“I’ll try to remember that.”
“No, I really mean it. The deck is stacked against us, you know. I have no patience for women who won’t look after themselves. I suppose that’s why women don’t like me very much.”
“Don’t they?”
“Well, I don’t guess I’d like me, if I were them. No, they’re right. I’m not one of them, I’m the enemy. You see, I don’t need all this business about cuddles and fidelity and love everlasting. I don’t believe in it. I like flirting; I like making love. I don’t mind sleeping with someone’s husband, if the opportunity arises. Why should I? It’s just a physical transaction that gives pleasure on both sides, if it’s done right. I’ve never understood why women make such a fuss about . . .” She waves her hand. “Well, all of it. Love and babies.”
“But you’ve had three husbands. And a child.”
The sofa cushions move beneath Violet’s shoulders. Both of Jane’s hands insert themselves in Violet’s hair to gather up the waves and lift them from her neck. “Do you wear it loose at night, or do you braid it?”
“Loose. I can’t be bothered.”
Jane begins to braid Violet’s hair. Violet closes her eyes. The little tugs and twists of Jane’s manicured fingers electrify her scalp; Jane’s exotic perfume drifts against the haze of champagne surrounding her brain. She loves the unfamiliar female intimacy of lying here, listening to Jane’s secrets while Jane braids her hair.
“Listen, Violet. I love three things: money, myself, and my son. Not in that order. I’d do anything for them, especially Henry.”
“That’s all? Not your family? Any of your husbands?” She searches for something else, some other possible object for Jane’s worship, and hazards—of all things—“God?”
“God?” Jane laughs mightily. “Really? What about Him? He’s done nothing for me, I can tell you. I’ve done it all by myself, tooth and nail. I don’t see why He should get any credit. And you don’t, either, I’ll bet. That’s why I like you, Violet. I don’t like many women, but I like you.” She’s finished the braid. She wraps her fingers around the paintbrush end and gives it a gentle pull.
“Are you sleeping with my husband?” Violet asks drowsily.
“Would you be angry if I were? Would you even care?”
Violet doesn’t reply. She doesn’t know how.
Jane pulls the braid apart and combs it out with her fingers. Violet opens her eyes. The apartment is quiet now, the guests shooed away, the servants in the scullery with the acres of glassware. It must be past four o’clock in the morning.
“You have the loveliest hair, Violet. I’ll bet Walter loves your hair.”
Violet stares up at the creamy library ceiling, and her mind turns back to another sofa and another ceiling, another body pressed against hers on an Oxford winter afternoon.
“Yes, he does. Walter loves my hair.”
Vivian
November! They say time flies when you’re having a tawdry affair.
“Lionel arrived in her life on the same day as this Jane Johnson,” I said. “Don’t you think that’s a funny coincidence?”
“Hmm,” said the man lying next to me, meaning, I’m half asleep and I’ve no idea what you’ve just said, but even while semi-conscious I know better than to ignore you, Vivian Schuyler.
I nudged his ribs. “Violet and Lionel.”
“Violet. Sweetheart.” He turned his face into my neck and went still.
“Just listen to this. It’s in the second letter, dated May twenty-first: ‘The most extraordinary character walked into my laboratory yesterday, an old student of Walter’s. His name is Lionel Richardson and he’s some sort of soldier, about six feet tall with one of those large and brutal bodies, like something you might see on safari, thickly muscled, with straight black hair. He’s rather alarming to sit next to; one feels as if one will be swallowed up at any instant. We took him to a café later, where we were accosted by an American woman who wants Walter to take her son into the laboratory for the summer. The son, by the way, is not yet twenty. Altogether an extraordinary evening.’ Amazing, isn’t it? And he sounds like a dreamboat.”
“Mmm.”