Body and Soul (9 page)

Chapter 9

‘You were about to tell me why you have returned to music?’ Laurent reminded her.

‘So I was,’ she replied.

He saw her hesitation. This was clearly not the reunion she had anticipated. What had she expected? That he would sweep her off her feet into bed, rekindle the fire that had once burned so bright as it fed on their lust for each other? Well, this time she must win and cherish his passion for her, he vowed.

‘I never really left music, Laurent, just performing in public. I did play every day, am proud of the pieces I have composed during those years. I have had a good life off the concert circuit but if truth be told a better one on it. I realised that one day in a tea room called Frog’s Hollow.’

Then Eden told the story of how she’d realised she had become invisible. Just another statistic: middle-aged, fading female who could no longer turn a man’s head.

Tears filled her eyes but the power of her will held them back from cascading down her cheeks. Her voice remained firm and she was quite magnificent when she told Laurent, ‘I simply could not allow myself to be thrown on to the scrap heap. I left immediately on a journey to find myself again. To seek that happiness, the joy in life, I used to have and which attracted men to me. I wanted them to see me again as someone alive to loving and being cherished.

‘At the start of my odyssey, I thought I had only to find a man to love me. It was a humiliating thing to put myself through and,
thank the lord, I realised almost immediately that it was me, Eden, who had to fall in love with myself again, not some stranger or old friend just because he had a penis to entice me with. That I needed to work on myself as I always had. No one looked at me as a vital passionate woman any more because I had somehow managed to let that side of my life die. The moment I reached down and found the Eden I had been before my retreat, I was no longer invisible to men.

‘It took two of them in Hydra to restore my sexuality to me. Afterwards I found that to search for a man to love me, to seek out men who wanted me for sex and lust alone, was fun again but too shallow a goal. Every day I would practise and every day I sensed I was playing the game better. Every night I was made love to my sensuality was restored, my very soul.

‘That was no little thing. To desire on a grand scale again is like a rebirth. To go out on the edge of sexuality for the excitement it can bring is comparable with nothing else. How had I forgotten that? How could I have deprived myself of that luxury? I was invisible to that handsome stranger because I’d allowed my passion to die, had become a shell of the woman I once was.

‘Working on my music every day, I was aware that there was almost immediately a change in my playing. It happened incredibly fast, so fast I wasn’t at first sure that the gift I have been endowed with, my ability to play the cello, was still there. If it had not been I would never return to playing in public. But I feel now that my return is almost preordained. It is my destiny to play again.’

Here Eden stopped. She had not meant to blurt out the incident at Frog’s Hollow to Laurent of all people. This younger man whose love she had abused, whom she had hurt so badly if unintentionally. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to go on so. I must sound vain, frivolous, desperate even. But you did ask, and that’s what happened.’

That was so typical of Eden, to tell it as it was. No cover up. No flattering story to ingratiate herself with him. Now he had to assimilate the fact that she was enjoying a sex life with other men and had called on him not to rekindle a lustful relationship but a musical one. He sat for several minutes. They were silent, sipping
from their champagne flutes and gazing into each other’s eyes. How lovely Eden looked, lovely and sexy and exciting, just as she had always been for him. The sexual chemistry was still there. It excited them, that was evident, but what to do about it was not.

‘Sorry?’ he said. ‘You do not have to be sorry for confiding in me. If you had talked to me as you just have, truthfully and from the heart, all those years ago when we were together, our love might have blossomed instead of died. That is all I ever want to say to you about our love that went wrong. You are playing wonderfully. I
will
conduct for you. We can deal with that. Whether we can with you and me together in an intimate relationship again is a question that only our being together and time can answer. Just assure me of one thing: if we should rekindle our intimate relationship it will not be purely because you want me to conduct for you, will it? That we can keep work and our private feelings separate, if there are to be any.’

Eden was taken off guard by the generosity that Laurent was exhibiting. That he was here at all and willing to conduct for her was marvellous good luck but to have such a mature attitude about them, that he even considered that there still was a them, was an extra bonus she had not even considered. This time round it was only fair that he should make the moves towards any intimacy and she must be cautious in every way not to lead him on as she had once done.

