The Bulgari Connection by Fay Weldon

Author:Fay Weldon [Weldon, Fay]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-00-739049-6
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 1999-12-31T11:00:00+00:00

25

Grace McNab, once Grace Salt, perhaps one day to be Grace Wells – see how down and down in the alphabet she has gone in her life – was sitting in the Harley Street waiting room of Dr Chandri the cosmetic surgeon when Lady Juliet Random came in. Grace had the five o’clock appointment, Lady Juliet the five thirty.

The waiting room was very dull: a big round table in the middle, with neat unread piles of Country Life and some stiff upright chairs pulled up to it. There was plumbing that showed. On the walls were before-and-after photographs of women – once with odd noses, and chins, and saggy eyes and fat-humpy backs, but now all looking at least ordinary, if not startlingly beautiful. The place smelt of old-fashioned chloroform and ether. Chandri was running late. It was already five twenty-five, according to the ornate ebony clock with its carved wounded stags and baying dogs which stood on the marble fireplace. If Walter Wells had been on time he would already have been with Doris Dubois for twenty-five minutes.

Harry Bountiful would let Grace know whether or not he had been on time, and the nature of what was said at the meeting. Grace felt ashamed of having been in touch with the private detective again, but jealousy drove her to it, just as jealousy had driven her to try to mow Doris down. Nothing was made better, but if you were a person ravaged by self-doubt, it was less painful to know than to guess. What you imagined was usually worse than what happened. In someone like Doris, whose self-esteem was sky high, it would be the other way round. Unpalatable truths would come as a surprise, not as a confirmation of worst fears. Harry Bountiful had not got round to taking the bugs out of Doris’s apartment, although Grace had stopped his retainer when Doris and Barley got married. What was the point? Barley would not come back. If Barley had found out she had eavesdropped on his life, he would have laughed. She did not want Walter to find out. He would not take it well.

‘My dear Grace,’ said Lady Juliet, ‘how wonderful to see you. What are you having done? I want my nose looked at. It’s much too large, as I realise whenever I look at that wonderful portrait your young Walter painted. How is all that going? You look completely glorious. Personally I think it’s the sex that does it, especially all that oral sex at the beginning. Nothing like it for the complexion.’

‘Walter is painting Doris Dubois’ portrait,’ said Grace, bleakly. ‘She made him.’

‘Doris does rather make people do things,’ Lady Juliet agreed. ‘I’m sure Barley never really wanted to leave you: it was just unlucky that of all people he should run into her. Like treading on a scorpion in one’s shoe: no-one’s fault, but there you are, stung and screaming. Only this morning she had the nerve to call me up and try to buy my Bulgari necklace from me, the one Ronald gave me when our son was born.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.