Free Forbidden by Roberta Latow Page A

buys out the store, while Amy doesn’t even have a new handkerchief. I wish you would use Amy as your example when you’re out shopping, my love.’
    ‘It’s the same old speech every time he sees a shopping bag,’ said Amanda, standing next to the still seated Amy, not the least annoyed by her husband’s suggestion. Both women knew he didn’t give a fig what his wife spent.
    Dick leaned down to give his wife a peck on the cheek and asked the two women: ‘Good lunch? Lots of delicious girly gossip, a little true confession, the usual?’
    Amanda deliberately stepped on her husband’s toes. Rather than interpret this as a signal to be quiet, he exclaimed, ‘Christ, Amanda! What was that for?’
    Amy realised that she had not fooled Amanda into thinking she was no longer disturbed by the dream orPete Smith. The two women looked at each other, and in the gaze that passed between them Amy saw Amanda’s concern for her and appreciated that she had tried to hide it ever since the luncheon party had broken up.
    ‘Because it was a signal to shut up, Dick. And that was because you were right on the mark. Maybe not true confessions so much as murky revelations.’
    ‘Yours?’
    ‘Dick!’ Amanda was distinctly annoyed now.
    ‘Sorry about that, Amy. I’m a clod.’
    ‘Don’t be silly, Dick, there’s nothing to be sorry about. The girls only got a little to chew over. You can be sure I didn’t give much away and have declared the subject closed. Which it is.’ Then Amy gave a light flirtatious laugh to ease the awkward moment for Amanda and Dick.
    ‘Stay for dinner,’ urged Amanda.
    ‘No. Thanks, but I really do want to get home. I have calls to Switzerland to make.’
    ‘Buying, selling or consulting?’ asked Dick who was always fascinated by Amy’s work in the art world.
    ‘Consultation on a Soutine someone in Switzerland wants to sell privately. Bags of discretion. If it does come available you would do well to have a look at it. I think it’s very much one you’d be thrilled to have in your collection. I can’t say more right now.’
    With that Amy blew them a kiss and roared off down the drive. It would take her another twenty minutes to get home, and she did so want to get there.
    Once she closed her front door behind her, she leaned against it and gave an enormous sigh of relief. That dream simply would not go away! Why did it still haunt her? The past didn’t. Yet she was frightened by that dream. ‘Shit!’ she called out in the dark, silent house and switched on the lights.
    Her whole world sprang into light. A stranger who had not known her had once been brought to her house. The stranger went away and sent a note: ‘Your house is an uplifting experience. Thank you.’ She looked through the glass screen and saw it in its entirety in one glance, and it was true. It was an uplifting experience and her mood was raised above the darkness of a dream.
    Suddenly the energy that had drained out of her at the close of lunch with her girlfriends rushed back. She would no longer sustain unhappiness or anxiety. She had learned how to let it go. Once she had been a woman who never expected upheavals of any kind in her life and could be devastated by them. Now she was a woman who could expect them, could take them in her stride and deal with them, and then immediately let them go. There was a great deal to be said for the mature years of one’s life.
    Amy looked at her watch, she was running late, and went directly to the library. All the research work on the Soutine – its provenance, her analysis of the painting, letters corroborating her own analysis from a French art historian, and from Edward Silberzog as one of the curators at the Museum of Modern Art in New York – was laid out on her library table.
    Amy examined the documents one more time. She looked yet again at the excellent coloured photograph of the painting, a prime example of Chaim Soutine’s work. She placed the photograph on the library