Текст книги "Seduce Me"
Автор книги: Georgia Le Carre
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Текущая страница: 4 (всего у книги 14 страниц)
Seven
The next time I see Lana is a week later, on a Thursday. She sends Tom to pick me up to bring me to her apartment. I sit inside the clean, softly scented interior of the Bentley wearing my best jeans, a top patterned with pink daisies teamed with a hot pink jacket and sandals with pink bows.
‘I love your top,’ she says as soon as she opens the door.
‘Thank you,’ I reply, but I am thrown into confusion. Does that mean she doesn’t like the rest of my outfit? Lana is in a white sheath dress and a pair of deep red wedge shoes. White contrasts beautifully with her hair. She looks cool and understated.
There is a middle-aged woman in the apartment. Lana introduces her as Gerry, the nanny. She smiles pleasantly, and goes back into Sorab’s room. She is taking the boy out to the park.
‘Hello,’ I greet the child.
He looks at me solemnly. There is a great deal of reserve about this child. He is eerily adult-like. Lana is right, he is exactly like his father. The nanny leaves with the boy and Lana takes me into the kitchen.
‘I baked a carrot cake yesterday. Want a piece?’
‘That would be lovely,’ I say, and climb onto the stool I had used the last time I was here. She already has a teapot ready. She puts a cup and saucer in front of me and pours some tea in. Then she pushes a sugar bowl and a jug of milk towards me.
‘I like mine black,’ I say with a smile, and bring the cup to my lip.
I watch her cut a slice of carrot cake and put it on a plate. It looks moist—crumbs fall onto the china. I look at the walnuts embedded in it and consider telling her that I have a nut allergy, and then I realize I want to try her cake. Perhaps it will be lousy. She comes around the island and places the cake in front of me. I break a tiny bit off and pass it into my mouth. It is freaking delicious. Sweet and oily. The way everything should be. Is there nothing that this woman will not do well?
‘Well?’ she asks, popping herself on the stool next to mine, a huge slice of cake on her plate. ‘Do you like it?’
‘Delicious,’ I say, truthfully. She smiles at me warmly and I smile back.
I break off another small piece.
‘You remind me,’ she says, ‘of those French actresses in the black and white movies that my mother used to watch. They used to break off minute pieces from their bread rolls or baguettes or whatever they were eating and slip them daintily into their mouths too.’
‘Really? You used to watch black and white movies?’ How boring. I break another piece.
‘Sometimes. They were classy.’
We sit quietly for a minute, both sipping our tea.
‘What do you do all day?’ I ask.
‘Well, Billie and I were planning to set up a baby clothes business.’
I nod. Ah, that would explain the colorful drawings I found in Billie’s place.
‘But,’ she carries on, ‘I realized that it would be a total waste of my time. The reason people take up jobs that they hate or start a business is to earn money. I have more money than I could possibly spend. I am in the process of starting a children’s charity. I’ll start in Britain but eventually it will be a worldwide organization. I’m calling it CHILD. I have to be careful, though. I don’t want it to be like the other charities where so little actually gets to the intended recipients.’
She’s right there. I just read that Lady Gaga’s charity took in over two million and paid out one grant for five thousand dollars while hundreds of thousands were squandered on expenses.
She turns slightly away from me to look at the clock on the wall and I break a large piece of cake off and, with my hand under the counter, squeeze it into a ball in the palm of my left hand.
‘Can I use your bathroom?’
‘Of course. There is something wrong with the toilet in the cloakroom. Just use the one in my bedroom. Do you still remember where it is or do you need me to show you?’
‘No, no, I remember.’
‘OK,’ she says, and forks another piece of cake into her mouth.
I go into her bathroom and flush the cake down the toilet, wash my hands quickly, and go back into her bedroom. Her laptop is open, but the screen has gone dark. I go to it and tap the mouse pad. The screen opens to an odd sight. It is a website about sex magick and secret cults! What the…? Huh?
I read the first paragraph of something titled The Emerald Tablets.
“Far in the past men there were who delved into darkness, and using
dark magick called up beings from the great deep below us. Forth came
they into this cycle, formless were they, existing unseen by the children
of earthmen. Only through blood could they become, only through
man could they live in the world.”
Dark magick? Beings from the great deep below us? Formless ones? Blood rituals! What the hell is Lana doing on a crazy site like this? There is a notebook open by the laptop. I recognize Lana’s handwriting. I scan through it.
The brotherhood of El
El =Saturn
The worship of Saturn is the oldest secret religion.
