‘London? No, not really. I stay here every now and then but I try to avoid it if anyone else is around,’ he said.
‘How many bedrooms are there?’
‘I’m not honestly sure,’ he said. ‘Eight? Nine?’
‘But it’s too small for you to be here with another member of your family?’ It felt odd that he wanted to avoid them given the size of this place. Unless, I suddenly thought… unless he didn’t want them to bump into me? I thought back to the conversation I’d overheard earlier that night and felt a flutter of doubt knock inside my ribcage. Maybe Bill was right. Maybe it was just a matter of time.
‘You have met my family,’ he said, handing me a glass.
‘Mmm.’ Or was I just being paranoid?
‘How was the party?’ he asked.
‘All right. Chatted to a few old friends. Left Joe singing in the kitchen. You know, your average Friday night. How are you?’
‘I am…’ He paused as if to think while putting the bottle back in the fridge. ‘I’m good. I missed you this week.’
It was the first time he’d said he missed me.
‘Really?’ I said, grinning at him. Pathetic, really, how quickly and easily this one line made my worries evaporate.
‘Really,’ Jasper said. He put his glass down on the counter and moved towards me, putting his hands around my face.
‘I missed you too,’ I said. And then I blushed.
‘And I missed fucking you,’ he said, putting his arms around me and pulling me into him.
‘Did you now?’
He didn’t reply. He just kissed me and ran a hand through my hair, holding the back of my head. ‘Shall we go upstairs?’
‘To one of your five hundred bedrooms?’
‘Don’t be a smart-arse.’
‘All right, all right, but what about the wine?’
‘The clever thing about wine glasses is that they’re mobile,’ he said.
There was a lift outside the kitchen. An actual lift with one of those metal grilles you have to close before it will move. Jasper hit the button for the fourth floor and we clanked slowly upwards, him pressing me against the wall, wine glass in one hand, wine bottle in the other. Then the lift jolted to a stop.
‘Out you get,’ he said, opening up the metal gates again. ‘Second door on the right.’
His bedroom was at the front of the house, overlooking the square. It had a four-poster bed on one side, facing an old wooden desk. He put the bottle and his glass down on the desk and drew the curtains. Various sporting photographs lined the walls.
‘Cute. Baby Jasper,’ I said, leaning in to look at them.
‘A dangerous lunatic, armed with a cricket ball,’ Jasper said, coming up behind me and moving my hair to one side so he could kiss my neck.
I tried to move around but he wouldn’t let me. ‘Stay there,’ he whispered in my ear.
He put his hands underneath my t-shirt and ran them up my stomach, unhooking my bra and pulling my shirt off over my head. I reached my hands up behind me for his head.
‘Put them down,’ he said. ‘Flat. On the desk.’
So I did. And then he ran his hands back down my body, to my flies, and undid them. Then he peeled my jeans and my knickers down my legs, so they were around my ankles. ‘Step out of them,’ he said, so I tried to do this in a faintly sexy manner instead of trampling all over the floor like a baby elephant. Quite hard to pull off skinny jeans seductively.
And there I was, naked, still facing away from him, while his hands ran up the outside of my legs again, over my hips, before he turned me around to face him. ‘Lie on the bed,’ he instructed.
‘Can we turn the lights down a bit so it’s less…’
‘Lie on the bed,’ he repeated. ‘On your back.’ He walked to the door, closed it and dimmed the lights. Then he walked towards the bed and lit a candle on his bedside table. ‘Put your arms above your head and leave them there,’ he said, pulling off his own shirt.
He knelt over me and started kissing my wrists, crossed over above my head. And down my left forearm, then my right forearm, then he kissed down my left bicep. Then my right bicep. I wondered for a moment if I’d put deodorant on. I thought so. The sex scene in The Horse Whisperer where Robert Redford licked Kristin Scott Thomas’ underarm hair popped into my head. I’d watched the film as a teenager and worried for several years afterwards that being ‘good’ at sex meant licking underarm hair. But then I’d realized Kristin Scott Thomas lived in France for a long time and decided that explained it.
