High society Read online

  ST HILDA’S CHURCH HALL, SOHO

  Look, this story gets worse before it gets better, all right? And then it gets worse again. I’m not proud of it, I was a disgusting bastard, end of story. It’s in me for sure, I know that, and charlie brings it out.

  ‘Charlie loves my bastard. They’re best mates, charlie and my bastard are.

  ‘Anyway, I didn’t get any smack, but I did another E and forgot about me auntie. Well, there were nowt I could do about her, was there? I was stuck backstage at the Brits and she was in hospital in Salford, so, monged out as I was, I basically thought, Fook ‘er.

  ‘I won four awards that night, as I’m sure you’ve read, and suddenly I was largin’ it again. I love winning, see. It puts me right back on top, that and the Es and the booze and the charlie. So I had a bangin’ good evenin’ all round. Chuckin’ food, shoutin’ out and whatever and by the time the show was over I wasn’t bothering about any smack any more. Like I say, I don’t even like it much. I’d got some more superb coke and someone had finally got me some decent beer and proper champagne and I was having it fookin’ huge! Everybody wanted to get near me and I was being dead dry and witty and cool. I’m dead good at that, me.

  ‘One of the best bits of the Brits is immediately after the show when most of the acts mill around in the backstage area for a bit, while the crowd disperses. But you don’t want to hang around too long ‘less you want to end up lookin’ a bit sad, pukin’ in a pot plant wi’ a couple o’ big Irish thugs who used to be in a boy band. Now let me tell you an important trick if ever you happen to find yourself backstage at the Brits. When things begin to break up, don’t go to the official party. It’s crap. I got caught out that way first time I was there. I were all vibed up and excited because I’d been nominated for best newcomer and hanging around with the Spice Girls when they were the biggest thing on the planet and I’d met the Bee Gees and stuff and I couldn’t wait to get to the party to hang out some more.

  ‘Big fookin’ mistake, man. Because nobody goes to the official party. That party is for the punters, man! I don’t mean the real punters, the fans in the pit, at least that would be a bit fookin’ genuine. I mean all the secretaries and record-shop owners, the people from the BPI, and the only star there was me. I was fookin’ swamped. Signing autographs, having me photo took. I’d only got about six foot into that party but it took me nearly an hour to get back out, by which time everybody had fooked off to the real parties, which happen elsewhere all over London. The real parties are paid for by the record company and basically everybody goes to their own one, so if you want to hang out with other stars you’d better be with a nice big label. But I did the Sorry bash and the Virgin bash and EMI. I wasn’t going to my own record company party because I was having a dispute with them, so I was fooked if I was going to let them swank and wank over my four Brits. But there was nowt goin’ down anywhere except cocaine, pills and vintage Dom P.

  ‘Fookin’ dull as arse.

  ‘So I’m stood there at some bar or other laughing at Jay Kay on the dance floor. I mean the bloke can certainly move all right, but ‘e so knows it, don’t ‘e? I reckon the trick with talent is to pretend you ain’t got it. But fair play to old Jay, the birds love ‘im. Anyway, I’m stood there with some billionaire producer I know and he says to me, ‘Sod it, let’s get down Spearmint Rhino’s.’ You know the place, lap dancin’ an’ that. Flap dancin’ I call it ‘cos if you’re lucky they give you the full two sets of fanny lips even though they in’t s’posed to, only in the private dancin’ booths, of course. You can’t get no bearded clam with yer oysters, no way.

  ‘So we pile in the back of my car and head for the Rhino.

  ‘He hadn’t eaten so we order up a couple o’ big steaks and we’re sitting there drinking champagne an’ eating steak an’ chatting to these birds what look like Playboy centrefolds, except not thick, no way, all workin’ their way through college, you know, really classy birds. It could ‘a’ been the Ivy or whatever, except that the birds all had their tits out and if I’d wanted I could have tekken ‘em into a booth for a proper look. It was the best part o’ the night, really, that steak, but my mate didn’t last long. ‘E’d only come in for ‘is tea, anyway, and ‘ad to fook off early ‘cos ‘e ‘ad the school run in the morning.

