‘Daisy isn’t used to being on the receiving end, is she?’ Warren said. ‘She was so damn embarrassed about the auction prize, as if she couldn’t accept it. It was a resort dress, not a diamond-encrusted ballgown, after all – no big deal. I guess that boyfriend of hers must be a tight-fisted sod, not one to take her shopping and shower her with gifts.’
‘He doesn’t part with a dime. She’s tight on funds, too, and very relieved to have this job, I think. He’s a selfish, testosterone bully, but that seems to be half the attraction.’ I turned to smile at Warren and the poolside swing seat we were sharing rocked gently to and fro. We were lingering in the garden after the Benefit ball. It was two in the morning, his hand resting lightly across my thighs. I drank in the beauty of a quarter moon, platinum in the violet sky; the underwater pool lighting was a distraction, yet it was a magical night, the air as soft and warm as loving arms, and the cicadas making their own particular music.
‘Daisy assumed you were buying the dress for me, of course. She was a touch uptight about that and took a little time to adjust.’ Uptight wasn’t in it, I thought irritably. During the auction Daisy had looked like a wife watching a scene of brazen extra-marital flirtation.
‘She’s a sweet thing,’ Warren said, ‘very unspoilt and unsophisticated. She can be forgiven for being a tad jealous when you were the most beautiful woman there by miles. I had a kind of reflected celebrity status as the bringer of such beauty and glamour to the party. There were plenty of swivel-eyed stares!’
It was a flowery compliment and I felt mollified. Warren was pleasing company and attentive in all the right ways. ‘It’s late,’ I said, leaning companionably against him, ‘and such perfect weather, I want to make the most of tomorrow, another lazy Beach Club day. It’s definitely my bedtime, I think.’
‘Am I coming with?’ He turned my face to him, holding my jaw. His mouth was close, his eyes searching.
Daisy was upstairs, probably not asleep, and I didn’t feel ready for the subterfuge yet, of creeping past her door. ‘It feels a bit soon,’ I said, reaching for Warren’s other hand and stroking it. ‘But didn’t you once speak about getting back on a Thursday? I’m driving to Providence this Thursday, to see a Ronnie Landfield painting; it’s a garish abstract, just right, but perhaps you should see it first. I was going to try to do the trip in a day.’
‘You couldn’t possibly – with the ferry crossings as well? You’d have to stay over, it’s the only way. I’ll have Jackson take you in the Mercedes. Would I be able to see the Landfield in the evening? I could get away mid-afternoon on Thursday, come by chopper and drive back with you next day. We could stay in Newport,’ Warren said, taking all that as read, ‘at the Vanderbilt. Nice hotel. Jackson can sort his own accommodation.’
‘No need for Jackson, I’d enjoy the drive. I can meet you, too, if you let me know where to be.’
‘That’s an offer,’ Warren’s mouth was on mine, ‘that I’d be a fool to refuse. Step by step then,’ he murmured. ‘Newport’s very atmospheric, wonderful food.’
It was an anticipatory kiss, hungry, but lingering, too. His mouth felt good. Charles kissed me in a similarly leisurely way, an enjoyable preamble that suited our years; we knew where we were at, which was a soothing security. With Warren I felt a less comfortable sort of adrenaline flow; he was still a stranger, but we were on an exploratory journey and that was about to change.
On Monday, Daisy and I spent the morning with the project manager, Jeremy Dean. He’d come on board rather cautiously, and the more I detailed the plans, the more his arched dark eyebrows knitted anxiously under a pronounced widow’s peak. He had a pair of shades stuck down the front of a tangerine shirt, rather naff-looking, but I’d done my research and he seemed to be thorough.
‘Don’t look so worried, we’re doing all the legwork,’ I assured him. ‘Everything will be ordered, measurements double-checked, the architect on the end of her phone. I’ll come out, too.’
‘I think the plans are awesome,’ he said. ‘I just hope my guys are up to the job.’
