William widened his eyes in shock. For a moment, for once, he was lost for words. He was startled, or perhaps even entranced. Emma couldn’t help but raise the corner of her mouth in a slight smile. She had never seen the mechanic look surprised before; he looked cute. Thankfully, for Emma, surprise didn’t turn into disappointment.
“Hi. Is everything okay with the car?” William said, still mildly bewildered by the glamorous woman’s presence.
“Yes. The car was fixed up fine, thank you. I’m here to fix something else. I’d like to apologise for my behaviour the other evening – and for my behaviour when I first turned up at the garage. You didn’t see me at my best.”
It was William’s turn to see Emma in a new light. Even Stevie Wonder could see that the model was attractive, but he now saw a softness and kindness in her fine features. A beauty.
“Please, sit down,” the still somewhat gob-smacked mechanic replied whilst sweetly brushing flecks of dirt from the space next to him on the wooden bench. “I dare say I was probably at fault too when we first met. I’m better at dealing with machines than people.”
“My friend Celia might disagree with you. She mentioned how much she enjoyed your company at dinner.”
“I think that was due to a lack of competition,” William wryly replied.
A gust of laughter burst out from Emma, like perfume sprouting out from a bouquet of flowers.
“At least Celia only had to deal with them making advances on her for a solitary night. Unfortunately Daddy’s officers have been coming on to me for the past ten years.”
“Aye, thankfully I have never had to deal with them making a play for me. Well, Julian might have.”
Again Emma bloomed with laughter. As elegantly as she dressed and despite her normal poise Emma lost herself a little when she laughed. Or perhaps, in sharing a laugh and a sense of humour, she found herself.
“Well if I promise that you do not have to invite Julian along as your date would you like to come to dinner at the house one evening soon? Daddy would love to see you again. I’d like to fix you a meal in return for you fixing my car.”
“Sam will be jealous.”
“You might not think that after sampling my cooking.”
It was William’s turn to laugh and smile in a strange way at Emma. She was starting to match the portrait that her father had painted of her. There followed a slight pause, but one devoid of awkwardness.
“What are you reading?” Emma asked, after noticing the paperback book upon the bench next to William.
“The Plague by Albert Camus. It’s about fighting for lost causes against overwhelming odds. Even if it’s a losing battle you still have to fight on if the cause is right.”
“It sounds like it’s about my attempts at cooking.”
William again smiled at her, appreciating Emma for her sense of humour and intelligence. He looked at her in a way that was different to how other men looked her, she thought – but it was welcome and nice.
“Are you reading anything at the moment?”
“I’m re-reading Our Mutual Friend. Have you read it?” Emma, who finding herself wanting to impress the mechanic, didn’t mention the books by Jane Green and Jilly Cooper she had also finished recently.
Again William smiled at Emma and cocked his head slightly, seeing her anew – finding her interesting, fun, lovely. Finally he spoke:
“I want to be something so much worthier than the doll in the doll’s house.”
Emma was unable to speak – perhaps because her heart was in her mouth.
13.
Emma spent a further hour or so in the park with William. He sweetly insisted upon buying her an ice cream.
“I haven’t had an ice cream from an ice cream van since I was a little girl,” Emma said whilst eating away, delight upon her face and in her voice.
“You certainly look out of practise,” William replied, as he wiped away a spot of vanilla ice cream off Emma’s chin. The delight still remained – or even increased – upon her expression however.
Emma had hoped that William would reveal how he had saved her father’s life when she brought up his time in Afghanistan. But William remained guarded about his own experiences. He opened up a bit more when Emma asked if he thought that it had ever been a winnable war.
“The only time perhaps when there was an opportunity to win the war was when the government denied that we were at war. In terms of clear winners the aid industry, NGOs, the arms trade and any politician linked to the aforementioned may have done quite well out of the conflict... Unfortunately the Afghan people have lost the most,” the former soldier expressed with genuine sympathy. He then listened with interest to Emma as she gave her views on the subject, having taken an interest in the conflict due to her father being posted there.
