Текст книги "Seduce Me"
Автор книги: Georgia Le Carre
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Текущая страница: 2 (всего у книги 14 страниц)
Three
Glamour (‘glaeme) American Glamor noun
1. An air of magic or enchantment—specifically, a deceptive, bewitching and dangerous beauty or charm. Linked to spells of sorcerers, glamour indicates a mysterious, exciting magnetism dependent on artifice and falsification—make-up, beautiful clothes etc.
2.
Archaic
A magic spell; enchantment, specifically to bewitch and glorify by deceptive illusion causing a kind of haze to fall over the beholder, so things are seen in a form different from reality in order to possess or control the beholder to manipulate others into forbidden or dangerous actions.
I can afford a taxi since I won’t have to pay for lunch so I call a minicab. The driver is a Cockney lad who glances into the mirror and tells me I look like a flower arrangement. ‘You even smell like one,’ he says.
I keep my voice cool. ‘Thank you.’
‘I love a girl who takes the time to dress up. Nowadays it’s hard to tell women from men. What with everyone wearing the T-shirts and jeans uniform.’
I make the mistake of looking into his rear-view mirror. He is watching me. I smile distantly.
‘Maybe we can meet up and go out for a drink sometime?’
As if I would go out with a taxi driver. I hate swearing, but it is precisely idiots like these that get me going. Fucking imbecilic moron.
‘Thanks, but I’ve got a boyfriend,’ I say frostily.
‘Can’t blame a bloke for trying…’ He shakes his head regretfully, as if he ever stood any chance of going out with me.
I turn my head towards the moving scenery and for the rest of the journey keep my eyes firmly and deliberately away from him while I fume silently. Lana gets the billionaire and I get minicab drivers coming on to me. When we reach my destination he leers at me as he fumbles around for change from my tenner.
‘Here you are, love.’
I hold my hand out. I don’t tip him.
He drives off and I look up at the building. Pretty impressive. The lobby is clean, but unremarkable. I take the lift, walk along a beige corridor lit with wall sconces, and stop outside apartment fourteen. I ring the bell. Sash’s Ecuador is blaring inside. I wait a few minutes but no one comes to open the door. I take my mobile out and tap into it.
‘I’m outside.’
Billie opens the door in her bra and knickers. ‘Be a few minutes more,’ she shouts over the music. ‘Make yourself at home. Help yourself to anything you find in the fridge and look around, but if you get bored come into my bedroom.’ Leaving the door open she disappears down a corridor while I stand in the living room looking around me.
Oh! Wow.
I have been to Billie’s room when she was living with her mum and it was done up in many colors and fun, but always a bit messy. But this, this is grown-up and seductively elegant. Like one of those sophisticated Parisian flats. With palm trees in bronze pots, a fainting couch and a low divan that has a peacock with a spread tail embroidered on it. There are scatter cushions in bright pink, a crystal pig on the coffee table and tapestries on the walls.
One wall is papered with richly colored birds on winding vines on a deep blue background. The curtains are all floor-length and expensively heavy with green, blue and pink tassels as thick as fingers. The nooks and crannies hold bronze and lapis lazuli lamps. At night they must create a soft amber glow for Billie.
A large, elegant armchair signals the end of the living room. Behind it thick drapes section off an intimate dining room with a green marble topped table and ruby chairs. I stand for a moment absorbing the foreignness of it all—the mirror, the beautiful intricately carved silver fruit bowl filled with fruit—and cannot help the envy that pours into my heart.
Not only Lana but even Billie is now living like a queen.
If I get close to Lana will her billionaire fiancé get me a flat like this too? And a fruit bowl that will always be full?
I walk towards the French door into the balcony. There are bamboo plants in blue pots and a stone water feature. The gurgling, splashing sound it makes is soothing. I look down at the scenery, the canal, the pretty houses, restaurants and bars with surprise. What a difference a cab ride can make. It almost feels as though I am in a different country. No trace of the concrete jungle here!
I grip the metal rail and feel sad.
