Objects of Desire (10 page)

Anoushka ordered another espresso. She was feeling better about her aloneness, and did in fact quite like sitting by herself in the nearly deserted salon. Was it any different from a chicken salad sandwich eaten alone at Lord & Taylor’s? And that was the first time that she had realised how lonely she had been in her marriage. For the first time she began to face the truth, even to accept that she had been less than honest about her perfect marriage. Could it possibly be that Robert had not given her all that she wanted? Had there been a great deal of ‘Let’s pretend’ on her part as well as his? That question demanded a truthful answer. Yes, she thought.
What followed was revelation, a genuine surprise.

The bell rang. Her last meal aboard this ship of fools. Yes, that was how she would always think of herself and her fellow passengers. Fools of one sort or another, trying to escape from something, most probably themselves. ‘Hello,’ Anoushka said. It was as if she were meeting herself for the first time. Hadon
was
wise. An ocean voyage can be one of self-discovery.

Lunch was a perfect cheese soufflé and a green salad with a raspberry vinaigrette dressing. Anoushka ate two desserts: chocolate mousse with a crème fraîche, and a bowl of fresh strawberries. She enjoyed her lunch and being the odd one out in the room of laughing and chattering diners. It suddenly occurred to her that she had, all her life, been the odd one out except when she had been with Robert and the children. How sad for her to think that that belonging she had so cherished, had so taken for granted, had been an illusion. She had not been wholly a part of anything.

The docking of the
QE2
in Southampton was an awesome sight, like the beaching of a great whale. Anoushka was riveted. Soon she would be walking down that gangway. In spite of herself she felt some excitement to think that, as Alexis and Mishka had said, adventures were to be her life.

A driver was waiting, wearing the black emblem of a Rolls-Royce driver on his cap, though he was driving a Bentley. He was holding a card with her name on it. All was just as Robert had said it would be. He whisked
her through the English countryside to London and Brown’s Hotel on Dover Street, Mayfair.

A family hotel: smart, chic, low key, just Robert’s style. It served the best English breakfast, a delightful English tea. All Americans loved Brown’s. It went with the rain and grey skies, the damp English cold that eats into the bones. It was central to everything Americans like Robert enjoyed about London: it was walking distance from everything for the super window shopper, and aimed at the cultivated traveller rather than the tourist. Mayfair was a happy hunting ground for the discreet, well-heeled buyer with taste. Bond Street and Mount Street, Savile Row, Bruton Street and Piccadilly – old English gentility holding its own in the new England.

Brown’s in Mayfair was where the Rivers family had always stayed in happier times. Robert had made the reservation for her. A mistake she saw now, while she was at the desk being greeted by name by the concierge and the manager, and while being asked for her passport and to register.

Everything was familiar, too familiar. She could only relate to the place by being there with the boys and Robert. She actually looked around for them, to see that the boys were not getting into mischief, and for Robert to hand over the passports and register for them. Her husband had always taken care of such things. She had never gone through the process of getting into a hotel without a man to do what was expected. But there was no Robert there, nor were her
sons in London with her. Anoushka was, for a moment, taken aback by her memory lapse. She turned to the manager and with a trembling hand signed the register in the place he indicated.

It felt decidedly odd being there alone. Walking towards the elevator, accompanied by the manager and a porter, she was involuntarily keeping her eyes on the entrance to the hotel. She was half expecting her husband and sons to come rushing through the door into the lobby.

Hers was a pleasant enough bedroom, even having fresh flowers. As soon as the hotel staff had left the room, Anoushka rushed over to them to read the card. From Robert? Alexis and Mishka? She pulled the small white rectangle from the envelope, even thinking she might read ‘Hadon’, on it, but then remembered they had parted, and he knew nothing more than that she was going to London.

Was there no end to her disappointment and humiliation? It had been signed by the manager, ‘Compliments of Brown’s Hotel’. Another slap in the face to bring her back to the reality of her situation. Gazing round, she realised that she and Robert had stayed in this very room the last time they had flown to London for a long weekend. Her imagination conjured him up. He was sitting on the side of the bed next to the telephone, making calls even before he had taken off his coat – his usual habit on arrival at the hotel.

