Beauty and the Dark Read online

  Irina struggles in her mother’s arms. She wants to get down and play with the puppy, but Lena says, “Wait until Aunty Sofia has met her first.” She looks at me. “Go on then. She was found abandoned in a sack by the roadside. Left to die because she has a little limp. One of her legs is shorter than the others.”

  “What?” I whisper aghast.

  “So she’s going to need a lot of love and attention.”

  I turn away from my sister and look at the little mad thing. Indeed, the pup does have an odd gait, but it is actually quite adorable. How could anyone do that to such an innocent little thing?

  “I’ll love her to my dying day,” I tell Lena staring at the dog.

  My mind races ahead. I imagine teaching her all kinds of things. She can sleep on my bed. I’ll take her with me when I go for my dawn walks. Oh my God. The fun we’ll have together. I get off the bed and fall to my knees. The ball of fur comes up to me and cautiously sniffs my knee, and that is the moment I burst into sobs of pure happiness.

  I swear I’ve never felt so happy in all my life.

  Ten

  Sofia

  We arrive in London with time to spare. Guy comes down in the elevator with us, kisses Lena and helps us into the waiting car. He closes the door and stands on the sidewalk watching as Robert, his London chauffeur, drives us away. Both of us turn back to watch him and I can’t help the strange sadness that comes into my heart that I don’t have a man to wave me goodbye and love me the way Guy loves my sister.

  Edgware Road, full of middle-eastern shops and restaurants, morphs higher up the road into Kilburn High Street. I have never been to these areas so I gaze out of the window curiously. By the time we turn off the busy high street and into the estate with the high rise apartments, I can immediately see the poverty of the area.

  As it happens we arrive at the parking lot of Kids Rule at the same time as Lana. She gets out of a cute white Geely Panda and waves to us.

  “Isn’t her husband a billionaire?” I ask my sister.

  “Lana doesn’t like to display her wealth when she comes here. She says, ‘why rub it in their noses’.”

  “Hey,” Lana calls coming over to us. She is dressed simply in a turtleneck red jumper, faded blue jeans, brown boots and a short leather coat. Her long hair is tied up in a ponytail and her face is scrubbed of make-up, but she is still very beautiful. “So glad you could make it.”

  We kiss each other’s cheeks and head towards the wooden entrance of the one-story building. Inside, there are other people already there. They smile at us and call out greetings.

  Lana walks down a corridor with us and explains the uses for the rooms on either side of us. Some with desks and chairs are for helping children with their studies, others, with musical instruments, mirrors, sports equipment, or rubber mats, are dance studios, gyms, and music rooms.

  At the end of the corridor we come to a set of doors and enter what Lana calls the main hall. It is hung with Christmas decorations and is already half-full of children. They are milling about in small groups talking loudly and laughing.

  “Here is where everybody comes to have fun. We hold dances, competitions and concerts here,” she explains.

  The kids immediately surround us. They are a bold lot. Throwing questions to Lana about Lena and me. Lana introduces us and I follow my sister’s example and give a small wave when my name is mentioned.

  From the corner of my eyes I see a thin girl with curly brown hair sitting alone on the bench. She is leaning her back against the wall behind her and has her knees pulled up. There is an open book resting on her thighs and she is coloring or drawing something into it. The reason she catches my eyes is because of the way she seems utterly oblivious to all the noise and activity around her.

  For a while Lena and I answer the children’s curious questions.

  “Where are you from?”

  “Where’s Russia?”

  “Have you seen a bear before?”

  “Are you’re going to be our new teachers?”

  My eyes keep flicking back to the girl on the bench. Not once has she raised her head or showed any interest in us.

  Eventually, I excuse myself and walk towards her. She can’t be more than eight or nine years old. I don’t know why, but I feel almost connected to her. I sit down next to her on the bench. She doesn’t turn to look at me. Her eyes are hidden by the curls that hang over her cheeks. I glance at her book. She’s drawing a scene with a castle, a girl in a long dress and a man on a horse.

