Pillow Talk - Freya North

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nose is just out of joint because Charlton didn’t select you,’ Gina chided.

      ‘More like Eric’s dick is out of joint because Charlton turned down his crown jewels,’ Kitty said.

      ‘I didn’t offer him my body,’ Eric objected, ‘only my work. I don’t fancy him anyway – he’s not my type. He’s too big and swarthy and I don’t like his accent.’

      ‘You Southern poof,’ Kitty teased him.

      ‘Charlton Squire sounds like the love child of Jimmy Nail and Molly Sugden,’ Eric said. ‘I only understand every other word.’

      ‘You snob,’ said Kitty.

      ‘And he looks like their love child too,’ Eric said.

      ‘You bitch,’ said Kitty. ‘Meow.’

      Charlton Squire did not look like the love child of Jimmy Nail and Molly Sugden, in fact he looked quite unlike anybody. He certainly did not resemble either parent; his mother a whippet-wizened Yorkshire lass, his father a solid Geordie. At nearing six foot five and eighteen stone, Charlton looked more like an oversized cliché, alarmingly like a tribute act for the leather-clad chap from the Village People; a look which hadn’t gone down well in his home town of Stokesley but had gone down a storm when he hit the gay scene in London twenty years ago. He’d ditched the thick moustache in his forties and had more recently relaxed the tightness of the top-to-toe leather and the amount of chest on public view. But he still came across as textbook gay and he used it to his advantage, whatever the sexuality of his clients. He’d charm the straight ones, flirt with the gay ones and inhibit anyone pursuing a discount by wielding his weight alongside a winsome expression of abject hurt if they dared ask.

      Though Charlton Squire’s own designs were coveted worldwide, his secondary skill was as a scout. He could swoop down on promising talents and quickly appropriate them as his protégés, as if their genius was of his making and that he alone was responsible for tapping into their potential. Though ruthlessly ambitious, he liked to exude an air of benevolent altruism and eagerly promoted himself as a philanthropic patron and mentor. He still loved designing jewellery but he also loved the showmanship of owning his galleries. He had neither the time nor the inclination to physically make up his own pieces any more and so as well as having bench-workers in the workshop behind the gallery in Hatton Garden, he also sent out his designs to skilled jewellers he trusted. Petra Flint being one of them. She didn’t mind. She didn’t find it demeaning and it didn’t take her away from her own designs; she used her out-work from Charlton as a way of keeping her current account healthy and honing her dexterity as a jeweller – something she believed could always be more and more finely tuned.

      What Petra loved most about Hatton Garden was its history and its honesty. It wasn’t as chic or salubrious as the West End but there was a definite sense of it being the genuine hub of her industry. The retailers in Knightsbridge, in Regent Street, lower New Bond Street and South Molton Street were simply trading the wares which could be mostly traced back to the Hatton Garden area anyway. She knew some young jewellers who had studios in Hackney, in Kensal Rise, but though she paid a little more for the privilege of renting studio space in London’s true jewellery quarter, it was money well spent for the buzz and the impetus it gave her. She loved the naffness of some of the shops; the lack of pretension of window displays haphazard on faded flower paper or frayed velvet boxes or cracked plastic cushions; she enjoyed the delusions of grandeur of others – from the geographically schizophrenic Beverley Hills London to the blingtastic Go for Gold with its windows stuffed full of solid gold chains thick enough to hoist anchor. She liked the way that the modern and ultra-chic could coexist quite happily with the old-fashioned and low key. R. Holt, with its frontage resembling a hardware store in need of a dust nevertheless nodded proudly at Nicholas James opposite, all uber-hip and with a minimalist take on window design. Cool Diamonds believed in the lure of its name alone in lieu of any window display while Petra’s personal favourite, A. R. Ullman, was endearingly Dickensian in the higgledy-piggledy jam-packedness of its diminutive shopfront. As she walked to Charlton’s, she browsed; said hullo to familiar faces, detoured via the Wyndham Centre to enquire about reflexology for sleep disorders. Kitty, Gina and Eric had sent her there for her birthday last December, booking her a crystal healing with chakra balancing session. She’d felt well and truly stoned afterwards.

      When she was buzzed in at the Charlton Squire Gallery, the eponymous owner, in all his enormous campness, was locked in discussion with a young Hasidic Jew whom Petra recognized as Yitzhak Levy, from a family of renowned diamond dealers. Charlton stood a head and shoulders taller than Yitzhak and compared with the latter’s paleness, Charlton looked positively orange. But whatever Yitzhak lacked in physical stature, his magnificent hat and beautifully tonged sideburn ringlets gave him gravitas. From Charlton’s leather trousers and contour-skimming silken shirt the colour of midnight, to Yitzhak’s eighteenth-century Polish dignitary’s dress, the men epitomized the theatricality, the tolerance, the unique and unchanged trading mores of Hatton Garden. Petra knew what would happen next. There’d be gesticulations, perhaps some banging of fists and the throwing up of arms and then shrugs and nodding and handshakes. The diamond merchant dug into his overcoat pocket and produced the stone which Charlton exchanged for a wad of banknotes. More handshaking. Shalom. Kol tov. Deal done for the day. The men turned and noted Petra. Charlton swaggered over, cupped her face in his hands and kissed her forehead. Yitzhak nodded amiably enough but kept physical space at a premium.

      ‘He buys my diamonds,’ Yitzhak shrugged, ‘but none of his good money will buy your tanzanite, hey, Miss Flint?’

      Petra shook her head vehemently.

      ‘And if I give you top dollar for it – will you trade with me?’

      Petra shook her head again and shrugged. ‘It’s not for sale, Mr Levy.’

      ‘It’s only for keeping in a cotton hanky under her mattress,’ Charlton said, exasperated, ‘isn’t that right, Pet?’ He often called her Pet, it being a common endearment in the North-East as much as a convenient diminutive of her name.

      ‘I’ve brought your pendant back,’ Petra said, because her tanzanite was not for sale, not even for discussion.

      ‘May I?’ Yitzhak asked and Charlton handed the piece to him. ‘Very nice,’ he said. ‘A bit heathen for my liking. You ever thought of designing a nice Star of David range, Mr Squire?’

      ‘Most my clients are goyim,’ Charlton bantered back, the Yiddish for ‘non-Jew’ coming as easily as a second language.

      Yitzhak shrugged. ‘If you make them – they will sell.’

      Charlton nodded. ‘You’re probably right. Now bugger off and flog your diamonds elsewhere.’

      The men laughed and shook hands again. Yitzhak nodded at Petra and left.

      Charlton scrutinized her work in silence. He compared it in minute detail with his design and analysed the craftsmanship under a loupe.

      ‘Excellent,’ he said at length. ‘Do you want cash or have it as a credit against commission?’

      ‘Has any of my stuff sold?’ Petra asked him though she could see her work displayed beautifully in a well-lit cabinet.

      ‘Not this week, Pet.’

      ‘I’d better have the cash then, if that’s all right with you.’

      ‘Planning to go crazy at the weekend?’

      ‘Hardly,’ Petra said. ‘I’m off to see my parents.’

      ‘Are you taking the boyfriend?’

      ‘I am,’ she said proudly.

      ‘He’ll be down on bended knee in front of your pa, Pet.’

      ‘Don’t be daft,’ Petra said, though privately she thrilled to the notion.

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