The Plot

by Irving Wallace

  Sighing, she resumed with the sunburn lotion. She was nearly done, having just taken off her sunglasses to touch up the area below her eyes, when she heard them approaching. Her head came up as the invaders, led by the attendant, abruptly turned off to the row in front, but one of them, a curly-haired man in his thirties, an albino almost, lingered to admire her nudity. He was beaming his compliment, when suddenly, his brow furrowed, his grin froze, and he chased off after his male companions.

  Turning her back to them, Medora knew what to expect. The only question was whether she would overhear it or not. She would hear it, of course. Unrepressed excitement, of course.

  “Nigel, Nigel, have a look. Isn’t that—blimey, I’ll bet ten bob it is, am I right?—isn’t that Medora Hart? You know, the Jameson girl?”

  “You’re dreaming. Where?”

  “Shhh. Over there.”

  Brazenly, anger controlled and defiant, she turned to face the voices and give them their bloody ten bob’s worth of the Jameson girl.

  “Cor! I’ll be damned!” she heard one exclaim, and as she turned her back to them once more and slipped on her sunglasses, she could hear their silence, feel their beastly bulging eyes on her nude back. Then came their faint whisperings to the women, and the little gurgles and gigglings of sensation. Their first day, their whole damn holiday, was made, and her day, like countless other days, was horribly ruined.

  She wanted to stalk off, but she would not give those holier-than-thous the satisfaction, and so she was trapped. Well, at least she wouldn’t give them any more free looks. If they wanted to see the Jameson girl naked, they could bloody well pay for it in some damn club.

  She lowered herself to the pad, out of their sight, and lay on her back, wriggling once or twice to make herself comfortable, and then still on her back, arms straight at her sides, legs outstretched, she let the sun beat down on her, hoping it would consume and cremate her and let her be freed forever from this bloody travail of anti-suicide that was called staying alive.

  But after a while, as she lay there inert, allowing the sun to caress and gently knead her tight muscles, her anger melted into tiny pools of remembrances, and the ones up ahead with their Peeping Tom uncleanliness and gaucherie had dissolved in the welcomed blaze from above.

  And so all that remained, at last, as it always had, was the Jameson girl.

  Isn’t that Medora Hart, the Jameson girl? You bet your tight little arse it is, Nigel, old boy.

  It always came back to her like this, some cue, some fragments of searing recollection, some fighting to beat them away and leave her free, but then there were too many fragments closing in on her and her fists were helpless, and rather than fight any more she would lie back and surrender to all of them, to all the experiences of the past, and let memory have its way until it had used her and been sated and left her a wretched lump curled in self-pity and whimpering helplessness.

  The Jameson girl met the Jameson man just after her seventeenth birthday. A few months before, increasingly aware that she would never raise the money for beautician’s school by trying to save from her shopgirl’s salary, and increasingly aware that her maturing face and body had commercial value, she had answered the advertisement of a nightclub in Soho off Piccadilly Circus. The nightclub was interviewing applicants for “the lucrative” position of cigarette girl, “must be young, pretty, shapely, well-mannered, of amiable disposition.” Without her mother’s knowledge, Medora applied, and although a line of candidates a half-block long stood outside the cabaret, she was hired two minutes after the manager saw her and the rest were sent home. Her income, nine pounds a week in salary, five pounds a week in tips, staggered her. She would soon be richer than a princess.

  The only uncomfortable aspect of the new position was the attire that she was expected to wear. The costume consisted of a top hat, a sateen vest cut daringly low and leaving her midriff exposed, an abbreviated skirt that was slit hip high, with long sheer black silk stockings drawn up beneath, and a pair of high-heeled pumps. Outside of her bedroom, she had never revealed so much of her adolescent figure. But the money was really super, the gem-studded cigarette tray made it seem less immoral, the management did not require that she sit with customers, and so, excitedly informing her mother that she had become a model for an advertising photographer whose main eccentricity was a preference for working evenings and whose main account was an exclusive milliner in George Street, she began the job.

