Erotic Amusements (14 page)

“Thank you. Give it to me, then.” He motioned with his hand, indicating that he expected her to come away from the door and closer to him. Reluctantly she took a few steps in his direction and put the clipboard in his hands. “Any problems?” he asked.

“No, all fine. Well, I’ll get off, then.” She was turning, heading away from his influence, out of the danger zone.

“Have you forgotten, Flipp?” He halted her with a gentle admonition.

“Forgotten?”

“I promised you dinner. I’m a man of my word.”

“Oh…yeah. It’s okay. You don’t have to?”

“I want to. Take a seat.”

“I was going to meet friends?”

“No you weren’t.”

Crouched forward in the chair, knees primed for flight, Flipp looked up sharply. He was calling her a liar, wasn’t he? And in such a way that she couldn’t possibly refute it without starting an argument. Something told her that arguing with Cordwainer was the original definition of time wasting. She braced her hands on her upper legs, looking down at her fingers splayed across the double layer of fishnet and holey nylon tights.

“I don’t know why you think I’m lying,” she said eventually, aiming to keep as much belligerence out of her tone as possible.

“No, neither do I. Why would I think that, Flipp?”

One quick look in the abyss of menace that lay behind his eyes was enough for Flipp. Rocky was right. Cordwainer was dangerous. She really shouldn’t be here. He could make mincemeat of her, and she would have no defence at all. His comment made her wonder instantly if he knew something about her, but she thought on the whole that he was simply assuming she had secrets. Correctly, of course, but he couldn’t know that for sure.

“No idea. Are you unhappy with my work?”

“Not at all.” He picked up the phone from his desk. “So. What’s it to be? Pizza? Chinese?”

“Oh, we’re eating
here
.”

“Why not? Oh, I’m sorry to disappoint you, Flipp. You wanted me to take you to dinner, somewhere extravagant, did you? A date?”

“No. Of course not. Just thought…y’know, the Balti House or a pub or somewhere like that…”
Somewhere public
.

“You aren’t really dressed for a date,” he said contemplatively, looking at her teeny-tiny miniskirt and layers of faded vest tops. “Though I must say, just once, I’d like to see you properly dressed. I imagine you’d scrub up well.”

The cold, familiar knot of panic began to ravel in her stomach. This was bad, very bad. She had to keep her head. “I don’t do posh,” she said. “Not my style.”

“Oh, I don’t know. Chinese, then? What do you like? Chicken chow mein? Beef in black bean sauce?”

“I’m a vegetarian.”

“Of course you are. Vegetable stir-fry then?”

“I don’t really like vegetables, though.”

Cordwainer laughed. “Your skin is peachy now, but that won’t last if you don’t look after yourself.”

Wow, thanks, Nadine Baggott.

“I’ll have mushroom fried rice, if that’s okay.”

“Absolutely. Mushroom fried rice it is.” He dialled a number quickly and gave his order, watching Flipp like a hawk throughout the conversation.

“Champagne?” he asked, opening a small fridge at the back of the room.

“Oh, what are we celebrating?” asked Flipp, bemused, as he took fluted glasses from a low drawer and began to work on the cork.

“Life,” he said obliquely. “Life and fruitful working relationships.” The cork popped and the golden bubbles fizzed and frothed into the glasses. “Can you drink to that?”

“Yeah. Life and, um, fruitful working relationships.”

Cordwainer clinked her glass and returned to his chair on the other side of the desk.

“If you were mine,” said Cordwainer, suddenly and portentously, “I’d do something about your eating habits.”

Flipp was almost frozen with alarm at the first four words of this sentence, but she managed to reply with what she hoped was a distraction. “Do you have daughters, then?”

“Daughters?” he asked, as if not following her line of reasoning. “No.”

“No children?”

“None.”

“By choice?”

“Never mind my family, what about you? Do you have near and dear ones?”

Damn, I’ve just talked myself into deeper trouble.

“No,” she said flatly. “They’re all dead.”

Cordwainer’s eyes widened, his amber eyes on alert. “Really? All of them? How very unfortunate.” Flipp could see he wanted a reaction, so she gave him a grudging shrug and tried to look sad. “You poor thing. You know, it’s a very odd coincidence, but nearly every person who comes to me looking for work is an orphan. Don’t you think that’s strange? I mean, what’s the statistical likelihood of so many young orphans gravitating to me?”

