London, Los Angeles, New York, 1985
THERE WAS ONLY one person in the world who could really give Julian Morell a hard time. It was Letitia, and she was working very hard at it. She had summoned him to First Street early one spring evening on the pretext of not feeling very well (knowing otherwise he would guess the real reason, avoid coming) and now that she had him there, she was not going to let him go until she had achieved her purpose.
‘Ah, Julian,’ she said, dangerously sweet. ‘How nice. What would you like? A drink? Tea?’
‘A drink please, Mother. Whisky if that’s all right.’
‘Perfectly, you must have whatever you want, Julian, that’s your philosophy in life, isn’t it, and who am I to argue with that?’
‘What on earth are you talking about?’
‘I think you know.’
‘I don’t. I don’t know at all. I came here because I thought you were unwell.’
‘I am not in the least unwell. I think you may be, though. Mentally. Emotionally.’
‘Mother, I am totally baffled by all this.’
‘Really? I’m surprised. Let me clarify things a little.’
He smiled at her, taking a sip of his whisky. ‘I’m sure you will. You have a far clearer mind than mine.’
‘I do indeed. Julian, what the hell do you think you’re doing?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Seeing Camilla. When your marriage to that – child is less than two years old.’
‘Phaedria is not a child. That’s a mistake that everybody makes. She is a tough, clever woman. It’s one of the reasons I love her.’
‘Really. You have a strange way of demonstrating love. And don’t try to change the subject.’
‘Mother –’ His face was white, his mouth working. ‘I don’t think I like this very much. I am not prepared to be talked to as if I was a small boy.’
‘You’re behaving as if you were a small boy. A greedy, spoilt, small boy. And I shall talk to you how I wish. Nobody else seems to do anything but agree with your every utterance, pander to your every whim.’
‘I do assure you you’re mistaken there. My wife and my daughter persist in giving me a very hard time, for a start.’ He was smiling again, trying to lighten the mood of the conversation.
Letitia looked at him, her eyes icy, her face still with rage.
‘Well, I’m pleased to hear it. Evidently not hard enough. Julian, for God’s sake, answer my question.’
‘You haven’t actually asked one yet.’
‘Are you or are you not seeing Camilla North?’
‘It’s no business of yours, but yes I am. Seeing.’
‘It is my business, and what precisely does seeing mean?’
‘Seeing. Talking to. Lunching with.’
‘Why?’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, because she was in Paris, and I was in Paris, and she was doing some work for Annick.’
‘And you expect me to believe that?’
‘No, I don’t expect it,’ he said, ‘I don’t ask you to and I don’t care. But it’s the truth.’
‘Julian,’ said Letitia, ‘you wouldn’t recognize the truth if it came up behind you and tapped you on the shoulder. I have heard from several sources that you have been seeing quite a lot of Camilla North –’
‘I really don’t think I like having your spies reporting on me all over the world.’ He was so white now, so angry his face was hardly recognizable. ‘How dare you listen to gossip about me?’
‘I dare. I’ve always dared to do a lot of things, Julian. I’m not easily frightened. And there’s been a lot of gossip. So much, it has been hard to ignore. Eliza had heard it, and so for that matter had Susan.’
‘Susan? For God’s sake, Mother, how could you discuss my affairs with Susan of all people?’
Letitia looked at him. ‘Unfortunately for Susan, she is rather over-familiar with your affairs, or was. Particularly the one with Camilla. There is little love lost between her and Phaedria, but even she was concerned. Anyway, that is beside the point. I am extremely fond of Phaedria, and I –’
‘Yes,’ he said, and his face was savage, ‘I know you are. Too bloody fond of her. You none of you really know very much about her, though. Do you? She isn’t the gentle, innocent baby everyone likes to imagine. She has great ambition, and she works night and day to realize it.’
‘And is that a crime? If so you are deeply guilty of it.’
‘In her case, I think it is a little. I feel she’s cheating on me. She has less and less time and energy for me, and more and more for her work. Not to mention all these wretched designers and photographers and so on she’s always fooling around with.’
‘So that gives you the right to go and fool around with Camilla North? Oh, Julian, don’t be such a child. Why do you think Phaedria is working so hard at fighting you? Because you’ve taught her to do it, you’re forty years older than her, although very little wiser apparently, you’ve encouraged her – pushed her, many would say – into something extremely difficult, and a monstrous situation incidentally, with Roz fighting her every inch of the way, you’ve asked her to succeed, and adapt to your very demanding lifestyle at the same time, and then you complain that she’s squeezing you out of her life. You make me very very angry.’
‘Well, I’m sorry. You’re making me rather angry too, Mother, I think I’d better go.’
Camilla North knew perfectly well what had brought Julian back to her; it was not love for her, or desire, or even his terminal tendency to philander; it did not necessarily mean that the marriage had been the disaster that she had prophesied, nor that it had simply signified the male menopause at its most acute. It was fear, and Camilla could offer the unique gift of sexual reassurance that Julian needed.
