The Charmers (3 page)

Ah, now she throws a glance at me, covertly inspecting me too. And what does she see? A blonde with her hair pulled back so tight it makes angles out of the cheekbones and also shows that the forehead is too high—can't help that, my dear, it's the genes; Dad had that forehead. I got Mom's legs though, long and with skinny thighs that look good in a tight skirt, such as I am wearing now; white Lycra, thoroughly unsuitable for a train journey, or any journey for that matter, but it was what came to hand this morning when I made my escape. From him. I wonder where he is, what happened when he saw I had finally bolted, made good on my threats. “Fuck her,” he probably said.
The bastard
.

I stare at the woman, wondering what she is thinking about me. Can she read my thoughts? Read
me
?

Mirabella

What I am thinking about her is that she should not pull her hair back like that; she has a lovely face but it loses its sweetness when the skin is so taut over cheekbones I would give a million to possess. And by the way, I have a million and more, so that's no idle threat.

She looks like a runaway to me, clothes thrown together in a mad, anger-inflamed rush, fling all the rest into a bag, sweep out the underwear drawer, the sweater shelves, the jeans, which in fact I am surprised she is not wearing; she's definitely a jeans kinda girl. Good hair stylist, color perfect, just that proper shade of cornsilk with a paler strand or so around the face. Couldn't have been done better. No makeup. In too much of a hurry, as I thought before. Doesn't need it, lucky bitch; I can't set foot outside without my eyebrows carefully patted on with a brown dust then smoothed over with a wax pencil. See me without them and you'll think you're looking at a rabbit, or a mole perhaps. But my eyes are a nice blue, not deep, not pale, just, well,
blue.

Now that Aunt Jolly has passed I'm the rich-bitch owner of a villa, and expected to behave like the discreet society woman I'm not, though I'll never wear a hat to those dull luncheons where the aim is purportedly to raise funds for starving children in whatever country is fashionable at the moment, but whose real purpose is to show off the latest outfit from the newest hot designer, and if every woman doesn't throw away those fuckin' red-soled shoes I swear to God I will kill them all. Same with that dreary handbag, y'know the one I mean. Copies gone rampant. I think they pick 'em up over the border in Italy for next to nothing.

And then of course, there are my gloves. Crochet, handmade by a local village woman who does beautiful work. I always wear them. It's not a habit, or for fashion; it's a necessity.

 

3

Verity

My name is Verity Real, though I'm changing that ASAP to Unreal. No, just joking.

I'm sneaking a look at Miss Frump again. This “chick”—I only call her that in jest, she is so far from being “a chick” it's laughable—is sitting there, her crochet-gloved hands folded neatly in her lap, with, I notice, an enormous sapphire ring worn on the middle finger of the right hand. Now that bit of ostentation is a surprise. I should not have thought she could afford such a thing, but of course, like the handbags, fakes come “good” as well as cheap these days. Her eyes are closed, she's not even looking out the window now, certainly not looking at me, though I know she is aware I am looking at her.

“So?” I finally say loudly. “What's up?”

She makes no answer. It's as though I'm talking to somebody not there. Without so much as a glance at me, she takes a notebook from her bag, the kind schoolchildren use, a composition book I suppose it's known as, then shuffles through the bag, a soft black leather drawstring of the type I personally find so difficult to find anything in, because it always seems to have dropped into the muddle at the bottom. Still, she manages to bring out a pen. A proper pen, at that. What used to be called, and probably still is, a fountain pen, which I seem to remember long ago had to be filled from a bottle of ink. Who in the world has seen a bottle of ink in how many years?
Certainement pas moi.

Sorry, I slipped into French, not exactly my second language but a language I use badly, for effect, sometimes. When necessary. Or when I feel like bitching. I find French a good language for bitching,
trés
expressive while sounding sweet at the same time. The perfect language in fact; you can do whatever you want with it, unlike English, which always says precisely what it means even if you don't exactly mean what you said.

I watch her open the composition book and carefully smooth down a clean page. I notice there's no writing on the previous pages. She begins to write—smooth, firm, precise strokes, a pretty looped cursive.
Violet
ink! Haven't seen that in forever either. I'm trying to read it upside down, dying to know what's so important she has to write it now, immediately. Her eyes flick up and meet my guilty gaze.

