Confessions of a Sugar Mummy (12 page)

I'll start by sleeping on the sofa at home. (Think of the refugees trying to get to the Canaries, Molly will say as she does whenever I complain about discomfort, so Kurds/ Moldovians/ any of the miserable people suffering appalling conditions in flooded/ sun-baked camps will be brought forth if I moan about the second-hand Ikea settee Henrietta Shaw made me take out of one of the flats she was refurbishing—too Chav, she said. I can use the downstairs lavatory—why the hell didn't I put in a shower when I bought the flat?)

Then I won't be able to stay, due to builders encroaching on the remaining part of my flat.

‘How are you today?' Alain asks me.

We're driving along at about fifteen miles an hour, just how I like it and I suppose the caution is due to the fact that even in the fairly early morning Alain may have had drinks or drugs (like many of my generation I know quite a bit about the former but have only a vague idea of a psychedelic whirl going round in the head of a younger person who uses drugs. So it's lucky we're going at the speed of a funeral cortège—the
one with black horses and plumes, that is.

‘I'm fine', I say.

How can I explain to Alain that he is a major suspect in the case of the bankrupting of a Sugar Mummy by prior arrangement with Mr Nyan, the man so busily expanding as we drive along? How can I even ask if Alain's friend and co-builder/decorator Stefan Mocny believes I'm about to buy the house in Hormead Road once the cash is ‘freed up' by Crookstons on a sudden completion? I remember I signed a lengthy-looking contract at Crookstons that day after lunch at La Speranza—oh God, oh God, did I actually sign away my flat on that day—or at least grant the final decisions on the sale, along with a vast commission to Crookstons, so ‘in all good faith', as they would put it, they sold to Mr Nyan, all above board and signature attached, by an idiot, a Sugar Mummy without a grey cell in her head? Me.

Am I the owner of a ludicrously expensive, deeply unattractive house without a view of the muggings and murders on the canal towpath but within striking distance (ha ha) of the gangs that go from house to house, knife in hand? Has the house even been surveyed? But if Crookstons can fake a signed name on a lease, as they notoriously can, then
a bent surveyor is par for the course.

I hope, I pray, I hope a hundred times over, that Alain isn't involved in all of this. And I look back with a self-hatred that even I had never been capable of, on my fantasies of life in that awful house, a threesome with rent thrown in from the middle floor … Please! I've been living in cloud cuckoo-land.

‘Actually, it looks rather nice', Alain is saying.

So here I am, on the corner of a street that is God-knows-where, but it has a nice country, villagey feel to it, with a large church and just a few houses, all of them a sort of greyish/ yellowish brick with pretty windows and window-boxes. We seem to have been driving for hours and I haven't noticed which direction we're going in, so it could be Stockwell or Brixton, one of those ‘forgotten' streets where Henrietta Shaw likes to boast she's brought the Languedoc to south London, or some such rubbish.

I haven't been looking because quite frankly I'm so petrified by the Hormead/ home mess I'm in that all I've been able to do is stare at Alain's profile—not a punishing thing to do, I admit—and it certainly
takes one's mind off the really pressing problems. But now he's slowed down and he's said he likes one of these houses, the one leaning right up against the church as if some long-ago vicar had wanted to settle there and decided to build right under the Victorian stained-glass window.

There's a board outside the house saying ‘For Sale. Barringtons'.

I don't know why or how one's luck changes suddenly on a certain day. I read the horoscopes and like everyone else I forget them as soon as the eye has ranged over the clichéd prose—perhaps the habit of propping a celebrity next to a star sign is off-putting. The grinning figures of Tony Blair or Mick Jagger are quite enough to make one dismiss the idea of good or bad luck. These people knew where they were going from the start. Or maybe
not
believing in the stars is another form of superstition: if you haven't an inkling of what is said to be going to happen, then maybe something good will.

At least Alain is quite changed by the sight of this little, three-storey house. He almost jumps out of the car and I see he has energy but doesn't often care to use it (Ponce! Molly's voice whistles in my ear) and I see, too, that he is drawn first to the church, a lifetime of sightseeing in the Lubéron or the
Camargue the probable reason for this.

