A week went by. I corrected the proofs of the catalogue for Rory’s exhibition. He was painting frantically; wild, swirling, self-absorbed canvases of savage intensity: babies with no arms or legs, feeling their way into life; the agonized features of women giving birth. They were ghastly, hideous paintings but of staggering power. For the first time it occurred to me that Rory might have minded my losing the baby.
He was like a mine-field: one would inadvertently tread on him and he’d explode and smoulder for hours. He was always worse after the times Finn came to see me.
Each time I found Finn increasingly more remote. I couldn’t even talk to him because Rory stayed in the room all the time, scowling. It was horribly embarrassing.
Then one night I woke up to find Rory standing by the bed. The fire was dying in the grate. Outside the window the sea gleamed like a python.
‘W-what’s the matter?’ I said nervously.
‘I’ve finished the last painting.’
I sat up sleepily. ‘How clever you are. Have you been working all night?’
He nodded. There were great black smudges under his eyes.
‘You must be exhausted.’
‘A bit. I thought we ought to celebrate.’
He poured champagne into two glasses.
‘What time is it?’ I said.
‘About five-thirty.’
I took a gulp of champagne. It was icy cold and utterly delicious.
‘We ought to be sitting on a bench in a rose garden, after a Common Ball,’ I said with a giggle. ‘You in an evening shirt all covered in my lipstick, and me in a bra-strap dinner frock and a string of pearls.’
He laughed and sat down on the bed. Suddenly I was as jumpy as a cat in his presence — it was as if I were a virgin and he and I had never been to bed together.
He leaned forward and brushed a strand of hair back from my forehead — and it happened. Shocks, rockets, warning bells, the lot, and I knew, blindly, that the old magic was working and I was utterly hooked on him again. Emily the pushover — lying in the gutter with a lion standing over her.
Rory, however, seemed unaware of the chemical change that had taken place in me.
‘Oughtn’t you to get some sleep?’ I said.
‘I’ve got to pack up the canvases,’ he said. ‘Buster’s taking them down to London in his plane.’ Then he said, not looking at me, ‘He’s giving me a lift to Edinburgh.’
Panic swept over me. It was Thursday. Marina’s singing lesson day. Oh, God, oh, God, Rory was obviously going to meet her.
‘What are you going to Edinburgh for?’ I said in a frozen voice.
‘To see an American about an exhibition in New York. And a couple of press boys want to talk to me about the London exhibition.’
‘When are you coming back?’ I said.
‘Tonight. My mother’s giving a party for my aunt. She’s arriving from Paris this evening — you’re invited. I think you should come. They’re pretty amazing, my aunt and my mother, when they get together. It’d do you good to get out.’
I lay back in bed trying to stop myself crying. Rory bent over and kissed me on the forehead.
‘Try and get some more sleep,’ he said.