Authors: Roberta Latow
They were both gasping for breath. Tears were brimming in Cecile’s eyes. She loved him. That she could inspire such passion in Garfield inflated her ego. He was hers, this younger man, still so
handsome and virile. He could have any woman he wanted but enjoyed her beyond all the others. She knew that he was a hustler of women and what the price was to have him as a lover. She paid it, not too gladly, but paid it nevertheless. It was his love and adoration of her and fucking such as they had just had together that made it all worthwhile.
Cecile needed to bathe and change her smart little black dress. The violence of Garfield’s sexual assault had left her bruised, quite undone. When she returned to the sitting room where they had had their tryst, she found him sound asleep on the carpet in front of the open fire, naked, his thumb in his mouth, looking like an innocent child. Cecile’s heart pounded. Her mouth went dry. She loved him too much. No matter how much she deluded herself, she knew that to be a fact but she could live with it. She covered him with a cashmere blanket, stroked his hair, caressed his cheek and left her flat.
Laurent Touvier had not seen Eden Sidd for more than a decade when Max Kerwood approached him. The two men met in Paris at the Le Grand Vefours for lunch on that same rainy cold spring day. It was by no means an awkward meeting. They had always been great friends, accepting their respective roles in Eden’s life. If anything they had missed each other’s company during the parting of the ways after Eden had rejected Laurent’s offer of marriage and run off with Garfield.
They embraced each other and were ushered directly to their table. Max was amused by the number of people who rose from their chairs to shake Laurent’s hand and introduce him to the other guests at their table. Max walked ahead, smiling at this show of success and popularity, remembering when Laurent had been an unknown, a protégé of Leonard Bernstein’s.
Laurent had not disappointed Max. When the two men first met fifteen years before Max had earmarked him as potentially one of the greatest conductors of the twentieth century. He had not been disappointed. Every year that passed was proving Max to have been right as Laurent stunned the concert halls and opera houses of the world with his genius.
Max watched him from the banquette where he sat. Still so young-looking at forty-five, and handsome, so virile yet sensitive in his looks and deeds. A little more arrogant, possibly, but that was no bad thing. A form of self-protection?
Laurent sat down opposite Max and was offered a glass of champagne by the waiter. He raised his glass and gave the toast: ‘Eden.’ He said no more but pressed his lips to the rim of the flute and drank.
The two men studied the menu and made their selections; afterwards Max ordered the wines from the sommelier. They were a grand white for the first course, a Montrachet, with a noble Pétrus afterwards to go with their beef.
‘You’re being very generous, Max. You are either terribly pleased to see me and this is a celebration or else you want a very great favour,’ quipped Laurent.
‘Both,’ Max answered him with a smile.
‘Now we have that out of the way, tell me, how is Eden?
‘She’s well. Better than she has been in a long time, in fact.’
‘She never married?’ asked Laurent.
‘No. And you haven’t, I know. Still too taken up with long-legged beauties, glamorous young things hopeful for an offer of a wedding band. Isn’t that the scenario?’
Laurent gave Max a knowing smile and answered teasingly, ‘I am an agent’s delight, Max. My work is my life, public and private. All the rest is just public relations. I have on occasion come across Garfield incidentally.’
‘He’s been out of Eden’s life for more than a decade.’
‘I loved her. You will never know what it cost me when she turned me down to run off with him. But why talk about that now?’
‘You still love her!’ said Max with genuine surprise in his voice.
‘I don’t think much about love or Eden. If you don’t mind, subject closed,’ Laurent replied.
‘I’m afraid it’s not,’ said Max ruefully.
They exchanged glances across the table that revealed more than either of them could possibly have wanted. They were two men in love with the same woman and most probably for the
same reasons, one who had ultimately rejected them. Brothers under the skin.
‘You’re here about Eden. I should have guessed.’
‘Laurent, I’m organising a comeback concert for her. She would like you and the Boston Symphony Orchestra to be a part of her first appearance in ten years.’
‘It’s a long time to be silent in the music world,’ was Laurent’s cautious reply.
‘And if I were to tell you she’s as good now as she was at her peak, would you have another answer for me?’
