by Primula Bond
‘None of it was intended to involve you. It was an accident! A mistake!’ Gustav put his hand up to try to stop the flow of insults and injury. ‘You asked for an explanation. So let me–’
‘There have been too many accidents and mistakes, Gustav. So let me tell our audience what the butler saw.’ Pierre interrupted, and gave a kind of maître d’s bow, swinging stiffly from his waist. ‘Gustav Levi giving his gorgeous wife Margot a sadistic hiding. The marvellous big brother who was so into his bondage and whipping that he couldn’t do without it, even though I’d clearly left a message that I was coming home.’
‘Don’t make the mistake of defending that bitch.’ Gustav’s hands looked ready to wrap round his brother’s neck. Their mouths opened simultaneously, teeth bared like wolves fighting over prey. ‘I don’t deny what I was doing, but everything was set up by her!’
‘I saw everything solid and real being ripped away from me. That image still haunts me, Gustav, when I can bear to dwell on it. You brought me up to be a gentleman. The sun shone out of your arse. But that was all obliterated, up-ended, if you’ll forgive the pun, in one fell swoop. There you were, bending over her, your arm raised in the air–’ Pierre swallowed hard. ‘If “that bitch” as you call her hadn’t rushed upstairs and found me when she did, I can’t answer for what I might have done to you. She distracted me, oh, in the nicest possible way! An image that haunts you, too, I bet? And thank God for her, because after that Margot was all I wanted. All I needed. Not the house. Not you. Her.’
Gustav staggered away from the skirmish, his hand over his mouth as Pierre flung the words out like stones. The fire drained away from his face. ‘Hold on a minute. What message?’
‘The message I left with Margot. I rang that morning and told her I’d be home early from uni. She swore she’d tell you to expect me, but no, you didn’t give a toss. You were too busy forcing her onto her knees for her daily dose of dominance.’
Polly fell against the wall, looking exasperated. ‘You didn’t tackle this at the time? Don’t you people ever communicate?’
‘I never forced her to do anything, but there was no time to explain any of that to you!’ Gustav shouted. ‘Not once you’d vanished. Pierre, you have to listen, Margot never gave me any bloody message! She planned all this. Every single detail.’
‘Always blaming Margot. Never yourself. You said yourself, you can’t deny it. You probably even filmed it!’ Pierre smirked and held an imaginary phone up to his ear. ‘Or perhaps we should summon Margot. One call is all it would take–’
‘Enough!’ Crystal’s voice was a thunderclap. Somehow she had materialised between them. Polly and I were on the edge of the dance now, and we drew close, our arms snaking round each other. Polly’s eyes were bleached of colour as she glanced first at me, then at the curious Mary Poppins figure of Crystal. And then at the exit.
I knew what she was thinking. Should we just get the hell out of here? Let them slug it out?
Ramrod-straight, Crystal marched round the two men like a sergeant major as the two Levis squared up to each other again. She raised her hand like a headmistress calling for silence.
‘Shame on you both! You’re acting like a pair of common cage fighters. You are brothers!’
‘So?’ growled Pierre, bouncing slightly on his feet. ‘Ever heard of Cain and Abel?’
Polly’s face said it all. She’d never seen this aggression in her suave boyfriend before.
And what it showed me was that mirror image again, distorted. Pierre was a version of Gustav that was younger, stronger, angrier and resolved to see the bad in people. The version I never thought I would meet.
Crystal stood her ground. ‘You first, Pierre. I’m ashamed of you, speaking this way. What has Margot done to that lovely polite boy?’
Pierre jabbed his finger rudely at her. ‘Ah, dear faithful Crystal. You always did worship the ground Gustav walked on.’
‘And so did you, Pierre Levi. Stamp and curse all you like, but you idolised him. Deep down, you still do.’ Crystal seemed to be rising off the floor with the towering force of her presence. ‘I’m not scared of you. Either of you. It’s time this was out in the open. I was there that night, remember? I know exactly what happened. I didn’t know about any phone call, but I still know who is right, and who is wrong. And I’m telling you, the person we should all be afraid of is Margot Levi.’
