Little White Lies

by Lesley Lokko

  ‘An awning,’ Rebecca murmured. She turned to look at the view in the opposite direction. Trees, apartment blocks, more trees, more apartment blocks – the city stretched, white and sprawling, almost to the horizon. To her left the bay curved out towards Jaffa and to her right, the impenetrable barrage of sea-front high-rise blocks gazed blankly out over the glassy Mediterranean. ‘I like it,’ she said firmly, looking round her again. ‘I’m not sure I can be bothered with seeing any more. I’ll take it.’

  The woman looked up, a little surprised. ‘You’re sure? Your husband said I should make sure you saw—’

  ‘I’m perfectly capable of making my own mind up,’ Rebecca said tartly. ‘I know my husband knows the city better than I do, but I’m the one who’ll be living here. At least some of the time. Julian’s hardly ever home.’ She stopped herself just in time. The woman, sensing something else was being said, looked down at her notes. Rebecca sighed. She had to watch her tongue. In London no one seemed to care that she was Lionel Harburg’s daughter, but in Israel, the Harburgs were practically royalty. ‘We’ll take this one,’ she said firmly, more calmly.

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Quite sure.’ She turned away from the shimmering blue sea and opened the door leading downstairs. ‘Quite sure,’ she repeated, though possibly more for her benefit than the estate agent’s.

  She repeated the same words several times that night on the phone. First was her mother.

  ‘You’re sure?’ Embeth asked, sounding a little surprised. ‘It’s a nice enough street but it’s hardly Herzliya, darling.’

  ‘I know. But I don’t want to live in Herzliya. It’s a lovely flat. Besides, we’re not going to be living there full time.’

  ‘But it is big enough?’

  ‘For the two of us? It’s huge, Mama.’

  ‘Well, there won’t always be just the two of you, you know.’

  ‘Why? Who else is going to live with us? I hate the idea of a live-in maid, you know that—’

  ‘I didn’t mean a maid, darling. I meant . . . well, you’ll be wanting to start a family soon, won’t you?’

  ‘Oh. That. Look, there’s plenty of time, Mama—’

  ‘You’re thirty, Rebecca,’ Embeth interrupted her. ‘You shouldn’t leave it too late.’

  Rebecca had to hold the phone away from her ear, looking at it in disbelief. What the hell had got into her mother? She was thirty, not forty. Plenty of time. ‘When are you coming over?’ she asked, quickly changing the subject.

  ‘Next week. You’ll still be there, won’t you?’ Embeth sounded uncharacteristically anxious.

  ‘Yes, Mama. I’ll still be here. You can come and look at the flat with me. Give me a few decorating tips,’ Rebecca said placatingly.

  ‘That’ll be lovely, mi amor,’ Embeth purred, momentarily distracted. ‘We can go shopping together and go for lunch. There’s a lovely new restaurant near Dizengoff Square that everyone’s talking about.’

  Rebecca breathed a small sigh of relief. Shopping. Decorating. Lunching. It was what their kind did.

  Her conversation with Julian was quicker, more to-the-point. ‘If you like it, buy it, darling,’ he said, his disembodied voice sounding more distant than usual. She struggled to remember where he was. Paris? Frankfurt? ‘I won’t be able to see it for another couple of weeks. I’m in Brussels tomorrow night, then it’s Singapore on Saturday. You’ll manage on your own, won’t you?’

  ‘Yes, of course. I’ll . . . I’ll stay out here for a bit. Mama will be here. She’ll take me to meet her architects and we can decide if anything needs doing.’

  ‘Good girl. I’d better go . . . I’ll call you tomorrow from the airport.’ He hung up before anything further could be said. It wasn’t Julian’s style to end conversations with an ‘I love you,’ or an ‘I miss you.’

  She put the phone down slowly and got up from the sofa. She walked over to the antique cupboard, which housed the stereo. She opened the doors and the warm, rich smell of polished wood floated out. She bent down and switched it on. There was a tidy stack of CDs to one side, mostly of classical music and bands whose names she didn’t know. She pushed her finger along the hard plastic length of the stack until she saw one she recognised. She giggled. The Best of Wham! Next to Rachmaninov. It seemed such an unlikely choice for Julian. She slid it out and in the same instant, a flash of lightning lit up the room. A winter storm was on its way. The lightning flickered again and, moments later, she both heard and felt the dull rumble of thunder somewhere out there over the sea. A tree was sweeping against one of the bedroom windows; somewhere outside a shutter rattled and banged. She slipped the CD into the deck. Wake me up before you go-go. The upbeat melody filled the room. Wake me up before you go-go, ’cos I’m not planning on going solo. She began to hum along to the tune. Her feet began to tap out the rhythm on the parquet flooring. She looked around her; she was quite alone. She lifted her hands up in the air and began to sway, slowly at first, then quicker, with growing urgency, until she was dancing wildly, uninhibitedly, alone in the strange semi-darkness brought about by the storm.

