1: Mercedes
“Mercy!”
Mercedes feels her shoulders rise. How she hates that nickname. Thirty years she’s had to tolerate it, without the power to fight back.
“How are you, Tatiana?” she asks.
“I’m fine, darling. Well, apart from having to make my own bloody phone calls.”
“Oh, dear. Where’s Nora?”
She’s been expecting Tatiana’s personal assistant to call for days. That sinking feeling she’s had about the silence looks as though it was justified.
“Oh, gone,” says Tatiana, with that special brightness that means the opposite. “I got rid of the silly bitch.”
“Oh,” says Mercedes. She liked Nora. Those efficient American tones on the phone always reassured that chaos was not about to break the door down.
“Anyway,” says Tatiana, the employee already consigned to her internal rubbish bin, her
nondisclosure agreement an assurance that there will never be any comeback, “at least I know I can rely on you.”
“I’m not sure you should,” replies Mercedes, evenly. “For all you know, I could be a secret agent.”
Tatiana takes it as a joke. Oh, lord, that laugh. That tinkling socialite laugh that tells you that the laugher has no sense of humor. My greatest power, Mercedes thinks, is my talent for being underestimated. Tatiana would never think I had the imagination to betray her.
“Will we see you soon?” she asks. They’ve been on tenterhooks for days, now, waiting for news.
“Yes!” cries Tatiana. “That’s why I’m calling! We’re coming in on Tuesday.”
Her mind starts racing. So much to do. So many people to tell. There’s still a fake tan stain that looks horribly like a streak of diarrhea, left by some oligarch’s ex-wife on one of the white sofas, and Ursula’s doubtful it will ever come out.
“Great!” she replies, cheerily.
Would Nora Neibergall have booked the house out to a bunch of oligarchs’ exes last week if she’d still been in the job? Probably not. Everyone knows oligarchs are bloody animals. She’s clearly been gone a while, and nobody has passed the news on.
“How many will you be?” she asks. Tatiana’s casual “we” has filled her with foreboding. “We” could be anything. It could be two, or fifteen. Oh, God, where is Nora? Why does Tatiana have to fall out with the people who make other people’s lives easier? Flowers. Is it too late to order white roses? The urn in the entrance hall requires white roses. No other color will do. House rule. Even in deepest December.
“Oh, just me and a couple of girlfriends,” says Tatiana.
Mercedes prickles with relief.
“Well, four,” she says. “But they’ll be sharing the back bedrooms.”
All she needs to know is in that sentence. Not really girlfriends, then.
“And Daddy’s coming in on the boat on Thursday,” she continues, “and there’s some others. But they’ll be coming on the heli, I think.”
Okay, VIPs. The duke only makes his helicopter available to people who matter. The rest have to charter their own.
“Great. Should I book the boat for valeting?”
“No,” says Tatiana. “Don’t bother. He’s moved his Stag forward this year. They’re going out on Sunday morning, first thing, straight from the party. You can book for when they get back. Are you all terribly excited? I imagine a party like this is the most exciting thing you’ve all seen in ages.”
Yeah, that would suggest we were invited.
“Of course,” Mercedes replies, eventually. “St. James’s week is always a special week.”
“Yes, but the party,” says Tatiana. “The island’s going to be buzzing with movie stars!”
Movie stars are the least of her problems.
“How many are we expecting, in total?” she asks. “So I can make sure we’ve got the
bedrooms right?”
“Not sure,” says Tatiana. And, after a little bit, adds an adolescent, “Sorree.”
Mercedes says nothing.
“Three, I think,” she says eventually. “And Daddy, obviously. But you know what he’s like. He never passes on information one might actually need.”
Like father, like daughter.
“Maybe four,” she says. “Better allow for four.”
“I shall have all the bedrooms ready,” she says. “Any dietary requirements?”
“Oh, yes. Tell—what’s his name?”
She waits to hear who “he” is.
“Chef,” says Tatiana impatiently.
“Roberto,” she says.
“Right. Well, small party Friday night. The usual pre-Stag get-together.”
Ugh. She knows what that means. Still, a night off for all the house staff. So that’s . . . she can’t tot up the numbers in her head. “How many?” she asks.
