Read Body and Soul for Free Online Page B

found himself alone with her when Charles had gone to the bar for more drinks. The handsome looks vanished as he hissed at her, ‘What are you? Some hanger on – a would-be writer hoping Charles’s talent will rub off on you? He doesn’t want you, haven’t you figured that out?’
    Clearly neither did Gore Vidal. He found her presence an intrusion and she remembered all these years later how she’d stood her ground with the literary man until Charles’s return and then made a dignified exit, smarting and concerned that he just might be right about her. Alone now, drinking her champagne cocktail, she came to terms with the truth. Though he had been wrong about her desire to be a writer Gore Vidal had been right on all the other counts.
    Charles was now dead and long-forgotten. His was a flash-in-the-pan success whereas hers had been bright and consistent. Asfor Gore Vidal, he was as he had always been a name to reckon with in literary circles. His was a talent that went from strength to strength. Intelligent, articulate, outspoken and oh, so clever, she could now understand why he couldn’t be bothered to be civil to her way back then. She had been unformed, searching for recognition and passionate love. What had that to do with men such as Halderman and Vidal? It had to do only with her and her own ambitions, she knew that now. How had it taken so many years for her to face her own egoism and ambition? Her passion for music had blinded her to so many other things in her life.
    In the lift going up to her room there were two other passengers, a French couple. The man was attentive to his partner but before they emerged from the lift, he looked Eden over and smiled at her. It was a sensual smile. An unmistakably come-hither look passed between them as their eyes met.

Chapter 4
    To sail from Piraeus to Hydra on board Andoni’s schooner was for Eden a joy she would never forget. To see the islands basking in the winter sun of the Aegean – white rambling houses for the most part built on barren rock, only the occasional dot and dash of green trees – was for her sheer poetry. What she saw reached into her soul and engulfed the past. On this voyage of return what she was seeing was more rich and exciting than Eden’s fondest memories of her beloved Greek Islands.
    When on her first visit to Greece she had seen Aegina lying in the middle of the Saronic Gulf, the first of the small chain of islands closest to Athens, she had been dazzled by the simplicity and romance of it, so quiet and serene in its unadorned beauty. It had been the first stop of the ferry taking her further on to Hydra. She had been exhausted from a tour and had wanted, needed, to get away from her work and her life.
    The ferry had only stopped for a few minutes and she had watched half a dozen Greeks, several men and one woman draped in black pulling along a crying child. Bundles had been tossed down on to the quay, men instantly hard at work loading them on donkeys. The boat sailed away long before the shouting of the men and the screeching of the donkeys subsided.
    Eden’s thoughts flashed forward to the second time she’d seen Aegina. She smiled to herself at the memory. By that time she’d been swept off her feet by Garfield. How in love they had been. Loving him and making him happy had become the focus of her life. Their sexual life together took them over and blinded Eden,made her deaf to all warnings, even those signs she saw herself.
    Skylark
, Andoni’s schooner, so black and sleek and glorious to look at with its burnt orange-coloured sails billowing in the wind, passed close to Aegina but did not stop. At Poros, the next island on,
Skylark
was just ahead of the ferry. Eden could see the vendors waiting for the boat to dock and the passengers to rush off to buy pistachios and rush on board again before it pulled away.
Skylark
swooped in close to the quay and the captain tossed a bag of coins to one of the vendors who tossed back plastic