Sugar Mummy (15 page)

'Oh, come on, Debbie, I thought-'

'Come on nothing, Andrew. If I'd said yes, Claire would have
marked it on the sheet and it would all have been done properly. I'm giving you
another warning.'

Oh fuck it, I've lost. Better just to end this whole thing quickly.

'Well, I'm sorry. I obviously misunderstood.' I turn to leave.

'Andrew,' she says quietly. She bites her lip. 'What's the matter
with you these days? Look, is there anything wrong? Anything I should know about?'

What can I say? I can't tell her the truth, I don't want to lie
to her again and I'll be buggered if I'm going to apologise any more. She's had
one 'sorry'. We stand in silence. She breaks it.

'You used to be good - one of our best sales people. You saved
our skin on more than one occasion.' I stare at the floor, wishing she'd just shut
up and let me go, wishing that what she is saying wasn't true. 'Remember that supplement
they suddenly dropped on us? How many pages did we have to fill?' It was four and
a half but I'm not going to remind her. 'You worked so hard and you really pulled
the whole team together. I was really grateful.'

You were also nearly in tears one night, I think. I know that
if I say anything now it will make things better between us but somehow I just can't.
She waits a second and then her mood changes.

'OK. Don't let it happen again. That's a warning. An official
warning. I've had enough.' She picks up the phone.

As I get back to my desk I decide that this isn't working out
quite as smoothly as I had first thought. Paris was great - apart from Marion moaning
about the lack of shops and posh restaurants in the Marais. How can anyone not like
the oldest, quaintest, most beautiful part of Paris?

But now I've come back to this dump and a bollocking from a woman
who can't see further than the end of a balance sheet.

My phone starts to ring but I don't answer it. I look up at the
dust dancing around in a beam of sunlight. It shows the dirt on the windows. What's
the fun in living it up in Paris with a beautiful rich woman and then coming back
to this?

I've got to escape. I need more income to do that, which means
I need to meet more women like Marion, women who will spend their money on me. After
all, if they've got the money just sitting there and I make them happy, so what?
I mean, they wouldn't spend it on me if they didn't want to!

I'm not blackmailing them or mugging them. It's just a sensible,
convenient commercial arrangement. Mutually beneficial.

Does that sound immoral? Who said there was anything moral about
media sales? None of us in this crappy little office is selling two-centimetre,
one-column-width advertising space to people with holiday villas to rent and six-week
language courses to flog because we think it will make the world a better place,
we're doing it to earn twenty grand a year plus commission if we reach our targets.
I can't really see anything particularly noble about that. If I'd asked about the
vocational or ethical element of the job at the interview, somehow I don't think
I'd have got it.

Women like Marion obviously have plenty of money - all I want
is just a little bit. A little bit from her and a few others, women that Jonathan
or even Mark could introduce me to and it'll soon grow. Give it five or six years,
by the time I'm thirty I'll have a nice little nest egg and fuck off media sales,
fuck off advertising, fuck off care, er plan, fuck off ever having to work in an
office ever again.

I'll be young, rich and free or die in the attempt, I decide,
as the tea trolley clatters into the office.

A few minutes later Sami comes back to her desk and sees me staring
into space.

'All right?' she asks, her huge brown eyes wide with concern
at the bollocking I've just had from Debbie. She looks so sweet that I can't help
but laugh sadly. 'Yeah, fine.'

'Shall we have a drink at lunchtime?' she asks.

I suppose Sami proves that you can be hard-working and virtuous
and nice rather than hard-working and virtuous and horrible, like Debbie.

'Yes,' I say. 'Yes, let's do that.'

Sami and I leave the office at 1 p.m., carefully explaining to
our colleagues that we are just nipping out and we will be back by 2 p.m. We give
up on the lift and walk downstairs in silence. We get to reception almost in a trance.
Ted starts to say something but we just carry on walking.

We find a quiet corner of the pub and I get a Coke for Sami and
a Scotch for me. I really need a drink.

'Cheers,' I say.

'Cheers,' says Sami just as miserably. We both take a drink and
put our glasses down with extra care - Sami because she always does, me because
I just don't feel I can do anything properly at the moment.

'Oh, fuck,' I say.

