Vintage (12 page)

“Spiritual fulfillment?” Christina rolled the words around her mouth as though she’d never heard them before. “Has the real Rocky Neel been abducted by aliens?”

“Let me finish.”

As he explained to Christina just how important this “spiritual fulfillment” was, Rocky illustrated his speech by waving his hands in the air. On his left wrist was a solidgold Rolex. On his right pinkie finger, a diamond as big as an almond. Around that wrist, he wore four thick gold bangles. There were more diamonds in his ear and a gold hoop through his left eyebrow. Still, he seemed quite sincere as he introduced Christina to his latest project.

“None of the material stuff matters. It’s all about icicle now,” he said.

“Icicle? Rocky”—Christina leaned forward and put her hand on his arm—“are you talking about some kind of drug?”

Rocky let out a laugh.

“God, no. That’s funny. I am completely clean these days. I swear. Almost … Actually, it’s ISACL: the International Society for the Abolition of Child Labor. Stay there. I want to show you something amazing.”

He jumped up.

Christina couldn’t help remembering the first time Rocky had uttered those words: “I want to show you something amazing.” It was the night she discovered he had a gold bar through the tip of his cock. But this time, Rocky slipped into the suite and returned with his trousers still safely done up. He was carrying a black MacBook. He logged into the hotel’s wireless network and opened up a connection to ISACL’s website.

“I’m telling you, this is such bad stuff,” he said, as he clicked on the photo of a small, sad-eyed orphan. “I knew I had to do something after I met these kids in India. They have no choice but to work for a pittance wherever they can. It’s that or begging, prostitution. They have to work or starve. You can’t believe the conditions they live in, Chrissy. It’d break your heart. Look at that. That’s not a pile of rubbish I’m showing you. It’s this poor child’s home.”

Christina felt her eyes begin to tear up.

“This is just awful,” she said, as Rocky flicked through the pictures, each more shocking than the last. “I will write you a check at once.”

“I’d like you to do more than that,” said Rocky, laying his hand over hers. “You and I meeting on the beach this afternoon, that’s destiny. I’ve been thinking about how I can get the message out to a broader audience. You could be the perfect spokesperson for ISACL. Will you help me make an infomercial?”

Christina put her hand to her throat in surprise.

“Me?”

“Yes. Of course. Not only one of the most beautiful women in the world, but an incredibly caring one too.”

“Are you serious?”

Rocky nodded. “It was your caring heart that made me love you.”

“Wow, Rocky, that’s … of course I’ll do it.”

Christina was delighted to be asked. And her delight only grew when Rocky told her about the other celebrities who had already agreed to take part. The list was like a Who’s Who of Hollywood (her husband excluded). Christina would be in incredible company. To be associated with such a cause could only be good for her profile. She couldn’t wait to tell Marisa.

Rocky proposed a toast to their new association. Christina toasted in water. She’d already had that night’s glass of wine. And then he proposed a walk along the shoreline in the moonlight. Christina agreed. It was a beautiful night. The sky was clear. The moon was nearly full and its cool white light made it almost as bright as day. As they walked, Rocky reached for Christina’s hand. She held his happily. It seemed appropriate. As did allowing him to slip his arm around her waist and pull her close. Friendly. It was lovely to be back in Rocky’s company, as his friend, so many years after they dated and broke up. And she felt so very honored that he had asked her to be in his campaign … 

After walking for an hour, they were back at the gates of the hotel.

“Nightcap?” Rocky suggested.

“I can’t,” said Christina. “I told you I have to be up at six.”

“Decaf coffee?” he tried again.

Christina shook her head.

“You’re right,” said Rocky. “Decaf coffee is horrible.”

They were standing face-to-face. Suddenly, Rocky tucked his fingers through the belt loops on her jeans and pulled her closer.

“How about we just go to bed?”

“Rocky!”

“Just a kiss? For old times’ sake.”

“Rocky … ”

He didn’t wait for permission. Instead he leaned in and placed his warm lips upon hers. He wrapped his arms tightly around her so that their bodies were pressed together and she felt his hardness against her. Taken by surprise, Christina found herself returning the embrace. But, seconds later, reality overtook her and she pushed Rocky away.

“I’m a married woman,” she said, brushing herself down.

“Worth a try,” said Rocky ruefully.

Christina shook her head.

“I hope this doesn’t mean you won’t be in my infomercial.”

He gave her the cheeky, English schoolboy smile that had first attacted her to him more than a decade before. It was such an innocent look that Christina didn’t consider for a moment that he might only have asked her to support his cause in an attempt to flatter her back into bed.

“I’ll do your infomercial,” Christina told him. “For the sake of the kids.” Then she grinned and planted a goodbye kiss on Rocky’s cheek. Quite chastely. “Have your people call mine.”

“The minute I get back to NYC.”

As Christina sashayed away, Rocky sang a few bars of “Super-Sexy Lady,” the hit song he had composed especially for her—and the two other women he had been seeing at the time.

A
t the Elson household in South London, an affectionate mother-daughter exchange was taking place. A man walking his dog in the alley behind the scruffy terraced house bent to fasten the dog’s lead just in time to avoid being decapitated by a plate flung from the open kitchen window. He straightened up just in time to see a couple of mugs fly past, also at head height, and smash against a wall.

“You’re an ungrateful little cow,” Marina screamed at her only daughter. “I gave up all my hopes and dreams to have you. I could have had an abortion.”

