by Lucy Lord
‘So …’ Natalia patted her on the shoulder. ‘You are a good and strong woman, like my old mamushka.’ She looked sad, and Bella was torn between sympathy, curiosity and an unedifying desire to be compared to something more glamorous.
Mark, Sam and a load of people she didn’t know, but who all seemed to know Marky, were lounging in Natalia’s rainbow chill-out room, which wasn’t as awful as it sounded. An enormous, circular area, half open to the sea a long way beneath, with every bit of floor covered in cushions of all colours, fabrics and sizes, at least three layers deep, it gave new meaning to the concept of chilling out.
The only pieces of furniture were several low white stone tables, essential for the balancing of ashtrays and glasses. The expanse of semi-circular whitewashed wall was hung with around fifteen vividly coloured, apparently abstract paintings. Once you got closer, you could see that they were more impressionist than abstract, all depicting the same view at different times of day, night and year. Individually, each painting would have been nice to have on your wall, thought Sam, but all bunched together like this they were incredible.
‘Bella really got lucky when she met old Nat.’ Mark laughed, drawing on a badly rolled spliff.
‘Don’t be nasty, Marky!’ said Sam, then snuggled up to him again, not wanting to put him off her. ‘Bella’s a brilliant artist.’
‘Oh, I know she is, babe. Who’s the one who keeps giving her freelance illustration work?’ Mark puffed up his huge chest and pointed at it, making Sam giggle.
‘I asked you a question, babe! Who?’ He started tickling her and, even though she thought she might die from lust, she eventually managed,
‘You are, Marky!’
He kissed her, using his tongue.
‘That’s better. Remember who’s boss around here, gorgeous.’ He took another draw on the spliff. ‘But you gotta admit Bella’s fucking lucky – finding someone as cunting loaded as Natalia, who’s fucking obsessed with mad colours, to buy them all at her first exhibition? That’s what I call bollock-busting luck.’
‘Are you talking about my daughter?’ asked an amused and very posh voice.
Mark looked over lazily in the direction of a beautiful older woman whose kaftan suited the surroundings so much he thought she’d be just perfect for a Stadium shoot, if they ever had a granny-fanciers’ edition.
‘Oh, hi, Olivia. Yeah, just saying how great for Belles that old Nat bought all her paintings.’
‘Yes, that was certainly a lucky break. Well, I just came in to see how they looked in here, and I must say I think Natalia’s done her proud.’
‘Hi,’ said Sam. ‘I’m Sam.’
‘Oh, how lovely, Bella’s told me all about you. I’m Olivia,’ said Olivia, extending an elegant hand. ‘Do you mind if I join you?’
Sam got up and fussed around with some cushions, trying to make it comfortable for her, but Olivia brushed her off.
‘Thank you, darling, but don’t be silly. It’s absolutely fine as it is.’ And she sat down, cross-legged in her kaftan, opposite them. Catching sight of the spliff burning itself out in the ashtray, she added, ‘You young things nowadays seem to have no idea how to roll joints. Give that to me, please – I can hardly bear to look at it.’
Momentarily terrified with dope fear, Mark passed Olivia the ashtray.
‘D’you have any more skins?’ she asked, and he reached into his pocket for a packet of Rizlas. Deftly, she tapped off the burning end and tore the silly thing open.
‘That’s better, isn’t it?’ She beamed around at them, having re-rolled a perfect, tight little spliff with her right hand. Her left was holding a large glass of white wine. ‘I do hate waste.’
‘Bugger me, where’d you learn to do that?’ Mark laughed.
‘I was a teenager in the sixties, darling, was married to Justin Brown, and spent an awful lot of the seventies in Morocco. May I?’
Mark nodded and she lit it and toked, inhaling deeply.
‘Gosh, that really makes Bella’s colours look cool,’ she said, gazing at her daughter’s paintings on the wall, and Mark and Sam both laughed.
‘Sam, darling, you’re awfully pretty. Oh, of course, you’re the one who dabbles in modelling. I did that donkey’s years ago, though I was slimmer then …’
‘You’re still beautiful,’ said Mark and Sam simultaneously, and Olivia laughed.
