This is all sort of a secret. Adam got me to pack a small suitcase last night, but I don’t know WHERE we’re going. So as we drive down the M20, I keep presuming we’re going to turn off, to some nice country B & B, in a little village near Maidstone or somewhere. Then I see the signs for Ashford INTERNATIONAL.
“Ooh, are we going abroad?”
Adam’s all cagey.
“Maybe.”
“Are we going to Paris?”
“No.”
“Calais?”
“No.”
“Boulogne?”
“No.”
“Am I close?”
He’s smug with pride now.
“Have you got my passport?”
“You’ll just have to wait and see.”
At which point he indicates and turns off for the Channel Tunnel Terminal.
***
“Wow, this is BEAUTIFUL!”
Adam’s booked us a junior suite at the five-star, swanky Le Palais Renoir. It’s in Le Touquet, about an hour’s drive from Calais. We could have done it in less, but the sat nav started us off in the wrong direction and even though my map-reading and linguistic capabilities are about as useful as a chocolate fireguard, because he wouldn’t tell me where we were going, I couldn’t try to help. No matter, we’re here and it’s lovely. The official name of the place is Le Touquet Paris-Plage. A hundred odd years ago, it was, Adam told me on our way up in the lift, Paris by Sea, a classy weekend retreat for the French aristocracy.
“What do you want to do?” I ask, opening my suitcase. “Shall we unpack now or later?”
“Whatever you want. I’m easy.”
Adam checks out the TV. He does that whenever we go on holiday. He checks that there IS a TV, that it works and that there’s a fully functional remote control. He won’t settle until all three are sorted. Woe betide our room shouldn’t even HAVE a television. He’s grumpy as hell, because for him part of the pleasure of being away is watching the box, even if it’s in a language he doesn’t understand.
My tummy is grumbling. I look at my watch. It’s nine o’clock, which means in France it’s ten.
“Do you mind if we go get something to eat. I’m starving and if we don’t go soon the restaurants might all close for the night.”
“Fine by me.”
I abandon my suitcase and have a look in the mirror, assessing my reflection. A touch-up of lipstick won’t hurt. I look around for my bag and find it by what’s sure to be my side of the bed, the left side. Blocking the view of all other contents of my bag when I open it, looking for my Mac twig lipstick, is the gift-wrapped package Jon gave me before I left work, which I’ve plain forgotten all about. I take it out and shake it to my ear, but there’s no noise. I undo the gold bow, part the glossy white wrapping paper to reveal a box. I remove the lid and ignore the card sitting under it, more intrigued by what’s inside. I rip open the thin tissue and the booty stares up at me. Something silky and folded, the colour of candyfloss. It can only be from one person.
“Oh, it’s beautiful Adam. Thank you so much.”
Adam’s distracted by the French version of
Who Wants to be a Millionaire
, but when I hold up what I presume is going to unravel into a scarf and it doesn’t unravel, Adam suddenly becomes interested, diverting his attention from the box to the contents of my right hand.
“Adam. You dark horse. I thought it was a scarf!”
I take the present in both hands, swish it from side to side in front of my hips. It’s a pair of incredibly saucy, sensually silky, slinky, low-cut, pink panties with a delicate black lace trim. They look edible, like a two-toned liquorice allsort.
Adam’s mouth gapes open.
“I didn’t get you those!”
“You didn’t?”
My lower jaw drops.
“You sure?” I ask.
“You think I wouldn’t know?”
Well, who the hell would by me a pair of pink panties then?
“Who’s buying you pink panties, that’s what I want to know?”
Adam looks hot in the face. He beeps at the remote control, turning the telly off. I reach for the box, which I’d cast aside on the dressing table and fish out the small card. The message is short and simple in nice, loopy, arty black-ink handwriting.
Some pink briefs for my Brief!
Happy 30
th
!
SR
I’m taken aback, on two counts. First off, what the hell’s a client doing buying me something as inappropriate as lingerie? Moreover, how to explain to Adam?
Adam gets off his backside and snatches the card from my hand.
“Who’s SR?” he demands tersely.
“Scott Richardson.”
“SCOTT RICHARDSON! What’s he doing buying you these?”
He pulls the panties out of my grip.
“Well, I don’t know.”
“Has he been coming on to you?”
“No.”
A tiny thumb stroke is hardly a come-on.
“Have you been coming on to him?”
“NO!”
“How did he even know it was your birthday?”
I explain about Scott seeing Adam’s birthday card and tantra.com and that he must have put two and two together to come up with an original gift idea that’s probably no big deal to somebody who works in television, as Adam should know.
“So now can we go eat?” I finish.
“Sure, let’s go,” he says.
He agrees, but before we do, he confiscates my present and pops it in the top drawer of his bedside table.
***
Adam and I met in Brighton one weekend, shortly after I’d started university. I was on the pier, which has its very own two-bit radio station, piping through loudspeakers dotted along its length. The DJ was asking for requests. I don’t know what it was, the sound of his voice, witty and laid back, but I found myself on impulse seeking out the studio. He was sitting there, chilled behind his mixing desk with headphones hooked round his neck when I went to ask for Coldplay’s ‘Yellow’. He apologised, said he didn’t have that and asked if he could choose something else instead. I was on the bumper cars when I heard, “this one’s for Alison Kirk”. He’d chosen ‘Walk Like an Egyptian’ by the Bangles. On my way back, I popped my head round his door, asked why he’d played that one. He said there was a touch of Cleopatra about me. I ended up getting in some coffees and helping him out the rest of the afternoon. And that’s, short and simple, how it started.
