Little White Lies (31 page)

‘Here we are. Home sweet home. At least when I’m here.’ He opened the door onto a large hallway flanked by double glass doors. He switched on the light. Rebecca looked around in pleasure. The flat was very much like Julian himself; elegant and refined. They walked into the compact living room. The walls were a deep, dark green and bare except for a large, striking oil painting above the fireplace of a grey-haired man standing with his hands shoved in his pockets, looking down at the ground. Julian followed her gaze. ‘Stephen Conroy. It’s a self-portrait. I loved it the minute I saw it.’

Rebecca nodded slowly. There was something both arresting and poignant about the image; although his face was largely obscured, the intensity of his gaze towards the unseen ground hinted at the same private struggle within himself that she’d glimpsed in Julian. ‘It’s beautiful,’ she said simply. ‘I like your flat. It’s . . . well, it’s just like
you
.’

He seemed unsure how to respond. He looked at her for a second, then turned away, busying himself by opening the drinks cabinet. ‘What can I get you? A glass of red?’

Rebecca nodded gratefully. The easy, light-hearted aura that had enveloped them all afternoon had disappeared suddenly and in its place was a rising, slightly uneasy tension that was rapidly turning her stomach upside down. She sank down into the sofa. Julian left the room. She could hear him opening cupboards in the adjacent kitchen, the clink of wine glasses and the soft, welcome sound of a cork being eased gently out of a bottle.

‘Domaîne du Castel,’ he said, coming back into the room. ‘From the Judean Hills, not far from where we were today. When in Rome and all that.’ He put the tray down in front of them, smiling slightly. ‘Cheers. God, I’m suddenly nervous.’

It was on the tip of Rebecca’s tongue to say something arch, but there was a gravity in Julian’s voice that prevented it. Instead she said simply, ‘Me, too,’ and the trite phrase was enough to relax them both. He took her hand and brought it to his lips. She wasn’t familiar with the old-fashioned gesture and she turned her body towards him, laying its caress along his side. His hand lifted the heavy thickness of her hair, touching her neck gently in a way that sent a shiver straight through her. For a long time he stroked her hair whilst she waited for the next move, and he waited to speak.

‘Rebecca.’

‘What?’ she whispered, still waiting for the next, well-known moves. He suddenly seemed very far away from her, disappearing into a memory to which she wasn’t privy, or shouldn’t be. She put up a hand to touch him, feeling the wonderful shock of a burning warmth of flesh that wasn’t her own. She pushed her face into the hot sweet darkness of the space between his chin and shoulder. A night of her own inside that scented corner. She sank pleasurably into him, feeling his arm tighten around her. For the second time that day, his lips found hers. His free hand slipped into the opening made by her jacket, finding the thin silk of her blouse and, beneath it, the lace of her bra. His touch was both electric and soothing at the same time. She pushed herself against him, unable to believe that she’d roused such passion in him, in anyone. He kissed her again and again, murmuring her name beneath his breath. He opened his eyes dazedly, narrowing them as he searched her face, then moved his body so that she was lying underneath him, pinned against the starched linen of the cushions, her arms encircling him as though she would never let go. She was shocked at the ferocity of her own longing, and the shock was physical. She’d never been the one to take the initiative – now she pulled at his jacket and shirt like someone possessed. She was prepared for the strong, sure side of him that had been all she’d seen of him until now; what caught her off-guard was the tender, soft part of him that he kept tightly under wraps. There was a scar that ran from his navel to just before the groin, which she felt with her fingers. ‘What’s that?’ she whispered lightly, her breath warm and fuzzy against his ear.

‘Appendix,’ he murmured, taking hold of her fingers and pressing them gently against it. ‘When I was eighteen. Just before the army.’

Again his words sent an afterglow of delight rippling through her. There was the same blast of tender wonderment that she’d felt with Jeremy Garrick but, unlike Jeremy, Julian’s hurt presented itself to her as something to be healed, not held against her. Time slowed to almost a standstill as he pulled away the last scraps of her clothing, tugging at her stockings the way a man does, impatiently, almost irritably. At last she was completely naked underneath him and there was no shame, no embarrassment, no awkwardness – it was as if everything that had happened between them in the past few weeks had simply been the prelude to this moment, the moment of entry.

