Читать книгу The Unbreakable Trilogy - Primula Bond - Страница 16

The girl solemnly lowers her face into the man’s groin. I stand and watch her. I’m leaning against a warm, cracked wall. All I can see of the man are thick, muscular brown legs, hands pushing the girl’s head brutally into him. All I can see now of her is the tension in her hunched shoulders as she grasps the stone seat he’s sprawled on, her knuckles white, her knees on the stone floor and spread apart to take the strain, her toes curling into the cracks of the paved floor.

I feel dust come off the wall as I try to move away. There’s a metallic rattle and my short progress is stopped. I’m chained. There are terracotta smears on my arms and hands, on my bare legs. I’m naked apart from a scrap of faded, torn cloth wound under my arms and again round my waist. My hair is coiled up on top of my head, and every part of me is dripping with sweat.

It’s so hot.

In this low ceilinged, claustrophobic room the shade is impenetrable and black. The top half of the man is hidden in shadow. But it still feels like an oven in here. I glance outside. I make no effort to get out because I know I’m in a kind of prison. The sky was its usual bowl of bright blue when I walked here through the city earlier, but now, through one small window, I see that it’s turned a dull, angry yellow, hanging low over Pompeii and scratched across with grey smoke. The ground is shaking and simmering as if we’ve all been set upon a stove. The air is choking hot. Hotter than I’ve ever known it.

A pair of hands grabs my wrist. I have a thick metal cuff on both wrists, joined by a stubby chain, and the person unhooks me from the wall and leads me by this chain out of this little chamber and into another one even darker than the first. I am pushed onto my knees just like the other girl. They scrape painfully on the stone floor. That was blood mixed with the terracotta dust on my skin.

As I fall against the ledge which acts as a bed, the whole world seems to shake. I’m sure I can hear people running and shouting outside.

But I can’t move. I’m chained up again. Big, rough hands are on my bottom, fanning over it, wrenching the cheeks open. There could be more than two people in here with me, that’s normal business, but I can see nothing and no-one because it’s pitch dark in here.

I can only hear a kind of grunting, smell musky sweat, I can only see a strip of daylight on the floor, and as someone bends me further forwards and pushes something between my butt cheeks, nudging into the reluctant tightness of my bottom, it’s a finger, no, two fingers, something else thick and hard, I stretch out to scrape at the strip of daylight and all at once it is gone and in its place the chamber is full as the yellow sky crashes right in along with grey clouds and choking piles of dry dust.

The pillows are pressing down on my head as I clutch at fragments of the nightmare. I fling them off me and thank goodness I’m not in the dark chamber of a brothel at the foot of Vesuvius but in a quiet attic in the middle of London. Far from the world being hot and yellow and about to erupt, it looks cold and grey out there and only good for staying warm in bed.

In the morning light this room seems bigger than it looked last night. I am dazzled by all the whiteness, the light flooding in framed by three arched windows. Hanging on the door of the wardrobe is a pale blue jersey dress I didn’t notice before and a brand new pair of shiny brown boots. My caramel tweed jacket is arranged over the dress, the blue check picked out perfectly by the dress. I wash quickly in the little white bathroom and get dressed.

There is a romantic-looking balcony outside the window and although it’s windy and cold out there I step outside to blow the cobwebs away.

Down below my window is the quiet square, and there’s the sad statue on its plinth, poised for flight and gazing straight at me which is strange, because the other night he was positioned facing down the hill. Parked outside the house is a huge silver Audi four-by-four with a chauffeur standing beside it, built like a tank and uniformed to the hilt. The chauffeur glances up at me and taps his watch.

The exhibition is complete and ready for tonight’s private view. The gallery looks superb. Better than any graduate show could ever hope to look. Slick, sophisticated, sorted. In the space of a few days my best images have been printed, blown up, framed and hung. The huge space at the top of the Levi Building is filled by my work. My work! I wish my dear old tutor was here to see this.

There are acres of whitewashed wall with meaningful clusters of mostly black and white photographs grouped according to theme or place. I have spent the day standing on a chair in the middle of the huge empty space of the gallery like Boadicea directing a small army of workers to group the pictures into themes.

Now each picture is labelled with the legend I had carefully stored on my camera and thought I’d lost. My name and the title of the collection – Halloween – are all signed in cool, lower-case font and they’re the first things you see when you come out of the lift.

