Chapter Twelve

Bristol and London, 1982

ON THE DAY they were to meet, both Phaedria Blenheim and Julian Morell woke up feeling exceptionally irritable.

Phaedria switched off her alarm, sank back deep under her duvet, and explored the events of the day ahead for possible reasons. There was only one and it came to her very quickly. It had been her day off, and she had lost it; a day out hunting with the Avon Vale had been replaced with an as-yet-unconfirmed interview with some boring old fart of an industrialist.

‘Why me?’ she had said furiously to her editor the night before, shaking her head at the can of beer he was offering her. ‘You know it’s my day off, I’m going hunting. Jane’ll be here, and she can do it every bit as well as me, probably better because she’ll care. I won’t. Please, Barry, please don’t make me do it.’

‘I’m sorry, Phaedria, but Jane can’t do it every bit as well as you. I need you there tomorrow. It’s important. And you might like to remember I pay you to care,’ he added a trifle heavily.

‘But why? What’s so special? Some boring plastics company. What’s in that for the Women’s Page?’

‘Its chairman.’

‘Its chairman? Oh Barry, come off it. Since when did the chairman of a plastics company have anything interesting to say to women?’

‘Not just plastics, Phaedria. Pharmaceuticals. And cosmetics. And department stores and hotels. Don’t you ever read press releases?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Well, you should. Read this one and stop looking so bloody constipated and have a drink. Sit down. Go on.’

Phaedria glared at him, slung her coat down on his spare chair, took the can of beer from him and leant against the wall, skimming over the release:

Morell Pharmaceuticals to open Bristol Plant. For Immediate Release.

The multi-million worldwide Morell Pharmaceutical Chain opens its new plant, the most technologically advanced in Europe, in Bristol in two weeks’ time. The plant which is situated on the Fishponds Estate incorporates a factory, and a marketing and sales division, a research laboratory and a Conference Centre. It has been designed to entirely new specifications incorporating the very latest technology.

The Chairman of Morell Pharmaceuticals, Sir Julian Morell, knighted for his services to industry in 1981, will be coming in person to officially open the plant and will give a conference to selected members of the press at the same time. An invitation is attached.

There was much more about Sir Julian’s other business interests, his pharmaceutical work and its vast benefits to mankind in general, and those in the Third World in particular, the drugs he had launched (most notably one of the first low-dosage oral contraceptives ten years earlier) and his various extraordinarily well-deserved awards for services to industry. Phaedria read the release stony-faced and looked at Barry.

‘Still can’t see it. It sounds totally boring. I’m going hunting.’

‘Phaedria, you are not going hunting. You’re going to get an interview with Julian Morell.’

‘Barry, for Christ’s sake, it’s a press conference. Every half-assed reporter for miles around will be there asking him the same half-assed questions.’

‘I know that, darling. You’re going to get an exclusive.’

‘And what will be so big about that?’

‘Phaedria, you ought to read the papers a bit more as well as the press releases. Julian Morell is a great character. And a great womanizer,’ he added, ‘and he hasn’t given an interview for ten years. He’s developed a phobia about the press.’

For the first time Phaedria’s expression sharpened. She slithered down against the wall and sat on the floor, taking another can of beer from Barry.

‘OK. Tell me about him.’

‘More or less self-made. Impoverished second son of the upper classes. Well upper middle. Started with a tiny range of medicines, just after the war. Went into cosmetics. Then plastics, pharmaceuticals, paper. Department stores. That’s probably the big one. Never heard of Circe?’

‘Never.’

‘Well, there isn’t one in London – yet. But there’s one in Paris and Milan and New York. And Beverly Hills, I expect. Very very expensive. Makes Harrods look like Marks and Spencer, that sort of thing. Oh, and there’s a chain of hotels.’

‘Called?’

‘Called just Morell. Like – well, like – just Hilton. Anyway, he’s made a billion or two.’

‘And what about the women?’

‘Well, he’s only been married once. Can’t remember who to. But there’s been a lot of mistresses, all beautiful, and a lot of scandal. He’s always in the gossip columns.’

‘Barry, I didn’t think you read the gossip columns,’ said Phaedria, laughing.

‘A good journalist reads everything in the other papers,’ said Barry slightly pompously. ‘You have to. You need to know what’s going on. I’m always telling you that, Phaedria.’

‘I know,’ said Phaedria, ‘I know I’m bad. I just can’t be bothered half the time. I’m not really a journalist at all, I’m afraid. Not like you,’ she added, getting up and patting his hand fondly. ‘All right, you’ve intrigued me. I’ll go. I shall continue to complain, but I’ll go. Now, have you fixed the interview?’

‘No. They turned it down. That’s precisely why I want you to go. I reckon you’ll get one.’

‘Why?’

‘You know damned well why. Don’t play games with me. Now go home and get some beauty sleep. You’re going to need it.’

‘Thanks,’ said Phaedria. ‘All right, I’ll try. But I want another day off instead. And you can send Jane to the Mayor’s Banquet, OK?’

‘OK.’

‘Don’t forget.’

‘All right, Phaedria,’ said Barry wearily, ‘I won’t forget.’

‘You probably will. But I’m not going to do it anyway. Night, Barry.’

‘Good night, Phaedria. See you tomorrow.’

‘Perhaps. I might elope with Sir Julian and never come back.’

‘OK, that’s fine by me, you can elope with him if you like, but get the copy in first. Bye, darling.’

‘Bye, Barry.’

Barry looked after her thoughtfully as she walked out through the newsroom. She had been with him two and a half years now on the Bristol Echo, and she drove him to distraction. She was everything he disapproved of in a woman and a reporter and yet he lived in dread of her leaving. She was a talented writer and a clever interviewer; she could persuade new thoughts and pronouncements out of anybody. The most over-done, rent-a-quote actor, the most cliché-ridden, party-lined politician suddenly, under the scrutiny and influence of Phaedria Blenheim, found an original line, an unpredictable view, which they read themselves with surprise and pleasure – and refreshed and invigorated their own tired battery of quotes with it for months to come.

She was also extremely beautiful, which was clearly another asset; she could persuade any man to talk to her and pour his heart out, and she had little compunction about publishing all kinds of intimate little confidences and details which had been made to her ‘strictly off the record this, darling,’ taking the view that any public figure who was fool enough to trust a journalist deserved absolutely anything he got.

On the other hand she was quite right when she said she wasn’t really a journalist. Her knowledge of the world was extremely scanty; she scarcely knew who the Home Secretary was, and certainly not who ran Russia or China, or even Ireland, and more unusually in a woman, who Prince Andrew’s latest girlfriend was, or whether Elizabeth Taylor was marrying for the fifth or sixth time. She was actually far more interested in horses and hunting than seeing her name in ever-bigger bylines; her job financed her horse and her riding (just); Barry knew, and was alternately irritated and amused by the knowledge that she also capitalized on his rather indulgent attitude towards her to get days off when she wanted to hunt or attend a race meeting.

But she filled her pages (he had made her woman’s editor a year ago) with original and charming ideas, and always delivered the goods every week (even if they were dangerously close to deadline) and he knew it would be a hundred years before anyone as talented came the way of his paper again. And Barry Morgan would do anything, go through fire and water, endure death by a million cuts, if it was to benefit his beloved Echo. The paper gave him back a hundredfold all the work and heartache and care he put into it, and every week, as the first one came off the presses, he would take it and unfold it and look at it with a sense of pride and wonder and something else that was strongly akin to love.

Phaedria had been a complete novice, not a journalist at all, when she came to work for him as a temporary copy typist. He had been very taken with her straight away (apart from her ridiculous name, but she couldn’t help that after all); he found her attractive, she had a lot of dark hair and large brown eyes, and a rather stylishly severe way of dressing, and she worked hard and late if necessary; but the day she really won his heart was when she came into his office one evening with a piece of copy in her hand and a determined look on her face.

‘Mr Morgan, I was just wondering if you’d let me have a go at re-writing this.’

‘And what makes you think it needs re-writing?’

‘It’s awful,’ said Phaedria simply.

‘And why should you be able to make it less awful?’

‘I’m good at writing.’

‘Oh, yes?’

‘Yes.’

He met her eyes with a grudging respect and took the piece of paper from her hand. It was an account of a production of The Mikado and she was right. It was awful. He grinned at her.

‘All right, Miss Blenheim. Have a go at it.’

She came back half an hour later with the copy re-written.

‘It’s a bit better now, I think. Here you are.’

It was actually a lot better. It brought the entire evening – the production, the music, the audience, absolutely to life. Barry looked at her thoughtfully.

‘Have you got a job lined up after you leave here?’

‘No.’

‘What are you thinking of doing?’

‘I don’t know. My degree’s in English. There’s a lot of us about.’

‘Where did you get it?’

‘The degree? Somerville.’

‘Ah.’

He had a deep mistrust of graduates, and of Oxbridge ones deeper than most. They weren’t merely self-confident, they were arrogant. They generally expected to come in and start writing an arts column immediately, and to take a deputy editorship as an encore three months later. But Phaedria didn’t seem too much like that. She was very self-confident, but it was the confidence of her background (upper to middle, he’d put it at) rather than the intellectual variety.

‘Where did you go to school?’

‘In London.’

‘St Paul’s, I suppose.’

‘Well, yes.’

He liked the way she played it down.

‘Why did you come here then?’

‘Oh, I like newspapers and magazines. I was a reporter for the university paper. I edited my school magazine. But I’m not sure if it’s what I want to do for the rest of my life.’

‘What else are you interested in?’

‘Fashion. I wondered about buying.’

‘While you’re wondering, how would you like to try a stint here?’

‘What as? A typist?’

‘Well, typist, cum dogsbody, cum very occasional junior reporter.’

‘I certainly would. I’d love it. Thank you very much, Mr Morgan.’

