Temptation (17 page)

‘Are you sure this is a smart thing to be doing?’ I asked.

‘At this time of the night, the pythons aren’t out yet. So . . . ’

‘Very funny,’ I said.

‘You’re safe with me.’

Up and up we climbed – the flora and fauna now so thick that the path felt like an ever-darkening tunnel. But then, suddenly, we emerged on top of the hill we’d been ascending. The foliage gave way to a cleared summit. Martha had timed our arrival perfectly . . . because there before us
was the incandescent disc of the sun: perfectly outlined against the darkening sky.

‘Good God,’ I said.

‘You approve?’ she asked.

‘It’s quite a floor show.’

We stood there in silence. Martha turned to me and smiled and took my hand in hers and squeezed it. Then, in an instant, the world was dark.

‘That’s our exit cue,’ Martha said, turning on her flashlight. We headed slowly downhill. She continued holding my hand until we reached the compound. Then, just before we went inside, she let go – and went off to speak to the chef. I parked myself on the verandah, staring out at the darkened beach. After a few minutes, Martha returned, accompanied by Gary. He was carrying a tray with a silver cocktail shaker and two frosted martini glasses.

‘And I thought we were going to practise abstinence tonight?’ I said.

‘You didn’t exactly say no to the two glasses of champagne on the boat.’

‘Yes – but martinis are in a different league to champagne. It’s like comparing a Scud missile to a BB gun.’

‘Once again, no one’s forcing it down your throat. But I figured you wouldn’t mind yours made with Bombay Gin, straight up with two olives.’

‘Did your people research that one as well?’

‘No – that was just a straightforward guess.’

‘Well, you were right on the money. But I promise you – I’m just drinking the one.’

Of course, Martha didn’t have to twist my arm to down a second martini. Nor did she have to bribe me into sharing
the bottle of another absurdly wonderful wine and grilled fish. By the time we were working our way through a half-bottle of Muscat from Australia, the two of us were in riotous form, trading absurd stories about our respective adventures in the movie and theater games. We talked about our childhoods in Chicago and the Philadelphia suburbs, and Martha’s failed attempts to become a theater director after graduating from Carnegie-Mellon, and my fifteen years of endless professional setbacks, and the assorted romantic confusions that characterized our twenties. When we started swapping bad date tales, we were on our second half-bottle of Muscat. It was late and Martha had told Gary and the rest of the staff to call it a night. So they all retired back to their quarters behind the kitchen, and she said, ‘Come on, let’s take a walk.’

‘I think, at this point, it might be a stagger.’

‘Then a stagger it is.’

She grabbed the second half-bottle of Muscat and two glasses and led me down the hill from the compound, and on to the beach, Then she sat down on the sand and said:

‘I promised you a short stagger.’

I joined her on the sand, looking up at the night sky. It was an exceptionally clear night, and the cosmos seemed even more vast than usual. Martha filled our glasses with the sticky golden wine and said:

‘Let me guess what you’re thinking as you gaze upwards? It’s all trivial and meaningless, and I’m going to be dead in fifty years . . . ’

‘If I’m lucky . . . ’

‘All right,
forty
years. Ten less years of insignificant endeavour. Because, in the year 2041, what will anything we
do now matter? Unless either of us starts a war, or writes the defining sit-com of the new millennium . . . ’

‘How did you know that was my ultimate ambition?’

‘Because it’s been clear from the moment I clapped eyes on you . . . ’

She paused, and touched my face with her hand, and smiled, then thought better of whatever she was about to say.

‘Yes . . . ?’ I asked.

‘. . . from the moment I saw you,’ she said, her tone flippant again, ‘I knew you had your mind firmly fixed on being the Tolstoy of the sit-com.’

‘Do you always talk such nonsense?’

‘Absolutely. It’s the only way to keep cosmic irrelevance at bay, which is why I want you to tell me something about your wife.’

‘Like what?’

‘Was Lucy one of those real
at first sight
romances?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘And was she the first great love of your life?’

