Kitabı oku: «The Silver Chain»
PRIMULA BOND
The Silver Chain
To R who is my rock
Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Read an extract from The Golden Locket
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Copyright
About the Publisher
ONE
At last. At last. We jolt once, twice, then start to move. The rumbling from the diesel grows louder and more determined as the engine settles into gear. The vibrations under my seat are calmer, but they are doing nothing to quell the churning in my stomach.
The grey paved platform, slippery from the rain driving in from the south west, rolls smoothly alongside as we pull away, but it’s still too slow, too slow. I feel like I’m on the run. My hands are shoved under my legs to keep them prisoner. My heart is juddering as if there’s still time for someone to slam on the brakes and arrest me. Why do I feel like that? This is as final as it gets. Everything alongside me, soon to be left behind, is finished.
I’m free to go where I like, so why does this feel like the great escape?
I wish I was sitting up front with the driver. Not to talk to him. I only want to perch quietly on a ledge or a stool up front, and stare out at the world.
What a day job a train driver has. He’s probably sick to death of it, but what a view he has, all to himself. He clambers up to the cab at the start of every shift, yawning and cursing, carrying his flask of muddy tea, then all day and sometimes all night he’s king of the road. The big curving window, smeared with grease and smuts, spattered with rain, sometimes even with blood or guts or bits of animals, is a cinema screen showing the English countryside unfurling between the carved leafy embankments. The gleaming metal tracks converge in the distance just like the parallel lines you draw in art classes to learn perspective.
Why doesn’t he step on it? We are still crawling, we still haven’t emerged from the canopy roof and ornate bottle- green girders of the station.
The train is wrestling with the wind that blows viciously off the moors no matter what season it is, batting at the station signs as we gather speed. Let other people get off here and feel jolly. Let them think of that breeze as bracing sea air.
Me? I’m turning my back. I can’t wait to get out.
The train pulls away fast now, too fast to keep up if you were trying to chase after it, trying to grab the door handles to jump on. Jake isn’t trying to stop me. He’s not moving at all, in fact. Not that I can see him any more. I’m facing forwards, way past all the drooping heads and shoulders of the other bored passengers.
Usually I like to weave a story around fellow travellers, maybe even catch the eye of an interesting-looking man or woman. I’m not as shy as you’d think, at least not with strangers. I always have something to talk about or show them, my pictures, my work. But this lot are faceless, all anoraks and shopping bags and mobile phones. They don’t even glance out of the window at the place they’ve passed through.
Who can say what they’re thinking about behind their laptops and magazines? Work. Warring families. Hospital appointments. Running away. Tonight’s supper. Elopement. The car’s MOT. Adulterous assignations.
As the distance between us stretches to breaking point the muscles in my shoulders, my eyebrows, teeth, my jaw, even my hair, all start to let go, relax. The headache hasn’t quite gone, but I drank too much last night so I’ve only myself to blame. I unbutton my new caramel tweed jacket checked with threads of faint blue. It’s a little tight because at the last minute I decided to shove my thick white sweater on as well. I smile as my ribcage expands and my breasts rise gently with relief.
I unwrap my oversized royal-blue scarf and run my hand up my warm, slightly sticky neck to release my tangled hair. Horrible how hangovers make you feel. I didn’t realise I was still so strung up. Like banging your head on a brick wall. You only know how bad it is when you stop.
I know it isn’t fair, but you only get one life. Not fair on Jake, I mean. He looked petrified just now, in the fossilised sense. I’ve never seen him so angry, or so still. All that fidgeting, the phantom drumming thing he does with imaginary sticks on every available hard surface, the constant foot tapping and knuckle cracking. All stopped.
I didn’t want him to come here and see me off. Surely after everything we’ve said and done he doesn’t believe for a second that I’ll stay? I have no more energy for any of it. For him. Everything is focused on the future, on selfish little me. Those gleaming metal tracks are carrying me out of here, the big smoke is blooming with promise on the horizon.
How many times can you say goodbye?
Last night, holed up with him in his caravan on the cliff, was dreadful. What was I thinking? Everything had gone so well up until then. All my decisions, plans, all the arguments were over. I was so cool, sorted, strong. And then like an idiot I agreed to meet him for one last drink in his brother’s pub. He knew I’d say yes because I wouldn’t be able to stand one more night alone in the house. Even though they are finally gone, even though the coldness and the silence, the sneaky feet and surreptitious fists that never left a mark, even though the dead eyes and the lovelessness are all gone, it’s still horribly creepy. And now it’s deserted as well.
The Black Hat looked jolly and warm enough. Even though it’s not Halloween till tomorrow, they’d lit candles and lanterns and draped the beams and light fittings with lacy cobwebs, propped-up broomsticks, carved out grinning pumpkins. One of Jake’s many gripes is that I’m buggering off just when the party season is starting. He still doesn’t get that I’m done with partying. I’m done with him, with everyone, and certainly with spending any more of my precious time and money in a medieval pub in a dead-end village at the far end of the country.
I have a life to start living.
But I went along for that one last drink, didn’t I, persuaded our rag-tag bunch of mates to come along. Hence this hangover. Jake was behind the bar all evening, serving a bubbling punch from a cauldron which was deceptively orange-flavoured and totally lethal. He was ladling out brimming pint glasses for free, and by the time our mates had drifted away, slightly too obviously I thought, I was pissed and careless, and what happened next is that all that coolness, sortedness, strength, it all evaporated. At least physically. Nothing in my mind had changed. My bags were still packed.
I was still the heroine of all those country and western blues you’ve ever sung along to, about lovers leaving on jet planes.
So there we were, Jake and I, somehow back inside the little tin can that he lives in, and it was midnight. I can only conclude, if there is a jury out there, that it was laziness and familiarity and the remnants of randiness that bore us from the village up the road, along the pitted track, into the muddy field to where the caravan sits, protected from the sheer drop to the fierce sea by massive boulders that look like nightclub bouncers, and purple moss and hard sheep droppings and a broken fence.
That caravan with its moth-eaten pull-down bed and garish seventies orange-flowered curtains, its kettle and booze and stash of chocolate and overflowing ashtrays, it used to be my haven. Once we’d pulled the rickety door closed and bolted it with elastic bands and other flimsy barriers against the world, Jake and I were like babes in the wood in there. We used to cling and whisper together, getting stoned, learning everything together. And I mean everything.
Childhood sweethearts sounds so innocent, doesn’t it? But we weren’t children. And we were on a mission to shed our innocence.
