LAID & BETRAYED (Getting wrong with Mr. Wright) (2 page)

'I'm starting university after the summer.'

'
Very sensible.
What're you going study?'

'Literature,' I replied
, and shrugged
. 'All reading and dusty old books.'

'Don't forget to
stop and
smell the roses, you've got to have a bit of fun as well.'

'Don't worry, I
inten
d
to
…
'

'Good for you
,
'
he said and patted my leg.

I
swallowed hard
and
forced out a smile
.
It was my job to put the client at ease, but
it was hard to know what
to say.
He
had turned sideways in his seat and
was
openly
examining my neck and
breasts
,
so immodestly prominent with the seat belt dividing them. His eyes undressed me and the shameful thing was I
didn't mind
.
My little fantasy before the bathroom mirror
that morning
wasn
'
t exactly a first
,
it was becoming a ritual
.
There was a
great big
world out there.
I was straining at the leash dying to
plunge in at the deep end
.
Childhood is like a prison sentence. S
ixth form
was behind me and I felt like a
freed
slave sloughing off my shackles ready to run barefoot into the future.
F
ather was
an unreconstructed
Victorian, the school he
had sent me to
was famous for its
strict
discipline
,
and working with Mr.
Butler
made me feel like
a
Bob
Cratchit
in the
Scrooge's
office in
A Christmas Carol
.

As for my
on/off
boyfriend, Simon,
that was
definitively off
. H
e had taken off
to go surfing
after a
blazing row that had brought me to tears and had made Simon so angry I'd thought he was going to hit me.
Like me, he had been at boarding
school
,
but
we
had spent holidays hanging out together since we were fifteen
, the kissing growing to… well, just about everything except actually doing it.

It was Saturday afternoon. His parents were at a wedding in London and we were in his bedroom, my top off, the zip on my jeans down, his strong hands pulling at the denim, my legs crossed like we were in the midst of a bout of judo, at which I was a blue belt. He gave up and rolled off me.  

'I've had enough of this. What the hell's
wrong with you?'

'Nothing's wrong with me.'

'Do you hate me?'
He was snarling
, his gums showing
.

'No, you know I don't.'

'Then what the hell's going on?'

'
It's just not the right time.
'

'
It's never the right time.
You're just a pathetic little virgin. You enjoy being a
cockteaser?'

'Y
ou know that's not true
.'

'
I k
now it is true.
It's bloody dangerous, for one thing. You lead a guy on and then…just stop. I could have a heart attack or something.'

'Simon…'

'
Forget it.
Just go home, Grace.
There's plenty more fish in the sea.'

He storm
ed
out of the room
and I thought that was q
uite funny about the fish, seeing as he was going surfing.

We turned a corner and I dropped a gear to climb
Pedding
Hill.
Everything in all directions was green and growing, glossy with sunshine.
August in Kent, the Garden of England.
I couldn't imagine anywhere more beautiful.

'It's lovely here,'
Charlie
Wright
said, turning and gazing out at the landscape.

'We're only an hour from London,' I informed him. 'Some people commute.'

'
How deadening is that?' he said
.

I grinned.
F
ather commuted
to his office in Lincoln's Inn e
very day,
five days a week, forty-eight weeks a year;
out on
the 7.50, back on the 6.05, regular as the movements of the
moon
;
holidays at the cottage in
the Lake District
– he didn't like abroad, too many foreigners – Christmas with Granny
One
, his mother, in
Faversham
,
New Year's Eve with Granny
Two
, mum's mum, in Aberdeen.
I had been bound by
timetables and agendas,
strictures
and
rules
, a work
program
that had secured A
s
in every exam and
a place at Cambridge, my father's dream
.

The road
meandered
through apple orchards and strawberry fields.
We passed a Saxon church
with a flag hanging indolently on a pole
, the
flint of the walls like shiny eyes polished by the sunshine.
On a hill, I slowed behind two cyclists, a boy in front, a girl in a white dress behind him. She stood on the pedals to get better traction and her dress blew up, showing her
white
knickers.

'Wait, wait. Don't overtake,' he said.

I stayed behind until the girl crested the hill and sat once more.

'What a
waste
.
Camera's in the back,' he
tutted
.

