Body and Soul (17 page)

Eden and Max entered their box and were greeted by the Director of Covent Garden. They were introduced to several other guests and given a glass of champagne and tiny smoked salmon sandwiches. Eden was shown to a chair at the front of the box next to a man in black tie, his head buried in an evening newspaper. A smiling Max removed the newspaper from his hands just as the house lights dimmed. ‘I believe you know this man or so he says.’

‘Tom Spurling at your service, ma’am.’ And he raised Eden’s hand and pressed a kiss upon her fingers.

Chapter 17

The Russian wonder was indeed a wonder. He left his audience breathless with excitement. Another Nureyev, a taller Baryshnikov. Names of great male dancers of the past were on everyone’s lips. There were heart-stopping leaps, magnificent
pas de deuxs
. Filled with joy and wonder, the audience delivered a ten-minute standing ovation.

All through the evening Eden wanted to know how Tom had pulled off his coup. But there was no time, the dancer held them all enthralled. Afterwards there was a supper which Eden and Tom skipped out on. Max covered for them with an acceptable excuse. Tom had other plans. In Max’s car they sat in the back seat while his driver threaded through the traffic and they managed to get out of Covent Garden.

‘Alone at last! Now one of you had better tell me how you managed this magnificent surprise. I want to hear it all, every detail,’ Eden told them.

‘You begin, Max,’ said Tom.

‘From the beginning?’ he asked.

‘Yes, no secrets, from the very beginning.’

‘You both look so smug and sound like a double act. Do get on with it, Max,’ prompted Eden.

‘About a week ago I had a phone call from Tom. Of course, I knew his name. He asked me to lunch.’

‘What do you mean, he asked you to lunch? Just like that, out of the blue, and you accepted? That sounds very strange to me.’

‘Are you going to keep interrupting?’ Max scolded.

‘Sorry.’

‘As I was saying, I had this phone call from Tom who got past my secretary by mentioning he was a friend of an old friend of mine, Jason Wildeman, a journalist who had been very good to us in the past. I tried to get out of lunch but Tom hooked me in when he said, “This is about Eden Sidd.”

‘We arranged to meet at the Foreign Corespondents’ Club. At the bar we had a few drinks and he came directly to the point. I think you should pick it up from there, Tom.’

Eden was intrigued. She was also aware that Max liked Tom, so they must have got on right from the beginning. She said nothing but waited for Tom to take over, very much in the dark about why he went to meet Max.

‘I called on Max because I knew how important he was to your life and would be to mine. I am deeply in love with you, Eden, and found it increasingly difficult to keep that a secret, especially from someone as important as Max is to you. I suppose it was a man thing. Having to see what I have to contend with. If Max and I get on all our lives will be easier. The object of the exercise was to meet the competition.

‘I liked the look of Max the very first time I saw him waiting at the bar. I went up to him and told him, “Thank you for seeing me. There is no mystery here and I don’t want there to be any.” We shook hands and he said, “You mentioned Eden Sidd?” “Yes, I’m going to marry her and I thought you should know that as you’re so much a part of her life,” I said.

‘He took an enormous swallow of Scotch and then asked me, “Don’t you think Eden should be the one to tell me such important news?” “Oh, she plans to,” I told him. “But, you see, I wanted to make sure that you and I liked each other first. I had to know who I’m dealing with. Not from Eden, who would be biased, but from instinct, yours and mine. I need you to know that I do not take my love for Eden lightly, nor her career, and neither do I want to hinder in any way the relationship you have together. I felt that if I waited for Eden to take the initiative and tell you in a few weeks’ times there would already be a breach in our relationship, a secret, that would put you off base. It would
be harder to get to know you. That’s not what I want.”

‘Of course the next problem was, how was I going to tell you that I had gone behind your back to meet Max? After he’d checked me out with Jason Wildeman, he called me and we had a second lunch. Jason had assured Max that if I had declared myself in any way then I would deliver the goods. “A man of honour”, was how he put it. Yes, that was it, he called me a man of honour.

‘It was my idea that we bring it all out in the open as soon as possible – that is, between the three of us. I was insistent that we should keep it from the public a little while longer out of pure selfishness on our part, enjoying the privacy and all that.

