The Flirt (15 page)

W
ithout turning on the lights, Olivia walked into the empty house. It was late. The stifling, Indian summer day had faded into a warm, close evening. Light from the street lamps streamed in through the open windows. It was so hot. She was stiff and tired. Pushing a damp strand of long blonde hair back from her face, she kicked off her sandals, walking across the cool marble floor.

There was a note on the hall table.

It was in Gaunt’s handwriting. Arnaud had obviously dictated it to him.

She crumbled the paper into a ball and let it drop to the floor.

She was exhausted, worn out from his scenes and tantrums. What did it matter who saw it now?

Climbing the stairs, she made her way to her room.

There was the bed, their bed; beautifully made with expensive linens, piled with elaborate needlepoint pillows. But true to his
word, everything of Arnaud’s was gone; his books and papers were no longer stacked on the bedside table, his dressing gown no longer hung on the back of the bedroom door.

Olivia opened the wardrobe; a rattle of empty hangers greeted her.

Nothing, not even a stray shoelace was left.

She looked round.

His absence was as tangible as his presence had been. The room felt not just empty but unexpectedly bereft.

There was something else…

Near the window, the old overstuffed armchair Arnaud loved was gone. There was a clear plastic Philippe Starck Ghost chair in its place. He’d obviously appropriated the other one, had this put in its place. Light and transparent; it seemed flimsy in comparison; insubstantial; a joke.

She sat down on the edge of the bed.

Clothes were one thing but furniture signaled something more permanent. Was this the beginning of a larger rift; first separate rooms then separate houses? Had things really progressed so far? Dread gnawed at her heart.

Dinner with Pollard.

How many times this week had he had dinner with Pollard?

And then she knew.

Getting up, she padded downstairs, a mounting sense of inevitability pulling her toward Arnaud’s study.

The evidence was easy to find. There they were, in neat piles with the other household bills, waiting to be filed on his desk. He hadn’t even bothered to hide them—receipts for jewelry she hadn’t been given, the hotels she hadn’t enjoyed, the restaurants she’d never been to. He’d simply assumed she was too stupid, too trusting even to look.

He was having an affair.

Olivia’s knees gave way beneath her. She crumpled, cheek pressed against the cool wood floor.

Cut loose like a bit of flotsam; she floated, weightless and numb.

Night pressed in around her, airless, thick and black.

Juan was waiting for Leticia by the nurse’s station. He was shorter than she’d remembered and looked older; conservatively dressed in a navy windbreaker and jeans. The vision of him as a flamboyant Brazilian wild child was instantly smashed.

“Where is he?”

“Near the window.” He took her arm, leading her onto the ward.

They stopped in front of the bed. Juan gently pulled back the curtain. Leo was asleep, a drip in his arm. Monitors beeped reassuringly but his breathing was labored, skin pale and forehead damp. His legs looked like two sticks under the sheets.

“When did you find him?”

“This afternoon. He’d fallen. Luckily I had a set of keys. Usually, I check on him twice a day.”

“I see.”

He’d been his carer, not his lover. Leticia felt sobered, ashamed. Leo had needed a nurse and she hadn’t even realized.

“I called an ambulance. He’s got pneumonia and a bad kidney infection. They’re giving him high doses of antibiotics.”

“But how? How did it come on so fast?”

“When the system is weak to begin with…” his voice trailed off.

“He was sick before? I mean really sick, not just a cold?”

Juan was silent.

“He was sick before,” she said again, remembering the prescription bottles.

“Yes. He has been unwell for a while.”

How could she not know?

She touched his hand. It was clammy. “These blankets aren’t warm enough. Look at how thin they are!”

“He has a fever. Too many and he will only kick them off.” He smiled. He had a nice smile. “You know Leo.”

He offered her a chair. “I’ll get you a cup of tea. With sugar. You’ve had a shock.”

She watched as he headed down the hall then looked round. The ward was filled with other old people, dying, alone. Terror gripped her.

Leticia sat down and took his hand again.

His eyes flicked open.

“Emily Ann!”

She squeezed his fingertips.

“Here I am.”

“Emily!”

“It’s all right, I’m right here.”

His voice was hoarse. “I…I must tell you something…”

“Yes?” she leaned in.

