The Make (2 page)
Authors: Jessie Keane
19 December
When Gracie got home to her flat, it was just after midnight. The casino didn’t close until six a.m., but Brynn was covering the graveyard shift this week. Pre-Christmas, the place was full of Eastern bloc playboys, footballers and high rollers, so, even in these recessionary times, they had to work late and hard, pampering their clients exhaustively with lim ousines from their luxury hotels to the door of the casino, complimentary gourmet food, Cristal champagne and Cohiba cigars – anything to keep them at the tables and happy while they handed over their cash.
And it didn’t end there.
The day
after
play, you had to comp the punters even more, to show your appreciation by sending out the finest cognacs, big tins of caviar and bouquets of flowers – and while she had a team of people making sure that all this happened, still she had to oversee it all, she had to know that it was all
done.
And now it was.
And now
she
was, too.
She kicked off her heels, locked the door behind her, and breathed out a deep sigh of relief. She loved being here at home in her duplex penthouse, with its private terrace and canal views. She’d
earned
it, and she relished it. She had it all now. The twenty-four-hour concierge, the twenty-metre rooftop pool, the huge open-plan living area, the cutting-edge kitchen, the palatial
en suites
to the two luxurious bedrooms, the on-site gymnasium, whirlpool bath and spa room.
Ignoring the post on the mat, she was padding barefoot into the bedroom when the phone started ringing.
‘Shit,’ said Gracie succinctly, startled. Who the hell could be calling now?
George,
she thought. A tingle of misgiving hit her midsection.
Had he taken a turn for the worse?
After a moment’s hesitation, she walked on, letting the answerphone pick it up.
‘Oh damn, it’s the machine again,’ said a shaky girl’s voice. Then: ‘I don’t even know if I’ve got the right number. I’m trying to reach Grace Doyle. About her brother.’
Gracie stopped walking. She stood there, staring at the phone like it might bite.
Pick it up, idiot.
But she didn’t want to. She was tired, it was the middle of the damned night, and she was not in the mood to hear more bad news. She slipped off her coat, tossed it on to the couch. Kept staring at the phone.
‘I knew
she
wouldn’t phone you, so I thought I’d better. I’m Sandy. George is really bad. And it’s only right that you know, in case . . .’ The voice broke as the girl suppressed a sob. ‘Anyway, I just thought you should know. If you want to phone me . . .’ She rattled off the number.
Gracie walked over and picked up the phone. ‘Hello,’ she said.
‘Oh! You’re there. Is that Gracie? George’s sister?’
‘Yeah, that’s me. How do you know George?’
‘I’m his fiancée.’
‘Oh.’ She hadn’t known that George had someone in his life. She knew
nothing
about the family she’d left down in London, her dingbat mother and her two brothers; and that had – until now – suited her just fine.
‘Did the police contact you?’ asked Sandy.
‘They did, yeah,’ said Gracie.
Silence hung between them. A
waiting
silence, in which the girl was obviously expecting Gracie to make sisterly noises, express concern. Gracie thought about it and realized that she
did
feel concerned. That annoyed her. She hated Christmas and she hated
this
; renewing contact with her family was not on her agenda. She was hoping for a quiet time over the festive season, then in early January she planned to take off – alone – for her annual two weeks in Barbados. She’d worked hard all year without a break, and she had been looking forward to a little downtime.
But now,
this.
‘Well,’ said Sandy lamely, finally breaking the silence, ‘I just thought you should know. That’s all. And Harry’s just vanished, taken off somewhere, no one knows where.’
Gracie’s attention sharpened. ‘What do you mean, Harry’s vanished?’
‘Well . . . he has. He’s just
gone.
’
Gone where?
‘Have you . . . have you got your mum’s phone number . . .? Maybe you’d like to call her?’ asked Sandy when Gracie didn’t speak.
Yeah, and maybe not
, thought Gracie. ‘I’ve got it here somewhere.’ She didn’t think she had. She thought –
hoped –
that she’d lost it.
