Carlie had been more interested in the catalogue on Vaughn’s coffee table. She’d done History of Art A level and, ‘I adore Fiona Rae. You got anything by her?’
Ellie hadn’t but she sold Carlie two alabaster seahorse sculptures by a Japanese figurative artist from the catalogue at list price. Vaughn had bawled her out for not sending Carlie down to him and hadn’t spoken to her for two days, but then he’d sacked Minty, one of the posh girls, so Ellie could start working front of house and knocked fifty per cent off her pitiful salary ‘because it will give you an incentive to make up the rest in commission.’
Ellie now had her own office, a small but perfectly formed roster of young artists and even though she earned only seven point five per cent commission and Vaughn took the other seven point five per cent, she’d paid off her student loans and was now saving up for a deposit on a flat. Vaughn also let her pick two pieces of art every year for her own personal collection, as long as she didn’t go mad and ask for a Damien Hirst or a Tracey Emin, because she was indispensable. Being indispensable was a good thing. It meant that people were stuck with you.
She was pulled back from the undignified gloat about her successful career trajectory by a beep from her phone.
Hello sexy. Fancy lunch? I can come to you. Rich x
Ellie smiled as she felt that anticipatory rush course through her at the thought of seeing Richey. He was always so spontaneous, so in-the-moment, in a way that Ellie longed to be but couldn’t. Then the anticipatory rush was replaced with a feeling of despair. If she had things out with Richey as she’d been instructed, then a spontaneous lunch date might be the last time she saw him, which seemed crazy when she’d been imagining that they might have a future together.
Sounds great. Victory Cafe at 1? Ellie xoxo
Richey was only ten minutes late to meet her, which was a personal best. Ellie had already snagged the last free table in the fifties-themed café in the basement of Gray’s Antique Market in a little mews behind Bond Street station. She looked up from the menu to see him walk in just as two people were leaving. He stood to one side to let them out and Ellie let herself relax ever so slightly.
If Richey were such a bad person, then he wouldn’t have such good manners. ‘Manners maketh the man’ was what people, especially her grandparents, said. It made Ellie smile and wave with more enthusiasm than was strictly appropriate when they needed to talk about his alleged problem with class-A narcotics.
Richey smiled back. He wasn’t tall, only a couple of inches taller than Ellie, but he was a little dangerous-looking with his shaven head and the tattooed sleeves inked on his arms, shown off by his tight white T-shirt. He had good muscles too; being a runner for a film production company involved a lot of heavy lifting, and there was something about the way he smiled, how the light in his eyes became more of a glint, that made Ellie want to blush and duck her head. She did neither but tilted her face so Richey could kiss her cheek as he reached her side.
Finally Richey was sitting opposite her, knee brushing against hers and Ellie had to think of a way to lead into a serious discussion that wouldn’t result in a big fight. They’d been seeing each other for eleven weeks exactly, only slept together a handful of times, so serious discussions were new territory.
‘You look so buttoned up in your work gear,’ Richey commented, as his eyes swept over Ellie’s hair, which had had a quick encounter with her office hair straighteners, as had her grey cotton tunic dress, so it was at its optimum uncreasedness. ‘Bit different to how you looked on Saturday night.’
On Saturday night Ellie had cuffed her boyfriend jeans and worn them with an old Sonic Youth T-shirt she’d borrowed from her mother, and white Converses; her hair had been tied back in a ponytail. It had been the perfect outfit to see Lola’s friend’s band in Soho and go to the aftershow party in Hoxton. Then Lola had invited everyone back to their flat, where the night had quickly degenerated into mayhem when Richey had supposedly done a few lines of coke on the breakfast bar and it transpired that doing a few lines of coke turned Richey into a belligerent tool.
Ellie pushed away the panini she’d barely touched, because Richey had given her the perfect opening gambit, but before she could open her mouth, he reached across the table to take her hand.
‘That reminds me,’ he said. ‘Look, about Saturday night, I’m really sorry about what went down.’
‘Yeah, well, I wanted to talk to you about that,’ Ellie said carefully. ‘Tess and Lola are quite annoyed with you.’
