“We never stopped loving each other, Alexandre and I.”
“You’re sleeping with him?” I cry out, trying to keep control of my frayed nerves.
She cackles with laughter. “Sleeping is not exactly the word I’d use.”
“But he was…he was in love with me.”
“No, Pearl. He was in ‘lust’ with you, for a brief spell. But he never had me out of his thoughts, not for a second. You were – oh, I’m sorry, would you like a tissue, there, there, don’t cry now.”
But I can’t help it. Tears are flowing down my cheeks. She hands me a box of Kleenex and I snivel and blow my running nose into a wad of them, but there aren’t enough to soak up my gushing tears. I’m making a complete spectacle of myself and am about to get up and leave but her cell phone goes. My curiosity is peeked. She answers and starts speaking perfect, fluent French; laughing and joking. I feel sick. Her French is perfect, she’s perfect. Stunning. Intelligent. And the worst thing of all? Alexandre has been in love with her the whole time. She ends her call and beams at me.
“That was Sophie, she’s coming over in an hour. Do stay, I’m sure she’d love to see you.”
“But you said Sophie was dangerous. That she tried to kill you!”
“No, surely not?”
My voice hitches and heaves, “You called me, Laura, and told me not to go to Vegas, that Sophie could ‘top me off’ that she had politicians and police in her pocket and…and…”
“Oh, poor Pearl, so gullible. I just didn’t want Alexandre to marry you. I had to stop him somehow.”
“So it was all a lie about Sophie?”
She lays her cane down and smoothes her slim hand over her luscious blonde locks. “Sophie’s a pussycat at heart. Okay, she can be a bit frosty sometimes but it’s just her manner. In fact, if she says mean things it’s her way of communicating. It’s when she’s silent you have to watch out. I can’t believe you thought she was out to kill you.” She laughs raucously. “Alexandre told me as much - that you were suffering from delusions about Sophie. Tut-tut, Pearl, not the best way to warm him up, you know how close they are. You couldn’t have picked a better way to alienate yourself from him. Oh, and bossing him around the way you did. Not the best of moves.”
I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Sweet, charity-giving Laura is a total bitch!
She widens her huge blue eyes and talks on. “Ironically, Sophie actually rather likes you, likes your quirkiness. It took me years for her to warm up to me, yet you…well, you two could have been friends if you’d given her more of a chance. She’s had a shit life so she’s a bit tough on the outside but actually, she’s really sweet when you get to know her.”
I am silent now. The sound of my tears has been taken over by my heartbeat which feels as if it’s about to explode in my chest.
“So how did your accident happen? Nothing to do with Sophie, then?” I ask.
“Of course not! It was bad luck, that’s all. A load of children’s toys had been left on the steps. I was tipsy. I tripped. I fell. End of story.”
“But it’s not the end of the story! You split me and Alexandre up! You told me a lie!” I screech at her.
“Far better that you broke up before that silly marriage of yours took place. Alexandre would have come back to me no matter what, even if it meant divorce. He’s been desperately in love with me, Pearl, from the day we met. And I with him.”
“Then why did you marry your husband…James?”
“Because I was a cripple, for fuck’s sake. You think I wanted Alexandre to look after me, to shackle him like a slave to a disabled person? I loved him too much for that. Besides, he had no money then. He was just starting up his company, he didn’t have a bean – I needed stability, someone who could look after me properly.”
“You used your husband?”
“James wanted to be with me. It wasn’t ‘using’ him. But the moment I was really better, able to lead a normal life…well, it seemed right that Alexandre and I should get back together. I mean literally, all I had to do was click my fingers and he was waiting for me. He’d been hoping all along, that’s why he’s always been in touch and remained friends just in case, in case I changed my mind. All this physical slog I’ve put my body through - the physiotherapy I’ve been slaving away at - has been so we can be a normal, functional couple again.”
She used her husband as a means to an end. I want to shout at her but all I can do is start blubbering again like a child who has fallen off a bicycle she realizes is too big for her to manage.
“Now, now Pearl, don’t cry. You’ve come away with all sorts of goodies – he’s been more than generous when he didn’t need to be. Two fuck-off apartments, two fuck-off cars, a ready-made business, all sorts of gorgeous jewelry, oh, and let’s not forget that Birkin bag I see you carrying. Obviously you could never afford to buy that for yourself. Alexandre offered me a Birkin but I thought it was too passé – preferred a Kelly, myself. But still, do you have any idea how much that’s worth? That color is unusual – looks like a one-off. That handbag must have cost a bloody fortune, not to mention the fact that there’s a queue as long as my arm to even get one in the first place. Alexandre must have pulled some serious strings. That pretty bag probably cost him…ooh, I don’t know, upwards of forty grand. Fitting, really, that it should cost forty grand when you’re forty. Beyond generous, I’d say. So why, Pearl, are you feeling so sorry for yourself?”
