by Joanna Rees
‘Please sit down,’ Sylvie said with a smile. ‘Have some mint tea.’
‘Thank you,’ Frankie said.
‘So, my dear,’ Sylvie said once they were both seated and she had picked up the silver teapot, ‘I have known Alex long enough to know that if he’s invited you here, then you must be very special to him.’ She patted Frankie’s knee. ‘Marrakech is his private space.’
Frankie smiled back and, despite her nerves, felt a moment of relief. So Alex hadn’t been making it up. This place was special to him. She hadn’t wanted to ask, but just the thought of him bringing someone else here – of making love to them in the riad, as he’d made love to her – made her feel sick. It shocked her how possessive she’d become of him. And how quickly.
‘Yes, he said,’ Frankie mumbled.
‘I knew his parents a long time ago,’ Sylvie continued, a wistful note in her voice. ‘Ah yes. They were lovely people. Such a terrible shame. But Alex has been very fortunate. He has made a nice life for himself. And done so amazingly well in business. They would be very proud of him.’
Frankie smiled. ‘I’m sure.’
‘I think that’s why Alex is so generous with the orphan foundation here,’ Sylvie continued in a confidential tone. ‘He doesn’t like anyone to know it, but he’s single-handedly saved so many children from poverty. Maybe he told you?’
‘No, he didn’t,’ Frankie said, feeling humble – and amazed too. There were still a million questions she was stacking up in her head to ask Alex – about his past and his future. She found it unbelievably touching that he was so generous with the orphans and was so highly regarded by Sylvie. What other qualities did he have? she wondered. What other kind and heroic deeds did he do in private?
Her heart was swelling with pride. She wished she knew Sylvie better, so that she could confide in her how she felt. She could barely contain herself. She wanted to blurt out that she hardly knew Alex at all, but she was hopelessly besotted, and everything she found out about him only made her fall for him harder.
‘I know, like me, that his parents would have been so pleased if Alex were to settle down,’ Sylvie said. ‘It’s time . . . ’
Her loaded comment hung in the air and Frankie didn’t know how to respond. There was a small pause and she felt herself blushing. She blew across the surface of the mint tea in her cup. ‘I guess . . .’ she mumbled.
‘Well,’ Sylvie continued, smiling, ‘I’ve taken the liberty of gathering a few clothes together for you. Alex mentioned you might be travelling light.’
Frankie now saw that behind the bench she was sitting on was a whole stack of expensive-looking suit carriers.
‘There’re just a few pieces from the designer labels we carry at the hotels. And bikinis and underwear. You can try them on in your own time at the riad. I think you’ll find most of them will fit. Alex described you as a perfect eight. Men are so rarely accurate in these things, but I can see that you are just as he described. So keep whatever you like, my dear.’
‘Thank you,’ Frankie said, astonished at how thoughtful Alex had been to set all this up for her. When had he called Sylvie to arrange it? How had he guessed, without her having to say anything, that she was feeling insecure about her wardrobe?
And he’d described her as a perfect eight! What did that mean? Did it mean he liked her enough to want to show her off? Now, as Sylvie opened the bags, Frankie marvelled at the fine linens and beautiful silk clothes Sylvie had chosen for her. There were trouser suits and the most exquisite evening gowns Frankie had ever seen.
Frankie hadn’t even begun to register what being Alex’s companion, let alone his girlfriend, might involve. But, of course, now she could see that they’d be going to dinner together and meeting people. Frankie felt her hands beginning to sweat. Would she be up to the job? Would she let him down? Would her lack of experience in the world of the super-rich shine through?
‘I know that Alex likes to be very private at the riad, but I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if one of my beauticians were to come and visit,’ Sylvie said tactfully. ‘In fact, I have possibly one of the best here at the moment. Coco Rochas?’ Sylvie looked at Frankie as if the name should mean something. ‘Her facials, manicures and pedicures . . . ? Well, I hope you’ll allow me to let you find out.’
She smiled at Frankie, who wanted to sit on her hands: the very hands that only a few days ago had been scrubbing out toilets, and that were now being offered one of the finest manicures in the world!
