Those Wicked Pleasures (25 page)

Lara and Sam were doting parents. Bonnie went with them wherever they travelled. Lara was not going to miss a day of her child’s growing-up. And Bonnie? For all the attention she was given by her parents, she remained a
more independent child than most of her age. She could read and loved books. They transported a miniature library of Bonnie’s and Nanny’s choosing. Before she went to bed she read herself a story, or one to Sam or Lara if they were there at bed-time. And what she couldn’t read she made up as she went along. The great counter to living so much in an adult world was her many little cousins, who were always moving in and out of Cannonberry Chase. They were her friends and playmates: when the Faynes travelled they often scooped up one or two of them as company for Bonnie.

Lara was thinking of those bed-time stories with just the three of them, Sam, Bonnie and Lara, and what a happy family they were, how exciting a life they led, enriched by the presence of the child. Lara felt the warmth of Bonnie’s body. She stroked the child’s bare arm. So soft and smooth. She picked her small hand up and kissed the fingers. Bonnie gazed up into her mother’s eyes. Love for Lara gleamed in them. Lara rocked her gently and placed the little fingers in her mouth and sucked them, licked them. Bonnie giggled. Lara had had a marvellous pregnancy and an easy birth, and could not stop wondering at what it had produced. She suddenly realised it was time for her and Sam to have another child. Where was he? Strange he was taking so long, he should have been with them by now. She could hardly wait to tell him. She knew how pleased he would be.

Lara kissed her child and told her, ‘Mummy must get up, Bonnie. I have to bathe and change my dress.’

‘Why?’

‘I’m going out to lunch with Daddy.’

‘And me?’

‘No, not you, not today.’

Out came the Stanton pout. That was what Sam called it. A little nibble at the lip. Was that a tear brimming
at the eyes? ‘But you can come and wash my back, and help me to select a dress. Now how’s that?’

All was forgiven. The signs of disappointment vanished, to be replaced by a smile which broadened her face and lit up her eyes. Raggedy Ann was abandoned, and Bonnie sprung out of her mother’s arms on to her feet. Taking Lara’s hand in hers, the child tried to pull Lara up.

‘Dress-ups,’ cried the three year old. That was Bonnie’s second favourite game.

Poor Coral, thought Lara. And she was just getting the wardrobe together.

With one hand Bonnie was pulling Lara towards the bathroom, with the other she was struggling with her own buttons. Finally she dropped Lara’s hand to attack the closing on her blouse with both her hands. By the time they reached the bedroom there was a trail of clothes already on the floor.

‘Oh, no. Not dress-ups,’ wailed Coral.

‘Oh, yes!’ shouted an overexcited Bonnie, practically hopping from one foot to another.

‘And just look at the mess you’ve left behind you, Bonnie.’

The child stood in the bedroom in her little white cotton slip, one black patent-leather shoe on, one foot bare of even a white sock. Lara told her, ‘Bonnie, go back and pick up every one of the things you’ve left on the floor.’ Bonnie looked annoyed. Lara raised an eyebrow and gave her a glance the child understood. She ran back and retrieved her things and placed them neatly on the bed. Lara picked her up and swung her around, then dumped her unceremoniously on the bed, telling the child, ‘Don’t move, not until I’m in the bath and I call you.’

‘How many numbers is that? asked Bonnie, still giggling from her swing-about.

‘Count to a hundred. And no cheating. No one, two, five, nine, eleven, eighteen, thirty stuff, either.’

Lara received the Stanton pout, but Bonnie did start counting, and properly, for as far as she knew how to count. In the bath Lara relaxed in the hot water, paddling it with her hands and feet, pumping up as many suds as she could. No scented bubble-bath could ever generate enough bubbles for Bonnie. She called out, ‘One hundred, Bonnie.’ The door flew open and in charged Bonnie, clad only in a red ribbon that kept her hair off her face.

‘Oh, Bonnie, Nanny will be furious with us.’

‘Nanny
is
,’ came a voice from the bedroom.

Sam saw Lara coming towards him, and suddenly he could think of nothing but how much he still wanted her. She looked marvellous, more the sexy lady than ever. He could also see in her the young girl he had loved for as long as he could remember. She looked as she always looked, bewitchingly carefree and happy. She had her silvery blonde hair in a snood of criss-crossed black velvet ribbons. Large canary diamond earrings he had bought her for the birth of Bonnie dazzled at her ear-lobes. The suit, a short jacket of woven white silk over a tight black skirt, was form-fitting. High-heeled, black, patent-leather shoes, and the tiniest handbag of shiny black lizard hung from one shoulder on a fine gold chain.

