Primula Bond - The Diamond Ring

‘I’m not talking about this out here. It’s bloody freezing.’ Gustav stops. The street lamp casts shadows over his face as he looks down at me. His black eyes glitter like moonlight on a deep pool. ‘What did you just say?’

This is how he looked on Halloween night last year, when he stepped out of the darkness of that London square and into my life. There was something vampirical about him, the black bristles trying to push through his white skin, the sharp bite of his teeth into his lower lip when he was concentrating. He already seemed to know me inside out. But instead of scaring me that night, he thrilled me. And he has been thrilling me ever since.

I try to flatten myself against the wall.

‘Pierre was in Venice last month. He was at the Weinmeyers’ ball. He was wearing a tricorn hat, and in that hat—’

‘Was a peacock feather that is working some serious voodoo on you!’ Gustav shakes his head. ‘He wasn’t there, Serena. You were the one adorned with peacock feathers, not him. I found you all bedraggled and lost on that bridge, remember, trying to find your way home?’

I nod wearily. ‘In every sense of the word.’

Gustav’s smile is fading. ‘I’d flown all the way from New York to surprise you. I was cursing myself for being so quick to believe your cousin. Of course you’d never go kissing my brother behind my back. But you’d flown off to Venice all on your own and I was desperate to find you.’

The weight of what’s to come might break me. ‘You were too late. You should have been there the whole time. Then none of it would have happened. You were too late.’

Gustav pushes his hair out of his eyes.

‘No, no, no. Nothing awful did happen, darling. My flight was delayed, and to make matters worse Pierre called me when I landed at Marco Polo airport and kept me talking, and that’s why I never made it to the ball. But I wasn’t too late. I was just in time to persuade you to forgive me. And best of all, Venice will forever be the most special city in the world. We’ve even named this gallery after it. Because that’s where you agreed to become my wife!’

Gustav’s smile flits across his mouth again. He’s remembering how he extracted the diamond ring that had been nestling inside the golden locket around my throat, got down on one knee and asked me to change my name to Levi.

‘Hear me out, darling. Just listen. Before you found me on that bridge’ – I clasp my hands together in a kind of prayer under my chin – ‘Pierre made me do something terrible!’

He opens his arms and I walk into them.

‘You’re rambling now. Pierre has nothing to do with this. The peacock headdress was part of your costume, darling. We tossed all the feathers into the lagoon outside the Danieli Hotel.’

Oh, I love him so much. But his soft voice is already losing its hypnotic power.

‘You’re going to hate me, Gustav, but – Pierre was already in Venice when he called and kept you talking. You can be anywhere in the world when you’re on a mobile phone, can’t you? He knew we’d had that row about Polly’s photographs. He’d caused it, for God’s sake. He even came to you at the apartment after I’d fled, and fessed up.’ The wall behind me feels as if it’s shifting and breaking apart. ‘It was no secret that I was booked to go to Venice for the Carnivale. He orchestrated everything. Stopped you getting to the ball, instructed the costume lady to hire me the correct green velvet dress so that we would be a matching pair. He even planned the peacock feathers to identify me amongst all those masks. I had five feathers in my hair. He had one, in his hat. This one.’

‘Honey, this is gibberish.’ Gustav lets the feather drop on to the doorstep of the gallery and cages my face in the grip of his fingers. ‘Pierre was nowhere near you. He was in LA. He’s there now!’

‘He’s not in LA, Gustav. He’s right here in Manhattan. I’m certain of it.’

Hot tears of shame and fear blind me, but instead of asking any more questions Gustav nods to himself, as if that’s settled. He reckons I’m definitely unhinged. He pushes me back inside the gallery. My newly hung collection of Venetian photographs, the elegant bridges arching over khaki water, the deathlike masks processing in the distance, are obscured by the darkness. He doesn’t turn on the lights. Nor does he sit down on the couch where we were lying together just now.

He walks over to the desk and picks up our coats. He has his back to me. He pauses, staring up at the only image that is illuminated, of the arched green shuttered window. A bright red row of geraniums are planted in a box below it, and a thin white hand is reaching into the flowers to pinch off a dead petal.

‘I can’t stand seeing you so worked up, darling.’ Gustav turns over his phone. ‘Let’s ask the man himself.’

I galvanise myself. One more effort to make him understand.

‘No! Gustav, listen to me , not him! Then you can never accuse me of concealing anything, and he won’t be able to hold it over me.’

‘Concealing what ? Holding what over you? How has our wonderful evening, our gallery opening, our engagement, our dinner reservation, how has it all just imploded?’ Gustav punches in the area code for Los Angeles. ‘I want to know what Pierre has done to scare you like this.’

I grab the phone from him, prising his fingers off the casing. I pathetically hold it behind my back, as if I’m stronger than him.

‘We’re getting married, so there can’t be any secrets or lies. The reason I was so bedraggled and my dress was torn when you found me on that bridge in Venice was because I was running away from him.’ It’s a hoarse whisper, but we can both hear it perfectly. ‘He followed me. He tricked me into thinking he was you, Gustav. We danced together at the ball, and then we went outside—’

‘Let me get this straight. Everyone at the ball was masked, weren’t they? You must be mistaken. You think it was Pierre, I get that, but in fact someone else had their eye on you. Now you’re frightening me, cara. ’ His black eyes are shadowed with a fresh anguish that I haven’t seen for months. ‘The man you went outside with was some chancer. My God, Serena. You were molested by a random stranger, and you’ve kept that from me ever since? That’s why you were in such a state when I found you. And that’s why the peacock feather has sent you into hysterics!’

Gustav easily removes the phone from my fist, puts it down and eases my arms into the sleeves of my green leather jacket as calmly as he can before putting on his own coat. Then to my horror he picks up the discarded feather from the doorstep and bends it to fit inside his pocket.

‘You may be listening, but you’re not hearing me, Gustav! I wish it was a stranger who molested me!’ I try to grab the feather out of his coat. ‘Pierre Levi couldn’t have been further from my mind. I assumed you’d come to get me, knowing Polly’s stupid suspicions were a load of rubbish. I assumed you were the man in green velvet! I would never have gone off with him otherwise!’

Gustav pushes me back outside into the cold dark street and locks the gallery door. We stare at each other.

‘Gone off with him?’

Different images are flickering through our minds, leaving scorch marks across the happy optimism of an hour ago.

Gustav is starting to see me with my arms around another man. A faceless, masked stranger. That’s as far as his imagination stretches, for now, but in my mind, all too clearly, it is the reality. Exactly who I was with. Who was carrying me, a willing victim, through the shadows. Who was bundling me into a covered gondola so that we were alone and far from prying eyes.