When the Siren Calls (37 page)

“We need to act quickly. So get on that phone and get your flight booked.”

“Peter, please, I really don’t want to go back to Tuscany...not right now.” A heavy silence hung in the air, as Peter seemed to wait for an explanation. “It’s just the letter, I feel so awful, that it’s all my fault.”

Isobel could feel his stare, could see the look of puzzlement in his eyes; she pressed her fingers onto her eyelids to suppress the tears as he gently touched her shoulder.

“Peter, I’m really, really, sorry.”Forty-two

Peter had suggested that Isobel stay at Castello di Capadelli whilst she was in Tuscany, setting out the many advantages of being so close to her target. But even the idea of closeness was now an unbearable one to Isobel and she had protested without conviction, saying that it would be better to stay elsewhere until the furnishings she had ordered arrived. Eamon had plied her with a stay at the Villa Magda over the phone, his voice silky and tantalising. But the memory of her wantonness in Villa Magda came back to haunt her, and her imagination was seized by a vision of a rapacious Jay coming to her suite in the dead of night, engorged and hungry for her, ready to take what little that was left.

She stayed instead with Maria, nestled safely away in the hills, obliged only to explain her situation to her friend — a far pleasanter prospect than explaining her elusiveness to her lover. Nevertheless, she did her best to delay conversation of any kind, languishing in her room, deep between the sheets, too listless to eat or drink until Maria could suffer her suffering no longer.

She burst into the bedroom without knocking, pulled back the heavy curtains and threw open the windows, letting light and life back into the room.

“It is a beautiful day and Mia needs the sheets to wash, so you must get up out of your bed as well as your stupor,” she said, cheerful and brisk, as she set down a tray on the bedside table.

Isobel shielded her eyes from the sun and blinked in the unforgiving light. She pushed herself weakly up against the pillows, a shaft of light revealing the tear tracks that spidered over her face like ink, polluted by her make-up.

“Breakfast is on the table,” continued Maria, “though it is nearly lunch-time. And you need to be ready to go in thirty minutes. So up!”

“Go where?” asked Isobel feebly, sinking back into the covers.

“You can come with me to enjoy an afternoon on the beach at Forte di Marmi, or I can drop you at Pisa airport where you may continue to wallow in self-pity, the choice is yours.” Maria looked down at her sternly. “And by the way, you look awful.”

Isobel’s mood brightened noticeably as she helped pack all the picnic things into the car; the sun imbued her with warmth and feeling again after two days in the terrible cold stillness of the air conditioning. Maria made a pact with her not to talk about Jay or Angelo before they were comfortably on the beach, and they travelled to Forte di Marmi mostly in silence, Isobel lost in thought as Maria concentrated on navigating the hazardous roads.

The resort was a haven for the rich, with boutiques and jewellery shops to rival their Milanese counterparts and an abundance of beautiful young things, browning their lithe bodies in the white-hot sun. The two friends caused a stir as they walked onto the beach; Maria paid a man to carry their picnic baskets and bags and another to lie out their towels on loungers. She walked confidently in her bright bikini, her eyes hidden behind butterfly sunglasses, and Isobel walked thankfully in her shadow, wishing to share its impalpability. She found solace in the crowds that filled the sandy stretch, pleased to watch the holidaymakers playing with their beach balls and buckets and remember that life continued as it always had. For a time she watched the young and the vain walk along the sea’s edge, splashing their feet but keeping their designer costumes dry, envying their youthful assurance and their futures.

Maria poured them each a glass of chilled prosecco from the cool box, narrowing her eyes in impatient concern as Isobel’s introspection continued.

“To men, may they all rot in hell,” she said, raising her drink.

“But then what would we girls talk about?” said Isobel in a poor attempt to be blasé, and they tapped the plastic flutes as they laughed.

“So, have you heard from him?” asked Maria.

