Venus Envy (9 page)

I snapped myself out of it as I got to the Ivy. How could I be depressed? I was about to have dinner with Seamus Mahon.

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‘Reservation for two, name of Mahon,’ I announced imperiously to the waiter. That’s a tough one to pull off when you’re clutching six wire hangers with one index finger.

For a second nasty thoughts drifted through my mind. Like, what if he cancelled, what if they refused to let me in with the clingfilm accessories, what if he was hours late and I sat at a table for two twirling a breadstick and trying not to catch the pitying eyes of the other diners, who, because I’d been so obviously stood up, would doubtless include Mel Gibson and Richard Gere?

‘Of course, madam. Mr Mahon is already here,’ the waiter said.

Sweet relief washed over me like a soothing stream. I exhaled loudly. “Could you put these in the cloakroom for me, please?’

‘Certainly, madam.’ He handed them to a flunky without batting an eyelid. ‘Let me show you to your table.’

Seamus was sitting alone at a table half-hidden behind the most enormous bunch of flowers. As I approached he leapt to his feet, brushing the waiter away so he could pull out my chair himself. His eyes swept up and down my body. I hoped fervently that the pale pink silk dress I’d bought from Whistles about an hour earlier, for miles more than I could possibly afford, would please him.

‘I hope I didn’t keel5 you. waiting too long,’ I stuttered.

‘I’ve only just walked through the door myself. God, what a beautiful dress, is it new?’

‘This?’ I shook my head violently. ‘Had it for years.’

‘Waiter.’ Seamus signalled. ‘Take these roses away. My companion’s loveliness is putting them to shame.’

A rich wave of blushing swept across my cheeks. It got worse a second later when I realised that a. great

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big price tag was protruding from the side seam of the dress and laying across the table. I whisked it hastily away, praying that Seamus hadn’t seen it, but it was too late: his long fingers reached across and grabbed it before I could stop him.

‘Two hundred pounds? Ah,’ he laughed sexily, ‘Alex Wilde, if I didn’t know you better I’d say you were trying to impress me.’

‘Women always say they’ve had stuff for years,’ I muttered in a lame attempt at a last-minute save.

‘But you bought something new, even if it was only cheap and cheerful. I think it’s sweet.’

Cheap and bloody cheerful, my ass! ‘Hmm,’ I said, trying to flick my hair in a girly way like they tell you to do in The Rules and all the other ‘how to catch a man the eighteenth-century way’ self-help books. I am a sucker ˘or all those books, even though they contain sadistic advice on how to accept bunches of roses and how to not return calls, which is fine if you ever get roses, or indeed calls to not return.

Seamus grinned at me. Then he gave me a slow wink. I was embarrassed and spellbound all at once. I didn’t know whether to be bothered or flattered. It was that familiar confusion. It was heady. I hadn’t had a sip of wine as yet, but I was starting to feel drunk.

‘Will we have something to eat? I’d like the braised lamb and how about the steamed scallops with ginger?’

‘Sure,’ I said dreamily, although I didn’t really like ginger.

‘And a bottle of the number twenty-eight.’

‘And a Diet Pepsi.’

‘Ah no, not a Diet Pepsi,’ Seamus said, flashing me a teasing smile, ‘she doesn’t want that, it’ll take the flavour off the fish. Well,’ he added once the waiter had melted away, ‘it’s good to see you, Alex, without a

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computer screen in front of your nose. You’re looking quite the loveliest thing in the place.’

‘Thanks,’ I said, wondering if he’d looked in any mirrors lately.

‘Who’s the lucky man? No, wait, let me guess. He’s an astronaut. A prince of Spain. An international master criminal, with minions to slit your throat and dump you in the Thames if you leave him.’

I shook my head, smiling broadly. As if! ‘No boyfriend.’

‘You’re never … a lesbian?’

‘No!’ I blushed.

‘Pity,’ he said, grinning back at me. ‘But then the thought of that would be liable to give me a heart attack. I could have you done for murder of a poor lonely old man.’

‘You’re not poor or lonely or old,’ I said feebly.

The wine arrived and Seamus poured it lavishly into my glass, just taking a splash for himself.

‘You’re not drinking?’

.’Not too much. It hurts your memory, and why would I want to forget an evening with the likes of you?’

‘Er - perhaps Jenny will be better tomorrow,’ I said brightly, trying to get off the subject. He was probably just making polite small talk.

