Wicked Pleasures (11 page)

Mr Johns was out, said his secretary; he wouldn’t be back all afternoon. Did she have a quote to send Lady Caterham?
Angie’s voice was slightly, ominously patient.

‘For who was this?’ Angie could almost hear her setting her nail polish aside, and sighing.

‘This was for Virginia Caterham,’ said Angie with an icy patience.

‘Would that be trade?’

‘It certainly would,’ said Angie, ‘and Lady Caterham has been waiting three days now.’

‘Well Mr Johns is a very busy man.’ The voice was growing defensive. ‘He could be a lot less busy if we don’t get this quote.’

‘I’m afraid I don’t like your tone,’ said the secretary.

‘I’m not smitten with yours either,’ said Angie, ‘but I have a job to do, and I’ve promised Lady Caterham and our client to get that quote in the post today. Now could you maybe shift your arse and look through your files, or maybe give Mr Johns a call. If it’s not too much trouble. Or should I get Lady Caterham to call him direct? She does know where he is.’

This was a lie, and she also knew she was running a big risk, talking to the girl this way, it was probably what Virginia would call counterproductive, a favourite phrase of hers, but she was genuinely agitated; the bluff paid off.

‘I’ll have to call you back,’ said the girl. ‘Just give me a few minutes.’ She clearly wanted to finish her nails, thought Angie, get them dry.

She phoned back half an hour later.

‘I do have the quote, but it’s very rough. And I’ve no time to type it myself.’

‘Oh really? Well isn’t it lucky that I do. Just get it over here, put it in a taxi, and I’ll see to it.’

‘I don’t know that Mr Johns would like me using a taxi without permission.’

‘I’m sure Mr Johns wouldn’t mind you using his cock without permission, if it was going to get this job sorted out.’

‘I find your language very offensive,’ said the girl.

‘Yeah, well I expect Mr Johns would find your behaviour offensive,’ said Angie, ‘and if I don’t get that quote in half an hour, he’s going to hear about it. Now go and find a taxi, and get it over here, fast, the Eaton Place address, and then you can get off early and go to the hairdresser as planned.’

‘How did you – that is how dare you talk to me like that?’

‘I dare. Do you want Mr Johns to hear about the hair?’

‘Just give me the exact address.’ The girl sounded sulky. ‘You’ll get it.’

The quote, in Mike’s illegible handwriting, arrived three-quarters of an hour later; by the time Angie had deciphered it, typed it into Virginia’s estimate and made the necessary adjustments, the post had gone. She sighed. Well, she’d just have to deliver it in person. It wasn’t far. Just near Harrods, off Beauchamp Place. She was getting to know the smarter areas of London rather well. Shit, it was nearly six, she’d never get a taxi. If only she could drive. Well, she could hike it. The Russell and Bromley pumps were very comfortable. She put the Rolodex in the safe, locked up the office and half walked, half ran down to Sloane Square, up Sloane Street, round the back of Harrods and up Beauchamp Place, bumping endlessly into wearily irritable Christmas shoppers; by the time she reached the South West Three, she was flushed and flustered.

The glass door was wide open; a few plastic easy chairs and low splay-legged tables stood in the dingy reception area; the carpet which had once had a frenetic orange and beige print beneath years of grubbiness was worn thread-
bare, and the fake oils in gilt frames of beauty spots in the British Isles made the room infinitely more depressing rather than less. It was cold and the blow-heater someone had helpfully placed in the middle of the room was doing no more good than if it had been belting out hot air into the middle of Knightsbridge. A short, stout man, with dark hair and bright, currant-like dark eyes, flanked by a pair of tall girls, was standing by the blow-heater. He looked at Angie, and glowered at her.

‘The hotel is closed.’

‘Yes, I know. Mr Stern?’

‘Sure. Yes, that’s me.’

‘I’m Angie Burbank. I work for Lady Caterham.’

‘Oh, do you now? Well, you can tell Lady Caterham she sure as hell isn’t working for me. No way, no way at all. That estimate is three days late. This is a hotel I want to open, I run a business, you know? Have you heard of business in this country?’

‘Some of us have, some of us haven’t,’ said Angie cheerfully. ‘Lady Caterham certainly has. She’s been working on your plans round the clock. I have them with me. And estimates.’

‘Too many clocks,’ said M. Wetherly Stern. ‘I wanted that estimate this afternoon latest. I’m talking to another decorator, and he’ll be here in thirty minutes. I’m sorry, Miss – what did you say your name was?’

‘Burbank,’ said Angie. ‘Angie Burbank.’

