product of various state institutions, Molly was a teenage runaway, pregnant by the time she was fifteen, Salome’s father an Irish sailor who’d been in Sydney for a week on shore leave and had never returned.
Molly had always claimed to have loved him. But then, Molly claimed to love all her boyfriends, even creepy Graham, who’d been twenty-three to her thirty-three, and spent more time chasing the eighteen-year-old daughter than the mother.
Salome glanced in the mirror at Molly, who was still very attractive at thirty-eight and not as rough in speech and manner as she used to be, and wished with all her heart that this time she’d found the right man, the one who would marry her.
‘How old is this old friend of yours?’ Molly asked, dropping down on the end of the single bed. ‘Not as old as Ralph, I hope?’
‘Early thirties.’ Salome stood back from the dressing-table mirror, and made a final survey of her appearance. The forest-green woollen suit, with its softly pleated skirt and fitted single-breasted jacket, suited her tall, shapely figure to perfection. And the ivory silk blouse with the tie at her neck looked suitably demure.
There would be no cleavage tonight, Salome had decided. No way did she want to spend the evening having Mike Angellini either glaring reproachfully at her breasts, or assuming from her mode of dress that he might be on to a good thing.
That was one of the reasons, too, why she had put her hair up, being aware that some men found long, loose hair sexually provocative. Maybe she was being overly careful, but she had a feeling that the evening could be spoiled if she gave Mike the wrong impression. As she’d found out to her chagrin that morning in Charles’s office, a man’s desire had little to do with admiration of a woman’s real personality. All a female had to have was a pretty face and a nice figure to interest a male on that level.
‘Is he handsome?’ Molly kept on.
‘Very.’
‘Not married, is he?’ Her mother’s voice carried suspicion.
‘No,’ Salome laughed. ‘For pity’s sake, quit the third degree, will you? You’ll make me nervous soon. Look, I can’t even get my earrings in now!’
Actually, underneath her composed façde, Salome was beginning to feel a bit nervous. Odd, really. Over the years as Ralph’s wife she had dined with princes and sheikhs, gone to the races with royalty, sailed with tycoons, and partied with movie stars. Why, then, should she be worried about a simple dinner for two?
Perhaps it wasn’t the dinner itself she was nervous about, but what Mike would think when he arrived and she told him she had decided to move into the penthouse after all. In fact, was moving in tonight! She could hardly explain the real reason without embarrassment. Nor could she, in front of Molly, reveal that it was only a temporary arrangement, till the unit was sold.
Hopefully he wouldn’t take her abrupt change of mind as meaning she was interested in him, as Molly had suggested. She had a suspicion that he wouldn’t need much encouragement to try to change their platonic date into a less platonic one.
Another disturbing thought popped into her mind. Perhaps he didn’t need any encouragement. Perhaps a man as handsome and eligible as Mike expected his dates to end the evening in bed with him. She hadn’t thought of that.
Salome had no idea what men expected on a date these days. She’d had to put up with a lot of groping as a teenager, and even then boys had expected a girl to come across pretty quickly. She’d had many a wrestle in the back of a car during her dating years, but only once had she given in—the summer she’d turned seventeen. And of course she had thought she was in love. The man in question had been older than her usual dates. At twenty-four, he’d not been prepared to take no for an answer.
But sex had not been the earth-shaking experience Salome had been expecting. Physically she’d felt nothing after the initial stab of pain. It had been a non-event. Things hadn’t improved either, on subsequent occasions, and her boyfriend had quickly dumped her, saying she was abnormal. Salome had been very upset at the time, the only consolation to her lack of pleasure in sex being that she didn’t have to fear she might turn out to be as promiscuous as her mother.
Nevertheless, when Ralph had come along and proposed his platonic marriage, Salome had initially been perturbed. Underneath, she hadn’t given up hope of finding the right man one day, with whom she would be a normal woman, finding satisfaction and enjoyment in making love. But Ralph had been persistent with his flattering attentions and declarations of love and caring, and in the end she just hadn’t been able to say no. After all, he’d covered her main objection by promising that if she ever wanted a child she could have one by artificial insemination or adoption.
And, as it turned out, Salome had never really felt that the lack of sex in her marriage had been any great sacrifice. Admittedly, she did have bouts when she was restless and couldn’t sleep, but she didn’t believe that had anything to do with physical frustration. She’d always been a bad sleeper. She wouldn’t even have associated her insomnia with such a cause if Ralph hadn’t suggested it once.
She would never forget the occasion. It had been the first night Ralph had taken her to Angellini’s. She had come home still flushed and fuming with fury at Michael’s high-handed attitude. Ralph had floored her by saying that her anger was sexual, that the Italian’s high-voltage sex appeal had stirred her blood, that she was angry simply because she wanted him. She recalled laughing at the time. The idea was ludicrous!
Perhaps not so ludicrous now, though, she thought, her mind slipping back to that moment earlier in the day when Mike had touched her...
With suddenly trembling fingers, she had difficulty securing the gold and pearl studs in her ears, her mind still elsewhere as she automatically applied perfume to the pulse-points at her wrists and throat—a musky oriental perfume that she always wore.
‘You look lovely, dear,’ her mother complimented.
Salome snapped out of her disturbing reverie to realise she had been staring in the mirror without focusing. She did so now, studying her reflection and wondering what it was about her that men found so attractive. She didn’t think she was that beautiful. Her face was triangular, her chin slightly squared off at the point, her nose straight with flared nostrils that suggested an unpredictable temper. Nothing irresistible there, she thought ruefully. Her hand came up to trace her high forehead and cheekbones, then dropped to run dismissively over her far too generous mouth.
She couldn’t see why men so liked her hair either, that wild mass of burnished curls which resisted taming no matter what any hairdresser did. Even now, piled securely on top of her head, dozens of tiny curls and tendrils were already escaping.
She scowled and saw that annoyance darkened her almond-shaped green eyes to the colour of slate. Set deep and wide, they were perhaps her best feature, though, without mascara, the long pale lashes were inclined to be insipid. She almost cringed to think how she’d used to make them up, with thick black eye-liner and buckets of mascara. At the moment, however, enhanced by smoky green eye-shadow, grey eyeliner and mascara, her eyes looked exotic and mysterious.
‘The eyes of a temptress’, Ralph used to say, then smile at her.
Those eyes clouded over and she no longer saw her reflection. A wretchedness was clutching at her heart, a bitter taste coming to her mouth. What kind of cruel game had Ralph been playing with her?
‘Mr Angellini doesn’t stand a chance.’
‘What?’
