George is out from underneath, literally if not metaphorically, and sits against the last resting place of Richard, eighth Baron Moresby, rubbing the back of his head where it has caught an almighty crack when he went down. Derek starts down the steps, stops when the torchlight falls upon the scene below him. His mouth, whose gulps for air have made him look like a landed monkfish, drops open, the skin hanging slackly around his jaw suddenly revealing the fact that Moresbys have not, over the millennium, been entirely averse to a spot of droit de seigneur. He looks, at this moment, almost exactly like his employer, who is frozen, gape-mouthed and fish-eyed, on the far side of the accident.
‘Oh, your Grace,’ says Derek Burge. ‘Her Grace, Your Grace. Her Grace.’
The coffin, after fifteen years in these damp surroundings, has split open on impact, and its contents are on display. But they are not as you would expect. Instead of the sludge of decay, the air is scented with attar of roses: a perfume that everyone who knew and loved her associated with the Duchess throughout her prominence. And there she lies, framed in her plushy satin bed: Godiva Fawcett, later Godiva Moresby, fourteenth Duchess of Belhaven, mourned the land over. Godiva, whose ice-white skin and perfect features hid a heart that beat for the poor, for the lost, for all those who suffered. Godiva, whose death sparked worldwide lamentation, pilgrimage, promises of improvement, expressions of love. Godiva, whose life was carpeted in thorns and whose death was carpeted in flowers.
Head pillowed by the softest of silk, she lies with her eyes open and bright as her last moments on earth. Roses touch those lifeless cheeks, still full and rounded over the narrow, tilting jawline. Her white-blonde hair curls and shines as though newly washed. And that rosebud mouth still smiles, still pouting, unchanged in its fullness and promise by the fact that the soul has fled. There she lies, Godiva the Good, flawless hands crossed over a bosom so full and so perfectly rounded that it is hard to believe that it will not, even now, heave and shudder as she draws a breath.
‘My God,’ says Gerald Belhaven. ‘My God.’
George has raised his head to see, and sits back against the eighth Baron, face shining with astonishment. And he opens his mouth, and utters the longest speech that has ever been known to pass those heedful lips.
‘It’s a fucking miracle, that’s what it is,’ he says. ‘A fucking miracle.’
Chapter One
GeogSoc
Once we’re in the taxi and he’s tickling my earlobe with the edge of his finger, the nagging feeling of discomfort gets worse. At some point, this guy’s going to want me to call him by his name, and I can’t for the life of me remember what it is. Brad? Troy? Jake? Something monosyllabic, I remember that, and one of those close-to-made-up names they have on Australian soap operas. Roo? Cal? Butch? Or maybe I’m inventing this, because he said he was once in an Australian soap opera, which isn’t that surprising, because if you divide the population of Australia by the number of soap operas they turn out, everyone in the country is likely to pop up washing cars and saying ‘G’day’ over any given fifteen-year period.
Jam? Bug? Park? Sim? I know I should know, but you know how your memory develops holes, usually just when you’re about to make a really important point, or when you’re trying to say ‘thank you’ in Turkish, or when the plod want to know where you were on the night of the 17th, and, though I have a clear picture, when I close my eyes, of Lindsey shouting ‘Anna, this is …’ over the top of several heads and a flower arrangement, after that it all goes blank.
Biff? Barf? Lung? The thing is, I know that this is a problem. Because however much men like to think of themselves as roaming wolves, however much they joke about not knowing what, or who, they were up to last night, the fact is that they get as upset as women do by the idea that someone doesn’t actually know their name. They turn all droopy and sit on the edge of the bed with a sheet draped over their groins needing to be comforted. And it’s worse when they’ve made it perfectly plain that they’ve mastered your name within seconds.
Lid? Mig? Grog? Goddamn, I’ve got to take memory lessons. He’s one of those people who make sure they get your name fixed in their head in the first minute by repeating it over and over. ‘Hi, Anna,’ he said. ‘How ya doing, Anna? Who do you know here, then, Anna? Can I get you a drink, Anna?’ And of course, I was so fascinated by watching those white, even pearlies, the I-may-wear-factor-20-lotion-but-I’m-out-in-the-sun-all-day skin tone, the natty bleached-by-the-sea mop-top, and feeling myself overwhelmed by Thursday-night lust that I forgot to reciprocate. So now here I am barrelling down Kensington Gore, catching sight of the cab driver watching us in his rear-view mirror and thinking: Christ, Waters. Not even bothering to learn someone’s name is seriously slaggy. I mean, it’s a simple matter of etiquette, isn’t it? The rules of promiscuity: carry condoms, never go anywhere where you don’t know the address, be immaculately polite.
