The Distant Shore (Stone Trilogy)

by Mariam Kobras

  They had succeeded in keeping the media hype away from her, but it would not work forever, and he feared the moment when she found out how heavily she had hit the headlines despite their maneuvering.

  “You didn’t expect us to keep them, did you?” He said it lightly, but he knew there were traps hidden in this discussion.

  She nodded, her fingers fidgeting with the embroidery on the quilt. It was a new nervous habit he did not like to see in her at all.

  Slow, silent tears spilled onto her cheeks and she turned her head away.

  “Right, folks.” Sal rose, motioning to Art. “Let’s move, Artie. We need to go. There’s work waiting.”

  “Don’t you have to go too?” Naomi asked, but Jon settled down next to her and shook his head.

  “I’m tired. You might as well go along with them, Jon, I’ll rest now.”

  It was offered in a listless, grey tone.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” was his light reply. “If you need rest, then I’ll stay right here and stare at the sky for a while and watch you sleep. Maybe it’ll do me some good too. I’ll think about what I want for dinner tonight and whether I’ll take the girls shopping and spoil them to the hilt before they return home. I’ll dress them up and get them at least five purses each; that seems to be a big item with you females. Maybe I’ll even get them some pretty bracelets or something. And then I’ll take them out for lunch to a place where they can be sure to see some famous faces, and I think I’ll introduce them to some of the hot, smooth actors too, so they’ll have something to brag about.”

  He paused, his hands folded behind his head.

  “Hell, I’ll ask Harry to organize a party for them and ask a few people over, give them the entire Hollywood treatment for a few days. Can I borrow your Rolls?”

  Her reply was slow in coming. “Sure. Whatever.”

  It was not the reaction he had been hoping for.

  “You might come along, you know.”

  Kevin had told him, the morning before, that there was really no good reason for her to stay sequestered in the roof garden. She would tire easily, true, but medically she was ready to pick up her life again, if she did it slowly and carefully.

  “In every respect,” he had added and eyed his brother circumspectly. “But gently, Jon. No wild trysts, please, not yet. Although a little loving would surely be good for her.”

  “Wild?” Jon’s voice had been brittle with mirth. “Don’t know what you mean, wild.”

  “Are you telling me, brother of mine, that all that energy you bring to the stage is pure show? Come on! Even my Sarah fantasizes about how it would be with you in bed. She imagines you’re a real stud.” He had eyed Jon with some irony.

  They had been standing in the kitchen, Jon leaning against the counter, a mug of coffee in his hand, dressed in a black silk turtleneck and slacks, unshaven, and grinning broadly at Kevin’s unspoken question.

  “Never more than three at once, Kev. Too much bother. They talk all the time, and my capacity for listening is limited.”

  “You jerk!” Kevin had nearly tossed his breakfast at him. “Stop with bragging already!”

  Jon had shrugged. “Well, the wife seems pleased with the performance, so I guess I’m good enough.”

  This had been a new experience for them, bantering about sex, sharing a few confidences without being too serious, a moment of brotherly closeness in lives that had barely touched at all in years.

  “Yeah, good, right, I bet you had a lot of practice before you decided to settle on one, too. So don’t brag! If I were in your shoes I would have taken advantage of the situation too, and all those sweet offers.”

  “Sure. Had to stay in shape. My wife is a stern mistress, and she knows how to punish me swiftly and harshly if I fail.”

  Kevin’s shout of laughter had echoed through the entire house.

  “Come along? Shopping with the girls?”

  At least she had not told him no right away, Jon registered with some relief.

  “I need you, Babe. Need you to want to live again. You’re letting go, Naomi, and I can’t bear to watch you drift away. Tell me what to do to make you want to live, Baby.”

  “I’m alive.” No more than a sigh, and a very resigned one at that.

  Her eyes were huge in her pale face, her skin almost translucent after her weightloss and the long time without proper exercise and sunshine. She was wearing one of the loose robes that did not show her contours, a beautiful silk thing in a deep purple that slid over her arms and left them bare when she reached up to push her hair back.

