Stolen Beginnings

by Susan Lewis

  ‘Is that all we’re going to see of you, Maddy?’ a photographer from the Daily News called out.

  ‘’Fraid so,’ she laughed, ‘but there’s always the legs,’ and everyone cheered as she hitched up her dress, fell back into the arms of one of the drivers and nestled a foot in the lap of another.

  ‘This way, Maddy,’ someone called out.

  ‘Over here,’ shouted another.

  ‘Let the drivers put their hands on your legs. That’s it.’

  ‘Smile, Maddy.’

  ‘How about giving us the look?’

  ‘How about sitting on one of the cars?’

  Madeleine looked at Deidre, and when Deidre nodded she allowed the photographers to lead her over to the pits. The British drivers followed, and as she sat astride the cylindrical bonnet, her lovely hair glinting like silver in the brilliant sunshine, they climbed on behind her, laughing as she threw out her arms and let herself fall against them.

  ‘Faaantastic!’

  ‘Into the lens, Maddy.’

  ‘Give us that famous pout.’

  ‘Beeeautiful!’

  ‘Lick the lips. That’s it.’

  ‘Go for it, Maddy!’

  Laughing, Madeleine threw herself forward and spread her hands across the bonnet. Then her eyes narrowed, and gazing to a point just beyond the lenses she assumed a look of pure ecstasy – as if she were making love to the car.

  ‘Disgusting,’ Deidre teased, as the session finally started to break up. ‘Roy’s gone back to the marquee so let’s go and see if we can find him.’

  Straightening her clothes and running her fingers through her hair, Madeleine followed Deidre across the grass. She looked about her, at the empty stands and rambling acres of countryside beyond, and had a sudden disturbing sense of isolation. It had happened to her when she was in New York too, when she’d wondered what she was doing there with so many people who were little more than strangers. In a few short months her life had changed so completely that at times it almost frightened her. It was difficult to associate herself with the strip-o-gram girl in Bristol now, or to believe that she had ever been that little girl who grew up in Devon – and was always up to no good. She wondered what Marian was doing, and if she had gone back to Devon to live with her mother. Her eyes moved restlessly across the distant horizon and she was suddenly overwhelmed by a longing to see them.

  ‘You can’t go into a party with a face like that,’ Deidre told her. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Madeleine answered, ‘just a bit tired after New York and everything, I suppose.’

  Smoothing the hair back from her face, Deidre gave her an affectionate smile. ‘Well, you can have a nice long liein tomorrow, so come on, cheer up.’

  Madeleine shrugged, then lifting her eyes to Deidre’s, she treated her to one of her more mischievous grins, before taking her arm and informing her that she was like an old mother hen.

  Inside the marquee more photographers were buzzing around, and scantily-clad blondes draped themselves over Enrico Tarallo, who had that day taken Ferrari to their third win of the season. Madeleine sipped her champagne and watched the brainless bimbos with their fluffy blonde hair, piano teeth and sun-wizened tits. Tarallo seemed embarrassed, as if he wished he was anywhere in the world but in the clutches of these glory-seeking women, and Madeleine smiled to herself – given half a chance, she’d have him eating out of her hand. But Charles Anstey-Smythe, Deidre’s newspaper editor friend, was busily introducing her to his glitzy aristocratic set, and Dario was there, camera at the ready, to capture the moment. Madeleine smiled disdainfully at the other models, who started whispering and snickering behind their hands as they realised she was once again stealing the limelight.

  ‘Aren’t I going to have my picture taken with Enrico whatever-his-name-is?’ she whispered to Roy as he emerged from the depths of the party.

  ‘We were just talking about that,’ he answered, struggling with a champagne cork, ‘and we thought not. The British boys didn’t do so well today, and it’ll look better if you’re seen to be supporting them, rather than deserting to the winning side like everyone else. Get your popularity stakes up, you know what I mean?’ The cork suddenly popped and Madeleine shrieked as a fountain of champagne gushed from the bottle. Then she was grabbed from behind and someone whispered in her ear:

  ‘Come and dance, you sexy creature.’

