Belle Isle
An Easter Romance
by
Pippe Vonkuhne
SMASHWORDS EDITION
* * *
PUBLISHED BY:
Belle Isle
An Easter Romance
Copyright © 2011 Pippe Vonkuhne
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Disclaimer
This ebook Belle Isle: An Easter Romance by Pippe Vonkuhne is a work of fiction. All characters and events appearing in this work are fictitious.
Some locations are fictitious. Others have been fictitiously modified.
Hyperlinks are listed at the end and individually with an asterisk.
Table of Contents
"Are you sure you're alright, Elodie?" Shannon asked again across the Parliament House gymnasium where she was leading an aerobics class.
Elodie Brayshaw waved and nodded as she gasped in time to the pounding apocalyptic music of Sufjan Stevens’ Age of ADZ. * Things come in threes, she thought.
"Now I want to increase the intensity of the exercise", said Shannon, "Walk, two, three - right leg and hop - walk back four."
Elodie felt as if she were being tossed and buffeted by gusts from a stormy sea. Everything was converging on her. Maybe she was hyperventilating. Her calf muscles were tingling, stinging as if from sand whipped along a windy winter beach. Three defiant, ridiculous affirmations banged in her head as she moved in time to Shannon's instructions:
"I do not want a home, I do not want a job, I do not want a man..." over and over to the music. The truth was she wanted all three, but all three had been lost to her in the space of a few weeks. She could not remember when she last thought: my life is a joy, or, this is a pleasure, or, I'm glad to be alive.
Belle Isle, the family home at Hunters Hill, was part of her very being, but now both parents were gone. She thought poignantly of her father who had died two years earlier, and tearfully of her mother who had collapsed from a fatal stroke only three weeks ago. Belle Isle must be sold, and the estate divided between Elodie, her sister Eleanor and her brother, Toby. They were like strangers. She hardly knew them. Both were much older and had lived overseas for years. She had seen Eleanor briefly at her sister’s third marriage, which happened to be in Monte Carlo, not far from Nice where Elodie was studying at the time. Now Eleanor managed a ski resort in Aspen, Colorado; and when Elodie last spoke to Toby he was in Peru training pilots to fly 767s. Neither had made it to their Mother's funeral.
"On your backs. Pull the abdominals in. Relax. Take a few moments just to lie there. Okay, we'll take it out. Bye everyone till next time." Shannon wound up the class, and hurried over to Elodie, who had collapsed in relief as the routine ended.
"Salut, toi", Shannon greeted Elodie in French, and smiled her Mother Earth smile. It was so simple, yet so moving, because unknowingly she had used the same greeting that Elodie's mother had always used.
"I can't breathe, Shannon, I don't want to, I truly want to die!"
"So why are you gasping for air?" said Shannon, taking hold of her arm. She was a good friend. Shannon was honest, practical and had a wry sense of humour, which the usually cool Elodie valued immensely. Currently though, Elodie's pathetic attempt at not wanting had overcome her. She felt vaguely foolish, but didn't care. By now the gym was emptying as she saw stragglers smile and grab towels, making their way to the showers. She was the talk of the Parliament, she knew, thanks to Mark Sharpe, journalist in the Parliamentary Press Gallery.
"Of all the most insufferable, cruel males, Mark Sharpe..."
"Mark the Shark", interrupted Shannon, helping her up.
"I know, I know, you warned me."
"Me and a cast of thousands", said Shannon. "You know during the workout, Elodie, I had to ask myself, why is the most beautiful woman in Parliament House trying to kill herself? Now I know why. Mark Sharpe. Pardon me but I think you're strange."
Elodie felt too wretched to be embarrassed or flattered (it was true she was beautiful; all her life she had been assured of it) and too exhausted to explain that it was not her supposed romance with Mark that was troubling her. Thanks to Mark, she had lost her job as the senior researcher for a prominent politician. Shannon took her over to a seat. Elodie was shocked at what she saw in the mirror at one end of the workspace. Her normally pale fair skin was flushed into a rage of crimson; her soft blonde curls tied back in a bunch were wet and dishevelled.
Shannon mopped Elodie's forehead and cheeks with a soft, snow-white towel. Elodie took it from her, and dabbed ineffectively at her neck and shoulders.
"What happened to Miss Cool, Calm and Collected, who said that in regard to gentlemen she would remain 'aloof and independent', an island unto herself?"
"Mark is no gentleman", said Elodie, distressed that Shannon had thrown her own words back at her.
"And so say all of us. Just when he was using you as a shoulder to cry on, as a comforter because his wife left, you fell in love with him. Silly girl." Shannon took back the towel that was proving useless in Elodie's elegant hands, and draped it round her friend’s slender neck and shoulders. She gave Elodie some water, which she gulped down.
"I have never and could never love Mark Sharpe", said Elodie vehemently, and felt sickeningly weak when she thought of the reason. "It's true, I did listen with a sympathetic ear when he told me his wife had abandoned him. I know what it's like to lose someone. It's devastating."
Elodie said it with such a force of feeling Shannon leaned forward and stroked her hair: "Your mother, you poor thing. Elodie, I'm sorry." Elodie slightly moved her head. It was not just her mother.
"As you know", Shannon continued, "I've lost both parents, but I think my approach with Mark was more honest and effective than yours. He told me how his wife had left him I gather for someone without a diseased libido. Then he invited me to his place. I said 'I'm sorry Mark, but my relationship with my family comes before my relationship with you, and they're all dead'".
Elodie put her hands to her mouth and laughed.
"I thought you and Mark had a 'fling' on Haymen Island", said Shannon easily.
"Haymen Island? So you've heard Mark's little joke at my expense."
Shannon looked embarrassed. "Well, I knew it was in the Whitsunday Group, and I thought it was Hamilton Island, but Mandy mentioned - that Emmy Walling heard - that Mark - told Suzannah..." her voice trailed languorously.