‘To surprise you was my idea. How, when and where was Max’s.’

Eden leaned over and kissed Tom then turned towards Max and told him, ‘I will always love you but never as much as I do now for immediately recognising that Tom is the right man for me. For us.’ Then she kissed Max and she and Tom said goodbye.

A few minutes later they were in front of a small French restaurant on Charlotte Street. The glitter and glitz of the earlier part of the evening was left behind in Covent Garden. Chez Jean-Pierre had only seven tables covered in blue and white checked tablecloths, a red candle aglow in a silver candleholder on each. It was smoky and smelled of heavenly French cuisine. All the tables were taken save for one.

Eden and Tom entered the restaurant and were greeted effusively by the chef’s wife, Ann-Marie. Tom introduced Eden to her and they were shown to their table.

Eden’s first impression was that it was one of those charming out-of-the-way little bistros one finds everywhere in France. Typical of the sort of place Tom would seek out. Great food, no pretensions, inexpensive. In fact, however, it was more like a private dining club. One did not just walk in off the street, the tables were always reserved, and the menu was extraordinary. One did not choose. The chef cooked what he wanted and everyone wanted what Jean-Pierre cooked.

First of all tall flutes of champagne arrived. There was a continual amazing contrast here between simplicity and elegance, the rough and the smooth. It was an atmosphere so special it took
Eden by surprise. She had no preconceived ideas about what this man she had fallen in love with was like. He was full of surprises: approaching Max as he had, turning up at the ballet as he did, and now the first place he took her was something unique. He was definitely every bit the adventure he had promised to be when he’d asked Eden to marry him and she was enthralled.

‘However did you discover this place?’ she asked as plates of whole foie gras were placed in front of them and fresh glasses of perfect Sauternes to go with it. Miniature brioches were served with the goose liver.

‘I used to dine at their restaurant in Algeria. They had a terrible time resettling and so a few friends and I helped them to get going by forming a dining club. Pure selfishness. I told you, journalists always seek out the best place to eat and the best place to sleep.’

Eden sensed there was much more to the story than that but did not press the subject. She had learned a useful lesson about her life to be with Tom Spurling. They were going to let things unfold slowly, the best way to get to know and love each other even better.

During the next few hours they dined as grandly as if they had been to the best four-star restaurant in Lyon or Paris. The bill was astronomical. Tom paid with a credit card and caught her gazing at the cost.

He smiled and said, ‘I suppose married people do talk about money. Are you perhaps wondering if I can afford to keep us in the style to which you are accustomed? The answer is, I don’t know on two counts: first, I don’t know how you live so we will have to see. Second: I have put away most of my earnings and lived on my expense account for close to twenty years. The money is invested and all I have bought for years is the fishing lodge and some land round it. When I gave up warmongering I spoke to the accountant to see if I could afford to change my work. War and pestilence is lucrative, pretty pictures may not be. He told me, “Change your life, Tom, you can afford it. You have a portfolio worth eight million US dollars.” We’re wealthy, Eden. Wealthy beyond my imagination. Enough to do whatever we want for as long as we choose.’

‘You mean to support me?’

‘Why sound so surprised?’

‘I have money from my work.’

‘Good, then we have that much more to play with, but the important thing is, it’s yours, it’s mine, it’s ours. Who cares whose it is? All that matters is that we can afford to get married.’

Eden realised that she had fallen in love with an innocent, someone who could never imagine the devious ins and outs that can occur in love. At last she had met someone selfless who loved her. She could not but think of Garfield, all the love she had invested in him and how he had manipulated her. It was like the Black Knight coming up against the White. A shiver ran down her spine. She had spent years loving the Black Knight, playing on the dark side of the moon.

‘Are you chilly?’ asked Tom.

‘No.’

‘I thought I saw you shiver,’ he insisted.

‘Just someone walking over my grave,’ Eden told him.

‘I suppose we have to expect that. Great loves die hard, and sometimes not at all,’ said Tom, and changed the subject.

Eden picked up immediately that he was no fool. He was aware that she had a past and it didn’t matter to him. He was secure enough about them as a couple to accept her past loves and let her deal with them.