He stood up and pulled a chair out for her. Then Sam bent forward and whispered, after grazing her cheek with a kiss, ‘I would like to fuck the ass off you. That’s the way you look, as if you want to be fucked to death.’

‘Ah, you’ve had your third dry. Guaranteed to remove all inhibitions known to medical science – and take out your memory.’ She lowered her voice to a near whisper. ‘You almost did just that last night.’ And she gave him a teasing smile.

‘I wish you looked less ravishing.’

‘What a strange thing to say.’ There was such a sober expression on his face, and Lara was prompted to ask. ‘Sam, is something wrong?’

‘I think we should go upstairs.’ He rose from his chair. She stopped him with a hand upon his arm.

‘Lunch. Have you forgotten we’re meeting the Portchesters? It’s for them I’m all dolled up. And you haven’t even changed.’

He sat down. The waiter arrived with Lara’s drink. There was something alien about Sam today. For a moment Lara had the sensation that the man opposite her was a stranger. She shrugged off the thought and became genuinely concerned for him.

‘Something’s wrong?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’re ill?’ Lara looked genuinely frightened, Sam was behaving so out of character. It was she now who began to rise from her chair, Sam who stopped her with a hand on her arm.

‘No.’ He knew what she was thinking, and quickly added, ‘And all the family is fine.’

Relieved, Lara took a sip of her drink and suggested, ‘We don’t have to go if you don’t want to. We can call the restaurant. Bill and Katharine will understand. Or I could go on alone. I would rather like to see them and catch up on the gossip.’

‘No.’ It was so emphatic it took her by surprise.

‘What
is
wrong, Sam?’ She replaced her glass on the table.

‘I want a divorce.’

Lara said not a word, remaining calm and gazing intently at him. Sam reached out towards her. She shrank back into her chair. They remained silent for some time. Finally Lara tried to speak. There was a catch in her
voice. She had to clear her throat before she could utter a sound.

‘Why?’

‘Does it matter why?’

Her voice was filled with shock and anger. ‘Of course it matters why! We spend the night with you telling me how much you love me. Our sex life is still rich and exciting. We have a child you adore, and an idyllic married life. And from out of nowhere you hit me with “I want a divorce”.’

‘Lara,
you
have an idyllic married life. I don’t.’

‘Just what does that mean?’

‘Lara, let’s just leave it at that.’

‘I insist.’

‘Don’t insist, Lara. I don’t want to hurt you. I love you. I will always love you. But I don’t want to be married to you.’

‘But we’ve been happy,’ she insisted with a sinking feeling.

‘No,
you’ve
been happy, Lara. I haven’t. Not for years.’

‘Do you mean to tell me that you’ve been pretending to be happy with me for years? That we have been living a lie. I can’t believe that. That’s disgusting.’

‘Yes, it is, and I can’t go on with it another day.’

Lara suddenly felt as if she was going to be sick. She covered her mouth with her hand, and went terribly cold. She wanted to run from the table, but her legs felt wobbly, as if they wouldn’t carry her. She heard Sam say as if from far away, ‘I didn’t mean to tell you it like this, in The Ritz Bar. Let’s go.’

‘No,’ she was quick to say. ‘A glass of water.’

They waited in silence until she had been served the glass of water and had drunk it down. The bar was empty, except for two men at separate tables some way from
where they sat. She felt strangely secure sitting there, as if beyond that room lay nothing for her but a world of desolation.

‘Why didn’t you say something?’

‘I did. You didn’t listen.’

‘You never gave me any indication that you were unhappy.’

‘That’s not true.’

‘If you were so unhappy with our marriage, then why did you stay with me for so long? That was cruel.’

‘Because I was besotted with you, loved you. You enslaved me. I was sexually addicted to you. Because I got lost in you and your happiness, and forgot about my own.’

‘And you’re not any more?’

‘No.’

‘But I love you,’ Lara said rather pathetically.

‘No, you don’t, you only think you do. It suits you to think you love me. What you do is use me.’