Frankie had glimpsed enough of the super-rich to know that the women Alex was used to consorting with were extremely high maintenance. If Frankie were to fit in, then she’d have to look the part, but inwardly she baulked at the idea. She didn’t want to be like some of the guests she’d seen on Pushkin. She couldn’t think of anything more boring than obsessing about her appearance. Those women were so vain. And looking perfect all the time took so much effort. Personally, Frankie would much rather be living life than constantly getting ready for it.
Besides, Alex didn’t want a girl like that. He’d said so himself. He wanted Frankie just the way she was. She was determined that she would stay true to herself and be the down-to-earth girl he’d met on his yacht.
However, she knew it would be far too rude to turn down Sylvie’s kind offer. A few treatments would be nice, she decided. And maybe this beautician woman could give Frankie a few tips on make-up. She’d been so much of a tomboy in her youth, she’d never really got the hang of all that girlie stuff. Now might be a good time to learn.
‘Yes, I’d like that very much,’ she said to Sylvie with a smile. And as Sylvie smiled back, Frankie felt as if she were on the start of a journey and there was no turning back.
‘So, Sylvie, what do you think of my new girlfriend?’ Alex asked, coming back as Frankie and Sylvie repacked the clothes.
‘I think she’s perfect,’ Sylvie said.
Alex held out his hand for Frankie. ‘So do I.’
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
In the day room of the Moscow nursing home, the old-fashioned gas heaters made the glass weep with condensation. The room was filled with tatty armchairs and a large old-fashioned television was bracketed to the wall, the screen flickering with fuzzy black-and-white static. Six patients sat around a table in the weak sunlight playing cards. In the centre of the room was a birdcage housing a beady-eyed mangy-looking parrot.
In the far corner, Irena Cheripaska sat in a wheelchair, a grey acrylic blanket over her knees. She was wearing her ginger wig and dark glasses still, but it was clear that she was awake and alert. Peaches sat in front of her and Yana to one side.
So far, the meeting was going well, but Peaches could tell that Yana was wary. She’d told her that Peaches was not, under any circumstances, to upset Irena. That her heart and her mental condition were not stable.
‘Irena wants to know who you are and why you mentioned Gorsky,’ Yana said, translating Irena’s gruff Russian. ‘She says he is a terrible man.’
Peaches decided to cut to the chase. She took a deep breath. She’d promised to be as calm as possible and, so far, Irena and Yana were cooperating, but there was no point in mincing her words. She was here to find out the truth and then get back to her life in LA.
‘Tell Irena that I know Gorsky is a very bad man. Tell her that I had never heard of him, but that he contacted me in America. Through a lawyer. I went to see him in jail. He thinks . . .’ She paused and looked at Yana. ‘The thing is . . . Gorsky told me that Irena is my mother.’
Yana threw Peaches a startled stare.
‘Please, Yana,’ Peaches implored. ‘It sounds just as crazy to me. But this may be my last chance to find out the truth.’
Yana searched Peaches’ eyes for a moment, then she nodded. She leant down and put her hand over Irena’s and started speaking.
Peaches watched Irena the whole time. Was she her mother? Or was it just a scam? It was impossible to tell. Finally, Irena started talking. She shook her head.
>
‘Nyet, nyet, nyet,’ she repeated.
Yana turned to Peaches. ‘Miss Gold, Irena says that she is sorry, but that you have made a mistake. That her daughter is dead.’
Peaches felt her heart thudding. She had a lifetime’s experience already of people saying ‘no’ when they really meant ‘yes’. And even though she didn’t speak Russian, there was something in Irena’s tone . . .
She’d admitted to having had a daughter . . .
Peaches knew there was more.
‘OK, I know this is difficult, Yana, but . . .’ Again she paused for breath. ‘Gorsky told me that he’d stolen me from my mother when I was three. And that he took me to America. And that . . . well . . . that he . . . he sold me.’
‘Sold you?’ Yana asked, shocked. ‘I don’t understand,’ she said, clearly assuming her English was at fault. ‘Did you say sold?’
