Bella (10 page)
The light from an opening door suddenly lit up the long scar down the side of his face.
Curious, in spite of herself, Bella asked, ‘Where did you get that scar?’
‘In Buenos Aires. A man called Miguel Rodriguez pulled a knife on me.’
‘What for?’
‘He thought I was having it off with his wife.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I killed him!’
Bella shivered. ‘But why?’
‘He’d have killed me otherwise, and I was – er – quite fond of his wife.’
‘There must have been a frightful scandal.’
‘Frightful. But there have been worse since. People soon forget.’
She started to laugh scornfully but, somehow, the laugh got out of hand and went on and on.
‘This isn’t doing you any good, is it?’ he said.
‘I’m all right,’ she snapped.
He picked up her hand and examined it. ‘Maybe, but bitten nails do not denote serenity. The woods are deep and dark and full of tigers. You’d be very wise to pack Rupert in.’
‘Over my dead body,’ she hissed, snatching her hand away from him.
Then the inevitable happened. Steve and Angora were no longer there.
Lazlo gave Rupert and Bella a lift. The top of the car was down, the night all warm, and Bella looked up at the endless stars, trying to convince herself her life wasn’t over.
Rupert put his arm round her.
‘Don’t maul me,’ she yelled, suddenly at breaking point.
There was a shocked silence. Rupert went white. ‘Take it easy, darling,’ he said gently.
‘I’m sorry, love,’ said Bella, a moment later taking his hand.
But in the driving mirror, she saw a glint of satisfaction in Lazlo’s eyes.
Chapter Nine
As a result of hangovers, none of them had gone down to the country until late on the day after Gay’s wedding. They all felt jaded. The only answer seemed to start drinking again.
It was Angora, probably at Lazlo’s instigation, who suggested they play table-turning. Everyone, except Bella, agreed with alacrity. A polished table and a glass were found; the lights were dimmed.
At first the glass produced no messages for anyone; then, chided by Chrissie that the spirits would not work unless they stopped fooling about, they started to concentrate.
The glass hovered a bit, then spelt out that Lazlo was going on a journey, which impressed everyone because he was flying to Zurich tomorrow night, and it told Angora she was due for measles.
Then it spelt Mabel.
‘We don’t know anyone called Mabel,’ said Angora.
‘Yes, we do,’ said Steve. ‘Bella, of course.’
‘Bella?’ said Rupert in surprise. ‘But she’s Isabella.’
‘No, she’s not. I’ve known her longer than you and her name’s not Bella. She was born Mabel Figge, to be exact.’
Bella blushed scarlet.
Angora gave a crow of joy. ‘You’re never called Mabel Figge!’ And she went off into peals of laughter. Chrissie grinned delightedly.
‘Shut up, Angora!’ snapped Rupert. ‘Let’s go on with the message for Bella.’
They all put their fingers on the glass.
‘G-o h-o-m-e’ it spelt out slowly. Then, suddenly, taking on a life of its own, it veered round the table, spelling out ‘T-w-o t-i-m-i-n-g g-o-l-d d-i-g-g-e-r.’
There was a long pause.
Then Bella screamed, ‘Someone’s pushing that glass!’
‘Darling,’ Rupert protested, ‘it’s only a game.’
‘And you can shut up!’ she shouted at him, and, jumping to her feet, she caught her bag on the edge of the table. Everything cascaded on to the floor, her mirror breaking.
‘And I hope it brings you all seven hundred years’ bad luck!’ she screamed.
She gave a sob and fled upstairs, locking herself in her bedroom and lying on her bed, crying just loudly enough for people to hear.
Later, Rupert came upstairs and banged on her door until she let him in.
‘You’re over-reacting,’ he said. ‘They’re only teasing.’
‘Throwing darts into a maddened bull, more likely,’ she stormed.
He started kissing her; then followed the inevitable row because he wanted to make love to her. Suddenly, the fight went out of her.
‘Oh well, go on if you must, I don’t care,’ she said listlessly.
Rupert stared at her for a minute.
