Fifteen
I am fastening my hoop earrings when I hear someone at the front door. Stomach churning, I stand away from the dressing table and look at my reflection. I am wearing my Pucci dress. The colors look good with my hair and I know I have never looked so fine, but my heart is in my mouth. I am so nervous my hands are clammy. I wipe them and rub lotion into them. Then I slip into my beautiful new Jimmy Choos and leave the bedroom.
I turn into the paneled corridor and hear him in the sitting room. He is looking down on the lighted view of London and has not heard my footfalls on the soft carpets. It is only when my reflection shows in the glass that he turns.
The crease of his pants leg looks very sharp and his shoes are beautifully polished. My eyes move upwards. He is wearing a navy suit and an open soft blue shirt. My gaze travels to his brown, strong throat towards the deliciously straight mouth and up to his eyes; dark and hooded and so full of secrets. They are watching me intently. My breath catches. The flowers he sent are behind him.
‘Thank you for the flowers. They are beautiful.’
‘Come here,’ he says and half sits on the table behind him. His voice is very soft. There is something in it I do not understand. I am nineteen and he is a man of the world. I go willingly to him. He catches me by my waist and pulls me to him until I am trapped between his thighs. I feel the heat that comes off his body.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘I didn’t know.’
I shake my head, embarrassed. ‘You weren’t to know. It’s my fault. I should have warned you.’
‘You look very beautiful tonight.’
I blush like an idiot.
He watches me blush, making me blush even more, then runs his finger along my lower lip. ‘Are you for real?’ he whispers.
I look at him without comprehension. He wants to tell me something. But what? I don’t understand him at all. We are worlds apart. Maybe I shouldn’t try to understand. This will all end in three months.
Without warning the expression in his eyes changes. His mouth twists. Something cold creeps into his eyes. ‘We’d better go or we’ll be late.’
Feeling the change I step away from him. Now I truly do not understand. Hot and cold. Perhaps it is a game. But he will not beat me. I can survive three months. I think of my mother and say. ‘Yes, we don’t want to be late.’
He offers me the crook of his arm. His voice comes out hostile and clipped. ‘Shall we?’
I bite my lip. Now he is inexplicably angry with me. Nothing makes sense. Why is he angry with me? Confused, I thread my arm through his and we leave the apartment.
The Fat Duck is nestled in the middle of the English countryside, in a place called Bray. The women are all dressed to kill and the men are in dark suits. I have never been anywhere so glamorous, but it is bitter sweet: I have lied to my mother. I am with this man as his whore. And all of this will come to an end in three months’ time. A young man with a French accent settles us into a waiting area and offers us delicate little bites of food and two glasses of champagne. Waiters nod and greet Blake by name as they pass. Apparently he is well known in this establishment.
‘They are called amuse-bouches, mouth amusements,’ Blake explains and watches as I nibble on the tiny offerings of mushroom and hazelnuts with basil oil and salmon mousse.
‘Well?’
‘I don’t think I’ve ever tasted anything so delicious in all my life.’
The sommelier comes to help select the wine that will perfectly complement the food we intend to have, but Blake knows exactly what he wants.
‘The 1996 Clos du Mesnil.’
The sommelier seems pleased with Blake’s choice. The wine is brought and presented to Blake. When he nods, it is uncorked and a small amount is poured into a deep glass and given to Blake. He swirls it, sniffs it delicately, and pronounces it acceptable.
A fifth of my glass is filled. I raise it to my lips and taste it. What passed for wine until now seem like abrasive mixtures of grape juice and vinegar. With complicated scents that delicately tease and a distinctively smooth taste that slides down my throat, the wine is truly splendid.
I study the menu with fascination. It is no wonder that this restaurant is so famous. It has a uniquely original menu. There is even something called the mad hatter’s tea party with mock turtle soup, a pocket watch and a toasted sandwich. Then there is snail porridge, crab biscuits and quail jelly, chicken served with vanilla mayonnaise, shaved fennel and red cabbage gazpacho with mustard ice cream, and something else I can’t recognize served with oak moss and truffle oil.
Blake chooses roasted foie gras to start. I sigh inwardly. I am not eating force-fed goose liver.
The waiter looks at me. ‘I won’t bother with a starter, thank you.’
Blake orders the lamb with cucumber.
‘I’ll have the same,’ I murmur.
The waiter moves away, and Blake looks at me strangely. His eyes are pitying. ‘You can’t read, can you?’
My head tilts back. ‘Of course I can. I am a qualified secretary.’
‘What was I supposed to think? Jay told me you signed the contract without reading it and this is the second time you’ve ordered the same as me and you hardly touched your food the last time. Why?’
I decide to be honest. ‘I don’t know which utensil to use to eat what.’
He is so surprised, he leans back in his seat, and regards me quietly. Not taking his eyes off me, he raises a hand slightly. Immediately, a waiter comes to his side. ‘The lady would like to see the menu again, please. And hold the earlier order.’
‘Of course, sir.’
Blake carries on watching me until the waiter returns with the menu.
‘Would you like a moment with it?’ he asks.
‘No,’ I say. ‘I know what I want. I’d like the mock turtle soup to start and the poached salmon.’
When he is gone, Blake says, ‘With utensils always start with the ones that are furthest out from the plate and work your way in. I will help you.’
‘Thank you.’
‘So what have you done today?’
‘Well, I got taken off the books for er…inappropriate behavior so I went off in search of another temporary agency.’
He frowns. ‘I don’t want you to work for the duration of our contract.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I want you to be available to me day and night. I might want to have you at three in the morning or between meetings in the afternoon,’ he explains brutally, and I feel the most surprising sexual thrill clench at my lower belly. I want to be available to this man day and night!
