Divas (25 page)

He was all tucked in now, all put away. Only the burning light in his eyes, the flush on his cheeks, indicated what had just happened between them.

‘I—’ he started. ‘I – I’m . . .’

He looked at her helplessly. It was how, Lola imagined with great satisfaction, a hugely powerful wounded boar would stare at the person who, though much more fragile than itself, had somehow
managed to make a dent in its hide.

One of his hands rose up, and grabbed a hunk of his dirty-blond hair, pulling at it, as if he wanted to punish himself by causing himself pain.

‘I—’ he tried again.

And then he turned – his powerful back, his strong shoulders, bunched with strain – as he strode to the door of the suite, pulled it open and dashed through it, slamming it shut
behind him.

Lola looked down at herself. In the old days – which was, suddenly, how she seemed to be referring to her sex life, pre-Niels – she would have been revolted by a man doing anything
so vulgar as come over her. And now, the sight of his come on her slender thigh, a white, thick pool of liquid, was the most erotic thing she’d ever seen in her life. If, of course, you
excepted the sight of Niels’s erect penis. She ran a finger through the residue on her thigh and tasted it, savouring the sweet-sour flavour of almonds and lemon. Then, holding up the skirt
of her negligee to her waist, she slipped, wincing, off the desk, and crossed the room to the toilet in the foyer, where she washed down her leg and dried it with a hand towel.

Catching sight of herself in the mirror, she barely recognised the girl who was looking back at her. Golden and glowing, eyes dark and starry, a gorgeous flush of colour on her cheeks, her hair
tumbled on her shoulders. She couldn’t help giggling: it was the perfect bedroom hair, the style girls had in Victoria’s Secret catalogues, carefully arranged and teased out to look as
if they’d just been fucked. It was very rare that Lola looked at herself without vanity, but now she did, and she knew that she had never looked so beautiful in her life.

She got herself cleaned up just in time. She was just picking up and slipping on her dressing gown when a key turned in the door and Jean-Marc and David tumbled through it, babbling excitedly
about the encounter they had just had in the corridor with Niels.

‘Did you
see
him, Lo? Did you tell him anything?’ asked Jean-Marc, who had sent his brother a cryptic email, saying that he had left rehab and hinting that he had also come
out of the closet, without quite being brave enough to tell him directly. He had hoped that Niels would understand.

‘And by the way he looked at me, I’m
sure
he knew, ’ David added rather nervously. ‘I thought he was going to
hit
me – he had this look in his eyes,
so scary—’

‘He just
growled
at us and kept walking!’ Jean-Marc said. ‘I haven’t seen Niels that angry
ever
!’

‘He’s so butch, isn’t he?’ David murmured. ‘I mean, terrifying, but
thrilling
too. I bet he’s
fabulous
in bed.’

‘David! Stop that!’ Jean-Marc elbowed his boyfriend. ‘You are so naughty – that’s my
brother
—’

‘Well, but I bet he is, though, ’ David muttered rebelliously. ‘Those shoulders! God!’

He closed his eyes and shivered theatrically.

‘Did you have a fight with him, Lo?’ Jean-Marc insisted.

‘Um, he was cross that I was here, ’ Lola said cautiously, having no wish to reveal to two excitable gays that she had just had wild sex on the desk with her ex-fiancé’s
brother. She was barely able to process what had just happened, and she knew instinctively that if she talked about it to anyone, it would spiral away from her and turn into something different, a
piece of fantastic gossip rather than the intensely personal encounter between her, Niels and their respective private parts.

Besides, she was also aware that Niels would absolutely loathe it if anyone else knew what had taken place between them. She hardly knew him, but she sensed very strongly that having lost
control of himself like that was probably the worst thing that could have happened to a man so used to being in charge of everything around him, including his own emotions. It was ridiculous, after
the way he had just manhandled her, but she felt an inexplicable urge to protect him.

‘Ugh, I
hate
that he’s so horrible to you, ’ Jean-Marc complained, flopping onto the sofa. ‘I’m going to talk to him about it. As if
you
had
anything
to do with me having that breakdown! It’s ludicrous!’

David was staring at Lola so intently that she found herself blushing under his scrutiny.

