‘May I ask you a question, Miles?’
‘Of course.’
‘What did you mean when you said that our reading things about each other in the newspapers and remembering them signified something special?’
‘It suddenly struck me in the bar earlier that perhaps we’d been unconsciously drawn to each other before we actually met at Jane’s party.’
She smiled against his chest. ‘I think I was.’
‘So was I… I do believe,’ he admitted.
Christina confessed, ‘When I saw you come out onto the terrace at Hadley I got a terrible pain in my chest, a tightness that was really quite awful, and I felt very wobbly all of a sudden.’
Miles smiled. She was so open and guileless. Relatively few women would have told him something so revealing at this stage in the relationship. But he was glad she had. She was straightforward, an innocent, despite her sophisticated circle of friends. He liked this about her. He was pleased she was untarnished by other men.
‘If it makes you feel any better, Christie, I had a strong reaction to you, too. I knew I had to see you again.’ He drew on his cigarette, flicked ash in the ashtray on the bedside table. ‘And I really was most frightfully annoyed when I had to cancel lunch at the last minute.’
‘So was I… well, disappointed really, Miles… When did you decide to come to Paris?’
‘Earlier in the week. Fridays are generally quiet in the Commons. They’re usually devoted to uncontroversial issues and private bills, and I knew I could get away early, so I booked a flight—’
‘And obviously rang up Bruton Street to ask where I was staying.’
‘I did.’
‘I’m surprised my secretary didn’t tell me.’
Miles chuckled. ‘I said I was calling for Susan Radley, that she wished to send you flowers and needed the name of your hotel in Paris. I explained you weren’t to be told, since the flowers were meant to be a surprise. And I thought to add that I was the florist.’
Christina laughed. ‘Aren’t you the crafty one,’ she teased. ‘And why didn’t you want me to know you were coming to Paris? Obviously you didn’t, from what you’ve just said.’
‘I wanted to surprise you.’
‘How did you know I wasn’t meeting someone here? A special man? A lover?’
‘I hoped and prayed you weren’t.’ Stubbing out the cigarette, Miles bent over her, kissed her brow, whispered, ‘Are you glad I decided to hop over?’
‘Yes, Miles, very glad.’ Her arms went around him and they kissed quietly and then Christina placed her hands on his bare chest and gently pushed him away, looked up at him. ‘Are you going to stay through tomorrow too?’
‘Oh yes, indeed I am. In fact, I’m going to stay all weekend. I’m not leaving until early on Monday morning, my sweet.’ The lazy smile touched his mouth and he took hold of her shoulders, forced her down onto the pillows. Kneeling over her he began to stroke her breasts and then her stomach, murmuring, ‘Now lie still, don’t say a word, I want to make love to you in a very special way…’
***
They got up at midnight and went out.
Miles loved jazz and he took her to one of his favourite old haunts, the Mars Club, just off the Champs Elysées. It was dark and smoky and intimate. They sat squashed close together on a red plush banquette, holding hands, and he drank slightly warm Scotch and she sipped icy white wine. And between sets he talked jazz, told her about Bix Beiderbecke and Charlie Parker and Fats Waller and Django Reinhardt and Louis Armstrong. And from time to time he would kiss her cheek unexpectedly, or squeeze her knee, and smile into her eyes, and as the minutes ticked by Christina fell more and more in love with Miles Sutherland.
Later they went off to Les Halles, the old market, to have the famous onion soup at one of the little cafés, and as they spooned it up hungrily, and ate the toasted French bread and runny cheese that floated on top, he spoke of his childhood, of growing up in the rambling old country house in Suffolk that had been his family’s home for centuries. And she listened attentively, relishing every word, enjoying hearing about his youth and his father and mother, and it was almost six in the morning when they returned to the Ritz, holding hands and laughing, still wide awake and excited about discovering each other.
Miles opened the door of her suite and followed her inside.
