Objects of Desire

  Touché, thought Page. Anoushka put out her hand and Sally Brown took it and smiled at her. ‘I’m Anoushka Rivers.’

  ‘Champagne cocktails, that will do me just fine,’ Sally told Page, and turned to call a waiter.

  Page stopped her with a hand on her arm and said, ‘No, please let me.’

  Sally seemed comfortable with them, almost as if the three were friends. Hers was a pleasant manner, winning even. Page realised she was an uncomplicated person. With Sally Brown, what you saw was what you got. Page’s first impression of her changed.

  ‘Placing that ad in the Tribune was a brave and generous thing to do, Page. I can call you Page, can’t I?’ Before she could answer, Sally continued. ‘And very like an adventuress. I’ve been thinking about it ever since Piers brought it to my attention. Why would a woman do that?’

  ‘You wouldn’t have?’ asked Page.

  ‘No, never in a million years. Not from choice.’

  ‘But you’re assuming I had a choice.’

  ‘Oh, you didn’t?’

  ‘I didn’t think so. It occurred to me that there were other women out there like myself who feel, as I do, that they have to strike out for a new life, different and exciting, to add to the lives I’ve already created for Page Cooper thus far. I had objectives. I’d accomplished them all, save one, and was rewarded with many successes. The realisation of success has to be ultimate happiness, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I’m a treasure hunter out on the hunt. A rocky road to travel, hence the ad. Like minds on a great adventure was something I thought was called for.’

  ‘To live anew and find the missing pieces, or those lost to us through our own or others’ carelessness – now that is a big adventure. One might even call it a challenge,’ said Anoushka.

  ‘How are you answering this ad, Sally, with hope or despair?’

  ‘Reluctantly, is the honest answer. I like where I’ve been, what I’ve done, my lifestyle. I don’t want any more than that, but change has been foisted upon me.’

  ‘It seems that I’m the only one of the three of us who has voluntarily walked away from one lifestyle to seek another. I must have been very unhappy.’

  ‘You sound as if you didn’t know it, Page.’

  ‘I didn’t. I was having a wonderful life. I had everything and every man I ever wanted.’ There was a naughty glint in her eye. Neither Anoushka nor Sally missed it and for a moment they envied her, though neither woman had ever wanted a man other than the one they had been committed to. Until Page added, ‘Save for one thing, and that loss I buried so deep I thought it was forgotten.’

  ‘Life’s just a bugger,’ said Sally.

  The conversation halted. The women remained quiet, sipping their drinks. Finally it was Page who said, ‘I can’t remember how many of these cocktails I’ve had but I do know I daren’t have another, and I’m famished.’

  ‘Join me for dinner, both of you. I’m meeting some girlfriends for Chinese. It’ll be my treat.’

  ‘You have dinner with girlfriends? You have girlfriends?’ asked a surprised Anoushka.

  ‘Dinners and lunches and tea and drinks. Have I got girlfriends! They’re my life, my fun. Don’t you have girlfriends?’ Sally looked genuinely astonished when both women said simultaneously, ‘No.’

  Page added, ‘I’ve always preferred men friends.’

  ‘And I had my husband and my marriage, I didn’t need friends.’

  ‘Boy, have our lives been different!’ said Sally.

  ‘I’ve never travelled with women before. I’m suddenly a little apprehensive but maybe because we’re so different we’ll get along,’ said Page.

  ‘I’ve travelled with a woman, many times, but that hardly counts. My husband and I allowed her to join us, friend of the family and all that. Some friend! She’s sleeping in my bed now.’ Tears welled up in Anoushka’s eyes. ‘I’m not sure I’m going to get over this. What kind of a travelling companion will I make with such a mess of a life as I have?’

  ‘Everybody’s got something, Anoushka,’ Sally told her.

  She lowered her eyes and tried to bring herself under control. Sally rose from her chair to go to Anoushka and sit down next to her. She placed an arm round her shoulders. ‘You’re not alone. We’ll be there for you when you’re having one of those deep-darkies – that’s what I call the blues.’ And she looked past Anoushka to Page and smiled at her.

