Authors: Roberta Latow
Forbidden
FORBIDDEN
Roberta Latow
Copyright © 1995 by Roberta Latow
For Felicity and Peter
‘Desire me, encounter us
in your secret night.
I kiss you’
–
The Epic of Artimadon
SONNING ON THAMES, BERKSHIRE 1994
VENICE, ISTANBUL, PARIS, NEW YORK 1958–1962
‘I am really looking forward to seeing you eat humble pie.’
‘You should know better than that, I never eat humble pie.’
‘After nearly three decades you really think all you have to do is appear like a genie from some magic lamp and gaze into her eyes? One brief glance, one of your more seductive ones, and Amy Ross will believe you never stopped loving her? That it will be enough for her to fall in love with you all over again?’
‘You doubt that’s possible? You shouldn’t. How many times during our marriage have you done it?’
‘Me, and how many other women? What a cad you are to remind me! How arrogant.’
‘You want to see her walk away from me, as if our love never existed.’
‘You couldn’t be more wrong. I want to give you back to her. For her to know we’re through with each other, and for her to meet Tennant, the son
she
never gave you. Once you two are reunited, I want
all
of us to become a part of her life. You can claim her for love. I want her, maybe not as a friend but certainly sympathetic towards me. I don’t want her to see me as a rival for your affection. Not good for my career or Tennant’s.
‘But of course you wouldn’t be thinking that way for yourself, would you, Jarret? The great lost love of your life, you claim. The woman you can no longer live without. She was your one true love at the happiest time of your life, you claim. Recapture her? Relive that exciting, happy time you had together? And without having to eat a fat slice of humble pie? I think not. Unless she’s a bigger fool than I’ve heard she is.’
‘You really can’t bear that I love her, have always loved her.’
‘That’s just vanity speaking. This is an amicable divorce, remember? We’re friends who know each other too well. Your love for her means nothing to me now that we have agreed to go our own separate ways. Once I might not have been able to bear your loving her, but certainly not now. After twenty years of living with you, I can bear anything. If I couldn’t, what would I be doing here now?’
He raised a hand and fingered some strands of hair that had escaped the sleek French twist at the nape of her neck, tucking them neatly into place. The gaze that passed between them was curiously dispassionate. Genevieve looked at him assessingly. It had been a very long time since she had loved him. A short time since she had left him. But still she could see it all there in his face, those very things that had seduced her, enslaved her to him.
He still had those same alluring good looks. The dark blond hair had hardly a thread of silver in it, and the eyes, once a deep violet under those long, thick, dark
brown lashes, though somewhat faded with age were nonetheless enchantingly seductive for the reticent expression they held. The large square face, fleshily soft, still had the sensitive look of a poet or painter, and was made dramatically handsome by a patrician nose as seen on white marble busts of Ancient Roman nobles. Lips were sensuously shaped, seductive for the enigmatic smile that promised hidden passions. He was tall and broad-shouldered, but more fleshy than muscular, a soft rather than strong-looking character. Yet, like those noble senators or officers representing the Roman Empire, dressed in their leather and silver armour, who drew attention centuries later in courtyards and museums, he carried himself like a god.
She had yet to find a woman who did not succumb to the quiet, self-absorbed Jarret Sparrow. He could still create an aura round him that drew towards him men and women alike. And could still swallow them up whole as he had in his younger days. In that one respect, time had stood still for Jarret. He was as adept at that as ever, maybe even more so.
Oh, Amy Ross, let’s see what you’re made of. Not sugar and spice and everything nice, I hope. And with that thought in the forefront of her mind, Genevieve Sparrow rang the doorbell.
She rang it again, and yet again, and still no one came to the door. By this time Tennant, who had been following his parents on the footpath that led from the road through a small wood under a cathedral of leaves – orange and ruby red, a multitude of russet shades, golden
yellow, bright and jewel-like from a warm October sun beating down through the tall hundred-year-old trees – had caught up with them.
Genevieve turned to look at her husband and son. The three stood in silence in front of the handsome wooden boat house, grand for its size and three-storey turret, its peaked stone-tiled roofs. It had not been what they had expected, although none of them really knew what they’d expected, only what they hoped to accomplish.