We both tried to deny we were virgins when we finally found ourselves under that faded duvet. But who else could possibly have got there first? When he passed his driving test and bought the caravan we christened Jake’s new toy by deflowering each other.
It’s meant to be awful, and painful, the first time, isn’t it, but when the fumbling, the probing and the giggling stopped and we became deadly silent and serious, only the sea foam trying to reach up the cliff, only Adele crooning in the background, when we realised that our mouths were made for this different, deep, penetrating kissing, that our bodies were built to fold round and in and out, to become hot and yielding under each other’s hands, when I held him balanced in my fingers, long and hard and ready, and he touched me, so soft and wet, and waiting, it was amazing.
Sorry, but it was brilliant. Two fit teenagers hiding away from home, exploring each other in the dark. How could we fail?
I didn’t come that first time, or even the second, but boy did he, and my triumph was as explosive as his orgasm. By the third attempt we still weren’t always doing it right, or very imaginatively, or with any kind of adult finesse. But we were hooked.
My stomach lurches as the train shoots through a tunnel. Is that a kind of useless death throe of desire kicking me deep inside, or is it excitement about what’s ahead? Desire used to be a sharp tugging between my legs or a coiling in my stomach whenever I thought of Jake’s angry blue eyes, his hungry mouth, his eager hands, his quiet, rocking caravan. But when the longing slides northwards to the heart, then the brain, by then it’s diluted completely and that’s when it’s platonic. I’m not sure it’s even that, now. It can’t be. It’s over. I keep telling him. I’m gone.
Did I owe it to him, to give him one last night? Payment for keeping me safe when I had nowhere else to go? Did he hope that bringing out all his tricks, all the old words and moves, the guitar strumming that secretly shreds my nerves, did he think that getting me drunkenly naked by the light of his old hurricane lamp would make me chuck all my dreams out of the window and make me stay?
He knows me so well, so how could he not guess last night, once he was on top of me, the usual position, how could he not tell through the limpness of my limbs around him, the tightness of my body resisting him, the difficulty he had pushing in, the way I turned my head away from his desperate kisses so that they missed and slithered instead across my cheek, my half-hearted moaning, how could he not know that I was faking it?
The easiest way for me to explain why I let it happen is that it was sympathy sex. Cruel, I know. But that’s how removed I felt from it. From him. I am a bitch, no question, just as he said. How else to excuse the way our fledgling love burned brightly for a while and then just died? Why have I changed so drastically in the space of a couple of years? Almost as if my teens were shackles I was waiting to throw off as soon as I hit twenty. I can’t explain it myself. Suggesting that I grew out of my adolescence somehow doesn’t cut it.
Just now he slouched out of the shadows as I was heaving my cases and photographic gear into the carriage. And there’s the rub. He slouches. I march.
Thank God the train was already there, striking its metal hooves to be off. The guard was waddling along the platform, probably wishing he could slam the doors and wave a flag like in the old days but having to content himself with jabbing at the hissing buttons.
The guard’s whistle blew, and there was nothing more to do. I don’t even know if Jake saw me. Anyone noticing him standing there, mean and moody and uncomprehending, would think he was a hunk alright. What idiot would kick that out of bed? Some lucky girl, one of the girls in the pub, in the newspaper office, one of the walkers along the cliff, will have him, if they haven’t already.
Jake walked to the far end of the platform as the doors folded shut, the end where it slopes down into the nothingness of grass and weeds and rubbish, so that it wouldn’t look as if he was going to miss me. His iPod was plugged into his ears, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his leather jacket. His fingers would have been fiddling and twisting all the items I know he keeps in there. Phone, keys, wine gums, pens, cash, miniature tape recorder. Ripping up the snapshot of me to show that he’s over it.
Well, that goes for the two of us. I’m off men now. For good.
The train gathers speed, breathes its huge rumbling sigh of relief as it accelerates out of the station. It rushes with glee through the scruffy outskirts of town, then turns away from the sea, ploughs through the bare, wintry countryside overhung with a heavy blanket of sky, and hurtles towards London.
TWO
I have them in my sights. A ragged crocodile of little witches, snaking their way across the quiet garden square. They seem to know exactly where they are and where they’re going, but I am several tube stops away from my flat south of the river and I’m not quite sure where I am. I tell myself that’s all part of the fun of being in this city. A mist has descended over London like a ragged curtain and temporarily cowed the commuters who would normally be scurrying home by now.
The leading witch holds a lantern aloft, presumably to guide her gang to some Halloween party round the corner, and it emits a weak glow of eerie orange.
In the middle of the square there’s a statue of a man who looks like Robin Hood or someone, maybe Dick Turpin, or Cupid with clothes on. Someone important and athletic, anyway, and yet there is something melancholy in the statue’s posture. It even seems, in this dim light, to be turning its head to watch the mini witches pass by beneath it. I count seven in all, maybe six witches and a wizard. I rip my gloves off with my teeth, let them fall onto the spikes of frozen grass, and as the witches pass beneath the statue, its bare toes gripping the edge of its stone plinth, I start to shoot.
‘Keep going, my little beauties,’ I breathe, stepping silently along the parallel path to keep track of them. ‘I’ve got you exactly where I want you.’
Thank God I’ve found a focus. One of the many things I didn’t anticipate about arriving as a newcomer in London is how quickly, if you have nothing concrete to do, no concrete living to earn, no smart business clothes to wear, you become invisible. Redundant. How busy everyone else is, mouthing into mobile phones, checking watches, filing into tubes and buses, hailing cabs, knocking back coffees. Staying close to people they know. Caring so little about the strangers passing them by.
My mind is teeming with ideas and projects. I’m trained and qualified, ready to sell my soul. I’ve been prowling the streets all day yesterday and today with my CV, but although I enjoy making contact with each new human being none of them is sealing a deal with me yet, shaking my hand and saying, ‘Your work is marvellous, Miss Folkes, and you are going to make millions. I can’t believe how lucky we are to have discovered you!’
How quickly the fire and enthusiasm fizzing inside me yesterday, on that train, has faded. Not extinguished. It can’t be. I’ve burned all my bridges coming here. All those bridges the train hurried over and under in its haste to get away from my home town. All burned. I won’t go back there in a million years, at least not to stay.
It’s not Jake I couldn’t face. No-one will believe that, but I can deal with him if I have to. It’s the rest of it, the memories, the house on the cliffs, those trapped years stretching on and on with no parole. The person I was, I am, when I’m there. I can never forgive the people who should have guaranteed my happiness, taken notice of my talent. Loved me, just a little.
