The Godmother (33 page)

“When is he allowed to know that he is in fact dating Chewbacca?”

“Ha, ha. Get off my line.”

“If it's boring, call me, we'll be in the Eagle.”

“Eight inebriated male journalists and you, no thanks.” Actually, that sounded like fun.

That was good. That was better. Claudia would have been proud of me. Was James Kent the reason I was feeling like this? I thought about it as I watched my reflection doing my hair. Instead of having a clothes crisis, I put on my good jeans, a Matthew Williamson top and my favorite, most beloved cowboy boots. They came in and out of fashion, but I didn't care, and since men rarely noticed what went on below the empire line, I didn't think causing myself pain by tottering around on heels was worth it. He'd already seen a large portion of
the Tessa King spectrum. Drunk and disheveled at the nightclub. Scrubbed up to the nines at the launch. Untarnished by makeup and in old comfy clothes at lunch, and he'd still asked me out for dinner. So perhaps? Was it possible? Could it be? Was James Kent genuinely interested in me as a person? Wonders would never cease. Unless, unless…I dismissed the thought. He was a good guy, I could tell, but the thought came again: unless he was just going through the motions until he saw the last on the Tessa King spectrum. Naked. No. I would not be plagued by negative thoughts. I would not self-sabotage. I would not drag my previous bad experiences with me. New person. New experience. Just thinking about how he was with Cora encouraged me. I felt very good about this one. I checked over my reflection once more before leaving the flat. I may have been wrong about men before, but I was pretty confident that I wasn't wrong about this one. Even so, I reiterated my autumnal resolution: James Kent would not see me naked. Not tonight, anyway. I really should have known myself better by then.

He was at the bar. Not at a table. At the bar. Had I told him I liked drinking at bars or was this just another happy coincidence? He stood up and pulled out a stool. We quickly fell into an easy banter which didn't normally come until I was halfway down a second cocktail. We sat there for twenty minutes before I even ordered mine. A margarita, with salt, on the rocks. I raised a glass and asked James to toast my good friend Claudia. Bless him, he didn't even raise an eyebrow. We didn't talk about anything that mind-blowing, and nothing we said was really that funny, but I was fascinated by everything he said, he hung off my every word and we laughed a great deal.

Ben could not have been further from my mind as we walked the short distance to the restaurant, except that I was thinking about how far from my mind he was. I have no memory of what we ate except that it was delicious, there was masses of it and yet we still found space to share two puddings and drink aged Armagnac. That was probably when my resolutions started to slip. I heard myself say something about the waiters clearing up around us, one more drink and Blakes Hotel. Blakes Hotel! The only thing I knew about Blakes Hotel was that you didn't go there for one drink. It wasn't even that I was pissed and not thinking straight. I just didn't want the evening to end
because the end meant going home alone and I didn't want this good feeling to pass. It had been a while.

Blakes is a very sophisticated small London hotel in South Kensington. The outside brickwork is black, the interior always dimly lit, and it has a small, hidden away bar in the basement which is so dark you can barely see the faces of the other clientele. Which is no bad thing, since there were a lot of uncles and nieces huddled over glasses of champagne. It oozed sexual tension and illicit intentions. It spoke to me. We ordered a couple of whisky sours and continued chatting. When we asked for another round the barman told us it was last orders. Mistaking us for guests, he said we could, however, order anything from our room. Our room. Our room. I rolled the words over in my mind. They sounded tempting. I looked at James, James looked at me. We both started to smirk, then giggle.

“What do you think?” he asked.

“I think that is a terrible idea.”

“Me too,” he agreed, smiling.

“Let's do it.”

Man, he was good.

It was all very silly and I'm sure the night staff had seen it a million times before. Couple come up from the bar a little more ragged than when they'd gone down, approach the discreet, setback reception area, and enquire after a room. Naturally, there was only one room left, and it was a cripplingly expensive suite. Quite a good scam, really. As one of my aunts once said of such hotels, “For that sort of money I'd have to lie awake all night, staring at the ceiling with matchsticks in my eyes.” Well, I didn't exactly stare at the ceiling, and I wasn't always lying, but I was awake. I think I could safely say, in fiscal terms, I got my money's worth. Or James did, since he was paying. But at that point, as he handed over a credit card, we were ostensibly getting a room in order just to have another drink. Right. We were shown down a narrow corridor, out into an immaculate, yew-strewn courtyard, over flagstones to a wide, white door.