She found that was enough.
In offering her gift, and in having it received, she received much herself: gratitude, tenderness and trust. Through the long nights, between her linen sheets, Camilla learnt of Julian’s marriage: of his disappointment, disillusion and despair. He was, she found, extremely fond of Phaedria, but he had found himself in the position of a man who had imagined he was buying a toy pistol when actually he had obtained a high-calibre, deadly revolver. He hadn’t acquired a wife, he had acquired a clever business partner and a highly visible personality, and he didn’t like it. Camilla wondered at the girl’s foolishness; she was by all reports intelligent, surely quite intelligent enough to realize that any male ego was a fragile thing, and the ego of the middle-aged male was poised to fracture into a thousand pieces at the first threat of rivalry – in whatever field.
Camilla smiled to herself as she sat in her executive office on Madison, just opposite Brooks Brothers, remembering with fierce vividness the pleasure of her reunion with Julian in bed. Uncertain, fearful he might be with Phaedria, or in his abortive attempt to seduce Regency, but with her he was as powerful, as skilful as she could ever remember. And since she had grown, greatly to her own surprise, more sensual in her middle age, was less inhibited, more imaginative, greedier – largely, she was sure, as a result of some very intensive and lengthy sessions from a new, highly aggressive female therapist – their love-making was very satisfactory indeed.
‘And just who exactly have you been doing this sort of thing with for the past two years?’ he had asked with surprise and pleasure, and a gratifying tinge of jealousy, and no one, she had assured him, with her usual, painstaking honesty, no one at all.
‘I have learnt to communicate with myself, be in touch with myself, that’s all.’
‘Well,’ he said, settling his head gratefully on her magnificent breasts, ‘that must be extremely nice for yourself. Oh, Camilla, what is it about you, that I cannot live for very long without?’
‘I’m not sure,’ she said, ‘I feel the same, you know. My analyst says it’s probably because our ego instincts and our sex instincts are very deeply compatible. Both in ourselves, and with each other.’
‘Balls,’ he said, lifting his head, smiling at her, lazily moving his hands over her flat stomach, her beautiful, slender thighs, and then seeing the slightly pompous, outraged expression she wore whenever he questioned her psycho fixation, as he called it, he added hastily, ‘I mean, balls are part of it. And bosoms. And this. And this. And this . . .’
Camilla was now highly successful. She had her own advertising agency, called simply North Creative; her clients numbered some of the richest and glossiest in town, in fashion, beauty, drinks and interiors; she had a small penthouse on the newly fashionable upper West Side, and a house in Connecticut, where she kept a fine string of horses, rode with the Fairfield Hunt Club and gave the most brilliantly orchestrated house parties to which she invited a careful blend of clients and friends.
She was happier, more relaxed than she had ever been in her life. She had long given up any idea of marriage; her new analyst had taught her to respect herself, what she had and what she wanted – ‘I have learnt to give myself permission to experience pleasure for its own sake,’ she explained to Julian – rather than desperately seeking to justify it, or to claim new territory. If she wanted to have an affair, then she now knew she should have it and enjoy it. As a result she was perfectly content to continue as mistress to Julian Morell for as long as they both wished without making any further demands on him. It seemed a very amicable and satisfactory arrangement.
Julian returned to London from Paris (via New York) early in March, looking fit and happy. Phaedria looked at him warily. She had learnt to trust none of his moods; the good ones could change swiftly, and the bad ones stayed stubbornly the same. But he seemed genuinely pleased to see her; he avoided sleeping with her the first night he came home, saying he was tired, that his jet lag would wake him at two; she accepted it resignedly, prepared for more to come, but in the morning she woke to find him sitting on the bed, looking at her, his eyes warm and tender.
‘I think we should begin again,’ he said, sliding into bed beside her, ‘I have missed you very much.’
And Phaedria, feeling she should be cool, controlled, distant, but finding herself hungry, eager for him for the first time for months, turned to him and smiled, and said, ‘I missed you too.’
Later he said he would stay at home, and would like her to do the same; they lunched together and then went back to bed. He gave her some presents: a Hockney swimming pool painting which he said would remind her of the Los Angeles she had fallen in love with, a deco diamond clip, an edition of the New York Times from the day she was born.
‘Oh Julian,’ she said, ‘what have I done to deserve this?’
‘A lot,’ he said, ‘but I want to ask you for more.’
‘What?’ she said, smiling still, but cautious, wary. ‘What do you want?’
‘I want you to give up Circe,’ he said. ‘It’s taking up too much of your time, of your attention, it’s causing many of our troubles. I think you – we – would be better without it.’
‘Give up Circe? Julian, I can’t. Two years of my life have gone into that. I love it, it’s too important to me. Don’t ask for that.’
‘Two years of my life have gone into you. I love you too, you’re too important to me. I have to ask. Please, Phaedria, please. For me. Because I love you.’
