London, Los Angeles, New York, 1985
‘I’M NOT GOING to lie to you,’ said Michael. He stood looking at Roz across the vast width of the living room in the duplex.
‘OK then,’ she said. ‘Where were you?’
‘In California.’
‘Why?’
‘Business. And a bit of pleasure.’
‘Without me?’
‘I get precious little pleasure with you, Rosamund.’
‘I presume by pleasure you mean sex?’
‘Wrong in one. No sex.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Roz, when did I ever lie to you?’
She hesitated.
‘I never did, did I?’
‘No. You never did.’
‘OK then. No sex.’
‘What were you doing then?’
‘I was,’ he said, choosing his words very carefully, ‘meeting a new friend.’
‘What kind of friend? God, Michael, you are being irritating.’
‘A young friend.’
‘Female?’
‘Female.’
‘I see. And what did you do with this new young female friend?’
‘Not a lot. Fed her. Talked to her. Looked at her. Gave her a present.’
‘A book.’
‘And what did you do the rest of the time?’
‘Lay on the beach. Swam a bit. Talked. Ate. Drank.’
‘And then you came home again?’
‘I did.’
‘Do I,’ she asked in a most uncharacteristic piece of self-exposure, ‘do I have to worry about this girl?’
‘No,’ he said, ‘not for a moment. Come here.’
She moved towards him; he took her in his arms. ‘Now can we leave the subject, please? I really don’t want to talk about it any more and I have a hell of a day ahead of me. You may have taken Friday off, but I haven’t. You can stay here in the duplex if you like or go out shopping, whatever you like, and then come and meet me at six at the Algonquin. OK?’
‘OK,’ said Roz, and sighed. She was still very unhappy.
She had taken Concorde out of Heathrow early that morning and arrived at Kennedy earlier than she had left London. She had spent a wretched week fretting over Michael and where he might have been and fretting over the company and where it might be going. She felt very alone. She had even thought of talking to C. J. but he was out of town. For a man writing a book about London, he was spending very little time there.
Like most extremely selfish people, Roz always expected others to be ready and waiting for her. She was outraged when she found Michael hurrying out of his apartment, and that he continued to hurry out after she had announced that she was there for the day, the weekend. Or at least he tried to. She had blocked his way, demanded an explanation; demanded also that he took the day off and spent it with her. He had conceded to neither; he was gone ten minutes after she arrived.
Roz sighed, poured herself some orange juice and some coffee and sat down, looking fretfully over Central Park. This was not how she had planned to spend the morning. She had been expecting a great deal of very satisfying and energetic sex, a sleep perhaps, a long romantic lunch, and then probably a lot more sex in the afternoon. She did not like the alternative Michael had presented her with at all. It did not occur to her that she would have been even more brusque with Michael, had he turned up unscheduled in her working week.
Now what the hell was she going to do all day? She certainly wasn’t going to stay here. She could look up Annick, who was now based in New York; that was quite a good idea, and have lunch with her (it never occurred to her that Annick might not be free either), do some shopping, she needed some clothes, even maybe go to Kenneth and get her hair done. It needed it desperately.
She sat down at Michael’s telephone and made some calls. Kenneth said as it was her, they would do her hair, if she came over absolutely straight away; Annick said she would cancel her lunch with Ladies’ Home Journal; the afternoon would take care of itself, shopping. Roz picked up her bag and her lynx coat (it was freezing already in New York) and made for the elevator.
She had her hair cut very short and had some dark red streaks put in the brown; at least she looked like a company chairman, she thought. Not some kind of Flower Child left over from the sixties. Phaedria really ought to do something with that hair. It might have been all right when she was busy playing the child bride, but now it was just plain ridiculous. Oh, well, the more ridiculous she looked, the better Roz liked it.
She set off down Fifth Avenue, towards Le Cirque where she was to meet Annick, and stopped off first at Mark Cross, where she bought three pairs of loafers (in blue, black and brown), several belts and a soft leather Gladstone bag for a present for Michael; and then at Valentino, where she bought a dark red print silk dress, with long very full sleeves and a drop waist that flowed over her long body, caressing every curve, every line, and two wildly patterned sweaters.
Her heart suddenly lifted; she had been too serious lately. Michael was right. Pleasure had become a forgotten concept. She should get something for Miranda too, she thought suddenly. Poor little girl, she was inflicting on her precisely the kind of childhood she had had herself, lonely, neglected, emotionally traumatized. She would try and do better for her. She began as she meant to go on and went into OMO Kamali, where she bought her two outfits, one in stinging pink and one in aquamarine jersey, smiling at the thought of them on her daughter’s plump energetic small form; after lunch she would go to Bloomie’s and find her some toys.
She swung into Le Cirque feeling good; Annick was waiting, watching her come in.
‘Annick! It’s so nice to see you. Thank you for making time for me.’
‘That’s perfectly all right,’ said Annick, adding with a wicked smile, ‘you’re the boss. Drink?’
‘Oh, don’t. Yes, please. As I’m on holiday. I’ll have a Bloody Mary. No I won’t, I’ll have a martini.’
‘How’s it going?’
‘All right,’ said Roz carefully. ‘I think I’m just about winning.’
She spoke without thinking. Annick looked at her, puzzled. ‘Winning?’
‘Yes, well I meant I’m winning in the sense of not going under.’
‘And Phaedria? Is she winning too?’
Roz looked at her. Annick was one of the very few people who genuinely thought well of her; she had no desire to shatter her illusions now. ‘Not at the moment, she’s busy getting this baby of hers safely reared.’
‘And when will she be back in London?’
‘I don’t know. This week. Next week. When the baby can travel.’
‘She has had a bad time, I think,’ said Annick. ‘Poor Phaedria.’