I’ve been home to the flat and chosen a long red sheath dress of Polly’s to wear for the private view. It’s pretty daring and vampish, a halter neck slashed between my breasts to the navel, then draped across the hips in the style of a Grecian goddess.

Gustav has been absent all day, but the instruction he’s given the tall spiky lady from downstairs, whose name I now know is Crystal and who told me earlier that my jacket and dress and boots were not suitable for evening wear, is that I must appear in something extremely glamorous.

Crystal is here, too. Her guise tonight is as a waitress, hence her uniform of tight black skirt and starched white blouse. Dickson the chauffeur is serving drinks, too, in his shirt sleeves. He looks as if he’d be more comfortable manoeuvring machine guns rather than ferrying hors d’oeuvres. As the evening takes over, prompting lights to come on all over London, the three of us bustle about stocking up the temporary bar that has been set up by the window. Boxes of wine and champagne, trays of canapés have all materialised while I was back at the flat getting ready.

Across on the South Bank the theatres and restaurants and galleries light up one by one, and the London Eye slows to a halt. I take a picture of it, and of the gallery, and wish Polly was here to see this.

‘Exactly as I would have designed it. Everything shown off to its best advantage. Good work, everyone.’

The lift opens like the curtains of some grand stage, and Gustav marches out across the poured concrete floor, rubbing his hands against the cold. He seems to suck all the air in the space towards him, leaving everyone else stunned and waiting, like a row of night creatures mesmerised by oncoming headlights.

His black hair is slicked back like the Godfather this evening, making him look positively sinister and intimidating. Film-star bad guy, not low-life Mafioso. His charcoal pinstripe is cut slightly looser than the sharply tailored grey one of yesterday. My stomach twists and turns like an autumn leaf because I know what lies beneath that suit. What was deep inside my mouth last night.

Snared by sudden nerves I start stacking a pile of catalogues to hide the urge to go to him and as I do so the column of prices catches my eye. They have not been fixed to the pictures themselves and I gasp with greedy delight. Gustav has priced each of my prints at more than two thousand pounds. Some as much as five thousand. Not so expensive as to be off-putting, but way above anything a humble graduate could normally command.

‘Good evening, Miss Folkes.’

He comes up to me and calmly, right in front of Crystal and Dickson and any guests about to arrive, snaps the chain from his watch back onto my bracelet. No-one bats an eyelid. Maybe that’s because if you are at any distance you can’t see the silver chain joining us.

‘Good evening, Mr Levi. I can’t thank you enough for this opportunity. The exhibition looks superb.’ I lean back against the desk to look at him. He’s tossing a small key up and down in his hand.

‘As do you. I can’t wait to see the reaction of all our guests.’

‘What’s that you have there?’

He holds the key up like a talisman, his black eyes glittering wickedly. ‘It’s the key to my house. I want you to have it. I missed you when you left this morning.’

I gaze at him, my stomach in a knot. Remembering what we did to each other.

Polly would try and fail to keep a straight face if I told her. You stayed over, but you didn’t go the whole way? What’s wrong with him? What’s wrong with you?

‘It – it was a lovely evening, Gustav. Who knew you could cook like a dream?’

We smile secretly. Who knew you could make me come like that, just licking me? Yes, Polly. You’d be proud. Because I swallowed, just like you told me.

I glance across at Crystal and Dickson, polishing glasses and holding them up to the window. Above the lift the lights come on.

‘The private view is about to start,’ I stammer. ‘Did you want to discuss anything?’

He presses me back against the desk so that the glass edge of it digs into the back of my thighs. His breath blows across my face as he pushes my legs open beneath my red dress, moves his hand gently beneath the material to the top of my thighs.

‘Not discuss. Tell. I want you to come and live at the house with me. Starting from tonight.’

There is a flurry of voices over by the lifts. Crystal and the chauffeur glide about with trays of glasses. Music starts to play, echoing round the space like a night club. More elegant jazz, soothing the day away. Gustav clicks the key onto my bracelet and with a slow wink he moves away, tucking a few catalogues casually under his arm like a priest master about to deliver a sermon.

And of course, because we’re chained together, I must follow.

Several people swarm over to me at his introduction. Reviewers, mostly, magazine columnists, one or two other gallery owners. I have to swerve subtly as I greet them shyly, so the silver chain doesn’t get entangled. Or snap.

Soon the entire gallery is full to bursting. Crystal has been positioned by the lift with a stack of catalogues, but now she glides up to me and Gustav.

