One Way or Another: A Novel (29 page)

50

Of course, the party’s finale was a fireworks display, bigger and better than the ones seen before, thirty minutes of glorious light and color and explosions, set off by the amplified music of Tchaikovsky’s rowdy 1812 Overture, then, so gently, so perfectly when it was over, to Chopin piano études played on two white grand pianos on deck by a pair of music students to whom Ahmet had awarded scholarships; the girl lovely and composed in a long silvery dress, the young man intense and concentrated in black tie.

“The perfect ending,” Marco said to Martha. “However did you dream it up?”

“But I didn’t, it was Ahmet’s idea. He’s a surprising man under that powerful façade. Sometimes I could believe there’s even a heart there.”

Marco was still wondering if he would be able to capture all facets of Ahmet’s personality, of his true being, on canvas. He knew he would have his work cut out for him because Ahmet was already calling the shots, about where he should pose, the chair he wanted to use, the jacket he would wear, even the lighting, something Marco considered his sole privilege to decide.

The next afternoon when Marco arrived for his appointment the yacht looked completely different; the flags and pennants were reduced to only what was necessary to identify the craft, and instead of expensively clad and bejeweled guests, a work crew was slung over the side sluicing down the ship. The lovely scent of orange blossom had been replaced by that of window cleaner and the buckets of flowers were massed in the stern ready to be sent to the local hospitals and old people’s homes. The leftover food had already been donated to homeless shelters and the wines and champagnes returned to their air-cooled storage. Martha’s work had not ended with the party; she was also the one who organized the cleanup. She was, Marco realized, very good at her job.

“Well, so there you are.” Ahmet glanced impatiently at his watch.

Marco had not thought he was late or that there was any urgency about being spot on time, though mostly he was, because after all he was “the hired help”; he was being paid for what he did and he owed the buyer respect. Still, five minutes here or there could not be deemed “late.” Irritated, he followed Ahmet into the long, light-filled salon where Ahmet had the chair arranged.

“I’ll sit here,” Ahmet told him, “with the light coming over my left shoulder from the window. I think it’s best to have a full portrait of me seated rather than from only the waist up; it’ll give people a better sense of who I am.”

Marco raised his brow ever so slightly as he went to inspect the chair, a lovely mellow old piece in walnut, which he thought perfect. “A man of good taste,” he said, softening toward Ahmet.

Ahmet agreed, immodestly, Marco thought as he set up his palette, then adjusted the already impatient Ahmet in his chair, the better to catch the light
he
saw, not Ahmet’s choice, which made him even more testy and irritable, until Marco finally lost patience.

“Sir, we could replan this sitting if it would suit you better. Make it next week, next month perhaps, when you are less preoccupied.”

“And what does my being ‘preoccupied,’ as you call it, matter to a painter? Can you not see the man I am, not what I’m thinking about?”

Marco eyed him steadily. “Usually, but this time, I’m not sure. I’m not certain I’m seeing what I’m looking for, only what you want to show me.”

Ahmet looked silently back. Of course what Marco had said was true, not only of now, but always. “It’s who I am,” he said, giving Marco that genial smile. “As they say, what you see is what you get.”

Marco busied himself setting up his palette of grays, sage-greens, browns, somber tones to be under-lit with soft white and ochre. Ahmet was a very masculine man, almost brutal deep inside somewhere, and he needed to capture that with his choices. It occurred to him he had no idea what color Ahmet’s eyes were. He glanced up, realizing of course the reason he didn’t know was because Ahmet always wore the dark glasses, wherever he was, day or night.

“I need to paint you without the glasses,” he said.

“But why?” Ahmet was disturbed. “I’ve always worn them, they’re a part of me by now. Everybody knows me with my glasses.”

Marco stood in front, assessing him. “It’s said, and I believe it to be true, that you know a man by his eyes. To me, seeing is the most important of the five senses. You know what you see, you understand the person into whose eyes you are looking. But of course,
you
know that.” He laughed, lightening up the suddenly too-serious mood. “We look into a woman’s eyes and see ourselves reflected there, in her mind, or hopefully who we believe we are.”

“And that’s the man you’re going to paint. The man I believe I am. Is that good enough for you, Mr. Mahoney?”

