Objects of Desire

by Roberta Latow

  ‘So you’re waiting for Jahangir to …’

  ‘Slip the ring on the finger.’

  ‘He will, you know,’ said Page.

  ‘I know.’

  And the two women laughed. They were irresistible to three attractive men at a table a few yards away. A fresh bottle of champagne was sent over to them and a message asking if the men might join them.

  These were unusually attractive women quite used to the attention of men trying to make their acquaintance. When it suited, they could accept graciously.

  ‘Why not? The man of your dreams might be right over there, Page.’

  ‘The man of my dreams? Oh, I found him a long time ago. Like you, Sally, I await with anticipation the dream becoming reality.’ Then she turned to the waiter and said, ‘Tell the gentlemen it was kind of them to send the wine and we would indeed be delighted to share a glass of it with them.’

  Chapter 13

  The telephone rang once a day in the house in Hydra, and it was always Jahangir calling. Otherwise, the telephone remained silent. The women used it to call out but in deference to Page’s wishes the telephone number had been given to no one else. They received all other calls at Sotiri and Marika’s house down in the port, next to the post office. At first, Anoushka and Sally had thought it a strange arrangement to send a little boy running the steep climb from the port to Page’s house screaming Kiria Cooper, telephono, or Kiria Sally, or Kiria Anna – he never could manage Anoushka. But after a few days they could see Page’s point. What place did the outside world have in Paradise?

  Anoushka was working well, she was two thirds of the way through the translation of Hadon’s manuscript and feeling good about it. Sally was mixing with the in-crowd of foreigners living on the island, whom Page had little to do with, so she was having fun. Page was reading and taking long walks or going out with Sotiri on a small caique for a day’s fishing or exploring the far side of the island, when she wasn’t doing work on the house. It was as if the women were in a time warp of lazy days of sunrises and sunsets. It was an idyllic way to live. Simple, so very uncomplicated, from the purchase of a rough loaf of bread, to the taverna night life. There was no regimentation to their life on Hydra save for one thing: they were trying to get fit for crewing the Black Orchid across the Atlantic. It was the first step before their four-month training period. Sally was in charge of their regime since she was the only one who went to girlie keep-fit classes or did any running, as she had with Piers when he was training for one of his expeditions.

  At six o’clock in the morning, no matter what, the three women ran from the house down to the port, from the port to the top of the island then down again, round the coast as far as the road went, and back. On their return to the port from their run they collapsed into chairs at their favourite café, where they breakfasted on hot black coffee, fried eggs, sunny side up, bread and honey.

  They were Hydra’s morning attraction for the Greek men, admired by the foreigners, and thought quite mad by the local women. They returned home to twenty minutes of stretch exercises. Were they obsessive? Yes. But fascinating, and attractive, and living in one of the most beautiful houses of the island, and Page had always been generous to the church and those who had worked on the house, and so was respected by all the Hydriots. In a few weeks the Black Orchid would sail into Hydra’s port to pick them up and they would be ready.

  It was not as if the past was banned from these women’s lives, they brought that with them, it was a part of them, what had made them what they were, influenced everything that they did. It was more that each of them had, without consulting the others, chosen not to talk about but to leave behind as much as possible the painful aspects of what had drawn them together. On the surface it appeared that both Page and Sally had made or were making progress at coming to terms with that past, but Anoushka, possibly because of her sons with whom she regularly kept in touch, still felt deeply the humiliation and failure of her life. Only she carried that into their present.

  They only had to look at her face when she returned after making her weekly call to the boys, or receiving a letter from her attorney with the merest mention of Robert, to know that.

  Therefore when Anoushka, looking more disturbed than usual after a conversation with her sons, walked out on to the terrace where the three were having lunch under a two-hundred-year-old fig tree that was showing its new tender green leaves, Sally and Page were alerted to trouble.

  ‘The boys want to say hello,’ she announced, and handed the portable phone to Sally.

