Lace

by Shirley Conran

  “Maxie! Maxie!” She recognised the urgency in Pagan’s voice. Stumbling out of bed, she felt her way through the unfamiliar moonlit room to the door, which she cautiously opened, shielding her naked body behind it.

  Pagan stood there in her oversized green tweed coat. “D’you realise it’s nearly midnight? You said Pierre would bring you back before supper, but we didn’t really worry until bedtime.”

  “Mon Dieu,” gasped Maxine. “I mean, sheet, then they know I’m missing!”

  “No, when Matron did the lights-out round, Kate just said you were in the bathroom, then we waited until everyone had gone to bed and tossed a franc to see who’d come to look for you. I lost, so Kate crept off with her flashlight to the office and lifted the back door key off the hook and she’s waiting to let us in again. Four fast knocks at the kitchen window is the signal. For heaven’s sake, hurry!”

  Trembling, Maxine scrambled into her ski clothes without waking Pierre. The two girls tiptoed along the passage, down the creaking wooden stairs and into the street. Without speaking, hands in their pockets, they ran clumsily through the snow as fast as they could, sometimes stumbling, sometimes skidding on an icy patch.

  As they approached the dark bulk of the school chalet, the road was suddenly lit by the oncoming lights of a lone, slow car. Then the car stopped abruptly, and to their horror, the headlights were switched full onto them. As they drew level, a window slid down and a man leaned out. “Well, well,” he said cheerily, “been visiting the nightclubs?”

  It was Paul, the headmaster’s driver. “Get in the back,” he said sharply. They scrambled in, then Paul turned and put one arm on the backseat as he grinned at the two white-faced girls who knew they faced expulsion.

  “Why go back now? Why not come out with me to a real nightclub? I know one where you won’t be recognised and you’ll be safe with me.”

  “No, it will only get us into worse trouble,” muttered Maxine, remembering what Nick had said about Paul. But Pagan’s first thought was that if she went with Paul, he’d be a fellow conspirator; he wouldn’t be able to tell Chardin. They wouldn’t be expelled.

  She summoned up her courage. “Maxine had better go in as someone will be waiting for us. I’ll come with you, but how will I get back?”

  “I’ve got a key, of course.”

  With an anxious backward look, Maxine slipped out of the car and ran through the snow to the back door. The blue Jaguar slid off through the snow.

  But Paul didn’t drive to a nightclub. He drove right through the town and then out the other side.

  “Hey!” Pagan said, sitting upright, as they drew up at a lone chalet. “Is this a nightclub?”

  “No, it’s my home,” Paul said, “it’s safer than a nightclub. We’ll just have one drink, then I’ll take you back to school.”

  Pagan looked out of the car. She could no longer see the lights of Gstaad, and she had no idea where she was, so she obediently followed Paul into the little chalet and found herself in a surprisingly modern living room. There were groups of low, chrome-framed chairs; abstract pictures hung in huge silver frames; a lifesize marble statue of a male torso stood candle-white against the black walls.

  Pagan blinked as astonishment overcame fatigue. Still in her coat, she stood silently in the middle of the room as Paul prepared a silver cocktail shaker. He shook it, poured the contents into a tumbler and handed it to Pagan. It smelled like soap and dry-cleaning fluid, though Paul said it was brandy and vodka with a dash of something special. Better keep friendly with him, Pagan thought—but the only way she was going to be able to drink the stuff was to hold her breath and knock it back. She did so. She spluttered, felt her legs grow weak, then passed out.

  Pagan wished her stomach would keep still. She didn’t think she’d ever be able to lift her head again. Carefully she opened her eyes. There was a shower of bright lights. She shut them again. She was dizzy; she was going to be sick; she seemed to have no control over her limbs. She felt cold steel on her wrist and heard a click. . . . What did the man imagine he was doing?

  Paul had handcuffed her to the bedpost.

  “And now the other hand. Just so you don’t do anything imprudent, miss.”

  Pagan felt too weak to think. She shut her eyes again, and couldn’t decide whether she felt worse with her eyes open or shut. She was freezing cold and she had no clothes on. She wished she understood what was happening . . . wished that Paul would leave her alone. . . . What was the bloody man going to do?

