Muse (13 page)

Someone has turned off the sound system and the building is quiet, but I’m still haunted by that aria that was playing when I entered the building, so many hours ago. The melody keeps tugging at me, and I realise that, like the ability to recognise certain
languages, the ability to recognise snatches of music is beginning to return in me, too.

I’m back in the leather pants and simple cashmere tunic that Gia picked out earlier today, but I’ve had her throw the high-shine, high-heeled, torture-device shoes into Irina’s holdall. I stalk the cold, brushed-concrete floors in my long, bare feet, still wearing the heavy, mask-like make-up that Tommy and his team of stylists came up with for the fourteen models taking part in the anniversary parade. I catch sight of my reflection in a glass window as I pass by: eyes ringed in smoky black kohl, lids filled in right up to the brow line with a glittering grey eye shadow, the inner and outer corners of my eyes illuminated in gold. My lips and nails are the same blood red that I first saw on Gudrun —
rosso Re
, my manicurist had confided as she’d filled in the nails of my hand, Giovanni Re’s signature shade of red, his trademark colour. The make-up artists had finished by dusting my cheek and brow bones with a fine, gold powder. I don’t think I’ve ever looked so truly alien.

As I walk barefoot through the emptying building — almost weaving with exhaustion — I rip off my false eyelashes and let them flutter to the ground like butterflies. Shake out the sleek topknot Tommy insisted on for the bridal look and run my fingers
down through the wavy strands of Irina’s hair. There’s so much pressure inside my skull that it feels as if it’s about to split open. The heavy pounding of Irina’s heart forms the soundtrack to my progress.

Gia takes my elbow as we cross the now quiet atrium. Juliana is leading us towards a spiral concrete ramp at the far side of the building, and I realise it’s the main staircase connecting all four floors of Atelier Re. I study the elegant spiral that rises and twists so far above us.

‘How far up are we going?’ I say through gritted teeth.

Two storeys I can handle. Four might kind of be pushing it, for me.

Three lives back, when I’d woken as a single mother called Lucy who lived in a filthy, high-rise apartment in a virtual ghetto of government-owned tenements, I’d had to make sure that I never looked out the windows. Every time I stepped out of the lift that had stunk of vomit on the twenty-second floor, I’d stayed clear of the balcony that ran parallel to the apartment entrances on that level. Each time I’d been forced to return to Lucy’s flat — because it was nightfall, because there was nowhere else safe to go — I’d hugged the inner wall, inching painfully towards
Lucy’s front door, her listless, malnourished baby on my hip, almost overcome with vertigo and a strange sense of shame. Back then, I hadn’t understood why. But I do now, because it’s somehow linked to the reason I’m even here on earth at all.

‘Second floor,’ Gia replies, shooting me a glance. ‘You didn’t go back to sleep this morning, did you? After that … nightmare you had. Your eyes are practically burning holes in your head.’

‘I couldn’t sleep,’ I reply simply. ‘And it didn’t help that Felipe offered me a morning heart-starter of vodka mixed with pure liquid meth.’

‘He
what
?’ Gia says, turning to me in disbelief.

‘No biggie,’ I say wearily, the way Ryan would, forgetting how strange it might sound in Irina’s Moscow-via-Novosibirsk accent until I’ve said the words. ‘I handled it.’

The thought of Ryan fires off more starbursts of pain somewhere in the region of Irina’s neural cortex and I clutch at my head momentarily, hearing that achingly familiar voice crying into the border between sleep and wakefulness:
Mercy, where are you?

Gia pulls her mobile phone out of her leather jacket. ‘Management have got to be told. I knew there was a reason I hate that guy.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ I say. ‘Just drop it. He won’t be troubling Irina again. I made sure of that.’

I’m still not quite sure how, but it doesn’t matter now.

Gia gives me a weird look and replaces her phone in her pocket uncertainly.

