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More laughter, but glasses are empty now and feet are fidgeting.
‘One more question,’ another man pipes up. ‘Your plans for the future?’
Crystal has materialised beside me and I take another drink. ‘Let’s see how well I do with this exhibition, first! But yes, I’d like to do more people-watching. You’ll see from this picture of the couple kissing in Paris that another influence is Robert Doisneau. His apparently candid shots were actually set up, but I would like to explore that idea further. Either catch people unawares, or ask them to pose for me.’
Crystal nods once, rubbing finger and thumb together to mime the making of lots of money.
I notice that Gustav has put away whatever he was working on and once again is dangling the silver chain up in front of him, letting it glint under the lights. I smile back, lift my hand high to show him my bracelet.
‘And as I’ve already admitted to being a voyeur, I’m thinking doors and windows, open and closed, will be the theme for my next show. Walking down a street in the evening, spying at the life unfolding in the houses you pass as the lights are switched on. Lifts. Sliding doors. Sexiness, secrecy. One night I could be outside your house!’ I raise my glass with a wide grin. ‘After all, that young nun, and her sisters in their convent, they thought they were alone. They were dancing like nobody’s watching.’
I smile round at them and Gustav and Crystal start to clap. The applause is brief but enthusiastic, and then I’m alone in the middle of my crowd.
I acknowledge a pleasing number of compliments as I move towards Gustav. I see a few people lining up by the desk, Crystal busy filling in a form on her clipboard.
What I haven’t told them is that I stole one of the little flagellating whips when I fled the convent at dawn. I hid it underneath the habit when I slipped through the gate when the gardener unlocked it. I have the little weapon still, tucked into the bottom of my rucksack.
But there it has stayed. My dark secret waiting for the right moment. What would these smart Londoners think if I produced it now, whipped myself, right here, in front of them? Would it sell my pictures faster?
What if I reached up now to unhook my dress, let it fall away from me like the nun’s simple nightdress? She untied it, standing in front of the arched window of her cell, and let it fall to the stone floor. I’ll admit it. I wanted to step inside the cell, come up behind her and touch her.
What if everyone saw my breasts falling out of this sexy red dress, bare, the nipples shrinking under their gaze? All of them looking at me bared before them, performing my own photographs. What would Gustav say? Would it really, really turn him on?
I take another long sip of champagne. He is at the other end of the room, in front of the Halloween witches, and he wants me to come to him. I refuse to catch his eye. I’m not moving.
What if I had the whip with me now, exhibit A, stood with my back to them like the little nun did, what if I used her technique, right now, a quick flick of the wrist to bring the tails down on my bare shoulder? I know how it would feel, sharp and shocking, tight on one spot. I tried it later, back in my hotel. I would tilt my head back sensuously, as my young nun did, and the tickle would become tingling, radiating through me. Then I would flick it again. Everyone in this big room would be able to see the vicious tail cutting red across my skin, like a line of fire rushing along a trail of dynamite, but after a few moments the sharp sting would diffuse into intense, invigorating heat.
What if I touched myself intimately with the whip? I saw some of the nuns do it. The blunt leather handle, sliding down. The men in this crowd wouldn’t know what to do with themselves. Their hands would wander into their pockets. Their eyes would be watering because they would want to get this load off. In fact they would want to do me, bare as I am in front of them, showing them the pale sweep of my spine, my thighs.
They would see my hand taking the length of thick woven leather, spreading myself open. These sophisticated city slickers would become voyeurs lusting for my pale skin striped with punishment. They would line up to take their turns with me. They want to put their hands on me, the same hands that have driven sleek cars or written cheques or typed emails or lifted espressos all day today.
My chattering audience is oblivious to my randy thoughts. But not Gustav. I’m certain he can read every iota scrolling through my mind. Every itch of my fingers. He’s watching me as I stand there, soft and wet, beside the image of my young nun with her head turned sideways, moonlight a halo round her shaved head as she lowers her nightgown. Everyone here has been moved and impressed by my work tonight. Gustav knew they would be. And if he’s that perceptive, can he tell how aroused I am right now? Does he know how hard I’m wishing all these lovely rich people would melt away and leave us on our own?
I realise what’s changed since I took these photographs. The girl on those travels had no-one waiting for her back home. There was a great big gap, over six foot tall, which had never been filled. No father. No brother. There was no man. And no home.
And now there’s Gustav. Even if he is only for Christmas.
He rattles the silver chain, all the way across the room. It rouses me from my reverie. I can’t tell if he’s cross with me for giving too much away. Or is he pleased? His mouth is opening to say something but it’s Crystal who reaches me first and taps her clipboard.