  “I’m just going to stroke you, that’s all that will happen, then I’ll take you back to school. You don’t really want to get up now, do you? You don’t really want to stop me, do you? You can’t, can you? You like it, don’t you?”

  And Pagan did like the soothing, soft, catlike strokes on her breast, on her ribs, on her stomach. She tried opening her eyes again and saw that Paul was lying beside her, naked, on black sheets. His sleek head propped on one hand, an amused detached smile on his face, Paul was stroking her with a black feather. She shut her eyes again. Then he slid softly off the bed and Pagan felt something else, a snaking sensation on her thighs.

  She opened her eyes again and got a frontal view of her first erection. Paul’s naked body was poised over her, legs apart, and, no, it just wasn’t possible! He was gently tickling her thighs with a black leather whip. “You have no choice, you have to do exactly as I say,” he whispered.

  She shut her eyes again. It was all too much. How her head ached! There was a sudden flash, and Pagan suddenly came to her senses.

  She had just been photographed.

  After that, he did it to her and it wasn’t painful at all. Revolting, but not painful.

  Then he sat on the end of the bed and smoked some sort of herbal cigarette. That was the faint odour she’d smelled as she entered the chalet. Paul ignored Pagan until suddenly he turned toward her, started to giggle helplessly and stubbed the cigarette out on the sheets. This alarmed Pagan so much that she became alert. She had no idea of the time, but she had to get these handcuffs off, find her clothes and get back to school before this bloody man burned the house down.

  “Paul, darling,” she said, “please undo me so I can go to the bathroom.” He crawled up on the bed and undid her handcuffs. Pagan groped her way into the living room, looking for her clothes. She started to pick them up, then peered into a bronze-ringed mirror over the bureau and saw her swollen face. Her eyes had almost disappeared; she must have been crying at some time.

  She noticed that the top drawer of the bureau had been pulled half-open. The contents made her eyes snap wide open.

  Quickly she put her hand in.

  It was past dawn when Pagan crept up to her room.

  “You look terrible. It’s past five o’clock.”

  “You smell awful, where did you go?”

  “What happened?”

  “We went to a bar and I drank too much; now will you kindly piss off?” Pagan growled. She rinsed her mouth with disinfectant, bathed her face and staggered into bed. She didn’t go down to breakfast, and when Matron saw her swollen face and red-rimmed, dull eyes, a thermometer was immediately stuck in her mouth. Though Pagan’s temperature was normal, she certainly looked as if she were developing something, so she was moved to the school infirmary for two days.

  5

  TEN DAYS LATER the resilience of youth had triumphed. Pagan had managed to convince herself that she had wiped that revolting incident out of her mind and could pretend it had never happened. Amazingly, the episode had not lowered her high spirits and one Sunday afternoon, sparkling with restless energy, she wheedled the other three into hiring the horse-drawn red sleigh for an hour.

  Off clopped the horse over the snow-laced cobbles, the four girls huddled luxuriously under the ancient silver fox fur rugs. Jogging along to the jingle of the silver bells on the harness, they waved to passersby as they drove through the fields outside the town and headed toward Saanen. When they stopped, the girls took turns
sitting on the driver’s seat, whip and reins in hand, as Pagan photographed them with her box Brownie.

  Without thinking, Judy—who couldn’t ride—flapped the reins and shrieked “Giddy yap!” flicking the whip in the air. Unfortunately the leather thong caught the ear of the middle-aged mare. Startled, the horse reared. Judy dropped the whip in fright and clutched the driver’s seat as the horse broke into a canter, swaying the heavy sleigh from one side of the track to the other. Kate and Maxine crouched in the back as they hurtled over the snow. Pagan and the driver were left behind, standing open-mouthed by the path.

  For the first time in ten days Pagan really forgot that loathsome scene. She dropped her camera and dashed after the sleigh as it lurched from one side to the other of the snow-rutted path, the horse leaping ahead with unaccustomed speed.

  As the sleigh passed a small group, one of the men caught at the reins, half-running, half-pulled along by the mare. Gradually, the horse slowed down, and by the time Pagan had puffed up to the sleigh, the skier was soothing the quivering horse, stroking her steaming neck and murmuring in a language that Pagan didn’t understand.

