Lace

by Shirley Conran

  On the darkened deck of the Minerva they sat listening contentedly to Strauss waltzes from the stereo. The odour of seaweed wafted from the cliffs beyond the harbour and mingled with the fragrance of Jo’s cigar. Blue smoke trembled on the still night air.

  Suddenly there was a scuffle at the end of the gangway. Lili heard her name yelled by a voice that she recognised only too well. Suddenly afraid, she jerked upright. Stiarkoz slowly stood up, looking neither unsettled nor surprised. He put an arm around Lili’s shoulder, touching her for the first time. “There’s no need to be frightened.”

  “Lili, Lili! I know you’re there, you bitch, I can see you.” Serge was lurching up the gangway toward her. Jo tightened his arm around her shoulder.

  “Don’t break his fingers, Socrates, just hold him.” Socrates moved surprisingly swiftly out of the shadows of the quay and Serge’s arms were jerked up behind him. Stiarkoz, moving toward him, took a puff of his cigar.

  “My friend, I regret my lack of hospitality. Why are you here?”

  “Because you’ve got my woman, you Greek bastard. When I heard she was with you, I caught the next plane to Nice. What do you think you’re doing with that old goat, you stupid bitch?” he yelled at Lili.

  Jo turned to Lili. “Are you his woman?”

  “Yes. . . . No. I don’t know.” Lili burst into tears.

  “Well, do you want to be his woman?”

  “Oh no, no, no! But he protects me. I haven’t anybody except Serge.”

  Stiarkoz put his arm around her and turned to Serge. “I’m afraid she prefers the old goat. So would you please get off my ship before I have you arrested.”

  He spoke softly in Greek. Socrates tightened his grip and Serge screamed. “Aaaagh! You bastard. You oily Greek bastard. Aaaaah!” Socrates had grasped Serge around the waist from the rear, lifting his feet off the ground, and was carrying him backward down the gangway.

  “A perfect suplex,” murmured Stiarkoz. He turned his back on the struggling man, put his hand under Lili’s elbow, and guided her toward the saloon. “I think we will spend the night at sea.” He reached for the ivory intercom.

  Just after midnight, the Minerva slowly moved out of the harbour. Standing in the stern, Lili and Jo watched the golden outline of the town etched against the black sky in a billion golden pinpricks. As the town receded, Jo threw his cigar butt into the phosphorescent wake of the Minerva.

  “You mustn’t worry,” he said. “You mustn’t feel trapped. I don’t want you to feel that you are moving out of one cage and into another. For the moment you are my guest. Later, when you feel strong enough, we can discuss your future. If you have signed any contracts, they can be renegotiated. That’s what lawyers are for. You have nothing to worry about.” He broke off for a moment, then continued, “You are a very lovely young woman, with your life before you. You can earn your own living, you can live alone, you can do whatever you wish. But don’t think about it until the morning.” Then he gently turned her chin toward him and Lili felt the firm pressure of his mouth on hers. She smelled the faint odour of starch and cigar and clean, warm flesh as she leaned against him, agreeably surprised at the strength of his arm.

  Serge stormed into Senequier, drank a bottle of brandy, then drove wildly to Cap Camerat where he strangled the white cockatoo.

  47

  FROM THE JASMINE-SCENTED terrace, the view across the valley looked like a Cezanne painting. Rows of silver olive trees climbed to the blue line where the mountains met the sky of southern France. Dark cypress trees lined the road that wound up to Vence between terra-cotta villas surrounded by orange and lemon trees.

  “It’s unlike Jo to be so late without letting us know,” Lili apologised to Zimmer. “His driver usually telephones from the car. Are you sure he said three-thirty, Constantine?”

  “Yes, I’m sure Jo said three-thirty, but really it doesn’t matter. The contracts don’t have to be signed today, we can backdate them.” The big man smiled at her, but only with his mouth. His heavy-lidded, half-closed eyes never showed any expression. His fleshy beak of a nose hung over a luxuriant mustache and beard. Shoulder-length, silvery locks made Constantine Demetrios look oddly patriarchal, more like a Greek Orthodox priest than a lawyer.

