Wicked Pleasures (35 page)

She was bored for a while, once she had got used to her new life, and the hairdresser and the shopping; but then one morning, as she walked rather slowly down the road, enjoying the sunshine and wondering what she might do for the eight hours or so before Angie came home, she saw the woman who lived next door to them, standing at her gate.

‘Good morning!’ she said. ‘Lovely day!’

‘Won’t last,’ said Mrs Wicks. ‘Rain coming in from the west.’

She always said that, whatever the forecast, whatever the weather. It impressed people.

‘Oh really.’ The woman was very smart-looking, dressed in a white suit. ‘Look, I hope you don’t mind my approaching you, but I gather you work for the young woman next door. I wondered if you were fully occupied.’

‘Not quite,’ said Mrs Wicks truthfully.

‘Well you see,’ said the woman, ‘my char has left me, just like that, these people have no concept of loyalty –’

‘No,’ said Mrs Wicks.

‘And I do have to have someone, naturally, it’s a big house –’

‘Naturally,’ said Mrs Wicks. She got out her cigarettes and her holder. ‘Smoke?’

‘No thank you. So I – well I wondered if you might have a little time to spare.’

Mrs Wicks looked at her thoughtfully. ‘Well, I might. What are you paying?’

‘Four shillings.’

‘Oh I couldn’t do it for that.’

‘Really? Well I’m afraid that’s my top rate. What a shame.’

‘Yes,’ said Mrs Wicks.

‘What does Mrs – Miss –?’

‘Burbank. Miss. Well, I live in, you see. So it’s different. But it’s the equivalent of five bob. We worked it out.’

‘Oh. Oh, I see. Er, would you be able to iron?’

‘Probably. If you paid me.’

‘And come in each day for a couple of hours?’

‘Yes, I expect so.’

‘Well – maybe I could do five shillings.’

‘Well, please yourself,’ said Mrs Wicks. ‘Right. Yes, let’s agree on that. When could you start?’

Mrs Wicks was feeling very bored. ‘Now,’ she said.

Angie was slightly irritated. ‘We’re supposed to be going up in the world, Gran. You can’t go charring for neighbours.’

Mrs Wicks was indignant. ‘Course I can. I like housework, and she’s paying me five bob an hour. That’s well over the rate. She wanted to know what you did for a living.’

‘What did you tell her?’

‘I said you were a doctor.’

‘Gran! What on earth for?’

‘I knew it would impress her. Stuck-up cow.’

Mrs Hill had huge delusions of grandeur, and treated Mrs Wicks with a gracious condescension at first; she also followed her round the house watching her, telling her she had left smears on the taps – ‘It’s so difficult to clean real gold plate’ – and not replaced the ornaments in exactly the right places – ‘A great many hours have gone into arranging those, Mrs Wicks, my husband is quite an artist.’ Mrs Wicks dealt with the condescension by the simple expedient of wearing her mink coat to work, handing it to Mrs Hill and telling her to hang it up carefully.

Mrs Hill looked at it and said what a very nice coat it was, and a wonderfully good imitation.

‘That’s no imitation,’ said Mrs Wicks, ‘that’s the real thing.’

‘Oh Mrs Wicks, I don’t think so. I do know mink when I see it.’

‘’Fraid you don’t,’ said Mrs Wicks cheerfully, ‘it come from Maxwell Croft, and if you don’t believe me I can show you the bill.’

Mrs Hill went a little pale and said that would not be necessary.

After three more sessions of being followed around as she worked, Mrs Wicks handed Mrs Hill a duster from her overall pocket, and told her she would be leaving. ‘You’ve obviously got the time to do it yourself, you’re wasting your money paying me.’

Mrs Hill said she was sorry, and left her alone; she told several friends about her wonderful new char and two of them approached her. In no time she was working full time, always arriving in her mink coat and the diamond watch Angie had given her for Christmas, both of which she handed over to her employers as she arrived. ‘I don’t want to get them messed up,’ she would say.

Very often in the afternoons she would go to bingo in Maida Vale, where she
was inordinately lucky; it was rare for her not to win something each week; and once a week she went to a ballroom dancing class in Paddington, where she met several gentlemen friends; one of them took her out to tea every Sunday, to the restaurant in Regent’s Park, and then on to the cinema. His name was Clifford Parks and he told her she was the most ladylike person he had ever met. Angie liked him, and often gave him a drink when he brought Mrs Wicks back; he had assured her quietly that he had every respect for her grandmother and she was not to worry. Angie said she wouldn’t worry.

