Hunter strolled up the Portobello Road after leaving Elaine, looking for peace of mind and possibly a trinket, something to offer himself as a consolation gift. He was angry, and he needed space to cool down.
He browsed absentmindedly for a while, and finally paid a tenner for a miniature American silver trotting cart to join the collection of silver ornaments he housed in a breakfront cabinet in his drawingroom. He needed to find another woman, and a bit sharpish, to drive Elaine out of his mind.
His stomach began to rumble as he pondered, and he remembered that he had eaten nothing but a veal roll and a couple of custard tarts since breakfast. He could snack on a salad at a rooftop cafe half way up the market, and perhaps food might nourish inspiration.
The cafe was bathed in sunshine, bright with multicoloured umbrellas shading white metal tables and chairs, and humming with conversation. Hunter waited for a couple to vacate a table, made himself comfortable, and ordered a salad.
‘On your own, dear?’ A rather camp teenage waiter in a teeshirt and very tight jeans appeared, and looked down at him a little disapprovingly. ‘We're rather busy this afternoon, being Saturday and all that.’
He mopped Hunter's table in a way that made it plain he considered a single luncher at a table for three most wasteful. Hunter feigned deafness. The waiter sniffed, and flounced off to return with a big wooden bowl brimming with lettuce chopped up with green and black olives, feta cheese, garlic and torn coriander, with a massive slice of home-baked bread on a plate, and shook his head reproachfully. He returned a moment later with two girls in tow.
‘Can't have you sitting all by yourself, dearie. I've brought you a couple of nice young ladies for company.’
Hunter got to his feet politely in greeting, and the two girls dimpled. They looked to be foreigners, possibly Scandinavians. Both had blue-grey eyes, but one was rather plain and sensible in a blue denim sun dress, with a broad flat face and flaxen hair in plaits, whilst the other was an elf, and as pretty as a picture, with ashblonde hair pinned up in little bunches, dressed in a white summer frock sprigged with a wide band of small roses just above the hemline. Hunter caught his breath. Perhaps heaven was about to answer his prayers.
He made hopeful eyes at the elf, and both girls beamed. He judged this a little disconcerting, because he was already thinking of charming the elf and ditching her flat-faced companion. But bridges must be built before they can be crossed, so he expansively commanded another two bowls of salad.
The waiter beamed approvingly, and the two girls introduced themselves as visiting Swedes.
‘We were here to see the sights, your monuments and so forth.’ The flat-faced girl enunciated her words carefully. She had the precise, serious manner of a schoolteacher.
‘We have heard London is a good time.’ The elf twinkled brightly.
‘But we find it rather dull.’ The flat-faced girl frowned. ‘Nothing is near our hotel.’
Hunter licks his lips wolfishly, thinking of Nash. ‘Do you like nightclubs?’
‘Nightclubs?’ The word had a magic effect. The two girls quivered suddenly, and opened their eyes wide, staring at him as though he had suddenly set off a bomb under their chairs. ‘Nightclubs?’ Their voices climbed sharply, and both grew taut with excitement. The elf clapped her hands together. ‘Is it to be big nightclubs?’
Hunter beamed expansively. He had a feeling that he had struck gold, massively. He nodded. ‘A big, big nightclub. Very big. I've been invited by the guy who owns it.’
‘Very big?’ The two girls chorussed the word, and both laughed out loud. ‘Really very big?’ They looked at each other, and now they were both bouncing up and down in their seats.
Then the flat-faced girl hesitated. ‘Expensive nightclub?’
‘It'll be free.’
‘Free, quite free?’
Hunter nodded.
‘And you will take us both?’
He winced.
‘Oh, but you must.’ The flat-faced girl looked at him pleadingly. ‘We will make your nightclub quite come alive. We will be mad, mad Swedish nightclub girls, and we will make everyone most happy.’
The elf clasped her hands together. ‘Please, we were best friends. Take us both together, and we will be bad, bad nightclub girls, the very best.’
