SOMETHING STUPID
By
Victoria Corby
Copyright © Victoria Corby 1999
First published 1999 by Headline Book Publishing
Revised edition published by Victoria Corby 2012
The right of Victoria Corby to be indentified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents act 1988.
This story takes place in the late 1990's when computers were bulky, the internet was still unusual to many, the majority of people had never heard of Sat Nav and mobile phones were not considered an essential part of daily life. Most of them were also too big to fit comfortably in a fashionable handbag.
For Roshnara, Diana and Christina
CHAPTER 1
OK, so in retrospect it wasn’t a good idea accepting a lift from Hugo Parry-Smith. He’d seemed quite respectable, which I know doesn’t mean anything - Crippen probably looked as if he was kind to children, animals and wives - but Hugo didn’t stink of alcohol, more than could be said for most of those at the party, and he was related in some way to the hostess so he wasn’t someone who’d heard music and wandered in off the street. Not that I actually took any of that into account. The truth is I was so teed off with my boyfriend Daniel I’d have happily agreed to get in a car with someone who had ‘if found please return to the asylum’ stamped on his forehead, if it meant I could leave with dignity, and without looking like some abandoned sad act. Daniel, who’d taken me to this party given by his friends, had deserted me within five minutes to huddle in a corner with a well-endowed blonde - top and bottom. He was still there two hours later, gazing down her cleavage. I’d have stormed out ages before, though truthfully tottering would have been more like it in those heels, if I’d had some way of getting home, but I didn’t have the cash for a taxi and as for walking, forget it. It would have been asking for trouble. A skirt that short on a freezing January night was risking hypothermia. So there were loads of good reasons why I accepted Hugo’s offer like a shot.
I discovered before the first set of traffic lights that he was what my mother calls NSIT: not safe in taxis. In fact he wasn’t safe anywhere. Most men have the decency to delay making a dive for your boobs until they’ve known you longer than five minutes - especially if they’re driving at the same time. I’ve been around men who can’t appreciate that you aren’t immediately bowled over by their charms, but Hugo was in another category altogether. He wasn’t one of those who thinks ‘No’ or ‘Stop that!’ mean ‘Perhaps’ and ‘Persuade me that I want to’ - negatives weren’t in his vocabulary at all. I was probably safe enough for the moment, I couldn’t see how rape was feasible in a low-slung sports car, especially with a large and no doubt deeply symbolic gear stick in the way, but I couldn’t let this piece of rampant slime take me home. Unfortunately I no longer shared a flat with two members of the university rowing team and I doubted Hugo would be deterred by the presence of Liv, my current flatmate who was blonde and willowy. He’d probably have a go at her too. Besides I didn’t want him knowing where I lived. Hell, I didn’t even want him to know what part of London I lived in.
I went over my options. I could try jumping out of the car when we slowed down at traffic lights, but given that my legs were sticking almost straight out in front of me and my skirt allowed about as much movement as a plaster of Paris mould it would be more of a slow wriggle than a jump. Hugo would be able to catch me in about three seconds, no doubt humming ‘Shall We Do It in the Road’ at the same time.
He swung the car into a space at the end of a road and, engine still running, leaned over and made another grab at me. I recoiled, but not far enough to evade his fingers completely. ‘Wouldn’t this be more comfortable at home?’ I ventured nervously, trying to restrain a shudder. ‘It’s only a couple of minutes away.’
To my relief his hand withdrew to its proper place. ‘I wasn’t sure you were going to ask me in,’ he said, looking at me with glazed eyes. So he was helping himself in advance, just in case. ‘But I thought you said you lived in Clapham? That’s more than a couple of minutes away.’
I cleared my throat. ‘Well, it’s Clapham borders, sort of.’
He nodded, mind probably too fogged with lust to notice that the edge of Putney can in no way be described as two minutes from ‘Clapham borders’. ‘Where?’
I licked my lips, looking out of the window for inspiration and saw a sign, ‘London Borough of Wandsworth.’ I swallowed hard. Could I? It’d mean admitting I’d made a fool of myself. But it was marginally preferable to claiming I lived next door to the police station and throwing myself on the protection of a no doubt spotty constable, younger than myself, which was the only other idea I had.
