Objects of Desire

by Roberta Latow

  Then Anoushka hung up the telephone and broke the connection between herself and her husband forever.

  London had always been a city that she’d thought she could happily live in. It was a civilised city with just the right amount of pomp and circumstance. It had chic, elegance, culture, and the sense of many villages working together to make one great city. The old as revered as the new. It had always been a place where she had felt comfortable, almost at home in. Not so any more. That feeling would come back again, she kept telling herself.

  She dined at the Ivy, at Claridge’s, the Connaught, the Hard Rock Café when she wanted a hamburger and was lonely for her sons. Mr Chow’s and the Tandoori on Curzon Street when she wanted a taste of other places. At the White Tower she recognised Bernard Levin, the journalist, and eavesdropped on the conversation around his table. That evening she felt less lonely. She began looking at people and seeing them properly, especially the men. It felt good to be attracted once more to the opposite sex, to think about the company of a man, the joys of sex.

  Every day she was up and out, walking the streets of Mayfair and Knightsbridge and Chelsea. She took long walks in St James’s Park and Hyde Park, and sat in the Farm Street Gardens every morning. She began to shop, buying an entire new outfit at Brown’s on South Molton Street, another at Ralph Lauren on Bond Street.

  A new attitude seemed to come with the new clothes. Now when dining alone there was a flirtatiousness about her that made heads turn. It was far more enjoyable than the many evenings when other diners had looked through her as if she didn’t exist. That had hurt. It had been soul-destroying, that feeling of being invisible while you were still alive, flesh and blood, a human being with feelings.

  Those days and nights hardly bothered Anoushka now, neither did visiting the familiar places she used to go with Robert and the children. The only exceptions were Fortnum’s provisions counter, and Harrod’s food hall, the patisseries and specialist food shops in Soho, where she now had no need to buy bread and cakes for Alexis and Mishka, olives and shaved thin slices of Parma ham for Robert, who liked to have a snack with a Campari and soda in their hotel room rather than tea. Buying four champagne truffles, or one croissant for herself, when she used to buy at least a dozen for her family, saddened her.

  The weather never lifted during all her weeks in London. The clouds would break, the rain would stop, and then just when she thought the sun would appear the clouds would close in and the rain come down again. Grey, grey, was London this winter. One day, rushing down Cork Street in the rain, Anoushka saw a reflection of herself in the store-front windows and wondered what she was doing walking around in such grim weather.

  She had been several weeks in the city and it felt as if she had been there a lifetime. She decided to pack her bags and leave for Paris where she hoped for better weather, and if she didn’t find it there she would go to Rome or head for Athens. Anoushka could formulate a plan. How surprised Robert would have been.

  Chapter 7

  Anoushka never filled in her cheque stubs. In fact, until her stay in London, she had very rarely written a cheque. She was a woman accustomed to using plastic for whatever she wanted, and the bills went directly to Robert’s office. How she spent money, a demand for receipts, a budget, the usual financial talk between most husbands and wives, had been non-existent between Robert and Anoushka. Not an extravagant woman, money had never been a problem between them. She was ignorant about money and what day-to-day living could cost, having never paid an electricity bill, insurance, anything to do with an automobile. Even the price of a London taxi surprised her now, and she realised grimly that all the years she had thought Robert was protecting her by taking care of their finances, he had been making her unfit to manage alone.

  On her return from her morning walk, the concierge handed Anoushka some post with her key. Her heart leapt. News from the boys? They had been bad about replying to the long and loving letters she sent to them, and she was beginning to think her weekly calls to them were not such a good idea. Without them, Mishka and Alexis might make more of an effort with the fountain pen. But there was no letter from the boys. Instead the envelope contained her new credit cards, ones in her name, Anoushka Usopova Rivers, instead of Mrs Robert Rivers. They had been forwarded from David Holland’s office. With them came a note from David assuring her the boys were well and saying that he hoped she was saving receipts and keeping cheque stubs.

