Soul
Page 16
Suddenly, it swung open and Carla and Klaus emerged.
Carla adjusted Klaus’s tie, then kissed him; his fingers slid down her back. Julia watched, horrified as Klaus caressed Carla’s face. The gesture was so familiar it resonated in Julia’s muscles, as if it were her face. She could feel the imprint of his fingers, smell the faint aroma of aftershave, soap and oil; the imagined heat of his skin infusing her own. The memory of touch—it will con us every time. It will deceive us until death steals all sensation. This is the nature of lovemaking, she decided, watching the scene play itself out like a film sequence. Lovemaking stamps us with ownership, infuses us with the illusion of permanency, and in the very same moment dispels mortality like a cheap theatrical trick.
‘You are still mine,’ she whispered into the drifting evening.
26
KLAUS ROLLED OFF CARLA, the cool sheets sticking across his sweaty back, his brain pleasantly emptied, his erection subsiding in slow enjoyable throbs.
‘We have been so brave, so brave,’ Carla whispered. The statement, laced with tentative poignancy, dragged Klaus straight back into the bedroom. Why do women always get philosophical after sex, he pondered, trying not to resent the interruption of what had promised to be a painless slide into sleep—something he desperately needed.
‘I guess so,’ he answered, cautiously. ‘But you’ll be surprised, it’ll only take six months before people start to forget I was married to Julia at all. Especially in this town—the most mercenary metropolis in the world.’
Carla peered through the darkness, trying to read Klaus’s profile. The new legitimacy of their relationship still filled her with astonishment—that he could sleep openly in her bed, sit at her table. The crushing guilt of deception she’d carried for over four months had finally lifted. She sat up and reached for a cigarette.
As the flame flared in the darkness, Klaus fought the urge to blow it out. ‘Honey, do you have to?’
‘Yes.’ She inhaled deeply then exhaled the smoke away from him.
‘I know it’s difficult for Julia, but she’ll survive,’ Klaus’s words hung in the dark. ‘You don’t get to where she is professionally without a certain ruthlessness. I think it all comes down to basic elements: ego, id, a kind of inherent ability to dominate. Julia fills her own life, and the lives of others, without even realising it.’
Irritated that, yet again, his ex-wife had crept into the bed of his new lover, he buried his face in the mattress. Reaching across, Carla tentatively laid a hand on his back.
‘I just think it’s important to get these things clear. And, for the record, I wouldn’t have got involved with you if I’d known you were trying for a baby.’
‘We weren’t trying! At least, not to my knowledge. Do you think this is easy for me? I lost a child too. Do you think I don’t feel guilty? Conflicted? You don’t just stop loving someone, but it changes.’ He turned to her. ‘Do you know how long I’ve wanted you? How long I fought the intuition that to be with you was right and to stay with her was increasingly wrong? My only regret is that I didn’t leave her sooner. Julia’s not a bad woman—’
‘Julia’s a great woman. She may be a better human being than you or me…’
‘It’s just that her psychology, the way she’s wired, is inherently oppressive. We had twelve years together, ten of which were great, but now I’m with you. So can we cut the psychobabble?’
‘You’re right, we have each other now and that’s extraordinary. I love you—at the cost of everything else.’
Distracted now, Klaus rolled onto his back, his eyelids snapping open. ‘We are two individuals. Sometimes with Julia, it was like I was nothing more than an appendage.’
For a moment Carla wondered why Klaus hadn’t been able to negotiate his own territory, but, frightened of appearing disloyal and of what she might discover, she stayed silent.
Klaus stared at the ceiling, the possibility of sleep now having fled entirely. ‘Okay, from now on I intend to communicate with her only by fax. That way we can track everything she says and does.’
‘Isn’t that a little extreme?’
‘I want it to be a clean break. I need that so we can come into this untainted. A brand new start—for all three of us.’ His hand trailed the curve of her hip.
Just then, headlights swung an arc through the darkened bedroom as, outside, a car made a U-turn. The vehicle pulled into the kerb, brakes squealing.
‘Christ, not again,’ Klaus said, sitting up.
