The Unbreakable Trilogy

‘The first thing I witnessed, hiding behind a pillar obviously, was a prostration.’

Several pairs of eyebrows rise questioningly.

‘I think the nun I followed was a novice. One of the reasons I was able to get in so easily was that the entire community was gathered in the chapel to watch this initiation ceremony. Or penance. I couldn’t linger too obviously to find out. No wonder the young nun was in such a rush. She must have been making her initial vows, or she could have been confessing to some heinous sin. Either way they were whipping her.’

Mouths drop open. Crystal is standing next to Gustav, her eyes wide with undisguised admiration. Gustav glances up at me, then back at what he’s writing. Annoyance flares at me. Why isn’t he paying attention?

‘It was hard to see at first because they had this heavy incense pouring out of a large silver basket swinging back and forth on a silver chain. It made my eyes stream and I had to stop myself sneezing. Anyway, it was a beautiful vaulted chapel and in all these pews were rows of nuns, standing so still I thought they were statues. Then this young nun came out, there she is in that picture.’

All heads turn back to the pictures hanging there, at the soft-focus pictures of my favourite nun in her cell.

‘She came in, dressed in a kind of thick linen nightdress. She lay down on the floor, flat on her face, and spread her arms and legs out like a star. The nuns were all singing, fingers telling their rosaries, and singing some sort of Gregorian chant. Some of them were stretching their arms up to the ceiling, others were stretching their arms out sideways as if to embrace something.

‘I’ll never look at The Sound of Music in the same way again!’

I allow a space for some light relief. I glance at Gustav who nods his head for me to carry on.

‘Some lay down on the floor, too, but it was this new one who was the centre of attention, and then the Mother Superior – it was obviously her, she was astonishingly beautiful, but very tall and terrifying-looking, with an enormous crucifix hanging on her chest – she came and stood over the girl brandishing this long black whip. It was all pretty alarming. I wondered if I should step in, you know, I was worried it was some kind of black magic, not holy at all, but something awful might have happened to me if they discovered an interloper.

‘I wonder what …’

I let the question hang in the air, remembering how my heart pounded with fear that night. How sick and dizzy I felt with that incense clouding the air in that chapel, how the chanting of the nuns grew louder in my ears. The sweat trickling down my back, gathering in my armpits, prickling in my hair. The stifling heat of Venice in summer. The stink of the canals penetrating even into that hallowed space. The sheen of sweat on everyone’s skin.

‘The Mother Superior planted her feet on either side of the little nun and folded her dress right up over her bottom so that I could see she was wearing these Victorian-type white bloomers.’

The journalist groans and snaps his biro in half. ‘Pretty barbaric.’

‘You and I might think so. But we all know that there are some people who do this for a living. For pleasure. And for these nuns it’s an initiation process. Routine. The girl’s face was shining with happiness. What do they call it when the saints in those paintings and statues look as if they are having an orgasm? Ecstasy.’

There is a really hearty laugh around the gallery.

‘Did they hit her with these horrible whips?’

‘You’re obsessed,’ someone else laughs at the questioner.

‘I can answer that if you want me to?’

Everyone nods and cheers. Gustav is shaking his head in amused disbelief, still looking down at his pad. It’s all so flattering. I’m tempted to confess what really happened inside me, the dark flowering of fascination when I watched those nuns. But I mustn’t get carried away. I haven’t the nerve to reveal now, at my first ever public show, how the shock of the public flagellation in the chapel turned to a twisted pleasure when I crept upstairs and saw the sisters continuing it in private. The swish and bite of those whips on snowy white skin. The answering bite and swish inside me as I hid watching in the shadows and my body tightened with anguished recognition.

I rouse myself. All those faces are so expectant now. Crystal’s thin eyebrows are crescents of surprise. Gustav is looking at me from under lowered brows as if he’s never seen me before.

‘Well, the Reverend Mother stepped forward. She had to push up her sleeves and it was a shock to see human limbs under there, she could have been a robot, but yes, she whipped the girl’s bottom. It was so loud. So sharp. The acoustics in there are designed for singing and praying, not punishment. So discordant in a quiet, holy place. I saw the girl’s fingers clawing at the polished wooden floor, but she wasn’t trying to get away. She kind of flinched under the blows and even though she wasn’t supposed to make a sound I could see her lips mouthing “I’m a sinner, cleanse me Mother, please cleanse me.”’

