Gold Diggers

by Tasmina Perry

  Summer recoiled in surprise and fear.

  ‘You are the one who has interfered in my life since the day you were born. I could have had everything without you. The brilliant career, the rich husband; but how could I, with you hanging around?’

  At first Summer was too shocked to speak. The unspoken resentment that Summer had felt underpinning their life together had finally surfaced, was finally out in the open.

  ‘Don’t, mother, please,’ cried Summer.

  ‘Even when I found someone, you had to poke your nose in and spoil it for me, didn’t you?’ said Molly, looking at her daughter sourly. ‘You and Graham bloody Daniels deceived me perfectly, didn’t you, with your filthy little goings-on. I devote my life to you and that’s how you repaid me? Think about that before you start accusing me of meddling in your life.’

  ‘Stop it, stop it!’ screamed Summer, sinking to the floor sobbing. ‘Stop it, stop it!’ she repeated over and over again, her hands over her ears, her eyes tightly shut. Without another word Molly left the flat.

  57

  The beautiful Ibizan finca La Toreador had been taken out on a three-week August rental by Diana and Martin which, as far as Karin was concerned, was perfect timing. August was a flat month in the fashion industry, and it neatly coincided with her thirty-second birthday. Arriving at the finca on the eastern coast of the island late on Friday morning, she knew that Adam was going to love it. He wasn’t due to arrive until later that evening, but as Diana had arranged for Karin to get a lift on a private jet owned by one of Martin’s friends, Karin figured she was better off getting to La Toreador sooner rather than later. Besides, she smiled to herself, shielding her eyes as she gazed up into the cornflower-blue sky, the extra hours at the villa meant that she could have a beautiful tan in time for that evening’s soiree.

  Having been shown to her room by the housekeeper, Karin took a few minutes to wander around the villa, before joining the other guests who were out by the pool. It was a huge whitewashed finca on the side of a hill overlooking the eastern coastline. It had recently been featured in Russian Vogue and it was easy to see why they had called it the last word in rustic chic. Expensively pared down, it had white voile curtains wafting in a soft breeze, the colour scheme was cream and chocolate brown, while the furniture was a mixture of rattan and heavier, more expensive pieces of oak. There were ceiling fans and big squashy beds covered with Portuguese linens, while at the window were pots of lavender and bougainvillea and orange, peach and lemon trees growing in the garden. In the 1960s, La Toreador’s bacchanalian parties had been legendary, and it hadn’t slowed down much since – only the week before it had hosted a supermodel and her rock-star boyfriend with a legendary drug habit.

  Karin had a shower and changed into a skimpy snakeskin Karenza bikini, with a dramatic décolletage with low hipster pants. She smothered herself in a factor four suntan oil that smelt of coconut and lime, then fastened a sheer brown sarong around her slim waist. She then made her way to the back of the finca, where a huge kidney-shaped pool shimmered in the hot Balearic sun. Although it was almost lunchtime, a couple of people were having a very late breakfast under a vanilla-coloured parasol, while the rest of Diana’s house guests were lounging around the pool on a mixture of sun-loungers and big white day beds. At the sound of Karin’s bejewelled flip-flops clattering across the terrace, Diana swung off her sun-lounger, her voluminous fuchsia kaftan billowing in the breeze.

  ‘The birthday girl!’ she smiled, spreading her arms in extravagant declaration, ‘Now the party can really start!’

  Karin embraced her friend and narrowly avoided knocking her oversized Gucci sunglasses with her own huge Prada shades as they air-kissed a greeting.

  Diana tapped one of the white-coated Hispanic-looking waiters on the arm. ‘A cocktail for the new arrival please!’ she said, before showing Karin to a sun-lounger next to hers. ‘How incredible is the finca? I told you, didn’t I? Turns out that the owner used to be a stylist before she met her husband. Now all she does is shop for herself, never other people. Isn’t that fabulous?’

  ‘Who’s here then?’ asked Karin, sipping her drink. Diana wafted a manicured hand across the swimming pool.

  ‘Not everyone’s up yet,’ she whispered with a wink. ‘We were all at Pacha last night, which was a bit crazy. You should know most people here.’

  ‘Where’s Christina, still sleeping?’

