Cents and Sensibility

‘I’m listening,’ he said, smiling happily.

‘It’s about my dad…’

He put his head on one side, looking all boyish and interested. It was agony, but I had to get it out.

‘It’s about my dad and you…’

He frowned a little.

‘Well, you know he’s a life peer and all that?’ I blundered on.

He nodded.

‘Well, the thing is, he’s a Labour peer… he’s sort of a socialist and, well, you see, he has a big hang-up about inherited wealth.’

Jay put his knife and fork down with a clatter.

‘Here we go…’ he said, his face instantly tightening up. It was such a contrast from the gentle way he normally looked at me. I hated to see that hard look on his beautiful face.

‘So your dad hates me because I have too much money. Ay yay yay.’ He shook his head bitterly. ‘Most of the world is trying to crawl up my ass to get their hands on it, and the other few – mostly the nice ones – hate me because I have it. Great.’

‘It’s not the amount, Jay. Ham – Dad – has a lot of very wealthy friends, it’s not money itself he has a problem with. It’s just that you didn’t make it yourself. He doesn’t think that’s good for people.’

‘Well, that’s hardly my fault,’ he said, his voice getting even more tense. He looked like he was on the verge of blowing up. ‘I didn’t ask to be born a Fisher, just like a kid in Africa doesn’t ask to be born starving. I just was.’

‘I know that, Jay,’ I said. ‘In all honesty, I don’t think my dad is entirely rational about it, but he just doesn’t want me to be with someone who comes from a huge pile of inherited money. He doesn’t think it makes people happy’

‘Doesn’t he?’ said Jay, with a sarcasm I had never heard from him before. ‘But aren’t you going to be one of those people yourself one day? He can’t be short of a few bob himself. He is one of the best-known architects in the world.’

‘Actually,’ I said, sounding more defensive than I wanted to, ‘Ham has hardly got a penny. He’s been married five times before this one, remember, and everything he makes from the practice goes in child and ex-wife support. He has six kids who are still under eighteen – three of them are still under ten, for heaven’s sake – and now Chloe’s pregnant again. That’s a lot of school fees still to pay, then university… It doesn’t leave much. Plus, he does a lot of lecturing and consultancy work in developing countries for nothing.’

‘Well, if he’s such a socialist,’ said Jay, ‘why does he send his kids to private schools?’

I didn’t have an answer for that. It’s just the way things were.

‘Anyway,’ he continued. ‘He might not be particularly liquid, but you’re all going to inherit plenty when he goes from the property alone. This place is prime London real estate and Willow Barn would be worth a fortune even if it wasn’t so famous. But with its architectural significance, it’s almost priceless.’

‘Ham doesn’t own Willow Barn,’ I told him blankly, slightly offended by his casual assessment of our family assets. ‘He was given the money to build it by a group of his patrons. They set up a trust to pay for the house, in the interests of furthering architectural theory and trying out Ham’s ideas for real. He gets to use it freely in his lifetime, but as soon as he dies, it goes back to the trust and it will become a study centre for students of domestic architecture.’

‘Oh, really?’ said Jay, in that maddening off-hand American way.

‘And this place will go straight to Chloe,’ I continued. And she’s only a few years older than me. So I’m not going to inherit anything. I’ve never expected it and I’ve never hankered after it and that’s why my career means so much to me. I’ve already got my little house, Ham gave me that, I’m very lucky, but apart from that, I’m on my own.’

Jay was leaning back in his chair, looking thoughtful. It was his turn to look at me across the chasm, I thought.

‘So, how do you feel about it?’ he asked me, eventually, in a more even tone. ‘How do you feel about my money, my filthy inherited wealth? Does it revolt you too?’

‘I don’t really understand it,’ I answered, completely honestly. ‘I really can’t conceive of how much money you might have and what that really means. Over a thousand pounds it’s all the same to me really. I write about handbags costing twenty grand, which I know is more than a lot of people earn a year, but there are waiting lists in London for those bags. Over a certain amount, money just turns into blah blah in my head. Zero zero zero blah blah blah.’

Jay smiled again, and squeezed my hand.

‘Oh, you are so cute,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Because I know you mean that.’

‘Of course I mean it,’ I said urgently. ‘I’m not joking. So tell me, Jay, how much money do you have? It said “billions” in that magazine. Ten billion was it? What does that actually mean? What does that look like? How much is a billion dollars in terms of someone’s life?’

