The Exchange (7 page)

‘I’d love one.’

As he busied himself with his Gaggia, I grabbed my clothes and dressed hurriedly. My clothes weren’t exactly daytime attire, but I was used to people looking at me in the street, to standing out from the crowd.

Where yesterday I had dreaded going back to Rachel’s, now I was desperate to be back there, alone, showering and changing and reflecting on the events of the night. Tatiana’s parting words, in particular, left me uneasy, and I wished I hadn’t given her my contact details. But as I slipped my shoes on and took the mug of coffee that Kyle held out to me, I told myself that she almost certainly wouldn’t call. Whatever strange games she and Morgan had invented to get through an evening with their kind but staid friend Kyle would quickly be forgotten. I was sure they had bigger fish to fry.

I finished my coffee, gave Kyle a friendly kiss on the cheek, and asked him to call me sometime. As I headed off towards the Tube, I wondered if he ever would.

***

Thanks to the sleeping tablets and Kyle’s loan of his sofa, I felt relatively well rested and positive the next day. Back at Rachel’s flat with a takeout mocha and a muffin in front of me on the breakfast bar, I began to make plans for my time in London. It wasn’t enough, I reasoned, to run away from one’s issues, however cloudy they were. Indeed, perhaps the cloudier they were, the more likely they were to follow you. Sitting around without any real aims or ambitions only risked pushing me towards the kind of distractions I wanted to break away from.

I needed to do a course, I decided. I wasn’t sure exactly what, but I needed to find something to take me out of both myself and my comfort zone. Though I was a risk taker in many respects, I’d been very reliant, it struck me, on my immediate environment and the people in it. Though Pigalle was risqué and perhaps even off limits to certain people, to me it represented security – the security of being surrounded by like-minded people, of not being judged or rejected. But perhaps that in itself demonstrated – ironically – a conservative craving for the known and the reassuring.

I thought about songwriting. My guitar-playing was rusty – I hadn’t picked up an instrument in years. I’d had talent, but I’d been lazy, and I’d let life get in the way. I’d once written poetry too. I’d never done anything with any of it, but now it struck me that I could combine the two and perhaps create something meaningful.

Picking up the phone, I made an appointment to look around the London Songwriting School, and then I called Kyle and left a message asking if he knew anyone who could lend me a guitar for a while. I was going to need to buy one, if I did carry on with this. In fact, I was going to need to get some work to fund all of this. But job and course combined would hopefully keep me out of mischief.

Inspired, I sat in front of my laptop, clicked on Spotify and played the Florence and the Machine song ‘What the Water Gave Me’. I loved Florence Welch – her eccentricity and whole aesthetic, her complex multi-layered sound. This song, I knew, was named after the Symbolism-rich Frida Kahlo painting but was actually about Virginia Woolf’s suicide. It was Gothic at heart and yet dancey. I stood up, started to wig out, letting myself go to the crash of cymbals, the fine interplay of the guitar and the harp, to Florence’s ecstatic lyrics. If I could create something like this, I thought, I might be happy.

The phone rang and I leapt towards it, thinking it was Kyle.

‘Hi!’ I shouted into the receiver. ‘I’ll just turn the music down.’

I closed my laptop and grabbed the phone again. ‘Sorry about that,’ I said.

‘No problem,’ came a voice I didn’t recognise, a female voice.

‘Rachel?’ I said. I didn’t know anyone else who might call me here.

‘Forgotten me already?’ continued the voice, all honeyed on the surface but with something darker, I felt, beneath it. I frowned.

‘Tatiana,’ went the voice. ‘From last night?’

‘Oh
hi
,’ I said, wondering if my voice came across to her as guarded as it did to my own ears.
What the fuck do
you
want?
is what really wanted to come out of my mouth.

‘
Hi
,’ she said, and this time there really was something quite sinister to her tone, which appeared to be mocking mine. ‘Listen, I was serious about helping you out while you’re here. Want to meet up for lunch? A friend’s just cancelled on me, so I’m at a loose end. It’s on me, of course.’

‘Thanks, but I should have explained that I’m not really planning to do any dancing while I’m here,’ I said. ‘I’m … I’m having a break.’

‘Oh? Then why not come out anyway, be one of the ladies who lunch?’

