The Gift of Girls (5 page)

His mates all laughed – at him for a change, not me. Jay Leonard just grinned and looked pleased with himself. Television actors are always show-offs and, with as much dignity as I could manage, I retrieved my circular tray, tossed my head like a pony and went back to work.

I collected more drinks and, when I got back to the blackjack tables, Sandy was gathering his chips. He was having an early night and flying to Paris the next day.

‘You are coming back?’

‘I’m just doing the rounds. Can’t stay too long in one place,’ he said. ‘The casinos don’t like it.’

‘I’ll probably never see you again,’ I said sadly.

‘You’ll be seeing me again, that I promise.’

Tuesday was a busy day at the office and it was late in the afternoon before I had a spare hour to log on to the online casino. By the time I was ready to leave at five, I’d won £50, acceptable but a little disappointing.

Wednesday and Thursday were a little better and, in all, I managed to bank over £300.

Thursday night at Rebels I was run off my feet. A party of Russian oil men drinking vodka tonics and shouting in agitated voices were losing their money as if there were no tomorrow, as if there were no longer hungry people in the world, and I couldn’t help feeling special with my secret knowledge. Getting your bum tanned for the odd tenner is all very well, but you’re going to be bruised the colour of an aubergine before you’ve got enough to buy a pair of Jimmy Choo shoes and, anyway, the Russians seem to think spanking the waitresses is all part of the service and save their tips for the dealers.

That night in my little bed, with the sound of the headboard in Melissa’s room tapping against the wall, I came to what was probably the most important decision in my life. In a week, I had accumulated more than £500 and, with my savings, I had just enough to play the game with £50 chips: 1+2+4+8+16=31 chips; 31×50=£1,550. It was time to take Sandy Cunningham’s advice and ride my luck.

There was very little to do that Friday morning and, when I finished, I should have gone and told the secretary
that
I was free. I didn’t. I stared out at the spires and rooftops of East London. It was like taking a breath before diving from the high board. Everything was polished in the morning sun. The sky was blue and clear. I could see Tower Bridge and the London Eye. I was in the same pale-yellow suit and daring top that I had worn on my first day at Roche-Marshall; I thought of it as my lucky outfit. I closed the blinds, logged on and sat down to turn a few cards.

Ace of Spades, first card. I turned the Queen of Hearts and earned a bonus for the blackjack. Next hand: Queen of Diamonds and the eight of hearts. The dealer drew 17 and in two minutes I was more than £100 to the good.

I drew a six of clubs …

Time moves at a different speed when you’re playing. It doesn’t go faster or slower, it just vanishes like mist, like thoughts, like the past. You are living completely in the present, in a frozen moment, and that moment is pure and perfect. I lost a hand, I won a hand. I lost two in a row, doubled up twice and won it all back again.

I seemed to be winning more than I was losing and didn’t feel the need to check. It didn’t matter. The thing is, if you’re feeling lucky good luck follows. When you draw 20 and lose to the banker’s 21, you don’t think about that; it’s like a bump in the road. You click play, hit 2, and two chips light up on the screen for the next hand. I drew a terrible 13, twist and bust, and entered a stake of four chips. I was really unlucky with that one. I drew 19 to the banker’s 20. I clicked on a stake of eight chips and didn’t think of it as being £400, just eight chips. I lost again.

Did I have a moment’s doubt? I think I probably did. But it was just a moment. I was playing the system and the only way to beat the system is to play it to the end. I hit play, hit 16, and had £800 riding on a red ten. I drew an eight and watched spellbound as the dealer turned two picture cards. I’d beaten the law of averages. I’d lost five
in
a row. I sat motionless for several seconds before looking at my account. It was empty. I’d been wiped out. I’d lost everything. I sat there dumbfounded, staring at the screen, unable to move, and at that terrible moment Simon Roche appeared in the doorway.

‘I just had some reports sent over for you to check. It’s rather urgent.’

I clicked out of the casino and stared back as if he were a stranger. I wasn’t flushed. The colour had drained from my face. I was trembling, I realised, and took a grip on the edge of the desk to steady myself.

‘Are you all right, Magdalena?’ he asked. His voice seemed far away.