“I wish you
had
had an abortion,” Kelly spat at her. “I didn’t ask to be born into this shit-fest of a life.”

Marina paused in throwing the contents of her crockery cupboard into the street to light another cigarette. “You are breaking my heart,” she said, between anguished drags. “Why do you have to be so nasty to me all the time? Your own mother?”

“Oh, boo hoo,” said Kelly. “Here we go. Here come the waterworks. You expect me to feel sorry for you, you old slag? You stole my last fiver to buy those fags.”

“I’d have paid you back,” said Marina, affronted.

“Like you paid me back all the money my father sent you for me? For my upkeep? Five hundred pounds a month for the past eighteen years! And you spent it all on yourself!”

“Not all of it. But it’s fucking hard being a single mother. You’d begrudge me some happiness?”

“You begrudged me a fucking school uniform.”

“Whaddya mean? I put a roof over your head!”

“Maybe it wouldn’t have been such a crappy one if you’d spent my money on rent instead of fags and brandy.”

“Well,” said Marina, stubbing out her cigarette on a dirty plate and stiffening up for a fight again. “You don’t have to stay under my crappy roof now, do you? I’ve had enough of this. Go on. Go upstairs and pack your bags. Get out of here. Go on. Fuck off.”

“If that’s how you want it,” said Kelly, “I will.”

Kelly slammed her way out of the kitchen and ran upstairs to her bedroom. She opened her wardrobe and flung every item of clothing she owned onto the sagging single bed. It didn’t take long; there wasn’t much to fling. Then she took the one proper piece of luggage in the house and stuffed as much as she could inside. The rest, she stuffed into a trash bag. Which promptly split open.

“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”

Kelly started again.

Marina watched from the doorway, puffing on three more cigarettes in quick succession and occasionally shouting encouragement.

“I’ll be glad to get rid of you, I will. I’ll rent your room out and spend all the money on fags!” she roared.

“You do that.” Kelly set her jaw and carried on packing.

“You can’t take that,” said Marina, when Kelly tried to pack a ratty old towel. “That’s linen, that is. It belongs to the house. That stays here.” She snatched it from Kelly’s hand.

“Fine,” said Kelly. “I’ll dry myself on this.”

She brandished a tea towel in her mother’s face.

“Take it,” said Marina, failing to register that the tea towel her daughter stuffed into her bag was the one Kelly
had brought home from primary school, aged six. One of the teachers tried to raise funds for new books by printing up tea towels with the children’s drawings and selling them to proud mums and dads. Kelly had drawn a picture of her mother. A pretty good one. Written beneath it, in her childish handwriting, were the words “My butifull mummy.”

Marina didn’t look too beautiful now. Her face was twisted with anger as she followed her daughter downstairs to the front door, spewing out expletives all the way.

“So you’re really going, then? Good. I’ll call you a fucking taxi.”

“I can’t wait that long,” said Kelly. She stepped out into the night and started off down the path, dragging her luggage behind her.

“Wait!” Marina came after her.

Kelly paused. Was her mother about to attempt reconciliation?

“I want your bloody keys!” screamed Marina. “I’m not having you coming back here and stealing all my stuff while I’m out, you little slut.”

Kelly pulled her keys out of her pocket and dropped them into her mother’s open palm.

“You’re welcome to them. I don’t want anything more from you. I don’t even want to know if you’re alive or dead. Forget you ever had a daughter,” she added dramatically.

“And you can forget you ever had a mother and all!”

Marina slammed the door hard behind her.

And so Kelly found herself standing in the street with a wheelie case, a dangerously flimsy trash bag and nowhere to go. She tried calling Gina Busiri—her best friend and fellow chambermaid at the hotel—but Gina didn’t answer.

At ten to midnight, Guy Harcourt was woken by the insistent ringing of the telephone. The ancient answering machine was on the fritz so the phone simply rang and rang until it was answered or the caller gave up. This caller wasn’t giving up. Guy hauled himself out of bed and followed the sound of the ringing downstairs.

“I’m at the station,” said a girl’s voice.

“Who is this?” Guy asked. “You must have the wrong number.”

“It’s Kelly Elson,” said the caller. “I’ve decided I want to come to Froggy Bottom after all.”

Perhaps it was because he was too tired to argue. Perhaps he thought he was dreaming. In any case, Guy didn’t protest. He merely told Kelly to wait in front of the station until he could get to her.

“Don’t get into anyone else’s car,” he warned her.

“I won’t,” said Kelly. “I’m not twelve years old, you know.”

She may not have been twelve years old but she didn’t look much older when Guy found her. She was smaller than he remembered. Possibly because her thin brittle hair was flattened against her head. The orange glow from the single street lamp also stripped away the years. And the hardness.

In the brief moment before Kelly spotted the car, Guy watched her standing under the street amp with the reverence of a museum visitor admiring a Renaissance Madonna. Her face was so open and innocent. Her eyes were far away. You could have projected a thousand different thoughts onto a face like that.

Kelly’s gaze turned toward the car.

“Hello,” he said.

“Hi,” she said. “Thanks for picking me up.”

“No problem at all,” he managed sincerely.

He loaded her wheelie case and the bursting trash bag
into the back of the Land Rover and cleared the passenger seat of maps and random paperwork so that she could sit down. She’d clearly been crying.

“So, what made you change your mind?” Guy asked, regretting the question almost as soon as he’d asked it. She would probably unleash the waterworks again, he thought. But she didn’t.