Court of Lions

by Jane Johnson

  It had taken her a while to wash Matty out of her thoughts, although having to wash the traces of him and his wretched dog out of the carpet, sofa and the cork tiles in the kitchen soon hardened her heart. She had really loved Matty at the start, had fallen for him in a gorgeous, mad tumble of desire and delight. It troubled her terribly that she could have made such a grave mistake of judgment. She was usually so good at working out problems, seeing potential pitfalls; yet with Matty she had fallen in one up to her neck. But at least, she told herself brightly, she had got out and saved herself: she was a survivor. Visiting the palace of England’s most carnal and gluttonous king—a place that celebrated the heights of hedonism—was a special treat to herself after remaking her life. She felt strong and empowered and ready to take on the world again.

  The sense of freedom to be able to wander where she wanted, to stop and take in the intricacies of a carving, the glories of a fine tapestry, without someone’s bored sighing behind her, was a great pleasure. Arriving in one of the royal bedchambers, she gazed up at the painted ceiling where a beautifully muscular god of war, exhausted by battle, lay asleep in the arms of Venus, while some chubby cherubs carried off his armour, and was dismayed to realize he looked a lot like a beefier version of Matty, passed out after one of his long drinking sessions. “Love disarming Strife,” she read in the guidebook, as if it were that easy. Lucky Venus, she thought: all those cherubs to help put matters straight. Clearly Mars had not been hitting the bottle, then passing out on the sofa covered in sick.

  The image had quite changed her mood. She needed to get outside, away from all the stern Biblical scenes, from the portraits of meaty-faced men and their women in French hoods, who were in their lives only to look ornamental, to breed and be silent and subservient.

  She strolled back across the bridge into East Molesey to find somewhere to have a late lunch, and an antiques shop next to one of the many awninged restaurants nearby caught her eye. The particularly lovely chaise longue in the window seduced her into the shop. She had secretly always fancied herself as the sort of woman who might own a chaise longue, but up till now one like this—covered in a delicate cream damask—would have died a slow death from wine stains, vomit and dog prints.

  She had gone in just to get a better look at it. To run an admiring hand over its impeccable upholstery and its shapely wooden back. She was lost in a moment of dreamy self-indulgence, when someone spoke beside her. “It’s a nice piece, isn’t it? William IV, dating from around 1830. All the mahogany is original. You can sense all the character, all the years it’s seen, in that deep patination, can’t you?”

  Shocked out of her reverie, she turned to find an austerely handsome middle-aged man in a button-down shirt and chinos beside her. She smiled at him. “It’s beautiful.”

  “I restored it myself.”

  “You did?” She stroked the seat cushion as gently as if it were a cat. “That’s amazing.”

  “It’s such a pleasure to meet someone who appreciates true quality. I could tell you were discerning the moment you walked in.”

  Good sales patter, she thought. But still, she was flattered.

  “James Foxley,” he said, holding out a hand.

  His fingers, dry and cool, closed over hers. Was it her imagination or did his grip linger longer than was entirely polite?

  “It’s really lovely, but probably not very practical,” she said.

  “I’m not sure practicality is the point of a chaise longue,” he said with a grin, and she found herself thinking how attractive he was, with that sweep of dark hair and those cheekbones and deep-set brown eyes. Ridiculous: he was too old for her, even if she hadn’t sworn off men for all time.

  She cast another wistful glance at the chaise. It would look perfect beneath the window in what she had now designated as the dining room, which Matty had turned into a dark and filthy den. She had jettisoned the ruined carpet, bullied the floorboards back to cleanliness with a sanding machine, repainted the walls a lovely cool grey, but still the room appeared rather soulless and unloved. Something impractical might be just what it needed. “How much is it?” she asked, and was shocked by the price he quoted.

  Ten minutes later they had reached a sort of compromise and she was feeling light in the head, as well as in the wallet. The power of doing something so mad, so impulsive, just for herself, was intoxicating. She felt quite giddy with it. The world spun, and all of a sudden she was sitting on the floor, alongside an intricately engraved wooden boot that she had managed to knock over, spilling cigarette ends and ash all over.

