Little White Lies (59 page)

‘But what is it?’ Tash asked the following day, smoothing out the letter on Annick’s bedspread between them. ‘I get what it says but what does it
mean
?’

Annick’s fingers knotted themselves together. ‘I . . . I don’t know,’ she whispered, looking round fearfully as though she expected Yves to be hiding in the cupboard.

‘Why’s he trying to change his name?’

Annick shook her head again. ‘I don’t know. The thing is, there
is
someone called Ameyaw. He’s a journalist. He . . . he wrote some pretty awful things about my father and . . . and . . .’ She stopped and swallowed painfully.

‘What?’

‘He died. His body was found on the side of the road somewhere in Lomé. He’d been beaten to death, or something horrible like that. It was all over the papers in France. I remember asking my mother about it but she just said she had no idea who I was talking about.’

‘What’re you saying? That they’re connected? Yves and this journalist, whatever his name is?’

Annick drew in a deep breath. ‘I don’t know. I’m not sure,’ she said slowly. ‘About Yves. I know I shouldn’t even
think
it, especially as I haven’t asked him outright, but . . . I just don’t know
anything
anymore.’

‘What are you talking about? Of course you know Yves.’

Annick shook her head. ‘But that’s just it. I don’t know anything about him, about his past, I mean. I’ve never met his parents, and aside from Martin, I’ve never met any of his friends or his family. I don’t even know where he comes from. He told me he was adopted but I just don’t know. I don’t know who he really is.’

‘Annick, I think you might just be making more of this than you should,’ Tash said gently. ‘There’s probably some really simple explanation. Yves is lovely – you know he is. I don’t know what you’re thinking but I can’t see him deliberately lying to you. It’s not possible. He cried when I told him what had happened to you. I heard him crying, Annie. He was
crying
.’

Annick’s hands twisted around again and again. ‘It’s not that. I know he loves me. I do know
that
. But where I come from, Tash, nothing’s what it seems. Everything’s so . . . so murky. You can’t trust anyone; that’s what my father always told me. D’you know how many of
his
friends tried to kill him?’

Tash gave a short, disbelieving laugh. ‘You’re not saying Yves is trying to kill
you
?’

Annick shook her head violently. ‘No, of course not. But I can’t help wondering. If he really
is
Togolese and he’s connected in some way to Kofi Ameyaw, why hasn’t he said so? I mean, he knows who
I
am. Why hide it from me?’

Tash looked at her and bit her lip. She had no answer. Not for the first time, in all the years she’d known Annick, she felt out of her depth. Annick came from so far away. She was right. Tash knew nothing about African politics. And she was right, too, to wonder why Yves hadn’t told her he’d tried to change his name.

‘You’ve got to ask him. Just ask him outright. Show him the letter and ask him. Not now, not whilst the baby’s still . . . well, not whilst you’re both still here. But when you get home, after all of this is behind you, just ask him. You owe him that much. And he owes you an explanation. I don’t know much about relationships, so I’m probably not the right person to say this, but I do know this . . . you can’t build anything on a lie. Not even a little white lie. Ask him.
Make
him tell you the truth.’

REBECCA
Hampshire

Half of her was present; half of her was not. She took part in the conversations where and when she could, chewed her food methodically, paid attention to the twins when they laughed or cried and admired Didier, who, at two months, had caught up to his anticipated birth weight and was said by the doctors to be doing fine. They were all gathered at Brockhurst Hall for Christmas. Everyone was there. Embeth, Julian, the twins, Tash, Lyudmila, Annick, Didier, Yves and her. And, of course, the baby growing silently inside her. No one knew, not even Julian. She was waiting for the right moment to tell him, or so she continually told herself. Finding the right moment wasn’t the only reason for her reluctance. But she couldn’t think about that. Tariq. She whispered his name under her breath. Tariq.
Tariq. Tariq
. A chant, the way the devout had once whispered the forbidden name of Yahweh. She smiled faintly at that; it was the sort of irreverent historical detail he would like.

‘What’re you smiling at?’ She jumped. Tash was standing in the doorway.

‘N-nothing. I was just thinking about something one of the twins said,’ she said quickly. ‘Where’s everyone?’

Tash shrugged. ‘Doing this and that. Mum’s asleep, your mother’s in the kitchen, supervising the staff. Julian and Yves are down at the stables with the twins . . . I think Annick’s asleep as well. Poor thing, she looks absolutely worn out.’ She flopped down on the sofa nearest the window, drawing her legs up. She rested her head on her knees, her arms circling her calves. ‘Y’know, for a while back there, I . . . I didn’t know if she’d make it,’ she said slowly. ‘Thank God she did. Thank God they
both
did.’

