Objects of Desire

  ‘I wasn’t referring to my grandfather, Helen, merely what happened in his time,’ said Lady Caldera defensively.

  ‘Oh, please, Cally, everyone in London says if it hadn’t been for your grandfather and his voracious appetite for beautiful and clever women, and his fortune, there would be no Bond Street. It’s always been a standing joke that the chic shop was created in bed.’

  That brought smiles to everyone’s face. It seemed to break the gloomy atmosphere that had settled over the table. When Cally admitted, with a puzzled look on her face, ‘I have heard that, and always wondered what it meant,’ they all broke into nervous laughter, but laughter nevertheless.

  ‘What does this really mean in practical terms?’ asked Helen. ‘I mean, where will you live, what will you do now that you no longer have Piers to look after? Oh, this has to be ghastly for you, Sally. You did look after him so well.’

  ‘It is beastly. Piers and I have been together a very long time. I never thought about it ending. I’ve a life with him, I don’t know what it’s going to be like without him.’

  ‘The same,’ said Fiona.

  ‘Never. You’re either trying to be kind or you’re fooling yourself if you think that. I know it, and so does Piers. And you, my friends, have to understand it too. That’s why I won’t be buying a hat for Ascot this year and nor will I be going.’

  ‘You can’t just hide yourself away, Sally.’

  ‘I don’t intend to. I’m going on a great adventure, leaving old horizons behind and looking for new ones. And Page and Anoushka are too. We’re joining forces.’

  ‘I don’t understand. You’re leaving London?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘For good.’

  ‘I’ve no idea. But I would doubt that.’

  ‘Leaving for where?’

  ‘Don’t know that either.’

  ‘There are an awful lot of don’t knows, Sally.’ That was an apprehensive Helen.

  ‘Yes, isn’t it exciting?’ And having said that, Sally realised that it was. Very exciting.

  ‘Oh, Page, Sally’s being so vague. Do tell us what you three are up to, where you’re going?’ asked Cally.

  Page could sense the atmosphere round the table changing, a less distressed look on Sally’s face than had appeared when she had broken the news to her girlfriends. ‘It’s all quite simple, Cally. The adventure has gone out of our lives. We seem to be missing something essential so we’re going in search of it.’

  ‘Men.’

  ‘Fiona!’ This time it was Sally, Cally and Helen who were aghast at the gaffe.

  Page began to laugh. There was a certain charm and innocence about these young English beauties. Like rare hot-house flowers they flourished in their enclosed little world. Naive about both the good and the bad, everything outside that charmed circle they lived and thrived in. Page envied them and hoped that they would remain cushioned from the rough and tumble of a hard cold world, with all its excitement and despair. They were in their way fragile flowers. ‘Fiona, do we look like women who can’t get a man when we want one?’

  ‘Hardly. Actually when you walked through the restaurant to join us, I saw you as an impressively attractive trio. So did every man in the room by the way heads turned. But, Page, you’re not looking for men, are you?’ asked Fiona, a note of incredulity in her voice.

  ‘No, Fiona. I can’t speak for the others but I can for me. Men, yes. Sex, yes. But I want more. A new skyline to stand against, maybe many new skylines to stand against. New things to see and learn from and to extend myself with, and maybe even love, a deep, abiding, mutual love. I discount nothing, no longer seek anything in particular. It may come, it may not, but the bottom line for me has to be ultimate happiness. I’ve had everything else.’

  Anoushka listened to Page and wondered why she could articulate what Anoushka wanted, what Anoushka had so mistakenly believed she had. Had her ego blinded her to the reality of her situation? Did it take a stranger to speak for her? Obviously it had, and did. Years of loving Robert, wanting to please him at any price, had blinkered her. If she had known what she had been doing there was something whorish about that. Another ugly realisation about herself. She couldn’t bear thinking about it and so did what she was used to doing, blocking any unpleasant challenge out of her mind.

  Sally reacted by accepting that Piers was taking care of her, maybe not with a hat shop but he had found Page and Anoushka and was interested in her happiness, even though, or was it because, it was to be without him? The male mind could be so perverse.

