With rock-hard nipples poking through her camisole, Carmen was immediately ushered into the VIP area. She blamed the forty-minute queue in ice-cold air, but her friends claimed she’d deliberately tweaked them before catching a footballer’s eye.
‘It’s not fair,’ one of them whined. ‘My tits are better than hers.’
‘And she copied my hair colour,’ another one, who I think was called Chastity, said. She went on to explain that the player in question was a reserve they were all targeting. After reading a recent interview, in which he stated he preferred brunettes, she had dyed her hair. The others, except Kerri, had copied. ‘Lucky cow,’ she added as she watched him pull Carmen onto his lap.
I waved my hand in front of her face. ‘Earth to twenty-first-century woman.’
She looked at me and frowned. ‘What?’
‘Don’t you want more than that?’
She looked back at Carmen and the footballer and then laughed. ‘More than a rich husband and the perfect life, what more is there?’
‘Oh, let me think.’ I scratched my head. ‘How about independence? Self-respect? To be treated as a human being rather than a collection of body parts?’
She scrunched up her face.
‘You know you’re not going to look like that for ever, don’t you? What are you going to do then? When the VIPs don’t want you any more?’
She stepped back and looked at me as though I were one of those crazy people you sidestepped on the street, in case they might bop you over the head or throw you in front of a car or something.
‘You’re just jealous,’ she said, before pulling up her skirt to reveal another inch of tanned thigh.
The loud music thumped through my head and, for a moment, I wondered if she might be right. But when she started jiggling her boobs at a group of men walking past, I turned around, did my best to block out the noise around me, then fought my way back through the crowd.
At the coat check, where the stern-faced assistant was doing a terrible job of pretending to look for my coat, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around to see Kerri, her face framed with soft blonde curls. Under a spotlight, I could see beyond the false eyelashes and thick eyeliner and into her eyes.
‘I want more,’ she whispered, before handing me her number scribbled on a beer mat.
When I arrived home, I found Matthew, clearly drunk, staggering around the communal hallway, holding a pizza box in the air.
‘A gift for you,’ he said, laying it down at my feet, ‘in exchange for entrance to our humble abode.’
‘Forgot your keys again?’ I asked, fumbling in my bag for mine.
He nodded.
I opened the door and he lurched forward and, in what looked like one move, landed on the sofa, pizza box still horizontal.
‘So how did the matchmunting, I mean, headhating …’ He stuffed some pizza into his mouth. ‘How did all that go?’
I sighed and slumped on the sofa. ‘Vacuous girls and sleazy men.’
He swallowed and wiped his face with his sleeve. ‘That’s how the clubs make money. Hot chicks and rich dicks.’
‘Yeah, I know, but I didn’t think I’d have to sell the concept of love, I thought that was a given.’
He offered me some pizza. ‘You know the magic wears off after midnight, don’t you?’
‘Party pooper,’ I said, taking the least offensive-looking slice.
A moment later, he sat up, his hair almost springing to attention and pointed his finger in the air.
‘That’s it. That’s what you need to do,’ he said.
‘What, poop at parties?’
He laughed. ‘No, not the poop, just the party.’
I looked down at the cheap meat and greasy cheese that I was about to consume and threw it back into the box, realising that Matthew was right. If I didn’t like what was on offer, then it was up to me to provide an alternative.
THERE WAS A chill in the evening air but I felt hot and dizzy. I opened my coat as I strode alongside the Thames and let the icy breeze whip around my body. With each stride, my temperature dropped.
Having stood side by side for over a century, the giant Edwardian town houses seemed to peer down at me with intrigue. They had undoubtedly witnessed many a young girl hoping to change the world, but tonight, as the commuters bulldozed past me, it was as though they were nudging each other and placing a bet on how long I would last. Lifting my chin up, I reminded myself of the findings from my market research: forty per cent of London’s population was single. I continued ahead, the wrought-iron street lamps casting pools of yellow light that seemed to beckon me towards my destination.
When I arrived, the door looked like any other on the street, apart from a shiny brass plaque inscribed with a picture of a bowler hat and a polite reminder that only members were welcome. After weeks of pondering a suitable venue for meetings with clients, I’d concluded that one with a bar would be most appropriate. This unpretentious private members’ club, hidden in ancient vaults beneath the Strand seemed to be the perfect match. I pressed the bell, then waited for the receptionist to buzz me in.
A staircase lined with blood-red carpet led me to reception. With each step, it was though I were venturing deeper into the heart of London, leaving behind the hard surface to discover the secret underworld, the pulse that kept it alive. Behind a mirrored desk, in what felt like a dark cave, stood the receptionist, her lips as red as the carpet, her hair as black as the frame behind her. She tapped a nail file on the counter like a bored teenager.
‘Yes.’ She sighed, the vague glance in my direction quickly redirected to her long scarlet nails.
Once I’d introduced myself, and gone on to explain that every day, and night, for the foreseeable future I would be interviewing prospective clients in the bar, she readjusted her tight black minidress and leant forward with interest, thrusting out her firm tanned boobs in response to the mention of eligible men.
‘I look after your cleeants,’ she purred in a sultry French accent, punctuated with a sex kitten giggle.
I thanked Brigitte for her help, then followed the throb of the music and the flickering wall lights down the second staircase, tunnelling deeper into the vaults. At the foot of the stairs was a lounge bar, where leather chairs and low tables nestled in shadowy alcoves. A bronze bar stretched across one side of the room, shining and glimmering like an oasis on a desert night. The music pulsed through to the other chambers—a restaurant, and two further bars—like blood from ventricles.
Selecting an alcove near the foot of the staircase, I positioned the chair facing outwards so I could see the clients when they arrived. Tonight I had three consultations: William at six p.m., an accountant who I’d met while dancing ‘Gangnam Style’ at Apt; at seven p.m. it was Harriet, a risk analyst Kat had found at Zuma; and, finally, Jeremy at eight p.m., a friend of model Mike who I’d met at the champagne bar. I laid my new clipboard on the table and stared at the blank sheet of paper, my heart pounding in time to the quickening tempo of the music.
‘Evening,’ said the barman after he’d swaggered over to my table, his shirt tight with muscles. ‘Looks like you could do with a drink.’
With