by Primula Bond
‘Pierre has grown into a fine young man, yes? Are you not pleased to see him? I knew the Levi brothers in London.’
‘I’m just a little thrown, that’s all. I thought he was in LA. I had no idea he was planning a trip over to France.’ I’m about to remove her hand from my waist, but then I pause, partly to delay having to greet Pierre. ‘How did you know them?’
‘Their place in Baker Street. His wife found me waiting tables in Marylebone and invited me to a private party. I thought it was a casting. And in a way it was. I was perfect as her mini-me.’ She rests her warm face against mine for a moment. ‘I was young and stupid, signorina. Gustav was the only strong, steady presence in a crazy, unstable situation. You must give him a very big kiss from me.’
She was an ingénue, rescued by the dashing knight. Just like I was, less than a year ago.
‘She’s not his wife any more.’ I lift my hand and show her my diamond ring.
‘Lucky, lucky you. But he is even luckier.’ Maria Memsahib examines the jewel and nods slowly. She brushes her mouth against my cheek as if to kiss it, but she catches the corner of my mouth instead. ‘He has had a lucky escape.’
Pierre is crossing the room towards us now. I turn slightly away from him, keeping my mouth against Maria’s so she can still hear me.
‘What happened to you in the house? Did you – oh, God, I feel sick asking you this, but – did you ever, you and Gustav—’
‘He’s a gorgeous man, signorina, but we never were naked together. Not fully. You see, I prefer women.’ She laughs at my shocked expression and kisses me emphatically on one cheek. As she kisses the other, she whispers in my ear, ‘I am an actress, darling! Of course I can pretend. But you can’t. I saw how you looked at me. There is more you would like to try, but you hide it. You look so sweet, but you know, there’s a proverb here in France. Le feu plus couvert est le plus ardent!’
‘The more hidden the fire the more ardently it burns?’ Pierre translates the phrase as he approaches. ‘Hi, Serena.’
‘What are you doing here?’ I hiss as he loops his arm around Maria’s shoulders.
She pats his face fondly. ‘So good to see you, Pierre. We were talking about our muses just now, weren’t we? What about yours, mademoiselle? The singer up there. Is she one of your heroines?’
Painfully aware of Pierre’s unexpected presence, and his highly amused expression, I follow her gesture. The video has looped back to the scene where the singer is on a hotel bed spreading her legs for a dark young man as another masked man watches.
I can’t look at it with Pierre standing right here.
‘Tell us, Serena.’ He speaks quietly. ‘Who floats your boat?’
The blush is so unexpected, and so hot, that my hair starts to prickle.
‘I have two idols. Madonna the singer, and maybe because I never had a real mother, Madonna the mother.’
‘From the profane to the sacred, and back again. That sure sums you up.’ Pierre takes my hand and leads me across the salon towards the outer hallway and the front door. ‘But do you want to know who my muse is? Who knows? It could be you.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. What are you doing here, anyway?’ I demand, shaking his hand off me as soon as we’re outside in the hazy twilight. ‘In Paris, I mean? Why aren’t you in America?’
‘Mademoiselle! I need to catch you!’ Cici runs out of the château after us, her dark hair still ruffled and her clothes not quite done up properly from her hasty session on the kitchen table. ‘The car will be here in a moment. But Valmont wants you back here tomorrow.’
‘I’ll be here. And Cici? I’m glad to see you looking so much happier now!’ I nudge her gently in the ribs. ‘Alain must be doing something right!’
She gives me a shy smile as I take the papers she hands me. The only sign of the director is a fresh love bite beneath her ear. Pierre gives a little bow which makes her blush prettily.
‘This is my world too, Serena.’ He watches her skip away. ‘I know Alain and some of the guys working here. He’s notoriously secretive, it’s always closed sets with him, so this was the perfect excuse to take a peek. And no, I know what you’re thinking – I did not bribe them or influence them to hire you. They were already blown away by your work. They certainly didn’t know we were related—’
‘Which reminds me. I need to call Gustav.’ I realise how harsh my voice sounds, and I take a deep breath. ‘Does he know you’re here? In Paris, I mean?’
