Charity (44 page)

It was very quiet in Harrods. It was too early in October for the Christmas trade to get going. There was no new stock to arrange, no one even vaguely interested in board games, and she had to stay at her stand at all times.

A couple of smart middle-aged women were cooing over soft toys just over to her right and to her left a man was agonising between two very expensive dolls. But Charity barely saw them: she was wrapped up in her thoughts.

Carmel’s office would be ideal. It had a good position and the rent was low. Although she had no real desire to keep the escort side going, she could use it to bring in money until she landed her first lucrative contracts. The phone, typewriter and duplicating machine were all there; all it needed was a coat of paint, a carpet and some decent lighting.

‘Two hundred,’ she murmured. ‘It’s not that much!’

Working as a promotions girl had given Charity the confidence and poise of a far older woman. Her romantic dreams of love and marriage had been replaced by a fierce desire for a successful career and independence.

John was just a beautiful memory, to be savoured late at night. It still hurt sometimes. If she thought too deeply she could torture herself imagining him with other women, but mostly he was the yardstick by which she measured other men and found them lacking.

If she ever felt a pang of guilt about taking money for nights out with lonely men, she reminded herself of her long-term plans. Her savings were increasing; the men had a good time.

But although she had reconciled herself to many things, her need for her brothers and sister never grew less. After each school holiday she would meet Lou for lunch, eager for all the news and the latest photographs.

Prue was nearly fifteen now, but so different from Charity at the same age. She was plump, with a bland, rather expressionless face and her father’s overlarge forehead. Lou informed her that Prue ‘was a little madam’, but was too kindly to enlarge on that. Toby, at almost fourteen, was becoming even more like the young Uncle Stephen she remembered from her grandmother’s photographs: tall, slender with perfect features, a very handsome boy. James, now seven, was a reminder of Toby at the same age – thin as a whippet, with an engaging grin and no front teeth. The only thing which still united them as a family was the white-blond hair and bright blue eyes.

Yet on each of these lunch dates which meant so much to Charity, she sensed how much Lou was holding back. She spoke of the central heating put in at Studley, of the walled garden being transformed into an Italian garden complete with pergolas and fountain, and the redecoration of the children’s rooms. She admitted that staff came and went at an alarming rate and said how frail Grandmother was becoming, but she could never be pushed into revealing her real feelings about Toby and Prue.

All Charity knew was that Prue was top of her class in the nearby private school. She played the piano well, still had dancing lessons and was now learning both French and Italian. Toby was less academic: he excelled at games and gymnastics and had learned to ride, but somehow the absence of more detail suggested he was still in trouble one way or another. The picture Charity was left with was that both children had been spoiled.

Only James gave Charity real hope, as Lou was effusive in his praise. She said he was quick, kind-hearted, always laughing. Charity knew Lou was frightened that he too might be whisked away to Studley and that this was why she was so loath to go against Stephen in any way.

One ray of hope kept Charity going. Lou in her diplomatic way had managed to make both Toby and Prue realise the truth of what had happened years before. Each time she saw Charity she pointed out it would only be a few more years before they’d be able to defy their uncle and visit her.

Charity had learned to tuck her brothers and sister away in the same special place she kept her memories of Daniel. She celebrated each birthday silently, bought them cards she couldn’t send, and vowed to herself that one day they’d be together again. Creating a successful business would give her the ultimate weapon to beat Uncle Stephen. What could be sweeter than showing that chauvinistic old colonel that the girl he expected to clean for him now employed dozens of people?

‘What’s up, Chas?’ Dorothy flung herself down on the sofa next to Charity. ‘Counting your money again?’

It was just over a week since Carmel had offered her the office and since then Charity had thought of nothing else. But dreaming, scheming and wanting didn’t make two hundred pounds appear.

Charity closed her notebook and smiled weakly. Dorothy had just got out of the bath and she wore only a slinky ivory satin housecoat. She rarely got up before midday now, spent all afternoon lying around doing her nails and hair, and never thought of cleaning up, offering to do some shopping, or even making coffee.

