Little White Lies

by Lesley Lokko

She looked at him uncertainly. ‘Me?’

  He nodded. ‘D’you remember . . . at Rebecca’s wedding. We bumped into each other in the hall. I think you offered me one of your cigarettes—’

  ‘No, you asked me for a light,’ Tash corrected him quickly.

  ‘See what I mean?’ He grinned at her. ‘Anyhow, I seem to recall asking you something about a boyfriend . . . what you’d do if your boyfriend did something or other and you just looked at me and said, “Dunno. I’ve never had one.” I’ll never forget that.’

  Tash was puzzled. ‘Why? What’s so unusual about that?’

  He smiled. ‘Most women wouldn’t.’

  ‘Wouldn’t what?’

  ‘Admit to not having a boyfriend. No, let me correct that. To never having had a boyfriend. How old were you? Twenty-five, twenty-six?’

  ‘Twenty-nine,’ she said cheerfully.

  ‘And what about now?’

  ‘What about now?’ she asked carefully.

  ‘Have you got one now?’

  She hesitated, then chuckled. ‘Nope.’

  ‘Don’t tell me—’

  ‘Don’t make me spell it out,’ she laughed. ‘I didn’t have one then and I don’t have one now. Never had one.’

  ‘Never?’

  ‘Never, ever.’

  He sat up straight in his chair. ‘Are you telling me, Tash Bryce-Brudenell, that you’re still . . . ?’

  ‘A virgin?’ She took another sip of wine. She shook her head. ‘No, not that. Thank God.’ She laughed suddenly. ‘If I told you what the sum total of my experience with men has been, you’d die laughing.’

  He looked at her, suddenly serious. ‘I wouldn’t. You know I wouldn’t. I’m curious. Go on.’

  She drew in a deep breath. And took another sip of wine. Entirely without coquetry she shrugged. ‘Once, at university. I can’t even remember his name, let alone his face. And once with my best friend’s father. Annick, not Rebecca. No, not Lionel,’ she added with a half-smile. She saw from his face that he was shocked.

  There was a moment’s silence. They stared at each other, neither saying anything. Then he got up from his chair and approached her. She swallowed and put down her wine glass. Did he mean for her to stand up? She looked up at him, her heart beginning its slow, painful thud. No. He bent down towards her. The firelight was blocked out as he dropped his head and kissed her delicately, but with great passion. ‘D’you know how long I’ve wanted to do that?’ he murmured against her mouth.

  She shook her head, unable to speak. The great, immeasurable, unquenchable desire that had been dormant in her for what seemed like her whole life was awoken suddenly. He was holding her by the upper arms and she had the urge not just to fling her arms around his neck, drawing him closer and closer, but to gather up her whole life and expend it on him, throwing everything onto the bonfire of love, the fire that had been denied her for so long.

  He led her quietly up the stairs, still holding her by the upper arm as if he didn’t trust her not to bolt. She followed him with no thought in her head other than disbelief. This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening to me. This cannot be happening to me. As they passed the first-floor landing, he put a finger to his lips, winking at her. Like schoolchildren, stifling giggles, they tiptoed along the corridor until they reached his room. He held her fast with one hand; in the other he carried the half-empty Château Mouton. He kicked open the door, pulling her into the room after him. Her dress lay in a crumpled heap of silk on the floor before she even realised he’d undone it. No bra, just the quivering points of her breasts that pushed themselves into the warmth of his hands. He ran the scratchy palms of his hands down her trembling stomach, his fingers slipping expertly under the thin elastic of her panties, pushing them down. They were still standing. Next thing she knew, her knees had given way. She landed with a thud on something soft. He’d manoeuvred them both so that they were already at the edge of the big double bed. His knee was suddenly between hers, pushing her legs apart. She felt the rustle of something – plastic? – then gasped in pleasure. His finger, warm, thick, hard, was moving up her thigh . . . slowly, slowly . . . she felt her stomach muscles contract in tender, delicious pain . . . then he slid it inside her, in and out, in and out. She drew his lip into her mouth, biting it, hard . . . it brought an outraged growl of pleasure from him in turn. He struggled out of his jeans, pausing only to pull his sweater off in a single move. He was wearing a T-shirt beneath it; she ran her hands underneath it, up his chest, across his hard nipples and down the hard bulge of his biceps and arms. He was back inside her, not with his finger this time, but with his whole body, pushing against her with a force that seemed to come from somewhere else, from someone else. He was no longer Adam as she’d seen him that evening at dinner, blue eyes twinkling at her from across the table. He was simply a man under the astonishing onslaught of his own passionate release. She closed her eyes tightly.