  75

  ANNICK

  Paris

  She came out of the bathroom, drying her hands on her skirt (safer than any towel hanging there), and caught sight of the figure standing by the window. Her heart skipped a beat. A tall, rake-thin woman in a trenchcoat with a scarf tied casually around her neck stood with her back towards her. She turned slowly as Annick came to an abrupt halt. For a moment, the two women stared at each other. Annick’s first instinct was to run – but where to? Tash was standing between her and the front door.

  ‘Annick.’ It was spoken softly. No histrionics, then. Annick felt a wave of gratitude surge powerfully upwards through her chest.

  ‘Tash.’ Annick’s throat constricted painfully. An almost unbearable ache of sadness came over her. Ten years. The woman standing in front of her was dressed expensively – pale-green trenchcoat with a dark-tan leather trim; a grey-and-white hound’s-tooth-patterned scarf knotted around her neck; high-heeled black shoes with a shine on them like a mirror . . . even her bag, a pale-yellow leather affair with tassels, looked as though it cost the earth. It probably did. She was acutely aware of her own plain black skirt, scuffed shoes and frayed-at-the-collar, second-hand blue jumper. Her hands went self-consciously to its hem, tugging it down. She swallowed, casting about desperately for something to say. ‘I . . . I like your bag,’ she said finally, idiotically.

  Tash looked at it as though seeing it for the first time. ‘Prada,’ she said with faint smile. ‘We get given a lot of stuff.’ There was another awkward silence. Annick looked beyond Tash to the street beyond. She was lost for words. Then, in a gesture of almost unbearable tenderness, Tash lifted her head, loosening her scarf. Her long pale neck was suddenly exposed, giving away to anyone who cared to see it so much of her own vulnerability that all the embarrassment and the faint flickering of resentment that Annick felt at having been caught out, vanished. Everything went right out of her and she had to put out a hand, grabbing onto the reception counter.

  In an instant, Tash was beside her. ‘Easy, Annick,’ she said gently. ‘Here, sit down. I’m a complete idiot. I should’ve rung first, I’m sorry.’

  ‘No, no, of course not. It’s . . . I’m fine. It’s just . . . it’s just such a surprise, that’s all—’

  ‘A surprise?’ Tash helped her to her seat behind the counter. ‘I’ll bloody say! Here . . . let me get you something. Glass of water?’

  Annick shook her head. She could hear Claudette clattering down the stairs with her mops and brooms and that unruly snake of a vacuum cleaner. ‘I’m f-fine,’ she stammered. ‘Just need to catch my breath. H-how did you find me?’

  ‘Aunt Libertine. I spent the afternoon with her. She almost poisoned me with her sherry, mind, but . . . well, here you are. Here I am. I . . . I don’t know what to say, Annie. I don’t know why it took me so long . . . well, I do know, but that’s no fuck
ing excuse. I—’

  Suddenly the side door behind them swung open and Claudette clattered into the lobby with all her cleaning paraphernalia. She looked from Annick to Tash and back again, raising an eyebrow. A woman with a Prada bag was a rare sighting in the lobby of the Hôtel du Jardin. The three women looked at each other.

  ‘Er, Claudette, this . . . this is a friend of mine,’ Annick stammered. ‘From London.’

  ‘Nice to meet you, Claudette,’ Tash said sincerely, holding out a hand. ‘I’m Tash.’

  Claudette, unaccustomed to such open warmth, especially in one so well-dressed, held back shyly. Annick’s eyes widened. It was the first time Annick had ever seen Claudette appear shy. She shook hands, stole a sideways glance at Annick and then beat a hasty retreat.

  ‘She seems nice,’ Tash said mildly as the door closed behind her. She turned to Annick. ‘What time d’you finish here?’ she asked as if it was the most natural question in the world.

  ‘Eight. Tomorrow morning. I . . . I’m doing night shifts.’

  ‘Isn’t there anyone who could cover for you?’

  ‘Cover for me?’