“I haven’t spoken to him, but he has left text messages. He knows I’m in Tuscany, but thinks Peter might be with me, so he’s waiting for me to call.”

“So you must call him and meet him,” said Maria, more as an instruction than a suggestion.

Isobel took off her sunglasses in shock. “I never want to see him or speak to him, ever again.” She said it hurriedly, taking a frantic mouthful of wine as if her statement were a resolution to be toasted.

“But if you do not see him, there will be no closure. You must confront him and denounce him, or have him explain himself.”

“What is there to explain?” Isobel said, anger in her voice. “You saw what I saw at the airport.”

“So, he has a girlfriend,” countered Maria dismissively. “And a wife, like you have a husband. So he is a cheat…”

The inference was not lost on Isobel and she rose up in indignation. “But, Maria, there is a difference. I have not lied to him. Everything he told me in London was a lie. He was lying while I was giving everything, doing everything. It was all lies.”

The fire seeped out of her with the words, and she shrank back into the towel in sadness. Maria touched her friend’s arm in response.

“We all lie, every day. If we were truthful all the time we would live our lives in perpetual conflict. Sometimes it is perhaps better to seek to understand first. Who knows, maybe he has an explanation, not one you will like of course, but maybe one you can live with.”

“If it were only that simple,” she said, pressing her temples, “to shout and scream and slap his face and have it done with. But I can’t. Peter wants me to see Jay. It’s why I’m here. To be some spy in the camp,” she said, spitting out the last words, unsure what to do or who to dislike.

“So that is what you must do. And in the process you will have your own answers too. It is perfect,” replied Maria, flopping back into the sunbed with gratuitous satisfaction.

“It is not perfect, and you know it.” Isobel fell back onto her sunbed too, directing her words into the endless blue of the sky. “Peter’s idea of charming Jay is not the same as Jay’s idea of being charmed. If I see him I will have to sleep with him.”

“And what is so difficult about that? Did you not say you ‘give your body but not yourself ’ to Peter? Well, do the same with Jay. And let it be the ‘meaningless sex without love’ that you are such an expert on.”

She flinched from the venom in Maria’s words as she recalled the platitudes of their conversation in the Alpha Lounge. Isobel turned her head away in submission.

“I’m sorry. When I said those things I wasn’t judging anyone. It just seemed a clever thing to say.”

Maria could not resist seizing the moment. “But you thought you were different from others, maybe better.” She threw back her head, seeming to relish her victory before sympathy quelled it into benevolence. “But it does not matter. Now it is about what you must do.”

“But I have a conscience,” said Isobel, unwisely ascending to her pedestal.

“And where was your conscience when you knelt before the king with —”

“Maria! Please. Whatever I’ve done or said, I can’t bring myself to sleep with Jay again. It would be so humiliating.”

Maria took her friend’s hands. “But you must see Jay, or confess to Peter. Which is the greater humiliation?”

Isobel lowered her gaze, imagining the scene with Peter, as she had so often since her betrayal. She could not confess, she could not even imagine confessing, and as Maria looked into her eyes, she knew it too.

“You do not need to destroy your marriage. You must see Jay and do what Peter wants.”

Isobel opened her mouth to contradict her, already formulating a hopeless excuse, but Maria hushed her with a gentle touch.

“If you must take Jay to your bed, do it with a cold heart but a warm smile. Detach yourself from the act and rise above it. You will not be subjugating yourself to Jay’s will, not like before. No. You will be subjugating him to your will, to Peter’s will. It will be a victory for both of you. A victory over Jay.”

“I don’t know,” said Isobel, devoid of hope. “Peter may be the victor, but Jay will not be vanquished. He is too strong, too… indomitable. He might hit back, lash out, and who knows what damage he could do.”

“But he is married. He has as much to lose as you,” Maria said.

“He says his marriage is a sham.”