‘Of course he does. I haven’t come to France to see you, so you can quit worrying. I’m here for a totally different reason, which will become clear when he gets back tomorrow.’ The car crunches over the gravel. ‘Gustav has been delayed in Italy, so he asked me to fetch you. He thought it would be more friendly.’
I take out my phone and Maria Memsahib’s card drops out on to the ground. I look at the phone. At the card. And at Pierre. I feel Gustav watching us from wherever he is, willing us to be civilised with each other.
‘You gave me a shock, Pierre, so I’m sorry if I was rude. It’s kind of you to come. But my God. What a surreal end to a very surreal day.’
‘Well, I’m here as long as you need me.’ Pierre waves to the driver and goes to open the door. ‘I’ll wait here while you phone the big man.’
Gustav picks up on the first ring. ‘Hey, darling! How’s my budding star?’
Tears of longing prick my eyes. ‘Missing you, honey. Where are you? Why aren’t you coming back?’
‘I’m about to sign on a very important dotted line.’ He laughs softly at the other end. I can hear the chink of glasses and excitable Italian voices. ‘I’ll be with you as soon as I possibly can, darling. I’m aching for you.’
I glance over at Pierre, who is texting on his own phone. He has a new beard, close shaven to his face, which makes him look even slimmer than last time, and somehow older. Despite the casual T-shirt and sweater thrown over his shoulders, some of the old menace is restored.
So he’s found a new mask.
‘Gustav?’ I ask, biting the corner of the business card where la Memsahib nibbled it herself just now. ‘What happened to La Marquise de Merteuil in the end?’
‘You mean you haven’t read the book yet?’ Gustav laughs again. ‘She came to a sticky end, like all the bad guys. She caught smallpox and went into hiding because her beauty was ruined.’
The journey back into Paris takes forever. The car is far too silent. The lack of conversation far too stark. Finally I can’t bear it any longer.
‘Pierre. I want to be friends. We will be friends. But let me get my head around everything.’
He glances at me. I’m expecting some kind of wisecrack, but he just folds his arms and looks out of the window at the dark countryside washed by the rain.
‘Are you really over Margot?’
We turn to each other at the same time, equally surprised by the question that has burst out of me.
‘Unequivocally. She revolts me. But why do you ask?’
I shrug and turn away. ‘I wish I hadn’t now. I hate hearing her name. But she never leaves us alone. She’s been watching us in New York. Gustav’s pretty cool about everything, but I feel she’s still threatening us. She tried, and failed, to humiliate me at some new venue she’s opened, the Sapphix Bar. And she completely ruined the Weinmeyers’ private view of my work by recording herself speaking over the Baker Street orgy.’
Pierre frowns, but he returns my gaze totally calmly. His eyes are steady. His hands rest on his knees. His legs in the navy chinos are relaxed, not twitching like I’ve seen them do when he’s agitated.
‘I warned you to watch out. She’s stepping up her game. I still think she’s dangerous.’
Remember, he works surrounded by actors. He could be pretending. But something in his demeanour is giving me confidence. I sit back against the car seat.
‘Explain to me, then, just so I’m clear. Why, when we were drinking cocktails at the Gramercy Bar, did you tell me that you st
ill got hard thinking about her? Even though you had just told her to get lost. You were hard at that very moment. Just talking about her. You said that you could take her right there in front of me if she was there. So. One more time. Do you still want her?’
The car pauses at a crossroads, dropping an uncomfortable quiet over us. I look at the traffic lights, and wait for Pierre’s derision. But again there’s this thoughtful pause.
‘Be careful using such explicit language, Serena. You’re straying into flirtation country.’
I fling round at him. ‘Those were your crude words, not mine!’
He shifts round to face me and flattens his hands on the seat between us.
‘Look. We can’t wipe out history, however unpleasant. Gustav and I were enthralled by her once. First him, then me. She had us both by the balls. But she’s history. I told her as far back as New Year’s Eve that she disgusted me, and not long afterwards I bailed out. So what I said that evening about wanting her was pure bravado. I said it because I was alone with you at last. You were listening to me. You’re always so’ – Pierre pauses, searching for the right word – ‘you always listen. I had to be crude like that, otherwise I’d give myself away.’