Roz swallowed her martini almost in one. Poor Phaedria, poor Phaedria, that was all she ever heard. Never poor Roz, having to cope with a divorce, a billion-pound company, the loss of a father; it was always Phaedria.
‘Yes, she has,’ she said with a huge effort. ‘But she should be all right now.
‘I hear the baby is very very sweet.’
‘Yes. Well, most babies are.’
‘I suppose. I do not know a great many. How is Miranda?’
‘Very well. Walking. Talking.’
‘Talking! Mon Dieu! She is a genius, I think. What does she say?’
‘Oh,’ said Roz, ‘nothing very clever, you know, segmentation of the market, demographics, gross percentage, that sort of thing.’
Annick laughed. ‘It’s so lovely to see you. Let’s go in to lunch.’
They ordered (both being very much in agreement with the Duchess of Windsor’s immortal words, that you could be neither too rich nor thin) melon and parma ham, a sliver each of poached turbot, and a bottle of Perrier water, and proceeded to sit and toy with it in between swopping industry and company gossip.
‘Things cannot have been very easy for you either,’ said Annick suddenly. ‘I know how you loved your father. You must miss him terribly.’
‘Oh, Annick, I do,’ said Roz, ‘I miss him horribly, more every day. And yes, I did love him. More than even I realized. I only hope he realized it. I wasn’t always very nice to him, I’m afraid,’ she added with a sigh.
‘Oh, I think he did. I know he did,’ said Annick. ‘He talked about you so much, he was so proud of you, and he used to say you and he talked the same language, you could communicate almost without words, you were so alike. Especially when it came to the business.’
‘Oh, God, I hope you’re right,’ said Roz. ‘I said some pretty awful things to him, you know, over the years. Some of them just before he – he died.’ Her green eyes suddenly filled with tears; she brushed them away impatiently, picked up her glass, looked round for a waiter. ‘Suddenly I feel I need something a bit stronger.’
‘Roz, don’t torment yourself,’ said Annick, calling the waiter over. ‘Would you like a brandy? Yes? Two brandies, please, and two coffees. We all say bad things at times. You gave him a great deal of happiness; remember that.’
‘I’ll try.’
‘It must be terribly difficult for you and Phaedria,’ said Annick, looking at her thoughtfully, ‘trying to run that company, on exactly equal terms. That was a very difficult situation he put you into. And now with Phaedria being away for – what? six weeks – it must be worse.’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Roz carefully. ‘Easier in a way. At least I can make decisions and things on my own. I don’t have to discuss every single thing with her.’
Annick looked at her.
‘I’m so sorry about your marriage as well,’ she said. ‘I always liked C. J. very much. You must be sad about that.’
‘I am, yes. But it was washed up long before Daddy died. It was only a matter of time.’
‘Ah well. Perhaps it will all be for the best. If you are happy with Michael maybe you should have married him the first time, so long ago it seems now, when we were in Paris together?’
‘Maybe,’ said Roz firmly, pushing her various anxieties on that subject deep to the bottom of her subconscious. ‘It’s just a matter of getting the practicalities sorted out, really, and then we can get married.’
‘And will you come and live here? That would be very nice for me.’
‘God no!’ said Roz, looking at her in horror. ‘I couldn’t. Not at the moment. The company headquarters is in London.’
‘Oh, so will he go to London?’
‘Er, well, yes probably.’
‘I see. And C. J. Will he come back here?’
‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ said Roz, surprised. ‘Why do you ask? His life is in London now. And he’s in love with the place. He’s even been asked to write a book about it. And Miranda’s there anyway. He adores her.’
‘Well, yes, but I thought that perhaps as Camilla is here –’ Annick’s voice trailed off. Roz was looking at her, her eyes huge with horror and disbelief. ‘Oh, my God, you didn’t know. Roz, I’m sorry.’
‘Camilla!’ said Roz, her voice rising and cracking. ‘Camilla North! That frigid constipated bitch. With C. J.! Oh, Annick, you must have got it wrong.’
‘Roz, but of course I haven’t. I’ve seen them together many times. They seem very happy. Of course she’s older than he is, but does that really matter so much? And she looks very good these days.’
‘Oh, shit!’ said Roz. She sat looking into her brandy glass, trembling slightly. Annick was alarmed.
‘Roz, I’m so sorry if it has been a shock. I didn’t think you would mind. You said yourself the marriage was long over.’
‘Yes, I know. I know.’ She was silent for a while, obviously struggling to control herself. ‘I think I’ll have another brandy. Look, Annick, you must have to get back, it’s after three. I’ll get this. You go off.’
‘Roz, I don’t like leaving you like this. You look terrible.’ She gave the word the French pronunciation; Roz managed a shaky smile.
‘Thanks. No, Annick, I’m all right. Honestly. But maybe I’d like to be alone for a bit now.’
‘All right, Roz. If you’re sure you’ll be all right.’
‘Of course I will. Sorry. Bit of a shock, that’s all. I’m sure they’re very welcome to one another,’ she added savagely.
‘Well, as I say, they seem to be happy,’ said Annick, quite missing the irony of this remark. ‘It has been so lovely to see you, Roz.’ She stood up, bent over Roz, kissed her cheek briefly. ‘Thank you for lunch.’
‘My pleasure,’ said Roz. ‘See you soon.’
She asked for the check and another brandy, and sat staring into it. She felt deeply and horribly upset. Camilla North, the scourge of her childhood, the cold, interfering omnipresence, threatening Roz eternally with her beauty, her fertility, cheating her of her father’s attention and love; stealing her husband. How C. J. must be loving that! How Camilla must be loving it. How the whole of New York must be enjoying it. Oh, it was monstrous, unbearable; Roz suddenly felt herself a public pillory, a source of sadistic amusement for everyone who knew her and disliked her.