I look neither left nor right as we ascend the ramp to the second storey of Atelier Re, the knuckles of my left hand white upon the smooth, concrete banister, my right gripped tightly around the handles of Irina’s handbag, as if it is a life jacket.

The corridors on the second floor are softened by lush, honey-coloured carpets, and the high, art deco-style ceilings are punctuated by enormous modernist chandeliers, white, like floating clouds. It’s a different world up here: timber-panelled walls and traditional-looking wall sconces, antique furniture mixed in effortlessly with modernist pieces in a way I’ve come to recognise as quintessentially Giovanni. We move past a private lift and a couple of life-sized ceramic sculptures that seem almost two-dimensional, like freestanding paintings. On the flat surface of one sculpture there’s a boy playing a pipe, painted in strong and hasty brushstrokes. On the other, a
warped caricature of a female figure — eyes in the wrong places; crazy, funfair colours.

‘Picassos,’ Gia says, without stopping, and I crane my head to look back at them, at the strange energy in the lines.

Juliana stops outside a door, knocks on it gently.

‘
Entra!
’ a male voice calls out.

Juliana opens the door. Giovanni is framed in the doorway, seated at a colossal writing desk and surrounded by bookcases and shelving, undoubtedly priceless art and memorabilia, figurines, awards, framed photographs of himself with people who must be notable in some way. The only source of light in the room is a desk lamp upon the table.

He puts down the pen he is holding and takes off his tortoiseshell frames for a moment, rubbing at his eyes.

‘All finished?’ he says wearily in English. ‘Good, good.’

He gets up from the desk, but his hand slips off the edge and he almost falls, and just catches himself on the way down. He stands there a moment, head bowed, breathing hard.

Juliana rushes across the room to steady him. ‘You need rest,
Zio
,’ she chides, almost tearfully.

Zio
, she called him.
Uncle.
I didn’t see the resemblance before, but now, looking at them both together, I notice it around the eyes and nose.

Giovanni pats her hand. ‘Soon, soon,
cara
. But first, I must thank Irina for her hard work today, and apologise that there is one more thing she must attend to before she leaves us.’

Juliana hands her uncle his lion-handled walking cane and he struggles towards me across the priceless, hand-knotted silk carpet with the name of its maker, and his god, woven into the borders of the pattern. ‘Please, follow me,’ he says.

I don’t need to touch him to sense his strange and feverish anxiety.

‘There’s no need to exert yourself, Giovanni,’ I reply. ‘I can find my way with Juliana’s help.’

He shakes his head and the feeling of anxiety that hangs about him seems to deepen. Maybe he’s worried that I’ll screw up and upset his best client.

‘I must make the introductions,’ he says tightly. ‘It is only … right.’

‘I’ll behave,’ I say reassuringly.

‘I’m sure you will,’ he says distantly, patting my arm briefly. ‘But will
she
?’

He ushers me out of the room towards a wide corridor opposite his office that has several doorways leading off it. Gia and Juliana fall into step behind us, suddenly quiet, sensing something in Giovanni’s mood. He limps towards a door marked with the number three in Roman numerals and turns the handle.

In the strange way I sometimes have of seeing too much, all at once, I see that the room is decorated in a soothing palette of blonde wood and navy and ivory furnishings. It’s very brightly lit by an enormous crystal chandelier, and every wall is covered in a floor-to-ceiling mirror that reflects the room’s only occupant — a young girl sitting, with her back to us, in a cream-coloured leather tub armchair. There’s a doorway opposite the girl that leads to a large dressing room — also brilliantly lit — that’s partially obscured by a navy velvet curtain.