‘Already five sold!’ She announces triumphantly, jabbing her fingernail at my catalogue.

‘That’s fantastic, Crystal!’ I try to focus on the big bold ticks she’s marked against the relevant items, then I stare round at the images themselves. Soon they will be adorning someone else’s wall. My babies, let loose on the world.

‘What a great way to start! Let’s see if we can’t shift a few more before the evening’s out.’ Gustav leads me back towards the window, ostentatiously holding his hand up for silence. I’m still dazed by this early success. I can see the silver chain winking in the sharp lights cast by the spots, but I don’t know if anyone else can tell that I’m chained to him.

‘Ladies and gentlemen!’

Gustav claps his hands and achieves instant, glass-tinkling silence in the room. He tugs at the chain so that I am even closer.

‘I want to introduce you to Serena Folkes, a previously undiscovered talent who has, to say the least, been hiding her light under a bushel.’

There’s a murmur of amusement around the room.

‘It would be politically incorrect of me to admit, out loud, that it was her unusual fey beauty that piqued my interest when I bumped into her on Halloween night, so I won’t go on about how gorgeous she is. A living, breathing installation in her own right!’

There’s another murmur, and one or two press lift their big cameras and take pictures of me.

‘Actually it was the subject she was stalking and working on that interested me, but then she left two of her cameras in my, ah, safekeeping for a night and I took the liberty of having a scroll through the other images still stored there. I realised that she was telling the truth when she told me she was a young professional starting out. A burgeoning talent, coupled with a fierce determination. But then, when I managed to persuade her to let me showcase her work and we’d signed the paperwork, I never dreamed what else she had tucked in her arsenal.’

He sweeps his arm around the walls, winking at the veiled obscenity, then everyone turns obediently to examine once again what I have put on show.

‘I reckon I’ve stumbled on a gold mine here. I think you’ll all agree that she marries stunning natural lighting and composition with sheer beauty and originality of subject. Her pictures all have the look of work that has been painstakingly developed in a dark room. And within the apparently subtle and delicate framework I think you’ll be as astonished as I was when I unearthed frame after frame of these erotic images of people who thought they were alone, unseen. Those lovers. Those sunbathers. And the pièce de résistance, those nuns.’

A titillated titter ripples round the room.

‘I’m sure you’ll agree that this young woman, not twenty-one yet, doesn’t hold back. I hope the way we’ve laid out the exhibition has led you on, that you’ve all been taken in by the apparent innocence of some of her work, particularly the Venetian convent pictures. She took these illicitly and they are breathtaking in their voyeuristic content.’

The murmuring hushes slightly. Several people push out of the crowd to look at the pictures he’s pointing at, which they haven’t seen before. I prickle with pride when I see the women raise their hands to their flushing cheeks when they see the content. The men shift their legs apart like cowboys, shove their hands in their pockets.

Is that a gun, or are you just turned on by my pictures?

‘Perhaps instead of Halloween we should have called it Flagellation.’

Everyone is staring back at Gustav now. Those who aren’t ogling my Venetian series. He really holds an audience, like one of those sham preachers who brainwash their congregation with sheer charisma. ‘Anyway, I give you Serena Folkes. The girl with a great future.’

Gustav raises his glass to me, a strange new tenderness burning in his eyes. I raise my glass in return and smile, watch and wait for the answering smile, and there it is, transforming his face to stern beauty, and filling me with hot pride. I won’t let him down. These influential people, celebrities, well known faces from the arts and fashion pages, even some academics and, best of all, two famous society photographers, have all come at his bidding because they trust his judgement. And now they’re here to judge me.

I feel my wrist tugging slightly as he unchains it and moves away but I remain where I am by the window. I catch faint noises across the city. Something flapping on the roof of a building opposite. Leathery wings taking flight, the blood-curdling shriek of an animal hunted down, its neck snapped with one tidy bite. Probably foxes, vermin slinking about among London’s rubbish bins, killing mice. Do foxes lurk near the river?

The flapping sound is a jubilant Union Jack left over from the Olympic summer, flying above the National Theatre. I’m so keyed up I swear I can hear applause from the audience.

And in here, the low heartbeat of drum, double bass and breathy sax from the speakers.

Venice is like that silver chain, tugging me back to its watery secrets. I remember that night so well. Wandering through that maze of calles, so thoroughly lost, catching sight of this young nun scurrying out of nowhere. I dashed forward to ask her for directions but she was in such a rush that it turned into a mad chase. Eventually I followed her through a little gate in a long crumbling wall and when she vanished up a big stone flight of stairs I realised I was locked in for the night.

