All that Glitters, page 2
‘Here we are,’ she announced.
‘Are you sure?’ asked Chloe, clutching her Mulberry handbag tighter and glancing around.
Isabel pressed a buzzer and a voice rang out from the intercom.
‘Yes?’
‘In the club,’ Isabel said.
The door buzzed open.
As Chloe entered she heard a voice calling out behind her, ‘Excuse me, we met briefly, I’m Piper …’ Her accent was American, the tone warm.
Chloe turned to see the girl from matriculation who had kindly helped her out when she’d lost her place. The girl had an open, friendly face and Chloe took an instant liking to her. She tried to hold open the door but it was too late, Isabel had forged on ahead, grabbing Chloe’s arm and ushering her excitedly into the venue. The door slammed shut before Piper could enter.
Though it was only early evening the lights in The Club were already dimmed. The room looked like the inside of a high-class hooker’s boudoir: opulent, smoky, unkempt. Through the hazy darkness, the girls took in the nicotine-stained, velvet-upholstered sofas lining the walls and the long, mirrored, antique-looking table in the corner, piled high with liquor, wine and champagne bottles. A chain-smoking barman in a white vest and braces was pouring drinks for the bustling crowd gathered near him. At the other end of the room an old man sat at a shabby, but clearly once grand, piano. He turned his head as they entered.
Chloe stared at him and he parted his lips into a toothless grin. Then he turned back to his instrument and began to play. Stooped over the keys like the hunchback of Notre Dame, his nimble fingers worked a set of 1950’s jazz hits with an electrifying fire and intensity.
Isabel ran into the centre of the room to dance. As she moved, her hair swirled around her face and her long limbs swayed. It was as if she were alone with the pianist. She twirled and spun, gradually increasing her speed. But she never lost control. By now she had the attention of the entire room, who noticed first her dancing then did a double take upon seeing her face. Young men began to break to away from the bar area and edge closer. Some moved to the sofas and watched from there. Two hipster girls tossed their messy hair and whispered comments about irritating attention seekers, but they too were mesmerized.
Then, as suddenly as it had started, the music stopped. Isabel continued to dance, spinning faster and faster, gathering speed with each turn. When eventually she stopped she surveyed the crowd blankly. Every onlooker seemed to exhale simultaneously as they applauded.
Chloe had shrunk back shyly and now stared at her strange new friend with barely concealed astonishment from the edge of the room. She glanced around, noticing that apart from the old man at the piano, they were all students – either that or the club had a strict scruffy jeans, T-shirt and five o’clock stubble policy.
She heard a quiet but assured male voice at her side.
‘Chloe Constance, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, it is.’ She turned, giggling nervously. ‘Have we met?’
‘No, but I think we’re in the same college, although I’m in my final year. I’m William, or Will, if you prefer. So do we have your grandfather to thank for the college cathedral?’ He looked into her eyes in an interested rather than flirtatious way. Chloe was grateful to him for looking at her and not Isabel.
‘Oh.’ She blushed. ‘That wasn’t my grandfather; that was my great-grandfather. Probably the only reason they let somebody as dopey as me into the university.’
‘Don’t do that,’ Will said.
‘Do what?’
‘Don’t sell yourself short. I’m sure you’re very accomplished.’
‘Chloe, come and have something to drink,’ Isabel called from across the room where she now sat surrounded by a group of young men, one of whom was pouring the contents of a bottle of Moët into her glass. ‘Bring your friend,’ she added.
‘Shall we join her?’ Will asked, striding over to Isabel’s table before Chloe could reply.
Her heart sank as she saw how little persuading he needed.
‘Just off to the loo,’ she murmured to Isabel when she reached the table, and slipped off towards a side door. By the time she returned, Isabel and Will were deep in conversation. Next to Isabel’s expertly dishevelled radiance he looked like a preppy head boy who didn’t quite have the authority he craved. But he had something, Chloe decided. He was tall with even features and the floppy hair that she kind of liked. But it wasn’t really that. It was his manner. He was so attentive. She rejoined the group and he turned to include her.
