The Master of Rain

Twenty-one

Field wanted to stop now. “I need a drink,” he said, smiling thinly and wiping the sweat from his forehead. He turned his back on Lewis.

“In a minute.”

Penelope danced more manically than ever, shutting her eyes, as if wishing to lose herself in the music and the movement of her own body. Her bangs swung across her forehead, like a pendulum, and her lips were pursed, as if offering a kiss. Her dress, like the one she’d worn last night, was loose, and with each movement, her small breasts thrust against the silk. Field found it hard to take his eyes off her and he wanted to stop dancing.

“All right,” she said, laughing. “All right.” She took his hand. Field felt uncomfortable again at the intimacy of this gesture and tried to free himself, but she would not let go, leading him to the big doors along the side of the room and out onto the balcony. “You know,” she said as they reached the rail and looked down over the track, “you’re too young and handsome to be a stick in the mud.”

“I don’t intend to be.”

“You could dance if you tried. You’re athletic enough.”

Field did not know how to respond.

Penelope clicked her fingers and a waiter he’d not seen appeared from the corner behind the door. Despite the throng inside, they were alone out here, save for a few small groups at the far end of the balcony, the racetrack illuminated like a frontier post beneath them.

Penelope took two glasses and filled them both with ice from the silver bucket on the edge of the tray. “Do you drink whiskey?” she asked, handing him one.

“Not often.”

“Do you have any vices?”

“A few.”

“Hold on,” she instructed the waiter before he could move away. “Your health, Mr. Field.” She upended her glass and, as she had with the champagne, drank it in one go. He hesitated for a moment and then, before she could reprimand him, followed suit. “That’s better,” she said.

Penelope replaced the glasses on the tray and took two more.

“How long does this go on?”

She shrugged. “As long as we feel like.”

“We?”

Her glass dropped a fraction. “You don’t like me, do you, Richard?”

“You’ve both been charming to me—more than I could have expected.”

“Why more than you could have expected?”

“I’m sure you know the answer to that.”

“Oh, all that stuff about your mother marrying beneath herself . . . it doesn’t mean a thing.”

“It matters at home.”

“Not to me it doesn’t.” She lifted her glass and again drained its contents.

He followed suit again. “Geoffrey said I should persuade you not to drink too much.”

“So you’re my keeper?”

“No, of course—”

“There could be worse keepers.”

He flushed. She took his glass, summoned the waiter back, and took two more. “So what are your vices, Richard?”

Field hadn’t eaten tonight and he was starting to feel the effects of the alcohol again. He sighed. “My vices?”

“You don’t have any.”

“I have vices.”

“So what are they?”

“Self-doubt. Is that a vice?”

“No. In moderation, it’s a virtue.”

“Well—”

“Hold on.” She raised her glass.

“You know—”

“No. You’ve got to keep me company, that’s your job.”

He frowned. “My job?”

“You’re my keeper.”

“Penelope . . .”

“Drink.” She tossed back another and Field did the same, shaking his head afterward. It was burning his stomach now. She gave the glasses back to the waiter and took two more.

“That’s enough.”

“Now, Dickie, you mustn’t—”

“I’ll—”

“No you won’t.”

“Just give me a few minutes. Can we slow down at least?”

She smiled, her face softening. “All right, Mr. Field. Let’s start with the traditional sins. Greed?”

He shrugged. “Would I like to be rich, never to have to worry, to afford . . .” He gestured with his hand at the men and women inside the ballroom. “If that is greed, then yes.”

“Envy?”

He hesitated. “Envy, yes. Sometimes, yes.”

“Sloth?”

“No.”

“Avarice?”

“I think I answered that with greed.”

She took a sip of her whiskey and looked at him, a hint of amusement at the corners of her mouth. “Lust?” she asked quietly.

Field didn’t answer, but she drained her glass and exhorted him to follow with her hand. “One more,” she said when he hesitated. He drank.

“I’ve never met a woman who drank whiskey.”

“How sheltered your life has been.”

“In some ways.”

“In what ways has it not been sheltered?”

Field smiled. “What about you?” he asked.

“Have I been sheltered?”

He shook his head. “Which of the sins do you fall prey to?”

“All of them, probably. Most people seem to think I’m wicked.”

“Greed?”

She sighed. “For happiness, yes.”

“That doesn’t count as greed.”

“Some people think it does.”

“Penelope . . .” A man stood at her shoulder. He wore thick glasses and had wavy hair and a neatly trimmed beard, both shot through with gray.

“Stirling,” she said, her voice starting to sound slurred. “Stirling Blackman, may I introduce Dickie Field, my . . . cousin, or . . .”

“Nephew,” Field corrected.

Blackman offered his hand and they shook. “Richard,” Field said.

“Stirling.”

“You two should talk. Stirling is a reporter for the New York Times. We were talking about you, Stirling, only last night, or was it the night before? I can’t remember.”

“Not taking my name in vain, I hope.”

“Oh, Geoffrey was, but you know how hard he finds it when people won’t see the big picture. Dickie is in the Special Branch.”

Blackman tilted his head to one side. “Always interested to—”

“You should talk, but not now. I need to go home. Come on, Dickie.”

“I’m not sure . . .”

“Please. Be a gentleman.”

Field nodded at the reporter and followed Penelope. “Perhaps we could have lunch,” Blackman said.

Field wanted to tell the reporter to back off, but Penelope had already gone through the doors into the ballroom and was weaving her way through the crowd inside.