  ‘So that left me on me own, out of me ‘ead and still randy as ‘ell.’

  SAMANTHA’S FLAT, ISLINGTON

  Laura and Kurt were Samantha’s friends from university, her best friends in the world. Like Samantha, they had both done well in their two years since graduating. Laura had joined a left-leaning chambers in Middle Temple, and Kurt was a legal officer with the Transport and General Workers’ Union. These people were Peter’s kind of people. In a way they were younger versions of himself: clever, principled, cultured. For that evening at least Peter had tapped back into the fountain of youth and by rights he should have been feeling terrific, sitting around on cushions eating sushi and drinking wine with these hip young types, basking in their rapt attention.

  How long had it been since he and Angela had sat around together on cushions chatting with smart, sexy, young friends?

  This was the type of occasion of which Peter had only been able to dream in the long grey days before he had been reborn. By rights he should be enjoying himself. He had a right to enjoy himself. But try as he might, Peter could not. The guilt was present as ever, redoubled, in fact. Since the complexities of Samantha’s needs had begun to dawn on him, he had become more painfully aware that he was simultaneously deceiving both women in his life: Samantha because he knew that he did not love her, and Angela because he knew that he did, and yet he could not resist his affair with Samantha.

  He glanced at his watch. Angela would be watching Newsnight, sitting in her dressing gown with a glass of wine. The lies had been getting more difficult, and this evening was no exception. Angela knew that there was no late-night session on, and Peter had had to pretend that he was dining with a correspondent from the New Statesman. He had not had a choice. Samantha had insisted on this dinner party. It was her twenty-fourth birthday and she said she felt that on at least one day a year she had the right to pretend that she had a proper boyfriend.

  Proper boyfriend? This girl saw him as her boyfriend.

  He was a married man. With two teenaged daughters.

  He had to get out.

  But on the other hand…He was having fun. To be a part of this twenty-something dinner party, with its ill-matched crockery, cheap, thick tumblers and Ikea bookshelves.

  ‘Mmm, not often we drink Moet. If you’re going to go all posh snob on us, Sammy, you’ll have to get some flutes,’ Laura said, raising her glass. ‘Cheers, Peter.’

  Peter had splashed out on four bottles of champagne. He was not a wealthy man, but he was wealthier than they were and that was fun also, to be the cool grown-up who could afford decent booze.

  Peter took the Switch receipt from his pocket and rolled it into a tight ball between his finger and thumb. He must remember to intercept the next bank statement when it came.

  ‘I think what you’ve been saying about smack and crack and all the Class As is so right,’ Kurt said. ‘And the fact that you’re winning people over is incredible, quite incredible. I saw a leader the other day that said you might just be the only honest politician in the country. I think it was the Guardian.’’

  ‘Actually it was the Independent.’ Peter rather wished he hadn’t said that. Probably cooler not to know your good reviews off by heart. But how gratifying to have so caught the mood of the younger generation. They understood his quest, his passion.

  The champagne flowed and Peter’s guilt began slowly to lift.

  ‘So come on, then! Tell us, what did Peter get you?’ Samantha did not answer. Instead she went bright red, which was answer enough for her friends, who shrieked with knowing laughter. Peter grinned also, a silly, pleased, naughty-boy grin. Kurt punched his shoulder as one good bloke to another. Peter was one of the ga
ng. He was among people who knew instinctively that a birthday present that caused embarrassment must inevitably be something sexual. A similar conversation at the dinner parties he and Angela held would lead the mind inevitably to a car vacuum cleaner or a useless pair of sugar tongs. But these were people for whom a vigorous and creative sex life was simply a given.

  Young people.

  Well, he was young, damn it. Forty-three wasn’t old, especially if at that age you’ve managed to make it into the forefront of national life.

  Laura poured more champagne. She was determined to capitalize on Samantha’s embarrassment. ‘Come on, Sam, tell us. What did he get you?’

  ‘A few things. I can’t tell you everything.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because it’s none of your beeswax, Laura! Anyway, I got this.’

  Samantha opened the bottom two buttons of her blouse to reveal the little diamond that hung from her belly-button ring. Peter grimaced with sheepish good humour while his new friends admired his taste. What a feeling it was to have bought one’s girlfriend such a thing!

