“How wonderful.”
She shrugs. “Who knows? Maybe you’ll decide to volunteer your time.”
I say nothing. The idea is foreign, but not terrifying.
My sister smiles warmly. “No pressure. I’ll come with you to start with and if you don’t enjoy it we won’t go anymore, okay?”
I nod slowly.
Baby steps.
By the time we get home it is late. There is a thick layer of snow and the castle looks enchanted and mythical, like something you’d find in a storybook. Guy and Lena bade me goodnight and enter the west wing while I make for my living quarters in the tower.
I stop outside the door and glance up. Rita has been in earlier to turn down the bed, light the fireplace and switch on the lights. They make the stained glass windows glow like jewels in the dark night. It looks lonely and exposed up here. At night when there are storms I can hear wind howling outside, but I like it. The walls are thick and I feel completely safe.
I close the door behind me, lock it, and take the fifty-seven winding stone stairs up to my living quarters. My palm trails the stone walls and my shoes echo loudly. Sometimes, as I go up these steps, I remember those irresistible fairytales Mama used to read for us. Every Princess who lived in a tower was eventually saved by her Prince.
I am no Princess.
No one is going to come and save me.
Which is fine with me.
I open my door and breathe in the familiar scent of lavender candles. This is my little sanctuary and I love it. Everywhere you look there are delicious nooks and corners full of little things that Lena or the staff have given me. When Guy knew I wanted to live in this tower he had it decorated so that the entire suite, which contains a salon, a bedchamber, and a luxurious bathroom, resembled something straight out of a Medieval movie set.
There is a queen size bed draped with a regal green brocade canopy, a writing table, a tall armchair, and a gorgeous parlor sofa hidden behind velvet curtains where I often curl up with a good book. The orange flames flickering in the fireplace make the place look deliciously warm and cozy. I take my shoes off and walk barefoot on the deep pile carpet into the bathroom.
In the bathroom there are Roman mosaic tiles and a sunken bath set in marble under a star-covered ceiling. I go and stand in front of the mirror. For a few seconds I look at myself curiously. There is a flush on my cheeks. It must be the alcohol.
I release the pins in my hair, my one claim to beauty, and it falls in shining, golden-brown waves down to my waist, but today my attention is arrested by my eyes. They seem different. They glitter.
I touch my lips. A man kissed me tonight and I didn’t feel revolted. In fact, I wanted him. For the first time in my life I wanted a man.
I close my eyes and I see his face. The hot blue eyes, the hard cheekbones, the straight, dark hair falling over his forehead. Something curls in my stomach. I think of the tattoos snaking out of his rolled up sleeves and feel an ache between my legs. I want to touch those tattoos and follow the ink. Let it lead me wherever …
I take a deep breath. In the mirror I’m scowling.
Have you ever seen a movie director shooting a green screen scene? It’s weird. You can’t feel anything since the actor does his part against a green screen with no references to real life. Later in dark booths, engineers and technicians will add sounds, backgrounds, smoke, bleeding people. Whatever makes the scene believable.
Well, a green screen movie take is what my life resembles.
I go about my life in front of a green screen. There is no background, no sounds or references to make sense of the scene. It’s quite weird, but generally it serves its purpose.
However, on a night like this, when my heart has allowed the green screen to fool it into forgetting what it shouldn’t have and yearns instead for what it can never have, I will allow myself to add background to my movie. This is the only way to remind myself. This is reality. This will cure me from wanting beautiful men I can never have. Men like Jack Irish.
I open my eyes, unzip my dress and let it fall to the ground. My skin is smooth, my breasts are smallish and perky, and my waist trim. I am wearing white cotton panties.
I take them off.
My hips are gently curving and my legs are shapely from all the hard work I did as a child. There are a few silver scars on the insides of my thighs, but they cannot be seen when I stand like this. You have to spread my legs to see them.
