White Bodies: An Addictive Psychological Thriller by Jane Robins

Author:Jane Robins
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Touchstone
Published: 2017-09-18T21:00:00+00:00

22

I call Tilda. I’m suppressing thoughts of needles and diamorphine and murder pacts; I’m also ignoring her hysterical letter to me (that’s how I’m thinking of it now).

For once, she answers her phone, but she sounds vague, as though I don’t have her full attention. As sincerely as I can manage, I ask her about her wedding preparations and say that I can’t wait to have Felix as a brother-in-law. I ask whether Mum’s attitude is softening (she’d been cold with Tilda, and asked her whether she “was sure” about Felix, and about getting married). Tilda informs me that, yes, “she’s coming to terms with it.”

“She’ll come round,” I say, “like I did.”

“Hang on a second.” I can tell by the muffled silence that she’s put her hand over the phone, and then she’s back on the line, sounding almost friendly.

“Lucas is here . . . Felix’s brother. He’s visiting from France. Would you like to come to Curzon Street for supper?”

“Absolutely!” The relief’s bursting out of me; it’s like Tilda’s decided to play along with my new approach. A life more ordinary.

• • •

I’ve been to a trendy shop in Hoxton and splurged, so I dress up in new black jeans and an apple-green silk top; I wear the suede boots again, and do smoky eyes and pale lipstick, and I set off. At Curzon Street it’s Lucas who answers the door, with an easy handshake and a kiss on the cheek.

“Hey,” he says. “How does it feel to be tying yourself to the Nordberg clan?”

His accent is broader, looser than Felix’s—he sounds properly American, sounding the r in Nordberg, whereas Felix always sounds a little Scandinavian, hard to place.

“You’re the first member of the clan who I’ve met, apart from Felix, obviously.” I hand over my Strongbow (it seems like he’s the host) and he says, “Bold choice,” and pours me a glass. I watch, assessing him. His hair’s blond, like Felix’s, but thicker and wavy, and his eyes are the same shade of metal gray. Generally, though, he’s unlike his brother, wearing artsy clothes, having a brash manner and sporting a light brown hipster beard.

Felix and Tilda are out, buying wine, and they return just as I’m saying to Lucas—“So you’re an architect, and you work in France?”

Felix kisses me and says, “You’re so stylish these days,” making me feel like his special girl, just as he’d done at the Wolseley. Tilda does her usual thing—draping herself over the sofa, hugging a pink cushion (one of the few items that’s survived Felix’s makeover of the flat).

“Well?” she says.

“Well, what?”

She sweeps her arm about in an actressy gesture. “The flat of course—what do you think?”

I sit with her and she puts her legs and bare feet across my lap. “I don’t know . . . It’s a little . . . psychiatric. Or like living in a fridge.”

Felix raises his eyebrows at us genially. “I think it’s wonderful,” Tilda says. “It’s so chic and well designed. The attention to detail is amazing.

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