Isabel nodded in sympathy. It must have been difficult for her to understand my position, what with a father worth millions and her own substantial income. But she seemed to.
‘I’m sorry it didn’t work, Nick.’
‘So am I. I screwed up.’
‘I think you’ve taken the right decision, though. I know it’s easy for me to say, because I haven’t any money problems, but I don’t think you could have carried on at Dekker and been happy with yourself.’
‘And what about you?’
She smiled. ‘That is a very uncomfortable question.’
‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked it.’
‘No, that’s OK. I guess I’m still trying to prove to myself that I can do this well. I don’t want to give up. And every now and again, like on days like today, the job seems worthwhile.’
‘Well, good luck with it,’ I said, raising my glass.
‘And good luck to you,’ she said, raising hers. Then, ‘I shall miss you.’
The words hung in the air. For a brief moment, she looked embarrassed, as though she wanted to take them back, but then she left them there, defiantly, looking directly at me, so that I knew what she meant, and that she didn’t care that I knew.
My heart leaped. The bustle of the restaurant receded from my peripheral vision, and from my ears. There was just Isabel, there in front of me.
Neither of us said anything. I think I grinned stupidly. Isabel looked down as a bowl of soup was placed in front of her, and then looked up at me again and smiled. I felt as though I was falling into that smile, into those big dark eyes.
Then she giggled, we both relaxed, and delved into our soup.
*
The taxi journey back to our hotel took half an hour. It was late, it had been a long day, and we were both tired. Isabel let her head slump on to my shoulder, and shut her eyes. I sat motionless, unable to relax, totally aware of her body next to me. Her shoulders and head rested on me with the lightest of pressures. A hint of her perfume, a scent that I already associated strongly with her, surrounded us. A strand of her dark hair crept up and tickled my chin. I left it there.
She opened her eyes as the taxi lurched to a halt outside the hotel. It was midnight. The lift was waiting for us. This time, both our rooms were on the same floor. As the lift slowly eased upwards, Isabel held my eyes, and smiled shyly.
A breathless minute later, we were in her room. She watched me undress. My hands were trembling with anticipation, nerves, excitement. It was hard to concentrate on unbuttoning my shirt and trousers, pulling off my socks.
She laughed. Her clothes slipped off easily, and she sat on the bed, naked. One leg was tucked under her buttocks, and her small round breasts pushed out towards me. I kissed her. Her lips were soft and pliable, her tongue quick. She touched me, and I ached. I pulled her towards me, her body light under my hands. My hands moved over her, gently searching, stroking. She trembled under my touch.
Then she was on me, her body flowing over mine, shimmering pale in the reflected lights of the street outside. Eventually our muscles relaxed. She gazed down at me, her eyes dark pools half hidden behind strands of hair flopping over her face. She sighed and rested her head on my thumping chest, her body as light as before.
I held her.
‘That was nice, Nick,’ she said, some time later.
‘Mmm.’
She ran her finger over the scar on my chest, which was healing nicely.
‘Don’t go away.’ She rolled off me, and climbed out of bed. I watched her as she moved across the room to the bathroom. Naked, her body was supple but lithe as she walked.
She returned two minutes later, poured a glass of mineral water from the bottle on the desk, and sat cross-legged next to me.
‘Don’t stare!’ she said.
‘Sorry. It’s hard not to.’
‘You’ll give me a complex.’
‘Don’t be silly. You’re perfect.’
‘Look, I’m about the only woman in Rio who hasn’t had cosmetic surgery.’
‘Really?’
She nodded. ‘Everyone does it.’
‘So what would you do?’
‘Oh, I’d sort this out first.’ She pointed to her nose. ‘And then my bottom needs lifting. Here. My breasts are OK.’
‘Yes, your breasts are OK. That’s something,’ I said, with heavy irony. She hit me with a pillow.
I sat up next to her and drank some of her water. ‘You know, over the last couple of weeks, I couldn’t work out what you thought of me.’