  Without realising it the three women had made an alliance. Page raised her glass and so did Anoushka and Sally. ‘New horizons,’ was her toast.

  ‘I suppose it would cause a scandal if we smashed the glasses on the floor?’ said Sally.

  ‘It seems as if this is a momentous occasion and we should do something dramatic, but getting thrown out of the Connaught … no, I don’t think that’s it,’ said Page, suddenly quite excited about taking off with these women.

  ‘We could go shopping.’

  ‘The shops are closed at this hour, Sally.’

  ‘We could hire a hit man to shoot my husband,’ said Anoushka, not a trace of a smile on her face.

  ‘Not a good idea. Just keep imagining he’s dead. It’s a safer bet,’ was Sally’s advice.

  ‘I wish there was a bordello for women. That’s what men would do. Celebrate with a great night of booze and sex in some grand whore house.’ There were looks of surprise on Anoushka and Sally’s faces. Or was it shock? Could it be that Page’s travelling companions were no more liberated sexually than they were from the men who had finished with them and thrown them into the arena of women without men.

  ‘You mean, pay for sex?’ asked Sally.

  ‘You have heard of gigolos?’

  ‘Yes, of course, but not for me, Page. Not even for one night of fun in a male whore house, if there is such a thing. I’m the one who likes to be rewarded in the game of sex. Have you ever paid a man for a fuck, Page?’

  ‘Sally, really! That’s a very personal question,’ said Anoushka.

  ‘Oh, we’re not supposed to ask personal questions? If that’s one of the ground rules, we have a problem. I’m always asking personal questions. Friends do that, you know. Ask and confide in each other.’

  ‘Ask away, Sally. I think we should accept that we can ask each other anything, confide anything, but not to have to answer. Ground rules? I haven’t thought about that nor do I want to. Let’s just make them up as we need them, if we ever do need them.’

  ‘That sounds good to me,’ said Sally. And both women looked at Anoushka.

  ‘I guess I can live with that. I may have overreacted, Sally. I’m not used to people being so direct with me. I just assumed that everything in my new life would continue as it always has, all politeness and subtlety. Intimacy locked away in some cupboard to be taken out on the right occasion.’

  ‘Good,’ said Sally, and Page nodded her approval. And the three women smiled and felt very pleased with themselves. There was a feeling that they would get on.

  ‘There are a few things I would like to make clear – not ground rules, simply how I feel about our travelling together, and the marked difference between us. I may have placed the ad in the paper, have been the motivating force that has brought us together, but my responsibility for the three of us and our travels ends right here. There will be no leader of the pack. If there was it wouldn’t work for us. We should be open with one another, discuss things, and make unanimous decisions. That makes things easy.’

  ‘Sounds right to me. What about you, Sally?’ asked Anoushka.

  ‘Fine, seems OK.’

  ‘There’s one thing that is markedly different about us.’

  ‘I’m certain as we get to know each other we’ll find many,’ said Anoushka.

  ‘I’m sure you’re right,’ said Page. ‘But the one that is important for us to remember right from the start, so we understand each other’s view point, is one that I have observed already. We three are going on this odyssey and only one of us is making this voyage without anguish, and
that’s me.

  ‘From the little said here this afternoon, and what I deduced from having met you in Paris, Anoushka, the chief reason for your and Sally’s anguish is your difficulty in facing the end of a relationship, and your lives as you have known them for many years. I have more to say but if this is too personal for either one of you, I’ll stop now.’

  ‘What you say is true in my case, anyway,’ said Anoushka.

  ‘Why don’t you say what you have to say, Page?’ suggested Sally.

  ‘I’ve been where you girls are now. It’s going to take time and a great deal of work to rid yourselves of your anguish. It did me. I no longer desperately want everything to continue as it is, and so I no longer have to believe that things will always stay the same. That’s make believe. Things don’t stay the same. You may believe that your lives should have stayed the same with the men you loved, but believing it has little or nothing to do with reality. Girls, you built your lives on make-believe, with its misinformation, idea and assumptions. Oh, my god, those lethal assumptions! Do I know about them. Those are rickety foundations on which to build. Do we take notice of the truth which keeps interrupting our dream of forever? Oh, no. No matter how much the truth keeps breaking in we keep up our pretence that nothing will ever change. We keep on going with hopeless bravado to hold on to what we have, never wanting change or to disrupt our perfect worlds.’

