One Way or Another: A Novel (22 page)

36

Martha, as well as having to get Ahmet’s huge, unfriendly house together in a mere five weeks, now also found herself in charge of organizing the “ball” with which they would celebrate its transformation. She wasn’t even sure she could get the place revamped in time, just getting workmen together in that outlandish marsh was an ordeal, to say nothing of accommodating them while they worked there. Why oh why, she asked herself after yet another fruitless phone conversation asking,
demanding
help. She was calling in all her markers, everyone she had ever done a favor for in business she was now telling they owed her. Fortunately, most were coming through.

She managed to find a construction company only twenty miles from Marshmallows that reluctantly agreed to help out though only when the money was doubled. She brought her own paint crew from London, grumbling all the way, suspicious of her promises that they would be put up at a very nice pub that also happened to serve hefty portions of food of the steak pie, haddock and chips variety, which suited them fine, along with free (on her) pints of lager to wash the dust down at the end of the day. She contracted private buses to get them all there and back. She laid on lunches of hot soup and sandwiches. She provided them with overalls and caps emblazoned with her newly designed Marshmallows logo: a chimney with a nest and a pair of wings on top. Try as she might, she’d been unable to come up with a “marshy” image; the bleak landscape simply did not lend itself to it.

Not only that, Ahmet had called her every day asking how it was going, when could he move in, what was taking so long? All in all, wearily, Martha sometimes wished she’d never met Ahmet, never taken the job. Marshmallows was so far from civilization she might have been in a different country. Plus, she had Mehitabel to contend with.

The mystery woman, as Lucy rightly called Mehitabel, was on top of every tiny detail; she showed up, notes in hand, comments prepared, always managing in an effortless way to make it appear that Martha and Lucy were getting behind, were not sure of what they were doing, questioning every single detail.

Still, by week three, the house Martha had envisaged began to emerge from the chaos and dreams into a reality. The tiled floors were gone, along with the red carpet on the stairs, the heavy furniture, the dark drapes, the too-solid-looking paneling, the many crystal chandeliers—only the walls now stripped to the bone awaited the softest of colors. Not white; she had decided that would be too harsh a contrast to the gray-green environment outside the windows. The drawing room was now pale Tuscan fawn, the floors an even paler scrubbed ash, the window frames an infinite blue that hinted of the Mediterranean and which seemed to bring the outdoors into the room. The windows themselves were hung with a creamy soft cotton lawn, weighted so they hung perfectly yet might still move in the breeze when the tall windows leading onto a paved terrace were open.

When she stood and looked out those windows, Martha thought the view was like looking into infinity: the soft rusty-gray paving stones punctuated with tall urns now full of clinging vines; then the long emerald “lawn” that led into the brownish green marsh that took the eye ever onward to the glint of the river and a low cloudy sky.

All the house needed now was the scatter of the antique Turkish rugs—chosen specially with Ahmet’s background in mind—soft and pastel enough to blur into the background, with the grayish ash floors, the sofas and chairs in coordinating colors, though nothing matching; scattered with plump, luxurious cushions that invited you to sprawl.

Looking at her handiwork, envisioning the end result, Martha knew she had done a great job. There was only the delivery of some furniture and the antique pieces needed to complete the entire downstairs, and with time pressing and other work in hand, she felt she might safely leave that in Lucy’s hopefully capable hands. If Lucy could get her mind off the cute blond pizza guy whose name Martha had now learned was Phillip, then she could. Anyhow, where was Lucy? Why did she always seem to be somewhere else when Martha needed her?

“Lucy,” she yelled, striding back through the hall toward the kitchen, betting she would find her sister having a snack made by that nice Tunisian who seemed to be the only employee around here. She supposed Ahmet was waiting until his house was finished before he brought in a whole staff. “Lucy?” she called again, pushing open the green baize door leading into the kitchen. The green baize was an old-fashioned upstairs-downstairs touch she had thought amusing and hopefully so would Ahmet.

