Forty 2 Days

by Georgia Le Carre

  My nails are too short for a French manicure. The girl asks me if I would like acrylic nails and for a moment I am tempted—I have never had them and they seem rather fun—but then I think of accidentally scratching Sorab’s tender skin while I am changing his nappy and I refuse. She waves towards a shelf full of nail varnish.

  ‘Choose your color.’

  ‘White,’ I say. ‘I will have the white nail polish.’

  In the car I admire my nails, how pretty and clean they look. ‘Tom,’ I say. ‘If you give me the key to the apartment you can drop me off at my place, and I’ll take a cab later to the apartment.’

  ‘Oh no, Miss Bloom that would be more than my job’s worth. I got an ear bashing for dropping you off at the shops the last time. I can take you to your place and wait downstairs until you are ready to go to the apartment.’

  He drops me off at the entrance and parks by the dark staircase to wait for my return.

  Seven

  Billie is sitting at our dining table when I enter. The baby’s basket is sitting on the table beside her. Surrounded by pens, watercolors, and crayons, she is bent over a large sketchpad in deep concentration. Hair is falling over her forehead and I feel a great surge of love for her. She looks up and smiles.

  ‘Wow! That’s a seriously cool hairstyle,’ she exclaims, and springing up comes to hold my hand and twirl me around.

  ‘So you like it?’ I probe, self-consciously touching my fringe.

  ‘Yeah,’ she says emphatically. ‘If he won’t have you, I will.’

  I laugh and go towards the basket. ‘Is he asleep?’

  ‘Nope.’

  Sorab is waving his little arms. I reach into the basket and lift him into my arms. He is wearing something Billie designed and made from scratch, a bright red and yellow romper suit with big blue cloth buttons that look like flowers.

  ‘Hello, darling,’ I say, my face creasing into the first joy-filled smile since I left the house.

  He stares at me with his intense blue eyes for a few seconds before he breaks into one of his deliciously toothless grins.

  Over my shoulder Billie says, ‘Shame he will have to grow up to be a man.’

  I turn around and look at her meaningfully.

  ‘What?’ she asks.

  ‘Your dad’s a man.’

  ‘That remains to be seen,’ she says, and moving towards her drawings, says, ‘Come and see this.’ I follow her around the table. I put Sorab into the crook of my arm to get a better view of her work. She has drawn a girl’s dress. It is not in the usual pale pink normally reserved for baby girls, but banana yellow with green apples all over it. I have never seen anything like it in the shops. She truly has a unique talent.

  ‘Well, what do you think?’

  ‘It is so cute, I almost wish Sorab was a girl.’

  Billie smiles. ‘You got time for a pot of tea?’

  ‘I do,’ I say. She puts the kettle on and we sit and talk. We never mention Blake. Until four thirty when I kiss Sorab and walk out of our front door. Tom gets out of the car and opens the back door when he sees me come down the stairs. I look up and Billie is standing at the balcony looking down at me. She shifts the baby to one hand and waves. I wave back, a feeling of dread in my stomach.

  I do not let Tom carry my bags for me or take me upstairs. I know the way. Besides, I am dying to be alone with just my chaotic thoughts. I go through the glass door and Mr. Nair leaps to his feet from his position behind the reception counter like a startled meerkat. He comes towards me beaming.

  ‘Miss Bloom, Miss Bloom,’ he cries. ‘You are back in the penthouse. I saw all the cleaners and bags and new furniture going upstairs and I wondered who it would be.’

  ‘How nice to see you again, Mr. Nair.’

  He holds out his hands. ‘Here, let me help you with your bags.’

  I pull the bags out of his reach. ‘It’s OK, Mr. Nair. They are very light. I can manage. Why don’t you come up tomorrow morning for a coffee instead, and we can have a nice chat, then.’

  ‘Oh yes, Miss Bloom. That will be wonderful. It hasn’t been the same ever since you left.’

  I smile. In truth I too have missed him and his fantastic stories of an India gone by. ‘I’ll call down tomorrow.’

  ‘Goodnight, Miss Bloom. It really is good to have you back.’

