Objects of Desire (32 page)

Like almost everyone else when Page had said she was sailing the Atlantic with two girlfriends, Oscar told her, ‘You’re an outstanding woman.’

‘I know!’

‘And Anoushka and Sally sound terrific.’

‘Oscar, you’ll be surprised by this friendship. We’re all so completely different from each other but somehow we came together and have become best friends, closer than sisters. When we sail into Mustique, it will be very nearly a year since the first time we met. Almost to the day, come to think of it. A year, Oscar, and we will have been through a lifetime of changes in ourselves and our lifestyles. We will have been through things together that none of us could have faced alone.’

She told him all about Sally and Anoushka, the most intimate things she knew about them. He listened and understood the bond that tied them together. Was not such friendships, such togetherness, what the human condition should be? He had had friendships, still did, and was close to his male friends, but there were no bonds nearly as strong as he was hearing about from Page.

She said, ‘It’s not disloyal of me to tell you these intimate details of Anoushka and Sally’s lives, because I want you to know them and what we have been through together. Soon, in a matter of months now, our voyage across the Atlantic will be over. But not our friendship.

‘It’s already happening, our separation. Each of us is going our own way, entering a new phase of our life with a new companion of the heart. Sally will marry Jahangir and return to the world she loved, waiting for her man, having fun and parties and playing with life, having the grand lifestyle. Anoushka has Piers if she wants him, and can be a wife and mother again. And I have you.

‘I’ve no doubt that Anoushka and Sally feel as I do, that no matter how much I love you, or they love their men, no matter if we will be living very different lives and probably separated not by miles but continents, we will always be there for each other as friends. We would not want to let that go.’

‘I wouldn’t want you to. They’re an essential part of your life, and as such will now be part of mine. They’ll
always be welcome with us, wherever we are, and surely you must understand that I would appreciate your going to them whenever you like, for fun, or need, or even for no reason at all. I understand what you have going with your best friends. Because we’re making a life together, doesn’t mean you have to give up a life of your own.’

‘I knew you’d feel that way but it makes me even more happy to hear you say it. Any day now they will be sailing into harbour and then I’ll be joining them for training here in the Aegean.’

‘Do they know about us?’

‘That you’ve returned? No.’

‘Don’t you think we should tell them? A call, make contact in some way.’

‘No. We’ll surprise them.’

‘Surprise? Am I right in thinking that they knew you were waiting for my return but had doubts that it would happen?’

‘Something like that. I’m afraid neither one of them is very strong on faith. They saw our love as impossible.’

‘Page, say it. They didn’t think I would give up the church for you. In time they’ll understand. I gave it up for you, and for me, and for love. Because I believe I can serve us and humanity and God out of the cloth better than I can in it. I wouldn’t want you, or them, to think you have to carry the burden of such a monumental decision. That, my dear heart, is all mine, and in fact no burden at all, only a merciful release.’

‘We won’t have to tell them that, Oscar. They’ll only have to meet you, see how we are together, and know you for a few hours to realise all that.’

‘OK, we’ll surprise them,’ he told her. ‘And Anoushka?’ he asked.

‘What about Anoushka?’

‘Will she marry Piers? Or is she still not over her husband?’

‘I don’t know. Piers is a very interesting man, and Anoushka is beautiful, complex, much more than she seems. She has a great deal going for her but I’m not sure what she wants. Piers wants marriage, but can he pin her down?’

‘Can I pin you down?’

‘Is that a proposal?’

‘It is if you say, “yes, Oscar, I’m pinned”.’

Page gave a sexy toss of her head, her shoulder came forward just enough to tease. His already melting heart dissolved. She gave him a throaty, breezy, laugh and, throwing her arms round his neck, she told him, ‘Yes, yes, yes, Oscar, I’m pinned, I’m pinned, I’m pinned.’

She ceased covering him with kisses only long enough to lead him to the bedroom. They sated themselves with sex in the delicious knowledge that what they had together was going to be forever.

Afterwards Oscar said, ‘When you sail off on your training cruise, I’ll go into Athens, and get the details worked out so we can be married here in Greece. Would you like that, or would you prefer to be married
in the States, China, Timbuctoo, anywhere? It’s our first and last wedding.’

‘I’ll marry you wherever you choose. I don’t care. You work it out, and tell me where and when. Surprise me. I did the house, you do the wedding.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Very sure. Only one thing – I’ll do the flowers!’

‘I’ll talk to the captain of
Black Orchid
and find out his schedule, where you’ll be moored and for what length of time.’

‘You do understand, Oscar, about my not wanting to give up this chance to sail the Atlantic? Aside from wanting the thrill and experience of the crossing, and not wanting to let the girls down, I want to feel the vastness and power of the ocean, that sense of aloneness with nothing but myself to pit against the elements.’

