Page 7 of A Class Act

I went through the usual shampooing, conditioning, leg-shaving routine that was always a prequel to a first date and wondered, idly, if men put themselves through the same regime. I bet they didn’t. I bet it was a quick shower, an equally quick glance at the previous day’s boxers to see if they’d pass muster for another outing, a clean shirt and that was it.

I walked back to the flat, where Tanya was eating rice pudding straight from the tin while perusing the latest edition ofSpotlight.

‘You off out?’ She deigned to look up in my direction.

‘Got a lunch date,’ I said, making for my room.

‘Lunch? Get you.’ She held up the tin of Ambrosia. ‘What’s wrong with a snack in a tin?’ I didn’t find Tanya the easiest of flatmates, especially as she appeared to be constantly in work and didn’t mind letting me know of her success. ‘Anyone I know? What’s he in?’

‘The Old Bailey.’ I grinned.

‘Oh,’ she said, sucking on her spoon thoughtfully. ‘Daniel—’ her agent ‘—wanted me to go for a part in that, but I said, “no way”.’

With twenty minutes to spare, I now had the momentous decision which of my few clothes were going to be suitable for a date with Fabian Mansfield Carrington. There wasn’t a huge choice: being permanently broke meant my wardrobe consisted mainly of charity-shop finds. But Jayden had had a recent financially worthwhile tour of Sweden, Norway and Denmark and had rolled up a month ago with his usual wad of tenners and with the strict instruction to buy myself something lovely. ‘Never mind the council tax,’ he’d dictated, ‘you need to look good when you go for auditions. Every time I see you, you’re in the same leggings or sweatpants.’

So I’d gone along to Beyond Retro on Great Marlborough Street and there, amongst the fabulous vintage forties and fifties frocks, was an utterly beautiful pink, pure cotton, 1960s Ossie Clark sundress.

I reached for it now, pulling it off the clothes rail, and fell in love with the beautiful dress all over again. Hell, shoes? Oh, sod it, everyone wore trainers now in London wherever they were going and, luckily, the spotless white trainers Miss Muffler insisted we wear at Graphite were at my disposal.

Lipstick, blusher and a hand through my – always unruly – mass of black curls and I was off. With five minutes to spare, I made my way down the downright dangerous threadbare-carpeted stairs, stepping over the holes but unable to avoid the nausea-inducing stink from the meats on the vertical rotisserie, and out through the flat’s entrance adjacent to the Turkish kebab joint below. Hasad, who owned the place and was our landlord, whistled. ‘Hey, Robyn, you looking good,’ he called.‘That doesn’t let you off paying the rent you owe me,’ he added, grinning.

‘Next week, I promise,’ I soothed. ‘I always pay up, you know that.’

‘You come out with me instead. I show you good time.’ He leered wolfishly as I sat down on the pavement, unsure from which direction Fabian would be coming. I closed my eyes against the cloudless cerulean sky, breathing in the warm Sunday lunchtime air. In doing so I also blotted out the throng of humanity, the garishly coloured street signs advertising every sybaritic enticement known to man as well as the piled-up rubbish and abandoned food waste. Nervous that Fabian wouldn’t be able to find me, but just as terrified that he would, I glanced longingly at my front door. I needed a pee. How much easier on my whole nervous system to go back upstairs to the flat, take off my posh frock and make-up and lie on my bed, going over the words for the baked-bean ad.

‘He-e-ey-y,’ Hasad called from his vantage point at the kebab counter, ‘nice car.’

A silver Porsche was making its way at a snail’s pace down the street towards us, its driver obviously uncertain of his bearings, and I jumped up from the pavement as Hasad whistled once more. ‘Tanrinin anessi–that is some car, Robyn – you take care…Eglence…Enjoy!’

I peered in through the car window as it cruised past me, feeling for all the world as if I were on the set ofPretty Woman, one of my all-time favourite films. Similar gorgeous car, similar gorgeous man. I just prayed he didn’t think I was a similar sort of hooker. I pulled frantically at the hem of my short dress that had ridden up as I sat on the pavement waiting.

The silver car came to a standstill and the offside window slid slowly down.

‘Robyn?’ The door unlocked with a click. ‘Do get in.’

Once seated, I turned towards the man, knowing my face was flushed with the warmth of the afternoon, the exertion of lowering myself into the black leather interior as well as nervous tension. He was wearing an expensive-looking dark blue short-sleeved shirt, jeans and trainers, his olive-skinned face bearing a subtle but very becoming stubble.

‘You OK? Really lovely to see you again.’ He grinned across at me, taking in every bit of me, from my pink dress, equally pink face and obviously nervous disposition. This wasn’t the confident, sassy waitress who’d made constant eye contact with him just two days earlier.

‘OK,’ I breathed.

‘Are you up for a drive?’

‘Well, we’re in a car, so I guess that’s the best way forward,’ I said, wanting to immediately take back and swallow the banal words. Oh, for slick, easy conversation to slip effortlessly from my lips. ‘Where are we heading?’

The car shot forward and a group of Japanese tourists, following their guide with a fluorescent flag held aloft, scrambled for safety. ‘Marlow.’ He smiled.

‘Wasn’t he a poet?’

Fabian laughed. ‘“Who ever loved, that loved not at first sight?”’

I was impressed. Not many men knew lines of poetry, and even fewer had ever quoted them at me.

‘I’m actually at my parents’ house for the weekend – they’re away and I’m dog-sitting their new puppy. I’m sorry to drag you all the way over there, but my sister, who was supposed to be doing a shift with the dog, has had to fly off to a meeting in Copenhagen.’

‘Oh?’

He didn’t expand further, but simply raised an eyebrow in my direction as if sistersflying offto Copenhagen for meetingsat the drop of a hat on a Sunday morning was the norm. I thought about my own sister, who would be taking my ten-year-old niece, Lola, round to Mum’s place in order that she couldfly offto Hudson House, the care home on the outskirts of Beddingfield where Jess put in long and gruelling shifts to pay the rent now that Dean, Lola’s father, had gone AWOL once more.

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