The Unbreakable Trilogy. Primula Bond

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СКАЧАТЬ is here, too. Her guise tonight is as a waitress, hence her uniform of tight black skirt and starched white blouse. Dickson the chauffeur is serving drinks, too, in his shirt sleeves. He looks as if he’d be more comfortable manoeuvring machine guns rather than ferrying hors d’oeuvres. As the evening takes over, prompting lights to come on all over London, the three of us bustle about stocking up the temporary bar that has been set up by the window. Boxes of wine and champagne, trays of canapés have all materialised while I was back at the flat getting ready.

      Across on the South Bank the theatres and restaurants and galleries light up one by one, and the London Eye slows to a halt. I take a picture of it, and of the gallery, and wish Polly was here to see this.

      ‘Exactly as I would have designed it. Everything shown off to its best advantage. Good work, everyone.’

      The lift opens like the curtains of some grand stage, and Gustav marches out across the poured concrete floor, rubbing his hands against the cold. He seems to suck all the air in the space towards him, leaving everyone else stunned and waiting, like a row of night creatures mesmerised by oncoming headlights.

      His black hair is slicked back like the Godfather this evening, making him look positively sinister and intimidating. Film-star bad guy, not low-life Mafioso. His charcoal pinstripe is cut slightly looser than the sharply tailored grey one of yesterday. My stomach twists and turns like an autumn leaf because I know what lies beneath that suit. What was deep inside my mouth last night.

      Snared by sudden nerves I start stacking a pile of catalogues to hide the urge to go to him and as I do so the column of prices catches my eye. They have not been fixed to the pictures themselves and I gasp with greedy delight. Gustav has priced each of my prints at more than two thousand pounds. Some as much as five thousand. Not so expensive as to be off-putting, but way above anything a humble graduate could normally command.

      ‘Good evening, Miss Folkes.’

      He comes up to me and calmly, right in front of Crystal and Dickson and any guests about to arrive, snaps the chain from his watch back onto my bracelet. No-one bats an eyelid. Maybe that’s because if you are at any distance you can’t see the silver chain joining us.

      ‘Good evening, Mr Levi. I can’t thank you enough for this opportunity. The exhibition looks superb.’ I lean back against the desk to look at him. He’s tossing a small key up and down in his hand.

      ‘As do you. I can’t wait to see the reaction of all our guests.’

      ‘What’s that you have there?’

      He holds the key up like a talisman, his black eyes glittering wickedly. ‘It’s the key to my house. I want you to have it. I missed you when you left this morning.’

      I gaze at him, my stomach in a knot. Remembering what we did to each other.

      Polly would try and fail to keep a straight face if I told her. You stayed over, but you didn’t go the whole way? What’s wrong with him? What’s wrong with you?

      ‘It – it was a lovely evening, Gustav. Who knew you could cook like a dream?’

      We smile secretly. Who knew you could make me come like that, just licking me? Yes, Polly. You’d be proud. Because I swallowed, just like you told me.

      I glance across at Crystal and Dickson, polishing glasses and holding them up to the window. Above the lift the lights come on.

      ‘The private view is about to start,’ I stammer. ‘Did you want to discuss anything?’

      He presses me back against the desk so that the glass edge of it digs into the back of my thighs. His breath blows across my face as he pushes my legs open beneath my red dress, moves his hand gently beneath the material to the top of my thighs.

      ‘Not discuss. Tell. I want you to come and live at the house with me. Starting from tonight.’

      There is a flurry of voices over by the lifts. Crystal and the chauffeur glide about with trays of glasses. Music starts to play, echoing round the space like a night club. More elegant jazz, soothing the day away. Gustav clicks the key onto my bracelet and with a slow wink he moves away, tucking a few catalogues casually under his arm like a priest master about to deliver a sermon.

      And of course, because we’re chained together, I must follow.

      Several people swarm over to me at his introduction. Reviewers, mostly, magazine columnists, one or two other gallery owners. I have to swerve subtly as I greet them shyly, so the silver chain doesn’t get entangled. Or snap.

      Soon the entire gallery is full to bursting. Crystal has been positioned by the lift with a stack of catalogues, but now she glides up to me and Gustav.

      ‘Already five sold!’ She announces triumphantly, jabbing her fingernail at my catalogue.

      ‘That’s fantastic, Crystal!’ I try to focus on the big bold ticks she’s marked against the relevant items, then I stare round at the images themselves. Soon they will be adorning someone else’s wall. My babies, let loose on the world.

      ‘What a great way to start! Let’s see if we can’t shift a few more before the evening’s out.’ Gustav leads me back towards the window, ostentatiously holding his hand up for silence. I’m still dazed by this early success. I can see the silver chain winking in the sharp lights cast by the spots, but I don’t know if anyone else can tell that I’m chained to him.

      ‘Ladies and gentlemen!’

      Gustav claps his hands and achieves instant, glass-tinkling silence in the room. He tugs at the chain so that I am even closer.

      ‘I want to introduce you to Serena Folkes, a previously undiscovered talent who has, to say the least, been hiding her light under a bushel.’

      There’s a murmur of amusement around the room.

      ‘It would be politically incorrect of me to admit, out loud, that it was her unusual fey beauty that piqued my interest when I bumped into her on Halloween night, so I won’t go on about how gorgeous she is. A living, breathing installation in her own right!’

      There’s another murmur, and one or two press lift their big cameras and take pictures of me.

      ‘Actually it was the subject she was stalking and working on that interested me, but then she left two of her cameras in my, ah, safekeeping for a night and I took the liberty of having a scroll through the other images still stored there. I realised that she was telling the truth when she told me she was a young professional starting out. A burgeoning talent, coupled with a fierce determination. But then, when I managed to persuade her to let me showcase her work and we’d signed the paperwork, I never dreamed what else she had tucked in her arsenal.’

      He sweeps his arm around the walls, winking at the veiled obscenity, then everyone turns obediently to examine once again what I have put on show.

      ‘I reckon I’ve stumbled on a gold mine here. I think you’ll all agree that she marries stunning natural lighting and composition with sheer beauty and originality of subject. Her pictures all have the look of work that has been painstakingly developed in a dark room. And within the apparently subtle and delicate framework I think you’ll be as astonished as I was when I unearthed frame after frame of these erotic images of people who thought they were alone, unseen. Those lovers. Those sunbathers. And the СКАЧАТЬ