  Helen asked, ‘Do tell us more, where are you going? When will this adventure begin?’

  Anoushka, Sally and Page looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders, then began to laugh. ‘I guess we haven’t decided,’ said Page. ‘We haven’t even talked about that.’

  ‘Well, it’s begun for me. I’m here having dinner with women. I’ve never had dinner with a group of women out on a night on their own. I’m going to Switzerland tomorrow, and then on to Paris to strike a deal in Greek and Roman coins of antiquity and become an independently wealthy woman. Off on a great adventure and I don’t know where, how or when,’ Anoushka said with a look of excitement which until then had not been evident to the women round the table.

  ‘And it’s begun for me. I’ve never had a girlie dinner. And I’ve never wanted to share my adventures with other women. And I’ve never solicited for companions through an international newspaper,’ said a smiling Page. She looked at Sally, hoping that the adventure had begun for her too.

  ‘My adventure has certainly begun. I’m not having lunch with Evelyn on Thursday. And I’m not going to buy a hat for Ascot tomorrow. And I won’t be in the Royal enclosure with you girls and without Piers this year. And I’m running away from a world I love and know one day I will come back to when I have it all, and ultimate happiness, not just a tentative piece of it.’

  All three girls were clearly intrigued. ‘How will you decide where you’re going?’ asked Cally.

  ‘A pin in a map? Not a bad idea. We might like to visit or even take up residence there for a while. Well, why not? We’re all going to do our own thing, whatever that is, wherever we go. I have a job, one I never dreamed possible. Nor I’m sure did anyone else. I’m going to translate the works of Hadon Calder into Japanese.’

  Helen and Fiona were clearly impressed with Anoushka’s announcement. ‘Have you met him?’ asked Fiona.

  ‘Yes,’ she answered. And realised that all the women at the table were interested in her in the way she always hoped Robert’s friends might have been, for herself, for what she was doing with her life, not merely as an appendage of her husband’s.

  ‘Maybe we can do a little better than a pin in a map. For example, let’s say we ask ourselves whether we want to stay in London. A question and answer thing like that,’ suggested Sally.

  ‘Good idea,’ said Cally.

  Sally’s friends were taking a real interest in this voyage of hers and in her new companions. It was somehow flattering for the would-be travellers, to confirm that they were on their way.

  ‘London?’ questioned Fiona.

  ‘No.’ A loud reply in unison from the women.

  ‘Paris?’ that was Cally again. The no was unanimous again.

  ‘Rome?’ suggested Helen.

  This time it was a shaking of heads. No, Rome held no interest for them.

  ‘It seems to me that you don’t want to stay in big cities,’ said Cally, who seemed to be seriously fascinated by the women’s adventure.

  ‘Do we?’ asked Sally.

  The three women looked at each other. ‘Not for the moment anyway,’ said Page. And the other two agreed, saying that they did not discount a city of their choice when the time was right for them.

  ‘Well, at least you have established something. In fact the one who should be sitting here is Piers. This is just his kind of thing, an expedition to God knows where, for who knows how long?’ said Cally.

 
A rolling of eyes and a loud whisper from Helen. ‘Cally, you clod!’

  Sally, who was sitting next to her, placed a hand on her shoulder. ‘It’s OK, Cally, I’m not going to burst into tears every time Piers’s name is mentioned. In fact it was Piers who found the ad and brought it to my attention. He’s even met Anoushka and Page.’

  ‘More like vetted us,’ remarked Page.

  ‘Well, that’s a relief. That means he intends to pay for it, and you’d damned well better let him, Sally,’ said Fiona.

  ‘Money?’ said Anoushka. ‘I suppose we should talk about that.’

  ‘You aren’t very organised if you haven’t even worked out the money side of things. You’re extremely casual about this expedition of yours,’ said Helen.

  ‘Yes, I guess we are,’ said Page.

  ‘And hopefully we’ll stay that way. I’ve had one life where my husband organised me to death,’ added Anoushka.

  A look of surprise at such frank talk shone on all the English girls’ faces.

  ‘Oh, damn, there I go revealing too much at the wrong time. It’s getting to be a habit with me,’ said Anoushka, so charmingly everyone came out with some little word to put her back at her ease. The best of which was Cally’s.

