Chapter 13 Honor
Honor
That evening, Noah’s not his usual, relaxed self.
Something’s off. He drinks quickly during cocktail hour on the terrace.
He’s more silent than usual, less ready with the easy conversation he made last night.
No good vibes from him this evening. He looks amazing, though, an open-necked white linen shirt and pale pink shorts showcasing his tan.
He’s like an ice cream. Good enough to eat.
I fiddle with the thin shoulder strap on my Missoni dress and take a swig of champagne.
The dress is a new purchase. Missoni has worked its knitting magic with this: rows of its signature chevron in metallic hues that undulate from copper, to rose gold, to gold, to silver, to icy blue, to turquoise.
It fits me like a sheath and ends at mid-calf.
It needs no accessories, and very little in the way of underwear, except for a tiny nude thong. Nothing else will fit under it.
Angus is regaling Elaine and Philippe with some amusing tale involving Evelyn’s first attempt at hand-milking a cow.
He’s a great story-teller—very droll—but I can’t quite focus on the story.
Instead, I turn my head to Noah. He’s sitting where he sat last night, and he’s looking at me, but the expression on his face is intense, unsmiling.
‘Are you okay?’ My voice is a whisper.
‘I could ask you the same question.’ His gaze flicks to tumbler he’s circling in his hand and back again to me.
‘Oh?’
‘I saw the news about your husband.’
I keep my voice light. ‘I didn’t have you pegged as a Daily Mail reader.’
‘What? I think everyone’s running it. I saw it on Sky News when I was getting changed.’
‘Oh, really? Shit.’
He edges closer to me. ‘I’m so sorry. If you want to… I don’t know, talk, I’m here.’
That this man is sitting here, pitying me, makes me a little nauseous.
‘I’m fine, honestly. It’s under control. I’d just rather forget about it and enjoy my evening.’
‘No problem. As long as you’re okay.’ He nods and scoots away from me to his original position, and I can’t shake the feeling I said the wrong thing.
A guffaw from Philippe breaks the tension as Angus reaches the climax of his story (I’ve heard it before; the cow takes a huge dump right in front of Evelyn) and the moment is gone.
Much wine is drunk over dinner. Much glorious, incredible food is served up, and the others tuck in.
I take it relatively easy, given the various stresses compromising my appetite and the unforgiving nature of my dress, but I swoon over the mouth-watering bream and the fragrant ratatouille Chef Gui serves up.
Afterwards, we disperse. I suspect my and Noah’s personality failures dampened the atmosphere at the table, and I feel bad about it.
The guilt jostles for position with my humiliation and frustration over Jackson having chosen the publicity of his new show over respect for his wife.
And children. If he thinks this media circus won’t affect his kids, he’s na?ve at best.
Elaine and Philippe have retired to bed.
Angus and Evelyn are upstairs with their kids—Rose has grizzled on and off over the baby monitor all evening, and Eddie came down towards the end of dinner, adorable, tow-headed, and clearly having not received the memo from himself that he’s utterly exhausted.
I’m not sure where Noah’s got to, but he made a pretty quick exit after dinner.
I’m restless and definitely not ready to lie on my bed and try to avoid the news apps on the phone.
After I’ve ascertained that Serena and Rollo are in the deepest of sleeps, the drone of the air con providing the perfect white noise, I head back downstairs and pour myself a glass of rosé in the kitchen.
Go to put the bottle back in the fridge and think better of it.
Keep hold of it. Maybe I’ll just lie by the pool for a while and try to wind down.
But, as I walk through the hallway and across the terrace, the strains of some beautiful melody, and the purest voice, reach me, and as I head down the steps, Noah comes into sight at the side of the pool.
He has his back to me and his legs in the water.
A glass of wine next to him, and a portable speaker playing the music.
‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ I freeze. ‘I didn’t mean to disturb your peace.’
He turns around and scrambles to his feet. ‘You’re not disturbing my peace.’
There’s that voice again, the voice that he’s been using with me all evening, as if I should know exactly what he means when he speaks to me.
‘I was just going to—’ I point at the nearest daybed. ‘Chill out. Get some headspace.’
‘Go for it.’
A pause.
‘Will you join me?’ God, Honor. Not would you like to join me, but will you join me? Needy, much?
His eyebrows shoot up. ‘Of course.’
He squats to grab his glass and phone and the speaker and gets on the bed beside me.
He sits down near the edge, like he’s scared to come closer, but he hasn’t taken his eyes off me.
I look away, out to the inky blackness that is the sea.
The nothingness is punctuated only by the lights of various super-yachts in the distance.
It’s cooler down here, as the breeze from the sea dances in.
The foreground is better lit, by lights dotted around the low wall of the pool area, and the pool itself is illuminated in breathtaking turquoise.
‘Who’s this singing?’ I break the moment. The voice is incredible: a woman singing in French, with just a piano in accompaniment.
‘It’s Barbara Pravi. She’s pretty big over here.’
‘Her voice gives me goosebumps.’ I settle in a mermaid pose, my legs folded to one side, resting on my arm.
‘She got France second place in the Eurovision this year.’
‘No way. She doesn’t sound very Eurovision-y.’
He laughs. ‘She’s not. But she was mesmerising. Her performance was very Piaf. Look it up on YouTube—the song was called Voilà.’
‘This song sounds so sad. Yearning.’ The melancholy piano chords, the quiet desperation building in the singer’s voice, somehow reflect how I’m feeling at that precise moment. Like I’m mourning something: I’m not sure what.
‘It is. It’s called Louis. She’s singing about a former lover, and from the sound of things, she’s definitely not over him.’
