The Further Adventures of a London Call Girl (27 page)

He drives us to Wiltshire, where he’s booked a room at an adorable B&B for the night. We fall straight into bed, with the alarm set for four hours’ time; when it rings we rise, shower, have a quick fuck, then dress for the wedding. I’m wearing a peacock silk halter dress, the loaner from L, with gold sandals; he looks nice in his dinner jacket, if still a touch tired.

I touch his chin. ‘Now now, let’s have a good time.’

And the wedding is, in its way. There is much drinking of Pimm’s and walking around gardens and making conversation with aged aunties. After the meal, we dance to ‘God Only Knows’ and I realise it’s the first time we’ve ever danced slow together. There’s a dark-haired man who’s been making eyes at me the entire time, but I ignore him. Only … ?

Do I recognise him?

From work?

Ah, shite. Everyone always talked about what to do if something like this happened – I think Angel always secretly hoped it would – but I never honestly thought I’d run into an ex-client outside the confines of a hotel room.

The bride has thoughtfully booked a club in town for the younger guests after the formal affair breaks up. We go along in a taxi, and I am sitting across from the man who’s been watching me all night, trying to remember who the hell he is. Was it one of my last appointments, the one who gave me his business card, the nice one who reminded me of the ex who haunts me? Ah yes, that’s it. Now what was his name again, and do I let on? If so, how?

At the club the Boy is in his element – he’s been drinking all day and needs little excuse to dance like a loon. He picks the bride up by her hips, parading her around the room on his shoulders; then he attacks the groom and does the same to him. Everyone laughs at his antics, and for once I don’t mind. They all know he’s here with me and I’m sort of proud.

The Boy lurches off to the toilet and his place is quickly taken by a tall Asian man who is far more sober than I am and also a clearly superior dancer. ‘You should go find someone worthy of your moves,’ I joke.

‘Oh, but I have,’ he says, and swoops down to make a move.

A hand comes out of nowhere and bats him away – it’s the other man, the one who’s been looking at me. With an arm protectively round my waist, he guides me away and we start to dance. ‘I’d be careful if I were you,’ he says. ‘You’re being watched by more than a few people here.’

‘Not in a bad way, I hope.’

‘Not at all.’

I’m drunk enough to cut to the chase. ‘Your name wouldn’t happen to be Malcolm, would it?’ I say, and smile in a friendly way.

‘Jonty.’

Ah, I was wrong about spotting an ex-client, then. It happens. ‘Oh, okay. I just thought maybe we recognised each other. My mistake, then.’

‘Would it be a good thing if I was this … Malcolm?’

‘Probably a bit of yes and a bit of no. Slightly more yes than no, if I was here on my own.’

‘Then that really is a pity.’

The Boy had come back from the toilet and was watching us dance, arms folded in that particular way I despise. Jonty handed me over, but not before leaning close to my ear and saying, ‘I would recognise you anywhere.’

And that was that, until we left. The Boy ran off to lift various members of the wedding party off the ground, leaving me to flag down a taxi to take us back to the B&B . Jonty came up behind me and, hands on my hips, turned me round and planted a not-so-innocent kiss on me. Not over the line, but just under it. ‘So what are you doing with him?’ he asked, indicating my man. ‘He’s such a Boy Scout.’

Maybe so, relatively speaking. ‘I like Boy Scouts,’ I said. Saves me from myself sometimes.

mardi, le 12 juillet

Things you should never do on your first day of work.

1 Wear fishnets. Particularly if you’re the only woman in the office. But my only other pair of stockings, which I’d worn to the wedding, had a ladder and there was no time for a side trip on the way to the office.

2 Spend the entire day on the phone, giving your boyfriend directions to the new house so he can start moving in.

3 Squeal and kiss your boss on seeing him. ‘Ohmigod! Giles! It’s been too long!’ Wait five minutes, at least. Especially if he has potential clients with him, meeting ‘the core team’.

4 When the person overseeing your introduction to the new computing system asks if you have any questions, do not make it ‘Where’s the nearest place to buy chocolate?’

5 Have argument on phone in front of entire office with said boyfriend, who is clearly feeble of mind if he does not understand left, then left, then through two mini-roundabouts, then right and it’s on the right.

