Upgrading (5 page)

Suddenly I need to get away, not just from the noise and the crowd but from this weird situation. While Marion is listening intently to some old dear describe a party in Venice given by another old dear, I whisper to her that I am going to the loo, I won’t be long. She nods which, I realize, means that she is giving me permission as much as showing that she has heard me.

I push my way through people who are each paying a fortune to stand in rush hour Tube-like overcrowding, and slip into the tranquillity of the gents. As the door closes behind me the cool air and the gurgling of the cistern and the squirting of water in the urinals make the room feel like some enchanted spa. The feeling of relief is short-lived as I realize that there is someone else in here with me. I turn round quickly and see the tall guy who was with one of Marion’s friends.

He is leaning up against the far wall, smoking. He looks me up and down for a moment and then offers me a cigarette, which I take.

“This is about the only place you can get away from them,” he says, tapping ash into the sink.

“From …?”

“Them.”

“Oh, yeah.”

He is certainly good-looking but, in the hard fluorescent light, older than I thought at first. Early thirties, maybe. His dinner jacket is actually slightly shiny. I am not sure if I’m talking to a rival or learning from an expert. He takes a long drag and puffs out smoke rings.

“She behaving?” he asks after a moment.

“Behaving? Oh, yeah.” I don’t want to sound too enthusiastic so I add, “She’s OK.”

“How long have you two been together?”

“Oh, not long,” I say vaguely. What was his name? Mark, I think. He takes a little pill box out of his jacket pocket.

“Do you …?” I think about it for a moment but he laughs when he sees me hesitate. “Please yourself.” He taps a bit onto the back of his hand and snorts it quickly. Mark, I realize, is in another league. If I’m at the lowest rung of this weird ladder, just thrilled about getting to Claridges and knocking back a couple of glasses of champagne, Mark is sitting at the top of it, looking round, elegantly bored and blasé. I realize that I haven’t been this keen to impress someone since I was at school.

But then Mark says, “You know it’s a fucking mug’s game.”

“Is it?” I look at him in the mirror.

He laughs. “You haven’t been doing it long, have you?” he asks, scratching something off the sleeve of his jacket.

“Er, no. Not very long,” I say casually, wondering whether I should be honest if he does ask me.

“Mind you, it beats working for a living,” is all he says.

“I know,” I add, glad to hear him sound at least slightly positive.

He sniffs and then looks at me in the mirror for a moment. “Just one word of advice, young man. Make sure there’s more give than take on their part and make sure that the give is in cash wherever possible.” He turns to look in the mirror. “Like the song says, ‘Get that ice or else no dice!’ ”

He checks his tie, runs his hands through his thick, dark hair and wipes his nose quickly with a finger. “OK? Shall we join the ladies?”

I had a feeling that I had been to Claridges before that night. The next day, at work, it came to me. I hadn’t been there myself but, in an alcove in their living room, my mum and dad have a large ornamental brandy glass. For years they’ve been putting into it boxes of matches from hotels, boats and restaurants. If you dig down deep into the little envelopes and boxes you can find matches from the Canberra, the Negresco, the Moulin Rouge or the Ritz. Once when I was young I reached up and took one off the top. It was from Claridges where my mum and dad had attended some industry awards ceremony. It was a Sunday afternoon and there was nothing else to do so I took the box out into the garden and lit every match, watching it burnt down as low as I could bear the pain.

My mum was furious. Looking back, it wasn’t just the fact that I could have set light to myself that upset her so much. The thing was that now she would have to wait until they went to Claridges again before she could get another one and that might not be for years to come. These silly little cardboard boxes were her only connection with a world of glamour and wealth, proof that they had been to these places, that in their own little way they had made it.

Fortunately I don’t have to dance with Marion, something that had caused me huge anxiety and even prompted me to tiptoe around my bedroom, arms held aloft in an imaginary embrace, because she announces immediately after dinner that we are leaving. On the way out, we pass Mark and date. The women kiss and the old dear spends so much time telling Marion to take care of herself that you’d think she was going up the Congo with a backpack, not returning to Belgravia in a car.

