‘I’ve persuaded Campbell to let me come and cover it,’ said Josh. ‘It’s quite a story. Support visit from a minister. And what a minister, for God’s sake.’
Tom had that morning been telephoned in his office by a very VIP cabinet minister to say he would be coming to Purbridge that week. ‘To join you on the stumps for the day,’ he said. ‘Might help a bit, you never know. Seeing as it’s too close to call. Attlee’s idea. OK with you?’
‘Yes,’ said Tom. ‘I mean, yes, of course. It would be terrific, thank you very much indeed.’
‘Right, right. Well, we’ll meet you at the local HQ? That is, couple of my staff and me. Shall we say eight a.m.? I’m relying on you to get a good programme together and the earlier we start the more we can cram in. Till Friday, then.’
‘Friday,’ said Tom to himself in awed tones, and the minute the line cleared, he rang Josh. Clearly impressed, he told him he’d ring back, and did within thirty minutes, with the news that he would be there as well. ‘Quite a coup, Tom. The powers that be obviously consider you a very important marginal.’
‘Yes, well, we are. It’s terribly close, according to the polls. Only thing is, what on earth do we – I – say to someone like that? I’ll be totally out of my depth.’
‘Oh, rubbish. You won’t have to say anything to him anyway, he’ll be far too busy even to speak to you. They’re all the same, Tom, they make these grand gestures of supporting you, when all they want to do is support themselves, play to the gallery, get people hanging on their every word. It’s just an ego trip, really. He’ll arrive in a cloud of glory, shake your hand and then he’ll be off, telling everyone how marvellous he is. Not in so many words, of course, but – anyway, I presume your agent will have some programme worked out for him?’
‘Yes, of course,’ said Tom. ‘We’ve got two car-manufacturing plants, the high street and the working men’s club.’
‘Sounds good. And it’ll boost your column inches by loads. You’ll see.’
‘Hope so. Apparently, some constituency or other, also too close to call, is literally measuring the columns, by the inch, to see who’s winning the publicity battle each day.’
‘Well, this’ll put you up into the yards, I reckon. Anyway, it’s marvellous,’ said Josh. ‘You should get Alice to come. She’s such good copy.’
‘I’m trying. It’ll mean her bringing Charlie, that’s the only thing. Her mother can take the other two, but he’s such a nightmare. Screams all the time.’
‘Won’t matter,’ said Josh. ‘He’s a baby. The minister might even kiss him.’
‘He’d be a brave man,’ said Tom, laughing.
‘They’ll do anything for a photo. Even at that level. No, tell Alice to come, tell her I’ll be there, I’ll look after her.’
Tom looked at the phone slightly doubtfully as he put it down. Josh knew about Diana and he was very fond of Alice. He didn’t think Josh would deliberately tell her, but he could easily give something away, with a thoughtless word, a careless joke even. Christ, he was in a mess. A filthy, foul mess. And it was all his own fault.
He telephoned Alice and asked her if she’d come to Purbridge in two days’ time. ‘We have a minister coming. It would be wonderful if you could. You can bring Charlie.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes. It’s desperately important this, Alice. Everyone says you should be there.’
‘Everyone meaning Donald, I suppose.’
‘No. Everyone. Including Josh.’
‘Josh!’
‘Yes. He said it was terribly important you came. He’s covering it, said to tell you he’d look after you.’
‘I don’t need looking after,’ said Alice irritably.
‘I know. But Charlie might.’
‘Josh has offered to look after Charlie?’
‘Yes – if he has to.’
Diana was late arriving at the Berkeley. It was not entirely intentional; indeed, she was renowned in her social circle for arriving slightly too early for her hostess’s comfort. But she had spent too long packing, partly because she kept stopping to rehearse what she was going to say to Leo Bennett, and then had trouble getting a taxi. So that by the time she arrived at the restaurant, it was one fifteen rather than the agreed one o’clock and her hair was uncombed, her nose unpowdered. The maître d’ bowed and said the gentleman had only just arrived himself, which was at once soothing and irritating since clearly he would have been late if she had not. The combination of those emotions, combined with the further complications of still not being quite sure what she was going to say, made her mildly cross, and when she was cross her dark eyes became even more brilliant, her lovely mouth a little fuller. Leo Bennett, therefore, found himself almost shocked by her beauty. And she, for her part, taking the hand held out to her, was aware of only one thing: not (as she absorbed later) his dark blonde hair, nor his almost navy blue eyes, nor his height (considerable), nor his suit (grey, perfectly cut), but only that her knees, which had, until that moment, been their normal strong selves, had become strangely weak.
‘Miss Southcott,’ he said, bowing very slightly over her hand, then waiting while she removed her coat and gloves, retaining her hat, and settled herself onto her chair before smiling at him graciously across the table.
