by Regi Claire
Thank God little Celia is beginning to grow Up at last, Eric thinks; he has noted the shorter tighter skirt, the high-heeled boots and the deep red of her lips. But of course that’s not what he says as he holds out both arms for a clumsy welcome-back-to-the-office hug: ‘Celia, how well you’re looking! So much better than I’d –’
Lapis has started up a jealous bark and Eric retreats a step. He is an old fat single man, after all, and the art of butterfly flirting is not for him. He is glad to have Celia back. Angelina, his new apprentice, can’t be depended on except to write letters from dictation, package gemstones – provided they’re laid out and labelled, foolproof, beforehand – and deal with clients whose requests aren’t too specific, or well informed. A few days ago he’d actually caught the girl wrapping up one of his costly Kashmir sapphires instead of the cheaper Australian variety the client had ordered because she ‘assumed’ the cornflower blue was less valuable than the inky dark one. He’d given her quite a talking-to on how never ever to ‘assume’ anything again if she was at all keen to stay on.
‘ASK when you’re not sure. ASK! Okay?’ he’d thundered in his loudest tones.
The girl had started weeping then, her lovely brown hair sticking limply to her wet cheeks, and he’d felt bad at making her cry yet angry too at her damn stupidity. He’d put his white silk handkerchief on the desk in front of her and returned to his office, mindful not to slam the door overmuch.
The thick wings of Eric’s eyebrows tremble. His hand is at the breast pocket of his jasper-brown suit, tucking and untucking today’s cotton cloth, fumbling at the soft folds while he wonders whether he’ll get the silk one back from Angelina or should he perhaps ask for it. He bends down awkwardly to pat Lapis on the head – ‘Off to your bed, that’s a good boy’ – and straightens right into Celia’s smile. She must have greeted him because she is now indicating the long narrow box which lies open on his desk. Lined up in its velvet groove are the pearls from an old necklace he has been trying to re-string (mainly transferring it from safe to desk to safe) on and off for the past week.
‘Just leave that to me, Eric,’ she says. ‘Angelina will have to be shown anyway. Unless there’s more urgent business.’
‘All yours,’ he replies with a grin of relief and a sweeping generous gesture. Dear little Celia, quite a gem in her own right. He knows she’ll string those pearls up in no time, perfectly and precisely, including the blasted tiny in-between knots his fingers can’t be bothered with any more, and the delicate gold-and-diamond catch at either end. And she’ll manage to keep up a running commentary for Angelina.
Celia’s eyes have followed the sweep of Eric’s arm, but now she forces herself to look away before the room is completely dismantled.
Already, the glass-display cabinet opposite has been stripped of its chunks of rock crystal, malachite, onyx, agate, lapis lazuli and all kinds of carved-stone objets d’art. To the left of the door, the monstrous old safe like a walk-in fridge has stopped looming – painted or papered out of sight, no doubt. The ceiling-high bookcase in beween has wedged itself deeper into its corner, as if to escape the blankness encroaching it on both sides, and the instrument counter along the right-hand wall has been precision-balanced, proportion-and-microscopied out of existence.
Only over by the window, and furthest from Celia, are things still more or less intact. At least half the heavy mahogany desk with Lapis on his blanket underneath and most of the filing cabinets – though their steeliness appears rather blunted by the razor glints of the Black Star of Africa and the yellow spitfire of the Tiffany Diamond framed above.
The moment passes like a bad dream or the prick of a pin, and Celia crosses over to where the desk rests quite whole and solid on its four legs and Lapis’s tail is beating a frantic tattoo on the floor. It’s having those decorators around that does this, she thinks. Every room, every house, every shop she enters these days becomes a mere potential for instability, full of movables, rip-out-ables, pull-down-ables, steam-ables, chisel-and-scrape-ables. She leans over the open box on Eric’s desk. How beautiful those pearls are. How calm.
‘Cultured?’ she asks, picking one up and letting it roll round her palm in small appreciative circles. She knows Eric has a thing about pearls, loves exploring them with his endoscope, shining light through their drill holes endlessly.
‘Natural ones, in fact. Fascinating reflections, absolutely fascinating.’ He comes to stand beside her and together they stare at the pearl in her hand.
