Acts of Love

by Talulah Riley

  As an adult, she had received enough compliments on her appearance to counter her father’s low opinion, but she still disliked being defined by her looks either way, and didn’t feel secure enough to be able to withstand honest competition. She spent her life surreptitiously checking out legs and boobs and butts, with more vigour than a horny adolescent boy.

  It was a typical LA house party, full of agents and clients, financiers, hipsters, artists and philanthropists. Bernadette slunk around alone, nervous and disdainful, always keeping a watchful eye out for Tim. The apprehension of seeing him, the dread of an evening spent lovelorn in his company, had given way to a more practical, scheming instinct. Her overactive mind began to concoct numerous plans for the night ahead. Being in Tim’s house was too good an opportunity to miss, after all, and something positive had to come from the tedium of the party. Perhaps she could feign sleepiness and slip off to his bedroom, or encourage him to dance with her in the moonlight. At the very least, she could corner him under the mistletoe, which seemed to hang at every doorway, taunting her with plump pearls of promise.

  They were unsophisticated plans, but then Bernadette was entirely juvenile in her self-centred pursuit of love. Real love must be possible, because people had written about it – and made it sound so wonderful in the writing! All really was fair in love and war; love itself was often war, and made otherwise inadmissible behaviour entirely noble. And love was a concept that didn’t need to be too closely examined: wanting was enough of a definition. Bernadette had learnt, from prior, painful experience, that men took what they wanted. She would be no passive female, destined to put her own desires aside. She would pursue her whims at any cost.

  She found the bar out on the back deck, stepping from the warmth of the house and marvelling, as she still frequently did, at LA’s Mediterranean climate. The smell of oiled pine rose from the boards under her feet, and mingled with lavender and quince from the thicket bordering the ample garden. Fairy lights strung around lemon trees provided a drowsy and romantic half-light, along with hanging lanterns in an arbour, three crackling fire pits, and the pinpricks of cell phones, whose owners preferred virtual life.

  She ordered a lychee martini, which the unemployed-actor bartender insisted on dusting liberally with ground cinnamon. She downed it and immediately ordered another. The bartender winked at her, and she bristled at his impertinence.

  As she stood at the bar, drinking alone, a pleasant-faced man about her own age approached and smiled. ‘Hey,’ he said. ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t speak American,’ she reproved haughtily, and left him to think on his mistake.

  When she was younger, Bernadette would smile welcomingly at unknown men who approached her, and would happily engage in friendly conversation, treating them as fellow human souls, and secretly hoping to find a romantic hero. She had put so much faith and trust in the concept of one exceptional male. These men would be kind, jovial and complimentary, but when she politely declined their romantic advances, the mask of kindness would slip, and underneath would be anger. She had experienced too often the shock of a pleasant conversation turning violent, of a seemingly normal man becoming a frightening opponent. It reminded her strongly of her father’s double nature. No longer did she smile when men approached her.

  House parties always made Bernadette feel slightly wretched, but she never dared refuse an invitation for fear of dying alone. Generally, every attempt at having an interesting, exciting night out turned out to be an exercise in self-loathing and despair. No one ever behaved as she wished them to, and she was never able to rise to the standard she set herself.

  Yet there still remained the dim and secret hope that something wonderful would happen at a party. Nothing wonderful was likely to happen in everyday life, but the dark rooms, the heightened atmosphere, the libations, the strangers … Bernadette could be convinced that unusual and brilliant things did sometimes occur at parties. Someone might fall madly in love with her, or save her life in some other way. It had never happened to date, but she was unwilling to let go of the fantasy. And Bernadette lived for fantasy.

  She wandered around the garden in large circles, trying to look like she had friends in some other area of the party anxiously awaiting her return. She had no one to talk to, nothing to say for herself, even if she did have an audience, and her feet were already extremely sore.

  It was then that she witnessed the pleasant-faced man from the bar being rejected by a no-good piece of baggage in her early twenties. The man had only given a friendly salutation, but the girl had rolled her eyes and turned away with a sneer. It looked wrong to Bernadette, and she suddenly regretted her earlier behaviour, ashamed of her own violent dismissiveness. Besides, she had a constitutional abhorrence of any man being snubbed by any woman other than herself, and an even greater desire to protect the innocent. With this boy suddenly framed as a victim in Bernadette’s eyes, she felt a sudden rush of warmth for him, and a desire to show him he was not alone. She strode over to resolve the situation.

