I looked at Angelina for a reaction but she did not seem to have twigged that I would remember. The name had only stuck because of the eponymous song. In Angelina’s mind, Eloise would be connected with a lot more than Barry Ryan’s 1968 hit and a day at the races.
I forced my attention back to Charlie’s summing-up.
‘Grace was going to be separated from one of us. We could have fought for years and it would probably have still gone the way it went, with God knows how much psychological and financial damage. This way we got it sorted quickly, and Angelina and I were able to get on with our lives.’ He looked at Angelina. ‘So that’s the story.’
Charlie drained his glass. Angelina took another slug from hers.
‘Plenty of time to finish these,’ Charlie said, indicating the open bottles. ‘Sorry to bore you with our reminiscences. And my heartless pragmatism. It must be your turn, but you’re probably knackered.’
I was certainly feeling the effects of alcohol. I got up, and Angelina gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek. ‘Sleep well.’
The house at night was dead quiet, so I heard the footsteps before the light went on in the hallway. I briefly made out a shape through the frosted glass door before it opened to reveal Angelina wearing a transparent red negligee that was as short as it could be without being pointless. She was holding two brandy balloons and a bottle. If this was her idea of a middle-aged man’s erotic fantasy, she had got it pretty right.
I sat up against the bedhead, speechless. The clock showed just after midnight. Angelina hesitated for a moment, looking, I guessed, for my reaction, then walked over to me, poured two glasses and put the bottle on the bedside cabinet. Just what I needed—another drink. But the cognac—not to mention the costume, which was a long way from what she had worn in her twenties, or what the average married woman might wear to bed in her forties—seemed to be more for theatrical effect.
The choreographed performance was the opposite of the afternoon’s impulsiveness, but the slight pause to summon her nerve took me straight back to the bar in 1989 and her taking on ‘Because the Night’. This was the woman I had fallen in love with, standing beside the bed, taking a risk, waiting for my approval—and for me to make the next move.
I was torn. I wanted to pull her into me and finish what we had started. The desire was almost overwhelming. Presidents have risked impeachment for less.
But there was Charlie. If he saw me as a threat, then he had played me masterfully. I would hate myself in the morning. And, practically, the consequences of him not being asleep, or waking and finding his wife missing, were too horrible to contemplate.
‘Charlie’s asleep,’ she said in response to the unasked question. ‘He’s jet-lagged.’
‘Are you sure you know what you’re doing?’
‘I’m very sure. When you see St Peter, and he knows everything, he’s going to let you in. I promise.’
‘I thought there was a commandment specifically about this.’
‘I wasn’t being literal. I’m thinking of a secular St Peter.’
‘Right.’
She leaned over and kissed me, softly. ‘Relax.’
I couldn’t, but in the spirit of the game I slipped my hands under her top, and her argument began to feel remarkably persuasive. Then there was a creak, possibly from upstairs. We both froze, then Angelina pulled away. She must have decided that discretion was the better part of infidelity, especially after the scare earlier in the day.
She took a few more moments to kiss me several times on the lips.
‘Night, Dooglas.’
I would not be getting any answers to my questions tonight.
25
I woke to light filtering through my window and Charlie knocking on the door.
‘Tea or coffee, mate?’
‘Thanks, I’ll have a shower first.’
‘Can I come in?’
Why not? Everybody else does. ‘Yeah. I’m still in bed.’
Charlie opened the door, wearing slacks and an untucked shirt, and I enjoyed a moment of relief that circumstances, if not self-control, had kept me from having sex with his wife. He gave me a quick run-down on the bathroom protocol—plenty of hot water for ordinary mortals, but get in before The Princess uses it all.
It was strange, and intimate, sharing a bathroom with Angelina again. I could not help myself—I browsed the cabinet, and found nothing surprising. They let the house out to others, so this was a communal cupboard, but there were a couple of hair ties on the vanity unit. I picked one up and twirled it between my fingers. I had almost taken Angelina against the door the previous day, kissed her virtually naked that night and here I was fetishising a bobble. I was careful to go easy on the hot water.
