Outrageous Fortune

by Lulu Taylor

  As she’d hoped, her lover began the familiar grunting sound of his approaching climax, thrust furiously into her three times and then collapsed on her with a yelp.

  Thank God that’s over, she thought, as she stroked his back.

  He rolled off her, still panting, plucked some tissues from the box next to the bed and wiped himself. He didn’t offer one to her. Part of the new arrangement had included Coco going on the pill and both of them having blood tests. After that, it was unprotected sex.

  ‘Did you have a good time, honey?’ Coco asked, stroking his hairy chest.

  ‘Yeah, yeah.’ He wasn’t meeting her eye properly, seemingly still absorbed by wiping his penis.

  ‘So – are we going out tonight? Didn’t you say you were going to take me somewhere nice?’

  ‘Well, actually, Coco, there’s been a change of plan.’ Matthew scrunched up the tissue and threw it on to the floor. He got up and began to pull on his clothes.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well …’

  He was getting dressed at quite a rate, she noticed, pulling on his trousers and shirt as fast as he could. He sat down on the bed for a moment and looked at her. She pulled the sheet up around her bare breasts, feeling suddenly cold.

  ‘I’ve got some bad news,’ he said, his voice brisk and businesslike.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘I’m afraid our little arrangement has to come to an end.’ He had assumed a sorrowful expression that was also furtive, as though he were keen for this to be over so he could get away. ‘You’re going to have to move out.’

  She felt as though a blast of icy air had just engulfed her. Her skin prickled. ‘What?’ she said, disbelieving.

  ‘It’s all over between us, Coco. My company has found out you’re living here. One of the neighbours wrote to them to complain. I managed to explain it away but there’s no way round it. You’ve got to go.’

  ‘But … but …’ She sat up straight, panic rushing through her. ‘Why don’t you just buy another place? Or rent one or something?’

  He laughed, and she winced. His face looked suddenly unaccountably ugly, with its close-together eyes, coarse dry skin and a nose reddened by years of company dinners and fine wine. His grey hair was wiry and sparse. ‘That’s a lovely idea, my sweet, but it’s not really practical, for a lot of reasons. Besides, this was never going to last forever, was it? We’ve had a lovely few weeks, but that’s that. Let’s end it now while we’ve still got fond memories of each other.’

  She gaped at him, the fear turning to fury. ‘What the fuck are you talking about? You think you can just cast me aside like this? You came here knowing you were going to say this, but you fuck me first before you tell me to get back to whatever hole I crawled out of? Fuck that!’

  ‘Come on, Coco, don’t be like this …’ He put out a placatory hand towards her.

  ‘Easy for you to fuckin’ say!’ she shouted. ‘Easy for you, going back to your cushy life and your pathetic wife and your money. What the fuck have I got?’

  He looked offended. ‘I thought you’d enjoyed yourself,’ he said in an injured tone. ‘Lots of girls would love a holiday like you’ve just had.’

  She sprang to her feet, her eyes flashing, not caring that she was standing naked before him. ‘You fucking prick, is that what you think this is? And I’ll just go nice and quiet back to my old life, feeling grateful?’ She put her hands on her hips, and stared at him. ‘Well, I’m not going to. You want me to go, you’re going to have to make it worth my while. I want money, or I’m going to tell whoever would be interested about our little arrangement.’

  Matthew stood up as well with a stern expression on his face, though he could not quite hide the flicker of admiration in his eyes on seeing her naked form. ‘That’s blackmail, Coco. It’s illegal.’

  She snorted. ‘So let’s go to the fucking police then! You and me together, now! We’ll tell them all about it, shall we?’

  Pulling on his jacket, he stared at her, his face hard. ‘All right. Five grand. I’ll give you five grand and it’s finished. OK?’

  ‘Ten,’ she snapped back.

  ‘Five,’ he said in an emphatic tone. ‘I’ll put five on the credit card. When you get to the end of that, it’s finished.’ He picked up his briefcase. ‘And you have to be out of here by the end of tomorrow. Thanks, Coco, it’s been nice. Good luck.’