‘You won’t earn much.’

‘I don’t care.’

‘Good.’

She had very quickly stopped being a typist and a dogsbody, forgot about fashion buying and became a full-time reporter. She worked very hard, she didn’t mind what she did, and she was nice to have around. She was a touch abrasive, and she knew her value, but it did not make her arrogant, she mixed in with the others, she learnt to drink and swear and swop filthy jokes, she became in short one of the blokes. And she was extremely happy.

Barry grew very fond of her; often, when everyone else had gone home, they would go to the pub and talk. She was a good listener; almost without realizing it he had told her everything about his marriage, his career, his love for the Echo, and his one great terror in life, which was retirement.

It was a long time before he found out much about her. It came out gradually in bits and pieces, tiny pieces of confidences spilled over just one too many beers, or in the intimacy born of working closely together long and late. She was an only child and she had looked after her father ever since she was ten years old, when her mother had run away to South America with his best friend and had never properly communicated with either her husband or her child again.

Augustus Blenheim was an academic, and earned his living lecturing in literature and writing biographies of virtually unknown writers; it was him that Phaedria had to thank for her name. ‘No it isn’t Phaedra,’ she would say patiently, a hundred, a thousand times over the years, ‘it’s Phaedria. Different lady.’

And then she would explain (or perhaps not explain, according to her audience) that Phaedria was one of the characters in Spenser’s Faerie Queen, and the personification of Wantonness; why any father, most people would wonder, while keeping their wonderings to themselves, should inflict upon his daughter so strong an association with such a quality was a considerable mystery. But Phaedria did not seem to have held it against him; it was a pretty name, and she liked it, and besides she loved him so much she would have forgiven him far more, and much worse.

They had lived together, father and daughter, in the same small house in Chelsea all their lives; and Phaedria had come home from school every day with a mountain of homework and had shopped and cooked for him before settling down to it. At the weekends they did the housework together, went to the cinema, visited friends (mostly academic or literary colleagues of Augustus’s), experimented with recipes, played chess and talked interminably. They were all the world to one another; it was a perfect marriage. Phaedria had few friends of her own age, and she was perfectly happy with her father’s. Occasionally one of the less reticent women in their circle would tax Augustus with Phaedria’s rather unconventional social life, or suggest to her that she went to more parties and perhaps even on holiday with her contemporaries, but they would both politely say that things were perfectly satisfactory as they were, and ignore any attempts to change anything. Nobody ever managed, or even tried, to come between them.

The effect on Phaedria of all this was complex. It made her fairly incapable of relating to any male very much under the age of her father; it matured her in some ways emotionally and retarded her in others. It made her self-reliant; it meant she was not daunted by any person, however brilliant or famous, or any situation, however difficult or challenging; it also ensured that she remained a virgin.

Even at Oxford, when she finally began to make friends with men who were her contemporaries, she found herself completely incapable of entering into a sexual relationship with any of them. Having missed out to a large degree on any kind of emotional education, having had no mother, sisters or even friends to talk to about sex or love, or how she might feel about anything very much, she grew up self-contained, and innocent. She learnt the facts about sex from school and books; she had to handle her first period, her early sensations of desire, and the transformation of her own body from child to woman, entirely alone.

She entered her third year at Oxford intacta, with a reputation for being fun, funny, clever and beautiful and absolutely not worth even trying to get into bed. Men initially saw her as a challenge, but confronted by her patent lack of interest in the matter, gave up. Nevertheless, she was popular; she had a capacity to listen and a lack of self-interest that made both sexes pleased to have her friendship. But she remained, unknown even to herself, very lonely.

And then she had met Charles Fraser-Smith, the darling of the gossip columns, blond, tall, heavily built, a superb rugger and polo player and a brilliant classics scholar; what nobody at Oxford ever knew was that he was homosexual.

From the beginning the slight aura of apartness they both carried with them, their talent for communication, their physical attractiveness, their ability to listen, drew them together. They spent more and more time with one another. They drank, danced, talked and walked together; what began as a joky, raucous evening after a particularly triumphant rugger match became the closest of friendships. They liked the same things, the same places, the same people; they enjoyed the same food, the same books, the same jokes, the same films. If one was invited to a party, the other would arrive; if one refused, the other would not attend. Phaedria introduced Charles to cooking, he introduced her to horses. He kept two polo ponies and a hunter at livery just outside Oxford and he taught her to ride. She fell in love with horses with a passion she had never felt for any man, and became a brave and skilful rider with remarkable speed. They rode out together early most mornings, initially with Phaedria on the leading rein, later cantering easily beside him; it was another factor in their relationship and the delight they took in each other’s company. Their taste, their humour, their friends, their opinions were always compatible, usually indistinguishable, and they enjoyed being with one another more than anything else in the world. To see them apart was a rarity; what nobody was quite sure about was whether they were actually lovers.

One night, in Charles’ room six months into their relationship, over a bottle of gut-rotting beaujolais left over from a party the night before, he suddenly sighed and took Phaedria’s hand. She snatched it away.

‘Don’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I don’t want to.’

‘Phaedria, I’m only trying to hold your hand.’

‘Yes, and then you’ll try and kiss me and then you’ll try and get my knickers off,’ said Phaedria with a sigh.

‘I won’t. I swear.’

‘Why not?’

‘Ah! I think I detect just a smidgen of a note of indignation.’

‘You certainly don’t.’

‘What then?’

‘Just interest.’

‘How arrogant of you! Just why should I wish to get your knickers off?’

‘Not arrogant at all. But most people do, I’m very sorry to say.’

‘Well I don’t.’

‘I can’t tell you how pleased I am, Charles, but I still find it – well, a bit interesting.’

‘That I don’t want to?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you want me to tell you? Really?’

‘Yes. Yes. I do.’

Charles took a long draught of the beaujolais, grimaced and got up. ‘I’ll have to have something a bit better to drink before I can face this, I think. Hang on a bit.’

‘Gracious!’ said Phaedria. ‘It must be serious.’

He turned to look at her, a bottle of whisky in his hand. ‘It is.’

He sat down again by the fire, handed her a glass of whisky, took her hand again. ‘Phaedria, can I really trust you? I have never told anyone before, ever. This is quite a moment.’

Phaedria looked at him, her face very composed, her dark eyes brilliant in the firelight. ‘Charles, you know you can.’

‘OK. Here we go. Phaedria, I am not as other men. I feel the love that dares not speak its name. I’m a poofter, my darling, a queer, a nancy boy. Now what do you think about that?’

‘I think it’s wonderful,’ said Phaedria simply.

‘Well,’ he said, smiling rather shakily at her, ‘oh, well, that’s all right then. Good God. What a relief.’ He was silent for a moment, gazing into his glass. ‘Oh Phaedria, if you knew how I’ve dreaded telling you and how much I’ve longed to. I’ve nearly done it a dozen times and then been too afraid.’

‘You fool!’ said Phaedria. ‘What on earth did you think I was going to do. Rush out of the room screaming? Have the vapours? Honestly, Charles, how insulting. You’re my best friend. And I really do think it’s wonderful.’

‘Oh,’ he said, taking her hand again and kissing it. ‘I do adore you. It’s you that’s wonderful.’

‘Yes,’ said Phaedria, ‘I am. Now tell me all about it.’

They sat there all night talking; he had heard of her childhood, now she heard of his; insensitive father, doting mother, beating at prep school, buggery at Eton, and finally delicious seduction by a French actor he had met on a train on his way back from the Dordogne.

‘And now what do I do, Phaedria? Can’t face women, can’t face men.’

‘Literally,’ said Phaedria, and giggled.

‘No, but should I admit it, or fight it and hope it’ll go away?’

‘Well, I shouldn’t think there’s much hope of that. I should own up if I were you, and go and find someone to love. There’s no real disgrace to it any more, surely.’

‘Oh, Phaedria, I think there is. What do you think my family would say? How would the illustrious firm of stockbrokers who have already committed themselves to taking me on react? What would Dempster make of it?’

‘A lot. But it wouldn’t do any harm here, surely. There’s lots of them – you – jumping in and out of bed with each other.’

‘I know. I can’t stand that set, though. And it would do me quite a lot of harm, actually. The real world would hate it. And it wouldn’t do my sporting career any good either. Would I get my rugger blue? Not a hope.’

‘Well, you’ll just have to keep quiet then,’ said Phaedria. ‘I certainly will.’

‘I know you will. I think you’re marvellous. I really really love you.’ He poured the last dregs of the whisky bottle into her glass. ‘Will you be my friend, Phaedria? For better for worse? For richer for poorer?’

‘In sickness and in health, pro homo et hetero,’ said Phaedria, holding out her arms. Charles crawled into them. They were both very drunk. They slept for what was left of the night on the floor in front of the fire, and in the morning she was seen leaving his room. Their reputations were made.

After that they more or less lived together. An engagement was assumed inevitable. They would lie peacefully together at night, totally unaroused by one another, laughing at the drama they were creating. And every so often Charles would disappear to London for a night and come back just slightly morose; Phaedria was indulgently amused.

Then one Saturday Phaedria had a fall from her horse. She wasn’t seriously hurt, but she was mildly concussed; she was taken to hospital, X-rayed and sent home pale and shaken. Charles put her to bed, made her some soup, read to her, and then suggested he went to his own room.

‘No,’ said Phaedria miserably. ‘I want you here. Please stay.’

Charles lay down very gently on the bed beside her and took her hand. He kissed her forehead and stroked her hair. He nestled closer towards her; she turned towards him and he took her in his arms. He kissed her very gently on the lips; she looked at him and touched his face and smiled.

‘I love you so much,’ she said.

‘I love you too.’

‘Kiss me again.’

He did.

Something shot through Phaedria, something fiery and delicious and achingly painful; something confusing and hungry; something vaguely remembered, something suppressed, something denied. She pressed further against Charles, turned his head, kissed him full on the lips.