‘It’s your job to see they are,’ I said firmly. ‘We must have schedules for each individual trade hired, a clear timeline, rigidly adhered to. Watch over the electrician for the floor outlets, clear cord too, please; and take particular care with the ribbon pattern on the marble floor.’ He made notes in a hardcover exercise book, which was a good sign, writing steadily in a tidy hand. Daisy made a few on-the-ball contributions, but she was on a learning curve, absorbing, desperate to gain experience, fizzing with enthusiasm for the job in hand. She already had a good grasp. I felt we were on track, as long as she stuck to it. If she did that, and shook off Simon, she’d go far.
After lunch, one of Martha’s lusciously light salads, chicken and minted cucumber, Daisy and I set off for East Northport, towards Long Island Sound. We were going to look at top-of-the-range pool tables. Warren’s basement was about to be transformed.
Later, over a welcome cup of tea on the terrace, I talked Daisy through the week, all her city chores. It was a huge project we were embarked on. ‘Have a look for silk screens,’ I said, ‘and I’m after one of Joseph Albers’s Homage to the Square paintings. I haven’t located one online. See what the galleries come up with. And check out the contemporary rug scene – think spot paintings, zigzags. I know people who’ll make to our own design, but I’d like to see samples, the best you can find of what’s out there. You’re clear on it all, you know where to go?’
‘Sure thing,’ Daisy said. ‘I’ll get the first Jitney bus tomorrow. Shall I stay over?’
‘No, Wednesday here on paperwork then you can be off again on Thursday with a new list. Have that night with Janet; you’ll need the time. I’m going to Rhode Island to see a painting and staying the night there.’ I smiled. ‘You’ve got it, Daisy, you’re doing fine. How are the boys, things back home? Is Simon weakening yet and coming over?’
‘You know, it’s funny, but he is threatening to! I’ve been so busy and preoccupied, and I had a sense on the phone last night that it’s actually made him a bit keener. I was convinced that if I were away for any length of time he’d give up on me and look elsewhere, but now he’s talking about a possible business trip to New York.’
‘What did I tell you,’ I said, feeling relief. Some good hard sex with Simon might shake her up a bit; take her eyes off Warren. ‘And the boys, all good there?’
‘Well, here’s another funny thing.’ Daisy turned to me with a soft, helpless look on her open face. ‘Their father’s turned up! He went to New Zealand after we divorced. We were both still so young and he had no job, couldn’t handle being a father, especially of a bawling pair of twins. He said it was best if he stayed away, and he did. We never heard a word. He worked as a waiter in Auckland, the boys say, and has his own bistro on a marina there now. He’s over on holiday and tracked us down through the solicitor.’
‘How have the boys reacted?’
‘They were fascinated to meet him, of course, and say he’s got a ponytail, an earring and a boyfriend! He cooked them dinner in my kitchen, seems he’s the chef at his outfit, gave them each twenty pounds – big deal – and said any time they felt like sampling the joys of Auckland . . .’
‘So if it’s only a holiday and he’s returning, isn’t that a happy tying-up of loose ends?’
‘As long as they’re not fired up to go there and want to emigrate.’ Daisy’s eyes were misting; she was feeling emotional. ‘They’re all I’ve got.’
‘They’re almost adults, they’ve got their lives to lead,’ I said. ‘Think about yours now, Daisy. You’ve found your niche and you have independence within your grasp, which would make your sons proud, I’m sure. I can’t see them taking off for New Zealand. You’re obviously close – I’d love to meet them sometime when we’re home.’
Talk of being home focused my mind, for a moment, on Charles. I should give him a call, tell him I was going to Newport, somewhere he’d talked about and said I’d enjoy. It would be slightly more politic, I decided, to leave Warren out of the equation.
I was going on a jaunt to Newport with him, but where else? Could I imagine sharing his New York apartment, having summers on Long Island – as well as, or in place of, my London life? That, I told myself sternly, was jumping a whole battery of guns.
