Vanity

She had a baby hangover, but that was OK. It had been worth it. Natalia only took two, maybe three lines of cocaine on special occasions, and she paced herself with the champagne. She had always had to keep her wits about her. For a moment, she felt envious of Poppy and Bella, so stupidly wasted in the pool, and having so much fun – the worst they could ever have from a hangover was embarrassment. Natalia knew differently.

She could hear some music. Aha – that’s where they all were – around the back, singing along to some ridiculous song about being in the mood for dancing. Then multiple splashes. The deep thud thud thud of a very different kind of dance music had been reverberating, almost lulling her to sleep, yet now they put on this? Again, she envied their total confidence that whatever rubbish (and this music was rubbish) they played, nobody would sneer. She loved the fact that people were enjoying her hospitality, but it was bittersweet. She could never really be one of them, not with her past.

She heard Bella trying to whisper, but actually shrieking quite loudly, ‘Shhh, maybe we should turn it down a bit? Natalia’s probably still trying to sleep.’

Sweet girl. Sweet life.

But she was a little bit hungry now. Natalia needed her pineapple, mango and green tea in the morning. She laughed to herself as she recalled what hunger used to be, when she would devour bread because there was nothing else. These idiots with their intolerances. Bread and milk were the staff of life when you had that perpetual gnawing hunger pain. The self-indulgence of pampered Western women, claiming they were intolerant to wheat or ‘dairy’ made her quite sick. However, she had adapted, and realized that by cutting them out, she could keep the remarkably slender frame she’d had since her teens. Her stomach was as flat as it had ever been.

Natalia caught sight of her reflection in one of the shiny glass doors leading out from her bedroom. With her white-blonde hair tied back loosely, her skin nearly baby-soft, wiped clean of make-up with Eve Lom cleanser, she looked much younger than she normally did, with the tight ponytail and diamonds. Comfortable in her pistachio-green silk chiffon French knickers and camisole, she stretched her legs out on the marble-topped table, admiring their length.

Natalia was almost entirely without vanity. Her body had served its purpose and she regarded it with fond objectivity. Without it, none of this would have been possible. Even though they were no longer necessary, old habits died hard, and she was scrupulous in her body’s maintenance, even enduring painful Brazilian waxes when she couldn’t remember the last time anybody had seen her влагалище. For Natalia, love, or even sex for pleasure, was not an option. She had a vibrator to cater for such needs and had never had any reason to view men with anything but fear, suspicion, and a very canny eye for the main chance.

Thinking again about the old days, she rang the bell and asked for a croissant. What the hell. Wheat intolerances be damned – she could afford to indulge herself once in a while. She looked out at the wonderful view. Several yachts were floating on the deep-blue sea, their sails whiter than white against the horizon. Maybe she should buy a yacht? They were very expensive, of course, but her finances were in pretty good order now. She threw back her head and laughed with sheer joy. Not only had she escaped, but now she had this!

‘Señora?’

Natalia turned around to accept her breakfast platter.

The dark-eyed waiter grinned, exposing three gold teeth, and suddenly she knew that this happiness was not here to stay.

‘Georgiou? Is it really you? What you want? You want money? I haf plenty money,’ she said in slightly broken English – it happened when she was thrown off kilter, which wasn’t often these days.

‘I know,’ he said in Russian.

Trying to stay cool, Natalia walked slowly inside to find her Chanel handbag, where she always kept 2,000 US dollars, in case of emergencies. This was one emergency that, after the initial years, she had prayed would never occur. As she took the notes out, several fluttered from her trembling hands. The dark-eyed waiter watched as she bent to retrieve them. She knew he was loving every minute of her cowed subservience.

‘Please, take them, Georgie, and never come back.’

He smiled again. Never had gold teeth looked so repulsive.

‘Talia, I thank you. But I’ll be back.’

Chapter 3

Ben Jones walked naked to his large American fridge and cracked open a Bud. It tasted like piss, but he was prepared to put up with weak beer when he considered the compensations.

He’d just been for a run along the beach at Malibu Colony. He’d been in LA for two months now and still couldn’t get over the babes and endless sunshine. Today (like yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that) would have been the best day of summer back home; any one of the girls he’d met during his run would have been the best-looking babe in London. Wales wasn’t comparable, on either count.

He was used to hanging out with models and actresses, but they were a completely different breed here in California. The edginess/quirkiness/kookiness (take your pick) so prized by the coolest London model agencies would be greeted here with absolute bemusement. If anything fell short of cookie-cutter perfection, the little darlings just went and got it fixed.

