Wicked Pleasures (21 page)

Many of Baby’s corporate clients were therefore making a great deal of money that summer as he advised them, with apparently consummate skill, on buying here, selling there. Clement Dudley floated a new company marketing magazines and books solely for the under twenty-fives called Upbeat; the flotation was what he described to Baby as a 101 per cent success, and the launch issue of the flagship magazine,
Pop
, a fashion and music weekly, was a sell-out. One group of local newspapers in the South trebled its investment capital; a small television network in need of finance saw an issue he advised on over-subscribed four times. Fred III, dining one night with the chairman of Gloucester Books, the hugely prestigious house specializing in superbly researched, glossily packaged art books, heard that Baby had masterminded the finance of a new and slightly more commercial venture than Gloucester had been involved with in the past, art books for schools, using stock to finance part of the deal, and savoured the somewhat unusual experience of basking in his son’s reflected glory.

Typically, it was from his mother that Baby learnt of Fred’s pride and pleasure. And that once again Fred was talking about retiring and leaving Praegers in a spirit of confidence and even optimism.

Baby, reporting this to Angie in bed that evening, after some extremely pleasurable sex, felt suddenly and gloriously inviolate.

In August, Angie was summoned to England. Mr Wicks was dying; he had finally been taken to hospital, haemorrhaging from both lungs, and the doctor had said it would be a miracle if he survived more than two days. He actually managed three, and he told Angie, clutching at her arm with his thin, shaking fingers, he would have waited three months to say goodbye to her. Angie sat and held Mr Wicks’s hand and watched him drift comparatively painlessly out of life, and thought of all the times he had covered up for her when her mother was cross with her, and had chuckled and told her she was a caution, and the way he had pinned up pictures of her right round the fireplace and never let Mrs Wicks take
them down, and the tears blurred her vision of him so badly that she was hardly aware that his head finally lolled helplessly and suddenly to one side.

‘He’s gone,’ said Mrs Wicks matter-of-factly, drawing her hand away from Angie’s and proffering her rather grubby handkerchief.
‘Here, girl, blow your nose, you look dreadful, great gob of snot hanging down, thank God he couldn’t see you, fine vision to take away with him.’ And then she burst into tears herself, and Angie sat holding her, breathing in the familiar smell of cigarette smoke and cheap hairspray and cheaper perfume, and wondering whatever would become of her gran now.

The funeral was actually a rather jolly affair; Angie, describing it to Baby later, made it sound a lot more fun than most of Mary Rose’s supposed celebrations. All Mr Wicks’s friends from the Lamb and Flag got together and organized a wake, and Angie suggested to Mrs Wicks that they should have a brass band following the hearse. Mrs Wicks had protested at the idea at first, and then suddenly caved in and said yes, it might brighten things up a bit, and it had been Mr Wicks’s favourite sort of music. Johnny and Dee had sent a wreath which was elaborate even for Bermondsey (Angie explained to Baby that funerals were big events in Bermondsey, their cost usually out of all proportion to a family’s income) with the letters GRANDAD twelve inches high, which stood upright on top of the coffin; Mrs Wicks had been quite overwhelmed by this and told Johnny she felt like the Queen, standing by it in the church. Johnny and Dee had also booked the best room at the Lamb and Flag and organized a slap-up lunch with beer by the barrel-load; Dee told Mrs Wicks not to worry, her dad had sent a cheque, and said as he couldn’t be there himself, owing to not being too welcome with the authorities, it was the least he could do.

At least two hundred people had come to the church, and a hundred of them arrived at the Lamb and Flag; after lunch and a very nice speech from the captain of the darts team, who said he was sure old Alfred was scoring triples up there even as he spoke, the serious drinking began, and later the brass band started up again, and as they refreshed themselves between numbers, Jack Hastings, who had been in the trenches with Mr Wicks (‘World War One, that was,’ said Angie, ‘can you imagine, still alive’), took to the piano and there were some rousing choruses of ‘Tipperary’, and ‘Show Me the Way to Go Home’, and it was after eleven when the last group of mourners had finally departed, leaving Mrs Wicks flushed, tearful, and very happy. Johnny and Dee and Angie had taken her back to the little house and put her to bed, and then sat downstairs by the fire, in the spot where Mr Wicks had spent so many years, and talked quietly about what was to become of her.

‘Well, we can’t have her,’ said Johnny, ‘we haven’t the room, and anyway, things aren’t too settled, are they, Dee?’