‘It’s not far. Half a mile down here. Take the first left and...’
It was the wrong direction. I smiled apologetically and said with a nervous laugh, ‘I’ve only just moved, I still don’t know the way in the dark.’
‘So that’s why you think you’re still living in Clapham,’ he said, hand roaming sideways again.
‘Er, yes.’ I squirmed away. ‘Up there,’ I said and we turned on to a short row of Georgian cottages. ‘That one.’ Thank God. There was a light shining out through the half-moon fanlight above the door. I prayed there was someone in and it hadn’t been left on as a burglar deterrent.
I had my hand on the door handle and my legs tensed ready for flight as Hugo slowed the car, looking for a parking space. Someone drew out halfway up the road and he backed into the space. I wriggled out at high speed before he had a chance to do more than reach for the ignition keys. Dammit! I was never going to be able to move fast in these shoes. With extreme reluctance I took them off and, jiggling from side to side from the shock of the icy tarmac under the soles of my feet, poked my head back in through the car window. ‘Thanks for the lift, Hugo. Actually I think it’s a bit late for you to come in for that cup of coffee. My husband’s a light sleeper.’
And before he could say anything I dodged around the back of the car and bolted across the road to the house opposite, stumbling up two shallow steps and banging the lion’s head knocker loudly on the door. The noise seemed to fill the silent street. It wasn’t just going to be my putative husband who was woken up at this rate, I thought, glancing over my shoulder to see Hugo sitting motionless in his car, watching me, looking distinctly put out.
I smiled nervously. ‘Silly me! I forgot my keys.’ If James wasn’t there, what was I going to do? I wasn’t going to have to cope with a merely randy weirdo, but a seriously pissed-off randy weirdo.
I was beginning to get seriously worried when I heard a grumpy, ‘Hold your horses, I’m coming!’ The door was flung open with a bad-tempered crash. ‘What the-’ exclaimed the tall brown-haired man in the doorway, eyes narrowed under straight brows as he glared at me.
I flung my arms around his neck in a hug. ‘Darling, I’m so sorry to disturb you,’ I exclaimed loudly enough to be heard over the road. The body beneath my embracing arms was unflatteringly stiff and unwelcoming. ‘Did I get you out of bed?’
There was a startled pause. ‘Of course you didn’t, you idiot.’ His tone was distinctly frosty. ‘Are you trying to be funny?’
‘Shush!’ I murmured. He was one step above me so I had to go up on tiptoe to speak against his ear. ‘I’m sorry about this, James. I couldn’t risk going any further with that man over there.’
He sighed heavily. ‘What is this about, Laura?’ he demanded. ‘Had a row with the boyfriend?’
‘It’s not Daniel. Someone else. I think he’d have had a go at raping me in the car if he’d been able to get over the gear stick. He’s a maniac.’
James went rigid under my arms. ‘What did he do?’
he asked, stepping back, eyes scanning me for damage. ‘Are you hurt?’
I shook my head. ‘Only ripped off a few buttons. Luckily he was still in warm-up mode but he frightened me.’ To my annoyance I could hear my voice wobble a little.
James opened his mouth, no doubt about to deliver some elder brotherly remark about my complete lack of common sense in even contemplating getting into a car with a male younger than my grandfather, then must have thought better of it. He sighed. ‘You’d better come in until he’s gone.’
I’ve had more welcoming invitations, but I was too glad that I was going to be on the right side of his door to care. My murmured thanks were lost as a voice called from inside the house, ‘James, darling! What’s going on?’ My heart plummeted. I was going to have to grovel even lower to James for disturbing him now. And, I realised with a further sinking of the heart, as he’d got someone here he wasn’t going to be able to give me a lift back to my flat as I’d hoped. So I was going to have to sit around and play gooseberry with James and his girlfriend while we waited for a taxi – and I’d have to ask him to lend me the fare too. Great.
