A Multitude of Sins

by Margaret Pemberton

  For some unaccountable reason she was trembling. ‘It’s a devil to play,’ she said, her voice unsteady as he rose from the piano stool and indicated that she was to play it.

  ‘It isn’t,’ he said gently, a smile hovering at the corners of his mouth. ‘Not for you.’

  Nervously she took his place at the piano. It was as if all her senses were stretched and heightened. Never before had she been in such close intimate contact with someone whose passion for music was as deep and as integral as her own, and it was a heady experience.

  Mei Lin came into the room to ask if Elizabeth wanted refreshments for her guest, but though she said, ‘Excuse me, missy,’ several times, neither Elizabeth nor the huge golden-haired man at the piano paid her the slightest attention.

  The long afternoon tapered to dusk. Rachmaninov followed Beethoven; Grieg followed Rachmaninov; Mozart followed Grieg.

  The windows were open to the scent of the flowers and the light breeze blowing across the bay. Two gulls skimmed low over the water, dark shadows identifiable only by their long grieving cry. At last, when it was too dark to see any more without leaving the piano and switching on the lamps, Elizabeth leaned back on the piano stool, saying apologetically: ‘I’m exhausted, Roman. Whatever is the time?’

  ‘It’s time to eat,’ he said, closing the piano lid. ‘Are there any Polish restaurants in Hong Kong?’

  She flexed her tired fingers. ‘If there are, I don’t know of them. Would you like to eat here? Mei Lin is a very good cook.’

  ‘I’m sure she is,’ Roman said agreeably, ‘but I think I would like to take you out on the town. I’m staying at the Peninsula and I thought it would be a good idea if we had dinner there. It’s one of Raefe’s favourite haunts, isn’t it?’

  She rose to her feet with a smile. ‘It’s the haunt of every expatriate on the island. If we’re going there, I need to change my dress. I spent all morning gardening in this, and it’s full of grass and azalea stains.’

  ‘I’ll wait for you outside,’ he said, walking across to the open door that led to the terracotta pots awash with flowers. ‘I want to look at the sea by moonlight. No wonder the two of you love this house. Its setting is pure theatre.’

  ‘I’ll send Mei Lin out with a drink for you,’ she said, wondering in amusement who would see them dining together at the Pen and what sort of harebrained rumours would result.

  She discarded her cotton dress and slipped on a pale mauve voile dress that swirled softly about her legs. Raefe would want her to be a credit to Roman, and she complemented the dress with ivory stockings and ivory kid pumps, sweeping her hair high into a smooth chignon, clasping a heavy rope of pearls around her neck. It was almost as if she were going out on a date and she sat down suddenly on the edge of the bed, overcome with panic. What on earth was happening to her? She loved Raefe. She loved him utterly and completely, and it was impossible that she could feel any emotional or sexual attraction for anyone else. But she had.

  The closeness that had sprung up between Roman and herself while they had played Beethoven and Mozart and Grieg together had not just been the closeness of two friends with a shared talent. It had been stronger than that. So strong that she knew with brutal honesty that if it hadn’t been for her commitment to Raefe, and her deep love for him, the closeness between her and Roman would have transcended the mental and become physical.

  Shocked at her own vulnerability, she went downstairs to join him. He turned towards her, his thick unruly hair gleaming gold in the moonlight, his eyes crinkling at the corners as he smiled down at her. Her panic ebbed, and a feeling of safety swept over her. Whatever her own vulnerability, Roman had a moral strength that could be trusted absolutely. He was Raefe’s friend and he was her Mend, and it was a friendship he would never violate.

  They drove to Victoria in the jeep, the night air warm and scented. Early stars, king stars, burned bright and steadfast, and the moon was pale and luminous as they sped down Chai Wan Road, Pottinger Peak looming dark and magnificent on their left.

  In Wanchai the neon lights flashed on and off with dazzling brilliance, a cacophony of noise emanating from the bars and nightclubs.

  ‘Just the place for a quiet night out,’ Roman said with a broad grin. The laughter that always seemed such a part of being with him welled up inside her.

  ‘The night is only just beginning here. Things don’t really start to hot up until the early hours of the morning!’