6 Have a hangover, though to be honest I’m not certain, given all of the above, that anyone particularly noticed. Apart from Giles, who just left a bottle of water and two Nurofen on the corner of my desk.

mercredi, le 13 juillet

I couldn’t help it, I had to look. Even though I’d promised myself I wouldn’t. Be careful, a voice in the back of my head warned. That way madness lies. What’s done is done, let the past stay where it belongs.

But in the end I was unable to resist. The internet is too seductive. It’s too easy to keep tabs on other people.

The site was just like I remembered. I clicked through the pages until I found what I was looking for. I narrowed my eyes. Fucking typical, I thought. I should have known. After all these months nothing’s changed.

My profile was still up on the agency website.

I looked closer … Those weren’t my photos! I read the description again, the summary I had sweated over my first week with the agency, working and reworking the words, hoping not to sound too amateurish, too desperate. Friendly and petite Northerner, enjoys long conversations and longer nights in … That was definitely the profile I’d written. And that was certainly my working name – and as far as I knew, there wasn’t another escort in the city with the same name (I’d called myself after Mum’s favourite childhood cat). But those photos were definitely not me.

Someone else was playing me now, had taken on my persona. I had to smile and shake my head. What else had I expected? Maybe one or two old clients got confused, ordered up someone they thought was me … but the business has a short memory. I’m sure they’ve all but forgotten me now.

Later, I was clearing space in the back room – it’s terribly damp, and the Boy is frightened that all the work in his portfolios might go mouldy – when I knocked over a box of his things.

By ‘knocked over’, of course, I mean ‘went snooping through’ and by ‘his things’, obviously, I mean ‘old letters and cards’.

Right on the top was a card; I didn’t recognise the handwriting. I opened it. It was from the wife of a friend of his: thanking him and Susie for attending their wedding.

It hit me like a body blow. I remembered that night; I was still living in London then. How he’d rung me, drunk, and asked why all of his friends were marrying, and why weren’t we? So he’d been there with Susie all along.

‘It doesn’t matter now,’ I said aloud to the empty room, carefully replacing the box.

But I don’t know who I was trying to convince.

jeudi, le 14 juillet

‘It was as if everyone thought I’d really died. The phone wouldn’t stop ringing,’ Mum said. ‘People I hadn’t heard from in years. It was like seeing my own funeral.’

The sound of her voice comforted me. ‘I knew it wasn’t you – it’s not that uncommon a name – but you never know.’ I didn’t go on and on, it seemed selfish, but it shook me. Not just the bombings – seeing footage from the investigations of the bombers themselves, the images of narrow terraced houses up North, the sort I knew so well.

‘Honey, when was the last time I was in London?’ she laughed. ‘At any rate, it gave me a good opportunity to tell everyone the news.’

‘What news is that?’

She lowered her voice conspiratorially. ‘He proposed.’

‘Oh, Mum, he didn’t! Have you told Daddy?’

‘I’m not going to go through with it, don’t worry. I’ve been there before, it’s not fair to have a second go. Especially when you girls are still on the shelf! But you should see the ring – it’s gorgeous.’

I sighed. The more things stay the same, the more they change.

vendredi, le 15 juillet

The Boy came home in a rubbish mood and I can’t say I was feeling up for fun and games, either. I hadn’t had any lunch and was halfway through an apple when he arrived. He suggested we take a walk and I reluctantly agreed. That was when he started talking about trust, and long-term plans, and wondering what he was going to do with the rest of his life.

I sort of lost it. ‘Excuse me for wondering why you weren’t trying harder to figure this out when you were screwing Georgie over the summer,’ I grumbled.

‘Why do I suspect whenever we talk, you’re going to bring up things like that?’ he said acidly.

‘Oh, you and your double standard can fuck right off,’ I shouted. ‘Every time you look at me I can almost hear you thinking, Why am I with a whore? Why didn’t I end up with Susie or Jo or whoever?’ He crossed his arms, something that always sets me off – it’s usually the first sign that he’s about to start telling me what a terrible person I am, how he tolerates me, and so on. And I wasn’t in the mood. So I stopped yelling and started crying.

I felt a right twat for crying. He walked away quickly, and when his back was turned I looked down at my hand. The apple.