Crystal was magnificent. She was taller than ever, floating round the room, her arm up like Boadicea, a prophetess railing against the gods as we all waited for what she would say next.
‘She’s like a bad smell lingering under the floorboards. Still winning. Still wreaking havoc in this very room! She’s the reason you boys are enemies, and if it all hinges on one missed phone call it can surely be resolved. You’ve never had a chance to explain what you were really trying to do that night, Gustav. Now’s your chance. And then perhaps Pierre can man up and confess while he’s here that not only should he not have been so ready to run off with his sister-in-law, it was he, not one of Margot’s cronies as you suspected, who broke into your safe.’
Crystal was like the umpire in a boxing ring. The two men stared at her.
‘It was you who took our parents’ jewellery? His watch, her rings?’ Gustav’s voice was hoarse. His face furrowed into grooves of dismay. ‘But it was all we had left!’
‘And it was mine to take, just as much as it was yours. Margot picked the lock for me. When you chucked us out she said we’d need the jewellery to sell.’ Pierre turned, walked over to the window and pressed his hands against the cold glass sprinkled with snow. ‘See how upset he gets over a stash of trinkets. Metal and gems. Not flesh and blood. In the end we’re all just trinkets to you.’
Another long silence dropped over us. The gallery was empty and cold. Lurking awkwardly round us were the humped shapes of the new sculpture exhibition waiting to be mounted, the pieces still shrouded in plastic body bags like mortuary victims.
And that portrait of me, the only one still hanging.
When I took that picture in a grimy station mirror back in October all I hoped was that the future would be a damn sight better than the first twenty years of my life.
I kept my arm around Polly, but really I wanted to be close to Gustav. I was frightened of the bleak distance in his eyes, the bristle in his stance. The only thread joining Gustav to anyone at this moment was the thin trail of gunpowder stretching between him and his brother.
The snow was faltering, the flakes still thick and fat but sporadic now. Somewhere out there across the river the Eye was turning, its lit-up pods of sightseers unaware of the drama unfolding in here.
Crystal started to back out of the room, towards the lift. ‘Gustav. Pierre. Lose your pride.’
Don’t go, Crystal, I begged her silently. We need you here.
Pierre thrust his hands into his pockets. His shoulders drooped slightly. Polly and I were still holding our breath.
‘I took some precious jewellery from a man who already had more money than sense. Mea culpa. Now. Shall we go back to the reason I took it?’ Pierre turned slowly from the window. ‘It was far more than a missed phone message that drove me away. This lovely girl will run a mile now she’s heard about your sick habits. As for me, I’ve changed beyond recognition since that night. I’m not that naïve, trusting young lad any more. Christ, I’ve even developed some pretty sick habits of my own! But where this is your fault, Gustav, is that everything I’d held dear about you, admired all my life, looked up to, was ripped away in that one hideous, graphic moment. Like someone smashing a mirror. No excuses. You were my big brother, for God’s sake! Oh, I wasn’t entirely ignorant. I was getting increasingly bad vibes from the goings on in the house. But you should have made certain that I would never see anything damaging – let alone you indulging in it as well!’
‘And you should know, Pierre, that far from me being shocked and disgusted, Gustav’s sick habits are old news,’ I declared into the bitter
silence, my voice louder than I meant it to be. ‘Seen it. Done it. Got the whip. Supplied the weapon of choice, in fact.’
‘So soon the sado-masochism?’ Pierre flashed back. ‘In a couple of months he’s got you addicted, too?’
Gustav snagged his hand through his hair and glanced sharply at me. I smiled faintly back at him. Still Pierre studied us, every nuance. What was it? Jealousy of our silent communication? The pinching memory of their old closeness?
What were they like before their affection was shut off like a gas pipe? What impression did they make, the cool older brother and his young, eager sidekick hunting as a pair, ploughing their orphaned way in the world? These handsome men, their exotic black hair, tall, athletic bodies, demonic attraction radiating out of them. I really wanted to know.