Then I steel myself, turn away and walk through the corridor along the thick carpet. The first door I open is a baby’s room. It has a cot and lots of toys. I suppose Lana’s son must spend nights here. I close that door and open the next. A second bedroom. There is a desk untidy with piles of sketches. I go towards the desk and look at some of them. Billie did say I could look around. Baby clothes as colorful as parrots adorn the pages. I am surprised by how lovely they are. But what is Billie doing designing baby clothes?
The music has either come to an end or Billie has switched it off. I close the door softly and pass a bathroom—the wall and ceiling are cloudy gray marble. The most surprising thing about her bathroom is the polished mahogany toilet seat. Thick and broad, I imagine it must be an antique. A few more steps brings me to the threshold of a stunningly impeccable kitchen. Even the grouting between the floor tiles is pale and clean. Either Billie never cooks or she is a cleaning beast. Knowing Billie as I do, I’ll stick with the first option.
There is a tin of baby biscuits on the otherwise barren kitchen table. The sink is empty and dry. All the granite surfaces are as clean as two new pins. I open the fridge. It keeps a pizza box of leftovers, some bars of chocolate and a carton of orange juice. There is a bottle of vodka and a tray of ice cubes in the freezer. I close it and go back to Billie’s bedroom. The room stinks of hairspray.
Billie puts the can down and turns towards me. Her hair is the color of teal. It kind of suits her.
‘Didn’t you get yourself a drink? I’ve got vodka.’
I shake my head. ‘I’m all right.’
It’s bad enough that we will be having Chinese food. That stuff is loaded with MSG. And MSG is the stuff researchers feed rats to make them fat fast. My eyes run over Billie’s body. She has the type of body that Pink the singer has. Firm and muscular. I guess Billie carries it off well, but in my books that’s just one step away from running into fat. I am surprised to see that her legs are unshaved. She catches me staring in the mirror.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll shave before I get into that bridesmaid dress,’ she says, amused by my blatant curiosity.
‘I…’ Oh good God, she probably thinks I’m lusting after her.
Billie laughs at my expression. ‘Sorry, but I don’t sleep with straight girls.’
Suddenly all the years of working to better myself drop off a cliff. Deep down inside me I know nothing has changed. I am still the fat unattractive kid with the hairstyle that looks like a mental illness. Chased and bullied and monstrously ugly. Blood slams into my head. For a lightning moment I imagine rushing at her, my nails curved like talons. They pierce the jelly of her eyes.
Then she winks at me and I realize it was just a joke to cover an uncomfortable moment. She didn’t mean any harm. It was me who had been rudely staring at her unclothed body. With that knowledge all is forgiven. She is the kid I always wanted to befriend, the coolest girl in school. The other kids were merciless, but neither Lana nor she ever took part in shaming me.
I smile back. ‘You’ve done up the place real nice.’
‘It’s easy to make something look good when you have no budget constraints.’
‘Really?’ My voice is incredulous. ‘You were allowed to have anything you wanted?’
Billie nods and puts away the hairdryer.
‘What’s Blake like?’ I ask curiously. I have only met Lana’s man once at a party when he came to collect her. Intimidating as hell. As if chiseled from stone he stood in our midst, haughty, disdainful, and broadcasting universal sex appeal. Suddenly our eyes met across the room. His had poured over me like iced water, found nothing of interest and dismissively moved on. It was clear that he found us all utterly beneath him. He had not stayed long.
‘Banker boy?’ Billie says. There is indulgence and genuine affection in her voice. ‘He can be cold-blooded, but he’s always been good to me and he loves Lana.’ She pauses. ‘In fact, don’t think I’ve ever seen a man so passionately in love. He loves her more than anything or anyone else in this world.’
A shaft of white-hot jealousy stabs me in the gut. Lana gets it right every time. Not only has she snared a billionaire, but one who is completely smitten with her. I make a huge effort to keep my smile in place.
‘What about his son?’
‘He would give up his life for the boy, but if Sorab and Lana were drowning, and he could only save one, there would be no hesitation. No matter what it cost him it would always be Lana.’
