by Jilly Cooper
Wow, thought Emerald, he’s like Bagheera in The Jungle Book.
He then introduced himself in Bagheera’s deep purring voice as Zachary Ansteig, an American journalist doing a piece on Rupert’s open day for a New York art magazine called Mercury.
‘This guy’s like the Pied Piper,’ he drawled. ‘If he walked into that lake over there, there wouldn’t be a faggot or a woman left in England. What’s his interest in art?’
‘Mostly dynastic,’ said Emerald. ‘He chiefly commissions contemporary portraits of his family and his animals. The rest are Old Masters handed down by previous generations.’
‘Lot of Borochovas,’ observed Zac, turning to Galena’s drawing of Shrimpy. ‘She’s getting really big in the States. I guess she and Rupert were an item.’
Emerald, who didn’t want to think of Rupert being an item with anyone but herself, was thrilled nevertheless that Zac was following her round.
But although she showed off her knowledge of art, making risqué remarks about the pictures and regaling him with gossip about Casey Andrews and Somerford Keynes, who nearly put his neck out gazing at Zac as he passed them, Zac didn’t react. There was a sinister stillness about him. He seemed only interested in examining each picture, and kept diving into cordoned-off rooms for recces, until Rupert’s minions chucked him out. He made no notes for his piece.
‘Are you a burglar?’ asked Emerald.
‘Maybe,’ said Zac.
She found it disconcerting that the crowds, perhaps as compensation for not seeing Rupert, gazed at Zac, rather than herself, and was gratified when a passing David Pulborough gave her an undressing glance behind Geraldine Paxton’s immaculately tailored back.
‘I should have done a number on that guy,’ she taunted Zac, ‘he’s rumoured to be even better hung than his pictures and the Pulborough’s hotter for young artists than the Belvedon these days. That’s his mistress with him – one of the great movers and shakers of the art world.’
They had reached the last room on the tour. As anxious to see Rupert as Emerald, the sinking sun was peering in through the jasmine-covered window, casting lace patterns on a lovely Constable of Cotchester Cathedral. Outside the crowds could be seen trailing disconsolately towards the car park.
‘Let’s try and get to see him,’ Emerald begged Zac, ‘I’m sure he’d give you a quick interview if you plugged his racehorses and the yard.’
Glancing at his watch, Zac shook his head.
‘I’ve got to catch a train to Paddington. Great meeting you.’
Irked by his indifference, Emerald was amazed to find herself offering Zac a lift back to London, when she was in fact headed for a dance in Dorset.
As they walked towards her car, a young boy on a muddy grey pony came hurtling across the fields, flying over stone wall and fence, haughtily scattering the crowds on his way into the yard.
‘That must be Xavier, Rupert’s adopted son,’ said Emerald in excitement.
This is the world I belong to, she told herself firmly.
Reaching her car, a Golf convertible which smelled like she did of violets, she plugged in a CD of Abigail Rosen playing Tchaikovsky’s violin concerto and kicked off her shoes. She was so small, her car seat had to be pushed so far forward that the long-legged Zac found himself addressing the back of her head.
He also clocked the emerald earrings, the Tiffany cross, the Cartier watch with diamond numbers, the black leather Dunhill case in the back. She was a fast but excellent driver. Her mobile rang the whole time, all men with trembling voices asking for dates.
‘I guess that’s the reason there’s a man shortage in London,’ mocked Zac, ‘all the guys are calling you.’
Away from Rupert’s pictures he became more chatty. Without eye contact, Emerald also found herself expanding under his questioning, explaining that like Rupert’s younger children, she was adopted, but had never felt she fitted in.
‘Plato believed in adoption,’ observed Zac. ‘He said kids were much better raised by other people, whose expectations weren’t so high.’
‘I just feel I’m with the wrong family,’ sighed Emerald. ‘My adoptive parents are so straight and horsey, and I hate horses, and they’re so buttoned up about their feelings. They’ve been good to me, so it seems ungrateful to ask about my natural parents.’
‘Who were they anyway?’
‘My natural father didn’t have the guts to sign the birth certificate,’ said Emerald bitterly.
