Vanity (21 page)

He was still looking into her eyes, and she hastily wiped them, cursing the tears that had smudged her mascara. His charisma, up close, was hypnotic.

They gazed at one another for a few seconds, hearts beating fast as they stood together on the smoky urban roof terrace. Then Dan bent his head to kiss her and Sam was lost, winding her arms around his neck and responding with delicious abandonment.

‘I bet some of these people think we should get a room,' Dan whispered against her hair after a bit, always aware of having to maintain his cool image. ‘Fancy coming back to mine?'

They snogged all the way to Dalston in the back of the cab, all Sam's pent-up emotion and longing causing her to kiss Dan back with an urgency that surprised and delighted him. When he put his hand inside her knickers and found her wet already, he groaned, ‘Oh, fuck.'

Still snogging, they stumbled into the house he shared with the rest of the band. It was pretty grotty, with no curtains and the bare minimum of furniture. Empty beer cans and overflowing ashtrays littered the floor. But it managed to retain an air of cool. The floorboards were bare, the fridge in the open-plan living area enormous, and musical equipment was strewn casually throughout: a guitar propped up against a wall here, a vast set of
headphones
chucked onto a shabby old armchair there, a drum kit in the corner over there. The walls were lined with posters advertising Flaming Geysers gigs throughout the country.

‘Right then, Sambo. How much do you want to fuck me?' Dan had the hideous ego of any would-be rock star, but Sam didn't care. All she wanted was warm, human contact – anything to make the pain go away. But she wasn't going to beg.

‘How much do you want to fuck me?' she countered.

In response, Dan grabbed her by the hand and dragged her into what she assumed was his bedroom. It was pretty much empty save for a large mattress on the floor and a poster of himself on one wall.

They started snogging again, breathlessly tearing at each other's clothes. When Sam pulled her top over her head, revealing her amazing breasts, Dan caught his breath.

‘Oh, my God.' He bent his head to suck her nipples, one after the other, until Sam was moaning loudly, head thrown back, long red hair streaming down her back.

But then she realized that tears were streaming down her face, too. It was all starting to remind her of things she had done with Mark. She pulled away.

‘I'm sorry, Dan. I'm really sorry. I like you so much, but I can't. I just keep thinking about Marky.'

Dan watched as she picked up the sheet off his bed and wrapped it around herself, suddenly self-conscious, and started crying again.

He was tempted to tell her to piss off – he had enough girls interested in him, after all. But then she said, ‘I really didn't mean to be a prick-tease. I'm sorry, Dan. You've been such a good friend to me. I'll go now.' As she started to put her clothes back on, Dan felt a wave of compassion. He wanted to protect her, he realized.

‘Don't be silly, Sambo. It's your loss.' He tried to make a joke of it, and Sam gave a grateful hiccup of laughter. ‘And you can stay here for a bit, if you fancy it. How about we just get stoned instead?'

As he started to roll the spliff, he resolved that however much he liked Sam, he would never try it on with her again. They could stay friends, for sure, but he'd never been turned down twice by the same girl before. His ego simply wouldn't stand for it.

‘Oh
,
Philippe, I do not want to do ze washing-up,' pouted Rosaline. The ridiculously pretty blonde French au pair that Philip's ex-wife, Lucinda, in a masterstroke of bitchiness, had seen fit to send out to Paxos with their teenage children, was standing at the kitchen sink wearing only a white crochet bikini and an ankle bracelet. She looked like nothing so much as a young Bardot.

‘Don't you worry, Rosaline,' Philip smiled, trying not to look at her bouncing young bosom. ‘Alison will do it. You go out and enjoy the sun.'

‘Oh, merci, merci! You are verrrry kind!' Rosaline leant up to kiss him on the cheek and skipped out into the garden.

Paxos, the smallest and most beautiful of the Ionian islands, lies 11 kilometres from Corfu, a shimmering beacon of peace and tranquillity in a glittering turquoise sea. Philip, Alison, Toby, Imogen and Rosaline were staying for two weeks in a luxurious bougainvillea-covered villa that had been built around an old olive press. It was a short car ride to the nearest unspoilt beach (they were all unspoilt, really – in complete contrast to Philip's children), but there was a large pool in the villa's extensive grounds and plenty of scope for spending day after heavenly day just relaxing in the sunshine.