‘So I was giving Isabel the low-down, seeing as you two both appear to have missed out on freshers’ week.’
‘I know, it’s such a shame; it all sounds so fun. Unfortunately I had to be in Wiltshire for a family anniversary. Isabel, where did you say you were?’
‘Oh, I – I just wasn’t around,’ Isabel said. ‘Where is your accent from, Isabel?’ asked Will.
‘I’m Bolivian. But my family are citizens of the world.’ Isabel averted her eyes, gazing at a far away point beyond his head.
‘That sounds glamorous. I’m from Hampshire, not far from where the Constances’ li—’ He faltered.
Chloe smiled. She knew her family was known in certain circles. She couldn’t escape that.
‘Back to the low-down,’ William said. ‘Half my school came here so I’ve known most of this lot for ever.’ He gestured at the others at the table and around the room.
Isabel followed his gaze. ‘Was floppy hair on the curriculum at your school?’ she said disdainfully.
William laughed. ‘Not at all. Just wait till you meet my friend Ol. He’s a fresher too.’
‘Ol? Why? What’s so special about him?’
‘He’s just one of those annoying people in life. You know … effortlessly successful.’ Will smiled. ‘They say his parents sent him to Eton just to get him out of Nigeria and save the country’s economy. He’s so handsome he was disrupting business at the major bank his family owns there. The place became like Madame Tussauds, with girls queuing up around the block, just wanting to touch him to see if he was real. Women can’t resist him and he can’t resist them.’
Chloe laughed and rolled her eyes. He sounded arrogant. And most definitely not her type. Isabel looked thoughtful.
‘What college is he at?’
‘When he gets here, he’ll join Chloe and me at Hambley. He arrives tomorrow. But don’t you worry, I’m sure you girls’ll know about it. He’s in the habit of making himself known to gorgeous women.’
Chloe flushed.
Will added slyly, ‘I mean, the flash bastard had his father’s Picassos up on his dormitory wall when the rest of us had sensible things like posters of naked girls.’ He glanced at Isabel in the hope she’d disapprove of such ostentation, but she was still lost in thought.
Tipsy and euphoric with the first thrill of student life, Chloe gladly accepted a lemon meringue vodka shot from a round being offered at random by somebody mad, merry and, most importantly, male. She’d spent her entire education in a series of progressively stricter Catholic girls’ schools; now all she could think was boys, boys, glorious boys. Looking around at all these tousled geniuses destined for great things, she felt like little Charlie walking into Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. The shot-wielding guy rushed off, balancing the final shot on his nose while doing the limbo over to his friends. They cheered as he caught it just before it fell, downing it with a flourish.
The Club became busier and busier as the evening progressed, everybody chatting and mingling until late into the night. At the call of last orders, Chloe stumbled to the bar and ordered another bottle of champagne.
‘I have to go,’ Isabel announced as soon as Chloe returned with the ice bucket and bottle.
‘OK, I’ll come with you.
‘Let me walk you back,’ Chloe and Will said at the same time.
As they made to leave The Club, Chloe bit her lip. Thinking of the homeless man they’d seen hanging around outside, she reached for the bottle of champagne.
He was still loitering by the door where he’d taken up residence. ‘This is for you,’ she said, handing it to him, slightly at arm’s length. He snatched the bottle and Chloe ran to catch up with Isabel and Will.
As they staggered in the direction of Hambley College, they passed freshers throwing up, groups of girls in fancy dress and boys dressed in black tie buying food from a kebab van.
Will swung an arm around each girl, threw his head back and began singing. His ever so proper, almost operatic singing voice was absurd belting out Nelly Furtado’s hit song, “Try”, and the girls collapsed in laughter. But Will thought he also felt Isabel flinching. As though the song took her somewhere she didn’t want to be. Or was it just the sound of his voice?
‘Which college are you at, Isabel?’ he asked, reluctantly realizing he needed to get her home.
Isabel seemed too preoccupied to hear him. She was looking intently at two figures approaching from the other side of the road – a casually dressed teenage guy and a peculiar-looking older man. With his wild mane of white hair, full beard, pointy nose and tiny shorts, he looked like a skinny Santa Claus crossed with an elf. He spotted her and stared back.
