Chapter Thirty

Anna waited at the airport like a woman condemned. Perhaps the plane had been diverted, she imagined. Or her mother had been running late and missed it? Maybe it had even crashed, she mused guiltily, before telling herself off. There would be other passengers on board with a right to live.

She looked up at the monitor and saw that it had landed. She rehearsed a couple of safe conversations she could start. What did you think of the exhibition at the Tate? Or, Did you see Andrew Lloyd Webber’s new one, it sounds right up your street?

People began streaming into the arrivals hall. Pale-skinned, in self-consciously summery clothes and wheeling their overly large suitcases, most of the contents of which, Anna reckoned, would never be worn. Middle aged couples, some oldies wearing light raincoats, tired-looking families with sulky children, a few Cypriots being greeted warmly by their loved ones. And in the midst of all of them appeared Anna’s mother, Audrey.

A diminutive woman with a slender frame, soft silver curls and a well made-up face, wearing a white skirt and blouse with a pale yellow cardigan on top and pushing a trolley carrying one no doubt carefully packed suitcase. She wore smart beige sandals, some bright coral lipstick and arrived in a cloud of Chanel No. 5.

‘Anna darling,’ she said with a beaming smile, her arms outstretched. ‘You do look well. Have you put on a bit of weight?’

‘Mummy.’ Anna forced herself to smile as she took care of Audrey’s trolley.

‘What a packed flight,’ her mother started. ‘And the airport! It was a cattle market.’

‘Did you get something to eat?’ Anna asked as they arrived in the car park.

‘Oh, you know how I can’t bear airline food; I didn’t touch it. It doesn’t hurt to skip a meal now and then’, she added, her eyes darting pointedly to Anna’s stomach.

Anna ignored her and opened up the car, putting Audrey’s suitcase in the boot.

‘Still got this old thing, then?’ Audrey eyed up her Honda Civic suspiciously.

‘It’s a good car.’

‘I’d have thought the bank could have provided Richard with something better by now. I mean, he is the manager, isn’t he?’

Anna again decided not to comment.

‘Ah, the warmth of the sun,’ Audrey started, closing her eyes and feeling the rays on her face. ‘Doesn’t it feel wonderful?’

‘Doesn’t do much for your skin,’ Anna replied quickly. ‘If you put your face in it like that you’ll end up looking like an old prune.’

‘I read a wonderful quote by Catherine Deneuve the other day. She says, once you reach the age of thirty-five, you have to choose between your face and your arse!’

‘Mummy!’

‘I, of course, chose my arse, and kept myself thin, but perhaps to the detriment of my face. You, quite wisely, have chosen your face.’

Anna pulled out her tissue, infused with Nathalie’s special mix, and put it to her nose, taking a deep breath. It was going to be a long week.

***

Tanya looked up from her desk as the agency door opened, and to her astonishment, in walked the baby-faced man she’d seen in Dolores’ bar the other night. He was limping, she noticed, but he beamed at her as if she was an old friend.

‘I’m Marinos,’ he said, offering her his hand. ‘Didn’t I see you the other night? In that bar? What are the chances, eh?’

‘Yes, what are the chances?’ Tanya agreed, introducing herself.

‘You was a bit down in the dumps, wasn’t you? I couldn’t bear seeing such a gorgeous girl looking so miserable, it wasn’t right, innit.’

‘I do remember you, Marinos,’ she said, a bright smile masking her confusion. ‘Now, what can I do for you? Are you looking for a property or something?’

‘Yeah, I am, actually. I saw an ad for them villas you’re building in the paper.’ He pulled out a crumpled page of a newspaper from his pocket.

Who was he trying to fool, Tanya thought. He must have found out where she worked somehow. Perhaps even Dolores had told him? Her heart lifted at the thought that their friendship might not be over. As Yannakis was on honeymoon and it had been a slow afternoon, she decided to play along with him.

‘The Odyssey Villas?’ she asked. ‘They’re proving very popular. I’ve only got three or four units left, basically.’ She got up to show him the to-scale model, and pointed out the properties which were as yet unclaimed. Then she talked him through the prices and the deal terms, expecting him to burst out laughing and admit that he’d found out where she worked from Dolores, and just wanted to ask her out. But he didn’t, instead he listened attentively and asked pertinent questions.