‘I can’t. If you loved me you wouldn’t ask. Besides, the me that you love is not a passive nobody of a wife.’
‘You don’t have to be a nobody to be a wife. Most women see it as quite a rigorous job.’
‘Well, I don’t.’ She sat up and looked at him, flushed, angry. ‘I couldn’t.’
‘No,’ he said, sitting up himself, drawing away from her in the bed, ‘you couldn’t. That ego of yours wouldn’t let you. It’s yourself you’re in love with, Phaedria, not me, and that great heap of hype you’ve built around yourself, and that’s what you can’t give up, not Circe, not the job. Being a star, featuring in all the glossy magazines, being sought after, interviewed on chat shows, that’s what you really want, not the work, not the store at all.’
‘It’s not true!’ she said. ‘You’re lying.’ But she spoke without conviction.
‘And even if it wasn’t true, if it was just the work, if you were doing the most important job in the world, would you really sacrifice our marriage, our happiness to it? Don’t you think that is something worth subjugating yourself to, Phaedria? Probably not. I’m afraid the person I fell in love with doesn’t exist any more. It makes me very sad.’
‘The person I fell in love with never existed,’ said Phaedria bitterly.
‘Oh Phaedria,’ he said, and his eyes were full of pain. ‘Do you really believe that?’
‘Sometimes,’ she said, tenderness for him rising up in spite of herself.
‘And other times?’
‘Other times – I suppose – he’s still there.’
‘So will you not do this for that person? Give up your work. You need not do nothing. We can find you something else to do.’
‘And who – who would – care for it? Take it on?’ she asked in a sudden reckless act of surrender.
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he said easily. ‘It would move back under the stores umbrella, I suppose. Does it matter?’
‘Yes, Julian. Yes, it does.’
‘Oh well.’ He sighed, reached for his watch and looked at it. It was the first sign that he was returning to real life. In a flash of temper she snatched it from him, threw it across the room; he looked at her startled and then he smiled.
‘I like making you angry. It does wonderful things to you. Remember the flight in the Bugatti?’
‘Of course I remember,’ said Phaedria. ‘I learnt a lot about you that night.’
‘I suppose you did. The darker side. Well, you lost a hero and gained a car.’
‘I’d have preferred to keep the hero.’
‘Phaedria, we have to live in the real world. That’s why I want you to give up the store. We have problems; Circe doesn’t help them.’
‘But –’ she began and then stopped. There was no point in arguing with him. He was too skilful, too devious for her. She always ended confused, half won over.
‘I suspect I have no choice. If I want to stay with you.’
He looked at her, startled. ‘Is there any doubt about that?’
‘It doesn’t seem there is, no.’
He kissed her hand, her hair, her face; he looked into her eyes and smiled gently, tenderly, with no hint of triumph.
‘I know you won’t regret it.’
He fell asleep then, and Phaedria lay beside him watching the early spring sunshine playing on the walls; she felt unutterably weary, bereft, bereaved, as if someone dear to her was lost.
A memo went round the company from Phaedria a week later. She had decided (so it said) that the work of continuing to run the store was too demanding for her to reconcile with the increasing demands of her life as Lady Morell. Launching it had been challenging and rewarding, but now she was anxious to pass on the day to day running to Rosamund Emerson, in her capacity as president of the stores division. She was confident that Mrs Emerson would preserve the store in the mould she had so carefully created, and that discussion between them had revealed that Mrs Emerson had no desire to change any of her concepts substantially. A memo sent out concurrently from Mrs Emerson said that she had enormous respect and admiration for Lady Morell’s work and hoped that she would continue to work with her on the store in a consultant capacity.
If Phaedria had not been so heartsore and Roz had not been so triumphant, they would both have argued a great deal with the actual author of the memos. As it was neither of them had the stomach for it.
‘You don’t look very well, Phaedria darling.’ Julian sounded concerned, anxious. ‘Why not go away for a few days?’
‘I don’t want to go away.’
‘Why not? You have the time now. Do you feel all right?’
‘Yes. No. Oh, I don’t know. I suppose it might help. Where would you suggest?’
‘Why not LA? You liked it there. Get a bit of sunshine.’
‘All right. It does sound lovely. I have nothing else to do.’
She flew down to Los Angeles ten days later, spent three days lying by the pool, another one shopping and (unable to help herself) checking on Circe LA, and felt at least physically better. She was still wounded, still uncertain about how she should conduct this strange marriage of hers, but she felt she had at least the strength to go on trying.
Roz had been quieter, easier lately; she had scarcely seen her. It wasn’t just the triumph over the store: that seemed to have done her very little good. She looked dreadful; her misery over the break-up with Michael Browning was very obvious. Phaedria was curious as to what he might be like. She wondered if she would ever meet him. He had to be a man of formidable character to love Roz, but he obviously did – or had. And she had clearly loved him, too. It was strange to think of the Roz she knew experiencing an emotion as tender, as positive as love. It didn’t seem possible that her ferocious heart could contain it. But it obviously had, and now the heart had been broken. Sitting there in the sunshine, thousands of safe miles away from her, Phaedria could almost feel a pang of pity for her.