'Oh, Andrew, don't worry.'

'I'm going to get sacked, aren't I, at this rate?'

'No, you won't. Just keep your head down for a few days. Debbie
still likes you.'

'Think so?' This makes me feel slightly better. For all the bollockings
she's been giving me, Debbie must still quite fancy me. At least a bit.

'Yeah, otherwise you'd have been sacked ages ago.'

'Oh, thanks,' I say, unflattered.

'Well, it's true, Andrew.' Sami smiles.

'You're probably right. Oh, God.'

She touches my arm. 'What's going on?'

'Nothing.'

'Course there is, I know you. You're always tired and late for
work these days. Where were you yesterday?'

'Paris.'

'Paris?'

'Yeah, it's the capital of France.'

'Andrew.'

'Oh, sorry, Sami, I'm just ... I dunno.'

'Who did you go with? That American woman who keeps ringing up?'

'Yeah.'

'Is she your girlfriend?' Girlfriend? What a weird thought. Is
she? I look across the pub and then at Sami.

'Sort of, we're ... you know.'

'What? I mean, is she nice?'

I laugh. Sami's questions! 'Nice' is an even stranger way to
describe Marion than 'girlfriend'.

'Yeah, she is quite nice.'

'Well, where did you meet? How long have you been going out together?'

'Oh, a few weeks.'

'That's great. Can I meet her, then?'

'Oh, yeah, why not?' Only 165 good reasons why not.

'When you get a boyfriend we could go out in a foursome.' Sami
gives me a stare that takes me by surprise. 'If you wanted to, that is.' She looks
embarrassed suddenly and smiles.

'And did you have a good time? In Paris, I mean.'

I have to think about it for a moment. Paris has sort of faded
from my memory since I got back to the office. 'Yeah, yeah, it was lovely. You know:
cafes, delicious food, Place de la Concorde, that view down to the Arc de Triomphe.
All that sort of Paris stuff.'

'I've never been,' says Sami without embarrassment.

'Haven't you? You're kidding. I'll take you. We'll go one weekend.'
Sami laughs, slightly embarrassed now. 'No, it'd be fun, go on.'

'OK,' she says, taking a sip of her coke. 'I went to Rome once
with school. That was fun. We bought a bottle of wine and drank it in the youth
hostel. My friend Kelly was sick in my rucksack.'

I laugh. 'Oh, gross.'

'Oh, it was. She couldn't find anything else to throw up in.
I was really sick too but I managed to get to the loo down the hall in time.'

'Sami, you're so good,' I tell her for the thousandth time. 'Is
that why you don't drink alcohol? I thought it was, you know, because you're a Muslim.'

'Don't be daft. I do drink alcohol. Didn't you notice me drinking
the punch at the Christmas party:'

'Were you?'

'Yeah, 'course. I had a can of lager and then two glasses of
punch.'

'Wild,' I say.

'Aren't I?' She is thoughtful. I vaguely remember the tense,
dull Christmas party.

'Ken Wheatley gave you a glass of champagne which was only for
senior management and you said-'

'I don't like champagne very much,' she says quickly. She takes
another sip of coke. 'But I like white wine. Really. Must say, though, since Kelly
filled my rucksack in Rome I've never really been able to eat lasagne.'

That night, just before 2 a.m., which makes it Wednesday, I suppose,
but I'm slightly losing track of the days now, I get out of a taxi and walk up the
path past the bins and the nettles and crisp bags to the front door of a small house
in Clapham. I had gone home after dinner at Marion's because I didn't have any spare
clothes at hers and also because I knew that somehow, whatever time I set the alarm
for, or however fast I shot out of the house I would end up being late yet again.
And that would be once too often.

As I was just nodding off, the phone rang. It was Jonathan with
a job.

'Bit late,' I said, half-joking.

He laughed as if this was terribly funny actually and then said
briskly, 'Look, I won't bullshit you, this is a sensitive one but I think you're
just right for it.'

'Oh, OK,' I said unconvinced.

'Thing is, Andrew, when she called she was upset and vulnerable
and so I just thought you'd be the right person to talk to her. You know? I mean
I've got older guys on the team but you seemed perfect for her - young and a good
listener.'

