Page 106 of The Island of Lost Girls

37

She’s retouching her lipstick in the bathroom when Sara comes in and stands beside her. Gets out her mascara and starts painting her lashes.

Gemma smiles. Sara grimaces back, her eye on her make-up. ‘How you getting on?’ she asks.

‘Okay,’ says Gemma. ‘You?’

‘Good,’ says Sara.

‘I had to come in here to get away from that Maurice,’ she says. ‘He’s kind of … handsy, isn’t he?’

Sara looks surprised. ‘He likes you,’ she says.

‘Yeah, but … ’

Sara puts the mascara brush back in the bottle. Props her bum against the sink and looks Gemma up and down.

‘He’s really powerful,’ she says. ‘He’s a proper mogul.’

‘Yeah, but that doesn’t give him the right to … ’

Sara blinks. Folds her arms.

‘You know we’re not just here for decoration, right?’ she asks.

Gemma frowns. As it goes, that was exactly what she’d thought they were there for.

Sara heaves an impatient sigh. ‘Gem, just a heads-up. You’re going to have to start putting out at some point.’

‘Putting … ’

Sara blinks again and clicks Gemma’s jaw closed with a manicured finger.

Gemma feels a little twinge of panic.

‘He … ?’

She can’t be serious. Maurice is huge, and ancient. And sweaty. His jowls hang down so far they vanish into his collar. She can’t imagine he’s seen his cock in decades.

Sara nods.

‘I … ’

She turns back to the mirror. Gets a Chanel lipstick in deep mulberry from her little jewelled clutch and starts painting herself.

We’re not real models, thinks Gemma. How on earth did I not work that out?

She stares at Sara. Creamy, medieval skin and a shiny tumble of auburn hair falling across the décolletage of her copper lace mini-dress. A Botticelli Venus, freed from the half-shell. A fantasy girl. My God, she thinks, as she casts her mind’s eye over the other Julia Beech models. There’s one of each of us, isn’t there? They’ve done us up so the men have a full range to pick from. How did I not realise?

‘I’m just saying,’ she says. ‘I mean, nobody’s forcing anyone. This isn’t slavery. But they’ve put a lot of money into you and they’re going to want to see a return at some point or you’ll get dropped. How long’s she been bringing you along to things? Like, a month? Are you seriously going to just milk it and not put out?’

Gemma realises that her mouth is open again. She swallows. Sara straightens up and laughs at her. ‘Oh, honey,’ she says. ‘You didn’t really think all these billionaires wanted you around for your sparkling wit, did you?’

Gemma gulps.

‘They’ve got wives for that. If you want to be a wife, go train to be a lawyer or a banker or an art historian. Go to finishing school. That’s the sort who goes to the banquets and gets presented to the queen. You’ve got, what – four GCSEs, did I hear that right?’

Gemma blushes. She still hasn’t got used to her failure, neither the result nor the rows that followed. Her mother is, like, ‘You’ve let yourself down, Gemma,’ and Patrick did what he always does and wrote her a letter. Didn’t give her a hug and a never mind. He wrote her a letter. Her friends are back at school and she’s all alone now. If it weren’t for this – for this secret world she clutches close to herself, soothing and consoling her with its promise as her parents communicate her worthlessness – her life would be unbearable.