  It was no one she recognised, but it didn’t stop her kicking off her shoes and twisting and gyrating in time to the music. Roy kept passing her more glasses of champagne, and as the band played on, so the circle of men around her started to thicken. The champagne was going to her head and she was tempted to do a striptease, but Paul had said he didn’t like her doing it unless he was with her. So she made do with rubbing herself against whoever she was dancing with, then backing away, laughing, when hands started to roam too close to their targets.

  As the evening wore on and Dario and his team slipped away with their cameras, Madeleine’s energy began to wane. Noticing this, Deidre led her to a chair and sat her down with a glass of lemonade.

  ‘Enjoying yourself?’ she asked.

  ‘Fantastic,’ Madeleine slurred. ‘But I wish Paul and Shamir were here too. Where is Shamir?’

  ‘At her house in Los Angeles.’

  ‘Really? When did she go there? She didn’t mention it to me.’

  ‘As a matter of fact, she did, while you were getting dressed after the Fairplay session, but you were so preoccupied you didn’t hear. Anyway, you’ve got her number there, haven’t you?’

  Madeleine nodded. ‘Somewhere. How long’s she there for?’

  ‘A few weeks. She’s working out there.’

  Somebody came up to Deidre then, and started talking about mutual friends of theirs; yawning, Madeleine looked round the room to see what everyone else was doing.

  She was gratified to find that most of the men were still looking at her, even though they were dancing with other women. She spotted Enrico Tarallo sitting in a far corner with a real plain-Jane, so she fixed him with her eyes, willing him to look her way, but she didn’t have much success because he seemed engrossed in whatever the woman was saying.

  ‘It’s his wife,’ Deidre informed her.

  Madeleine’s eyes rounded with surprise and she turned back for another look.

  ‘You’re asking yourself the question the whole world asked when he married her,’ Deidre chuckled. ‘But it seems he’s been in love with her since they were children.’

  ‘But she’s so ugly!’

  Deidre’s face darkened. ‘That’s a cruel remark to make about anyone, Madeleine,’ she said, ‘and I don’t want to tear anything like it again. Especially not in public.’

  Feeling suitably chastened, Madeleine mumbled an apology, but then ruined it by saying, ‘I bet I could change his mind about her.’

  Deidre sighed. ‘Try exercising some modesty, Madeleine. And at the same time forget Tarallo. Better women than you have tried and not one of them succeeded – and I don’t want you making a fool of yourself. What you’re looking at in the corner over there is true love, so don’t go tampering. Besides, what about Paul?’

  Madeleine’s face fell. She really wished he was with her. It’s all very well being in a place like this, she thought, but it’d be a heck of a lot better if Paul was here too. She reckoned it was that sort of thing Enrico was thinking. All very nice, winning and that, and being the star of the party, but being with someone you love is much nicer.

  She danced some more, and screamed with laughter at the most inane compliments, but her eyes never moved far from the Tarallos; and when they eventually got up to leave, sneaking away quietly, she looked round for Deidre. ‘Can we go now?’ she said, when she found her.

  Deidre smiled and squeezed her hand. ‘Missing Paul?’

  Madeleine nodded. ‘I haven’t seen him for nearly two weeks.’

  ‘I know. I’ll just go and tell Roy we’re leaving, I e
xpect he’ll want to stay on. Then once I’ve found Anne I’ll get her to bring the car round. You wait here – and don’t drink any more.’

  Madeleine grinned, and Deidre tweaked her nose. ‘What am I going to do with you?’ she laughed, and shaking her head, she disappeared into the crowd.

  On the way back in the car Deidre sat quietly watching Madeleine as she stripped off her clothes and decked herself out in the fishnet body-stocking, suspenders and other accessories she’d bought in New York. What she took off she stuffed into a bag, then sat back in her erotic splendour to wait for the journey’s end.