‘You’re not going to throw me out?’ he asked, removing his jacket, loosening his tie, slipping off his shoes. ‘I can sleep here with you, can’t I? Please don’t banish me…’
Her answer was a smile at him, a long, slow smile, and her hand. He took it in his and together they walked into the bedroom.
Miles closed the door and locked it. He took her in his arms, whispering her name over and over again as he lifted her in his arms and carried her to the bed. And they made love once more and slept, and made love, and that’s that way it was for the rest of the weekend.
CHAPTER 47
‘No two ways about it,’ Miles said to Christina on Sunday night, ‘I’ve got a really horrendous week ahead of me.’
They were having dinner at La Coupole on the Left Bank and she looked at him, put her fork down on her plate. He hadn’t sounded serious at all during the weekend. Now he did. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked, reaching for her glass of wine.
Miles leaned closer. ‘Hugh Gaitskell is going to be coming down hard on Anthony Eden because of the trouble with Nasser and the Suez Canal. I’m going to be really slogging it out with my opposition, especially as one of Hugh’s protégés. But then I suppose the entire shadow cabinet is going to be on the attack. It’s such a terrible mess.’
‘You don’t really think there’s going to be a war in the Middle East, do you?’
Miles nodded and his face became instantly grave. ‘I’m afraid so—Egypt—because of the Canal problems. But let’s not discuss it tonight. When will you be coming back to London, Christie?’
‘Not until Saturday. My lawyer Maître Bitoun needs me here to conclude everything with the perfume manufacturer.’
Miles took hold of her hand and he gave her a mischievous look. ‘Shall I come back next weekend… to be with you here?’
‘Oh Miles, could you?’ Her face flushed, grew intensely bright and her eyes sparkled. ‘That would be wonderful, wouldn’t it?’
‘That’s what I think,’ he said and grinned.
After dinner they walked for a while and then they took a rackety old cab, the only one they could find, back to the hotel. ‘I swear to God he’s three sheets to the wind,’ Miles muttered in her ear as they sat on the back seat holding hands while the driver weaved his way across Paris somewhat perilously.
Later that night, as he held her in his arms in bed, Miles said in his low, intense voice, ‘I’m afraid I’m getting rather entangled with you, Christie.’
‘And I with you, Miles.’
‘I know I shouldn’t, that we shouldn’t, but I just can’t seem to stop myself, or you, I suppose.’
‘Why shouldn’t we get involved?’ Christie asked, drawing closer, wrapping one leg over his body, tightening her arms around him.
A deep sigh rippled through Miles and for a moment he did not respond, then he said, very quietly, ‘I’ve nothing to offer… she’ll never divorce me…’
‘I don’t care.’
‘You might one day, Christina.’
‘Why won’t she? Divorce you, I mean?’
‘I’ve not been able to fathom it, actually. You see, she doesn’t want me, but she doesn’t want anyone else to have me either.’
‘Do I? Have you, I mean? Do I have just a tiny little half inch of you?’
He smiled. Now it was her turn to fish. He had been doing that almost the entire weekend in a variety of different ways, at times feeling as foolish as a lovesick schoolboy.
Miles said, ‘Yes, you do… just a tiny little half inch of me, as you said.’ He bent over her, kissed her hair. ‘However, I think too much of you to play games with you, darling. I
want this, want us, want you. Yes, I damn well do want what we’ve started this weekend to continue… selfishly I want it. But if we do continue, it would have to be a clandestine affair. That’s not fair to you. If Candida ever found out she would create a frightful scandal. I couldn’t afford that… there’s my political career—don’t you see?’
‘I do. But I want us too, Miles. I want you. Look, we can be careful. We don’t have to go out… be in public. I don’t mind it being secret.’
‘You’ll mind one day, Christie.’
‘Oh no, I won’t, Miles.’
He made no response. He held her close in his arms and eventually they both fell into an exhausted sleep.
***
Miles left for London the following morning.