‘Charles,’ she whispered, ‘Charles.’

‘Yes, Phaedria?’

‘Charles, could you try to pretend I was a beautiful young boy?’

‘No, Phaedria. But I could think you were my best, my most dearly beloved friend, and do what I can for you.’

‘Would you?’

‘I will.’

It wasn’t really so very good. Inevitably Phaedria found it painful, and Charles lacked almost every kind of experience that she needed. But as he sank down into her, moving as gently and as tenderly as he could against her tension and her resistance, and as she relaxed and softened, and as he kissed her and explored her new, untravelled depths, she felt a stirring and a fluttering, very very faintly, that promised to grow and grow; and she began to move too, desperate for more, greedy, frantic. And then Charles shuddered and came, and the echoes faded, the feast she was reaching for receded, and he was helpless for her, and kissing her and saying he was sorry; and there were tears in his eyes.

‘Don’t,’ said Phaedria, ‘don’t, you did so much, you showed me such a lot, it was so wrong of me to ask. Thank you.’ And she fell asleep smiling.

When she woke up he was sitting by the window, looking at her, bleak and anxious.

‘I’m so sorry,’ he said again.

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ said Phaedria, restored to her normal self-confidence and spirit, ‘do stop it, Charles. This is no time for a tragedy. We did jolly well. And just think,’ she added, ‘at least I’m not a virgin any more. We’re lovers. Isn’t that terrific? We’ve made everyone’s dreams come true.’

They never made love again, and Phaedria had never made love with anyone else. But she had not forgotten the echoes and the hunger, and she supposed that one day she might find someone to satisfy it.

They came down from Oxford, Charles with a First, Phaedria with an Upper Second, and a great sense of sadness. They knew their time together was over; they would always be friends, and have a large place in one another’s hearts, but the real closeness, the sharing of a life, had to come to an end. It had had its roots in the fairy tale of Oxford life and now that the real thing had to begin, they had to part and start again.

Charles bought a flat in Fulham, fairly near Phaedria’s father’s house, and began work in the City; Phaedria settled back into her role of surrogate wife and, while she was wondering what she might enjoy, did a secretarial and a cookery course. Her father liked Charles, they all had dinner together once a week; and very often on Saturday they would ride together in Richmond Park, and when the next season began she would go and watch Charles play polo and spend the evening and occasionally the night with him. Her father never inquired into the relationship, or showed the slightest concern about it; the real world never seemed to him nearly as interesting as his current literary passion (at this particular time a painstaking study and biography of Prosper Merimee, a nineteenth-century French novelist and literary hoaxer, guaranteed to sell, Phaedria imagined, all of fifty copies) and he was simply content to see his beloved daughter so happily settled with so charming a partner.

Phaedria occasionally wondered if she was ever going to find a man who would charm, delight and amuse her as much as Charles did, who would be as important to her, who would love her as much, and at the same time fulfil her needs in a slightly more conventional way, but it seemed a prospect so remote, so extremely unlikely, set so far into the future as to be not worth troubling about. For the time being, she had Charles, she loved him and she trusted him, and she enjoyed being with him, and that was quite enough.

She felt she was happy.

One night, just about a year after they had come down from Oxford, Charles took her out to dinner; he was tense and awkward with her, and for the first time since they had met there was no fun, no gossip, no chat, no intimacy in any of it. After they had finished their meal Charles ordered brandies, sat back in his chair, looked at Phaedria very straight and said, ‘I’ve got something to tell you.’

‘I can see that. What is it? You seem like a man with a heavy burden.’

‘I am.’

‘Well, lay it down on me, for goodness’ sake. There isn’t much you could tell me that would shock me.’

‘This will.’

‘Oh, Charles, come on. What? What could it possibly be?’

‘You’ll hate it,’ said Charles miserably, draining his glass and signalling to the waiter for another.

‘I doubt it.’

‘You will.’

‘OK, then I’ll hate it. I’m hating this more.’

‘I’m getting married.’

Phaedria gasped. She couldn’t help it. The shock was physical and frightful. She closed her eyes, swallowed, and then, with an enormous effort, opened them again. She felt sick, cold, frightened. She drained her glass and rested her head on her hands for a moment. Then she looked at him.

‘You can’t.’

‘I can. I’m going to.’

‘Why?’

‘So many reasons. The usual ones. Cowardice. Ambition. Loneliness.’

‘You could marry me in that case.’

‘No, Phaedria, I couldn’t,’ said Charles, taking her hand. ‘I love you. I couldn’t inflict such a thing on you.’

‘Oh, for Christ’s sake,’ said Phaedria, snatching her hand back again, her body rigid and tense, anger suddenly surfacing, ‘stop talking in such riddles. I can’t stand it. What’s all this about?’

Charles sat with his head bent, staring into his brandy, and told her. His father, who still terrified him, and still provided most of his income, had heard a few rumours. Dempster had run a couple of stories about the surprisingly artistic Mr Fraser-Smith, and his lack of a regular girlfriend; someone had seen him coming out of one of the gay clubs; a friend of his father’s had observed him dining late one night with a man who was most assuredly not one of Charles’ usual circle. Old Mr Fraser-Smith had confronted Charles, questioned him closely and threatened him with public disgrace and disinheritance if he wasn’t married in six months.

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Charles, call his bluff,’ said Phaedria. ‘This is the eighties. What does it matter?’

‘I’ve told you how much it matters,’ said Charles. ‘A lot. I’m sorry, Phaedria. I’m ambitious. I’m extravagant. I need a lot of money. And like I said, I’m often lonely.’

‘What a shame,’ said Phaedria bitterly. ‘What a lousy, bloody shame.’

‘Phaedria, don’t. Don’t be angry.’

‘For God’s sake, Charles, I am angry. I’m more angry than I ever thought possible. We were friends, Charles, we were more than friends, we were everything. We loved each other. I trusted you. I trusted you with everything. I would never have betrayed you. Not for anything. And then you throw this lump of garbage at me, and tell me not to be angry. Jesus Christ. Who’s the lucky girl?’

‘You don’t know her.’

‘Well, that’s a good thing. If I did I just might go and tell her the facts of life. She must be extremely simple.’

‘She is.’

‘Oh, Charles, how can you be so cretinous? What hope of happiness can there be in this? What are you doing to your life?’

‘Preserving it.’

‘You’re not, you know. You’re turning it rotten. It’ll putrefy and stink. If I wasn’t so sorry for you, so dreadfully, dreadfully sorry, I’d go and tell your father exactly what I think of him. And you. As it is I’ll just leave you alone. All of you. To a lousy, fearful, hopeless future.’

She stood up. ‘I’d like to tell you that I hope you’ll be happy. But I can’t. Because I know you won’t. Goodbye, Charles.’ She fumbled in her wallet and pulled out a twenty-pound note.

‘This is for my dinner. I’d hate you to waste any of your precious money on me.’

Charles caught her arm. ‘Phaedria, don’t. Please please don’t.’

‘Charles, there’s nothing else I can do. Now just let me go and get on with your own fucking life. And I do hope you manage to do a bit of that. Otherwise she’ll need to be very simple indeed. Now let go of me or I might tell everyone in the restaurant what we’re quarrelling about.’

She hadn’t seen him since; three weeks later Dempster announced a huge and delightful surprise for the friends of Charles Fraser-Smith who had seemed destined to remain a bachelor for life; he had become engaged to Serenity Favell Jones, who had spent the last two winters as a chalet girl in Gstaad, and was now beginning a new career in an art gallery in London.

The wedding was planned for September, and the blushing bride was hoping for ‘a huge family’.

At least Charles had the grace not to invite Phaedria to the wedding.

She did recover in time; she thought it impossible, but she did. For a long time she was so unhappy that she dreaded waking up every morning; she ached physically all over, she had no energy for anything, she put on weight, she had trouble sleeping. Anything that reminded her of Charles, the sight of a blond head, an old E-Type parked by the road, a report of a polo match (the game was much in the news on account of the heir to the throne being so besotted with it), all threw her into such a pitch of misery and pain that she felt literally ill and faint. Most of her friends, assuming that her unhappiness was caused by having lost Charles to Serenity, tried to distract her with other men, throwing dinner parties and arranging trips to the theatre. It was dreadful. Her father, jerked into reality by her grief, abandoned Prosper Merimee for a few weeks, pronounced Charles a bounder and took her away for interminable weekends to divert her. In the end, she realized she had to get out of London.

She settled on Bristol because the parents of an Oxford friend lived there in a big house in Clifton, and let out bedsits to students. What she had seen of Bristol she liked; it was architecturally nice, very lively, and near enough to the country to be able to ride. She moved down with no clear idea of what she was going to do, but she had her typing and her shorthand skills, and she knew she could support herself. She did a series of temporary secretarial jobs, found some good stables, began to ride regularly and bought her own horse, slowly formed a new circle of friends and, without being fully aware of the process, began to heal. She knew she was better when she woke up one morning and began to think about a proper job. She had not got a good degree and had an expensive education in order to do typing and filing for a series of people who had less than half her brains.

Two things really interested her: one was fashion and the other was journalism. ‘And you know the rest,’ she said to Barry one night, over the hundredth or so half of bitter, ‘and here I am.’

‘And I’m delighted you are,’ he said fondly, patting her hand. He had a great deal of time for her. She wasted no time whatsoever on self-pity.

Phaedria gave quite a lot of thought to what she would wear to persuade Sir Julian to talk to her exclusively. She was clever with clothes; she had never had any money to spend on them but she had that eye for shape and length, a flash of colour, an unexpected accessory, that ability to haul together three or four disparate items of clothing into something coherent and original, that is called style, and that is as ingrained and inborn an ability as it is to sing in tune or to spell correctly.

