Everything to Nothing (27 page)

She took
Michelle into her wardrobes to show her the new clothes and shoes
that she had recently brought. Although used to it, Michelle was
always again staggered about the size of Sally’s wardrobes and the
fact that they were full of dresses and ball gowns valued at
thousands and thousands of pounds that Sally would probably never
wear or at best wear only once. They then went back into Sally’s
bedroom and Michelle tried on the numerous shoes that Sally had
decided that she did not want anymore.

‘I’ll have them
all if that’s okay?’

‘Of course it
is silly! Shame you’re not my size in clothes too.’

‘I don’t think
any other woman is your size in clothes Sally. How the hell is your
butt so small but your tits so big?! It pisses me off!’

Sally laughed
and looked a little embarrassed. She was of course fully aware of
her friend’s forever battle with her weight, even though Sally had
told her numerous times that she had nothing at all to worry about
and that she had a great figure. Sally decided to quickly change
subject as they both placed Michelle’s new shoes back into their
boxes.

‘Shall we start
the film why we wait for the food?’

‘Yeah, why
not.’

Sally walked
across the room to her Blu-ray player and HD-LCD television. She
switched everything on and then wandered back over to the bed where
Michelle was already curled up.

As Sally kicked
off her shoes Michelle asked her a question. ‘So are you going to
shag David then or what?’

‘What?!
Michelle! You can’t ask me that!’

‘I just
did.’

Sally mused
over the question for a few moments and then flopped back onto the
bed beside Michelle. ‘I’ve wanted to have sex for ages now but
never found a guy who, well, you know, turns me on enough, not only
physically, but mentally too.’

‘You think
David will?’

‘He will
physically. God, Michelle, he is gorgeous. Those eyes, blue like
the sky.’

‘But an arse
the size of Belgium?!’

Sally laughed.
‘Are you drunk?’

‘A little. You
know champagne makes me silly!’

‘Yeah, I know.
Anyway, he’s got a great figure too, slim and muscular. He had his
T-shirt off when I first saw him in the garage.’

‘Nice. What’s
Simon’s figure like?’

‘I don’t know.
You’ll see that before me young lady. You gonna shag Simon?’

‘I hope
so!’

‘On
Wednesday?’

‘No way! After
that tosser?!’ Michelle was of course referring to her
ex-boyfriend. ‘Nice and slow this time, nice and slow.’

‘We’ll
see.’

‘No, I mean it.
At least six months,’ stated Michelle.

‘There is no
way he is going to wait six months! And there is no way you will
either!’

Michelle
laughed. ‘Okay, maybe a couple…’

‘Of dates!’
Michelle laughed again.

‘Shall we?’

Michelle nodded
and Sally pressed play on the remote control and the movie started.
After twenty minutes or so the food arrived along with another
bottle of champagne.

‘Champagne and
burgers, an unusual combination for a Sunday!’

‘Indeed
Michelle, indeed!’

They had moved
to the table in Sally’s room and stopped the movie while they ate
and talked. It was half way through the meal when Sally remembered
the conversation with her father earlier in the day.

‘Bloody hell!’
She slammed down her fork.

Michelle jumped
and exclaimed, ‘What?!’

‘You are never,
ever going to guess or believe the conversation daddy and I had
before!’

‘Well if I’m
never, ever going to guess you’d better tell me!’

So Sally told
her about the conversation she had earlier with her father and as
she progressed Michelle’s mouth gaped wider and wider until Sally
was sure her chin was going to land on the table.

‘He is going to
take you and me?!’

‘Yep!’

Michelle then
pushed herself away from the table and ran across to the bed and
dived onto it. She then leapt back onto her feet and started to
jump up and down on the bed.

‘I can’t
believe it! Monaco, Monaco, Monaco!’ She bounced some more and then
jumped off the bed and ran over to her friend and hugged and kissed
her on her cheek. ‘Thank you so, so much!’

‘Thank my dad.
Hey, you’re choking me’

‘Sorry, sorry.
Oh my God! Where’s your dad?’

‘In his office
I presume.’