There’s an awkward silence made worse by the sadness she suddenly feels layering itself on her like invisible nacre.
Eric, meanwhile, has edged away towards the front of the desk, his furtive progress carefully monitored by Lapis, and is now crouching down, wheezing a little. He isn’t sure what to do and so is going to offer Celia a chocolate from the Fémina box-selection – turquoise lid with moonstone-white-and-gold writing, nothing less would do – he keeps in the bottom drawer.
‘My favourite exercise,’ he jests with a final wheeze as he tugs the box free.
Lapis’s head jerks up the same instant. He inches forward on his belly, snuffling, his serrated black lips wet with drool.
Celia replaces the pearl and tells herself to smile, please.
In the outer office Angelina is sorting through the fax messages received overnight (the boss, as she prefers to call Eric, hates e-mail): a short inquiry from their lapidary in Germany; an assessment report from a private gem expert in Zurich; two offers of Rare White brilliants from Antwerp and one of Cognac Fancies from New York, the latter sent at 1.16 a.m. local time – diamond dealers, she’s learnt, work at all hours, just like those poor charlies down the mines; several ads for the ultimate in synthetic stones; and a rambling note from Martin, their travelling salesman, who never goes anywhere without his portable fax machine.
She has started on the e-mail, changing the format so the boss won’t have any reason to complain about the printouts, when she remembers the silk handkerchief. Damn, damn, damn. He is sure to miss it by now and expect it back. Just her luck. No way can she return that. Not after Saturday evening in Kurt’s car. Celia might understand, though. She’s nice. Cool in an oldie fashion.
Angelina’s eyes slide past the bullet-proof glass partition between the office and the reception area, whose door Celia forgot to close when she arrived. Past the four maroon leather seats they slide, past the ceiling-high Swiss cheese plant, the framed photographs of gems and gems and more gems, right up to the heavy security entrance. Celia did look changed this morning. Not drawn and shapeless like Mamma after Nonna died. Here Angelina quickly touches the crucifix with the three diamonds she’s wearing on a silver chain round her neck. But sort of eager and excited, dressed younger too – bet she got those lace-up ankle boots and the velvet Lycra number from H & M.
The phone rings. It’s one of the jewellers in Lausanne Martin has visited with the New Year price list, bleating into her ears in French. First something about the recession. Then the Russian mafia, their control of mining in the Urals. Then nationalism and its effects on the world’s stock markets. Then gem trading. On and on and on in a whiny voice till she’s had it up to the eyeballs and puts him through to the boss in mid-sentence. At least that’ll get Celia out of there. She’s been in for ages. Angelina’s index finger jabs at the return key, again and again, emptying out the screen, as she waits for the inner door to open.
The doorbell’s been rung downstairs; Celia, snaring yet another pearl with yet another knot, glances up at Angelina to switch on the video entry-system.
‘Hi there, it’s me,’ someone croaks, hardly audible above the explosive rattle of a jumping jack going off nearby – celebrating the last day of Carnival. Then they recognise the face; whatever’s happened to Handsome Henry?
Angelina grins: ‘Like a crow knocked about in a storm.’
‘Mmm, must have had a pretty rough night,’ Celia says. Thinking: The trials and tribulations of family life. Doubtl
ess they’ll hear about it, again.
Angelina, grinning now like the cat that got the cream, pulls an extra-languid hand through her chocolate-brown hair, head tilted to show off the thick dark curve of her eyelashes. Having pressed the buzzer, she brings out a little round pink-and-gold plastic mirror from behind the video screen – she’s got twenty seconds.
Celia’s seen it all before, and smiles. Angelina has at least half a dozen of these palm-snug vanities hidden about the office (a different colour for each location), ready to flash back reflections like quicksilver. Martin, who adores any kind of gadget and is rather vain himself, fixed a special clasp to the Gemmologists’ Compendium to hold the blue mirror in position after it kept dropping from the pages every time he wanted to read up on something. And she herself has had the red one wink at her from the in-tray with wicked regularity.