Jasper continued working down my body with his mouth, biting my nipples softly, kissing down in a line towards my hips. I sighed with pleasure at the thought of his tongue pushing its way inside me and put my hands down to his head to run them through his hair.
‘Leave your hands above your head,’ he said, ‘otherwise I will tie them up.’
‘All right, Christian Grey,’ I said. Then he stopped and stood up.
I looked at him. ‘What?’
He picked up the candle, knelt above me and tipped it so wax dripped down from the hollow between my breasts to my stomach. The wax drops burned for a second and then hardened.
‘Do you like that?’ he said.
‘Yes…’ I said, although I wasn’t entirely convinced. Having hot wax dripped on me from a Jo Malone candle was about as Marquis de Sade as my sex life had ever been. But I was worried about the sheets. Wax was murder to wash out.
He tipped the candle again so it continued to drip towards my hips. I was quite nervous about this too. Hot wax on your clitoris is going to hurt, surely? And it was perfumed wax. And I was always mindful of the warning about perfumed bath oils and bubbles giving you thrush. Perfumed candle wax might have the same effect? But then Jasper stopped and put the candle back on the bedside table, before pulling off his jeans and boxer shorts and pushing his cock into me.
I exhaled and wrapped my arms around his back as he pushed into me again and again. Hard. And deep. So deep I felt like he might dislodge a kidney. But then he stopped again and pulled out, knelt between my legs, licked his finger and started softly circling my clitoris with it. My hips started rolling, and he pushed his finger inside me.
‘No. No, do what you were doing, back, up,’ I said between breaths. He started rubbing my clitoris again. Until the moment that I was about to explode when he moved his hand and pushed his cock inside me again. I came, clenching around him, and then he roared in my ear as he came too and we lay there, panting, damp from sweat.
‘Jesus,’ he said, breathing into my ear. ‘I’ve been thinking about that all week.’
‘Me too.’
‘You liked it?’ he said, picking his head up and looking at me. ‘The wax?’
‘Yep,’ I said. ‘Totally.’ Although, I thought in my head, dripping hot wax over one another was definitely a Saturday evening activity and not a Tuesday night thing. I always get nervous with these conversations about what one is into versus what one is absolutely not into. Like when a man asks ‘What’s your fantasy?’ and you want to say ‘A film on the sofa and a grab bag of Maltesers,’ but you have to think up some implausible position and say you like dressing up as a naughty optician because that’s what you think they want to hear.
‘Can I have a shower?’ I said, as he rolled off me, looking down at the hardened wax on my stomach.
I left Jasper’s the next morning and went home, ducking into Barbara’s first to buy some milk.
‘How is that boyfriend of yours, hmm?’ she said.
‘Good, thanks,’ I said, absent-mindedly, while I was checking the dates on the semi-skimmed milk. Barbara always lined up the milk that was about to go off at the front, burying the fresh stuff at the back. I reached for the back of the shelf.
‘And how is the sex?’
I cast a glance around the shop to make sure an unsuspecting customer who wanted a four-pack of loo roll wasn’t overhearing.
‘Er, also good, thanks.’ I put the milk on the counter.
> ‘You need a man, Polly, a real man. This is good.’ She ignored the milk in front of her.
‘Mmm.’
‘When is his birthday?’
‘End of November.’ I’d been waiting for this question.
She nodded her head as if in approval. ‘Adventurous.’ She still hadn’t picked up the milk. ‘Although they can sometimes be impatient. Is he impatient, Polly?’
I reflected on the wax the night before.
‘No, I don’t think impatient exactly. I’m quite impatient actually,’ I said, looking at the milk on the counter.
‘Sagittarius and a Capricorn,’ she said, finally picking it up. ‘Hmm. That combination is unusual. Experimental.’ She raised her eyebrows at me.
Why did I have to suffer this much for milk?
‘Very passionate, Sagittarians,’ she went on, before looking at the till. ‘One pound twenty, please.’
‘Thanks, Barbara, see you later,’ I said, handing over the coins and grabbing the milk. ‘Don’t worry about a bag.’
‘Keep me posted,’ she shouted as the door jangled behind me.
