A Rage to Live (22 page)

During sex they often looked at themselves in the mirror opposite
Tommy’s bed. They were two very beautiful people. They liked to watch their lovemaking, their fucking, and most especially when they came together in mighty orgasms. They revelled in their erotic positions, when they were loving, when they were violent. They were adventurous lovers. Nothing was sacred when it came to their sexual fantasies which they played out with enthusiasm.

In foreign lands, places remote from the possibility of discovery, they calmed their fears and were bolder in their lust. They had debauched erotic nights with other men and women joining them in orgies, not so much because they needed them but because it was fun and diffused their obsessive love for each other. Such diversions, Tommy watching her being fucked by a strange man or woman, made it easier for him to accept that when they were not together they were having a normal sex life, she with other men, he with other women.

She came twice more before they came together in an intense, long and exquisite orgasm. And it was as it always was for them, as exciting as if it was the first time. They called out together and the sound of their passion pierced the quiet of the empty house. Nothing to hide, nothing to hold back. They collapsed into each other’s arms and dozed off, not for the first time during that day’s love tryst.

She woke him with kisses and whispers of love. How happy she was. He opened his eyes and pulled her closer to him and told her, ‘If only we could declare ourselves and we didn’t have to live double lives, we could be like this all the time.’

‘You have to stop thinking that way, Tommy.’

‘Do you never think of us openly together and what it would be like?’

‘Never. I don’t want to suffer the way you do.’

‘It’s not you who has agreed to marry someone else.’

‘You know that’s the only way we can be together forever. Tommy, I would die if I were to lose you.’

They kissed and he reassured her, ‘You won’t, I promise.’

‘You’ve waited too long. You must ask her. You love her, don’t you?’

‘Yes, you know I do, very much.’

‘She loves you too, Tommy. You’ll make beautiful babies.’ And tears came into her eyes. How many times, for how many years, had they talked about having a child together? They wanted a child, the fruit of their love, more than anything else on earth, but it couldn’t happen for them. ‘A child, yours and Cressida’s, it’s the only way for us to have children. She loves you, Tommy, it will be a better than good marriage. It will save us all. I don’t honestly know why you keep putting it off.’

He could see this conversation was disturbing her. The last thing he wanted. ‘I’m going to see her tonight, I’ll ask her then. Now just let’s
forget we even had this conversation.’

‘I love you, Tommy.’

He kissed her, and gathering her up in his arms, carried her into the bathroom. They drew the bath and stepped in together. They washed each other with a bath cream of almond oil and talked about their lives outside their love, the parties and people they knew, and all was well with them again. The outside world had been let in once more and they survived the transition from their closed world into a wider one.

They dressed and kissed but now their kisses were almost casual. They walked down the stairs together. He turned the keys in the locks and walked her down the stairs to the pavement. He watched her half running, half walking up the street away from him.

In the drawing-room, Tommy poured himself a large measure of malt whisky and, after plugging in the telephones, walked slowly up the stairs. He thought about what she had said. It was true. In the real world, where they didn’t exist as lovers, there was nothing for him to do but marry Cressida.

He did love Cressida, had loved her for many years, and did see her as the other woman in his life. He had given her many chances to run away from him and marry someone else. She had never even come close to finding someone she loved more than Tommy, or so she had declared.

He would ask her. And she would accept. And they would all have a better life for it. Tommy had always known, just as Cressida did, that they would marry.

‘Why don’t you let Daddy or Tommy help you? You can be so stubborn, Cressida. They work you like a slave in that office, and you never get any recognition. The practice gets all that.’

Cressida and Vicki were walking down Park Avenue. It was one of those ‘summer heat wave in New York’ rush hour evenings. Hot and humid temper-fraying weather, people looking weary rushing from their Upper East Side air-conditioned glass towers of work to the Upper East Side air-conditioned water holes which the chic and the in crowd frequented.

The flowers planted down the centre islands of the avenue were in full bloom, though even they seemed to be drooping with the heat. The buildings, old New York mingling with twentieth-century architecture, stood guard like majestic sentinels over the avenues of taste, mega money and power. They stood four square, on duty, seemingly to hold in check the buzz and excitement of the city that Cressida had come to accept was the most exciting metropolis in the world.

