Crimson (53 page)

Swiftly but carefully he sorted out the contents of the box on the wooden tabletop. After about ten minutes, he pounced on an ordinary foolscap envelope, which was sealed. Adam tore it open and pulled out two crumpled sheets of paper.

As he read them, a triumphant smile spread across his face.

TPESDAY, 31 DECEMBER 1968

Mranda’s New Year’s Eve ball was, as usual, a great Success. Just before midnight, she looked around the scarlet-and-blue-striped tent with satisfaction. Her vision was limited because her face was covered by a golden lion’s mask that looked as if it might have been dug from an Inca burial ground; she wore a golden leotard and matching high-heeled sandals; her hair, including a luxurious fall, spread around her head like a flaming lion’s mane.

This year’s fancy-dress theme was a Fellini circus, and the tent covered Miranda’s back garden; inside it, the lighting was low and mysterious; at foot level, swirls of theatrical mist were being pumped upward. Grouped around a revolving central circus ring were two smaller circular tents and three raised platforms, each the size of a small sitting room. The two smaller tents were striped in pale blue and silver; rising from the romantic mist, they looked as if they had last been used at Agincourt. One contained a gypsy fortune-teller, the other a champagne bar.

A band played on the raised black platform, where three beautiful singers, wearing what looked like silver underwear and Carmen Miranda turbans, gasped the latest Dusty Springfield number. Two other pale-grey-carpeted platforms had been scattered with Louis XVI-style chairs upholstered in pale grey moire: here guests sat to watch those dancing in the revolving centre ring.

Strongmen carrying papier-mach6 dumbbells danced with tightrope-walking

ballerinas in pastel tutus; skimpily dressed bearded ladies, giants, and dwarfs jounced and bounced, shook, bumped, and twisted. A fairground barker danced with a monkey-trainer, whose real monkey mournfully sat on her elegant red satin shoulder. An elephant did the twist with a lion-tamer. A tiger gyrated with a Nubian slave, naked to the waist in harem trousers and a jewelled turban. The bareback rider in pink had turned up on a grey horse, which had then been led away by her groom.

The women with the best figures wore leotards, tights, and high heels: an acrobat in silver, a performing panther in black, a contortionist in crimson, a tattooed lady in a white leotard covered with painted tattoos.

Because it was so hot in thetent, the two-headed man had removed his second head: Miranda recognized the Scandinavian prince who had purchased Saracen. Smiling, she moved back to check the midnight-supper buffet.

Inside the house, sackfuls of autumn leaves which had been sitting in the cellars since October had been lavishly scattered over the floor, to lend a Sleeping Beauty look to the rooms. Here, too, artificial mist rose from the floor. The furniture of the double drawing room had been replaced by circular tables set with lavender cloths and eau-de-Nil linen napkins. The only light sources were candles in silver candelabra on every table, each draped with fine silk threads shaped like cobwebs.

On her way back to the garden tents, Miranda spotted a bare-chested, turba ned snake-charmer in spangled turquoise harem trousers, talking to Mike Grant in the hall.

“Scott!” she cried.

“I’m so glad you were able to fly over. Pity you couldn’t have been with us for Christmas … It is Scott, isn’t it? I don’t recognize half my guests in their glamorous outfits.”

The snake-charmer kissed Miranda on the cheek.

“Sure it’s me. I wouldn’t miss this. Where’s Anna belT “Dancing, I think. Easy to see that you two came as a couple!” Miranda had already admired Annabel’s costume: sister was dressed as a snake. A stuffed emerald satin serpent entwined her green-sequined leotard and tights from her neck to her left ankle. She wore Alan Jones-style, scarlet, four-inch heels.

“What are you supposed to be, Mi keT Miranda puzzled. Although the name of an excellent theatrical costumier had been slipped in with the invitations, Mike was weaning black leather motorcycle gear; he carried a bucket.

“I feed the animals,” he explained sheepishly.

“No marks for effort,” Miranda said tartly.

“Look how hard everyone else has tried.” She wagged a finger, only half in jest.

“If you can’t manage something better than that, you won’t get asked next year.” Scott said, “Miranda, I’m sure Annabel isn’t on the dance floor. I’ve been looking for her for nearly an hour. Where the hell could she have go neT “Perhaps she’s down at the swimming pool,” Mike suggested.