So Tanya suggested making an appointment to take him to the show house, and he agreed. ‘I’d take you now but obviously I can’t leave the office empty,’ she told him. ‘And you should know there’s going to be a big party for all the buyers in September. We’re also proud to be sponsoring the Tiggles cat rescue centre with their campaign to neuter strays.’

‘I like cats,’ Marinos told her.

‘Then you’d like my friend, Ginnie,’ she said. ‘She’s a bit old for you, though.’ How old was he anyway, she wondered. Twenty-two, three?

‘I’ve got nothing against older women, but I’d prefer ‘em to be in their twenties.’

Tanya tried not to blush. ‘So you’re over from London then, are you?’

‘That’s right. But a lot of my family still lives here. So I’d like to be able to come down from time to time, innit.’

She didn’t want to seem rude but why he was keeping up the pretence was a mystery to her. Was it his parents who wanted a house? At his age, how could he possibly afford one?

‘Look, Tanya,’ he started, as if reading her mind. ‘I don’t want to be forward or nothing, but I’d love to ask you out.’

‘Oh, Marinos,’ she said with a gentle sigh. There it was at last. What was he, an apprentice plumber? An electrician? Tanya wanted more for herself than that. ‘That’s very sweet but I’m afraid I’m taken at the end of the day.’

‘That’s too bad. I should’ve known that someone as gorgeous as you would be. He’s a lucky bloke, innit.’

Tanya tried to smile the smile of a woman happy and in-love. ‘You don’t really want a house at all, do you?’

‘Yeah, I do.’ His face changed. ‘Gimme a brochure and I’ll come back and see the show house. As long as you promise it’ll be you what takes me.’

‘Marinos,’ Tanya said with a pitying smile. ‘I’m sorry for being rude, but really. I’m a busy woman, and at the end of the day, how could you possibly afford one?’

Marinos just smiled. ‘That’s for me to know and you to find out, innit?’ he told her with a wink.

***

Ginnie arrived at Tiggles with a sense of trepidation. She’d been relieved to get Nigel’s phone call and to know that she was needed after all, but at the same time felt such shame and humiliation she wasn’t sure she could bear to look him in the eye again. What had she been thinking? How had she failed to spot that damned webcam? Even worse, how did she know that nothing had been released on the internet?

She groped in her handbag for Nathalie’s oil, unscrewed the cap and inhaled it deeply, before entering Nigel’s office. She hadn’t had a drink, despite all her raw emotions, and felt all the stronger for it. This fact alone gave her confidence.

Nigel looked up from his paperwork and smiled. ‘Ginnie, there you are. Thank you for coming.’

He made it sound inappropriate. ‘Nigel, thank you for asking me. And I want to apologise, again, for my terrible behaviour. I don’t know what got into me. It will never happen again, I promise.’ When he said nothing, she asked, ‘How’s Gracie? And her kittens?’

‘They’re doing marvellously, look.’ He indicated to his monitor on the desk, and there Ginnie could see Gracie, lying on her side, the kittens suckling.

‘The squidgies,’ she whispered. ‘I wish I’d been there for her.’

‘She managed perfectly well as it was. She’s very popular, you know. We’ve had lots of enquiries about her kittens.’

‘Good, that’s wonderful news.’

‘So the webcam’s been a stroke of marketing genius, you could say.’

‘Yes, you’re quite right.’

Nigel pressed his keyboard and another image came up, that of Ginnie, looking hot and tired, placing the vibrator inside her knickers.

‘This is, of course, what viewers might have seen.’

‘Nigel, do we have to? I’ve said I’m sorry. Can’t we erase this and put it behind us?’

‘Well, that would be easy, wouldn’t it? But in all honesty, Ginnie, why should I?’ He folded his hands behind his head revealing two damp patches under his arms, and pushed back from the monitor.

‘I don’t understand? What do you want from me?’

