Little White Lies (3 page)

‘No.’ There was another monumentally awkward pause. Then he jumped to his feet as if he’d been bitten – or possibly shot. ‘Look, I’d better go. I’ve forgotten something—’

Tash opened her mouth to say something –
any
thing – then snapped it firmly shut. He ran out and suddenly the room was quiet. She looked around her slowly and poured herself a cup of tea. In a flash of inspiration, she poured a second cup and drank that as well. Then she polished off the scones. When the adults returned half an hour later, two empty cups sat side by side on the tray. Not even a dollop of cream remained.

‘Did you enjoy yourselves?’ Lady Soames said, beaming. ‘Where’s Rupert?’

‘You just missed him. He’d forgotten his homework or something,’ Tash said calmly. It was half true. She saw Lyudmila glance at the empty teacups with a small, self-satisfied smile. Job done. She beamed at Tash. Tash blinked slowly and looked away.

ANNICK BETANCOURT
Mayfair, London

Several miles and an entire world away from Tash’s cramped little basement flat, in her own enormous but empty apartment overlooking Hyde Park, Annick Betancourt sat down and opened the history book she’d been half-heartedly thumbing through before the phone call. She struggled to concentrate.
How far was Henry VII’s government threatened by rebellions in the years 1485 to 1509
? She stared at the question. The problem with it – as with most history questions – was that she didn’t actually care. She found it hard to summon up any kind of enthusiasm for things she had absolutely no interest in . . . and therein lay the problem. Although she wasn’t the
only
girl at St Benedict’s Sixth Form College who wasn’t academically inclined, she was certainly one of its most high-profile. In a school filled with the offspring of rock stars and royalty, Annick Betancourt was both. Her father, the handsome, charismatic Sylvan Betancourt was the president of Togo (not that anyone knew where Togo was). Her mother, the gorgeous, glamorous Anouschka Malaquais, was a bona fide film star. Rarely a day went by in her native France without some mention of her in the press. She was perhaps lesser known in Britain for her roles than her robes, but Annick had long got used to the sight of her mother’s face staring impassively back at her from the cover of
Hello!

With two such illustrious parents it was inconceivable that their only child should turn out to be a dunce. But that was exactly what had happened. When it became known that Annick Betancourt would, in all likelihood, fail her A-levels, the school suggested (perfectly nicely) that she might perhaps be better off somewhere less, er,
stringent
in its pursuit of academic excellence. Anouschka immediately flew from Lomé to London (via Paris and the haute couture shows, of course), to protest. In person. As the excited girls whispered to each other afterwards, the headmaster was so overcome at the sight of Anouschka Malaquais-Betancourt, all high heels, flowing blonde hair and the unmistakeable whiff of power and wealth that clung to her like perfume, that he immediately capitulated. Annick stayed on.

Annick herself wasn’t sure whether to be pleased or annoyed. She was relieved
not
to have to leave – that would have meant leaving Tash and Rebecca behind, in itself an unthinkable prospect. Between St Benedict’s and the Hyde Park apartment, she had little else to call ‘home’. Her father spent most of his time in Lomé, the Togolese capital, where she holidayed once a year – twice, if she were lucky. Her mother flitted back and forth between Lomé and Paris with the occasional stopover in London if the fashion shows were on. Annick very occasionally joined her at the beautiful Left Bank apartment in Paris for Christmas but it had been several years since she’d spent Christmas anywhere other than at Rebecca’s – which was daft because Rebecca was Jewish and didn’t celebrate it. Still, Aunt Mimí always put on the most fabulous lunch for the thirty-odd friends and relatives who always came to Harburg Hall on the day itself – and it sure as hell beat sitting in her own living room, alone or having Christmas dinner with the housekeeper, which was worse.

A sharp tap at the door interrupted her.

‘Come in,’ she muttered.

‘Everything all right, Annick?’ Mrs Price asked, her eyes quickly sweeping the room. Like a lighthouse, Annick thought to herself irritably.

‘Everything’s fine, Mrs Price,’ she murmured. ‘Just doing my homework.’

‘I thought I heard you on the phone earlier and I know you’ve got a lot of homework on.’