Even so. I’m in London at last. The end of the rainbow for now. Over painstaking weeks and months I have prepared a sharp, slick portfolio. I have my CV, testimonials, references from my Saturday job bosses and my art tutor Allan Mackenzie. I’ve even included the catalogue from the exhibition I showed at the local library. Big provincial deal, but still. I’m aiming to kick down the door. No time to fight any encroaching despondency.
The little witches and wizards in their costumes seem to float a few inches above the frosty grass now, some looking down as if contemplating their sins, others gazing up at the night sky like miscast angels. I shoot again, picture after picture. Swap the digital for my old Canon, swap them back again. I’m engrossed, and I’m sure of myself. This is it. This is great. Magical little photogenic beings hovering across my path just when I most needed them.
Suddenly the smallest witch at the back stumbles over her too-long black cloak and lets out a howl. They all, with one fluid movement, swivel round to see what is happening. Another great shot of their sharp white profiles all in a row. They don’t help her. They just maintain their positions, wagging black-gloved fingers like disapproving duchesses, shake their heads impatiently, or lift flapping sleeves to adjust their masks until she is upright again and they can continue on their march.
They reach the wrought-iron gate at the northern edge of the square and as they pause to discuss their next move their pointed hats cast triangular shadows over their faces. The leader with her orange lamp gesticulates up the deserted street, away from me, away from the square.
I watch them process towards a tall, grand house on the corner. They slow down. I wonder if they are bravely going to raise their plastic tridents to knock on its double-height black door, maybe wave their baskets about and offer a trick or a treat, risk the wrath of the eccentric rich owner who will open up and yell at them to beat it, leave him alone to his reclusive life. But they obviously think better of it.
All at once, on a silent signal, they break formation like synchronised swimmers, scattering like ducks startled by gunshot, then equally neatly they join forces again and zig-zag briskly onwards. There’s the faint scattering of small, impatient feet on the gritty pavement, the tip of the crocodile’s tail whisks around the corner. And then they are gone.
‘Perfect,’ I murmur, following them through the gate. ‘My Halloween collection. That’ll make a brilliant next series.’
I still have no idea where I am, and they certainly can’t help me. But the rumble of traffic is never far away and I’m in no hurry. I could be lost all night and it wouldn’t matter. No-one would miss me. I could be lost forever. I lean against the streetlamp to scroll through the latest images.
‘Bloody lucky you didn’t scare them, creeping about in the dark like that.’
The deep, gravelly voice comes out of nowhere. It gives me such a fright that I bite down on my tongue and taste the iron tang of blood. It’s as visceral as if a wild animal has just pounced.
The world has gone very quiet. This great roaring capital is like a graveyard. Where the hell is everybody?
A figure in a long coat, a blood-red scarf wound several times round its neck, steps out of the shadowy square where I have just been. He grasps the gate and it makes a rusty screech as he slams it shut. I don’t know whether to cackle or scream. I push my collar and scarf up protectively. I could swear this place was deserted two minutes ago.
‘I wasn’t creeping about, as you put it.’ I line my spine up with the lamp post, straining to make out his features as he approaches. I clear the squeak from my throat. ‘Actually I’m working.’
‘A voyeur, then. Peeping Tom.’
The overhead lamp seems to glow brighter as he comes nearer, a dimmer switch operating somewhere off stage. All I can see of him so far is that he’s tall. He opens his arms in a wide gesture that looks like a greeting, or a silverback display of ownership. Or maybe he reckons he’s right. Then he claps the gloves together for warmth.
The lamp light strikes off the glossy black hair swinging over his forehead as he glances sideways for imaginary interlopers. The shadows stalking him, and the mist separating us, exaggerate his wolfish air, and though it’s difficult to gauge his build under the long coat I sense this is a man who could break my neck with one twist of his hands if I was stupid enough to cross him.
As if reading my mind he shoves those same hands in his pockets and moves more thoughtfully, head down, shoulders and body angled slightly sideways as if he’s sketching his half of a tango.
He only stops when the toes of his shoes touch mine. Strangers don’t usually invade space like this. He’s so close I can see the pulse pushing at the pale, oddly vulnerable sliver of skin just visible above his red scarf. But I don’t recoil. I can’t. I’m blocked in by the lamp post and by the hypnotic way he’s looking at me.
My breath is annoyingly damp against my upturned collar but I’m not ready to reveal myself. Happy just to stare him out. His stance, the angle of his gaze, is straight out of a film noir publicity still. An assassin lurking in a deserted Montmartre alleyway for his victim. A rejected lover outside his mistress’s opulent villa nestled in the hills above Florence, plotting revenge. Both staring down the barrel of a gun. And like the armed assassin, or the vengeful lover serving his dish cold, this guy’s in no rush.
I shift my numb feet while I work out how best to extricate myself. As long as he’s studying me I’ll study him back. First the vital sign beating silently beneath his ear, then the taut jaw line pricked with dark frustrated stubble. Under the smooth plane of cheek I can just see a muscle flickering as if he’s grinding his teeth. I can’t see his mouth. He could equally be suppressing a smile.
But it’s his eyes, black as liquid tar, that keep me pinned down. They have that kind of direct focus which you sometimes see in portraits and makes you wonder what high-octane relationship joined the subject with the artist. Right now it’s convincing me that he and I are the only two people in the world. Well, the only two people in London.
Perhaps he’s one of those mime artists, the ones who remain immobile for hours. But his eyes are alive, probing mine for the answer to a question he asked long ago.
I fidget with my collar. Hell, I’m not a mind-reader. I’m a photographer, even if the world is apparently indifferent to that fact. My occupation is observing people to the point of rudeness. That’s why I’m brazenly returning his gaze out here in the dark, with nobody else about. What’s his excuse?
‘So what are you doing out here?’
He’s toned it down but his voice still reverberates deeply, kind of nudges my ear drums. There’s a very slight accent. I want him to take off that scarf. It’s like the surgical mask of a TV surgeon forced to emote with just his eyes. But what I can see so far is beautiful. I can say that because it’s my job. If it wasn’t for the pulse going in his neck he could be carved from marble like the statue locked in the square. Steady. Calm. Cold.
The pretentious text beside my portrait of him, hanging in a gallery, would read: THE STRANGER IN THE SQUARE. HERE THE ARTIST HAS SNATCHED AND TRANSLATED FROM LIFE A REMOTE YET IDEALISED MASCULINE AESTHETIC.
