Grand Affair

‘You must come and celebrate with me.’

‘I don’t think I can, Joseph. Really, I have some sort of bug. I’m full of antibiotics, feeling terrible.’

‘You’re going to feel worse when I tell you that the news has just come through – we are about to buy you out, Miss O’Flaherty. The Clover House shareholders are about to be made an offer that will make them all as happy as clams. From now on you will be employed by your brother, how about that?’

His tone was so gloating, so cock-a-hoop, that Ottilie could hardly bear to listen to any more. Instead she put her hand to her throbbing head and said, ‘Are you sure about all this?’

‘Sure I’m sure. Clover House have had it – it’s official, Ottie. The new group will be called Clover Vision. Don’t worry, it won’t affect you. They can’t afford to lose people like you, it’s the slack undergrowth they’ll cut away—’

‘I have actually been in a Vision hotel, I do know what they’re like, Joseph. Slack undergrowth means no more night porters, no more real fires, one waitress to six tables, watered down drinks, bland food, and no atmosphere at all, just as we had all set our hearts on bringing back the old-style small hostelry. Vision is so characterless, Joseph.’

‘It is nothing of the sort. You forget yourself if you criticize Vision to me, Ottie. Vision is my whole life. I believe in Vision. It is my faith.’ She could hear him pounding the telephone table with his fist. ‘I eat, drink and live Vision. You must never criticize it to me.’

There was no point in continuing so, head throbbing, pulse racing, Ottilie curtailed the conversation. Seconds after she had replaced the telephone receiver she found herself wondering why in heaven she had not successfully pleaded illness? Who cared if it was Joseph’s last night in St Elcombe? If Vision were taking over he would soon be back among them, if only to supervise the ruination of the Angel and whatever other hostelries they had bought. She sat down suddenly.

What on earth would she say to her little staff? Once a place was taken over by one of the big groups that was it, no-one stayed. It was said to be a sign of weakness to dismiss staff once an acquisition had been made, but that was not something that would trouble the organization that Joseph worked for. Everything they had all done together was about to disappear.

Depressed beyond measure, Ottilie managed to drag herself upstairs. After swallowing one of her antibiotic pills she changed once more into her blue silk shirt dress, and set out once again for the Grand. She felt ghastly, but at least there was a time limit to the party since Joseph had already announced that he was leaving for London later that evening. Handsome and charming he might be but in Ottilie’s eyes Joseph already stood for all that was grey and mediocre. He had become yet another zombie executive. He stood for people who cared not a jot for adding to the beauty of the world, but only to paper profit.

This evening he opened the door of his suite to her, drink in hand, every inch the immaculately suited businessman, charm back in place, exactly the right amount of shirt cuff showing beneath the tailored sleeve of his suit.

‘My but you sounded mad at me on the telephone. You’re not mad at me, are you?’

‘No, no, of course I’m not mad at you, Joseph, I’m just not feeling too good.’

‘I’m sorry about that, Ottie, but I really needed someone to get loaded with tonight. Lorcan’s out on a call and only coming along later,’ he went on, pouring her a whisky and topping up his own.

Without thinking, distracted by both her fever and the worry of the Angel collapsing and taking the staff down with it, Ottilie took the whisky while all the time knowing that she absolutely did not want it. It was as if she was sleep-walking, what with the tiredness and the fever.

‘I can’t stay long, Joseph, I’m afraid. I really don’t feel at all well, and I’m just so worried about my staff. You know how it is, you hire these people, you build up something together and then suddenly the rug is pulled out from under them and they’re on the scrap heap again.’

‘At Vision we never put anyone worthwhile on the scrap heap, Ottie—’ Joseph interrupted.

‘It’s as if I’ve been building a house, and then after only a few months the bulldozers are being sent in to raze it to the ground—’

‘Oh come on, Ottie, you always exaggerate so.’

‘It’s people’s lives, Joe,’ Ottilie insisted suddenly with passion. ‘It breaks your heart when you see how people respond to being treated with respect, paid properly, what a real spring it gives to their step.’

‘Trade is about survival of the fittest, and to stay fit companies must stay lean and trim,’ Joseph said, walking up and down the room, but she could see from his eyes what he was all too anxious to keep out of his voice, that he was really enjoying this moment, that he was – as she had suspected when he telephoned her earlier – gloating.

‘If you’re giving bad service, if the end product is poor and unjoyous, what’s the point of being anything?’

‘For a beautiful girl you talk too much. People who are good always survive.’

‘Not always. People matter. They must do, or else there’s nothing left.’