He called back, ‘Just a minute! Why don’t you go in, Laura?’ and glanced over my shoulder. ‘I’ll just go and advise Sonny Boy to move on if he knows what’s good for him.’
His tone was so grim that I grabbed his sleeve as he went past. ‘James, you won’t do anything, will you?’
His teeth gleamed very white as he smiled. ‘I’m fond of you, Laura,’ he said with something of an effort, ‘but that affection doesn’t run to risking a black eye.’
As James advanced across the street like the Sheriff in High Noon Hugo started his engine and began to reverse out of the parking space with an alacrity that spoke of long practice at dodging annoyed protective males. He wasn’t quick enough. Short of actually running James over he had to listen to whatever it was that was being said to him through the open window of his car. Try as I might I couldn’t hear what it was, but it didn’t sound conciliatory. Good.
James straightened up and turned around, strolling back with his hands in his pockets while Hugo revved the engine and crunched the gears at least twice as he sped away.
‘He won’t bother you again,’ James said with a note of satisfaction. What had he said? Though tall, he doesn’t look like one of those men who could punch you out at a moment’s notice. ‘But I didn’t realise we’d got married,’ he added mildly as he reached me at the top of the steps. ‘I know it’s traditional for the bridegroom to get absolutely plastered, but I think I would have remembered something about the ceremony. Unfortunately your young man appears to have a thing about married women.’
‘He’s not my young man,’ I interrupted.
James ignored me. ‘He likes to fill in for the inadequacies of their husbands.’ His tone was frosty. ‘I assured him you had no inadequacies at all to complain about so far as I’m concerned.’ He sighed in exasperation, his long mouth tight with disapproval. ‘Honestly, Laura, you must have the worst taste in men of any woman I know. But this one really was the pits.’
‘All right! All right!’ I interrupted crossly. ‘There’s no need to bang on about it.’
I glared with displeasure at my stepbrother; or ex-stepbrother to be accurate since my mother and his father divorced five years ago. James could become very elder brotherish at times, especially about boyfriends, presumably on the grounds that as he had behaved so badly himself he knew exactly what the male species could get up to. I, on the other hand, had never been prepared to accept him in the role of fraternal mentor, especially now that I was twenty-six. However it didn’t stop him trying.
‘James! What are you doing?’ demanded the same voice, with a definitely petulant ring to it. It was vaguely familiar. Trying to place it, I caught my cold and numb foot on the doorstep. My arms windmilled ridiculously for a moment and James stepped smartly backwards to avoid the shoes which flew out of my hand like spiky missiles. I twisted to one side to avoid impaling myself on the contents of a china umbrella stand and ended up measuring my length on the floor. As I lay nose deep in about three inches of Axminster carpet, I heard a horrified, ‘God! Who’s that?’
I levered myself into a sitting position and saw an expensive blonde, framed decoratively in the doorway to the sitting room, staring at me in appalled surprise. I shared her feelings entirely. She tossed a hundred quid’s worth of expertly casual styling and blow drying back over her shoulders as her eyes, exactly the same blue as her slim satin slip dress, widened in incredulous recognition. ‘Laura! Laura Moreton! I would hardly have known you.’
‘Since I had pigtails and a straw boater on my head the last time you saw me it’s not surprising,’ I muttered, wanting to bury my face in James’s carpet again. What a perfect ending to what was rapidly turning out to be one of the worst days of my entire life. Being under the eagle eye of someone like Serena Slater was difficult at the best of times, but when you’ve just done a prat fall in front of her, can feel that your skirt has rucked up to knicker level and you’ve got a hole in the knee of your tights, and that’s just for starters, it counts as complete and utter humiliation.
I scrambled on to my feet with difficulty; rising elegantly from a prone position has never been one of my accomplishments, especially when trying to stop my tummy button showing from beneath my skirt. James put out a hand to help me up, then looked from me to Serena with curiosity. ‘Serena was my form captain,’ I said woodenly. She had also been the cleverest in the class, the only one who didn’t get podgy or spotty, or both, a prefect and all-round superstar. Luckily for natural justice the loveliness of her face hadn’t been matched by a commensurate beauty of disposition so I could quite legitimately dislike her without being guilty of jealousy. Naturally I was that too. The abuse of her form captain’s powers (she had set me, as a new girl, to do the worst job in the form-room cleaning rota) still rankled thirteen years afterwards.
