Authors: C. L. Taylor
“I’ve got to go.” She leaps up, reaches for the door handle, her eyes still fixed on the entrance to the alley. “Danny’s expecting me and I’ve said too much already.”
“Please.” I reach for her hand. “Please. You need to tell me what happened that night.”
“I thought you already knew.”
“I know she met a footballer but that’s it. Please, Keisha. Please tell me what happened.”
She shakes her head, opens the door, slips one shoulder into the gap. “If I tell you, he’ll kill me.”
“And if you don’t tell me, Charlotte might die.”
It’s a low blow but it’s enough to make her pause, step back into the alley, and close the door. I wait as she shakes her empty cigarette packet, crumples it in her fist, then tosses it into the gutter and roots around in her handbag for a new pack. She peels off the cellophane, flips back the lid, pulls off the foil, and tweezes out a cigarette. It takes forever, and when she roots around in her bag for her lighter, I want to scream. Finally she puts a cigarette in her mouth, lights it, and inhales deeply. She exhales through her nose and looks at me from under her lashes. “She had sex with the footballer in the club toilet.”
I stare at the lit end of her cigarette, at the plume of smoke that curls upward, at the length of ash that grows longer and longer and then falls through the air and disintegrates before it hits the floor.
“Who was he?” I tear my eyes away from the cigarette. “What was his name?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know. His first name was Alex. I don’t know his surname. He was foreign, French I think. Black. Plays for Chelsea someone said. Or Man U. One of the top clubs anyway, I forget which.”
“This premiership footballer she slept with, this
Alex
.” The words feel like they’re coming out of someone else’s mouth. “How can I get hold of him?”
Keisha sucks on her cigarette and opens the side door, her eyes never once meeting mine. “I don’t know, I’m sorry.”
“Okay,” I say and smile, even though I’m pretty sure she’s lying to me. They’re all lying about something—Brian, Danny, Ella, Liam—and they think I’m too emotionally unstable to see through it.
They’re wrong.
***
I wait for Brian to go to bed and then I creep into his study and turn on his laptop.
Alex
famous
footballer,
I type and press Enter.
The first entry is for a Brazilian footballer who plays for Paris Saint-Germain. Is that who Keisha meant? Maybe she got confused about whether he was French or lived in France? I look at the next entry, another French footballer. This time he’s called Alexandre Degas, but there’s no mention of him playing for a British club. Alexandre Laurent then? Or Alex Sauvage? There’s an Olivier Alexandre who plays for Tottenham Hotspur, but it can’t be him, can it?
I push the chair back from the desk. I don’t know what I was thinking, expecting that I’d find contact details for this Alex person when I haven’t got the slightest idea who he is. I twist from left to right in the chair, scanning the room for solutions, but none come, so I stand up and wander into Charlotte’s room. I should have pushed Keisha for more details. I should have asked her how she knew Charlotte had sex in the club toilet. It’s so out of character. She was besotted with Liam, absolutely obsessed with him. She’d never have cheated on him. It was one thing she felt strongly about because of the fallout of her own father’s infidelity. I just can’t imagine her doing something sexual with someone she’d only just met, even if she was drunk and he was a famous footballer and astonishingly good looking and—
I smooth out her duvet then straighten up to get a better look at the posters above the headboard. They’re pages she’s ripped out of
Heat
magazine’s “Torso of the week,” and the wall is crowded with an array of good-looking topless men—soap stars, film stars, TV presenters, and…footballers. There’s David Beckham, Ashley Cole, Ronaldo, and…someone I don’t recognize, a tall, handsome, mixed-race man with pale brown eyes, high cheekbones, and full lips. Alex Henri, the caption at the bottom says, striker, Chelsea FC.
I rush back to Brian’s study.
Alex
Henri
Agent,
I enter into Google.
Details appear on screen for Steve Torrance, “international sports agent.” I click on his website and an image of a balding, middle-aged man appears, his top lip curled into a half smile, half sneer. I skim-read his biography, glance over his list of clients, and then click on the Contact link. An email address, post office box, and London telephone number pop up on the screen, and I scribble them down. It’s too late to call now, so I tuck the piece of paper into my purse, leave it on the hall table, and then pad into the bedroom. I change into my nightdress in the dark and slip into bed. It’s a very long time until I fall asleep.