  The Peninsula’s dining-room was full as usual, but they had no trouble obtaining a table. Roman had already made a reservation for three, and as Raefe’s place-setting was speedily cleared away a sharp pang of regret knifed through Elizabeth.

  ‘I think someone is trying to attract your attention,’ Roman said as a waiter brought them long ice-cold gin and tonics. ‘The red-haired lady, over there on the left.’

  Elizabeth looked in the direction he indicated and encountered Julienne’s raised eyebrows and astonished expression. Ronnie, who was for once at her side, looked merely startled at the sight of Elizabeth with a man he had never seen before, but Julienne was in a fever of curiosity.

  ‘Who is he?’ she mouthed, collapsing in a fit of giggles as Elizabeth teasingly raised her shoulders as if to say that she didn’t know.

  By the time their second drink and the menu had arrived, Julienne could contain her curiosity no longer. Promising Ronnie that she would be no longer than five minutes, she rose from their table, making her way, hips swaying seductively, between the tables to join them.

  Elizabeth’s amusement deepened as she introduced them and saw the naked approval in Julienne’s violet-blue eyes.

  ‘Enchanté, Julienne said, her eyes sparkling as she sat herself in the chair that had been reserved for Raefe. ‘Will you be staying long in Hong Kong, Roman?’

  She rolled the first letter of his name in her provocative accent, and Elizabeth could see Roman’s smile deepen.

  ‘Unfortunately not,’ he said. ‘My ship sails in the morning,’ and Elizabeth was sure there was genuine regret in his voice. There was certainly genuine regret in Julienne’s as she said, her cheeks dimpling prettily: ‘That is a pity, n’est ce pas? It would have been nice for us to have made friends.’

  Elizabeth suppressed her laughter with difficulty. She knew exactly the kind of friendship Julienne had in mind and wondered, not for the first time, where Julienne found her inexhaustible energy.

  As the waiter came to take their orders, Julienne rose reluctantly to her feet. If Roman Rakowski was leaving Hong Kong in twelve hours’time, then it was pointless prolonging their meeting; nothing delightful could come of it. All the same, she envied Elizabeth her dinner date, and her eyes, as they met Elizabeth’s, indicated that she did.

  ‘Au revoir,’ she said to Roman as he rose to his feet; and then, her laughter-filled eyes meeting Elizabeth’s, she said, sotto voce: ‘Be good, chéri!’

  Roman, as aware of the quality of the rapport that had sprung up between them earlier as Elizabeth had been, and aware of what had ignited it, steered clear of music as a subject as they ate dinner. Instead, he talked about the war in Europe and his hopes of a commission in the Royal Air Force.

  ‘I first started flying when I was in America. Raefe used to let off steam on the polo field, but I’ve been in love with flying ever since an uncle took me up in a Curtiss Jenny when I was eight years old. If it hadn’t been that I loved music more, I would have made flying a full-time career. Now, for a time at least, I’m going to have to.’

  Elizabeth was silent. In previous wars, Britain had had to rely on her navy and her sailors. Now she was relying on men like Roman. Men volunteering to fly Hurricanes and Spitfires against the might of the German Luftwaffe.

  After dinner, and after she had introduced him to Mei Kuei, her favourite rose-flavoured Chinese liqueur, they left the Peninsula and she suggested that she take a taxi back home and leave him to get an early night before his departure the next day.

  ‘Non
sense,’ he said in a voice that brooked no argument. ‘I shall enjoy the drive. The landscape fascinates me. By moonlight, it’s pure Grand Guignol.’

  They spoke very little on the drive back towards the east coast. The night air was now cold, and Roman slipped his jacket around her shoulders, ignoring her protests that he would freeze without it.

  ‘I’m a hardy animal’, he said, his white teeth flashing in the darkness as he grinned across at her.

  Male tweed tickled the nape of her neck and her cheeks as she snuggled warmly down in it. He would need to be hardy to survive the rigours that lay ahead of him. She was filled with sudden terror for his safety, shuddering at the mental image of his plane spinning down in flames over the English Channel.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked, looking swiftly across at her. ‘Still cold?’

  ‘No,’ she lied, wishing fervently that Raefe was with them, knowing that if he had been he would have sensed her fears and her reason for them.

