by Primula Bond
Gustav has lied. He’s not in Italy. He’s been in our hotel room with someone who wears fuck-me Jimmy Choos.
I stare down at the shoes, kicked so carelessly to the end of the bed, not even covered by the fallen duvet. Pierre’s words of warning, back in New York, come back to me.
I’m not your nemesis. She is. She’s the danger you need to watch out for.
Gustav wouldn’t do that. He would never go with Margot in our hotel bed. We’re engaged. Tomorrow he’s going to size our wedding rings. There must be some other explanation. She’s been here, tricking me into thinking this. That’s it. That’s the answer.
Is he still in Paris? Or has he left me, gone to London or back to New York? When he rang me was he in some noisy trattoria to make it sound as if he was in Florence?
Dismay and devastation are hovering, but they haven’t got hold of me yet. Something else is approaching to swell and fill this emotion-vacuum.
Anger, that’s what. Mindless panic shoved aside for sub-zero fury.
I punch at Gustav Levi’s number on my phone. Voicemail. I punch it again.
‘Gustav. Where are you? Ring me. Now.’
I stare at the phone, listen again and again to the formal message left in his deep voice, and then I punch in another number.
‘Pierre? I don’t know what to do!’ I whisper, tears queuing up to choke me. ‘Help me!’
There’s a sharp rapping at the door. Pierre is there, holding his phone. ‘You rang?’
We step forwards simultaneously, ridiculously holding our phones to our ears as if they’re transmitting life support.
He looks bigger and broader than before, and for some reason he’s got his blazer slung over his shoulder as if he’s been indoors for some time. What’s he doing? I should be creeped out by it, but I’m not. Quite the opposite. Relief floods through me. Right now, if he wasn’t totally off-limits, I could kiss him. His face is a crumpled picture of concern.
‘What the hell?’ I begin. ‘Are you staying in the hotel too?’
He shakes his head. ‘No, but – you called for help.’
I gesture behind me. ‘The bed’s all rumpled, it stinks of sex in here, and there are these shoes – I don’t know if I’m going crazy, all that talk in the car of mania and danger is getting to me, but I think Margot’s been here.’
Pierre steps past me and goes straight round to the bedroom. He puts his hand over his eyes.
‘Shit.’
The horror in his voice is the last thing I wanted to hear. I point at the wrinkles in the sheets. Down at the offending items on the floor.
‘Those are her shoes. See? Not mine. She’s the only person I know who wears those slutty heels. She was wearing them when we confronted her at the apartment. She practically kicked my teeth out.’
Pierre turns and takes hold of me. His fingertips rest on the balls of my shoulders. He’s being very careful not to come closer, I can tell, but even so, his hands are warming my skin through the silky jersey T-shirt. He pulls me a little closer, but not close enough to kiss me. My eyes are on a level with his. He’s shorter than Gustav, and although he’s lost weight, his stockiness is emphasised by the new beard. The resemblance between the two brothers, thank God, has faded.
Nevertheless, we are too close. I can smell his heavy cologne. We haven’t been as close as this since Venice. I should pull away. But this closeness is comforting me. If I move, I’ll have to start thinking again.
‘Can’t you smell it?’
‘What?’
‘Her horrible, cloying scent?’
Pierre shakes his head. ‘No. My sense of smell isn’t great. The fire, you know.’
‘Well, I can. She was here. Messing up my bed while I was working at the château. And she wouldn’t have bothered to come up alone. So she must have been with Gustav.’
‘You need to stop winding yourself up like this. What did you say earlier about Margot? That I was letting her win? Well, you’re doing the same.’ Pierre clears his throat. ‘You’ve got it all wrong, Serena. You’re engaged to the most decent man on the planet. You don’t honestly think my brother would cheat on you?’
I press my hand against his chest. One of the buttons on his shirt catches my fingernail and I twist it on its thread.
‘He’s been going off on all these sudden business trips. He goes out early in the mornings sometimes in New York. He mentioned something about signing on the dotted line. What if he’s – oh, God, that’s exactly what he asked me to do when we first me. What if he’s got some new ingénue tied to him with another silver chain?’