She felt a great deal more pity for C. J. He was having a very hard time; Roz was transferring all her misery, all her frustration, on to him. He could do no right: If he was away, even for a day, she demanded he come back again, if he was anywhere near her at all, she could patently not wait to get rid of him; if he agreed with her, she was contemptuous and if he disagreed she set about him like a harpy. Phaedria, who had only talked to him once on the subject, had decided that whether he realized it or not, he was merely biding his time, waiting for Fate to deliver him into a happier situation, more loving arms – after which he would be gone, she devoutly hoped, without even a pause for further thought. She would miss him, but she planned personally to help him pack.
Sitting by the pool eating her lunch the day before she was due to leave Los Angeles, Phaedria wondered what was to become of her. Was she to become one of the ladies who lunch? A bored, born-again shopper? No. Most assuredly not. She didn’t really want to work for Julian in any other capacity. She felt the whole circus would start again, and she couldn’t face it. Could she return to her writing? Get a job on a magazine? She couldn’t see it working. It would have to be a token, a charade of a job, given to her because of who she was, something to be dropped whenever Julian snapped his fingers and demanded her attention, to be with him, entertain him, stand at his side. That was not what she understood of work. Was there some other job she could do altogether? Run an art gallery? Start a stud farm? Become some designer’s patron? None of it seemed satisfying, or even real.
‘God,’ she said to the glass of champagne she was drinking, ‘what on earth is to become of me? What have I done?’
Well, it was too late now; she had done it. She had to live with it. And with Julian. For better or worse. For the hundredth, probably the thousandth time she asked herself if she was still in love with him and for the hundredth, the thousandth time, she had to say she didn’t know. She found it hard to imagine being in love with anyone at all at the moment; she lacked the emotional energy. Maybe when she had adjusted to her new life, she would start to feel again.
She had been very sobered by Julian’s attack on her when he had asked her to give up the store. Even while she recognized much of it had been unjust, there was no doubt at all that she had become much in love with her own image, her own hype, her dizzy, glossy lifestyle. And it wasn’t a very pretty thought. It was the ugliness of the thought, and realizing how far she had come from the direct, self-respecting person she had been, that had really persuaded her to give up the store, not Julian’s declaration of love for her. If she was about to turn into the sort of person she herself would have despised, something needed to be done about it. It had taken great courage, but she had begun.
She was due home on the Thursday midday; Julian had told her he was flying up to Scotland to talk to some forestry people for forty-eight hours, but that he would be back on the Saturday. He sounded loving, conciliatory on the phone; she found herself at least looking forward to getting home to him. Maybe it would all be worth it, if they could restore their relationship to some semblance of its original pleasure and delight.
She got to LA airport mid-afternoon; about to check in on her flight, she suddenly saw a flight to New York posted, leaving in an hour. Now that would be fun. She loved New York. She could go to the apartment in Sutton Place tonight, she had the key, and then do a day’s shopping and visit the Frick, which she had never yet managed. Nobody was expecting her home; feeling like a truant schoolgirl she booked on to the flight.
It was late when she got to New York; midnight with the time change. She got a cab easily; she sat back, tired, happy, excited. She could sleep late, then have a day of self-indulgent pleasure all by herself. She still loved her own company.
The apartment in Sutton Place was in darkness; the doorman half asleep; she let herself in quietly, humming ‘Uptown Girl’, which had been playing on the in-flight stereo, under her breath, throwing off her coat, walking through to the kitchen, fixing herself a coffee. She felt suddenly alive, good again; a free spirit; she should obviously do this more often.
What she really wanted now was to sit in bed and watch a movie on TV. That would end a perfect day. She wandered back through the hallway and down the long corridor to the big master bedroom, still humming. Suddenly she heard a noise; quiet voices, then as she moved again, a responding silence. She waited; desperate with fear; and then, in the slowest of slow motion, she watched as the double doors of the bedroom opened. Julian stood there, wearing nothing but a robe, his face white and appalled; all she could see, take in, beyond him, was a white face and a mass of red-gold hair spread across the pillows.
The only real decision was exactly where to go. She could have gone home to her father, but the complexities of trying to explain to him what had happened were so daunting that in her weak, sickened state she could not face them. She could have gone back to her friends in Bristol, but somehow that offended her sense of rightness. She had moved beyond, away from them; they would not be able to help her now. And her current circle was too new, her position in it too ephemeral to be close enough.
Letitia had been supportive, and very kind, but when all was said and done, Julian was her son, she was in her late eighties and there was a limit to the amount of hostility and conflicting emotion she could be expected to be asked to bear.