  When it was over, and she could no more have said how long it lasted than she could have predicted it happening at all, he lay as someone dead, lifting his arm only to draw her head down into the furnace of bedclothes, still damp with sweat. When love comes, it comes indiscriminately. Where had she read that? Gods come not in the places prepared for them, but appearing suddenly amongst the rabble. That was what had happened to her.

  102

  REBECCA

  ‘Have you seen Tash?’ Rebecca walked into the kitchen where Annick was busy preparing a bottle for Didier.

  ‘Isn’t she still asleep?’

  Rebecca shook her head. ‘I’ve been up to her room . . . she’s not there. The bed’s made up, too.’

  Annick turned round and frowned. ‘Has she gone out?’

  Rebecca lifted her shoulders. ‘Either that . . . or she didn’t sleep in it.’

  They looked at each other warily. ‘You don’t think—?’ Annick began hesitantly.

  ‘She couldn’t have . . . could she?’ Rebecca’s voice rose in astonishment.

  ‘Couldn’t have what?’ Julian walked in, belting his dressing gown. ‘Who’re you talking about?’

  Rebecca threw Annick a cautious look. ‘No one,’ she said quickly.

  Julian wasn’t put off. He filled the kettle and plugged it in, turning round to face them, yawning. It was almost nine o’clock. ‘Oh, Merry Christmas, by the way,’ he said, running a hand over his stubble. ‘You don’t suppose someone’s had the best Christmas present ever, do you?’

  Rebecca felt a flush of anger slowly work its way up her neck and face. ‘Don’t be unkind,’ she said shortly.

  Julian looked bemused. ‘Unkind? Who’s being unkind? I just meant—’

  ‘It’s highly unlikely,’ Annick interjected quickly. ‘It would be so . . . so unlike her.’

  ‘Unlike who? Who’re you talking about?’ Someone else had wandered into the kitchen. It was Yves. Like Julian, he too was in his dressing gown.

  ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake! I can’t believe we’re all standing here discussing Tash and her non-existent sex life!’ Rebecca burst out suddenly. ‘She’s probably gone out for a walk, that’s all.’

  Julian turned back to the whistling kettle. ‘Tea bags?’ he enquired, looking at Rebecca.

  ‘In the jar that says “tea bags”. Up there, on the second shelf.’ Seeing he wasn’t about to do it, Rebecca sighed and reached for the jar herself. She turned back to the others. ‘Look, don’t make a big deal of it,’ she begged. ‘Even if it’s true . . . which I’m sure it isn’t.’

  ‘I’ll take his bottle up.’ Yves turned to Annick and the slightly more pressing subject of Didier’s feed. ‘Will you make me a coffee?’

  Annick nodded. ‘She’s probably gone riding. She was talking about it in the car on the way down,’ she said, frowning quickly at Yves. She was just about to hand it over when someone else entered the kitchen, whistling. All four turned round.

  ‘Morning, all.’ It was Adam. He was wearing a dressing gown that the girls recognised as Tash’s an
d a pair of boxer shorts. His blonde hair was ruffled every which way and he sported an impressive stubble. Rebecca could only stare at his open chest, covered in fine, silky dark-brown hair. It slid down his flat torso in a splendid, thick line, disappearing beneath the waistband of his shorts. He was barefoot, his hands patting the pockets of the silk dressing gown for a cigarette. He stood before them, grinning. It wasn’t the first cigarette of the day, she thought to herself, disbelief spreading out all over her like a stain as she watched him light up. Her impression was not of a man who’d just got up, but of one who hadn’t slept at all.

  ‘T-tea?’ she asked, holding up an empty cup. She could think of nothing else to say.

  TASH

  She felt Adam leave the fug of warmth that was the bed they’d shared, springs creaking lightly in protest. It was morning outside. Through the thick, dark curtains a dazzling line of light peeped out. She opened her eyes and saw him stand up, naked, totally at ease. He bent down and picked something up – his boxer shorts – and stepped into them, the gesture familiar to her only from films and novels. There was a tightness in her thighs as she moved sleepily into the warm, Adam-scented hollow in the mattress he’d left behind. He looked around him for something – a towel? He turned and caught her eye. She held her breath. How would it be between them now? He winked. Relief washed over her in waves. Easy. It would be easy.