‘I’ll give it to you, just in case,’ said Sandy. ‘You got a pen . . .?’
‘Sure,’ said Gracie, and stared at the wall, not listening, as Sandy gave her the number.
‘I think maybe you ought to call her,’ said Sandy.
And I think maybe you should fuck off.
Too much dirty water had flowed under the bridge for her to even contemplate getting in touch with her mother again, however dire George’s situation might be. Would George’s condition really be helped by her turning up in London to sit by his bedside? Answer: no.
Her dad had been cool and controlled – like her – but her mother Suze had always been almost laughably hyper-emotional, big on pressing panic buttons and beefing up any bad situation. Gracie knew she could bust a gut, get down there, but then guess what? Everything would be fine. And why should she? They’d never given a
shit
about her.
No.
Fuck them.
But even as she
thought
that, she could hear her mother’s final words to her.
You know your trouble, young Gracie? You’ve got a damned calculator where your heart should be.
And what about Harry? Where the hell had he got to? She thought about that. He was probably upset about George and had taken himself off somewhere to brood. Harry and George had always been close to each other. Once, they had been close to her too.
‘Well . . . I’d better go,’ said Sandy.
‘Yeah. Thanks for calling,’ said Gracie.
And don’t for God’s sake call again.
She hung up and stared at the phone for long moments. She felt annoyed and tainted, as if she’d been touched by something unpleasant. Then she dialled out. Brynn picked up straight away.
‘Hello?’
‘Did you give a girl called Sandy my number?’ asked Gracie, breathing hard.
‘She phoned just after you’d left. Said it was urgent family business. Normally, of course, I wouldn’t give out your number, but after the cops called about your brother and—’
‘Never give out my number. Not to anyone. Got that?’
‘But she said she was his fiancée.’
‘I don’t care if she’s Nefertiti, the last of the sodding pharaohs, I don’t want my private number given out.’
‘Okay, if you say so.’ He sounded surprised and hurt. Brynn was her ally, her number one man; she never shot her mouth off at him.
‘I
do
say so. Remember it.’ Rattled, Gracie slammed the phone down.
Then she went into the bedroom, stripped off, pinned her hair up and headed for the
en suite
to shower the day away. She stood for a long time under the soothing heat of the needle spray, her mind blank; then she soaped up, rinsed and dried off, pausing before the big slab of mirror to brush out her hair.
Gracie stood there for a moment scrutinizing her reflection. She looked tired, but otherwise not bad. As always, she wished she was half a stone thinner and half a foot shorter, a little less
statuesque,
but there it was, shit happened. She was more Jessica Rabbit than Kate Moss, but so what? She had the luminous white skin that went with being a redhead, and a thoughtful don’t-fuck-with-me expression in her cool grey eyes. She had long since developed a style all of her own and she knew how to present herself to the world – mostly in neutral-toned crisply fitted shirts and sharply tailored suits. She had large breasts – all her own – a small waist, and richly curving hips.
Definitely
not Kate Moss.
‘Ah, you’ll do,’ she told her reflection, and slipped on a cosy grey cashmere vest and pants before heading for the kitchen to stare in the fridge.
She hadn’t eaten since early afternoon and now she was hungry. There was some pasta there, and a little tomato sauce. She’d heat it up, eat in front of the TV with a glass of wine, and she wouldn’t think about her estranged family, not for an instant. She put the pasta and sauce in a pan and a plate in the oven to warm, then went over to the door and picked up the post. She took it back into the kitchen and put it on her tray with a knife and fork, a bottle of wine and a glass, salt and pepper.
When the pasta was done, she took the tray into the sitting room and aimed the remote at the TV, settling down with a sigh. She ate her meal watching the latest disasters in the world on the twenty-four-hour news channel, sipped the wine, and began to feel almost human again.