Their symbol – the one eye
Why is the one eye symbol on the American dollar bill??
Symbols are perceived by humans on a subconscious level.
Is that why modern media and the entertainment industry is filled with one-eye symbols? Are celebrities flashing it without realizing its true meaning and what they are communicating to the public or are they puppets?
The occult symbols and imagery are everywhere, in movies, television, music and fashion, but human beings are totally blind to them.
The first and most important tenant of initiation into almost all cult sex magick is the sodomizing of children!!!! Sodomy and pedophilia is the foundation of the whole thing!! Goes back to Nimrod and the Egyptian initiations.
CANNOT
proceed to the next level without this step.
Blake’s dad!
Child sacrifice is a worldwide phenomenon. Every culture has at some point in history stooped to it.
Why?
Is there a long-term agenda? An unseen hand?
Who are the children of the shadows? What do they want with us?
Need more answers. Can’t find! Who to ask?
I can make no sense of her notes. Why is Lana doing research on sex magick and such dark subjects as child sacrifice? Why is Blake’s dad mentioned in the notes? And the sodomizing of children! Why is she interested in such an unspeakably horrible subject?
I run to the door and hurry down the corridor. In the kitchen Lana’s slice of cake is almost gone and she is sipping her tea.
‘Finish your cake,’ she says. ‘We should be going or we’ll be late for our appointment.’
I sit down, my mind racing. I eat the rest of the cake without tasting it.
We have just got into the car when Blake calls. I can tell by the way her voice softens and becomes all giggly. I find it hard to marry up this love-struck girl/woman with the dark research I found on her laptop. If this is a mask she is wearing then it makes me determined to find out what is really going on. When she terminates the call I ask her if there will be paparazzi at the wedding.
‘No, Blake has had the area designated as a no fly zone. It is just for close friends and family.’
‘How come you’re not having a bridal shower?’
‘I guess because I don’t want my friends to shower me with gifts. I already have everything I could possibly want!’
Wow! How amazing to be able to say that. ‘What about a hen night? Don’t you want one of those?’
‘Blake doesn’t want to have a stag night and even though he’s cool with me having a night out with the girls I hate leaving him at night. I see so little of him as it is.’
‘Why doesn’t Blake want a stag night?’
‘He says stag nights are a form of consolation for men who feel they are sacrificing a cherished state for the sake of love. He knows he is sacrificing nothing.’
‘He works really hard, doesn’t he?’
‘Yes, very.’
‘I thought rich people spent all their time quaffing champagne and caviar and going to the opera.’
‘Blake’s father didn’t want his children to be trust fund kids. They were taught that even the greatest empire can be brought to its knees if the king and his favorites are sunk in luxuries and dissolution.’
Something flashed in Lana’s eyes when she mentioned Blake’s father. What, I do not know…yet.
Tom drops us outside Selfridges and Lana takes me to a make-up counter where an Asian girl smiles politely at me. Lana introduces us.
‘Go on, work your magic,’ Lana says. ‘I’ll be back in half an hour.’
First Aisha takes a photograph of me.
‘Why are you doing that?’
‘Usually women who are used to wearing very heavy make-up feel naked and dissatisfied when they first look in the mirror at what I have done, but they react in a totally different way to a Polaroid of themselves.’
I sit on a stool and she positions herself in front of me.
‘Are you wearing colored contact lenses?’
I nod.
‘Are they for correction purposes or just cosmetic?’
‘Cosmetic.’
‘Right.’
Going to a drawer she brings out antiseptic wipes and a contact lenses case and some storing solution. She gives the wipes to me and fills the cases with the solution and passes them to me. I clean my fingers and remove my lenses.
‘You have such lovely hazel eyes,’ she says. ‘What a shame to cover them with those lenses.’
Then she wets a cotton wool pad with make-up remover and starts taking the layers off. Once it is all gone she takes a step back and looks at me carefully. ‘Your eyebrows are so light. Is that the natural color of your hair?’
‘Yes.’ I grimace.
‘Why do you do that? It’s a beautiful color.’
She says no more. Just quietly gets to work. Lana comes back just as she is finishing. Her mouth becomes a surprised O and her eyes sparkle with delight.
‘Oh, Julie,’ she exclaims. ‘You look stunning.’
Another photo is taken of me and then the stool is turned around. I look at the mirror.
And I am not pleased.
