A Night on the Orient Express (33 page)

‘It’s been a huge success. But you know we’re selling it? It’s too much for her now.’

‘And you don’t want to carry it on.’ His tone sounded slightly accusing. Imogen wondered if Adele had sent her here so Jack could persuade her to stay on at the gallery. Yet her grandmother had been only too eager to push her out of the nest.

‘I guess I want a new challenge,’ she told him. ‘The world doesn’t start and finish in Shallowford.’

‘I’m sure you’ll be a success, whatever you do.’

‘I’ll certainly try my best.’ Her eyes hadn’t stopped roaming around the drawing room. There were some impressive paintings on the wall. Worth more than the building itself, she imagined. ‘You’ve got some wonderful work here.’

‘I have. But you’ve yet to see the best. Your birthday present, I believe.’

Imogen shrugged. ‘I’ve got no idea what it is. Adele wouldn’t tell me. Only the title. I don’t know anything about it.’ She paused. ‘Or why you have it.’

‘I’ve been its guardian since the day it was painted.’

‘Why? Why couldn’t she keep it?’

‘It was . . . complicated.’ Jack flashed a defiant look at her.

Imogen raised her eyebrows.

‘Complicated how?’ Imogen wondered for a moment if perhaps it was stolen. She was certain Adele would have nothing to do with a stolen piece of art, but there was definitely a mystery.

Jack smiled. ‘I commissioned it for her birthday.’

He held out his hand for Imogen to help him to his feet. There was no weight behind him, and she realised how frail he was. The strength of his personality was deceiving.

He beckoned her to follow him. ‘It’s in the dining room,’ he told her.

He opened a heavy wooden door. Inside, the walls were painted deep red. A gate-legged table that sat twelve took up most of the room, with ornately carved chairs at each place, like miniature thrones. At the far end was a shoulder-high stone fireplace. Over it hung a painting.

The moment she saw it, Imogen gasped.

A woman was sprawled across a green velvet chaise longue, against which her skin looked startlingly white. Her hair was half up and half down; one hand was at her throat, the other rested on her thigh. The look in her eyes was sheer contentment. No one could be in any doubt that she had just been pleasured by her lover; the playful half-smile on her lips said it all. She was womanhood personified; to call it erotic would be crass.

Underneath, screwed to the frame, was a gilt plate engraved with four words.
The Inamorata – Reuben Zeale.

Imogen put a hand to her chest. She could barely breathe. It was one of the most magnificent paintings she had ever seen in her life. It was pure, raw Reuben Zeale – the most brilliant example of everything he had been lauded for. It was as if the woman was in the room with her. She felt that if she touched her skin, it would feel warm. That if she spoke, the woman would speak back to her.

But that wasn’t what was so shocking.

What had rendered her speechless was that the woman in the painting was Adele.

Imogen turned to look at Jack, for confirmation.

He was gazing at the painting, one hand resting on his stick. He had a faraway look in his eyes. She couldn’t quite discern it. Regret? Adoration? Longing. It was longing.

Something clicked in her brain. The piece of the puzzle she had been missing leapt out at her.

‘You were lovers,’ she whispered.

He didn’t answer for a moment.

‘I still miss her,’ he said. ‘I was a fool. I should never have started anything, but I am too vain to be able to resist a challenge. I adored her, but I never let on, until the very end. I had my own rules, which I thought made me invincible and untouchable.’ He paused. He seemed to slump. ‘All it meant was I ended up losing someone I loved very much.’

‘What happened?’ she asked Jack.

‘Oh, your grandmother had enough sense to realise that I wasn’t worthwhile. And that your grandfather was ten times the man I was.’

Imogen thought about her grandparents. They had always been so close. She couldn’t imagine her grandmother having an affair. But judging by the painting, she had been quite young. Not much older than Imogen herself.

‘She knew,’ said Jack, ‘that I would never make her happy. She knew when to end it. At the moment when everything was perfect. It was the only thing to do. She is a very wise woman, Adele.’

Jack picked up his stick and nudged the frame slightly, to put the picture straight. Imogen looked at it again.

‘Is it really by Reuben Zeale?’ she asked, but she didn’t need confirmation. She could tell by the confidence of the brushstrokes, the sheer quality, the power of the painting.