  Anoushka understood that she had to think about money; that in fact she did not have very much. She suddenly became aware she’d been living her life as one long holiday. How much money had she spent? She could only judge by going to the cupboard and looking at her wardrobe, by counting her blank cheque stubs, thinking about where she had gone, what she had done in her day-to-day existence in London. She sat in a chair in one of the public rooms at the Connaught reliving her days and nights, trying to fill in the blank cheque stubs from memory.

  Anoushka went to her room and sat at the dressing table still thinking about money. It had always been an abstract thing in Anoushka’s life. She had never really learned about it from her mother, and there had never been a father to teach her about it. He had died when she was five years old. There had been hard times and easy times before she met Robert, but even in the bad old days she had survived with dignity. There had always been someone there to provide for her, and if there hadn’t been she soon found someone. Money had always been a by-product of something more interesting in her life.

  Anoushka opened the velvet bag containing her divorce settlement. She spilled the Greek and Roman coins, each in their own small velvet envelope, on to the table. Opening one, she slid out a coin and looked at it, then placed it on the table in front of her. Eleven coins that until she had taken them had meant little to her. Now they seemed very beautiful, and had about them something more than beauty. Hundreds of years old, they held in them history, the passion of many lives. She smiled at herself for being fanciful. She was not usually a fanciful woman. She slipped each coin back into its case, and the velvet bag where they were kept into her handbag. Then she dressed to go out into the rain again. She did not to go Spink’s, the coin dealer’s, which was where Robert would expect her to go. Instead she went to the British Museum to look at their Greek and Roman coins.

  Anoushka could see that hers were as beautiful as some she saw in the museum. It was true what Robert had said, she had absolutely no idea what she had taken from him in her vindictive rage. Clearly she needed advice.

  The following day she called the British Museum and asked for an appointment to see the curator of Greek and Roman coins. Two days later he met her at the museum. Studiedly calm expressions on the faces of the curator and his colleagues who had been called in to view Anoushka’s coins could not dispel the excitement, even tension, she sensed mounting in the room. Finally, after knowing glances from one authority to another, the questions started. ‘How, Mrs Rivers, have you managed to assemble such an impressive collection?’

  Anoushka liked ‘impressive’; it validated her instinct that these coins were indeed as important as some she had seen in the glass cases in the galleries.

  ‘When did you collect these, Mrs Rivers?’ asked another expert.

  Before she could answer the chief curator interrupted. ‘This is an extraordinary collection, Mrs Rivers. We would be pleased to know anything you can tell us about them. Where, for example, they came from?’

  Anoushka had no idea and so could give them no answer. She had been indifferent to Robert’s hobby, his obsessive passion. He had always been secretive about his coins. It had irritated her enough for her to have taken little interest in them, to have for the most part blocked them and his passion for collecting out of her mind. Somewhat embarrassed at her ignorance in this matter, she turned their questions back on them. ‘Before I tell you what I know about my collection …’

  ‘Then they are yours?’ interrupted one of the men standing round the curator’s desk.

/>   ‘Oh, yes, they’re mine. May I continue? As I was about to say, I would appreciate it if you could tell me what, if anything, you know about these coins?

  The curator picked one up and held it in the palm of his hand.

  ‘The last time I saw this, it was in a collection up for auction at the Hotel Baur au Lac in Zurich. The collection had belonged to Bruce McNall, a Los Angeles millionaire, what you Americans would call a whizz-kid coin collector. An aggressive dealer in ancient coins and artefacts. Athena Funds, his company, was selling off forty-five thousand coins including some of the most famous in existence, such as the Ides of March – a gold Aureus minted by Brutus to commemorate the assassination of Julius Caesar. This coin in my hand came from that collection and was sold that day to another Los Angeles collector, Morton Holmby.’