‘
Well
, ’ he commented, and for a moment Lola held her breath, terrified he’d realised what had just happened, almost where they were standing. ‘I must say, that
hairdresser has done the most
fabulous
job! And the facialist! You’re glowing! But the hair is just amazing.’ He reached out and played with a strand that was curling round her
face. ‘Before, I saw you as really china-doll, you know? Pretty-pretty. But
now
– darling, you look so
womanly!
’

‘Really?’ Lola managed.

‘Oh God yes. Positively
sensual
. Promise me you’ll only use this hairdresser from now on, OK? You’re just
transformed.
’

Lola had a stabbing memory of Niels’s hands buried in her hair, pulling her head up, and it was so powerful that the throb between her legs was like a mini-orgasm.

‘I’ll try, ’ she assured David. ‘ I really will try.’

T
he infusion of Jean-Marc’s unlimited funds into Lola’s legal war chest had had near-instant results. In a visit to George
Goldman’s office just the next day, Lola received fantastic news: George had taken a second opinion on the matter of Carin’s usurpation of control of Lola’s trust fund, and was
now convinced that Lola’s case was very strong indeed. Chubby, cheerful George smiled broadly as he told her how good her situation was.

‘Plus, ’ George added, ‘Carin’s prejudiced the case by doing everything so abruptly. It looks very bad for her. Throwing you out of your house, changing the locks, while
giving you the news of Ben’s illness—’ He sucked in his breath and shook his head. ‘You know, every case is judged on individual circumstance. That’s how the law
works. It’s very subjective. And this – well, it sure as hell gives the appearance of vindictiveness, and that won’t look good for her. I’m actually hoping we might get this
matter settled in a few days. We’re applying for an order to show cause why a temporary restraining order shouldn’t be applied to enjoin her from acting as trustee, and I’d say
we’re almost definitely going to get it.’

‘That means she wouldn’t control my trust fund any longer?’ Lola was amazed. ‘
Fantastic!
’

‘We’ll certainly be successful in applying for a healthy sum for you for temporary maintenance, ’ George assured her, nodding happily. ‘We’ll ask for $200, 000 and
maybe get $100, 000. And I don’t think there’ll be any problem getting the court to agree to pay all the attorneys’ fees directly from your trust fund.’

‘Wonderful! And Jean-Marc’s guaranteeing all that till the trust fund kicks in, ’ Lola said with huge relief.

George steepled his pudgy fingers together and rested his chin on the top of them.

‘But that’s not even the best news!’ he said, a huge smile creasing his face. ‘You know I passed your visitation rights case over to the absolute best lawyer in this
field? Well, he’s applied for a temporary access order, and informed Carin’s lawyers, and they just rang an hour ago to say you can go see Ben this afternoon!’

Lola felt a warm surge of happiness flooding through her. She was going to see her father! Today!

‘I can’t
believe
it, ’ she breathed.

George looked at her closely.

‘So you’ll be at the Plaza now for a while?’ he asked. ‘With your fiancé?’

‘He’s not my fiancé any more, George, ’ Lola informed him. ‘He’s gay. He came out in rehab.’

‘Oh Lola, honey. You poor thing.’

George’s smile faded, his face a pantomime of embarrassment and confusion. Lola did her best to put him out of his misery.

‘I’m completely fine with it, ’ she said. ‘We’ve realised we’re much better off as friends. Actually, we’re all sharing this big suite at the Plaza
together – Jean-Marc, me and his new boyfriend David. And we’re so cosy and happy together it’s not true.’

George didn’t look wholly convinced, but he made the best of it.

‘Well, that’s great, ’ he said, rubbing his hands together. ‘Great. And, honestly, honey, I wasn’t so enthused at the idea of you getting back together with a
junkie. So maybe it’s all for the best. I saw in the business section today that the brother was in town, ’ George added, getting up from behind his desk and pulling down his jacket
over his plump tummy. ‘That’s a tough nut. Niels, isn’t it? He’s the business brains of the new generation. Your young man was always more the playboy type.’

Lola felt a blush enveloping her entire body. She hoped it was not visible to George: a tremendous sensation of burning heat, its centre firmly situated between her legs. Every time Jean-Marc or
David mentioned Niels, this happened. She would get a flash of memory, like a flare gun going off inside her: this time, it was Niels dragging down her negligee to bare her breast, his mouth
closing over her nipple . . . She couldn’t believe she didn’t go bright red every time this happened, but George wasn’t mentioning anything, so hopefully she was getting away with
it.