Without even trying, he’d picked up a fistful of colourful business cards during his run. He picked a few off the breakfast bar and laughed.

I’m Carrie (heart drawn above the i). Actress, model, spiritual healer. Call me!

Melissa – I do pedicures and aura cleansing. Let me make you beautiful, inside AND out! Sole and soul!

Jennifer Jackson. Nutritionist and personal trainer.

He turned over the last one to see the photo (they all had photos on the back) and recalled the mixed-race girl with a wide smile, dreadlocks and body to die for. He’d actually stopped for a few seconds to watch her arse as she sauntered off in the sand. Then he’d jogged back to the rented clapboard beach house his agent had found for him. He put Jennifer Jackson’s card to one side – she might be worth a booty call.

Beautiful, and vain as hell, Ben walked over to the floor-to-ceiling mirror that lined the far wall of his open-plan living space. His floppy gold-streaked light brown fringe, still a little damp from the shower, grazed his long black eyelashes. His pink pouty lips, delicious blue eyes and high cheekbones had made him such a hit back home that he had managed to acquire an LA agent almost without trying.

People Like Us, the UK sitcom whose first series he had starred in, had been a runaway success and attracted the interest of Belinda Hyman, one of the most notoriously hard-bitten agents in Hollywood. He was contracted to star in three series of People Like Us, and due to start filming the next in a few months’ time, but if he landed a movie role – well. Belinda wasn’t known as the Bitch of Beverly Hills for nothing.

Ben flexed a muscle or two and smiled in satisfaction.

Looking good, boyo. Occasionally, the Welsh accent resurfaced, though only in his head.

‘Benny, honey? Baby’s getting lonely,’ called a very young voice from his bedroom.

He smiled again, focusing on his newly whitened teeth, as he recalled the cheerleader he’d picked up at the game last night. Sweet seventeen and definitely been fucked. He’d been to watch the LA Lakers with a couple of fellow ex-pats and this fantastic specimen of perky blonde near-jailbait had – well – just thrown herself at him. No other way of putting it. He did love California, despite the weak beer.

But during his run, his mind had been on Bella, Poppy and Damian, all of whom he’d comprehensively shafted the previous year. Ben wasn’t one for an enormous amount of introspection, but even he felt bad about what he’d done.

Bella had been great to start with – fun and sexy, with a healthy appetite for all the good things in life. But once they had that horrible intimacy thing going, she got so bloody needy, and the way she gazed at him with those huge hurt brown eyes made him feel guilty as fuck, especially when he’d shagged the odd model on the odd shoot (a man’s prerogative, he’d always felt – or at least an accepted perk of the job). As an angelic-looking only child, Ben had been spoilt rotten his entire life and wasn’t used to being denied what he wanted.

Fucking Poppy hadn’t been his best move, but Poppy was the antithesis of Bella – tiny, blonde and fiery – and the contrast (and, to be scrupulously honest, the illicitness) had turned him on. He’d tired of Poppy pretty quickly, after the initial thrill, not least as she had been so evidently off her pretty face on coke all the time, going on about her guilt about Bella, boring the pants off him. Still, he shouldn’t have moved in on his best mate’s bird; that was unforgivable. Ben and Damian had grown up together and he still missed Damian’s easy good nature and laid-back sense of humour; he’d yet to meet a comparable buddy in the States. All things considered, if he could have done last summer differently, he would. It had been a mad time for all concerned.

But now wasn’t the time to be crying over spilt milk.

‘Ben, honey, where ARE you? Are going to come and show me how to do it again? I was a virgin until last night, but you’ve given me a real taste for it. I’m only seventeen …’

The Laker Girl was clearly lying and up to every trick in the book but, nevertheless, Ben felt his cock getting hard.

‘I love America,’ he sang as he made his way to the bedroom. The cheerleader was on her hands and knees, arse aloft. Her skin was golden brown, soft and peachy.

‘Does that feel good?’ asked Ben, loving the feeling of her tight, young body.

‘Oh … Yeeees … Oh, Benny … I’ve never done this before … Ohhhh …’

If she was telling the truth, she was half his age, and just for a split second he felt ever so slightly like a dirty old man. Then he refocused. Christ, she was hot.

And so was he.