The evening was perfect. As Tom had promised, if his proposal of marriage had not been romantic, their future would be. From the restaurant they drove to the fishing lodge in his old battered Honda. Dawn was just coming up and there was a mist on the river. Neither of them much felt like sleep, so Tom lit the fire and Eden made tea. They lay in front of the flames and once again with great tenderness undressed each other and lay among cushions covered with the wolfskin coverlet.

Eden caressed Tom. She told him, ‘There is something about your skin, the scent of it, its smoothness. I like touching you, it makes me feel very raunchy.’

Tom gazed into her eyes. A look passed between them then, something so intimate and exciting that words seemed superfluous.
Silence seemed the order of things. Sexuality, all things erotic, a landscape of lust, passion, discovery, the outer limits of orgasm where oblivion and bliss ruled their lives, were waiting to be explored.

Eden moved on to her knees, yearning for the deepest penetration possible from Tom. He took her time and again with thrusts of hard pulsating cock and sweet kisses on her back. He licked her skin and sucked on her flesh and she felt as if he were branding her with hot metal, so extreme was the pleasure she derived from his fucking her.

Quite clearly he was a man used to adventurous sex and took enormous pleasure from coming with a woman. He was incredibly passionate, biting into Eden’s flesh, reaching into her cunt with his fingers and scooping out the nectar of her orgasms. He licked them and offered her a taste, then returned to her with his phallus. He adored fucking Eden. They were made for sex together. He was enchanted by her lustful ways. It excited his imagination to hear heavy breathing, sounds of sexual joy. It was utter bliss to him to drive on and pleasure her in any way possible.

Tom reached into a lacquered box of beautiful carved sex toys. He knew from pure instinct that Eden was sexually mature and lustful enough to have used them before in erotic game-playing. He knew very well how to excite a woman with them and when she called out with enormous pleasure from one orgasm to another he knew they would always be able to enjoy the outer limits of sexual bliss together. They were a couple tuned into the joys of sexual freedom, no-holds-barred erotic nirvana.

Dawn turned into morning and they were still playing for high stakes sex where passion was king and love was god. Eden was lost in ecstasy.

A bright future seemed to hang in the air around them. It was warm and secure and both were aware how lucky they had been to come along in each other’s life at that moment. The Max machine of public relations for the Epidaurus concerts was now in full swing, and Tom had coped with that admirably. He appreciated Eden’s celebrity as if it was his own, modestly, and
with wonder that such a rare and beautiful artist as she was to be his wife.

It was Tom who suggested that their marriage should not overshadow her comeback concerts, and there was no getting around it, they were two famous people whose wedding would be headline news. As the weeks went by they yearned to be husband and wife. While having a wedding certificate had never been an issue to either of them before, suddenly it became very important.

One fine day, after listening for several hours to Eden’s rendition of Schubert, moved by the music and profoundly touched by her playing, Tom said, ‘I don’t want us to fool around any longer, I want to be married. We can keep it a secret until after the concerts but let’s not wait. I’ll pull all the right strings and cut through the red tape. So let’s do it, get married in Hydra. What do you think?’

‘What a good idea,’ Eden told him, her heart racing with anticipation. The very idea of being married to Tom brought tears of joy to her eyes.

Four days later all the arrangements were made. They stayed in Eden’s house in Hydra. The church was closed to the public and Eden, wearing a cream-coloured dress by Yves St Laurent and white stephanotis pinned in her hair, and Tom, in blazer and old school tie, were married there amongst hundreds of white candles. An archbishop and two priests conducted the Greek Orthodox ceremony. Max gave the bride away while Tom’s friend Jason Wildeman was a witness.

The smell of burning wax mixed with incense. When the crowns were passed over the couple’s heads the bride wept with a new kind of joy and thought of her mother, and how she would have adored every moment of Eden and Tom’s wedding.

They slipped quietly out of the side door of the church and rushed home to her house after the ceremony. They saw no one for several days, but cooked and made love and Eden played marvellous music for her husband. She and the Surabaya were now attuned to each other, knew how to get the best from each other. Eden and Tom flew back England when their marriage had been duly celebrated, and lived and loved as they had before.