Very slowly, with my heart hammering in my chest, I turn around and stand with my back to the mirror. Then I do what I have not done ever since I came to this gorgeous castle. Taking a deep breath, I bring the thick curtain of my hair over one shoulder, and swivel my head to look at my back. My hands clench involuntarily.
There it is.
My life with the green screen removed. Replaced with the background of a dirty brothel. As if it happened yesterday I feel again the cut of the rough ropes around my wrists and ankles, hear the taunts and laughter of the men, smell the acrid scent of burning flesh, and hear my own screams of horror and excruciating pain.
There it is for all to see.
Across my back is the poignant reminder of my real worth.
Branded like common livestock with crude fire-heated irons are the marks of my ownership. The letters are blotched since I flailed too much, but you can still clearly make the words out.
Valdislav Mikhailov
Eight
Jack
I wake up to the sound of thunder and rain hitting the windows. Great. It’s fucking raining on Christmas Day and there’s a banging in my skull. Fuck. I’m too old for this.
I was all right while we were playing that comfortingly juvenile game Fuzzy Duck, but when it moved on to Dirty Pint and I called the toss wrong three times in a row, I was gone. For fuck’s sake, Tommy was drinking Scotch, I was drinking beer, Liam was on the Guinness, and the girls were drinking wine and cocktails. A little bit of all that into a one-pint glass. Even thinking about it now makes me want to puke.
I grab the sides of my head and groan.
“Merry Christmas,” a voice next to me says.
I freeze. I don’t even remember picking up a woman.
Her head pops up in my vision. Blonde, fake eyelashes, smeared lipstick, but not bad looking. I kind of vaguely remember her. Top heavy, pink top, leather miniskirt. She was so tanked up she had to take a piss behind some bushes in someone’s garden. Fuck, I wasn’t much better. We staggered up her stairs and fell through her door.
“You’re a sight for sore eyes, Jack Irish,” she says.
Her voice goes right through me. I scowl and lift up my hand in the universal gesture of STOP TALKING! The gesture is lost on her.
“What’s not to like? You’re breathing, aint ya?” she says, and laughs raucously. It is like machine gun fire in my head.
“Fuck,” I mutter. I got me a talker.
Her hand reaches for my crotch. I grab her wrist and look at her with cold eyes. “Don’t.”
She frowns. “That’s not what you said last night.”
“Yeah, well. Morning’s always a bitch.” I jack-knife upright, my feet landing with a thud on her wooden floor. A cold, full condom squelches under my foot, and pain explodes in my head.
“You’re different today,” she accuses sulkily.
Squinting, I pull my underpants on and grab my shirt off the floor. Shrugging into it I glance at her as I do the buttons. “I’m sorry. My head’s pounding and I’m really not in the mood to engage in chit chat.”
She breaks into a cajoling tone. “Do you want me to make you breakfast or something?”
I practically gallop into my jeans. “I appreciate the offer, er ...”
“Melanie,” she supplies.
“It’s really sweet of you, Melanie, but I’m kind of in a hurry.” Sitting on the bed I pull on my socks.
She touches my arm. “We had fun last night didn’t we? We were good together, weren’t we?”
I suppress
the bile rising up my throat. I hate clingy women. Women who can’t take a hint. You need to hit them over the head with a fucking brick to make them understand. “Yeah, sure.”
“Maybe, we can meet up for a drink some time, huh?”
I smile tightly. “You know, sweetheart, maybe not.”
“Why do you have to be so horrible? It’s Christmas morning.”
I pull my arm through one sleeve and I open the door to her studio apartment. “Merry Christmas,” I say as I make my exit.
The elevator doesn’t work so I take the stairs. It smells of stale urine. Outside it is pissing down with rain. All the magical snow is gone. I look at my watch. It’s already ten thirty.
I open the door and step out into freezing cold rain. It lashes down on me, soaking through my clothes very quickly. The shops are all closed and the streets are deserted. Water runs down the pavement in rivulets. My boots squelch with rain water as I walk down the road. I get to Kilburn High Street and decide not to bother going back to my apartment. My mother’s house is less than fifteen minutes away. I set off for it. I’m outside her door in ten. Her neighbor is peeking out of her window. When she catches my eyes she gives a little wave.
