Pandora

by Jilly Cooper

  But he made no pass. It was like living with a vegetarian wolf. And as August moved into September, she found herself increasingly drawn to him, and when he vanished to his archives, she missed him dreadfully.

  One warm afternoon, he took her to the Central Cemetery, another splendid park where two and a half million people are buried, and where the Viennese come to walk, chat, and feed the squirrels and sparrows.

  ‘Only when you’re dead in Vienna have you really made it,’ explained Jonathan, who was watching the exquisite shadows dappling the tawny leaves scattered on the grass as the tree ceiling grew thinner.

  In the musicians’ graveyard, they found buried many of the great composers: Johann Strauss, father and son, Beethoven and Brahms. Jonathan drew Emerald’s attention to a lichened monument, which showed a bespectacled Schubert arriving in heaven, bewildered that a smiling angel was laying a laurel wreath on his dishevelled curls.

  ‘Needs a haircut like yours,’ mocked Emerald.

  ‘Schubert never got any recognition during his lifetime,’ said Jonathan, ‘he had to wait till he got to heaven, like Alizarin probably will.’

  Glancing round, he saw tears, for once not of frustration nor self-pity, filling Emerald’s eyes.

  ‘That is so sad. Is Alizarin that good?’

  ‘One day he’ll be regarded as one of the greats of all time.’

  ‘So could you be,’ protested Emerald, suddenly serious.

  ‘Me?’ said Jonathan in amazement.

  ‘You just squander your talent and fool around.’

  She looked so sweet and fierce, he had to clench his fists not to take her in his arms.

  Instead, gazing at the miles of graves, he said, ‘Terrifying how many people are alleged to be buried alive. It’s rumoured the Viennese used to have a rope inside the coffin attached to a bell, so they could alert the outside world.’

  Then, when Emerald shivered, he added, ‘Tomorrow we’re going to visit the Von Trapps’ house.’

  ‘How fabulous,’ squealed Emerald, ‘The Sound of Music’s easily my favourite film.’

  ‘I know it is.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Because it’s Anthea’s too.’

  Sometimes they discussed what had happened to the Raphael.

  ‘What were you doing during the fireworks?’

  ‘Taking Lily home, she fell in the pond.’

  ‘Are you sure it wasn’t you that fell in the pond? You were drenched when you got back to the house.’

  ‘I’ve always been wet.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. The frame of the Raphael was found in the rushes. Are you sure you didn’t nick it as a practical joke? And how come you’re so cash rich now?’

  ‘I had a good win at the casino,’ said Jonathan blithely. ‘Actually, I’ve almost run out.’ He glanced at her sideways. ‘I’ve got to go back to London to finish Dame Hermione in time for the Commotion Exhibition.’

  ‘When are you leaving?’ gasped Emerald.

  ‘Tomorrow. The next day.’

  She really minds, he thought in ecstasy as the colour drained from Emerald’s face. His backing-off had worked.

  ‘Bloody Jupiter,’ she stormed, ‘if he’d paid me for that head, we could have stayed another week.’

  On the last night, they went to their favourite restaurant in the Schwarzenberg Palace overlooking the park. Watched by everyone, they were oblivious of everything except each other.

  ‘I don’t want to go back to London,’ moaned Emerald.

  ‘D’you remember the first time we danced, I kissed you and you slapped my face?’ asked Jonathan.

  ‘You were so drunk, I nearly knocked you over.’

  ‘What did you think of me?’

  ‘That you were an irrelevance, all I could think about was confronting Anthea.’

  Jonathan couldn’t prevent his hand reaching out to stroke her face, but just managed to turn it into a summons for the bill.

  As they wandered home guided by a huge gold moon floating above the green domes, the rearing horses and the floodlit goddesses, Emerald asked, ‘Why were you so gratuitously bloody to me at my birthday party?’

  ‘I thought Dad had given you the Raphael to make up for being adopted and not brought up by him and Anthea. It was the sort of stupid, quixotic thing . . .’

  ‘You were panic stricken about losing your inheritance.’

  Jonathan’s head was bowed, his face in darkness.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I was panicking that if you became that rich, Zac the fortune-hunter wouldn’t be able to resist marrying you.’

  ‘What a bloody horrible thing to say.’

