‘But it is a sweet-tasting poison?’
‘Sometimes.’
‘There, you see?’ Kumiko said. ‘Your frankness. It is what I like about you the best.’
‘Well, you’re pretty much the only one.’
Kumiko held out the bowl again. ‘Please. I know you wish to. It is a sweeter-tasting poison than most.’
Amanda waited for a moment, then stepped around the end of the bed and hesitantly peered into the bowl. ‘And I just eat it with my fingers?’
‘Like this.’ Kumiko took a little snitch of it and held it up to Amanda’s mouth. ‘Eat.’
Amanda stared at it for a moment, felt the weirdness of eating out of Kumiko’s hand, but maybe it didn’t feel so weird after all, not any weirder than everything else about Kumiko, if she was honest. Besides, she found herself really, really wanting to. She enveloped Kumiko’s fingertips in the lightest of kisses and ate the bite of pudding . . .
. . . and felt suddenly swept away, suddenly on air, of air, the wind rushing past her, the earth far below, ancient yet young, covered in bursts of cold steam, the sweetness on her tongue light as a wish, as an eyelash, as the wash of spray from a nearby wave . . .
. . . and Kumiko was flying by her side, was offering something . . .
(Or wanting to be offered . . .)
‘Amanda?’ Clare’s voice cut through the bedroom and Kumiko’s fingers were leaving Amanda’s mouth (as was the longing, the strange, milky longing, not of lust, not for the flesh, not even for love, but for what? For what?) and Kumiko was asking, ‘Do you like it?’
Amanda, in a daze, swallowed. ‘It’s not what I expected.’
‘It never is.’
‘Everything all right here?’ Clare said, eyes bright, questioning.
‘Perfectly,’ Kumiko said. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘I–’
‘I must get back to the party,’ Kumiko said. ‘Even if most of them are strangers to me.’
She nodded farewell to them both, set down the bowl, and then moved past Clare and down the stairs to the noise of the gathering. Amanda felt cool but also flushed, as if after a brisk hike up a mountaintop. She breathed through her mouth, the lingering taste on her tongue confusing, drawing her thoughts away.
‘So that was her?’ Clare said. ‘What on earth was all that about?’
But Amanda could only pretend to check on JP again as an unfathomable blush started rising from her neckline.
‘You’re avoiding me,’ Rachel said, cornering him outside as he carried a tray of dirty glasses.
‘Of course I’m avoiding you,’ George said. ‘What else would I be doing?’
They were slightly away from the rest of the party-goers, some of whom had started, thankfully, to leave, now that a couple of hours had passed and no new artwork had been displayed or auctioned or whatever it was these mysterious people thought was going to happen. The announcement was still coming, but no one leaving would be interested in it or even know it was on its way. Though right now he’d have traded a dozen of them in exchange for not having to talk to Rachel.
‘I’m not going to cause trouble, George? If that’s what you think?’
‘That actually is what I think,’ George said, trying to sound calm. ‘That’s exactly what I think.’
‘Well, I’m not?’
He regarded her again for a moment, trying to really see her there. That freakish trick of the light from the kitchen window was making her eyes glow green again. ‘Rachel–’
‘Look, I know,’ she said. ‘I know you’re with Kumiko and Amanda says you’ve moved her in and there’s this really camp Turkish guy who keeps going on about some big announcement on the way–’
‘Rachel–’
‘I’m just saying I know, okay? I’m not trying anything? I can see how close you are to her? How she must give you everything I couldn’t? Everything I can’t seem to give to anyone?’ She made a face, looking above George’s head at the cold moonlight, and he could see, with a shock, that she was trying not to cry. ‘I’m just so confused lately, George? I couldn’t give myself to you when we were together, like you gave yourself to me. I can’t do that with anyone? And that’s why you left me, I’m sure–’
‘You left me–’
‘And now here’s this exotic new woman and she’s just everything I’m not. Everything I want to be, obviously? Beautiful–’
‘You are beautiful, Rachel, don’t pretend–’
‘And smart and talented–’
‘You’re those things, too–’
‘And nice.’
‘. . .’
‘And clearly she can just open herself up to you.’ Rachel was looking at him hard now, unblinking. ‘Clearly can give back to you all the things you give her.’
George found that his mouth had gone dry. He mumbled something.
‘What’s that?’ Rachel asked.
‘I said, she doesn’t give me everything of herself.’
‘She doesn’t? But I thought you two looked so happy?’
‘We are happy–’
‘I thought you’d finally found someone to match all that was wonderful about you, George.’
‘I have–’
‘But she holds something back?’
‘Rachel, I am not having this conversation with you– ’
She stepped closer to him. He remembered too late that he should step back.
‘But how is that better than me?’ she asked.
She stepped closer again, close enough now for him to smell her, her perfume triggering all kinds of memories of kissing that neck, that too-young neck that made no sense at all for a man like him to be kissing. He could also smell the wine on her breath. That weird green glint in her eye hadn’t faded, but she was still Rachel, beautiful and brutal.
‘I’m trying to change,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t know what’s happening to me. I want to give. I’ve never given, George? I’ve only taken? But now that I want to give, there’s no one I can–’
She lunged forward to kiss him.
He leaned back, though perhaps not as far or as quickly as he could have (he instantly, guiltily thought), and it became less a kiss than a glancing blow. There was only the one attempt, but when Rachel stepped away, he could see Kumiko over her shoulder, leaning out the back door, looking for him in the dim back garden.