by Karen Swan
‘I have people to buy milk for me,’ Lucy shrugged.
‘And perhaps that’s part of the problem,’ Charlotte suggested.
‘What? How’s that a problem?’
‘Once you stop doing little things for yourself, things change. It’s a luxury and a privilege having staff, naturally, but becoming disconnected from the basic rhythms of everyday life is also risky – it can be isolating. Alienating. These small routines ground us, we need to stay connected to the mechanisms of our own survival, even if it’s just something as insignificant as buying the milk.’
‘No chance.’ Lucy shook her head. ‘You don’t know what it’s like here. It was hard enough going anywhere back home, but here, it’s tenfold. Galáctico is another word for god here. People are always staring, watching, judging, filming us even. We took Leo out for lunch last weekend, just a burger, but so many fans came up wanting their photo with Rob, his autograph . . . We ended up having to leave. Leo was in tears, bless him.’
‘I can imagine how hard that must be for you. Loss of anonymity can be particularly difficult to adjust to.’
‘I’ll never get used to it. Me and Leo, we never asked for any of this.’
‘Of course not.’ Charlotte took another sip of her tea and watched the little boy play too. So much of her job consisted of just listening to her clients, really hearing what they were telling her. ‘And of course it works on multiple levels, doesn’t it? The general public, invading your privacy with endless gawping, albeit harmless; but it happens on the inter-personal level too, when new people come into your orbit. They know you’re Rob Santos’s wife—’
‘And that he signed for ninety-five mill. I can see it glowing in their eyes when they talk to me.’
‘Big boob syndrome,’ Charlotte nodded. ‘It’s all they can see.’
Lucy let out a peal of sudden laughter. ‘Yeah. Big boob syndrome, that’s it! That’s it exactly.’
Charlotte smiled, knowing there was no joy in her laughter. ‘It can be hard knowing who to trust: do people like you for you, or because of Rob, or because of your lifestyle? That’s incredibly emotionally isolating. Plus you live in a gated community with guards and patrol dogs, and for good reason – your wealth makes you targets – but the upshot is you’re as much kept in by these high walls as the public is kept out. And that’s physically isolating.’
‘Yeah.’ Lucy’s face fell again as she looked around at the perfect house. ‘But then I feel guilty, don’t I? We’ve got so much, more than I could ever have dreamed. What right do I have to moan?’
‘Having money at this level can be a profoundly lonely experience, Lucy, and on top of that, you’re a young mother, living in a foreign country, far from home, away from your own family and friends, isolated by the language, not to mention being trailed by the paparazzi . . . Who wouldn’t feel overwhelmed by that?’
Lucy nodded, looking close to tears.
‘The challenge for you is to weed out the people only looking at your boobs and find those people who’re interested in you for other things.’
‘But how?’
‘By doing things that interest you. Go for the experience first and the friendships will follow.’ Lucy looked back at her blankly and she shuffled forwards slightly in her chair. ‘Okay, back home, what was your favourite thing to do – away from Rob, I mean? What made you happy?’
Away from Rob? The concept seemed to confuse her. ‘I dunno.’ She gave a hopeless shrug. ‘Shopping. Doing up the house. Drinks with the girls. Normal stuff.’
‘Any hobbies?’
‘Hobbies?’ Her snub nose wrinkled again. ‘You mean like knitting?’
‘Or photography. Or pottery. Were you a member of any book groups? A running club? Floristry workshops?’ Lucy looked back at her like she was mad.
‘I’ve got my fitness sessions,’ Lucy offered. ‘Pilates, HIIT, boxing. I bloody love boxing.’
‘Okay, so great – are you doing that out here?’
‘Course.’
‘And where do you do that?’
‘Here.’
Charlotte hitched up a finely shaped eyebrow. ‘You’ve got a gym in the house?’
‘Mm hmm.’
‘With a trainer?’
‘Of course.’
‘So it’s just the two of you? You’re not going out to a class. Meeting other people? Having a coffee afterwards.’
‘Oh.’ The tiny body deflated again. ‘No.’
‘What about the other players’ wives? Have you met any of them? They’re in the same boat as you.’
