A Night on the Orient Express (23 page)

‘I wish I’d never met you,’ she gasped one night, as the ecstasy threatened to engulf her.

‘Really?’ he smiled down at her, knowing full well she would have made the same choice over and over again until the end of time.

It was a kind of madness. That was her only defence.

One afternoon at Simone’s, Jack introduced Adele to a young man called Rube. He was painfully thin and charmless, with claw-like hands that fluttered as he talked and eyes that bulged white as hard-boiled eggs. Jack seemed enthralled by him.

‘Trust me, he is going to be famous. Properly famous. His work is astonishing. In fact—’ he looked at her, and she could see he’d had an idea. ‘I’m going to commission a painting from him while I can still afford it.’

He marched over to Rube and Adele could see them both looking over at her while they talked. She felt a strong sense of misgiving, which was confirmed when Jack told her Rube had agreed to paint her.

She didn’t want to be painted. The idea filled her with dread. It was stepping over a line.

‘But I want something to remind me of you,’ Jack persisted, and of course her vanity won out. Jack could always use flattery to get what he wanted. He rarely made sentimental gestures, so she clung to this as a sign that she meant something to him.

Rube’s studio was a disgrace. It was vast and cold and the most unhygienic place she had ever set foot in. There was damp and dust and dirt. Discarded plates bore the remnants of food that had grown furry with mould. There was no proper loo, just a bucket which she suspected he rarely emptied. She quickly made an arrangement with the café next door to use their facilities.

He indicated a green velvet chaise longue for her to lie on. She began by sitting on it awkwardly, not sure who might have sat on it before or what they might have engaged in.

He stared at her.

‘Naked,’ he said. ‘I need you naked.’

‘Absolutely not,’ she told him. She wasn’t taking her clothes off to be painted.

He threw his coffee cup across the room. It hit the wall. The coffee trickled down.

‘You’re wasting my time,’ he said accusingly. ‘I’ve set aside two weeks for this. I need the bloody money. I don’t paint clothed women. There’s no point.’

Adele didn’t know what to say. She could tell he was furious. She could also tell she’d been set up, that Jack had omitted to tell her this part of the deal because he knew she’d refuse.

‘Either you take your clothes off, or you reimburse me for the time wasted. I’m not bothered which.’

Rube had an arm up inside his jumper and was scratching furiously. Adele felt sure he had fleas. She wanted to get out of that studio as quickly as she could.

Then behind him she caught sight of a canvas, presumably his most recent work. It was of a young girl drying her feet with a towel. It was glorious. Her skin was luminescent; her beauty sang out from the canvas. It was fluid and sensuous yet respectful – everything a good nude should be.

She gasped, and walked over to the painting to examine it more closely.

‘It’s exquisite,’ she told Rube, who glowered.

‘Have you made up your mind yet?’ he demanded.

Adele hesitated. She turned back to the painting. She saw now what Jack had recognised in Rube. He was exceptionally talented. His work went above and beyond mere talent. In her gut, she knew that if she didn’t sit for him she would regret it for the rest of her life. This was history in the making.

She walked back over to the chaise. ‘I’ll do it,’ she told him.

She put her hands up and started to unbutton her dress.

Rube glared at her. ‘Right decision,’ was all he said.

As Rube relaxed into the job he became more amenable. And Adele got used to disrobing and sprawling on the chaise longue for him, like some insatiable courtesan. What she did find disconcerting was the way Rube watched her whenever they were all in Simone’s. She didn’t like to think about what was going through his mind. In the studio, he studied her as an object, not a human being and kept himself very detached, so she was never afraid. But in Simone’s, he watched her like a hawk.

It was when the painting was nearly finished that she discovered the reason for his fascination.

‘Jack loves you, you know,’ he told her out of the blue. ‘When you’re not looking, he can’t take his eyes off you. I know you think he doesn’t care. But I think you’d be surprised.’

Adele opened her mouth to protest that none of this was any of his business, but he waved a hand to shut her up.

