Eighty Days Amber (24 page)
Authors: Vina Jackson
Weeks past, most of them spent alone in the big house as Summer was touring and Viggo was busy with his various musical commitments, which only occasionally required my presence.
I had oceans of free time to waste and I spent much of it thinking of Chey, wondering where he was now, whether he was okay. But it wasn’t just Chey who consumed my thoughts. I couldn’t help my mind wandering to the mysterious dark-haired writer, Dominik, and the passion I had seen shining clearly in his eyes.
‘Are you still on your extended vacation, Luba?’ Madame Denoux asked me. It was mid-afternoon in London, and the colours of spring were returning to the nearby Heath. It must have been early in the morning in New Orleans, which hinted that this was not just a courtesy call. Madame Denoux seldom left her bed until midday unless she had a very good reason to do so. I briefly imagined I could smell the magnolias and hear the flow of the Mississippi down the phone line.
I was sitting outside a Jewish patisserie on Golders Green Road savouring lemon tea and a plate of small cakes, just like the ones I remembered from my childhood in the Ukraine. I’d jogged all the way here from Belsize Park, up Haverstock Hill and Hampstead High Street, puffing my way up all the small hills and dips. Even though I was no longer dancing regularly, I tried to maintain my physical
fitness. My vanity was stronger than my passionate distaste of formal exercise.
The leisurely downhill pause here was my reward. I was reading Dominik’s book for the second time. Now that I had come across him, my fascination was growing, as was my interest in his relationship with Summer. I was now totally convinced that the character of Elena in his book was based on her. There were too many similarities, not only in the way he repeatedly described Elena, and not just her features, but also her body in the most intimate of ways. It felt a bit like a detective tale meticulously separating the fiction from the reality. He’d been extremely clever crafting his story, but now that I’d come to know her, and to a lesser extent him, I had no doubts.
‘It’s no longer a vacation, Madame Denoux. It’s fast becoming a way of life.’
‘Good for you, young lady . . .’ She paused. ‘So, totally happy, then?’
In truth, I’d long come to the conclusion that I wasn’t the sort of person who knows what happiness is. There was always something missing. A man. A place. An unfocused emotion. Something.
‘At peace,’ I finally said.
‘Good,’ Madame Denoux said. ‘It’s just that we’ve had a wonderful offer for your Tango piece from a very wealthy benefactor’ – she never used the word ‘client’ – ‘and although he knows from the current edition of the catalogue that you are no longer available, he is very insistent.’
The Tango had always been my favourite set. There was something primal about it and about the music I would dance to, and the nameless partner I had performed it with had so reminded me of Chey.
An unexpected wave of nostalgia hit me, bringing back to me the first time I’d tried the dance and my initial excitement about the whole affair. Like a fire rushing through my insides. Putting Viggo and all the others, men and women, since that day into a poor perspective.
Yet I still wasn’t sure if I could go through with it, after I’d vowed never to do that type of dance again.
‘Are you still there?’ Madame Denoux asked me.
‘Yes,’ I stuttered, returning to reality.
‘The pay involved is unheard of. You could afford another few years off with it, you know.’
‘It’s never just been a question of money,’ I reminded her.
‘I realise that. You are an artist, Luba. It’s just a terrible pity that—’
I cut her short. She knew how to play me like a violin. I wouldn’t be talked into it so easily, I swore to myself. I would think it through and make my decision carefully, although there was a part of my soul that now yearned to be on a stage again and hear the audience gasp as I moved, and feel the river of lust washing down my veins, kindling that terrible fire I feared had now been extinguished.
‘I’m not saying yes. I’ll think about it.’
‘That’s just great,’ she replied. ‘You have my number. In your own time, let me know. No pressure . . .’
‘My usual partner?’ I queried.
‘Absolutely. That will be a cast-iron guarantee.’
‘Out of curiosity, you know, what would be the location?’
I didn’t particularly want to perform in Amsterdam again, or in London now that I lived here. It would have to be somewhere else.
‘It’s a small port called Sitges, just half an hour south of Barcelona, in Spain.’
‘Okay,’ I said and hung up the phone before she could push me further.
I swept up the last crumbs of the cake with my fingers and put Dominik’s book back into my small running backpack.