‘I would have to hear her myself to see if she is as good as you say. Then we might have something to talk about.’ Laurent quickly added, ‘I said
might
, Max. I make no promises, is that clear?’
Max sat back in his chair, more relaxed about this meeting than he had expected to be. Laurent Touvier, one of the brightest and most exciting of the present-day classical conductors, had not said no.
When Eden had suggested that she wanted to come back with Dvorak’s Cello Concerto, Richard Strauss’s ‘Don Quixote’ and Lalo’s Cello Concerto in D Minor, with Laurent conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the venue the amphitheatre at Epidaurus, he had known that the most difficult thing would be getting Laurent to agree.
Max was all too aware how deeply hurt Laurent had been when Eden had refused to become his wife. The age difference of ten years had been her excuse. He was younger than her with a career still to establish. It was what he had not as yet experienced that was keeping them apart, she maintained. Then Garfield walked into their lives and swept Eden away from Laurent. The way Eden looked at Garfield, that passionate love that swelled between them, was something Laurent had wanted to experience with her but it had never happened, even Max had seen that. Oh, something had happened, a sensual and emotional coupling, but it had never been all-consuming for Eden as it had been for Laurent and still was for Max.
He looked up now from his plate of
foie gras
and sipped from a glass of Sauternes. ‘You never thought you could forgive her for
not loving you the way she did Garfield,’ he told Laurent. ‘You wore your heart on your sleeve and did not go down with dignity. You let the world know how much you had loved her, that she had toyed with your emotions and walked away into another man’s arms. But at the same time you acknowledged that Eden had done a great deal for your emergent career, how much you had learned from her, that your life was enhanced by the years you had been together, that you owed her everything. Think about that and leave it firmly in the past. She is a different woman nowadays and you a different man. She needs you, wants you for this return and maybe for love.’
Max, on mentioning Eden’s need for Laurent to love her, realised he had hit on something he had not fully considered before. In truth, having tossed Laurent away in the heat of her passion for Garfield, Eden had lost out on what should have been the love affair of her life. It most probably would have given her a lasting relationship and all she had missed: a husband, family, devotion from someone on equal terms with genius as herself, and not least success.
In fact all the things Max had wanted to give Eden himself but could not because she didn’t want them from him any more than she had wanted them from Laurent. That was the tragedy of Max’s life as it had undoubtedly been of Laurent’s as well.
So many things clicked into place as he sat opposite Eden’s former lover eating lunch. She had wanted those things from Garfield and her tragedy was that he could not and would not give them to her. It had taken her unhappy affair with him and her years of semi-seclusion afterwards to make Max understand how right he was about Eden’s really needing and wanting Laurent. He suddenly felt guilty for never having faced that truth and helping her to see it for herself. Selfishness, pure selfishness, because as long as she made no life with another man, she was his. But something in his heart told him that this time around Eden would be wiser with Laurent. Her experience of loving Garfield and her retreat of these last ten years would have matured her. This time she would recognise what she’d had and could have again with Laurent.
Max was somewhat traumatised by these revelations, but he loved her very much and wanted her to be happy and back on the world stage so he took a deep breath and remained strong, continuing with his lunch and trying to convince Laurent to meet Eden.
‘She’s giving you a second chance to become a part of her life. This return is no small thing for her. She chose you of all the conductors of the world who adore her as an artist and would be willing to work with her.’
‘Stop pushing so hard, Max. Where is she staying? At the Crillon?’
‘No. She’s not in Paris. She’s been in Alexandria for the last six weeks.’
Laurent felt a rush of excitement course through his body. The villa in Alexandria was one of Eden’s favourite retreats. Its owner was Magdi Sharif, an admirer with whom she had once had an affair. Laurent had met him when he himself spent a glorious week at the villa with Eden, Magdi, and Magdi’s glamorous and sophisticated friends in a house party that still remained one of Laurent’s most cherished memories.
‘The villa on the sea?’ he asked, his voice softer as was the look in his eyes.
‘Yes, Magdi’s villa. She’s always worked well there. No chance of any hassle from the music press about this momentous return.’
