She turned over and let him pull off her pants. By now she could feel liquid seeping out of her and trickling down her thighs. His fingers found it. Moments later, they were gliding over her clitoris.
“Just let go,” he urged her softly.
She felt herself drifting away, floating on a sea of pure pleasure. Soon she felt the first spasm and then another.
Afterward he planted tiny kisses all over her face, stomach and breasts.
“Now sleep,” he commanded kindly, pushing her fringe out of her eyes.
“Thanks again for being there tonight,” she said, starting to feel drowsy now.
“I’ll always be there,” he whispered.
* * * * *
The moment she woke up, the memory of what had happened at the comedy contest hit Rachel like a wrecker’s ball. But at the same time, she felt oddly, irrationally buoyant. Then she remembered Matt had told her he loved her. She let out a couple of contented little sighs and turned over to put an arm round him, but he wasn’t there. Almost at once she heard his voice coming from the living room. There was a second voice too. Also male. Bound to be his flatmate, she thought. She listened, but couldn’t make out what they were saying.
As she examined her feelings about last night more closely, she realized that her fury had by no means disappeared. What had disappeared, however, was the feeling of hopelessness, the fear that her career was over. It had been replaced (probably as a result of Matt’s positive thinking rubbing off on her, she decided) with an overpowering determination to expose Pitsy and get even with her.
She stared up at the ceiling. Maybe she should start with the obvious—find Pitsy, appeal to her better nature and beg her to admit publicly what she’d done. She laughed out loud. The idea was absurd. First, Pitsy was mad and didn’t have a better nature. Second, she would have gone to ground by now and be impossible to find.
The only alternative was to speak to Xantia. Deeply buried as it was, Rachel was certain the woman did have a more human side. She’d seen glimmerings of it when she and Shelley discovered the secret room. For a few moments Xantia’s haughty eloquence had given way to bumbling, beet-faced embarrassment. But whether her human side extended to her possessing feelings for anybody other than herself, it was hard to say.
But there was a chance—albeit slim to the point of being waiflike—that she might be able to convince Xantia of what Pitsy had done and that Xantia might respond by being so outraged that she would agree to put Rachel’s case to the people at Channel 6. She was bound to have contacts there. She probably even knew Robin Metcalf, the program controller who’d introduced himself to Rachel at the Flicker and Firkin in Chiswick.
Rachel knew it would be impossible for her to be declared the winner of the contest in Pitsy’s place. It would be far too complicated, not to say embarrassing for Channel 6. All she wanted was for her reputation with them to remain intact. That way they might at least consider offering her some television work in the future.
The only problem with her plan—apart from Xantia refusing to see her or refusing to believe her story—was that since the Marxes always spent Christmas in Venice, she wouldn’t be able to get to her until the new year. Monumentally frustrating as it was going to be to sit out Christmas worrying and speculating about what her reaction might be, she had no choice.
Eager to hear what Matt thought of her plan, she got out of bed, put on the dressing gown he’d left out for her and headed into the hall.
As she stood there doing up the dressing gown belt, she could hear Matt’s voice quite clearly now. He was having a go at his flatmate about the mess in the living room and in particular some empty curry cartons that hadn’t been thrown away. After a moment or two she heard the second voice. Her hand flew to her mouth.
“Look, I’m sorry, mate,” the voice with the unmistakable Liverpool accent was saying. “I was going to clear it up last night when I’d finished, but it was after two by then and I was feeling dead miserable. I’d had to ditch me blind date. She turned out to have eyes like two limpid pools—which was brilliant—except she had a nose like a diving board.”
“Tractor?” Rachel murmured to herself in utter disbelief. “Matt’s flatmate is Tractor?”
She opened the door a crack and peered in, to check her ears weren’t deceiving her. They weren’t. There he was, lying outstretched on the sofa. He was reading the paper and drawing on a cigarette, wearing nothing but his leather trousers. Matt was standing by the dining table, gathering up curry containers.
“And what about all this crap on the floor?”
She could see that the floor immediately surrounding the table was a sea of small objects that looked like they were made of paper.
“It’s me origami.”
“I’ll pick it up then, shall I?” Matt said sarcastically.
“Look, I’ve said I’m sorry. Just leave it. I’ll do it later.”
Matt bent down and began sweeping the bits of origami together with his hand. Then he picked one up and began staring at it. She could just about see it was petal-shaped with lots of folds.
“So what are they?” Matt said, shoving his finger inside one of the folds.
“Cunts,” Tractor said.
“Who are?”
