The Club(55)

‘Go on then, let’s hear it.’

‘You two,’ said Annie, ‘are going to kill Ned Groom tonight. And I’m going to tell you how to get away with it.’





Nikki

When she had met him, Ron Cox would have been within a decade of the age Nikki was now. He had seemed not just older, back then, but someone from another era. She would never have encountered a man like that, were it not for Home.

Nikki had not quite been able to believe her luck when she landed the job there.

It used to impress people when she told them she was a model – it had been a plus for her in her interview with Ned, she was sure – but despite what the scout had said, what the agency had promised her, even after wearing out the soles of her Converse traipsing across London to castings, she was still no closer to making any actual money from it. Quite the reverse, in fact: she was still in debt to the agency for her portfolio and test shots, sleeping on the sofas of friends of friends, borrowing money here and there, asking the agency to sub her travelcard. And she certainly wasn’t going to skulk home and ask her mother for money – not that there ever was any anyway.

Then she had seen the job at Home advertised in the back of the Evening Standard, a dog-eared copy she’d picked up and flicked through on the tube – a few shifts a week on the coat check, two pounds an hour plus tips; no minimum wage in those days, of course – phoned up about it and been asked in for a chat that afternoon. It hadn’t been a long one. Ned had sized her up, decided she looked the part and told her to start at 5 p.m.

That very first night she made about seventy pounds in tips. Someone left a fiver. Someone left a tenner. The second night she worked there a man left a twenty, with his phone number scribbled on the back. She used it to buy some flowers and a packet of Marlboro Lights for the person whose couch she was crashing on. That Saturday night someone left a fifty, and it was the most money she’d ever had in her purse at any one time.

‘Anyone gets a bit handsy, anyone creeps you out, it’s important you let me know,’ Ned had told her. ‘I’ll watch them for you.’

For the most part, what had surprised her was how nice everyone was. How patient members seemed those first few nights when she was finding her feet, as she asked them to describe for the second or third time their coat, their bag. And it was exciting. To see a band whose music you liked all come bounding up the stairs in their pork-pie hats, their parkas, their V-neck T-shirts. To see an actor from TV. To be talked to and smiled at by people at all, as opposed to being a model and just standing there in the corner of the room in your knickers and no bra while people talked about you at full volume.

Nikki had been working at Home for a fortnight, the first time Ron came in. She’d already heard from the girls she worked with that he was a regular, staying in a Home suite whenever he was in town alone (his wife preferred Claridge’s when they travelled together). He was . . . unexpected. Charming. ‘Twinkly’ is probably the word she’d use now. She had remarked on his Yankees baseball cap as he stuffed it into his coat pocket before handing it over. Said she’d like to go to New York one day, hoped she might get booked for a shoot or a show there, laughed that she’d have to ask Ned for time off. He told her that he’d been out for dinner at The Ivy with his wife, Marianne, that she’d gone back to the hotel and left him to the nightcap that Ned had invited him out for.

He had leaned in a little closer, pointedly lowered his voice.

‘I think to tell the truth he wants me to invest in somewhere like this in Manhattan. What do you think? Good idea?’

Flustered, Nikki had confessed she had never actually eaten or drunk here.

‘My God!’ Ron had exclaimed, all but clutching his head. ‘Do you mean to tell me that this beautiful young lady is kept in a cupboard all night like Cinderella, without ever getting fed? What kind of monster is Ned Groom? Now just you tell me, young lady, what time do you get off tonight? Because I want to treat you to dinner, and I want you to tell me – honestly now – what you think of it . . .’

And that was how, still somewhat flustered, at the end of her eight-hour shift, Nikki had found herself sitting at a corner table in The Dining Room with Ron Cox and her boss. Ron was nursing a crystal tumbler of whisky and she sipped an Archers and lemonade – Nikki winced at the memory now, but she hadn’t had a clue what she should order – while Ron told her all about his life, anecdote after anecdote, all of them hilarious, all of them (looking back) extremely well polished and rehearsed.

It was one of those occasions when it’s clear nobody can work out why you’re the one getting special treatment. She chose something from the middle of the menu – not the cheapest, definitely not the most expensive – politely polishing off the well-done steak and praising it enthusiastically. Ron had announced with a wink that in that case he should definitely think about investing in this Manhattan Home. Ned had seen someone across the room who needed his attention, gave her an unreadable look, and excused himself.

She and Ron had ended up talking until three in the morning, that first night. His tone was genial, his charm seemed genuine. It was flattering, intoxicating even, to think that a man who had directed films – at all, let alone films everyone had seen, that even her mother would have heard of – was the man sitting across from you at the table, who had asked you to be there, who cared what you thought. She kept saying she should leave, he kept asking her what – or who – she needed to get back to. She asked if his wife would be waiting up, annoyed when he got back so late.