Read Online Objects of Desire by Roberta Latow - Free Book Online

Robert asked in that same cold and indifferent voice he now reserved for her, ‘Anoushka, do you have everything you want?’
    She swung round to face him. ‘What a very stupid, insensitive question. What do you think? You’re a smart man, supposedly a man of genius. Answer that one yourself.’
    ‘I meant, have you chosen what you want to take from the house? I’ll have it shipped wherever you like, whenever you like.’
    ‘Oh, that. Tie up the last detail, end it clean and neat, and then nothing left except civility between us for the rest of our lives. For the sake of the children.’
    Anoushka caught the look of irritation with her on Robert’s face as he shot a glance across the stateroom to David. ‘Don’t worry, Robert, I made a deal, I’ll abide by it for the sake of my sons. Tie up the loose ends? They’re tied up, you hard, mean bastard! I’ve already taken a memento of my life with you.’
    ‘Don’t call me mean, Anoushka, you could have had more than one thing from the house. Hard, yes, I’ll confess to that – something I’ve had to be with you toget on with my life. Learn a lesson from that.’
    It was David who, sensing the ugliness behind what was happening and how it could escalate, stopped it with, ‘That’s enough. It’s all been said. There’s no point in your beating up on each other any more. It’s not worthy of either one of you. Now, just for the record, what have you taken, Anoushka?’
    She seemed to pull herself up. Walking tall, she crossed the stateroom to look in a mirror. She adjusted her hat, ran the pads of her fingers over her face as if she were wiping away the stress, all her anxieties, then turned to face them. Adjusting the magnificently luscious lynx collar of her camelhair coat she looked David directly in the eyes and told him, a degree of hauteur in her voice, ‘The Greek and Roman coin collection.’ Then she looked past David to Robert and for the first time since their estrangement challenged
him
with a look of pure vindictiveness.
    ‘You’ve never shown any interest in the collection. You’ve rarely taken the time to look at the coins and know nothing about them except that I am a passionate collector who has traded up my grandfather’s collection since I was a child. You took the one thing you knew I could not bear losing. It never entered my mind you could be so vengeful.’
    ‘Now you know how it feels.’
    Anoushka walked from the stateroom with Robert’s and David’s voices ringing in her ears.
    ‘You wanted your freedom, Robert, it seems the price is the coins. Having signed a paper declaringAnoushka could have anything she wanted from the house, you’d better abide by that document and take this like a man.’
    ‘She knows nothing about them. She has no idea what she has there.’ He was protesting but there was resignation in Robert’s voice. And pain.
    Anoushka had known very well that was the only loss that would pain Robert because for all his love of beauty and rare things, he was not a materialistic man. He could sustain the loss of anything else without too much distress. Things were things to Robert. Life was something other than things, and she had always admired him for that. But the coins had always been something else for him, representing the special passion and excitement that all collectors live for. He would suffer this loss, agonise over what she would do with them. The coin collection was a lifetime’s love and work. She had hit him a blow she knew he would never recover from, and not only because she took it, or didn’t care about it, but because she knew absolutely nothing about the coins. Robert despised ignorance. The collection had been his very private thing. He had always been as reserved and secretive about it as he had been about not loving her. Oh, yes. She had got him where it hurt and that raised her spirits considerably.
    The farewells were dreadful, and not only for Anoushka. At that moment, on deck, just