  “Oh no, I’m so sorry. I hope I haven’t broken it.” She set the boot upright again.

  “Good Lord, are you okay?”

  “I…Yes, yes, of course.” She scrambled to her knees and started scraping the scattered butts into a pile. “I’ve no idea what’s the matter with me. I’ve never done anything like that before.”

  “Let’s get you up. Don’t worry about that old thing. Just a bit of Moroccan tat.”

  “Poor thing: it’s much too nice to be used as an ashtray.”

  He helped her up and rather presumptuously dusted off the seat of her jeans. Taking her by the arm, he steered her to a Queen Anne chair and pushed her down into the plush velvet. Kate struggled to stand up, but he kept her pinned. “You are going nowhere till you’ve had a cup of tea and at least two chocolate Hobnobs. Just stay there. I’ll be right back.”

  Kate’s cheeks were aflame. Had she really fainted? It was just a bit of dizziness, an inner ear thing, a virus maybe. It was only when James returned with the tray bearing a silver teapot, a pair of porcelain cups on saucers, a matching milk jug and sugar bowl, a pair of silver sugar tongs and a vast slice of cake that her stomach rumbled like thunder and she remembered she had eaten nothing all day.

  “Sorry, ran out of the promised Hobnobs,” he apologized. “Had to pop to the café for the next best thing.”

  “I can’t eat all that,” she protested, staring at the gleaming slice of chocolate torte. But she did. She could not remember the last time anyone had brought her a cup of tea, let alone such a treat. Self-pitying tears, something she never allowed herself, welled up, and suddenly she was snuffling. “God, sorry, sorry, I’m such a mess.” She dug in her handbag for a tissue, and of course couldn’t find one. Snot was tickling the tip of her nose. She raised a hand to wipe it away before it could fall and unexpectedly a crisp white handkerchief appeared in front of her. She stared at it. Someone had ironed it into perfect quarters. There was a J embroidered into one corner. It was far too smart to wipe a snotty nose on.

  “Please,” he said, pushing it at her. “I have hundreds of the things. My aunt lacks imagination when it comes to Christmas presents.”

  She laugh-snorted into the hanky, then refolded it to hide the contents and put it down on the tray. “You’re very kind.”

  “It’s not every day I have a beautiful woman with a fine eye for quality coming into the shop.”

  It was probably the tea, but Kate felt herself go warm all over. In all their time together Matty had never once called her beautiful. A few minutes later she had agreed to go to dinner with James Foxley.

  She was halfway out the door, when he called her back.

  “Close your eyes and put your hands out.”

  In a bit of a daze, she did as she was told, and nearly dropped the object he put there, it being far heavier than she had been expecting.

  “Just give it a rinse: it’ll make an excellent doorstop.”

  She looked down. In her hands was the decorative Moroccan boot. Except, she realized in a moment of sudden clarity it wasn’t a boot at all but a sort of artificial leg.

  Some weeks later, in a riverside pub, she sat drinking red wine with James. It was their third date and they were getting down to the nitty-gritty.

  “I never meant to get involved with an addict,” Kate said. “Matty was very cunning at hiding his vices from me. I just thought he was great fun when we firs
t met.”

  James listened without interrupting, which she liked. His eyes never left her face, even when she recounted the more unsavoury details—the hidden bottles, the chemical lows brought on by the chemical highs of the night before, the cryptic phone calls and sudden disappearances. The late-night weeping and manic, red-eyed laughter; the disturbing periods of unconsciousness. All hidden from everybody but her.

  “Everyone thought him a grand fellow, the life and soul of every party. They thought I was a miserable old cow for reining him in.”

  “How very unfair on you,” he said sympathetically. “What a good job you didn’t marry him.”

  Matty had asked her, but Kate knew by then she couldn’t do it. When she’d said no, Matty had shut himself in the den and drunk an entire bottle of whisky, then smashed his favourite guitar, leaving angry holes in the plaster.