‘You’re very important to him. Never forget that. You are more important to him than he is to you.’

She closed her mouth, rather nonplussed. She wondered if what Rube said was true, if he had some insight into Jack that she was never able to penetrate. She knew Jack was fond of her, of course she did, but she had never felt as if she ranked higher than any of his other conquests. She still hated herself for pursuing the affair, for letting him exploit her weakness. But she was addicted: to him, and his world, and the person he made her.

She saw exactly who she was and what she had become when she finally saw the painting.

It was her thirty-third birthday. William had given her a card, and a blank cheque. ‘Buy yourself something nice,’ he said. She wanted to rip the cheque up and throw it at him.

‘Don’t you understand what you are doing to me, with your patronising disinterest?’ she wanted to scream.

How cunning of her, she thought afterwards, to shift the blame onto William. She had what so many women of her generation craved – independence and a long rein. Had it left such a big hole in her life that she had to behave how she did?

Her disgust with herself only lasted as long as it took for Jack to give her Rube’s painting. He had it waiting for her in his flat, resting on an easel. It was in a heavily carved pale wooden frame, a red organza ribbon wrapped around it. On a bronze plate on the bottom of the frame was inscribed ‘The Inamorata by Reuben Zeale’.

It was Adele, undeniably, but an Adele she never saw when she looked in the mirror. An Adele she knew William never saw either. She had always posed for Rube stretched out on her side, one arm behind her head and the other across her body in an attempt at modesty. Yet somehow he had captured something post-coital in her, a woman who was still in the afterglow that only lovemaking with the love of your life gave. It was primal. And breathtaking. And utterly incriminating.

As she surveyed it, half with pride and half horror, she realised this was why Rube had surveyed her so fiercely in Simone’s. He didn’t want to paint the woman she presented to him when she posed on the chaise. He wanted the other her, the Adele who lived dangerously, the one who lit up from inside when she was with her lover. And he had captured her, in spades.

‘No one must see this,’ she gasped. And they mustn’t. If anyone needed evidence of her infidelity, this was cast-iron proof.

She felt very uncomfortable about the painting, as if it was an omen. As long as it existed, her reputation and her marriage were in peril.

‘I shall keep it for you here,’ Jack promised. ‘No one shall see it but me.’

‘And anyone else you bring back here.’

He gave her a warning look, the one that meant she had stepped over the mark. ‘I’ll turn it to the wall.’

If this was meant to reassure her, it didn’t. She pointed out to him that there wasn’t a woman on the planet who wouldn’t turn such a painting back again to see what it was hiding.

He started to get cross then. ‘We’ll just have to take that risk. Anyway, it’s yours, to do with what you will. And if you ever want it for yourself, you only have to ask.’

She knew he meant that. For all his ways, Jack had a certain code of honour that he wouldn’t break. He would keep it for her, until the end of time, or until she asked for it back, whichever came sooner.

Not long after the painting was finished, things started to go badly wrong between Jack and Adele. She knew that the honeymoon was over, that she wouldn’t be able to sustain the intensity and the physical stress of it all. It was high-octane, and she was extremely emotional, in marked contrast to what she considered to be Jack’s bloodlessness. She knew he probably had other women, but he insisted that even if he did, it made no difference to how he felt about her, that she was special.

‘Not special enough to be enough!’ she retorted.

‘You can’t expect fidelity in a relationship based on infidelity,’ he shot back, and how could she argue? She knew if she protested too much, he would shut her out. He hated scenes and accusations and fuss. And so she tried to put up with it, because she couldn’t bear the thought of losing him.

Although sometimes, in her more rational moments, she wanted him to push her too far so she could walk away. If his behaviour became untenable, then perhaps she could find it within herself.

It was only a matter of time.

One afternoon they came back to the flat after a late lunch. Adele was due to go home on the train, but there was time for them to spend an hour or so in bed before she went. Jack unlocked the door and she went to the kitchen to make a cup of tea – they had terribly domesticated moments. She even kept a supply of her favourite ginger nuts in the kitchen.