Jack nodded. ‘One of his earliest works,’ he told her. ‘But I think you’ll find it’s very valuable.’

‘What on earth am I going to do with it?’ Imogen suddenly felt overawed by the responsibility.

Jack fixed her with a beady look. ‘You’re to use it, to your advantage,’ he told her.

Imogen couldn’t begin to imagine the impact this discovery was going to have.

‘An undiscovered Reuben Zeale,’ she said. ‘The media will go mad.’

‘And it’s up to you, my dear, to play them.’ His eyes were sparkling now. ‘As you will.’

‘They’ll want to know who she is. Everyone will want to know. I can’t imagine Adele will want people to find out the truth.’

‘That’s a conversation you need to have with her. But nobody needs to know the truth. I think it’s probably best if we continue to protect the ones who would have been most hurt.’

Her grandfather, thought Imogen. Had he known? And Jack’s wife? They were both dead, but that didn’t mean the story could now be exploited. It would be disrespectful to both their memories.

She put a hand to her mouth, totally overwhelmed. The picture was dazzling, and deserved to be shared with the world, but it was also intensely personal.

‘I don’t know what to do with her,’ she said. ‘I don’t know if I can cope with the responsibility. This is momentous.’

‘If I know Adele,’ said Jack, ‘she wants you to use it as a tool. To help you.’

‘I can’t sell it,’ exclaimed Imogen. ‘I’d never sell it!’

‘No, no,’ said Jack. ‘And you can be sure if that was your decision, I’d buy it back off you. I’d sell every painting I had just to keep
The Inamorata
in safe hands.’

He glared at her. Imogen was left in no doubt that he would do so.

‘She’s in safe hands,’ she assured him. ‘I can promise you that.’

‘Good,’ said Jack. ‘And I trust Adele’s judgement. She was extraordinary.’

He turned away from her suddenly. Imogen felt her heart go out to him. She sensed a deep emotion in him, emotion that had gone unexpressed for a lifetime. She didn’t know what to do, whether to try and comfort him, or to leave him alone. She felt an urge to embrace him, but she had only just met him. She cleared her throat, but before she could speak, he turned back.

‘Have lunch with me,’ he said. ‘Petra will cook. We’ll eat in here. I want to enjoy her for the very last time.’

He turned and walked out of the room. Imogen was left alone. It was very silent. The air in the room was cold, and she shivered.

The Inamorata.
A woman with whom one is in love.

She thought about Adele and Jack’s story, and their secret. When she looked at the painting, she could see for herself just how much it had meant to Adele. For someone to make you look like that, it must have been a deep and enduring passion. The kind of passion most people didn’t experience as long as they lived.

The kind of passion that inspired literature, music, poetry – and art. Zeale had pinned it down on the canvas with an unnerving precision. She thought of the reaction the painting was going to provoke if and when it was revealed to the world at large. She felt proud that her grandmother wanted her to have it. She would make sure it was recognised and given the honour it deserved, however that may be.

Before she left the dining room, she looked at
The Inamorata
once more. There was something else familiar about it. It wasn’t that it was her grandmother. It wasn’t the features so much as the feeling it evoked in her. She empathised totally, but she wasn’t sure why.

And then suddenly, it became clear. She’d seen that look in her own eyes. In the mirror. After being with Danny.

Jack cheered up over lunch, as if the food Petra provided had fortified him and made him strong again. She brought in a huge white platter filled with bundles of baby asparagus tied up with pancetta, crostini chopped with chicken liver and figs with fennel and salami.

‘I don’t know what I’m going to do when Petra leaves,’ he told Imogen. ‘She’s an art student, and she has a very nice room here in return for feeding me. But she graduates this summer.’

‘There’ll be plenty of other girls like me at the college. I’ll put up an advert,’ Petra told him. ‘And I’ll leave my recipes.’

‘They won’t be the same,’ Jack insisted.

‘You’ll fall in love with the next one, just as you fell in love with me two minutes after Abigail left.’ Petra clearly had the measure of Jack, but she was obviously very fond of him.

