The family dynamics are interesting. The mother in all her fragility utterly controls her family. Both husband and daughter treat her as if she is fashioned out of eggshell and defer to her in all things.
In the car, Lily doesn’t ask me what I think of her parents and I don’t offer any opinion. The evening is a success on the surface, but I think I both terrified and fascinated them, in the way a colorful but poisonous reptile might. As for me they are not really my kind of people, they are too straight and proper—not an unpaid parking ticket between them no doubt. Their marriage reminds me of the surface of a pond, stale and passionless. Still, I like them well enough.
In all their careful goodness they made my Lily.
TEN
Lily
After I paint my lips carmine, I step into a long, backless black dress that ties at the nape of my neck. One little tug and I’ll be standing in a scrap of lace held together by a bit of string. Carefully I pin a small black brooch on the tie, then step into a pair of black shoes with gold high heels. My toenails, painted gold, poke through. I stand in front of the mirror and look at myself curiously. I have never worn black. Nan’s superstitions have colored my thoughts.
‘Bad luck color. For funerals only,’ she always said.
But Jake bought this dress for me, and now that I see myself in it I realize that I really like black. I think it makes me look long and sophisticated. I touch my meticulously constructed hairdo and wonder what the night will bring. Tonight is the big re-launch party for Eden. Everyone will be there. It is an event.
As I finish fixing a pair of gold hoops in my ears, Jake appears in the doorway. I turn around to look at him and my breath catches. I have never seen him look so dashing. He is wearing a snow white dress shirt, a black silk tie, a beautifully cut black suit and black shoes. There is a red carnation pinned to his lapel. Nothing adds panache to a man’s appearance like the confidence embodied in wearing a boutonnière, that symbol of fragile life and beauty caught in a single bloom. I already know that he will be the only man in the entire club wearing a flower on his left breast. The only man swimming against the current. And I love him for it.
He comes forward and stands next to me.
‘We match,’ I say to our reflections.
‘That we do, but you are more beautiful by far,’ he compliments suavely.
I smile, wordless, swept up by his beauty, by my good fortune, by the intensity of my feelings.
As he watches I tilt my head back, elongate my neck amorously, and with a single finger, dab perfume behind my ears and at the base of my throat.
In the mirror I see him turn toward me. His hands go toward my earrings. ‘Not these for tonight,’ Jake whispers, as he gently removes them. From his pocket he brings out two strands of blue gems. Carefully, he hangs them from my ears. My mouth drops open in amazement. They are indescribably gorgeous. I turn my head slightly and the ropes of blue swing into my neck.
‘Oh, Jake. They are beautiful,’ I gasp.
But he is not finished. From his other pocket he takes another handful of blue gems, and moving to the back of me, places them around my throat. The stones glitter against my skin, like blue stars. Their color is so close to the shade of my eyes that I gaze at them in astonishment. How did he find these stones? My eyes meet his, startled, wondering, and awestruck. He smiles and turns me around to face him.
‘I was right. They are perfect,’ he murmurs, and bending his head kisses the hollow between my breasts where the plunging neckline ends. He watches riveted as through the material my nipples harden. He runs his palms over them and I make a small sound of submission.
His eyes register approval. ‘I can’t wait to get you home tonight.’ There is a softness and depth to his voice.
In the darkened confines of the car I feel Jake’s hand take mine.
‘Your hands are cold,’ he says. ‘You’re not nervous, are you?’
‘A bit.’
He squeezes my hand. ‘Don’t be. I’ll be at your side the whole time.’
I smile gratefully at him.
‘You do know you will be the most beautiful woman in there.’
‘You haven’t even seen all the women yet.’
‘I don’t need to. You are the most beautiful woman to me.’
As we approach the queue of people waiting to get in I feel a little apprehensive, but also a heady sense of excitement. The new Eden’s marbled and gilt splendor seems almost garish to my heightened senses. I feel so buoyed up I am almost lightheaded. My feet seem to scarcely touch the ground and my stomach feels empty. I suppose it could be because I haven’t eaten for hours. I daren’t eat, not with this dress. Perhaps I am also anxious that I may not fit in. The shadow of his mother’s disapproval looms. I know she will be here. Will she undermine me?
