Sugar Mummy (26 page)

'Cin Kettner? Cin Kettner is the thinnest woman in New York,'
announces the woman as if she were presenting a prize.

'Do you know her, Andrew?' asks Marion, carefully putting a piece
of lobster in her mouth.

'Er, I, er, perhaps not,' I say, deciding not to risk some cock
and bull story about knowing her sister or something. The woman carries on looking
at me for a moment just to check that I have completely finished thank you very
much and then carries on with her story.

Charles and Victoria arrange a car to take us the four or five
blocks back to our hotel.

'What was your weird comment about Cin Kettner for?' asks Marion,
amused.

I yawn. I just want to sleep, not relive that horribly embarrassing
moment.

'Oh, I don't know, I just thought I'd better contribute something
to the conversation,' I say. 'I thought I was falling asleep.'

'Sorry you were so bored,' says Marion, looking out of the window.

'Oh, I wasn't,' I say, taking her hand. 'No, I was just so tired.'

'When people invite you to dinner, even if you've just flown
in from another time zone, you really should make the effort,' she says, her hand,
cold and lifeless. I let go of it.

'All right, I'm sorry. I was just ...' But I'm repeating myself
now.

We go to bed in near silence but when I wake up at just after
seven and find Marion sleeping with her back to me I shuffle up behind her. She
half-wakes up too.

'Morning,' she whispers.

I mumble something even I can't understand and then begin to
bite her neck gently. She groans and lifts her head. I do it a bit more, enjoying
the smell of her: sleep plus the remains of her perfume. After a moment she rolls
over and looks up at me, her eyes searching my face. I stroke her cheek and then
kiss her gently. We make love slowly and then I fall asleep again. When I wake the
next time a waiter is wheeling in a trolley of breakfast things.

'What time is it?' I ask. The waiter, a young Hispanic guy in
a crisp white jacket looks at me, wondering whether to answer. I notice him do a
slight double-take. Yeah, that'll give you something to talk about downstairs, I
think, lying back.

It is actually just after ten. I pull on the inevitable massive
fluffy white bathrobe and knock back a glass of ice-cold, freshly squeezed orange
juice.

'I hope you're hungry, honey,' says Marion, tearing off a piece
of dry toast and popping it in her mouth.

'Starved,' I say, yawning and bending down to kiss her. She lifts
a huge silver dome from off a plate to reveal scrambled eggs, hash browns and sausages.

'Here,' she says, handing me a cup of coffee. 'Now, hurry up
or we won't have time for lunch.'

Not surprisingly, we still manage to do plenty with Marion in
charge of the itinerary. We visit some shops at the top of Fifth Avenue where the
staff are all delighted to see her. We go to Bloomingdales and she actually buys
me some clothes. A pale grey DKNY suit, a white shirt to go with it and some trousers
I would never wear but I don't dare refuse. Perhaps she took on board my remark
about needing some money. Perhaps she realises that, like Mark says, if I don't
look good, she doesn't look good. As we leave the store and look for a taxi back
to the hotel, I feel that my luck might just be changing.

That night we go to see an opera at the Met and in the interval
a woman comes up to Marion and kisses her fondly on both cheeks.

'How are you?' she says, holding both of Marion's hands.

'Good,' says Marion. 'I'm good, thank you.'

'And this,' says the woman, 'must be Andrew.'

'Hello,' I say, extending a hand.

'Andrew, it's such a pleasure.'

'Yes,' I say. 'I mean, it's a pleasure for me too.' Can't I ever
get it right? The woman turns back to Marion.

'It's so good to see you back in New York. Can we have a drink,
just the three of us, before you go back to England?'

'I'd really like that,' says Marion, batting her eyelids with
sincerity.

'Enjoy the second half,' says the woman, walking off.

'Who was that?' I ask.

'No idea,' says Marion, still smiling sweetly.

The next day we have brunch at a cafe where normally you have
to book six months in advance just for coffee, according to the people at the opera
the night before. They serve a mixture of Italian and native American food.