James was well enough versed in the way of women to have noted the complete absence of enthusiastic cries of ‘How are you?’ ‘What have you been doing since I last saw you?’ etc. He studied both of us with a glint of amusement and said, ‘You must have a lot of catching up to do. Are you both about to indulge in reminiscences of how you won the third-form hockey match against St Cuthbert’s?’
Considering I was usually the one who inadvertently scored an own goal and won the match for the other side, this was highly unlikely. I could see from Serena’s expression that what she wanted to catch up on was how I knew James. How come I felt able to ring his bell at midnight? She looked at me and then at him as if checking to see if he was wearing a strange colour of lipstick on his neck. Unwittingly he muddied the waters a little more by absently rubbing his chin as if he were wiping off telltale traces as he said, ‘Laura was having a problem with some over-sexed ape who was taking her home.’
‘Bit more than a problem,’ I interrupted. ‘More like a full-blown attack on my virtue.’
Serena let her eyes drift up and down me with an expression that implied I should seize any such threat with both hands. ‘So you came to James for help. How wise of you,’ she purred. ‘And how marvellous to know that someone is such a good friend they won’t mind your coming to them, no matter what time it is.’ From James’s slightly complacent smile he’d taken this remark at face value. ‘But how did this happen?’ she went on in her caring tone. ‘When did you meet this horrible man?’
I could hardly say about ten minutes before I got into his car. If we’d been on our own I could just about have coped with James telling me I’d been a bloody fool, but in front of Serena, no way. I mumbled into my chest about being stranded at a party and accepting a lift from the hostess’s cousin. True as far as it went, but I could see from James’s narrowed eyes it didn’t work as a full explanation.
Serena threw him a speaking glance. ‘We all make mistakes sometimes,’ she said kindly, as if I had the mental acuity of a six year old. ‘But I never accept lif
ts from people I don’t know really well. I always take £20 in case I need a taxi.’
James was nodding agreement.
‘Me too,’ I lied through gritted teeth. ‘But before I realised my lift had fallen through, I blew it on two lines of cocaine.’
‘More like two lines of talcum powder at that price,’ said James, eyeing me coldly.
‘Maybe it was. I thought it was a bit smelly,’ I agreed affably. ‘But you’d know, wouldn’t you?’
That earned me another cold stare. Justified too. I shrugged apologetically. ‘I’m sorry. James doesn’t know anything about drugs,’ I said to Serena, ‘he wouldn’t have a clue what cocaine costs. At least, I’m sure he doesn’t. I mean, he’s got loads of vices, but drugs have never been—’
‘Laura, will you shut up?’ he interrupted in an exasperated voice.
‘Glad to,’ I murmured. I was beginning to feel very odd. My head was swimming and the walls of the little hallway appeared to be moving in and out in the most alarming way. My knees were sagging as if they were made of over-stretched knicker elastic. ‘Can I sit down, please?’ I gasped. ‘I don’t feel very well.’
‘Catch her, James! She’s about to fall on that vase!’ shrieked Serena.
He’s a fast mover. He scooped me up and sat me down on a Regency hall chair before I had time to do anything more than a mild sway. He’s stronger than his wiry frame looks too. I’m not exactly fat but I’m certainly no lightweight.
A none too gentle hand pushed my head down between my knees. ‘Serena, get a glass of brandy from the decanter in the sitting room. Now,’ he added.
She took her time and his hand stayed heavily on the back of my head so I had plenty of opportunity to observe the floor beneath the chair. It was spotlessly clean. His daily dusted and polished in the places you couldn’t see as well as the surfaces, a rare treasure these days. At last I was allowed back upright and a very small measure in a very large glass was thrust ungraciously at me.
Something Stupid Page 1