Red ropes are lifted and we are ushered in.
We go past the plum velvet loveseat in the foyer toward the enormous central vase filled with magnolia blossoms. Struck by two spotlights the blooms seem almost brighter than the lamps.
The music grows louder and my heartbeat quickens.
We enter the club and the whole of fashionable London seems to be there. All the dancers are in their best, and beautiful people are everywhere. It must be true that beautiful models, male and female, have been flown in from all over the world to pretty up the place. Under the chandeliers the supremely rich are casually amused and the air is charged with their intriguingly corrupt whiff. Laughter ebbs and flows like the tide.
The Mayor of London is present; movie star hair, sharp as knives, and as usual pretending to be a good-natured buffoon.
Jake takes me to the table where his mother is sitting. Her eyes meet mine and her back straightens. She drops her eyes to a large bowl of floating orchids set in the middle of the table.
‘Ma,’ he greets, and bends to kiss her. In the candlelight the pearls around her neck glimmer milkily. She appears softened and yet hostile.
‘Hello, Mrs. Eden,’ I greet politely.
She nods distantly. I can’t blame her. I might be even more ferocious if I thought someone was threatening my son. I remember being in school and aggressively fighting Luke’s battles for him.
‘Lily, meet my sister, Layla,’ Jake says.
I turn to meet a stunning creature in a deep red silk dress standing next to us. She is tall, very tall—she might even be five ten or eleven—and is everything I have always thought of as beautiful. Her hair is the color of bitter chocolate and cascades down her back in rich and lustrous waves. Her eyes are as green as Jake’s, but there appears to be either gray or blue in them, too. Her nose is straight and narrow, and her mouth is large and expressive. She grins, vibrantly alive and fiery. She is only nineteen and Jake tells me she has been studying fashion in Paris.
‘Layla, Lily.’
Layla claps her hands with delight. ‘Oh, Jake. She’s a doll.’
I visualize the expression on my mother-in-law’s face, extract the disapproval and count the hatred.
Jake looks down at me, indulgent, almost like a proud parent. ‘Yes, she is a bit of a doll, isn’t she?’
Heat warms up my throat and cheeks.
But in seconds the dynamics of the situation change.
‘Who the fuck invited him?’ Layla says angrily. The change in her is dramatic to say the least. There are twin spots of color in her cheeks.
‘I did,’ Jake says smoothly.
I turn my eyes in the direction Layla is looking in and see Billy Joe Pilkington approaching us. He is impossible to miss. He is large and menacing. Everything about him screams beware of me, I’m lethal. He is the kind of man I would cross the road to avoid. When he was bloodied and lying beside Jake, the menace had not been so apparent. Now it powers out of him in waves. He is dressed in a navy suit, but he is not wearing a tie, and his shirt is open low enough to see the beginnings of his tattoos. His eyes are dark—either dead fire or black ice. A place to trip up and fall badly.
He stop
s by Jake’s mother first. ‘Good health to you, Mrs. Eden,’ he says.
Mara smiles. ‘God and Mary to you. How is your mother?’
‘She’s made dying her life’s work,’ he says with a straight face.
Jake’s mother hides a smile. ‘May God grant her many years.’
‘And me earplugs,’ he says with a wink, and turns his attention toward our group of three.
‘Hello, Layla,’ he greets civilly.
‘You have a nerve coming here!’ she says rudely. Her whole body has become strangely stiff and hostile. She looks at him with great disdain.
‘Layla,’ her mother gasps, shocked.
‘Apologize, Layla,’ Jake says with a scowl.
‘Why should I?’ Layla retorts.
But BJ grins at her. It has an odd effect on his face. It does not soften it, but makes it even more dangerous. ‘Layla,’ he says softly. ‘Look at you, all grown up and still not a shred of manners in sight.’