‘Well, he wouldn’t come out and tell you, would he?’
I pull the button right off its moorings. ‘You mean he’s a born deceiver, just like you?’
‘No, no, not my brother, not in a million years, oh, God, I’m sorry, Serena. Stop it! I’m joking!’
‘Well, for once in your life grow up!’ I punch him with both fists. ‘And now he’s disappeared for the whole night. This is supposed to be our romantic break in Paris! Pierre, when I ask him where he is he brushes off my questions—’
Pierre stops my hands in mid-air and pushes me gently down into one of the armchairs and sits down in the other. He sits forward with his blazer across his legs, fiddling with the collar. His dark eyes are every bit as intense as Gustav’s, but I can’t read them. I wonder if, despite his tough words in the car earlier about being the man with no heart, he is hiding the embers of feelings that still burn inside.
‘I have no idea what he’s up to but I can swear, on every honey-gold hair on your beautiful head, that Gustav would rather cut his legs off than cheat on you, and even if hell froze over, it still wouldn’t be with Margot. You’re better than this. Don’t let her turn you into a terrified, suspicious—’
I’m going to have to put my trust in Pierre now, however bizarre that sounds. I’m not convinced he’s entirely over his infatuation for me. He’ll always be a chancer. But he’s making a good fist of putting the madness behind him, and the stark truth is that as I can’t contact Gustav I have no one else to turn to.
‘Just speak to him, Pierre. Go find him.’
‘No need. This is all my fault.’ Pierre pauses. ‘Again.’
I sigh heavily. ‘What do you mean?’
He stands and walks over to the bed and sits on the snowy sheets.
‘The nasty part of me should be overjoyed by this.’ He picks up the shoes and cradles them in his big hands. ‘The old me would be stoking up these irrational fears until you were mine for the taking, and hang the consequences.’
‘So what have you done this time? Why is it your fault? Why does Gustav keep sloping off?’ My voice is shaking now as the emotion starts to spill over. Icy fury, but the desolation isn’t far behind. ‘And what were you doing standing outside my door?’
Pierre picks fluff off his blazer, and to my astonishment I see an embarrassed smile breaking on his wide mouth.
‘I left something behind.’
I stare at him. There is barely any light now in the room. Only the fuzz of city lights and a couple of spotlights illuminating the façade of the hotel.
He smooths his hand over the sheets. ‘It was me. I was in here earlier. Gustav texted me and asked me to come up and check a document he’d left behind and read it to him over the phone. It made no sense to me. It was about property, and it was all in Italian. His forte, not mine. Then I had a little bounce on the bed. It’s superior, isn’t it? I couldn’t resist testing the thread count.’
‘The thread count? There’s spunk on the sheet, Pierre. You revolting little perv—’
‘Bring it on, Serena. I can take it. At least you’re attacking me, not him. I was just trying out the mattress. Twelve hundred count, pocket-sprung, multilayered fillings. I’m a geek when it comes to beds.’
‘Oh, come on. You’re really taking the piss now!’
He gives me a sideways glance, sparking with mischief yet challenging me to believe him.
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And that’s exactly what I want, too. He’s spent all evening persuading me to believe in him, that he’s sorry, and that he’s mended his ways, and I’m ready. It may not be the conversion of St Paul on the road to Damascus. He may not be the new man he claims to be, to have turned from sinner to saint quite so comprehensively, but I have to give Pierre a chance. What’s more, I’m tired of all the doubting and fighting. Doubting and fighting is Margot’s game. I just want everything to be calm, and easy, and for my fiancé to come back to me.
‘Anyway, this gorgeous chambermaid comes in just as I was lifting the sheet to check the Belgian damask cover. Tall. Blonde—’
I can’t help smirking. ‘She Belgian, too?’
He sniggers. ‘I was going to say easy. What can I say? It was the work of moments. Then I had to come and meet you over at the château. I assumed she would clean up afterwards.’