  ‘I was so terrified of losing you,’ muttered Jonathan.

  ‘W-what?’

  Emerald was so busy gazing at him in disbelief that she tripped over a paving stone. Jonathan caught her and she melted into his arms, pleading: ‘Please, please kiss me,’ then, when he didn’t, trying to make a joke of it: ‘I t-t-thought sisters were your speciality.’

  Jonathan shoved her roughly away, throwing back his head, banging his clenched fists against his chest.

  ‘I am not laying a finger on you until you have that DNA test.’

  ‘Why are you so sure I’m not a Belvedon?’

  ‘Because I can’t bear you to be,’ he said despairingly.

  He took her face between his hands, caressing her cheekbones with his thumbs, watching the silvery light playing on her adorably bewildered face.

  ‘I’ve loved you since the moment you walked into the marquee at Dad and Anthea’s silver wedding party,’ he whispered, ‘but I know too how important it is for adopted children to have their own kids. I’ve also screwed up one sister by getting too close to her. The moment you’ve had that test and proved you’re not my sister’ – his voice broke – ‘I’ll never let you go again.’

  Full of hope, they returned to England.

  Sienna, meanwhile, had been in Rome and Florence, gazing at Raphaels, wrestling with her demons. In mid-September she returned to the East End to work and in early October flew to New York where the Commotion Exhibition, which had earlier in the year outraged and excited the British public, was about to go on show.

  Three huge rooms of the highly prestigious Greychurch Museum off Madison Avenue had been given over to eighty-four exhibits by forty young British artists. Among the most outrageous were not only Sienna’s installations, Tampax Tower and Aunt Hill, but also Millennium Buggers, in which, as promised, Jonathan had included Casey Andrews, Somerford Keynes, his brother Jupiter, and a number of Tory grandees whom Jupiter was wooing. A large alcove had been set aside for Jonathan’s installation of Dame Hermione Harefield, which was due to be flown in at any minute.

  There was great excitement about Trafford’s gay rights statement, which showed a gigantic puckered anus surrounded by a halo, entitled Assholier Than Thou. At the last moment, Sienna, on her animal rights soapbox, had also contributed Slaughterhouse, an incredibly powerful painting of an abattoir, showing fat businessmen hanging upside down from a conveyor belt, having their throats cut and slowly bleeding to death. Sienna would have preferred to tackle the subject as a moving installation, but time had been too short.

  Arriving at the Greychurch, she found the usual eve-of-preview scraps going on: artists grumbling that their work was in the wrong place, badly lit or improperly installed and querying whether security was tight enough.

  ‘Who’d want to steal this shit anyway?’ grumbled the guards, who were anticipating riots at the preview.

  Having supervised the hanging of Slaughterhouse, Sienna dropped in on the ultra-cool Manhattan Gallery, owned by Adrian Campbell-Black, Rupert’s younger brother, who was also an old friend of Raymond. Adrian’s features were gentler than Rupert’s, his hair light brown, his eyes pale grey, but he had the same Greek nose and olive skin without a trace of red, and the ability to turn a suit into a poem. Inside the gallery, arctic-white like an igloo, he was easily the prettiest thing, alth
ough the competition wasn’t great, the only other occupant being a vast dung beetle cast in resin.

  ‘No-one else but museums will buy that,’ complained Sienna as she accepted a glass of wine.

  ‘That’s where you’re wrong, darling.’ Adrian had the same light, clipped voice as Rupert. ‘I’ve sold three of those this week. Installations are so hot. In order to accommodate these massive excrescences, the rich are competing to build houses bigger than Buckingham Palace.’

  ‘My brother Jonathan has done a twenty-foot nude sculpture of Dame Hermione with a door in front, so we can all climb inside.’

  ‘That should do brilliantly.’ Adrian ran a duster over the dung beetle’s shoulder. ‘They adore Dame Hermione here, she’s singing Arabella at the Met tonight, first time back after the birth of her baby. Even though she’s ten years too old for the part and about a hundred pounds too heavy, you can’t get tickets for love nor money.’ He shook with laughter, then confided: ‘I’m rather into opera. The love of my life, a tenor called Baby Spinosissimo, is in the same production, he’s gorgeous looking. His ex, Isa Lovell, is now working with Rupert and used to be married to Tabitha – our family is so incestuous.’

