The Invitation: Escape with this epic, page-turning summer holiday read. Lucy Foley
‘No,’ I say. I’m not certain. I didn’t even look. Rather than handing them to him, I place the binoculars on the dressing table and step toward him.
‘Please,’ I say. ‘The clasp of my swimsuit – I can’t seem to unfasten it.’
There is something that very few people understand about him. He has been described on numerous occasions as a man of unusual self-possession. But what isn’t known is that he is also bound by certain potent appetites. I step out of the swimsuit, knowing that his eyes are on me. On the skin I have revealed, tightening in the spring breeze from the balcony. This is one of the few times in which I feel the balance shift towards me, in which I become powerful.
By the time he steps out onto the balcony, and I after him, there is no sign of the man I knew in Rome. I could almost bring myself to believe – to hope – that he had disappeared.
*
Hal
Showered and dressed, Hal is summoned to breakfast. The terrace in front of the house, which the night before had supported the band and the bar, is now set with a table bearing breakfast fare. A whole salmon glistens – rather raw and naked-looking in the strong light – beside dishes of charcuterie and cheese, a cornucopia of fruit: strawberries, oranges, grapes; a basket of burnished brioche loaves and other delicacies. There is champagne, but Hal gives this a wide berth. He loads his plate with food, feeling hollowed with hunger after his swim. As he lifts his fork to his mouth it shakes slightly; his body still electric with adrenaline.
Signor Gaspari is there, his little dog on his lap, and next to him sits the photographer, Aubrey Boyd. Hal gestures to the seat next to Aubrey.
‘May I?’
‘By all means.’ Aubrey’s plate, balanced on his lap, bears five segments of grapefruit, fanned out in a bloom-like pattern. He probes one with a fork, speculatively.
‘Not hungry?’
‘Oh, I can never take much in the morning – and I intend to wear a thirty-two until I die.’ Aubrey appraises Hal. ‘You certainly seemed to enjoy yourself last night.’
‘Yes,’ he says, queasily remembering the final drink. Something about a chicken.
Aubrey Boyd watches him, amused. ‘I saw you disappear off into the gardens late on. So I think you missed Giulietta Castiglione dancing in little more than her bathing suit. Spontaneous, apparently. That little white dress simply happened to disappear at some point and then – pouf – there was a great deal more of Giulietta. I got some excellent shots.’ He sips his water. ‘You’ll get to meet her properly on the trip, of course. I’ll introduce you – I took the promotional shots for A Holiday.’
‘Thank you,’ Hal says. ‘In fact,’ he says, with careful disinterest, ‘there was someone else, too. I met her this morning – though I didn’t see her last night.’ He decides not to mention the previous encounter. ‘I wonder if you know her?’
‘Describe her to me.’
‘Her name’s Stella. I don’t know her surname. She’s blonde …’ he is about to say beautiful, but stops himself in time. ‘Short hair,’ he says, instead. ‘American.’
Aubrey frowns. And then he seems to think of something. ‘An odd accent, though?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh yes,’ Aubrey says, slowly – with something slightly cruel in his look. ‘In that case I think you have met Mrs Truss.’
It takes several seconds for Hal to digest this. ‘Mrs Truss? She’s …’
‘That American investor’s wife? Yes, old chap.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘I don’t know her first name, but I rather think it must be her, from your account. Ever so glamorous. Hair the colour of money. She’s quite something, is she not?’
Suddenly, certain elements fall into place. Her reticence in telling him anything about herself, her haste in leaving the following morning. Her horror at seeing him on the jetty.
‘Oh,’ Aubrey says. ‘Why – there she is now.’
Hal looks up. There she is indeed, looking quite different to the person of a couple of hours earlier. A white shirtdress, heeled sandals, her hair combed. She is well suited to him, the elegant man appearing behind her in his blue suit. They are a matched pair, he realizes: they make more sense together than apart. His hand at her back – a caress, or possibly a steer.
So he was the one-time adventure, the penniless young man in his garret. He thinks of the smallness and shabbiness of the studio, and wonders if that was part of the thrill. He should have known, then, seeing the wealth she wore about her. Hair the colour of money, indeed.
He watches her, compelled in spite of himself. He thinks that his eyes would be drawn to her even if he did not know her: there is something innately watchable about her; the unique grace with which she moves. It does not appear affected. But who is he to tell? He knows even less of her than he thought.
He watches her husband too. He had decided he did not like the man, but perhaps he should pity him. Hal has made him that old-fashioned word: a cuckold. Except that he is not a figure that invites pity.
The Contessa has appeared now and is greeting them, offering them both champagne. Stella is shaking her head, but he – Truss – takes one for them both and hands her a glass. He is steering her towards the end of the table now, nearer to Hal. She glances up and catches sight of Hal watching her. Good: he rather wants her to see, to see that he understands now what she is. She looks quickly away.
She finds a seat at the furthest possible distance away, says something to her husband – her husband – and sits down. But Truss does not appear to be happy with her choice. He is gesturing to the patch of shade thrown by the parasol, only a few feet from Hal. She shakes her head. And Hal watches as the man takes her by the arm, and half-lifts her out of the seat. He isn’t quite able to believe what he is seeing. To anyone glancing over, it would look as though he is merely helping her from her chair. But to Hal, who has watched the whole interaction, it is something different. He sees the firmness of the grip about her upper arm, the expression on her face: vacillating between humiliation and fear.
He feels in some way that she has let him down. Being married to a man like Truss, a rich man’s wife, makes her ordinary. There are women like her on the Via Condotti every day, stepping from cars, trailed by their hapless spouses. Sweeping past the doorman at Bulgari, trying on, no doubt, the biggest, ugliest, costliest baubles they think they can get away with. And then to Caffè Greco, to compare these new spoils with the others of their species sitting about them. He has never paid these women, or their husbands, any heed before. They have been so far outside his own sphere, and his Rome, that they might as well have been from another planet. If he had thought of them, well, it might have been with something approaching contempt. He can see, now, reflected in the morning sun, the wink of gems at earlobes and wrist. He supposes that at least she has managed to find herself a wealthy man who is not fifty years her senior, balding and fat. Perhaps by the standards of such women she has landed a coup, even if he is a bully.
And yet … she didn’t seem the sort, to be bought off with trinkets. He would have credited her with more intelligence, a greater sense of self-worth.
He catches himself. One evening – and a few brief moments this morning – that is the sum total of how long he has known her. He knows nothing about her. It is nothing but the work of that pernicious thing that once served him so well in his writing: the overactive imagination. She had told him so little about herself that he couldn’t have known anything about her. And it is a relief that he has found out the truth. Now she will take up no more room in his thoughts.