“That look doesn’t suit you, darling.”

He smiled.

She kissed his fingertips. “Neither does yours.”

He closed his eyes again. “It seems we’ve let ourselves go.”

He slipped back into the thick fog of sleep.

His hand went limp in hers.

She was alone.

I
can’t. Not today, Simon.”

Olivia was sitting on her bed, still in her dressing gown, dark circles under her eyes. Somewhere around four thirty in the morning she finally nodded off, only to wake again in tears. She must’ve been crying in her sleep. Once they started, she couldn’t stem the flow. Sobbing, moaning, practically barking with grief and despair, she worked her way through an entire box of tissues. There was nothing to live for. She was old and childless and alone.

Then, at some ungodly hour, Simon rang.

“You can!”

“No,” she cleared her throat, “really, I can’t!”

“I’m telling you, Olivia, you can!”

“But you don’t understand! I’ve never hung a show before! And I’m…I’m,” she struggled to find a delicate way to put it, “I’m not at my best today, Simon.”

“Olivia,” his voice was firm, “I need you. Ralph’s pulled his back out and it’s not finished! And we can’t afford to get this show wrong. Besides, you’re the only person I know who has the vision I need. It’s nonnegotiable; I’m calling in all my favors. I need you now!”

Olivia sank to the floor, into the pile of used tissues that had accumulated in a snowy heap around the bed. She couldn’t fathom how she was going to get dressed let alone down to the gallery.

“Olivia?” He wouldn’t give up.

“OK,” she rasped.

“Great. I’ll see you in an hour.”

He hung up.

Olivia blew her nose for the seven thousandth time. She badly needed a cigarette.

Sitting in her dressing gown on the back steps, Olivia fumbled with a box of kitchen matches, trying to light an ancient, stale Gauloise she’d found in an old handbag.

She wasn’t a real smoker. There was no style to the way she jammed the cigarette between her lips or struck the match so hard that it snapped in two. The Gauloise was a serious cigarette—thick, acrid. There was smoking and then there was napalming your lungs. But she needed napalm; her mind twisted wildly, to and fro, trying to justify the evidence, while her heart cracked with the same agonizing resistance of an old tree being felled, its trunk snapping painfully, slowly in two.

It was gone. Her world. The entire answer she’d formulated to the question of how to live life.

How could he do that to her? What made her so…so disposable?

Taking a deep drag, she choked and spluttered.

When she was done, she’d go back in and ring Simon. He’d have to get someone else. Today was a day for taking tranquilizers washed down by vodka, not for striking out in new directions.

In front of her, the newly erected fountain made a relentless dribbling noise like a leaky faucet. It was a horrific Baroque-inspired confection; a gold-encrusted seashell bowl surrounded by piles of fat, frolicking cherubs and dolphins spitting water. Expensive, ugly, derivative.

She thought about the shiny aluminium gulley cutting, as Ricki put it, like a blade through a bright square of green grass. If only she’d had the courage to listen to her. Taking another drag, she coughed and, pulling her dressing gown tighter, shivered in the brisk morning air.

“Here.”

It was Ricki, holding open a box of Marlboro Lights.

Olivia’s face went red.

Before she could say anything, Ricki knelt down, taking the Gauloise from her fingers.

“Let’s get rid of that, shall we?” She tossed it into the fountain, where it fizzled out, bobbing up and down in the golden bowl. “What are you trying to do—kill yourself?”

Not a bad idea, Olivia reflected.

Then Ricki shook out a couple of cigarettes, popped both into her mouth and lit them with a battered black Zippo. She passed one back to Olivia.

It was all done so smoothly, so confidently. With what her mother would’ve called “élan.”

“Thank you.”

Ricki nodded, settled down next to her, stretching out her long legs.

They sat, smoking in silence.

After a while, Ricki nodded to the fountain. “So, do you like it?”

Olivia struggled to find something nice to say. “You did a good job.”

“Yeah,” Ricki laughed, “but do you like it?”

“It’s ghastly,” she admitted, too exhausted to be polite.

“Yes. Yes, it is.”

They stared at it.

“It’s not too late. We could still get rid of it.”

“But it’s what I asked for.” Olivia looked miserably at the pudgy gold putti. “You gave me exactly what I said I wanted.”