‘Yes, yes I am,’ I said in a tiny whisper.

‘If you’re sick, I can get someone else on it.’

‘No, I am fine, really, I … I …’

‘Look, it’s nearly lunchtime, you should get something to eat and see how you are after lunch.’

‘Yes, I’ll do that.’

He left the room and I continued to sit there. Just like Daddy, I had lost everything. Like Mummy, I felt suicidal. I left my office, rode down in the lift and walked around London unable to eat, unable to think. I wouldn’t be able to go to the London School of Economics. I wouldn’t be able to pay my rent. I’d be punished like some fallen heroine in Greek myth and be forced to wear the corset and garter belt like a badge of shame. That night and every night for the rest of my life I’d be watching the gamblers at Rebels losing their money and I’d be offering up my bottom to solicit their meagre tips. I thought about fleeing abroad, to Spain or Italy. I thought about jumping in the Thames from Tower Bridge, and I thought I’d ask Simon Roche to give me a full-time job. I didn’t need a degree. I could do the job already. I was working on important accounts. I had access to all the files, all the software.

I was trusted.

4

Spanking

THE REPORTS WERE
waiting in my inbox. I clicked open the first file and, as I did so, an odd idea entered my mind like a refrain and grew from idle thought to inspiration. I felt like Einstein confronting E=mc
²
on the blackboard inside my head.

I had obeyed the rules of the system. After losing five times in a row, I had stopped. That’s what you are supposed to do. The next step was to start again. I thought, if I borrowed £310 from the Roche-Marshall sundries account, I could make a little money and put it back before anyone noticed. It was just a few clicks away.

The room was cool and quiet. My hands were clammy. There was sweat between my breasts. I hung my pink jacket on the back of the chair, sat very still, very upright, completely poised. This was a bad thing I was about to do, but it was the right thing. The only thing. There were butterflies in my tummy as I entered the Roche-Marshall account. I entered the account numbers, the secret code and keyed in £310. My finger hovered over the zero and, like an echo, I pushed the zero once more.

It would take weeks playing with £10 chips to get my money back. With £3,100, I could play £100 a time, and solve my problems before I went home at five o’clock. I’d lost once, it’s true, but I had won every time before that. I was sure to win again.

I transferred the money from Roche-Marshall straight into the online casino. I drew a picture card first time out and won £100. The butterflies grew still. It felt good to be back on the tables again. Time went into that suspended-animation thing and I played the system, taking my winnings, doubling up when I lost, relying on the law of averages.

How did it go so terribly wrong? Why? I was playing the system taught to me by Sandy Cunningham. I’d seen him win over and over again. I was born under a lucky star. I was playing my luck. Better being lucky than clever.

It was nearly five. I had lost four in a row, but with 16 chips, £1,600, on the last card I would be able to put the money back in the Roche-Marshall account and still be up a modest £100.

I drew a nine, a four, the Ace of Clubs and then an eight.

I’d bust.

The cards disappeared. The money had gone. Computers don’t pause for human grief.

I stared at the screen in disbelief. My heart was thumping. I could barely breathe. The flashing lights of the casino logo faded to black and I was gazing at the revolving shapes of the screen saver as if hypnotised when the door opened and Hannah, Simon’s secretary, broke the spell. She was wearing a floral suit like curtains with white shoes and for some depressing reason I remembered Mother once saying that except at summer functions it was
déclassé
to wear white shoes.

‘Mr Roche would like to see you before you go home, Magdalena.’

I didn’t answer. I just nodded. My throat was constricted. A pain ran down my left arm. I thought I might be having a heart attack.

Hannah turned with a little skip on her white shoes and closed the door. I sat there, unable to move. If there had been a lock on the door, I would have shot the bolt and
stayed
there for ever. If only the windows had opened, I could have jumped seven storeys to oblivion. I could do nothing. Nothing. I sat like a prisoner in the dock waiting for the judge to don the black cap.

He appeared in the door, tall in his dark suit like a monster in a child’s nightmare.

‘Come through to my office, please,’ he said.

I pulled my jacket on and followed.

He waited for me, closed the door and sat in his chair behind the wide desk. There was no chair in front of the desk and I stood before him as I had stood many times before Sister Benedict.

