Tease (7 page)

‘Run off twenty copies of the Diamond Suisse account presentation will you, I just emailed you the PDFs, and then I need you to get Lou from World PR on the phone, she hasn’t returned my calls and I need to speak to her. Just keep holding ’til you get her.’

‘Sure,’ Sienna replied wearily to Rex’s second-in-command, Steve, a towering, charmless figure with porcine features – the exact opposite of the delectable Rex Hunter.

‘Oi, Gareth mate, did you get the Tiger Starr press releases over to
The Times
? They need to get the feature wrapped up for the supplement. Oh and Kat, you’re gonna have to put your foot down for copy approval if we’re
gonna let Tiger do the …’ Steve broke off from his directives. ‘Shit, Sienna! Where’s – didn’t you get my bacon butty?’ he demanded from behind his desk, staring open mouthed like a guppy at the space where his elevenses would normally be.

‘Um, I was running tight on time,’ Sienna lied effortlessly over the desk divide.

‘How come you managed to get Rex a pastry?’ snapped Steve, patting his generous gut.

Sienna blushed red and marched to Rex’s desk. Grabbing the croissant she thrust it under Steve’s nose.

‘Good job he’s not in this morning then. Here, you have it,’ offered Sienna tartly.

‘Nah, I’ve lost my appetite now. Why don’t you eat it, you could do with a bit of meat on your bones anyway.’ Steve chuckled and winked over at Kat who appeared to be fixated on Sienna’s thigh-skimming hemline.

Sienna turned on her heel in silence and simply hitched her dress up even higher, cursing inwardly whilst blushing. The heating in the busy office was making her head itch under her cheap beret. Fuck manmade fibres, she thought angrily, trying to reach her itch with a pencil. Where the bloody hell was Rex this morning anyway? She didn’t remember seeing any morning engagements in his diary for today.

Sitting back at her desk she set about Steve’s tasks and stabbed the World PR switchboard number into her telephone.

‘Lou Klein please … Hunter Gatherers … Yes … No … I’ll hold thanks.’

Britney’s ‘Oops I did it again …’ played through down the line as Sienna was put on hold, which wouldn’t have been so bad if it hadn’t been the extended pan pipe remix. She rolled her eyes and settled into her chair for the duration.

Chewing on her pen Sienna swivelled on her chair idly amidst the hubbub and stared over at Rex’s vacant desk with a beady eye. Now where could he be? she mused, annoyed that he wasn’t there to see her leggy display.

Behind his desk the wall was a shrine to Tiger Starr. Framed magazine covers, a photograph of Tiger in James Brown’s show, funny newspaper headlines, a suspended scale model of the Boeing 747 infamously painted with her pin-up image. A small corner was devoted to Rex’s highly treasured framed photograph of himself with his idol Ricky Hatton, taken in Las Vegas after another victorious fight. Sienna wondered what it would be like to be in Vegas with Rex. I bet he’d be fun, she thought, imagining herself there, all diamonds, fur and glamour at the craps tables. All eyes on would be on her, dressed in Gucci and with tanned skin sparkling under thousands of pounds of Bulgari – she would be on Rex Hunter’s arm with Britney playing pan pipes in the backgrou—

‘Morning all!’

‘Rex!’ squealed Sienna, cutting off her phone call as her
boss strode through the office. Her outburst was noted with raised eyebrows from Kat and a smirk from Steve.

‘Heyyyyy! Mate, what happened to you last night!’ teased Steve.

‘Ah you know, went home, fed the cat, watched
Question Time
on telly,’ laughed Rex with a wink. ‘So what’s in the dailies, how did we do?’

As Rex swept past Sienna without so much as a glance her way, she caught the unmistakable smug look of a man who’d seen some action the night before. It was a look she was beginning to know too well. Rex was a womaniser, pure and simple, and every notch he clocked up on his bedpost was another cut to Sienna’s heart. She felt so stupid. That bloody Libertina Belle, cursed Sienna – he’d been all over her in the theatre last night. A heavy pile of newspapers crashed onto Sienna’s desk, sending her desk tidy with its content of Bic biros and paperclips flying across the floor. Rex stood in front of her.

‘Scan these clippings and add them to Tiger’s press book, there’s a girl. File the actual paper articles in the “live events” cabinet. Your sister did us all proud last night, she’ll keep us in Bolli for a while,’ he said, before turning back to Steve. ‘Mate, you up for a Bloody Mary at the Ritz? Call it elevenses, we can go through the Diamond Suisse strategy while we’re there.’

