Her mother smiled. ‘If you say so, my darling. But, I must admit, I shan’t be sorry to get back to Fifth Avenue. I love your little pet project, though, it’s adorable. And I think I must buy one of those sweet enamel brooches you have displayed so prettily in the goldfish bowl. They could almost be Chanel …’
The stylish, good-looking crowd spilled out on to the pavement where local residents and other shop owners eyed them suspiciously. Across the road, some young black kids gathered to observe the proceedings, in their street uniform of baggy jeans, baggier T-shirts, back-to-front baseball caps and trainers. Adults sat on the low walls or in stairwells, watching the chattering socialites with mild curiosity and casual disdain.
As night fell and cars began to draw up to collect their owners and convey them to the next party or launch or smart restaurant, the watchers began to whoop and whistle and call out comments.
Romily felt her first tingle of nervousness about the location. It was true that during the day, as she’d been putting out her stock, she had started to wonder who exactly was going to pop in and buy an $800 sweater or a vintage French chrome lamp for $550, let alone the dresses that started at $1,000. They were only a few streets away from the more sophisticated area north of Delaney Street, a few blocks from Orchard Street and its upmarket restaurants and
boutiques
.
Even if no one else comes
, she told herself,
all my girlfriends will. They’ll spread the word. I’m going to help this area come up in the world. Once Annie and Stella and everyone get to work, there’ll be more than enough customers
.
She circulated again, quietly giving orders for glasses of champagne to be topped up, trays of canapés to be replenished, and stock to be tidied after guests had rifled through it. A couple of girls had even bought something: they’d sold a huge scented candle with six wicks that smelled of tuberose, and a silver wine bucket. Romily felt a surge of pride as she rang up her first sale.
It was after midnight when the last guests left and she could shut up the shop. She sighed happily as she looked around it, as proud as a mother of her new baby.
‘Come on, Muffy!’ she called out. ‘My car will be here in a moment. Have you finished in the back?’
There was a muffled exclamation and then Muffy came rushing in, her face white and scared. ‘Romily! Something awful is going on in the alley. Come and look!’
The girls hurried through to the back room where a barred window looked out over the side alley. Muffy had switched off the light so it was possible to see out clearly into the space outside, half illuminated by a streetlamp. Something violent was happening there: two huge dark shapes were scuffling round a smaller white one, thumping, punching and kicking.
‘Oh my God!’ whispered Romily, staring out in horror. ‘Someone’s being beaten up!’
‘What shall we do?’ squeaked Muffy, hiding her eyes behind her hands.
‘We’d better call the police. Do you have your cellphone?’
‘Somewhere, somewhere … It’s in my purse, I think! Anyway, I don’t know if I can call them on a cell. Is it 911 or do I need a dialling code …’
Romily hissed, ‘Just hurry! Use the phone in the shop.’ Outside, she could see that the white shape was becoming more and more limp as the other men continued their attack. ‘Oh my God, they’ll kill him. Quick, Muffy!’
Just then, the men in black threw their victim to the ground, aimed another couple of kicks at him, and then stopped their assault.
‘Let that be a lesson to ya!’ said one in a thick, deep voice, and then the two assailants turned and sauntered off, lighting cigarettes as they went.
Romily watched as the man on the ground groaned, rolled slightly as if trying to get up, and then lay still. A moment later she was unlocking the back door, which took some time because of the complicated locks and bolts all over it. As soon as she’d opened it, she darted out into the alley and over to the prone figure. The man’s face was covered in blood but she could see that his nose was probably broken and his eyes and lips were hugely swollen. His clothes were also blood-stained, where the gush from his nose had covered them, but she could make out that he was wearing chef’s whites and baggy checked trousers.
‘Oh my God, are you OK?’ she said helplessly.
He moaned and then winced in pain. ‘My … my chest. I think they broke my ribs,’ he said in croak.
Romily stared at him, wondering what on earth she could do. She put a hand on his arm. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said, ‘I’ll get you some help.’ She got up, ran back in and called to Muffy, ‘Get an ambulance, I think he’s badly hurt!’ Then she grabbed the first-aid box and a cup of water, and ran back to the alley.
The beaten-up chef was still lying there – a pathetic, prone figure in the darkness. She felt sorry for him as she knelt down next to him, trying to push her white skirts off the dirty ground.
