‘Good God,’ said Phaedria, standing still, looking round the black and white bedroom, its massive circular bed with the battery of switches and lights set into the head, its arced video screen, the mirrored ceiling, the jungle of plants and brilliant tropical flowers all along one wall, the aquarium of dazzling sea fish built in all along another, ‘this is no place for a virgin.’
‘Don’t you like it?’ he said, and he looked so anxious, so near to hurt, so desperate that it should please her, that all her nervousness left her and she sat down on the bed, kicking off her shoes, smiling up at him.
‘I love it,’ she said, ‘and I think I’m going to love you.’
Michael took off his jacket, his tie, his own shoes, threw them on the floor, lay down on the bed, and pulled her up beside him. He took her in his arms and said, ‘Now let’s just quit worrying. Let’s just go with it.’
There was a bad moment: after he had kissed her for so long and with such delicious slowness she felt as if she would scream if she couldn’t have more of him; after he had removed her clothes and his, and lain for a long time, just looking at her; after he had stroked her and smoothed her and played with her pubic hair and kissed and teased and sucked at her nipples; after she had, relieved at her own hunger, climbed on to him, lain there, rising and falling slowly on to him, feeling his penis silky hard against her clitoris, feeling the fire mount, heat, roar; after he had turned her suddenly, looked into her eyes, said her name over and over again; after he had moved down, kissing, teasing, caressing her with his tongue and she had lain, her eyes closed, thrusting herself at him, rhythmically, gently; after she had felt her whole body turned liquid, white hot, and he moved up again and slowly, tenderly sank into her; then, suddenly then, a face swam into her consciousness, a pain-filled, frightened, dying face, and she tensed, tightened, froze. He drew away from her then at once, looked down at her, said, ‘Look at me, Phaedria, don’t think, don’t think, just know that I love you.’
And she opened her eyes again, looked into his, different, eyes, loving, concerned, patient eyes, and the moment was gone and she smiled and threw back her head; arched her body, drew him in, in, all the great longing urgency of him, and he groaned, cried out suddenly and came, clutching at her, and she was left, still suspended, alone, empty, and yet happy, oddly triumphant.
‘Oh, God,’ he said after a moment, and there was a sob in his voice, ‘oh, God, I would have given the world for that not to have happened.’
And no, she said, no don’t mind, don’t, it doesn’t matter, it more than doesn’t matter, it was good, it was the right thing, I needed to wait, please don’t be sad.
‘Very well,’ he said, moving from her, lying on his elbow, looking at her with a wealth of love, ‘you shall wait. But not for long. I promise you not for long.’
‘Now,’ he said, after they had breakfasted off brioches and strawberries and orange juice laced with champagne, and coffee he had made himself with enormous care and exactness on his espresso machine, ‘now I think we should go out. I want to take you for a walk in the park, and then I want to take you for lunch at Le Cirque and then I want to bring you back here and make love to you again, and then I want to take you shopping and then I want to take you to tea at the Plaza and then I want to make love to you again, and then I have tickets for
My One and Only
, and then I thought we could have supper at Un Deux Trois and then we can come home and make love again, and we can see the New Year in in an absolutely outstanding, shattering, earth-moving, mind-blowing way. How does that grab you, as they used to say? If you trust me to deliver the last,’ he added slightly soberly.
‘I trust you utterly and it grabs me beautifully,’ said Phaedria, leaning forward, kissing him tenderly, ‘the only thing is it’s an awful lot of eating. I shall get fat.’
‘No, you won’t, as long as we keep screwing. Do you know how many calories a good screw uses up?’
‘No, I don’t think I do.’
‘Three hundred. At a modest estimate.’
‘Three hundred calories isn’t really very much food.’
‘Then,’ he said, lifting his hand, stroking her cheek with infinite gentleness, ‘there will have to be still more screwing.’
‘I have a New Year present for you,’ said Michael.
They were sitting in the Un Deux Trois, encased in a warm, bright pleasure that was almost tangible, smiling indulgently and detachedly at the increasingly frenetic revelry around them; Michael has been drawing hearts on the paper tablecloth with the coloured crayons provided by the thoughtful management, and writing ‘I love you’ in ever larger and more florid letters on every spare inch of it.
Phaedria looked at him, and felt a moving and stirring in her heart that she knew as more than tenderness, more than sex, more than love itself; that was a warm, melting, joyous longing to take him to her, to be with him, of him, always and for ever, to become part of him and to have him part of her.
