“Knight…oh yeah, yes, I have.” Flipp bit her lip comically at his near-mistake but he only frowned back at her.
“Good. Because I need you. I’m at Councillor Trewin’s house. Do you know it?”
“In Clifftops?”
“Yes. I hope you haven’t had a drink. You’ll need the bike.”
“Just half of a half. I’m okay to drive. I’ll be there in ten.”
“His master’s voice,” Flipp said sardonically, watching Rocky attempt to squeeze the phone back into that confined space below his hipbone.
“I’m sorry, Flipp. He pays my rent. He buys my time. I have to go.”
“I love you, you pay my rent.” Flipp sang the Pet Shop Boys line halfheartedly, watching Rocky gather himself, offering her upturned face for a swift goodbye kiss.
“I’ll see you. Take care.”
“Yeah. You too. It’s a jungle out there.” Flipp watched him weave through the mob of laughing drinkers, unaccountably sad and deflated. Why did life have to be so complex? “When I just wanna sit here and watch you undress.” She sang the P. J. Harvey lyric under her breath, goose pimpling at the bit that came next. “This is love, love, love that I’m feeling.” The rush of realisation was close to nausea. She had to shut her eyes to keep back the tears. No, it’s a crush. Great sex with a great-looking man. Who is clever and funny and caring…Stop.
Across the road from the hotel, at the pier entrance, Laura lingered, waiting. Ah, here he was. But he was alone, minus the bottle-blonde bitch, whoever she was. Laura felt viciously offended that she had been thrown over for such a trashy-looking specimen. She looked as if she hardly washed, in those hippy-dippy tie-dye clothes. And she wore a nose ring. Ugh. Rocky obviously didn’t recognise real class when he had it underneath him. Well, that was his bad luck. No, no, it’s mine. Because I want him back. So very very badly. And this is one thing I can’t ask Daddy for.
He was almost at the bike now. Laura hugged herself, bubbling up with nervous laughter. He was crouching down, frowning. One hand felt the front tyre and she heard his exasperated, “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”
Laura put the craft knife back in her handbag and stepped out of the shadows.
“Roadside rescue,” she said, smiling felinely when he whirled around to glare at her.
“Is this you?” He brandished a furious hand at the slashed tyres. “Did you do this?”
“Would I? Do I look like a slasher?” She put a manicured finger up to the three deep nail welts beneath his eye.
“I know you are. What’s wrong with you? You’ve lost your mind, sweetheart. Back off, Laura. Stop embarrassing yourself. It’s over.”
“You’re the one embarrassing yourself, sweetheart. Running around town with that walking trash heap. She looks as if she has fleas. Ugh. I don’t know if I should stand anywhere near you. You might have caught them off her.”
“Laura, are you still twelve? Because you certainly sound it.”
Laura knew Rocky well enough to recognise that his lofty tone hid a trace of panic. Hmm. For whatever reason, he didn’t want to be seen with Blondie. Well, then, he should have been more careful and taken her out of town for their rendezvous. A lesson in discretion for him or—even better—a warning to leave the new squeeze alone.
“Now run along, little girl. I’ve got tyres to repair.”
“I didn’t mean to make you angry,” said Laura, changing her tack, suddenly a picture of pouting contrition. “Even though you’re very sexy when you’re mad. I keep hoping you might put me over your knee for a spanking. Would you like to do that? You can, if it would make you feel better.” Laura thrust out a hip in its cherry-print rah-rah skirt, slapping her own hand down on her shapely bottom.
“Not really. But I expect your father’s friends might oblige if you asked.” Rocky bit down on his lip.
Laura knew he found it hard to control his acid tongue when he was angry, but what had he meant by that? She looked at him long and hard, but his eyes were impenetrable, just like the rest of him.
“Fuck you, Rocky,” Laura snarled, nudging the toe of her sandal into the small of his back. “I want you back. I’ve got more going for me than that scarecrow thing I saw you with. Stop sulking and come over here and give me what I deserve, big boy.” She moved her foot up his spine, then down again, but he brushed her off as if she were a fly.
