Читать книгу Encounters - Barbara Erskine - Страница 14

The bedroom was high ceilinged and cool, lavishly furnished with a wealth of eau-de-nil silk.

‘Well?’ My sister was watching me closely as I threw my bag down on the double bed and looked round.

‘Davina, it’s lovely. Quite the most beautiful room I’ve ever seen.’

She looked pleased and for the first time since she and I had been alone together we exchanged a real smile.

I wasn’t exaggerating. It was all quite fabulous: the room, the villa, the gardens which I had glimpsed as Tim and I left the car and walked up the broad flight of shallow stone steps to the porticoed front door. Everything.

I crossed to the windows and pushed back the shutters. Outside the Florentine sky was a blinding blue over the hazy valley. The shimmering afternoon heat hit into the room and I realized why every shutter on that side of the house had been closed. The view was breathtaking. If Tim and I could cement our love and happiness again anywhere it would be here.

Our marriage had not been happy. Perhaps I had been too young. Perhaps I had not realized what living with a brilliant but temperamental man would mean, especially when he was a man whose career as a sculptor brought him into intimate contact with so many beautiful women – and this while I had to keep on teaching to provide us with a steady income. Whatever the reasons, life had been hard for us. But now Tim was beginning to find recognition; I had given up my job and we had begun again.

Davina joined me on the balcony and we stood for a moment in silence. She was looking down the valley and I studied her surreptitiously. It was a year since we had met. That had been at her wedding to Simon Delacourt when I, her junior by five years, had already been married for eighteen months. Simon was rich, charming, clever; exactly what Davina had wanted. And who could blame her, with his country house in Sussex, his yacht, his executive jet and this fabulous villa in Tuscany?

We had always been close, but in her relationship with Simon she had been secretive; I had felt excluded, and wrapped up by then in my own unhappiness I had not paid my sister much attention, assuming that she had everything she wanted.

So why did she look so strained now? I studied her profile. There were lines at the corners of her eyes and between nose and mouth I did not remember.

She turned suddenly, groping in the pocket of her loose jacket and produced a pack of cigarettes and a small elegant lighter. ‘Want one?’

‘You know I don’t. And you never used to, Davina.’

Her eyes met mine and she smiled again. This time it was brittle and automatic. ‘You have to do something to occupy yourself.’ She inhaled deeply on the cigarette and turned abruptly back into the room. ‘How are things between you and Tim? Are you still supporting him while he lays every female in sight?’

I caught my breath. She hadn’t used to be a bitch either.

I followed her back into the shadowy room, carefully pulling the shutters closed behind me. ‘Actually he’s becoming quite well known, so I don’t have to support him any more,’ I said. My voice was shaking slightly and I steadied it grimly. ‘And we’re happy now. Very happy.’ We were also very hard up and praying that Simon might commission some work.

‘Good.’ She was studying her face in the lovely Florentine mirror over the dressing table and for an instant our eyes met in the glass. ‘Let’s go down and get a drink shall we?’ she said tautly. ‘I want to meet our other guests and well see where Simon and Tim have got to.’

Almost as soon as we had arrived Simon had whisked my husband away leaving us girls, as he put it, to get to know each other again. I could see why he thought we needed the time alone. Davina was a different woman.

The drawing room was rich and elegant, furnished in pale green and gold and it looked out across the formal gardens at the back of the villa. The line of tall windows shaded by ivory silk stood open. On the terrace outside I could see three figures reclining in the shade while beyond them in the sunlight the spray from an ornamental fountain hung like a rainbow in the still air. The two men stood up as we stepped out to join them. Both were casually dressed and wore dark glasses.

‘Jocelyn and Maggie Farquer,’ Davina introduced us offhandedly, ‘and Nigel Godson – my sister Celia Armitage.’

Nigel Godson reached out a hand. ‘Ah at last. The wife of the famous sculptor. I’ve heard so much about you both from Davina.’ His grin robbed the words of some of their irony but nevertheless I felt a small flicker of warning. I had to be nice to these attractive rich strangers who came from a different world, for Tim’s future success depended on the patronage of people like them.

Maggie Farquer patted the seat beneath the fringed awning near her. ‘Come over here, darling and have a drink. You must be parched.’ She was a woman of about fifty, tanned, coiffured, jewelled, in Dior slacks and a crimson silk shirt. I smiled at her uncertainly as I accepted the tall frosted glass from Davina and felt myself grow suddenly shy.

My sister did not join us. She began instead to pace slowly up and down the terrace and I watched her as I answered Maggie’s lazy questions about our trip through France in the car. I saw her stub out her half smoked cigarette in an urn full of tumbling pink geraniums and reach for another, then as I watched I saw her stiffen and return the cigarette to the pack. She was staring down the garden. I followed the direction of her gaze and saw Tim and Simon approaching slowly across the parched grass.

When the introductions had been made and Tim given his glass he sat down beside me on the seat. ‘There’s a cottage in the grounds I can use as a studio, Celia,’ he murmured. ‘I’ll show you later.’ He reached across and touched the back of my hand gently with his finger tip. It was a very private sign and I leant back against his shoulder sipping from my glass, happy and relaxed for the first time since I had sat down.

Davina was standing about three yards from us and I noticed suddenly that she had crushed the cigarette carton in her fist. Her eyes were fixed on the seat between Tim and myself where our hands touched on the cushion.

Tim was smiling later when he came back into our bedroom from the shower naked but for the towel knotted around his waist.

‘What do you think of this set up?’ he said softly. He put his arms around me and pulled me close. His hair was damp and he smelled of cologne.

‘I love the villa.’ I looked up at him.

‘Not the people?’

‘Not the people. Even Davina has changed.’