Except now that the stranger has taken his hands out of his pockets to tug aside the blood-red scarf he’s becoming alarmingly human. His mouth parts at the shock of cold air barging in. His lower lip is surprisingly full, blooming with faint colour, and its generous curve is pinched down by the firm line of the upper lip. I was right. He’s stifling a smile.
‘I told you. I’m working,’ I repeat, my voice husky with nerves. My head knocks the lamp post. ‘And I must get on.’
His eyes are sucking me in. Get it together, Serena. He’s skin, blood and bone, that’s all. My fingers grip the edges of my camera. Will he object if I just lift it, like this, take a shot? If I can get the exposure right the shot will be highlighted by the solo, white light above our heads, a shafting beam like the searchlight from a spaceship. The moon dangling down on a string.
Like my little witches he is perfect for Halloween. I wonder if it’s deliberate? He’s in costume for a party. That explains the looming, vampirical vibe. Even the oversized oval buttons on his coat gleam like beetles’ shells. Any minute they’re going to scuttle up and down, and rattle.
The straight lines of his thick eyebrows could be inked in. His silky hair is no costume wig, though. It whips across his face in the wind and there’s a slight wave where it kinks off the scarf, and in the ocean depths of his eyes I can see myself reflected in miniature, staring and trapped like an effigy inside his pupils. Those snow-piste cheekbones are high, Slavic, and his skin is whiter even than the face paint of those little witches. So white it seems to glow from within.
Yes. A modern-day Dracula. A swarthy Edward Cullen, the Hollywood vampire’s less melancholy, more muscular older brother. But if I come out with that he’ll either assume the character and ruin the moment, or smirk sarcastically and walk away.
Let’s just get the shot, sublime in its anonymity, then beat a retreat.
I twist my zoom and click softly. My Dracula doesn’t budge. I swing away, pretending to focus instead on the picturesque bare branches of the garden trees grasping for the sky, the blocks of dense shadow cast by the tall house up the slope. My pretence places him off centre in the picture, as if he’s stumbled into the frame by accident, or he’s a demon darting away. That’s fine. Anarchic in its imperfection. My Halloween series is taking shape.
‘Spying on a group of little girls, all alone, rushing through the dark in their party clothes?’
My camera action has snapped him out of his reverie. He claps his hands together again, then nods up the street in the direction that the crocodile has gone. I’m offered his profile for a moment. A strong straight nose, haughty but not hawk-like. Eyelashes spiking his cheek.
‘I’m still not sure about you,’ he mutters, looking up the street. ‘It’s obvious you’re–’
‘Taking photographs. The clue’s in the camera? I’m collecting street scenes. Human life. Halloween scenes.’
I’m relieved yet disorientated that he’s taken his eyes off me at last. The moon and the streetlights and now the occasional flash of fireworks scatter diamond chips of light over the deserted square. ‘And frankly it’s not my fault if kids that age are unaccompanied.’
‘I stand corrected. Should we, I wonder, investigate? Make sure they’re OK?’ He strokes his chin thoughtfully. His eyes flash back at me.
‘They’re long gone now. I thought they might go trick-or-treating in that haunted-looking mansion up the slope there, but they thought better of it and scurried past. They’re probably at some rowdy children’s party round the corner.’
As I jerk my head towards the grim town house my Breton beret slips backwards and falls right off. My hair untwists from the loose knot and slowly cascades down over my shoulders, catching in my eyelashes, snagging in my collar.
The man gives an almost theatrical start. To my astonishment he snorts with laughter, tapping his head. His amusement rumbles deep down in his chest. It sounds like pebbles being stirred at the bottom of a pond.
‘Well, I’ll be damned! Round one to you, mademoiselle. I had you down as a scrawny bloke. And I’m rarely wrong about anything.’
His eyes elongate with amusement and lift at the corners. They seem to work harder than other people’s. Emote, like those TV surgeons. The rest of his face takes its cue from his eyes as his mood changes. Even his eyebrows relax, become less black. The lines of his face seem to settle, become more human, less of a mask. He rubs at his lower lip with his leather-gloved finger with appealing uncertainty.
‘Yeah. Well. Not a peeping Tom after all, see? Just going about my own business.’ I bend quickly to pick up my hat. I can’t see my own gloves. ‘I find these bulky winter clothes are a great disguise. Handy for keeping strangers from pestering me, especially at night.’
‘Are you saying I’m pestering you? Because you don’t look remotely bothered to me.’
‘Should I be?’ I put my beret back on, fiddling unnecessarily to set it more rakishly on my head. I like the heaviness of my hair on my shoulders and back. It’s comforting and also warm. I glance about for my gloves. My fingers are beginning to stiffen up in the biting cold. ‘That didn’t come out the way I meant it to. You made me jump, that’s all.’
He lifts his shoulders, opening his arms in the multi-layered gesture which now includes frivolous apology. His arms are so big in the coat, the width of his embrace so inviting. What would it feel like if he wrapped those warm sleeves tight around me, carried me off somewhere? He’s easily strong enough. Embraced me and held me, kept me safe. Or ravished me?
‘I didn’t mean to scare you.’ He leans one elbow casually on the railings and crosses one foot in front of the other. The wind flips his black hair across his face. ‘I should have known you were female. You weren’t loping like a man at all then but moving gracefully. Your hips. Women sway their hips when they don’t even realise it. Especially when they are at their most fertile, apparently.’
Now I’m certain he’s making fun of me. I hope to God that prevents him from reading what’s really going on in my mind, because my thoughts are skittering off the scale. I must be more frustrated than I realised. Either way I can’t help staring at the way his teeth grate across his lower lip, biting but not piercing the tender skin. The upper lip is harder, less forgiving. Still determined to give nothing away. It’s such a dynamic smile. Look how it brings his face to life, smoothes out the tension. Those strong white teeth could really hurt, I’m certain of it, but oh, if you let them graze across your mouth, your neck, your breasts, they could so easily please as well.
‘Hmm. Too much information.’ Thank God it’s dark out here. My whole body is burning hot. I blow on my bare fingers. ‘You sound like a wildlife documentary.’
‘Too observant for my own good, especially when there are interesting specimens to track.’ His hair flips off his brow, making his eyes startling like searchlights. ‘I only meant to say that you have much lovelier, longer legs than any male and I should have clocked those. I’m guessing you’re an athlete, or used to running over rough terrain.’