“Me bits of origami. The thing is, I can’t get ’em quite right. I worked on them for hours after I got back last night, but me inner labia keep prolapsing.”
Outside the door, Rachel was choking as she tried to avoid bursting out laughing.
“For Chrissake, Tractor,” Matt groaned. “I’ve brought Rachel back. She had a terrible shock last night. Somebody stole her material and she’s feeling pretty wretched. The last thing she wants to walk into is a pile of origami, er . . .”
Matt hesitated.
“Cunts,” Tractor obliged.
Shaking his head, Matt began picking up the bits of paper.
“So where is she then, your bird?” Tractor asked.
“Rachel,” he said, emphasizing her name, “is still in bed.”
“Right . . . Oh, by the way, I didn’t tell you. I got a letter from the Kellogg’s people this morning.”
“Oh yeah—saying what exactly?”
“Well, it was only a compliments slip really, but it thanked me for my Imperial Cereal proposal and said they would be writing to me in due course.”
“Fantastic,” Matt said disdainfully, ramming several failed origami genitalia into the remains of a chicken tikka masala.
Tractor took another drag on his cigarette. “Here,” he said, holding up the paper that Rachel could now see was the
Radio Times
. “You see these pictures of all the Joke for Europe contestants. Well, I know one of them.”
“Who?” Matt said, coming over to look at the picture.
“Her. I’ve met her.”
“Tractor, that’s Rachel. How do you know her?”
“Oh, I tried to pick her up a few weeks ago in the Red House. Don’t get all aerated, it was ages ago.”
He began gently scratching his chest.
At this point Rachel made her silent entrance.
“She made out she wasn’t interested,” Tractor continued, “but just between you and me, I reckon she really had the hots for me.”
“Hi, Tractor,” Rachel said, beaming.
Tractor leaped off the sofa and stood in front of her, red in the face. Then he bent down toward the coffee table and stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray. It came as a complete surprise to her that he was even remotely capable of embarrassment. Despite herself, she couldn’t help finding it ever so slightly endearing.
“Hi,” he said awkwardly, crossing his arms in front of him to cover up his nipples. “Sorry about what happened last night. Matt told me somebody stole your material. You must feel like shit.”
“Yeah, something like that,” she said breezily, noticing Matt whisking the curry cartons off the table and hiding them behind his back.
“Well,” Tractor began sheepishly, “I was just about to get in the shower. Anyway, nice to see you again, Rachel.”
“And you, Tractor.”
“Here,” Matt said, “I think these are yours.” He took the curry cartons from behind his back and handed them to his friend.
Tractor turned to go, but Matt called him back and placed the ashtray full of cigarette butts on top of one of the cartons.
They watched him walk to the door, where he stopped, lowered his head and sniffed his armpits. When he finally left the room he was muttering something about always ending up smelling like a packet of Vesta curry whenever he had an Indian.
Matt closed his eyes and pressed his eyeballs with his fingers. “Rachel, I’m sorry. I had no idea Tractor tried to pick you up. Oh God . . . Don’t tell me he pulled that
Clitorati
stunt of his.”
“OK, then, I won’t,” Rachel teased.
Matt gave a brief grin. “I know you think Tractor’s an absolute tosser, but he’s not a bad bloke—”
He broke off. Coming from the bathroom were the loud, atonal sounds of Tractor singing “Furry, cross the mercy . . . dah . . . da da da dah.”
Matt rolled his eyes. “It’s just that he hasn’t got the first idea how to handle women.”
“You don’t say.”
Matt leaned over the back of the sofa and picked up a pair of men’s briefs. “And OK, he’s a bit of a layabout.” He rammed the underpants into his jeans pocket. “But I make allowances for him because he’s been through a really rough time lately. The reason he disappeared to New York was to get over a broken heart. He’d finally managed to meet a woman and then, when he was really starting to fall for her, it turns out she only wanted him for his sperm. If he hadn’t got up in the middle of the night and gone hunting through the deep freeze for a couple of fish fingers to put in a sandwich, he’d never have found out.”
“What? You mean she was a sperm napper?”
Matt nodded. “Deep freeze was chocka with his used—”
“All right, enough,” she giggled. “I get the picture.”
He came over to her and ran his fingers across her smiling lips. “You know, I think your sense of humor might be returning,” he said.
“Oh, I wouldn’t go that far,” she said. “It’s just that I am determined not to let Pitsy sodding Carter get the better of me, that’s all.”
She explained about her plan to see Xantia. He said it was probably a long shot, but definitely worth a try.
“You just wait,” Rachel said with a positively evil grin. “When I’ve finished with Pitsy, she’ll be begging for mercy.”
