Lace (71 page)

“Is this what you want, Lili? This quiet life? Isn’t it a bit staid for a girl of twenty-four?”

“What you really mean is how can I possibly be happy with a man who’s nearly forty years older than me, isn’t it? People are always asking me that indirectly. Of course Jo
isn’t
young.
He can’t leap about and play tennis for hours and he’ll probably die before I do. We’ve discussed all that. But that’s his only disadvantage and it
doesn’t much affect me.” Lili bent and tugged a sprig from a rosemary bush. “As a matter of fact
I
feel constantly at a disadvantage with him because I’m so
ignorant.”

“Ah, that’s exciting for an older man,” Zimmer said. “To open a young girl’s eyes, to awe her, to be a god to her. . . . Until she meets someone who says,
‘That’s not a god, that’s just an old man with money.’”

Lili scowled. “I find it odd that other men should assume that Jo has nothing to attract me
except
money.” She pointed a rosemary branch at him accusingly. “Jo has
plenty of advantages that a young man couldn’t have. He’s carved his own path through life, he’s forged his own way; he ’s gutsy and that’s always exciting in any man,
whatever his age. Age doesn’t matter so much to an intelligent man, because he doesn’t rely only on his physical attributes to attract a woman.” She crushed a couple of rosemary
spikes between her fingers and paused to inhale the fragrance. “I love to hear Jo
talk.
” She sniffed again.

“Of course I’m not denying that Jo can provide what women have traditionally
always
looked for in a man—protection and security.” Lili’s voice shook as she
tucked the rosemary sprig down the front of her dress. Jo represented all the protective men she had lacked since losing Felix, and for that she loved Jo with passionate gratitude. “As a
matter of fact, I don’t even consider Jo’s age to be a drawback, because without his age, he wouldn’t have that wisdom of experience. A relationship that’s going to last
isn’t based on sheer sexual madness and nonstop sexual excitement but on . . . understanding and tolerance.”

“And so there is no sexual madness?”

“Jo has never left me unfulfilled, Zimmer. Not once. And that’s more than I can say about most of the men in my life.”

They had nearly reached the long pool, its immaculate surface unruffled by wind or leaf. “Are you two getting married?”

“What’s the point? I don’t particularly want to marry Jo. You see, so many women have tried to force him to do that. I don’t want marriage.” Zimmer turned to look
at her and raised a quizzical eyebrow. “No, Zimmer, I want Jo. I do not ask for marriage. This way he knows that I’m not . . . what his children tell him I am . . . a gold
digger.”

They walked around the blue pool and the surface quivered in the breeze as Lili added, “Anyway, Jo’s never suggested marriage, although I’m sure he’s thought about it.
Zimmer, haven’t you noticed that these very rich old men never marry their luscious young mistresses? They’re afraid of making fools of themselves, especially if the marriage
doesn’t work out. And they never seem to.”

They moved up the worn, stone steps. A white-gloved footman was about to place a silver tea tray on a terrace table. Zimmer said, “It’s none of my business, Lili, but I can’t
see how this is going to last. Your life is just beginning, and you’re tying yourself down to a man whose life is ending. And you’re still not happy—don’t deny it, I
work
with you and I
know
you! You’re
still
being dominated, only in a different way. Pretending to enjoy this staid, matronly life in the sun! You’re a brilliant
actress and you’re never going to get where you should be if you’re semiretired. The public forgets unless it’s constantly reminded.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Your
own personality is being swamped. Stiarkoz has to dominate everything in sight, even
you
, so you’re in danger of losing sight of yourself again. If you abandon your real identity,
you’re going to lose your true self. When you live by somebody else ’s standards, you betray your own. You’re turning into Jo’s echo, Lili!”

Lili looked exasperated. “I’ve never felt I had a real identity, so how could I lose it?”

Zimmer snatched at a honeysuckle branch as they passed it. “I can see that Stiarkoz can buy you plenty of expensive toys, but haven’t you noticed, Lili, that with all his wealth he
hasn’t attempted to give you what you really want?”

“Shut up
, Zimmer! You can’t know what Jo gives me. He makes me feel protected, he ’s given me dignity, he educates me and he—demands little in return.”