I see all of this before the girl even turns and looks at us directly with her pale blue eyes. I’m surprised by how young she is. I’d been expecting someone far older, because if I’ve learnt one thing today — only seriously rich people can afford Giovanni Re. The girl has an oval face and dark, arched brows, light olive skin, waist-length, unbound, dark glossy hair
and a slim build, narrow hands and feet. From the expression on her face, I realise that she’s actually older than she looks — maybe mid to late twenties. She’s in an effortlessly chic tweed jacket, in a weave of reds, whites and blues with gilt buttons, a red silk blouse with a self-tie neck, and slim, indigo blue jeans, vertiginous red heels. Beside her chair, there’s a velvet ottoman, and on it sits a handbag of navy quilted leather with gilt hardware.

The young woman looks poised, serene and beautiful, so I’m shocked when her eyes fly to my face and flare with an antagonism so strong that it’s like a presence in the room.

I don’t need to touch her to feel it. She
hates
Irina. Would happily scratch her eyes out.

I’m instantly wary. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Gia and Juliana look at each other uneasily. Evidently, Giovanni hadn’t told them whom we were meeting.

‘Bianca!’ he says warmly, spreading his arms in welcome.

The young woman rises and places a kiss on each of his cheeks. ‘Giovanni,’ she replies, smiling. ‘So good of you to make time for me in your punishing schedule.’

‘You will treat her … gently?’ he says.

She gives him a reassuring smile and I realise suddenly that this is some kind of set-up. Who is this girl to Irina? Not a friend, clearly.

‘All I’m going to do, Mastro Re,’ she says laughingly in a European accent that’s hard to pin down, as if she’s been schooled in many places, ‘is give my credit card a severe workout. When I heard Irina would be here today, I thought to myself:
Who better to showcase your designs than the incomparable Irina?
It’s high time we met properly.’ Her eyes are suddenly hard as they flick to me. ‘We’ll have a cozy little … chat, won’t we, Irina? We have plenty to catch up on. Lots of mutual acquaintances to chew the fat over. It’s so rare that our schedules line up in this way.’

Giovanni’s eyes skitter nervously across my face before returning to Bianca. ‘Then you won’t mind if I leave you in the hands of my niece, Juliana?’ he says, almost relieved. ‘I think you know each other? And Irina’s assistant, Gia.’

Bianca inclines her head graciously towards Juliana. ‘Signora Agnelli-Re,’ she says. ‘So good to see you again.’ She ignores Gia altogether.

‘With your leave, Mastro,’ she continues smoothly, ‘we’re old enough friends that you might just leave
me with Irina today? I’m sure Signora Agnelli-Re has better things to do than listen to Irina and me … gossip.’

Giovanni starts to reply, but Bianca holds up one slim hand. ‘I’m well aware that the looks I’ve asked you to set aside for me form part of the anniversary collection and are worth in the vicinity of a quarter of a million pounds. I shall treat the gowns with the utmost reverence.’

I note that she makes no such promise where I’m concerned.

Giovanni looks helplessly at his niece, who gives him the faintest frown in return that seems to say:
What have you done?

‘Very well,’ he says reluctantly. ‘Juliana will return shortly to see how you are both … getting on.’

‘What the bloody hell are you playing at? This wasn’t part of the —’ Gia’s protests are cut off as Giovanni and his niece bundle her out of the room, shutting the door firmly behind them.

Bianca weighs me up with her cool, blue eyes before snapping, ‘Our schedules have never lined up,
bitch
, because you’ve been deliberately avoiding me.’

I tell myself wearily to duck and weave until I can figure out what the hell she’s talking about.

I dump Irina’s heavy handbag by the door. ‘Which dress do you want me to start with?’ I say calmly as I head into the dressing room.

Five separate evening gowns are laid out across a button-backed, ivory leather
chaise longue
. There’s a futuristic-looking, ankle-length black gown with wicked, sequined, pagoda shoulders, a plunging V-neck and daring front split. Beside it, a slim, one-shouldered sleeveless dress in Giovanni’s signature shade of
rosso Re
, with a complicated neckline,
plunging back and small train. Alongside that is a wasp-waisted, Victorian-inspired, ankle-length gown in hand-dyed silks of gradated purples and pinks, with enormous puffed sleeves and a neat bustle. And beside it, a breathtaking, strapless, 1930s-inspired sequined silver gown that I’m guessing must be Orla’s. Lastly, a slim, floor-length gown that seems entirely made from feathers, hand-painted to resemble the wings of butterflies.