  ‘Darling!’ she said, loud enough for the other woman to hear, taking the startled young man by the hand.

  He stared at her in consternation. ‘I—’ he began, but Bernadette cut him off.

  ‘Don’t say it! I know. I know your family will never accept me. I can’t even bear to think about it!’

  ‘I—’

  ‘I still wear the ring you gave me,’ she went on, warming to her part, and flashing the large sapphire ring that she always wore.

  She kissed him warmly on the cheek, and he responded somewhat, putting his hand to her waist. She surreptitiously slapped it away. ‘I’ll always love you,’ she gasped, then trotted off towards the house. Turning back, she saw him gazing after her, incredulous, and the mean girl swooping in on her new friend, suddenly all smiles.

  Bernadette circled through the house, hoping to catch a glimpse of Tim. She settled in the sitting room, where groups of guests chattered loudly. It was a large room, comfortably furnished, and not at all showy. The well-worn sofas and the handsome oak sideboard had an old-money, East Coast feel. The ornaments were mostly books and houseplants. Festive bunting and poinsettias acknowledged the season, red-and-green exclamations of merriness in the otherwise decorous space.

  Amid the chaotic milieu, Bernadette became aware, by some animal sense, by the prickling of the hairs on the back of her neck, that someone was staring at her. She turned her head and saw the provoker.

  A man stood alone by the pine-cone-studded mantelpiece. He refused to drop his gaze, even as she stared back at him. There was something challenging in his look; it seemed too intimate and knowing. Bernadette was half pleased that she had so clearly taken his fancy in some way, but he was also giving her the uncomfortable feeling that her skimpy dress was, in fact, not chic, but slutty. She surreptitiously tried to tug the hemline down a couple of inches, and was rewarded with a far too perceptive smirk.

  She was displeased, yet compulsively intrigued. He seemed to be in his mid-thirties, and was immensely tall and broad. She had never seen a man with as much breadth to him; his shoulders were as wide as anything, and even through his suit he appeared to be all muscle. It was obscene almost, for a man of that physicality to be standing in a well-tailored suit. The dark material was pulled over strong arms and long thighs: a most incongruous fashion, saved from disaster by something dangerous in his arrogant posture that defied convention and forbade censure. His face looked as though it were cut from stone, his expression unchanging as he slowly moved his focus from Bernadette’s short skirt to her face, only his eyes flashing with wickedness and mirth as he again lowered his gaze to run his eyes slowly up and down her legs.

  She was so busy trying to muster up further indignation that she failed to notice Tim, who had come to stand next to her. ‘Good-looking, isn’t he?’ he asked, nodding in the direction of the giant.

  ‘Not my type,’ she said quickly.

  ‘Do you have a type, Be
rnie?’ he asked, quietly.

  This was the kind of exchange that Bernadette could never quite interpret to her satisfaction. Tim didn’t truly flirt with her, but he often said things that seemed filled with additional meaning, and when he did, he always looked at her in such a sad way, as if she had done wrong and he wanted to put her right. He was watching her closely and, she was sure of it, with longing. She didn’t understand him at all. If he wanted her, why didn’t he just say something? Why did he have to make it all seem so melancholy, so serious?

  He smiled sadly over at the stranger, who was now inexplicably deep in conversation with Elizabeth. Tim gently placed his hand in the small of Bernadette’s back and leant down to speak in her ear. ‘Come with me,’ he said.

  She thrilled at his touch, and for a wild moment believed that he was leading her away to some dark corner of his house, to his bedroom, anywhere he could have her alone. Her heady excitement was short-lived, as he guided her not to some private lair, but across the room to the mantelpiece, where Elizabeth stood with the hulking unknown.

