Acts of Love (5 page)

The creditors closed in. Bankruptcy. Shame. Degradation. Months of depression and loneliness and nothing else in her life but fighting to save Jason’s name. To lose everything was one thing, for her husband to be declared a fraud was another. She would not have it. By the time a clear discharge in bankruptcy for Jason’s company, and no criminal charges for him had been declared, there was nothing left for Arianne. She had gone from riches to rags, had walked away with nothing but two pieces of Louis Vuitton luggage filled with designer-label clothes Jason and Ahmad had bought for her, and nothing to fall back on. Not a roof over her head, not a penny in her pocket. To think about that horrible year without Jason sent a shiver down her spine, even now.

There was, too, another reason why Arianne could not bear to take advantage of Ahmad. She feared that to burden him with her problems might somehow change their friendship. That was all they had left. And Arianne needed that for the memories she could not bear to let go. Memories of her love for Jason.

Chapter 3

Jason and Ahmad had always given the orders. She had enjoyed the way they controlled her, never had any reason not to. From them she had derived pleasures she had never dreamed could exist for a woman. Thus it never entered her mind not to go to Number 12, Three Kings Yard.

She gathered her toothbrush, other toiletries, a nightdress and robe into a piece of canvas and leather hand-luggage, slipped back into the same jacket she had worn to Chessington House and left the bed-sit. As soon as she turned around to double-lock the door to her flat she knew she would never enter that room again. That would suit her fine. She rushed from the building into the street, close, luckily, to a main thoroughfare where there was a chance of finding a taxi. She had hardly gone a hundred yards when she saw one pass her. It pulled up several houses from where she was standing. She broke into a run. ‘Taxi, taxi!’ A breathless smile at the passenger collecting his change from the driver. She dashed through the still-open door.

‘In a rush, are we?’ asked the driver, peering over his shoulder at her.

‘Yes, we certainly are.’ Silly question.

The former passenger standing in the street pulled a face at Arianne and closed the door of the taxi.

‘Where to, then?’ asked the driver.

‘Mayfair, Three Kings Yard. Do you know it?’

‘Yeah, off Davies Street. You got it.’ Morty Silverman from Hackney looked at her through the rear-view mirror of his taxi as they passed under a streetlight. He did that several times. He liked to guess about his passengers. When, that is, he wasn’t harrying them with talk, those that would converse. One look at this woman said she wouldn’t. He was going to have to figure her out on his own. It kept him amused while they progressed
towards the West End. Something funny about her accent. Foreign, but where from? Was she what she appeared to be, a quiet beauty going to stay the night with her date? Or was she one of those thousand-pound all-night hookers on a call to the West End? It was getting harder and harder to tell who was on the game these days. The night-case was a giveaway. But the face and the quiet about her, a kind of laid-back innocence. No, she wasn’t on the game. He began to laugh at himself and could bear it no longer. ‘Rushing to see a sick mother?’

Arianne had become accustomed to garrulous London taxi drivers. By New York standards they were subtle. She was too excited to be annoyed, but she wasn’t going to give anything away either. ‘No.’

The tone in her voice and glimpses of her face in the rear-view mirror, lit for a second by the streetlamps, silenced him. Pretty but dull, too passive to be amusing, too soft to be a hooker. Maybe a deep lady who never gave anything away. The kind that married the boy next door. He nearly tried once more to make conversation, but thought better of it. And then he forgot about his passenger because he became preoccupied with the West End traffic. He hated Saturday nights in the West End. The whole world was on the streets. Jams everywhere. But the work was there, the money was good.

Only when the taxi pulled into Three Kings Yard and she stepped out of his cab and paid him, her smile at him made Morty Silverman momentarily sorry he hadn’t made a greater effort. She looked now to him like one of those blue-stocking intellectuals, bright and interesting. Oxford, Cambridge, but then again maybe not. Oxford and Cambridge girls didn’t wear high-fashion sable jackets. She was a hard one to pin down. She told him, ‘I’m so sorry, I have nothing but a twenty-pound note.’

Blimey, she’s American. He gave her her change. Unable to resist it, he leaned out his window and said with great authority, ‘California, LA.’ Now he had her pinned down.

‘Connecticut, New Canaan.’

He pulled up the window, manoeuvred the taxi around, and drove from the yard without another word.

Arianne stood in the cobblestone yard facing Number 12. It was as Ahmad had written, a
bijou
of a house: two storeys and
quite wide so that it looked rather square. There were four windows set in the façade and the window-boxes were planted. They made her think of the hanging baskets at Chipping Wynchwood she had seen that morning. The entrance was handsome, with its wide door painted black and bearing heavy brass door-furniture that included a huge lion door-knocker.