Sienna flicked huffily through the papers, sure that she did her own special bit to keep the journos happy at the show last night.
The Times
, the
Telegraph
, the
Guardian
, the
Sun
, the
Mail
, the
Express
, the
Independent
, all proffering Tiger’s magnificent hourglass figure mid performance. ‘Tiger Tiger burning bright’, ‘Tiger’s Starry night’, ‘Night of a thousand Starrs’, read the pun-soaked headlines.

‘Oh and Sienna,’ called Rex.

‘Yes?’

‘Fetch me an Alka-Seltzer before I go to the Ritz, will you. Cheers, mate.’

As Rex strutted off towards Steve and Kat, Sienna looked back crestfallen at the pictures of her sister, with scissors at the ready to cut out the articles. She stared at Tiger’s beaming smile. Was she mistaken or could she just make out the distinct hint of a sneer?

Tiger Starr’s radiant face looks up from the newspaper page which is beginning to curl under the heat from the anglepoise lamp. A leather-gloved hand lightly traces the line of her pillowy lips, one finger now extending out to follow the line of her cheekbone with a barely detectable tenderness. The hand slowly takes up the scalpel knife lying in an orderly fashion next to the newspaper. Delicately, carefully, precisely, the picture is cut out, and its reverse caressed with a thin film of glue. The image is placed onto a welcoming scrapbook page and patted down gently.

The gloved hand reaches once more for the blade before hovering hesitantly over the newly arranged page. Leather-clad fingers begin to gently trace the line of her bouncy curls, pausing over her beautiful face. An intangible shudder of anticipation spreads through the room in waves, a room almost entirely covered in glittering images of Tiger Starr.

‘Ten Benson! Woooh!’ squealed Poppy, waving the little gold packet over her head.

‘Cool!’

‘Where d’ya get ’em?’

‘Dish ’em out then!’ responded Emma, Claire and Marina excitedly.

‘Listen, I had to go all the way across town in case I bumped into someone I knew. You owe me big time,’ warned Poppy sternly.

‘Aw, c’mon, you know you’re the only one who’d pass for sixteen,’ retorted Claire.

‘Yeah, you’d never get refused with those bazookas,’ giggled Marina, grabbing the packet and ripping off the cellophane to hand out the cigarettes.

‘Bet you forgot matches,’ chipped in Emma from under her fur-lined hoody. ‘Come on, it’s f-f-freezing out here, and we’ve got hockey next. I’ll be an ice-block by then.’

‘Hang on, I’ve got matches here, they’re in the bottom of my bag,’ muttered Poppy as she knelt on the wet grass and rummaged in her satchel. Pulling out folders and text books she finally located the small box of Swan Vesta. ‘Are
you guys looking out for any teachers?’ she asked cautiously, looking up at the girls enquiringly.

‘Yeah yeah yeah, anyway we’ll hear the tennis court gate squeaking if anyone comes, don’t worry,’ reassured Marina.

One by one the girls struck a match and lit their cigarettes. They took awkward drags and eyeballed each other, each hoping they didn’t look as clumsy as Claire who was flapping away clouds of smoke from around her face. Despite her lack of brainpower, she was the envy of the class, always bagging the hot boyfriends. However with her innocent, angelic face she figured she could procure a more sophisticated air with some accomplished smoking. Her pal Emma just wanted to keep the weight off, somehow she thought cigarettes and gum would do the trick. The popular girls of the class, Claire and Emma were a fearsome twosome, although Poppy secretly nicknamed them Thick and Thin. Marina was the most elegant of the girls, the one who everyone in the world wanted to be friends with. Marina loved Poppy for her combination of sparkiness, brains, and what she considered to be striking, rather than classic looks, but she also knew Poppy to be extremely insecure with her unusual features. Moreover, Marina found something about her rather intriguing and liked to include her in the group, despite Emma and Claire’s stand-offishness towards her.

Emma broke the silence with a cough, struggling to quickly regain her composure. Marina looked over with amusement, exhaling a long thin plume of smoke. She
had to be a natural, of course. Poppy simply spluttered loudly.

‘Ugh, this is gross,’ she cringed.

‘Keep doing it you’ll get used to it,’ advised Marina.

‘When do you start enjoying it then?’

‘Well … you’re not exactly meant to enjoy it really, that’s not the idea …’

‘Right. So what’s the point?’

‘God you’re soooo clueless,’ sighed Claire, rolling her eyes. ‘Listen, if we smoke we get to look older and hang out with the older boys.’

‘Aren’t there cheaper ways to look older?’ asked Poppy, wastefully dropping her cigarette and extinguishing it underfoot.

‘You may have big tits, but some of us need a bit more help.’ Emma scowled.

‘Yeah, I’ve seen Mr Rogers checking out those puppies!’ Marina winked.