  ‘Surprisingly not,’ said Diana. ‘A friend is in town with a yacht and they’ve sailed over to Formentera for the day. She said she wanted to shag a beach bum.’

  Karin tried to examine faces that were obscured by wide-brimmed hats and newspapers. She could just make out Sabrina Love, a thirty-something society jeweller, adjusting her Pucci bikini alongside her German hedge-fund banker husband Frederick. A well-known model was passing what looked suspiciously like a spliff to a notorious music producer. Notting Hill socialite Melissa Craig and her property developer husband were here; apparently the baby had been left in London with a ‘smashing’ Australian nanny. It was a real mixed-bag, thought Karin, from hip Holland Park to monied Belgravia – the only thing they all seemed to have in common was their love of a good time, which Ibiza in August could always provide in spades.

  As she looked around the pool, satisfied that her body in the skimpy Karenza bikini looked better than everyone else’s, Karin decided that she was glad to be back.

  ‘I don’t recognize her,’ said Karin, looking over the top of her sunglasses towards the other side of the pool, where a small, slim blonde lay, in a leopard-print bikini and matching headscarf worn warrior-princess style.

  ‘That’s Tracey,’ said Diana.

  Karin sat up. ‘Martin’s ex-wife is here?’ she hissed.

  ‘And the kids,’ said Diana slowly. Karin gaped at her friend, appalled. ‘For goodness’ sake, honey, you’ve got to put your foot down!’ she whispered. ‘What sort of holiday is it going to be for you with her running around …’

  Diana lowered her voice and looked embarrassed. ‘You know we’ve been arguing about having a baby?’

  Karin nodded cautiously, knowing she was going to disapprove of what she was about to hear. ‘Well, Martin said I should make more of an effort with his kids and with Tracey. I figured if I can show him how good I am with children, maybe he’ll reconsider about us having children together.’

  ‘You actually believe that?’ said Karin tersely.

  ‘I have to hope,’ she replied, looking sad. ‘Anyway, they are my step-children. It’s probably a good thing if we all get to know one another a little better, don’t you think?’

  Karin took a sip of apple juice and looked away from her friend, knowing there was nothing she could say to make Diana change her mind. When they had married, Martin had known he was lucky to catch Diana with her breeding and grace, but now the tables had completely turned. Karin did not like to see her friend in this frightened state of submission, desperate to please her husband but secretly knowing that it was ultimately futile.

  Karin settled into her sun-bed and picked up her Sidney Sheldon novel, but the sun quickly became too hot for her to read without feeling exhausted.

  ‘Karin. I see you’ve arrived, looking lovely as ever. Missed a great night out yesterday.’

  She looked up to see Martin sitting on the end of her sun-lounger, wrapped in a white waffle robe. His eyes were bleary and he was squinting in the sun.

  He leant over to Diana on the adjacent bed and tapped her thigh. ‘I’m starving. Can you go and hurry the help up with lunch? They seem a bit slack.’ He pulled off the robe to reveal a garish pair of swimming trunks and stretched his arms to the sky. ‘Think I’ll take a quick dip while I’m waiting.’

  As he jumped in the pool, two little girls, around six and eight, ran towards him, shrieking and firing huge fluorescent water pistols.

  ‘Look how far we can spray people,’ they screamed, squirting their guns over at Tracey, who shot up like a bullet.

&n
bsp; ‘Gerr’over here!’ she screamed, as the other guests were beginning to look up and tut.

  ‘I’m, um, I’m going to check everything’s okay with lunch,’ said Diana, pulling on her kaftan. ‘A couple of Italian chefs have come over from Ibiza Town. One used to work in the River Café, you know.’

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ said Karin. ‘It’s getting a bit boisterous around here.’

  ‘That’s Chloe and Emma, Martin’s girls. They are very lively.’

  Karin and Diana walked down to a huge wooden gazebo at one end of the pool. Beneath the shade of the wooden slats lay a long table that could comfortably seat twenty. Two waiters in white uniforms were beginning to set it with white crockery and big glass dishes of food; bowls of pasta, mountains of mozzarella, tomato and avocado, large rustic-looking tarts. Diana began to direct the waiters, while Karin sat in the shade watching Emma and Chloe running around the pool causing havoc, shaking her head at how badly behaved they were.