I tiptoed around the silent convent clumsily disguised in an oversized grey habit, but I couldn’t get out, and then I found her again, her and her sisters, all preparing for sleep in their tiny, doorless cells. At first they were praying and then they took out these little whips and started hitting themselves on their bare skin, and that’s what’s on display now. My camera caught the technique my little nun used, a quick flick of the wrist to bring the tails down on her flesh. The sharp tipping of her head after each blow, the licking of her lips, the slow belly dance of secret pleasure.

‘Say something,’ murmurs Crystal. ‘They’re all looking at you, see? They expect you to talk them through it.’

‘Gustav didn’t warn me about this!’ I hiss back, starting to sweat even in my flimsy dress. ‘I’m hopeless at public speaking.’

Crystal hands me another full glass and starts to move through the crowd, who are starting to shift slightly. ‘Who else is going to explain these very naughty pictures?’

‘Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.’ My voice is high and girlish, but when I look across their heads to find Gustav, I clear my throat and start again. ‘Perhaps in fact we should have called this entire exhibition Voyeurism.’

I pause there, and the effect is fantastic. Everyone laughs warmly, glasses lifted to cover laughing mouths, but they are all focused on me now.

‘Because that’s essentially what photography is. Voyeurism. Watching. In fact that’s what Gustav Levi called me when he caught me photographing these little witches on Halloween night. A voyeur. And I don’t think he meant it in a good way.’

There’s warmer laughter, glasses waved jovially at Gustav, who raises his glass in return but keeps his eyes on mine. Is he expecting me to slip up?

‘But I hope this exhibition shows my type of voyeurism in a positive rather than salacious way. Or at least constructive, artistic. Even arousing. If that’s not looking for excuses.’ I walk slowly along the wall towards the Venetian series to the accompaniment of more friendly laughter.

One guest holding a mini tape recorder puts his hand up. ‘I don’t know if you’re taking Q and As?’

‘Of course.’ Wow. Where did this smooth professionalism come from? ‘I want everyone to understand my work.’

‘So I’m interested in your influences. They’re obviously very varied.’ The journalist taps his pen against his mouth. ‘But I know everyone’s dying for you to talk us in particular through these convent ones. These Venetian nuns in their cells?’

‘Ah, yes. To be honest I was stunned myself when I walked into the gallery this morning.’ I arrive at the series, firstly of the arched cloisters, then the chapel, then the stone staircase flanked by statues of female saints which led up to the nuns’ sleeping quarters. The arch of the corridor, the punctuation of the little doorless cells. The ghostly figure, slightly out of focus, appearing in the first doorway. ‘I mean, when I saw just how erotic the effect is now that they’re blown up to life size.’

The journalist nods. ‘That scenario, well, it’s the stuff of pure fantasy, isn’t it? Did you realise you were appealing to a male audience when you took these?’

‘Male, female. I want to appeal to all audiences, obviously. Especially the one here tonight.’

I wave my arm around the assembled throng and again they laugh kindly. One or two cast suspicious glances at the journalist and I wonder if he’s trying to wrongfoot me for some reason. Gustav has his head down and is writing something on a pad of paper.

I plough on. ‘I studied the work of Helmut Newton, and I think you can see his sado-masochistic mannerisms expressed here, however subconsciously.’ I flatten my hand on my leg and stroke it absently. ‘These women are alone with their masochism. Their impure fantasies. But it’s also a penance. They’re obeying orders.’

‘Would you say,’ interrupts another woman, ‘that such depictions are bordering on the pornographic, no matter how tastefully shot?’

‘That depends on whether you think something occurring naturally in life counts as porn. I’d say it’s a heightened and corrupted version of reality.’

‘Even so. Those little whips they seem to be using, the flagellation,’ coughs the woman, taking a noisy sip from her glass. ‘How did you get such intimate pictures of such secluded, holy women?’

‘If you’ve visited Venice you’ll know that the nature of the place makes every nook and cranny there seem hidden and secretive, but I only stumbled on that convent by mistake when I got lost one evening. I followed this nun who seemed to be in a hurry, I wanted to ask her the way, but she disappeared through this little gate. I learned later that you can get inside the convent from the canal, too, but only if you have a gondola handy. And by then I had all the shots I needed.’