She did not find Lucy in the kitchen, though she did find Mehitabel, standing by the sink, running what seemed to Martha to be a critical finger over its surface. The sink was old, a find Martha had foraged in a local sale. It was made of stone, which she’d had smoothed and polished and fitted with new drains and an electric garbage disposal, and a very smart, very tall chromium faucet that swiveled either way. Set in the pale gray granite counter, chosen by Ahmet himself, she’d thought it looked stunningly modernistic.

“This simply does not work.” Mehitabel turned to look at her, that cold look Martha recognized.

Martha wondered if the woman ever warmed up,
ever
liked anything, ever, for fuck’s sake, even smiled. Martha got on with most women, liked making new acquaintances, enjoyed her girlfriends, but Mehitabel was different though she could not quite put a finger on exactly why.

She put on her own smile and asked what was wrong.

“This faucet will have to go,” Mehitabel said. “It’s completely out of place. Mr. Ghulbian will not like it.”

Martha walked across to the sink, stood next to Mehitabel, and inspected the fixture.

“Let me explain something,” she said, coolly because she refused to be intimidated by this woman who was obviously out to do exactly that. “This is
my
job. Ahmet”—she threw in his name just to make Mehitabel understand that she and Ghulbian were friends—“approved every single fixture, every color, every granite, every floorboard. My job is to please my client. I trust you understand that? This house does not belong to me, neither does it belong to you. It is Ahmet’s and he alone decides what works and what does not. Do I make myself clear? Mehitabel?”

Martha saw two bright spots of color flare in Mehitabel’s cheeks, recognized the anger simmering beneath her cool surface. She had definitely not made a friend.

“I will speak to Mr. Ghulbian about it,” Mehitabel said. “Anyhow, I think you must wait and ask him yourself. I am expecting him here within the hour.”

Martha picked up her iPad and her yellow legal pad with her drawings and notes, looped the ring holding the swatches of fabrics over her fingers, and offered Mehitabel another smile. “Too bad I have an appointment this evening. I won’t be able to wait, but Ahmet can, of course, call me any time.”

Mehitabel did not so much as acknowledge what she had said. An uneasy silence fell, broken suddenly by Lucy charging through the door, phone to her ear, sneakers squelching across the immaculate white-tiled floor, leaving muddy footprints.

“Oh, shoot,” Lucy said. “Why can I never get him on the phone? He can’t always be out delivering pizzas, can he, Marthie?” She stopped as a thought occurred to her. “You don’t think he’s out with another girl?” She looked suddenly stricken.

Before Martha could answer, Mehitabel said swiftly, “Well, of course, Martha, since you cannot wait for Mr. Ghulbian’s return then your assistant must. She can take him round, show him what you suggest and what you have completed so far. Lucy can take notes and pass Mr. Ghulbian’s personal thoughts on to you. Right?”

She was looking at Martha as though the matter was settled. No argument, Lucy would stay. But “No, no, of course not,” Martha protested. “She has no car, she must drive back with me.”

“You forget Mr. Ghulbian has a helicopter. Lucy might be home before you yourself, Ms. Patron.”

She threw in the name as though an afterthought, something she scarcely had bothered to remember. Martha thought Mehitabel was quite a bitch in her own icy way. Anyway, she certainly did not want to leave Lucy here alone with her.

“Perhaps I can wait, after all,” she said, knowing she sounded hesitant.

Mehitabel gave her another long look. “There’s absolutely no need to worry, you know, Ms. Patron. Lucy will be perfectly safe here.” She glanced at Lucy, who was eyeing the pie the Tunisian chef was making, a layering of eggplant and tomatoes and peppers and meat, topped with a lid of pastry, which he’d embellished with pretty cut-out pastry leaves.

Lucy was interested; perhaps she wasn’t meant for interior design after all; she might try cooking school. Chefs earned a lot these days, she knew that from watching TV. She inspected her phone again; no message from him. She suddenly hated being seventeen. Older women knew how to deal with men who did not call, men who were, it seemed, not even interested.
Oh God, oh God, after what happened how could he do this?
She had practically given him her all the other night, and, despite a few previous “mishaps,” it would have been the first time. Other girls she knew had succumbed even younger, or pretended to anyhow, smug knowing smiles and all, while she had said loftily she would hold out for her marriage bed. She’d been joking of course. Sometimes she’d hardly known how she’d kept her legs crossed, and she would certainly have unlocked those knees the other night with him, if she had allowed any more time to pass, in his embrace. There was an old-fashioned word for you.
Embrace.
Shit. She had been friggin’
entwined
! That’s what she had been. And she wanted more “entwining.” With him. She tried his number again, again without luck.