‘Thanks,’ he said coldly, ‘but I never accept charity,’ and walked out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
It was early dawn when she finally fell asleep, and late dawn when she woke up, head splitting, gravel behind her eyes.
Desperate for aspirins, she got up and wandered down the passage to the bathroom she shared with Angora.
There were no pills in the cupboard, only bath salts and cologne. She weighed herself on the scales. God, she was putting on weight. She must stop all this misery eating.
She got off the scales and turned them up seven pounds. That would screw up Angora and her flaming slimming diets.
On the way back, she paused outside Angora’s bedroom. The door was ajar. She peered in, uneasily breathing in the smell of French cigarettes, nail-polish and expensive scent. Then her nails bit into her palms as she realized there was no-one sleeping in the bed. Angora must be with Steve. Until now, Bella had nurtured a faint hope he was just chasing Angora to goad her into breaking it off with Rupert.
Now she imagined his suntanned hands caressing Angora’s body, her cloudy black hair on the pillow, her little gasps of excitement, her head threshing back and forth, as Steve drove her to the extremes of pleasure that Bella knew of old he was capable of. Then, later, the low laughter, the private jokes, the exchanged cigarettes, the sleeping in each other’s arms.
She sat on her bed for a few minutes, whimpering. It was impossibly hot already.
She got up and opened the shutters and stepped out on to the balcony.
The fields were white with dew, a heavy mist hung over the lake at the bottom of the lawn. The white climbing roses on their tall arches were touched with pink. On the tennis court birds were chasing worms; in the distance a train chugged.
The beauty of the view only intensified her misery. A light breeze caressed her bare legs and lifted her hair off her shoulders.
Suddenly, she heard a scrunch of wheels and, leaning over the balcony, she saw the ivy green Mercedes draw up in front of the house. Lazlo got out. He was wearing a red and white striped shirt and dark grey trousers, and carrying his jacket and tie.
Bella stepped out of his line of vision, but, through a crack in the shutter, she watched him yawn and stretch, breathing in the morning air. Then, whistling, he set off across the dew-soaked lawn towards the stables.
The next moment, she heard a door shut quietly and saw Angora, wearing a white silk dressing gown, steal across the drive and then the lawn, after him. Then she called his name. He turned round, smiled and walked back towards her.
There was a quivering expectancy about Angora, as though she was longing for him to take her in his arms. For a minute they talked in low voices, with Bella nearly falling off the balcony in her efforts to hear. Then Lazlo picked up a loose strand of hair which had fallen over Angora’s forehead and smoothed it behind her ear. She seemed to be arguing now; then he patted her cheek and nodded towards the direction of the house. Reluctantly she came running back across the grass and disappeared through the front door.
Bella opened her door slightly, but Angora didn’t come back to her room. Had she gone to Steve’s bedroom, or Lazlo’s?
Chapter Ten
A beautiful blazing day soared out of the mist. Bella lay by the swimming pool, trying to learn her lines. It was mid-morning. Out in the park, the sun touched the pale green shoulders of the elm trees, cattle grazed contentedly in the lush grass beside the lake, and Lazlo’s two golden retrievers frolicked on the lawn.
It was impossible to imagine a view more serene, yet Bella felt sick with terror.
Anxious to avoid Rupert, she had got up early and gone to buy some aspirins at the local shop. She knew one of the fleet of servants would have provided them, but she wanted an excuse to get out of the house.
Just as she was leaving, a window box crashed from one of the balconies, missing her by inches.
The gardener, of course, was profuse in his apologies.
But twice later, as she wandered along the narrow country lanes, a large blue car roared past her, driving so close that she would have been run over if she hadn’t leapt on to the verge.
Lazlo’s behind this, she thought. He’s capable of getting rid of Miguel Rodriguez because he’d got in his way; why not me too?
She tried to concentrate on learning her lines for
The Seagull.
She was playing Masha, the plain and ageing spinster, loved by the schoolmaster, but, in her turn, hopelessly in love with the son of the house. Every line she read seemed to parallel her own set-up:
The Seagull.