I nod and put my key into my mother’s door. As soon as the door opens I am surrounded by the smells of a massive Christmas dinner cooking.
She comes out of the kitchen wearing her apron over her new red dress. It has lace on the collar and pearl buttons. Her cheeks are rosy with the heat from the kitchen, and her watery-blue eyes widen with surprise at the sight of me.
It makes me feel guilty. This day is important to her. I shouldn’t have rolled out of some bird’s bed and turned up here like a drowned rat. I should have got a taxi home, freshened up, and arrived with her present.
“Merry Christmas, Ma.”
“You’ll catch your death of cold. Go on. Git.” She shakes her head and scolds as she shoos me towards the bathroom.
I hurriedly peel off my sodden clothes and get into the shower. Standing under the hot cascade I feel the life slowly come back into my frozen limbs. Ten minutes later I get out.
My mother has left a clean towel and clothes for me on a chair. I towel myself dry and swipe the steam off the mirror with my palm. A stranger’s face stares back. His eyes look frighteningly empty. Just pieces of blue glass stuck into the sockets. I’m worth millions, my name is well known, and my expertise is greatly sought after, but none of it gives me any happiness.
I make my hand into the shape of a gun, point it at my reflection and ‘bang.’ “You died in Africa, Irish,” a nasty voice in my head says.
“Not too shabby for a zombie, then,” I say to the voice and turn away.
I get dressed and go into the kitchen.
Ma is sitting at the table peeling potatoes. Through the glass door of the oven I can see a large turkey roasting.
She glances up at me. “You drink too much. You look terrible.”
I open the fridge and take a beer out. I open the cap, flip the bottle opener back into the drawer, and sit at the kitchen table.
“You’ll kill yourself at this rate,” she sniffs.
“Leave it out, Ma,” I mutter. I’m fucking thirty. I don’t need this shit. I take a long drag of the cold beer while my mother glares at me.
“So I’m just supposed to stand back and watch you kill yourself, am I?” she demands.
“Oh for God’s sake. It’s fucking Christmas, Ma.”
She sniffs again. This time more dramatically. “Ever since you came back from Africa you’ve never been the same. What happened to you there? Why can’t you talk about it and get it off your chest?”
“Nothing, Ma. Nothing happened. Do we have to talk about that now? Today? When I feel like shit?”
I glare at her and deliberately take another long drag. She takes a deep breath. I can see the thoughts running through her head. She doesn’t want to spoil the day.
“I’ve made the pies for your Christmas lunch with the kids tomorrow,” she says finally.
I put the bottle on the table. It has already had the desired effect. My head has miraculously cleared. Nothing like the hair of the dog. I smile at my mother. She went to all this trouble. I’ll make the effort. “Thanks, Ma.”
She smiles back. “That’s all right, Jack. I’m just glad you’ve come around for Christmas. I miss you, you know.”
I don’t tell her I miss her too. Because I don’t. I never miss anyone. The days when I wanted people are gone. Now people are like the tide. They come, they go. While they are in front of me I’ll give them my time, but I want nothing from them. Nothing. Not things. Not money. Not power. Not love. Nothing.
Outside my head my mother carries on talking. She tells me about the café down the road closing down, the kids stealing her doorbell, her nosy neighbor. I hear snatches.
“I told him to get lost.”
“Asking me if you’ve found a girl yet. What a bloody cheek …”
I turn to glance out of the window. It’s still raining hard. For some weird reason I think of the girl in the orangery.
Sofia Seagull.
Not because I want her or anything like that. Just because she is different. Different from all the other women I have known.
Nine
Sofia
“Open your presents then,” Lena orders.
