Sugar Mummy (18 page)

'Your crystal therapist? What does he do?'

Farrah licks her lips in concentration and begins to explain.

'They apply different types of crystal to every bodily orifice
and these crystals draw the impurities out of your body and replace them with positive
energy.'

I laugh. By now I don't really care and I've had two glasses
of champagne on an empty stomach.

'What? You pay someone to shove a crystal up your-'

'Andrew!' It's Marion who has come up behind me like the Belgravia
Secret Police. When I turn round I notice that she does look very good indeed -
diamond earrings and a simple white dress.

'You look great,' I say, giving her a quick kiss on the lips.

This is going to be my standard line for this evening, I decide.
I'm sure one of my Dad's books advises it: 'Try greeting every new acquaintance
or prospective co-worker with a positive, opening expression of your feelings.'

'Thank you. Now, get yourself another drink. There are a lot
of people here tonight that I really want you to meet.'

'Hey, you look great,' I say to Anna Maria as I grab another
glass.

I'm actually really pleased to see her but Marion hisses irritably,
'Don't talk to the staff like that. Andrew, you have so much to learn.' She looks
round at Anna Maria who is moving off through the crowd, tray in hand, more mystified
by my comment, I think, than flattered.

Marion leads me into the centre of the room. For one awful moment
I think she is going to make some sort of announcement but luckily a man leaves
the group he is with and walks over to us. His aftershave arrives before he does
and it burns my nostrils.

'Channing,' says Marion.

'Marion,' he says. 'We were just talking about Sonia Kaletsky.
You heard she told everyone she wanted a small wedding. Well, apparently she got
such a small wedding there wasn't even a groom.' We all laugh.

After a few seconds Marion has done enough laughing and she says,
'Channing. Look, Channing, this is Andrew.'

'Hi,' says Channing. He is small, dark and tanned with viciously
gelled short hair. He's wearing a black and yellow Versace check jacket with dark
blue jeans and black bikers' boots which reach up to his knees. We shake hands.
His hand is soft, plump, hairy and heavily ringed. It lingers a little too long
in mine.

'Channing is my best friend from New York,' says Marion, careful
to add this geographical qualification. I've learnt that Marion has 'best friends
in London', 'best friends from California', 'best friends for shopping', 'best oldest
friend' etc. Everyone can be Marion's best friend as long as it's in their own particular
category. I'm probably her 'best media sales friend'. Or 'best friend for imposing
circumcision on'.

'Very nice,' says Channing. I sort of hope he means 'very nice
to meet you' but I'm sure he doesn't.

Then he completely ignores me and starts telling Marion about
somebody they know from New York who sold his apartment to someone else they know
from New York and what the person who bought the apartment said about it and what
they were going to do with it or something.

While I am looking around the room a girl comes to join the three
of us. She is tanned with long blonde hair and a face that would be pretty if wasn't
just a bit too sporty. She is also wearing dark blue jeans and on huge white shirt,
undone so that I can see her bra and the top of full, freckled breasts. Her gold
chains and bracelets look really good against her tan. She holds her glass in both
hands in front of her. Looking up at me, in her gold and white, she looks like an
altar boy, offering me the blood of Christ.

She laughs enthusiastically with Marion and Channing. She doesn't
know what they are talking about and so her guffaws make me laugh and soon we are
laughing at each other laughing. Marion and Channing become uneasy about the amount
of laughing going on and so Marion drags me away just as the girl is putting out
her hand and saying, 'Louise.'

'Hi. You look-' But Marion has pointed me in the direction of
some people sitting on the settee.

'God, that girl's dumb,' she spits. 'She says she's into photography
but I can't believe she knows one end of a camera from the other. At least not like
she knows one end of a photographer from the other. Here, I want you to meet Toby
Erskine-Crumb. Toby works in the City of London,' she says as if he were the only
one who did.

'Well, that's what I do when I'm not drinking there,' laughs
Toby, offering a hand. 'Hello.'

'Hello, Toby,' I say. 'Oh, fuck off, Toby,' I think. Marion whisks
me off again. My head is spinning with champagne and this whirlwind tour of her
friends.