  “But Babe,” he argued gently, “alive means more than just living. I want you to get dressed and go downtown with us. It’s high time you returned to life, and to me. I want you wanting me again, loving me. I want our life together back. We were doing so well before this happened, and I really, really want that back.”

  “Later, Jon.”

  Only that, later.

  Unaccountably, a hot fury rose in him.

  “No. Not later. No more, Naomi, I’m not going to watch you waste away! You’ve languished here for over two months, and that is quite enough.”

  Against her protests, he picked her up from her bed and carried her inside. She was as light as a child and it felt like holding a struggling bird, but he did not let her go.

  “Oh, fight all you like. At least it shows me there’s some will left in you yet.” He put her down on her feet in front of her wardrobe and opened it for her. “Here. That thing is coming off now, and you’re going to dress properly. And then we’ll take the girls out for dinner. Go on. Either you do it yourself or I’ll do it for you, but it’s going to happen.”

  His anger was not directed at Sophie and at the blow she had dealt them. Whatever he might have felt in terms of guilt or commiseration was dead now, burned out of him by the sudden surge of rage, born of desperation at seeing Naomi retreating into the shadows a little further every day.

  “But you have to go away. I don’t want you to look.” Her hands pulled the silk of her gown tightly around her body in protection, but it only showed him quite clearly how thin she was.

  “Are you crazy? I’m not going anywhere, and you’ll drop that thing right now. You’re my wife, and I’m looking at you all I like! Go on, toss it, or I’ll help you, but then we won’t be going out for a while yet.”

  “I won’t!” She retreated a couple of steps from him, but her voice had gained a trace of steel he rather relished. “I’m ugly now, and damaged, and you’ll never look at me the same way, you’ll always see that scar and think of what happened, and…and…”

  He was upon her so fast that she stumbled.

  “That does it. Dinner will have to wait, I fear.”

  He had not seen her naked since the night before the Oscars—the girls had taken care of her and always chased him away—but now she stood before him, shivering a little, her hands knotted together in shame, and it shocked him how she had wasted away during the past weeks, despite their care and Andrea’s cooking.

  “Baby, you need some proper attention, and I’ll give it to you now. I’m going to drag you back into life, by your hair if I have to.”

  Gently, gently, he laid her down on their bed and held her against his body, caressing and exploring the new curves and contours.

  Naomi held on to him as if she were fighting for her life.

  “Going to bring you back now,” Jon growled in her ear. “We’re alive, damn it all. Let go, love. Let it all go now.”

  His fingertips followed the ominous trail down her side, scar tissue, red under his touch. He knew there was a daily routine with a salve to keep the skin soft, and he also knew, from Kevin’s explicit reports, how extremely circumspect the surgeons had been, despite the severity of her injury, to restore her to at least superficial normalcy.

  “But I am ugly now, Jon.” Naomi gazed down at her own body in disgust and sorrow. “Why did they have to cut me open from top to bottom? It looks like a zipp
er!”

  There were no gentle words of comfort; she was right, and nothing could change the bitter facts. “It does look a bit like a zipper, but that’s only now. It’ll get better. And I don’t mind one little bit, darling. You are definitely not ugly.” Jon pulled up the quilt. “You were wounded, but that doesn’t make you ugly and it doesn’t diminish my desire for you, you silly girl. As if I care about a little scar.”

  His hand grabbed her arm tightly when she tried to pull away, shame creeping into her eyes again. “Oh no. You’re not going anywhere. If I have to, I’ll keep you here in bed until I’ve driven that notion out of you, my pretty thing, and then I’ll take you down to Valentino and have them outfit you with all the scanty clothes they have. You’re not going to hide yourself away anymore.”

  It was delivered in the cool, hard voice she dreaded, but Naomi knew the tone was not really directed at her but at her sorrow and at Sophie, poor, dead Sophie.

  At last she found the words to pour out her distress.

  Jon, sitting up against the headrest, held her tightly against his chest while she talked and cried and dozed through the night.