  By the time Anne pulled up outside the mews house in Holland Park, it was past one in the morning. Anne helped Madeleine to the door with her luggage, and Deidre tried not to be shocked that Madeleine hadn’t bothered to cover herself up while she was in the street. They kissed one another goodnight, and Madeleine was still standing at the door waving when Anne and Deidre turned out of the mews.

  Once inside, Madeleine’s only stop en route to the bedroom was the bathroom. There she looked herself over in the mirror, daubed perfume between her breasts and her inner thighs, then pulling her nipples through the holes of her body-stocking, she licked her lips before turning off the light and creeping quietly up the stairs.

  The bedroom door was ajar and she could hear the steady rhythm of his breathing. She could have sneaked in beside him and woken him in a way that always aroused him, but then he wouldn’t see the way she looked. So, resting one foot on the dressing table stool, giving a final check to her suspenders and hitching the body-stocking higher on her hips, she threw back her head and flicked the switch, flooding the room with light.

  She heard a movement in the bed as Paul turned over and blinked open his eyes. She waited, so aroused now that she couldn’t even smile at what she was doing. The bed creaked gently as he left it, and though he didn’t touch her she could almost feel his hands on her body.

  ‘Madeleine.’ His voice was quiet.

  She lifted her head. He was standing beside her, completely naked, and she smiled right into his eyes. He didn’t return the smile, but turned to look at the bed. Frowning, she followed his eyes – then shock turned her blood to ice. Not even a sheet covered the nudity of the sleeping figure. Her eyes flew back to Paul’s, but he looked away. Then slowly he walked back to the bed and gently shook Harry Freemantle awake.

  – 15 –

  Hearing footsteps in the hall outside, Marian looked up from her desk, wondering if Stephanie had come back for something; but it was Matthew, and when she saw him, his black hair curling round his collar and his strong chin sporting at least a day’s growth of beard, her heart twisted in a way that only plunged her deeper into melancholy.

  He glanced up from the newspaper he was reading, and when he saw her looking at him, he frowned. ‘Why the long face?’ he asked.

  She attempted a smile. ‘Oh, no reason. I was just thinking.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Nothing in particular.’ And she turned away. Even if she knew what was really going on in her mind he was the last person she’d be able to tell. She wondered, from his relaxed manner, if the row he’d had with Stephanie had actually mattered to him, but that was none of her business, so she picked up a handful of letters and stuffed them into a drawer. Then she realised that she hadn’t meant to do that, and took them out again.

  Matthew strolled across the office and came to stand in front of her. ‘I won’t bite,’ he smiled, and again Marian’s heart responded with a painful lurch. It was the first time she’d seen him since the day Kathleen had come into the office, and since then she had done her utmost to persuade herself that she was not falling for him. She’d thought she had succeeded, but now, seeing him stand there with his dark head on one side, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his jeans, and those wonderfully compelling eyes looking down at her, she knew she hadn’t.

  Again she tried to smile, but realising that her eyes were about to fill with tears, she excused herself and disappeared into the kitchen.

  But even away from his scrutiny it was no better; her mind felt as though it might burst with the confusion of her thoughts. For days, now, she had been increasingly oppressed by the weight of all that was happening to her. First there was her mother, who, just as she had expected, insisted that she make contact with Madeleine; Marian had now been back in London for three days following her weekend in Devon, and had yet to do anything about it. Then there was Stephanie, who had poured her heart out the night she’d walked out on Matthew, and was still suffering because, though he had called on several occasions, she had refused to speak to him – for reasons of pride, Marian supposed. And then there were her own feelings for Matthew, feelings that she now knew had been stealing up on her for weeks. Only Paul had ever aroused her in this way before, though somehow with Matthew it felt different. Perhaps it was because her feelings were in no way reciprocated – or perhaps it was the way he sometimes looked so intently into her eyes – but whatever it was, there was an aura about him . . . Several times, she had found herself fantasising about him in a way that made her skin prickle with shame. Shame because of her disloyalty to Stephanie, and shame because she could imagine how horrified Matthew would be if he knew. Then, of course, there was the strange encounter with Art Douglas. But that she wouldn’t think about, she would just pretend it hadn’t happened, then maybe it would go away.