  Behind them, the villa stretched away, ornate as a wedding cake and large as a palace. The marble terrace where Lili sat was as wide as a ballroom and edged by a classical stone balustrade, upon which stood stone urns, planted with white geraniums and babies’ breath.

  “Well, I’ll tell them to put off tea for another half an hour,” Lili said. “Would either of you like to stroll around the garden?” Demetrios shook his head, but Zimmer stood up.

  “It looks too perfect to be real, Lili, I’m going to check whether those yews are plastic.” He pointed beyond the marble statues that surrounded the splendid baroque fountain below, to the hedged walk that led toward the thirty-meter swimming pool.

  Lili tucked her arm in his and they moved away, toward the curving marble steps. “We grow our own vegetables and fruit here. Everything you ate at lunch came from the estate, it’s brought in daily by the head gardener. We also produce our own chickens, turkeys and pigs; we press our own olive oil and make our own vin rosé; unlabeled but very good.”

  Zimmer laughed. “You make it sound so quaintly rural, but this must be one of the most splendid estates on the French Riviera. Very different from that dank villa I found you in three years ago.” As they passed one of the statues, he patted its marble fanny.

  In fact, he didn’t much care for the huge house, though he had to admit that the pictures were wonderful. No obligatory El Greco, no suspect Rembrandt, no second-rate Degas, no self-consciously slick Salvador Dali. With the exception of a little Constable river sketch, the pictures had mostly been painted after 1850 and had obviously been chosen by a connoisseur to please himself. Zimmer’s favourite was a soft, mauve Seurat of a girl picking cabbages, but that Monet was breathtaking.

  “Yes, very different from every place I’ve lived in,” said Lili, as they reached the yew walk. “Everything about me is different from three years ago, thank God. We lead a very quiet life, and if I’m not filming I spend most of my time here.” She was silent for a moment as they strolled toward the aquamarine pool. “The first thing that Jo did was to free me from my contract with Serge. Constantine handled it—he’s Jo’s chief lawyer and they’re old friends, so we see a lot of him. If any loophole exists in an arrangement, then Con will find it. He never signs anything that he can’t get out of.” They moved downhill to the left. In front of them, half-hidden by the trees, was a simple, white, rectangular building. The whole of the north wall was glass. “Did I tell you that I’m studying history with a retired professor in Vence?” Lili asked. “I generally paint in the afternoon. This is our studio.”

  She pressed a button and the wooden door swung open on a twenty-foot-high room lit by overhead skylights. The interior smelled of turpentine, linseed oil, dust and Diorissimo, that lily-of-the-valley fragrance that Lili always wore. There were four big easels, a couple of donkey stools and two old wooden tables, all spattered with paint.

  “I’m not very good yet, but I love painting. I have a teacher twice a week; Jo chose a tough one because he wants me to learn about structure, not just to pat paint on.”

  “Jo’s collection certainly is fantastic.”

  Lili hesitated before she responded, “It isn’t his collection. All the pictures are mine. He gave them all to me on my last birthday.”

  Zimmer’s mouth fell open. “All of them? That Van Gogh cornfield and the Matisse goldfish bowl?”

  “Yes, all of them, his whole collection. You haven’t seen the ones upstairs yet.”

  She remembered her birthday. Although it had been October, her bedroom had been filled with lilies and roses. Jo had led her to the big bay window. On a circular marble table stood a large antique box inlaid with ebony and a design of ivory cupids. She had opened the box expecting to see a piece
of jewelry, but instead there had been a mass of legal documents. Jo had explained that the papers were proof of the authenticity of each painting and proof that she, Lili, was now the legal owner of each one. The gift was a relatively quick, discreet way for him to give her a fortune. The museums of the world would bid fiercely for most of these pictures. If she wanted a house in Paris or an apartment in New York, she need only sell one picture.

  Zimmer whistled. “And they say that diamonds are a girl’s best friend!”

  “Oh, I’ve got diamonds as well, and ropes and ropes of baroque pearls. Jo loves to see me in diamonds and pearls. He says I look best in white, with sparkling wrists and throat and hair.”

  Zimmer whistled again. Stiarkoz was obviously still completely besotted. They left the studio and started back to the house up the grassy slope toward the long, low mansion.

  “Is this what you want, Lili? This quiet life? Isn’t it a bit staid for a girl of twenty-four?”

