Little White Lies (15 page)

A sudden noise made her jump. It was the front door, opening and closing. She quickly dropped her cigarette and ground it underfoot. She opened the kitchen door and slipped back inside. She could hear footsteps coming down the corridor. Suddenly a man’s frame appeared in the doorway. It was Sir Peregrine Bryce-Brudenell, Lady Bryce-Brudenell’s husband and a rare sighting in London. He spent most of the time on their family estate somewhere in Scotland. Lyudmila stared at him. She’d only met him a couple of times in the three months she’d worked for them. He was a tall, heavy man in his late fifties, a good fifteen years older than his wife, with a large, high forehead and a receding chin that lent a somewhat melancholic edge to his otherwise frosty manner. The telephone was ringing in the background; he held out a cellophane-wrapped bunch of flowers and there was a moment of embarrassed awkwardness between them.

‘I’ll just—’

‘Should I—?’

They both spoke at once. She hesitated. The phone continued to ring, shrilly.

‘I’ll get that,’ he said finally. ‘Here. Unwrap these and put them in a vase. It’s Janet’s birthday. Lady Bryce-Brudenell,’ he added, as though she might not know her employer’s first name.

‘Yes, yes, of course.’ She hastily took the bunch from him. Red, velvety and barely unfurled roses, their heads pressed against the cellophane like faces against glass. He disappeared back down the corridor. She ripped the flowers free of their squeaky transparency and quickly buried her nose in the deep, earthy perfume.

His disembodied voice floated down the corridor. ‘Yes, I just got in. No, not yet. Oh, around eight, I should think.’ She fished out one of the heavy glass vases from beneath the kitchen sink and filled it with water.

She was just arranging the last of the stems when he came in again. ‘Ah, that’s lovely, thank you.’ He looked closely at her, taking her in. They stood together again in a lightly held embarrassment for a few seconds, servant and master of the house, neither quite sure, it seemed, of what to say. Then he cleared his throat, the sound breaking the silence. He turned and left the kitchen. His tread died slowly away down the long corridor like an echoing sigh.

The room was shrouded in darkness. ‘Wake him at five with a cup of tea,’ Lady Bryce-Brudenell had instructed her as she was leaving the flat. ‘He’ll sleep past dinner if he’s not careful.’ She tiptoed in, the tray carefully balanced in her left hand as she moved past him so as not to disturb him before she’d laid it down. The air was heavy and dark; the scent of pipe smoke and books mingled together. She kept her eye on him as she laid the tray down on the table beside the heavy black leather Chesterfield on which he slept.

‘What time is it?’ He was already awake.

She stopped, like a child in a game of statues. ‘Five o’clock. Nearly.’

‘Bring it here.’

She hesitated. There was a ringing sensation in her ears, as though she’d submerged herself under water. She looked closely at him; in the dim half-light that came in from the barely opened door, his face was a concentration of expression, not a set of individual features. ‘Wh . . . would you like milk?’ she stammered.

He shook his head. His hand reached out, as if for the toggle on the lamp beside the sofa, but went instead to his head. ‘I’ve a terrible headache,’ he said, levering himself upright. ‘Terrible.’

‘Oh.’ She didn’t know what to say. Her own hand hovered over the tray. ‘Milk?’ she asked again.

He shook his head. ‘No. No milk.’

She hesitated again. ‘Lemon?’ Their sharp scent hung in the air.

‘No. No lemon.’

There was another awkward pause. ‘Shall I . . . do you need something? For your headache, I mean,’ she asked.

His hand went to his temple. ‘Right here,’ he said, tapping it forcefully. ‘I don’t know when I’ve had such a headache.’ He seemed to be waiting for something from her. The flat was completely empty. Lady Bryce-Brudenell was at a dinner; the children were still at school. The silence was almost palpable. A shape moved; it was his arm. He reached out and took hold of her arm. ‘Here,’ he repeated, pressing her hand towards his forehead. ‘Right there.’ His skin was damp, almost leathery. She swallowed. Darkness, fear and confusion were running together in her mind as one – what did he want? Outside against the darkened windowpane, a light, furry snow was falling.

His fingers moved from her own, beginning a trail down her forearm that was a caress. They were close: he, half-sitting, half-lying on the Chesterfield, she bent awkwardly over him, still frozen with nervousness and indecision. Part of her wanted to jerk her hand away but there was a part of her that recognised there was more to be gained from the situation if she only allowed it to develop. ‘Sit,’ he said, releasing her hand and patting the space beside him. She sat down gingerly. The leather squeaked and protested slightly under her weight. He got up and went to lock the door. The room was still dark; if there was to be a protest from her, now was the time to make it.

She did not.