If I hadn't known before that I was going to end up naked, despite all my
promises to myself, I knew then. It was the most beautiful bedroom I had ever seen. Fairy tales aren't usually very sexy—the ones I read to Cora always lean towards the righteous—but this was a perfect mix of pure fantasy and impure thoughts.
The Princess and the Pea
meets
9½ Weeks
,
Alice in Wonderland
meets
Emmanuelle
, all in snowy white. The bed was huge. The ceilings were high. Even the floorboards were white.

“The White Room,” said the porter.

“Champagne, I think,” said James. And that, I suppose, was that. It was a very sedate seduction. The champagne arrived, so we cracked it open, ran a bath, filled it with Anouska Hempel's signature grapefruit bubble bath, and both got in. We refilled our glasses and the hot water a couple of times. It was really fun. But the real action was getting dry.

Usually having sex with someone for the first time is embarrassing. Unless, of course, the dreaded drink has stripped you of all inhibitions, in which case, the embarrassment is reserved for the morning. I wasn't embarrassed with James. Since I'd already taken my clothes off and climbed into the bath before we'd even kissed, getting naked was no longer an issue. We first kissed sitting knees to knees in the bath. There wasn't enough room for the kiss to lead to anything else, not even a big, fat, deep kiss. So until the water got cold for the last time, and my skin wrinkled, we just talked and let our lips touch from time to time. After that there was some lovely rolling about, quite a lot of lying and looking at each other, unending chat, and then more rolling about. Things didn't get really serious until about five in the morning, by which point we were both completely relaxed. Or exhausted; they feel about the same. It was definitely getting light when we finally fell into a deep and dreamy sleep.

I was woken up by a kiss. James was smiling over me, which was nice. But he was dressed, which wasn't so nice. I propped myself up on one elbow.

“Morning, gorgeous,” he said.

I screwed up my face. Morning—yes. Gorgeous—I very much doubted it.

“I have to go, I've got a meeting I can't miss.”

“OK.” I sat up. “I'll get up.”

“No, don't. Sleep. I would if I could. Order some breakfast when you wake up.”

That sounded nice. It seemed sacrilege to leave such a place before time was up.

“Listen, I've had a crazy idea,” said James.

“I like your crazy ideas.”

“I've got this morning meeting, then a lunch. As long as I can get out of something this afternoon, I could be free again from about four.” I waited. “What would you say to holing up here until then and being really decadent and staying another night?”

My lips spread into a wide smile before I had time to be cool.

“Is that a yes?”

“You bet.”

“OK. I'll see you later.” He kissed me hard on the lips and then groaned. “God, I wish I didn't have to go.”

I was quite glad. I needed to clean my teeth, I was desperate to go to the loo, and the truth was, I had terrible wind. I may have felt extraordinarily at ease with this man, but there were limits.

The second sleep I had was luxurious. As was the second bath, though not quite as enjoyable. My limbs felt like I'd been to the gym. I know, it was very Harlequin, but my lips felt bruised. James sent me a text saying, “can't concentrate!” I read it many times. Two words. I was being pathetic.

I decided that I would really go for it so, with every intention of paying for the “extras” myself, I summoned a masseuse to the room and had a ninety-minute massage, I ate lobster and drank fine white wine, then I had a facial. I even sent the concierge out to get me ridiculous glossy magazines that I never normally read and sent my crumpled, smoky clothes to the ridiculously expensive express laundry. Everything was ridiculously expensive. My peppermint tea with one small piece of shortbread cost a fiver. What did I care? This was the sort of thing I never, ever did. I created a whole world inside the White Room, was on first name terms with the staff, and counted down the hours until four. It wasn't hard. I almost wished I had more time.

Then my phone rang. Why, oh why, did I pick it up? I believed I had been cured. I believed James Kent had cured me. And so I picked up a call from one of my oldest friends in the world.

“Hey, Ben, how are you?”

“Good. You sound like you're in a good mood.”

“I am. What can I do for you?”

“How was your date?”

“Really fun, thanks.”

There was a pause from Ben. It confused me. Why was he silent? Did he disapprove?

“You didn't sleep with him, did you?”

Was he jealous?

“No,” I lied.

“Thank God for that.”

He was jealous!

“What's going on, Ben?” I asked, trying to keep the excitement out of my voice. Damn this man.

“I remembered where I'd met him. The reason why I couldn't remember was because I hadn't met him exactly, I'd met his wife.”

“What?”

“We were at a City lunch, I was with Sasha. She's a cool lady, actually. We were talking, then he came up and they left.”

“That doesn't mean anything. Did she say they were married? When was this, anyway?”

