by Lizzie Lamb
Then the door opened again and a troupe of long-legged beauties wearing minimal clothing but some serious jewellery walked out of the back entrance. Well, not so much walked as covered the ground in long, languorous strides with legs that looked like they belonged on thoroughbred racehorses - all bone, sinew and slender ankles. Charlee looked at her definitely average legs and wondered how it would feel to have those added inches. Or to be able to walk on five-inch Jimmy Choos without falling over. But there was no time to give full rein to her neuroses, she could feel Ffinch’s eyes boring a hole in the back of her skull and hear him saying: What are you playing at, Montague - get closer. Move in for the kill.
The models joined the prince and his friends and they air-kissed and schmoozed each other big time. The blue bloods happy to rub shoulders with the supermodels, and the models glad of the validation they gained from mixing with the prince and his entourage. Then Anastasia Markova spotted Charlee’s mobile.
‘No photos. No photos,’ she shrieked, holding her hands over her face. Charlee gave a shrug and put the phone on the table, after making sure the voice recorder was activated.
‘Whatever, darling,’ Charlee drawled, picking up her drink and moving away from them. She drank the red wine in several thirsty gulps and then as the bouquet hit her taste buds suppressed a wow of delight. Whatever bottle it had come out of had spent long years in the darkness of a temperature regulated wine cellar.
Vin de Pays it was not.
Some desultory conversation passed between the disparate group, mostly about how this was Markova’s hen night and how close her wedding was. Then the prince and his friends stubbed out their cigarettes and went back into the nightclub. Charlee, sitting on the large sofa, made a great play of letting her cigarette burn down and flicking the ash onto the ground. The models slipped into Russian and she looked away from them while the recorder did its business and captured every word. She was trying so hard not to look in their direction that, when Anastasia Markova touched her on the shoulder, she almost jumped out of her skin.
‘Is vintage Chanel, no?’ Markova said pointing at Charlee’s bag and reaching out to stroke it. ‘You permit?’ She didn’t wait for an answer but un-looped the bag and without more ado looked inside. Flaming cheek, Charlee thought, but smiled sweetly - had she left her manners on the Russian Steppes along with her impoverished background? Markova was checking out the stitching with all the thoroughness of a customs officer looking for drugs. ‘Is real deal,’ she declared and gave Charlee a beatific smile, admitting her into their circle. ‘Cartier,’ she pulled out the cigarette case and lighter and showed the other models who cooed over it. They spoke in rapid Russian and Charlee gleaned that they loved vintage but it cost too much, even on their wages. ‘Lucky girr-ll.’ She passed the bag and the cigarette case round her girlfriends. ‘Your man buy this?’ she asked directly, slanting Charlee an envious look.
‘Oh nawr,’ Charlee affected an upper-class drawl, ‘It belongs to Mummy.’ She thought about her man sitting not so many metres away, watching, taking photos and no doubt getting ready to mark her performance out of ten. Low marks, like Craig Revel Horwood in Strictly - a big, fat five probably. They returned the bag and cigarette case back to her and the phone on the table rang. Smiling apologetically, she reached for it.
‘Darling, we were just talking about yow,’ she said, in an accent no one had used for at least fifty years. Not even the Queen.
‘Okay, you’ve got what we need …’
‘But darling, I don’t want to come home just yet,’ she protested, and laughed one of those tinkling laughs she’d read about in novels. ‘Don’t send the chauffeur round for me, sweetie, I’m going back in for a nightcap.’
‘Montague, you’ve done well, don’t overplay your hand.’ Charlee pulled a petulant expression and gave a large sigh.
‘Honestly, sweetie, you can be such a party pooper.’ She turned towards the models who were openly listening to her conversation, no doubt hoping to improve their English. ‘He’s such a pain in the a-r-s-e,’ she spelled out, pointing at her own derriere. ‘But he loves me to bits! Can’t wait to marry me. But I’m in no hurry to get tied down, or have babies,’ she informed them, pulling a face. Nodding sagely, they stubbed out their cigarettes and made their way back towards the nightclub.
