Three Rivers (34 page)

“Ha!” said Ava. “Love, what has that to do with marriage? Oh, I see
now
. It is a moment of passion. You think that can last forever? And just who are you going to marry? One of those one-night stands of yours?”

“Ava, I think, as usual, you are going too far. You have never even met any of the men in my life.”

“Look, Isabel, we have talked about the men in your life over the years, and they are always too young for you. They never have any money, they’re irresponsible
and not reliable for anything. Painters, writers, businessmen, you’ve tried them all and you never made a relationship work. What makes you think you can do it now? If you have picked one of your types to make a life with because you are afraid of middle age and growing old alone, you will see, he won’t be there. Yes, you had bet ter come to Athens so we can talk some sense into you. Can you afford a husband? I doubt that you have found a man who is going to take care of you. No, it is not for you, Isabel. But, anyway, it has given me the laugh of the morning. Where are we having lunch tomorrow? I can hardly wait to hear it all.”

“The Hilton at one-thirty.”

“The Hilton? What an awful place to choose! Do we
have
to go there?”

“Mother chose the place,” Isabel said.

“Well, she would, wouldn’t she? They make a fuss over her when she goes there. Well, I suppose that I will be able to find
something
to eat. Honestly, if we have to eat in a hotel, you should have chosen the St. George. Who goes to a hotel to dine? You know there are much better restaurants around.”

“Look, Ava, that is where we are going. The Hilton at one-thirty.”

“OK, but I hope you get more sensible. How long are you staying? Mother says you are flying out tomorrow night. Where are you flying to?”

“Cairo. I will tell you everything tomorrow. Bye, Ava.”

After Isabel had returned from the walk with the dogs, she and Alexis took a drive in the country, stopping for lunch in Cookham. Then they went to see the Spencer paintings and walked through the village to the church. After that they drove back to London.

Before she left she laid out the things that she would wear for dinner that evening and to travel in the next day. Endo had emptied the safe, and all her jewels were in her case except for her engagement and wedding rings, which she had not taken off since Alexis had given them to her. The passport and birth certificate had been given to Alexis. Everything was sent on to Claridges. There was no need to stop at Hill Street.

Alexis knocked at the door to the suite, and much to Isabel’s surprise, it was opened by Endo. It was a sweet
surprise: The dogs, Arthur and the three pussycats were all there, as well as Joanna and Joy. The two girls had been invited by Alexis for drinks because, as he put it, he was capturing her again to take her to Egypt for a while. He thought the girls would like to know all was well with their jobs and say
au revoir
. It was a lovely, happy, gay party. As they left, the two girls reassured Isabel that they would carry on, and she was not to worry, but to have a marvelous time. If there was a problem, Sir Alexis had given them Alexander Gordon-Spencer’s number.

Both girls were entranced by the jewels on Isabel’s fingers but were too polite to say anything. They made her feel very comfortable: She appreciated all the affection that these two wonderful helpers felt for her.

When they left, they each gave her a kiss on the cheek. Joy said, “Oh, we are so happy for you. He is such a
dish
, and so in love with you.”

When they were gone she looked at Alexis, who had Honey Lamb and Desert Horse on his lap. On the sofa next to him was Rita, all four legs up in the air, cooing from the pleasure of having her tummy rubbed.

She thought that his gesture of having them all there was a sensitive, thoughtful thing to do, and she went to him, telling him so. She felt completely relaxed and happy.

Shortly after the girls left, Endo said good-bye and took the animals with him. Isabel made as little fuss about them as possible and went to dress.

Alexis was taking her to dinner as the guest of the two men from Damascus with whom he had arrived. She wore a full-length, black, silk jersey Chloë dress with a plunging V-neck and a halter top. It had a long slit up the front, and with every step she took, three-quarters of her black silk-stockinged legs in their high-heeled, black satin sandals, showed. She was splendid in a wickedly sexual way: The dress, and Isabel, set off all her diamonds magnificently.

