25
Of course it did not rain on New Year’s Day in the Los
Angeles area, since it never rains on the Rose Parade. But soon thereafter
January became one of the wettest on record. Its last days, however, brought to
the region a spell of warm weather that some commentators – who should have
known better – called unseasonable, when in fact the phenomenon of such a spell
happens in most years. Southern Californians think nothing of seeing roses,
magnolias and birds-of-paradise in bloom as they stroll by in their tee-shirts
at a time when other North Americans – north of the thirtieth parallel, that is
– slog in snow.
But on Mario Farga’s last morning in Los
Angeles, which he and Jenny spent making love until the very moment when the
clock radio on her nightstand told them at it was time to get up so that she
could drive him to the airport, the weather outside mattered to them not a
whit.
It was only when she was driving her
Spider back from the airport, for the second time in six weeks, that she
noticed how warm it was outside. She rolled both windows down and felt the
tepid wind blow on her face. The sound of wind and traffic made a good
background noise for her thoughts, which were mostly about Mario.
For the past two months, except for his
five-day Christmas trip to Catalonia, they had been inseparable. And they had
been insatiable with each other. His trip had, not quite fortuitously,
coincided with her December period, but the one in January had not stopped
them. “A little blood doesn’t bother a Spanish man,” he had told her. “We go to
bullfights.” The last part was a joke, because Mario,
like most Catalans (as he told her), detested bullfighting.
As planned, she had taken him to Fresno
for Armenian Christmas and presented him to her family as her boyfriend, the
first time she had done such a thing since leaving home. Mario was, naturally,
the perfect European gentleman, and charmed everybody in sight. He, in turn,
was to take her to Park City for the film festival. She had not been in snow
since high school, when she, Rachel and some other friends – adventurous girls
like them, and of course boys – would go winter-camping in Kings Canyon. And
so, while in Fresno, she had dug out her parka and other cold-weather clothing
from a chest in the attic of her parents’ house. Rachel had been with her; in
her eighth month, climbing up to the attic had been a chore for her, but well
worth it: their time for confidences was precious. They reminisced about their
teenage adventures, and then Jenny told Rachel, “There is sex – and you know
much I like it – and then there’s sex with Mario, which is like nothing else in
this world.” “Are you in love with him?” Rachel had asked, and Jenny could only
say, “That’s an understatement.”
Not much had happened in Park City. Gina
George was recovering from breast-cancer surgery and had been unable to go. The
showing of the Albert Bosch movie had been canceled for some stupid reason.
Mario had introduced her to Bosch, but Bosch only congratulated Mario on his
good taste in women. They were approached by a woman from a major Hollywood
agency about representing them – Mario was courted far more assiduously than
Jenny – but they told her that they already had commitments that they were not
at liberty to disclose.
Shortly after their return, two days
before this one, Alan had called her to relay a message from Barry to both of
them. Everything was going swimmingly with the
Dangerous Acquaintances project: money, facilities, locations,
supporting cast, staffing – even the Mexican director was just right for the
job. Barry already had his studio writers working on the script, and
pre-production, including costume fitting and rehearsals, could start in the
latter part of March, as soon as Mario was back from Barcelona.
For Jenny, Mario’s time away would be six
weeks of freedom from any kind of commitment, from work, from love... Well, of
course she would do some reading, especially a thorough reading of
Dangerous Acquaintances, and she would
talk to Mario on the phone. She would catch up on her jogging; mornings in bed
with Mario had made her less assiduous about her favorite exercise. Mario was
naturally strong and fit; his only activity in Spain had been fútbol, and he had not yet found a team
in Los Angeles. Occasionally he went jogging with her, and he had no trouble
keeping up with her on her five-mile runs, except when going uphill.
She might even fly out to Barcelona, where
she had never been, to visit Mario for a few days. He had urged her to come and
see his city before it was ruined in preparation for the Olympics. But she
wasn’t going to make any plans yet. Not while it was still January.
With the coming of February the snow in the Jura had
turned slushy. While an experienced skier such as Margaret could find some
decent runs at the higher elevations, the slopes available for a beginner, even
an enthusiastic one like Nigel, were useless. They packed up their gear, made a
brief stop at Margaret’s house to drop it off and proceeded to Nigel’s flat in
Geneva with the intention of spending the rest of the weekend in town. The
Orchestre de la Suisse romande was to
play the next evening, with André Watts playing Brahms. Nigel called the
Victoria Hall to reserve seats.
They spent Saturday evening walking in the
rain through the old city, wandering from one wine bar to another, remembering
their first encounter, some three months earlier in London. Madeira was hard to
find in Geneva, but there was plenty of nice port. The air outside was colder,
but not hugely so. And the warmth that Margaret felt inside more than made up
for the difference in temperature.
Having him living in Geneva had proved not
only pleasant but also convenient. Spending an evening in the city and the
night in his flat, and then going back to her house – a half hour’s drive – or
not, as their fancy (or the weather) dictated, was delightful. Fribourg, where
Albert lived when he was not on location or traveling, was too far for such an
easy back-and-forth movement, and she had forsworn going there after getting
caught in a blizzard one morning when she was driving home alone.