You could hear a pin drop. Later Crystal will tell me that it’s a first. Probably a last. But the story of my private view revelations will run in the industry press for weeks afterwards.

‘I didn’t get a picture of that initiation ceremony, unfortunately. I was stuck by the door. If I’d started fumbling around for my camera under that stolen habit they’d have seen me. Probably got me on the floor and whipped me, too.’

I look round calmly, enjoying the eyes all fixed on me as if I have become some kind of oracle. I point at the next enlargement showing the young nun in her cell.

‘And this is Sister Perpetua, later that same night.’

The heads turn to follow my finger, as if they are all students in a riveting lecture. Several cameras follow me. We all stare at the picture, the bony line of the nun’s bare shoulder, the moonlight streaking the bars of the arched window across her spine.

‘I’ve never told anyone this. But I did speak to this one. She saw me. I watched her standing in the room, her nightdress falling off her, and I watched her whip herself. The other, older sisters were doing it, but I didn’t get many shots of the others, because she warned me not to. I saw them, though. There were no doors on the cells. No privacy. They just wandered in and out of each other’s rooms if they wanted. It seemed to make them less inhibited, not more, like they knew they were being watched. And they were so wrapped up in what they were doing they probably wouldn’t have noticed if I’d walked right into the cells stark naked and offered myself for a bit of punishment.’

‘And did you?’

Gustav’s voice cuts through the murmuring. He’s folded his arms now. It must be time to wrap this up. Well, let him stew. I leave a deliberately dramatic pause, and lick my lips lasciviously. Crystal drops one black painted eyelid very slowly and winks at me. I don’t know which is more shocking. My nun whipping herself, or a wink from the wooden Crystal.

‘They were all far too busy seeing to themselves, to be honest. Flagellating the sins, getting the impure thoughts out of their heads, but this looked much more like pleasure than punishment. Pulling off their nightgowns to flick the switch across their bare skin, so white in the moonlight, a really sickening thwack against their tender flesh; I have tried to show here the marks they left on their skin. You can see how they tilt their heads back so sensuously, the little shimmy in their bare feet when the blows have landed. All positively orgasmic.’

My rapt audience waits for more. Only the first harsh flurry of what looks like snow pattering on the window disturbs the quiet.

‘I stayed as long as I dared. Some of them went to sleep. But even the sleeping sisters looked restless, flailing around on those horrible horsehair mattresses. I wonder now if they were dreaming of their past lives, lovers, lovemaking, the lost sensation of naked limbs and bodies, sweat, tears, men kissing and touching them, maybe even other women. All denied to them forever. They can’t all have been virgins in their former lives.’

‘Did you ever find out where the nun had been?’ It was Crystal this time. ‘Surely it was forbidden for her to be running round the city?’

I shake my head. ‘Sadly, no. I shudder to think what her punishment would have been if she’d confessed to what she’d been doing, even to me. Intriguing, isn’t it?’

‘It’s a shame you didn’t manage to interview them all, as well as getting such graphic visuals,’ murmurs the journalist, and others nod in agreement. ‘Have you thought of a career in photojournalism?’

‘Not until this moment, but you might have something there for the future!’

More laughter, but glasses are empty now and feet are fidgeting.

‘One more question,’ another man pipes up. ‘Your plans for the future?’

Crystal has materialised beside me and I take another drink. ‘Let’s see how well I do with this exhibition, first! But yes, I’d like to do more people-watching. You’ll see from this picture of the couple kissing in Paris that another influence is Robert Doisneau. His apparently candid shots were actually set up, but I would like to explore that idea further. Either catch people unawares, or ask them to pose for me.’

Crystal nods once, rubbing finger and thumb together to mime the making of lots of money.

I notice that Gustav has put away whatever he was working on and once again is dangling the silver chain up in front of him, letting it glint under the lights. I smile back, lift my hand high to show him my bracelet.