  ‘Yeah. I think we could both do with a drink. I know I could.’

  Annick bit her lip. ‘Well, there’s Wasis . . . he’s the other receptionist. I . . . I could ask him but—’

  ‘Ask him,’ Tash said firmly. ‘And tell him we’ll make it worth his while. I’ll make it worth his while. Now I really need a drink,’ Tash laughed shakily. ‘Come on. Let’s get out of here.’

  Annick swallowed. She picked up the phone. That was Tash. Ever so bossy. Still.

  An hour later, having bribed a sulky Wasis with a fifty-euro note which subsequently brightened him up no end, Annick and Tash were seated opposite one another in a small cafe just off the main boulevard. It was nearly nine p.m. and rain had begun to fall lightly again. In contrast to the lightness Tash had shown earlier, in the hotel, now, sitting across the table from her, both girls were nervous. The tiny restaurant was in some kind of uproar behind them; a large party of fifteen, twenty people were seated at the long table near the window. Every so often came the loud disorder of chairs being scraped back and forth and outbursts of laughter that shattered the delicate silence that had fallen between them. Tash traced the outline of flowers on the plastic tablecloth with a forefinger, not speaking. The silence deepened.

  ‘What happened, Annick? How did it happen? Can . . . can you talk about it?’

  Annick looked down at her own hands, folded carefully in her lap. ‘I still don’t know all the details,’ she said simply. ‘I was at work – I think it was a Monday morning . . . nothing out of the ordinary. I went out to get a sandwich and then I went to the bank and all my accounts had been frozen. I . . . I walked down the Strand. I didn’t really know what to do. I called home but the lines were down. And then I saw one of those Evening Standard billboards, you know, the ones on the side of the road. And I saw the headline. That’s how I knew.’

  ‘Jesus Christ. How . . . that must have been awful.’

  Annick nodded. ‘Yeah, and then I went back to the flat and Mrs Price just kept saying that I’d better go to Paris. Aunt Libertine was afraid they’d come after the property, but I don’t know why. I don’t even know if they did.’

  ‘We went there . . . me and Rebecca. It must have been a couple of days afterwards. I saw it on the news and I rang Rebecca straight away. Funny, it was the first time we’d spoken since . . . well, since the party. But the whole place was in complete darkness. We must’ve gone back, oh, I don’t know . . . four, five times after that . . . but it was always the same. The last time we passed, it was boarded up.’

  Annick swallowed. Boarded up. Her home. She blew out her cheeks. ‘Well, maybe it was all for nothing? Who knows.’

  ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘I came here,’ Annick shrugged. ‘I stayed with Aunt Libertine for a while. Well, you know what she’s like . . . I couldn’t bear the thought of having to live off her charity. So . . . I found a job.’

  ‘Doing this?’

  ‘Well, what else was I supposed to do? My qualifications wouldn’t transfer over . . . I had absolutely no money, Tash. Nothing. I think I left with fifty quid on me. How long d’you think that lasts?’

  Tash bowed her head. ‘Weren’t you frightened?’ she asked after a moment.

  Annick shrugged. ‘Yes, of course. Not like Aunt Libertine, though. She seemed to think they’d be after her and me. I don’t remember being afraid of that. All I could think about . . . all I ever think about is that I’ll never see them again.’ She blinked rapidly. ‘That’s the bit I still can’t accept. So I don’t think about it. I don’t think about anything. I get up, I go to work . . . that’s it.’

  Tash put out a hand, covering hers. ‘I didn’t know what to do. I kept calling you and there was no answer and your work just said you’d left suddenly. No one knew where you’d gone. We shouldn’t have given up so easily. I . . . I just—’ She looked away, a hot flush coming up into her face. ‘Well, you know why I gave up. I was . . . I was ashamed. Of what . . . happened.’

  Annick shook her head. ‘It wasn’t your fault. If anyone was to blame about that . . . well, it was him. He shouldn’t . . . he should never have—’

  ‘I didn’t know it was him at first.’ The words suddenly spilled out of Tash’s mouth. ‘And by the time I realised . . . it was too late. I . . . I didn’t know how to stop.’

  Annick shook her head. ‘I . . . I know. It’s hard for me to talk about him like that, especially now, but I don’t blame you. Not anymore. My mother told me—’

  ‘She didn’t know, did she?’ Tash’s hand flew up to her mouth.

