The contemporary courtesans, part one How to make a luxury living by pleasing men

Press, 19 July 1989, Page 14

The contemporary courtesans, part one How to make a luxury living by pleasing men

The new courtesans work and play hard to earn their luxurious lifestyle. DUO writer Josephine Fairley looks at the women who know how to get what they bargain for.

Pamella Bordes and I have a great deal in common. We both own Chanel suits, and have travelled to exotic, balmy locations to drink vintage champagne at the invitation — and the expense — of fabulously wealthy men. The difference between us, however, is that Pamella is a courtesan and I — despite being offered the opportunity to embrace that role on at least a dozen occasions — could never bring myself to Do the Deed. Courtesans, I can reveal, are alive and well and languishing at some of the most exclusive addresses in London. And Paris and New York, and on the Cote d’Azur, come to that. They nonchalantly sit chatting intelligently to media magnates, play the perfectly-groomed hostess at sumptuous dinner parties, and quaff Cristal at Henley and Ascot. Most people would never spot them in a million years — as anyone of Pamella’s less intimate acquaintances (and I gather there are still a few) can probably attest. The only reason I nurtured suspicions about Pam was because I once spent three years observing courtesans at close range. Then I was the occasional travelling companion to a French flatmate whose beauty, wit and charm kept our fridge stocked with vintage Krug, our mantel groaning with orchids, and prompted rich and influential men to throw

air tickets at her like so much confetti. Often, they would send an extra ticket to bring a friend along, a playmate to keep Veronique (name changed to protect the guilty) amused while they wheeled and dealed from ship-to-shore phone on board the yacht, or merely as an addition to the coterie of acolytes with which these men inevitably surround themselves. So, while my other friends were weekending beneath grey London drizzle, Veronique and I would be sitting — or more precisely lounging — in St Tropez, Sardinia, or maybe Monte Carlo. Occasionally, I would be “invited” to join some paunchy plutocrat in the jacuzzi, or it might be suggested that I’d like “to get to know Mr X a little better,” but these overtures were deftly rebuffed in my plummiest English and the subject would never be mentioned again. The gentlemen concerned would behave exactly as gentlemen should. To my relief, it transpired that my part of the bargain was to do nothing except behave impeccably, look pretty, and make men laugh — although the difference between the rewards of this, and the more athletic pursuits indulged in by Veronique and the other courtesans, became clear as we headed for Nice airport. The only extra bags I would end up with were under my eyes, from disco-ing at Regines until dawn. They, by contrast, would have new Vuitton suitcases brimming with Ungaros and underwear; I had to make do with, a chic line in Veronique’s cast-offs. . ■ Courtesans, like the chaise-longues on which they traditionally reclined, are back in style. They, have . changed a shade from the days of legendary nineteenth century concubines like Coral Pearl — the red-headed Cockney who bathed nude in champagne, put the “court” in courtesan, and was once served up naked at the dinner table with the comestibles under a silver-domed dish. These days, courtesans liaise with . the caterers about sauces, rather than end up covered in them. Their task, indeed, is to smooth the path through high-pressured life of a man (or indeed, men) who have secured their services and skills through a series of increasingly generous gifts;

These are rarely so obvious as the folding kind, although, occasionally, they may find that their credit card bill has been paid, and many drive fast cars leased by the companies run by their lovers. But as with any job, when the relationship is finally over, the Porsche keys have to be returned. Some of them may dabble with modelling, or acting, or trade the old antique, but more often than not they are simply professional girlfriends — though you wouldn’t see that inscribed in the' passport which, to them, is such an essential of life they rarely even venture to Sketchley’s without it. As Jane Proctor, editor of the now defunct British style-bible “W,” can attest, “Quite a. number of women you’d see in ‘W’s’ gossip columns were basically courtesans. That’s even more true in America, where it’s a weH known fact that several former hookers have snared billionaires. As in England, they have learned to fit in perfectly, to blend with the glittering surroundings.” 1 . Interestingly, in my experience, very few courtesans are British-born

(although it’s where they often end up). Perhaps Brits are just too uptight. Or maybe, it’s just so damned > chilly that they are used to keeping their thermals on, rather than scampering aboard oceangoing yachts, stripping off, and rubbing SPF2 on lilywhite limbs.

