Those Wicked Pleasures (27 page)

That was the first time Lara had mentioned her broken marriage to Harland, or had hinted that she was not satisfied with her life. Normally he would have found it embarrassing to hear such an admission from a client. He tried always to avoid involvement in troublesome emotional or non-financial affairs. Harland had once had misgivings about Lara, but had long ago been won over by latent qualities he occasionally glimpsed in her. Now he studied her for several seconds before he spoke.

Here she was, one of America’s wealthier heiresses. She had power, intelligence, a quick mind. In her late-twenties she was more beautiful and desirable than ever. Yet lost. He felt little pity for her, but some admiration that she could recognise she was wasting herself and get on with trying to find what she was looking for. Harland’s detachment didn’t allow curiosity as to what that was.

He raised her hand, held it in his for several seconds, and then surprised her with his gallantry. He kissed it, and said, ‘Taking care of your affairs is what I’m here for. Good luck.’

‘I wonder, does luck really have anything to do with it?’

‘It does if you haven’t got it, Lara.’

The men came courting, and Lara was receptive. Out
came a new ostrich-covered diary. Only, now there was no Emily to vet the social engagements. Marriage, divorce and Bonnie had at least rid Lara of her mother’s supervision over her life. Emily was not as relieved about it as Lara was. There was no more Missy to keep the social engagements in order either. With Lara married, Missy had been repossessed by Emily, but only after she had trained a middle-aged friend to take over.

Nancy Clemens enjoyed her position with the Faynes. It had afforded her not the easiest but certainly one of the most glamorous jobs any secretary could want. When the couple divorced, she chose to stay with Lara. A pleasant surprise because Nancy had had a closer relationship with Sam than Lara. None the less she kept Lara’s social affairs and correspondence in perfect order. Now, several months after the divorce, Nancy, Nanny Peters, and Coral the maid were continuing to run Lara’s household much as they always had, except that Sam Fayne was gone. The task was not an easy one in a household still without a house of its own.

The three servants settled down in Cannonberry Chase, like a family within a family. But they were not fooled by the change in Lara during her seclusion from the world. They had been with her too long, had seen the verve for life she demonstrated in so many ways. Servants have firm views about their employers. This trio was unanimous that she would recover. They would all be on the move again.

After they had waved her off with Julia and David on the first leg of their journey to Brazil from the air field at Cannonberry Chase, Nancy turned to Nanny Peters, who was holding Bonnie in her arms. In a voice pitched beneath the family’s chattering, she said, ‘Now I know why I chose to stay with Mrs Fayne. She’s the one with the real spirit of adventure in her heart. When she gets
back, it won’t be long before we’re all off again. Tomorrow I’ll go into the city to Mark Cross. We’ll all need new diaries.’

Now, several weeks later, Lara and her entourage were staying for a few days in the Stantons’ Fifth Avenue house. Lara sat propped up against the pillows of her bed, her breakfast tray across her lap. Nancy Clemens was seated at the escritoire, going over the week’s engagements with Lara. This morning was no different from any other morning, yet Nancy sensed that Lara was more restless than usual. So much so that, after half an hour, the secretary asked, ‘Is something wrong, Lara?’

‘No, not exactly wrong. It’s just that there’s a sameness about these early-morning meetings we have. A repetitiveness about my life. Today, this week … it could have been yesterday, last week. Oh, the places I go, the people I meet, the men who come sniffing around me, they may
seem
to change – but they don’t, not really.’

‘That’s life, Lara. I wonder how many millions of people have woken up this morning to a similar feeling.’

‘But do they all feel that there must be something more out there for them, just waiting to be discovered?’

‘I would venture to say, yes.’

‘Well, maybe you’re right, and life is just one big Easter-egg hunt.’

Lara sipped her hot black coffee and noted the slight smile at the corners of Nancy’s mouth. ‘I know what you’d like to say: “There’s nothing special about you, Lara Stanton Fayne. Your problems are no worse than everyone else’s. Get out there like us all and make the best of it.” ’

Nancy pinched her lips together. Her eyes held a smile and, though she remained silent, she nodded assent. Give or take the odd word, that was exactly what she had meant to say.