  ‘No, no . . . I don’t think so. At least I never said anything. But she told me other stuff about him. Stuff with the servants . . . you know.’ Annick fell uncomfortably silent. She looked away. Tash’s eyes were bright with tears. ‘It doesn’t matter anymore,’ she said slowly. ‘You’re here. I’m just sorry you found me like this.’ She looked around her.

  ‘Why didn’t you come to us? We’d have done anything to help you, you know that.’

  Annick shook her head. ‘How could I? I was too embarrassed. I just couldn’t bear the thought of anyone seeing me that way. I just couldn’t bear the thought of anyone’s pity.’ She too looked away. ‘I know it’s hard to explain—’

  Tash shook her head. ‘No, it’s not. I know exactly what you mean. That’s how it’s always been for me. You and Rebecca . . . you lived on an entirely different planet.’ Tash’s voice caught suddenly. She reached up and fiercely wiped her cheeks with the sleeve of her expensive-looking shirt. Annick’s eyes widened in disbelief. She couldn’t remember ever seeing Tash cry.

  ‘Can I get you ladies anything to eat?’ Their waiter interrupted them as he topped up their glasses.

  Both shook their heads. ‘No, thanks,’ Tash said shakily. ‘But can you get us something a bit more drinkable than this?’

  ‘But of course, madam,’ the waiter withdrew immediately. A few minutes later he was back, bearing a bottle before him with considerable pride. Glad of the diversion, Tash made a great show of tasting it and nodding her approval.

  ‘I saw you in a magazine,’ Annick began tentatively when he’d finally left them alone. ‘Not that long ago. Someone left a newspaper at the hotel. It was the Guardian, I think.’

  ‘Oh, that.’ Tash smiled faintly. ‘Doing interviews is my least favourite bit about all this. Everyone’s always wondering how someone as ugly as me gets to run a fashion business.’

  ‘Don’t say that,’ Annick said quickly.

  ‘Why not? It’s true.’ Tash grinned. She shrugged. ‘Anyway, we’re not here to talk about me, darling. We’re here to sort out what you’re going to do.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’ Annick’s heart gave a lurch.

  ‘You don’t think I’m going back without you, do you?’

  ‘What d’you mean?’ Annick asked again, her hea
rt beginning to accelerate.

  ‘You’re coming back with me.’

  ‘I . . . I can’t,’ Annick said, panicking.

  ‘Of course you can.’

  ‘But what about my job?’

  ‘Your job? You’re a solicitor, Annick, not a hotel receptionist. Why on earth would you even care about that job? I mean it. I’m not leaving without you. If it means waiting in Paris for a couple of days whilst you sort things out, I will. You’re coming home.’

  ‘Tash, I c-can’t.’

  ‘Why? Is there something else? You’re not married or anything, are you?’ Tash asked in alarm.

  Annick began to cry again. ‘N-no, of course not. It’s just . . . it’s all so s-sudden,’ she said, furiously wiping away her own tears. ‘I . . . I just d-don’t know what to say.’

  ‘Don’t say anything.’ Tash suddenly laid her hand on the table, palm down. She spread her fingers so that the little tattoo was clearly visible. ‘Where’s your hand?’ she asked.

  Annick lay her own next to hers. The two identical tattoos stared back up at them. Neither said anything for a moment. Tash reached over and lightly traced the outline, touching each of the three points of the triangle in turn. Annick closed her eyes. She was wrong. The circle wasn’t broken after all.

  76

  The Hôtel Gabriel seemed to belong to another city, another planet . . . another way of life. From the moment the taxi pulled up outside the four-storey building in the Marais and a bellhop jumped forward to help them out, Annick felt as though she’d stumbled into someone else’s dream.

  ‘Bonsoir, mesdames, bonsoir.’ The receptionists couldn’t have been more delighted to see them if they’d tried. Gleaming teeth, glossy hair, smiles as wide as the Seine.

  Tash remained coolly unmoved. ‘My friend will be staying with me in the suite. Please take her bags right up. We’ll have a drink in the bar first.’

  ‘Very good, Mademoiselle Bryce-Brudenell.’ And that was that. Annick’s two bags that she’d hastily packed whilst Tash waited downstairs were whisked out of sight. It was nearly midnight but the bar, just off to one side of the lobby, was still full. Tash ignored the one or two people who looked up as they entered and walked straight to a table by the window. Annick followed, too stunned to speak. She watched as Tash ordered a bottle of champagne, wishing the ground would open up and swallow her whole. She’d never felt so out of place in her life. The glamour and opulence around her made her feel almost nauseous.