‘Perhaps he was a God who turned into a swan or a shower of gold to impregnate your mom,’ teased Zac. ‘You look kinda goddess-like. He could hardly put Shower of Gold on a birth certificate.’
Emerald was not in the mood for jokes.
‘I often think he could have been high profile, and not wanted a scandal. My mother worked in an art gallery.
‘If you want to know what it’s like to be blind, walk around with your eyes shut,’ she added bitterly. ‘But if you want to find out what it’s like to be adopted, go on the tube and look at any couple sitting next to you, smart, ugly, arguing, holding hands – they could be your parents. Any guy I go out with could be my brother or my father. I feel like an unstarted symphony.’ Emerald’s voice was rattling now. ‘I have no past.’
‘It’s your future that matters.’
As Abigail Rosen launched into the last stampeding movement of the Tchaikovsky, Emerald reached the motorway, and symbolically rammed her foot down.
‘I always feel as though I’m hurtling into a future without knowing where I’ve come from. You’ve no idea how hard that is.’ She glanced round at Zac: so fit, tanned and elitist. ‘I bet you come from a glamorous family.’
‘They were mostly wiped out in concentration camps,’ said Zac flatly, ‘I’ve got no past either, that makes two of us.’
‘Oh God, I’m sorry.’ Jolted out of her self-absorption, Emerald felt ashamed. ‘They always tell you adopted children are chosen, so I’m a member of the Chosen Race too.’
Then she nearly drove off the road as Zac lifted her cascade of hair and laid a warm, caressing hand on the back of her neck.
‘I was teased at school for being adopted,’ she gabbled. ‘They told me the reason I was small was because I hadn’t come out of my mother’s tummy.’
‘I was beaten up for being a “Yid”,’ countered Zac, ‘and, because I had a slight Austrian accent (which they assumed was German), for being a Nazi as well. Then the rabbi arranged for me to have judo lessons. No-one beat me up again,’ he added grimly.
‘You’re Austrian?’ said Emerald in surprise. ‘I must say you don’t conjure up cheery images of the Blue Danube, Glühwein and The Sound of Music.’
Turning to him as they reached the outskirts of London, she noticed Zac’s strange gleaming cat’s eyes, his face orange from the glare of the street lights, and felt unsettled and wildly attracted to him.
‘When are you going back to America?’ she asked and was shocked at her desolation when he said, ‘Tomorrow.’
He was yawning now and talking about getting an early night. Emerald couldn’t bear it. She must keep him interested.
‘Did you see Raymond Belvedon? He’s such a duck, he gave me his card, he wants me to sculpt his head.’
‘We get his programmes on PBS,’ said Zac. ‘They just adore him in the States. He used to be married to Borochova, that explains why he was there.’
‘His next programme’s on Raphael.’
As they reached Hammersmith, Emerald was again astounded to hear herself, who never made the running, asking Zac if he’d like to come back to Fulham for a drink.
‘Sure,’ he said, ‘I’ve woken up now. Has Raymond Belvedon started shooting the programme on Raphael?’
Emerald lived in a charming part of Fulham, just off Parsons Green. The street of pastel houses was lined with cherry trees, whose tawny pink leaves carpeted the pavements to welcome them. Number eighteen was painted pale blue. The tiny front garden was crowded out by two dreadful-smel
ling dustbins and a large bicycle leaning like a dinosaur against a window box of browning plants. All the lights were blazing.
‘I’ve been away so I don’t know if my sister Sophy’s here,’ said Emerald, opening the bottle-green front door, then she flipped.
Sophy must have been giving a riotous lunch party for some of her obnoxious teacher friends, and they’d all pushed off to the cinema. There were flowing ashtrays, half-empty glasses everywhere, pudding plates still on the table. The sink in the kitchen was full of dirty pans. Emerald was gibbering with rage, misdialling Sophy on her mobile, which refused to answer.
‘Sophy sure is a terrific cook,’ said a grinning Zac who was calmly finishing up the shepherd’s pie.
‘Surrounding herself with lame ducks, I’m amazed she didn’t feed them crusts,’ raged Emerald. ‘Look at her clothes hung like drunks over the radiators. Look at my plants she hasn’t watered.’
