Lovers in Their Fashion (4 page)

Chapter 7

W
hen she reached home that evening, Alice found two messages on her answering machine. One said that Merrill had taken in a package for her and would bring it up later. Merill had a key to the penthouse, so that she could check on things when Alice was away, but Alice knew that her friend preferred not to let herself in at other times. The other was from Sabine, Alice’s French godchild, thanking her for a birthday present.

Alice changed from her stylish suit and tights into loose-fitting cotton skirt and bare legs. Then she made coffee and carried it and the telephone out onto the terrace. Her first call was to Sabine and she enjoyed the exchange of news and chat with the nine year old Parisienne.

After she and John had broken up, Alice had moved to Paris as the only place to learn the fashion business. Without the welcome of Maurice and Millie Charente, she might have left within the month. In fact, she had stayed two years, and had returned to London with priceless gifts. One was the knowledge and contacts that would underwrite success in the career she had chosen for herself. The others were more personal – the close friendship with Maurice and Millie, a godchild she doted on and an absolute mastery in the French language. She had left England with a halting grasp of school French; she returned with a level of fluency that frequently had her taken as a native.

A
fter listening to Sabine’s happy babbling of school and Maman and Papa there was a less welcome call to make. The phone rang out so many times she thought she might be lucky and be able to leave a message saying she had called, but it was not to be. Her mother answered on the seventh ring.

‘Alice! At last! I had begun to think you were avoiding me.’

‘Why should I do that, mother?’

‘Why, indeed? Think yourself lucky you have no children of your own. You give them everything and all you get in return is grief.’

This was a complaint Alice had heard many times before. ‘Is there anything you want, mother?’

‘Well, let’s see, now. Politeness? Respect? Support? How about those for starters? Are they too much for a mother to ask of her daughter?’

Support. Alice sighed. ‘How much is it this time?’

Her mother cut in angrily. ‘Alice. I have
never
asked you for money.’

There was a sardonic edge to Alice’s laugh. ‘Does Dad know we’re having this conversation?’

‘I never trouble your father about the trivial sums you send me, Alice.’

Trivial! That was not the word Alice would have chosen to describe the amounts it had taken to get her mother out of trouble over the years.

‘Without the care and education we lavished on you when you were a child,’ her mother went on, ‘You would not be enjoying the colossal earnings you have now. I said as much to Martin Planer and he agreed.’

A fist of ice closed around Alice’s heart. ‘You spoke to…’

‘And what thanks do I get? How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child.’

‘What did you say to Martin Planer?’

‘Who?’

Frustrated rage was a constant feature of Alice’s relations with her mother. She knew she must not give in to it now. ‘Martin Planer,’ she said through gritted teeth.

‘How do you know Martin?’ asked her mother.

‘Mother…’

‘He’s one of our directors.’

‘I know who he is, mother. Though why he lets you go on working there I can’t imagine.’

‘You’ve never met him. You know very well I’ve always kept work and home separate. I owed you that, as my daughter. And what do you mean, “why he lets me go on working”?’

‘Mother. What did you say to Martin Planer about me?’

‘My conversations with my colleagues are none of your business.’

‘You discussed me.’

‘A few words, perhaps. I told him about your luxurious apartment and he…’

‘Mother,’ Alice broke in. ‘You didn’t tell him where I live. Tell me you didn’t.’

The older woman sounded flustered. ‘Not the address, of course. What do you take me for?’

The shock of relief almost cast Alice to her knees.

‘I told him about your penthouse, and what it must have cost. And I had to tell him where it was, or it wouldn’t have meant anything to him, now would it?’

‘Oh, mother.’ Alice felt almost physically ill.

At that moment the doorbell rang. ‘I’ve got to go,’ Alice said.

‘But I haven’t told you what I need.’

‘Mother. Merrill is at the door. She’s taken in a package for me.’

‘Oh, has she. Yet more ridiculously expensive clothes, no doubt. While your poor parents…’

The doorbell rang again, longer and more insistent this time.