  “Yes,” he admitted when she asked, “you were dead. Well, not really dead, or you wouldn’t be here now.” Those words nearly choked him. “Your heart stopped a couple of times and they had to bring you back, but Baby, you lost so much blood, and you were so terribly hurt, and…hey Babe, I’ll go down to the kitchen and find us something to eat, what do you think?”

  There was no immediate reply, so he turned to look at her, a tinge of alarm pulling at his senses, but there was nothing wrong. She was sitting in the middle of the bed, the sheet gathered in her lap but otherwise naked, her hair wild and astoundingly black against her skin, regarding him thoughtfully. The first light of dawn was creeping in through the open balcony door and casting a bluish shine on her, enhancing the ethereal impression.

  “You look just like you did when I first brought you here. Exactly like that, Naomi.” He could hardly say it. “You’re still the girl I found so long ago, you haven’t changed one bit. I love you, Baby, so much. Are you truly hungry?”

  “Yes, but not for food.”

  Wondering, marveling, breathless with desire, his chest burning with a frightening, intense love, Jon sat on the bed and watched her get dressed for dinner at Harry’s.

  Naomi had needed a rest, but she had been in a good mood when she retired for a couple of hours, kissing him and gently pushing him away when he wanted to follow her inside.

  “I can see it in your eyes, little beast. Ah, and how sweet that is! I see you looking at my mouth and your face goes all soft with longing.” Just like that time in the hallway in Geneva where he had held her cornered against the wall, leaning toward her, one hand beside her shoulder blocking her escape, their bodies not touching but very close, the air between them simmering.

  She loved it, he could hardly fail to notice, loved him to charm and seduce her, talk her into surrender in his dark, sweet drawl, his lips close to her face so his breath stroked her skin. “Let me into your room. Let me in, sleep with me. Let me make love to you. You won’t be disappointed; I know how to do it in a way that will make you faint with ecstasy.”

  Her eyelids had fluttered and her lips had parted so invitingly, but once more, to his absolute delight, her reply, delivered in a low, cool voice, had been, “That’s not how it works.”

  “Beast.” But he let her go with a light slap on her rump and a regretful sigh.

  “That looks good on you, you thin stick,” he commented now when she slipped on one of the dresses she had bought on their shopping trip with the girls.

  Naomi pulled her hair up in a saucy ponytail. “Shut up. I’m doing what I can, alright?”

  The exhausted tone surprised him. “Well, you’re not eating, love, and I don’t want you to stay like this, weak and wan. Hell, how will you ever be able to give me a spirited tussle again if I have to be afraid of breaking you in two?”

  “Think of something else for a change.” Naomi fished for a pair of sandals that would not slip from her bony feet as soon as she took a step. “Oh, bother.” Resigned, she sat down beside him, her hands in her lap, still barefoot. “I’m so tired, Jon. I can’t keep pretending everything is alright. I try, but it’s just not working. Maybe my dad was right, maybe I should go to Kleinburg for a while. Maybe I really need to step away from it all.”

  “No.” His reply came swiftly, panic in his voice. “No, Baby, please. You know what will happen if you do that. You won’t come back, you know it. You won’t come back to me, you’ll leave me forever. God, Naomi. Please. I’m begging you. Please don’t leave me now.”

  He watched her gaze travel to the Oscar statuette on the table, right next to the Grammy Award. “You were happy here before this happened, we were happy. You had fun, you loved it. You’re depressed and scared now, but darling, it will come back, the fun and the joy, I promise.”

  They had been to Tiffany’s, where he had bought some trinkets for the girls. While he was picking out a ruby pendant for Solveigh he observed how Naomi brought out her rings and weighed them in her hand and then returned them to her purse, but he had refrained from a comment then.

  “Your rings,” he now asked, “don’t you want to wear them?”

  She only shrugged, and it nearly broke his heart.

  “Naomi, don’t you want to be married to me anymore? Do you want out? Is that it?”

  Silence settled over them, Naomi, her head bowed and her hands folded in the material of her new dress; Jon, his eyes closed, dreading her next words.