‘Well, that took me down a peg or two. Oh, don’t look so apologetic.’

‘I wasn’t.’

‘Good. I’d like to get up and dress now, Nancy. Give me an hour and we’ll finish.’

Lara watched her secretary leave her room. About to get up, she changed her mind and sank back down into the pillows. She wondered if those millions Nancy had evoked felt as alone as she did. It was not boredom with her life, more a sense of isolation. The lack of a romantic love-affair that worked for her. She missed love, that absolute love and adoration that Sam had once felt for her. That David had once felt for her. Her father, and brothers and sister, and, yes, even Jamal in his own strange way. That only Bonnie felt for her now.

It was her determination not to use Bonnie’s love as a crutch that kept pushing Lara forward when the energy to begin again with another man was simply not there. There were so many incidents between Lara and Bonnie that tempted her to stay locked away for ever at Cannonberry Chase with her daughter. But she loved the child too much to burden her with too much mother-love.

One morning when Bonnie was riding her pony, Mr Macaroni, and Lara old Biscuit, Bonnie asked, ‘Who will you ride with when I go to big school, Mummy?’

‘I will ride by myself or with Uncle David or Grandfather. There’ll always be someone around to ride with. Why do you ask, Bonnie?’

‘Daddy says the same thing.’

‘There, you see.’

‘But what little girl will be here to play with you when I’m at big school?’

‘No little girl. You are my only little girl and when you are away I play with grown-ups until you return.’

‘You won’t cry?’

‘No, Bonnie, I promise I won’t cry.’

A smile appeared on the child’s face and she said, ‘I was thinking maybe you would cry and then I was thinking of crying because you were crying and now everything’s pink and we won’t have to cry.’ Pink was the colour of all-rightness in Bonnie’s world. She had once heard a groom in the Cannonberry Chase stables declare he was ‘in the pink’.

The child looked so relieved it prompted Lara to tell her, ‘Bonnie, when you go away with Daddy, you must not think about me all by myself. I always find people to play with, if I’m not with my little girl. It’s the same as when you’re away: you don’t have your mummy, but you can still have a good time. And we still love each other. You do understand, wherever we are, we can still love each other and be away from each other and have other friends? There’s no need to cry.’

Children rarely waste tears on such considerations. Her answer was classic Bonnie Fayne. ‘Oh, good.’ That dispensed with, she was immediately on to something else. She told Lara, ‘When I grow up I want to look beautiful like Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty and you, Mummy. And I want to dress up and put all your sparkling things on fingers and on my neck and ears, and I want to smell like you and fly a plane like you. And have everybody look at me like they look at you. And I want to have a man like Daddy in bed at night, and a little girl to love me like I love you, and a big hat with flowers on it. And shoes with very high heels. Don’t you think that’s a good idea?’

A low hedge loomed up, though still at some distance. Before Lara could answer, the idea of jumping it absorbed all Bonnie’s attention. ‘May we jump it, Mummy?’

‘Yes, but only if you have all your attention on the
jump, and you’re thinking of nothing else.’

Bonnie dug her knees into Mr Macaroni, and off they went, Lara keeping pace with them on Biscuit. The child made her jump and it was perfect. She flung herself out of the saddle and off the pony, then kissed Mr Macaroni, and gave him a peppermint Life Saver from her pocket. Lara was beside her and swung her up off the ground to give her a big hug and a kiss. ‘A jump to be proud of, Bonnie. Well done.’

‘That was for you, Mummy. A prize, ’cause you don’t cry when I am not here with you.’

It was said with such affectionate sincerity and sweetness that it actually brought a tear to Lara’s eye. But not for long. Laughter took the place of sadness when Bonnie announced, as Lara was hoisting her into the saddle, ‘I need to put the feed-bag on, I’m that hungry.’ The child smiled at Lara, who could not stop laughing.

‘Is that funny? Nobody laughs when Tommy at the stable says it.’

‘Just hungry will do, Bonnie.’

‘Cheery pie. I’m inclined to a piece of cheery pie.’

Lara did not dare to laugh again. But it did sound just like Cook.