I lapse into silence and wonder what it must be like to be so treasured. No one has ever loved me, let alone so desperately. Billie slides open a cupboard and takes out a purple T-shirt that screams I MIGHT SAY YES in green and a pair of banana yellow jeans. She dresses quickly, pulls on a pair of leopard print boots with red soles and, snagging a man’s black leather jacket from a hanger, turns towards me.
‘Shall we go?’
We hail a cab and it drops us off outside the restaurant. This is where Billie and Lana often meet for dim sum. Lana has telephoned to say she is running late. We go in without her. The restaurant has no natural light. The walls are lacquered black, the carpet under our feet is the color of soot and the place is lit only with strategically placed spotlights that make the tablecloths rise out of the dark ground like very white lilies in a pond. We take our seats. I choose one that faces the door. I want to watch Lana come in.
A waitress comes to hand us our menus and ask what we would like to drink.
‘Vodka,’ pips Billie.
‘Chinese tea,’ I say more slowly.
I have just taken my first sip when Lana comes in carrying her baby. Every head in the room turns to look. A knife twists in my heart.
She is the living embodiment of that elusive quality: glamour.
Four
He has a silly name, Sorab. I would have called him Brad. He looks like a Brad, with sparkly blue eyes fringed by long curling lashes and the most solemn face you ever saw in a child.
‘So sorry I’m late,’ Lana apologizes breathlessly, and going around the table kisses first Billie and then me on the cheek. Her skin is softly perfumed and her lips are soft as they rest briefly on my skin. Strangely, the kiss from my sworn enemy doesn’t cause me to flinch inwardly. In fact, some part of me welcomes the feel of it.
Both Billie and I assure her that she is not late, we have only just arrived ourselves. While she settles Sorab into a high chair and ties some highly colored toys to it and Billie is fussing over the child, I surreptitiously watch her over my menu. In truth I am shocked.
I had expected designer gear, Manolo Blahniks and diamonds, but she is dressed simply in a beige cashmere jumper that comes to her hips, black drainpipe jeans and a pair of those unfussy, flat-heeled riding boots you see in equestrian magazines. They look like nothing but cost the earth.
‘Are you guys ready to order?’ she asks, opening her menu, and the massive rock in her engagement ring blinds me.
‘Goodness!’ I exclaim. ‘How many carats is that?’
Lana looks embarrassed. ‘Ten.’
‘Wow! Can I see it?’
She holds her hand out to me and I take it. Her fingers are finely boned and elegant, the skin soft and unblemished. I feel ashamed of mine. My stubby digits are scratched by rose thorns, and the knuckles scarred and grazed from forcing my fingers down my throat to induce vomiting. Suddenly even my beautiful pink nails look garish and brazen.
Under the spotlights of the restaurant the stone—an oval cut pink diamond—is so dazzling it is almost impossible to look away from its brilliance. To show off the vividly pink flawless stone it has been mounted on a plain band without any fuss or embellishments. I recognize the design. I have seen it before.
‘It’s a Repossi, isn’t it?’
Lana looks surprised and impressed. ‘Yes. How did you know?’
‘I saw it in a magazine.’
‘How observant you are, Jules? It is custom, but the setting is from a collection called Tell Me Yes.
‘It’s very, very beautiful.’
‘Thank you.’
I release her hand, the ancient envy stirring, stretching, in a foul mood.
The waitress comes around and Lana orders green tea. Immediately, I wish I had ordered that. It sounds far more exclusive than plain old Chinese tea. I make a note to order that in future.
We order a selection of dishes and the menus are taken away.
‘I thought your wedding card was really nice.’
Lana smiles. ‘Good. I’m glad you like it. I wanted Sorab to be included.’
‘Personally, I think you should have done a badass zombie invite. Not even death will do us part sort of thing,’ Billie says.
‘You can do that when you get married,’ Lana retorts.
‘I’m never getting married. I need the government to charge me to say I do like I need a fucking hole in the head.’
‘Really? You never want to get married?’ I ask.
‘If I do marry it’ll be barefoot on a beach with not a single official ‘vested’ with the authority to marry people in sight. No wedding dress, no cake, no guests. Just the sun, the sea, the sand, the coconut trees and an obliging bartender.’
Lana laughs.