‘Adventurous as well as talented,’ someone else piped up. ‘I can see you come alive when you talk about your travels.’

‘My travels last year are what kept me alive.’

Across the river the inky black clouds scud across the sky.

‘This was an enclosed order of nuns, you say?’

‘There was no speaking to each other in there, let alone the outside world. Apparently once a year or so, they talk to outsiders through a grille.’

‘So you never asked for permission to enter the convent, or spoke to anyone?’

‘God, no. They would have chucked me out. It’s a silent order, but they are still very – active.’

The journalist is biting his pen. The others are standing about like deer in the fens, waiting for more.

‘Active? So what made you think there was a photo op in there?’

‘The first thing I witnessed, hiding behind a pillar obviously, was a prostration.’

Several pairs of eyebrows rise questioningly.

‘I think the nun I followed was a novice. One of the reasons I was able to get in so easily was that the entire community was gathered in the chapel to watch this initiation ceremony. Or penance. I couldn’t linger too obviously to find out. No wonder the young nun was in such a rush. She must have been making her initial vows, or she could have been confessing to some heinous sin. Either way they were whipping her.’

Mouths drop open. Crystal is standing next to Gustav, her eyes wide with undisguised admiration. Gustav glances up at me, then back at what he’s writing. Annoyance flares at me. Why isn’t he paying attention?

‘It was hard to see at first because they had this heavy incense pouring out of a large silver basket swinging back and forth on a silver chain. It made my eyes stream and I had to stop myself sneezing. Anyway, it was a beautiful vaulted chapel and in all these pews were rows of nuns, standing so still I thought they were statues. Then this young nun came out, there she is in that picture.’

All heads turn back to the pictures hanging there, at the soft-focus pictures of my favourite nun in her cell.

‘She came in, dressed in a kind of thick linen nightdress. She lay down on the floor, flat on her face, and spread her arms and legs out like a star. The nuns were all singing, fingers telling their rosaries, and singing some sort of Gregorian chant. Some of them were stretching their arms up to the ceiling, others were stretching their arms out sideways as if to embrace something.

‘I’ll never look at The Sound of Music in the same way again!’

I allow a space for some light relief. I glance at Gustav who nods his head for me to carry on.

‘Some lay down on the floor, too, but it was this new one who was the centre of attention, and then the Mother Superior – it was obviously her, she was astonishingly beautiful, but very tall and terrifying-looking, with an enormous crucifix hanging on her chest – she came and stood over the girl brandishing this long black whip. It was all pretty alarming. I wondered if I should step in, you know, I was worried it was some kind of black magic, not holy at all, but something awful might have happened to me if they discovered an interloper.

‘I wonder what …’

I let the question hang in the air, remembering how my heart pounded with fear that night. How sick and dizzy I felt with that incense clouding the air in that chapel, how the chanting of the nuns grew louder in my ears. The sweat trickling down my back, gathering in my armpits, prickling in my hair. The stifling heat of Venice in summer. The stink of the canals penetrating even into that hallowed space. The sheen of sweat on everyone’s skin.

‘The Mother Superior planted her feet on either side of the little nun and folded her dress right up over her bottom so that I could see she was wearing these Victorian-type white bloomers.’

The journalist groans and snaps his biro in half. ‘Pretty barbaric.’

‘You and I might think so. But we all know that there are some people who do this for a living. For pleasure. And for these nuns it’s an initiation process. Routine. The girl’s face was shining with happiness. What do they call it when the saints in those paintings and statues look as if they are having an orgasm? Ecstasy.’

There is a really hearty laugh around the gallery.

‘Did they hit her with these horrible whips?’

‘You’re obsessed,’ someone else laughs at the questioner.

‘I can answer that if you want me to?’

Everyone nods and cheers. Gustav is shaking his head in amused disbelief, still looking down at his pad. It’s all so flattering. I’m tempted to confess what really happened inside me, the dark flowering of fascination when I watched those nuns. But I mustn’t get carried away. I haven’t the nerve to reveal now, at my first ever public show, how the shock of the public flagellation in the chapel turned to a twisted pleasure when I crept upstairs and saw the sisters continuing it in private. The swish and bite of those whips on snowy white skin. The answering bite and swish inside me as I hid watching in the shadows and my body tightened with anguished recognition.

I rouse myself. All those faces are so expectant now. Crystal’s thin eyebrows are crescents of surprise. Gustav is looking at me from under lowered brows as if he’s never seen me before.