  ‘Come in the pool, sweethearts,’ shouted Martin, ‘you can do that later.’

  Encouraged by their father’s refusal to tell them off, and their mother’s failure to move from her sun-lounger, Chloe and Emma were now hysterical with power, running at full speed towards the gazebo, their guns aloft.

  ‘This is outrageous; you’ve got to stop them,’ said Karin. Diana stepped out in front of them and put up a hand like a traffic policeman. The two girls had no intention of stopping, however, as Emma splayed out her arms like an aeroplane, clearly aiming to fly kamikaze-like into the table while Chloe charged at Diana, holding her long water pistol like a lance.

  ‘Stop it!’ screamed Diana, trying to grab Emma. Seeing an opening, Chloe swerved sideways and swung her water pistol along the top of the table, sending plates, glasses and bowls of food smashing to the floor.

  ‘You little minx!’ shouted Diana, grabbing Chloe’s arm sharply. ‘Look what you’ve done.’

  Chloe started howling, clutching her arm as Martin jumped out of the pool and Tracey came running over, tottering in a pair of four-inch rope wedge heels.

  ‘My arm! Diana’s hurt my arm!’ screamed Chloe, going pink in the face.

  ‘Don’t move darling, you might have dislocated it!’ said Martin flashing Diana a filthy expression.

  ‘You stupid cow!’ screamed Tracey at Diana, curling a protective arm around Chloe. ‘What have you done to my baby?’

  ‘I’m so sorry, honey,’ said Diana kneeling down, trying to soothe Chloe, who flinched away from her, screaming.

  ‘Good with kids, are you?’ snarled Martin to Diana, moving Chloe and Tracey away from the gazebo. He put his arm across Tracey’s shoulders; she was now beginning to cry hysterically. All the guests had crowded round them and someone was already making a call to the local doctor. Karin touched Diana lightly on the arm.

  ‘Don’t worry, she’ll be okay,’ she whispered, but Diana’s eyes were filling with tears.

  Martin announced that he was going to take Chloe to the hospital in Ibiza Town, while the waiters desperately tried to remove what remained of lunch off the floor. Diana meekly followed them to Martin’s four-by-four, where Chloe was helped into the back seat by her fussing mother and driven away. Diana stood there helplessly, watching them leave. As the car swung off the drive, Chloe turned and gave her a smug little smile.

  Summer was on such a high, she thought she was about to burst with happiness. She was in love with a billionaire and now she was going to be a movie star! When she had received a phone call from Luc Balzac the day before, offering her the part of Marien in Krakatoa, she had assumed someone was playing a practical joke. Luc assured her he could not be more serious. She was one of the last principal parts to be cast, and rehearsals were due to start in six weeks; then there were four weeks of filming at Pinewood studios, followed by another eight weeks on location in Mexico.

  ‘Don’t let me down,’ he had purred in a sultry voice as rich and soft as warm brandy.

  ‘I won’t,’ breathed Summer, ‘I promise I won’t.’

  ‘Well, I hope you’re still going to talk to me after you’ve won your Oscar, Miss Movie-star,’ smiled Adam, rolling over in the emperor-sized hotel bed to look at Summer, her hair splayed out on the pillow, her naked body covered in just the slightest sheen of sweat.

  Summer beamed, but shrugged modestly. ‘It’s only one role,’ she said, ‘let’s not get too excited just yet. But I can’t believe filming starts so soon. Two months in Mexico as well. Think of the tan.’

  ‘Mexico?’ said Adam, surprised.

  Summer smiled. ‘I know, I know. Krakatoa is in Indonesia. But apparently Mexico always gets used as a location when the studios want somewhere hot and steamy.’

  ‘I didn’t mean that,’ said Adam, stroking his finger across her forehead. ‘I don’t want you to leave me for two months.’

  Summer’s heart leapt; the man she loved wanted to be with her all the time. But her happiness disintegrated moments later as Adam glanced at his watch. Then again, what did she expect? When she had called Adam to tell him the news about Krakatoa, he had suggested meeting the following afternoon in a discreet boutique hotel in Knightsbridge: that was their relationship. Illicit, forbidden. She would spend days waiting for him to call, and would drop everything to go and be with him when he did. That was the price, she told herself, of being in a relationship with a busy billionaire – a busy billionaire who was in a relationship with someone else. But Summer couldn’t stop herself. Two hours in his company, being on the receiving end of his full attention and charm, was like a delicious drug that made her feel more beautiful and sexy than she would have ever dared thought possible.

