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Neither spoke for several seconds, the atmosphere was charged with something Dick had never sensed before in that house. He pulled his Zippo lighter from his pocket and held the flame to the end of his cigar as he rolled it slowly between his fingers. He had no idea what was going on but had no intention of leaving until he found out, as much for Amy’s protection as the Soutine’s.

She could not bring herself to speak. It was not distress, nor anxiety, she simply didn’t know what to say to Jarret. ‘Get out of my house.’ ‘What are you doing here?’ ‘How dare you invade my privacy?’ They hardly seemed right since by saying any of those things she made his appearance in her life much more important than it was. Having invaded her dreams, having so recently caused her to review their affair, it no longer made any difference whether he was here or not. Indifference to Jarret at long last. How delicious! She walked from the library down the stairs.

It was impossible for him to lose sight of her in the open-plan house where nearly everything was visible. ‘I’m sorry to take you by surprise, just appearing like this. I couldn’t call, I had no telephone number.’

‘You may be a surprise, Jarret, but not a shock. I half
expected to see you. Is Fee not with you? It was he who found me for you yet again, wasn’t it? My housekeeper tells me she sent away a bald-headed man several days ago, one who would not give his name. She thought he looked dangerous.’

Amy was standing directly in front of Jarret by the time she delivered those last words. She could not help but enjoy his discomfort. His precious Fee being called dangerous? He looked very displeased with that. Before he could say anything she continued, ‘Dick, Jarret Sparrow is someone I knew a very long time ago – it seems like a lifetime ago. Someone else’s lifetime. Jarret, meet my friend and neighbour, Dick Whately.’

The two men shook hands. Dick, who found the atmosphere strained and yet somehow electric with the meeting between Amy and Jarret Sparrow, was feeling not at all inclined to leave Amy with him unless she wanted to be. He offered, ‘Shall I make us a cup of tea, Amy?’

‘No, I don’t think so, Dick, you make such a lousy cup of tea, but do pour yourself a drink.’

‘Fee is in the car, and my son Tennant. Fee wants very much to see you, almost as much as I do, and Tennant has heard about you for years and longs to meet you.’

‘It seems you brought all the family. Well, not quite. How is it you left your wife out of this uncalled-for reunion?’

‘My wife and I are divorced.’

‘And why am I honoured with this extraordinary visit?
And more to the point, how did you find my address?’

‘It wasn’t easy. Bribery, sleuthing. Don’t look for ulterior motives in my seeking you out, you’ll find none. I’m just trying to find something I’ve missed and longed for for too many years.’

Dick was astounded at Jarret Sparrow’s gall, the charm, the determination with which he delivered those words. He was already impressed by the handsome, charismatic presence of the man and understood that Jarret was there to seduce Amy back into his life in any way he could. He was blatant and Amy, though she looked calm, seemed to Dick to be undeniably on edge. Was that a glint of fright he saw in the back of her eyes? ‘Amy, do you want me to leave or escort Jarret to his taxi?’

‘No, don’t leave, Dick, I will. I need to check the boat, make sure it’s secured for the night. You keep Jarret company. I’ll either return with his family or they’ll all be leaving and we can see them to the gate.’

Jarret reached out and touched Amy’s cheek.

She removed his hand. ‘I won’t be long,’ she told him, and walked away before he could say another word. In the hall she slipped into a wool-lined denim jacket. The two men watched her and Dick noticed that she took a side door rather than the front entrance that would have brought her in direct contact with the taxi and its passengers.

‘You had better give me your coat,’ said Dick to Jarret.

He removed his coat and laid it over a chair. ‘Look, I’m sorry about this intrusion but for a very long time I
have been trying to find Amy. We were once very close friends.’

‘You’re Jarret Sparrow, the painter. I know your work, saw it years ago in Paris. Come on in, there’s something here you’ll appreciate – a great Soutine.’

Through the window Amy saw them walking towards the easel. She could not relate to Jarret through the past but only in the immediate present. She saw an attractive man to whom she was still sexually drawn. She knew who he was, what he was, what he was not. The bad, the good, the downright depravity of the man, but she was indifferent to all that. She had no need to deal with what he had been nor what they had been. She had known him as the great love of her life, but that was like some melodramatic novel that she had read somewhere and immersed herself in. She had finished it now. It was closed.