How could C. J. do such a thing to her? How could he not realize the humiliation it would cause. And to be having an affair with Camilla, of all people. Icy, sexless Camilla. What an insult to her! To Roz! What fearsome implications of frustration and rejection the liaison carried! ‘Oh, God, C. J.,’ she said under her breath, ‘if you walked in here now I would kill you.’
And then she suddenly imagined him, saw him as if he was indeed standing before her, his sweet smile, his soft brown eyes, his tall rangy figure, his unfailingly courteous manners, and she did not feel as if she would kill him at all, and her eyes filled with tears.
She did not go to Bloomie’s that afternoon. She didn’t go to any more shops. She took a cab and went back to the duplex and sat there for a long time, as the room darkened, feeling alternately angry and wretched. She also felt very alone and, in some strange way, duped, cheated of territory that was rightfully hers.
Well, it wouldn’t last. It couldn’t. C. J. would soon see Camilla for the vacuous sham she was. And besides he wasn’t about to move to New York. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t leave Miranda.
Miranda! The subconscious fear that had been swimming about her head all afternoon suddenly materialized. Suppose C. J. did move to New York. Just suppose. He would want to have Miranda with him. He adored her. He had often told her he was a better mother than she was. He might well try to fight for custody. And these days, with all this Kramer and Kramer nonsense, he just might get her. Roz shuddered, felt suddenly cold.
Oh, surely it wouldn’t come to that! It couldn’t! C. J. would never leave London. He loved it like a mistress. But even if he stayed, he still might want Miranda. Oh, God. What a mess.
Roz decided she needed a drink. Franco was out, and wouldn’t be back for an hour or so before dinner. She wandered into the gleaming stage set of a kitchen and found a glass, went to the fridge and took out the ice box. While she was cracking some cubes into her glass, she noticed the basket of book matches which Michael kept on the top of the fridge; he had been collecting them for years. They told better than anything where he had been, eaten, stayed.
She glanced idly into it as she poured some scotch into her glass; suddenly she froze, rigid with shock and fear. Right on the top, the very latest addition, was one of the small cream boxes with silvery lettering in which the Bel Air Hotel packed its matches.
The Bel Air! Phaedria was at the Bel Air. Had Michael been there? Seen her? Was it possible? Surely not, surely surely not. It wasn’t, it couldn’t be. He couldn’t, wouldn’t even look at that bitch, wouldn’t betray her; it would be the utmost, infinite treachery. No, it must be a mistake. Anyway, maybe Phaedria was gone by now. No, she wasn’t. She was leaving next week. Well, maybe Michael had had the matches some time. Maybe he had been rummaging through them, and it had just come out on top. There had to be a better explanation. There had to be. He couldn’t betray her like this, not with Phaedria. Roz drank a very large whisky and poured herself another. Then she crossed over to the phone and, holding the matches, dialled the hotel.
‘Bel Air Hotel,’ said a smoothly purring voice. ‘May I help you?’
‘Yes,’ said Roz, carefully turning her voice into something slick and efficient, not remotely like the high-pitched hysterical wail she felt struggling to escape from her. ‘This is Mr Browning’s secretary. Mr Michael Browning. I believe Mr Browning was staying there at the weekend. He has lost a raincoat. I wonder if he left it at the hotel?’
‘One moment, ma’am. Just let me check with the housekeeper.’
There was an endless, endless pause while the phone was silent, occasionally crackling gently; Roz had to bite her fist to stop herself from screaming. ‘Ma’am? No, Mr Browning didn’t leave a raincoat behind. We don’t have much call for raincoats here, of course.’ The voice was politely amused, obviously hoping Roz would share the joke.
‘I see. But he – he was there? I haven’t made a mistake and confused hotels?’
‘Oh, no, ma’am. He was here all right. Friday and Saturday night. But no raincoat. I’m sorry.’
The voice was filled with the genuine slightly hyped-up charm that is essentially Californian. Roz just heard that and then no more. She had a rushing in her ears; she closed her eyes and put down the phone.
She sat drinking her second whisky and then her third, wondering how she could possibly survive the agony she was enduring.
Phaedria was packing her things together. She had been living at the Bel Air for so long she couldn’t imagine having to return to reality. To organizing her own household, to being in the office every day, above all, to looking after the baby all by herself. It felt very frightening.
While Julia had been at the hospital, cared for by the nurses, although she had longed to have her with her all the time, she had felt safe. No harm could come to her; if the baby got a cold or colic, or wouldn’t suck for a feed, the nurse would sort her out. If there was a real anxiety, the paediatrician was on hand. Now the safety net was about to be removed from underneath her, and she was extremely nervous. It was all very well everyone reassuring her that the baby was now a normal weight, that she was, if anything, more robust than a full-term baby leaving hospital, that she knew as well as anybody how to care for her: Phaedria still didn’t want to have to take on the responsibility.
Besides, she was taking Julia away from the warmth and sunshine of California into the raw dank hazards of an English November; how would she possibly be able to adapt to that?
Just fine, said the paediatrician. ‘I presume you’re not actually going to be living out of doors. That your house has some form of central heating? That your child will have a crib of some kind to sleep in?’ His lips twitched slightly.
