Lace (43 page)

It was only because of those weeks of unrelenting, skilled tuition that he could now make this blond creature beneath his body attain heights of pleasure that she was unlikely to know with a
Western man. Few Western women had experienced such consideration as Abdullah could show, such lifting of mood from gentleness to passion to wild abandon and then softly back again. Abdullah loved
the primitive, musky smells of women, and he knew their bodies and their needs as he knew his own; he seemed uncannily able to read a woman’s mind and know exactly what she longed for at any
given moment—everything she had ever secretly desired—and he was the Nijinsky of cunnilingus. Abdullah was completely, naturally uninhibited, and so his women felt equally abandoned,
which was generally what made the difference between how they felt with their stiff British husbands and how they felt about the breathless sensuality of Abdullah’s body, which summoned up
such erotic response to what he murmured in their ears. He knew that speech was an important part of seduction.

Prince Abdullah did not find it difficult to use Western women as his means of revenge upon Western men; he loved women as some men love horses. In almost every female he found something to
admire and desire; he loved their softness, their elusiveness, their laughter. He loved small girls and big, voluptuous ones, slim bodies and rounded chubby ones; he loved dark silky hair and short
blond curls; he loved little, firm, high breasts and low, voluptuous breasts like melons; he loved slim waists, but he also loved little rounded stomachs, big rounded buttocks and thighs like soft
pillows. He loved the excitement that he could summon up in that delicious, warm, sensual flesh, to see some beauty writhing out of control at his command, responding in a frenzy to his light, sure
touch, while Abdullah, by contrast, stayed in complete possession of himself and could remain so for hours. He gave many women that romantic bliss that as schoolgirls they had dreamed of; he gave a
few women the sort of unrestrained passion of which they had never
dared
to dream. He captivated women with his fierce, proud face, his lean, well-exercised body, and his aura of sexuality,
wild as that of a stallion. Added to which, by the time he left Sandhurst, Abdullah had the carriage and savoir faire of a much older man as well as the invisible assurance provided by money and
power.

However, to be loved by Abdullah was not always a bed of roses, although sheafs of roses were, in fact, sent three times a day to his current lady. Abdullah always made it clear to all his women
that, although at that moment he was completely at her command, there could be no permanent future for her in his life. He would whisper this regretfully, with heartbreaking sorrow, as if he
couldn’t really bear to speak of it, but felt it only honourable to say before he bent again to the distraction of her breasts. So not one woman could say that he had in any way misled her,
although he might easily exasperate, hurt or anger her when he suddenly disappeared. No woman could say he had deceived or jilted her, or dropped her or left her, because he never really had. He
hated saying good-bye to a woman; he always liked to feel that he was joined to them by an invisible silken thread that he could, if necessary, gently tug. After being loved by Abdullah, no woman
ever remembered him with anger or remorse—only with nostalgia, a slight smile or a sigh and the memory of having been magically charmed. It was as if he had just appeared one night for a
brief moment. Then—equally suddenly—he wasn’t there anymore and the wonderful nights were gone.

But the memories were unforgettable, if only because they were unlikely to be repeated. Abdullah, murmuring soothing words of flattery and love, encouraged most women to behave in a more
voluptuously agile manner than they had ever thought possible as he led them swiftly through an erotic crash course, which culminated in his sensuous pièce de résistance. With silken
cords he would bind the wrists of the more adventurous ones to the bedhead and then he would dip one golden hand—his skin wasn’t very dark, just a permanent sun-bronzed tone—into
the bowl of golden fish that always seemed to be at his bedside. Abdullah would quickly scoop out one little fish and swiftly push the wriggling creature into the girl. At this point, she generally
stiffened and shrieked with surprise, but Abdullah threw his body on top of hers and held her hard against the mattress until she relaxed and was able to enjoy the strange erotic sensations as she
felt the little fish move inside her warm body. As soon as the girl started to groan with pleasure, Abdullah would slide down her body and—with great dexterity—he would languorously
suck out the goldfish.

Now, as the present blonde writhed beneath Abdullah’s body and her harsh little shrieks grew louder, his aide-de-camp was calling him through the ornate doors of the Dorchester Hotel.
“Your Highness, Sire. The telephone, Sire. The prime minister, Sire.”

