Vanity (2 page)

So, for the time being, Jilly was as good a compromise as any. She wasn't what you'd call a babe (too old), or a beauty, like his ex-wife Olivia (also too old, but her eyes made up for it), but she was fun, with a body that could pass for a much younger one if he closed his eyes. Which he found himself doing with increasing frequency.

‘Another tequila, you naughty old wretch?' Jilly brandished the bottle she'd hidden in her purple, suede-tasselled handbag.

‘Thanks, angel tits.' Justin took a hearty swig then
belched slightly. Heartburn. How the fuck did Ronnie Wood do it?

‘Justin! Jilly!'

They both looked around guiltily.

Olivia regarded them with affectionate amusement. Some things never changed, and by God was she glad she wasn't married to the silly old ‘See You Next Tuesday' any more. She and Jilly were good friends, and knowing Jilly's disastrous track record she thought the stupid buggers
probably
deserved one another. Olivia was looking beautiful in one of her Ossie Clark original maxidresses. Her
chocolate
-brown hair was piled into a messy up-do, her expressive dark eyes lined with kohl. The resemblance to her daughter Bella was startling.

‘Isn't this absolutely beautiful?' she said to Jilly, ignoring Justin, who was trying to hide the tequila bottle down the front of his sarong. ‘I must say I think we're honoured to be invited. As far as I can make out, the only other aged Ps belong to the bride and groom.'

‘We
are
parents of the bridesmaid, Liv,' said Justin pompously, giving up with the tequila bottle and chucking it on the sand. He started rolling a spliff. ‘And we've known Poppy since she was a little girl. She must have been about … seven?' After the excesses of the years, details could get a little hazy.

‘Ah, yes, I remember it well,' said Olivia drily. ‘Bella first brought her home from school when they were both ten. God, they were sweet.' Always maternal, she smiled fondly at the memory of the two little girls in bunches and ankle socks, holding hands.

‘Here's your vino, Princess.' A gargantuan man in a lurid tropical-print shirt appeared at the edge of the group and thrust a glass of white wine into Olivia's slender hand. His own fingers were fat and bedecked with signet rings.

‘Thanks, Bernie, darling.' Olivia smiled at him.

‘Bernie, mate!' Justin was effusive in his greeting, even though the four of them had lunched together at Las Salinas beach only the previous day. He had a lot of time for his ex-wife's partner (horrible word, but what else could he call him? Boyfriend was ridiculous, at their age, and he drew the line at lover when talking about his ex-wife).

‘Fancy a toke on this?'

‘Not my bag, me old china, but cheers anyway.' Bernie's beady little eyes were as amused as Olivia's large brown ones. ‘So did you two find anywhere to carry on partying last night?'

‘On this island? With this body?' Jilly thrust her hips in a manner that even Justin found faintly embarrassing and hard to respond to.

‘Pacha,' he said quickly. And because he was a nice man, despite everything, added, ‘You were the most gorgeous babe in there. Just check out those abs!'

‘Oh, do shut up, you ridiculous old man. They're coming! Don't you want to see our daughter in her moment of glory?' Olivia put a finger to her lips with one hand and smacked her ex-husband's wrist with the other.

They watched in silence as Poppy floated down the beach on her mother's arm, Bella a few paces behind. An aisle leading down to the water's edge had been fashioned out of terracotta tubs of miniature orange trees, in full bridal blossom. Damian, now without his shades, was waiting where the sea lapped the shore. Even from where they were standing near the bar, Olivia could see how nervous he was.

‘Doesn't our little girl look beautiful?' said Justin, wondering if he really could make out Poppy's nipples underneath the embroidery on her dress.

‘You may now kiss the bride,' said the be-garlanded, white-suited registrar. ‘
Un beso, por favor!
'

Damian clasped Poppy to his linen breast and Bella felt her eyes misting up again at the sight of them, so perfect against the gradated blue of the horizon. She looked around for her boyfriend, Andy, who smiled at her. She smiled back. He looked very handsome and very tall in an olive-green linen jacket over faded Levis. The bright spring sunshine bounced off his oblong specs, which (by luck, rather than design; Andy was not a vain man) emphasized high cheekbones and a strong jaw.

