Aniela wanted, very badly, to kiss his fingers; it was a release from temptation when he removed his hand and sat down docilely on the toilet seat, tilting his head up to give her access to his bandages.
‘I’ll just rewrap them,’ she said, careful now of what she said, after Jon’s warning that a Russian oligarch was perfectly capable of bugging his guest bathrooms. ‘Make sure they don’t come loose.’
‘That sounds like a good idea,’ he said as she began to unwrap the stretchy fabric. The bathroom was just for guests, and not even the most favoured ones, who would be ushered into Grigor’s private quarters, but it had been done out more expensively than most of London’s five-star hotels. Dark and luxurious, its suite – basin, bidet and toilet – was black, with gold-plated taps, its wallpaper chocolate shantung silk and its floor tiles darker chocolate marble. An oversized Millefiori diffuser in a recessed shelf – narrow reeds in an elegant bottle full of pale orange, mandarin-scented oil – perfumed the room exquisitely.
But for all Aniela noticed of her luxurious surroundings, they might as well have been a grimy, mould-stained loo in the back of a cheap café, smelling of drains and damp. She was standing between Jon’s spread legs, touching his scalp, his face close to her breasts as she bent over him, and all she could see, all she could smell, was him.
It’s this he wants to hide, she knew as she wrapped the bandage lightly but firmly around his scalp and under his chin. That was the first thing he did, cover this scar. It was a giveaway, that scar, the way it ran from ear to ear around the top of his skull; not impossible that his face should have been so messed up in a car accident that he had to have total reconstruction, but still, it draws a lot of attention. It makes people wonder. And remember it, years after.
Whereas a face wrapped in bandages is just that. Much less hard to recognise or identify. Jon thinks really quickly.
It took her a bare minute to redo the bandages, twisting and tucking the end in so deftly that she was sure it couldn’t be dislodged except if it were done deliberately. She allowed herself the luxury of waiting, just a moment, after she’d finished, hoping that he would pull her close, hold her tight, take this opportunity to snatch a kiss, but he didn’t, and she stepped back just in time to avoid looking as if she’d been waiting for one.
‘There you go,’ she said, turning to leave the bathroom.
She didn’t even hear Jon move, but the next second he was beside her, reaching out to open the door, his American manners much better than the average Englishman’s. As she passed, he took her hand and lifted it to his lips.
‘Thank you for taking such good care of me,’ he said softly.
‘You’re welcome,’ Aniela muttered, and felt herself go red all over again. She shot down the corridor as fast as she could go on her clunky shoes, resisting the urge to lift her hand to her own mouth, to kiss her fingers where his lips had just been. It was with huge relief that she saw a waiter stationed at the entrance to the great room with a tray of champagne glasses; eagerly, she took one and drank a third of it in one swift pull, trusting to her hard Polish head to keep her relatively sober.
Across the room, a Japanese couple, standing beside the swan and looking very smart and very uncomfortable, stared at her, exchanged a swift babble of words and then politely bowed to her, presumably in respect for the uniform. Out on the snow-covered terrace – did it snow when I wasn’t looking? – she made out the small, stocky figure of Wayne Burns, chatting to the Dales, and a large, bullet-headed man smoking an enormous cigar; two bodyguards were hovering beside them, looking a lot more interested in the conversation than they were focused on protecting the man who clearly had to be their employer. On the far side of the terrace leaned a slight girl in a navy dress, slumped over the balcony rail, looking as if she had no interest in any of the jolly revels that were about to unfold, and inside, lying on one of the recliners, was an equally thin Japanese boy, black straight hair tumbling over his pale face, thumbing away at some kind of tiny, hi-tech, streamlined game that Aniela had never even seen before.
These people are all super-rich, she thought. It’s probably some prototype that’ll cost thousands when it finally comes out.
Another group of Russians were being ushered in by a small, deferential man who was practically bowing and scraping as he organised the removal of their lush fur coats and furnished them with drinks. The men were short, ugly, and authoritative, the women tall and statuesque in tight Alaïa bandage dresses, their hair long and flowing. They were either models of twenty-five and under, or first wives who from the back looked thirty, and from the front – and a discreet distance – forty-five. Which probably means they’re fifty-five, Aniela thought from her experience working at the Canary Clinic.