She saw one of the tall girls exchange an amused, eye-raised glance with the other over Stern’s head. As always when she felt at a disadvantage, adrenalin rushed to save her.

She put her hand out, touched Stern’s hand very gently.

‘Please, Mr Stern,’ she said, ‘I know these quotes are late. It’s my fault. I – I lost the original quote. Lady Caterham will probably fire me when she finds out. Please – please take a look at her plans. I know you’ll like them. Really.’

Stern’s eyes met hers: bright, burning dark eyes, surprisingly large, with very long eyelashes. Angie concentrated very hard, and felt tears rush to the back of her own large green ones. She had always been able to cry to order. She looked down, swallowed, then up again; Stern smiled at her suddenly, and rather slowly, and she became aware, with a swift sure rush of sexual instinct, that he was looking down at her, that there weren’t many people he could look down at and that he was enjoying it. She mentally thanked the girl from Liberty once again for making her buy the low-heeled shoes – in the stilettos, their faces would have been level – and smiled at him tentatively. He said nothing. She bit her lip, looked down again, waited. More silence. She sighed. ‘Very well. I don’t blame you. I’ll take them back.’

Stern suddenly laughed. ‘Well, I like honesty. Let’s take a look at them. You deserve that. That can’t have been easy. You girls –’ he looked up at the two brunettes –‘you girls go find some coffee somewhere, and bring it back here while I look at Lady Caterham’s plans.’

‘Oh, thank you,’ said Angie, ‘thank you very much. Could we maybe put the plans down on that table, while I go through them, explain them just a bit. I
know Lady Caterham would like me to do that. I really do think you’ll like them. They’re very – English. I do think it’s clever of you to have spotted the potential of this hotel.’

Stern still didn’t look at the plans. He was still staring at her, his large dark eyes exploring her face, her tangle of blonde hair, her tiny slender body. ‘You’re a very little girl,’ he said, ‘to be doing what seems to be quite a big job. No more than a schoolgirl, are you? How old are you, exactly?’

Angie took a deep breath and, for the first time that afternoon, told the truth. ‘I’m sixteen,’ she said, ‘well, nearly sixteen and a half.’

‘Well, Miss Burbank,’ said M. Wetherly Stern, ‘I find myself very impressed with you. Very impressed indeed. Now let’s have a look at these plans – how would you like to do that over a glass of champagne?’

‘I’d like that very much,’ said Angie. ‘Thank you.’

‘So he took me to the Hyde Park Hotel, where he’s staying, and plied me with champagne, which was lovely, and looked at the plans, and asked me to have dinner with him next week,’ she reported to Virginia the following morning. ‘So I said I would. And he definitely likes the plans. I’m sure he’ll phone any minute. He said he would, before ten. Oh, listen, that’ll be him now, I bet.’

She picked up the phone.

‘M. Wetherly, good morning. Yes, I’m very well. Thank you so much. Yes I enjoyed it too. Lady Caterham is here now, and she’d like to speak to you. Yes, I’ll see you next Wednesday. I’m looking forward to it already.’

Virginia was amused to hear a slightly more breathy, schoolgirly note in her voice than usual.

M. Wetherly Stern told Virginia he wanted her to do the hotel; he said he was very impressed with her plans. Virginia took Angie out to lunch at an Italian restaurant in Ebury Street to celebrate and to thank her. ‘But I’m worried about you. I fear he’s a dirty old man. Are you sure you’re not getting into rather deeper water than you can handle, Angie?’

‘No, of course not,’ said Angie, ‘I really like him. I like older men. My first boyfriend was twenty-five and I was only fourteen. And I don’t think he’s a dirty old man at all, actually. I think he’s sweet. He’s certainly not greasy. He’s got the most beautiful great dark eyes and incredible eyelashes, and he’s very polite and respectful, and his hair doesn’t have a smidgen of grease on it, and he has a really nice smile, and he doesn’t have bad breath, and he made me laugh a lot.’

‘Well, you certainly seem to have studied him,’ said Virginia. ‘Er – Angie, can I ask you something?’

‘Of course,’ said Angie, knowing what was probably coming. She picked up her wine glass, and took a large swig.

‘Angie, exactly how old are you? I know you told Mr Stern you were sixteen because you reckoned he had a Lolita complex, but is that the truth?’

‘Well – yes. Sort of,’ said Angie. ‘I mean, yes it is. Oh God, is that
awful
? You’re not going to fire me, are you? For lying to you?’

‘Angie,’ said Virginia, ‘don’t be ridiculous. How could I fire you? I can’t imagine running the business without you now. But I wish you’d told me the truth at the interview.’