“So what?” Ricki shrugged. “You’re allowed to change your mind.”

What a dangerous concept.

“Am I?”

“Sure. Any time.”

They finished their cigarettes.

Ricki stood up. Holding out her hand, she pulled Olivia to her feet.

“Thanks.”

“And you’re…you know…OK?” Ricki’s dark eyes were full of concern. “You seem a bit stressed.”

It surprised Olivia. No one really asked her how she was. Arnaud certainly didn’t, the staff wouldn’t dare.

“I’m OK.”

Ricki nodded. “Good.”

“Thanks for the cigarette.”

“No problem.”

Olivia was about to go in when suddenly she stopped, turned.

“Actually, my husband moved out of the house yesterday.”

It wasn’t the sort of thing one said to the gardener. She hadn’t intended mentioning it to anyone yet, not even Mimsy.

“Really?” She was refreshingly undramatic. “What happened?”

“I don’t know. We don’t seem to get on.”

There was a pause.

“The truth is, he’s cheating on me.”

What was the sudden spate of honesty?

Ricki shook her head. “Cunt!”

“I’m sorry?”

“What a cunt!” she elaborated.

Olivia had never used that word before; she’d never even thought it. In her family, it was considered cutting someone to the very quick to call them “a bit of an ass.”

“Yes,” she realized, slowly, “what a cunt!”

It was surprisingly satisfying to say—full of sharp, unapologetic sounds.

She said it again.

“An absolute cunt!”

“There we have it. Men! What a fucking fool!”

“Do you think?”

Ricki was emphatic. “Biggest fool I know!”

It had seemed complicated before; now it was painful but simple. “Yes. Yes, I suppose so.”

“So what are you going to do?” Ricki wanted to know.

“Me?” The question was almost offensive.

“Yeah.” Ricki leaned against the wall, folded her arms in front of her chest. “What are your plans?”

No one had expected Olivia to do anything before, least of all herself. Action, accomplishments were optional. Surely her dreadful situation gave her immunity from such practicalities.

“I don’t know.”

Ricki pulled a tiny weed growing between the paving stones. “I’d hire a fuck-off lawyer.”

“A lawyer? You mean, you think the marriage is over?”

Ricki looked up. “Didn’t you just say he was sleeping with someone else?”

“Yes, but…” her voice trailed off.

In Olivia’s family marriages limped under the burden of far greater betrayals than just infidelity. She could practically hear her father’s voice, “When a Van der Lyden makes their bed, they lie in it!” Lord knows how many women he’d had over the years.

“How could you ever trust him again?” Ricki pointed out.

Did I ever trust him? Olivia wondered.

Ricki began unpacking her tools. “Well, at least you have your job. That’s a real solace in a time like this.”

Olivia had never thought of the gallery as an actual job. She’d treated it more as a dalliance. “Something to keep me off the streets,” was how she put it to Mimsy.

“Get on with your own life,” Ricki selected a narrow trowel, “that’s the best revenge.”

“Yes, you’re right,” Olivia agreed, not entirely sure it was true.

Ricki set about weeding in earnest.

Get on with your own life.

The words hung in the air, like a gauntlet thrown. What would her life be like without Arnaud to hide behind? Suddenly the prospect was intriguing as well as daunting.

Olivia watched as Ricki crouched low, weeding the flower beds in the pale sunlight. She was so strong, so sure of herself. Just being near her shored Olivia up; gave her clarity.

She’d needed to talk to someone, someone she could trust. How odd that it should be her.

Olivia wandered back into the house.

Something had shifted. The thick, cold, suffocating weight she’d known most of her life, dampening her spirit, was gone. In its place, something new, dangerous stirred. It fluttered, dark, uncontrollable, in the pit of her stomach.

“Cunt,” she muttered under her breath, climbing the stairs. The word resonated, clean, tough, full of unfamiliar power. She chanted it like a mantra. “Cunt, cunt, cunt, cunt, cunt, cunt!”

Gaunt passed her on the way down. “Good morning, madam.”

“Good morning. Cunt, cunt, cunt!” She rounded the landing. “Oh, and Gaunt, put the coffee on, will you? I need it strong today.”

“Very good, madam.”

Simon was waiting for her; she had a job to do.