‘Certain,’ said the chinless wonder. ‘I’ll show you a picture of her.’
We moved into a second room, where I steeled myself to confront one of Rory’s beautiful voluptuous nude paintings of Marina.
‘There she is,’ he said, pointing to a small oil opposite the window. I felt my knees go weak, my throat dry — because it was a painting of me in jeans and an old sweater, looking incredibly sad. I never knew that Rory had painted it. Tears stung my eyelids.
‘Are you sure that’s the one?’ I whispered.
‘That’s her,’ said the chinless wonder. ‘I mean it’s a great painting, but she’s not a patch on that gorgeous redhead he was always painting in the nude. Still, I suppose there’s no accounting for tastes. I say, are you feeling all right? Would you like to sit down?’
Then he looked at the painting — and at me.
‘I say,’ he said, absolutely appalled, ‘how frightfully rude of me. That painting — it’s you, isn’t it? I really didn’t mean to be rude.’
‘You haven’t been,’ I said, half laughing, half crying. ‘It’s the nicest, nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me in my life. Do you possibly know where he’s staying?’
Chapter Thirty-three
I ran towards the tube station, rocked by conflicting emotions. It was the rush hour. As I battled with the crowds, I tried to calm the turmoil raging inside me. It couldn’t be true, it couldn’t be true. Then suddenly, as I reached the bottom of the steps, I was absolutely knocked sideways by an ecstatic, whining, black heap leaping up and licking my face, its tail going in a frenzy.
‘Walter,’ I sobbed, flinging my arms round his neck. ‘Oh Walter, where’s your master?’ I looked up and there was Rory.
‘Come here, you bloody dog!’ he was shouting from the other side of the crowd. His slit eyes were restless, ranging from one person to another, sliding towards me. Then, as if drawn by the violence of my longing, they fastened on me, and I saw him start in recognition.
I tried to call his name, but the words were strangled in my throat.
‘Emily!’ he yelled.
The next moment he was fighting his way through the crowd.
‘Oh, Emily, Emily, darling,’ he said. ‘Don’t ever run away again.’
And pinning me against the wall, hunching his shoulders against the pressure of the crowd, he began to kiss me greedily, angrily, as tears of love and happiness streaked my face.
After a few minutes I drew away, gasping for breath.
‘We can’t stay here,’ said Rory, and dragged me in my tearful blindness, muttering incoherently, out into the street and across the road to his hotel, where he kissed me all the way up in the lift, utterly oblivious of the lift man. Walter Scott jumped about trying to lick my hands.
‘What the bloody hell,’ said Rory, as he slammed the bedroom door behind us, ‘do you mean by running away like that?’ That sounded more like the old Rory. ‘I’ve had the most frightful ten days of my life. And poor Walter,’ he went on, ‘how do you think he’s enjoyed being the victim of a broken home?’
‘I didn’t think you loved me,’ I said, collapsing on to the bed.
‘Jes-us,’ said Rory, ‘I tried to tell you enough times. Didn’t I wear myself out trying to fend off that smug bastard Finn Maclean? I nearly put a bullet through him that night I found him kissing you in the corridor at the hospital. And I’ve been driven absolutely insane with jealousy these last few weeks, having him rolling up to the house all hours of the day, acting as though he owned you.
‘I played it as cool as I could when you came back from hospital. I didn’t want to rush things, but whenever I tried to talk things over and explain how I felt, you leapt away from me like a frightened horse.’
‘I thought you were trying to tell me you couldn’t live without Marina. That you were only staying with me because you felt guilty.’
‘Christ no, that’s all over, it was over that night you caught us in bed together, and threw me out. We went to Edinburgh, but it was hell, actually living with her; she got on my nerves so much I wanted to wring her neck, yacking away all the time, and never letting me think. All I could think of, actually, was you, and what a sod I’d been to you.
‘Then my prodigal father turned up, and I discovered I wasn’t even related to Marina, and there was no reason why I shouldn’t marry her, particularly now poor old Hamish has kicked the bucket. I realized the only person in the world I wanted to be married to was you.’
‘But,’ I said, blushing crimson with pleasure, ‘that day you all went shooting, Marina said you’d been trying to talk to me that morning to ask me for a divorce.’
‘The truth was never one of Marina’s strong points,’ said Rory. ‘She knew I was going to talk to you, we sat up half the night discussing the situation after you’d gone to bed. She said you were still crazy about Finn, and that I should let you go. I said sod that for a lark.’
He came and sat on the bed and pulled me into his arms. ‘You’re not still keen on him, are you? He’s so pompous and self-righteous and such a bore. I was scared stiff, when you pushed off, that you’d gone to him. I borrowed Buster’s plane that night and landed it in a park in Glasgow — there’s been a bit of a row about that — and routed him out of his hotel bed. He was pretty angry.’
‘I bet he was,’ I said in awe. ‘Did you really?’
‘I really did,’ said Rory. ‘And I wonder just how much longer I am going to have to go on trying to convince you that I love you. I shouldn’t think it’s ever happened before in Irasa — someone falling helplessly, ludicrously in love with their own wife, after they’ve married them.’ I felt myself blushing even more, and gazed down at my hands.
‘For God’s sake, Em darling, look at me.’
I picked up his hand and pressed it to my cheek.
‘I’ve been so unhappy,’ I said, ‘then, in the gallery, I saw the painting you did of me. They said it was the only one you wouldn’t sell.’
‘I couldn’t bloody well find you,’ said Rory. ‘I’ve been telephoning your mother and Nina for news every five minutes since you left.’
‘Oh my God,’ I said, ‘I didn’t ring them in case you hadn’t.’ I looked up and he was smiling at me and with a jolt I realized it was the first time he’d smiled without mockery; and close-up, how wan and heavy-eyed he looked, as though he hadn’t slept for weeks.
‘You
‘And now I’ll prove it to you,’ said Rory triumphantly, starting to slide down the zip of my dress.
‘I’m terribly out of practice,’ I muttered, suddenly shy. ‘I haven’t done it for ages.’
‘Don’t worry, it’s like riding a bicycle or swimming, you never really lose the art. Get off, Walter,’ he said, pushing a protesting Walter Scott on to the floor. ‘This is one party you’re not invited to.’
As his lips touched mine, we both began to tremble. A feeling of reckless happiness overwhelmed me. I felt his heart beating against mine and his kisses becoming more and more fierce, and the sounds of the traffic outside grew dim as they gave way to the pounding in my ears.
By the time we’d finished it was dark outside.
‘God, that was lovely,’ I sighed, ‘we should do it more often.’
‘We will,’ said Rory, ‘all day and all night for ever. Darling,’ he said, looking suddenly worried, ‘do you think you’ll be able to put up with my absolutely bloody nature for the next sixty years?’
‘I might,’ I said, ‘if you compensate from time to time with performances like the one I’ve just experienced.’
Rory laughed softly and rubbed the back of my neck. He lit a cigarette and lay down in the bed, pulling me
