Charity Page 35

  John was just a beautiful memory, to be savoured late at night. It still hurt sometimes. If she thought too deeply she could torture herself imagining him with other women, but mostly he was the yardstick by which she measured other men and found them lacking.

  If she ever felt a pang of guilt about taking money for nights out with lonely men, she reminded herself of her long-term plans. Her savings were increasing; the men had a good time.

  But although she had reconciled herself to many things, her need for her brothers and sister never grew less. After each school holiday she would meet Lou for lunch, eager for all the news and the latest photographs.

  Prue was nearly fifteen now, but so different from Charity at the same age. She was plump, with a bland, rather expressionless face and her father’s overlarge forehead. Lou informed her that Prue ‘was a little madam’, but was too kindly to enlarge on that. Toby, at almost fourteen, was becoming even more like the young Uncle Stephen she remembered from her grandmother’s photographs: tall, slender with perfect features, a very handsome boy. James, now seven, was a reminder of Toby at the same age – thin as a whippet, with an engaging grin and no front teeth. The only thing which still united them as a family was the white-blond hair and bright blue eyes.

  Yet on each of these lunch dates which meant so much to Charity, she sensed how much Lou was holding back. She spoke of the central heating put in at Studley, of the walled garden being transformed into an Italian garden complete with pergolas and fountain, and the redecoration of the children’s rooms. She admitted that staff came and went at an alarming rate and said how frail Grandmother was becoming, but she could never be pushed into revealing her real feelings about Toby and Prue.

  All Charity knew was that Prue was top of her class in the nearby private school. She played the piano well, still had dancing lessons and was now learning both French and Italian. Toby was less academic: he excelled at games and gymnastics and had learned to ride, but somehow the absence of more detail suggested he was still in trouble one way or another. The picture Charity was left with was that both children had been spoiled.

  Only James gave Charity real hope, as Lou was effusive in his praise. She said he was quick, kind-hearted, always laughing. Charity knew Lou was frightened that he too might be whisked away to Studley and that this was why she was so loath to go against Stephen in any way.

  One ray of hope kept Charity going. Lou in her diplomatic way had managed to make both Toby and Prue realise the truth of what had happened years before. Each time she saw Charity she pointed out it would only be a few more years before they’d be able to defy their uncle and visit her.

  Charity had learned to tuck her brothers and sister away in the same special place she kept her memories of Daniel. She celebrated each birthday silently, bought them cards she couldn’t send, and vowed to herself that one day they’d be together again. Creating a successful business would give her the ultimate weapon to beat Uncle Stephen. What could be sweeter than showing that chauvinistic old colonel that the girl he expected to clean for him now employed dozens of people?

  ‘What’s up, Chas?’ Dorothy flung herself down on the sofa next to Charity. ‘Counting your money again?’

  It was just over a week since Carmel had offered her the office and since then Charity had thought of nothing else. But dreaming, scheming and wanting didn’t make two hundred pounds appear.

  Charity closed her notebook and smiled weakly. Dorothy had just got out of the bath and she wore only a slinky ivory satin housecoat. She rarely got up before midday now, spent all afternoon lying around doing her nails and hair, and never thought of cleaning up, offering to do some shopping, or even making coffee.

  Rita might be scatterbrained and irresponsible, but she worked and played with enthusiasm. But sometimes it seemed Dorothy was going downhill fast.

  ‘Just doing some sums,’ Charity said.

  She had spent her day off visiting the four main high street banks in an effort to raise a loan. But they all asked her for a business plan and she didn’t know what that meant. Finally she’d come home around an hour ago to find Dorothy hogging the bathroom, a pile of unwashed dishes in the kitchen and her Beatles LP left on the floor, a coffee mug stuck to it.

  It was hard not to let on to Dorothy and Rita about her plans, but she knew if she did they would want to be in on it. They might put up the money needed, but they would play at having a business for a couple of weeks, then lose interest and leave her to do everything while expecting their share of the profits.