“You don’t want me back. You’re not having me back. And the girl you saw me with was just a friend. Got that? You’re out of my life, Laura. So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, goodbye.”
“You’re never been a Sound of Music fan,” Laura exclaimed wonderingly.
“Go. Away.”
“I’ll give you a lift to wherever you’re going if you like.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Where are you going? To her place?”
“Shut up. Go away. I need to call a cab.”
“No you don’t. I’ll give you a lift. I insist. It’s the least I can do.”
The simmering rage on Rocky’s face was terrifying and thrilling. He really did look as if he wanted to kill her. The wild elation this seemed to provoke in her soul was probably a little bit disturbing, if she cared to analyse it, but she didn’t. She had no other thought on her mind than her need to get Rocky into her car and then pounce on him.
“Don’t you have any pride?”
And it was this simple question that defeated Laura. She could have taken on any amount of bluster or threat or even cruelty, but this near-contempt was too much for her. She did have some pride, after all. Rather a lot, actually. And she had lots of other things too—determination and vengeful patience being but two. She could wait for her Rocky. She could fight for him another day.
“Among other things,” she said, leaning down to kiss him sweetly on the cheek. “You’ll see. Good night. Sweet dreams.”
Flipp felt the need for more cider, which was inconvenient, as she only had twenty-three pence left in her handbag, plus one pound for the coin electricity meter in her bedsit, before tomorrow’s pay packet. She stared bleakly into her sequined purse and shrugged. Time to go home and stare through the tatty net curtains at the tatty vista of the curry house and kebab shop beyond. Perhaps she should save up for a TV. There must be cheap secondhand sets on sale somewhere. But for tonight, entertainment would be provided by her ancient radio/CD player. Again.
She was picking a careful path across the beer-splashed carpet when a hand on her shoulder caused her to stop and look up. A man, preppily handsome with floppy hair and a striped rugby top, was smiling down at her.
“Excuse me…so sorry to disturb you…but were you in here with Rocky Anderson earlier?”
Aha. A surname.
“Might have been,” she said. “Are you a friend of his?”
“Yes. An old school friend. Haven’t seen him in ages. Do you have his number?”
Flipp never gave out information to people she did not know, and besides, she really didn’t know Rocky’s number, so she shrugged and tried to move away.
“I’m sorry,” the man continued, smiling shamefacedly. “I don’t mean to be rude. My name’s Jeremy. Jeremy Weill. Look, can I get you a drink? Or will Rocky kill me for moving in on his girl? I’m not, by the way. Moving in on you, I mean. Not that you aren’t worth moving in on…Oh dear. I’m coming across as a right tosser, aren’t I? I tend to babble. Ignore me. But seriously, what are you drinking?”
Flipp’s guard was lowered by Jeremy’s endearingly shambolic air. She smiled.
“Cider,” she told him. “Dry, not sweet.”
He brought her a bottled brand, plus a pint of bitter for himself and sat down at the table Rocky had vacated earlier, placing the drinks on the selfsame coasters.
“Are you new in town?” he asked. “I don’t recognise you at all.”
“Newish,” said Flipp.
“Thought so. Goldsands, you’ll be discovering for yourself, is a small place. Everyone knows everyone’s business. Wel
l, mostly. Obviously you lose touch here and there. Like me and Rocky. You have a metropolitan twang to your voice—are you from London?”
“Around that way.”
“I see you’re a girl who likes to play her cards close to her chest. Nothing wrong with that, of course. I like a little bit of mystery—all adds to the fun. Do you have a name, at least?”
“My name’s Flipp.”
“Flipp? Really? Short for Philippa?”
“Exactly the right length for Flipp.”
“It’s different. Fresh. I like it.” Jeremy was striving so hard not to give offence that Flipp granted him a small concession.
“I met Rocky at work,” she told him.
“Did you? At work? So where would that be?”
“Caesar’s Palace.”
“Ah, the amusement arcade. I know it well. I see. Part of Charles Cordwainer’s little empire by the sea, isn’t it?”
Flipp half smiled. “Yeah. He does have a touch of the imperial about him, old Cordwainer. I can see him lying on a golden divan being fed grapes by handmaidens.”