‘They’ll all find other work. Vision might employ them, who knows? I tell you, I can’t wait to get out of this place. What a dump.’ Joseph looked round the suite taking in the faded furnishings, the drooping flowers – the vase of the inevitable long-stemmed too-tall red roses with their too-small heads leaning down towards the floor as if even they were ashamed of their surroundings. ‘Do you know, ten years ago I would have given my right arm just to paint this place with emulsion and brush, now I would give my right arm to get out of it.’ Joseph obviously could not stop indulging himself in his sense of victory. ‘Ten years ago I couldn’t hold down a job painting the railings down there, and now look at me! By the way, your lawyer’s popping in tonight for a celebration drink with us. Nice guy. Good choice.’

Ottilie hoped against hope that her face did not register any surprise at Joseph’s words, that it did not state publicly, wordlessly but all too clearly, ‘My lawyer? But how do you know Nicholas Phelps is my lawyer?’

‘It’s all right, Ottie, I know.’

Ottilie looked at him dazedly. ‘What do you know now, Joseph?’

How she loathed him suddenly. His gleeful face, his gloating, his careless attitude to other people with lesser lives than his, less money than his.

‘I know that old Edith left you money. I saw the letter in his room. It’s a trick of mine, leaning over desks and reading letters. Go on, admit it, you’ve been left money by that old maid who looked after you.’

‘Edith wasn’t an old maid, Joseph, she was much more than that.’

‘You know what I mean. What did you she leave you – a couple of hundred quid and a parrot?’

‘Edith left me what she had,’ was the only way that Ottilie could think of putting it truthfully. Quickly she turned the conversation back to him. ‘You are the all-American success story now, aren’t you, Joseph?’

‘I certainly am,’ Joseph agreed. ‘And I tell you what, Ottie, I intend to stay that way. I have worked for what I have got. Even changed my name to give myself the will to succeed on my own account. I have not had to accept leg-ups on the “Murphy Circuit”. No, I started on a street corner selling newspapers, like Bob Hope, like Nelson Rockefeller, like all good Americans I worked my way up the hard way, saving dimes, putting aside a dollar a week—’

‘Tell me what happened after I left you that night, Joseph, I’ve always wondered?’

‘I started by selling newspapers,’ Joseph continued inexorably, seemingly unstoppable on the subject of himself, ‘and then went into hotels, starting at the bottom as a bellboy and working my way up to the top, where I am now. And I have done it all myself, and all by myself without any help from anyone, except the United States of America, God be praised. Ah now, this would be Lor can’ – Joseph flung open the door in answer to a discreet knock – ‘no, it would not, it would be Mr Nicholas Phelps himself, come to join the Joseph Maximus farewell party. I think you two know each other?’

Nicholas Phelps had arrived obviously intent on striking an informal note for he was without his tie and the top button of his shirt was undone. He looked just like any other vaguely patrician young man intent on enjoying a drink with an American he had befriended on a rather dull trip to Cornwall. ‘You don’t look too good,’ he told Ottilie, looking at her slightly shocked.

‘No, I’m not feeling at all well, I shouldn’t have come. I’ll have to go home. Lorcan will take me—’

‘I was just teasing Ottilie about her inheritance,’ Joseph said, rocking back on his heels and laughing. ‘Imagine that old maid Edith leaving her a couple of hundred quid and a parrot!’

‘She’s left her a great deal more than that,’ Nicholas Phelps told Joseph. Before Ottilie could stop him, he had added, obviously dying to cut the all too gleeful Joseph down to size, ‘Miss O’Flaherty will soon be buying you out, chum, if you don’t watch it. Miss O’Flaherty has inherited a very, very large fortune indeed.’

Ottilie’s eyes flew first to Joseph’s face and then, too late, to the lawyer’s. She was so horrified by his indiscretion she forgot to put out her hand to cover her glass as Joseph stopped yet again in front of her to top it up.

‘He’ll know soon enough, when you buy this place, won’t he?’ Phelps asked her, half apologetically and half factually.

‘You’re kidding me?’ Joseph looked down at Ottilie and because he was standing too near her she could see that the pulse in his neck had increased its speed and hear the intake of his breath. ‘Tell me you’re kidding me, Ottie? Edith never left you a fortune, did she?’

He looked from her to the lawyer and back again.

‘It’s all right, Miss O’Flaherty,’ Phelps continued smoothly. ‘If you want it kept a secret, I’m sure your brother won’t tell anyone.’

‘You stupid bloody idiot, of course I wanted it kept a secret! You know I wanted it kept a secret!’

Ottilie turned on the lawyer, and then back to Joseph who had backed off from her down the room, shaking his head in disbelief, whisky glass in hand.

‘And to think that minutes ago I was about to offer you a job, and feeling sorry for you, and you were busy lecturing me on the profit motive!’

‘We were talking about principles—’

‘Principles, don’t give me principles, Ottie! You and principles, what did you ever know about principles? You never did have any, not even when you were a child. Why, you were a thief even then, you started off life stealing your own mother’s earrings—’

‘You know that’s not true, Joseph.’