“Oh, sorry,” I manage to mumble, feeling the blush heat my cheeks, something I haven't felt in many a moon. Blushing was from my innocent era, a few lifetimes ago. Not that I'm old, a mere twenty-two—well, twenty-five to be honest and if I can't be honest now, when can I? Anyhow, lying about one's age when you are only in your twenties can lead to disaster later when you start totting up the years. Dumb, in fact. Besides, she's older, certainly not the same age as me. She probably would have written, “the same age as I.” Or is that not correct grammar? I know I learned it at that smart boarding school I attended, though I'm not sure I learned much else except how babies were conceived. Not by me, I hasten to add, but you know how that young girly conversation goes, somebody always knew somebody who'd actually done it, though never themselves, of course. It went down well with the passed-around bottle of Stoli sugared with pineapple juice that tasted vile but we all pretended to love. Sooo sophisticated.

She smiled at my blush and to my surprise leaned across and offered her hand.

“I'm Mirabella Matthews.”

The crochet glove was crisp, her hand cold.

“Oh my God, of course you are,” I said, coming to my senses. “The writer. Oh my God, I just love your books.”

She leaned back in her seat, still holding the pen over the empty page of the notebook. “Indeed. And which one did you particularly enjoy?”

Christ, she had me. I knew she was a bitch, just looking at her, so calm and friggin' collected, and full of herself, meaning her “self-importance.” Now I really was being bitchy; she had not even so much as looked at me, not given me any cause for complaint, all she'd done was ask which book I'd read and of course I had not read a single one.

“You've got me there,” I said, deciding honesty was the best policy, surprised when she laughed.

She put the pen carefully in the fold of the notebook, then ran a hand through that dense red mass of hair, a nimbus, an aureole.… I was getting poetic about a complete stranger who was looking at me with that quizzical expression that suggested perhaps I might be mad. Which I am, in a way. At least today I am. The runaway wife, the rich-bitch lonely girl, the envied one who has it all.

“I don't, you know,” I said, answering some unspoken question. “Have it all, I mean.”

She nodded. “Few of us do.”

“I mean … well, I just walked out on my husband. Ran, actually.…”

“Running's much better, once you've made up your mind. I wish I'd done that, I should have run away from all three of my husbands. You'd have had a way to go to catch up, if you see what I mean.”

“Ohh, ohh. I do. I so admire you.”

“I can't imagine why. Meanwhile, where exactly are you running to?”

I gestured to the small bag nestled between my feet. Obviously there wasn't enough in it for proper runaway stuff, not “long-term,” so to speak. “But now I want it to be forever,” I said, fat tears running unexpectedly down my unmade-up face. “I can't ever go back to him.”

She stared thoughtfully at me, assessing me, head to toe, exactly the way I had done her earlier. “I don't think it's safe to run away and not know where you are heading. Dangerous, in fact. Especially in your state of mind.”

“But I couldn't stand him anymore.” I blurted out the whole sordid story, my betrayal by the cheating husband. “I believed in him,” I said. “I loved him. He was handsome, so charming, I was proud to be the girl on his arm. He knew how to make me feel good, y'know what I mean?” I said, “I have no money in my pocket, he's canceled all the credit cards. I have no jewelry to sell because I'd stupidly left it all behind in a gesture of defiance I'm now regretting.”

She said, “What's your name?”

I told her, Verity. I saw something in her eyes, a warm woman-to-woman understanding.

Still I was surprised when she said, “Well, Verity, why not come stay with me? 'Til we can get you settled,” she added with a slight smile to make sure I understood she was not offering me charity or taking me to the cops or the lost wives' home.

“I'll be alone this weekend, as it happens, and my villa will feel empty with only myself to rattle around in it.”

Rattle around? Didn't that imply “large”? But that word, “alone,” was scary, I mean did she have “designs” on me, or what?

“Think about it,” she said. “Take your time, we won't be there for another half hour.” And she took up her pen again and began to write.

Ten minutes ticked by. Another ten. I still had my Cartier watch with the diamond bezel. I hadn't been dumb enough to get rid of that because I always needed to know the time.