“But he hasn’t tried to give you what you
really
want—because he knows the danger. He might be able to trace your parents for you! But if you found your true identity,
he ’s afraid he ’d lose his power over you. And he’s very possessive, he likes your being dependent on him, because if you weren’t—you might leave him!”

“How dare you say such things about Jo!” Lili said, glaring at him.

“Lili, I’m one of the few men who value you and don’t want to possess you. I’ve known for years that you won’t feel what you call ’real’ until you feel
real self-confidence. At the moment, you only have that when you can shed yourself and be an imaginary person.”

In the sunlight, Lili suddenly looked exhausted and forlorn. “Zimmer, I think you’d better leave.”

“Darling, I was just about to go. Tell Jo I’m sorry to have missed him.”

Lili saw him to his scarlet Maserati parked halfway down the white gravel drive, then she wandered back toward the house.

Suddenly Demetrios appeared in the open front door. He came running toward her in an oddly slow way, a heavy man in a dark, expensive suit. She felt an odd foreboding.

Demetrios heaved toward her, crunching across the gravel in slow motion, his pink silk tie flapping over his jacket. It was so odd to see him running.

She knew immediately that something dreadful had happened to Jo.

T
HERE
’
S BEEN AN
accident, a car accident,” Demetrios panted. “They’ve taken Jo and his driver to a
hospital in Nice. That was the police on the telephone. They couldn’t tell me anything except that the Rolls had been travelling back from Monte Carlo when it shot off the Nice motorway
aqueduct. It simply went through the wall and plunged over the side into the valley below. They’ve taken Jo and the driver to the Princess Grace Hospital.”

He didn’t tell her that the police had asked for someone to visit the hospital and identify Jo. Both he and his driver were dead—their bodies had had to be cut out of the mangled
Rolls Royce.

Cold water was trickling down her neck and back. Lili opened her eyes. She must have fainted. Her maid, silent and frightened, was kneeling by the couch and sponging her face.
The footman stood a few paces behind, looking helpless and apologetic, as if he’d just dropped the silver tea tray.

Demetrios reappeared and walked across the carpet toward the little group. He leaned over the back of the couch. “Lili, my dear, don’t move. The doctor is on his way.”

The doctor wasn’t Doctor Jamais; he was a small, sallow man with rimless glasses whom she’d never seen before. “Where’s Doctor Jamais?” she murmured, but he took no
notice. He merely pulled back her eyelid, felt her pulse, murmured something to the maid, and moved to a table where he undid his bag and turned his back to her. After a couple of minutes he turned
toward Lili, and she saw a syringe in his hand. “What’s that for?”

“Shock, Madame. You are in a slight state of shock. There ’s nothing to worry about.” He crouched by the couch and with a piece of cotton swabbed the inside of her left arm.
Lili smelled hospitals. “Just a
slight
prick. There, that’s over. It didn’t hurt, did it?”

“I don’t understand, I’m not ill, I just felt dizzy. I fainted. . . . I don’t understand.”

Her eyelids slowly closed and then her jaw fell.

Someone was holding her right hand. She was in bed in a small, gloomy room that she’d never seen before. Lili turned her head to the right and saw that Demetrios held her
hand. She felt too weak to speak. Slow, silent tears trickled down her cheeks, her right ear felt damp. Demetrios patted her hand and replaced it gently on the blanket.

“How are you feeling, my dear?”

“Awful. I’ve got a splitting headache. But I’ve got to get to the hospital. I’ve got to see Jo. Where is this place?”

“It’s a clinic outside Nice. Do you think you can get dressed? If so I’ll call for a nurse to help you, then I can drive you to the hospital. But first there are a couple of
formalities. Would you mind signing this, please.”

“I can’t sign anything now. Surely it can wait, Con, whatever it is?”

“I’m afraid not, my dear. It’s the authority for the hospital to release the . . . er . . . Jo. Oh, my dear child, I’m so sorry that you have to suffer this, but
bureaucracy is always with us, so exhausting.”

Gently he pushed a pen into her hand and guided it to the page. “And here also.” Shuffle of documents. “And here, and here, and this is the last. . . . Oh, no, there’s
one more.”

He patted her shoulder, quickly took the typed documents away from her, leaned to the floor for his briefcase, snapped it open on his knees and swiftly tucked the documents into it. “Now
I’ll call the nurse to help you dress.” He pushed the bell knob.