  ‘Any news of the Raphael?’ asked Sienna idly.

  ‘Not a lot, despite massive publicity. I talked to Jupiter on the telephone last week, he says the police are no wiser and the entire family seem to have buggered off abroad.’

  As Sienna paced restlessly round the room, Adrian noticed how tired and ill she looked, her face set and sullen, so marred by those rings and studs. She could be ravishing.

  ‘You OK, duckie? You’ve lost a lot of weight.’

  ‘I’m fine. Oh my goodness!’ Flipping through the transparencies and polaroids on the desk, she was amazed to find they were of Alizarin’s pictures.

  ‘They’re awesome,’ admitted Adrian, ‘like Galena’s in their intense vitality and genius with light, but they’re more intensely felt. I’m desperate to contact Alizarin about a show next year. Raymond says he’s shoved off somewhere. Any idea where he might be?’

  Sienna’s joy at such recognition for Alizarin was short lived.

  ‘Who set this up?’

  ‘Zachary Ansteig.’

  Zac’s name was like a brand on her shoulders.

  ‘He’s crazy about them,’ went on Adrian. ‘Good thing the poor boy’s got something to take his mind off the Raphael.’

  ‘I must go.’ Sienna leapt to her feet.

  ‘Good luck with Commotion,’ said Adrian. ‘It’s going to be huge. The moral majority are already sharpening their knives.’

  ‘Nothing to Peking,’ said Sienna as he opened the glass door for her. ‘Some artist there has put a corpse on display.’

  ‘We could always show Geraldine Paxton instead. Look after yourself, darling.’

  Returning to the Cameron Hotel on Central Park South, into which all the Commotion artists had been booked, and which remarkably was still standing and had liquor left in the bar, Sienna was bitterly disappointed to find that Jonathan hadn’t checked in. Instead, in her pigeon-hole, was a note from Slaney Watts, the Commotion publicity officer. The media were interested in Sienna’s work. Could she make herself available for back-to-back interviews and photo-calls tomorrow?

  Sienna drooped. Having spent the last seven days and nights finishing Slaughterhouse, and having flown out early that morning, the last thing she felt up to was a media assault. In the bar she could see Trafford and other YBAs getting hammered. She’d better ring Alizarin before she joined them. But as she took out her mobile, everything was forgotten, for with the relentless prowl of the big cat ever on the hunt, Zac padded into the lobby. He was wearing a dark grey overcoat with the collar turned up and had lost his suntan, but his yellow eyes roved just as speculatively round the foyer.

  Sienna had forgotten how fatally glamorous he was. She wanted to bolt into the lift. Then Zac saw her and smiled, and she was quite unable to stop herself stumbling towards him, and thanking him for helping Alizarin.

  ‘No problem, guy’s a genius.’

  Oh, that deep, husky, caressing voice.

  ‘How’s Jonathan?’ he added mockingly.

  ‘Haven’t a clue,’ snapped a blushing Sienna. ‘How’s Emerald?’

  ‘Haven’t a clue.’

  For a moment, they gazed at each other, assessing, wondering.

  ‘My office is round the corner, come and have a drink.’

  She had expected black leather sofas, pale grey walls and carpets, state-of-the-art computers, purring, ravishing PAs, the light raindrop patter of laptops, Jackson Pollocks on the walls.

  She found one small, scruffy office, with internet access and fax machine. Tables, shelves and every surface groaned with books on Old Masters, art magazines and catalogues. On the peeling walls, blown up, were his photographs of Pandora and the other looted family paintings Zac was trying to trace. Under the desk, all over the floor were boxes and boxes of bound legal briefs and xeroxed documents from archives all over the world.

  It was like a huntsman’s tack room, and it smelt of dust and dedication. The only note of tenderness were faded photographs of a beautiful sad-eyed woman and a very dark, vividly handsome man.

  ‘Mom and my Great-uncle Jacob,’ said Zac, getting a bottle of red out of a filing cabinet.

  Having poured her a drink, he listened to his messages in several languages and flipped through his faxes.

  ‘Have you found the Raphael yet?’ Sienna asked.

  Zac shook his head.

  ‘Trail’s gone cold.’

  ‘Not through want of trying.’ She looked round the room.

  ‘I guess not. I gather your brother’s digging around in Vienna.’

