|  Lorraine switched her mobile ring tone to meeting mode, then changed her mind and put it back on normal (Holding Out for a Hero by Bonnie Tyler – a bit cheesy, maybe, but it never failed to get her pumped up). The phone, a special edition Vertu Azure, was given to her by a grateful Kuwaiti client. You had to be careful accepting gifts like that. Nothing corrupt about it of course, but a woman in Marbella, however well-connected, has to be tad careful of her, well, reputation.
The Marbella Club’s beach bar was crowded, but Paco had managed to make Lorraine’s normal table available. She assessed the crowd: maybe 30% local, 70% guiri. Value of past deals: around €11m. Potential: maybe another €5m. This was a little private game she liked to play – “valuing the human-space”, she called it. Of course, she should be working the room, but tonight’s meeting was too important for distractions. This was the hottest part of the Andalusian summer day – around 6 pm, when every centimetre of dry earth was radiating back the heat it had absorbed during the day. Lorraine checked her phone. The temperature in north London was 16 degrees. That was another little Lorraine game. Twenty years ago she would have been collapsing into a chair in some dingy West End wine bar having spent the day trying to persuade some no-hoper teacher or accountant to stump up 70 grand for a one-bedroom flat in Camden Town. Paco set her fresh Bellini on the table with exaggerated reverence. This was a bit more like it. Camden Town, 16 degrees, drizzle, nights drawing in. Of course, well-meaning friends and colleagues had tried to lure her back. “Spain is so over, darling. The London market is the most exciting in the world. And Coco would love it…” She thought of the €20m palace above the hills at Mijas she was negotiating for a Russian client, and said to herself: “You can keep your townhouses in Knightsbridge and the brigade of Rodneys and Carolines buying and selling them. All that matters here is determination and contacts, not which school you went to or which merchant bank the father of your sprogs works for.” Paco was back, quietly easing the chair next to her away from the table. “Your guest is here, signorina.” Coco sat down. She was wearing cut-off denim shorts, tights and a black T-shirt with the word DESPAIR scrawled in blood-red writing across it. Lorraine held back a sigh and clamped her sunglasses tighter to her nose. “Darling, do sit in the sun,” said Lorraine. “It’s a lovely evening.” Coco pursed her maroon-painted lips. “A lovely evening for skin cancer,” she replied. Coco refused her mother’s offer of champagne, so Lorraine went straight into Formal Mode: “You have brought the prospectuses, one assumes.” “Mother, don’t treat me like one of your clients. Chill. I’ve read them.” “And you’ve spoken to your father?” “He’s going to call from Dubai or Bahrain or wherever Fatima wants him to take her.” “And?” “And I don’t want to go to sixth-form in Madrid, or Switzerland, or Monte Carlo.” This was agony. “Then may I see your rival offer?” Lorraine asked impatiently. Coco rummaged in her canvas bag and retrieved a brochure. She laid it on the table: Camden School for Girls, it proclaimed. Lorraine turned her head towards the emptying beach and the darkening Mediterranean. “Come on, Mum,” said Coco. “It’d be cool. London’s the most exciting place in the world…” EB |