‘Of course I do. I want you to make this voyage. I could never deprive you of such a great experience.’

‘I think I knew that.’

‘I’m sure you did.’

‘During this training period, sometimes we’ll only be day sailors.’

‘Then at those times you can be a night wife. We’ll work it out so I’m where you are when you’re free. You’re not to worry – sailing first, and I’ll fit in. That’s from now until November when you hope to make the crossing. I’ll be at the other end. We’ll have Christmas in the Caribbean.’

‘You’re wonderful,’ she told him.

‘One has to be if one has an adventuress for a wife.’

‘What about you and your work?’

‘I’m not thinking about me or my work for a long time. I’m thinking about you and me, and just enjoying life.’

‘Can we afford that?’

‘Yes, I think so. And your greenhouse. We’ll make that my wedding present to you. I’m actually quite comfortably off. My books make quite a lot, and if truth be told, for most of my life I never needed money so there’s my savings to live off.’

‘I have some too, quite a bit, to throw into the pot.’

‘When the sailor comes home from the sea, we might throw a party in celebration of our marriage.’

‘A small party. You really wouldn’t mind that?’

‘Why small? Why would I mind? We no longer have to be discreet, and I have no intention of being reclusive. A large party with all your friends and mine. I want the whole world to meet my wife.’

They were on the terrace off their bedroom. Page raised her face to the sky and threw her arms wide. ‘I’m reaching for the sun, I’ve already got the moon and the stars. Oh, Oscar, there’s nothing like having it all!’

She danced around him and he laughed and laughed and thought himself the luckiest man in the world.

Chapter 21

Anoushka was the first to arrive at Nice airport. She had flown Concorde from New York to Paris, had stayed there for two days to meet a Japanese writer friend of Hadon’s and to pick up a contract to translate a book of his poems, then took a plane to Nice. She was late but so were the others.

Page was flying in from Athens and Sally from London. Start off as we mean to go, they had decided. No seeing-off parties, no grand gestures or fare thee wells from loved ones. That was the way they wanted it and that was the way they were going to have it. With that decided it made sense to wait for each other in the airport. They would take the first step towards their long-awaited journey across the Atlantic together, arms linked, best foot forward.

Twelve noon, give or take an hour, Nice airport, 11 November. The women had worked out their schedules, they’d be there. At midnight, all hands on board
Black Orchid
, anchored off Cap d’Antibes. At dawn on 12 November they would set sail: Marseille, Gibraltar,
Tangiers, Casablanca, Las Palmas in the Canary Islands last stop before the crossing.

Anoushka watched people rushing into the terminal, shrugging off rain, shaking dripping umbrellas.

A better day would have been preferable. It was bucketing down, almost dark enough outside for street lamps to be lit; cars pulling up to the entrance of the terminal were already using headlamps. Not the best of weather for travelling or to sail away in. Never mind, for Anoushka it might have been sunshine. Nothing could mar this day for her. Butterflies in the stomach, a constant tingle of excitement, eyes twinkling with delight and anticipation. A rain storm? What chance had that of dampening her spirits?

She was watching every face in search of Page and Sally. After a period of time she felt hypnotised. Her eyes became heavy. She decided to close them, rest for a while. A cat nap would have been nice but she found it impossible to drift off. Instead she ran through a mental review of the last few incredible months, the most amazing time of her life.

Neither she, Sally nor Page had stopped for a minute. Their lives were running in high gear and top speed, and it had been one exciting event after the other. Learning to sail under the guidance of Captain Rab had been thrilling. She had had no idea she would take sailing to her heart as she had. Sally had been a surprise too, far more accomplished than anyone imagined she would be. Page was simply brilliant. They had been dedicated pupils, learning
fast, working incredibly hard, sailing so well. And
Black Orchid
: what a boat! It was almost as if she had waited to be sailed by women, playing with the wind and the sea, she the mistress and they her acolytes.

The cruise to Greece and Hydra had been hard work for the yet inexperienced Anoushka and Sally, but it had been thrilling too. It was really then that Anoushka found her stride as a sailor, then that it became a part of her life forever. Cruising through the Greek islands and down the Mediterranean coastline of Turkey had been memorable. Then she thought about those first few days when Page had joined them. It had been as if she had been sailing with them right from the first. Rab and the crew? When Anoushka thought of them, it amused her to think of how much their attitude had changed towards her, Page and Sally. They were now firm friends and proud to be their ship mates.