‘See?’ Layla turns to her mother. ‘He’s not being exactly friendly to me, is he?’
They stare at each other for a few seconds. The aggressive sexual tension between them is impossible to miss and makes me wonder which of them is actually resisting it.
‘Maybe you’ll save a dance for me later?’ he says, a dimple forming in his chin. Shit. The guy is actually attractive.
‘Hell will freeze over first,’ she declares dramatically and flounces off.
BJ laughs, his eyes chasing her into the crowd.
‘Sorry about that,’ Jake says.
‘No, don’t apologize for her. She’s got spirit. I like that in women and horses.’
Jake laughs. ‘Let’s call for a drink.’
A waitress materializes and while we are placing our orders another comes around with a tray of little round bruschetta with glistening swordfish carpaccio. The drinks arrive. BJ raises his pint glass of Guinness in a toast.
‘Here’s to cheating, stealing, fighting, and drinking.’
‘May you be in heaven half an hour before the devil knows you’re dead,’ Jake replies.
We clink glasses. We drink. As ice-cold champagne slides down my throat I see Melanie waving at me. I haven’t seen her since Jake came and took me and all my stuff from the flat I shared with her. I know she can’t come over to our section so I excuse myself. ‘I’m just going to say hello to a friend.’ I glance at Jake and mouth, ‘Be back soon.’
I weave my way over to her and she grins at me and we exchange kisses that are almost sisterly. She is dressed in a white gown of ravishing simplicity. It flows down her body like liquid. Her lips are ruby and her lashes are as long as an ostrich’s.
‘Girl, you sure showed us how to do it,’ she shouts above the music and the din of the party.
I look back at Jake—he is watching me. I wave and laugh out loud. I know that for most of the dancers the holy grail is finding a fat purse and marrying it as quickly as possible. They know they can’t dance after a certain age so the race is on as soon as they start out. Each one will say the same thing: They are here for a short spell.
Melanie is different, though. She is saving up to take the money to Barbados where she plans to buy a beach bar. The last time we talked she figured she would only have to work for another six months.
‘Is that adoring admiration I just saw?’ she teases.
I flush. ‘Maybe.’
‘Has he got a big dick?’ she asks cheekily.
‘Yes,’ I admit and we giggle wickedly. I miss her blunt and honest ways.
‘Wow, I love these,’ she says, touching the blue stones.
‘Me too,’ I agree happily.
‘Listen, I have to go because I’m performing now, but let’s catch up soon.’
‘All right. How about Friday?’
‘Nails and then lunch?’
‘OK, I’ll call you.’
As I watch her walk away I notice the man who had come to collect BJ after the fight, the man who had shown for a split second that he recognized me.
I start walking toward him.
Our eyes meet, but he lets his slide away, pretending not to see me making my way toward him, tries to disappear through the crowd in the direction of the men’s toilet. I let him escape. A few minutes later he comes out of the toilet and looks around him. He does not see me behind the pillar and is startled when I touch his sleeve.
He whirls around.
‘Hi, remember me?’ I say brightly.
He frowns as if trying to place me. ‘Oh yeah, from the fight, right?’
‘No, you know me from before, don’t you?’
His frown deepens. He is a very good actor.
‘No, I had never seen you before that day. You must have me mixed up with someone else.’ He smiles, but his eyes are shifty, oh so fucking shifty.
‘My mistake,’ I say softly, but now I know for certain. He is lying. My eyes glance away from him and fall on BJ across the room. One of the South American dancers has wound herself around him, but he is staring at us. Even from a distance I can see how hard and dangerous his eyes are.
BJ’s man opens his mouth to say something else, but is interrupted by Jake’s voice. He has come up behind me and curved his hand around my waist. ‘Everything OK?’ he asks icily. There is tension and warning in the words.
I look up at him. His eyes are dark and watchful.
‘Everything’s just fine.’
‘Hello, Mr. Eden,’ the liar says uncomfortably.