‘I liked you,’ she said.
I smiled. ‘Well, I hoped you did. But you seemed to be keeping your distance. I didn’t think I had much of a chance.’
‘Sorry. You’re right. I mean, I did want to see more of you, but then I really didn’t want to start something with someone at work again. So … I was confused.’
I almost felt like asking her if my resignation was why we were where we were, but that was unfair, and I most certainly did not want to be unfair to her. Not then.
She had said ‘again’. ‘Start something with someone at work again.’ What was that?
‘Jamie told me something that makes no sense,’ I said.
‘That doesn’t surprise me.’
‘It was about you and Eduardo.’
Isabel held back her head and laughed. ‘You didn’t believe that, did you?’
‘It didn’t make much sense to me. Now Ricardo I could have believed.’
For an instant Isabel tensed. In more usual circumstances, I wouldn’t have noticed it. But after what we had experienced a few minutes before …
‘You didn’t?’
I could see Isabel’s first reaction was to deny it. But she realized it was too late.
‘I did.’
‘Oh.’
‘It didn’t last long.’
‘That’s OK. You needn’t tell me. It’s none of my business.’
‘No, I’d like to. I’d like to tell someone about it.’
‘All right. I’ll listen.’
‘It was just after I’d joined Dekker. Ricardo and I were invited for a weekend’s skiing in Aspen by the chairman of one of the São Paulo banks. Ricardo was in a great mood. Dekker had just had the best year of their history. Our host insisted that we ski’d and didn’t talk business, so we did as we were told. Ricardo and I clicked. I know Ricardo has that effect on just about everyone, but with me I truly do think it was different.’
She looked at me to see whether I believed her. I did. ‘Go on.’
‘I mean I was completely taken with him. I guess that’s not so surprising. But the way he looked at me. It was … I suppose it was like the way you look at me.’
‘I’m not sure I like the sound of that.’
She ignored me. ‘Well, we slept together. And over the next few months we went on a number of trips together.’
‘And what did Luciana think about that?’
‘She never found out.’
‘Lucky for you. I wouldn’t want to be on the wrong side of her temper.’
‘But she cheats on him! Everyone at the office knows it. Apart from Ricardo. Just ask Jamie.’
I frowned.
‘OK, you’re right. I was wrong to do it. And I’m definitely not going to do it again. Especially after what happened.’
‘What happened?’
‘He dumped me.’
‘Did it hurt?’
‘Yes. A lot. I think it still does.’ I squeezed her hand. ‘He said he had been wrong to start it. He said it was the first time he had been unfaithful. He was risking his marriage, and he was risking his working life as well. Sleeping with one of his team was not the right way to do things.’
‘I suppose not.’
‘You know how self-controlled he is. Usually he wouldn’t put anything before Dekker. And he talks a lot about the importance of family life although, of course, he hardly ever sees Luciana. I think it’s some sort of fiction he has created
for himself.’
‘Did you believe him? That it was the only time?’
‘Yes. Of course that’s what every dumb mistress wants to believe, but in this case I think it really is the truth. I think he was scared that he’d let his self-control slip. It certainly hasn’t happened again.’
I stared up at the ceiling, considering the concept of Isabel and Ricardo. I didn’t like it. There may have been an element of jealousy, but there was more to it than that. I wanted to get Ricardo out of my life, but here he was getting even closer to me.
‘How’s your relationship now?’ I asked.
She sighed. ‘Oh, he’s very professional with me. He’s friendly, he treats me just like the others. I try and be the same way with him, but I can’t quite manage it.’
‘So how did the rumours about you and Eduardo start?’
‘I think the others realized that there was something going on with me. They just guessed the wrong Ross, that’s all.’ She shuddered. ‘Yeuch. Just the thought of it makes me ill.’
‘And since Ricardo?’
‘No one. Until now.’ She turned to me and smiled. I melted.
‘You know, I definitely shouldn’t be doing this,’ she said, bending over to kiss me.