‘Um, what time can I visit my father this afternoon?’ she asked George, swiftly changing the subject. She couldn’t talk about Niels with anyone; she was too frightened of the
physical consequences if his name were mentioned repeatedly.

‘Three-thirty!’ George beamed. ‘And we’re talking to them about setting up regular visits for you. At least once a week.’

He ushered her out of his office, patting her shoulder.

‘It’s all going to be OK now, Lola, ’ he said happily. ‘Don’t you worry your pretty head any more. Benny would have hated that. We got it all under control from
this point on.’

Lola rang the doorbell of number twenty-four 53rd Street precisely at three-thirty by her Breguet watch. The door was thrown open by Panio. He was as groomed as before, and
showed no sign at all in his demeanour that he had any memory at all of the last time Lola had been here.

‘I’ll just take you upstairs, Miss Fitzgerald, ’ he said as deferentially as if that awful scene had never happened.

Panio led her up the stairs and through her father’s sitting-room, which, Lola was surprised to see, had been left untouched by Carin’s redecorations. The huge leather Chesterfield
sofas, the thick Persian rugs, the Tuscan carved bookcases with all his first editions of classic spy novels, the marble fireplace, the gigantic purring cherry-wood humidor in the corner, the faint
smell of cigar smoke . . . it was so familiar, like the essence of her father, all his favourite things collected here. And the enormous bedroom that lay beyond it was equally unaltered.

But her father had changed almost beyond recognition.

Lola had tried her best not to imagine the scene that was before her now because she had been so afraid of what she might see. She had put off her first attempt at visiting for precisely that
reason. Her enormous, strong, powerful father, who could deal with any problem by making a quick phone call, pulling just one of the thousands of strings that were at his disposition, was lying in
his gigantic canopied bed. Helpless. Unconscious. At the mercy of anyone who might walk into the room.

The only sounds were his faint, laboured breathing, and a small regular beeping from a machine standing where his bedside table had been. He was hooked up to a drip, but there were other tubes
running into his arm as well. Lola walked slowly towards the bed, feeling her resistance, her fear, with every step she took. When she was close enough to see his face, she stopped.

She didn’t even realise she was crying until she put a hand up, feeling an odd sensation on her cheek, and her fingers came back wet.

He looked so shrunken, so small. Being on nothing but a drip had caused him to lose weight, and the folds of skin that had once been plump with flesh now sagged, greyish, exposed in the bright
morning light that flooded through the windows. The shape of his body under the richly quilted and embroidered bedcover would still have seemed large to anyone who hadn’t known Ben
Fitzgerald, but to Lola it was frighteningly reduced in size. She had grown so used to her father’s bulk: there had been something comforting about it, his sheer size, the way it reflected
the hefty power he could wield, the safety she felt knowing that she was always protected by his shadow.

His eyes were closed, of course. He looked almost dead.

Then she jumped. A nurse in a white coat over white trousers was standing by the bed, checking her father’s UV drip. He had been half-concealed by the lavish swags of brocade curtains that
hung from the huge carver tester above.

‘Miss Fitzgerald?’ he said. ‘I’m Giuseppe Scutellaro, the day nurse.’ He grinned. ‘That’s a bit of a mouthful, though. You can call me Joe. Everyone
here does.’

He was very handsome, Lola couldn’t help noticing; on the small side, with huge liquid dark eyes and a mass of thick curly hair, those amazing ringlets some Italians had, almost African in
thickness and texture. His eyelashes were ridiculously long and curly, too.

‘I was just about to give your father his injection, ’ he continued, his Italian accent light but noticeable. ‘You’ll be used to this. I understand his diabetes was of
long standing. And then I can leave you alone with him. It won’t take a moment.’

He picked up a syringe from a tray placed on top of the bedside table, which was actually a small carved oak cupboard converted into a miniature fridge to hold Ben’s supplies of insulin:
neat little phials, their liquid pale and cloudy, looking much too small and insignificant to save his life. The drawer was full of new needles, each in plastic wrapping. In Ben’s private
bathroom, under the sink, was a yellow sharps container, where Ben or his nurses disposed of the used syringes. The thought of this routine still continuing, even with Ben unconscious, unable to
participate in it, made Lola’s eyes prick and water with tears that she blinked back, determined not to cry in front of the nurse.