When she came out of the bedroom, Alexis was overcome. He opened the slit of her dress and lifted it a few inches so that he could see what was holding up her stockings or if she had tights on.

The black silk stockings went to the top of her thighs and were held in place by a black garter belt that rested
low on her stomach and across the lower part of her hips. Six black garters hung down from it, clipping onto the top of the stockings. Her beautiful vagina was framed out in the black underwear. He turned her around slowly, lifting her dress high, looking at her from the back. He snapped a black garter and ran his hand down over the silky roundness of her bottom, into the top of her black silk stockings. He would have liked to have taken her right there and then, but there was no time.

“Isabel, I find you so wicked, so sensual, I’m driven with desire to take you!” He pulled her up to him and kissed her, penetrating deep into her mouth.

The hosts and all the guests at dinner were a very gay party. They had a marvelous time, and Alexis was in fine form, laughing a great deal. Occasionally he would lean towards Isabel to translate a message from one of the non-English-speaking Arabs.

“They will be very embarrassed when they find out what is going to happen on Tuesday at sundown,” he said. “I had to tell them that you were mine. Otherwise they would have made a play for you.”

“I am sure that they asked you what I was like — what did you tell them?” Isabel asked innocently.

At that he put his arm around her shoulder and said, “I told them, ‘It is not to be discussed, my friends. All I can tell you is she is sheer poetry.’ ” He laughed.

That night they made love again and again. In the morning they dressed and decided to go down to the dining room at Claridges for a grand English breakfast. Afterwards they walked directly to the car. Gamal had packed everything from the room upstairs and had gone ahead to the plane.

It was a bright, sunny day. London looked its best as they drove out to the airport. Isabel, understandably, felt uplifted. Her life, in such a short time, had changed so completely. She was no longer alone; someone wanted to care for her. And that someone was sitting next to her. It had come late to her, this chance for happiness, and yet she felt she had never been ready before now to take it.

She tucked her arm through Alexis’s. He put down the newspaper that he had been glancing through and kissed her. They said nothing, secure in their happiness.

She watched the buildings flash by as they sped towards the airport. The sunlight caught the facets in her
diamond, and the pure clear sparkles of light dazzled her. She held her hand up and looked at it. It winked back at her, as if to say, “I am alive and I am with you.”

“Alexis,” she said. “Look at my ring. It is so like a piece of a star.” He held her hand and looked at the ring.

“Isabel, I would like to tell you about that gem. When I was in Paris and I wanted to buy you something, I was shown a wonderful selection of things, but nothing seemed right. Then in Van Cleef & Arpels it came to me why. I did not want to buy you just another beautiful gift. I wanted to buy you an engagement ring, and then I said to myself,
Fool, you have not the least intention of becoming engaged to that woman. You had better buy a wedding ring
. But, because I fell in love with you over six months ago, I brought you the engagement ring to remind you we have been together for a long time. I am so proud to see it on your finger. It is gorgeous, a symbol of how I feel about you, and I hope your wearing it is a symbol of how you feel about me. Does that sound overly romantic for an old man?”

She kissed him. “No, it’s wonderful and I love you.”

“By the way, Isabel, I have ordered a banana-colored suit to be married in.” And they both began to laugh.

“Oh, Alexis, I have not even thought about it — what will I be married in?”

“All your clothes that you own will be hung up by the time you arrive in Cairo. You will find something lovely, I am sure. If not, go shopping on Monday. Besides, there is a freak heat wave in Athens straight through to the middle of Africa. So it will be very hot.”

Shortly after that she walked up the stairs of Alexis’s plane, and when she stepped into the main cabin, she could hardly believe what greeted her. Rita and Winston were leaping about and barking.

She was delighted. Alexis had a mischievous look on his face as well as a terrific broad smile. She threw her arms around him, kissed him and thanked him, telling him he was the most sensitive and tender, as well as thoughtful, man she had ever known.