‘Yes. Without question.’

‘And now?’

‘Now the great love of my life is my daughter, Caitlin. And Sally, of course.’

‘Yes. Of course.’

‘And Philip . . . ?’

‘Philip was never the great love of my life.’

‘Okay – but before him?’

‘Before him was someone named Michael Webster.’

‘And he was
it
?’

‘Hook, line, and sinker. We met when we were undergraduates at Carnegie. He was an actor. When I first laid
eyes on him, I thought: he’s the one. Fortunately, it was mutual. So mutual that, from sophomore year on, we were inseparable. After college, we tried to make it in New York for seven years – but spent most of the time scrambling. Then he got a job for a season at the Guthrie – a fantastically lucky break, made even luckier by the fact that I managed to wangle a position in their script department. Anyway, we both really took to Minneapolis; the director of the Guthrie really liked Michael and renewed his contract for a second season. Some casting director from LA wanted him for a role in a Movie of the Week thing. We were talking about maybe starting a family . . . in other words, everything was finally panning out for us. And then, on a really snowy night, Michael decided to run down late to the local 7–11 for a six pack of beer. Coming home, his car hit a patch of black ice and slammed into a tree at forty miles an hour, and the idiot had forgotten to put on his seat belt . . . and he went right through the windscreen and head-first into the tree.’

She reached for the bottle of Muscat. ‘A refill, perhaps?’

I nodded. She topped up our glasses.

‘That’s a terrible story,’ I said.

‘Yes. It is. Made even more terrible by the four weeks he spent on life-support, even though he was officially brain-dead. Both his parents were long gone, his brother was stationed with the Army in Germany, so it came down to me to make the decision. And I couldn’t bear the idea of letting him die. Because I was so out of my mind with grief that I was under the delusion there would be some miraculous resurrection, and the great love of my life would be restored to me whole.

‘Eventually, some battle-axe nurse – a real tough old
broad who’d seen it all on the Intensive Care ward – insisted I join her for an after-work drink at the local bar. At the time, I was spending twenty-four hours a day by Michael’s bedside – and hadn’t slept in about a week. Anyway, this broad all but frogmarched me to the nearest boozer, insisted I throw back a couple of stiff whiskies, and then gave it to me straight: ‘Your guy is never going to wake up again. There’s going to be no medical miracle. He’s dead, Martha. And for your own sanity, you’ve got to accept that awful fact, and pull the plug.’

‘Then she bought me a third whisky and got me home. Whereupon I fell completely apart, and finally passed out for around twelve hours. When I woke up late the next morning, I called the hospital and told the resident in charge that I was prepared to sign the necessary papers to turn off Michael’s life support.

‘And a week after that – in a moment of complete sorrow-deranged misjudgment – I made an application for the script-editing job that had just opened at the Milwaukee Rep. The next thing I knew, I was offered the job and en route to Wisconsin.’

She drained her glass.

‘I mean, traditionally, you’re supposed to go to Paris or Venice or Tangier if you’re unhinged by grief. What did I do? I went to Milwaukee.’

She broke off and stared out at the sea.

‘Did you meet Philip shortly afterwards?’

‘No – about a year later. But during the week we spent together working on his script, I got around to telling him about Michael. Philip was the first man I’d slept with since his death – which made the way he dropped me afterwards
about ten times worse. I’d written him off as beyond arrogant . . . especially after I saw what he’d done to our script . . . until he showed up at my door that night, my irate letter in his hand, begging forgiveness.’

‘Did you instantly forgive him?’

‘Hardly. I made him pursue me. Which he did – with extreme diligence and, dare I say it, great style. Much to my surprise, I actually found myself falling for him. Maybe because he was such an isolated character – yet one who, I gradually discovered, liked me for what I was, for how I thought, and saw the world. And he also needed me. That was the biggest surprise of them all – the fact that this guy, with all his money and the ability to get anything he wanted, told me that he knew I was the best thing that could happen to him.’

‘So he won you back?’

