It Felt Like a Kiss

  ‘Apparently Vaughn called the Mayor’s office. I think they were at Eton together,’ Muffin hissed when she and Ellie met briefly in the back office. ‘The mews has been redesignated as a private road. They’ve even set up a little checkpoint and they’re making people show ID before they’re allowed to enter. It’s like a police state.’

  Generally Ellie disapproved of police states but in these circumstances she was very glad that Vaughn had probably donated an obscene sum of money to the mayoral campaign, which allowed him to use Her Majesty’s constabulary for his own ends.

  Exhibition days were always a white-knuckle ride, even when the gallery staff could enter and exit by their own front door, but by three o’clock that afternoon, everything was done. All the artists had been accounted for. Mariusz, the gallery handyman, and his team had finished nailing a contorted willow sculpture to the back wall of the gallery; assembled and hung a white Perspex bicycle from the ceiling; and fixed the halogen light in the downstairs loo, which always tripped the fuses when it blew out.

  The guest list, which was twice as long as it had originally been, was signed off. Madeleine had thrown out a man from the Daily Star who’d pretended to be another Polish handyman, and for the first time in her life Inge had been on a coffee run.

  Now, Vaughn had gathered all the staff in the gallery for a final walk-through before the caterers arrived. Theoretically, the exhibition was Ellie’s responsibility so she should have done the final walk-through, but Vaughn always relished an opportunity to address his troops.

  ‘If I discover that any of you have so much as breathed a word to anyone who could even loosely describe themselves as a journalist – well, I don’t like to resort to cliché but the phrase “blacken your name” would cover this eventuality – I doubt you’d ever find new employment in any meaningful capacity. Not unless you harbour a desire to sell fast food.’ He shuddered at the thought. ‘Is that clear?’

  Ellie felt Muffin, who was standing next to her, flinch and Piers had turned painfully red.

  ‘What if you didn’t know they were a journalist and you were only telling them that Ellie was a very nice girl and they should leave her alone?’ he asked in a voice so panicked and high that it was practically a falsetto. ‘I wasn’t selling my story or anything, I was defending you, Ellie. I was doing a good thing, and anyway, they followed me all the way to the stationery shop and held the door open for me and it would have been rude to completely ignore them.’

  Any minute now Piers was going to start huffing on his inhaler; he was already rooting around in his jacket pocket.

  Vaughn shook his head. ‘Fine. Piers gets special dispensation because he’s a bloody idiot, but as for the rest of you …’

  He tailed off meaningfully, and though Ellie had no intention of talking to the press, she still felt guilt prick at her, but not as much as Muffin, who muttered, ‘Oh shit,’ and stared resolutely down at her Marni polka-dot sandals. Ellie clenched her fists and breathed through her nose because wasn’t it enough that Muffin had a ginormous trust fund and could afford £250 sandals? Had she dared to sell some choice snippets to the tabloids where she’d be quoted as ‘a source close to voluptuous vixen Velvet’?

  ‘You’d better not have,’ she whispered at Muffin. She was determined to get through the day without crying or monumentally losing her shit, both of which could wait until she was safely tucked away in a hotel room, but her resolve was being severely tested. ‘Or I will shut you down …’

  ‘Don’t go all Camden on me,’ Muffin whispered back. ‘It was only a pal who—’

  ‘Why are you talking? Who gave you permission to talk?’ Vaughn demanded. He was tetchy enough on a normal day but on the opening day of an exhibition when one of his staff was on the front page of every tabloid newspaper, his tetchiness was stratospheric. ‘In circumstances like this, we close ranks. Never complain, never explain, right, Cohen?’

  ‘I suppose,’ Ellie muttered, though she didn’t have the same ranks to close as the others. In her experience, the posh kids always stuck together. It was something to do with being carted off to boarding school before they were weaned, where they learned self-reliance, arrogance and bonds that were tightened by the old school tie. Still, as advice went, ‘never complain, never explain’ sounded more her style than ‘maintaining a dignified silence’, as if she were some doughty dowager duchess. ‘It’s all good,’ she said crisply. ‘None of us is going to say anything to the press that isn’t about emerging Scandinavian artists, are we?’