  Page kept her eyes fixed on Anoushka. She seemed barely to be following the snatches of laughter and conversation of the dialogue. Finally Page spoke to the boys, answering the dozens of questions being fired at her across the Atlantic. It seemed they wanted assurances that they were going to have a great time with their mother during the summer holiday break without their friends, and TV, and the Lakeside country club. At last they seemed satisfied and hung up.

  Page said, ‘I think going out on the boat every day with Sotiri did it. I must say, Anoushka, I really do find your boys very clever for their age, very sure of what they want. I can’t wait to meet them.’

  But she hardly heard, she was somewhere far away in her thoughts. Page was certain that she did not imagine Anoushka’s distress but looked to Sally for confirmation, and got it when she shrugged her shoulders.

  ‘The boys sound fine, Anoushka, full of beans but very spoiled. All those presents we sent them for their birthday – they really shouldn’t have opened them yet. Now they’ll have nothing from us on the day, and that’s half the fun of birthday presents, getting them on the day.’

  ‘What’s wrong, Anoushka? Something is wrong, isn’t it? Are you all right?’ asked Sally.

  She ignored the questions but answered instead with, ‘You’ve both been wonderful about the boys. Striking up a friendship with them on the phone, signing my postcards to them. They always ask after you, want to know all about you. And you’ve been so generous to them. The croquet set from you, Page, all that polo gear from Sally.’

  ‘Oh, that wasn’t just me. That was Jahangir. We had great fun putting it together.’

  Anoushka rose from the table and walked to the terrace wall and stood with her back to her friends, just staring out to sea. After some time she turned to the two women and said, ‘This will be the first birthday my boys will have without me. Mishka is all excited about the party his father is giving them. I’m missing out on two things. It’s Parents’ Weekend at their school and their father will be there with Rosamond. The boys love Rosamond, have known her almost all of their lives. It’s she who has arranged their birthday party as a culmination of the weekend.’

  ‘Who’s Rosamond?’ asked Sally.

  ‘Rosamond was our best friend. She’s also, it turns out, the other woman, now sleeping in my bed. The family friend who managed to steal my family from me.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Page.

  ‘I hate being so easily replaced. Parents’ Day and the birthday – it hurts.’

  ‘Do you want to be there?’ asked Sally.

  Anoushka, riddled with anxiety, lost her temper and snapped at her, ‘What a stupid question, Sally. I’m their mother, I love them, of course I miss them and want to be there.’

  Sally kept her calm and seemed not at all offended by Anoushka’s outburst. ‘It’s not so stupid a question. If I wanted to be with my sons, I’d bloody well be there.’

  Then she stood up and walked from the table. Anoushka hurried across the terrace and grabbed her by the arm. ‘Oh, Sally! Please, I didn’t mean to call you stupid. I just feel such pain at not being with them, not being the one to plan their birthday party, not being a parent on Parents’ Day, I just lashed out without thinking.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I didn’t take any notice of it. But do tell me, why aren’t you with them? Why don’t you go?’

  ‘Robert and David, that’s my attorney, feel I shouldn’t be jumping in and out of
their lives during this time of adjustment for them. We’ll have the summer holidays. I’m just being selfish, self-pitying.’

  ‘Oh, really, Anoushka, don’t be so wet! Fuck Robert and what he wants! And why are you letting your lawyer control your life? You want to go be with your boys on their birthday, so bloody well be with them. I would, and so I’m sure would Page.’

  ‘Without question,’ she answered.

  ‘You do have visiting rights?’ asked Sally.

  ‘Yes, confirmed in writing.’

  ‘Then why don’t we all go? That’s a great idea! We’ll go along to give you support. Why should you have to do this alone? I’d love to meet them and see how they look in their polo gear,’ said a very enthusiastic Sally.

  Anoushka placed a hand on her forehead. It was a dizzying idea, one she had not even contemplated. How could she not have? Was she still so beaten down by Robert and his demands, his needs? ‘You make it sound so simple. Just turn up. Robert will be furious.’