"It was Hamilton Island, but that doesn't make as nice a pun as a 'fling' on Haymen Island. Mark said a holiday for me on Hymen Island was appropriate for the world's oldest virgin lover."
The two friends stared electrically at each other then spontaneously burst out laughing.
"The bastard", said Shannon.
"And so say all of us", said Elodie through tears half of laughter and half from exasperation.
"So there was no 'fling'?"
"Well there was, but my idea of a fling is not Mandy’s."
"I know, it's not my idea either," said Shannon, "I shared my excitement with her about marrying Mr Right, and she wanted to know if he was good in bed."
"If you go out with someone she always presumes you have slept with him …"
"Yes, hmm, well, it’s none of her business, and especially counting the number of people you go out with. Now tell me about your fling on Hamilton Island."
"I arranged the holiday before Mother died. Her death was so sudden. I was going to cancel, but I needed to get away, and I had no relatives here. I liked the idea of going by myself, and the last person I wanted with me was Mark. He followed me."
"Pursued by a seedy journalist, all the way to the Whitsunday Group".
"Mark became so angry" (Elodie actually giggled) "because I fancied the waiter..."
"The waiter?"
"... who was from Réunion, and spoke to me in French, which Mark didn't understand".
"He understood alright. His name?"
"Jean-Claude".
Shannon gasped. "I knew it."
"Jean-Claude Merlin would start work in the resort at 3pm ..."
"Just when Mark was waking up?"
Elodie laughed. "I spent seven mornings having seven outings with him, with seven breakfasts and luncheons thrown in."
"And dinner?"
"Mark stopped dining at the resort. I sat at a table for one, served by Jean-Claude. During the day we went scuba diving on the coral reef, which we also saw through glass-bottomed boats. We walked along a track up to a ‘panoramic view of the island-studded turquoise ocean’”.
“He said that in French?”
“No it was in the brochure. We sailed on a catamaran in Catseye Bay; went for a cruise through the Whitsunday Passage..."
"Enough, enough! What was he like? Will you see him again?"
"Tall, dark, handsome. I don't think so. It was a fling. Do you know he played the saxophone? He reminded me of someone ... but Mark was furious, hence his lead story in this morning's Sydney Times, and I've lost my job."
"What story?" said Shannon leaping up and grabbing her unopened newspaper. She read aloud the headline: "'Promises the Parties Won't Keep'. What's that to do with you?"
"Read on, second paragraph, about the 'reliable source', the 'senior member' of the Social Issues Portfolio Team." Elodie sighed, and thought she really must pull herself together.
"'The truth is there is simply not enough money to implement such an ambitious program in its entirety if at all. Promises made by politicians are seldom promises they keep.' Elodie Brayshaw, you did not say that. You would never say that. They're Mark Sharpe's words entirely."
Elodie rose determinedly: "May I shower?"
Shannon waved a hand towards her private shower. Elodie's voice came through clouds of steam: "Last night, at the Press Gallery Easter break party, after two relaxing drinks, I said, as a friend, to Mark, who was being so sweet and friendly..."
Shannon groaned and called out: "Smiling like a shark with capped teeth..."
Elodie shampooed her hair with the same care with which she chose her words: "...I agreed with him in response to his leading question, that I could not see how we could implement so many programs totally, immediately, in their entirety," she ended lamely.
Shannon groaned. "That is no reason for them to sack you, but for such words to be spoken to a man and beast like Mark Sharpe, by a woman who had interviewed the residents of women's refuges? I don't believe it."
Perhaps it was the stimulating hot water massaging her back, but Elodie felt more collected: "I felt so guilty since we got back from Hamilton Island. He was being so, well, nice".
"That is precisely when you do not trust Mark Sharpe. He is a grabline goblin, to him a headline equals nutrition."
Shannon shook her Titian red hair from its hairband. Her green eyes glinted: "Mark is spiteful and weak. He has a weak chin."
Elodie stepped out of the shower, one towel around her and another piled high on her head. She laughed. Mark did not have a weak chin. At least she hadn’t noticed. Actually, he was good-looking in a boyish kind of way, with blue eyes and long raven hair, platinum hoops and a stud in each ear. Perhaps his eyes were a bit too piercing? He spoke Spanish, she mulled. He was originally from somewhere in Central America, maybe Mexico, which would explain his Latin/Teutonic visage. She really felt comfortable, as she vigorously towelled down the contours of her perfectly formed body. Droplets of water glistened on her trim hips and long slender legs. The hot shower had been quite therapeutic. How silly she had been, she who was always cool, calm and collected no matter what the situation was. Well now she felt better.
"But it's not your fault, Elodie, surely they understand. You're their best researcher, you write the best papers. Why should you resign?" She demanded.
Elodie felt a tad uncomfortable, but finished applying moisturiser and turned to Shannon from the mirror. She was really feeling better: "It's a good excuse. I need a change. I need to rethink my life. I want to concentrate on computers, on network conferencing and electronic publishing. Perhaps I might even write a book."
"Well that way you'd get away from people, Elodie."
Elodie winced. She had had this conversation before with Shannon, who had berated her for becoming insular. Apart from the week on Hamilton Island, which was perfect for her situation because transient, she had spent hours at her home computer, recently joining a group of virtual friends from around the world communicating information via the newly created MERCURAO network. Members rarely met. This appealed to Elodie who had become more aloof and withdrawn, preferring machines to the company of people. It was true that more than lately she had worked mainly from home, sharing information as much as possible by modem and cell phone. She decided to ignore Shannon's remark.
Again she felt cool and composed. She had applied a light gloss to her lips and highlighter to her cheeks. She thought about her future. It was fortunate that she did not need to work for a wage. She had a private income and was about to inherit a small fortune. For now she wanted to be left alone with her computer. She would find a new home, a new job, all in good time. As for a man, her one hope had been extinguished five years ago. She thought coldly there would be no other. Dully, deep down she still longed and ached for him, so far away. So be it. The aching was fading. It was not real. Just as her home, Belle Isle, was no longer real, nor her job as research officer at the Parliament.