‘I’m sorry, mother. I have to go. I’ll call you again.’

Alice pressed the red button on her handset and placed it on the rest. She hurried to the door and flung it open. ‘Thank heavens you’re here. Come in. I need a stiff…’

The word “drink” remained unsaid as she stared in horror at the tall, well built man smiling horridly in the doorway. Martin Planer stepped past her and pushed the door closed behind him.

‘You need something stiff, do you?’ he leered. ‘Well, I’m sure I’m the man to oblige.’

‘Get out!’ shrieked Alice. ‘How dare you burst in here?’

‘Burst in?’ His cold blue eyes mocked her. ‘You threw the door open. You invited me in. You made a most indecent declaration of need.’

He stepped closer, the scent of his cologne filling the air between them. Alice moved towards the door but his hand snaked out, trapping her wrist. She took a step backwards but Planer simply followed her. Now her back was against the wall and there was nowhere for her to go.

He stepped right up against her, holding her wrist by her side. Alice shook as his chest brushed against hers. The smile had not left his face. He came even closer, and she felt his hips, his legs, as they pinned her to the wall.

‘My, my,’ he said. ‘Little Alice Springer. Who’d have thought you’d turn out like this?’

His head moved forward and Alice realized with horror that he was going to kiss her. She raised her free hand and swung at his face with all her might. In vain; he simply caught it and transferred it to the iron grip that already held its twin. Now both of her wrists were helplessly trapped in a single huge hand. He brought the other up and cupped her chin, turning her face up towards his own.

‘Behave,’ he murmured. ‘You’re mine. There’s nothing you can do, so accept it.’ His lips nuzzled her brow, nibbled at her ear, grazed across her cheek. Then with a murmur of enjoyment he brought them to rest on her helplessly upturned mouth.

Alice gasped in horror as his hand left her chin and began to move across her trembling body. So firmly was he pressed against her that she felt with the most profound shock the hard physical evidence of his aroused lust.

‘Please, Martin,’ she begged. ‘Please don’t do this.’

His only response was to laugh. ‘I came here to discuss your mother,’ he murmured. ‘And what you can do to make good her latest depredations. But before business – pleasure.’

The doorbell pierced the fog of Alice’s despair. She screamed for help – but the cry was penned in her throat almost immediately by the huge hand that closed firmly on her mouth. Planer held her so tightly she felt she would suffocate. It
had
to be Merrill at the door, and she
had
to have heard, surely? Alice waited desperately for the sound of the key turning in the lock.

It did not come.

After a few moments, she heard Merrill’s footsteps retreating on the marble floor beyond her door. She had gone.

The hope raised by Merrill’s arrival, followed so swiftly by her departure, had knocked the fight out of Alice. When Planer stepped suddenly back she fell helplessly into his arms. Laughing cruelly, he lifted her into the air. Limp and unresisting, she found herself carried across the floor and tossed onto a sofa.

A
lice was the only woman John Pagan had ever loved and he loved her still. If he had known what she was going through, he would have moved heaven and earth to rescue her.

But he did not know. At the very moment that Martin Planer was emerging from his taxi outside Alice’s apartment building, John was meeting up again with Cathy after his afternoon meeting. Did John feel guilt at being with a woman he didn’t love when the one he did love was in London? Of course not. Alice had ended their relationship. Alice had told him their love could never be. Alice was happily settled in a relationship with David Tucker.

No-one could expect John, unattached as he was, to walk away from every advance by every pretty girl until he found another he could love as he loved Alice. And John wasn’t going to.

‘I love Manhattan,’ John said. ‘It’s possibly my favourite place on the whole planet. I like to stand on the sidewalk at eight in the morning and feel the buzz of people going to work. You could run a space station on that energy.’

Cathy smiled and hugged his arm. ‘Everywhere looks good when you’re having fun,’ she said.

‘What fun would you like to have now?’