  The whitewashed walls of the house gleamed silver in the moonlight as they approached, the scent of hibiscus and azaleas still heavy in the air.

  He slowed to a halt, turning off the jeep’s engine, walking round to help her as she stepped on to the uneven ground in her perilously high heels. ‘I won’t come in,’ he said gently, before she had time to ask him. ‘Give my love to Raefe. And keep safe, both of you, till this bloody war is over and we meet again.’

  He didn’t touch her, didn’t kiss her goodbye, or hug her, as he had done when they had parted in Perth, and she was deeply grateful.

  ‘Goodbye, Roman,’ she said, her voice breaking slightly, uncomfortably aware that the flame that had sprung up between them earlier had erupted once more into life.

  ‘Do widzenia,’ he said, his voice suspiciously gruff. ‘Goodbye, Elizabeth. God bless.’

  She turned quickly, walking into the house and not looking back. As she closed the door behind her she could hear the sound of the jeep’s engine revving into life and its ever-receding throb as it sped away.

  Next morning, even before she was dressed, the telephone rang imperiously; and she knew, as she hurried to answer it, that the caller would be Julienne.

  ‘I thought you might not be in,’ Julienne’s voice said mischievously. ‘I thought that perhaps you would be waving goodbye to Roman’s ship.’

  ‘No,’ Elizabeth said serenely, refusing to take the bait. ‘And now that you have found me respectably at home have you any other reason for calling?’

  Unabashed, Julienne admitted that she hadn’t. ‘You never told me how devastatingly handsome Roman Rakowski was when you met him in Perth,’ she chastised. ‘I thought all musicians and conductors were slim and slender and effeminate. I had no idea he was such a big gorgeous hunk of a man!’

  Despite herself, Elizabeth laughed, vastly amused at Julienne’s misconceptions as to the physical attributes of the greater majority of the musical profession.

  ‘What I can’t get over’, Julienne continued, with a note of awe in her voice, ‘is how alike Roman and Raefe are. I know that Raefe is very dark and Roman is startlingly fair and, though they are both tall and broad-shouldered, they are built differently. Roman is a huge bear of a man, whereas there is a lean lithe whippiness about Raefe, but despite those differences there is still something uncannily similar about them.’ She giggled. ‘Perhaps it is because there is something feral and a little primitive about both of them. Raefe doesn’t give a damn about accepted standards of social behaviour, and I doubt if Roman does, either. It makes both of them very exciting.’ She gave a pleasurable sigh, but whether at the thought of Roman or of Raefe, Elizabeth wasn’t sure. ‘Are you playing tennis today?’ she continued, abandoning a subject Elizabeth knew that she would return to again. ‘Helena said she would be at the club at lunch-time, and I think Alastair is going to try to be there as well.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Elizabeth said vaguely. ‘I’ll see,’ She said goodbye and put the receiver down, knowing that the last thing she wanted at the moment was an afternoon of social gossip at the club. All she wanted was for Raefe to come home. And to be at home when he did so.

  When he did return, late the following afternoon, she rushed out of the house to greet him, hurtling into his outstretched arms. ‘Darling! I thought you were never going to come home! It seems as if you’ve been away for ages!’

  He hugged her tight, kissing her deeply. Rapturously content, she twined her arm around his waist as they walked back together into the house.

  ‘We had a surprise visitor while you were away. One you will have been sorry to have missed.’

  ‘I find that hard to believe,’ he said, and as he grinned down at her the quality of his smile was so much like Roman’s that she missed her step and stumbled against him. His arms tightened around her, and she said, an odd little note in her voice: ‘It was Roman.’

  They walked up the outside stone steps, past the terracotta pots ablaze with flowers, and into the long large room that they used as a sitting-room.

  ‘Then, you’re right,’ he said, looking down at her, sensing that something had disturbed her and wondering what it was. ‘I am sorry to have missed him. What the devil is he doing in Hong Kong?’

  They sat down on a white-upholstered sofa, and she leaned against him. ‘He isn’t here any longer. He’d been to Australia again and he was just passing through on his way to London. He’s going to apply for a commission in the Royal Air Force.’

  ‘I thought he might,’ Raefe said, his voice suddenly grim.