Michelle ran
back over to the bed and bounced some more. It was then that the
door was flung open and Sally’s dad marched in.

‘Now then young
lady! I thought we were years past me having to come and stop you
using my daughter’s bed as a trampoline!’

When Michelle
turned and saw it was him she jumped off the bed and ran over to
him squealing then jumped and flung herself at him, wrapping her
legs around his waist and her arms around his neck.

‘Michelle! His
back!’

She hugged him
a couple of moments more and then dropped down and kissed him on
both cheeks. ‘Sally just told me! Thank you, thank you, and thank
you again!

‘That’s okay
Michelle. I’m looking forward to it as much as you!’

‘It will be
brilliant!’ Michelle then ran squealing back over to the bed and
started bouncing again. ‘I can’t believe it!’

Sally had
clearly seen enough of her friend enjoying herself so she ran over
and dove onto the bed, crashing into Michelle sending them both
flying. Then they both sprung to their feet and bounced
together.

‘The broken bed
and mattress will come out of your allowance!’

They both
stopped briefly then Sally squealed this time which led to another
bout of jumping. He watched them for a few more moments and then
shook his head in amusement and left the room laughing to
himself.

Eventually they
both collapsed in a heap onto the bed, both out of breath. They
giggled some more until Sally suggested they finish their food and
after this they continued with the movie. There was no more talk of
the trip to Monaco, it seemed too far away for discussion at the
moment, but it was only a few months away and the excitement would
build for all of them.

Michelle would
sleep in the room adjacent to Sally’s and after the movie had
finished she quickly called home as instructed and then they talked
a little about the impending examinations for both of them, even
though they attended different colleges. Sally had been at the
highly expensive Mount school since she was seven years old, and
Michelle had followed the usual route of education, primary,
followed by secondary followed by a sixth form college.

The
conversation moved onto their hopes and ambitions. They both wanted
to study at university, hopefully one of the best such as Oxford or
Cambridge. Sally had always wanted to be a commercial pilot and
even though she had enough money to never have to work it was still
a profession that she was considering pursuing. Sally asked
Michelle whether she still wanted to be a lawyer and it was then
that the phrase innocent until proven guilty lit up in Michelle’s
mind. She knew that she would be walking on very thin ice; however,
she carefully broached the subject anyway. ‘Sally, do you remember
much about the early days of your father’s business?’

‘What do you
mean?’

‘I mean,
clearly his companies are massive, are highly profitable and have
made him a huge amount of money, but I’ve often wondered how he
started, how he got to such a strong position?’

‘I don’t know.
He got most of his early money in the seventies and eighties before
I was born. My earliest memories are of this house, but I know I
lived briefly in another place; I have no memory of it though.
Why?’

‘I’ve just been
wondering. Have you ever heard of him doing anything, well,
bad?’

Sally looked at
her puzzled. ‘What do you mean bad?’

‘Erm,
persuading people about contracts, threatening them perhaps?’

‘Threatening
them? No, never. That’s quite a strange question to ask me Michelle
after all these years. Why has it occurred to you now?’

‘I don’t know.
Just been hearing stories about rich men, and skeletons in their
closets. I’m not implying that this applies to your dad, but I was
wondering whether you had ever heard anything?’

Sally looked
even more puzzled. ‘No, never. I believe, although I’ve never asked
him directly, that he had a lot of luck, right place, right time
kind of luck.’

‘Ah, okay.
Sorry. Didn’t mean to offend you. I was just wondering, that’s
all.’

‘Now that
you’ve brought it up though, it would be quite an interesting
question to ask him. I’ve sometimes wondered myself, but never
enough to ask him. Didn’t seem to matter when I was younger, so
long as I had a pony I wasn’t really bothered! We could ask him,
maybe in Monaco!’

The mention of
Monaco sent the conversation off on a tangent and it never made its
way back to Sally’s father’s history. After chatting more about the
exciting trip, Michelle moved into her room, showered in the
en-suite and sunk into the luxurious, mammoth four poster bed that
could have easily slept a family, never mind a young lady who spent
the night dreaming of a certain young man.