‘Well, the Reverend Mother stepped forward. She had to push up her sleeves and it was a shock to see human limbs under there, she could have been a robot, but yes, she whipped the girl’s bottom. It was so loud. So sharp. The acoustics in there are designed for singing and praying, not punishment. So discordant in a quiet, holy place. I saw the girl’s fingers clawing at the polished wooden floor, but she wasn’t trying to get away. She kind of flinched under the blows and even though she wasn’t supposed to make a sound I could see her lips mouthing “I’m a sinner, cleanse me Mother, please cleanse me.”’

You could hear a pin drop. Later Crystal will tell me that it’s a first. Probably a last. But the story of my private view revelations will run in the industry press for weeks afterwards.

‘I didn’t get a picture of that initiation ceremony, unfortunately. I was stuck by the door. If I’d started fumbling around for my camera under that stolen habit they’d have seen me. Probably got me on the floor and whipped me, too.’

I look round calmly, enjoying the eyes all fixed on me as if I have become some kind of oracle. I point at the next enlargement showing the young nun in her cell.

‘And this is Sister Perpetua, later that same night.’

The heads turn to follow my finger, as if they are all students in a riveting lecture. Several cameras follow me. We all stare at the picture, the bony line of the nun’s bare shoulder, the moonlight streaking the bars of the arched window across her spine.

‘I’ve never told anyone this. But I did speak to this one. She saw me. I watched her standing in the room, her nightdress falling off her, and I watched her whip herself. The other, older sisters were doing it, but I didn’t get many shots of the others, because she warned me not to. I saw them, though. There were no doors on the cells. No privacy. They just wandered in and out of each other’s rooms if they wanted. It seemed to make them less inhibited, not more, like they knew they were being watched. And they were so wrapped up in what they were doing they probably wouldn’t have noticed if I’d walked right into the cells stark naked and offered myself for a bit of punishment.’

‘And did you?’

Gustav’s voice cuts through the murmuring. He’s folded his arms now. It must be time to wrap this up. Well, let him stew. I leave a deliberately dramatic pause, and lick my lips lasciviously. Crystal drops one black painted eyelid very slowly and winks at me. I don’t know which is more shocking. My nun whipping herself, or a wink from the wooden Crystal.

‘They were all far too busy seeing to themselves, to be honest. Flagellating the sins, getting the impure thoughts out of their heads, but this looked much more like pleasure than punishment. Pulling off their nightgowns to flick the switch across their bare skin, so white in the moonlight, a really sickening thwack against their tender flesh; I have tried to show here the marks they left on their skin. You can see how they tilt their heads back so sensuously, the little shimmy in their bare feet when the blows have landed. All positively orgasmic.’

My rapt audience waits for more. Only the first harsh flurry of what looks like snow pattering on the window disturbs the quiet.

‘I stayed as long as I dared. Some of them went to sleep. But even the sleeping sisters looked restless, flailing around on those horrible horsehair mattresses. I wonder now if they were dreaming of their past lives, lovers, lovemaking, the lost sensation of naked limbs and bodies, sweat, tears, men kissing and touching them, maybe even other women. All denied to them forever. They can’t all have been virgins in their former lives.’

‘Did you ever find out where the nun had been?’ It was Crystal this time. ‘Surely it was forbidden for her to be running round the city?’

I shake my head. ‘Sadly, no. I shudder to think what her punishment would have been if she’d confessed to what she’d been doing, even to me. Intriguing, isn’t it?’

‘It’s a shame you didn’t manage to interview them all, as well as getting such graphic visuals,’ murmurs the journalist, and others nod in agreement. ‘Have you thought of a career in photojournalism?’

‘Not until this moment, but you might have something there for the future!’

More laughter, but glasses are empty now and feet are fidgeting.

‘One more question,’ another man pipes up. ‘Your plans for the future?’

Crystal has materialised beside me and I take another drink. ‘Let’s see how well I do with this exhibition, first! But yes, I’d like to do more people-watching. You’ll see from this picture of the couple kissing in Paris that another influence is Robert Doisneau. His apparently candid shots were actually set up, but I would like to explore that idea further. Either catch people unawares, or ask them to pose for me.’

Crystal nods once, rubbing finger and thumb together to mime the making of lots of money.

I notice that Gustav has put away whatever he was working on and once again is dangling the silver chain up in front of him, letting it glint under the lights. I smile back, lift my hand high to show him my bracelet.