‘Well, I don’t know. I guess we’re both in New York quite often, so maybe sight-seeing isn’t a good use of our time.’ She grinned lasciviously. ‘Bearing in mind that I have to leave this evening. On the other hand, I could use a coffee. What would you like to do?’

‘I’d like to examine those garters in more detail.’

Cathy’s laugh was an earthy affair, good-humoured and lecherous. ‘Right answer!’

‘And I’m sure they’d serve coffee in my room.’

Cathy turned up her face to be kissed. ‘Why don’t you hail a cab and let’s find out?’

A
little later, John and Cathy lay tightly held in each other’s arms, their clothes scattered across the large bedroom. Suddenly, John shuddered.

‘What is it, love?’ asked Cathy.

‘I don’t know. It was as though…as though something horrible had happened.’

Cathy sat up and took his head onto her breast. ‘My poor darling. Is it all right now?’

‘It was the strangest feeling,’ John said. ‘As though someone were crying out for help. And I couldn’t get to them.’

I
t was, of course, coincidence that John experienced this shivery feeling at the exact moment that Martin Planer was peeling off his jacket and loosening his tie in preparation for his assault on Alice’s celibacy. It must have been coincidence, because we all know that those things don’t really happen. Nevertheless, it is true that it came to him at exactly the moment of Alice’s greatest need.

Alice stared up at Planer from the sofa. His eyes were the eyes of a crazy man. Hurriedly stripped to his underpants, he had hurled himself upon her, kneeling between her thighs, her skirt pushed up to her waist. His hands reached for the waist band of her panties. She knew that the flimsy garment would not detain him long.

Where did the strength come from? It is not, of course, possible that she received it from an ex-lover thousands of miles away in New York because, as we have said, those things don’t really happen. Be that as it may, strength came from somewhere.

Alice hurled herself upwards, scratching and slapping at Planer’s face. ‘Get
off
me,’ she screamed. ‘You filthy
pig,
get
off
me.’

Planer raised his hand to beat her into submission – and, as the blow was about to fall, the key turned in the lock and Merrill burst into the room, followed closely by Ben and another man in similar uniform.

The two men seized Planer by the shoulders. It took both of them to subdue him, heaving him backwards and slamming him against the wall until the breath was knocked out of him and he sank to the floor. Merrill rushed forward to take the sobbing Alice in her arms.

‘I heard you,’ she gabbled, ‘But I had to get reinforcements. Ben was just coming on duty, so I brought them both. Did he…?’

Alice shook her head. ‘You were just in time,’ she sobbed.

‘The bastard,’ said Merrill. She stood up, seizing the trousers Planer had cast off in his lust-fuelled frenzy. His wallet, stuffed with cards, was in the pocket. Merrill pulled out the driving license and studied it carefully, noting the name and address. She threw it across the room to lie on the floor beside Planer.

‘Do you want to press charges, Miss Stringer?’ asked Ben.

Hugging her slip to her, Alice shook her head. ‘Please. Just get him out of here.’

‘We have your picture on CCTV,’ Ben told Planer. ‘We’ll be printing copies. Make sure you never try to enter this building again.’

Merrill, shaking with fury, scooped up Planer’s clothes and marched onto the terrace. Flinging her arms wide, she hurled them into space.

Planer staggered to his feet. The two doormen closed on him. ‘We’ll see you downstairs, sir,’ said Ben.

Planer was incoherent with rage. He stretched out his arm, pointing at Alice. ‘You’ll pay for this,’ he snarled. ‘You’ll wish you’d never set eyes on me.’

Alice’s thudding heart had returned to some sort of normality. ‘I’ve wished that for ten years,’ she said.

Planer clutched his wallet and turned to the doormen. ‘I can’t go home like this.’

‘We’ll loan you a uniform,’ Ben said. ‘It won’t be a good fit and we’ll expect it back.’

‘Do you imagine I’d keep it? Do you suppose I want people to think I’m a
doorman?’

‘Better that than a rapist,’ said Ben calmly. ‘Shall we go?’