‘That’s Professor Crayson,’ whispered Will. ‘He looks like a sex offender but he’s actually an unparalleled world expert in economics. That’s Oxford for you, huh!’
They continued back towards the centre of town, strolling companionably under the night sky, until Isabel unhooked William’s arm from around her shoulders.
‘I want to explore,’ she announced. And with that she was off, sauntering into the darkness.
Chapter 2
The helicopter landed on Hambley College front quad at 3.15 p.m. in the afternoon.
‘What’s going on here?’ The college porter – an Oxford staple never seen without bowler hat or grumpy expression – was not impressed. He threw open the gate to his lodge overlooking the college grounds and ran towards the gleaming aircraft. He pushed his way through the gathering crowd. For a long time nothing happened. Then the helicopter door slid open and a flight of stairs emerged onto the manicured lawn. The jostling crowd fell silent as a handsome black man stepped out of the aircraft.
Some Hollywood actor come to speak at the Union? The enraged porter found his voice.
‘What do you think you’re doing, sir?’
‘I’m here to enrol. I’m a fresher.’ He raised his eyebrows in surprise and smiled warmly, a slight dimple forming in his cheek.
The porter was disarmed. He didn’t want to like this fellow. And he wasn’t American after all – his accent was more Establishment than that young British royal who’d graduated last year. The porter had long become used to posh voices around college, but he’d never grown to like them. And this? Well, he’d never seen anything like this.
‘Who the devil are you?’
Another smile.
‘The name’s Osaloni. Olu Osaloni.’
‘Do come in, girls.’ Professor Crayson held open his door and beckoned his two tutees inside. He ushered them onto a battered but comfortable old sofa in the reception room of his modest residence. It doubled as a library and study. The aged brown carpet could barely be made out beneath metre high stacks of dog-eared manuscripts. Bookshelves lined the walls, where textbooks and set texts jostled for space with Nobel Prize winners.
Isabel Suarez-Octavio and her tutorial partner, Piper Kenton, watched him, stifling grimaces as he pulled up the top of his corduroy slacks, stretching the material so tight that they could make out the exact shape and size of what lay underneath.
‘Economics,’ he began, pulling out his latest critically acclaimed book on micro-econometric theory and its applications. He licked his lips and resumed. ‘The result of twenty years of research and described by The Economist as the greatest achievement in the history of the world. Anyway, I digress.’ He put down the book in pride of place on his desk and wiped a speck of dust from its cover, before removing his glasses, wiping them for a painstakingly long time and popping them back on the end of his pointy nose.
Isabel and Piper held their breath expectantly.
‘Now,’ he continued, ‘I’d like to put yesterday’s debate into a more understandable context. Mildred, can you try to summarize what was concluded in that discussion?’ He pushed his spectacles higher on his nose and blinked at Piper.
She shot Isabel a confused look. Isabel shrugged.
‘It’s Piper. Piper Kenton.’
‘Oh, so it is, so it is. Well, carry on.’
‘Well,’ Piper scrabbled for a second, trying to find the most succinct way to express herself. She had been greatly inspired by the previous tutorial, despite Professor Crayson’s clear lack of interest in his students. She knew he would rather be locked in his study coming up with new theories and writing award-winning books, but she admired him nonetheless and was desperately keen to impress him. ‘Well, I believe—’
‘Do get on with it, please; we only have an hour for this tutorial. Why so much dithering?’ He peered, not unkindly, at her and drummed his long fingers on his desk.
‘I’m sorry!’ Piper said, willing herself not to cry, which only made her do just that. She wiped a tear from her eye and stared unseeingly down at the frayed bit on the knee of her bleached jeans.
‘Oh dear,’ sighed Professor Crayson. ‘You people. You’re … you’re just not rational. How you expect to even pass let alone do well in economics beats me. Conchita, can you try to better Mildred’s attempt?’
Isabel ignored his confusion of her name. ‘Your assertions at the last tutorial were fundamentally flawed,’ she announced.