The girl looking back at me is too exposed. Too young. Too uncovered. Aisha brings the two photos and puts them into my hands. The photos tell a different story. One is harsh with black eyebrows, fake blue eyes and thickly painted lips and the other is a dewy and soft eyed. I know which one I prefer. I look in the mirror.
‘I guess I am just not used to it,’ I say uncertainly.
Lana comes close to me. ‘Julie, you look beautiful. I have never seen you look more beautiful.’
‘Really?’
‘Really. Look, let’s go do your hair, and then you can decide.’
Lana pays for my cosmetics and we leave. I catch a glimpse of myself in one of the mirrors and maybe, maybe Lana is right. I do look better. Different anyway.
Inside the fragrant air-conditioned confines of the hairdresser’s, Bruce Lenhart’s eyebrows fly into his hairline.
‘What’s the inspiration for this?’ he asks, running his hands through my hair.
‘Morticia Adams,’ I say meekly. I’m not about to tell anybody that Lana is my inspiration.
He crosses his arms across his chest. ‘Your hair is very dry. Do you straighten it as well?’
I nod.
‘So your hair is curly.’
‘Wavy.’
‘And you have been coloring your hair for how long?’
‘Years.’
‘Let’s get to work.’
As he works he explains that trying to bleach away years of chemicals is very harmful and he won’t be able to strip it back to its natural color. But he will take away as much as he can, throw a medium brown dye on all of it, and add three shades of highlights everywhere, which will turn me into a dark blonde overall.
Afterwards he cuts a good four inches of damaged hair off. By the time he is finished I am totally confused. I don’t look like myself, but I can see that the creature in the mirror is attractive. With soft tendrils around her mouth, drawing attention to its glossy color.
It’s… It’s, well, I guess, it’s quite…sexy. I look sexy. Lana comes up to me, meets my eyes in the mirror. She smiles and nods her head.
‘You’ll do,’ she says with great satisfaction, and I know it is the highest compliment I could receive from anyone. Because the truth is I don’t just secretly hate her, I also secretly admire her.
Eight
It is the eve of the wedding. Tom comes to pick Billie and me up and drives us to the church for the rehearsal. Made of ancient grey stone it has a quaint feel to it. We are introduced to India Jane, the wedding organizer. She has a posh voice, no-nonsense eyes, and oozes superficial charm from every pore. As soon as everyone arrives she sets about taking us through our paces with impressive efficiency, but I am too excited to pay much attention to any proceedings that do not directly involve me. Tomorrow I will see Jack again! I try to picture that moment and wonder what he will make of my dream dress, and the new me.
I hardly speak to Lana as Blake never lets her out of his sight. I do, however, meet Blake’s sister. A fully-grown, handsome woman who smiles artlessly, and behaves like a child. In the procession, she walks with a basket of flowers behind the flower girls and baby Sorab, who is carried in by his Nanny. He is given a dummy ring pillow to clutch.
I also meet all the groomsmen except for the best man who apparently has been through his part separately as he is attending a funeral wake. I wonder what it must be like to attend a funeral one day and a wedding the next.
At the end of it all, when Billie and I are about to get into the Bentley to be driven to Wardown Towers, where we will spend the night, Lana runs up to us and gives us devastating news.
I did do some research and discovered that Wardown Towers houses one of the largest and most fabulous art collections in private hands and is considered the grandest estate in Bedfordshire. It even has its own Zoo, but I go to it heavy-hearted and saddened. It is all for nothing.
Jack is not coming to the wedding.
The Wedding
Nine
It is 10.00 a.m. and I am in Wardown Towers. Billie and I spent last night here, because in four hours Lana will become Mrs. Blake Law Barrington. I have left them in the room with the make-up artist and the hairdresser while I go down the impressive curving staircase and walk through the many reception rooms and out into the stone courtyard. Stretched out below me is the vista of beautifully manicured gardens and farther away, but still part of the estate, the best and greenest of English countryside.
I watch workers stream like ants in and out of a large white marquee. They are carrying mostly flowers and plants, but also trays and boxes of all kinds. I go towards it and stand at the entrance.
Inside, it is bustling with activity.
A very gay man, presumably the one Lana says is from Beverly Hills, is prancing around giving orders. I gaze around in wonder. The tent is in the process of being turned into a gold, black and cream wonderland. The ceiling of the interior is made with hundreds of yards of crushed black velvet and looks like a giant black scallop. Fairy lights illuminate its whorls. Six enormous, three-tiered chandeliers hang from this sumptuously decadent ceiling.
