by Rosie Thomas
‘I will,’ Lily said stubbornly, but she was scrubbing the tears away. ‘Yes, I will.’
She didn’t protest any more. Perhaps, Alexander thought, without Julia’s softness, that was a valuable lesson learned.
Lily had one more question. ‘Felix helped to mend Ladyhill, didn’t he? Why didn’t Julia?’
He paused for a moment, considering. Then he said, ‘Julia believed that I cared too much about it. In the end, because I didn’t make her happy, and neither did Ladyhill, she chose to go and live somewhere else. That was her right, you know. And we agreed to share you between us.’
Lily nodded, digesting the information. And then, surprising him, she asked, ‘You said that you weren’t brave. What would you have done if you were?’
‘I suppose I would have gone with Julia.’
Alexander wondered why it was easier to admit it to Lily than to himself.
Immediately, she said, ‘I’m glad you didn’t.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, then we wouldn’t live here, would we?’
He smiled at her. ‘Is it so important?’
‘Of course it is. There’s nowhere in the whole world like Ladyhill.’
He looked at her eager, tear-grimy face. That was what he had wanted her to feel, wasn’t it? The satisfaction seemed less rounded than it might have done.
‘Go on,’ Alexander said gently. ‘Go up and wash your face. Then I think you should call in on Mrs Tovey. Your supper is probably ready.’
He telephoned Julia, to tell her that Lily was safely at Ladyhill. The conversation was brief. ‘Bon voyage,’ he said, at the end of it.
‘Thank you.’ There was a pause. ‘Alexander?’
‘Yes?’
Another pause. Then, ‘Nothing. I’m sorry, it doesn’t matter. Have a nice summer, both of you.’
The days of Lily’s holiday rapidly fell into their usual pattern. Alexander worked in the mornings while Lily went to see her friend Elizabeth, or Faye, or helped Mrs Tovey. In the afternoons the two of them picnicked, or walked, or swam in the river pool. Lily didn’t mention the bungalows again, but she refused to ride Marco Polo down there.
At the end of the first week, Felix arrived.
His visits were rare, now that the house was almost fully restored, but he still came for a few days in the spring, and again in the summer. He would bring pictures or rugs or pieces of porcelain, collected over the intervening months, for Alexander’s approval. Usually they were much too expensive, but they were always chosen with an exact niche in mind, and often looked so exactly right that Alexander ended up paying for them, protesting mournfully throughout. It was Felix’s achievement that Ladyhill glowed with more subtle splendour than it had ever done in Sir Percy Bliss’s dingy day.
And if the visits to Ladyhill weren’t strictly necessary any longer, Alexander understood that they gave Felix a proper pretext for leaving Eaton Square for a few days. George Tressider had developed a muscular disease that gave him considerable pain and limited his mobility. He suffered it tetchily. Felix ran the business and took care of George with perfect good humour, but they weren’t lovers any longer. Felix pursued his affairs discreetly but intently. Legality and opportunity were on his side, and the generous choice reminded him of Florence all those years ago. He didn’t come to Ladyhill in search of boys, however. There were enough of those in London. He came because he enjoyed the rosy, English beauty of the place, and because he and Alexander, for all their dissimilarity, had become friends.
Alexander was expecting him, and when he heard Felix’s white Alfa accelerating under the avenue of trees, he strolled out into the courtyard to welcome him. To his surprise he saw that the car, instead of being loaded down with precious pieces nested in wood-shavings, contained a passenger. He was even more surprised when she stepped out, and he saw that it was Mattie.
Simultaneously Lily appeared. ‘Mattie, Mattie, Mattie!’ she yelled, and launched herself at her. Felix looked at Alexander over their heads, smiling and shrugging.
When she had disentangled herself, Mattie took Alexander’s hands and kissed both his cheeks. After Chris Fredericks Mattie had discarded her jeans and working shirts, and reverted to Mattie-esque dresses. Today she was wearing a very short, shocking pink shift and pink leather gladiator’s sandals. She had heavy Indian silver bracelets and a matching necklace, and outsized round sunglasses pushed up over her head.
‘Bliss. Are you horrified? I had dinner with Felix, and he said he was driving down, so I came for the ride. There must be a pub in the village I can stay at for a night or two?’