‘You can get dressed now,’ the nurse said to her briskly, pulling back the curtains. ‘The doctor’ll be in to see you in a minute.’

Lyudmila sat up, hurriedly pulling the sheet awkwardly over her legs. ‘Is . . . is result?’ she asked.

‘Yes, yes. The results are in.’

‘What is result?’

‘The doctor will discuss that with you.’ The nurse’s lips were drawn together in a thin line.

Suka
. Bitch. Lyudmila looked away from her and down at her stomach. She knew what the results would be. She didn’t need a doctor to tell her
that
– but she had to be sure. She’d waited as long as she could but time
was
fast running out. It was getting harder by the day to hide the growing bump underneath her jumper. Only the other day she’d caught Lady Bryce-Brudenell looking at her closely as she’d straightened up from cleaning the oven. ‘Are you all right, Lyudmila?’ she asked, her tone oddly brittle.

‘Fine,’ she’d replied hastily, hoping her cheeks wouldn’t betray her. ‘Just a little . . . tired.’ It was true. She
was
tired, and dizzy.

‘You look . . . you’ve put on a bit of weight, eh?’

‘
Da
. Good food. Good English food.’ She’d tried to make a weak joke of it.

Lady Bryce-Brudenell had stared at her for a second, and then nodded. ‘Yes. I dare say.’

The door opened suddenly and the doctor appeared in the doorway holding a clipboard in his hand. The stern-faced nurse threw her a final disapproving look and left the room.

‘Well, Miss Gordiskaya,’ he pronounced her name smoothly. ‘As I’m sure you already know, yes, you’re pregnant.’

Lyudmila ran a tongue around her lips. ‘How much?’

The doctor looked confused. ‘How much what?’

‘How much pregnant?’

‘Oh, I see. Between twelve and thirteen weeks, I’d say. I take it you’re not—?’ he left the question delicately unsaid. His demeanour indicated there might be other options than the one he’d left out.

‘No. No married.’ Lyudmila wasn’t one for delicacies. ‘But is okay. I will have baby.’ She looked him straight in the eye. ‘I am not first, you know.’

‘Er, no. I don’t suppose you are.’ The doctor was the one to drop his eyes.

‘I see.’ The voice on the other end of the telephone might have been discussing the weather, or a sudden drop in share prices, or a friend’s performance on the green. Anything, in fact, other than the real reason she’d called.

‘So what do you want?’ His voice was clipped.

Lyudmila’s hand gripped the receiver tightly. ‘Money,’ she said slowly. ‘Money for baby.’

There was a moment’s hesitation. ‘Fine. But just for the child. Not for you.’

‘Okay.’ She let out a breath.
Chelovek – kuznets svoego schastya. You make the bed you lie in
. She could almost hear her mother’s voice. Well, she’d certainly
made
the bed – countless times. And yes, it was now hers to lie in. Hers and her baby’s. He would have no part in it. He’d made that perfectly clear. ‘Okay,’ she said again, slowly. ‘Money for baby. Is okay.’

‘The solicitors will contact you.’ And that was it. The line went dead. She put the receiver down and sat there for a few minutes, her hand slowly going round in circles over her swollen belly.

‘The beginning is the most important part of the work.’
Plato

TASH
Cavezzana, Italy

Somewhere up there in the corner of the vast panorama that was the sky, a ghostly moon hung, pale and translucent, waiting impatiently for evening and the inevitable dying of the light. It was June and the late-afternoon sun had retained its lush fullness of warmth without tipping over into humid slackness. Down there in the valley away from the house, Tash stood ankle-deep in the cool river, poking around her bare feet with a stick. There were probably fish darting about in the shallows, and worms and algae and all sorts of other creatures she couldn’t name but for once she didn’t care. She was enveloped in a shimmering shawl of green, the branches of the trees around her all dipping towards the stream. The wind moved gently, stirring the leaves. Up there on the terrace, out of sight but not out of sound, were the various members of the Harburg family, who came to the beautiful old mill house in Cavezzana every summer.

It wasn’t the first time she’d been invited – every year Rebecca begged her to come – but it was the first time she’d actually been able to come. Somehow, from some source Tash didn’t care to know about, Lyudmila had produced the necessary wad of cash that made the trip not only possible, but also enjoyable. She and Tash had spent an unusual and unusually exciting few days shopping for new clothes and shoes – the sort of stuff Lyudmila somehow always managed to buy for herself but never for Tash. They’d gone to Selfridges on a Thursday morning and had coffee and a croissant in the cafe on the ground floor before going up the escalators to the warehouse of clothing that was the women’s department, where Lyudmila was evidently known, if not exactly appreciated. She was clearly the sort of customer who demanded lots of attention but spent very little. There was a hint of a sneer in the eyes of the various snobbish sales assistants whom she summoned every other minute, but Tash didn’t care. That morning she discovered that whilst she didn’t have the kind of face that would launch a new outfit never mind a thousand ships, she did have the rangy, loose-limbed body that was suddenly in vogue. ‘You’re practically as tall as Stella,’ one of the girls cooed, standing behind Tash in the mirror. Tash resisted the temptation to smirk.

