The Silver Chain (30 page)

‘How about a quick spin down into Lugano? You won’t be doing much hiking with that ankle, so why don’t I treat you to a hot chocolate by the lake?’

I’m suddenly overwhelmed with tiredness and confusion. I ease my aching foot into the car. ‘Hot chocolate is just what the doctor ordered.’

We drive down the road, past a couple of cosy-looking bistros. Gustav tells me they are called grottos because they used to be carved from caves in the hillside.

It’s not long before we’re approaching the immaculate promenade lit by the glowing bulbs of streetlamps. He drives along the edge of the lake for a while, navigates some corners, then brings us out onto a quiet stretch of bars and restaurants. He parks outside a particularly pretty bar illuminated with fairy lights, its wooden verandah glassed in and heated for the winter but suspended over the flat, black water. As we walk slowly towards it I see a boat house full of polished wooden boats hauled up, waiting for the summer season when they will roar across the water once again looking like something Gregory Peck would drive in
Roman Holiday
.

We take our seats by the windows. The mountains sprawl around, listening in. Night drops round us like a blindfold as soon as we blow on the huge, creamy mugs of chocolate sprinkled with cinnamon.

‘What a day. This is going to sound crazy,’ he remarks when the waitress has withdrawn. ‘But you have never been so irresistible as you were just then, Serena. Still my wild child, but scared, in pain, and oh so angry.’

His face is boyishly open tonight, still flushed from our lustful encounter against the tree, fresh and lively. He thinks he’s got it made.

‘I’m not your anything.’

‘You are. You nearly were just then. You got me worked up like some kind of horny teenager! Perhaps it’s a good thing that we didn’t – that wasn’t exactly the setting I had in mind when I drew up that contract. But we’re off-piste now. I’m trying to tell you how captivating you are. You always have been, you little sprite. Your photographs are magical enough, but it’s you that grabs me.’ He takes the silver chain out of his pocket and clears his throat. ‘It’s you.’

I take a sip of chocolate. The sugar hits me immediately and decisively. ‘I thought I was just another scared, pained, angry woman. You prefer us vulnerable, don’t you?’

‘Yet again I’ve expressed myself clumsily.’ He frowns down at the silver thread. ‘Because that sounds as if I revel in causing you pain.’

I look across the lake. The rocky outline against the star-punched sky resembles the shoulders and hips of sleeping women. ‘You did last night. When you whipped me.’

‘That’s not fair.
You
were revelling in that pain. Not me. But if you’d asked me to stop, of course I would. I did that because you wanted it and because every stroke was liberating you. Perhaps you still don’t fully understand what was happening.’ He strokes his chin for a moment before calling for the bill and counting out crisp Swiss francs. ‘You were the very opposite of vulnerable.’

‘I’m not talking about me, now, Gustav. I’m talking about another thing that’s troubling me. The others.’ I give him my arm to help me up. ‘The floozies.’

‘Floozies? What on earth kind of cheap nasty word is that?’

‘Damsels in distress, then. Tarts.
Petites amies
? The other women you’ve ensnared over the years. The pain is one thing. But you certainly like them pathetic and disposable.’

He takes me roughly by the arm and we stumble too quickly and awkwardly out onto the wooden verandah. The lake is wreathed in lacy mist. The lights from the buildings sway and sparkle on its surface. My words scatter like marbles into the freezing night.

‘Why do you do this, Serena? Rake over all these dead coals? You’re like a terrier with a bone. And you’ve got me so wrong. But perhaps that’s my fault for being so goddamn inarticulate.’

He sighs and reaches into his leather rucksack. What’s he getting out now? A gun? My little whip? But he removes my mother-of-pearl gloves with their fur trim, waggles them in front of his face. Automatically I put my hands out for him to ease the gloves on. He smiles at the unspoken familiarity. Gently, as always, he slides in one finger at a time, pausing, tugging that one down, running his own fingers between the gaps, turning my hands over to button the fur cuff and make sure it all fits.

It would be so churlish to relinquish this sweet ritual. How can I, especially when it is going to be so short-lived?

His black hair blows wildly in the unkind breeze coming off the cold lake. He pushes my gloved hands down into the pockets of my white jacket. For a moment he is brushing my stomach, wandering over my hips. So close. Come closer. Inside me an answering jolt of desire even as I’m struggling with it. Even as he turns away.