‘We have to be nice to them, Celia.’ He frowned. ‘I hate to say it, but we need them.’

‘Even men like Nigel Godson? I thought you said dealers were parasites and we could do without them.’

He laughed softly. His lips were in my hair. ‘We can do without them only if we get the commissions direct.’

‘And you think Simon will commission something?’

‘Could be.’ He sounded excited. ‘He’s had this cottage cleared of furniture so I can use it as a studio and work in peace while you’re sunning yourself by the pool.’ He grinned. ‘He took me to see that too. You wait till you see it. Do you think I should suggest I do a head of Davina?’

‘Do you want to?’ My arms were around his neck and I could feel the towel slipping.

‘Could do worse. She’s very beautiful. I could tell the truth without offending.’ He grinned again, reaching up for the zip at the back of my dress, beginning to slide it down. Reluctantly I wriggled away from him and went to sit out of his reach at the dressing table. I picked up my hairbrush.

‘She is different, have you noticed?’

‘A year older and wiser. So are we.’

‘No, it’s more than that. She’s grown hard and neurotic.’ I put down the brush and turned to face him. ‘I think she’s unhappy.’

He laughed. ‘With all this?’

It did seem hard to believe, but as I watched her at dinner I became more and more certain I was right.

We sat at a long elegant table lit with candles in silver candelabra, waited on by the villa servants. Beside me Nigel Godson was attentive. Without his glasses he was also very attractive for his eyes were a warm hazel and they were without doubt fixed exclusively on me.

At the other end of the table my sister was dressed in white which against her tan looked quite stunning and she in her turn had eyes for no one but my husband.

He was studying her. I knew that look; I had seen it often and in the beginning I had resented it bitterly as beauty after beauty disappeared into his studio; I still found it hard to believe he was studying his subjects dispassionately and that he treated men to the same intense scrutiny. Davina had sensed his interest at once and was responding with an arch awareness which bordered on flirtation, looking up at him under her eyelashes as her fingers toyed with her wine glass. I felt a quick surge of hurt anger at her as I watched.

I dragged my attention away from the cameo at the end of the table to find that Nigel Godson was speaking to me again. ‘Perhaps if your husband is going to work while he’s here you would allow me to drive you down to the city to explore a little?’ He smiled and I saw Maggie Farquer watching us through the candlelight from across bowls of stracciatella. On my left, sitting at the head of the table was Simon, a large florid man in his early forties. He was busy eating and did not appear to be listening. Nor had he noticed his wife flirting with my husband.

Maggie caught my eye and smiled. ‘That’s a splendid idea,’ she murmured. ‘I shall beg a lift down with you, Nigel. No –’ she made a deprecatory gesture with her hands. ‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to play gooseberry. I want you to drop me off somewhere on your way. A dear friend of mine has rented a house there for the summer and I’ve been dying for the opportunity to look her up. More than a friend actually, my erstwhile partner in crime.’ Her smile had not faltered but I sensed she was no longer speaking to Nigel and myself any more; she was watching Simon. I glanced at him as well. He had laid down his soup spoon and was sipping from his glass. ‘I believe you know her, Simon sweetie.’ She was speaking to him directly now. ‘It’s Sarah. Sarah Cummins.’

Later we took our coffee and liqueurs out onto the terrace. An enormous orange moon hung above the cypress trees and the darkness had the quality of rich stifling velvet. I felt lost and a little miserable. Tim was still talking to Davina. They were sitting on the rim of the fountain together and she was stroking the still water at its edge into gentle ripples with the tip of her finger. Jocelyn and Simon were talking together as they wandered up and down the garden smoking cigars, tiny points of burning light in the night. Whatever reaction Maggie had expected from her host at her announcement at dinner, Simon had obviously disappointed her. His bland face had remained unruffled and he had merely smiled, rather bored, at her disclosure. She was talking now to Nigel, discussing people I did not know, laughing, touching his arm. I was sitting with them but I was an outsider, an observer who did not even speak their language and before long I rose with murmured excuses and tiptoed up to bed. I must have been asleep when Tim came up, for I never heard him.

When I awoke the room was cool and silvery with early morning light. Tim was already up and dressed in jeans and an open-necked shirt. He grinned when he saw me awake and came to sit on the bed beside me.

‘Hi. Did you sleep well?’

I stretched in the soft silky sheets, my forebodings of the previous night forgotten, and nodded, holding out my arms as he bent to kiss me. But a moment later he was sitting up again. ‘I’m going down to the cottage, Celia. I want to begin work at once. You don’t mind, do you? Make the most of the sun and get a lovely tan beside their pool.’ He ran his finger slowly down my breast.

I felt my nerves tighten. ‘You’re going to do a head of Davina?’

It wasn’t really a question. I already knew the answer.

He nodded. ‘She says Simon will pay for it for their anniversary and she can spare me a bit of time later this morning for a preliminary sitting so I thought I’d get straight to it.’

‘Tim …’ I reached out again and he caught my hands gently. Last night had been the first time we had not made love since our reconciliation, but what was the use of saying anything? It had all been said so often in the past. I just smiled at him, reached up to give him a kiss and lay back to watch him as he slung his denim jacket over his shoulder, winked at me and was gone.

Nigel Godson drove a British registration Lancia. I sat beside him in the front with Maggie Farquer, resplendent in a magenta jumpsuit, behind us, leaning forward with her forearms across the back of the seats as she directed us. She smelled faintly of gardenias.