  Although located in the heart of raffish and exotic Soho, on Old Compton Street, the club in which Medora Hart made her public debut was considered one of London’s better cabarets. It was not as large as Murray’s or the Bal Tabarin. It was similar to, if somewhat more crowded than, the Gargoyle or Eve. If Medora’s judgment, based on the women’s gowns and the men’s accents and tips, was accurate, the clientele represented wealth and the Establishment. What amazed her most, as she passed among these male sophisticates night after night, was the attention that she received. Even though the gorgeous, sleek, tall showgirls and chorines on the stage were in a permanent state of undress, the majority of male eyes followed Medora when she meandered among the tables and the stands holding silver champagne buckets. After several months, her head turned by compliments (accepted) and requests for her telephone number (declined), she began to feel jealous of the competition on the stage. Childishly determined not to lose her own audience, she went to the cabaret’s management to suggest a new costume of her own design, one consisting of a beaded brassiere instead of the sateen vest and of a pair of tights, scantier and more form-fitting than those she had been wearing, without the abbreviated skirt. The management complied, and added a raise in salary to her growing income from tips, and with the extra money Medora secretly started to take private afternoon lessons in diction, etiquette, and dancing.

  After that, and after her seventeenth birthday, she began to date selectively. There were the impressive veteran juvenile lead of a drawing-room comedy playing in Shaftesbury Avenue, the elderly owner of three department stores, an Indian prince who was a graduate student at Cambridge, and she had lost not only her virginity on the first occasion, but her naivete on the ensuing two occasions, in quick, confusing, unecstatic bouts. Although grateful to be grown up and have expensive gifts lavished upon her, she wondered what the romance surrounding sex was all about. While some of her sudden affluence had gone into new furnishings for her mother’s flat, and new therapists for her sister, most of it had been spent on clothes and accessories (professional necessities, she now believed). Her dream of becoming a beautician with a chain of shops still persisted, but her savings for her training course had not materially increased. Anyway, it was rather pleasant, all the attention and admiration and being wanted.

  Then, one night, after closing, there was Paddy Jameson.

  Two of the chorines had been invited to a late supper party in Mayfair, and they had specifically been asked to bring Medora along, too. Their host, a regular at the club (whom Medora had never met or noticed), would be waiting at the stage door to escort them. Because of the hour, Medora hesitated, but when the chorines insisted that it was to be only a little after-the-theater party, attended by nobility and millionaires and several renowned journalists, an elegant gathering in good taste, Medora’s curiosity as well as ambition made her accept the invitation.

  The car outside the stage door was a Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow, and their host was Paddy Jameson, who was introduced to Medora as the “famous decorator,” but Medora had never heard of him. The catered supper was served in Jameson’s richly furnished two-story flat in Chester Place. And, indeed, among Jameson’s sixteen guests, mostly male, there were names familiar to Medora through her reading of the newspapers. Of the half-dozen females at the party, Medora was the most striking, and the one most attended by gentlemanly admirers.

  For Medora, this was a new social plateau, and its possibilities stimulated her. Recently, she had started drinking, but only moderately. That night, made he
ady by her surroundings, she had considerably exceeded previous limitations on her alcoholic intake. By four in the morning, she was quite drunk, and Paddy Jameson, until then flitting here and there playing the amusing host, had been inattentive. While other guests spoke highly of his wit and creative genius, Medora was unable to discern the reason for such lavish praise. To her bleary eyes, Paddy Jameson appeared no more than an amiable lightweight with his neat toupee, his sallow fish-face riddled by acne scars, his foppish clothes and effeminate gestures and slurred wicked, gossipy anecdotes. But at four in the morning, he became devoted at last and interesting, and as the guests made their elaborate farewells and drifted off, he promised Medora he would personally escort her to her home. By five o’clock, the last of the guests had long since disappeared, and there were she and Paddy on the Sheraton sofa, so cozy, she comfortable in his arms, heavy-lidded and thick-tongued and weak.

  Of course, it was too late to take her home, and she agreed, being agreeable to anything as long as it would allow her to lie down. He helped her to the bedroom, and undressed her, and took her to his precious Queen Anne bed, and he made love to her, and it was good, really good.