‘You don’t have to explain,’ I mutter, pulling my arms tight into my sides as we start to walk down the windy promenade towards the car. ‘Men have needs, even you. You need women, and sex – just not with me, that’s all.’

‘So who was that flame-haired girl I was grappling with just now, tempting me to take her al fresco against the tree?’ He stops again and grabs my stiff, unfriendly arms in a vice-like grip and gives me a shake. ‘Was she a figment? Just one of a long line? Oh, I wish you’d shut that pouting sulky mouth of yours for just one minute!’

Now it’s his voice ringing out over the water. A smart group of people all wearing dark green or navy Loden coats turn towards the commotion. Gustav calls out something in Italian which makes them laugh and wave. He marches me swiftly on then stabs his key at the car to open it.

I flinch at the emotion in his voice, allow myself a secret shiver of triumph that I’ve scratched more than his surface. I limp towards the car.

‘I thought you were different, Serena. But like every other woman on the planet you’ve just managed to trick me into sounding crass, twisting the conversation to put me in the wrong.’ He wrenches open the passenger door. ‘Look. I was open with you. I told you from the start that since my marriage there have been – other females. Arm candy, some. Gold diggers, mostly. But the reason none of them remained in my life and certainly are not here in Lugano is that ultimately they didn’t do it for me. Sorry. I know that sounds arrogant.’

‘Yes. It does.’

He really can read my mind. Or at least my face, even out here, in the dark. But now I can’t read his.

‘They considered me cold, careless and uncommitted. And they were right.’

I wait for him to hand me into the car which he does with cold chivalry, and we drive away from the lake in silence. I’m relieved when we only drive up the mountain a short distance. The boulders and trees melt away and all at once we’ve arrived.

This is as far away from the grey turreted Colditz I imagined, with iron eagles guarding the ramparts and a spiked moat repelling invaders, as Polly’s bright flat is from the grim house on the cliffs.

Because welcoming us with great open squares of flooding warm light and glimpses of roaring fires spilling woodsmoke from stone-built chimneys is a huge wooden chalet raised up on pillars the size of great American redwoods. Wooden gables and eaves and traditionally carved balconies sprout joyously from every angle, but they are the ornate frame to a super-chic structure with vast glass windows and doors. Tucked beneath the baronial front door is the garage, opening slowly to admit the car and displaying snow skis and water skis hanging on neat racks along its walls. And under what must be the main
salon is a glass-walled wine cellar with rows of wine bottles.

Best of all is the blue glint of a steaming infinity pool partly laid half in the grass bank overlooking the lake and glittering with frost, and partly disappearing inside the basement of the house.

Gustav hands me over to Dickson who hoists me into his arms and deposits me, slightly over-emphatically, onto one of the enormous white sofas in front of the fire. They both fuss about finding footstools and compresses. Dickson disappears to chop and baste and finish preparing a huge roast, which he carves and lays on a tray. A haunch of venison with vegetables baked with rosemary and thyme and other aromatic herbs I’ve never tasted before, followed by a treacle pudding big enough to do yoga on, all washed down with gallons of ruby-red wine. I remember my manners and thank them both, but otherwise say nothing.

When Dickson retires, Gustav takes up his favourite position beside the wide wooden mantelpiece, jabbing at the logs with a long iron poker. He’s taken off his jacket and is wearing a black sweater which hints at the broad chest and flat stomach beneath. I slide my eyes away to stare into the dancing flames and let them blur into dancing feathers as I half close my eyes. As soon as I do that I can feel the exhaustion washing over me. He continues the conversation as if we haven’t left off.

‘Yet again, I’m sorry. I’m to blame for mucking about and galloping off earlier. For misreading the situation. For imposing my selfish needs onto you. You were scared and hurt and you needed me. Being needed by someone is different from having power over them, and far more alluring, and I’m a fool for not recognising that. I’m a fool for not recognising
you
.’ He takes the silver chain out of his pocket. ‘You’re the one who’s got under my skin, Folkes. You’re the one I want by my side, as I said before, particularly now. Particularly here. And then when this is all done, those new horizons I was talking about.’

