Divas (7 page)

‘I don’t think so, ’ said Mrs Fitzgerald, laughing. ‘Out of the question! This was how I found out about you – doing checks on Benny’s credit cards.
Custom-made diamond pasties. Very funny. I don’t think I’ll have them broken up – I think I’ll keep them. They’ll make me smile every time I look at them.’

Snapping open the crocodile-skin purse that hung from her wrist, she dropped in the pasties.

‘You can’t take those!’ Evie screamed. ‘OK, so the apartment’s not in my name, but the pasties are
mine!
Benny
gave
them to me! They were a
gift
!’

‘Sue me, ’ said Benny’s wife. ‘Really. Go ahead and sue me.’

And she smiled again.

Evie stopped kicking. She hung in Rico’s grip like a rag doll, momentarily paralysed with the shock.

‘Now, I’m being nice to you, ’ Mrs Fitzgerald said. She consulted her watch again. ‘You have fifteen minutes left. I’d make good use of them if I were you. Or do
you want me to tell Rico to throw you out now, just as you are?’

Evie had been right about Benny’s wife. This was a woman who loved to exercise every ounce of power that she could, in the worst possible way. She was enjoying throwing Evie out of what
she thought was her home, stealing Evie’s property before her eyes, and mocking her with it. She was enjoying humiliating Evie by making her tear free of Rico, run back into the bedroom, drag
down her suitcases and grab great handfuls of her clothes, stuffing them in as fast as she could, snatching as much of value as she could possibly manage, tearing into the bathroom to get her
expensive toiletries, emptying out her secret stash of cash in the cistern, where she kept it in a plastic bag. She was enjoying watching Evie run around like a mad thing, those icy eyes gleaming
with pleasure at having reduced her to the mortification of doing a supermarket sweep on her own possessions.

And when Evie pulled her suitcases out into the living room, sweating because she was wearing three coats, one over the other, since she couldn’t fit them in the suitcases, that bitch was
standing there, arms folded, swinging her shiny crocodile bag slowly back and forth from its gilt chain hung over one white cashmere-clad elbow, so as to emphasise that she had Evie’s
precious diamond pasties inside. Those diamonds were Evie’s talisman, her security. They were everything she had in the world of solid value. Her fingers were itching to snatch that bag off
the bitch’s arm.

But Rico was standing right beside her, arms similarly folded, and Evie knew there was no way she could grab her jewels and run before Rico got to her. Besides, the bitch would just have her
arrested.

So Evie stuck her chin in the air and crossed the room, pulling her suitcases behind her. She wouldn’t look back for one last glance at her beautiful apartment, at its suede sofas and
hardwood floors and recessed lighting, at the floor-to-ceiling windows with their view over downtown skyscrapers and the Hudson River beyond, because if she did, she might start crying. And she
never cried.

She dragged open the door and pulled her cases through, swallowing hard as it shut behind her. Evie’s perfect life was over, as if it had never been. She pressed the button for the lift.
The only thing she knew for sure was that she was going down.

Behind her, her old front door swung open.

‘Mrs Fitzgerald thought you might want this, ’ Rico rasped. ‘She says she don’t need it.’

And Evie heard the familiar clatter of a dismantled pole being dropped to the floor.

Evie wanted desperately to walk into the lift and not look back. But all she had in the world was the cash she had on her. She didn’t have a bank account, only credit cards, and she was
sure that the bitch would have had those all stopped by now. She couldn’t afford to turn down anything she could take with her. And a good pole cost $250.

‘I need the carrying case for it, ’ she said to Rico, trying to sound as if it didn’t matter to her one way or the other.

‘Oh yeah?’ He wasn’t fooled. Those hard black eyes looked her up and down, and slowly, he smiled. ‘You want me to get it for you?’

She nodded.

‘I can’t hear you, babe.’

‘Yes, ’ she said.

His tongue flicked out, and he licked his lips.

‘How much d’ya want it?’

She shrugged, staring back at him. This wasn’t the first time she’d dealt with men like Rico, and the most important thing was to show no emotion at all.

‘Shit, you’re a hard case, ’ Rico said, staring at her hard. ‘I like that.’

