Calendar Girl (7 page)

I’d rather appreciated her staying away. They say it’s better the devil you know, but I prefer my devils snuggled up with the skeletons in the closet where they belong.

Victoria wanted to come to terms with me. Which meant she got to share her tales of life with the Woman with the Kelly McGillis body. She got to give me their history, when I liked to think there was no past before me. Victoria invited us both for lunch twice and drinks once. I went, each time feeling like I was late for the execution of my own relationship. They’d been together for just seven months and much of that time Victoria had been “developing an installation” so they’d only been able to see each other once or twice a week.

“And you know Margaret, I never felt I really had a handle on her. Always felt there was something else going on.”

I always want to hit people who call me “Margaret”.

“Well, you were busy with your work Victoria.”

“Yes, but I always felt she was not quite as committed as I was.”

That lack of commitment had caused Victoria to end the relationship with a terse note asking for no contact for six months.

“To give me time to see reality.”

Within those six months the Woman with the Kelly McGillis body had met me and I’d become her reality. We saw Victoria three times and each time led to huge arguments between us.

“Look Maggie, she only wants to get to know you. Can’t you humour her?”

“It doesn’t humour me to think of you being with her. Where’s the comedy in that?”

“It was years ago, I’m with you now. I want to be with you. For God’s sake, I’ve been with you longer than I’ve ever been with anyone!”

The more I heard about Victoria, the more insecure I became. I know jealousy isn’t attractive but there’s nothing like wishing it away to make it even stronger.

Wishes are for the tooth fairy.

When Victoria realised I wouldn’t play along in the way her therapist would have preferred, she sort of dropped away from our life. Slowly, like the scab coming off a particularly nasty sore. I don’t know if the Woman with the Kelly McGillis body missed her or not. But after all, she did have me, and I’m enough for any woman.

Or should be.

And the fourth woman lover was me.

Still is.

New York was cold. Cold in that special New York way. That is, colder in temperature than London, but the friction of living there making it seem about nine times as hot.

Saz arrived late on Friday night and spent the weekend with Caroline, ice skating in Central Park, queuing outside in a virtual blizzard for tickets to a modern operetta at La Mama. They drank lots of espresso, ate too many doughnuts and even more bagels and then Saz spent Sunday afternoon alone in the Guggenheim, walking round and round trying to decide the best way to approach the hotel.

The information she’d gained in the week while waiting to go to New York had hardly been groundbreaking. “September” had stayed in a small private hotel on West 43rd and John Clark remembered her once saying that she always stayed in the same place when she went to New York. Which sounded like she went there often. She had told him that it was almost always midweek, though occasionally it had been one of the Fridays when she wasn’t with him. Gary’s information had been even less helpful and more time consuming. Having gone through every one of the two hundred names he’d given her, getting physical descriptions of the deceased from wherever she could
workplaces, colleges, school records – she got the list down to sixty white women of about the right height and weight. She then cut it down to only twenty women with brown eyes and blonde, fair or dyed blonde hair. And then the hard part came. Using the details Gary had given her, she contacted the relatives where they were listed and began the agonizing job of trying to get a photograph of the deceased from each of the grieving relatives. In most cases she pretended to be an old school friend who’d read the death notice and was devastated not to be able to make it to the funeral. Could they bear to spare her a photo of Julie/Sally/Diane, just for a few hours so she could go and get a colour photocopy made? The families were usually helpful and friendly, adding to Saz’s guilt even more. Where they were difficult she did more checking to get a photo from school magazines or office security departments. Finally she had photos of eighteen of the women and when John Clark had gone through them about five times and still said that none of them were September, Saz got Judith to take him to the morgue to see if he could identify either of the two unnamed blondes lying cold and unburied after four weeks. He couldn’t.

“So, John, none of these brown eyed blondes are September. Now that could mean several things. To be blunt, perhaps she died somewhere else, and though you may find this difficult to believe, I don’t have access to all the death records in the world. But what I think is much more likely is that she really did rip you off, she took your money and …”

“She wouldn’t do that.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“I know her …”

“You don’t even know her name!”