“Well, I don’t know, do I?” snaps Tatiana. Thinks better of it. “Sorry, darling. I’m under the cosh and it’s making me terribly stressed. Trying to get packed to fly to Rome tomorrow, and I’ve literally no one to help me.”
You’re stressed. “I’m sorry,” Mercedes soothes as she scribbles everything she can recall onto the notepad that lives on her desk. She’s fairly confident that her eight-strong New York
counterparts will rally round to put Tatiana’s clothes in a suitcase. Sometimes her head swims at the thought of all the people on Matthew Meade’s payroll. The number of people around the world who worry every day about simply maintaining the supplies of paper in their toilets.
“And of course, we’ll all be at Giancarlo’s on Saturday.”
Giancarlo. She’ll never get used to the casual way the Meades refer to the duke. It’s only two generations since the peasants had to turn their faces to the wall when his ancestors passed by.
The island has been in a frenzy of preparation all through July. The duke turns seventy this year, and the castle will host a bal masqué that is billed, according to the magazines that drop regularly through the door, as the party of the year. The vineyards look like painted canvas backdrops, the veal calves have been fattened on a diet of milk, the house fronts in Kastellana Town have had new coats of paint. According to Hello! magazine, La Kastellana is the chicest of the chic this year. The New Capri at last.
“Yes,” she says.
“Oh, Mercy,” says Tatiana, “I can’t wait to see you. We must have a good old gossip.”
“I’ll make sure there’s a lovely bath ready for you when you arrive,” she replies, “and a nice cold drink.” She won’t actually keep running baths in anticipation. The staff at the helipad call ahead when VIPs land.
“Oh, God, you’re an angel,” says Tatiana, and rings off.
2: Robin
Robin Hanson hurries to the rear of the top deck and hangs over the railing, as nausea makes the world spin. She gulps in salt air with her eyes closed, waits for the internal lurch to subside.
Gemma, says the voice in her head. Gemma, Gemma, please, please, please be okay. Please be here. Let me find you.
La Kastellana hovers on the horizon, golden cliffs in a sea of lapis. At any other time this would be a pleasure, being out on the Mediterranean again, in the sunshine, going to a place she’s never been before. But without Gemma she can’t enjoy anything.
Another wave of the nausea that’s assailed her ever since she lost her daughter washes over her. Inactivity makes it worse. While her mind is occupied—when she’s persuaded that she’s doing something—the giddiness fades. But if life makes her stop, if her mind wanders, it bubbles back up. The cold sweeps over her upper arms and grips at her shoulders, and her gorge rises.
The past year has involved a lot of waiting.
She had imagined, somehow, that she was going to a place where money bought one beauty. That the celebrated development that’s “transformed” this island into the New Capri would have been done with an eye to the Old Kastellana. But of course she hadn’t been allowing for the tastes of the rich. The new marina is crammed. Row upon row of huge white yachts, every one the same. A hundred billion dollars of identical fiberglass real estate, and a city of concrete and glass to service them, sprawled out across the cliffs above.
A crowd has built up by the gate where the gangway will be lowered. Standing in the midday heat carrying the weight of her backpack seems foolish, so she walks on up to the prow to watch them disembark. The tractor tires dangling from the ferry’s sides bump, rebound, bump again. The crowd shifts in anticipation.
“Funny, isn’t it?” says a voice. “The way we rush for exits as though they’ll shut us in if we’re not fast enough?”
Robin turns and sees that a man has settled against the railing. He smiles, pleasantly. A few years younger than her—mid-thirties, maybe, but an oddly mature mid-thirties in his cream linen suit and Panama hat. The skin of a man who’s seen a fair amount of sun. Wispy eyebrows.
Robin nods, all dignity, not sure she really wants a chat.
“Holiday?” he asks.
She nods again. She doesn’t want to share her mission with some chancer on a boat. And she doesn’t trust her voice. She still can’t talk about Gemma without emotion flooding her system.
“First time?” he asks.
“Yes,” she says. Then, because she’s British and cannot be rude, she adds an “And you?” She eyes him doubtfully. He’s almost a caricature of the Englishman abroad. Fair hair cut neat but dull, and all that linen. And his accent is pure public school, which has always made her feel a bit squashed and mistrustful. And brogues. Eighty degrees in this sun, and he’s wearing brogues.
“Oh, no,” he replies. “I’ve been here many times.”
“Oh. Friends?”