  ‘Bernadette, this is my friend, the guy I was telling you about.’ Elizabeth smiled eagerly. The friend raised his left eyebrow slightly at her words, and Bernadette’s stomach tightened with frustration. It wasn’t right to introduce a man that way, to announce that you had been discussing him. It sounded like they had been plotting a female attack. In this instance, Bernadette believed Elizabeth to be stupid, rather than intentionally bitchy, but she glared at her anyway. ‘Oh? I don’t remember …’ She trailed off, trying to sound cool and unconcerned.

  ‘From medical school!’ Elizabeth clarified, nodding desperately.

  The bastard’s mouth was twitching up at the corners. ‘I noticed you from across the room,’ he said, politely.

  Bernadette started slightly at his accent, which was completely unique. His voice was low and soft, with the most idiosyncratic inflection she had ever heard. It had a transatlantic sound, though seemed neither American nor English. His lips hardly moved as he spoke, and his voice seemed disconnected from his body, as though he were a lazy ventriloquist.

  ‘Yes,’ she replied, quite stunned that Elizabeth and the treacherous Tim had forced her into conversation with this oddity. Tim was still looking at her with that same wistful hunger. She wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake him hard.

  Elizabeth made some vague excuse about having to see to the music, and taking Tim firmly by the arm, she moved away, leaving Bernadette alone with the brute. She felt quite dwarfed by the bulk of him. He seemed to be built on a different scale to everything else, and he was studying her as a wolf might appraise a lamb before gobbling it up.

  ‘Elizabeth speaks very highly of you,’ he drawled.

  She couldn’t help the derisive snort that escaped her. ‘I really don’t know her that well,’ she said, dismissively.

  He cocked his eyebrow again, and his mouth hardened into a tight line, in clear disapproval of her tone. ‘You could do a lot worse than Elizabeth for a friend. She’s a fine woman.’

  Bernadette blinked at him incredulously. His description of Elizabeth made it sound as if he were talking about a horse, or some other piece of livestock. ‘Yes. She’s very nice,’ she demurred, looking around for some means of escape.

  His left eyebrow gave another shrug, and he looked bored suddenly, as though she had abruptly lost all appeal.

  She considered her options. Clearly the man was a swine, but at least standing near him, engaged in banal conversation, was better than circling the party alone.

  Elizabeth had obviously set up this encounter in the hope that it might lead to something, and the idea that Tim and Elizabeth would quiz him about her later decided his fate: she would leave a good impression.

  ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name,’ she said, smiling at him winningly, and giving her best bedroom eyes.

  ‘Radley Blake,’ was the answer. The name stirred in her subconscious a little, and she wondered if Tim had mentioned him before.

  ‘I’m Bernadette St John.’ She stepped closer and offered her hand. He took it, engulfing it in his massive palm.

  He said nothing, just stared at her. It felt very much like he was now waiting for her to leave.

  ‘How long have you known Elizabeth?’ she tried.

  ‘Over a decade. I think she mentioned that we met at medical school?’

  Bernadette was just about to answer when he added, ‘I read your articles occasionally, in Squire magazine. They’re very good. They have an air of studied neurosis that I find appealing. Being a medical man.’

  Bernadette was justly proud of her work for Squire magazine, where she wrote under the pseudonym of ‘The Man Whisperer’. It was one of the first jobs Tim had found for her, and here was this Radley Blake character mocking her work and openly laughing at her. She wasn’t quite sure how to respond, until he continued airily, ‘I sometimes think you should interview me. I’m sure I’d enjoy your particular line of questioning.’

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘you would be the first doctor I’ve ever interviewed. Usually I profile politicians, royalty, heads of state, globally successful entrepreneurs … You would make a fascinating change, I’m sure.’

  He nodded his head curtly in acknowledgement of her thinly veiled aggression and regarded her anew, a smirk still dancing round the edge of his mouth. They stared at one another in silence, and she noticed how very dark his eyes were, like pools of melted chocolate, flecked with caramel.

  ‘Tell me,’ he said, finally, ‘what were you thinking about when you were standing over that side of the room? You had such an expression on your face.’

  It seemed an impertinent question, though by now she expected no less from the conceited Radley Blake. She wondered what expression had played across her face, to have so caught his attention. She had probably been thinking of Tim, since that was what she most often thought about, but there was no way she was going to own as much to Elizabeth’s particular friend.