Jay’s face clouded over again. He had an expression on it I hadn’t seen since the South of France, when Laura Birch-wood had said his name. In retrospect I understand that I had just asked him the ultimate no-no question – how much money do you have? But back then, I still didn’t properly understand all that and, even if I had, I still would have said it.

This time he recovered quickly.

‘You know what, Stella?’ he said, looking at me tenderly again. ‘I really don’t know how much money I have – and I don’t really care. Yes, it’s a lot. The family trusts are huge and I am the main heir, by another accident of birth, or rather death. My older brother died in an accident nearly twelve years ago.’

He sighed and looked sad for a moment. I squeezed his hand.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. Now he had mentioned it, a tragic death in the Fisher family rang a bell somewhere in my head, but this didn’t seem the moment to ask him about it.

‘Anyway,’ he said, gathering himself. ‘I don’t know how they come up with figures like “ten billion”. I think they make it up, because it’s hard to assess. A lot of it’s in property – Fishercorp owns quite a bit of midtown Manhattan. Then there is a whole load of investments and other stuff, even apart from the banking, so when people talk about “billions”, it’s not money in sacks, it’s the aggregate value of all the things that we own, which we will never sell. It’s almost like virtual money.

‘As far as how it affects me, I guess I’m rich enough not to have to think about money on a day-to-day level – except that I am not allowed not to think about it, because everywhere I go people treat me as some kind of a freak because they know about it.’

He paused.

‘Do you know I have people – total strangers – come up to me and touch me for luck. And not in India, or Mexico – in New York City. Do you know how weird that is?’

I shook my head. ‘That is weird. That’s horrible, actually.’

‘And do you know who else never allows me to stop thinking about the fucking money?’

I shook my head.

‘My goddam family. It’s all they ever think about.’

His eyes narrowed suddenly.

‘Did your father mention my family? You know, when he was warning you off all Fishers?’

I didn’t want to answer that. I just looked down at my plate.

‘Did he mention my dear Uncle Edward, by any chance?’

My head snapped up to look at him, before I could stop it. Jay was nodding. He raised his wine glass to me and took a big swig.

‘That’ll be it. Your dad had to work with Uncle Ed on the museum project.’

He leaned towards me, across the table.

‘My Uncle Edward is a nightmare. He and the equally appalling Michael Fisher. They’re radioactive, they’re so awful. My dad isn’t much better, but a little less crazy, because he was born before them, so he’s the big swinging dick of their generation. I suffer because I’m next in line for that role – they suffer because they’re not.’

I didn’t say anything, but Jay was spelling out exactly the reasons Ham felt inherited wealth screwed people up. It was too ironic to be funny.

‘That whole museum project was mainly set up by my dad to keep Edward occupied,’ Jay continued. ‘And to make him feel important. It was also a desperate attempt to stop Michael drinking himself to death, by having to turn up at the odd board meeting. So I can quite see why knowing them would make your dad wary of me.’

He paused again. I smiled weakly. I wasn’t going to betray Ham any further by repeating what he’d said about Edward and Michael Fisher. That was potentially damaging to his career and I wouldn’t do that to him, not even for Jay.

‘But your dad’s met me,’ said Jay urgently. ‘Surely he could see I’m not like them.’

‘He did say how much he liked you, Jay, but he’s got it into his head that however nice you seem on the surface, the context of your inherited wealth would not be good for me – and…’ Now I had to get the really hard part out. And he’s made me promise not to see you again.’

‘Was that before or after today?’ Jay asked quietly.

I laughed bitterly.

‘Before,’ I said. ‘It was when that stupid article came out. That one little article made so much trouble for us, didn’t it?’

‘You got it… The power of the press, something you should know all about in your job.’

That stung, but I let it pass. Jay leaned back in his chair, looking at me with a sombre expression.

‘So,’ he said. ‘Are you planning to carry on breaking your promise to him?’

‘If you still want me to, after hearing all that.’ I glanced away for a moment and then back at him. ‘I don’t normally break promises so easily, Jay,’ I said, quietly.

‘I believe you,’ he said. And much as I respect your father, I would like you to continue betraying his trust, to see me – as long as you really think I’m worth it.’

That handsome face, with its playboy tan, looked quite vulnerable for a moment. So I got up, sat myself on his knee and held him really tight.

I have to confess, I was so wrapped up in him and the little bubble we had created that I completely forgot to ring Freddie to say Happy Birthday until it was nearly noon on the Sunday. And I’d switched all my phones off.

‘There you are!’ said Ham, who picked up the phone after one ring. ‘I’ve been calling your home phone and mobile all morning and of course you never pick up that work phone, do you? I was so worried I was ready to drive back to town, if you hadn’t called by lunch.’