‘Athlete? No, Mr Attenborough. But rough terrain, yes. I used to live by the sea.’ My stiff fingers fiddle with my camera. I’m desperate to study the new images.
‘Right. And people who live by the sea don’t like being complimented on their legs or any other part of their anatomy?’ The stranger tilts his head like an artist at his easel and with his hands starts to sketch the outline of my legs from my feet upwards. He glances mischievously at me as he reaches my waist and makes an exaggerated hourglass. We both know that’s daft because tonight I’m shapeless in my jacket. ‘Or are you really a mermaid?’
‘Nothing mythical ever materialises in my neck of the woods. Not that it’s my neck of the woods any more.’ I have to smile, partly because that is such a good thought. ‘You’re obviously used to charming the birds off the trees, mister, but my being female still doesn’t give you carte blanche to comment on my hips or legs or fertility, or speculate about my natural habitat.’
He shrugs cheerfully. ‘I’m no Neanderthal, mademoiselle. Just as keen an observer as you are.’
I’ve only ever seen strong white teeth like that in America, or on television. Over here such fine teeth belong only to the very famous or very rich. In the lamplight, which has continued to brighten and is now as strong as a floodlight, his lips and those teeth are glinting as if he’s hungry. Or thirsty. His firm lips curl back slightly, and there’s that wolfish air again.
You hungry for some comfort, stranger? Because I sure as hell am.
‘You are absolutely right, of course,’ he concedes. His face straightens as he looks away from me again, up towards the town house. ‘And yet again I apologise. I just didn’t expect to bump into someone like you tonight, that’s all. Ever, in fact.’
‘Someone real, you mean? Rather than a ghoulie, or a ghostie, or someone dressed up as a sacrificial virgin?’
He claps his gloved hands. ‘Well, I guess you could pass as a woodland nymph, with a better body, more hair, and a louder voice. But actually I just meant someone who doesn’t have a clue how stunning she is.’
This doesn’t feel wrong. This encounter. This conversation. How could anyone call this pestering? It feels totally right. I keep the camera in front of my face, framing him in my viewfinder. I have no desire to run away. He could be menacing, if I really wanted to dissect it, but so what? Any sensible girl would be beating a retreat by now with some kind of polite excuse, but I’m done with being sensible. Maybe that’s why I’m drawn towards him like money to a magnet. So who cares? And where are my bloody gloves?
My cousin Polly, whose chic little riverside flat I’m borrowing while she smashes the glass ceiling in New York, would be that sensible girl. She’d take one look at this tall dark man looming over me, with the black eyes glittering and lively now from the lamplight, and she’d call him a Lothario. Such a great word. So good you can melt it on your tongue. She wouldn’t get that I’m a goner now I’ve seen him smiling. He looks like he would remove every lacy scrap of your underwear with those perfect teeth. She’d declare that proved her point, made him some kind of creep who got his kicks chatting up country bumpkins or scaring the living daylights out of them.
Well, she’d be wrong. Whether he’s a Lothario or a Lancelot, I want to find out more. I want to go on standing here with my camera, propped up by this Narnian lamp post, staring at this possibly dangerous, probably harmless, smiling stranger.
‘Sorry,’ I say, looking down, my boot stirring some little stones sparkling with frost. ‘That did sound surly. What I meant was, do you often play spot the difference between men and women?’
‘Any entrepreneur worth his gold-plated pension watches people for a living so he can separate the wheat from the chaff.’ Those eyes again. Nonchalant stance, maybe, all casual against the railings, but those eyes are boring into me so sharply I’m feeling punctured. ‘You know. The sheep from the goats.’
‘Same for photographers,’ I mumble. ‘Those biblical sayings have a point.’
He grins. ‘And in the business world, what that means is, anyone with any nous can spot a success story from fifty paces. Likewise we can sniff out the losers.’
‘All sounds a bit Lord Sugar!’
‘You better believe it. We’re cut from the same cloth. I happen to be an admirer of his, and yes, I do make it my business to hire and fire apprentices.’ He rubs his nose scornfully. ‘If politicians had half the common sense of people like me and him, we’d all be out of this mess by now.’
‘What about personally?’ I’m feeling bold now. Brassy. ‘Do you observe, do you watch people closely who might come into your private life?’
‘Do you mean women?’ he asks quietly. ‘Am I discerning about the women I want? I could answer that if I wasn’t so out of practice. But yes. Perhaps I should identify and stalk my prey like I do in business.’
I realise we’ve moved closer together again, both leaning on the sharp railings. I’m not interested in coming over all Germaine Greer, though. This man can say whatever he likes, and if it wasn’t so cold I’d just stand here all night lapping it up. It’s that damn mouth of his, that soft lower lip, that hard upper clamping down. His mouth has a story to tell, I’m certain of it. How can it be amused and sardonic, hard and inviting, all at the same time? It’s daring me, or asking me something. It’s wide, and confident, but it also desperately needs to know a lot more. About me. About his prey.
Well, I like what I see, too. This man. That mouth. And God help me, if he wasn’t so goddamn superior the devil in me would just go ahead, decide to really shock him, and kiss it.
‘Well, you got it spectacularly wrong in my case, didn’t you?’
‘You got me.’ He holds his gloves up in surrender. ‘Not a peeping Tom at all. A Thomasina.’
‘Not peeping at anything. I told you, I’m working.’ I shake my head. ‘And it’s Serena. That’s my name.’
There’s another pause. My heart thumps in my ears. Why did I tell him that, for God’s sake?
The city surrounding us, this garden square, this lamp post, this man, and me, it all shrinks, closing in on us, pushing us together. The steam of our breath curls delicately in the freezing air between us. His deep black eyes pull me in. I can see the tiny flare of his nostrils as he breathes, the twitch of his kissable mouth as he ponders.
He takes my hand, the one not holding the camera, pulls it away from where I’m still instinctively, defensively, using it to shield my body, enfolds it in the creaking leather of his glove, holds it tight for a moment, then gives it a formal shake.
‘And my name’s Gustav. Gustav Levi.’
My hand rests so easily in his, like a small pet. ‘That would explain the cheekbones. Are you from Transylvania?’
‘Smart, as well as stunning,’ he chuckles. He must know how cold my fingers are, because he squeezes them. I curl my fingers round his palm, and he puts the other hand on top of it. ‘Sort of, as it happens. My family originally came from that area. But they’re all gone now. Except me. I’m here, as you can see.’