‘Yeah.’ They both hesitated. Mrs Price was clearly waiting for Annick to elaborate further and Annick was determined not to. Annick always found it difficult. Although the palace in Lomé was stuffed full of servants, Mrs Price unnerved her. She didn’t quite fit the category of servant, at least not in the way the servants back in Togo did, and yet she was definitely
not
a family member. Still, there were times when Annick came home from a particularly bad day at school or she’d been waiting a week for one or other of her parents to call and the only person in the world she had to talk to was Mrs Price. On days like those, instead of going straight to her room, she hung around the kitchen, watching Mrs Price expertly slice onions or roll out a sheet of pastry for a pie and for a few minutes she could pretend she was like all her other friends with a mother to talk to, a father somewhere in the house . . . people who
cared
. Not that her parents didn’t care, she always reminded herself quickly. They just happened to live six thousand miles away and each had a job to do. They were busy people.

‘Well, don’t stay up too late, then,’ Mrs Price said finally, acknowledging defeat.

‘I won’t.’

‘Goodnight.’

‘Goodnight, Mrs Price.’

The door closed behind her. Annick blew out her cheeks and began to tidy her desk. She didn’t like thinking about her parents, especially not before going to bed. At night, without the distraction of traffic outside or the occasional sound of the neighbours, the flat was at its most silent. It was the silence she dreaded. When she went home in the holidays to Lomé, the house was always full of noise and laughter, people talking, arguing, debating, shouting. Life flowed around them: it was everywhere, in every visitor, every car that swept up the impressively long driveway; in the noisy, excited chatter of the many servants who lived in the quarters to the rear of the palace . . . noise,
noise
everywhere. In Lomé it was impossible to feel alone. London was the opposite. There were nights she felt as though she were the loneliest person alive.

She shut her eyes tightly, trying to picture them – Maman, Papa and her – sitting in the sunny, spacious
salon de thé
in the apartment on rue Matignon. As always, she could see herself quite clearly but whenever she tried to focus on her mother or father, the image slipped, becoming fuzzy and unclear. She could picture certain things – the colour of her mother’s hair, especially after a visit to the hairdresser, or the small gold necklace with the three diamond circles that she always wore; her father’s dark tweed suits, smelling faintly of cigar smoke and aftershave and the way his beard always showed up dark and bruised under his skin. But not the whole picture. Not the three of them, together, complete. That image stubbornly refused to come. She closed her eyes tightly and tried to think of something else. Anything. No point in ruining another weekend by feeling homesick. Although how could you be homesick when you didn’t really have a home?

REBECCA HARBURG
Hampstead, London

Sitting opposite Adam Goldsmith, her second cousin on her father’s side whom she’d never met, Rebecca Harburg was in an agony of embarrassment – and, face it, lust. The object of her desire sat with his legs (in ripped and faded Levis) spread insouciantly apart, a cup of tea calmly balanced on his muscular thighs, chatting easily to the elderly aunts, spinsters, mothers and three other cousins who’d come to gape at this Goldsmith from the Belgian branch of the family, a creature from another planet. Blonde, blue-eyed, athletic and well over six foot tall, Adam Goldsmith looked like no other Harburg, dead or alive. He was twenty-three years old, fluent in half a dozen languages, now a trainee banker with the family firm and had recently returned from a two-year stint in the Israeli army. This last, of course, was the icing on the cake. No Harburg had ever done anything like it. He’d
volunteered
to serve in the Israeli army? What a
mensch
! Despite those rather uncomfortably Aryan looks, no one could accuse him of not being Jewish enough. In a sea of dark-haired, dark-eyed, pale and sensitively intelligent faces, the man who looked as if he’d stepped off the catwalk was going down a storm.

Embeth Hausmann-Harburg, known to friends and family as Mimí, was sitting opposite him, her teacup and saucer balanced daintily on her knees, trying unsuccessfully to suppress a frown. The Friday afternoon gathering was at
her
house and it was
her
daughter whose mouth was hanging open. She stared at Rebecca, trying to get her attention. Pointless. Rebecca, along with everyone present – a half-deaf grandmother, three elderly great aunts, four girlish, simpering cousins and the maid – were dumbstruck. Orit, the maid she’d brought back from Tel Aviv, had almost dropped the tray when she saw him. She’d gone beet-red when he opened his mouth and said, ‘Shalom’ and then had to leave the room, quite overcome
and
without serving anyone to boot. Silly women. Had they never seen a good-looking man before? ‘Rebecca,’ Mimí hissed. ‘Rebecca!
Cierra la boca
! Close your mouth!’