He turned and went inside, coming out a short time later with the plastic carrying case for the pole. But he didn’t go back into the apartment again straight away: he stood there, watching
her, as she knelt down and slid the sections of the pole into each other, and then into the case, moving awkwardly in the bulky coats. Eventually she got it done and stood up again, pressing the
button for the lift. Rico watched as she dragged in her cases and then came back for the pole, smirking at her efforts.

Just as the doors were about to close, Rico made his move. He stuck one meaty arm into the cabin, blocking the doors, and with the other he reached forwards and grabbed Evie’s crotch
through her sweatpants.

‘Just so you remember me, babe, ’ he said, leering at her.

His fingers dug in so tight that when he finally let go, she could still feel their grip. She’d have bruises tomorrow.

Evie’s eyes were dry as old bone. Her lips were set in a thin, hard line. She watched herself in the shiny brass doors as the lift sank towards ground level, towards everything she’d
fought all her life to get away from, and she made a promise to herself: one day she’d be back in the sky again, up in a penthouse, with her name on it this time. And if it was the last thing
she ever did in this life, she’d see that bitch crawling at her feet.

L
ola was dragged back into consciousness by a screaming headache. She fought it as long as she could, but eventually the sensation that someone had
driven a metal curtain rod into one of her ears and out of the other was so painful that she opened her eyes and tried to sit up. She didn’t recognise the room she had been sleeping in, but
she didn’t expect to. As soon as she’d woken up, she had remembered exactly what had happened just before she passed out. All of it. The universe had no mercy for Lola today. Her memory
wasn’t giving her a gradual release of information: it was all flooding back in one fell swoop.

She
had
to have a painkiller. Climbing out of the bed someone had put her in, she headed for the en-suite bathroom. In Lola’s world, all bedrooms had en suites, and sure enough,
this one did too . . . but its gleaming mirrored cabinets were completely empty. Damn. Guest bathroom. Raisin-Face had a lot more space in her small mews house than it seemed, because these rooms
were huge.

Confused now, Lola pushed open the bedroom door, and got the kind of shock a first-time passenger on the Tardis must have. Instead of the narrow little hallway she’d been expecting, she
was faced with the generous curve of a wide staircase, bathed in light streaming gently through a domed skylight set into the high ceiling, two floors up. Walls papered in pale-yellow stripes, hung
with black-and-white 18th-century prints of birds and flowers . . . this house was definitely familiar, and equally definitely not Raisin-Face’s. It had to be about ten times the size.

Lola racked what was left of her brain cells – i.e. the ones she hadn’t burned out with cocktails and coke the night before – and came up with nothing. She started down the
stairs, which ran all the way around the well of the atrium in a very dramatic fashion, and halfway down, seeing the black-and-white chequered marble of the entrance hall, she had the memory flash
she needed to realise where she was.

This was Devon’s in-laws’ Belgravia town house. Devon and Piers had stood just where Lola was now for the wedding photos: she could still see Devon’s priceless Honiton lace
train, a family heirloom, carefully arranged by Madison to spill all the way down the rest of the stairs and puddle beautifully at the bottom. Devon’s diamond tiara and necklace had been
family heirlooms too, heavy enough to give Devon a sore neck of which she had boasted for months afterwards. Piers might not be the brightest lightbulb in the chandelier, but there were definite
advantages to marrying the heir to the Claverford dukedom.

Hearing the gabble of her friends’ voices now, Lola ran down the rest of the stairs and into the big drawing-room. Pausing in the doorway for an instant, mostly to let her poor aching eyes
accustom themselves to the bright sunlight pouring in through the bow windows that gave onto the garden, she took in the scene. This room, too, was done in pale yellows and golds, with hints of
baby blue. Devon had insisted on having the house completely redecorated when she and Piers moved in: she wanted it to be a perfect frame for her. The result was a life-size jewellery box in which
Devon sparkled, her big blue eyes bright as aquamarines, her wheat-blonde hair matching the gilded furniture. Piers, a big slab of British beef, fair-haired, blue-eyed and pink-cheeked, was too
large for the delicate furniture, but at least he suited the décor.

Even now, despite Lola’s current misery, she had a moment of complete appreciation for the picture Devon made in a camel cashmere-blend T-shirt and slim beige jeans, lounging on one of the
twin primrose silk sofas, a cigarette dangling from her fingers, fine gold bangles clinking on her wrist. Madison and Georgia, on the other sofa, were also clad in versions of the same chic leisure
wear: Georgia in a green silk sweater, to set off her flaming red hair and white skin, Madison in a white T-shirt, her famously endless legs clad in jeans specially treated to be as soft as suede
and just as expensive.