“Oh, you’ve heard that rumour too?”
They smiled genuinely, the ice broken.
“So do you enjoy your work, Flipp?”
She contemplated her bottle neck. “I wouldn’t say that. I mean, I hope I’m not doing it forever. I hope I’m not doing it after the end of summer, to be honest. It’s boring and the pay is crap. But, you know, needs must and all that.”
“When the devil drives,” Jeremy quoted thoughtfully. “And Cordwainer does have a bit of a reputation. I mean, I don’t suppose he actually is Beelzebub in human form.”
“What have you heard about him?” Flipp asked, curious. “Everybody keeps warning me about him, but they won’t say why. Even Rocky.”
“Rocky warned you off him?”
Flipp thought that she might have said too much. There was a glint in Jeremy’s eye, and he’d picked up that tidbit like a dog snatching a bone between its jaws. He wasn’t going to let go, by the look of him. And anyway, he looked nothing like the kind of person Rocky would be friends with. He had floppy hair and gold-rimmed spectacles and looked as if he might enjoy a game of croquet.
“Well, you know, not in so many words,” she mumbled, looking away.
“But Rocky works for him? Cordwainer? So I could contact him via the arcade, perhaps?”
“I could tell him you were looking for him,” Flipp asserted, unprepared to offer anything more in the way of favours. “What was your name again? Jeremy what?”
“Oh, it doesn’t matter. I’ll catch up with him myself, I’m sure. So you and Rocky haven’t been together long? He is your boyfriend, is he?”
Flipp had no idea how to answer this and the barrage of questions was starting to make her feel hot and uncomfortable.
“You tell me,” she said, hostility spilling from behind her guard. “You seem to know all about it.”
“Flipp. Oh, don’t be like that. Stay and finish your drink.”
For she was on her feet now, looking around for an easy route to the door.
“Sit down, please do. I won’t talk about Rocky anymore if it upsets you, I promise. But you must finish your drink. Come on. Sit with me a little while longer and I’ll fill you in on the hot spots of Goldsands—the places to be and the places to avoid. Do you like live music?”
“Yes.” Flipp reseated herself with some reluctance. “Are there any venues here?”
“Well, apart from the Pavilion, which just does musicals and rock-and-roll tribute shows, there are quite a few pubs that host live bands. The Fairhaven used to be the best, but it’s changed hands recently and I think the new owner is going down the sports bar route. The Queens is excellent though—near the station. And if you like a bit of old-style jazz and blues, there’s the Showboat.”
They eased then into a conversation about musical tastes and favourite artists.
“You’re not such a rocker as Rocky, then?” Jeremy enquired slyly after a long paean to various postpunk and new wave acts that had left Flipp a little breathless.
“We aren’t joined at the hip.”
“No, of course not. Just that at school he was renowned for his air guitar stylings. Shame he couldn’t sing or play a note.”
Flipp chuckled. “I bet he can dance, though.” She thought straightaway that she would have to get him to a club where they could shimmy hips at each other to a sweating, pounding beat under flashing lights. She imagined the damp hair hanging in his eyes, the T-shirt clinging to his back, the well-muscled arms reaching out for her.
“I don’t know. I don’t remember him dancing. You’ll have to try and instil a bit of culture into Rocky perhaps.”
“What was he like at school?” she asked, finally relaxed enough to let her curiosity off the leash.
“Very much as you’d expect. A rebel. A bit of a loner. Quite bright, I think, but liked to hide it. Only used his brains to come up with new and epic ways to subvert the orthodoxy.”
“He strikes me as cleverer than he likes to make out.”
“Yeah. I don’t think he bothered to turn up for his GCSEs though. And there were always stories about his dad. He was a bit legendary in Goldsands, mostly for lots of the wrong reasons. Boozer, fighter, general all-round badass, you know.”
“I didn’t,” Flipp commented thoughtfully, trying to fit her image of Rocky around this new information. A bad boy from a bad home. A messed-up kid, kicking against the pricks. Easy prey for a man like Cordwainer, if he really was as ruthless as Rocky implied. “Poor Rocky. Was he popular? With the girls?”