Carla remained curled into a ball of refusal. Julia will not ruin this moment, she will not destroy our time, she thought as the white comet of the headlights streaked her closed eyelids.
Klaus leaped to his feet. Pulling the curtains aside, he peered out into the street. ‘I can’t believe it!’ Livid, he began pacing. ‘That’s it! I am going to slap a restraining order on her, I swear to God!’
Carla slipped out of bed, semen running down the inside of her thighs. Julia’s Lexus was clearly visible under the street lamp. Carla could see the light reflecting off Julia’s long black hair, the hollows of her face as she stared across at the house. Their eyes met; terrified, Carla dropped the curtain.
‘She saw me. But it didn’t look like Julia; she’s changed,’ she whispered.
Klaus pulled her into his arms. ‘She has changed. We’ve all changed.’
‘You don’t understand—she told me about something that happened in Afghanistan…’ Somewhere in the distance a car alarm went off. Carla shivered. ‘There was an ambush and Julia killed a man.’
‘You can’t be serious?’
‘She claimed it was self-defence.’
‘Julia killed a man? Don’t be ridiculous. She’s not capable of such a thing.’
‘I’m only repeating what she told me: the convoy was ambushed, her escort was killed, she was pulled out of the car and there was a struggle, and she stabbed the guy.’
‘She would have told me. Maybe she’s exaggerating—there was probably some kind of tussle, maybe someone got killed.’
‘Julia doesn’t exaggerate. I only know because she had to tell someone here—to make it real, she said.’
‘But I saw her straight after the trip, at the airport. She didn’t seem traumatised.’
‘That’s the whole point—she wasn’t. Klaus, are we safe? Really safe from her?’
He stared at her. ‘Carla, this is Julia. Naturally, she’s upset; naturally, she wants to see me, even you—but she’ll calm down, I promise you. In a year this will all be history.’
The phone was ringing. Throwing the house keys down, Julia rushed to answer it.
Silence. The crackling of somebody waiting on the other end of the line.
‘Klaus?’
The caller hung up. Frantically, she punched in star 69: the number came up as unlisted. Intuitively, she knew it wasn’t her husband.
She switched on the answering service. Klaus’s voice sounded out into the room: Hi, we’re not in at the moment. If you’d like to leave a message, please do so after this ridiculous bleep. Julia tried to remember when he’d recorded it; at least twelve months before. She hadn’t bothered rerecording the message, as if by erasing his voice she would exorcise any possibility of his return.
Julia collapsed on the sofa and stared out at the magnolia tree now in full blossom. Whether she sat there for ten minutes or thirty she couldn’t tell. Carla’s startled face stared back at her from between the branches. Fear, that’s what Julia had seen in her eyes. It had only been a moment, a catching of the faint pale shadow of nudity beyond the curtains of Carla’s bedroom. But Julia would never forgive those eyes, the momentary expression of furtiveness. She rewound the message. Five repeats later she pulled the phone out of the wall socket.
27
Mayfair, 1861
LAVINIA, THE COLONEL, Lady Morgan and Hamish Campbell drove very slowly and flagrantly along St James’s in the opulent splendour of a landau, the Huntington lozenge visible on its doors. Wi
th Aloysius at its helm, and four attendants in silk knee breeches and livery, the coach proceeded down Piccadilly past the great mansions ablaze with light, powdered footmen at their doors.
Lavinia, her stays pinching at the waist, the steel undercarriage of her dress settled precariously around her, sat in a scented cloud of jasmine and orange blossom, strands of both woven into her elaborate hairstyle. The dress’s décolletage displayed her flawless breasts to advantage (much to Lady Morgan’s disapproval and envy) and a necklace of gold and pearl—a courtship gift from the Colonel.
The coach had been designed in an era when women’s gowns were far less voluminous, and the lack of space had squeezed the two men into opposite corners.
‘This new fashion makes us part-machine,’ Lady Morgan commented.
‘Indeed.’ Lavinia pulled her gaze away from the spectators that had stopped in the street to gawk at the promenade of wealth. ‘I suspect Charles Worth had the hot-air balloon in mind when he designed the crinoline. Certainly there have been days when I feared I might be swept up by the wind and set afloat.’