  ‘Morning, sleepy-head,’ he murmured. ‘I’m going to get us some coffee. You haven’t got a dressing gown handy by any chance, have you?’

  Tash swallowed. Her throat was dry and completely parched. ‘In . . . in my room. Next floor up. First door on the left. It’s hanging behind the door.’

  ‘Fab.’ He bent down and kissed her briefly on the cheek. ‘Coffee?’ he murmured against her skin.

  She could only nod. ‘S-sure,’ she whispered. ‘Coffee would be good.’

  ‘Back in a sec. Don’t get dressed.’ He opened the door and padded out.

  She lay back against the pillows, too stunned to speak. She took in a deep breath, holding it for as long as she could, then she grabbed the sheets to her face, stuffing them into her mouth, laughing wildly, delightedly. She bit down on the fabric bunched up in her mouth, letting out the longest, hardest and most heartfelt scream she’d ever had reason to make. She kicked up her heels, like an excited child, rolling over with a suppressed squeal. She pressed her face into the pillow that smelled of him, of Adam, of the man she’d just taken so strangely and symbolically into her body.

  She was still lying there, face down, mouth tasting faintly of her own salted tears, when he returned with her coffee. And did it to her all over again.

  PART EIGHT

  DECEIVING

  ‘Nothing is so difficult as not deceiving oneself.’

  Ludwig Wittgenstein

  103

  SIX MONTHS LATER

  ANNICK

  London

  The right moment. I’ll wait for the right moment. There’s a time and place for someone to give account of something that doesn’t fit, a loose end or a fact that sits outside all others. But the right moment never came. In the beginning, those first few terrible weeks after Didier was born, the matter of the letter seemed almost trivial in comparison. Her every waking moment was consumed with fear. Of Didier not having survived the night; of a new infection; of something else waiting in him in to be discovered by the doctors on their twice-weekly visits; of his appetite – too little, too much – everything, in other words, that marked him out as different, as vulnerable. As the months progressed and her confidence in Didi’s ability to thrive began to take root, her mind returned to the letter. If Yves wasn’t who he said he was, then who was he? Did it mean everything was a lie? Or just some parts? But which ones?

  She lay in bed with the small, warm sleeping body of her child next to her on those nights when he was away, struggling to remember the little she knew. The journalist’s mutilated body found on the roadside somewhere, her mother’s reticence when she questioned her about it, Yves’ sudden arrival at the Hô tel du Jardin, their courtship, his following her to London . . . and now the letter from the Conseil d’État. Things tumbled round and round in her mind, facts and truths merging and breaking apart . . . was she going mad?

  The only person who knew what was going on inside her was Tash. Rebecca was too preoccupied with her children and Julian and besides, she was hardly in London anymore. But Tash too was preoccupied. After the shortest courtship in history, Tash had shocked everyone by inviting them all to dinner and appearing with the biggest rock on her finger that any of them had seen. Tash Bryce-Brudenell was about to get married. The wedding was a fortnight away and it promised to be one of the biggest, splashiest and most lavish affairs in town. A bidding war broke out between the weeklies as to who would cover it – Hello! won. It was estimated that F@shion.com was worth close to 50 million pounds. In a deal that gave her almost unparalleled growth potential, Tash herself walked away with nearly 20 million. Personally. She now had the cash flow to expand into other markets and ensure she retained her position at the top of the pyramid. She also had the cash and time to ‘fix herself up’, as she put it, shocking Annick and Rebecca into stunned silence. Within a fortnight of getting together with Adam, she walked into a clinic on Harley Street for her first consultation. A month later, the first bandages came off. The effect was startling. Within six months, Tash Bryce-Brudenell looked – and felt – like a completely different person. Gone was the mousy brown ponytail. In its place, short, bleached blonde hair, feathered long and low across that prominent brow. Her nose had been entirely reshaped. Still long, but elegantly so, and delicately sculpted, it no longer pushed her glasses off her face. She kept the glasses but changed the frames. Black, striking, square. With her newly bleached hair, the contrast was stunning. And when she smiled, the transformation was complete. Courtesy of a visiting orthodontist from San Francisco, she now had a set of perfectly straight, perfectly white, perfectly aligned all-American teeth. The effect was both dramatic and surreal. For those who’d known Tash Bryce-Brudenell since for ever, the new, improved version was going to take some getting used to.