  ‘Fuck you!’ she called after him as he walked to the door. As he disappeared through it, she shouted, ‘And you’re going to regret treating me like this, you prick!’

  36

  THAT WEEKEND AT Nant-y-Pren had been idyllic; Daisy wished it would never end. This was surely perfect happiness: the cosy old farmhouse, the dog slumbering on the rug before the fire as she and Christophe lay wrapped in one another’s arms. He had made them a delicious dinner and then they’d gone back to bed, this time taking their time, glorying in each other’s bodies, the touch of skin on skin, the delicious rightness of their joining together. Daisy had never known anything like it. She felt as though with every second she was blossoming, opening out like a sunflower, and could hardly bear not to be touching him, as though she was drawing strength from his proximity.

  On Sunday, after Christophe had cooked them garlicky roast lamb scented with pungent woody rosemary, they had discussed the Excalibur and Daisy’s report.

  ‘How’s Alan been treating you lately?’ Christophe asked. ‘Has he forgiven you?’

  ‘Yes.’ She grinned. ‘Just about. He thinks he’s a tiger but he’s really a pussy cat.’ Unbidden, an image of Daddy floated into her mind. That was a man she had been truly afraid of all her life, she knew that now. Realising that not all men were as powerful and controlling as her father had been had made her able to reconsider her relationship with him and her role of slavish adoration. Of course I loved him. I was terrified of what would happen if I didn’t! It wasn’t healthy. And what did his love count for in the end? When I wasn’t what he wanted, he tossed me aside like a piece of rubbish.

  The bitterness she felt when she thought this was so strong, and her determination to get back at him so overpowering, she tried not to think about it too often. It would send surges of adrenaline racing through her, making her fingers tremble and her breath ragged. It was better to shut it out.

  After discussing the month’s figures, Daisy had confided her plan to request money from Craven Dalziel for an overhaul of the hotel’s fabric. ‘No matter how good our service is, we look a bit shoddy and nothing can change that. The bathrooms are spotless, the towels clean, but cracked tiles and stained grouting look bad – that’s all there is to it. We need a bit of a makeover.’

  ‘I agree,’ Christophe said, nodding. ‘I think we’d be very interested in seeing what you come up with and looking at some figures. And I like the way your function bookings are up.’ He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it idly as he continued scanning the results. ‘It was our lucky day when you came to the Excalibur.’

  ‘Mine too,’ she said softly, ‘mine too.’

  *

  Back at work on Monday, people seemed to notice that she had a spring in her step and a flush on her cheeks. Someone asked her if she’d been on holiday, and another if she’d been on a sunbed. One of the receptionists said slyly that Daisy looked as though she was in love, and Daisy had flushed violently as they all cackled with laughter at her discomfort.

  Am I in love? she wondered. If she wasn’t, then it was something very like it. She felt full of unaccustomed happiness and sometimes experienced a delightful jolt as she recalled some moment of blissful ecstasy with Christophe. He sent her an email on Monday and called her that evening. They didn’t talk about the business once.

  This must be a relationship, she thought giddily. A proper one. He was so different from Freddie – a man, not a boy – and that made being with him more serious than anything she’d ever known before. Besides, she couldn’t stop craving him, feeling a need to be physically close to him that was l
ike a desperate thirst or rabid hunger.

  It was gorgeous and glorious and yet dangerous as well. After all, Christophe thought he was involved with Daphne Fraser, the little nobody from Bristol. He had no idea of Daisy Dangerfield’s existence.

  They soon fell into a routine: on Friday night she would climb into her little Fiat and zoom northwards, towards the green and brown mountains of North Wales, arriving nearly four hours later when night had fallen and the farmhouse windows glowed like golden beacons against the black shadows of the hills beyond. Once his ankle had healed and he’d returned to Cheltenham, Christophe tried to leave early on Fridays so that he could be at the house before her, with supper cooking and the fire warm and bright by the time she arrived.

  Those weekends were heaven. When they weren’t in bed, they were striding out across the hills, with Sasha bounding along beside them, and the landscape turned from its bright spring colours to the deeper, richer hues of summer. Where once they went out in coats, boots and warm jumpers, now they were walking in tee-shirts and sunglasses, carrying bottles of water.