‘And as I’ve already admitted to being a voyeur, I’m thinking doors and windows, open and closed, will be the theme for my next show. Walking down a street in the evening, spying at the life unfolding in the houses you pass as the lights are switched on. Lifts. Sliding doors. Sexiness, secrecy. One night I could be outside your house!’ I raise my glass with a wide grin. ‘After all, that young nun, and her sisters in their convent, they thought they were alone. They were dancing like nobody’s watching.’

I smile round at them and Gustav and Crystal start to clap. The applause is brief but enthusiastic, and then I’m alone in the middle of my crowd.

I acknowledge a pleasing number of compliments as I move towards Gustav. I see a few people lining up by the desk, Crystal busy filling in a form on her clipboard.

What I haven’t told them is that I stole one of the little flagellating whips when I fled the convent at dawn. I hid it underneath the habit when I slipped through the gate when the gardener unlocked it. I have the little weapon still, tucked into the bottom of my rucksack.

But there it has stayed. My dark secret waiting for the right moment. What would these smart Londoners think if I produced it now, whipped myself, right here, in front of them? Would it sell my pictures faster?

What if I reached up now to unhook my dress, let it fall away from me like the nun’s simple nightdress? She untied it, standing in front of the arched window of her cell, and let it fall to the stone floor. I’ll admit it. I wanted to step inside the cell, come up behind her and touch her.

What if everyone saw my breasts falling out of this sexy red dress, bare, the nipples shrinking under their gaze? All of them looking at me bared before them, performing my own photographs. What would Gustav say? Would it really, really turn him on?

I take another long sip of champagne. He is at the other end of the room, in front of the Halloween witches, and he wants me to come to him. I refuse to catch his eye. I’m not moving.

What if I had the whip with me now, exhibit A, stood with my back to them like the little nun did, what if I used her technique, right now, a quick flick of the wrist to bring the tails down on my bare shoulder? I know how it would feel, sharp and shocking, tight on one spot. I tried it later, back in my hotel. I would tilt my head back sensuously, as my young nun did, and the tickle would become tingling, radiating through me. Then I would flick it again. Everyone in this big room would be able to see the vicious tail cutting red across my skin, like a line of fire rushing along a trail of dynamite, but after a few moments the sharp sting would diffuse into intense, invigorating heat.

What if I touched myself intimately with the whip? I saw some of the nuns do it. The blunt leather handle, sliding down. The men in this crowd wouldn’t know what to do with themselves. Their hands would wander into their pockets. Their eyes would be watering because they would want to get this load off. In fact they would want to do me, bare as I am in front of them, showing them the pale sweep of my spine, my thighs.

They would see my hand taking the length of thick woven leather, spreading myself open. These sophisticated city slickers would become voyeurs lusting for my pale skin striped with punishment. They would line up to take their turns with me. They want to put their hands on me, the same hands that have driven sleek cars or written cheques or typed emails or lifted espressos all day today.

My chattering audience is oblivious to my randy thoughts. But not Gustav. I’m certain he can read every iota scrolling through my mind. Every itch of my fingers. He’s watching me as I stand there, soft and wet, beside the image of my young nun with her head turned sideways, moonlight a halo round her shaved head as she lowers her nightgown. Everyone here has been moved and impressed by my work tonight. Gustav knew they would be. And if he’s that perceptive, can he tell how aroused I am right now? Does he know how hard I’m wishing all these lovely rich people would melt away and leave us on our own?

I realise what’s changed since I took these photographs. The girl on those travels had no-one waiting for her back home. There was a great big gap, over six foot tall, which had never been filled. No father. No brother. There was no man. And no home.

And now there’s Gustav. Even if he is only for Christmas.

He rattles the silver chain, all the way across the room. It rouses me from my reverie. I can’t tell if he’s cross with me for giving too much away. Or is he pleased? His mouth is opening to say something but it’s Crystal who reaches me first and taps her clipboard.

‘Thought you’d like to know, Serena. Twenty-five of your pictures sold so far! Out of a total one hundred. I’m astonished. Well done.’

I thank her. At last I go to him, walking through the crowd, bowing and smiling like a queen as people stop me to congratulate me or ask me more questions about the Venetian series, or the kissing Parisian roof runners.