“No, she won’t be there,” Miranda said.

“I’m not allowing anyone in my -new pool this evening. Drunken revellers may jump in and out of the fountains at Trafalgar Square, but I don’t want them dripping over my newly decorated house.”

As she left for the circus tent, she called over her shoulder, “You’re bound to spot Annabel at midnight we’re all going to sing “Auld Lang Sync” in the circus tent before supper starts fbie gras, wild duck, and quinces baked in a crust!”

“You really should see Miranda’s pool,” Mike said.

“She’s turned the entire basement into a Roman bath. Not a new one one that looks as if it had been built two thousand years ago and has just been excavated and restored. I bet you’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Okay, show me,” Scott said.

The two men, drinks in hand, sauntered to the elevator.

“Here for lone” Mike asked.

“No, just to see the New Year in.” Scott also intended to see Adam; he refused to be put off any longer by Adam’s excuses. The bottom line was that the guy had promised quarterly accounting and it wasn’t happening. Finally Scott had made it clear to Adam that he was coming to London to pick up those quarterly reports person ally or find out why.

Mike stepped from the elevator and felt to the left for the switch that would light the pool with a dim, eerie radiance.

“Hey, the lights are already on! I thought Miranda said that nobody was allowed down here tonight.” Puzzled, he pushed open the cream doors, and Scott saw the beautiful dark green pool. The stone columns were chipped, the vaulted ceiling was crumbling, and the walls looked as if they had been hacked out of rock. What looked Eke a natural spring trickled down into the far end of the pool. In front of it, before a semicircle of stone pillars, were mattresses covered by cream to welling on one of these lay a whip and a ringmaster’s top hat; on another lay a small pile of green clothing. On an adjoining mattress, a man and woman were passionately locked in a naked embrace.

Mike’s clear, grey, wide-set eyes stared. As Mike saw who the man was, he felt disgust rise like bile to his mouth.

And as Scott realized who the woman was, he charged towards the naked couple, yelling, “You bitch!”

Mike ran after Scott and grabbed his arm, trying to restrain him. Scott tried to shake Mike off. The two men grappled, until Scott threw a hard punch at Mike, glad of an excuse to hit out, to unleash his violence.

Mike hit Scott hard: as hard as he wanted to hit Adam. How could Adam do such a bloody cruel thine. How could he have taken such a bloody stupid risk Adam, who had never been seriously involved with a woman? pott, clumsy in his harem trousers, grappled again with Mike. They scuffled, grunting, gasping, and swearing, until one of them slipped on the wet stone. Scott’s jewelled turban flew off his head and into the pool. Both men followed it.

As Annabel and Adam scrambled to their feet, Annabel grabbed a towel. She was frightened. But she also felt a fris son of excitement. Because now, at least, Scott knew but Adam would be unable to say that Annabel had told him of their secret. And it had not been her idea to make love by the pool. She and Adam had been dancing on the revolving floor, listening to soft, beguiling music in that dim light. She had felt his warm breath on her ear as she listened to his whispered erotic fantasies … It had been at Adam’s suggestion that they came to the pool. No, Adam could not blame her for this.

Annabel grabbed her leotard and her scarlet shoes; abandoning her stuffed snake, she fled towards the elevator. She was closely followed by Adam, who didn’t bother about a towel.

By the time a furious Scott pulled himself from the pool, the two naked lovers had disappeared. In his dripping harem trousers, Scott ran after them to the elevator.

Mike’s leather gear was too waterlogged to allow him to vault from the pool, so he swam clumsily towards the stone steps; as he climbed up, water streamed down his body. Violently he shook water from his hair, and it streamed down his leather back.

He unzipped his jacket, threw it on the floor, and shed the rest of his clothes. Scott had landed a couple of good punches: Mike’s ribs felt sore. As he wrapped himself in a towel, another thought occurred to him. If Adam always so careful had been caught in a compromising situation with a woman, then Mike knew that must have been what his calculating brother intended. That scene must have

IT7

been I carefully staged. Adam had planned to be I caught fucking Annabel.

Why? Towelling his hair, Mike considered. Suppose that Adam had intended Scott to discover his wife’s infidelity. How could he have planned that? Simple! Scott arriving straight from the plane would naturally have looked for his wife at once.