  They sat in silence for a moment or two, his arm around her shoulders and her head resting against his chest. After a little while he said curiously: ‘And what is it that happened whilst he was here that has so disturbed you?’

  Her head flew upwards, her eyes meeting his, wide with amazement. ‘How on earth do you know that anything has?’

  He chuckled and pulled her closer. ‘I know everything about you, my love. I know when you’re happy and when you’re unhappy, and I know when you’re fretting your head over something. Now, what is it? Did he ask you to play for him and did you lose your nerve? Or, even worse, did he not ask you to play for him?’

  She said slowly: ‘It’s nothing like that. I did play for him, and he played for me. He’s a marvellous pianist.’ She hesitated, wondering how she could tell Raefe of the fierce sexual attraction that had sprung up between them as they had played, and which they had both been so painfully aware of. Surely she couldn’t tell him such a thing had happened. It didn’t mean that her love for him wasn’t one hundred per cent total, and that she would ever, in a million years, be unfaithful to him.

  His dark eyes held hers, and she knew with a rush of thankfulness that he would understand. Between her and Raefe there had never been any secrets and there would be none now. She said awkwardly, sliding her fingers through his, clasping his hand tightly on her lap: ‘We played for hours, all afternoon and until it was quite dark, then he took me for dinner at the Peninsula.’ She paused, searching for the right words, and he waited patiently, knowing already what it was she was trying so hard to explain to him.

  ‘It was a wonderful experience, Raefe. The music drew us together, and it was as if … as if.…’

  ‘As if you were lovers?’ he asked gently.

  She gasped, as if she had been struck on the chest. ‘You know! How can you possibly know?’

  He fought down the loving laughter that surged up in his throat. ‘Because I know you, my love. And I know Roman. And I know what kindred spirits you are. I also know how powerful and erotic such a shared experience can be.’

  ‘Oh!’ Relief overwhelmed her. ‘I couldn’t understand what was happening to me, or why.…’

  ‘For a beautiful, wonderfully talented woman, there are times when you are touchingly naive, my love. Music is sexual. At least, I know it is for Roman, and I’m pretty sure it is for you as well. I’m not surprised the sparks flew when the two of you were together.’ His winged ey
ebrows pulled together slightly. ‘It wasn’t anything deeper than that, was it? You’ve not suddenly discovered that he’s the great love of your life?’

  ‘No, silly,’ she said, reaching her hand up and touching his face tenderly. ‘You are the great love of my life! I love everything about you. The way your hair looks blue in the sunlight, the tiny motes of gold that fleck your eyes.’ Her voice became husky. ‘The touch of your hands on my flesh…’

  As she spoke he had begun kissing her, his mouth moving from her temples to her cheekbone, to the corners of her mouth.

  ‘I love you completely and utterly,’ she whispered as he slid her down beneath him on the sofa, ‘and I always will. Always and for ever.’ And then, for a long time, neither of them spoke again.

  The news from Europe continued to be grim. France fell. The Germans marched into Paris. In darkened cinemas in Victoria and Kowloon, the Pathé News left expatriates in no doubt at all as to what was happening half a world away. By the end of the summer, the Battle of Britain was under way, the skies above the English Channel thick with Spitfires and Messerschmitts. The Blitz followed. Night after night London was bombed, the flickering newsreels recording horror and devastation, and the dogged refusal of Londoners to be defeated.

  In Hong Kong, signs advertising first-aid classes and airraid precaution lectures proliferated. Work was renewed on defence positions. Barbed wire sprang up around the golf-course at Fanling. More pillboxes were erected. Ammunition-dumps were sited in the hills, discreetly camouflaged. In Kowloon and Victoria sandbags protected government buildings. Beaches were closed to the public and covered with wire fences and machine-gun posts.

  In November, Raefe received a letter from Roman in which he said that he had been successful in joining the Royal Air Force, fighting alongside Polish and American volunteers. The letter was heavily censored, and subsequent letters were rare and so briefly worded that the only information they gave was that he was still alive.

  They spent Christmas at the house, putting a fir tree up in the large drawing-room and decorating it with tinsel and baubles. Melissa had moved back into the home she had once shared with Raefe, on the Peak. It had been over two months since her last injection of heroin, and she had emerged from her long ordeal quieter and more reflective.