The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl (28 page)

The other thing I realised was only that morning I was in the shower, too, while everyone sat inside poring over street maps and the papers, and I was singing The Divinyls' I Touch Myself.

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mardi, le 27 avril

I'm staying in a hotel right on a river in Spain; the river goes only a few miles until it reaches the sea. I take a walk by myself, not far from the hotel. The spring is very warm and sunny, and I am distracted by the flowers. The air smells drier and cleaner here than in the UK.

My camera is low on batteries, but I manage to take pictures of some flowers. Violet bursts of bougainvillea, orange starburst-shaped blooms I've never seen, tiny pink flowers in a smooth-trunked tree's branches.

There are more sidewalk cafes than anything else. I sit on the pavement at one, in a green plastic chair under an umbrella emblazoned with the name of the local brew, sip a sangria and feel an obvious tourist. Men who pass sometimes comment to me, more often to each other. It seems they notice a woman's hair before anything else.

Because I have worn the wrong shoes for any kind of walking, I have to turn back and go home early. But instead of re‐treading the same route along main roads, I loop through the cobble‐paved back streets where white and yellow stucco crumbles off flat‐faced buildings. There are two churches, their names spelled in gay tiles pressed into the plastered walls. I try to take a picture of one but the battery of the camera runs out. I could buy a new one, but I don't know the word for battery, and am already acutely aware of my strangeness to the locals. The hotel is a cool refuge when I get back.

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jeudi, le 28 avril

So I'm sixteen, or close to it. One day my cousin and I are at a swimming pool, treading water by the ladder at the deep end. He has been asking about some girls I know. I am vaguely dismayed that his taste in women is running to the obvious ‐ tall blondes and dark‐haired girls with chests everyone stares at. Plenty of the boys have received favours from these girls, but they wouldn't look at my cousin nor his geeky friends twice, and he knows it.

Our friendship is becoming uneasy. Because we are related, we can and do share everything. Because of our age, attraction is possible ‐ but, obviously, off‐limits. When the subject of sex does come up, being shy and clever as we are, we couch it in the most neutral terms possible.

'If I wasn't your cousin, and didn't know you, I'd probably be attracted to you.'

'Me too. If I wasn't your cousin. And didn't know you.' And we know what we mean. Then an awkward silence, usually followed by a simulated farting noise to bring things back to the mundane.

These conversations foretell the sort of relationships I will have with men through university, a parade of pale, gentle boys who are too shy to admit their desire until they are too drunk to care.

A lot like the few people I dated at school, really, but with better access to alcohol. Sometimes my cousin's friends express an interest in me; he fends them off with protestations of my tomboy‐ishness ('She would break you in half if she heard that') or maturity ('She wouldn't look twice at a child like you'). I was terribly mature. I'd even tossed a boy off in a cinema, don't you know.

There are other things as well. We don't know it for a year yet, but I'll be going to university and my cousin won't. His 244

A‐levels were good, and he had offers, but he didn't follow through and his mother didn't press. He wants to be a Royal Marine or a mechanic. I think he's crazy. A decade later he ends up working prep in a commercial kitchen.

I pull myself up the side of the pool and scramble out in the direction of our towels, grab them both, walk back to the water.

'Hey,' he says, a little louder than absolutely necessary, 'you're walking differently. Does that mean you're not a virgin any more?'

'Yes,' I say, straight‐faced. He starts to get out of the pool, and I throw his towel in the water. This is how he knows I care about him.

He's not sure whether I'm kidding or not, and doesn't press for details. I prepare a fake story anyway, just in case. When his mum comes to collect us, we both sit in the back of the car, and he just whispers names.

'Marc?'

'No.' Marc was in my year, and taller than the rest of the boys.

He also spits when he speaks without realising it and follows me around too often.

'Justin?'

'No.' I have a crush on Justin; my cousin is the only person I've ever told; I hope he doesn't tell anyone else. Before leaving for university I will tell Justin all this in a letter, and he will never speak to me again.

He senses my discomfort. 'Eric. Has to be.'

The joke candidate. 'No way!' I say, but refrain from giving him a nipple‐twister, because to do so would compromise the new air of maturity this lie has conferred.

It doesn't matter much anyway. Within a month it happens for real, with my cousin's best friend. While I flinched, I didn't make a noise. And so far as I can tell my gait was no different the day after than it was the day before.

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vendredi, le 30 avril

I fly east, to Italy, to meet friends. The plane is small and crowded and the heavily made‐up flight attendant screams at a child who keeps running up and down the aisle, even when the plane is taking off and landing. It's not clear to whom he belongs; his parents are making no effort to stop him.

The first thing I do after setting my bags in the cool tile hallway is to check email. And there's a small surprise, a message from Dr C in San Diego, who must have gleaned my email address from A2. It's a short, but affectionate note dating from two days previously. I reply with an equally short and cheerful message.

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Mai

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Q - S

T is for Taxis

I usually ring a minicab for the way out and find a black cab on the way home.

Minicabs will not necessarily know where you're going, and I've ended up reading their maps more often than not. Black cabs will get you somewhere smoothly, but might try to take you on a scenic tour to push up the price.

Sometimes I hail a black cab on the way out, but can't count on finding one near home except on weekends.

Collecting local minicab cards is useful; it wouldn't do to always get the same drivers.

T is also for Timewasters

Theoretically, working through an agency should prevent ghost bookings: the people who express interest in your services and even go so far as to reserve a time and agree on a price. Only to find that they have meetings later than they thought, or the wife did come along after all, or he forgot the phone number (my personal favourite ‐ this is what mobiles are good for, no?). So sometimes you will go through all the prep and end up on the shelf. At least you can reassure yourself that unlike in real relationships, it's not you, it really is them.

