The Perfect Happiness

by Santa Montefiore

  She stopped attending his wound and slumped beside him.

  “Are you telling me that all the while we’ve been together, you’ve known that you’re dying?”

  “Yes. I should have told you, but for my own selfish reasons, I couldn’t. At first you were just another beautiful woman who captured my attention. But you are different from every other woman in the world.” He rested his head against hers. “I love the way you make fun of yourself and the way you laugh. I love your vagueness and your vulnerability, and yet your intelligence shines out in spite of your lack of confidence. I love the way you challenge yourself and the way you write, allowing your heart to spill onto the page. I love the way you blush when I compliment you and the way you make love with such abandon. There’s no one else like you, Sage. Before I knew what I was doing, you crawled beneath my skin and I realized I couldn’t live without you. I thought I knew what love was, but I hadn’t a clue until I loved you. You gave me the will to live. You made me feel strong enough to beat anything life threw at me, including my cancer. But not even your indomitable spirit could beat that.” He winced again as the pain seared through his body. “I wasn’t in London on business, but seeing a healer I hoped might save me.”

  “Mrs. Homer.”

  “Scarlet’s scarlet woman!” He chuckled weakly.

  “Oh, Jack.”

  “I was clutching at straws. I so want to live. I haven’t done half the things I want to do.”

  “You’ll do all those things and more.”

  “No, I won’t. I won’t live to take my daughters down the aisle. I won’t watch them become mothers. I won’t be there to support them when they fail, to knock the lights out of boyfriends who treat them badly. I won’t ride with you across the veld and picnic at Sir Lowry’s Pass and make love to you. I just won’t be here anymore, and that is impossible to comprehend or accept.”

  “And Anna?”

  “My darling Anna . . . Every time I look into her eyes I see my own death reflected in them. I see her pity and her sorrow. When I look into yours, I see the man I always was. I see myself as you see me. If I had told you the truth, you would have looked at me in the same way that Anna looks at me. I couldn’t bear that.”

  “So, it is true.”

  “I wish it wasn’t.”

  She fought back tears, determined not to let Jack see her cry. “I don’t want you to leave me, Jack. I’ve only just found you.”

  “It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” He smiled, knowing they would usually laugh at such a cliché.

  “Better for whom?”

  “I’m sorry, Sage.”

  “Did you ever think about me?”

  “I thought about you all the time. I wanted to tell you.”

  “But what? You couldn’t find the words?”

  “The only words that matter are that I love you.”

  “I’m not sure, Jack. The truth matters if we are to trust each other.” She waited for him to reply. When he didn’t, she turned to look at him. His eyes were closed. “Jack?”

  Suddenly, the house was swarming with people: farm-workers, police, ambulance men, and Anna, ashen with terror, bending over her husband as he was carried out on a stretcher. Lucy was crying over her dead dog, being comforted by Anxious, now restored and keen to be of use. The farmworkers’ wives handed around mugs of tea and biscuits. Angelica sat on the sofa in the sitting room with the chief of police, recounting what had happened, while he made his way through a large plateful of shortbread. Now that it was all over, she began to tremble with the aftershock, as cold as if it were the middle of winter in spite of the blanket that had been placed around her to protect her modesty. She suddenly wanted more than anything to call Olivier. She longed for home with a yearning so powerful it overwhelmed her.

  Anna left Jack in the capable hands of the ambulance staff and came back to the house. She looked small and frail, but her face remained composed.

  “Is he going to be okay?” Angelica asked apprehensively. The chief of police went in search of another biscuit.

  “He’s lost a lot of blood, but he’s going to live.”

  Angelica bit her lip and began to cry. Anna sat beside her and put her arms around her. “But he’s still going to die?” she whispered into Anna’s ear, clinging to her like a shipwrecked sailor to a piece of driftwood.

  “Yes. He’s going to die.”

  A vise tightened its grip on her sinking heart. “I didn’t know.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “How long has he got?”