As Alain crawls round the great grey edifice of St Theodora (the name of the church is proclaimed in weather-worn letters on a wooden placard above the boarded-up door) he goes so far as to try the rusty iron handle of the main portal (he certainly doesn't know London, he lives in the rural past in France) and I, standing at the foot of the flight of stone steps leading in front of the house Barringtons wants to sell, begin to feel as if something different and momentous is taking place.

It's hard to describe happiness, when half the world denies its existence and the other half, without producing any evidence, insists that the pursuit of this desirable (non-existent, like love in the language of Lacan?) quality is the most important aim in life. But it's also true that unhappiness becomes easier to define when the possible other thing comes along. And the strange part is that it's a house—a simple, not-very-exciting house—that is most likely to trigger this change, if people's testimony is to be believed. ‘We know this is a happy house', ‘I fell in love with the house as soon as I saw it and have been happy here ever since'—again, these appear at first to be clichés and are certainly sales talk—but they're sincere too.

And the atmosphere—the environmental climate—whatever you like to call it, made me feel I could be happy here, and that Alain would be happy here as well. (Idiot! Molly whistles right into my ear.)

A hedge of wild lavender in the stubby front garden, the back garden at the side of the house (the church really is bang up against the house) and in the side/back garden a shed, half-rotting but roofed and looked down on by the blues and reds and purples of St Theodora's stained-glass robes.

‘A kiln', Alain says. And as he speaks the sun comes out and the day grows hotter, while a traffic warden, staring idly at us while we stand back and admire the house/church from beside the little red car, wanders down the street to give us a ticket.

‘We won't be a minute', I say to the warden and, believe it or not, he smiles at me and saunters on.

What's happening here? Will I have three wishes, like in the fairytale (I remind myself not to become The Old Woman in the Vinegar Bottle, who wished for larger and larger houses until her demand for a papal palace sent her back to the vinegar bottle for eternity). Will I be like poor Gloria, who wished for fidelity from her Object of Desire—and got it for all of six months, but then
asked for the impossible, that he get a job and support them both as proof of his love for her? Does a ‘run of luck' exist, the streak every gambler prays for? I've been offered, after all, a vast sum on my flat … Alain is here and we've found a house. Three is enough, surely.

That's when I realised that I'd never been happy in my flat. This is the place for me.

This is the crunch time for Sugar Mummies who are about to commit their all to a shared venture which may prove unsuccessful.

Questions that need urgently to be asked:

If you move to this new house with your Object of Desire, will you know anyone/ have friends in the area? Sugar Mummies left to contemplate the isolation and panic which can set in if stranded in an unfamiliar part of the city must take the possibility of this occurring into account. You will no longer be recognised at the chemist; you will be a stranger in the local shops; you will be surrounded by people who have no interest
in you. At an advanced age, this is not agreeable.

Can you really afford the house? Suppose there are huge repair bills, can you pay? Will there be employment for both of you if you move?

I present the above questions simply in order to avoid the anger and resentment of ex-Sugar Mummies all determined to sue in the event that their house move with a Loved One has not gone well. I cannot be held responsible for the ill-considered actions of others.

But as for us. Well, as you have probably guessed, there were no two ways about it.

Alain stood staring at the façade of the little, grey/yellow house as if bewitched. He also stared at the kiln, and with his eyes he retraced the path from the kiln down to the back (or side) basement door, which leads into a low-ceilinged but independently situated room from which he could (I saw this with less pleasure) slip in and out whenever he felt the need. We didn't have to say anything.

The traffic warden, looking slightly less friendly than the first time (the second wish in a fairytale
often won't work as well as the first) walked up towards us and we got into the car and drove off as slowly as subaqueous creatures so deep on the ocean bed that we were no longer able to see.

My mobile jumped into life (perhaps we were on a hill—but where?) and I rang Barringtons.