I can bear to look at the bed again now. In a whole different light. ‘So you haven’t come up here as an excuse to be alone with me?’
‘I told you, Gustav asked me to let myself into your room and read some dreary document to him over the phone. I won’t tell you what I was fantasising about when I took a good snoop round these sultry surroundings, but I was more than up for an encounter with a saucy chambermaid when she sashayed in with her furniture spray, I can tell you. But tricking you again?’ His eyes burn into me for a moment, but then he shakes his head, digging the heels of the shoes into the palm of his hands. ‘Not even I am that crass.’
‘And you’re not covering for Gustav?’
‘Listen to yourself. Princess Paranoia. I am not covering for him. This is embarrassing enough without involving my brother. You see, those shoes—’
‘Are Margot’s! I know, because I told you she was prancing about in them at her apartment!’
‘Christ, do you never shut up? She wears Jimmy Choo. These are Ferragamo. I’m a designer, remember? And they’re mine. Don’t look at me like that! Shoes are part of my arsenal when I travel, but I don’t wear them. They’re only a UK size five. I have a fetish. I like to be covered in some kind of clothing in bed. But I like my women to be naked, wearing nothing but a pair of impossible-to-walk-in shoes.’
We both stare at the bed, and at long last a different scenario plays out. The masked woman being ravished by the masked man in the gondola finally fades away. That man is now on his back being straddled by a white, blonde, red-shoe-wearing chambermaid.
I snort. ‘You carry them with you?’
‘When I’m on the prowl, yes. Which is why I came back up here. Silly girl told me she’d left them by the bed.’
He puts the shoes together on the floor. There’s a long pause. A soft wind blows around the balcony, ruffling the tulips. I look out of the window, aware that Pierre’s eyes are on me.
We both speak in unison.
‘I miss him, Pierre.’
‘I could always stay.’
I walk to the chair where my jacket is hanging, and hold on to the back of it. I look at the pale denim material, the fraying collar. My camera is on the table, waiting to be examined. I look up at Pierre Levi, and catch a look in his eyes of a hungry boy staring at a cake. But I can’t feel fearful or annoyed. I just feel flattered. And I know, of the two of us, I’m the one capable of hurting him.
‘Best you go, P. But thank you.’
He stands up and pulls on his blazer. ‘Please don’t tell Gustav. About the bed. The chambermaid. And particularly not about the shoes.’
He walks across the big, wide room. On his way past a tall lamp he switches it on, and instantly the dark room softens into friendliness. He bows like a soldier and steps out into the corridor.
‘That’s something I can hold over you, then, isn’t it? Oh, and Pierre? You forgot something!’
He darts inside the room like a shot, an eager smile playing round his lips. He may have lost hope of having me, but he hasn’t lost the desire. The smile turns into a grin as I hold out the red shoes.
‘By the way, you just called me P!’
I push him out of the door. ‘Maybe it’ll become a habit, who knows?’
I give him the shoes and we both burst out laughing.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The car drops me in the Boulevard de Clichy. Right outside the Moulin Rouge theatre, in fact.
Gustav isn’t here yet so I ask the driver to wait. I look up at the famous façade. The association with Pierre is unavoidable. The burlesque show I photographed for him back in February was modelled directly on this very venue and its colourful history. And at last I can see that show for what it was. The vision of my future brother-in-law, and his entertaining, sexy spectacle.
Anyway, I’m continents away from midtown Manhattan and any machinations, misunderstandings and menaces. I’m sitting in a French film company limousine after another hard day’s graft at the château. And with Pierre’s help, I’ve even managed to turn Margot and her red shoes into a bad joke.
I see Gustav striding along the noisy street lined with cheap shops, and I get out of the car, dismissing the driver. I want to run to him, but instead I watch him, his long legs in indigo blue jeans, his ripped torso in a dark blue T-shirt with another paler one underneath clinging to him as he hurries towards me. I stand and wait, my whole body smiling with joy.
And soon I’m in his arms, searching those shining black eyes for the love I feel for him, and feeling it in the way he’s squeezing me tight, nuzzling into my neck.