Peaches stared at her hands, which she now gripped between her knees. ‘Yes. Sold. If Irena is my mother, she will know all this already,’ she said quietly.
She couldn’t bear to watch as Yana translated what she’d said. This was the moment of truth. Either Irena would have no idea about all this . . .
Or what Gorsky had told Peaches was true.
She looked up as Irena suddenly took a sharp intake of breath. Yana glanced at Peaches and Peaches leant forward, scared that Irena was about to have another attack.
‘Is she OK?’ she asked Yana.
Irena reached out and grabbed Peaches’ sweater with alarming force. She muttered something. Then her voice rose as she repeated it over and over again.
Yana stood up, prying Irena’s hands away. The other patients were staring. ‘She says . . . she says that she wants me to examine your back. She says that if you are who you say you are, you will have a scar . . .’
Peaches felt the floor shifting away from her. ‘Ask her what kind of scar?’
Yana asked Irena.
‘She says a small scar probably by now. Just below your left shoulder blade?’
‘Like this,’ Peaches said. She leant over clawing at her sweater, showing Yana her back. Yana stared open-mouthed.
‘Describe it to her,’ Peaches said. ‘Now! Tell her.’
Yana spoke quickly to Irena, her eyes flickering between Peaches and the old woman.
Peaches wished more than anything that Irena had eyes. It was impossible to tell what she was thinking.
But then suddenly, she could tell. Because Irena’s face crumpled like a paper bag, racked by a sudden and terrible anguish. She hissed a single word. ‘Da.’
Yana’s eyes filled with tears. She put her hand over her mouth. ‘Oh my . . .’ she said.
Peaches swallowed hard. She felt the blood rush from her face as Irena turned to her. The elderly woman’s mouth had fallen open and she was breathing very slowly. She raised her palm towards Peaches, as if reaching out in the darkness.
Gently Peaches touched Irena’s palm with her own. It was the most primitive of gestures, but somehow more meaningful than anything Peaches had ever experienced before.
Then Irena pulled Peaches towards her, her bony arms enveloping her in a vice-like hug.
‘Anna,’ she whispered into Peaches’ ear, before her whole body shook and she began to sob.
Peaches closed her eyes.
She finally knew the truth.
Irena was her mother.
And then Irena was touching Peaches, her eager fingers feeling her cheekbones and her hair, letting them be her eyes.
It was only when Peaches saw that her mother’s fingertips were glistening that Peaches reached up to touch her own face, and realized that she’d started to cry and couldn’t stop.
‘Irena is asking how your life is, Anna? Do you have a family?’ Yana said, her voice hushed and gentle. The three of them were huddled together now, deep in conversation.
Peaches pressed her lips together. She kept looking at Irena, hardly able to comprehend what had happened.
She had found her mother.
‘No, tell my . . . my mother,’ she said, testing out the words, ‘tell her that no . . . not yet. I don’t have any children.’
‘She wants to know . . . have you been happy in America? Do you have work?’
Peaches cleared her throat. She hated it that one of the very first things she would tell the only relative she’d ever known was a lie. But there was no way she could begin to tell her the truth. Peaches wanted to make this old woman proud. After everything, all the loss and deprivation that Irena had so clearly already suffered, Peaches was determined to bring nothing but happiness into the rest of her life.
Irena would never find out what Peaches really did for a living, she decided. Or any of the sordid details of the road Peaches had travelled from Albert Rockbine’s porch to being the top madam in Hollywood.
‘Tell her that I’m a businesswoman. America has lots of opportunities. Tell her I am very fortunate. That I have nice friends,’ Peaches told Yana.
Her mother spoke rapidly to Yana, who glanced several times at Peaches.
‘What is she saying?’ Peaches asked, feeling self-conscious.
‘She wants to know what you look like.’
Yana spoke in Russian, glancing bashfully at Peaches. ‘I told her that you are very beautiful. That you have long hair. That you have brown eyes and fair skin. That you are dressed in expensive American clothes.’
