Little White Lies (43 page)

Her heart began to thump inside her chest. The door creaked open; she stepped back abruptly. It had been years since she’d seen her but Aunt Libertine’s face was unmistakable. The same strange, deeply hooded eyes as her brother’s; the same olive skin as Annick’s, the high forehead and curved, patrician nose. She was looking into a triptych. Sylvan, Annick, Libertine. The urge to cry came upon her crudely.

‘
Oui?
’ Aunt Libertine opened the door a little further. ‘
Qui cherchezvous?
’

‘Madame Betancourt? It’s me, Tash,’ she began in her halting, schoolgirl French. ‘Tatiana. Annick’s friend, from school in London. We met once, when you came to London. You took us to tea at the Ritz.’

There was silence as Aunt Libertine looked closely at her. Tash feared she’d shut the door in her face. A minute passed, then another. Finally the door opened fully and Aunt Libertine stood aside for Tash to enter. ‘Upstairs,’ she said, pointing to the staircase. ‘The first door.’ She said nothing further as they climbed the stairs together.

She opened the door. Tash’s first impression was of a room floating in sparkling sunlight until she realised it was dust. There was a sofa at one end, its cushions flattened and an assortment of blankets lay on the floor. A large television dominated the window. With her paraphernalia of books and magazines and cups and glasses strewn all around her, it was clear that Aunt Libertine was not a woman who entertained much, or even at all.

‘Have a seat. There, by the window.’ Her English was perfect. Just like Annick’s.

Tash sat down gingerly on a low chair, trying not to sneeze. There was a sweetish smell in the air that reminded her of something, though she couldn’t quite place it until she saw the half-empty glass of sherry on the side-table, next to Aunt Libertine’s permanent seat. Light bounced off the glass. She was instantly catapulted back into the warm fug of home. It was the same smell she associated with Lyudmila’s bedroom.

‘So, you’re here looking for Annick?’ Aunt Libertine wasted no time. She fished around somewhere in the depths of the cushions surrounding her and retrieved a pair of spectacles on a brightly coloured string. ‘Ah, that’s better. Yes, I remember you. The plain one. Still plain, I see.’

‘Yes, well, we’re not all as pretty as Annick,’ Tash retorted, a little more sharply than she intended.

Aunt Libertine’s eyebrows went up. ‘You clearly haven’t seen her lately.
Pouf!
She’s an elephant. No, she’s lost a
little
weight, it’s true, but when I think of what she
used
to be like . . . Tragic. If her mother could see her . . .’ She stopped abruptly and reached for her glass. ‘Would you like a drink?’

Tash nodded. Getting an address for Annick out of Aunt Libertine might take a little more time and skill than she’d imagined. Despite her air of tetchy independence, underneath it all, she suspected, Aunt Libertine was starved of company. If she had to sit here for an hour or two with her, drinking cheap sherry in order to get what she’d come for, so be it. She accepted a none-too-clean glass of something pale and brown and brought it gingerly to her lips. Dry cheap sherry. Ugh. Still, who cared? She was here for something else.

At quarter past five that evening, just as the sun was beginning to sink over the trees, she was back in her compartment on the train, heading back towards the city. Held tightly in her left hand was a scrap of paper with an address. Hôtel du Jardin, rue Championnet, somewhere in the eighteenth, a district of the city that Aunt Libertine clearly despised. ‘La Goutte d’Or,’ she’d said, her mouth curling derisively downwards. ‘Sylvan would be turning over in his grave if he knew,’ she said piously.

Tash had no idea where it was but she couldn’t have cared less. She had an address. She also had the beginning of a blinding headache, brought on by the disgusting sherry, but her heart felt lighter than it had in years. The only question was why it had taken her so long. She looked out at the city now slowly coming into view.
La Défènse, La Grande Arche
, the starkly elegant form of the Eiffel Tower . . . the train began to slow down as it approached Jean Jaurès Métro Station. She would jump in a taxi from there and show the driver the address. She’d no desire to begin learning the city’s geography via its underground.

‘Rue Championnet?’ The driver looked at her a little incredulously. ‘You’re sure?’

‘Of course I’m sure,’ Tash snapped, her patience already worn thin. He was the third driver to question her – only difference was, he hadn’t immediately driven off. ‘It’s a hotel.’

‘Well, there are hotels and there are
hotels
. . .’ he began, a touch pompously. His English was good.

‘Look. I’ll pay you double if you can get me there in under an hour. Triple if you take me there without saying another fucking word.’

He scowled up at her through the half-open window. ‘Okay, okay. It’s your money.
Allez
.’

She climbed into the back seat, sighing with relief. At last. He pulled out and into the traffic heading north without another word. They crossed the river, dancing their way around the complicated traffic flow around L’Opéra until they were on the Boulevard Rochechouart, heading north.
Marcadet-Poissoniers, Barbès, Rue des Portes Blanches
. . . she read the signs as they drove. The Paris into which they were headed was a million miles away from the Paris of Fashion Week and the chic hotels of the Marais where she was staying, and from Aunt Libertine’s genteel suburb. Where the hell had Annick ended up? As the traffic thickened and slowed, turning first down one narrow street then another, it was as if she’d parted the veil on another life, one that lived in the shadows. Here there were no street-side cafes where handsome waiters danced between tables, carafes of wine held jauntily aloft, no kissing couples and mothers running after children, balanced precariously on pencil-sharp heels. Instead there were shops whose signs were written in another, flowing script, windows full of bright, sticky sweets; women walked along covered from head to toe, only the opening around their eyes providing any kind of glimpse into the face beneath; men in long, flowing white robes, men blacker than any she’d ever seen in shiny suits and the pointed shoes of medieval court jesters. Her eyes widened. It wasn’t possible. She would never find Annick
here
?

‘That’s it,’ the driver spoke suddenly. ‘Hôtel du Jardin. Just there, across the road. See?’

Tash craned her neck. The red neon letters flashed out a rhythm. ‘I guess that must be it,’ she said softly.

The driver pulled up outside the hotel. ‘Triple, you said? I didn’t say a word.’

‘Yeah, all right.’ She fished out a hundred-euro note. ‘Keep the change.’ She got out and slammed the door shut behind her. Her heart was thumping.

‘
Merci
,’ the driver shouted cheerfully as he pulled back into the traffic. ‘
Bonne chance
!’

Bonne chance
indeed. She looked up and down the brightly lit boulevard. All around her people were streaming back and forth, all lit by the same melon-green night. The hotel’s sign flickered dully. She gripped her handbag, pushed through the small knot of people on the pavement and pushed open the door.

REBECCA
Tel Aviv

It was a few blocks away from the beach on the top floor of a four-storey building with a broad, wide roof terrace. In front of her, the sea dazzled in a long, wide expanse of rippling blue. She put up a hand to shield her eyes.

‘Beautiful, no?’ The woman spoke English with a jaunty mid-Atlantic twang. ‘Imagine yourself out here in the summer. You could put up a . . . how d’you call it? An umbrella? A shade?’

‘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.

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.