  ‘Why do you think we do that, Page?’ asked Anoushka.

  ‘Because you, just as I once did, always think of changes as signalling loss and suffering. And when they happen, these changes, as in this case, you two out on your own after a long time of belonging to someone, you try and anaesthetise yourself as far as it is possible. Take my word for it, that doesn’t work.’

  ‘Then what does?’ asked Sally.

  ‘You have to grow up and stop assuming that permanence provides security. You have to accept that impermanence is the reality of life. Men seem to understand that better than women. Impermanence is about the only thing you can hold on to. That’s what I believe and that’s the way I live. I’ve stopped clinging to things and people. Everything I have done in the past is like a dream to me. I keep leaving things behind. Now, this moment, is real to me, but in a few minutes it will be a memory.

  ‘I have compassion for what you girls are having to deal with, but thought it best to speak out now so that you can understand where I’m coming from since it’s a very different place to where you are.’

  At that moment Anoushka could not help but think of how dazzled she had been on first meeting Page Cooper. How, having expressed it to Hervé, he had agreed that she was indeed a very special lady with whom men fell in love though they could not possess. She was once again dazzled by Page, her looks, her seductive charm, and now the very core of this new friend’s being. Page had been right to say something because it made clear to Anoushka something that had been a mystery: why she had given Hervé to Anoushka, and more importantly why Anoushka had had the courage to go off with a stranger for an afternoon of lovemaking. Page now understood Anoushka, had zeroed in on her because she had once been where Anoushka was still stuck. She had been saying to Anoushka, ‘Live now, this moment.’

  Sally Brown kept looking at Page. She had found her incredibly beautiful and sophisticated, but as she had been speaking, Sally understood what Piers had meant when he said that she would like Page Cooper. Here was a woman who spoke from the heart, lived from the heart. She was more like Piers than anyone Sally had ever met. How Page must have suffered, what tremendous loss and pain she must have felt in her life to have fought back to live in a world of impermanence and like it. Sally admired her for what she was but more so for her honesty. She knew that she would never live on the same plane that Page did but it didn’t matter. They would be friends, respect each other for their differences. That, after all, had been what Page had been saying. Sally found a new enthusiasm for this odyssey she was about to embark on. Somehow she sensed this was the best afternoon of her life.

  Heads turned when Anoushka, Sally and Page entered the Chinese restaurant. Theirs were such contrasting beauties: Page’s sophisticated, seductive look with its hard edge of excitement; Anoushka, fair-skinned and with blonde, blonde hair, her sensuous body dressed down to appear a touch matronly; Sally with all the shine and sparkle of youth in chic clothing.

  They of course had no idea how others viewed them. They joined Sally’s friends and enjoyed themselves. Having seen what a success their dinner was, and how much her friends liked Anoushka and Page, she took courage and told them, ‘It’s over for Piers and me. He dumped me.’

  Until that moment there had been a great deal of laughter and chatter. Page and Anoushka had found these young women to be amusing, pretty and fun. But Sally Brown was in a league of her own as somehow original and special. The other young women, with their upper-class accents, had received a better education and had good jobs. At Sotheby’s for one, as an interior decorator for another, and Lady Caldera was a charity organiser who, one imagined by her conversation, did her job between social engagements and beauty therapies of one sort or another. These girls, whose boyfriends or one husband had been in one way or another a friend of Piers, respected and had a deep affection for the girl who had never lost her Lancashire accent. If Anoushka and Page were friends of Sally’s that had been enough for the girls to accept them on their night out. They gossiped about their mutual friends, Binky and Bonky, Winkie and Wonkie, Pussy and Feeny, as if Page and Anoushka had known them all their lives. At one point Page asked, ‘Don’t any of your friends have real names?’