Out of the ashes she would rise and begin a new life. Computers had changed everything. With a laptop she could live anywhere, yet still communicate with the same group of people and avoid working physically with them.
She could go back to the South of France and easily afford a cottage near Nice, in the art city of Vence, say, or perhaps Arles, sad home for Van Gogh, she mused. Or she could stay with her cousin Claire in Paris while she planned the exact location. Above all she wanted to be free, to enjoy her freedom, the freedom of an orphan. She was suddenly shocked at the thought, and startled to realise that no matter how old you are when you lose your parents you feel like an orphan. It doesn't matter, she thought doggedly, even without a family she would manage. She had it planned now: her home would be in France, she would be a writer, and she would live alone.
She had finished dressing and had completed her makeup. The rush of crimson had gone from her neck and face. She was relieved to feel she was back to being Elodie, cool, aloof and independent. She adjusted her dress, a classic light shift of pale green and soft pink flowers on a vibrant blue background. She checked the clasp on her necklace of green, pink and blue tourmaline, which matched her dress perfectly. The necklace rested above a scoop of neckline bordering a beauty spot and adorning her creamy white skin. She wore matching blue tourmaline ear studs.
There was no question that she was beautiful. Men had pursued her; women had admired and envied her all her life. She looked in the mirror at the finished product: soft blonde curls falling round her oval face, full, almost pouting lips, high cheek bones, deep set, flashing indigo eyes, patrician nose, and perfect white teeth. She was fortunate. Born into the Hunters Hill Brayshaw and Guerine families, she had inherited beauty, fine breeding and wealth. She was the product of the two most prestigious families in Sydney. The Brayshaws were founders of the largest law firm, and Alma Guerine had owned a fashion house. The parents' marriage had been a passionate love match; they had both been strident benefactors and philanthropists, contributing both to social welfare and the arts, and they were both musicians, having met initially as students performing at the Sorbonne in Paris, where William Brayshaw had played cello to Alma Guerine’s exquisite touch at the piano. Their children had grown up much loved and wanting nothing. Schooled in music, they had lived in Sydney and Paris, and travelled widely in between. All three had attended exclusive private schools, but whereas their parents' hectic lifestyle meant that Eleanor and Toby went to boarding schools, Elodie, being much younger, had had the advantage of her parents living a more settled life, and therefore was able to attend day school. She had thus lived like an only child.
Her life until her father's death had been intimate and easy, including accompanying them either at home soirées or in amateur music recitals on her violin. Now, her idyllic existence had fallen apart, but she was determined she would survive this combination of three misfortunes: family, work and love. She was amazed at how she had already pulled herself together. From now on she would not let anything unduly affect her emotions.
"Imagine", said Shannon, reading from her newspaper, "Alma Martyr, eternal pop icon, to wed, of all people, Sandy John Rice".
Elodie froze. Shannon continued unknowingly, "It must be a publicity stunt. She’s ten years older. Aren’t they related? Were you here when he worked in the Press Gallery, Elodie? He and Mark were friends, but don't hold that against Sandy. He was a good man, and dear God, so gorgeous looking, except as my Mother would say, any man with a scar like that on his face must be bad."
Elodie's composure had melted like ice cream in a microwave. "Scar on his face?" She bit her tongue; she didn't remember a scar on his face. She felt sick. Sandy John Rice, whom she had met once in her life five years ago, trapped in a garden by time, tide and a locked door, did not have a scar on his face. Elodie blinked, moistened her dried lips and went over to Shannon. Her heart was pounding. That morning she had not got past the front page of the Sydney Times. Sandy it seemed was on page three. Elodie's fair pale skin looked even paler.
"You look as though you've seen a ghost."
In a way she had. Five years ago on a day trip from Nice to the Picasso Museum at Antibes she had been inadvertently locked into the Museum's Greek garden during a lunchtime break. She was seeing it now in a rush, the giant Zeus thunderbolt, the broken Greek statuary, commemorations of a glorious long gone empire in a setting of the greatest contemporary art. She was in her early twenties at the time, and had told no one about the episode.
Not that she had been alone in her misadventure. Across the courtyard and garden a naked, olive, splendid back was sitting turned on a white wall. One arm was extended, its contours leading past a Rolex watch to a beautiful hand, holding - a flute! The splendid back led upwards to coal black curls on the nape of a pillared neck, and down to a white cambric shirt tied by the sleeves around his waist. Unbleached linen slacks emerged from the shirt, stretching over thigh and calf muscles. The trouser legs were rolled. Because of his position she could see only one leg. He was concentrating, staring out at the Mediterranean, melancholy music pouring from, through and around his aura, a latter day Pan, near leg bent, sculpted foot resting on top of the wall, other leg straddling the far side. A pair of expensive sandals was strewn carelessly at the base of the wall.
An ancient Greek or Phoenician? Perhaps Pan himself come from the nether world with instrument poised! Ancient or modern he looked as if he were in a dream, caught eternally in time. Elodie shivered. She felt vaguely as if she had stumbled onto some sacred ritual; that her presence was somehow sacrilegious. Would she be punished for the strange excitement this sight stirred up in her? He awoke. Her heart was beating. Slowly an Etruscan profile turned, then his face came into full view. Doors, shutters, windows opened.
And closed.
Elodie closed them. "I'm alright, Shannon. Where is he? Show me! I mean what does it say?" She was shocked at her bluntness. She wanted to see his picture, to know everything.
"You remember him. He was brilliant, but he wasn't here for long, only a year or so. You may have been at the University in France. That's right, he left here just before you came."
