Into Temptation (Spoils of Time 03) (40 page)

‘How’s Noni?’

‘Oh fine. Doing terribly well. Look – this came this morning. Adele sent it to my hotel. It’s going to be the cover – the cover, mark you – of
Vogue
. She’s in California right now with them.’

‘Oh my God. It’s lovely.’ She studied it for a moment, then got up, put the colour test shot on the mantelpiece. ‘It looks nice there. So she’s enjoying it, is she?’

‘So much. And she’s turned into a real social butterfly. Spends her life in terribly smart places like Les A and the 400 Club – which she tells me is known as the headquarters of society – with a lot of rather grand young men.’

‘Goodness, it doesn’t sound like Noni.’

‘I know, but it’s true. She sends lots of love.’

‘And – how’s Adele?’

‘Fine. Very well. Yes.’

‘Good.’

Not quite what she had heard: but he clearly didn’t want to talk about it. After a while, she suggested they went out for a walk and visit a few bars; a walk was safe, sexless, would show him she felt nothing for him, nothing at all, except friendship. Which she didn’t. And it was obvious he felt exactly the same for her.

CHAPTER 21

‘Darling? More coffee?’

‘Oh – yes, please. Then I must go. When are you leaving?’

‘Mid-morning, I guess. When the young ladies have deigned to give me their suitcases. And made their final phone calls to their friends.’

‘Good. Well have a lovely time. I’ll try and come out at the weekend. Although it might be better to wait till I can move out for a few weeks.’

‘Yes, and knowing you, that’ll probably be for Thanksgiving.’

‘No it won’t,’ said Barty smiling, giving him a kiss. She felt very affectionate towards him. They had made love the night before, for the first time for weeks; it had been very good, he had led her into a pleasure so sweetly intense she had wept as she came, wept with delight and release and relief, and she had lain in his arms afterwards, feeling sated, warm and very happy. If they could still accomplish this together, this closeness, this delight, this exploration of one another, then they had more than perhaps she had thought, as much even as she had hoped.

He had told her over dinner that he had an idea for a company he wanted to talk to her about: ‘I think you’ll like it.’

‘What sort of company?’

‘I’m not telling you. In the realm of transport.’

He wouldn’t say any more; but she was pleased that he was at least thinking of working again. Absurdly pleased.

Was she actually turning into Celia?

This was wonderful. Really wonderful. She had almost forgotten what a marvellous moment this was: when the image slowly appeared in the developing dish, rising from the blank paper, and was exactly what you had hoped for. Or even better. This was even better. Adele wanted to jump up and down and shout for joy . . . only there wasn’t quite room for it in her darkroom . . .

The pictures really were good: very, very good. A lot of it had been luck. The Great Western Railway had managed to find her a few third-class carriages in a siding near Dawlish Warren station; the grass was growing tall by the railway line, speckled with great fronds of cow parsley, and she had shot the carriages from a very low viewpoint, through the grass. She had waited until evening, when the sun was low, sending long shadows across the carriages from some nearby trees; they looked abandoned, sad relics already of another era.

She would FedEx them first thing in the morning;
Record
would get them by Wednesday. What a fool she’d been, not working all this time, letting herself get so down; her mother was right (as always), work really was such a cure for heartache, disappointment, despair even. And now she was feeling so much better she felt able to try and get some more work, she might even go and see
Style
this week. Noni had said they were starting a new column called ‘Objets’, accessories for the home, lamps and mirrors and ornaments, absolutely her thing.

And then things at home weren’t really so bad; she was managing on her own, somehow. And maybe, maybe Geordie would come round in time. He had, after all, told her he’d always love her. That last day, when they’d had tea. Maybe all she had to do was be patient. Wait for him to see how much better things could be without Lucas. And maybe when Geordie saw how much more positive she felt about life, he would want to be with her more. It couldn’t have been much fun living with her over the past few months. She couldn’t believe how much better she felt; it wasn’t so much the anti-depressants, she thought, it was being able to sleep. Hours and hours of wonderful deep, dreamless sleep. Too good to be true.

Like her pictures. She went back to admiring them.