  “How dare you!” Pagan yelled to the frightened, white-faced Judy. “How dare you hit that mare! How dare you make her rear and gallop on ice, you bloody idiot! Get in the back!” Her head was thrown back, her short, straight nose pointed imperiously, her nostrils flared with rage.

  Still intent upon the condition of the horse, she took the reins from the stranger, said thank you almost without noticing him, and walked the horse back to the furious stable driver, who headed for home.

  Outside the stable a man was waiting for them, a dark fellow wearing ski clothes and the arrogant air of a privileged servant. With a face devoid of expression except for a hint of hauteur, he approached Pagan and gave a slight bow.

  “My master, His Royal Highness the Crown Prince Abdullah, wishes to invite you to meet him for tea at the Imperial Hotel.”

  “And I’m the Queen of China,” said Pagan, still furious and refusing to listen to Judy’s apologies.

  “Abdullah certainly is staying at the Imperial, Pagan,” Judy said. “He’s got two permanent suites there, while he’s at school. I’ve never seen him, but this guy certainly looks like one of his Arab bodyguards.” Judy flung her pale blue scarf-end around her chin. “Look, I must go, I’m due at the Chesa, but I’d consider that invitation. How often does royalty invite you to tea?” She ran off, hampered by her heavy boots.

  Remembering her previous painful escapade with Paul, Pagan hung back. She didn’t want to get involved in anything else outlandish.

  “No harm in going along to the Great Hall,” the other two insisted. “Oh, Pagan, royalty,” Kate added, as they followed the dark-faced man toward the Imperial.

  In a corner of the Great Hall, wearing all-white ski clothes, sat Prince Abdullah, upright and impatient. Under winged eyebrows he had the watchful look of a hawk, the eyes of a man who is used to being obeyed. Without moving his head, his eyes followed the girls’ approach, then he stood and said politely, “So good of you to come. Wonderful weather we’re having, don’t you think?” His English was clipped, with only the faintest trace of an accent.

  The Prince waved a hand at the velvet chairs grouped around his table. They all sat down and talked about the weather, the hotel and the ski runs. The Prince’s ramrod back, his arrogant, almost menacing calm proclaimed majesty but sat oddly on the shoulders of an eighteen-year-old boy. Pagan thought he would probably look more at home on an Arab horse than on that old green velvet hotel chair. She steered the conversation to horses and the Prince smiled for the first time.

  From that moment, the other two girls might not have existed.

  “Snap!” screamed Pagan, lying on her stomach on the polar bear rug, in front of the blazing log fire. She pulled the pile of playing cards toward her, as Abdullah, sitting cross-legged opposite her, grinned and shrugged his shoulders.

  Prince Abdullah refused to go to the Chesa. He said he didn’t like people staring at him and didn’t want any paparazzi poking cameras in his face, but though he didn’t say so, he considered the crowded tearoom a security risk. Pagan had at first refused to visit Abdullah’s suite, but eventually, trusting his promise to “behave himself,” she spent Saturday afternoons lolling on the thick maroon carpet in Abdullah’s private sitting room, talking about horses or teaching him nursery card games such as “racing demon” and “snap!”

  In private, Abdullah dropped his invisible cloak of majesty. It disappeared as soon as his bodyguards were dismissed with a curt nod of his head.

  “I’m starting to think you cheat,” yawned Abdullah, who always cheated himself. His grin widened into a full-lipped smile showing even teeth.

  As Abdullah twisted onto his side with an agile, catlike movement that was somehow lazily dangerous, there was a sharp crack from the adjoining room. With one bound, Abdullah was on his feet and as he moved, Pagan—still gathering up the playing cards—saw him pull a gleaming automatic pistol from beneath his purple sweater. He leaped to the bedroom door and kicked it open.

  Except for the crack of the burning logs, the room was silent.

  With another catlike crouch, Abdullah jumped inside, his back to the door. “No problem,” he called after a moment. “Sorry, Pagan.”

  She stood up and ran into the adjoining room. In contrast to the velvet, soft-carpeted luxury of the private sitting room, Abdullah’s bedroom was totally bare—it wasn’t even curtained—except for a double bed that stood in the centre of the room with a small low table beside it upon which stood a water carafe, a bottle of pills and another pistol.

  Abdullah was standing beside the window wall, looking out. “I think a tree just fell,” he said. “I’m sorry I alarmed you, but I have to be careful.”