‘Past my prime, I’m afraid.’ She turned her hypnotic gaze on Sam again. ‘I imagine modelling’s very different these days. We used to make up our own faces, and sometimes we even wore our own clothes, you know.’
‘Yes, I’ve heard about that,’ said Sam, wondering exactly how much Bella had told her mum about the nature of her modelling, and trying to ignore the smirk on Marky’s face.
‘I don’t have any of that old shit,’ said Big Sean, the obnoxious DJ that Poppy had poached from Pacha for a small fortune, rolling his eyes. As he was about five foot seven, the name was presumably meant to be ironic – unless his Napoleon complex was seriously out of control.
‘Find it then. It’s my wedding and I’m paying you enough,’ Poppy said steelily. ‘And I’d like you to dedicate it to Natalia. If that’s not too much trouble.’ The little cunt looked as if he wanted to throw himself off the cliff, then looked once more at the opulence of the villa and Poppy’s intransigence and took out his BlackBerry.
‘José, mate, I’m dealin’ with people who want old shit.’
He rolled his eyes again and Poppy whispered to Bella,
‘Once he’s played the music for Natalia, we can all chuck him in, fucking CrackBerry and all.’
Bella giggled and jumped back into the pool, feeling as wonderfully mad as good mad can feel. Poppy joined her and they swam over to the island for another line. The entire party was rocking now, the best (or worst) of London’s media twats splashing about in the water, smoking dope in hammocks or just ecstatic at the sounds of their own voices as they pontificated. Poppy worked in TV production, Damian in the men’s magazine world; it was hardly surprising that a large proportion of the guest list was very pleased with itself indeed. Most of them had started believing their own publicity years ago.
‘Oh, Pops, I love you.’ The girls exchanged soggy and effusive hugs on the island. ‘HAPPY WEDDING!’
‘Yay! Happy my wedding too!’ Poppy lay back on the deck in her virginal white bikini and said, with all the seriousness that a drunk and coked-up bride could muster, ‘But also, babes, I’m so happy you’re so happy with Andy. He’s a wonderful man.’
‘Yes, he is,’ said Bella dreamily. Then she laughed. ‘Just listen to us. It’s your wedding. Damian’s a wonderful man too, and I’ve never seen you look so beautiful.’
Poppy shrugged it off, as only somebody who’s been told she’s beautiful every day of her life can.
‘No, Andy’s better.’
‘No, Damian’s better.’
‘Andy’s better.’
‘Damian’s better.’
‘Andy!’
‘Damian!’
And on and on they went until Poppy pushed Bella into the water. Bella pulled Poppy in after her by a slender ankle and they laughed and laughed, looking up at the Balearic stars as they floated on extraordinary buoyant fake water lilies that glittered in the myriad lights of the pool.
After a bit, Poppy said, ‘Let’s go and find our wonderful men and see if Pig Sean has managed to find the Beatles track for Natalia yet.’
‘Pig Sean!’ Bella spluttered, nearly falling off her fake lily. ‘That’s brilliant, Pops!’
‘I know. Just call me Oscar Wilde,’ retorted Poppy solemnly. And arm-in-arm, they walked up the pool’s wide, mosaic-tiled steps, happy as pigs in shit.
Natalia wasn’t used to letting her defences drop. In fact she couldn’t remember the last time she had danced with such abandon, but Poppy and Bella had told Pig Sean to play ‘Back in the USSR’ for her, and insisted that everybody – even the guests enjoying themselves on other terraces
– danced around her main pool to it. She loved the song, of course she did, especially the bit about the Ukraine girls knocking the Beatles out. She could remember her mamushka playing black-market Beatles LPs when she was a little girl back in Kiev. But for all her apparently insouciant glamour, she would never have insisted on it herself; she wanted everything cool by DJ standards. They were so lucky, these English kids, with their automatic assumption that people wouldn’t call them tacky. They could be ‘retro’ or ‘ironic’ and still considered cool. For Natalia (aged 39 forever) the line was too narrow.
Bella’s ridiculous father was shouting along to the chorus, thrusting his skinny hips at her.
Ha! You would be so lucky, Natalia thought. Men like you used to pay me five grand a night.