‘How much is jeans?’ Lyudmila snapped. She wasn’t used to her daughter receiving more attention than her.

‘Expensive, I’m afraid.’

‘Ma,’ Tash hissed, squinting at the sales tag. ‘You can’t possibly spend that sort of money on
jeans
.’

‘Is okay. Is investment. Maybe you gonna find
khoroshego mal’chika
?’ Lyudmila lapsed into Russian. Tash rolled her eyes. A nice boy? Fat chance, even if she
were
looking.

‘Ma,’ she began, but Lyudmila had already turned back to the snooty sales assistant.

‘I take one pair white, one pair blue. And shoes.’

Half an hour later, mother and daughter stepped through the revolving door with more bright yellow bags than Tash had ever seen in one go and flagged down a cab.

Sitting beside Lyudmila on the way back to their tiny flat, Tash experienced a desperate, almost crippling surge of envy. She longed to be rich.
Properly
rich. Like Rebecca and Annick. Although her school fees at St Benedict’s had been paid for by the Bryce-Brudenell family, it had long been understood that once Tash had finished her A-levels that would be the end of it. There would be no further remittances from the Mortimer & McKenzie offices on George Street, Edinburgh, whose cheque sailed through the post box on the first of every month and had done since she was born. Whatever ‘arrangement’ Lyudmila had come to with the father of her as-yet-unborn child, eighteen years of support was as far as it would go. University was out of the question. Lyudmila, whose own schooling had ended abruptly after a high-school volleyball tournament, couldn’t see the point. She was desperate for Tash to put her expensive education to good and proper use and
go out and get a job
. But she hadn’t reckoned on Tash’s stubborn ambition. Rebecca and Annick were going to university – why shouldn’t she?

After a long, argument-filled summer, Tash finally got her way. She continued to live at home and took the bus every morning to the LSE. Lyudmila thought she was crazy. What the hell was she going to do with a BA (Hons) in economics? The best way to study economics, Lyudmila declared irritably, was to go to work. Tash thought otherwise. She got a grant easily enough – Lyudmila’s official earnings amounted to almost nothing – and she knew she’d have to find a job whilst she studied, but she wasn’t afraid of having to work hard – she’d done that most of her life. The important thing was not to be left behind. Annick had chosen law and Rebecca art history, and despite their obvious advantages, Tash had always managed to keep up her end of things – that wasn’t about to change now. In September, along with the others, she duly began her degree course, full of trepidation but determined to do her best.

Now, three long, hard years later, wearing the short white denim skirt they’d bought that day at Selfridges, she looked down at her bare feet in the water and knew she’d made the right decision.

From the terrace beyond the trees came a sudden burst of laughter. The guests were sitting under a bowery of young, translucent vines at the cloth-covered table now heavy under the weight of dishes. In addition to the three girls, there was Rebecca’s mother and two aunts, three cousins of similar age, an uncle, and a great-uncle who’d come over from Israel, hard of hearing, but who sat amongst them with a beatific, contented smile. The mill house was at the end of a narrow, winding road that led from the town of Pontremoli up into the hills and then plunged down again into a steep, wooded valley. Sitting in the back seat of the car that had come to Genoa to pick the three girls up, Tash thought she’d never seen anything quite so beautiful as the Tuscan countryside in early summer. Rebecca’s father had bought the place several years before, another holiday home in addition to their place in the South of France, their Hampstead home, the flat in Bloomsbury where Rebecca had spent her university years and their Tel Aviv home . . . the Harburgs’ wealth was almost inconceivable. When they rounded the last bend and drove over a narrow, rickety bridge suspended over a rocky gorge, she had to bite down on her tongue to stop herself from squealing out loud. The mill house spread itself over three levels, all the way down to the azure pool at the rear of the buildings, away from any prying eyes. As far as the eye could see were steep wooded hills with their small patches of clearing; tall, narrow, red-roofed houses clustered together under a thick canopy of vine leaves and grey-green olive trees, small vegetable plots appearing like a neat chequerboard of colour in an otherwise lush, green landscape. The sky was a deep, clear blue, misted over here and there by faint wisps of cloud. Tash got out of the car and stood in the driveway, her nostrils prickling pleasurably with the scent of unfamiliar flowers, gazing out on a day without landmarks other than the anticipation of an afternoon at the pool.