‘Thought you’d like to know, Serena. Twenty-five of your pictures sold so far! Out of a total one hundred. I’m astonished. Well done.’
I thank her. At last I go to him, walking through the crowd, bowing and smiling like a queen as people stop me to congratulate me or ask me more questions about the Venetian series, or the kissing Parisian roof runners.
‘A resounding success, Serena.’ Gustav is momentarily alone beside a small photograph of a pile of pebbles and detritus I took on the beach below the house on the cliffs. He smiles as he pulls me right up to him and attaches the silver chain once again. He doesn’t care who sees. ‘A perfect example of team effort, I’d say. I saw. You conquered. Crystal says they’re falling over each other to get their money out. Your work really is superb.’
‘It’s thanks to what you’ve done for me, Gustav. I’m overwhelmed.’
He frowns down at the silver chain. Winds it round his fingers like a cat’s cradle. His dark hair falls against his eyebrow and I long to brush it aside. ‘That remark has a dying fall to it, as if you’re already saying goodbye. I was hoping just the opposite. I was hoping that you would use that key I gave you and move into the house tonight.’
I’ve wrong-footed him somehow. He’s as surprised as I am by the reaction tonight. I sense it’s given me an advantage, if only a small one.
‘How can we improve on all this, though?’ I hold myself upright, watch his mouth working with his thoughts. ‘How will my moving into your house change anything?’
‘How simply can I put it? It’s what I want, and that should be enough for both of us.’
His eyes snap back onto mine. Unwavering, as if he’s stopped fumbling for an answer. He’s got me where he wants me. So am I the answer?
I frown at him to cover my uncertainty. ‘You mean our contract?’
‘I was hoping we’d gone beyond referring to that. But yes, it’s still in place if ever you’re confused about what’s going on here. Perhaps all this noise and chatter, this private view, is putting us on edge.’ He pulls me closer. ‘I’m talking about last night. Didn’t you enjoy yourself?’
People are pressing round us. ‘You know I did! It was amazing. You tasted me. I tasted you. I would have gone upstairs with you.’ I want everyone to overhear, but I lower my voice obediently. ‘But you dismissed me. So why do you want me to move in?’
‘I don’t have to explain my every move to you.’ He narrows his eyes. ‘But I’m saying my house is the only place I can have you truly to myself.’
A shiver runs down my whole body. I’m suddenly cold in my flimsy dress. The possessiveness in his voice is washing over me, pulling me towards him, weakening me. I’ll do anything he wants. I’ve agreed to. But I have to put up a little more resistance first.
‘I’m happy in Polly’s flat.’
He pulls the silver chain hard so that my hands bang against his chest. ‘I want you with me. I rattle around like a lost soul in there. It was only when you were there last night that I felt at home. That’s what our agreement means. Or at least what it’s started to mean. I’ll go over it again, shall I?’
One or two people are hovering and I try to pull away. ‘No need, Gustav. I understand you.’
‘No, I don’t think you do. I’m helping you professionally. So you must help me personally. We’ve already made a start, and that has made me want you more, Serena. There’s so much I want to do with you, teach you, teach myself. I need you under my roof, where I can find you.’ He tugs on the silver chain. ‘Attached to me.’
‘Not tonight, Gustav. Please? I’m exhausted. Exhilarated, but exhausted. Can you give me a couple of days?’
‘And what if the exhibition is sold out in two days?’
I shake my head. ‘You know it won’t be. And if it is, then I’ll give you those extra days in lieu.’
‘Fair enough.’ He refuses to show me his disappointment. He lets the silver chain go slack.
‘I need to sort my head out, Gustav. And if I come to you, I’ll need to tell Polly and pack up her flat, too.’
He nods silently. Why is there a plunging of disappointment in me at that? Does the perverse creature in me want him to beg, plead, take my hand, say something irresistible? Touch me, there, where he knows I melt? Yes. That’s exactly what the perverse creature wants.
But instead he lifts my hand to his lips, brushes his mouth across it. His eyes are softer now, because I’ve said what he wants me to say. He half closes them as he breathes me in, then he unclips the chain once again and steps back.
‘Two days, Serena. But after that you’re mine.’
We stare at each other. I bite my lip, fiddle with a strand of hair. Why don’t I just give in, let go? The security he offers is wrapped in danger, and that’s why I’m playing hard to get. I welcome the danger, I think. It’s the security I’m worried about. I want to make my own luck. Just when I’ve cut loose, in swoops another jailer to take me prisoner.
He gathers up the silver chain in his bunched fist and turns to speak to some waiting people.
