Emily

by Cooper Jilly

  ‘Actually, neither, I’m looking for a job,’ I blurted out.

  ‘A job?’ She raised eyebrows plucked to the edge of extinction. ‘Surely not, but I thought your handsome husband was doing so well, he had such a success in the papers this morning.’ Her red-nailed fingers drummed on the table.

  ‘That’s all over,’ I muttered. ‘It didn’t work out.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. I’m not surprised, I could see her thinking, she’s let herself go so much. Her manner had become distinctly chillier.

  ‘There’s not a lot of work about at the moment, people are laying off staff everywhere,’ she went on.

  ‘Oh dear,’ I said feebly. ‘In my day, they were always laying on them.’

  Audrey Kennaway smiled coolly.

  ‘You’ll have to smarten yourself up a bit,’ she said.

  ‘I know, I know,’ I said. ‘I haven’t been very well. I used to type a bit, do you remember?’ I went on. ‘And when I was thin, you sometimes got me television commercials or a bit of modelling. I’m much thinner than that now.’

  ‘I don’t think I could find you anything in that field at the moment. Let’s see if there’s any filing clerk work.’ Her long red talons started moving through the cards in a box on her desk. I felt great tears filling my eyes. I struggled to control myself for a minute, then leapt to my feet.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘I couldn’t do a filing job. I can’t even file my nails without setting my teeth on edge. It’s a mistake for me to have come here. You’re quite right, I couldn’t hold a job down at the moment. I can’t hold down anything.’ Bursting into tears, I fled out of the office, down the stairs into the sunshine. Two streets away was Rory’s gallery. Gradually, as though pulled by some invisible hand, I was drawn towards it. I went into a chemist’s to buy some dark glasses with my last pound. They weren’t much help, they hid my red eyes but the tears kept trickling underneath. Slowly I edged down Grafton Street. No. 212, here it was; my knees were knocking together, my throat dry.

  There was one of Rory’s paintings of the Irasa coast in the window. Two fat women were looking at it.

  ‘I don’t go for this modern stuff,’ said one.

  I entered the gallery, my heart pounding. Then, with a thud of disappointment, I realized Rory wasn’t there. I looked around, the paintings looked superb, and so many already had red ‘sold’ stickers on them. By the desk an American was writing out a cheque to a chinless wonder.

  I wandered round the room, proud yet bitterly resentful that people should be able to buy something that was so much a part of Rory.

  The chinless wonder, having ditched the American, wandered over.

  ‘Can I help you?’ he said.

  ‘I was just looking round,’ I said. ‘You seem to have sold a lot.’

  ‘We did awfully well yesterday, and we sold four more this morning — not, I may add,’ he whispered darkly, ‘through any assistance on the artist’s part.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I said, startled.

  The chinless wonder smoothed his pale gold hair.

  ‘Well, he’s talented, I admit, but quite frankly, he’s an ugly customer. Doesn’t give a damn about the show being a success.’

  He put stickers on two more paintings.

  ‘Always thought the fellow was pretty cold-blooded,’ he went on. ‘Didn’t seem to care about anything, but he’s certainly cut up at the moment. Apparently his wife’s left him. Can’t say I blame her. Only been married six months. He’s absolutely devastated. I mean, he was a dead loss at the private view on Thursday. I’d lined up a host of press boys to meet him, and he wouldn’t speak to any of them. Just hung around the door, hoping she might turn up.’

  I leant against the wall for support.

  ‘D-did you say his wife has just left him?’ I said slowly. ‘Are you sure it’s his wife he’s cut up about?’

  ‘Certain,’ said the chinless wonder. ‘I’ll show you a picture of her.’

  We moved into a second room, where I steeled myself to confront one of Rory’s beautiful voluptuous nude paintings of Marina.

  ‘There she is,’ he said, pointing to a small oil opposite the window. I felt my knees go weak, my throat dry — because it was a painting of me in jeans and an old sweater, looking incredibly sad. I never knew that Rory had painted it. Tears stung my eyelids.

  ‘Are you sure that’s the one?’ I whispered.

  ‘That’s her,’ said the chinless wonder. ‘I mean it’s a great painting, but she’s not a patch on that gorgeous redhead he was always painting in the nude. Still, I suppose there’s no accounting for tastes. I say, are you feeling all right? Would you like to sit down?’