Amy checked the boat’s lines, and then sat there for some time, but not thinking of the past. She was thinking about Jarret being in her house with Dick. Of meeting Fee again, of meeting Tennant, Jarret’s son. She was thinking about herself. And of Jarret and her, how he would always be the great love of her life, past tense. What could they possibly be to each other now, if anything?

She walked from the boat round the boat house to the waiting taxi. The two men, Fee and Tennant, alighted from the taxi immediately.

‘Oh, how wonderful to see you, Amy. You have hardly changed, you look marvellous.’

‘Not changed in thirty years? You were always the
consummate flatterer and liar, Fee. You look as dramatic and attractive as you always like to look, but by God, I see the years on you. And this is Tennant?’

‘Hello.’

It was difficult for Amy to find words for the twenty-two-year-old. He was almost exactly like his father when Amy first met him, though Jarret had been older then than his son was now. She was drawn to him at once, just as she had been to Jarret.

‘Hello, Tennant.’

‘Fee and Dad have told me all about you and your years in New York in the art world, and how exciting a life you and my dad led there. I wish I could have been a part of that scene.’

‘Tennant is a painter. Better than Jarret, better than me,’ said Fee.

‘I wish you well, Tennant. Fee …’ She held the taxi door open for him. ‘Jarret is staying on for a bit. I’ll drive him back to the city.’

For the first time in her life Amy saw Fee nonplussed. ‘Might I just have a word with him?’

‘No. And, Fee, if you ever want to return here, send a letter care of the post office asking if you might visit, but never trespass again. Don’t be offended, that’s what all my friends and acquaintances, and strangers especially, are asked to do.’

‘Amy, I would like to see you again. We had great times together, a great deal of laughter, we were good friends. I would like that to happen for us again. When may I see you?’

‘How strange that it should take you thirty years to remember we were friends, Fee. I had forgotten. Tennant, you and Fee go ahead. Maybe I will see you again when I return your father to London.’

Tennant took her hand in his and lowered his head and kissed it. The two men climbed into the taxi and Amy closed the door. Fee pulled down the window. ‘He loves you, he has always loved you, like no other woman in his life.’

‘Then he should have done something about it, shouldn’t he, Fee?’ Amy slapped the side of the taxi and the driver drove off.

Jarret filled her house with his presence. She listened and watched as he charmed Dick with that lethal combination of sensitivity, chic sophistication, good looks and deferential, almost vulnerable, lost boy manner. That sex appeal he always used on both men and women. How long had he been there? Half an hour? And already he had restored a dimension to her life that she had missed those thirty-odd years he had stayed away. Incredible, the chemistry between them was still there. She’d sensed it the moment she saw him enter her house.

He had won Dick over. She could see it in his face, in his manner towards Jarret. She could understand it. Jarret and Fee, like the devil himself, had many disguises that all worked. Had they ever come unstuck, been made to pay for the evil things they had done? They were such a clever partnership, Amy somehow doubted it.

‘Your house is marvellous, Amy. And the Soutine’s the best I’ve ever seen.’

‘We’ve been talking art. Jarret was telling me about the
palazzo
he lives in in Venice, and his garden. You’ve been there, haven’t you, Amy?’

‘Oh, yes, I’ve been there.’

Something was happening between Amy and Jarret, that same old magic was at work. Dick couldn’t help but see it and feel awkward, out of place. ‘Jarret’s friend and son, Amy?’ he asked.

‘I’ve sent them back to London. I’ll drive Jarret in a little later.’

Dick needed no prompting from Amy, he could see that she had softened somewhat towards Jarret and was in total control of the situation. ‘I’m going home. Nice to meet you, Jarret. If you’re round for a while get Amy to bring you over to us, we’re only on the other side of the river.’

Amy watched the two men shake hands and marvelled at how smooth an operator Jarret still was when she heard him say to Dick, ‘Really nice to meet you and hear about your Bacons. Sounds to me you’re that rare sort of collector who puts his heart into every painting he buys. I would really appreciate seeing them and your collection.’ This to Dick who so rarely spoke about his collection to anyone, Dick who guarded every painting from outside visitors.

