“Train! Dear God, no. NetJet, but even so . . .”
“A plane’s a plane,” said Angelica, fully aware that a NetJet plane wasn’t simply a plane but a luxurious penthouse with wings.
“Better hurry. Have a good weekend.” She rushed off in her five-inch-heeled boots, leaving a whiff of Dior in her wake.
Angelica called her children. “We’re going to have a great weekend,” she said, taking Joe’s hand.
“What are we going to do?”
“Nothing,” she said with a smile. “Absolutely nothing.”
As Angelica had predicted, Olivier didn’t question the flowers. He was used to her filling the house with white roses and assumed that she had gone a little over the top with red ones for a change. The City was a sterile place to work; it was heartening to come home to warmth, color, and music. He usually hated her scented candles and blew them out the minute he walked into the room, but now he viewed them with a fondness that surprised them both. The financial crisis was changing the world so fast he found himself clinging to the one place that didn’t change at all: his home—complete with flowers, scented candles, and Dolly Parton.
That night, while Olivier sat in the study watching the news and chatting to friends on the telephone, Angelica reflected on her marriage. Olivier loved her. Naturally, after so many years of marriage, they took each other for granted, but she didn’t doubt that he loved her. Jack didn’t love her in the same way. His love was fueled by lust and the allure of the forbidden. She loved Olivier in that deep, familiar way that is no longer aware of itself. Her feelings for Jack fed off the way he made her feel as a woman. She was two people. The woman Olivier knew and the woman Jack knew. Were they to meet, neither would recognize the other.
PART TWO
Experience
15
Darkness serves the light; it is our greatest teacher.
In Search of the Perfect Happiness
It snowed over half term. A thick layer of sparkling white sugar covered the countryside like icing on a Christmas cake. Angelica took Joe and Isabel to stay with Candace in Gloucestershire for a couple of days while Olivier remained in London trying to keep his head above water as the City sank with the share prices. The children built snowmen and swam in the indoor pool while Angelica and Candace curled up by the log fire, drank tea, and gossiped. Candace didn’t mention the roses, nor did she refer to Jack, although the handsome South African stood between them like a neon elephant in the room. Angelica knew she had been discovered—Candace had the instincts of a panther—but she didn’t want to hear advice; she knew what it would be and would ignore it. She read her texts in the privacy of her bedroom and spoke to him late at night after everyone had gone to bed, sharing the minutiae of their day, their thoughts, and their dreams, but mostly they whispered the sweet nothings of lovers. The deeper Angelica became embroiled in her secret, the further she drifted from her friend, for honest intimacy was the glue that bonded them.
She spent Halloween with Scarlet and Ben Cannings, her manny, the exuberant lad from Yorkshire whom Scarlet had employed to teach her children football. Tall and handsome, with a thick mop of dark hair and soft brown eyes, he was mature for his age and chivalrous in the tradition of well-educated northern men. He whisked the children into Battersea Park and entertained them while Scarlet and Angelica went to Hamleys to buy them costumes for the trick-or-treating street party they were to join after dark. Isabel wanted to go as an owl, which was the only costume Hamleys didn’t have, while Joe was content to dress up as one of the skeletons displayed in every shop window in town. Scarlet’s children wanted to go as Harry Potter and Hermione Granger and kill all the witches.
As they left the toy shop laden with shiny red bags they bumped into Jenna Elrich climbing out of her chauffeur-driven car in a flurry of leather and fur. “Great minds think alike,” she said, mobile telephone clamped to her ear. “Zeus now wants to go as a bat, and Cassandra has demanded another princess dress. Pink is the only color she’ll wear. Thank God the twins are too small to demand anything except chocolate! I hope you haven’t bought the last bat!”
“They’re all yours,” said Scarlet, looking her up and down disdainfully.
“I’m taking them to the Louis Vuitton party. Are you going?”
“Trick or treating for us,” said Angelica.
“Oh, I hate all that ringing bells and running around. One bumps into so many dubious people coming into Chelsea to check out the big houses. I’d be very careful if I were you . . . Hello!” she barked into the telephone. “Yes, it’s Mrs. Elrich. Am I speaking to the manager? Must go,” she mouthed at the girls and flounced off into the shop, leaving her chauffeur in the cold, standing to attention beside the shiny blue Range Rover.