But Rebecca was beyond hearing. She was sitting close enough to reach out and touch him. Those long, lean, finely toned thighs; the broad chest underneath the cream Fair Isle sweater that offset his tan; the bulge of his biceps; the thick, sandy blonde hair; and those tanned, rugged cheeks with a morning’s worth of beard already showing through. She was rendered completely dumb. He reminded her of the marble statue of Adonis, the beautiful Greek god who stood outside the library at school. An image of the statue’s limp penis suddenly slipped into her head and she choked on her scone, sending crumbs flying out of her mouth.

‘What’s matter with her?’ Eleanor, the oldest of the great aunts, suddenly spoke up. She was hard of hearing and squinted anxiously in the direction of the noise.

‘She’s choking! Get her some water!’ Another great aunt sprang into action.

‘The girl’s choking?’ Aunt Eleanor fumbled for her spectacles.

‘Will someone get the girl some water?’ Aunt Rosa yelled. ‘You want she should choke to death?’

‘I’m . . . I’m fine,’ Rebecca stammered, furiously wiping away her tears. The embarrassment was almost as bad as the coughing fit. ‘No, really . . . I’m fine.’ She waved off their concern.

‘She’s fine. It just went down the wrong way, that’s all.’ Mimí soothed her anxious relations. ‘Why don’t you go and wash your face?’ she turned to Rebecca calmly. ‘And get some fresh air,’ she added firmly.

Rebecca jumped to her feet, stealing a quick glance at Adam. He was eating his scone as if nothing had happened.

‘Poor thing,’ she heard one of the aunts say to another as she left the room. ‘Such a fright she gave me! D’you remember the Meyerson boy? The tall one? Had an allergy to nuts. Dropped dead, just like that! One minute here, the next . . . gone!’

‘Oooh, don’t remind me, please!
Terrible
business, terrible. It took them
years
to get over it—’

‘Such things you don’t get over, Miriam. Never.’

Rebecca stifled a giggle as she closed the door behind her. Every Friday, her mother served afternoon tea for a never-ending stream of aunts and great aunts, followed by the traditional Friday night
seder
. Lesser family members fought over the invitations like dogs over scraps of meat. Embeth’s
seders
were beautiful occasions, more social than spiritual. An invitation to Harburg Hall on a Friday night was a sign that you’d
arrived
. There was to be a special
seder
that evening to welcome Adam to London. He was about to join the family bank, starting with a position right at the bottom. It was the way they did things at Harburg’s. In three generations, no one had ever made director without having worked everywhere, ‘from the mail room to the boardroom,’ as Lionel, Rebecca’s father, liked to say. It seemed rather unlikely that Adam would be delivering mail, Rebecca thought to herself as she hurried to the bathroom. If she was lucky and found herself seated next to him at dinner, perhaps she could ask him what he would be doing? At the thought of dinner and possibly being seated next to Adam, she brightened.

She bent down and splashed cold water onto her face to cool down her still-burning cheeks. She eyed her reflection anxiously, tucking a few stray strands of hair behind her ears. Her eyes, normally a clear dark-brown colour that often verged on black, were unnaturally bright. She traced the line of her eyebrow tenderly with a finger, slicking it into shape. Her skin was pale, lightly dusted with freckles across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. Her long, poker-straight hair fell on either side of her face from a centre parting, which she hated but everyone said suited her. She longed for Annick’s wild masses of dark-brown corkscrew-tight curls that drew gasps of admiration from everyone – even total strangers – when she let them spring free. ‘Why can’t I have hair like yours?’ she moaned to Annick, endlessly.

‘Because.’

Not a lot you could say to
that
. She checked her reflection for the last time, turned off the taps and opened the door. Her heart missed a beat. Adam was there, right in front of her, crossing the hallway towards the front door.

‘Hey,’ he said lightly. ‘I was just nipping out for a fag. Want one?’

Rebecca gaped at him. She didn’t smoke. No matter. She did now.

‘Yeah,’ she said, as nonchalantly as she could manage. ‘
Love
to.’ She trotted obediently after him. He held the front door open for her and they both stood in the portico, sheltering from the rain. He fished a packet of Marlboro Lights from the pocket of his jeans and handed one over. A bolt of lightning shot through her as their hands touched. A second bolt hit as he cupped her hand to help her light it. Annick and Tash smoked; she didn’t. She tried desperately to recall how they did it.
Bring cigarette to mouth. Open mouth. Inhale. Slowly. Exhale. Quickly
. The fit of coughing that overtook her brought tears to her eyes.