  ‘Oh, really, Anoushka. Fuck Robert! You’re not here on this earth to keep him happy, or had you forgotten that?’

  ‘I’d have to face Rosamond.’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘Sally and I will be with you. Would you be happier if we all three went to Parents’ Day and the birthday party?’ asked Page.

  ‘Would you do that for me?’

  ‘Wouldn’t you do it for us?’ asked Sally.

  ‘Of course, without hesitation.’

  ‘So?’ asked Page.

  ‘I know I couldn’t face it alone. It’d be such a surprise for the boys. They think we’re such glamorous and adventurous ladies.’

  ‘Well, we are. How many mothers and their girlfriends are planning to sail the Atlantic in a three-masted schooner?’ asked a laughing Page.

  ‘Oh, dare I?’

  ‘Look, Sally and I don’t know it all but from what I’ve heard and seen, Robert has walked over you long enough. You’ve regained your strength. Now don’t you think it’s about time you started to fight back?’

  ‘I don’t want to upset the children. They come first.’

  ‘That’s husband blackmail. What comes first is you and your children. You wait right here, I’m going for the calendar,’ said Page, quite enthusiastic now that they had Anoushka motivated.

  The enthusiasm slipped from Anoushka’s face when she read the calendar. ‘Well,’ she told her friends, ‘that was a great idea but impossible. Sally, you won’t be here. You’re written down here as going to meet Jahangir that weekend. And Page, you’ve made arrangements to be here alone for the next three weeks, from that Sunday, the last day of the Parents’ Weekend and the evening of Mishka and Alexis’s birthday party.’

  ‘And now it’s you who has to pencil in the dates you want to be with the boys.’

  Anoushka took the pencil and wrote, ‘Connecticut, Anoushka’. Then she turned to her friend and said, ‘That doesn’t really solve the problem of facing this alone.’

  Page took the pencil and added her name next to Anoushka’s. Sally took the pencil from Page and did the same. The three women smiled at each other and Anoushka told them, ‘I will never forget what you’ve both given up to help me through this.’

  It was Page who rose from her chair this time and went to a far corner of the terrace to look out to sea. This year and one more to go, she told herself, and sighed. Returning to the calendar and her friends, she studied it well. She would not let Anoushka down but she would too have to be in the Hydra house as she had vowed to be and when she had vowed to be. It would take some planning.

  ‘If we leave tomorrow for Paris, and Concorde from there to the States, with some fancy juggling we can arrive at the school on the Saturday morning, stay over for the Parents’ Weekend and go to the boys’ party. That’s on the Sunday night, you said, Anoushka?’

  ‘Yes, but there’s a hitch. It’s in Lakeside at our house. We’ll have to arrange for transportation. Robert will probably fly down and take the boys back with him.’

  ‘Then we’ll do the same. A small plane from Kennedy Airport in New York to the school, a pickup and drop down the next day in Lakeside, then early the next morning I will have to leave to make Concorde back to Europe. The rest of you can stay on if you like but if I am to keep my yearly vigil, which I fully intend to do, then I must be on the first Concorde flight out of the States. There. In theory we can do it.’ She slammed the pencil down on the table and looked very pleased with herself.

  ‘It’s all too tight, it’s asking too much of you,’ protested Anoushka.

  ‘Don’t be so negative,’ said Sally. ‘Page has worked out her plans, and I’m giving nothing up. We’ll take Jahangir with us. He’ll understand and he’ll be great, you’ll see.’

  Anoushka lost control of her emotions completely. She sat down, and cried, and was comforted by her friends.

  The first call that went out was to Jahangir. Sally started the conversation with, ‘Hello, darling. about this weekend – I have a problem. No, we three, Anoushka, Page and I, have a problem and we want to ask you if you will change the plans you’ve made?’ And then she went to great lengths to explain the situation.

  Page listened, in no doubt that Jahangir would acquiesce. The telephone was passed on to Anoushka. A stream of practical questions issued from Jahangir. He then spoke to Page. When finally she placed the telephone on the table, she turned to her friends and said, ‘We’re in good hands, he’ll have it all organised, well the mechanics of the travelling anyway. All we have to do is get ourselves to Paris.’

