AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I swear to you,” said Sarah, “as a friend and as a woman, that I will tell you when the time is right.”
“You’ll tell mefirst,” insisted Amelia. “And in the meantime, you will give me something juicy.”
“Have a quick look over your right shoulder.”
Amelia did as Sarah suggested. “The lovely Miss Watson and sleazy Simon Mendenhall?”
“Torrid,” said Sarah.
“I thought she was dating that actor.”
“She’s shagging sleazy Simon on the side.”
As if on cue, there was another eruption of laughter from the opposite end of the bar, where Julian had just concluded an encore performance of the alleged incident in Kensington—this time for Nicky Lovegrove, art adviser to the vastly wealthy.
“Is that really how it happened?” asked Amelia.
“No,” said Sarah, smiling sadly. “The lamppost attackedhim.”
Afterfinishing her drink, Sarah wiped the smudge of lipstick from Julian’s cheek and went into Jermyn Street. There were no taxis in sight, so she walked around the corner to Piccadilly and caught one there. As it bore her westward across London, she scrolled through the possibilities on Deliveroo, dithering between Indian and Thai. She ordered Italian instead and immediately regretted her choice. She had gained five pounds during the pandemic and another five after marrying Christopher. Despite thrice-weekly training runs on the footpaths of Hyde Park, the weight refused to budge.
As the taxi sped past the Royal Albert Hall, Sarah resolved to place herself on yet another diet. But not tonight; she was hungry enough to eat one of her Ferragamo pumps. After dinner, which she would consume while watching something mindless on television, she would crawl into her empty marital bed and remain there for the better part of the weekend, listening to “When Your Lover Has Gone” on repeat. Billie Holiday’s classic 1956 recording, of course. When one was truly depressed, no other version would do.
She did her best Lady Day impersonation as the taxi turned into Queen’s Gate Terrace and stopped opposite the elegant Georgian house at Number 18. It wasn’t all theirs, only the luxurious maisonette on the lower two levels. Sarah was overjoyed to see a light burning downstairs in the kitchen. Environmentally conscious, she was certain she had not left it on by mistake that morning. The most plausible explanation was that her lover was not gone after all.
She paid off the driver and hurried down the steps to the maisonette’s lower entrance. There she found the door ajar and the security system disengaged. Inside, lying on the kitchen island, was a canvas that had been removed from its stretcher—a riverscape with distantwindmills, somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 by 60 centimeters, bearing what appeared to be the initials of the Dutch Golden Age painter Aelbert Cuyp.
Next to the painting was an envelope from Galerie Georges Fleury in Paris. And next to the envelope was an excellent bottle of Sancerre, from which Gabriel, wincing in pain, was attempting to extract the cork. Sarah closed the door and, laughing in spite of herself, shed her coat. It was, she thought, the perfect end to a perfectly dreadful week.