Phaedria said no, of course they would not be out of doors, they would be living in a large and very comfortable house. That the house was often hotter than she would personally have chosen. That there was a fully equipped nursery, arranged by her at long distance in collaboration with Letitia and Mrs Hamlyn, filled with cribs and cots and soft, downy quilts, and warm flanellette sheets, and snowy soft cashmere woven blankets; and endless piles of Viyella nightdresses, and soft, finest wool booties and mittens, and bonnets and shawls. That mobiles and musical boxes and pictures were there in abundant supply to keep Julia occupied and stimulated while she was awake; that something over a hundred soft toys were piled up on the nursery sofa awaiting the day when she could hold them and cuddle them; that a doll’s house, a doll’s pram, a bookcase full of children’s classics, even a small bicycle waited in the room next door to the nursery designated as a playroom; that there was a shortlist of five Norland nannies awaiting their final interview with her when she got home; that she had no intention of working full time in the office until at least Christmas so that Julia could adapt to her new life and environment; that their own doctor would be waiting at the house on the afternoon they arrived home, to meet Julia and check her over. Did Mr Welch genuinely think it was really all right to take the baby home?
Mr Welch looked at her very directly and seriously. ‘Of course we do have to be extremely cautious in these cases. But I honestly think, Lady Morell, that under the circumstances –’ he paused – ‘keeping this baby here any longer is bordering on the ludicrous.’
Phaedria smiled. ‘All right. We’ll go.’
So now they were going, and it was a long journey. At least twelve hours door to door, even with Pete meeting her at Heathrow, and it would seem much longer with the time change. She would have to feed Julia at least three times on the plane, change her, wash her; it wouldn’t be easy. Phaedria was terrified.
British Airways, who were flying her home, were very reassuring. There were excellent facilities for mothers and babies on their planes, especially for first-class passengers. All the hostesses had some nursing knowledge. Was the baby in any way unwell? No? Then there really was nothing for her to worry about.
Supposing though, said Phaedria, the baby became ill on the plane. Then what? Was there a resident doctor?
Not exactly on the plane, said the spokesperson carefully, grateful that her caller could not see her face. Of course there very often was a doctor amongst the passengers.
Could she tell yet if that was a certainty?
No, she couldn’t. Was Lady Morell’s doctor aware that the baby was coming on the flight? He was. And he was quite happy about it? Then really there seemed no cause for alarm.
In the end Phaedria had to accept everybody’s judgement and prepare to take Julia home.
She had spent most of the week thinking about Michael Browning. She found it rather alarming how much she had focused on him. He filled her head and her heart, and she had hardly a thought that had not contained him. What was that Quaker expression that had always charmed her? Thee pleasures me. Yes, that was what Michael did to her, he pleasured her, made her feel joyful and warmed and safe and almost physically cared for, he induced a kind of charm and delight into everything, life was heightened and lightened when he was there, and bleaker and darker when he was not. She liked too the fact that she clearly amused and delighted him; that he made her feel interesting, and important, and – and oh, God, yes, and something else too. He made her think with quite appalling relentlessness and vividness of sex. She was not sure quite how; it was partly the way he looked at her, the way his eyes flicked over her body sometimes, the way he smiled, not just into her eyes, her face, but suddenly disarmingly as his eyes were resting on her breasts, her legs, her stomach as though these places inspired such thoughts of joy and delight that he could not contain himself, could not remain solemn; partly the blatant sensuality contained in his eyes, in the way he moved, even the way he spoke, certainly the way he laughed; partly the sudden amused comment, the half serious observation that revealed a strong sexual focus; but if she had tried to explain it to anyone who had never met Michael Browning she would have failed utterly. Other women had tried in the past and failed also.
Well, it was not to be. Her sadness, her regret, the physical ache he had induced in her for him paled into insignificance at the thought of Roz and what she would do to her if she discovered that she and Michael were lovers. Had even thought of being lovers.
She had been afraid of Roz, even when she had been married to Julian. Now she was, quite literally, physically terrified, and she set the concept aside as determinedly, as irrevocably as if it had been some food, some substance that would injure her, damage her fatally.
She was also terrified at the thought of returning to the minefield that was the company. She dreaded to think what Roz might have engineered in her absence, whose confidence she had gained, who she had persuaded to regard Phaedria as a half-witted usurper into the company’s power structure. The temptation to sell out, to let her have it all, to go, was fierce; and yet she never allowed herself seriously to consider it. Julian had left her half the company, and he had left her Julia, although he had not known it, and she had to safeguard the one for the other. She could not betray what limited trust he had had in her. She owed him that at least.
At least now she felt well; strong, ready for battle. On the other hand, she knew she would never again be able to fight with the same total commitment. She would have Julia to worry about, to get home to, to be with; she wasn’t going to have her growing up wondering who she was. However good the nanny, however efficient her staff, Julia needed her; and she was going to have her. Delegation was the key; she must find it and put it in the lock.
She had done a lot of thinking in the long often tedious days in the hospital and in the quiet evenings in her bungalow. If this nonsense was ever to be resolved, simply trying to pull everything in two pieces was not the answer. There had to be some lateral input of thought: the trouble was that on this subject at least, Roz only thought vertically.
It seemed hopeless; unless one or the other of them managed to find Miles and manipulate him into cooperation. And that seemed increasingly unlikely.
Towards six o’clock, Roz suddenly remembered, through the haze of misery and rage, and several extremely large whiskies, that she was supposed to be meeting Michael at the Algonquin. Well, that was all right. She could talk to him there as well as anywhere. It might enliven things a little for the other people there. It was a pretty dull place a lot of the time. She called out to Franco who had come in and was working in the kitchen, and told him to get her a cab.
‘You won’t get one now, Mrs Emerson. It’s rush hour.’
‘Well, I have to get to the Algonquin. And I’m not going to walk.’
‘Would you like me to drive you? I can get the car round in five minutes.’
Roz looked at him, thinking. Walking might not be a bad idea. It was only ten blocks, and she needed a clear head. The traffic would be appalling, and she would have to sit and listen to Franco’s running commentary on the deteriorating condition of New York all the way.
‘No, it’s all right, Franco, I think after all I’ll walk. The traffic will be terrible.’
