Authors: Roberta Latow
Only in the Night
Only in the Night
Roberta Latow
Copyright © 1997 by Roberta Latow
For Sarah and Leah –
friends who
have
stayed the course
Only in the night,
when kisses worship and
caressing hands liberate exquisite limbs,
passion burns brighter, hotter than the sun,
does my lust allow me to lay down my life for him.
Perfect bliss, the fulfilment of love.
The Epic of Artimadon
It was a white horse, looking very much like a charger that Wellington might have ridden into battle, that David might have painted, or Napoleon might have commanded from: the muscled neck and mane of white hair, the swishing tail, the way he moved. He challenged her command with a spirit all his own that might be tamed but never broken; rearing up on his hind legs, straining at the bit, fiercely shaking his head from side to side. Mistress of the power and dash he displayed, his rider raced him through the olive groves ranging steeply down the hill. She wore no hat and her blonde hair gleamed like silver in the hot sun as she put the stallion through his paces, skilfully weaving him in and out of the trees. She was going hell-bent for the stream running through the bottom of the valley. Other than the rider and her horse among the trees there was nothing but emptiness, silence, a very special kind of loneliness; in the distance hill after hill, shading from green to pale blue as the sun moved across Tuscany under a soft sky bathed in streaks of yellow light.
‘Sometimes I have the feeling that nobody looks at this view properly except us, Philip. The pointed green hills broken by poplars and cypresses; the ruddy farmhouses and patchwork of fields. The rushing streams,
and nightingales that sing, the fruit trees swaying in a soft warm breeze and the scent of orange, lemon and peach blossom riding on the wind. The pale rider … They seem to be there only for our eyes.’
‘That’s a vain thought.’
‘Yes, I suppose it is.’
‘A self-centred fantasy that I too sometimes have. Most people probably do so, at one time or another. At least, the majority of the foreigners who come to Tuscany. And why do you call her the pale rider?’
‘There is something ghost-like about her. Every time I see her riding off into the distance, I wonder about her. What sort of a life she leads. I imagine her as a woman with a past. There’s something in the way she rides … a passion, a love of her sport and her animal, a love of herself. Is she young? Is she old? I can’t tell from this distance. She’s intriguing and so are those rides she takes. They seem to have a purpose – like riding on the wind, a race for the moon.’
Horse and rider were out of sight now and Philip stared out across the landscape. It was always the same for him, for both of them actually. At first fascination with the beauty and the people they knew in Tuscany: the wealthy and aristocratic English who had settled here in grand palazzos of stone or marble at the end of long avenues of cypresses amid formal gardens, and those artists and writers who had settled in houses such as theirs – large and elegant farm or manor houses or outbuildings saved by renovation that did nothing to distract from the beauty of the Tuscan hills. But that fascination would gradually be overtaken by an ennui that can descend on those who choose to live in beautiful places in the sun.
It was ennui that always drove them back to London. On the rare occasion when, as now, Philip was aware that he was content and seduced once more by one lovely day following another, and when there was nothing more to be seen or thought about but the texture of a landscape where nothing was vile, he was seized by a need to bolt back to England. Could it be, he wondered, that he couldn’t bear to live too long in such perfection? And why couldn’t he? What was missing from his life that he could not be content with the sublime? He broke into his own thoughts when he announced to Amanda, ‘She must be Italian.’
‘The pale rider?’
‘Yes.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘Just the way she is part of the landscape. I know why you’re fascinated by her. It’s because she is the Tuscany that has eluded us, that keeps us foreigners in a foreign land.’
Amanda wanted to ask, What are you talking about? But she couldn’t because she did understand what he was saying. They loved their house and Tuscany and their friends who had houses and lives going for them in the area. But their years of meeting the same people, seeing the same paintings and sculptures in Florence, the architecture in Siena, the sunlight from San Miniato; the endless excursions to see yet another church or painting or fresco, to entertain themselves or one of their many house guests, like conversation with the other foreign residents that had declined into nothing more than gossip, seemed to be sapping rather than enhancing their lives.
It now occurred to Amanda that in the fifteen years
that Philip and she had had the house, which was their pride and joy and even now the place they would rather be than anywhere else in the world, they had not been befriended by any of their Italian neighbours. They had, in fact, been invited into the home of a local only twice. Where had they been? What had they been doing? And all the time they had thought they had been
living
in Tuscany.
