Читать книгу Three Weeks in Paris - Barbara Taylor Bradford - Страница 14

Jessica Pierce was in a fury.

She stood in the elegant den of her Bel-Air house, looking down at her boyfriend Gary Stennis. He was almost falling off the cream velvet sofa, sprawled out across the cushions, dead drunk.

Her cool grey eyes swept around the room.

Everything looked neat, undisturbed in the superbly decorated room. Except for the messy jumble of things he had managed to accumulate on the low, antique Chinese coffee table in front of the fireplace. A piece that had cost her the earth.

The unusual ebony table, beautifully inlaid with mother-of-pearl orange blossom trees, was littered with a number of highball glasses, one of her best Baccarat crystal goblets, a bottle of Stolichnaya Cristall, half full, and an empty bottle of her Château Simard Saint-Emilion 1988. One of my better red wines, she thought, as her eyes settled on an antique crystal dish. With a flash of irritation she saw that this valuable signed piece of Lalique, a gift from a client, had been carelessly used as an ashtray. It was full of cigarette butts. And God knows what else.

Sighing under her breath, Jessica picked it up and sniffed. The unmistakable aroma of cannabis was missing. For once he had not been smoking pot with his friends and colleagues. She put it down, relieved.

A frown furrowed her brow, and she leaned closer to the coffee table, staring at the crystal goblet. It bore traces of lipstick on the rim. But it had been a business meeting, of that she felt sure.

Pages of his new script were scattered on the floor, along with a yellow legal pad on which innumerable notes had been scrawled. In his handwriting.

Straightening, now focusing all of her attention on Gary, she studied him at length, through dispassionate eyes. His salt-and-pepper hair was mussed, his face was gaunt and pale, with dark smudges under his eyes. In sleep, his mouth had gone slack, was partially open, and with his furrowed neck it made him look curiously old, worn out.

Washed up, she thought, and felt a tinge of sadness.

But no, he wasn’t that. At least, not yet.

Gary was still a brilliant screenwriter, one of the best, if not the best, in the business, and his past was filled with tunes of glory. And Oscars.

He had written many of the greatest screenplays ever put on celluloid and for some of the most talented stars, male stars especially. During his most-celebrated career he had made, lost and made several fortunes, married two famous movie stars, divorced them, and fathered a daughter with one who no longer spoke to him.

And now, at the age of fifty-one he was courting her and entreating her to marry him.

When he was sober.

Quite frequently these days he was drunk. And because of this addiction, which he refused to admit was an illness, she knew deep down she would never marry him. In her innermost soul she knew she would never be able to cope with an alcoholic on a long-term basis, and that was what he was on his way to becoming, if he wasn’t already there.

Constantly Jessica begged him to go to AA, but he merely laughed at her, and somehow managed to charm her into believing he didn’t need Alcoholics Anonymous. In her quiet moments, when she was alone, she knew with absolute sureness that he did. Just as she knew she should break up with him.

On two occasions Jessica had thrown him out; he had managed to charm his way back into her life. Well, he was a charmer personified, everyone knew that, and the master when it came to words. He had earned millions and millions from his words, hadn’t he?

‘Don’t forget, he’s a writer, he knows exactly what to say to press your buttons,’ her friend Merle was always saying. Her retort to Merle never varied. ‘And don’t you forget that Jeremy’s an actor. He knows which role to play to punch yours. Once an actor always an actor, Merle.’

Merle usually laughed, and so did she. They knew their men, that was a certainty. And they’re both wrong for us, Jessica thought; she turned swiftly on her high heels, went out of the den and closed the door quietly behind her.

She was still furious with Gary for being in this inebriated state when she got home, and the best thing was to let him sleep it off.

Jessica had been in Santa Barbara for five days, supervising an installation at a client’s new house, and Gary had promised her dinner tête-à-tête at home tonight…no matter what time she arrived. A dinner he would cook. He was a great chef when he wanted to be, and a great lover when he was stone-cold sober.

Yes, she loved him, with certain qualifications. Nevertheless, he made her madder than a wet hen at times. Like right now.

When she reached the circular front hall, with its glassy black granite floor and elegant, curving staircase, Jessica picked up her hanging clothes bag and overnight holdall and headed upstairs to her dressing room next door to the bedroom.

As she went into the octagonal-shaped room she caught sight of herself in one of the four mirrors, and after hanging up the clothes bag and putting the other one in a corner, she turned and stared at herself in the nearest glass.