‘Of course I know it’s true – and aren’t I glad you were, Ottie?’

Staring into Joseph’s furious mocking face Ottilie heard the word thief and it brought everything back, Ma, the police, waiting for Lorcan to come. It was like that now – she was still waiting for Lorcan to come, if only he would come . . .

Phelps took Joseph’s arm, and she heard him say in a lowered voice, ‘I say, old chap, I think you’ve had just a little too much to drink.’ And then turning back to her he said, ‘Miss O’Flaherty, why not take some air? You really do look very unwell.’

‘No, I’m fine, really I am,’ Ottilie heard herself trying to reassure him.

‘Look, Ottie, I’m sorry, really I am.’

‘Never mind, Joseph. I know the truth of what you said, and that’s all that matters.’ Ottilie felt terrible suddenly, sick and faint. She tried to walk towards the balcony but knew that she was swaying more than walking, and she could hear Joseph laughing and saying in a teasing voice, ‘Silly girl, you’re as pissed as I am!’

He strode across the room and took her in his arms.

‘Come on, let’s kiss and make up, Ottie! Let’s dance. We’re both rich, that’s all that matters, we’re rich!’

‘I’m not drunk, am I, Joseph?’

Valiantly Ottilie tried opening her eyes a little wider, but it was too late, darkness was crowding in, and before she could protest she had started to dance with him and she knew she was smiling stupidly and she could hear that awful lawyer suddenly joining in Joseph’s laughter, and herself saying woozily, ‘Lorcan’s coming soon, isn’t it?’

She had never thought being violently sick could be a blessing but it was now, for despite her dizziness, despite that tell-tale feeling of total revulsion, it meant that she might sometime be rid of the nightmare that she had allowed to happen to her body.

Dimly in the bathroom mirror she could see that her beautiful dress might be ripped, but that was nothing. Calmly after what must have been many minutes she thought, Right, I know what to do now and she looked round the bathroom for a razor. There was no razor. There was nothing except a piece of used soap, some towels, towels she pulled towards and started to put about her, pulling her dress into place as she did so, frantically pulling up her clothing around her, under the towel as she had used to do when changing on the beach with Ma fondly watching her.

Propriety restored she put on her shoes. Because she was still drunk that too seemed to take an age, and she wobbled helplessly at one point because she had on one, and could not seem to find the other without difficulty, and then she edged slowly towards the door. Thank God she knew the hotel so well. She knew where the fire escape was, she knew how, even in the darkness, she could escape.

She crept slowly towards the door. There was no sign of any of the men anywhere, not in the bedroom, not in the sitting room, nowhere, no suitcases, nothing. Whoever had done this to her had gone. Now all she had to do was to get out, and down, and back into her car, so quietly that she knew that no-one could follow her.

Just the smell of the interior of her car was somehow reassuring, and finding her keys in her handbag beside her make-up compact was so good, sort of like a balm, and putting the key into the ignition and hearing Oscar starting up was dream-like, and the fact that she could pull the steering wheel and the lights went on, and the car went where she wanted it to go – and the road in front of her, that too was out of this world. Its dull, pale colour might have been the yellow brick road itself.

And at last it was there, the smell of her own kitchen, the smell of the wood they still used in the kitchen range, and the old-fashioned buttermilk cream that she had recently had it repainted, that was there too, and the herbs that Mrs East dried by the range, they were there, and the smell of the cloves that Mrs East used to cook the hams once a week, that was hanging in the air, and despite hardly being able to see for the pain in her head Ottilie could see her chair, Mrs East’s chair, and she sat down in it and began to rock it, to and fro, to and fro, to and fro, and as the rocking eased her pained body something burst out of her, a sound, a sound that she could hear from far away, the sound of some poor woman sobbing. Poor woman, she thought, listening to her, poor, poor woman. Imagine crying like that, imagine making that sound, poor creature.

And then there was another sound and it was the same poor woman screaming and there was a face pressed up against the window and she saw this woman – she was quite young and she looked oddly like someone Ottilie knew – she saw her grabbing a knife from the rack near the sink as the back door swung open, and she heard her screaming, ‘Don’t come near me, Joseph, don’t come near me or I swear I’ll kill you.’

But it wasn’t Joseph. It was someone who looked just like him and he was saying to her in a gentle voice, ‘Ottie, give me the knife. No, don’t turn it on yourself. Please. I don’t know what’s happened, but whatever’s happened to you, don’t do that.’

Ottilie stared at the man. It was Lorcan. Her brother. And of course he didn’t know what had happened to her, why she needed to put the knife in herself.

‘Give me the knife.’

Ottilie shook her head. No.