by Helen Grant
‘Come on.’
At the corner of the house they paused.
‘Stay very close to the wall,’ Kris reminded her. A second later, he had started for the door.
Veerle put her back to the wall and moved crab-wise along the front of the house, her boots whispering across the paving stones. She counted her footsteps, trying to judge how far she had come, how far she still had to go. She tried not to think about the lights going on. We made it this far. They’re not going to go on. But still she kept imagining them bursting into brilliant life, revealing Kris and herself flattened against the façade of the house like two sideways-on figures in an Egyptian temple carving. Twenty-nine, thirty . . . A few steps further and she stumbled over a low step. They had reached the door.
Panting like a racehorse, she stood on the step and listened to the clink and rattle as Kris pulled the house keys out of his pocket and fitted them into the lock. Then the door was opening, and she almost fell into the house after him. The moment the door had closed behind them Kris hit a switch on the wall.
‘Let there be light,’ he said ironically, and there was.
15
THE SUDDEN BRIGHTNESS was dazzling. It made Veerle screw up her eyes. Whoever had decorated this house was into light, lots of it; it was like being on an operating table. Her ears were filled with a high-pitched beeping. Dimly she was aware of Kris brushing past, aiming for the burglar-alarm control panel. It was a relief when the sound stopped, cut off mid-note like a mezzo soprano surprised by a slap in the face.
When Veerle’s eyes had adjusted she looked around. The last house had reminded her of a museum, with its classical statuary and enormous oil paintings. This one looked like something out of a glossy interior design magazine. The lobby was huge, and the vast expanses of wall were painted in a shade of raspberry, the kind of colour people chose to show off the fact that their house was big enough to take it; in a small place it would have been stifling. The paintwork was picked out in white and there was a large gilded console table against the far wall, with a huge gold-framed mirror hanging over it. It was the sort of thing Marie-Antoinette would have chosen, had she been propelled forward in time to the twenty-first century. She could see Kris reflected in it, his back to her as he closed the control panel. His reflection turned and grinned at her.
‘What do you think?’
‘Nice,’ she managed to say, and then both of them were laughing at the understatement.
Kris went to each of the large windows that flanked the door, and examined the roller shutters. When he was satisfied that they were tightly closed and that no chink of light could escape and reveal their presence in the house, he came over to Veerle and took her hand.
‘Come on,’ he said.
He began to pull her to the left, towards the gleaming white-painted staircase that curved round to the upper storey. This was something new; in neither of the other houses had they ever gone upstairs.
Veerle put out her other hand and touched the handrail. It was perfectly, silkily smooth – as flawless as everything else in this modern palace. She put her foot onto the bottom stair, gazing upwards.
I feel like we’re trespassing. And yet it was the same as at the last house; it was impossible to take this place seriously as someone’s home. It looked as though it had been created for a photo shoot or a film in which all the characters were incredibly wealthy people – men with commanding expressions and a patrician touch of grey at the temples, stick-thin women in taffeta dresses and diamonds. She let Kris lead her up the stairs, trailing her hand along the rail.
The first-floor landing was covered with a carpet whose pile was so deep that Veerle imagined it would be like wading through grass. She stood on the top step and removed her boots; trampling across that expanse of velvety cream would feel like sacrilege, not to mention the difficulty of removing the tiniest speck of mud.
The first room they passed was a bathroom decorated in black, white and gold, with a large free-standing ceramic bathtub in the centre of the room. Veerle wanted to stop and stare at it, at the gold fittings and the gleaming tiles and the huge glass chemist’s jars full of bath crystals, but Kris pulled her onwards.
The room he took her to was not a bathroom or a bedroom but a dressing room. Veerle had thought that she was getting over her astonishment at the way people lived in this type of house, but now she was stunned all over again. Whoever owned the adjoining bedroom had a walk-in wardrobe bigger than her own room at home. The doors were mirrored, and seeing herself standing there with her stockinged feet on the luxurious carpet, she thought that she looked like what she was, a housebreaker. She didn’t fit. She looked like an urchin, the survivor at the end of a disaster movie, who has stumbled back into civilization, grubby and unkempt.