Anastasia Markova turned. ‘Get married soon. Looks fade. Men change, grow cold. You join us for drink? It is my hen’s nights.’ She smiled uncertainly at Charlee, looking like a child in the playground, anxious to make a new friend.
‘Of course. Go ahead, I’ll just finish talking to my fiancé and join you.’
Her fiancé in the skip was less than impressed. ‘Don’t even think it Montague. Wait until they’ve left and then make your way down the alley and towards the camper van. Don’t glance at the skip - wait in the street for me, and don’t forget the bloody phone …’
‘Relax, darling, remember your blood pressure,’ she said sweetly before cutting him off. The models walked back into the nightclub as graceful as borzois. She waited until the door closed and then made her way down the alley and into the side street towards Ffinch’s camper van - the theme from Mission Impossible playing in her head.
Move over Ethan Hawke - there’s a new kid on the block.
Chapter Twelve
Hand Over the Phone, Ma’am,
and No One Gets Hurt
Five minutes later, Ffinch joined her by the camper van carrying his camera case and the Waitrose bags.
‘Here,’ he said shortly, shoving them into her arms while he fumbled with the keys. ‘In, Montague.’ He climbed up into the driver’s seat, drumming his fingers impatiently on the steering wheel while Charlee put the bags behind the passenger seat and fastened her seat belt. ‘Right?’
‘Right,’ she replied in equal tones.
She let out a sigh of anger and frustration; if she’d been expecting a pat on the back for a job well done, it obviously wouldn’t be forthcoming. Somewhat randomly, she remembered a documentary about how the birth pill had passed through millions of women’s kidneys and into the water supply overloading it with oestrogen. It must be true, she thought, because Ffinch manifested all the classic symptoms of PMT - mood swings, irritability and signs of depression. As for bloating - if anything he was too thin and looked like he could gain a couple of stones in weight without losing his chiselled features and appealing physique.
She gave a huff of annoyance when it became apparent that he had nothing to say to her. Folding her arms tightly across her chest, she stared moodily into the traffic and worked herself up into a strop.
‘That was well done, Charlee. I couldn’t have managed without you, Charlee. You are destined for great things, Charlee,’ she mocked. But he concentrated on the road ahead and ignored her.
‘It wasn’t well done, as you put it,’ he finally snapped back. ‘You put the whole mission at risk with your ridiculous play-acting. “He loves me to bits. Can’t wait to marry me”. What was that all about?’
‘Just staying in role, Ffinch, just staying in role. And it worked, didn’t it? Another couple of minutes and we’d have been BFFs,’ she said, goading him. This was a game she excelled at. Her brothers might have been able to wrestle her to the ground but, verbally, she could tie them in knots.
‘BF - what’s?’ he demanded. He narrowly missed a cyclist as he turned sideways to look at her. The cyclist gave them the bird and snarled something that didn’t quite fit under the heading: festive greetings.
‘Best Friends Forever,’ she explained and gave him a severe look. ‘Don’t you think it’s about time you got down with the kids, Ffinch? You’re only about - what - thirty? Yet you act like an old man.’
‘Sorry if I don’t go round behaving like Pollyanna on crack cocaine every minute of the day,’ he snarled back. ‘Time spent in your company, Montague, is exhausting.’
‘Well, time spent in your company is - depressing. Lighten up for God’s sake …’
‘Yeah, yeah - spare me the wounded hero act, cos I ain’t impressed.’ Charlee knew she had to say her piece even if it meant she’d never accompany him on another assignment. Judging by his grim expression, no one had spoken to him like this in many a long year. ‘You have a foul temper, but you’re not taking it out on me. Not after I’ve done everything you asked and the mission is a success. Bastard,’ she muttered under her breath, tossing the evening bag into the back of the camper van. It hit the quilted side panels with a resounding thunk. Sod his vintage Chanel - and sod him, too.