‘All right, Mrs Emerson. Will you and Mr Browning be coming back here for dinner?’
‘I’m afraid I don’t have the faintest idea,’ she said, making it plain that the decision was hers, rather than Michael’s, where they dined. ‘I haven’t decided what I want to do this evening yet.’
She liked putting Franco down; he was so bloody devoted to Michael, so eager to impress upon her the democratic nature of their relationship. Roz thought there was only one place for servants and that they should know precisely where it was.
Michael was sitting at a table in the Blue Bar and drinking bourbon when she arrived. He saw her standing in the doorway and his heart lurched. She was difficult, she was overbearing and monstrously selfish and unreasonable, but she was very very sexy. And she was plainly in feisty mood. Her eyes were brilliant and snapping, her face was alive, her entire body spelt out energy, power, resolution. He smiled to himself.
‘Hi, darling! Come and sit down. What would you like to drink?’
‘A scotch whisky on the rocks,’ said Roz to the waiter, ‘a large one.’
Michael looked at her quickly. She didn’t usually drink spirits, and certainly not in large quantities. He noticed suddenly that she was flushed, and that her voice was slightly odd.
‘Are you OK?’
‘Oh, yes,’ she said and her voice was just a little too loud and harsh. ‘I’m absolutely fine. Never better. But then I always did enjoy good health. As you know. I’m not someone to cave under at the least strain. Would you say, Michael?’
‘No,’ he said, and there was puzzlement in his voice. ‘No, I wouldn’t. It’s that good British stock you come from, I guess.
‘Not necessarily,’ she said. ‘Not at all. I could name a few examples of British stock who are pretty damn feeble. Who take almost two bloody months recovering from having a baby. Who sit about whingeing and whining and expecting the world to come running to them, from thousands of miles away if need be.’ She drained her glass, leant back in her chair and called to the waiter. ‘Bring me another of these, will you?’ Then she turned back to Michael. ‘So how was my dear stepmother last weekend, Michael? Sitting up and taking notice yet? Or still lying back on her pillows like some pathetic Victorian heroine, trawling sympathy from anyone in sight?’
‘Ah,’ he said quietly. ‘So that’s it.’
‘Yes,’ said Roz. ‘That is it. And how was it, Michael? How did you find her? Pretty damn ready for you, I would say. I bet she’s like a bitch on heat underneath that fey, little-girl charm of hers. She pulled my father into her bed fairly fast. Well, there’s no fool like an old fool, they say. You, I would have thought, might have been expected to be a little more sensible. I was obviously woefully wrong.’
‘Roz, don’t be absurd.’
‘Absurd! In what way am I being absurd? Perhaps you expect me to be delighted that you went sick-visiting? And saw fit not to tell me. I would say that tells its own story, Michael. Or am I to believe that you simply gave her some grapes and admired the baby? Now that really would be absurd. Deeply absurd. I mean, I don’t admire her style myself but I am told she is considered not exactly ill to look upon. And you are, by your own admission, frustrated at the moment. And I daresay she is – or rather was – too, by Christ, although God knows how many lovers she might have had before or after my father died. I still don’t believe that child is his.’
‘Roz, you are making several serious mistakes,’ said Michael quietly. He was still sitting quite easily in his chair, watching her, listening to her; the fact that the entire room was doing the same bothered him not in the least.
‘Really? What mistakes am I making? I hope you’re not going to try and tell me I’m mistaken in thinking you have been in her bed, and in her so elegant personage. She must be a hell of an easy lay, and so conveniently far from home and from anyone who might have known or disturbed either of you. How was it, Michael? Is she good in bed? Does she have any clever tricks you hadn’t met before?
‘I wouldn’t know,’ he said. ‘Shall we continue this discussion at home?’
‘Oh, I like it here,’ she said. ‘Where is my second drink? Waiter! I asked you for another whisky. Bring it over here, would you?’
‘Rosamund, he isn’t going to. Leave him out of this. It isn’t his fault, poor guy.’
‘No, but it’s yours,’ she cried, quite loudly, her face by now contorted with fury. ‘It’s absolutely yours. How dare you go down there, to California, to her, seeing her, screwing her, while I was safely thousands of miles away in London? How dare you?’
‘I did not screw her,’ he said quietly. ‘I didn’t touch her.’
‘Oh, yes, and I’m the President of the United States. Don’t give me that, Michael. Don’t insult me any more than you have done already.’
‘I’m trying not to,’ he said, and there was an edge of searing anger suddenly in his voice that quietened even her.
‘I did go to see Phaedria, yes, and the baby. I went because I was over there already, on business, and it seemed like a nice idea. I like Phaedria, she’s charming and agreeable, which is more than I can say for you a great deal of the time. And she’s had a tough time, to which you have contributed greatly. I did not, however, go to bed with her. I might well have been tempted to, not having had a great deal of carnal pleasure lately, thanks to your good self and your insane obsession with that company of yours. But I did not, and it was much to my credit and to hers that the only physical contact I experienced over the whole weekend was with her very charming baby. Who incidentally greatly resembles your father. I only hope it grows up into something more agreeable than his other daughter. I’m going home now. Perhaps you’d like to settle the check.’
He walked out, leaving the room entirely silent and Roz frozen to her chair, her face ashen, her eyes huge and brilliant, and an icy fear taking grip on her heart.
Phaedria decided on that, one of her few last afternoons in California, to go and visit Father Kennedy again. She had no real intention of asking him any more questions, she simply thought she owed it to him to visit him once more, to explain why no more money had come into the refuge yet, and to show him Julia. She had only taken her out a few times; she had bought a folding pram for the car, and would drive her out to Griffith Park or to the Palisades, and push her up and down carefully and proudly, pretending – wishing, even – that she was just one more mother, with one more baby, and that she had no more serious worries in the world than when she should consider mixed feeding, or whether the sun might be just a little too hot, despite the pram parasol, for Julia to be out in.
