The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl (23 page)

I can't begin to imagine what they thought I was dressing for.

194

jeudi, le 18 mars

The client stood, trousers off. I sat in a chair in front of him. My shirt (white, as requested) was half‐unbuttoned. 'I want to write my name in come all over you,' he said.

I smirked. 'You can't fool me, you nicked that line from
London
Fields.''

He looked at me strangely. Oh no, I thought. Better watch my mouth. 'Amis fan?' he said idly, pulling himself with one hand.

'He's not bad,' I said, reaching into the shirt to pull my breasts free of the bra.

'Time's Arrow
was pretty tricksy though.' A glistening drop of pre‐come lolled at the tip of his glans.

'Very high‐concept. Good book for a long train journey.' I pulled at my nipples to his appreciative nods.

It was hot and close in the room. The weather has not been so bad and I thought of asking him to turn the heating off. 'I want to smell your sweat mixing with my spunk,' he said, as if reading my thoughts.

Later, I met another client. A large hotel in Lancaster Gate. The room was small and highly decorated, which surely made it look even smaller. For the money they must be charging here, I thought it seemed a little cramped. End‐of‐hall room.

He was in shirt‐sleeves. Short sleeves under a blazer ‐ I hate that, it jars like light socks with shoes. The window was open.

'Your nipples are hard already,' he said (black lace balconette bra and matching boy‐style briefs). The window was wide open.

I draped my arms over his shoulders. 'Are you not a little cold in here?'

195

'I'm fine.'

'There are goose pimples all over your arms.' I smiled and walked to the ground‐floor window to pull the drapes. 'Good for the metabolism.' 'Bet I can think of something better,' I said.

vendredi, le 19 mars

Think I'll stay indoors today. N came back from Belgium with a veritable metric tonne of porn to sift through, including the always‐reliable
Lady Anita F (Hotter Than Hell!!)
title and another mag with a tasty bob‐haired girl doing the waterstuff all over some poor boy who no doubt deserves it. Will let you know if anything interesting, er, goes down.

samedi, le 20 mars

One of the first few golden days when people start deciding to leave coats at home and fishbelly pale arm‐skin makes an appearance. I went out to buy a paper and, inspired by the sunshine, couldn't stop walking.

After an hour of beating the pavement I came to an attractive shop window. It's a place I've noticed but only from a taxi, and after opening hours. I always liked the name of the shop. Very suggestive of my job, actually. On the locked door was a small sign that said 'Please ring both bells'. I rang and waited.

A man let me in and smiled. It was small inside, crowded with clothing, costume jewellery and gold‐leaf cherubs. I fingered the clothes on their racks. Nice enough, in a fancy dress sort of way, perhaps a bit goth. And expensive. I often wonder how this sort of place stays in business. The

196

products must be so limited in their appeal that you find yourself desperately hoping that the twelve or so people for whom this shop must be heaven on earth manage to wander down the road sometime soon.

The man disappeared in the back and the bell rang. It was a young teenage girl, probably his daughter. She was wearing a short dress and jumper, and pink wellies. She called him by his first name when he reappeared.

First‐Name Father asked his offspring to wrap something. She sighed and stomped around a bit. Now, my parents are hardly paragons of conventionality, but they always made sure to send me away for a good few weeks when not in term. Best for all involved: they get a bit of parenting relief and you are not forced to roll your eyes and grumble about how unfair the world is more than, oh, twice a day at most. 'Fine,' she spat, and set about mummifying a brooch in hectares of black tissue. I recognised instantly the cadence of speech indicating an intersection of public school education, indulgent parents and general overtones of southern‐ness. Nothing quite raises my hackles like a pre-pubescent who believes she is the greatest thing going and, in all probability, will someday be hailed as such.

The bell rang again and First‐Name Father disappeared almost instantly. This time it was a tiny woman dressed head to toe in clothes from the shop. By which I mean she resembled a bruise-coloured meringue. She and the girl started complaining loudly about the low temperature inside and the stroppy little cow disappeared to demand her sire do something about it. I was impressed, actually ‐ at that age I believe my spoken repertoire did not extend past 'I don't know' and 'go away'.