Her face was turned up to him and so he kissed it. Her mouth was slightly open, and the soft brush of it sent a jolt all through him.
‘There are at least a dozen bedrooms in this house, all crying out for occupation. Stay for as long as you like. We’re very pleased to see you, aren’t we, Lily?’ Somehow, that seemed an understatement. Looking at Mattie he saw that her milky skin, too pale to tan, was powdered with faint freckles. The down of fine hairs was pale gold. He made himself look away again, shake hands with Felix.
‘What’s the time? Gone twelve. Pimms on the grass, don’t you think? You must have left very early.’ Inane remarks, Alexander thought. More like a boy of fourteen than a man of forty.
‘Before dawn, darling.’ Mattie’s throaty giggle was exactly the same as it had always been. ‘I’m ready for a Pimms.’
They sat on the lawn, facing the house. Mattie tilted her head to look up at it, and Alexander watched the line of her throat.
‘It’s so long since I’ve been here,’ Mattie murmured. ‘Do you know, this house is too beautiful to be real. You expect to step through the door and find it’s a Pinewood mock-up.’
‘It’s real,’ Felix laughed. ‘Every bloody brick and beam. It’s taken almost ten years of our lives, hasn’t it, Alexander?’
Ten years, at the end of this year. Since the fire destroyed …
The shadow lay across the grass, as though a cloud had passed over the sun.
It was Alexander who swept it away again. He lifted his glass, sprouting the blue borage that Lily had run to pick from the garden. ‘Here’s to the completion of a magnificent undertaking.’
He leaned over to clink his glass around Felix’s, but Felix amended hastily, ‘Of course, these things are never really completed …’
Mattie and Alexander snorted with laughter, and after a moment Felix joined in. Mattie was thinking, There are only about three men in the entire world who are truly worth loving. And two of them are sitting here, under a blue sky.
Mattie and Felix stayed for five days. The sun shone, and in the sleepy heat they explored the countryside, walking and driving, played games with Lily, dozed on the lawns and swam in the river. They drove to Chesil Beach and collected a perfectly graded set of pebbles for Lily, and they wandered through the little towns where Felix rummaged in the antique shops and complained, as he always did, that the prices were higher than in London. In the evenings, after Lily was in bed, they ate and drank and talked, and Mattie sang while Alexander played the piano.
‘If only Julia was here,’ Mattie sighed, ‘it would be just like old times.’
On the fifth evening Alexander asked, ‘Can’t you stay a day or two longer?’
‘I must go back to George,’ Felix told him.
That evening Alexander opened two bottles of champagne and they drank them outside, with the scent of nicotiana drifting across the grass and bats dipping under the veil of the copper beech tree. Looking at their two faces, Felix felt for the first time that he made a crowd.
After dinner, Alexander played Chopin. Mattie, half drunk, swayed dreamily to the music.
‘Do you have to go?’ Alexander asked in a low voice.
Mattie stood still. The fanciful chiffon points of her skirt floated around her. ‘No, I don’t have to go. I’ll stay, if you would like me to.’
Sitting a little apart, as dark and immobile as if h
e was carved from polished wood, Felix wanted to whisper, Be careful. But he didn’t deliver his warning, because he guessed that it was already too late for that.
In the morning, Lily and Alexander and Mattie stood waving until the white Alfa had disappeared under the tunnel of trees.
And that evening, when Alexander went to lift the lid of the piano, Mattie put her hands over his, closing it again. ‘Don’t play tonight.’
‘What, then?’
But Alexander answered his own question. He put his hands on her shoulders, let his palms slide down over her bare arms. Her skin seemed soft enough to melt as he touched it. He kissed her, probing insistently with his tongue until her head fell back and her mouth opened to him. And then, as he had longed to do all week, he undid the front of her dress and let her breasts fall loose. They rested in his hands, ripe and heavy, moon-pale in the dim room. He put his mouth to them, tasting her rich, musky sweetness. He wondered why, in all the years, he had never noticed how sexy Mattie was, until now. He wanted her so badly that he could have pushed her to the floor and torn her clothes, stabbing himself into her and crying out, Mattie.
