Objects of Desire (14 page)

‘Oh?’ Page was puzzled.

Anoushka took a sip of her drink and then told Page, ‘It was a strange thing what you did, giving me Hervé, emboldening me to go off with him. And even stranger that I should have done it. I’m not very good at promiscuity, too long a faithful wife. A generous gift to a stranger. I don’t ever remember any woman being so generous with me.’

‘Don’t read too much into that, Anoushka, it amused me to do it.’

‘You were right when you told me I would have a great time with him. I enjoyed myself thoroughly. He was a wonderful lover. Do you mind if I tell you something about it?’

Page sensed that Anoushka had to talk about it to someone. ‘No,’ she answered, being more kind than curious though she did try to show interest for Anoushka’s sake.

‘Hervé was happy enough with me, or at least expressed happiness and declared me sexually an exciting woman. But at five o’clock in the morning in a bistro, over bowls of onion soup and chunks of hot bread and butter, he could barely hide how bored he was with me, my mind, me as a person rather than a sexual playmate. I couldn’t believe we had nothing to talk about, but we didn’t. I was a boring housewife to whom he gave a great fuck. I could see that was what he was thinking. It was there in his face, in the conversation he was trying to have with me. It was very humiliating because I knew he was right. I have had two men since my husband dumped me, Hadon Calder and Hervé Lacoste.’

‘Anoushka, I
am
impressed! They’re after all men of fame and fortune, and very discriminating in their choice of women.’

‘Don’t be. Both men were appalled that I was satisfied with achieving less than my potential, though Hervé had the good grace not to talk about it whereas Hadon didn’t.’

‘It sounds to me like you’re being hard on yourself, Anoushka.’

‘Don’t be kind, Page. You can’t tell me that you didn’t see that very same thing at the Flore. It’s true. I was perfectly content with what I had. What need did I
have to stretch myself when I had a husband and family to pamper me and tease me, I thought lovingly, for my inadequacies? You can’t tell me it’s not true that men like Hadon, Hervé and Robert don’t admire women with some substance to them.’

‘Well, I don’t know the other two men, but that’s true of Hervé. You have substance, Anoushka. If we hadn’t seen that in you, heard that in your laughter, we wouldn’t have bothered speaking to you.’

‘But not like you, Page.’

‘Maybe not, but I worked awfully hard at being a woman of substance, and maybe that was because I didn’t have the husband I wanted or the children to cater to and hide behind. But never mind all that. So you came back to London.’

‘Yes, to see a publisher and get a job.’

‘And did you get it?’

‘Yes, only yesterday. I’m going to translate one of Hadon Calder’s novels.’

‘Into what language?’

‘Japanese.’

‘How wonderful, and how extraordinary that you are fluent in Japanese.’

‘Well, nearly fluent.’

‘So you’ll stay here in London?’

‘Oh, no. I have six months to do the translation. I can go anywhere I like to do it.
And
he’s paying me.’

‘I should hope so.’

‘Quite a lot of money. More money than I have ever earned before.’

‘Have you ever earned any money before, Anoushka?’

‘No, actually, not with my brain.’ And Anoushka smiled. She was obviously delighted with herself.

Page raised her glass. ‘I’m happy for you, Anoushka. Here’s to new beginnings.’ She brushed back her hair with her fingers so that it fell away from her face. She did it with grace, a sensual gesture that came naturally, one that charmed men and was a Page Cooper habit.

‘Oh, your earrings! They’re coins. How beautiful.’

‘Yes. My favourites. They’re special to me.’ Page took one off and showed it to Anoushka. ‘Are you interested in coins?’

‘I never was before, but yes, I am now.’

The coins were mounted in a double band of gold and hinged in a manner that allowed them to be swivelled so that they could be worn with either side of the coin facing.

‘Oh, I love them, Page. How clever. I have some coins. Would you mind if I copied the idea some time? Where did you buy them?’

‘I didn’t. I have a friend who has a fine collection of Greek and Roman coins. He gave them to me for my birthday one year. These are Roman. Do you collect coins?’