‘Oh.’ Hearing the word lover from his lips gives me a small thrill. ‘What’s she saying?’
‘She’s saying,’—he closes his eyes briefly as he listens—‘I’d give my soul for your skin. See, my heart ignites at the heat of your words.’
He opens his eyes again and looks straight at me. Unsmiling.
‘Oh.’ I’ve already said that. But Jesus Christ, could I have asked him to translate a more loaded couple of lines? There’s an instant flush of heat up my neck and on my cheeks. ‘Wow, that’s—the French certainly have a way with words.’
My chat could not be more lame. Seriously, get a grip, Honor. But he’s still looking at me, and I take a hurried, panicky sip of my wine and stare back out at the blackness. The air hums with thousands of cicadas; it’s a solid wall of noise, and it’s wonderful.
We’re silent for a few moments, and then the song finishes and a lighter, more upbeat one comes on, and I realise I’ve been holding my breath.
I set down my glass and, reaching behind me, stack a couple of the huge cushions on the bed.
Lower my head so I’m in a semi-reclining position and stare at the top of the daybed’s canopy.
‘This spot is positively medicinal.’ I sigh, more deeply than I mean to, and close my eyes.
‘It’s intoxicating, isn’t it?’ I can hear a smile in his voice.
‘Yeah.’
‘Look. Can I ask you something that’s none of my business? You’re free to tell me where to go.’
I have an uncomfortably clear idea of where this is going.
‘Okay…?’
He shifts his weight on the bed next to me. ‘Why the fuck do you let your husband get away with the stunts he’s pulling at the moment?’
His vehemence takes me by surprise. I turn my head and open my eyes. He’s raking one hand through his hair and staring down at me.
‘You mean why do I not fight his cheating, or why do I not fight the papers for exposing it this time?’
He’s taken aback; the skin between his eyebrows creases into a V.
‘The former, I suppose. I—’
I make a split-second decision to trust him. To open up; not to patronise him with the practised lines I feed most people.
‘Jackson’s slept around for years. I don’t expect you to understand, but it is what it is.
The articles right now are the tip of the iceberg.
And that iceberg is kept well out of sight thanks to a load of relationships and bribes and injunctions and deals and fixers that are so tawdry, you really don’t want to know more about them. ’
Silence.
‘The difference with the current shit-show is that it’s ‘good’ publicity for his upcoming show. The public loves nothing more than an on-screen-off-screen romance. So Jackson and our publicist have no intention of quashing the speculation. For once, it’s serving him.’
The shock on his face is sweet. He’s a little boy who just found out Father Christmas doesn’t exist.
‘So… your marriage is a sham? Or it’s real?’
‘It’s real, all right. It’s just—unorthodox. The rest of the world seems to consider my husband public property, and I’ve come to think of him the same way.’
‘But you’re not heartbroken? Humiliated, when he does this to you?’
‘You sound like my sister. Humiliated, yes. Of course I am. Heartbroken, not so much. As I said, it is what it is. But honestly, I’m tired of justifying our arrangement to people.
I don’t mean to be rude, but it’s exhausting.
I’ve been over this a million times in my head, and with Jackson, and I really am okay with it.
I’m just not okay with him parading around with this woman Leila and adding fuel to the fire. ’
‘So it’s an open marriage, basically… at his end, anyway.’
‘Yes.’ I narrow my eyes. Where is he going with this?
‘But not at your end.’
‘Not that it’s any of your business, but no.’
He holds up his hand. ‘That seems unfair. It is just such. A fucking. Waste.’
His tone makes me freeze. ‘Not really. I have enough on my plate.’
‘Honor. You should consider levelling the playing field. You really should.’
‘Wow. You’re the third person to suggest that to me. First Ally, then Evelyn, this afternoon, in fact. Do I have victim scrawled across my forehead, or needs to get laid?’
‘You have neither, and you know that.’ He scoots around onto his stomach and edges closer to me, resting up on his elbows, looking down at me.
‘But—and I say this objectively—you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. Ever. On screen, or in the flesh. And the idea that that wanker is making a public fool of you, and you’re allowing it, makes my fucking blood boil.
I mean, what the hell is wrong with him?
So, yes. You should have an affair. Find out what it is you’re missing, that your husband is enjoying so much. ’
His face is so close to me, suspended above me, his sleek dark hair hanging down.
He brushes it off his face and stares at my mouth, and my lips part in response as I stare right back at his.
You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.
Ever. For all his coolness, that makes it sound like he’s pretty invested in this.
He licks his lips. My heart is beating right out of its cage at his scent, his proximity, and the fact that he’s looking at me as if I’m supper.
‘Are you putting yourself forward for the job?’ I mean it to come out jokingly, but it sounds serious.
‘I am. There’s a shortlist of one. Just so you know.’
‘Right.’ I swallow. It’s been so long since I’ve done this: flirted with anyone who wasn’t Jackson, attempted the dance of expressing my interest, all the while protecting myself from rejection. ‘And what do you think I’m missing out on, precisely?’
He smiles, slowly, and I’m mesmerised by the ripe curves of his lips. He takes a piece of my hair between his fingers and twirls it. The side of his hand brushes my shoulder.
‘Do you want me to tell you? Or show you?’
This is one of those moments. Those forks in the road that, afterwards, define what went before and what comes after. In this slip of a moment, I’m weightless, suspended between reality and possibility.
I make my choice.
‘I want you to do both.’ I want you to undo me. I’ve begun to get a glimpse of what I’m missing, and I suspect that glimpse is about to become a revelation.
A wider grin, only for me. God, he’s gorgeous.
‘That I can definitely do. Close your eyes.’