(6) A PLANET FOR THE MISREMEMBERED

3.

"Mrs Nichols, a telegram from your husband," said the concierge.

My EX husband, she said to herself. It was not a prophetic thought, just an acknowledgement that life was over. Or soon would be. Anyway, she had pushed all that aside. The concierge helped her do this as he stood there in his white coat with the red carnation in his lapel, one of those Greeks who speak with a contrived British accent. His thick black eyebrows and gun-metal eyes above the black mustache lifting in a smile was too quaint, too affected. But holding the envelope out to her was what did it, what reminded her that not all husbands are takers. The concierge lived to be of service. He could have taught her husband a thing or two.

"Thank you," Nora Nichols said to him, warm of mouth but cold of eye; tall, svelte, fashionably dressed, the American tourist standard of excellence. She took the envelope and walked out to the patio dining area. She breathed deeply of the inshore breeze. It crept in off the small boat dock that fronted the inn and the whitewashed shops.

She was right on time. There were a number of things she was good at in her profession, and being on time was one of them. The motor yacht had docked just a few minutes ago and the man she was there to meet was stepping off the boat onto the gangway with another man beside him, the yacht owner, presumably. The man of interest to her looked very much like a middle-aged Errol Flynn. He was dressed in a herringbone suit of a light beige, a color that set off his suntan and deepened the blue of his eyes. His dark hair had a touch of grey. His smile was charming. He exuded a casual confidence. He caught sight of Mrs Nichols, winked at her, and turned to the yachtsman. They shook hands. A third man appeared in the open cockpit of the yacht. He said something and all three men laughed.

Mrs Nichols thought she ought to read the telegram. She had not given Mr Nichols her new phone number and email address. He hadn't any choice but to send a telegram. It had amused her to think of the inconvenience she had caused him. But now it was tiresome. She ripped open the envelope and unfolded the yellow slip of paper.

'Will be in Athens at the Hilton Thursday morning.'

Well, good, she thought. She wouldn't have to fly to Rome to settle accounts with him. The day after tomorrow she would drive her rented Bentley to Athens and see Mr Nichols for the very last time. She was approaching the last minute of her life as Mrs Nichols. Soon she would revert back to being Nora Brandywine. A reversion back to the old life. Her real estate business would be all hers. Her three young teenage sons would live with their father. He was so indulgent with them. She would be free. But looking at the man she came to meet made the word 'free' something less than desirable. If 'free' meant 'lonely,' then of course...

She watched him take a billfold from his inside coat pocket. He selected a card and gave it to the yachtsman.

A waiter appeared beside Mrs Nichols, his hands together in the typical obsequious fashion of the Greek servant. She said to him, "Please bring me a sparkling water. I-- we-- will be ordering in a few minutes."

The waiter, who wore a black vest over his white dress shirt and looked more like a casino croupier than a waiter, bowed, smiling broadly, and turned on his heels smartly, hurrying away. Mrs Nichols sat at a table in the shade of potted ferns. Odd, but the table cloth was the same beach-sand beige as Mr Renault Chevrolet's suit.

She ran his name through her mind several times. It was music to her. She remembered when she first saw him. It was at a party in Donald Trump's penthouse suite in Manhattan. She occupied a chintz armchair for most of the time she was there, because she hated mingling. She was not the spontaneous type. She preferred living life as a carefully written script. 'All the world's a stage.' Yes. We are all actors the moment we step out of our safe domiciles, she thought while the mingling of rich business people went on around her.

She had raven black hair and eyes so dark that everyone thought they were as black as her hair. She wore dark dresses. She had a natural gothic look that tended to make women shy away from her but that drew men in a pleasantly agitated, hungry sort of way. She was 'fascinating,' more so than she was beautiful. The pageboy hairstyle, the dark smoldering eyeliner and smoky eye shadow, the blood red lips, the elegant neck and strong slender shoulders which she always kept bared; this was a magnet for men who sought  adventure in women. Excitement. Danger.

But she considered her attractiveness an illusion. She defined herself as the girl next door who happened to get caught up in the business of selling property. She was very good at it, but no one can be successful at anything without the requisite luck. It was Mr Nichols who provided the luck. He had the Midas touch. He married her, took her struggling business and made it a going concern. And now look, here she was, invited to a Trump party at age 34. This meant for Mr Nichols that he had done what he had set out to do with her-- not for her-- and it was time to look elsewhere. He was a collector of companies, having holdings in several the world over. It was only because his wife had become baggage that he suggested a divorce, offering to give her back most of what he owned of Paradise South real estate. Stunned, she had agreed to it like one's leg agrees to kick when the doctor taps one's knee with a little silver hammer.