‘Well, not exactly.’ Page could hardly miss the look of embarrassment on Anoushka’s face. ‘I took them as part of a divorce settlement, and frankly I’m confused as to what to do with them. In fact, I’m going to Zurich
tomorrow to see some dealers there. I’ll try and sell one.’

‘But you mustn’t sell to a dealer! Sell direct to a collector. You’ll do very much better financially. My friend, for example, might buy one. Probably all of them. I could give you his telephone number and you could call and ask him if he’s interested. You can say you’re a friend of mine and that I suggested you call. I can’t believe he wouldn’t give you a better price than a dealer. He’s a true collector, discriminating and honourable, more an academic than a businessman about his coins. There are many rogues in antique coin collecting, but you would be safe with him.’

‘It would be such a relief if I could sell one. I have such mixed feelings about the coins, even about disposing of one, but I’ve been foolish, and I need the money. They’re very valuable and one sold would give me the financial security that I’m looking for to live and travel and work. I have to establish myself with this first book before I can expect to be self-supporting.’

‘François is your man.’

‘No! François Audren?’

‘Yes, exactly. You know him?’

‘No. Only of him. I can’t go to him.’

‘Whyever not?’

Anoushka was in the middle of her story about her coin collection, what she knew about the coins and how she thought Robert had come by them, when a waiter appeared at their table to announce that a Miss Sally Brown had called to say that she was going to be there
a little late and would Miss Cooper please wait?

‘Well, that’s a few strikes against Miss Brown. She’s already fifty minutes late. She won’t work out.’

The two women went back to their conversation about the coins. Page was intrigued by it but sorry to see how confused and unnerved the telling of it had made Anoushka. Page could see that she genuinely did not know what to do about the coins. ‘A word of advice. Presumptuous of me, but I would like to give it.’

‘Please,’ answered Anoushka.

‘The first thing is to stop being emotional about the coins. The second is to do something constructive with them, so call François. Tell him you’re a friend of mine, offer him one of the coins, and not the one that he gave your husband. Don’t even mention that coin or your husband. Don’t give François your married name, you can always do that at a later date if you choose. This way you leave all your options open for the coins and how you want to deal with them in the future.’

‘How clever of you, Page. I wouldn’t have been able to work that out on my own.’

‘Have the coins been valued?’

‘No. They have been given a provenance by the British Museum, but they haven’t been valued. They don’t talk money at the British Museum if they can help it.’

‘Then first thing tomorrow morning you go to Spink’s and tell them you want a valuation of your coins for insurance purposes.’

‘They know me at Spink’s, and they know Robert,
and I don’t want to go where we’re known and questions might be raised. I don’t want Robert to know what I’m doing with
my
coins.’

‘Then get the British Museum to tell you the name of the best dealer for valuation in Switzerland. Fly there with the coins, get your valuation, then fly to Paris and sell the most expensive one to François. Do you have a Swiss bank account?’

‘No.’

‘You
are
a babe in the woods. Fly back to Zurich, open a deposit account and get a safe deposit box, the Credit Suisse is good, then deposit the coins in the box for safekeeping, except for the pair you want to make into earrings. And the proceeds from the sale to François, deposit them in your savings account which you can draw from as you need to. And don’t tell your husband what you’ve done. You don’t have to tell him everything, you know, Anoushka.’

She seemed both amazed and encouraged that things could be done like this. She admitted, ‘I’m not very good at things like this, Page.’

‘Well, you’d better be. If you’d been able to manage your affairs for yourself, you might not have been placed in the position you’re in now. A guess, of course.’

‘What does that mean, Page?’

‘Oh, I don’t know, Anoushka. And what does it matter what it means? That was the past and this is now.’ She took a pencil and small pad of paper from her purse and wrote down François’s telephone
number and his name. ‘There.’ The finality in her voice gave Anoushka the message. That’s done, now let’s move on. Page ordered two more champagne cocktails.

‘This Sally Brown … points against her keep mounting. Where is she?’

PIERS HAMILTON
STEVEN
GEORGE HAZLIT

Chapter 9

Everything that Page had said about finances and the coins kept turning over in Anoushka’s mind. Life had suddenly become exciting: contracts to be signed at the publishers, a more stable financial future. She was doing something interesting with herself, for herself, by herself.