After the exchange of pleasantries, they remained silent and lost in thought as London decked out in all its Christmas finery slipped past them. Soon they were outside Charlee’s bedsit and she was slamming the door of the van behind her with scant regard for its provenance. Leaving the two bags of food in the van - she hoped it would go mouldy and give him a gippy tummy over Christmas - she headed for the front door. As she searched for the key in her handbag, she heard the camper van door open and close and then Ffinch was by her side. She turned round to face him, her back pressed against the door, waiting for his apology.
‘Phone,’ he said shortly. He held out his hand, making it plain he believed she’d deliberately held onto the phone to gain leverage. She slapped it into the palm of his outstretched hand like she was glad to be shot of it - and him. ‘Thanks,’ he managed, as if at last remembering his manners and the fact he was the experienced partner, she was the rookie and deserved some praise.
‘No problem,’ she snarled, glaring at him under the porch light. When he made no attempt to leave, she looked him up and down. ‘Was there something else? If you think I’m asking you up for a coffee, think again. As of now I’m on holiday and I don’t have to be nice to you.’
‘That was you being nice?’ he asked, but this time a flash of humour lit up his eyes. He looked down at the iPhone and then back up at Charlee as if realising what they’d accomplished that evening. And that, in some way, their arguing had, fleetingly, proved cathartic and chased away whatever demons haunted his waking hours.
‘Believe me, you don’t want to see me when I’m really pissed off …’
‘That I can believe,’ he butted in, a smile quirking at the corner of his mouth. ‘Good work, Montague.’
‘No problemo, Ffinch.’ Charlee opened the door, walked into the dingy hall and her mood of excitement and euphoria evaporated. She swung back to face him, feeling absurdly as if he’d walked her home after a date and that it would be the most natural thing to lean forward and kiss him.
‘Goodnight, Montague.’ He made his way towards the camper van shaking his head, as though she took some fathoming out.
‘Ffinch?’ Charlee called from the door.
‘Yes?’ He half-turned and looked at her expectantly, clearly believing she was going to apologise for being so confrontational.
‘Don’t forget to return my flask after the holidays, will you?’ With that, Charlee closed the door on his bemused expression. ‘Merry Christmas, pardner,’ she said softly as she climbed the stairs to her apartment, ‘rock beats scissors, every time.’
Church bells ringing the Christmas morning changes seeped into Charlee’s subconscious and she dreamed she was walking out of the village church on the arm of the man she loved. Then, as always happened in this recurring dream, she looked up at her new husband only to discover that he had no face. Her moment of complete, sublime happiness evaporated and she was fully awake, heart pounding and with a hollow feeling, as if all the love and happiness had been scoured out of her. She longed to fall back into sleep, to recapture the high, which was so intense it was a wrench to wake from it.
But her mother had other ideas.
‘Char-lotte.’ She knocked on the bedroom door, entered and drew back the curtains with an exaggerated sigh. ‘It’s Christmas morning; I hope you’re not going to lie in bed all day.’
Johnny Depp - in full Pirates of the Caribbean mode looked down from the wall, his gorgeous brown eyes rimmed with kohl. Charlee had had many an angst-ridden conversation with Cap’n Jack during her teenage years, but he’d never once come up with a practical solution to the problem that was her mother. Time he was taken down off the wall and she arranged her bedroom into something more befitting her age and status as a working woman.
‘Cut me some slack, Mum, I didn’t arrive until after three this morning. I’ve been on a very important assignment with an award-winning journalist.’ Charlee quickly dismissed the memory of their argument on her doorstep. She sat up in bed, her unruly mop of blonde hair sticking up at all angles and last night’s make-up smeared across the pillow. She’d been so exhausted after arriving home in Berkshire that she’d parked her Mini under the carport and fallen straight into bed without brushing her teeth or removing her war paint.
‘That’s no excuse arriving so late,’ her mother remonstrated, dismissing Charlee’s very important assignment with an award-winning journalist as if it was no more than a trip to the supermarket. ‘So, let’s have you downstairs, everyone’s waiting to open their presents. Slip on your dressing gown, no time for anything else. You can get dressed afterwards. Miranda’s making breakfast.’