Driving up the freeway en route to meet Belinda at Chateau Marmont (it was difficult to express how much he loved the LA cliché), Ben turned up the radio, which was playing the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Californication.

He laughed, and for the second time that day thought of Damian, thinking how much he’d have enjoyed the serendipity. He put the idea firmly out of his mind and dwelt instead on nubile nymphets, fame, fortune, blue skies and palm trees. A pretty brunette in a white convertible lifted her shades to get a better look at him. She kissed her fingers and clutched her heart, feigning undying love. He clocked the rings on her fingers and blew a kiss back. Then he put his foot on the gas.

Modelled in the 1920s on a chateau in the Loire Valley, the Chateau Marmont was still the ultimate byword for hedonistic glamour. As Ben walked out of the lobby towards the pool, he could feel the cloisters themselves oozing their Tinseltown, rock’n’roll heritage. The stars who had stayed under this roof included Judy Garland, John Belushi (who had OD’d here, poor bugger), Vivien Leigh, Jim Morrison, Jean Harlow, Led Zep … The roll call was as bibulous as it was illustrious. He continued through beautifully fragrant and lush gardens until he’d reached the pool, which was surrounded by even lusher plants, and tables shaded by black-and-white stripy parasols.

‘Ben! My handsomest client, looking sexier than ever. If I didn’t know you better, I’d think you’d just had a pretty piece of LA ass!’

Belinda winked and Ben laughed. Was it really so obvious?

His agent didn’t look like the hard-nosed bitch whose reputation preceded her, even the other side of the Atlantic. In fact, when he’d first met her, he’d wondered if he’d walked into the wrong office. Belinda, who was probably in her mid-forties, though it was hard to tell, contrived an air of luxe hippy softness, in the Rachel Zoe/Nicole Richie mode. Her golden hair was loose and tousled around her shoulders – a casual California style that cost at least $1,000 a month to maintain. She wore a simple spaghetti-strapped maxidress in a splashy floral silk, flat tan leather sandals, wooden bangles stacked up her sinewy, Bikram-yoga’d arms, dangly vintage silver-and-turquoise earrings and the most enormous pair of shades Ben had ever seen.

‘Looking pretty bloody gorgeous yourself, darling.’ Playing up the posh-Brit thing hadn’t done Hugh Grant or Rupert Everett any harm, after all.

The pool wasn’t as big as he’d imagined, but Lindsay Lohan was swigging from a bottle of tequila on a black-and-white-striped sun lounger, bitching into her BlackBerry about ‘that asshole who calls himself my dad’, and one of Keith Richards’ daughters was having her photo taken for a magazine shoot. Belinda had wanted to meet him at Café M on Melrose, the hottest new health-food café, insisting that Chateau Marmont was for wannabes, but Ben wanted to live the full LA dream. Besides, he wanted a real drink, somewhere he wouldn’t be accused of being an ‘alcoholic Brit’.

He sat down opposite his agent.

‘I guess you want something alcoholic?’ she sighed.

‘Well, a cocktail would be nice.’ He gave her his most winning smile. ‘What’re you drinking?’

‘Iced green tea with ginseng. You should try it sometime.’ He did his little-boy-lost look and she laughed. Belinda was just as susceptible to his charms as every other female on the planet.

‘Hey, I’ll let you off this time.’ She put a hand weighed down with cocktail rings on his arm. ‘And I’ll have whatever you’re having. We may have something to celebrate.’

‘What?’ Ben felt an enormous jolt of excitement. ‘Why, what’s happened?’

‘Don’t get your hopes up too quickly, handsome boy,’ said Belinda, loving the power she had over him. ‘Let’s wait for the drinks.’

It was agonizing waiting until the waiter (a ‘resting actor’, good looking but not nearly as fit as Ben – which was presumably why he was resting) came back with their Margaritas. But Ben feigned nonchalance, complimenting Belinda on her body and business acumen.

‘Well,’ she eventually drawled. ‘Paramount are casting a new movie. It’s gonna be huge, they say, but they always say that …’

‘What’s it about?’

‘The South of France in the 1950s. Saint-Tropez, Bardot, you know.’