‘I’m so sorry I’m late,’ she said. ‘I’m flying out to New York this afternoon, as I think I told you, and my packing got the better of me.’
‘How very smart,’ he said. ‘To be flying to New York. Do you know it well?’
‘Not at all,’ she said. ‘In fact, it’s my first visit. So I’m very excited.’
‘I expect you are. Where are you staying?’
‘The Pierre.’
‘Ah, New York’s finest. You will suit one another,’ he added, his extraordinary eyes smiling very deeply into hers. ‘Now, would you like a glass of champagne while we order, or are you a cocktail girl?’
‘Both, please,’ she said. ‘That is, a Buck’s Fizz, if I may.’
‘Of course. Now, just so you know, they are called Mimosas in New York.’
‘Oh – thank you. Useful information, as I intend to be drinking quite a lot of them. But I think I should warn you, you might not want me to order anything, because I’ve decided I don’t have a story for you after all. I did consider just cancelling on the telephone, but I decided that would be cowardly and ill-mannered and I do try very hard to be neither.’
Leo Bennett turned to the waiter, who had been listening to this with some interest, and said, ‘One Buck’s Fizz, please, and one vodka Martini,’ then turned back to her and said, ‘I’m sure you are never either cowardly or ill-mannered and I am also sure that we shall enjoy our lunch very much whether you give me a story, or recite nursery rhymes –’
‘Not sure about nursery rhymes,’ she said, ‘but I am rather good at Winnie-the-Pooh –’
‘I too. Maybe we could do a duet; you can be Kanga and I will be the bear of very little brain –’
‘Very well. Although I like Tigger –’
‘But he’s a boy –’
‘He is indeed. I like playing boys. Being tall, I always had to be the boy when we did ballroom dancing at school, and whenever I took part in the pantomime in the village hall, I was principal boy.’
She smiled at him; now that she was sitting down, her legs seemed restored to their normal strength. He was extraordinarily good-looking though, and charming, and fun; bit of a treat for lunch.
While he, for his part, though fairly annoyed, was in no way inclined to tell her so. There was always another story and there was always an alternative route to it, having been given the faintest trail. Had she been plain, or dull, or badly dressed, he would have felt more than fairly annoyed, but it was a long time since he had met someone who was not only beautiful, but charming and intelligent, and she seemed, therefore, to be of more value than her story. Which might, in any case, be of no value at all he reflected (although given her intelligence and obvious sophistication, that seemed unlikely).
‘Well – that’s very nice of you. But you must let me pay for my own lunch; I’m clearly not earning it.’
‘Miss Southcott –’
‘Diana, please.’
‘Diana. I am gentleman enough to find the very thought of a lady buying her own lunch – while sitting at my table, that is – extremely disquieting.’
‘Well, that’s very nice of you. Thank you.’
‘I’m sure it will be my pleasure. Now, what would you like to eat?’
Diana really had had no clear idea as she rushed into the restaurant late what she was going to do about her Tom story, but as she followed the maître d’ to the table, she had discovered she knew with absolute clarity. It had nothing to do with her fondness for Tom (considerable), or her concern for his career (negligible), or her sympathy for Alice (debatable); it was all about Ned.
Diana was used to people admiring her looks, her sense of style, her breezy courage, her willingness to work until she was beyond exhaustion, but she was quite unused to them admiring her character. Most people indeed did not admire it at all, she knew; and especially in Yorkshire, where they felt quite the reverse, her self-esteem had plummeted to painfully low levels. But having Ned, good, kind, morally upright Ned, who she genuinely loved and admired so much, tell her he knew she would never do anything bad, never try to hurt anyone, had had a profound effect on her; she had lain awake for a long time, smiling into the darkness, savouring that moment, that pronouncement, and hoping, rather hopelessly, that it was true.
The morning had found her less principled. Tom’s behaviour still hurt, his sending Donald Herbert – or so it had seemed – to intervene for him still stung, and his public claims to be a family man enraged her. She had been influenced by Wendelien’s attitude, her concerns for Jamie, and to a lesser extent her own reputation; but revenge would be sweet and within her grasp, and it was a vision hard to relinquish.
Just the same, she had decided against seizing it, in the moments as she crossed the restaurant. People always recognised her in such situations, smiled at her, pointed her out to their friends; admired her for her looks, her style, her fame. If she did give Leo Bennett Tom’s story, she would be recognised still more; but for less charming reasons. Wendelien was quite right; she would be the adulteress, the woman willing to break up a family and a young wife’s heart; and, indeed the destroyer of her lover’s brilliantly promising career. And she would, in many ways, be seen as the greater sinner; people always took the man’s side, found excuses for him, cast stones at the adulteress.
She didn’t want that, she wanted to continue to be admired, smiled upon, regarded as Ned regarded her; all these things and more, she realised, in those moments on her way to the table. And then her knees went weak: and everything in the world was changed.