‘Well you really wouldn’t have hired me then,’ said Angie. ‘I mean eighteen was pushing it, wasn’t it? Be honest?’

‘Well – maybe. A bit. Anyway, here’s to you, and Mr Stern. Not as a couple, I hasten to add.’

‘M. Wetherly,’ said Angie, ‘that’s what he likes to be called. And why not a couple? I think it could be fun.’

It was fun; she enjoyed the company of M. Wetherly more than she had ever enjoyed any man’s. He was extremely funny; he was gentlemanly and considerate; he had a simple honesty which endeared him to her, and he was very very rich. He bought her endlessly beautiful presents, perfume, a Gucci watch, a gold bracelet, a pearl choker, silk shirts, cashmere sweaters; he took her to the theatre, and out to dinner, to places she had only ever dreamed of, but familiar to her as her own name, from her reading of the gossip columns, the Caprice, the Ritz, the Terrace Room at the Dorchester, Le Gavroche, and a wonderfully cosy, clubby place called the Guinea in Bruton Lane, off Berkeley Square. He also took her out shopping to buy evening dresses; his taste was a little different from the girl at Liberty’s, he liked very tight slinky black crêpe dresses, scarlet lace shifts, gold and silver lamé Grecian-style numbers. Angie loved them all; the only thing she was always careful about was staying in low-heeled shoes. She discovered a designer called Jean Varon who made long high-waisted dresses with tiny bodices adorned with sequins, ostrich feathers, even smocking, in white crepe and red satin and black silk, and bought every one she could find. M. Wetherly took her dancing to Annabels which he belonged to, and plied her with champagne, and told her she was the most beautiful girl he had ever known. He was thirty-six and divorced, and Mrs Stern lived in some splendour in New Mexico; they had no children.

He had made his money from cement; had been a millionaire at twenty-three on the back of the building boom of the fifties in Europe. He had homes and mistresses in New York and Paris, he told Angie; he thought it was wrong to deceive her. He had never lived in London although he knew it well; now he was looking for a house there, to keep an eye on the hotel – the first, he hoped, of a chain. After he had taken her to dinner three times, he asked her if she would consider going to bed with him. Angie, who found him surprisingly attractive, said she certainly would; the experience was pleasant but not earth-shattering, M. Wetherly being nervous and very gentlemanly. As they lay in a companionable silence afterwards, sipping champagne, she asked him about his sexual fantasies. There was a long silence; then M. Wetherly turned towards her, circling her small firm breasts with his fingers, and said, slightly shamefacedly, that he had always rather liked the idea of schoolgirls. Angie, who had suspected as much from their first encounter, said nothing, but the next day she went to Daniel Neals and bought a gym slip, a shirt, a tie, a girdle
and some dark green knickers, and after dinner that night she said she had something to show him. Up in his room, she told him to wait while she went and got ready in the bathroom; he settled excitedly on the bed, uncorking the champagne, and the expression on his face when she emerged, looking slightly shy, her long fair hair tied up in bunches, her slender legs encased in black stockings, tie slightly awry, a satchel hung on her right shoulder, was better, she told Dee, than all the presents put together.

‘Oh Angela,’ said M. Wetherly. ‘Oh Angela, how very sweet you look.’

‘Well,’ said Angie, sitting down on the bed beside him,
‘I’ve kept it all. I thought it might come in useful.’

‘And it has,’ said M. Wetherly fervently, ‘it has.’

‘But,’ said Angie, who had thought about this scene quite carefully, ‘I don’t think all my clothes are named properly. Marked, you know, with my name. I thought perhaps you should check. And you do remind me of my headmaster so much. He was very strict you know. If we didn’t have all our clothes marked, he used to get very cross with us. Sometimes he even spanked us. Why don’t you start with my stockings, and work through everything?’

‘Angela,’ whispered M. Wetherly, as he tenderly began to unknot her tie, ‘I think I love you.’ The next day he bought her a staggeringly expensive diamond bracelet: ‘For the sweetest seventeen I know.’

Angie didn’t tell Virginia any of the details of her relationship with M. Wetherly. She thought she would be shocked. She just said he had bought her dinner two or three times, and as far as she was concerned, he was just a nice old sugar daddy who enjoyed her company.

She wasn’t sure if Virginia believed her, but it saved her from having to feel guilty or worry about her. She was happy, interested, doing well at her job. For Christmas, Virginia gave her an orange fun fur coat, a bonus of £100, and a rise of £5 a week. She took Angie out to lunch at the Caprice and told her she couldn’t imagine the business without her now, and that she hoped she would never leave. Angie said she never would.