  ‘Would that we English could be more open, it would certainly make us easier to live with.’

  ‘But less English,’ said Fiona.

  Almost in unison the English girls at the table said, ‘Oh, no, wouldn’t like that, not one bit.’ They liked their Englishness and all it stood for.

  ‘Not to worry. Such openness is not in the genes,’ said Cally. That brought smiles from round the table.

  ‘About the money? Let’s get back to that. All expenses split three ways?’

  ‘Perfect, Sally. Agreed.’ The three of them were resolved.

  ‘The amount? How much will we each put in the pot?’ asked Sally.

  ‘Fifty thousand dollars and see how we go?’ suggested Page.

  ‘That’s a great deal of money. I’ve never had fifty thousand dollars of my own to spend on myself, and actually I don’t know whether or not I can afford it,’ said Anoushka.

  ‘Only you know whether or not you can afford to spend it. Remember, you do have a job, well paid you said, as well as your coin money. But I’m not one to tell another person how to spend their money. I can manage that. Are you all right for that sum, Sally?’

  ‘No, but Piers is. I’m in.’

  ‘Then so am I,’ said Anoushka.

  ‘Fifty each isn’t going to keep you in five-star hotels for long,’ said Cally.

  ‘It will for the odd night,’ said Anoushka.

  ‘I don’t want a five-star hotel life for us. We don’t want to be spoilt, pampered tourists this time round. We’re going out there to live in the real world. We’ll rent wonderful houses with staff when we can and live life as it unrolls, make our expeditions from there into the hinterlands that interest us. We have to start somewhere, where would we like to go? The table is open for suggestions,’ said Page.

  What was left of the Chinese food had gone cold. The six women watched as waiters whisked away plates and serving dishes. They brought fresh pots of tea, and deep-fried banana dumplings.

  ‘I’ve always wanted to sail the Atlantic, test myself against the elements,’ said Anoushka. That surprised everyone at the table who had somehow not seen her in that light.

  ‘I can contribute something there. Piers’s schooner, Black Orchid, has a crew of six and sleeps twelve comfortably. He’s sending it to the Caribbean and won’t be on it. He’ll be on an expedition of some sort up the Amazon.’

  ‘I always say I want to sail the Atlantic alone. But when it comes to the crunch, I doubt that I would have the courage. With a crew of six it would be scary, but, hell, yes! I’d go. The idea is thrilling. Very out of character for me, but then I’m out of character. What about you, Sally? Could you bear it?’

  ‘Black Orchid is a fantastic vessel. I’ve never crossed the Atlantic in it though we did sail many times to the Greek islands, and the coast of Turkey. Sure, why not? I’m game. What about you, Page?’

  ‘I want to go as crew – that is if we can get them to teach me to sail before the crossing. Now that I would find thrilling.’

  ‘We’ll all go as crew. What do you think, Anoushka?’ asked Sally.

  ‘If Piers gives us the Black Orchid, how can I say no?’

  Rousing applause from the women at the table, and, ‘Bravo, bravo!’ from Cally.

  ‘I have something to contribute. I own a marvellous house in the West Indies, on Barbados. We can live there and spend the winter island hopping,’ offered Anoushka.

  More talk about where to go and when to leave, and then finally the three intrepid travellers took leave of Sally’s girlfriends who insisted they would pick up the tab as a treat, a bon voyage. The three English girls were then invited to visit with Anoushka, Sally and Page sometime, somewhere, during their odyssey.

  The life went out of the party once Anoushka, Sally and Page were gone. ‘Piers is a pig for destroying Sally’s life. And he has done, that’s for certain. Let’s hope she can find another Piers. Sally will never make it without a man to love, a man to keep her,’ said Fiona, and the other two girls agreed.

  ‘Pray that none of us is ever thrown out by the men we love. We’d be no less sad and desperate than those women are. And make no mistake, they are sad and desperate, no matter the front they’re putting on. Very brave too, for trying to create new and better lives for themselves when their broken hearts aren’t even in it. Three strangers to one another, binding themselves together with nothing in common but bereavement, loss of faith, profound loneliness. Maybe together they can get over those things,’ said Cally, tears brimming in her eyes caused by the deep dread that one day she might be in their unenviable position.