She drove down to Santa Monica, parked outside the refuge, and lifted Julia out of the car. Father Kennedy was sitting talking to one or two of his flock; he smiled as she walked towards him and stood up.
‘Well now, this is a most welcome new visitor. I thought you had gone back to England.’
‘No, Father, I hadn’t. She took me by surprise. I’ve been here ever since that day.’
‘Well, and if I had only known I would have come to visit you. Now this is a beautiful baby. What is her name?’
‘She is called Julia. After her father.’
‘That is a lovely name. And how old would she be now, Miss Julia?’
‘Oh, two months. But I couldn’t take her out before, she was very premature, she nearly died.’
‘And you’ve been alone here all this time, have you? That is a very sad thing.’
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘not quite alone. I’ve had a lot of visitors. Flying out from England.’
‘Well, you must be a very popular young lady. That’s a long way to come sick-visiting.’
‘I’m very lucky,’ she said, almost surprised to find that she was. ‘I have a very nice family.’
‘There is nothing better, no greater gift a person can have, than a good family. Next to God,’ he added hastily, lest the Almighty might be listening and taking offence.
‘Oh, it is. And I never really had one before.’
‘Did you not?’
‘No. Did you come from a big family, Father Kennedy?’
‘I did indeed. I was number eleven and there were two more after me. My mother did her best for the Church,’ he added with a twinkle in his faded blue eyes. ‘And I did my best for her.’
‘Did any of her other sons go into the priesthood?’
‘Not one. And most of them have died now, but there are many many nieces and nephews and great-nieces and nephews – but what am I thinking of, come and sit down, and let me give you a cup of tea.’
Phaedria followed him inside and sat down, holding Julia tenderly against her shoulder as she sipped her iced tea. She had grown very fond of it as a drink since she had been in California.
‘What I really came to see you about, Father, apart from showing you my baby, was to say that I’m sorry I haven’t made any arrangements yet about money for you, for the refuge, but I just haven’t been able to. Not being at home. But I haven’t forgotten, and I didn’t want you to think I’d forgotten.’
‘I thought no such thing,’ he said. ‘But it was good of you to come just the same. May I hold your baby a moment?’
‘Of course,’ she said, and handed her over, looking at him and smiling as he held the baby gently, stroking her tiny dark head, patting her small back.
‘I love babies,’ he said. ‘It is my only regret about being a priest, that I was denied this pleasure, that of fatherhood. But then, of course, I have known far more children, been involved with them, watched them growing up than if I had had my own. So maybe it was all for the best.’
‘Maybe.’
‘Well now, have you found that young man yet?’
‘No, Father, we haven’t. I hear he was traced as far as Miami, but now he has simply vanished. Nobody knows where he is. My – that is, one of the other members of the family is still trying to trace him with a private detective, but what with the baby and so on, I haven’t given it much thought lately.’
‘And Mrs Kelly, the grandmother, do you know anything of her? Is she well?’
‘I believe she is well, but apparently a little – well, confused,’ said Phaedria carefully, raking desperately through her mind for a positive aspect of the news C. J. had brought, via Henry Winterbourne, of a pair of crazy old women struggling to keep Miles from his rightful inheritance.
‘Well now, that would explain why she has never answered my letters,’ said Father Kennedy with a sigh. He looked sad suddenly and very old.
Phaedria put out her hand and touched his arm. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Oh, well now, that is the way of the world. We are none of us growing younger. Did you find nothing up at the house?’ he asked after a moment’s pause.
‘Not – not really,’ she said, ‘it was all locked up. I just found – oh, you know, some of Miles’ toys – his bike and his skate board and so on.’
‘Oh, he loved that skate board,’ said Father Kennedy. ‘He used to park it outside the church when he came to mass. He would have brought it in with him if his mother had allowed it.’
‘What – what was his mother like?’ asked Phaedria carefully, reaching out, taking the baby back from him, not looking at him. ‘I mean was she a nice person, was she clever, what was she actually like?’
‘She was a very nice person and very brave,’ said Father Kennedy. ‘Very brave indeed. Not just when she was so ill, but after her husband died. That wasn’t easy for her.’
‘She must have felt so alone,’ said Phaedria, ‘I do know a little bit how she felt.’
‘Indeed. And she had no family to speak of, apart from her mother, although she had good friends. And Mr Dashwood, now he was very good to her then, and helped her a lot.’
‘Did he?’ said Phaedria sharply. ‘What did he do?’
‘Oh, well now, he helped her with all the paperwork, you know, and that sort of thing, and I believe he made some money available to her as well. He was a good friend to her, it has to be said, very good. He came to see her, often, right up to the end.’ He stopped suddenly, fearing he might have said too much. ‘Well now, you’ll have to excuse me, I must be getting on with my work, it is nearly half past four, and then the rush starts, you know, we have to close our doors soon after that.’
‘Father,’ said Phaedria, in a sudden, desperate rush of courage, astonishing herself. ‘Father, you don’t have any photographs of Hugo Dashwood, do you?’
‘I don’t think so,’ he said, ‘I can’t think that I would. Miles might have a few, of course, but then that isn’t of any help to you, is it? But if I should come across one, I will certainly let you know.’
‘And – and what did he look like?’
‘Well, he was quite tall. Dark-haired. Nicely dressed. Rather too formally, for this part of the world. But then the English are inclined to be that way, aren’t they? He had these very formal manners too, and the wonderful English accent, very much like your own.’
‘And what colour eyes did he have? Can you remember that?’
There was a long silence; Phaedria stood motionless, fearing the answer. She turned her head and rested her cheek on the baby’s head.
