Page 109 of The Island of Lost Girls

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Sara has a whole basket of make-up. And not the cheap stuff. Shiseido. MAC. Urban Decay. Chanel. Dior. None of your Superdrug generics in her basket.

‘It’s sooo much better,’ she says, spraying on some Thierry Mugler. ‘Seriously. You totes need to throw away all that shit you’ve got and start again.’

Gemma feels reluctant to do that. It’s funny the stuff you choose to take when you leave in a hurry. Her life and the things she values boiled down into a single suitcase. She’s been a bit surprised by what she threw in in the ten-minute pack after her mum went off to work.

Things she’s forgotten: Knickers. Toothbrush. The sort of loungewear the other girls hang about in when they’re not working (this place isn’t the paradise of babydolls men fantasise about).

Things she left out deliberately: family photos. Her iPhone (she’ll get a burner when she gets a chance to go out). Her house keys.

She eyes Sara’s make-up and wonders how she’s ever going to catch up. Most of that stuff costs twenty quid a pop, at least. Anything of that sort that’s in her own collection came into it via birthdays, or slipping it into pockets as she walked through department stores. ‘That’s pretty spenny,’ she says, doubtfully.

‘Oh, lord,’ says Sara, ‘What else is there to spend it on?’

Yes, but. She has the £200 from the party the other night – doesn’t seem so much after what she ended up doing for it – in her purse and that’s it. Julia is going to get her set up with a bank account, but it’ll be empty when she gets it.

‘I’m going to have to do a lot more parties,’ she says.

Sara laughs. ‘Yeah, don’t think that’ll be a problem,’ she says. ‘Oh, and now you’ve stopped being such a bloody priss, you’ll find the money goes up, proper.’

‘Really?’ Her heart does a little thud.

‘God, yeah,’ says Sara. ‘I clear a grand a party easy, even with deductions.’

‘Deductions?’

‘Yeah. You know. Agency fees and tax and National Insurance and that.’

‘Tax and … ?’

‘It’s okay,’ says Sara. ‘They keep on top of all that for you. Nobody ever asks what you’re up to, as long as your tax is paid and you’re up to date with your NI.’

Tax and National Insurance. It all feels so grown-up. She only got a number a few months ago.

Sara drops her merino leggings and steps into a little black thong. A dinky little pink pom-pom decorates the junction of the hip strap and the bit that snakes between her buttocks. Rabbit fur. It’s good because it squashes flat under your dress but springs straight back into shape when you take it off. She’s going out to dinner tonight. City bankers, entertaining their Chicago counterparts. Gemma won’t be getting those sorts of gigs until she’s passed her table-manners tests and been judged elegant.

‘You are going to have such a good time, once you’re up and running,’ says Sara. ‘You’ll be able to buy literally anything you want. Once, you know, you move on from just the parties. I mean they’re good for practice, but they’re really just auditions, those. It’s the weekenders where the money really gets going. And the weeks are unbelievable. Oh, my God. You know there’s Saudis who think fifty grand is chump change? I’m going to be able to buy a flat cash-down by this time next year.’

‘Really?’ Gemma feels weirdly small, bewildered. She’s twenty-four hours out from home and the world is big and scary. And full of promise. Oh, lord, the promise. They’ve never lived, she thinks. My mum and dad. They have literally no idea.

‘I was thinking Vauxhall,’ says Sara breezily. ‘One of those blocks going up by the Thames. Oh, my God, the views.’