‘Let’s not go in there,’ Gustav murmurs, moving his mouth round to mine.
‘Let’s go back to the hotel?’
‘You horny devil. I could have you right here in the street!’ He laughs, pulling me as people push past.
We start to walk through the place des Abbesses towards rue Drevet.
I pause at the foot of the steep flight of stairs leading up to the butte de Montmartre.
It’s on the tip of my tongue to probe a little, to ask him where he’s been, but I remember Pierre’s assurances. And just as quickly, I push Pierre out of my mind again. Why spoil a beautiful moment?
‘Come on, mademoiselle, I’m hungry, so allow me to push this cute butt of yours up to a little place I know.’
We start the long, steep climb and emerge on the place du Calvaire.
‘Here?’ I ask, pointing at Le Plumeau with its tempting fenced-in terrace and solemn cello player, but Gustav shakes his head and pulls me on through the crowds, down the Bis rue Norvins and through a tiny door which looks from the outside as if it might be the entrance to a dusty old shop. But Le Vieux Chalet turns out to be an adorable restaurant, an oasis of calm amongst the tourist trails. We walk into a small, enclosed garden full of greenery. There’s just one other couple in here, looking as happily surprised as I am. You can hear nothing but the tinkle of hanging glass candle-holders and the twitter of birds in the trees. A distinguished man greets Gustav and takes our order before leaving us alone.
The late May sun filters through the new leaves on to my skin.
The filet mignon melts in our mouths, the tarte Tatin, heavy with added cream, pricks my taste buds, and the rich Bordeaux makes me sleepy.
‘Now can we go to bed?’ I ask Gustav, licking a spot of gravy off the corner of his mouth and earning a glare from an elderly customer tucking a white napkin into his collar. ‘I don’t like it when you go away. I’ve been surrounded by sex and seduction at the château for two whole days.’
Gustav laughs and kisses me, once, twice, then comes back in for a long, searching third kiss before signalling for the bill.
‘Let’s take a little walk first.’
I stand up and sling my little sparkly cream cardigan loosely over my shoulders.
‘I don’t need to work up an appetite. I want you in me, now!’
Gustav chuckles and scoops my hair out of the collar and lets it drop down my back. The two old men wave us out into the narrow streets of Montmartre, and the door shuts softly behind us.
We wander through the overcrowded place du Tertre, past the artists painting on-the-spot caricatures and portraits of easily fleeced tourists. We go to sit on the steps in front of Sacré Coeur with its panoramic view of the city. The sun is really warm now on my back, even though the steps are slightly damp.
‘You wanted to show me this view?’ I mumble as the damp from the steps begins to chill my legs. ‘I have been up here before, you know.’
‘But not with me, darling. I just wanted to sit here with you for a moment. Everything takes on a fresh new hue when I’m with you.’
Just then my phone trills. ‘It’s a text from Polly. She must have got a signal at last.’
‘Can you reply a little later?’ He pulls me close to him and waves his arm over the panorama in front of us. ‘You never pay attention to important things when you’re young, do you? Did you know I once started to train as an architect? How amazing would it be to create a space for human beings to live and work in – or an entire city? See how uniform Paris is. It was a slum before Haussmann recreated it. It took fifty years to complete his vision.’
‘Didn’t he have some idea about everything being the same height?’ I ask, lifting my camera to peer through the viewfinder.
Gustav buries his nose in my hair. ‘That’s what gives it its charm. He had human beings in mind, not battery hens like the concrete monstrosities that went up in England after the war. Every apartment building in Paris was to be seven storeys high. Every façade was built in this golden limestone, which often came from right under the city. I’ll take you underground one day. You can walk for miles, you know. And he even decreed that every second and fifth floor would have a wrought-iron balcony and every lead roof was to slope back at forty-five degrees.’
I can’t resist zooming in on the rooftops below us, the tiny windows set up in the grey attics. Some have small boxes outside with herbs and flowers growing in them. I long to be able to peep inside the ateliers, and see artists or dressmakers or cooks at work.