‘Come to bed, Mattie,’ he implored her.
She smiled at him, a surprising, crooked and sad smile. ‘Bliss. I’m not very good at sex, Bliss. Lots of other things, but not sex.’
With an effort, Alexander controlled himself. ‘You are, my darling. Look.’ He gestured at the pale, satiny smoothness of her. ‘You are so beautiful.’
‘I don’t want anything to be spoiled,’ Mattie whispered. ‘I’ve enjoyed these days with you so much.’
‘Nothing will be spoiled,’ he murmured. ‘Nothing. I promise.’ He kissed her neck and her throat, thinking that if he could take bites out of her flesh it would taste of ripe golden melons.
‘Bliss …’
He took her face between his hands. ‘Just answer one question. Is it the truth that you prefer girls?’
Her eyes were very soft now. ‘The truth is that I don’t know what I prefer.’
He smiled at her. ‘I’m not arrogant enough to say I’ll show you. Come to bed, Mattie.’
Almost inaudibly, she answered, ‘Yes. If you want me to.’
To Alexander, the naked abundance of Mattie in his bed seemed miraculous. Mattie had never been slim, and now the melting folds of her seemed to turn inwards and inwards, enclosing him and drawing him closer, submerging him in mounting, sensuous waves of pleasure. She filled his hands, and his mouth, and he wanted to feast on her, blind and greedy, until he couldn’t devour any more.
But Alexander clung to the last remnants of control. He bit his teeth together, and counting grimly from one to a thousand, as he had taught himself to do with the first girl he had ever made love to, he focused his attention on Mattie’s pleasure. He stroked her and cajoled her, and put his lips to the soft button of flesh, drawing it into the heat of his mouth. Mattie sighed, and smiled faintly behind the mask of her closed eyelids, but he couldn’t drive her any further.
Alexander reached one thousand. He knew that he couldn’t count much longer. He put his lips to her ear.
‘Mattie, I want you to come.’
Just perceptibly, she shook her head. ‘I can’t. But you can.’
Her smooth hand grasped him, and he groaned aloud. Then she guided him into her, lifting her hips to give him more of herself. It took just six long thrusts before Alexander came, his back arching and his breath shuddering out of him.
He was still for a long time afterwards, his eyes closed and his arms wrapped tightly around her, as if he was afraid that she would try to escape. Mattie lay still, thinking, Alexander. You’re as loving and generous as I knew you would be. I’m glad I found that out. I’m glad this happened, after all this time. I like you very much. Why didn’t I tell you?
‘Mattie,’ he whispered. ‘Why can’t you come? You gave me more pleasure then than I think I’ve ever had before.’
‘Hmm. That’s a paradox, isn’t it?’
He shifted his weight so that he could look into her eyes. ‘A paradox? How many film stars talk about paradoxes in bed?’
Brightly, Mattie said, ‘None of the ones I’ve had.’
They laughed, softly at first and then louder, gasping with it, lying in the darkness with their arms wrapped round each other.
Twenty
Julia looked around the Soho studio. Stacked all around the walls were originals and prints by the three young artists who shared the loft, but there was none of the other familiar painters’ clutter. Instead there were drawing boards and airbrushes, plan chests and a boy in very clean OshKosh dungarees frowning at a computer terminal. The neat beige space looked more like the art department of a glossy magazine than anything else, Julia thought.
‘I like this stuff,’ Julia said. ‘I’m tired of flowers and beads.’
The boy looked up. ‘Yeah. All that faded shit.’
She prowled back along the line of pictures. The ones that interested her particularly were gleaming, airbrush paintings of jukeboxes, cars with grilles like sharks’ teeth, girls with overpointed breasts and tight dresses that emphasised the vee between their thighs. They were all more real than the real thing, sharp and shiny and cynical. There was nothing gentle or optimistic or pretty about them, and they made psychedelia seem as dated as the pennyfarthing. Julia smiled with satisfaction. She liked the prickle down her spine when she recognised a seller.
And interleaved with the super-realist paintings of space-age artefacts, there were computer graphics in which a circle composed of circles and dots transformed itself by stages into a leaping panther, and then back to a circle again. By the same progression, a Coca-Cola bottle became the Apollo 11 space-rocket that had, in that week, deposited Armstrong and Aldrin on the moon.
