Someone Else's Shoes(38)

Jasmine tells her she wants to be glad they didn’t put her on the books—“Because then they’re taking off National Insurance and putting you on emergency tax codes and all that crap, and honestly? You might as well just go back on the dole.”

“Oh.” Nisha rifles in her pocket, suddenly remembering. “Here. Sorry, I forgot.” She holds out the twenty-pound note.

Jasmine looks at it. Then back at Nisha. She pats Nisha’s hand. “You’re all right, babes. Give it back to me when you’re sorted.”

And somehow that makes Nisha feel even worse.



* * *



? ? ?

She has just taken extra supplies of hair conditioner and body lotion to the fifth floor when she sees him. She is walking back to the elevator, feeling mulish at the way the over-made-up young girl who opened the bedroom door snatched the little bottles from her, slamming the door in her face without even a thank-you, when a familiar figure comes toward her along the corridor.

Ari.

Her heart stops. She fights the urge to duck into a doorway, but her keys do not give her access to rooms on this floor and there is nowhere to go. He is distracted, talking on a telephone, his black suit immaculate, his eyes fixed on the middle distance in front of him as he strides silently along the plush carpet.

“No, he doesn’t want to. Bring the car round to the front and wait. I don’t care. Go round the block if you have to. He has to be in—where the hell is it?—Piccadilly, by two fifteen. Charlotte has the address.”

She feels every part of her go rigid as he approaches. Her breath lodges in her chest. She curses her decision not to bring the trolley up with her. She could have crouched behind it, pretended to be looking for something, rammed him with it if he came for her. But it’s just him and her in this corridor and there is no escape. She closes her eyes as he comes close, closer, turns her face toward a door, waiting for his meaty grip on her arm, his threatening growl. What the fuck do you think you’re doing here?

Her breath stops briefly in her chest. And then . . . nothing. The sound of his footfall continues past her. A brief curse into his phone, and then a burst of laughter. She waits a second, opens her eyes, turns her head slowly. He continues down the corridor, gesturing with his free hand as he speaks.

He hasn’t even seen her. She’s the only person in the whole corridor and he hasn’t seen her. And then it hits her: in this uniform she is invisible.

Nisha Cantor, a woman used to turning heads for twenty-five years, has donned a cheap black top and nylon trousers and, in her service apron, completely disappeared.





fourteen


Her brain is still humming with the encounter, her heart racing when she gets back to the locker room. And then something equally unexpected happens: Jasmine announces she has stomach-ache and asks if Nisha could give her a break and finish Room 420 while she has a lie-down. “I wouldn’t ask, babe, but it’s killing me. I just need to stretch out.” Nisha tells her it’s no problem, she’ll do 422 too, and she cannot hear Jasmine’s grateful response over the sound of something sparking inside her head. Jasmine removes her apron, groaning and sighing as she moves, hangs it on her peg, and heads off to lie down on the daybed the reception staff use in the quiet room next to the laundry.

Nisha waits until she is sure she has gone, then rifles through Jasmine’s pocket until she finds the all-access room key. She shoves it quickly into the front of her apron, and leaves.

Nisha cleans Room 420 at double speed, her mind racing as she strips and remakes the bed, empties the bins and runs the disinfectant-soaked cloth over the remote control. She does 422, thanking God for single women who barely touch the room during their stay. With fifteen minutes to spare she pushes the trolley into the elevator, hesitates just a moment, touches the card to the security pad, then presses the button to the seventh floor, her stomach tightening as she ascends the floors.

“Housekeeping!” She hesitates as the doors open, half braced for a harsh voice, a sound that will send her scurrying back inside. But the suite carries the heavy silence of non-occupation. She stands for a moment, taking in the rooms that had been hers, the belongings scattered around that suddenly feel strangely alien: Carl’s files, his slippers, neatly placed on a cotton square by the door, the fruit bowl with only grapes and peaches, his favorites. She heads for the desk, to get her passport, but it’s not in the drawer. She opens the cupboard which holds the safe, and punches in his birth-date, but the machine bleeps obstinately and will not let her in. She tries two other variations, her own birth-date, and then Ray’s but neither opens the door. She curses, and straightens up. And then she heads through to the bedroom.

The bed has already been made and she feels a brief surge of gratitude that she has not had to see further evidence of his betrayal in tangled sheets, leftover bottles of Ruinart, perhaps a scattering of sex toys. She looks away, heads past it to the dressing room and opens the double doors. And there they are: her clothes, all neatly lined up on perfectly aligned hangers, exactly as they were when she left. She stands staring for a moment, then lets out a low moan of longing and presses her face to a Chloé shearling jacket, like a mother reunited with her children, breathing in their scent. Her scent! She has felt naked without it. She turns, scans the dressing-table and sees the familiar bottle, places it swiftly in her pocket. And it is then that she sees it: a woman’s makeup. Not hers. She stares at the oversized half-unzipped bag, at the large compact of eye-shadows, the foundation too pale for Nisha’s skin. The curling tongs resting by her brushes. She feels something in her turn to stone, and then a thought occurs—she turns back to the wardrobe. And there it is: a dress that is not hers, nestling among her suits and dresses. She pulls it out: Stella McCartney; black, overtly sexy, flashy, her black stole slung over the back of it. She feels a ball of rage. He is letting this woman use her clothes? Place these flashy interloper garments among her own? She sees a trouser suit, a pair of Jimmy Choo heels in a size 41. Nisha has not until this point been entirely sure what she would do when she was in the penthouse again, but now, with a barely suppressed roar of rage, she begins to pull her clothes from the rail: her Chanel suits, her brightly colored Roland Mouret dresses, her Valentino skirt. She takes an armful of her favorite things, ripping them from their hangers, knowing there is no way she can stomach Charlotte (it must be Charlotte! That bitch has clown-sized feet) wearing her things. She can help herself to Carl all day long, if she must, but there is no way she is sliding that treacherous body into Nisha’s clothes. Nisha slings them over the trolley in a heap, then runs back and adds her full-length shearling coat and the Yves Saint Laurent black velvet suit with the high padded shoulders. And then, her face still contorted with rage, she pushes the trolley back across the penthouse suite, into the elevator and presses the down button, for once forgetting to cover her finger with her sleeve as she hits it.