  Afterwards Sally looked extremely pleased with herself.

  ‘Sally Brown, you look like the cat that swallowed the canary. Very, very smug. Do you have something you want to tell us?’

  ‘He’s wonderful! And so clever. When I said I needed him to change the plans he had made for our weekend together, he said, “They included a glorious setting for a dramatic proposal of marriage, one you could not refuse. However, the light has now dawned. I can see that if I am ever to get a yes from you, I will have to ask for your hand in marriage from Page and Anoushka, and more than likely consider them your dowry. Actually, I have for some considerable time been thinking that that’s the way it’s going to be. Marry you, marry them. Now, with this phone call, I am sure I’ve got that right”.’

  ‘Oh, Sally!’

  ‘No, don’t worry, Anoushka. I told him how clever he was to have worked it out. It’s me and my two best friends he’ll be getting.’

  ‘What did Jaha have to say about that?’ asked Page.

  ‘ “Well, thank goodness they’re beautiful, and have charm and intelligence. And tell them I expect a yes without any further hesitation. Do you hear me, Sally?” ’

  ‘And what did you answer?’ Both Anoushka and Page were almost holding their breath with anticipation and in hope that she had given the right one.

  ‘I said, “I think that’s a great idea. Bring on the ring”.’

  ‘Sally, you’ve said you’ll marry him!’ said Anoushka.

  ‘Yes, I guess I did. You’ll both come along for the ride, won’t you?’

  There were whoops and hollers of joy and congratulation from Page and Anoushka, a few screams of excitement from Sally, and lots of kisses between the three women.

  ‘What made you decide to give in finally? I know with Jaha you will live happily ever after, and it really will be till death do you part, otherwise he would never have pursued you as he has. Oh, I’m so happy for you! He’ll give you back the lifestyle you love so much, and more of it than I think you have ever dreamed of.’

  A laughing Sally said, ‘And this time round, I know it’s love for keeps for both of us. The deciding factor was Jahangir. His love and understanding were right there in something he said.’

  ‘What? If you can tell us.’

  ‘ “As long as you have Page and Anoushka for best friends, I know you’ll be happy with me.” ’

  ‘When I asked him what he meant, his answe
r was so simple. I can’t understand why I hadn’t seen it myself. He said, “You’ll never be lonely”.

  ‘I asked him what he meant by that and he answered me with, “I can be everything to you, your lover, your husband, the best man friend in your life, fulfil all your dreams, but I’m a man and you’ll always love me as a man. That loneliness a woman has in her all the time, no matter how much she loves her husband and her children, the only real partner in that kind of loneliness can be another woman, her best girlfriend. You and Page and Anoushka, you absorb that loneliness you carry by being close to each other”.’

  Sally paused. It was an emotional moment for the three of them. Then she continued, ‘And then he said, “Sally dear, this time try not to be late, and tell the girls I thank them. At least they’ve galvanised you to accept me and put me out of my misery”.’

  Until Jahangir had pointed out what best friends they were, none of them had realised what a cradle of support and inspiration they had become for each other. I have friends, was the thought that kept tripping over in Anoushka’s mind as she punched in Robert’s telephone number.

  She checked her watch. The timing was perfect. She could see him now, in his office with his first cup of morning tea, Fortnum & Mason Royal Blend. He would be going over the night reports on his patients, studying them meticulously for the least hint of change or a problem before going on his rounds. He never operated before nine in the morning unless there was an emergency. How well she knew the pattern of his life. Out with the old wife, in with the new maybe, but she knew her Robert. When it came to his work it would not be out with the old pattern, in with a new one.

  The ringing tone and a click. Anoushka’s heart stood still. This was not going to be easy. Then the familiar sound of Mrs Winkler’s voice, ‘Hello, Dr Robert Rivers’ secretary speaking.’