The Price of Love Read online

  The Price of Love

  Deanna Maclaren

  Copyright © 2015 Deanna Maclaren

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study,

  or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents

  Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in

  any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the

  publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with

  the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries

  concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

  Matador®

  9 Priory Business Park

  Wistow Road

  Kibworth

  Leicester LE8 0RX, UK

  Tel: 0116 279 2299

  Email: [email protected]

  Web: www.troubador.co.uk/matador

  ISBN 978 1785894 190

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Matador® is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd

  Converted to eBook by EasyEPUB

  This book is dedicated to all the men who give me good times in Paris

  Contents

  Cover

  ALSO By DEANNA MACLAREN

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  ALSO By DEANNA MACLAREN

  Ménage à Trois

  The First of All Pleasures

  Dagger in the Sleeve

  Your Loving Mother

  The Single File

  Villa Fleurie

  Strangers in a Garden

  Azur Allure

  In Bed With Mr. Plantagenet

  Chapter One

  Apparently calm, Helen walked across the office to the young solicitor. She was seething. For your information, my hair is not ginger, it is titian. And yes, I know what you call this back-room where we temps work. You call it the pigpen. And any more lip from you, laddie-boy, I’ll report you to the senior partner.

  The solicitor thrust a sheaf of documents at her. ‘Get these typed up. Pronto. Got to be presented in court, two o’clock. HAVE YOU GOT THAT, WHATEVER YOUR NAME IS?’

  Within minutes, Helen’s fingers, hot and furious, were flying over the keyboard. Forget lunch, forget even going to the loo.

  HAVE YOU GOT THAT, WHATEVER YOUR NAME IS? Sure, she’d got it. And she’d had it. Right up to here.

  But, thank God it was Friday. Come 5.30 she could clock off, collect her cheque from the agency and head off to the Red Lion. Now she was into her time. Now she was the one in the driving seat.

  Helen’s mood improved by the minute. She loved this part of it. The anticipation, the delicious uncertainty about whether, once again, she could swing it.

  In the ladies’ room of the Red Lion, Helene felt a mounting sense of excitement as she unbuttoned her grey blouse and stuffed it in her bag. Next, she tightened the straps of her cerise bra, and slipped her fitted black jacket on. Finally, she removed the comb from her hair and arranged a tease of curls around her face. She was stunningly pretty, with sapphire blue eyes and a mouth that curved into an inviting smile.

  Not now it wasn’t. Not when she was attempting to reapply her lipstick in the ladies’ room of one of the oldest pubs in London, where the dingy lighting seemed as antique as the building. Of course there were other pubs, gleaming with state-of-the- art spotlights. Yet Helen was loyal to what she liked, and she was fond of the Red Lion. The flamboyant barmaid looked after her very well and at lunchtime served fresh salmon and cucumber sandwiches, so there was never that sickening shepherd’s pie smell that hung around so many other pubs. Most important, the Red Lion was down an out-of-the-way street, the sort you had to know was there, or you’d miss it. And missing it was, thankfully, what the thrusting learner-lawyers she worked for were doing, preferring to shout and halloo in a smart Piccadilly cocktail bar.

  In the brighter light of the corridor, Helen took out her compact and gave herself a final check. She looked good. She was ready. As those arrogant sods in the office would say – Bring it on!

  So in her heightened state, as she returned to the bar, somehow she wasn’t surprised to find a man sitting at her oak table. He was a complete stranger, but Helen had found before that when you were keyed up for something to happen, it often did. It was as if you gave off a scent saying Come and get me.

  The man was reading her Evening Standard. He stood up, passing her the paper. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t have time to buy one.’

  Helen noted that the stranger had the very precise Oxford accent usually acquired by cultivated foreigners.

  He said, ‘May I get you an aperitif?’

  Oh smooth, Helen approved. Aperitif indicated French and that he was taking her to dinner. She sized him up as he fetched her whisky. Tall, well built, about fifty. Blond hair streaked silver. Impeccably cut coat in fine herringbone. Signet ring on his wedding finger. Charming smile.

  Yes, decided Helen. You’ll do very nicely for the evening. It wasn’t often she was handed something right on a plate like this. Usually, she had to operate with patient guile because Englishmen very rarely made a direct approach. They circled round you, eyeing up your figure, assessing your legs. Or they pretended not to notice you at all because they were nervous that in a moment a big bruiser of a boyfriend would come and claim you. Over a girls’ lunch, an American publisher had reported that she was so pissed off with prissy English guys that when she was passing a building site and got a wolf whistle she shouted at him, ‘Okay big boy. Let’s see what you’ve got!’ He had run a mile.

  Placing her Scotch and water on the Red Lion table, the man introduced himself as Jean-Paul Cordier, Parisian art dealer, in London on business. Would Helen care to join him for supper at his club?

  Good, good, good Helen nodded. This guy was a mover.