The pictures were crooked, there was no milk, no loo paper downstairs, no light bulbs, drink all over the drawing-room carpets, the washing machine was full and queuing up, and there was fluff left on top of the tumble dryer.
‘Bugger bugger Sophy,’ screeched Emerald.
As Zac progressed to Sophy’s rhubarb crumble, he wandered round the room admiring Emerald’s smart invitations, interspersed with coloured cards to Sophy: all on a hangover theme.
‘Darling Sophy, thanks for a wild party.’
Sophy was obviously quite a raver. Examining the photographs of a big plain raw-boned woman in hunting kit on a large horse and a straight-backed man with a moustache in a colonel’s uniform, Zac could see why Emerald didn’t fit in with her adopted parents. A chihuahua among mastiffs, she looked as though she came from a different planet. There was also a rather bad watercolour of a big, dark grey Georgian house at the end of a drive, over the fireplace.
‘That’s where we live and the bloody cow’s drunk my last bottle of champagne. Thank Christ she can’t fit into my clothes. Come on, let’s go upstairs.
‘Don’t look in there!’ She slammed the door on a mountain of discarded clothes on the first landing. ‘That’s Sophy’s bedroom.’
The next flight of stairs led to a door on which hung a tapestry cushion embroidered with the words: ‘Go Away’. Inside they entered a different world: serene and beautiful.
Black and white tiles covered the entire floor. In one half were emerald green curtains, a huge bed with a green and white striped counterpane, and white armchairs with bright green and cobalt-blue cushions. On the dressing table were bottles of Penhaligon’s Violetta, which explained the enticing smell of violets. In the other half, equally tidy, the room was lined with white pillars topped with terracotta and bronze heads sculpted by Emerald and of astonishing brilliance. Zac was amazed that someone quite so self-absorbed should create people so distinctive and so alive. Dotted round the room were works in progress, shrouded like hooded monks in black or green plastic bags to keep the clay damp.
In the shelves were books on Epstein, Michelangelo, Rodin and Picasso. On the walls were photographs of people nose to nose with their own sculptured heads and drawings of great beauty. Zac looked at Emerald with new respect.
‘This stuff is awesome.’
He was particularly drawn to a curiously romanticized painting of a darling old lady, white hair drawn back in a bun. On her lap lay knitting: a blue jumper with the word ‘Charlene’ in pink on the front. She was holding out her arms and smiling. Along the bottom of the painting, Emerald had written in green ink: ‘My real grandmother’.
Zac whistled.
‘Omigod, what did your adopted grandmom say?’
‘She went ballistic,’ said Emerald happily. ‘It won a prize at school. They printed it in the local paper. Forget Whistler’s Mother. Emerald’s Real Granny got much better reviews. She’s such a bitch, Granny Cartwright. One day, she said: “Isn’t it a pity none of my grandchildren have green eyes.” Mummy protested: “Emerald does.” And Granny Cartwright said, “No, I mean my real grandchildren.”’
Emerald had taken a bottle of Chablis from the fridge, but even with one of those foolproof silver fish corkscrews, her hands were shaking so much, she buggered the cork. Zac took it from her.
‘It’s OK, baby.’ Putting the bottle down, he ran a soothing hand down her hair.
‘It isn’t,’ snapped Emerald. ‘Look at my mother and father.’ She pointed to another photograph of the plain, straight, middle-aged couple, this time in evening dress. ‘We’re light years apart.’
Glancing into the other half of the room, Zac noticed above the bed a ravishingly executed painting of a beautiful prince and princess, who bore a strong resemblance to Rupert and Taggie Campbell-Black, and again in green writing underneath: ‘My real parents’.
Below hung a beautiful drawing of a cat, which Zac recognized as by Galena Borochova. On a table was a little glass case containing a musical box, a fluffy green hippo and a yellowing once-white cardigan.
‘Those were presents given me by my real mother,’ explained Emerald in a trembling voice, ‘before she handed me over. I was only three days old. What kind of a woman gives up a baby?’
‘A very brave one,’ said Zac gently. Christ, she was screwed up.
As he gouged out the cork and poured the Chablis into two glasses, he asked her why, as someone so slender and fragile, she’d taken up such a back-breaking profession as sculpture.
