The Silver Chain (36 page)

I can feel the cobwebs unpeeling themselves and floating away as I drain my cocoa. But the dragging grumble of heartache remains.

‘We’re ready for you, Rena.’

Jake crashes through the glass doors behind me, interrupting the silence with voices and clinking glasses and his own brand of noisy intrusion. I feel a hundred years older than him.

‘It’s Serena now.’

I rise stiffly from my lounger, drop the blanket, and let them lead me into the bar and over to a wicker chair by the white grand piano. I think I’ll milk the invalid thing a little longer. After all, I do feel physically drained. All I’ve done since getting here from London is shuffle from bar to bed to breakfast. I could easily think myself into a fever if I really wanted.

‘This interview will be a piece of piss,’ Jake jokes with the bow-tied barman, who wears the bored expression of a
Punch
cartoon and is brandishing a cocktail shaker. ‘Serena Folkes and I were childhood sweethearts.’

I open my mouth to – what? Protest? Why? It’s true, isn’t it? They’re all looking at me expectantly so I change my pout to a smile and cross my legs. I’m wearing a pale grey cashmere tunic pinned with an oversized silver flower brooch which I found folded in tissue paper in the bag Crystal packed for Switzerland, and some white skinny jeans. On my feet is another pair of fluffy white socks. How did she know I’m at my most comfortable in socks or bare feet?

‘Our relationship is purely professional now, though, eh Jake? That was the deal when I agreed to the interview. No dirty linen.’

‘No kiss and tell?’ he smirks. ‘Shame.’

I accept the blood-red cocktail someone hands me and the cool liquid knocks away the comfort of the cocoa. Jake can be snide if you’re not alert to his tricks.

‘We’ve both come a long way from student photographer and trainee hack. Now we’re both being paid for what we love doing best.’

‘Yeah, though what I used to love doing best was getting you into that caravan.’

‘Jake!’ I glare at him as the others titter awkwardly. ‘Have you never heard that over-worked phrase “moving on”?’

‘Fine. Fine. Just be grateful I’ve got the clout to persuade the paper to pay for your trip to Devon. You’re a hard woman to get hold of these days, Rena. Who knew your old boyfriend would have to jump through hoops with your new man’s personal assistant to get this piece?’

Jake gives a kind of gangster’s flick of the wrist and straddles a chair opposite me, the back of it up against his stomach and his legs spread on either side. His blue jeans are too tight. His thighs bulge through the faded material. He’s obviously been working out and I can’t deny he looks good. Briefly I recall him naked in the dull afternoon light struggling through the dirty windows, jumping off the messy bed in the caravan and yawning, his youthful erection, aroused by me, still jutting out at right angles. He’d make a good life study, the ripple of his muscles, the taper of his torso.

I swing my sore ankle and get a handle on my thoughts.

He still looks like a lad, but a bulked-up lad. His shaved hair has grown a little, the fair curls bouncing gratefully back. Cute enough guy.

But he’s not Gustav. He’s the opposite of Gustav, a Labrador next to a greyhound. I long to feel the silkiness of Gustav’s black hair under my fingers, the slide of his stern mouth over me. The man who manages to be far sexier than Jake even though I’ve never seen him totally naked. Perhaps
because
I’ve never seen him naked. But I’ve felt his hot touch, seen the black glitter of warning mixed with desire in his fathomless eyes, his strong fingers digging into my hips, opening me up to him, his hardness possessing me so forcefully that days later I’m still aching.

And then I see Margot, her black eyes mocking and triumphant. I see the two of them in the master bedroom suite at the chalet, her on top, waving her whip, Gustav’s hands spread over her bottom to urge her on as she rides him.

I realise I’ve closed my eyes. Someone is pushing the hair off my sweaty face. I tip my head back longingly. Gustav is here, stroking my hair.

But it’s the make-up girl, up close and frowning. ‘You’ve gone a sickly green, Serena. Are you alright? And what’s this bruise above your eye?’

‘Silly accident with a – with a tripod.’ I look past her at Jake. ‘Listen. I appreciate the expenses. The train. The hotel. The publicity. All that, Jake. But I’d also appreciate it if you keep any crude comments under control. And no reminiscences in the by-line when it goes to print.’

Jake tugs his forelock and whistles under his breath. ‘When did you get so high and mighty, Rena Folkes?’

The make-up girl hides the bruise with foundation and smothers my face in powder and blusher.