‘Well, maybe she will and then again maybe she won’t. The question,’ Seamus added as if to a small child, ‘is will I be able to survive another day in the office, tortured by your brown eyes, and no way to get near them?’

My heart skipped a beat. I didn’t know that could actually happen, but it was so surprised it stopped for a second. Then it was racing away down the line like a thoroughbred greyhound. I gasped, ‘What?’ but then the food arrived, and Seamus leant back discreetly and waited for the coast to clear. Then he leant fQrward

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and looked me over. It was so sexy. It was as if he had Superman eyes and could see clean through to my new lacy Knickerbox bra.

‘Now you’re an intelligent lady and you’ve no hearing problems. So why are you asking me to repeat myself?’

‘But you’re married,’ I said. To a Dior-clad sex goddess, I didn’t say.

Seamus snorted bitterly. ‘Only in name. We don’t get along. The passion has died, she lives for shopping. I’m of the opinion that without passion, you might as well be dead.’ He grabbed my hand fiercely. ‘Without passion, it’s all worth nothing.’.

My skin crackled at his touch. I could have lit a fag with the sparks in his eyes. Oh God, Oh God, it was too good to be true.

‘Why lon’t you get a divorce?’

The? Good Catholic boy? My mammy would drop dead on the spot. And anyway, there’s the children. The issue of my issue,’ he said woefully. ‘Ah, I shouldn’t be burdening you with all this yearning.’

Burden me, burden me! ‘That’s OK,’ I said gently. I pushed my fish round my plate and fortified myself with the excellent wine. Seamus was eating heartily, unburdening his soul in between large mouthfuls of lamb.

‘I’ve been looking for someone like you all my life,’ he said intensely. It was amazing, I started to blossom under his tare. It was like I was the only girl in the room. The only girl on the planet. The way he was looking at me like he wanted to eat me alive. ‘Someone who I can talk to and not feel so guilty, or unhappy. Someone I can trust to understand. Someone who…’

‘Who’s an artist, like you are inside,’ I suggested helpfully.

He looked at me weirdly, then went on, ‘Yeah, maybe I guess. Anyway, someone to talk to, and it

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certainly helps when you’re as beautiful as you are.

Although maybe not. Maybe it actually doesn’t help.’ ‘Why not?’ I whispered.

‘Because I can’t concentrate. I should be thinking about talking things through. And I’m after thinking

about something else entirely.’

I swallowed dryly.

‘I’m thinking about those soft cherry lips of yours, and what it would be like to kiss them. How it would feel to have you in my arms. Just to have the warmth

of human comfort again, after all these years.’

‘All these years?’

‘My marriage is as dead as St Patrick.’

‘Seamus,’ I began, scrabbling about for something to

, say.

He held up one tanned hand. His wedding ring glinted in the candlelight. ‘Don’t say it. Don’t shatter my dreams just yet. Just let me sit here and look at you, before you tell me you could never be interested in a sad old goat like myself.’

‘But I am!’ I burst out. ‘Interested! I mean, not that you’re a sad old goat or anything. Not a goat …’

‘Just sad and old?’ he enquired, green eyes twinkling merrily.

‘Not old at all. I think you’re gorgeous,’ I said warmly.

‘Do you now,’ he said, smiling softly. My breath was catching in my throat. But then he turned to his lamb and attacked it with gusto.

We ate pudding and coffee and then split. Or rather Seamus ate pudding. I was desperate for some warm lemon tart but didn’t dare, in case he thought I was a greedy pig. I ordered a champagne sorbet but couldn’t manage more than a couple of spoons. Too many butterflies were squirming in my stomach for me to do anything as positive as eat. Seamus had changed the subject to utterly unimportant things, like the ec.onomy

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and football. I was uneasily wondering if I’d failed some kind of test by admitting everything to him.

‘You eat like an ant,’ he approved when he’d finished his chocolate fudge cake. ‘Will we get the bill?’

‘Ummm. Thanks for a lovely evening,’ I managed miserably.

‘What do you mean by that? Is the evening over?’ ‘Isn’t it?’

‘Not unless you’re after breaking my heart,’ Seamus said, and the sun was out again behind the clouds. He tipped the waiters lavishly and they loaded his suits into his bright red Ferrari, so I didn’t even have to worry about the clingfilm any more. Seamus held open every door and helped me into my jacket, opened the car door for me and everything.