Izzie turned her head on the pillow and looked at Geordie; they were in his room at the Algonquin, she preferred to be with him there, she felt less exposed, and less treacherous, without knowing quite why. He felt her move and smiled sleepily at her.

‘Good morning. Dear Little Izzie.’

‘Good morning, George.’

‘Don’t call me that horrible name.’

‘I will, if you call me Dear Little Izzie. Every single time.’

‘All right then. What would you like me to call you?’

‘Just Izzie. That’s perfectly all right. Or Lady Isabella, which is what the boys call me.’

‘Bit of a mouthful. I’ll stick to Izzie. Would you give me a kiss, please? And then another. Happy?’

‘Of course,’ she said. Wishing it was true, wishing for what must be the hundredth time already, that she did feel happy, really happy, more at peace, less guilty. ‘Of course I am. And now I must get up, I mustn’t be late today.’

She still wasn’t quite sure how it had happened: how she had been persuaded to betray a lifetime of friendship with Adele, long years of closeness to Noni. She knew it was wrong, terribly wrong: however much he told her that the marriage was over, that Adele was fine, that he had been as hurt and as angry as she had been over it all, that he missed Clio so much it was like a physical pain, but he could never, ever go back. ‘She was so – so unyielding, Izzie, so blind to my misery, so deliberately incapable of understanding what I was trying to do. Which was only to defend her, stop him being so beastly to her. Not me at all.’

She had listened to him talking about it for hours that first day, disbelieving to begin with, then confused, then finally desperately sorry and sad for him. It had been interspersed, of course, with his telling her how much he adored her, how he could still remember the first time he had seen her: ‘You were wearing a pink dress and your pearl necklace, the terribly important pearl necklace that brought us together, and you were flirting with Henry and Roo—’

‘Heavens,’ she said, awed by this revelation, ‘I really can’t believe that.’

And then she was silent, reflecting that it was also the time he had first met Adele; guilt pierced her happiness suddenly. She said so; he looked at her very intently, then said, ‘Izzie, you take life much too seriously.’

It had begun, really begun, when she had knocked some wine over. They were in a small, smoky restaurant just off Washington Square and she had been wondering how she could have been so worried about the evening. It was obvious that he just wanted to be friends. The only thing was – she had a faint sense of anti-climax. Which was ridiculous.

‘Penny for ’em,’ he had said.

‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Really, nothing.’

He smiled at her; and there was something about that smile which upset her. It was almost – fatherly. Sweet, tender, but fatherly. It made its own point; that she was little more than a child to him, someone he had always known, someone young, naive, uninteresting. His stepdaughter’s friend. Not an interesting, sexy, intriguing woman; not the woman whose pearls had broken, who had flirted with him so recklessly that night, the night of his party. That had been a piece of foolishness, inspired no doubt by his own excitement and success, she had been just another bit of excitement. She was just ‘Dear little Izzie,’ as he said suddenly, ‘dear, dear little Izzie.’

Something snapped in her then, something dangerous.

‘Don’t call me that,’ she said sharply. ‘Just don’t. I hate it.’

‘Sorry.’

‘I think I’d like to go now. If you don’t mind. I’m very tired and—’

She stood up suddenly, and in standing up, knocked the bottle of wine over, the red wine. It was only a quarter full, but there was an awful lot of it, pouring all over the table, down on to the floor, spilling into Geordie’s plate, his lap, a horribly visible red flood, testimony to her clumsiness, her gaucheness, her lack of style.

‘Oh God,’ she said, standing there, staring at it, ‘I’m so sorry, I really am such an absolute idiot—’

And then she started to cry, great, slow tears, tears of humiliation and unhappiness and dejection. He looked up at her, baffled by her reaction and then he stood up too, took her hand and said, ‘Shall we go outside?’ And they just walked away from it all, out of the restaurant, pausing only to throw a twenty-dollar bill down on to the table, far too much for what they had eaten, and into the street.

‘I’m so sorry,’ he said, as they sat, later, in her apartment, ‘I just forgot. It was meant to be a joke, really. You know how I adore you.’

‘Of course you don’t adore me. Don’t talk like that. It’s ridiculous.’

‘But I do,’ he said, more serious now. ‘I do absolutely adore you. In fact, I think I’m in love with you. No, that’s wrong, I know I’m in love with you . . .’

