No wonder he was so contented. No wonder, either, that what Alyosha had thought was a generous salary to begin with now seemed nothing of the kind. His employer could have given him ten times that amount without making a hole in his account at Credit Lyonnaise on the Champs-Élysées.

  ‘I’m not in the least demanding,’ Sebastien had told him, and proceeded to make sure of his money’s worth through the long hours he made his valet work.

  One day, much to Alyosha’s surprise, he rose before noon, and instructed Alyosha to pack for a trip. The two of them were leaving Paris for a very important appointment.

  32.

  From the welcome Sebastien was given, it was clear that he was a valued customer at the Hôtel de Belmont et de Bassano, on the outskirts of Orange. But Alyosha was finding the constant proximity to his employer hard to bear. It was as much as he could do to hide his contempt as Sebastien fiddled constantly with his curls, or played with his food instead of eating it, or sucked in his stomach and asked Alyosha whether he mightn’t have put on a couple of pounds. To a man who had lived through famine in Russia, this kind of vanity was hard to bear.

  Over dinner that night, Sebastien bored on at length about the strength of the dollar and the weakness of the franc, then went on to mock the inadequacies of American husbands, elaborating on how bad they were at lovemaking, good for nothing but banking and baseball. To cap it all, and to Alyosha’s horror, he then took it upon himself to instruct him on how to seduce women.

  ‘It’s intimacy they crave. Whisper sweet nothings in their ear – that’s the secret of success every time.’

  That’s what women liked, not the greedy kneading and fingering, sweating and grunting like a gorilla in the sun, but tender words and soft looks. The most erotic lovemaking took place only when the world inside her head was stimulated.

  ‘The imagination is the most powerful force alive, Alexei Fyodorovich.’

  Through the imagination, a man and a woman could create any reality they chose. Or they could break free altogether from reality. Sebastien thought that was why sex was very much like religion: they were both based on fantasy, which stemmed from some primitive need for escapism.

  Later, before going to bed, Sebastien came up with a proposition.

  The next morning, when they left Orange on the last leg of the journey, they were no longer master and servant, but two men on the same quest. This shift was signalled to Alyosha when Sebastien sat in the front at Alyosha’s side, rather than in the back as he had done from Paris. He had made two appointments in Nice. The first was with an established client, a wealthy American who came to the Riviera every year on vacation. But there had been a discreet enquiry from a potential new client, and even Sebastien couldn’t be expected to be in two places at the same time. That’s when it had occurred to him to apprentice Alyosha.

  When they reached Nice, Sebastien directed him to the Hôtel de la Méditerranée, where he had made reservations. He would have preferred the Negresco, he told Alyosha, only it didn’t do to mix business with pleasure. That was a golden rule he never broke. Another important rule was to never work the first night after a long journey. Energy had to be conserved so that the flesh could be encouraged to total obedience. It was important to always be perfectly groomed and fresh as a daisy, and the greatest sin was to show fatigue. That was fatal, because being tired all the time was what they were guilty of. That was always the refrain: that their oafish husbands just wanted to work to fill their bank accounts, eat and drink to fill their stomach, and play a little golf. They had no energy left for their wives.

  That evening, after dinner, Alyosha asked Sebastien, ‘So who is she?’

  He told him she was a rich merchant’s wife from Tunis. Her husband was doing some business somewhere or other in Provence, but his wife and daughters preferred to spend the time in Nice, enjoying the sun and sea.

  ‘And she’ll pay me?’ asked Alyosha.

  ‘Of course she’ll pay you, and handsomely.’

  Sebastien told him that if he did well, this might be the beginning of a very lucrative career.

  33.

  The following evening, the two young men walked sedately to the pink-domed Negresco, as Sebastien had warned Alyosha on no account to rush, in case he started to perspire. It had been arranged that Alyosha would go straight up to the room of his client.

  ‘What about her daughters? Where are they tonight?’ he asked nervously.

  ‘There’s no need for you to worry, she’ll have made sure they’re out of the way. Now off you go. Bon courage mon brave!’

  Alyosha felt every eye was upon him as he crossed the glass-domed rotunda and made for the lift. He got out at the third floor and walked down the long, thickly-carpeted corridor until he found the room. He knocked on the door and waited. He stepped back. Room 325. He felt he was still too close to the door and took another half-step back to be safe. He was already too hot, and his collar chafed his neck. He was horribly aware that his hands and armpits were damp, and he felt grubby in spite of his earlier bath. Why was she taking so long? Had she reconsidered? Or would he come face to face with her husband?

  The door opened.

  She wore a dark blue kimono with an orange trim. With her hair piled high on her head he felt as though he were gazing at a Japanese print.

  34.

  It felt marginally less awkward in a roomful of people than on their own. He hadn’t known what else to do. Even then, what needed to be said was left unsaid, and they talked of other things. Alyosha unbuttoned his collar and felt a small relief. Sitting opposite her, he felt as though he was acting in a picture, waiting for the studio lights to be extinguished so that he could leave the set and walk back into his everyday life.