‘So how are the wedding plans coming along?’ I ask.
‘Well, to be perfectly honest, I have no idea. Blake has forbidden me to do anything. He says it’s only six hours of our life, and no way is he going to let me ruin four months of our life getting stressed out with preparations. So, I have been confined to choosing the venue, contributing to the guest list, and everything to do with my dress.’
She beams at us, totally unaware of my animosity towards her.
‘Ah, so it was you who picked a small church in Woburn and the reception at Wardown Towers.’
‘Yes.’ She smiles softly.
‘Why? Why not somewhere glamorous like the Savoy or the Ritz?’
Lana touches her son’s cheek and smiles at him before turning to me. ‘Wardown Towers is an amazing place. It is surrounded by a hundred and ninety acre park teaming with deer, forests, lakes and meadows.’ She stops and looks again at Sorab. ‘But the real reason is that I wanted Blake’s sister to be not only present but comfortable. She is in her twenties, but she has the mental age of a child. Since Wardown is where she lives it seemed the perfect location. Besides, I always dreamed of a reception in a beautiful spring garden.’
I wonder about this spastic sister that my search on the Internet did not uncover. Who is she? And why is Lana bending backwards to accommodate her? But all I say is. ‘That’s nice of you.’
On the other side of the table Billie is waving to a waitress. I know what she wants. The waitress comes and Billie points to her empty glass.
‘So,’ I say casually. ‘Who do we know that are coming for the wedding?’
‘Well, a few of our school friends, Amanda, Nina, Sylvia, Jodie—’
‘No, what I meant is who is coming from our neighborhood?’
‘Oh! Uh… Mary—’
‘Fat Mary?’ interjects Billie.
‘Yes.’
‘You invited Fat Mary?’ Billie repeats, shocked.
‘Yeah, I did.’
‘Why?’ both Billie and I ask in unison.
Lana takes a sip of tea and looks at Billie. ‘Sometimes on my way to visit you, I’d take the way past the flats where we used to live so I could look at our old homes. That one time Mary was coming up the street. I crossed the road to avoid her, but she then crossed the road to join me. She took my hand and said she’d heard that mother had died. “Sorrow is how we learn to love,” she told me.
‘I was shocked. Is this really the woman who tanks up on a bottle of Cava, squeezes into a Lycra dress every Saturday night and goes up the road to look for a stranger to have sex with? “I know what you’re thinking, but it is just something to do in this sad world,” she said. I realized that I had misjudged her. She was so much more. We became friends.’
I look at Lana and suppress the annoyance I feel. This conversation has gone askew. ‘So Fat Mary is coming. Who else from our neighborhood?’
‘Oh my God!’ Billie cries suddenly. She looks totally revolted.
‘What?’ Lana asks.
‘Is that woman eating a chicken foot?’
Lana and I turn in the direction of her gaze. Indeed something resembling a dark brown chicken foot with the claws still attached is dangling from the woman’s chopsticks. Sickened, I watch her delicately nibble at one end. What can be in a chicken foot? Skin, gristle, and in the pads—fat. Uh! yuck. The thought turns my stomach and I turn away.
‘For God’s sake don’t stare,’ Lana whispers.
‘I’d rather starve than eat one of those,’ Billie declares.
‘It’s meant to be a delicacy,’ Lana informs.
I feel like screaming with frustration. Once again the conversation is drifting away from what I want to talk about. I realize I have no choice but to reveal my hand. ‘What about Jack? Is he coming?’ I ask as casually as I can.
Both Lana and Billie look at each other.
‘Jack has been invited, but I don’t know if he will come.’
That look they exchanged. There is more to this and I know exactly what to do to find out. When at an impasse, leave.
‘I need to go to the toilet. Be back soon,’ I say, and smoothly slide off the chair. I make it around the wall, behind where our table is, and drop my purse. Then I crouch down and pretend to be picking up stuff that has rolled to the floor while I hear every word of their conversation.
‘Has he not been in touch then?’ Billie asks.
‘No. I really hoped he would come.’
‘He’s hurting, babe.’
‘I guess I always thought he would give me away at my wedding.’