‘A resounding success, Serena.’ Gustav is momentarily alone beside a small photograph of a pile of pebbles and detritus I took on the beach below the house on the cliffs. He smiles as he pulls me right up to him and attaches the silver chain once again. He doesn’t care who sees. ‘A perfect example of team effort, I’d say. I saw. You conquered. Crystal says they’re falling over each other to get their money out. Your work really is superb.’

‘It’s thanks to what you’ve done for me, Gustav. I’m overwhelmed.’

He frowns down at the silver chain. Winds it round his fingers like a cat’s cradle. His dark hair falls against his eyebrow and I long to brush it aside. ‘That remark has a dying fall to it, as if you’re already saying goodbye. I was hoping just the opposite. I was hoping that you would use that key I gave you and move into the house tonight.’

I’ve wrong-footed him somehow. He’s as surprised as I am by the reaction tonight. I sense it’s given me an advantage, if only a small one.

‘How can we improve on all this, though?’ I hold myself upright, watch his mouth working with his thoughts. ‘How will my moving into your house change anything?’

‘How simply can I put it? It’s what I want, and that should be enough for both of us.’

His eyes snap back onto mine. Unwavering, as if he’s stopped fumbling for an answer. He’s got me where he wants me. So am I the answer?

I frown at him to cover my uncertainty. ‘You mean our contract?’

‘I was hoping we’d gone beyond referring to that. But yes, it’s still in place if ever you’re confused about what’s going on here. Perhaps all this noise and chatter, this private view, is putting us on edge.’ He pulls me closer. ‘I’m talking about last night. Didn’t you enjoy yourself?’

People are pressing round us. ‘You know I did! It was amazing. You tasted me. I tasted you. I would have gone upstairs with you.’ I want everyone to overhear, but I lower my voice obediently. ‘But you dismissed me. So why do you want me to move in?’

‘I don’t have to explain my every move to you.’ He narrows his eyes. ‘But I’m saying my house is the only place I can have you truly to myself.’

A shiver runs down my whole body. I’m suddenly cold in my flimsy dress. The possessiveness in his voice is washing over me, pulling me towards him, weakening me. I’ll do anything he wants. I’ve agreed to. But I have to put up a little more resistance first.

‘I’m happy in Polly’s flat.’

He pulls the silver chain hard so that my hands bang against his chest. ‘I want you with me. I rattle around like a lost soul in there. It was only when you were there last night that I felt at home. That’s what our agreement means. Or at least what it’s started to mean. I’ll go over it again, shall I?’

One or two people are hovering and I try to pull away. ‘No need, Gustav. I understand you.’

‘No, I don’t think you do. I’m helping you professionally. So you must help me personally. We’ve already made a start, and that has made me want you more, Serena. There’s so much I want to do with you, teach you, teach myself. I need you under my roof, where I can find you.’ He tugs on the silver chain. ‘Attached to me.’

‘Not tonight, Gustav. Please? I’m exhausted. Exhilarated, but exhausted. Can you give me a couple of days?’

‘And what if the exhibition is sold out in two days?’

I shake my head. ‘You know it won’t be. And if it is, then I’ll give you those extra days in lieu.’

‘Fair enough.’ He refuses to show me his disappointment. He lets the silver chain go slack.

‘I need to sort my head out, Gustav. And if I come to you, I’ll need to tell Polly and pack up her flat, too.’

He nods silently. Why is there a plunging of disappointment in me at that? Does the perverse creature in me want him to beg, plead, take my hand, say something irresistible? Touch me, there, where he knows I melt? Yes. That’s exactly what the perverse creature wants.

But instead he lifts my hand to his lips, brushes his mouth across it. His eyes are softer now, because I’ve said what he wants me to say. He half closes them as he breathes me in, then he unclips the chain once again and steps back.

‘Two days, Serena. But after that you’re mine.’

We stare at each other. I bite my lip, fiddle with a strand of hair. Why don’t I just give in, let go? The security he offers is wrapped in danger, and that’s why I’m playing hard to get. I welcome the danger, I think. It’s the security I’m worried about. I want to make my own luck. Just when I’ve cut loose, in swoops another jailer to take me prisoner.