‘Merry Christmas everyone!’ Grigor’s entrance, trailed by Andy and another couple of bodyguards, was focal, dramatic: he strode in, the Santa hat giving him a few extra inches of stature, the red and white widening him, making him look like a large post-box trimmed in fur with a big white beard and an even bigger white smile. ‘God rest ye merry gentlemen! And ladies!’ he said happily.
His arm was thrown around a slender young man whose straight hair was parted in the centre and fell around his face. The nouveau-hippy style only chimed with his simultaneous attempt at mutton-chop whiskers if you were living in one of America’s counter-culture hipster centres – Portland, Seattle, or Brooklyn. The young man’s concave chest, vegan-pale skin, loose, baggy shirt and inexpensive dark trousers all added confirmation that this was the look at which he was aiming. Anything more of a contrast with Grigor’s opulent, fur-trimmed, custom-made suit could not have been imagined.
‘Look who is joining us! Such a nice surprise! My son, Dmitri, all the way from America!’ Grigor announced, much like a king presenting a crown prince to the assembled court. ‘How happy this makes me!’
The people on the terrace had come inside, summoned to greet their host by Sergei, who had dashed to call them in. The Russians all exclaimed delightedly in their native language, coming forward to kiss Dmitri or clap him on his back; he was so narrow-shouldered and thin that he visibly wilted under some of the men’s enthusiastic shoulder-slaps. Mr Fyodorov was particularly vigorous, sending Dmitri staggering forward a good foot.
‘We are all here!’ Grigor threw his arms wide. ‘Family, friends, neighbours, strangers who will become friends! How nice this is!’
He repeated this speech in Russian, and beckoned everyone to the table. Then a flash of green, heading for the door, caught his eye: Andy, having brought all Grigor’s guests upstairs, was exiting to resume normal concierge duties.
‘But what is this? Andy, where are you going?’ Grigor exclaimed, his wide-thrown arms now circling to encompass the sleigh-train, the decorations, the snow outside. ‘My favourite elf, who makes Santa’s dreams come true – you must stay here and celebrate with us! Sergei, make a place for Andy at once!’
The little secretary, who had been beaming with pleasure at the sight of his boss’s happiness, his face turned worshipfully up to Grigor’s, darkened like a storm cloud on hearing these words. He stared at Grigor in shock, as if hoping that he had just imagined what he had been told to do.
‘Go! Quick!’ Grigor barked, flapping at him.
Sergei turned to shoot Andy a glance of utter loathing, before scuttling over to a waiter and rattling off a series of swift instructions. Andy, Aniela noticed, looked genuinely taken aback; he clearly hadn’t expected the invitation, and hesitated, suddenly looking embarrassingly conspicuous in the green costume. Sergei, zipping around as quickly as a buzzing bee, made sure that all the guests whose invitations were of long standing found their seats at the upper part of the table.
Grigor, of course, was at the head, with Zhivana Fyodorova at one side and the tallest, blondest, most Donatella-Versace-resembling Russian woman on the other. Dmitri was next to Donatella Versace, Mr Fyodorov the other side of his daughter, probably because she looked too fragile and
shy to be able to make conversation with anyone else. The huge dark carved chair dwarfed Zhivana: she looked like a child in an adult’s seat, her spindly legs not quite reaching the floor, a pale little Alice in Wonderland without Alice’s forceful personality.
Muttering furiously to himself, Sergei did a surprisingly good job of arranging the motley crew who were sitting at the lower end of the table. Mr and Mrs Takahashi were next to each other, with their son Haruki beside Ashley Dale, with whom he might have been assumed to have something in common. Melody, being young and pretty and a celebrity to boot, had been placed next to Wayne, who had the best English speaker of the young model girlfriends on his other side. Aniela and Jon, who had the lowest status of all, were at the very foot of the table, facing each other.
‘You! Stupid elf! Here!’ Sergei snapped, picking up the oversized silver charger that marked each place setting and smacking it down on the heavily embroidered tablecloth. ‘You sit! Mr Khalovsky says you sit, so you sit!’