It was no use today, she thought, trying to dress up. Multimillionaires would not be impressed by Wallis copies of Jean Muir or even Jaeger. Better dress down and chic, she decided, spraying herself in Guerlain’s Jicky, the perfume she always wore, and pulling on a cream silk shirt and a pair of straight-legged Levis out of the wardrobe; she added soft brown leather calf-length boots, a wide brown belt and a soft leather jeacket she had got second hand in the flea market in Paris; and after a moment’s hesitation she put on an antique gold chain and locket Charles had given her when they left Oxford and which she had never worn since the night he told her he was getting married. She felt the occasion warranted not only the locket but the emotional effort required to put it on. She hauled back her cloud of wild dark hair and tied it with a brown and cream Hermes scarf her father had given her for her birthday; and then after a moment’s consideration set it free again; put on a very little brown eye shadow and a slither of lip gloss, and then slung a notebook, a pen and three pencils into the canvas and leather fishing bag she used for both handbag and briefcase.

‘Right,’ she said, smiling at herself pleasedly in the mirror. ‘Sir Julian, here I come.’

Julian was still, in the middle of the morning, feeling acutely irritable. Sitting in the new, lush plush office of Brian Branscombe, recently appointed M.D. of Morell Pharmaceuticals, he poured himself a third coffee and looked morosely across the Avon estuary. He wasn’t looking forward to the ceremony ahead. Not only was he host to a hundred or so local and not-so-local figures – the Mayor of Bristol, various bankers and businessmen who had been involved in the construction of the plant, and representatives of the pharmaceutical industry – but a strong contingency of journalists as well. He was very hostile to the press these days, hated even to see his picture in the papers and had done ever since the entry of Jamil Al-Shehra into his life, and he was particularly hostile to mass press conferences. On the other hand it was better than trying to deal with the interminable queue of journalists individually. There had been some request for an exclusive interview today: the women’s page editor of some Bristol paper. He’d refused, as he had refused all such requests for some years; he’d met so many of the breed and hated it: middle-aged, hard-drinking, chain-smoking, life-beaten women with ginny voices and bags under their eyes. He was quite sure Phaedria Blenheim – what a ridiculous name, she must have made it up – would be exactly the same, and he had no intention of talking to her.

He settled down to the press release; his own PR outfit had prepared it and had done a fair job. Lots of finance stuff, lots of new technology, perhaps slightly too heavy implications of do-goodery (combating unemployment, intensive medical R & D), but it never really did any harm, and a gratifying shortage of anything remotely personal. Well, he would cut the tape, make a short speech, answer a maximum of six questions, attend the lunch briefly and be back in the helicopter by two o’clock, with an urgent meeting in London as his excuse. It didn’t sound too bad. He even managed a smiie as Branscombe came in, and stood up, buttoning his jacket and adjusting his tie.

‘OK, Brian, let’s go and get it over with. I do congratulate you on your work here. You’ve done a brilliant job getting it open on – sorry, ahead of – time. How did you do it?’

‘Thank Mrs Thatcher,’ said Branscombe with a grin, ‘she’s done more to motivate the work force than any person or thing since the industrial revolution. What with the fear of unemployment, and the reinvention of the work ethic, the managerial classes are laughing. Now do you feel you’re sufficiently briefed on this conference?’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Julian with a sigh. ‘More than. And Brian, can I make it absolutely clear, no exclusives. Whatever the excuse, or rationale, I refuse to speak to a single member of the press on a one to one basis today. I don’t have the heart or the stomach. OK?’

‘OK, Sir Julian,’ said Branscombe. ‘Understood. It’s a pity from our point of view, but I do sympathize. I’ll see you’re clear by two-thirty.’

‘Two,’ said Julian, ‘sharp. OK. Now let’s go and get it over.’

He actually always gave a good performance on these occasions. His charm and his capacity for lateral thought tended to cut neatly through the tedious razzmatazz of a mass conference. By the time he had unveiled the plaque (less pretentious than cutting tape, he thought to himself as he did it, but still bloody silly), made his short speech and answered five of the six journalists’ questions he had promised himself, he felt himself on a downhill run; had actually picked up the sheaf of papers in front of him on the table and smiled charmingly at the assembled company and the Mayor and local dignitaries sitting behind him on the conference platform, when a female voice rang out through the hall.

‘Sir Julian, could I ask you about women?’

The assembled company laughed; it was a neat line. He could not afford to be unreceptive. He put the papers down again, shaded his eyes against the flare of the lights, and smiled charmingly.

‘I’ll try to answer. Which particular aspect of the female race were you interested in, Miss – er?’

‘Blenheim. Phaedria Blenheim. Bristol Echo.’

Ah, that one. The one who’d requested an exclusive. Clever stuff. She would need putting in her place.

‘Could you stand up, Miss Blenheim? Or rather Ms, as I would imagine you would wish to be addressed.’

‘Oh, no,’ said Phaedria, standing up and smiling at him from the back of the hall, ‘I much prefer to be Miss. I enjoy my status. I don’t count myself among the more militant feminists.’

More laughter, but rather more muted. Most people were simply staring at her. Julian tried not to sound impatient.

‘This is perhaps not quite the time for semantics, Miss Blenheim. Although I am sure we could have a very interesting discussion on the subject. What is your question, then?’

‘My question is how many women will you be employing? In your management team here, that is, rather than on the factory floor.’

Julian smiled again. He still couldn’t see her properly. But the voice (indisputably Oxbridge, although less ginny than he had imagined) was enough to tell him exactly what she was like: confident, assertive, and too clever for her own good, as his mother would probably have said had she been here.

‘As many as earn their place in it, Miss Blenheim. I have a good record in equal opportunity. I have several women on the boards of several of my companies, both here and in the United States. Including the major parent company. You really should do your homework a little more carefully.’

‘Oh, but I have,’ said Phaedria, ‘and as far as I can see although your team on the board of Juliana and Circe is largely female, in the case of the hotels, and the pharmaceutical company, your record is less good. With the exception of Mrs Emerson, of course.’

A slight buzz went round the hall. Julian pushed his hair back. Brian Branscombe half stood up, but Julian shook his head at him, and smiled again into the lights. ‘Do go on, Miss Blenheim. I had clearly underrated your capacity for research.’

‘Thank you,’ said Phaedria, ‘I think I have made my point. The record in other companies and in particular in Europe is better. I thought perhaps as this was a new plant, you might feel you could be a little more bold.’

‘How interesting,’ said Julian. ‘Well, Miss Blenheim, as you are clearly something of an expert on management matters, perhaps you would care to submit a proposal to me. In writing, of course. I would be most interested to read it. In the meantime I can only say that there will be several women on the management team here in Bristol and in due course they will be available for interview to you and your colleagues.’

‘And you, Sir Julian. When will you be available for interview?’

‘Miss Blenheim, forgive me, but I was under the impression that was precisely what was happening now.’

‘No,’ said Phaedria, ‘this isn’t an interview. This is a floorshow.’

She was walking down to the front of the hall now. Julian suddenly saw her emerging from the blurred darkness; she took form, became more than a voice, a purveyor of silly questions, aggressive observations, posturing clichés; he looked at her and his breath was momentarily caught. A great cloud of wildly tangled curly dark hair, pale oval face, luminous dark eyes; young, so young she looked, younger than his own daughter, younger than any woman he had looked at sexually for years. And that was how, he realized suddenly, he was looking at her: as a man appreciating, admiring, desiring, a woman. It happened with a speed, a force, that physically startled him; he felt suddenly confused, unable to remember what she had asked.

And Phaedria, sensing in some instinctive way the stab of emotion, the surge of interest, paused, looked at him more sharply and was moved by what she saw. Style he had, this man, and humour and a strange grace; but what hit her hardest was a sense of sexual energy, directed entirely at her. It was a cataclysmic moment that both of them would remember for the rest of their lives.

Brian Branscombe, finally deciding to arrest the tedious Miss Blenheim in her nicely shod tracks before she could do any more harm to his carefully orchestrated conference, stood up on the platform. ‘Miss Blenheim, thank you for your question. I trust Sir Julian has answered it to your satisfaction. Ladies and Gentlemen, a buffet lunch is now being served in the hospitality suite. Unfortunately, Sir Julian has to leave for London very shortly after lunch, for an urgent meeting, but he will be joining us briefly. You can put any further questions to me, or our press officer. Thank you for your interest and time. Do please adjourn next door.’

The guests and the press moved as one hungry man towards the next room; only Phaedria remained, standing quite still, her eyes fixed on Julian’s face.

‘Miss Blenheim,’ said Branscombe, a trifle impatiently, ‘do please go next door and help yourself to lunch.’

‘Well, I did wonder –’ said Phaedria, motionless still, ‘if I could have a few words . . .’

‘No, Miss Blenheim, you cannot. I’m sorry. Sir Julian has to leave very shortly. Sir Julian, let me take your papers. If you will just follow me . . .’

‘Just a moment, Brian. Miss Blenheim, was there anything else?’

‘A lot,’ said Phaedria briskly, seeming to wake, coming to herself again. ‘I’d like to ask you about so many things, Sir Julian.’

‘Miss Blenheim,’ said Branscombe again, ‘please. Sir Julian is on an extremely tight schedule. Do excuse us.’

‘Miss Blenheim,’ said Julian, ignoring him totally, ‘I do have to go. It’s quite true. But I would be happy to give you an interview. I wonder what your plans are for the rest of the day? If you have time, you could fly back to London with me now and I could give you an hour or so. And then I’ll send you back again.’

‘There’s no need.’

‘I pay the pilot,’ he said, and smiled at her.

‘Right,’ said Phaedria, smiling back, ‘I do have the time. I’ll just call my editor. Thank you, Sir Julian. I do appreciate it very very much.’

‘It will be my pleasure,’ he said, and she thought she had never heard that word so blatantly caressed.