Finally Father Kennedy shook his head.
‘Well now, there you have me,’ he said. ‘Darkish certainly. But whether they were dark blue or grey or even brown, I couldn’t tell you. I think if you really forced me to say something I would say grey. But I’m more or less guessing, mind. Does it matter greatly?’
‘Oh, no,’ said Phaedria, feeling suddenly unaccountably lighthearted. ‘It doesn’t matter at all. I’m just trying to visualize him, that’s all. Just trying to work out what he was really like.’
How Roz got home that night she never afterwards knew.
She managed to get to the ladies’ room, where she threw up, and then she sat for a very long time on the seat, resting her head on the partition, too drained of emotion even to cry, occasionally listening to the various women coming in and discussing the scene they had just witnessed.
‘It certainly did beat anything on the cinema,’ said one cool amused voice. ‘I just don’t know how anyone can humiliate themselves like that.’
‘Well,’ said her companion, as if she was explaining the mystery of the universe, ‘she was English, remember.’
‘I know,’ said the first. ‘But I would just rather die. And he seemed so nice and patient with her.’
‘Yes, well,’ said the second, ‘he was American.’
‘Yes of course,’ said the first, clearly finding this a perfectly satisfactory explanation.
After this display of chauvinism they left the room; Roz waited a while and was wondering if she had the strength to make her escape when a second pair came in.
‘I thought it was just disgusting,’ said Voice A, ‘absolutely not the sort of thing you expect to have going on in a place like this.’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Voice B. ‘I thought it was rather exciting. I thought she was wonderful.’
‘Did you?’ said A. ‘I thought she was dreadful. You can always tell,’ she added, ‘when people come from poor families. I mean she may have looked all right, and that coat was obviously very expensive, but you could see there was no breeding there, no breeding at all. She’s obviously screwed a lot of money out of some poor man or other, probably not that one, and now she’s just reverting to type.’
‘Well, I think you’re wrong,’ said B. ‘If he’s really been playing around, then he deserves to be bawled out.’
‘Not in public surely?’
‘Anywhere at all to my way of thinking.’
Roz was just about to leave the cubicle and go out and shake B’s hand and possibly deliver A a short lecture on the English class system and where she stood in it when they also left the cloakroom; it was quiet for a while. She stood up, went out, washed her face quickly and then made her way to the elevator. Whatever happened now, for the rest of her life she would never be able to come to the Algonquin again. Well, that was no great loss.
After that brief rush of adrenaline everything blurred again. She presumed afterwards that she must have found a cab, driven to Kennedy, checked in to a mercifully imminent flight, and then sunk into her seat and tried to go to sleep through the endless night ahead of her in the sky.
But she couldn’t. Her mind roared and raced on. Could Michael possibly have been speaking the truth? Surely not. Otherwise he would have told her exactly where he had been. On the other hand, he was quite outstandingly truthful. She had never known him to lie. But of course Phaedria brought out the protector in men; she had seen it before. With her pathetic little-girl, fragile airs, and those ridiculous great eyes of hers. He was probably lying to protect her. He knew how frightened she would be. And with good cause. Jesus, thought Roz, once she gets back to England, will I give her hell. If she thinks life’s been tough up to now, she’s going to find out it’s been one long rest cure by comparison.
But then – but then if it was true, if she and Michael were having an affair, Phaedria wouldn’t care. She would just sell out and move to New York and live with Michael. Well, that would at least mean that she, Roz, would get the company. Some good would come of it. On the other hand, for the first time since the day she had gone to work for her father, Roz wondered if there was a price too high to pay for that massive unwieldy monster. Did she really not care about what happened to her, as a person? Would she settle for success, power, money, would they be enough, would they replace warmth, tenderness, safety, sex?
It looked as if they might have to, unless she did something very clever and very quickly. Michael, even if he had been speaking the truth, playing fair, was not going to come running back to her now. He would be deeply angry, outraged, she had publicly humiliated him, and he was a fiercely proud man.
Unless she did something fairly drastic, crawled to him, begged him to forgive her (and she was not about to do that, to risk having them laughing at her, despising her), she had lost him.
God, she thought, pressing viciously on her call button, God I hate that woman. She’s taken away everything I ever value: my father, the stores, the company, and now my lover.
For a short horrific moment she allowed herself to think of Phaedria in bed with Michael; of her lying naked in his arms, knowing the pleasure of his immensely skilful body: she felt violently sick again.
‘Bring me a drink, would you?’ she said to the steward who had appeared in front of her. ‘A whisky. And a strong coffee as well.’
‘Yes, Mrs Emerson.’
Mrs Emerson! That reminded her of C. J. and Camilla. Taking alternate sips of whisky and coffee, she tried to imagine how she was going to handle that as well. The threat of losing Miranda. And the double humiliation of losing husband and lover. Everyone had always assumed she had ditched C. J. in order to marry Michael. Now it would look very different.
‘Dear God,’ she said aloud, speaking to the clouds, and the darkness they were beginning to fly out of, ‘what a day. How have I survived it?’
And exhausted finally, her aching heart briefly anaesthetized, she fell asleep.
When Phaedria got back to the hotel later that evening there was a message waiting for her.
‘Could you call Mr Browning at home in New York?’ said the clerk at the desk. ‘I have his number. Would you like it?’
‘Yes please,’ said Phaedria. Her heart was being horribly fast. She went back to her bungalow, hurried in, slammed the door, dialled the number. Michael answered the phone himself.
‘Phaedria, hi. How are you?’
‘I’m fine. What’s the matter?’
‘Well, I thought I should phone you. Tell you to double lock your door. Batten down the hatches.’ He tried to sound amused, lighthearted, but he failed.
She knew immediately what he meant.
