Bad Girls (17 page)

Onto Regent’s Park Road, her heart pounding now, palms of her hands clammy. Into a part of NW1 that was a whole world away from the grime and chaos of Camden: Primrose Hill, where a house cost in the millions, where heads of advertising agencies, film stars and celebrity chefs bumped into each other buying lattes at the pavement cafés, and where Gold, years ago, not content with his own house overlooking the park, had bought the one next door and knocked the two together into a mansion that was referred to by local estate agents as reverently as priests talking about the Sistine Chapel.

Up the main steps, lined with pewter pots of exquisitely cultivated topiary. The door swinging open, a tiny dark-skinned woman in white shirt and black trousers bobbing her head in acknowledgement of Petal’s identity and gesturing with swift, imperative flicks of her hand across the light-flooded atrium, paved in Siberian rose malachite, to the living room beyond.

Sri Lankan, Petal thought as she went past the maid. I remember Jinhee saying she was staffing all their houses with Sri Lankans because they’re cheap and work hard and don’t take up much room.

Walking across the wide hall, past the huge painting of Gold’s villa in Tuscany, its vineyards and olive groves stretching away in perfect pale green lines to either side of the sprawling stone building. Into the white, white living room: white leather-tiled floor, white velvet wraparound sofas, white lilies in five-foot-high glass vases, a six-fold Japanese screen depicting a snowscape hung on the wall overlooking the garden beyond.

The sliding glass doors of the living room were wide open, and Petal could see her father in the garden beyond. As always at this time of day, he was ducked over, a small rake in hand, wearing a short natural linen robe and loose trousers, sculpting the gravel of his Zen garden into perfect waves to represent the ocean swirling around the rocks and moss that symbolized islands and forests. After meeting Jinhee and deciding to give up his hard-partying life, Gold had studied with the monks at a Kyoto temple for over a month to learn the art of
Karesansui
– raking sand and gravel into even and balanced ridges.

Of course, Gold had summoned her imperiously, and she’d had to rush over straight away. And of course, Petal had to wait another twenty minutes until he had set down his rake, taken up his shears and clipped near-invisible adjustments to the bonsai trees, and turned to survey the rest of the garden – the covered swimming pool surrounded by climbing roses (white, naturally, on black trellises), the dark granite water features blending beautifully into the ivy-covered walls – before coming back inside.

One of the many reasons Jinhee had survived this long as Gold’s official girlfriend was her ability to anticipate his needs. Almost at the moment Gold stepped over the threshold of the living room, Jinhee appeared from the atrium. Small, her hips square, her chest flat, wearing black crepe trousers and a long-sleeved black T-shirt, Jinhee was carrying a black-lacquered tray laden with a stone teapot and three handleless cups. She crossed the room, soundless in her soft black suede slippers, and set the tray down on a table that was a solid cube of glass, motioning Petal to sit down on another cube – white suede – while she and Gold took the sofa opposite.

Typical, Petal thought sourly, as she obeyed. I hate these pouffe things. Now I’ll be wriggling around the whole time and Gold’ll be cross with me. Jinhee always manages to put me in the wrong.

Petal had never got on that well with any of Gold’s previous girls. But they’d been like her mother Linda: fluffy glamourpusses with more boobs than brains. Jinhee was their polar opposite, smart and manipulative, and it seemed to Petal that she took pleasure in outmanoeuvring Petal and making her look silly.

‘So, Petal,’ Gold said quietly. ‘We have things to talk about.’

He reached down with his left hand into the chrome magazine rack next to the sofa, and pulled out a stack of newspapers, which he fanned out on the glass coffee table. It was one smooth gesture, theatrical and completely unnecessary, done with the showmanship that had made Gold the star he was. But what was incredibly effective when staging a six-month-long world tour was vastly annoying when done by your own father.

Petal met Gold’s eyes for the first time that morning. It was like an electrical shock, even for her. Gold’s charisma was a finely honed rapier, a weapon that after nearly fifty years he knew exactly how to wield. His face, though not handsome, was very striking, his intensely blue eyes bright and clear against his lightly tanned skin. Decades of performing, first as the lead singer of his band, then as a solo artist, had given him the ability to draw all the attention towards him, and his daily yoga sessions reinforced his physical confidence.