  “That’s a nice drawing,” I say.

  Silently she carries on drawing rows of neat little Vs to denote grass.

  “My name is Sofia. What’s yours?”

  Her little hand is a tight fist around the pen as she gives her drawing her total concentration.

  I bite my lip. Somehow I have to get through to her. I can’t give up. There’s something so sad about her.

  “I love horses,” I say quietly.

  She ignores me.

  “You should draw a tower for your castle.”

  Her fist falters for a second, but she does not stop or look at me.

  “It’s the best bit of a castle.”

  I hear her take a deep breath.

  “I know because I live in a castle.”

  Her pen stops scratching on the paper.

  I hold my breath.

  She turns her face in my direction, her curls bouncing against her cheeks and her gray eyes huge with curiosity. Instantly, my heart goes out to her. She is a pitiful thing.

  “You live in a castle?” she whispers.

  I nod. “Uh … huh. I live at the top of the tower.”

  Her eyes widen to impossible proportions. “You do?”

  I nod again. “You have to go up a winding stone staircase to get to my rooms.”

  Her eyes shine with awe.

  “Here. Let me show you.” I take my mobile phone out and scroll through my photos. Luckily I took a lot of pictures of my new puppy. I show them to her and she leans in to look at the pictures.

  “Is that your puppy?”

  “Yes. Her name is Mika.”

  “She’s cute.”

  I grin. “She’s my Christmas present.”

  A flash of pain crosses her small face. Perhaps she’s lost a pet.

  I quickly scroll backwards and find a few photographs of the castle taken from the outside. She leans in even closer and gazes at my photos intently.

  “Maybe you can come to visit me one day,” I say, and suddenly she seems to shrivel up. She jumps to her feet and, gathering her book, runs from the hall.

  I stand up, but I can’t bring myself to call her back. What would I say? I don’t even know her name. Feeling crushed I stare at her small figure rushing away. Damn. I screwed up by being too eager. Who invites a child to their home after a few minutes of knowing them? She probably thought I was some pervert. How stupid I’ve been.

  “How the hell did you do that?”

  I swing towards the voice and my cheeks flare up with embarrassment. Oh God! Of all the people in the world why did it have to be Jack Irish who had to witness my failure to connect with even a small child?

  Eleven

  Jack

  “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to make her run away,” Sofia apologizes. Her eyes are filled with distress and she looks as if she is about to burst into tears. I stare at her in surprise. Could such innocence still exist?

  “Lori hasn’t spoken a word to anyone since she has been coming here, which is about six months. You’ve just had a conversation with her so I don’t think you need to be sorry about anything. What you accomplished is close to miraculous.”

  Her eyes open wide. “Oh!” she exclaims, a flash of pure joy flirting across her face, and I suddenly see she is even more beautiful than I first realized. Her beauty is not diamond-flashy, but mysterious and intriguing, like a string of pearls glowing in the moonlight.

  She chews her bottom lip and my eyes rush to the prett
y sight. She blushes furiously. Shit, I’m staring at her as if she’s the fucking fine print on my life insurance policy.

  “Why doesn’t she talk?” she asks shyly.

  “No one knows. She lives with her mother in one of the apartments around here. I believe her mother is foreign and doesn’t mix with the other women either.”

  She looks troubled, as if Lori really matters to her. “And she has no friends?”

  “She doesn’t want friends. The other kids have tried to talk to her but she won’t even make eye contact. How did you get her to talk to you?”

  “She was drawing a castle and I told her I lived in one.”

  My eyebrows fly upwards. “For real?”

  She nods. “Yes, it’s in Cheshire. It belongs to my sister and her husband.”

  I can’t help smiling. I’ve never met anyone who lived in a castle, but she looks like she should be living in a castle. The innocent princess in need of rescue.

  “Do you think she’ll come back?” she asks worriedly.

