CORPSE REVIVER NO. 1
Take a pony of Italian vermouth and a pony of Calvados. Add a jigger of Cognac. Shake well with lump ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Drink before eleven a.m. to awake the dead.
Back then, it was impossible to tell what was real. We all of us had our masks, servant and lord, demimonde and diplomat. No matter that some of the masks were made from silk and diamonds, and others from sack and tailor’s chalk. They all worked the same. They all hid as much as they revealed.
The crowd at Dar Portuna was no exception.
Lady Bailey’s mask was made from thin clouds of opium smoke, Bouzid’s from calm and stony silence.
As for Langham … I couldn’t see his so clearly.
After the gift of the book, I thought he might have sought me out for another conference.
But one day became two, became three, and I barely saw him.
Often he was gone very early, where I didn’t know. Sometimes, he would appear on the landing upstairs when I could have sworn he was out. At other times, I would hear the gramophone playing in his study and peer through the window to find the room deserted.
There was no one I could question. Apart from Bouzid and me – and the women who came early in the mornings to clean – Langham kept no other staff.
It seemed strange: according to The Gentleman’s Guide wealthy men were supposed to employ a household.
There were whole chapters on how to get the best out of one’s valet, but Langham didn’t employ one of those either.
At the inn, people gave themselves away by their actions, by their words, by their tongues soaked in sangria. I saw none of that from Langham. And so, although I tried to wait and listen patiently, curiosity soon got the better of me.
It was my fifth day at the house, and I was beginning to find my stride in the kitchen, feel some tiny glimmer of security in my little servant’s bedroom.
That morning, Lady Bailey went out on a call and Bouzid left to see to some business in town for an hour.
Monsieur Langham, I had been informed, would not be back until evening.
Evidently, they had decided I was trustworthy enough to leave alone.
For the first time, Dar Portuna was mine, and I intended to take full advantage.
A minute after Bouzid closed the gate, I crept from the kitchen to the bottom of the stairs.
My chest felt tighter than ever beneath the bindings, my ears straining for any sound of life.
I hesitated, one foot raised. I had no reason to go up there; as at the inn, my room and my work were on the ground floor.
Upstairs was a different realm. One that might spell trouble.
The step creaked as I set my weight upon it.
‘Hello?’ I called, into the silence. Nothing. I took a breath and walked carefully up the stairs, until I stood, nerves twitching, on the landing. The room to the right was Lady Bailey’s; I could see a chaos of strewn clothes and stockings through the open door. And to the left …
‘Hello?’ I murmured again, though I had no idea what I would say if anyone answered. Silence. Before I could think about it, I walked quickly along the corridor, reached for a handle, and opened the door to what I thought must be Langham’s bedroom.
It was the finest room in the house. Windows opened on two sides, one on to the greenness of the garden, the other on to endless blue: the Mediterranean – my first love – throwing herself into the embrace of the Atlantic.
Had I been Langham I would have lain in bed all day and drowned myself in that blue.
The thought gave me shivers. His bed stood against one wall, the mosquito net tied back, the cotton sheets pale and smooth.
I lowered my palm to the pillow, and was overtaken by an image of my own head resting there.
I snatched my hand away, but it was no use, an aching heat was pulsing through me, spreading through my body.
I clenched my fingers, trying to will it away.
I’d felt it sometimes at the inn. A few years ago, there had been a young gitano who had kissed me in the darkness of the stable, and put his hand between my legs.
But I had shoved him away and run for the kitchen.
It was too dangerous for me to feel anything like that, to be a woman who could be had.
If I had allowed Morales, or anyone else to think of me as a woman, to remember that I was a virgin in a whorehouse, she might have weighed my value differently, and tried to sell me again, as she had done all those years ago.
But Langham was not like the Senor; he was not like any man I had ever met, not even Ifrahim. I let my hand drop, still staring at the bed, not knowing if it was the room I was aching for, with its quiet luxury, or the man who inhabited it.