‘I’m just trying to be the consummate professional.’

He sniggers. ‘Sure. But you know and I know that there’s a wildcat under all that cashmere who hasn’t had it in a while. Probably not since our last one-night stand. A sex kitten just waiting to bust out.’

The make-up girl giggles and blushes.

‘Oh, you’re wrong about that, Jake. I was rogered rigid, as you would so charmingly put it, just a couple of nights ago.’

He rubs his hand through his hair. I know what that means. He’s getting a hard-on.

‘Who’s the stud? Your rich patron?’

I lift one shoulder nonchalantly. ‘Could be anyone. London’s a big place. I’m just not
your
sex kitten any more.’

‘What a great way to start an interview.’ He flips me the finger. ‘You need to look lively, Rena. Want to be nominated for this year’s hottest new talent to watch, or not?’

‘Guys, guys, this ex-lovers’ tiff is all very entertaining, and it’s sure brought some colour into our heroine’s cheeks, but high tide is rising out there and I want to get home,’ murmurs the photographer from somewhere behind the potted palms. We’ve forgotten all about him. ‘Can we just get the shot, please?’

I straighten up, let the jumper’s boat neck fall softly down my arm, twirl the hair that the girl has just tonged into a ringlet, dangle my half-empty cocktail glass in the other. But inside I’m thinking, oh, where is my lady’s maid when I need her?

I turn straight to the photographer and give him my best smile.

‘I’m ready for my close-up.’

‘So you’ve done a runner?’

Crystal had barely blinked when I walked into the gallery, straight from the airport.

‘I don’t want to talk about it, Crys.’

‘Crystal. You are aware that you’ve broken the contract by coming back to London without him? Do you have any idea what Gustav Levi is like when he’s roused? And I don’t mean “roused” in a good way.’

I moved around the walls, touching my pictures again. Even happier to see that the red ‘sold’ dots had multiplied.

‘Yes, I’ve seen him roused. But I had to get away. The place freaked me out. She’s everywhere, Crystal. Her equipment. Pictures of her. His drawings, plastered all over their bedroom like graffiti.’

‘I’m astonished. He swore the place was fumigated and whitewashed years ago.’ Crystal glided up beside me. ‘None of that makes sense.’

‘Listen, I don’t have time to linger. He might catch me.’ I stepped away, but she was by my side like Peter Pan’s shadow. ‘Can we just talk about sales, Crystal? He’ll want me to pull out of the exhibition now I’ve broken the silver chain.’

‘The silver chain?’

‘You’ve seen it. It’s more than a gift of jewellery. When he hooks it onto my wrist it becomes our symbol.’ I rubbed anxiously at the bracelet. ‘Please, Crystal. No questions. I daresay he’ll tell you everything once I’m gone.’

‘You bet he will. Just don’t let a ridiculous misunderstanding jeopardise your career before it’s even started.’ Her eyes remained fixed on me as she ran a black-painted fingernail down the catalogue. ‘Right. There’s not much left to pull out of, in any case. Only nine more pictures to go. So no way can you back out. Not until it’s finished.’

‘I can’t be near him, Crystal.’

Just then my phone bleeped into life.

Hey, babes, am jetting in at end of week for brief stopover. Styling someone on X Factor then free for fun. You up for getting loaded at the flat then going out on the lash?

I stared at the text as if it was in code. My darling cousin. She’s coming all the way from New York and I can’t face her. I’m bailing on her. Worse than that. She’ll see that I’ve nicked her clothes and disappeared.

Sorry, doll. Photo assignment out of town. More notice next time?

‘How easily those fibs come, don’t they?’ Crystal took the phone out of my limp hand and studied it. ‘But in a way it’s true. You are required out of town. We’ve been contacted by several outfits wanting you to come and work for them.’

I kept my eyes on the curved monochrome back of my little Venetian nun.

‘Such as?’

She flipped over the sheets on her precious clipboard. ‘A fashion design studio. A travel company. A hotel chain opening up in Venice. And the developers of a gastropub near Bigbury in Devon.’

I glanced up and her round button eyes were already latched onto mine. ‘That’s where I used to live.’

‘I know. They know. They’re the people buying the old Folkes residence. That’s why they want the
Bleak House
series.’

She glided away calmly and tapped at an unsold series of sea and sky views framed by peeling, weatherbeaten windows and treated with chemicals to look like old postcards.