Savile Row for appointments with his tailor, Lobb’s to say he was in London and wanted two more pairs of
shoes. Robert with his pencil and small notecards housed in their slim leather folder planning out his advance on Mayfair: visits to Christie’s and Sotheby’s, Spink’s on King Street, the Cork Street art galleries. The Tate would not be missed. Another phone call to see what was on at the Royal Academy.

Anoushka placed her hands over her face, not in despair, she was through with despair, but merely to block the images from her memory. No more hauntings from the past, thank you.

Too tired to venture out to one of the many restaurants that she and Robert had known and enjoyed, she took her dinner in the dining room. Miraculously, that night she slept very well. Over breakfast in her room the following morning, she made a decision not to stay one more night in this hotel. She was through with Robert’s organising her life, in or out of marriage. After more than a dozen calls to other hotels, she still could not find one to accommodate her. Then, remembering how it was always impossible to get a hotel room in London when you wanted one, she dialled their London Mr Fixit.

Wherever they travelled, Robert had a network of Mr Fixits. The London man was a Harley Street doctor, a colleague of Robert’s, a heart consultant, Sir Bramwell Stokes. Bramwell did not fail her. That afternoon, as promised, she called her sons from her hotel but now it was the Connaught. The boys were full of themselves and sounded happy, no different than if she had called them from her own drawing
room in Lakeside. They wanted to know all about her crossing. She tried to make it sound thrilling but there had been no hundred-foot wall of waves, no crashing storm, the ship did not founder and they’d had no need to be rescued. She realised she would have to do better than this to keep Alexis and Mishka interested in her travels.

Reluctantly, she made another transatlantic call to Robert. Unusually, he was available for her. When they had been living together, it was rarely convenient for him to speak to her immediately. She felt real hatred for the man the moment she heard his voice. She was through with him, but her change of hotel must be made known, in case of an emergency.

‘Then you arrived safely at Brown’s? A good crossing, I hope?’

The ice in his voice! Indifference glossed over with politeness and an undercurrent of annoyance. Those same things she had heard so many times for so many people, but never had she dreamed that they would one day be for her. Did he wish her dead? Well, she wasn’t and didn’t intend to be for a long time yet.

‘No, I’m not at Brown’s. Too many memories there. I called Bramwell and he managed to get me a room here at the Connaught. I thought you should know where I am.’

A long pause, and then he spoke. ‘Anoushka, you don’t have to call me every time you change hotel.’

‘Just how do you expect me to stay in touch? Emergencies? If you should need me?’

‘Anoushka, we don’t live from emergency to emergency. A postcard when you have changed countries, sent to your attorney, should do. If I or the boys ever need you, we’ll find you through David.’

Silence was the only thing Anoushka could manage, all that her anger would allow. Finally it was Robert who broke it. ‘Look, Anoushka, I don’t want to be harsh with you, but a clean break, that’s what we need. Not just because that’s what I want but because, under the circumstances, it’s best for you as well. The boys will be fine. I’ll be fine. We’ll all come through this. All it takes is time. A chance for separate lives to develop.’

‘Ah, the doctor speaking, and with his best bedside manner!’

‘Yes, if you like, a doctor’s advice. You would do well to heed it.’

Another ghastly silence. Again it was Robert who broke it. ‘How’s the weather in London?’

‘I didn’t call to give a weather report, Robert, just to tell you where you can find me.’

‘Anoushka, moving to the Connaught was not what I arranged for you. That’s all right, but I want to remind you that you are not very good at formulating plans. You’d better learn to be. The happy-go-lucky existence you have had with me doing the planning in our lives is over. You’re on your own and with little money. London is costly, even with me picking up your travelling expenses and hotel bills. I’m not going to quibble about your staying at the Connaught but you
do have to think about the cost of your food, your day-to-day living in London, or any other capital city for that matter.’

