The Perfect Happiness

by Santa Montefiore

  “I want them all to sit around me,” she said excitedly. “I have a story to tell.”

  “A chair, Megan, now now,” instructed Heather to a celery-thin Mearkin. Megan hurried over with a chair and placed it in the middle of the room. Both women gently pushed the children forwards. They shuffled towards her and sat down in a semicircle, nudging one another and whispering behind hands.

  Angelica leaned forwards and lowered her voice dramatically. “Have any of you heard of Troilers?” The children shook their heads. The whispering ceased. “Fat, slimy, ugly, greasy Troilers, who inhabit the estuary where an oily black river meets the sea. These Troilers, who live in holes in the banks of the river, eat creatures of light called Dazzlings. Beautiful, ethereal, weightless creatures, without whom the world would descend into the hands of these evil Troilers. The more Dazzlings they eat, the stronger and more powerful they become and the darker the sky grows as, little by little, all the light in the world is consumed. So the Dazzlings need help, and who better than Conner and Tory Threadfellow of London. Why them? you might ask. Especially as they are humans and the only way to get to this plane of existence, which is here, around us all the time, is in dreams. Well, let me enlighten you on how it is done and why two children—oh yes, they have to be children—are the only people in the whole world who have it in their power to restore the Dazzlings and their light . . .”

  The children stared unblinking as Angelica wove the tale she had conceived in Norfolk. She was astonished at how flu-idly her ideas came to her and how clearly she saw them, like gazing through a limpid pond into a magical world below. It was as if it had always been there, only before the water had been cloudy.

  Heather and Megan sat drinking tea at a round table, as enraptured as the children. Anita caught her eye and shook her head, incredulous that she was capable of weaving such a tale off the cuff. Angelica felt her imagination released at last and propelled into vibrant color. Her spirits soared. The more the children responded, the more ideas came. She had her story. It was simple and so obvious, and yet her own apathy had prevented her from seeing it.

  At the end the children remained seated, hoping for more. The celery Mearking and egg-shaped Wort thanked Angelica, and the whole room erupted into applause. She glanced around to find the doorway filled with restaurant staff and parents.

  “What a wonderful story you have shared with us today,” said Heather, her cheeks rosy beneath the face paint. “I hope that’s a little taster for the next book?” She raised an eyebrow, and Angelica nodded. “Oh good!” She clapped her hands again. “We’re very fortunate to have lots of copies of Angelica’s new book, The Silk Serpent, which she has agreed to sign. And I’m glad to see some parents over there who have money to pay for them!” She snorted again and showed Angelica to a table and chair in the corner that had been set up for her to sign books. “Would you like a cup of tea?”

  “I’d love one,” said Angelica, sitting down. She rummaged unsuccessfully in her bag for a pen.

  “Megan? A cup of tea for Angelica, now now.”

  Megan returned with a cup of tea and a pen, and Angelica signed books and chatted with the children. They had all lost their shyness and found a great deal to say. The party continued, and trays of sandwiches and pretty pastel cupcakes were brought in. Angelica sipped her tea, light-headed with all the compliments. She felt the warm glow of success and basked in it. The prospect of spending the night with Jack just added to the surreal charm of the day.

  “So what are you going to do tonight?” Anita asked as they drove back towards the city. The evening light had mellowed into a soft, amber glow, settling over the buildings like a diaphanous veil.

  “My cousin is taking me out for dinner.”

  “Jack? He’s very handsome. Is he married?”

  “Yes. He has three children. They live on a vineyard in Franschhoek. I’m going to stay the weekend at the end of my tour.”

  “Oh, that’s where you’re going. I knew you were off somewhere. You’ll love Franschhoek; it’s really beautiful.”

  “I’m looking forward to it.” Once again she nudged Anna to the back of her mind.

  “Do you ride?”

  “It’s been a while. But hopefully it’s like riding a bicycle—you never forget.”

  “I’m glad you’re having time to see a bit of our countryside while you’re here.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t just dip in and out, and family’s family. I couldn’t leave without spending time with Jack.”

  Anita dropped her off outside the hotel, and she hurried up the steps, two at a time. A pair of uniformed doormen opened the doors, and she burst into the foyer, where Jack stood up to meet her. He dropped his newspaper on the coffee table and grinned broadly, striding towards her. She ran into his embrace without a care for who might be in the room. He kissed her ardently, enchanted by her enthusiasm.

  “How did it go?”

  “It was amazing. All the children had dressed up as my characters, and they had decorated the restaurant like a big, slimy cave. They had gone to so much trouble.”

  “Wow! You’ve hit the big time.”

  “I’m a big fish in a teacup.”

  “Better than no fish.”

  “I’m a hungry fish.” She noticed he had changed out of his suit into a pair of jeans and a green polo shirt. “Where are you staying?”

  “Here.”

  “No, I mean, where have you put your things?”

  “Here.” He shrugged casually. “I’ve taken a room here, too.”

  “You’ve got it all planned, haven’t you!”

  “A dog needs to know where he’s going to lay his head at night.”