Arianne looked around the yard. Quite a large square, wide enough for parked cars on either side of it and a taxi to turn around. Its entrance off Davies Street was of the same width. It gave the yard an open feeling. The other houses and the archway opposite the entrance to the yard led through to a second courtyard that Arianne would later find belonged to the Italian Embassy. Over the stone arch, there were rooms that connected two small houses, as charming as Number 12. The two houses opposite Number 12 had less charm. They had been converted with plate glass to some sort of commercial property, she guessed, with flats above. But somehow it didn’t matter. It was a courtyard reminiscent of those in Paris whose attraction lay in being both commercial and residential. The French did that sort of thing so well. Whoever had control of Three Kings Yard had made it work there. The other houses had attractive window-boxes. There were gas lights from tall posts to give it all a mellow light.

The place charmed her, and the mere idea that she might be a part of it was enormously uplifting for Arianne. It was only when she had passed between two parked cars and stood at the front door of Number 12, the beautiful old key in her hand, that she registered that lights were on in the house. For a moment she didn’t know whether to knock or use the key. She used the key.

The entrance hall had a very worn but well-polished stone floor, and a pretty staircase of dark oak with a threadbare oriental runner laid on the stairs and held in place by brass rods that gleamed. It wasn’t a large hall, the staircase more charming than impressive. Like the linen-fold, oak-panelled walls, it seemed slightly askew. From the ceiling hung a small crystal chandelier. It hung plumb, but the ceiling had a distinct wave in it.

Just two steps to the right to open the natural waxed, knotted-pine door, a handsome affair with antique brass box locks and an oval knob and decorative finger-plates. She passed into a
sitting room: a twenty-foot square room simply chock-full of English country-house charm. It might as well have had a brass plaque on the wall saying Colefax and Fowler, those designers so famous for that English flowered-chintz look, with its elegant stripes, soft furnishings, wing chairs and comfortable Georgian furniture. Sporting pictures, charming oils, portraits, scenic wonders of the English countryside, shared walls covered in a navy blue wallpaper patterned with minute
fleurs de lys
with Picasso drawings, small Morandi still-lifes of the bottles he was so famous for, and lesser-known contemporary paintings, in handsome carved frames, some wooden, some gilded. A soft glow came from the ivory silk lampshades and a fire was crackling in the fireplace. There were pots of red and white azaleas, and small Chinese pedestal dishes proffering white Belgian chocolates on tables with magazines, books. It was a home.

She was Alice stepping through the looking-glass. She walked around the room. Warmed her hands by the fire. She still carried her handbag and overnight case. She dropped them on the Queen Anne settee near the fire and walked back into the hall. The door opposite the sitting room was closed. She opened it and switched on a light, a crystal chandelier over an oval cherrywood dining table. She stepped into the dining room and the perfume of a bowl of white lilies in the centre of the table made her close her eyes and breathe deeply. He had thought of everything. How had he accomplished it all? The yellow walls were glazed and held black-and-white etchings. Architectural scenes of Rome. Masterly Piranesis. A small table set against one wall had crystal glasses and decanters containing whisky, sherry, vodka, set on a silver tray. A narrow marble-topped and silver-gilt console served as a sideboard at the other wall. A very pretty Queen Anne mirror above it reflected the charm of the room.

Walking from the room down the hall took very few steps. Arianne reflected that Number 12 with its wonky walls, low ceilings, small jewel-like rooms, was like a very large doll’s house with everything absolutely in proportion. It amused her to think of herself living in a doll’s house. There was something very cosy about that. It was like stepping into Queen Mary’s doll’s house or one of those that museums were so fond of
exhibiting as works of art encapsulating a way of life.

She found the kitchen behind the dining room. Neat, with a shining new black Aga, the ultimate in English cookers, black slate tops on the work-surfaces and antique glass-fronted cupboards painted and dragged in shades of rust and yellow that matched what little wall-space there was. In between the cupboards, practically wall-to-wall, was a framed Victorian collection of rare butterflies. Arianne opened several drawers and cupboards. She could see it was newly fitted out to delight a gourmet. There was a butcher’s block in the middle of the room and a high, antique stick chair; from hooks on the ceiling copper pots and pans dangled decoratively. The single window was large, but faced a blank brick wall only a foot from the house, and that was covered in lattice-work and masses of ivy.