Stepping closer, she moved her long blonde hair back over her shoulders, then straightened her jacket. What she saw was a tall young woman of thirty-one, not bad-looking, quite elegant in a white gabardine trouser suit and high-heeled mules, with a string of pearls around her neck and pearl studs on her ears. But it’s a slightly tired woman tonight, she muttered, then went back downstairs.

Jessica’s brown leather handbag was on a Louis XIV bench in the front hall. Picking it up as she walked past the bench, she hurried down the carpeted corridor to her office. Pushing open the door, she turned on the light switch and moved forward to her eighteenth-century French bureau plat in front of the window.

The first thing she saw, propped up against the Chinese yellow porcelain lamp, was a FedEx envelope.

Jessica sat staring at the invitation for a long time, lost in her thoughts as she found herself carried back into the past.

A decade fell away.

She was young, just twenty-one, and starting out at the Anya Sedgwick School of Decorative Arts, Design and Couture, on the rue de l’Université in Paris, where she had gone to study interior design.

In her mind’s eye she could see herself as she was then…tall, very thin, with straight blonde hair falling to her shoulder blades and a skin without a blemish. A small-town Texas girl on her first visit to Europe. An innocent abroad.

She had been captivated by Paris, the school, Anya, of course, and the little family pension on the Left Bank where she lived. It had all been new, different, and stimulating. So very exciting, and far removed from San Antonio and her parents. She missed them a lot, whilst managing to enjoy every new experience at the school and in her daily life.

And it was in Paris that she met Lucien Girard and fell in love for the first time. It was at the end of her first year that she and Lucien were introduced by Larry Sedgwick, Anya’s nephew. She was just twenty-two; he was four years older, an actor by profession. She smiled now, thinking of the way she teased Merle unmercifully about living with an actor.

Lucien and she had been the perfect match, completely compatible. They liked the same movies, books, music and art, and got on so well it was almost uncanny. They shared the same philosophy of life, wanted similar things and were ambitious for themselves.

Jessica had believed she knew Paris well–until she met Lucien; he had quickly shown her she knew it hardly at all. He took her to wonderful out-of-the-way places–charming bistros, unique little boutiques, art galleries and shops, and obscure pretty corners filled with peacefulness. He showed her interesting churches, little-known museums, and he had taken her on trips to Brittany, Provence and the Cotê d’Azur.

Their days together had been golden, filled with blue skies and sunshine, tranquil days and passion-filled nights.

He had taught her so much, about so many different things…sex and love…the best wines and food, and how to savour them…with him she had eaten mussels in a delicious tangy broth, omelettes so light and fluffy they were like air, soft aromatic cheeses from the countryside, and tiny fraises des bois, minuscule wood strawberries fragrant with an indefinable perfume, sumptuous to eat with thick clotted cream.

With him, everything was bliss.

He had called her his long-stemmed American beauty, had utterly loved and adored her, as she had him, and their days together had been sublime, so in tune were they, and happy. They made so many plans…

But one day he was gone.

Lucien disappeared.

Distraught, she tried to find him, teaming up with his best friend Alain Bonnal. His apartment was undisturbed, nothing had been removed. His agent had no idea where he was and was as baffled and worried as they were. He was an orphan; they knew of no family member to go to, no one to appeal to for information. She and Alain checked hospitals, the morgue, listed him as a missing person. To no avail. He was never found, either living or dead.

That spring of 1994 Lucien Girard had disappeared off the face of the earth. He might never have existed. But she knew very well that he had…

Suddenly jumping up, Jessica hurried across the office to the large French armoire where she kept fabric samples, opened the drawer at the bottom and pulled out a red leather photograph album. Carrying it back to the desk, she sat down, opened the album and began turning the pages…it was a full and complete record of her three years in Paris studying interior design. Almost everyone she had met and cared about was in here.

There we are, Lucien and me, she said under her breath, staring down at the photograph of them on the banks of the Seine, just near the Pont des Arts, the only metal bridge in Paris. She peered at the picture, instantly struck by their likeness to each other; Lucien had been tall and slender also, with fair colouring and bluish-grey eyes. The love of my life, she thought, and swiftly turned the page.

Here were she and Alexa, Kay, Maria and Anya, in the garden of Anya’s house. And here was a fun picture of Nicky and Larry clowning it up with Alexa, and Maria Franconi looking mournful at the back.