  They had been good-natured and charming, laughing at themselves and the little world they lived in, and admitting, ‘Not many that we use.’

  Page had thought she’d be bored at such frivolity but she hadn’t been, not in the least. They were intelligent and amusing and lived in different worlds, just as interesting and valid as hers.

  These English beauties with impeccable backgrounds, born to privilege, made the older women as welcome in their circle as they had Sally. They were full of chatter about a shopping expedition the following day. On the hunt for hats for Ascot, they invited Page and Anoushka to join them and then go on for lunch at San Lorenzo.

  Page heard herself say, ‘Why not?’ That seemed to make them all jollier than ever.

  Anoushka said, ‘I would like a hat with a crown of egret feathers.’ And everyone laughed.

  It had seemed to Sally that this was the right time to make her announcement. The chatter stopped instantly. The smiles vanished from everyone’s faces. Chopsticks were poised in mid air and tears welled up in Sally’s eyes. She fought them back.

  ‘Piers would say that that was not an accurate way for me to state the case. He would prefer that I said it was amicable. Well, it is amicable but only because I have no choice.’

  This was where the famous English reserve came into play. Her three young friends remained silent. Not a word of shock or surprise, none of sympathy. Had they known what Sally had not, that it had always been on the cards? Yes, probably. Page and Anoushka had thought that after their first look at Sally Brown, and having met Piers Hazlit for only a few minutes.

  Anoushka felt Sally’s pain and reached across the table to take her hand in hers. This woman had only known her for a few hours whereas her friends had known her for years. Yet until Anoushka had made that gesture of friendship they could not reach out to her. Sally had embarrassed them. Anoushka had to remind herself how the English despise embarrassment, how they tend to ignore it. It was to them somehow bad manners to create a situation that might cause it. For the first time Anoushka understood that and, surprisingly, thought the English were right.

  Until a few minutes ago Sally was a friend to these girls. Now she’s an embarrassment, in the same way I would have been to everyone I knew had I stayed in Lakeside, she thought. Between the pancake rolls, the chicken in ginger and spring onions, the duck and plum sauce, the beef in black bean sauce and
the fried sea weed, Sally had become one of the new female underclass.

  Fiona put down the bowl of rice she had been holding. Her deep sigh attracted the attention of all the women round the table. ‘Well, Sally, it won’t be the first time you’ve had to go to the Royal enclosure without Piers. We’ve the same party we have every year going to Ascot. You’ll just have to put on a brave smile and wear a bigger, more elegant hat than usual.’

  The other two girls brightened up. That obviously seemed to be the right attitude to adopt to this uncomfortable news their friend had just announced. They actually returned to their food with enthusiasm until Sally’s next announcement.

  ‘I won’t be going to Ascot.’

  ‘But we’re all going shopping for hats tomorrow. Of course you’ll go, and have a good time. You’ll be with us, and there will be plenty of dishy men there. Many admirers of yours,’ said Helen.

  Again silence fell round the table, good friends not knowing what to say to make it better for Sally. Finally Fiona spoke up again. ‘Where are you going to go? What are you going to do? Oh, this is dreadful, simply dreadful of Piers. I’ve known him since I was a child. He’s kind and generous and would never just throw you out. He’ll provide for you. Oh, Sally, he is doing that, isn’t he?’

  ‘We haven’t discussed it.’

  Lady Caldera said, ‘In my grandfather’s day they bought their women hat shops.’

  There were gasps of astonishment from the other two girlfriends. ‘Cally, you’re so insensitive!’ said Fiona.

  ‘And stupid. And what exactly do you mean by “their women”? Sally was never some kept mistress of a married man, like one of your grandfather’s women. She and Piers have been sharing a life for years,’ said Helen. ‘This is like a divorce.’

  ‘Not when you haven’t been married,’ said Fiona. ‘Sorry, Sally. We’re saying all the wrong things.’

  ‘Are there any right things to say? Actually there isn’t much to say. Let’s just accept the bad news,’ she said.