Branscombe, clearly irritated, showed her to his office, and she phoned Barry.

‘Barry? It’s Phaedria. Listen, I’ve got it. The exclusive. I’m flying back to London with Julian Morell now in his chopper. Stylish, huh? Expect me when you see me.’

‘Phaedria,’ said Barry in an agony of excitement and anxiety. ‘I need that copy tomorrow, sweetheart. Don’t forget.’

‘Barry,’ said Phaedria, ‘I’m a pro. I told you, don’t you remember? First I’ll file the copy, then I’ll elope with Sir Julian. You’ll get it. Don’t worry.’

He did. He got it that night. She phoned it from Julian’s office. It was stereotyped, dull stuff. Barry read it disbelievingly. What he didn’t realize was that Phaedria Blenheim, journalist, had, with one fierce, decisive gesture, signed off.

Phaedria had not really expected to like Julian Morell at all. She had thought he would be interesting and charming but arrogant and shallow. She found him interesting and charming, and unpretentious and thoughtful.

She also found him sexually attractive; her senses had not recovered from the shock they had received. She felt disturbed and irritated with herself at the same time; sitting looking at him across his desk, her stomach still unsettled from the helicopter flight, she found it impossible to relax, to set herself aside, to concentrate on him and what she could extract from him. She knew he was sixty-two, but she found it hard to believe; he looked easily ten years younger. His hair was only flecked with grey, his skin was lightly tanned, he was very slim. He was superbly, if a little predictably, dressed: classic grey three-piece suit, grey and white striped shirt (with a button-down collar, she noticed: ‘Are you the man in the Brooks Brothers shirt, Sir Julian?’ she had asked, and yes, he said, yes he was, his son-in-law brought him half a dozen of the things every time he visited New York, which was fairly frequently. ‘I wear them all once, and then file them away.’) His tie was red, with a black line in it, very discreet; his watch a wafer-thin Cartier, his links plain gold; there was no suggestion of vulgarity, of showmanship, he simply looked a beautifully dressed, conservative Englishman.

He was good to listen to as well, she thought, his voice was light and level, not aggressively public school, nor flattened out mid-Atlantic. It had great charm, that voice: an ability to take certain words and phrases and warm them, lend emotion to them, or to toss humour into a remark, self-mockery even, without a fleck of emotion crossing the bland face, the dark, dark eyes.

He sat and looked at her with such pleasure, such patent interest that Phaedria felt exposed, vulnerable; short of leaving the room, there was nothing she could do to escape his examination. He had said little in the helicopter, he had studied papers, signed letters, having asked her to excuse him: ‘Then when we get to my office, I shall be entirely at your disposal. Which I trust will please you.’ They had landed at Battersea Heliport, and been met by a pale blue Rolls Corniche convertible; Phaedria was surprised by this, the first hint of any real ostentation in him that she had seen. ‘Goodness,’ she had said, ‘what a nice car!’ and yes, he had said, he liked cars, he always had, they were one of his hobbies, as no doubt she knew, being such a careful researcher. ‘And do you like cars, Miss Blenheim?’ No, she said, not really, they were just a means of transport to her, but his other passion, horses, now that was something which she did love, and his eyes had danced over her face, and he had started to talk to her about horses thinking to discover she knew nothing about them at all, pleased and surprised to find he was wrong, that she could converse about bloodstock and flat racing and hunting with confidence and knowledge.

‘Do you have a horse, Miss Blenheim?’

‘Yes, I do. A hunter. A six-year-old grey mare.’

‘And what is her name, this young grey mare?’

‘Grettisaga.’

‘That is a very unusual name.’

‘Yes. It’s nice though, don’t you think? I expect you know the tale well?’

‘I fear not. Which tale?’

‘The Grettisaga. It’s a fourteenth-century Icelandic story. It has strong resemblances to Beowulf. William Morris has done a translation.’

‘I see. You are clearly a very literary person.’

‘Oh, not really. My father thinks I am woefully ill-read.’

‘And who is your very well-read father?’

‘His name is Augustus Blenheim. He’s an academic. He writes books and lectures on literary figures only about two other people have ever heard of. His current obsession is Charles Maturin, he’s an Irish gothic novelist. His dream is to be asked to make a television programme about someone, but I think it would be so minority viewing the channel showing it would go right off the air.’

‘And I suppose you owe your very unusual name to your father?’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Phaedria with a cheerful sigh, ‘of course. Do you know who Phaedria was?’

‘Let me see. Did she not marry Theseus?’

‘Fraid not. You’ve failed the test. No relation to her whatsoever. That was Phaedra. Phaedria was a character in –’

‘I know,’ said Julian suddenly, ‘don’t tell me. In – not Chaucer, no, Spenser, wasn’t she? The Faerie Queen.’ He smiled at her triumphantly. ‘Do I pass?’

‘Do you know what quality she represented?’

‘No, I don’t think I can go that far.’

‘Well, then you do pass, but not very well. Although better than most. She was Wantonness.’

‘I see. And how well does your name become you, Miss Blenheim?’ He spoke lightly, he smiled charmingly, but Phaedria could feel him reaching out to her, making a small but irrevocable step towards intimacy, and she felt at the same time warmed and confused.

‘That is a question I never answer,’ she said. ‘Whoever asks it.’

‘Ah,’ he said, ‘an unoriginal one, clearly. Forgive me.’

‘Very unoriginal. But yes, I do. Forgive you, I mean. Where are we going?’

‘My office is in Dover Street. I’m surprised you didn’t know that. Your research was so extremely thorough.’

‘Yes. I’m sorry if I was rude. About your daughter and everything. I didn’t exactly mean to be.’

‘I forgive you. But why did you have to be at all? Exactly or otherwise?’

‘I had to get you to notice me.’

He turned slightly in the car and looked at her for quite a long time; his eyes moving slowly from her hair to her face, pausing there, exploring her own eyes so tenderly, so questingly that she looked away, briefly, confused, lingering on her mouth, and then, quite briefly, but with an unmistakable confidence, at her neck, her breasts; and then he smiled and said, ‘I don’t think you had to be even inexactly rude to do that.’

‘Not true,’ she said, pulling herself together after what she felt to be an endless silence. ‘Would I ever have made so much as another question if I hadn’t been so – so bothersome?’

‘Possibly not. And I would have regretted it greatly.’ He looked away from her then, out of the window for a moment; they were travelling slowly along the Embankment; the river looked beautiful, goldenly grey in the winter sunshine. ‘Do you like London?’

‘Only quite. I prefer the country.’

‘That’s nice. I think I do too. Because you can ride?’

‘Yes. And because I like space to myself.’

‘That doesn’t sound like a journalist.’

‘Oh,’ said Phaedria, ‘I’m not really a journalist. My editor is always telling me that.’

‘Really?’ he smiled, genuinely amused. ‘In what way are you not really a journalist?’

‘Not interested in the world at large. Not really interested in newspapers. Only my bit of them.’

‘Then why do you do it?’

‘Because I’m good at it, and I like writing.’

‘And interviewing famous people?’

‘Everyone says that. No, not interviewing famous people. Most famous people are extremely boring.’

‘On behalf of us all I apologize,’ he said, and smiled his dancing smile. ‘Or perhaps I am being presumptuous. Perhaps I don’t qualify as famous in your book.’

‘No,’ she said, ‘honestly you don’t. Famous is – well, you know, really famous. Instantly recognised. Peter Cook. Clive James. Joanna Lumley.’

‘I feel very humbled. But you’re right.’

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude again.’

‘You weren’t. I was being arrogant. Have you interviewed all those people?’

‘Yes.’

‘And were they really boring?’

‘Actually, those three weren’t. Not at all. But they were exceptions.’ She looked at him and smiled. ‘I think you are probably another.’

‘But I thought I wasn’t famous.’

‘Well, maybe you are a bit. But you aren’t boring. So far.’

‘Good.’

The car was swinging up Whitehall; the traffic, as it so often and inexplicably does in London, had cleared. Pete Praeger, Julian’s chauffeur, bodyguard and probably the most discreet man in London, half turned his head. ‘Straight to the office, Sir Julian? You don’t want to stop anywhere for lunch?’

‘No, thank you, Pete. Sarah has something waiting for me in the office. Sarah is my secretary,’ he said to Phaedria. ‘Terrifyingly efficient. We are all frightened of her. Aren’t we, Pete? And do what she says.’

‘We certainly do, sir. Will you need me any more today? You don’t want me to bring you anything from the house?’

‘No, I don’t think so. But I have a dinner engagement. Can you come at seven to the office?’

‘Yes, Sir Julian. Would that be in London, or out of town at all?’

‘The Meridiana, Pete. And I won’t be late.’

‘Fine. Right, then here we are, sir.’

Phaedria, climbing out of the car, looked up at the offices with interest. She had expected some modern block; she found one of the original grey eighteenth-century buildings, with large white admittedly fake Palladian doors, and the original windows.

Julian pushed one of the doors open himself, standing aside to let her pass, taking his briefcase from Pete. ‘In you go, Miss Blenheim. The lift’s over there. Just a moment.’

He went and spoke briefly to the girl at the reception desk and then came over to her. They got in the lift. ‘Top floor. My office is in what is known as a penthouse suite.’

‘It sounds rather debauched.’

‘I’m afraid it isn’t. A great deal of very hard work goes on there, and that’s all.’

‘I see.’

Nevertheless, she was not surprised to find the suite, his personal offices, so stylish, so unbusinesslike: the lobby, with its sofas, its plants, its Tiffany-style lamps on low tables; the small rather more impersonal office beyond that where sat the terrifying Miss Brownsmith (who nodded briefly as they went through, skimming a thoughtful eye over Phaedria), and beyond that again, Julian’s own office. Phaedria looked round it in delight, drinking in the white and chrome, the Symonds and Lutyens desk, the curving bookshelves, the lacquered standard lamps. ‘What a beautiful room.’