Something snapped inside her, and for the first time in years she allowed herself to let her hair down in public. Literally. She unleashed the painfully tight ponytail and shook her platinum-blonde hair around her face as she gyrated round the fabulous property that she had worked so long and hard for.
The crowd whooped and cheered. Quite staggeringly, not a single person was talking about him- or herself, all mesmerized by the ice queen apparently melting. Poppy and Bella, both still in their bikinis, were dancing around her, swishing their wet hair madly.
Once it had finished, Poppy took the mike from Pig Sean.
‘Can we all now raise our glasses to our fabulous hostess, Natalia Evanovitch! Hostess with the mostest!’
‘Hostess with the mostest!’ people hollered drunkenly, though some of them were now starting to lose interest and wanted to talk about themselves again.
‘Natalia, we love you. Thank you so much for everything,’ said Poppy, as Damian approached with an enormous bouquet of lilies. He kissed Natalia, and the less self-absorbed people still watching cheered some more.
‘Natalia, we can never thank you enough for your generosity, so … I’ll spare your blushes. Enough’s enough, but one more toast, please, ladies and gentlemen … NATALIA!’
‘NATALIA!’
Pig Sean put his shades on.
‘Can I go now?’ he said petulantly. ‘I’m starting my set at Space in two hours.’
‘Feel free,’ said Poppy, winking at Bella. ‘And I’d like to thank you for being so gracious and accommodating. It’s really made my wedding special.’
As Pig Sean walked along the edge of the pool to collect his DJ stuff, Poppy gave him a little shove. Caught off guard, he went flying into the water. The look of indignation on his arrogant face was priceless, and although (or perhaps because) Poppy’s gesture was so childish, all the people who generally considered themselves sophisticated pissed themselves laughing.
Natalia’s white-blonde hair was wavy about her face, her slanty, wide-apart eyes almost invisible with laughter.
‘Oh, you guys,’ she eventually spluttered. ‘I cannot recall more fun ever. Thank you!’
She reclined on one of her incredibly expensive sun loungers and looked up at the stars, laughing happily.
She was still smiling to herself as she sat on her terrace, at the top of her tower – the one above the semicircular chill-out room. She had just risen and the party was still going strong somewhere in her massive villa, but she, Natalia, had had enough by about six a.m. and had taken herself up to her own private sanctum.
She had a baby hangover, but that was OK. It had been worth it. Natalia only took two, maybe three lines of cocaine on special occasions, and she paced herself with the champagne. She had always had to keep her wits about her. For a moment, she felt envious of Poppy and Bella, so stupidly wasted in the pool, and having so much fun – the worst they could ever have from a hangover was embarrassment. Natalia knew differently.
She could hear some music. Aha – that’s where they all were – around the back, singing along to some ridiculous song about being in the mood for dancing. Then multiple splashes. The deep thud thud thud of a very different kind of dance music had been reverberating, almost lulling her to sleep, yet now they put on this? Again, she envied their total confidence that whatever rubbish (and this music was rubbish) they played, nobody would sneer. She loved the fact that people were enjoying her hospitality, but it was bittersweet. She could never really be one of them, not with her past.
She heard Bella trying to whisper, but actually shrieking quite loudly, ‘Shhh, maybe we should turn it down a bit? Natalia’s probably still trying to sleep.’
Sweet girl. Sweet life.
But she was a little bit hungry now. Natalia needed her pineapple, mango and green tea in the morning. She laughed to herself as she recalled what hunger used to be, when she would devour bread because there was nothing else. These idiots with their intolerances. Bread and milk were the staff of life when you had that perpetual gnawing hunger pain. The self-indulgence of pampered Western women, claiming they were intolerant to wheat or ‘dairy’ made her quite sick. However, she had adapted, and realized that by cutting them out, she could keep the remarkably slender frame she’d had since her teens. Her stomach was as flat as it had ever been.
Natalia caught sight of her reflection in one of the shiny glass doors leading out from her bedroom. With her white-blonde hair tied back loosely, her skin nearly baby-soft, wiped clean of make-up with Eve Lom cleanser, she looked much younger than she normally did, with the tight ponytail and diamonds. Comfortable in her pistachio-green silk chiffon French knickers and camisole, she stretched her legs out on the marble-topped table, admiring their length.