Kris didn’t waste time looking at himself in the mirrors. He slid open the nearest door. ‘Voilà,’ he said ironically.
There was a row of outfits hanging there, most of them in protective clear plastic wrappers; the owner evidently didn’t bother with anything as pedestrian as washing and ironing the contents – simply sent them all out for cleaning. Through the plastic Veerle could see that most of them were dresses: day dresses, cocktail dresses, evening gowns in a range of jewel-bright colours accented with gold embroidery or beadwork. Veerle lifted one of them out and gently pulled up the plastic cover. It was an evening dress made of heavy raw silk the colour of garnets, with a fitted waist and thin straps designed to leave the shoulders bare. Veerle had never touched such an expensive piece of clothing in her life, let alone worn one. She glanced at Kris.
‘You mean, put it on?’
He shrugged. ‘Why not?’
Because it’s not mine, she could have said, but she didn’t. There was still a sense of unreality about the house and its contents. Besides, the dress was so beautiful, the cloth almost seeming to glow, that she couldn’t resist the temptation. She began to unzip her jacket.
Kris wandered out of the room. ‘See you downstairs,’ he said laconically.
Fifteen minutes later, when Veerle came down the curving staircase, carefully holding up the hem of the red dress, he was waiting for her at the bottom. She gasped, and then she began to laugh. Kris made her an ironic bow. Evidently he had located the wardrobe of the man of the house; he was kitted out in evening dress, including a black bow tie. Somehow the formal wear just made him look more disreputable than usual. With his sharp features and tousled dark hair, he looked more like a jewel thief than a count or a diplomat. The evening clothes suited him though; they showed off his lean build and broad shoulders.
As Veerle descended the staircase she couldn’t take her eyes off him.
She had found shoes to match the garnet-coloured dress, and by some miracle they were her size, though she still wondered how anyone could bear to wear them for a whole evening: the heels were almost unmanageably high and the toes pointed and narrow. She hadn’t been able to do very much with her hair, simply twisted it into a knot and secured it with a clip, but she had completed the outfit with a sparkling necklace and matching earrings. Veerle was no expert regarding jewellery but she thought the stones were real diamonds.
Kris offered her his arm. Veerle had to bite her lip to stifle another laugh but she took it. They proceeded through white-painted double doors into the drawing room, which was painted leaf green; clearly the decorator was a fan of strong colours. The electric lights were low and Veerle was surprised to see that there were flames leaping in the grate, before realizing that it was a modern gas fire, turned on or off at the touch of a button. Two big green leather sofas faced each other across a large square coffee table made of antique wood. On the coffee table stood a bottle of champagne and two crystal glasses.
‘Champagne?’ Veerle let go of Kris’s arm and went to take a closer look. ‘You didn’t bring that.’
Kris came over and picked up the bottle. ‘There are seventy-two more bottles like this in the cellar. They won’t miss one.’
&
nbsp; ‘I thought we weren’t supposed to take anything.’
Kris was already removing the foil over the cork, untwisting the wire. ‘You think they’re going to notice?’ he said. When she didn’t reply he shot her a quizzical look. ‘I can come back tomorrow and replace it if it really bothers you,’ he said.
Veerle turned away, on the pretext of admiring the opulent décor. She was not sure what to think. This is new. We didn’t just come in here to look around and do some small job in return. She glanced down at herself. She was dressed in the lady of the house’s evening dress, wearing diamonds that didn’t belong to her, preparing to drink pilfered champagne.
So what? said a voice at the back of her mind. Look at this place. Do you really think anyone who lives in a house like this is going to notice a single bottle of wine missing from over seventy bottles? Anyway, why should one family have all this? Whatever the owners do, whether the head of the house is a diplomat or a business magnate or a general, nobody needs this much all for themselves – this much space, this much gilding, all those clothes, the wine . . .