Abdullah threw his head back and growled. Suliman was supposed to see that no telephones disturbed him, especially not in the late afternoon.

“An emergency, Your Highness.”

Quick as a cat, Abdullah was off the bed and, in an instinctive reflex action, had grabbed his gun before the woman on the bed realised what was happening. She lifted herself on her elbows, as
Abdullah backed toward the telephone, carefully lifted the receiver and had a short conversation in guttural Arabic.

Abdullah carefully replaced the receiver. In the dim light of dusk, he looked alert, wary and very upset. Suddenly the woman on the bed realised that although he was scowling fiercely at her, he
had forgotten that she was there.

“Your Highness,” she said, uncertainly. There hadn’t been time to get on first-name terms.

He blinked and looked thoughtful. “Not Your Highness,” he said, “Your Majesty.”

Damn, the tousled blonde thought as Abdullah strode naked to the door. Damn, damn,
damn!

P
AGAN WAS SITTING
up in bed and drinking her morning mango juice, when Robert threw the morning newspaper at her and said, “That wog
boyfriend of yours is now in the hot seat.” The headline read,
Young Warrior King Ascends Throne.

Pagan said nothing until Robert had left for the office, then she went to the cocktail cabinet, took out a bottle of vodka and climbed back into bed with it. In 1954, after three years of
marriage, her relationship with her husband had become one of polite, cold hate. Pagan was no longer such a good business asset. In fact, she was carelessly drunk quite a lot of the time.

The next morning, Pagan woke to see Robert, his head propped on one arm, looking at her from the next pillow with such venom that she felt frightened. Suddenly she realised that she’d
always been a little frightened of him. She faced the truth—she had made a dreadful mistake; she’d married a pompous ass with an imposing exterior. Inflated by his own self-importance,
Robert was as empty on the inside as a blown-up carnival balloon.

“You’re thinking about that black bastard as usual,
aren’t
you?” Robert threw the sheets back from the bed with cold fury and, still glaring at her with hate,
roughly yanked at the shoulder strap of her topaz silk nightgown. As Pagan flinched away from him, Robert gave a strange little hiss, tore the silk from her breasts and raped her.

She cried out as she tried to push him away from her, but his fingers only dug harder into her breasts. Afterward, she saw a look of satisfaction on his face, of power and cruelty. She realised
he had enjoyed hurting her and would do so again. He had become her intimate enemy.

After he had left the room to saunter to the terrace for his impeccably served breakfast, Pagan staggered into the bathroom. Silk strips fluttered from her body, and in the mirror she saw
fingermarks on her breasts. Shuddering, she ran a warm bath and lowered herself into the water. With a wet hand she carefully lifted the telephone and dialed the airport.

Leaving behind the pale blue Rolls—later much regretted for its trade-in value—Pagan caught the next plane to London.

Pagan’s mother was appalled, but not surprised, to see her daughter. A cablegram had arrived for Pagan the day before and Mrs. Trelawney had opened it, thinking her
daughter still in Egypt.

Pagan scowled as she read it. “He makes it sound as if I’d been sacked for incompetence.”

“Do you mind explaining what happened?”

“Darling Ma, couldn’t we have a drink first? It’s been eight hours on the train you know.” Pagan’s mother sniffed, took a step closer and sniffed again. “Yes,
I know, I had a nip or two on the train. Medicinal. And consoling. So
cold
here after Cairo. And I was a tiny bit disappointed that you didn’t meet me at the airport. Didn’t you
get my cable?”

“Yes, darling, but I could hardly just disappear and leave Selma on her own for two days; one has one’s responsibilities. And after all, you’re not a child, you only had to
take a cab from the airport to Paddington Station. How long do you think you’ll be here?”

“Darling, I’ve come
home. Here
. Trelawney is my home. I’m going to stay here in blissful Cornwall.”

There was a pause, then her mother walked toward a wall-hung corner cupboard. “I think we both need a drink.”

She poured two glasses of Amontillado sherry. “We’re full at the moment,” she said, after a moment of silence. “There isn’t a spare guest bedroom, but one of the
servant’s bedrooms is vacant. It’s on the top floor of the east wing.”