“We know that! Hear me out. It’s true I don’t know her
name, but I know her. She wouldn’t cheat me. She’s in trouble and I still want you to find her.”

“Look John, I don’t think you can afford this, you still don’t have a job, to take it any further I’m going to have to go to New York. The air fare alone is two hundred quid.”

“Go. Just go. She needs me.”

John Clark looked like a man obsessed. Gone was the “Mr Grey” Saz had met weeks before, this man had a dream, it was to get September back, it was to have dinner every second Friday night, whether that proved to be the most expensive meal of his life or not.

So here she was, early Monday evening, outside a “private hotel”. And she’d been outside this “hotel” for nearly an hour, consulting her map, looking frantically at her watch as if she was waiting for someone and watching the people go in and out. But mostly in. And mostly men. And all very well-dressed. Glad she’d thought to pack some “posh clothes”, she finally decided to go in herself. She took off her coat to reveal a plain but well cut business woman’s suit, slipped off her trainers and took her court shoes out of their plastic bag like any other New York yuppie and walked up to the desk with her finest Sloane voice.

“Um, excuse me, I wonder if you could help me?”

The desk clerk looked up, evidently surprised at the English accent on the chick he’d been eyeing through the door for the past half hour.

“Yes ma’am?”

“I’m afraid I was expecting to meet a Mr – ah, Mr Hannon. Patrick Hannon.” Saz said, invoking her maternal grandfather as she always did in moments of stress.

“He said six thirty and I’ve been waiting outside for almost an hour and it’s most dreadfully cold, so I wonder
if you couldn’t let me wait in here for just a moment. You do have a lounge?”

“I’m sorry ma’am, I don’t know a Mr Hannon. He’s a member?”

“A member? Oh. Well, I don’t know. I’m terribly sorry, I’m only in town for a couple of days and he suggested we meet for a drink, I thought this must be a hotel he frequents …”

“No, ma’am. This isn’t a hotel. It’s a casino. But if you’ll just wait up a minute I’ll get someone to cover for me, and then I can go on up to March to see if maybe he’s in the new members’ lounge.”

“I’m sorry … did you say March?”

“Yeah, I know it’s silly honey, but we’ve got twelve rooms – one for each game, you know, and each one’s named after a month, like blackjack’s in October, roulette’s in January, poker’s in July … and there’s one room which is just kind of a lounge. That’s March.”

“Well, what a … what an interesting idea. But look, I don’t want to disturb you any longer and to tell the truth, Mr Hannon is my ex-husband, so if he can’t be bothered to turn up on time, well, I’m sure I’ve got better things to do with my time than to sit around waiting for him!”

“That’s the spirit sweetheart!”

By now the desk clerk was all but kissing Saz’s feet so she decided to push her luck just that little bit further.

“So um, how does one join this club?”

“One is invited,” came a cold voice behind her. Saz turned to see a tall, immaculately dressed man standing in front of her, on either arm was a beautiful woman, both with the darkest brown eyes – and though one of the women was black, they also both had the same long, blonde hair.

“Charlie, what’s this lady doing here?”

“She was just waiting for someone, Sir. A Mr Hannon.”

“And I presume you told her we had no Mr Hannons here?”

“Well, I was just going to check in the new members’ lounge, sir …”

“No need, we have no Mr Hannon.”

“Yes Mr James. Sorry Sir.”

“Perhaps you’d like to call the lady a cab now Charlie and get back to work?”

“Yes Sir, right away Sir.”

Charlie picked up the phone and Saz watched as Mr James and the two women, without another glance at her, swept out of the foyer and up the staircase. She turned to Charlie and hoping that his fear of his boss wasn’t greater than his attraction to her, said “Don’t worry about the cab Charlie, I have a car. But let me just give you this …”

Saz grabbed two of the cards at his elbow, scribbled Caroline’s number on one of them and kept the other one hidden in her palm.

