Wishful Thinking

by Jemma Harvey

  ‘Nonsense,’ Jerry said. ‘The press have always hung on my every word—’ though what they hung on his every word was another matter ‘– I’ll be in every diary, every gossip column, I always am. Good God, do I have to spell it out for you? I’m high-profile, I’m glamorous. My dear girl—’

  ‘We can see that,’ Georgie assured him sycophantically, bringing a sexy smile into play. ‘But this is a sensitive issue. You’re an ex-con – the ultimate comeback kid – and some people will be itching to put a spoke in your wheel. There’ll be jealousy – you’ve met it before. The British press hate success: they’re famous for it. They’re really going to hate the idea that after all you’ve been through you can come back fighting and top the bestseller lists again. A party gives them a focus, somewhere to put the boot in. I knew you’d be up for it, but Alistair’s nervous. He wants to protect you from the envy of small-minded hacks who won’t miss the chance to stab a genuine star in the back.’

  Georgie really earned her keep, I reflected. I’d never heard so much bullshit condensed into such a short speech.

  ‘I’ll pay for it myself,’ Jerry declared. ‘Nice of Garnett to worry, but if his nerve’s failed, mine hasn’t. I’ve always had a party; I’m not going to stop now.’ He might have been setting up a beachhead in a war. ‘I hope I’ll have your support?’

  ‘Of course,’ Georgie said instantly.

  Lin and I found we too were being fixed with a demanding stare.

  ‘Absolutely,’ I said.

  ‘Um – yes,’ said Lin.

  ‘All for one and one for all!’ Georgie said, getting carried away.

  ‘That’s the spirit!’ Jerry said. ‘We’ll drink to that. I’ll open a bottle now.’ He went off to the kitchen, where he had once told me there was always champagne in the fridge.

  ‘All for one and one for all?’ I repeated. ‘I thought that was our motto?’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Georgie. ‘He’s so ham, it brings out the worst in me.’

  ‘Will anyone come to the party?’ I asked.

  ‘Put it like this,’ Georgie said. ‘If we ask half London, the other half will be pissed off they’ve been overlooked. Big stars will give it a miss – they’ll be too anxious about their public image – but the rent-a-celebs will show up for anything, and the press’ll fight to be there. The important thing is, we’re not picking up the tab.’ With Jerry’s return, she switched the smile back on. ‘Champers! How lovely.’

  We talked more business, drank the champagne, and waited in vain for an opportunity to check out the bathroom. At one point Jerry went into his study to answer a telephone call, but we couldn’t rely on his being gone long enough for us to take a look around. ‘You’ll have to distract him,’ Georgie said, ‘while I make some excuse to go to his room.’

  ‘Why me?’

  ‘You’re his editor. He’s got a fancy for you. Didn’t he encourage you to sunbathe nude on the roof?’

  ‘Not nude. You distract him. He’s much keener on you, especially after all that buttering up. I’ve seen the glint in his eye.’

  ‘You’re the new sex goddess.’

  (God, I was getting to hate that phrase.) ‘Well . . . you’re the old sex goddess. You’ve got far more experience. I can’t do that vamp stuff.’

  ‘Who are you calling old?’

  When Jerry re-emerged Georgie, choosing her moment, asked for the loo. ‘I hope you won’t think it awfully cheeky,’ she said, ‘but could I use your bathroom? Cookie – Emma – tells me it’s amazing. Jacuzzi bath and everything. I’d adore to have a look.’

  ‘Of course,’ Jerry said, expansively. ‘Another time, I must show you around. I’ve got this flat the way I want it now: simple, but not minimalist. I believe in the optimum amount of comfort. Comfort and quality – those are my watchwords. This rug’s a Bokhara, naturally, and that sideboard was originally made for Brighton Pavilion . . .’

  While Georgie allowed herself to be pointed in the direction of the master bedroom and ensuite, I encouraged Jerry to talk more about furniture. He held forth on occasional tables, gilded mirrors, Chippendale chairs and his collection of paintings, while Lin, nudged urgently by me, expressed appreciation at random. I couldn’t help wondering how many of his claims about the provenance of his pieces were exaggerated. I resisted the temptation to inquire the pedigree of the sofas, which looked as if they had been made originally by the furniture department in Liberty’s, or somewhere similar. When Georgie failed to reappear promptly Jerry became slightly twitchy; his Antiques-Roadshow exposition ran down. I was cudgelling my brains to come up with more diversionary tactics when he said abruptly: ‘Do you think Georgie’s all right?’