She was playing Masha, the plain and ageing spinster, loved by the schoolmaster, but, in her turn, hopelessly in love with the son of the house. Every line she read seemed to parallel her own set-up:
‘
I am in mourning for my life, I am unhappy . . . It isn’t money that matters, a poor man may be happy . . . Oh, nonsense, your love touches me but I cannot return it . . . Help me, help me, or I shall do something silly. I shall make a mockery of my life and ruin it. I can’t go on . . . I am miserable. No one knows how miserable I am. I love Konstantin
.’
I am in mourning for my life, I am unhappy . . . It isn’t money that matters, a poor man may be happy . . . Oh, nonsense, your love touches me but I cannot return it . . . Help me, help me, or I shall do something silly. I shall make a mockery of my life and ruin it. I can’t go on . . . I am miserable. No one knows how miserable I am. I love Konstantin
.’
She might have been speaking about her situation with Rupert and Steve. ‘I shall make a mockery of my life and ruin it,’ she repeated.
A shadow fell across her book. She jumped violently, then realized it was Steve.
It was the first time she’d been alone with him since that evening in the theatre. Even in the blazing sunshine he looked brown.
He was wearing navy blue bathing trunks and a pair of dark glasses, so she couldn’t read the expression in his eyes as he looked down at her.
As always, she felt her stomach go liquid with desire.
‘Hi stranger,’ he said softly. ‘May I talk with you?’
He sat down beside her.
‘I don’t know what game you’re playing,’ she blurted out.
‘What game, honey? You tell me.’
‘Telling me one moment you wanted me to break it off with Rupert because you were so crazy about me, then ignoring me the next. Sending me up. Telling the others my real name. Blatantly chatting up Angora just to hurt me.’
‘I’ve been doing a little more than chatting up,’ he said, pinching one of her cigarettes.
‘Do you love her?’
‘I don’t understand words like love; they’re not in my vocabulary, but she’s extremely attractive. Let’s say we enjoy each other.’
‘Maybe you do,’ said Bella steadily. ‘But not enough to stop her slipping out at dawn to have a private confab with Lazlo.’
Just for a second Steve paused.
‘How do you know?’
‘I couldn’t sleep. I opened my shutters. Lazlo came home about six, no doubt from shacking up with some of the local talent. Within ten seconds, Angora was out of the house. She’d obviously been waiting for him. They had some kind of hassle, then he persuaded her to come back into the house.’
Steve shrugged his shoulders. ‘She’s entitled to a commercial break if she wants one. The programme was good enough.’
‘But don’t you see,’ Bella went on desperately, ‘they’re in cahoots together. Angora’s simply being manipulated by Lazlo. He’s pulled off a marvellous film deal for her. She’s very ambitious. He’s probably been knocking her off as well, and, in return, she’s agreed to lure you away from me. She’s pretty formidable when she pulls out the stops. I defy anyone, even you, to resist her. And Lazlo knows what I feel about you. That seeing you and Angora together is driving me round the twist. That it’s the one thing that’ll make me break it off with Rupert.’
Steve yawned so hard he nearly dislocated his jaw.
‘You always had too much imagination,’ he said. ‘And keep your trap shut, the others are coming. Hi Chrissie. Hi Rupe. The midges are terrible. You’d better come up and see my itchings sometime.’
Bella flopped down on her lilo in despair.
Rupert sat down beside her. Even on the hottest day of the year, he still had the look of a hothouse plant exposed to a killing draught. He was wearing a black shirt with the collar turned up, as if against some imagined storm, and looked at Bella with bruised, troubled eyes, and eyelids swollen from lack of sleep.
How he’d changed from the cool, bitchy self-confident little boy she’d met six months ago.
She put out her hand to stroke his face. He imprisoned it and held it against his cheek.
‘Oh, darling, we must stop fighting. I can’t stand another night like last night.’
I can’t go on torturing him much longer, she thought unhappily. I must break it off with him, but not yet. I’m not going to give Lazlo the satisfaction of thinking he directly engineered it.
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