  One’s girlfriend? That was certainly how he’d seen it when he’d slipped into the jeweller’s shop on Kensington High Street. So perhaps he was her boyfriend, after all. If that was the case he had to get out.

  But not now, not tonight, not with that cute little jewel nestling inside his beautiful girlfriend’s beautiful navel.

  ‘Photo! Photo!’ Laura demanded.

  ‘No!’ Samantha said firmly. ‘I don’t want to embarrass Peter.’

  ‘No, of course not, sorry…Wouldn’t want that getting developed at Boots, would we? Well, I’m going to photograph you anyway. Peter doesn’t have to be in it. Come on, Kurt, shine that lamp on Sammy’s tummy. Make the diamond sparkle.’

  Samantha allowed herself to be photographed, saying that she felt like that awful posh hint whose tummy had recently been all over the papers with Tommy Hanson’s name written round it.

  ‘Come on, what else did he get you?’ Kurt asked as Samantha did up her blouse.

  And with a little persuasion she came clean about Peter’s other presents: a sheer silk teddy and an exquisite, leather-bound antique copy of the Kama Sutra. Peter protested mildly at these revelations, but in truth he basked in them.

  To cover her embarrassment, Samantha cleared away the dishes and emptied the swing-bin, showing that she was a practical young woman and not some bejewelled temptress.

  Later on, after dinner and much laughter, the talk turned back to Peter’s crusade. Samantha had brought in coffee and brandy, feeling terribly grown up, like a proper hostess, and Kurt had rolled a joint which Peter did not share for fear of coughing. All three young people were so impressed and supportive of what Peter was doing. It felt so good to wallow in their awestruck praise after the daily battering that he was taking from some parts of the house and the more reactionary columnists. He was right, he knew he was right, and the next generation of opinion-formers knew it too. He was their inspiration. Their champion. And he could not resist showing off to them.

  ‘Oh yes, the Prime Minister has given me a right bollocking this last two weeks.’

  Sitting at Peter’s feet Samantha breathlessly bore witness to this claim. ‘I was standing outside the PM’s office waiting to give Peter some papers. I could hear the shouting.’

  ‘But it wasn’t all one way, was it, Sammy? I gave as good as I got.’

  ‘You certainly did, babes.’

  ‘The PM knows that the tide’s beginning to turn my way. All right, there are still people out there who want to paint me as some dangerous maniac, but there are plenty more who can at least see that I’m right to raise the debate.’

  ‘Of course you are. It’s all so obvious.’

  ‘You’re the only honest one amongst them, Peter!’

  And,so he sipped his brandy and held his parliamentary assistant’s hand and wallowed in the admiration of her friends, who smoked their joints and looked upon him as the sort of person they wanted to be.

  Then Laura and Kurt gave Samantha her present. Something it turned out that they had always shared at birthdays since their second year at Cambridge. A very special treat. A gram of cocaine.

  ‘A truly classy present,’ Kurt said. ‘Class A, in fact.’

  ‘Jesus!’ Peter said. ‘I’m a Member of Parliament!’

  ‘Gotta walk it the way you talk it, Peter.’

  Peter was not so drunk as not to remind them that he advocated legalization, not participation. ‘I don’t want to see more people using drugs. I want to protect the community from those who do and protect the users from themselves.’

  ‘I’d hardly call three birthdays a year using. We’re exactly the kind of people you’re talking about, Peter. Proof that drugs are not necessarily an instant route to hopeless addiction. Proof that people can be trusted to take drugs responsibly.’

  Peter had never had cocaine before. Surely it was appropriate to know a little about the subject on which he was now the country’s leading spokesperson?

  Later, feeling elated and confident, sure of himself and his abilities and master of his destiny, Peter practised his next speech on Samantha. She listened to it from the bed, having put on her new silk teddy.

  Peter was surprised to discover that while he most certainly wanted to talk to Samantha, he did not particularly wish to make love to her. He just wanted to talk and talk and talk.