European clothes, Peaches thought, remembering the D&G store in Manhattan where she’d bought the leather boots and red sweater she was wearing today on a business trip to New York, just a few weeks ago. She marvelled how far away that seemed now.
But she kept these thoughts to herself. She hadn’t come here to discuss her own life, rather to find out what her mother knew about her past. She had to keep focused.
Irena nodded and pointed at the floor and said something in Russian. Yana passed the plastic handbag to her and Irena groped around inside before pulling out a small book. It had a burgundy mock-leather binding.
She gave it to Peaches, who realized that it was the first time she’d ever held something belonging to a blood relative in her hands.
She opened it and saw straight away that it was a diary. Her heart thumped once, hard against her ribcage. She knew from her own what big secrets a little book like this could hold.
She leafed through the pages and saw some small photographs. Smaller than passport photos, but clear images nevertheless. A baby. A toddler in a fur hat, being lifted up in the sunshine, a grand river sparkling in the background.
Was this her? Peaches wondered. It was hard to tell. But whoever it was must have meant a great deal for Irena to have kept these at her side for all those years.
And then she did a double take. In her hands was a picture of a woman. A beautiful young woman glowing with vitality and happiness. Could it really be . . . ?
Peaches looked closer. Yes it was! It was Irena. It was this broken woman in front of her, old before her time, pictured when she was younger than Peaches was now, her skin radiant, her brown hair glossy and shining with health. And then she saw it. In the next shot Irena was holding the small child and kissing its cheek. Irena’s profile – it was exactly the same as Peaches’. Yes, the more she looked, the more striking the resemblance . . .
Peaches felt fresh tears springing to her eyes. How bitter she’d been as a teenager as she’d worked her way through those strip joints. The only way she’d been able to survive had been to accept that she was on her own. That nobody in the world loved her. That nobody ever had. And that she had no need to be loved. She could survive without it.
And yet here it was in her hands. The evidence that she’d been wrong all these years. The evidence that she’d once been a cherished little girl.
She handed the photographs back to her mother. Irena took them, holding them in her hands, rubbing them with her fingertips, like she was trying to erase the past, or reach out to it. Peaches wasn’t sure which.
All s
he did know was that something terrible had happened between then and now. She had to find out what.
‘I want to know everything,’ Peaches said, never taking her eyes off her mother, as she reached out and held her frail-looking hand. Her skin felt crinkled and thin. ‘Yana, ask her to tell me what happened with Gorsky. I must know. Did he do that to her eyes?’
Yana took a breath. ‘Miss Gold, I’m not sure if Irena can take all this. I think maybe we should stop for the day and then—’
‘But, Yana, don’t you see? I have to know. I have to know what happened. And whilst I’m here, whilst she’s able to talk . . . you said yourself that time is short . . .’
Yana nodded and spoke with Irena for a long time and then she turned to Peaches. She took a deep breath. ‘This is very hard for her, you know,’ she said, her eyes flashing with warning. ‘And hearing it will be hard for you too.’
‘I know, but please, Yana, she must have told you something.’
‘What you know is true. Gorsky stole you away to America. And when Irena tried to save you . . . well, she was hurt. Warned like this.’
Irena had taken off her sunglasses whilst she was talking. Peaches recoiled, seeing once again the mangled flesh where her mother’s eyes should have been.
Peaches couldn’t imagine the pain and suffering Irena had been through. She felt fresh hatred for Gorsky surging through her.
But why? That’s what she had to know. Why had he done something so unspeakable?
Yana shook her head. She took a handkerchief out of her pocket and pressed it to her mouth. ‘I had no idea. I had no idea anyone could be so cruel.’
Peaches swallowed hard and reached for Yana’s arm. There was so much more to find out. She couldn’t risk Yana breaking down. She had to stay strong.
‘Yana, tell my mother that Gorsky told me to tell her he was sorry for what he’d done,’ Peaches said. ‘I think he’d found God by the time I saw him.’
Yana talked to Irena and then lowered her eyes. ‘She says that God can’t save him. That he is pure evil.’