The door opened from the dining room, and out walked Alexander. He kissed her and said, “Hello. You cannot leave without the best man.”

They all sat down and got ready for takeoff. Alexis became organized, and said, “Isabel, these are the arrangements.
Alexander and Gamal are going to accompany you in Athens.”

Isabel began to protest when Alexis interrupted.

“Please, Isabel, do this the way I ask. Since it is impossible for me to make lunch with your family, and make the four o’clock rendezvous as well, to sign the necessary documents for our wedding, I would be happier if you allowed Alexander to accompany you. You do understand that I would much prefer to meet your family, but explain to them that we will all have a long visit after the wedding trip.”

Isabel understood perfectly, and said, of course, whatever he wanted. Here she was again with Alexander playing nanny. Isabel found it extraordinary. Since the age of sixteen, she had always had to find her way alone, make every decision on her own. To have someone doing it for her, to have someone care for her, was wonderful.

When Alexis’s jet touched down at Athens airport, Alexis, Alexander, Isabel and Gamal went down the stairs to a waiting car. While her escort entered the car, Alexis kissed Isabel good-bye, told her she looked lovely and said that he must love her very much to take Rita and Winston into Cairo with her.

He tucked her in the back of the car with Alexander and said, “Remember, the plane will be back for you to board at seven this evening.” He then said a few things to Alexander in Arabic, patted Isabel on the knee and was gone.

She saw his plane taxi down the runway getting ready for takeoff. She was not the least bit sad, more proud of him and in love with him for the man he was. How could she be sad?

Lunch was not until one-thirty, and Alexander had a surprise for her. They drove to the house of a friend of Alexander’s in the heart of Kolonaki, and minutes later he arrived back at the car with Katarina Syndamou, the world-renowned actress. She was a dynamic-looking Amazon of a woman; explosive and larger than life.

The two women liked each other at once. They were on their way to the Acropolis, closed to the public for the moment, but always open to Katarina. Katarina was every Greek’s goddess, and to a goddess all was open in Greece.

The three of them walked through the ancient columns and stones. The unusual heat wave, in an October sky
of cloudless deep rich blue, poured down on the three solitary figures roaming over antiquity. Quite spontaneously, rising to the dramatic, soulful, melodic, Katarina Syndamou recited from one of the great Euripidean tragedies. For Isabel it was more thrilling than either of the others could imagine. In all the years that she had been visiting Greece, and even during the years that she had lived there, she had never entered the Acropolis.

Today Isabel felt dressed for this long overdue occasion. She wore a white dress of common white cotton cheesecloth. It hung loose, with great kimono sleeves. In her ears were ancient Phoenician gold hoops. Her scarab necklace and the diamonds on her fingers sparkled like white fire. Her white lizard-skin, high-heeled open sandals clicked over the historic stones. She felt like an earthly goddess.

Before they left, an old Greek man with dark, wrinkled skin and a huge, white moustache took a black-and-white photograph of the three of them with his old box camera, painted in bright yellow enamel. He refused to take any money because of Katarina. It was a privilege to have heard her echoing through the Acropolis. No, he must pay her. He would deliver the photographs sometime within the next hour to the Hilton, down in the restaurant.

Being with Katarina Syndamou in the Acropolis, empty of the endless streams of tourists, with only Alexander and the old Greek photographer, on an unusually hot day at the end of October, was an experience that took Isabel out of the realms of reality and lifted her high into a spiritual world filled with sheer poetry. It was the sort of thing that happens once in a lifetime, and it would stay with her all her life.

As the three walked down the hill from the Acropolis, through the few trees giving a relief of shade every now and again, Isabel spoke the words of George Seferis:

The chauffeur saw them approach and jumped out of the front seat, opening the door. The three people stepped into the air-conditioned interior, where nothing was said until they had passed Syntagma and were driving up Basilies Sophias to the Hilton. With the memory of the Acropolis still intense, they began to gather up their energies for yet another reality, the rest of the day and what it held for them.