Distracted, I went to the wardrobe and pulled it open, as if I’d find the answer there.
The scent of sandalwood and musk enveloped me.
Here were his suits, a dozen of them, and shelves of neatly folded shirts.
Here were stacks of clean, silk underwear, finely woven, and a whole rack of ties.
One in particular took my liking, a deep, secretive green; the same colour as Dar Portuna’s gate.
It slid from the rack like a whisper. Slowly, I looped it around my neck, feeling its coolness against the hot skin of my throat.
My hand lingered on the fabric, hanging above my bound breasts …
A terrible jangling broke the silence, made my bones leap in my skin and my heart blunder into panic.
It was the bell, I realized, the bell at the gate.
People hardly ever rang it. Bouzid usually knew who was coming and when.
The tie slithered through my fingers. As I stooped for it, I saw something crammed into the bottom of the wardrobe.
Had it not been for the colour, it wouldn’t have caught my eye, but that shade of cream linen was lodged in my memory for ever.
It was the suit Langham had worn the first day I saw him, in his shining car.
Despite my fear, I reached down and tugged out the jacket.
It was in a terrible state; it made me angry to see it so ill treated.
I began to shake it, wondering if anything could be done, only to stop.
One sleeve was stained, spattered cuff to elbow with something dark and rust-coloured.
Dried blood.
The bell jangled again, for longer this time, and I shoved the jacket back into the wardrobe, slung the tie over the rack and ran from the room, slamming the door behind me, my heart pounding down the stairs before I had reached the landing.
What had happened to the suit? I frantically tried to smooth my face, so that whoever was at the gate would not see the guilt or the blood spatters in my eyes.
I needn’t have bothered. It was only a small boy, perhaps seven or eight years old. He stared up at me from behind a huge, flat box.
‘For Senor del Potro from Senor Souissa,’ he told me gravely.
Souissa … my mind scrambled before I recognized the name of the tailor.
‘Is he your papa?’ I asked.
The boy nodded with such wide eyes that I wondered whether his papa had spilled my secret.
As soon as I got the package inside, I forgot all about the tailor’s son.
In the safety of my locked room, I loosened the string around the box, my hands clammy with anticipation.
I’d requested a British-style suit – Langham was British after all – and for a moment, I was afraid that the tailor might not have been up to the job.
But as soon as I lifted the tissue paper, I knew I had chosen well, for here it was: a suit of pale tan flannel, as unobtrusive as fine leather.
A jacket with notched lapels, a single-breast waistcoat, wider cut trousers that hugged the waist. Three ties, deep red, pale gold and cocoa brown, and shirts, gloriously smooth and unstained.
Underwear too, and socks in black and tan.
I didn’t want to think about how much it would all cost. When the bill arrived, perhaps Langham would summon me into his office to explain myself.
Perhaps he would close the door, leaving the two of us alone …
I stroked the unblemished sleeve of the new suit. Where had they come from, those bloodstains upstairs? Langham wasn’t injured, I was sure of that. And if it was simply an accident, why hadn’t he ordered the suit cleaned?
Lifting the clothes aside, I saw something else in the bottom of the box. It was individually wrapped, with a note pinned to the paper.
I have listed this on your bill under ‘sundries’. I am no expert in these matters, but my daughter advises me that it should suffice. Issac Souissa.
Inside was a garment made from heavy cotton.
From the front it looked like a simple vest, apart from a wide elastic panel, and flat laces on either side to pull it in tight.
I struggled out of my jacket, smiling at the memory of old Souissa’s horrified expression when I had told him my secret, why I was paying for his silence.
He hadn’t been happy, but as soon as I had suggested I would take my business elsewhere, his face had changed.
He’d swallowed and adjusted his glasses and said, I’m sure I can accommodate you, monsieur.
My hands were trembling as I drew on the new clothes: the clean underthings, the brassiere that laced in tight to flatten my chest – no awkward bandages threatening to slip or unravel – the crisp shirt, the beautiful trousers.