‘My turn to be ridiculously observant.’ I give a triumphant punch. ‘Because I already have you labelled for my collection as Count Dracula.’
‘We can be a little brooding at times, granted.’ He laughs again. A little lighter, but still that deep, pebbly chest-stirring sound. ‘But if you knew Transylvania, the landscape, the music, you’d know it can be magical. But then the name comes from the Latin word sylva, meaning forest.’
‘Ah, yes. Forests, mountains, and castles. Like a fairy tale. Not a horror movie at all.’
‘That depends on who is in the movie. Who is the wicked witch in the fairy tale.’ His fingers are like a vice now. I don’t think he realises how tightly he’s holding me because he’s not looking at me but over my shoulder, his eyes as black as the dark shadows behind me in the square. ‘But I’m still drawn to forests and mountains. I don’t have a castle, but I do have a chalet in Switzerland. Right on Lake Lugano.’
‘Lugano also comes from the word “forest”. Did you know? You must have been a wolf in another life, Gustav.’
He closes his eyes for a moment. The lines down his cheeks are etching out some awful thought. I reach up and stroke his cheek, try to iron them out. I expect him to leap away from me but he squeezes my hand more gently now and a rush of heat powers up my arm, fanning under my ribs. I try to breathe. I look up at him again, my eyes resting on his mouth.
‘You said my name,’ he murmurs, opening his eyes.
‘It’s a cool name. But you’re hurting me.’
He releases my hand and it’s my turn. Very slowly I start to pull off his glove. It’s a kind of leather ski glove, tighter fitting than I thought, with a small annoying zip, and it takes a couple of seconds, but the rip of the zip, that sound effect of getting naked, sounds so sexy-good it sullies the silence. I peel the glove down from under his sleeve, reveal first his lean forearm streaked with hair, the slim ropes of muscle under the skin, then the flash of pale wrist. His long, strong fingers slide out one by one and while I now own his glove, he claims my bare hand.
The muscle is playing in his jaw again but I’m pretty sure it’s not suppressed laughter this time. Is it quicksilver that changes like this, or mercury? If I ever see him again, I’ll have to learn to keep up.
I already know these eyes, how black they are, how deep, I’ve noticed the crackle of yellow streaking round one iris like sunrise edging a cloud. Does he know mine? Some people call them green. Others emerald. After what feels like hours of talking, he’s travelling right inside me now.
I imagined his hand would be cold, like the statue, but his skin on mine is dry and warm. There’s his pulse again, this time beating in his wrist, beating into my hand. I can feel the heat crackling through the network of veins and arteries like a tidal wave.
‘I’d like to see your lake, and your castle. Sorry. Chalet.’ My voice is a frog’s croak. What am I saying? ‘I’d like to go there one day.’
‘Who knows? One day perhaps we will.’
He lifts my hand, so small in his, and turns it over. He has one glove on, one glove off. He separates my fingers. I hold my breath.
Did he just say ‘we’?
He kisses each finger on the tip, watching me all the while. It’s all I can do not to collapse against him. My legs feel weak. My head is heavy and lazy on my neck. The gorgeous, scary mouth I will try to kiss in a minute if I’m not careful is blowing over the palm of my hand now, and just as I lean towards him he presses my hand against his mouth, kisses it with a delicious dampness, then releases it.
‘Wow. Is this how the locals introduce themselves in Lake Lugano?’
Gustav Levi just chuckles and sheaths his fingers one by one. Then he claps his sturdy gloves together in what I take to be his hearty, scene-changing gesture. He glances around the square, towards the bright lights. His black hair blows back off his face like a stallion ready to hit the horizon.
‘Only the charming locals, and only when they meet beautiful ladies. It’s the Italian influence. So. Can I walk you somewhere, Serena? It might be best to come away from this area. Shepherd’s Market is just down there. Not dodgy like it used to be, but still, you hear things about the new clubs that have opened up.’
‘Shepherd’s Market?’
He laughs, re-organising his scarf. To my dismay covers his mouth. ‘You really are from out of town. It used to be a red light district. Or at least, very boisterous and of ill repute. That’s why they banned the sheep market in the end.’
I don’t reply. I’m nearly losing my grip on my camera because my gloveless fingers are so cold. He hooks it safely onto the strap and loops it round my neck. I wait to see what he’ll do next and yes, he does it. His gloves brush against my neck as he lifts my hair out of the snagging strap, holds it for a moment, then lets it fall. He’s watching me, all the time.
‘A party, perhaps? It’s Halloween, after all. A gorgeous young woman like you must be in demand?’ He steps back suddenly. ‘A boyfriend waiting for you. Damn. Of course there is!’
I shake my head as carelessly as I can.
‘No. No boyfriend. I’m not going anywhere. I’m too busy. I have to get these pictures edited and use my cousin’s printer. I’ve only just arrived in London, you see. I’m touting my portfolio round the galleries.’
‘So you’ve only just left that desolate seaside you were telling me about?’
‘It’s all behind me now. I’m in London, now, and that’s all that matters.’
‘Yes indeed. And lucky London.’
He starts to walk away from me, up the hill where the little witches went. OK. So that was goodbye then. Fine. Goodbye, mister. It’s a relief, actually. He’s had me dancing on tacks the last few minutes, and I haven’t time for this kind of distraction.
I need to find my gloves, because if I don’t my fingers will seize up and I won’t be able to feed the tube ticket through the machine or unlock my front door, or work Polly’s printer, let alone press the shutter on my camera. I hunt around on the ground. Nothing. Try the gate to the square, rattle it, but it appears to be locked. My fingers stick to the iron. I wrench them off before they freeze there permanently. You hear of that happening, don’t you? In the Himalayas, or the Arctic. People’s tongues stuck to, what, pickaxes? Cups? Spoons? What else in the Arctic would you be licking?
I can feel ridiculous tears crowding into my throat.
‘Where am I going to get some new gloves at this time of night, for God’s sake?’
My gloves float out of the darkness, right under my nose where I’m hunched over the gate, biting back sobs. The bloody things are waggling and waving at me in thin air. They look solid, filled, as if they have fingers inside them.
‘I took them hostage, Serena. I’m so sorry. I was teasing you. I picked them up earlier in the garden.’
Gustav Levi is indeed wearing them, and they look ridiculous, like a child’s mittens hanging off his long fingers. My eyes are still heavy and wet with unshed tears, and though I blink furiously to try to hide it, he bends and peers into my face. The new expression there, the softness in his eyes, the self-mocking bat of his thick eyelashes, the teasing lift of his mouth, are all so unexpected that I nearly burst into tears in earnest.