When I joined Charlie in the kitchen, he was working the espresso machine.
‘Have to bring the beans from Melbourne,’ he said. ‘Local stuff’s crap.’
He fashioned a Starbucks-style confection with frothed milk, cinnamon and a sprinkling of chocolate and took it upstairs.
‘Got time for a stroll to the village?’ he asked when he returned.
There were advantages in saying no. Angelina seemed intent on consummating our cyber-relationship, and I guessed that the previous evening’s visit was to have been the moment, until Charlie’s detour to the shops had presented an earlier opportunity. After two near misses, I had little doubt about what would happen if I passed up the walk.
But I wanted to make my own decision and Charlie was part of that. I needed to know what was happening between him and Angelina. It was one thing to rescue her from a broken marriage, as I had failed to do before. It was another to be the cause of it.
It was a pleasant downhill walk along the narrow road in the early morning sunshine, past concrete water troughs, freshly mown fields with hay bales scattered around and a couple of donkeys sticking their heads over the rock wall. The village was less prissily perfect than its English counterpart would have been: a few houses in ruins; blackberry vines tangled over rock walls; shutters painted in loud pinks, purples and greens.
Charlie filled the time with a story about tenants who had incurred the wrath of the locals through various transgressions, the most serious of which was not that they had put glass in the general waste bin but that the bottles were from Bordeaux.
On a Monday in rural France, only the supermarket was open. Charlie bought croissants, a baguette and a small wooden box of oysters, using rudimentary French. I had done an exchange program at school, and my French was stronger, but the middle-aged woman behind the counter, who gave me a careful appraisal before attending to Charlie, seemed to be able to follow what he was saying.
‘Gilles’ girlfriend,’ said Charlie when we were out the door.
He puffed a bit going up the hill. He was carrying a lot of weight, and apparently had no intention of losing it. He had bought five ‘pure butter’ croissants, each as big as a woman’s size-six shoe, for three people.
‘I always walk to the village unless it’s raining,’ he said. ‘Sometimes even then. Got to keep in shape.’ He laughed.
I spent a quiet morning in my bedroom setting up a database restructure via an adequate internet link, sitting against the pillows with my computer on my lap. Angelina put her head in a couple of times and made a fuss about getting me a coffee. I could hear Charlie doing the actual barista work.
When she came back with the coffee I smiled, and she said, ‘What?’
I let her answer her own question.
‘You think I’m a prima donna because Charlie made the coffee.’
‘Now that you mention it…’
‘Two things: first, I’m on holiday, and second, Charlie loves doing it. Try touching the coffee machine and you’ll find out. And if he wants to show you that I expect to have everything done for me…’ She shrugged her shoulders.
‘He doesn’t always do the shopping?’
She laughed. ‘Food only.’
Then, from the doorway: ‘I
don’t want to keep going on, but…what I said last night. You can trust me. I mean, if that’s what you want. You won’t be doing anything terrible.’
‘It’d help if you elaborated a bit. So I could make my own decision.’
‘I know.’
‘One question. Simple question. Are you and Charlie in trouble? Your marriage?’
She hesitated before answering. ‘We’ve got some issues. I don’t know what’s going to happen. But I’m not looking for a new relationship.’
I just wanted someone in my corner. We’re trying to work it out. No relationship, no falling in love, nobody getting hurt.
Around noon, I walked to the living room to find Charlie and Angelina both doing what I had been doing—typing away on laptops.
‘What are you working on?’ I asked Angelina.
‘Just work.’
It seemed strange after four months of recent communication and an evening of being a guest in her house to ask, ‘What do you do?’
‘At the moment, I’m writing an article. I do a newspaper column—mainly women’s issues. I’m a human-rights lawyer. For the last three years I’ve been an Equal Opportunity Commissioner.’