So many highlights in such a short period of time.
Black Orchid
, Hadon … meeting Oscar had certainly been one of them. She had really had no idea what to expect when they sailed into Hydra’s port, but it certainly hadn’t been that he would be there standing next to Page, welcoming them with open arms and a happy smile. She and Sally had received a description of him from Page but Anoushka had found it difficult to summon up an image of the man. She had considered Page’s love affair with him as such an impossible situation that she tried if
anything not to conjure one up.

They had been so busy bringing
Black Orchid
in under full sail, Oscar had been the last thing on her mind. She remembered it so well. They had brought the schooner about, shortened sail and proceeded to tack across the harbour, Sally and Anoushka handling the boat with the crew as back up. The two women’s best effort ever.

She saw him for the first time when they were safely in the harbour and ready to tie up. After her initial surprise and the hellos and welcomes and words of praise, she was able to see a man with a special kind of handsomeness. His face had in it something of the ethereal, a boyish innocence, incredible charm. Yet there was a maleness about him, rugged and strong but somehow not obvious. He was an exciting vital man, and unimaginable as a priest. There was something uncanny about his looks, so youthful yet so quiet and wise. They had about them an undercurrent that Anoushka had found incredibly erotic, so much so it made her blush. It was there too in his voice, the way the man moved.

Not hours but minutes after their first meeting, she could understand Page’s love for this man. He was dynamic in the most subtle way. No wonder the church couldn’t keep him. He was larger than life, more seductive than a warm summer’s breeze, very sexy. He and Page were so much alike. Hervé, François, men whom Anoushka had thought of as terrific in every way, seemed like cardboard figures, mere puppets, in
comparison. What chance had they against a man like Oscar when it came to winning Page’s love!

Just thinking about Oscar and what he meant to her friend was to remind her of Hadon. Not a word had she had from him once they had set sail for Greece. Weeks had passed, and then one day when they sailed into the port on the island of Simi, close to the coast of Turkey, there he was, sitting at the café having a drink. After meeting Page, and receiving a warm welcome from everyone on board, he offered the crew of
Black Orchid
lunch ashore at a taverna on the water’s edge, kissed Anoushka’s hand and walked off with her without a word, just as he had done the last time they had met at Stephano’s. He fucked her all through the night and morning in a small deserted house on the beach far from the town, returning her to
Black Orchid
after they had breakfasted.

Long after they had sailed, leaving Hadon on Simi, Anoushka had found two first-class air tickets to Tokyo in her jacket pocket. It seemed that everyone on board had known what was going to happen and had kept the secret from her.

Anoushka sighed and opened her eyes. She took a walk round the terminal. For a quarter of an hour she stood at Arrivals scanning faces but could not see the ones she was looking for. She returned to a seat but this time took a different chair where she could get another perspective of the terminal. Once more she closed her eyes.

The weddings. First there had been Page’s marriage
to Oscar in the church of the monastery in Patmos. The ceremony had been performed by a Greek Orthodox priest, a friend of Oscar’s who arrived from Mount Athos for the wedding with two fellow monks to assist him. Jahangir had brought their dresses from Paris. On pain of death he had followed their telephone and fax instructions as to what they wanted: cream-coloured, St Laurent, anything suitable for the occasion, no veil. Hadon flew in the flowers Page had ordered from the South of France by sea plane.

The ceremony had been more than moving, something everyone there knew they would never see again. A dozen Greek Orthodox monks gathered out of respect for Oscar to chant prayers that were as rich and as pure in sound as Bach fugues. The tiny church was thick with white smoke and the heavy scent of incense emitting from silver and gold censers hung on long chains and swung back and forth in the hands of the black-clad, high black-hatted monks. The atmosphere was Byzantine. It transported them from one world to another.

Their vows had been memorable, for their significance, the price each had paid to be able to utter them, the commitment they signalled. The monastery, the church, the drama of the Greek Orthodox ceremony, the monks, scholars and friends in the church, the sun beating down, the sea surrounding them … for a few hours they were raised to a place of extraordinary faith and love. Even now the memory of that wedding sent a feeling of having been touched by the divine through Anoushka.

By contrast Sally’s wedding was dramatic, on a much larger scale, exciting, amusing, full of colour and pageantry. It had thousands of people attending, as against a few best friends and a boat crew. A three-day event in a thousand-room palace in India with a procession of brocade-draped elephants and vintage cars. A reception for best friends in a white marble palace in the middle of a lake. That was how it was done for an Indian prince and a lass from Lancashire. They had all been there: Oscar and Page, Hadon and Anoushka, and her two boys, all of Sally’s London girlfriends, dazzled but not surprised.

