by Anna Cheska
It rang again – more insistently this time. Imogen stayed where she was. Not only rooted but putting out supplementaries. What was happening to her? Why did she care what she looked like? Was she becoming obsessive? What about beauty being in the eye of the beholder – even if hidden by a film of aloe vera? And besides, she reminded herself, Marisa was pregnant.
At the third ring the Vanessa-noises coming from across the landing got her motivated. She wiped her toothpasty mouth – and on second thoughts, her entire face, so she just had a very healthy glow. And she grabbed her towelling robe which was big enough to cover a multitude of cellulite. She ran down the stairs. Fiddled with the lock and chain. Had a sudden fear it wouldn’t be him. Who then…?
‘Hello, Alex.’ She sounded quite normal, considering.
‘Imo.’ He moved into the hall quicker than a rat up a drainpipe. And he was a rat, she reminded herself. King-size. ‘Did I get you up?’
‘Yes. No.’ Nice to be decisive. She caught the Alex-smell as he drew closer. Mandarin, sandalwood, leather. Careful, Imo … ‘What are you doing here?’
‘It’s good to see you.’ He went for an embrace but she was far too quick for him.
What could she say to him? She couldn’t think. Something intelligent, something to put him in his place and establish hers? Something … ‘My mother’s sleeping in the spare room.’ Oh, yes, brilliant, Imo, that said it all. He was bound to be riveted by their sleeping arrangements.
But Alex didn’t seem to notice that her brain cells were deteriorating at the speed of light. ‘Can we talk?’ He took a few more steps. Towards the bedroom? Yes, please, her treacherous body yelped. No. Kitchen.
She followed him. ‘I suppose so.’ Did that sound grudging enough? ‘Drink?’
She’d meant coffee, but he glanced longingly at the half-empty bottle of red wine on the counter. ‘I could murder one.’ Yes, and she could murder him. But he looked weary and untidy and gorgeous, and she longed instead to put her arms around him and wish it all away.
‘What do you want?’ This time she meant, Why are you here?
‘Anything so long as it’s alcoholic.’
Hmm. Their ability to understand and communicate with one another appeared to be going downhill fast. She poured wine for them both.
‘I had no idea she was pregnant,’ he said, a statement not liable to be misinterpreted. ‘I need you to know that.’
Need? What did he know about need? ‘Oh.’ She sat down at the kitchen table and he sat opposite her. Did his ignorance make her feel better? Not really, she decided.
‘It was exactly what I said it was between me and Marisa,’ he went on, rubbing in salt with wild abandon. ‘It was casual, you know, a fling. Nothing more.’
Not for Marisa apparently. And they had been holding hands … ‘It doesn’t make any difference,’ Imogen said bleakly. ‘We should never have…’ No, it was hopeless. She couldn’t say it.
‘Made love?’ His eyes were eating into hers. He had that way about him, didn’t he? The gaze – he held it like a baby. Or a lover. As if he were turning her slowly inside out and then back again. Would she still fit? Was she still herself? Did she even care? She remembered what Naomi had told her once about Edward, trying to explain his appeal perhaps. He saw me … He really seemed to know me. She understood now what Naomi had meant.
‘And we did, didn’t we? Make love.’
She nodded, aware of the danger but unable to stop.
‘It meant something, didn’t it? It was special?’
She nodded again. Oh, to be a no-woman. To fight – like Jude – and overcome. Perhaps she’d had too little sex for too long. So that now it had arrived with such intensity, it seemed necessary to existence, like water to the morning hangover, and unfortunately tasting just as sweet.
He grabbed her hands. ‘So it doesn’t have to finish because of a—’
‘Baby?’ She snatched hers back again. He’d been holding Marisa’s hands just like that too. ‘Of course it does. Don’t be stupid.’ He was young, wasn’t he? Too young. This must be her punishment for trying to switch generations in the hope that no one would notice. ‘It’s your responsibility as much as hers, you know that.’
‘Shit!’ He banged his hand down hard on the table. Their glasses shivered and came to rest. Their eyes met and locked inescapably once more. ‘Why the bloody hell did this have to happen? Why now?’