‘I declare this sea well and truly open!' shouted Poppy, chucking her bouquet over her shoulder and dragging Damian into the water with her. Bella ran to catch the bouquet but just missed it. She picked it up, trying to shake the sand off the pretty yellow and white flowers, and turned to see Andy looking at her again. He wasn't smiling now. She ran over, slightly embarrassed.

‘Think I'd better ask them to put these lovely flowers in some water.'

Andy nodded. Bella knew he was wary of marriage, but he needn't be quite so fucking obvious about it.

Soon everybody was dancing in the sea to Groove Armada – singing about sand dunes and salty air – some more careless of their costly garb than others.

Mark had been right about the temperature of the sea, but the mood was infectious and it was ages before they all sat down to lunch.

The meal was typically Ibicenco and utterly delicious. Local ham with rustic bread, aïoli and olives, followed by huge paellas bursting with fresh seafood, peppers, rabbit and chorizo, served from big, hot pans at the tables. Bella squeezed a wedge of lemon over her steaming rice and wiped her fingers on a linen napkin.

She was sitting in the dappled shade of the Arctic camouflage net with Andy, Simon, Natalia, Mark and Sam. The bride and groom were sharing a table with Damian's parents and Poppy's mother. Poppy had been heartbroken that her father, in the advanced stages of Alzheimer's, was too ill to be at her wedding – whether it had been held in the UK or not. He wasn't even aware she was getting married, poor old love, despite the happy couple's repeated and increasingly desolate announcements, complete with ring flashing, at his care home.

The two hundred-odd guests sounded pretty happy with their lot as decibel levels rose with the rosé consumption. At the next table, Bella's mother, father, Bernie and Jilly were already on their fourth bottle.

‘What a lovely day,' she said, full of tipsy sunshiny happiness. ‘I just knew Poppy would get it right.'

‘I think she had a lot of help from her devoted friend, no?' said Natalia, turning her slanting grey-blue gaze on Bella. The diamonds in her ears and scraped-back hair emphasized the height and acute angle of her cheekbones.

‘I guess so.' Bella grinned, recalling the hours she and Poppy had spent poring over fabric swatches, menus and playlists. ‘But I enjoyed every minute of it.' She glanced over at the bridal table.

Poppy was throwing her head back in peals of laughter at something Damian had just said. Bella was so happy they were back together. This time for real. Last year, she'd caught Poppy in flagrante with Ben Jones, Bella's then boyfriend, an up-and-coming actor. At the time, Bella had hated them both with every fibre of her being, and, were she honest, wished them both dead. But Ben went on to cheat on Poppy, who subsequently OD'd on a cocktail of drugs, both recreational and prescription. Despite the Balearic sun, Bella went cold as she recalled finding Poppy unconscious in her flat, surrounded by narcotic paraphernalia. Thank God she'd found her when she had.

Everything's worked out for the best, she thought contentedly, gulping back her delicious chilled rosé and turning her face up to the sun. She was happier with Andy than she'd ever been in her life. Eight months on, she was still waking every day with an idiotic grin on her face.

Impulsively she leant over and kissed him on the cheek.

‘What was that for?' He smiled at her.

‘Nothing really. Just thinking how happy I am that everything's worked out like it has.'

With the
crema catalana
came balloon glasses half filled with ice and
hierbas
, the potent local hooch made, as its name might suggest, from mountain herbs.

‘So how are things in the men's magazine world?' Andy asked Mark and Simon, who worked alongside Damian on
Stadium
, the men's ‘style' magazine that liked to think it had more substance than the rest. Simon and Damian were columnists, which involved churning out variations on a superiorly misogynist theme, month after month. Mark was the art director, which gave him so much opportunity to ogle naked female flesh you'd think (erroneously) that he could take it or leave it by now.

Andy's career – he was an investigative reporter for one of the better respected broadsheets – earned him grudging respect from Simon and slight resentment from Damian, who had always harboured ambitions in that direction himself. Still, as Simon said, the perks and parties at
Stadium
more than made up for a little professional jealousy. Or at least they used to.