After Anoushka’s problems had been ironed out, the conversation had turned to the women who had answered Page’s ad.

‘They sound to be what my attorney calls “the new underclass”. That’s what he called me.’

‘Am I a new underclass?’

‘Hardly. You’re different. You’ve done something with your life and now you’re doing something else with it. The new underclass are women like me who have been abandoned by their husbands, and dumped out into the world after they have had their families broken apart and their lifestyle ended. Women who want only to get back what they’ve had stolen from them, and can’t. That’s the new underclass and there
are millions of us, so David says, and few who ever succeed on their own.’

‘I find that abhorrent.’

‘It is.’

‘I somehow don’t see you as one of those women, Anoushka.’

‘I’m not so sure. I loved my life, my home with Robert and my children. I can’t envisage anything better. What might save me is that I hate the idea of being labelled an underclass almost more than being one.’ Here Anoushka hesitated.

‘
And
?’ asked Page, who found Anoushka increasingly more interesting.

She drained her glass in one swallow and then, gazing intently into Page’s eyes, said, ‘
And
, my life is as valid as Robert’s. Who and what I was before I met him and turned myself inside out to make him happy, to be the love of his life, his wife, the perfect mother of his children, and to reap the rewards His Eminence provided for me, must still be there. My happiness was built on a foundation of deceit. He spoiled me and destroyed me, undermined my self-esteem so cleverly I never knew it, thought it was love. He stole my life from me and I intend to have my revenge. They say it’s sweet. I want to taste it.

Anoushka fell silent. Flushed with embarrassment she finally said, ‘I’ve given away too much. I don’t know what’s the matter with me. When I was married I never spoke of my personal life to anyone. But then I was so self-satisfied and felt so superior to other women who
complained about their lives. I had nothing to complain about. I had it all. Now I seem to be spilling out my intimate life to anyone who will listen. You should have heard me at the British Museum!’ Anoushka found herself so ridiculous she shook her head from side to side and a smile crossed her face. She began to laugh at herself. ‘The British Museum no less – how ridiculous. But a classy place, if you have to do it.’

That brought a smile to Page’s lips as well. ‘Will you stay here in London, Anoushka?’

‘No. I won’t find the sort of life I want here.’

‘Then come with me on my adventure. I think you’d make a good travelling companion. We like each other, are two civilised human beings. Joining forces might not be a bad idea for either one of us. Maybe it could turn out to be a great idea. Anyway it’s not a marriage, just travelling. You have your work which you say can be done anywhere, we won’t be on the road all the time. A sail boat or a motor yacht for a home, maybe a house on a Greek island where it’s peaceful and quiet when you want to work.’

‘See Lake Victoria, learn to sail, return to Alexandria, maybe even St Petersburg?’ added Anoushka.

‘A house in Bali on the beach, or a beach house in the West Indies.’

‘Oh, I’ve got one of those, we could certainly stay there. It’s wonderful. I couldn’t bear to think about returning there alone, but with a friend or friends as the case may be, that puts a different picture on things.’

‘Then you’ll come?’

‘Do you think I can afford it?’

‘You’ll have the money, Anoushka. You have assets, remember, assets that can be converted into money, and it will cost money to take a year off and travel the way I want to make this journey. Let me put it this way. Frankly, I don’t think you can afford not to afford it. Where else have you got to go?’

The two women remained quiet for some time, contemplating their future, what they might be committing themselves to. It was Anoushka who called for yet more champagne cocktails. This time potato crisps came with them.

Piers Hazlit walked into the bar and looked round the tables for the woman he was to meet. A dozen or more people were drinking in the bar but not one of them resembled the tweedy, plain-faced lady libber he thought he was looking for. He glanced at his watch. She was late. No matter, time was irrelevant to Piers. He went to the bar and shook hands with the bartender. ‘Hello, George.’

‘Haven’t seen you for a long time, Mr Hazlit. Been somewhere interesting, I expect?’

‘Yes, very. How’ve you been, George?’