And he’s rather nice, actually, this strange Aussie – Gruff? Brig? Dim? Nice enough to deserve better than to have someone reduce him to the status of nameless boy-toy. I mean, I’m not that hard. Not so hard that I don’t know how I’d feel if someone turned round and called me Jane.
To my surprise, he hasn’t gone straight for the tits, but seems to be taking a lot of pleasure in running his hand over my stomach, caressing my hips. In the orange glow of the street lights, I can see that his eyelashes are long enough to brush the tops of his cheeks. Maybe he’s a habitual specs wearer, has taken them off in the hope of being more attractive. Only specs wearers have eyelashes like that. I used to have eyelashes about an inch long before I got the contacts, not that anyone ever got the opportunity to appreciate them.
The cab lurches – probably on purpose – as it rounds the corner at Knightsbridge, and Jib? Dick? Bob? falls briefly onto me with his full body weight, which is fine by me. Hand on my thigh for purchase, he says, ‘Oops’, flashes a complicit grin and leaves it there. I love men – well, most of them, anyway. I love their puppy-dog naughtiness, the way that, even when they must be 99 per cent sure why they’re in a cab being speeded across London by a woman they’ve only just picked up at a party, they still have to play these little hunt-and-chase games, convince themselves that they’ve somehow persuaded you against your better conscience. As we sit at the Sloane Street lights, Door? Bunk? Rod? runs a thumb over my thigh against the direction of the hairs – the weather turned warm enough, thank God, to ditch tights a month ago, and I’ve already gone a nice balcony gold right up to the knicker line – and I can’t resist a little shiver. It’s partly for real and partly for effect. If I can’t remember the guy’s name, I might as well make him feel that the oversight comes from an excess of passion.
It works. Fag? Hung? Lard? grins, wraps his arms round me and crushes me to his chest like an over-affectionate grizzly bear. ‘Shit, you’re great,’ he says. ‘I never thought my luck would be in tonight. My word.’
I think I’m probably the only person who would have expected their luck to be in at a talk to the Royal Geographical Society, but I like a challenge and it’s all too easy in bars and clubs and parties. But I seriously thought, when I saw the Atlas of Geographers gathered around the half-dozen bottles of Chilean Cab Sauv, domed heads hovering over beards as they fiddled with the toggles on their anoraks and got into almighty rages with each other, that I was going to luck out tonight. I mean, you could sleep with just anybody, but that’s not the point, is it? That’s where the line between bad and sad is drawn: bad girls sleep with anyone who looks like he might be good for a laugh; sad girls sleep with just anyone.
So thank God for Pad? Blip? Rug? It would have been a wasted night, otherwise. I get the cab to drop us off on the embankment, help him haul his backpack onto the pavement and lead him down the road to the gate. ‘Christ,’ he says. ‘Where are you taking me? You’re not some sort of psycho-killer, are you?’
I turn and look over my shoulder at him as I punch the keys on the gate-pad. ‘Could be. Why? Are you scared?’<
br />
Hilarious. For a second he shows all the signs of controlled panic: wide eyes rolling round, trying to look through the back of his head for an avenue of escape, chest pumping as he gets that creeping feeling that he might just have to run for it; hand gripping and loosening on the strap of the rucksack as he wonders if he’s going to have to ditch all his worldly belongings in the rush to get away.
So I burst out laughing, point at him and say, ‘Come on, bozo. Have you seen the size of me? All you need to do to stop me is hold me at arm’s length.’
He’s not sure whether he’s embarrassed or amused. Decides that being amused is probably the best way of getting his naughties tonight, smiles sheepishly. The gate beeps and clunks open.
‘Come into my parlour,’ I say, gesture him through.