She reached for the post and started to sort through the junk mail and the bills. She spotted something that looked vaguely official – and then the name jumped out at her. Her stomach clenched, the pasta swirling in her guts, and for an uneasy moment she felt as if she might throw it all back up again. It was from a county court, and there was the name, the one she always half expected to see or hear but rarely did, these days. She had stopped using that name soon after the separation.
Connolly.
And there was
his
name too. Lorcan.
Shit. They were divorce papers.
Happy Christmas, Gracie
, she thought, and she stared at the papers and fought down a most un-Gracie-like urge to cry.
OCTOBER
It had all started out so easily. Harry and George were chilling in their rented flat. They had ordered in pizza, they had beer, they were sorted. They’d watched the match and then a cheesy old Richard Gere film had come on. As the action unfolded they were paying it scant attention. They were busy moaning on about how they were always skint.
George was bored with working as a dealer at Lorcan’s place, but what else could he do? And Harry was Job Seeking, only not really. They had few qualifications between them, and it was George’s firm opinion that they were screwed from now until they fell off the twig at ninety. Well, sixty more likely. But it would
feel
like ninety years had crawled by, because the whole damned circus was going to be such a long dull pain in the arse. And there was Richard Gere, being a gigolo on the screen. Humping beautiful girls and – for God’s sakes! – getting paid for the privilege. George liked the ‘getting paid’ bit. As for humping the girls, well, he could do it. He wasn’t
crazy
for it like Harry was, but as Tina Turner so rightly said,
Keep your mind on the money.
‘We could go for that,’ said George idly.
‘For what?’ Harry was yawning, nearly ready to turn in. He had to go and sign on again tomorrow – what a fucking treat.
‘Being a thingy. You know. A gigolo. Boffing the birds for money.’
Harry burst out laughing. ‘You what?’
‘Look, the girls do it, don’t they? Escort work? Guys do it too. And it’s safer for guys. They make major money.’
‘Oh sure.’
‘Damn right I’m sure.’ Now George was sitting up straight, and there was that mad light in his eyes that he always got when he had a bright idea. George’s bright ideas had landed Harry in a lot of trouble over the years, involving him in gang fights, territorial disputes, all sorts of shit, so Harry was starting to feel a little nervous. He’d come
this
close to getting a knife shoved between his ribs once, and he wasn’t eager to repeat the experience.
But still . . . escort work.
Maybe George did have something there.
‘I could set up a website,’ said George. ‘We could get some cards printed.’
‘Maybe,’ said Harry.
‘Oh come the fuck on, Harry, it’ll be a laugh,’ said George, grinning. ‘You got anything else going on?’
Harry shook his head. ‘No, but . . .’
‘Well then.’
‘I don’t want any trouble, George.’
‘Trouble?’ George was wide-eyed and innocent. ‘This’ll be like taking candy from a baby. No trouble involved.’
‘Oh yeah?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Well . . .’
‘Oh come on. Let’s do it. Okay?’
Harry started to smile.
‘Okay,’ said Harry, and they high-fived. Harry was con fident that George would forget all about this conversation by the morning. He was drunk as a skunk. They both were.
But George didn’t. Morning rolled around and George was still talking about his escorting idea. He was on a roll.
By the end of that week, their website was no longer a drunken dream in George’s head: it was fact. And before long they had booked their first client, and then, in quick succession, came their second, their third, their fourth . . .
‘Christ!’ laughed George, his eyes dancing as he playfully waltzed his younger brother around the room. Their tenth client had just booked. ‘Look at this, boy. We’re going to be
minted!’
‘We got another bite. And she’s a cougar,’ said George. He was excitedly tapping keys and gazing at their brand-spanking-new website on the computer screen up in his bedroom.
‘She’s a what?’ asked Harry.
George was very proud of this website. He’d drafted in one of their nerdier mates, Gaz, to do it, and it had cost them heavy, but it was done in double-quick time and it was good. Lots of red to excite the punters, but enough black and gold to convince them that this was a classy and efficient operation.