‘Will you marry her?’ Her words squatted on the raft of his anger and sailed right away. Weak, she knew, but how could she help it after what Naomi had said?
‘Of course I won’t bloody marry her.’ His anger seemed directed at her now. Perhaps he would prove to be a mad axe-man, a psychopath. It would be a relief then, presumably, the knowledge that she wouldn’t be seeing him again.
‘How could I marry her?’ he said. ‘I don’t love her. I never loved her, I told you.’ A huge sigh.
Imogen wanted to comfort him. Once more, she wanted to feel his face with her fingertips. She held back with difficulty. This was what willpower was all about.
‘And, yes, of course I’ll support whatever she wants to do – what choice do I have? I’ll get a proper job…’ his mouth twisted ‘… and give her money and stay as far away as possible and she’ll hate me and I’ll loathe her and I’ll feel guilty as hell and…’
She touched his arm. She could do that at least because he didn’t seem able to stop. ‘Tonight?’ she asked him. ‘In the bar?’
‘You were there?’ He slumped further in the chair even as she realised what she’d seen. Not them holding hands. Marisa holding his hands, Marisa’s supplication.
‘She said she was going to keep it and I said nothing would change.’
Nothing would change? He had to be joking. Marisa was grafted on to his life now like one of Imogen’s root cuttings.
‘I can’t stay with her when I don’t love her,’ Alex said. ‘It wouldn’t be right. It wouldn’t be fair.’
‘No.’
He got to his feet, stood behind Imogen, laid his hands on her shoulders. Soft, but pressure nevertheless.
She closed her eyes. She felt as if she’d been waiting for him to touch her all her life. But it was OK, he couldn’t see her, she could close her eyes. No one would know.
‘Because I love you.’ His hands were inside the collar of her robe, warm on her skin.
What was he saying? Had he forgotten that he was young, he didn’t want responsibilities, he wasn’t looking for love? And she had never asked for the big L word. But still, she couldn’t open her eyes. She felt that if she could just stay here in this dream-like state, feeling his hands wash all over her skin, rinsing away her doubts, her worries, then – somehow – it would be all right.
His thumb was resting on her collar bone. The – what did you call it? The clavicle. A faint pressing on the ridge of it, his fingertip tucking into the hollow beneath. She couldn’t move. She could smell fragrance-of-Alex again – she was drunk with it. And her body screamed out: Touch me, touch me! Take me, take me! She moaned, very softly. Willpower-woman? Who was she trying to kid?
His lips brushed lightly across the back of her neck. She felt the wetness of his tongue. She knew every inch of her body was covered in goose-bumps. But the Snow Queen was long gone.
‘It doesn’t have to be over, Imo.’ His voice was urgent, hot breath whispering in her ear. ‘Does it?’
No, no, you’re right, it doesn’t, every sense shouted back gleefully as they dragged him upstairs in a happy haze of seeing, touching, hearing, smelling, tasting … In your dreams, girl.
His hand was moving towards her breast. Another second and she’d be lost. Not Willpower-woman but fallen woman. Having succumbed – a lovely word which said it all really – to the father of someone else’s child. And she’d already done that, with Edward. Because of her, Marisa had never had a proper father. And now, because of her …
‘Yes, Alex,’ she said quite clearly, surprising even herself, and dis
appointing those senses – every one of which was swollen and fit to burst. ‘It has to be over.’
Chapter 29
‘I can’t see…’ Imogen paused for breath, legs dangling off the exercise bike ‘… why you’re making me do this.’
There was no reply.
Imo looked behind her – not easy in her position – to where Jude was pushing weights. It looked like hard work so she decided to stay put. Indeed, Jude was fully focused – in a most un-Jude-like way since there were two men on the far side of the gym. Her hair – chestnut brown with red highlights – was damp with sweat; her eyes – hazel – grim with concentration.
‘It’s not as if I want to lose weight,’ Imo complained to no one in particular. And then to Jude again, ‘You used to tell me I was a bag of bones.’ Or was that a bag with bones?
But, ‘A new year means a new start,’ Jude had declared mid-January – when the show was over and Hazel had left for Italy on the arm of Giorgio.