For a New England girl who had travelled extensively, it was a pretty
broad statement, but she did believe it and declared it often. She had learned to love New York. After Yale Graduate School, she had found a job in not one of the top, but one of the close to the top, architectural practices in the city. They were a firm of more than a hundred people who were busy all the time. Cressida had started as a very junior architect with the firm and was happy there. Not ambitious for her own personal advancement, she was content to remain in a junior position with a firm that designed such creative and interesting work. It was the body of people in the office, the way they worked together as one entity, that was so enjoyable to Cressida. It suited her personality, the stressless creativity that lack of true genius fosters. For every important skyscraper or multi-million-dollar house or commercial commission they designed, there was always something on the drafting tables less icon-making, less profitable, more charitable and rewarding to be worked on. People-problem architecture seemed to absorb most of Cressida’s time at the firm: a hospital in Luanda, a school in Nairobi, an airport in Buenos Aires, a low-income housing project in a slum area of Detroit, homeless accommodation in New York. Not the glamour jobs talked about in the upper-class social circuit Tommy and Vicki were plugged into.

‘Tommy is going to be furious you won’t come back with us. Byron tonight, work tomorrow. I can understand Byron, he’s your father. But the work! Really, Cressida, it does interfere with your life. A tweak of Daddy’s finger and you know he could get you into Philip Johnson’s office. And not as one of the lowly architects they use as glorified draughtsmen either, but as his assistant. You’d have so much more time to be with Tommy.’

‘I don’t want to work for Philip Johnson. I hate Philip Johnson’s architecture. He did one great thing, his glass house in Connecticut, and that was in the forties. He’s just been derivative ever since.’

‘Well, not exactly, Cressida.’

‘I positively hate his T & T building, it’s a cop out. Why would I want to work for him, Vicki?’

‘Fame and fortune, prestigious jobs, and to show how really talented you are. I know, Tommy knows, Daddy, Byron, even Mummy, but we can’t make you use your potential. You need a kick up the ass, Cressida, to get you going. A man like Philip could do that for you.’

‘We aren’t going to have this same old discussion, are we? Prestigious architectural offices that your dad can get me into hold no interest for me. I’m happy where I am.’

‘Daddy says a person is only as successful as their ambition allows.’

‘So what, Vicki?’

And the two women stopped in the middle of the pavement and
looked at each other. Smiles broke slowly over their faces and they began to laugh at each other. Cressida’s lack of ambition was always a little suspect to the high achieving Beacon-Phipps family.

‘Mummy says your lack of ambition is what holds you back from nailing Tommy as a husband.’

‘Mummy may be right.’

‘You know you’ve got to marry him, Cressy, nothing else will save him.’

‘Are you saying I’m what drives him to drink? I don’t think so, Vicki.’

‘Well, not exactly. I think I’m saying he’d be happier if you would, though. God, Cressy, he’s been chasing after you for years. I can’t imagine him married to anyone else.’

‘Neither can I.’

Vicki stopped and hugged her. ‘You
are
going to say yes?’

‘When he asks me. Satisfied?’

‘I sure am. When did you decide?’

‘Just now, as much to make you change the subject as to make us all happy,’ she teased.

A delighted Vicki slipped her arm through Cressida’s and they proceeded up the street. ‘What’s Byron doing in town this time of year? If he’s seeing you, it’s obviously without the dragon lady?’

‘He misses me, wants to spend some time here with me, so I’m going to stay the next few days with him. He’s taken a suite of rooms for us at the Plaza.’

For the remainder of the walk home, the two women spoke about the social scene on Martha’s Vineyard. Vicki was always a little embarrassed to talk about Byron when he surfaced away from New Cobham at the height of summer, his favourite time there, to visit with Cressida. Or to take her on some holiday when everyone knew it was because she was unwelcome at Hollihocks where her step-mother reigned supreme. So Vicki stayed clear of mentioning anything more about his being in New York.

The two women hurried up the stairs and Vicki slid the key into the lock. She looked at Cressida, and before she pushed the door open, told her friend, ‘You really should marry him, and soon, Cressida. It would be best.’

‘Best for whom, Vicki?’

‘For him, Cressida.’

‘Do you really think that would stop him from drinking?’

‘Let me put it this way. If you don’t marry Tommy soon, you won’t have a liver to marry.’

‘Don’t lay that on me, Vicki.’

‘Sorry, but I do worry about him. He loves you so much, and I know he wants to marry you.’