***
“Could you tell him it’s urgent?”
The woman on the other end of the line sighs. “Mrs. Jackson, this is the third day you’ve called. I
know
it’s urgent. You tell me every time you call. I’ve passed on your messages, and if Mr. Torrance hasn’t called you back yet, then…” I can practically hear her shrug. “He is a very busy man.”
“Please,” I beg. “It’s vital I get a message through to Alex Henri. My daughter’s in a coma and he might be able to help.”
The assistant makes a little ooh sound. “How terrible for you. I’ve got a daughter myself. She had to spend some time in Great Ormond Street when she was seven and I was beside myself. Made her day when one of the actors from
Glee
visited the ward. How old’s your girl?”
“She’s seven too.” It’s scary how easy the lie comes out. “And such a tomboy. Football’s her life, her dad’s too; they’re massive Chelsea fans, never miss a game. Alex Henri’s her favorite player. He’s on her bedroom wall in pride of place.”
“She wouldn’t be the first.” She laughs. “Look, Sue, can I call you Sue?”
“Of course.”
“Well, Sue, I probably shouldn’t say this, but the truth is Steve isn’t such a big fan of charity requests. They’re good for PR, but PR doesn’t pay the bills, so he only allows his clients to do high-profile gigs—cancer charities, Sport’s Relief, Children in Need, that sort of thing. You need to approach Alex independently.”
My heart leaps. “But how? I’ve searched the Internet and the only phone number I’ve been able to find is Steve’s.”
“Now listen.” The assistant lowers her voice. “I could lose my job if what I’m about to tell you gets out.”
“I won’t say a word,” I say. “I swear.”
“I would never,
never
normally do this but I’m in a good mood today—my Sean got back from Afghanistan yesterday—and with your daughter being the way she is, well… Anyway, if you want to catch Alex, I suggest you get yourself along to Grey’s nightclub in Chelsea tonight. He normally goes on a Friday. I’m not promising he’ll agree to visit your little girl, but he might agree to a signed shirt or a message on your mobile or something. You could play it to her.”
“I could!” I can’t keep the excitement out of my voice, but not for the reason she might think. “What a wonderful idea. Thank you so much.”
“There’s nothing to thank me for. Just promise me one thing, no, two things, Sue.”
“Of course.”
“Never mention this to anyone and never call this office again.”
“I won’t. I promise. Thank you so much…sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”
She laughs. “There’s a reason for that. Good-bye, Sue.”
The disconnect tone buzzes in my ear for a good thirty seconds before I place the phone back in its cradle. If she’s right and Alex Henri
is
in the club tonight, how am I going to get to speak to him if he’s in a cordoned-off VIP area? A beautiful fifteen-year-old might be able to bat her eyelashes past security, but what about me? What’s a dumpy forty-three-year-old who hasn’t been to a club in over twenty years supposed to do? And, more pressing than that, if I can’t pop out of the house in the afternoon to buy “magazines” without Brian checking up on me, how on earth am I going to convince him that it’s a good idea for me to go out until the early hours of the morning in London?
Wednesday, June 26, 1991
James and I are living together. Well, James, his mother, and I. I moved in just over a week ago. Jess from work cut my hours again (I’m only doing fifteen a week now), and I couldn’t afford the rent on my flat anymore. I told James I was going to try to get my teaching job back to make up the shortfall, but he insisted I move in with him instead.
“Think of it as a new start,” he said. “Screw Maggie and her tin pot company. You deserve to be paid for what you do. The spare room’s big enough for your sewing machine table, so get set up, get making some sample pieces so you can apply for a proper wardrobe job or set up your own business, and I’ll pay the rent and get the food in. Don’t worry about that.”
It was almost too perfect a solution, the only fly in the ointment being his mum. She didn’t come down from her room the whole of the first evening I was there, and the next morning, when I came down to breakfast with James at 7:30 a.m., there was a list of “jobs” for me to do on the kitchen table. They included grocery shopping, vacuuming, toilet scrubbing, and weeding and were written in a handwriting I didn’t recognize.