'My name is Walter,' says a very tall, improbably thin, redhaired
guy as we sit down at a table beside a huge Roy Lichtenstein-style mural of an Indian
chief. 'I'll be your server this morning and I'd very much like to welcome you to
the Cafe Hueva today. If there is anything I can do to make your visit just that
little bit more pleasurable please just let me know. Now, let me tell you something
about the specials we can offer you. Today we have-'

'Er, Walter, honey,' says a voice. I look across the table and
realise it is Marion. 'Can we have some coffee and juice and then I'll be all ears
for your specials.'

Furious at having his speech interrupted, Walter hisses, 'Yes,
ma'am' and waltzes off.

I start laughing and Marion looks up from unfolding her napkin
at me in surprise. 'What's funny?'

'You are,' I say. She shrugs her shoulders and smiles.

I push open the door of our office and stride in, hoping I look
relaxed and casual, although I feel sick with depression, jet lag and nerves. Someone
has hung their jacket on my coat hanger so I carefully take it off and hang it on
a peg and then put my new DKNY jacket on it. I can't believe how irritated I feel
- almost violated. Working in an office makes you so petty, so territorial.

My strategy has not worked. I am not the first into the office.
Well somehow when I came to set the alarm last night I compromised on that one;
seven seemed beyond endurance in my jet-lagged state so I set it for seven-thirty
and decided not to bother trying to be the first. But, as I look round, I realise
that I am not even one of the first. It's eight-thirty and this shabby little hell
hole is almost full, humming with activity.

I take my seat and Sami gives me her 'Oh, Andrew' look. I make
a silly face but my heart isn't really in it. She finishes her call.

'How was New York?'

'It was great, really good fun,' I say quietly.

'I'm glad. What did you do?'

'Central Park, Fifth Avenue. We went to the Opera.'

'Wow,' says Sami gently. Then she says what I least want to hear:
'Debbie wants to see you.' I nod gratefully and smile.

'I bought you this, by the way.' It's the Statue of Liberty in
a snowstorm. I bought it at JFK on the way home. Sami looks up at me and smiles
sadly.

My stomach suddenly feels light and empty. A couple of people
look up discreetly from their desks and watch me go towards her office. She is on
the phone telling someone to leave it with her and she'll come back to them. And
I know she will. I sit down and decide that sullen apology is my best bet so I stare
moodily at my shoes.

'Where have you been the last two
days?' she asks quietly, looking down at her desk.

'I was ill,' I say, more in the way of a suggestion than an apology.
I look away - I can't meet her eyes.

'I rang, Claire rang twice. What was the matter with you?'

'I dunno, I just felt-'

'Bullshit. I don't care where you were, Andrew, and I don't care
what you were doing but you're supposed to work here, remember?'

'I was ill,' I mumble again.

Ignoring me, she goes on. 'It's been really busy in this office
while you've been running around. Our figures have been down over the last few months
and this was our chance to catch up, to turn the corner. We've had people working
twelve-hour days trying to meet the targets upstairs have set us.' She stops and
then adds, 'We needed you, it's just not fair on everyone else.' That hurts.

'I'm sorry.' There is a pause, my excuse is dead and buried.
'Did you meet them?' I don't know if I really care or whether I am just being polite,
trying to fill the awful heavy silence. Now Debbie seems slightly surprised and
irritated by my question.

'Well, we just did it but it was tough on everyone. Paul's dad's
been ill and Maria had to leave on Tuesday afternoon to pick up her youngest who'd
had an accident at school or something. You know, it's just not fair.' Oh God, why
did I ask?

'Sorry,' I say again, getting up to leave. I've had enough, this
is beginning to piss me off. I don't know who I'm angriest with: Debbie or myself.

'Hang on a minute,' she says quietly. But I know it isn't good
news: this is not going to be an olive branch. 'I'm giving you another warning.
I've got to.' She hands me a letter.

'Sure,' I say quietly and go.

From all round the room eyes follow me as I make my way back
to my desk. Sami looks at me sadly and says, 'Sorry.'

I laugh bitterly. 'You didn't do anything. I did it.'

I pick up a piece of paper and stare at it for a few moments.
I can't bear it. I get up again and Sami says, 'Andrew?' I laugh again and tell
her that I am just going to the loo.

The thick, sterile air of the corridor, enclosed for weeks by
fire doors feels fresh compared to the atmosphere in the office. I push open the
door of the gents; the smell of disinfectant and an echo of dripping water welcome
me. An older man I don't know is finishing at the urinal. For a second I can't decide
what to do next so I wash my hands, dry them for ages under the dryer and then go
into one of the cubicles and close the door. I lower the seat, sit down and put
my head in my hands.