The main course was pork belly with fennel, the skin crisp, the meat melting. While they ate, Imogen filled Jack in on her plans for the future. He had lots of interesting ideas, and Imogen could see how useful he had been when Adele had started out. He was generous with his knowledge, and not many people were.

‘So what is Adele going to do?’

‘She won’t retire completely. I know she won’t. She’ll always be there if I need her advice. She loves it too much. What on earth will she do with her time if she gives it up?’

Imogen was confident this was true.

She looked over at Jack, who was gazing into the middle distance, suddenly subdued. He realised he was being watched, and jerked his head back to look at her.

‘I adored her, you know. She deserved so much better than me. I would never, ever have made her happy. I’m far too shallow and vain.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Imogen told him. ‘My grandfather made her happy. Very happy.’

For a moment she thought she had been too sharp with the old man. Her words seemed to sting him.

‘In a different way,’ she added softly. ‘I’m sure you were very special to her.’

She wasn’t condoning what they had done, but she thought she understood. You couldn’t dictate whom you felt passionate about. She knew that well enough.

After lunch Jack seemed to fade very quickly. He fell asleep at the table, his head nodding onto his chest.

‘This is normal,’ said Petra. ‘He’ll go off to bed in a minute.’ She took away his glass and shook him gently. ‘Jack, I think Imogen is about to go.’

He woke, and looked up at her.

‘If you ever fall in love,’ he told her, his eyes bright, ‘if you ever find true love, don’t walk away. Whatever you do, don’t walk away.’

He stood up and walked out of the room without a backward glance. Petra began to clear away the plates. She gave a long-suffering smile. ‘He gets like that when he’s tired,’ she told Imogen. ‘He’ll be fine again later.’

Imogen didn’t reply at first. Jack’s words had fired themselves straight into her heart. Suddenly everything made sense and was starting to fall into place.

‘I must go,’ was all she managed, and grabbed her handbag. ‘Thank you so much for a lovely lunch.’

She just hoped it wasn’t too late.

Jack watched the girl from the drawing-room window as she walked back down the boulevard to the Cipriani. He sensed a courage in her, as well as a vulnerability, that took him back. It was over fifty years, but the realisation that he had lost someone he truly loved hit as sharply as it had that morning in the Cipriani, when he had woken to find Adele gone.

It had been the hardest lesson he had ever learnt. He never had another affair. He had remained faithful to Rosamund, knowing that no matter how hard he searched he would never fill the hole left by Adele. And gradually Rosamund became enough for him, and he learned to appreciate the things that truly mattered in life, like their wonderful daughters, and their glorious home, and their friends. He became happier, away from the pressure he had once put upon himself to make meaningless conquests. It had taken a meaningful one to make him realise how futile it all was.

He walked into the room that served as his study. It looked out over the canal at the back of the house, and if he leaned out of the window he could just see the edge of the island and a glimpse of the blue lagoon beyond. The walls were lined with books, hundreds and hundreds of books on art: a valuable collection, many of them long out of print. Here it was that he had written his reviews, his theses and several of his own books, none of which had made him a fortune but had given him great pleasure.

And hundreds of letters. Letters that he had written but never had the courage to send, all to the same person. He kept them, nevertheless, because they were a record of his feelings, a reminder of every emotion that had washed through him, from hope to elation to despair, in the years that had passed since they had spent their final few days together on the island. It was why he had returned to Giudecca after Rosamund had died, because he felt closer to Adele here than anywhere.

He heard the plangent note of the Santa Maria ring out. Two o’clock.

He drew a sheet of notepaper towards him, picked up his pen and began to write, his striking italics stark on the page. He started it in the same way he had begun all the others, the ones he had never sent.

My dearest, darling Adele
,

What a pleasure it was to have your wonderful granddaughter here. Not least because it was as if a little bit of you was in the room with me. She has your spirit, your grace and your dazzling eyes, the eyes I have never forgotten. My last memory of you is the tears in them as you kissed me, the night before you left. I want nothing more than to look into them again so I can wipe the traces of those tears away once and for all. If you would consider meeting, it would mean the world.

I can think of no better keeper for
The Inamorata
than Imogen. And Reuben, I know, would have been pleased that it is in safe hands. It was always his favourite painting.