Flipp was expected to reply again, but she simply bit her lip and looked down at those big fishnetty holes.

“Do they see me as a father figure, d’you think? Do you? Do you see me as a father figure?”

“No. Nothing like that. I see you as my employer.”

“You see me as your master?”

Flipp hid her face in her champagne glass, trying hard not to let the stem wobble in her fingers.

“Well, you pay me,” she said, exasperated. “I see you as the person who pays me.”

“Ah, just a cash register. I am wounded.”

There was a knock on the door and he went downstairs to collect the takeaway. During his brief absence, Flipp contemplated many rash courses of action. Could she jump out of a window? Could she hide among the arcade games until he left? Could she lock herself in the loo? Could she feign a heart attack? None of them had the simple elegance she needed from a plan, though, so she was forced to wait until he came back with the foil cartons and thin plastic bags that signified takeaway food.

Dinner plated up and ready to eat, he took two pairs of chopsticks from that well-equipped lower drawer and passed one to Flipp.

“Are you sure?” she said, with a snort of panicky amusement. “Mine’s rice, remember.”

“I think you could manage. Give it a try. Go on. You’re a game girl, aren’t you? I think you are.”

“What makes you think that? What makes you think anything about me? You don’t know me.”

“I know enough.”

“Enough? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’ve seen you. I’ve spoken to you. I’ve seen you deal with customers. And your presentation speaks volumes.”

“My presentation?”

“Little Miss Alternative. Fancies herself as a bit of a rebel, bit of a misfit. Would die if anybody called her conventional or traditional. I think you like to live life on the wild side, don’t you, Flipp? I think you’re an open person. Open-minded and open to new experiences. Am I very wrong?”

“So if you know so much about me,” Flipp said, trying and failing to secure a mushroom in her chopsticks, “what else do you know?”

He sat back, heedless of his beef with water chestnuts, and clasped his hands behind his head. “You tell me.”

“What, read your mind?”

“No, I suppose that’s an unreasonable thing to expect. But tell me about yourself.”

“Not much to tell. My parents died when I was little. I grew up in a children’s home. Left school, couldn’t find work, couldn’t find a decent place to live. Squatted for a bit. Heard that there was seasonal work in Goldsands, so I decided to check it out.”

“Oh, Flipp, you’re a drifter, a dreamer. Such a lonely girl. You needn’t be alone, you know. But I suppose you have a boyfriend?”

“I told you earlier, there’s no one.”

“But there has been? In the past? You aren’t a virgin, I take it.”

“I don’t think you’re allowed to ask me that,” she said bravely. “I think that’s known as sexual harassment.”

Cordwainer laughed for a long time. Flipp threw down her chopsticks in defeat and alarm.

“Oh, Flipp, Flipp,” he said. “Sweet little Flipp. Are you going to take me to a tribunal? Are you going to inform your union rep? Or perhaps the police? Somehow, I don’t think so.” And now his face was set and grim, and Flipp knew he was coming to the real bones of the matter, the whole purpose of hiring her. “Suppose I decide to ask you for references? Suppose I ask you for the name of your school and your children’s home so I can ask their opinion of your trustworthiness and intelligence? I’m well within my rights as your employer to demand you give them to me.”

“I…would rather not…Look, I don’t feel well. I think I’m going to be sick. I need to go home.”

“You can’t run away, Flipp. You don’t have anywhere to go. You need this job to pay your rent.”

“I need to get out. Please let me go home.” Flipp was on her feet now, leaping for the door.

“Flipp,” he was saying, all friendly again, all concerned and paternal. “Don’t be afraid. I don’t mean you any harm. I want to take care of you. Let me help you.”

“I have to go,” she almost screamed, bolting down the stairs and towards the side exit of the arcade, mercifully still open for the takeaway man.

“You can’t run,” she heard him shout after her. “You’ll be back. I’ll be waiting for you, Flipp.”

From the pier steps, she called Rocky. It took him a while to pick up and, when he did, there was shouting and loud music in the background.

“Where are you?” they said simultaneously, Rocky getting his repeat question in first.

“I’m on the pier steps. Rocky, I’m sorry, you were right, I should have listened to you.” She couldn’t hold back the tears and had to listen to his voice through her high, hysterical sobs.