  Chapter 11

  It was a strange choice, India and the Taj Mahal, for three women whose men had not loved them as Shah Jahan, the Mogul Emperor, had loved his wife, Mumtaz Mahal. On the contrary they were women who had lost the great loves of their lives, and had been replaced by other greater passions above and beyond them. Not Page nor Anoushka nor Sally’s chosen man had pined for the loss of them enough to build a monument in their memory.

  But the Taj was their choice, a mausoleum constructed from pure white Makrana marble on which over twenty thousand workmen were employed over a period of twenty-two years. The building of white marble, delicately carved and inlaid with precious stones, so perfect in its symmetrical design, so reflective of Persian influence set in its formal gardens, Mogul architecture at its best.

  Of all the architectural wonders of the world they could have chosen from, surely to pick the Taj Mahal was not only for its beauty but for the love story that went with it.

  In London, Page had said, ‘I have always wanted to see the Taj Mahal, but I want to see it without the mass of love-lorn tourists. I’ll make a phone call to an admirer who always promised me I would see the Taj as no woman had ever seen it. Well, if he can do that for one, he can do it for three.’

  Now they would know if Page’s friend was as good as his word. The long flight from London to India was over, their first adventure together was about to begin.

  ‘I believe that car is for us,’ said Page and the three women approached it, leaving the other passengers to cross the tarmac and head for customs.

  It was dusk and the sky above Agra was streaked with the hot pink of a setting sun against a bruised blue, waiting to turn into a night of black velvet shot with stars. From the shadow of the car’s interior Jahangir leaned forward and at the same time the window slid silently down and the women had their first glimpse of their host. ‘What a pretty sight you are, ladies,’ were his first words to them. A wave of his hand and the chauffeur opened the door and Jahangir slid to the centre of the cream leather seat. With the palms of his hands he patted it to either side of him, a welcoming gesture for the women to sit next to him. The thi
rd was offered one of the jump seats facing him.

  Jahangir was younger than Anoushka had thought he would be. She guessed him to be in his mid-thirties or early-forties. He spoke with a perfect upper-class, well-educated, English accent, honed by Eton and Cambridge in his youth, and frequent trips to London and a huge residence in Holland Park where he lived now. His was a sensuous, husky voice with just a trace of a Hindi accent. He was darkly handsome and wore his hair long; his eyes were sexy and seductive, mesmerising, and his mouth the same. One of the top Indian polo players, he was loved for that as much as for his palaces and his wealth. ‘A decadent dilettante, but kind and generous and living on a grand scale, with chic and in luxury,’ was Page’s introduction of him to Sally and Anoushka as the Rolls slid silently away from the plane. He laughed uproariously.

  ‘A rather indiscreet introduction, but quite accurate, my Eurydice,’ he told her. And then he took Page in his arms and kissed her with obvious pleasure. No one in the back seat of that car could help but understand that he had taken sensual delight in Page before, that he was counting on having it again. There was about the kiss, the manner in which it was given and received, a subtle hunger kept in check. It excited the women, made him seem incredibly attractive sexually. Both Sally and Anoushka were aware of how much they wanted that male attention for themselves, wanted to feel sensual desire rise in them as they saw it happening to Page and Jahangir.

  He had a mischievous twinkle in his eye and enormous charisma and charm.

  ‘Why do you call Page your Eurydice?’ asked Sally who was sitting opposite him.

  ‘Ah, well, that’s because once, for a time, she allowed me to play Orpheus to her Eurydice as in the Greek legend – a very happy time for me but too short-lived. Eurydice, as you know, was a wood nymph, and that was where I first met and made love to Page: in a wood on a Tuscan hill.’

  She leaned into Jahangir and kissed him sweetly on the lips. She removed her white linen jacket, and her cream silk satin blouse with its wide bow-shaped neckline slipped to one side to show a tantalising naked shoulder. He caressed it. They were both smiling, obviously delighted to remember what they had once been to each other.