Elodie looked at his photo, there was the fine face, sultry mouth, set chin, tousled black curls, and brooding violet eyes, a gaze from beyond the threshold. The memory of him stimulated her. He looked as stunning as ever. And there was the scar on his left cheek, his beautiful high cheekbones. She could not believe it. This is where he came to from France after their encounter. It was from here he departed a few weeks before she arrived. It amazed her that in her four years working at Parliament no one had mentioned his name. She wanted to cry but managed to control herself.
"It says he was ‘an enfant terrible of journalism, creative but coarse and impudent, the journalist we both lionised and loathed. A passing meteor burning itself out.'” Shannon flashed her gaze at the writer’s tab, and muttered “Oh it’s written by Mark, busy boy,” then continuing out loud: “I remember he upset everyone. He often seemed severe and angry. He was one of those rarities they call a breakthrough journalist."
Elodie looked calm but felt she was imploding. "What happened? Why did he leave?"
"He left suddenly, unexpectedly, just after his story broke about corruption in high places. What was it called again? ‘State of Corruption’, that was it. Anyway, the story created a sensation, and his leaving so hurriedly afterwards caused a sensation, mafia dealings and the like. He went to live in Byron Bay I think. He became a recluse. They said he himself was corrupt, or at least pressured out by organised crime".
"How could he marry such a woman?" Elodie asked in a fake light tone, though the words seemed to scrape her throat. It irritated her beyond belief that the pop star shared the same first name as her late mother, Alma Guerine. The contrast could not have been greater. "Alma Martyr is so bizarre, so contrived. Look at her, a pop star who works non-stop on her image, becoming more and more outrageous with each publicity stunt". She could hear her voice becoming more and more strained with each observation, but couldn't stop herself: "Her mouth is enormous. She must be a bodybuilder. Look at her shoulders. Look at her hair!"
"It's alright it's modern", said Shannon looking bewildered.
"I thought you said he was a good man!"
She said it so vehemently she startled Shannon.
"From anti-corruption hero to gutless wonder, Mark said, but he was jealous."
"I thought he was Sandy's friend!" Elodie was shocked at how she leapt to Sandy's defence.
Shannon smiled in mock sympathy. "Innocent girl, you'll never learn."
"But you said he was a good man," Elodie repeated in a pathetic, wretched voice, and close to tears. She wanted him to be perfect. For God's sake he was perfect! Wasn't he?
"We seemed to get on."
"Get on?" It came out more like an allegation than a question.
"He was a friend. What is the matter with you? He was nothing like Mark if that's what you're thinking. Mark's a Latino sleaze. Sandy was, well I don’t know, a naturally sexy French Spaniard!” She paused. “Except he was born in Australia. Anyway, we didn't connect in that way, he was a great guy to be with, but he never made a pass at me.” She frowned. “I guess I never turned him on." Then something dawned on Shannon. "Do you know Sandy John?"
Elodie looked jealously at her friend's flashing green eyes and Titian red hair. Shannon Davies, Welsh born Shannon, a Parliament House beauty, with one hand on her hip, busty, almost blousy, her voluptuous, fit and healthy body, smiling her Mother Earth smile. Shannon a friend of Sandy John Rice, talking with him day after day in the Press Gallery (while she went through hell in Nice) having coffee with him in the Café, just as they all do now (while she waited). Mark had said Shannon was 'all woman'. How could any man not find her attractive?
Elodie's head reeled. She was being ridiculous. She sensed Shannon moving towards her, supporting her almost fainting body, trying to sit her down on a bench. She resisted, tried to regain her composure, collect her thoughts: Sandy John, a journalist in the Parliament, a friend of Mark and Shannon, engaged to Alma Martyr! She wondered what had happened to him. What was he like? Why did he leave so suddenly to live in a bush hideaway? Maybe he became corrupt. Maybe fame and wealth went to his head. An influential journalist round here has politicians eating out of his hand. Power like that can affect people. And where did he get the scar? Dealing with the mafia? She shuddered. Perhaps he was marrying Alma Martyr to regain the spotlight he had lost when he left the Parliament. After all, he must have lived in Byron Bay without it for nearly four years now.
"You're being very defensive about someone you don't know", said Shannon gently.
"I do know him, I mean I did know him, at least I thought I did." Elodie sat down helplessly on the bench.
She remembered how the pagan god had smiled dazzlingly as his profile turned, and had introduced himself to her with such a perfect accent she had assumed at first that he was French:
"Allo, Je m’appelle (my name is) Sandy John Rice.” He said gently towards her. She did not reply. “You approve of my treasures, Madame?" he then asked, his words falling like jewels, as he alighted from the wall and carefully laid down his flute. Elodie blushed at the imminence of his presence, but he seemed not to notice as he gestured with both arms at all the works of art in his magic garden.
"They're quite magnificent", she replied pleasantly, but felt unsure as his gaze now settled on her.
"It is your first visit?" He asked.
She nodded making her way nonchalantly past him to look at a huge broken mask. She could feel his eyes follow her: "Would Madame like a tour? I have been here many times. It is my preferred museum."
He followed her behind a low wall. A light breeze brushed her face and fluttered the soft white ruffles and flared cuffs of her cotton blouse. They were out of sight of the door, which someone now locked. He hovered nearby. Elodie trembled: "I must hurry", she said evenly, "I want to catch the next train back to Nice". She was really quite perturbed and glad she had the legitimate excuse of catching a train. She had never encountered a man with such a disturbing physicality. Everything about him was massive and magnificent. Earlier he had thrown back his head and laughed, and she had noticed one of the droplets of moisture glistening high on his neck trickle down to rest on his protruding adam's apple. She had fingered one of the beads on her long strand of pearls, nervously raising it to her mouth. He undid his shirt knotted round his waist and tossed it into a bush. She witnessed this ungirding of his loins, her gaze following the bulging form of his manhood and the subsequent movement of his limbs. Suddenly self-consciously she glanced down and considered refastening the ankle ties on her espadrilles. But he was leaning forward, his linen trousers simultaneously revealing and concealing the lines of his body. He was moving past her, enthusiastically leading her further up the pathway. Now from behind she was able to admire his masculine contours moving easily in front of her, and marvel at his overall manly physique. But he had more than a heroic physique. His being seemed to extend beyond his physical body, something seemed to radiate from him, something more than presence; it was omnipresence. The soft silk scarf about her neck now felt strangely like a choker. She panicked at the feelings he aroused in her:
"I really must go, it was nice meeting you!"