‘Oh, don’t be so silly,’ I said. ‘I’m just so wrapped up in what I’m doing here, I forgot to put my phone on this morning. Anyway, how’s the birthday going? How did the tepee go down with Freddie?’

I was getting so good at these not-the-whole-truth lies, I amazed myself. It was a strange kind of comfort not to be telling actual brazen porkies about being in the office, although I knew inside that such semantic details would be immaterial to Ham if he knew what I was really wrapped up in.

I had a brief word with the birthday boy, who was in a state of extreme excitement, and then I was free to go back to the only thing I really cared about at the moment. The beautiful man who had just been rubbing my neck and was now tenderly kissing it…

After a leisurely brunch cooked by Jay in Chloe’s kitchen, we decided to go out for another walk in Hyde Park. We should have been warned when the first people I saw on opening Ham’s front door were my friend Becca – the Cartier PR – and her sister, Toria, who lived just round the corner in Chepstow Villas.

They were good friends of mine; we were all single girls and we often met up at the weekend for breakfast and a long walk, which is what I presumed they were on their way back from.

It would have been a disaster, I realized, if they’d seen us. They both would have recognized Jay immediately. It was Becca’s job to know who he was and Toria was a banker who’d spent a few years working on Wall Street – she probably knew his dad.

And Jay and I had agreed the night before that the only way it was going to work was for us to maintain absolute secrecy. If we didn’t want my father or the paparazzi to know what we were up to, we basically couldn’t tell a soul. As Doughnut liked to say: ‘The only way to keep a secret is not to tell anyone.’

Luckily, I managed to jump back inside the door before Becca saw me and after that fright, we decided it was safer to leave from my house, where we could emerge discreetly at the end of the mews.

By the time we got into the park, I had forgotten the near miss and was just revelling in Jay’s company on the beautiful spring afternoon. We lay down in the rough grass for a while, my head on his stomach, not even talking much, just happy and easy together.

As usual on a sunny Sunday, there were lots of families in the park, and I was rudely shaken from my reverie when a football hit me on the head, closely followed by the grinning toddler who had kicked it.

His parents rushed over to apologize, and I told them not to worry. He was a very cute little boy and I was reminded for a brief poignant flash of how sweet Marcus and Freddie and Toby had been at the same age. I tweaked his cheek and he giggled wildly.

‘Do you want to have kids, Stella?’ Jay asked me, after they’d gone.

‘No,’ I replied firmly. ‘No way. No kids, no husband, no people mover, I don’t want any of that.’

Jay was so surprised he sat up.

‘Are you serious?’

I nodded. I was.

‘Yοu don’t secretly hanker for the full happy-ever-after, orange-blossom scenario, like every other woman on earth?’

‘I like orange blossom the way it’s meant to be,’ I said. ‘Still on the tree. Preferably still in the ground, somewhere nice in the Mediterranean, with a cold glass of wine not far away.’

Jay smiled at me.

‘You are a very singular girl,’ he said.

‘That’s how I like to be,’ I said. ‘And that’s how I want to remain – singular.’

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to make a lame joke, I meant it the other way – unusual.’

‘I know you did, but it fits me both ways. Most people don’t believe me, but it’s true.’

I paused for a moment. This was very personal stuff for me. I’d copped a lot of flak about it over the years, because no one believed me, and it had rather put me off talking about it. I normally just sidestepped those kinds of questions, but Jay’s own family set-up was clearly so weird, I didn’t mind telling him some of the dirty truths about mine.

‘Do you want to know why I feel this way?’ I said, eventually.

‘I sure do.’ He grinned at me, wickedly. ‘I wish more women did, it would make life so much simpler. God, I hate that thing when you just know they’re designing the towel monogram on the first date.’

I smiled to myself. All of my girlfriends were like that. A man just had to look at Becca and she was planning the Conran Shop wedding list. I’d seen just how quickly it put them off her too.

‘Well,’ I started. ‘The reason I want to stay singular, is that since I was a little girl, I have watched women come and go through my father’s life like they were rented on short leases. And I’ve seen what can happen to women who have been traded in, once they get past a certain age.’

I was thinking about Margot, of course, but there were others. Ham had worked his way through quite a few mistresses and girlfriends, as well as the actual wives. I’d seen some sad cases over the years. As far as I could tell, he wasn’t joking when he said men were bastards.

‘So,’ I continued. ‘I’d rather just be on my own right through than get used to playing happy houses and then suddenly be thrown out to survive by myself.