‘Yes, he eventually did – the way Philip eventually wins everything . . . through sheer bloody-minded persistence.’

She drained her glass.

‘The problem is,’ she said, ‘once he’s won something, he loses interest.’

‘Foolish man.’

‘Ha.’

‘No, it’s the truth,’ I heard myself saying. ‘How could anyone lose interest in you?’

She held me in her gaze, then reached out and stroked my hair. And said:

‘If you name the writer, you get a kiss,’ she said.

‘Emily Dickinson,’ I said.

‘Bravo,’ she said, then put her arms around my neck, and drew me close and kissed me gently on the lips. Then I said, ‘My turn. Same deal applies.’

‘That’s a toughie,’ she said, draping her arms back around my neck. ‘Emily Dickinson.’

‘I’m impressed.’

We kissed again. A slightly longer kiss.

‘Back to me now,’ she said, still keeping her arms around me. ‘You ready?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘Pay close attention,’ she said. ‘This is a tricky one
.

‘That is a stumper,’ I said.

‘Go on, take a wild guess.’

‘But say I get it wrong? What then?’

She drew me even closer. ‘I’m counting on you to get it right.’

‘It wouldn’t be . . . Emily Dickinson?’

‘Bingo,’ she said and pulled me right down on to the sand. We began to kiss deeply, passionately. After a few unbridled moments, however, the Voice of Reason began to sound air-raid warning signals between my ears. But when I tried to disentangle myself from her embrace, Martha pinned me down against the sand and whispered, ‘Don’t think. Just . . . ’

‘I can’t,’ I whispered back.

‘You can.’

‘No.’

‘It’ll be just for tonight.’

‘It won’t – and you know it. These things always have repercussions. Especially . . . ’

‘Yes?’

‘Especially when . . . you know and I know this will not be just one night.’

‘Do you feel that way too?’

‘What way?’

‘
That way
 . . . ’

I gently removed her arms from mine, and sat up.

‘What I feel is . . .
drunk
.’

‘You don’t get it, do you?’ she said softly. ‘Look at all this: you, me, this island, this sea, this sky, this night. Not
a
night, David.
This night
. This unique, unrepeatable night . . . ’

‘I know, I know. But . . . ’

I put my hand on her shoulder. She took it and held it tightly.

‘Damn you for being so sensible,’ she said.

‘I wish . . . ’

She leaned over and kissed me lightly on the lips.

‘Please shut up,’ she said. Then she got to her feet. ‘I’m going to take a walk,’ she said.

‘Can I join you?’

‘I think I’ll make it a solo walk, if you don’t mind.’

‘You sure?’

She nodded.

‘Are you going to be okay out here?’

‘It’s my island,’ she said. ‘I’ll be fine.’

‘Thank you for tonight,’ I said.

She gave me a sad smile and said, ‘No – thank you.’

Then she turned and headed off down the beach. I thought about chasing after her, about taking her in my arms again and kissing her, and blurting out a lot of jumbled thoughts about love and the nature of timing and how I didn’t want to complicate my life any further, and how I so wanted to kiss her . . .

But instead, I did the rational thing and forced myself up the hill. Once inside my hut, I sat on the edge of the bed, put my face in my hands and thought:
this has been one strange week
. That’s all I thought, however, because my cognitive abilities were numbed by the alcoholic equivalent of toxic shock. Had I been able to properly fathom what had just transpired – not to mention the massively unsettling thought that, maybe,
just maybe
, I was a little in love with her – I might have started to feel unhinged.

But I didn’t get an opportunity to indulge my guilt. Because, for the second night running, I passed out fully clothed on my bed. Only this time, my exhaustion was so
complete that I didn’t stir until 6.30am, when there was a light tapping on the door. I muttered something vaguely resembling English, then the door opened and Gary walked in, carrying a tray with a coffee pot, and a large glass of water. I noticed that, though still wearing last night’s clothes, I had been covered by a blanket. I wondered who’d been in earlier to play the Good Samaritan.