He turned startled, as she hurried back towards the door: "Please don't go!"
Her hand was grasping the handle. She paused and turned her gaze towards him. She was smitten by an inscrutable look on his face. It was the look of someone who had known ... deep sorrow? She instinctively let go the handle, opened her heart, and smiled. His crestfallen look turned into radiant joy.
"This is worth it for that", Elodie thought, as she repeated: "I really must go", trying to sound as matter-of-fact as she could. He came towards her as she went to turn the handle, but it was locked. She struggled with it momentarily confused.
"There is something wrong?" His hand reached out to the handle and touched hers as she withdrew. His timing was perfect, the taste delicious. He had touched her, and the tingle, like a tiny electric shockwave, went through to her very marrow, dilating into a glow that returned and suffused her entire body. He looked at his watch: "It's lunch hour", he said triumphantly, "They've locked us out by accident!"
* * *
"To describe myself as smitten is an understatement", said Elodie to Shannon, "My mouth was gaping."
"Fortunately you gape ravishingly", said Shannon.
Elodie smiled helplessly. A tear rolled down her cheek. She did feel safe with Shannon, who had become a kind of mother. She felt she could tell her anything, even her most secret thoughts, but for now she stammered:
"Shannon, I ... I ... "
Shannon's arms enfolded and comforted her:
"Enough for now ... let me see, you have an appointment at the Compact Beauty Parlour in half an hour. A massage is just what you need."
Elodie was engulfed by emotion, and unashamedly sobbed.
"Tell you what," continued a seemingly unperturbed Shannon, "It'll take twenty minutes for us to walk from here across town to the Queen Victoria Building". She was her usual practical, honest, amusing self: "If you want you can tell me more about you and Sandy John Rice. If not we'll discuss wild rice. I've got a great new recipe book. Either way, after your appointment we'll have tea for three at Mrs Proctor’s Magic Teashop. Have you ever been there? It is owned and managed by Emily Proctor, she’s gorgeous, so terribly English, like Mr Right."
Shannon's tactics worked. Elodie was charmed and amused, especially by the formal way Shannon referred to her fiancé as "Mr Right". She sometimes even addressed Matthew Right himself as "Mr Right". Elodie recalled the English solicitor's first encounter with a witty, lively Shannon. She remembered his having a happy if somewhat bemused expression on his face. They fell in love, and now they were to be married.
Other people seem to fall in love with each other so easily, she thought. Why had she been trapped, poisoned by her encounter with Sandy John Rice? Why couldn't she have a straightforward relationship like Shannon and Matthew? Why did Sandy John (she corrected herself) why did the memory of Sandy John bring up this tumult of emotion within her breast? It can't be right, she thought, and smiled at her own pun: Sandy John Rice was definitely not Matthew Right. Still, there must be plenty of other nice, right, single men around. But then again, she could hardly describe Sandy John Rice as "nice"...
Elodie paused in her musings. It was one of those moments when you sense someone is watching you. In a split second she noticed in astonishment of all people Mark Sharpe standing right there at the entrance to the gymnasium. He had been drinking. His raven hair wildly akimbo, his piercing blue eyes glittering, he had the look of a cat that saw the cream, and was willing to kill for it.
She inhaled. How long had he been there? What had he overheard? She felt so vulnerable, but was determined he would not know. Within the same second she heard Shannon’s voice:
"Why, Mark", she said threateningly, through gently clenched teeth, "What a surprise!"
Now Mark looked vulnerable. Caught in the act of eavesdropping, he stumbled with his words and fumbled with his hands:
"I was stunned by what the sub-editor did to my story, I'm truly sorry. I hope it isn't going to affect our relationship."
Elodie stared incredulous. What he said was so false and trite. She was astounded by his sheer brazenness, and did not know what to say. Shannon, smouldering like John Collier’s Priestess of Delphi, * took over with a simple directive:
"Get out of here, Mark Sharpe!"
Mark protested: "It was Elodie I came to see."
Elodie gratefully sheltered behind Shannon's subsequent barrage of scorn, which poured forth relentlessly and ended with an abrupt: "Now please get out!"
“Another typical Three Cocks Shannon diatribe” said Mark, glaring furiously from Shannon to Elodie, his lip curled: "And you look pretty cool. I thought you would: the ice maiden on whom nothing impacts. Are you still going to the Electronic Publishing Conference on the Gold Coast?" His hands were shaking with nervous rage.
Elodie's eyes flickered. What was he leading up to? "I wouldn't miss it", she managed to say, trying to sound as cool as Shannon would, while thinking particularly about a woman she'd finally meet there called Sandra Arrow, with whom she had been communicating on the MERCURAO network.
"Neither would I", said Mark slyly. Shannon grasped the armrest of her chair, thinking she would kill him. "Guess who's a late keynote speaker, our friend,” he emphasised, “Sandy John Rice."
Elodie's heart sank. He had heard their conversation. She looked at him steadily, and feigned mock surprise:
"Oh really?"
"Yes really. It seems he's emerging from his bush hideaway especially for the conference, oh that and to be married of course."
His spiteful comments seemed to have no effect on either women, so, murderous and savage, standing coldly in the doorway, he came in for the kill: "Knowing Sandy John as well as I do he'll probably be amused to know an old virgin lover still has the hots for him."
Shannon was livid, not just by Mark’s juvenile innuendo about her birthplace in Wales, but more so for his vile attack on her friend. Before Elodie could think or feel a reaction she was amazed to observe Shannon move swiftly towards Mark, her hands raised (she was a karate expert) and to hear Mark actually scream in fright, turn and run from the gymnasium. It was such an unexpected reaction from a big grown man who had been threatening them, they themselves were left standing momentarily stunned.