It wasn’t that she and Philip did not appreciate or that they took for granted every buttercup, wild flower, moment of scent or silence in Tuscany, they did; they just didn’t give themselves up to those things any more than they gave themselves up totally to anything. The pale rider did, and that was why she fascinated Amanda. She appeared to be a woman at one with the world and every little thing in it. Amanda felt suddenly as if she had been missing something.
She unwound the patterned sarong wrapped around her body and dropped it on the marble floor as she walked from the terrace wall where she had been sitting towards Philip, lying on a wooden chaise. Naked save for her wide-brimmed straw hat and the antique ivory bracelets on her wrists, she looked sensationally sexy. Amanda had a glorious body, the sort of female figure that demanded sexual attention, adventures in the erotic. She and Philip were well aware of what they were to each other sexually, when sex was love. Were they perhaps emotionally crippled people whose sex life was the glue that kept them together? A question never pondered; a thought kept secret from friends, even themselves.
Philip rose from the chaise. Going to her, he removed her hat and spun it like a frisbee across the
terrace. Her skin was warm from the afternoon sun and she smelled of jasmine and roses. They gazed into each other’s eyes and he licked her nipples as he undressed. She had chosen her moment. The housekeeper was in the village, the gardener had long since gone, the maid was with the housekeeper, their house guests in Perugia for the night. Philip knew his lover well, recognised the hunger and recklessness in her eyes. She wanted to be riven and riven hard; she would be difficult to bring to orgasm and they would go to great extremes to achieve it for her. She would submit to anything, everything, sexual he would demand that might excite them and bring them both to their moment of ecstasy. He liked sex with her best when she was like this. It brought the dark side of their natures to the surface and gave their well-ordered and conservative lives a momentary fillip. Love would come into their sexual extravaganza only after the event. That was how it was with them, and how it always would be, and neither of them had ever been unhappy about that.
Did they know they were jealous of the pale rider? That what she had, that enigmatic something missing from their lives, was what they wanted? Yes, they knew, but buried it deep in their psyches with every thrust Amanda received from Philip, every pulsating, throbbing sensation he felt. The pleasure of sexual intercourse, the feeling of being whole and connected for a few minutes with another human being in the most intimate of acts – such bliss triggers forgetfulness.
It was several days later. Philip had gone to take their house guests to the airport in Pisa and Amanda was in the large, cool kitchen, sitting at the pine table, white
and smooth from years of scrubbing with salt. She was shelling peas when Vittorio appeared at the open door. With the sun behind him, it took her some time to realise who it was. When she did, she invited him in for a cool drink. She liked the farmer who came to cut the grass in the meadow twice a year. There was never any fuss or bother with this handsome and rugged man; he arrived when he said he would and left when he had finished his work. The price never changed and what few words they had ever exchanged over the years were few and pleasant and always accompanied by a smile. Amanda’s impression of Vittorio was that he was a man content with his lot in life, whatever that might be.
Maria, the housekeeper, arrived from somewhere in the house as Amanda was pouring Vittorio a glass of fresh lemonade. The bulky middle-aged Maria had been with them since they had bought the house, she was a treasure, had the measure of her employers and ran their house with ease and to perfection. There were never too many house guests, the work was never too much, she took a pride in the house and working for them, and was well liked in the village besides.
Maria pulled out a chair for Vittorio and produced a plate of Tuscan sweets which she had made earlier in the day. They were offered and the two of them joined Amanda at the table. Maria took up a copper bowl, removed the tea cloth covering it and got down to beating the makings of a polenta cake, Amanda continued shelling peas, and Vittorio, clearly the centre of attention, was enjoying his repast and gossiping with Maria. The two Italians laughed together over a bit of local news and Amanda mused on how much more
handsome Vittorio would be after a few sessions with a Harley Street dentist. A sweet was forced on Amanda by Maria – not much of a hardship, she was partial to Maria’s sweets. Amanda’s Italian allowed her to eavesdrop on the local goings on, which unfortunately she did not find nearly as interesting as Maria did. But the kitchen was Maria’s domain and she could entertain whomever she liked there.