There was a soft popping sound as the cork came out of the bottle.
Seventy-two bottles, thought Veerle. She turned, the silk dress rustling as she did so, and watched Kris filling the two crystal glasses. Again she had that feeling of unreality. Who lives in a house like this, with black-and-gold bathrooms and walk-in dressing rooms full of ball gowns and a cellar full of champagne? It’s a dream, she thought, and you can’t steal from a dream.
She took the glass Kris offered her.
‘Santé,’ he said with a grin.
Veerle sipped the champagne. It was cool and very dry. She looked at Kris over the rim of the glass, at his sharp features, his bold eyes, his rumpled dark hair. There always seemed to be the hint of a dry smile hovering about his lips.
She recalled the brief pressure of those lips on hers and felt a flare of heat in her face. She knew she wanted him to do it again; she knew he was going to do it again. Whether it was a good idea or not – that was another matter entirely.
She recalled Hommel’s cold resentful face, Claudine’s faded anxious one: signposts with BEWARE written on them. There was danger here or, if not actual danger, risk, as though she had been contemplating a climb whose upper reaches she could not see from ground level. There might be a fabulous view from up there, but equally you might be heading for a fall, the sort where they had to collect the pieces in a basket.
All the same, when Kris’s dark eyes met hers, she didn’t look away. As he stepped towards her she put down her glass of champagne and her heart was thumping. Last chance to walk away. She didn’t take it, of course; Veerle never backed off a challenge.
16
THE HEAVY GILDED clock on the mantelpiece chimed eleven. Veerle was curled up on one of the green leather sofas, leaning against Kris. He had his arm around her; his hand felt warm on the bare skin of her arm. Music drifted through the air from the house’s expensive sound system, a tumbling cascade of rich soft notes.
Veerle could feel the effects of the champagne and the soporific dancing of the flames in the hearth. She was happy and rather drowsy. I could stay here for ever, she thought dreamily. It’s perfect. Perfectly, perfectly . . . perfect.
All the same, the sound of the clock chiming roused her. She was hardly aware at first of counting the strokes: . . . nine, ten, eleven . . .
Eleven o’clock? Oh God. She sat up.
‘Oh no,’ she said aloud, looking down at the garnet-coloured dress, at the creased silk.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Kris lazily. He seemed entirely unperturbed. ‘We can iron it. I’ll have to do the shirt anyway.’
‘It’s eleven o’clock,’ said Veerle. ‘The last bus is in forty minutes.’
He shrugged. ‘Let’s stay the night.’
She gaped at him. ‘Kris . . . I can’t.’
‘Why not? We can leave before it gets light. If we went at seven it would still be dark enough.’
‘It’s not that.’
‘Stay then.’ He put his arms around her.
Veerle bit her lip. She didn’t want to say, It’s my mother. It sounded childish. On the other hand, she knew perfectly well what would happen if she didn’t get home soon. She’ll panic, never mind the fact that I left her a note. Supposing she calls the police or something?
Considering where she and Kris were, at this moment she couldn’t imagine how she would deal with that.
That wasn’t the only thing, of course. Even if there had been no Claudine waiting for her at home, would she have done it? It’s too soon, she thought, and then, Maybe he really just means: stay over here. A room each. But—
‘I really can’t.’
He didn’t ask her why again like she thought he would. Her hair had come down; he pushed it back from her face with both hands and then he began to kiss her again, on the sensitive spot close to her jaw line.
‘Kris . . .’
Suddenly it was so sensitive that it was ticklish. She pushed him away, but they were both laughing now, and the awkwardness had passed.
‘I’ll walk you to the bus stop,’ Kris told her. ‘I can come back and fix things up here.’
‘How will you get home?’