‘Give yourself away?’
He opens his mouth to say something, then thinks better of it. His fingers lift and smack down again.
‘I wanted to impress you, I suppose. Or horrify you. How clumsy was that? But I want to be a better person now, Serena, however unlikely that sounds. I went along with her plan for too long. Those couple of months over Christmas and the New Year, and then my stupid, dangerous behaviour towards you in Venice nearly lost me everything, all over again. How did I think I could live my life without Gustav? Making up with him has made everything feel right. And then there was you – I didn’t want her meddling with either of you. And I still don’t.’
The car takes us through the deserted village and out the other side.
‘You know, when I was at her apartment, and I found Gustav’s wedding shirt in the wardrobe, I felt like the three of you were a unit, and I was the outsider.’ I finger the diamond ring thoughtfully. ‘I had this awful jealousy, not only of her, but I resented your brotherly closeness. I never had a brother or a sister. How do I know I won’t be the outsider again one day?’
His face softens, obviously relieved that I’ve dropped the subject of Margot.
‘Because you’re as close to Gustav as you could be. Me being his brother won’t change that. Just think. You’ve got an extra pair of hands around to catch you if you fall.’
We smile uncertainly at each other. There are more buildings outside now. More lights. ‘So what about you? When are you going to find someone of your own?’
Pierre shakes his head, the smile fading. ‘Look at my track record! Poor Polly. That was my idea, by the way, to break it off before she got in any deeper. I know it was cruel and clumsy. But she’s too nice – she’s your cousin for God’s sake! I couldn’t be involved with her any more. I can’t be involved with anyone. The one sorry truth in all this is that despite loathing Margot for what she’s tried to do to all of us, the fact is that I’ve tasted her. I’ve had her in my bed. I’ve been her slave, I’ve even managed to reject her. But Margot Levi has ruined my chances of making it with any other woman.’
Now we’re passing flyovers and tower blocks on the outskirts of Paris. I look at Pierre’s hands resting on the leather seat.
‘If she’s done that, then she’s won,’ I remark, placing my hands next to his. If I try really hard I can expel from my mind, once and for all, everything that those hands could have done. ‘And as we’re stuck in this car for a few more minutes, answer me one more thing. What about me?’
He pulls his hands away and pushes them through his unruly hair.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Venice. What were you really playing at? Margot said you went after me because you’d fallen for me. What did you think would happen once I realised my mistake?’
He turns away. ‘I didn’t think. Not past the moment you were in my arms. That was all I wanted. I’ve just said that Margot has ruined my chances with other women, and it’s true, but I’ll never stop fighting that influence. From the start you seemed like the one woman to break that curse. But you were Gustav’s girl, so there was no hope. Didn’t stop me wanting you, though. Badly. In fact, the feelings didn’t even have a name.’
‘Margot called it love.’ I realise my voice is hard and cold, but I can’t let him draw me back into dangerous territory. ‘But I said you were incapable of feeling love.’
‘You were right. I love Gustav, but otherwise there’s not a lot going on in here.’ Pierre bashes at his chest. The same gesture Gustav used when we were scrabbling around in the alleyway beneath Margot’s apartment, to show me that I lived in his heart. ‘All I can tell you, since you are demanding answers, is that I tried my best to put the feelings to one side and focus on the fact that Margot’s plan to separate you and Gustav was futile and wrong. I hoped that if I told her to forget it, to leave us all alone, I would work out a way of watching the two of you go off into the sunset, try to be a good brother, and then get on with my life. But I’m not a logical person, Serena. All my good intentions went out the window when I thought you were alone in Venice. I was consumed afresh by the desire to have you. To take the risk. Taste you. Just once. And it felt so good, Serena. Just for that tiny moment.’
‘How could it have felt good? Those awful, dangerous desires – they weren’t even romantic. You were possessed. It must have been agonising. But what you tried to do to me was potentially so disastrous – and for what? It wasn’t real, Pierre!’