William was soon asking Emma about her own career though.
“Well my commanding officers so to speak can be sexist, misogynist and shallow – and that’s just the women in charge at the top of the industry... Modelling is not all glamour. Things pay well, but at what cost?”
“What job would you like to do – if you were no longer a model?”
If someone had asked this question before of Emma, she could not remember the answer.
“I think I would like to be a school teacher, like Celia and my mother – even more than I would like to be a model.” When the words came out of her mouth the confession was just as much of a revelation to Emma as it was to the mechanic.
Emma asked William which school and university he had attended, believing he had gained a scholarship to a good private school. He replied by saying that the army had granted him a trade, and he had educated himself. He might have gone to school more if she had been his teacher, he said.
“You may not have turned up if I had worked in your canteen though... But thank you for agreeing to come to dinner. Daddy will be pleased you can make it. I’m pleased too.”
“You had me at hello Emma.”
He was so charming, in a genuine rather than refined way, she thought. He was sad and sometimes insular, but he was also kind and funny. She could have chatted to him all afternoon, about both serious and frivolous things. William Flynn ticked boxes she didn’t know existed. He made Emma feel things she hadn’t felt before. She didn’t have to play a dumb blonde with him, or parrot Kensington clichés. Emma drove back across the river pleased from having made amends – and from having made a friend too.
As Emma entered her apartment she received a text from Jason.
“I want to spend the night with you. I have to attend a dinner party later but I can swing by afterwards. Have bought you something special to go underneath those outfits I got you. Xxxx Jason.”
Emma replied that she was going to have supper with her father and spend the night at the house. Emma wasn’t sure how she would have replied if that had not been the case. She caught up with some emails (party invites, job offers, gossip) and gave Celia a call to see if she needed anymore help in regards to the funeral arrangements. Celia was surprisingly calm when she mentioned that she was splitting up with her boyfriend. “We’re on a break, as they said in Friends... It’s for the best.” When she put down the phone to Celia, Emma wondered if perhaps she and Jason should temporarily split up. If she genuinely missed him then she might know that she felt something serious for him.
When she got to her father’s house he smiled with paternal pride as Emma recounted how she had apologised to William – and that he was coming to dinner. Excited by the prospect of some good company – and decanting some vintage port again – Robert Hastings gave his friend a call to confirm and arranged things for the following evening.
Emma waited till after dinner – and for her father to loosen up with a few drinks – and broached the subject of Afghanistan. Emma sat upon the rug by her father’s feet, as she had done as a child, and listened as he reported upon how William had saved his life in Helmand.
“We were on our way back to Basti
on from visiting another odious poppy farmer. I was asked to meet him to help win hearts and minds. I would have rather grabbed the bastard by the balls. But enough of that. The first vehicle in our convoy was hit by an IED. I was in the second vehicle, which flipped over whilst turning to avoid the wreck in front of us. I managed to cut myself out of my seatbelt, but I was pinned down from gunfire. The bastards had also fired an RPG at the third vehicle in the convoy. It struck the road, rather than delivering a direct hit, but the car Shakes was travelling in was still out of action. The men with him returned fire, but we were on the defensive. There was a gap of about fifty metres between my vehicle and the one behind. I couldn’t see anything through the smoke. And I couldn’t hear anything over the gunfire and ringing in my ears. I proceeded to cut the driver, who was unconscious, from his seatbelt. No sooner was he free though when a couple of Taliban appeared through the smoke, their rifles aloft. For the most part Emma my job meant that I was far more likely to get a paper cut than gunshot wound in the line of duty, but I must confess that my heart sank and my life flashed before me at this moment. I thought of you and your mother. Courage and cowardice are strange animals. I looked into my enemy’s eyes. The bastard smiled. But Shakes wiped the cruel grin off his face. He had run the gauntlet between the two vehicles, bullets pinging around him like fire-flies. He shot the two Taliban. He then handed me his rifle and lifted the unconscious driver on his shoulder. He said how there were more enemy approaching and we needed to retreat back to the third jeep. We proceeded to run back to the rest of the men, who were fortifying a position and providing covering fire. Were we lucky, mad or brave? I don’t know. Thankfully an Apache gunship was in the area and put rockets up our enemy’s arses, quite literally. When we returned to base I invited William over for dinner. I thanked him for saving my life. I asked him what had gone through his mind when committing such an act of courage. He looked sheepish, he could no longer look me in the eye, and replied that he had nothing to live for. His wife had died, in a car accident, six months previous. William is a widower too. It might be why we enjoy each other’s company so much. It’s not that we even talk about things. Rather we can have comfortable silences. She was a lovely girl, his wife. Her name was Jenny. She was a nurse. Some wounds don’t heal Emma. The pain cuts too deep.”