Imogen wasn’t so sure. ‘Start of what exactly?’ She was wary. Don’t be a fool like you’ve been in the past …
Jude had merely wagged her finger knowingly and begun scribbling ads for foreign students. (‘I’m not lonely, but the flat needs people – paying people,’ she’d said.) Big Venezuelan Monica managed to crack Jude’s bath tub; perspiring Paloma from Spain – luckily, as it turned out – never took one; and Brigit from Germany barely spoke.
Even more radically, Jude had started a diet that specified no chocolate and no cigarettes. This had not lasted, on the grounds, Jude said, that extreme stress was known to shorten and decrease the quality of life. In this case, Imo’s as well as Jude’s, Imo thought privately, as Jude re-embraced both and hatched another plan to revitalise their lives and limbs.
This time Imogen too was enrolled, only getting to argue about it when the deed was done and money had changed hands. Jude had chosen T’ai Chi (yang short form if anyone should be interested, which Imo wasn’t) backed up by a Wednesday night meditation group. This scheme hit rock bottom for Imogen, literally, when she sprained her ankle attempting a high kick with added twist, and for Jude when two of her clients complained about her chanting threatening mantras during a bikini wax and eyelash tint.
Somewhat the worse for wear, March had meant another new start for Jude and Imo in the form of focusing their minds (a healthy mind means a healthy body, Jude insisted) by investigating opportunities they might be missing (thank the Lord, Imo said) in the lands of open universities, business colleges, and even computer technology for the terrified.
Having ploughed through dozens of prospectuses, Jude observed as the weather warmed that being stuck inside some institution in their spare time wasn’t as attractive a prospect as it had seemed. Things changed. A healthy body means a healthy mind; we don’t have to bother with all that learning stuff, we’re in the university of life. Hence, they were in the gym. Hence, Imogen was wary of new beginnings. If she made any more, she’d be finished before she was forty.
* * *
‘We’re not here to lose weight,’ Jude informed her as she dashed and Imogen staggered downstairs, to take full advantage of their membership by having a swim.
‘What are we here for then?’ Imogen was confused. ‘To meet men?’ Since those were Jude’s two main aims in life it seemed a fair assumption to make.
‘Course not.’ Jude swung open the door of the changing room. ‘We’re here to get fit and rebuild our bodies.’
Taken aback, Imo wrinkled her nose. It was so distinctive, that smell of not-quite-clean flesh mixed with chlorine, dusted over with talcum powder and laced with the short sharp shock of a deodorant spray.
Jude hung her grey marl sweatshirt on an empty peg and threw her Nike bag on to the narrow slatted bench. ‘And anyway, who needs men?’
Well, Jude generally did …
‘Granted, you get some pretty beefy-looking guys in the gym.’ She looked thoughtful. ‘It kind of goes with the territory.’
‘Hmm.’ Imogen wasn’t into beefy. She preferred interesting. She preferred men with long bodies and untidy hair to be found mainly just at one end of them. She preferred lean to six packs and thighs sturdy as the Rock of Gibraltar. She preferred a certain look and an uncertain smile …
‘And don’t pretend you didn’t notice them.’ Jude stripped off her leotard and tights and plucked her cossie from the bag.
Imo watched her. Was it her imagination or was Jude looking more well-toned and healthy already?
‘I’m dying for a fag,’ she said.
Perhaps not. ‘I noticed them,’ Imo conceded, rescuing her own leggings from the gully of stale water that broke up the rubber pimply floor. ‘But I didn’t fancy any of them.’
‘Yes, well, Alex Armstrong wasn’t there, was he?’ Jude said, unnecessarily cruelly, in Imo’s opinion.
‘And is there any particular reason why you’re not after any of the fitness freaks?’ Imo demanded, hopping out of her knickers. Jude wasn’t exactly dying of a broken heart, was she? She’d had her share of bad experiences, but she’d emerged unscathed.
‘There is.’
‘There is?’ Imo was agog.
‘I’ve entered a no-man zone.’
‘A what?’
Jude sniffed. ‘I’ve given up men.’ She stepped into her all black sporty Nike number whose little tick somehow managed to underline her words.