‘And as I’ve already admitted to being a voyeur, I’m thinking doors and windows, open and closed, will be the theme for my next show. Walking down a street in the evening, spying at the life unfolding in the houses you pass as the lights are switched on. Lifts. Sliding doors. Sexiness, secrecy. One night I could be outside your house!’ I raise my glass with a wide grin. ‘After all, that young nun, and her sisters in their convent, they thought they were alone. They were dancing like nobody’s watching.’

I smile round at them and Gustav and Crystal start to clap. The applause is brief but enthusiastic, and then I’m alone in the middle of my crowd.

I acknowledge a pleasing number of compliments as I move towards Gustav. I see a few people lining up by the desk, Crystal busy filling in a form on her clipboard.

What I haven’t told them is that I stole one of the little flagellating whips when I fled the convent at dawn. I hid it underneath the habit when I slipped through the gate when the gardener unlocked it. I have the little weapon still, tucked into the bottom of my rucksack.

But there it has stayed. My dark secret waiting for the right moment. What would these smart Londoners think if I produced it now, whipped myself, right here, in front of them? Would it sell my pictures faster?

What if I reached up now to unhook my dress, let it fall away from me like the nun’s simple nightdress? She untied it, standing in front of the arched window of her cell, and let it fall to the stone floor. I’ll admit it. I wanted to step inside the cell, come up behind her and touch her.

What if everyone saw my breasts falling out of this sexy red dress, bare, the nipples shrinking under their gaze? All of them looking at me bared before them, performing my own photographs. What would Gustav say? Would it really, really turn him on?

I take another long sip of champagne. He is at the other end of the room, in front of the Halloween witches, and he wants me to come to him. I refuse to catch his eye. I’m not moving.

What if I had the whip with me now, exhibit A, stood with my back to them like the little nun did, what if I used her technique, right now, a quick flick of the wrist to bring the tails down on my bare shoulder? I know how it would feel, sharp and shocking, tight on one spot. I tried it later, back in my hotel. I would tilt my head back sensuously, as my young nun did, and the tickle would become tingling, radiating through me. Then I would flick it again. Everyone in this big room would be able to see the vicious tail cutting red across my skin, like a line of fire rushing along a trail of dynamite, but after a few moments the sharp sting would diffuse into intense, invigorating heat.

What if I touched myself intimately with the whip? I saw some of the nuns do it. The blunt leather handle, sliding down. The men in this crowd wouldn’t know what to do with themselves. Their hands would wander into their pockets. Their eyes would be watering because they would want to get this load off. In fact they would want to do me, bare as I am in front of them, showing them the pale sweep of my spine, my thighs.

They would see my hand taking the length of thick woven leather, spreading myself open. These sophisticated city slickers would become voyeurs lusting for my pale skin striped with punishment. They would line up to take their turns with me. They want to put their hands on me, the same hands that have driven sleek cars or written cheques or typed emails or lifted espressos all day today.

My chattering audience is oblivious to my randy thoughts. But not Gustav. I’m certain he can read every iota scrolling through my mind. Every itch of my fingers. He’s watching me as I stand there, soft and wet, beside the image of my young nun with her head turned sideways, moonlight a halo round her shaved head as she lowers her nightgown. Everyone here has been moved and impressed by my work tonight. Gustav knew they would be. And if he’s that perceptive, can he tell how aroused I am right now? Does he know how hard I’m wishing all these lovely rich people would melt away and leave us on our own?

I realise what’s changed since I took these photographs. The girl on those travels had no-one waiting for her back home. There was a great big gap, over six foot tall, which had never been filled. No father. No brother. There was no man. And no home.

And now there’s Gustav. Even if he is only for Christmas.

He rattles the silver chain, all the way across the room. It rouses me from my reverie. I can’t tell if he’s cross with me for giving too much away. Or is he pleased? His mouth is opening to say something but it’s Crystal who reaches me first and taps her clipboard.

‘Thought you’d like to know, Serena. Twenty-five of your pictures sold so far! Out of a total one hundred. I’m astonished. Well done.’

I thank her. At last I go to him, walking through the crowd, bowing and smiling like a queen as people stop me to congratulate me or ask me more questions about the Venetian series, or the kissing Parisian roof runners.