‘I’m afraid I’m a bit busy today. I’m actually … well, I’m researching a course I may apply for, and also I need to get a job to pay for it.’

‘What kind of a job? Maybe I can help. I’m
very
well connected.’

‘I haven’t really thought about it. I guess just waitressing, or maybe I’ll find something in a vintage clothes shop.’

Tatiana tsked. ‘Slave labour,’ she said. ‘You’ll get a pittance. I’m sure you can do better than that.’ She paused for a moment. ‘Listen,’ she said, ‘my best friend is Lulu Hammonds – her name may be familiar to you.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Well, her husband was a very well-known actor. Died twenty years ago.’

‘Right.’

‘Well, Lulu now owns a vintage boutique in Holland Park. It’s not so far from where you live, but it’s ultra upmarket – we’re talking antiques, really, rather than the kind of vintage you’ll find in Camden and god knows where else. I know she was looking for someone only last week, to take over for a few months while she goes on a buying spree in the States. And I know she’ll pay you much more than the kind of places you were thinking of. Her shop has real cachet – all the celebs go there, the hip ones. Kate and Sadie and even Stella sometimes. But it’s bohemian too –I can just see you there.’

I had to admit, it sounded a lot more tempting than the local Starbucks. Of course, I knew I could easily find a dancing job in one of the Soho clubs, and earn a very good wage once tips were factored in. But that was all part of the life I was trying to leave behind, if only temporarily. I enjoyed performing in many respects, but there were equally aspects that I wasn’t so happy about. This was my chance to find out what I wanted.

‘OK,’ I said, trying not to sound reluctant. I
was
interested in the job, but I wasn’t so thrilled that it would mean meeting up with Tatiana. I was uncomfortable with the thought of what I’d done with her boyfriend at Kyle’s the night before, of course, but I was also mistrustful of Tatiana herself. There was something calculating about her – more than a suggestion of ulterior motives to her apparent kindness.

‘Great,’ she said faux brightly. ‘What we could do is meet for lunch in Holland Park, and then drop by the boutique and see if Lulu is free for a chat? Or I might actually give her a call now, to check she hasn’t already got anyone and to let her know we’ll be calling in.’

‘Sounds good to me. Just let me know where and when.’

‘Well, how about Julie’s, at 1 p.m?’

‘Fine, I’ll see you there,’ I said, opening my laptop to find out the street name.

‘See you there,’ came Tatiana’s voice, and again it struck me that the honey of her tone masked something infinitely less sweet.

I was just about to put the phone down when she spoke again. ‘Oh Rochelle,’ she said, as if it were an afterthought. ‘Do make sure to dress up in your finest, won’t you?’

‘Sure,’ I said, but as I replaced the receiver I was already grimacing, wondering if I was doing the right thing.

***

I walked down to Holland Park, through the hipster throng of Notting Hill Gate itself. I was still getting my bearings, and in such fine weather, it was pleasant to take my time, to breathe in the spring air and ogle the buildings, which got increasingly impressive the further I descended the hill towards Holland Park. On either side of me rose white-fronted mansions bedecked by wrought-iron latticework, and fronted by immaculate gardens. I couldn’t even begin to imagine how much they may cost, or who might earn the kind of money to buy and then maintain them.

I came to the street I needed, took a right off the main drag. Julie’s appeared on my left and I approached the front door a little self-consciously. I had dressed up, but not because Tatiana had virtually ordered me to. The truth was, I loved it, and I knew also that I would feel crappy if this shop she talked about was brimming with gorgeous antique clothing and accessories. There’s nothing worse than shopping somewhere lovely and then catching sight of yourself in a mirror and realising you’re looking daggy.

I’ve never been a jeans and a sweater type of person. From the earliest age I would sneak upstairs to raid my glamorous maternal grandmother’s wardrobe, to slip on her oversize shoes encrusted with diamanté, to swathe myself in her real-fur stoles. Then I’d sit down in front of her three-mirrored dressing table and dab at my face with her powder-puff before coating my mouth with a slick layer of her lipstick. This was the ’70s, and the colour I remember applying most often was a vibrant orange. I never did my eyes, but I’d dab at her little pots of navy and silver shadows with my fingers and rub them over the backs of my hands to test out the effects.