We found it at last, a fourteenth-century farmhouse converted into a luxury holiday home. Sarah Cummins was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. Elegant, ash blonde and charming she ushered us into the main room of the house and produced coffee and ricciarelli – delicious little almond biscuits – and it was only two minutes before I discovered that she knew Nigel as well as Maggie. It was an hour before Nigel and I could extricate ourselves from her hospitality and leave. I had not liked her; she was hard and I suspected clever, but with a hint of ice in her which touched us all. Even Maggie, who was effusive and voluble as she sat back on the Louis XVI sofa seemed a little uncomfortable.

Florence was hot and dusty and by mutual consent Nigel and I agreed to forgo a trip to the Uffizi which we had planned and wander instead around San Lorenzo and down the Via Calzaioli towards the Ponte Vecchio. I had begun to like Nigel. He owned a smart gallery in Chelsea dabbling in art and antiques and was exactly the sort of man Tim resented, but he was also kind – a quality conspicuously lacking at the villa – strong and quiet and nobody’s fool. And I sensed that his interest in me was real.

‘How well do you know your brother-in-law?’ Nigel asked suddenly as we examined some of the gilded leather-work on a stall. I glanced at him, but he had retreated once more behind those dark glasses.

‘I don’t,’ I said shortly. ‘I’ve only met him twice in my life before and one of those times was the wedding.’

He said nothing for a moment, distracted as we wandered on through piles of intricately woven straw baskets, passed silver shops, silks and linens, antiques … Then he returned to his probing. ‘Have you had a chance to speak to your sister at all?’

‘What about?’

He looked uncomfortable. ‘Nothing special. I just wondered how she seemed to you.’

I looked at him. ‘I think she seems very tense,’ I said cautiously. I was thinking of the last I had seen of her, wandering barefoot across the lawns after breakfast in the direction of the cottage, dressed in a simple Saint Laurent floating dress with a chiffon scarf draped over her hair like a 1920s film star.

He had taken off his glasses and I could see his face now in the blinding sunlight of the hot street. ‘She’s not happy, Celia. I don’t think it’s women – you gathered I suppose that Sarah used to live with him – I think it has something to do with his business activities.’

‘You mean they’re questionable?’ I had a quick vision of Simon in close conversation with Jocelyn Farquer, the man who had not, since I had arrived in the villa, addressed as much as one word to me directly.

Nigel shrugged. ‘It’s not my field of course, but I used to know old Simon pretty well and I get the impression he’s up to something. Jocelyn and he are brokers of some sort in the City. Davina hates the Farquers, you know.’

I stared at him. ‘I got the impression that Maggie was something of a bitch,’ I said – I had also got the impression that Nigel disliked her intensely, ‘but I haven’t spoken to her husband. Not once.’

He laughed grimly. ‘You wouldn’t. He has no time for social niceties. He is one of those people who doesn’t want to know you unless you are useful to him.’

‘Touché!’ I laughed. ‘Why did they ask Tim and me to come do you think?’

Nigel looked down at me. ‘Haven’t you guessed?’

‘I had hoped it was because of Tim’s work.’

He grimaced. ‘Perhaps a little. But something else as well.’

‘To distract Davina?’

‘Of course.’

‘And you?’ I was watching him intently.

‘I am afraid my uses are very basic.’ He smiled, suddenly humorous. ‘I think I am the spare male to be used as distraction for any of the ladies who became too much of a nuisance. I thought when I arrived he had asked me to take Davina off his back – yes, I know it sounds pretty awful, but it gets worse. Now I think I’ve been asked to take care of you – so Davina can have your husband. I gather she’s always rated her chances with him fairly high and Simon has never been a great performer in the sack so I’m told.’

I heard myself gasp. We were standing on the kerb, watching the noonday traffic roaring past in a haze of fumes and dirt. My head was spinning. ‘I don’t believe you! That’s a wicked thing to say!’ It was my own voice I could hear protesting but I knew what he said was true.

When we returned to pick Maggie up she dropped her little piece of news. ‘I’ve asked Sarah to come back with us for dinner, Nigel. You don’t mind waiting while she changes, then we can give her a lift.’ It didn’t cross my mind, then, to wonder how she would get back home again.

There was no one around when we drove up to the villa. The hall was cool and dim, the shutters closed as we trooped in and Nigel and I excused ourselves to go to our respective rooms to shower and change before meeting again on the terrace for drinks at six. Of the others in the party there was no sign and I vowed wearily as I climbed the broad sweep of stairs that I would not go to look for Tim in the cottage. Perhaps I was afraid of what I might find.

I showered and wrapped myself in a towel before lying down on the bed to rest. The walk around Florence had exhausted me and I was feeling very depressed at what I now realized was my sister’s betrayal; I loved her, but I loved my husband too.

I must have dozed off for it was Tim who woke me some time later. He was stripping off his shirt by the window, staring out into the garden as he did so. The sun had gone round to the side of the villa and the shutters were open now onto the balcony. I could hear a pigeon cooing from somewhere in the trees.

‘How was work today?’ I murmured. I didn’t sit up.

He turned. ‘I’m sorry, darling. I was trying not to wake you. It was fine. How was Florence?’

‘Hot and dusty and very beautiful. But I missed you.’

He came to me then and sat on the edge of the bed. ‘I missed you. Let’s work out a way of taking a day off and making a trip together shall we – just us.’ He leaned over me and I felt the warm touch of his lips on mine, then slowly he pulled open the towel which was wrapped around me and ran his hands over my body. It was only the sound of the ormulu clock on the landing outside our room chiming six which brought me back from the warm sated dream in which I was lying, and reluctantly I pushed him away. ‘Remember our aperitifs on the terrace,’ I whispered as his hand began once more to stray between my thighs.

He gave a grimace. ‘I don’t give a damn about the terrace. I want my wife!’

And oh how I wanted him. But I slipped out of his reach and went to the mirror to do something about my hair while he showered and found a clean shirt.

