The Rendezvous (10 page)

‘It's very nice of you to come with me,' he said. ‘This place is so crowded and stuffy at weekends – I thought it would be pleasant to get right out of the city for a few hours.'

‘It's lovely here,' she said. ‘And it's not nice of me to come at all. I've been looking forward to it.'

‘Would you like something to drink first?'

Julia insisted on at least two drinks at the bar whenever they went out to eat, and he had become accustomed to the habit now, although it bored him. He had taken Terese straight to their table.

‘I don't know – perhaps a Cinzano.'

He raised his head and immediately there was a waiter beside him.

‘One Cinzano and one bourbon-and-soda. Bring the menu, please, and we'll order.'

‘Certainly, sir. At once.'

She asked him about his work and he told her about the Chicago project. It was a department store, and he found this kind of designing the tedious side of his work, but it made the money.

‘Ruth said you did a lot of private work,' Terese said. ‘Didn't you design a house down at Tobago for some people called Jaravis?'

‘Yes, but that's rather like this department store. I make money but I don't really enjoy it. I remember the Jaravis house. It could have been so beautiful, but she was an impossible woman and her husband was such a miserable worm. She wanted all the wrong things, and I had to give them to her; all he did was sign the cheque. I hated it, I remember very well, but I wasn't so established then. I wouldn't do it now.'

‘What do you really like to do? What fulfils you as an architect.'

‘Art,' he said. ‘By which I mean designing as a setting for art. A museum, a theatre. I have a wonderful design, quite revolutionary, for a theatre. One day I'll do it.' He smiled, and she thought how good-looking he was; the eyes were so blue, and she had never seen him smile with them before. ‘You must find all this very boring,' he said. ‘I'm being selfish and talking all the time about myself and my work.'

‘I like it,' she said. ‘It's very interesting. Did you always want to be an architect?'

He lit a cigarette and gave one to her. They had ordered coffee. ‘No, not always. My family wanted me to be a soldier. When they died I went to the Argentine and studied. I liked the idea of South America – Europe was just recovering from the war, there wasn't much time for new ideas. People were rebuilding on ruins, now they're beginning to design as well as build.'

‘Would you ever go back?' she asked.

‘No. There's nothing for me there. I have no family alive.'

‘I'm sorry,' Terese said. ‘Don't you mind being alone?'

‘I've got used to it. But I don't like it, in many ways.'

‘You've got Julia, though. I mean, I know about it. I hope you're not annoyed with me for saying it.'

‘It's common knowledge. We live together. But I'm still alone.'

Terese put out her cigarette. ‘Then you can't be in love with her.'

‘I have never said I was.' He was watching her so intently, it was disturbing, like the sudden anger when they were discussing Vera Kaplan's rudeness the other night. It was like a door that opened, a shutter that flipped up, and then was quickly closed again.

‘Do you realise something,' he said. ‘You're the first woman I've been with in six years who didn't talk about herself all the time? You haven't told me about your husband, your sex life, your doctor, or the secrets of your best friend. Will you let me take you out again?'

‘Do you want me to talk about those things, then?' she asked him.

‘No. But I want you to tell me why you said you were strange the other night. I haven't forgotten, you see.'

She put one hand to her forehead; it was the right one and the tiny scars showed up against the skin.

‘I've lost my memory. That's what I meant by being strange. I know who I am and all the necessary details – I can fill out my own passport, but I can't remember any of it. I had some kind of accident in the war – it's no good,' she looked up at him, ‘I can't go any further than that, and I'd rather not try, if you don't mind. But people know about it, and it makes me feel odd. A freak. And this is not the kind of society that likes freaks.'

‘It ought to,' he said. ‘It's full of them. They're the most neurotic, undisciplined people in the world. Give me your hand.'

She held it out to him across the table. The other couples had gone and a bored waiter leant against the farthest wall, watching them and waiting for some sign that they were going to go.

