Acts of Love (4 page)

‘The wine could be better for such a fine meal. But you will have to put that down to my meanness.’ There was about her statement a hint of pride.

Arianne smiled. She was not going to fall into one of Artemis’s traps. She had been through tortuous conversations about money with her mother often enough in her life. The latest had been a dissertation about how it was cheaper for Arianne to take taxis on her visits rather than disturbing Hadley to bring out the Bentley. They both knew that most of the time these discussions were designed to make the point that Artemis was wealthy but frugal for all her wealth, and that she was not there to pick up the tab for Arianne or anyone else unless she so chose.

Arianne had learned to side-step any talk of money with Artemis. As she cut into the breast of the little bird on her plate
she could only think of how horrible it would be if her mother were to find out that she was nearly penniless, barely able to make ends meet with the salary she earned from Christie’s. How appalled she would be to see Arianne’s bed-sit in Belsize Park, to know that Arianne was left debt-ridden, homeless. How unacceptable that would be for Artemis. How shocked, distressed she would be, and yet scathing and unsympathetic that Arianne should have allowed that to happen to her. Arianne put from her mind any thought of Artemis finding out, if for no other reason than that she could not bear to upset her mother. She never could.

By the time the waiter removed the dinner plates the ladies had chosen their pudding: lemon mousse in a vanilla wafer cup for Artemis, a hot gooseberry soufflé dusted with powdered sugar for Arianne. Artemis was feeling quite mellow. She liked her wine, and wine liked her. It was good to her. It enhanced the good and the generous in her spirit rather than bringing out, as it did in some people, the mawkish. She plucked a cushion from the end of the settee and, plumping it up, placed it behind her back and leaned into it.

Arianne watched her mother. She seemed to be taking every nuance of the room into account, the people still dining, a couple who were just leaving. An ever vigilant waiter was quick to refill her glass and pad away silently. She smiled at him, at Arianne. ‘The secret, I think, is not to have any regrets. I have none. I hope you have none.’ She sipped her wine. ‘I think that’s what makes me unafraid of death and gives me such a disdain for old age. The body goes, the mind loses ground, but it can remain young like the heart if you will let it. That’s what I do. It is after all not a bad way to live, don’t you agree?’

‘Yes, I do,’ answered Arianne.

Although some distance away from Artemis’s table, Ben Johnson was sitting at an angle that gave him a clear view of the two women dining together. There was about them something very attractive, very appealing. Their presence in the dining room was seductive but subtle, not unlike the scent of a fine French perfume. He liked their being there. The room and lunch with his uncle was somehow enhanced by their femininity. When they left the room Artemis led the way. She stopped only briefly to smile at Ben and place a lovely, long, slender-fingered hand
on his uncle’s shoulder and was gone, had passed by them before they had a chance to rise from their chairs. Arianne was just a few paces behind her.

It was only dusk and now drizzly, but on such a dull grey day it appeared much later than it actually was, as if night had descended on Chessington Park. Ben Johnson and his uncle were standing next to Ben’s thirty-year-old 356B cream-coloured Porsche, its door open. The two men were having a last word before Ben headed back to London, when Artemis and Arianne walked into the courtyard just as Arianne’s taxi rounded the fountain and pulled up to the front door. They caught the men’s attention for a brief moment, and once more, something positive about the women registered with Ben.

Mother’s and daughter’s goodbyes were no better than their hellos, always just a little bit awkward. There was no kiss, no hug of farewell, not even a shake of a hand. Just, ‘Thanks for a lovely day.’ And an appreciative smile from Arianne.

‘You could do much more with yourself, you know. Have a better life. Be happy. If you were, I would sense it. And I don’t.’

A nod from Arianne, confirming that that was true. But she remained silent. Mother and daughter knew that what had been said and acknowledged was personal enough. To stop was easy; getting too deeply involved with each other’s lives difficult, something that held no interest for either woman. Arianne quickly ducked down and slid across the rear seat of the taxi. Artemis closed the door and waved briefly before turning back to the house even before the car spluttered back into life.