She interrupted him. ‘How I live and what I do are none of your business. Remember, you’re through with me.’

‘Anoushka, you’ll need more money or you’ll have to get a job, and that won’t be easy. You have no qualifications. I’ll come right out with it. I’m prepared to buy my coins back from you.’

‘So that’s what this is about?’ Anoushka had forgotten about the coins. ‘And would that make my life so much easier, you being in possession of your coin collection?’

‘Yes, if you
sold
them to me.’

‘I wouldn’t even consider selling you
my
coin collection, Robert.’

‘Then promise me you will save them, put them in trust for Alexis and Mishka?’

‘It really bothers you that they are mine, doesn’t it?’

‘Yes. Be careful with them, Anoushka, they’re your most precious asset.’

‘No, you bastard! I’m my most precious asset. You miss your coins, do you, Robert? You’re broken-hearted over losing them, are you? It hurts losing something you love, doesn’t it? Good. Now you know how I feel.

‘Begin again, Robert. That’s what you told me to do to ease the pain of
my
losses, so that’s my advice to you if you want a coin collection. And don’t ask what I’m
going to do with those coins. I will, however, give you a hint. You will never see them again, except possibly in several other people’s collections.’

Then Anoushka hung up the telephone and broke the connection between herself and her husband forever.

London had always been a city that she’d thought she could happily live in. It was a civilised city with just the right amount of pomp and circumstance. It had chic, elegance, culture, and the sense of many villages working together to make one great city. The old as revered as the new. It had always been a place where she had felt comfortable, almost at home in. Not so any more. That feeling would come back again, she kept telling herself.

She dined at the Ivy, at Claridge’s, the Connaught, the Hard Rock Café when she wanted a hamburger and was lonely for her sons. Mr Chow’s and the Tandoori on Curzon Street when she wanted a taste of other places. At the White Tower she recognised Bernard Levin, the journalist, and eavesdropped on the conversation around his table. That evening she felt less lonely. She began looking at people and seeing them properly, especially the men. It felt good to be attracted once more to the opposite sex, to think about the company of a man, the joys of sex.

Every day she was up and out, walking the streets of Mayfair and Knightsbridge and Chelsea. She took long walks in St James’s Park and Hyde Park, and sat in the Farm Street Gardens every morning. She began
to shop, buying an entire new outfit at Brown’s on South Molton Street, another at Ralph Lauren on Bond Street.

A new attitude seemed to come with the new clothes. Now when dining alone there was a flirtatiousness about her that made heads turn. It was far more enjoyable than the many evenings when other diners had looked through her as if she didn’t exist. That had hurt. It had been soul-destroying, that feeling of being invisible while you were still alive, flesh and blood, a human being with feelings.

Those days and nights hardly bothered Anoushka now, neither did visiting the familiar places she used to go with Robert and the children. The only exceptions were Fortnum’s provisions counter, and Harrod’s food hall, the patisseries and specialist food shops in Soho, where she now had no need to buy bread and cakes for Alexis and Mishka, olives and shaved thin slices of Parma ham for Robert, who liked to have a snack with a Campari and soda in their hotel room rather than tea. Buying four champagne truffles, or one croissant for herself, when she used to buy at least a dozen for her family, saddened her.

The weather never lifted during all her weeks in London. The clouds would break, the rain would stop, and then just when she thought the sun would appear the clouds would close in and the rain come down again. Grey, grey, was London this winter. One day, rushing down Cork Street in the rain, Anoushka saw a reflection of herself in the store-front windows and
wondered what she was doing walking around in such grim weather.

She had been several weeks in the city and it felt as if she had been there a lifetime. She decided to pack her bags and leave for Paris where she hoped for better weather, and if she didn’t find it there she would go to Rome or head for Athens. Anoushka
could
formulate a plan. How surprised Robert would have been.