It was only when I went to pick up his discarded shirt, lying on the thick Chinese carpet by the window that I saw the lipstick on the collar and remembered that when he had cheated on me his first reaction always had been to come and try to make it up.

Davina was wearing a red and gold sarong, her hair piled up on her head to show a pair of exquisite emerald earrings which I had no doubt at all were worth a fortune. She came straight up to us when we appeared and slipped her arm through Tim’s. ‘Where have you both been? We thought you’d got lost,’ she said. She glanced at me, and I saw the suppressed triumph in her eyes. So Nigel had been right.

I glanced round for him, but he had not appeared. Simon was standing on the lawn talking to Maggie and Sarah and Jocelyn was sitting on the wall of the terrace looking out across the gardens. Feeling sick and lonely I went to stand beside him, my drink in my hand, content to be silent. But to my surprise he spoke to me.

‘My wife is unbelievably stupid. Have you any idea at all what she’s done?’ He was staring down at the group on the lawn, his voice icy with contempt and I took a step away from him in surprise.

‘What?’

He turned and stared at me and I wondered for a moment if he had realized that it was me he was talking to. His face was hard and bitter, his lips thin as he looked me up and down.

‘Sarah was Simon’s mistress before he met your sister,’ he said quietly, ‘and the only reason she has come to Tuscany is to make trouble for him. For Maggie to invite her here is the most crass behaviour, even for her.’ His look of loathing encompassed his wife and Sarah as they stood on the lawn and I wondered briefly what they could be talking to Simon about so intensely. For a moment I had forgotten my own grief in the shock of his statement, but as I turned to look at Davina I saw her still clinging to Tim’s arm and I wondered suddenly whether she would care at all what her husband did, or to whom. I looked back at Jocelyn.

‘And Davina has no clue about this?’ I asked softly.

‘No. Maggie and Sarah used to run a boutique together and Sarah even met Simon at our place in Midhurst. They were together for about three years but Sarah was too interfering; she poked her nose in where it wasn’t wanted just once too often and Simon got shot of her.’

‘Jocelyn,’ I looked up at him searchingly. ‘Exactly why did he marry Davina? She’s hardly his type.’

He gave a small hard smile at that. ‘Why, my dear young lady, does any man marry at all?’ He looked rather pointedly at my husband.

I swallowed, hoping the wave of bleakness which swept over me did not show in my face as I turned away from him and walked back to the drinks table. I was not going to let Davina see that I cared. I refilled my drink with an unsteady hand and then I saw Nigel appearing from the house at last; he came over to me at once and gave a small smile.

‘So, the cast is assembled,’ he commented quietly.

I sipped my drink. ‘To play tragedy or comedy, I wonder,’ I said bitterly.

On the lawn the sets of couples had changed. Sarah had wandered across to join Tim and Davina, and Maggie and Simon were walking back to join Jocelyn on the terrace. Maggie was smiling as she looked up in our direction.

‘Nigel, come and tell my husband about that painting you mentioned to me, my dear. I would so love him to buy it for me.’ She came up and slipped her arm through his, edging him away from me.

I didn’t mind. I knew her for what she was now, a bored rich manipulator who made up for her own lack of love by playing with other people. I just hoped that Sarah’s presence would deflect Davina’s attention from Tim when and if Davina found out who she was.

Time passed; drinks were replenished. Nigel made one rueful face at me behind Maggie’s back and then settled into conversation. On the horizon behind the pointed cypress trees the rim of the moon floated suddenly into view, pale lemon in an aquamarine sky. I felt myself shiver.

‘Celia, are you all right?’ I hadn’t seen Sarah approaching.

I smiled. ‘A footstep on my grave, that’s all.’

‘You must be careful not to chill. I’ve just been talking to your husband and I hear he is to sculpt your sister’s bust. Do you think I dare ask him to do mine?’ Her laugh was a silver bell in the thin evening air as she ran the fingers of her left hand over the line of her breast. It was somehow an obscene gesture. She had been drinking heavily since six, and her thick make up could not quite conceal the blurring of her features.

‘I’m sure he’d love to …’ I hesitated. ‘He is very booked at the moment though …’

‘I can believe it.’ She was watching me with an intensity which made me uncomfortable. ‘Your sister is very beautiful.’

‘Yes, she is, isn’t she?’ I took a sip at my glass with stiff lips.

‘I can see how easily she must have captured Simon; he wouldn’t have stood a chance.’

‘No.’ I didn’t know what else to say.

‘And now she’s captured your husband,’ she went on quietly. ‘Do you mind? Or does he always sleep with his models? Perhaps an artist’s wife gets used to it?’

‘No, you don’t get used to it,’ I had replied with more feeling than I intended and I hastened to cover up. ‘There’s no need. His interest is purely professional.’

‘Although there are exceptions.’ She was still watching me as she drained her glass. She refilled it from the table and I saw she was drinking neat vodka.

I gave what I hoped was a worldly smile. There are always exceptions to everything,’ I said, but I was aching with unhappiness as we both turned and saw Tim slowly leading Davina back towards the terrace. Their footsteps left a dark track on the grass where the dew was lying and she was leaning on him slightly, her arm through his.

They walked slowly up the steps towards us and I saw that she was talking quietly so that he had to lean towards her slightly to hear what she was saying. I felt a sudden surge of anger. I turned and, putting my glass down on the table, I walked towards them, conscious as I did so of Sarah’s eyes watching me. They stopped, still engrossed in one another and for a moment I don’t think either of them realized I was there. Then they were both looking at me and I was sure that I saw guilt on their faces. I forced myself to smile.