‘I’m OK, it’s fine, really,’ I gulp, blinking back at him like an owl. ‘Thank you for my gloves.’
He wipes one leather finger gently along the lower lid of each eye and then hands both gloves back to me.
‘Now. Tell me I can’t escort you somewhere, Serena. You look a bit, well, undone. Dishevelled? No, that’s not the right word. At sixes and sevens. Knackered. Who wouldn’t be? This can be an exhausting old town. How about allowing me to buy you a drink if you think you can trust me?’
THREE
It takes me all of three seconds to make up my mind. There’s no-one waiting for me. No-one expecting me to check in. No-one who gives a toss.
‘Mr Levi? Thank you. I could murder a glass of dry white wine.’
‘Gustav. You were OK with it before. It’s a formal enough name without your making me feel like a sergeant major.’
‘OK, Gustav. And if you’re not to be trusted, well, I’m a big girl now. I can look after myself.’
He presses his hand into the small of my back. A signal of agreement, or the commencement of a new journey? Either way it gets me going, like the crank handle on a vintage car. I’m happy for him to keep his hand there, actually. Against all my resolutions, despite my upbeat retorts, I feel right now as if I have no spine, no backbone, that I’ll crumple in a heap and give up with no visible means of support.
But to my disappointment he removes it, puts his hands thoughtfully into his pockets, and instead of walking up the hill, as he started to do just now, he leads me away from the dark square, towards the bright lights of what must be Piccadilly where red buses and black taxis and normal people are going about their business.
Behind me I imagine the shadows in the square staring after us, reluctant to let us go.
We cross the street and like everyone else we walk briskly towards the Ritz Hotel. The famous lights illuminating its name above the colonnade are so inviting. Gustav glances down at me. The amusement I’m becoming familiar with starts in the crinkling of his eyes, the softening of his cheeks, lifts the curve of his argumentative mouth.
‘They have a dress code in there, I’m afraid, to go with all that glitzy gilt. They wouldn’t let us set foot in this revolving door, let alone contaminate one of their precious seats in the Rivoli Bar.’
I am an urchin, standing in the cold, elbowed aside by the glossy rich visitors in their fur coats and ostentatious jewellery, being fussed into the hotel by pompous-looking doormen.
‘No problem. I’d better get home, actually Mr – Gustav. A drink is very tempting, but maybe not such a good idea after all.’ I pat my pockets. ‘And I’m skint.’
‘Pavements not paved with gold yet, eh?’ He moves on along the facade of the grand hotel to the corner, and waits. He’s staring not back at me but down St James’s Street. I wage a little war with myself. He’s a stranger, remember.
The newspaper headlines, exaggerated by the time they reach the office of Jake’s local rag: Country girl from the sticks raped and murdered in London by suave conman.
Even Polly would be wagging her metaphorical finger at me by now. Blaming herself for not being there, looking out for me. But we’re out in public here. Lots of people around us. He’s charming. He’s incredibly attractive. He’s got a lovely deep, well spoken voice. And he’s an entrepreneur who must be bloody rich if he owns more than one house. What the hell else am I going to do with myself when everyone else is out having fun?
One thing I won’t tell him is that my pockets might be empty, but my bank account is full.
‘One drink. Then I must get back.’
He doesn’t answer or protest, but with a courtly bow he crooks his elbow and escorts me down St James’s. We turn right and into the far more subtle splendour of Dukes Hotel.
‘Dress code?’ I ask nervously, wiping my feet obediently on the huge but welcoming doormat and drifting ahead of him into the smart interior where domed and glassed corridors lead here and there. The foyer smells of mulled wine and candles and entices you to succumb to its perfumed embrace.
‘Not as such. It’s not whether you’re wearing the latest Victoria Beckham or carrying a Hermès that counts in a place like this.’ His voice has become more mocking since we stepped out of the cold. He snaps his gloves off.
‘As if. I’ve never even been into the kind of shop that would sell those.’
‘Well, don’t ever go there. It’s a total waste of money. Vanity and greed. And the women who claim their lives aren’t worth living if they don’t have the latest designer crap are a waste of space too.’
Waves of hostility are coming off him now that we’re within spitting distance of others. ‘So what does count here?’
‘Standing. Class. Breeding. Beauty helps, no matter what people say.’ He unwinds his scarf as if it has offended him, then turns at last towards me. The sudden annoyance melts away as quickly as it arrives. He flicks imaginary dust off my shoulder. ‘And of course, whether or not you can pay your bar bill.’
‘Oh Gustav, I told you I’ve no money on me.’
‘And I told you, not a problem. Your beauty and my wallet will see us through this evening.’ He laughs softly. ‘So how about we rearrange you, Serena, undress you a little? How would that be?’
I open my mouth and shut it like a fish. Open it again. ‘Undress me?’
‘I meant – what did I mean?’
For the first time he stutters. There are streaks of colour in his pale cheeks from our chat in the cold and our brisk walk down here. He brings his big hands up to frame my face. They push against my tender skin and the bones beneath as if he’s a blind man moulding clay. It makes me feel small, and young, and clueless. The last time anyone touched me was Jake, but I was always in charge then. The leader.
There’s a twist of lust lighting up Gustav’s black eyes. He said ‘this evening’ as if we have all the time in the world. Maybe we’ll get a room. The pulse is banging fast in his neck. I’m learning that’s his gauge. His meter. Does he want me? Oh God, can I ask him?
‘Christ, Serena,’ he mutters thickly as the hotel buzzes around us. His licks his mouth as he tries to speak. He must be reading my mind again. ‘If things were different. In a heartbeat.’
‘What things? How different?’
Silky strands of hair are sticking to his forehead as the overblown heating of the hotel attacks us in our outdoor clothes. He looks as if he’s been running or hurdling. I stroke the hair away. He’s so close, one little move from me and we will be kissing. But abruptly he presses one finger so hard against my mouth that it folds inwards and catches on my teeth.
‘I meant, we should get these things off.’
I got it wrong. Fine. I’m rusty. Clueless. He closes his eyes for a moment, then whips off my beret. The roots of my hair prickle.
Gustav moves slowly behind me and unwinds my blue scarf. So far, so harmless. So brotherly. But then he combs his fingers through my hair, starting at the base of my neck, and I shiver with uncontrollable, unexpected pleasure. He misreads my shivering for cold, or rejection, pauses as if waiting for me to stop him.