‘Let’s talk dates. My schedule is already set for the next two years. We would have to do it during one of my holiday breaks.’
‘Then you’ll do it?’ exclaimed a delighted Max.
‘I didn’t say that, Max. We’ll take this step by step. First let’s see if we can come up with a date, then I have to meet Eden and she must play for me. As it happens I have a break for the next three days. Get her here by then and arrange a meeting.’
‘You’ll have to go to her in Alexandria. That’s where she wants to meet you. I’ll arrange everything.’
‘I don’t think Eden is in a position to make demands,’ said Laurent, a hint of peevishness in his voice.
‘When has that made any difference to her when she wants something? Trust me, she’s not playing a power game here. If she
wants you in Alexandria, you can be sure that is the best place for you two to meet.’
‘She will not turn my life upside down again, I will not allow it,’ Laurent warned. He excused himself then and left the table.
Laurent had only three days and four nights before his next engagement at the Paris Opera House for Rameau’s
The Loves of the Indies
. It was to be a star-spangled production and he was ready for it. All the French opera world was anticipating its exploding volcano special effects and the extensive use of ballet dancers in a long and difficult opera that was rarely performed.
One more rehearsal would have been more advantageous to Laurent than running off to Egypt to confront Eden. And why do it anyway? He tried to rationalise his decision: because she needed him, because if she was still as great a cellist as she had been he wanted no other conductor to share her return. It belonged to him. The truth was that there had never been and would never be anyone in his life like Eden Sidd. He was still in love with her.
Laurent had never had the chance to confront Eden and hopefully reach a closure that would set him free from her at last. He fantasised that she would look old and have lost her sensuality, that easy charm she had always exerted over men. That the golden charisma of Eden Sidd would have turned to dross.
Yet here he was on a chartered twelve-seater Gulf Stream, jetting across Italy towards the coast of Egypt courtesy of Magdi Sharif’s generosity. Laurent looked across the empty seats to Max before he dozed off.
The day was slipping away, an orange sun hanging against a dusky sky, when Max awakened him. The plane had landed and they were ready to disembark. The heat was not overpowering but it was decidedly close and humid. Laurent stepped from the plane
on to the tarmac. He was feeling dizzy, not quite awake and yet very much so. Emotionally on edge. Seated in the rear seat of the Rolls-Royce that had awaited their arrival, Laurent realised he was excited to be once more in Alexandria. It had once been for him a romantic and mysterious city, sensual, lustful. Now that he was back he sensed a pulsating excitement that had been missing from his life for a very long time.
Magdi’s Mr Fixit took their passports and had them stamped at the gatehouse where they exited from the airfield. They sped away towards the centre of the city. The scent of Alexandria hung in the air: salt air from the sea; jasmine blossoms strung into necklaces and sold by vendors running along the roadside to catch romantic drivers; garlic from pots of frying chickpeas, and lamb and goat’s meat roasting over charcoal; ripe and over-ripe fruit sold off carts being pushed along in the traffic. Above all these the scent of sand and dust seeped into the car and stirred memories for both men.
The sunset was long, slow and luscious as the car threaded its way among the carts pulled by men, donkeys bearing loads, scooters honking their horns, dilapidated lorries and smart cars, and what seemed like thousands of men, some in western dress but mostly in long robes and wearing turbans on their heads. The sight of Egyptians, the sweetest of all the Arabs, moving through the streets as if in slow motion made Laurent feel close to the earth and mankind.
They crossed the city towards Marsa Matruch and the desert. Here the populace thinned out to a trickle of people. Once more he saw grand houses, mini-palaces that faced the sea behind high walls, closed gates and guards, luscious palm groves, stunning gardens. Magdi’s villa was one of them. Built at the turn of the nineteenth century by a famous French architect, it was huge, elegant, grand and strange all at the same time. Strange for the fact that it seemed to be isolated in another era: the years of opulence when Farouk ruled as King and the French and English incomers thronged to cosmopolitan Cairo and Alexandria. There was besides something amazingly romantic about the palace that Magdi chose to call a villa and its setting. Sections of it were constantly crumbling and being washed away
by high tides and strong waves. Magdi seemed sublimely unconcerned.