‘You look so cosy there is speculation on the terrace about when you’re moving in together,’ I said with a laugh which came out far too brittle. Davina released his arm abruptly, but I saw the quick anger on Tim’s face and I cursed myself for having said anything at all. But I couldn’t stop myself. ‘You’re in demand, darling,’ I said to him lightly. ‘Sarah is wondering if you will have time to sculpt her bust too.’ I knew she could hear every word I said. ‘I told her you come expensive.’

Davina had opened her mouth, but her retort was lost in the sound of the phone relayed out onto the terrace by an outside bell. There was dead silence, then Simon began slowly to walk towards the french windows. Behind him Jocelyn put down his glass and followed.

‘Well!’ Davina laughed abruptly. She walked across to the drinks table and began rather obviously to tidy the tray and screw the caps onto various bottles. ‘I suppose this means we’ll be late for dinner and Stephano will hand in his notice again. It happens about once a week I’m afraid.’

‘Business calls?’ It was Nigel’s voice from the shadows. Davina tensed. ‘I expect so. Business can’t be left at home even here.’

I recognized the strained note in her voice and instantly my hostility lessened. I thought I recognized her play for Tim as a plea; a cry for help. I wanted to reach out my hand, to hug her as I used to do when we were children and would comfort one another when things became too bad to be borne alone. But the eyes she turned on me were hard and rejecting and I took a step back as if she had slapped me.

Tim came forward. He smiled at me, his usual warm special smile as though nothing were wrong. ‘We can’t ask Davina to risk losing so great a treasure as Stephano; I suggest we go in and start to eat without Simon. I’ll take the blame if he gets violent.’ His smile took in everyone as he gestured to Davina to lead us into the candlelit dining room. There was no sign of Simon and Jocelyn. The double doors to Simon’s study were closed; when we had come down earlier they had stood open.

We had finished the Parma ham garnished with figs and had already begun on the veal escalopes before the doors opened and Simon and Jocelyn reappeared. They both looked angry as they took their places and I found myself unwillingly catching Nigel’s eye. He winked at me.

‘Bad news?’ he asked innocently.

Sarah laughed. She had already finished a second glass of Chianti. ‘It must be bad,’ she said, slurring her words slightly. ‘It takes more than a bear market to make our Simon flinch.’ She leaned forward across the table to put her hand on his. Her gold bracelet clanked heavily against the cut glass. ‘That’s right, isn’t it, honey bunch?’

I was watching Davina’s face. She had refused to look up as her husband came in, toying with her food with her fork, but now I saw her staring at Sarah in disbelief. She opened her mouth to say something but before she had the chance her husband spoke.

‘I’m afraid it looks as if I’ll have to nip back to London for a couple of days.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Awful bore. Sorry. But Davina will entertain you all.’

‘And you, Joss?’ Maggie was watching her husband across the table.

‘Not Jocelyn.’ Simon answered for him. ‘Jocelyn has done enough damage.’

There was a moment of complete silence. Then Sarah started to laugh.

I cornered Davina in her bathroom. It was an amazing place of ornate marble and gold illuminated now by cruel hidden lights. She looked haggard as she bathed her eyes. ‘What the hell is going on here?’ I perched on the edge of the bath. ‘What has happened to you, Davina?’

She looked up at me, her face wet. ‘Did you know that Sarah woman used to be Simon’s fancy piece?’

I nodded.

‘Maggie’s a cow. You know it was she who asked her here. I detest her.’ She had drunk more than usual and her face beneath the heavy streaked layer of make up was flushed.

Privately I agreed with her. ‘You haven’t answered me, Davina. What is going on here?’

She shrugged. ‘What do I care? Simon never tells me anything. I just have to sign things; and entertain his guests.’ She was peering into the mirror now, her shadowed eyes expressionless. ‘And you’d better mind your own business. Don’t tangle with Simon.’

‘How long has it been like this?’ My sympathy for her had returned and I wanted to touch her, to comfort her. But I was not prepared to risk another rejection. She stared down at the mosaic floor.

‘Ever since we married. I’ve wanted to see you often but I didn’t dare ask you. I didn’t want you to see what I had become. I could bear the thought of you and Tim as long as you were unhappy. It meant you were no better off than me. You see what a horrible person I am?’

There was a long pause. I closed my eyes wearily. ‘And when you saw we were happy, you thought you’d take him for yourself, is that it?’ I asked at last.

‘You’re my sister. I thought …’ She stopped in mid sentence. Then she turned to face me. ‘Oh Celia, you shouldn’t have come.’ And she began to cry.

Tim went into our room ahead of me. He didn’t turn on the light. As I closed the door he came up to me and put his arms around me in the dark.

‘Celia. What is it? What’s wrong?’

‘I talked to Davina. She thinks we ought to go. Can we, Tim? Please. Tomorrow. I know it’s a disappointment but you’ll get work from other people. You’re good. We don’t need to rely on Simon for any commissions.’

I felt him tense. He was stroking my hair gently. ‘Celia, you can go if you want to, darling. But I can’t. Don’t you see?’

The room was very dark. The maid had pulled the curtains across the windows when she came in to turn down the bed and it was stifling. I pulled away from him wordlessly and went to open them. Outside the balcony was black. The brilliant moonlight flooded past the villa and focused on the lawn. The fountain was still playing.

‘Do you love her?’ I asked softly. I leaned on the stone balustrade and looked down.

‘Who?’ I felt the anger in him, the resentment which always came when I questioned him and I knew I could not fight it this time. What was the point? Tim came out onto the balcony beside me. ‘Don’t run away, Celia. I’m beginning to think you must be paranoid or something. Who do you think I’m having an affair with this time?’

‘Davina.’ I could hardly bring myself to say the name.

‘Oh for God’s sake. It’s always the same, isn’t it? The moment I show interest in a woman you imagine I’ve fallen into bed with her. What’s the matter with you?’