‘I love you,’ she said, and it was the first time she had said it, and there were tears in her eyes, ‘I love everything about you.’
‘Now listen,’ he said, ‘you didn’t get your present yet. It might put you right off.’
‘No,’ she said, very serious, ‘nothing in this world could put me right off you.’
There was a catch in her voice; he looked at her startled, saw the tears, felt his own heart lurch.
‘Hey,’ he said, ‘don’t start crying. You’ll be throwing up on me next.’ But in spite of the lightness in his voice, he was emotionally shaken too; his own eyes felt suddenly burning and moist.
‘This is ridiculous,’ he said, smiling at her slightly shakily, ‘we are supposed to be enjoying ourselves. Do you want me to shred up this cloth to dry your tears?’
‘No,’ she said, laughing suddenly, taking his hand, kissing it, ‘don’t, please don’t. I want to keep this cloth for ever and ever, to remind me of when I was perfectly happy.’
‘I intend to see you stay perfectly happy,’ he said.
‘No, you can’t, even you can’t do that,’ said Phaedria, serious again. ‘You can’t stay up there, for ever, balancing on the tip of the world. You have to come down, take on real life, let other people in.’
‘That’s dumb. That doesn’t mean you can’t be perfectly happy. I love other people. I’m happy to share you with them.’
‘Oh, all right, we’ll stay perfectly happy. But just now I am extra perfectly happy. How’s that?’
‘That’s OK. Now can I give you your present? Maybe I should get a spare tablecloth or something just in case it makes you cry again.’
‘You can, and I won’t need a tablecloth. Please give it to me.’
‘All right. But now I come to think about it, maybe we should have some more champagne first.’
‘Goodness. It must be quite a present.’
‘It has, I hope,’ he said, with his oddly gloomy smile, ‘a certain style to it.’
He ordered another bottle of Bollinger; poured some out, raised his glass to her. ‘Happy New Year, honeybunch.’
‘Happy New Year, Michael.’
‘OK. Here we go.’
He opened the briefcase he had under the table, pulled out a large envelope, handed it to her. She looked at him, smiled doubtfully, opened it slowly. A big glossy folder was inside it.
‘Michael, what is this?’
‘Look at it. You can read, for Christ’s sake.’
She looked. ‘Lederer and Lederer’ it said in embossed letters on the cover ‘Real Estate Agents. Madison Avenue, New York’.
‘Michael,’ said Phaedria, looking at him, ‘Michael, what on earth have you been doing?’
‘Buying you something to play with. Go on, look inside.’
She opened the folder slowly. A photograph fell out. A low, white house, two storeys high, with a veranda running its length. Another photograph: paddocks, with horses; another: a stableyard.
‘Michael, what is this? Where is this? No, I can’t read, I forgot to tell you.’
‘It’s a house. You will have heard of houses, I imagine. This particular example is for you. It’s in Connecticut. Horsy country, or so I’m told. The horses are an optional extra.’
‘And you’ve actually bought this for me?’
‘Well, I didn’t have anyone else in mind.’
‘Michael, this is just amazing. I just don’t know what to say.’
‘You could say you like it.’
‘I like it. I love it. I adore it. But why did you do it?’
‘That’s a pretty dumb question, I’d say. I bought it for you because I love you. Because I thought you’d be pleased. Because I know you like horses. I think they’re pretty scary myself, but maybe you can convert me. Because I reckoned if I was to keep you happy over here you’d need a few of them around. I don’t have too much room for stables in the apartment. Because – oh, well, I suppose because I could just see you there. Because I wanted you to have it. And I thought maybe you might invite me down occasionally as your house guest.’
‘I might. Are you really scared of horses?’
‘Shit scared.’
‘I didn’t think you were scared of anything.’
‘Honey, you just got yourself laid by the biggest coward in the US of A.’
‘I don’t believe it.’
‘It’s true.’
‘What else are you scared of?’
‘Oh, all kinds of things. Spiders.’
‘Spiders!’
‘Yup. The dentist. Getting sick. Right now I have a new one.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Losing you.’
‘Oh,’ said Phaedria, looking at him, a whole loving heart in her dark eyes, ‘you don’t have to be scared of that. Not in the very least.’
‘I’ll try to believe you.’