Eden rose from the step and Laurent followed. She handed her empty glass to him and, sliding her arms around his waist, leaned in against him. ‘Would you prefer me to choose another conductor?’ she asked.

‘No.’

‘You are sure about that?’

‘Yes, quite sure. The concert first. Love and attachment, if they are to be our destiny, will have to wait.’

Laurent and Eden went to their respective rooms where they bathed and changed for dinner. Max was in the drawing room when Laurent appeared. The two men shook hands which instantly seemed strange to both of them. They laughed about it, grateful
that the gesture took the edge off the awkwardness that had developed between them for a minute. The laughter reminded each of them that any awkwardness at this stage of their relationship was unnecessary, even ridiculous.

‘I think the first thing to settle on is the date of the concert,’ suggested Laurent as he pulled a slim Hermès diary from the inside pocket of his jacket.

The two men discussed possible dates for Max to work on. There was not only Laurent to consider but the availability of an orchestra and the amphitheatre to be booked. They arrived at three possibilities and a decision to hold two concerts on consecutive nights. Max could sense Laurent’s professional excitement about Eden’s return.

Diaries set aside he enquired, ‘How did you find her?’

Laurent thought the question a natural one but loaded. He replied, ‘Magnificent, Max. You know, in the past Eden was always modest about her own achievements. I think she owes it to herself to leave modesty behind at this stage of her career. Her artistry is tied to her personality to an extent that makes her personally vulnerable, but so what? She’s a strong lady. She has accomplished much in the past but nothing to what I feel she can and will do now. I’m thrilled to be aboard for this ride.’

Max wished that he had been there for the epoch-making reunion between these two great artists. He would like to have known how intimate a relationship Laurent and Eden were going to have as well. But Laurent was right about Eden’s attitude: the modesty and secrecy about her private life that she had always insisted upon would have to go. The public relations campaign would have to be clever and relentless to bring her back in grand style for all the world to acknowledge.

The men were talking about Epidaurus when Eden joined them. They stood up to greet her and immediately sensed the sensual aura that entered the room with her. Momentarily these two men in love were struck dumb. What after all did Epidaurus matter in the wake of their obsessive love for Eden? A love and adoration, a respect, that no other woman could engender in them.

In a long black linen dress, its halter neckline plunging
provocatively in the front and bare-backed to the waist, Eden looked every inch the elegant lady with her hair pulled back and dressed in a French twist. On her ears were a pair of large square-cut emeralds surrounded by diamonds. Laurent remembered them as having been her mother’s.

Leila was still a legend in the music world for her beauty, charm, love for and patronage of music, and for Laurent special because she had been the first person to champion him when he was still a boy. He, like everyone else who ever met Leila Sidd, had been dazzled and later enchanted by her. For the first time now, seeing Eden enter the room, Laurent understood how similar she was to her mother, only more special because she had an incomparable artistry that Leila never possessed. He was quite shaken by her entrance and the prospect of once again being part of her life.

Both men gallantly greeted her with a kiss on her hand. They were in the large drawing room overlooking the sea. It was still very warm and humid and the sound of the waves breaking against sections of the house gave an air of excitement and adventure to the room with its half-dozen arched twenty-foot-high windows draped in sheer muslin and apricot silk taffeta.

The room itself was sensual, exotic and beautiful. Oriental carpets covered most of the parquet floor and the furniture was sleek and elegant French of the Directoire period. On the many side tables silk-shaded lamps and Chinese vases of the Ming, Tang and Han Dynasties were lit to give the room its soft warm glow. Chaise-longues were draped with silk embroidered shawls, settees wood-trimmed and covered in tattered brocades. Books in old leather bindings were piled high on marble tables. Many orchid plants in full bloom were dispersed between the potted palms. Gazing down upon the guests from the walls were family portraits of dusky beauties who had ruled the house through the ages, handsome men in robes and turbans who had left their mark on the house and their country, for the Sharifs had always been foremost in advising the Kings of Egypt. But that was in another time, long gone but not forgotten. History and this room could attest to that.

‘I had forgotten how marvellous this house is. This room conjures up such memories. Will Magdi be joining us?’ asked Laurent.

‘No,’ answered Eden. ‘He is with the President of Egypt at a meeting at the UN.’