  ‘They have an excellent cellar, and the food’s really not too bad. Even my wife used to approve.’

  ‘Used to?’

  ‘She found the club a reassuring place to stay when she came to see our son. It was more suitable for her than a hotel. You never know what types you’re going to run into at a hotel.’

  Well quite, Helen thought wryly. You certainly can’t be too careful. She said, ‘Your son’s in London?’

  ‘He was at university here. But he’s back in Paris now, so of course Madame has no need to come to London.’

  They left the Red Lion and strolled along Crown Passage. Opposite the ancient gas light, they both pretended not to hear the newspaper seller urging all passers-by to take a copy of tonight’s extra- special, free Evening Standard.

  It was mild for December, and Helen needed no coat, just a pink cashmere pashmina over her silk suit. Along St James’s they passed shops selling expensive whisky, expensive cigars and expensive hats. It was one of Helen’s favourite streets. All that quietly assured wealth. So comforting. And if you fell on hard times and needed to flog the family tiara, well, a short step away in Pall Mall was a very discreet pawnbroker.

  In the large central foyer of Jean-Paul’s club there was a blazing fire and a 20 foot
Christmas tree decorated with scarlet bows and cutesy angels. Helen saw Jean-Paul wince. The club curtains were of faded gold silk, the leather armchairs suitably battered. Shabby grandeur, Helen summed it up, as Jean-Paul escorted her towards the sound of a harp.

  The harpist was at the entrance to an art deco dining room. He was in evening dress, and looked so frail, Helen worried how on earth he was going to carry the harp home.

  ‘My father was a drummer in a pub band. When he started, he couldn’t afford a car, so he had to lug the drums home on the bus.’

  ‘What do you do?’ Jean-Paul asked her over the lamb and excellent roast potatoes.

  ‘I’m a legal secretary.’

  ‘Which firm?’

  ‘I freelance. But the agency usually sends me to Carstair Cain, so I work with the same solicitors.’

  Usually, at this point, the man would change the subject. He would assume she did conveyance work, typing up contracts for one-bedroom inner city flats that the dozy boy handling the post would send to someone who was negotiating for a thatched cottage.

  But Jean-Paul was not, Helen was learning, your average Joe.

  ‘At Carstair Cain, which division do you work in?’

  ‘Matrimonial.’

  She saw his slate-grey eyes lighten with interest, and knew what he was thinking. You imagine I spend all day typing up juicy details of adulterous affairs. And you’d be right. Much of the time, that’s exactly what I do.

  He said, ‘A lot of that must be very – harrowing.’

  ‘When I started, I was only eighteen and I just couldn’t believe how cold blooded people could be, why they couldn’t just agree it hadn’t worked but let’s stay on friendly terms. But then one of the older solicitors – he was nice, he used to look after me – he told me that when people were getting divorced, they had to look as if they were deeply upset and hurt,otherwise the judge might accuse them of collusion. It’s different now. As long as you agree over money and child access, it’s relatively straightforward.’

  ‘Even so, human nature being what it is, there must be things that turn your stomach?’

  Securely cherished, with wineglass in hand, and a murmuring waiter about to entice her with a wicked chocolate log, Helen was able to talk about it. ‘I hate anything to do with knives, with blood and gore. That’s why I’m not very good in the country. Red in tooth and claw. Oh,’ she giggled. ‘That rhymes!’

  Oops. Tipsy, Helen. Better watch it.

  She wished she wore spectacles. Then she could put them on and look serious.

  ‘I’ve been doing this job for nearly twenty years and I must say, I’ve noticed big changes. It’s the women. Vengeful. Honestly, I’m thinking of programming my computer so it automatically keys in Slashed his Suits. And the greed of these dames! We had one quite recently, she’d been offered the London house, the country house, a new car of her choice and twenty five million. Was this enough? No. She wanted more. Lots, lots more. And she was the cause of the break-up. The United Nations convening in her bedroom. And you know what she said to the solicitor? That she yearned for the good old days, when the man took the rap and did the decent thing.’

  Jean-Paul was, she could see, trying to unscramble some of this ramble. ‘I mean, if you and your wife split up, if you found she was playing around, would you do the decent thing?’

  He looked baffled. ‘It – it just couldn’t happen. Madame and I, we have known one another from childhood. We are totally united.’

  Don’t you be so sure, Helen warned him silently. She remembered a case at Carstair Cain, involving a captain of industry, nice chap, but so busy working, he was never at home. Usual story. When his wife left him, he was totally bewildered. He had truly believed they were a perfect couple. He went to visit her once a week in her Kensington flat and took her out to dinner, positive he could woo her back. Then two things happened. First, out of the woodwork, came a lover. Well it was obvious, Helen realised, that he wasn’t new at all, he’d been lurking in her wardrobe for years. The only reason the wife was letting him loose now, was to convince her husband she was serious about divorcing him. Proceedings got under way but the husband still saw the wife from time to time, determined to behave in a civilised way. One evening, he said he would like to keep in touch with her family, whom he liked and had always got on with. Could she kindly give him their addresses, and birthday dates, as naturally, during the marriage, the wife had been in charge of the social diary.