As I begin to shrug out of my cashmere jumper resignedly Bianca holds up a hand to stop me, saying sarcastically, ‘For a model, you make a great actress. Let’s cut to the chase. I’m not here for the clothes, clearly.’ Her voice starts to shake. ‘I just wanted to see, with my own eyes, the
slut
Félix left me for. And to let you know, personally, that I’m going to derail your sad, pathetic life even more than you derailed mine. I’ll recover, but you
never
will.’

I frown, rummaging through the disorder in my head for the names Félix and Bianca, getting no immediate hits. Irina’s not an over-analyser. She doesn’t keep a journal in that oversized bag of hers that I’m forced to lug around.

‘Do you have any idea who you’ve messed with?’ Bianca says. ‘What I could do to you?’

I shake my head, genuinely perplexed, which only seems to upset Bianca more.

‘The chairman of Mondial Publishing and my father are old business partners, and the editor-at-large of the Costa International Group is a longstanding family friend,’ she says threateningly, moving forward so that I’m forced to step back hurriedly to avoid her touching me.

I find the backs of my legs pressed up against the
chaise longue
. One of the heavy beaded dresses slithers to the floor.

‘Point being?’ I snap. ‘To me they’re just names, just words without context or weight.’

Bianca’s face is contorted, almost ugly, as she spits, ‘I’ll be lobbying to ensure that none of the fashion magazines published by those organisations ever use you again in an editorial spread. And I’ll also be suggesting that any advertising campaigns you feature in are permanently postponed in their pages until you’re dropped by the companies you represent.’ She jabs me just below the collarbone for emphasis. ‘We’re talking a complete blackout in publications across France, Italy, Russia, China, the Americas, Great Britain, Germany, Spain and the entire Asia-Pacific region. I know for a fact that your management company is thinking of
letting you go because you’re more trouble than you’re worth. One tiny push and your so-called career and “A-list” life? Will be over. I’m going to ruin you. Try and take me to court, and the financial might of the St Alban Group will bury you!’

She’s shouting now, and I’m reminded of that red-faced reporter screaming at me earlier:
Who are you seeing now that you’ve very publicly dumped Félix de Haviland and Will Reyne?

‘You’ll be lucky if you can get hand-modelling work for your local discount chain!’ Bianca yells. ‘That is, if the drugs don’t get you first and you end up a very minor postscript in the Obituaries section of the
New York Times
.’

I hear Justine’s voice telling Ryan:
She’s the one who dumped Félix de Haviland … She actually stole him off his fiancée.
And something goes
click
in my head.

‘What do you have to say about that?’ Bianca shrieks, knotting her hands into the front of my sweater, tears in her eyes.

‘You’re the fiancée?’ I blurt out.

Bianca goes off. ‘
The fiancée?
’ she shrieks, gripping me by the upper arms and shaking me like a rag doll.

‘Don’t. Touch. Me,’ I warn and she lets go of me abruptly, covering her mouth with both hands, weeping as if something inside her is irreparably broken.

‘The future I thought I’d be living just
vanished
. It’s
gone
,’ she wails. ‘Everything I loved about Félix — his family, his friends, the places we used to go, the things we used to do, his stupid, disgusting dogs, the apartment we shared, the
life
we shared — you took them all from me. Everything they say about you is true — you contaminate everything you touch. Destroyer.
Destroyer!
’

I’m so stunned at her words that for a moment I think she’s talking about
me
. Then I remember that we don’t know each other, that she’s a stranger to me and all of her anger is for Irina.