‘Oh, God,’ she said, returning to the brochure, thumbing through the particulars, gazing at the pictures, ‘this is just so beautiful. I love it, I love it. But, oh, Michael, this is too much of a present. It’s spoiling me.’
‘I am planning on spoiling you,’ he said, ‘a lot. Every day for the rest of our lives, if I can manage it.’
‘Well, you’ve certainly made a good start. It is just the most lovely place, and the most wonderful thing is it’s so exactly what I would have chosen myself. It’s quite quite different from Marriotts and yet it has the same kind of feel. I don’t know how to thank you.’
‘I’ll think of a way. When did Julian buy Marriotts?’
‘Oh, years and years ago. When he was married to Eliza.’
‘And how many gee-gees do you have there?’
‘About a dozen altogether. Two of my own. One, my own special favourite, she’s called Grettisaga, is in foal.’
‘She is? When’s it due?’
‘Oh, in the spring.’
‘Does she have to go to hospital to have it?’
‘No, I thought a home birth would be better.’
‘And why do you love this pregnant lady so much?’
‘I’m not sure. She’s beautiful. She’s powerful. She’s seen me safely through a few scrapes. I just love her.’
‘Well, maybe you can find me a very very ploddy old creature and try and convert me.’
‘I’ll try.’
‘I tried to learn once before. Carol thought I might make a good accessory for her behind the hounds. It was terrible. I just
fell off over and over again. In the end, I decided I was over twenty-one and I didn’t have to carry on with it. She was terribly cross. I liked the clothes, though,’ he added, brightening up. ‘I thought they were terrific.’
‘There’s a tailor’s in London,’ she said, ‘called Hunstman’s, where they have a wooden horse to sit on, so you can make sure your breeches fit properly.’
‘Really? Would you take me? Maybe I could buy their horse, and not worry about having to get along with a real one.’
‘I don’t think they’d sell it to you.’
‘Oh, nonsense. Everything has its price.’
‘Even you?’
‘Even me.’
‘And what exactly is your price, Mr Browning?’
‘To you, Lady Morell, a special knockdown offer. A big double bed and you sprawled across it with absolutely nothing on at all, and I’m yours for life on easy terms.’
‘All right,’ she said, standing up, holding out her hand. ‘Come on, let’s go. I want to take possession right away.’
‘Please let me come to the Bahamas with you,’ he said.
‘You can’t,’ she said, ‘I don’t think my body would survive it.’
‘I could leave your body alone.’
‘You wouldn’t.’
‘You’re right, I wouldn’t.’
They were lying in bed on the afternoon of New Year’s Day; they had been skating in the Rockefeller Centre and lunched off the street stalls on pretzels and knish, and cans of root beer; they had planned to go on down to Chinatown, but Michael had suddenly looked at Phaedria as she sat in the cold sunshine, the light spangling her wild hair, biting hungrily into her food, and had felt a wave of longing for her so strong it caught his breath. He had reached out and touched her face and without a word she had stood up and taken his hand and they had walked swiftly, urgently all the way up to Fifth Avenue, up to the apartment block, into the lift, up into the duplex, the bedroom, and then facing one another, still not speaking, their eyes fixed on one another, they had torn off their clothes and fallen, hungrily, greedily on to one another and the bed.
Later he had got up, she had been half asleep, and made
some hot chocolate and brought it to her and had sat beside her, feeding her morsels of crumbled chocolate flake bar, occasionally bending to kiss her breasts.
‘I like them better small,’ he said. ‘They were nice big, and I look forward to seeing them big again when we have our children, but right now I like them small.’
‘How many children are we going to have?’ she asked.
‘Oh, not too many. Around a dozen.’
‘Six of each?’
‘No,’ he said, ‘twelve the same, all girls. Just like their mother.’
‘I love you,’ she said.
‘I love you too,’ he said. ‘Now you see, I was right, wasn’t I?’
‘What about?’
‘About us.’
‘Yes, I think you were. Was –’ she hesitated – ‘is – well, is the sex all right?’
‘No,’ he said, smiling at her, into her eyes, ‘no, it isn’t all right. It’s lovely. Beautiful. You’re very special.’
‘Really?’
‘Really. Don’t look so worried. What a naïve question.’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I know, but I am naïve, sexually. I do worry about it. I’ve only had – well, one lover really. Often I didn’t even want him.’