And much later, when the crowd has dispersed and the gallery is locked up, when Gustav has gone without another word to me, and I’m walking away down the Strand towards Polly’s flat, the realisation of tonight’s quick success, the hard figures Crystal quoted earlier, it all hits me like a stone in the chest.
Sell another three-quarters of the display and sooner than blinking my time under Gustav Levi’s wing will be finished.
CHAPTER EIGHT
When you are a child the house in which you grow up is impossibly large and menacing. Endless stairs stretch away to the shadowy rooms upstairs, corridors are too long to run along and get to the table in time before being shouted at for being late. The dark corners teem with unmentionable horrors because you’re never allowed to turn on the light or they’ve removed the light bulbs. The shelves are too high to reach the sweets or books they’ve snatched off you and placed there as a punishment. The doors are locked. The windows stick and won’t open.
I am standing for the last time in the house on the cliffs and it all looks shrivelled and pathetic to me now. Dirty, dark, ugly, and small.
‘A unique location. That’s what the buyers are after. I can’t think why your family didn’t extend the house, or think about running it as a business. This would have made an incredibly profitable bed and breakfast, or a hotel, almost as scenic as Burgh Island. That place is a roaring success, partly because you can only get there by foot, boat or helicopter. You know they filmed Hercule Poirot over there a few years ago? It’s an art deco gem.’
The estate agent can barely contain his glee as he looks around the house of my childhood. The auction has taken place, and the highest bidder has paid well over the odds for it. Easily enough to buy my own flat. A house in the sun. My own gallery, even.
‘They can bulldoze the rotten dump for all I care. In fact, I hope they do. It’s riddled with unhappiness, like woodworm.’
I kick at an old box and as it disintegrates a pile of old exercise books tumbles out, the lined pages crammed with scribbles and drawings ripping off the spiral spine. I bend down. My old diaries. The ones that she found under my bed one day when I was at school and confiscated, screeching and slapping at me when I got home because on every single page I’d written how much I hated her. I’m surprised to see them here. Apart from anything else I thought the house clearers had got rid of everything. And she said she’d burned them. She even dragged me outside and showed me the bonfire he’d made, with my favourite books and jigsaws thrown onto the pyre for good measure.
I pick the books up and stuff them in my bag. I’ll decide what to do about them later. To read them will be too painful.
‘Well, I’m sure they will have the vision to develop this into a high-end, luxury destination for discerning travellers. And you, Miss Folkes. Well, you can expect a very healthy sum to land in your bank account any day now.’
‘Thanks. I’m grateful to you for dealing with all this for me. But I mean it. They should pull it down otherwise they’ll be haunted. Every brick, every cornice, every timber in this house is tainted.’
The estate agent glances at his watch then tries to hide the gesture by folding his hands across his jacket. He backs away from my mild lunacy towards the front door. I’m guessing he’s itching to get back to the office to calculate his commission.
‘You’ll lock up, then, Miss Folkes? Bring the key down to the office when you’re finished?’
‘No. You can have it now.’ I hurry after him through the front door. The key feels as if it’s branding itself like stigmata into the palm of my hand. I toss it at him. ‘I’ve finished in here. I’m just going to take a last walk and then I’ll be along to sign the papers.’
‘Shame they let it fall into rack and ruin like this. It could have been a fantastic house. You could have kept it as a holiday home for you and your children. Like something out of a Daphne du Maurier.’ He bleeps open the door of his little car. ‘These buyers will work wonders with this place, Miss Folkes. They’re experienced in the trade. I just hope you can find happiness wherever you are now.’
Thank you, Mr Estate Agent. I hope that too. It’s possible I’ve found it already, miles away from here. A fledgling happiness, cracking its way out of the shell.
I think about my life, how it’s changed since I rode that train out of here. I call to mind my exhibition, resplendent on the white walls of that huge gallery space. The tall dark town house at the top of the garden square, the pretty French-style attic room waiting for me when I stop being so stubborn.
And towering over all my thoughts Gustav Levi, watching me, always watching me, and not just watching but touching me whenever I think about him, touching me secretly, under my skirt, or presenting me with a silk negligee, asking me to slip it on in the privacy of his house, let it drift down over my body, only for him to lift it right up, find my secret place, and lick me there until I shudder, owning me as he touches and licks and hooks me in with his fingers.
The estate agent throws his papers onto the passenger seat and buckles himself in, starts the engine, takes a call on his mobile.
I wait politely on the doorstep to see him off. The lady of the manor.