‘Maybe I’ll stay over,’ he said. He raised one dark eyebrow but he didn’t press her.
* * *
Veerle went back upstairs to change into her street clothes. The dressing room adjoined an enormous bedroom with a king-sized bed in it, so she laid the red dress out on that. Against the crisp ivory Egyptian cotton of the bed linen the garnet-coloured silk stood out like a bloodstain. Veerle glanced at it as she pulled on her jeans, wondering whether Kris would really manage to make it look as good as new. It looked sadly crumpled to her eyes.
The party’s over, she thought. The relaxed dreamy mood she had enjoyed downstairs in front of the leaping flames on the hearth had given way to a nervous restlessness. Got to get ready, got to get moving. She was acutely aware of the hard smooth lump that was her mobile phone in the front pocket of her jeans. She was almost afraid to switch it on.
She pulled her T-shirt over her head. Going to have to run for the bus. If she missed it – well, she didn’t want to think about that. She shrugged on her outside jacket as she ran down the glossy white staircase.
Kris was waiting near the bottom. He had changed back into his black jeans and leather jacket; his lean silhouette stood out like a charcoal sketch against the dazzling white paintwork. Veerle would have liked to run into his arms, but she didn’t trust herself; if she was going to make the bus they had to get moving.
Kris killed the light, and then they slipped out of the front door and ran back the way they had come in, dodging the security light sensors. When they reached the gate, Kris scanned the road for prying eyes, but it was deserted. They climbed over and dropped onto the pavement on the other side.
Safe, thought Veerle. If anyone sees us now, so what?
She dusted her hands on her jeans, and then they set off along the street. Veerle was as acutely aware of the phone in her pocket as if it had been red-hot, but still she did not dare to drag it out and switch it on.
I’ll do it when I’m on the bus, she told herself. She shivered a little in the chill night air in spite of the rapid pace. If she asks me who I’m with I can truthfully say nobody.
When they got to the bus stop, Veerle glanced up the street and saw that the bus was already in sight in the distance.
‘Three minutes early,’ she said. And if we’d been any later I would have missed it. Best not to think about that.
Just before the bus pulled in, Kris leaned over and kissed Veerle briefly on the lips. ‘I’ll phone you, OK?’
Then she was climbing onto the bus, into its warm, well-lit interior, and when she turned to wave he had already melted away into the shadows.
She slid into a window seat, feeling in her pocket for her mobile phone. Before she switched it on, she held it in her hands
for a few moments, trying to relish the evening with Kris for a few seconds more before the feeling slipped away from her like a dream on waking.
I won’t believe it tomorrow, she thought. She remembered coming down the flawless white staircase, and seeing Kris standing at the bottom of it, dressed as though for a night at the opera. She had laughed, but she had liked the sight of him all the same, the way the expensive formal clothes suited his lean frame and saturnine good looks. Her fingers strayed to her neck, touching her now bare ear lobe. I wore diamonds.
Even while the threat of Claudine’s inevitable outburst hung over her like the bruise-dark clouds of an oncoming storm, she wanted to linger in that fabulous dream. Where will we go next time? She smiled into the darkness. A fitness fiend’s house with a sauna and a jacuzzi as well as a pool. Or an aristocrat’s town house, full of gilded furniture and paintings of stern ancestors in oils glaring down at us. Then she thought, Anywhere, so long as it’s with him, and she could have laughed out loud for joy. Even the prospect of facing Claudine no longer seemed so daunting. Veerle switched on the phone.
23 missed calls.
Instantly that intoxicating feeling of excitement was gone, as thoroughly as if someone had thrown a bucket of icy water over her. For several seconds Veerle simply sat and stared at the screen with its ominous message as a chill feeling of dismay washed through her.
23 missed calls.
She touched the screen, scrolling through each of the messages in turn as the bus tunnelled through the night, but she didn’t need to read the details of each one to guess that they were all from Claudine.