‘That’s more like it, Ginnie. Trisha’s been called away, you know. Her mother’s not well. So it’s all hands on deck here.’

‘I’ll do whatever you like, clean out litter trays, I’ll do all the de-fleaing, whatever you say.’

‘That’s what I wanted to hear.’ He pushed his chair out further and Ginnie could plainly see his hard-on straining through his trousers. ‘You see, I quite enjoy watching this tape. You’re a very sensual woman, did you know that? If I wasn’t a married man I’d be very keen, very keen indeed.’

‘But you are married,’ Ginnie countered quickly. ‘So I’ll get on with the litter trays, shall I?’

‘Not so fast. Come on, Ginnie, we’re adults here. You know what I want. Watch this, it’s my favourite part, you’re on the verge of coming, see?’

‘Nigel please! Can’t we just erase this?’

‘I love the way you take your breasts like that. Look at your mouth, how it opens in desire; I just want to slip something in it, right at that point.’

Ginnie faltered. ‘Do you want a blowjob?’ When he said nothing she went on: ‘One blowjob and the tape gets erased. Do I have your word?’

He smiled triumphantly. ‘You have my word.’

‘You’ll erase it in front of me?’

‘I will.’

‘And can you assure me that it hasn’t been seen by anyone else?’

‘Fortunately, I can. I cut it off when I spotted you taking that thing out of your handbag.’

‘So you cut me off from being broadcast live, but you carried on taping all the same?’

‘It was too good to miss.’

‘Nigel, I feel so betrayed.’

‘One blowjob and it’s over.’

‘And then I carry on, as before, including the campaign?’

‘I was thinking I might get a bit more involved in that. The big launch party on the ninth, I thought I might represent Tiggles there.’

‘I can still go, surely?’

‘Of course you can, Ginnie, I’m not a mean man. Now, what are you going to do for me, now?’

With a huff Ginnie got down on her knees and undid his fly like a nurse dealing with an irritating patient. She’d made a mistake, she told herself, and this was her atonement. She eased Nigel’s stiff cock out of his underpants and took him in her mouth. It tasted of pee and pre-come, and she wished she had a glass of water at the ready. There was always his tea on the table, she noticed. She could always take a slurp of that afterwards.

He moaned in pleasure as she set to work, and she told herself this was practise for the real man who would surely come into her life sooner or later. She started stroking his shaft, and applying a little pressure to his balls. There was something nice about a stiff cock inside your mouth, she decided, as long as you didn’t focus too heavily on whose it actually was. She noted Nigel’s reactions when she squeezed here and nipped a little there, and began to feel just a little turned on herself. He had a little raspberry birthmark near his groin area, Ginnie spotted, and she was only just realising what a powerful observation that might be when suddenly he was coming, and he held her head down tightly against his cock, and squirted on the roof of her mouth. Ginnie felt pleased about a job well done. She swallowed, took a slurp of his luke-warm tea and got back up on her feet again.

‘That was wonderful, thank you Ginnie.’

‘Now let me see you erase that recording.’ Ginnie watched as he did so, and even though she was well aware he might have another copy hidden away, she knew that the knowledge of his raspberry birthmark now gave her something major on him. ‘When do you think Trisha will be back?’ she asked casually.

‘Two or three weeks,’ he replied. ‘In time for the big party. She doesn’t need to know about any of this.’

‘No she doesn’t, does she? I mean it’d be awful for you if she found out. Divorce can be so expensive, can’t it? Not to mention losing your children’s respect.’ She paused for a moment. ‘That birthmark of yours, I don’t suppose many people know about that, do they? Hidden away in such a secret place.’ She saw a flicker of recognition on his face. ‘All gone now, is it? Good, I’ll go and visit Gracie now, say hello to her kittens.’

‘Thank you, Ginnie. You do that.’

Nigel looked distinctly less confident than before, and Ginnie walked out feeling triumphant. That little raspberry birthmark had realigned the balance of power. One mention of it to Trisha and his life would barely be worth living. How stupid he was not to have thought of that! Ginnie suddenly felt all-powerful. She was a goddess, she was sensual, she oozed sexuality, and she’d just won an extremely important battle.