He steps into the yard, stares around and goes, ‘Coo’, or one of those other words people use when they come into our yard for the first time. ‘Come on,’ I say, but he is saying, ‘What the hell is this place, anyway?’ which is what people tend to say when they’ve finished saying ‘Coo’. Well, it’s pretty amazing, in the middle of all this prime real estate, to find yourself in the middle of a couple of acres where nothing moves, no one’s parked a BMW and there’s not a scrap of chromed handrail to be seen. Okay, so the railway lines might put some people off, but you’d at least expect some far-thinking council to have built an estate here.
I take hold of the strap of his rucksack, start to pull him in the direction of the tower. I’m used to the yard now, don’t have to run with my eyes clamped on the path in front of me to get through it, but it still spooks me a bit. All those empty spaces; you can never guarantee what’s going to be in them. ‘They’re old boat sheds,’ I inform him.
‘Boat sheds? This far back from the river?’
‘It’s not that far, really; less than a hundred yards. There’s a lock going down to the river, only no one ever notices it because the main road goes over the top.’
‘Christ,’ says Matey. ‘And you live here? How d’you get to live somewhere like this?’
‘My flatmate. Her family had it back when it actually was a boatyard. They’re those sort of people who never get round to selling anything.’
‘Strewth.’
I suppress a giggle. Hearing an Australian say ‘Strewth’ is like hearing a Scotsman say ‘Och aye’. You simply don’t believe that they really say it until you’re actually standing next to it.
Round the D-shed, under the rowan, over the lock bridge and we’re at the porch. Zak? Pack? Shack? stands with his back to me as I fiddle with the keys and mumbles about the industrial wasteland around him. ‘Actually,’ he says, ‘this is pretty cool when you get used to it, isn’t it? I mean, like, nobody has this much space in a city. And it’s just you and your flatmate?’
‘Mmm. Yes. Harriet.’
‘You could have,’ he says speculatively, ‘like, a real commune here. Well, obviously not a commune, this isn’t the sixties, but one of those places where all your mates could land when they’ve been travelling. Those sheds would be amazing for parties. Like, a big house area in one, and maybe seventies or trance or something in another, and a big chill-out area in the third, maybe some cushions under that tree we came under, candles, body piercing …’
And then just as I’m thinking: hang on a minute, sonny. You’ve not got your feet under the table yet. Christ, you’ve not even got them inside the front door, he breathes, warm and damp, on my hairline just behind my ear, and I remember what I’ve got him there for.
We go backwards into the hall, locked together like velcro Care Bears, and he drops the backpack just inside the door. Manoeuvres me towards the stairs, which doesn’t take much manoeuvring as I’m waltzing back with him. I get my foot on the first step, and finally our faces are almost level. We haven’t bothered with the lights; nobody bothers with lights when they’re drunk and horny. He hitches his arms around my waist and simply lifts me from step to step, our crotches grinding hard with each swing, and I’m really looking forward to this. I haven’t got laid in two weeks. If I don’t get this guy horizontal – or as near as damn it – soon, I feel like I’m actually going to burst out of my pants. And from the feel of him, I think he might do the same thing.
His foot lands on something which splits, crunches and scatters over the stairs.
‘Shit,’ he mutters. ‘What’s that?’
‘Christ. Bloody Harriet.’
‘What is it?’
‘I don’t know. She’s always leaving things on the stairs. I knocked over an entire bag of plaster of Paris the other day and then she dropped a bottle of wine on it. She would have let it set, as well.’
‘Sounded like split peas to me,’ he grunts.
‘What the fuck would she want with split peas?’
‘I dunno. Cook with them?’
‘Harriet doesn’t cook. She’s posh.’
He feels for a foothold among the scattered whatevers, hikes me up another step. ‘Christ, it’s lucky you’re so little. How many steps are there here?’
I push him off, start running up them. ‘A hundred and eighteen.’
‘What?’
I get up to the first-floor landing, outside the bathroom. Call down as he thunders up behind me, ‘A hundred and eighteen!’
He catches me up between that landing and the one outside my room, grabs me behind the knees and flips me handily to the stairs. Panting a bit, I notice, but not so much. Some people are so winded by the time they’ve got up here they’re no good to anyone for ten minutes. But not Lug. He’s all over me like bath oil, has his hands under my skirt, gripping my buttocks, and is making it very clear that he’s up for a bit of a party. And my insides are doing that familiar cha-cha-cha and I’m already starting to sweat a bit.