  But Daisy couldn’t help being aware of the dark secret at the heart of their relationship. It might seem perfect but she knew that it was based on a lie – one that kept growing bigger the longer they knew each other and the more Christophe wanted to know about her. His idle questions about her childhood and family led her to spin a story of a life she had never had, and she was terrified in case she forgot something she had told him and said something different next time. She bought a little notebook that she kept with her to record in it all the things she said to him: the names of her fictional parents, their jobs, where they lived. She even had to record the names of her made-up school teachers and best friends from her schooldays. Sometimes, at night, lying in Christophe’s arms and listening to the slow rise and fall of his breathing, she would stare in to the blackness wishing with all her heart that she hadn’t started wading into this morass of lies, but she had no idea how to retreat from it. If only she’d said that her parents were dead, but before she and Christophe had got together, she’d told him that her father was a retired headmaster and that her parents lived in a comfortable house in Hampshire where he played golf while her mother gardened. It had seemed like a perfectly safe explanation at the time, but lately he had been dropping hints about meeting them and asking if Daisy had told them about him.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ she’d said irritably. ‘But they’re miles away. I don’t want to share you with anyone right now. Can we just drop it?’

  Christophe had looked surprised at her sharp tone. ‘OK, sweetheart, whatever you say. There’s no rush.’ He leaned in to kiss her. ‘I don’t want to share you with anyone either, truth be told. Let’s keep the outside world at bay for just a little longer.’

  As time wore on and autumn arrived, she knew she wouldn’t be able to keep the lie going forever and wild ideas began to take shape: could she kill them off? Pretend they’d both been killed in a car crash? But … a funeral … how on earth could she arrange that? And anyway, she couldn’t manufacture that kind of grief and suffering, it would be a terrible thing to do. She wondered if she could hire a couple of actors to play her parents and stage an afternoon with Christophe that would get him off her back for a while, but she could see that would lead to more problems. She’d have to hire the same people over and over whenever it was necessary to have them on the scene. No, she would just have to put him off for as long as possible – and then, when she was sure that they were going to last, she would tell him the truth.

  It was difficult to imagine sharing her secret with anyone but perhaps it would be a relief. Maybe he would even be able to help her. The idea of actually being able to talk about everything she had been through seemed at first frightening and then appealing. She would do it soon, she decided. If she and Christophe lasted a year, then she would find a way to confess. And meanwhile, she had to continue her deceptions, writing down her lies in her little notebook so that she didn’t forget them.

  37

  COCO FOUND A small hotel in Victoria where there were lots of places offering cheap rates to tourists, travellers and backpackers. Her room was cramped and noisy, enormous coaches rumbling past her window every few minutes and the chatter of tourist parties on the pavement below, but she didn’t care. She didn’t intend to stay very long if she could help it.

  After all, she only had five grand. She had to get going or she’d run out of money in no time.

  The first day she spent fuming, cursing Matthew’s name and planning various revenges, before calming down and telling herself not to waste her time. The main thing now was how she was going to get on. Matthew was history, over. She would cut him out of her life and not give him another thought – just as she had always done when something caused her pain. Besides, she’d been using him as much as he’d been using her, she knew that much. She had to shrug her shoulders and think of something else to be getting on with.

  On the second day, she took a walk around some of the dancing joints in the area, but every time she went to ask if they needed an experienced girl, something would prevent her and she’d stop short in front of the entrance, staring at the pictures of the girls in their sparkling bikinis and heavy make-up, before eventually turning away and walking off. That was a life she never wanted to go back to.

  She was sitting in a café, nursing a coffee and searching for a lighter so she could have a fag, when she found a scrunched-up piece of paper in her pocket. She opened it and saw Sheridan’s handwriting. It was Roberto’s mobile number. She blinked at it for a moment. She had decided not to call him right away and then forgotten about him. Was he still looking for her? And why?

  She pulled her mobile out of her pocket. No harm in finding out. He answered at once.