‘Rose for the lady, sir?’ asked a grubby bloke with a sheaf of tired-looking red roses. ‘Quid each.’ I froze. Men always told these blokes to bugger off, when the girls were always hoping they’d buy one and give it to them.

‘Here,’ Seamus said, extracted two twenties from his wallet and pulled the entire bunch out of his arms. Then he leant across and presented them to me with a flourish.

‘Wow,’ I stammered weakly.

Seamus leant forward and waved me into the car. ‘Come on, my lady, your carriage awaits.’

We sped through the traffic. Seamus drove so fast he could have got a job as one of those maniacal New York cabbies, no problem. Cars seemed to melt away as we screeched by them. There was only a fraction of a second for me to clock all the envious glances of the boys and girls in their Ford Escorts.

We pulled up outside one of those standardfissue, highly expensive white terraced houses in Kensington, the kinds with steps and pillars flanking the porches.

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‘This is the London flat,’ Seamus said expansively as

he slipped a key in the lock. ‘Just a little pied-d-term.’

He led me up to the first floor and another, solid mahogany door. The flat may have been small but it looked blisteringly expensive: all modern creams and white leather sofas. There were framed photographs of naked women and a big red splodgy canvas over the fireplace, a right dog’s dinner if you ask me. Which he didn’t.

‘You see these photos? They’re by Herb Ritts …

he’s a very famous photographer, these are original Ritts prints.’

‘So you can be putting on the Ritts,’ I joked.

He gave me a bit of a cold look. ‘And my picture…

a Gardolfo, cost me twenty thousand. You’re not standing in the right part of the room - come here, you can see the light on it better.’

He manoeuvred me into a pool of light, so now I

saw the sun on the red splodge. ‘Umm, very nice - uh, dramatic,’ I said, trying to sound convincing. I’ve never een the point of the modern art world. But it’s never seen the point of me, so that’s only fair, I suppose.

‘Come here,’ Seamus said softly, ‘you little minx.’ He pulled me to him and kissed me. And I know I ought to be saying that fireworks exploded across the sky and the world stopped spinning on its axis, but actually I started worrying about my knickers. They were clean, but they were a bit grey at the same time. Now Seamus was going to see them. And had I shaved carefully this morning, or were my legs full of prickly stubbly bits like John Wayne’s chin?

‘I’d say I’m thinking what you’re thinking,’ Seamus whispered.

I doubted it. Not unless he was desperately wishing

for some KY Jelly. I mean, I was turned on - I must be, right? but I wasn’t particularly ready. In the.physical

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sense. Well, let’s face it, it was so long since I’d made love there were probably cobwebs up there.

‘Come on, darlin’,’ Seamus murmured sweetly. ‘Enough talk.’

And he led me into the bedroom.

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When I woke up I didn’t know where I was. It actually took me a good five seconds to get it right, the little computer in my head trying to process unfamiliar data, like tidy room, air conditioning, crisp sheets, man in bed.

Ah. Man in bed. Me and Seamus.

, I felt a little thrill as I remembered it. Making love to him. It was kind of quick and violent, but like he said, he was a lonely man, trapped in a loveless marriage. No wonder he couldn’t wait. I puffed a bit and gasped and he looked satisfied, like a cockerel. Or one of those pigeons you see in the spring puffing its chest out. ”Ah, that was grand,’ he said, breathing hard through his nose. ‘You’re lovely, so you are, Alex.’ He pulled me to him and held me tight against his chest, his arms wrapped round me in a bearhug like he never wanted to let me go.

‘Mmm, it was great,’ I whispered. I hadn’t come, of course, nothing like, but then you don’t, do you? I’m convinced that Marie Claire and Cosmo must be read by nymphomaniacs with different body chemistry to me. When you’re anxious for him to enjoy himself and hoping he can’t see the cellulite at the back of your thighs, and sucking in your stomach and trying to grind about seductively, the chances of you coming are nil. Zero. Zip. Nada. I don’t care: the emperor has no clothes! I am convinced that this ‘orgasm from sex’ nonsense is just a modern myth, like Swinging

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London, designed to make you feel inadequate because you’re not a part of it.

But I’ve never admitted it to my girlfriends. Just in case I’m wrong.

I mean I’m not frigid. I’ve had some bloody good orgasms in my time. It’s just that there’s never been anyone else in the room.