Agonisingly slowly, deliciously, he pushed his way into her, eyes wide open and fixed on hers throughout. She was the one to close hers, as if the sight of his face, screwed up in a concentration that was so unlike his habitual, calm expression, was something she couldn’t possibly bear. He was a skilful, thoughtful lover, better than anyone she’d known. He took his time, patiently waiting for her own sweet surge of release to coincide with his. He kissed her slowly. ‘Marry me,’ he whispered against her mouth in the last few seconds of conscious, rational thought. She thought for a moment she’d misheard him. ‘Marry me,’ he whispered again, just before the familiar tender explosion overtook them both. ‘Marry me.’

TASH
London, UK

The screen flickered dully as Tash scrolled up and down, stopping every once in a while to check a figure more closely or read through a paragraph with greater attention. She looked up at the clock – it was nearly two in the morning. She’d been working for almost eight hours straight. She’d arrived home at five, made herself a cup of tea and immediately sat down at her desk. She had a meeting at eight the following morning, not that she cared. She couldn’t have stopped herself if she’d tried. Her brain was on fire. Ever since her encounter with Edith’s client, Clare, an idea had slowly been forming in her mind, taking shape, solidifying, gaining definition. She clicked onto another link and the text immediately scrolled up.

Online shopping is the relatively new process whereby consumers directly buy goods or services from a seller in real-time, without an intermediary service, over the internet. It is a form of electronic commerce. An online shop, e-shop, e-store, internet shop, web-shop, webstore, online store, or virtual store evokes the physical analogy of buying products or services at a bricks-and-mortar retailer or in a shopping centre. The process is called Business-to-Consumer (B2C) online shopping. When a business buys from another business it is called Business-to-Business (B2B) online shopping. In order to shop online, one must be able to have access to a computer as well as a credit card or debit card.

She flicked through the rest of the article until she found the magic word.
Amazon
. She opened the link and began reading. Half an hour later, she pushed back her chair from her desk, lifted her arms above her head and stretched. Her heart was beating fast. She thought back to the conversation between Clare and Edith earlier that day. What Clare wanted, in essence, was a fashionista’s equivalent of Amazon.

She got up and walked across the living room to the window, grabbing a pack of cigarettes en route. She pushed open the window, perched herself rather awkwardly on the ledge and lit up. The sounds of the street below drifted up to meet her. It was nearly three in the morning but Marchmont Street never slept, least of all now. From across the way came the stuttering stop-and-start of a lorry, off-loading deliveries to the dozens of small grocery shops that ran up and down the street. A street sweeper droned by, its bristles whooshing along the pavement as it swept debris up into its soft, hairy mouth. She let herself drift with the cigarette smoke for a moment, watching it curl, thick and white, around her fingers. She smoked quietly, her mind running ahead of her. An online shop selling the latest, up-to-the-minute trends in clothes, shoes, accessories. A place where women could browse at their leisure, from their desks at work, in the study, at the kitchen table. All you’d need was a computer and an internet connection. An online version of Eden’s, but much bigger, better, edgier. Luxury fashion delivered straight to your door. She could almost picture the boxes – black-and-white striped boxes with different coloured ribbons – pink for lingerie, red for haute couture, green for daywear, white for formal. What would she call it? There was only one choice –
[email protected]
.

She stubbed out her cigarette and hurriedly closed the window. She only had a few hours left before she had to get up for work again and there was still so much to be done.

‘So what’s your question?’ James stirred his coffee and looked at her with a puzzled frown on his face.

‘D’you think it will work?’ Tash bit her lip nervously. James McBride was an old friend from university days who now practically ran the IT department at UCL single-handedly. Tash hadn’t kept in touch with many people from her days at LSE but James, oddly and fortunately enough, she still saw.

‘Work? Technically, you mean? Of course it’ll work. That’s the easy bit,’ James scoffed.

‘You’re sure?’

‘Tash, it’s not rocket science. There are literally thousands of online shops already.’

‘But . . . ?’

He took a sip of his cappuccino, leaving a faint frothy moustache above his upper lip, and shook his head. ‘I just don’t think anyone’s going to buy luxury items online, that’s all. Especially not clothes. I don’t know much about women’s fashion, granted, but I can’t imagine anyone wanting to buy Yves Saint Laurent and doing it online. Women like that go to Paris, Tash, not to their laptops.’

