Christmas at Claridge's Read online

Clem threw her an annoyed look. ‘Uh, because we’d been together for three weeks past my official relationship expiry date, he texts with his middle finger and he wears the same pants three days running.’

  ‘So do you most of the time,’ Stella said.

  ‘Tch, do not,’ Clem replied, even though she was famous for either going commando or wearing the first pair of knickers she could find in the mess on the floor that passed for her laundry basket. Tom kept muttering that he’d never be able to move out until she worked out how to work the washing machine.

  ‘Well I think it’s a shame, that’s all.’ Stella shrugged, reaching down into a bowl of Pringles. ‘You seemed happy with him and he’s obviously still mad about you.’

  ‘Moving on,’ Clem snapped, closing the conversation down once and for all. ‘Josh is much more my thing now: mature, considerate, enlightened. He could teach me things. Make me a better person.’

  Stella choked on her crisp. ‘Bollocks. You’re only going after him because he’s the first man you’ve ever met who hasn’t fallen at your feet.’

  ‘Not true.’

  ‘Bang on, more like. Yes, he’s good-looking, but quite frankly I don’t trust any man who jacks in a good career in Private Equity to man the phones for The Samaritans. And as for giving up booze to compete in triathlons every weekend, well . . . you should be very, very wary, that’s all I’m saying.’

  ‘But I could grow with him.’

  A pulse of disbelief followed this statement and Clem was forced to give a tiny shrug in acknowledgement of the ridiculous words coming from her mouth.

  ‘Grow bored more like. You might be able to convince him that you volunteered at the cat sanctuary in your gap year, and that you only listen to chamber music on your iPod, but you and I both know that “danger” is your middle name. You’re pretending to be someone you’re not when you’re with him. It won’t last.’

  ‘It doesn’t have to,’ Clem replied, flashing her friend a sarcastic smile. ‘I’m not looking for a husband.’

  ‘Well then, you’re the only single twenty-nine-year-old female in London who isn’t,’ Stella said, pouring herself another drink, her eyes tracking someone over Clem’s bare shoulder. ‘Anyway I don’t have time to stand here chatting about your self-imposed problems. I still haven’t got myself a date for midnight, so if you’re so convinced Josh is your Mr Right Now, then go get him, Tiger,’ Stella said, slapping her hard on the bottom and wandering off in pursuit of a guy in skinny jeans and a trilby.

  Clem watched her go. If she had the legs and eyes combo to take out most men, her diminutive firecracker friend had the E-cup cleavage and handspan waist. Clem smiled as she watched Stella almost immediately hypnotize the guy into stunned submission, his mouth falling open like a guppy – she knew one of them was sorted for the night. It was time to get her groove on: the first buzz of vodka was mixing with her bloodstream and there was a code red in the kitchen.

  The party was ascending to a riotous peak, the floorboards vibrating to the pounding dance-floor beat, as she turned into the crowd, began to sway and let herself go. If there was one thing she could do – really do – it was party. No W11 party was complete without her. She moved deeper into the melee of smiling mouths and loud laughs, the glassy eyes and lecherous stares, the flushed cheeks and glossy hair tosses that she called ‘home’, everyone dancing and swaying around her, singing drunkenly and punching the air. Except for one.

  His stillness jarred against the throb of the crowd and she lifted her chin fractionally to get a better look at him from under her hat while flashing him a glimpse of her stunning eyes. He was leaning against the wall, watching her with notably glacial-blue eyes of his own. He was a predator, like her. Her gaze didn’t move from his but she peripherally registered the pale blue shirt worn over Swimmer’s shoulders, the offbeat grey marled jacket with black revers that was classic, yet subversive too – and clearly expensive. She noted heavy straight brows, a square chin, dark blond hair that would look brown when wet, planed cheekbones that would stretch the skin thin when – if – he smiled.

  And then everything went black.

  ‘Hey! Who said you could wear that? It’s an heirloom remember?’ a distinctive male voice boomed next to her.

  Clem pushed the hat back up off her eyes hurriedly. Talk about ruining the mystique! ‘Just because it was Dad’s doesn’t make it valuable, Tom,’ she said irritably looking past her brother to find the stranger still staring, but with less heat and more laughter in his expression now. Something about him was familiar . . .