  ‘Roberto – it’s me. Coco.’

  ‘Coco! Babes! I can’t believe it, where the hell have you been?’ He sounded ecstatic that she’d called.

  It was nice to hear his voice again. She’d put him out of her mind when she was living her swanky life in Mayfair but now she realised that she’d missed him. ‘I’ve heard you’ve been trying to get in touch.’

  ‘Honey, I’ve been spreading the word through every club and dance studio for weeks, once I realised your old mobile number was no good. Absolute blank. You vanished, darling.’

  ‘But why the hell do you want to see me so much?’ Coco asked. She’d guessed that he wanted to tempt her back to the club – but had she really been that valuable a girl to them? There were plenty like her, surely.

  ‘I don’t want to say over the phone,’ he said mysteriously. ‘Let’s meet. Where are you?’

  She walked into the pub in Waterloo, looking about for her old friend and then saw him perched on a high stool with a pint of lager on the bar next to him. He’d shaved his head to a dark fuzz over his scalp and was wearing a Gucci jacket and white jeans.

  ‘You look exactly like a dancing queen,’ she said jokily as she came over. ‘Anyone given you your own reality show yet?’

  ‘Teaser!’ he said, jumping up to give her two big kisses. He stood back to look at her, his blue eyes bright. ‘You look fab, darling, of course. Mayfair obviously suits you. Now, let’s get you a drink and we’ll go out to the terrace.’

  When they were settled in the pub’s back yard, bordered on one side by rows of huge metal beer barrels and on the other by a rickety wooden fence, Coco asked again why he’d wanted to find her.

  ‘It’s not me so much, hon, though it’s a pleasure to see you, of course.’ He gave her a saucy look over the rim of his glass as he took a sip, clearly relishing the suspense. ‘It’s them.’

  ‘Them? Who’s them?’

  Roberto pulled the expression of one who knows a really juicy bit of gossip. ‘They, my darling, are the people who want to find you …’

  ‘We’re going round in circles here,’ she said curtly, wanting him to get to the point.

  ‘Baby,’ Roberto declared, throwing out
one hand theatrically, ‘your ship might just have come in. I know you’re busy living it up with your lover boy, but you might want to think again when I tell you about this little gig.’

  She snorted contemptuously. ‘Forget that piece of shit! He’s off the scene now.’

  ‘Oh.’ Roberto looked sympathetic. ‘Sorry to hear that, babe. But maybe that’s all for the best because …’ He raised his eyebrows tantalisingly, obviously enjoying keeping her on tenterhooks.

  ‘Spit it out,’ Coco said warningly, ‘or else …’

  ‘Remember that party – your great pièce de résistance when you took Haley’s place?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t just your man in the West End who liked your act.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘Nope.’ Roberto smiled broadly. ‘Guess who?’

  ‘I’m not in the mood for playing games, Roberto. Just tell me or I’ll get up and go.’

  ‘You wouldn’t do that. You’re too interested, and I don’t blame you because it was only …’ Roberto paused for effect and then, when he could see that Coco was on the verge of losing her temper, said with a flourish: ‘It was only birthday boy himself!’

  ‘Oh.’ Coco was taken aback. She thought back to the night of the party, remembering her brief introduction to the man whose party it was. He had seemed rather taken with her, and then sent her that birthday card and the money. She recalled him: a solid man, with a tan-and-dye job to conceal his age. Perhaps he’d once been attractive, a long time ago, but it was hard to see it now; eyes that might once have been fiercely handsome were now deep-set in pouches of skin, the eyebrows above overgrown. But … there had been the unmistakable aura of power around him. ‘What does he want?’ she said at last.

  ‘Who knows? But he’s probably not after a chat about the state of the commodities market. Anyway, he wants to see you pretty bad. His assistant has been calling virtually every day to see if I’ve found you. They couldn’t reach you on your old number so they called me.’

  Coco frowned. She hunched over slightly, running her fingers through her peroxide hair which was now in need of a good touch up at the roots. ‘But I don’t understand. He could find any girl if that’s all he’s after.’