When is Gustav going to take me properly, no holds barred? When is he going to take me to bed or lose me forever, as they say in Top Gun? Arms, legs entwined like a normal couple as we move frantically together by candlelight. Is it ever going to happen, or is this always going to be an infernal game? Is he always going to circle me, hackles raised like a wolf, claws primed, but never pouncing? Does he really want me? When is he going to stop treating me like a cheap tart and kiss me?
When am I going to kiss him?
I watch the estate agent crank the car into gear and wave as he bumps and lurches with difficulty along the muddy, pot-holed drive leading back to the coast road. They refused to put tarmac down to make this track easier to negotiate, because they wanted to deter visitors. That’s why visitors rarely came to the house. Even burglars couldn’t be bothered.
I start walking in the opposite direction from where he’s gone, sending up little stones and sprays of still rainwater from under my feet. My phone is silent in my pocket. I texted Gustav as I left Paddington this morning to say I would not be at the gallery because I’d been called down to Devon to wrap up the sale of the house. He hasn’t replied.
I fear he’s angry with me. It’s two days since the private view and he expects me to be resident in his house. The key is here, on my wrist, on the bracelet I can’t get off. Presumably if he’s angry enough he’ll call the deal off, even though the exhibition has been mounted. Always that threat hanging over me like the sword of Damocles. He’s perfectly capable of ripping down all those pictures if I don’t do as he asks. I envisage the gallery space adorned with my work the other night, the throngs of visitors, the fat cheques, the bright publicity, the glossy new clothes, Gustav Levi standing proudly in the shadows, architect of my commercial success.
Then I see a great hand from the sky coming down and snatching it away, feet stamping on it, me out on the streets in my horrible old clothes, the magic spell punctured, little match girl going from door to door with my portfolio.
Fine. I won’t let that happen. So what is it that he’s asking? What will he want me to do once I’m in the house? How can I ever repay him for the exhibition, for the party, for enabling the sale of a quarter of my pictures in the space of an evening? Does he expect me to repay him for the two portrait commissions that came in yesterday morning, along with all the glowing magazine reviews? Do I have to express my gratitude for everything he does, and if so, how? With my mouth? My tongue? My hands? My pussy?
I bunch my fists as I walk. Where did that word come from? That’s Gustav’s fault. It’s what he does to me. He’s made me this way. Obsessed. He makes everything zero in on that one small, closed, wet part of me.
And I’ve earned those commissions. It’s my talent, my work, that they’re commissioning. Not his. He’s given me the platform. I’ve given him the blow-job. I allow myself a wee snigger.
What more is to come? Just a little light petting from time to time? Another thought stabs at me. Perhaps this goes much deeper, whatever happened in his past. Perhaps he’s impotent or something? Is that what went wrong with his marriage? Did his wife mock him for his inability to perform, parade her lovers and her loving in front of him? Am I here to pander to what little he can manage? Is there a great rage in him as a result, which will rear up and hurt me if I don’t please him? Am I to cure him of some awful affliction?
Is that my task, like the miller’s daughter, am I to spin gold out of piles of straw before the exhibition sells out? There’s always a time limit in fairy tales. Will he stamp his foot right through into the bowel of the earth like Rumpelstiltskin if I don’t?
I rush off in the direction I’ve always gone, striding as quickly as I can, almost running through the scrubby rough grass, over the toe-stubbing boulders, the tripping roots. I want to run until I’m out of breath. I want to stop these whirling, confusing thoughts.
I’m high up on the cliff, the sea pounding the rocks below, and here’s the little gate leading down to the beach. Another selling point the sales particulars will have trumpeted. The beach down there happens to be a little private cove belonging to the house. The perfect site for picnics, regattas, fishing, smugglers’ caves, pirates. Games of cricket. Murder mystery weekends.
Yet I don’t have one memory of playing on that beach with them or even sitting or walking there. Not a single sandy sandwich. Not one can of Coke or Mars Bar or apple carried down there in a wicker basket or plastic shopping bag. Not a rug on the sand, or arm bands, not a cold dip in the choppy sea, no-one shrieking with laughter and cold, rushing back over the pebbles to be rubbed briskly dry with a towel.
It was only ever me, or me with Polly on those rare occasions when she visited and the two of us came down here, swimming, smoking, even sleeping in the summer. Once I was a teenager old enough to go off on my own they didn’t care. When Polly was here they’d stand and watch where we went, but when I was alone once I was out of sight I was out of mind. I could have drowned, been dashed against the rocks, and they would never have known.
