The Unbreakable Trilogy. Primula Bond
glide about their well-heeled business. I peer through the rear window like a condemned woman as we head inland. Lugano looks right up my street. I could love a town that calls itself a city, one with palm trees, Riva boats and jazz festivals in the summer, and skiing, cable cars and lakeside restaurants in the winter.
‘The guide book says dolce far niente is one of the mottos of Lugano, did you know? All of Italy thinks like that, actually. I think it means “so sweet doing nothing”.’
‘For lucky buggers on holiday, maybe. And technically we’re still in Switzerland.’
The mountain-fringed lake drops away behind us, glittering with wintry sunlight.
‘Why can’t we linger a little longer? What’s the rush?’
‘Boss said to bring you straight here, Miss.’
The car labours doggedly up a narrow road squeezed on either side by colossal boulders. It turns under a high brick archway smothered in ivy, bumps over the cobblestones into the middle of a deserted yard, and stops. For a moment there is no sound but the ticking of the engine and the sharp whistle of the wind.
Dickson shifts round heavily, his broad shoulders and back making the leather seats creak.
‘The chalet’s still locked up and it’ll be freezing up there. I have to get into town for some supplies.’
‘Charming welcome. If I’d known nobody would be here I’d have asked you to leave me in Lugano to have a look around. At least I’d have some other human beings for company!’
I glare past the empty yard to the backdrop of navy blue mountains. I’d feel differently if Gustav was here with me. The city looks enchanting enough but those projections of rock dragging their bony knuckles against the heavy sky seem menacing rather than majestic. They promise avalanches to be buried in and ravines down which to plummet. Grist to the mill of experienced, show-off skiers like Gustav no doubt, but alien to dreamers like me growing up in the soft rain and undulating fields of Devon.
Sure, the cliffs beneath my childhood home had their own sea-battered grandeur. They had an uncanny siren call, too, luring hikers to venture too close to the edge. Polly and I used to dare each other to take that extra step across the smooth, layered outcrops overhanging the waves. We’d stub our fags out on the grey rocks and decide that mica schist, the name of their geological formation, would be a grand name for the girl band we were going to form.
‘Well, I’ve delivered you safely. Now I need to get on.’ Dickson’s gruff voice butts in.
‘Just wait, Dickson. It’s bad enough that we didn’t travel together, but why hasn’t Mr Levi bothered to meet me?’
‘Oh, he took the funicular straight up to San Salvatore peak soon as we arrived at Agno airport last night. He’ll be on one of his climbing escapades I daresay, and checking out the weather. Typical of him to do in winter what everyone else does in the summer.’ Dickson tugs back his driving glove to look at his watch. ‘Not that he’s been anywhere near here since – not for at least five years.’
He gets out of the car and opens my door. I step out and am nearly knocked backwards by the bitter cold.
Thank God Crystal kitted me out with all these layers of custom-built thermals, topped off with this Dr Zhivago-style hat and cosy quilted ski jacket. Before Gustav fled to City airport like a thief in the night, he obviously instructed her to supply me with everything I’d need to follow him to the Alps. He knows full well that all I have to my name are my caramel tweed jacket, scarves, some jeans, jumpers and T-shirts, and my beret. Oh, and all the clothes I purloined from Polly’s flat, which are designed for fashionistas to trip between taxi and catwalk rather than piste and peak.
I was so sleepy when Crystal tip-tapped into my bedroom this morning and switched on all the lights that she ended up attending to my toilette as well, dressing me like a lady’s maid.
‘Spit, spot, Serena, you have a plane to catch.’
Her back was to the window and with the cold white light behind her I couldn’t see her face clearly. Only the outline of her ramrod stiff back and today’s beehive hairdo. As she wasn’t moving or averting her eyes, I went ahead and slipped my negligee off.
‘You actually said spit, spot!’ I mumbled, hunched shivering and naked on the edge of the bed.
‘Mary Poppins is one of my heroines. As is Lady Macbeth.’
‘That would figure. Out, out, damned spot. Isn’t that what she said when she couldn’t wash away the blood?’
‘Indeed. Both sticklers for cleanliness, you see?’ Crystal gave a thin smile and picked up the first item, a rather sensible pair of all-encompassing knickers, from a neatly folded pile on the chair beside her. ‘Now, don’t catch a chill.’
I pulled on the softly clinging pants, which felt warm rather than seductive but still sexy, like a second skin. I tried to hide my embarrassed wriggle as she watched me. Then she handed me some amazing silk leggings which I could feel heating my skin as soon as I slipped this pair of perfectly fitting white jodhpurs over the top. Crystal glided behind me to fix them round my waist, then led me to the pretty art deco dressing table by the window.
I fiddled with all the brushes and bottles. She moves as if she’s on casters. She seemed to have taken root in my room like a bodyguard so I decided to poke her for some information.
‘Crystal, we don’t really know each other, and you probably won’t tell me, but there are so many questions buzzing around my head about Gustav.’
‘Only one thing you need to know,’ she trilled, picking up a huge silver-backed hairbrush. ‘And that’s that you should never play games with him. Either you’re with him, or you’re against him. He sees everything in black and white. No grey areas. Would you like me to brush your hair?’
I started. ‘How did you know I love having my hair brushed?’
She lifted the brush and the sudden thought of her whacking it down on someone’s bottom made me bite my lip, hard, to stifle a giggle.
‘I didn’t know,’ she replied calmly. ‘You might have thought it an impertinent suggestion.’
‘Not impertinent. Friendly.’ I settled back in the chair so that my head was nearly resting on her stomach. ‘Go ahead, Crys.’
‘Crystal.’
‘I crave it, actually. More than that. It turns me on if, well, if a man is touching my hair. Gustav sussed that out from the start. I was starved of affection as a child, you see.’ I glanced up at her in the mirror. Her beady gaze was laser-steady. ‘No-one ever washed it, brushed it, plaited it, did anything nice to it when I was little. They hated my hair.’
‘They?’
‘The people I lived with.’
‘Your parents, you mean? You can’t say their names?’
I flattened my hands over my ears.
She tapped me with the hairbrush. ‘You can’t say Father, or Mother? Mum, or Dad?’
‘Crystal, they weren’t even my real parents. I was the wrong baby. My hair was the wrong colour. It symbolised everything that was wrong in that house.’
She made a snake’s hissing sound with her teeth and laid one hand on my head as if I might erupt. ‘They must have been blind. It’s beautiful, like a waterfall of liquid amber.’
I shook my head violently, like a child refusing to eat carrots. ‘They hated it. Their favourite punishment was pulling it or hacking it off.’
‘Where were Social Services when all this was going down? Sounds to me like you were being badly neglected.’
‘I was good at hiding things, that’s all. But enough about me. Gustav is good at concealing things, too. His real feelings, anyway.’
‘He