‘I mean, I don’t want to be alone all the time,’ I added, I didn’t want to put him off completely. ‘I’m not a hermit, I want to have boyfriends, lovers, companions, whatever you want to call it, I just don’t want it to be tied down and formal. I like things to stay fluid.’

‘But what about kids,’ said Jay, his eyes narrowing. ‘You really don’t have that urge? Isn’t that inescapable biology for women?’

‘Not for me,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘I’m surrounded by children, so I don’t need to have any of my own, to get that kiddie hit. And, as I told you, there’s another baby on the way in the family this year and before he or she is even grown up, my other siblings will start to produce the next generation of children, so I’m never going to go short of baby energy.’

Jay was looking a little sceptical.

‘I mean it,’ I said. ‘I love my big-sister role – it’s got all the advantages grandparents talk about. You have all the love and fun of kids, the cute drawings, the cuddles and the school nativity plays, but then you get to give them back. And you don’t have to do the maths homework, either.’

He smiled at me, but I could still see a dubious look in his eyes.

‘And, the other thing is,’ I continued, ‘as I’ve already told you – I’m really into my career. I love my job, I love newspapers and I don’t want to give that up for kids.’

‘Well, surely you don’t have to, these days,’ said Jay.

‘No, of course you don’t, lots of my female colleagues have kids, but I’ve studied the working mother thing close up with my stepmother Nicola – she’s the previous wife, the mother of the two youngest boys – and it’s not pretty. She nearly went bonkers trying to do all that juggling when they were small.

‘Of course, she did have all the stepchildren to cope with as well, plus the large child who is my father – but for a while there I don’t think she was a good publisher, or a good mother. So I think you have to make a choice: work or breed. I’m going to work.’

‘Phew,’ said Jay. ‘That’s pretty tough.’ He got a cheeky look in his eye. ‘But at least I don’t have to worry about the towel monograms with you then…’

‘I’ve already got monogrammed towels, Jay,’ I said. ‘My initials – and I’m not changing them.’

‘You’re a one-off,’ he said, starting to tickle me.

‘Yeah, and I’m staying that way,’ I said, pretending to fight him off and loving it.

Suddenly, with no warning, he snatched away his arm, which had been round my shoulders, jumped up from the bench and started walking away. I was so surprised I jumped up too, but then an instinct told me to sit down again. I watched Jay out of the corner of my eye, as he strode off. After a few minutes, my phone rang. It was him.

‘It’s me,’ he whispered. ‘I just saw someone I know and I think they spotted me. Stay where you are for now. I’ll call again in a minute. And keep your sunglasses on.’

I sat there for what seemed like ages, feeling rather lost. I kept checking my phone, but there was no sign of a missed call, or a text. Time continued to pass and I was just starting to wonder if I should head for home, when Jay appeared again, breathless.

‘Oh boy,’ he said. ‘They did spot me and it was very hard to get out of chatting to them. I am so sorry. I just couldn’t get away – they are really good friends of my best friends, if you see what I mean, so I couldn’t just brush them off.’

‘Did they see us?’ I asked.

‘I don’t think so. Kelly asked me who I was sitting with and I just said, no one…’

He glanced away for a moment.

‘I hated denying you like that, but it is the only way for now, isn’t it?’

‘Well, between my dad and the paparazzi, I think so.’

He shook his head. ‘Sometimes, I think your dad might be right about me. Not worth the trouble.’

He sighed deeply, then he put his arm round me and gave me a squeeze.

‘Come on, beautiful, let’s go home.’

It was after four by the time we got back to my place and I was starting to get a bit nervous. Ham and Chloe and the rest of them would be back sometime that evening, but I didn’t know exactly when, and it was making me edgy. I knew Ham wasn’t going to burst into my house or anything, but it felt just too sneaky to hide Jay away in there, so close.

In the end I called them, ostensibly to see how the party had gone, and found out that they had decided not to come back until Monday morning, which was very handy for me.

Just the same, we didn’t go up to the big house to make dinner that night, but sat in bed eating a chicken tikka I’d unearthed in the bottom of my freezer.

‘There you go,’ I said. ‘Microwaved food’s not so bad is it?’

‘Not if you have a nice side salad to go with it,’ said Jay, disappearing under the covers.

‘I’ve had an idea,’ said Jay, after we’d watched a documentary about Mozambique. ‘We should go away somewhere. Then we could have some time together without worrying about being seen. We can go somewhere nice and obscure where we can hang out without having to act like amateur spies.’