Amy walked with him to the door and stepped outside for a moment. ‘Are you going to be OK with Jarret? I can stay but somehow thought you wanted
to be alone with him. I am right, aren’t I?’

‘I’ll be fine.’

‘Amy, this guy … he’s awfully smooth, a lady killer … but what the hell am I telling you that for? You’re not blind.’

‘Is he so obvious?’

‘To a guy who was once a lot like him, yes. This guy is an interesting rogue. Just what women love.’

‘Don’t look so worried, Dick. I’ve been there, done that.’

‘Ah, I see, a class reunion?’

‘Something like that.’ And they both smiled.

‘Do I have to call before I come round tomorrow to visit my painted ladies?’

‘No. I don’t give up my life so easily any more when a man comes through the door.’

Dick laughed. ‘Careful, Amy, all women
and
men do when the real thing walks in.’ And he waved and ran across the lawn to his boat.

Amy closed the door behind her and entered the room. Jarret was putting logs on the fire. She couldn’t help but think how presumptuous he was, how very quickly he was taking over her house, how sure he was of her. It was written plain for all to see: the look on his face, his movements.

‘I’m going to make a cup of tea,’ she told him.

He followed her into the kitchen. ‘I wish you had asked Fee and Tennant in.’

Amy swung round, kettle in hand, and asked, ‘Why, Jarret? I don’t feel particularly well disposed to Fee, and I don’t know your son.’

He removed the kettle from her hand and placed it on the table. Somewhat roughly he pulled her into his arms. She could feel the emotion emanating from him. He pressed a kiss upon her lips. His were trembling. To be held in his arms, feel his need for her, his lust for her, was thrilling. With Jarret sex was something much more than with any other man she had known. Against her will, she felt her body giving in to him.

He slipped his hands under her jumper and found her breasts. Caressing hands, Jarret’s hands, hands that she’d never dreamed would touch her again. It had always been as if she had found the other half of herself when she was in his embrace. How could that still be? It was a mystery to her that love should be gone and she still feel so strongly sexual with him. She could understand the many sex-without-love experiences she had had with other men, but for it to be so with Jarret seemed somehow immoral.

She tried to remove his hands but he was too quick for her. He had her jumper off and his mouth was sucking at the nipple of the breast that overflowed his cupped hands. She could feel the hardness of his erect penis pressed against her through his trousers. She came, an unwanted orgasm, light, almost imperceptible. He picked her up in his arms and carried her from the kitchen to a chair in front of the fire, all the while reaching underneath her skirts and beneath her silk panties.

‘Jarret, there is no point to this.’

‘Love, lust, those same things we’ve always had for each other, that’s the point. And don’t tell me you’ve forgotten.’

‘Not forgotten, but I don’t live in the past, Jarret.’

He had her panties off and felt the moisture on her inner cunt lips. ‘I have my proof,’ he told her.

He draped her legs over the arms of the chair. She leaned against the pillows on the chair, exposed and raunchy, and enjoyed the lust she was exhibiting to Jarret. Amy enjoyed her sexuality. Men who fed her libido with their lust reaped their just rewards from her. She watched Jarret as he unzipped his trousers and dropped them. He went down on his knees and roughly pulled her by the legs tight up against him, half lifting her bottom off the chair. He thrust into her. The force of his entry took her breath away. She called out, a near scream to God to save her, and came in a copious orgasm. Jarret pulled her tight into his arms. His kisses were wild, full of passion. They were interspersed with protestations of love while he fucked her in long, deep thrusts that caused her to come again and again as she wrapped her legs tight round him.

They were both out of control, voracious for all things sexual. This was a more sexually violent, a more sexually desperate Jarret than Amy had ever known before. She herself felt a kind of anger at their erotic games. They were two strangers caught in the lust trap and nothing either of them could say or do could free them. Amy and Jarret would fuck until the energy ran out or death came. And it seemed to Amy that it made no difference to them which came first.