‘A resounding success, Serena.’ Gustav is momentarily alone beside a small photograph of a pile of pebbles and detritus I took on the beach below the house on the cliffs. He smiles as he pulls me right up to him and attaches the silver chain once again. He doesn’t care who sees. ‘A perfect example of team effort, I’d say. I saw. You conquered. Crystal says they’re falling over each other to get their money out. Your work really is superb.’

‘It’s thanks to what you’ve done for me, Gustav. I’m overwhelmed.’

He frowns down at the silver chain. Winds it round his fingers like a cat’s cradle. His dark hair falls against his eyebrow and I long to brush it aside. ‘That remark has a dying fall to it, as if you’re already saying goodbye. I was hoping just the opposite. I was hoping that you would use that key I gave you and move into the house tonight.’

I’ve wrong-footed him somehow. He’s as surprised as I am by the reaction tonight. I sense it’s given me an advantage, if only a small one.

‘How can we improve on all this, though?’ I hold myself upright, watch his mouth working with his thoughts. ‘How will my moving into your house change anything?’

‘How simply can I put it? It’s what I want, and that should be enough for both of us.’

His eyes snap back onto mine. Unwavering, as if he’s stopped fumbling for an answer. He’s got me where he wants me. So am I the answer?

I frown at him to cover my uncertainty. ‘You mean our contract?’

‘I was hoping we’d gone beyond referring to that. But yes, it’s still in place if ever you’re confused about what’s going on here. Perhaps all this noise and chatter, this private view, is putting us on edge.’ He pulls me closer. ‘I’m talking about last night. Didn’t you enjoy yourself?’

People are pressing round us. ‘You know I did! It was amazing. You tasted me. I tasted you. I would have gone upstairs with you.’ I want everyone to overhear, but I lower my voice obediently. ‘But you dismissed me. So why do you want me to move in?’

‘I don’t have to explain my every move to you.’ He narrows his eyes. ‘But I’m saying my house is the only place I can have you truly to myself.’

A shiver runs down my whole body. I’m suddenly cold in my flimsy dress. The possessiveness in his voice is washing over me, pulling me towards him, weakening me. I’ll do anything he wants. I’ve agreed to. But I have to put up a little more resistance first.

‘I’m happy in Polly’s flat.’

He pulls the silver chain hard so that my hands bang against his chest. ‘I want you with me. I rattle around like a lost soul in there. It was only when you were there last night that I felt at home. That’s what our agreement means. Or at least what it’s started to mean. I’ll go over it again, shall I?’

One or two people are hovering and I try to pull away. ‘No need, Gustav. I understand you.’

‘No, I don’t think you do. I’m helping you professionally. So you must help me personally. We’ve already made a start, and that has made me want you more, Serena. There’s so much I want to do with you, teach you, teach myself. I need you under my roof, where I can find you.’ He tugs on the silver chain. ‘Attached to me.’

‘Not tonight, Gustav. Please? I’m exhausted. Exhilarated, but exhausted. Can you give me a couple of days?’

‘And what if the exhibition is sold out in two days?’

I shake my head. ‘You know it won’t be. And if it is, then I’ll give you those extra days in lieu.’

‘Fair enough.’ He refuses to show me his disappointment. He lets the silver chain go slack.

‘I need to sort my head out, Gustav. And if I come to you, I’ll need to tell Polly and pack up her flat, too.’

He nods silently. Why is there a plunging of disappointment in me at that? Does the perverse creature in me want him to beg, plead, take my hand, say something irresistible? Touch me, there, where he knows I melt? Yes. That’s exactly what the perverse creature wants.

But instead he lifts my hand to his lips, brushes his mouth across it. His eyes are softer now, because I’ve said what he wants me to say. He half closes them as he breathes me in, then he unclips the chain once again and steps back.

‘Two days, Serena. But after that you’re mine.’

We stare at each other. I bite my lip, fiddle with a strand of hair. Why don’t I just give in, let go? The security he offers is wrapped in danger, and that’s why I’m playing hard to get. I welcome the danger, I think. It’s the security I’m worried about. I want to make my own luck. Just when I’ve cut loose, in swoops another jailer to take me prisoner.

He gathers up the silver chain in his bunched fist and turns to speak to some waiting people.

And much later, when the crowd has dispersed and the gallery is locked up, when Gustav has gone without another word to me, and I’m walking away down the Strand towards Polly’s flat, the realisation of tonight’s quick success, the hard figures Crystal quoted earlier, it all hits me like a stone in the chest.

Sell another three-quarters of the display and sooner than blinking my time under Gustav Levi’s wing will be finished.