Hunter pictured Elaine arriving as the poor end of a foursome, and rejoiced.
Both Swedish girls were now holding onto him, and their excitement brooked no refusal.
‘We will striptease like you have never seen striptease.’ The elf pressed his hand.
‘We will excite you like you have never been excited.’ The flat-faced girl now had a tigerish look in her blue-grey eyes.
Hunter laughed. ‘I’ll take you both.’
The two girls looked at each, and laughed, and suddenly they launched into what sounded like the chorus of a rollicking Swedish drinking song.
The hum of conversation around them stilled, and for a moment the rest of the cafe was quiet, rapt in astonishment and amazement. Hunter took refuge in an embarrassed grin.
The chorus ended, the two girls beamed at each other, and for a moment all was silent. A group of teenagers two tables away burst into a round of applause, and a huddle of lunchers at the far end of the roof launched a ragged attempt on Waltzing Matilda. But they lacked the Swedish girls' drive and petered out lamely.
Hunter blushed. He had a feeling that he must now foster a little calm. Two mad, bad Swedish girls plus Elaine in a Clio Williams might well prove a major road safety hazard. He decided to ferry them back to their hotel when they had finished eating to change and cool off. Maybe the elf would invite him up to her room.
He smiled. ‘I'll take you back to your hotel when you're ready.’
‘Now?’ The flat-faced girl looked at her watch. ‘It is not yet three o'clock.’
‘But you'll want to change.’
‘We can see sights first.’ The elf was very decided. ‘Then you take us to your house, and we have preview. Then we go to nightclub in anything, and we take off nearly all our dresses. It will get all men very excited.’
The flat-faced girl rolled her eyes, and began to unzip her denim dress, plainly intending to give a practical demonstration. Hunter caught her wrist and pushed her hand away in alarm.
‘Calm down. You can do all that later.’
The two girls sipped coffee moodily. Then the elf looked up brightly. ‘Will we also have many mens?’
Hunter swallowed. Many mens formed no part of his programme, not for the elf anyway. But he nodded guardedly, because he wanted no further trouble.
‘And much, much drink?’ The flat-faced girl now looked less and less like a schoolteacher.
Hunter beamed at her. ‘Much, much drink.’
‘We will drink together?’
‘We will drink.’ He had a vision of her staggering away into the shadows, and it was not a displeasing prospect.
‘Together?’ Her large flat hand hovered over her zip.
He nodded weakly.
‘I shall drink you into the cellar.’ Her voice held the certainty of experience.
Hunter signalled to the waiter and held up a twenty pound note. He had a feeling that he had taken his first steps along an uncharted road that might well lead to problems.
Four hours later he had circled Trafalgar Square three times, explored the Strand, the Law Courts, and Fleet Street, forayed out as far as Canary Wharf, and waited for the two girls to snap pictures of Nelson's Column, the London Eye, St. Pauls, the space age architecture of Docklands, The Tower, and any number of lesser attractions between.
However Hella and Birgitta, the elf and her flat-faced best friend, seemed to possess boundless energy. They wanted to see more, and more, and more, and Hunter only finally succeeded in tempting them back to his flat by investing in a litre of best scotch.
The flat was empty. He quickly rinsed three glasses and poured two generous measures, with a smaller tot for himself.
The two girls drank, and held a short animated discussion in Swedish. Then they both set off out of Hunter's kitchen with purposeful looks on their faces, and marched into his drawingroom. Another burst of Swedish, and they marched on into his bedroom, to start peering into cupboards.
Hunter watched in alarm as Birgitta held up one of Elaine's dresses.
‘Is wife?’ Suddenly all her jolliness had melted, and she was wholly stern.
Hunter shook his head. ‘Girlfriend.’
Sternness was not assuaged. ‘She know you bring other girls?’
Both girls watched him intently.
‘She was going.’
‘To the nightclub?’
