Unmasked (16 page)

There would be no sleep that night if she didn’t find out for certain. Emma paced the parapet. She would have to go down. It was quite a long way to
go if she was wrong, but no distance at all if she was right. She stopped and stared at the two boats again. There was a big party on one, no doubt about it. Maybe she could get close without being noticed. She just needed to know.

Her walk down was circuitous as she had yet to discover a quicker way. When she reached the road that ran alongside the marina she found it deserted. The street lights were bright and the warm breeze carried the chatter of the party and the deep bass of the music but the vista before her reminded her of the night Maurizio and his friends had stopped her. She made her way cautiously. The further she went the more exposed she felt herself to be. She was moving towards a particularly lonely part of the harbour, especially at night. If she were to be accosted, this time there would be no Marco. She knew you didn’t get that lucky twice. So she kept looking over her shoulder. The street was as empty behind her as in front. There was no one following her. She was alone. She kept expecting to hear the sound of someone running. It would happen quickly, said her imagination. But every time she turned her head, nothing.

She took some comfort from the view, though. Otranto was beautiful at night. The lights of the
town were reflected on the water. She crossed the road and walked along the edge of the sea wall. As she passed the end of one of the long jetties she saw a group of people helping each other off the back of a large boat. She paused to watch them and felt less alone. They were talking and laughing, and began to walk along the jetty towards the road. One of the women looked at her and Emma moved on. It wasn’t far now. She kept her eyes on the lights of the larger yacht. The noise was getting louder. Laughter and the squeals of a party. And ABBA. They were definitely playing ABBA.

When she felt she was close enough she crossed the street and walked past the boats and sat on a concrete bench in what was some kind of civic space, like a small square, but ugly and ill-conceived and left to rot. She made sure her back was to the wall. No one could come near her without her seeing them, but from her position she could see the two boats quite well. They were not well matched. One dwarfed the other. The larger boat was the one she had seen David skippering. Emma had been invited onto a few large boats over the last couple of days, but David’s boat was in a class of its own. She wouldn’t have been surprised to discover the Kennedys partying
alongside the others. It exuded wealth. Not in the gaudy style of some of the luxury motor boats that clutter the Mediterranean. It was old-world wealth. The other yacht was new to her. They were tightly bound together and as she watched she saw a couple trying to cross between them.

There were at least thirty or forty people enjoying themselves. Mainly women, she noted, though there were some men. The larger boat was more popular as there was more deck space to stand and a sunken area where Emma could see a bar and some lounges. It was all incredibly luxurious. Some of the guests were dancing. The music was very loud, and someone had strung a row of coloured lanterns along the boom.

David was nowhere to be seen. Emma didn’t know how long she was going to stay. But ten minutes had passed by without any sign of him. She assumed there was a lounge area inside. People were coming and going through a door at the end of the sunken area. The predominant language was Italian, but she had heard English being spoken too. Some of the guests were dressed semi-formally, some of the women looked as though they had stepped out of
Vogue
. But there were others who had come straight from the beach – men in board
shorts only, women in their bikinis. There were the very drunk and the stone-cold sober. They were having fun. They were laughing, shouting over the music and dancing. A couple had snuck up to the bow and were making out.

Then David emerged through the doors, coming out onto the deck. He held a bottle of champagne and was filling glasses. This was enough for Emma. Too much. He was so close. All he need do was look across the road. She had been stupid to come so close. She waited for him to turn his back then dashed across the polished tiles of the small square. When she reached the road and was thirty metres or so along, she slowed her pace and dared to look over her shoulder. David was easy to spot, being so large. His back was turned to her. She stopped and stared at him. She was shaking. What was she feeling? Was it fear? Why was she so anxious?

She spun around and made her way quickly along the road back to the town. She knew what she was feeling. She’d just forgotten what it could be like. It was love.

SEVENTEEN

David spotted Emma as soon as he walked out onto the deck. She was a lone figure in an empty square. The sight of her had made him happier than he could say. But he gave no sign that he saw her, and filled his guests’ glasses until the bottle ran dry. The music was too loud for his liking and he was sure the headache he had been nursing for the last hour was getting worse. All he wanted to do was walk across to Emma and take her into his arms, yet he suspected she would repulse his efforts and so kept up the act. He could not trust himself so he turned his back on her.

He was surrounded by youth and beauty. Boat people. He’d met most of them at sea. Mooring off the coast near a famous swimming spot was enough. Other large boats would drop anchor nearby and the tanned bodies would call across to him – offers for lunch, drinks and more – and when they discovered he was Australian, they would become his guides. He had lived largely on the yacht, though he kept a room at Club Med for those nights he needed to feel solid ground under his feet.

When David looked towards the square again Emma was gone. He knew where to find her. He knew she had left the painter’s house as he had visited Elena again. She had taken some placating but was eager to reconcile. He told her the truth: that he had used her. She screamed and yelled and he suffered her blows in silence, and she eventually forgave him. He gave her reason to. Many reasons. Then he had returned to Club Med and hired a car, driving into town to search for his wife. He found her swimming from the rocks in front of the old town and had followed her back to her
pensione
. He made enquires there, too. Italians loved to gossip and the doorman was no exception.

As he looked up the road leading back to town, trying to spot her, he smiled. He only wanted a sign that she still had feelings for him. Her appearance at the marina meant one thing. She’d been waiting for his boat to return to Otranto.

