The Diamond Ring. Primula Bond

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СКАЧАТЬ it from the others I see that a silver grey cravat is tied round the wing collar, fastened with a simple silver pin.

      It glistens in the light dancing from the tasselled lampshade above my head. I can’t resist pulling the shirt closer to look at the tiepin.

      This doesn’t belong to Pierre. Because engraved on it are the entwined initials GL.

      ‘My brother has obviously moved some of his dancers in here. Two or three, judging by all this paraphernalia. So it’s group sex he’s into now!’ Gustav calls from up the hall. ‘None of his stuff is in evidence, but there’s knickers, make-up, theatrical costumes everywhere. The place is a tip.’

      Where have I seen those initials before? I know they stand for Gustav Levi, but where have I seen that style of engraving? I turn the pin over, and a cold hand claws at my heart.

      Across the back is the tiny inscription M and G. Forever.

      Gustav is in the corridor, muttering something about a wasted journey, but I can’t move. This is the loving inscription from a bride to a groom, promising permanence. Encapsulated in those curly silver words is their relationship, their marriage, their life. When he was her groom. Not mine.

      Everything Gustav has told me about her, the things Pierre told me about Margot and what she did to him with her whips and handcuffs; it all comes back to me. Those deep voices merging with story after story, trapping me in this overheated, over-furnished, stinking reminder of Margot Levi and the sexual power she had over both the Levi brothers.

      When she had reduced Gustav to a debauched, diminished figure after five abusive years of marriage, Margot took Pierre. Her willing, besotted prisoner. She was the cougar. He was nineteen, easy meat. He’d lusted after her all the time she was married to his brother, fantasised about her when he heard them moaning in the night, and when at last he had her to himself, he probably thought it was for ever too.

       PL and GL.

      I let the shirt nestle back softly against its fellows and close the cupboard. I step backwards and fall back on to the bed. Margot was insatiable, Pierre told me. She couldn’t get enough of him. She would straddle him, or get him to take her from behind, several times a day, tying him, whipping him, drugging him either with dope to make him hornier or Viagra to make him harder, teaching him everything she knew about her world of punishment and pain, the world she once shared with Gustav.

       GL.

      Pierre couldn’t resist tormenting me with the notion that Margot’s particular brand of poison still flowed in Gustav’s veins, too. That after living with, and being married to, a mesmerising, demanding dominatrix like her, no woman would ever be enough for him.

      The woman they both loved once writhed on this bed. I can see her black hair twisting like wire, the nodules of her spine flexing as she knelt up, impaling herself on the hard length of her sex slave. GL, or PL.

      It’s the same image that tortured me in the chalet in Lugano where Gustav took me last winter. I blundered into Margot’s boudoir, thinking it had been cleared, but her stuff was everywhere. Her leather basque and boots invited me to try them on. Her collection of whips hung on their hooks, ready to deliver punishment. In my confusion that day I thought I might become stronger by dressing myself up in Margot’s clothes and in a way I did because, although Gustav went mad with anger when he found me, the anger turned, very quickly, into lust, and that’s the night when he first fucked me.

      I know where I’ve seen those initials before. I yank open the wardrobe again. The same style of engraving was on the silver cufflink I found in the master bathroom in Lugano. Gustav declared that a cufflink without its pair was worse than useless. He told me that he had disposed of it, along with every other gift from Margot.

      I snatch at the sleeve of the white dress shirt. One cuff is unfolded and bare. Fastened in the other is the missing link.

      This place feels like a shrine to the unholy trinity of GL, PL and M. And I don’t belong.

      I used to feel excluded like this as a child. Every day I came home from school to be ignored by unloving parents, knowing that in other families my friends were being welcomed into warm homes full of light and food. All I could do was stand in the darkness outside.

      But I’m an adult now. I’m going to marry Gustav. I’m supposed to be in control.

      ‘Why is Pierre storing your shirts here?’ I slam the cupboard shut. ‘Your wedding shirt, for God’s sake?’

      There’s no sound. Not even from the street outside. Nothing, then the creak of floorboards. I peer down the dark red painted corridor.

      ‘Pierre’s not at home, Gustav. This feels all wrong. Let’s just get out of here.’

      Still he doesn’t answer. But the peacock feather that was in his pocket floats through the air from the room opposite the front door and drops to the floor.

      ‘I’ve been counting the days till you were in my boudoir again instead of that freeloading brother of yours. Or should I say our boudoir? Cat got your tongue, Gusty? I always did have that effect on you!’

      A woman’s throaty voice, perforating the silence. The accent has a Germanic rasp and she pronounces his name ‘Goostie’.

      A pair of spike-heeled red sandals steps through the open front door. The brief hope that they are attached to a harmless young dancer flickers and dies. A dancer wouldn’t be able to afford Jimmy Choo.

      I’m about to meet the third member of the triumvirate. My legs give way beneath me and I crumple in the doorway.

      The pointed toes stop right in front of me. She is wearing red stockings with a silky sheen. They crease very slightly as she lifts her foot.

      ‘You like the shoes? Sexy as hell, aren’t they? A little fetish, no? Gustav gave me these, when we got engaged.’

      One pointed toe hooks itself under my chin.

      ‘Stand up straight.’ The voice segues from a croon to a snarl. ‘Slouching there like a slut.’

      My face is levered upwards, leading my eyes up the long, skinny legs, past the red stocking tops and under a black trench coat where I catch a glimpse of a bare, waxed snatch glowing white in the shadows.

      Margot Levi stamps her foot back on the floor. She puts her hands on her hips in an aggressive, questioning gesture as she swivels to face Gustav who is now standing in the corridor behind her.

      He takes an unsteady step nearer. ‘Don’t you dare speak to Serena like that!’

      She throws her head back and laughs. It’s a deep, rattling sound which seems to suck the breath out of her.

      ‘Still so angry and masterful, Levi. You used to leap to my defence in just that way!’ Margot points at me. ‘She too pathetic to stand up for herself? No, don’t answer that. I can see she’s just out of nappies! God, you two have goaded me for long enough.’

      She is wearing a black beret just like mine. She pulls it off and tosses it with perfect aim on to a coat hook. Her black hair is plaited into cornrows, which she quickly coils into a bundle at the back of her head. A collection of dreadlocks falls over and conceals one side of her face, but the slanted black eyes glitter through СКАЧАТЬ