‘No, I'm afraid not, Madam.' The man had a cross, don't-bother-me voice and I felt the first stirrings of remorse at my longing for the house.

‘Why not?' I heard myself sound just like the rich women who used to come into my little shop off the North End Road. Was this ‘final' decision to accept the offer on my flat and buy the magic house turning me into an angry Sloane?

‘The vendors are away until next Wednesday', the voice came back to me. ‘In Ireland', its owner added unnecessarily.

‘And I'll have gone back to Bandol by then', Alain said as we drove at a snail's pace round the corner and stopped.

And we were here. You may have guessed. We'd only been round the corner all along. I wouldn't be lonely anyway if I moved! And just as I was thinking that Alain must have got lost on the way there and had driven round in circles, Howie appeared on the doorstep.

‘Yo', he cried to Alain, and he looked hard at me. ‘Coming in for a drink?'

Well, the good luck went on. I'll be getting a windfall from my bank or building society next, thanking me for being such a special customer ‘and here's £500'. Only joking.

We didn't accept Howie's kind invitation to come into my flat and drink my drink. We went, as if we knew that good luck turns bad if you don't fertilise it, give it at least a modicum of TLC, to Crookstons at the bottom of the road. The man there, distinctly provincial, Yorkshire accent and all, compared to the Notting Hill variety, looked up something on the screen and said the sale was proceeding smoothly. I asked when I'd be paid (I fancied a faint tremor from Alain when I asked the all-important
question, the one whose answer will house him—and no mention of the lovely Claire so far, I'm thankful to note—and will provide this elusive ‘happiness' for the rest of our lives—well his, anyway. I will have died from old age, if nothing worse).

Then I remembered my solicitor. But it appeared that Crookstons has thought of everything. Mrs Xerxes' name is on their files, due to a complaint I made at the time that Mr Nyan bought the upstairs maisonette—she dealt with the matter—a minor one but unpleasant, as it consisted of Mr Nyan's washbasin emptying on to the floor above my bed, and water crashing through the ceiling on to my new duvet. My then-TV was also inundated along with the video library, and thankfully, as I recall,
Gone With The Wind
was unplayable until finally replaced by Molly.

‘Completion in three weeks', said the rosy-cheeked estate agent.

That's all right then, I think. I won't be expected to ‘free up' funds for the purchase of the house in Hormead Road, one of my greatest dreads being that I would find myself in possession of the horrible house, along with Stefan Mocny's cock, which haunts me and always will, a part of the interior
decoration of that disastrous building.

‘No, we're going to buy the lovely, yellow/grey house.' ‘Barringtons?' says the Crookstons man incredulously. ‘That house has been on the market for over a year.'

‘Why is that?' I almost feel proud of him: that was Alain speaking. He can if he wants to, you see.

‘The asking price is unrealistic', snaps the once jolly countryman-turned-Fagin type, eyes burning with avarice and hate, hands playing nervously on his desk.

‘How much is it?' I ask.

Oh, surely I could have avoided this one. If my poxy maisonette is ‘worth' seven hundred grand plus and it's on two floors—or was until Mr Nyan made his early days move and turned it into a one-floor bedsit—then the three-storeyed house around the corner must be worth more. (How could I not have recognised the church? Huge and grey, it's the elephant in the neighbourhood and Alain must think me a complete philistine for not knowing St Theodora's when I walked bang into it.)

The reply when it comes is almost a relief. ‘Eight hundred thousand, nine hundred and ninety-five pounds', intones Crookston man. ‘There is an offer,
I believe, on the property, which has structural problems.'

‘I'll offer the asking price', I bellow, aware that Alain is looking at me with the surprise and admiration reserved for an heiress who keeps the extent of her funds secret until it is expedient to reveal them.

‘You wish us to negotiate the purchase for you?' says Yorkshireman, now miraculously restored from conman and viper. ‘We are happy to do so.'

‘Yes', I say. I come over pompous—we
must
have that house. There are no two ways about it. I'll die if we don't get it …