‘No, she’s leaving.’ Hunter avoided their eyes. Women were ganging up on him, and he had no shield.
‘Ah-hah.’ Hella was now more like an angry sprite than an elf. ‘You want her to go, and you invite us here as push?’
Hunter swallowed. It was a nice idea, but they were heading in a dodgy direction.
The two girls looked at each other, and shared another burst of Swedish, and then stared at him.
‘We will wait and look at her.’ Birgitta started back towards the kitchen. ‘Maybe we will like her better than you, and beat you up.’
Hunter looked at them both in alarm. Now his goldmine seemed to be fast turning into a leadmine.
Suddenly Hella beamed. ‘She means only maybe.’ She stopped beside Hunter and reached up to stroke the side of his face. ‘Perhaps we will all be friends, and we will play four in a bed, and then go mad in your nightclub.’
Birgitta was already pouring more scotch into two glasses. She shook her head as Hunter held out his hand.
‘No, Richard, not for you. You must drive us to nightclub.’
She stopped as a bell rang from the front door of the flat. ‘I think now we look at your friend, your going out friend. Then we see if we beat you.’
Elaine was laden heavily with shopping bags, ingredients for an extra-special pre-nightclub reconciliation dinner. She might be on the ropes, but she had not abandoned hope entirely. She pushed a bag at Hunter as he opened the door.
‘Here's some marc, and some more booze, to make up for what I drank.’ Her face was a picture of repentant contrition. Then her jaw dropped as she spied two strange female faces watching her from the kitchen doorway. She stepped back a little. ‘Has the party started already?’ Her voice hovered midway between curiosity and suspicion.
Hella beamed at her. ‘He pick us up in a cafe, invite us to nightclub.’
Birgitta's eyes narrowed. ‘You were girlfriend? Is girlfriend?’
‘Er, yes.’ Elaine pushed past them into Hunter's kitchen. ‘You're both coming?’ She was mentally trying to calculate whether the food she had bought would feed four, rather than two, and beginning to think that she did not really want to feed anyone at all. She looked round for Hunter, but he had vanished.
‘We go, all four.’ Hella rushed after her, poured another generous scotch, and pressed it into her hand. ‘Maybe on all fours, no?’
Elaine pulled out a chair and sat wearily. She had had a fraught day. She sipped the scotch, and decided that the newcomers might not be so bad after all.
‘We will all be good friends.’ Hella began to unpack Elaine's bags, arranging packages in neat rows on the kitchen table. She fired a burst of Swedish at Birgitta, and they both studied the packages with great interest.
‘It was for eating before nightclub?’ Hella waved at the table.
‘Er, yes.’ Elaine was still doubtful.
‘Good, we will cook, because you look tired.’ Another burst of Swedish. Birgitta nodded approvingly.
‘I'm not sure if there's enough.’
‘We will make it enough.’ Hella was very decided. ‘You have pork, we will make pastry. Birgitta, my friend, is very good in pastry. It will make much filling.’
Birgitta flexed a meaty bicep. ‘I am good beater, too. You want me to beat up your man?’
‘Richard?’ Elaine wondered if the whisky had gone to her head. ‘Why?’
‘He tells us you were going out girlfriend. He think we push you out.’
Elaine stared into blue-grey eyes, and saw nothing but candour and sympathy. A metal hammer began to beat inside her head, and her hangover returned, and she felt nothing but pain. She took a large swallow of scotch. ‘He told you that?’
Two blonde Swedish heads nodded in unison.
All of a sudden it was all too much. Elaine put her glass down carefully, sniffed, buried her head in her hands, and burst into tears.
Hella and Birgitta watched her for a moment, exchanged a quickfire burst of Swedish, and began to busy themselves unpacking packages, making coffee, and preparing vegetables.
After a little while Elaine's sobs lessened, fading into a flurry of sad little sniffs. Hella placed a cup of black coffee by her hand, and she smiled tearfully.