In the bedroom
next door, Sally also spent the night dreaming of another certain
young man.

Chapter 22

The days that
followed were pretty much normal for everybody. Sarah did not make
it into college on the Monday or the Tuesday but this was not
unusual. Given her wild lifestyle she was frequently missing from
class early in the week, usually putting in an appearance on the
Wednesday. But even this day she missed as she decided to catch up
on some much needed rest in preparation for what she hoped would be
a wild night with Peter.

She got up in
the late morning of Wednesday and when she went downstairs for some
breakfast she was not surprised to see her mother sat watching the
Jeremy Kyle Show while consuming a bottle of whiskey. Sarah was
just in her knickers and bra but this did not concern her as she
leant over and pecked her mum on the forehead. Her mum gazed
vacantly up at her and muttered a good morning and then turned her
attention back to the television.

Sarah stood
next to her and watched the program for a few moments. This show
was typical of the Kyle show and other similar shows such as Jerry
Springer. Basically it consisted of numerous unemployed people
embarrassing themselves on national television, talking about their
problems and woes which Jeremy would then try to correct. Sarah
laughed at the irony that this particular program was about people
drinking too much alcohol. She could not help wondering whether her
mum would learn anything that would lead her to reducing her vast
consumption of alcohol but she very much doubted it.

‘Mum, I’m going
out tonight.’

‘Okay dear. You
have a good time, but before you go could you nip to the market for
me and get me something nice for tea?’

Sarah thought
that maybe she was not too bad today; she never usually asked for
food.

‘And some
beer.’

‘Beer mum?’
This was a new one.

‘Yes deary,
beer. I’m trying to cut down on spirits.’

Sarah near
enough staggered. ‘You’re trying to cut down?! Mum, in the last few
days and nights you’ve drank bottles and bottles of spirits ranging
from whiskey right through to absinthe! No matter how hard I try
you always want to drink. And now you’ve suddenly decided to cut
down?!’

‘This program
has really made me think. I don’t want to end up like them.’

‘Jeremy Kyle is
going to help you stop drinking?! You won’t listen to what I’ve
been trying to tell you for months, but you’re listening to Jeremy
fucking Kyle?! Bloody hell mum, this I got to see! If you’re
serious about packing in then let me take this whiskey and pour it
down the sink.’

‘Take it. I
would have done it myself but it was the only drink I could
find.’

‘Well, if you
wanted to pack in you wouldn’t have started to drink this, you
would have poured it away yourself!’

‘I know
darling, but like he says,’ she nodded towards the television, ‘one
step at a time.’

‘Right,
okay.’

‘And I’d like
you to organise me an appointment with the alcohol
organisation.’

‘Mum, I
organised a meeting with them for you a few months ago which
resulted in you getting a national ban from all their
meetings!’

‘But I’ve never
been to one of their meetings before. You sort it out for your
mum.’ She patted Sarah’s arm and returned to the watching the
program, but Sarah was not going to let it go that easily.

‘What the hell
do you mean you’ve never been to a meeting before?! You went there,
and, and…’ Sarah was bordering upon speechless.

‘Book me a
meeting deary. There’s a leaflet over there.’

‘You really
don’t remember do you?’ Sarah shook her head in bewilderment. ‘You
got thrown out. You offered the other members a drink from a bottle
of whiskey!’

‘I’m sure I
didn’t.’

‘But you did! I
had to come and get you, which was the most embarrassing moment of
my entire life!’

‘Book me a
meeting. There’s a leaflet over there.’ Sarah again shook her head
in bewilderment and reached for the bottle of whiskey. ‘Leave that
for now. Get me some beer and I’ll pour it away then.’

‘Right, okay
then mum.’

‘Phone up now
for me.’

‘Right okay
mum.’

Sarah took a
few steps over to the phone and picked up the leaflet. She took a
deep breath and dialled.

‘Hello.’

‘Hi, my name is
Sarah Jones.’

‘Hello Sarah.
How can I help you today?’

‘I was
wondering whether I can ask you to allow my mum to attend one of
your meetings?’