That was Mr Hazlit, polite but aloof, interesting without bragging about it, a real gentleman. George was sure to read about his latest adventure in the papers. Mr Hazlit was often in
The Times
, they favoured him with profiles every time he returned from some remarkable expedition. He was one of the
last in the tradition of the great English traveller, explorer, writer – when he wasn’t exercising one of his many other passions. A Cambridge scholar who could recede into his books and be as happy and content there as he was on the move: a mountain to climb, an ocean to sail. The world knew him to be a superior travel writer and lover of nature. His friends a cricket enthusiast, a lover of young, beautiful and frivolous women. The gentleman aristocrat playboy, one of the best of the increasingly dying breed who still lived for the big adventure.

‘A malt whisky, no ice,’ he told the bartender.

‘Certainly, sir.’

Piers looked around the room again. No, for certain she wasn’t there. ‘George, when a Ms Cooper comes in, would you send her to my table?’

‘She’s here. Over there. She’s the lady with the red hair.’

Piers walked across the room, mesmerised by the two attractive women having drinks together. He recovered himself when he was standing in front of them enough to ask, ‘Ms Cooper?’

The puzzled look on the face of the tall, slender young man with the aristocratic good looks was obvious. Page answered him. ‘Yes, I’m Miss Cooper,’ she answered, emphasising ‘Miss’.

‘Oh, I stand corrected.’

‘Sorry, an idiosyncrasy of mine. I hate that American tag the liberated woman has forced on the world in the name of something I have never understood.’

Anoushka watched Page and the young man who were sparking off each other. She listened with some interest to Page ask, ‘And you? Who are you?’

‘Oh.’ The question seemed to snap the young man back from a mini-flirtation with Page. ‘I’m Sally Brown.’

Page and Anoushka looked at each other, ‘Well, you’re a surprise,’ said Page.

‘And you’re not exactly what I expected. May I sit down?’ He drew up a chair before Page could answer and made himself comfortable. The waiter arrived at the table and placed his drink on it.

‘Do I call you Sally or Miss Brown?’ asked Page.

‘Sally! Oh, how stupid of me. I meant, I’m here for Sally Brown.’

‘Well, that’s quite different then,’ said Page, and the three of them began to laugh.

‘I’m Piers Hamilton Hazlit.’

‘Well, you already know I’m Page Cooper, and this is Anoushka Rivers.’

‘Hello. Can I offer you fresh drinks?’

‘No, these will do,’ answered Page, and the conversation suddenly stopped. Piers kept staring at her.

‘Is something wrong.’

‘Wrong?’

‘Yes, wrong. You keep looking at me as if I were a ghost.’

‘Oh, no, not an apparition. A surprise. You’re not at all what I expected.’

He broke into a smile that completely changed his
quiet, almost serious, good looks. The sexiness in his face excited and charmed: his relaxed manner, with his sureness of self, sent a message to the two women: dangerously attractive man, too easy to fall in love with, caution. At all costs, caution.

‘Well, what did you expect? Why did you expect anything?’

‘The ad in the
International Herald Tribune
. That’s what I’m here about. I mean, that’s what Sally’s here about.’

Page and Anoushka looked at each other, then Page asked him, ‘And you expected what from that ad?’

‘Well, certainly not a vivacious, beautiful woman.’ He turned to Anoushka and really looked at her for the first time. ‘Sorry, have to correct that. Two attractive ladies. I suddenly feel very stupid, and find it rather awkward being here at all.’ And he smiled at them once more. He seemed to enjoy laughing at himself.

He was the sort of man who smiled with his eyes. Anoushka found herself immensely attracted to him. It was more than physical, but it was that of course too. His manner was cool, with an outward reserve about him that hid a fiery soul, a passionate nature. It was all there in his face, the way he carried himself, and in the eyes – they told everything. The joys of waking up in the arms of a man such as Piers Hazlit, the warmth, intimacy and security, that’s what she missed the most.

Looking at Piers she yearned once more for the security that comes from intimacy and commitment.
She tried to shrug off the desire she had to fill the hole in her life that came from not going to sleep every night and waking every morning next to a warm body. One that is as much a part of you and your life as your very own skin. She quickly started to block out the pain of loss, only to realise that somehow Piers Hazlit had read her thoughts and her heart. She could see it in his eyes.