All Adam needed to do was calculate the earliest time that Scott could arrive from the airport and then, ten minutes before, start fucking Annabel’s brains out until they were discovered.

If Scott did not find his wife then Miranda always had a big “Auld Lang Sync” singsong at her New Year’s Eve party. At five minutes to midnight, at the latest, Miranda would expect Annabel to turn up in the tent; should her sister be absent, Miranda would send servants all over the house to find her.

Mike wrapped himself in a cream bath towel and headed for the elevator to get his coat. Why would Adam want to cause trouble between Annabel and her husband? he wondered. There had to be some reason. It was inconceivable that Adam was in love with Annabel, and he was too smart to fuck her for no reason. If he was cited in a divorce, he risked being landed with a woman he didn’t want, so there must be a lot at stake. Of course, Annabel was an heiress, but so was Miranda. Why not pick the unattached sister if he was after the money? No. It had to be some other reason. But what? Fifteen minutes before midnight, as Miranda was about to send a footman to find Annabel, a maid approached and whispered a message in her ear. Miranda followed her upstairs to a guest bedroom and knocked on the door.

“Scott? I hear you fell in the pool!” She laughed.

As he opened the door, Scott growled, “Come inside and lock the door.”

“What’s happen ed?” Miranda could see that Scott, who was wearing a bathrobe, was furious. She could also see that he was sober.

“Did you know what was going on, Miranda? Were you in on this? Were you helping the in?” “I don’t understand what the hell you’re talking about. What’s going on.

“I just Mike and I -just saw Adam with Annabel.”

“Oh, I was wondering where she’d got to,” Miranda said.

“Where was she?” “They were making love!” Scott shouted.

“Adam and Annabel! By your fucking swimming pool!”

Miranda stepped back from his furious face.

“There must be … You must have made a mistake!”

“Ask Mike!” Scott roared.

“He saw the whole-fucking thing as well!”

Miranda made a noise that was half gasp, half groan. She tore off the golden lion’s mask that covered her face. She felt as if icy fingers were clawing at her flesh, trying to reach her heart. She seemed to be outside her own body, watching it from a height-and a distance: the true Miranda. was suspended somewhere near the ceiling, silently howling with pain and rage at this double betrayal. That golden body below her moved, spoke, behaved almost normally, but it felt like a cold, dead thing.

“Where are they?”

Miranda made a great effort to appear natural. Scott must on no account guess her pain, her vulnerability, her stupidity. Neither Scott nor anyone else must ever guess that she had allowed Adam to creep inside her soul and erode it from within. No one must ever guess her shame..

“They’ve both left,” Scott said, tight-lipped.

“One of the security men on the door said that two people wrapped in

bathrobes had run out into a waiting Rolls. Couldn’t be anyone else. They must have gone to his place. My bitch of a wife wouldn’t dare take that bastard to our suite at the Ritz.”

“Are … are you sure, Scott?” “Ask Mike if you don’t believe me!” Scott wanted Miranda’s comfort, reassurance, and advice not to be doubted and cross-examined.

Miranda slowly moved to the bedside telephone. There had to be an explanation. Annabel must have thrown herself at Adam. She must have taken him by surprise. He must have been drunk. It must have been a mad, lusty, sexual impulse.

But she could not recall ever having seen Adam drunk. Miranda dialled an outside number and let it ring for five minutes.

“They’re not at Adam’s house,” she said, “or else he isn’t answering.” In the silence, both of them imagined what Annabel and Adam might be doing.

Violently angry and hurt, Scott said, “I never thought that Annabel … She said these trips to England were to see Elinor! … Shit! What a fool I’ve been! … I wonder how many others there have been. She’s probably been making a fool of me for years.” He shook his head in disbelief “I would never have suspected Annabel of cheating on me!”

Miranda said in a cold voice, “Annabel is governed entirely by self-interest.” Scott spoke wearily.

“I’m going back to the Ritz, to try to get some sleep.” He wanted to be alone, to curse in a frenzy of impotence, to hammer walls with his fists.

“If Annabel turns up,” Miranda said, suddenly anxious, “don’t do anything rash, Scott. Don’t say anything stupid. Let me talk to her first. Let me try and find out why this is going on and how long it’s been going on.” Her voice was hard.

I Don’t worry, I don’t want to hit that bitch! I don’t want to, touch her!” Scott said.