The Charmers: A Novel(17)

Jerusha. Her name conjures up fantasies, images, scandals, love stories, and tragedy, though most of it has been hidden, or buried long ago. Now that I own her house, I shall make it my business to find out more about the fabled musical artist, singer, dancer, actress, and sex-symbol who captured Paris in the thirties, and who disappeared, forever it seemed, only a few years later. That is, after the death of her lover and his new mistress. Who knows, perhaps I should amend that and say “one” of his mistresses.

What was Jerusha’s life really like? Did she love the man? Was he her only lover? What happened to the children she was said to have fostered, even adopted? Were they simply whisked away when Jerusha’s world came tumbling down, and only the small animals, her pets, left to console her?

Jerusha is a mystery that belongs to the Villa Romantica, and now, therefore, to me, shared with my young guest, Verity.

I’m sitting on the terrace, smoking a forbidden cigarette, forbidden by myself I might say, when I hear a footstep behind me. An arm snakes around and the cigarette is whisked from my lips before I can even protest.

“Filthy habit,” Verity said, dropping into the cushioned sofa opposite. “And it’ll kill you in the end.”

“Like poison, you mean?”

She threw me a you-know-what-I-mean glance, then stubbed out the cigarette in the yellow ceramic ashtray labeled PASTIS, stolen in a moment of great daring from a cheap boulevard café in Marseilles. I treasured that ashtray and my own bit of daring and gave her a frown to show my displeasure.

“So. What about you, now?” I said coldly. “I see the tears are finished. Are you all set to go back to that bastard you ran away from? Give it one more go, the way all good girls do?”

She said, “I’m no good girl. I’m staying here with you.” And then she burst into tears again.

I should have kept my mouth shut.





13

It seems now that not only am I stuck with a clutter of animals—well, that is, two and a bird—but also a young and miserable runaway because in my heart I cannot get myself to ask her to leave, tell her to go find a hotel room, to get on with her life and not wallow in the sentiment of a terrible marriage to an oaf who treated her like dirt, and what’s more, who stole all her money. Even if it was only two thousand, it was two thou more than she has right now, you can bet on that. Plus her jewels, which I hope were not old family stuff, inherited, and probably now destined for the pawn shop, never to be seen again. You can always buy new ones when you get the money back—earn it or whatever, the way Jerusha had, until her world fell completely apart much like young Verity, who had better quit her moaning, or else.

Oh God, how can I be so unkind? Is there anything more painful than a broken heart? Not when you are going through it, I remember that now.

“My dear,” I said in my kindly old aunt voice. (I mean she is so young and I am, though I hate to admit it, now “in my forties,” but this is the role I seem to have been cast in at the moment.) “My dear, you have to trust me.”

“Why?” She gave me a long, weepy, upward look from reddened eyes. “I mean, why do I have to trust you? I trusted him and look what happened.”

“Yes, well, of course, he is a man. It’s different between us women.”

She stared at me. The sobbing stopped. At least I had silenced her.

We were sitting in the car, a newly rented Fiat, in place of the dead Maserati, and she was staring at the Villa Romantica like it was Dracula’s castle and I was maybe the vampire himself.

“Why did you bring me here?”

“Oh, for God’s sake.” I managed to keep the snarl from my voice, but not the impatience. “This is my house, usually called a villa here in the South of France. I inherited it and now it’s my home. My new home,” I added, with a pang of longing for my small just-sold London flat where I had been happy enough, if lonely, for a few years.

“Who gave it to you?” she demanded, suspicion written all over her tear-mottled, though pretty face.

“Who the hell cares, it’s where you’ll spend the night, if you’re lucky and behave yourself better. If not, I promise I’ll pack you off back to that husband who stole all your money and dumped you.”

“I didn’t have much to be dumped for.” She looked wistfully at me. “I’m ashamed to be dumped for only a couple of thousand, I mean he could have done better than that, couldn’t he?”

Filled with sudden pity, I flung an arm around her shoulders and hugged her closer. “Listen, girl, men can behave like bastards sometimes, but that doesn’t mean all of them are. Nor does it have anything in the least bit to do with you, or who you are. He was just a scoundrel, a shameless cheat and men like him usually get what they deserve in the end. I’m only sorry you won’t be there to give him a good punch in the nose.”

“I won’t?”

Sounding as firm as I could and as though I believed what I said, I answered, “Of course not. He’ll try it again with some other woman and she’ll punch him where it hurts and probably see that he ends up in jail.”

“Ohh,” she began to wail again, tears streaming.

“What now?” I was exasperated. What the f*ck was I doing in this situation anyway?

“I’ll be married to a jailbird,” she sobbed. “Me. A jailbird’s wife.”