On Thursday I dropped Daisy at the Jitney bus stop and continued on, enjoying the car that Warren had hired for our use. It was a Thunderbird, sporty and good to drive. I took the Hampton Bays Road towards Riverhead, following Jackson’s directions faithfully, and reached Orient Point and the Cross Sound Ferry in good time. I had a booking, and waited patiently in a long line of cars, glad to be on my own. I felt younger, freer, a sort of blowin’-in-the-breeze feeling – literally, once on board and on the upper deck where the wind off the Sound was tugging powerfully enough to pull me overboard.
The crossing took an hour and twenty minutes. I had a flapjack and coffee and was chatted up by a weird man in light fittings who gave me his card. Americans swapped enough cards to save a forest. I often wondered if they ever put them to practical use.
I lost my way on the Connecticut side, even with a satnav, but I had time to spare. I was meeting Warren at six and taking him straight to see the Landfield, which was a private sale. The painting had pizzazz and wasn’t vastly expensive, but I feared Warren might take fright, since it was as unlike any painting in his house as Paris, France was from Paris, Texas.
Having eventually found the highway I made good progress, exiting onto a country road that weaved quietly through forested land. Sunlight slanted through silent trees and the road was almost deserted. I felt high on exhilaration like a girl in love, but I was neither a girl nor in love, and the night ahead came with a health warning. Sex pumped up the volume, mood music was dangerous, however old I was and inured by experience; I didn’t want to be left with emotional knots to unpick.
That evening, standing well back from the immense blast of wind, I watched the helicopter drop tidily into its chalk circle. Warren leaped out and as the deafening whir of propellers subsided, he had a quick word with the pilot, who handed him his bag.
‘Good flight?’ I asked.
‘Sure thing! The East River chopper service is just down the road at 34th Street and I had Hank, my favourite pilot.’ Warren turned to wave to him. ‘A bit of late lunch on board and,’ he said, taking my arm, ‘a chilled demi-bouteille of white wine.’
He kissed my cheek, asked after my journey and took over the wheel. We drove into a residential street and drew up outside a house that looked Dutch colonial, built of white-painted clapboard and with a small, bright green, much-watered lawn. Warren squeezed my hand, hanging onto it as we climbed the front steps and rang the bell.
The seller had erratic taste in art and his lesser works showed up the quality of the Landfield. I sensed Warren adjusting to the loud, glorious splodges of colour and hoped he’d appreciate the fun and energy of the painting. He finally gave me an imperceptible nod and proceeded to bargain. I was riveted. The painting, at 3,200 dollars, was only slightly over-priced, yet Warren drove down the poor man – a dentist probably, or schoolteacher – a full thousand. His wife left the room, throwing him a look of contempt.
‘You’re a demon businessman,’ I said, as we stowed the bubble-wrapped spoils and drove away. I’d had to ask for the wrapping – the seller thought he’d done with us.
‘It gets to be a habit,’ Warren confessed. ‘I mean, it certainly wasn’t in the major league, not a pricy painting, but I’d checked it out and reckoned he’d stuck on a thou. He didn’t do badly, it was a more realistic deal. Shall we go to the hotel then down to the waterfront? It’ll give you the flavour for your first time in Newport. It’s always lively and packed round the Wharfs, kind of preppy, good spots to eat, too. How does that sound?’
‘Pretty good. A bistro or even a pub would be great, nothing too smart.’
‘I’ve booked a small suite at the hotel, and another separate room; I thought you might like some time to yourself before dinner.’
That was thoughtful, delicately put, and allowed me to keep my options open. My respect for Warren was growing – and I liked the way he kissed.
‘Give me half an hour or so,’ I said, ‘then come and have a drink.’
The hotel, quite recently opened, hadn’t lost a sense of its past glories as a Vanderbilt family home in the transformation. My room, which had a well-designed divider to create a small sitting room, was up-to-the minute as well as comfy, clean and fresh with a sort of crisp green apples fragrance. I got going and had a scented bath – jasmine, not green apples – deciding to wear a rather joyous silk print dress, almost as vivid as the painting, with pink espadrilles that had a funky, two-tone chevron design.