In the first half of January Nigel had
flown back to London twice to talk things over with his partners, but by the
middle of the month the Geneva office seemed to be running smoothly, and he
could stay in place; he didn’t think he would need to go again before April.
Louise, the beautiful London-educated Cameroonian girl he had hired as
secretary, turned out to be an excellent office manager. In addition to the
companies that were already the firm’s clients and that quickly turned their
Continental bookkeeping over to Nigel’s office, new clients were beginning to
sign up. To Nigel’s and his partners’ surprise, their firm was well known to
British business people on the Continent, with a reputation for efficiency and
integrity. He thought that he might soon have to hire another staff person.
Margaret, for her part, no longer doubted
that she was in love with Nigel. She marveled at his ability to make her feel
loved, protected and respected at the same time, a feeling that she had
previously experienced only from her father. But Nigel’s respect for her
included an enthusiastic willingness to learn from her, and the fruits of his
enthusiasm could be observed on the slopes and in bed.
She also marveled that this charming man,
in his forties, had turned out to be hers for the taking. In a place like
London, teeming with lonely women, how had he escaped getting snatched up? He
had hinted at fleeting, inconclusive love affairs. There were scattered
references to “my girlfriend at the time” accompanied by a self-deprecating
laugh, as if to say “How could I have been so daft as to fancy someone like
that?” But there seemed to have been no lasting relationship, unless there was
something he was holding back from her. And if that was so, it was all right
with her.
By nine they were ready to return to his
flat. It was no coincidence, he had assured her, that the number on his
building was seven.
“Now I understand,” Nigel said the next morning,
glancing up at Margaret from the Sunday Telegraph that he had picked up
at a kiosk down the street from his building.
“Now you understand what?” she asked.
“About that film,
Lady G in Paradise. Why it was that I saw lots of real sex in it,
and you didn’t.”
“But I didn’t see the whole thing,
darling.”
“Even so, even in the parts that you did
see. You see, I’ve just read about that festival in Utah, USA, where the film
was to be shown, but the showing was cancelled. Listen to this, darling: ‘It
was rumoured that when the film opened in London, Barcelona and Paris, the
hard-core footage was temporarily replaced by a soft-core version, to mislead
the reviewers.’ What d’you think?”
“Did Albert do that? It seems most unlike
him. Perhaps I didn’t really know the man.”
“Tell me about it.”
Did he mean it literally, or was he using
the expression colloquially to confirm her experience? She waited for him to go
on. And he did.
“I haven’t told you, have I? I was married
for a bit, when I was young, to a girl I’d known for years, or so I thought. It
didn’t take me long to find out that I didn’t know her from Eve.”
Margaret didn’t really feel surprised. His
tale explained what might have been an aversion to committed relationships, one
that evidently had lasted a long time. Until she came along, she thought,
flattering herself.
“How long were you married?”
“Just long enough for the baby to be born
in wedlock.”
“So... so you have a child?”
“Yes, a daughter, called Ruth. She’s
eighteen, still in Manchester, living with her mum. Wants nothing to do with
me. I send her birthday cards and Christmas cards, but she never responds. I’ve
no idea of what she looks like.”
“Did you support her – I mean
financially?”
“No. Barbara, my ex-wife, didn’t want it,
didn’t want anything from me. Her family’s got money. And she remarried. Ruth
probably thinks of the chap as her dad. That’s why I sign my cards to her as
Nigel, not dad, so as not to confuse her.”
How considerate of him, Margaret thought.
She wondered if the tinge of sadness that
she thought she was detecting in Nigel’s account was really there, or if it was
something that her imagination was supplying because it seemed appropriate,
because she could not fathom having engendered a child and not missing them.
“Do you mind not being a dad for her?” she
asked him.
“You know,” he answered, “in my firm
everybody, except me and one other chap, has kids, and all I ever hear about is
the problems they’re having. And that’s in stable families, mind you. So I
suppose I don’t really mind.”
She didn’t feel convinced. But before she
had a chance to formulate a follow-up question, he posed one to her.
“What about you, Margaret? I take it
you’ve got no kids.” He waited for her to deny his assumption, and when she
didn’t he went on. “Do you miss being a mum?”
“Oh, on occasion, I suppose, but not
much.” She smiled. She chose not to tell him at this time that the frequency of
such occasions had begun to increase when her thirties entered their second
half. But when she searched her memory for the last one, it struck her as
curious that the one she remembered had occurred on her thirty-eighth birthday,
which she had spent alone in her house between her two trips to London, shortly
before meeting Nigel. ‘I’m thirty-eight, it’s not too late,’ she remembered
singing to herself.
Nigel seemed to notice that she had fallen
into a reflective state, and kept silent while looking at her intently. They
smiled at each other, and it felt to both of them that the only way to conclude
this inconclusive conversation was with a kiss.
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