The Diamond Ring. Primula Bond

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      Pierre hesitates, then walks across to the window. His musky scent reaches me before he does: attractive, strong, yet my temples are throbbing painfully before he reaches me and holds out his hand. I remain motionless, the window hard and cold behind me.

      ‘I’m sorry, Serena. I behaved atrociously to a lovely girl who didn’t deserve it. I took a chance, like I always do, and put you in a terrible position. But maybe I did you a favour—’

      ‘Pierre!’ Gustav growls, putting his beer glass down with a smack and taking a step towards us. ‘That’s not the way it’s done!’

      ‘—because I only demonstrated, if it needed demonstrating, that the two of you are still unbreakable.’

      Pierre’s hand is firm, unwavering, in the air in front of me. There is a long silence, so deep I can hear the fridge humming in the kitchen and two birds arguing on the roof above us. I feel light and insubstantial as I take Pierre’s hand, feeling his fingers close around mine, and shake it.

      ‘You did something very dangerous, Levi,’ I say quietly, and glance over to Gustav. His eyes are shining with delighted relief. ‘But for Gustav’s sake, and for the sake of our future together, I want to achieve some kind of harmony between us. You’re a boneheaded bloody idiot, but fine – I forgive you.’

      Pierre bows like a pageboy. ‘And I’ll do everything I can to make it up to you.’

      I let him kiss my hand but as he lowers it again the pale-blue cuff of his shirt sleeve peeping from his blazer triggers fresh questions in my overactive mind. I snatch my hands away and shove them under my legs.

      ‘Pierre. This may sound like a silly question when we’re all being so serious, but why did you keep Gustav’s shirts, all pressed and starched, in your cupboard when you were living at Margot Levi’s apartment?’

      ‘It’s no secret that I was squatting there. I never pretended it was my place! But as for keeping G’s clothes, I left in a hurry for LA, and although some of my winter gear is still there, that’s all. Believe it or not, that apartment has always been more like a monk’s cell for me. I barely spent any time there. Preferred to sleep in other people’s beds. Sorry. Maybe that was a bit inappropriate.’ Pierre straightens and shakes his head. ‘Why would I hoard Gustav’s shirts after years of not seeing him? We’re not even the same collar size!’

      There is not one iota of comprehension as the brothers shrug at me. I tap the side of my head.

      ‘Don’t look at me as if I’m mad. I wish I’d never mentioned it now, but – Gustav’s wedding shirt is there. Wing collar. Silver tiepin. And the missing cufflink that matches the one I found in Lugano. The one with the initials GL engraved on it.’

      Any animation in Gustav’s eyes dies. He touches the cuffs of the maroon shirt he’s put on today. ‘So Margot took the shirts. And the mementos. I told Dickson to burn them, or take them for charity, but—’

      ‘You threw away that other cufflink, though, didn’t you? There was no point keeping just one, you said.’ I stand up now. ‘And when I got so upset about it, you assured me you had disposed of every gift from Margot.’

      ‘Calm down, chérie. There’s not so much as a long black hair of hers left in any of the houses.’ Gustav nods, but his eyes have that closed-off look again. ‘She’s got nothing and no one in her life. She’s like Miss Havisham, hoarding old shirts and mismatched jewellery as if it will bring me back. Come on, girl. Rise above Margot’s morose obsessions.’

      I let my head fall back against the strong, cold glass. ‘I’m sorry, Gustav. Seeing those things, those wedding things, just creeped me out, that’s all. That whole place made my skin crawl.’

      Pierre hesitates, as if he wants to sit down next to me, then to my relief he goes to stand next to the suede sofa on the other side of the room.

      ‘Guys, I don’t want to sound the alarm bell, but this obsessive insanity is what I’ve been living with for months. I’ll be too far away now in LA to help, but I’m warning you. The ball you need to keep your eye on is Margot.’

      ‘I won’t have her name contaminating my day.’ Gustav steps abruptly towards the kitchen. ‘I have lunch to get sorted.’

      ‘Margot is on a mission, G. If she can’t have you, she’ll make sure no one will. She won’t rest until Serena’s out of the picture.’ Pierre follows Gustav and grabs his arm. ‘I’m not your nemesis. Margot is. She’s the danger you need to watch out for.’

       CHAPTER FOUR

      The gallery looks bright and optimistic in the daylight, but like every other morning for the last month I wonder when I unlock the door if I’ll find it ransacked. Will the photographs from my ‘Windows and Doors’ themed exhibition be ripped off the freshly painted white walls? Will the simple elegant frames be snapped, the glass smashed? All my images shredded and obscene graffiti sprayed on the walls?

      I’ve done my best to hide my worries from Gustav. I feel safe when I’m with him, in those strong arms, looking into those steady black eyes. But when I’m on my own I’m terrified. And to make matters worse I’ve been hiding something from him.

      He says she’s barred from the condo. Banned from the gallery. The apartment has been swept again for bugs and – surprise surprise: there were none. Although they did find one in the gallery office phone. She can’t come anywhere near us or he’ll call the police. So when does it become acceptable to turn fretting into snooping?

      I wasn’t really snooping. I left Gustav and Pierre to go for a walk together after our tense conversation and a few nervy bites of lunch, but thoughts of cufflinks and shirts went on nagging at me after they’d gone out. I knew Gustav would be furious and Pierre would think me neurotic. But the madness of Margot was infecting me. I couldn’t get her whispered threats out of my ears, the smell of her clogging perfume out of my hair, even the air in that apartment out of my skin. The fact that she had taken precious items engraved with Gustav’s initials from Lugano made me feel sick. She’d kept them somewhere for the last six years, brought them back to New York, lovingly unpacked them, washed and pressed them, hung them in their old wardrobe as if, as he said, she was waiting for him to come back.

      So here I was, facing the fear, or so I thought, opening one, then another of the battered antique cigarette boxes that Gustav keeps in his dressing room, and, after I’d sneezed away the old tobacco dust, there it was, glinting amongst some old coins, as if waiting for me to find it.

      The cufflink he said he’d thrown away, whose mate is now snugly fastened in the shirt he wore to marry Margot. He’d kept it.

      So he forgot about it. Big deal. Polly’s opinion was brisk. I dropped the cufflink as if it was red hot, and banged the box shut.

      Say what you like, Polly, but that cufflink makes her, their life together, a tangible presence. She’s a face, a voice, I have seen and heard and will never forget. A jealous, deranged woman collecting treasures from her marriage to my fiancé. And don’t tell me, Polly, that they’re just shirts and trinkets, because to me they feel like armour. Weapons of war. However mad that makes me sound, I want her gone.

       Leave it for now. Just leave it. Don’t let her get СКАЧАТЬ