The stage at the end of the room is made of hedge and surrounded by magnolia trees that were separated into trunks, branches and flowers so they could be flown in from America. Workers are reassembling them with staple guns. For a moment, the florist in me feels for those beautiful trees that will, after this one occasion lasting no more than a few hours, wither and die. The gratuitous waste of these beautiful trees is shocking. And yet this what I have read about in all the celebrity mags and longed to be part of. They are only trees, I tell myself. Raised solely for this purpose. Their greatest moment is here. When they are part of the fantasy garden a billionaire banker pays to create for his bride. She wanted a spring garden wedding.
She’s got it.
I let my gaze wander over to the walls, made of billowing cream drapes, greenery swags and countless—and I mean countless—white flowers. The amount of flowers and leaves on the walls superseded only by the number of flowers on the three long dining tables that edge the room. I reach for one of the roses and lightly squeeze it. You can always tell the difference between the high and low quality ones by doing so. This is a high quality one.
Dinner is to be a plated meal and all the tables are already set with plates, cutlery and glasses. The centerpieces are tall, elegant candelabras entwined with trailing exotic flowers. They are surrounded by clusters of small, unlit candles.
Later I will see the real effect.
The middle of the room, meant to serve as a large dance area, is covered in a cream and gold carpet. There is no gift table because Lana and Blake have requested their guests to pledge donations either to CHILD or to their favorite charities. To the left of me is a long table where there are earplugs in cream boxes for when the music gets too riotous, a phone charging station, comfy slippers for feet tired of high heels on the dance floor, miniature bottles of sunscreen, bug repellent, paper fans, and cozy wraps for the women in case there is a sudden evening chill.
The attention to detail is astonishing.
I leave the tent and head back towards the room where the three of us are getting ready. I open the door. Billie is sitting in a toweling robe having her make-up done and Lana, who has already had her make-up done, is now having her hair styled. My hair is already done.
The videographer is filming and a photographer is clicking away.
‘You’re next,’ the make-up artist says to me.
‘OK,’ I reply and go sit on a chair beside a window.
Fat Mary comes into the room and closes the door behind her. She is wearing a peach dress and a matching hat. For a change she actually looks all right.
‘Cor blimey…have you girls seen the best man?’ she asks and chortles.
‘Vann Wolfe?’ Lana asks with a laugh.
Mary indulges in a long whistle. ‘Even his name is perfection. One look at him and I know he is going to be a fantastic lover.’
‘How can you tell?’ I ask curiously.
‘Listen, love, I’ve been to bed with enough men to know who’s going to whip it out, whip it in and wipe it, and who’s got the slooooow hand and dazzling moves.’
I stare at her without comprehension. What the hell is a sloooow hand? I have only been with three guys and all three times it was a total and complete disaster. I was drunk, they were drunk. First time I was sixteen and he didn’t even use a condom. He promised he would withdraw before he came and he didn’t. He apologized, but what a bastard! What he did afterwards was unforgivable. Fortunately, that didn’t end with an STD or a nine-month bump for me.
The second time it was three years later. I was at a party. He was confident, the way Jack was, but he had a big nose. He put his finger into my knickers and poked me when I wasn’t expecting it. It was painful. I was drunk so he got on top and went for it. He said having sex with a condom on was like sucking a sweet with a wrapper still on it, but he didn’t want no squalling baby. He wanted to spray his semen on my stomach. So he did. It was sticky and messy and I hated it. He tried to ask me out again, but I refused.
The next guy was at a club. I was very drunk. He was the deejay. He took me around the back and pushed his hard length against me. It was exciting. I had a condom in my purse and we used it, but afterwards I was still ashamed. I felt as if I had betrayed Jack. I know it sounds crazy but that’s how I felt.
Fat Mary goes to sit on the bed and looks at Lana. ‘So who is he?’
‘His…father used to…work for Blake’s family,’ Lana explains, but I did not miss the pause before father and work.
‘In what capacity?’
‘His father was the butler. But Blake and Vann are very close. They grew up together so they are as close as brothers.’
‘What does he do now?’
‘I think he’s trying to be an artist. He lives in Paris.’
All I hear is ‘trying to be’ and I decode that as poor. Church mouse poor.
‘Oooo what I wouldn’t do for one night with his steaming flesh,’ purrs Fat Mary.
Lana laughs. ‘You could be in luck, Mary. Blake tells me he likes the fuller figured woman.’
