Suddenly the lights came down and a loud disco beat started pulsating around the room. Everybody put down their coffee cups and looked intently at the stage, which had erupted in a sea of flashing bulbs and colour. The red-haired model in a deep green bikini strutted onto the catwalk, her hips swaying seductively in time with the music. She paused at the end of the runway, flashed a brilliant smile as the audience erupted in applause. Behind her another goddess emerged, her buttocks peeking cheekily out of a pair of metallic lamé boy-shorts, her breasts barely covered by a strip of mesh fabric. A lone wolf whistle from the crowd said what every man in the room was thinking. The music kept pounding, the girls kept coming. And then finally Alexia Dark stalked onto the catwalk, her black hair flying behind her like a banner, the shimmering lights bouncing off her jewelled bikini and showering her bronzed body in iridescent light. What a finale! thought Erin. What a party!
‘Oi!’ shouted a voice as Alexia Dark was making her final strut back to the stage. ‘Oi you!’
Erin located the voice. It was coming from table twelve, a collection of footballers and their wives ten feet away from where Erin was standing. A girl, no more than eighteen, in a plunging scarlet dress and elaborately coiffed blonde hairdo was waving at Erin and clicking her fingers in the air like a flamenco dancer. Erin recognized her as Natasha Berry, glamour-model girlfriend of Ian Adams, the new Manchester United striker.
‘You! I need a drink,’ slurred the girl, shaking an empty glass.
Erin left the comfort of her shadow and scuttled to the table in a crouch, not wanting to block anyone’s view of the catwalk show as the models all came down the catwalk one last time.
‘I’m not taking drinks orders, I’m afraid,’ yelled Erin over the music. ‘You’ll have to ask the waiter over there.’ She pointed to a handsome dark-haired boy who was distributing coffee and petits-fours on the next table.
‘I want a kir royale,’ said Natasha, who appeared not to have heard. Erin rolled her eyes, knowing it was pointless to argue, and went over to the waiter, a handsome student called Carlo she had met earlier.
‘Sorry Carlo, but I think the lady over there wants a cocktail. Can you get her a kir royale before she takes off with all that finger clicking?’ The waiter smiled and nodded, quickly turning in the direction of the bar. As he went, a shrewish-looking blonde from his table shouted, ‘Hey! You forgot my latte!’
‘Sorry madam,’ said Carlo, ‘I’ll bring you one straight away.’
The music was now reaching a crescendo and Karin Cavendish had risen from her chair to take a modest bow in the spotlight.
What happened next, Erin could see unfolding as if in slow motion. Carlo was making his way back through the sea of tables, his outstretched arm carrying a tray balanced with a flute of kir and a tall coffee, when a man pulled out his chair to stand just as Carlo was walking past. For a second Erin thought that Carlo might be able to sidestep the man, but he was concentrating so hard on keeping the hot coffee from falling that the glass of kir tipped over, falling in an arc onto the next table. Erin heard an enraged cry. An elegant blonde now had kir royale all the way down the front of her white dress, like some vast unsightly birthmark. She cursed and Erin immediately recognized the word – a Russian obscenity – and grimaced. It was Karin’s precious table of high-spending Russian wives. Karin hadn’t missed the commotion; she leapt from her chair and was racing over. Erin got there at the same time. The blonde was now speaking in a fast stream of angry Russian. Erin could understand every word, but it didn’t take a Russian degree to tell what was happening as she snatched up her jewel-encrusted clutch bag. She was about to leave and take all her friends with her. Karin put a reassuring hand on the woman’s shoulder, but she was clearly in no mood to be pacified by somebody she could not communicate with.
‘Let me speak to her,’ Erin whispered to Karin.
‘What?’ snapped Karin, glaring at her. ‘Speak to her? What do you mean …’
Karin tailed off in surprise as Erin started speaking in fluent Russian.
‘It would be such a shame if you have to leave now,’ she said quietly in the Russian’s ear. ‘You are the most important woman here; without you we really don’t have a party.’
The woman looked bemused, then pleased to hear one of the organizers speaking to her in her mother tongue.
‘Why don’t you come with me?’ coaxed Erin. ‘We have another outfit backstage and you will look fabulous. Look, nobody has seen what’s happened. Everybody is watching the show.’
She led the blonde, who had now introduced herself as Irina Engelov, backstage, leaving Karin looking completely dumbfounded.
Shit, shit shit, thought Erin, desperately looking round at the racks of bikinis. Of course there were no spare outfits – it was a bloody swimwear show! She could hardly send Irina back out in a hot pink swimsuit. She spotted Madeline talking to a group of models.
‘Quick, Maddie, you’ve got to take off your dress,’ said Erin urgently.
‘What?’ said Madeline. ‘I’m a bit busy at the moment, Erin. The show’s still on.’
‘Do as I say and I’ll explain later,’ pleaded Erin, handing Madeline a towelling robe.
Madeline looked at Erin, and, seeing the desperation in her eyes, quickly nodded.
‘Okay, but I’d better bloody see it again,’ she grumbled, wriggling out of the blue dress. ‘It’s Lanvin, you know.’
‘Maddie, you’ve just saved the day,’ said Erin, grabbing the dress.
She squirted it with some perfume she found on a dressing table and slipped it onto a coat hanger, then sprinted around to where Irina was waiting.
‘Size eight, this season, you’ll look amazing!’ said Erin in Russian, breathing a sigh of relief as Irina pulled on the dress. Irina looked down at herself, simply nodded and walked back to her table as if nothing had happened.
Erin grabbed a glass of champagne and drank it in one.
Molly had gate-crashing down to a fine art. She instructed their taxi driver to drop her and Summer behind a long row of Bentleys and Aston Martins a hundred metres away from the entrance of Strawberry Hill House, then let the car vanish into the cold night before they began to walk down the drive. Their breath made white clouds in the dark air, and Molly’s exposed skin prickled in goosebumps, but she had learned years ago to dispense with a coat for a night on the tiles; acres of visible flesh for popping paparazzi were worth far more than keeping warm. She glanced at Summer who looked like some sexed-up Little Red Riding Hood in a white woollen cape floating over a long, deep burgundy dress, her creamy round breasts spilling over its corset. For so many years, Summer had seemed like baggage. Having a daughter aged her, so from a young age Molly had urged her daughter to call her by her name rather than ‘mother’ so that people wouldn’t suspect she was her child. But ever since Summer had blossomed into such a gorgeous young woman, she had become a definite asset. She could take her daughter to any party in town and men would be buzzing around them like wasps at a picnic. But Summer was more than bait to attract the big fish. Since Japan, she had a new confidence, a new glow that could potentially catch her a really big prize, maybe even a prince – and if she did, that would open doors for Molly. Because where there’s a prince, there’s gotta be a king, she thought with a sly smile.
‘We do have tickets, don’t we?’ asked Summer, feeling nervous as she saw the two burly bouncers at the door.
‘Don’t worry, darling,’ smiled Molly, adjusting her dress to show a little more cleavage. Not having a ticket had never presented a problem to Molly in twenty-five years of partying. A confident swagger and a generous flash of skin counted far more than any bit of embossed card.
‘Time to come back inside,’ smiled Molly to the older guard, stroking his lapel as if it was made out of the softest silk. ‘I just needed to step outside for a moment.’