  I bid him goodnight, enter the lift and slip my key card into its slot. The doors swish close and I am borne up. Strange, I never thought I would be coming back here again and yet here I am. The doors open and it is all the same. Nothing, but nothing has changed.

  I unlock the front door and open it. The same faint fragrance of lilies that I always associate with this apartment wafts out. Such a feeling of nostalgia rushes over me that I feel my knees go weak. I close the door, put my packages on the side table, and walk down that long enameled corridor. I run my fingers along the cool smooth wall the way I had done more than a year ago.

  I don’t go into the living room, but turn off and go into the bedroom. A sob rises in my throat. Nothing has changed even here. It is as if I was here yesterday and not more than a year ago. I go into the room next to it and, as Laura promised, it has been set up to function as a nursery. There is a beautiful white and blue cot, all kinds of toys, a very swanky-looking pram and tins of baby formula. I go to them. I recognize them. I have seen them advertised, all natural and made of goat’s milk, but I could not afford them. I pick one up and look at it and experience a shaft of guilt.

  I have denied Sorab all this. Am I really doing the right thing by him? Will he thank me one day for depriving him of a life that 99.99 percent of people can only dream of? The answer is confusing and I don’t want to go there. I know I will go there, it is too important not to, but not yet. Not today. It is already six o’clock.

  I close the door and go into the bathroom and switch on the lights. In the immaculate space I am a stranger with a beautiful hairdo. I stare at myself. The night stretches out in front of me. I am excited and fearful of what it will bring. I sit on the toilet seat for a moment to compose myself.

  I take my dress out of the exclusive-looking bag Rêgine packed it in and hang it up in the bedroom. Then I run a bath, add lavender oil, step into it, and, lying back, close my eyes, but I am too nervous and excited to relax and after a few minutes I get out and, wrapping myself in a fluffy bathrobe that smells of squashed berries, I go into the kitchen.

  In the fridge there I find two bottles of champagne lying on their sides. I remember the last time when I stood in the balcony and drank to my mother’s health. This time champagne doesn’t seem appropriate. I close the door restlessly and go to the liquor cabinet. There I pour myself a very large shot of vodka. Standing by the bar I knock it back. It runs like fire into my empty stomach, but it has the desired effect of almost immediately settling my nerves. I look at my hands. They have stopped shaking.

  I go back into the bathroom and carefully apply my make-up. Two layers of mascara, a touch of blusher, and nude lip gloss. I move away from the mirror.

  ‘Not bad, Bloom. Good job.’

  I go back to the alcohol counter and pour myself another large vodka, down it and, feeling decidedly light-headed and, devil may care, go to the bedroom. I take my beautiful white dress off the hanger and change into it. As I gently ease it over my head a hook catches on my hair and pulls a lock out of place. I stare in horror at the dangling lock. Cursing, I try to twist it and push it back into place. My efforts are somewhat successful and I sigh with relief. I zip up and step into my shoes and look at myself in the mirror.

  A sophisticated woman with glittering eyes and high color stares back. Too much blusher. With cotton wool I remove it all. The heat and the alcohol have tinged my cheeks pink. No need for blusher. I dab my finger with perfume and touch it behind my ears.

  There I am, ready for the great Barrington.

  Eight

  I kill ten minutes pacing the balcony tiles in my Cinderella shoes. At 8:05 exactly Tom rings
the bell. His eyes widen when I open the door.

  ‘That’s a beautiful outfit, Miss Bloom,’ he says, with an embarrassed cough. He is holding a long cardboard box, which he awkwardly slips onto the side-table. I look at it and feel the color rush up my neck. Oh my God! Blake really means for this to be a re-creation of our first night together.

  As the lift descends I already know where Tom is taking me.

  Madame Yula is filled with the same sort of people that had populated it the last time I was there. If this is a re-creation of our first night together then I know exactly where I will find Blake. Waiting at the bar. I turn towards it and even though I know what I will see, my heart stops. He is wearing a charcoal suit, black shirt and a white tie, and he is the most beautiful man in the place…but that is not it… I am being eaten alive by his eyes. For a long moment I stand frozen, simply caught and staring back at the hunger in his stormy blue eyes. It is so naked and raw it shocks me.