  The curator put the coin down on the velvet cloth on his desk and chose another. ‘And this one was for many years in a French collection owned by Monsieur François Audren, while this,’ here he chose another coin, ‘belonged to Prince Ahmad, a member of one of the royal families in the Gulf, who prides himself on having one of the finest collections of Greek and Rome coins in the world.

  ‘These,’ he told her, and drew aside three on the cloth, ‘I saw displayed in a conference room in Zurich in 1974 when a dealer buying for an Arab king outbid buying agents for Aristotle Onassis and the future French President, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing.’

  All eyes were on Anoushka. Clearly she was stunned by what she was hearing. ‘Shall I go on, madam?’

  ‘You put my collection in illustrious company. How can you be sure these are the same coins?’

  The curator handed the magnifying glass to her. ‘They are of phenomenal quality, and have been well recorded. I recognise their marks – all ancient coins have their marks. They are, so to speak, the coin’s fingerprints.’ He held the glass over one for Anoushka to look at. ‘A silver decadrachm. Might I ask – I think I must ask – how you came by these?’

  ‘Not in any criminal way, if that’s what’s concerning you, gentlemen.’ They all looked embarrassed now.

  Overwhelmed by what she had learned, Anoushka asked, ‘May I have a glass of water?’

  ‘I think we can do better than that for you, Mrs Rivers. May I suggest we would all benefit from a cup of tea?’

  It was evident to everyone in the room that Anoushka Rivers was as puzzled as they were that she should have such a collection in her possession. Over tea and biscuits they chatted about her stay in London, what she had seen at the theatre, what exhibitions she had attended. About anything but the coins. Finally Anoushka felt composed enough to address the curator.

  ‘I’m not a very worldly woman. I needed to discover whether my collection was a significant one or not, and hesitated to go to a dealer. Now that I know it is, I feel I must put your mind at rest and tell you how the coins have come into my possession.’

  Looks of satisfaction crossed the men’s faces. Decorum held back sighs of relief. Museums do not like to be faced with the darker side of antiquity collecting such as smuggling or theft.

  ‘They are part of a divorce settlement. How my husband came by them I can only guess. I imagine that they are gifts from grateful patients. My husband is a doctor, a heart surgeon, Robert Rivers of the Harley Rogers Clinic in Lakeside, Connecticut.’

  Anoushka could see general recognition of the name. She continued, ‘Each of the men whom you have mentioned as being the last owner of a coin has had his life saved by my husband. Wealthy and generous patients must have known my husband to be a passionate numismatist, and I assume that is the means by which he came by these coins. Ancient coin collecting was something they must have had in common.’

  ‘It seems unimaginable that your husband should give this collection up.’

  ‘I guess he wanted his freedom more than his coins. And I have no doubt he thought my ignorance about and disinterest in the coins would in due course lead me to exchange them for a better financial settlement than I already have. It would never occur to him that I would investigate my asset and deal with anyone other than him about it.

  ‘You see, I have always deferred to my husband and his wishes. I’m not clever about such things as money, assets, business, nor do I have or understand the passion for collecting. But I do understand my husband. The fact of the matter is that he did not offer me the coins in settlement – I took them, or tricked him if you will. I took the one thing I knew he prized. An act of sweet revenge for his destroying my life. But at the time I had no idea just how sweet. Their value, their rarity, even their beauty, none of that came into it. So you can understand that what I have learned here today poses a tremendous problem for me.’

  How very American of me, and stupid, she, thought to herself. To spill out such a personal story to these strangers – reserved Englishmen, who shun the emotional coming to the surface of life in any way or form. Robert would have been appalled to know that she had spilled her guts to scholars at the British Museum. Could that have been why she’d done it? She viewed the men’s embarrassment but hardly cared about it. However, she, like everyone else in the room, seemed relieved when the curator broke the embarrassed silence that had followed her revelations.

  ‘May I ask what you intend to do with them? I ask only because the museum has a vested interest in all such beautiful and historical objects.’