He shakes his head. “Business. I’m a wine merchant. Well, obviously the lines blur a bit in my line of business.” He laughs.
Why is she talking to this man? As though she really is on holiday, shooting the breeze?
“I didn’t realize there was a market . . .”
He throws his head back and laughs again. One of those men who find the world endlessly amusing. “Oh, good lord, no! I’m not buying! That muck’s poisonous!”
“Oh, really? I’d heard it was good.”
The man laughs again. “It’s fine for the tourists, I guess.”
He’s telling me he’s a cut above, she thinks. Doesn’t want me to think he’s hoi polloi. I don’t know why he’s talking to me. I’m practically a walking suburb.
He gesticulates behind them, at the fleet of sleek white yachts, then sweeps his hand
up to the villas, the apartment blocks, the hotels. Funny how rich people love white. Must be something to do with showing that you can afford to keep them white. In the end, most of what they do comes down to showing off their money.
“Ah,” she says.
“July’s a great month for trade,” he says. “And of course, this year there’s a great big party up at the castle. I’ve a container coming in tomorrow.”
“How interesting,” she says, politely.
He doesn’t really pause to take a breath. “You’ve booked somewhere to stay, haven’t you? The place is suppurating with social press and the main hotel’s been booked out for the duke’s guests for three years. Apparently they’ve gone mad outbidding each other for the B&Bs. You won’t stand a chance if you haven’t booked already.”
Robin nods. “I think I got the last room in town,” she says. She’s virtually had to take out a second mortgage to secure it, too, and still she doesn’t get a private bathroom.
“Good,” he says. “These pavements weren’t really made for sleeping on.”
The engine shudders and dies.
She stares at the boats in the marina. My God, they’re huge. The contrast with the fishing boats isn’t so much because the fishing boats are small. They’re floating mansions. McMansions, with their pointed noses and their three-story upper decks and not a feature to distinguish one from the other.
“If I had the money for a yacht,” she says, randomly, “I’d make it look like a pirate ship. They look so . . .” she struggles to find the word “. . . samey.”
He laughs again. “Oh, my dear, nobody ever got poor by underestimating the conformism of the rich. They don’t want unique things. They want the things everybody else wants. That’s why the museums can’t afford Old Masters any more.”
“A sort of membership badge.”
“Yes.”
On the dock, two grizzled men in waterproof boots wheel the gangplank into place. The crowd shifts again, jostling as if they’re about to board a Ryanair flight. These aren’t the rich, though this is no Ayia Napa. These are the Lonely Planet bourgeoisie, tick-boxing their way round the islands to say they’ve been. Five years ago, they were all about Pantelleria, but the migrant boats have dampened their enthusiasm for Greece, though they’d never say it out loud at an Islington dinner party. They love a bit of local color, but turds in plastic bags is a bit more than they can bear.
She picks up her rucksack and attempts to swing it onto her shoulders. It’s been a quarter of a century since she last used a backpack, and it’s made her aware of the passage of time like nothing before.
“Here, let me,” he says, and hoists the bag up so she can do up the buckles. He continues talking as though he’d never broken off. “Anyway, it’s always worth making the trip in
person at this time of year. A lot of people turn up for the duke’s birthday, even in a normal year. Handy for Cannes, of course. And then they’ll be off to Scotland for the bird murder season. Too hot on the Med in August; they put ’em out to charter for the people who can’t buy their own . . .”
She realizes that he’s not going to stop talking, and starts for the exit. He follows, prattling as he walks. All he has with him is a weekend bag and a suit carrier. How fortunate men are. She can’t go ten minutes without needing an unguent of some sort.
He pauses as they set foot on land and Robin’s legs adjust to the shock of a stable surface. The trip from the mainland has taken eight hours and the sun is conspicuously below zenith. In the dockside cafés, beneath gaudy parasols, people finish lunch while her fellow passengers line up to claim their tables.
He gazes about him, reflectively. “It’s changed a lot, of course,” he says.
He snaps suddenly back into the world. Checks his chunky watch—something she suspects she’s meant to recognize and register—and clicks his heels in a weird combination of military and Emerald City. “Right,” he says. “Must get on. Full schedule.”
He walks away without another word, and she is alone.
Chatty, she thinks. The archetypal chatty Englishman. Glad I won’t be staying in the same place he is.
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