‘They’re not like me though. Most of them married their fellas once they were famous. Me and Rob have been together since he was brought over to the youth academy at Man U. I’m not about the money. We properly love each other.’
‘I know. I can see it between you. You’re a real couple. A real family.’ Charlotte thought for a moment. ‘Okay, answer me this. What do you think you’d be doing if Rob wasn’t a professional footballer?’
Lucy thought about it for a moment. ‘Hairdresser.’
‘Okay. And what would you do if you had to work, but you could do whatever you wanted?’
This time, Lucy didn’t hesitate. ‘Artist.’
‘Really?’ Charlotte was surprised, and she saw the embarrassment climb over her client and sit on her like a child. ‘What sort?’
‘Portraits. I like looking at faces.’ She regarded Charlotte with an intense stare suddenly. ‘I’d love to do you.’
Charlotte laughed, taken aback to find the attention suddenly on her. ‘Oh I’m sure you can find better subjects than me!’
‘No, there’s . . .’ Lucy stared at her closely, her eyes travelling over her face like she was a dot-to-dot graph. ‘There’s something about your face . . .’
Charlotte had never thought there was anything particularly beguiling about her face, not really: light-brown eyes, good brows, neat nose, unspectacular mouth, sprinkling of freckles. She was, to her mind, simply pretty, nothing more. Stephen had once told her she was ‘tidy-looking’.
‘Haggardness?’ she asked, recalling her mother’s words last night.
‘Hardly,’ Lucy guffawed. ‘Nah, it’s . . .’ She trailed off, scrutinizing her.
‘What?’ Charlotte asked, intrigued but also trepidatious.
Lucy’s gaze narrowed thoughtfully. ‘I don’t know – you’ve got sort of . . . sad eyes.’
The smile froze on Charlotte’s face. ‘Oh—’
‘No, no, I don’t mean it as a diss or nothing,’ Lucy said quickly. ‘Oh, I can’t find the right words for it. It’s just a bit of a sense I get with you, you know? Some people you meet and they’re like old souls, aren’t they? You feel like they’ve been here before.’ She widened her eyes spookily. ‘But with you, it’s like, no matter how smiley you are, there’s still something . . . sad in you.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘Sorry, no offence. I don’t mean to keep calling you sad. I can’t think of the right word.’
‘None taken,’ Charlotte said, keeping her smile fixed. ‘But please don’t worry about me. I really am perfectly happy. Very happy in fact. Not sad at all.’
Lucy’s face brightened further, as she remembered something. ‘Oh my God, that’s right. Last time I saw you in London, you’d just got engaged.’ She leant forward, reaching for Charlotte’s hand. ‘Ooh that lovely ring he gave you. Let me see it ag—’
Her voice faltered as she saw the bare ring finger. She looked up at Charlotte in alarm.
‘It’s fine!’ Charlotte smiled, seeing the panic on her face. ‘I’m just having it resized. It kept spinning round on my finger.’
‘Oh my God, thank fuck,’ Lucy laughed, slapping her hand to her chest. ‘I really thought I’d put my foot in it there.’
‘No, don’t worry, we’re absolutely fine.’
Lucy gave a small snort. ‘That’s what I say to my mum when she rings. “I’m fine.”’ She looked up suddenly. ‘It’s the most common lie in the world, d
id you know that?’
Charlotte shook her head, feeling her heart flutter slightly, like a child startled in its sleep.
‘Yeah, I read that somewhere.’
Charlotte kept her face neutral, but her gaze down. She didn’t want Lucy seeing her eyes now. Because if ‘being fine’ was a lie, only one of them here was going to admit to it.
Chapter Two
The apartment was west-facing, the Spanish sun pooling on the parquet floor; the bank reserved it exclusively for senior executive use – and favoured consultants. Charlotte sat with her legs outstretched, bare feet on the ironwork railings, skirt hitched up to tan her thighs – watching as the city six storeys down ran through its rush-hour cycle: red tail lights stretching along the boulevards, cyclists weaving down through one-way streets and narrow alleys, the distant rumble of trains underscoring the bad-tempered traffic. The wine glass was weighty in her hand; beads of condensation matched the sweat on her upper lip. The temperature here always took some adjusting to, especially coming straight from London.