Emma saw the tears glisten in her father’s eyes as she knew he was remembering his wife rather than William’s. Tears glistened in her eyes too. She got up, sat upon the arm of her father’s chair and kissed his forehead whilst holding his hand. Yet her heart also throbbed with pangs of guilt, as she remembered the sorrowful expression on William’s face when she joked how he would have no one to go home to after the party. She wanted to hold him and say how sorry she was.
“In some ways we’re both still married, but to ghosts. William’s is the greater tragedy though, as he has his whole life ahead of him. Yet if I asked him, he’d still say he had nothing to live for. Blessedly I have you. But I fear William leads a life of quiet despair.”
Tears soaked Emma’s pillow that evening, for she realised that she was living a life of quiet despair too.
14.
Emma was on auto-pilot the following morning for the shoot. She duly made love to the camera, but was divorced from things between takes.
She had it in her diary that she was due to meet Scarlett after the shoot. She was tempted to cancel, as she was keen to talk to Celia about something, but as it was unlikely that Celia could speak until after school had finished Emma met up with her model friend in their usual coffee place, opposite South Kensington station.
The two friends kissed each other on the cheeks and plopped their similar Mulberry handbags upon the table, along with their now identical iphones. Scarlett snapped her finger and a waiter came over, nearly tripping over his tongue as he did so. Scarlett had the ability, like an old fashioned movie star, to look both elegant and sexy. The waiter at first was lost for words (though this was in part due to English being his second language perhaps) – and then he babbled.
“It was a shame you couldn’t make the perfume launch Em... Everyone who was everyone was there... This New York thing should be a blast. Easy money – the best kind of money. I’ll put in a word for you. It’s likely someone will drop out of the shoot and you’ll be able to take their place.” Scarlett was more hyper than normal. Perhaps she was on something.
Emma nodded, but had no intention of joining the travelling circus of a group of models being flown over to New York to launch a new wonder bra, which would be as uncomfortable as it would be overpriced. She had gone on such trips before. There would be models snorting and throwing up in the bathrooms. Ad execs would be promising her the world, yet delivering nothing, in order to get into her knickers – and new wonder bra. She would be invited out to endless parties where she would be introduced to endless movie stars (who could now only get work on TV), feeling that somehow she was being pimped out to them. Emma grew exhausted just listening to Scarlett trying to sell the package to her.
A respite came when Scarlett headed off to use the bathroom. Emma breathed a sigh of relief. She picked up the iphone on the table to check the time and a text message came through as she did do. The message was from Jason Rothschild and she opened it.
“Hi babe. Can’t stop thinking about Saturday night. You were comfortably the highlight of my evening Scarlett. Was nice to wake up to you Sunday morning too. As a thank you can I take you out to dinner one evening this week? Jason xxx”
Dismay and then anger coloured her being. Emma, feeling repulsiveness and resentment towards both her so-called boyfriend and so-called girlfriend, tossed Scarlett’s iphone on the table and picked up her own. She grabbed her handbag too and walked, or half ran, out of the restaurant.