The notorious Mayflower Madam, Sydney Biddle Barrows, • who operated New York’s classiest /escort agency,” supplying ladies of the night to the rich and famous, once paid me the dubious compliment of declaring I was the only English woman she would ever have taken on to her books.

“You lot are so badly groomed,” she lamented. “In New York, or in Paris, or in Rome, everyone goes to the hairdresser; they never blowdry their hair at home. “They ' work hard at keeping their bodies firm. They understand the principles of investment dressing, and their underwear is, relatively speak-

ing, as expensive as their outer garments.” But I think that there is more to the fact that the British don’t cut it as courtesans than the obligatory Marks and Spencer smalls. And — dare I say it — maybe there is something to be learnt from the exotic, sometimes dusky maidens who have mastered (mistressed?) the art of twisting a man around their little (if not always their ring) finger: the secret of making a member of the opposite sex feel really good. And using that to get what we want.

Calculating, certainly. But nothing more nor less than women did for centuries, and which has become a neglected art for all but the Pamellas and th£ Veroniques of this world. Some would say it beats real work.

Whatever (to my mind) kinky motive drives a man to seek out a woman who he has to bestow gifts on in order to earn even her fleeting affection, a courtesan’s charms are instantly apparent. “They’re fun,” declares Proctor. “They’re totally without responsibilities. They don’t have bosses to make excuses to about needing a week off, so they can head for the airport and leap on a plane to somewhere in five seconds flat. You don’t hear these women whining about needing time to pack. “Actually,” she observes, “they like it better when they have to make a mad dash for Heathrow with no warning. Because when they get to the other end, their lover has to buy them a whole new wardrobe.” ' ■ '

This, in fact, is what gave me the clue about Pamella, and why I can usually spot a courtesan at a hundred paces. Years spent strolling in and out of expensive dress shops on the Rue d’ Antibes endowed me with an ability to tot up the cost of most women’s outfits faster than you can say Karl Lagerfeld. Each time I’d spot Ms Bordes, dangling like a Chanel

handbag on the arm of the latest specimen to whom she had attached herself, her ensemble had set someone back a cool two grand, at least. If I, as a very hardworking and wellrewarded careerist, couldn’t afford to dress with similar panache and extravagance, then how could a mere House of Commons research assistant pull it off? The rewards for the other line of “work” in which Pamella and her ilk indulge are handsome. You could argue that nobody’s being ripped off, because both parties know, the score; she gets clothes and jewels, and introductions to influential people, and he gets a beautiful, image-enhancing woman to drape over his arm and make his life run a little, often a lot, more smoothly. Who’s using who? Several factors distinguish a courtesan’s life —- and lifestyle — from that of a mere whore’s. Men do not, customarily, know-: ingly parade prostitutes in public, yet this is the arena of the courtesan. Courtesans are taken out constantly, because what’s the point in having one if you can’t impress your friends, and to make your enemies jealous, with her? By contrast, a prostitute’s life is often a sad, downward spiral to drug-crazed or drink-sod-den oblivion, dreaming of the knight in shining armour on a white charger who will rescue her.

In the case of a courtesan, the story frequently lias a far happier denouement: The charger may well be a Lamborghini or a Bentley, and her knight’s armour made-to-measure Armani.

I am pleased to be able to report that my friend Veronique is now contentedly married to a multimillionaire delighted to have secured such a pret-tily-pouting prize, residing on the Riviera; many of the women we toplesssunbathed with on the foredeck of sundry 60-foot yachts have similarly glittering finales to their slightly dodgy “careers.” There is, however, the risk that if you trade your body for Thierry Mugler clothes and a wrist full of bejewelled bangles, you can — and should perhaps, expect to be — traded for a newer, sprightlier, totally cellu-lite-free model at any moment in your life at the top. To be continued. -DUO

They are simply professional girlfriends

Some would say it beats real work