He stalked off, his skinny frame vibrating with rage, as Andy gingerly came forward, sliding into the chair that the waiter had pulled to the foot of the table, creating an extra place. Aniela smiled at him welcomingly, very happy to be seated beside him. She had no social ambitions of any kind, and would have been perfectly happy with this lowly position in any case, especially as it meant she didn’t have to make conversation with anyone who might look down on her for being a mere nurse. But since Jon had been seated opposite her, she was in bliss. She gave Jon a shy smile as one of the waiters came around to push in her heavy chair and place her red linen napkin on her lap.
‘Well, this is a turn-up for the books,’ Andy said a little nervously. He saw Wayne, higher up the table, grinning in welcome, and mouthed at him: ‘I just hope Sergei doesn’t tell ’em to poison my food...’
‘He does not like you,’ Aniela observed.
‘You’re not joking! I’ll be watching my back,’ Andy said, winking at her. Always polite, he turned to greet Jon, to whom he had not yet introduced himself. ‘Hi,’ he said. ‘I’m Andy, the concierge. You must be the other Clinic patient. Nice to see you out and about. You’ve been in the wars, mate!’
‘You have no idea,’ Jon said, his lips twitching in a smile. ‘D’you know who that is?’ Ashley, face ablaze with excitement, the spots on his neck now blending into the overall flush of pleasure, nudged Haruki Takahashi. ‘It’s only Wayne Burns! Is this the best Christmas ever, or what?’
‘I do not know who Wayne Burns is,’ Haruki said coldly.
‘Mate! He’s a footballer! Best footballer in the country, in my book! Where have you been?’
‘I don’t care about sports,’ the boy said even more coldly. ‘I like noir comics and ’90s trip-hop.’
‘Ooh, comics,’ Ashley said gamely, a well-brought-up and amiable young man. ‘I love ’em. What do you read?’
‘You wouldn’t have heard of them,’ Haruki said with a curl of his lip. ‘I like Yummy Fur. And Chew. And Red Colored Elegy. That’s manga, of course,’ he added with the specific, sarcastic pleasure a teenager takes in citing references he knows that stupid adults will never get.
Defeated, Ashley slumped back in the enormous chair as a waiter slid a gold-bordered china plate in front of him, on which several blinis were arranged, each topped heavily with caviar. Cut-glass bowls of crème fraîche were being placed along the table wherever the waiters could find room between all the decorations.
‘And that’s my brother Ashley,’ Melody was saying easily to Wayne; she had met plenty of famous people in her short career and was quite comfortable chatting to anyone. ‘He’s a massive footie fan.’
‘Oh yeah?’ Wayne, who had been looking surprisingly daunted by the prospect of having to make conversation either with a Russian model or an upcoming young actress, perked up instantly on hearing this. ‘Who d’you support then?’ he asked Ashley.
Five minutes later, Wayne, the Dale men and even Mr Takahashi were engaged in a lively conversation. Melody, happily sure that her brother and father were in total bliss, winked at her mother – at least my face can manage that without hurting, she thought ruefully – gestured at Ashley to slide his plate towards her, and ate all his caviar as well as her own, scraping it off the blinis. He’d hate it, and it was almost calorie-free.
Meanwhile Mrs Takahashi and Mrs Dale were finding some common ground; Mrs Takahashi was stinking rich, but Mrs Dale had a celebrity daughter, which gave them a more or less level playing field on which to engage.
‘Aww, everyone’s getting on well, aren’t they?’ Andy said delightedly, cutting off a piece of blini, topping it with a spoonful of crème fraîche and putting it into his mouth. He chewed and swallowed with a thoughtful expression. ‘This is really good,’ he said with the content of a satisfied gourmet: as a luxury concierge, he was used to being entertained gratis by the best restaurants in town, so that he could recommend them to his clients. ‘Only the absolute best for Mr K.’
‘I like it,’ Aniela said, rather surprised. ‘I have only had the salmon caviar before. You know, the big red eggs. Like plastic bubbles. They are not so nice.’
‘Don’t get used to it!’ Andy said, grinning, his handsome face so infectiously charming that it drew glances from all down the table. ‘This’d cost an arm and a leg if you tried to get it at Harrods.’
Aniela smiled back at him.