‘Tommy isn’t drinking over me. Tommy drinks because he likes it, the same way your mother does, and your dad for that matter. Vicki, rest easy. I haven’t changed my mind from Park Avenue to the front door.’

‘Just double checking.’ She smiled at Cressida and pushed the front door open.

Chapter 18

It was rare that any of Tommy’s friends merely dropped in to visit. Though the house was usually filled with friends coming and going, it was by invitation only. Everyone knew that his and Victoria’s home was a very private place. Between the time Tommy plugged in the telephones and Cressida and Vicki arrived home, the phone had been busy with callers, trying to confirm that Tommy was in town. That was how he’d been able to invite two of his friends, Bob Cracker and Bill Wean, over for a drink.

When Tommy heard his girlfriend and sister in the front hall, he turned to the two men and said, ‘A favour, guys, fifteen minutes. Then take Vicki to the Carlisle for drinks, and Cressida and I will meet you there.’

‘What’s up?’ asked Bob.

‘A little drama. Be a friend.’ Then he walked away from Bob and Bill to greet the two women. Vicki sensed that her brother had arranged their exit from the house. She made no objection to going off with the two men.

Cressida was nursing a drink, trying to find a way to tell Tommy she would not be going away with him. She did feel a certain disappointment herself, mostly because Tommy was being so very affectionate with her. Sometimes he wasn’t. She thought he looked particularly sexy and naughty, as if he was up to something. It reminded her of their evening in bed the night before. Tommy seemed somehow happier, more relaxed than he had been when he had kissed her goodbye earlier that morning. ‘Excuse me, I’ll be right back,’ he told her.

Cressida heard him bounding up the stairs. Alone now, she walked to the library’s windows overlooking the street. Tommy had a passion for books. That was something he shared with Cressida. She looked round the library. It smelled of leather, a faint musty scent from a carton of second-hand books, old bindings, aged paper, a fine cigar. Patchouli, Vicki’s perfume, Tommy’s sandalwood and lemon.

A silver tray littered with empty glasses. It always worried her, the empty glasses around the house. After years she had come to understand it would never change. At best Tommy’s drinking might be controlled.
Thoughts of Tommy were racing through her mind. The good and the bad things about him. Why now? she wondered. Obviously because of her conversation with Vicki who had always pushed the idea that Cressida should marry her brother. It was natural. Two women, the best of friends, who were more like sisters. Well, soon they would be sisters-in-law.

Something really had to be addressed, though. Tommy’s infidelity. Once they were committed as husband and wife it would have to stop. But then the question arose, would she be enough for him? A strange facet of their present relationship was that, as great as the sex was between them, she sensed at times she was never enough for him. Rarely could she walk away from his bed without an inkling of doubt that she made Tommy happy. Vicki and Cressida shared all their secrets, their most intimate thoughts, but two things Cressida had held back on: her sex life with Tommy and her love for Kane Chandler. Instinct always stopped her. The very thought of talking about those two things with Vicki made her as uncomfortable as keeping secrets from her best friend, the person she was closest to. What stopped her? Why not, when she really needed someone to talk out the anxiety her secrets caused her?

Cressida shrugged off thoughts of Tommy and other women, it was easier. Something to be dealt with if ever it became a problem for them. She spied a silver-framed photograph of the three of them, Cressida, Vicki and Tommy, one of her favourites. It had been taken in front of the Deux Magots, the cafe on the left bank in St Germaine, the day before Vicki and Tommy left Paris for Petra and left Cressida alone to discover the beauties of a Picasso painting in a window.

Memories of those four days with Kane Chandler flashed from the recesses of her mind now. She thought she had dispensed with them entirely, but obviously not. But she had taught herself how to block any such disturbing thoughts from her mind, rather than to wallow in them. That ability had taken a long time to cultivate.

For three years she had been traumatised by her first sexual experience. Once Kane vanished for the second time from her life, Cressida slipped back into sexual repression. For a girl with as strong a libido as she had, it was soul-destroying, heartbreaking even. But that was the past. Tommy had been there for her then, and was here for her now. It had taken him a long time but he had won her sexual trust, and she had finally given herself up to him. He had been wonderful. Tommy had brought her sexually back to life and in many ways made a damaged Cressida whole again.