  Annick in particular found it hard to believe. Tash had always been so adamantly opposed to doing anything. But, a fortnight after meeting Adam, she’d completely and utterly transformed herself. There was no question she didn’t look stunning. She did. But it just didn’t quite add up. And now, here she was, about to get married. ‘I can’t believe it,’ Tash kept on repeating, every time she caught sight of herself or saw a photograph.

  ‘Well, if you can’t believe it, think about how we feel,’ Rebecca had quipped once, earning herself the most spectacular black look from Tash in return. She’d shut up after that.

  Annick sighed and switched on the kettle. Didier was asleep in the living room and Yves wasn’t due back until the following morning. He’d been in Shanghai on business for the past few days. Did she miss him? She couldn’t tell. She couldn’t tell much these days. Her whole world had been turned upside down and there were mornings when it was hard to tell which way was up.

  She made herself a cup of tea and took it through to the living room. She curled up on the sofa, feet tucked up underneath her, watching her son. He slept in the swing chair Rebecca had passed down from the twins, blissfully unaware of the turmoil inside his mother’s head. His eyes were tightly shut. He’d inherited her light-brown curly hair but not her green eyes. His eyes were dark, inscrutable pools, much like his father’s. There was an unanswered question hovering at the edge of her consciousness that surfaced again now, as she sat sipping her tea. If she did bring it up, what would that mean? What would happen then? If he did admit to having deceived her, could she live with that? And if she couldn’t, could she bear to leave? What was it her mother had said to her once? Don’t ask, don’t tell. She could no longer remember the context or the conversation, just that it had surprised her at the time. Did her parents have secrets? Clearly they did. And
the name Ameyaw was one of them. There was only one question worth asking, and answering, on the subject of secrets. Did she have the courage to unearth them?

  104

  REBECCA

  Tel Aviv

  Two thousand miles away, unbeknownst to her, Rebecca was asking herself the very same question: when is the right time? Tash’s wedding was a fortnight away. A fortnight after that, she was due to give birth. The red light of dawn flooded the room. Somewhere on the street outside, a rising wail lingered, fading away, then returning again, louder each time. She opened her eyelids. Beside her, Julian stirred in his sleep. She rolled herself carefully away from him, trying to get out of bed without waking him. She carefully levered herself upright.

  A month to go. If the baby came out favouring Julian, well, at least things on the home front could – and would – stay as they were. She’d continue seeing Tariq as and when she could. Nothing would change. Tariq’s wife and family were in Connecticut. He would continue to commute to them just as she commuted between London and Tel Aviv. For the past few months, they’d tried to time their respective visits so that they were both away at the same time and there was some strange comfort to be had in the synchronicity of their deception. He told lies; she told lies. He was with his wife; she was with Julian. But when he was with her, for her at least, no one else existed. Not even her children. What was it about Tariq Malouf that held her so deeply, as if in the grip of a curse? She had never tried to explain it to anyone, not even to herself. It wasn’t just physical, though she never tired of looking at him, gazing at his face and body as if trying to commit every single line, every plane, every curve and contour to memory. No, there was something else. Some other, deeper attraction that had to do with the way he was both bound to, and totally different from, her.

  She loved the fact that they’d known each other once, too far back in the mists of childhood for her to remember – the feeling of coming ‘home’, as she put it to herself, to someone who knew her not just as the empty vessel that was Julian’s wife and Lionel’s daughter, but as someone else. Someone in her own right, her own mind, in possession of her own thoughts and opinions, many of which clashed with his. For the first time in her life, he was a man who didn’t see her through the veil of wealth. Tariq’s interest in her as a Harburg had nothing to do with that. For him, the Harburg legacy was political, social, historical . . . certainly not financial. In addition to the deep, warm sensuality he coaxed from her, and not just in bed, he’d given her an insight into Lionel that not even Embeth appeared to know. To the outside world, Rebecca Harburg and Tariq Malouf came from two opposite ends of the same equation. From Tariq, she learned that it was a definition Lionel himself would have resisted – and did. The connections between the two families bound them together in a way that she’d never expected to find, let alone understand. Through him, she did. For the first time in her adult life, Rebecca felt dangerously close to complete. It was ironic, she thought to herself with a small, unhappy smile. She had to stray outside her marriage and outside the cosy circle of her family to find out who she really was.