For the first two weeks after Emma walked out, David did as he had always done when things went against him. He worked. He arrived early at the office and stayed late. There was always more he could do. He was making inroads into China. He knew it wasn’t the time for letting his relationship troubles distract him from the big picture. He dug out the CDs he had bought that claimed to teach a person Chinese in two weeks and listened to them in the car. He was good with languages and already knew many of the phrases essential to doing business in China. But now that he was free to concentrate he felt sure he would be conversant in no time. He listened to them when he went jogging and at home while he was doing things like showering, dressing, cooking, sitting, standing, even sleeping. He hated wasting time. Besides, when he wasn’t practising phrases his mind always returned to what Emma had said
to him in their last minutes together. He couldn’t bear that.

He told no one that his wife had left him. His pride had stifled any normal response he might have had. If Emma wanted to live without him, then that was fine by him. He would get on without her. He wasn’t going to try to change her mind. He wasn’t going to chase after her. She had done him wrong. She needed to come to him. He would remain where he was so that she could find him.

He wanted everything to stay as it was. The day Emma left he rang Sally to arrange a time for them to meet. Sally had told him to go to hell and hung up. He rang again. She told him she had lost the only true friend she’d ever had and that it was his fault and hung up. He rang again. She said she couldn’t believe he didn’t care that Emma had left and hung up. He rang again. She asked, ‘Do you want to ruin my marriage as well?’ and hung up. He rang again.

They met that afternoon at the Kirribilli apartment though he forbade her from speaking about Emma. He kept her there in the apartment until morning. He fucked her again and again. He was violent, rough, relentless. Sally couldn’t
believe what was happening to her. She hadn’t been used like this since her teens. It was as though he was trying to erase Emma from his memory. But she didn’t ask him to stop. She wanted him to be with her, especially that night. When he left her on the bed to have a cigarette on the balcony she checked her phone. There were a million messages from her husband. She texted –
I’ll be back in the morning
– and turned the phone off. David lit another cigarette after the first and Sally fell asleep. He woke her roughly sometime later and it began again.

From that first night they would meet every afternoon for an hour. David would be his talkative, gregarious self, they would have sex and then they would go their separate ways. Sally kept telling herself that he would ask her to leave her husband and David swore to himself that he had all he wanted.

Then one afternoon, about two weeks after Emma walked out, Sally arrived early at the flat to find David already there. He was sitting in the lounge. It looked to Sally as though he had been crying, but she couldn’t be sure. There was a bottle of scotch on the coffee table. Unopened. And two glasses.

‘Sit,’ he said when he saw her.

Sally sat on the opposite sofa, nervous and excited. There was something in his eyes that frightened her – a desperation she had never seen in him. He suddenly seemed larger than he had ever been before. And she felt small, frail by comparison. He opened the scotch and poured a little into each glass, then pushed one glass towards her. She wasn’t sure if this was some sexual game – a prelude to something entirely new. He had been so brutal since Emma left. Rushed. No kisses. He was a different lover. Fast, hard and rough.

He continued to stare at her without speaking.

Sally found she was trembling. She imagined him leaping up, grabbing her and strangling her. Then she thought he might just snap her neck between his large hands.

‘What has happened?’ she heard herself ask, her voice sounding fragile.

‘I want you to talk about Emma,’ he said, asking the woman who loved him to talk about the woman he loved.

The relief Sally felt was so great that she did not feel the pain his words would cause her later.

‘Why?’

‘Be the good friend I didn’t have when I met her. Tell me not to have anything to do with her. Tell me she’s untrustworthy. Tell me she’s a liar.’

‘I don’t understand. She’s gone. She left. Why do we need to talk about her?’

‘Because I don’t want to think about her anymore, I want her out of my life. And if I know more about her, what she is really like, then maybe I can move on.’

‘I thought you were going to strangle me.’

‘I might still.’

‘How can you say that?’ she asked, her voice rising.

‘When I look at you–’ He broke off. He was going to say, ‘When I look at you I see what a poor bargain I have struck.’ But that was his anger speaking. He knew it.

‘When you look at me …?’

When he looked at her he wanted her, it was as plain as that. And giving in to that desire had lost him his wife. He stared at her now. The desire had not abated one bit. It had been growing ever stronger since she had parted her legs for him on the balcony of the beach house. It was stronger now than it had ever been. Raw, physical lust. He had thought to resist her today and his failure
had made him angry. He would have to have her now. In this moment he wanted her above all other considerations. The hands. The neck. The eyes that watched him intently.

David stood up so suddenly Sally started and let out a little scream. In a moment he was on one knee, gripping her arms and staring into her eyes.

‘I can’t do it,’ he said, his voice strained. ‘I tried, but can’t. You’re too fucking gorgeous.’

He kissed her and she threw her arms around his neck. Her kiss was intense, hungry; her grip on him was manic. He stood up, tearing her arms from him, then lifted her off the sofa, spun her small body around and forced her down on her knees. He pushed her head down onto the seat of the sofa and held her there, holding her tightly with one large hand around her slender neck. She made no sound.

David moved the coffee table with his foot then knelt down beside her and lifted the hem of her dress. Her physical perfections worked upon him like an intoxicant. Her tan skin. Slender thighs and calves. They altered his thought processes. He lifted her dress up and over her rear, exposing her. She hadn’t worn knickers. She knew he liked to find her naked beneath her dresses and skirts.
He stared at her. He ran his fingers lightly along the lips of her pussy. They were dry. He tightened his grip around her neck and pressed the tips of his fingers into her and found what he expected to find. Wetness spilled out. He rubbed it into and around her lips. She made no sound. Her pussy was shiny now in the afternoon light. He rubbed it all over her arse. He rubbed it into her lips. He traced a path to her arsehole. No sound came from Sally. His fingers were covered in her.