Free The Man Who Understood Women by Rosemary Friedman Page A

over,’ she shrugged. ‘London, Paris, Florida. Hooper’s in oil.’
    I only now remembered reading about her recent marriage to the Harrington heir. According to the papers they were blissfully happy. That put paid to my theory that Rosita was in some sort of emotional trouble, which she thought I might be able to sort out. She certainly looked happy enough and the personification of radiant health. All my speculations as to why she might want to see me became groundless in her actual presence and I waited, curious throughout the meal, for some logical explanation of why I was lunching with Rosita at Bellotti ’s on an ordinary Wednesday when normally I would have been at home boiling myself an egg.
    The waiter brought the lunch I had ordered and the headwaiter himself brought Rosita a small portion of saladalthough I hadn’t heard her ask for anything.
    ‘You are a darling, Emilio,’ she smiled at him and then at me. ‘I never take anything more complicated at midday.’
    I was a darling, too: ‘Helen, darling.’
    I asked her about the letter. She had written it in Miami, she said, and forgotten to post it. She had given it to Hooper to post when she’d returned. I didn’t ask what Hooper had been doing in Streatham.
    ‘What upset you in Tangier?’ I asked. I pictured the beggars with their running sores, the waifs of children, ragged, barefooted, Rosita distributing largesse.
    She wrinkled the peach-brown forehead. ‘Tangier?’ she said. ‘Oh, yes, it was the rainy season …’
    She asked me and I told her about my life in Sutton, and about my marriage and about my two children. She was listening with only half her mind and I didn’t blame her; it didn’t sound much compared with Tangier, with Paris, with Florida.
    ‘Have you kept in touch with anyone else from school?’ I asked.
    ‘No, no one.’
    ‘Were you happy there?’
    Rosita looked surprised. Happiness and its elusive quality was a subject I often pondered on and had long discussions about with Mitchell.
    ‘I suppose so,’ Rosita said.
    I should have known that for Rosita life was for living and not for questioning.
    ‘How long are you staying in London?’ I asked, thinkingperhaps that her visit was only to be brief and there was something she wanted me to do for her.
    ‘Oh, until one of us gets the urge to move, I suppose.’
    I imagined her waking up in the morning and standing on the balcony in her negligée and deciding with no ado at all to transport herself to the other side of the world. Thus it was to be Rosita.
    She was still terribly amusing. While we ate she told me stories about her life, her homes, her husbands. The people at the next table listened too. The fabric she wove was of bright colours, each stitch close to the next. There was no delicate shading of hope or of dream or of aspiration.
    Was this scudding across life’s surface perhaps happiness? Rosita certainly seemed to be content.
    With the coffee, which Rosita had in a specially large cup brought again unasked-for by Emilio, I could not resist asking why it was that after so many years Rosita had wanted to see me.
    Rosita looked puzzled. Then she said: ‘Oh yes, I told you I came across the birth announcement in my wallet.’
    I waited for her to go on. But she only said: ‘I don’t know about you but I’d like some more coffee,’ and looked round vaguely for Emilio.
    Of course I should have realised before. I prided myself on my knowledge of human nature yet I had in my imagination vested Rosita with a depth she did not possess. My presence in Bellotti’s was, of course, the result of a whim. ‘Helen, darling, I must see you.’ How else would you put it if you were Rosita?
    She signed the bill and allowed Emilio to kiss her hand. I had a sudden sharp vision of Monsieur Bonnard, long since dead, and Mr Jarvis unable to keep the devotion from their eyes. I wondered how it felt to have all men in love with you and to revolve steadily through life