‘I’m sorry.’ She sniffed as she sipped. ‘I suppose you both think I'm a fool.’
Two blonde heads shook in vigorous disagreement. ‘He is rotter.’ Birgitta flexed her muscles again. ‘I think he hide. I go kill him if you like.’ She had a fierce look in her eyes that made her threat wholly believable.
‘Don't do that.’ Elaine looked alarmed. ‘It's his flat.’
‘Is yours too?’
‘No, just his.’ Elaine felt a sudden urge to pour out all her troubles to these strangers. But she was tired, and her head ached, and what would be the use. She could weep, and weep, and weep, but all the weeping in the world would gain her nothing. She had been a fool, and wasted her time, and that must be that. She drank more coffee, and sighed. ‘I invited myself to live here, because I thought I was the right woman for him. But I don't think I am. He doesn't want to settle down. Not with me, anyway.’
Her voice trailed away on a note of bitterness. She would have liked to tell these two girls of all her hopes, and dreams, and plans. But broken hopes were dead hopes, and coffins were best left closed.
Hella and Birgitta were silent for a moment, their silence making a bond. Then Hella perked up. She fired a fresh burst of Swedish at her companion, and Birgitta began to busy herself with flour and butter in a large bowl. For a moment they focussed on preparing a meal, then Hella paused.
‘Do we feed him?’ She gestured at the kitchen door and Hunter, hiding somewhere beyond.
‘Yes.’ Elaine shrugged wearily. ‘Why not?’
‘But you hate him.’
‘No, I don't hate him.’ Elaine's voice was little more than a whisper. ‘I just misjudged him.’
‘Wrong man?’
‘Yes, wrong man.’ She half smiled. ‘Maybe I'm the wrong woman.’
‘Bad man?’
‘No, not really.’ Elaine remembered Hunter's help with the two Americans, and shook her head. She could not call him bad. A lowdown, cheating, conniving skunk, perhaps. But not bad.
‘Okay to go to nightclub?’
‘Why not? He's the taxi driver.’
‘Okay.’ Hella dusted off her hands, and marches to the kitchen door. ‘I go find him, call him rotten bastard, tell him he only eats to take us to nightclub.’ She paused. ‘We could take belt, hold him on ground, beat him first, if you like. Englishmen like that.’
Elaine shook her head. Perhaps, at another time, with a better head, she might have enjoyed watching Hunter writhe in pain. But not now.
Birgitta stopped pounding her pastry dough to listen. She had a fierce look in her eyes again, and something a bit more than fierceness. ‘We could make him cry, and then make him please us, all three, and beat him again if he was no good.’ She licked her lips. ‘It might be good, four of us together.’
‘No.’ Elaine shook her head firmly. ‘Thank you, but no.’ Sex was the last thing she needed at the moment, and multilateral sex least of all. She rubbed her forehead with the tips of her fingers. ‘I'll go and have a bath. Perhaps that will make me feel better. Then I suppose I better start thinking of packing. I'll have to try and find somewhere else to stay.’
She thought of her sister on an estate in Slough, an hour from the Portobello Road market by bus and train, and the prospect of commuting filled her with dread. Perhaps she would meet somebody at Jim's club. Anybody, as long as they have a kind streak, lived somewhere decent north of the river, and liked their food. She smiled ruefully to herself. Desperation was a lonely emotion. Perhaps she would meet a lonely man, and start again.
Hella found Hunter playing with his silver toys in his drawingroom. He watched her warily as she pushed the door open and they inspected each other carefully, keeping a safe distance between them.
‘Your friend was crying.’ Hella's voice was very matter-of-fact.
Hunter shrugged.
‘You were rotten bastard.’
Hunter sighed. ‘I've been trying to get rid of her for ages. She moved in, she wouldn't move out again.’
‘You don't love her.’ Hella's matter-of-fact tone was both conclusion, and ending.
Hunter nodded wearily. ‘She was good in bed, she was a good cook.’