  “I was always clearing up after him,” Kate said. “I felt more like his mother than his girlfriend.” She looked past James to where a young couple were twined around each other, laughing and kissing. “When we met, I thought I wanted a child,” she sighed at last. “But not a forty-year-old one.”

  James touched her hand lightly. “Plenty of time for that.”

  She smiled. “Not really.”

  “But you can’t be more than twenty-five?”

  Kate swallowed her mouthful of wine, rather than blow it out all over the table. “I’m nearly thirty-four.”

  James sat back, looking poleaxed.

  Kate had never actually asked him how old he was. She hadn’t had to; he’d left his wallet open on the table one evening when he went outside for a cigarette. She felt guilty for snooping, but there were two photos tucked into the card slots: one of two women smiling in the sun, the other a black-and-white picture of a solemn little boy in the same place. On the back of that one was pencilled “James, aged four. Porth Clais, 1964.”

  Once he knew her age, though, he seemed disengaged, less forthcoming. After a series of monosyllabic answers she said, “You’re being a bit moody.”

  His eyes flashed at her. “I am not!”

  Uh-oh, she thought. She bent down, picked up her handbag, slipped its strap over her shoulder and got up. “I think it’s time I went home. Thanks for a nice evening.”

  He shot to his feet. “Don’t go.” He wiped a hand across his face. “You must think I’m so rude. It’s just, well…My wife was thirty-four when she died.”

  She should have said, Oh, I’m so sorry. How terrible for you. But instead she said, “Your wife?” It came out accusatory.

  “I should have mentioned her before now, but I didn’t want to put you off. Older man carrying a ton of baggage, you know.”

  Kate sat down again, tucking her feet under her chair, her elbows close to her sides; she felt ashamed. “I’d rather know,” she said quietly. “It’s not like I don’t come with baggage of my own.”

  He took out his wallet and thumbed out the first of the photos she’d seen. “There she is. Ingrid, with my mother.” Two women standing outside a tiny whitewashed cottage.

  Of course she didn’t admit to having seen it before. This time her eyes went straight to the younger woman. Her first thought was: She’s so pretty. Her second, with some surprise: She looks a lot like me, but with different hair. They could easily have passed as sisters. Weird. “Can I ask what happened to her? Was she sick?”

  “There was an accident. An absurd accident. We were on holiday, in Cornwall. It was a beautiful day, early June, the cliff path full of wildflowers, and Ingrid— She was always a bit more adventurous and a bit fitter than me. She’d gone on ahead after teasing me that I was getting to be an old man—I suppose I was huffing and puffing a little. And she just…vanished.”

  “Vanished?”

  “I walked round a corner where there was a clear view of the path for miles, and there was no sign of her, in any direction. I thought she was playing a trick on me—hiding in the bracken or behind a rock, ready to jump out at me. I walked on as fast as I could. I even ran, out of panic. But I couldn’t find her. I kept shouting her name, getting more and more terrified. I even made myself peer over the edge, where the path was close to a drop. I lay on my stomach and forced myself to look down, but I couldn’t see her. In all that time no one passed me at all. And there was no phone signal.” He choked. “Her body washed up along the coast a fortnight later. I—I had to identify it.” He put his face in his hands.

  Kate sat rigid, silent and paralyzed. She wasn’t sure how she felt about this, about him. They had kissed a couple of times, but his kisses had been decorous, rather than the clothes-tearing, giggling rampages she’d experienced with Matty at the beginning. And she was being careful with her feelings, trying not to get too involved too quickly. Even so, she felt her heart contract in sympathy for him. “When did this happen?” she asked softly.

  “Seven years ago.”

  Seven years? That seemed a long time for the grief still to be so raw. And still to have her photo in his wallet. But it was a terrible thing to lose your wife in such a mysterious way and then to have to view what the sea had done with her. Kate chastised herself for being cold. “I’m so sorry, James. How utterly dreadful for you.”

  He managed a wobbly smile. “It was a hard time. If it hadn’t been for my mother…well.” He ran a finger across his throat. “I doubt I’d still be here. I was in a bad way.”