  When he had finally finished reciting his speech, punctuated as it was with many digressions, explanations and justifications, Samantha slipped the straps of her lingerie from her shoulders and allowed the garment to fall away, exposing the firm, full breasts that Peter had lusted after for so long.

  ‘Well?’ Samantha enquired.

  ‘Would you like to hear my speech again?’ Peter replied.

  BROWN’S HOTEL, LONDON

  Why do you take that stuff, Tommy?’ Her accent was Croatian. Exotic, eastern European — seductive, particularly combined with the elegance of her perfect English.

  ‘Eh? What’s that, love?’

  ‘The drugs. Don’t you think you’ve had enough?’

  ‘Contradiction in terms, Geets. Can’t have enough. Go on, ‘ave a toot.’

  ‘I never take drugs, Tommy, you know that.’

  ‘Do I?’

  ‘How many evenings have you called me up for sex?’

  ‘Dunno, darlin’, couple?’

  ‘Six times now and you never once saw me take a drug.’

  ‘Has it been six times? Fook. I must be in love. You’re crackin’ easy on the eye, love, that’s for sure.’

  ‘I shouldn’t let you call me like this. The club is really coming down hard on girls going with guests. I’d lose my job if they knew I’d become your whore.’

  Tommy looked up from the powdery mirror he had been leaning over. His bloodshot puppy-dog eyes seemed hurt.

  ‘Eh, don’t put it like that, love. Whore? Blimey, that’s a bit is, totally terrible, point taken. I mean, yeah, of course, not arguing with you on that one, but what’s all that Bosnia malarky got to do with drugs?’

  ‘Let me ask you a question, Tommy. How many Croatian whores do you think there are working in London?’

  ‘How would I know? I only know the one, but you’ll do for me, girl.’

  ‘And in Paris and Berlin, Brussels, Rome, wherever.’

  ‘No idea. I shouldn’t think there’s many more of them as gorgeous as you.’

  ‘I make a lot of money. It’s easier to look good when you have a lot of money.’

  ‘Hey, don’t undersell yourself. You’re different. Classy.’

  ‘Oh, you’re right about that, Tommy. I’m different, that’s for sure. Different from all those other Croatian whores, because, you see, I still have my passport.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘They take their passports, Tommy, they wipe out their identities, their names even, then they lock them up inside their brothels.’

  It was clear that
Tommy was attempting to focus. This was not the type of conversation he had been planning to have when he had called Ghita from his car after leaving Spearmint Rhino’s.

  ‘What? Has somebody tried to do that to you or summat? ‘Cos if you’re in trouble or whatever, I can…’

  ‘I’m not in trouble, Tommy. I’m a different kind of sexual refugee. I was educated. My family was rich once, before the wars destroyed us all. Like you say, I’m classy. When I was fifteen I’d already spent a year in Paris. I was going to be a brilliant linguist.’

  ‘Well, you’re certainly very good with your tongue, darlin’, that’s for sure.’ Tommy laughed loudly at his joke, but Ghita didn’t seem to have heard it.

  ‘But you see, most of the Croatian girls who work in the West and all the other poor white Euro-trash, the Slovaks, the Ukrainians, the Russians, the Serbs, they are peasants, or they were peasants. Now they are slaves. Captured, lured across borders, promised a better life, beaten, drugged, shipped in packing cases, kept in cellars…’

  ‘Yeah, all right, all right! White slavery, God, we’ve all watched Channel Four, we know it’s out there. What’s it got to do with my bit of charlie?’

  ‘The drug economy fuels it all, pays the wages, dopes the girls. The drug-trade routes are the same as the sexual slavery ones. The same people are shipping the merchandise. It’s the power and wealth that drugs have brought to these people that allows them to do the things they do. The extortionate marked-up price you paid for that stuff you’re sniffing, Tommy, is what finances half the misery in eastern Europe, and well beyond.’

  ‘Here, hang on a minute. Don’t give me a hard time, babes. I’m paying you.’

  ‘I thought you said we were friends, but as I said, I’m your whore.’

  ‘Look, d’ya want to get paid or not?’

  ‘I don’t care, Tommy, there’re plenty more clients where you came from. You British, you Americans…’

  ‘Hey, don’t blame us for them. There is a difference, you know.’