‘I’m glad you like it. Many people don’t.’

‘I’m amazed.’

‘No, it’s a little subtle, I find, for general consumption. People expect either very grand eighteenth-century style, a sort of cross between a boardroom and a brothel, or pure Conran. They can’t cope with this at all.’

‘Well I think it’s marvellous.’

‘I’m glad you like it. I am very fond of the art deco era. Probably because I was born in it. Although I fear it’s beginning to be more historic than nostalgic.’ He buzzed for Sarah Brownsmith. ‘Ah, Sarah, could we have that lunch I hope you have been keeping for me. We’re very hungry. Is there enough for two?’

‘I think so, Sir Julian. Would you like wine, or just Perrier?’

‘Oh, I think this is an occasion, I think we would like wine. No, more than that, champagne. Bring in a bottle of the Cristalle, will you, Sarah? And some Perrier as well, we have work to do. Miss Blenheim, I presume you would like a drink? Sarah, this is Phaedria Blenheim, a journalist from the Bristol Echo. She has come up to interview me. Now is there anything I need to know urgently, because I’ll deal with it now, straight away, and then I want to be left alone for an hour or so. No calls or anything. This is an important interview.’

Phaedria met Sarah Brownsmith’s politely amused gaze, resisted an almost overpowering urge to wink at her, and moved over to look out of the window down at Dover Street.

‘Do you want lunch first, Sir Julian, or the messages?’

‘Obviously lunch, Sarah, it’s nearly half past three, and I have a guest. Just have it brought in, please, and then give me the messages quickly.’

Sarah Brownsmith’s revenge for this small piece of arrogance was swift and heady. ‘I’ll give you all the messages,’ she said, as Julian poured two glasses of champagne and held one out to Phaedria, ‘then you can decide for yourself which are important. Miss North wants to know why you haven’t rung her about tonight. She said to impress upon you that you were to be at the restaurant by seven sharp. Susan Johns says if you don’t call her this afternoon about the marketing plans for next year she will resign immediately from – now what was it –’ she consulted her notebook – ‘ah yes, your bloody ego trip of a company. She said it was very important I gave you that message exactly.’

‘Thank you, Sarah. Anything else?’

‘Freddy Branksome said it was crucial you signed the audited accounts today, otherwise we should all be in jail by Christmas.’

‘Yes?’

‘Richard Brookes wants to know if you actually want to guarantee a lawsuit from Mrs Lauder, or if you would like to just consider renaming your new range. He must have a definite answer today.’

‘Fine.’

‘And your mother says if she doesn’t hear from you by four she will be extremely displeased with you.’

‘Thank you, Sarah. I hope you haven’t forgotten anything.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Good. Get my mother on the phone, will you?’

‘Yes. And Miss North?’

‘I will ring Miss North later,’ said Julian lightly. He pushed his hair back. ‘Thank you. Now, then, I don’t want to be disturbed.’

‘What about the accounts?’

‘The accounts will have to wait. I believe the jails are very full towards Christmas. I doubt if they will have room for us.’

‘Yes, Sir Julian.’

She closed the door behind her. Julian smiled at Phaedria. ‘She is an excellent nanny. She likes to remind me I am imperfect and in need of discipline.’

‘So I see.’

‘And you also see what an extremely important person and how high-powered I am, and how my staff tremble at the sound of my name.’

‘Yes. I do.’

The phone rang. ‘Mother? Hallo. What? Yes, I know I didn’t ring you last night, and I’m truly sorry. I was working with Freddy on the accounts. What? Well, we had a little supper later. No, Camilla was not with us. Well, your spies are lying. Now darling, I promise to come and see you tonight. Without fail. How are you? Good. I may have a friend with me. What? No, it won’t be Camilla. I know she’s bad for your health. Poor girl, I never can see what harm she does you.’

Phaedria, watching him closely, saw his face darken suddenly. ‘Mother, I can’t get into that now. I’ve got somebody with me. Yes, I have sent Roz some flowers. I know it’s dreadful waiting for a late baby, but she’ll survive. Other women do. She was a fortnight late herself. Serves her right. Bye, darling, I must go now. See you later. What? Oh, about seven.’ He put down the phone, walked over to Phaedria and refilled her glass.

‘Now then, Miss Phaedria Blenheim. What do you want to know about me?’

She had just finished telephoning her story through to the Echo from Sarah’s desk when Julian appeared in the doorway.

‘Was that all right? Was he pleased?’

‘Very.’

‘Good. My extremely valuable, moderately famous time has not been wasted, then?’

‘Of course not,’ she said, pushing the certain knowledge that she had done a lousy job to the bottom of her consciousness. She looked at Julian, about whom she knew so little more, and she did not wonder for a moment when she had not pushed him in the very least for information about himself beyond his companies, his money, his houses, his tastes. There was much she wanted to know about Julian Morell, much that she needed to know; about his first and only wife, and why he had never married again; about his daughter, and how, if at all, he rationalized having both her and his son-in-law holding significant positions in the company; about his very long association with Susan Johns and the closeness with him that gave her the right to insult him considerably and publicly through his secretary; about the demanding Camilla North, who was clearly not going to be met at seven o’clock sharp or indeed at any time during the evening; about his mother, who had worked in the company from its founding and was still, by all accounts, an active constituent; but it was not to be shared, any of it, either with her editor or her readers.

As for herself, she had time on her side; she could wait.

‘I would like to buy you a drink,’ he said, ‘preferably several. But I have a slight problem.’

‘I think you’ve already given me several drinks.’

‘Maybe. But that was work. I would like to move you into the pleasure category now.’

There it was again; that gentle insistent pressure into intimacy. Phaedria started putting papers into her fishing bag, her head bent, glad to have a reason not to look at him, wondering confusedly at the warmth stirring somewhere in the depths of her body.

‘I see.’

‘Are you busy this evening? Do you want me to send you back? Because I will. You have only to say.’

‘No,’ she said, as he had known, as they had both known she would, looking up suddenly and meeting his eyes. ‘No, I don’t. I can stay in London.’

‘Good. Now, then, I wonder how you’d feel about coming to see my mother before we go on for – what? Dinner perhaps?’

Sarah Brownsmith, working on the small computer on the other side of her office, wondered if Phaedria had any idea at all quite how much that invitation meant.

‘You’ll like my mother,’ said Julian as the car made its slow, painful journey along St James’s.

‘Good. Will she like me?’

‘I think so. I think definitely yes.’

‘Then I shall like her.’

‘And then, after that, I thought we would go out to dinner. If you have time. Where would you like to go?’

‘I have time. Why not the Meridiana?’

‘Why the Meridiana?’

‘I imagine you have a table booked. You said you were going there this evening.’

‘Oh, now here we have the journalist at work, do we not?’ He sounded faintly irritated. ‘Not missing a single thing. No, I don’t have a table booked. I cancelled it.’

‘Pity,’ said Phaedria, undismayed by his change of mood.

‘Why?’

‘Because I like it.’

‘Well, that is a pity, but anyway, we can’t go there, because several people I know are going, and I don’t want to see any of them. Where else do you like?’

‘I love Chez Solange. I like Bentley’s Oyster Bar. And I love Inigo Jones. In Covent Garden. Do you know it?’

‘I do. How is it that you are so au fait with London restaurants? I thought you were a provincial girl.’

‘Absolutely not,’ said Phaedria firmly. ‘I grew up in London, and my father is a great gourmet.’

‘Are you a great gourmet too?’

‘A small one.’

‘Good. Then let us go to Inigo Jones. It’s certainly an imaginative menu. I’ll book a table from my mother’s house. Tell me more about your father. Tell me about your mother. What does she do, if anything?’

‘I haven’t the faintest idea,’ said Phaedria, and there was no bitterness, no emotion of any kind in her voice, just a blank indifference. ‘She left us when I was ten. She wrote at Christmas for a few years. I think I last heard from her on my twenty-first birthday. She sent me a card.’

He looked at her with great interest. ‘How appalling.’

‘Not really. I had my father. We were perfectly happy.’

‘You don’t seem at all damaged by the experience.’

‘Who knows? It’s hard to assess, isn’t it, that kind of thing? I might have been greatly damaged. But I don’t think so.’

‘I find that encouraging,’ he said.

‘Why?’

‘Well, my own daughter has had – well, a difficult life. My wife and I divorced when she was very small. I have always worried about the effect on her. But perhaps she may prove as undamaged as you.’

‘Perhaps.’

‘She’s about to have a baby,’ he added.

‘Yes, I know.’

‘Dear God,’ he said, half amused, half irritated. ‘Is there anything about me you don’t know?’

She met his gaze steadily, the warmth inside her stirring again. ‘I think a lot.’

He smiled. ‘Good.’ Then he looked at her more seriously. ‘This is very odd, what we are doing, you know. It has only just dawned on me how odd it is.’

‘What?’

‘Well, that you should be coming to meet my mother, and then agree to have dinner with me, when you should be safely back home in Bristol, typing your articles, or whatever you do in the evening. Is there nobody to worry about you?’

‘Nobody.’

‘Don’t you have any friends?’

‘Of course I do. But they don’t monitor my every movement. Some evenings I see them, some I don’t.’

‘I see. So you live alone?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you not have a boyfriend?’

‘No.’

‘Don’t you think it might be a little rash, spending the evening with me? I might prove to be a lecher, or a miser or a bore.’

‘You might. In each case, I could just go home.’

‘To Bristol?’

‘Of course not. To my father’s house in Chelsea.’

‘Then,’ he said, smiling, his eyes dancing, ‘I shall relax.’

‘Mother, this is Phaedria. Phaedria Blenheim. She is writing a series of articles on leading Captains of Industry. She’s started with me.’