She reached out, took an apple from the fruit bowl and bit into it. Hard.
“You know,” he said, “that’s one of the things I adore about you.”
“What? My grit and steely determination in the face of adversity?”
“No,” he said. “The way you chew. Like a rabbit, with your front teeth. It’s really sweet.”
“I do not,” she squealed indignantly, reaching for a cushion and bashing him playfully over the head with it.
CHAPTER 21
“So how are you bearing up, darling?” Faye asked, in that painfully concerned tone she always used at times of great personal suffering like funerals or the time Coral’s new kitchen units finally turned up—after a four-month wait—with Sandringham rosewood doors when she’d ordered the Balmoral teak.
“Mum, I’m fine—just like I was when you rang an hour ago and an hour before that.”
“Are you sure? I mean, how can you be fine after the trauma you’ve been through? Coral says you could be in denial. She thinks maybe you should get some counseling, you know, to help you unleash your anger and start grieving for your lost jokes. She saw somebody a few years back, when she got that obsessive-compulsive thing. Mind you, it didn’t do her any good. Every time she went, she spent the hour tidying the therapist’s room.”
“Mum, I don’t need therapy. I’m OK, honestly. . . . No, there’s nothing you or Dad can do. . . . No, please don’t go to the police. They won’t be the remotest bit interested. I mean can you imagine Nick Ross on
Crimewatch
saying: ‘If you’ve seen the woman who stole these jokes, police are waiting to hear from you’?”
“All right, but your father’s still going to speak to Henry, our solicitor. I’ll phone you tonight and let you know what he says.”
“OK, Mum. Whatever. Speak to you later.”
Rolling her eyes, Rachel pressed the off button on her mobile and put it down on the dashboard.
Shelley, who was sitting in the passenger seat, started laughing. “They do say,” she said, “that all women eventually turn into their mothers.”
“God, I just hope that’s not true,” Rachel said.
“Yeah, me too. Mine’s always fancied Willard Scott.”
* * * * *
It was just after two and Rachel and Shelley were in Rachel’s car on their way to Matt’s washing machine unveiling.
The drive from Crouch End to Muswell Hill shouldn’t have taken more than five minutes, but since it was Christmas Eve, the roads were jammed with traffic heading out of London and they’d hardly moved for a quarter of an hour.
Shelley turned up the radio, which was playing Christmas carols, and started singing along to “Silent Night.” Rachel joined in with the descant even though she knew she could sit on a Chubb lock and still not be in key. By the time they reached the final “Sleeeep in heavenly peace,” not even Shelley could reach the high note and they burst into a fit of giggles.
It was a while before Rachel realized that Shelley had stopped laughing and instead was inhaling sharply through her teeth.
Rachel turned to look at her. She was grimacing and both hands were clamped to her belly.
“You OK?” Rachel asked.
Shelley let out a long slow breath and smiled. “Yeah. I’m fine. It’s these Braxton Hicks practice contractions. I’ve been getting them all night.”
Rachel looked at her with concern. “You sure they’re just practice contractions? I got them with Sam, but I don’t remember them hurting that much. You’re only a month off your due date, you know. After what happened a few weeks ago—shouldn’t we go to the hospital and get you checked out?”
“Nah, stop fussing. I’m fine. It’s gone now.”
“You sure?” Rachel said uneasily.
“Positive. These pains feel exactly the same as they did when I went to hospital the first time. It was a false alarm back then. It’ll be the same now. I’m not making a fool of myself again. Let’s just change the subject. . . . So now that you and Matt have finally got round to telling each other how you feel, when are you going to give Adam his marching orders?”
“As soon as he gets home—whenever that is. Could be weeks before—”
She broke off a second time. Now Shelley was making tiny blowing sounds.
“That does it,” Rachel declared, seeing her friend’s contorted face. “I’m getting you to the hospital. Braxton Hicks contractions don’t hurt like that. You, my friend, are in labor.”
“Rachel,” Shelley cried out in exasperation. “Will you stop this? I’m not in labor. The pains are only lasting a moment or two. See, it’s gone again.” Her face broke into a grin. “Anyway,” she went on, “I categorically refuse to drop this baby until I’ve met the gorgeous Tractor. I can’t believe he’s Matt’s flatmate.”
“Shelley, for Chrissake, what are you like? Here you are, probably in the first stages of labor, and all you can think about is going on the make.”
“Look, for the last time, I am
not
in labor. These are just practice contractions—OK?”
“Fine. If you say so,” she said.