  “But the bodyguards! . . .” gasped Pagan.

  Abdullah shrugged. “The price of a bodyguard is low. I’m in the same position as the poorest beggar in my kingdom—if I don’t look after myself, nobody else will.”

  “What an odd room!” Pagan said, looking around it again.

  “Arabs have an uneasy, love-hate relationship with comfort and luxury,” Abdullah said. “Luxury softens a man, and if I’m to survive I can’t afford to be soft. I have to keep my mind as tough and hard as my body.” Seemingly unperturbed, he looked at her with the steady gaze of a self-confident male animal. He pushed the pistol back into his trouser band and pulled the purple sweater over it.

  Pagan, still round-eyed, tugged him back into the sitting room. “What were you afraid of . . . what did you think was going to happen?” Pagan asked.

  “Maybe a kidnap plot, maybe an assassination.” He shrugged his shoulders and looked slightly embarrassed. “Would you care for some tea?” He pressed the bell.

  “You don’t really think you might be kidnapped?”

  “The first kidnap attempt was before I was a year old. My nurse was stoned to death for her part in the plot. The next attempt was when I was seven years old. I had a bodyguard who pushed me under the bed, but they hauled me out, then stabbed him five times and left him for dead. But he didn’t die immediately and managed to raise the alarm before the plotters got me out of the palace.” He gave a lazy grin as he looked at Pagan’s incredulous face. “The next attempt was when I was fourteen. We were returning from a hunting trip. I was in the first Land Rover. We were ambushed in a gulley and I was shot twice in the arm and once in the chest before our second Land Rover arrived on the scene, with guards shooting in all directions. I was shot in the leg by one of our men, but I managed to kill one of my attackers.” Suddenly he looked ruthless. “From then on I trusted no one. It wasn’t difficult. My heart seemed to harden overnight. To risk trust is to risk death: it was that simple. And that was the last time I was careless. From then on, I always carried a gun, slept with a gun by my pillow, and drove with my own submachine gun on the seat next to me.”

  There was a quiet knock at the door. Nick, wea
ring his waiter’s uniform, opened the door. The respectful look on his face dropped for an instant when he saw Pagan crouched on the bearskin, then he resumed his waiter’s mask. Abdullah ordered lemonade and tea. Still not quite at ease, he padded nervously around the room.

  “Stop prowling,” ordered Pagan.

  “I have a restless spirit; if you never feel secure, then naturally you feel restless.”

  Nick returned with a laden tray and gave Abdullah another look of servile insolence as he stiffly bent and placed the tray on a low table by the velvet couch. Pagan winked at Nick, who ignored her. He can’t stand Abdullah, she thought. I wonder why?

  Not by one muscle movement did Abdullah show that he had recognised Nick, but he had, and for one swift moment Abdullah remembered the most humiliating moment of his life.

  The eight-foot-long green baize board that hung by the staircase had been the hub of school activity; on it was pinned much purple-stenciled information about special classes, outings, clubs and chapel together with the sports lists. Abdullah remembered his boyish exaltation when one morning on his way back to his room after school breakfast, he saw his name listed on the house team for Eton football. There it was in a handwritten scrawl—Abdullah. He was the only boy in the school without a surname. He was the only boy in the school without a friend.

  Abdullah didn’t understand why every boy—himself included—was of equal rank inside those ancient stone walls. To Abdullah, the centuries-old, traditional top-drawer British school was a hostile, incomprehensible world. Ignorant of the private language and rigid conventions of his schoolfellows, Abdullah did what was not done and said what—according to Eton etiquette—should not be said. But now, he had thought, all would be forgiven. He was on the house team! With a whoop of excitement he ran along the stone corridor to get his books for the next lesson.

  Each pupil had his own small room with a scarred wooden table, two chairs, a narrow metal convertible bed, a bureau, and a chest in which he kept his sports gear. Abdullah’s was pretty much the same as the other rooms with one exception: on his wall hung framed photographs of his father’s yacht, his mother dressed for court, his father in ceremonial uniform being decorated by King George VI, a picture of Abdullah, aged thirteen, taking the salute from the Sydonian Palace Guard, and another picture of himself being kissed on the cheek by Rita Hayworth.