‘Not great, to be honest,' said Simon. ‘It's a bloody drag. Sales have been hit badly by the recession. The downmarket rags –
Nuts
and
Zoo
and now
Front
; did they really need another one? How many boobs does the Great British Public need? – are cornering the market.'

Bella nudged Andy.
Stadium
was not exactly what you'd call a boob-free zone, though the boobs it showcased tended, with the odd honourable exception, to be smaller. Classier, you see.

‘Well that whole bespoke ethos is a bit anachronistic at the moment, isn't it?' said Sam, one of the honourable exceptions, in her husky voice, earning a look of surprise from Simon. ‘You should see your face! I'm not that thick, you know, and I've been reading
Stadium
cover-to-cover ever since I first appeared in it. I like to keep up on Marky's job.'

Sam had taken up glamour modelling to pay her way through London University, where she was studying philosophy and psychology. She and Mark had met on a shoot. Fond though Bella was of Mark, she reckoned Sam was streets ahead of him intellectually. But she was young and easily impressed and Mark was seriously sexy, in a brawny, doltish sort of way. Today he was wearing tight white jeans and a scarlet racer-back vest top, revealing rippling biceps, triceps, pecs and lats in all their worked-out glory. To say nothing of the vast packet. His head was shaved, his smile crooked. When Bella first met him (long before she experienced the full – ahem – thrust of his lust), she'd had her doubts as to whether he was Arthur or Martha.

As if to prove the point, he laughed and kissed Sam way more explicitly than manners dictated, groping her left tit and shoving his tongue down her throat. Bella remembered what it was like kissing him and reached for Andy's hand, flushing suddenly.

‘Ugh, get a rrrrroooom, please,' said Natalia, shuddering. Sam pulled away from Mark and laughed.

‘Sorry,' she said. ‘He does get carried away sometimes. Anyway, where were we? Oh, yes, surely all that handmade suit and expensive trainers stuff just doesn't cut it when people can't even pay their mortgages?'

‘It's aspirational luxury though.' Simon stuck stubbornly to his guns. ‘People need things to cheer them up when times are tough. Just look at the Busby Berkeley movies of the thirties.'

‘Are you comparing
Stadium
to Busby Berkeley movies?' Bella laughed. ‘Not sure what your emphatically
not gay
metrosexual readership would make of that.'

Simon laughed too. ‘Oh, I don't know. It's too depressing to discuss on such a lovely day, anyway. Are you working on anything interesting at the moment, Andy?'

‘Interesting, yes, but not what you'd call uplifting.' He smiled briefly at Simon and squeezed Bella's hand, trying to reassure her.

‘Try me,' said Simon.

‘Do you remember that piece I did on the Albanian people-traffickers last year?' As Simon nodded, Andy muttered, ‘People-traffickers … fucking euphemism for what these animals do … Anyway, one of them has tipped me off about another, bigger gang, which controls half the underage brothels in London.'

‘Wow,' said Simon. ‘That's heavy stuff. Why didn't he go to the police though?'

‘He's seriously scared of the retributions if it got back to the big boss, who has his spies, even within the police force. He seems to think he can trust me though.' Andy's clever eyes were serious behind their glasses. ‘I suppose he can. Even though I still think he's lower than scum, if we get this lot, hundreds of girls might be saved.'

‘Eees the big gang Russian?' asked Natalia, who was watching and listening intently.

Andy smiled at her apologetically. ‘'Fraid so.'

‘I really wish you could investigate slightly less horrible and dangerous people,' said Bella, trying to keep her tone light, though the thought of her beloved Andy in danger was tearing her guts to shreds. ‘Or start working for a tabloid, where the extent of your investigative journalism would be rummaging through minor celebs' dustbins, or even a spot of phone hacking …'

Andy laughed and kissed her on the forehead.

‘Don't worry about me, my love. You know I'm always careful.'

The newlyweds stood at the edge of the cliff, looking over at the lights in the Old Town.

‘Shall we just fuck off to Space and get off our tits instead?' asked Damian. The after-party was raging colourfully behind them. He was sure he could hear Bella's dad shouting something inappropriate.

‘And leave behind the people we love, who've come a long way to be with us, to meet a whole load of strangers we don't, and who haven't?' Poppy laughed and kissed him on the nose, standing on tiptoes to reach.