One Way or Another: A Novel (23 page)

“You might though, in hers.”

Lucy was sitting next to him as they drove up to Marshmallows, between the avenue of stunted trees that looked, Morrie thought, taking a quick glance from side to side, like something from a Disney movie where the witch might be seen floating over the top. Mehitabel, in fact, he guessed.

“Well, so here we are at last,” he said, climbing out, then grabbing his jacket from the backseat and slipping it on. He’d thought the Harris tweed appropriate for a country estate, but looking at this one he changed his mind; a top hat and tails, morning dress, might have been more appropriate.

“Do those birds always sit there, watching?” he asked Lucy, staring warily at the herons who had their claws wrapped around the curved edge of the roof tiles and were glaring menacingly at them.

“They just think we might be after their babies,” Lucy said. “They’re not dangerous. It’s that woman we have to watch out for.” But she laughed as she said it; very little upset Lucy.

To her surprise, the door was flung open by a manservant she’d never before seen before they had even mounted the four stone steps that led to a pillared porch, so obviously an addition Lucy wondered what Martha was going to do about it. It would have to go, she was sure of that.

“Hi,” she said, “we’re the decorators.” The man looked at her blankly. “From London,” she added. “Patrons, that is. Mr. Sorris and I—Lucy Patron—have come to check work progress.” Still he said nothing, made no move to let them in. “Mr. Ghulbian wanted us to check everything,” she added, her voice faltering a bit; she had never before encountered such a silent reception.

“I must check that with Mr. Ghulbian,” the man said abruptly, and shut the door in their faces.

“Shit!” Morrie said. “What the fuck’s up with him, then?”

Lucy was already on her cell, calling her sister. “Buggie-wuggie, Marthie,” she said when Martha answered, “they wouldn’t let us in.”

“Who wouldn’t?”

“Some full-of-himself guy in a morning suit pretending to be a butler. My bet, though, is he’s just out of prison.”

She heard Martha laugh. “I’ll call Mehitabel,” she said.

“That cow,” Lucy said.

“Don’t worry, the cow will let you in, I’ll make sure of that. And Lucy, while you’re there, try and sneak upstairs, why don’t you? It’s like they have a yellow police tape at the bottom of that staircase, and God forbid you should try to get past it.”

“Mmm, skeletons in the attic?”

“I surely hope not, but something’s up. Anyway, you see what you can find out.”

“The ex-jailbird in the morning suit is back,” Lucy said. “Don’t worry, big sister, I know this house like the back of my hand by now. Well, the kitchen quarters, anyhow. I’ll demand to see upstairs.”

“And I’m calling Ahmet to tell him you are going to do just that.”

38

ANGIE

When I came around I was lying in a low tub. The water was cool and came up to my neck; only my head stuck out above. Instantly, I panicked. I was drowning again, going down into that bridesmaid’s velvet blue, deeper into azure, darker into cobalt.…

“Sit up, for God’s sake, why don’t you,” a voice snarled at me.

I felt Mehitabel’s hand under the back of my bald head, gripping, viselike, to stop me I supposed from simply sliding back underwater again. I wished she would let go. Wished everyone would simply let go. I wanted to leave, didn’t they know that by now, that I could take no more; that death was easier, softer, the gentler way out. Though out of what I had no idea, no concept, no inkling of what I was involved in.

My voice came back, throaty, raspy, yet my own, and I heard myself say: “What do you know about God, anyway. Just let go of my fuckin’ head you fuckin’ bitch and I’ll happily go away.”

I never cursed, well, only when I was pissed off at female customers in the bar when they gave me the superior stare, the up-and-down, look-at-that-poor-bitch look, that made me want to throw their stupid cosmos in their faces and to hell with the job. But now I had no job, no drink to throw at anybody, no strength left anyway to so much as lift an arm to throw anything. Yet inside I burned with the new raw energy of hate.