“But, Con, you must tell me what
happened.
”

“It was the driver. He had a heart attack. Only thirty-five and looked as fit a man as ever I’d seen. The police think that he slumped over the wheel with the weight of his leg on
the accelerator. The car was very heavy. It simply leaped forward and smashed through the retainer wall, then went over the side of the aqueduct.”

“But Con, you must tell me what happened to Jo.”

“Jo was cremated three days ago,” he said quietly.

Lili gave an anguished shriek and tried to sit up. The nurse swiftly restrained her and lifted the telephone for help. “Tell the doctor that this patient needs another shot,”
Demetrios whispered. “She’s hysterical.”

When Lili regained her senses, she waited for half an hour until her head felt clearer. Then she put her legs over the side of the bed. She felt very weak and seemed about ten
pounds thinner. She hobbled to the armoire in the corner, tugged open the door and found her clothes inside. She carried them to the bed, then sat on it and slowly dressed. Then she moved to the
washbasin and looked in the mirror. Her eyes were sunken, her face looked thin and her hair was flat and listless. She splashed cold water on her face and looked out of the window. The sun was
almost overhead.

The door to her room opened and a starched little nurse appeared.

“My goodness, you shouldn’t be up and about.”

Lili turned, the tooth glass in her hand, her only weapon. She was looking into the pleasant, surprised face of a girl of about her own age, who said, “I’d better call
Sister.”

“No, don’t yet,” said Lili. “How long have I been here?”

“Why, ten days.”

“But
why
?”

“You were brought in unconscious, you’d had a very bad hysterical reaction to a shock and had to be treated with sedation. My, you were a difficult patient! The doctor insisted on
looking after you himself.”

“Well, I want to leave now. Would you please call a cab?”

“Oh, my, you can’t discharge yourself like that, Madame.”

“Get me the doctor, please.”

“He’s out at the moment. Sister is in charge.”

“Then get Sister, please.”

Lili settled into the backseat of the cab. It had taken her twenty minutes to talk her way past the head nurse, but in the end they had asked her to sign a paper and she had
left. Of course, there must be some simple reason for her stay. Jo would explain. . . . No, of course he wouldn’t, couldn’t. If only she hadn’t fainted when she heard that Jo was
dead!

Forty minutes later they reached the iron gates of the estate, but when the cab honked no one came running to open them. She got out and walked over to the small side door which was always open.
There was nobody on duty at the lodge.

Lili walked up the white gravel drive to the house and rang the doorbell. She rang it again, sharply. Twice. What on earth were they all doing?

Then she heard footsteps cross the marble, a bolt was drawn back, the great door swung open and Lili found herself looking into the mournful, creased face of Socrates, Jo’s bodyguard.

“Hello, Socrates,” Lili said, “where is everybody?”

The burly sailor scratched the mole on his cheek. “The whole staff was dismissed, Madame, the day after the funeral. There’s only the housekeeper and me left up here now, and we have
strict instructions from Mr. Demetrios not to let anyone into the grounds. Of course I know he didn’t mean you, Madame, but the photographers have been a bit of a nuisance. We all thought you
were very wise to stay away until it was over.”

“Did Mr. Demetrios tell you that was why I stayed away?”

“Why, yes, Madame.”

“D’you think you could ask the housekeeper to bring some coffee to my bedroom, please. I think I’d like to lie down for a bit, but first I want to talk to her.”

“But Madame, the furniture has all been moved, it’s gone into a storage warehouse. The rooms are empty. Mr. Demetrios told us. We assumed you
knew
that, Madame.”

Lili looked around the circular, domed hall and saw that it was indeed bare of furniture, curtains and carpets. As she climbed the circular staircase, her legs trembled. She still felt very
weak, but her bedroom suite was just at the top of the stairs.

The room was empty. In fact, the only thing in it was her wall safe, which was normally covered by blue taffeta curtains. She moved closer. The door to the little gray safe was ajar.

But only she and Jo had the keys to the safe! Not that Lili’s best jewelry was kept there, that was all in the bank vault.

She pulled the safe door open and peered inside. There was a small gleam of gold at the back. She fished it out with her forefinger—it was a charm from her bracelet, a miniature copy of
the
Minerva.