Polly’s eyes were huge with questions, too. I longed to take her by the hand, leave the brothers to it and run off to one of our childhood hideouts. But we weren’t kids camping out on a windy Devon beach any more. We were involved in this fight between our men, whether we liked it or not.
‘Leave Serena alone!’ spluttered Gustav. ‘This girl probably knows more about me than you do! I’ve told her about my past. But no, she didn’t know the details of the night I lost you, because I forbade anyone to mention it and I hoped, stupidly, that I’d never have to relive it.’ Gustav finally snapped out of his reverie and stepped towards the window. ‘I’ve explained, Pierre, that I hadn’t a clue you were arriving home from university. I was desperate to extricate myself from the marriage, what was going on, everything, because I realised it was only a matter of time before you witnessed something really bad. But Margot wouldn’t have it. She clung on with her fingernails. I had always sworn that hell would freeze over before I let her anywhere near you, so that was her lever, her enduring threat. She swore in return that if I made her leave she would take you with her.’
For once Gustav had misjudged his timing and left it too late. Pierre suddenly barged up beside him, clamped his arm around Gustav’s shoulders and pulled him roughly against him in a parody of an embrace.
‘So you failed, yet again, to protect me. You were busted.’
‘For God’s sake, Pierre! What do you mean, “yet again”?’ Polly jumped forwards and slapped at him. ‘He’s trying to hold out an olive branch, you dickhead!’
Pierre winced as her hand caught his free arm and he pushed her off. ‘We were fine and dandy until Margot came along, and then Gustav changed. He was her lapdog. Worm. Slave. I was fourteen, listening every night to them banging each other’s brains out. Too much information? And when Margot was mistress of the house, I kept bumping into her creepy friends on the stairs when they came to the house for their perverted parlour games. The best thing my brother ever did was bundle me off to boarding school before I realised that he was in it up to his neck. But he failed in the end, because I saw it all when I came home that night. Gustav Levi trussed up in leather chaps and muzzle, bringing a horsewhip down on Margot’s sweet little arse.’
‘I don’t want to hear any more,’ Polly shouted. ‘Rena, make it stop!’
I started moving towards the two men.
‘You can’t shock me, Pierre. When Gustav confided in me about the horror show his marriage, his life, had become, we were in the chalet in Lugano. I had already found Margot’s punishment parlour or whatever she would call it, her room of pain, but it was mostly empty because all the equipment had been shipped to London. He told me he was obsessed with her from the moment they met, but once they were married that changed, because the rougher and more demeaning her demands became, the sicker he found her.’
‘The effect on him was pretty sick, believe me,’ Pierre growled, his teeth biting down into his dry lips. ‘That wasn’t my brother. It was a weak, addicted loser.’
I could feel Gustav’s eyes boring into me, but I refused to look at him. He’d pitched me into the middle of a battlefield with no armour. He’d kept the details of that horrible night from me and I only had a few seconds to prove that I could handle it. If I couldn’t, we were finished.
‘I reckon that was Margot’s handiwork. That’s how he saw himself, too. But he’s the old Gustav Levi again now. Your rock. My rock.’ I took one more breath because any minute now the tears were going to take over. ‘I look like the kind of woman who would be attracted to a weak, addicted loser?’
‘Who knows? You could be as bad as he is.’ Pierre’s eyes, those dark lasers so like his brother’s, were steadier now.
I decided to plough on until someone stopped me. ‘Don’t sneer as if I know nothing, Pierre. I’ve seen the dominatrix films in the old house in Baker Street.’
Pierre raised his hand in protest. ‘That “old house in Baker Street” was my home! The place Gustav said I could always feel safe. I wasn’t a baby, I didn’t need to be wrapped in cotton wool, but I didn’t deserve to feel threatened either. Everyone needs some kind of haven when they’re a kid, don’t they? Except he turned my haven into a knocking shop.’
A rush of familiar, icy helplessness swamped me. ‘I know exactly what you’re talking about, Pierre. I never had a haven when I was growing up. The only time I felt safe was when Polly was with me.’ I paused. I had no idea if this was championing Gustav’s cause or making everything ten times worse, but I couldn’t stop myself now. ‘So I understand why you thought your world had ended. But Gustav has just told you he was fighting for you. Fighting to put a stop to all the madness.’