‘She’s found out?’
‘Yup.’
‘But there was nothing to find out.’
‘Did you ever try to explain to a bluebottle there was glass in the window? Same thing. She found it kind of hard to grasp.’
‘Oh, God. Oh, Michael. What shall we do? Where is she?’
‘Christ knows. I imagine on her way back to London. She just left. She flew in this morning. I don’t think she’ll be coming over to you. But she just might. I’m very very sorry.’
‘How did she find out?’
‘I don’t know. I really don’t. She’d had lunch with that French dame, the one she always says is her only friend, what’s her goddamned name, Annie or Angela or something, and I called her, but she just said was Roz all right, she’d been worried about her because she was very upset about Camilla and C. J.’
‘Camilla and who?’
‘C. J. Apparently they’ve got it together. Isn’t that something?’
‘I suppose so,’ said Phaedria, with an irrational stab of jealousy. ‘Yes. But anyway, Annick didn’t seem to know about – about us?’
‘Absolutely not.’
‘Oh, it’s so ridiculous,’ said Phaedria, ‘nothing to know, nothing at all. But I can see she wouldn’t have believed it.’
‘No. I’d have a little trouble with it myself, though, wouldn’t you?’
‘I suppose so. Yes.’
‘Serves us right,’ he said. ‘I knew it was a mistake.’
‘What, coming to see me?’
‘No,’ he said, and his voice warmed her, stroked her over the telephone. ‘Not seeing more of you. The rest of you.’
‘Well,’ she said, ‘I shall just have to go back and face her. I’m not staying here.’
‘You wouldn’t like to come and hide with a lonely, frightened man for a day or two?’
‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘You’ve got me into enough trouble. I’m going home.’
‘Lady Morell,’ he said, and there was a wealth of admiration in his voice, ‘you are a dame with balls.’
The weekend wound wearily on for Roz. The nanny had taken Miranda up to Scotland for a day or two to stay with her grandmother; the house was empty, silent. She roamed about it, restless, miserable. She felt she had been asked to bear too much; she didn’t see quite how she was going to stand it. She was alone, she was frightened, she was wretchedly unhappy, she was humiliated; she thought of going to see Letitia to talk to her, but rejected the idea, shrinking from the pain of explaining, of exposing herself to Letitia’s particular brand of rather pragmatic sympathy. And Susan, dear Susan, her refuge in times of trouble, was away with Richard in France, inspecting their new property.
She hurt physically; her back throbbed, her head ached, her legs felt heavy and weak. She tried to eat, in the knowledge that on Monday she was going to have to make an appearance, to take some decisions, put on her endlessly impressive performance; Phaedria would be back at the end of the week, she couldn’t afford to let them see her weaken now. But the food tasted disgusting: she couldn’t swallow it.
She decided to go out, to get some air; she walked for miles along the embankment, from Cheyne Walk all the way to Westminster, and then on to Blackfriars, and still further, to Tower Bridge. As she walked she thought about C. J. and the London he loved so much; about how she had refused over and over again to go with him as he explored it, about how little he had complained, merely gone off with his maps and his reference books, in search of happiness, interest, discovery and she had been grateful, relieved, to see him go. Well, he was gone now, permanently, she had lost him (odd how it suddenly seemed to be a loss), and it seemed she had lost Michael too. How horribly wrong her life was turning out, when only two years ago she had seemed to hold everything that she wanted in her hands. A nightmarish panic took hold of her; she felt as if everything was out of rhythm, distorted, slightly mad. She grew oddly frightened; she felt she must get back to her own territory, not be in strange places and alone; she hailed a cab and went home to Cheyne Walk, sobered, miserable.
In the end she turned to work. It proved, as usual, to be the panacea. It never failed her. She always found serenity, calm, sheer pleasure in work.
She settled at her desk in the study next to her bedroom, and with sheer force of will set her mind to the company and its demands. Initially she went through her pending files, catching up on detail, answering memos, checking minutes, cross-referencing appointments in her diaries. But on Sunday evening she got out some files and looked at the performance of the various companies over the past year. The stores were doing fine (including London now, which was a bittersweet pill to swallow), the cosmetic company was flourishing (only she yearned to do things with that, expand into the body business, open some more health farms); the hotels were a bit iffy. The pharmaceutical company was expanding faster than the rest; plastics and paper were both doing fine. Only the new communications company looked as if it might be in serious difficulty: she would sell that if she had her way. But Phaedria would never agree. Oh, God, if only, if only she had a bit more power. She could see the way ahead so clearly, and knew exactly how to steer the company through it.
She was in the office at seven-thirty the following morning. She felt excited, exhilarated, her misery briefly forgotten.
She settled at her desk, pulled out her dictating machine, began to construct a careful, discreet document. She was totally engrossed in it when she heard footsteps in the corridor. Now who could that be, and why hadn’t she had the sense to re-lock the front door? It was far too early for any of the regular staff to come in and the cleaners came at night. Maybe it was the doorman, come in early. She heard a knock on her own door; she frowned. ‘Yes? Come in!’ She heard the door open; still half engrossed in her work, she paused before she looked up. When she did, she thought she must be hallucinating.
A ludicrously beautiful young man stood in front of her, leaning with an almost mannered grace against the door. He had sun-streaked, untidy, rather long blond hair, and very dark blue eyes; there was a night’s growth of stubble on his tanned face; he was tall and slender and he was dressed in jeans and a very crumpled white shirt, a denim jacket slung over one shoulder.
His eyes travelled over Roz appreciatively: slowly, carefully, taking her in. Then he slowly smiled, a glorious, joyous, pleasure-giving smile that she could not resist, could not despite her weariness, her anxiety, help but return.
‘Hi,’ he said, ‘I’m Miles.’