Sheer Abandon (31 page)

“I wondered…I wondered if we could meet.” It was Kate’s unmistakable little voice, rather shakier than usual. Clearly she was nervous. “Have lunch or something, like you said.”

“Of course.” Jocasta smiled into the phone. “It would be lovely. When did you have in mind?”

“Well, Saturdays are best. Because of school.”

“I can’t do today. Next week? Where would you like to go?”

“Oh, I don’t mind really.”

“Shall we say the Bluebird? In the King’s Road? It’s really fun there, specially on Saturday.”

“I’m not sure. Is it very expensive?”

Jocasta’s heart turned over. What a baby Kate was. How could she be even thinking about—? Well, she wasn’t. Of course she wasn’t.

“Kate, this is on me. I suggested it, didn’t I? Do you know where it is? Right down the end, near World’s End.”

“I think so, yes. I’ll find it anyway.”

“Good girl. Oh, Kate—” Jocasta, don’t. Don’t do it…

“Yeah, what?”

“When’s your birthday?”

“August the fifteenth. Why do you want to know?”

“I was just thinking about your work experience, you know. OK. See you on Saturday. How’s your gran?”

“She’s fine, thanks. Bye, Jocasta.”

Jocasta put down the phone and sat staring at it for quite a long time; then very, very slowly, as if someone was physically holding her back, she called up the
Sketch
archive site on her computer and typed in August 15,1986.

Chapter 18

         Carla Giannini was one of the great tabloid fashion editors. She understood precisely what fashion meant to tabloid readers: not so much silhouettes and hem lengths and fabric and cut, but sex. She ignored the collections and the couture designers; using upmarket photographers, she had them shoot sharp trouser suits and dresses from Zara, Topshop, and Oasis, shoes from Office; jeans and knitwear from the Gap, on young, long-legged, bosomy models, who preened themselves on her pages, saucer-eyed and sexy.

Carla was herself a beauty, dark-eyed and slightly heavy-featured, in the style of a young Sophia Loren, the child of an English aristocrat mother and an Italian car mechanic father. It was, against all odds, a very happy marriage, lived against the background of industrial Milan; but at seventeen, Carla had left home and moved to London and a new life—she hoped—as a model. She established herself quite quickly as an underwear model, which she hated, but she made enough money to do an evening course and became a sought-after makeup artist. She didn’t like that much either, but she made a lot of very good contacts in the business and from there managed to move into what she realised she really wanted to do: fashion journalism. After a few years establishing herself on women’s magazines, she finally found her true home—newspapers. Chris Pollock installed her in an office at the
Sketch
on her thirty-ninth birthday.

Carla’s office was just off the newsroom, and Jocasta’s desk was nearest to it. They were not exactly friends, but they fed each other cigarettes and quite often compared their extraordinarily different problems at the end of the day in the nearest wine bar, and occasionally Carla invited Jocasta to go with her to health farms like Ragdale Hall and Champneys, whose press agents invited journalists for the weekend in the hope that they would write about them or, better still, use them in photographs.

Carla’s major problem was finding girls to photograph; she liked real girls, not quite off the street, but singers, actresses, designers, anyone with more of a story to them than their statistics and their model books. She used friends, daughters of friends, her boyfriends’ sisters, even her own sisters; she had tried to persuade Jocasta to model for her, with a complete lack of success. Jocasta said she was too old for it and that it was so much the sort of thing she hated. “And I don’t think Chris would like it.”

“Of course he would,” said Carla briskly. “You know how he loves the whole personality thing. You have such a great look, Jocasta, and for God’s sake, Elle is pushing forty, Naomi’s no spring chicken, and look at Jerry Hall!”

“I know,” said Jocasta, “but the big difference between them and me is they all really care about how they look and know how to make the most of themselves. I don’t. I mean, I can’t even remember when I last more any makeup, apart from on my eyes.”

“Yes, and that’s a story in itself,” said Carla and sighed. “Well, I’ll just keep nagging on.”

She was walking past the Bluebird Café at lunchtime one Saturday when she saw Jocasta sitting at a table, talking earnestly to one of the most beautiful young girls she had seen for a very long time.

Anna Richardson called Clio again.

“We’re off tomorrow. Look, do think about applying for that job at the Bayswater. They asked me if I’d mentioned it. They really want you.”

Clio said she would think about it. Hard. And poured herself a glass of wine to celebrate. At least somebody wanted her. And not just any old place but one of the best teaching hospitals in London. It made her feel quite different. Happier. Sleeker. Less of a disaster.

After drinking another glass of wine, she sat down at the table and starting drafting a letter.

Martha had told Paul Quenell about her new life. She felt she must. He had been surprisingly sympathetic and very interested; and far from saying she must resign, that her work for Wesley’s was sure to suffer, he told her that as long as it only encroached on her life at weekends, then it was fine by him.