It was a wonderful week to be in America.
‘And these,’ Julia said. ‘These are brilliant. Is there anything you can’t do with that computer?’
‘Nope.’ The boy leaned back in his chair. ‘Or at least, not much.’
Julia took out her notebook and unscrewed her fountain pen. It was gold-nibbed, and filled with sepia ink. Mattie had given it to her for Christmas. ‘Biros don’t go with silk suits and leather briefcases,’ she had pronounced. Julia smiled at the memory, and held the pen poised.
‘I’d love to buy some of your work, of course,’ she murmured now. ‘But I can only think of unlimited editions for my market. I’ve got a chain of shops in England, not a gallery.’
‘Posters?’
‘That’s right.’
The boy yawned. ‘Well, I guess it’s not out of the question if the price is right. You’d have to hack all that out with my agent.’
Cheerfully, Julia clipped the cap back on to her pen. She liked dealing with agents, and enjoyed the almost formal gavotte of agreeing terms. There was always a deal to be made, and she was good at getting what she wanted. She knew that the Fifties Pontiacs and Coke bottle Apollo 11 would hang well on the walls of Garlic & Sapphires, and would sell as fast as she could see them produced.
‘Thank you for showing me your work. I’ll call your agent this afternoon. Can I take you somewhere for lunch now?’
The artist looked under his long eyelashes at Julia in her buttercup-yellow tussore silk safari suit. ‘Sure you can,’ he murmured. ‘Let’s go right away.’
They went out into the street, and Julia felt the sun striking hot on her head. She had been almost cold in the air-conditioned studio, and the noise of traffic seemed doubly loud after its humming quiet. The constant contrasts of the city stirred her blood. She had to make conscious efforts not to dash to and fro, admiring and exclaiming, as if she was Lily’s age.
‘Where shall we go?’ she asked. The heat of the sidewalk struck up insistently through the soles of her buttercup-yellow pumps.
‘I know a place.’
They went uptown, to a bar restaurant called Al’s. It was cool and dim inside, and Julia blinked at the further contrast. She bl
inked again, when her eyes readjusted themselves to the light. The interior was a cavern of Thirties deco, and it was impossible to tell at a glance whether it was original or a clever recreation. There were peachy-pink walls lit by fan-shaped lights, cream leather and chrome sofas and barstools, and a white piano complete with a black pianist playing Cole Porter.
It was muted, and opulent, and so modish that Julia laughed out loud. ‘Oh, joss-sticks and bean-bags and temple bells, where are you now? I should be wearing a cream crêpe-de-chine teagown with a river of pleats, and marcel waves in my hair. I feel out of place in this.’ She held out her arms in the yellow suit. Her companion laughed with her, and stuck his thumbs in the braces of his dungarees.
‘And a white tux for me. But who gives a shit? Let’s get ourselves a drink.’
He greeted ten people on the way to the bar, and they settled themselves at last on the tall chrome stools. There was a cocktail menu, with deco lettering and a silhouette of a sinuous dancing couple. Julia sighed over the White Ladies and Manhattans and Deep Seas. ‘It’s got to be a Manhattan, hasn’t it?’
The bartender mixed their cocktails in a silver shaker, and poured them into black-stemmed cocktail glasses with frosted rims.
Julia said, ‘I want everything. I want the shaker, and the glasses, and the lights and the ashtrays and the barstools, all shipped back to Garlic & Sapphires, right now. Off with the old, and on with the new. Or the retro-new.’
The painter lifted his glass in an admiring toast. ‘You Brits. You’re supposed to be cool. But when you like something, you get out and get it. Here’s to your enthusiasm.’
‘I like your graphics.’ Julia lifted her glass in return. The frosted rims touched with a faint ping. The painter’s long eyelashes lifted again.
‘And I like you.’
Oh, New York, Julia thought. You’re very good for me.
It made her feel young, and hungry again, as she hadn’t done for a very long time. They had another cocktail apiece, and Julia ate a BLT and her new friend had a hamburger, and they talked about Warhol and the men on the moon.