When the Rolls drew up to the entrance to the house a stream of servants emerged to greet Max and Laurent. They had obviously expected Magdi to be with the new arrivals but the Major Domo took charge in his place, arranging for their luggage to be sent to their rooms. He dispersed most of the staff and was about to usher Max and Laurent into the house when they heard music. Max placed a hand on the Major Domo’s arm and instructed him, ‘Henri, take us to Madame Sidd.’
Rather than go through the house, Henri Piquet led the two men through the garden, up one terrace and down another, past a swimming pool perched on a rock formation overlooking the long deserted beach and undulating aquamarine waves. They were drawn by the passionate sound of the cello, vibrant and compelling. Laurent was immediately overwhelmed by Eden’s mastery of her instrument. The years rolled back for him and he was once again young and untried. Then their passion for and dedication to music was something they shared and brought them to love. He wanted to weep with joy to be in her presence again and to hear her pouring her heart and the heat of her lust for life into her playing. He could think of nothing but seeing her again, bathing in her light.
Impatient now actually to see her, he turned to Max and the Major Domo and asked, ‘Where is she?’
Henri led them through a double-height conservatory with many broken panes of glass and a veritable jungle of exotic plants and trees. Orchids bloomed prolifically on branches. The warm sea breeze drifted in and stirred their blossoms. The scent of honeysuckle and jasmine filled the air. The men walked through the remains of the once magnificent glass house on floors of black and white marble mosaic. Laurent was enchanted once again to see the orchid house, finding it even more exotic and romantic a ruin than he had remembered. Ten years of salt air and neglect had only added to its rare beauty. The music grew louder. He was coming closer to Eden.
Laurent’s first sight of her was from the white sand of the
beach. He and Max had walked down to it through the orchid house’s missing wall and on to a terrace where they were forced to hop over a crumbling balustrade. The jewel-like blue-green of the waves rushed towards their feet, making them walk briskly towards the music. Then they saw her silhouetted against the backdrop of the gazebo, its Doric columns and domed roof stark against the endless sky. The sun slipping slowly towards the horizon cast a fiery light on Eden: a lonely figure barefoot upon the warm sand covering the folly’s floor. She was dressed in white gossamer, so fine that its hem rippled from the warm, sweet breeze and every stroke of her bow. Her eyes were closed. Eden was lost in her music and even more delectable than the last time Laurent had seen her.
Max was scrambling up a sand dune to reach her when Laurent caught up with him. ‘I should prefer to conduct this reunion without an audience. Will you grant me that?’
Max had little choice but to say yes, though something in his heart broke then. Once more he would sacrifice his deeper feelings for Eden so that she might find love with someone else. As he stood by and saw her one-time lover eagerly approach her he told himself he would have to be very strong because these two passionate souls would inevitably find each other again.
Laurent moved as quietly as a panther on the prowl after his quarry. When he stepped into the gazebo he leaned against one of the crumbling columns and listened for some time before Eden opened her eyes, saw him and stopped playing. She didn’t move from her chair, simply looked across at him. They gazed into each other’s eyes.
After several minutes of silence except for the sound of the waves rolling on to the beach it was Eden who spoke. ‘I can hardly believe you are here, just listening to me play. I know what it must have taken for you to come to my aid. I’m grateful.’
A gracious greeting, thought Laurent, his heart racing. He loved her still. She did not look a day older than she had on that horrible morning when she’d walked away from him. He wanted to hate her. Fantasised that he could walk up to her now and say how badly she had played. That he had only come to audition her and
tell her he would not conduct for her already publicised return to the concert platform. His head was swimming with horrible things he wanted to say to hurt her. His silence, his inability to lie to her, spoke volumes to them both.
Without uttering a word he walked over to her. He took her hand in his and she rose slowly from her chair. Laurent took her cello from her and placed it and the bow carefully in its case. Then he clasped her in his arms and held her, pressing her hard against him. His first words to her were, ‘It will be one of the finest concerts to be heard in this century. Welcome home.’
‘Then you will conduct the orchestra?’
‘Yes,’ he answered.