  “What you really mean is how can I possibly be happy with a man who’s nearly forty years older than me, isn’t it? People are always asking me that indirectly. Of course Jo isn’t young. He can’t leap about and play tennis for hours and he’ll probably die before I do. We’ve discussed all that. But that’s his only disadvantage and it doesn’t much affect me.” Lili bent and tugged a sprig from a rosemary bush. “As a matter of fact I feel constantly at a disadvantage with him because I’m so ignorant.”

  “Ah, that’s exciting for an older man,” Zimmer said. “To open a young girl’s eyes, to awe her, to be a god to her. . . . Until she meets someone who says, ‘That’s not a god, that’s just an old man with money.’”

  Lili scowled. “I find it odd that other men should assume that Jo has nothing to attract me except money.” She pointed a rosemary branch at him accusingly. “Jo has plenty of advantages that a young man couldn’t have. He’s carved his own path through life, he’s forged his own way; he ’s gutsy and that’s always exciting in any man, whatever his age. Age doesn’t matter so much to an intelligent man, because he doesn’t rely only on his physical attributes to attract a woman.” She crushed a couple of rosemary spikes between her fingers and paused to inhale the fragrance. “I love to hear Jo talk.” She sniffed again.

  “Of course I’m not denying that Jo can provide what women have traditionally always looked for in a man—protection and security.” Lili’s voice shook as she tucked the rosemary sprig down the front of her dress. Jo represented all the protective men she had lacked since losing Felix, and for that she loved Jo with passionate gratitude. “As a matter of fact, I don’t even consider Jo’s age to be a drawback, because without his age, he wouldn’t have that wisdom of experience. A relationship that’s going to last isn’t based on sheer sexual madness and nonstop sexual excitement but on . . . understanding and tolerance.”

  “And so there is no sexual madness?”

  “Jo has never left me unfulfilled, Zimmer. Not once. And that’s more than I can say about most of the men in my life.”

  They had nearly reached the long pool, its immaculate surface unruffled by wind or leaf. “Are you two getting married?”

  “What’s the point? I don’t particularly want to marry Jo. You see, so many women have tried to force him to do that. I don’t want marriage.” Zimmer turned to look at her and raised a quizzical eyebrow. “No, Zimmer, I want Jo. I do not ask for marriage. This way he knows that I’m not . . . what his children tell him I am . . . a gold digger.”

  They walked around the blue pool and the surface quivered in the breeze as Lili added, “Anyway, Jo’s never suggested marriage, although I’m sure he’s thought about it. Zimmer, haven’t you noticed that these very rich old men never marry their luscious young mistresses? They’re afraid of making fools of themselves, especially if the marriage doesn’t work out. And they never seem to.”

  They moved up the worn, stone steps. A white-gloved footman was about to place a silver tea tray on a terrace table. Zimmer said, “It’s none of my business, Lili, but I can’t see how this is going to last. Your life is just beginning, and you’re tying yourself down to a man whose life is ending. And you’re still not happy—don’t deny it, I work with you and I know you! You’re still being dominated, only in a different way. Pretending to enjoy this staid, matronly life in the sun! You’re a brilliant actress and you’re never going to get where you should be if you’re semiretired. The public forgets unless it’s constantly reminded.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Your own personality is being swamped. Stiarkoz has to dominate everything in sight, even you, so you’re in danger of losing sight of yourself again. If you abandon your real identity, you’re going to lose your true self. When you live by somebody else ’s standards, you betray your own. You’re turning into Jo’s echo, Lili!”

  Lili looked exasperated. “I’ve never felt I had a real identity, so how could I lose it?”

  Zimmer snatched at a honeysuckle branch as they passed it. “I can see that Stiarkoz can buy you plenty of expensive toys, but haven’t you noticed, Lili, that with all his wealth he hasn’t attempted to give you what you really want?”

  “Shut up, Zimmer! You can’t know what Jo gives me. He makes me feel protected, he ’s given me dignity, he educates me and he—demands little in return.”

  “But he hasn’t tried to give you what you really want—because he knows the danger. He might be able to trace your parents for you! But if you found your true identity, he ’s afraid he ’d lose his power over you. And he’s very possessive, he likes your being dependent on him, because if you weren’t—you might leave him!”