But she did. Twice more.
We were booked into a business hotel located between the metallic-smelling river Pinheiros and a highway. The dawn rose red in the São Paulo smog. From our window I could see a patch of wasteland that had been turned into a soccer pitch, and a small favela. Isabel’s theory was that there weren’t any nice locations in São Paulo anyway, and this hotel had good facilities and was convenient for the airport.
I went back to my own untouched room to dress, and returned a few minutes later to pick up Isabel.
She laughed when she saw me. ‘You look dreadful.’
I looked in the mirror. Dark patches edged with yellow surrounded my eyes. I glanced at Isabel. ‘You don’t exactly look fresh yourself.’
She yawned and stretched. She looked delectable. Tired but delectable.
‘What will they think at the municipal offices?’ I said. ‘Maybe they’ll assume we’ve been up all night working on the project.’
Isabel laughed. ‘They might if they were English. But they’re Brazilian. They’ll assume we had sex all night.’
‘Oh dear.’
Isabel laughed. ‘Don’t worry. It won’t matter. In fact, I think they’ll rather like the idea.’ And she put her arms around me and gave me a long, lingering kiss.
I suspected they could tell, but they didn’t seem to mind. We put in another hard day’s work, but it was fun, and we made good progress. We finished at six, and Isabel and I spent Saturday night in São Paulo in bed, with room service to provide us with sustenance.
To Isabel, a carioca, the prospect of a weekend spent entirely in São Paulo was appalling so she suggested flying to Rio on Sunday morning, and taking the shuttle back to São Paulo first thing on Monday. She would show me the beach, and then we could have dinner with her father.
Initially I was reluctant; I wasn’t sure I wanted to return to a Rio beach. But Isabel promised me that the beach she went to was completely safe, and that we would probably have dinner with her father at the Rio Yacht Club, which had armed guards. I agreed to go, ashamed at my nervousness.
I thought I knew Rio’s beaches, but I didn’t. The Point was a quarter-mile stretch of the Barra de Tijuca, a beach just down the coast from Ipanema. I brought my towel and my book, and a plan that would involve turning my pale body a delicate shade of pink. That wasn’t how it worked.
The beach was crowded, crowded with beautiful brown bodies. All the men had terrific muscular definition, the result of regular workouts, and the women had smooth, tanned soft skin, displayed to great effect by bikinis that revealed almost everything. In Brazil, the buttock was all, and swimming costumes were designed to show them off in all their glory.
Isabel was wearing one of these dental-floss bikinis, and she looked stunning. It was very hard not to stare. In fact it was impossible, so I did.
But the extraordinary thing about the Point was that no one was lying down basking in the sun or reading a book, as people would on a European beach. They were sitting, squatting or standing, and talking. It made quite a racket. I shut my eyes, and the chattering, shrieking and continuous chirruping of mobile phones sounded as though I was in the midst of a crowded café.
Everyone seemed to know Isabel, and they were friendly to me. Despite my absurdly pale skin, I was quickly made to feel at home. There were plenty of bottles of the local beach beer around, and I soon relaxed, mellowed by the friendly charm of carioca hospitality.
I watched Isabel and her friends with interest. She seemed much more relaxed than she ever did at Dekker. She smiled, laughed, gossiped and argued in a free and uninhibited way that I found enchanting. It was as though the real Isabel, the Isabel I had glimpsed privately before, had suddenly emerged from under the long shadow of Dekker Ward.
At four we left and headed back to the Copacabana Palace Hotel. We stopped at an intersection. On the corner, two policemen slouched by their blue and white car. They wore baseball caps and dark glasses, and their first names were taped on to their chests. Right in front of them two small girls were attempting to wash windscreens, with little success. Behind them a tall, scruffily dressed man leaned against a parked car, relieving himself on the passenger window. The policemen smoked cigarettes and posed.
The traffic moved us on, past Ipanema beach, and the spot where I had been stabbed. The favela on the cliff above the beach looked alive but peaceful. In there, somewhere, were our attackers.