  “But you know you’re laying it next to mine.”

  “I wasn’t sure you’d want me to.”

  “After London?”

  “Well, I wasn’t going to take you for granted.”

  “That’s very gallant of you.”

  “Of course. I’ve managed to entice you here—the last thing I want to do is scare you away.”

  He led her into the street, where a taxi awaited them. The sun had dipped behind the buildings, leaving a gentle heat. The African driver got out to open the door, and they climbed in. Jack took her hand. The way he looked at her was almost bashful.

  “I’m very happy you’re here, Angelica Garner.”

  “I’m happy to be here, Jack.”

  “I never believed you’d come.”

  “It was a fluke.”

  “Or destiny.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “I can’t really believe you’ve pulled it off. I dreamed of this, but never expected it to come true.”

  “Dreams so often don’t.”

  “Have you made up with Olivier?”

  “No, I’m still angry with him.” She shuffled closer. “Let’s not talk about Olivier, or Anna, or our children. Let’s enjoy this short time we have together. I want to enjoy being this fabulous woman I am when I’m with you.”

  “Do I make you feel fabulous?”

  “Yes, I feel sensual, liberated, witty, sexy, alive. I feel bigger and better than I do when I’m me.”

  “You’re still you, my darling,” he said, laughing at her exuberance. “You are all of those things. They have always been part of you. If you focus on your right arm hard enough, you forget that your left arm exists. That’s all it is. You’re focusing so hard on being Angelica that you’ve failed to notice the Sage beneath.”

  “You’ve brought her out. Imagine how many people go through life without discovering all that they can be.”

  “We all have the potential to be many things. But life might not necessarily give us the opportunity to play those parts.”

  “I’m glad it’s given me the opportunity to play this part, even if it’s just for a week.”

  “The secret to happiness is living in the moment.”

  “I know,” she teased, rolling her eyes. “It’s all there is.”

  Jack took h
er to a cozy little restaurant in the center of town. It didn’t matter if he bumped into someone he knew for he had already told his wife he was going to take her out for dinner. Angelica didn’t understand their marriage. Surely, no self-respecting wife would allow her husband to fly to another city to take a woman out for dinner. She wondered what story he had concocted and how easily she had swallowed it.

  They sat at a table in the corner. The restaurant was full of color. In London women wore so much black; in Johannesburg they were like fine birds of paradise, in turquoises, oranges, and reds. She sipped her wine and gazed at him across the candlelight.

  He smiled at her from behind his glasses, his eyes full of affection. “Are you happy?”

  She sighed with pleasure. “Very.”

  “Because you’re living in the moment, at last.”

  “I don’t want it to end.”

  “That’s very female.”

  “What? Wanting a moment to last forever? Don’t you?”

  “Yes. I love life. I want to live forever. I have a very strong feminine side.”

  “Yes. I remember now. A life without love is like a desert without flowers.”

  “You have a good memory.”

  “For things I consider important.”

  “I’m flattered.”

  “My happiness is always marred with sorrow. I anticipate the end of it, or the loss of it. I wish I could really enjoy the moment without that fear.”

  “How about if you just let go of that fear? After all, what will happen will happen, and your negative thoughts won’t change that. You have a choice to enjoy dinner with me, or sit here worrying about leaving. The fact remains: you will have dinner with me. It will end. We will go home. The choice is yours as to whether you enjoy it or not.”

  “But it’s very human to crave continuity and reassurance. If someone could tell me that my children will reach old age in good health, I could enjoy them without this terrible fear of losing them or of their getting sick.”

  “Look, life deals you a set of cards. You don’t know what they are, but they determine what happens in your life: whether you get sick, knocked over by a car, face bereavement of some kind. Those things are here to teach us about ourselves, about love and compassion, and to test us so we grow into better human beings. So how do you maintain any control? By the way you choose to react. Think about it: a postman comes with a letter containing news. The fact is that the letter contains news. Whether it’s good or bad depends on how you look at it.”

  “But if it says my mother is dead?”

  “Then your reaction would be one of sorrow . . .”

  “Depends on how I view my mother.” “You’ve answered your own question. It depends on how you feel about your mother. The news isn’t inherently good or bad, it just is. It’s your attachment to your mother that makes you happy or sad. The point is that the happiness of our lives depends on the happiness of our thoughts. Think positively, and life will be positive.”

  “You should write a book on this. You’re much more of a philosopher than me. I am totally in the dark.” She drained her glass. “I thought I had life taped. But then I realized that life’s trappings, life’s luxuries, although they make living easier—and no one likes luxury more than me—they don’t create happiness in themselves. It’s the sunshine, the trees and flowers, beautiful scenes, music, the embrace of loved ones, that create happiness. They fill us up inside with something magical and intangible.”

  “It’s loving yourself, Sage, and giving love.” He reached across the table and took her hand. “You ask a man who’s survived a brush with death, and he will tell you that happiness is just in loving life and appreciating living. But most people take life for granted and crave more and more material things in the hope that a smarter house or a better car will fulfill them. You ask a woman who has lost a child and she will tell you that the only thing in the world that will make her happy is to hug her child again. Of course, we can’t all live like that, but there are lessons to be learned from those people. Love is the only thing that can make us happy. Love is like a bright light that burns away resentment, fear, hate, and loneliness. Life is so precious. The tragedy is that people only realize that when they are on the point of losing it.”