We reminisced about this and a few other Brighton memories today, as we always seem to whenever we’re by the sea, wherever we are in the world. It’s been a glorious day to turn thirty. A perfect picture postcard weather kind of day. There’s not been a whisper of a cloud to blemish the rich, cornflower-blue sky. The sun’s shone bright and hot, a real result considering we’re still in March. We walked for two hours on the beach this morning, a huge, deep carpet of white-golden sand. We soaked up the sunshine, ambling along, holding hands, stopping from time to time for Adam to skim stones. The best he could manage was a four-jump skim on the water’s surface. I didn’t think that was particularly good, but when I had a go, my stone didn’t kick up even once. It was just swallowed, guzzled by the waves.
Lunch was al fresco at a seafront bistro, down to our T-shirts it was that hot. We shared a huge tureen of mussels, a big bowl of thin chips and a bottle of Perrier, before catching the tail end of the market in the Town Square. All that, followed by a spot of browsing for antiques, has exhausted Adam. He’s lying on our Emperor-size hotel bed, having a snooze. Which gives me the perfect opportunity to take back what is rightfully mine. I tiptoe round to his side of the bed and gingerly pull the top drawer of his bedside table open. The panties are lying there, pretty in pink, daring to be put on. I take them out, checking all the while for any signs of Adam stirring. Mission accomplished, I pad to the bathroom.
I undress to my black camisole, step out of my M & S knickers and into my new panties. I love clothes, I really do. They’re my biggest extravagance, especially shoes. I’ve got at least forty pairs of footwear. Not a patch on Imelda Marcos, but pretty impressive all the same. Anyway, despite spending a fortune on outer garments, I’ve never really been one for underwear. And now that I’ve put on my new panties, I don’t know why. The touch, the sensual feel of them on my skin is a new experience for me. They’re smooth, expensive and deliciously silky. These are no ordinary panties, but a lethal weapon. All the more perilous because you can’t see them coming. I feel sexy and special, excitingly dangerous, powerful and in control. My reflection tells a different story. These knickers are as out of place on my rump as a bacon sandwich in a synagogue. A glamour puss should be modelling them, not someone whose boobs undulate less than still water. I don’t care though. It’s how you feel that matters, and if Adam thinks I’m going to let the next lucky guest of Room 240 have an early birthday present by leaving them in the bedside drawer next to the French Bible, he’s got another thing coming. They’re far too irresistible not to wear, despite their provenance.
“Ali?” pipes a voice from the other room.
Adam must have woken.
“I’m in the bathroom,” I reply.
On reflex I bend to remove the incriminating evidence, but then the new me, the pink panty clad me, decides against it. To hell with Adam and his jealousy, he can like it or lump it. It’s my birthday. I can do what I want. So I catwalk carelessly into the bedroom, head for the wardrobe and start flicking through the small selection of clothes I put in it yesterday, trying to decide what to wear for our big night out. I have no idea whether Adam’s even looking at me or not, my back’s facing him. Then I hear him open his bedside drawer.
“Baby?” he accuses.
“Mmmmmmm?” I reply, pulling out some khaki AllSaints jeans.
“Have you been in my drawer?”
“Mmmmmmmm.”
“Let me see.”
He sounds like a stern schoolmaster.
I turn to face him. He looks me up and down for ages without speaking.
“They’re very, very nice,” he nods approvingly.
“You mean you’re not angry?”
“Very angry,” he says, his face serious, but his eyes twinkling. “You’ve been a bad, bad girl.”
“I know, but it’s my birthday, so I’m allowed. They’re fab, aren’t they?”
He pats my side of the bed.
“Are you going to come here then or what.”
“Or what,” I tease.
Chapter 8
Neeta and I are enjoying a late lunch at the India Club. It’s a gem of a restaurant. Tucked away on the second floor of a decaying hotel on the Strand, it’s a time warp of a place which, I’m pleased to say, not many people know about. All Formica tables, it reminds me of an old veterans club and when you cross the threshold, it feels like you’ve actually stepped into India. The place is scruffy, disorganized and noisy, but that’s all part of its charm. Neeta swears by their curries. I’m having chicken tikka masala and she’s ordered a mutta paneer.
It’s been a busy Monday morning. First off, I had an appointment at the fertility clinic, where I was informed that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with me. I’m ovulating well and my hormone levels are as they should be. A normal, healthy couple, the doctor explained, has a 25% chance of getting pregnant each month. Adam and I might just be rolling unlucky dice. We were told not to panic. Eventually we’d throw a double six.
Then Scott Richardson popped by for a final chat before trial day, this Friday. We discussed what he should wear, tactics for when he takes the stand, how to best give his evidence and not to react to anything Rupert Simons says. Business done, I thanked him for his most thoughtful birthday present. He asked if I was wearing them, with a DEFINITE hint of mild flirtation and innuendo. Which, of course, was politely and most professionally ignored.
“Right,” says Neeta, as the waiter delivers our dishes. “You’ve told me all about the food, the place, the hotel, but you haven’t told me what Adam got you for your birthday.”
Neeta has no idea what thorny ground she’s treading on. My birthday present, whilst absolutely beautiful and incredibly generous, has opened up a whole new can of worms. Adam had made me wait until the evening of my birthday, telling me he had another surprise in store. Once settled in at this romantic bijou restaurant, each with a glass of champagne, he dug his hand into his jacket pocket and pulled out two thick foil-wrapped sticks.
“These are for you,” he said, passing them over.
“Thank you,” I said.
I unwrapped the foil to reveal two carrots, nicely peeled, with the ends cut off. I didn’t know what to say.
“And you brought these all the way from England. Thank you,” I muttered. I like veggies, but not as a thirtieth birthday present.
“That’s not your present,” said Adam. “That’s the clue to what your present is.”
“Right,” I said, relieved.
“So, come on. Guess.”
“Ok, um, well, you’ve got me, um, a cooking course?” I ventured.
“Say what you see,” said Adam. “Say what you see.”