The way she uses ‘fuck-off’ as an adjective to describe something fabulous is typically British – I’ve heard it before - yet it rings in my ears as if I have been punched in the head. ‘Fuck off’ – that is basically what Alexandre has done – told me to fuck off, yet sweetened it with all his amazing gifts. But nothing has been sweet, just sour and bitter. And this is the sourest news of all.
I manage to get out in a rasp, “I don’t care about material stuff, it’s Alexandre I want.”
Laura tosses her head. “Well, you’re too late. And anyway, he was fond of you, it’s true, but he thinks you’re a total loony. All that lesbian bondage nonsense - oh and your slutty past. So not his style.”
No! he would never share that – it’s my personal life! “He told you?” I ask incredulously.
“Of course he did, we don’t hold any secrets from each other.”
“But that’s not like him, he would never do that.”
“I’m his best friend, Pearl, as well as his true love – he tells me everything, he confides in me. He can’t believe he took you so seriously. Look, I have to be cruel to be kind here…” she lowers her voice almost to a whisper… “he doesn’t love you. He never really has. You had a laugh, that’s all. You had some steamy sex, maybe, but it’s me he loves. And besides, you couldn’t even give him a child. He wants a family. You and he were all wrong right from the word go. Do yourself a favor, Pearl, get over him, find yourself a nice American boy with whom you have something in common.”
“Alexandre and I had so much in common!”
“Bollocks. You Americans don’t get our acerbic sense of humor. You’re all so earnest and, ‘have a nice day’. We’re different from you lot. You need someone more your own age, too. Ah, look the tea’s arrived. Do you take milk?”
Mrs. Blake waddles in with a tray. I get up, unsteady on my feet. I feel as if I’m going to faint. “No thank you, I need to go.”
“Please yourself. I’ll tell Alexandre you dropped by.”
I turn around. I need to know one last thing. “What about Rex?”
She throws up her hands. “Rex? Well, we’ll have him shipped over here, of course. I hate New York, wouldn’t dream of living in that shithole so we’ll be in London full time. That’s when we’re not wintering in the Caribbean, that is. I’m not big on dogs but you know, he’s Alex’s pride and joy so I suppose I’ll have to deal with the creature.”
The creature? Alex? I want to slap her face and would but she’d probably beat me with her witch’s cane.
I slowly begin to sl
ink out of the house feeling like the most worthless human being alive.
Laura remains cheery and nauseatingly jolly, waving as I leave. But just as I reach the door she calls after me, “Shame about your divine Zang Toi wedding dress - what a waste.”
I pretend I don’t hear. It’s as if she has sucked out all my energy with her painful words. I have no gumption, no force or ammunition left inside me to defend myself. There I was talking with Daisy about women needing armor and I had none. I feel shamed. My head is slung low like a beaten dog, I pad out of the house, my misery trailing me like a murky shadow.
I am so crushed and weak that I decide to sit on a park bench by the square that faces her grand house to regroup my fragmented dignity. I get out my iPod and put on the first song I see – the blues - Billie Holiday, Foolin’ Myself. How apt. I stay there for a good few minutes mulling over all the cruel but probably truthful things Laura has told me, or rather, fired at me like a relentless machine gun. I agree with Billie Holiday, I am through with love and I’ll have nothing more to do with love. What’s the point ever opening myself up again? Even if I had gone through with the marriage in Vegas with Alexandre, it would have, at some point, come to an abrupt end. Alexandre is still in love with Laura. As she said, I was just a ‘detour’. The ‘rebound’.
I think of my beautiful wedding gown probably being worked on right now. Crystals being hand-sewn on the train, the exquisite silk smoothed and pressed, a myriad of tiny, feminine fingers working on all the details. I noticed Zang Toi had mostly women in his atelier, busy as dedicated bees, their keen eyes supervising every fine stitch, every delicate fold. What am I going to do about that dress, that work of art? The truth is it would be better off in a museum.
And just when I’m praying that there may have been some mistake, some misunderstanding, or that it could all be a fantasy on Laura’s part, Reality slaps me in the face. I see the thing I’m dreading most in the world - Alexandre approach Laura’s front door.
I observe the scene, wishing I could look away but I am transfixed. He’s holding what looks like a gift-wrapped box. She opens the door, tosses her golden mane and throws her loving arms around his broad shoulders.
Then the glossy black door with its brass lion’s head shuts with a bang and I feel as if it has slammed right in my face.
It wasn’t Sophie who was my enemy. No.
It’s been Laura all along.
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Shadows of Pearl (The Pearl Trilogy, Part 2) Page 22