Isabel saw me tense and squeezed my hand. ‘Try to forget it,’ she said.
‘It’s difficult.’ I swallowed, and we spent the rest of the journey in silence.
When we reached the hotel, Isabel joined me in my room. Eagerly, we made love again. It was long and slow, our bodies tingling from the sand and the sun. Afterwards, with Isabel’s black hair spread across my chest like a soft, lightweight blanket, I asked her a question that had suddenly become very important to me.
‘Isabel?’
‘Yes?’
‘Can I see you again? I mean, when we get back to London.’
She lifted her head, and smiled into my eyes. ‘Of course.’
I pulled her back down on to my chest. ‘Good.’
As I stroked her hair, I thought about what we might be getting into. My relationship with Joanna had been the only serious one of my life. It had lasted five years, five years which to me now seemed wasted. Of course we had had some good times, but I didn’t remember them well. What I did remember were the daily power struggles over small things, power struggles that I always let Joanna win. She hadn’t been worth it, and when she had run off to America with Wes, I had savoured my new-found independence.
Since then I had avoided another relationship. I had dated women, but had never let things progress. I was afraid of a serious attachment, and jealous of my independence.
Until now.
Isabel was completely different from Joanna, or at least Joanna as I remembered her. She was a strong, independent woman, but she was also natural, kind, warm. And she was very beautiful.
She was well worth the risk, I told myself, as though I was in control of my emotions towards her. Of course I wasn’t. I had lost myself to her long ago. I looked forward to the months ahead with her with optimism.
But, of course, there was the job. Although Dekker seemed a long way away, we’d have to get back to work the next day in São Paulo. And then we’d return to London, and I would resign. I wondered how Ricardo would take it. Not very well, I imagined. And Eduardo? I shuddered.
‘Is it true Eduardo killed someone once? A student?’ I asked.
Isabel didn’t answer immediately, her head lay motionless on my chest.
‘No, it’s not true,’ she said at last.
‘It wouldn’t have surprised me if he h
ad. But I suppose it’s just another myth.’
‘Not entirely.’
I stayed silent, waiting for her to continue.
‘It was Ricardo who killed the student.’
‘Ricardo?’
She propped herself up on her elbow. ‘Oh, it was a complete accident. It was at a party in Caracas. The other guy was drunk and took a swing at Ricardo, who was chatting up his girlfriend. Ricardo hit him harder than he meant to, and the guy fell back over the balcony, four floors up. Apparently it was very messy.’
‘So Eduardo had nothing to do with it.’
‘Not quite. There were witnesses, and they were the student’s friends, not Ricardo’s. The police came and Ricardo was soon in jail. They were about to work on him for a “confession“, when Eduardo sorted it all out.’
‘How?’
‘I don’t know. Even then Eduardo had a flair for that sort of thing. And Ricardo walked free.’
‘Ricardo told you this, presumably?’
‘Yes. He still feels guilty about it. And grateful to Eduardo.’
‘I bet he does.’ I sympathized with the guilt. I clearly remembered one night in Oxford when Jamie had become involved in an argument with a six-foot-six-inch University of Cape Town rugby player. Height never bothered Jamie: it just made his head-butts more effective. The South African had staggered back into the road. A van was driving fast down the empty High Street, and braked hard. It hit the South African, but only gently, and no damage was done. But if the van driver’s reactions had been just that little bit slower …
‘Eduardo and Ricardo seem to have a very strange relationship,’ I said. ‘That must be why.’
‘It’s not just that. I think a lot of it has to do with their father. Apparently, he was quite a successful businessman. The brothers never saw much of him, or of their mother who made a career out of spending the money her husband earned. Ricardo worshipped his father. He said he was always trying to prove himself to him, but his father never took any notice so Ricardo just tried harder.’
‘Yes. He told me something similar himself. But what about Eduardo?’
The Marketmaker Page 17