He had made it easy for her to have other sexual encounters, small flings, and she did. Some were good, some were not. Cressida soon
understood that Tommy was better. Promiscuity never sat easy with her. It had at its best been something to try, something to get over with. She did not have a promiscuous nature and so settled into sex with Tommy and was content with that.

It was not a great love, not even a great passion she had for Tommy. But he would do – though she knew ‘would do’, didn’t make him Mr Right. She was Byron’s child, and had learned at the foot of the master what it was to be an existentialist. She lived in the moment, everything in the moment. The one time she had slipped away from her beliefs, when she’d tried to cling on to Kane when he was long gone, she’d lost herself, and for far too long. She and Tommy were very good at living in the moment, but was there enough love and commitment between them to live together in a marriage?

Cressida had that same rage to live and laugh and have a good time that Rosemary and Byron had shared, that her brothers had had. That was her background, how she was brought up, it was natural to her, not something that had to be worked on. It was what delivered her from ambition but allowed her to be competitive, a winner in the most civilised way. It was this very special characteristic of hers that made her great fun to be with for Vicki and Tommy, and all her friends. That always living in the moment was a perfect philosophy for someone with a rage to live. Happy and sad and all the things that a life can throw at you dealt with instantly, without thought of the past or the future. Now it was marriage that was being tossed in the ring. There seemed no point in agonising over it. She would deal with it as and when it happened.

The sound of Tommy’s voice broke into her thoughts. He was calling her from the top of the stairs. Cressida looked at her watch. It was seven-thirty. She would have to go up and tell him. He greeted her on the landing, took her in his arms and kissed her. ‘What was that for?’ she asked, not displeased by the kiss.

‘Just felt like kissing you.’

He took her by the hand and walked her into the bedroom where he climbed out of his shirt and disposed of his trousers. Naked, he was quite the Adonis. Cressida liked looking at him naked. He knew that, and she sensed that he wanted her to admire him. ‘This is unfair. You’re parading yourself for me. Not now, Tommy.’

He was always amused that his looks, especially when naked, excited lust in Cressida. She hid her eroticism so well. To look at her was, if one had a strongly libidinous nature as Tommy did, only to see a glimmer of the erotic lady in Cressida. He took her by the hand and laughingly said, ‘Later will do. Right now I want a quick bath and a change of clothes before we meet the others at the Carlisle.’

They walked together into the bathroom, she caressing his firm muscular bottom. It was a large room. An elegant black marble bath was set in the centre; there were white marble walls. He turned on the taps and the bath began to fill. Standing next to it, he took her in his arms. There was something very sexy about Cressida, something more than the physically erotic. She had a sensuous, laid back passion that was powerful for its stillness, seductive because once aroused there were no bounds to her lust. He did love her. Her hands moved over him, lovely caresses. She gathered his genitals into her hands and kissed them quite sweetly, lovingly, a kiss on his semi-erect penis. Cressida loved men, that was the thing about her, she had a basic love for the male sex.

She slapped him on the buttocks and told him, ‘You are a terrible tease. I shudder to think how many women have wept over you. How many will love you always as the man that got away. Now get in the bath and I’ll wash your back.’

That was a remark too close to home for Tommy. It reminded him of his love that could never be, how life had dealt the cards so that he would always be the man who had to get away. Cressida saw a shadow cross his face. His joy just slipping away. She was quick to ask, ‘Is something wrong?’

He pulled himself out of his moment of self-pity, smiled at Cressida and said as he sat on the edge of the bath and watched the water swirl into it, ‘Yes, I hate New York in the summer. This sticky weather gets to me. Only a madman stays in the city on a day like this.’

‘Or a poor man, or a working man, someone who likes this crazy city in this crazy weather. There are some, Tommy. Now get in the bath and I’ll wash your back.’

Cressida sat down on the wide rim of the marble and watched him while he dipped the large sponge into the cool water and squeezed it. The water flowed over his broad and hairy chest. He reached over and with the sponge dabbed first one of Cressida’s breasts and then the other. Her nipples showed through the white linen sleeveless dress she was wearing.

Cressida took the sponge from his hand and, after soaping it, washed his back. ‘Thanks, Tommy, now I’ll have to go and change.’

‘Well, in that case …’ And reaching round, he pulled her into the bath on top of him. He tried to hold her there but she was too quick for him. Cressida scrambled out of the bath, stepped out of her shoes, and discarded her dress. ‘That was a silly thing to do, Tommy.’