“You don’t mind, do you?” James said when he saw my raised eyebrows. “But her caregiver’s gone on holiday for a week, and you know what she’s like with her arthritis and agoraphobia.”
Arthritis? She’d seemed sprightly enough when she’d stormed out of the room when James and I arrived late for that now infamous lunch.
“Besides,” he added, “you’ve got a lot of time on your hands now your hours have been cut, haven’t you?”
I wanted to remind him that he’d suggested I set up a sewing business in our bedroom but bit my tongue. Helping out was the least I could do considering the fight he’d undoubtedly had to put up to persuade his mother to let me move in, and besides, it was only for a week. I could start setting up my business when the caregiver got back.
By the time James got home from work nine hours later, my hands were raw and my forearms were a mess of nettle stings but I’d ticked off every single item on the list
and
had a pot roast happily bubbling away in the oven. He looked delighted and said he knew that Mummy and I would get on like a dream if we just gave each other a chance. The truth was I hadn’t seen her all day. I’d heard the landing floor creak at about 9 a.m. as she made her way to the bathroom, but other than that, I hadn’t caught a glimpse of her. By lunchtime I was worried that she might be ill, and I knocked on her door to ask if she was okay and whether she’d like some homemade tomato soup and a cheese sandwich. She replied that she was “in perfect health, thank you” and told me to leave the food on a tray outside the door. I did as I was told then went back down the stairs and waited silently in the hall. Five minutes later, the bedroom door opened, a pair of slippered feet appeared, and the tray was dragged into her room.
James couldn’t keep his hands off me, and as soon as we’d finished dinner (which his mother had in her room again), he dragged me into the bedroom and threw me onto the bed. I squealed as he pulled off my clothes and buried his face in my breasts but was promptly silenced when he slapped a hand over my mouth and held it there.
“Shhh,” he whispered. “We don’t want Mummy to hear us.”
I was just about to reply when he yanked off my underwear and entered me, thrusting so hard I hit my head on the headboard. I gasped in shock and pleasure.
James took his hand off my mouth. “Or do we?” And slammed into me again.
Afterward, as we lay in each other’s arms, sweat sticking us together, he stroked my hair back from my face.
“You’ve got no idea how much I missed you, how much I missed having sex with you, when we were apart.”
“Me too.” I ran a hand over his broad chest and raked my fingers through the hair.
“It was torture.” He kissed the top of my head. “Lying in bed alone, imagining you naked in your bed and not being able to touch you.”
“I know.”
“Did you sleep with anyone else while we were apart?”
I looked him in the eye. To look anywhere else would be dangerous. “No.”
“Really? You didn’t mess around with someone because you were lonely?”
“No.” I blocked the image of Steve’s face on my pillow out of my head. “Of course not.”
James narrowed his eyes. “Kiss someone when you were drunk?”
“No.”
“It’s okay.” He smiled tightly. “You can tell me if you did. I won’t be angry. I fucked a couple of people.”
“What?” My chest spasmed with pain. I’d never considered that he might sleep with someone else. Not once.
“I fucked a couple of women.” He shrugged. “No big deal. We weren’t together. Did you?”
Did he mean it? Did he really not care? I looked into his eyes, at the pinprick pupils and the gray iris, flecked with blue. I’d never been able to read him. His eyes were impenetrable.
“No,” I lied. “I didn’t do anything, not even a kiss. I missed you too much to even think about touching another man.”
His shoulders slumped with relief.
“I knew it.” He gathered me into his arms. “I knew you were special. I knew Mother was wrong.” He pulled away and looked at me. “I didn’t sleep with anyone either. I was just having a laugh.”
A laugh? I nestled my head into his chest and swallowed back the tears that had sprung up in my eyes. It didn’t feel very funny to me.
“A musical?” Brian raises an eyebrow. “I thought you hated musicals. Opera is for stupid people, you said.”
“I did not! Those are your words. And I don’t
hate
musicals; I just prefer plays. Anyway, this isn’t about me. It’s Jane’s birthday.”
“And Eric’s got the flu? In May?”