Chapter 7

Anoushka never filled in her cheque stubs. In fact, until her stay in London, she had very rarely written a cheque. She was a woman accustomed to using plastic for whatever she wanted, and the bills went directly to Robert’s office. How she spent money, a demand for receipts, a budget, the usual financial talk between most husbands and wives, had been non-existent between Robert and Anoushka. Not an extravagant woman, money had never been a problem between them. She was ignorant about money and what day-to-day living could cost, having never paid an electricity bill, insurance, anything to do with an automobile. Even the price of a London taxi surprised her now, and she realised grimly that all the years she had thought Robert was protecting her by taking care of their finances, he had been making her unfit to manage alone.

On her return from her morning walk, the concierge handed Anoushka some post with her key. Her heart leapt. News from the boys? They had been bad about
replying to the long and loving letters she sent to them, and she was beginning to think her weekly calls to them were not such a good idea. Without them, Mishka and Alexis might make more of an effort with the fountain pen. But there was no letter from the boys. Instead the envelope contained her new credit cards, ones in her name, Anoushka Usopova Rivers, instead of Mrs Robert Rivers. They had been forwarded from David Holland’s office. With them came a note from David assuring her the boys were well and saying that he hoped she was saving receipts and keeping cheque stubs.

Anoushka understood that she had to think about money; that in fact she did not have very much. She suddenly became aware she’d been living her life as one long holiday. How much money had she spent? She could only judge by going to the cupboard and looking at her wardrobe, by counting her blank cheque stubs, thinking about where she had gone, what she had done in her day-to-day existence in London. She sat in a chair in one of the public rooms at the Connaught reliving her days and nights, trying to fill in the blank cheque stubs from memory.

Anoushka went to her room and sat at the dressing table still thinking about money. It had always been an abstract thing in Anoushka’s life. She had never really learned about it from her mother, and there had never been a father to teach her about it. He had died when she was five years old. There had been hard times and easy times before she met Robert, but even
in the bad old days she had survived with dignity. There had always been someone there to provide for her, and if there hadn’t been she soon found someone. Money had always been a by-product of something more interesting in her life.

Anoushka opened the velvet bag containing her divorce settlement. She spilled the Greek and Roman coins, each in their own small velvet envelope, on to the table. Opening one, she slid out a coin and looked at it, then placed it on the table in front of her. Eleven coins that until she had taken them had meant little to her. Now they seemed very beautiful, and had about them something more than beauty. Hundreds of years old, they held in them history, the passion of many lives. She smiled at herself for being fanciful. She was not usually a fanciful woman. She slipped each coin back into its case, and the velvet bag where they were kept into her handbag. Then she dressed to go out into the rain again. She did not to go Spink’s, the coin dealer’s, which was where Robert would expect her to go. Instead she went to the British Museum to look at their Greek and Roman coins.

Anoushka could see that hers were as beautiful as some she saw in the museum. It was true what Robert had said, she had absolutely no idea what she had taken from him in her vindictive rage. Clearly she needed advice.

The following day she called the British Museum and asked for an appointment to see the curator of Greek and Roman coins. Two days later he met her at
the museum. Studiedly calm expressions on the faces of the curator and his colleagues who had been called in to view Anoushka’s coins could not dispel the excitement, even tension, she sensed mounting in the room. Finally, after knowing glances from one authority to another, the questions started. ‘How, Mrs Rivers, have you managed to assemble such an impressive collection?’

Anoushka liked ‘impressive’; it validated her instinct that these coins were indeed as important as some she had seen in the glass cases in the galleries.

‘When did you collect these, Mrs Rivers?’ asked another expert.

Before she could answer the chief curator interrupted. ‘This is an extraordinary collection, Mrs Rivers. We would be pleased to know anything you can tell us about them. Where, for example, they came from?’

Anoushka had no idea and so could give them no answer. She had been indifferent to Robert’s hobby, his obsessive passion. He had always been secretive about his coins. It had irritated her enough for her to have taken little interest in them, to have for the most part blocked them and his passion for collecting out of her mind. Somewhat embarrassed at her ignorance in this matter, she turned their questions back on them. ‘Before I tell you what I know about my collection …’

‘Then they are yours?’ interrupted one of the men standing round the curator’s desk.