‘Oh, cool. And I love that part of the world. I went backpacking along the Riviera with all my drama-school mates in the college holidays ten years ago.’ It was more like fifteen, but Belinda didn’t need to know that. ‘Nice, Antibes, Juan Les Pins, just so we could get a glimpse of the stars at Cannes.’ He remembered them all smoking dope and drinking cheap wine out of their rucksacks on the beach, assuring one another that they’d be up there one day. If they could see me now, that little gang of mine …

‘You European kids,’ said Belinda, slightly wistfully. ‘So much culture at your fingertips. Anyway, Cannes is the cynical premise behind this venture. The producers think that a movie based on its doorstep might get those uptight bastards to sit up and take some notice of something produced by a MAJOR studio, for once, instead of one of those fall-asleep-in-your-popcorn subtitled crapolas where everybody, like, dies.’ She made a gesture that combined an extravagant yawn with slitting her throat.

Ben laughed easily. He was amazed by his own patience.

‘And? Do they want to see me, or what?’

‘Oh, honey, of course they want to see you. I wouldn’t be telling you all this now would I, if they didn’t? What kind of a woman do you think I am?’

She pouted and Ben refrained from telling her.

‘It’s a period romcom, along the lines of To Catch A Thief.’

Ben wasn’t sure how Hitchcock would have reacted to one of his classics being referred to as a period romcom, but he let it pass.

‘So you mean, I’m up for the Cary Grant character?’ It was difficult to keep the excitement out of his voice.

‘Get real, handsome. They’ll only go with a proper, American star for the good guy.’ Wasn’t Belinda aware that Cary Grant was originally from Bristol? ‘No, you’re the bastard Brit who messes with our heroine’s heart.’

‘Silly me.’ Ben laughed again. ‘We Englishmen are always the villains. But, bloody hell, Belinda, that is amazing! When do they want me to read for it? And who are they thinking of for the lead roles?’

‘They haven’t decided yet for the lead, but maybe Scarlett Johansson or Amanda Seyfried for the girl. Somebody suggested Gwynnie, but she’s way too old of course.’

As Gwyneth Paltrow was about the same age as him, Ben nodded solemnly.

‘And they want to see you in two days’ time, so brush up on your French.’

‘Mate, that’s amazing news,’ said Tom, one of Ben’s new ex-pat buddies, a trust-fund twat who had moved to LA to write a screenplay, thinking that anyone could do it. As he could neither spell nor string two sentences together, Ben thought it unlikely Tom’s masterpiece would ever see the light of day. But he did mean well.

They were at Soho House LA, with all the other Brits who liked to stick together.

‘But promise us you won’t turn native!’ bellowed Julia, an actress who’d been very successful in London three years ago but had yet to hit the big time Stateside. Possibly on account of a weak chin and a slightly-too-large nose that she’d refused to get fixed, vainly (and stupidly) thinking her work as a ‘serious actress’ rendered such measures unnecessary. ‘We don’t want you to start saying “Lie-sesster Square”!’

Everyone cracked up, and Ben pretended to too, but inside he was thinking, If you don’t like it here, then why don’t you fuck off back to London? He was growing a little tired of his fellow ex-pats, with their twee insistence on tea parties, and Sunday roasts, when it was far too hot to eat anything other than the innovatively healthy (and surprisingly delicious) fresh produce on offer locally. These people would have been the first to sneer at Brits in Benidorm demanding the full English breakfast, so why the fuck did they think it was OK in LA?

They were sitting on the roof terrace, underneath a silvery olive tree, drinking vodkatinis. Ben swivelled his head to take in the 360-degree view. LA at night sprawled, glittering and full of promise, beneath and all around him. Somewhere to his right, the gated mansions of Beverly Hills beckoned, in all their opulent splendour. One day …

‘Two nations, divided by a common language!’ Julia guffawed, and tried to sit on his lap, but even though she’d lost the Brit blubber and was now the requisite size two, she represented the weight of his past, and he wanted her off him. He got up, nearly sending her flying, and said, ‘I’ve got to get an early night. Big day the day after tomorrow. ’Bye guys! Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!’

Julia looked offended, as well she might. She had been his first contact in LA (they’d been at RADA together), and he’d shagged her to get in with the ex-pat crowd.

As he walked out into the jasmine-scented summer night air, he heard Julia saying, ‘I do hope he’s not going to get too big for his boots now.’

Outside, he lit an illicit fag. He still wasn’t quite sure why fags and booze were so frowned upon in California when dope was legal, but he was willing to toe the line most of the time when so much was at stake. As he put his lighter back in his jeans pocket, he felt a piece of card and took it out.

Jennifer Jackson. Nutritionist and personal trainer.

