The Further Adventures of a London Call Girl (6 page)

‘I can think of one advantage, though … the second hand is already in.’

‘Oh, very punny.’

mardi, le 19 octobre

Manager rang early – emergency call at lunchtime. ‘But I’ll be at work,’ I wailed. In fact, I was already late. ‘I can’t sneak off for the sake of a client.’

‘Do you not even take lunch?’ she asked. ‘In, out, done. You will hardly interrupt your busy schedule.’

‘No. Absolutely not. Ring him and cancel.’ And yet, I thought, I probably could do it. Just. And until the first pay cheque came through, the money would certainly come in handy.

‘Can’t do eet, darling,’ she sighed. ‘He’ll be in meetings all morning.’

‘Send someone else.’

‘You know I have no one else like you.’ No one else who can be guilted into extra work at such short notice, that is. Why on earth was I still doing this? I knew the risk was high – someone might intercept a phone call, spot me going to or from an appointment, or, worse, discover my online profile with the escort agency – but I have a genetic inability to say no.

‘No.’ Well, maybe not.

‘Darling, he’s paying double. It’s only a leeeetle thing. I promise it absolutely, positively won’t happen again.’

I sighed. I’d argue her down another day. I had the bag tucked safely under my desk, and no one else comes back from lunch on time, anyway. I changed in the ladies’ and stashed the bag in a maintenance closet. Was walking out the door to meet my car when I passed a co-worker.

My supervisor Giles. Shit.

His head didn’t turn – must not have recognised me.

Thank fuck for small mercies.

mercredi, le 20 octobre

We walk down to the Italian. The waiter nods at us and brings the drinks straight away. We order without opening the menus. ‘Sure you don’t want anything else?’ N asks. ‘Go ahead. My treat.’

‘Aren’t you the gentleman,’ I smile. ‘What’s the occasion?’

N looks at his hands. ‘I wanted you to be first to know … I’ve met someone.’

‘Wow, I …’ How? When? Our eyes meet and he smiles. ‘Have you told her about me?’ I wonder if it’s the girl from the club, the one he was talking to when we left for the hotel.

‘She knows.’

‘She’s cool with that?’

‘As long as we don’t sleep together again, yes.’

‘Well. I …’ Never expected he would find someone first. ‘I’m so happy for you.’ The waiter comes back with our drinks: N’s a lemonade, mine a whisky and soda.

‘What’s wrong.’

‘Nothing.’

‘Look at me.’ I look up. ‘You’re not crying, for God’s sake, are you?’

‘Me? Never.’ I blow my nose into the heavy cloth napkin. ‘It’s just I’m so happy for you. You’re moving on. This could be the one.’

‘Statistically speaking, probably not,’ N shrugs.

‘I know the look in your eyes. This one’s not a shag. She’s different.’ He doesn’t deny it. ‘What’s her name?’

‘Henrietta.’

‘To you and Henrietta, then,’ I say.

‘No chance of a last go with you?’ N asks. ‘For old times’.’

‘I thought you said you told her we were done.’

‘Can’t blame a man for trying,’ he smiles.

jeudi, le 21 octobre

How to fuck someone and still be friends, part II

1 It’s okay to cry. As long as you happen to be watching a shamelessly romantic film at the time. Then you can tell anyone who catches you that it was Richard Curtis what did it, not the prospect of growing old alone while your friends go on to blissfully happy paired domesticity.

2 Resist urge to leap straight into a rebound relationship. Also not a good time to be thinking about visiting animal shelters.

3 Do not, under any circumstances, ring your ex. Resist temptation to replace vague shame at not even being able to hold on to a fuck buddy with acute shame of acknowledging your own desperation.

4 Find replacement activity for sex. Personally speaking, the toilet has never been so clean.

vendredi, le 22 octobre

Is there any phrase in the English language more horrifying than ‘work do’? If so, I can’t imagine it.

It’s not the prospect of seeing people I work with drunk that’s appalling – I survived university thanks to late hours at the library and a tolerance for the inebriation of my friends – it’s the other, unwritten rule of gathering out of hours among people you work with: someone will try to cop off with you.

After a meal during which I sat next to an impeccably groomed Malaysian girl whose enthusiasm for shopping was of such a level as to actually test my deep and abiding love of comparing handbags, some of the assembled (those who did not have families to return to, presumably, or could happily ignore their obligations for the evening) repaired to a co-worker’s for drinks.