  Kate regarded the photo again. “She looks lovely, your mum. You must be very fond of her.”

  “Oh, she’s dead,” he said. “Only last year. I’ve had a rough time of it. I wouldn’t blame you if you ran a mile,” he said.

  Of course making it quite impossible for her to do so.

  7

  Over the weeks that followed James took her to the cinema, to dinners in fancy restaurants—including once, memorably, to Le Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons, where he insisted on buying such an expensive bottle of champagne that she could hardly bring herself to drink it. He bought her peonies because she had once mentioned she loved them, and antique vases to put them in. A set of antique Wedgwood to replace her Marks & Spencer crockery; framed paintings instead of her student-ish posters; little objets d’art; a pretty Victorian dresser on which to display a set of crystal glasses that had come into his possession. He repositioned the sofas so that the sitting room seemed more spacious, helped her repaint the kitchen and bathroom, brought a pretty embroidered cushion to decorate the chaise longue. Soon her flat was looking so elegant she hardly recognized it. And all the while the Moroccan foot sat by the front door, ready to prop it open for the world to come in and out.

  One day James bought her a beautiful antique crucifix on a fine chain, and when she demurred that it wasn’t her sort of thing, he insisted on fastening it around her neck and propelling her to the hall mirror. “See? It looks beautiful on you.”

  Kate lifted her long hair and turned her head to admire the smooth column of her neck and the glint of the gold against her skin. In his reflection in the mirror James was regarding her critically. “If you cut your hair shorter, it would enhance your jawline. Add a few reddish highlights for some warmth—”

  “No, thank you. I like my hair just the way it is.” She watched his face register disappointment. “I’m sure it would look smart shorter,” she admitted, “but I’m used to it long. And you shouldn’t spend so much on me. This is too expensive.” He kept saying the shop was not doing as well as he would like, so how could he afford it? One part of her loved having a man lavish such care and attention on her, each gift a gesture of a yet unspoken love: but another part rebelled against what the necklace stood for.

  In the local café he’d leaned across the table and taken her hands between his. “Tell me where you were baptized.”

  She’d frowned. “I haven’t the faintest idea.”

  “Well, surely you were?”

  “I honestly don’t know.”

  He looked alarmed. “Call your sister. Perhaps she will know.”r />
  “Is it important?”

  “For me. Do it for me.”

  His regard was so full of concern that she did: she called Jess. A few minutes later, she put the phone down. “Well, there you go. At Saint Peter’s Church in Huddersfield. Religion was never big in our family. I’m surprised Jess even knew.”

  Was that relief she read on his face? It seemed absurd, but after that a cloud appeared to lift. That evening they slept together for the first time.

  It had been a while since she’d had sex with a partner: toward the end of her relationship with Matty, she’d withheld herself from him as a sort of punishment. She’d despised herself for doing it, but she despised Matty even more, and it was hard to feel desire for someone you’d lost all respect for. James had taken her out to a French restaurant in Chelsea and plied her with champagne: she’d been quite tipsy by the time they left. As the taxi stopped outside her flat, he’d leaned across and kissed her with such intensity that she’d felt light-headed. And at that moment she wanted him, with a greedy ferocity: she’d hauled him up the steps and already had his shirt off by the time they got to the bedroom. His chest was pale, contrasting with the tan on his arms from where he’d rolled his shirt sleeves up in summer: the sight of it—vulnerable, private, hidden away—was somehow erotic. James never wore T-shirts, unlike Matty who never wore anything else: it made James seem so grown-up and manly by comparison. She could feel his erection pressing into her stomach and it made her feel both desirable and desiring. She flung off her own clothes with abandon and, stepping out of her knickers—the good ones that actually matched her bra, put on this evening to boost her confidence—she stood naked before him for the first time. His gaze travelled over her and he looked suddenly intent and alert, like a ravenous animal taking in a fresh kill. The bright, almost dangerous, gleam in his eyes made her want to lie down for him but also run away. Uncomfortable under his gaze, she stepped toward him.