‘It doesn’t matter if he doesn’t. You’re marrying the man of your dreams.’
‘I know, I know. I don’t want to be selfish, but I love him so much and I really thought he’d be there, forever. To be honest I even find it hard to imagine getting married without him. And… He promised he’d give me away.’ Her voice breaks, and she says something else, but I am interrupted by a stupid woman who has squatted down beside me.
‘Here, let me help you,’ the do-gooder says cheerfully, picking up my mobile phone and lipstick. I could have hit her. Because of her meddling I didn’t hear the rest of Lana’s words or Billie’s reply. I snatch my phone and lipstick out of her hand and she shakes her head, surprised and disgusted by my rude behavior.
She stands up in a huff. ‘Whatever,’ she says, and marches away.
Two more women talking loudly in Chinese come towards me, and I have no choice but to stuff my things into my bag and stand. Irritated that I missed the most important part of the conversation, I head in the direction of the Ladies. I stand in front of the mirror and look at my reflection for a minute, my brain working frantically. Have Lana and Jack fallen out? My heart bursts with joy at the thought. I check my teeth for lipstick and then I go back to the table.
Both of them turn smiling faces towards me.
‘We were just reminiscing about the past. About that time Billie didn’t want to do PE and she told her teacher that she didn’t want to change into her shorts because her legs were full of bruises where her mother had beat her.’
‘How was I to know that Social Services would turn up at my door that evening?’
‘Her mother made her take her trousers off and show the two women her legs.’
Billie makes a face. ‘They should have seen the backs of my legs after they left! Crimson and purple.’
‘We could hear the slaps and wallops from our flat,’ Lana adds, laughing gleefully with the memory.
I titter politely to show interest.
‘At least I wasn’t a vain crybaby like you.’ Billie looks at me. ‘Once she took a pair of scissors to her own hair, made a total mess, and her mother had to cut what was left real close to her head. That afternoon she goes to buy an ice cream and the ice cream van guy says to her, “Here you go, sonny.” What does madam do? She throws the ice cream on the ground in a hissy fit and runs home bawling, “He thought I was a boy.”’
‘I was only six then,’ Lana defends, and then… They both look at me. Obviously wanting me to share the highlights of my childhood with them. I blink. My stories. Oh no! Under no circumstances am I returning to my friendless state or the horror that my despicable fat self endured. I cover the fact that my lips are quivering by taking a drink. A question pops into my head.
‘You were in Iran for a year. What was it like?’
That sobers Lana up plenty.
‘Iran is very beautiful, but when I first went there I was very sad. At that time it felt like my life was ruined. I was crazy about a man I could never have and I was pregnant with his child. I hardly went out and I never mixed with our neighbors. I couldn’t speak Farsi anyway, so there was no real interaction, but they were always smiling at me, always nice—’
‘Nice! Aren’t they mostly terrorists?’
Lana’s eyes flash. ‘When you read the papers and listen to the news have a care. You are listening to that particular piece of news above all else that is happening in the world because somebody wants you to hear that. Have you ever wondered, Julie why we need to hear that Justin Bieber has been arrested for some minor infringement twenty times a day? Did nothing else important happen that day?’
I frown. Justin Bieber being arrested is important news—well, I want to know about it, anyway. And they repeat the news so that all his millions of fans get to hear about it. I glance quickly at Billie, but she is nodding in agreement. Seems I am the odd one out.
‘After my mother died,’ Lana continues, ‘I saw my neighbors, the ordinary Iranians, for what they really are. I thought I was sad before, but when she was suddenly taken away from me I became lost. I couldn’t do anything. I sat staring at a wall all day.
‘I know you won’t understand, but over the years our roles had changed. I was no longer the child, but the caregiver, the mother. I cried for her as a mother cries for her child. I could not bear to see her broken body, but neighbors, they were amazing. Though it was not their way—they are Muslims—they cleaned off the red polish on her toenails and painted them pale pink, powdered her face, colored her lips with her favorite lipstick, and placed her favorite rosary in her hand.’
The memory must still be very painful, because Lana’s eyes glisten with tears. She bends her head and stares at the tablecloth.