‘That’s sealed Grandview’s fate for tonight, then,’ she says in such a black widow spider voice that we all laugh.
‘You are a terrible slut,’ says Billie.
‘Slut is so harsh. Dragon on the hunt is more appetizing.’
There is a knock on the door. Still laughing, Billie goes to open it.
‘Hi,’ she says, but her voice is suddenly different. We all turn towards the door.
‘Hi,’ a man’s voice says and I feel my heart stop.
Oh! my God! Oh my God! The man standing at the door is none other than my Jack.
My stomach does a backflip. I swallow hard and compose my face. Billie opens the door wider and I see him framed in the doorway. I have never seen him in a suit, and, oh boy, he is so incredibly handsome he dazzles my eyes. But on closer examination he is Jack and yet he is not. The African sun has turned him as brown as a berry, but it is his eyes. They are dull and sad. Has he seen what he shouldn’t have in Africa?
I have never been able to forget that time waiting at the dentist and, having read all the magazines on offer, picking up something on photography. Skimming through it bored me out of my skull, and coming upon that iconic picture of the sickly skeletal child crawling on the dusty, barren landscape towards a help center. Behind the child, a vulture following on foot, waiting for it to die. I researched the photographer on the net later, and it didn’t shock me when I learned that he eventually took his own life.
Jack’s eyes zero in on Lana. She stands up, her hand clamped on her mouth. For a moment no one moves and then she is flying across the room towards him, but instead of lunging into his arms as I have sometimes seen her do, she stops two feet away from him. There it is, the tension that Lana and Billie were discussing in the restaurant. Did they fall out?
‘Hello, Lana,’ he says. His voice is the same.
‘You came,’ Lana whispers. Her hand is pressed to her stomach.
‘Of course. I did promise to give you away,’ he says, and smiles. And for just one moment he seems as he was before.
‘Oh!’ Lana’s face falls. She bites her lower lip. ‘I’m sorry, Jack, but you never replied to any of my emails. I thought you weren’t coming. Billie’s father is giving me away,’
He shakes his head slowly. ‘No he’s not. I am. This is a surprise from Blake.’
It is only then that I realize that he is dressed in the color scheme chosen for the wedding. A blush-colored square of handkerchief is sticking out of his breast pocket. That little piece of material unifies his attire with mine.
Lana flings her arms around his neck joyfully. ‘Oh, Jack. You almost ruined my wedding.’
His arms go around her. She lifts herself up on her toes and kisses his cheek. ‘I’m so glad you’re here. So glad. Thank you, thank you so much for coming.’
‘I’ll always be here for you.’
Lana sniffs.
‘Don’t spoil your make-up,’ cries the make-up lady in a panic.
‘I guess I’d better leave and let you finish getting dressed. I’ll come back for you when you’re ready.’
Lana disengages herself from him. He throws a quick glance at the rest of us in the room. ‘Ladies,’ he says, and then he is gone.
Lana looks at Billie. ‘Did you know?’
‘Of course,’ Billie admits airily.
Lana goes to her mobile and calls Blake. All she says is, ‘Thank you.’
I don’t get to hear what he says, but her reply is rather intriguing as she says in a perfectly serious tone, ‘I consider that sexual blackmail.’ Then she turns around and goes back to sit in front of the mirror. She looks like the happiest bunny in the field. When she catches my eyes, she grins like a cat that has got the cream.
By the time the hairdresser puts the last wave into Lana’s hair I am made up, coiffeured and dressed. Billie and I stand around and watch while the hairdresser carefully attaches Lana’s mother’s tiara in her hair. It is a cheap thing, a little tarnished, but the hairdresser is clever, fills it with tiny babies breath so it looks romantic and dreamy. We help Lana get into the dress. It looks even more gloriously beautiful now that her hair and face have been done up. Carefully the girl fits the veil onto Lana’s head.
‘You look good enough to eat,’ says Billie.
‘Wish Mum was here.’
Billie smiles and carefully lifts the veil over her face. The photographer clicks away. It is a beautiful moment.
Then Jack comes in. ‘Are you ready?’ he asks.
Lana nods.
‘You look amazing. I’m so proud of you. Blake’s one lucky man,’ he says, but, even though he is smiling, his eyes are forlorn.
I pick up the bride’s bouquet—it is made solely from calla lilies—and put it into Lana’s hands.
‘Time I was going,’ I say, my voice all sugar and cinnamon, but nobody looks at me. I exit without Jack having even noticed I was there.
Later. My time will come later.