‘Jeez, you’re gorgeous,’ he says, which of course means, ‘I’m so horny my geography teacher would look gorgeous’, but hell, I don’t care, it’s not like I’ve never said anything like that myself when I thought I was going to get a good going-over, then he gets his hands inside my pants and starts to pull them off. Lovely, lovely, lovely. He’s got button flies and they’re practically popping. There’s no way we’re making it any further up these stairs.
I manage to unplug my mouth from the fine game of tonsil tennis we’ve got going, and say, ‘Have you got any condoms?’
‘Shit, no,’ he says. ‘Down in my backpack. Christ.’
‘’S okay.’ I’ve still got my bag with me, so I look for my purse, find a johnny in behind the business cards and pull it out. I know they’re always telling you that men think that women who carry condoms are slags, but I’m a happy slapper and I don’t care what anyone thinks. I like scoring, I like getting my legs round a nice warm man and seeing what we can do for each other. Call me a slag, it’s fine: I’m having a good time.
‘Oh, thank Christ.’ He snatches it from my fingers, rips the wrapper open with his teeth, kneels up to put it on. A lock of bleached hair flops into his eyes and I look at him and think: yeah, sweet guy, spends a lot of time doing pointless physical things; this will be fun. He meets my eyes and his face melts into one of those soppy, puppy-dog smiles that breaks your heart. ‘Are you ready for this?’
Am I ready? I’ve been up for it for hours, you fool; just come here and do your thing.
Downstairs, there’s a crash. Then Harriet’s voice floats up, ‘Oh, pants. Who bloody broke my bag of popcorn? Anna! Are you up there? Did you break my bloody popcorn and just leave it on the stairs? I nearly broke my bloody neck, you stupid cow. Where the fuck are you?’
My lovely boy is sheepishly trying to stuff himself back into his trousers, jaw hanging in panic. I sit up, pull on my knickers, haul my top back down over my tits. ‘Yeah, I’m up here,’ I call down.
‘Well, what are you doing leaving popcorn all over the stairs?’
‘I didn’t know it was popcorn. I didn’t turn the light on. Anyway, it’s you that left the stuff on the stairs in the first plac
e.’
Her footsteps clomp in our direction. Muscleboy sighs with relief as the last button pops somehow back into its hole and Harriet comes round the corner: navy-blue pleated hockey skirt halfway up the thighs, white blouse liberally stained with gravy and red wine, striped tie at half-mast, high-heeled T-bar sandals, blonde hair tied up in a pair of plaits coming from the top of the head like Pippi Longstocking, filthy old riding mac thrown over the top. Harriet has worn that riding mac every day of the ten years I’ve known her, and it’s never been cleaned. Which at least means that she can travel on the tube unmolested.
‘Oh,’ she says to the slightly pink bambino beside me. I didn’t ask him, but he looks in this light as though he might be in his gap year. ‘Don’t get up.’
He doesn’t, so she continues, ‘Let’s not bother with introductions, eh? I daresay I’ll forget the minute you tell me, anyway. Is that your backpack I fell over when I came in?’
‘Yeah,’ he replies.
‘Ah. Backpacker, are you?’
‘Traveller, actually.’ He tries a tentative smile.
‘Ah, yes. Tourists without baths.’
I close my eyes and pray: please, please don’t let him start explaining the difference between a tourist and a traveller.
God answers my prayer. He just grins and says mildly, ‘Yeah, I reckon. But we have email addresses these days as well so we can keep in touch with all the other travellers and never mix with the natives.’
Harriet seems satisfied with this, continues up the stairs, hops over his knees. ‘I’ve had a shitty night. Totally shitty. Like, shit city with the fan turned on. You won’t mind if I don’t stay and make small talk, will you?’
She looks seriously grim. Harriet puts so much effort into work that she’s often totally drained when she gets home. Sometimes she’s so tired that I don’t just find myself running her a bath from pity, I have to come back and haul her out of it, or she’d just sleep there until she died of hypothermia.
Virtue Page 2