‘I will finish it all,’ she said contentedly. ‘And say thank you very much to Mr Khalovsky.’
‘Here,’ Jon said, handing his plate to her across the table decorations. ‘Knock yourself out. It’s not my thing.’
‘Really?’ Her face lit up, both at the extra treat and at Jon’s consideration. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Absolutely,’ he said, smiling back at her.
I must try not to be too happy, too excited, she told herself, taking the plate, unaware how excitement had put a sparkle in her eyes, on which Jon’s lingered appreciatively. But still – when a man kisses your hand and gives you food from his own plate, that is a sign that he likes you, I know. Not just that he wants to have sex with you. I may not have a lot of experience with men, but I know how to read people. Maybe he does actually like me.
‘Penny for them?’ Andy said.
She started.
‘Sorry?’
‘Penny for your thoughts, love!’ he said. ‘You were away with the fairies!’
Aniela’s English was very good, but her command of slang had temporarily deserted her, driven out by speculations about Jon’s feelings for her. She stared at Andy, totally confused as to what his question meant.
‘I think he’s asking what you were thinking about,’ Jon said. ‘But I could be wrong. I’m not that up in British slang expressions.’
‘Sorry!’ Andy said contritely to Aniela. ‘Your English is just so good, I didn’t mean to confuse you. Hey—’ he lowered his voice – ‘is everything all right with Melody? I was meaning to ask. Is it okay to use her real name now? And Kevin told me she was in a real state last night and you had to bring her back in and spend the night at hers. She seems a lot better today...’
That had been the excuse that Aniela had used that morning, passing Kevin, the doorman on duty, who had been naturally curious about why she was going back to the Clinic at six in the morning; Melody, who had been escorted back in a state of disarray the night before, had provided the perfect excuse. And it seemed fair, because without Melody’s having a minor breakdown, I wouldn’t have been in the building at all. I mean, even I wouldn’t have just gone to stand in front of Jon’s door without any reason at all to be in Limehouse Reach...
Or would I?
‘Yes!’ she said quickly, and it came out loudly enough to make Mr Dale, sitting on her other side, glance over for a second, briefly distracted from the football talk that was flying back and forth up and down the table. ‘Yes,’ she repeated, hoping she wasn’t blushing, turning her shoulder to Mr Dale and completely avoiding meeting Jon’s eyes. ‘S
he’s fine. It was just – well, it was late – very late – and I just thought – we just thought – I was really tired, and there was a spare bedroom, so I—’
‘Those mattresses are real comfy, aren’t they?’ Jon interrupted. ‘I’ve done a lot of travelling in my time, and mine’s one of the best I ever slept on. Did you like yours?’ he asked Aniela.
She narrowed her eyes at him for trying to embarrass her like this. So unfair! she thought crossly.
‘It was okay,’ she mumbled.
‘Just okay?’ Jon said, shaking his head. ‘That’s a shame. I can’t think of one I’ve found better, except of course for the Westin beds.’
‘Oh, those are famous, aren’t they?’ Andy agreed, turning to Jon. ‘I’ve had lots of clients rave about them.’
The waiter was filling Aniela’s wine glass with red wine, removing the now-empty vodka that had been served with the caviar. Their appetiser plates had been taken away, and now huge, loaded dinner plates the size of platters were being set in front of them. The chef had clearly taken the position that he had made enough food to feed a small village for a week, and thus served all his employer’s guests portions large enough for a whole family. Turkey, cranberry sauce, soufflé potatoes, green beans sautéed with garlic, herb and wild rice stuffing, a gratin of Brussels sprouts in cream and bacon served in a matching gold-rimmed ramekin.
Aniela’s eyes widened. Even back home in Poland, where portions were huge, she had never seen a feast like this. She glanced up the length of the table, and was very amused to observe that all the men were licking their lips, tucking their napkins into their shirt collars and looking down at their plates with greedy anticipation, while the woman, without exception, were either overwhelmed or downright disdainful. Mrs Takahashi and every single one of the Russian wives and girlfriends were actually rearing back from their plates as if they expected to be summarily force-fed from them if they didn’t immediately register their unwillingness. Zhivana even reached out a slender pale hand and pushed her plate a little away from her.
Bad Angels Page 25