  ‘Mademoiselle,’ someone says, close to my ear. I turn in the direction of the voice, my expression blank, distracted, perhaps even confused. ‘Can I help you?’ the waiter queries.

  Before I can answer, Blake is there.

  ‘She’s with me,’ he says smoothly, and the waiter slips away, the way waiters in movies do. I turn my head and look up into Blake’s face. In the glow of candles and soft lighting he seems dark and impossibly mysterious. For a moment neither of us speaks. We never broke up. It’s all there crackling between us. The sex-rumpled sheets, the slim hips wrapped only in a towel, the hungry mouth, and the hours upon hours of fucking. I shiver with the memories. My lips part. An invitation that cannot be missed.

  But a shutter comes over his eyes.

  ‘How complete is the illusion that beauty is goodness,’ he murmurs.

  Vaguely it registers that it is quotation, but my stunned brain cannot locate the source. A hand reaches out to take that escaped lock of hair that has worked free of my efforts to keep it up. Gently he twirls the strands in his fingers and carefully reinserts them into place. His hand drops off.

  ‘Would you like a drink?’

  It occurs to me that I am already a little drunk. ‘No, I had some back at the flat.’

  His eyes flash. ‘Champagne.’ He remembered.

  I shake my head. ‘Vodka.’

  He nods. ‘Food for you then,’ he says.

  We are shown to the same table. I look closely at him. Try to see beyond the mask, but his face is deliberately blank. In a daze I order food. It arrives. I pick up my knife and fork. Slip it between my lips. Taste nothing. I lift my eyes to him and catch him watching me. His eyes are ravenous. His food untouched. Between my legs I ache. I swallow the food in my mouth. It becomes a lump that sticks in my throat. I reach for the wine glass and take a gulp, but that only makes me choke. I start to cough. My eyes fill with water. Fuck. Trust me to do something so sexually unappealing.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Fine,’ I say flushing with embarrassment. I need to go to the Ladies and sort myself out.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I croak, putting the napkin on the table and standing up.

  He stands when I do. I leave the table and feel his eyes boring into me until I round the bend. I go into the Ladies and look at myself in the mirror. And again I am surprised by my reflection. I honestly can hardly recognize myself, the new hairstyle, the clothes, the make-up, but more than all of that is the look in my eyes. Wild. ‘I am Lana from the council estate, mother of Sorab,’ I say aloud.

  That piece of hair comes loose again. I carefully pull one of the pins out a little and wind the hair around that pin. It seems to do the job. I take a deep breath and go back out to the restaurant.

  While I have been away Blake has not touched his food. Instead, he has finished his whiskey and ordered another. He looks at me from above the rim of his glass.

  ‘Aren’t you hungry?’ I ask.

  He puts his glass down and catches my fingers. His hands are exactly as I remember, firm, warm, strong. He turns them over and looks at my nails.

  ‘Very nice,’ he says softly, and bringing them to his lips kisses them. It is a mocking gesture, but at the touch of his cool lips I tremble with anticipation. I remember them smiling with sexual invitation. He lets his fingers run up the skin of my wrist. ‘Pure fucking silk.’ His eyes rise up to meet mine. Between the thick lashes they are potent, compelling. ‘Have you missed me even a little, Lana?’

  For an instant, I forget myself and respond to the emotion I see simmering in his eyes. ‘There is not a day that has gone by where I have not longed for you,’ I whisper.

  As if I have slapped him, he snatches his hand away and begins to laugh bitterly. He shakes his head as if in wonder. ‘I see now why I was fooled by you. You’re downright lethal. A very, very dangerous seductress indeed I have caught in my net.’

  He drains his glass and, looking away from me, gestures to a waiter for another. When he turns back to face me, his eyes are glittering. ‘So how much did my father pay you?’

  I pause. I am in dangerous territory. My contract with Victoria does not allow me to reveal the sum or even tell anyone that I have been paid by her. The waiter arrives with his whiskey and sets it down in front of him.

