She seemed to expect him to speak, but he kept his silence.
"Freddie visited me this evening. It was later than his usual hour. When he is in town, it is his custom to visit me before dinner. He uses the car park lift, out of respect for his wife, he stays two hours, then he returns to dine in the bosom of his family. It is my somewhat pathetic boast that I have helped to keep his marriage intact. Tonight he was late. He had been talking on the telephone. It appears that Roper has received a warning."
"A warning from whom?"
"From good friends in London." A spurt of bitterness.
"Good for Roper. That is understood."
"Saying what?"
"Saying that his business arrangements with Freddie are known to the authorities. Roper was careful on the telephone, saying only that he had counted on Freddie's discretion. Freddie's brothers were not so delicate. Freddie had not informed them of the deal. He was wishing to prove himself to them. He had gone so far as to set aside a fleet of Hamid trucks under a pretext in order to transport the merchandise through Jordan. His brothers were not pleased about that either. Now, because Freddie is frightened, he has told them everything. He is also furious to be losing the esteem of his precious Mr. Roper. So no?" she rehearsed, still staring into the night.
"Definitely no. Mr. Pine has no suggestions about how this information could have reached London or come to the ears of Mr. Roper's friends. The safe, the papers ― he has no suggestions."
"No. He hasn't. I'm sorry."
Until then she had not looked at him. Now at last she turned and let him see her face. One eye was closed entirely. Both sides were bloated out of recognition.
"I would like you to take me for a drive, please, Mr. Pine. Freddie is not rational when his pride is threatened."
* * *
No time has passed. Roper is still absorbed in the Sotheby's catalogue. Nobody has smashed his face into a pulp. The ormolu clock is still chiming the hour. Absurdly, Jonathan checks its accuracy against his wristwatch and, finding himself able to move his feet at last, opens the glass and advances the large hand until the two agree. Run for cover, he tells himself. Flatten.
The invisible radio is playing Alfred Brendel playing Mozart. Offstage, Corkoran is once more talking, this time in Italian, which is less assured than his French.
But Jonathan cannot run for cover. The enraging woman is coming down the ornamental staircase. He does not hear her at first, because she is barefooted and dressed in Herr Meister's complimentary bathrobe, and when he does, he can hardly bear to look at her. Her long legs are baby pink from the bath, her chestnut hair is brushed out like a good girl's over her shoulders. A smell of warm mousse de bain has replaced the Commemoration Day carnations. Jonathan is nearly ill with desire.
"And for additional refreshment, allow me to recommend your private bar," he advises Roper's back. "Malt whisky, personally selected by Herr Meister, the vodkas of six nations."
What else? "Oh, and twenty-four-hour room service for you and yours, naturally."
"Well, I'm ravenous" says the girl, refusing to be ignored.
Jonathan allows her his hotelier's passionless smile. "Well now, do please ask them for anything you want. The menu is merely a compass, and they adore being made to work." He returns to Roper, and a devil drives him one step further. "And English-language cable news in case you want to watch the war. Just touch the green knob on the little box, then nine."
"Been there. Seen the movie, thanks. Know anything about statuary?"
"Not much."
"Me neither. Makes two of us. Hullo, darling. Good bath?"
"Gorgeous."
Crossing the room to a low armchair, the woman Jed folds herself into it, picks up the room service menu and pulls on a pair of completely circular, very small and, Jonathan is angrily convinced, totally unnecessary gold-framed reading spectacles.
Sophie would have worn them in her hair. Brendel's perfect river has reached the sea. The hidden quadraphonic radio is announcing that Fischer-Dieskau will sing a selection of songs by Schubert. Roper's shoulder is nudging against him. Out of focus, Jed crosses her baby-pink legs and absentmindedly pulls the skirt of her bathrobe over them while she continues to study the menu. Whore! screams a voice inside Jonathan.
Tramp! Angel! Why am I suddenly prey to these adolescent fantasies? Roper's sculpted index finger is resting on a full-page illustration.
Lot 236, Venus and Adonis in marble, seventy inches high excluding pediment. Venus with her fingers touching Adonis's face in adoration, contemporary copy of Canova, unsigned, original at the Villa La Grange, Geneva, estimated price £60,000-£100,000.
A fifty-year-old Apollo wishes to buy Venus and Adonis.
"What's roasty, anyway?" says Jed.
"I think you're looking at rosti," Jonathan replies in a tone laced with superior knowledge. "It's a Swiss potato delicacy. Sort of bubble and squeak without the squeak, made with lots of butter and fried. If one's ravenous, perfectly delicious. And they do it awfully well."
"How do they grab you?" Roper demands. "Likee? No likee? Don't be lukewarm ― no good to anyone.... Hash browns, darling; had 'em in Miami.... What do you say, Mr. Pine?"
"I think it would rather depend where they were going to live," Jonathan replies cautiously.
"End of a floral walk. Pergola over the top, view of the sea at the end. West-facing, so you get the sunset."
"Most beautiful place on earth," says Jed.
Jonathan is at once furious with her. Why don't you shut up? Why is your blah-blah voice so near when you are speaking from across the room? Why does she have to interrupt all the time instead of reading the bloody menu?
"Sunshine guaranteed?" asks Jonathan, with his most patronising smile.
"Three hundred and sixty days a year," says Jed proudly.
"Go on," Roper urges. "Not made of glass. What's your verdict?"
"I'm afraid they're not me at all," Jonathan replies tautly, before he has given himself time to think. Why on earth does he say this? Probably it is Jed's fault.
Jonathan himself would be the last to know. He has no opinion of statues; he has never bought one, sold one, scarcely paused to consider one, unless it was the awful bronze of Earl Haig looking at God through binoculars from the side of the saluting base on one of the parade grounds of his military childhood.
All he was trying to do was tell Jed to keep her distance.
Roper's fine features do not alter, but for a moment Jonathan does wonder whether after all he is made of glass. "You laughing at me, Jemima?" he asks, with a perfectly pleasant smile.
The menu descends, and the puckish, totally undamaged face peers comically over the top of it. "Why on earth should I be?"
"Seem to remember you didn't much care for them either, when I showed 'em to you in the plane."
She sets the menu on her lap and with both hands removes her useless glasses. As she does so, the short sleeve of Herr Meister's bathrobe gapes, and Jonathan to his total outrage is offered a view of one perfect breast, its slightly erect nipple lifted to him by the action of her arms, the upper half golden-lit by the reading lamp above her.
"Darling," she says sweetly. "That's utter, total, unadulterated balls. I said her bum was too big. If you like big bums, have her. Your money. Your bum."
Roper grins, reaches out and grabs hold of the neck of Herr Meister's complimentary bottle of Dom Perignon, and wrenches.