I hesitate by the gate. There’s a shrill, driving rain now, shrouding the house behind its own veil of mist. I could go down to the beach, but there’s no point. I don’t need to hide any more. In any case I’m not that tomboy scruff any more. I’ve changed. I’m worrying about my clothes. I’m wearing some designer jeans and a white silk blouse nicked from Polly’s rail, my caramel tweed jacket and blue scarf, and the expensive brown boots that appeared in that attic room in Gustav’s house. I feel smart. I’m accustomed to feeling smart these days. I’ve brushed my hair into some sort of discipline and plaited it. Even the estate agent looked impressed.
Well, I’m a woman of means now, aren’t I? There’s the money that came to me when they died, mountains of it, how they would jump up and down gibbering like, well, Rumpelstiltskin if they realised how ignorant they’d been in isolating themselves, isolating me, and not making a proper will. And now there’s the house.
Instead of scrambling down the path I lean over the gate and take a few shots of the Jurassic stone arch, the amputated limb separated from the cliffs by the relentless sea. It stands huge, craggy and alone, perfectly shaped, but it will always be a doorway to nowhere. I’ve taken endless pictures of the same scene from different angles, including from right underneath it when the tide is out, but it’s going to be part of a new project I’m assembling. To symbolise my escape. Doors and windows both locked and unlocked. Open, or jammed shut.
Then I march on. If I have the energy this will take me to the other end of the village, and round to the pub, and the estate agent. Then back to the station and home. Yes, home. To London. To Gustav, if he’ll still have me.
A shortcut will also take me through the field where Jake’s caravan is. I can see it now, parked up in a slightly different place, away from the cliffs and sensibly in the shelter of a hedge.
I could avoid it and retrace my steps but that means going back past the house. I start walking, towards the caravan. No harm in saying hi, is there, if he sees me?
The caravan is even more rusty than I remember, but there are new curtains at the windows. Sprigged, small pink flowers. Girlie. Christ, already he’s come over all domesticated. I get closer, and take a picture of the door. It’s a door into what is really a glorified tin can, but it’s a door nevertheless and once that door represented safety and warmth and fun. For a while.
I can hear music playing inside, and raise my hand to knock, but then a sound stops me. A girl’s voice, a laugh, followed by a squeal. Hands slapping on the big window at the front of the caravan. Of course. What was I thinking? I’m not the only one who’s changed. Jake has company.
I walk round to the window and peer through the curtains. And I see them on the pull-down bed, on the old faded duvet. They must have been in a rush to get down to it, because that’s how Jake always is. His jeans and boxers are halfway down, just enough to free his buttocks before thrusting hard into the girl whose legs, also half clothed, are wrapped around his hips. Chipped stiletto shoes dangle off her feet which are neatly crossed, bouncing up each time he thrusts into her.
I remember the feel of that bottom. Smooth, hairless, the muscles bunching inside like fists. It always felt like an onslaught or a fight. A challenge, to see how hard and how fast he could do it once he’d learned how, sometimes waiting for me to come, more often shouting out as he came first, his hands roving briefly over me, down my sides, over my bottom, prising me open, no finesse but who cared about that? Always I was on my back just like this girl is.
She’s kicking those stilettos off now, bringing her legs down, unhooking her knees and ankles, wriggling like a little fish from under him, and I wish I could tear myself away but I can’t move now. She must be a gymnast or an acrobat because she spins in the air like a cat and although she’s tiny she’s strong enough to push Jake down onto his back. He lifts his hands, waggles them in playful surrender. He hated that with me. He hated me being on top when I tried it. He didn’t like me looking like a cowgirl as he put it, but this one, she’s pushing him down easily, poking one red talon into his chest as if she’s just pressing the button on a jukebox.
I step back so they don’t see me, but not before I’ve managed to take some shots of the shoes dangling lifelessly from her bare feet, her long red fingernails digging into his flesh. Her one red talon overpowering him. I’m a peeping Thomasina.
I can’t help it. I know these shots will amuse me later, when I can get my camera out on the train. I sidle back to the window, and then I realise why he’s letting her sit on top. Because her tits are tiny. They curve up in the air like dough rising in a cake tin, like those childish breasts of those Parisian prostitutes in Gustav’s gallery, each topped with a raspberry.
She leans back so they jiggle pertly in the air. Jake’s hands rest loosely on her hips, and she does all the work, head thrown back, yes, definitely a dancer or something nimble like that, eyes closed, red painted lips hanging open like a porn star.
I move away, leave them to it. He’s over me, as I’m so over him. He deserves to have fun. I leave him with his new girlfriend riding him like a cowgirl in the rainy afternoon and walk on across the muddy field into town.
Now everything’s wrapped up. I’m a wealthy young woman. After the final meeting I shake hands with the estate agent and head towards the station.