  ‘I’ll go and see,’ I said, clutching at the straw of opportunity.

  I found her in the master bathroom (if that’s the term) with the door unlocked, on her knees beside the Jacuzzi examining the surround. She didn’t even hear me come in.

  ‘Hi,’ I said.

  Georgie jumped so violently she dropped the nail file which she had been inserting into the crack in the faux-marble. It was metal, and clinked loudly on the ceramic floor. ‘Cookie!’ she gasped, pressing a hand to her bosom. ‘God, you scared me! I thought—’

  ‘I know. I could’ve been Jerry Beauman, too. He’s getting restless. We have to go back. Any luck?’

  ‘No,’ she sighed. ‘But there’s got to be something here. There’s no other reason for this section to be in two pieces. Just give me another minute . . .’ She retrieved the file and reapplied it to the crack.

  ‘We haven’t got another minute. If we all disappear into the bathroom and don’t come back he’s really going to smell a rat. Remember, he’ll be thinking about the money he’s hidden here – if it is here – and that’ll make him seriously paranoid. I’m surprised he ever agreed to your seeing the room alone.’

  ‘He could hardly keep me company in the loo,’ Georgie said as I dragged her to her feet. ‘The money’s here: I can smell it.’ There was a familiar glint in her eye. ‘All we have to do is get it out.’

  ‘Look, I don’t know what you’re planning but we’re not crooks, right? Don’t go all Shallow Grave on me.’

  ‘It isn’t drug money. There are no gangsters on its trail. It’s just fraud money, greed money.’

  ‘And you’re greedy!’

  ‘I’m desperate.’

  Back in the living room, she erased the frown from Jerry’s face with a gush of enthusiasm. Sorry she’d been so long, but she was admiring the gorgeous bedroom (she managed without too much difficulty to charge the phrase with sexual undertones), and then there was that amazing bath! She’d been speculating on what all the different buttons were for, and which jet targeted which part of your anatomy (more undertones). She simply adored Jacuzzis, but she’d never seen one as good as that. Perhaps – one day – would it be an awful nerve . . . ?

  ‘We’ll see,’ Jerry said, flicking on a smile.

  Faintly stunned by Georgie’s audacity – and the fact that she seemed to be getting away with it – I heard her return to the subject of the party. One of the dangers of spending too much time with Jerry Beauman was that, if you lost concentration, you would start to pick up his world view. He had been wrongly maligned, and we had to fight the good fight to expunge the stain from his honour. There were nameless powers out there, trying to do him down. The tabloids were obsessed with scandal and would print any insinuations to pander to the blood lust of the uneducated masses. And so on. Throwing the party (if only to see what it hit) would be a gesture of defiance, a gauntlet in the face of canting hypocrisy, the gutter press, and the aforementioned nameless powers. It would be his way of saying: ‘I’m still the same Jerry Beauman – gallant, unrepentant, triumphant. I’m still king of the heap!’ And inevitably we found ourselves compelled to jump on the tail of his wagon and hang on like grim death for the ride.

  ‘All for one and one for all!’ Georgie said yet again, raising her glass in a toast.

  But
she directed the ghost of a wink at me, and I suspected darkly that it wasn’t Jerry’s success she was toasting.

  Friday brought no respite from our troubles. The weekend brought Andy Pearmain and Catriona to town.

  Chapter 12

  Are you going to Scarborough Fair?

  (Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme.)

  Remember me to one who lives there.

  He once was a true love of mine.

  ANON

  The farmer’s daughter hath ripe red lips;

  (Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese.)

  If you try to approach her away she skips

  Over tables and chairs with apparent ease.

  The farmer’s daughter hath soft brown hair

  (Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese.)

  And I met with a ballad, I can’t say where,

  Which wholly consisted of lines like these.