* * * * *
The traffic was so bad that it took them another half hour to get to Muswell Hill. On the way, Shelley had two more “practice contractions.” She had another as they stood outside Matt’s block waiting for him to answer the intercom. Rachel said nothing this time, deciding there was no point arguing. If the pains really were nothing more than Braxton Hicks contractions, they would stop eventually. If Shelley was in real labor, she’d know soon enough.
“It’s us,” Rachel said, once Matt had answered the intercom.
“Hi. Tractor’s not with you by any chance, is he?”
“No, haven’t seen him.”
“Oh, it’s just that he should have been back here an hour ago, that’s all.”
The buzzer rang, Shelley pushed open the door and they stepped into the lobby. Then, just as the door clicked shut behind them, they heard a voice outside.
“Oh, come on, Demi,” the voice pleaded. “Come on, sweetheart. A few more paces, just for me.”
“That’s Tractor,” Rachel said with a puzzled frown.
“You sure?” Shelley said, sounding distinctly downcast. “Seems like he’s got a girlfriend.”
“Must be his blind date from last night,” Rachel said. “But I’m sure I heard him say he dumped her.”
“Look, Demi, don’t give me a hard time. Come on, how’s about some Liquorice Allsorts?”
The two women exchanged bewildered glances.
Suddenly there was a clip-clopping sound.
“Good girl, Demi. That’s a good girl.”
Clip, clop. Clip, clop.
“Rachel,” Shelley said, “is it just me, or do you hear hooves?”
Shaking her head with puzzlement, Rachel opened the door.
Tractor was heading up the path toward them. He was pulling on a rope. The rope was attached to an exceedingly moth-eaten, elderly donkey.
“Oh my God,” Rachel muttered. “What is that?”
“It’s a donkey,” Shelley tittered.
“I can see it’s a donkey,” Rachel said. “I mean what’s it for? In case you hadn’t noticed, there’s not a lot of call for beasts of burden in Muswell Hill.”
Shelley ignored the remark. She was too busy eyeing Tractor’s brown velvet suit with its very fitted, very wide lapeled jacket and flared trousers.
“God,” Shelley whispered. “You were right about his pale skin. Is he gorgeous or is he gorgeous?”
Rachel rolled her eyes.
A moment later Tractor and the mangy Demi were standing in front of them.
“Hi, Tractor,” Rachel said. “Nice donkey.”
“Yeah, Demi belongs to my aunty Pam. She runs a sanctuary in Kent. I’ve just been to collect her.”
He began stroking the animal’s nose.
“Must have caused a stir, a donkey on the bus.”
“Very funny. I borrowed Van Morrison and hired a horse trailer.”
By now he had noticed Shelley.
“So, Rachel,” he said, smiling, “you haven’t introduced me to your friend.”
“Oh right. Sorry. This is Shelley. She lives downstairs from me. But I still don’t fully understand. What are you doing bringing a donkey into a block of flats?”
He ignored her. “Hi, Shelley,” he said. “I’m Dave, but my friends call me Tractor.”
“Oh, why’s that, then?”
“Shelley,” Rachel muttered testily, “you know why it is . . . I’ve told you.”
Shelley stamped hard on Rachel’s foot.
“Well,” Tractor said, unaware of the muttering and foot stamping. “David Brown—that’s my full name—is the biggest-selling make of tractor in Cornwall. I was born down there and as soon as I went to school everybody started calling me Tractor. Then when I was nine, we moved up to Liverpool, but by then all my family called me Tractor too. I guess the name just stuck. . . . So when’s the baby due?”
“Four weeks,” Shelley simpered, running her hands over the tight purple-and-emerald striped sweater encasing her belly.
“What do you want? A boy or a girl?”
“Don’t mind.”
“I love babies.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I think it’s because I used to be one.”
Rachel stared in disbelief as Shelley burst out laughing.
“Course, I was dead ugly when I was born. In fact, the police have still got an arrest warrant out for the stork.”
Shelley laughed a second time.
“So what brings you to London?” she asked through her giggles.
“Oh, I’ve lived here off and on for years. Spent the last few months in the States though—pursuing various business interests. Now I’m back, I’m thinking about diversifying. Right now I’m in negotiation with one of the major food conglomerates. They’ve put several significant offers on the table, but I’m still considering my options.”
“Several significant offers, my arse,” Rachel muttered.
Shelley dug her in the ribs. “Well, if you ask me,” Shelley said, “the only really expanding market food-wise is organic produce and health foods.”
“I dunno about that. Health foods killed my grandfather, you know.”