Arianne knew before she opened the fridge that it would be chock-full of lovely fresh food. She opened the door and was not disappointed. Upstairs she found two large bedrooms and a spacious, truly handsome bathroom. Every room, including the bathroom, had a fireplace. She stood at the foot of a French, Louis XIV four-poster bed draped in the prettiest way imaginable. The fabric was a cream-coloured silk taffeta with narrow stripes of embroidered flowers repeated every few inches. The bed-linen was also cream-coloured and edged in heavy white lace. She had no idea how long she had been admiring it when she heard someone calling, ‘Hello. Hello. Are you here?’

Arianne went immediately to the head of the stairs and looked down. Standing there was a woman in a bulky tweed coat and a rather old-fashioned hat that had seen better days. She was in her late middle age, not unhandsome. She had a loaded, heavy-duty black plastic shopping-bag in each hand, and carried her handbag over her wrist like the Queen. ‘Yes, I’m here,’ Arianne called down.

‘Oh, good. I was worried you hadn’t arrived. I would have had to put out the fire.’

Arianne walked down the stairs. She didn’t miss the look of surprise on the woman’s face. ‘Is something wrong?’ asked Arianne.

‘You’re not what I expected,’ said the woman quite matter-of-factly. She deposited her shopping-bags on the floor.

It was obvious that the woman had something to do with this amazing gift, and very likely with Ahmad. So the woman might have expected one of Ahmad’s beautiful model girls or an aspiring actress, even some amazingly expensive and chic call-girl. The sort of women he favoured. Although the woman was out of line to have said anything, Arianne did not care to pursue her remark, but merely told her, ‘My name is Arianne Honey.’

‘And I’m Ida, your cleaner.’

Arianne began to laugh. It was a nervous laugh, and she raised her arms and held her hands out as if to encompass the house, and told the woman, ‘Ida, I can’t afford a cleaner any more than I can afford this house.’

Ida unbuttoned her coat, bent down and reached into one of her shopping-bags and produced a brown manilla envelope with a white envelope paper clipped to it and handed it to Arianne. ‘Why don’t you go into the sitting room and read this? I’ll go and make us a cup of tea.’

Before Arianne could answer, Ida had her coat off and had picked up her shopping-bags and was already on her way to the kitchen. Arianne took a chair by the fire and opened the envelope. She read Ahmad’s letter twice and had time to dry her tears before Ida appeared in the room, carrying a silver tray and the tea-service from the dining room, two pretty china cups and saucers, and a plate of biscuits.

Arianne’s tears had been provoked by Ahmad’s kindness, but they were for Jason. Because she loved him so very much and missed him every minute of every day. Because she knew that Ahmad missed him too, missed them both. Ahmad loved Jason still, as one loves a brother, the closest man-friend a man can have. That he had bought this house as much for Jason as for her was quite clear. The gift was the result of his love, not for her but for them. Because he had somehow found out that Jason had left her destitute, and he could not allow her to live like that. Or Jason to have been dishonoured by not having provided for her. All this she read between the lines of his letter.

Always the diplomat, he had been clever about giving her Ida. ‘She’s a treasure, an excellent cleaner, and will take very good care of you. Please do me the favour of accepting her. You see I would not want to lose her, but for the moment I have no work
for her in London since I have given up my flat there. I mean to stay at Claridge’s when I am in England. You need pay her nothing, in fact I insist you pay her nothing, I don’t want to spoil her and she is paid more than adequately by me. When I need her, rest assured that I will take her from you.’

Arianne watched Ida pour the tea. She was rather grand-looking, with just a touch of the eccentric. Her dark blonde hair was done into a magnificent beehive hairdo
à la
sixties. She had harlequin eyeglass frames, and a hint of Cockney in her voice. The authority with which she made it abundantly clear that she was in service to Arianne and was most definitely not going to be deflected from cleaning Number 12, swiftly added up to her being ‘a treasure’. But, ‘treasure’ or not, Arianne was much relieved when she was told that she was not Ida’s only job. Ida looked after her ‘gentlemen’ as well. They lived in two other houses in the yard. Exactly what hours this ‘treasure’ would work was settled between them, and after showing Arianne the basics of living in the house, she hid her beehive under her hat and left, double-locking the door behind her.

Arianne returned to the sitting room and sat in a different chair, one that gave her a new perspective on the room and its contents. She took up Ahmad’s letter, read it once more and then placed it in her lap, feeling more calm, able to take note of the many beautiful things someone had chosen for it. The little things that make a home. Now she saw for the first time the silver-framed photographs on a handsome, Tudor oak bible-box in a far corner of the room. There was also a lamp on the box, eighteenth-century Italian, in ornately carved wood, still with remnants of gold leaf, candle-stick-based with a pleated ivory silk shade.