‘But fun.’

‘It could have been, but your timing is off. I have other things on my mind.’ She tousled his hair. ‘I was thinking of taking a quick shower
to cool off anyway.’ And she picked up the sponge and threw it at him. Mockingly she told him, ‘Just a little bit of fun.’

Cressida walked to the glass shower at the far side of the room. He watched her from the bath. She was quick, just as she’d said she would be.

Wrapped in a bath sheet, she returned to sit once again on the edge of the bath next to him. She kissed the top of his head. ‘We’re going to be late, Tommy, unless you get out of the bath
now
. I’m going to get dressed.’

‘Wear something gay, frivolous even.’

‘In this weather?’

‘An occasion, something you would wear for a special occasion on a hot summer evening in New York.’

‘Tommy, I’ve something to tell you. You’re going to be furious with me.’

‘I’ve got something to tell you and I hope you’re going to be happy.’

‘Who goes first?’ she asked.

‘I always like to get the bad news out of the way. You first, Cressy.’

Cressida didn’t know why she should feel so unnerved at having to tell Tommy he had made the trip to New York in vain if it was only to take her back with him to Martha’s Vineyard. ‘This is ridiculous.’

‘What’s ridiculous?’

‘I’m actually afraid to tell you I’m not returning with you to the island. I’m never afraid to tell you anything.’ Where was it? That look of gloom on Tommy’s face when something did not go as planned. It wasn’t there. Heartened, Cressida continued, ‘Byron has arrived. He’s taken a suite at the Plaza and I’ve promised to stay there with him while he’s in town.’

Tommy reached for the tumbler of whisky resting on the marble ledge of the bath. Cressida grabbed it before he could get to it. ‘Does every disappointment have to mean a drink?’ What had possessed her to say that? She felt dreadful that she had. ‘Jesus, Tommy, I’m sorry.’

‘Just give me the tumbler. And don’t do that. Never do that, Cressida. I don’t ever question your behaviour, I don’t expect you to question mine.’

He removed the tumbler from her hand and sipped from the glass, replacing it on the marble surround. There was a side of Tommy that Cressida had seen only rarely. It was a side that frightened her, and in some strange way made her respect him. Hard, ruthless, single – minded. This she imagined was what made him a legend on Wall Street. She did not miss a fleeting glimpse of that in his eyes. Thankfully it vanished as quickly as it appeared. She very nearly sighed with relief.

‘For the record, Cressy, I don’t drink out of disappointment any
more than I do for reward. I drink because I like it. Drink is part of me, what I am, what I do, a part of my psyche, one of my addictions. We all have addictions, but some aren’t as obvious as others. Of course I’m disappointed, but I would have made this trip to New York anyway. I missed you. I wanted to fuck you. And last night was great.

‘No one is more sympathetic to your stolen time with your father than I am. His stealing away from the dragon lady to be with you is something I approve of, you know that.’

‘I’m so relieved you’re not upset. It’s just that I do so hate letting you down.’ Cressida leaned over the bath and taking his hands in hers she held them, squeezed them, as she kissed his eyes, and then his lips, in a languid, loving way. ‘I don’t know what my life would be like without you, Tommy.’

‘Well, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about, Cressida.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Well, neither do I, actually. I had planned it all so very differently. More romantically maybe. But never mind.’ Now he leaned forward and kissed her on the lips. ‘No more games. I’ve said it all in a message in the bedroom. On your pillow. Go on, I want you to have it now.’

Tommy had purchased the ring nearly a year ago, at another time when he had thought he was ready to ask Cressida to marry him. A time when he was ready to ask and thought she might be ready to accept. He had been wrong. He hadn’t been ready to make the commitment. A square-cut, blue-white, twenty-two-carat diamond set in platinum and flanked by square-cut emeralds. Vicki and he had gone together to select the ring at Van Cleef & Arpels.

Tommy put the memory of that morning firmly out of his mind and rose from the bath. He dried himself and combed his hair, studying his face in the mirror over the black marble basin. There were moments when he loathed what he saw when he looked in the mirror. This was one of them. A man two-faced in nothing else in life but love. It was too late to ask how he had ever let it happen. Only one thing made his guilt easier to live with. He did love Cressida and did want to make a life with her. He would have wanted to even if it were not a solution for him and the other woman he loved and would never be able to marry.