Indignation, betrayal and misery coursed through Emma’s body as she made her way home. She wanted the world to swallow her up, or rather swallow up and grind into dust Jason Rothschild and Scarlett Silver. The bastard and the bitch! Her hands shook as she got to her apartment and she tried to make a cup of tea. Tears welled in her eyes, but she was too furious to cry. She was close to hyperventilating. Part of her wanted to scream down the phone at the pair of them. Part of her wanted to sleep with one of his friends, out of spite. Part of her wanted to alienate Scarlett within her social set – and spread rumours so as to lose her the job in New York. She wanted revenge, justice. If they had laughed about her behind her back on Saturday night, she would have the last laugh and win the game.
The doorbell rang however to disturb her black and bleak thoughts. Emma collected herself together to answer it. It was the postman, with an Amazon package. Curious as to its contents, as she hadn’t ordered anything for the week, she opened the box immediately after shutting the door. The package contained a deluxe, hardback copy of Our Mutual Friend. She read the name William Flynn on the invoice.
A smile broke through the clouds. There were tears in her eyes for an altogether different reason. Should William have delivered the package himself she would have been lost for words or she would have babbled. He was decent, genuine, wise and fun. He was everything Jason Rothschild wasn’t, Emma realised. Rather than anger or bitterness it dawned upon her that she should be feeling relief. Relief in that Jason had revealed his true colours before things had become serious. Relief in that she hoped that both of them would feel too ashamed to contact her – and she would be free of them. “In the course of justice none of us should see salvation.” More than justice or revenge, Emma craved (and had been granted) her freedom. The only way to win, in regards to the games Jason and Scarlett played, was to not take part. Jason Rothschild and Scarlett Silver, made in Chelsea, were contemptible and laughable.
Emma took her new book to bed and eventually drifted off to sleep for an hour or so. When she woke she called Celia and asked about the viability of her training to be a teacher. What qualifications did she need and how should she best proceed? Finally her degree in English Literature might be of use.
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“I’ll look into it. It’ll be far from impossible Em for you to gain the necessary qualifications. Can I ask what has brought on this change of heart and change in career?”
“I want to be so much worthier than just a doll in a doll’s house,” Emma replied, with contentment and purpose.
“Well you can explain that and everything else to me when I next see you. Talking of dolls though, I don’t suppose you have a number for your father’s friend, William? I’m thinking of getting in touch, to see if he would like to go on a date.”
Emma’s heart at first sank at the prospect of what Celia was saying, but then it leapt as she realised the reason why. If anyone was to go to ask William Flynn out - it would be her!
15.
Emma tried on a number of outfits. Her bed, wardrobe – and anywhere that could house a hanger – was a sea of colour and materials. First she put on a Madisyn summer paisley pencil skirt from Ted Baker with a black flared top by Jil Sandro. She was initially happy with her choice but then a pinched expression came over her face as Emma realised that it was just a “maybe”. She next modelled a short and simple red crepe dress from Alexander Mcqueen. Emma turned to look at herself in the mirror so much that she nearly grew dizzy. But ultimately she concluded that the dress showed far too much leg for an informal dinner at her family home. After mixing and matching a number of skirts and tops Emma succumbed to temptation by trying on what she called “The Heartbreaker”, a white mesh detail dress by Emilio Pucci which subtly accentuated her shoulders, figure, slender arms and sun kissed complexion. Her blonde hair shone lighter, golden, against the clean-lined white dress. “The Heartbreaker” was sexy, summery and straddled formal and informal occasions. Over the past year she had turned heads at Henley, Ascot and various launch events in the outfit. The dress had inspired speechlessness and wordy compliments from men and women alike. She thought about William and how good she looked – and glowed. The dress would give him something to live for, Emma jokingly mused. Yet she then laughed at herself. Her ritual of a one woman fashion parade in front of her wardrobe mirror seemed ridiculous. William was different – and she had no wish to break his heart. She wanted to look nice, for him and for her, but more so Emma just wanted him to like her for who she was, not how she looked. In the end she settled on wearing a pair of jeans, a white cotton blouse and a cropped navy blue jacket with a pair of brown leather boots (albeit her outfit was sourced from Guess, Ralph Lauren, L.K Bennett and Burberry respectively). She also wore her hair down.
Uptown Girl Page 5