David offered to take her in, to put her up, but that seemed unfair, she would only jeopardize his position in the company; he swore he didn’t mind, but it would clearly be an impossible situation for all of them. Eliza phoned, assuring her of support, sympathy, and a home for as long as she wanted it, but that too, although it appealed to her sense of humour, seemed to verge on the ridiculous and poor Peveril would find it very difficult to cope with; regretfully she turned the invitation down.
For want of anywhere else to go, she booked into Brown’s Hotel while she recovered her equilibrium and wondered exactly what to do.
Clearly she couldn’t stay with Julian; she had no intention of it; public humiliation was obviously a permanent possibility and she wasn’t going to expose herself to it. She had no need to starve; simply selling some of her jewellery would keep a family of fourteen in considerable luxury for many months. But what was she going to do with herself? She had been robbed, in that brief shocking moment, not only of her husband, and her love (for she did love him, very much, she discovered, in the sickening physical blow of her jealousy), but her home and her lifestyle as well. And in the midst of her rage and jealousy she felt guilt and remorse as well: would Camilla ever have reclaimed Julian, had she been the better, the more devoted wife that Julian had clearly wanted? And now her days were not only empty of Julian, they were empty of purpose, interest, with not even the doubtful new pleasure of playing the devoted wife. She knew she must, in time, try to get a job of some sort, but at the moment she had no stomach for it, she felt ill as well as wretched, she could only struggle through the days.
Everyone tried to help her in their different ways: Letitia implored her to reconsider; Eliza told her to take Julian to hell and back; C. J. wrote her a charming letter, assuring her of his love, support and friendship and promising to do everything he could to help; Susan phoned her, oddly concerned, saying how sorry she was; even Roz sent a brief note that said she was sorry to hear what had happened. It was a considerable gesture: Phaedria wondered what on earth could have inspired it. Guilt, she supposed.
She was right.
But of course nobody could help. She felt lonely, wretched and, most of all, worst of all, she felt a fool. How could she, naïve and unsophisticated, have possibly imagined she could accomplish a successful marriage with a man forty years her senior, of almost unimaginable wealth, power and influence? It was simply arrogance, as she now perceived it, and she felt deeply ashamed; of all her wounds this would surely take longest to heal.
The other thing she had to endure was physical illness; as April turned to May she became more and more listless, lethargic, increasingly nauseated. Her back ached, she felt dizzy, she had no appetite, she was losing weight. Eventually she went to her doctor.
Victoria Jones was young, and perceptive; she saw at once what was the matter with Phaedria, wondered at her blindness and decided she should lead her to the reason herself, rather than shocking her with it in all its complexity.
‘Well, obviously you aren’t going to be feeling well,’ she said briskly. ‘You’ve had a terrible time. How are you sleeping?’
‘I’m not.’
‘Appetite?’
‘Haven’t got one.’
‘Getting any work done?’
‘I haven’t got any to do,’ said Phaedria and burst into tears. ‘And that’s another thing,’ she said, sniffing into the tissue Victoria had handed her. ‘I keep crying. I never cry normally. I feel just – oh, unlike myself.’
‘Well, you’ve got plenty to cry about. Periods regular?’
‘Yes. I think so.’
‘Oh – I – oh, God, I don’t know. Does it matter?’
‘It might be useful. Here’s a calendar.’
Phaedria looked at it, absently at first, then more intently, going back over the weeks, thinking. Then she suddenly looked up at Victoria, her cheeks very flushed, her eyes bright with tears.
‘February sixteenth,’ she said quietly.
‘Nearly three months.’
‘Yes. I suppose it could be all the trauma.’
‘It could.’
‘But you don’t think so?’
‘Honestly no. Not put together with the nausea. The lassitude,’ said Victoria.
‘Oh, God,’ said Phaedria. ‘Oh, my God.’
She sat for a long time, looking out of the window, remembering when it must have been, when he returned from New York. From Camilla.
‘I don’t know what to do.’
‘Well,’ said Victoria. ‘You could do several things. But I do think you ought to tell him. Even if you – well – considered termination, you ought to tell him.’
‘I suppose you’re right. I hate the thought, but I suppose I should.’
‘Take a few days, though, get used to the idea. It may change how you feel about everything.’
Phaedria looked at her and smiled shakily. ‘If you think this is going to mean the three of us can go off into the sunset together, you’re quite wrong.’
‘No, Lady Morell, I don’t think anything of the sort. But it’s still his baby. He deserves to know.’
‘Yes,’ said Phaedria. ‘Yes, he does.’
She ignored Victoria’s advice; she did not take any time.
She phoned the house; yes, Sir Julian was expected back this evening after dinner. Pete had been told to meet him from the Savoy at ten. He was dining with an old friend. I wonder what her name is, thought Phaedria. It was the nearest she had come to a humorous thought for weeks; it quite cheered her up.
‘Right, well, thank you, Mrs Hamlyn. I might come back later, to get a few things.’
‘Oh, Lady Morell, it will be nice to see you.’
‘Thank you.’