Marco raised his brows, he was back to being Mr. Mahoney; he knew he was in trouble. Whatever was upsetting Ahmet he needed to unleash it on someone, and Marco happened to be the only one there, until Mehitabel appeared.

Ahmet was sitting bolt upright in his chair like a man about to be interrogated, stiff and uneasy with the whole situation. He spun round when he heard the door, saw Mehitabel standing there in her newly acquired style of loose gray flannel slacks and white silk shirt, her hair scraped back with tortoise combs, wearing pink-tinted sunglasses, and obviously taken aback by Ahmet’s fury.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” he demanded. “Can’t you see I’m busy. And since when did you enter without permission? You’d better remember you work for me, Mehitabel, or very soon you won’t.”

Marco heard the underlying anger, saw that Mehitabel was afraid and knew he could not stay.

“If you’ll excuse me,” he said stiffly, “I’d rather reschedule.”

Without a word, Ahmet got up and left and so did Mehitabel. Marco quickly packed his palette, his tubes of paint, his brushes and knives back into their bag, stacked the canvases against the wall, and made his exit.

The deck outside was empty, not a crew member in sight. The yacht was desolate-looking after the wonderful party the night before and it made Marco wonder suddenly if Ahmet had a true friend in the world. He seemed a man seriously alone, and with dangerous thoughts.

Seabirds circled overhead as he strode down the jetty, then stood for a moment, taking it all in, the blue-gray sky, the hovering clouds that foretold a storm, the expensive boats that cost more to run than most men made in a year, the casual easy gloss that money gave. He looked back at the yacht, thinking about its owner and how empty his life seemed, and thought how fortunate a man he himself was to have everything he wanted from his own life, the woman he loved, the job he loved, the little dog he adored. He was, he knew, a very lucky man.

He hurried down the jetty, jolting to a stop when he caught a sound, a cry of distress, a wail almost. He looked around, saw nothing, no one, only the seabirds wheeling overhead with their harsh cawing. That was all it was, the seabirds. Then why did he feel so uneasy? And why did he feel like he needed a shower and a drink?

51

Morrie had departed the sunny south of France and was back, alone, at Marshmallows, exactly where he’d sworn never to be again, measuring the deep architraves at the windows for curtains, a job that had been forgotten on his earlier visit. To say he was annoyed was an understatement; he was livid with fury. The job should have rightly been done by a minor helper, one of the young women who showed up to help out for free while learning from a famous designer so they could then put in their CVs their time spent working with Martha Patron, and the houses they had “worked” on, which meant a lot of the time fetching the coffee and buns, taxiing round to pick up forgotten stuff, and remembering to turn out the lights at the end of the day. And, dammit, measuring up for curtains, though they could not always be trusted to get that right.

Anyhow, this house gave Morrie the creeps. He’d sat for ten whole minutes in his bright blue Volkswagen Beetle, staring at the forbidding façade, with its odd mixture of gray wood and stone, the curved gray roof tiles and the spiky nest atop a chimney. No birds today though; he wondered if they had given up on the place too. God knows why Ghulbian wanted to live here, just the view from the windows was a nightmare, the flat watery meadows and sodden brown mud. Even the trees lining the drive were pathetic, stunted and struggling, their branches bare. Certainly no place for a bird’s nest.

It was beginning to rain as he stepped out of the car, a thin sputter at first then it came down fast, turning the gravel driveway into mud puddles. Everything needed doing at this house, even the gravel needed replacing. Morrie decided he would take care of that first, fuck what Ghulbian said. If he expected workers to get to his house the man needed gravel or there’d be too many tow trucks showing up to haul folks out. He wondered why Martha had not thought of that, but guessed she had been there only on fine days and it might not have occurred to her.

He shrugged into his parka, put up the hood, and strode to the steps, knocked again on the door. He did not expect anyone to answer, nobody was supposed to be there, but after last time’s scary fiasco with Mehitabel he was not taking any chances.

Of course no one answered. Martha had given him a key, a big old-fashioned iron one that, in fact, he thought suited the house better than brass Yale locks. This key let you into a mansion fit for a king; well, if not a king, then a rich man.