She is still in her nightgown and fluffy dressing gown. Her hands are clasped in front of her chest and she is so excited she can barely sit still. I look at her and smile. My heart fills with love for her. She is like a big child. Full of light and enthusiasm. Outside, the rain is slicking down on the windows. Inside my tower suite, it is warm and faintly scented with the smell of coffee.
“Let’s open our presents together,” I say, looking at the pile of packages on the bed. There are three, one each from her and Guy for me, and one from me to her.
“No, no, you go first,” she urges. “I want to see your face when you see our presents.”
“Okay,” I say, and just to see her reaction, I slowly take a sip from the steaming mug of coffee she brought for me.
“Oh for God’s sake,’ she screeches.
I laugh at the expression on her face.
She snatches a flat package and thrusts it into my hand. “Open this one first. It’s from me.”
Putting my mug down on my bedside table and crossing my legs, I take it from her. With a smile I shake it. It rattles.
“Coupons or tickets?” I guess.
“Just open it,” she cries impatiently.
I tear open the wrapping and lift the lid of the cardboard box. I take out the folded letter inside and read it.
“Oh,” I exclaim. “You got me driving lessons.” Immediately my heart starts thudding with fear. I can’t get into a car alone with a man and be in such close proximity with him for an hour at a time. I look up at her trying to smile. Not wanting to burst her bubble of excitement.
She grins at me. “The instructor is a woman.”
I exhale through my mouth. “Oh, thank you. What a wonderful present, Lena. I’d love to be able to drive into the village myself and not trouble someone else all the time. Thank you my darling.” I lean forward and kiss her.
“The next one. The next one,” she squeals excitedly. “This one’s from Guy.” She pulls away from me and holds out the long oblong box, the kind you use to send posters. It is light, and feels hollow. When I shake it there is no sound.
“Go on then,” she urges.
I tear it open and pull out a rolled up piece of paper. I look at her and raise my eyebrows as I unroll it. She just grins widely at me. I run my eyes down the thick paper. For a moment I can’t believe my eyes.
“Well?” Lena prompts.
I blink and look up at her in disbelief. “Guy bought me a house in London?”
She nods vigorously. “Yes. You’re now the proud owner of your own house.”
I stare at her aghast. I don’t want to move out of the castle. I love my to
wer suite. It is the first place I have felt safe. I stupidly thought I would be able to live here forever.
“What’s the matter?” Lena asks.
“You don’t want me to live here anymore?” I gasp.
Her face crumples. “What? No. No, of course not. This house is not for you to live in. It is for you to rent out and earn your own money. This way you will be financially independent.”
The backs of my eyes burn. “Oh. I don’t know the first thing about owning a house in England or renting it out.”
“Guy’s secretary will find a tenant and arrange everything for you. You don’t have to do a thing. You can learn at your own pace, okay?”
My eyes fill with tears. I try to blink them away, and Lena leans in and hugs me tightly.
“You are my heart, Sofia. My heart. One day you will find a wonderful man and you will leave this castle to go to him. It will sadden me greatly, but I will be happy for you. However,” she grins wickedly, “until that day you’re all mine. This is your home, silly.”
We clutch each other and cry.
I dash away my tears with the backs of my eyes. “I feel terrible. Your gifts are so wonderful, and I’ve only got you a little thing from the village shop.”
“Oh, Sofia. I will love whatever you give me with all my heart. If you’ve got it for me, it will be perfect.”
Suddenly there is an odd noise outside the door. It sounds like a muffled shriek.
“What the hell is that?” I ask.
She grins. “That’s your present from Irina.” She gets off the bed. “Don’t move,” she warns and goes out to open the door.
I hear whispering and then …
Oh my God!
A golden retriever puppy makes a mad dash into my room! I clasp my hands over my cheeks with shock. My very own dog! I stare at the little thing with unconcealed delight. Lena, carrying Irina, and the nurse come into my room, and all of them are looking at me. I can’t say a word.
“She’s already toilet trained, but she doesn’t have a name yet,” Lena says.
Beauty and the Dark Page 4