At another settee she introduces me to a tiny little lady clutching
her glass as if her life depended on it. In front of her is a sea of cannibalized
canapés - each half-bitten through or gnawed at. Like most of Marion's friends,
her face has that surprised, shiny look, probably because most of it is now gathered
up behind her ears.

'Davina, I want you to meet Andrew.'

The lady's face cracks as far as it can into a smile.

'Hoi,' she says in a thick Manhattan drawl. I bow slightly and
take her hand, which she obviously appreciates. In fact the only reason I am bowing
is because she is so tiny. Marion leaves me squeezing onto the settee next to Davina,
presumably because it is less likely I will get off with her than with Louise. As
soon as I sit down Davina is off.

'Do you know Marion's problem?'

Is this going to be a joke? I shake my head, getting ready to
laugh if I'm required to do so. 'Marion's problem?'

Davina waves a liver-spotted hand at me and draws me in closer.
'She's working class. She's blue collar and she hates it.' I am not sure what my
reaction is supposed to be. In some ways Marion is so strange that I wouldn't be
surprised if she was created in a test tube or constructed by the inventor of Barbie
on an off-day. On the other hand, that little speech she gave me at lunch a couple
of weeks ago suggested that she was more blue blood than blue collar.

'That's why she always acts so grand,' hisses Davina from beside
me, almost making me jump. 'Does she?'

Davina rolls her eyes, a rather risky manoeuvre given the number
of nips and tucks there probably are around them. 'Marion acts more grand than anyone
I know. Your Queen could learn something from her.' Davina takes a long slurp of
champagne. 'And that's why she always surrounds herself with pretty things. You,
sugar, are a case in point.'

'Am I?' I really only ask to break the tension and move the conversation
on a bit. She looks at me as if I'm the stupidest thing that she has ever come into
contact with.

'Course you are. You must know that. But I bet she hasn't told
you.' She takes a prawn and cream cheese pastry thing, removes the prawn, scoops
out the cream cheese, sucks it off her fingernail and then squashes the prawn back
in the pastry and puts it back down in front of her. Then she spends some time running
her tongue round the inside of her mouth to clear it of cheese. I watch repulsed,
fascinated, suddenly feeling stone-cold sober.

She looks round the room with her hard little eyes and starts
to tell me a story. 'Marion's father sold furniture out of a big warehouse in Brooklyn.
I mean, it was supposed to be a store and her mother had pretensions about it being,
you know, Bergdorf Goodman or something but the point is her mother never went there.
The only people visited Marion's father's store were people who had been to the
fancy stores and realised that they couldn't afford the fancy prices. They would
sneak into that place, praying that their friends and neighbours wouldn't see them
there, see where they had ended up just trying to save a few bucks when they wanted
a new sofa or a chair or something. And the reason why Marion's mother had pretensions
about it was like I said, because she never went there. Oh no, she sat in that house
in Scarsdale and took tea and spoke to her friends on the telephone. All very nice,
all very proper. Wishing her husband was a society doctor or a big shot lawyer or
something.'

'I thought her father worked on Wall Street,' I say. Davina cackles,
boy am I ever stupid! Anna Maria comes back again with the champagne. Davina swipes
another glass. I smile at Anna Maria and help myself as well. She beams back, unaware
that her mistress is being ripped apart and her guts left out for carrion on the
sun-scorched hill tops of Manhattan society. On the other hand, if she did know,
would she care?

Davina is off again, half-finishing her glass in a single slurp.
She ignores my contribution - obviously I am too dumb to bother with.

'And do you know why she has no children?'

Oh Christ! I hope this is not going to be too gynaecological.
Women's things always make me feel slightly sick. I want Davina to stop but at the
same time I desperately want to hear more. Thing is, I know that Marion will be
able to tell with one quick glance at my innocent face that I know all.

I look around the room quickly to check that she isn't looking.
Nowhere to be seen. Probably upstairs adjusting something.

'Well do you know?' Davina punches my arm. 'No,' I gasp, in some
pain.

It is the answer Davina is looking for. She raises her painted
eyebrows slightly and looks shocked. 'She doesn't want the competition.'