Richey pulled a face to indicate that Tess and Lola and their feelings towards him weren’t weighing that heavily on his mind. ‘But are you annoyed with me?’
‘Well, I wasn’t there for your big rampage. I’d gone down to the High Street with Laetitia to find her a cab and when I got back you were passed out in the bath.’ Ellie paused to gauge Richey’s reaction so far. He was nodding and his eyes were fixed on her intently. He had lovely eyes; they were dark and slumberous, and he had such long lashes that Ellie half suspected he’d had eyelash extensions. ‘But I saw the broken plates, and Lola told me what you called her when she, you know, saw you doing coke in the kitchen.’
‘Oh God,’ Richey said, and he cradled his face in his hands. ‘What else did I do?’
Ellie’s heart was galloping at a rate that couldn’t be healthy. ‘Tess said that she caught you rifling through her drawers. Like you were looking for something.’ Richey’s face was still hidden and she took a deep breath. ‘I’m sure there’s a simple explanation but Tess is convinced that you were hunting for something to sell to fund your habit. You weren’t, were you?’ she added anxiously.
Richey groaned, which wasn’t a no or a yes. Then he lifted his head and he looked so stricken, so ashamed that Ellie couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. And then she felt sorry for herself because she’d seen that look before on other men’s faces just before they confessed to getting their jollies from dressing up in women’s underwear or that they’d just put their entire month’s pay on red, and black had come up instead.
Not again, she thought. Not a-bloody-gain.
‘The thing is, Ellie …’ Richey faltered, and Ellie gripped the table top and said nothing, though she was sure everything that she was trying hard not to say was written all over her face. ‘… well, it’s all a blank. I remember going back to yours and I remember waking up in the bath and stumbling round in the dark and tripping over when I tried to find your room, but the bit in the middle just isn’t there.’
‘So you don’t recall buying any coke?’ Ellie asked sceptically. ‘It just fell into your pocket, did it?’
Richey flushed. ‘I did a favour for my boss on Saturday. Helped him shift some gear and he gave me a couple of grams as a thank-you. It wasn’t like I could refuse. He’s my boss and I don’t normally do the hard stuff.’ He looked at her pleadingly. ‘I do a bit of spliff and it was Saturday night so, yeah, I sunk a skinful of booze but I don’t usually do coke. I really don’t.’
‘Yeah, but—’
‘Oh, come on, Ellie! I’m a glorified runner. I’m on minimum wage. I couldn’t afford a raging coke habit and if I did act like that on Saturday night, then I’m never touching the stuff again.’
He was certainly talking a good game and Ellie wanted to believe that he wasn’t just another headshot in her own rogues’ gallery, but she had to be certain.
‘I can’t be around someone with a drug habit,’ she whispered fiercely, because the jukebox was switching between tracks. ‘I’ve seen enough of my mum’s friends get really messed up. If you need help, I will absolutely support you …’
Oh God. Any doubts Ellie might have had about this whole lame ducks business were gone now. Ten minutes into a serious discussion with Richey and she’d reverted to type. She really was an emotional fluffer. There was no hope but to head for the door as fast as she could and swear off dating.
‘Hey, Ellie, don’t look at me like that.’ Richey gave her hand a little squeeze
. ‘I promise it was just a one-off. I don’t have that kind of problem and I’d hate it if I’ve screwed things up before we’ve even got started.’
‘Really?’ Ellie still wasn’t convinced. But maybe she was amenable to being convinced.
‘I know it hasn’t been that long since we started hooking up, but I think we could be something special,’ Richey murmured, and he was looking her straight in the eye and Ellie would know if he was lying. She would, she was sure of it. ‘I’ll make this up to you and I’ll apologise to Tess. Not to Lola, though; she’s fucking scary.’
Ellie was as convinced as she could be without demanding Richey take a drug test. He wanted to put things right, not just with her, but with her flatmates too (at least Tess, because Lola really was fucking scary until you’d known her for a minimum of six months). He must think that they had a future together.
It was her turn to squeeze Richey’s hand. ‘I don’t want this to end either,’ she mumbled. ‘I’ll talk to Tess and Lola, and explain that this whole thing has just been a huge misunderstanding.’