  ‘The concept of emotional significance really is lost on you, isn’t it?’ Her brother tutted as Clover drifted over – obvs – looking clean and meadowy amidst the gritty urban party animals seeing out another year in Notting Hill. She gave Clem a tight smile.

  ‘Sentimental tosh more like. A hat is a hat is a hat. And it’s raining out there, you know.’

  ‘And God forbid Josh should see you looking anything other than perfect, right?’ Tom teased.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Well, he should be doubly pleased tonight then,’ Tom said meaningfully, unable to keep the laughter out of his voice.

  Clem shifted her weight uneasily. ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Only that your intended tucked into the punch with some gusto when he got here.’

  ‘The punch?’ Clem echoed. Stella’s Bacardi-vodka-tequila punch was the stuff of legend.

  ‘Yep. Someone might have told him it was a non-alcoholic option.’

  Clem felt a kernel of dread harden in the pit of her stomach. ‘But there’s no such thing at Stella’s place. She’s never drunk juice in her life. Not without vodka in it.’

  ‘Well, we know that . . .’ Tom grinned, his twinkly eyes glassy with booze. ‘Oh, talk of the devil! Josh, how’s it going, mate?’

  Clem watched in horror as Josh bowled towards her, holding onto walls, sofas and nearby shoulders for support. He stopped in front of Clem, standing on her toes and swaying with a rhythm that had nothing to do with the music.

  ‘Ah shit, Clem . . .’ he slurred, his eyes running up and down her like scales. ‘I’ve had enough of this. You’ve been messing with my head too bloody long,’ he said, swooping down to kiss her, unfortunately forgetting to account for the rigid brim of her hat, so that his lips were kept, pursed, away from hers for several, agonizing moments before the hat suddenly bowed under the pressure and his mouth quite literally fell upon hers in a clash of teeth.

  Clem staggered back under his weight, aware of Tom and Clover’s laughter as Josh stumbled to remain joined to her. Talk about bad to worse. First her brother humiliates her in front of the stranger and now—

  But a sudden intake of breath, horrified and aghast, stopped her short. She pushed Josh off and looked up at Tom in panic. He had gone sheet-white and his generous smile completely vanished. He was holding his breath, his knuckles white around the beer bottle in his hand, so that Clem worried it would shatter from the force of his fist.

  ‘What have you done?’ he managed, his voice choked.

  Clem didn’t need to follow his line of sight to know that he was looking at the bike hanging on the wall.

  ‘It was raining,’ she whispered. She’d known he’d be cross, but the devastation in his face was more cutting than the fiercest anger. Her eyes followed the track of his like a cursor as they ran over the bicycle’s rosy, twinkling, caramel leather-clad frame, now soaked dark with rain, stained with beer, graffiti’d with biro and speckled grey with cigarette ash that was smouldering slowly through to the glossy golden skeleton beneath.

  A turgid silence ballooned between them and when he finally spoke, his voice was more of a rumble, like a bomb going off several miles away. ‘I suppose it completely passed over your head that that prototype cost a hundred and thirty-five grand to make.’

  Clem’s jaw dropped open.

  ‘One hundred – and thirty – five – thousand,’ Tom repeated. ‘It’s pl
ated in rose gold and has real fucking diamonds studded in it! It was never designed to be used! I left it in the flat in order to protect it over the holidays because our insurers won’t cover it in the studio without . . . without a bloody security guard. And you’re telling me you brought it to a mosh-pit party because it was raining!’

  ‘I panicked. Josh was chatting up another girl.’

  Tom’s usually benevolent gaze drifted from her to the husk of a man leaning on her, so far gone he couldn’t even focus, much less keep up with the conversation.

  ‘And was it worth it?’ His contempt was withering, though whether it was reserved for her or Josh wasn’t clear.

  Clem shook her head. ‘I’m so sorry, Tom. I didn’t know it was that mu . . . I’ll make it up to you. I promise.’

  ‘How, exactly?’

  She shrank back from the disdain in his voice. They both knew there was no rescue remedy to this, her latest, disaster.