‘There was that dreadful story about a woman who was swept cleanly off the cliff at Eastbourne. One can only pray that she reached Calais,’ Lady Morgan said with relish.
‘And yet you both subscribe to the fad,’ the Colonel pointed out.
‘Would you rather we abandoned the fashion?’
‘Not at all. There is steel in the crinoline; the fashion has no doubt made a direct contribution to the current affluence in Sheffield. And as I now hold shares in the industry, I can only approve.’ The Colonel turned to Lavinia. ‘You, my dear, are carrying the future of British manufacturing about your hips.’
Before they could debate further the carriage pulled up behind the other vehicles parked in a line outside the mansion on Berkeley Square.
The attendants leapt off the footboards and helped their patrons down to the boardwalk that ran from the kerb to the grand entrance of the house.
The ballroom was vast, with a gallery of paintings each in an ornate frame. The white and gold doorway was topped by a heavy gilded carving. The walls were hung with shimmering patterned yellow damask and the sprung polished wooden floor had been suitably waxed for the dancing. Huge candelabra blazed with light, reflected a hundredfold in the mirrored panels of the blinds that were pulled down over the windows. Massive crystal vases filled with lilies, yellow roses and branches of white lilac had been placed around the edges of the room, and their scent mixed with the floor wax and the perfumed candles burning in the French crystal chandeliers that hung from the ceiling.
An archway led out to a glassed-in balcony where a long table was laden with refreshments. Lavinia, craning her neck, could just see the array of ices, wafers, cakes and bon bons stacked on silver trays. Uniformed maids, waiting to serve, stood beside the tables.
At the far end of the hall, screened by ornamental shrubbery, sat a small orchestra consisting of a piano, a cornet, a violin and a cello.
‘Come, we should claim our places,’ Lady Morgan murmured behind her fan as she led the others across the room to a gathering of unoccupied sofas.
About two dozen couples were already spinning around the parquet dance floor, while a flock of women—girls as young as sixteen, their mothers, maiden aunts, a few widows dripping with diamonds, and other manifestations of the moneyed female—perched on cushioned seats and ottomans around the walls. Furiously fanning themselves, the women exchanged snippets of information amid a cacophony of shrieks, mutterings and whispered conspiracies. They resembled a reclining tribe of primates, Lavinia concluded, particularly fascinated by the contrived theatrics of the young debutantes as they endeavoured to draw male attention.
On the other side of the room, resolutely grouped around a huge fireplace, a distant ancestor of Baron Wenlock’s staring down at them censoriously, stood the men: the dandies, the barons and lords, the captains and their aspiring lieutenants, the landed gentry and, finally, that comparatively new breed, the capitalists—city men who had made their own wealth, either from manufacturing in the north or by exploiting the riches of the Far East and India.
Lady Morgan pulled Lavinia to one side. ‘Look around you—this is a circus, an extravaganza designed entirely for the exchange of trade, whether it be stock tips or the courting of an heir or heiress. You can be sure this occasion is about one thing and one thing only: who has money and who hasn’t.’
Discreetly tapping her fan on the side of Lavinia’s hand, Lady Morgan indicated a tall, thin man in his middle fifties with a pockmarked face and a prominent, bulbous nose. In stark contrast to his ruined face his figure was expensively clad: diamond studs glistened at his cuffs, another gem sparkled at his breast, and a yellow gold silk cravat sprang from the neck of his black evening coat. He was holding court to a gaggle of elderly men, who consumed his every word with a chorus of nods, reminding Lavinia of Aidan’s wooden puppets.
‘That, my dear girl, is Hans Skippenmann. There are only two men in this room who can match his wealth. They say his grandfather was an Armenian. Skippenmann himself is of dubious nationality, although he claims to be of the Viennese aristocracy. He made his fortune in the Far East, supplying the medicinal needs of the Commonwealth.’
Confused, Lavinia lifted one eyebrow.
‘Opium, my young friend, the new gold,’ Lady Morgan replied in a theatrical whisper, glancing again at the magnate who was now in intense conversation with a younger gentleman of thirty, flamboyantly dressed in a velvet suit with a waistcoat made from Eastern silk.