The road swept down in a long
sweeping
curve.
In the rush to get out of the office I had forgotten my sunglasses and the intense light made me squint as
we
left the shade and entered the sun
light
.
My
back
was wet
, pressed against the seat
.
Flies tapped against the windscreen. We reached a hairpin bend at the bottom of
the
hill and
I
passed the sign to Black Spires
.

'Sorry, I missed the turn,' I said, and he shrugged
,.

'Don't worry about me, I'm enjoying myself.'

I pulled into the entrance to a field, reversed out and followed
a
n
un
surfaced
track
I had never taken before
. The hedgerows were full of wild flowers and the mature oaks and elms along the way gave the impression that we had travelled back to a slower age, a more serene time.
The
lane c
u
rved as it
rose above meadows
,
before dipping down and
ascending
steeply
to a circular plane where Black Spires sat on the summit. The
rise
in the land formed a natural
defense
.

'There has been
a building on this spot since the Renaissance
,' I said,
quoting the
stats
I'd studied in the office
.

'
Any trouble with damp?'

I wasn't sure what he meant.
'I
'm sorry?' I said.

'I mean, if it's that old?

'No, no, it's been rebuilt many times. The present building's early Victorian.'

'Fascinating.'

I turned through the iron gates and the
car
crunched over a gravel drive edged by rhododendrons and shaded by sycamores.
We got out and stood gazing up at the
building
with its spires and turrets, leaded windows and gargoyles
with devilish faces
.

As we approached the door, I remembered the key and went back to the car to get it. The lock turned and he
followed me through an entrance laid out with stone flags below an arcaded roof. The slit windows softened the light and a delicious chill rose from the floor and ran up my skirt. I should have been talking about the south-facing aspect, the cellar with its ancient
artifacts
, but
Mr.
Wright
could see those things without me describing them and I discerned in
his manner
no desire for the mundane and prosaic. There w
as a tight feeling
in my tummy and my dark hair felt heavy on my shoulders.

He gazed around the entrance hall for just a moment and I gazed at him. Charlie
Wright
had the most striking eyes I had ever seen,
like amber, like
two creatures from the depths of a tropical sea. His features were solid, suntanned, his nose large and dominant,
his
lips full and sensual, his wavy dark hair flecked with silver strands that glimmered in the diffused light.

Our eyes met and I trembled for some reason. My throat was dry and my breasts were betraying me as they pressed painfully against the thin
fabric of my
shirt.

'
Would you like to see the drawing room?
'
I asked.

He was staring at my breasts.
'
I want to see everything,
'
he replied,
looking up, holding my
eyes until I glanced away.

I felt confused. Being alone with this stranger in this strange house seemed oddly romantic and I couldn
'
t remember ever having been in a similar situation before. I didn
'
t know what to expect, what to say, how to behave. All I did know was that I felt
dreamy and
light-headed.

Mr
.
Wright
was still gazing at me, measuring me as if for a new dress. My senses were drugged but
,
in the midst of my confusion
,
I felt
sure there
was a connection betw
een us.
Had we met before? Perhaps he was a friend of my fath
er?
I could think of no rational explanation for
my
confusion,
but knew on some
vague
level there was a bond, a special reason why Charlie
Wright
had walked into the office that afternoon and why we were together in the entrance hall of Black Spires.

He took a camera from his bag and held it up like a piece of evidence in court.

'Shame I missed that girl on the bike,' he said.

He
took photographs as we made our way through the house, but I got the feeling th
at h
e wasn
'
t really looking at anything. He was looking at me. I was conscious after climbing the stairs and passing through the bedrooms that sweat was
gumming
my blouse to my
back and the flush felt like fire on my neck and throat.

After going downstairs,
he
suggested we go up again.
He collected his bag and
I led the way,
my shoes
tapping
on the bare wood
and echoing in my ears.
We stood in the
main
bedroom overlooking the garden with its apple and pear trees. He took some shots through the window, then
set up a laptop on a table and linked it with a long cord. He
asked me to pose on one side of the frame.
I knew
that
shooting into the light produces
bad
pictures, but
when he showed me the im
ages,
I appeared with an intense
expression, my body a silhouette surrounded by an aura of pale blue light. It was stunning: I looked like a different person, and when
I looked back at Charlie
Wright
,
I
realized
I was panting for breath.