Eden reached up to ruffle his hair then stepped back into his arms. It was she who kissed him first. The warmth of her lips, the sensuality of that kiss, took him off guard. He gave in to the embrace and slipped slowly into a place where he felt warmed to the core of his being. The place where he had once dwelt before Eden walked away from him. Older and wiser now he understood that she was giving him everything she could at that moment. That she was sincere, that she loved him now as much as she was capable of loving any man. Could she, would she, sustain this moment of love for him? Questions were whirling round his head. He hushed them with a resolution to this time round take his love for Eden a day at a time.
She stepped away from their kiss in full awareness of the love and lust ignited by it. She found Laurent more attractive if anything, liking the stamp of success he now had about him: a certain arrogance in his step, the way he held his head. He had earned the right, she thought. She had not taken it for granted that he would work with her and felt humbled that he did not hesitate or play games with her about doing so. A lesser man might have.
Eden sighed. Reaching for her cello with one hand, she took Laurent’s hand in the other. Together they walked from the gazebo and down a dune to the beach. Taking the case from her hand, he carried it for her. She stopped and bent down and removed his shoes and socks, called out to one of the house servants who was
walking towards them and gave him the cello to take back to the house.
‘Let’s walk along the shore for a bit,’ she suggested.
The waves washed over their feet as with arms linked they walked along the beach. ‘Are you married? In love? Is there someone special in your life?’ asked Eden.
‘Not married, not in love, there is no one special in my life,’ he lied. It was a lie because as he’d discovered the moment he met Max for lunch only the day before, he was still in love with Eden and she would always be the special woman in his life.
The water swirling round their ankles was warm and inviting. Eden bent down and scooped some into her hands, splashing it over her face and shoulders. Then, looking happy and many years younger than her age, she waded into the water up to her waist. The white gossamer of her dress floated free around her. Laurent followed her in after peeling off his linen jacket and shirt. He stepped from his trousers and left them in a heap. When he was standing next to her, hand in hand, they waded out into deeper water.
There was an air of eternal youth about Eden that captivated him. It was there in her laughter, in her eyes, in the way she’d played. Laurent found it difficult to look away from her. It was Eden who broke from him to swim further out in the shallow water. Laurent did not follow but struck out in another direction. Later they did meet up and playfully splashed about for several minutes before, hand in hand, they walked from the sea.
Eden was naked under her dress. The wet, white gossamer cloth clung to her body, one Laurent had loved and indulged himself in, one he wanted now. He could not hold back but went to stand before her. He ran his fingers through her wet hair and smoothed it away from her face, then he caressed her breasts, pinched her erect nipples and raised the hem of her skirt so that the soft hot breeze might dry her dress and hide her lusty body. Almost immediately the material went opaque. A sensual tension was developing between them and had to be set aside. That was not what they were about, at least not for the moment. They had
hardly spoken to each other and there was much to be said between them.
Eden reached out to him and slid his wet shorts off him. She held out his trousers for him, dressing him lovingly rather than erotically. Once he was dressed and the heat of the late afternoon had dried out her dress, they clasped hands and headed back to Magdi’s villa. Finally they began to talk.
‘I never stopped thinking about you,’ Laurent told her.
‘Not always lovingly, I’m sure, and you would have been right,’ she replied.
‘It hurt too much, your dismissing me like that. Falling in love with Garfield.’
‘I know. It couldn’t be helped, Laurent. If I could have spared you that hurt, I would have. Garfield was a grand passion. You have to understand that I have no regrets about my affair with him. I am just lucky that I survived it. It taught me what love is not, opened my eyes to what it can be.’
‘What has prompted this return to the concert hall?’
They were mounting the steps to the terrace of Magdi’s house when she pulled him down to sit next to her. She heard the rustling of a man’s robe and called out in French, ‘Youseff, drinks, please. Champagne.’ Then turning back to Laurent she told him, ‘You’re very handsome, still as attractive to me as you have always been. Women must chase you.’
Eden was flirting with him and much as he wanted her, this time round he had every intention of seeing to it that neither of them would be hurt. Though he sensed it might indeed be satisfying to hurt her. Sweet revenge could be easily slipped into.