  ‘With Emerald,’ said Sienna flatly.

  ‘They deserve each other. What d’you want to do this evening?’

  ‘I’ve been up since five, English time.’

  ‘Can’t go to bed till bedtime. Only way to get a decent night’s sleep. Would you like to go to the Met?’

  ‘You’ll never get tickets. Adrian says it’s a sell-out.’

  ‘Want to bet?’ Not taking his eyes off her face, Zac picked up the telephone.

  Having secured two tickets in the stalls, he asked her if she wanted to nip back to the hotel and change, then, looking at his watch: ‘You’ve got forty-five minutes.’

  ‘Why should I?’ she asked truculently.

  ‘No reason at all,’ grinned Zac. ‘All eyes will be upon you.’

  They were indeed, as, laughing his handsome head off, Zac led her into the lionhunting den of a diamond-encrusted black-tie audience. Sienna, who’d been temporarily distracted by the huge ravishing Chagalls on either side of the entrance, nearly died of embarrassment. She couldn’t believe there could be so many variations on the little black dress. Scents swirled like the garden at Foxes Court in a heatwave.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me it was a first night?’ she hissed.

  ‘You didn’t ask,’ murmured Zac. Because he was so spectacularly handsome, everyone looked to see who he was with, amazed that it should be someone quite so scruffy, with two spots, and rings and studs on her unpainted face, and an inch of dark root to her piled-up straw-blond hair, which had taken on a green tinge since Emerald’s birthday party. Jonathan’s pink shirt with the collar sawn off and ripped jeans completed the lack of picture.

  Sienna tried to bolt, but Zac had her wrist in a vice. The bastard was still grinning as they settled into their seats.

  ‘There’s Adrian Campbell-Black waving from that box.’ Zac waved back. ‘Baby Spinosissimo’s got a minor role as Matteo. An amazing Russian piss artist, Mikhail Bulgakov, is singing Mandryka. He and Baby detest Dame Hermione so it should be a riot.’

  Then, conscious of Sienna’s humiliation, he ran a finger down her gritted cheek.

  ‘New York’s obsessed with celebs,’ he said gently. ‘Once the Commotion opens, this entire audience will be at your feet. I know Strauss is a
terrible old Nazi,’ he added, almost apologetically, as he handed her a programme, ‘but his music is to die for, and the story’s set in Vienna.’

  How strong his Viennese roots are, thought Sienna.

  Thank God the huge chandeliers were dimming and retreating into the ceiling, and people wouldn’t be able to see her any more. Emerald would have known how to dress, she thought savagely.

  All her life, Sienna had heard opera, mostly Wagner, pouring out of her father’s study, and treated it with indifference. She was amazed how much she enjoyed Arabella.

  Dame Hermione, smug and resplendent, had only to raise an eyebrow to send the audience off into rapturous applause. Her voice was exquisite, her stage manners appalling, masking everyone, and singing so far to the front of the stage that the handsome Russian had practically to climb into the pit to sing back to her. In one duet, Sienna saw Hermione kicking him sharply on the ankle and in the half darkness found herself laughing as her eyes met Zac’s.

  ‘That’s Adrian’s boyfriend,’ whispered Zac, pointing out the dashing, slightly decadent-looking Lieutenant, who was keen on Arabella’s sister, and who’d just stamped deliberately on Dame Hermione’s toes.

  Finding too little room for his long thighs, Zac swung them towards Sienna. In panic she swung hers away. Even with jet lag, it was impossible to nod off next to a tiger, but she was soon enraptured by the swooningly beautiful music and the story in which, after a string of misunderstandings, true love triumphs, and Arabella ends up with her solid country squire.

  As the bravos rang out, and pink carnations rained down, Zac caught one and handed it to Sienna.

  ‘Hermione’s going to be milking the applause for the next half-hour, let’s go.’

  In the taxi, Sienna asked why at the end Arabella had given Mandryka a glass of water.

  ‘When a woman accepts a marriage proposal in Austria, instead of saying “yes”, they traditionally present the guy with a glass of water from the well,’ said Zac, adding drily, ‘Must remind you of that boiling water you lured me into drinking at Foxes Court.’

  ‘Hot water’s your métier,’ snapped Sienna. ‘Where are we going?’