  ‘We’re supposed to unveil it at the Expo in Berlin next week. It’s the lead exhibit. There are companies coming from China just to see it. ‘

  ‘I’ll work without pay,’ she offered desperately.

  ‘That’ll simply mean I have to pay your rent and food for you, too.’ His hand reached out for Clover’s and she grasped it keenly, her thumb rubbing reassuringly – proprietorially – over the back of his hand. He shook his head. ‘I don’t know what it is with you, Clem. You’ve got it all going for you, and yet for some reason, everything you touch turns to shit. I’m up to here with you acting like a spoilt child and never thinking about anyone but yourself. When are you going to get your act together and just grow up?’

  ‘Tom, I . . .’ she faltered, but he thrust his half-drunk beer roughly into her hand and stormed off, pulling Clover behind him like a kite.

  Clem bit her lip, tears stinging her eyes as she watched him stride over to the hall, pushing people out of the way and unhooking the priceless bike from the wall sconces. Beside her, Josh fell over his own feet and landed face first on a Moroccan pouffe. Clem looked down at him in despair before remembering the enigmatic stranger, the Swimmer. But, like her brother and the prospect of ringing in a happy new year, he was long gone.

  Chapter Two

  The rain had fallen even harder on the way home. Not that Clem remembered this. Finishing off the bottle of Grey Goose had been so effective at staunching the hurt of Tom’s contempt, it was almost as if their fight hadn’t happened at all. Rather, it was the sodden leather jacket – untreated, as it turned out – bleeding tannin into the pale maple floor that showed just how wild the weather had become. That, or she’d had a bath in it, which frankly couldn’t be discounted as an option either. She’d done worse in her time.

  She groaned as the room moved around her prostrate form on the sofa, her hands automatically stroking the curly tufts of the sheepskin sofa that soothed her like a teddy bear. The silk envelope had fallen to the floor, its precious contents still pristine, thankfully, and she knew she had to hide it again before Tom came back. It had been reckless to—

  Tom. She swivelled one mascara-clotted eye around, looking for him. Usually he woke her nose-first, cooking up one of his famous fried-egg sandwiches, which always settled her stomach and enabled her to move to a vertical position. But the flat was quiet and still, yesterday’s dirty dishes were where she’d left them on the worktop and the eggs were keeping their healing properties a secret in the fridge.

  It was too early for him to come back from Clover’s, she reasoned. It was still dark outside. She should go back to sleep and try to slumber through the worst of this. But water. She needed water.

  Shambles, watching from her perch in Tom’s room, squawked loudly at the sight of Clem’s jerky, hesitant movements. ‘Sexanddrugsandrocknrollsexanddrugsandrocknroll.’

  Clem nodded feebly in acknowledgement and slowly sat up, smoothing a hand through her matted hair and seeing, with damped horror, Tom’s flattened Akubra hat, which she’d used as a pillow.

  ‘Oh, Shambles,’ she mumbled, trying to punch it back into shape. ‘Why didn’t you warn me?’

  ‘Where’s the remote?’ the parrot squawked.

  ‘Mmmgh.’

  Grabbing a handful of seeds from the bowl on the small round kitchen table, she opened the door to Shambles’ cage and scattered them in. She left the door open so that Shambles could come out to stretch her wings, and staggered over to the sink.

  The sound of keys in the door made her turn apprehensively, but the first glimpse of giant blue Ikea bags told her it was Stella following after, not Tom. She was over so often, she had honorary housemate status with her own set of keys.

  ‘Hey!’ Stella panted, throwing the bags ahead of her like a ball at skittles, and stopping short at the sight of Clem standing dazed and confused in just last night’s jumper and knickers. At least she was wearing knickers. ‘Oh dear. You look baaaad.’

  ‘I feeeeel bad,’ Clem groaned, sagging against the worktop. ‘Thank God you’re here. You can do that egg thing that makes me feel better.’

  ‘What, eggnog?’

  Clem retched. ‘God no. That always makes me throw up.’

  ‘Oh, Tom’s hangover special, you mean?’