“No, not really. He grew into his looks—at school he was gangly and awkward and all nose and hair. Quite spotty too. He was on the periphery of various groups but didn’t seem to have particular friends.”
“So you weren’t his particular friend but you want to find him. Why?”
Jeremy smiled tightly, seemingly annoyed with himself about something. As if in response to a silent plea for help, a couple of women suddenly crowded the back of his chair, one of them ruffling his hair.
“Jezzy baby,” she cooed. “Come and say hello. It’s Fi from Ad Sales’s birthday and she’s getting the round in.”
“Oh right.” He flicked a glance rapidly between Flipp and the other women. “I’ll be over in a sec.”
“Is he interviewing you, love?” the second woman asked Flipp. She laughed raunchily. “You want to watch him. They call him the Griller. He’ll lull you into a false sense of security then drop in a couple of killer questions and next thing you know, you’re the talk of the town.”
“Interview?” Flipp wrinkled her nose, regarding Jeremy quizzically.
“You’ll be on the front page of the Gazette tomorrow.” The woman nodded with mock gravity.
Flipp stood, bristling and icy-eyed. “The Gazette? You’re a reporter?”
Jeremy spread his palms, trying to look apologetic. “I’m interested in Rocky. We really were at school together.”
“Whatever dirt you’re digging, you won’t get anything from me,” Flipp said. She stalked off, noticing the murderous glare Jeremy was treating his two unmaskers to on her way to the door.
Outside, it was late now, and the funfair lights were off. Beyond the pier, only blue-black darkness was visible, accompanied by the gentle lapping sound of the waves. Farther down the Esplanade, drunken singing and the screams of teenage girls chased Flipp all the way back to her bedsit where she lay long on her unmade bed, wondering who the man—to whom she had given her body and heart so willingly—really was.
Chapter Five
Once she was seated on the pier bench, looking out to the salty sea and squealing seagulls, Laura took the little plastic bag of chopped onion out of her handbag, opened it and peered inside for as long as she could bear.
It was true what they said about onions, she noted, snapping the bag shut and gazing into her mirror compact at red streaming eyes. They really did make you cry. She ho
ped she’d managed to make herself look distressed enough without having to endure a reddened nose. She always wanted to slap crying girls and tell them they were ruining their looks. They could at least wear waterproof mascara if they insisted on blubbing everywhere. She let the tears run down her cheeks until they glistened, two perfect dewdrops on the peachiest part of the skin, then she replaced the mirror compact with a balled-up tissue and strode purposefully into Caesar’s Palace.
Flipp wished she had a mobile phone. How much less tedious her long stints in the change booth would be with the enhancement of sex texts from Rocky, or perhaps an inappropriate voice mail or two. Right now she would kill to hear that whiskey-over-gravel voice in her ear again. But Rocky had not been in the arcade that afternoon, and she supposed she shouldn’t be accessible by telephone anyway. The plan was to stay incommunicado, and she knew how important it was to stick to the plan.
She blinked at the clearly distressed young woman who approached her—a shining vision flanked by blaring one-armed-bandit attendants. Not the usual class of customer, Flipp noted. Well-dressed, healthy hair, good skin—what was she doing in here? And why was she crying?
“Can I help you, love?” she asked, working hard to keep the usual indifference in her tone.
“Has Rocky been here?” the girl asked, with an unnerving shudder of her shoulders.
“Rocky?” Flipp continued to feign bored ignorance despite the sudden sensation of a knife twisting in her chest. “Dunno, love. What do you want him for?”
The girl’s face pressed close to the Perspex and Flipp felt a surge of jealousy at the modelesque perfection of it. She felt quite sure that she didn’t want competition of this calibre for Rocky’s attentions, if competition she represented.
“The same reason everyone does,” she sobbed.
Flipp, nonplussed, simply watched her visitor emote for a few moments before taking pity on her—or succumbing to her curiosity—and inviting her into the small area behind the screen.
“Don’t cry,” she said helplessly, offering a tissue. The girl scorned Flipp’s gesture, reaching for her own fine cotton handkerchief instead, but she rewarded her with a tiny smile.
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