In the evenings if Angie was home on her own, they ate TV suppers in Mrs Wicks’s kitchen diner, which was much cosier she said than Angie’s dining room; if Angie gave a dinner party Mrs Wicks would put on a black dress and wait on the guests, which she did with surprising skill. And about once a week Angie would take Mrs Wicks out to a posh restaurant and teach her about good food; at the end of the first year the mink coat had been hung up in the cloakrooms of the Ritz, Claridges, Grosvenor House, the Caprice, Rules, Wheelers, the Meridiana, San Frediano and the Gavroche.

Through all her fun and success, Angie never forgot about Baby; never ceased to compare him (albeit not always favourably) with other lovers, other friends, never ceased to wonder what would have happened if they had not been parted, or indeed if they were to meet again. The prospect tantalized, fascinated her; as time went by it became almost an obsession.

And now Virginia’s death had made it attainable; and she could not pass the opportunity by.

Dear Baby [she wrote],

I was so sorry to hear of Virginia’s death. She was so extremely good to me, and I was always sad that we never renewed our friendship. You must be extremely unhappy, and I wanted to let you know I was thinking of you. Please pass on my sympathies to other members of the family if that would seem appropriate.

I shall be in New York next month [this was quite untrue] and I wondered if you would like a drink for old times’ sake. It would be good to see you again.

Yours,

Angie.

‘I’m going to New York,’ said Angie to Mrs Wicks over their TV supper.

‘When?’ said Mrs Wicks, spooning up the sauce of her spaghetti bolognese with great relish. ‘What for?’

‘On business,’ said Angie, meeting her piercing gaze steadily.

‘I didn’t know you had business in New York.’

‘Well I do.’

‘What kind?’

‘The same kind. Houses.’

‘Oh yes? You’re not going to see that man are you?’

‘What man?’ said Angie innocently. ‘Look out, Gran, you’ve got bolognese
on your sleeve. I don’t buy you real cashmere jumpers to trail in tomato sauce, you know. Cost a lot of money, that jumper.’

‘Don’t try and change the subject,’ said Mrs Wicks.

‘Well,’ said Baby, ‘you haven’t changed a bit.’

‘Liar!’ said Angie. ‘I’m a middle-aged woman. I’m thirty-two.’

‘Dear God. I wish I was thirty-two again.’

‘How old are you, Baby?’

‘Forty-five.’

‘Well, you look pretty good yourself. And you have changed.’

‘I should think so,’ said Baby, laughing, ‘I’m not middle-aged, I’m almost old.’

‘Oh nonsense,’ said Angie, ‘you look terrific. And when I said you’d changed, I meant for the better.’

‘Oh really?’

‘Yes. You look – well, more in command. Sleeker. Smoother. It’s nice,’ she said, smiling at him. ‘Suits you.’

‘Thank you. Well, I am in command. I have the bank now. I’m chairman.’

‘I know. I read about it. I’m pleased, Baby. Congratulations. Is that good?’

‘It’s wonderful,’ he said simply. ‘I’m loving it. But it was a long wait. And there are still – let’s say – problems.’

‘Really? What?’

‘Oh – Dad pulled a bit of a rug from under my feet. Our feet. He’s cut Charlotte into the bank. She’ll get half of it, one day. Freddy has to share it with her.’

‘Good God,’ said Angie.

‘Yes. Neat work.’

‘What’s she like now?’

‘What? Oh, sweet. A nice child. I don’t see her giving me any problems of any kind. She’s very eager to fit in, do what I say…’

‘Good. Pretty?’

‘Yes, very pretty. In a babyish sort of way.’

‘What about the others?’

‘Well, Georgina has turned into a bit of a beauty. Very unusual-looking, immensely tall. And Max is a great charmer of course. Precocious. Now I don’t trust him. I caught him in the summer house with Melissa this summer and –’

‘Baby! He’s only what?’

‘Thirteen.’

‘And Melissa’s your new daughter?’

‘Yes. Well, quite new.’

‘Born after – well, since we were together.’

‘Yes.’

There was a silence. Angie looked at him. It had been true what she had said, he did look more self-confident, more in control. But he had also aged, there was silver in the blond hair, his tanned face was lined, and his extremely well-cut suit did not entirely conceal his considerably increased girth. He was not fat exactly, but he was very heavy. Angie remembered with a sudden sharp pang the beauty of Baby’s body – muscly, firm, brown – and felt sad.

‘Well now,’ he said, ‘what about you? Have you prospered? I hope so.’