He held Petal’s gaze for a few seconds, long enough to establish control. Then he nodded downwards, leading her eyes towards the covers of the tabloid newspapers.

A faint gasp emerged from Petal’s lips. She’d thought it would be just the usual: that she’d been drunk last night, tumbling out of a black cab with Dan, her skirt riding up to her crotch –
no
. She glanced down for a split second.
I’m still in the jeans I put on yesterday evening.

And the photos in front of her hadn’t been taken last night, but ten days ago, more or less. Petal recognized them straight away: the black walls, the bottle of Absolut Pear on the chipped sink, JC reflected in the mirror, laughing, as Petal, in the foreground, bent over the lines chopped out on the edge of the sink, holding a rolled-up note to her nostrils. A white smudge blurred part of the frame: the camera flash, bounced back off the mirror, concealing the person who was holding it.

Rudy
.
Rudy was taking pictures on his phone.

JC dumped Rudy last night. And Rudy turned right round and sold the photos of me and JC taking coke to the tabloids.

Bastard.

And then she thought frantically: Oh,
no
. . . Dan was there that night . . .

She grabbed at the papers, fanning them out further. As she feared, the next one had her and Dan together, Dan with the bottle of vodka upended to his mouth, Petal reaching for it, a small white lump clearly visible in her nose as she looked up at him, laughing.

‘I was set up,’ Petal said quickly. ‘The guy who took the photos, he was a boyfriend of a friend of mine, he must have planned this all out—’

But her father was already raising one silver-ringed hand to stop her. His linen shirt fell back, revealing the Sanskrit tattoo around his wrist.

‘There’s no way you can explain this away, Petal,’ Gold said, ‘so please don’t insult my intelligence.’

‘Do you know how bad this makes your father look?’ Jinhee asked, reaching forward to pour out the tea. ‘His latest album is a reworking of Gregorian chants! We have a Channel 4 documentary coming out next month where he visits monasteries and leads guided meditation sessions. This is
not
a good time for you to be acting out some childish rebellion with deliberately provocative behaviour.’

Gold nodded sombrely as Jinhee handed him the cup. Petal narrowed her eyes in anger at Jinhee; ever since Jinhee had come into his life, Petal had realized that the model/actress wannabes he’d dated previously were infinitely preferable to this one. The other girlfriends might have been so petrifyingly beautiful that they took your breath away, but at least they hadn’t lectured Petal while her father nodded in agreement.

I was such an idiot, Petal thought. I thought that she wouldn’t last two seconds with Gold, because she wasn’t pretty enough for him.

It was the mistake that Gold’s Russian supermodel girlfriend, Ekaterina, had made a few years ago, when she booked them a series of tantric sex lessons, thinking it would bring them closer than Gold had ever been to another woman. Instead, Jinhee, the tantric sex guru, had cut Ekaterina out of Gold’s life in a mere couple of months, effortlessly moving in on her target. In that time, she had managed to install herself in the Primrose Hill mansion, making it clear to Gold’s party animal friends that they were no longer welcome, while cleverly establishing herself with Gold’s manager and publicists as exactly what he needed to revamp his image; no longer was he dating a stream of girls half his age, but settling down with a woman whose austere appearance and stabilizing influence was the perfect way to consolidate him as the serious musician he aspired to be.

She’s cleverer than all the others; Jinhee doesn’t want to be his queen. She’s worked out that the real power is behind the throne, Petal thought sourly.

Jinhee continued: ‘If you had done this deliberately, to mess up your father’s latest project, you couldn’t have managed better! Luckily for you, however, we have discussed this and decided that we see this as a subconscious acting out of your aggressive urges rather than a direct attack on your father.’

Petal knew she should bite her tongue and take her medicine. But every time she saw Gold – always, now, with Jinhee – it got worse and worse. More lectures, more pop-psychology nonsense from a woman who barely knew her. It was unbearable.

‘You’re having a laugh, right? All I did was what I learned in this house!’ Petal snapped back at Jinhee, irritated beyond endurance. ‘I know I shouldn’t have let anyone take photos, OK? But when I was growing up, there were
bowls
of coke lying round the place!
Much
more partying than I’ve ever done! Like,
orgies
, all sorts of things!’ She looked passionately at her father. ‘Gold, you know it’s true! It’s
totally
not fair to sit here and have her lecture me, like a shrink! I’m not doing
anything
I haven’t seen you do!’