“But of course he does. It is what every cheat says, that their marriage is meaningless.” Isobel squirmed once more beneath her words. “And why is that not another lie? And even if there was some truth in it, he is too clever to lash out, because it achieves nothing for him.” Maria threw her arms out as she said it, dashing half a glass of prosecco into the sand.

“You can do it, Isobel. And Peter need never know.”

Isobel was silent for a moment, hesitating to convey her largest and most unfounded fear.

“Maybe Peter already knows,” she whispered, her head down.

“About Jay? What has he said?” asked Maria, turning in sharp consternation.

“That’s just it. He hasn’t said anything. But I have given him so much cause to that I don’t see how he can’t know.”

Maria shrugged. “You are safe for now, I think. What husband does not confront his cheating wife? But you must see Jay and do what you have to do, or Peter will surely ask why you didn’t. And then he will know.”

Isobel nodded and lay lifelessly on the lounger, falling back into herself at the prospect of what was ahead.

Maria stood up, stretching and scanning around to ensure she was noticed before lying down to pose seductively on her towel, enjoying the feeling of being watched and desired, and of being envied. Half an hour passed before she tired of displaying her beauty and turned to her friend again.

“Now tell me,” she said as Isobel looked across to her, “how can I bring the sparkle into your eyes on this beautiful day?”

But Isobel’s reflections had darkened her mood, and she was not ready to come back to the light. “I just want things to go back to the way they were,” she said, emphatic in her weakness.

“To a life with love and caring but no passion? Can you really go back to that, now you know what true passion is?”

“Maybe I will just have to settle for less than everything,” she replied with a bitter laugh.

“And look for more passion elsewhere?” asked Maria sceptically.

“No, not me. I thought I could do that, have Peter for love and Jay for passion. But now I know I can’t. So I will just have to go back to Peter, if he still wants me, and just accept him as he is.”

“And why would he not want you?” Maria looked at her in exasperation.

“There’s something I haven’t told you,” said Isobel quietly. “Peter has an assistant in his office who follows his every move with her tongue hanging out. I have seen how she looks at him, like a puppy wanting to be stroked. She’s quite pretty, in a petite way, and much younger than me.”

“But Peter is devoted to you, he doesn’t notice other women,” said Maria impatiently. “Of this you were sure, more sure than anything else. Am I not correct?”

“I sometimes doubt every belief I once held. I think that if I were to give him some reason to doubt me…and if she ever found out that I was not the perfect wife that Peter must tell her I am, well, he would have to be very strong, because I think she would stop at nothing if she saw real opportunity.”

Maria reached out to her friend and took her hands.

“Isobel, if I say something to you, will you promise not to take it the wrong way, and not hate me?”

“You mean I deserve everything I get,” said Isobel, trying to make light of it and afraid of how earnest her friend looked.

Maria squeezed her hands tightly. “Have you thought that with you and Peter, that you are perhaps getting back what you give out? That you love him and care for him and do everything for him, but that you don’t make him feel special. Not like a man wants to feel special.”

“What do you mean?” said Isobel, already flinching in expectation.

“Well, for Peter, he looks to his work to make his chest puff out, yet he has a beautiful wife. Why does it not puff out for you, like it does with Arnie for me? You told me about the time in Bangkok. Maybe Peter has needs too, but he loves and respects you too much to express those needs, as he perhaps tried to on your honeymoon. And maybe now, it is simply that you are both in a rut, and one of you must take the lead out of it. And if you do not, well, then maybe you create opportunity.”

“And you think I am responsible for creating this…opportunity?” asked Isobel timidly.

“Not creating it, no, but perhaps contributing to it. If this woman is clever, she will see what you are not giving Peter and she will smell opportunity. And then some day, maybe not far off, perhaps Peter will have some great victory, and she will be there watching, waiting, and she will throw her arms around him in celebration. And she will look into his eyes like she believes he is a god, knowing that men believe themselves gods in moments of triumph, and at that moment he would need to be very strong not to take the gift that is being offered up to him.”