What indeed? How could I explain to him how much I loved him; how much I feared to lose him; how much I had looked forward to these summer months in Italy as a second honeymoon? And now I saw the whole frail structure of my dream collapsing.

‘You really mean it, Tim? You would stay here and let me go home alone?’ I didn’t look at him. Below in the garden I saw a small glow in the darkness and I thought it must be a firefly. Then I realized it was a cigarette. There was someone walking slowly in the shadows of the trees.

‘I’ve come here to work, Celia. And it’s important that I do. More important than you know. Simon told me today that he is prepared to recommend me for a commission to do heads of all the members of a board he’s on. It means security and freedom to work without worrying for a while; without you having to go back to that job. I’m not going to blow it, Celia, even if it means we can’t be together. I don’t want you to go. It’s up to you.’

He turned and vanished back into the bedroom. A moment later I heard the door slam.

I could feel the hot tears burning my cheeks and I let them fell unchecked. The french doors below the balcony opened and someone stepped out onto the terrace. I knew it must be Tim. He would go to his improvised studio and work through the night, returning to fall into bed beside me at dawn. It had happened too often before after we had quarrelled. I did not call out to him. What was the point? He stepped out of the shadows of the terrace onto the grass and I saw him clearly walking towards the fountain. A figure detached itself from the shadows and joined him. A woman. The moonlight had washed the colour from her dress but I knew it was my sister. I watched as they stood talking then slowly they began to move, not towards the cottage but around the side of the house out of sight. Two minutes later I heard the sound of a car engine and the crunch of its tyres on the gravel of the long poplar-lined drive. Then there was silence.

I undressed and lay down on the bed, but my mind would not rest. I could not sleep and after a while I gave up trying. I rose and slipped on a thin sweater and some jeans.

The villa was in darkness save where moonlight slid through the windows on the staircase. I peered out. Our car had vanished from its place beneath the mulberry tree beside the wall. Behind me on the landing the clock chimed three. Tim had left the french windows open and I slipped out onto the terrace. I avoided the bright moonlight, following the dark shadows beneath the trees.

The cottage was in darkness, but the door was unlocked and I slipped in and at last allowed myself to turn on a light. The room was empty but for a large table and a couple of chairs. I recognized all the paraphernalia we had brought with us in the car. The plastic sacks of clay and plaster, the wire for armatures, the scalpels, the spatulas, the callipers and sketch books. Tim’s overalls hung on the back of the door and the room already had the cold oily smell of the clay. On the table I could see the outline of the head beneath its cloth and I moved over to uncover it.

He had made a lot of progress. Davina stared out at me, her lips enigmatically smiling, her eyes still a blind sightless sketch in the glistening clay. I stared at it for a long time, then I covered it again and moved across to the stairs. The cottage had only one bedroom and it was fully furnished. The bed had been slept in. Beside it the bathroom was also fully equipped with toiletries and cosmetics. I unscrewed a bottle of cologne and sniffed it. It was spicy and rather strong. I did not recognize it.

A bell pealed in the silence and I froze. Then I realized it was the telephone beside the bed next door. I tiptoed across and hesitated as it rang. Then cautiously I lifted the receiver. A voice was talking in fast Italian on the other end and I realized suddenly that it was an extension from the main house. I was about to replace it when a second voice cut in. It was Simon and he sounded once more very angry. Holding my breath I sat gingerly on the bed and listened.

They were speaking in English now. ‘I told you not to ring me!’ Simon’s voice hissed down the line.

‘The deal is taking too long!’ the Italian cut in. ‘You have only twenty-four hours. Then I pull out.’

‘You can’t pull out, remember? Your currency is being held in my wife’s name,’ Simon snarled. ‘I fly to London tomorrow. The transaction will be completed on schedule.’

‘And if she asks any questions?’

‘She won’t. She never does.’ Simon’s mirthless laugh floated from the receiver in my hand. I could feel myself beginning to shake as I listened in disbelief, and for a long time after he had hung up and the line was empty I sat there, the phone still in my hand.

I could see the light on in his study as I tiptoed back across the lawn towards the french windows. I had no wish to meet Simon and I held my breath as I crept in. Then I realized he was not alone. Davina was with him and they were having a furious row. There was no question of them hearing me; they were making enough noise to wake the whole villa. The doors to his study were half open and I could see them both clearly. Simon was fully dressed still, but Davina was in a négligé and I could see from the stark paleness of her face that she had removed her make up. She looked as though she had just got out of bed and I wondered suddenly whether like me she had been listening on the extension.

I crept upstairs without them seeing me and peered out of the window on the landing. The car was still missing, and I realized bitterly that my husband’s midnight rendezvous had been not with my sister but with Sarah Cummins.

Simon was missing from the dining room when I plucked up courage to descend at about nine, but the others were there, all except Tim. Maggie smiled at me. ‘Is your divine husband at work already, Celia?’ she asked.

‘He’s been at it all night,’ I heard myself reply. I was watching Davina as she got up and went to the urn on the sideboard to pour herself a cup of black coffee.

She raised her eyebrows. ‘How dedicated,’ she said tartly.

‘But I don’t know where. He drove off with someone at about midnight,’ I went on quietly, ‘and the car’s not back yet.’

Maggie and Nigel were listening intently; Jocelyn was engrossed in the Financial Times and did not look up. I saw the coffee overflow into Davina’s saucer. Her face suddenly turned white.

‘The bitch!’ she said. ‘The bloody bitch!’ She put the cup down and flung her napkin on the floor.

There was a telephone in the hall – an ornate affair of gold and white – and she picked it up angrily. ‘Maggie, what is the number of that woman you brought here last night?’ she yelled through the door.