He gathers up the silver chain in his bunched fist and turns to speak to some waiting people.

And much later, when the crowd has dispersed and the gallery is locked up, when Gustav has gone without another word to me, and I’m walking away down the Strand towards Polly’s flat, the realisation of tonight’s quick success, the hard figures Crystal quoted earlier, it all hits me like a stone in the chest.

Sell another three-quarters of the display and sooner than blinking my time under Gustav Levi’s wing will be finished.

CHAPTER EIGHT

When you are a child the house in which you grow up is impossibly large and menacing. Endless stairs stretch away to the shadowy rooms upstairs, corridors are too long to run along and get to the table in time before being shouted at for being late. The dark corners teem with unmentionable horrors because you’re never allowed to turn on the light or they’ve removed the light bulbs. The shelves are too high to reach the sweets or books they’ve snatched off you and placed there as a punishment. The doors are locked. The windows stick and won’t open.

I am standing for the last time in the house on the cliffs and it all looks shrivelled and pathetic to me now. Dirty, dark, ugly, and small.

‘A unique location. That’s what the buyers are after. I can’t think why your family didn’t extend the house, or think about running it as a business. This would have made an incredibly profitable bed and breakfast, or a hotel, almost as scenic as Burgh Island. That place is a roaring success, partly because you can only get there by foot, boat or helicopter. You know they filmed Hercule Poirot over there a few years ago? It’s an art deco gem.’

The estate agent can barely contain his glee as he looks around the house of my childhood. The auction has taken place, and the highest bidder has paid well over the odds for it. Easily enough to buy my own flat. A house in the sun. My own gallery, even.

‘They can bulldoze the rotten dump for all I care. In fact, I hope they do. It’s riddled with unhappiness, like woodworm.’

I kick at an old box and as it disintegrates a pile of old exercise books tumbles out, the lined pages crammed with scribbles and drawings ripping off the spiral spine. I bend down. My old diaries. The ones that she found under my bed one day when I was at school and confiscated, screeching and slapping at me when I got home because on every single page I’d written how much I hated her. I’m surprised to see them here. Apart from anything else I thought the house clearers had got rid of everything. And she said she’d burned them. She even dragged me outside and showed me the bonfire he’d made, with my favourite books and jigsaws thrown onto the pyre for good measure.

I pick the books up and stuff them in my bag. I’ll decide what to do about them later. To read them will be too painful.

‘Well, I’m sure they will have the vision to develop this into a high-end, luxury destination for discerning travellers. And you, Miss Folkes. Well, you can expect a very healthy sum to land in your bank account any day now.’

‘Thanks. I’m grateful to you for dealing with all this for me. But I mean it. They should pull it down otherwise they’ll be haunted. Every brick, every cornice, every timber in this house is tainted.’

The estate agent glances at his watch then tries to hide the gesture by folding his hands across his jacket. He backs away from my mild lunacy towards the front door. I’m guessing he’s itching to get back to the office to calculate his commission.

‘You’ll lock up, then, Miss Folkes? Bring the key down to the office when you’re finished?’

‘No. You can have it now.’ I hurry after him through the front door. The key feels as if it’s branding itself like stigmata into the palm of my hand. I toss it at him. ‘I’ve finished in here. I’m just going to take a last walk and then I’ll be along to sign the papers.’

‘Shame they let it fall into rack and ruin like this. It could have been a fantastic house. You could have kept it as a holiday home for you and your children. Like something out of a Daphne du Maurier.’ He bleeps open the door of his little car. ‘These buyers will work wonders with this place, Miss Folkes. They’re experienced in the trade. I just hope you can find happiness wherever you are now.’

Thank you, Mr Estate Agent. I hope that too. It’s possible I’ve found it already, miles away from here. A fledgling happiness, cracking its way out of the shell.

I think about my life, how it’s changed since I rode that train out of here. I call to mind my exhibition, resplendent on the white walls of that huge gallery space. The tall dark town house at the top of the garden square, the pretty French-style attic room waiting for me when I stop being so stubborn.