The Bulgari Connection by Fay Weldon Page A

do, not like I have. What did she do all day? Eat, from the look of her. I hate this room, I want our proper bedroom back, you don’t love me, why should you, I’m such a mess.’
    â€˜Our’ bedroom made him feel happy. He was always pleased and gratified to be included in Doris’s scheme of things. She was a Scorpio, full of charm, sexual charisma and spite. If she couldn’t find anyone to sting she would sting herself to death, if need be. He’d worked with Scorpios in his time. They could make you go dancing to your own death.
    Rashly, he asked her if she was pre-testosterone-menstrual. He knew she was, not that she let a little mess stand in the way of their pleasures. She fell upon him tooth and claw, as he had rather anticipated, and with Doris the boundaries between murder and sex were blurred. He was egged on to a powerful and determined sexual performance.
    â€˜We’ll go to Bulgari tomorrow and buy the necklace,’ he said. He was already exhausted, emotionally more than physically, and the day had only just begun.
    â€˜Why not today?’ she was half joking, sunshine after squalls, fitful, trying to settle back into happiness. She was six years old sometimes. He was so moved by her, he gave in. ‘Okay,’ he agreed. ‘Today.’
    He’d manage it at lunchtime. He had been meeting Random at the club, but he’d cancel. He doubted it would tip any balances. And there was nothing more fun than shopping for jewels with Doris, knowledgeable as she was about fine stones, about almost everything, come to that; nothing more soothing than the soft-carpeted opulence of Bulgari, and the attentive staff, and the hushed reverence with which they attended to the whims of their customers, with that timeless and exquisite courtesy which has been offered the rich since society began. ‘Then that’s settled then,’ said Doris. But she did add that if he was ever strapped for money she would of course give it back, and he could probably get what she wanted cheaper, if he was in the business of cheap, if he made an offer for the ruby and diamond necklace Lady Juliet had been wearing in the portrait. ‘Because of course I can do all that Lady Juliet serene style too, if I want. Simple white dress, blonde hair on top and just the one spectacular piece. Not even earrings to match.’ Did he think when she, Doris, wore the antique coin necklace with the matching earrings it was over the top? No? Good. And the conversation drifted back to how Wanda Azim had better win the Booker or her (Doris’s) name would be mud in literary circles throughout the land.
    And then: ‘Put your arms round me,’ she said, and they snuggled together happily for a bit, all passion spent; and she met him at Bulgari that lunchtime. On the way through the park, under the gilded spire of the Albert Memorial, with its writhing caryatids and pale bosomy imperial ladies, she kissed him and said what she really wanted for her birthday was a portrait of herself by Walter Wells. There, a bargain! One Bulgari necklace and one painting by Walter Wells would cost less than the two Bulgari necklaces he had promised her.
    He said he’d think about it, but his mind was on other things: he’d just seen Billyboy Justice at the wheel of his own limo negotiating the new unexpected humps in the road opposite the Serpentine Gallery, and sitting next to him the Russian who had been at Lady Juliet’s for the auction. Barley knew, he just knew, that Billyboy was going to lunch with Sir Ronald Random, and they’d be talking about how the country needed a greater industrial base if it was to hold its own in the new Europe, and Art might be the part of the great way forward for France but it was not for Britain. And Sir Ronald Random, having been stood up by Barley at such short notice, might be paying more attention than he normally would.
    It didn’t help that Lady Juliet seemed