Not so for Imogen and Toby. Imogen's constant refrain was
,
‘Daddeeee, I'm bored.' She didn't seem capable of lying in the sun with a book, splashing about in the pool, playing cards or backgammon with her brother, or indeed taking pleasure in anything but constant whingeing. This morning she had been pestering Philip to take her paragliding, on a beach the other side of the island. For once, Philip had refused to pander to his darling daughter's demands, pointing out quite reasonably that, having spent the previous two days water-skiing and windsurfing, it was time to make the most of the expensive villa he had hired for them all.

Toby, in the meantime, was proving to be a sadistic little tyrant. Alison had her suspicions that he might, actually, be a psychopath. The previous evening she had found him dissecting a live frog with his Swiss Army knife, his spotty face contorted with glee as the hapless creature writhed and gribbeted under his merciless hands. Alison had tried to save the frog, but it was too late. Closing her eyes, and holding her breath, she'd killed it as quickly as she could.

Both teenagers were unspeakably vile, too, to Maria, the villa's middle-aged housekeeper, treating her as a serf, calling her ‘it' and never saying ‘please' or ‘thank you'. Their petulance, sarcasm and sense of entitlement knew no bounds. Today was Maria's extremely well-deserved day off, hence the washing-up issue.

‘I'm not washing up any bloody dishes,' Alison said angrily. ‘If you think it's too much work for Rosaline, then you can do them yourself.'

The following evening, she was sitting in a lively tavern on the waterfront with Philip and the brats. It was Rosaline's night off, and she had sauntered out of the villa wearing white denim hot pants and a tight, faded indigo T-shirt, leaving Philip gazing wistfully in her fragrant wake.

‘I hate Greek food,' moaned fat little Imogen. ‘Bloody moussaka, bloody fish, bloody salads.'

Don't eat it then
, thought Alison.
Won't do you any harm to stop stuffing your face for a bit
.

‘Oh, darling, I'm so sorry,' said Philip. This comment was directed at his grotesque daughter, rather than at Alison. ‘Shall we see if they can get you a steak and chips, instead?'

‘They probably won't do it right. Oh, God, I'm sooo bored.'

‘Surely there are some bars you and Toby could go to, after dinner?' Alison suggested, just wanting to be shot of the little horrors and wanting Philip to herself for a bit.

‘Oh, no, they're full of greasy Greeks.' Imogen wrinkled her podgy nose. ‘Why couldn't we have gone to Ibiza, Daddy, or Saint-Tropez, or anywhere all my friends are? You know I don't like to go to places full of council people.'

‘You can hardly call this a place full of council people,' said Philip mildly. With no airport, and popular with the international sailing community, Paxos had a reputation as one of the more upmarket Greek islands.

‘Oh
,
shut up
,
Daddy. Old foreigners then. You don't go
on holiday to meet old foreigners. I wish I was hanging out with Clemency and Arabella on the Fulham Road.'

So do I
, thought Alison vehemently.
Or possibly in the Amazon, being pursued by hungry crocodiles.

Looking away from Imogen, she noticed that Toby was chucking stones at stray cats under the table, a demonic gleam in his almost lashless eyes. She was starting to think that hooking up with Philip had been the biggest mistake of her life. She had loved Andy – a thoroughly decent man, who, vitally, didn't have repugnant offspring – for nearly thirteen years. She realized that she missed him. What was he doing right now? she wondered.

‘I hope Mum and Dad are going to behave themselves today,' said Bella, looking out of the car window at the pretty Oxfordshire landscape. The narrow country lane, flanked by overgrown, honeysuckle-scented hedgerows, had wound its way through golden poppy-strewn rectangles of corn, virulently mustard-coloured rape fields and lush green daisy-dotted meadows teeming with teenage lambs. Now it was approaching Lower Piglet, the ridiculously picturesque village in which she'd grown up. Higgledy-piggledy houses of warm Cotswold stone lined the way to the village centre, which boasted a Norman church, a sweet primary school, a duck pond and two pubs, one of which dated back to the Civil War.