  She never gave him the list of addresses and birthdays. Furthermore, he found out that shortly after she left him, she went by train all round the country, visiting her relatives. He never discovered what she’d told her family, but he never heard from any of them again.

  Jean-Paul was politely declining dessert and cheese. ‘They don’t know how to keep cheese here. But certain things they do very well and that’s what members expect. There was nearly a riot when they took Spotted Dick off the menu.’

  Right, thought Helen. Change of subject required.

  Then, over coffee, he said, ‘That’s a very attractive suit.’

  ‘Thank you. It’s Lanvin.’ She hoped she hadn’t dropped chocolate log down it.

  ‘You wear black Lanvin to the office?’

  ‘Yes. Why not?’

  She thought that was the end of the matter. But as she was to discover later, and then later still, it wasn’t the end of it at all.

  Jean-Paul went on, ‘I have some whisky. Would you care for some?’

  Got it, smiled Helen. We’re not heading for the bar then. She’d done it. She’d scored.

  When they reached his room she went confidently straight to the bathroom and used his mouthwash. In the bin, she noticed a copy of today’s Evening Standard, turned to the crossword page.

  Next, into the bedroom, ignore the awful art over the bed, proceed to window, admire view. All this gave him time to fiddle with glasses, the Bells, the fridge, the water, the ice.

  She waited, and as she felt his hands on her waist, she turned for his kiss. Then he said,

  ‘Why don’t you slip into bed and I’ll bring your drink.’

  And Helen told herself, great stuff. Another Friday, another fuck.

  *

  ‘Good morning, Helene. Did I wake you?’

  She switched off her Hoover. Helene. She liked it. ‘I was just doing my housework. I always do on Saturday mornings.’

  She was glad he wasn’t the type to make some obvious, waggish remark: Are you wearing your French maid’s outfit? What are you going to do to me with that feather duster? The boys in the office would have been unable to resist it.

  ‘I just wanted to thank you for last night, Helene. And to make sure that taxi driver didn’t abduct you. And to confirm our lunch date. Do you know Franco’s in Jermyn Street?’

  ‘Yes.’ She’d passed it often, but had never been there.

  ‘I’ll book for midday.’

  Helen resumed the vacuuming and went over the events of last night. Her usual routine on a Friday evening was to choose a pub, then if necessary, a restaurant, then if necessary a quality cinema, all in the vicinity of respectable hotels frequented by professional men. She was petite and pretty, still turning heads at thirty six, so pulling a guy was rarely a problem. She never asked for, or accepted money or took them home or stayed the night or saw them again.

  Yet here she was, agreeing to meet Jean-Paul for lunch. Had they arranged it last night? Shit, she couldn’t remember. Just now, when he rang, she could easily have got out of it. Why hadn’t she? Brain not working. She reached for the vodka. A Bloody Mary would help. Damned right it would.

  Yesterday, from the Red Lion she had been planning to drift into Mayfair, up to Curzon Street where there was a friendly restaurant just opposite the cinema. As a general rule, Helen had found that businessmen on their own preferred to eat early. However, if she didn’t pull in the restaurant, there was always the cinema queue or the Curzon coffee stall. Aware that she presented herself as nice
looking and well spoken, with quiet good manners, it amused her on these adventures to view herself as something akin to a secret agent on an undercover mission –

  Helen spluttered, and a mouthful of vodka and tomato juice hit her coffee table. Undercover mission! That was very funny. Anyway, she asked herself, what was it with Jean-Paul?

  Gradually, it was all coming back. And actually, the answer was simple. She hadn’t fallen wildly in love or found herself intrigued by his Gallic charm.

  No, none of that. What had happened was that the claret he’d chosen with dinner had packed such a punch that later she’d fallen asleep on the job. When she woke up around two pm and, embarrassed, attempted to flee, he insisted on getting dressed and seeing her to a taxi.

  In Helen’s experience, this was unusual. Often, going down in a hotel lift, she’d share it with an escort girl, or a prostitute and although they didn’t chat on, there was a distinct complicity between these girls of the night. And one thing Helen realised was that a man didn’t mind taking you into a hotel and up to his room, but when it was over he wanted you to leave, as soon as possible, and alone. For Helen, the girls’ situation held an echo of something her father had told her, about what made a successful session musician. ‘Get there. Play. Collect the money. Get out.’

  Jean-Paul’s rare courtesy in calling her a cab, coupled with what she felt was gauche behaviour on her part meant that Helen considered she owed him one. After this lunch, she would probably never see him again, but she didn’t want to be remembered as that drunken tart he picked up in London.

  The temperature had plummeted overnight. Helen left her flat in Covent Garden dressed in silver-grey tailored trousers, a pink sweater and a deeper pink coat.