'Is someone helping you?' the woman asked me. I'm not terribly tall, but must have stood a full head above this miniature Morticia who, from the layers of black corsetry

197

and full‐skirtedness, looked like a New Romantic after an unfortunate accident in a wallpaper factory. About fifty years ago.

'I'm just browsing, thank you.'

Morticia hung at my elbow while I politely fingered brocade coats and crinolined skirts. They might have been attractive as well, with about a stone less of velvet ribbon each. 'Your window dressing is very nice,' I said, hoping a spot of talking would drive her off. 'I often come down this road on the way to work but have not been in before.'

'Where do you work?' she asked.

Think fast, girl. 'The V8cA,' I said.

'The what?'

'The Victoria and Albert.' She didn't look less puzzled. How could she not know the costume museum? Odd for one so blatantly over‐dressed. 'The V&A museum.'

'Oh, the
museum,'
she said, as if humouring me. Cripes, lady, I thought. It's only round the corner.

'Are these ‐ um ‐ your designs?' I ventured.

'Yes,' she said flatly, and turned her head to hurl abuse at her daughter. The shop was still disagreeably cold for them. I wondered if she wasn't anaemic and almost suggested a restorative session of basking on a hot rock.

'Lovely,' I rasped.

'Is there anything else I can do for you?' she asked, impatient. I had been looking at a delicate and not absurdly over‐jewelled pair of butterfly earrings, but opted against on principle. Morticia herded me towards the door, held the bolt of the lock open and whisked me back into the warm air. Traumatised by the experience, I promptly went and dropped £60 on bright glass earrings at a shop over the road.

198

dimanche, le 21 mars

I want so very little out of life, really. All a girl asks for is: a haircut that looks the same regardless of wind speed or direction

to be smiled back at, by people I smile at

shoes that make you look taller, and look nice, and can be used for actual walking

for only disabled people to park in disabled spots instant mastery of all things kitchen‐related

a bit of sunshine now and then

a worldwide ban on polyphonic ringtones

a worldwide ban on phones which give you no options save a polyphonic ringtone

a cessation of all suffering, backdated to the beginning of time

lundi, le 22 mars

A4 and I met for lunch at a Polish restaurant. It had come highly recommended as an antidote to the self‐conscious bitter‐leaf trattorias and uber‐kosher bagel purveyors of north London. I always feel too sceptical for one and too secular for the other.

Inside the restaurant was dour, decorated in heavy 1970s earth tones, bad repros of Polish historical battles and a layer of grease that might well have been imported from the kitchens of my childhood. The food could have come straight from my mother's cooker: beetroot
barczsz
with cream and vegetables; fried potato
latkes
with apple sauce and sour cream. The waitresses, too, were authentically heavy and dour in their tight‐pulled blonde 199

pigtails and grey aprons tied round rolling middles. When they acknowledged a customer at all, it was with the same language of grunts that I'd encountered in restaurants on trips to north-eastern Europe. Everything ‐ everything ‐ was fried and came with a side of cabbage. I was smitten.

Our table was next to the window. We looked out at the busy sidewalk and lunchtime traffic: businessmen munching chips; people crowding into queues at the bank and chemist; a cheap Chinese eatery overflowing with students. Inside the restaurant, though, it was a world apart, shielded from the modern noise outside with no more than the creaking strains of a mechanical dumbwaiter as background music.

We were amused to hear a woman at the next table struggling to make sense of the menu. This was not fare for the calorie‐ nor image‐conscious (I myself had taken the precaution of skipping breakfast). While waiting on her main course, she flagged down one of the slow‐moving waitresses. 'Do you do cappuccino?' she asked. A4 and I stifled snorting laughs. The pink‐cheeked waitress furrowed her brow. 'Cappuccino?' the woman asked again. She mimed steaming milk through a machine. 'You know ‐schh schh, schhh schh?' The waitress shook her head and walked away. A4

and I were almost crying from stifled laughter.

I went to look at the desserts in the case. An apple strudel, swathed in layers of pastry, dusted with sugar. Dense‐looking tarts. As I returned to my seat, a gentleman swiped at my mid-section.