12
PEREGRINE SWIRLED ROUND IN his chair and looked at me intently. Please, please, please don’t ask me about my love life, I thought, as I sat down in front of his desk.
‘Polly, good morning,’ he said.
‘Morning,’ I said, cradling my coffee in my lap as if it was an amulet to ward off evil.
‘Now,’ Peregrine started, ‘what I want to talk to you about is quite delicate.’
Oh God.
‘But I think you’re just the woman for the job.’
‘Rrrright…’ I said.
‘I have discovered that there’s an Italian woman in London who’s organizing extraordinary parties.’
‘What do you mean “extraordinary”?’
‘Well,’ Peregrine paused, ‘I think, to be perfectly honest, the only way I can describe them is an orgy.’
I stared at him.
‘Yes,’ he went on, ‘apparently her guest list is sensational. Cabinet ministers, high court judges, bankers, lawyers, former mayors of London, you name it. All beating one another with leather whips.’
‘How do you know?’
‘What?’
‘I mean, how did you find out about these parties?’
‘Oh, never mind that,’ said Peregrine, flapping in the air with his hands. ‘But listen, what I want you to do is go along to one, and then write about it. They take place at a private house in Mayfair every month… Apparently,’ he added quickly.
‘How am I going to get in though, if the guest list is so strict? Presumably there’s a strict no-journalists policy. Omertà and all that?’
‘Don’t worry. It’s run by this Italian called Ana, who I have already spoken to. She doesn’t mind Posh! writing about it, it’s the papers she wants to keep out.’
‘OKKKK,’ I ventured slowly. ‘So I’m going to go to one of these parties and then… just write it up?’
‘Yes, exactly,’ he replied. ‘Lots of colour, lots of detail, no names. Just hints perhaps. An MP here, a countess there. It’ll practically write itself this piece, Polly, really colourful stuff. “The most exclusive party in the world”, we’ll call it.’
‘Fine,’ I said, standing up, ‘will you send me the woman’s email address?’
‘What?’ He’d already turned back to his computer on his desk.
‘The woman who organizes these parties?’
‘Oh, Ana. Yes, of course.’
I walked back to my desk and sat down. Could I convince myself that going to some big posh house for a sex party was an intrepid bit of investigative reporting? The sort of thing that proper, real journalists get awards for? I wasn’t sure.
‘And where’s Lala?’ Peregrine said, sticking his head through his door again.
I shrugged.
‘Doctor’s,’ said Enid. ‘Women’s troubles apparently.’
He shuddered. ‘Don’t be revolting.’ Then he went back into his office and closed the door.
Later that evening, at Mum’s flat, I picked up the shaver and looked at her tufty scalp. After two chemo sessions, we’d decided that I would shave her head to get rid of the fuzzy bits that were making her look like a barn owl chick. Sidney had lent us his electric shaver because I didn’t trust myself with a razor.
‘Come on, Mums, let’s do this. You’re going to look like a rock ’n’ roll star,’ I said, smiling encouragingly at her.
She grimaced. ‘More like that man who used to present The Crystal Maze. What was he called?’
‘Richard O’Brien. In which case, you’d need a long velvet frock coat and to be off your head on drugs.’
‘I’ve probably got one of those in my cupboard and I wouldn’t mind being off my head on drugs.’
‘Let’s not worry about Richard O’Brien for now,’ I said. ‘Are you comfortable?’
‘Yes,’ she replied.
‘OK. Here goes.’
I flicked the shaver on, then realized I didn’t know where to start. From the forehead back across the head and down towards the neck or vice versa? The shaver hovered above Mum’s head. I gently put it down right on the top of it and slowly moved it backwards.
Mum stayed quiet.
‘Is that all right?’ I asked, as strands of hair started floating down on the towel, catching the evening light on their way. Bertie lay by the chair, his head resting on one of Mum’s feet.
‘Yes,’ she said, in a small voice.
I carried on slowly, dragging the shaver down the back of her head, leaving a line of bright white scalp behind it.
‘You still all right?’
‘Yes I think so, it sort of tickles. What does it look like?’
