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The house is thronged. More have arrived since she went into the bathroom, and the string of reception rooms is hard to navigate. She can’t see him for Armani. She squeezes behind a trio of thick-set men who growl at each other in Russian, feels a hand grab her buttock and squeeze it so hard she’s afraid for a moment that it’ll pop.
Ow!
Gemma whirls round, enraged. Then she remembers where she is, and who she is. This is your life now, girl. You’re a fucking body. Get used to it.
In the third reception room, Tatiana stands with Julia and a huge man, much older. The women wear their perpetual smiles. But now she knows, Gemma sees also that their eyes are darting around the room. They’re supervising, she thinks. There are a dozen of us here tonight. We may have arrived in little knots, but I see us now. Me and Sara, and Melanie, and that girl from Singapore, Wei-Cheng. And three girls I’ve seen at the agency, though they’ve probably never seen me. And that woman who looks like a wraith, who was there at Issima that first night.
Tatiana swivels to look at her. The huge man looks her up and down, head to toe, and frowns. Says something to Tatiana, who nods. Julia doesn’t speak, but Gemma sees her listen, and press her lips together. They’re discussing me, she thinks. They’re not happy with their investment. And then a man comes up to them and their smiles switch back on as if someone turned up the headlight beam. Tatiana and Julia kiss the air around his face and the big man’s face wrinkles up and he pumps his hand as though he’s trying to extract water, and Gemma moves on in search of Maurice Eindorff.
She finds him on a high-backed antique sofa upholstered in gold brocade, his knees spread wide to accommodate his gut, talking intensely to a woman who has her hand on his knee. She hesitates for a moment. Maybe I’m too late. Maybe that’s it. I’ve blown it. They’ll let me go tomorrow and I’ll have to go to the losers’ college on the Wandsworth Road and work in Greggs at the weekends. And then the woman’s shiny curtain of hair flips back and she sees that she must be forty if she’s a day and Maurice is looking at her the way Naz looks at her mother, and she knows she’ll be all right.
She walks over to the sofa, takes him by the hand and leads him away. Past the bear, up the sweeping marble staircase.
She leaves him beached on the bed like a well-fed walrus. Sara is waiting at the bottom of the stairs when she comes back down and pushes a slightly warm glass of champagne into her hand. ‘Mouthwash,’ she says.
Gemma take the glass and drains it. ‘Ta.’ Pulls a face as she finishes, because she doesn’t really like champagne.
‘All right?’
‘Sure,’ she says. She doesn’t really fancy talking about it much, though. She decides to joke her way out of it. Puts on a comedy Cockney accent. ‘’E’s a proppah genkleman and no mistykin,’ she says.
Thing she’s learned tonight: a cock’s a cock’s a cock, and a belly gets smaller when the owner is lying down. Another thing she’s learned: you can do quite a lot of stuff if you keep your eyes shut.
‘Hey, this is a Russian’s house, yeah?’ she asks. Sara nods. ‘Well, there must be some bloody vodka around here somewhere,’ she says.
Julia comes up to her, beaming. ‘I gather you’ve made Maurice a very happy boy,’ she says. ‘That’s one fan you’ve got yourself there.’
‘Always a pleasure, never a chore,’ says Gemma. She’s three vodkas in, and that E was quite strong.
‘Well, I’d say you had a bright future ahead of you,’ she says.
Gemma laughs. ‘That’s not what my school said.’
Julia laughs too, and gives her a friendly pat. ‘Ah, schools. They don’t know everything.’
‘Is there any more vodka?’ says Gemma.
‘Maybe slow down on the vodka?’ says Julia.
‘Mmmmkay,’ says Gemma. Waits until Julia’s gone back into the crowd and helps herself to another.
*
At two a.m., she falls off her heels and plummets into the bear.
‘Oops!’ she says. Gives him a friendly pat on the chest, and then a hug. ‘Awww, Maurice, you saved me!’ she says, and laughs out loud. And then Julia’s at her side again, and one of the big men in the grey suits they’ve got standing about the place, and they’re supporting her off into an anteroom and propping her up in a chair. ‘Time for a taxi for Gemma, I think,’ says Julia.
‘I don’t have the cash,’ she mumbles.
‘That’s okay,’ says Julia, ‘it’s on my account.’
She doesn’t remember the journey. Just a lot of passing lights and increasing nausea.
‘I hope you’re not going to throw up in my cab,’ says the driver. ‘That’d be two hundred extra for cleaning.
Her entire night’s pay. ‘Nah, you’re all right, mate,’ she replies. ‘I can hold it in.’
‘Well, you let me know if you need me to pull over,’ he says. But instead she falls asleep, and doesn’t wake up until he wakes her.
‘Where am I?’ she feels drugged and drowsy. Probably because that’s what she is.
‘Top of Thornbury Road,’ he says. ‘You said to drop you here?’
She peers out through the window. Once her eyes focus, she sees that she is indeed at the top of her road. Her shoes are scattered across the floor. She fishes for them with her hands, but keeps missing. Eventually the driver grabs them for her and presses them on her. Helps her out onto the kerb and waits while she balances against the door to put them on. ‘Are you going to be okay getting home?’ he asks.
‘Sure,’ she says. ‘It’s just a few doors down.’ And, once he’s gone, she takes a couple of steps forward, then three sideways, and wakes up, cold and a bit sore, in the hedge at No.17.
‘Fuck,’ she says. ‘Fuckitty fuck.’ But her shoes are still on, so that’s something.
Her nap has done her some good. She covers the fifteen doors to home in less than five minutes, fumbles the lock open and tiptoes in. The house is dark and silent, and she thinks she’s got away with it until she pushes open the door of her bedroom and finds her mum asleep in her bed, her phone dropped onto the carpet, snoring.