"I wouldn't have hurt him much", muttered Shannon. They stared at each other, and burst into spontaneous laughter, probably in relief at the shattering of tension.
Shannon tried to pick up the pieces of their previous conversation:
"A massage from Madame Poggendorf at the Beauty Compact, followed by tea and polite conversation with Mr Right at Mrs Proctor’s Magic Teashop, it sounds so civilised, don't you think?"
They left arm in arm, but it was of no use. Elodie's spirits had plunged into a miasma of confusion. Strange feelings of hope and excitement merged with anger, self doubt and despair.
In the lift with Shannon, heading for the sixth floor exit, Elodie felt shaken. Just how much had Mark heard, and would he carry out his threat to tell Sandy John? She closed her eyes and leaned against the lift. There was a feeling in the pit of her stomach at the thought of Sandy John that was both nauseous and strangely pleasurable. How would she react if she saw him at the Electronic Publishing Conference, she mused bitterly, the man who five years before had thoroughly used her?
After their encounter in Antibes she had hung around for hours and waited for weeks at their agreed meeting place in Nice: Le Jockey, a typical French bar. She recalled through the rush and fumes of blackcurrant-flavoured kir, the iconic and ironic sound of Cyndi Lauper on the juke-box: Girls Just Wanna Have Fun. An American seemed to play it over and over. What a fool she had been: giving herself wholly and solely to Sandy John Rice, then mooning about Nice for months.
If it had not been for her friend Ruuku she would have gone mad. She thought of him tenderly: Dr Ruuku Akikawa, a Japanese Parisian and fellow student at Nice University; Ruuku whom she called the Healer, dignified, aristocratic and elegant, sitting for hours with her in Le Jockey, ministering like a Shinto high priest, paying homage to his celestial highness. He had never displayed passionate emotion towards her, she thought, let alone any sexual proclivity, but instead had placed her on a pedestal.
How his goddess had fallen, she mused, but Ruuku had remained faithful during her crisis. After a season of Cyndi Lauper and drinking Kir, it seemed that despite the fact she had become a 'regular', Elodie was not destined to reunite with Sandy John, then or ever. She had realized through her desolate daze that Sandy John Rice had made other plans in which she played no part.
Ruuku persuaded her to go skiing at Val d'Isere high in the French Alps, and for a fortnight, they sped through clouds at the apex of the world. The atmosphere, like her relationship with Ruuku, had been bright, pure, remote, astringent. Emptied of pain, devoid of longing, she had transcended isolation.
Once, at nearby Col de l'Iseran, the highest pass in the Grandes Alpes, they had climbed towards the summit and drunk in breathtaking views of peaks and glaciers before skiing down into the valley of Bonneval-sur-Arc, an unspoiled stone village snuggling at the foot of Col de l'Iseran. Racing down a mountain at forty miles an hour, Elodie was bedazzled in a blaze of opaline snow. Ruuku saved her from falling off the edge of the world. "What are you doing? Do you want to die?" He admonished. She must choose. It was her choice alone. She chose to live, for now, with her silent priest in a relationship distilled of passion.
Ruuku had returned with Elodie to Sydney, Australia, where, despite his medical training, he settled and established in Hunters Hill Chez Ruuku, one of Sydney's finest restaurants. At least it was to Elodie, who relished Ruuku's disciplined, restrained combination of exquisite Japanese and French nouvelle cuisine. No wonder she was grateful: she had a totally loyal friend who had not only saved her life and sanity, but had turned nourishing her into a high art form!
Not that she could eat a thing, she thought, as her stomach churned. What extremes in the only two really close male friends in her life: the calm, continuity of Ruuku over years, and the outpouring of passion with Sandy John over two hours.
She should blush, but she was not at all self-conscious about what had happened. She felt no pangs of guilt. Her passionate love with Sandy had been the result of something real, something that still existed ... for her! And she was amazed at the spontaneity of this revelation which now poured through her consciousness, in a lift in Parliament House: she was in love with Sandy John Rice as much as she had ever been, if not more so, and she wanted desperately to see him.
Her deep blue eyes were wide open. She saw his wild black curls, image of his nature, felt his warm body pulsating in hers, recalled their brief conversation ... At this point Elodie was startled to see her reflection in the lift mirror almost smirking. Over an hour they had had a brief conversation! Was she a hussy?
She accepted the challenge of that look, and wore it. No, she was not a hussy: “I have done nothing wrong”, she murmured, pacing out her words. “And I would do it again”.
"What was that, Elodie?" Said Shannon.
"Just thinking aloud", she replied, but a wave of anxiety came over her, as she realised the enormity of her pledge: that her dream would be forever unfulfilled. Sandy John did not return her love. He had probably never loved her. With all that had happened she knew she would always be vulnerable. Besides he would soon marry Alma Martyr, unless it was a publicity stunt. And what if it was? So what? She quickly made herself put hope from that idea firmly to the back of her mind. Such marriages did occur, at least according to the women's magazines, which she read regularly for light relief from the stress of her work. But now she no longer had that stress, she remembered, and despite her anxiety, the knowledge of her inexorable love for Sandy John had also lifted a great burden from her heart.
Under Ruuku's guidance she had struggled for and achieved reasonableness and calm. She felt reasonably calm now, she thought, but if she were to meet Sandy John again, she doubted her ability to stay his affect on her. Once again her heart fluttered. Why did just the thought of meeting him unsettle her, as if it had its own powerful immanence? She would settle herself right now. Now is important. What she must do now is step outside herself, as Ruuku had taught her, observe herself as a stranger, and carefully and calmly analyse the image of herself feeling these feelings, then she would regain control of her emotions.
Focussing on an image of herself, she breathed a discreet, deep breath ...