  Little by little, Alyosha took in the changes in his mother since he last saw her. Her make-up was as expertly applied as ever, but a little heavier that it used to be, and her jawline was no longer quite so well defined. Her teeth weren’t so brilliantly white either, and in the gap where she had lost one, there was a gold replacement. Her green eyes were still bright and beautiful but he noticed the two lines that now went from nose to mouth. Blowing her a gentle kiss, old age was coming to meet her.

  With her head a little to one side she smiled at him a little defiantly ‘You think I’ve aged, don’t you?’

  He bit his lip and shrugged.

  His mother’s smile faded, and a sort of terror seemed to come over her expression.

  ‘Alyosha? Tell me – what are you thinking about?’

  He asked after his younger brother, and they were saved for a while: Georgik was a safe subject, and Inessa enthusiastically told Alyosha all about him.

  ‘He’s not a little boy anymore. You’d be surprised how much he’s grown.’

  He was twelve now, in long trousers. In less than a fortnight, he would be coming to spend Easter with her, from his school in Le Rosey. Inessa chattered on about how well he had settled, how hard he worked, and what high marks and good reports his teachers had given him at the end of term. He was a talented sportsman, too, the best in his year at the high jump, and he played a very decent game of tennis. He was popular with his schoolmates and teachers alike, and was having a marvellous time.

  Alyosha listened to her quietly. Then something occurred to him and he asked ‘So I have a stepfather and two stepsisters from Tunis then?’

  ‘Of course you don’t,’ she snapped, before taking a sip of her wine and adding in a softer tone. ‘You don’t have a stepfather of any description.’

  To their relief, the waiter came over.

  ‘Are you ready to order, Madame?’

  ‘I’m ready,’ answered Inessa. ‘Are you?’

  But once he had left with their menus they both sat there in an increasingly awkward silence.

  ‘You’ll have read about me, I expect?’ she said eventually.

  Alyosha frowned. ‘Read what?’

  Her hair was much redder now, and her eyebrows were thicker, which he thought made her look less feminine than when they were shaped into two fine bows.

  ‘You must be one of the few people in Europe who hasn’t heard what happened to me, then,’ she told him sourly, and went on to recount how she and Alexei Alexeivich had arrived in Rome by train and gone straight from the station to the Hotel Campo de Fiori. There, he’d sat her down and told her that he had some news for her – bad news, unfortunately, but news he had to share with her before anybody else, because she meant so much to him. She still remembered his words, and his sickening dishonesty, which went through her like malaria.

  ‘Are you listening to me, Alyosha? Or am I just talking to myself?’

  He’d been gazing out at the Promenade des Anglais, where a large group of elderly men and women stood on one leg like a flock of flamingos, slowly turning their arms, following the movements of a needle-thin Chinaman who stood facing them. Alyosha turned back to his mother and said that he was listening.

  Alexei Alexeivich hadn’t been worrying about her at all, he was just worrying about saving his own skin. Before they’d left for Rome, he’d received a telegram from the editor of Il Tempo informing him they would be printing the story in the following day’s edition. Did he have any comment to make?

  The next day, the scandal spilled onto the streets of Rome.

  ‘Are you sure you saw nothing about all this?’

  Alyosha shook his head.

  ‘Really? Not even that first picture of them kissing in Florian’s on Piazza San Marco? He’d always promised to take me to Venice, but he never did.’ A quiet contempt entered her voice. ‘You’d never believe how many lies that man has told me over the years.’ She raised her glass to her lips and he noticed the prominent blue veins on the back of her hand. ‘She’s the Marchesa Mariani Eugenio. She claims to be related to Mussolini on her mother’s side. I have plenty of respect for him, of course, but she’s nothing better than a whore.’

  ‘Mother? Why did you never love me?’

  She stopped. He’d already asked her once but she had changed the subject. ‘Will you answer me?’

  Inessa raised her voice slightly to prevent him from cutting across her again, and claimed it was no loss when he left her. She had become sick and tired of his behaviour – his constant drinking, his vulgar womanising – but the fact that the studio in Rome had broken its contract with her – now that had really hurt her.

  ‘How could they? How dare they? An actress of my calibre, famous all over Europe.’

  Then, as though the thing she most dreaded was an actual conversation with her son, she launched into a long monologue, jumping from one topic to another. The jealousy of other women towards actresses like her was only another form of desire, of course. But she sometimes thought that fame was just another word for loneliness. She had also come to the conclusion that marriage was a form of insincerity between two people, and the worst thing any man could do was feel pity for a woman, and that there was no friendship deeper than that between two women who hated the same man. Love was nothing but disappointment and betrayal, she wanted none of it. She lived and breathed for acting, that was her raison d’être, her staff of life, her only sustenance, her only living – and her only ambition was to spend her days in front of a camera.

  To think it had all begun with Russia’s Altar. She couldn’t understand why the critics had been so unkind, but what did they know? It had been a sweeping success in some countries – Albania and Montenegro in particular, but Greece too. Of course, very few Russian films were produced in Berlin these days, and it was difficult for her to work in France because they didn’t like her Russian accent, though she always insisted on speaking French with Georgik so that he wouldn’t be held back from getting on in the world. She cursed the French prejudice against Russians, but then they were prejudiced against anybody who wasn’t French. They were the most xenophobic and selfish people in the world. Which fool said La France est la lumiére du monde? Light of the world indeed! Such a high opinion they had of themselves! Only in France would you have a king who compared himself to the sun and thought he was the divine incarnation of the state. But she was more determined than ever to succeed.