Mark kisses Marion’s hand and then says something that makes both women laugh but I can’t catch above the noise. He shakes my hand firmly and says “Seeyaround,” like he doesn’t care whether he will or not.

“Thank God that’s over,” says Marion as we get back into the car.

“Didn’t you enjoy it?”

“No! Did you? Things I do for charity. I’ll get my reward somewhere, I suppose.”

Although she hasn’t said anything to the driver, I discover that we are going back to hers. She hardly speaks as we set off through Hyde Park Corner and Belgrave Square. I suddenly feel that I should be saying something. I’m not being paid for tonight, I suppose, but I am being paid
for
so I should still entertain. Or, at least, break this huge, overwhelming silence.

Just then the driver overtakes a coach aggressively and we pass a bus. A couple of the passengers look down at us.

We
are
on for sex, aren’t we, Marion? I give her a sideways glance. There is tension in the air that has nothing to do with exhaustion after the non-stop chat and introductions of the last few hours or the state of the late-night traffic. She is clutching her evening bag as if it were a life jacket.

We arrive at hers and Marion mutters good night to the driver. She lets us into the house. The lights are on and it seems more comfortable, more inviting than when we left it. She asks me something.

“Mmm?” I say, raising my eyebrows quizzically.

She rolls her eyes unnecessarily, like “don’t make this even more awkward for me.”

“I said, do you want a drink?”

I look at her. We are standing very close. She suddenly seems very small, very vulnerable. I shake my head. Then I cup her face in my hands and kiss her. She accepts my tongue and I hear her moan slightly. She puts her arms round me and pulls me nearer. Then I pull away and begin to move down to her neck, enjoying the softness of her skin, the mixture of smells: that expensive perfume plus alcohol and someone’s cigarette smoke. She gasps again and starts to push my jacket off my shoulders. I bite her neck gently, messing up her immaculate hair. She gasps again and I realize I’ve done the right thing. Whatever our relationship is, and at the moment, I really don’t care how you’d categorize it, this just feels good. I can’t rationalize now, partly because I’ve never been in this situation before but mainly because I’m thinking with my dick.

I begin to get an erection and push my groin into her as I kiss her neck further. She mutters something. I move round and begin to kiss the top of her breasts above her dress. I wish someone could see this: her beautiful dress being crushed and pulled, my smart dinner jacket, my mouth caressing her smooth, tanned breasts, me grinding into her, the effect I’m having on her, a man young enough to be her son.

She pushes my head away from her and then leads me upstairs. Once in her bedroom, she begins to unbutton my shirt. Thank God I got a real bow tie, not a false one. Good old Vinny, he talked me into it. He may be from Birmingham but he’s got style. What the hell am I thinking about Vinny for? Quickly I get back to matters in hand and reach round to the zip of her dress. It slides down and I finish taking off my shirt. Marion looks up at me again. Her body is in incredibly good nick for a woman of her age—whatever that is. I bend down and kiss her again. She reaches round and takes off her bra. Her breasts are small and round and well shaped with large, dark nipples. She pulls my head towards her and I kiss them.

Then I quickly slide off her panties and she kicks off her shoes. This must look like some high-class porn movie—like the ones in hotels when they invite you “to join us after hours for the finest in adult entertainment” and you’re terrified in case, by accident, you do and it shows up on your bill the next day. Stop it! Concentrate! I pull off my shoes and yank off my trousers, socks and undies, nearly falling over in the process. Not very cool, that bit. She steadies me and we check out each other’s bodies with that look of breathless curiosity and lust the way you do on first sex.

Then I gently lower her onto the bed, kiss her some more and push my way into her. I close my eyes and hope that I’m not going to come. Oh, God, please not now. Any other time but now. I think about Vinny again—this time picking his toenails—and it does the trick.