  ‘You aren’t thinking about the kids again?’ Dorothy leaned forward to get a cigarette, her naked breasts popping out of her housecoat. She was shameless these days, never thinking that other people might feel uncomfortable with a near-naked girl walking around the flat.

  ‘Sort of,’ Charity lied. ‘Wondering why Lou won’t tell me what’s troubling her about them.’

  ‘Well they’re teenagers, aren’t they? I was awful at that age,’ Dorothy said sympathetically. ‘Of course there’s many people who don’t think I’ve improved!’

  ‘You should get a proper job,’ Charity said archly. ‘I worry about you too.’

  Dorothy had dropped out of daytime work since the summer. She’d met an Australian called Neville and the temptation to laze around with him in the sun proved too much for Dorothy. After two weeks hitching round the South of France with him she came home alone, very subdued. She’d sneered at Neville, claimed it was the last time she’d let her heart rule her head, but she never divulged what had happened. It was only one night when she woke Charity to say she was bleeding heavily that it came out she’d been pregnant and had had an abortion that morning over in Paddington.

  Charity and Rita still made allowances for Dorothy’s inertia, her caustic remarks and her slovenly ways. They felt deeply for her being caught out a second time and the trauma the abortion must have caused. They even paid her share of the rent until she was better, assuming she’d get back to normal once her body had. But though Dorothy had returned to escort work, she made it clear she had no intention of getting a real job and she was much harder on men. She began to go alone on escort dates and often didn’t come home at all. She always seemed to have plenty of money and Charity had to draw her own conclusions about how she came by it. But despite Dorothy’s cynical attitude, her laziness and inability to take herself in hand, Charity still cared about her as much as ever.

  ‘There are better things to do in life than be a wage slave.’ Dorothy flashed a brilliant smile at Charity. ‘You know your problem, Chas?’

  ‘What’s that?’ Charity pulled her friend’s housecoat back across her breasts.

  ‘You’re a doormat. You always consider everyone before yourself, and until you learn to be a bit more selfish people will always wipe their feet on you.’

  *

  Later, alone in her room, Charity consulted her little notebook again. She had an idea for raising the money, a little voice that wouldn’t go away, but it was one which made her skin crawl. Yet Dorothy’s words were echoing in her head. Was she really going to be a doormat all her life, or strike out now for what she wanted?

  Surely she could justify it? She needed that money so badly. Even John had said she must make the most of opportunities. All week she’d hoped an alternative would present itself, but time and ideas had run out. Carmel wouldn’t and couldn’t wait. Everything and everyone had their price. The question was – would anyone consider her worth two hundred pounds?

  It seemed like fate when Carmel rang the following day to ask if she would go out with Ted Parsloe. Of all the dozens of men she’d dated he was perhaps the only one she would agree to meet on her own. Normally when he was in town he had his sidekick Lawrence with him, and Charity certainly wouldn’t even think of carrying out her plan with Rita there.

  Ted had all the right credentials. His wealth was phenomenal, she knew he owned a string of garages in England and a chain of drug stores in the United States. On
their previous five or six dates, she’d seen him win and lose hundreds at roulette without turning a hair.

  But the best thing about Ted was that he’d made it plain before that he wanted her. He had been too much of a gentleman to push it, but it lay unspoken between them.

  ‘Come back to my hotel for a nightcap?’ Ted whispered in her ear as they danced.

  Charity felt sick with apprehension yet she managed a bright smile. Ted Parsloe with his gold watch and Savile Row suit was playing right into her hands, just as she’d known he would, but it gave her no pleasure.

  It was almost two o’clock, but Churchill’s nightclub was in full swing and she knew most of the beautiful girls here tonight would offer sex at a price.

  Maybe not hard cash, but a fur coat, a holiday or even just to be wined and dined in style. Why else would that leggy redhead with the sensational face be snuggled up to a fat, balding man? Would Patty, the girl with the huge soft dark eyes, have anything in common with that weedy little accountant if he didn’t pay the rent on her mews cottage in Chelsea?

