Faith - Lesley Pearse [141]
‘Don’t you realize what a treasure he is?’ Jackie asked sharply.
‘I realize I can’t go anywhere, do anything because of him. It’s easy for you to moon over him when you’ve only got him around you for a week or so, you only see the good part,’ Laura snapped back.
‘So where do you want to go, what do you want to do?’ Jackie asked tartly.
‘To be wined and dined, to stay in luxury hotels and wear fabulous clothes. I want fun and men adoring me. I want to be as rich as you are.’
‘That is so shallow, Laura,’ Jackie exclaimed. ‘Stuart said that was how you’d become, but I didn’t believe him. Yet it’s true, all you’ve talked about since I got here is money, clothes and your hair and nails. What’s happened to you?’
‘You can talk,’ Laura threw back. ‘Sitting there with half a pound of gold on your wrists, an Ozzie Clark dress and that sports car outside! You’ve got everything – a wealthy husband, a business worth a fortune, even this place too for when you feel like slumming it.’
‘But I haven’t got a child,’ Jackie said, revealing that was what she really wanted. ‘And if I had to choose between all the material things and a baby, I’d choose a baby any day, even if I had to live in a council flat.’
‘Oh yeah,’ Laura mocked. ‘Like you know anything about life in a council flat. You were born with the proverbial silver spoon. It’s the easiest thing in the world to get a baby, and the hardest thing of all to bring them up, especially when you’ve got no money.’
‘What happened between you and that man from the casino to make you change so much?’ Jackie asked, her eyes glittering with unshed tears. ‘Okay, so we both used to dream of being stinking rich, we used men and did things that perhaps we shouldn’t have. But you loved Stuart, you were good together; what made you throw all that away?’
Laura had known that sooner or later Jackie would question her about that. She tried to think of a good excuse, but there wasn’t one.
‘I didn’t want to throw it all away. I never intended to do anything with Robbie but he took me to lunch and one thing led to another. It was a big mistake.’ Laura’s voice began to rise in agitation. ‘I thought he was going to help me get a really good job, but it was all hot air.’
‘Was it him who got you to do the pin-up pictures?’
Laura was very drunk, but at Jackie’s question she suddenly felt sober and afraid. ‘Yes, it was if you must know. And what’s wrong with it?’
‘Nothing if they are all like the one Stuart showed me. But are they, Laura? That was an old magazine he showed me. Have you progressed to something more hardcore now?’
‘Of course I haven’t,’ Laura said indignantly, but she was scared that Jackie might know that wasn’t true. Robbie had always said the pornographic pictures were sold abroad, but he might have been lying. ‘Why would you think that?’
‘Well, it was a bit of a shock to both of us. You looked very sexy and lovely, but pin-ups are a bit old-hat now, and let’s face it, Laura, page three girls are usually about eighteen, not over thirty.’
The last thing Laura wanted was to be reminded she was too old for real modelling. She also hated the idea that Jackie and Stuart had been looking at the picture together and discussing what it might lead to. ‘Pardon me if I used the only assets I had to make some money,’ she said with heavy sarcasm. ‘You could go running home to Mummy and Daddy if you were left in the lurch with a four-year-old. I wasn’t that lucky.’
‘When are you going to realize that having Barney is the luckiest thing in the world?’ Jackie asked.
‘Bollocks!’ Laura shouted at her. ‘You make it sound like motherhood is some kind of privilege. It isn’t, it’s like having a ball and chain around your ankle.’
‘Then I’d give everything I’ve got to have a ball and chain,’ Jackie said.
∗
That evening all Laura had really been aware of was that Jackie was suspicious about her modelling. Laura was on the defensive and what she’d said about motherhood wasn’t how she really felt, just a spur of the moment