  “Not long. A few months. No one knows.”

  “I feel such a fool.”

  Anna pulled away and looked at Angelica with compassion. “If you’re a fool to love Jack, then so am I.”

  “No, you’re a good person, Anna. I’m bad.”

  “My dear Angelica, you’ve made him so happy. There’s nothing bad in that, at least, not from my perspective.”

  “It doesn’t make you unhappy that I love him?”

  “Why would it? There are many different ways to love, and the human heart has an unlimited capacity. If that wasn’t so, you wouldn’t have the space to love both your children, and your husband, and Jack. But you do. You love them all. I don’t begrudge Jack for loving you, either. Even if he wasn’t sick I wouldn’t hold him back. We don’t own each other, Angelica. We just choose to be together while we live this life here on earth. I don’t possess his heart. I have no right to. But since he is dying, he knows he has my blessing to live his last months, weeks, days, hours, as he chooses.”

  “You are a truly exceptional woman, Anna.”

  “I don’t feel at all exceptional, but I do know that my love for Jack has made me a better human being. It’s a good feeling to know that I love him enough to take pleasure from his happiness.”

  “Olivier isn’t anything like as generous spirited as you. If he knew about . . . well, he’d be furious.”

  “The greatest measure for good and bad is not a book of laws. They differ from culture to culture. What is bad in one country is considered good in another. No, the best gauge is whether or not you are hurting someone else. Adultery is not a sin in my marriage, but it is in yours because Olivier would be deeply hurt by it. Therefore, it is not right.”

  “I should call him.” Angelica felt contrite.

  “Yes, you should.”

  “I’ll go upstairs and see if those bastards have taken my passport. I hid it in my wash bag with my rings.”

  Angelica got up. Her legs felt unsteady. Anna accompanied her into the hall. Now that they were being honest with each other, she felt she could ask her anything. “I saw Jack walking across the lawn in the middle of the night. Where was he going?”

  “Jack doesn’t like to sleep, Angelica. He fears that there is always a chance he might not wake up. So he walks. It makes him feel better.”

  “I sensed something wasn’t right. I just couldn’t put my finger on what it was.”

  “I see it in his eyes every time I look into them.” Angelica frowned at her. “Fear, Angelica. I see his fear of dying, and it breaks my heart.”

  “I didn’t set out to fall in love with him, Anna.”

  “I know. But you have a family who need you. You must go back to them.” Angelica nodded and made to leave, but Anna stopped her.

  “One other thing,” she said, taking Angelica’s hand.

  “Yes?”

  “Jack has had many lovers during our marriage, as I’m sure you know. But he’s never lost his heart before. They’ve always come and gone with the seasons. But you?” She smiled kindly. “You’re beyond the seasons, Angelica, like the sun.”

  PART THREE

  Wisdom

  27

  Life is a celebration.

  In Search of the Perfect Happiness

  Angelica sat at the kitchen table in her house in Brunswick Gardens, hugging a mug of tea. It was raining, the clouds thick and gray like gruel. The trees we
re bare, twisted and gnarled in the cold. One or two people hurried past beneath umbrellas, their footsteps disappearing as they strode down the pavement towards the High Street. Olivier poured himself a cup of coffee.

  Sunny went upstairs tactfully to tidy the children’s bedrooms. Olivier had told her the terrible news about the robbery the night before, and she had taken the children to school that morning while Olivier had driven to the airport to meet his wife. He had never seen Angelica look so pale and thin. It was as if she hadn’t eaten for the entire week—and Olivier, usually so imperturbable, had stayed up all night watching television, unable to sleep for worry.

  Angelica had dreaded going home to the bleak winter weather, but now she embraced it. Those low hanging clouds and the light, persistent drizzle were as familiar to her as family. Heathrow had felt like home, the friendly English passport controllers like relatives. She had run into Olivier’s arms and clung to him, hoping that if she pressed herself close enough there’d be no space for her adultery. He need never find out. Nothing would come between them to prize them apart.