He started with the tall windows in the front hall, then went from room to room doing what he had to. He was an expert and he was fast. Every measurement, complete with description and photo, went on his iPad. He had not been contracted to do any upstairs work but anyhow he walked up to the landing and took a look at the splendid stained-glass window, which he was certain must be the work of Rossetti, the most famous artist in that medium, or at least have been done by a member of his team. There was a clarity to the glass, a gleam of pure color that lit the hall like a medieval castle.

It made him curious about what he might find farther up those stairs. Of course he’d been told not to go there, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t. He didn’t exactly pound up the stairs but he went quickly, nervous because he was doing something forbidden and because the whole place was menacing and he didn’t know what he might find.

The stairs were carpeted in red, patterned in a sort of paisley motif that he knew must have almost brought Martha to tears it was so ugly, but the upper landing was of planked wood with here and there a Turkish-looking rug, again mainly in red. He stopped to take a few pictures on his cell; noted down a few measurements, justifying his presence in a place he was not supposed to be anyway. Then he walked along the upper hall where doors stood open onto bedrooms, mostly with huge dark four-posters plumped with plain white duvets, then on up the next flight to the attics. The steps were narrower here. There were just two doors. Right or left? Being right-handed he chose the one on the right.

A small bed was pushed up against the wall; a tossed-back blanket; a small pile of clothing on the floor; a flowered dress that looked as though it had been dragged through water; a comb thrown aside, a few strands of red hair still clinging to it. There was a small table and on it a tray with a bowl of what had once been soup, a molding crust of bread, and a glass of what looked to be red wine. The repast of a Parisian poet, a prisoner in his garret, Morrie thought. Except this was not Paris, it was Marshmallows and it was in the middle of nowhere and he was scared as hell.

He was out of that room and down those narrow stairs, galloping two at a time down the next flight, tripping on the goddamn awful red patterned carpet and out that fuckin’ door, not even bothering to turn and slam it. He was out of there and this time he would never return.

He’d quit working for Martha if necessary. And he would warn her not to go to Marshmallows by herself. Something bad was going on, she should not be there alone. Somebody had been kept prisoner and he himself might have been the next.

He looked back before he turned out the gates, remembering the last time when he had seen the light in the attic window. Whoever that “prisoner” was had been alive then. Now he was sure that prisoner was not.

Brixton and the pub drew him like a magnet. He would watch the football on TV, have a pint, a sausage sandwich, be normal, goddammit. And that was final.

52

Ahmet could not bear the sight of Angie, skeletal, bald, seeming sunken into herself. He spent endless hours on deck thinking of her, kept in solitary confinement in a cabin below, which was surely far more luxurious an accommodation than she had ever been used to. He’d deliberately asked Mehitabel to give her the most important guest suite, the one Martha disliked so much with its quilted blue silk walls and golden window shades, which were sufficient, right now, to cut out daylight and also prevent anyone from seeing in. Ahmet was alone on board but for the crew member on duty-watch who kept discreetly out of his way, as did all the crew when their boss was around.

Angie was proving to be a bigger problem than he had anticipated and the reason, he admitted to himself now, was that he needed her. Angie had become his toy, to be played with any way he wanted. Mehitabel was the jailer, taking care of all her needs, telling the crew they had a sick guest on board who was here to rest and must not be disturbed. The crew were trained to be discreet, never to question, not to see what they were not supposed to see. It worked, when you were rich enough and they were paid enough.

Ahmet looked round at his yacht, at the length of gleaming rail that was polished every morning at dawn, at the pristine teak deck, the fresh white paint. Of course the yacht needed Martha’s touch, which it would have soon, in a couple of days’ time, which meant he’d have to get rid of Angie before then.
How
was the problem that now faced him.

He was not a man who liked bloodshed; he had learned in his brutalized youth there were better ways to achieve what you wanted than a knife to the throat, and anyway that was spectacularly messy, as he also remembered from his Cairo back-alley days when he’d seen a man killed right in front of him. Ahmet had gone to the souk to visit a shop specializing in knives, though what he wanted was simple, a small pearl-handled flick knife he might keep in a pocket, just in case. He never specified to himself what “in case” meant, only that situations existed in the place where he lived and the “boy” he was then had to be prepared if he were to survive to manhood; not a given in those days. Many died young, through violence or disease, or else simply “disappeared.” As Angie must do now. And while he thought about it, the best place was of course the original location where he had almost done the deed but for some reason, pleasure mostly, he guessed, had not been able to finish.