I looked down at the table. Four fellows in suits, middle‐aged, having a business lunch. Did I know this man? I wondered. I couldn't place the face. Former client?

'Er, bring us a basket of bread, would you?' he demanded.

I laughed, a short, sharp bark. 'Sorry ‐ I don't work here,' I said, and walked off. How odd.

200

mardi, le 23 mars

I am a cheap date.

At several hundred an hour, this is a rich claim to be making.

But it is the truth. Considering the economics of sex ‐ in which a man is prepared to invest some time, and a bit of money, towards gifts and entertainments, in order to coax a woman into bed ‐ I am assured by clients that the cost of a call girl is on a par with the price of picking up a woman on a business trip. And she's not likely to come round and cook your rabbit later.

But I don't mean at work, where the judgement of whether my services are worth the money would doubtless involve a level of maths of which I am not capable. I am a cheap date in real life.

On paper it sounds great. Woman arranges her own transportation, buys her own pint and perhaps a few for you, and should there be a resulting relationship, is not terribly fussed about receiving gifts, holidays or other trinkets of your affection aside from the affection itself. If you go away together, she'll contribute her share; if you fail to book a restaurant on one of several major milestones she will smile and say she prefers staying in. She does not arbitrarily demand shiny things in pale‐blue Tiffany boxes; if she sees something she likes, she'll buy it, and if you do make an extra effort, she will of course be grateful. But does not take it for granted.

I'm a high‐maintenance plot, but hire my own groundsmen, as it were.

It has taken some time to conclude this is not what men are attracted to. They enjoy the chase, don't they, the idea that a woman's value is reflected in the effort you spend to win a smile or a kiss. Even if she turns out to be rubbish in 201

bed, by the time you have prised her iron‐banded thighs apart with weekend breaks in Sardinia and a shiny carbon chip on a ring, you'll be so grateful to be there at all that it will not matter.

I reckon this means people would tend to be worse in bed than their ancestors, the need to win a mate with lingual talent being bred out of the population (NB: not scientifically proven). It might also mean that women with doe eyes, slightly turned‐in toes and a skill for simpering should predominate.

Film noir gave us a term for the low‐maintenance cheap date type of woman, as personified by Ingrid Bergman and the other cool blondes. They were, in the gruff parlance, Class Acts. A Class Act does not bombard you with whimpering phone calls to the effect of 'why are you out with your mates watching the footie when you could be choosing sisal floor mats with me?' A Class Act does not take a split badly, or if she does, does so without so much as a peep. A Class Act is the silhouette disappearing into the night that you will no doubt remember ‐ but will never talk to again.

A Class Act will spend a lot of time alone, drinking spirits. A Class Act will never emerge from a local church in a shower of petals. A Class Act will never be a mummy, yummy or otherwise.

A Class Act will never have a husband who visits prostitutes.

Forget I mentioned it.

mercredi, le 24 mars

Last night when I checked email, Hotmail offered a link to 'Dating Tips from the Animal Kingdom'. Expecting the piece to delight and entertain was about as fruitless as read-202

ing the back of a shampoo bottle in search of fine literature, so I offer instead an alternative list of dating tips from the animal kingdom:

Our good friends and co‐evolutionaries
Canis familiaris
(the domestic dog) show that when in doubt which hole to aim for, thrust wildly. You are bound to land in something good.

Shrimps' hearts are in their heads. Men have neither hearts nor heads.

The tongue of a giraffe
(draffa camelopardalis)
is half a metre in length, long enough to clean its own ears. If you can do the same there may be a career option you had not yet considered.

Dolphins engage in group sex. If those squeaky, grey‐skinned fish‐eaters can do it, so can you.

The females of the bonobo species
(Pan paniscus),
closely related to humans, are known to use sexual favours to gain status and food. A point to remember next time you're short of change at the corner shop.

Some ribbon worms will eat themselves if they can't find food. Unfortunately, men unable to find sex are rarely so talented.

The anal glands of cats, genus
Felis,
are used to mark their territory and identify themselves to other cats. Whether this explanation will convince the hotel not to charge you for excess laundering is questionable.