The car plunges under the Seine and the silence elongates for the length of the tunnel. We rise slowly in a traffic jam, and when we emerge the familiar turrets and spires of Paris sprout against the velvety night sky.
‘You really want to go over this again? I knew I’d regret at least not trying, OK? That’s how I operate. Led by my loins. Act first, think later. Deep down, I knew you’d reject me. And the silver lining is, there will never be intimate memories of your sweet body to torment me.’ He rubs his beard. ‘I’m working hard on myself, I can tell you. That’s what we do in LA. We have therapy. We talk. We acquire a shiny new persona. And we distract ourselves. The women over there – boy! I wanted you, and now I don’t. It was an addiction, as mindless as that, and I’m done with it. Eventually I will revert to thinking of you purely as a very attractive photographer who soon will be my sister.’
‘I so want to believe you, Pierre.’ I pause as the car speeds past Notre Dame and up towards the Champs-Élysées. ‘That those feelings are gone, or at least going.’
‘Believe me, Serena. No more mania. No more danger.’ Pierre pats at his empty heart again. ‘The only love I have now is Gustav.’
As the shops and hotels and cars flash past us, so the things that man in the gondola said and did start to fly away, too. The mask peels off to reveal the young man who shares Gustav’s features. Who doesn’t want to fight any more.
The car stops outside my hotel. Pierre gets out and holds open the door for me.
‘I don’t suppose – a nightcap?’
‘Don’t push it, Levi!’ I retort, lifting out my camera bags. ‘But thanks for meeting me. And thanks for the chat. We’ve made progress, yes?’
‘Gustav would be proud.’ Pierre tips an imaginary cap. ‘I am at your service, mademoiselle. Always.’
I wonder if there’s anything as depressing as the prospect of sleeping in a beautiful hotel room alone? The more sumptuous and well earned the room, the more lonely the night.
For a split second I forget that Gustav won’t be here, leaping to his feet to greet me. For another split second I pray he’ll surprise me anyway.
As I walk into the room and throw my jacket over a hook, there’s another split second of regret that I rejected Pierre’s suggestion. What better way to toast our tentative new friendship
than with a dram of Irish coffee? But that would have been utter madness. We’ve said enough for one day. And I haven’t forgotten that he has also said, more than once, that he can’t trust himself around me.
I unpack my camera bags and take out the Canon to examine today’s labours. If I concentrate on that, maybe the night will pass quicker. Maybe Gustav will tiptoe back after all, ruffling my hair with kisses while I’m asleep. The first image of the day lights up. Thick black cable, snaking across a parquet floor.
But I stop. Something’s not right. My neck is prickling. I sniff. There’s an unfamiliar scent in here. Not the flowers. I asked for non-scented flowers because lilies make me feel sick. It’s floral, with an exotic eastern tang of lemongrass and something else. The nostril-pricking aroma of female excitement.
I walk around the corner. Ahead of me are the twinkling lights of Paris, spread like a carpet beneath my balcony. I stretch and yawn and turn to the bed.
It’s been slept in. Or played in. The duvet has slipped halfway off. One pillow has the dent of a head in it. Two others are placed in the middle of the mattress.
We never left it like this. Gustav normally straightens the bed. And, hang on, but shouldn’t it be pristine in a hotel like this? I reach for the phone to call housekeeping, and then I see them. Red shoes. High heels. Pointed toes. One upright, one lying on its side.
A tiny, pleading voice in my ear. A gift?
But then they would come in a shoebox, with a ribbon. Not thrown on the floor. There’s no imprint of sweat on them, but the strap curls as if round an ankle and there is a ridge under the tiny buckle. These have been worn. And then they’ve been removed. The last item taken off before their owner fell into bed.
Other thoughts are flapping about like moths seeking a flame. I touch the white sheet. It’s still warm. I snatch my hand away and spin about. My heart is banging. I’m not thinking. I don’t know what I’m searching for. Is he still here? Are they both here, out on the balcony, or hiding in the bathroom?
The happy, confident fiancée I was a few seconds ago has gone.
