My daughter assures me he is blessed with uncommonly good looks and cursed with something she claims is even more compelling: a brooding, edgy torridity. The fact that he once loved so deeply and remains so shrouded in private grief has potent allure. His air of unattainability is irresistible, she says.
It’s not artifice. His many sexual liaisons aside, Mr Black is taken in the most profound sense of the word. Lily’s memory hollows him. He is a husk of a man, yet I’ve come to love him as a father would his son.
A woman laughs too loudly. Too much to drink, clearly. And she’s not alone in over-indulging. A flute falls from someone’s careless grip and shatters, with the unmistakable discordant music of tinkling shards of glass.
2
WITTE
“Did you show her out, Witte?”
Mr Black enters the kitchen the next morning dressed for the day in a Savile Row business suit and perfectly knotted tie, neither being part of his attire prior to my employ. I schooled him in the fine points of bespoke clothing for gentlemen, and he was an avid learner.
On the exterior, I can scarcely see the unpolished young man who hired me six years ago, so recently widowed and paralysed with grief that my first task was managing anyone who approached with queries or condolences. In time, he harnessed his pain into fiery ambition. That – and his singular intelligence – revived the pharmaceutical company his father had made insolvent through embezzlement.
Against all odds, he succeeded – brilliantly.
I turn and set his breakfast on the black marble-topped island, positioning it perfectly between the silverware already set out. Eggs, bacon, fresh fruit – his staples. “Yes, Ms Ferrari left while you were in the shower.”
One dark brow lifts. “Ferrari? Really?”
I’m not surprised that he never asked for her name, only saddened. Who the women are means nothing; only that they bring Lily to his mind.
I have never seen him show genuine affection to any woman but his sister, Rosana. He is polite to paramours, always. Attentive when in pursuit. But liaisons are limited to a single evening. He has never sent flowers to a lover, never indulged in a flirtatious phone call, nor invited or escorted a woman to dinner. I’ve no knowledge of how he treats a lady with whom he is intimately entangled. It is a gap in my understanding of him that may never be filled.
He reaches for the coffee I set in front of him, his mind clearly running through his agenda for the day, his latest lover dismissed from his thoughts for ever. He rarely sleeps and works far too much. Deep grooves on either side of his mouth shouldn’t be there on one so young. I’ve seen him smile and have even heard him laugh, but the amusement never reaches his eyes. He suffers life; he does not live it.
I have urged him to take a moment to enjoy his accomplishments. He tells me he’ll enjoy life better when he’s dead. Reuniting with Lily is his only true aspiration. Everything else is simply killing time.
“You did an excellent job with the party last night, Witte,” he says, rather absent-mindedly. “You always do, but still. Never hurts to say I appreciate you, does it?”
“No. Thank you.”
I leave him to eat and read the day’s paper, heading down a long hallway with its mirrored walls to the private side of the residence he shares with no one. The lovely Ms Ferrari spent the night in a bedroom on the opposite end of the penthouse, in a starkly white and sterile suite methodically designed to be nothing like the rest of the home. It’s a space Lily would not favour, as if that alone would be enough to prevent her spectre from watching and knowing.
Shortly after hiring me, Mr Black purchased the penthouse while the tower was still under construction. He oversaw the design of the raw interior minutely, from the positioning of the walls and doors to the selection of materials. Yet, I can’t say the space reflects his personal style. He chose every piece of furniture and accessory with his beloved Lily’s tastes in mind. He didn’t want a fresh start, free of her memory; he simply wanted a residence in the city, and he made certain to include his late wife. There are reminders of her everywhere, on nearly everything. In that respect, I feel I know her.
Elegant. Dramatic. Sensual. Dark, always dark.
I pause on the threshold of Mr Black’s bedroom, sensing the lingering humidity of his recent shower. The his-and-her suites occupy one entire side of the residence, with walkthrough wardrobes, matching marble-slab bathrooms and a shared sitting room.
The lady’s suite has a view of Billionaires’ Row and the Hudson from the foot of the wide, deep bed and of Lower Manhattan to the right. Sunsets spread fire through the sumptuously appointed and lavishly furnished room, warming the subaqueous decor that I refresh with exuberant bouquets every few days at my employer’s request. Her room is ever in readiness, waiting for a woman who was gone before it became hers. Her LRB monogram is embossed or embroidered on nearly everything as if to assure Lily that the space belongs only to her. Her garments fill the wardrobe and drawers. Her private bathroom is fully stocked.
By rights, the empty echo of abandonment should mar the beautiful suite, yet there is a strange energy here, a precursor to life itself.
Lily lingers, unseen but felt.
The master suite is spare in comparison. Mr Black sleeps atop a slender platform chosen to diminish any possible distractions from the immense image commanding the wall directly across from where he rests his head at night. Fleurs-de-lis decorate his drawer pulls and are embroidered on his sheets. New York is laid out like a gift at his feet beyond the windows, but he’s positioned his bed with the view behind him and Lily’s picture in front of him. It’s emblematic of how he lives his life: indifferent to the world and possessed by a woman long departed.
Mr Black ends his days with Lily. Her portrait is the last thing he sees, and he wakes to the sight of her. Unlike her room, his is tomblike, cool and eerily quiet, devoid of animation.
Turning away from the north-eastern views over Central Park, the woman whose immortal perfection dominates one’s attention draws my gaze. It’s an intimate, earthy picture. A life-size Lily reclines across a dishevelled bed; her torso draped in a white sheet and her slender limbs tangled in her long black hair. Her lips are swollen from kisses, her cheeks flushed, her eyes heavy-lidded with desire and possessiveness. Against the ashen wall colour, she beckons with a siren’s song of beauty, obsession and destruction.
I’ve caught myself staring more than once, arrested by her flawless face and potent sensuality. Some women entrap men in webs by the simple act of existing.
She was so young, barely in her twenties, yet she left a profound impression on everyone who met her. And she left her husband in torment, destroyed by doubt, guilt and heart-breaking questions … the answers to which she took to her watery grave.
3
WITTE
As I merge the Range Rover into the traffic, Mr Black relays clipped orders into his mobile. It’s barely eight in the morning, and he’s already deep into managing the various aspects of his growing dynasty.
Manhattan overflows around us, brimming with streams of cars and people rushing in every direction. In places, bags of rubbish are piled several feet high on the pavements, waiting to be hauled away. The sight put me off when I first came to New York, but now it’s just part of the tableau.