It’s all too much for now. Who knew that a sore foot could affect an aching head? So instead of holding out my wrist for him to hook us together I pull the big fur rug right over me and settle myself as far back into the corner of the sofa as I can. I turn to stare out at the plunging mountain road leading back to civilisation, the winking lights of Lake Lugano spread out like a welcome mat below.

‘It’s so much white noise, Gustav. The idea was for me to come to Lake Lugano to help you with the ghosts, but I still think you’re all locked in here together.’ I start to shiver suddenly. I assume it’s the cold, and the pain in my foot, and the delayed shock. ‘I’ll always be the outsider. I’m not the woman you need, Gustav.’

‘I didn’t say need. I said want.’ Gustav holds the silver chain up to the light and watches it sparkle between his fingers. The light dances on his face, all sharp planes and deep shadows now. The chain has never looked so pretty, and so flimsy. ‘But you know what? I think the ghosts have already fled.’

He looks down and I look up at the same time, and our eyes lock. His eyes are soft dark pools. The hard glitter has gone. The fever has gone. I think I can read tenderness there. Even pleading. But if his ghosts have fled, mine seem to be stirring sluggishly from wherever they are buried.

I lie there on the sofa, under the rug, the wind buffeting the windows and agitating the fire. I wonder if Gustav can see the weight of sadness in my eyes. He’s never looked so handsome, and so elusive.

‘Only you know that for sure,’ I shrug wearily. ‘As for clearing out the furniture or whatever you needed me to do, I can’t be much use to you with this sore foot, can I? So I may as well go home tomorrow.’

Gustav comes and sits next to me. ‘You’re not going anywhere, my headstrong little filly. We’re so close to the end now.’

‘The end?’

He turns back the rug and picks up my wrist. He moves to clip the silver chain onto my bracelet. I know his eyes are burning on me but I resist the urge to stare back at him. Instead I close my own eyes, shaking my head.

I wait for him to attach it despite any resistance from me. It’s his prerogative after all. It’s our agreement I’m refusing to honour tonight. I must be making him angry. But the silver chain no longer feels like a safety net to me, or an anchor. It’s becoming a shackle.

It falls limp and untethered across the rug. He drops it, and leaves me to sleep.

THIRTEEN

I’m tapping crossly at my phone. I want to speak to Polly. I need to tell her where I am, and why I’m here. I want to tell her I’ve woken up in an extraordinary bedroom which would resemble a sultan’s harem if it wasn’t for its pale pine walls and ceilings. The Italianate buildings of Lugano are hidden by the bristling barrier of dark green trees that populates Gustav’s estate, creating the illusion that I am holed up in a very glamorous gingerbread house hidden in the forest, the crisp Alpine vista of violet mountains painted on like a box of Lindt.

I’m alone in my chocolate box chamber. I want to share all this before it fades. I need to hear Polly’s voice. Her opinions. Her conclusions about all this. Maybe I can even cadge a visit to New York for Christmas. I wait for the tone. But what do you know? Up here in the idyllic mountains there’s no signal.

I toss the mobile onto an upturned barrel carved with the faded words
Tre Api Merlot Reserva
, which serves as a bedside table. I lie back on the huge square pillow. No rush. I’m reclining on a kind of low-slung, carved teak bed the size of a raft. Emperors and opium smokers would sprawl on a bed like this to indulge their vices. It’s draped in wine-coloured velvet and scattered with tasselled and fringed and sequinned Moroccan bolsters, and cushions which are soft to the touch. They sparkle and reflect the clear blue daylight. I feel like an empress, despite the frustration and isolation of last night. I stretch luxuriously, and realise I’m wearing a nightdress I’ve never seen before.

‘Hello? Anyone here?’

It must be late morning. Behind gathering clouds the pale yellow sun is balancing on the highest peak on the other side of the lake. There’s nobody here, and I’m glad. I want to be alone with my thoughts as I gather my belongings.

Except that my white jodhpurs and thermals have disappeared, along with the Louis Vuitton bag packed with clothes suitable for mountain walks and fireside dinners. Hiking Barbie and Dining Barbie.

All I have in here is my camera, my useless phone, and a shell-pink nightdress with spaghetti straps.

I swing my legs out of the bed. My body jumps and buzzes with life. Must be the reviving mountain air. I stretch out my arms and legs curiously, checking for flaws, for signs of someone manhandling me, but there are no scratches or bruises other than the slight stiffness and the violet hue still staining my ankle.