  At noon, waking and somewhat sobered, she found him waiting with Bloody Marys. Protesting, grimacing, she accepted one, which cleared her head for the second one, which made her feel fine. After that, he removed his robe, and it surprised her that he was naked and startled her that she was naked, too. She resisted his endearments and petting briefly, then unable to withstand his touch, she resigned herself to another bout of copulation. It was tremendous, really. She had never been so completely and shamefully aroused, and had never imagined that she could be made to behave as she had. His perversions and his lovemaking were concentrated on pleasing her, on giving her pleasure (which no man ever had), and the sensation had been memorable.

  After that, she became Paddy Jameson’s girl. She was helplessly drawn to him, an addict of his giving, unable to resist the mind-expanding drug of excitation. Her instincts and two medical books had told her that he was probably a practicing homosexual and, driven by the guilt of this and in an effort to deny his deviation, he sought to dominate women by pleasing them and thereby making them dependent upon him. But after several months, Medora realized her analysis had been incomplete and that there had been a more practical motive in his design.

  Paddy had been buying her exquisite dresses and accessories, and escorting her to the poshest parties, and presenting her as his hostess at gatherings of his own, and no one less than a baronet or an authentic millionaire was ever present. And then one night, at some eccentric lord’s stately house near Runnymede, she drank heavily knowing that it was safe with Paddy nearby, and after midnight, she had been unable to locate Paddy and found herself alone with the cadaverous lord of the manor, who wanted only to care for her and protect her. Drunkenly angered by Paddy’s abandonment, dazed by His Lordship’s promises, exhausted by the whole damn business—besides, what difference, what was there to lose?—she stayed the night, and the weekend as well, and you know, it hadn’t been half bad, in fact, rather smashing, not having to give or commit yourself, enduring a few minutes’ romp in bed in return for the magnificent pleasures of living beyond your means in a castle on an estate, liveried servants, everything—and, waiting for you on the seat of the chauffeured Bentley going back to London, a box containing a sable jacket and a box containing a solid gold bracelet.

  So that was it, finally, and eight more months of it to come, before the scandal exploded. Her situation became clear to her soon enough. Her man, Paddy Jameson, was not her man alone but a man with five other Medoras dwelling in various sections of the city, five others who were young, beautiful, ambitious, and whose physical endowments equaled if not surpassed her own. Paddy Jameson’s avocation was society decorator, but his vocation was procurer. On the one hand, he was an intimate of great and important men; on the other hand, he was a libertine who scouted for attractive, relatively unused girls, won them, trained them, and quietly passed them on to his wealthy male circle. He employed his mistresses with discretion. They were neither courtesans nor prostitutes. They were merely free and independent party girls and girl friends. There was no overt professionalism at all. Not one of the girls ever received a direct fee for services rendered. Like any woman who had been kind, she received gifts, and sometimes these took the form of cash.

  As for Paddy Jameson, in those months, Medora had never been able to solve the mystery of what there was in it for him. It was evident that he had never accepted monetary payment for performing as a go-between and agent. Perhaps, Medora once speculated, he did it to please the rich, so he could enjoy their society. Or perhaps, by acting for them in this way, he was given special interior decorating commissions. Yet, the last was doubtful, for Medora had never observed him using his time other than on the tennis court, in the swimming pool, at social gatherings—or in bed.

  In the eight months that followed, she saw less and less of Paddy. At his behest, she resigned from her position as cigarette girl at the cabaret. He assisted her in locating and furnishing a lovely and luxurious service flat within a short walk of Marble Arch, one in which she could receive the most distinguished gentlemen callers. As for Paddy, instead of his former daily visits, he gradually settled into dropping in on her once a week. Only on the occasions when he had to appease her jealousy and anger did he come more than once a week and remain overnight. She saw him frequently, of course, at the wild weekend parties in the country, and often he was with one of the other girls, but she did not mind.

  Those had been crazy, wonderful months, really. Through Paddy, she had taken up with only five lovers—well, six actually, if you counted the last one. Four had been well-known Government officials, two of these highly placed. In eight months, living as a lady of leisure, in refined splendor, Medora had been showered with gifts of diamonds, gowns, mink coats, antiques, a motorcar, sets of Wedgwood bone china, a charge arrangement at Harrods, and nearly £10,000 in cash, except in the end she had been unable to account for £9,000 of it.

