Scarlet Women

you know how hard that’s been, to get that working? The opposition I’ve faced to make that come about? I’ve got the new club to launch. I’ve got Layla to think about. This…on top of all that…I just don’t know.’ She looked at him. Her expression was deadly serious. ‘If the boys found out, they wouldn’t like it.’

Constantine took a breath. Leaned back against the lift wall. ‘I could settle them down,’ he said.

Annie felt a flare of temper at that. These were her concerns. Not his.

‘Now what?’ he asked, watching her face.

‘Yeah, you could settle them down. You could take right over, how about that?’

‘For fuck’s sake, what are we arguing about this for?’ asked Constantine, exasperated.

‘I don’t know. You tell me.’ Men! When it came right down to it, they always had to be in charge. He could move right in here, steamroller the whole manor flat; they both knew it. It would be his manor then, not hers. Part of his empire. Not the whole of hers.

Ah, but is it mine at all? she wondered bitterly. I think I know the answer to that. It ain’t mine. It’s Max’s. Dead or alive, it’s his—not mine.

But maybe she could make it hers, if she tried hard enough.

Constantine was staring at her as if he was trying to read her mind. ‘Come here and kiss me,’ he ordered.

Annie shook her head. ‘Constantine…’ she started sadly.

Constantine stopped the lift. He stared at her. ‘Don’t,’ he said.

‘I’ve got to end this,’ she said.

‘Come here and kiss me and then say you’ve got to end it.’

‘I’ve got to,’ said Annie, and she reached past him and restarted the lift.

There was silence between them. The lift descended smoothly, and the doors opened; they were in reception.

Annie stepped out.

Constantine caught her arm. ‘You can’t be serious,’ he said. ‘After what happened the other day? After you came into my house and practically raped me?’

‘Look,’ said Annie desperately, ‘that was a moment of weakness. I regret it now.’

‘The fuck you do.’

‘I do. I called you Max, for God’s sake. I’m…I’m still in love with Max.’

She blurted it out; she had to stop this. Had to hurt him to stop it if necessary, and she did see a flicker of pain in his eyes.

‘You’re lying,’ he said.

She looked him straight in the eye. ‘I’m not lying. I’m serious,’ she said flatly. ‘This is too risky. It’s finished.’

‘No,’ he said.

‘Yes.’

‘Look…think it over. And if you need me, call.’

‘I won’t.’ She pulled her arm free and started to walk away. Tears pricked her eyes, but she knew what she was doing was the right thing, the safe thing.

‘You will. Remember—you only have to say you need me,’ he called after her. ‘I’ll be there.’

But I won’t say it, she thought.

She knew it was over. She knew it had to be.

Chapter 29

It was Wednesday morning, ten o’clock, sun bright in the sky, traffic honking and nudging along the roads, girls out in short skirts, the parks green and beautiful. And there was Annie, feeling depressed and queasy and sitting alone in the waiting room of the funeral parlour, alone this time and wishing she was out there in the noise and the heat and the fumes, anywhere in fact but in here.

She felt sick, thinking about what she had to do.

She snatched up a paper from one of the chairs, trying to distract herself and failing. Read about troops firing CS gas at rioters in the Bogside area of Londonderry, and scuffles between blacks and police in Notting Hill. Everywhere, it seemed, there was fighting, destruction, death.

Then the same thin woman she had seen last time came in, smiling and efficient as always. Black Vidal Sassoon-type bob, black suit, neat white shirt and black buckled shoes. Clipboard clutched briskly to her nonexistent breasts.

Annie put the paper aside.

‘Mrs Carter,’ said the woman.

‘Yes,’ said Annie, and stood up.

‘You’d like to spend some more time with Aretha, I understand,’ said the woman in the same sugar-sweet and soothing tone she’d used last time.

‘That’s right,’ said Annie, her tongue sticking to the roof of her mouth, it felt so dry.

‘That’s no problem at all. Were you very close?’

Oh God, she wants me to make polite conversation, thought Annie. I’m here to do the unthinkable, and now she wants a fucking chat.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Very.’

That was, if you counted being madam and whore together. If you counted laughing together until your sides ached, and sharing breakfasts and dinners and sometimes tears and gripes about period pains and men and this face cream or that nail varnish and the state of the whole damned world. Silly little things, but all shared. She couldn’t tell this woman how funny Aretha had been, or how courageous; how more than once Aretha had come through for her and for others, putting herself at risk to help her friends.

Now, all that was gone.

‘Follow me then,’ said the woman, her professional smile growing more fixed as she took Annie’s tone for what it clearly was—a rebuff.

Annie followed her into the same room as before, the Chapel of Rest, where last time she had stood with Dolly and Louella. The coffin was still there, the coffin containing all that was left of Aretha. Annie felt her stomach constrict. She didn’t want to do this.

‘If you’d like me to stay with you…?’ the woman offered.

Yes please, thought Annie.

But this was something she had to do alone, without an audience. And once again she wondered why she was taking Mira’s words so seriously. Mira the wreck, the junkie. But still, Mira. Mira who had once, long ago, strode through Mayfair in furs, adored, applauded, cosseted, her favours highly prized. Mira, who had known her own value to the nth degree. Who was nobody’s fool.

‘I want to see her alone.’

‘If you need me, I’ll be…’ She indicated the next room.

Annie nodded. The woman withdrew, closing the door behind her. Annie took a breath and walked forward. Stopped, heart thumping sickly. Moved forward again, forced herself to move one foot in front of the other. Until she was right there, looking down at Aretha’s slumbering face. No, not slumbering. The face was dead. The face was just a shell that would soon dissolve, disintegrate, fade back into the earth.

‘Christ,’ muttered Annie under her breath. She could feel cold sweat breaking out all over her body. She felt as if she was going to chuck up, right now.

But it wasn’t really Aretha, lying there. She told herself that, very firmly. And when she half closed her eyes, she imagined she could see the real Aretha, the Aretha of the high-fives and wide watermelon grin, standing there in her hot pants and her Afghan coat by the dummy altar—watching her old friend, and amused by her trepidation.