‘I’m not sure,’ Tash said slowly, stirring her own coffee. She looked at her watch. ‘Anyhow, that’s really all I wanted to know for now.
If
it’ll work.’

‘Yeah, the technical bit’s the easy part. Whose idea is this, anyway?’

Tash shrugged. ‘Oh, just something I was thinking about. Research . . . for my boss. Anyhow, thanks for the chat, James. If I need any more advice, can I ring you?’

‘Sure. Any time.’

Tash slipped off her stool. She pulled a fiver from her purse and laid it on the table. ‘I’ve got to run,’ she said, picking up her bag. ‘Thanks again. It’s on her,’ she added. ‘My boss.’

‘Oh, in that case . . . I’ll have a croissant as well,’ James grinned at her.

‘Don’t push it. See you,’ Tash wriggled her fingers at him and disappeared through the doors.

‘Are you
quite
with us, Tash?’ Rosie’s voice was laced with frost. Tash looked up. Six pairs of impatient-looking eyes were aimed straight at her. She’d been elsewhere, of course.

‘S-sorry,’ she stammered, feeling as though she were back in school again. ‘I . . . I was just thinking.’

‘Clearly, but not about
this
.’ Rosie stabbed the layout in front of her. ‘This has to be signed off today.
Today
,’ she hissed. ‘Not tomorrow, or next week, or, at the rate you lot are going, next
month
. I’m sick and—’ she stopped suddenly. ‘Where the hell d’you think
you
’re going, Tash? I haven’t finished—’

‘
I
have.’ Tash ignored the six pairs of eyes that swivelled round to her, wide as proverbial saucers. No one –
no one
– ever interrupted Rosie mid-sentence. Something inside her head just snapped. Tash picked up her handbag and notepad. Her hands were shaking but she hoped no one would notice.

‘What the—?’

‘Tash,’ Michelle hissed urgently. ‘Sit down.’

‘Sorry, chaps.’ She took one last look at her five colleagues, grown women all, reduced to schoolgirls in Rosie’s presence and, as calmly as she could, walked out the door.

‘You did
what
?’ Lyudmila looked at her as though she’d just grown two heads. Or lost her mind. ‘You quit job? They fire you?’

‘No, Ma,’ Tash sighed. ‘She didn’t
fire
me. I told you, I quit.’

Lyudmila’s mouth hung open. ‘Why?’ she said finally. ‘How you can quit job?’

‘Easy. I walked out.’ She knew exactly what Lyudmila was thinking. It had been over ten years since the last cheque from Mortimer & McKenzie’s and probably five since the last of her regular gentleman callers had called on anything other than a sporadic basis. Although she’d clung onto her figure and looks as though her life depended on it (which, Tash thought to herself rather bitterly, it did), the sad truth was that the men who’d thought nothing of casually dropping a couple of hundred pounds into her lap whenever she asked for it, no longer did. It was Tash who paid the rent, bought food, made sure that her council tax and her TV licence were up to date. Lyudmila still somehow managed to squeeze something out of the few men who still dropped in on her to buy the odd pair of shoes but it had been a long time since she’d visited the shops along Brompton Road that had once been her regular haunts. Fortunately, she’d been in the basement flat for so long she was now regarded as a sitting tenant, otherwise Tash would never have managed to look after them both on her ridiculously small salary. And that, she thought to herself bitterly, was yet another reason to quit. Rosie seemed to think working at
Style
was quite enough remuneration on its own, thank you very much. ‘Thousands would kill for this job,’ was a constant refrain. Yes, there was the bonus of free clothes every once in a while and a trip to Paris or Milan, but the clothes looked ridiculous on Tash anyway and how many Fendi handbags could a girl reasonably have? You couldn’t
eat
a handbag, though Lyudmila often looked as though she’d tried.

‘What you gonna do?’ Lyudmila got up from her chair and walked to the sideboard. She quickly mixed herself up a stiff gin and tonic.

‘I . . . I’ve got an idea,’ Tash said hesitantly.

Lyudmila spun around. ‘Idea?
Idea?
What idea?’

‘I don’t want to talk about it yet,’ Tash said firmly. ‘Not until I’ve thought it through.’