The thought of Irene wearing anything so gaudy was laughable. Such things were not for the Irenes of this world; they were for the Pamelas of Wembley, uncultured women who lacked style and taste. But then it wasn’t Pamela’s style or taste that he visited her for; it was for sexual pleasure and nothing else.
‘It’s Christmas Eve,’ he said. ‘I have to go. I’m expected at my in-laws’ for dinner.’
She pouted, which she was much too old to get away with, and leant against the door frame, her hands behind her back, her breasts thrust forward in the manner of a vampish film starlet posing for the camera, a role she liked to play. He felt as he always did at this stage in the proceedings: impatient to be on his way. He pushed his feet into his shoes, began tying the laces.
‘Can’t you stay for a drink?’ she said, her voice low and purring. It was her seductive voice, the one she used while leading him upstairs to the bedroom at the back of the house overlooking the small garden, where there was now an Anderson shelter. They never used her own room at the front; that was out of bounds, even to him. A woman needed her own private sanctuary, she claimed.
‘Just one drink,’ she pressed, her voice even lower and more sensual. ‘To celebrate Christmas.’
What she didn’t understand was that those seductive tricks of hers had no effect on him once the act had been completed, once he’d got what he came for. He was tired, too, too tired to play games at any rate.
‘I can’t,’ he said tersely, his patience wearing thin. It wasn’t like Pamela to drag things out, or to be obtuse. She knew his moods, knew how to respond and to make him feel better. It was one of the things he’d valued in her, the fact that their arrangement was all about him and his needs, for which he paid her handsomely. And just as she had never allowed him into her private sanctuary, he didn’t speak about his family or his work; their lives ran on entirely separate lines.
Recently, however, he had broken that rule and had talked about his family, as well as venting his frustration that all he did at work was spend his days shuffling paper. It seemed to him that if the war was going to be won with an army of civil servants running up and down corridors with files in their hands, then Whitehall had it sewn up.
He’d made a stupid mistake in October when, in a moment of boredom, he’d asked Irene if her father might fix him up with something more useful to do at the War Office. He’d assumed he might be found a senior position of some standing, but – and maybe it was deliberate on his father-in-law’s part – as far as he could see, he was doing nothing more significant than overseeing a chaotic typing pool of women. ‘Temporary billeting,’ he’d been told by an effeminate man in a tweed suit who reeked of cologne. ‘Soon have your talents put to greater use, old chap. We’re all finding our way now that we’re actually at war. I recommend you bunk down as best you can meantime and bear in mind that we’re cogs in a colossal machine; we all have our part to play.’ Such was the man’s cheerfully demeaning manner towards him, Arthur had wanted to drive a fist through his girlish face.
While it was true that Arthur had no appetite for enlisting and putting himself in physical danger – being blind in one eye conveniently ruled him out of active service – he still wanted to do something constructive towards the war effort. Was it too much to expect a role that came with some prestige and respect?
To make matters worse, Kit was in Canada learning to fly, and would probably contrive to make out he was some kind of bloody war hero before he even donned a service uniform!
‘But I have something for you,’ Pamela said, breaking into Arthur’s thoughts. ‘A gift. After all, you gave me this lovely present, so it’s only fair I should give you something in return.’ She flung wide the front panels of the robe, exposing the whole of her fleshy contours, which only minutes ago had been his for the taking. Now Arthur felt faintly revolted by her sagging breasts, swelling stomach and spreading hips. In the stark light of post-coital satisfaction, when his head rather than sexual need guided him, Pamela’s age was all too obvious. No amount of powder, lipstick or rouge could disguise the lines at the corners of her eyes and around her mouth. And a satin robe could only conceal so much when it came to a forty-year-old woman.
He stood up and began tucking his shirt in. ‘Go on, then,’ he said. ‘What have you got for me?’ He might as well play along and please her. She need never know that the minute he left here, he’d chuck whatever it was she had bought him straight in the nearest bin.
As he put on his jacket, he watched her go over to the chest of drawers in front of the window and take out a large envelope. A Christmas card, he thought, taking it from her. Hardly much of a present. He was almost disappointed. He ripped open the envelope and put his hand inside, then froze when he saw what it was.
‘What’s this?’ he demanded, staring at two black-and-white photographs, one showing him entering Pamela’s house, the other showing him leaving, and with Pamela’s hand on his shoulder as she planted a kiss on his cheek. He remembered when she’d done that the last time he’d visited, he’d warned her never to do it again, that they had to be more circumspect or somebody might see. Somebody clearly had.
She tied the satin robe around her with the belt and smiled. ‘I think it’s called an insurance policy, darling.’
‘Are you sure you don’t mean blackmail?’
‘You can call it whatever you want,’ she said. ‘We’re both intelligent enough to know what the situation is.’ She picked up the packet of Player’s Weights from the nightstand next to the bed and lit a cigarette. She inhaled deeply, then removed a loose bit of tobacco from her lip with the long red nail of her little finger before blowing a curling ribbon of smoke into the air. All the while Arthur stared at her.
‘Why?’ he said eventually, hardly able to get the word out.
‘Why not, ducky?’ she replied with a nonchalance that incensed him.
‘But … but after all these years, I thought our arrangement … I thought you cared about …’ He stopped himself short, horrified at what he’d almost blurted out.
Pamela’s eyes narrowed like those of a cat and she pounced. ‘What?’ she said, her tone mocking. ‘You thought I cared about you? Oh, of course I cared about you coming here and using my body for your greedy selfish pleasure as and when the mood took you. But you know, I also care about your poor dear wife and how upset she would be to know what you get up to when you’re not with her. How you like to tie me to the bed and take out all your nasty, sadistic frustration on me. And I’m sure your colleagues at the War Office, including your father-in-law, would love to know what you get up to in your private time.’
Arthur looked at her with loathing, seeing her for what she really was: a cheap whore. A fat ugly whore who would stop at nothing. Would he never learn that all women were devious bitches, not to be trusted? ‘How much?’ he said. ‘How much to buy your silence?’
‘That’s more like it, ducky. Well then, shall we call it a nice round figure of say, one thousand pounds?’
His jaw dropped. ‘You can’t be serious. I don’t have that kind of money to give away.’
‘Yes you do. Your father’s left you a small fortune. You told me the inheritance would put an end to all your financial worries. And a thousand pounds will help buy me a sweet little cottage that I can turn into a tea shop. That way I won’t have to sell my body to foul men like you.’
‘I haven’t received my inheritance yet,’ he said quietly, hardly able to believe what he was hearing. ‘It’s still tied up with the process of probate.’ Which was true. Not that the truth mattered right now.
‘You can borrow against it,’ Pamela said. ‘Don’t take me for a fool, Arthur, I know how these things work.’
‘Don’t you just?’ he muttered through clenched teeth. His anger, which had been partially masked by shock, he realised, was now coursing through him with a fiery heat, making him want to show this woman that she’d made a big mistake in trapping him. How dare she think she could have a share of his inheritance!
After making an elaborate show of flicking the ash from her cigarette into the glass ashtray on the nightstand, she inhaled again, looking for all the world as though she were enjoying herself. As though she had it all worked out.