‘Not really,’ said Dee, looking at him with the resigned adoration she always did, adding (emboldened by the many glasses of Dubonnet and bitter lemon she had drunk) that she could remember it being worse, ‘but we haven’t got the room, it’s true.’

They had both looked at Angie, who pointed out very firmly that she
couldn’t possibly have her gran in New York, it was out of the question – ‘Why not?’ said Baby innocently when she told him about it later. ‘She sounds like a fun old lady.’

Angie simply told him firmly that Mrs Wicks would not have considered moving to New York, that she’d loathe it, that all her friends, or those that were still alive, would be left behind.

‘I think you should maybe try to do something for her,’ said Baby, ‘she’s been very good to you, hasn’t she? More of a mother than your mother, you said.’

‘Oh Baby,’ said Angie, ‘I say a lot of things. I don’t know how you remember half of them.’

‘I love you,’ said Baby, ‘I find it quite easy to remember what you say.’

Angie leant forward and kissed him. ‘Love you too. And – yes, you’re right, she was, she was very good to me. And of course I would like to do something. But how can I? I can’t spare any money.’

Baby looked at her. Her eyes were soft, her expression wistful. For what must have been the thousandth time, he wondered quite what he had done to have deserved her, and how he was going to keep her. There was a silence. ‘I could spare some money,’
he said, ‘I’d really like to think your grandma was comfortable and you didn’t have any worries about her. If it would help, you find some nice place to settle her into, Angie, and I’ll pick up the bill. I feel a kind of debt to anyone who’s looked after you.’

‘No, Baby,’ said Angie, very firmly. ‘I really really couldn’t let you. We’re an independent lot, we Wickses, and besides, it really is not your problem.’

‘Your problems are mine,’ said Baby, ‘and I kind of like trying to crack them.’

There was a silence. Angie looked at him very solemnly. Then she smiled, her sweetest, softest little-girl smile. ‘Oh Baby,’
she said, ‘how can I ever ever repay what you do for me?’

‘I can think of a few ways,’ said Baby, his hand reaching down into the soft moistness between her legs, ‘one very simple down payment you could make right this minute.’

What ensued was one of Angie’s more imaginative pieces of lovemaking; Baby never opened a bill from the very nice private rest home in Bournemouth where Mrs Wicks became a permanent resident, without remembering it with a stab of almost violent pleasure.

The event in question had actually taken place on the stairs of the Caterham house in Eaton Place; Baby had rung Virginia at Hartest the day Angie had flown to London and begged her to let him borrow it for the weekend.

‘I have to be in London anyway. Business. Just for a few days before we come and stay with you.’

With some reservations he had agreed to Mary Rose’s slightly pressing suggestion the family spend a few weeks of the summer at Hartest.

‘How convenient for you. Baby, no. You can’t have the house. Especially if it’s for you to disport yourself in with Angie.’

‘Oh, Virgy, please. It’s so much safer than a hotel –’

‘Why?’

‘Well because there’s no stupid staff there who might give Mary Rose misleading messages –’

‘Misleading! Really, Baby.’

‘Well you know what I mean. She always has to have the hotel number and the room number, and –’

‘I wonder why. No, it’s out of the question. I couldn’t do it to her. I do have some sense of family loyalty. And I wouldn’t be able to look her in the face when you all got here. Besides there are no staff there, stupid or otherwise. It’s August. You’d have to do everything yourselves. And clear up after yourselves.’

‘What about family loyalty to me? And clearing up, playing house’d be fun.’

‘Oh sure. I somehow don’t see you cleaning the bath out, Baby, or changing the sheets. Or Angie for that matter.’

‘I’ll hire someone to come in and do it. Please, Virginia, it would be so great.’

‘No, Baby, really. I can’t let you. Besides, whatever would Alexander say if he knew? He’d go crazy.’

‘Well he wouldn’t know. Would he? I just have this wonderful wonderful idea of me and Angie, alone and completely safe, in our own little private universe. For just forty-eight hours. It isn’t such a lot to ask.’

‘Baby, I do think you should be a little more wary of Angie. I’ve told you before, she’s such a tough, clever little thing. You seem to have built her up into something between Helen of Troy and Ella Wheeler Wilcox.’

‘No, I haven’t,’ he said, and he was horribly aware of a tremor in his voice, ‘I just love her, that’s all.’

‘But Baby, you know nothing can come of it. Ever. And you must know how frightened I am for you both. It’s so horribly dangerous and – and stupid, what you’re doing.’