‘You’re determined to get my eye in, aren’t you?’ Warren said with a grin, coming into the room. ‘But it’s no test, you’d make a couple of sewn-together dishcloths look like an elegant dress.’ Warren didn’t do funky; he was in an open-neck striped shirt and cream pants.
He kissed me and accurately guessed my scent was Chanel. ‘I feel slightly guilty,’ he said, popping the cork on a bottle of champagne, ‘after all Willa’s attempts to modernise me and the house. But she was so belittling, it made me dig in all the harder.’
‘I’d kind of assumed that the décor was all her doing,’ I said, curious.
‘It was, mostly. She loved the English country-house look and was mad for collecting extravagant pieces of silver, but I was a bit stuck on formality, as I can see now.’
‘It’s easier for me, sweeping in with a new broom,’ I said tritely, trying to be diplomatic. ‘I’d better warn you, I’m feeling inquisitive. I want to know all sorts of things, mainly about you, as well as trying to do Newport in twenty-four hours! Do I get to see those vast summer-cottage palaces, before we leave, the images I have from Edith Wharton and The Age of Innocence?’
‘We’ll do the Cliff Walk. It’s rocky in places, but runs along the foot of some of the great houses like The Breakers and Rosecliff, right by their rolling lawns.’
We hadn’t made inroads into the champagne. Warren had downed a glass or two, and I suggested it would keep for later – casting the die. I showed him how to keep in the fizz with a teaspoon handle down the neck of the bottle, but he had no faith in that, and he was hardly into economising.
It was a deliciously sultry night. I was fascinated to see Newport, but my mind was on sex; thinking of my droopy body measured up against any recent younger women to cross Warren’s bedroom threshold. He had adult children and his ex-wife was hardly young, but he must have moved down the age-scale since Willa. My body wasn’t bad, still slim, but even if I’d had all the surgical pick-ups going it would be little more pliant or defying of gravity. I thought of lithe bodies like Daisy’s, her glowing skin . . .
The waterfront was buzzy, arty, teaming with young tourists. Warren tucked my arm through his. ‘Newport has none of its old closed society and eccentricity, gilded balls and bathing parties,’ he said. ‘It’s a very different place today, even from the Kennedys’ day – Jackie’s cultured, pampered childhood and Jack having his “Summer White Houses” here. Eisenhower had them here, too. It’s still one of the great yachting centres of America, though, and the clam chowder at the Black Pearl Tavern where I’m taking you,’ Warren said, giving me a kiss, ‘wins every award going.’
The place was heaving. Our table wasn’t ready, which wasn’t surprising, but a couple vacated two bar seats usefully, right where we were standing. ‘The Black Pearl hasn’t changed in thirty years,’ Warren said. It had glossy black walls, low ceilings, intriguing nautical maps. Space was in short supply, making it feel as snug and cramped as a stable. No question of its popularity – a waiting queue stretched way back outside the door.
Once established at a midget table, wine and cups of the award-winning clam chowder ordered, with oysters on the side, I began my inquisition. ‘I know you’re Manhattan-born and raised, that you shot the family beer company to world class with the name-change and lips-top bottle; I know Lippy Lager went viral; I know about your long marriage that . . .’
‘It wasn’t that long. Willa isn’t the mother of my children.’ I stared and he smiled at my surprise. ‘You made that assumption once before, but Daisy was there, I think, and anyway you’d hardly arrived. It didn’t seem a time to go into detail.’
‘So was Willa your second, third?’ I asked, feeling slightly nonplussed.
‘Only the second! I’d rushed into the first, very young. Peggy was too, and when the kids were through college we called it a day. She remarried, lives in California, had another last-minute child. She visits, sees the kids and grandchildren, or they go there.’
‘And Willa?’ I paused as the chowder and oysters arrived and Warren poured the wine, a fine white burgundy. The waitress, who looked no more than twenty, was wearing a lilac bustier with black shorts and purple-laced sneakers. Warren beamed at her – and me.