There were some good pics of George on there, but the best were of the wildly photogenic Harry. They’d purchased a dinner jacket and a dicky bow from one of the grunge shops, and in the first photo he wore that with a white shirt,
à la
James Bond, his thick, dark-red hair swept back, his soulful dark grey eyes smouldering into the camera lens.
‘The chicks are gonna love you, boy,’ promised George.
Harry had a relaxed, cat-like indolence about him, a sweetness of nature that earned him many friends, and bucket-loads of lethal charm.
The second shot of Harry showed him, torso only, oiled, muscled and brooding; the third showed him dressed smart/ casual in a tweedy jacket and open-necked shirt, giving it his best Sandhurst-officer-material swagger
.
‘So, explain. What the fuck
is
a cougar? Really?’ asked Harry, sprawling back on the bed and watching his brother tap-tap-tapping on the keys. He felt just about shagged out, to be honest. All these women! And all of them so pitifully desperate to date men who were not old, boring, smelly or downright mean. Harry hadn’t worked this hard in . . . well, actually, he had
never
worked this hard.
‘You know so little,’ sighed George, not looking round. ‘Cougar’s an older woman with a thing for younger men.’
‘Ew,’ said Harry.
‘Not “ew” at all. Some of these older ladies are hot.’
‘How old we talking here?’
‘Forty,’ said George promptly. Jackie Sullivan, their prospective client, was an interior designer in her fifties, but he didn’t want Harry to completely freak out.
‘That’s fifteen years older than me. That’s gross.’
‘Keep your eye on the ball, grasshopper,’ said George, pressing send. ‘It’s a hundred quid, that’s fifty each, and all you’ve got to do is escort her to a black-tie do and home again.’
‘Listen,
sensei
, you keep
your
eye on the frigging ball. I’m going to be beating off an old lady stoked up on HRT and looking for sexy extras. And why me? You looked good in the pics too.’
George sighed and swivelled his chair to look at his younger brother.
‘You know the deal. It’s your trembling young body she wants. You got the beauty, boy, I got the brains.’
‘No, you got the gob.’
George considered this. ‘All right, that much is true.’ It was their sister Gracie who had all the brains, but George could blag with the best of them; that was his talent. That and working in his ex-brother-in-law’s casino flipping cards for over-eager punters; and he was bored to death with that.
‘And I got some looks too, I think you’ll agree,’ said George.
Harry didn’t agree. George was chunky as a barn door and brutish-looking with a squashed-in nose, and his dark red hair was shorn into an unflattering crew cut, but he did have laughing dark-brown eyes and the roguish mouthy charm of a market trader, and some women responded to that. Harry was the quiet, gentle-mannered one. Looking as he did, he didn’t have to say a word to get the girls to fall at his feet.
But . . . oh shit . . . a forty-year-old?
‘What if . . . I mean, look, what if I have a – a problem?’ asked Harry.
‘Problem?’ George looked at him blankly. ‘You got the gear, we got the etiquette book.’ The etiquette book was another one of their grunge-shop purchases; they had already learned a lot from that: don’t drink from the finger-bowls, don’t hold your knife like a pencil, twist the bottle – not the cork – when you open champagne. They studied the thing, quizzed each other over it like the
Highway Code
. They had it all off perfect. ‘What problem can you possibly have?’
‘Oh come on, George. I mean what if she wants . . . extras?’
‘What, you mean bedroom-type extras?’
‘What the hell else would I mean? And what if I can’t – you know – perform?’
‘Ah, you’ll be fine. And think of it, boy. One hundred big ones,’ said George with a grin. He gave Harry’s foot a hopeful kick. ‘What ya say?’
Harry lay back with a groan. ‘Oh, all right then. I’m in.’
Jackie Sullivan didn’t actually look much of a cougar. More of a mouse, Harry thought when she opened the door to him at her place in Notting Hill. A pretty, nervous mouse wearing a halter-necked floor-length black jersey dress that she looked distinctly uncomfortable in. Her hair was thin, but expensively styled in a blonde bob. Her eyes were huge and a washed-out denim-blue, and there were blotches of bright colour on her cheeks. She wasn’t sure about this, not at all. He could see it writ large in every jittery movement her skinny body made.