She is fond of Angelina. The girl’s so wilful and self-assured, a bit like Lily used to be. So fleshily handsome with her Italian looks – as sleepy-eyed as a cat in the sun, her cheekbones beginning to push through the puppy fat, her nose just aquiline enough to suggest sensuality. Yet so vulnerable too. Celia wishes she could have been more like her when she was that age. Eric has told her about the sapphire mix-up and Angelina’s tears, mentioning in greatly embroidered detail a certain white silk handkerchief (which meant as much as: Would you please ask Angelina for it back, Celia? I couldn’t possibly myself …).
Feet can be heard slogging along the corridor. There’s a rat-a-tat-tat, one more video security check, then Angelina (mirror-free now and with her eyebrows moistened into shape) punches in the access code … and here comes Handsome Henry.
Only today he doesn’t do his name much credit. His black hair sticks up in unstylish tufts, his stubble straggles across sallow skin, and his eyes, normally the vivid greenish gold of sphene, are bruised and dark, flatly opaque like cheap pebbles. Celia feels for him, whatever’s wrong. Pure motherliness. Angelina is irritated. She can’t stand Henry making such an exhibition of himself, so seriously uncool. Because in the secrecy of her bedroom she fancies him, even though he’s already ‘past it’ as her friends would say – past thirty, that is. What the hell’s wrong with him?
‘Christ,’ he sighs and dumps himself down on a chair next to the still-empty dispatch counter over by the window, as far from the two women as he can.
He must be feeling bad all right, Celia concludes, the way he avoids looking at either of them and lets his head sink deeper into the foliage of the big umbrella plant behind him. As if he hopes its leafy fingers will smooth his hair, give his face a quick brush-over.
‘How about some coffee to freshen up the week?’ Angelina asks in a scratchy voice.
Celia motions for her to sit down again, leave him be. And sure enough, as they carry on with the re-stringing, Henry launches into another tale from the home front. This one culminates in his wife throwing ‘her worst ever tantrum’ because he’d taken their young son up to Plättli Zoo to see the lions at feeding time.
Dio mio! Angelina has stiffened in her seat and is watching Henry’s heart-shaped lips resentfully. Why is he always droning on about his wife and kid? It makes him sound so bloody ancient. Bloody boring: a man in bondage.
Celia, who’d been staring past him, out of the window at the quadrangle of sky between the shingled roof of the castle and the tiers of red tile, verdigris and gold of the Town Hall spire, glances over at Angelina, nods and smiles as if she could read her thoughts, and agreed with every word.
13
THE PEARL NECKLACE is finished at last, nestling in its box between cushions of black taffeta, ready to be returned to the owner.
Angelina’s long filed nails are clattering across the keyboard. She is typing some letters via Dictaphone, and tossing her head. Every other toss whips out the wired earpiece so she has to keep rewinding the tape, but to her mind that’s a small price to pay. Because Handsome Henry is still around. Over by the dispatch counter. In full view of her gloss-sprayed hair floating like the silkiest scarf. If he cares to look, that is. He’s helping Celia wrap and label some parcels that need delivered. Only it seems to Angelina that Celia is standing rather close to him. Standing and bending down. Letting her clingy skirt ride up against his thigh. Too bloody close for comfort, or Celia’s own good. Henry will get a real eyeful of all those wrinkles and blemishes, the crêpey skin of her throat. The thought cheers Angelina. A few flecks of Galactica polish gleam faintly along the curve of her nails where she hasn’t removed it properly after the Carnival Ball.
She clicks PAUSE and taps out a fantasy letter to pretend she’s busy.
Loads of men (and women, though she’d actively discouraged them) had wanted a feel that night. The soldiers were the worst, drunk and sex-starved, with hard-ons even before they’d touched her, or her crystal ball. Three or four of the costumed men must have been older, they kissed her with such sloppy greed. Especially that arlecchino outside the Métropole – him and his pink women’s glasses which made her giggle when he held her pinned to the wall. He never said a word, just panted like he’d been jogging – randy as anything, of course. Afterwards the beetroot-red paint of his mouth was all over her face.
For a moment Angelina rubs at the star shimmer on her nails, utterly self-absorbed.