I gaze at her with compassion. Before, I would have had trouble recognising the emotion; it would have seemed an abstract concept, a human construct. But that was before. A lot of things have happened since then. I’ve suffered my own losses.

‘You really loved him, didn’t you?’ I say quietly, and I am wholly unprepared when Bianca looks up sharply at my words and slaps me hard across the face.

We both freeze. And I feel something dangerous leap inside me. I have to stop myself from retaliating in kind, because the way I’m feeling, I could
kill
her.

Bianca stares at me wide-eyed, sucking in a hurt breath as she massages the fingers of her right hand. I can see her wondering why the force of the blow didn’t make me fall down, break down, or even flinch.

‘You’re like a heartless
stone
,’ she gasps. ‘You don’t feel anything for anyone, do you?’

‘How dare you?’ I find myself roaring. ‘You’re the one with no idea.
All I have left are feelings.
How dare you judge me?’

I can see from her frightened gaze that she doesn’t understand what I’m saying. She begins, almost imperceptibly, to back away from me, like a cornered animal.

‘What do you want me to say?’ I snarl, my voice rising as I follow her across the room. ‘Sorry? Well, I
am
sorry. Sorry the pretty, shiny life with the rich husband didn’t work out, didn’t even get off the ground. But don’t expect me to empathise with you, or feel scared, belittled or even ashamed, because
you don’t know me
, you will never know me. Never know that there are worse things in life than a broken engagement. You can’t know what I’m feeling inside,
what it’s been like for me. You’re right. People like you
always
recover, because you
can
.’

Bianca glances back through the velvet-curtained doorway towards the outer door with genuine fear in her eyes, and something seems to take hold of me as I yell, ‘
Be grateful
that you’ll never be forced into an arranged marriage with a husband that beats you.
Be grateful
that you’ll never have to live hand to mouth at the mercy of a drug-dealing de facto.
Be grateful
that your fate isn’t to be locked in a homemade dungeon while someone you once trusted keeps you chained like a dog in the darkness and does unspeakable things to you against your will.
Be grateful
that you are not
me
.’

I raise my burning left hand, struggling to stifle that impulse to lash out, to wound. I’m so sick of all the hatred, all the haters, all the people whose fears and motivations and vengeances and cruelties I will
never
understand.

Then I hear:
Mercy
.

I look around wildly, though his voice is only inside my head.

Don’t
, he says quietly, as if he has appointed himself my conscience.
You don’t need to do this. You’re frightening her, and you’re better than that. It will soon be over, one way or another.

Then I see him — looking at me from out of the flat surface of the mirror to the right of the velvet-curtained doorway in which Bianca cowers, oblivious to his presence.

‘K’el?’ I say.

I look around the room for him, but he’s only visible in the reflected world, not the real one that I’m standing in. ‘K’el?’ I say again, stumbling with outstretched hands towards his reflection that is no reflection.

He’s so hyper-real, so hyper-beautiful, with his gleaming olive skin, his dark gold hair, his tawny wide-set eyes — like the eyes of a young lion. And in his face is that unspoken longing and self-loathing he seems unable to hide when he’s around me. He’s watching me because he has to, and because he can’t help himself.

‘Now?’
I plead. ‘Is it to be now?’

Because maybe if They move me again, I’ll stop feeling so numb. And maybe this time, those of the Eight that remain will be merciful and will do the job properly and somehow make me forget Ryan Daley forever. I don’t want to have to find him and then lose him all over again.

I walk towards K’el’s gleaming form so that he and Irina and I seem to converge for an instant,
before he walks away from me into the next pane of silvered glass. And the next and the next — his tall frame crossing smoothly from one mirror to another, as if such a thing could even be possible. Until he’s circumnavigated the entire room and is standing, facing me again, in the last mirror to the left of the velvet-curtained doorway.

I see him shake his head in negation, in warning. I hear his voice in my mind like a breath of fire.

Soon
, he says.
Be ready.