That was nice of him, she thought: considering that any prospering had been done on the back of the pay-off his father had given her and that she had accepted so readily.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I have.’

‘In what field?’

‘Property.’

‘Indeed. A tycoon, Miss Burbank.’

‘Well – not quite a tycoon. But doing OK.’

‘Good. I’m pleased to hear it.’ There was a silence. Then he said, quite suddenly, ‘I’ve missed you, Angie. I’ve missed you so much.’

She looked at him, and his blue eyes at least were just the same, dancing at her, full of sweet sadness, and the time changed suddenly, turned back, and she was eighteen again, hungry, impatient, looking for nothing but fun; and she said, ‘Oh, Baby, I’ve missed you too.’

There was a long silence and she knew exactly what he was doing: thinking, weighing up; the dangers, the delights, the pleasures, the pains, and she knew if she was anything at all of a nice person she would make it easy for him, jump up, say she had to leave, that it had been nice seeing him, that next time she was in New York they must do it again. She would be concerned for him, for his marriage, for his children, for his struggles to do the right thing, for his new position in life – and it couldn’t be easy running that bank, it was a huge, a pressing responsibility. If she really loved him, she thought, she would go, now, at once, and leave him in peace.

But it was too late, he had got there before her, he was speaking now, saying the words, the deadly, dangerous words: ‘I wonder if you have time for dinner one evening –’ and she was quite quite powerless to do anything about it, to resist, and moreover was totally unwilling even to try, and she smiled at him and said, with something oddly like a break in her voice, and cursed it, that break, for betraying her, for revealing the emotion, ‘Yes, Baby,’ she said, ‘yes I think so. That would be lovely.’

Georgina, 1981

Georgina was just beginning her orgasm when her Housemother came in; just rising on the great tumbling rapids of pleasure, opening herself to them, folding herself around Jamie Hunt, her long long legs wrapped round him, her body arched, her head thrown back, biting her lip to try to contain the cries of pleasure that would surface, would emerge, however much she told herself they must not.

And then the light snapped on, she opened her eyes; and instead of seeing Jamie’s face, contorted itself with pleasure, she looked over his naked, plunging back and buttocks, and saw her Housemother standing there, an expression of total disdain on her face, and as her body retreated, slipped away from delight, she felt no fear or shame, only a sense of outrage that she had been cheated, and at the same time, one of intense amusement, and the sound that finally escaped her was not an orgasmic cry, but a throaty, joyous giggle.

She was expelled immediately; Alexander was sent for, and she was dispatched with him the same day. The school was very nice, very fair; but as they said to him, she had been warned twice about her behaviour, it was not the first time a boy had been found in her bedroom, although this was the first time she had been caught in flagrante, and her attitude did not encourage them to give her any more chances. She did not appear remorseful, or even apologetic; she had simply said that the Housemother should have knocked, that any reasonable person would have knocked, before entering someone’s bedroom.

She was silent in the car as they drove rather too fast towards Wiltshire; she sat looking out of the window apparently perfectly relaxed, although tearing occasionally at her badly bitten nails. As they came into view of the house, at the top of the Great Drive, Alexander stopped the car, looked at her and said, ‘This is very upsetting for me, Georgina, very upsetting indeed. I can’t quite understand your attitude. Your behaviour – just. Your attitude not at all.’

‘I can’t see a lot of difference,’ said Georgina. ‘I can’t see what we were doing was wrong. So I don’t see why I should be dreadfully sorry about it. But I am sorry if I’ve upset you.’ She felt very odd; she was not normally aggressive, in fact she was rather the reverse, gentle, conciliatory, almost excessively compliant at times; but ever since Charlotte had told her about her mother and still more so since Virginia had died, she had felt disoriented, lost, detached from her real self. And she looked at her father now, so hurt, so baffled, so angry, and she simply did not know how he could not understand.

‘Oh for God’s sake,’ said Alexander, ‘how can you possibly say you don’t
know you were doing something wrong? It is explicitly forbidden in the school rules, you’d been warned before, and besides, Georgina, I expect you to have more self-respect than to go hurling yourself into bed with the first boy who asks you. I really do.’

‘He wasn’t the first,’ said Georgina.

‘Georgina! Oh God.’ He put his head on his arms on the steering wheel. ‘Well I’m sorry, Daddy,’ she said, knowing she still sounded cold and wishing she could do something about it. ‘I guess it’s my bad blood coming out.’ Alexander lifted his head and stared at her. ‘I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean.’