The boss has a no-perfume-no-nail-polish-no-hand-cream policy, to protect his merchandise from what he calls ‘aggressive attacks’. Lucky his list of no-no’s doesn’t include Coke. Angelina couldn’t do without it, she loves the way it fizzes on her tongue, and always has a can or two stashed at the bottom of her pouchy leather handbag. Better the boss doesn’t know. Celia had lectured her on the subject when she’d spilt some drops on her desk shortly after starting her apprenticeship.
‘Please don’t drink that in here, Angelina,’ she’d said. ‘Have a seat over in Reception. Coke’s something of a hazard in our line of business. To pearls particularly.’
One word about tooth enamel or stomach linings, and Angelina would have told her quite sweetly to cut it out, she doesn’t need two mothers, thanks very much. And anyway, hadn’t Celia registered yet that Coke was harmless nowadays?
Celia had flipped a hand towards the glass door, half-smiling and almost apologetic, it seemed to Angelina, then calibrated the Mettler scales and pincered up a diamond for weighing.
‘Well, what about the pearls?’ Angelina had asked, wiping at the spillage on her desk with her fingers and sucking them as nonchalantly as she could. Drawing Celia out a little, for the fun of it.
Celia had kept her waiting. Finished writing down the carat value on the stone paper in front of her and folded the diamond back into it before lifting her head: ‘Put one in a glass of Coke and you’ll soon find out. There won’t be much left in a while. Usually a nucleus. A piece of grit or the like if it’s a naturally grown pearl; if cultured, probably a small bead of mother-of-pearl, spherical in most cases – though all sorts of shapes and materials have been tried down the ages, in China even tiny metal Buddhas. So, you see …’ On and on and on.
To stop her, Angelina had slipped off one of her own earrings, silver with a rose-coloured freshwater pearl, and placed it in a small leftover puddle of Coke. It worked like a dream: Celia cried out and snatched the piece away, then dabbed it dry on a clean cloth.
‘Silly girl!’
‘Only joking.’ Angelina had tittered uneasily. ‘That earring’s from an ex-boyfriend.’
‘Doesn’t matter who it’s from! Don’t ever do such a thing again …’ The tone had been ominous.
She hasn’t had any more run-ins with Celia since then, grazie a Dio. Angelina continues typing: ‘Per favore, signore, un poco d’amo–’ At this point she tosses her hair extra-violently because she’s just observed Handsome Henry touch Celia on the shoulder. When she glances back at her computer screen, the fantasy letter she’d been writing to a Signor Spaghetti in Carbonara has vanished. All that remains is an infinity of pale grey dots, as if the space bar had gone
into spasm.
‘Sorry about your mother, Celia.’ Henry had paused and, after squeezing her shoulder very gently (affectionately, she realises now, only it’s too late), passed a forearm over his face, perhaps to make himself look more respectable. ‘I meant to come to the funeral, with Eric. But then my wife and I … well, things went completely haywire.’ His eyes, suddenly bright and golden again, had rested on hers for just that split second too long, and something turned over inside her.
‘That’s okay,’ she’d replied with a shrug, unable to smile, and to her horror had heard herself add, ‘A card would have been nice though.’
Goodgodwhywhywhy had she said that? She didn’t mean to. She likes Henry. Likes him a lot (more than she’s prepared to admit to herself) and wouldn’t mind getting to know him a bit better. She must be cracking up. And now he’s ignoring her, has even taken a step away and is gazing over at Angelina, fixedly. Longingly.
The girl is conscious of his interest, Celia can tell: already she’s started playing to the gallery, putting on her ‘diligent apprentice’ act and clearly surpassing herself. Her silver crucifix swings wildly, flashing fire; and as she leans forward, her wide-necked red Benetton sweatshirt frames rather than conceals her breasts.
‘No bra,’ whispers someone. Who? Celia wonders. Then, all at once, everything bends and buckles and blurs around her and she is off, staggering through the glass door, past the maroon leather seats to the washroom in the corner.
Angelina has shot bolt upright, her cheeks mottled chalk and scarlet. Henry’s, eyes have swerved down and away to study the carpet fluff along the skirting. There’s a patter from the umbrella plant as a whorl of dead leaves falls to the floor.