Professor Crayson stopped drumming. He leaned forward in his seat and studied Isabel very carefully. ‘That’s a bold statement. Why do you say that?’
‘Because your entire argument was that the girl in the story had built her fortune out of nothing. You talked continuously about the economics of making something out of nothing when in fact she did not start with nothing. She was blessed with bountiful assets, from her quick judgement, to the way she looked, to her ability to attract people to herself. Perhaps a better way to describe the process of her rise is to look at it as a conversion – a conversion of her assets into power and money. Or a monetisation. A monetisation of her significant assets, not her nothing.’
‘Hmm, well, it’s not a conversion, as that would imply one thing becoming another, when those alternative “assets” you’ve just described would remain, regardless of her accumulation of financial assets.’ He began rocking back and forth in his seat, his whiskery moustache twitching happily.
‘I’m not sure about that,’ said Isabel. ‘I felt that the more she converted her assets, the less potent they became. The assets were underpinned by her spontaneity, energy, lack of self-regard and lack of fear of loss – all of which were eroded by the money.’
‘Questionable, but you’ve taken a novel approach. I must say I noticed that last week too …’
They continued debating for most of the tutorial, Professor Crayson increasingly enjoying Isabel’s nerve and conviction, while Piper kept tight-lipped, dabbing her moist eyes with a tissue as she slowly regained her composure.
When the tutorial came to an end, Professor Crayson stood and held open the door to his study.
‘The essay to be written and debated next week is: “No Economy is Free”.’
Piper nodded and rushed out, silently berating herself for crying and shooting an evil look at Isabel. Isabel went to follow her out.
‘Isabel,’ Professor Crayson said.
Isabel stopped. ‘Yes, Professor?’
His white whiskers twitched again. ‘You will become one of the great women of your generation.’
Chapter 3
Chloe looked herself up and down in the old mirror she had propped up in the corner. Her dark and sparsely furnished room overlooked the front quad and she had just witnessed Ol’s helicopter entrance. His arrival was hardly low-key and she was determined to avoid him at any cost. He was appallingly flash. Dreadful. She couldn’t stop thinking about what an arrogant idiot he was as she cast a critical eye over her reflection.
Chloe supposed her long blonde hair was OK, but that was about it. Ever since her mother had told her, aged seven, that she was never going to be a ‘notable’ beauty, she had hated her round face and curvy figure, and wished her twinkly blue eyes were bigger. Her mother’s misguided attempts at comfort were hardly helpful.
‘You’ll be fine, though, darling,’ she had said. ‘Most of the great courtesans of the past and women who married into staggering, multi-generational wealth were rarely particularly beautiful. They simply knew how to make a man feel good about himself. The great looks came afterwards. After all, who could fail to look a million dollars with millions of dollars?’
At the time, Chloe had been too young to be repelled by her mother’s sentiments. As she wiped strawberry jam from her chin and watched George Michael frolicking in fur-trimmed boots for his “Last Christmas” video, all that her chubby, seven-year-old self had thought was, if George Michael would only marry me I’d be a freaking beauty queen! With that she had kicked off, at a perilously young age, a tendency to fall for entirely inappropriate men.
She picked up her mascara wand and coated her top lashes, first on their underside and then again on their upper side, and wondered if Isabel would re-emerge at the famous Oxford Union, where she was about to go and see a formal debate. It was on the advice of Will, himself a past president of the Union. She dreaded debates and was terrible at debating, if her school reports were anything to go by: ‘Chloe’s style is passionate and unusual, but she must now learn to include fact in her argument. She must develop the beginnings of logical thinking. We also recommend a psychological assessment with the school doctor.’
One of the motions she’d argued was supposed to have been: ‘This house believes rising rates of interest can benefit society’. It wasn’t her fault she’d misheard and substituted ‘incest’ for ‘interest’. She sighed at the memory. But Will had won her over by regaling her with stories of personalities and celebrities, from the late Michael Jackson to Judi Dench, who had spoken at the Union, so she had decided she ought to at least see one debate.