“Although I suppose if you get elected, you’ll be leaving.”

“Well, yes. But I won’t be elected, I’m sure.”

“I certainly hope not,” said Paul, and then he smiled at her. “I wonder if I could sue them for enticement?”

He was a tall, stylish man, very slim, with thick grey curly hair and a rather ascetic face; his smile, which rarely came, was a minimal affair. He was forty-five years old, divorced, without children; that was the sum total of what anybody knew about his personal life.

“I don’t think so,” said Martha very seriously.

“What a waste,” he said. “If you go, I mean. But I’m full of admiration for you. Well done. I thought of going into politics myself once, you know.”

“Really? Why didn’t you?”

“Mostly because I couldn’t face the considerable loss of income. Anyway”—he walked over to the fridge set into one of the tall cupboards that lined his walls—“I think your success thus far should be celebrated. Champagne?” She was so astonished by the whole encounter that she could hardly swallow the glass of extraordinarily good Krug that he poured for her.

“No,” said Jocasta. “No, no, no, Carla. You can’t. You are not even to try to, OK?”

“But Jocasta, why not? She’s
gorgeous
. Beautiful. Please. I’ll take you to Babington House for the weekend. I’ll buy you dinner at Daphne’s. I’ll let you borrow my Chanel jacket—”

“No,” said Jocasta.

“But I’m not going to sell her into white slavery, for God’s sake. I’m just going to put some clothes on her and take some pictures. Who is she, anyway?”

“I’m not going to tell you. She’s just a girl I’ve met.”

“She seemed rather young to be a friend.”

“Don’t be so rude,” said Jocasta.

“Well, darling, it’s you who’s always going on about your wrinkles. Actually, she looked a bit like you—she could have been your younger sister.”

“Yeah, right,” said Jocasta, and then: “Funny, Sim said that as well. Oh shit.” She stared at Carla and prayed she hadn’t taken in what she had said. Her prayers were not answered.

“Sim? Sim Jenkins the staff photographer? Jocasta, has this girl got anything to do with that story about the old woman on the hospital trolley? She’s not the granddaughter, is she?”

“No,” said Jocasta firmly.

“I’m sure she is.” Carla’s vast brown eyes were amused.

“Yes, all right, she is. But her parents are very protective of her, they didn’t want her even in that shot, and anyway, she’s not sixteen yet.”

“Why are they so against it?”

“I suppose they mistrust newspapers. Quite right too. He’s a teacher and she’s a full-time mum, they’re real innocents abroad. So you are not to do anything, Carla. Absolutely not to. We’re talking important things like people’s lives here. Not just some cruddy fashion pages.”

“I don’t do cruddy pages,” said Carla with dignity.

“Anyway, I must go,” said Jocasta, standing up, pulling her tape recorder out of her drawer. “I’ve got to interview this girl—woman—I used to know. Well, I didn’t know her really; I travelled with her for a few days when we were eighteen.”

She was feeling edgy, nervous; she told herself it was because this interview was important, but she knew it was nothing of the sort. Gideon Keeble had phoned her that morning, asked her if she would like to take him up on his invitation to stay with him in Ireland.

“I’m here for a few days and my doctor has told me to rest.”

“Gideon, you’re not ill, are you?”

“No, no, just a little tired. Now I’m not compromising you, of course. It’s the pair of you I’m after, you and your lovely boyfriend.”

“You sound much more Irish than usual,” she said laughing. “Is that how you talk when you’re over there?”

“Maybe. What do you say? Could you consider it, even? Just a few days, around this weekend.”

Jocasta considered it. The very idea of spending any time at all in Ireland, under the same roof as Gideon Keeble, excited her. That he wanted to spend time with her—and Nick, of course—was amazingly flattering. And she did find Gideon horribly attractive. It wasn’t just the aura that all powerful men trail around with them—when he looked at her, with those amazing blue eyes of his, she wanted to get into bed with him. At once. Without further ado. And she was sure he recognised it.

God, she wanted to go, wanted to say yes. But Nick was away. For the weekend. So what should she do? And more important, what should she say?

“Nick’s away for the weekend,” she said. Leaving it up to him.

“Then,” he said, and she could feel him refusing to do it for her, “Jocasta, it is entirely up to you. But I would love to see you.”

And knowing with absolute certainty that if she went, she would never see Nick again, and summoning up every shred of willpower (weakened considerably by the image of Gideon, the sound of his voice), she said, very quickly and before she could change her mind, that she thought it would be better not.

“A pity,” he said. “But you know, I have to tell you, Jocasta, that I am encouraged by your refusal.”

“Why?” she said laughing.

“Well, if you had said you would come, I would have assumed you saw me as a nice old gentleman who would not disturb your relationship or trouble you in any way. And I think we both suspect that is not the case. Goodbye, Jocasta. Thank you for considering it.”