Rebecca nodded slowly. ‘Funny, isn’t it? Nothing turns out quite the way you think. If you’d asked me ten years ago what I thought the next ten years would bring, I’d never have guessed. You a millionaire. Annick’s parents killed, Me, married with three, I mean two, kids—’

Tash snorted. ‘That’s so typical of you,’ she chuckled. ‘Three – oops, no, I mean two – kids. How can you forget how many kids you have?’

Rebecca flushed. ‘I . . . I was . . . slip of the tongue, that’s all.’ She turned away to face the window, watching the afternoon darken with winter outside. One hand came to rest on her stomach; she touched the soft, full skin underneath her skirt. A baby. Whose?

TASH

Tash climbed the stairs to her bedroom. It was Christmas Eve and despite the fact that not everyone actually celebrated Christmas, Embeth had made an exception this year. They’d all decided it would be good for Annick and Yves to have a proper, family-filled celebration. ‘We’re your family now,’ Embeth said firmly. ‘And it’ll be lovely to give you all something to remember.’ It was typical Embeth, generous to a fault. She’d forgotten nothing. There was an enormous Norwegian fir tree in the hallway surrounded by beautifully wrapped presents, exquisitely decorated, of course, with all the trimmings. There were log fires in every room, polished silver menorahs in the windows. ‘Well, we’ve got to have something Jewish,’ she laughed, ‘even if it’s only to stop Lionel shouting at us to take it all down!’ Her eyes misted over for a second, then she gathered herself. ‘Anyway, it’ll be fun for the children. They’re too young to understand what it all means.’

She pushed open the door and stood in the doorway for a second. She was the only single person in the house that Christmas, except for Lyudmila and Embeth, of course. She tried hard not to think about it but at times like these the sense of being alone was particularly hard. It wasn’t just the fact of an empty place beside her at the dinner table, or no one to cuddle up to on the sofa in front of the fire afterwards, the way couples did, it was also the very
family
nature of Christmas. Not having a partner was one thing but at thirty-five, it was slowly dawning on her that another door might be closing too.
Don’t be ridiculous
, she thought to herself sternly, opening the wardrobe door.
You’re thirty-five, not forty-five. Anything could happen
.

She flicked through the three or four long dresses she’d brought with her. There was an ecru pleated silk dress – flattering, but a tad dull; or the sea-green crêpe-jersey dress from Lanvin. A black silk Donna Karan number, or an Amanda Wakeley midnight-blue jersey dress with wide, bell sleeves? She held the last against her and looked in the mirror. It had to be the Wakeley. If nothing else, it made her look taller. Not that she needed any help in that department, she thought to herself wryly as she stripped off her clothes and pulled on her dressing gown. She walked into the small bathroom and turned on the light. She caught sight of her face in the mirror and stopped. She looked at herself closely. She’d grown used to her face – she no longer really saw it. But she looked at it properly now. She turned slowly sideways, just as she’d done countless times when she was a teenager. She put up a hand to touch her nose self-consciously. Could a surgeon
really
correct it? She bared her lips. And her teeth. Crooked, overlapping, less-than-white. Could a dentist change those? She knew what people thought of her, especially those who didn’t know her. She was stylish enough and genuinely loved fashion. But she was rather less concerned about how it looked on her than how it looked on others, namely her customers. What if everyone was right? What if she
did
do something about her appearance, whatever that ‘something’ might turn out to be? Would her life change? Would it get better? And then the question she didn’t dare ask, even of herself . . . would it help her find a man?

She walked back into the bedroom and picked up the copy of the magazine she’d been reading the night before. She quickly flicked through to the back pages. They were listed in alphabetical order. Cosmetic surgeons. From Harley Street to Hungary and everywhere else in between. She closed the magazine with a decisive snap.

The raised voices and laughter at the dinner table that evening brought an intimacy to the high-ceilinged dining room. The children were safely tucked up in bed. Embeth had dispatched not one but
three
nannies to help keep them amused and occupied. The table was magnificent. Everywhere you looked there were sprigs of freshly cut holly and ornate, intricate Christmas wreaths. Wine was slowly poured into cut-crystal decanters and glasses. Light from the twinkling, coloured decorations bounced off the chandeliers and windowpanes, merging into the rosy glow of the fire. It was the Christmas Eve dinner Tash had never had.