The taxi driver turned on his headlights and the last thing Arianne saw as the Ford Consort rounded the fountain was the sight of Beryl Quilty striding past her mother and making a beeline for Sir Anson. Arianne could not but smile.

The train ride back to London sent Arianne once again into that seductive British Rail limbo. It seemed almost a culture shock when she had to step into Paddington station and the real world again. She found, as she always did, taking the bus back to Belsize Park just a little depressing.

Arianne placed the key in the lock and turned it. She stepped
into the bed-sit. It faced the street and the light from the streetlamp was sufficient for her to find her way in the dark. She didn’t bother to remove her jacket, but sat down on the Empire day-bed and looked around the room. The bed was hers, a table, a chair; nothing else, except her clothes in the closet, some jewellery. It was a charmless room. She had taken it because it did at least have high ceilings and a large bay window, and the street was tree-lined, each a greater plus than anything else she had seen for the money she could afford. But, six months on, the shabbiness of the place – those dreadful cheap, slapdash repairs that landlords are so fond of, the damp patches, the dry rot, the foul-smelling drains, bathroom tiles that insisted on coming unstuck and plopping into the bath-water – was becoming more difficult to ignore.

Arianne removed her jacket but remained sitting in the dark for some time. She thought about her day with Artemis and Chessington House, that lovely meal in the dining room. She smiled to herself. There was no better company than Artemis, when on form. Arianne rose from the day-bed and switched on a lamp. The soft warm light was kind to the room. She was just drawing the curtains when the phone began to ring: a friend, a colleague who wanted to be more than a colleague. She declined his invitation for a late supper at his place. She looked at her watch. It had just gone eight o’clock. The cinema? No. A long warm bath, an omelette and a French film on video. That would do her just fine. She was just walking to the wire cage screwed to the back of the door to her flat, the cage that caught the post when it was pushed through the letter-box every day by Mr Kelly, the house caretaker who lived in the basement below her, when the phone began once again to ring.

The moment she heard his voice her heart began to race. It was always like that when he rang. She was instantly happy, wanting him, excited, feeling sensuous and sexy, and so very much alive. Part of the excitement was that she knew he was feeling exactly the same way. But they had only to say a few words to each other and then those feelings dissolved. The pain of being together without Jason was too great; it separated them. The occasional telephone call, his generous gifts, that was the only way they seemed able to be together now. Theirs had been a sexual
ménage à trois
that worked for three, but was impossible for two.

‘Are you well?’ he asked.

‘Yes, very well.’

‘I want you. I am always wanting you,’ he told her.

She could tell by the tremor of emotion in his voice that he meant it. She closed her eyes and felt the tears moistening her lashes. The sigh that escaped her lips was deep, and she forced back the tears. ‘Me too,’ she whispered huskily into the telephone.

There were several moments of silence before he cleared his throat and asked her, ‘Do you need anything?’

‘No, nothing.’

‘The job?’

‘Fine.’

‘The rest of it?’

‘My life, you mean? I’m doing the best I can.’

Again there was a lapse in their conversation and then he told her, ‘One can’t ask for more than that.’

She smiled to herself and felt considerably better. It was good to know that he understood.

‘Did you receive a small parcel from me?’ he asked.

She looked across the room at the wire post-basket hanging on the door, yet another bit of added ugliness in the flat. She could see a long, slim parcel wrapped in brown paper. ‘Hold on,’ she told him. She retrieved her post and parcel and then returned to sit on the bed.

‘I have now,’ she told him. ‘You don’t have to do this, Ahmad. Keep spoiling me with lovely, extravagant gifts.’

‘I know that. Would you deprive me of that pleasure?’

‘No.’

‘Little gestures to give you some joy, to remind you that we are still together, even if it is not the way we would like it to be.’