‘Please, don’t stop, Gustav,’ I moan quietly.
He has no idea how this has calmed me, like a wild horse. I had no idea how someone stroking my hair would affect me. He stands very close. His tall body lines itself up behind mine, firm and unbending like the lamp post in the square. I push myself back against him. Oh, we fit so well. My bottom is just a little lower than his hips. His fingers go back to work. His hands are circling my throat loosely like a noose. I brush against the hardness in his trousers and it gives him away. My stomach curls over, my body tightening in dark agreement.
Does he know I know? I tilt my head sideways. If I’m too shy to speak, how can I show him what I want, how I want the tips of his fingers to go on combing and stroking me, how I want him to stand nice and tight behind me, set my cold body on fire.
He knows. He strokes my skin. He lifts my hair, unwinding it out of my collar as if it’s a magician’s endless rope or a charmer’s snake.
‘You have no idea,’ I breathe, my eyes fluttering closed as my hair lifts and curls round his fingers, strokes against my cheek and neck, sends its own minute promises of pleasure down my body, ‘how good that feels.’
‘My ragged Rapunzel,’ he breathes, so hot on the back of my neck. A squeal of excitement bunches in my throat. I bring my hands up to his, try to keep him there, get his warm mouth to press down onto me.
But he steps away, leaving a cool space between us. My hair drops like a curtain.
‘Why have you stopped?’
He comes round in front of me and puts his finger on my mouth. ‘It’s a crime to hide this amazing hair. And the colour, in this candlelight! Rossetti and those pre-Raphaelites would have had a name for it. A glorious Italian-sounding tint. Titian. Tintoretto. Not red. Auburn. Claret. Cinnamon.’
‘Five spice?’
‘And what about introducing this tangle to a pair of scissors, Calamity Jane?’
I can’t help smiling. How has he managed to get under my skin so quickly? Is it because he’s taller and older, impossibly attractive with his own unruly hair and steady black eyes? He’s unlike anyone I’ve ever met down there in my dreary old life by the sea. Is it the chameleon way he’s simultaneously courteous and mocking? Is it his deep voice or the way his face goes from cold to hot like running water, from dark to light like the changing hours?
‘Oh, I know all about scissors, believe me,’ I retort.
A single hair he’s missed is caught in my eye and when he sees me blinking at it he hooks it away absently, familiarly, before he steps towards the reception desk.
I’ve been growing it for years, but until I was big enough to fight them off my hair was an unkempt bird’s nest because they never understood how to treat it. They didn’t understand how to treat me. The night before each new school term they would shove me down on a hard chair as if I was Anne Boleyn being prepared for the block. He would hold me down while she would start chopping at it with a pair of kitchen scissors.
No point wasting money on a hairdresser, it’s just ugly, dead material.
I learned to control the impotent tears as she hacked and he shoved and I watched the russet curls, the emerging tendrils struggling to prove themselves, kinking up even when they were only a few inches long. Shorn, limp, kicked about on the dirty floor like withering autumn leaves. Where did I come from? Who in my biological past had, or has, this hair?
‘I’ve stepped over a line. Taken liberties.’ These aren’t questions. They’re statements. Gustav Levi is watching me again, trying to read me. He’s not succeeding.
But even through the sudden wretchedness I can still see the way my blue pashmina dangles over his arm like a waiter’s napkin as comical.
I shake my head. ‘I’m just reminded of things, people, I’d rather forget.’
‘You don’t like your hair being touched?’
‘Au contraire,’ I sigh. ‘I have just discovered that I love it being touched. No-one’s ever – it took me by surprise, that’s all.’
‘I’m continental. Too tactile. And you Anglo-Saxons?’ He flips his hands dismissively. ‘Ice in your veins.’
‘I always think of myself as Celtic. Fire, not ice. But no, Gustav. I’m trying to tell you it felt nice. Lovely. It was just more intimate than I’m used to.’
He raises his eyebrows questioningly.
‘I would defy any man not to want to either stroke it or paint pictures of it all day long. Christ, even mammals groom each other, don’t they?’ He pushes the hair off his face and unbuttons his coat. ‘You telling me your mother never brushed it? All that sunset splendour?’
‘Brushed it?’ I repeat harshly. ‘God no. She pulled it when I was naughty, the little baby hairs just in front of my ears, oh, and she chopped it off, as soon as it grew more than a few inches, because she hated it. It wasn’t sunset splendour to her. It was ugly and ginger.’
A shadow passes over Gustav’s face. A brief cloud, followed by watery sunlight. I wonder if he realises how easy he is to read. The black gleam in his eyes steadies to understanding, as if he’s listening to a piece of music he used to play.
‘I’ve never told anyone that before. No-one has ever stood still long enough to listen.’
‘My God, Serena,’ he says, very softly, his eyes softening. ‘You really are a lost soul under all that chutzpah, aren’t you?’
‘Not lost. Fighting to be heard. I’m fine. You learn to be the cat who walks alone when you’re kicked about often enough.’
A small, dark man in an impeccable suit appears soundlessly from behind a huge vase of winter flowers. ‘Mr Levi. How very good to see you. Your usual tipple this evening?’
Gustav nods. ‘Thank you, Jerome. If you have my favourite seat, too?’
The tinkle of glasses and low murmur of voices start to trickle out of the bar as if we’ve disturbed birds sleeping on a wire.
‘And very sexy they are too.’ Gustav takes a step towards the bar.
‘What are?’
‘Cats. Cold, distant. And you have the eyes, too. Green, slightly slanted. Perfect for Halloween.’ Gustav crooks his arm again. ‘They sometimes pounce on mice for fun, when no-one’s looking, don’t they? Don’t make that face. I mean it in a good way.’
I toss my jacket and gloves at him, as if he’s a servant. His hand shoots out overarm as if he’s catching a cricket ball.
‘Are we going to have that drink or what?’
He laughs and slaps his leg. Those expressive hands. ‘Of course. What would you like?’
‘Surprise me. And could you look after my camera, while I freshen up? Guard it with your life.’
‘Oh, I will, Serena. Don’t you worry about that.’
I know he’s watching me, my butt, my supposedly fertile woman’s hips, my legs, sketching me all over again in his head as I make my way self-consciously down the airy corridor to the ladies’ room. The knowledge that he’s watching makes hot sweat spring through my cold skin. I pray I don’t trip. I push open the big white door, slip inside. Alone at last.
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