Rita might be scatterbrained and irresponsible, but she worked and played with enthusiasm. But sometimes it seemed Dorothy was going downhill fast.

‘Just doing some sums,’ Charity said.

She had spent her day off visiting the four main high street banks in an effort to raise a loan. But they all asked her for a business plan and she didn’t know what that meant. Finally she’d come home around an hour ago to find Dorothy hogging the bathroom, a pile of unwashed dishes in the kitchen and her Beatles LP left on the floor, a coffee mug stuck to it.

It was hard not to let on to Dorothy and Rita about her plans, but she knew if she did they would want to be in on it. They might put up the money needed, but they would play at having a business for a couple of weeks, then lose interest and leave her to do everything while expecting their share of the profits.

‘You aren’t thinking about the kids again?’ Dorothy leaned forward to get a cigarette, her naked breasts popping out of her housecoat. She was shameless these days, never thinking that other people might feel uncomfortable with a near-naked girl walking around the flat.

‘Sort of,’ Charity lied. ‘Wondering why Lou won’t tell me what’s troubling her about them.’

‘Well they’re teenagers, aren’t they? I was awful at that age,’ Dorothy said sympathetically. ‘Of course there’s many people who don’t think I’ve improved!’

‘You should get a proper job,’ Charity said archly. ‘I worry about you too.’

Dorothy had dropped out of daytime work since the summer. She’d met an Australian called Neville and the temptation to laze around with him in the sun proved too much for Dorothy. After two weeks hitching round the South of France with him she came home alone, very subdued. She’d sneered at Neville, claimed it was the last time she’d let her heart rule her head, but she never divulged what had happened. It was only one night when she woke Charity to say she was bleeding heavily that it came out she’d been pregnant and had had an abortion that morning over in Paddington.

Charity and Rita still made allowances for Dorothy’s inertia, her caustic remarks and her slovenly ways. They felt deeply for her being caught out a second time and the trauma the abortion must have caused. They even paid her share of the rent until she was better, assuming she’d get back to normal once her body had. But though Dorothy had returned to escort work, she made it clear she had no intention of getting a real job and she was much harder on men. She began to go alone on escort dates and often didn’t come home at all. She always seemed to have plenty of money and Charity had to draw her own conclusions about how she came by it. But despite Dorothy’s cynical attitude, her laziness and inability to take herself in hand, Charity still cared about her as much as ever.

‘There are better things to do in life than be a wage slave.’ Dorothy flashed a brilliant smile at Charity. ‘You know your problem, Chas?’

‘What’s that?’ Charity pulled her friend’s housecoat back across her breasts.

‘You’re a doormat. You always consider everyone before yourself, and until you learn to be a bit more selfish people will always wipe their feet on you.’

*

Later, alone in her room, Charity consulted her little notebook again. She had an idea for raising the money, a little voice that wouldn’t go away, but it was one which made her skin crawl. Yet Dorothy’s words were echoing in her head. Was she really going to be a doormat all her life, or strike out now for what she wanted?

Surely she could justify it? She needed that money so badly. Even John had said she must make the most of opportunities. All week she’d hoped an alternative would present itself, but time and ideas had run out. Carmel wouldn’t and couldn’t wait. Everything and everyone had their price. The question was – would anyone consider her worth two hundred pounds?

It seemed like fate when Carmel rang the following day to ask if she would go out with Ted Parsloe. Of all the dozens of men she’d dated he was perhaps the only one she would agree to meet on her own. Normally when he was in town he had his sidekick Lawrence with him, and Charity certainly wouldn’t even think of carrying out her plan with Rita there.

Ted had all the right credentials. His wealth was phenomenal, she knew he owned a string of garages in England and a chain of drug stores in the United States. On their previous five or six dates, she’d seen him win and lose hundreds at roulette without turning a hair.

But the best thing about Ted was that he’d made it plain before that he wanted her. He had been too much of a gentleman to push it, but it lay unspoken between them.

‘Come back to my hotel for a nightcap?’ Ted whispered in her ear as they danced.

