Original Sin (38 page)

‘Don’t mind Dom,’ said Tess as they turned into Jack’s street. ‘He’s just a little jet–lagged and grumpy. I’m sure he will take you to see a band when he comes over.’

Jack shrugged, as if he didn’t care much one way or the other. Tess guessed he was used to adults making promises that might not come true.

‘My mum wants another baby,’ said Jack frankly. ‘I hear her talking on the phone when she thinks I’m asleep. But she has to marry Steven first.’

‘Steven? I assume that’s her boyfriend? How long has she been seeing him?’

‘About six months. Mom says that’s long enough and that she isn’t going to wait around if he isn’t serious.’

They walked in silence to Jack’s apartment building. Jack’s dad Kevin was standing on the street with a black overnight bag, which he handed to Jack as they walked up.

‘Hi Tess,’ he nodded. Tess could see that his hands and face were flecked with blue paint. A petite woman with long black hair and an impatient expression was standing at the bottom of the stoop. Jack’s mother Melissa, presumably. Standing a couple of feet away, Tess could smell her make–up, thick and floral.

‘We said ten thirty, Jack,’ said the woman sharply.

‘You said you were going to be late,’ he replied quietly.

Tess watched how Jack seemed to instantly withdraw into himself, the confident boy she knew shrinking before her eyes. She wanted to reach out and hug him. Instead, she looked over at the gunmetal–grey sports car parked next to them. It was a DB9, all right. A silver–haired man in chinos and a patterned golf shirt got out of the car and pulled his seat forward.

‘Hop in, sport,’ he said with forced cheerfulness. Reluctantly, Jack walked over and into the car’s cramped rear seat. When the door had slammed shut, Melissa turned to Kevin.

‘And what’s he wearing?’ she demanded. Jack had on his usual uniform of super–baggy trousers and chunky sneakers. All the kids around the village wore them; he told Tess he got them in an ultra–cool skate shop on Broadway.

‘What? Jesus, Melissa, it’s just what he usually wears,’ replied Kevin with resigned annoyance.

‘One of Steven’s business colleagues is having a party in Greenwich,’ she snapped. ‘It’s going to be full of very nice kids.’

‘Well,
Jack
is a nice kid.’

Melissa was shaking her head. Tess glanced over to Jack, sitting in the back seat, and wondered if he could hear the bickering. Tess knew very well what that was like; in fact, Melissa’s expressions and tone of voice vividly reminded her of her own mother’s hectoring manner. There were rarely any raised voices and certainly no violence in the Garrett household, but the atmosphere was still always stiff and hostile, and somehow that was worse, like a constant cloud of disapproval smothering everything. Over the years Tess had seen up close how marital disappointment had affected both her parents. Her father Graham had become more timid and eager to please, while her mother Sally became more cross and impatient, her voice developing a permanent arch inflection, as if she could distance herself from life’s constant letdowns if she never enjoyed anything. That might have been tolerable when the Garretts lived in London and Sally had a wide circle of friends and a part–time job in a boutique, which itself was a substitute for a career in fashion she had always wanted. But when Graham bought the pub in Suffolk as a way of trying to make a fresh start, her mother had seemed to retreat from them completely. At first, her dissatisfaction at being ‘dragged out to the sticks’, as she put it, had manifested itself as tiredness. Sally complained that she could never work a late night in the pub because she was ‘exhausted’, ‘headachy’, or ‘depressed’. After a while, she stopped coming down to the pub at all. In the end, it was no great surprise when she left them altogether for a life back in London.

Tess was shaken from her memories when she heard Kevin speak. ‘So what time will he be back tomorrow?’

‘Around six,’ she replied, looking suspiciously at Tess. ‘So maybe you can be ready this time, huh?’

Tess watched as Melissa stalked down to the silver car, which shot off down the street as soon as she closed her door. She saw Jack’s face in the rear window; he was giving her an okay sign. Kevin sighed and rubbed his paint–splattered face.

‘He’s a rich guy,’ he said, almost to himself. ‘All she’s ever wanted, really. But she’s still as uptight as she ever was.’