‘It should be no problem for you.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Don’t you live on an estate where nobody works and everybody just scrounges off the state?’
I shake my head in wonder. ‘Wow, that’s one sweeping generalization you’ve just made there!’
‘Why, is it not true?’
‘While I was a child growing up my teachers and the governmental offices where my mother had to go for her weekly handouts, in subtle and unsubtle ways, tried to force into me the opinion you have just expressed. That we were parasites.’
I look him in the eye.
‘But I always knew there was something inherently wrong about any train of thinking that could so conveniently dismiss all the unemployed and dependent population as parasites. And yet we did seem to be living off others. Then one day I learned the true nature of the parasite and it changed my life.’
He raises an eyebrow. Arrogant sod!
I smile. It does not reach my eyes. ‘I learned that a successful parasite is one that is not recognized by its host, one that can make its host work for it without appearing as a burden. As such it must be the ruling class in every capitalist society that is the real parasite.’
‘How is my kind a parasite to yours?’ he scoffs.
I take a sip of the wonderful wine that he has paid for. ‘How much tax did your family pay last year?’
He leans back and regards me without flinching. ‘We paid what was legally due.’
Now it is my turn to scoff. ‘Let me guess. Almost nothing.’
He shrugs. ‘There is nothing wrong with legitimate tax avoidance schemes. I don’t see how we are being parasitical, because we won’t let the government take what is hard won and rightfully ours, and pass it onto the bone lazy masses who don’t want to work and expect others to fund their lifestyles. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say the system in this country is mad. Girls have babies when they are teenagers so the government will set them up in a flat and pay them a stipend for the rest of their lives. Crazy.’
I shake my head slowly. ‘Do you really believe what you are saying?’
‘Of course. Do you think teenage girls getting pregnant to secure a home for life is right?’
Our food arrives. It looks more like a work of art than food. I reach for the rounded spoon that has been placed furthest away and Blake nods.
He picks up his knife and fork. ‘I’m kind of waiting for your reply.’
‘No, I don’t, but we are not talking about badly educated teenagers from troubled homes who think that getting pregnant is the best way out of grinding poverty for them. The teenage pregnancies are a result of a system that has marginalized and refused a good education to the poorest sections of society. They are not parasites. They are desperate people who have been trained to think that that is the best they can get out of life. But your lot….’
‘We actually keep the country going, creating jobs—’
‘Sure, in China and other Third World countries. Slave labor jobs. Besides, you’re a banker. You don’t create anything.’
He shifts in his chair. ‘Hang on, let me get this right; my family is parasitical for not paying astronomical taxes, and your lot are not parasites even though you don’t work a day in your lives and live entirely on government handouts.’
‘Have you ever thought that people can be poor by design. When a child is born on the estate, he is already doomed to repeat his father’s life. He will bear that same angry, helpless attitude of his father and never amount to much. In school he will be taught only to be a good worker. And if he has even a bone of rebellion in him he will refuse and become a scrounger. My mother was educated in a different country and she was from the middle class so she taught me middle class values. Work, earn money, pay your own way.’
‘So why do you work only part-time?’
‘I do that because my mother is often sick and I am her primary carer.’
‘What’s wrong with your mother?’
‘Cancer.’
‘Oh.’
‘She will make it,’ I say forcefully.
He nods slowly. ‘Are you a Muslim?’
I sit back and watch Blake while our plates are cleared away. The hard planes of his face have been softened. There is a mad desire in me to reach out and stroke his face. ‘No, my mother is a devout Christian. I am an agnostic. So far no God has impressed me as benign and truly interested in the welfare of humans.’
‘Main course,’ announces the waiter, and plates are lowered onto the table.
My salmon is encased in a tiny square parcel made of liquorice gel, and looks almost too beautiful to eat. I lift the fish knife and cut it open. Inside, the fish is perfectly cooked. I slip a tiny morsel pass my lips, and am surprised by how delicate and silky it is on my tongue.
‘I have a very big favor to ask you.’ I say.
He raises his eyebrows.
‘It is very important to me.’
‘Sure,’ he says.
‘You agreed without knowing what I am going to ask?’
‘When people say I need a very big favor it’s bound to be a small thing. It is when they ask for a small favor that I start worrying. So, what is it you want?’
‘My mother has invited you around to dinner. It’s just the once. You will have to pretend to be my boyfriend,’ I say so quickly the words almost run into each other.
‘What sort of thing will I have to do to convince her that I am your boyfriend?’
‘Just the usual. Hold hands, a quick kiss. Nothing too heavy.’
He smiles cynically. ‘I think I can manage that.’
‘Thank you. I owe you one. Maybe one day you will need a favor and I can do something to help you.’
‘I’ll remember that,’ he says, and falls silent. But the silence is not uncomfortable and we finish our main meal without further conversation.
He orders the macerated strawberries for dessert.
‘I’ll have the same,’ I tell the waiter.
Blake grins. ‘I thought you might go for the Like A Kid In A Sweetshop,’ he says.
‘I nearly did,’ I admit. ‘Do you know what’s in it?’
‘Just a selection, I guess. Want to change your mind?’
‘No.’
The dessert is so delicious I wish my mother could try it. After the handmade chocolates, the bill arrives. I catch a glimpse of it. It is over four and a half thousand pounds. That is more than my mother spends on food for a whole year. It must be good to be so rich. I look at Blake in shock. He raises his eyes and returns my look. His eyes are sultry and slumberous.
And suddenly he seems devastatingly, impossibly handsome, but so aloof and unreachable that it is almost as if I have my nose pressed against a glass window and I am looking in at something I can never have.
Just like the poor match girl from Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale who had to keep lighting her last matchsticks to see the fantastically beautiful sight in front of her.
When the matches run out she dies.