  ‘I was thinking … I was probably worrying about the US becoming increasingly isolated in the Middle East.’

  He looked at her as though trying to assess whether or not she was being serious. There were several moments of silence, in which she tried to arrange her countenance into a placid and inoffensive mask, the face of a concerned citizen of the world. And then he laughed, abruptly. A guffaw of genuine enjoyment that creased his features and made his eyes shine.

  ‘What do you think of Tim?’ she asked, desperately trying to change the subject.

  He answered readily, and seemed to be enjoying her company once more. ‘He’s a decent enough sort of man. But I worry he’s not good enough for Elizabeth.’

  Bernadette felt her mouth drop open several inches and she shook her head in bewilderment. Tim was better than Elizabeth in every single way: better-looking, more successful, more intelligent.

  ‘Are you in love with her?’ The question fell from her lips before she could stop it.

  Radley Blake gave a cynical laugh, very different from the first hearty peal. ‘A woman like Elizabeth would no sooner be with a man like me than she would sprout wings and fly to the moon,’ he said, gazing stormily around the room as if to lay eyes on her.

  Bernadette was flabbergasted. She just could not understand Elizabeth’s appeal. ‘I think Tim is a wonderful man,’ she said, emphatically.

  He smiled, a cold, uncivil sneer, his red upper lip curling slightly to show a flash of brilliant white teeth. She felt, for the first time, the full force of his fierce gaze as they locked eyes. ‘I’m sure you do.’

  She knew then that he knew, without a doubt. Somehow, in the few moments they had been talking, Radley Blake had magically surmised her feelings for Tim. And he was making it perfectly clear that he thought her despicable.

  At that instant, the pleasant-faced man from the bar appeared, smiling genially, with every intention of engaging them in conversation. But as he opened his mouth to speak, Bernadette immedia
tely raised her hand and pointed a warning finger at him. ‘You. No,’ she said. ‘Go away.’

  The poor soul shut his mouth, exchanged a confused look with Radley Blake, and then crab-stepped awkwardly away.

  ‘You’re quite amusing,’ said Radley, smirking still.

  ‘And you’re not,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what you were suggesting by that last comment, but I don’t think it’s appropriate. Please excuse me.’ She tossed her head rather dramatically, turned on her heel, and wiggled away as fast as her dress and shoes would allow.

  Elizabeth ambushed Bernadette as soon as she set foot in the dining room, a rectangular space with a fourteen-seat table, a sideboard, and a slew of Christmassy paraphernalia, including a porcelain nativity scene with a thimble-sized baby Jesus. A few of the more antisocial guests had gathered, clumped in small groups against the boundary of the room like proverbial wallflowers.

  ‘Isn’t Radley awesome?’ she asked, beaming with pride. ‘I didn’t want to put you on the spot, but he’s just moved to LA and I can’t help thinking that you two would hit it off. He’s got the same amazing zest for life that you do.’

  ‘He’s fascinating,’ Bernadette agreed, seeing Tim approach. Elizabeth turned her grin on her boyfriend.

  ‘She likes him!’ she giggled triumphantly.

  ‘Did his billions win you over, then, Bernie?’ Tim asked gently.

  ‘What billions?’

  ‘Bernie, come on! That’s the Radley Blake. Please tell me you know who he is? One of the most successful entrepreneurs of our generation?’

  ‘Oh, she doesn’t care about that,’ cried Elizabeth, piqued on Bernadette’s behalf.

  ‘You said he was a doctor!’ Bernadette turned reproachful eyes on Elizabeth.

  ‘Oh no! We met in medical school, but he dropped out to start Clarion Molecular. He developed the technology to sequence individual full genomes. He’s a genius!’ Elizabeth explained, with an almost religious fervour.

  ‘Lizzie was convinced that you two would be all over each other tonight. I, selfishly, thought there could be an interview in it, at least. He’s notoriously reticent about talking to the press, but I’m pretty sure you could work your Man Whispering charms. It would be quite a triumph to get an in-depth with him,’ Tim said, grinning.