The Last Resort(59)
She sits up against the pile of white cotton pillows, rubs her eyes and has a good look around the room. Fancy cornices, dado rails, long navy velvet curtains hung on brass poles. The furniture looks expensive, but probably isn’t. Like the facade and the fittings, this fancy house is nothing more than a replica.
She should know.
Growing up in one of the most prestigious white houses in Chelsea, one of those built in the 1840s by a famous London architect, she can spot a fake a mile off. She runs a hand across the bedside table, with its pretty brass lamp and its velvet shade to match the curtains. Someone has spent a lot of time making this place look expensive. But all this smacks of to her is the classless nouveau riche. The hideous sorts that have begun to infiltrate SW3, despite the best efforts of the long-term residents to keep them out. The Russians are the worst. Their money comes from unspecified means and their women, although immaculate, ooze venom. The Arabs, at least, have slightly more class, due to them having actual assets to brag about, and their women are dripping in gold yet oddly demure – in public, at least. The changing face of Kensington and Chelsea is a source of constant fascination, and if she’s honest she actually quite likes it – although her braying Sloaney Pony friends all disagree. But if that memory replay did anything, it was to serve a timely reminder that most of those people are not her friends.
Come to think of it, she doesn’t know if she has any true friends.
When she’d first met Giles – at a party in Kensington Roof Gardens, where he’d looked bored and she’d been sitting alone, waiting for her so-called friend Veronique to return with another bottle of Bolly – she’d thought that maybe he was different from the others. He’d seemed genuinely interested in what she had to say – and that was before she even told him that she was an influencer with 1.5 million followers, and before he’d told her that he was the biggest name in gaming. Hmph. She’d felt like an idiot then. In her business, with all the endorsements and freebies and specialised subliminal advertising she was involved in, it was prudent to understand every aspect of life. Or ‘modern life’, as Mummy always said, laughing about Tiggy to her old-money Chelsea friends that she still called on her Bakelite landline. Tiggy had never used the old phone to make a call – how would she, when all her contacts were stored in her iPhone? But she had used it in a photograph when she’d been asked to advertise some retro furniture store on the Kings Road. That post had got a hideous number of hits, and loads of comments about Mummy’s old phone. Mummy had been quite pleased about that, although she’d never tell Tiggy so. All Mummy wanted her to do was find a man with a big bank balance to settle down with and have babies. She’d been interested in Giles when Tiggy had told her his net worth, but quickly lost interest when informed that he didn’t own any property, or even a car – as he believed these to be old-fashioned entrapments.
Monogamy, it seems, was another one of those things.
She’d cried into a large tub of H?agen-Dazs Coconut Caramel Chocolate in Mummy’s sun lounge the first time she’d found out about Giles’s cheating, and Mummy had shaken her head and said, ‘Don’t you understand, Tiggy-wigs? This is what men do.’ She’d raised her hands towards her Baccarat crystal chandelier and said, ‘That’s the sacrifice that must be made if a lady wants to have nice things.’
Tiggy thought that maybe she could get used to it, but the more she let him get away with it, the more he carried on. Becoming more blatant, less discreet every time. To give him credit, he always apologised when she found out, always said he didn’t love the other woman – or women – and always bought her a beautiful gift to make it up to her. After Cressida and Lorena, he’d bought her two of her favourite Baobab Powdered Rose candles and taken her for drinks at Gong – the highest cocktail bar in Western Europe, he’d proudly told her.
She sighs. Maybe it wasn’t worth kicking off at him earlier on. It’s not like she didn’t know about his threesome at the W Hotel last summer – but there was no need for her to be shown it like that. She’d thought she was done with him, but when he’d floated into the inlet like that, her heart had sunk to her feet. Of course she loves him. He makes her laugh, he tells her she’s pretty – even when she knows she’s not as pretty as those bitches who call her names. He takes her to nice places, buys her appropriate gifts. She’d quite liked Albert, a young French sommelier she’d met when dining at Nobu one evening. She went out with him because he was cute and charming and had given her and the rest of her party several extra wines with their tasting menu – but he’d turned up for their second date with a taster-sized box of Ladurée macarons. She couldn’t even be bothered to explain why this was not appropriate, and had been sad for a moment that he was never going to be ‘the one’.
She swings her legs off the bed and walks to the door. She’d tried the handle earlier and it wouldn’t budge. But this time it turns effortlessly. The door opens with a soft click. Her heart thumps a bit faster than before. Is it really this simple? Why have they unlocked the door? When she arrived, Harvey told her they were locking her in for her own safety, and given her more hot tea. She’d been exhausted then and glad of the rest. And she’d enjoyed the sinking feeling of collapsing into the cushions as the tea kicked in, sending her into a deep, dreamless sleep.