  CHARLES STUART CALVERLEY: Ballad

  Summer was fading into autumn (it always does, of course, but that doesn’t make it any better), the Big Heat was over, and the trees were changing into their seasonal tints of orange and gold. Not that you see many trees on your average London street, but those we did see looked good. I was told there were spectacular sunsets, if you could only get the buildings out of the way. And with the autumn came Andy Pearmain.

  Lin had screwed her courage to the sticking point – after constant urging by Georgie and me – and had declared, with wan resolution: ‘I’ll tell him myself. I’ll tell him everything. But not with her there.’ So we had to deal with Catriona, sweeping her off for an orgy of shopping in Knightsbridge and Bond Street. Never had two fully paid up members of the shopping sex felt less inclined for retail therapy. To further complicate matters, Vee Corrigan was ill, and as we couldn’t babysit both Andy’s fiancée and Lin’s children, she had to do a last-minute search for a child minder, and was forced to settle for Sean, who was staying at his mother’s after a job abroad and had been trying to rediscover fatherhood. ‘I made him swear to be nice to Meredith,’ Lin said later.

  We were all due to meet at the Groucho around eleven, but I was the only one who was on time. Georgie tends to chronic lateness, except for business appointments, and Lin is often delayed by parental matters, but after I’d been waiting twenty minutes in the lobby I was getting restless. Andy Pearmain got there first, greeting me with faint surprise. He and Lin had spoken to fix the rendezvous, but obviously she hadn’t told him any more about the plan of action. I smiled nervously and wondered what the hell to say. With him was a girl with soft uncoloured hair, springy like heather, and the fresh complexion of someone who spends lots of time outdoors. (In a decade or two she’d be weatherbeaten, but that wasn’t relevant now.) We were introduced over cappuccino, swapped a few polite nothings, and then the three of us sat around, feeling awkward, glancing unobtrusively at our watches every so often.

  ‘Is Lin all right?’ Andy asked me at one point.

  With an eye on Catriona, I said: ‘Fine. She’s fine.’

  ‘Only I thought she sounded rather . . . Anyway, what do you think of this chap Ivor? She seems to have rushed into it just a bit.’

  ‘Just a bit,’ I said.

  ‘Trouble is, she’s always been impulsive in her relationships. When she falls in love, she has to do it at first sight. Most of us start off as friends and then work up to it, but not Lin.’

  ‘We started as friends,’ Catriona volunteered. ‘When I was a little girl, Andy would come over to see my parents, and bring me boxes of chocolates.’

  ‘Our families go way back,’ Andy explained. I might have been imagining it, but I thought he looked uncomfortable with her reminiscence, since it emphasised the fact that he was nearly twenty years her senior.

  Another silence fell, which lasted until Georgie arrived. She apologised fluently for her lateness, blaming it on tube delays, I glared at her, and Andy ordered more cappuccino all round. I don’t normally drink a lot of coffee, and as I sipped my way through my second cup I could feel the lining of my stomach wrinkling up. Georgie was doing her best to kick-start the conversation, but with only limited success. Catriona perked up in response to her questions, telling us how they had flown down from Edinburgh the previous day and spent the evening at the theatre, Andy had suggested Shakespeare but she’d chosen a musical, then they’d had dinner somewhere very smart (‘Le Caprice,’ Andy supplied), and it was so much fun, she always felt like a princess when she was with him. Would we like to see her ring?

  We duly admired a large emerald surrounded by diamond chips. Although her chatter was sprightly enough I felt she wasn’t completely at ease: she stole sidelong looks at Andy every so often, as though seeking his approval, and there was a false note in her vivacity as if she were talking out of tune. In between spurts of conversation, the pauses stretched out, prickly with silent thoughts. Andy appeared to be smiling on automatic, giving the small talk very little of his attention. When Lin got there at last his whole demeanour changed; it occurred to me he had been afraid she wouldn’t come.

  He kissed her on both cheeks and asked: ‘Where’s Ivor? I thought I was going to meet him.’

  ‘He – he couldn’t make it,’ Lin stammered.

  ‘I’ve got a suggestion,’ Georgie said, rising nobly to the occasion. ‘Why don’t Cookie and I take Cat for a wander round Harrods – I gather that was half the reason she came to London – and leave you two to chat for a while? That way Andy misses out on being dragged round the shops and you both get a chance to catch up.’