‘Really. How interesting. Which of the other Captains are you interviewing, Miss Blenheim?’

‘Oh, Clive Sinclair. Richard Branson. Alan Sugar. John Bentley.’

She saw Julian looking at her with intense admiration.

‘And for which publication?’

‘The Bristol Echo.’

‘How nice. And has my son given you some good copy?’

‘Not yet,’ said Phaedria. ‘I’m hoping it will improve.’

Letitia sparkled at her. ‘It probably won’t. He can be very dull when he wants to be. And he lies a lot. Look out for that. What would you like to drink?’

‘Oh, goodness, I’m not sure.’

‘Well, if you’re not sure, you’d better have champagne. Such a catholic drink, I always think. Julian, go and get a bottle, will you?’

She looked at Phaedria. ‘How pretty you are. Now, Miss Blenheim, sit down by the fire, and let me look at you. She doesn’t look like a journalist, does she, Julian? Too pretty.’

‘Oh, some of them are,’ said Julian. ‘But not too many, I suppose. You’re looking fairly pretty yourself today, Mother.’

Phaedria, startled by this word applied to a woman she knew to be over eighty, looked at her hostess with fresh eyes and realized he was right. Letitia Morell’s skin was soft and glowing, even though a little wrinkled; her eyes were a clear violet blue; her pure white hair was thick and styled in a soft bob; she was wearing a scarlet crepe dress that Phaedria recognized as indisputably Jasper Conran; she wore low-heeled cream court shoes on her tiny feet and cream stockings on legs that were as shapely and slender as they had been when she had so famously danced the Charleston with the Prince of Wales on the glass dance floor of the Silver Slipper Nightclub in the twenties.

‘Oh,’ said Julian suddenly to Phaedria, ‘I know where we should have dinner: Langan’s. Mother, can I use the phone?’

‘Oh, you won’t get a table now,’ said Letitia, getting up and walking briskly over to the phone. ‘I’ll ring and get you mine. What time?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. Nineish, I suppose.’

She stood there tapping her foot as the phone rang and rang at Langan’s, looking shrewdly at Phaedria and fearing for her and her young, vulnerable beauty in her son’s hands. What next? Schoolchildren?

‘There now,’ she said, ‘that’s done. Nine. You can have my table. It’s over in the corner. Well away from the window, excellent. I envy you.’

‘Come with us,’ said Julian, knowing how the invitation would please her, knowing that she would not come; and she, knowing in her turn exactly both those things, said no, really, she was tired; they chatted for a while, about company affairs, about Julian’s growing ambition and continuing failure to find a site for Circe in London, and in deference to Phaedria’s presence, about the opening of the Bristol plant, about Bristol and the lovely countryside surrounding it, about journalists they knew and she might, but did not, the beauty editors, Felicity Clark from Vogue, Leslie Kenton from Harpers & Queen, and the editors, Tina Brown, creator of the delicious new Tatler, Deirdre McSharry, already-legendary First Lady of Cosmopolitan.

‘You must meet them all,’ said Letitia firmly. ‘You ought to be working in London, after all. I shall give a little dinner party for you.’

‘Mother, don’t frighten the poor girl,’ said Julian. ‘Come on, Phaedria, time to go, it’s getting late.’

‘I am not a poor girl, and I’m not frightened,’ said Phaedria, firmly cool. ‘And I don’t need to be protected, by you or anybody. I would love to meet all those people, Mrs Morell, please don’t forget.’

‘I won’t,’ said Letitia, kissing her. ‘You must learn not to be so bossy, Julian. Now good night, darling. Good night, Phaedria, may I call you that? Such a lovely name.’

‘It’s from The Faerie Queen,’ said Julian.

‘Well of course it is, I know that,’ said Letitia briskly. ‘Wantonness, wasn’t she, Phaedria? You must get so tired of being asked if it suits you.’

‘I do,’ said Phaedria. She wasn’t quite sure about the form her relationship with Julian Morell was going to take, but she was certainly in love with his mother.

Brought strangely closer by the interlude with Letitia, they sat in Langan’s, yet another bottle of champagne in the ice bucket beside them; Phaedria, half drunk, totally relaxed, sat with her elbows on the table, her chin resting on her hands, smiling at Julian.

‘What a lovely lady.’

‘She is. Although not always.’

‘Isn’t she? I can’t believe that.’

‘Oh, come now,’ he said, ‘nobody is lovely all the time. Or are you?’

‘Me? I’m hardly ever lovely. Horrid most of the time.’

‘I don’t think,’ he said, ‘that I can believe that. You seem a consistently nice person to me.’

‘Not at all. Look how stroppy and rude I was this morning.’

‘That was just doing your job.’

‘Doesn’t that count?’

He seemed surprised. ‘Of course not.’

‘So you can be thoroughly unpleasant in the course of duty, and it doesn’t really matter?’

‘No, I don’t think it does.’

She looked at him thoughtfully. ‘I don’t think I’d like to work for you.’

‘Working was not what I had in mind for you.’

The warmth again; she looked down, confused, flushed.

‘I was very impressed,’ he said, ‘by the way you summoned up all those names for my mother.’

‘What names?’

‘The Captains of Industry you are supposed to be interviewing.’

‘Oh,’ she said, smiling. ‘I’m a good liar. When I have to be. Are you?’

‘Not very.’

‘Why did you have to tell her that story anyway?’

‘Oh,’ he said lightly, ‘I thought it best for her to think our relationship was purely professional.’

‘Why?’

‘She doesn’t trust me with young ladies. With any ladies. I didn’t want a lecture in the morning.’

‘Why not? I mean, why doesn’t she trust you?’

‘With good reason, I’m afraid. I have a bad reputation with women. Your research must have told you that.’

‘A little.’

‘Does it bother you?’

She looked at him very directly. ‘Not really.’

‘Good.’

‘Now then, since you know so much about me, can I find a little out about you? And what would you like to eat? Shall we have oysters?’

‘That would be lovely. Can I have a dozen?’

‘You certainly can. Do you always have such a hearty appetite?’

‘Fairly. But this has been a very long day.’

‘Of course. I’m sorry, I didn’t think. You must be tired.’

‘Oh, no,’ she said, ‘I’m not tired at all. I don’t get tired easily. I do feel a bit under-dressed, though. Everybody here looks so wonderful.’

‘You don’t look in the least under-dressed. I would say you look quite as good as anyone in this room. Do you like clothes?’

‘Very much.’

‘Good. I don’t like women who aren’t interested in clothes. It shows a lack of sensuality.’

This time the warmth was not something remote, or distant; it was a stab of fire. Phaedria drained her glass.

‘And after the oysters?’

She looked at the menu. ‘Steak tartare, please.’

‘This is a very cold meal for November. Is that really what you want?’

‘Yes.’

‘Very well. We can have a big bowl of frites to warm you. And some – let me see, beaune. That would be nice.’ He looked up. Peter Langan had lurched unsteadily over to their table.

‘Evening.’

‘Good evening, Mr Langan. How are you?’

‘Fucking awful.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that. It’s very nice to be here.’

‘I won’t say it’s nice to have you here, because I’d much rather have your mother. Have you ordered yet?’

‘Not yet.’

‘I’ll send someone over. You look like you need some help. Nice shirt,’ he added to Phaedria, and stumbled off.

‘He’s being exceptionally polite this evening,’ she said, munching hungrily at the crudités the waiter had brought.

Julian looked at her in amused pleasure. ‘I’m enjoying you,’ he said.

‘Good.’

‘Now then, can we get back to you?’

‘If you like. There isn’t a great deal to tell. And of course, contrary to what you said, I don’t know anything at all about you really.’

‘Don’t you?’

‘I don’t think so, no.’

‘That’s a nice necklace,’ he said.

‘Oh,’ she said, and there was a shadow on her face that belied her bright tone. ‘I’ve hardly ever worn it. It was a present from someone – ages ago.’

‘Someone important?’

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘someone very important. But it’s over now.’

‘How old are you, Phaedria?’

‘Twenty-four.’ She shook back her great mane of hair and looked at him very directly. ‘How old are you?’

‘Sixty-two.’

‘Older than my father.’ It was an oddly intimate statement.

‘Does it matter?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You know what I mean.’

‘Yes,’ said Phaedria. ‘Yes, I do.’

He took her hand suddenly. ‘I find you very beautiful. I find the way I am feeling very surprising. Please tell me about yourself.’

‘All right. But you must talk as well.’

‘Very well. We shall swop story for story, and see how we get along.’

He put out his hand and stroked her cheek, very gently; she turned her head and rested it in his hand. She smiled. ‘I think I shall run out of stories first.’

‘We shall see.’

They talked for hours. Warmed, relaxed by the wine, the strangely delicious sensations invading her body, his beguiling interest in everything she had to say, she talked of her childhood, her love for her father, their strangely intense relationship, her fear that her mother might return and invade it; of her days at Oxford, of her unwillingness to become involved with anybody, of her love for Charles. But she stopped there; she was not ready to betray him yet. She talked of her work, of the people she had interviewed – ‘Everybody must ask you this,’ he said, ‘did you ever fall in love with any of them, have an affair?’ and no, she said, never, you did not regard them as people at all, they were objects, part of the job – her ambitions, the delight she took in her work – and her occasional anxiety for the future and where her rather singular approach to life might lead her.

‘It seems to me,’ he said, ‘that you have led a most blameless life.’

‘Fairly. And you? You haven’t done much swopping yet. Come along, tell me about you.’

‘Well, not blameless,’ he said, ‘not blameless at all,’ and he began to talk, as he had not talked for years, freely, easily, about Eliza, about Peter Thetford, about Roz, about the years in New York, about Camilla, about – very briefly – Susan. But, as for Phaedria, there were boundaries to the confidences, he was not prepared to go beyond the ones he had set.