'Competition?'

'Sure. She doesn't want to have to compete with anyone. What
if she had a daughter and what if the daughter was pretty and popular? What if she
outshone Marion? What then? Or worse still-' Davina stares even more fiercely- 'but
what if she didn't? What if Marion had a kid that was plain and boring - you know,
mousy hair, bottle-bottom glasses and braces like a railway siding. OK, she could
have a little surgery. Oh sure, a little cutting and tweaking here and there, we've
all had it but if you ain't got the raw materials in the first place, bone structure
and all, no: even the best surgeon in the world can do anything and don't tell me
he can.

'No, she doesn't want the competition so she figures it's much
better to use surrogates. Surrogate children. Like you. Choose them, parade them
around like a poodle and then, if they fail to impress, or, if they impress too
much you can always ditch 'em and get another. Oh, yes,' she says, shaking her head,
'Marion has had plenty of those.'

Nice to hear.

'Of course, I don't suppose you've heard about the husbands.'
She doesn't wait for an answer. 'Now, I must confess, I did like the first. You
couldn't help liking Edward. A bit dumb, a bit of a bore but basically a nice guy.
What he did have going for him, though, was potential. You know? Potential. And
that's what Marion liked about him, his potential. He was potentially very rich.
His father had made a fortune as an oil broker, well, he was a broker in anything.
He was the complete opposite of Edward - a devious little scheister. Which is not
necessarily a bad thing, in business. But the problem was that he hated Marion.
God, he hated her.' Davina takes another great slurp of champagne and, for some
reason, hands me her empty glass. I look around for a passing tray and then put
it down between us. There is a pause while Davina's intense stare draws over another
waitress with more champagne.

'Hated her, absolutely hated her.' 'Why?'

'Why?' She takes another gulp. 'He thought she was stuck up and
had airs and graces. But cheap all the same. Which is what she is. But what Edward's
father really hated about her was that he thought she was a gold-digger. And she
thought he was rude and vulgar and rough as a stevedore's ass, which he was. What
really got him, though, was when Marion tried to ban him from the wedding. She figured
she needed her father, who was not exactly smooth as a kid glove, to give her away
but she sure as hell didn't need Edward's.'

'This was the wedding at Saint Patrick's Cathedral?' I say, hoping
this will earn me some credibility. Wrong. Davina looks at me in disbelief.

'Saint Patrick's? Saint Patrick's Fifth Avenue? Not exactly,
sugar. They couldn't exactly afford that. It could have been their local church,
but Marion figured that didn't look none too good so she broke her family's heart
and found a hotel. Sure, it was a pretty hotel but Fifth Avenue it was not. Anyway,
however pretty the goddamn hotel is, if the atmosphere is ugly, the wedding is ugly.'

'Ugly atmosphere?' I ask a little unnecessarily.

'They needed Henry Kissinger to negotiate the table plan.'

'How long did the marriage last?'

'Oh, a couple of years and then she realised that he was going
no place and didn't have a nickel to scratch his ass with and so she dumped him.'

'I thought he, er, committed adultery,' I say, trying not to
sound too suburban about it. I needn't have bothered.

'He never got chance. She beat him to it. But one thing's for
sure, if he had of, she'd have been juggling his balls.'

'So who was Marion's second husband?' I mention her name in the
hope that we have been talking at cross purposes and this is not Marion I have been
hearing about. She takes a long breath. 'He had more going for him than Edward.
At least, he did till Marion got hold of him. He was rich, goodlooking and had
a sort of savoir-faire, know what I mean? Josef. He was Colombian. They gave the
best parties.' She looks disparagingly around her. 'Their apartment in New York
was so beautiful it had a swimming-pool in the dining room. Models, actors, fashion
designers. Drinking, fucking, snorting coke off each other. God, it was beautiful.'

'Beautiful,' I say, trying to imagine this little splosh 'n'
nosh love nest.

'And then they had the apartment on Ipanema Beach.'

'Sounds lovely.'

'Honey, it was,' says Davina, looking up at me longingly. 'It
was beautiful. And she used it to very good effect. She met her third husband there.'