  ‘Another,‘ Blake barks.

  The waiter nods discreetly and clears his empty glass in one smooth movement. Blake does not take his eyes off me.

  Billie is right. My position is untenable. In his eyes I must be the worst kind of slut. Ahead lies only more misunderstanding and pain for both of us. The pain has already begun, a physical ache. It fills my chest. I can never tell him the truth. In his mind I will always be his bad romance. Lady Gaga singing, ‘I want your ugly. I want your disease.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but I had to sign a non-disclosure agreement,’ I say, with the full knowledge that without the truth he will always despise me. I lean back in my chair feeling soiled. I will never again be clean in his eyes. And there is not a damn thing I can do about it. The waiter returns with more whiskey.

  ‘I know you’re angry but—’

  ‘Shut the fuck up. You have no idea,’ he grates through gritted teeth.

  I close my mouth. I have never seen him so openly angry. He is always so controlled, so smooth. Even when he was once angry with someone on the phone his fury was so tightly leashed, so frighteningly quiet that I stood stock still behind the door listening.

  He shoots his whiskey aggressively, and turning the empty glass on its edge rolls it on the tablecloth. ‘Do you want more food?’

  I shake my head miserably. This is turning out to be nothing like I imagined.

  A muscle in his jaw twitches. He calls for the bill.

  Someone in a suit comes rushing to his side. ‘Is anything the matter?’ he enquires worriedly.

  ‘Everything is fine.’ He looks at me hard and deep.

  ‘But your main course…’

  Blake does not take his eyes off me. ‘I have unfinished business to take care of, Anton.’

  I flush badly and Anton slips away with impressive speed from that which has nothing to do with him. Another waiter, his face schooled into impassive professionalism, comes bearing the bill. Blake signs for it, unfolds himself out of his chair and comes to stand by me. I get to my feet and he leads me out of the restaurant. We do not touch except for his hand splayed on the small of my back. Possessive, the way only a husband’s hand should be.

  Not a word is spoken by either of us in the car, but every cell in my body is responding to his nearness. My desire for him is such that my hands are clenched tight against my thighs and my sex is actually throbbing. In fact, the need is so excessive it is almost violent. I sneak a look at him. He is staring ahead, the chiseled cheekbones like stone, but that muscle in his throat is ticking like a time bomb. I know that tick. It tells me what he cannot, how hard and deep he wants to fuck me. He is well and truly snared inside his bad romance.

  ‘What happened to all the clothes I left behind?’ I
ask in the lift.

  ‘You enquire about last season’s fashions? What about the people you left behind, Lana? Why don’t you enquire about them? Me for instance.’

  ‘How have you been, Blake?’

  ‘You’re just about to find out,’ he replies with a nasty grin.

  Nine

  I hear the soft, thick click of the door behind me, and turn around to face him. He stands there, tall, dark and throbbing with sexual tension. God! How I want this man. A rough sound rumbles in his throat. I recognize it. Blind, earth-shattering desire. It has been a long time since I heard it. Makes me rock on my feet. He shoots out a hand and pulls me hard towards him. My body slams into his.

  I have the impression of stone—unmoving. It will break, but it will never bend. But I can bend. I mold my hips into his. His erection is thick and hot against my stomach. The rawness of it awakens that great beast inside me. Greedy, relentless thing. It wants more, it wants it all, and it wants it right now. Intoxicated by the smoldering fire in his eyes my hands snake up his chest and twine around his neck, but his strong hands come up and untangle mine. He catches them in his and takes them behind my back. His clasp is a firm handcuff.

  Very deliberately he holds me away from him and lets his half-lidded eyes rove my parted mouth, my breasts—thrust out towards him and heaving, down my body, to my legs. His eyes lift again to meet mine. I am impossibly aroused.

  ‘I had half a dozen fantasies of what I wanted to do to you when I got you naked. Tame sex is not one of them,’ he says, as he plucks out the pins in my hair and flings them away. Released, my hair falls all around my face and shoulders.

  ‘My beautiful whore. Once I was good to you and you kicked me when I was down; now you get what you deserve.’