Well, fuck that, I thought. Fuck that every time I lose my temper it means he doesn’t have to apologise.

Fuck the lies. The playing at being an adult. No one who wears short pants into his thirties should be telling me how to run my life.

Fuck the shifting ground, constantly trying to live up to a changing standard of what he wants from me and when. What was it L said? That I was the best he would do? She was right. It was time for me to stop crying and start being the one in charge.

I chucked the apple at a wall. It exploded with a satisfying smack.

samedi, le 16 juillet

The Boy arrived home early, but I had come home earlier and was already cooking. He went straight in to watch telly and we didn’t exchange a word. I served up the meal and we ate in silence.

‘House rules,’ I said as we finished eating. ‘I’m doing all the cooking, so you’re doing all the washing up.’

‘Okay.’

‘No more leaving the house to make your phone calls.’

‘Yes.’

‘I don’t care how many days your job keeps you away, you’re paying half the rent and bills. And I’m not having your name on the lease.’

‘Okay.’

‘And you’re to ring me from work every day. And if I get even the faintest whiff of funny business, you know you’re out on your arse, right?’

‘I know.’

I waited while he cleared the table. It was easier than I had thought. Was there something else I should demand? I wondered. Was he still playing away, hoping to get off with someone else on the side? Would I come home one day to catch him having sex with someone else again – but this time in my bed?

He came past my chair and kissed the top of my head. ‘I hate when you go all quiet,’ he said softly. ‘It’s worse than you yelling.’

There are no guarantees. Faith is based on belief, not evidence. And only faith keeps people together. I didn’t have to make a decision now.

Later, curled up in bed, his face in my hair, me pretending to be asleep, he whispered, ‘I hope someday you’ll know I never lied,’ but that could pass without comment, I decided.

dimanche, le 17 juillet

‘Daddy, I have to go, someone’s at the door,’ I said. ‘Yes, yes, love you, too, byeeee.’ I opened the door to a woman about my own age. ‘Hello. I don’t think we’ve met yet. I’m Christine, your downstairs neighbour,’ she said.

I smiled and shook her hand. ‘I think we have met, actually, but only for a moment. My best friend used to live here.’

‘Ah!’ she said. ‘I thought you looked familiar.’

‘You too.’

‘I hate to come over and start complaining, but …’ She looked down at my shoes. ‘This is a little embarrassing. In fact, I’m glad it’s you who answered the door.’

‘Really? Why?’

‘I hate to ask, but, um, could you ask your boyfriend to be a little more quiet when … you know …’

‘He’s quite a big fellow, he does make a lot of noise walking around,’ I agreed. ‘I’ll ask him to take off his shoes in the house.’

‘Oh, no, it’s not that,’ Christine said. ‘It’s, you know …’

‘No, I’m sorry?’

‘Late at night. Could you ask him to be … a little more quiet … I mean, our bedroom is just below yours and when you two are, you know …’

‘Say no more,’ I laughed. ‘He is a bit of a screamer, isn’t he?’

lundi, le 18 juillet

I do love a beer. Source of amusement and – if the books are to be believed – one of the six beverages to change the world. Proof, as they say, that God loves us and wants us to be happy.

But if you can’t judge a book by its cover, by what can you? Its beer, naturally. I’m not talking about books here. I’m talking about men.

There are exceptions to every rule, but the shakedown is as follows in the pub setting.

Staropramen drinker:
likely to spend most of the evening texting some other girl.

Stella drinker:
likely to spend most of the evening pretending to text some other girl.

Budweiser drinker:
likely to spend most of the evening showing you porn on his camera phone in a bid to impress you. Has never had a text from a girl.

Real Ale drinker, bearded:
someone’s divorced Uncle Tim.

Real Ale drinker, semibearded (facial topiary):
secretly despises the taste, feels he ‘ought’ to drink it. Real Ale drinker, unbearded: socially inept computing student.

Guinness drinker, Irish:
will break your heart.

Guinness drinker, non-Irish:
nursing broken heart.

Guinness drinker, American:
lost in Hertfordshire.

London Pride drinker:
not from London.

Trappist brew drinker, under 50:
fussy type with an excess of both spare time and self-regard.