The Designer(34)

‘Well, I could say the same about you, couldn’t I?’

‘Look,’ Copper said, deciding to be direct. ‘I’ve been hearing things about you. About what you do.’

‘And you want to know if they’re true.’ Pearl dabbed the perspiration on her face. ‘All right. I suppose you’d better see.’ She emerged from the blankets, went to her bedroom and came back with a sheaf of photographs in a leather portfolio. ‘There you go.’

The portfolio was entitled, in a very curly script, Pearl, The Queen of The Cannibals. The photographs were set in a mock-jungle and showed Pearl with a large black man.

Copper had told Christian Dior that she didn’t need to be educated about sex, but these photographs were startling. Pearl’s rounded, luminous body was shown in every sexual act that could be imagined.

Pearl burrowed back into her cocoon. Her face was bathed in sweat. ‘I’ve had to do things to get by. If I hadn’t done them, I wouldn’t have survived.’

‘You could have scrubbed toilets before you did this.’

‘I’ve scrubbed toilets. I’ve scrubbed a lot of toilets, as it happens. But I decided I’d rather do naughty postcards than scrub toilets. I’m that sort of girl. I’m not a toilet-scrubbing sort of girl. But I am a three-square-meals sort of girl, and I did that to get my three square meals. Otherwise I would have starved.’

Copper tossed the portfolio aside. ‘I don’t think we’re going to get along.’

‘I’m not proud of what I’ve done,’ Pearl said, her voice growing even quieter. ‘Maybe you’re right and I should have kept on scrubbing toilets. But it seemed a good idea at the time. Petrus made me feel it was glamorous and fun. And to tell you the truth, he made sure I was out of my head for those photos.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Gin, hashish, cocaine, morphine – you name it.’

‘You didn’t have to do that, either.’

‘You don’t know Petrus. He’s not an easy man to say no to. I had to get away from him, Copper. He was getting me on the needle.’

‘The needle?’

‘Cocaine. Once you start injecting it, you’re hooked for life. It’s a good job it’s cold because I can’t wear open-toed shoes for a while.’ She poked a foot out of the blankets and showed Copper. ‘He used the veins there because he didn’t want the needle marks showing in the photos.’

Copper sat down heavily on the arm of a chair. ‘Mother of God.’

Pearl contemplated her own dainty foot with its line of angry red marks around the toes. ‘I’ll be sick for a week, getting myself clean from this. But I’m going to face it. That’s him in the photos. You can’t see his face, but you can see his strategic bits. It didn’t seem so wrong. It was just photographing us having a good time. But after he started me on the needle, he wanted me to go with other men. You know what I mean? So-called friends of his. You know where that ends up, don’t you?’

‘I need a drink.’ Copper went to the drinks cabinet where the collaborator had left a few half-bottles of alcohol. She poured them both a stiff cognac.

‘And while I’m telling you my life story,’ Pearl went on, ‘I’d better tell you that I need a job. That money I gave you? That’s everything I’ve got in the world. I’m not going to scrub any more toilets, either. I’m going to find a proper job. Soon as I’m better. I’m going to finish teaching myself bookkeeping. I started once, and like a fool, I gave it up.’ She gulped down the cognac. ‘When I heard you walked out on that creep of a husband of yours, I said to myself, “That’s the girl for me.” You’ve been my inspiration, Copper. I knew you would take me in. Copper and Pearl. Like I said, we’re like jewellery.’

‘I’ve never heard of any jewellery made out of pearl and copper,’ Copper said heavily. ‘They don’t go together.’ She looked up to see that Pearl was crying; not the pretty, noisy waterworks she’d turned on during their first meeting, but silent tears that poured down her cheeks unchecked.

‘You think I’m dirty. That you’re going to catch something from me.’

‘I just think we’re not suited to each other. You say we’re the same, but we’re not. I’ve always been respectable.’

‘Oh, I know I’m a bad girl,’ Pearl said with a touch of bitterness. ‘I’ve never been respectable. But I’ve never been given a chance, neither. Not since I was a little kid.’

Copper felt ashamed of having said the word. ‘I understand that—’

‘No, you don’t. You don’t know nothing about me. Or the life I’ve had. You’re so quick to judge, like all the other women. Women are the worst, you know. Worse than men. I think it’s because, secretly, they all know in their hearts they could be me.’

‘I’m not judging you. We’re just different.’

Pearl wiped away her tears wearily. ‘Give it a couple of years, sweetheart. You’ll see that we’re not.’

‘Maybe so. But in the meantime, we don’t belong together. And every time I look at you, I remember what happened that night with Amory. I can do without that.’

‘So you’re throwing me out after all?’