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Vourlamis, how could Nicole imply such a thing?
What was going on between them, anyway? How much of the story
he had told her about his marriage to Melanie had been true?
'Ready?' he asked, turning with the two omelettes neatly arranged on
warmed plates, and she summoned a brilliant, false smile.
'They look delicious.' They did; he was obviously a good cook.
He poured her some wine and helped himself to some of the salad; a
twisty red candle burnt between them, the flame giving off soft
blueish wisps of smoke as it flickered in the draught from the
window. Moths flapped against the glass and left powdery glistening
smudges where their wings brushed it. Nicole forked omelette into
her mouth and felt languid and sleepy; anger was tiring.
That's the fourth yawn in five minutes,' Frazer remarked, and she
looked at him, trying to stifle the next yawn.
'Sorry, I must be tired.'
'Worn out, are you?' he mocked with enjoyment as a slight flush rose
in her cheeks.
'I must be, it's the sea air.'
'Oh, is that what it is?'
She laughed, hiding her resentment. He was determined to have his
fun, let him; if he could act his head off, so could she.
'I'm having trouble keeping awake,' she said. 'In spite of this gorgeous
food where did you learn to make omelettes as good as this?'
'Spain, where else?' He talked about a trip he had made there a year
ago, to do publicity for his latest book, and she listened with drooping
eyelids, careful to let him notice.
She cleared the table later while he got the coffee, but she only sipped
at her cup, and after a time Frazer smiled at her with what might have
been a totally convincing display of tenderness if she hadn't known
better.
'Look, why don't you get off to bed? I'll wash up. You look asjf you're
dead on your feet.'
She pretended to hesitate. 'But. . . you won't mind? I mean . . .'
He knew what she meant and he laughed softly, taking her cup away
and kissing her mouth with lingering warmth.
'That can wait, well have all the time in the world tomorrow. My
cleaner only works in the morning; when she has gone we'll have the
house to ourselves.'
'Good,' she said, letting her arms go round his neck. She linked her
hands in his hair, suppressing a desire to pull it hard, and kissed him,
'Goodnight, then, see you in the morning.'
All the way up the stairs she was shaking with bitter anger. He was so
damned convincing, she had found it hard to believe that his tender
amusement was phoney. He was a great loss to the stage, he would
have been a natural actor.
When she was back in bed she found that her pretence of being sleepy
had become the truth; no sooner was the light out than she felt herself
drifting heavily into the shadowy borders of dream and half-waking
consciousness. Her tired mind was trying to make sense of all that had
happened to her today; all that she had learnt about the past and what
she suspected about the present. It was a confused and confusing
jumble; her subconscious made strange work of it. Melanie at a party,
laughing, while she and Frazer stood in a crowded room and looked at
each other and talked in low voices; Nicole felt a piercing intensity of
desire as he brushed his fingers against her hand in a secret caress,
and then Irena Vourlamis was there and Frazer was talking to her
while Nicole watched them and felt so unhappy that she had to turn
away. The dream kept changing; backgrounds and people came and
went with bewildering rapidity, and once she believed she was
awake. She sat up in the bed thinking: the photograph album, I forgot
the photograph album. Then she was dreaming again and twisting in
the tumbled bed with restless uneasiness.
She woke up in a gold and rose morning; the room was full of light
and the sound of birds in the mulberry tree in the courtyard. Frazer
was sitting on her bed, she realised that he had shaken her. He held
out a cup of coffee, smiling.
'You're a restless sleeper; what a mess you've made of this bed!'
She sat up to take the cup and he looked at her with eyes that
smouldered, dark blue as midnight, travelling slowly over the smooth
perfect curve of her bare shoulder down over the half-exposed
roundness of her breasts which her movement as she leaned forward
had brought into his view.
'Did I tell you you were beautiful?'
'Yes,' she said, and was angry with herself because the breathless
confusion in her voice was real.
'I wish I didn't have to work today,' he muttered, still looking at the
warm cleft, where a faint shadow lay between her golden-skinned [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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