“Meet me at the bus shelter by the statue of Queen Victoria. I’ll take you home.”

Home? I have no home.

But she didn’t say it. She ran all the way to the end of the pier, past the darkened curves of the roller coaster and the shuttered-up chip and candy-floss booths, towards Rocky, towards the only home she knew.

She crouched down behind a low flowerbed wall, expecting to hear the roar of his engine, but he arrived on foot, running across the quiet road, eerily free of its messy sunburned daytime crowds and chock-a-block touring coaches.

“Flipp?” She peered over her self-created parapet, only reassured by the unmistakable sound of his voice. “Come on. Back to mine. It’s not far.”

He helped her up and hustled her along the seafront as quickly as he could, seemingly desperate not to be seen, keeping to the shadows until they reached the facade of what must once have been a luxury hotel, now converted to flats. The once proud white stone steps were now sticky with spat-out gum and cigarette butts, and the paint on the rails was peeling badly. Rocky ushered Flipp through the door and into a lobby that smelled of stale beer and burned carpet, towards the stairs.

“You live here?”

“Yeah.”

“I thought Cordwainer would have paid you better.” The timer switch that controlled the light ran out before they reached the top of the stairs, and they negotiated the fourth and fifth flights in darkness, the silence broken by distant dance beats and the yells of rowing couples.

“He does,” said Rocky shortly. “I spend as little as I can, though. The bike’s my only luxury. I need to put the rest away.”

“For a rainy day?”

He didn’t answer but led her along the top corridor, past doors that were covered in scratches and windows sealed up with tape, to the flat at the end.

“In,” he said shortly, pushing her over the threshold and switching on the lights. “Sit down.” He indicated a battered leather sofa in the living room cum kitchen area that constituted the largest of the dingy flat’s three rooms, shrugged off his jacket, took two cans of beer from the fridge and threw one over to Flipp. His face, as it had been since he picked her up, remained grimly set throughout.

“So do you believe me now?” he asked, sitting down beside her and opening his can.

“Yes. Yes, okay. I said so, didn’t I?” Flipp looked around at her surroundings, which somehow managed to be simultaneously sparse and chaotic. “Is this where we were going to eat?”

“I’d have cleared up a bit.”

“Good. Not that my place is much better.”

“What did he do to you? Did he touch you?”

Flipp put a hand on Rocky’s wrist. He was shaking. She looked up at him, struck with love and tenderness that surpassed her own fears.

“Rocky. No. No, he didn’t. Don’t worry.”

“Don’t worry?”
He put down the beer before he spilled it and turned to her with savage haste. “Explain that one to me then. How should I not worry when I’m involved with you?”

“You sound as if you blame me…” She faltered. “God. I’m sorry. I should leave. I never meant to drag anyone into my shit and now…”

“You can’t leave. It’s too late for that. I’m in your shit, and you’re in mine. Romantic, eh?” He chuckled mirthlessly and took another swig of the beer. “Question is, what are we going to do about it?”

“I suppose I can’t go back to the arcade now,” said Flipp. “I don’t think he knows…but he’ll try and find out.”

“He already is. He’s asked me to find out. And I don’t think I’m the only one. Some journo has been asking around town, or so I’ve heard. Don’t you think it’s time you told me what you can’t tell them? Am I important enough to you for that at least?”

“Babe, you know you are. You are important to me. Probably too important.”

He made a strange “ha” sound and said, “The sentiment’s mutual, sweetheart.”

“If I tell you…”

He looked into her eyes and shook his head in disbelief. “Flipp, you can’t think I’d sell you out. For fuck’s sake. I’m risking everything just by having you here. Don’t you understand, you silly bitch, I love you. I wish I didn’t, but, hey…” He ran a hand through his hair. Flipp wrenched the wrist down and pounced on him, surprising him into an unscheduled but searching kiss.

“I love you too,” she said urgently, releasing him but staying close, her body expressing its need for him as it burrowed against his chest. “Please stay with me.”

“Tell me.”

“It’s a long story.”

“I’ve got all night.”

So Flipp told him. And when she had finished telling him, and the hands of the clock pointed to three, and the beers were long drained, he held her close and quiet for a long, long time.

“He’ll find that out in about forty-eight hours,” he said at last. “Hell, that bent copper is probably a personal friend of his. We have to get away.”