  Another bottle of Vouvray had replaced the first in the ice bucket. Alyosha felt sadder than ever.

  ‘Mother, when are you going to answer my question?’

  On she went, as though he’d never spoken. She’d show them all – the critics and the gainsayers who claimed she couldn’t act. If she lived in Russia she’d be a star of the screen – but then what would be the point of making films there? Who wanted to pay to see a picture about a man in love with his tractor? Or a crew of young people with red handkerchiefs around their necks singing at dawn as they went on their way to plant a field of potatoes. Only birds were meant to sing at break of day. Young people should be safely tucked up in bed, they needed their rest to grow.

  She had finally talked herself to a standstill. She looked down at her plate: her food had grown cold. Then, with that old fake affection that Alyosha remembered so well from his childhood, his mother said brightly, ‘But never mind silly old me, tell me about you. I want to know all about you, find out who my son has become.’

  ‘Me?’ he asked himself. ‘Me?’ he puzzled again. What a bizarre question. What was he meant to tell her? At one time in his life, he might have thought he knew who he was, but by now he really didn’t have a clue. Had he ever really known himself? What he had come to realise as he grew older was that his whole existence had been limited every step of the way by the exigencies of the moment. His life was one unholy muddle. Meanwhile, however much his mother pleaded poverty, it seemed that she could afford to pay for Georgik’s schooling at Le Rosey near Lausanne, and for a room in one of the most expensive hotels on the Côte d’Azur. He glared at her.

  ‘It’s as much as I can do to keep body and soul together. I don’t think further than paying my rent from week to week.’

  She patted his hand and said, ‘I know just how you feel; I have to fend for myself now.’

  She gave him an ingratiating little smile and the dimples which had always given her face a charming youthfulness, momentarily appeared. But the wrinkles at her eyes were like the pattern of fine sand at the water’s edge. She leant slightly towards him across the table.

  ‘I’m living from hand to mouth, too,’ she whispered looking surreptitiously around her to make sure nobody was listening at a nearby table. ‘If I hadn’t sold my darling mother’s wedding ring – the very last thing I had left to sell – I’d have been out on the street. I’m only staying one night here.’ She stifled her tears. ‘If you could only see the place where I live from day to day.’

  Still, she could pay for a gigolo to take her to bed. She had never been slow to spend on her own pleasures.

  Alyosha looked out again towards the horizon where a storm was breaking above the sea: white forks of lightning sliced through the clouds, and just a weak light remained from the far side of the world, the black sky doing its best to blot it out.

  Alyosha turned back to look at her and asked yet again, ‘Why did you never love me, Mother?’

  She was finally silenced by the heartfelt simplicity of his question. But, in spite of the hint of confusion in her eyes, she launched into a vigorous rebuttal, telling him that she had loved him from the first, had always loved him. She had loved him as a babe in arms, loved him when he was crawling, then walking, then running. She loved him every bit as much as she loved Georgik.

  Alyosha suddenly lost his temper. He had heard enough of her lies, her justifications and self-delusions. ‘Mother, we have to be honest with each other for once.’

  ‘Yes, I know. Will you listen to me?

  ‘I’ve done nothing but listen to you. Why won’t you listen to me for once?’

  ‘Not with that hateful tone in your voice, I won’t.’

  They were lighting the lamps in the restaurant.

  ‘It’s something that you’ve always hated within yourself,’ she whispered, ‘that’s why you’re being so cruel to me tonight.’

  Alyosha shook his head hopelessly. ‘You just can’t admit it because it makes you feel guilty.’

  ‘I have nothing to feel guilty about…’

  ‘Listen…’

  ‘Not a thing, certainly not about you of all people.’

  But he was determined to drag some honesty out of her, even if it meant offending her forever. He persevered. What about loving his father?

  ‘What about loving your father?’

  ‘You never loved him.’

  ‘Never loved him? I adored him.’

  ‘Mother, that’s not true.’

  ‘I gave that man so much love, you have no idea.’

  ‘I know different. You don’t have to lie to me.’

  Inessa glared at her son. ‘Very well. The whole truth. If that’s what you want, I’ll give it to you. Here it is, every word the truth. Back in 1915, my father was over his head in heavy gambling debts, and faced scandal and ruin. My mother saw an opportunity to save the situation by marrying me to an older man, who’d had his eye on me for a while. I was oblivious, of course, far too young to be aware of such things, but she had noticed. As you know, there was nobody more determined and single-minded than your grandmother when she’d set her mind on something. She was that sort of a woman. And that’s how things were arranged. A girl of sixteen, I was barely consulted…’

  Alyosha’s bitterness subsided a little but he heard himself saying, ‘That’s still not an excuse for the way you treated him.’

  ‘I was faithful to him throughout the marriage. To the grave.’

  ‘How can you sit there and tell me such a bare-faced lie? I remember.’