Andy, in the driver's seat, laughed. ‘They're usually OK with Bernie around, aren't they? He seems to be a pretty good moderator.'

‘True enough.' Bella turned to look at him, tall, dark
and handsome in his jeans and navy-blue Guernsey
sweater. It was one of those summer days where the puffy meringue-like clouds chose to drift across the sun just as you were starting to get warm; Bella herself had thrown on a vintage biker's jacket over her summer frock, hoping it gave her a bit of street cred, as well as stopping her freezing to death.

Justin was staying with Olivia and Bernie for a few days, as he'd flown over from Mallorca to do a shoot for French
Elle
– provisionally, and unoriginally, entitled
La Style Anglaise
– at nearby Hambledon Hall. Accordingly, Olivia had invited Bella and Andy for Sunday lunch, saying how lovely it would be to have a family get-together (Bella's brother Max was currently travelling around the world with his boyfriend Dave, and was sorely missed by all).

‘And don't forget, your mum said that Justin's bringing a guest,' Andy added. ‘Presumably, fresh blood will help avert any potential disasters.'

‘Hmmm. Depends how young and stupid she is.' Having run the gamut of more of her father's girlfriends over the years than she cared to remember, Bella was sceptical.

‘You never know – he may surprise you.' Andy smiled reassuringly as he turned off the road into the slightly ramshackle tree-lined drive that led to Bella's childhood home, a late-seventeenth-century former mill house. ‘We'll find out soon enough anyway.'

Andy parked and took their overnight case, and two carrier bags clinking with bottles, out of the boot. He'd booked Monday morning off work, as lunch with Olivia tended to become so boozy that driving back to London was never an option.

They walked past the magnificent horse chestnut tree that concealed the house from the drive, to be confronted by a splendid sight: Bernie, resplendent in a sharp
pin-st
riped suit, open-necked, wide-collared shirt and flash Gucci shades, his teeth clamped around an enormous cigar, was posing for all he was worth in front of the creaky oak front door. He cut an incongruously Mafioso figure against the ivy-clad stone façade of the lovely old mill house, the climbing roses around the door framing his portly figure.

‘Yeah – just like that, mate! Hold it, Bern, hold it – you're a natural!'

Justin was crouching on the lawn, snapping away at his ex-wife's lover with his trusty vintage Leica. He had no truck with digital photography – an attitude that afforded him a certain kudos in the biz (though it
quadrupled
the work for everyone else involved). As Bella and Andy approached, he leapt to his feet, chucking his beloved equipment onto the grass without a moment's hesitation.

‘Angel Face! So groovy to see you, sweetheart! How's my precious little girl, then?'

Bella found herself running into her father's outstretched arms, laughing.

‘Hey, Daddy! Lovely to see you.'

‘A minute apart from you is a minute too long, baby. And Andrew, great to see you too, Vicar.'

‘Likewise, Bishop.' Andy laughed, shaking Justin's hand.

‘Just give me a hug, mate.' Slightly awkwardly, the two men hugged.

‘Hi, Bernie!' Bella ran across the lawn to hug him too. ‘So Daddy's got you posing at last?'

‘Yeah. Why not?' Bernie took off his shades and smiled at her, his beady little eyes crinkling up so much they practically disappeared in his big round face. ‘He's good at what he does, and I always admire talent.'

Bella smiled back. Anyone could see that Bernie was lapping up the attention.

‘Run on in then. Your mother can't wait to see you. Looking prettier than ever, I must say …'

‘Who? Me or Mum?'

‘Both of you, though nobody can eclipse your mother's place in my heart.'

‘I know. That's what makes you so great for her.' Bella grinned. ‘So what's Dad's latest like?'

Bernie opened his mouth to say something, then shut it again.

‘Not my place to say, Princess. Go on in an' see for yourself.'

So Bella hurried through the house, through the sitting room and kitchen and out of the kitchen stable door to the back garden, where she knew her mother and the
mysterious
guest would be having drinks on the terrace.

She stopped in her tracks.

‘
Mark?
What the fuck are
you
doing here?'

‘Aw-right, Belles.' Mark grinned awkwardly, getting to his feet.

‘Hello, darling,' said Olivia. ‘That's not a very nice way to greet our guest, now is it? How was your journey?'