  Catriona looked pleased, Andy grateful. Lin was pale and almost haggard; I only hoped, once they were alone, she’d manage to get her story out. Meanwhile, the three shoppers left the club, piled into a convenient taxi, and set off for Brompton Road.

  In Harrods, Georgie scanned the store guide for the bridal department: it was the only one with which she wasn’t familiar. But Catriona had other ideas.

  ‘I’ve got all I need for the wedding,’ she said. ‘Mummy had my dress made, and I’m borrowing a tiara that belonged to Andy’s grandmother. What I want is some real clothes, the kind I’ve never had. Clothes like Victoria Beckham wears, or Liz Hurley.’ She added with pride: ‘Andy’s given me a credit card on his account. He says I can spend what I like.’

  For an instant, a spasm crossed Georgie’s features and I could see she was unable to speak. I rushed into the breach. ‘You mean, you’re after designer labels?’

  ‘Yes, but . . . I want clothes I can choose myself.’ I must have looked surprised, since she hastened to explain. ‘You see, I live at home most of the time. I don’t earn enough to pay rent on a place of my own, and Daddy’s a farmer, so he’s not too well off these days, what with foot-and-mouth and everything. Mummy makes such a fuss if I buy things she doesn’t like. But Andy said I could choose whatever I wanted.’

  ‘He told us you worked in publishing,’ I said, still baffled.

  ‘It’s a very small company, doing books in Gaelic. Mostly, I work from home, copy-editing and stuff. I did Gaelic at college.’

  ‘Didn’t you live away from home then?’ Georgie asked.

  ‘No. It was only just up the road, in Larnock, so I drove in every day. I’ve got my brother’s old car.’

  We said no more, but made our way to the escalators and up to Ladies’ Fashions. ‘She isn’t in love with him,’ Georgie said to me once Catriona was safely installed in a changing room. ‘She’s only marrying him as a way of escape. That, and the unlimited spending spree.’

  ‘Who are you to criticise?’ I said. ‘You were all set to marry money, not so long ago.’

  ‘Yes, but I didn’t, did I? I didn’t even get engaged to money. I wouldn’t even sleep with money.’

  ‘Maybe you just never met the right millionaire.’

  At that point Catriona called out, demanding our opinion, and proceeded to parade for our benefit in an assortment of very revealing garments. Her rather boyish, small-breasted figure could carry off th
e wispy tops and bare midriff, but I couldn’t help thinking it would be something of a shock to Andy, who liked his women wholesome and au naturel, with no dress sense. Clearly, the same thought occurred to Georgie. ‘You look great,’ she said, ‘but you need a tan.’

  ‘I never tan,’ Catriona said sadly, gazing down at her pallid stomach.

  ‘Never say never,’ said Georgie. ‘Haven’t you heard of faking it?’

  ‘Doesn’t it turn orange and go all streaky?’

  ‘Not if you have it done professionally.’

  ‘I’d love to,’ Catriona sighed. ‘I’ve always wanted to be really brown. Not that it would be much good against my hair. I wish I was blonde. Sometimes I go a bit fairer in the sun, but . . .’

  I detected a diabolical gleam in Georgie’s gaze. ‘We can fix that,’ she said. ‘What do you think that credit card is for?’

  At the Groucho, Lin was sitting in front of a cup of congealing cappuccino failing to meet Andy’s eye. ‘Are you going to tell me about it?’ he said gently. ‘Don’t say everything’s all right, because I can see it isn’t. I’m not a fool, Lin. Your friend Cookie has been fobbing me off for weeks.’ And, after a pause: ‘I don’t understand why you won’t tell me. We’ve known each other so long. I’ve never let you down, have I? I’ve always been here for you.’

  ‘You’re getting married,’ Lin said.

  ‘That won’t change anything,’ he responded. ‘When you get to know Cat you’ll be bound to love her. The two of you have so much in common. She reminds me—’

  ‘Yes, you said.’

  There was another, longer pause.

  Then: ‘So what about Ivor? Where is he?’ And, with the edge of a smile: ‘Is Ivor over?’

  Lin ignored the humour. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I messed up again. I always do, don’t I?’

  ‘Oh my dear . . . I’m so sorry.’