Ghigau 29

Exa

Exa and Tilly decided to walk to the Savoy hotel. 

    After a long battle, she had managed to persuade her sister to wear jeans and a tee shirt instead of her usual dungarees; though she couldn’t talk her out of her Dr Marten boots and eventually gave up trying, accepting the partial win. If Tilly wanted to lose a toenail or two traipsing through London in 95 degree temperatures, that was her problem. In truth, she was surprised Tilly agreed to come at all. For herself, she chose a sleeveless linen top in faun and matching loose trousers with roman sandals. 

    It would take them about an hour to reach The Strand which would give her a chance to marshal her thoughts and plan what to say. 

  Tottenham Court Road, usually heavy with traffic and thronging with shoppers looking for bargains in the dozens of electrical stores, was as quiet as she had ever seen it. The day was intensely hot once again, and the road surfaces shimmered like desert oases and felt soft underfoot. The sun was high and cast little shadow, leaving nowhere to hide from its attack. What few people there were on the streets, scuttled from awning to awning, like ants beneath a tree.

    Exa still wasn’t sure if she was doing the right thing. Her father seemed to have finally accepted her life choices and had pretty much left her to her own devices for the last year, so she was nervous about involving him in her life again. Three times on the walk, she had almost called her stepmother and cancelled; but in the end she decided that it was more important to try and help someone else, rather than prove a point she felt she’d already made to Aidan Hulme . 

    By 12.45 pm she and Tilly were walking into the courtyard of the Savoy, where her painter’s eye was immediately offended by the surfeit of gold and neon.

    Anastasia was already waiting for them in the American Bar, a glass of something sparkling in her left hand. She stood and kissed the air on either side of their cheeks — Tilly barely lifting her chin — before sitting down in an elegant, pink chair and asking what they would like to drink.

    Exa thought her stepmother looked incongruously both older and younger. Anastasia’s lips were plumper than when she had last seen them she was sure, and her hair was suspiciously long. There were tiny lines at the corners of her eyes but the eyes themselves looked wider and brighter than she recalled, and possibly a little greener. It was amazing what money did to a person she thought, it literally changed them.

    Once they had ordered drinks, Anastasia leaned forward expectantly, saying, “How have you been darlings?”

        “I’m good thank you, “ Said Exa, looking across at Tilly who had slumped sullenly in the chair next to her and taken out her phone. Exa poked Tilly’s knee as if to say  ‘Don’t be rude, answer the question’

    “Yeah, all good,” said Tilly, without looking up from her screen. The digitised sounds of Candy Crush wafted across the bar.

    Anastasia raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment. She looked at Exa. “And how is the painting going?”

    Exa immediately felt uncomfortable. Somehow, whenever her stepmother or her father asked about her art, she felt they were patronising her. It was as if they were enquiring how a school project was coming on. 

    “Yes, good, thank-you for asking,” she replied, immediately wishing she hadn’t chosen those words — so childlike. She might as well have ended the sentence with ‘Miss’. 

    Their drinks arrived at this moment. Exa noted how the waiter couldn’t take his eyes off Anastasia, or to be exact, her bosom. It was a strange sensation, watching men leer at her stepmother. She wondered if her father cared a jot who was watching his wife’s breasts. She suspected not, she had never seen Aidan Hulme upset by anything, except after losing out on a business deal of some sort.

    “I’m gonna to take a piss.” Tilly announced, swinging a leg over the arm of her chair and vaulting to her feet. Exa winced at the language and the accent. Anastasia just smiled, which seemed to darken Tilly’s mood even farther. She flounced off.

    “She’s not used to these kinds of places,” Exa said, trying to explain away Tilly’s coarse manner.

    “She went to school with a Rothschild and a Churchill dear, she’s hardly orphan Annie.” Anastasia scoffed, dismissing the notion with the wave of an elegant hand,  “Anyway, it doesn’t bother me, she is the one losing out, she’ll learn that eventually.”

    Exa wasn’t so sure, and felt the remark had been subtly directed at her too. But now wasn’t the time to discuss Tilly and her future. “Do you know when Dad is back? I need a bit of help, or rather a friend of mine does,” she said.

    Anastasia raised her eyebrows, as much as she could. “Tell me everything, I want to know all about it and then we can work out the best way to help.” Her eyes were shining and she looked genuinely interested. Exa wondered if her stepmother had finally got bored with being a billionaire’s trophy wife, even the super rich must need some human drama to pique their interest from time to time she supposed. Her father had his businesses and making more money, that was what turned him on. But what about Anastasia? What did she really have? Shopping? Cosmetic surgery? And what then?

    “I want to help try and find someone. A friend, well sort of a friend and a business associate,” explained Exa, somewhat confusingly.

    “Someone has gone missing?” Anastasia said, managing a frown of sorts.

    “Yes, the owner of the gallery who is going to show my  work — I hope. She came to see me, and then never arrived home after she left. She’s been missing for over a week, and nobody knows where she is.” Exa felt a little foolish now she was saying this out loud. It sounded like the plot of a TV drama.

    Anastasia, on the other hand, looked even more interested. “What is her name?”

For some reason, Anastasia’s tone gave Exa pause. For a moment or two she contemplated lying and giving a made up name, but that would have defeated the whole purpose of this meeting. She decided she was being silly. 

    “Nikki Talbot,” said Exa, and was surprised to see Anastasia sit back and slap the arm of her chair in a gesture that one might make when finally presented with the solution to a difficult riddle.