  There were murmurs of assent from the others, then Vaughn was distracted by the white Perspex bicycle, which was floating above their heads. ‘Shouldn’t that be more left of centre?’

  They debated the positioning of the bicycle for ten increasingly heated minutes until they were interrupted by a furious buzz on the intercom followed by a hammering on the door.

  ‘How did they get through the security cordon?’ Piers cried indignantly, like he hadn’t been blabbing to members of the press earlier, as he went to answer the door.

  Ellie was more concerned with persuading Vaughn to leave the bicycle exactly where it was, but then she heard Piers give an excited little cry and someone gave an excited little cry in return, and Grace Vaughn appeared in the open doorway, laden down with garment bags.

  For one fleeting moment, Ellie saw both husband and wife’s faces light up before they resembled their usual expressions – a scowl and a pout respectively.

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ Grace exclaimed. ‘It’s harder to get into the mews than to get wait-listed for a fricking Birkin. I had to show my passport to a policeman!’

  ‘Why were you trying to get into the mews when I thought you were busy organising the aftershow party?’ Vaughn wanted to know. Ellie wanted to know that too. Grace did the aftershows; that was the deal. She had a knack for finding unusual venues, stuffing them full of models, artists, hipsters and magazine people, and blagging a whole load of free booze and a really good sound system.

  ‘It’s all under control,’ Grace assured him airily. ‘The caterers finally found someone who could supply moose meat for the sliders, though I still think that’s kind of rank. Anyway, I bought you some shirt options and I got your Dries van Noten suit back from the dry-cleaners.’ She looked around. ‘I like that bicycle.’

  ‘It’s in the wrong place,’ Vaughn said flatly.

  ‘It looks all right to me,’ Grace said, then she pouted a little harder. ‘I’m half dead under the weight of all these bags. Could someone give me a hand?’

  Piers rushed to oblige and Ellie decided that she could escape to her office. She had been booked in for a wash and blowdry and a spray tan this afternoon, but had cancelled both appointments.

  This time last Friday, she could have gone anywhere she wanted, but now she couldn’t pop out to get her hair done. Or go to EAT for a spicy chicken noodle salad, buy a pair of tights, pop in to see Louis with a pile of dry-cleaning; mundane everyday tasks that she’d always taken for granted. Now it was impossible simply to walk down the street without being trailed by a heaving mass of people all trying to take her picture and yelling deeply personal questions at her.

  Ellie wandered over to the big picture window and was peering out to see what was happening in the mews when she heard a gentle knock on the door.

  ‘There you are,’ said Grace, ducking into Ellie’s office without waiting to be invited in. ‘So, how are you?’

  ‘Well, I’ve had better Mondays,’ Ellie said carefully, because Grace might be roughly the same age as her, and she might also be friends with Lola, but she was still Vaughn’s wife and needed to be treated with caution.

  They both smiled awkwardly at each other, because Grace also approached the gallery staff with a wariness that came from being Vaughn’s much younger, much more shabbily dressed mistress before she’d become his wife. Ellie had been working for Vaughn for less than a year and had occasionally glimpsed a series of interchangeable well-groomed blondes ac
companying him to work events, then Grace had rocked up with her funny-coloured hair and her funny-coloured tights, and Vaughn had been smitten. Well, as smitten as Vaughn could be.

  Grace was no longer out of her depth, even if she was still smiling nervously at Ellie. She had the pampered, smooth look of the very rich, even if she did wear clothes that were better suited to street-style blogs than to being worn on a day-to-day basis. The funny-coloured hair was now a tousled honeyed blonde with a blunt-cut fringe that channelled Brigitte Bardot, and as Grace stepped nearer Ellie could see her thick, sooty lashes and the flawless skin that came from being relatively stress-free and able to afford the attentions of a top-class aesthetician.

  ‘Look, Ellie, I just want you to know that I’ve shot those two girls, your half-sisters, or whatever you want to call them and they were total nightmares,’ Grace suddenly blurted out. ‘It’s always the same when we do a shoot with people who are famous just for being famous, they have no talent so they over-compensate by being total divas.’