  Then he looked at the painting — and at me.

  ‘I say,’ he said, absolutely appalled, ‘how frightfully rude of me. That painting — it’s you, isn’t it? I really didn’t mean to be rude.’

  ‘You haven’t been,’ I said, half laughing, half crying. ‘It’s the nicest, nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me in my life. Do you possibly know where he’s staying?’

  Chapter Thirty-three

  I ran towards the tube station, rocked by conflicting emotions. It was the rush hour. As I battled with the crowds, I tried to calm the turmoil raging inside me. It couldn’t be true, it couldn’t be true. Then suddenly, as I reached the bottom of the steps, I was absolutely knocked sideways by an ecstatic, whining, black heap leaping up and licking my face, its tail going in a frenzy.

  ‘Walter,’ I sobbed, flinging my arms round his neck. ‘Oh Walter, where’s your master?’ I looked up and there was Rory.

  ‘Come here, you bloody dog!’ he was shouting from the other side of the crowd. His slit eyes were restless, ranging from one person to another, sliding towards me. Then, as if drawn by the violence of my longing, they fastened on me, and I saw him start in recognition.

  I tried to call his name, but the words were strangled in my throat.

  ‘Emily!’ he yelled.

  The next moment he was fighting his way through the crowd.

  ‘Oh, Emily, Emily, darling,’ he said. ‘Don’t ever run away again.’

  And pinning me against the wall, hunching his shoulders against the pressure of the crowd, he began to kiss me greedily, angrily, as tears of love and happiness streaked my face.

  After a few minutes I drew away, gasping for breath.

  ‘We can’t stay here,’ said Rory, and dragged me in my tearful blindness, muttering incoherently, out into the street and across the road to his hotel, where he kissed me all the way up in the lift, utterly oblivious of the lift man. Walter Scott jumped about trying to lick my hands.

  ‘What the bloody hell,’ said Rory, as he slammed the bedroom door behind us, ‘do you mean by running away like that?’ That sounded more like the old Rory. ‘I’ve had the most frightful ten days of my life. And poor Walter,’ he went on, ‘how do you think he’s enjoyed being the victim of a broken home?’

  ‘I didn’t think you loved me,’ I said, collapsing on to the bed.

  ‘Jes-us,’ said Rory, ‘I tried to tell you enough times. Didn’t I wear myself out trying to fend off that smug bastard Finn Maclean? I nearly put a bullet through him that night I found him kissing you in the corridor at the hospital. And I’ve been driven absolutely insane with jealousy these last few weeks, having him rolling up to the house all hours of the day, acting as though he owned you.

  ‘I played it as cool as I could when you came back from hospital. I didn’t want to rush things, but whenever I tried to talk things over and explain how I felt, you leapt away from me like a frightened horse.’

  ‘I thought you were trying to tell me you couldn’t live without Marina. That you were only staying with me because you felt guilty.’

  ‘Christ no, that’s all over, it was over that night you caught us in bed together, and threw me out. We went to Edinburgh, but it was hell, actually living with her; she got on my nerves so much I wanted to wring her neck, yacking away a
ll the time, and never letting me think. All I could think of, actually, was you, and what a sod I’d been to you.

  ‘Then my prodigal father turned up, and I discovered I wasn’t even related to Marina, and there was no reason why I shouldn’t marry her, particularly now poor old Hamish has kicked the bucket. I realized the only person in the world I wanted to be married to was you.’

  ‘But,’ I said, blushing crimson with pleasure, ‘that day you all went shooting, Marina said you’d been trying to talk to me that morning to ask me for a divorce.’

  ‘The truth was never one of Marina’s strong points,’ said Rory. ‘She knew I was going to talk to you, we sat up half the night discussing the situation after you’d gone to bed. She said you were still crazy about Finn, and that I should let you go. I said sod that for a lark.’

  He came and sat on the bed and pulled me into his arms. ‘You’re not still keen on him, are you? He’s so pompous and self-righteous and such a bore. I was scared stiff, when you pushed off, that you’d gone to him. I borrowed Buster’s plane that night and landed it in a park in Glasgow — there’s been a bit of a row about that — and routed him out of his hotel bed. He was pretty angry.’