At that moment the lift doors parted and there across the threshold with Mark Sharpe was: Sandy John Rice!
"Sandy John", shrieked Shannon.
"Just reuniting old friends", said Mark in an oily voice.
Elodie was caught in a maelstrom of thoughts and emotions. She tried to gulp in Sandy's presence, as if she could calmly drink a tsunami. At the same moment she wondered why Shannon was babbling animatedly with an unctuous Mark whom recently she had attempted to maim if not kill. She vaguely thought it must be part of the culture of the Parliament, as she felt violet eyes focus on hers and deliver a hail of arrows reigniting the heart that had once and now loved him so passionately.
All in that moment she loved him, she longed to kiss him, right now, by the lift, near the Press Gallery, in Parliament House.
But the moment, and the intention within it slipped away, as they do, by the lift, near the Press Gallery, in Parliament House, and besides, she thought, he does not love me.
Instead, gathering up wellsprings of willpower Elodie stood poised, radiant and calm, on the threshold, correct in assuming that no one suspected her internal, lurching consternation.
His looks had not changed, except for the scar, which cut into her heart. She wanted to cover it with kisses, but fortunately was spared that decision by the lift doors spontaneously and ridiculously closing between them.
Elodie recalled Mark's and Shannon's laughter as she stabbed at the ‘open’ button inside. When the doors again parted she saw Sandy's clenched knuckles on the outside button, his violet eyes raging like a dark brooding storm. Now she could see beads of perspiration glistening on a protruding vein, near that signatory scar.
“Before, he was perfect”, she thought, “now he is scarred”, and resisted an overwhelming urge to mop his brow. Something terrible had happened to him since their first meeting. Whatever it was his irresistible force had met its match. She wondered fearfully what dealings he had had.
The atmosphere was unbearable. Then he said curiously: "So you're no longer wedded to the ski fields?"
"I still ski", she said, determined to be calm, as she carefully emerged from the lift smiling in puzzlement.
He seemed frustrated and annoyed at her response to his small talk.
"But not a life commitment?"
She wondered what he was getting at, but, thinking of her sister Eleanor tied to her work in Aspen, she answered coolly: "I'd never want to dedicate my life to it".
Sandy thrust his head forward angrily, his jaw set as he pushed a hand exasperatedly through his dark curls and down his temple.
Whatever he was about to say was interrupted by a sudden loud voice booming from the nearby press gallery: "Hey, Sandy John! Come on, we've got leftover champagne ... celebrate your engagement to Alma".
It fell like a cleaver. Rudely awakened from her turbulent reflections, Elodie remembered with shock that Sandy was engaged to be married, but even this new reflection was momentary. The same loud-mouthed journalist recognized Elodie, and shouted; "Hey, everyone, it's Elodie. Come on! Be a sport! Join us!"
"Yes, Elodie, come on," came a chorus of voices that was pretty soon surrounding them.
"Yes, yes, fine", said Elodie, not knowing quite what she was agreeing to, in her utter confusion at longing to stay with Sandy but wanting to flee from his accusing gaze. Then upon realising what she had said there followed protests about her appointments at the Beauty Parlour and Teashop. Shannon's persistent voice was breaking through; someone's cell phone appeared. All of a sudden their appointments were deferred an hour, and Elodie found herself whisked into the lively ambience of a spontaneous parliamentary press gallery party.
Inside it was warm and crowded, and the group of journalists moved across the room meeting and greeting.
“Hola J-J”, said Suzannah to Sandy John. She was Elodie’s colleague, and a budding opera singer with a wonderful voice.
“J-J?” thought Elodie confusedly, and then jealously at their friendly familiarity, whilst Suzannah and Sandy John laughed & exchanged a few phrases in Spanish. Mark joined in the conversación espana, but Sandy John politely switched back to English as the journalists moved on (Sandy John thankfully with them) and quickly dispersed. Elodie concealed her consternation at this familiar interchange, and blankly sipped champagne as she tried to listen to the idle chatter of her colleagues. She wondered just how well Suzannah had known Sandy John, or Mark for that matter. She reflected that Suzannah had addressed him as Marko and he had then turned away virtually ignoring her. Suzannah had smiled a knowing smile, as in the Infanta Margerita * portrait by Velasquez, and her gaze had followed him (or was it Sandy John?) as the handsome pair drifted amicably across the room.
So Elodie tried to listen to the small group of women around her, but in vain. She switched off, and soon, with her second glass almost empty, she could see Sandy John opposite with some journalists listening intently as Mark spun one of his stories. She was amazed at Mark’s fund of anecdotes, and, having heard so many of them so often, was pleased she wasn't there, but at the same time was now anxious at not being with Sandy.
She compared them. Mark was handsome she thought, with his raked back long raven hair, pierced ears and piercing blue eyes. And very witty; and very clever. His writing was always incisive and polemical, and more importantly, sold newspapers. The Parliament suited him. He was so in the world and of it. And he could handle a crowd, she observed, as she heard them laughing uproariously across the room. She contrasted Jean-Claude Merlin on Hamilton Island, an out-of-work musician-cum-waiter, who had reminded her of Sandy John, and who, like Sandy, looked gorgeous, but was nothing like him. Jean-Claude was the opposite of intense, she thought, he was hedonistic, laid back and cool, and simply did not have the same impact on her as Sandy John. Try as she might, she thought wryly, even with the heavenly Whitsundays as their backdrop, she could not fall in love with Jean-Claude, or his life-style. On the other hand, Shannon’s Mr Right was perfect in every way (she’d met him once or twice) absolutely perfect, and mused that men as well as women would like him, that there was no-one that could not feel safe with Matthew Right.