‘They shined my shoes for me, Julie! And the men, they arranged everything. The coffin—it had a brass nameplate and a satin and lace interior, the funeral in a sunny chapel, the Christian cemetery plot across town. Everything was done properly, with the greatest respect. They even laid one of Sorab’s toys inside the coffin.’
She shakes her head in admiration for the people that I had been persuaded to believe should have glass and sand pancakes for breakfast.
‘In the days after the funeral the women brought food three times a day, they took care of Sorab, they found a nurse to breast-feed him because my milk had dried up, they cleaned the house, they shopped, they cooked. They are the kindest, most beautiful people I have ever met and if ever you have the chance, you must go there and decide for you for yourself if they are terrorists or they are simply like you and me.’
The food arrives. There is too much, but nobody else seems to think so. Billie and Lana both know how to eat with chopsticks. I ask for a fork and spoon. I watch Billie dip her dim sum into soy sauce and put it whole into her mouth. I pick up a shiny white dumpling. Under its transparent skin I can see…stuff, well pork, prawns and crab to be precise, and I put it into my bowl. I am so hungry my mouth is running with saliva, but I cut a tiny piece and slip it between my lips. It is so delicious my eyes actually widen.
‘Good, isn’t it?’ Lana asks.
I nod and cut another tiny piece.
I chew slowly and watch Lana reach for the small plastic container and spoon she had taken out of her bag earlier.
‘Shall we have some lunch?’ she says, in that high sing-song voice that people put on when they are talking to babies and animals and ties a bib around her baby’s neck. He smiles up at her and she begins to spoon food into his face. ‘If you finish all your food you can have some of Auntie Billie’s fried ice cream.’
The rest of the lunch is a stressful, exhausting ordeal with me pretending to eat the same amount as them. Believe me, it is a feat considering the little baskets of dim sum arrive with exactly three pieces in them. Two I palm and they end up inside my handbag. Despite all their attempts to include and pull me into the conversation I feel excluded and jealous of their obviously tight bond. When the fried ice cream arrives I sigh with relief. From my seat I smell it, though. Freshly fried batter and vanilla. A tantalizing combination that makes me twitch in my seat. The baby gets some too. He seems to love it. As soon as it is all gone, Billie stands up.
‘I’m off to suck a fag,’ she says, picking up her box of cigarettes.
I kind of panic at the thought of being left alone with Lana. ‘Smoking will give you cancer.’
‘Great, that’ll save me from dying of boredom,’ she quips and then she is gone.
I look at Lana and she is pulling a wet-wipe out of its box and cleaning her baby’s hands. Terrified that an uncomfortable silence will descend upon us I blurt out the first thing that comes into my mind.
‘How old is he now?’ As if I’m interested.
‘Fourteen months tomorrow.’
‘He’s a very quiet baby, isn’t he?’
‘Yes, he is like his father. Blake’s first language is silence.’ She glances at me with a smile. ‘When he was young his capacity for silence was such that his parents thought there was something wrong with him.’
‘Do you think you will have more kids?’
Lana glows. ‘For sure. At least two, but most probably three.’
‘Oh.’ Does she not care that having so many kids will ruin her body? I suppose now she has the money she can go and remodel her body in any way she wants.
‘There you go. All done,’ she tells her son and turning to me says, ‘He hates it when any part of him gets dirty.’ She puts the soiled wipe on the table. ‘I got a little gift for you to say thank you for being my bridesmaid, but I was in such a rush this morning, thanks to him,’ she rolls her eyes in the direction of the child, ‘I forgot to bring it. If you don’t have anything planned for this evening perhaps you’d like to come home with me after the fitting? We can have tea together.’
I can barely believe it. I am dying to see where Lana lives now. I school my voice so I don’t sound too eager. ‘That would be nice, thanks.’
Lana pays the bill and we are thankfully out of the restaurant. I take a deep breath of the cool air. That is the last time I go to a restaurant with them.
The Bentley arrives and we all climb into it. Inside it is the byword in comfort. I settle in and we are borne towards that girlie ceremony called a dress fitting.