‘He always puts you in centre forward so he can see you running up and down the pitch, jiggling about,’ sniggered Claire.

‘Do I jiggle?’ gasped Poppy, instinctively pulling her blazer tight across her chest. The group burst into fits of laughter. She hated being teased about her bust.

‘Well, let’s just say Mr Rogers gets his glasses all steamed up when you’ve got the ball,’ said Marina, putting an arm around Poppy’s shoulder affectionately.

‘Yeah, you don’t actually think you got on the squad
because you’re a good player do you? Haven’t you noticed that every time you’re on we
lose
the match,’ Emma grumbled.

‘Cor, Emma’s got her bitch stick out today,’ laughed Marina. ‘Whassamatter Ems, got your p-e-r-i-o-d?’

‘Come on. It’s obvious Mr Rogers has his faves.’ Mr Rogers was their new gym teacher. He was Australian and a hunk. ‘It’s wasted on Poppy anyway by the looks of things. Look at the pictures of porn stars stuck all over her folder.’ The girls all looked down at the pile of books and folders still lying on the grass next to Poppy’s satchel, covered in black-and-white pin-up pictures.

‘They’re not porn stars!’ gasped Poppy. ‘They’re movie stars! Marilyn and Rita!’

‘What? But they’re women! In bikinis! Ruffled knickers! Half naked!’ taunted Emma. ‘Whatever turns you on you lez. Lezzer! Lezzer!’

Without warning Poppy threw herself at Emma and knocked her to the ground, eliciting a sharp yelp. Claire squealed and giggled as Poppy struggled to pin Emma to the grass. Marina simply shook her head at the scene and elegantly finished off the last few drags of her cigarette as the two girls rolled around. Poppy grabbed fistfuls of hair.

‘Argh! Get off my hair, I just had it permed!’ screamed Emma, trying to push Poppy off her. ‘Lesbian!’

‘Slapper!’ yelled Poppy waving a sorry-looking tuft of blonde ponytail in Emma’s face.

‘Take that back!’ shouted Emma, her free hand leaping
defensively for her hair. As the girls wrestled on the grass a huge rip could be heard.

‘My shirt!’ squealed Poppy. ‘You stupid cow, what did you do that for! My mum’ll go spare!’ Poppy sat back for a moment to survey the damage, giving Emma the advantage. In a flash Emma was straddling Poppy, yanking at her long plaits with one hand and grabbing at her exposed bra with the other. Claire and Marina had now piled in to separate the two amidst yelps and name calling. No one heard the loud squeak of the tennis court gate as Mr Rogers hurtled towards the fray.

Tiger lovingly placed her diamond-encrusted merkin back in hibernation in its heart-shaped box, snapping the clasps shut with a flourish. Picking up a half-finished roll of tit tape and fondling it absentmindedly between her fingers, her green eyes gazed one last time over the carnage of the dressing room. Huge labelled trunks of costume were stacked next to hatboxes, make-up caddies, her feather steamer, jewellery cases and her lucky mascot – her vintage Jayne Mansfield hot water bottle. Layers of glitter and diamond dust were trodden into the gaps in the floorboards and worked into the pitted formica of the long dresser. Discarded cans of Elnett hairspray, dead flowers, used make-up wipes and a couple of empty Tanqueray bottles filled a black binliner. A defective pair of eyelashes still stuck to the mirror. Tiger had enjoyed her three months at the Savoy. The auditorium had been packed night after night; the critics were adoring, the venue were thrilled, the Starletts were on a high, the band was on fire, Rex was getting out the holiday brochures, Blue was in costume heaven, even Lewis seemed … happy.

An impatient little honk from Tiger’s driver wafted up from the street below, signalling it was time for her to
leave. Vladimir had been outside gently revving the black Lincoln Towncar for over twenty minutes and the bellhops at the Savoy Hotel opposite were probably trying to move him on. Tiger scooped what she could under her arms and made for the stairs.

‘Sorry, ma’am!’ came a breathless panting. ‘I was sent to ferry your cases to your car, but I’m new here and I got lost between dressing rooms. Can I take those for you?’

Tiger took in the strapping young security boy standing in the doorway. At a little under six foot he peered at her with coal black eyes. Eyes not unlike Rex’s. Tiger felt an immediate twinge of lust.

‘Wow that’s very kind of you – er …’

‘Mark.’

‘Mark,’ she sighed kindly. ‘Look why don’t I take the little caddies down myself, and if you could manage the heavy trunks that would be wonderful. Oh and careful with those hatboxes, you can’t put anything heavy on them.’ Tiger was already off towards the exit.