He turned to look at me. I smiled back at him, it was a lovely idea.

‘Where shall we go?’ I asked.

‘Oh, I have a number of secret locations I like to go to, when I want to be left alone,’ said Jay. ‘I’ll take you to one of those, it will be a surprise. Now, where did I put the phone? I’m going to book it.’

‘When do you want to go?’ I asked.

‘Tomorrow?’ said Jay, completely serious.

In that moment, the chasm really yawned between us.

I pulled a face, because I didn’t know what to say.

‘I have to go to work tomorrow,’ I squeezed out eventually.

‘Really?’ said Jay, frowning. ‘Do you have to?’

‘Yes!’ I said laughing. ‘I told you yesterday, I’ve just had this big promotion, and I’ve got to get a whole new section together, plus I’m fighting a guerrilla war on my left flank. I can’t go anywhere. I’ve never been so busy at work.’

Jay looked crestfallen, like a disappointed child.

‘Can’t you – what do you call it? – chuck a sickie?’

‘No – I’ve just explained. I’m in the thick of it at the moment – and I love it anyway. I wouldn’t chuck a sickie, even if I could.’

He slumped back against the pillows.

‘Well, that’s a pain in the ass. What am I going to do here while you’re at work? I told those people I saw today I’m going back to New York tomorrow to get them off my back, so now I’ll have to hide out in the apartment all day tomorrow, until you get let out of the factory, then we can stay in and have home delivery. Wowee, what a wild life the rich and pampered lead. I wonder what’s on Ricki Lake tomorrow?’

We both laughed, but it wasn’t a very scintillating scenario, put like that.

‘Haven’t you ever had a girlfriend with a job before?’ I asked him.

‘Sure I have,’ he said. ‘But not one they wouldn’t pull a sickie on, to go away with me.’

He punched me playfully on the shoulder and I stuck my tongue out at him. I was on the verge of suggesting maybe he should get a job himself, so he would have something useful to do all day, but as he pulled me into his arms, I thought better of it.

They’d just got back when I walked in and Chloe was like a human whirlwind, trying to get the boys ready for school, negotiating on the phone with Kristy about who was going to take responsibility for Archie, while Daisy clung to her legs.

I scooped the little girl up and Chloe beamed her thanks at me.

‘Hello, crazy Daisy,’ I said, kissing her on the nose. ‘Did you enjoy the party?’

‘I had cake,’ she said, nodding. ‘Two lots. It was nice. I like cake.’

‘So do I,’ I said in the same serious voice and nodding back.

‘Shall I ask Mummy if you can have some?’ she asked, her blue eyes wide. It was a big deal, cake.

‘Oh, yes, please,’ I said.

Freddie raced in and ran over to thank me for the tepee.

‘It was brilliant,’ he said.

‘We had breakfast in it,’ said Marcus.

‘Daddy wore an Indian chief’s hat,’ added Freddie. ‘It was really funny. Why weren’t you there?’

Two innocent little faces looked up at me, squinting a little. So they had missed me.

‘I had to work,’ I said lamely. They looked suitably blank.

‘You missed the best firework display ever,’ said Freddie.

‘And we had sausages for breakfast and tea,’ said Marcus.

‘I had about twenty-five,’ said Freddie.

‘I had forty-five…’ said Marcus and they ran off in a babble of upwardly spiralling sausage claims.

Ham was up in his dressing room – he thought it was important to keep clothes, and particularly shoes, out of the bedroom – packing. He was heading off to an architectural conference in Rome, later that morning.

‘Ah ciao, bella. Che bella ragazza,’ he boomed, when he saw me. He couldn’t really speak Italian, but he always said he felt Italian and got very excited when he was going there.

‘Five days of marvellous food,’ he was saying. ‘I can’t wait.’ He paused, choosing between two of his favourite brightly coloured shirts. Ham wasn’t one of those architects who wear grey shirts done up to the neck with no tie. In this instance, the gaudier of the two won. It was daffodil yellow. ‘I’ll miss all my ducklings, though.’

He looked up at me. ‘Keep an eye on Chloe for me, would you, darling? I don’t like leaving her this long when she’s pregnant, but I committed to this event last year. I’m making the big speech.’

He cocked his panama hat at me, then rolled it up and chucked it into his bag. Then mashing down the lid – he still travelled with an ancient Globetrotter suitcase and thought bags on wheels were for wimps – he snapped it shut and left the room singing ‘La Donna è Mobile’ very badly.

I was very grateful, at that moment, for Ham’s tendency always to look forwards, rather than back.

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