Tess simply nodded. ‘Well, I’d better get back to my apartment,’ she said. She didn’t want to get sucked into the internal workings of another bad relationship. She’d had enough of that to last her a lifetime.

CHAPTER TWENTY–SIX

Paula Asgill only had to wait five weeks and three days before her daughter was invited to Princess Katrina’s Seventy–Second Street townhouse. Strictly speaking, Casey hadn’t been singled out for the play–date. By happy accident, Carlotta’s sixth birthday was in May and, in an effort to get her fully integrated with her new classmates, her mother had decided to throw a party at her house. Even so, Paula felt a sense of triumph when the stiff, pale pink invitation bearing Carlotta’s family crest arrived by courier at the house. She had immediately gone down to FAO Schwarz, the toy store where Carlotta’s birthday list was held, to ensure that Casey could be assigned one of the best gifts on the list. Paula had then spent hours in Bonpoint on Madison Avenue selecting a new outfit for her daughter. But if Paula had put careful consideration into her daughter’s appearance, it was nothing compared to the agony of deciding what to wear herself. Standing in her walk–in closet in just her Hanro underwear, her hair already cut and blow–dried by Paul Podlucky that morning, Paula silently bemoaned the fact that she had not one piece of couture to wear. She flipped through the racks dismissively. To her left were rows of white bags that contained her evening gowns. Above it, in see–through boxes, were other dresses that had been worn more than a handful of times; clearly they could not be seen out in public again until she handed them down to Casey and Amelia at sixteen, when they would be sufficiently vintage. Skirts in an assortment of neutral shades were to her right, colour coordinated cashmere tops were behind her. Her shoes were lined up in perfect symmetry, six pairs per row, like soldiers on parade, not one even slightly scuffed or dirty. Finally she picked up a cap–sleeved dress made by a small but promising French designer she had found through an obscure British fashion magazine. She put on a pair of high Zanotti heels, being careful not to touch the soles, which had been in contact with dirty streets, and examined herself in the mirror. The kingfisher blue colour suited her; every time her photograph had appeared in
Vogue
she had been wearing this striking shade. She definitely wanted to stand out today.

Finally ready, Paula gripped her daughter’s hand as she stood outside Princess Karina’s Seventy–Second Street townhouse. She knew the six–storeyed building well, although had never been inside. Double–fronted in dove–grey stone, with an ornate iron gate, it had originally belonged to a billionaire hedge–funder who had been jailed after a fraud scandal a year ago. Karina’s husband Arlo Savoy had bought it before it had even gone on the open market, for a sum rumoured to be in excess of eighty million dollars.

‘Is Carlotta’s daddy really a king?’ whispered Casey as Paula rang the heavy doorbell.

‘Almost,’ replied Paula. She had researched the Savoy family obsessively and knew that, were it not for the revolution, Arlo would have been a prince of Italy. In his youth, the royal line had made Arlo one of Europe’s finest catches, but then Karina had been pretty eligible in her own right; her German father had made billions from steel and industry in Europe. Such a combination of wealth and class had catapulted them into the top strata of New York society the second they had arrived to follow Arlo’s career at an Italian bank.

As a butler opened the door, Paula handed over the invitation and waited as their names were read out under the gaze of an unblinking security camera. Paula could barely suppress her delighted smile. She rarely thought about the old days any more. She had spent so long blocking out the memories, creating a newer, vaguer, more palatable past for those people who cared enough to ask, that it was as if her time growing up in North Carolina never really happened. But every now and then, she silently congratulated herself on how far she had come; and this moment, stepping inside one of the Upper East Side’s finest homes, this was one of those times. Paula tried not to register any emotion as she walked into the grand living room, but it was undeniably impressive. Original Rothkos hung on the high walls above expensive furniture, modern pieces mixed with precious antiques in such an artful, studied way that it must surely have been the work of one of the city’s most accomplished interior designers.