It was a mistake, I can see in retrospect. By my second year of university I had already learned the cardinal rule of going out: namely, that you don’t need to. Anyone who is still around after last orders won’t care what you do the rest of the night and probably won’t remember you were there, anyway. I should have gone home.

But I felt buoyed by not having had too awful a time out. Maybe, I thought, I am capable of having social interactions with near-strangers that last longer than an hour. It was only later, when I went to retrieve my shoes from the other side of the sofa, that it all went terribly wrong.

I was bending over to buckle the ankle straps when I felt a hand on my hip. Someone scooting by to collect a coat, perhaps? Alas, no. It was a very intentional suggestive grab. I stood up and faced Giles.

His cheeks were flushed with wine and his tie was off, top button unbuttoned. Cripes, I thought. It’s like being in an episode of The Good Life. I smiled weakly. ‘You all right?’

‘Are those what I think they are?’ he asked, the hand moving round my flank slightly in the neighbourhood of the top of my stockings.

‘Afraid so,’ I said grimly. He must have noticed me leaving work for an appointment the other day, and I thought I’d got away with it – he must have figured it out. Please, please let this not be happening. I looked round quickly; luckily, the few people still there were too far in their own cups to notice us.

‘I just wanted you to know, my partner’s away for the weekend, if you …’ He seemed to lose the rest of the sentence for a moment. ‘If you wanted to share a taxi home.’ I noticed with distaste a gleam of spittle on his lower lip.

Fuck, what to do? It wasn’t that he wasn’t attractive, he was; and it wasn’t that I had anything better to do, I didn’t. But say yes – and I was not filled with the overwhelming urge to do so – and it would be only a short journey to being the office bicycle. Say no, and, well, the guy sort of had my professional balls in his hand, so to speak, didn’t he?

‘It’s not my policy to mix business with pleasure,’ I said, moving away from the offending hand.

‘Tell me, then,’ Giles said, and teetered slightly, ‘what do you mix your pleasure with?’

He straightened and I saw his half-lidded eyes roll slightly as his body swayed. I put my hand gently on his shoulder and lowered him back to a sitting position on the sofa. ‘Afraid I have other plans,’ I said. ‘Sleep well.’

‘You’re a beautiful lady, you know that?’ he said. He pursed his lips in a drunken kiss and slumped over.

samedi, le 23 octobre

I love ice cream like some people love oxygen.

It’s also ace for a hangover. Today I had ice cream at every place I saw. That is, of course, unless I was already eating an ice cream, because stacking cones is not polite. I had a chocolate cone, mint and lemon in a cup, a luscious Spagnola cone, and vanilla.

I like vanilla. I don’t tend to eat it, though, because there are so many other nice flavours in the world. But this was good vanilla and it made me happy.

I had a housemate who would only eat vanilla-flavoured ice cream. Not because it was his favourite, mind. But because (he said) vanilla tastes the least of anything, so the companies use their best ice cream for the vanilla flavour. And the chocolate, he assured me, because it is so strongly flavoured, will be made from inferior ice cream.

Someone who believes a thing like that really does not understand chocolate. Nor the concept of food in general. He was also a vegetarian not out of love for the little fluffy bunnies superseding his desire for a juicy steak, but because, as he put it, you can feed thirty people on the grain it takes to sustain a single cow. Or something. Such people prove that taste is not an evolutionary advantage.

Woke on Sunday morning, stumbled blearily out of the bedroom, naked, to use the toilet and was startled to see a man sitting on the sofa reading a paper. But that’s another story and nothing to do with ice cream.

dimanche, le 24 octobre

It was N on the sofa. He has a set of my keys.

He’d spent Saturday night at a mate’s stag do, and as my house was closer to the party than his (and presumably Henrietta’s), he stumbled in sometime in the wee hours and slept in the lounge. Bless. But it gave me quite a start in the morning. To be fair, perhaps the fact that he didn’t burst drunkenly into my bedroom at half three and demand to come on my face proves him to be a gentleman.