  Charity had read so many articles in magazines that claimed women were attracted to powerful men, regardless of their looks. But the word ‘power’ was a euphemism: in her view it simply meant women were turned on by wealth.

  Charity could see Mandy across the club. She was draped along a settee, her head on a man’s knee, holding his face in her hands, her long cream evening dress slit to the thigh offering a glimpse of stocking top. Charity had met Mandy several months ago when they were working for a week in Barkers’ department store on a perfume promotion. She was engaged to an engineering student then and didn’t have a clue about anything. Just eighteen, wide-eyed and innocent with mousy long straight hair and her shapely body concealed by frumpy clothes.

  One evening she had come back to the flat for a girls’ evening of drink and chatter. Dorothy had suggested she lighten her hair while Charity showed her how to do her makeup.

  A month later Charity bumped into her in Kensington High Street and if Mandy hadn’t caught hold of her arm she wouldn’t even have recognised her. She had blonde wavy hair and was poured into a shocking pink minidress that skimmed her crotch. She said she’d dropped the engagement to the engineer and moved in with two other girls in Kensington. Now she ‘worked the clubs’.

  Well, she’d be earning plenty tonight. No doubt that man leering down at her cleavage would provide enough money for a new dress and a week’s rent. As a girl in the powder room had said earlier in the night, ‘Well they get what they want and so do we. I can’t see the sense in having sex for nothing when there’s men out there willing to pay.’

  Charity didn’t agree with that philosophy. She remembered only too well making love to both Hugh and John, and no one could convince her it would be the same doing it for money.

  But she had to get that two hundred pounds.

  ‘A nightcap?’ She looked right into Ted’s eyes and let her lips curve into a seductive smile.

  He was a good-looking man despite being overweight, with dark hair tinged with just the odd streak of grey and an attractive cleft chin. Charity couldn’t work his age out. He could pass for late forties but she suspected he was closer to sixty because he’d made his original fortune in America during Prohibition.

  It had been a lovely evening: a delicious Chinese meal in Soho, then on here to Churchill’s for more drinks and dancing. Perhaps he even saw her agreement to a date on their own as a green flag.

  ‘You know what I want, Charity.’ He smiled back, soft dark eyes twinkling with merriment.

  Even his voice was nice, a faint trace of Geordie with overtones of American. He had a good sense of humour and a straightforward approach to everything.

  ‘Tell me, then.’ She fluttered her eyelashes, knowing this was the moment she’d been waiting for.

  ‘I want to screw you. I have from the first moment I saw you.’

  She was glad he didn’t say ‘make love’; it was easier to handle that way.

  ‘I don’t know if you can afford me.’ She kept her eyes on his, her tongue sliding nervously over her upper lip.

  Ted recovered his composure very quickly.

  ‘Come on now, Charity! I know you don’t put it about. That’s why I want you so much.’

  ‘Everyone’s got their price,’ she said. She’d drunk enough to be this bold, and she’d had enough foresight to slip her diaphram in a while ago. ‘Mine’s very high.’

  ‘How high?’

  His hand in hers was sticky with sweat. Could she really do this? Wouldn’t it be better to laugh now and tell Ted she’d been joking?

  ‘Two hundred pounds.’

  The room seemed to be spinning and she could feel sweat running down the middle of her back under her black chiffon dress. What if he laughed at her? Told her to get lost? How could she walk out of here and keep her dignity?

  ‘You rate yourself very highly.’ He looked down at her and his smile was cold.

  ‘Well I’m special,’ she smiled back. ‘That’s why I’m offering myself to you.’

  In the beauty business she’d met countless people who believed that only something expensive was worth having. Why shouldn’t she apply that sales ploy to herself?

  ‘I could have any other girl in here for less than thirty pounds,’ he said, but his voice was softer now, as if he were nibbling at the bait.

  ‘I know, but you want me,’ she said. ‘And that’s my price. No deals.’

  He laughed then, taking her by surprise. His head rolled back and he let out a rich guffaw.