'Yeah, I see what you mean.' I know when I'm being charmed but
there is a possibility Jonathan actually means this. Besides the money would be
useful so here I am.

'Shit!' Three door bells.

I don't believe this. In the taxi on the way over I kept reminding
myself that it was supposed to be rich women at casinos not sad girls in Clapham
that are my 'target market'. My plan was to be setting off to an address in Chelsea
again or even Knightsbridge or somewhere in time for dinner. Not some miserable
little street in South London in the early hours. At least the sex thing is very
unlikely to arise here so I won't feel guilty about cheating on Marion.

In the meantime, though, I really need this money. And if Jonathan
gives me some crap about credit card companies not being ready to pay, like I said,
I'll just pop round to his little place in Fulham and take the money - after I've
folded up his Habitat director's chair and shoved it up his arse. Not an ideal way
to get paid but I'm desperate.

Desperate and knackered.

Oh God, I'm knackered. Anyway, concentrate. The top bell has
two names on it so that's out. I take a guess at the other two and end up pressing
the bottom one. I hear a buzz just the other side of the front door.

After a few minutes it is opened by a girl with quite a bit of
metal face furniture and long blonde hair half-covering her eyes. She looks swollen
with sleep and not quite with it. I am just about to apologize, assuming that I
have got the wrong button and woken her up when she says, 'Er, from the agency?'

I nod and half-smile and she lets me in. 'Andrew,' I say, squeezing
past her.

'Erren,' she says. The place stinks of pot and a gently maturing
dustbin. This is going to be even worse than I suspected. 'I'm really sorry about
the mess,' she mutters in a little girl voice. 'My brother was staying for a few
days and he, like, wrecked the place. I can't believe it. Look.' As if to prove
it she opens the door of the living room where a glass coffee table is shattered.
Next to it is - guitar with some of the strings hanging off it and a tinfoil takeaway
food container, the remains of a scruffy spliff and some cigarette ends on a dinner
plate.

She thinks for a moment and then says, 'Perhaps we'll use the
kitchen, yeah?' The hallway is a mixture of half-converted flat and post-party carnage.
We edge past some pine shelves leaning against a wall and go into the kitchen. I
nearly trip over something and look down to see two empty plastic cider bottles.
The kitchen is tiny and misshapen - hacked out of a broom cupboard or something
when the place was one house. A smell hits me from a pile of plates in the sink
and the overflowing bin. She looks around as if trying to decide what to do next.
'What do you want to drink? There's Scotch or cider or here's some beer.' I'm not
keen. Then she moves a cardboard box out of the way of the fridge and takes out
a very expensive-looking bottle of white wine with a yellow convenience store price
label on it. 'We could have this.' I open it while she rinses two dirty glasses
under the tap.

I pour the wine into the wet, smeary glasses while she lights
a cigarette, takes a deep drag and looks across at me through her red, empty eyes.

'I hope you don't mind,' she says.

At first I think she is talking about the cigarette smoke hanging
in the air between us. It's the best smell in the room, so I say, 'No, not at all.'
But I realise that she is talking about my coming all the way over to Clapham at
two o'clock in the morning.

'I just needed someone to talk to, you know.'

'Oh sure,' I say easily. But I am beginning to feel nervous about
the fact that she is standing between me and the door especially with those pieces
of glass on the living-room floor.

I suddenly realise that I haven't called the agency to say that
I've arrived and that everything is OK. I ask to use the phone. She looks at me
blankly for a moment and then says, 'Oh, yeah, sorry' and points to it. Thank God
it's safely fixed onto the wall - if it was anywhere else we'd never find it.

I wake up Jonathan. He says 'good' and asks if she's paid it
was going to be a cheque, wasn't it? I hesitate and look across at the girl who
is now staring into her glass, a strand of hair in her mouth. How can I ask her
to write me a cheque? I tell Jonathan everything is fine. He asks if I am sure.
I say 'yes' again.

He says 'OK. Have fun!' and hangs up. Fun? I sit down at the
table again and I'm trying to think of something to say to the girl when I notice
that she is blinking back tears. 'I've had this, like, massive row with my Dad.
He's such an arsehole, you know what I'm saying?'