I’m about to protest that there’s an unusual amount of it around at the moment and how Jane’s husband does work in a school where germs are rife, but there’s no need because Brian laughs and says, “Sounds like he’s throwing a sickie to me, and who can blame him? I’d rather take to my deathbed than go to a musical too.”
“Jane’s wanted to see the Billy Elliot musical forever,” I say. “It’s one of her favorite films.”
“There’s a DVD shop down the road, tell her. She can save herself thirty-odd quid a ticket or whatever rip-off prices they charge in the West End these days.”
“Brian!” I pretend to chastise him, but I can tell by the smile on his face that he’s not going to object to me going to London. It’s incredible how easily he’s bought into my lie. I could be going anywhere, with anyone, and I could go with his blessing.
“Bit late though, isn’t it?” He glances at the grandfather clock. “This show? It’s seven o’clock already and by the time you get to Victoria, even if you leave
now
, you won’t be there until 8:30 at the earliest.”
“I know,” I say. “I was surprised too. We’re going to have to fly across London in a taxi to make it to the West End for nine o’clock. The show’s on later than normal because one of the cast is appearing on the Jonathan Ross chat show later.”
It’s a terrible lie and one that anyone who watches even the smallest amount of television could uncover if they know the first thing about prerecorded chat shows, but luckily for me, Brian rarely watches TV. Not only does he think it’s “brain rot” but he resents how much nonsustainable electricity it eats up.
“Right.” He nods as though he’s bought every word, then looks up as I stand up and smooth down my choice of outfit for this evening. It’s the most flattering cocktail dress I own.
“Good job you got dressed up before I got in,” he says, raising an eyebrow. “Anyone would think you were going to go out regardless of what I said.”
I wait for the smile to let me know he’s joking, and sure enough, it appears. I didn’t assume anything about this evening, not least that Brian would agree to me going, but the last few days have passed without incident, and I know he’s fond of Jane.
“Of course it’s fine,” he says. “You’ve been with Charlotte all day. The least you deserve is a bit of fun and a night out. You have taken your pills today, haven’t you?” he adds, glancing at the glass of water on the coffee table beside me.
“Of course.”
“And you’re feeling okay? You don’t think you’ll be overwhelmed by the crowded public transport and everything? You haven’t been to London for a while. It’s pretty frenetic these days.”
“Brian!” I laugh again. “I went to London a couple of months ago. It can’t have changed that much.”
“True.” He glances at the clock again. “Is Jane coming to get you or would you like me to give you a lift to the station?”
I pick up my handbag, fold my jacket over my arm, and slip on my heels. “Thanks but the taxi should be here in a couple of minutes.”
Brian picks up his newspaper, shaking his head in amusement. “Have a lovely time.”
I cross the room, crouch down by his armchair, and kiss him on the forehead. He looks at me in surprise, his blue eyes searching mine.
“What was that for?”
“Because I love you.”
The grandfather clock in the corner of the room tick-tick-ticks the seconds away as we look at each other. It feels like the first time we’ve really looked at each other in a very long time.
“Even after everything that’s happened?” he asks softly.
“Despite it.”
He cups the side of my face with his hand, gently strokes my cheekbone with his thumb. “I don’t deserve you, Sue.”
I place my hand over his. “Yes, you do.”
I can see my reflection in his pupils as his eyes flick back and forth, just the tiniest bit, as he gazes at me. I look tired and worried and a million years old. When did that happen? When did I become so old? When did he? Wasn’t it just yesterday that we were walking hand in hand along the banks of the Kifissos, talking about the future we’d build together?
“I love you too,” Brian whispers. “I don’t know what I’d do without you. I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to you, Sue. I’d be lost. Quite, quite lost.”
My chest floods with warmth, and I press a hand over my heart because it’s almost too much to bear. “I’m not going anywhere, Brian.”
“And there was me thinking you were off to London!” He snatches his hand from my face and laughs heartily. “Poor old Billy Elliot. I bet he was really looking forward to seeing you too. You’re such a fickle woman, Susan Jackson.”
I laugh too, then cross the room and peer around one of the curtains. I’m pretty sure I just heard a taxi pulling into the driveway. Sure enough, a flash of yellow approaches the house and there’s the parp-parp of a horn.