‘Hey! Finally. I thought I’d never get hold of you,’ she said into the phone, the ringtone against her ear immediately switching to another background soundtrack of traffic.
‘Oh, Charlotte, I’m just rushing off.’ Stephen sounded harried.
‘Where are you?’ She sipped the wine, watching as an elderly lady walked her dog.
‘Piccadilly.’ She could tell from his breathing that he was walking briskly. He still walked like a soldier: shoulders back, chest out, chin up, straight arms. You could take the man out of the military . . . ‘Just en route to drinks at the Reform. Heatherwick’s back in town.’
‘Ah, Charlie, how is he? Still living with tribes in the Andes?’ She had only met the man himself once before on a one-night layover between St Petersburg and Panama, but Stephen had regaled her many times with tales of their time in the field together, playing poker inside tanks and singing along rugby songs to his pocket harmonica. When Charlie had decided not to renew his commission after a particularly gruelling assignment in Helmand Province, Stephen had been devastated. Was it coincidence he himself had left after the next tour of duty? He had said it was because he had met her by then and wanted to settle down to a normal life, but sometimes she wondered if the catalyst hadn’t been the prospect of a new life with her so much as losing his old one with Charlie.
‘Apparently so. I’ve bought him a tie in case he’s forgotten how to dress properly.’
‘He’s ex-Sandhurst,’ she said drily. ‘That’s impossible. I bet he polishes his fishing spear to a shine.’ She lapsed into silence, listening to the rapid beat of his shoes on the pavement. It was his upright bearing that had first caught her eye, when they met. It seemed so . . . reassuring to meet a man who held his head that high, as though nothing the world could ever throw at him would make him duck or waver.
Behind her, in the background, music played softly through the speaker system.
‘Where are you? What are you up to?’ She could hear the frown in his voice.
‘Chilling in the apartment. I’m only just back.’
‘Decent place?’
‘Decent,’ she agreed, blind to the mushroom silk curtains and minimal Armani furniture.
‘Good. And how was today?’ She knew what he really meant was, have you concluded your business there?
‘Fine. I just caught up with another client this morning and popped into the bank’s offices for a quick meeting this afternoon. The real work starts tomorrow.’
She heard him tut. ‘Just so long as you remember you need to be back by Friday, Charlotte.’
The dinner wasn’t till Saturday but she knew better than to point out that detail. Friday was her deadline. He wanted her back in London by then, regardless of anything else. ‘I will be.’
‘It’s a bloody nonsense them sending you away on a project at a time like this.’
‘I’ll be back, don’t worry.’ She heard him ‘harumph’. He was never any good on his own. ‘What are you doing for dinner? There’s some lamb in the fridge.’
‘I’ll play it by ear with Charlie boy. See if he fancies going on somewhere. I should imagine he’s in dire need of a bloody steak after all those agave leaves.’
Charlotte smiled. Her fiancé was the sort of man who believed that survival depended upon red meat at every meal and he looked upon vegetarians – much less vegans – as utter lunatics.
‘I’m going to have to ring off. I’m just coming up to the steps and you know what they’re like with technology in there. My phone will be on silent so unless it’s an emergency . . .’
‘It’s fine. Go see Charlie – feed him up – and I’ll call you tomorrow.’
‘Okay. Have fun over there. Cheerio.’
Cheerio. It was another of his quirks that had made her smile when they first met, an attempt at levity instilled into him by his own mother. ‘Love you, darling.’
‘Yes, yes, love you too.’
The line went dead, London transposed for Madrid again, and she sat a few minutes longer, her toes waggling in time to the beat, her gaze flighty and restless as she looked from one rooftop to the next, from the street to the sky, tracking birds, pedestrians, cars, nothing at all. This was relaxing, right?
She watched the sun set for a few minutes more – as if proving a point – before turning back into the apartment. It was immaculate save for the orange net bag puddled on the table; she had bought just enough provisions to get her through tonight and tomorrow morning: coffee pods, milk, a bottle of rosé and a box of cereal that looked to be three parts sugar to one part grain.