She lowered her own and it broke the spell of whatever had been going on for them for a few seconds. She felt uncomfortable with her longing to get close to this man, enough to tell Page, ‘I think I’ll go make a phone call to Paris.’

Well, thought Page, ‘Maybe Anoushka
is
a mover and a shaker after all.’ She smiled and said, ‘I think the British Museum first for a name, remember? Then Switzerland for an appointment, then Paris.’

Anoushka thought, A caring friend, smiled and said, ‘Yes, I remember.’

Piers rose from his chair as Anoushka prepared to leave the table. Their eyes met again almost accidentally but she pretended to herself that they hadn’t. She took only a step or two before she felt compelled to turn round and look at him again. To Page she said, ‘I won’t be long.’ But to Piers she said nothing, only gave him a dazzling smile.

He watched her as she walked from the room. It registered with him at once that she was a sexy lady, one he would like to know in the biblical sense. But wrong time, wrong place. He returned to his seat and
looked across the small table at Page. ‘I can almost wish that I was Sally Brown, except that I enjoy being myself too much,’ once more giving her a smile so sexy this time she understood that he had been turned on by Anoushka.

Page watched her disappear through the door. ‘I find that very interesting, Mr Hazlit.’

Piers realised that Page Cooper was a woman men didn’t put things over on. He liked her. She was not his kind of woman, Sally Brown was his kind of woman. But he liked Page, enough to give her another flirtatious smile and tell her, ‘Sorry to repeat myself, but you are a surprise.’

‘We’ve been through that, Mr Hazlit. Why don’t you tell me what you’re doing here?’

‘Actually, I’m the one who saw your ad. I’m the one who was intrigued by it and brought it to Sally’s attention. She doesn’t read the
International Herald Tribune
.

‘Oh.’

‘Please let me explain. I saw it as an opportunity for her and suggested that an adventure, striking out into the unknown, was an opportunity she would be a fool to miss.’

‘I take it she is your special friend?’ Page was fishing, trying to catch what was going on here.

‘We have been close friends.’

‘A close friend who wants her to take a long voyage to far away places? And you’ve come to check me out.’

‘No, nothing like that. Well, maybe it’s a little like
that. You see, I would never want her to be unhappy.’

‘You’re assuming that I’ll accept her as a travelling companion, and even before I meet her.’

‘I care about her and so will you, and I can assure you she is amusing and charming company.’

‘I hate women who are late.’

‘Well, that is a fault, I agree. She is habitually late. You will have to make excuses for that.’

‘I don’t
have
to make excuses for anything.’

‘I’m not doing this very well.’

‘No, you’re not.’

‘This time she’s late on my account. Something personal between us.’

‘I don’t get this. I don’t think I want to get this. Are you here to vet me?’

‘Yes, actually. Sally needs a new horizon, the sun has set on her old one, only she doesn’t want to believe it. She needs a new perspective, if she wants to be happy.’

‘And you know what will make her happy?’

‘Yes, I do, as a matter of fact.’

‘Are you so sure?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then what are you doing here, instead of her?’

‘I felt it was my responsibility to check you out.’

‘Because you talked her into the idea?’

‘That might be part of it. I wanted to make sure you were the sort of person she might like. And she will like you. You’re beautiful and glamorous, and Sally likes the pretty people of this world.’

‘Oh, I’m beginning to see. You thought …’ And Page was amused at what she thought he thought.

‘Yes, I expected middle age or more, jolly hockey sticks and rough tweeds.’

‘You forgot a little moustache and tightly permed hair, thick cotton stockings and sensible shoes.’ At that point Page crossed her sheer-stockinged, long, shapely legs shod in high-heeled black snakeskin shoes. She liked teasing him. They both began to laugh.

‘I think we understand each other,’ he said as he stood up. Page extended her hand in friendship. He took it in his and lowered his head to place a gallant kiss upon it. ‘Sally will be with you in just a few minutes.’

Page was by now intrigued to meet her. A few minutes ran into fifteen and the return of Anoushka. ‘How did you do?’ she asked.