She heard a gutteral cry from the bedroom and rushed in.

There was a girl on the bed. There was blood everywhere. On the floor, on the sheets, on her clothes. She stepped closer and recognised her. It was Miranda. The girl who had been lying in the doorway the first time she had been to Simone’s. She was a spoilt young debutante with more money than direction, who was drawn to the decadent atmosphere in the club. She spent her time drinking in Simone’s, smoking cigarettes and seducing anyone who would have her.

Including, no doubt, Jack.

‘What do we do?’ said Jack, white-faced. He was rooted to the spot.

Adele was a doctor’s wife. Of course she knew what to do. She pushed him to one side.

‘Call an ambulance,’ she barked at him ‘then get her some bandages.’

‘Bandages?’

‘Anything I can use.’ He looked blank. She could see he wasn’t going to be any help. ‘Don’t bother.’

She grabbed a pillow, tipped it out of its case then started tearing the fabric up. Miranda was still alive – her eyelids were fluttering – but there was no way of telling how long she had been here or how much blood she had actually lost. It seemed like rivers.

Adele did what she could, tying the strips of sheeting round her arm tightly to stem the flow.

‘Please don’t die,’ she begged. The girl was so young. What had happened to make her want to do this? Adele didn’t want to think about it.

She heard the sound of the ambulance men on the stairs. They burst into the room, with an anxious Jack behind them.

‘Good work,’ one of them told Adele. ‘You’ve probably saved her life.’

‘Maybe,’ said the other, looking doubtful. ‘She’s lost a lot of blood. Are you coming with her to the hospital?’

Adele hesitated. It wasn’t her place. She was nothing to the girl. Miranda was in safe hands now. But she couldn’t bear the thought of her going to hospital on her own. And, possibly, dying on her own. She shivered.

‘Of course.’

The ambulance ride was terrifying. It racketed through the streets, swaying precariously from side to side, the siren blaring. Adele sat by Miranda. She wanted to hold her in her arms, but the ambulance men wouldn’t let her. She felt as protective of the girl as she would her own boys. She kept wanting to check her pulse, but didn’t want to interfere.

The hospital they arrived at was small and dirty and crowded. She had no idea which part of London they were in, and there was no time to ask. Miranda’s stretcher was rushed down dingy corridors and through a set of double doors. A small team rushed forward, and Miranda’s tiny, inert body was stretchered away.

A nurse stopped Adele from following. Her eyes were cold and judgemental above her mask.

‘What blood group is she?’ she asked.

‘I’m sorry, I’ve no idea,’ replied Adele, realising they thought she was Miranda’s mother.

The nurse shot her a look of disapproval. Adele wanted to explain who she was, that she was a doctor’s wife, but she was no one in this mausoleum of sickness and chaos. She was left in a waiting room with dirty green walls. Time ticked on and she realised with panic that she wouldn’t be able to get home. She asked to use the telephone.

‘The telephone is for the doctors,’ the nurse told her, curt, so she made her way out into the street and found a phone box.

‘I’ve been delayed today, rather, and Brenda has asked me to supper and to stay over,’ she told William, thanking God both for her alibi and her husband’s enduring lack of interest in her whereabouts.

Over and over again she read how to identify the signs of polio, and flicked through the old copies of
Picturegoer
magazine, taking nothing in. It was close to midnight before someone came to tell her that Miranda was stable.

She crept to her bedside.

‘I gather it was your quick work that saved her,’ another less disapproving nurse told her.

Miranda looked tiny and pale and helpless, a million miles from the rapacious minx that propped up the bar in Simone’s.

‘I love him,’ she told Adele when she gained consciousness, and then her eyes rolled to the side, as if the string holding them in their sockets had been snipped.

She couldn’t have been much more than eighteen. Who did Jack think he was, breaking the hearts of mere children? thought Adele furiously. Her heart was fair game. He had warned her from the start. She had entered into the contract knowing the small print. But a girl who had no idea of the ways of the world?