‘Just that?’ Now Hella was appraising.
‘Just that.’
She took a cautious second step into the room. ‘You want nothing more from woman?’
Hunter shrugged again, but now he was watching her closely. Something in this elf's body language suggested that she had more on her mind than sympathy.
He closed the door on his silver collection and turned to stand facing her. ‘I like going out, and parties. She wanted to get married, and have babies.’
‘You like party girls.’
This was both statement and question. Hunter grinned.
‘Pretty party girls.’
Hella advanced again, until she was almost close enough to him to touch. ‘Like me?’ Now her voice was arch.
Hunter reached out, but she had already skipped away. He licked his lips, and realised that his mouth was suddenly very dry. ‘I can't see enough of you to tell.’
Hella frowned, as though this was a totally unexpected remark. ‘Ahh, you want to see.’ For a moment she continued to frown, as though considering a tricky decision. Then she lifted her arms and slowly, quite slowly, began to unfasten her dress at the back.
Hunter watched, mesmerised.
She smiled, and reached down to gather her dress about her, and straightened again slowly, pulling it up over her head to drop it tidily onto his sofa. Then she smiled again, standing facing him in her bra and panties, and Hunter stared, because she was perfectly formed, and she was desire made flesh.
He reached out a hand to touch her, placing it gently on her shoulder, and she shivered a little.
‘Be kind to me.’ Her voice was very soft.
He placed a second hand on her, pulling her gently towards him, and her mouth opened under his. But she did not move, except for her tongue curling delicately under his, and it was almost as though she were asleep on her feet. He curved his hands down her shoulder blades, cupping them under her breasts, and began to work on her nipples with his thumbs, and he could feel them swelling and hardening, and then her hands were unfastening his belt, and loosening his slacks, and pushing his slacks and underpants down, so that they fell to the carpet, and he was rampant, and pressing hard against her, and they were both writhing against each other. But they were also awkward, and Hunter's sofa was only a step away, and they hobbled to it, locked together, to drive their passion to mutual consummation. Afterwards, they lay close together, still entwined.
‘It was good.’ Hella spoke dreamily, smiling up at Hunter. ‘I will tell Birgitta.’
Hunter twitched.
‘We are best friends, we share these things.’
Hunter began to disentangle himself, and her eyes clouded over.
‘You don't have to go yet.’ She looked at her watch quickly. ‘Now her turn.’
Hunter was already retrieving his underpants. A man faced with a physical challenge must conserve his strength, and he in no way under-estimated Hella's flat-faced companion.
He was still dressing when the door opened. Birgitta beamed at him, and exchanged a sharp burst of Swedish with her companion. Then she beamed again.
‘She say you were good.’
Hunter smiled modestly.
‘My turn next.’
Hunter's jaw dropped, but Birgitta was already advancing on him purposefully. She plainly had a minute or two to spare, and knew just how she wanted to use them.
Hunter backed away. ‘What about Elaine?’
‘Your friend is in the bath.’
Now he was pinned up against his silver cabinet, and Birgitta had a most determined look in her eyes. She began to unfasten her denim dress, and Hunter realised that he was trapped. He swallowed, and sighed, and raised his hands to caress her as he waited for fate to enfold him. He was not unwilling, in fact his spirit was very keen. But he was less sure that his body would match up to Birgitta's expectations so soon after comforting her friend.
The door opened again. Elaine was swathed in a large white bathrobe. She stared at Hunter pinned against his silver cabinet by one Swede, with another lying naked on his sofa watching with interest, and backed quickly out into his hallway.
Hunter profited from her interruption to duck under Birgitta's advancing arms and sidestep quickly.
‘I think we better keep your turn for a little later.’ He smiled at Birgitta, kissing her quickly, to show he had no ill feelings, and retrieved his slacks. ‘Why don't we all have something to eat, and then go nightclubbing? The night is young. We've got a lot of partying to do.’