On the coffee table between the sofas were a couple of copies of the
Evening Standard
, but the main focus of attention was the screen of Devon’s white laptop, together with
half-drunk glasses of champagne, a plate of strawberries and another one of edamame beans. A big silver ice bucket was strategically placed next to the coffee table, within easy reach, and the room
was fuggy with cigarette smoke, rising in fragile white curls above the sofas. The girls were so absorbed in chatter they didn’t notice Lola’s entrance.

‘What is she going to
do?
So
humiliating!
’ Georgia exclaimed eagerly, pushing back her heavy red curls with both hands.

‘I know, ’ Madison drawled, leaning forward to click on the keyboard. She took a long drag on her Silk Cut Ultra, reading what had come up on the screen. ‘I’m
so
glad now I didn’t fuck Jean-Marc, think what I might have
caught
–’

‘Oh God, ’ Devon gasped. ‘She’ll have to get every test there is! That tranny looks
riddled with disease
in the photos!’

They all bent forward to peer at the computer screen. Lola felt tears pricking her eyes.

‘Is it all true?’ she asked, taking a few steps into the room, onto the priceless Aubusson rug.

Dead silence fell as they all swivelled to look at her.

‘Jesus, Lola, you look like shit on a stick, ’ Madison said frankly.

‘Do I?’

Lola crossed the room to examine herself in the gigantic gilt-framed mirror hanging over the fireplace. Although it was age-misted enough to give a flatteringly softened reflection, she still
screamed when she saw herself. Her make-up was halfway down her cheeks, her hair was a tangled mess and her eyes were redder than twin traffic lights. Even her skin looked sallow.

‘Here, ’ Georgia said, holding out a glass of champagne. ‘Medicine.’

‘I need painkillers, ’ Lola said, collapsing on the sofa next to Georgia and taking the glass.

‘Here you go, ’ Madison said, rootling in her Bottega Veneta bag. After the rattling noise that Madison always made going through the pill section, she produced an orange
prescription vial with a white lid and handed it to Lola.

‘Vicodin. Take two, ’ she said. ‘
Fantastic
with champagne. You’ll be on Cloud Nine in no time.’

Lola downed them immediately.

‘How did I get here?’ she said feebly. ‘I fainted at my neighbour’s, didn’t I?’

‘Ugh.’ Devon made a face. ‘She got my number out of your phone and rang me. Horrible. Lots of “Your Grace’s” this and “Your Ladyship’s”
that.
So
nouveau. We sent the car for you and apparently she was standing in the mews yelling, “Out of the way for the Marchioness of Claverford’s chauffeur!” at the top of
her lungs, so that everyone knew who was visiting. Foul woman. You really owe me, Lo.’

Lola’s head was still hurting so badly she couldn’t take everything in.

‘Why was she having to yell “Out of the way?”’ she asked, sensing she wasn’t going to enjoy the answer.

Devon’s big blue eyes had not been Botoxed recently, as was evident by the amount they were able to widen.

‘Because of the paps, of course!’ she exclaimed.

‘They’re surrounding the front of the house, didn’t you know?’ Madison drawled, shaking out her long golden mane. ‘They followed the Bentley here.’

‘They got a lot of photos of the driver carrying you into the car, ’ Georgia said.

Her blood running cold, Lola sculled the rest of her champagne and reached for the
Evening Standard
.

‘Lo?’ Devon said. ‘You might want to wait till the Vicodin kicks in before you look at that . . .’

But Lola was already scanning the cover, barely able to breathe for shock. This was the later edition, and the photograph of Jean-Marc on the stretcher was now shrunk down to make space for the
main one – the transsexual in whose apartment Jean-Marc had overdosed.

There are some transsexuals in the world who look even more beautiful than the most stunning of women. Gay fashion designers and Donatella Versace dream of their creations being worn only by
Thai ladyboys, with their exquisite features, their improbably full and high breasts, and their narrow, narrow hips. And if Jean-Marc’s transsexual, Patricia, had looked like Donatella
Versace’s ideal fashion model, Lola thought that she might have been able to bear the humiliation slightly better.