  He had asked about Jack on the way back in the car. “He’s going to live,” she had replied, then collapsed into violent sobs. How could she explain that while one wound healed, the other in his lungs would surely kill him? How could she explain the depth of her love and the degree of his betrayal? Would she have chosen to love him had she known he had only months to live? Would she have allowed herself to get so close only to lose him in the end? Had he really loved her at all?

  She sipped her tea and felt better now that she was home. She had climbed back into her skin with haste and remorse, only to find that it no longer fit so snugly. It didn’t matter. It felt familiar, and she was pleased to put it on again with her rings. She longed to hold her children, but knowing they were in the same city was good enough. Her old life was where she had left it, and nothing had changed but her heart, which no one could see.

  She watched Olivier pour hot milk into his coffee. While she had focused on Jack, she had ignored the fact that Olivier wasn’t only her husband, but her best friend, too. She had chosen not to see his good qualities and concentrated solely on the qualities that irritated her in order to justify her affair. He had apologized for their row about the coat, but she hadn’t forgiven him: while she was still angry she felt entitled to Jack. The truth was that Olivier, in spite of his impatience, was funny and charming and affectionate. He was suffering at work, in the very center of the crisis that was shaking the financial world, trying to hold it all together for her and the children, and she hadn’t been there for him. She had shirked her responsibility to her family for a fleeting, dead-end affair. She stared into her tea, plagued with guilt.

  “I think you need to talk to Candace,” said Olivier, sitting down at the table. She looked into his clear blue eyes and realized that she had forgotten how beautiful they were.

  “Not yet, Olivier. I want to talk to you.”

  He looked surprised, but she knew he was pleased. “Do you know what I was thinking when I was tied up there in the dining room not knowing if I was going to live?”

  “Joe and Isabel.”

  “And you, Olivier.” Her eyes glittered. “I felt remorse. I wished I had never said a hurtful word to you in our entire marriage. I wished I’d appreciated you, not grumbled about your imperfections. After all, I married you for those.”

  “Did you?” He grinned, and she was reminded of the first time that smile had captivated her all those years ago in Paris. It hadn’t changed; she had just grown used to it.

  “Yes, because it’s your imperfections that make you different from everyone else. Without them you wouldn’t be you.”

  “That’s very sweet of you, but I’m not sure that’s true.”

  He took her hand across the table. It was smaller and smoother than Jack’s. For a moment she longed for the rough, calloused hand of the rugged South African, but she had to put him behind her now. She belonged with Olivier. If she concentrated on him hard enough, would she forget Jack had ever existed?

  “I have had time to think while you have been away, and certainly, last night, I did more thinking than ever. When you went to South Africa and we had had that fight, I worried I was losing you. But last night, I felt close to losing you in a different way. I just wanted you home, where you are safe. I love you, Angelica, but I also need you. I am nothing without you. I’m half a man. I know I am difficult, selfish, and demanding, but I am going to make a conscious effort to be a better husband and a better friend.”

  “We’ll both make an effort.”

  Angelica lowered her eyes in shame. She hadn’t even bothered to remember his birthday back in October. It would have passed like any other day had his mother not called at seven in the morning. Angelica had rushed to Gucci and bought him a jacket and a pair of brown lace-ups, and Kate had managed to book her a table for two at the Ivy.

  He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it. “Before you call Candace, you’d better call your mother.”

  Angelica looked at her husband in horror. “You told her?”

  “Of course. She’s your mother. You could have been killed, Angelica. She has a right to know. Besides, I didn’t know what state you’d be in once I got you home. Don’t be angry. At least I fended her off. She threatened to drive down this morning. She’s worried sick.”

  “Sure she is.” Angelica chuckled cynically.

  “Just call her.”

  Angelica dialed Fenton Hall with a sinking heart. The last thing she needed was her mother fussing over her. It rang only twice before Angie picked it up and breathed down the line in a little-girl-lost tone of voice. “Is that you, love?”