Right. Charlie Acheson is on the internet for scoring a try against New Zealand. Angelina Brown is an Equal Opportunity Commissioner. I could only hope that the Elephant and Castle had put up last week’s win.
After lunch, a mercifully light smoked-salmon omelette, I joined them in the living room, working from one of the leather armchairs as they sat at right angles to each other at the dining table. I had a pleasant and distracting view of Angelina, who was in blue jeans, a loose knitted top that fell off one shoulder and bare feet. She caught me looking a couple of times and smiled.
The revelation of her professional persona, unexpected as it was, had only enhanced her appeal. I was enjoying the feeling: The beautiful, successful woman I once knew is still a beautiful, successful woman—and she still wants me.
Around 6 p.m. the legendary sportsman, barista and occasional physician packed up his laptop and adjourned to the kitchen. I had finished my own work, and as soon as Charlie left the room Angelina was over by my chair, bending down to kiss me. It was going to be hard to survive a week of this.
Charlie called from the kitchen. ‘What happened to the lemons?’
‘Margarita,’ Angelina shouted back. ‘Remember?’
‘I thought there were a couple left.’
‘I haven’t touched them.’
‘No worries. I’ll go out and get some.’
This was going to be my last chance to say no. Angelina kissing me did nothing for rational decision-making, but my gut told me to trust her. She had given me no reason not to.
It took about fifteen seconds for the outside door to click closed, about five to run to my bedroom and about ten for Angelina to have her jeans and top off. After two frustrated attempts in the space of twenty-four hours, desire had gone up to eleven. I pushed her back onto the unmade bed, forcefully enough to shift it a couple of feet across the floor. She was tugging at the buttons of my shirt, and I was kicking my shoes off with the laces still done up. It was going to be over in about a minute. Awopbopaloobop alopbamboom.
I managed to pull back. We were not in our twenties anymore, at a party in someone else’s bedroom. There was no rush.
I kissed Angelina softly, on her lips and then her neck, moving down her body, taking my time as the late-afternoon sunshine bathed the room.
Long ago, I listened to Billie Holiday singing ‘Summertime’ —not once but many times—and I thought it was as close to a perfect rendition as could be imagined: Lady Day laying out the melody in all its languid easy-living elegance, the restraint of her delivery only accentuating the feeling behind it.
Years later, I listened to Janis Joplin’s live performance. It’s a screaming, primal blues, the melody no more than a point of departure, but still, unmistakably, the same song. My familiarity with Billie Holiday’s version only made Joplin’s reinterpretation more powerful and in turn opened my mind to nuances I had missed in the original. Having experienced both versions, I knew the song in a way I could never have if I had heard only one.
Making love to Angelina felt different and familiar at the same time. Her body had changed, as had mine. She was leaner and softer and stronger—and less inhibited, turning me on to my back, then rolling us over again, urging me on, digging her fingers into me as she hovered on the brink of an orgasm she couldn’t quite reach.
Finally, I picked her up, stood in the middle of the room with her legs wrapped around me and said—in her ear but not in a whisper—‘You nearly got caught yesterday. The door was unlocked and he could have opened it…he did open it… he walked in…’ and she half-moaned and half-screamed, and everything fell away—the room, the fantasy, time—and it was just the two of us.
I lowered her onto the bed, both of us slippery with sweat. As we separated and I became aware of my surroundings again, there was a sound—half-pop, half-hiss—from behind me. I turned my head and saw Charlie, his frame filling the doorway.
How long had he been standing there? I was flooded with a feeling I had not had since I was a kid: I’ve done something really stupid and I’m going to pay for it. I thought there was a real chance he was about to kill me.
He was wearing an apron that read Welcome to My Kitchen. Now Get the Hell Out. But instead of a kitchen knife, he was holding an open champagne bottle in one hand and three glasses in the other.
Clearly savouring his advantage, he filled a glass, ambled over and handed it to me. I had no choice but to take it. Naked. He poured a second and gave it to his wife, who had risen from the bed, picked up her top and sat down again behind me.