‘Have a good evening, Tommy,’ Jake says curtly, and turning me away leads me back to our table.
‘The entertainment is about to start,’ he says. Without BJ, Layla looks quiet and subdued. The nightclub becomes dark. Searching spotlights begin to race around the room.
From the darkened ceiling come cages with flaxen-haired nymphs who look like trapped birds inside. The music, a jarring discordant piece of hammering pianos and choppy chords, starts, and the nymphs hang out of their cages, and slowly spiral down on colored lengths of cloth. They land on the stage and form a provocative tableau of glittering costumes and long, stockinged legs. The music changes abruptly.
Something inventive and experimental. My ears start to ring with it.
It is a good evening and I have had more alcohol than I should have. When we step over the threshold of our home, Jake lets go of me and I sway slightly.
‘Is it today or tomorrow?’ I ask, pretending to consider the matter seriously.
He glances at his watch. ‘It’s today and tomorrow,’ he says very, very gravely. He could be laughing at me, but I don’t care. He won’t be laughing for very long.
‘In that case…’ I tug the knot. Just before we left the club I visited the Ladies and took off the little brooch that held the knot. Now it gives way and the entire dress falls around my ankles.
He touches my breasts with the tips of his fingers. As soon as he touches them I feel his excitement like a spark of electricity and rear back.
‘What’s that?’ I ask startled.
‘That’s amazement,’ he tells me solemnly.
‘That makes two of us.’ I say flirtatiously.
‘Guess what?’ His eyes are cheeky.
‘What?’ I’m all wide-eyed and ready.
‘I stole some stuff from our room in Vegas.’
‘Oh yeah? What?’
‘Come with me, Mrs. Eden, and I’ll show you.’
Handcuffs. Oh! Handcuffs. They most certainly did not teach me everything there is to know about them at the police academy.
‘What do I love more than my wife?
Nothing.’
—Jake Eden
ELEVEN
Lily
I wake in the early hours of the morning with a dream still vividly imprinted on my mind. It is an odd dream. In it I am a child and I have woken up and found Luke gone from his bed. Unafraid, I get out of bed and go down the stairs. The house is quiet so I begin to call out for him. There is no sense of foreboding. As I move to
the living room I see there is a plate of cookies and a glass of milk on the floor. And then I wake up.
I lay in the dark thinking about my weird dream; it ushers in a memory of when I was six years old and Luke five. It was Christmas morning and the moment I’d opened my excited eyes the first thought in my head was the presents that Santa brought us during the night. He always left two presents at the bottom of our beds to open first thing in the morning. I turned my head to see if Luke was awake yet, and found that he was not even in bed. Surprised, because we always woke each other up and opened our presents together, I sat up and listened. The house was very quiet.
I knew he couldn’t have gone to the bathroom anyway, because he’d rather pee in bed than wait to open his presents. I scrambled out of bed and ran to the bedroom window that faced a field overlooking the woods at the rear of our house.
I opened the curtains and there were almost blizzard conditions outside. Through driving snow I could make out Luke’s bright yellow jacket. He was squatting in the middle of the white field building something from the snow, oblivious to the freezing cold. He’d slipped out of our bedroom, down the stairs and gone outside through the back door, without even Mum or Dad hearing him.
Shrugging into my pink jacket I hurried downstairs as quietly as I could. I knew my parents would be mad with Luke and I was so excited about Christmas Day I didn’t want anything to spoil it. I opened the back door and felt the sudden bite of cold. I didn’t dare shout so I went quite close before I called out to him.
‘What are you doing, Luke?’
He stopped building what looked like three steps of a snow staircase and squinted at me through the flurries of white flakes. His little cheeks were tinged with red and blue.
‘If Mum and Dad see you they’re going to go mad on Christmas,’ I warned.
He reached for a toy tractor half covered with snow.
‘I don’t want Santa’s present.’
‘Why?’ I asked perplexed. He had specifically asked for this toy. Stood in Toys“R”Us and pointed it out to Dad as the thing that Santa should bring him.
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