath. ‘In no time, they began to beat together. Metronomes are not individuals. They are herd creatures connected to the rhythms and thoughts of those around them. Isn’t that amazing?’

  I wasn’t sure what she was talking about and was saved by the barman. He appeared with two plates containing the BLTs, thick slices of toasted bread filled with bacon, lettuce and tomato, then cut in four. I tried not to eat like a starving man and watched Vivienne pick out the bacon and lettuce from the four quarters of her sandwich.

  ‘We have a dark side,’ she continued. ‘Mysterious places hidden even from ourselves. Once you discover those places, you stop ticking along with all the other metronomes.’

  ‘And become unique.’

  ‘Exactly. You are so clever.’

  ‘Hardly.’


  She slid a piece of bacon between her lips and ran it between her teeth like a circular saw.

  ‘I love bacon. I adore bacon. Don’t you love Samuel L. Jackson?’

  ‘He’s great.’

  ‘Pulp Fiction’s my favourite film. Pulp Fiction and Repulsion. Catherine Deneuve is amazing.’ That thoughtful look came to her face and she went on. ‘It’s lost time that matters, the time between time, the moments when you forget time and things just happen.’

  ‘That’s how I feel right now,’ I said and she shook herself as if with a sudden burst of joy.

  She nibbled a piece of lettuce like a rabbit. I eyed the bread she’d discarded. I didn’t dare take it from her plate and eat it, yet knew, at the same time, it was the sort of thing she would have found amusing. That was the difference between us. I sat there in my linen suit pretending I belonged. Vivienne did belong. She could be outrageous and everyone would find it charming, eccentric, original. If I behaved badly, I’d be labelled a lout, an upstart. I was constantly aware of myself. I watched myself. Vivienne was herself.

  While we were talking, people poked their heads around the door, gazed about the bar, then left again, probably for the dining room. I identified a couple of minor celebrities, a quiz show host with silver hair. Then, I recognised one of the biggest celebrities in the world, not from British television, the entire world. She was global, not merely a star, more like a supernova, a superstar, a household name.

  She strode straight up to me with a curious, vaguely accusing expression.

  ‘Do you play the sax?’

  I was shaking in my new Sebagos. The BLT felt like lead in my stomach.

  ‘No, I’m sorry.’

  She threw out her palms as she turned to Vivienne. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I’m leaving tomorrow. I didn’t know you were here.’

  ‘I’m not here. I’m in Paris. If I don’t find a sax, I’m gonna kill someone.’

  ‘I wish I could help.’

  ‘Looks like it’s you who needs some help, babe.’ As she spoke, the star reached for the napkin on the bar and held it to Vivienne’s nose. ‘Either sniff or blow, one or the other.’

  Vivienne took a long hard sniff then pinched her nostrils together. She shook her head, looked at me, looked back at the star, and smiled.

  ‘I wish you were my mother,’ she said.

  ‘If I was your mother, I’d give you a spanking,’ she replied, and they burst out laughing.

  The star looked back at me. She had strong features, wore no makeup and made the air about her throb with her energy.

  ‘Do I know you?’

  ‘This is Ben Foster,’ Vivienne said. ‘He’s a highwire walker.’

  The star wasn’t listening, which was just as well. She continued to look agitated, as if in some distant strange way I was responsible for her dilemma.

  ‘Sax players! All full of piss and wind, the whole fucking lot of them. How does a guy pull out a day before a gig? Un-fucking-believable. What’s the time?’

  As I lifted my arm to look at my watch, she grabbed my wrist. ‘Coming up to twelve-thirty,’ I said.

  ‘Are you staying for a drink?’ Vivienne asked, and the star shook her head.

  ‘I got my chess teacher waiting upstairs.’ She paused. ‘You going to the islands?’

  ‘Aegina.’

  ‘Sounds good. I’ll give you a call. Fucking sax players.’ She kissed Vivienne on the lips. ‘I love you, you know that,’ she said.

  ‘You’d better,’ Vivienne replied.

  The star made a gun from her fingers and pointed at me. ‘Don’t fall off,’ she said, and marched out.

  My mouth had gone dry. There was sweat under my arms. It felt as if all the air in my body had been sucked out of me.

  ‘Isn’t she darling?’ Vivienne remarked and sipped her spritzer.

  I was about to ask her why she had said I was a highwire walker. But it didn’t matter and the moment passed. I wasn’t good at reading between the lines and had a feeling that in Vivienne’s world that’s where the message was hidden.

  ‘Is she really learning to play chess?’

  ‘Making up for lost time,’ Vivienne said and that thoughtful look came to her face again. She brushed at a curl of hair that had fallen over my eye. ‘Is there such a thing as lost time? Or is time lost spent doing something else? You only lose time when you’re sleeping.’

  ‘Or sitting in a traffic jam.’

  ‘That’s the time to listen to Pink Floyd.’

  She finished her drink and sucked the juice from the lemon. The hissing couple sat in silence eating sandwiches. The actor scribbled in the manuscript on the table in front of him. Another young couple came in, both dressed in black, the ‘in’ colour, black clothes, black backpacks, black shades. Even Vivienne, always in white, carried a black handbag on a long strap.

