Pillow Talk (6 page)

So he fucked her rudely and quickly on his sofa and she thought to herself that, though her knee was being scuffled painfully against the fabric because he was taking her from behind, if they had been in missionary then both her sore heels would have suffered anyway. So it was OK. It was good, wasn't it, as he humped into her, his hand between her legs fiddling around for her clitoris. As he came, his mouth was at her ear and his gasps and groaning turned her on more than his cock or his hands and she moved herself urgently so that she came too.

They lay in a post-orgasmic, drunken slump.

‘Nice fuck,’ Rob said at length, easing himself off her. ‘Petra,’ he said sternly, ‘
pop socks
?’

‘You weren't meant to see,’ she said with a coy smile, ‘but you were in a rush to have me.’

He raised his eyebrow and shook his head. ‘Sometimes I think of you as so refreshingly quirky – but sometimes I think you're just odd. Come on, girl. Bed-time. And dear God, don't go walkabout tonight.’ He locked his front door and locked the key in his briefcase which had a combination code Petra didn't know.

But she did walk. A couple of hours after they'd fallen asleep she'd left the bed and walked into the wall where she thought there was a doorway as she assumed she was at her flat.

‘For fuck's sake,’ Rob said, not that Petra could hear him. He found her in his sitting room, standing stock-still. He turned her shoulders and gave her a little shove every few steps.

‘Petra, I can't be doing with this.’ She looked at him directly, her eyes vacant though she spoke at him.

‘I know what you mean,’ she said flatly.

‘I doubt it,’ Rob said back though he knew they weren't conversing.

‘But I wouldn't agree with you about Gordon Brown.’

She made to turn back to the sitting room but he steered her to the bedroom and she lay down without a murmur.

‘Sorry, babe,’ he said, ‘but I'm fucking knackered.’ And he took a tie from his cupboard, binding it around her wrist and securing it to the bedpost.

Chapter Six

Petra's knee healed faster than the blisters so she continued to wear her Birkenstock sandals with socks to the studio all week, and still had to wear her pop socks and slippers when she saw Rob a couple of evenings later. I'm wearing pop socks again, she advised him, so if you want to do unmentionably rude things to me, can you give me warning so I can take them off first. Rob had called her a little hussy – much to her delight. And in the event, she left her socks on and they had sex energetically while he slapped her buttocks and called her a naughty naughty girl. When she woke the next morning, though her buttocks felt decidedly tingly it was her left wrist which felt really sore and when she looked at it, it was red; scorched like a burn. She showed it to Rob who'd said, Don't you remember me pinning you down as I rogered you senseless? However Petra couldn't remember, precisely. But the sex had been kinky and mostly in the dark and perhaps all that spanking had distracted her, so maybe he had. As she showered, she did quietly consider how, as good as they were at sex, it would be nice if she and Rob could be a little better at the bits in between. But she quickly washed away the notion that, quite possibly, it was beyond Rob's natural personality to loll about chatting idly, or to hold hands whilst walking, or to make love rather than always fuck.

‘Petra, what have you done to your wrist?’ Gina asked her in the studio.

Petra pulled her sleeve down but gave Gina and Kitty and Eric a saucy lick of her lips. ‘Rob's a bit of a tiger,’ she giggled, sashaying out to the toilet.

‘He's a bit of a prat,’ Eric said dryly when Petra was out of earshot.

‘He's a lot of a prat,’ Gina defined.

‘I don't like it,’ Kitty said darkly. ‘Petra is naturally gentle – physically and emotionally. I'm sorry, but I don't like to think of someone being rough with her.’

‘She can look after herself,’ Eric snapped because actually he wished he'd come out with Kitty's insight.

‘No, Eric.
I
can look after myself,’ Kitty said. ‘Petra was born someone to be made love to – I'm someone born to fuck.’

Gina giggled. ‘Kitty, you are outrageous. You're putting me off my work.’

Kitty shrugged, her skeins of blue-black hair snaking around her shoulders like a latter-day Medusa. ‘Sorry, Gina,’ she said, ‘but I do have authority to speak. I've had more sex with more people than all the hyphens in the double-barrelled surnames in your street.’

Gina giggled again. ‘Rob
is
a prat – but it's not for us to say so. Anyway, Petra is very fond of him. And she's really set on making this relationship last.’

‘Even if it doesn't necessarily work,’ Eric sighed. ‘Christ.’

‘True,’ said Kitty, ‘but if I think he's hurting her, then no one's bloody gagging me. Silence has no place in the shadow of violence.’

