No Survivors

10

Alix took the bus back into Geneva after another long day at the clinic, then walked across the Rhone River and uphill, through the narrow, cobbled streets of the Old Town, lined with centuries-old houses as tall and thin as books on a shelf. The windows of the chocolate shops were filled with heart-shaped boxes. The boutiques and designer stores were given over to lingerie and seductive dresses. The banks watched over them all, knowing, as always, that everything, including love, had its price.

She stopped for a moment to look at a mannequin in a short black party frock and shoes that were little more than a pair of teetering heels and a couple of slim leather straps.

She had once dressed like that, choosing her clothes with the confidence that came from being sure of their effect. She wanted to be that woman again, with a drink in one hand and her handsome man in the other. But the reflection in the shop window showed a sorry creature, wearing a charity-shop coat and cheap, unflattering denims. Somehow, in the next hour or so, she had to paint on a facsimile of what had been her natural beauty, a fake that would be good enough to fool the bierkeller customers, drunken men with groping fingers who expected a visual treat to accompany their overpriced drinks.

She got back to Carver’s flat. The rooms were emptying fast as the furniture was sold to meet the sanatorium’s endless demands. She missed the huge Chesterfield sofa and the antique leather armchairs that had been all the more inviting for being softened and worn by decades of use. His beloved widescreen TV and hi-fi system were gone, too, along with all the paintings, save one. It hung above the fireplace in the living room, a bright, impressionistic depiction of a Victorian day out at the beach, the women lifting their skirts and the men rolling up their trousers, a tableau of innocent pleasures.

Alix only had to look at the picture to remember the afternoon when she had first seen it. She’d been wearing one of his old T-shirts and had curled up in an armchair as cozily as a sleepy cat, watching Carver as he walked through the dusty beams of afternoon light that angled in through the windows of his top-floor flat. He’d walked with an easy, animal grace, then leaned across her chair. She’d felt his eyes skimming over her before he handed over one of the cups of coffee he’d been holding. He’d seen her looking at the picture.

“It’s Lulworth Cove,” he said, “on the Dorset coast, west of my old base.”

“It’s very beautiful. What was this base?”

Carver had laughed. “I can’t tell you that. You might be a dangerous Russian spy.”

She’d smiled and said, “Oh, no, I’m not a spy. Not anymore.” She was telling the truth. That afternoon in Carver’s flat, for once in her life, she’d been a normal woman, surrendering to the blissful indulgence of falling in love.

That dream had been torn away from her. There was no point in clinging to some pathetic, girlish illusion of romance. In the real world there was no such thing, just an endless fight for survival, a fight that had no concern for scruples or principles. When everything else was stripped away, there were only two issues to consider: how badly she wanted to survive, and what she was prepared to do in pursuit of that survival.