Richey smiled crookedly; it made him look like a little boy who’d been caught stealing from the sweetie cupboard. ‘I bet you’re wondering what you did to get landed with an arsehole like me.’
‘You’re not an arsehole. You’ve just made some bad decisions,’ Ellie insisted. ‘Look, let’s just draw a line under this and move on.’
‘But you do know that I’m sorry, right? I don’t want you to spend all your time at Glastonbury worrying I’m going to get high on crystal meth and wreck our yurt.’
Ellie didn’t want to spend her time worrying about that either. Not when she was worried that it was going to rain. Worried about having to get backstage to meet clients. Worried that she wouldn’t pack the right clothes. Worried that she might not be able to charge up phone, laptop, iPad, or plug in her hair straighteners. Worried about so many things that she didn’t have space in her schedule to worry about Richey as well. ‘I really wish I didn’t have to go to Glastonbury,’ she blurted out as she’d been blurting out at regular intervals for the last few weeks.
‘Yeah, sucks to be you.’ Richey grinned at her, and Ellie grinned back because now his thigh was pressing against hers and he was giving her a look from under his lashes that was making her feel decidedly hot in a way that had nothing to do with it being unseasonably warm for late June. ‘I don’t suppose you fancy bunking off for the rest of the afternoon?’
She sighed and moved her leg away. ‘I do fancy it but I have to be in King’s Cross in …’ She glanced at her watch. ‘… half an hour. Can we take a raincheck?’ She was already standing up and bending down to kiss Richey’s cheek. ‘Sorry, I’m going to have to run. I’ll pay on my way out.’
‘No, I’ll get this. It’s the least I can do.’
Ellie beamed at him, because if you took Saturday night completely out of the equation, which she planned to do, then Richey was a very good boyfriend. He might not be the normal boyfriend that Tess and Lola thought she should be dating, but normal was boring and normal definitely wouldn’t pinch Ellie’s arse as she got up to leave.
Brighton, 1986
Chester drove them down to Brighton to see Spacemen 3. Tab and Tom said it was because he still fancied Ari, even in the face of zero encouragement.
At the gig, Chester kept getting closer and closer, as if he was going to lunge at any moment. Ari said she was going to the loo but sidled down as close to the front as she could get.
The music was loud and hypnotic, the beat getting right inside her, and as she leaned in to let the sound swallow her whole someone pulled her back. Pressed a glass of something cold against her shoulder blade where her dress dipped down low, low, low because she didn’t care if anyone saw her black bra strap.
Ari sighed, turned round, ready to let Chester down kind of gently because she wanted a lift back to London, and there was Billy Kay. ‘Gin and tonic, right?’ he said, and he handed her a drink. Stood next to her, the sleeve of his leather jacket brushing against her arm. Lit her cigarettes. Steadied her when someone slammed into her and she teetered on high heels.
After the band had finished and Ari had just stood there for five minutes because she hadn’t noticed the music had stopped and the lights had come on, he took her hand.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘I know a place where we can go.’
They walked along the esplanade, wind whipping in from the sea and making Ari shiver, neither of them speaking, until Brighton was almost Hove. Their destination was a square of elegant Regency townhouses. Billy had a key to one of them. Said it had a sea view as Ari followed him inside, up a sweeping staircase and into a room.
A room with a bed in it.
Billy was on her and then he was in her, hadn’t even kissed her yet, just pulled up her dress, pulled down her black lace panties and thrust inside her, his hands tight on her arms so she could feel the bite of his fingers.
Ari got excitement just standing close to him, but she wasn’t excited enough and he was hard and demanding inside her and she … ‘Stop! Just stop, OK?’
Billy’s eyes glinted but he stilled, and Ari brushed back the lock of thick dark hair that always fell over his face, and God, she just wanted him to say something, acknowledge her, who she was, not just a random girl he’d picked up at a gig.
‘You don’t just shove it in without asking,’ Ari told him, thumping his shoulder so he eased away and pulled out of her. ‘Fuck! You haven’t even kissed me!’