He followed her, skirting the edge of the dance floor. A drunken woman lost her balance and crashed into him. Field picked her up and took her arms from around his neck. He lifted his head and froze.

They were standing at the top of the staircase.

Lu had the same bodyguards in tow. Charlie Lewis and Hayek were part of the group that surrounded them. So was Natasha, though she managed to remain remote, staring into the middle distance.

Field took a pace toward them as she turned. Her eyes locked on his for a split second. Her face was frightened and hostile and her eyes flashed a warning. Charlie Lewis raised his head and gazed idly in Field’s direction. Field thought he was laughing at him, and had been all along.

Lu gesticulated slowly with his hand. Hayek listened intently. Lewis straightened, put his hands in his pockets, and turned to talk to Natasha, almost obscuring Field’s view of her.

Field knew he had to move. The Chinese had not acknowledged him, but Field sensed that was deliberate.

Lu edged forward, and the group moved with him. Natasha was now directly in front of Field. She wore a long silver dress, and as he watched, she raised her arm and pulled her hair back from her neck, gathering it to one side and letting it fall again. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other and then back again. Her shoes were thin and elegant, a single strap above the ankle.

Lu shook his head curtly, as if dismissing something that Hayek had said, and broke away. Natasha stayed by his side. Field watched as Lu raised his arm to allow her to place her own within it. She was so much taller than him that the effect was both ridiculous and grotesque.

Field fought back a wave of revulsion. He wiped his forehead and forced himself to walk slowly down the stairs.

Penelope waited at the bottom, fumbling in her purse for some cigarettes. She took one out and offered him the lighter. “You want one?” she asked as he lit it for her.

“No thanks.”

She was drunk now, but so was he. Drunk and disoriented and angry.

A car pulled up and she led the way out to it. As he climbed in after her, Field could not help looking up toward the Happy Times block. There was still a light on in Natasha’s apartment. Would Lu go up there later?

Penelope placed a hand on his leg. “Be a dear and open your window.”

Field sat up straighter, trying to prompt her to take away her hand, before leaning forward to do as she had asked.

She slipped off her shoes, swept her feet around and placed them on his lap. She smiled at him. “Be a love. They get so sore dancing.”

Field found himself taking two of her toes between his fingers and massaging them gently before moving down to the base of her foot. The skin was soft, her nails neatly painted. She leaned back and groaned. “Dancing in those shoes is bloody agony.”

Penelope’s head was on the armrest beneath the window, her eyes shut, as she slid her other foot against his groin. Field tried to push himself farther back into the seat.

As they pulled up outside the house in Crane Road, Penelope picked up her shoes. “Come on.”

“I’m bushed. I think I’ll—”

“Don’t be silly. Geoffrey will be very disappointed not to see you.”

Field hesitated for a second before stepping out after her. The number one boy opened the door as they climbed the steps of the veranda.

“Let me take your jacket,” she said.

“No, I’m . . .”

“Come on, Richard. You’ve been boiling all night.”

Field handed it to Penelope, who gave it to the servant. “Is the master in?” she asked, but he shook his head.

Penelope was already walking through to the sitting room, but Field hesitated again, looking first at the front door, which had been shut, and then at his jacket, which was being taken through to the cloakroom.

“Penelope.”

She didn’t answer. He followed her obediently through to the living room. He stood between a grandfather clock and an antique teak desk, beneath thick oil paintings of the English countryside, not dissimilar to those at the country club.

She had poured him a drink.

“You know, I don’t want to be a bore . . .”

“You are being a bore.”

“I have a very early start.”

“But you’re young and fit and Geoffrey will be furious with me if you are not here when he gets back.”

Field looked down at his glass. She drank, but he couldn’t face any more whiskey. Through the haze of his own inebriation, he had the feeling that she was nervous.

“Come.” She took his glass and placed it with her own on a low Chinese table before grabbing his hand and leading him toward the door to the hallway. “You’ve got to see our greatest treasure.” He resisted at first, then once again found himself following her, this time out into the hall and up the stairs. “It’s a giant gold Buddha,” she said, and as soon as he entered the room, he saw it beside the bed.

She turned to him. “What do you think?”

“It’s magnificent,” he said without enthusiasm.

“Would you hold on a minute?”

She stepped into the bathroom, slipped her dress from her shoulders, and stepped out of it as it fell to the floor.

She was wearing a white garter belt and stockings, but no underwear, the patch of dark hair at the base of her belly smaller and neater than he’d imagined, her breasts rounder and more upright than they’d seemed when she’d leaned toward him at the club.

She reached behind the door for a long silk dressing gown. She wrapped it around herself and looked up, catching his eye. He realized she had known he was watching.

“Richard . . .”

“I’m going to go now.”

“Of course.”

“Thank you for a pleasant evening.”

“Richard, you can kiss me good night.”

He didn’t move.

“I’m not that unappealing, am I?”

She walked over to him, flicking his lapel with one long finger, as Natasha had done two nights before. She leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek.

“Are you in love, Richard?”

He didn’t answer, his face burning.

“I sense a man in love, Richard. Isn’t that so?”

He stepped back. “I don’t know,” he said, turning to go.

“Richard?”

“Yes.”

“Do I disgust you?”

“Of course not.”

“Then your haste does you a disservice.”

“You are my uncle’s wife.”

“And you’re ashamed of me?”

Field sighed deeply.

“Your uncle hasn’t fucked me for years. Did you know that?”

Field turned away again and walked down the stairs.

“Good night, Richard.”