The walk downhill was always faster than the uphill jog. Viggo’s mansion was empty, an eerie silence travelling through the many rooms. I went to mine and took a long, cleansing shower. Swaddled in a fluffy bathrobe, I collapsed on the bed and returned to the book. Although I knew what happened in the final chapters, I felt as if I was rediscovering the story and characters from a new perspective altogether.
Once I turned the final page I went online. I wanted to find out if Dominik had published any other books. He hadn’t. Neither did he have a website of his own, but I discovered quickly that there was a page for the book, and him, on his publishers’ site. It featured no further information about Dominik or another novel, but my eye was quickly caught by a schedule of promotional appearances, most of which had already taken place – bookshop signings, festivals, readings. The final one listed was the one that caused me to smile. Call it fate or coincidence, but he was due to visit Barcelona for something called Sant Jordi in a few days’ time.
Madame Denoux quickly picked up the phone.
‘That was fast,’ she remarked. I could picture the smile of delight spreading across her face, as if she knew what I was going to say.
‘I’ll do it,’ I said. And I gave her the date. It was either then or I wouldn’t get involved.
‘Nothing is impossible, my dear. I’ll have the arrangements made within a few hours. I hope you’re in shape.’
‘More than ever.’
My heart was running faster. I had the old Luba back again. And if I was honest with myself, I was unsure whether it was because of the prospect of seeing the enigmatic Dominik or being fucked in public by Tango again.
Sant Jordi turned out to be my idea of heaven.
Almost.
The Ramblas north of Plaza Catalunya were lined on each side with stall after stall displaying books and flowers. I breathed in deeply, savouring the very particular scent of roses and pages. A hotchpotch of Mediterranean life floated on the soft breeze as passers-by of all ages, couples old and young, paraded through the busy avenues boarded with trees. Everywhere I looked women were carrying deep-red flowers close to their chests to protect the petals from the pushes and shoves of the teeming crowds. Seen from a distance, the whole city appeared to be bleeding in unison, bright spots of colour blooming against their hearts like gun-shot wounds, as if Barcelona had been taken down by Cupid’s arrow.
If it weren’t for the sheer number of people that filled the thoroughfare and the tourists who walked slowly enough to drive a person to distraction then it would have been a perfect day. But I’d soon had enough of standing and queuing in the hot sun, listening to the various writers’ fans drone on or watching the ruder types barge to the front, thumb through books and throw them disdainfully back down on the pile right in front of the author whose face inevitably fell until the next smiling devotee appeared.
Writers must either have terribly brittle egos or develop thick skins quickly. At least a dance was temporary and imperfections in form or errors in timing faded quickly from the viewer’s mind. I was grateful that my artistic infelicities were not immortalised in print for evermore.
I finally spotted Dominik, but the queue for his stand was long and moving even more slowly than some of the others.
It seemed that I was not the only woman who had related to his heroine and become curious about the man who created her. Lingering at a neighbouring stall I took a few moments to observe him chatting with one of the many female readers who waited for him. She was slim with long dark hair piled high on her head and tendrils hanging loose that gave her a gypsy-like appearance, particularly in combination with her sandals and thin, loose cotton dress. When she bent down to invite him to sign the title page of the book that she had just purchased, I noted that her dress was terribly low cut and her full bosoms threatened to tumble out in front of him. Dominik was clearly aware of her display and he smiled at her with a strained expression on his face and averted his eyes at the earliest possible opportunity.
Evidently he was a man who preferred subtleties.
He would be around for some hours yet, I knew, as I’d noticed his name on several of the lists of authors visiting other stalls later in the day. But even if I managed to steal more than a few minutes of his time, he would quickly be obliged to return to the fray and satisfy the demands of his eager audience, at the service of his publishers and the many local bookstores involved in the event. And having come all this way and agreed to perform Tango again primarily for the sake of an opportunity to learn more about a man who
fascinated me, I was not going to blow my hand with a few ill-chosen moments amongst a herd of other women eager for his attention.