  He stared at her for a long moment, his face suddenly sad. She stared back, her stomach cramping with dread. He looked as if he was on the point of telling her something important but hesitated.

  “Your fish, madam,” said the waiter, and the moment passed. Jack sat back to allow the waiter to place the dish in front of him, and to compose himself.

  “That looks good,” he said, smiling. The sorrow had passed, like a rain cloud, leaving him sunny again. Angelica felt a sense of foreboding but couldn’t detect from where it came.

  22

  The bend in the road is not the end of the road, unless you fail to make the turn.

  In Search of the Perfect Happiness

  That night they made love again. A warm breeze slid in through the open window like a silk ribbon caressing her skin, bringing with it the scent of gardenia from the garden below. In the pale moonlight she was able to lose herself and her fear as she and Jack feasted upon each other. She could focus on the sensual pleasure of his touch and forget the look that had passed across his face. She could dwell in the present because that was all they had. But daylight soon flooded the room with the eagerness of a new day crammed with possibilities, and there was nothing they could do to hold it back. Her fears returned with the sunshine, and her sense of loss engulfed her.

  “I don’t want you to go,” she whispered, pressing her sleepy body against his. “I’ve just found you.”

  “I don’t want to go, either. But you have to work. I can’t hang around all day.” He swept her hair away from her face and kissed her temple. “And I have work to do, too.”

  “I can’t live in the present, Jack. I can’t do it. I think about the future, and my fears overwhelm me.”

  “You have to try. None of us knows the future. We might think we do, but Fate holds the cards and we can’t see them.”

  “I know what’s on the cards. I will return to London on Sunday and leave you here. I can’t bear it.”

  “But we will have a wonderful few days at Rosenbosch.”

  “I want a lifetime of wonderful days.”

  “We all want that.”

  “Why do you have to live so far away?”

  “Don’t analyze everything, Sage. Let it go.”

  He got up and opened the curtains, filling the untidy room with daylight. Her clothes lay strewn across the floor and over the chair, spilling out of her case like entrails. Since arriving in South Africa, she hadn’t had time to catch her breath, let alone unpack. She watched him gaze at the gardens below and take a deep breath, as if he were inhaling the trees and bushes and flowers and birdsong. He stood with his back to her, his magnificent physique broad and tanned, except for the paler marks left by his swimming shorts. She wanted him to take her again and stretched out on the bed expectantly. He turned around and grinned.

  “You’re coming to Rosenbosch, and that’s all I’m thinking about. One step at a time. If you look too far ahead, you lose the Now. I’ve been looking forward to Now for a very long time. Let’s just live it.”

  “Show me how.” She reached out and laughed as he climbed onto the end of the bed like a shaggy lion, burying his head in her stomach.

  Then he was gone and she was alone in the shower, wondering how she was going to get through the next few days of events without Jack there to come back to. The room looked bigger without him filling it. The emptiness was as loud as the silence. She was happy to leave it and get on with her day. The sooner she began, the sooner she would finish and the sooner they’d be together again. Rosenbosch stood at the end of the week in a magical aura of light, like the Disney fairy-tale castle at the end of a dark tunnel. Without losing her focus, she’d slowly make her way towards it.

  Anita waite
d for her in the foyer. They had a brunch at eleven, a literary lunch at one, and a book club tea at four. Angelica’s heart sank at the prospect of having to be enthusiastic and gracious when all she wanted to do was curl up beneath the duvet and wait for the few Jackless days to be over. If she could just get through Monday and Tuesday in Johannesburg, Cape Town on Wednesday would be one giant step towards Thursday evening, when Jack would pick her up from the Mount Nelson Hotel and drive her to Franschhoek. She had done what she had promised herself she would never do: fallen in love.

  She climbed into Anita’s car and opened a bottle of water, staring blankly into the car park. At that moment her telephone buzzed with a message. While Anita organized her files in the backseat, Angelica stole a quick read. I love everything about you, Sage. I’ll call you tonight at eleven. X Dog Happily on Your Porch. She smiled with gratitude that Jack had found his way into her life and injected it with such enchantment. His texts and telephone calls would carry her through to Thursday. Beyond that was just unthinkable.

  However, there was one telephone call that she was unable to avoid. At midday, when they were en route to the literary lunch in Pretoria, Olivier called. “Hi,” she said coolly.

  He sounded nervous. “Are you okay? You didn’t call. I’ve been worried.”

  “I’m fine. Just on my way to an event. All gone well so far.”

  “Bon. Are you still angry with me?”

  “I’ve just been run off my feet.”

  “No, you’re still angry. I understand. Will you accept my apology now you’re on the other side of the world?”

  “I’m not angry with you, and of course I accept your apology. We all say things we don’t mean. Let’s forget it ever happened. How are the children?”