Free Sugar Mummy by Simon Brooke Page A

here.
    Marion looks at me again, more closely this time, but then she
says, 'We'll get you some summer suits. Take that off. Let's go. I'm getting a headache.'
    The assistant helps me off with it, saying nothing. Yes, Iwould
have liked to earn you some commission too, mate, but the lady with the cash is
obviously not bothered - either that or I'm just not very good at this sort of thing.
    We leave and Marion stomps off to another shop. There is one
rail of black clothes in the middle of the shop. The rest is white limestone. A
Japanese girl steps forward as Marion works her way down one end of the rack and
I mooch around by the front door, enjoying the air conditioning.
    'Hi, can I help you?' says the assistant in a tiny voice.
    Marion ignores her so she turns to me.
    'Just looking, thanks,' I say smiling. She smiles back, a fixed,
bored smile. Suddenly I decide that I need some fresh air. I tell Marion that I
am just stepping outside.
    'Oh, OK,' she says. 'But don't go far, I don't want to be here
too long.' I see the assistant exchange a glance with her colleague - offended or
relieved?
    Despite the heat it feels good to get outside. Two Japanese girls
with Chanel bags walk past me, as if they were carrying Sainsbury's plastic carriers.
I walk down the street and then turn into Knightsbridge. People on the top decks
of the buses gaze down at me or point things out to their uncomprehending children.
I tell myself that this is better than work. It is ten to three on a Monday afternoon.
Normally the street is out of bounds to ordinary working people like me at this
time of day. What, I wonder, are all these people doing? Don't they have jobs to
go to?
    As I look across to the Hyde Park Hotel I see a tall, darkhaired
guy in a leather jacket and jeans walk out of the front door and slowly down the
steps. He stops to light a cigarette and as he takes a drag, he looks up and sees
me. After a moment's recognition he smiles, waves and hops across the street, playing
matador with the cars. It's Mark from the Claridges do.
    'Hey!' He shakes my hand firmly. 'How are you?'
    'I'm OK. How are you?'
    'Good. You have fun the other night?'
    'Erm, not really.'
    "Orrible, wasn't it? I really hate that place. Still, you
got her to Knightsbridge, then?'
    I got her? He obviously doesn't know Marion. 'She wanted to do
some shopping.'
    'For you?' he says, as much suggesting as asking.
    I remember my clumsy attempt to interest Marion in an Armani
jacket for me. What must that assistant have thought? A kept man? Well, they probably
get them all the time but I'm just a rather crap example of the species.
    'Yeah, yeah, we've just been to Armani,' I say casually.
    'Very nice,' he says looking around for a bag.
    I consider making up some story about the chauffeur taking it
or yelling 'oh my god, it's been miked', but then decide to come clean.
    'She didn't like the jacket I tried.'
    Mark laughs at my pathetic failure. I realise he would probably
have had half the shop if he wanted it.
    'You've got to lead them to it subtly. Embarrass her into it.
She wants you to look good because it makes her look good, right? So you make sure
you look scruffy until she buys you something new and then wear it a few times and
then find something else old and scruffy so that she has to buy you something else
new. No problem.'
    'If you say so.'
    'Tried Harvey Nics?' I shake my head.
    'Take her to the men's department downstairs. Clown around a
bit. Pick up some stuff. Ask her what she thinks, what she likes. You're here to
entertain her, don't forget.' I laugh but he says, 'No, really, you've got to lead
her by the nose but make her think she's in charge.'
    'Easier said than done,' I say, but nod.
    I ask what he's been doing at the Hyde Park Hotel. He glances
down the street and then looks down at the pavement, tapping some imaginary ash
off his cigarette.
    'Oh, yeah. Just visiting someone. Another American,' he says,
looking past me at the shop windows and then taking