  A strange thing happened inside her. She knew, then, that if she told him why she wanted the money, he would give it to her. She wouldn’t have to sleep with him. But she wasn’t going to beg. She would go through with it. Give him the time of his life and at the end she would have earned it.

  ‘OK.’ He moved his face closer to hers and kissed her cheek. She could smell how much he wanted her – it wafted out of him, stronger than his expensive aftershave. ‘I’ve got that much back at the hotel. But you will stay till morning?’

  ‘Of course.’ She kissed him lightly on the lips. ‘Take me there now!’

  All the way to the Savoy she managed to think only of the money and the agency. But as the taxi pulled up and a liveried doorman leapt forward to open the cab door, she felt sick with fright.

  His suite was luxurious, all gentle blues and greens, with the thickest, softest carpet Charity had ever seen and the sort of elegant furniture she imagined in stately homes. Ted pulled a cord to part the heavy brocade curtains so she could see the Thames.

  ‘Isn’t that something?’ he said.

  She stood transfixed by the view and a sharp pain shot through her heart. Her legs almost buckled under her as she looked down to see twinkling lights reflected in the black still water.

  It was Florence all over again. How could she even think of taking money for sex when John had taught her the beauty of it, for love?

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Ted’s hand squeezed her shoulder.

  ‘Nothing.’ She tried to smile. ‘Just the view, it reminded me of somewhere else for a moment.’

  Ted looked down at Charity. She was so small and dainty next to his bulk, white-blonde hair showering over her slender shoulders.

  ‘Reminds you of somewhere – or someone?’ He turned away to open a small safe set in the wall and felt an unreasonable pang of jealousy. He took out a wad of notes and quickly counted out the two hundred. ‘Here we are, put it away sweetheart and let’s have some champagne.’

  She drank the first glass of champagne quickly.

  ‘Dutch courage?’ Ted came up to her and took the empty glass from her hand, putting it down on the coffee table. ‘How about a kiss?’

  There was no going back now.

  His kiss was tentative and gentle. She closed her eyes, and concentrated only on the sensation rather than thinking whose lips they were. To her surprise she found it wasn’t unpleasant.

&n
bsp; ‘Shall we take the champagne in with us?’ she murmured against his shoulder.

  ‘Best idea you’ve had all night,’ he said and kissed her neck. He could feel the tension in her slender body, but maybe another drink or two would loosen her up.

  As they reached the bedroom Ted put down the champagne on the bedside table and turned to her. Charity was already reaching for the fastening at the back of her dress, her face contorted with nervousness.

  ‘Let me do that,’ he murmured, moving round behind her and parting her hair. Deftly he unfastened the two small buttons on the collar, then slowly peeled the chiffon away from her shoulders, bending to kiss her neck.

  All she had to do was keep her eyes closed and pretend it was John. Maybe that way it wouldn’t be so bad.

  She wore nothing beneath her dress but tiny lace panties and a thin garter belt holding up her stockings. As his hands came round to cup her small breasts he gasped softly, increasing the pressure of his lips on her neck, and let her dress fall to the floor.

  Charity looked down at his big hands: they were beautifully manicured and soft; sensitive, like John’s. They couldn’t possibly stir up passion in her the way John’s had, but she could bear it.

  ‘That’s so nice.’ She leaned back against him. One of his hands was sliding down to her belly, caressing and smoothing, but she could feel his soft flabby stomach even through all his clothes.

  He turned her round, pulling her into his arms to kiss her again. She closed her eyes tightly, thinking only of how good he was at kissing, not of his girth or his age.

  As he guided her towards the bed, she felt him shedding his jacket, and as he laid her down beside him, his shoes came off with a soft thud.

  The only lights were from two small lamps on either side of the bed; the satin cover beneath her naked back was smooth, cool and sensuous. His fingers were in her hair, his tongue sliding round her lips but she felt nothing as her nipples touched his silk shirt.

  ‘Your breasts are so beautiful,’ he whispered, moving down to take one nipple in his mouth. ‘So little and firm, so sweet,’ he groaned.