But Jack smiled triumphantly. “I told you you’d like her.”
“She’s very wise.”
“Like you.”
“I’m not wise, Jack. If I was wise, I’d walk away from here right now and return to my husband and children.” She dared touch his hand across the table. “Why do you want me, when you’re married to such an amazing woman?”
“Don’t compare yourself to Anna. I don’t.”
“What does she think I’m doing here? Doesn’t she suspect anything?”
“She doesn’t have a possessive bone in her body.”
“So she knows.”
He shrugged. “I don’t know what she knows. But she likes you.”
“I can’t imagine her disliking anyone.”
“Oh, she does, believe me. She can turn very frosty.”
“I think she sees the good in everyone.”
“I’ve seen her turn frosty if she feels her children are threatened, for example. She’s not all sweetness and light.”
“You know, the most ridiculous thing is that I want her to like me. Yet here I am sleeping with her husband. It’s awful. I’m a really bad person.” Candace is right: I’m thinking only of myself and my right to happiness.
“Don’t let me hear you talk like that. I told you, leave my marriage to me. It’s not your problem. If you want to feel guilty, then feel guilty about Olivier. Anna is my wife and my responsibility. Does she look unhappy to you?”
“No.”
“Then don’t worry about her.”
“I didn’t go into this considering your wife. I was only thinking about us. If I’d met Anna before, I’d never have entertained an affair. Never.”
He let go of her hand, sensing Anna returning from the kitchen with dessert. “Then it’s my good fortune that you are only meeting her now.” He grinned mischievously. “When it’s too late to back out.”
After dinner Jack played the piano in the sitting room. A cool breeze slipped in through the French doors, bringing with it the sweet scent of jasmine and damp grass. Anna and Angelica sat on the sofa drinking coffee, listening to the music, the dogs sleeping on the carpet at their feet. Jack played sad tunes that made Angelica’s hair stand on end. His face was anguished, as if the music was coming directly from a tormented soul. He didn’t play from a score but from memory, and he closed his eyes to allow the melody to transport him. Angelica was so enthralled she didn’t notice Anna, wiping away tears, until he had finished. “Now I’ll play something happy,” he said, as if making a conscious effort not to look at his wife.
“Anything,” Angelica replied, feigning cheerfulness. “Just don’t ask me to sing.”
Later, when Angelica was in bed trying to sleep, she heard the doleful sound of the piano again. She didn’t dare get up in case Anna was with him. She lay listening, carried on the notes to a dark and melancholy place where dreams were unfulfilled and wishes hung suspended in the air, never to be granted. She felt a heavy sense of loss and the wetness of tears on her pillow. She could fantasize as much as she liked, but she and Jack would never ride off into the sunset and live happily ever after. Her thoughts sprang back to her children and made her feel suddenly quite desolate. What was moving Jack to such sorrow? When she finally drifted off to sleep, she dreamed of him, a distant, misty face in the sky. The faster she ran, the farther away he drifted, until she cried out in her sleep and woke herself up in panic.
24
Expand your view beyond the ego’s range.
In Search of the Perfect Happiness
The following morning Angelica was awoken by the excited clamor of birds in the plane trees outside her window. A dog barked in the distance, and guinea fowl exploded into a round of indignant complaint. She lay a while, relishing the foreign sounds, barely daring to believe that she was there at Rosenbosch. She climbed out of bed and crept across the squeaking floorboards to open the curtains. The sunshine tumbled into the room, and she squinted and threw an arm across her eyes. Blinded for a moment, she held on to the wall for balance. Then she tentatively opened her eyes.
The beauty of the view was breathtaking. The gardens glistened in the dawn light, beneath the bluest of skies. Towering pine trees and extravagant red flowering gum trees threw shadows onto the immaculately mown lawn, where white and blue hydrangeas grew in the borders, intermingled with forget-me-nots. Beyond, the vineyard stretched out to the hills beneath an eerie layer of mist that lingered like smoke. She noticed a lone bird of prey circling high in the sky, silently watchful for signs of breakfast below. The pagoda stood in the tranquility of the morning, in the middle of the ornamental lake. The surface of the water shimmered like a mirror, reflecting the perfection of the heavens above, and small, energetic birds fussed about the roses. She wondered whether Anna was in there meditating. She didn’t think there was any place on earth as peaceful as that little pagoda.