Chapter 17

Amy awakened still in Jarret’s arms. They were lying on the floor in front of the hearth, the fire now nothing but cold white ash. Jarret had covered them with a blanket of Norwegian wolf skins that usually lay on the end of one of the pair of Georgian settees in the room.

‘I remember you used to be the one who always awoke first, ready and waiting for me. I love you, Amy.’

‘You used only to be able to tell me you loved me when you were fucking me.’

She rose from the floor, wrapping her nakedness in the blanket, and walked round the room picking up her clothes. She went through to the kitchen where she filled the kettle and put it on the Aga. When she returned fully dressed to the drawing-room Jarret too was dressed and laying a fire in the fireplace.

‘I did mean to be more subtle about wanting to fuck you. I had planned at least to seduce you with some finesse.’

‘Finesse? Tennant and Fee as back-up, you call that finesse?’

‘This wouldn’t have happened had you not sent them away. I hadn’t planned it. We just happened as we always just happened.’

‘Yes, I guess that just about sums us up. A love never
planned, something that just happened.’

Jarret went to Amy and placed an arm round her. ‘You’ve always been the sexiest woman I’ve ever wanted and had. You still are. You loved it so much, you loved me so much, and you still do. I once told you there would never be a man to replace me, and there hasn’t been.’

‘That’s true,’ Amy told him as she extricated herself from his arms and left the room to make the tea.

Jarret followed her into the kitchen and sat down at the table.

‘We’ll have this, and then I’ll drive you to the nearest railway station.’

Amy poured the tea and placed a plate of ginger biscuits on the table. She took a chair opposite him. Jarret was looking round the room. It charmed him. A real country kitchen of period wooden tables and handsome chairs of which no two matched, a ten-foot-long butcher’s block, worn into waves of polished yew, that was used as a working surface. Marble surfaces surrounded the old-fashioned butler’s sinks. Glass storage jars of all shapes and sizes were filled with preserves and pasta, nuts and honey, rice and sugar. Extra virgin olive oils and a variety of vinegars vied with handsome pottery pieces, marble and copper bowls, for room on the open shelves that circled the walls. Pots and pans gleamed on a rack above the Aga. And from other hooks suspended on chains from the ceiling hung bunches of drying herbs: rosemary and thyme, bay leaves and lavender, tarragon, dried marigolds, garlands of garlic and onion.

‘This room is great. Your whole house is great. I want to see it all. Very impressive. I never pictured you in a place such as this. It’s stunning, full of grace and peace and quiet. It has something special, uplifting about it. It’s a home put together by someone who cherishes all things beautiful. I never realised a home was so important to you.’

Amy was taken aback, not only by what he was saying but his tone of disbelief that she should want and have a home, live as she did. The only thing she could think to say was, ‘Why not, Jarret?’

‘You gave up that first little flat we lived in together so easily to me. And, well, the second place … that hardly counted, did it, though you did move there for me, so we could have a larger living space. I always knew that. But this! A wonderful place to live and work in, and so close to London.’

‘I had never thought of it before, Jarret, but until I met you I always lived in beautiful houses. Possibly not as large and grand as a
palazzo
or a
yalis
, more the size of your Paris flat. Do you still think all the houses, like all the flowers in the world, are for you and you alone?’ She was being facetious but he didn’t realise that.

He laughed. ‘May I have a biscuit?’ Amy offered him the plate. She watched him eat his biscuit and take a second, and a third, then drink from his cup. He gazed at her across the table and she recognised that meanness that could come into his eyes, that hardness that once had frightened her. It did no such thing now. She left
the table and returned with a biscuit tin, opened it and sat down again.

‘You remember that?’

‘I’m not likely to forget it, Jarret.’

‘Nothing has changed,’ he told her, reaching for another biscuit and refilling his tea cup.

‘How greedy you are!’

‘Yes, that’s true, but you’ve always known that. I have never pretended to be other than I am.’

‘I may have known it but I never understood to what lengths your greed could extend itself.’

‘Amy, I loved you as I have loved no other woman, and you know that is true.’

‘Yes, I believe you did, in spite of yourself. But the kind of love we had for each other was forbidden, not in your plans.’

