Free Helga's Web by Jon Cleary Page B

are you doing out this way? Mending fences or whatever you politicians call it?”
    “Hello, Louise.” Louise County was a thin sword of a woman, every side of her a cutting edge. He knew there had been a time, long before he had moved up into her circle, when she had been one of Sydney’s leading amateur whores; as a girl of eighteen she was rumoured to have ruined an entire school Rugby team on the eve of a Great Public Schools final and gone out the next day and cheered on the other side, whom she had accommodated that night. But now she was respectable and had once played hostess to Billy Graham. Helidon did not know her well, but he had met her several times at Norma’s charity functions. He knew that she and Norma hated each other with all the smiling, cheek-kissing hatred of rival society queens; and for once he was now on Norma’s side. “No, this is private business.”
    He backed off and escaped into the side street. God, that had been close! How would it have been if he had bumped into her right outside the entrance to Helga’s block of flats? Private business, indeed. If Louise had guessed why he was there, it would not have been private for long. He knew her type: reformed whores always made the worst gossips. As he climbed the stairs to Helga’s flat he found himself sweating again. He waited on the landing outside till he had cooled down.
    Helga was waiting for him as he let himself in with his key. No matter what time he came on Mondays and Thursdays she was always there waiting for him, with never a complaint that he might be late. He assumed that patience must be one of the major differences between a mistress and a wife; Norma looked upon punctuality as one of her conjugal rights. Helga kissed him, wrapping him in her arms and the musky smell of the perfume that was his favourite. He sometimes wondered if she wore it on the other days of the week, but he had never asked her about it. His life with her never went outside Monday or Thursday.
    They went to bed at once, the pick-me-up he needed, and later she made him his favourite gin-and-tonic and brought it to him in bed. She sat naked on the side of the bed and looked at him with fond amusement.
    “My own Cabinet Minister. Did you ever think, darling,
    when you first started coming to see me that you would one day be where you are?” Yes, he had, but he was not going to tell her that. He knew that his ambitious outlook was now being held against him in certain places, that it was starting to tarnish his image.
    “You do sweat, don’t you?” She had brought a towel with her and was lazily wiping his face and chest.
    “Til sweat if ever anyone finds out I’m coming here.” Without his glasses he looked older than his forty-six years. He had a bland, sleek-cheeked face, but there was a tiredness about the eyes that aged him. There was no grey in his sandy-coloured hair, but it was thinning along the front temples and he had to comb it carefully these days. He had once been a keen surfer and still had broad, powerful shoulders, but the rest of him was running to plumpness. He would think twice about sitting around naked as Helga did. He drew the sheet a little higher on his chest, making the pretense of using it as a coaster for his ice-cold glass. He sipped his drink and bent his head forward as she straightened his mussed-up hair with her fingers. “Maybe we should adopt some of the Japanese customs, now we’re trying to be friends with Asia. No one there would take any notice if a politician had a geisha
    girl.”
    “I’m not your geisha, darling,” she said, still smiling at him. “They are much too—what’s the word?—servile?”
    He smiled back at her. He always felt so at ease with this girl; she really knew how to make a man feel at home. But then home had never been like this: sex at five o’clock in the afternoon, gin-and-tonic brought to him in bed, Norma sitting naked on the side of the bed. At five every afternoon Norma was