Well, neither was he. He’d been bricking it all day, dreading tonight. But her twittering, anxious demeanour made him relax. This was no man-eater. This was a nice little lady who needed reassurance.
‘Hi,’ he said with a smile. ‘I’m Harry.’
She stuck out a pale, narrow hand. ‘Jackie,’ she said.
They shook hands. Hers was icy cold.
‘Cab’s waiting,’ he said. ‘Hope you’ve got a coat, it’s freezing out there.’
‘Yes . . . well, you’d better come in for a moment . . .’
She went off upstairs, leaving him standing in the hall. Harry looked around him.
Some
place. The whole of his and George’s messy little rented flat could fit into this hallway. Expensive-looking antique pieces were everywhere – side tables, chairs, blue and white vases – all lined up along the canary-yellow walls. Harry went over to one of the tables and looked at the array of pictures, all set out in silver frames. Jackie looking younger, with dark hair. Jackie older, with a laughing grey-haired man by her side.
He heard her coming back down the stairs, and turned to look at her with a smile. She was pulling on a big fake-fur wrap, and clutching a black sequinned evening bag. ‘Who’s this?’ he asked, gesturing at the photo.
Her face tightened. ‘That’s my husband,’ she said.
Then why isn’t he escorting you?
wondered Harry.
‘He died,’ said Jackie, as if reading his thoughts. Suddenly the blue eyes were swimming with tears. ‘Two years ago. This is the first time I’ve been to a social occasion on my own since then.’
Poor little mare
, thought Harry. ‘Well,’ he said after a moment’s hesitation. ‘You’re not on your own. Are you?’
‘No,’ she said, but the tears were slipping down her cheeks now, making tracks through the hectic splodges of blusher she’d applied. ‘Sorry,’ she gasped.
‘Don’t be sorry,’ said Harry, and pulled out a clean white hankie and dabbed gently at her face.
At which point Jackie Sullivan – the cougar! What a joke – put her head against the front of his dinner jacket and sobbed her heart out. As she cried she made a high-pitched whining sound, like a beaten puppy. It pulled at his heart to hear it.
They never got to go to her black-tie do. Harry paid off the taxi and they spent the evening in her drawing room, talking about her late husband, her daughter who worked out in Hong Kong, and her lonely, lonely life. And later, when she asked if he would go up to bed with her, just to hold her, that was all, Harry said yes, of course.
And later still, just as dawn was breaking, Harry felt her hand sneaking over to delve inside his Calvins – he’d kept them on last night, not wishing to embarrass her by flaunting his nude body when she had been so careful to keep on her bra and pants. He lay still, surprised and extremely turned on, as she clutched and stroked at his tumescent cock; he had his usual waking-up erection; it felt enormous and her hand on it felt very good indeed.
‘Goodness,’ she murmured. ‘So big. Would you . . .?’ she asked, guiding his hands to her neat little breasts beneath her lacy bra. He could feel that her nipples were hard.
Oh yes. Harry found that he certainly would. He unclipped her bra with practised ease, pulling it off. Rolled her nipples around between thumb and forefinger, kissed and fondled them. He pulled off her pants and stroked her bush, then rolled over on to her, eased her thighs open. He found the ready opening and pushed gently in. She gasped. He could barely see her in the cool dawn light, they were just shadows heaving beneath the covers, and that was fine; this was just anonymous sex. He pumped hard at her, enjoying the usual hot sensations, and she clung to him without a whimper.
Then Harry remembered that he wasn’t wearing a condom – could a forty-year-old woman get pregnant? He thought it was possible, so when he felt his climax coming he slipped out of her, groaning with pleasure as he spilled his seed out over her belly.
Sex with an older woman wasn’t a problem after all. He gave her a long, shuddering orgasm and she cried again, but afterwards she seemed more relaxed. They lay in each other’s arms until it was time for him to go.