‘Ah. The house on the cliffs.’

‘Tell me about it.’ She kept her eyes on the photographs. ‘That’s where they neglected you. Bullied you, no doubt. Hurt you. Where they cut off your lovely Rapunzel hair.’

‘Yes. But eventually there was nothing but silence in that house.’ I realised I was pulling the bracelet hard against my wrist bone. ‘Apart from my diaries, and my dosh, those pictures are the only record.’

‘But why take photographs of a place with such awful associations?’

The bracelet was really hurting me now, but it felt good. I took a step towards Crystal.

‘All my life I’ve used cameras to make sense of the world, to bring light into the darkness. If that doesn’t sound too precious. When I became more skilled I could shape objects however I chose, manipulate or even distort them. I needed to boil that house and everything in it down to bricks and mortar. A shell.’

‘Reduce it, like one of Dickson’s sauces.’

Crystal cocked her head and ran her fingers over the photographs, tracing the rotten window frames, the nails sticking out of the damp walls, the dry, waving grass glimpsed outside.

‘That box of moulded plastic was my shield. That tiny window was my eye. It shrank everything to a seven by five image, or a six by four. A thumbnail. I took one solitary picture of those people through the kitchen window. I was outside, looking in. They were sitting motionless at the table. No food on there. No drink. No flowers. Just the two of them, staring not at each other, not at me, but at the floor. I went away and printed the shot then came back to rip it up in their faces.’

‘I can’t imagine you being so venomous, Serena.’

‘You see? I’m a bad girl.’ I stood close beside Crystal. ‘That was the last time I ever saw them.’

‘You’re not bad. Mixed up, maybe, and who could blame you?’ Without looking at me she uncurled my fingers from the biting bracelet. ‘You made something artistic out of something ugly. Pity they’ve been earmarked, actually. I love them. Those breathtaking views. That arched rock in the sea. The spray flying up against the old bent tree.’

The calm, airy way Crystal described the house on the cliffs somehow diminished it, ironed out all that historical pain like a carpenter’s plane smoothing away splinters.

‘Was the house really teetering on the edge of the cliff?’

I nodded. ‘Deliberately deceptive, those perspectives. But my life
was
vertiginous.’

‘Plenty of beauty in bleakness. My favourite kind.’ She tapped my silver bracelet with its tiny dangle of broken silver chain. ‘I’ll have signed prints of those, please, Madam, if I can’t have the originals. So. If they follow through with the purchase that will leave four photographs unsold. Oh, and they’ve asked a local reporter to interview you. In Devon. As soon as you can manage it. I’ll book the train ticket and a couple of nights at Burgh Island Hotel whenever you’re ready. You could use the fresh air.’

She tied a silk scarf printed with blousy flowers tightly round her throat and buttoned on a pair of red leather gloves. Picked up my wrist. Glanced more closely at what remained of the silver chain.

‘First the Alps. Now the sea. Go ahead and book it. I ought to get back to work, Crys.’

‘Crystal. And what better way to get back to work than getting out there? Selling yourself. Promotion. Publicity. Some R and R while you’re at it.’

‘How did you know I’ve always wanted to stay there? And isn’t it very expensive?’

‘I’ll run it past Gustav later. And why Burgh Island, you may ask? Didn’t I tell you that Agatha Christie is another of my heroines?’

I laughed. ‘OK, Crys – Crystal. But I wish you could come with me.’

She lifted her hand as if in benediction. ‘I am holding the fort here.’

‘After that I’m going to disappear while I still have the willpower.’

She turned her palm upwards like a traffic cop. ‘Whoa! Back up a minute. You’re going nowhere. You have other press interviews back in London next week. Remember this is ultimately about you, not Gustav.’

I felt as if I was imploding. ‘Just don’t tell Gustav where I’ve gone.’

‘I don’t know where
he
is at the moment.’ She twisted the fragment of silver chain in her red leather fingers. ‘Dickson phoned me. The chalet is locked up now. The estate agent has the keys. I know Gustav had business in Manhattan, so maybe he’s over there.’ She hesitated and then tilted my chin so that I was forced to look at her. ‘I’ve warned you before. There’s no reasoning with him. That woman left him raw, like an open wound.’

I let out a snort. ‘Well, he has no intention of suturing it.’

‘You’re wrong. It’s all he ever thinks about.’

‘All he ever thinks about is her?’