Getting off the phone and coming to her senses, she suddenly understood what Mehitabel was suggesting: that she wait here, discuss the decorations with Ahmet, be helicoptered back later.

“Why not?” Lucy said, feeling gloom settle over her head like a cloud. “He” was never going to call, she might as well just stay here, take care of things for Martha.

“Don’t worry,” Mehitabel was saying to Martha as she took Lucy to sit at the kitchen table. “I’ll make sure she’s fed and watered. Just like a horse,” she added with what Martha believed was humor of some sort.

“Well…” Martha was still uncertain.

“Oh do go
on,
Marthie,” Lucy said, impatient to get back on her phone. “I’m your assistant, aren’t I? This is what I do.” And she planted her muddy sneakers on another chair and got back to her phone.

Martha gave her a quick kiss and departed, still worried she was doing the right thing, leaving her alone with Mehitabel, in that remote house, while Lucy surveyed the kitchen with hungry eyes. She was always hungry.

Mehitabel knew Ahmet had fallen for Lucy; she had observed the way he looked at her, his delight in her presence, in her youth, the way he mentioned her name, dropping it in the conversation as though by chance. Mehitabel recognized an obsessed man and jealousy dripped through her veins like ice water. In all the years they had been together Ahmet had never so much as expressed any feeling for a woman. Coconspirators, they had known each other’s secrets and secret wishes; understood each other, until now, when Lucy Patron had arrived to separate them, turn Mehitabel’s perfect world upside down; make her future insecure and her innards churn with what she knew, for the first time in her life, was jealousy.

37

Martha’s apartment in London’s Chelsea was not far from Lucy’s basement apartment. She drove there now, already late to meet her friend and coworker, Morris Sorris. Right from the moment she had met Morris, two years before, she’d told him she would never believe he had not made up his own name. He had not denied this but said everybody remembered it so what was the problem. And it was true, people did remember. “It’s always on the tip of their tongue,” Morris declared, smiling, and he’d never yet told Martha what his real name was.

“Not who I used to be,” he corrected her when, devoured by curiosity, she’d asked him, saying how could anybody want to change their name to Morris Sorris.

“Easy. I’ll never be forgotten” was his answer, and of course he never was, though Martha often shortened it to Morrie Sorrie, which offended him deeply.

He was short, very thin, with the haunted eyes of his Spanish ancestry, a thatch of black hair that went every which way and that he swore he could not control, though Martha had caught him several times looking in the mirror and giving it a fluff with his fingers to catch that casual just-out-of-bed look. Which there was no doubt Morrie had: girls flocked to him; the phone calls were endless; the texts; the waylaying outside the house, until Martha was forced to ask him please to control his personal life and keep it out of the way of his work.

Morrie lived in a done-over apartment in an old brick building in a newly gentrified part of Brixton, which used to be where nobody dared set foot after dark, or even during daytime, but had now been cleaned up, money had moved in, taken over. All was well, in Morrie’s world, until his first encounter with Ahmet Ghulbian and the infamous Mehitabel.

They met at Marshmallows, where he had driven with Lucy, taking Martha’s place while she took care of the everlasting arrangements for the ball.

“Just check that everything has arrived, finally,” she told him. “You have the floor plans, you know where everything should go, you understand how the curtains should hang, that the lights are inset in the correct places, that the witch Mehitabel has not changed everything so she can blame the mess on me when Ahmet finally gets to approve it.”

“Shit,” Morrie said, bewildered. “I thought you were working with him. She’s just the assistant, isn’t she?”

“Trust me, she’ll let you know exactly who she is, and exactly who you are on the scale of things. Don’t take it to heart,” she added with a laugh. “We’ve all been there. Mehitabel is a cow.”

“Hmm, I could probably think of a better c-word, though I won’t say it in your company.”