He told her of his years in France during the war, of the early days in the company, he talked about his mother and the fun and the pleasure they had had in London in the early days, and how in fact it had never stopped.

And Phaedria listened, as she so skilfully did in her work, silently for the most part, attentively, occasionally asking a quiet, thoughtful question, and learnt more in two hours than most people did in two months, two years.

Suddenly he stopped, looked at her slightly warily, and smiled. ‘You are a very dangerous person to talk to,’ he said. ‘You tempt one to say too much.’

‘Can one say too much?’

‘One certainly can.’

He was silent; then he reached out again and touched her face. ‘What do you think?’

She knew what he meant.

‘I’m not sure.’

‘Ah.’

‘Perhaps I should go.’

‘Where?’

‘Home.’

‘Oh,’ he said, ‘don’t go. Not yet.’

‘Well in any case,’ she said briskly, ‘I have to go to the loo.’

‘Very well, off you go, and I shall try and think of something to delay you before you return.’

Phaedria sat in the rather palatial Ladies’ of Langan’s, with its slight air of the boudoir, which had, as usual, a party of its own going on, the air thick with conflicting perfumes and the mirrors crowded with half made-up faces; girls sitting on the sofa gossiping, giggling. She sat apart from them, and brushed her hair, looking at herself in the mirror for a long long time. She felt excited, disturbed, alarmed; but happy. She was taking strange turnings, but she did not feel afraid; nor foolish; nor even surprised at herself. She could see quite well where this evening would very probably end, and despite a considerable sense of trepidation, she liked the prospect. How or why she liked it lay for the most part in the past, she supposed; in her odd childhood, her love for her father, her betrayal by Charles, but it also lay in the present, in the growing urgency of what she could quite clearly see was physical desire at its most beguiling, its most delicious, its most indiscreet. The centre of herself seemed to have shifted; she was thinking, talking, responding, feeling from somewhere deep within her newly restless, hungry body; for the first time in her whole life she felt she understood what a fearsome, reckless force sexuality could be. And she felt something else too, something tender, something happy, something loving; she liked this man, she liked his mind, she liked his voice, she liked his smile and his tenderness towards her, she liked the way he looked, the way he laughed, the way he sat, and walked and moved, the way he looked at her, the way he made her feel she mattered; she wanted to stay with him, to learn more of him, to be with him. He had given her courage; she wasn’t afraid. She smiled at herself in the mirror, stood up and walked purposefully back down the stairs.

He was waiting for her at the table, looking almost anxious.

‘I wondered if you’d run away.’

‘No. I didn’t want to.’

‘I’m glad. What next?’

‘You say.’

‘Brandy?’

‘No, thank you. I’d like some Perrier, though.’

‘You shall have it.’ He took her hand again, looked at her intensely with his dark, questing eyes, searching, half smiling, disturbing her.

Phaedria closed her eyes briefly and swallowed; she felt faint.

‘Now, I have to ask you something. Something important. Something I have to know.’

‘What?’

‘Have you been to bed with many men?’

‘No.’

‘Ah. Any men?’

‘Yes and no.’

‘Are you a virgin?’

‘Yes and no.’

‘My God,’ said Julian, dropping her hand and laughing, signalling to the waiter, ‘you’re hard work. Are you always so mysterious?’

‘I try to be. I don’t like giving too much away.’

‘You certainly succeed. Let me take you back to my place. I have some very interesting etchings.’

‘No thank you,’ said Phaedria, ‘I really don’t want to go back to your place. I hate men’s places.’

‘That’s a very sweeping statement. My place is very nice.’

‘I’m sure, but I don’t want to go there.’

‘There’s the office.’

‘Any etchings there?’

‘Kind of. You’ve seen most of them.’

‘I suppose so.’ She looked at him with sudden interest. ‘Do you have any pictures of the stores? And the hotels? I’d really like to see those.’

‘Dear God in Heaven, I hadn’t anticipated having to compete with my own company for your attention. Come along, let’s forget the Perrier. Plenty in the office anyway.’

Pete had been waiting for two and a half hours outside Langan’s; Julian looked at the car and sighed.

‘I’d forgotten him. Poor old Pete. Ridiculous driving that short distance, but I can’t dismiss him now. And I’d so wanted to walk with you.’

‘Well, let’s get him to take us somewhere else, and then walk,’ said Phaedria.

He looked at her and smiled delightedly. ‘What a clever girl you are. How I am enjoying myself. Pete! Sorry to have kept you so long. Look, just drop us off at the Connaught, will you, we want to have a nightcap there, and then we can get taxis. Quite late enough already for you.’

‘Very good, Sir Julian.’

In the car he put his arm round her, kissed the top of her head, tipped her face up to his. ‘I find you very special.’

Phaedria smiled into his eyes. ‘I’m enjoying you too.’

‘I plan for you to enjoy more of me.’

She felt an explosion, a melting somewhere deep within her; she got most reluctantly out of the car.

They pushed in through the swing doors, waited until Pete and the Rolls had disappeared and walked out again. The doorman at the Connaught looked at them suspiciously.

‘Come on,’ said Julian loudly, taking her hand, ‘let’s go and do that bank.’

Phaedria giggled.

They walked slowly down through Berkeley Square; a pale, wintry moon spattered on to the bare trees; it was cold, dank. She shivered.

He felt it and put his arm round her shoulders. ‘Sorry. Lousy idea. I just wanted to walk with you.’

‘It wasn’t a lousy idea. And I’m not usually so feeble. But I haven’t got much of a coat.’

‘Oh, God!’ He looked stricken, pulled his own off, and put it round her. ‘There you are. And if we come to a puddle I’ll lay it over it.’

‘That would be a terrible waste of a very nice coat.’

‘I don’t agree. And I have plenty more.’

‘I suppose you would have.’

They walked up Hay Hill in silence; occasionally he drew her closer to him, kissed the top of her head. She felt absurdly happy.

‘I like the night time,’ he said suddenly. ‘You have so much more of the world to yourself.’

‘Shall I go away, and leave the two of you alone together?’

‘No. I can’t think I would ever want you to go away again.’

‘Well, I’ll stay for now.’

‘Please do.’

He unlocked the big white door, let them in, followed her into the lift. It was a small intimate space; he pulled her hard against him, turned her face up and kissed her suddenly, fiercely. At the top the doors opened abruptly, the lights on automatically; he looked down and saw her face, startled, raw with surprise and desire.

‘You look very different from this morning.’

‘I feel different.’

‘Do you really want to look at photographs of my stores?’ he asked, smiling gently, teasing her.

‘No, not now.’

‘You disappoint me.’

‘Don’t joke.’

She walked away from him with an effort, suddenly nervous, unsure of what she should do. He followed her, turned her round, looked at her and smiled. ‘Don’t be frightened.’

‘I’m not frightened,’ she said, ‘but you will have to take care of me. I am half a virgin.’

‘I promise I will.’ He smiled down at her. ‘I don’t know exactly what you mean, but you can tell me later.’

He took off the coats; first his then hers, then, his eyes never leaving her face, unbuttoned her shirt, slid it off her shoulders. Her breasts were small, firm, almost pubescent; he looked at them for a long time, then bent his head and kissed them tenderly at first, then harder, working at the nipples with his tongue; Phaedria, her head thrown back, limp, shaken, forgot everything except her need to have him, to know him utterly, to give to him, to take, take, take. She moaned; he straightened up.

‘Let’s get undressed. We aren’t giving our bodies much help.’

She lay on the carpet, shivering, watching him; she had been a little afraid that he would look less good, less youthful without his clothes, but he didn’t, he was tanned, all over, his stomach flat, his buttocks taut and firm. His penis stood out starkly; she looked at it with frank interest.

‘Now, you must have seen one of these before.’

‘Yes, but it wasn’t so big.’

‘Ah,’ he said, ‘I expect you say that to all the boys.’

And he smiled, defusing her fear, and began to stroke her, gently, insistently, first her breasts, playing with the nipples, smoothing the skin; then on her stomach, stronger, harder, and then moved his hand into the mound of her pubic hair, gentle again, unthreatening, and then, as she began to move, involuntarily, responding to him, he sought for her clitoris with his finger, probing, questing, and smiled as he felt the swelling and the wetness.

He was kneeling above her now, bending now and again to kiss her; again and again she thrust herself up towards him, her arms stretched out, her hair spread about her, looking like some strange, pre-Raphaelite painting, an embodiment of desire.

He made her wait a long time, until she was quite quite ready for him; then very very slowly and gently, he began to enter her, pushing, urging, withdrawing every time he felt her tense. She was tight and tender, despite her desire, and still afraid, deep within herself; he waited for her again and again, following her pattern, understanding her ebbing and flowing, and gradually, very gradually she abandoned herself absolutely to him, relaxed beneath him, softened, opened deeper and deeper, and then suddenly she gathered herself and it was a different movement altogether, it was hungry and grasping and greedy, and then she cried out and trembled and clung to him, and he knew she was there, and that it was safe for him to join her. And afterwards she lay and cried, sobbed endlessly in his arms, and couldn’t tell him why.

‘I’m happy,’ she kept saying, ‘I’m happy, I can’t bear it, please please don’t go away.’

‘I’m not going away,’ he said, ‘never. I shall be here with you always. Don’t cry, my dearest, dearest darling love. I’m not going away. Shush, shush, Phaedria, don’t cry.’

And in the end she stopped and turned towards him, her face all blotched and smudged with tears and exhaustion and sex, and smiled and said, ‘How wonderful you are.’

‘No,’ he said, ‘not wonderful. Not wonderful at all. I loved it. I love you.’

He had not said that for years; it frightened him, even as he spoke.

And Phaedria, who had said it only to Charles, and had been betrayed and was frightened also, looked at him very seriously and said, ‘I love you too.’

She moved in to the house in Regent’s Park the next day.