‘I have tried to join Hamilton’s. Are you aware of it? It is the most exclusive club. But they, how do you say, blackballed my application. It is ridiculous. Do they think Russians are thugs? Criminals? Not worthy of drinking with them?’ Karin noticed that Mikhail’s hand had curled into a fist. ‘I have a good mind to buy their little club and close it down.’
Karin cleared her throat. ‘I don’t think that will be necessary, Mikhail. My late husband was on the membership committee of that club. A lot of his friends are still members. I’m not making any promises, but how about I introduce you to some of them socially and see how you all get along?’
Mikhail’s fingers began to uncurl. ‘Really? That would be most kind of you,’ he said, smiling. ‘Very kind indeed.’
After lunch, Adam and Mikhail went into the library to talk business, leaving Daria and Karin alone.
‘Would you like the grand tour?’ asked Daria, seeing Karin’s eyes darting around. ‘We only finish the property six months ago, so some of it is still new to me.’
‘Oh, yes please.’
Karin was about to get a lesson in how vast wealth and good taste could make a home into a palace. ‘I am a big fan of your swimwear,’ said Daria, as she led Karin upstairs towards the bedrooms. ‘When Miki said he was due to meet Adam, I insisted you come along too. I read a lot of English magazines, you see.’
Karin immediately liked Daria, who seemed much more approachable than many of the Russian wives she had met in London. In fact, she seemed a little lonely. The dacha was surrounded by high walls, and there had been a platoon of security on the gate when they had entered. Karin suspected it would be like living in a gilded cage.
Still, as they moved through the house, Karin marvelled at every room. Daria’s dressing room was the most spectacular, filled with exquisite clothes of every kind. There was a climate-controlled closet for Daria’s collection of sable minks, and shelves of cashmere sweaters, colour-coded like the rainbow. The walls were lined with rails upon rails of designer clothes, many of them, judging by the cut and exquisite embroidered fabric, clearly couture. On another rack, Karin was pleased to note, were about thirty Karenza swimsuits and bikinis. Catherine the Great was rumoured to have over 5000 dresses, but Daria couldn’t have been far off that number, thought Karin, spying another glass closet devoted entirely to long gowns.
‘Wow,’ said Karin, unable to disguise her envy.
‘I got a taste for clothes when I was modelling in New York,’ she said frankly. ‘You see, I’m from a very small village near Kiev. My parents were poor. I used to help them on their fruit stall and I wore rags until I was spotted by a model agent. I guess now I am making up for all the dresses I never had when I was a little girl.’
What a transformation, thought Karin, looking at elegant Daria. It was hard to picture her in rags.
‘Do your parents still sell fruit?’ she asked, fascinated.
Daria laughed. ‘Mikhail has moved my parents into the next village. Now they do very little, but I’m not sure they prefer it that way.’
They walked out of the house and into the grounds, slowly sipping iced mineral water from Baccarat tumblers, the smells of the summer countryside – grass, pine and berries – filling the air. After ten minutes of walking they came to a lake filled with tiger lilies. Next to it stood a cherry-wood lodge with a black pointed roof and low eaves. It looked like a painting of imperial Japan.
‘It’s a Japanese teahouse,’ said Daria, beaming. ‘I come in here for calm.’
Her childlike pride in the little house made Karin smile. She was still reeling at the sheer scale and luxury of the dacha, but for Daria, this was clearly the jewel in the crown.
They stepped inside. It had the same cherry-wood floors as the main house. Karin followed Daria’s lead as she took off her heels and changed into a pair of white slippers. They sat down on a teak lounger with cream cushions and Daria poured some tea.
‘Excuse me for asking,’ said Karin, breathing in the cherry blossom from a tree standing just outside the shuttered window of the house, ‘but why exactly do you need calm? Everything seems rather good in your world.’
Daria’s expression instantly changed from the excited little girl playing house to the more knowing expression of a woman who had seen more in her life than most twenty-somethings. She fixed Karin with a searching look.
‘You are a woman dating a very wealthy man, Karin,’ she said frankly. ‘I’m sure I don’t need to tell you what I mean.’
‘I’m not sure I understand,’ replied Karin, taking a small sip of green tea.
‘My husband has a mistress,’ said Daria simply. ‘It has always been this way since very soon after we married, and until recently I have accepted it. In our circle, a mistress is on the list of things for men to have, like a yacht and a 737.’
Karin saw the sadness in her eyes, and for a moment she thought about her own recent paranoia. ‘I’m not quite sure having a mistress is acceptable,’ said Karin cautiously. ‘But rich men will always take what is thrown in front of them, that’s true. Men are weak, whether they come from Moscow or Manhattan.’
Daria nodded, staring at the branches of the cherry blossom tree waving slowly in the breeze.
‘I have never been worried before,’ she said quietly, ‘but his latest is troubling me. She lives in London, she is very beautiful. Her father is rich, important and connected.’ Her eyes had half closed, making them look feline, like a cat sizing up its prey. ‘I know she calls him all the time. I hear them talking on the telephone when he thinks I am asleep. I think it is getting serious.’
‘But Daria, you’re beautiful. Why would he look at another woman?’ she asked, genuinely curious and surprised at Daria’s candidness.
‘I am his wife,’ shrugged Daria, ‘a mother. This immediately makes me less sexy than a beautiful eighteen-year-old he sees twice a month.’
Karin nodded. ‘And is there anything else that makes you think it’s serious?’
‘We have a couple of apartments in your city, and I think she now lives in one of them.’