‘So,’ said Leo Bennett, ‘what shall we talk about? As you have no story for me.’
‘I – can’t imagine,’ she said, smiling first down into her drink, and then rather boldly directly at him.
‘How about you? As in you and your life?’
‘Not terribly interesting.’
‘I’m sure it is.’
‘Not really. How about yours?’
‘Fairly interesting, although I say it myself. But I can’t spend the next hour and a half talking about myself; how about we swap fact for fact?’
‘All right,’ she said. ‘But I insist you go first.’
‘No, ladies first. I’ll start you off. Are you married?’
‘Not any more. I’m divorced.’
‘Oh, the usual sort of thing,’ she said, unwilling to reveal the huge and genuine hurt she had sustained over Johnathan’s divorcing her.
‘Ah. But I am sure your husband was gentlemanly about it and did the right thing, lady in the Brighton hotel and so on …’
‘Of – of course,’ she said. ‘Now that’s enough of that; are you married?’
‘Like you, not any longer, but three times, I’m afraid. Children?’
‘Yes. One son. Aged eight. Love him to pieces. You?’
‘No, to my great regret. I have lots of godchildren, though. And I take my godfatherly duties very seriously, believe it or not. I like children.’
‘Why?’
‘I like their honesty, the way they either like you or they don’t; I like the way the plainest child is attractive, given your attention; I like their clear view of things, the original things they say.’
‘You really do like them, don’t you?’ she said, rather charmed by this. ‘Most people give such stupid, false reasons.’
‘I know. I agree. Your turn. Tell me, what do you like doing? When you’re not working?’
‘Oh – goodness. I don’t have any interesting intellectual hobbies, don’t even like the theatre that much. I like horses and I love riding –’
‘Do you have a horse? Do you hunt?’
‘Yes, to both. My horse, a sweet mare, is a hunter, bit long in the tooth now to take out, doesn’t like big gates and things –’
‘Do you?’
‘Not any more, to be truthful.’
‘Then she sounds ideal. I like horses too, though I don’t hunt.’
‘So what else do you like doing?’
‘I’m not sure it’s not your turn. But I like good food and wine, pretty ladies – oh, and I love my work.’
‘So do I,’ she said with a fervour which surprised him. ‘Absolutely love it. Don’t know what I’d do without it.’
‘Nor I mine …’
And so it went on. Until suddenly, Leo Bennett looked at his watch – gold, Patek Philippe, and said, ‘You know, I could sit here happily for the rest of the day, but if you are going to make your plane, I think you should leave in the next five minutes –’
‘Oh, God,’ she said, looking at her own watch, telling her inexorably that it was quarter to three. ‘You’re right, I must go –’ She stood up, held out her hand and then dropped it again, bent and kissed him on the cheek and said, ‘Thank you so, so much for the most wonderful lunch and for being so nice about it all, and I do hope you find something else to put in your column tomorrow,’ and ran out of the restaurant.
Sitting in the taxi, she felt mildly remorseful; she had wasted hours of his time, pushed up his expenses by at least five, possibly six pounds – lunches at the Berkeley didn’t come cheap, especially when champagne and a bottle of white burgundy were on the bill – and his only words had been to thank her for her company and tell her to enjoy New York.
In between fretting at the traffic on the Cromwell Road, she thought about him. He was not just absurdly good-looking and beautifully dressed, but also sexy and funny and fun. She felt slightly silly, he had affected her so much. Of course, it was extremely unlikely she would ever hear from him again. Which was a pity …
‘Here we are, madam –’ the taxi had swung into the entrance to the air terminal – ‘told you we’d make it easy. Let’s just get that case of yours out and find a porter –’
‘Diana, where the fuck have you been?’ It was Freddie, looking wild eyed. ‘We’ve only got five minutes to check in and find our bus. Come on, for God’s sake – I’ll get the cab, you go in, I’ve done everything, we won’t be able to sit together probably now, I tried to get them to hold a seat, but they refused. It really is too bad of you –’
Diana made her way into the terminal; she always forgot how easily Freddie panicked and, as a result of it, lost his temper – it was his most disagreeable characteristic. Now if only Leo Bennett was going to New York, that really would be fun.
Leo Bennett walked into his office, whistling under his breath. His secretary, Janey, looked at him expectantly.
‘Very good.’
‘Good story?’
‘No story.’
‘Oh.’
Janey waited for further instructions; usually an unproductive lunch was followed by an irritable instruction to her to trawl through the cuttings library at the very least. It didn’t come.
Instead, a thoughtful pause, then, ‘Could you dig out all the stuff on the countess and the ballet dancer, darling? Quick as you can.’
‘Sure, but I thought you said it wasn’t worth a row of beans.’
‘Well, I’ll just have to find a magic one amongst them. Like Jack’s, you know?’
‘Er – yes.’ She stared at him; he was in a funny mood. Very funny.