her bed or did they have husbands of their own, children, families?
Vivien wondered if she herself would ever have a family. The one she’d left behind had injured her so badly that she vowed never to be beholden to one again. Besides, she was too sullied. These men thought they wanted her, and they did for a night, a week, a month – but for always? No. Not once they saw the hidden scars.
She was drifting to the bar when a voice pierced her from behind.
‘Hello, Vivien.’
It was like being stabbed in the back by a thin, sharp blade.
Not you. Please, not you.
‘Jonny Laing,’ she forced herself to answer. ‘What a surprise.’
She should have been more careful. She had checked tonight’s list and he hadn’t been on it, but clearly he’d managed to slide his way in, insidious, horrible, Jonny all over. She’d got sloppy; she had to be smarter. Vivien avoided her adversary at all costs, for the mere sight of him chilled her. Jonny relished the cards he held: even after all this time, he still believed he could have her. He believed that one day she would capitulate and he would get a return on his investment. The higher her star climbed, the more of a payout it would deliver. Tonight, she was stratospheric.
‘It seemed a shame not to congratulate you,’ said Jonny acidly. ‘You’re a hard woman to get hold of these days. To think of the partnership we once had…’
Vivien was desperate to shake him off, scrub herself down and erase any trace of him. Her heart galloped and her lungs strained. Everywhere she turned, her fellow luminaries appeared grotesque, made up like circus clowns, laughing and roaring.
Jonny held the key to her downfall. Imagine if they found out…
‘Leave me alone,’ she forced out. ‘Please. I’ll do anything.’
‘Anything?’ He grinned. ‘You know what I want.’
Vivien shook. Even if she did sleep with him, he would never leave her alone.
‘Never,’ she croaked. ‘Not that.’
‘Then we’re stuck.’
‘I’ve got money. You can have it. I’ll pay back every cent—’
He laughed, horribly. ‘Come on, Vivien, listen to yourself.’
‘I won’t sleep with you, Jonny.’
He licked his lips, slow, tantalising.
‘Come along, sweetheart, you never know – you might even enjoy it.’
‘Go to hell.’
‘Remember I know about you,’ he said. ‘I know everything.’
It took all her will not to spit in his face. She was trapped – as trapped as she’d been back in Claremont, hiding in her bedroom awaiting the sting of her father’s belt.
‘Jump off a cliff, you bastard,’ she said.
Vivien stepped away but he seized her arm, just as he had that day in his office. She couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, the world spiralling out of control. Twisting from him, she lost her balance and stumbled, fell, was caught—
‘Oops!’ Suddenly Dandy was with them, holding her up. ‘Let’s get out of here, shall we, darling?’ Casual smiles for their observers; it was nothing, a long day and an exciting night; he’d spin it right in the morning. ‘Come along, Viv.’
Grateful, she allowed herself to be led. And she heard Jonny’s parting hiss:
‘I’ll tell the world, Vivien… if you don’t give it to me.’
*
Over the coming weeks, Vivien lay low. She became a recluse in her apartment, too paranoid to go out but at the same time afraid to stay in: afraid of the bell ringing or the phone going, and Jonny reiterating his menace. She ignored calls from Dandy.
How had it come to this? All the glitter and fortune she had longed for, and yet at its heart a whistling void. She felt invisible, a ghost girl, not really here.
She drank to escape the pain. And one Friday night, things came to a head.
She had started with one gin, the alcohol rushing to her head, making her eyes sting. Next time she looked, the bottle was empty. That was the way of it, great blackouts, time losses she couldn’t account for. Just as she was nodding off on the couch, the telephone rang, startling her. Bleary-eyed, forgetting, she reached for it.
‘Hullo?’
‘Vivien, it’s your aunt, Celia.’
Vivien sat, rubbing her eyes, her blotted brain struggling to kick into gear. She hadn’t heard from Celia since… well, since she’d left. Since the last Sunday service they had both attended in Claremont. The woman’s voice severed her.
‘I’m afraid I have bad news,’ Celia went on. ‘Your mother is dead. The funeral is on Sunday. Your father told me not to bother but I thought you’d want to know.’
The conversation must have continued after that, but Vivien played no conscious part in it. When Celia hung up, she dropped the phone. She drank more. She stared her image down in the mirror and when she could stand it no longer she punched the glass, cracking it like a beautiful mosaic. Alcohol – she needed it. She needed to be numb. But there was none left, the cupboards empty, her secret stash under the bed depleted. Only one thing for it: she grabbed the keys to the Mustang.
It was kamikaze to go driving. Directionless, delirious, drunk, Vivien was the last person who should have got behind a wheel. It was a wonder she hadn’t been killed, the newspapers said afterwards, or that she hadn’t killed anyone else.
Vaguely she was aware of heading downtown. Once she had a drink she could work out what she was going to do. Saying farewell to her mother would mean seeing her father again. She couldn’t. She just couldn’t. Her father had been right. God only did look after the virtuous. She had always been destined for the gates of hell.
The car spun off the road and, after that, only black.
Italy, Summer 2016
It rains all weekend, a damp, flat, rolling sky bursting with pent-up heat.
I’m inside when the Barbarossa’s phone rings. Having been chastised for answering the front door, I don’t go for it myself, and instead continue my work cleaning and sorting the old study. This morning I discovered a photograph in one of the desk drawers, of Vivien as a young woman. Without question, she had been fabulous, gazing into the camera, her blonde hair curled round her ears and a smile on her face. I’d wondered who had taken the picture – from the way she was posing, it was someone she had been in love with. In the background, I could make out the castillo. The note on the back, scribbled in pencil, read: V, 1981. And it wasn’t so much Vivien’s appearance