"Get yourself a good financial advisor," her friend, Jonquil, had said when she heard the news of the impending divorce. Jonquil was there at the party. She sat next to Mrs Nichols like an extroverted wallflower. She was the one who pointed out the man who Nora Nichols had been glancing at from the moment of arrival.

"He works for an investment firm in London," said Jonquil, unconsciously flipping her bottle blond hair with a hand laden with rings and clattering bracelets. "His father was a Frenchman who was killed in Algeria. His mother was an American whose family immigrated to England. She became a British subject. He-- her only child-- attended Eton, but he's talented enough to have skipped college. He went straight away into the investment firm's mail room. Getting his foot in the door was all the luck he needed. I hear that he's likely to become a partner in the firm, anytime now."

"Interesting. And his name? I heard someone call him Rennie."

"Oh, John says never call him Rennie to his face. It's Renault..."

Mrs Nichols sipped her sparkling water the waiter had brought her. He set three menus on the table. "Just two," she said quickly. He picked up one and glanced at the yachtsman. "Just... Mr Chevrolet and I," she told him. He bowed, smiling in that sly, oily way that always irritated her when she encountered it in Greek establishments. She felt she was being mocked; felt that the waiters believed she was putting on airs.

Jonquil had shone signs of agitation too, but in an excitable way, when Renault came leisurely across the expansive room talking to the Mayor. Mrs Nichols recalled being surprised when she heard Renault say, "It's Benji and Alfred behind it all, and one doesn't want to get on their bad side."

Jonquil made a move as if to grab his arm and pull him over to them. Mrs Nichols held her gin and tonic to her lips to hide a smile. She knew that her friend would never do anything so bold as that. But Jonquil did half rise from her love seat when Renault turned toward her. Her hand came off her lap and inched through the air in his direction. In the next moment she settled back. Her hand dropped in her lap. Her cheeks were flushed. Renault accompanied the Mayor into the drawing room, and that was that. The big attraction of the evening was gone. But Jonquil promised to have her husband, John, ask Renault if he would "advise you on investments, if--?"

"Certainly," Mrs Nichols had said promptly. It was one of the oft-spoken words in her script.

The yachtsman stood in the noon sun with his cap pulled low over his sunglasses, watching Renault walking toward the patio dining area, toward a very well dressed woman. She was sitting nervously at a shaded table, fussing with a pack of cigarettes while flicking shy glances at the approaching man.

The yachtsman knew only that Renault had a prospective client to meet. The man had said nothing more about it. They had spent the quiet times on the yacht discussing corruption in the business circles Renault frequented. The complications of the criminal activities at the highest level, and the risks that had to be avoided because of them, had made the man angry, but not to the point where he lost his composure. He seemed to take it good naturedly. It was only the glint in his eyes that betrayed his true feelings.

Mrs Nichols made a point of lighting her cigarette before Mr Chevrolet reached her table. He gave her a peculiar smile as he nodded to her and held out his hand to shake her delicate one. She didn't know what to make of that smile. It was like the cover of a mystery book, revealing just enough about the contents to incite an interest. But it was more than that.

She feared that he was here as a favor to his acquaintance, John, when he would much rather be somewhere else. She saw it as a patient smile, one of resignation. But again, it went deeper. As he sat down across from her and they exchanged pleasantries, the smile suggested nuances of feeling. She began to think that he was here not just as a favor to Jonquil's husband, and not just to add to his list of clients. He was curious about her. There was something... Of course she knew how most men reacted to her. Her gothic look hinted at a mischievous nature, a dark side kept on a short leash, but one that on occasion would be let loose.

What did he know about her? She wondered as he talked of investment capital, interest rates, ordered a rum and cola, detailed for her some hypotheticals, pointed out to the waiter the entree he had randomly chosen. She imagined John passing on to him the opinions of Jonquil, the anecdotes that Nora had told of herself and her company, Paradise South. The drinks and the appetizers came. Under their influence Mrs Nichols relaxed and accepted Mr Chevrolet at face value. She believed now that he was attracted to her. When the entrees were set before them, a real talk began.