He put both his hands over hers, covering it completely. She felt an impulse of sensuality that went up like a flare inside her. There were blond hairs on the back of his wrists; his hands were strong and not oversensitive, not too artistic. Her own was hidden between them and his fingers touched her wrist.

‘It's late,' she said. ‘I know it's late. I must go home.'

They sat side by side in his car and they didn't speak until he had come to the last intersection before her apartment block.

‘When will I see you again?'

‘I don't know.' She looked up at him, and the look was there again, the fear of herself, the unspoken appeal to him not to press her too hard. He had seen it in the Avenue Foch twenty years ago and it was still there, still inside her as much as it was part of him. Was this love? this indescribable feeling – he didn't know. It wasn't what he felt when he was near to Julia.

‘Perhaps we shouldn't meet.'

‘Why not?' he asked her. He drew the car into the kerb and switched off the engine. It was nearly five and the lights were springing up like jewels all over the city. She had escaped him once; she had been snatched away from him and he couldn't save her or keep her for himself. This might be a second chance.

‘There's no harm in going out with me. Haven't you enjoyed yourself? Did I bore you?'

‘No, no! You know I loved it. I loved every minute of it. That's what I mean – that's why perhaps we shouldn't …'

‘I will come for you at one o'clock on Thursday,' Amstat said. ‘We'll find somewhere different to have lunch.' He got out of the car and opened the door for her. ‘You're home, Terese. Thank you for today.'

‘Do you really mean to come on Thursday?'

‘At one o'clock,' he said.

‘Till Thursday, then,' Terese said. She turned without letting him touch her to shake hands, and went into the entrance.

4

‘Well,' Joe Kaplan said, ‘this is a nice surprise.' He got up from behind his desk and came towards her with both hands outstretched. ‘You're looking wonderful, Terese. Sit here.'

She took the chair in front of his desk and began pulling off her gloves. She had never been inside his private consulting room before and it was quite different to what she had imagined. The furniture was English reproduction mahogany; the chairs were leather, the inevitable couch was a day-bed with a tartan rug spread over it. It was completely unclinical, like a study in a private house.

‘This is very nice, Joe,' Terese said. ‘It's such a comfortable room.'

‘It has a homey atmosphere,' he said. ‘That's what I wanted. I want people to relax when they come here, feel they're talking to a friend. I guess a lot of white paint and hard angles puts them off; makes them feel they're sick, like being in a hospital.'

‘What a wonderful man you are,' she said simply. ‘That's just how one would feel. Do you mind me coming to see you like this?'

‘Why should I?' He leant back in his chair and took off his glasses; he began polishing the lenses with a handkerchief.

‘I suppose it's a professional visit of some kind, so let's be doctor and patient. What's the trouble?'

‘Oh, it sounds so ridiculous.' She paused, waiting for him to put his glasses back on. ‘The whole thing is absolutely crazy, me making an appointment with you and going through all this rigmarole – but, Joe, I couldn't come and talk to you just as a friend about this!'

‘All right, that's understandable. I'm your doctor
and
your friend. Go ahead.'

‘You've been very good to me,' Terese said. She spoke slowly, not looking at him. ‘You gave me a chance to live again after whatever it was that happened. You and Bob were the first faces I can ever remember seeing. It was like being born fully grown.'

‘I know,' he said gently. ‘I know what it was like.'

‘You and Bob – Bob and you; I don't know which way round to put it. Am I making any sense?'

‘Sure; just get the perspective fixed right in your mind. Bob first, and then me. Bob loved you, I only doctored you. So?'

‘I've come to you,' she said, ‘because you're as fond of Bob as I think you are of me. And it's Bob I'm thinking of, not myself. Joe, you know the difficulties we've had – about sex, I mean.'

‘I know the difficulties you used to have,' Kaplan said. ‘But, honey, you haven't been to see me professionally for something like ten years. Maybe more. I've always understood from Bob that everything was fine between you.'