That carried on, but while I still love dressing up, I’m not swimming in money, and I party too hard, and sometimes I realise the effect I achieve is more Courtney Love on a bad day than offbeat starlet. Today, however, I was Courtney in Versace: a bit ruffled, but sexily so. I’d teased out my ringlets a bit, and my nude-beige dress, knee-length and covered with appliqué white, pink and scarlet flowers, was actually quite downplayed. My lipstick and eye make-up were correspondingly muted.

As I walked in, Tatiana gestured from a table. I had to admit it, she looked good, her platinum-blonde hair offset against an expensive white trouser suit. Silver bangles and a heart pendant at her throat twinkled unobtrusively.

‘Rochelle,’ she said, standing up and walking around the table to kiss me on both cheeks. Her hands clasped my shoulders firmly, in a gesture I felt was a little territorial. I wriggled free, sat down. She did so too. I busied myself opening and scanning the menu; I knew it was rude, but suddenly I wasn’t in the mood for this. Whatever
this
may be. And of course I felt pretty shifty about what had happened with Morgan.

‘It’s great to see you again,’ she said, leaning across the table and thus forcing me to look up and meet her gaze. ‘What an unexpected pleasure that it be so soon. I’m almost glad my friend cancelled now. Old friends are great, but it’s always nice to make new ones – to extend one’s circle. Don’t you think?’

On her breath I caught a whiff of wine, and looking down I saw that she had almost downed a large glassful while waiting for me. It wasn’t for me to judge, but I did find that noteworthy given that we’d all been drinking the night before – and also given that I hadn’t arrived late, for once in my life.

When the waitress appeared by my side, I ordered a sparkling mineral water. I wanted a clear head for the job interview – if that’s what it was going to be. But I also wanted a clear head for this lunch. Something wasn’t quite right, and I needed to have my wits about me.

Tatiana had fallen silent now, and I became convinced that she was studying me, although I was avoiding looking at her again in favour of the menu. I had a very strong feeling, all of a sudden, that I had fallen into a kind of trap.

I was just wondering whether to make an excuse and nip out to the street to call Kyle and question him about Tatiana and Morgan, when she spoke again.

‘I’m having the red mullet,’ she said. ‘How about you?’

I’d barely been able to read the menu, my thoughts were so fast and panicky, so I read out the first dish my eyes alighted on and then put the menu down.

‘So …’ I said, thinking that it might, after all, be better to cut to the chase and found out exactly what Tatiana wanted of me.

An almost flirtatious expression spread across her smooth, radiant face. ‘
So
…’ she echoed, and then she faded away as she waved to someone she’d spotted coming in the door.

‘I don’t believe it,’ she said. ‘How the devil are you, Roger, my old mucker?’

A man strolled over, hands in his pockets, a roué’s smile on. ‘Tats, darling!’ he said. ‘You’re looking just fabulous. How’s the old man?’

‘Oh, he’s the same old Morgan,’ she said, and as she did so, she turned her head in my direction and winked at me. It was all I could do not to let out a gasp. Was she implying, I wondered, that she knew what had happened between Morgan and me? I remembered seeing, through my drunken haze, her sniffing his fingers as they were about to climb into the taxi outside Kyle’s. I didn’t blush easily, in general, but now I felt my cheeks blaze red.

As Roger gave me an appreciative glance and then made his way to his own table, I struggled to regain composure. I was convinced, by now, that Tatiana had guessed what had happened at Kyle’s house and that her sole purpose in inviting me here was to humiliate me. There was to be no boutique, no introduction to her friend. It had all been an expensive ruse to lure me out on the pretence of friendship and a favour and then to slap me in the face, whether metaphorically or physically. Tatiana was playing some strange little game in which I may be nothing more than a pawn. Perhaps this was her way of getting her revenge, in slow but sure stages, on Morgan.

I made my excuses and headed for the loo, through the warren of rooms with their little alcoves and bohemian-chic mash-up of styles – velvet sofas beside church pews, old pulpits next to Indian carvings, and even an old pulpit and some stained glass. In one corner I spotted a pair of famous young actresses from a rom com, one of them jogging her new baby up and down on her knee as she fed herself soup. Further along, another actress, this one in her 60s and currently making a comeback in a popular period costume drama, dined with a much younger man who could have been her son but might also have been her lover.