  ‘That’s the one,’ Clem sighed, giving up the fight against gravity and collapsing onto a kitchen chair. ‘How come you’re up so bright and early anyway?’ Clem moaned, her head in her hands, as Stella crossed the room and got busy in the kitchen. She was wearing an outfit only an official designer could get away with – a vintage kimono coat over silk pyjama bottoms and a metre-long scarf – and looked dispiritingly healthy, even though she had drunk Clem and most of Tom’s rugby club under the table. Quite where she put the alcohol in her 5-foot-2-inch frame, no one knew.

  ‘It’s hardly early, babes. It’s almost five.’

  ‘In the afternoon?’

  Stella grinned at her, delighted. ‘It was a great party, wasn’t it?’ Stella always gauged the success of her parties by the severity of Clem’s hangovers and the number of bodies unconscious in her flat the morning after. ‘There were seven still sleeping it off at mine this morning. Last one only just left, although he had rather more reason to stay than the others.’ She winked joyously as she cracked the eggs, accounting for the flush in her cheeks and the brightness in her green eyes.

  ‘Well at least one of us got lucky.’ Clem frowned. ‘What . . . what happened with Josh?’

  ‘He passed out at ten and slept in the bath. I got Tom’s mates to move him out of the way for me. He was hogging the sofa. Gone by the time I surfaced this morning, though. He’s no doubt cycling up Snowdon as we speak.’ She pulled a sympathetic face. ‘Hate to say it, but I did tell you not to trust a man who doesn’t drink.’

  The eggs hissed as they splashed into the hot oil.

  ‘From now on I shall stick to married men and public school boys with recreational drug habits. At least you know where you are with them.’

  Shambles flew out of the cage and swooped above Stella in the kitchen, enjoying the hot thermal current coming off the frying pan, before settling on the windowsill. Clem watched despondently, distracted. Five o’clock? Tom would definitely be back by now ordinarily. This was no mere spat.

  ‘What’s wrong with me, Stell? Why do I always mess things up? I’m a one-woman disaster zone.’

  ‘No you’re not. You’re just one of life’s energy force fields. You attract everything to you and sometimes things just spin a little bit out of control, that’s all,’ Stella murmured, her hands moving quickly so that in a few moments more, she placed a steaming, oozing toasted sandwich in front of her beleaguered friend. ‘Now get that down you. I need your body.’

  Clem sighed appreciatively and tucked in. Stella always knew how to rally her. A shoot-from-the-hip Finchley girl, she’d been raised by her father after her mother died when she was four, and she had a bustling, maternal nature that soothed Clem and brought her down from her more outrageous antics. Their friendship h
ad been instantaneous and intense since the day they’d met at St Martin’s College, where Stella was studying Fashion Design and Clem was doing the Fashion Journalism and Marketing course. Clem had been hired as a model by one of the more pretentious design students, Taylor Dart, who had put on a still-life fashion installation in a mechanics’ workshop. Stella had been helping Taylor with the fittings as he had all the technical dressmaking ability of a goat, and she and Clem had bonded for life over the armless dress he had reserved for her.

  Unlike Taylor, Stella had an unerring instinct for what women wanted to wear – and more importantly how they wanted to feel – and her graduation show had been one of the standout presentations that year, with editors and buyers keeping close tabs on her as she apprenticed with Topshop and then the Burberry Brit division. But Stella had quickly grown restless with giving her best ideas to others so they could profit from them, and when Clem mentioned in passing that her florist friend Katy had told her a stall on Portobello was coming up, the deal had been done. It might not be the glossy shop front she dreamed of on Westbourne Grove, but at least everything had her name on the label, and as one of the most famous markets in the world, it was a fashion mecca.

  Stella wandered over to the capacious bags she had bundled in with, and pulled out various bolts of fabric. She was genuinely gifted and her stall in the market was always thronging at the weekends. Clem had worked on the stall for her for a while, but after the third successive theft, in which half of Stella’s collection was lifted while Clem either flirted with the guys in the betting shop or slept behind the changing-room curtain, they had agreed it was better if she simply donated her body to fashion and left it at that.

  Clem stood up and took off her jumper, standing in the middle of her flat in just her knickers, as Stella began to wind a length of dusky pink butterfly-print silk-chiffon around her lean frame.

  ‘Ooh, I like that,’ Clem murmured, looking down as Stella moved nimbly round her, pleating, tucking and folding. ‘What are you going to make with it?’