‘That's what I've tried to make him think,' she said. ‘Joe, I'm frigid. I've never been able to let go with him, love him properly. I've never been able to really respond and lose myself. But I've pretended to, because I couldn't bear to keep on hurting him. I never had a baby for him, that was bad enough. I couldn't go on letting him know that making love to him meant nothing to me. I'd stopped hating it and being afraid, but that was all. Otherwise nothing.'

‘I'm sorry,' he said gently. He was not surprised by what she told him. It was natural to expect a degree of subconscious revulsion against the sexual act after the horrible parody of it she had suffered during one stage of her interrogation. He could only imagine what forms it might have taken, but the early attempts to probe into her experiences had revealed a definite sexual association in her mind and he had assumed that it was some kind of torture. Whatever it was it was lost, along with all the rest, and it could never be dug up and exorcised.

‘I think you've done the right thing,' he said. ‘You've made a good adjustment. As for pretending with Bob – well, that's loving him, isn't it, in a different way? Loving a person is making them happy, Terese, and that's what you're trying to do. Is that what you're worried about?'

‘No.' She took some moments to light a cigarette, and knowing the value of these kind of pauses, Kaplan let her take her time.

‘I've always believed I was incapable of love. I thought I was just one of thousands of women who didn't like sex, and couldn't ever feel anything. I'd accepted that, Joe. But it's not true, and that's why I'm here. I'm falling in love with someone else. Really in love with them.'

She looked up at him. ‘I mustn't let it happen. I won't let it happen because of Bob. I've come to you because you're the only person in the world I'd trust. I want you to tell me what to do.'

‘Could you tell me,' he said after a moment, ‘what you mean by falling in love? Really in love, you said. What does this mean exactly?'

‘It means that I've met a man I want to sleep with,' she answered almost angrily. ‘It means the same for me as for anyone else. For the first time in my life I want to do the normal things, I want him to kiss me, touch me. When I'm near him I feel it so much I'm afraid it'll show to Bob, to everyone who sees us. And it's not only that. That's bad enough. But if it was only just wanting to make love with him I could fight it by feeling ashamed of myself. But it's more, Joe, it's worse.'

‘How much worse? In what way?' He kept his eyes off her deliberately; he kept his voice level and unsurprised.

‘I like him,' Terese said. ‘I like being with him; I feel so at ease, there's something so familiar about him – it's as if I've always known him. I mean it, Joe. I'm in love with him.'

‘How often have you been together?'

‘Oh, about a dozen times – alone I mean. We meet a lot socially now too.'

‘Has he tried to make love to you?'

‘No,' she said, ‘but he wants to; I can feel it. All we've done is have lunch together; or go to an art gallery a couple of times. Once I stood him up – I was afraid of what might happen, I was trying to escape. He just waited outside the apartment for me to come out and then I went and had a drink with him anyway. Nothing's happened between us yet. And for God's sake it mustn't ever happen!'

‘It sounds as if this guy's in love with you,' Kaplan said. ‘Will you tell me who he is? You don't have to, if you don't want.'

‘It's Karl Amstat. Why do you look like that? Who did you think it was?'

‘I'd no idea,' he admitted. ‘I haven't even been trying to guess. He's a good-looking guy. He's not my type exactly, but then Julia Adams is crazy about him, so obviously he's got something for women. Now he's trying to make you too, eh?'

‘If you want to put it like that.'

He saw the hostility in her face and he made a gesture. ‘Don't get mad with me, Terese. I don't blame Amstat. I'm just partisan because of you and Bob. This marriage is a precious thing. You've been very happy, haven't you?'

‘Yes, very happy,' she said. ‘Oh, Joe, I feel so mean – I feel so low just thinking about anyone else after all Bob's given me!'

‘You can't help that,' he said. ‘If you didn't love Bob in that way, it's not your fault. It's not your fault now if someone happens along that can make you feel that way. Falling in love isn't a crime, Terese. But busting up a marriage with Bob would be one helluva mistake. I'm glad you've come to see me; very glad. Do you know what I'm going to advise you to do?'