‘Don’t worry,’ she said reassuringly. ‘Help is coming. Now, let me see if I can staunch some of this bleeding …’ She opened the first-aid box, took out a wadge of cotton wool, dipped it in the water and began to dab at his blood-covered face. The man groaned as the water touched his wounds and swollen skin, but she murmured soothingly and carried on. ‘I don’t think your nose is bleeding as badly as it was … look, I’m cleaning it all away and it’s looking fine. I guess the doctor will have to fix it somehow. I don’t know what happens with broken noses, but I suppose that if they can do nose jobs, they must be able to make original ones look like new.’
The man gazed at her through eyes that were just small slits in puffed red skin, but she seemed to see gratitude there.
He blinked and then rasped, ‘Oh, no. Your beautiful dress.’
She looked down. The fine white silk had streaks of red blood and smears of pink on it by now. ‘Oh never mind. It’s only a dress. Blood comes out anyway, as long as you get to it fast enough.’
He stared at her from his foetal position, arms wrapped round his poor broken ribs. ‘Thank you,’ he said at last.
‘Don’t worry. I couldn’t exactly leave you here. Why did those men beat you up? Were they robbing you?’
He shut his eyes. ‘Not exactly.’
She looked down again at his stained work clothes. He hardly looked like a worthwhile target for a mugger – in fact, his attackers seemed to have been better dressed than he was.
‘You can tell the police all about it when they come,’ she said.
There was the sound of an ambulance siren approaching in the distance.
‘Is that for me?’ he said, looking anxious.
Romily nodded. ‘I hope so. You need to be checked over.’
‘Ah, shit.’ The man groaned. ‘I don’t need it. The last thing I want is the police getting involved. I’m fine.’
‘Don’t be silly – you’ve been badly beaten. You might have internal injuries. You have to see a doctor.’
‘I’m … I’m OK.’ He tried to struggle up to sitting position. ‘I’m going home.’
Romily watched as he made an effort to get up, but the pain on his face told the real story and he slumped back to the ground with a sigh. ‘Don’t worry, you’re going to be fine,’ she said, and looked towards the street where she could see flashing lights approaching. Just then Muffy came out of the back door of the shop.
‘They’re here,’ she said breathlessly.
‘Good,’ Romily said. ‘This man needs to see a doctor as fast as possible.’
Chapter 22
Oxford
Summer 2003
I REALLY CAN’T
believe I let Allegra talk me into this
.
Imogen walked through Peckwater Quad feeling self-conscious even though her outfit was covered with a trench coat. The directions had been for party-goers to meet in Oriel Square, which was just at the back of Christ Church, through Canterbury Gate. Allegra was going to meet her there.
Some second-year men, in a motley collection of drag outfits and made up in clownish colours, whooped through the gate, rushing past her into the square where more people had gathered in various stages of undress. Passers-by and tourists gaped at the sight as the undergraduates gathered, the males in dresses or women’s underwear and the girls in the skimpiest of clothes, extreme make-up and outfits that looked as though they had come from fetish shops.
Imogen pulled her coat more tightly around herself despite the warm evening and looked about for Allegra.
‘OK, guys!’ shouted a man in an extraordinary blonde wig with glitter lipstick thickly smeared all over his lips. ‘Can everyone bring their tickets, please? The buses are parked just down the road by Merton, so make your way there now.’
I can’t go on my own!
Imogen felt panicky.
Where the hell is Allegra
? For a moment she hoped that her friend had changed her mind. Then she could go back to her own room, put on some proper clothes and settle down to the piles of notes and books on her desk. The fact that Mods were now only a day away made her feel sick with nerves. She knew that she’d made a dangerous decision – and Sam had been so furious with her when she’d told him what she was planning that she’d eventually pretended that she’d changed her mind and wasn’t going to the Gaveston at all, but would be spending a quiet night in her room revising. That was another reason why she was feeling so uncomfortable. What if Sam or one of his friends saw her?
Two more minutes then I’m going back to my room
, she decided.