Every day she learned more about love from Bonnie than she ever had from the men who had loved her in the past, or the men who dated her now with protestations of love. Bonnie, her three-year-old child, was her best teacher so far of the art. The way a three year old loves made her understand how, as the youngest of the Stanton children, all the family had fallen in love with her, and even learned about love from her as a child. Why David and Max especially were able to love her so well in return. It was hard to imagine that she had once been as innocent, as sweet, as giving and loving as Bonnie.

She still loved Bonnie and her family and Julia that
way. She could still remember having once loved Sam that way. Even Jamal. Through these terrible times, he had remained a steadfast friend. She felt more touched now by memory of the call he had made to her only days after her return from Paris than she had been then. He had been honest and forthright and generous. But then, he had always been that, as well as a hard, ruthless lover to her. She could remember David calling her to the telephone where she heard Jamal’s voice: ‘You were always too good for him. Too special. You may not believe this, but I’m sorry. You made that choice, it didn’t work out for you, and I feel for you. Come to me, here in Morocco. Bring Bonnie. My house is your house. My family and I will look after you.’

She had declined the invitation. With gratitude, and in the knowledge that he was acting as a friend, not a sexual seducer. He had then made a second offer, in his alternative role in her life. ‘When you want me, I am here for you. You have only to call. Come to me. I have missed you more than you can know.’

She recalled the marvellous sex they had had together. Perhaps only now was she ready to confront the thought of it. She had expelled it from her mind while with Sam. How she missed being married to him. She wondered if even the illusion of having simultaneously love and great sex, a happy married life, wasn’t better than nothing. Because nothing was what had replaced those things. There had been so many flirtations, but she had never had another man in bed since marrying Sam. Desire had returned, yearnings for sexual release, for those sweet excursions to oblivion in the arms of a man. Several times, she came close to surrendering herself to sex with the men she was involved with. But in each case she changed her mind.

Her sexual gratification came from erotic fantasies in
the darkness of her own room. She used them to resurrect in herself erotic images or experiences once shared with Sam. She achieved her orgasm by making love to herself. Jamal had taught her, and had proved an adept teacher. It was thrilling to come, with or without a man. For the moment it was enough to be able to give herself to herself. To savour the intensity in drawing out an orgasm.

Lara would work herself up to a second orgasm, and a third, till at last she felt her whole body go limp, all anxiety expelled. She would feel warm and safe and happy between the smooth, white linen sheets …

Now she fluffed up a pillow and placed it behind her head. She felt languid and lazy. Why did she still have to submit to the ostrich-leather diary? There must be more to life than what she was getting out of hers. So what, if millions of other people felt the same way, as Nancy had suggested. Let them do something about it. She threw the covers off her and said aloud, ‘I fucking well intend to.’

Lara felt a sudden surge of excitement. A plan was forming in her mind. The pieces were all there, but she could not as yet detect the pattern. She dropped her night-dress on the bed. The first shock of a cold shower hardened her resolve. Today was Day One for her. She felt full of song. The shower-room echoed to the Marching Song from Carmen. The scent of sweet almonds from her Perlier bath-cream mingled with the steam. The heady perfume transported her in imagination to an almond orchard in Italy. Other orchards, too: her orange-tree rides in Florida, the apple trees at the Chase, a cherry orchard in Hungary, where once she and Jamal had made love. She stemmed the flow of water and wrapped her hair in a white towel etched in ecru lace. Another enfolded her body.

Lara returned to the bed and sat on the edge next to
the telephone. Her first call was to David. She found him in his house in Georgetown.

‘Hello, La.’

‘How about if I fly in for lunch with you?’

‘Today?’

‘Sure, today.’

‘I’ve got something on.’ A moment’s hesitation, then, ‘I’ll cancel it.’

‘You are wonderful to me, David.’

‘One thing – I’ve got a friend. A girl. I’d like you to meet her. See what you think.’ There was nothing unusual about that. David always had a girl, a ‘friend’. And Lara was usually the first to vet the lady. ‘Stay for dinner. Stay the night if you like.’

‘Maybe. No promises. Let’s play it by ear. But I will meet your girl.’

‘Shall I bring her to lunch?’

‘Rather you didn’t.’

‘Actually, I’d rather not myself. Too selfish. I want you all to myself. Long time since we had a private lunch together.’