‘Er, great. Amazing. Much better. Everyone’s going to want one of these by the time I’ve finished.’ Making jokes seemed to be the only way I could handle this scenario. I wasn’t trying to be insensitive, I just wasn’t sure how I’d get through it otherwise.
‘Do you think Sidney will mind it?’
‘’Course he won’t. He’ll love it.’ I wasn’t convinced about this but we could worry about that later.
Mum had gone through one of her drawers and pulled out various old, creased silk scarves. Then she’d ironed them. A pile of scarves now sat on the kitchen table, neatly folded.
More hair floated down on to the towel, then Mum turned and looked up at me, putting a hand up to her head to feel it. ‘It’s quite cold,’ she said.
‘That’s what the scarves are for. You’re going to channel the Queen.’
‘She’s not bald.’
‘Well, I know,’ I said, leaning forward to shave a tuft behind her left ear. ‘But think how elegant she looks wearing those Hermès headscarves.’
I pulled the electric cord around the chair and moved to stand in front of her. ‘Close your eyes, I need to do the front. Otherwise you’ll end up looking like one of those monks.’
Mum closed her eyes, which were also now bald and unprotected, her eyelashes and eyebrows having fallen out a few days earlier. They’d grow back, the internet said. Possibly thinner than before. But they would grow back.
She’d lost weight too, I noticed, looking down at her legs. Her hands were clasped tightly between them and her jeans were loose. Her fridge was even emptier than usual. A pint of milk, a minute piece of Parmesan and an old, hardened lemon were its only occupants. I’d do a shop later.
‘Don’t worry, darling. I’m going to be fine,’ said Mum, her eyes still shut, as if reading my mind.
‘I know,’ I said. ‘I was just thinking about… work.’ I wanted to distract her. And me.
‘Why, what’s up?’
I thought back to the scene in the office earlier that afternoon. ‘Peregrine has got this mad new idea for a story. He wants me to go to a party.’
‘What’s wrong with that?’
‘It’s a sex party.’
‘A whattie?’ she asked, twistin
g her head to face me.
‘Hold still and shut your eyes,’ I said. ‘Well, it’s more of an orgy really. I think. I’m not sure.’
‘What do you mean?’ Mum frowned at me.
‘Turn your head towards the fireplace,’ I said. ‘Basically, he’s met some Italian woman who throws these risqué parties in a big house in Mayfair somewhere. Where you go. And you dress up. And then, well, God knows what happens.’
‘Sex? Does sex happen at these parties?’ said Mum.
‘I think possibly yes. Stay still.’
‘Golly! And you’ve got to go to one of these parties?’
‘Peregrine wants me to, yes.’
‘Golly! Will you have to have sex?’
‘No. No, I’m not going to,’ I said. ‘I’m just going to go and sort of watch, I suppose. Turn your head the other way. I’m nearly done.’
She turned her head. ‘Darling, you will be careful, won’t you? All sorts of weirdos might be there.’
‘I’m sure they will be.’
‘Can you take Jasper?’
I hadn’t mentioned it to Jasper. ‘Er, maybe. Not sure it’s his thing.’
‘What does one wear to one of these parties? A pretty dress?’
‘No, I don’t think it’s dress territory. I think we’re talking leather. Some kind of leather outfit.’
‘Golly!’ She paused while the whirring of the electric shaver continued. ‘I’ve got that old leather jacket of your dad’s somewhere if you like?’
I laughed. ‘Thanks, Mum. But I’m not sure Eighties Hell’s Angel is quite the look at these parties.’
‘Well, it’s there if you want it.’
‘OK,’ I said, brushing hair from her shoulders and turning the shaver off. ‘Now, stand up, have a look in the mirror.’
She stood and looked above the fireplace into the mirror. ‘Oh.’ She clutched both hands to her mouth, and then lifted them to her head. ‘It’s sort of knobbly, isn’t it?’
‘Er, a bit yeah.’ It made me tear up to see Mum looking at herself in the mirror. She looked even more vulnerable, as if shaving her head had made her regress sixty years and she was a newborn baby again. I blinked to try to stop myself from crying. Get a grip, I told myself, you’re not the one who’s ill.
The Plus One Page 20