Maggie was smiling quietly. ‘I wrote it on the pad by the phone,’ she answered softly. ‘I figured someone from this house might want to call her.’

Davina was connected almost at once and I listened in disbelief. This was my husband they were fighting over. Sarah Cummins had arrived at the house, bent on revenge on Davina for stealing her man, as she saw it, and in order to do it she had decided to steal Tim from her. Wordlessly I stood up and went to stand in the hall behind her, listening. There was no question that Tim was there, but he was refusing to come to the phone. After five minutes’ vicious tirade Davina slammed down the phone and whirled round. She found herself face to face with me and for one second she had the grace to look taken aback. Then she smiled. ‘Don’t look like that, Celia. If you were any good at all with men you’d be able to keep him, wouldn’t you! You deserve to lose him!’ She ran to the staircase and vanished up it.

I was stunned. For a while I could not move, then I was conscious of the dining room door closing softly behind me, shielding me from the staring eyes within. An arm went round my shoulders. It was Nigel.

‘Come on up to my room. I’ve some brandy up there,’ he said quietly. I went without a murmur and sat on his bed sipping it until I had stopped shaking. His arms were round me, comforting, holding me close. I hardly noticed when he took the glass from my hand and set it down on the bedside table, then his lips were against mine and I felt myself lying back on the pillows. ‘I’ll take care of you, Celia. Forget him. He’s not worth it,’ he whispered, tickling my neck with a curl of my hair, wound round his finger. He looked down into my eyes with such concern and kindness that for a long time I lay still. I felt secure and safe. I was wanted. ‘Oh Nigel!’ My arms went round his neck and I was sobbing at last.

We lay like that for a long time and it was only the sunlight crawling across the carpet towards us until it threw a brilliant hot beam across the pillow which brought me to my senses. I pushed him away and sat up.

‘Nigel. What shall I do?’ I looked miserably down at the floor. I should have told him then what I had overheard on the phone, but I was afraid. Afraid for Davina but afraid of her too and I hated her at that moment almost as much as I hated Sarah Cummins. And myself.

Nigel did not try to touch me again. Getting up he poured another tot of brandy and put it into my hands. Then he walked across to the window and stared out. ‘Let me take care of you,’ he said. ‘There is no point in staying with a man who makes you so unhappy, Celia. You can fight for years, but he’s not going to change. Do you want to waste your whole life on him? He’s not worth it.’ He walked back and stood looking down at me. ‘You’re a hundred times more beautiful than your sister, Celia. You’re natural; you’re unspoilt. Don’t let them corrupt you. Let me take you back to London.’

On my way back to my bedroom I listened at Davina’s door. I could hear her sobbing and I raised my hand to knock. Then I lowered it again. There was nothing I could say to Davina. I had to think. I had to make up my mind what to do.

For a long time I lay on the bed in our bedroom staring at the ceiling. The house was completely silent around me. Nigel was going to drive down into Florence after lunch, he said, but I had declined his invitation to go with him. I wanted to be alone. His words were ringing in my ears. ‘Do you want to waste your whole life?’ Was that was I was doing?

The phone number was still on the pad by the phone in the hall. I sat down on the carved chair by the table and stared down at the scribbled figures for a long time before, hesitatingly, I picked up the receiver and dialled.

‘Pronto.’ The voice which answered was that of a stranger.

‘Can I speak to Tim?’ I said slowly, and groped for the Italian words.

There was a long silence, but he came in the end.

‘Tim!’ I tried to keep my voice calm. ‘Tim, I must speak to you.’

‘Can’t it wait till tonight? I’m working, Celia.’ He sounded exaggeratedly patient, like an adult humouring a fractious child. Something inside me seemed to break and I knew I was fighting; fighting for my marriage and my self respect.

‘No, it bloody well can’t wait,’ I hissed down the phone. ‘You get back here, Tim, and meet me at the cottage. I’ve got to see you now. I’ve found out something you’ve got to know about. Simon is involved in some shady currency deal and he’s using Davina. You’ve got to tell me what to do. She’s the one who is going to get into trouble. Now, get here.’ I hung up before he had time to reply.

There was a sound behind me and I turned to see Simon himself standing in the dining room doorway. His arms were folded and he was watching me. ‘I wonder what sort of trouble that could possibly be?’ he said quietly, with a small smile. ‘Perhaps you would come into my study a moment, Celia. It’s time you and I had a short talk I think.’

He ushered me into a carved rococo chair by the fireplace. Then, half leaning on his desk he turned to face me. ‘What exactly have you found out?’ he asked. His face was quite bland and un threatening, and yet suddenly I was afraid.

‘That you treat Davina like dirt,’ I replied. I had no intention of telling about my eavesdropping.

‘I see.’ He waited a moment, then he went to a cabinet beside the fireplace and produced a bottle. ‘Campari and soda?’ He put the glass in my hand. ‘What do you intend doing about it?’ A smile played across his lips for moment.

‘Do you know what happened this morning?’ I asked him suddenly, looking down at the glass in my hand without seeing it. ‘Your ex-girlfriend has gone off with my husband because she wanted to hurt Davina. Don’t you think that is rather funny?’ I heard myself laughing, a high nervous sound which bordered on hysteria. ‘Is that why you asked us here? So you could procure Tim for your wife and distract her from your illegal activities?’

I could have bitten my tongue out. His face had not altered but I saw the knuckles whiten on his glass. Slowly he raised it and drank.

‘So. I ask you again, what have you found out, sweet sister-in-law?’

‘Enough.’ I stared at him defiantly.

There was a long silence. He set down the glass and looked at me thoughtfully. ‘Do you love this husband of yours, Celia?’ he asked.