“Don’t wait up!” I call as I dash out of the living room. “I’ll be back late, don’t forget.”
“Text me if you get into trouble.”
Into trouble? I turn back to see what he means but he’s got his nose in the newspaper. It was just a throwaway comment.
***
I really wish I
had
brought Jane with me. That way I wouldn’t feel like such a social leper—a forty-three-year-old woman standing in the queue for one of London’s trendiest nightspots with a bunch of clubbers young enough to be my children. A security guard walks past, pauses to glance at me, then continues on down the line.
I thought I’d feel overdressed in my knee-length John Rocha little black dress with its plunging neckline and diamanté details on the shoulders, but I needn’t have worried. Compared to the minuscule handkerchiefs masquerading as outfits that the other women are wearing, I’m practically sporting a burka. Other than the beach, I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much female flesh on show in one place. It must be forty degrees and yet none of the other women look the slightest bit cold, while I threw on my jacket the second I got off the train and wished I’d brought my pashmina with me too.
“’scuse me?” says the willowy blond behind me. “Have you got the time, please?”
Her false-lashed gaze is fixed somewhere over my left shoulder, but I’m pretty sure she’s talking to me because the only thing behind me is a wall.
“It’s ten thirty,” I say, mesmerized by her pneumatic cleavage and pillowlike lips. She’s tanned within an inch of her life—a perfect match for the oak coat stand in the cloakroom—and her makeup is so flawless it looks airbrushed on. Her blond hair is waist-length and blow-dried
big
so it frames her face like a Farrah Fawcett halo.
“Fanks.” Her glazed eyes flicker slightly.
“Do you come here often?” I cringe at my awkward attempt to initiate conversation.
“Every weekend.” She appears to be looking at the back of the head of the young man three people in front of me now.
“Good music, is it?”
“S’all right.”
“Nice dance floor?”
She shakes her head. “Don’t dance. Not in these heels.”
I look at her feet and am surprised she’s even upright.
“I hear a lot of footballers come here,” I say.
Her blue eyes swivel toward me. The intensity of her gaze is unnerving. “Yeah, they do. Why, you after someone?”
She looks me up and down, as though seeing me for the first time, then, having established that I’m about as much competition as Roseanne Barr, she looks away again.
“I was hoping to meet”—I lower my voice so as not to announce it to the whole queue—“Alex Henri.”
Her brow registers the slightest flicker of interest. “He’s fit.”
I wait to see if she’ll say something else, but that appears to be it. Half an hour passes before someone talks to me again.
“Sorry, love.” The security guard holds up his hand as I approach the gold rope at the entrance to the club. “Not tonight.”
I look at him in confusion. “What’s not tonight?”
He crossed his arms. “Being funny won’t help. Off you go.”
“No…really…I genuinely don’t understand.” I turn to look at Blondie who’s standing behind me looking as bored as she did half an hour ago. “What did he just say?”
She shrugs a shoulder. “He wants you to leave.”
“Why?”
Another shrug.
“Is it because I’m old?” The security guard is about the same height as Brian but three times as wide and bald except for a neatly trimmed goatee beard that does little to disguise his double chin. “Because you can be sued for age discrimination. You know that, don’t you?”
His facial expression doesn’t change. It’s still registering indifference. “You still here?”
“You have to let me in because…” I glance down the street, at the crowd approaching the club, the couples walking arm in arm, the groups of girls tottering in their heels, the gangs of lads laughing and throwing back their heads, and the wide-eyed tourists consulting their maps and iPhones, but my mind goes blank. He doesn’t care about Charlotte or Alex Henri or the accident. His job is to only let people in who fit the “young and beautiful” brief. Neither of which I am. I look at Blondie in desperation, but she shrugs her shoulders.
“I’m her agent,” I say in a flash of inspiration. “And if you don’t let me in, she and all her beautiful friends will go to”—I say the first thing that comes into my head—“Whisky Mist instead.”
One of Blondie’s friends gasps in surprise but is swiftly silenced by a jab to the waist from Blondie herself. She whispers something in her friend’s ear as the bouncer looks them up and down, then smiles sweetly at him.