Mehitabel tugged my neck harder, jerking me upward ’til I thought my spine must surely break. To my astonishment I realized I was still wearing the ragged silken dress I’d had on when Ahmet beat me.
Beat me to the ground
. How I’d hated myself for falling like that, allowing him to believe he had won, that I was simply another of his girls; girls I was certain now he’d tortured and murdered. How could I have ever become involved? How could I have ever believed a man like him, a billionaire, a man who had everything, who could have any woman, would want me, the lowly, ordinary hostess with the passable looks and the good legs. Thinking about legs, I realized there was a pain in my left leg, a deeper pain than anything I was feeling elsewhere, which was pretty much all over after the whipping I had endured. This was bone pain; the ankle, I thought, twitching it lightly, snatching back the scream as the extra jolt of pain seared through me. Dear God, could it be broken? And if it were, then how was I ever to escape? To run, you needed two legs.

“Shut up, cunt,” Mehitabel said. She was soaping a sponge with a eucalyptus-scented oil which she proceeded to rub, so tenderly I thought she must have made a mistake, around my neck, over my breasts, softening the soapy sponge under my arms. She could go no further, because the rest of me was underwater, where, I had no doubt, clean though I might be from her ministrations, I would soon drown. I hated the thought of the soapy bubbles in my nose, in my head, in my throat. I would so much have preferred the clear clean azure of that Aegean Sea.

“Lift your left leg,” she commanded.

I obeyed, flinching as she took the injured ankle in her hand and bent closer to inspect it. I thought I felt blood seeping, and she must have seen that because she tut-tutted and shook her head, Medusa curls bouncing as she dropped my leg back into the water, whereupon I yelled in pain.

“Oh, God,” she said, sounding weary. “Will you never shut up?”

I turned my eyes on her, saw an iron-willed, beautiful woman, inflexible in her evil desires, a sadistic torturer, a cold-hearted killer, and yet now she was treating me with the tenderness of a mother with an injured child. Apart from her language, of course.

She twisted out the bath plug and sat back on her heels. We both listened silently to the water gurgling down the drain. When it was gone and I lay there, unable to move in the suddenly chilling empty tub, she got to her feet, came and stood behind me, put her arms under my shoulders and hefted me out so easily I was astounded. Of course I weighed very little by now, but even so I was a dead weight coming out of that tub. This woman had the strength of two men.

Now I remembered the sting of the lash, and every inch of my flesh where the whip had struck shivered with fresh pain. I wanted to cry with it but would not, I simply would not give her the pleasure. I found my courage from somewhere. If I were to die, it would be silently, I swore that, made a promise to myself, and my mom.

She pushed me onto a small padded stool, flung a towel over my emaciated body with a look on her face that told me she could not bear even to look at me, then told me to dry myself. My skin throbbed. Everywhere I patted, everywhere I rubbed, it stung, sometimes like a knife searing through me, and I had not yet even tried to put any weight on my ankle.

I glanced at Mehitabel, who was walking toward me carrying a small red box with a white cross on it and the words “First Aid.” I thought how ridiculous it was, as though I’d fallen in the playground and grazed my knee. I had been flogged, beaten, almost drowned, and here was my sweet little lifesaver with her red first-aid kit.

She knelt in front of me, took my left ankle in both hands, turned it, inspecting it, causing me untold agony. I kept my mouth shut. I knew she enjoyed causing me pain and I was not about to give her further pleasure. Instead I said, “You should have used the rifle on me. It would have been quicker, served the same purpose.”

She glanced up, surprised. Her eyes were glass-green, remarkable, quite beautiful in fact, rimmed with thick, dark lashes.

“But don’t you understand yet, that ‘pleasure’ is to be taken slowly? Killing fast is a momentary thing, felt for a mere instant, before shock comes in. No, no, oh no, my dear beautiful Angie, the pleasure of pain is lengthy, extended, to be taken to the very final degree of time before the end comes. We have not yet reached that place with you.”

She actually smiled at me, then “Later, we will, though,” she said.

With weird bravado I heard myself reply, “Is that a promise?”

She eyed me for a long moment, my ankle clasped between her two hands. “Believe me, Angie, you will want me to keep that promise.” And she gave the ankle a vicious twist that sent pain rocketing, and sweat beaded my bald head.

I was a wreck. I was a “non-woman.” I was “nothing.” With all that was left of me, of my heart, I wished I was dead.

It was not to be. The ankle was bound, something injected into my arm, and I drifted in another world.

