Anne Billson - Suckers

The Casa DeMille was an upmarket spaghetti house. It was only later (much later) that I found out nine o'clock on Friday night was when it all began. It wasn't the first time they'd met, not exactly, but it was the first time she'd had a chance to talk to him properly, adult to adult as it were. If only I'd tried harder, I could have put a stop to it before it had even begun. If only I had destroyed the note — no one need ever have known. There were many 'if onlys'. In the days and nights to come I would be replaying them ceaselessly in my head.

And now I could hear myself saying, 'Yes, but we can still be friends.'

He looked embarrassed. 'Dora, it's finished. I feel really bad about it.'

I reached across the table and squeezed his hand. He started to pull away, then thought better of it. 'When I say friends, I mean friends ,' I babbled, 'no strings attached.' The words tumbled out. I was surprised at how easy it was. 'There's no point in us going on if you're in love with someone else. But I don't see why we shouldn't see each other again.'

He looked doubtful. I was no longer of any interest to him, and now all he wanted to do was extricate himself as tactfully as he could. But still I ploughed on. 'I mean, I never thought we were going to get married or anything. But I don't see why we can't meet for lunch, and things. Unless of course you can't stand the sight of me…'

'Good God, Dora, no.' Oh no, Heaven forbid I should think something like that. 'But I wouldn't want to take advantage of you.'

But you already have taken advantage of me, I thought. He was sounding like a character from a Victorian novel. 'You couldn't take advantage of me if you tried,' I said in a flippant, slightly breathy way, my every word weighted with lightness. 'Of course, it goes without saying I'm immensely jealous of this person, whoever she is, and I wish you'd told me about her before.' And I paused, and added, 'What's she like?'

I'd caught him on the hop. He frowned, and for the first time I noticed that little crease between his eyebrows, the one that would get deeper over the years. For a moment or two, he looked as though he'd forgotten what we were talking about. 'You mean Violet?'

'Is that her name?' I asked ingenuously. 'How unusual.'

'I don't think it's her real name, but it's what she calls herself.' He looked at me pleadingly. 'I never intended to fall in love.'

I couldn't think of anything to say to that. Haltingly, in order to fill the ghastly silence, he told me what he knew, which wasn't much, though I gathered they'd already spent an entire weekend in each other's company. So much for the sick uncle. By the time we'd finished our third cup of coffee, and he'd pecked me goodbye on the cheek, and we'd parted to go our separate ways, I'd formed a clearer picture of what I was up against.

She called herself Violet Westron because her real name was too difficult to pronounce — she was part-Czech, or part-Romanian, or part-Russian, he wasn't sure which. She was fluent in several different languages, including English. She had once been a singer, but she'd got fed up with it and retired. She'd told him she'd been around — she'd spent time in Prague, and Paris, and Berlin, and she knew Venice like the back of her hand. She'd had affairs with one or two famous artists and musicians, and even with a head of state, but she was cagey about their names. She let slip she'd once had her portrait painted by Fernand Khnopff, a painter whose name sounded vaguely familiar, though he wasn't what you'd call a household name. She'd appeared in a couple of films by a well-known German director, though when Duncan had demanded to know which one she'd shaken her head and laughed. It was almost certain all the prints had been destroyed, she'd said, and she thanked the Lord for that.

I said she sounded like a busy little bee.

She wasn't enormously wealthy, Duncan reckoned, but she had resources. He couldn't tell whether it was a wealthy patron, or an employer, or an ex-lover, but there was definitely someone in the background who was bankrolling her expensive taste in clothes. She had come to London in order to set up some sort of business deal, but when Duncan had pressed her further she'd laughed again and changed the subject. He'd asked how long she would be staying, and she'd said, 'For as long as it takes.'

And that was all he knew about her, though she already seemed to know everything there was to know about him. It was uncanny, he said, they'd only just met and already she knew him better than he knew himself. But then she was an old family friend.

I wondered aloud whether she would be going away once her business had been completed. Duncan wasn't sure, but I didn't have to ask what he would do then. I knew, because I knew all about obsession. He would follow her, even if she went to the ends of the earth.

She would be a tough nut to crack, but I didn't think she'd be impossible. In my more optimistic moments, I saw Violet Westron as a challenge.

I was besotted all over again, and it was worse than before. I couldn't concentrate on anything else. I went home and drank a bottle of cheap wine. For the first time in my life I bought a packet of cigarettes and painstakingly smoked every last one of them, even though they made me cough and splutter. I awoke in the middle of the night with a parched throat and a throbbing headache, and all I could think about was the memory of those eyes. There had been danger in them, yet I had chosen to ignore it.

That night I sat up in bed, browsing fitfully through some of the art books I had taken out on more or less permanent loan from the college library. Somewhere at the back of my brain was something I knew I had to try and remember, but I couldn't think clearly enough to keep it in focus. I turned the pages of Symbolist Painters , making faces at the sphinxes and shady women. I'd always liked those pictures before, but now they reminded me of her .

My subconscious must have been working overtime, because suddenly what I'd been trying to remember was right in front of me. The picture of an abandoned city, water gently lapping against its closed doors. The artist's name was Khnopff. I scanned the text until I found what I hadn't known I was looking for. 'The great painter of the Sphinx-Woman was the Belgian artist Khnopff (1858–1921). '

Perhaps I'd remembered it incorrectly, or perhaps Duncan had got the name confused. I leafed through some of the other pages. Perhaps it had been Kubin (1877–1959) or Kupka (1871–1957). But no — he had definitely said Khnopff. 1858–1921 . I had to read it several times before the significance of the dates sank in.

Khnopff had died in 1921. If she had been telling the truth, if he really had painted her portrait — even if she'd been a child at the time — it would mean she was a lot older than she looked.

I reckoned she was at least sixty.

In the weeks that followed, I would occasionally spot Duncan wandering around with a somnolent expression on his face. Sometimes he noticed me and said hello. More often he seemed lost in his own little world, hardly speaking to anyone. Once or twice I heard him humming — that drinking song from La Traviata again, and something or other from La Boheme , and one or two other things I didn't recognize. Duncan had never much cared for opera, but now he was obviously getting an education in it.

At the end of the day, I would hang around long after everyone else had gone home, hoping against hope that he would come by and invite me out for a drink, just for old times' sake — but he never did. As far as he was concerned, I'd ceased to exist. Entire days would go by when I didn't see him at all. People noticed his absence, and made comments. Ruth, one of the few people aware we'd been seeing each other, asked me if he was all right. Then she saw something in my expression and asked me if I was all right. 'I'm fine ,' I snapped, and she knew better than to ask again.