  ‘I have no idea. Yesterday I thought I would sell them. Now I will have to think further. My decision will depend partly on my financial situation.’

  ‘May I suggest, should you make a decision to sell, that you offer them back to the collections whence they came? Each of those collections is large and important, and bound to end up in a museum one day. Alternatively you might consider offering them to us in some capacity.’

  It was dark outside and rain was beating against the windows of the taxi. Anoushka had walked some distance through Bloomsbury in the downpour before she had found a cab. Wet nearly through to her skin, she only realised how uncomfortable she was when the powerful heater in the back of the taxi steamed up the windows, and the musty scent of drying wool filled the passenger compartment.

  Riding through the rain-drenched streets, back to the Connaught, she thought about Robert and how he had deceived her on so many fronts. Not once had he told her about the generosity of his patients, nor had he ever indicated to her that the coins were of such great value. Why hadn’t he told her that they had a multi-million-dollar nest egg? Why had he never confided in her? How was that possible for a couple who had been so close, so intimate as she had believed them to be? His last words to her about the coins had been that he would buy them from her. Buy them? And how much would he have offered? This man she had believed to be the finest, most honourable man in the world.

  Anoushka knew that as a family they were well off, enough to have everything they wanted, within reason, though certainly what they had was not on the scale of wealth enjoyed by some of the names she had heard in connection with her coins this afternoon. Had she agreed to sell to Robert, he would have tossed her a pittance, deceived her, cheated on her yet again. She burned with hatred for him and his deceit.

  The doorman at the Connaught held the huge umbrella over her head as she paid the taxi driver. Still lost in her thoughts, she let the doorman take her by the elbow and usher her from the rain into the hotel. Anoushka went directly to the bar and ordered a vodka martini, then after giving her wet things to the waiter she chose one of the bar’s comfortable chairs at a small table.

  There she sat drinking martinis and wondering why she felt so unhappy about the coins when she should have been thrilled to know how valuable they were. Her future financial security, something she had not even thought about, was set for life by the mere fact that she owned them. She was wealthy in her own right now, and thought about that though it held little meaning for her. All she could think about was that she had lost the great love of her life, that her husband had robbed her of her family, that she
had been thrown out in the world utterly alone.

  The next morning Anoushka packed her bags and left for Paris. The sun was out there, and Anoushka felt uplifted seeing the brightness and gaiety that French life had to offer. Paris was a city she had always loved, but her life there was no different from life in London and after five weeks she had had enough. She wanted to go home to Lakeside.

  The moment she heard David’s voice Anoushka knew she had made a mistake in calling him. He would not tell her what she wanted to hear.

  ‘Anoushka, nice to hear you. How are you getting on?’

  Just hearing his voice seemed to settle her. That was strange because in all the years she had known Betsy and David, he had had little time for her. It was Robert who was his friend, her husband whom he had got on with. But since the break-up, she had found David her only truly compassionate friend, the only person interested in her welfare in spite of representing Robert in the divorce. Though he had found Dan Konicosh, a young man in another firm, to represent her in her divorce from Robert, David had agreed to handle any of her other affairs.

  ‘Not very well, David. I want to come home to Lakeside.’

  He remained silent on the other end of the line. Finally, he spoke. ‘I’m not so sure the time is right for you to come home, Anoushka.’

  ‘I miss my home, my family. It’s so hard, this endless holiday I’m on that’s no holiday at all, more like a penance I am being made to pay. Glamorous, velvet-lined if you like, but a penance nevertheless.’

  ‘That’s tragic, Anoushka, and you can’t become a tragic figure, you owe it to yourself and to the boys to be better than that. You’re still a young woman, and beautiful. You have a brain. Do something for yourself.’

  David had never spoken to her like this in all the years he had known her. How was it that he felt he could now? Was she so different as someone other than Robert’s wife? But his words gave her no real direction, merely a hint of one. She needed more. ‘Why don’t you think it’s the right time for me to come home?’ she asked.