Pierre was the first to speak, and it was as if he hadn’t heard a word I was saying. ‘Well, he fought so hard that Margot had to run to me for help.’
‘Help?’ I shook off a restraining gesture from Gustav. ‘I bet it was her favourite horsewhip he was forced to use! The long black one? He was turning the tables on her. She’d been humiliating him beyond endurance and the last straw was–’
‘When she threatened to involve you in her sordid games!’ Gustav’s voice as he interrupted was strangled with fury. ‘She goaded and goaded until I lost it. I couldn’t let her steal you from me. I had to show her, once and for all, who was boss.’
Pierre snorted. ‘By whipping your wife to kingdom come?’
‘Margot loved all that! The harder the better. She didn’t need anyone’s help. You’re the lucky one, because you had a brother who tried to protect you from her!’ I darted towards Pierre, my fingers out ready to scratch him.
‘Protect me? Oh, he’s good at that!’
‘Serena. My warrior queen. This is my battle, not yours.’ Gustav moved towards me. Letting me take the stage for a few moments seemed to have given him time to regroup.
‘Serena is right. I was ending it that night, Pierre,’ he continued quietly. ‘I had ended it.’ Gustav swiped his hand over his forehead. ‘I’m desperately sorry you had to see that. But I’m even more sorry that she carried out her threat. Found you and fucked you, just like she promised.’
‘Fucking, flagellating, what’s the difference? You show me yours, I’ll show you mine! Someone sits on your face, you’re not going to turn her down, are you? Especially not someone you’ve secretly lusted after for years!’ The expression on Pierre’s face was a combination of smile and snarl. ‘Oh, your wife was so hot, Gustav. Steaming. The sexiest thing I’ve ever had. Ever will have.’
Polly gasped. Her blue eyes were round and red. We were all trapped in this room, this snapping of words and images. I slammed my hand down on the desk. ‘Would you listen to yourselves? Do you want a reconciliation or not?’
They weren’t hearing me. They were being drawn back together by the images scrolling across the cine-screen of their shared memory.
‘You’re like Margot’s ventriloquist!’ Gustav was jabbing his finger now at Pierre. ‘Your going with her was despicable, the worst call you ever made. You may have thought she was your new protector, but all she wanted was to break me. P, she took you and turned you into someone else.’
There was a brief, heavy pause. Surely Pierre wou
ld respond to that heartfelt cry of love and despair? That unexpected use of a childhood nickname?
‘She didn’t change me. You’re the one who changed from hero to bad guy.’
The massive building shook with a sudden gust of strong wind. A train rattled loudly over Hungerford Bridge and a series of sirens wailed up the Embankment towards some catastrophe.
‘The worst thing I ever did was welcome Margot into our lives and I will never forgive myself for that. Or for letting you think of me as a villain.’ Gustav walked stiffly back to the desk, all the while keeping his eyes on his brother. ‘But take some of this on your shoulders, Pierre. You didn’t have to fall so completely into Margot’s trap, choose her over me without a second thought. Oh, I know how relentless she is when her claws are in, but you broke my heart.’
The brothers stared at each other across the abyss. Surely this was the moment to forge some kind of truce? Pierre followed his brother to the desk and leaned across it.
‘I might have tried to resist her charms if she hadn’t told me one more tiny fact about you. Every word of which made perfect sense.’
‘That woman would swear day was night and people would believe her! Every word that comes out of her mouth is a lie, Pierre. I’ve tried to explain myself to you, but if her poison is still in your ears, what’s the point? I can’t take any more of this today.’ Gustav looked down at the sales ledger and started, very slowly, to close it. ‘You’re still so damn prickly.’
‘Is it any wonder I’m prickly, with my problem skin?’ Pierre stroked his hand up the arm that Polly had slapped earlier. ‘Remember that?’
‘Of course I remember.’ Gustav’s eyes followed the curious gesture of his brother’s hand as if he was being hypnotised. ‘How is it? Still gives you grief?’