  ‘I bet he was,’ I said in awe. ‘Did you really?’

  ‘I really did,’ said Rory. ‘And I wonder just how much longer I am going to have to go on trying to convince you that I love you. I shouldn’t think it’s ever happened before in Irasa — someone falling helplessly, ludicrously in love with their own wife, after they’ve married them.’ I felt myself blushing even more, and gazed down at my hands.

  ‘For God’s sake, Em darling, look at me.’

  I picked up his hand and pressed it to my cheek.

  ‘I’ve been so unhappy,’ I said, ‘then, in the gallery, I saw the painting you did of me. They said it was the only one you wouldn’t sell.’

  ‘I couldn’t bloody well find you,’ said Rory. ‘I’ve been telephoning your mother and Nina for news every five minutes since you left.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ I said, ‘I didn’t ring them in case you hadn’t.’ I looked up and he was smiling at me and with a jolt I realized it was the first time he’d smiled without mockery; and close-up, how wan and heavy-eyed he looked, as though he hadn’t slept for weeks.

  ‘You have missed me,’ I said in amazement. ‘I really do believe you love me after all.’

  ‘And now I’ll prove it to you,’ said Rory triumphantly, starting to slide down the zip of my dress.

  ‘I’m terribly out of practice,’ I muttered, suddenly shy. ‘I haven’t done it for ages.’

  ‘Don’t worry, it’s like riding a bicycle or swimming, you never really lose the art. Get off, Walter,’ he said, pushing a protesting Walter Scott on to the floor. ‘This is one party you’re not invited to.’

  As his lips touched mine, we both began to tremble. A feeling of reckless happiness overwhelmed me. I felt his heart beating against mine and his kisses becoming more and more fierce, and the sounds of the traffic outside grew dim as they gave way to the pounding in my ears.

  By the time we’d finished it was dark outside.

  ‘God, that was lovely,’ I sighed, ‘we should do it more often.’

  ‘We will,’ said Rory, ‘all day and all night for ever. Darling,’ he said, looking suddenly worried, ‘do you think you’ll be able to put up with my absolutely bloody nature for the next sixty years?’

  ‘I might,’ I said, ‘if you compensate from time to time with performances like the one I’ve just experienced.’

  Rory laughed softly and rubbed the back of my neck. He lit a cigarette and lay down in the bed, pulling me into the crook of his arm.

  ‘Rory,’ I said a few minutes later, ‘I know it’s a terrible thing to say at a time like this, but I’m starving.’

  ‘So am I,’ he said.

  ‘Shall we go out?’

  ‘No, I might want you between courses, which wouldn’t do in a restaurant. I’ll send down for something.’

  Later, as he was opening a bottle of champagne, he said, ‘Darling, do you mind awfully if we don’t live in Irasa any more?’

  ‘Do I mind?’ I said incredulously, ‘of course I don’t.’

  ‘I’m bored with painting sheep and rocks,’ he said. ‘I want to paint you in the sun and give you half a dozen babies to look after to stop you having thoughts about pushing off and leaving me any more.’

  ‘But you love Irasa.’

  ‘It’s lost its charms,’ said Rory. ‘I don’t want you within a million miles of Finn Maclean for a start and Marina’s a bloody troublemaker, and I’ve had enough of my mother and Buster for a few years, and lastly my new father is still there — house guestating.’

  ‘What does he find to do all day?’ I said. ‘Is he still in love with Buster?’

  ‘Yes. They’re both addicted to whisky and highly-coloured reminiscences, but Alexei now seems to have other fish to fry. In the old days when Marina wanted to bug me she always used to say what she wanted was an older man. Well, Hamish was a bit too old, but Alexei looks a bit like me, and when I left he was making a marvellous job comforting her in her bereavement.’

  ‘My goodness,’ I said, staggered, ‘how extraordinary. You don’t mean…?’

  ‘Well, not yet. Marina fancies herself in black far too much to give it up for at least a year, but I think now that she’s so rich, and Alexei is so poor, it’s very much on the cards.’

  ‘You’re not jealous?’ I said anxiously.

  ‘Not at all.’ He bent over and kissed me. ‘But I really don’t fancy Marina as a stepmother.’

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