That was like the thrust of a knife into her flesh. ‘The way you use me?’ she retaliated instantly.

‘Yes, if you like.’

‘How can you say that? It makes our whole marriage a sham. Tell me that’s not true.’

‘It is true. Right from the beginning it was true, only we couldn’t face it. We eloped because we got carried away with the romance of the moment. It was what I had always wanted to happen to us. I wanted other things in life, but none more than I wanted you. For you it was convenient to marry someone who loved you beyond all else in life, and who was already like family. We got hooked on the idea of marriage, and failed to think beyond that. Your idea of marriage is a lifetime honeymoon. And I, fool that I was, kept thinking: “tomorrow … tomorrow she will take on the
responsibilities that go with marriage.” How many times have I told you I wanted a home and a family? And how many times have you tricked me into believing that you did too?

‘In three years, I have bought five houses in various parts of the world. We’ve lived in none of them. You never bought a glass for or hung a curtain in any of them. Cannonberry Chase is all the home you ever wanted. And for the first months of our marriage, it was great. It still is great, Lara, but it has never been
our own
home. Any more than the suite we keep at The Sherry Netherland, or my father’s summer house in Southampton, or my sister’s house in Cap Ferrat. For three years, like gypsies we’ve flitted around the world at our own whim and fancy, house-guests of our families and our friends. I conduct my business affairs brilliantly, considering I’m always on the hop, and I spend most of my time leaving forwarding phone-numbers. That’s our livelihood, our marriage, our existence.

‘When Bonnie was born, you promised we would settle in one place. I believed you. Yet again, I offered you a place of our own, anywhere you chose to live. You said yes, as you always do, and nothing changed. We simply travelled with a larger entourage, and I slipped even further away from myself and what I wanted, drawn into giving you more, always more, to keep you happy.’

‘And I? I never gave you anything?’

‘The most important thing in my life: Bonnie. I will always be grateful to you for her. But the truth of the matter is no, not much else, except the sex.’

‘Which it appears you still find irresistible, if last night, and this morning, and what you said when I walked into this room are any indication,’ she said bitterly.

‘You can’t keep me any longer with just your cunt, Lara.’

‘That’s too crude. I don’t deserve that.’

‘Yes, I think you do. But I should be more of a gentleman than to tell you. I’m just as much to blame for the failure of this marriage as you are. We were a safe haven for each other. We both took an easy way out. We were too selfish and spoilt to realise what we were doing – I’ll grant us that.’

‘We were the best of friends.’

‘We were. Still are, I hope.’

‘And lovers.’

‘More like users, satisfying our lust for each other. Users who don’t know how to love is more the truth.’

‘And what made you see the light?’

Sam remained silent for several seconds, then signalled to the waiter to order more drinks. After the waiter left, she insisted, ‘Well?’

‘Let’s just drop this. There really is no point. I want a divorce, and as quickly and painlessly as possible.’

Sam could see that she had guessed. Her eyes showed that she knew. The shock returned as sharp as when he first mentioned divorce. He wanted to feel sorry for her but couldn’t. He had given her everything, while she had left him with nothing. There was no reserve left in him. She had used him up.

‘There’s another woman?’

‘Yes.’

‘Christ, you’ve been deceiving me with another woman! How could you? I could never have betrayed you as you have me, Sam. You’re having an affair with another woman, and you’re still fucking me, playing the perfect husband and father. Another woman, that’s why you are leaving me?’

‘No. Get this right, Lara. I tried to spare you this but you insisted so get it right, goddamit! The only reason I was able to stay in our marriage at all was because I
met this woman. She knows how to love and give. Her love filled the gap I felt so deeply in our marriage. It sustained me. She gave me the home I never had with you. She has been more of a wife to me than you have ever been. She has always been there waiting in the wings, encouraging me to try harder to make our marriage work.’

‘You discussed our marriage with her?’ Sam didn’t answer. He appeared, under the hard, determined façade he was presenting to Lara, suddenly distressed. ‘That’s despicable.’

‘Yes,’ he admitted. ‘I make no excuse for that. I should instead have discussed us with us. But I couldn’t. You were still a love-obsession that I could not live without. I was unhappy with our marriage, our life together, but not with you. For me you were always the most exciting, seductive woman in the world. You never took your claws out of me long enough for me to escape. That’s why I couldn’t leave you for her long ago.’