She was sitting in the upstairs drawing room when he came in; she heard the car draw up, the door slam, his steps in the hall, then heavily, slowly coming upstairs. She tensed, then stood up and walked to the doorway.
‘Hallo, Julian.’
‘Phaedria!’ He looked first startled, then nervously pleased. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’
‘I came to get some things. And I – I wanted to see you.’
‘I see.’ He sighed, looked at her searchingly. ‘You don’t look well. What is it?’
‘Would you expect me to look well?’ she said, suddenly angry.
‘I suppose not. I’m sorry.’
‘It’s – it’s nothing, really.’
‘Would you like a drink?’
‘Yes, please. Just a glass of white wine.’
‘I’ll get it.’
He came back with a tray, her wine, a glass of brandy for himself on it.
‘Are you – managing all right?’
‘Oh, yes, thank you. You’d be surprised how well I’m managing.’
‘I wouldn’t,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t at all. I have the utmost respect for your capacity to manage. I miss you,’ he added, his voice very low. ‘I miss you terribly.’
‘Yes, I expect you do,’ she said, suddenly brisk. ‘Is Camilla not here to console you?’
‘No,’ he said, not attempting anything but the truth. ‘She won’t come. I think she’s ashamed.’
‘Ah.’
There was a silence. Phaedria drank a little of her wine. It tasted odd, made her feel sick again.
‘Excuse me, I have to get some water.’
‘Phaedria, what is the matter with you? There is something, isn’t there? And what do you want to talk to me about?’
‘Oh,’ she said, suddenly unbearably full of pain, unable to even think of telling him about the baby. ‘It’s nothing, just a bug I’ve picked up. I wanted to talk to you about the – the divorce of course.’
‘I see.’ A silence. Then: ‘Does there have to be a divorce?’
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘oh, yes, I think there does.’
‘Is there no future in my telling you how sorry I am? That I love you? That I would give anything, anything, to have you back?’
‘I don’t think so. I mean I do believe you, that you’re sorry and you want me back, but I know it would happen again. If not with Camilla, then someone else.’
‘And if I made a promise?’
‘I don’t think you could keep it.’
‘Oh. Oh, well.’ He was oddly flat, unemotional.
‘I think it really is hopeless.’
He sighed. ‘Maybe.’
‘And it isn’t all your fault either.’
‘No,’ he said, ‘you’re right. Nearly, but not all.’
‘You were right about me. I did neglect you – well, our marriage. I cared too much about the store, my own life, everything. I am terribly, terribly ambitious. I didn’t know I was, but you set it free, made me that way.’
‘I know. I blame myself.’
‘Well, I don’t think you should. Not really. And then there’s Roz. That could never, ever have worked.’
‘No. Of all the pain I feel that is worst. That the two of you couldn’t somehow have lived together, worked together.’
‘You didn’t help, you know.’
‘I tried.’
‘Now Julian,’ said Phaedria, looking at him, suddenly so angry that her lassitude and sadness left her, ‘that is a lie. You did not try. You made things a hundred, a thousand times worse. Why do you have to deceive yourself about it? About everything?’
‘I don’t think I am deceiving myself,’ he said. ‘I think I really tried.’
‘Well in that case, you really don’t know what you are saying. Or, as usual you’re lying. You just cannot tell the truth, Julian, can you? You just can’t. Truth is a total stranger to you.’
‘You’re right, I don’t find it easy. But for you, because I love you, I’d like to try. Will you let me?’
‘What do you mean?’ she said, puzzled. ‘What do you want me to do?’
‘I want you to listen to me. Let me tell you about myself.’
‘Well,’ she said, intrigued by the notion, momentarily removed from her misery and her anger. ‘Well, I think you should answer some questions, rather than just talk. That way you’re less likely to get carried away. Why did you marry me?’
‘Because I fell in love with you. And I found you very arousing sexually.’
‘Was that all?’
‘No.’
‘What else?’
‘It flattered my vanity, I suppose, that someone so young, so beautiful, should want to marry me.’
‘Anything else?’
‘I was lonely.’
‘It’s getting less pretty, isn’t it? Is that all?’
‘No,’ he said, and she could see the struggle he was having, to fight through to the truth. ‘I rather liked the idea of the to-do it would cause.’
Phaedria looked at him, her eyes first cool, then suddenly filled with amusement. She smiled at him for the first time. ‘I like this game.’
‘I’m not sure if I do. Can I sit down beside you?’
‘No. Stay over there. I need to see your face.’
‘This really is an inquisition, isn’t it?’
‘It was your idea. OK. Now then, did you really not think there would be a problem with Roz?’
‘I really didn’t.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes. I’m quite sure,’ he said after a moment’s thought. ‘I had no idea she felt so strongly about me. Or rather the company, and her place in it.’
‘We’ll come back to that one. Did you find being married to me as you’d expected?’
‘No.’
‘How?’
‘You were much more difficult.’