He recalled the girl with the dreadlocks, smile and fantastic arse. Now, she would be a way forward. He’d had enough of his previous life and the no-hoper Brits weighing him down. He thought for a second, then took out his phone and dialled the number on the card.

‘Who is it?’ A very cross-sounding voice eventually answered.

‘Hi, Jenny, it’s Ben. We met on the beach today—’

‘Oh, for God’s sakes. Don’t you know what time it is? If you want to talk about training, call me in the morning.’

And she put the phone down on him. Ben wasn’t sure that any woman had done that to him in his life before. He rather liked it.

‘Jenny, hi, it’s Ben. We met on the beach yesterday.’ He put on his poshest RADA accent.

‘Oh my. The Brit who woke me up at midnight?’

Ben chuckled in what he hoped was an endearing manner.

‘Mea culpa, I’m afraid.’

‘Well, I hope you’ll make it worth my while.’ She sounded crosser than ever. ‘I only had four hours’ sleep because of you. I was training Tom Hanks at five a.m.’

‘Oh, fuck, I’m so sorry,’ said Ben. ‘Tom Hanks, really?’

‘Of course I wasn’t training Tom Hanks, you British idiot. Do ya think I’d be handing out my card on the beach if I was Tom Hanks’s trainer?’

Ben laughed sheepishly.

‘No, I suppose not.’

‘So, d’ya want me to train you, or are you just gonna annoy me with late-night calls? Your abs could do with some work. But it’ll cost ya. And nobody calls me Jenny. My name is Jennifer.’

Bitch. My abs are fine, thought Ben, stroking his washboard stomach. But he definitely wanted to see her again.

‘I thank you.’

Natalia smiled graciously as she accepted her champagne and caviar from the BA stewardess. She was flying from Heathrow to Kiev on her annual June trip to check up on the two charities to which she had been contributing generously for years. After her mamushka had died, there had been no real reason to go back home, but she had to make sure her money was being put to good use.

At least she had the luxury of being able to choose which time of year to return, she thought, pulling her cashmere blanket a little more tightly around her shoulders to keep out the chill of the air conditioning. Despite its soft warmth, she shivered as the memories of Ukraine in the depths of winter came flooding back …

‘Madam? Can I get you something else?’ asked the stewardess, looking at Natalia oddly.

‘Excuse me?’ Natalia was snapped back into the present, into the softness of her White Company cashmere blanket, so different to the itchy wool she had wrapped herself up in all those years ago. ‘No, no, I thank you, I am fine.’

Once the stewardess had left her alone once more, she stared out of the window for some time, unwelcome tears blurring her view of the pillowy white clouds below.

Chapter 4

Poppy Wallace’s bite of the Big Apple is somewhat larger than she’d initially anticipated.

Bella looked at Poppy’s Facebook update with love and irritation. It wasn’t Poppy per se who bugged the shit out of her, but all her old London media friends who fell on her every word and tried to outdo themselves with how well they knew her and how cool they could prove themselves to everyone else online. Some of the fawning acolytes responded to Poppy’s Facebook update with such stomach-churning stuff as miss u loads, baby girl (from a female journalist – there was loads of faux-dykey bollocks) and hoxton’s not the same without you, sweet poppy lops. remember OBESE-gate?

Bella was tempted to add, remember OVERDOSE-gate? She wasn’t able to be cool on Facebook, as some of her old friends and family members actually used exclamation marks and plenty of xxxxs at the end of their messages. It seemed rude not to respond in kind. Also, as Andy worked late so many evenings, she found herself drinking wine on her own and writing things she thought hilarious at the time, then waking in a cold sweaty panic, wondering what the fuck she had thought essential to share with absolutely everyone who knew her. The computer needed a Breathalyser.

She clicked onto Poppy’s latest photos: rollerblading in Central Park, gorgeous in old-skool grey marl shorts and Yankees T-shirt; drinking at the round table at the Algonquin Hotel in a flapper dress (cue comment from fawning female journo: you are Dorothy Parker, but a million times prettier – nineteen other equally sycophantic comments followed); sunbathing by the pool on Soho House NY’s roof terrace in a green bikini that matched her eyes and showed off her exquisitely lithe body (wowser! looking hot babe, hubba hubba, etc., etc., ad nauseam); sitting on the stoop of some lovely old brownstone house in rolled-up jeans and sneakers, her hair in an insouciant ponytail, reading the Herald Tribune (her comment on her own photo was clever, cool and abstruse).