With the second thrust she looks at me with huge, almost frightened eyes. I am just about to ask if she is all right when she grabs my head, runs her hands through my hair and kisses me so hard I think my mouth’s going to bleed. Then, breathing erratically, almost like a frightened animal she reaches down to my arse and pulls me into her again. I obey willingly.

When she comes she groans and gasps, pulling hard at my hair. My own orgasm is quite muted by comparison. Afterwards I move off her and roll over, sweating, sticky and smelling of her perfume. I turn towards her. She pushes my matted hair away from my forehead and looks seriously at me.

“Good boy,” she whispers. Then, before I can say anything, she gets up and goes to the bathroom. I hear the shower start. I follow her into the bathroom. I’m reminded of doing it at university. With Helen. The single bed, a duvet brought from home, incongruous in a study bedroom. We’d put music on to hide the noise. Afterwards there would be a cup of Happy Shopper tea with blobby UHT milk. Not this time.

I open the door of the shower slightly. Marion turns to look at me. I pull the door open further and reach in to kiss her. She kisses me quickly, slightly stiffly, then looks down and says:

“Go downstairs and get me a drink will you, hon? A brandy.”

I want to get into the shower with her. Splash around, talk to her, make love again but I put a towel round me and tiptoe downstairs.

When I come upstairs again, Marion is wrapped in a huge white bathrobe with gold trimmings.

“Have a shower,” she says, taking her drink.

“No, I’m fine, thanks.”

“Have a shower. You’re all sticky.”

“I know.” I reach inside the bathrobe but she smiles and pushes me away.

“Have a shower.” All right, all right.

I have a very quick shower, dry myself roughly and feel another erection coming on. I begin to massage and kiss her neck as she sits at the dressing table, applying moisturizer.

“Get into bed,” she whispers. “I’m just coming.”

I do as she says and lie down, hands behind my head, watching her.

“Why you staring?”

“Looking at you.”

She smiles mysteriously and goes back into the bathroom.

I feel Marion get into bed and reach over to put my arm round her. She kisses my hand and then wraps it around me.

It’s the sun flooding in through the windows that wakes me up. Marion is nowhere to be seen. For a moment I think I must have dreamt last night.

“Marion?” My voice creaks. I lie back again. No, I didn’t dream it. Then I get up and walk to the bathroom. My morning hard-on relents a bit and I have a pee and look round to the bathroom door.

There, just as I knew it would be, is another white fluffy bathrobe. I put it on, discover it fits perfectly and go downstairs.

Marion is sipping coffee and reading a serious-looking typed letter. She is already dressed and made up.

“Hiya,” I say and go to kiss her. She moves her mouth away slightly and I make contact with her cheek.

“You’re not shaved.”

“So what?”

“Besides, I don’t want the servants to see.”

“For God’s sake,” I laugh.

“Look at your hair,” she says, disconcertingly like my mum does.

I turn and catch sight of myself in the mirror above the fireplace. My thick, dark curly hair looks like someone has tried to give me a beehive but given up halfway through. Vinny’s bloody hair gel.

“Oh, sorry.” Deciding that Marion obviously likes things to be smart and elegant at all times, even the morning after the night before, I go back upstairs and splash some cold water on my unruly barnet. Unfortunately this has the effect of bringing me back to something like reality. I go to find my dress shirt and trousers, which have been neatly folded and placed on a chair. My DJ is on a hanger behind the door. My watch is lying on top of my trousers. 8:40 a.m. Fuck! I rip off the bathrobe and begin to chuck my clothes on.

I take the stairs two at a time.

“Marion, I’m really late for work. I’ll have to go.”

“What? Already?”

“Yeah, I’m supposed to be there at nine. I didn’t notice the time. I’ve got to go home and put my work suit on.”

“OK.” She offers a cheek. I’m too panicked to aim for her lips. I give her a quick peck. Then I fumble around to check that I’ve got my house keys. I’ll also need a taxi.