‘Have this while it’s hot,’ he advised, still grinning and eyeing me over the wine, ‘and I’ve got the drift of this inquisition. We can skip the questions and I’ll tell you all I can.’ He refilled his glass and topped up mine.
‘The chowder gets my vote,’ I said. ‘I must tell Daisy about the hint of tarragon, a little tip for her column.’ I was playing for time, worrying about Willa being younger than I’d thought. ‘You must have felt the more responsible for your children,’ I suggested conversationally, ‘with your first wife over on the West Coast.’
‘Sure. Willa was okay with the kids, though – especially early on when things were going well with us. They were still quite young and sorting their futures. It was a help.’ He smiled and poured himself more wine. I wasn’t keeping pace.
It more easily explained Warren’s extreme bitterness if Willa was a younger model; he’d have had particular sensitivities, especially if teased about his prowess and aging looks.
The hip waitress cleared our plates and said she’d be right back with the swordfish mains – Warren’s recommendation – which came with chips, veg, side salads, hefty hunks of bread. ‘And another bottle of the wine,’ he said.
‘We’ll be staggering out of here with this lot! Go on then, anticipate my questions.’
‘Good fries,’ Warren said, munching a couple when they arrived, looking me in the eye. ‘Well, you want more lowdown on Willa for a start?’ I nodded. ‘And to know about any other woman in my life since?’ I noted the use of the singular, as I was probably meant to. ‘Willa was forty when we met, I was fifty-six. She had a party-planning business, basically just knowing a few good caterers and florists, but she gave that up when we married and spent money instead. I didn’t care, I was in her clutches, hooked and she could play the line. She could do no wrong.
‘She queened it in Southampton and the Fifth Avenue apartment; threw bashes, hired yachts, jets, went in for lavish exotic holidays. She hadn’t been married before. She wanted children and when that didn’t happen, she took it out on me. I think Willa blamed my age, yet she was in her forties so hers came into it too. The rot had set in, but I still gave it my all, couldn’t help it.’
‘But there came a point?’ There usually did. He was still obsessed, that was clear. Willa hadn’t extinguished every spark, although his passion seemed entirely channelled into acrimony and loathing now.
‘Yes, sure, something snapped,’ Warren said, refilling his glass, ‘with all the personal criticism in front of mates of mine, the constant hiring of jets, the holidays taken when I was tied up . . .’ His eyes were distant for a moment. He was well into the second bottle of wine and not used, obviously, to unloading emotional feelings.
‘And before you ask,’ he said, leaning over the table to reach for my hand, which he put to his lips, ‘I’m not seeing anyone right now. I have been – someone in the city who was in a marriage that was all society and show. But that’s over now, done and dusted. She’s stayed married. She’d said often enough – tediously and predictably, to be honest – that she was living a lie, a sham, but as a true conformist, when it came to it she couldn’t give up being Mrs J. Edwin Nesbit Junior, sister-in-law to a senator. It meant more to her than upheaving her life for me.’
‘More fool her.’ I knew Warren better now, I decided. He was more than a dry, driven billionaire, he was a decent, family-orientated guy whose one really passionate relationship had turned sour. And I was more settled and at ease with him; it felt less like a casual summer dalliance. He’d talked freely and openly, here in Newport, and hadn’t invited me out while still in a relationship. But was he entirely over Willa? How much acid was still eating away at his system? That was impossible to say.
We had coffee, brandy for Warren, but we were squashed tight into the table, sitting on hard spindle-backed chairs, and I was ready to go.
I felt self-conscious, strolling back up the steep lane to the hotel, flushed with nerves, like making a speech on a sensitive subject to a highly critical audience. I wasn’t up to youthful sexiness, but the urge, the need to be kissed and wanted, was very much there. Warren was silent. Neither of us spoke as we walked up two splendid flights of stairs with a thick chestnut carpet-runner and I opened the door to the suite.
We stood looking at each other, slightly out of breath from the climb.