“Not long enough ago to get a divorce.”

I was panicking now. “But did she say they were married?”

“No, but her name was Barbara Kent and his name is James Kent, right?”

“Brother and sister,” I argued. There was no way James was married. No way. No one can act that well. Can they?

“With two kids at Francis Holland, whom they were late picking up?”

“What?”

“The one in Baker Street.”

“What?”

I was playing dumb, but I knew exactly what Ben was saying. Baker Street. I rewound to our lunch. What time was it when he jumped into the cab? It was when I'd mentioned the pavement being awash with school kids. Baker Street. He'd gone to pick up his daughters.

“I remember it perfectly. We were talking about the school because Sasha's nieces go there.”

“Do they?”

“You know they do.”

My heart was beating far too fast. The lobster was repeating on me. I thought I might be going into anaphylactic shock.

“I'm mortified I didn't recognize him the other night but we were so pissed. They're married and they have two daughters, Lainy and Martha Kent. Sorry, hon, I wanted to warn you before you did something stupid.”

“What, like kiss a married man? I've already done that!”

“Oh Tess—”

“I didn't mean him!” I swore extremely loudly, put the phone down and burst into tears. I clutched my head in my hands. I couldn't take much more of this. When was this going to end? Even when the opposite sex were playing by the rules it was hard, but this, this was too much.
Let's make a pact now, no rehashing of past love lives
…The little-known Burmese restaurant chosen because
you never see anyone you know
…Even Blakes, it felt like it was my idea,
it felt like I was the one making all the suggestions, but I was played. I was played good and proper. I very much doubted he was coming back at four. And even if he did, the next day would have been the last. Or was he going to tell me about his wife and daughters when I was too weak to resist? Was he going to turn me into the other woman and lie to us all? Why did men do things like this? What was the point? I wasn't thinking straight. I was all over the place. Married with two kids. Married with two kids. It went round and round in my head. I was full of fury. And then I did something I will always regret. I ordered a £200 bottle of wine, watched calmly as the sommelier theatrically opened it in front of me, then got dressed in my beautifully pressed clothes, stole a dressing gown and, with the bottle and a glass swinging from my hand, left the hotel not really knowing whether I was furious with James, Ben or myself.

At ten past four my phone rang. James left a message. “You are coming back, aren't you?”

Then another.

“Pick up the phone, Tessa, this is very weird.”

Then another.

“If this is a joke, I don't like it.”

Then another.

“I'm checking out. I've seen the bill. What the fuck is going on?”

Eventually I switched off my phone. He didn't deserve a response.

I walked through the enviable houses of Kensington until I reached Holland Park. I deliberately found myself a bench in a place that would hurt the most. Overlooking the playground. From the swings and sandpit the nannies and mothers eyed me warily. I didn't blame them. If they stared at me, I stared right back. They always looked away first.

I sat like an old wino in designer clothes and a dressing gown and drank my vengeful bottle of wine. I was being mad, I knew it, but I didn't care. I started to think, as the alcohol warmed my stomach, that it had cost more than money, it had cost my sanity. James Kent was married with two kids. I had been fooled. Even if there was the remotest possibility that he had recently separated from his wife, Ben was right, he couldn't be divorced by now.
I could almost, almost understand why he hadn't bothered mentioning an ex-wife; it could be construed as too much excess baggage, especially since it was recent, but this was too recent. This was rebound with possible reconciliation. And that did not put me in a good position because I already knew that I liked him more than anyone else I'd met in a long time. Failing to mention two flesh and blood children, however, was something else entirely. That was a big black mark. It was mean. It was disrespectful. It was a terrible thing for a father to do. It was the sort of thing Christoph or Neil would do and as far as I was concerned there was not a worse type of man than them.

Wide, flat leaves fell intermittently from the plane trees around me. The day darkened. Was it that time of year already? Halloween was around the corner. Then Bonfire Night. Fireworks. Sparklers. And then, oh God, it was too awful to think of. My birthday, swiftly followed by Christmas and New Year—the triple-headed assault course I tripped up on every year when I was forced to accept that another year had passed and nothing had changed.

When there was more wine in my body than in the bottle my self-pitying, angry thoughts turned to the inevitable. I was not cured. I was worse than ever. Ben was who I wanted. Ben was who I fell back to when all else failed. Ben. He wouldn't do this to me. Whatever else the difficulties were, and yes, that included being married to someone else, he did love me. Even if he wasn't in love with me, which he obviously wasn't since he had married someone else, he did love me. That meant he wouldn't hurt me, or lie to me, or cheat on me, or lead me up garden paths, or strip me of another layer of dignity, or make it impossible for me to love someone else. I lowered the glass from my lips. Actually, he did do that.