Us for Underwear

Matching underwear, sexy and luxe. For looks, not for comfort. Early on the manager emphasised the particular look she likes the girls to have: big, expensive, lacy pants. No thongs. More is more. Garter belts are cliched but a nice touch. Don't invest in anything that will be difficult to get in and out of. It must be clean and well‐fining; there's nothing more unattractive than rolls of back fat or the dreaded double cleavage from an ill‐fining bra.

V is for Vagina

Keep it clean. If you don't wax or shave clean, keep the hair trimmed. Look out for any odd swelling, redness, discharge or discoloration, and if you notice these symptoms, get yourself to a clinic as soon as. Do those squeezy tightening exercises gynaecologists are always on about. Men love that.

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samedi, le 1 mai

The flat I'm staying in is within smelling distance of the city's fish market. This in itself is not a problem. No cracks about whores and fish smell, please.

The major drawback to the location is the trucks that rumble in at 4 a.m. to drop off the day's catch. The men standing off the backs of the trucks, shouting to each other, unloading. Then it goes quiet for an hour or so before the first customers start coming to market.

Still, it's probably about time I started learning what rising with the sun is good for. Nabbing the best fish, for one thing.

dimanche, le 2 mai

I went to the beach with a small group. There was me and one other girl; the boys sat slightly separate from us on the pebble shore as everyone stripped down and tanned on their towels.

The other girl is not a close acquaintance. A few days ago we were talking, and she asked my age.

'Twenty‐five,' I said, knocking a couple of years off. She is nineteen at most.

'Wow!' she said, looking genuinely surprised. 'I never would have guessed.' I shrugged. When I was younger, everyone thought I was far older; now, the situation is reversing

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itself. 'You know, you don't have to tell people your age,' she said helpfully. 'You could probably say you were twenty and people would believe you.'

Only if said people were teenagers. Bless her, though.

I was reading. One boy, a blond, was listening to music and singing loudly ‐ and tunelessly ‐ along. You couldn't help but smile. Some of the other boys threw a frisbee around and splashed in the shallow water. When they bored of that they came back to where we were lying.

The other girl, who was flipping through a magazine and listening to music, turned towards me. 'Are my sunglasses very dark?' she asked under her breath.

'Yes, they're quite dark,' I said.

'So if I was looking somewhere, you couldn't see my eyes, right?'

she asked. 'I couldn't, no.'

'Good,' she said, and turned away again, facing the boys, her head propped on one hand. Gazing, I noticed, in the direction of a particular young man. Her own boyfriend had stayed at home.

lundi, le 3 mai

The first girl I ever slept with was a friend's girlfriend.

One of my close mates at university was a shortish, thinnish, good-looking ginger boy who loved Dr Who and was a complete sex bomb with the ladies. I can't explain why. He just was, and we loved him.

We called him the Jew Boy With the Moves, because this guy could cut up your brother's bar mitzvah party dance‐floor like a hot knife through butter. He was all slinky hips and sultry looks and by jove, I had an almighty crush on him. I'd never had a go, though in the first year he made his

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way through every single one of the women in our group. It just seemed a boundary destined never to be crossed.

Eventually he settled down with one girl. And I couldn't resent losing out, because his girlfriend, Jessica, was an uber‐desirable petite vixen with caramel‐coloured shoulders and dark‐blonde hair that was always in perfect curls.

One night JB and Jessica invited me and my then‐boyfriend to a club. It was a place I didn't know in a part of town I didn't go to. I didn't know what to wear, and met the other three at a pub in jeans, flip flops and a thin black satin shirt, no bra. Jessica and I stood in the middle of the room while the men fetched our drinks, and I was suddenly aware that everyone was looking at us.

We sank pints and moved on to our destination. The club was a gay club. My first. It was a mixed crowd, being a Saturday night in a medium‐sized city where the staff couldn't be too picky with the door policy. There were boy couples and girl couples, gangs of students, old single boys looking hangdog at the bar and men dressed like women dressing like men's fantasies of women. There were gold-painted cages, but no one dancing in them. I didn't know where to look. My boyfriend, alas, did ‐ at his feet. All night.

The music was not good, but it was frantic and loud, like all club music was then. JB and Jessica spun me out on the dancefloor. They were, together, an incredible couple to watch. Just too tiny and cool for words. Her slightly bony shoulders wriggled suggestively, her back was bare in a sleeveless, tie‐on shirt. I'd been attracted to girls before, but never felt so free just to stare at one. It wasn't out of place here.

JB took me to one side. 'You know, she wants you,' he said. Was he kidding? This wee goddess? But as soon as he said it, I knew it was true, and it was like a switch had been

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flipped. I could imagine taking her to the toilets, tonguing her as she laughed and sat atop the cistern. I could imagine putting things in her, my fingers, the end of a beer bottle.

'She's your girlfriend,' I said, aware as the words came out, how whiny and awful they sounded.

He shrugged. He said he'd take care of my boyfriend. He said he did this for her a lot ‐ picked up girls for her. I was stunned.

JB drove us all home. My boyfriend lived closest, thank goodness.

Then we went around Jessica's house. Her parents were away somewhere, or asleep, or didn't care, I never knew. She held my hand and we walked through her door, plain as anything. Her boyfriend waited until she waved back to him from the doorway, then drove away. Her neck was the most slender, tenderest I'd ever seen. Her lips were softer than any I'd ever kissed.

mardi, le 4 mai

I walked into a shop in the late morning. The Sicilian sun was already high, driving people to seek out shady spots.