‘Oh, I know,’ he said, his voice low and remorseful, ‘but we really are trying to work something out. Really. This would be
– well possibly our last proper time together. Please, Virginia. I wish you could see me, I’m on my knees here.’

‘Well –’ she said, and he could hear her trying not to laugh, trying not to give in, knowing that he had, as always, managed to make her do what he wanted. ‘Well, I still don’t see why it should make such a difference. But if you really really want it –’

‘I do.’

‘Oh, all right. I’ll leave the key with the agency who keep an eye on it during August. I’ll tell them you’re going to pick it up – when?’

‘On Thursday. Virginia, I adore you.’

‘Baby,’ said Virginia briskly, ‘you know you really should think about growing up.’

‘I’d really rather not,’ he said.

It was a very happy forty-eight hours. Angie, over-excited at finding herself suddenly, albeit briefly, the mistress of her previous employer’s house, took it upon herself to bestow pleasure upon Baby in as many rooms and corners of it as possible. The especially memorable episode on the stairs took place on the Sunday afternoon; they had just consumed most of a bottle of champagne and a pound and
a half of strawberries in the huge bed in the master bedroom; the glasses and the large, spider-like stalks of the strawberries lay on the pillows, the bottle which Baby had knocked over in a sudden excessive need to kiss Angie’s stomach and thighs was dripping steadily onto the extremely valuable Indian carpet.

‘We have to start clearing this place up soon,’ Baby had said, looking rather apprehensively around him. ‘I promised Virgy we would.’

‘I’ll clear it up later,’ said Angie, kissing him, ‘I’m terribly good at housework. And you know you like watching me while I do it. Now, Baby darling, we’ve done the drawing room and the dining room and the kitchen and two of the bathrooms, and lots of bedrooms: time for the stairs.’

Baby looked at her; she was flushed, and her blonde curls were in a tangle on her shoulders; her green eyes were very bright. They were both naked; he put out his hand to caress her hair, and she leant down and kissed him gently, and then sat back, smiling, her eyes on his penis, already obediently, tremulously erect.

‘I’m surprised,’ she said, bending to kiss that too. ‘I’m surprised you can still manage that, Baby. After such a very active weekend. You really are a remarkable man. Come with me, I have a nice idea for the rest of the afternoon.’

She took his hand and slithered off the bed; he followed her obediently, watching, with what was almost an ache in his heart, her neat, muscly little buttocks, her slender, graceful legs. They reached the top of the stairs, and she turned, smiling at him.

‘Halfway, I think,’ she said, ‘like the Duke of York. You know about the Duke of York, don’t you, Baby?’

Baby said he didn’t.

‘Well when he was up, he was up. Like you,’ she added, sinking to her knees, taking his penis in her mouth, caressing it gently, rhythmically, with her tongue; he could feel the pulling, the working of it, and closed his eyes, groaning aloud. One of the things Angie had taught him was not to mind making a noise when they were having sex; Mary Rose conducted the whole thing in a kind of almost church-like silence.

She rose suddenly, stood right up, pulled his head down to her and kissed him very hard; he could taste himself, salty, earthy, in her mouth.

‘And when he was down he was down,’ she added, after a while, ‘and when he was only halfway up, he was neither up nor down. Let’s rewrite the script, Baby.’

She led him downstairs, to where the stairs curved in the half landing, pushed him down, kissing him again, her hands on his stomach, his thighs, his balls. He groaned again, reached out desperately for her; she pushed his hands away, behind him, made him lean back. He felt his penis aching, yearning for her; to be in her, in her warmth, her tightness, her wetness, her soft, tumescent hunger. Slowly, with infinite gentleness, she turned her back to him, presenting him with her arse, moving over him, onto him; then more slowly still, urged him, soothed him, welcomed him in. He felt the familiar, melting softness, the flow of her own pleasure; felt her moving, tenderly, quietly at first, then as always in a gathering greed. He cried out, sat up sharply, put his arms around her waist, clutching her to him, feeling his penis reaching further and further
into her, exploring her, seeking her out, loving her, having her, part of her, making her part of himself, and then soon, so often it was too soon, in a great surge, a rush, a waterfall of release, he felt his orgasm, and her own, as it always seemed to do, falling onto his, in sweet, soft, thrusting spasms; and afterwards, they lay there for a long time, she above him, her head turned backwards towards him, her hair splayed across his chest, holding his hand, and he listened to her saying over and over again, ‘Baby, that was so good, just so good,’ and thought that never, even in a life that had known a great deal of pleasure, had he known any so intense and so joyous as that.