Free The Blue Guide by Carrie Williams Page B

reminded myself, after him.
    Just as I was getting into bed, my phone beeped. I checked the screen: number withheld. I clicked on the message icon and read the text:
    ENJOY TOMORROW. WILL BE THINKING OF YOU. SEE YOU SOON, AND THANKS FOR A GREAT DAY. P X.
    Unable to resist a smile, I lay back, let my unbelted kimono fall open and, clutching my pussy with one hand, tapped a message back with the other.
    THINKING OF YOU TOO. SEE YOU WHEN? A X.
    Now, fifteen hours later, he still hasn’t replied. Carlotta’s standing in front of me, blue eyes looking washed out and more than a little jaded with life. I’m shocked to find how easy it is to face up to her, now she’s here, given what I’ve done. She looks so young, so unworldly – in spite of the glamour-puss get-up – as if she inhabits a planet where people don’t go behind each other’s backs, don’t keep secrets from one another.
    â€˜How about a little retail therapy?’ I say with a cheery smile. ‘Paco said you love shopping.’
    She shrugs, lights a cigarette. I think of a sulky schoolgirl, the sixth-form rebel, the one always caught behind the bike shed with the boys. There’s something so intrinsically naughty about Carlotta, somehow coexisting with that unworldly air. Or maybe not. Maybe what Paco told me about their first fuck on the clifftop is giving me preconceptions. After all, what chance did this little thing have against the force of his will? Maybe she’s just been caught up in the wake of this human whirlwind. I wonder if she’s got any idea what she’s taken on.
    â€˜I was sorry to hear about the audition,’ I say in the taxi on the way to Selfridges. ‘It must be difficult.’
    â€˜What difficult?’ She’s staring out of the window, but there’s suddenly a combative look in those eyes.
    I hesitate, but it’s too late, and she’s onto me, turning in her seat and fixing with me her penetrating blue glare.
    â€˜It must be difficult to be failure when Paco so big success, no?’
    I look out of the window in turn; there’s nothing to be said to that. If that’s the frame of mind she’s in, though, I’m not standing for it, money or no money. We’ll do a quick tour of the designer floor and then I’ll drop her back at the hotel and she can wallow in self-pity to her heart’s content. I’m a tour guide, not a nanny to a moody child.
    We’ve pulled up at the side of Selfridges, and I lead Carlotta through the high-street clothes department with its throbbing rock soundtrack, and through the beauty hall and perfumery, to the lifts. On the second floor we get out and begin to make our way through the designer clothes concessions.
    I may not be wealthy but I pride myself on having a bit of an eye for labels, and on sussing out what people might like, and when I lead Carlotta straight to Versace, I sense her thawing a bit. She’s in her element here, and has soon amassed a pile of outfits to take through into the changing room. I sit down in a leather chair by the till to wait for her. Twenty minutes later she’s out and grabbing more clothes off the rails. It’s going to be a long afternoon.
    An hour later, her bank account a few thousand pounds lighter, Carlotta asks where the lingerie department is, and we take the escalator up to the next floor. She’s definitely cheered up; in fact, she’s positively bubbling now, all thoughts of her stillborn career erased from her mind by the adrenalin rush of spendingsomeone else’s money. Her enthusiasm is contagious, and soon I’m joining her in flipping through the rails, secretly marvelling at the prices some people are prepared to pay for a transparent sliver of fabric with which to barely cover their Hollywoods.
    â€˜What you think?’ she calls over to me at one point, holding up a baby-pink bra and matching knickers in wispy fabric. They look like