  “Probably. I think she likes to be around people, but she was not ready to interact. You did really well to make her take that first step.”

  “But I ruined it. I rushed it and made her run away.”

  “No, you haven’t ruined anything. She’s curious about you so she’ll be back.”

  “You really think so?”

  “Yeah, I do. You’re a natural with a good touch. Why don’t you volunteer here, help out with the kids sometime?”

  I feel her shrinking away from my suggestion. A frown mars her forehead. “Oh! I don’t think that would be possible. It’s much too far to come down on a regular basis.”

  “What wouldn’t be possible?” her sister asks, popping up next to us. Her smile and question are casual, but her eyes are watchful and intense. She reminds me of mother tiger, protecting her cubs.

  “Nothing really,” Sofia mumbles.

  Her sister looks at me questioningly and I realize that she could be an ally.

  “I was just telling Sofia that she should volunteer to work with the kids since she is such a natural at it, and she was explaining to me that she lives too far away to commute.”

  Her sister glances from me to Sofia and back to me before breaking into a grin. “Actually, that is an absolutely brilliant idea. We could both come. Let’s say once a week. We have an apartment in London so when my husband has business in the city we could even stay overnight.”

  I look at Sofia and raise my eyebrows encouragingly. “Well. Do you want to see Lori again?”

  She clasps her hands and looks suddenly anxious. “But how would we help?”

  “Well, you could either teach the children something useful or expand their horizons in some way. Kids Rule is all about empowering these children and turning them away from drugs, gangs and alcohol. You’ll have to check with Lana, or one of the girls in the office, but I’m sure you’ll be able to work out something between the two of you.”

  Sofia frowns uncertainly, but her sister is very enthusiastic. “I could give piano lessons, or teach them all the fashion tips I learned while modelling, and Sofia could hold singing classes. She was always the best singer in our family.”

  “Cool,” I say.

  Sofia turns to me eagerly. There is a kind suppressed excitement in her face, as if she doesn’t want to get too excited in case she is disappointed. “You really think it’s a good idea?”

  I grin. I don’t know why but the thought of Sofia coming here to teach makes my whole body tingle with anticipation. “Absolutely. As far as I know no one is giving them piano or singing lessons at the moment. And as for the idea of fashion tips from an ex world famous model, you’ll have the entire population of girls signing up for your class.”

  “Thanks, Jack. We’ll talk to Lana about this,” Lena says.

  “No problem,” I say.

  “I had no idea until Lana told me today that you are the Jack Irish,” Lena says.

  I shrug, vaguely embarrassed. She’s making it sound like I’m famous or something.

  She smiles. “I must say your name used to come up a lot while I was in the modeling world.”

  Sofia looks at her sister curiously. “Why?”

  She gives Sofia a sidelong glance. “Jack is one of Britain’s top plastic surgeons. He runs a very famous clinic in Harley street.” She pauses, wrinkles her forehead. “I even know a couple of girls who got their noses done by him. You did an amazing job both times, by the way.”

  “Thank you,” I say quietly.

  Then the bell rings and it is time for everybody to get down to the canteen for the big lunch. Lana and the other women have decorated the place with a huge Christmas tree and plenty of tinsel, and there are a lot of gasps and comments of “wicked man” and “cool” from the kids.

  Twelve

  Sophie

  The lunch is fun and the kids appear to thoroughly enjoy themselves. The adults are served wine. I have a glass and it goes straight to my head.

  A few times when I look up I catch Jack looking at me, but I become red and get so flustered I have to look away quickly and pretend I did not see him, even though we looked directly at each other. It’s so stupid, but Jack Irish has a crazy effect on me.

  Later when Santa is giving out gifts there is a loud noise outside. A fight has broken out between some drunks returning from a pub nearby. Jack and another man go to check it out and I find myself waiting for his return nervously. How bizarre, but already I can’t bear the thought of him getting hurt.