‘Do you have anything to tell me, Magdalena?’ he asked.

I lowered my head. ‘Yes,’ I replied.

‘What is it? Speak clearly, please.’

I coughed and tried to look back at him. Tears had started to form in the corners of my eyes. ‘I moved £3,100 from your account.’

‘That’s the first bit of honesty we’ve had from you.’

‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I was playing blackjack and I thought I was going to win. I lost all my savings, and then, then I just …’

I ran out of words. The tears were streaming down my face. On the desk was a parcel in a large plastic bag. He drummed his fingers on the surface, the sound for some reason reminding me of the headboard in Melissa’s room tapping against the dividing wall.

‘Now we know what you have done, what I want to know is what we are going to do to rectify the matter?’

‘I’ll do anything, anything.’

‘Anything?’ he said.

The words were like an echo from the past. I had a sense of
déjà vu
. I had a sense that my life, my destiny, was not in my own hands.

‘Yes,’ I said with a little more confidence. ‘Yes, anything.’

‘Magdalena, let us be very clear what you mean. Are you offering to repay your debt with sex?’

He made it sound so sordid. I took a deep breath. ‘Yes,’ I replied.

‘You are absolutely sure?’

‘Yes.’

This is what it had come to. I had slept with Sandy Cunningham to learn the system. Now I was offering my body to Simon Roche to pay off what I had embezzled. I was a slapper, a slut, a whore, a fallen woman. I was Mary Magdalene, unchaste, the
peccatrix
, the prostitute, the fallen woman. As if with some terrible inevitablity, I had become my namesake.

Simon was quiet for a moment and made a spire with his long fingers.

‘You know, at any good hotel the concierge will arrange to have a whore sent to the room. Do you know how much that will cost?’ he asked.

‘No.’

‘About £100,’ he answered. ‘I can go to Kings Cross and find a girl your age, even a good deal younger, and pay half that amount. There are a lot of girls like you, Magdalena.’

Girls like me? What did he mean? He made me feel small and dirty and insignificant.

‘I am so, so sorry …’

‘Now, Magdalena, when you say
anything
, do you actually mean
anything
?’ he asked.

‘Yes, yes, I do. I really do.’

‘You must remember when you came here for the interview, I told you that I reward those who respect my trust, and those who betray it I punish with extreme severity?’

‘Yes.’

‘Taking money from my company accounts makes me feel as if I have been violated. I have been humiliated. I have been made a fool of,’ he said. ‘Do you appreciate that?’

‘Yes, Mr Roche.’

‘That is what I am offering you.’

What did he mean? Violated? Humiliated? What was the alternative? He must have been reading my mind.

‘The alternative is that I call the police and let them deal with the matter.’

‘No, no, I’ll do it. I really, really will. I’ll do anything.’

‘Magdalena, take off your clothes and fold them here on the desk.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Magdalena, did you hear what I said?’

‘Yes.’ My voice had become a whisper.

He sat back in his chair and I stood there before him, trembling slightly. I couldn’t believe this was happening. It seemed unreal, like a dream. Like a nightmare. Men really are weird, I thought. I knew by the look in men’s eyes as I passed that they fancied me. I’d known that since I was about fourteen, and there is power in the knowledge that you are desired. Simon Roche didn’t merely want to have sex with me. He wanted to humiliate me, break me, remove any feelings of pride or power. No longer was I the desirable girl beyond reach, I was a thief being disciplined for what I had done.

‘Miss Wallace,’ he said in his dark voice and I awoke from my nightmare. This was real.

My fingers nervously undid the button of my jacket. I folded it as if to be packed in a suitcase and placed it on the desk where I had been told. What next, I thought? My top or my skirt? It didn’t matter but I fooled myself into thinking that in having the choice I had some control. I lowered the zip at the back of my skirt, wriggled slightly and pushed the waistband over my hips. I stepped from the skirt, folded it along the seams and put it on top of the jacket. My lacy top had a row of six buttons and my fingers were all thumbs as I fumbled my way through them. I placed the top on my suit and, standing there in
my
little knickers and bra, I had never felt more exposed in my life.