‘Not did, do. I still love you.’

‘I don’t think we should be having a discussion about love, Jarret.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I know only too well what your particular kind of love is. You loved me so well, Jarret, that when problems swamped me you packed your bags and left, telling me, “I’ll be back when things are better for you again.” Ah, to be loved by you was really something, Jarret! A flat in Paris, an enormous
palazzo
in Venice, another mansion on the waters of the Bosphorus – and when I was in debt and had nowhere to live, you couldn’t offer me so much as a box room in any of your residences. I never heard: “Share my bed with me, dear Amy, until
you can make things better.” All I heard was, “Send word when you have an address.”

‘You have no idea what it was like for me to survive in New York City alone and adrift, without money nor a roof over my head, without love; no friends forthcoming to take me in and with a lover who cared so little he vanished without a thought. A stranger, a casual acquaintance, heard of my plight and told someone just in passing, as no more than a bit of gossip about an art name who lost all because of bad timing and love for the wrong man. That stranger lent me his flat while he was in Europe. The pity of a stranger saved my life. I hid from the art world trying to survive any way I could until I could get myself on my feet again. I will say one thing about New York, it’s a very easy place to disappear in. And there’s always a way to make money if you cast your sights low enough.’

‘You managed very well, though, didn’t you? Eighteen months later I was knocking at the door of your new flat in New York. This isn’t the first time I’ve turned up on your doorstep to remind you that I love you and want to be with you. You turned me away for some second-rate lover you could never love as you loved me.’

‘Is it second-rate love you would like to talk about? All right, let’s talk about that. No, better still, let’s talk about despicable love, the sort of love that does as you did to me when I turned up in Venice three months after you left me alone to cope with my problems. The one bright note in my life, something wonderful from a grand romantic love: a child. Nothing else but that news would
have made me swallow my pride and go to you. Like two long-lost souls we fell into each other’s arms. A million ways of how to tell you kept turning over in my mind. I intended to go there and break the wonderful news because, as the father of my child, I felt you had the right to be part of that miracle. And when I saw you I felt as I always did when we were together, whole, as if I had come home. Only to hear, “Where are you staying? How long will you be here?” Those were your first words to me. Then, “What are you doing here?”’

Jarret said nothing. Amy gave him credit for that at least. Finally when he did speak it was to ask if she might add some hot water to the tea pot. There was no remorse in his voice. She rose from her chair, poured more fresh water into the kettle and removed the tea pot from the table. A fresh pot seemed in order. He walked up behind her and placed his arms round her, holding her close to him as she was rinsing the china pot clean.

‘I didn’t want a baby. You knew that was not in the scheme of things for us. You shouldn’t have been surprised when I told you your having one was not my problem.’

‘Well, as it turned out, it wasn’t mine either.’

‘I never did ask you what happened.’

‘Do us both a favour and don’t ask now. What are you doing here, Jarret? What do you want?’ She slipped out of his grasp and made the tea, then sat down and waited for it to steep.

‘I want you to love me again. We were once so good together. The best.’

‘I don’t live in the past, Jarret. If I did, I wouldn’t have let you through my front door.’

‘What just happened between us, that wasn’t the past. It was wonderful, thrilling sex.’

‘So what?’

The moment Amy said those words, she broke into raucous laughter. A smile crossed Jarret’s face, and he too had to laugh. When he finished he told her, ‘You’ve become a hard woman.’

‘Well, let’s just say age and experience have taken their toll on my innocence, and leave it at that.’

‘Amy, my love for you will not die. I have taken wrong paths away from you, I’ve been foolish and vain, have flirted and charmed, seduced any number of women and men for the sake of ambition and dreams. For all the years we’ve been estranged, I’ve been in search of a love to replace yours, the great love of my life that I used and abused and threw away. Yet for me, you’ve never been replaced. I want us to make up for the years that we’ve been apart. We’ve all had our successes. You’re a woman of substance in the art world, one with more power than I ever dreamed you would have. Fee is painting successfully and has become moderately well known. I have my work and now Tennant has come into his own as a painter. I want us to be a great art family. You’re the woman of my life. I know that now, granted almost too late, and I want to prove it to you.’