And finally there was Ruuku Akikawa, who had given her a life that had lifted her above the world, and yet she had observed a great deal of some self-indulgence in herself at abandoning it. She wanted the world and to be in it. That was why, after returning with Ruuku from France, she had gone into the Social Issues portfolio, to do something for the poor, the children, the handicapped, for women as victims of violence, except that within the confines of this place, it hadn’t worked, at least not for her, she thought, and blinked away a tear. If only she could do something in the real world, if only, but she couldn’t. All she could do was retreat once more into her own world of writing on the computer. That was why she must go to that Electronic Publishing Conference and hopefully meet this Sandra Arrow, who had helped her so much with information that ironically had arrived by snail mail yesterday. It was the heart in the woman that had moved Elodie, her brief simple words encouraging her when she had poured out her hopes and aspirations.
She sighed. She so desperately wanted more of Sandy John’s passion, to plumb further his depths of brimming anger and silent sorrow. She stared at him. Was he deliberately avoiding her? Why didn’t he look at her? He had seemed furious with her outside the lift, or angry about something? Why? What was he about to say before they were dragged to this party? He seemed so bitter. And once again the thought crossed her mind that maybe he was involved in organised crime, or perhaps was its unwilling victim, and that that had made him bitter.
She still loved him, and looked across the room. To call Sandy John handsome was an understatement. Despite the gulf between them, maybe on third consideration she did prefer being with Shannon and her group of friends: it was so easy to glance in his direction.
He now had his perfectly curved back to her. She could not stop staring at the pre-Raphaelite lines of his tousled curly black hair spilling onto the nape of his pillared neck. They just touched the collar of his blue chambray shirt, the folds of which, falling like water from his broad shoulders, gathered and converged, tucking neatly into a tan leather belt that hugged him at the waist. She mentally gulped at his virile presence, drinking champagne nervously, as it suddenly dawned on her that her occasional subtle glances had been happening more often, and lasting longer!
She felt warm, and somewhat wickedly looked among her colleagues, wondering if they had noticed that she had been staring. They were chatting animatedly among themselves. She realised that her last easy glance had turned into blatant admiration for Sandy John’s physique. He was bending away from her now, almost doubled with laughter. Mark’s stories were really not that funny, Elodie thought somewhat irritably, the pupils of her Titian blue eyes dilating above her raised glass, as they followed the taut, muscular curve of Sandy’s figure-hugging pants. His sleek moleskin trousers were like a second skin stretching from his slim waist and emphasising the firm shape and eyebrow-raising cleavage of his perfectly proportioned buttocks. Oh memory! Again she caught herself almost smirking: “If the women here knew what she had done, what she was thinking”, she reflected satisfactorily, “They would be scandalised”.
She was brought back swiftly to her own group, and to what she was thinking, by the arrival of Amanda de Lucca, a young, energetic chef from the Parliament’s dining room, who immediately said approvingly of Sandy John: "Who is the super spunk with the great buns over there? I’d love to get my teeth into them".
A stunned Elodie waited for some shocked comment from their group of mixed-aged women who were still chatting quite freely. Instead, they laughed, and Emmy Walling, an elderly librarian, agreed that Sandy John looked as though he had been “poured into” his moleskins, “A fashion I find so attractive in country menfolk”, she continued, her approving gaze moving up and down his athletic frame.
“I’ve always thought they showed off his manhood in the most exciting detail”, lisped Spanish Suzannah, who was gazing, one eyebrow raised, through her glasses.
“He’s a babe”, continued Mandy, “What a specimen! Look at him.”
Everyone looked at him.
“He’s just pure sex. His cheeks move in perfect unison. They’re so tight. Is he a footballer?” and without waiting for any answer or comment went confidently from the staring group of women over to Sandy John, presumably to find out for herself.
A still stunned Elodie gulped and spluttered on the remnants of her champagne.
“Drunk again”, said Shannon jokingly, quickly moving over to assist. “That was girl talk, you need to mix more”, then murmured. “Are you ok?”
Elodie nodded, now holding the wine glass in her left hand as, looking down at her dress, she involuntarily shook champagne from the fingers of her right hand. Emmy Walling fussed with a pretty lace handkerchief saying: "It goes to the head, doesn't it?" while Suzannah Bella Maria della Cruz looked on uncertainly with that curious blend of modesty and Iberian nobleza.
Elodie nodded again, wondering if she were tipsy. By the end of her first glass of champagne she had felt a glow in the pit of her stomach. She had hardly eaten for days, and the alcohol had hit the spot that makes one want more. Now that she was through with her second (or was it third?) glass, she did feel light-headed.
The room was getting hazy, but at least her agitation had settled somewhat. It was unlike her, but in one swallow, she had finished off her last glass of champagne. More magically flowed into it from somewhere, and she once again raised the glass to her lips. Not since her days of drinking kir in Nice had she consumed alcohol at this rate, she thought vaguely, and then she had had Ruuku to support her. Dear, gentle Ruuku, she thought mistily, and looked again across at Sandy John and shivered.
Maybe she needed Ruuku’s support right now. But he was not in Sydney. He was in Paris, from where he had sent her a postcard, which she had received at home yesterday. It was a print of a modern master, Kozo, from the Beauborg, an exquisite pale blue water colour of a dove within an ovoid, each melting into the other: oeuf ou oiseau, egg or bird. Ruuku’s message on the reverse was a carpet of question marks followed by his signature. That was the enigmatic Ruuku, she surmised, he was strangely healing, just thinking about him settled her and made her feel calm.
Smoothing her dress, and smiling, she casually looked across the room and saw Mandy’s blond sorrel Salome curls tossing and turning as she talked animatedly to Sandy John, who was now facing Elodie. He didn’t seem to see her. His devastating smile seemed to be in response to Mandy’s. Elodie’s calmness was short-lived. Her stomach now churned, and her heart thumped uncontrollably. This was dangerous. She wondered if Mandy’s smile was having the same effect on Sandy John, as his was on her. She wasn’t called Randy Mandy for nothing. Suddenly Mandy turned and laughed familiarly, the light glinting on her longish teeth and making her look quite lupine.
“Those teeth”, thought Elodie. “Sandy’s BUNS!”