People stared, I didn't really care. I got very cold. I took it as another sign of old age. When I was younger I would skip around London in barely any clothes at all, and don't remember ever feeling the cold. Now, however, I harped on about the cold weather like an old woman. I was an old woman. A lonely, sad old woman. How the hell had this happened to me?

I watched the kids squabble over their position on the slide. I watched expressionless women push swings like robots. I watched kids fall and cry and run to their mothers and nannies. I watched the endless blowing of noses. I heard the endless “why?”s I saw women yawn and sigh and respond over and over again to the same hop, skip or jump. Every few moments someone
yelled. Somewhere at some time a tantrum was unfolding before my eyes. I saw one boy hit his mother. I saw one woman pretend she had not been reduced to tears by her charge. But my pity was reserved solely for myself for I would have given my left leg to be any goddamn one of them. I got colder and colder as I watched until eventually I couldn't feel the cold any more. The bottle was empty, the park was dark and all the children had gone home to be warmed up in bubble baths, read stories to and be tucked in.

I stood up before I was politely, but firmly, asked to move on and took myself home. I tried a bubble bath. I tried reading. I tried tucking myself in and falling asleep. It didn't work. In the end I took a sleeping pill. With vodka. I didn't think I was being overdramatic, I just wanted my brain to stop and couldn't be bothered to go and get any water.

When I woke up the next morning, I took another one. Honestly, I had no idea how strong they were.

It was the sound of the buzzer that finally pulled me out of my heavy, dreamless sleep. I was completely disorientated. It was dark outside. The buzzing continued. I hit my alarm clock and fell back to sleep. Had I been in less of a stupor I would have remembered that my alarm clock bleeps, not buzzes.

Someone was shaking me. It was really annoying. I tried to turn over. A man's voice was talking loudly into my ear. Hadn't I put the “Do not disturb” sign on? I didn't want any more disgusting airplane food.

“Mizz King, Mizz King. Wake up, Mizz King.”

“Leave me alone,” I said, though later Roman told me all I had actually managed to do was drool. That was when he saw the pills and the empty tumbler by my bed which one sniff confirmed was not water. He panicked and started shaking me. What woke me up in the end was the shaking. He wanted to call a doctor; I told him he was being ridiculous. Well, I tried to tell him, but my God, my head felt heavy. I just wanted to close my eyes again. It was very embarrassing, or would have been, had I been more with it. I forced myself to sit up because Roman was about to call 999, and I really didn't want him to do that. I explained again slowly that I had simply taken a sleeping pill because I hadn't been able to get to sleep.

“Not sleeping pill,” said Roman, holding up the empty bottle. Funny that, I could have sworn I'd had two in there. “Horse tranquillizer.”

“What?” I took the bottle. “How do you know?”

“I read. Where did you get these from?” I frowned at him. Who are you, my father? Perhaps I had got too friendly with my doorman? The truth was, someone at work—a bit of a party boy himself, now I come to think of it—had given me the pills ages ago. I was paranoid about my ex-boss getting into the flat. Every noise made me sit bolt upright and I hadn't slept for weeks. I was a mess. He was trying to help but in the end I never took them because I was too terrified that if I did I wouldn't hear my ex-boss break into the flat and he'd murder me in my sleep. During that whole period of my life I'd never actually resorted to these, but now…I looked at the empty bottle of pills again. Were things really worse? Roman brought me a cup of coffee. I took it from him without asking why he was giving it to me. I was being very slow.

“What time is it?”

“Eleven-thirty.”

I slumped back against the pillow. “What are you waking me up for? I need more sleep.”

“You've been sleeping since Wednesday night. You came back blue.”

I vaguely remembered seeing Roman behind the desk when I finally walked in through the door. I didn't stop and exchange pleasantries with him as I usually did. I grant I may have looked a bit of a state, what with an empty bottle of wine still in my hand and a toweling robe over my clothes. But then again, nothing he hadn't seen before. I frowned at him crossly.

“So?”

“It's Friday morning.”

“Hmm…” I felt my eyes closing again. Those pills were good.

“Did you hear me?” Roman took the cup from me before I spilt it. “It's Friday morning—not Thursday.”

I rubbed my eyes. “What?”

“You've been up here for thirty-six hours. There is a woman trying to get hold of you.”