Jessica experienced an unexpected feeling of great sadness…Lucien had disappeared and everything had gone wrong after that. ‘Les girls’ as Nicky Sedgwick called their quartet, had quarrelled and disbanded. And it had all been so…so…silly and juvenile.

Jessica closed the album. If she went to Anya’s birthday party she would undoubtedly run into her former friends. She shrugged…not knowing how she really felt about them. Seven years. It had all happened seven years ago…a long time, a lot of water under the bridge.

And could she actually face being in Paris? She didn’t know. Paris was Lucien.

Lucien no longer existed.

That had to be true, because he had never surfaced, never reappeared. She still heard from Alain Bonnal occasionally, and he was as baffled as she continued to be; they had come up with every scenario they could think of, and were never satisfied with any of them, never sure what could have happened.

Accept the invitation. Go to Paris, just for the hell of it, she told herself. Then changed her mind instantly. No, decline. You’re only going to open up old wounds.

Jessica closed her eyes, leaning back in the chair…Her memories of Paris and Lucien were golden…filled with happiness and a joy she had not experienced since her days with him.

Better to keep the memories intact.

She would send her regrets.

Gary said from the doorway of her office, ‘So you finally decided to come home.’

Startled, Jessica swung around in the chair and stared at him. He was leaning against the door jamb wearing crumpled clothes and a belligerent expression.

He’s an angry drunk, she thought, but said, ‘You look as if you’ve been ridden hard and put away wet.’

He frowned, never having liked her southern Texan humour. ‘Why did you get back so late?’ he demanded.

‘What difference does it make? You had passed out dead drunk on my sofa.’

He let out a long sigh and slid into the room, came to stand by her chair, suddenly smiling down at her. ‘I guess we got to celebrating. Harry and Phil were crazy about the first draft of the script, and after making our notes, a few changes, we were pretty sure it was almost good enough to be a shooting script. So…we decided to celebrate–’

‘I guess it just got out of hand.’

‘No. You just got back very late.’

‘Nine o’clock isn’t all that late.’

‘Why were you late? Did Mark Sylvester detain you…in some way?’ He glared.

‘Don’t be so ridiculous! And I don’t like the innuendo. He wasn’t even there. And I was late because there was a lot of traffic on the Santa Barbara freeway. And how was Gina?’

‘Gina?’ Gary frowned, then sat down on the sofa.

‘Don’t tell me Gina wasn’t here tonight, because I smelled her perfume in the den. And she’s always at your script meetings, drinks my best red wine and leaves her lipstick on the wine glass. Harry hasn’t taken to wearing lipstick has he?’

‘Your sarcasm is wasted on me, Jessica. And I fail to understand why you’re always so hard on her. Gina’s been my assistant for years.’

And partner in bed when you see fit, she thought, then said, ‘This ain’t my first rodeo…I know what’s what.’

Gary leapt to his feet, colour flooding his face. He looked apoplectic as he said, ‘I can see the frame of mind you’re in, and I’m not staying around to get in the way of your whip, Missy. I’m going to my place. I’ll get my stuff tomorrow. See you around, kid.’

Jessica did not respond. She merely stared at him coldly, understanding, suddenly, how truly tired she was of having him use her. And misuse her house.

He strode out and slammed the office door behind him. A moment later she heard the front door bang and the screech of wheels as he drove out of her front yard at breakneck speed.

And at this precise moment, Jessica Pierce realized that she actually didn’t care that he had left in a temper…or that she had pushed him at a bad moment, and he had almost snapped.

She opened the red leather album again and turned the pages, staring at the photographs of her three years in Paris, and with a flash of unexpected insight she recognized how little Gary Stennis meant in her life. Yes, she had feelings for him, and in the early stages of their relationship she had truly believed they had a chance of making it together on a long-term basis. But now the odds of it working were remote. If she were honest with herself, she knew she shouldn’t string him along any more. It wasn’t fair to him; or to herself, for that matter. She ought to end the affair.

Well, maybe she just had. He had left in a huff and might never come back.

She thought again of Lucien, gazing at a photograph of him standing between her and Alexa outside Anya’s school on the rue de l’Université. How young we all look in the picture, she thought. Young, innocent, with life ahead of us…how unconcerned we were about the future…about our lives. We thought we were invulnerable, immortal.

‘Lucien,’ she murmured out loud, tracing a finger over his face. ‘What really happened to you?’

She had no answer for herself, just as she never had. His disappearance was a mystery. It was one that would never be solved.