I’ve been to a stag do or two in my time. Never in a professional capacity, though. Rather, I’m likely to be the only girl in a young man’s acquaintance who can be trusted to drink pints, buy inflatable sheep and wrestle my Playstation opponents into quivering submission as well as any born male. One time the party took place at a strip club, and neither I nor the men thought anything of having a hen in the coop. If there’s an etiquette to being the only XX at a traditionally XY party, it’s this: don’t complain, don’t be the first or last to go home, and don’t flirt outrageously (except with the strippers).

In fact, these rules could probably be expanded to life in general.

After breakfast we went on to a friend’s birthday picnic, and in the evening to another friend’s birthday drinks in a pub on the Thames. I wanted to ask him a thousand questions. Who was this Henrietta? How did they meet? Did he love her? But didn’t, and he thankfully steered well clear of any mention of her. Standing on Hammersmith Bridge, after the sun has gone, thousands of spiders come out and build their webs in each of the diamond-shaped holes in the side barrier. The strings of white lights along the bridge attract insects, and we watched the spiders reap their reward for a while.

lundi, le 25 octobre

A day for strange conversations. First, waiting for the bus, a fair-haired gent strikes up a conversation as if we’ve known each other for ever. I can’t for the life of me recognise him. Turns out he’s a neighbour. Shows how much I’ve been paying attention. Fit as they come, too – muscular legs, nice hands, reminds me more than a little of Dr C. We exchange numbers; I’ve had worse starts to the day.

Giles dropped by my desk after lunch to ask about some reports I’m meant to be writing. To be honest I’m coasting through mostly on cutting and pasting from the Web, but I don’t tell him that.

He didn’t mention Friday night, so neither did I. He probably doesn’t even remember what happened – I hope. He was about to leave when he turned back. ‘Meant to mention, saw you going off to lunch the other day,’ he said.

I stiffened. I should have known it. Now what? He invites me back to his office for a chat, a threat, and maybe a come-on? Can the end of my career really have come so quickly? ‘Did you?’ I said.

‘You looked …’ Please don’t say fuckable. Please don’t say fuckable. ‘… great,’ he said. I noticed Mira and Erin stop their endless chatter to eavesdrop. ‘Were you meeting a friend?’

‘Er, yes, just a friend. Not to worry, he won’t be dropping by the office.’

‘That’s a pity,’ he said, smiling. ‘I’m curious what a woman like you would find attractive in a man.’

I cough. Is there any way to answer that? ‘Um, yes, well.’ He tapped the corner of my desk and left.

mardi, le 26 octobre

Right, I’ve made my mind up to get out of the sex trade for good. It’s time. Not just because I checked with the bank today and am now the proud recipient of an actual salary deposit. It’s been long enough. I’ve been turning tricks for almost two years, which in straight employment is something like three reincarnations with the same company.

There’s no denying I’ll miss it, though. Lunchtime trips to swank hotels; dinners out with the sort of men you usually only read about in the business papers; the underwear; the sex.

So you might be thinking, Yeah, sex, taxis, stockings, whatever. But you had to live a double life and never get enough sleep. The most you’ve seen of London in two years is the inside of a lot of hotels. What’s the benefit?

I’ll tell you what it is. It’s getting to see the nice side of men.

The clients, they’re not all gentlemen. They’re not all smart, handsome and charming – in fact, few are. They’re not always on their best behaviour. But sometimes, in the arms of a naked stranger, they drop the defences they’ve been building up since the first time Daddy told them boys don’t cry and become … nicer, somehow.

I get tired of men. I get tired of people in general, especially when there’s so much city and so many people and so little time when your ears aren’t ringing from aeroplanes or car horns or screaming in the street outside. But then someone smiles at you, and you remember that people are basically decent after all.

Like tonight. The shy fumbling, as a long-time client reached into his pocket and pulled out a tiny box. An afterthought as I was on my way out the door. A kind gesture, a trinket, the cutest little jewel – fashioned into a bee shape, with a sparkling sapphire set in the body. It wasn’t a special appointment, it wasn’t an anniversary. Just because he wanted to. Because he thought I’d like it. I smiled, and he smiled, and that to him was worth more than the expense of my time and the price of a bauble.

That’s the benefit. That, and the agency doesn’t take a cut on gifts.

mercredi, le 27 octobre

Phone call from the sexy neighbour at lunchtime. ‘Can’t talk, terribly busy,’ he says, as if I was the one who rang him. ‘But would you like to meet for coffee or something this weekend?’