He thought about this last conversation a lot in the ensuing week, as he went from his flat in Knightsbridge to the House of Commons, and about his other business. And over and over again he asked himself if he ought not to take matters into his own hands and simply terminate their relationship. Miles Sutherland was a responsible man and bore no resemblance to the cad Jane Sedgewick had conjured up in her girlish imagination. He was honest, caring and decent, a man of honour, a man of commitment. He longed to be free of his neurotic wife; he had no interest in her money or her father’s money, since he was a man of private wealth himself.
End it now, before it gets out of hand, he kept saying to himself, but then he would telephone Christie at the Ritz in the evening, as he had said he would, and the sound of her voice drove any thoughts of rational action right out of his head. He wanted this woman in a way he had never wanted a woman before. He was hopelessly involved with her whether he wanted to be or not. He could not change the way he felt.
And so on Friday afternoon he flew back to Paris.
The minute Miles walked into her suite and saw Christina, he felt his heart skip a beat and his spirits lift, and he knew that he would never be the one to put an end to their love affair. She was like air and light and sun to him.
Christina had second-guessed him. Before he even got a chance to say he did not wish to go out to a restaurant to dine, she informed him she had ordered some smoked salmon, brie, French bread and fresh fruit, and that they were about to have a picnic. ‘In bed,’ she said gaily, laughing as she brought him a glass of Scotch with ice and a splash of soda, mixed exactly the way he liked it.
After they had sipped their drinks, Miles put his hand in his pocket and brought out a small red leather jewel case. ‘These are for you, Christie. Opals… remember how I said you should always wear opals the night we met?’
‘Oh Miles, they’re so beautiful!’ she exclaimed, ‘exquisite.’ She glanced up at him, her eyes shining. ‘I’ve never seen anything with such fire…’
‘Yes, and they’re going to look superb on you. Come, let’s see.’
He led her to the mirror and she fastened the earrings on, and admired them, and he admired her wearing them and they laughed, enjoying being together again. And then she ran into the bedroom and returned with a package.
‘This is for you,’ she said.
He was grinning with pleasure as he tore off the paper. ‘Oh my God, you really shouldn’t have!’ He shook his head, looking down at the Cartier gold cigarette case in his hand.
Much, much later when they made love, it seemed to Miles that he had never touched her before. Every part of her body seemed fresh and new to him, and more beautiful than ever. And at one moment, at the height of his passion, as he soared above her in ecstasy, he cried out, ‘I love you, Christie! I’ve fallen in love with you!’
‘And I love you, Miles! Oh my darling, I love you so much!’
They were ecstatic when they were together, obsessed with each other. This was not a question of one loving the other more. They were crazy about each other. They were deeply and intensely involved on every level. It was her first real love affair; although Miles was worldly, experienced sexually, and had had other affairs, he realized that this was the first time he had ever been truly in love.
At one point that weekend, Miles had the brilliant idea of coming to Paris every Friday. He felt safer here, free from prying eyes. And so they made their regular weekend trips through August.
‘But we must start going to another hotel,’ Christie said at the end of the month, looking at him worriedly. ‘We can’t stay at the Ritz… we’re becoming a couple, in quotes, and people are beginning to notice us.’
And so they stayed at the George V and the Prince des Galles and the Lancaster and the Raphael. It became a joke for a while, but then Miles decided they had better stop flying in and out of Paris anyway, because that was becoming noticeable too.
‘We’re going to have to find a little hideaway somewhere in England,’ he said to Christie on their last trip to Paris. ‘Why don’t you get onto it next week, my sweet?’
CHAPTER 48
It was pouring with rain.
There was a high wind that blew the rain against the windows and the sound was like hundreds of nail heads striking the glass.
But in the library of the small country house in the Cotswolds all was warmth and muted light and tranquillity on this cold day in early November.
Christina was stretched out on the sofa, listening to the rain. It was oddly soothing and she felt herself drifting with her thoughts, enjoying the aimlessness of this lazy Sunday afternoon.
She stole a secret look at Miles, as she constantly found herself doing. She loved him so much, more than she had ever believed it was possible to love a man. He had become her life. Her career mattered to her and she enjoyed her work and worked hard. But he was her whole reason for being now.