Both Eric and Gina quietly hoped that this was the end of the matter and that Petra would not come into work with marks on her again. Neither of them fancied Rob's chances against Kitty.

‘I'm taking Charlton's piece back to him,’ Petra announced when she came in again. She showed them the ankh pendant she had fashioned out of gold according to Charlton's precise design; Celtic ornament enlivening the surface. ‘Does anybody want anything?’

‘Can you pop into Bellore for me?’ Gina asked. ‘They phoned to say my turquoise is in – it's all paid for.’

‘And I need some 4mm setting strip,’ said Kitty. ‘Can you lay out for me and I'll pay you back?’

‘Anything else? Eric?’

‘Oh go on, twist my arm – I'll have a cappuccino,’ Eric said. ‘But better make it a skinny one – my belt was tight this morning. Do you think I've gained weight?’

Petra raised her eyes at Kitty and Gina and left them to deal with Eric's neuroses while she went about her errands.

On one side only of Hatton Garden there is a line of trees which bow subtly towards the kerb like some kind of benign, eco-friendly security grille. It is on this side, about halfway down, that Charlton Squire has the original of his two jewellery galleries. The other, opened last year, is off New Bond Street in the West End. Like Electrum in South Molton Street, Charlton Squire Gallery is revered as a hotbed boutique of cutting-edge talent. However, there's a price to pay for such innovation in precious metals and gems and designs and it's high; the pieces for sale are marketed meticulously as luxury goods for those who can afford them. There's also a price to pay by the jewellers whom Charlton chooses to exhibit at his gallery and that is hefty commission charges. However, to exhibit at Charlton Squire means access to wealthy clients and occasional exposure in the pages of
Vogue
and
Vanity Fair
.

‘It's a six and two threes,’ Petra had justified when she told the others at the studio that Charlton had selected her work.

‘It's a rip-off,’ said Eric.

‘Your nose is just out of joint because Charlton didn't select you,’ Gina chided.

‘More like Eric's dick is out of joint because Charlton turned down his crown jewels,’ Kitty said.

‘I didn't offer him my body,’ Eric objected, ‘only my work. I don't fancy him anyway – he's not my type. He's too big and swarthy and I don't like his accent.’

‘You Southern poof,’ Kitty teased him.

‘Charlton Squire sounds like the love child of Jimmy Nail and Molly Sugden,’ Eric said. ‘I only understand every other word.’

‘You snob,’ said Kitty.

‘And he looks like their love child too,’ Eric said.

‘You bitch,’ said Kitty. ‘Meow.’

Charlton Squire did not look like the love child of Jimmy Nail and Molly Sugden, in fact he looked quite unlike anybody. He certainly did not resemble either parent; his mother a whippet-wizened Yorkshire lass, his father a solid Geordie. At nearing six foot five and eighteen stone, Charlton looked more like an oversized cliché, alarmingly like a tribute act for the leather-clad chap from the Village People; a look which hadn't gone down well in his home town of Stokesley but had gone down a storm when he hit the gay scene in London twenty years ago. He'd ditched the thick moustache in his forties and had more recently relaxed the tightness of the top-to-toe leather and the amount of chest on public view. But he still came across as textbook gay and he used it to his advantage, whatever the sexuality of his clients. He'd charm the straight ones, flirt with the gay ones and inhibit anyone pursuing a discount by wielding his weight alongside a winsome expression of abject hurt if they dared ask.

Though Charlton Squire's own designs were coveted worldwide, his secondary skill was as a scout. He could swoop down on promising talents and quickly appropriate them as his protégés, as if their genius was of his making and that he alone was responsible for tapping into their potential. Though ruthlessly ambitious, he liked to exude an air of benevolent altruism and eagerly promoted himself as a philanthropic patron and mentor. He still loved designing jewellery but he also loved the showmanship of owning his galleries. He had neither the time nor the inclination to physically make up his own pieces any more and so as well as having bench-workers in the workshop behind the gallery in Hatton Garden, he also sent out his designs to skilled jewellers he trusted. Petra Flint being one of them. She didn't mind. She didn't find it demeaning and it didn't take her away from her own designs; she used her out-work from Charlton as a way of keeping her current account healthy and honing her dexterity as a jeweller – something she believed could always be more and more finely tuned.