‘Oh,’ she said. The room seemed very quiet. Very still. She could hear the clock ticking, from somewhere outside the silence, and she was aware of the pink lamp casting a very bright light onto a big rug that stood in for a carpet. She noticed suddenly that it was very worn, the rug, threadbare in places. Well it had only cost ten dollars, from the charity shop. What could you expect for ten dollars? And the colours were lovely, all faded, pinks and blues—

‘Izzie, are you listening?’

‘What? Oh, sorry. Yes.’

They had not gone to bed together that night; awed, dizzy with fear and excitement, she had sent him away.

‘I need to think, Geordie, I need to get used to the idea.’

‘May I come back tomorrow?’

‘Yes. Of course.’

He had returned in the middle of the next day, a huge bunch of red roses in one hand, a bottle of champagne in the other.

‘I had to come. I know it’s Sunday and a most inappropriate day for seduction but—’

‘Most inappropriate,’ she said smiling. ‘You can have a nice cup of coffee and then you are to go away again.’

‘Immediately?’

‘Almost immediately.’

‘Then, before that, we must go to bed.’

He was looking at her, his eyes boring into her; she felt it physically, felt a deep rush of desire in her belly, so strong, so undeniable, it made her actually squirm. He recognised it, smiled, reached out his finger and touched her lips.

‘Come along, my darling, darling Isabella.’

How could it be, she wondered? How could you be lying in bed with a man, who had made love to you, so gently, so tenderly; how could you be experiencing sensations, glorious sensations, how could you be feeling unimaginably intense, sweeping pleasure, how could you be hearing your own self cry out with the violence of it, how could you then be lying in his arms, hearing him tell you he loved you, and at the same time feel remorse and guilt, and a knowledge that it was terribly, terribly wrong?

Every hour of every day from then on, she had resolved to stop it, before it was too late, before more harm was done: she couldn’t go on with it, she could not build her own happiness on such cruelty, she would tell him next time he phoned, came to see her, kissed her goodbye; and every time she thought she could not hurt him now, while he was making her laugh, telling her how happy she made him, being so generous, so gentle, so absolutely perfect . . .

And every hour and every day carried her further into confusion, further into frailty: further into what at least seemed to be love.

‘Venetia, I’ve got an idea. Can I sound you out?’

‘Of course.’

‘Thing is – ’ Adele sounded shakily excited ‘ – thing is, I just got a cable from
Record
.’

‘And?’

‘They loved the pictures. Which I thought they would. And now they want me to do some more for them. They’re looking for ideas. You know, like I used to do, “Day in the Life of a Village”, that sort of thing . . .’

‘Darling, that’s wonderful.’

‘Isn’t it? I just feel so thrilled. So – so happy. Anyway, they want a list of ideas. Which of course I could send them. I wondered about a story about the coloured children, at Keir’s friend’s school.’

‘Well, it’s no use asking me about that, you’ll have to talk to him.’

‘Of course. But they also say if ever I’m in New York, they’d love to see me. And – well, and this is the idea, I thought, why not? Geordie’s there, after all, and I could see him, which might be really good, away from all the pressures here. And I could see Barty and Izzie for that matter. I could even go and see some other American magazines maybe, and – oh, it’s so wonderful to feel like me again—’

‘Adele—’

‘Anyway, it would have to be pretty soon. Like this weekend. If I can get a flight. Geordie’s only there for another two weeks. I thought I might not tell him I was coming. Just turn up at the Algonquin and surprise him. Do you think he’d like that?’

‘I expect so,’ said Venetia carefully, ‘but I always think that sort of surprise is a bit hard. He might be out, or something, you should ring first.’

‘Well – maybe. I just think it’d be more romantic as a surprise.’

Celia was less than enthusiastic.

‘I know she’s feeling better,’ she said to Venetia, ‘but it’s a very fragile recovery. Only due to those pills, nothing’s really been solved. Except that she’s working again. She seems rather over-excitable to me. Not really stable at all. And it’s a long and tiring journey, on the plane. I’m going to suggest she asks her doctor at least.’

Adele didn’t like this idea at all. She had set her heart on the trip and was already notionally on the plane.