“So, alright,” I said, loftily. Then, realizing I was being rude, added more humbly, “Thank you, I'd like to accept your offer. In fact I don't know what I would do otherwise, I didn't plan…”

“I know how it is.” She smiled as she closed her book, put the pen back in her bag, tightened the black leather string around its top, and smoothed the crochet gloves she was remarkably still wearing. The sapphire ring glinted darkly in the sunlight. “I promise everything will be alright.”

“I'm sure it will,” I said, remembering my manners as a well-brought-up girl. “Young woman,” that is, though right now she made me feel like a child again. And somewhere deep inside that felt so good.

“My car is at the station,” she said. “We'll be at the villa before you know it.”

I could not believe the car belonged to a woman who wore crochet gloves, no makeup and her hair in a red tangle: a gorgeous dark-blue Maserati GranTurismo convertible with cream leather seats hand-stitched to immaculate perfection. A chauffeur stood by, while a second man waited alongside a small white Citroen, ready to drive the chauffeur back while Mirabella drove herself.

“Thank you, Alfred,” she said as the chauffeur opened the door to the Maserati for her and she slid behind the wheel. “My friend will be accompanying me,” she added and he walked quickly around to the passenger side, took my bag, and held open the door.

She waved lightly to him, and he disappeared rapidly in the Citroen to wherever perfect servants disappear, into the ether perhaps, to be called on when required by Madame, though this “Madame” did not seem particularly demanding. I thought it nice of her to speak to him softly like that, and with a slight smile, though I guess he'd expected to leave her to go wherever she wanted in the gorgeous Maserati.

“Get in, Verity,” she said, hitching up her too-long linen skirt, a foot already on the pedal. This woman waited for no one. I was in that car so quickly I had no time even to consider what I was doing, who I might be with—a kidnapper trading in sex slaves, a serial killer preying on young women, or a madwoman who wore a ring outside her gloves. Her flaming red hair flew behind her in the wind as she drove far too fast when we got to the corniche road that wrapped itself around the base of the mountains on one side and fell into the canyon and the sea a hundred feet below on the other. Ohh, that blue-blue sea, the blue of her eyes.

I crouched lower, clinging to the cream leather door so as not to be catapulted to my doom. We were following a gray car, a flattened, close-to-the-earth shape that suggested a Porsche, and which was itself following a small green car. My eyes were fixed on the Porsche and the road ahead; I was practically driving for her, edging into that curve, heading for the next bend.

Our eyes met in the mirror. Her face was pale, her mouth set.

“Take a look behind you,” she said.

I looked. Nothing there. Wait. Yes, a motorcycle zapped around the bend. Black. My ex happened to be a motorcycle fan and I recognized the Ducati Monster by its exposed engine and frame, a classic, geared for speed and elegance, as was its rider, all black leathers and black steel helmet. There was no way to see his face, tell who he was, but he was certainly on our tail.

“Jesus,” I said, the wobble in my voice telling how nervous I was. “What's up with him anyway?”

She did not answer but her foot pressed all the way down and we were off like a rocket. I closed my eyes and thought about praying. I repented my sins rapidly; I should not have left my husband even if he did behave like a bastard. I should not have called him a bastard. We went quicker and I thought even quicker: I should have taken the damn money, taken all the jewelry, gotten a good lawyer and sued the hell out of him. Instead I was going to end my days the victim of a madwoman whose red hair and crochet gloves should have given me due warning. I had ignored that gut instinct and now I was to pay the price.

“Hang on, my dear,” she said, taking a hand off the wheel to brush her hair out of her eyes. I held my breath. Two hands were better than one even if it was a no-win situation. I decided to close my eyes. No point in watching the Maserati compete with the Ducati and the Porsche and a rapidly approaching sixteen-wheeler for road ownership when it was all doomed to disaster anyway. I did like this car though, loved the smooth feel of the leather under my desperate clutching hand, the way my head fit on the perfectly adjusted headrest. I even liked, no, at this moment
I loved
the way the seat belt gripped my chest, though I'd probably have no tits left whenever it stopped. If it stopped. I hung on.