Page 82 of The Price of Love
‘And another one, for the dailies. Can you pop it up a bit for me, give me the full-frontal look? Ah, perhaps not, all right, dahlin’?’ Neil gave me a wink. ‘Will that do, love?’
‘Perfect, thanks, Neil.’
And there, in the second rank, stood Cal, with Ash, Katie, Jazz and Clive, all grinning fit to bust. ‘He ain’t all that big in the bathroom regions, is he?’ Clive nodded towards Luke’s rapidly drooping appendage. ‘Wouldn’t need a wide angle lens to get that one in.’
‘Nah, perfectly normal aperture, mate.’ Neil chuckled. ‘I ’ad to use a flash though, geddit! Flash?’
For some reason I found this hysterical. The tension which had been holding us all broke. One woman burst into tears and ran out of the door, clutching a handkerchief to her eyes. The acne-marked girl let out a sudden scream and launched herself at Luke with a nail file in her hand and had to be escorted out by Clive.
‘I suppose you think you’re so fucking clever, don’t you?’ Luke addressed the crowd, propping his naked body up on his elbows. ‘Whatisthis, get-back-at-Luke day? You’re bitches, allof you. None of you worth a fuck in bed.You’reugly, you’re fat, you’re too fucking old. I used to have to close my eyes to poke you . . . andyou. . .’ Now his attention was back on me. ‘If it hadn’t been for the money, I couldn’t even have got it up for you.’
‘Funny,Idon’t have that problem.’ Cal came and put his arm around me. ‘But then, I don’t have difficulties in that department. I hear that you sometimes have a bit of a case of Mr Floppy.’
Luke looked as though he’d been hit. ‘Who?’
‘Me.’ Nadine. I hadn’t seen her. She’d been at the back of the room, behind Cal.
‘Dee-Dee? Oh Christ, look love, I can explain.’
‘No, I really think you can’t.’ She looked frail, greenish-pale with huge dark circles under her eyes. ‘But I’ve been listening to these other women,they’veall explained things to me. Charlotte told me how you tried to accuse her of having an affair so that you didn’t have to pay for Hugo. Melanie says you stole the money she’d saved to buy a house. Anna and Jemima said you were going to marry them, and you took their money. You swindled all of them.’
‘You swore you loved me. That money I gave you — my mother’s inheritance . . .’
‘I remortgaged myhomefor our future!’
‘I had the dress, the church was booked, my cousin was so excited to be a bridesmaid . . .’
‘Everything. You took everything I had. I’ve had to move in with my brother and you knew how much I hated him . . .’
The women all started talking at once. Each one with a new accusation, another tale of woe, of expectations dashed and bank accounts emptied. Then, into a moment of silence, one lady, a little older than the others and with greyish hair swept up in what I always thought of as ‘Pony Club District Commissioner’ style, said, ‘Did you ever love any of us?’
Luke wouldn’t look up. ‘Do me a favour.’
‘So it was lies? When you called me “gentle soul”? You were making it up?’
‘Oh come on! Have you lot looked at yourselves lately? Every one of you was up for it! Yougaveme the money, all of you. I never asked, made a point of never asking, youwantedme to have it!’
The woman looked at me now. ‘I had hoped . . .’ she tailed off, then cleared her throat. ‘Cal has told me everything.’ A glowing look over her shoulder at Cal himself, leaning against the dressing table, who gave a little wave. ‘I would have stopped this if I’d thought there was even the smallest amount of affection there, Luke.’ Her voice was surprisingly gentle. ‘I could have stopped this. But now . . .’ She turned her attention to me. ‘Do whatever you want to make sure he can never do this again, Willow. I and my family will back you to the hilt.’
Luke’s expression had turned a bit nervous now. He was looking from one to another, his gaze flicking around the room like a bluebottle in a dustbin. ‘Do you know what we’re going to do, Luke?’ Now I had his attention.
‘Oh, let me guess.’ He narrowed his eyes at me. ‘Tell me to go away and never do it again?’
‘Well, no.’ Katie stepped forward. ‘We’re going to put all this in the paper on Tuesday, and Neil’s got contacts in the national press, so we reckon we’ll be able to sell the story toallthe dailies. Fraud Exposed — they’ll love it — and the pictures, oh, obviously we’ll have to have some fuzzy pixels over your fuzzy pixels.’ Katie started to giggle but managed to carry on. ‘So, we think, by the time you hit the tabloids, your name and, er,face, will be well enough known that you won’t beableto do anything like this again.’
‘Probably get offered a deal presenting on Channel Four.’ Trust Ash to stick his oar in. ‘I hearGay Guys Talk Sexis lookingfor a front man. You’d be ideal. Every boy’s wet dream.’ And he licked his lips, making Luke widen his eyes in shock and turn his head away.
‘And, as a rather nice little by-blow, we should all come out of it with a bit of cash. Plus theYork Echois going to be the name on everyone’s lips for at least a week. Not exactly cutting-edge journalism, but good on the CV.’
Luke made a dismissive noise. ‘Yeah, right. And I’ll sue you all for defamation of character. You show me one piece of proof that all that money wasn’t given to me willingly. Go on. One tiny bit of evidence that any of you asked for it back or were coerced into handing it over.’ He laughed a bitter, twisted sort of laugh. ‘You can’t, can you? And it’s too late now to come whining about “the nasty man”, because you all handed that money over of your own free will at the time, so . . .’ He sneered. ‘You can all fuck off and do one.’
Cal said. ‘You don’t realise who this lady is, do you? Maybe you never knew.’ He indicated Pony Club lady, who gave a sad smile.
‘Jemima Horton,’ Luke answered smartly. ‘I never forget an heiress.’ He twisted sideways to conceal his groin from Cal’s frankly amused stare.
‘She’s also the sister of a High Court judge.’ Cal gave a ‘so you see’ sort of grin and an open handed shrug. ‘Like all these ladies here, she didn’t come forward at the time to report your fraud, she was too ashamed. Everyone thought they were the only one, the only person stupid enough — forgive me, everyone, please — to have fallen for your lies. Now they know about each other, well, the phrase “support group” springs to mind. Also the phrase “collective prosecution”.’ His grin widened. ‘And with Jemima’s family connections, well. I’m also beginning to hear the phrase “throw away the key” echoing around, anyone else?’
‘You’re shitting me.’