Then the looking glass is suddenly empty of his image. Only Irina and I are left there, staring, ashen-faced.

It’s a long time before I realise that Bianca’s made it all the way to the outer room, her eyes wide, her face drained of all colour.

‘Who are you?’ she says shakily. ‘You’re not Irina.’

I move out of the dressing room towards her and she places the leather tub chair and ottoman between us, for safety.

‘Who do you want me to be?’ I say wearily, bypassing her entirely and heading for the outer door. I feel her surprise more than see it. ‘You’ve said what you came to say,’ I mutter. ‘Go ahead and ruin Irina’s
life. I’m not going to stop you. Not today. I’m tired. There are too many of you to guard against, to guard, to save. Maybe Gabriel was right, maybe I should’ve just kept my head down all along and done nothing. Let life tear each of my fragile charges, my flawed vessels, to pieces, while I simply stood by, watching. It’s what my kind does best, after all.
Watch.
’ My voice is bitter. I hope K’el hears it.

I place a hand upon the outer door, heartsore and on edge. I know it must seem crazy that Irina’s talking about herself as if she isn’t even in the room, but I’m tired of pretending. I’m never going to see this girl again, so what’s a burning bridge or two?

‘I’ve got enough going on in my own messed-up existence,’ I add quietly, ‘without having to deal with people like you coming at me for things I don’t even remember doing. Félix is a cheater. He showed you his true colours. You got lucky that it happened now, and not twenty years after the happy day. Be grateful and move on. That’s the best advice I can give you.’

Bianca cries, ‘Wait!’

Though I shouldn’t be able to hear them through the soundproofed wood, I can discern Gia’s voice and Juliana’s, in the hallway outside, as they talk to each other in low voices, in Italian.

And it’s spooky, but as I listen to them, their words seem to meld together in my mind and reform, growing comprehensible to my ears.

‘
Dopo un anno? Forse …
’ Gia says.
After another year, perhaps.

‘Then maybe I’ll come and work for you, eh?’

‘You should,’ Juliana replies earnestly. ‘Tommy has only the best things to say about you. We could use your skills very much at Atelier Re. You would be the perfect fit, in talent, in personality.’

Hour by hour, minute by minute. Everything’s slowly coming back to me except the one thing I so desperately crave. Freedom.

‘Wait!’ Bianca says again behind me, so forcefully that I turn and regard her with surprise. What she sees in my face makes her flinch, but she stands her ground bravely. ‘I
saw
something.’

I growl in Irina’s heavy Russian accent, ‘And I’m telling you, I don’t care what you saw — do your worst. Descend upon Irina like a plague. She’s Teflon-coated anyway. She’s got nine lives, maybe more. She’ll survive anything. Now, since you’ve gotten everything you wanted to say off your chest, I’m going back to my hotel so that I can get up again in the morning and take my clothes off in front of more strangers, okay?’

‘No, you don’t understand,’ Bianca whispers, and there’s fear but also wonderment in her voice. ‘I saw something. Back there, before you started talking to yourself. Just a flash. But I saw something. Someone. You don’t even talk like Irina, do you know that? Oh, I mean you
sound
like her, you sound Russian. But she just complains and complains about everything. Nothing’s ever good enough. And she hardly ever meets your eyes unless she wants something from you. She’s a vicious mix of towering arrogance and total insecurity. But she’s not even here, is she?’

My eyes fly back to Bianca’s as I finally grasp what she’s saying, and I feel Irina’s heart skip a beat.

‘If you say you saw something,’ I challenge, mouth suddenly dry, ‘describe it. Describe what you saw.’

‘I saw a, a … young woman with brown hair that hangs down just past her shoulders and brown eyes. She was very pale and very tall, and I don’t know how it’s possible, because she was so faint, but I could kind of see her
within
you, or around you, like a … glow. She looked beautiful. And kind. And very, very sad.’