  ‘Have you got to go?’ she said softly, reaching out to stroke his face.

  He nodded. ‘I’ve got to be at the airport at three p.m. or we’ll miss the slot for Ibiza.’

  ‘So you’re away this weekend?’ she asked. He never told her his plans and she rarely asked.

  ‘I have to,’ he said, ‘it’s her birthday.’

  Her. Karin.

  ‘You stay at the hotel as long as you want,’ he said, climbing out of bed and reaching for his clothes. ‘All weekend if you’d like. There’s a little spa. Get them to send me the bill.’

  She nodded slowly and he saw the look of hurt on her face. ‘Look. I’ve got you something,’ he said, reaching into his overnight case and pulling out a delicate chain. He reached over and fastened it around her neck. It was an antique diamond pendant in the shape of a teardrop. ‘To say congratulations.’

  Summer felt emotion choke her throat as she ran to the mirror to admire the chain. ‘I love it,’ she said. But she would have swapped it gladly for one more night together.

  The sound of Adam’s bag thumping onto the limestone floor woke Karin up from an early evening siesta. She had been wearing just a tiny pair of bikini bottoms while she snoozed on the cool white linens, and she wrapped a towel around her body as she climbed off the bed; she didn’t want the housekeeper blundering in. Karin peeked around the bedroom door and grinned.

  ‘Adam!’ she cried, ‘you made it.’

  Adam walked towards her and pulled the towel away, dropping it to the floor. ‘Of course I made it, birthday girl,’ he murmured, planting a warm kiss on the side of her neck. ‘Just look what I’m missing.’

  She squealed as he picked her up and carried her back into the bedroom; they fell together back onto the bed, Karin wrapping her long legs around his body like snakes.

  ‘Has the party started?’ she giggled, as his lips trailed down her neck to her erect nipple.

  ‘It has now,’ he said, and pulled his polo shirt over his head.

  After they had made love, Karin and Adam took a shower together. The bathroom window was slightly open to let out the clouds of steam, and already Karin could hear the sounds of laughter and clinking glasses coming from outside. They didn’t hurry.

  By the time Adam and Karin finally stepped outside, there were at least fifty
people on the terrace. Word had got around about Diana’s soiree at La Toreador, and everybody who was anybody wanted to come: the beautiful people, the club hags, the Euro-trash. Some planned to stay all night, eating, drinking and dancing; others would use it as a warm-up for the nightclubs, which didn’t really get going until 2 a.m.

  Karin and Adam picked up cocktails from the bar by the swimming pool. On the other side of the water, Karin could see Christina dressed in white palazzo pants and a matching bandeau bikini top. She looked fabulous. She was openly flirting with a small, rotund man with a moustache. Wearing a crumpled linen jacket, shorts and flip-flops, the object of Christina’s breathless attention looked rather shabby and dull.

  ‘Is that who I think it is?’ asked Adam with a half-smile.

  ‘Let’s go and find out,’ she said, taking his hand to walk around the pool to where her friend was standing. Christina spotted Karin and squealed with delight, greeting her with an embrace as if she hadn’t seen Karin for years.

  ‘Darling, I must introduce you to my new friend, Reggie Bryce. Reggie, these are my bestest friends in the whole world, Karin and Adam.’

  Adam extended a cautious hand towards the man.

  ‘We’ve met, right?’ asked Reggie in his Texan drawl as they shook.

  Adam nodded. The billionaire community was a small one. Reggie Bryce was a Midwestern supermarket magnate who was fast catching up to the hugely wealthy Walton family, the owners of Wal-Mart. The name wasn’t lost on Karin either. Recently divorced, Reggie’s wife had won one of the biggest-ever settlements the world had seen. But Reggie could afford to lose a billion dollars here and there. He had plenty. And Christina clearly had designs on a few of them.

  ‘We met on Es Calo Beach this afternoon,’ gushed Christina, ‘and I insisted he come and join us tonight. Reggie was five berths down from the Big Blue at St Barts at New Year. Isn’t it crazy how small a world it is?’