Playing with the Grown-ups (20 page)

'What do you mean, us?' Kitty said.

'Us. As a family. I think it would be good for us as a family if I go and figure some things out while I'm working. I'll come
back and it will all be right again.'

'Why do you have to go away to make things right?' Kitty said.

'I just do. That's what I have to do. I wish you could come with me, Magpie, but you've got the dreaded school.

I'd also rather you didn't see Candy while I'm away - I don't know how good she is for all of us. Please don't make me feel
guilty, I beg of you.'

'I wasn't,' Kitty said. 'I was just asking you a question.

Why can't I see Candy? She's my friend.'

'I can't answer questions right now, about anything. Do you want to go shopping? Oh look outside the window, there are doves
. . . a couple. Do you see them? They're cooing at one another, they're in love.'

'Those aren't doves,' Kitty said. 'Those are pigeons. And they're screwing on your windowsill - it's revolting.'

Honor and she laughed impolitely. He sent them over a bottle of Cristal which they drank, leaving their twenty pounds of Saturday
pocket money crisply virgin.

'Well, now we won't be on the night bus,' Honor said.

'Hurray for us and our teenage appeal,' Kitty said.

Romeo the Russian came over.

'Thank you so much for the champagne. It was very generous,' Kitty said.

'Nice manners.' His eyes were moist. 'I love English girls. I love all girls but especially English ones.' Then he asked with
great hope, 'Do you go to public school?'

For once they didn't have to lie about their ages; Kitty realised their illegality was the whole point. She felt like she
was on the brink of discovering some vital truth about life, that she was participating in a huge social experiment.

'Why are we meeting up with those girls AGAIN?' Honor asked her. 'I don't like them, they make me feel weird. My mother would
be furious if she knew we were going out with a man in his sixties. I don't like lying.'

'You're not lying, Hon, you're withholding information. We're not doing anything wrong - she just wouldn't understand. It's
not harmful. It's interesting. We're seeing all walks of life. It's anthropology. It's one night.'

'I don't want to be like those girls,' Honor said, and she sprayed lily of the valley on her ears, tossing her shiny hair
in Kitty's direction.

She half wanted to be like them. They were so polished and hard. Laetita was Romeo's favourite. She was fourteen. She was
the only one who wasn't blonde. She looked like Ava Gardner's baby sister.

She told Kitty that on Saturday mornings, every weekend, Romeo gave her his platinum card and she went to Sloane Street and
bought whatever she wanted. Kitty was repulsed and jealous at the same time.

'Do you have to have sex with him?' she whispered, fascinated.

'No. He just likes me to wear my school uniform and call him Daddy.'

'Doesn't that make you feel sick?'

'A bit, but then we go to Cartier and I feel better.'

Kitty had stumbled upon a group of baby women, and she was completely enthralled. It wasn't like going out with boys her age,
because everything you could ever want, and what you had yet to discover you wanted, was paid for. There was a Bentley with
soft leather seats, and buckets of champagne.

She and Honor went to Iceni and had a table that was roped off, and their own security, because Romeo didn't want any other
man to talk to them. She perfected dancing at the table with a look of vacancy, sexy as the others. It was easy, in a leather
bustier she borrowed from Charlie, the hardest of all his girls. Charlie had the biggest bosom Kitty had ever seen, golden
skin that she maintained at the Electric Beach, and people looked at her with a mixture of envy and disdain. Kitty didn't
know girls like this existed outside of pulp fiction. Nice girls didn't accept presents from strange elderly men with a penchant
for rap music. By association did this mean she wasn't nice either? Dancing and winding, hands reaching up through her hair,
touching the others, because everyone knew men liked to watch girls touch each other when they danced. She knew the curve
of Charlie's waist like her own because she held it as Charlie moved against her. Her fingers felt the heat of skin through
the moulded rubber Charlie wore. Her sweat was sweet, and her hair as it brushed against Kitty smelled of American shampoo
and cigarettes and bleach.

Kitty was scared of her, because she seemed numb inside.

Kitty made Romeo the Russian laugh. He said she reminded him of his English nanny.

'So strict! It's spectacular.' The others rolled their eyes.

One evening she found herself sitting next to him, and he was serious for the first time.

'You know, you are going to be a great beauty when you're older,' he said. 'You're going to get better with age.'

'So everyone keeps telling me,' she said. 'I wish it would hurry up and happen soon. I feel like a wine.'

'It will.' He smiled at her kindly. His eyes began to gleam and his face was vulpine. 'You know, I could set you up, give
you everything you ever wanted. You'd have earrings that matched your eyes, and a flat in Belgravia. You wouldn't have to
worry about anything. You should be looked after, have an easy life.'

Kitty thought about it: no school, shopping at Joseph, long lunches on Sloane Street and the blind adoration of a buck-toothed
dilettante with hairy hands. Her inner harlot, of whose existence she had been until now unaware, piped up in a horrid baby
voice, which whistled through her head, 'You'd look lovely in sapphires and you'd never have to take the tube again.' Kitty
was horrified, and prayed that the dark inner workings of her soul were not transparent. 'Go away,' she told her. The harlot
disappeared in a sliver of scarlet satin with a pout.

'Thank you, Romeo,' she said, 'but the thing is, prostitution has never been that appealing to me. I can see how it would
be for some people, but I want to get married and have babies and have a garden.'

He stroked her hair.

'I don't think mistresses have very happy lives. I think they're probably very lonely.' It was an unimaginable conversation,
and she felt worldly and morally upright, now the hoyden was gone.

'You're a good girl,' he said. 'But oh! To romp with you, what fun that would be.'