I was hot, sticky and casually dressed in a pair of cotton shorts, flat shoes and a loose blouse. I turned and ambled back down the street towards Plaza Catalunya and stopped to sit and sip an espresso beneath an umbrella on one of the metal chairs at Café Zurich by the square. I was much more comfortable sitting rather than standing in crowds, watching the people go by and amusing myself by wondering what secrets they hid beneath their respectable public veneers. A young woman in a yellow shift dress and matching kitten heels, a red rose tucked into her blonde hair, was rushing back to her overprotective parents as if she was late back after a lovers’ tryst – probably with an unsuitable but terribly good-looking young man who worked in a mail room, I decided, or perhaps with a charming but married company director at her place of employment, or maybe even with the company director’s charming wife. She ran a finger firmly around her lips as she hurried past me, brushing off the stray smears of lipstick that had spread over her mouth during frantic goodbye kisses.
In traditional Network style, my hotel was both plush and discrete, tucked amongst the stone buildings and wrought-iron verandas that peppered the winding streets of the Gothic Quarter. It might be the last time that I would be put up in such sumptuous surroundings by an employer, so I took every advantage, pouring salted pistachios from the mini bar into a china bowl and taking a large sip of chilled champagne directly from the miniature bottle, coughing as it frothed into my mouth.
I peeled off my clothes slowly and stood under the
showerhead for an age, deliberately making use of every single one of the cosmetic products provided until I was drenched in lather and every fleck of dust gathered during my day’s exertions had run down my body and into the drain.
Two hours later I was relaxed and ready to strut my stuff, sheathed in a red Roland Mouret dress that I knew clung gently to my shape but also covered my flesh from my neck to my calves so could not be considered distasteful even by the most modest of men. It was the colour of roses, my nod to Sant Jordi.
The heat of the day had faded and the early-evening light had fallen like a balm over the hustle and bustle of the Ramblas. Many of the stallholders were packing up for the day, no doubt on their way to enjoy further festivities that would continue to burn brightly until another sunset turned into night.
For a moment I feared that I had left it too late and had missed him as I had passed stall after stall and still saw no sign, but then I spotted him huddled amongst a gaggle of assorted writers and a few of the most patient and enthusiastic readers who had made it to the end of the day and all the way down the queue of stalls.
He was as handsome as ever, though dressed all in black with no hint to fashion or the Catalan heat. His arms had turned a pinkish copper from a full day sitting unprotected in the Spanish sun and I imagined that when he removed his shirt he would be faced with heavy tan lines marking his English skin.
‘You wouldn’t begrudge a friend a signature, no?’ I asked, boldly holding my worn copy of his book aloft through the small throng of people hanging around the stall table to
catch his attention. I had been careful to bring it along to Barcelona with me.
I laughed aloud at his response when he recognised me.
‘A friend or a stalker?’ he replied.
A fleeting expression of fright in his eyes suggested that he wasn’t entirely joking, though he readily agreed to accompany me for a drink. It seemed to me that Monsieur Dominik liked to orchestrate every aspect of courtship, not just the occasional nude public dance. He did not take well to women hitting on him. I remained unaware of the particular circumstances that had drawn Dominik and Summer together, but I would bet my night’s wages that he had made the first move.
To a private dancer
was his inscription. If I had caught him off guard he had quickly regained his footing.
I was surprised when Dominik asked if he could somehow purchase a ticket to watch me dance later that evening after I’d explained the purpose of my trip to Barcelona. I told him that it was a private party and tickets were not on sale, but that I would be happy for him to come as my own personal guest.
He flirted politely with me over dinner at the tapas bar we’d stumbled across just off the Passeig de Gracia and expressed an unusual interest in my life and relationship with Viggo – quietly doing research for his latest book, I suspected – but I did not believe that he was angling to get into my bed. I guessed he was still besotted with Summer; or maybe I just wasn’t his type. I shrugged inwardly and slotted him into the category that I kept aside for male friends and acquaintances who were unlikely to become my bedfellows. It made a nice change from being pawed at and propositioned all the time, and if my ego was a little stung
then I would soon recover. Before long I would be naked and vulnerable in the arms of Tango and I was more than a little pleased to have someone that I knew and trusted in the audience. Dominik’s presence would help settle my nerves and as a performer I was entitled to bring a guest along whenever I chose, so procuring his entrance would be no problem.