‘If you’re adopted and small, you have to prove yourself.’
‘When did you start?’
‘When I was eight, I brought a rock from the moors into the kitchen and picked up a knife. My parents were terrified until they saw I was carving an angel.’
‘A self-portrait,’ murmured Zac, the irony lost on Emerald.
They were interrupted by her mobile ringing, some young man in Dorset whose family were expecting her to arrive for dinner before the dance.
‘I’m not coming. Last time I stayed, your mother called me Emeline all weekend,’ snapped Emerald.
Having furiously cut him off, she proceeded to play back her messages.
‘Emo, can you come to this?’ ‘Are you doing anything on Thursday night?’ ‘It’s the Bramham Moor Hunt Ball on Saturday.’ ‘My Uncle Jimmy wondered if you’d like to sculpt my cousin’s head for Aunt Molly’s birthday.’
Some of them sounded like tentative Hugh Grants; others, probably fellow art students, had flat London accents. No girls rang Emerald, reflected Zac.
Emerald let the tape run to the end to wind him up. Zac didn’t react, picking up a book on Degas. He’d hardly touched his drink. Out of nerves Emerald had knocked back one glass and nearly finished a second. She couldn’t help herself to a third yet without appearing an old soak.
‘What happened to your family?’ she blurted out.
Despite his suntan, Zac’s face turned as grey as the flecks in his dark hair.
‘My mom was deported to a detention camp called Theresienstadt when she was two. My grandmother remained there with her briefly before being dragged off to Auschwitz. Somehow Mom survived. After the war she joined my Great-aunt Leah in New York. They were the only family left.’
Zac’s voice was so matter-of-fact he might have been describing a baseball match.
‘Your poor mother,’ moaned Emerald. ‘Did she ever get over it?’
‘She died of cancer last year,’ said Zac flatly. ‘Just beforehand, we travelled to Auschwitz, and found my grandmother’s name and convoy number in a memorial book. I guess it helped Mom to grieve. I figure the chemo zapped her; she wasn’t strong enough to resist it.’
‘What about your father?’
‘He was a survivor – just – of Belsen. He was much older than Mom and died a couple of years after I was born.’
‘Did your mother marry again?’
Zac shrugged. ‘She married out. My stepfather was a car mechanic with fists.’
Emerald burst into tears. ‘I’m so sorry I banged on. But at least you
know who your parents were. The awful part is not knowing.’
‘Only if someone tells you it’s awful.’
Crossing the room, Zac took her in his arms; his heart was level with her ears and she could hear its steady beat. Unlike her other fumbling boyfriends, the hands that removed her velvet suit and dark blue jersey were completely steady. Pushing her gently away, he sat down on the bed.
‘Let me look at you.’
Emerald tossed her head haughtily, Carmen again, so her shiny hair cascaded over her breasts. Very slowly, never taking her huge green eyes off his, she removed a pink lace bra.
What the hell was she playing at? She never went to bed with men until the fifth or sixth date, usually never, but Zac had robbed her of all willpower.
‘Put your arms above your head,’ he ordered.
Emerald turned around proudly and slowly. Her breasts and bottom were high, curved and full, compared with her tiny frame. The throbbing and bubbling between her legs was getting more insistent.
‘Beautiful,’ said Zac softly. ‘My little Munch Madonna. Come here.’
Slowly he kissed her nipples until they were as hard and red as rosehips, gently rubbing her pink silk knickers over her clitoris until it stiffened in the same way.
‘I mustn’t,’ gasped Emerald. ‘Too soon. These things ought to be taken slowly,’ yet found herself pulling off his shirt.
Only a long scar above his heart marred the smooth gold rippling perfection of his chest.
‘Oh Zac, you’re beautiful.’
Zac laughed, the stretch of perfect white teeth, the enigmatic eyes, the flying black brows reminding her unnervingly again of Mephistopheles. But his shoulders were as smooth, hard and warm as a bronze in the afternoon sun. As her sculptor’s fingers moved downwards, moulding, kneading, Zac also gasped with pleasure. His black jeans fell to the floor, followed by Calvin Klein underpants.