She felt that same old tremor of excitement she could get from his voice when there was sexual innuendo in it. A pause for some seconds, just long enough for her to get herself under control. When she did speak, there was a lilt in her voice. One he knew and loved. He was well pleased when she told him, ‘Hardly little gestures. Extravagant gifts that I adore receiving. Reminders of our times together. Thanks, Ahmad.’ She felt cheered talking to
him now. It was in her voice when she asked, ‘And what excuse did you conjure up this time?’

‘Merry Christmas. Will that do?’

‘In November?’

‘Why not?’

‘You’re quite right. Why not?’

Ahmad heard her fussing with the wrapping. ‘I have to go, Arianne.’

‘But I want to open my present and tell you how much I like it.’

‘Not now. Open the parcel. And call me in a few days’ time if you don’t like it. If I don’t hear from you, I’ll know it was the right thing to choose. I’ll call you from the New Year.’

Before she could respond she was left with nothing but the droning tone of a disconnected telephone line. One minute he was there on the other end of a telephone, the next he was gone. It happened five or six times a year. A birthday, some holiday, sometimes just because he was thinking of her. That was the only relationship they seemed able to have now. She never called him, though she had a number in Paris and another in Cairo where he could be reached if ever she needed him.

Arianne had needed him. But she never used the number. Once, several months after Jason vanished from their lives, she thought that they might be together, but it had been a disaster for them both. Jason came between them. He had been an integral part of what they were together. Now that he was gone, so was the erotic world they had dwelt in. They settled for distance and memories.

Arianne felt uplifted, not at all sad. They had come to terms with the way they were. She hung up the telephone. His gift. She concentrated on undoing the knot of brown cord, and then removed very carefully the brown paper. Exposed now: a long, slender box covered in silver wrapping with an all-over pattern of tiny red apples, each with a short, bright green stem and a single minute leaf. A bow of narrow silk ribbons: silver and gold, and red and bright green with long streamers. Arianne sat with it in her hand, enjoying the sheer prettiness of the gift-wrapping. To guess its contents was impossible. The wrong shape for a bracelet, too wide. A necklace? Too narrow. ‘Everyone loves a
present,’ mused Arianne, aloud to the empty and dismal room, and then carefully unwrapped her gift. Inside, resting on a long, slender white envelope, a red Cartier box. She opened it, and lying on white velvet was a beautiful key. Quite large, probably from an eighteenth-century box lock, of iron with a decorative oval filigree bow. The key to a handsome front door, or a garden gate.

Could it be? No, impossible, she told herself. But her heart was racing at the very thought that he might have found her a house. That she would once more have a home of her own. The possibility that she might get out of the depressing room she was living in caused her to realise what she had refused to admit to herself. She had not been living but merely existing in her bed-sit. Without Jason she had only been going through the motions of living these last years. A shiver racked her body and she felt suddenly more alive and eager to unravel the mystery of the key.

She tore open the long white envelope and removed the contents. She recognised Ahmad’s handwriting. The note was brief.

Arianne could hardly contain her excitement. She had felt a rush of blood, and placed the back of her hand to her cheek. She felt the heat, as if she had suddenly raised an instant fever. How had he known how unhappy she was living in this room? But he did know, she was certain of that. She was quite used to his extravagant gifts, his overwhelming generosity. It had been so much a part of her life these last five years that she had learned to accept it graciously. It was that generosity that had not allowed her to go to him with her financial difficulties. That and not
wanting Ahmad to know the extent of the business disaster Jason had left her with.

The house in Cuernavaca and all its contents had been the first thing to go. It had made hardly a dent in her financial troubles. The New York residence and two vintage aircraft had been the next things sold. There was a glimmer of hope that Jason’s creditors would wait, that the business could be saved. Or so she had thought, for a week, until the next writ had been served upon her. Her jewellery, then the rare books went under the hammer. They paid the firm’s employees who, having seen what she could not, accepted the money and walked away. What had kept her going was her imaginings: that one day Jason would return to her and make things all right again. She had put up a courageous fight, but in vain.