‘It feels strange,’ Warren said, moving closer and unzipping my dress, gazing at me steadily. His hands were roaming lightly in a way that felt good. ‘Even when we met, and it was my most twisted-up time,’ he carried on, ‘I registered you. I was attracted. Who wouldn’t be? You stuck fast in my mind all through that god-awful business. I thought of you – elegant, talented, famous, successful, a timeless beauty – and now,’ he said, bending to my mouth, ‘here you are.’
We lay in a wrapped-limb, not very contorted position. I could smell the brandy, the wine, a whiff of sweat, not unappealing, from the exertion of our uphill return.
‘I’m sorry, sorry,’ Warren mumbled, burrowed into my neck. ‘I don’t know what got into me with all that drinking. I’m not a boozer, never have been. Nerves, I guess, talking about me, which doesn’t come easy – or some sort of devil’s curse.’
I felt like saying that it hadn’t been for want of trying, Warren had been doggedly keen, he’d quite worn me out, but in reasonably satisfying ways. ‘No saying sorry,’ I told him, and he groaned into my neck. ‘Can we go to sleep now?’ I said. ‘I’m very comfy – and who knows what the morning may bring.’
In fact, it brought Warren sleepily rolling into my arms again and well able to make it after his little local difficulty of the night before. We had breakfast in bed – he looked very pleased with himself in a relieved sort of way – then I shooed him off to his other room and enjoyed the chance to dress in privacy. Step by step, he’d said, staying out late in the garden after the Benefit ball. We’d taken quite a big first step, it seemed.
The Cliff Walk past the great mansions of Newport, a sunny morning, the sharp tang of salty air and seaweed . . . I was sad to leave. It seemed no time before we were driving off the ferry from Connecticut and were back on Long Island again.
‘I saw Daisy in the week,’ Warren said, as we set course for Southampton. ‘I’d given her my card that first weekend when you’d just arrived, in case she got lost in the city, and she called up in a panic on Tuesday to say she’d been going round and round in circles, trying to find an address downtown in Soho.’
‘Can’t think why she’d needed to be right down there,’ I said stiffly.
Had she been looking for silk screens? I don’t know. Anyway, I told her to take a taxi, simplest – and another one to join me for a bite of lunch at my usual haunt. I go to San Pietro. It’s a bit all-male, but excellent food and they make a great Italian fuss of you.
‘She’s a sweet girl,’ Warren carried on. I felt exasperated. If he called her a ‘sweet girl’ one more time . . . ‘And so bright and breezy, she makes me feel quite young again. But I’d hate you to read anything into it. I just wanted to say that. Last night meant a lot, Susannah. I hope it felt as right for you as it did for me. You’re fabulous. I can’t tell you how much it means, having you here.’
But I’m not a girl, I thought, and didn’t make him feel young again, like the one also here and on his doorstep – who wasn’t such a girl, as it happened, at not far off forty, for the prospect of anything between them to be a complete joke.
‘Did Daisy tell you her boyfriend’s coming over?’ I queried. ‘In the next week or two, I think.’ She hadn’t, obviously; Warren looked quite jolted. But then Daisy had only heard on Wednesday that it was definite, after all.
We were in Bridgehampton, nearly there. I sighed inwardly. Trust a younger woman to take the edge off what had been a rather special night and day. Still, Warren had felt he needed to own up about Daisy. He wasn’t instinctively programmed to deal in cover-ups and lies. I felt comforted by that, half-able to carry on believing in his natural decency.
It was a belief that had let me down badly in the past. The past. Daisy kept bringing it back. The married men chancing their arm, the casual chauvinism, even near-depravity at times, of the sixties. The highs, lows and disillusionments, the buckets of tears wept. How much of that had shaped and toughened me, and taken away my belief in the existence of decent men? It had been blind belief at twenty, before the scales had fallen from my eyes. Did the heartache of rejection harden into cynicism? For all the emotional knocks, though, I’d never given up the quest. The hope was there, and the need. I knew I’d always keep looking.