‘How nice to see you again, Mr. Nair.’
He holds out his hands. ‘Here, let me help you with your bags.’
I pull the bags out of his reach. ‘It’s OK, Mr. Nair. They are very light. I can manage. Why don’t you come up tomorrow morning for a coffee instead, and we can have a nice chat, then.’
‘Oh yes, Miss Bloom. That will be wonderful. It hasn’t been the same ever since you left.’
I smile. In truth I too have missed him and his fantastic stories of an India gone by. ‘I’ll call down tomorrow.’
‘Goodnight, Miss Bloom. It really is good to have you back.’
I bid him goodnight, enter the lift and slip my key card into its slot. The doors swish close and I am borne up. Strange, I never thought I would be coming back here again and yet here I am. The doors open and it is all the same. Nothing, but nothing has changed.
I unlock the front door and open it. The same faint fragrance of lilies that I always associate with this apartment wafts out. Such a feeling of nostalgia rushes over me that I feel my knees go weak. I close the door, put my packages on the side table, and walk down that long enameled corridor. I run my fingers along the cool smooth wall the way I had done more than a year ago.
I don’t go into the living room, but turn off and go into the bedroom. A sob rises in my throat. Nothing has changed even here. It is as if I was here yesterday and not more than a year ago. I go into the room next to it and, as Laura promised, it has been set up to function as a nursery. There is a beautiful white and blue cot, all kinds of toys, a very swanky-looking pram and tins of baby formula. I go to them. I recognize them. I have seen them advertised, all natural and made of goat’s milk, but I could not afford them. I pick one up and look at it and experience a shaft of guilt.
I have denied Sorab all this. Am I really doing the right thing by him? Will he thank me one day for depriving him of a life that 99.99 percent of people can only dream of? The answer is confusing and I don’t want to go there. I know I will go there, it is too important not to, but not yet. Not today. It is already six o’clock.
I close the door and go into the bathroom and switch on the lights. In the immaculate space I am a stranger with a beautiful hairdo. I stare at myself. The night stretches out in front of me. I am excited and fearful of what it will bring. I sit on the toilet seat for a moment to compose myself.
I take my dress out of the exclusive-looking bag Rêgine packed it in and hang it up in the bedroom. Then I run a bath, add lavender oil, step into it, and, lying back, close my eyes, but I am too nervous and excited to relax and after a few minutes I get out and, wrapping myself in a fluffy bathrobe that smells of squashed berries, I go into the kitchen.
In the fridge there I find two bottles of champagne lying on their sides. I remember the last time when I stood in the balcony and drank to my mother’s health. This time champagne doesn’t seem appropriate. I close the door restlessly and go to the liquor cabinet. There I pour myself a very large shot of vodka. Standing by the bar I knock it back. It runs like fire into my empty stomach, but it has the desired effect of almost immediately settling my nerves. I look at my hands. They have stopped shaking.
I go back into the bathroom and carefully apply my make-up. Two layers of mascara, a touch of blusher, and nude lip gloss. I move away from the mirror.
‘Not bad, Bloom. Good job.’
I go back to the alcohol counter and pour myself another large vodka, down it and, feeling decidedly light-headed and, devil may care, go to the bedroom. I take my beautiful white dress off the hanger and change into it. As I gently ease it over my head a hook catches on my hair and pulls a lock out of place. I stare in horror at the dangling lock. Cursing, I try to twist it and push it back into place. My efforts are somewhat successful and I sigh with relief. I zip up and step into my shoes and look at myself in the mirror.
A sophisticated woman with glittering eyes and high color stares back. Too much blusher. With cotton wool I remove it all. The heat and the alcohol have tinged my cheeks pink. No need for blusher. I dab my finger with perfume and touch it behind my ears.
There I am, ready for the great Barrington.
Eight
I kill ten minutes pacing the balcony tiles in my Cinderella shoes. At 8:05 exactly Tom rings the bell. His eyes widen when I open the door.
‘That’s a beautiful outfit, Miss Bloom,’ he says, with an embarrassed cough. He is holding a long cardboard box, which he awkwardly slips onto the side-table. I look at it and feel the color rush up my neck. Oh my God! Blake really means for this to be a re-creation of our first night together.
As the lift descends I already know where Tom is taking me.
Madame Yula is filled with the same sort of people that had populated it the last time I was there. If this is a re-creation of our first night together then I know exactly where I will find Blake. Waiting at the bar. I turn towards it and even though I know what I will see, my heart stops. He is wearing a charcoal suit, black shirt and a white tie, and he is the most beautiful man in the place…but that is not it… I am being eaten alive by his eyes. For a long moment I stand frozen, simply caught and staring back at the hunger in his stormy blue eyes. It is so naked and raw it shocks me.
‘Mademoiselle,’ someone says, close to my ear. I turn in the direction of the voice, my expression blank, distracted, perhaps even confused. ‘Can I help you?’ the waiter queries.
Before I can answer, Blake is there.
‘She’s with me,’ he says smoothly, and the waiter slips away, the way waiters in movies do. I turn my head and look up into Blake’s face. In the glow of candles and soft lighting he seems dark and impossibly mysterious. For a moment neither of us speaks. We never broke up. It’s all there crackling between us. The sex-rumpled sheets, the slim hips wrapped only in a towel, the hungry mouth, and the hours upon hours of fucking. I shiver with the memories. My lips part. An invitation that cannot be missed.
But a shutter comes over his eyes.
‘How complete is the illusion that beauty is goodness,’ he murmurs.
Vaguely it registers that it is quotation, but my stunned brain cannot locate the source. A hand reaches out to take that escaped lock of hair that has worked free of my efforts to keep it up. Gently he twirls the strands in his fingers and carefully reinserts them into place. His hand drops off.
‘Would you like a drink?’
It occurs to me that I am already a little drunk. ‘No, I had some back at the flat.’
His eyes flash. ‘Champagne.’ He remembered.
I shake my head. ‘Vodka.’
He nods. ‘Food for you then,’ he says.
We are shown to the same table. I look closely at him. Try to see beyond the mask, but his face is deliberately blank. In a daze I order food. It arrives. I pick up my knife and fork. Slip it between my lips. Taste nothing. I lift my eyes to him and catch him watching me. His eyes are ravenous. His food untouched. Between my legs I ache. I swallow the food in my mouth. It becomes a lump that sticks in my throat. I reach for the wine glass and take a gulp, but that only makes me choke. I start to cough. My eyes fill with water. Fuck. Trust me to do something so sexually unappealing.
‘Are you all right?’
‘Fine,’ I say flushing with embarrassment. I need to go to the Ladies and sort myself out.
‘Excuse me,’ I croak, putting the napkin on the table and standing up.
He stands when I do. I leave the table and feel his eyes boring into me until I round the bend. I go into the Ladies and look at myself in the mirror. And again I am surprised by my reflection. I honestly can hardly recognize myself, the new hairstyle, the clothes, the make-up, but more than all of that is the look in my eyes. Wild. ‘I am Lana from the council estate, mother of Sorab,’ I say aloud.