She existed for these weekends. These were the best times… being alone together in this charming and secluded house just outside Cirencester, which she had found quite by accident at the beginning of October. It was available for six months, and since it was furnished they had had nothing to do but buy groceries and move in.
They were involved in an extremely clandestine affair.
It had to be so because of his political career. But she didn’t care. She didn’t need other people, only Miles. They were together whenever he was free during the week; they couldn’t go out in case they were seen, so they usually stayed in at the Walton Street flat. And also, since he was often preoccupied with the goings-on in the Commons, the weekends were the most relaxed. They did very little… read and talked… and went for walks… she loved cooking for him, taking care of him, sharing his thoughts, his feelings, his extraordinary passion and his vibrant sexuality. And his tenderness. He was such a mixture.
He sat opposite her in a chair by the fire, engrossed in the Observer. The rest of the Sunday papers were scattered at his feet, discarded after he had ploughed through them doggedly, muttering and cursing under his breath, sometimes laughing out loud, or exclaiming ‘Damnation!’ and then grinning at her sheepishly, and explaining and sharing. Always sharing everything.
His face was tense at this moment. She knew he was worried about the situation in the Middle East. They were engaged in hostilities with Egypt because President Nasser had nationalized the Suez Canal. Britain and France and Israel had bombed Cairo and Miles was still fuming in private, and driving points home in the Commons.
As if he suddenly became aware of her eyes on him, he looked across at her over the top of the paper, asked, ‘What is it, Christie?’
‘Nothing, darling,’ she replied, sitting up, swinging her legs to the floor. ‘Just admiring you.’
‘Aha!’ he exclaimed and eyed her wickedly. ‘In that case, if you so admire me, shall we climb the stairs together for a little sweet dalliance on this quiet Sunday afternoon? What better thing is there to do than make love on a wet day?’
‘Honestly, Miles, you are impossible!’
‘That’s not what you said to me last night… you were full of compliments last night.’
Her response was to walk over to him, take the paper out of
his hands and sit down on his knee. She leaned into him, kissed him on the cheek. ‘Well, you were terrific last night.’
He smiled his faintly amused little smile, took off his horn-rimmed glasses and rubbed his eyes. ‘I think I’ve had it with the papers… I wouldn’t mind some air. Shall we go for a walk? You’re the only person I know, other than myself, and apparently the Queen, who likes to walk in the country in the rain.’
‘Yes, come on, let’s go, Miles.’ Christina jumped up, then offered him her hand.
***
Miles held her in his arms, looking down at her, watching the play of light on her face. He loved her so much. Far too much, he sometimes thought.
Christina opened her eyes and stared up at him. Then she smiled. ‘You’re spoiling me… you’re always making love to me, Miles…’ She touched his cheek lingeringly.
‘Mmmm, that’s quite true,’ he said, and pushed her further down in the bed, and wrapped his legs around her. ‘I am turning into an unselfish sort of bloke, aren’t I? But we can always correct that; or rather, you can, you know. I’m very available right now.’
He brought his mouth to hers, kissed her slowly, sweetly, until the heat began to flow through him, charging him up, making his heart race, his passion soar. He felt her hands in his hair, on the back of his neck, smoothing down over his shoulders. He wanted her. He seemed to want her more and more every day. He could never get enough of her.
His voice was low and thick with emotion as he said, ‘Kiss me, Christie, oh please kiss me, my darling.’
She sat up and knelt over him and his eyes locked to hers. She stared into his face intently. She had grown to love that face so. It could block out everything, the image of it filling her mind absolutely until she was lost in it, overwhelmed by it.
She ran her hands over his chest and down onto his flat hard stomach. His skin was as smooth and as dry as polished marble, glistening pale gold here and there where the half light shone on the fine blond hair on his lithe body. She moved to kneel between his legs and felt an involuntary quiver run through him as she put her hands on his thighs.
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