The Pleasure Quartet (35 page)

Thank you to all our fans and readers who have stuck with us for what was intended to be a trilogy and has now expanded to a whole universe and book number nine. Your comments and encouragement
are always appreciated and we could not do this without you.

One half of Vina, who has been in debt to her employer from the beginning would this time like to issue a particularly fervent thank you to her boss and colleagues – RM, you are amazing,
and ZA, thank you so much, I really don’t know how I could have done this without you. Thank you, a million times over, for covering for me as I battled to the end of this one to get the last
chapter over on time. AB, DG, and my extended family of colleagues, thank you for fielding my phone calls, sorting my masses of parcels and always keeping me cheerful.

Thank you to my friends who keep me sane and persevere although I am such a hermit behind my keyboard – B, A and K, I’d be lost without you. Thanks to Tony and Julian who keep me in
one piece despite the endless typing. Kit Laughlin’s work has also been vital in keeping RSI at bay.

Finally, thank you to Terence, who puts up with my ‘last weeks to deadline’ madness, keeps me company at the screen and never leaves me short of inspiration. You’re the
best.

And the other half of Vina profusely thanks DJ, a partner in love and life through thick and thin of many years for impossible support in the face of similar deadline absence, our growing family
big and small for their patience and so many other reasons. You all know who you are!

Turn the page for a tantalizing extract of Vina Jackson’s

the
Pleasure
Quartet:
Summer

It was the squirrel’s fault.

Following a late brunch in the West Village, close by Greenwich Avenue, Noah and April headed for Washington Square Park. The Sunday warm weather crowds were out in force. A pianist had wheeled
his large ambulatory instrument close to the afternoon shadow of the arch and was playing an improvisation on a melody from a Rachmaninov concerto with loud flourish. The hordes of guitar players
spread across the park strummed away in total discordance, echoes of their songs clashing indifferently against each other in the sultry air. The resident pigeon lady, further south, was busy
knitting against her usual railing. Around the fountain, children and adults dipped their toes in the water while tourists snapped photos on their sleek mobile phones. A street fair filled the side
roads on the other side of the park by the tall University buildings, stalls alternately offering aromatic bites, handcrafted jewellery and gift items that Noah would never have contemplated
gifting, even to his worst enemies. Not that he believed he had any genuine enemies.

April had suggested eating at a vegetarian gourmet on 6
^th
Avenue that she had developed a strong liking for and, just under an hour later, Noah still felt hungry, his taste buds and
appetite barely tickled by the somewhat tasteless food they had been served. Now the combined smells of barbecued meat and grilled onions, floating across towards them from the fair, seemed to
swirl around him and make his mouth water. He regretted not having talked April into visiting Toto’s sushi joint on Thompson Street.

They held hands, strolling lazily along the pathways, turning right after the fountain to avoid the dog enclosure, April’s shoulder-length hair gently animated by the breeze.

She wore a simple floral print summer dress that reached to just under her knees, her tanned legs straight and sporty, her movement relaxed above the tread of her flat, pale pink, thin-soled
shoes.

Rushing around a corner, two children on scooters sped towards them, weaving their way through the crowds. The boy, blond-haired in blue shorts and a yellow T-shirt, must have been six or
thereabouts. His hardy sidekick was a tiny girl with a massive green helmet that dwarfed her features, round-faced and dark-eyed, with a look of utter determination, as if intent on colliding with
them if they didn’t steer clear of her path.

Noah couldn’t help chuckling at the sight. April gripped his hand tighter. They slowed down, anticipating the accidental collision but, just inches away from their feet, the two speeding
kids veered away with practiced grace and rushed by, oblivious, as if they owned the park, never slowing down.

‘That little one was so cute,’ April remarked.

Noah smiled.

‘There’s space over there,’ April said, indicating a wooden bench just a stone’s throw away, which was just being vacated by an elderly couple and was shielded from the
sun by the shadow of a nearby tree with low-lying branches.

‘Let’s go and sit.’