‘Of course I do.’ It was true. It was agonizingly true.

‘Then I suggest you keep very quiet about whatever it is that you think you have discovered, cognata mia, or I will break Timothy’s career. Do you understand me? I can do it, you know. I’ll see to it that he never gets another commission as long as he lives.’ There seemed to be no animosity in his voice, no violence, just calm certainty. And I believed him. I stared at him, my heart hammering uncertainly in my chest as I set my glass down without tasting the drink.

‘You bastard.’

He bowed in acknowledgement as though I had paid him a compliment.

When Tim returned Sarah was with him. The car crunched to a halt on the gravel outside the villa as I was descending the stairs from my room in search of a cup of coffee. I had had no lunch and my head was aching violently. I stopped dead as the ornate doors swung open and they appeared on the threshold. Sarah was laughing as the soft jacket thrown across her shoulders caught on the elaborate arrangement of flowers in the hall and a spray of stephanotis fell to the floor. Tim looked at me intently for a moment. The anger which had shadowed his face as he caught sight of me was replaced by concern. ‘Sweetheart, are you all right?’

I glanced at the dining room door which stood open. Beyond it Simon was still in his study. ‘Come to the cottage,’ I whispered. ‘I must see you alone.’

Sarah was watching me. I saw a slight sneer flicker across her lips. ‘Go on, Tim. I shall speak to Simon. I know exactly what this is all about. He tried it once with me.’ She kissed her fingertips and laid them quickly on his lips. Then she went through the door and closed it behind her.

In the cool of the cottage Tim held me for a long time before he would let me speak. Then slowly he pushed me away, holding me at arm’s length. ‘I was only sketching her, you know. It never crossed my mind she was trying to make Davina jealous.’

His eyes held mine steadily and I knew that I believed him.

‘And Davina? Did she have any reason to be jealous?’ I asked softly.

‘What do you think?’ He was holding me tightly again and his lips on mine were urgent and demanding. It was a long time before I remembered my excuse for bringing him back to the villa.

‘He said if I told anyone he’d see you never got another commission, Tim,’ I whispered when I had finished telling him what had happened.

Tim laughed softly and the sound sent a shiver up my spine. ‘I think I’m prepared to risk that,’ he said.

Half an hour later I was packing when the door of our room burst open. It was Simon and his face was puce. ‘Get up,’ he said roughly and he bent to pull me from the bed where I was sitting. ‘You silly bitch. You thought I didn’t mean it? You thought you could double cross me, is that it?’ He yelled at me. I heard a door open in the distance and I guessed it was Davina’s.

‘What do you mean?’ I pulled away from him angrily. ‘Take your filthy hands off me!’

‘Simon, let her go!’ It was Davina in the doorway. Her voice had risen to a scream.

‘You told Sarah. She’s just confronted me with my plans downstairs. She thinks I’m going to cut her in.’ He gave an unpleasant laugh. ‘I told her to go and screw herself.’

I wrenched my hand free. ‘You’re mad. I haven’t told Sarah anything. I haven’t spoken to her. She must have guessed.’

‘I don’t care how she knew,’ his face was ugly. ‘But there’s nothing she can do. No one can, because it’s too late and my plans are always foolproof.’ He turned to look at his wife, then swung back to me. ‘If you want to stop your sister going to jail you are going to do as I say for the next few hours. That is all I ask.’

Davina and I stared at each other. Her face was white and pleading.

I subsided onto the bed. ‘What do you want me to do?’

He lifted my bag off the side table and wrenched it open to look inside. Then he threw it in my lap. ‘Get downstairs and wait for me in the car,’ he said.

In the hall the spray of fragrant white flowers still lay on the Bokhara rug where Sarah’s jacket had flicked it. I bent and picked it up then I went out and climbed into the blue Alfa Romeo which stood outside.

He took the hairpin bends of the mountain road with screaming tyres as we swooped down towards Florence. The glare off the white road reflected through the windscreen and I closed my eyes.

‘Where are we going?’ I asked wearily.

‘England.’ He did not look at me.

My eyes had flown open. ‘England!’

He chuckled suddenly. ‘I told Davina that if anyone wanted to see you alive again they had better keep very quiet about what they know.’ He glanced up at the driving mirror and smiled at himself. ‘You could say, cognata mia, that I am using you as a kind of hostage.’

A wave of nausea swept over me and I felt myself clinging to the sides of the seat. The palms of my hands were clammy with fear.

‘You’re going to kill me?’ I whispered in disbelief.

‘Of course not. I don’t want a murder charge hanging over me, Celia. I’m not that much of a fool. But they don’t know that do they!’ He laughed out loud. ‘And I know you will behave because of what will happen to your sister – and your beloved husband – if you don’t. You are merely an insurance policy, my dear. I have a plane waiting at San Giusto and like any good tourist you carry your passport in your handbag. So we should have no more problems.’

‘I don’t believe you. You’re kidnapping me!’

‘You are hardly a kid,’ the scorn in his voice flicked at me and I flinched. He was right. I was no kid, and I understood perfectly that I had no choice but to do everything he said.

The Learjet was waiting on the tarmac near the terminal buildings, a beautiful glittering bird, poised for take off. Within twenty minutes we were cleared and in the sky.

I remember little of that flight. Europe lay beneath a haze of thin cloud which flattened the countries below into a tableau of white. I did not know when we crossed the Alps; I did not know when we crossed the Channel, but suddenly we were losing altitude and Simon himself took the controls from his pilot as we began to circle southern England. Gatwick was wet and glistening beneath a summer shower and very crowded, but Simon took my arm and guided me through the formalities with the minimum of fuss. Then we were in the chauffeur-driven maroon BMW swooping down the lush green lanes of Sussex.