At the mention of her son’s wife, Barbara Montague smiled. Charlee groaned, crossed herself underneath the duvet and irreverently paraphrased the scriptures: This is my beloved daughter-in-law in whom I am well pleased. She wasn’t looking forward to spending Christmas with her brother, George, or his bloody wife. Time spent in their company would be a further affirmation of how marvellous they were at … well, just about everything. What high achievers the Montagues were in general and how hopeless she appeared by comparison, despite her academic achievements.
‘A double first is so much easier to achieve these days,’ her brothers had informed matter of factly when her results were in. ‘And of course, your Uni isn’t even in the Russell Group, let alone the top five … you’ll find it hard to get a job as a researcher or a translator in a top-notch establishment with those credentials.’
But Charlee had never wanted to be a researcher, or, as her mother kept suggesting, a language teacher. She wanted excitement, the thrill of the chase - like last night, only with more danger. And perhaps, not sharing a skip with a bad-tempered journo such as Ffinch.
‘Are you listening to me, Charlotte?’
‘Yes, Mum,’ Charlee dragged herself out of another daydream. Why, she wondered, were dreams so much more satisfying than real life?
‘Well, downstairs with you. Quickly now.’ Her mother spoke to her like she was a teenager and not a grown woman of almost twenty-four.
After her mother closed the door, Charlee scurried round pulling on an ancient dressing gown that was way too short for her and searched for her slippers. She’d left her presents in the hall last night and, as was family tradition, her father would have put them under the tree in the sitting room. She’d also noticed that the house was fully trimmed for Christmas; that was usually her job. But, clearly, those days were over. Miranda had usurped her position as daughter-of-the-house and she and Barbara had decked the hall with boughs of holly without Charlee’s help.
‘Tra-la-flippin’-la,’ she said, in front of the mirror. She attempted to rub some of the blue eyeliner from under her eyes and rake a comb through her uncooperative thatch of hair. She stuck out her tongue; it was white and coated and unattractive. She grimaced, she looked a total wreck but maybe there was time for her to brush her teeth …
‘Charl-ee,’ her father called from the foot of the stairs.
‘The world’s not going to come to an end and the four horsemen of the apocalypse come galloping across the lawn if I keep Miranda’s egg en cocotte waiting. Is it?’ she asked Cap’n Jack. Slipping on a pair of slippers fashioned like oversized cows' heads, Charlee squirted herself with perfume and
made her way downstairs. She was still buzzing from last night’s mission and was desperate to ring Poppy and talk it over, but she wouldn’t see Poppy until tomorrow evening when the Montagues and the Walkers met up for Christmas drinks.
Crossing the large, square hall, Charlee entered the farmhouse kitchen to find Miranda stationed by the Aga serving some ghastly vegetarian, low-fat version of the 'full English' to an adoring George. Charlee’s other three brothers weren’t expected until just before lunch and she was glad of it - Miranda’s health food kick would put a damper on everyone’s Christmas.
‘Quorn sausage, Charlotte?’ Miranda waved a spatula in Charlee’s direction with missionary zeal. ‘George and I are vegans now,’ she informed her parents-in-law. ‘I do hope that doesn’t affect Christmas lunch? If so, we’re quite happy to eat the vegetables, as long as they haven’t been cooked in goose fat. And, of course, no Christmas pudding, eh, Georgie. Suet,’ she explained to her mother-in-law and patted her flat stomach.
For a moment, George’s besotted smile slipped and he looked quite glum. He loved his food and Charlee could have sworn he looked longingly at the dog’s bowl, which was full of leftovers from the Montagues’ Christmas Eve roast dinner. She hid a smile and poured herself a coffee. George had married Miranda for her family connections and to further his ambition of becoming an MP. She rather suspected that Miranda had given him a hair shirt as a wedding present and he’d been forced to wear it ever since.
‘We’re hoping to get pregnant very soon and a healthy diet will aid George’s sperm count,’ Miranda informed as she took her place at the table. ‘We want good, strong swimmers, don’t we Georgie?’ Charlee’s father winced, and she imagined little spermatozoa in stripy Edwardian bathing costumes and mob caps, coated in goose fat, preparing to swim the gynaecological equivalent of the English Channel.