Frankly, she was tempted to have the cereal for supper. In spite of playing it down to Stephen – last night’s conversation with him and her mother still rankling – hers had been a long day. After the face-to- face with Lucy Santos, she had headed straight over to the regional office for a four-hour meeting with the head of HR. Food and drink had been brought in at regular intervals but to all intents and purposes, they hadn’t lifted their heads as they went through the Mendoza file with a nit comb. It was vital she understood the background of the family and how they had built up their fortune to become the dynasty they were today.
Marina Quincy, though. A nobody. A line in a phone book. Charlotte had done her own brief internet search, finding nothing on Google, Facebook or Instagram; it only piqued her interest further; the name had been lodged in her mind since the initial meeting. It was distinctive. Curious, even.
She turned her head to the right and caught sight of the file sticking out of her tote. Rosie had sent it over as she was leaving the office this evening – the preliminary investigative report Mateo Mendoza had commissioned on his father’s mistress, as she was now commonly assumed to be. Charlotte, despite her better judgement, had printed it out to take home with her. She knew she ought to leave it till the morning. This was now her time. She was supposed to be relaxing, getting ready for the wedding: she still had to make final decisions on the napkin colour and her mother would not rest until they had a verdict on the buttonholes. The wedding was coming round at a gallop and Rosie was right – she did need to switch off from work and give it some attention.
And yet, she found her hand reaching for the file anyway as she passed by to curl up on the white leather sofa. Just a quick look-see . . .
She flicked through the pictures first. Marina Quincy was a strikingly beautiful woman, the sort to make men stare open-mouthed and turn their heads in front of their wives as she passed. From what Charlotte could make out from the somewhat grainy photos taken of her waitressing at a cafe, she was tall and rangy but there was a mannishness to her looks too: she was no run-of- the-mill femme fatale with her big hands and feet, thick eyebrows and tawny skin pulled tight over angled planes. Her dark hair was almost black and worn up in a messy bun with wispy tendrils fluttering at her neck. She wore several silver rings on both hands and had a tiny tattoo of a swallow on her left inner wrist, her white shirt strain
ing slightly at the bust and across the shoulders. An old plaster was wrapped around her left pinky finger and the multiple studs, cuffs and small hoops at her ears looked tarnished.
There was nothing polished or refined about her. She looked tired, weary, worn-down. And yet, in the images, though her eyes were cast down as she collected plates from a table, Charlotte could see several onlookers watching her going about her business. Was she aware of the power she had over other people, Charlotte wondered, or oblivious to it?
Charlotte thought not. To transfix a man like Carlos Mendoza, ancient though he was – and he was ancient; two years off a century according to their files – would have been no mean undertaking; she surely had to understand the weapons in her arsenal.
She wondered how long the relationship had been going on for – a glance at the profile told her Marina was forty-five. It surely couldn’t be a new thing? Not with his age. If they had met when she was in her early thirties and he in his mid-eighties though . . . ? It was still a hell of a stretch but he might well have been a vigorous older man, carrying his years well? A silver fox? Charlotte had seen the Rolling Stones playing at Twickenham the year before and watching Mick Jagger race up and down the stage for two hours had redefined what ‘seventy-something’ looked like to her. It was certainly possible, she supposed, and a fortune the size of his was a proven aphrodisiac to many young women before her.
But it wasn’t just the age group that struck her as odd. The fact that she was still waitressing . . . It might have been how Carlos had first met her, but Charlotte would have assumed a man like him would want to keep his lover in fancier style than this. Unless Marina insisted upon it – keeping her job, her old life? Was it a principled stand or a tactical play? And if the latter, it begged the question, did she know what her lover was intending for her: wealth she could never hope to count, land she could never hope to cover?
She read through the profile more closely: Born and bred Madrilena. Divorced, ex-husband Miguel Hermoso, a carpenter, no kids. Two brothers, one now dead – testicular cancer. Aunt to three nephews and two nieces. Mother dead, father a mechanic, remarried and living in Bilbao. She had had multiple jobs – working at the laundromat, a hotel maid at a three-star hotel, dog walker, checkout clerk at supermarket. But . . . this was interesting; Charlotte peered closer: she had graduated with a hospitality qualification four years ago.