  “Yes, it’s me.”

  “Thank the Lord you’re safely home. My God, we’ve been worried about you. I’m coming down right away.”

  “You don’t need to.”

  “I’m your mother, and I want to!”

  “I’m fine. It was horrid, but it’s over.”

  “I’m coming. There’s nothing you can do to stop me. Your father and I have been beside ourselves with worry. This is a wake-up call, as loud as any I’ve ever heard.”

  “I promise you, I’m fine,” Angelica protested.

  “But I’m not. I need to see you, love. Surely you understand a mother’s need?”

  Angelica did, indeed, understand a mother’s need. Grudgingly, she relented. “All right, I’ll see you later, then.”

  • • •

  News traveled fast along the buzzing network of grapevines that crossed oceans. Anna had called Scarlet, who had called Kate, who had called Letizia, who had called Candace, who had waited tactfully for Angelica to call her.

  “Oh my God, Angelica, are you all right!” she exclaimed down the telephone. “You don’t know how happy I am to hear your voice!”

  “Oh, Candace, you’re going to say I told you so.”

  “I promise I won’t. I’m coming over right now. Oh, and the girls are coming over for lunch, but don’t panic, we’re bringing our own food.”

  “Now, why doesn’t that surprise me!”

  She put down the telephone and hurried upstairs to take a quick shower. There was no point moping about. The sooner life got back to normal, the better. The thought of her friends brought on a strange craving, like homesickness—a longing for what was routine and familiar.

  Olivier went to the office. Angelica cried in the shower. She thought of Jack in his hospital bed, and she cried for the cancer in his lungs and for the inevitability of his demise. She recalled the last thing he had said to her, that the only important words were that he loved her. So why did she doubt him? Then she cried with fury at his concealing the truth and taking his pleasure without any regard for her tender heart. Did he not once consider what impact his death might have on her? Was he just going to satisfy his own need for validation and then leave her adrift? Or didn’t it matter, seeing that he’d be gone and no longer responsible for the lives destroyed
?

  Angelica was still in her bathrobe when Candace rang the bell. Sunny let her in, and Angelica called to her from the landing. The moment she saw Candace’s concerned face she began to cry all over again.

  “Honey, it’s going to be all right,” said Candace, opening her arms. “Hearts get broken, but they mend.” Candace was so tall, she hugged Angelica as if she were a child, then walked with her into the bedroom.

  Angelica curled up against the pillows. Candace took off her Ralph Lauren tweed jacket and laid it carefully on the upholstered armchair in the corner. The room smelled of figs from the Dyptique candle Angelica had lit in the bathroom. The television was switched on to the Top 40 music videos. Candace took the control and turned it down, then kicked off her shoes and joined Angelica on the bed.

  “Okay, so what happened out there?”

  “I lied to you, Candace. I went out to South Africa with the intention of having an affair. I encouraged the row with Olivier to justify it. We met the moment I set foot in my hotel.” Angelica picked up the cord of her dressing gown and began to play with it like a cat’s tail.

  “Well, I know all that.” She laughed gently. “I know you, silly. But you know what? You can teach a person knowledge, but you can’t teach her wisdom. That can only come from experience.”

  “Now I have the wisdom of an old woman.”

  “You look like an old woman with all that crying.”

  “I daren’t look!”

  “It doesn’t matter. We’ll sort you out before the girls get here.”

  “I’m glad they’re coming.”

  “I thought you would be.”

  She sighed. “I just want things to go back to the way they were.”

  “They can never do that, but you can learn to live with the experience.”

  “I was so frightened.”

  “Wait, you’re getting ahead of yourself. So you met him in Johannesburg?”

  “He was staying in the same hotel. We made love. It was perfect and heavenly, and I forgot about Olivier and the children . . .” She raised her eyes, ashamed. “You’d be surprised how easy it is to forget yourself.”