‘The gentleman beside him is Lord Merrywither. He made his money in India, but keeps a very nice house in Mayfair as well as a palace in Bombay. Each is as corrupt as the other. Lord Merrywither is a confirmed bachelor, and I do mean confirmed, but Skippenmann has an unmarried daughter—his only heir.’
Lady Morgan flicked open her fan and shook it in the direction of the seated women to indicate a grandiose matron squeezed into a gown more befitting a woman half her size. Sweat dripped from her forehead, causing streaks in the thick layer of powder and rouge that covered her wrinkled visage. An elegant young man of twenty or so, immaculately dressed in the uniform of the dragoons, threw himself down beside her. ‘Lady Fairweather and her son Horatio. She plans to hook the Skippenmann girl for the young blade. Indeed, rumour has him marked for a victory. His title for her money: it is a fair trade.’
A tall young woman, her elegant face several inches too long to be beautiful, her brunette hair swept up into a bouffant topped with a spray of ostrich feathers, descended upon them. ‘Lady Morgan! And you must be Mrs Lavinia Huntington?’
‘I am indeed,’ Lavinia replied.
‘Be careful; Lady Bilbury collects friends as she collects dresses each season—both abandoned by Christmas. Your currency is that you are new and unknown, therefore mysterious,’ Lady Morgan whispered behind her fan.
‘Delighted to meet you, Lady Bilbury.’ Lavinia curtsied politely.
‘Oh, you’re Irish, très enchanté. We have land in Ballymore, but our family seat is in Shropshire—my mother is as English as the Queen. I think she must spend no more than three weeks of the year at Ballymore.’
‘Ballymore Castle?’
‘Do you know it? We were almost ruined by that confounded famine a number of years ago. Our peasants quite abandoned us, I’m afraid.’
‘Loyalty is a challenge when your children are dying of starvation, do you not think?’ Lavinia retorted.
Her smile fraying at the edges, Lady Bilbury turned to Lady Morgan. ‘Votre amie est un peu sérieuse, n’est-ce pas? (Your friend is a trifle serious, no?)’
‘Mais il y a du charme dans la passion, ne croyez-vous pas? (But there’s charm in passion, don’t you think?)’ Lady Morgan replied in perfect French.
‘C’est vrai que je suis irlandaise, mais je parle le français couramment quand même (I may be Irish, but I do speak fluent French),’ Lavinia interjected as lightly as she could.
Lady Morgan gave Lavinia a stern look. ‘My dear, if you wish to make friends, you must surrender your politics. Unless you mean to go into Parliament, but, alas, until women have the vote I’m afraid you are banished to the politics of the dining table. Mrs Huntington, none of these ladies and gentlemen is the slightest bit interested in the fate of a few Irish serfs. Our world consists of different dilemmas, in their own way just as important. After all, one’s reputation is one’s life, don’t you think?’
Lady Morgan was interrupted by the Colonel and Hamish Campbell, each holding a glass of negus for the women. The Colonel handed the crystal goblet to Lavinia. ‘I see you have begun to make friends?’ He had noted Lady Bilbury’s hasty departure.
‘Lady Morgan has already made some introductions,’ Lavinia replied through gritted teeth, suddenly painfully aware of the inadequacy of both her deportment and diction. The women sweeping past seemed to avoid looking at her, instead studiously gazing to one side or turning to their companion a little too gaily.
Hamish Campbell, sensing Lavinia’s anxiety, stepped forward. ‘Colonel, may I request your wife’s company for the next dance? Unless, of course, her card is full?’
‘My card is woefully empty,’ Lavinia laughed.
‘I give you my word, sir, I won’t make love to her,’ Campbell added, an ironic smile playing across his lips.
‘Is she not worthy?’ Huntington played along.
‘Indeed she is, but I had taken you for an uxorious man.’
The Colonel leaned towards the young man, dangerously close, as if about to challenge him to a duel. ‘The waltzes have begun. You may have her for just one dance,’ he growled in mock anger.