Angelina found her voice and made a feeble attempt to wrest back the initiative. ‘You said you were going to get lemons.’
‘I did. The lemon tree’s not a long walk.’
Charlie poured a glass of champagne for himself.
‘Drappier Grande Sendrée rosé 2002,’ he said, smiling. ‘Sendrée spelled with an S, an historical error that found its way into the land register. Means cinders. You probably know that. Quite distinct notes of cherry and spice. Not much made, but we know the winemaker.’
It was the cheeseburger scene from Pulp Fiction. When he’s finished discussing the champagne, he’s going to kill me.
‘So,’ he continued, ‘dinner will be at seven. We’re having Belon oysters, with the essential squeeze of lemon, followed by foie gras and guinea fowl with wild mushrooms.’ He looked at Angelina. ‘And for dessert, tarte aux pommes.’
He took a sip of champagne, surveying the room—clothes on the floor, the bed askew, his wife and her lover.
‘And now you’ll both be able to concentrate on the food and wine.’
He turned and walked out, leaving the door open behind him.
Angelina looked at me. I looked at Angelina, naked and holding a glass of pink champagne. As was I, though my shaking hand had spilled half of it.
Was there a trace of sadness in her eyes, an echo of that night in the upstairs bedroom almost a quarter of a century ago? If there was, it disappeared quickly.
She stood up, collected her clothes into a bundle, then clinked her glass against mine.
‘See you at seven,’ she said.
26
As I sat on my bed, trying to recover enough composure to reflect on what had happened, a joke popped into my mind.
An Englishman, an Australian and a Frenchman are discussing the meaning of sangfroid. The Englishman tells a story about a man who catches his wife in bed with her French lover. ‘Make yourselves decent, and I’ll speak to you in the drawing room,’ he says. That, says, the Englishman, is sangfroid.
The Australian responds with a similar story, but the antipodean husband adds, ‘Finish what you’re doing first.’ That, he says, is true sangfroid.
‘Ah,’ says the Frenchman, ‘my story ees the same, but when ze Australian husband
says, “Finish what you’re doing,” the Frenchman does. That, mon ami, is sangfroid.’
Charlie may have demonstrated the Australian version of sangfroid, but that story was a joke. Real people—even people who can make an instant decision to give up custody of their daughter and take advantage of the resulting shock to grab the wine cellar—have been known to commit homicide in such circumstances. Nobody can stumble upon their partner screwing someone else and act unsurprised. He must have known or suspected what he was going to find before he walked in.
Whether or not he had caught the whole performance, the timing suggested that he had waited until we were finished to announce his presence. There was another thing. Surely Angelina knew there was a lemon tree. Had her trust me—it will be all right extended to this scenario? Had she anticipated it? Or even set it up?
The one thing I did know was that Charlie—and obviously Angelina—seemed prepared to accommodate what the late Princess Diana had called a third person in the marriage. Perhaps just the once. Perhaps not.
Dinner was, unsurprisingly, excellent. Angelina was in a sleeveless short dress, a light-blue one, set off by a ring with a sapphire the size of the last joint of my middle finger.
Gilles, comically small next to Charlie, joined us in the courtyard for oysters, shucked by our host at the cost of a gash between his thumb and forefinger. Gilles spoke as much English as Charlie and Angelina spoke French. I let him know that I understood him without making a show of it, and he gave me a tour of the garden on the other side of the house so we could chat.
I needed the time out. Angelina seemed to be taking the pre-dinner drama in her stride. On reflection, I thought it unlikely she had been party to a set-up—her initial response had mirrored mine and I knew her—but she was better placed to make sense of her husband’s response than I was. Charlie, at least, was playing some sort of game. I felt as his ex-wife must have done: what was the catch?
Gilles told me that Angelina and Charlie had installed him in the apartment above the garage in exchange for care-taking, gardening and the occasional use of his car. He spoke well of them, as was to be expected, with just a gentle dig at their eating oysters in June and drinking wine from outside the region.