‘Well, she wouldn’t be inside on a day like this,’ offered Tennant.
They walked down the several wooden steps from the front door. The wood thinned out to a carpet of lawn in front of the boat house with, on either side of it, a romantic English garden and herbaceous borders and rose bushes right down to the river’s edge. Amy was just tying up
Arcadia
, a small steamboat of honey-coloured wood and brass fittings, with a tall and slender smoke stack.
Tennant sprinted away from his parents. ‘It’s a beauty,’ he told Amy. ‘A little jewel of a boat. Here, let me help you.’
‘It’s done. I have it down to a fine art,’ she told him, and having completed her task looked up from her work to see who had made the offer.
Amy was somewhat taken aback to see the handsome young man. His smile, his eyes. Time suddenly ran backward and she very nearly lost herself, reached out to caress a cheek that seemed familiar to her. Tennant had had no idea what Amy Ross would be like; he had
felt curious about this woman his father had once loved, but that vanished with their first gaze into each other’s eyes. What he saw in them was something sensuous, a quiet mystery, kindness, love. He wanted her.
Time stopped rushing backward for Amy Ross. Instead, the moment she looked past the handsome young man to see the couple walking across the lawn towards her, it stood still. She recognised Jarret at once. First by the figure of the man walking towards her; then by his walk – sure, determined, but a solitary entity, cutting a path for himself wherever he went. It was still the walk of a big, beautiful man even after so many years.
She was taken aback. Struck dumb. She had all but forgotten his existence. In thirty years she had thought of him, what, five or six times? Yes, maybe that. And only in the context of the art world of the sixties in New York, and then only because he was part of the best and the worst times of her life.
After their last encounter she had never once wondered what it would be like if their paths crossed, how she would handle seeing him again. She’d somehow known that that was unlikely to happen, they moved in different circles. Only now, seeing him, did she realise that she had seen to that. There was no doubt about it, Amy was shocked. This was her private world, one she had fought hard to create and live in, and he was violating it. What was he doing here?
When they had been together she’d thought she knew him down to the marrow of his bones, but in fact she hadn’t. Not until he left her did she really know the
man. Devastated once by his leaving her, she was shattered a second time by what she subsequently learned about him, finding it unbelievable that she should have loved so deeply a man like Jarret Sparrow. However, she knew him well enough now to see that he was very nearly as shocked by this meeting as she was. He seemed dazed, merely stood there looking bruised, at a loss as to what to do with himself, unable to speak. She had seen it all before; it was part of his charm, drew her towards him as it had so many other women in his life. Only this time Amy knew it was happening and how devastating it could be.
It was Genevieve who finally broke the silence. ‘Hello, I’m Genevieve Sparrow. I’ve brought you a gift – my husband. To be more accurate, my former husband. It’s an amicable divorce, we’re still friends. He has claimed for years that you are the great lost love of his life. I dispute that, but it’s neither here nor there at the moment. I wanted to meet a great lost love of Jarret’s, and I also wanted to meet you. I read your book,
Pop Goes The Easel
, and liked what you had to say about Pop Art. And I wanted you to meet my son, Tennant. Like father, like mother, he too is a painter. For years I thought
I
was the great love of my husband’s life. Well, at least our love was fruitful. Too bad you never had his child.’
‘Genevieve, that’s enough! Do shut up.’ At last Jarret had found his voice.
‘That was a bit bitchy. I didn’t intend to be bitchy, Amy Ross,’ Genevieve said, with more of a smirk than a smile.
Amy finally managed to speak. ‘How did you find me?’
‘You’re angry. Please don’t be angry with us,’ said Tennant.
Amy turned to face him. ‘I’m not angry. Just surprised to see your father after so many years of silence on both our parts.’ Then, turning to Jarret, she told him, ‘I would have appreciated a note asking to see me, a telephone call, some warning if you felt you wanted a meeting. You might have asked if I wanted to see you again.’
‘I was afraid that there would be no reply to a note, you would put the receiver down on a telephone call. Would you have agreed to meet me?’
‘I doubt it.’
‘We assumed as much. Hence the shock tactics. They have at least worked. We’re here and we’re talking. My idea, I’m afraid,’ said Genevieve.