They had no plans for the afternoon. Noah thought that maybe later, towards evening, they might catch the new Michael Mann movie at the Union Square multiplex, but until then there was nothing
on the cards. All he wanted to do was relax, slob, what with the rush of meetings he had scheduled at the office the following day. Similarly, he knew that April’s following forty-eight hours
would be frantic as the monthly magazine where she worked as a production assistant had to go to press. They regularly relaxed this way at the end of the weekends, their Sunday routine.

Noah remained silent as they sat. April did not interrupt his reverie. She took a sip from her bottle of water and offered it to him. He declined it.

Usually content to sit alongside him in silence, she seemed unnaturally restless today. Even after almost two years together, she often complained that she couldn’t read him properly,
interpret his changing moods with any degree of accuracy. She was upset by his impassivity.

She finally broke the silence.

‘Something worrying you? You seem . . . distant.’

‘Not at all. Just daydreaming.’

There was something on his mind, but he couldn’t put a finger on it, define it, isolate it. It burrowed away in silence, unsettling him.

He looked around at April, sketched a silent kiss on his lips and directed it towards her. Her short hair was shaken by flutters of gold as the sun snaked its way between the branches that
mostly shielded it. Her bare shoulders were a similar shade of warmth, the tan they had both acquired that summer in Cancun persisting.

He couldn’t help but find her beautiful. Always had. His golden girl.

‘I love you,’ April announced.

‘And I you,’ he responded.

He had spoken the words automatically, not for the first time in answer to the same phrase, he knew. As if not actually responding in kind was not lying.

Other couples walked by, young and old, trailed by dogs or children on occasion, many hand in hand, their faces blank, their body language a mystery to him.

Noah’s throat tightened.

April lowered her hand to his right knee and squeezed it.

Noah watched her slender fingers as they gripped the material of his jeans.

‘Oh . . .’

She let go of his knee.

She was no longer gazing at him but was looking at the tree behind the bench that faced them, on the opposite side of the pathway. He could hear her holding her breath.

He peered ahead. There was nothing out of the ordinary.

April’s eyes widened, ‘Wow . . .’

Noah blinked, and finally noticed what was catching her attention. A bushy-tailed grey squirrel was peering at them through the railing, sashaying its way from the tree across the sparse grass,
its slow but steady straight line movement like a clockwork toy’s, its eyes round, dark and fixed on April.

She hesitantly extended her hand, bidding it welcome.

Noting her invitation, the hardy squirrel ventured past the wide opening of the railing and took a foothold on the busy path, in blissful ignorance of the passers-by, unafraid of being kicked or
run over and inched its way towards the bench where April and Noah sat.

‘It can see me . . . it’s coming towards me,’ April whispered.

‘It’s that come hither smile of yours. Bet you it’s a male squirrel . . . Or maybe he thinks you have some food . . .’

The small animal had finally made its way across the path and faced them, actually looking up at April, whose happy grin was broadening by the second. What was it expecting? For her to stroke
it, feed it?

April dug her fingers into her small handbag, searching for some food she could offer the squirrel but came up with nothing. She glanced at Noah, hoping he could help.

He shook his head.

The diminutive animal sat facing her like a supplicant. April slowly extended her hand downwards in its direction. Her palm was just a hand’s length away from the squirrel’s face
when the speeding duo on the scooters returned and the squirrel raced back across the path and onto the safety of the lawn to avoid them.

April straightened.

Noah could sense her disappointment.

Silence fell.

Had she been expecting the squirrel to lick her, kiss her?

A thin smile appeared on her face, as she reflected on what had happened, wry, lonely.

Noah finally recognized her mood. It wasn’t the first time in the past months that he had witnessed it. She was getting broody, not so much distant but restless, as if something was
missing from her life, from their relationship. And although he would never admit it to her face, he knew she was right. And his feelings were not dissimilar, although they expressed themselves in
different ways.

She wanted more.

He wanted more, or at any rate something different. But where April was no doubt aware, deep inside, of what she sought, Noah was not, aside from the fact that their paths were imperceptibly
diverging.