The children had been on summer holiday. It hadn’t been a very successful one for mother or sons. It had started off badly with the boys arriving two weeks late. That had been Anoushka’s fault, she should not have given in to Robert. But he had the boys and had been on the telephone pleading to allow them to change plans. A place had been found for them at a summer workshop for young musicians up in Lenox near Tanglewood, the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s summer home. A friend of Rosamond’s had found them places, having by accident heard them play at the Plaza at their mother’s farewell party.

Anoushka reluctantly gave in. She knew what their music meant to them, and how very talented the twins were. What choice had she? Mistake. Once more she let her heart rule her head, once more she placed her children above her own need to be with them, see them, be a part of their life.

By the time they arrived in Greece it had been high summer and no matter how Page or Sally or she had entertained or amused them, they had barely raised themselves to the occasion. They seemed lost in Hydra, preoccupied. They had been rude, asking constantly how long they had to be there, and when could they join Robert and Rosamond who were in Portofino?

The only thing that seemed to work for them had been being with Oscar. They followed him round everywhere, full of wonder that he had once been a priest, and with endless questions about God, hanging on his every word.

If they had suffered culture shock in Greece, which they shouldn’t have, having travelled with their parents there before, then their arrival in India for the wedding, which before their arrival they had been enthusiastic about, left them stunned. They had been thrilled by everything they saw and did, but devastated by the heat and dust and poverty of India.

Impressive, dramatic, romantic, luxurious … the wedding. That part of it they did appreciate, though for thirteen-year-old boys who loved New England it was not their idea of a fun time, more like hard work. Only Hadon and Oscar saved the day. It was they to whom the twins clung, they whom they had a good time with, not Anoushka or Page or Sally. There was little of their holiday left when Hadon extended an invitation, offering them one of the guest houses on his Cap d’Antibes compound. All three grabbed at the chance.

‘The South of France is more our style, we can cope with that,’ Mishka announced.

And it was true. They were both bilingual and liked French food. But still, at that moment, Anoushka thought she really disliked her boys. They were much more like their father than she had ever realised. When they had seen the compound they were really happy. At least it hadn’t ended as badly as it had begun, and for that she had Hadon to thank.

One day she was walking through the wood from the guest house to the main house when she came upon her sons and Hadon, cording wood.

‘You look very busy,’ she said.

‘We are, Mom, you shouldn’t interrupt us. This is boys’ stuff.’

‘You know women cord wood too, Alexis.’

‘Mom, you don’t cord wood. You can’t even bake a decent cake.’

‘See you later, Mom,’ said Mishka, dismissing her having not even given her a sideward glance.

‘See you later,’ she replied and walked away, not thinking much about the incident.

She stumbled and caught herself and sat down under a tree to rub a bruised ankle. She hadn’t meant to eavesdrop but she did overhear Hadon. His voice was not so much angry as decidedly firm.

‘Put those tools down.’

Mishka kept sawing. ‘Mishka, I said put that saw down, and Alexis, place that axe carefully on the ground.’ The boys obeyed immediately.

‘Why are you such shits to your mother?’

They remained silent.

‘Answer me. By God, I will have an answer!’

‘We’re not shits to her.’

‘Well, you could have fooled me. That was a shitty thing to say to her. And a shitty way to behave. And it’s not the first time I’ve seen you two behaving that way to your mother. I want to know why. Come on, out with it. She doesn’t deserve treatment like the sort you dish out. She breaks her ass to keep you guys amused. What’s going on here?

Anoushka’s first reaction was to go to Hadon and tell him to forget it. But then she saw what an awkward position she was in. He had not meant her to hear his conversation with the boys. She remained silent and where she was.

‘Haven’t you any respect for your mother?’

‘We do. It’s great, all these far out things that she’s doing.’

‘You don’t act it, buddy. And it’s not enough to respect what she’s doing. How about what she is, who she is? Why do you treat her the way you do?’

‘It’s the way we’ve always treated her.’

‘It’s just not good enough, guys. It’s just not good enough.’

‘Dad never said anything.’

‘Well, maybe Dad should have. Why don’t you talk to her? Don’t you talk to your parents?’

‘We talk to Dad,’ said Mishka.

‘We talk to Rosamond,’ said Alexis.

‘Not the same way you talk to your mother, I’ll bet.’

‘We speak to Mom,’ said Mishka.

‘Yeah, when you need something, you’re hurt, you want something.’

‘Are you angry with us, Hadon?’

‘No. Just disappointed with your attitude. It stinks. I would just like to know what’s going on here? Is it some kind of tug-of-love story because your parents are divorced? Is it attention from your dad you’re seeking by being less than nice to your mother? Or are you being nasty to her so that she will go on continuously trying to win your approval? Are you playing two unhappy people against each for your love? Cheap shots, kids, real cheap shots. Now, Alexis, pick up the saw. Mishka, help me heave this log on to the block.’