Gold nodded gravely, his left hand coming up to trace a symbolic gesture over his chest which Petal didn’t recognize.

‘It’s certainly true that I lived a rock-star life for years,’ he agreed. ‘But remember, Petal, all that time, I was producing art. Making albums. Doing tours.’

‘
Award-winning
albums,’ Jinhee chimed in. ‘
Sell-out
tours.’

Petal tensed, sensing what was coming. To fend it off, she said quickly, ‘Well, I have a whole range of stuff I’m designing coming out with Accessorize!
And
there’s my column, and Rimmel are going to name a lipstick after me . . .’

Right . . . she thought sadly. Even if that was all true, Accessorize and Rimmel won’t want anything to do with me as soon as their PRs see these photos. No big company’s going to want to be associated with a druggie. I just messed up every single pathetic little career prospect I have.

‘I don’t see any moral seriousness in that,’ Jinhee observed, looking at Gold. ‘Do you?’

It was clearly a rhetorical question. He shook his head.

‘Not like
your
work, Gold. Which, as I’ve pointed out many times,
always
had a fundamental core of moral seriousness,’ she informed him.

Gold lit up with pleasure, his eyes sparkling aquamarine, his shoulders drawing back to sit up even straighter.

Wow, Petal thought. She knows exactly the right thing to say to him. All the right buttons to press.

‘You’re clearly on the wrong track, Petal,’ Gold said piously. ‘I feel it’s my obligation to step in at this point and redirect you to a better course. Tough love, it’s called. I’ve neglected you over the years. I admit that. But with the course of meditation Jinhee and I have been doing, I’ve realized I need to work on that. We’ve talked it over –’ he glanced at Jinhee – ‘and we’ve decided that it’s time I put my foot down.’

It was more than Petal could bear. She jumped to her feet, knocking against the glass cube in front of her, the white suede pouffe sliding back on the leather tiles, catching, and tipping over with the force of her surge.

‘
We?
I can’t
believe
this!’ she exclaimed passionately. ‘You’ve only been with her a few years – you’re not even
married
!’

This was a direct hit on Jinhee, whose eyes narrowed menacingly. Jinhee was wise enough not to look over at Gold, but her whole body tightened with resentment.

‘And, Gold, when you were my age I bet you were doing much, much worse stuff than just some lines of coke with friends!’ Petal insisted. ‘This is
so
hypocritical! And how dare she sit there and tell me I’m not being “morally serious” enough, when she practically has sex with people for money—’

‘That is
not
what tantric sex is about at
all
,’ Jinhee snapped angrily.

‘I mean, that’s how you two
met
! I’m not going to stand here and be lectured by you about how I’m behaving!’ Petal said to her father furiously. ‘Just because it’s trendy now to be all yoga-macrobiotic-meditation! I know
you
weren’t like that when you were twenty – or thirty, or forty, for fuck’s sake!’

Direct hit on Gold now, who flinched; at nearly fifty, he liked to think he could pass for at least ten years younger, and hated any reference to his age.

‘Your father wants to stop you making the same mistakes he made,’ Jinhee said icily. ‘That’s what good parents do.’

‘And I was earning my own money when I was twenty, unlike you!’ Gold snapped at his daughter, real feeling breaking through his poised façade for the first time that morning. ‘I was already world-famous! It was my own bloody money I was throwing away! I’d like to know how much you’re pulling in from one sodding Accessorize contract! You’re pissing away your opportunities because you’re too out of it to see what’s in front of your face! Two of Mick’s kids have modelling gigs – Ozzy’s kids have their own TV shows – you could be doing all sorts of telly work if you got your act together! I could be proud of that! I worked hard for everything I have!’ He pounded his fist on the sofa. ‘And I don’t want my daughter to be so spoiled she can’t do an honest day’s work! You’re just fucking some wannabe rock star and getting in the papers for all the wrong reasons!’

Direct hit on Petal. She froze, her heart sinking: her father had just articulated exactly what the voice inside her head told her maliciously at five in the morning, when the drink and the drugs from the night before woke her up to preach at her, nagging away inside her skull, forcing her to pull herself painfully to her feet and rummage in the bathroom cabinets for a Zimovane and fall back into bed, an eye mask donned to block out the eventual daylight.