After a short time Vittorio stood up and announced with some pride, in his not very good English, that his fiancée would be coming to pick him up – he would introduce her to Signora Dix. Amanda made all the right noises while thinking, How very odd. What a bore. Vittorio thanked Maria and Amanda, rather formally, thought Amanda for their hospitality, and made a hurried exit to wait for his fiancée on the drive.
Maria rose from the table looking quite cheerful at the prospect of having another visitor in her kitchen, and after pouring her cake batter into its ready-prepared tin and placing it in the oven, turned to Amanda and asked, ‘Where would you like to have tea – on the terrace or in the library?’
‘Tea? Do you think that’s necessary, Maria?’
‘Well, it’s very English to have tea,’ answered the housekeeper-cum-cook who was already getting down the best of the tea sets and placing cups and saucers on the table.
That was a typical Maria answer to a question, rather than say a definite
yes.
She quite clearly wanted to impress the farmer’s girlfriend. Pride, Amanda supposed, and worried that it might embarrass a shy village girl who had most likely never had a cup of afternoon tea in her life.
‘I think here in the kitchen will do,’ she told her housekeeper.
There was a brief look of disapproval which Amanda ignored as she continued shelling the peas. She watched Maria remove her apron and tidy the hair in a bun at the nape of her neck before she went to the linen cupboard and chose a fine white linen cloth embroidered with raised yellow buttercups and napkins to match. From there she marched to the floor-to-ceiling bay window at one end of the vast kitchen where a small round marble table and four chairs overlooked the herb garden and herbaceous borders leading to the walled garden. This was Philip and Amanda’s breakfast area, a place for informal lunches and dinners, their cosy eating place.
Amanda was on the verge of telling Maria that the best linen was not necessary for the farmer’s fiancée but thought that might offend her sense of class distinction so gritted her teeth, feeling very put upon. Once more she was sorely tested when the Limoges cups and saucers, side plates gleaming white and banded with a wide border of yellow, were set on the table, the Queen Anne silver tea pot produced. But what could Amanda actually say? She had trained Maria well, and the housekeeper was doing what her mistress had always advocated: ‘Any guest who comes to my house should be given the best.’
Maria whisked away the bowls of pods and shelled peas in front of Amanda and handed her a tea towel. Amanda washed her hands and watched with wonder as Maria produced a lemon tart and placed it on the Limoges pedestal dish. All Amanda could think was how sweet life could be in London if she had Maria there. By the time the two women heard the knock at
the door, Amanda was quite resigned to impressing the farmer’s fiancée and spending the next twenty minutes exchanging small talk in her moderately acceptable Italian with one of the locals. She did have the good grace to smile to herself as she thought, And all for PR to keep the staff happy.
There was a brief knock and then there they were standing together on the threshold. Vittorio had his arm around her waist, and not just he but both of them seemed to be beaming with happiness. Maria ushered them in and Vittorio proudly introduced his fiancée.
There was an air of gentleness about Eliza Flemming. She was soft-spoken and appeared to be a woman content with herself and life in general. It was like a perfume she wore or an aura that hovered around her. There was something else about her too, an infectious liveliness in her smiling eyes. Had it to do with their colour? They were dark blue, nearly violet. After Amanda overcame the shock of Vittorio’s fiancée being a middle-aged, upper-middle-class Englishwoman, tall and slender with fair skin and blonde hair, she was able to assess her: a once great beauty, still highly attractive, sensuous, cultured, sophisticated – a woman not unlike herself. No wonder Maria had pulled out all the stops for tea. She had obviously heard about her.
‘I hope this isn’t an imposition?’ suggested Eliza.
‘Not at all. You will stay for tea?’
‘That would be very nice.’
Then, turning to Vittorio, she asked him if they had time for her to stay for a visit. It was finally decided that Eliza would stop for tea and Vittorio would go to the village to do an errand and then return for her. While
the couple discussed their plans all sorts of questions were running through Amanda’s mind. Why had this woman chosen to marry this decent, hard-working but simple farmer with his rudimentary English and face darkened and roughened from work and weather? And when she did, what would become of her? What would be the consequences of giving herself up to such a simple man? Would he pull her down to his level?