Embeth sat at one end of the table with her customary glass of water. In the two years since Lionel’s death she hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol, yet her voice rose and spiralled gaily as if the alcohol were rising in her blood, just like the others, a special kind of self-intoxication that burnished her skin like the sun. Across from her, doing her best to drink slowly, was Lyudmila. Tash could see she was rather overwhelmed by it all. She was wearing Valentino, an early Christmas present from Tash, but despite looking every inch as glamorous as Embeth, she looked nervous. The sudden change in lifestyle over the past couple of years hadn’t been easy. It wasn’t quite as simple as it looked to go from counting food coupons to flying first class, especially if the source of largesse was your daughter. The change had prompted a shift in the balance of power between them and there were times when Lyudmila resented it, or was made nervous by it, like now. Lyudmila had her heart set on introducing
[email protected]
to Russia, but Tash didn’t know how to tell her it wasn’t even necessary. Bringing
[email protected]
to Russia didn’t require flying out to Moscow every other week, desperately trying to get into the right restaurants and making friends with every Tom, Dick and floozy who knew an oligarch. Modern Russian women were every bit as switched on and connected as their London counterparts. They were already using
[email protected]
and
shopping online in quantities that proved it. FedEx delivered almost as many parcels to Muscovites as they did to Mancunians. What was the point of doing a launch?

A maid entered and bent down to whisper something to Embeth. Her face lit up immediately. She got up from the table, excusing herself for a second, and hurried after her. A moment later, she was back. Someone was with her.

‘Look who’s here!’ She announced his presence like a prize. ‘It’s Adam!’

He stood in the doorway, holding them all in his gaze. He wore a thick, dark-blue cable-knit sweater and jeans. There was grey mixed in amongst the dirty blond hair now. He was tanned and under the strong, squared-off planes of his face, a five o’clock shadow showed through. If she’d thought him good-looking before, Tash was unprepared for the beauty of the man now. Her lips parted but nothing came out. Like the others, she could only sit and gape at him.

‘Hello, chaps,’ he said, shoving his hands in his pockets. ‘Hope I’m not disturbing? Merry Christmas!’

A log crackled in the grate as it slipped and shifted, a blue-tongued flame leaping out momentarily before settling once more into the glowing embers. The fire was almost out. It was nearly midnight and Tash and Adam were the only two left in the room; everyone else had gone to bed. Julian had been the last to leave. He’d taken half a bottle of brandy with him, looking rather the worse for wear. Tash had lost count of the number of glasses she’d had. It helped calm her nerves. She wasn’t drunk, though. Far from it. On the contrary, she’d never felt better in her life.

‘Your glass is empty.’ Adam stood up and walked over to the table. He picked up a bottle. ‘Château Mouton-Rothschild Pauillac
1986.’ He let out a low whistle. ‘D’you know how good this is?’

‘Well, pour me a drop and I’ll tell you,’ Tash chuckled.

He walked over holding the bottle loosely by the neck. He had the sexiest swagger she’d ever seen in a man, she thought to herself. He shone on wine. His sensuality came to the surface of his skin the way a pebble, warmed in the palm of one’s hand, rubbed up to a smooth, satiny shine. He carefully poured her a glass, then poured one for himself. ‘Cheers,’ he said, settling back into the chair opposite her. His thighs lolled arrogantly against each other. Her eyes were drawn again and again to the curve of his jeans, the sunburned flesh of his exposed forearms, to the broad expanse of chest. She’d never before been so conscious of a man or of her own shortcomings.

Earlier that evening, when they were all still at table, she’d looked at Annick and Rebecca in turn, studying them the way a man might. Annick still had the exotic, sleepy sexuality that drew everyone’s eyes to her. Smooth, satiny brown flesh, unblemished by a single mark or change in tone; the thick, vibrant cascade of curls, those grey-green eyes. At thirty-five she was a woman at her peak. Rebecca, too, was in full bloom. She’d put on a little weight in the past couple of months and it suited her. Her long, dark-brown hair hung around her face like a thick, richly burnished curtain. Tash had had to look away, unable to staunch the flow of envy spilling out of her. Adam was across the table, a wine glass in one hand, gesticulating as he recounted some amusing story with the other. His skin was suffused with a glow that seemed to come from within, as if he’d been caught in the middle of some splendid physical activity, arrested in full flight. She’d never seen anyone so commandingly alive.