  When he comes back in, the sleeve of his jacket is torn. I breathe a sigh of relief. Some part of me desperately wants to go to him, but my feet will not take me there. It is a good thing I didn’t because I notice Susan, a member of staff introduced earlier to me, go up to him, take his hand in hers and examine it.

  She stands so close to him that I feel a strange sense of resentment rising in my chest as if he belongs to me and she is intruding. I watch her look up at him with doe eyes and say something, but he shakes his head, extricates his hand from her grasp, and walks away.

  Once he leaves, the afternoon seems duller and though I try to join in the games, I can’t stop thinking of him.

  Before we left, Lena arranged with the woman at the front desk for us to take a class on the coming Thursday. I must admit I spend the next three days worrying myself sick about it. What if no one comes? What if I screw up or worse, freeze? I chewed my nails right down to raw flesh, but it turns out my anxiety was baseless.

  Jack was right, droves of giggling girls flock to Lena’s Modelling, Fashion and Make-up Tips class. There are more than forty and we have to use the hall instead of one of the classrooms, but Lena shows no signs of nervousness, in fact, she is brilliant.

  She starts off by showing them some simple catwalk moves then turns the class into a sort of finishing school lesson. Which I think is really cool. All these little girls from the estate who will have more etiquette than nineteenth century debutantes.

  Her class is interesting even to me. She teaches them little tips that models employ. Apparently they don’t say cheese or sex when they want their photos to look pouty and sexy. They say prune.

  “Try it,” she says, and more than forty little girls echo her and laugh at the expressions of those sitting next to them.

  To my great surprise halfway through Lori turns up, but she stays at the back of the hall and does not interact with anyone. Once, I catch her giggling to herself at one of Lena’s jokes.

  An hour later Lena ends the class by telling the girls to bring their make-up bags the next time. As soon as Lena says, “See you next week,” Lori jumps up and makes for the door, not however, before she catches my eyes, and flashes me a shy smile.

  I grin back, pleased that she made that bit of contact with me.

  Most of the girls immediately mill around Lena, so I wave to her and go into the classroom next door to conduct my singing class. My group is very much smaller, seven girls, but they are
sweet, eager little things, and I forget to be nervous. Sitting at the piano I completely enjoy the session. At the end of it I feel quite proud of myself.

  Baby steps.

  I pack up my stuff, get into my coat and walk out to the foyer. As I open the door I see Lena leaning against the reception counter talking to Jack. He has obviously come from work and is dressed in a white shirt and a pair of black trousers. He turns his head to look at me and my heart starts pounding so madly I can barely say hello.

  “How did the class go?” he asks.

  “It was okay,” I reply as casually as I can.

  I’m wearing a blue jumper and jeans so not even a clear outline is on show, but his eyes run down my body with interest. When his gaze returns to my face, he smiles and says, “Good. Now who wants to join me for something to eat?”

  “Not me,” Lena says. “Got a hot date with my husband later,” she says with a wink. “Besides, I haven’t seen my daughter all afternoon and I like to catch a couple of hours with my baby before she goes to sleep. Why don’t you guys go off and get something to eat?”

  “No, I’ll come with you,” I say.

  Ignoring me she looks from me to Jack. “You’ll drop my sister off at our place when you’ve finished your meal, won’t you?”

  “Of course,” Jack assures suavely.

  “That will be great. Please take care of her because she is very precious to me,” she says, and smiles at him.

  His eyes slide in my direction. “Yes, I agree. She is very precious.”

  Thirteen

  Sofia

  Outside the air is damp. There is a cold wind blowing and I pull the edges of my tweed coat closer together. After we wave my sister out of the car park, Jack turns towards me.

  “How hungry are you?”

  “Very.”

  He grins a devastatingly sexy smirk, making my stomach twist. Stop it Sofia. He’s not for you and this is not a date. He offered to take both Lena and me out, only Lena didn’t want to come.

  “What kind of food would you like to have?” he asks.