What Petra loved most about Hatton Garden was its history and its honesty. It wasn't as chic or salubrious as the West End but there was a definite sense of it being the genuine hub of her industry. The retailers in Knightsbridge, in Regent Street, lower New Bond Street and South Molton Street were simply trading the wares which could be mostly traced back to the Hatton Garden area anyway. She knew some young jewellers who had studios in Hackney, in Kensal Rise, but though she paid a little more for the privilege of renting studio space in London's true jewellery quarter, it was money well spent for the buzz and the impetus it gave her. She loved the naffness of some of the shops; the lack of pretension of window displays haphazard on faded flower paper or frayed velvet boxes or cracked plastic cushions; she enjoyed the delusions of grandeur of others – from the geographically schizophrenic Beverley Hills London to the blingtastic Go for Gold with its windows stuffed full of solid gold chains thick enough to hoist anchor. She liked the way that the modern and ultra-chic could coexist quite happily with the old-fashioned and low key. R. Holt, with its frontage resembling a hardware store in need of a dust nevertheless nodded proudly at Nicholas James opposite, all uber-hip and with a minimalist take on window design. Cool Diamonds believed in the lure of its name alone in lieu of any window display while Petra's personal favourite, A. R. Ullman, was endearingly Dickensian in the higgledy-piggledy jam-packedness of its diminutive shopfront. As she walked to Charlton's, she browsed; said hullo to familiar faces, detoured via the Wyndham Centre to enquire about reflexology for sleep disorders. Kitty, Gina and Eric had sent her there for her birthday last December, booking her a crystal healing with chakra balancing session. She'd felt well and truly stoned afterwards.

When she was buzzed in at the Charlton Squire Gallery, the eponymous owner, in all his enormous campness, was locked in discussion with a young Hasidic Jew whom Petra recognized as Yitzhak Levy, from a family of renowned diamond dealers. Charlton stood a head and shoulders taller than Yitzhak and compared with the latter's paleness, Charlton looked positively orange. But whatever Yitzhak lacked in physical stature, his magnificent hat and beautifully tonged sideburn ringlets gave him gravitas. From Charlton's leather trousers and contour-skimming silken shirt the colour of midnight, to Yitzhak's eighteenth-century Polish dignitary's dress, the men epitomized the theatricality, the tolerance, the unique and unchanged trading mores of Hatton Garden. Petra knew what would happen next. There'd be gesticulations, perhaps some banging of fists and the throwing up of arms and then shrugs and nodding and handshakes. The diamond merchant dug into his overcoat pocket and produced the stone which Charlton exchanged for a wad of banknotes. More handshaking.
Shalom. Kol tov.
Deal done for the day. The men turned and noted Petra. Charlton swaggered over, cupped her face in his hands and kissed her forehead. Yitzhak nodded amiably enough but kept physical space at a premium.

‘He buys my diamonds,’ Yitzhak shrugged, ‘but none of his good money will buy your tanzanite, hey, Miss Flint?’

Petra shook her head vehemently.

‘And if I give you top dollar for it – will you trade with me?’

Petra shook her head again and shrugged. ‘It's not for sale, Mr Levy.’

‘It's only for keeping in a cotton hanky under her mattress,’ Charlton said, exasperated, ‘isn't that right, Pet?’ He often called her Pet, it being a common endearment in the North-East as much as a convenient diminutive of her name.

‘I've brought your pendant back,’ Petra said, because her tanzanite was not for sale, not even for discussion.

‘May I?’ Yitzhak asked and Charlton handed the piece to him. ‘Very nice,’ he said. ‘A bit heathen for my liking. You ever thought of designing a nice Star of David range, Mr Squire?’

‘Most my clients are
goyim
,’ Charlton bantered back, the Yiddish for ‘non-Jew’ coming as easily as a second language.

Yitzhak shrugged. ‘If you make them – they will sell.’

Charlton nodded. ‘You're probably right. Now bugger off and flog your diamonds elsewhere.’

The men laughed and shook hands again. Yitzhak nodded at Petra and left.

Charlton scrutinized her work in silence. He compared it in minute detail with his design and analysed the craftsmanship under a loupe.

‘Excellent,’ he said at length. ‘Do you want cash or have it as a credit against commission?’

‘Has any of my stuff sold?’ Petra asked him though she could see her work displayed beautifully in a well-lit cabinet.

‘Not this week, Pet.’

‘I'd better have the cash then, if that's all right with you.’

‘Planning to go crazy at the weekend?’

‘Hardly,’ Petra said. ‘I'm off to see my parents.’

‘Are you taking the boyfriend?’

‘I am,’ she said proudly.

‘He'll be down on bended knee in front of your pa, Pet.’

‘Don't be daft,’ Petra said, though privately she thrilled to the notion.