“I’m staying with a friend. You might like to call me and maybe we could meet? I don’t know that many people in New York and it does get kind of dull … especially as my friend works days …”

She placed the card slowly in front of him, smiled her most provocative smile and slowly walked out of the front door, all the while praising her mother for her tuition in decidedly politically unsound flirting. Once safely away from the front of the building, she changed her shoes and began to run. Only when she was back in the subway on the way to the apartment did she turn the card over.

CALENDAR GIRLS

– Private Hotel –

We cater for your every need

all year round.

MEMBERS ONLY

Saz let out a low whistle.

“Well, little Miss Goody Two Shoes September, what would John Clark have to say about this?”

That night she talked it over with Caroline as they fell asleep.

“I’m sorry Saz, but it sounds more like a brothel than a casino to me. Dolly bird blondes, rooms named after months …”

“But I saw men going in with women.”

“There’s some funny couples in New York!”

“I don’t know. It didn’t feel like a knocking shop. It looked quite passable – no flocked wallpaper anyway.”

“It’s not a knocking shop babe, it’s a high class brothel. Or it could be drugs I ’spose.”

“You think so?”

“Yeah, why not? A room for each ‘drug of choice’ as we Americans say.”

“Carrie, you’ve been here three weeks.”

“Columbus had only been here a day and he got to name the place.”

“You could be right though, one of those girls, the one with the natural blonde hair did have really strange eyes. Her eyes were incredibly brown, massively dilated pupils.”

“More likely her contact lenses than coke. Your Mr James isn’t going to waste his merchandise on the staff – not while they’re working anyway.”

“What did you say?”

“I said he wouldn’t waste good drugs …”

“No, not that. The contact lens thing.”

“Well think about it Saz. If she’s a natural blonde then the chances of her having brown eyes are pretty small. Not impossible but pretty small.”

“ ‘O’ Level biology darling, remember?”

And Saz did remember. Remembered John Clark telling her that September’s eyes were so dark it was hard to tell what colour they were, that sometimes it looked as if her whole eye was taken up by the pupil. As Caroline’s breathing became regular beside her, Saz silently kicked herself. Whether it was coke or contact lenses or both that had made September’s eyes big and brown, it made her previous analysis of Gary’s information redundant. It was also inevitable that Mr James knew something about it and the person who was most likely to be able to help her was Charlie. And she hoped her charm had more effect on him than on Caroline who was beginning to snore gently beside her.

She’d been working as a tour guide. Not your ordinary “and this is St Paul’s Cathedral” from the top of a bus, but a specialist guide. She’d take families out in her car, or if there were too many of them, a specially hired mini-bus. Usually day trips to some beautiful or historic part of Britain; Stonehenge, Bath, the Lakes. Mostly the customers were American, occasionally French or German. She knew a lot about most places, but if they had a special request she’d spend nights in the library, boning up on all the facts. Sometimes she’d stay with them longer, taking them on up to Edinburgh or down through to Paris, Amsterdam. When she had to stay away I was usually rewarded with a special bottle of wine or some good Dutch cheese. Mostly she brought back some kind of objet d’art too. Usually some ugly touristy thing her guests had bought her to remind her of their great time together. Luckily she managed to break or lose most of them within a couple of months. When she wasn’t touring, and most tours were midweek, she’d go into her office to plan the next assignment or take future bookings. As I said, when I first heard about it, her job sounded terribly glamorous. In truth, she usually came home exhausted and wanting to sleep for a couple of days. Still, it paid the bills – all the bills, most of my share too. And it got her out of the house. I was hoping to get a surprise trip for my birthday, but it wasn’t to be.

That’s when I first found her out.

It was the third of my birthdays we’d shared but the first to fall on a Friday. It was not one of the Fridays per month I’d been allotted but I assumed she’d be with me anyway. I assumed wrong.

“What do you mean you’re going to your parents?”

“I mean I’m going to my parents. I mean it’s their night. It’s one of their nights. I mean I ALWAYS go to my parents three Fridays a month. You know that.”

“But it’s my birthday.”