39

Lucy was bored, sitting in the kitchen at Marshmallows. Morris was off somewhere in all that murky greenness inspecting the grounds, after which he would drive himself home, alone, while she was to go with Ahmet. She had made a few fruitless phone calls, unable to find the pizza guy, and was worried he’d dumped her, and that perhaps he thought she was a slut because after all she had gone that one step, or rather
hand,
too far, and that was the truth. Yet other girls did more, worse, and didn’t consider themselves sluts, merely “mortal” with “feelings.” Lucy had to admit she liked the feelings part but was finding it tough dealing with the rejection, which she had no doubt was what was happening to her right now.

“Oh, God, oh God,” she moaned, staring at her useless phone, what good was a phone without a number for Phillip Kurtiz the Third, or “Junior” as his family called him in America. Shit, she could never go out with a “Junior,” she’d rather die. Which she was afraid anyhow she might do, of a broken heart, of course.

And anyhow, what was she doing, all alone here in this big creepy house in the middle of nowhere? Where was that woman, Mehitabel? Where was
Ahmet,
who was supposed to give her a lift back to town again? She had all the notes, safe on her iPad, and the samples stuffed into the worn green canvas messenger bag she wore slung across her body, the way they used to in World War I. She had seen that in old movies, terrifically sad, of course, but the uniforms with those Sam Browne wide polished belts and the bags like this were a terrific design. And now she was involved in the design business, she had become more aware of small details like that. Besides, it was handy for keeping all her stuff.

Water gurgled in the uncovered pipes over her head still awaiting their plaster casing. It sounded like a bathtub running out. She wondered who on earth could be taking a bath in this empty house. And then she heard footsteps.

Terrified, she was on her feet, bag in one hand, other hand clasped to her throat, when the door was flung open and Mehitabel strode in on spiky red heels that Lucy knew must have cost a fortune, though how she had time to evaluate that when she was half scared out of her wits she did not know.

“Shit,”
she said. “You frightened me.”

Mehitabel looked her up and down as though she was taking in every scruffy detail, even though Lucy had on her favorite ripped jeans, her best gray sweatshirt with “ApplePie” written on it in red, and her new sneakers that were now covered in mud and had lost their “new sneaker” look.

Mehitabel did not apologize for startling her, merely lifted a shoulder and walked across to the sink where she proceeded to wash her hands.

Lucy watched silently. Mehitabel made her nervous. “So, when do you expect Ahmet back?” she finally said, sinking back into the chair and clasping the messenger bag protectively over her chest, as if she thought the woman might come at her with a knife or something.

Mehitabel still said nothing. Her back to Lucy, she ripped off two sheets of paper towel from the rack and dried her hands carefully. Next, she ran her hands through her hair, lifting her curls from her neck as though she were too warm, shaking her head so they fell into what Lucy thought was a perfect place. She envied that hair. Her own long blond locks were now damp and stringy with strands clinging persistently to her face. She wondered if there was a comb somewhere in the vast cavern of that messenger bag, where contents might be lost for weeks on end, which is why, she guessed, women carried small dainty little purses containing only a lipstick, a credit card, and a comb.

Mehitabel swung round. Leaning back against the sink, one ankle crossed over the other elegantly strapped ankle, she said, “So tell me, Lucy, since you are now a decorator, what do you think of Marshmallows?”

As always, honesty brought the truth from Lucy’s mouth, without so much as an instant to think first.

“When we first came it was bad. I mean, it was pretty messed up, all gloomy and dark. Kinda creepy, in fact,” she added with a giggle that filtered the reality of what she said. “Of course, Martha and I have still not seen upstairs yet, for all I know it may be filled with sweetness and light. Or bodies.”

Mehitabel’s mouth curved into what Lucy could have sworn was a smile and she smiled back, delighted to get some response.

“Filled with sweetness and light,” Mehitabel said. “Sort of like yourself, Lucy. Isn’t that what people say about you?”

“Certainly not, they don’t! I’ll bet nobody’s ever said anything like that about me. More likely ‘get a move on, Lucy, why don’t you.’” She grinned, laughing at herself because she knew it was true: she wasn’t lazy, exactly, she just liked to take her own time with things.

Mehitabel pushed herself off the sink. Looking at Lucy, she sauntered toward her on those spiky red heels, hands on her hips. Eyes narrowed, she seemed to take Lucy in, to delve into her brain, hypnotizing her into scared immobility.