‘Oh, yes, they’re mine. May I continue? As I was
about to say, I would appreciate it if you could tell me what, if anything, you know about these coins?

The curator picked one up and held it in the palm of his hand.

‘The last time I saw this, it was in a collection up for auction at the Hotel Baur au Lac in Zurich. The collection had belonged to Bruce McNall, a Los Angeles millionaire, what you Americans would call a whizz-kid coin collector. An aggressive dealer in ancient coins and artefacts. Athena Funds, his company, was selling off forty-five thousand coins including some of the most famous in existence, such as the Ides of March – a gold Aureus minted by Brutus to commemorate the assassination of Julius Caesar. This coin in my hand came from that collection and was sold that day to another Los Angeles collector, Morton Holmby.’

The curator put the coin down on the velvet cloth on his desk and chose another. ‘And this one was for many years in a French collection owned by Monsieur François Audren, while this,’ here he chose another coin, ‘belonged to Prince Ahmad, a member of one of the royal families in the Gulf, who prides himself on having one of the finest collections of Greek and Rome coins in the world.

‘These,’ he told her, and drew aside three on the cloth, ‘I saw displayed in a conference room in Zurich in 1974 when a dealer buying for an Arab king outbid buying agents for Aristotle Onassis and the future French President, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing.’

All eyes were on Anoushka. Clearly she was
stunned by what she was hearing. ‘Shall I go on, madam?’

‘You put my collection in illustrious company. How can you be sure these are the same coins?’

The curator handed the magnifying glass to her. ‘They are of phenomenal quality, and have been well recorded. I recognise their marks – all ancient coins have their marks. They are, so to speak, the coin’s fingerprints.’ He held the glass over one for Anoushka to look at. ‘A silver decadrachm. Might I ask – I think I must ask – how you came by these?’

‘Not in any criminal way, if that’s what’s concerning you, gentlemen.’ They all looked embarrassed now.

Overwhelmed by what she had learned, Anoushka asked, ‘May I have a glass of water?’

‘I think we can do better than that for you, Mrs Rivers. May I suggest we would all benefit from a cup of tea?’

It was evident to everyone in the room that Anoushka Rivers was as puzzled as they were that she should have such a collection in her possession. Over tea and biscuits they chatted about her stay in London, what she had seen at the theatre, what exhibitions she had attended. About anything but the coins. Finally Anoushka felt composed enough to address the curator.

‘I’m not a very worldly woman. I needed to discover whether my collection was a significant one or not, and hesitated to go to a dealer. Now that I know it is, I feel I must put your mind at rest and tell you how the coins
have come into my possession.’

Looks of satisfaction crossed the men’s faces. Decorum held back sighs of relief. Museums do not like to be faced with the darker side of antiquity collecting such as smuggling or theft.

‘They are part of a divorce settlement. How my husband came by them I can only guess. I imagine that they are gifts from grateful patients. My husband is a doctor, a heart surgeon, Robert Rivers of the Harley Rogers Clinic in Lakeside, Connecticut.’

Anoushka could see general recognition of the name. She continued, ‘Each of the men whom you have mentioned as being the last owner of a coin has had his life saved by my husband. Wealthy and generous patients must have known my husband to be a passionate numismatist, and I assume that is the means by which he came by these coins. Ancient coin collecting was something they must have had in common.’

‘It seems unimaginable that your husband should give this collection up.’

‘I guess he wanted his freedom more than his coins. And I have no doubt he thought my ignorance about and disinterest in the coins would in due course lead me to exchange them for a better financial settlement than I already have. It would never occur to him that I would investigate my asset and deal with anyone other than him about it.

