Free Virtue by Serena Mackesy

Shahin loves it here. Thinks it’s hilarious. ‘Best job I ever freakin’ had,’ he says. ‘But I don’t understand this spotted deek. Are all this airheads crazy, or what?’
    ‘And I see you girls are back in trouble again,’ Roy’s voice drones on. He’s obviously not drawn breath since I went downstairs. Maybe I should have stayed down there.
    ‘Not in trouble. It’s nothing we’ve done,’ Harriet says wearily, finishing with the ashtrays and rolling her eyes in my direction. It’s pretty clear that this isn’t going to be a good night. I’m exhausted already. I love her, but a night up with Harriet is the equivalent of an Airtours flight to the Caribbean. Well, not as boring, perhaps, and posher, and usually the plumbing holds out for the entire night, but apart from that, it’s close-on the same. That familiar not-quite-there feeling hovers over my cotton wool-wrapped brain and each limb feels like it’s got an exercise weight strapped to it. Jet lag. Why did I have to get a friend who gives me jet lag?
    ‘Yeah, but your mum’s back in the limelight again.’ Roy isn’t giving up. I really wish Shahin had never let on about our backgrounds.
    ‘Don’t start,’ says Harriet.
    But he does anyway. ‘What beats me,’ he starts, ‘is how someone with your background, all your advantages, has ended up where you have.’
    ‘I said,’ says Harriet, ‘don’t start, Roy.’
    The phone rings. Harriet plunges onto it. ‘Good evening, Chelsea Ladies’ College?’ She listens. ‘Yes, of course. You’re the nine-thirty party, yes? Name of Michael? Sure. Has he been a very naughty boy? How naughty? Well, obviously I can give him a good whacking, but for very naughty boys there’s the blancmange option as well. Only ten pounds. Of course. What time would you like it? Well, I’d suggest we do it pretty soon after you arrive. It’ll break the ice.’
    Roy hurries out to the back to tell Shahin that he needs to put a blancmange on.
    ‘No,’ says Harriet. ‘I’m afraid we’d have trouble with our licence if the serving staff stripped. It’s to do with the fact that we’re all dressed as schoolgirls. But I’ll tell you what we can do. We have an arrangement with an agency. We can get a schoolmistress to come in and do that for you if you like …’
    I look at my watch. Forty-five minutes before curtain up.

Chapter Seven
Education, Education, Education
    There’s always a bit of a lull on the food front around ten o’clock; we like to let them polish off their sausages and mash before we put on the show, and try to hold back the puds until afterward. It cuts down on food fights. Shahin, in the kitchen overseeing a vat of sultana-studded semolina, peruses the pictures of Godiva’s purple-rinse fans gathered at the gates of Belhaven in the Sparkle and says, ‘Jesus H. Christ. You grow up in this house?’
    Harriet, polishing the dishwasher stains off the Arcoroc, nods nonchalantly. ‘Holy sheet,’ says Shahin. ‘What’s it like living somewhere like that? You been there?’ he adds to me.
    ‘Yes.’ I used to go down and stay there during the vacations after my grades dropped at university and Grace started sending the heavies round to give me talkings-to.
    ‘So what’s it like?’ he asks again. Like most of the Persians I’ve met, he’s fascinated by the details of other people’s wealth.
    ‘Not that great. Mostly ghosts and dodging sightseers, and interminable stand-up drinks with the local hunt. And spending thousands of pounds on microfibre longjohns.’
    Shahin stirs the semolina, has a taste. I can feel him wishing for rosewater. ‘Longjohns? What is longjohns?’
    ‘Those long thin trousers you wear under your trousers.’
    ‘Oh. So was cold, then?’
    ‘Yes.’ I finish separating eggs for the next batch of the two gallons of custard the restaurant gets through each evening, and glance guiltily at Harriet. Slagging Belhaven off is her birthright, after all, not mine.