I never got into trouble much at school. If I ever did, it was
a sin of omission rather than commission, as my headmaster put it. Come to think
of it, I never did anything much at all at school. No outrageous pranks, no leading
my classmates in rebellions, nothing to make the teachers say, 'He'll come to nothing,
that boy' like they do about most millionaires and successful politicians.

I was a petty criminal, not a great train robber or a serial
killer. My crimes were small, white-collar ones: skiving games, spur of the moment
cheating in an end-of-term test, not giving my parents my report one year. I suppose
that is why I used to receive a dreary nagging rather than a fully-fledged, all
guns blazing bollocking, together with a caning, which I could have taken like a
man while biting my lip. Nothing I could have boasted about in later years.

Just the ancient, unanswerable question: 'Why? Why did you do
it, Andrew?'

'Because I wondered what it would be like, because I thought
I could get away with, because I was bored, because I couldn't be bothered not to.'
Which answer do you want to hear? Which will fit best and get me out of here fastest?'

I wonder what Jane would think. She wouldn't do a thing like
this at Paperchase, or if she did she would have made a better job of defending
herself. Sitting on the loo, scratching the roll of toilet paper slightly so that
it distorts and blisters, thinking about her, I'm embarrassed.

I ring my mum and dad that evening. It's not something I do very
often, not because I don't like them, it's just that I can never really think of
anything to say to them on the phone. My dad answers.

'Hi, Dad, it's me.'

'Hi, there. Good to see you other night. How's things? Everything
all right?'

'Fine, yeah. You?'

'Oh, mustn't grumble. We were just trying to think of the name
of that French teacher of yours.'

'French teacher? You mean Mr Holden?'

'Holden! Yeah, that's the one. We saw him in Sainsbury's last
Saturday. Couldn't remember his name. Anyway, I'll get your mum.' This is typical
of my dad's conversation - or lack of it.

'Hello, darling,' says my mum as if I had just been plucked from
shark-infested waters after two months afloat on an open raft.

'Hi, Mum.'

'Everything all right?'

'Yeah, fine. You?'

'Me? Oh, yes. Well, you know, mustn't grumble.'

There is a pause.

'We saw your old French teacher-'

'Mr Jenkins,' shouts my dad from the background. 'Yes, I know,
Dad said.'

'In Sainsbury's. Last Saturday. By the fruit and veg, you know,
where you come in. We didn't say anything. We couldn't remember his name.'

'We used to call him Twitch.'

'Oh, you are horrible. Why are boys so horrible? He does have
that awful facial tick. Poor man. Do you have much opportunity to keep up your French?'

Oh, Mum.

'Mais, oui,' I say.

 
'Sorry?'

'No, not really.'

'Such a shame. You were very good. Remember when we went to Boulogne
on the ferry that time-'

'Yeah. Ages ago.' I don't want my mum to mention that Helen was
with us. I bought her some perfume secretly from the duty-free shop on the boat
and then gave it to her as we sat on the bench in the garden that evening. I can't
bear to smell it on anyone now. 'Listen, I've got to go. I'm going out tonight.
I'll see you soon.'

'Yes, come down for a weekend.'

'Will do. Bye.' I turn the sound back up on the telly.

After my mum and dad I ring Marion and tell her just how much
trouble I'm in at work. How much trouble she's got me into, more like. I've just
got paid. My salary this month is only just over half the usual amount. I could
hardly believe it when I read the computer print out. But it was right - half of
what we earn is based on commission and I've not been around or not been concentrating
for the last few weeks so it's hardly surprising that I've got just enough to pay
the rent, cough up for my share of the bills, get a monthly travel pass and buy
a sandwich at lunchtime.

I haven't always hated that place. I used to be good at selling
and Debbie used to like me. But now I'm just bored and can't see a way out and what
at first appeared to be the biggest amount of money anyone had ever earned (well,
in comparison to a student loan, anyway) now disappeared in no time. Back then I
felt comfortably superior to that bunch of no-hopers who sat at desks around me
but now I feel like I'm just not up to it. They can hold this stupid job down but
it seems I can't.