A family, each member greedily enjoying ice cream cones in a variety of pastel colours, walked by with two small dogs on leashes, tails wagging.

‘Want one?’ Noah asked.

‘What?’

‘An ice cream?’

April didn’t answer.

‘Do you have any gigs this week?’ she asked instead.

‘A couple. The Nevsky Prospekt are playing the Bowery Ballroom, and The Holy Criminals are doing an unpublicized appearance as support at the Knitting Factory.’

Viggo Franck, who’d fronted the Criminals for years had allegedly retired or, alternately, gone solo, although in the latter case he was not contractually committed to Noah’s record
company should he come up with new product. The group had found themselves a new singer and were hoping to bed him in away from the attentions of the press and fans.

‘Cool,’ April said. ‘Can I come along?’

‘No problem.’

The spectacle of the squirrel, and the kids with the scooters, had triggered maternal thoughts, he was certain of it. Yet again.

After their time in Washington Square Park, April had expressed the wish to walk more and so they’d strolled over to the High Line and ambled along its length twice,
mostly absorbed in the flow of their private thoughts.

‘Make love to me,’ April asked as they closed the door to the apartment behind them.

Noah turned towards her, enjoying the sight of her beauty. After so many hours spent walking in the sun, her freckles were breaking through, delicately scattered across the bridge of her nose
and the sharp ridge of her cheekbones. The golden sheen of her hair was now burnished with warm shades of bronze. The pale emerald hue of her eyes now matching the paint she had used to decorate
the narrow corridor that led to their white bedroom. Noah had never been much of a visual person and had allowed April total control over the apartment’s configuration, shades and furnishings
when they’d moved in together a year previously. His only proviso was the integrity of the wall of CD shelves in his study. She’d initially argued he could transfer them all to digital
– it would take less space – but Noah had insisted on keeping them, arguing that music was his job and he was allowed this idiosyncrasy.

He kissed her, the plush softness of her lips an experience that renewed his faith in their closeness every time he did so, warm silk cushions with the sweet aftertaste of her fading
lipstick.

Holding her tight, he could feel the beat of her heart through the thin fabric of her dress as she hugged him, her hands circling his back, pulling his body against hers as the kiss lengthened,
tips of tongues touching each other in an unpredictable dance, breaths growing short, almost a battle of wills as to who would disengage first and both refusing to be the one who did so.

The rhythm of her heart was growing more frantic, like a distant drum, settling into a regular, steady pattern, like a song taking flight, unformed tides of desire spreading through her
bloodstream.

Noah’s hand moved towards her waist, their lips still locked, took a firm hold of her dress, twisting the material between two fingers to get a grip on it and began pulling the garment
upwards, baring her thighs and then her white lace panties. The back of his hand brushing against her stomach, he pulled aside the elastic of her knickers and delved deeper until his nails grazed
the forest of curls shielding her intimacy. The heat radiating from her crux immediately washed across his intruding fingers. He slipped inside.

‘You’re so wet . . .’

‘Yes.’

Their lips parted. April moved. He pulled his hand out of her panties and raised it to her hair, running his fingers through her silken curtain, parting its smooth waves, relishing the
sensation. He swivelled slightly and gently bit the lobe of her ear. April shivered, a faint shudder animating her body, endangering her balance and almost causing her to stumble. Noah’s hand
on her shoulder steadied her.

‘Come,’ Noah said.

They walked to the bedroom, fingers interlocked, throwing off their shoes as they passed its threshold.

Out of instinct, April moved to the window and pulled the net curtains tidily together. Noah couldn’t help feeling a touch of irritation. She always did that. Just couldn’t let
caution go to the wind, even though they were on a high floor and there was no taller building across the street towards Battery Park and anyone wishing to spy on them from below would require
strong binoculars, a camera drone or supernatural voyeur powers. Even about to trip into sex, April always thought of other things, unnecessary precautions. Yet again the magic of the moment had
been spoiled. A spell had been broken.