“You mean that utterly grim
attic
?”

“Well, darling, you must admit your arrival is unexpected. We didn’t know you were coming and we’re fully booked up three months in advance; doing quite well since the new
hydrotherapy tank was installed. Goodness, you finished that quickly, darling, are you sure you want another?”

Pagan was intrigued by the change in her mother. She and Selma wore crisp, white uniforms and called themselves the Executive Director and the Dietetic Consultant. They spoke
in low, soothing murmurs, even when no one else was present. Mrs. Trelawney wore no makeup, sported a large pair of tortoiseshell spectacles, and had taken up yoga.

After four nights, during which Pagan slept in a small servant’s bedroom, Mrs. Trelawney said, “I’ve talked things over with Selma and when it’s free we’re prepared
to let you have one of the guest rooms—the housekeeper’s old room I thought. But you’ll have to behave. You know what I mean. No drink, darling. Not
one
, tiny, hidden
bottle. You know that I can’t risk it.”

Pagan no longer wanted to live at Trelawney, where strangers in dressing gowns drifted down the overheated passages or sipped herbal tea in the conservatory. She had decided to move into a
gamekeeper’s abandoned cottage about a mile from the house. It nestled in a dip in the woods surrounded by golden azalea bushes. Mrs. Trelawney had intended to convert the old cottage into a
luxury annex suite, but when she said, “Impossible, darling, I’m afraid” Pagan looked at her coldly and said, “Darling, please remember that Trelawney belongs to
me
.”

The gray stone cottage was furnished with some castoffs from the big house, and Mrs. Hocken came once a week to clean up. “What you want is a bit of company, Miss Pagan,” she offered
one morning, leaning on her broom. “A nice cat or a dog, Mrs. Tregerick was telling me since her Jim passed on there’s not a body to exercise their dog, a sheep dog ’tis, no harm
in having a look at ’un.”

Buster was black and white, shaggy and the size of an armchair. Together they kept the cottage in a state of chaos—it smelled permanently of wet dog. Every day Buster took Pagan for a
walk, nearly pulling her arm out of its socket as he strained at the leash. Buster meant that Pagan didn’t stay alone in the cottage all day, sprawled on her chintz-covered lump of a sofa
whose sagging springs creaked as she reached for the vodka bottle.

She felt bitter and frightened—a failure. How and where had she gone so wrong? Could someone else have made Robert happy? Should she have tried longer, harder? It took more energy than she
could muster to think it over again and what was the point? It would all end badly anyway. Better to stay home with her darling Buster and her vodka and blot out the loveless mess.

One morning Mrs. Trelawney walked over to the cottage to find Pagan sitting on the kitchen floor wearing gum boots and a pair of old riding breeches and nothing else. She had been eating baked
beans laced with vodka out of the dog bowl and could barely manage to lift the spoon to her mouth. She flung the spoon at her mother.

“Pagan! Pull yourself together!”

“People only say that when you can’t.”

Pagan’s mother suggested she might like to talk with the clinic doctor, who was able to help people with unfortunate addiction problems.

“It’s a bit bloody late to start being interested in
me
,” Pagan shouted.

Pagan had arrived in Britain with only a hundred and fifty-six pounds cash, all that had remained in her account at the Ottoman Bank. After two months in Britain, this had been
reduced to seventeen shillings and four pence, so Pagan decided to tackle her mother about funds. She waited until evening to walk up to Trelawney: after six o’clock her mother had no reason
to give that sharp, meaningful sniff.

Mrs. Trelawney was checking diet sheets at her desk in the study. “Won’t be five minutes, darling,” she murmured, peering over her tortoiseshell rims. “Help yourself to .
. .” But Pagan was already pouring a gin and tonic.

“Darling, haven’t you any
dresses?
Since you arrived I’ve only seen you in wellies and jeans.”

“Well, Ma, it’s such a divine change from Cairo. Wearing clothes
there
was practically a full-time career, one was always having to change. Frantically boring. Anyway, I
haven’t any money to spend on clothes, which is what I’d like to talk to you about.”