Natalia was almost entirely without vanity. Her body had served its purpose and she regarded it with fond objectivity. Without it, none of this would have been possible. Even though they were no longer necessary, old habits died hard, and she was scrupulous in her body’s maintenance, even enduring painful Brazilian waxes when she couldn’t remember the last time anybody had seen her влагалище. For Natalia, love, or even sex for pleasure, was not an option. She had a vibrator to cater for such needs and had never had any reason to view men with anything but fear, suspicion, and a very canny eye for the main chance.
Thinking again about the old days, she rang the bell and asked for a croissant. What the hell. Wheat intolerances be damned – she could afford to indulge herself once in a while. She looked out at the wonderful view. Several yachts were floating on the deep-blue sea, their sails whiter than white against the horizon. Maybe she should buy a yacht? They were very expensive, of course, but her finances were in pretty good order now. She threw back her head and laughed with sheer joy. Not only had she escaped, but now she had this!
‘Señora?’
Natalia turned around to accept her breakfast platter.
The dark-eyed waiter grinned, exposing three gold teeth, and suddenly she knew that this happiness was not here to stay.
‘Georgiou? Is it really you? What you want? You want money? I haf plenty money,’ she said in slightly broken English – it happened when she was thrown off kilter, which wasn’t often these days.
‘I know,’ he said in Russian.
Trying to stay cool, Natalia walked slowly inside to find her Chanel handbag, where she always kept 2,000 US dollars, in case of emergencies. This was one emergency that, after the initial years, she had prayed would never occur. As she took the notes out, several fluttered from her trembling hands. The dark-eyed waiter watched as she bent to retrieve them. She knew he was loving every minute of her cowed subservience.
‘Please, take them, Georgie, and never come back.’
He smiled again. Never had gold teeth looked so repulsive.
‘Talia, I thank you. But I’ll be back.’
Chapter 3
Ben Jones walked naked to his large American fridge and cracked open a Bud. It tasted like piss, but he was prepared to put up with weak beer when he considered the compensations.
He’d just been for a run along the beach at Malibu Colony. He’d been in LA for two months now and still couldn’t get over the babes and endless sunshine. Today
(like yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that) would have been the best day of summer back home; any one of the girls he’d met during his run would have been the best-looking babe in London. Wales wasn’t comparable, on either count.
He was used to hanging out with models and actresses, but they were a completely different breed here in California. The edginess/quirkiness/kookiness (take your pick) so prized by the coolest London model agencies would be greeted here with absolute bemusement. If anything fell short of cookie-cutter perfection, the little darlings just went and got it fixed.
Without even trying, he’d picked up a fistful of colourful business cards during his run. He picked a few off the breakfast bar and laughed.
I’m Carrie (heart drawn above the i). Actress, model, spiritual healer. Call me!
Melissa – I do pedicures and aura cleansing. Let me make you beautiful, inside AND out! Sole and soul!
Jennifer Jackson. Nutritionist and personal trainer.
He turned over the last one to see the photo (they all had photos on the back) and recalled the mixed-race girl with a wide smile, dreadlocks and body to die for. He’d actually stopped for a few seconds to watch her arse as she sauntered off in the sand. Then he’d jogged back to the rented clapboard beach house his agent had found for him. He put Jennifer Jackson’s card to one side – she might be worth a booty call.
Beautiful, and vain as hell, Ben walked over to the floor-to-ceiling mirror that lined the far wall of his open-plan living space. His floppy gold-streaked light brown fringe, still a little damp from the shower, grazed his long black eyelashes. His pink pouty lips, delicious blue eyes and high cheekbones had made him such a hit back home that he had managed to acquire an LA agent almost without trying.
People Like Us, the UK sitcom whose first series he had starred in, had been a runaway success and attracted the interest of Belinda Hyman, one of the most notoriously hard-bitten agents in Hollywood. He was contracted to star in three series of People Like Us, and due to start filming the next in a few months’ time, but if he landed a movie role – well. Belinda wasn’t known as the Bitch of Beverly Hills for nothing.