  “How dare you say such things about Jo!” Lili said, glaring at him.

  “Lili, I’m one of the few men who value you and don’t want to possess you. I’ve known for years that you won’t feel what you call ’real’ until you feel real self-confidence. At the moment, you only have that when you can shed yourself and be an imaginary person.”

  In the sunlight, Lili suddenly looked exhausted and forlorn. “Zimmer, I think you’d better leave.”

  “Darling, I was just about to go. Tell Jo I’m sorry to have missed him.”

  Lili saw him to his scarlet Maserati parked halfway down the white gravel drive, then she wandered back toward the house.

  Suddenly Demetrios appeared in the open front door. He came running toward her in an oddly slow way, a heavy man in a dark, expensive suit. She felt an odd foreboding.

  Demetrios heaved toward her, crunching across the gravel in slow motion, his pink silk tie flapping over his jacket. It was so odd to see him running.

  She knew immediately that something dreadful had happened to Jo.

  48

  THERE’S BEEN AN accident, a car accident,” Demetrios panted. “They’ve taken Jo and his driver to a hospital in Nice. That was the police on the telephone. They couldn’t tell me anything except that the Rolls had been travelling back from Monte Carlo when it shot off the Nice motorway aqueduct. It simply went through the wall and plunged over the side into the valley below. They’ve taken Jo and the driver to the Princess Grace Hospital.”

  He didn’t tell her that the police had asked for someone to visit the hospital and identify Jo. Both he and his driver were dead—their bodies had had to be cut out of the mangled Rolls Royce.

  Cold water was trickling down her neck and back. Lili opened her eyes. She must have fainted. Her maid, silent and frightened, was kneeling by the couch and sponging her face. The footman stood a few paces behind, looking helpless and apologetic, as if he’d just dropped the silver tea tray.

  Demetrios reappeared and walked across the carpet toward the little group. He leaned over the back of the couch. “Lili, my dear, don’t move. The doctor is on his way.”

  The doctor wasn’t Doctor Jamais; he was a small, sallow man with rimless glasses whom she’d never seen before. “Where’s Doctor Jamais?” she murmured, but he took no notice. He merely pulled back her eyelid, felt her pulse, murmured something to the
maid, and moved to a table where he undid his bag and turned his back to her. After a couple of minutes he turned toward Lili, and she saw a syringe in his hand. “What’s that for?”

  “Shock, Madame. You are in a slight state of shock. There ’s nothing to worry about.” He crouched by the couch and with a piece of cotton swabbed the inside of her left arm. Lili smelled hospitals. “Just a slight prick. There, that’s over. It didn’t hurt, did it?”

  “I don’t understand, I’m not ill, I just felt dizzy. I fainted. . . . I don’t understand.”

  Her eyelids slowly closed and then her jaw fell.

  Someone was holding her right hand. She was in bed in a small, gloomy room that she’d never seen before. Lili turned her head to the right and saw that Demetrios held her hand. She felt too weak to speak. Slow, silent tears trickled down her cheeks, her right ear felt damp. Demetrios patted her hand and replaced it gently on the blanket.

  “How are you feeling, my dear?”

  “Awful. I’ve got a splitting headache. But I’ve got to get to the hospital. I’ve got to see Jo. Where is this place?”

  “It’s a clinic outside Nice. Do you think you can get dressed? If so I’ll call for a nurse to help you, then I can drive you to the hospital. But first there are a couple of formalities. Would you mind signing this, please.”

  “I can’t sign anything now. Surely it can wait, Con, whatever it is?”

  “I’m afraid not, my dear. It’s the authority for the hospital to release the . . . er . . . Jo. Oh, my dear child, I’m so sorry that you have to suffer this, but bureaucracy is always with us, so exhausting.”

  Gently he pushed a pen into her hand and guided it to the page. “And here also.” Shuffle of documents. “And here, and here, and this is the last. . . . Oh, no, there’s one more.”

  He patted her shoulder, quickly took the typed documents away from her, leaned to the floor for his briefcase, snapped it open on his knees and swiftly tucked the documents into it. “Now I’ll call the nurse to help you dress.” He pushed the bell knob.