‘You see, I have always deferred to my husband and his wishes. I’m not clever about such things as money,
assets, business, nor do I have or understand the passion for collecting. But I do understand my husband. The fact of the matter is that he did not offer me the coins in settlement – I took them, or tricked him if you will. I took the one thing I knew he prized. An act of sweet revenge for his destroying my life. But at the time I had no idea just how sweet. Their value, their rarity, even their beauty, none of that came into it. So you can understand that what I have learned here today poses a tremendous problem for me.’

How very American of me, and stupid, she, thought to herself. To spill out such a personal story to these strangers – reserved Englishmen, who shun the emotional coming to the surface of life in any way or form. Robert would have been appalled to know that she had spilled her guts to scholars at the British Museum. Could that have been why she’d done it? She viewed the men’s embarrassment but hardly cared about it. However, she, like everyone else in the room, seemed relieved when the curator broke the embarrassed silence that had followed her revelations.

‘May I ask what you intend to do with them? I ask only because the museum has a vested interest in all such beautiful and historical objects.’

‘I have no idea. Yesterday I thought I would sell them. Now I will have to think further. My decision will depend partly on my financial situation.’

‘May I suggest, should you make a decision to sell, that you offer them back to the collections whence they came? Each of those collections is large and
important, and bound to end up in a museum one day. Alternatively you might consider offering them to us in some capacity.’

It was dark outside and rain was beating against the windows of the taxi. Anoushka had walked some distance through Bloomsbury in the downpour before she had found a cab. Wet nearly through to her skin, she only realised how uncomfortable she was when the powerful heater in the back of the taxi steamed up the windows, and the musty scent of drying wool filled the passenger compartment.

Riding through the rain-drenched streets, back to the Connaught, she thought about Robert and how he had deceived her on so many fronts. Not once had he told her about the generosity of his patients, nor had he ever indicated to her that the coins were of such great value. Why hadn’t he told her that they had a multi-million-dollar nest egg? Why had he never confided in her? How was that possible for a couple who had been so close, so intimate as she had believed them to be? His last words to her about the coins had been that he would buy them from her. Buy them? And how much would he have offered? This man she had believed to be the finest, most honourable man in the world.

Anoushka knew that as a family they were well off, enough to have everything they wanted, within reason, though certainly what they had was not on the scale of wealth enjoyed by some of the names she had heard in
connection with
her
coins this afternoon. Had she agreed to sell to Robert, he would have tossed her a pittance, deceived her, cheated on her yet again. She burned with hatred for him and his deceit.

The doorman at the Connaught held the huge umbrella over her head as she paid the taxi driver. Still lost in her thoughts, she let the doorman take her by the elbow and usher her from the rain into the hotel. Anoushka went directly to the bar and ordered a vodka martini, then after giving her wet things to the waiter she chose one of the bar’s comfortable chairs at a small table.

There she sat drinking martinis and wondering why she felt so unhappy about the coins when she should have been thrilled to know how valuable they were. Her future financial security, something she had not even thought about, was set for life by the mere fact that she owned them. She was wealthy in her own right now, and thought about that though it held little meaning for her. All she could think about was that she had lost the great love of her life, that her husband had robbed her of her family, that she had been thrown out in the world utterly alone.

The next morning Anoushka packed her bags and left for Paris. The sun was out there, and Anoushka felt uplifted seeing the brightness and gaiety that French life had to offer. Paris was a city she had always loved, but her life there was no different from life in London and after five weeks she had had enough. She wanted to go home to Lakeside.

The moment she heard David’s voice Anoushka knew she had made a mistake in calling him. He would not tell her what she wanted to hear.

‘Anoushka, nice to hear you. How are you getting on?’

Just hearing his voice seemed to settle her. That was strange because in all the years she had known Betsy and David, he had had little time for her. It was Robert who was his friend, her husband whom he had got on with. But since the break-up, she had found David her only truly compassionate friend, the only person interested in her welfare in spite of representing Robert in the divorce. Though he had found Dan Konicosh, a young man in another firm, to represent her in her divorce from Robert, David had agreed to handle any of her other affairs.