‘Good memories, I hope?’ said Max.

‘The best. I was actually quite shocked on my first visit, thought the house party depraved and decadent. To begin with anyway. I was so young and innocent then.’

‘Are you suggesting that I corrupted you?’ asked Eden teasingly.

‘Certainly not. Dazzled me perhaps. I left here enchanted, grateful that my week here with you and Magdi and the house party had opened my eyes to how much fun one can have when the barriers are down and sex and love, passion and lust, take over. I had never known life could be so frivolous. I will always be indebted to Magdi and you, Eden, because when it was good it was great.’

‘But when it was bad it was horrid!’ she said and the moment she’d spoken was sorry.

‘That was the problem. It was never bad, just abruptly over. But that was the past and it’s over with. I did say we should let it rest in peace. We’re not here to go over old hurts.’ He immediately changed the subject. ‘Why Epidaurus, Eden?’

‘Because the theatre in there is the most famous and best preserved of antiquity. Have you not seen it?’

‘Yes, I have. I once saw a performance of
Medea
there. It was overwhelmingly impressive.’

‘Precisely!’ offered Max. ‘And a remote location that only real music lovers will want to go to to hear Eden’s return performance.’

Laurent ignored Max’s answer and approached Eden about it once more. ‘That really doesn’t tell me why you chose it. Can it only be because of its antiquity?’

‘Not wholly the reason but partly so. I adore Epidaurus. That is probably the main reason. It was an emotional decision, that’s for sure. There’s something very inspiring for me about it every time I visit, usually every few years. That perfect bowl stone shape rising up the hill surrounded by twisted old trees. And the acoustics
are remarkable. Whenever I make a visit I sit in the sun on the stone seats in various parts of the theatre and sense the ghosts, whispers of past entertainments there. The place still has the power to inspire.

‘Max has photos of the theatre to show you taken many years ago when I last played there. It was a thrilling experience and will be again, I have no doubt about that.’

Laurent could see in her eyes, hear in her voice, the kindling of excitement, youth and vivacity as she talked about the amphitheatre. It was clear to him that what Eden wanted was to leave her mark on history in that place as so many had before her. And why not? he thought. He was enchanted by her passion for the place and suggested, ‘What you’re saying is that the Gods of Epidaurus speak to you. How lucky you are.’

Eden was delighted with his understanding. ‘What do you know of the Gods of Epidaurus?’

‘Nothing, but if they are going to speak to me as they do you, I had better find out about them,’ he quipped.

Eden sensed that he was not merely being facetious. She walked across the room to him and filled his glass with champagne. She felt the same way about Laurent she always had. She loved him, still found him sexually appealing, liked being loved by him, wanted to share the best part of herself with him.

Max did not miss that look of affection towards Laurent. It had always been there for him. He understood it because Eden used it on him as well. The problem for Max was the same as for Laurent: they always wanted more from Eden than she was prepared to give. He suggested, ‘Let’s take our drinks out on the terrace and share them with those Greek gods who speak to you, Eden.’

There was a lovely breeze coming off the sea. The three leaned against the crumbling stone balustrade and watched in silence as the nearly full moon sent its beams down across the sea.

Eden broke the silence between them. ‘According to legend, Asklepios was the son of Apollo and Koronis the daughter of the King of Orchomenos. Asklepios was nurtured by a goat after his mother died in childbirth and brought up by the centaur Chiron who taught him the art of healing. He was closely connected with
the earth and his symbol was the snake. He along with Apollo was worshipped in Epidaurus. In ancient times sick people streamed into the sanctuary there to pray for healing. After various purifications they had to spend a night in the Abaton where the god would appear to them in a dream and indicate the appropriate therapy. He was a good god, Laurent, and though legend is only legend, I do believe he speaks to me, heals me, and playing there is like a payment to the gods for all the good things I have had in my life. If that sounds fanciful, so be it. I only know that some spirit in Epidaurus moves me. Oh, it’s true I could have chosen half a dozen other venues in the world, several in Greece, more than one here in Egypt, but Epidaurus is the place I choose for my return. Others, I hope, will follow. I need to give my libation of music to the gods. I somehow think you understand my feelings.’