  ‘Yeah, it just feels a bit weird to disc—’

  ‘Kate Winslet made tea for everyone!’ Grace informed her. ‘You mustn’t pay any attention to them, because one of them has had the worst boob lift I’ve ever seen and the other one tried to steal a Marc Jacobs jacket and a pair of Prada heels after the shoot. You’re much, much better than them.’

  It sounded like Ellie could hardly be any worse. She’d never stolen anything, not even pick ’n’ mix from Woolies, not because it was wrong, but because she was too scared of being caught.

  ‘I’m sure they can’t be all bad,’ she insisted weakly.

  ‘Oh, they definitely are and you have much better legs than they do,’ Grace said loyally. ‘Vaughn pretends that we don’t read the Sunday tabs but we do, and that picture of you being whirled over the head of that rockabilly guy was impressive. Are they that toned from those clompy fitness shoes you wear?’

  ‘I think it’s my genes. I mean, my mother’s genes,’ Ellie said, because Ari had amazing legs, as did her aunts, and even Sadie still had a perfect pair of pins, which age could not wither, though she lived in fear of varicose veins. ‘I couldn’t really speak for his genes.’

  ‘Anyway, don’t worry about Vaughn. I’m sure if he said he was going to sack you, it didn’t mean anything. He threatens to divorce me at least once a week,’ she added cheerfully. ‘He’ll sack Donut long before he sacks you.’

  She could hardly tell Grace that she’d already agreed to work out a month’s notice. Much as she would love to have Vaughn’s wife fighting her corner, Ellie knew that nothing would be more likely to make Vaughn stick to his guns on the whole firing issue. She settled for a smile that showed a lot of teeth and not much conviction. ‘You mean Muffin. She likes to be called Muffin.’

  ‘Looks like a right donut to me,’ Grace muttered, then she remembered that she was the guvnor’s wife and had a certain standing to uphold. ‘Anyway, I just came in to check that you were all right, and now I have an after-show party to organise so I’ll see you later.’ She waggled her fingers and was gone in a cloud of Diptyque’s Philosykos.

  Camden, London, 1986

  ‘Billy Kay is never going to leave his wife for you because his parents have cut him off and she bankrolls him, he has a kid and, oh yeah, by the way, his music sucks.’ Tabitha had volunteered to tell Ari what everybody else already knew. Now she folded her arms, which hoisted up her already impressive rack so she looked like a really cross Jayne Mansfield. ‘Either you cut him off or we cut you off.’

  ‘He’s a bastard, I get it,’ Ari said. ‘But when I’m with him, even when I’m not with him but I’m thinking about him, he makes my heart ache, Tab. It literally aches.’

  Tabitha scoffed because it was a stupid thing to say and generally Ari was far too cool to lose her cool over a guy. ‘It’s probably indigestion,’ she said, and Ari figured that the easiest way to stop what was becoming a no-holds-barred infatuation with someone who treated her like his own personal sex toy was to simply stop.

  It was as simple as that. Or it would have been if it had been with anyone else.

  As soon as Ari stopped coming, Billy stopped calling. And the more he didn’t call, the more distraught Ari became; gorging herself on the memory of every time he’d smiled at her, kissed her, backed her up against the wall and pushed her skirt up.

  To get the Billy taste out of her mouth, Ari even went on a date with Chester. He was really sweet, insisted on paying for everything, even held doors open for her (and who did that these days?) but no matter what Chester was, he wasn’t Billy, and when Ari wouldn’t let him kiss her, Chester called her a bitch and stormed off. She really couldn’t blame him. She was a bitch and Chester didn’t deserve a bitch.

  Billy, however, did deserve a bitch, and when he phoned, after three long, long, long weeks of missing him so much that she thought she might die from it, Ari stuffed loo roll into the toes of her pointiest fuck-me heels and set off for Primrose Hill.

  When she got there, it was Billy who dropped to his knees. He looked sad, older than the last time she’d seen him. ‘Don’t ever go away again,’ he said, his hands tight on her hips. ‘I can’t bear it. I need you, Ari.’