“Killed him?” Shelley said in astonishment. “Good God. How?”
“They were in the lorry that ran him over.”
Shelley laughed so hard she started snorting.
“Look,” Rachel butted in, “when the two of you have quite finished guffawing, can we please establish what this donkey is doing here?”
Tractor turned to Rachel. “Didn’t Matt tell you?”
“Er, no.”
“Well,” he said, patting Demi’s flank, “this washing machine of his is designed for use in villages in the Third World—where there’s no electricity, right?”
“Right.”
“So if it can’t run on electric, then it’s got to be powered somehow, right?”
“Dunno—s’pose.”
“Take my word for it. It has. Well, a washing machine drum full of water’s far too heavy for a human being to turn, but not for your average beast of burden—like Demi here. She’s going to test it out.”
“What?” Rachel gasped. “You’re actually going to take her up to the flat? What about the smell?”
“Don’t worry, she’ll get used to it.”
Ignoring Rachel’s gobsmacked silence, Tractor gave Demi’s rope another tug. She reared her head, let out a couple of loud braying noises and finally moved forward a couple of paces. Tractor had just maneuvered her into the doorway when a Parcel Force deliveryman trotted up to the door, carrying four shoebox-sized packages wrapped in brown paper.
“Delivery for number forty,” he announced, hovering behind Demi. “Don’t think I can quite squeeze . . .”
“Oh right,” Tractor said. “That’ll be for Polly, the aromatherapist who lives in the flat opposite me and Matt. Don’t worry, mate. I’ll take them.”
Seeing Tractor had only one hand free, because the other was still holding the rope, Rachel reached across Demi and took the packages.
“A donkey,” the Parcel Force man chortled, patting Demi’s rear. “If I’d have thought, I’d have got one for the wife for Christmas. She’s always nagging me to get her some help round the house.”
No sooner had he disappeared than the decorator arrived. Rachel recognized him because he was wearing a turban. He’d brought his two sons with him—twins, Rachel suspected—aged about twelve, also in turbans.
“Hi, I’m Sadu Singh. I’m looking for Mr. Clapton’s flat.”
“He lives at thirty-eight,” Rachel said, smiling at Mr. Singh. “But don’t worry, we’re all headed up there—once we can get the donkey through the door.”
“Perhaps I can be of some assistance?” Mr. Singh said with the kind of polite smile that suggested he came across donkeys blocking doorways every day of the week.
Rachel was about to explain the animal’s presence when Demi, braying loudly, took several paces back onto the outside path and dropped a steamy, heady payload onto the flowerbed.
“Yuck, gross!” the twins shouted in unison.
Mr. Singh was whispering to them to be quiet when Rachel saw Matt coming down the stairs. He trotted over to them, kissed Rachel briefly on the cheek and said hi to Shelley.
“Ah,” he said, seeing Tractor tugging at Demi’s rope, to no avail. “I was wondering where everybody had gone. Now I get it. Look, we have to get her into the lift and upstairs to the flat or else the neighbors will see and have a fit. Mr. Singh, I know you probably think we’re completely mad, but I’ll explain everything as soon as we get upstairs.”
With that he began pulling on Demi’s harness, while Tractor carried on tugging at the rope. They pulled as hard as they could, but Demi steadfastly refused to move.
“Look,” Rachel said eventually, “how’s about I take the other side of the harness?”
“OK,” Tractor said.
She handed a parcel each to Mr. Singh and the twins. The fourth she put down on the floor. But the moment Rachel touched the donkey’s harness, it began braying louder than ever. There was still no sign whatsoever of her putting one hoof in front of another. It was only when Tractor suggested Matt and Rachel move away and he try to cajole her on his own that she ambled through the doorway and into the lobby. At least then the Singhs could come in out of the biting cold.
“Good girl. Good girl,” Tractor smiled, holding out a palmful of Liquorice Allsorts. Demi licked them up eagerly.
“Right. Just a few more feet, my darling. Just a few more feet.”
Demi looked at him, farted and refused point blank to go any farther.
Everybody was so taken up with getting Demi into the lift that no one heard old Mrs. Liebowitz, who lived on the first floor with Mr. Liebowitz, creep down the stairs to see what all the commotion was about.
Anybody else seeing the pregnant woman, the man tugging at the donkey and the three men in turbans carrying parcels might well have assumed that being Christmas Eve, somebody in the block was holding a children’s Christmas party and that the people gathered in the lobby were the hired entertainment, who were about to perform a particularly lifelike nativity play but were having trouble convincing the most lifelike element to take part. Not Mrs. Liebowitz.