  She threw up her arms, stretched them above her head, then called the barman. He looked at her uneaten sandwich.

  ‘Everything okay?’

  ‘You can put it in a doggy bag . . . No, wait, I don’t have a dog.’

  He laughed. I laughed. She signed a chit. We had an appointment and she ‘hated being late.’

  ‘I won’t be a moment,’ I said.

  I climbed a curving staircase to a wide hall decorated with a vase of pink lilies. The toilet was pink lit with linen hand towels and shiny taps on shiny sinks. The air had the smell of perfume too expensive to bottle. I called Kelly and told her I didn’t know what time I would be home. I was going to tell her who I had just met, she was one of Kelly’s favourite performers, but decided against it. I still hadn’t worked out how I was going to explain away the new clothes for one thing and, for another, I couldn’t quite believe I had just met who I had just met, and that person was a friend of Vivienne Raynott.

  13

  THE GOLDEN RULE

  Southley is a sprawling country house outside Bagshot behind high red-brick walls that hide several acres of mature gardens. Golf buggies zip around curving paths to cabins that are rustic on the outside, high-tech luxury once you enter. In addition to the ancient oaks, hawthorns and banks of flowers, there is a grove of banana plants and palm trees in a conservatory where green parrots live the tropical life unaware of the English winter.

  A hut built to look like a country cottage stands inside iron gates at the entrance. Guards on shifts watch who comes and goes and monitor tiers of video screens with footage from cameras placed discreetly throughout the grounds. The moment you enter Southley, the air instantly tastes sweeter and the world slows down, becomes serene and elegant.

  From Groucho’s, it is thirty-two miles on the M4 and M3 to Bagshot, a forty-five minute drive on a clear road, one hour and ten minutes in traffic. With the sun on fire, the hood down, the needle drifting over 100 miles per hour, Vivienne weaved a kamikaze path through the trucks and tankers to reach Southley in thirty minutes. I had kept my eyes closed all the way.

  She slowed for the speed bump, waved to the guard and stepped out of the car exhilarated.

  ‘Were you terrified?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  She grinned and opened the boot. My bag with the new swimming shorts was there with another bag. She insisted on carrying them both.

  My eyes strayed across the gardens. Not a daisy had dared poke its head above the snooker table green baize of the lawns. Every flower stood to attention. The big-leafed ivy shimmered as if every leaf had been polished by hand and tumbled down the walls of Southley like a green waterfall.

  Bethany Bolter was waiting for us in the reception and hurried towards Vivienne as if they were long lost sisters. As she kissed her cheeks, Bethany jiggled her weight from one foot to the other.

  ‘Vivienne, how lovely. How nice to see you. You look wonderful. Wonderful. It’s always such a treat . . . ’

  ‘Thank you, that’s so kind.’

  ‘Such a treat. How was the journey? Not too busy?’

  ‘Not ba
d. This is Ben Foster.’

  Vivienne took half a step back as I shook Bethany’s hand. Her smile dropped and her expression changed. She was in charge of Southley. I was a potential employee.

  ‘A recommendation from Vivienne is a recommendation indeed,’ she said.

  ‘Thank you. It’s a pleasure to meet you,’ I replied.

  Her expression changed again as she turned away. Bethany was squeezed into a fitted dress – black again – and wore lofty heels to streamline her legs. She was about forty with dark blonde hair held back from her soft rounded face with a black velvet bow. She wore a heavy gold watch and lots of gold bangles glittered as they swivelled around her wrist. She leaned into Vivienne’s space and Vivienne leaned back as if they were dancing a tango.

  ‘How’s Lady Margaret? I haven’t seen her for ages.’

  ‘She’s away, I think.’

  ‘Do give her my regards,’ she said and her busy eyes fell on the quilted leather bag hanging from Vivienne’s shoulder. She took a deep breath. ‘That is gorgeous. Is it Lulu Guinness?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  The bag was now clutched in Bethany’s hands. She studied it like it was a rare find at the Antiques Roadshow.

  ‘It is. It’s gorgeous. I must get one.’

  Bethany grinned and grimaced. Her features were mobile, as if she were seeking the right expression. She wanted Vivienne to feel comfortable and behaved in a way that had the opposite effect. Nothing impressed Vivienne. She liked you or she didn’t and seemed to make up her mind instantly one way or the other. She smiled. I knew it was phoney.

  ‘You are always so kind. I’m going to take a swim, if that’s all right. Perhaps Ben could join me.’

  ‘Of course, my dear, of course. You know where everything is.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Vivienne took her phone from her bag and we watched her long legs propel her down the corridor to the spa.

  The reception area was a new addition, the same as the extension housing the gym, treatment centres and pool. It was cool and airy with diamonds of glass in the leaded windows to follow the style of the main building. The walls were white with panels painted pale green, the same shade as the staff uniforms. A circular Oriental carpet woven through with threads of green and gold had been placed immediately below a chandelier that hung from a rose decorated with lion’s heads, a reminder of Southley’s former life as the family home of a very rich family.