Instead, Paula examined the people, feeling a rush of anxiety as she examined the faces; there were some serious heavy–hitters from the social circuit already here, women from the golden circle of wives, the partners of some of the most wealthy and influential men in the city. These exquisitely groomed women sat on the most prestigious charity committees and could usually barely bring themselves to acknowledge Paula, other than to enquire after Brooke, despite the fact she had met them several times. A waiter approached and respectfully offered her a drink from his silver tray. She took a Bellini – she usually avoided alcohol in the daytime, but today she felt she needed it. She could feel her neck flush prickly and red, as it sometimes did when she was stressed or worried.
Calm down, pretend you do this every day
, she told herself sternly. To her dismay, Paula didn’t see any friends; Casey was new to her class and, consequently, Paula did not know the parents. She took a sip of her drink and steeled herself.
Remember Carolina, honey
, she said to herself. It was true: she had been in far worse situations than this.

She turned to a tall, Latin–skinned brunette dressed in skinny jeans and white Hermès shirt and smiled. ‘Do you know where the birthday girl is?’

The brunette simply looked through her and raised a finger in the air to summon the waiter. Paula turned away, trying to smother the anger she felt.
The bitch!
Of course, Paula knew she had never been one of the Queen Bees on Manhattan’s social scene; she knew many of the women considered the Asgill family gauche. They secretly sniggered at Meredith’s Rolls–Royce and the family’s cheap range of cosmetics, but she had expected that Brooke’s engagement would have given her a greater standing. She had obviously been wrong.

Suddenly she felt a tugging at her dress. ‘Mummy, Carlotta wants me to come and see her bedroom. Can I go?’

She felt a new affection as she saw Princess Carlotta of Savoy standing in the doorway beckoning her new friend over.
Her new friend Casey Asgill
, thought Paula, looking at the tall woman who had snubbed her with glee.

‘Of course, darling. Off you go,’ smiled Paula, touching Casey’s head.

‘I don’t believe we’ve met?’

Paula turned to see Princess Karina standing next to her. She was petite and slim, wearing a navy Chanel Couture dress, and had hair the colour of roasted hazelnuts pushed back off her face. She radiated star quality in a way that Paula knew only a small number of celebrities did. Every inch of her looked expensively groomed; her skin was so smooth it looked polished, and whoever had done the Botox around her forehead and mouth had done a fantastic job, thought Paula. Unlined, sculpted, yet completely natural.
I must find out where she goes
, thought Paula absently.

‘Paula Asgill,’ said Paula, offering her hand.

Katrina’s smile was warm and genuine and it caught Paula off guard. In her experience, there were two standard society smiles: the tight, false variety usually sported by someone looking over your shoulder, or the bright paparazzi–friendly smile which was, if anything, even more insincere. In New York, real smiles like the Princess’s were as rare as hens’ teeth.

‘Lovely to meet you,’ replied Karina. ‘I think your daughter joined Transition at the same time as Carlotta.’

Feeling flattered, but completely wrong–footed, Paula took an exuberant sip of Bellini.

‘It’s a shame they’ll be breaking up for summer before we know it,’ she said. ‘Still, Casey can’t wait to get to Bermuda.’

Katrina’s smile shone even brighter and she touched Paula on the arm. ‘Really? That’s great news; perhaps see you there. We have a house in Tucker’s Town. My family have had it forever.’

‘No! What a coincidence,’ smiled Paula. ‘It’d be wonderful if the girls could get together while we’re over.’

In actual fact, Paula wasn’t going to Bermuda at all – not yet, anyway. She, William, and the girls were due to fly to Maine as soon as school had finished. It was William’s favourite place and, as Paula had already decided on the rest of their holiday destinations for the year – St Barts, Careyes, Aspen, and Maui – she had been in no position to argue. But when Google had turned up a British
Vogue
interview wherein Katrina had described her Tucker’s Town home as one of her favourite places, Paula knew she would have to shoehorn in a trip to the Atlantic island as well. It was just a matter of twisting William’s arm the right way.

‘We’ve been thinking of buying in Bermuda ourselves,’ said Paula. ‘Maybe you can point us in the right direction?’