The problem was Xander. Allegra, whether she meant to or not, had dangled him in front of her like a piece of bait, and of course Imogen had been unable to resist it. The magic that surrounded him always reeled her in. She’d seen him several times over the last months and he was always so sweet to her, with that gentle and slightly flirtatious tone he’d always used and his protective attitude. ‘You tell me if you run into any problems, Midge,’ he’d say, ‘and I’ll sort them out for you.’ She couldn’t help what she felt for Xander: a dizzying passion that made her mouth dry, and her palms damp, and her whole being contract with longing at the very thought of him. Just the shortest moments of imagining what it might feel like to be in his arms made her feel faint – and that was something she never felt with Sam, no matter how sweet and kind he was. How could anyone resist the lure of that feeling? It was like a drug that once tried could never be refused: the pleasure it offered – or, at least, the intensity of emotion – was too extraordinary not to be taken.
The opportunity to spend the evening in Xander’s company, and, more to the point, at a party where she’d specifically been asked to talk to him, and where recklessness was encouraged if not compulsory, was too much. She couldn’t turn it down.
So here she was, standing in Oriel Square, surrounded by wild-looking people, wondering what she was doing risking her Oxford career for the sake of a few precious moments with Xander.
‘Midge, Midge!’ It was Allegra, waving at her and grinning broadly as she marched down towards the square in the company of some other girls. She looked astonishing in miniature gold hot pants and a pair of thigh-high black patent boots with five-inch heels that made her legs seem to go on forever. On top she wore a magenta silk bustier trimmed with sequins from which her breasts billowed upwards, her modesty only just preserved. Her blonde hair was hidden under a pink Afro that bounced round her head like a balloon of candyfloss and she wore gold-rimmed round sunglasses.
‘I nearly didn’t recognise you. You look amazing,’ Imogen said as Allegra approached her.
‘Thanks, honey.’ Allegra slapped one hand with the riding crop she was carrying in the other. ‘What are you wearing under there?’
‘It looks pretty dull next to yours, I’m afraid.’ Imogen opened her mac like a reluctant flasher to reveal a black silk negligee nipped in at the waist with a bondage-style leather corset-belt, covered in studs and buckles. The negligee ended at mid-thigh and below that were fishnets and her silver platform heels.
‘Very nice! I don’t know what you’re talking about. Like the boudoir bondage look. It suits you.’ Allegra grinned naughtily. ‘Look at all these boys done up like women –
most
of them very ugly women, I might add. And isn’t everyone staring!’
She looked up at all the student faces peering out of the windows of Christ Church and Oriel at the colourful throng in the square, and shouted out, ‘Come and join us! We’re off to do some shagging!’
There was general laughter, and then they were chivvied out of the square to where three coaches were waiting.
‘Where are we going?’ Imogen asked, as she and Allegra climbed into their seats.
‘Not sure, but I think Xander said it was James’s farm – remember the one I told you about? Now …’ Allegra opened a plastic bag she’d been carrying and pulled out a bottle of champagne. ‘How about a little something for the journey? You obviously need a bit of warming up. Got to get you out of that coat somehow.’
The coaches crawled out of Oxford and then they were coasting down the motorway. No one paid much attention to where they were going, the atmosphere was too het up and excited for that, with drink being passed around, along with the odd spliff and a box of pills marked ‘Eat Me’.
‘Ecstasy, I should think,’ Allegra remarked as they went past her. ‘No, thanks, darling, never take a pill I didn’t buy myself. Want one, Midge?’
Imogen shook her head.
Exams the day after tomorrow
, she reminded herself.
But a glass of champagne or two won’t hurt
.
Before long, the coaches came off the motorway and began bumping along country lanes. It was almost an hour after they’d left Oxford when they turned up a long driveway and finally pulled to a halt in front of a farmhouse and a large barn, which had its doors wide open.
‘This is James’s place,’ Allegra said as they disembarked. ‘I think his dad gave it to him for his eighteenth.’
Imogen looked about. She’d got used to some of the
extravagant
ways of the rich while still at school: there were the girls who drove up the day after their driving test in a brand new car; girls with their own credit cards and accounts at Coutts; girls who seemed to be constantly abroad, skiing, or cruising on luxury yachts, or soaking up the St Lucia sun. It was all so far from her own experience. Her parents didn’t have that kind of money – there was no way they could afford to buy her a car or give her a lavish dress allowance. They had agreed she could have a certain amount of money to live on while she was at university but everything she needed above that was her own concern. Even Allegra, while she was certainly more flush than Imogen, didn’t have mountains of cash at her disposal.