  How naïve, he thought bitterly, to assume that some lovemaking would bring her back to him, would make her forget the hurt and the fear. “What do you want me to do?” he plodded on, grief settling deep into him. “What can I do to make it easier for you?”

  Gently he reached for her hands and eased her stiff fingers into his.

  “You can’t unmarry me. I won’t let you. I know you love me. Look around you—all this is yours, and me, I’m part of it. I’m all yours, Naomi. God, there is no other who could take your place! You know that!”

  “Unmarry is not a word, Jon.” A slight pressure, a tentative sign. “You can’t have me unmarry you, you silly bastard. But…”

  “But, Baby?” he interrupted. “There’s a ‘but’? Don’t kill me, Naomi.”

  “But,” she concluded sadly, “I just don’t know how to go on. I don’t know how to pick up the pieces, Jon. Even Halmar, even that’s tainted now. I’ll always think of Sophie and that scene outside the hotel and feel terrible about it, how desperate she was. She surely did not deserve to die over you.”

  “Die over me?”

  “Of course she died over you, Jon. She died because she wanted you and knew no other way to get you but to try and kill me. Can’t you see?”

  They were all, it seemed, waiting for her.

  Heads swiveled when she entered Harry’s house; silence descended on the large group of guests.

  Grace came to meet her and kiss her cheek and lead her to a couch in a quiet corner. “Here, love.” She pressed a glass of champagne into her hand. “You can’t imagine how good it is to see you here again, and looking rather well, too.”

  For a little while she was left alone, but then a strange, almost ceremonious parade began as one after another well-known Hollywood faces approached her and asked after her health, wished her a speedy recovery or commiserated, inquired how her work was coming along or what her plans were for the future, some of them only chatting briefly about the weather or the food, some not even looking at her, as if she was the realization of something they did not wish to be confronted with at all.

  One of them, the host of the show Jon had appeared on after the Academy Awards, Jake, sat down beside her. “You know, you’re an icon now, you’ve made movie history. That shooting will be in the chronicles of the Oscars for all time.”

  It was said in his usual darkly humorous manner, bu
t Naomi could not really see the funny side of the affair. She started to turn away, but he laid his hand on her arm. “No, dear, I wasn’t making a joke. Quite the contrary.”

  He made a serious effort to appear respectable for once.

  “Nightmare stuff.” Jake shook his head at her. “Absolutely, Naomi, a nightmare. It’s what every one of us fears more than anything else. Ever since John Lennon no one has felt safe. The innocence is gone. We try to live as normally as possible, but you know yourself how restricted we really are. So in that place where we feel reasonably safe, on that well-guarded red carpet, none of us looks for danger, right? And you were assaulted there. Pure nightmare. You embody something now that no one here wanted to see or experience, ever, and that is why they look at you with such mixed feelings. We are sorry for you because you were hurt, we are angry because it was possible to hurt you at all, and we are scared, because if it can happen to you, it can happen to any of us, anywhere, and that makes life so much more precarious. Who can tell? Maybe on my way home, when I’m stopped at a red light, the guy in the car next to me will shoot me. Because his wife laughed too hard at my latest stupid joke, or because he felt personally insulted by it, or just because he’s in a foul mood and thinks killing a famous person will make him feel better.” He fished the olive out of his Martini with expert fingers and popped it into his mouth.

  “But this was personal.”

  This made him laugh and turn his big frame into a position that allowed him to face her.

  “Ah, personal, a lover’s tiff. That’s what you think? Then why choose that particular spot? She could have caught you in so many places, on the beach, shopping, during lunch somewhere. Why pick that exact spot and time? No, this was meant to be a spectacle. She wanted to go out in a blaze. Curious, isn’t it? She let him pass by, but you she tried to kill. She was stalking you, not him, so it’s something to do with you and not him at all.”

  Jon was standing with a couple of musicians. He was gesticulating animatedly with the hand that held his cigarette and shifting from one leg to the other, listening to some inner rhythm, his shoulders moving with easy grace as he talked, his voice low but still strong enough to be heard over the general murmur.