Well … Imo felt way too feminine, and unfocused too, in her blue and yellow floral costume. ‘Honestly?’ She’d believe that when she saw the proof. It might be another one of Jude’s beginning again schemes. Or she could just be lying.
‘Absolutely.’ She wasn’t quite meeting Imo’s eye.
‘Er … Any particular reason?’ Together they headed for the locker room.
‘You mean, apart from the fact that men are bad news, screw you up, bring you down, and then persuade you to come back for more?’
Imo had to laugh. ‘Got a 50p?’ She opened the metal door and shoved in her own supermarket carrier bag. She was not convinced. Jude had been man-hunting so long she wouldn’t have the least idea how to stop. It had become a way of life.
‘Anyway, I’m much too busy,’ Jude said. They negotiated the blue disinfected puddle at the entrance to the pool, discarded their towels and headed for the water.
Imogen cautiously lowered herself in, flinching as cold water splashed on to her overheated skin as a result of Jude’s surprisingly graceful dive from the side. Perhaps it was true. Perhaps the new health-conscious Jude was too busy with the salon, with Daisy, and with her latest foreign student to go out looking for a man. And at this rate – for Jude, she noted, had done almost a length already – she wouldn’t have the energy.
* * *
He was a charming man, Hazel told herself firmly as the water-taxi glided across the smooth surface of Lake Garda from the quaint lakeside town of Malcesine to the equally charming Limione. And if romance had not yet led to a ring, it had at least led to poetry. Ah … Hazel grew wistful. Giorgio was so much more poetic than Byron – the husband, not the poet. And attractive. She looked across at him. Not quite as attractive perhaps as when he’d been playing Gershwin, in that dapper suit with a cigar and baton always to hand … oh, she had been the envy of the entire female contingent of Trident then. Hazel chuckled. She could almost hear Giorgio’s splendid tenor ringing out across the stage and into the auditorium. And still picture Belinda’s thin-lipped smile. Oh, how she’d loved it!
Hazel gazed across the balmy water. Italy was glorious, and it was so warm for March, sitting here on deck basking in the last of the late-afternoon sun. But it would be a shame really not to return to England in time for Trident’s next meeting, for rehearsals for the next show …
Perhaps she should have been an actress. Hazel closed her eyes and let this pleasant fantasy skim across her mind. She could see herself as a young woman … Long hair, blue eyes, petite, graceful. People had said she was pretty. Stunning even. Especially
men. She’d certainly had more than her fair share of attention. Hazel sighed, becoming for a moment Elaine Paige singing ‘Memories’.
Anyway, it was pleasant now to play the part of the English lady, although so far it had not turned out quite as she’d expected. Perhaps she was imagining it but there had been a few sly smiles.
There was a couple, both Italian, who lived just south of Malcesine along the lakeside road, in what she had to say was a rather tatty apartment, considering they were friends of Giorgio and all. They had made her welcome after a fashion, though she had anticipated more in the way of open arms, Mediterranean exuberance and exclamations of delight that Giorgio had found his English rose.
The woman, Francesca, had been quite surly when the men went into another room to chat – perhaps because she spoke no English. Hazel had not felt comfortable at being left alone with her. But she’d thought nothing of the sly smile on the woman’s face until she’d seen it again – this time on the face of a man who came to see them at the villa.
And the villa … Hazel opened her eyes briefly to see Giorgio leaning on the side railings, talking – did the man never stop? – to another Italian. The sun was going down at last, the cypresses were tinged with pink, the waters of the lake shimmered in the evening haze. The villa – although exquisite in every detail, with wonderful views across Lake Garda towards the mountains that Giorgio had described to her so vividly – apparently belonged to his brother, Gianfranco. And yet Hazel could swear that Giorgio had laid claim to it before they arrived. She could hear him now. You must come to visit my villa on Lake Garda … So?
It was confusing, particularly because Gianfranco had not seemed overjoyed to see his brother. There had been heated differences of opinion between the two of them since their arrival, though Giorgio said she was mistaken, and really, how could one argue the point when all conversations were in Italian and she didn’t understand a word? There was no doubt about it, Hazel might be playing the English lady in her own mind, but she was at an obvious disadvantage when it came to communicating with others.