Charity felt sick with apprehension yet she managed a bright smile. Ted Parsloe with his gold watch and Savile Row suit was playing right into her hands, just as she’d known he would, but it gave her no pleasure.

It was almost two o’clock, but Churchill’s nightclub was in full swing and she knew most of the beautiful girls here tonight would offer sex at a price.

Maybe not hard cash, but a fur coat, a holiday or even just to be wined and dined in style. Why else would that leggy redhead with the sensational face be snuggled up to a fat, balding man? Would Patty, the girl with the huge soft dark eyes, have anything in common with that weedy little accountant if he didn’t pay the rent on her mews cottage in Chelsea?

Charity had read so many articles in magazines that claimed women were attracted to powerful men, regardless of their looks. But the word ‘power’ was a euphemism: in her view it simply meant women were turned on by wealth.

Charity could see Mandy across the club. She was draped along a settee, her head on a man’s knee, holding his face in her hands, her long cream evening dress slit to the thigh offering a glimpse of stocking top. Charity had met Mandy several months ago when they were working for a week in Barkers’ department store on a perfume promotion. She was engaged to an engineering student then and didn’t have a clue about anything. Just eighteen, wide-eyed and innocent with mousy long straight hair and her shapely body concealed by frumpy clothes.

One evening she had come back to the flat for a girls’ evening of drink and chatter. Dorothy had suggested she lighten her hair while Charity showed her how to do her makeup.

A month later Charity bumped into her in Kensington High Street and if Mandy hadn’t caught hold of her arm she wouldn’t even have recognised her. She had blonde wavy hair and was poured into a shocking pink minidress that skimmed her crotch. She said she’d dropped the engagement to the engineer and moved in with two other girls in Kensington. Now she ‘worked the clubs’.

Well, she’d be earning plenty tonight. No doubt that man leering down at her cleavage would provide enough money for a new dress and a week’s rent. As a girl in the powder room had said earlier in the night, ‘Well they get what they want and so do we. I can’t see the sense in having sex for nothing when there’s men out there willing to pay.’

Charity didn’t agree with that philosophy. She remembered only too well making love to both Hugh and John, and no one could convince her it would be the same doing it for money.

But she had to get that two hundred pounds.

‘A nightcap?’ She looked right into Ted’s eyes and let her lips curve into a seductive smile.

He was a good-looking man despite being overweight, with dark hair tinged with just the odd streak of grey and an attractive cleft chin. Charity couldn’t work his age out. He could pass for late forties but she suspected he was closer to sixty because he’d made his original fortune in America during Prohibition.

It had been a lovely evening: a delicious Chinese meal in Soho, then on here to Churchill’s for more drinks and dancing. Perhaps he even saw her agreement to a date on their own as a green flag.

‘You know what I want, Charity.’ He smiled back, soft dark eyes twinkling with merriment.

Even his voice was nice, a faint trace of Geordie with overtones of American. He had a good sense of humour and a straightforward approach to everything.

‘Tell me, then.’ She fluttered her eyelashes, knowing this was the moment she’d been waiting for.

‘I want to screw you. I have from the first moment I saw you.’

She was glad he didn’t say ‘make love’; it was easier to handle that way.

‘I don’t know if you can afford me.’ She kept her eyes on his, her tongue sliding nervously over her upper lip.

Ted recovered his composure very quickly.

‘Come on now, Charity! I know you don’t put it about. That’s why I want you so much.’

‘Everyone’s got their price,’ she said. She’d drunk enough to be this bold, and she’d had enough foresight to slip her diaphram in a while ago. ‘Mine’s very high.’

‘How high?’

His hand in hers was sticky with sweat. Could she really do this? Wouldn’t it be better to laugh now and tell Ted she’d been joking?

‘Two hundred pounds.’

The room seemed to be spinning and she could feel sweat running down the middle of her back under her black chiffon dress. What if he laughed at her? Told her to get lost? How could she walk out of here and keep her dignity?

‘You rate yourself very highly.’ He looked down at her and his smile was cold.

‘Well I’m special,’ she smiled back. ‘That’s why I’m offering myself to you.’