‘Good.’ She drained her glass; she felt pleasantly dizzy, and strangely powerful. She had forgotten about the baby, about why she was here; this was the most fascinating conversation of her entire life.
‘Did you – did you sleep with anyone else, apart from Camilla?’
‘No.’
‘Really no?’
‘Really no.’
‘What about Regency?’
‘No. I didn’t sleep with her. She – she didn’t want to know,’ he added painfully, dragging the words out.’
‘Julian,’ she said, and she had to pour another glass of wine, drink half of it before she could face her own question, even, quite apart from the answer, ‘what is it about Camilla? Why do you go back to her again and again? Do you love her? Or is it just sex?’
He was silent for a long time, not evading the question, just thinking. Then he sighed and said, ‘I suppose, in an odd way, I do love her.’
‘Oh,’ she said, and it was like a cry of pain, of fright, in the big room.
‘No,’ he said, moving towards her, holding out his arms. ‘No, you don’t understand. Don’t look like that, darling, please don’t. Come here.’
‘No,’ she said, staring at him, her eyes hard behind her tears. ‘I won’t. Don’t touch me. Don’t come near me.’
‘All right. But may I go on?’
‘I suppose you have to.’
‘I do love her. She isn’t just an easy lay, as she once told me she refused to be. I’m terribly fond of her. She’s very loyal to me, she’s very fond of me, she’s often picked me up when I’ve been down. I’ve known her for a very long time, and we’ve worked together for a very long time, and she means a great deal to me. And – well, I need her. I need her sexually. She – oh Phaedria, I can’t go on with this. Can’t we leave the question of Camilla?’
‘No,’ she said, ‘of course not. We can’t. Tell me, Julian, tell me what it is. Why do you need her? What does she do for you? I have to know, I have to.’
‘All right,’ he said, with a heavy sigh, ‘I’ll tell you. I don’t know what good it will do, but I’ll tell you. At various stages in my life, when I have been under very heavy pressure of one kind or another, I – I have become impotent. When I feel threatened. Textbook stuff, I suppose. Camilla,’ he added with his lips twitching, ‘is very strong on textbook stuff.’
‘So you mean she cures you? Helps you get it up? My God.’
‘Phaedria, don’t sound so crude.’
‘I feel crude,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s disgusting. I’m your wife, Julian, or I was. Surely if you had a sexual problem, you could have turned to me. Was that why – why you didn’t sleep with me all those weeks?’
‘Of course. I didn’t dare try. I was under such strain, with the failure of Lifestyle, the situation with you and Roz, your own success, all those ridiculous stories about you in the papers. Of course I didn’t believe them, but they hurt just the same. I was so afraid.’
‘But why, why didn’t you tell me?’
‘I couldn’t. I really couldn’t. Don’t ask me why not. It’s too complex.’
‘So you turned to Camilla?’
‘Yes.’
‘And lied?’
‘Yes.’
She looked at him, a wealth of pain in her eyes. ‘Why didn’t you try being truthful? Talking to me. Not going to her. Aren’t I worth it?’
‘You are. Yes. Infinitely.’
‘I still can’t understand you going to her. When you’re supposed to love me.’
‘I do love you.’
‘You can’t. You simply can’t.’
‘I do. Do you love me?’
She was taken aback by the suddenness of the change of direction.
‘Yes. Yes I think I do.’
‘Did you sleep with Sassoon?’
‘No. No I didn’t.’
‘Did you want to?’ The questions were coming faster, harder; he was flushed himself now, breathing heavily.
‘No. Not at all. Why were you so jealous of him?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘That’s not the truth.’
‘Because Eliza loved him.’
‘Do you still love Eliza?’
‘Yes,’ he said suddenly, looking at her in astonishment. ‘Yes, I think I do. I didn’t love her when I was married to her, but I have loved her greatly since. And I always will. She has a hold on my heart,’ he added, ‘as you do.’
‘I seem to be sharing your heart with quite a few people. Anyone else while we’re on the subject?’
‘No,’ he said, quietly. ‘No, not now.’
There was a silence. Then: ‘Why did you marry me, Phaedria?’
‘I wanted to.’
‘Is that all?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why, though?’
‘I thought you were clever. Interesting. I just – loved you. You made me feel safe.’ She finished her wine. ‘That’s ironic, isn’t it?’
‘I’m afraid so.’ He looked at her piercingly, suddenly. ‘Phaedria, why have you come here? Tonight? So late. There is a reason, isn’t there? It’s not just a desire to talk, to discuss the formalities of a divorce. The lawyers can do that. There’s something else. Please tell me.’
She was taken aback, thrown off her guard by the switch from past to present. She stood up. ‘No. There was something, but I’ve changed my mind, I don’t want to tell you. Not now. I’m going. I’m sorry, Julian, I really did love you, maybe I still do, in a way, but I can’t live with you. You’re better on your own, and so am I.’
‘Well,’ he said with a sigh, ‘perhaps you’re right. I love you too. Very much. How ridiculous this is.’