‘I can almost understand Jarret’s intrusive behaviour, but you, Mrs Sparrow, what are you doing here? Why have you done this to yourself and to me?’
‘Habit. I’ve been pimping for Jarret for years. He claims he loves you, wants you. Had to see you after all these years to make it right between you, maybe forge a new life together. He’s been obsessed with the idea. I have never been able to deny Jarret anything – you of all people should understand that. You’ve been there, done it. To the death, I understand.’
‘Genevieve!’
‘I think you had all better go. This is private property and you are trespassing.’
‘How very inhospitable of you, Amy Ross. I expected
civility at least, even a cup of tea to go with the humble pie I so wanted to enjoy watching Jarret eat. Actually I expected more from you. At least your understanding that if Jarret and I have resorted to such drastic action to make contact with you, you would appreciate how sincere we are about seeking a reconciliation. We are, after all, entering the last productive years of our lives. Is it so wrong to make one last grab for happiness and leave the past behind us? Jarret and I are through with each other but our lives are entwined. Just as yours has been, if not entwined with mine, a factor in my life, though you may not have known it.
‘I’ve had to live with the ghost of your love affair with my husband all my married life. I’m a little bitter about that. It may be wrong of me but at least I’m admitting it. I wanted the satisfaction of dumping him on your doorstep, and saying: “I’ve had him, now you can have what’s left.” Tacky, yes. Pathetic that it should give me so much pleasure, yes. But it does. I’ll leave, Tennant and I will, but without Jarret. You can have him. God …’ with that, Genevieve looked up at the sky and then back to Amy and Jarret ‘… spite and revenge are
so sweet
.’
Genevieve slipped her arm through Tennant’s and she and her nonplussed son walked away.
Amy watched them vanish round the side of the boat house. She felt as if her world had been shattered until Jarret said, ‘Forgive her. She knows she never had me as you did, as you still do. I need you, now take me back.’
Amy opened her eyes. She had a headache, a dull pain
at the back of her eyes, and her mouth was dry, so very dry. She licked her lips. They were parched. She pulled herself up against the pillows and placed a hand on her forehead. It wasn’t that she felt unwell, more terribly unnerved.
For several minutes she lay in the warmth of her bed and contemplated the splendid view through the vast triangular wall of window following the roofline of the boat house from the floorboards to its peaked ceiling. She never tired of that view: the river, and on the far side the occasional large, rambling house set in a wood or on a carpet of well-trimmed lawn. Decorative gazebos, sumptuous gardens, a decrepit wooden boat house much smaller than hers, in summer covered almost completely with honeysuckle and climbing roses. The occasional boat heading downriver towards Windsor and London in one direction, others up towards Oxford and as far as Wiltshire and the small spring said to be the river’s source. Because her bedroom at the top of the boat house very nearly hung over the water, she could see a long way up and down the Thames: a splendid sight, English countryside at its best, and only sparsely populated at the stretch of the river where she lived.
Mist was rising off the water and hovered a foot off the grass or in the trees, the sun not yet high enough to burn it away. She heard the quacking of ducks which brought a smile to her lips. Since childhood she could not resist the sound or sight of them on a river, and most especially not below her own bedroom window. Amy rose from the bed and walked to the window. Yes, there
they were, busily gliding and quacking below. When in residence, she and the ducks had a morning ritual. Amy flung her dressing-gown round her shoulders and dashed down the wooden stairs to the floor below. Another gallery hung in the vast open space of the seventeenth-century boat house – the floor that housed her library and served too as a second sitting-room or place for the very occasional guest. That floor had a wall of windows on to the river as well and a door that led to a narrow balcony. Amy opened the door and stepped out. The ducks were directly below her, treading water in circles, calling for their morning feed. She removed the lid of a large crock, the ducks’ larder, and tossed down handfuls of stale bread and cake. She watched them for a few minutes but the air was damp and with a decided nip in it. Amy stepped off the balcony and back into the library, watching the ducks through the window. Two white swans and one black glided into view. Only when the water birds had gobbled down every morsel of their morning repast did they move on upriver and Amy left her post.
