Eleonora Fernandez

"My darling you should have rung." Eleonora Fernandez embraced Barbara Bliss, wrapping them momentarily together, in the shawl she had draped over her shoulders.
"I was passing on my way to lunch club and thought I'd drop by and see if you wanted to join us."
"Come on in, Samuel, Samuel, come here. Sorry, he's excited." She shooed out the tan, long haired dachshund from around Barbara's ankles. "You haven't seen the place since I had it redecorated, have you?"
She swept Barbara along the hallway, into the first reception room where every piece of dark wood furniture was stacked with Eleonora's eclectic belongings. A gramophone, a wireless, an ornate mirror with her late husbands pipe rack before it, and everywhere photographs, of her friends and relations, in varying sizes of silver frames. It felt like walking onto the stage with every eye in the house upon you, Eleonora Fernandez loved to give a performance.
Samuel jumped onto the chaise and sat attentively, his bottom waggling, though his tail was trapped beneath him. Eleonora held his face and kissed between his ears and was rewarded with a lick around her mouth. Barbara shuddered a little, her prissy sensibilities stirred by the animal sitting on furniture, let along that long, sloppy tongue.
"He's such a beautiful boy." Eleonora reached onto the mantelshelf, and from a pot carved like a jaguar, gave the excited dog a tit bit. He scrunched it down, before turning twice clockwise, once anticlockwise and falling, with a huge audible sigh, into a dozing curl. Eleonora flopped beside the pup, and indicated for Barbara to take a seat too. "So what's the lunch club meeting about?"
"It's a fundraiserr for the church, with your connections I thought you might be able to help with some entertainment."
"My connections?"
"In the theatre,everyone knows about the parties you hold here."
"Yes I do. In fact, I had a lovely party last week to celebrate the opening of Frielers new show. Have you seen it yet? But you must, it's is simply divine, delightfully suggestive." Eleonora laughed and the dog's ears flapped. 
The central heating was turned way up, and Barbara began to feel overheated. She peeled off her long soft leather gloves, and poked them through the loops of her clutch purse.
"I heard the party was a great success."
"Oh, it was, it was. It was like being back home."
"In Argentina."
"Just so. Here everything closes at midnight, in Argentina that's when we come out to eat and dance. It goes on until the new dawn." Barbara smiled indulgently.
"How very," She searched for a word, "Latin."
"Spanish darling. Have you been to Argentina?"
"No. Of course before all this dreadful talk of war, Nathaniel and I cruised around Europe, but South America, well, no." She allowed her eye to fall on a painting, and rose to examine it. "Is this from Argentina?" Eleonora stroked the dog's silky ears.
"Yes, a native artist, naive and brilliant. It reminds me of the sun. Living here one forgets about the sun so quickly."
Barbara allowed her eye to scan the cigar cases, and icons, and then she saw it, her heart bumped twice to alert her to it, the proof. She spoke as evenly as she could manage.
"What's this?"
She held a red narrow box.
"That? Oh nothing. I think Nanny left it for me."
"Really, may I?" Barbara opened it and the fully wound key allowed a tune to spill out, a tune Barbara had heard before, when Jackson Taylor had shown this box to her husband. Eleonora rose.
"A pretty melody. Now what time is this lunch club, we shan't want to be late."
Barbara allowed the tune to slow to a halt and then rewound the key, as the piece played again she spoke softly.
"My husband likes to go out, and be entertained. He likes to visit the theatre, and sometimes he tells me that he doesn't think the play will be of interest, or that he's planning to go on to his club and see some business associate afterward." She rewound the key again and Eleonora sank back beside the dog. "Sometimes my friends ring me and say, oh I saw Nathaniel last night at the Carlton, and you'll never guess who I saw in the shadows at the back of the box with him."
Eleonora pressed an open hand on her collarbone, the other hand resumed stroking the dog's ear.
"Did he give you this, as a love token? Did he whisper, she means nothing to me, but you, you are everything. And then he passed this over, and you played it together and kissed while this music played?" Is that what happened? Let me tell you, darling, my husband is a philanderer and a cheat, but he is my husband. Mine. Do you hear me?" She rewound the box one last time, and placed it back to the mantelshelf, then marched across the room, retrieved the clutch, and stood staring angrily at Eleonora, while she pulled the long gloves up to her elbow. Then she swept out and banged the door.
Eleonora continued stroking the dog's ears, until the music had drawn itself to a finish. She reached onto the table for her long ebony cigarette holder, and lighting up, blew a mouthful of smoke towards the ceiling.
"Ah well Samuel, no lunch club for us today".
.
 

 (For Part One see 'Madigan')