  She filled the kettle and stood gazing at it, waiting for it to boil. Her thoughts were striking out in so many directions that when Matthew spoke to her, she almost leapt from her skin.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, putting a hand out to steady her. ‘I didn’t mean to startle you.’

  ‘No, no, I’m fine,’ she said. ‘I was miles away. What were you saying?’

  ‘Only that I wouldn’t mind a coffee if you’re making one.’

  ‘Of course.’

  He let her go and went to perch on the high stool in the corner. She was achingly aware of his doseness in the cramped space of the kitchen, and didn’t know whether she longed for him to go or stay.

  ‘We haven’t seen you for a while,’ she remarked, taking another cup from the cupboard. ‘How did the commercial go last week?’

  ‘Slowly. I’d forgotten how much I’d come to rely on Woody, but don’t tell him, it’ll go to his head.’

  ‘He’s back from holiday now. He called in here yesterday.’

  ‘Did he? How was he?’

  ‘Brown. Smoking. Restless.’

  ‘Sounds like Woody.’

  They lapsed into silence and Marian spooned coffee into the cups, then turned to the kettle, willing it to boil. She knew he was watching her, and knew too that his eyes were gently mocking – the way they always were when someone showed signs of discomfort.

  ‘So,’ he said finally, ‘where’s Stephanie?’

  ‘Gone to lunch with Hazel Ridley.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘And even if you did, you wouldn’t tell me. But tell me this, is she ever intending to speak to me again?’

  Keeping her eyes on the kettle, Marian shrugged. ‘You’ll have to ask Stephanie that.’ She took the milk from the fridge and started a hopeless struggle with the carton.

  ‘Which I would if she’d answer my calls,’ he said, taking the carton, opening it, then handing it back to her. ‘It can’t go on like this, you know. Apart from anything else, it might prove a little difficult trying to shoot a movie with the producer and director not on speaking terms.’

  ‘I’m sure you’ll find a way,’ she smiled.

  His eyebrows rose at that, and then he laughed. ‘I don’t suppose my daughter called this morning, did she?’

  Marian shook her head. ‘Were you expecting her to?’

  ‘Not expecting, hoping. I saw her yesterday at the house and thought I had persuaded her to have dinner with me tonight. She said she’d ring and let me know.’ He sighed. ‘I guess she’s decided against
it.’

  At last the kettle boiled and Marian filled the two cups. As she handed one to him, his fingers brushed against hers and he looked surprised at the colour that seeped into her cheeks.

  ‘You think I’m a bastard for the way I’ve treated Stephanie, don’t you?’ he said.

  ‘Does it really matter what I think?’

  He grinned, then took a mouthful of coffee. ‘Did she tell you what we rowed about? Yes, of course she did. But if she hadn’t walked out, or would deign to return my calls, then I could explain to her why I don’t want her to move in with me.’

  Knowing he was about to tell her, Marian’s heart started to beat faster. Of course, it would be nothing to do with her, it was preposterous even to think it, but nevertheless she couldn’t look at him as he continued.

  ‘It’s Samantha,’ he said. ‘She hasn’t got over me leaving Kathleen yet, and I don’t want to complicate matters further by moving Stephanie in. At least, not until Sam’s settled down.’

  Marian looked down at her coffee, the nauseating grip of envy clenching her stomach – though whether the envy was directed at Samantha or Stephanie she didn’t know.

  ‘There is something the matter,’ he said, putting his fingers under her chin and forcing her to look at him. ‘What is it?’

  She turned her head away, unable to meet the concern in his eyes. ‘Oh, it’s nothing.’

  ‘It looks more than nothing to me. No one’s upset you, have they?’

  ‘No, no. It’s just my mother, she wants me to contact Madeleine and I’m not sure how to go about it, or what I’ll say when I do.’

  He smiled. ‘Well, what you say is up to you, but as for finding her, maybe I could help.’