Amy felt a sincerity emanating from Jarret that was difficult to ignore. She had never dreamed that he might feel remorse for the way he had treated her. But once
more that strange sensation of knowing the man down to the marrow of his bones interposed a warning. Was Jarret Sparrow, in the final analysis, the man she would choose to spend her life with?

Amy did not take him to the railway station. Instead she drove him into London and to a house in Belgravia where he, Fee, and Tennant were staying. Jarret insisted that she see Fee and Tennant again. Amy felt herself slipping under the Sparrow spell, and acquiesced.

The house was beautifully appointed, grand even. Fee seemed very much at home there. Their hostess was at the opera and had taken Tennant with her. Amy greeted Fee, and the moment she did felt something was wrong. She really didn’t want to greet Fee or even see him again. She asked herself what she was doing there. Felt quite embarrassed about being in the house there with them and made a decision to be courteous but to leave as soon as possible without making a scene.

She felt quite sick when she heard him say, ‘And now the tables are turned and it’s Jarret who has brought you home to me.’

‘No, Fee, I’ve brought Jarret back to you,’ she quipped.

‘What does it matter as long as we’re all together again and have made things up? Though I do confess I don’t know what has happened that we haven’t seen each other before this. There’s so much to catch up on. So many good times we shall all have together once things are sorted out.’

A look more like daggers than a mere glance passed from Jarret to Fee. He fidgeted. He had obviously given
away more than he should have. Devious as ever! Amy could hardly believe it. She had been taken in once more by Jarret and his protestations of undying love for her. For a brief moment during sex with him she had thought that maybe destiny had looked favourably on them and their love was no longer forbidden.

A brief delusion of love and then there it was right in front of her: Jarret and Fee’s greed, their self-serving manner. She was no longer blind, saw those things in them so clearly. Amy was genuinely shocked that Jarret should return to her after half a lifetime only to use rather than to love her. At least the last time round he had loved her as well. She could have run out of the house but that seemed too dramatic. She was more curious than upset. Amy credited that to her own indifference, her no longer loving Jarret.

She held on tight to her emotions and coolly asked, ‘Do you think I might have a drink?’

While she sipped it, Fee jabbered on continuously. Amusing banter – that was as much his profession as painting was. But Amy hardly grasped what he was saying. She was preoccupied with her own feelings. For the first time she was experiencing the dark side of Jarret and Fee’s nature as she had never known it before. She realised that in the past she had had nothing to offer them except a pure and innocent love and sexual passion for Jarret. For them she had been only a harmless plaything, while Jarret had been her life. How very changed things were now!

She listened, she even laughed, and found herself
contributing to this unsavoury reunion. Amy felt herself drawn into it while at the very same time seeing clearly that Jarret had destroyed something in her that had never allowed her to love a man again as she had loved him. Seeing Jarret again, and Fee, who had always played his part in their love affair, laying the great seduction scene upon her for some yet unrevealed reason, Amy waited cynically for them to play their hand. They had known what they had done to her, and were prepared to rekindle her love for Jarret and to use it. A serious mistake.

The small revenge she had taken upon Jarret all those years ago had never really fazed him and had given her no real satisfaction. Now she understood why. When she wrought that pathetic bit of revenge she’d still believed that he had loved her, that she had been his only great love.

It had happened some months after he had tried for a reconciliation with her in New York and she had thrown him out. Fee was away on a trip to Nepal, had sent a postcard to say so. For some years after Jarret and Amy’s break-up Fee continued to send her postcards. Amy made arrangements to meet Jarret in the
palazzo
in Venice. He assumed that she much regretted not taking him back and was sorry, all was forgiven and she was as much in love with him as ever. She stayed with him for several hours of sex. And then, when she knew he was once again erotically besotted with her, over the edge sexually, replete, and relieved he had her back in his life again, she rose from the bed and dressed. She had
listened to him making plans to stay with her when next he came to New York. He began to sense something was very wrong. Amy said not another word to him from the time she rose from his bed. Soon she was walking away from him, he following behind her, through the many rooms of the
palazzo
. Catching up with her, he had spun her round and asked her what was going on.