  On only one occasion had the whole business been distasteful. She had complained to Paddy that with the way things were, she could not hold on to money. He suggested that the best way to hold on to money was simply to earn more of it. Did she wish to earn more? Well, she wouldn’t mind, she told him, as long as it did not involve real promiscuity. He vowed to keep an eye open for her, and then, one evening, he escorted her to a sprawling ancestral mansion not many miles past Hampton Court. The host was a duke and a Cabinet Minister, and there were perhaps two dozen guests. The party had seemed rather routine at the outset, until Medora realized with shock that the young serving girls, wearing abbreviated apron skirts, were stark naked beneath their aprons. There had been heavy drinking, and reefers for those who wanted them, and gradually, the older men and younger girls were undressing one another, and Paddy went along and laughingly teased Medora into joining the fun, although her shock had heightened. After that, the evening became a nightmare for her—two nude girls whipping His Grace, who was prone on the bear rug, five guests performing a disgusting sex circus in the middle of the living room to general hilarity, other guests lining up for peeks through a one-way mirror to see (themselves being unseen) an unsuspecting pair coupling in the master bedroom. Refusing to participate, Medora hid herself, then dressed and fled back to London.

  The following day, Paddy came by early, making light of the nightmare evening, remarking that he had only wanted to have Medora witness a real live orgy. She spoke her mind, and he quickly agreed that she had too much reserve and class for that type of thing—but slyly added that young ladies who had participated received gifts twice as generous as any Medora had ever known. Nevertheless, Medora was not interested, and she was never again invited to attend an orgy.

  The last of the ones that Paddy introduced her to was that dapper buck-toothed Charlie, Sydney Ormsby, young and silly and panting with passion. His family was enormously we
althy and influential, and he had an income above and beyond the stipend he received as a minor member of British Intelligence. His was a desk job politically obtained for him by his family in an effort to straighten him out, a job for which he was ill-suited and which he chafed to leave. Although he was sex-obsessed, Medora found him an ineffectual rabbit and hardly troublesome at all. He inspired the one bon mot of her career, repeated to Paddy: “The only thing Sydney can screw up properly is his courage.” Sydney heaped expensive gifts upon her and spoke glowingly of their future, and briefly, Medora was caught up in the possibilities of making an advantageous marriage.

  Then, suddenly, in their fourth week, for the very first time, Sydney Ormsby did not keep an appointment. He did not appear that night, or the following night, or any night ever again. Incredulous at such strange and uncharacteristic behavior, Medora tried to reach Paddy the next morning, and the morning after, and every day for a week, and Paddy, too, seemed to have disappeared from the face of the earth.

  Then, at last, it had all been explained to her, and a frightened Medora Hart was mystified no longer.

  The headlines were bigger, blacker, more provocative and threatening than they had been in the John Profumo-Christine Keeler-Stephen Ward affair of her childhood. Fleet Street was on a Roman holiday. Parliament was in a turmoil. The Establishment trembled. England held its collective breath.

  Paddy Jameson had been quietly arrested by a detective chief inspector and a detective sergeant, at the instigation of the Security Service, and had been brought before a Marylebone magistrate, and had been indicted for trial at the Old Bailey on five vice charges.

  Quaking with fear, Medora read and reread the charges and tried to understand how they might affect her. One charge, based on the Sexual Offences Act, was that Paddy Jameson had conspired to procure “several young ladies,” unnamed, to engage in unlawful sexual intercourse, and had supplied them with “goods and services” to encourage them to indulge in prostitution. Another charge had been that Paddy had engaged in blackmail against wealthy, prominent male acquaintances, to whom he had previously supplied young ladies of easy virtue. Yet, another charge, in boldfaced type, accused Paddy of employing his party girls—“immoral tarts,” one newspaper called them—to acquire information from those of their lovers who were in the Government, some of this information being secret and classified, and which information Paddy in turn sold to the press and to friends he had in three foreign embassies.