The Diamond Ring. Primula Bond

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      Slowly, reluctantly, I get myself dressed and check my reflection again. No make-up. No scent. I’m putting on no jewellery or pretty dresses or high heels to honour this state visit of Pierre Levi.

      I pad down the apartment towards the sound of the brothers’ deep voices. I pause at the entrance to the huge, light-filled sitting room. All you can see from this angle is the sky. For a wild moment I long to be a bird flying up there, far away from this room, this apartment. Even this city.

      ‘Hi, Serena. Thanks for – it’s good to see you. You look – you look a bit feverish. Are you OK?’

       I’m fine. My fiancé just took me from behind in the bathroom, that’s why I’m all flushed.

      I ignore Polly’s off-stage prompt, afraid I might start to snuffle inappropriately.

      The two men are standing on either side of the long mantelpiece, separated by the suspended, and unlit, fireplace. My eyes skate over them, unwilling to settle on either, and especially not on Pierre. Although they are already holding glasses of beer, there is too wide a space between the brothers, something awkward in their stance, the way they swivel quickly towards me when I come into the room as if I might offer some light relief.

      ‘Hello, Pierre. You got here quickly.’

      I take the glass of Chablis that Gustav hands me and sip from it as I walk past him towards the window. The wine flows through me and I know it’s making my face even redder. On an empty stomach it hits the spot instantly. The tension doesn’t release its grip, but it loosens a little.

      ‘Just in time, by the look of it, sis. Have you been in a fight? My God, if anyone has hurt you—’

      I round on him before I can stop myself. ‘I told you on the phone the other night. Don’t ever call me that!’

      I avoid Gustav’s eyes. Thank God I decided against a skirt and high heels. I’ve pulled on a slouchy pair of harem pants – glorified pyjamas really – and a creamy cashmere sweater and kept my feet bare. Even so, I’m prickly and self-conscious as I settle down on the wide windowsill, my favourite spot in the apartment. You can see Central Park from here. There’s a new dusting of pale green on the treetops. My senses are vibrating like the antennae of those minuscule insects you see on wildlife programmes. Anticipating the predator.

      ‘You look comfortable there. That’s where we watched the fireworks on New Year’s Eve,’ says Pierre. ‘Kind of where this all began.’

      I turn my back on the fledgling spring day that has arrived overnight and allow myself to look at him. No green coat. No velvet breeches. No peacock feather. Just a new hangdog expression.

      Before I know what’s happening, I have flown across the room and smacked him, hard, across the face.

      The sound ricochets around the room. Pierre takes the blow with barely a flinch. Just a momentary closing of his dark eyes. The silence ticks by as we watch my handprint come up in livid stripes.

      So much for growing wiser. I shouldn’t have done that. I daren’t look at Gustav.

      ‘Nothing began,’ I reply coldly, backing away from him. ‘Not between you and me, anyway. Come on. You know why you’re here, so let’s just get on with it.’

      ‘Serena, please.’ Gustav clears his throat. He starts to walk towards me, eyeing his brother as if he might bite, or make a run for it. He changes his mind and stays where he is, halfway between us. ‘She has a right to be angry, though, P. That bitch Margot has told us everything.’

      ‘I can’t think what she’s told you. I haven’t spoken to her since that night at the theatre. I thought she’d long since left New York when I told her I wasn’t playing ball.’ Pierre’s knuckles whiten as he clutches his drink. ‘She was grossly insulted, of course, rained down curses on my head. On all our heads—’

      ‘Which is why I’d abseil into a volcano rather than be in her presence again.’ Gustav keeps it very quiet. ‘But into her presence we were enticed. It transpires she did leave New York, but only to track your movements in Venice. She sent us your peacock feather as evidence of your gatecrashing the Carnivale ball and pretending to be me. It spooked us, as intended, but we – Serena – thought it was from you. From your Venetian costume.’ Gustav gestures towards the caramel suede sofa facing the window. ‘Sit down.’

      ‘You’ve told him everything?’ Pierre doesn’t move, but fixes his eyes on me.

      ‘Of course I have. That’s why you’re here,’ I reply, edging round the other sofas back to the windowsill. ‘Your brother wants to hear it from you.’

      ‘I know Margot instructed you to do whatever it took to remove Serena from the equation so that you, and she, could get close to me. She made out the twisted argument that Serena would somehow block any reconciliation between us, which would be funny if it wasn’t farcical.’ Gustav sighs and gazes at me, the flame in his eyes so hot Pierre can’t possibly miss it. ‘All this girl has ever done is support our efforts. But then at the first sign of trouble in our relationship you took the idea and ran with it. You fancied my girlfriend for yourself.’

      I rest my fingers on the window for a moment. ‘That sound like a fair summary to you, Levi?’

      Pierre plonks himself down and pushes his body into the corner of the big sofa as if trying to make himself smaller. One knee jerks up and down so much that he puts the glass down on the table.

      ‘Yes, I was in Venice. And yes, I was with Serena. But all I want is for us to be friends,’ Pierre pins his eyes on me as he touches the red mark. ‘I come in peace.’

      My hand still stings as I study his face. He’s lost some of the chunkiness around the neck and shoulders. The aggressive spiky hair has relaxed into surprising wild curls and the Californian sun has already tanned him. He’s smart, and clean, surprisingly so, in a lightweight blue suit.

      Goddammit, he’s looking good.

      But the best thing is that now he looks a lot less like Gustav.

      Now he’s here in front of me, I let myself feel it for the last time. Pierre’s weight. The give of the cushions beneath us. His hands on me—

      ‘When you say with Serena’ – Gustav takes a step towards Pierre, then veers round him and walks to the other end of the room – ‘did you want her for yourself?’

      Pierre’s eyes slide over to his brother. There’s a strange calmness about him I don’t remember seeing before. And a tinge of sadness. But that could still be fake. As Margot said, the guy lives and works with actors. This humility is probably assumed, like everything else about him.

      ‘What has she told you?’

      ‘I’m asking you to tell us the truth, P. It’s not up to Serena to defend herself.’

      Pierre puts his head in his hands and it’s a relief to have that glittering black stare extinguished for a moment. ‘I mean Margot. What has she told you?’

      ‘That you fucked my fiancée.’

      The vicious words scatter around the space. Pierre and I flinch simultaneously. My head knocks against the thick glass window pane, setting up a СКАЧАТЬ