“In,” the bouncer says as he unclips the rope and waves me into the club. His eyes don’t so much as flicker from Blondie’s cleavage.
It’s dark inside and I pause in the entrance, blinking to adjust to the gloom.
“Twenty-five pounds,” says a bored female voice. A blond woman is sitting in a smoked-glass-fronted booth to my right. I rummage in my purse, pull out three ten pound notes, and slide them toward her. She takes them wordlessly and slides a five pound note back. When she doesn’t say anything, I take a step forward, toward the thud-thud-thud of dance music and tiny stream of light that’s escaping from double doors at the end of the corridor.
“Stamp,” the receptionist says, then sighs.
I turn. “I’m sorry.”
“I need your wrist.” She looks dead behind the eyes, like she’d rather be anywhere in the world than here, now. I think of my sofa, a book, a glass of wine, and Milly’s soft head on my lap and empathize.
I untangle my hand from the loop of my handbag, slip it through the gap under the glass, and madam stamps my wrist. I’m now the proud owner of a black smudgy “G” tattoo. I tentatively rub it with my thumb but it doesn’t smudge. I’ll have to find a way to get rid of it before I get back home.
***
It’s like being in a mirror-balled truck. I have to fight just to get through the door, and then I’m stuck, prevented from taking another step forward by the tight throng of bodies that fill the nightclub. There are people everywhere, and it’s hotter than a furnace. No matter which direction I move in, I am knocked, jostled, elbowed, and nudged out of the way. “What?” people shout over the repetitive, thumping dance track that fills the room. “What did you say?”
The bar runs along one side of the room—gold, sparkling, and floor to ceiling with bottles of every size, shape, and color. Impossibly beautiful bar staff stalk up and down, reaching for glasses, opening fridges, and pouring drinks as though they’re working an alcohol-themed catwalk. Seating runs the length of the opposite wall; low leather-backed booths and black poofs are groaning with people sitting around gray smoke-glassed coffee tables. I overhear a girl tell her friend that you’re not allowed to sit down at those tables unless you buy a five hundred pound bottle of champagne or a three hundred pound bottle of vodka. No wonder so many people are standing in the center of the club, crammed into the narrow walkway between the seats and the bar. I don’t bother getting a drink. Instead I inch my way through the crowd toward the other side of the room where I can see the bottom of a flight of stairs. Access is blocked by a rope and two burly security guards—they have to lead to the VIP area.
“Jesus!” I hear a cackle from my right. “You weren’t kidding about going for Alex Henri, were you? The look of determination on your face!”
I spin around. My pneumatic friend from the queue beams back at me.
“It’s my agent!” She nudges her friend who giggles like it’s the funniest thing she’s ever heard.
“Mitzi.” She holds out her hand.
I shake it. “Sue. Thank you, for what you did outside. I really appreciate it.”
She smiles. “No problem. If he’d have spoken to my mum the way he spoke to you, I’d have lamped him one. Rude bastard.”
I smile back, unsure how to continue the conversation, but Mitzi fills the gap.
“So.” She glances toward the stairs and the security guards. They’re turning away a group of three scantily dressed girls. “How are you planning on getting to Alex then?”
I shake my head. I really didn’t think this through before I left Brighton. I’d assumed I’d be able to talk to him somehow, or at least get a message to him, but I can’t even see him. The stairs lead to the balcony above our heads, but other than a few pairs of legs, I can’t see a thing through the spindly balustrades. I don’t even know if Alex Henri is up there.
“Could you introduce me?” I ask, glancing back at Mitzi.
“Me?” She throws back her head and cackles like a fish wife. “Darlin’, if I knew Alex, do you think I’d be standing here now, talking to you? No offense.”
“None taken. I just…I mean, you’re very glamorous, you could pass for a model, and the security guard obviously thought you were successful enough to have an agent so…”
“Are you tryin’ to chat me up?” She laughs again then, spotting someone across the room, frantically grabs her friend’s arm. “You know that guy,” she says, leaning in to her, “the one I was telling you about that looks like a cross between David Beckham and Ryan Gosling? He’s only bloody here!”