  She shook her head. ‘No you don’t, Billy. You don’t need anyone,’ she said, but he was already pulling up her skirt, kissing her belly and either he didn’t hear her or he didn’t think it was worth the effort to deny the charge.

  And then he was in her, all around her and this was what she’d come back for. His mouth on hers, his cock driving into her, fingers circling her clit because he loved to make her scream his name and then … he stopped.

  Ari wasn’t going to say it. She might not be able to stay away but she was done with Billy’s bullshit, even when he looked at her with those soulful eyes.

  ‘Do you promise you won’t go away again?’ he asked her, and she would never know how he had the self-control just to stop. ‘You have to promise.’

  She shook her head. ‘No more promises, Billy.’

  Stalemate. He narrowed his eyes and Ari set her face in firm, resolute lines, and all the time she could feel his dick hard inside her, the walls of her pussy fluttering around him and she thought that she might actually come without him. She tightened around him and Billy groaned.

  ‘You really are a bitch, do you know that?’

  ‘It’s been mentioned a couple of times.’ She was not going to think about Chester. Not right now. Ugh! And anyway, Billy’s hands were in her hair, dislodging the pins that held her beehive together so he could tug her head back. It gave Ari an edge that she didn’t even know she craved and she squeezed him tight again.

  ‘I love you,’ he said, jaw clenched, like she’d forced the confession out of him, and in a way she kind of had. ‘You’re a bitch, but I love you. I wish I didn’t but I do.’

  Afterwards, when they’d rearranged their clothes and were sharing Ari’s last cigarette, Billy nudged her with his arm. ‘You’re not ever going away again,’ he said. It wasn’t a question so there was no need to answer.

  Chapter Thirteen

  And then it was showtime …

  By six thirty, though the invitations had said seven for seven thirty, the gallery was heaving with favoured clients, art lovers, critics and the one hundred or so other people who’d wangled their way on to the guest list at the eleventh hour.

  Ellie was relegated to the back office-cum-packing room behind the reception desk after one of the girls manning the bar, set up at the end of the gallery, had been caught aiming her camera phone up Ellie’s short, flouncy, blush-coloured dress as Ellie had been standing on a kickstep to adjust a mudguard on the floating bicycle.

  ‘You’d better stay in here for the time being,’ Vaughn had decided, and took hold of Ellie’s arm to escort her personally to her little prison. At least he left the door ajar so she could talk to Piers and Inge, who were in charge of the guest list, while Muffin and Madeleine were on ushering duties.
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  It was hard to feel a warm glow of pride when you were banished, but Ellie gave it her best shot. There was no doubt the show was a hit. The guests had spilled out into the mews, where the press were still behind the police cordon, apart from one accredited photographer taking pictures for the party pages. Inge said she’d seen three members of a Norwegian rock group. Muffin had started a rumour on Twitter that all of ABBA were coming and it was trending.

  ‘Has anyone bought any art yet?’ Ellie whispered at Inge.

  ‘Two people from Tate Modern have been staring at the triptych for ten minutes.’ Inge sighed. ‘Everyone loves the floating bicycle. I love it too. I wonder how hard it would be to suspend a bicycle from my living-room ceiling.’

  ‘You could probably get one of your boyfriends to do it,’ Piers said. ‘Although they look far too effete to be handy with hammers and hooky things.’

  ‘You’re far more effete than any other boy I know, Piers,’ Inge said.

  ‘Tristram is way, way more effete than I am. He wears a pocket square!’

  ‘You’ve been seen in Hoxton with a monocle. Don’t even think about denying it.’

  While it was entertaining to listen to Piers and Inge have the most ridiculous argument it was possible for two people to have, there was a queue of people at the reception desk waiting to sign in and receive a catalogue lovingly put together by Ellie. She had to make do with hissing at the pair of them like an enraged swan.

  ‘Less bickering, more queue-wrangling, please. You’re probably keeping the Finnish Ambassador waiting,’ she told them sternly, then could do nothing but seethe when Piers kicked the back office door shut and locked it.