‘Do you want to be kissed then?’ he enquired lazily. ‘How … sweet.’
He was one of those guys who liked playing games. Liked collecting broken hearts as bitter trophies. But Ari wasn’t going to be one of those girls.
Ari eased down the tight skirt of her dress, then leaned over to place a finger on that cruel, pretty mouth. ‘I want some of this, before I get some of this.’ Her hand slid down to his cock, wet-tipped and hard beneath her fingers, and he shivered. Billy Kay shivered like a schoolgirl.
He kissed her then and Ari had expected something fierce, angry, but the kiss was gentle, almost reverent, and though she didn’t have the kind of hair a man could run his fingers through, he stroked the wispy strands along her hairline where the lacquer hadn’t taken hold, then rubbed his cheek against hers.
‘Oh, Ari, you’re going to destroy me, aren’t you?’ he said, and before she could deny it or come up with a sassy, snappy reply, he was easing down the zip of her dress, placing kisses over every inch of flesh he laid bare.
When Billy started moving in her again, Ari was ready for him. She wrapped her legs around him, buried her mouth against the salt-slick of his skin and hoped he wouldn’t destroy her first.
Chapter Four
On Thursday morning at precisely ten fifteen, Ellie was waiting patiently on the corner of Delancey Street and Albert Street with her matching Orla Kiely wheeled duffle bag, humungous tote and laptop case, and her beloved Mulberry handbag clamped to her chest.
Her mother had said to be ready at nine sharp, but Ellie knew her mother from way back, and there was probably still time to nip to the newsagent to buy more tissues because you could never have too many at a festival, and she might just as well check that the weather forecast was still predicting blue skies and sunshine, even though she wanted to go easy on her phone’s battery because God knows when she’d have a chance to charge it again.
For one reckless minute Ellie thought about dragging her luggage back home and locking the doors, but her mum had a spare set of keys and anyway, she was being silly. She should stop thinking of Glastonbury as a weekend spent outdoors with rudimentary toilet facilities and a lot of unwashed people wearing ridiculous hats, and think of it as a mini-break. Ellie loved mini-breaks.
She heard the toot of a horn, then Chester’s van was pulling up alongside her. Before it had even stopped, Ari jumped out.
‘Give Mama some loving,’ she demanded as she pulled Ellie and her handbag and laptop case in for
a hug. ‘How’s my best girl?’
‘I’m fine. How’s my favourite mother? Apart from being shockingly late as usual.’
‘Darling, have you ever known me to be on time for anything?’ Ari asked, stepping back so she could survey Ellie’s luggage with a slight frown. ‘Planning to move to Glastonbury permanently then?’
‘This was my fifth attempt to whittle everything down to essential items only,’ Ellie said. ‘I have to have options.’
‘Of course you do,’ Ari agreed, but when Ellie opened the van’s sliding door she saw the battered leather holdall held together with ancient ‘Access All Areas’ and ‘Artists Only’ stickers that contained her mother’s clothes, toiletries and make-up. Ari managed to achieve a high-maintenance look with a lot less product than her daughter.
Even without her cat’s-eyes sunglasses on, Ari could pass for thirty-five in direct sunlight. Not that she ever ventured out in direct sunlight without slathering herself in sunblock to protect skin so pale it was positively vampiric. With her long London bus-red hair and the huge tattoo on her left arm of her beloved Les Paul Melody Maker guitar, it was hard to believe that she was going to be forty-nine on her next birthday. Ellie might have been biased but she thought Ari looked incredible and never mutton-y, not even in her fifties sundress, adorned with poodles, and Converse high tops. Ellie felt positively frumpy in her Topshop shorts, stripy Sonia Rykiel T-shirt and …
‘Wellies? Why are you wearing your wellies when there’s a big shiny yellow orb up in the sky? It’s called the sun, darling.’
Ellie looked down at her green Hunter wellingtons, then back to Ari’s amused face. ‘I don’t want to end up with trench foot if it rains torrentially all weekend.’
There was a hearty chuckle and, ‘You owe me a tenner, Ari,’ from the driver’s seat, and Ellie scowled at Chester. It wasn’t much of a scowl because she loved Chester.