‘Yes,’ she said, suddenly, for some inexplicable reason, light-hearted, ‘it is quite ridiculous. I shall miss you dreadfully, horribly.’ And she smiled at him, suddenly, a warm, friendly, loving smile. ‘Perhaps we can be friends. Loving friends.’
‘Ah,’ he said, catching her mood. ‘That would be nice. But how loving, I wonder? And what kind of love?’ And he looked at her, his eyes dancing, and as he looked Phaedria suddenly felt herself physically assaulted by a bolt of desire. It filled her, it consumed her, it was like a great, fierce fever, and she looked back at him, startled, helpless with it.
‘Come here,’ he said lightly, ‘let me kiss you good night. But not, please not, goodbye.’
And she moved towards him, her eyes still fixed on his, wondering that he could not see, feel how she felt. Perhaps, perhaps, if she could only get out of the room, the house now, quickly, she would be safe, and he would never need to know; she raised her face to his, thinking in one moment, one moment, it will be all right, it will be over, but he touched her and it was like a charge; she shuddered, looked up at him, into his eyes, and she saw at once that he had known, had felt it too. She moved into his arms, drew his head down towards her.
‘You bastard,’ she said, ‘you make me so angry,’ and very gently, very slowly, she began to kiss him.
‘I love you,’ he said, ‘I love you so much. Please say you love me too.’
‘I do,’ she said, ‘you know I do.’
‘Come along,’ he said, ‘come along to bed.’ And unprotesting, childlike, she took his hand and followed him, and all the way upstairs he talked to her, endlessly, telling her he loved her, he wanted her, he had missed her, and she listened, enchanted, caught once more, helplessly, in the spell of sensuality with which he had first ensnared her; she lay on their bed, and looked at him, her eyes never leaving his as he undressed her, stroking, kissing, sucking each of the places he knew most aroused her, her neck, the hollow of her throat, her shoulders, her breasts: lingering there, feeling the leaping, quivering response, and then urgent suddenly, he was tearing off his own clothes, telling her over and over again how he wanted her, how he loved her, and then, swiftly, unable to wait any longer, he was in her, and she felt him grow, seek, yearn for release, and it came so suddenly, so fiercely, they cried out together, and then he was lying, looking at her, with tears in his eyes, and for the first time since she had known him, she felt he was vulnerable and that she was safe.
‘I love you,’ he said. ‘Don’t ever leave me. Tomorrow we will begin again.’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Perhaps we can. I love you too. But I still don’t quite know.’
‘You will,’ he said. ‘You will. Promise me you will.’
‘I can’t promise you,’ she said. ‘Not yet.’ But she fell asleep, sweetly and untroubled.
In the morning she felt extremely ill. She slithered out of bed and into the bathroom; she was sick over and over again. It must have been the wine, she thought, she had not felt so bad before; she should not have drunk it; she would give it up at once. She stood up and looked at herself in the long mirror, so slender, so small breasted, and reflected upon the secret within her body, and how it would change it, how the breasts would become veined and heavy, and the flat stomach swollen and ripe. She remembered with a gentle shock that she had still not told Julian, that he had no idea what they had accomplished, and she smiled at the pleasure it would give him, and the promise it brought to their life. She washed her face, brushed her hair, and walked back into the bedroom, into the sunlight, where he lay still asleep, to wake him and tell him.
‘Julian,’ she said, bending over, kissing his cheek, his hair, ‘Julian, wake up. I have something lovely to tell you.’
He turned, still half asleep, and looked at her and she was to remember that look for the rest of her life: first love, then pain, then panic; and then he cried out, hideously loud, and she said, ‘What, what is it?’ but he couldn’t speak, he was beyond it, he tried, but it was quite quite impossible.
Julian fought death for days. He lay in intensive care, after not one but three massive coronaries, battling against it, pushing it away. Phaedria sat with him, watching him drowning in it, sinking, gasping, surfacing, seeing him afraid, and more than afraid, frantic, trying to speak to her, impotent, helpless.
‘He’s trying to tell me something,’ she kept saying to the doctors, ‘he’s trying to talk to me, he’s desperate, can’t you see, how can I help him, can’t you do something?’
And no, they said, really there was nothing, he was beyond speech, it often happened, people did appear to be desperate to talk and usually it was nothing important, they had nothing to say, not really, there was nothing to worry about, she was doing all that could be done, just being there, calming him. But she knew she was doing nothing of the sort.
She felt afraid herself, contaminated by his fear; she talked to him endlessly, she told him she loved him, she told him about the baby, she tried to calm him, to give him courage, hope, faith. And all the time, his eyes looked at her in a deep despair.
He died, looking at her still, his hand in hers, her gaze locked in his. And afterwards, as she gazed down at the still, sterile shell that he had suddenly become, all the charm, the grace, the tenderness shockingly gone, she realized with a piercing sense of grief and shock that she had hardly known him at all.