Am I Guilty?. Jackie Kabler
in the living room, darling. You go and get them and start, and I’ll be in in a few minutes. Daddy will help if you can’t find them, OK?’
‘OK.’ She scampered off, and with a sigh I stood up and started thinking about dinner.
The closing titles of Made in Chelsea rolled and I yawned and picked up my phone to check the time. Just after nine o’clock. I could definitely fit in another couple of episodes before bed, I decided. The show was my guilty pleasure – the antics of rich kids in the wealthy west London borough made me laugh, but it was also aspirational. I wanted that sort of life one day – the carefree existence that money seemed to bring, the endless travel, the designer clothing, the casual sipping of champagne in exclusive clubs.
I picked up the glass of sparkling water from the table in front of me and took a sip of that, instead, for now, wondering how long it would take before I could work my way up into the sort of income bracket that would allow me to afford the Chelsea lifestyle. Or even the Cotswold lifestyle, come to think of it. Houses like the one I was currently sitting in didn’t come cheap. Six bedrooms, acres of gardens … I’d checked online on one of those property search websites, just out of interest, shortly after I’d moved in with the Garringtons, and guessed that this place was worth at least a million and a half. Maybe more.
Still, Annabelle and Greg deserved it. They were both locals, from modest backgrounds as far as I could gather, and they’d worked hard – she with her business, him advertising director for a major London agency, running their Gloucestershire branch – and I had no problem with doing the same. I’d get to where they were, one day, and in the meantime Annabelle paid me well, and this room was all I needed, for now at least.
It was at its nicest tonight, curtains snugly drawn against the January cold, a couple of fragrant candles – lime and vanilla, my favourites – flickering on the little side table, and me cuddled up on the sofa with a faux fur throw across my legs and trashy telly to watch, my belly full from the luscious moussaka Annabelle had insisted I share with the family downstairs earlier, the taste of the cinnamon-spiced lamb, aubergine and creamy white sauce still lingering on my tongue.
Yes, I was twenty-five years old and probably should have been out partying somewhere, on the pull like most young single women, but I was content to be right here tonight, safe and cosy in my room, tired after another busy week. I didn’t have many friends, not around here – I’d always found it hard to relate to people of my own age, and the sort of stuff they liked to do, which seemed to revolve around shopping, taking selfies and partying. I wasn’t much of a drinker anyway, and the kind of men you met in pubs and clubs did nothing for me – young, immature, boozed up, slobbery, wanting only one thing and doing it badly when they got it.
I’d always preferred older men myself, and for a moment I let my mind drift back to earlier in the kitchen, to the look Greg had given me when he’d arrived back from shopping with the kids. It had only been a glance, a quick up and down, but a little shiver had gone through me. He is nearly twenty years older than me, but he is … well, hot, quite frankly. And there was something, sometimes, when we were in the same room … was frisson the word? An exchange of looks, eyes meeting for just a fraction too long. It made my stomach flip, my hands shake a little, my mouth go dry. I blew out hard through my mouth, dispelling the thoughts. I was definitely not going to go near Greg, not in that way. No, I wasn’t even going to think about it. I’d made that mistake before, elsewhere, and I wasn’t going to do it again.
Maybe he had some friends though? Someone he could introduce me to? I leaned back on my cushions, pulling my throw up to my chest, running my fingers across the soft fibres, and idly wondered if I could ask Annabelle if she knew of any attractive, single older men when she took me out for dinner this week. It had been nice of her to offer, and I’d been happy to accept, but I already knew the meal would come at a price. I’d noticed it for a while, every time Nell was around or Thea’s name cropped up – the way Annabelle almost seemed to be holding herself back, clamping her lips together, desperate to ask me for the full story but not quite able to bring herself to form the words. She’d do it on Wednesday, though, I knew she would, and I’d resigned myself to it. It would do no harm to talk about it, not now. And there were too many secrets in life, too many things not talked about. So I would tell her, I decided, on Wednesday, if she asked me. When she asked me. I’d tell her what she wanted to know, finally. I’d tell her what happened to Zander.
‘Marvellous, my dear. Simply marvellous. Do you have a card? I may need you one day myself. I’d love to throw a little party, but never have the time to organize them.’
‘Of course. And it was lovely to meet you. I’m glad you enjoyed it.’
I reached into the back pocket of my jeans where I always kept a few business cards when I was working, pulled one out and handed it to the small woman in front of me with the elaborate hairstyle and the rather freakishly smooth face. She must have been at least sixty, judging by the appearance of her hands and neck, but from the chin upwards her skin was tight and shiny, the lips smeared with bright red gloss plump and pouting.
‘Not a good advert for this place,’ Flora had hissed at me as we’d passed in the crowd earlier, and I’d suppressed a giggle, raising my eyebrows at her in agreement. I was, it seemed, one of the few women in the room who was over thirty-five and still had the ability to raise an eyebrow. It was Thursday afternoon, and we were just finishing a relocation party for what the owner Sylvia described as a ‘cosmetic enhancement clinic’ in the centre of Cheltenham. With business on the up, she’d left her small premises on the outskirts of town and taken over two floors of a stately Georgian building on Regent Street. The reopening event was taking place in the reception area, a grand room with enormous windows, beautifully polished floorboards and white leather sofas, framed ‘before and after’ shots of people – mostly women, I noted – who’d been treated with Botox, fillers and various other injectables and procedures dotted around the walls. The changes were impressive, and when Flora and I were setting up, laying out rows of champagne glasses and trays of dim sum, I’d found myself squinting into one of the large, gilt-framed mirrors that also decorated the space.
‘What do you think, Flora? Bit of filler here? Botox here?’
I poked at the fine lines across my forehead and the little creases – did they call them marionette lines? – that ran downwards from the corners of my mouth, frowning. I was thirty-eight. Nearly forty. Was it time to start a little – well, maintenance? It was OK for men … Greg looked better and better as he aged, but …
‘Oh shut up, Annabelle! You’re drop-dead gorgeous! Don’t even think about putting that stuff in your face, you don’t need it!’
The horror on Flora’s face made me snort with laughter. I turned away from the mirror and grabbed her free hand – the other was balancing a wine bucket – and squeezed it.
‘Oh Flora, you do make me feel better about myself. Thank you.’
She reddened slightly, pulling her hand free, but she looked pleased.
‘Only speaking the truth, boss. Now stop looking at yourself and come and help me with the ice; we have six buckets to fill yet.’
She headed towards the little kitchen area off the main reception and I followed, smiling. I loved it that she clearly now felt comfortable enough to speak to me like that – at first, she’d been quieter, more deferential, but I could see her confidence growing