'I'm too old for you really, Romeo,' Kitty said, patting his arm, and she knew that this was true.

Honor shot her a look.

'What areyou talking to HIM about? I feel sick when we're with these people,' she whispered. 'It makes me feel awful. Everyone's
looking at us. They think we're prostitutes.'

'Stop being silly,' Kitty said. 'Of course they don't. Would you rather be at some stupid school party, drinking snakebites
in the corner with a bunch of midgety boys? This is glamorous. I was talking about the importance of being a morally intact
woman, for your information.'

'Can we go, old man? I want to dance.' Charlie fixed her black eyes on Romeo and kicked Kitty under the table.

Kitty froze in shame under Honor's Laura Ashley sheets.

'I think I got food poisoning,' she said.

'Well, you need to go home to your mother,' Ruth said. 'She's going to have to phone the school and tell them that you aren't
well. I can't do that. Come on, poppet. Do you have any clean clothes?'

'I can wear what I wore last night.' Kitty's voice sounded louder than usual. It sounded wrong in Honor's tidy room.

'I'll give you a pair of Honor's jeans and a jumper. I've got the WI coming here for elevenses but Roy can give you a lift
home.'

'I can get the bus,' Kitty said.

'No, at least let us do that. Why don't you have a quick shower?'

She crept down the corridor in Honor's dressing gown. The sun was shining, the house smelled like Pledge and warm bread. She
heard Ruth say in a loud angry voice from the kitchen, 'I can barely clean up my own children's vomit, let alone someone else's
child's. She's meant to be at school. Where is the mother? What about the grandparents? This isn't right, Roy.' Kitty didn't
want to hear Roy's response so she locked herself in the bathroom.

'I bought you a bagel.' Roy passed her a tinfoil package. 'Radio One all right?'

'Anything. Thank you so much for driving me home. You really don't have to. If you want to drop me off at the tube, that's
fine.' She folded her arms over her chest.

'What's wrong with you?' Nora said. 'Why aren't you at school?' She stood at the door with her arms crossed. She looked terrifymg.

'I was staying with Honor and I threw up in the middle of the night, so her dad drove me home.' Kitty couldn't look Nora in
the eye.

'Well, why did you throw up?' Nora grabbed Kitty's chin in her hand.

'I was ill,' she said.

'Do you think I was born yesterday, Kitty Larsen? You were out. Jaysus, but you're a disgrace. And if you think I'm calling
your school to say you're sick, you've got another think coming. I will not lie for you. I will not encourage this sort of
thing. It's un-AC-CEPTABLDEO. I make myself clear?' Nora said, her voice low and quiet.

'Yes,' Kitty said. 'I'm sorry.'

'Well, I'm not sending you to school in that state.

You look like a dog's dinner. You can sit there and don't speak to me for at least an hour, after which you're going to make
me lunch, and then we're going to pick Sam and Violet up from school and take them to the park. Got it?'

'Yes,' Kitty said.

'Higher!' Violet said.

'I can't push you any higher - my arms hurt.' Kitty felt like she was going to throw up again.

'You have to. Nora says you have to play whatever we want.' Violet was unrepentant.

'Fine,' Kitty said. 'Can we go in the tree house?' She thought about lying in the cool oak darkness, the sounds from the playground
far below her.

'No. Not today. Next we're going to go on the roundabout.'

'As fast as the Concorde!' Sam shouted.

On the park bench Nora looked up from her John le Carre book and sniggered.

Kitty started to forget how bad she felt as they ran in the leaves, and Sam and Violet held her hands, and they asked her
questions like she knew the answers.

'Was it as bad as all that?' Nora patted her leg over the covers.

'No,' she said. 'It was quite nice, except for the shouting, and the roundabout. I liked us all having supper together.'

'I want to be able to trust you, Kitty; we didn't bring you up to lie.' Kitty wanted to embrace her, but she held back.

'I know you didn't,' she said in a small voice. 'I do try to be good.'

'Well, try harder,' Nora said, and kissed her softly on the forehead.

'Can you meet me outside the library after school?' she said. Her hair was done in a French plait, and Kitty knew Ruth had
done it for her that morning, in the kitchen as they chatted, and it made her feel angry.

'Of course. Do you want to go to Carnden?'

'I can't today; I just need to talk to you.'

'About what?' Butterflies began to bat their wings in Kitty's stomach.

'I'll tell you when I see you.' Her voice was high and clear like her singing voice.

Honor sat on the library steps, listening to her Walkman.

'Hi,' Kitty said. 'What are you listening to?'

'Desiree. Listen, we need to talk.' Honor was nervous, tracing circles on her tights with her clean baby nails.

'What is it?' Kitty looked at her and saw her lip beginning to flutter.

'This is not really a conversation I want to have, but um, I've thought about it, and I don't think I can be friends with
you any more,' Honor said.

Kitty took a step back.

'Why? What have I done? Are you upset about Romeo and those girls? We don't have to go out with them again if you don't want
to . . . What is it?'

'It's bigger than that. It's sort of everything. It's not necessarily things you can help. I think, because of circumstances,
it's beyond your control. It's like how you spend time with that weird woman who lives in a hotel, who you think is so glamorous,
but really she's depressing, and how you actually like Romeo the Russian, and those girls.' Honor sounded robotic, like she
was repeating something.

'I don't understand what you mean!' School was empty, and it was getting dark.

Honor stared down at her feet.

'Do you not like me any more?' Kitty said.

'I do - it's just - my parents don't want me to be friends with you, they think you're a bad influence. They're really worried
and upset, and I don't want to upset them any more. It's not your fault. I think we're interested in very different things,
I think you'd agree.'