Crimson (20 page)

During Clare’s debut, inevitably Elinor also attracted a lot of publicity. By now Elinor Dove had become a legendary figure, beloved by thousands of hopeful girls and women whose dreams were disappointed

but not yet dashed. Briskly recirculated stories of the former farm girl’s struggles against adversity, her growing fortune, and what she spent it on were tangible proof to Elinor’s readers that fairy stories could come true. As charmingly professional to photographers as HM the Queen Mother, Elinor was constantly photographed: descending from her white Rolls-Royce in glittering ball gowns, beaming in white fox furs, cuddling photogenic white Pekinese, or smiling from beneath one of her elaborate apricot hats she had decided that apricot was ‘her colour’.

Two steps behind her, Clare sometimes felt as if she were one of her grandmother’s accessories something more important than Elinor’s handbag but less important than her five-strand pearl necklace: merely a part of the glamorous picture that she so carefully presented to her public.

By the end of the season, Clare felt that she never wanted to shake another hand or clap her white gloves just hard enough to sound enthusiastic but softly enough to be polite. She had acquired a lot of dancing partners, about five regular escorts, and plenty of girlfriends with whom to giggle about them. Clare knew that she was a lucky, lucky girl, and she hoped that she would never have to make the debutante round again: a life of pleasure left her feeling exhausted and curiously empty.

Although she dared not say so, Clare thought she had wasted the year. She tried to explain this to Annabel, who would shortly be exposed to the same blaze of pleasure and publicity, but Annabel did not understand her sister’s warning. Annabel, after her first term at a Swiss finishing school, longed for the boys, the balls, and the ball gowns; she longed to be photographed for society magazines and couldn’t wait to dance until dawn in the arms of a man preferably an older one.

But that was later. Right now Annabel was stuck with her sisters, snowbound at Starlings, which was not her idea “of fun. She jumped down from the drawing-room window “Clare, let’s have another bridge lesson.” Clare looked up and yawned.

“Not enough time before lunch.” When the telephone rang, like a black cat Clare flung herself towards it.

“Hello?” she cried hopefully, then, disappointment in her voice, said, “Sorry, Buzz, but I’m expecting an important call.” She crashed the phone back on its cradle.

“I bet it’s Henry,” teased Miranda. it can’t be Henry.” Annabel returned to the window seat.

“Henry’s regiment’s still in Suez.”

“Shut up, both of you!” Clare snapped.

Again the telephone rang. Clare leapt from the sofa, but Miranda had snatched up the receiver.

“Who’s speaking?…. CND? What’s that? The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament … I think you have the wrong number.”

“It’s for me!” Clare blushed violently, grabbed the telephone, made an appointment to meet someone in London, and replaced the receiver.

“Who was that Annabel asked.

“What was that abouff Miranda chimed in.

“None of your business,” growled Clare.

“Gran won’t like any Ban-the-Bomb movement,” Miranda said.

“She’ll say the atom bomb won the war for us in ten minutes … The Prime Minister doesn’t need to be told how to run the country by ignorant ungrateful rabble rousers … You know what Gran will say, Clare.”

“CND is perfectly respectable,” Clare said defensively.

“Bertrand Russell and six other Nobel prizewinners support banning the atomic bomb, and Albert Einstein did too. In any future war, nuclear weapons might wipe out this whole planet.”

“Gran still won’t like it,” Miranda warned.

“I cannot stand deceit!” Elinor croaked as she waved a letter at Clare the following morning: she lay in the sunny opulence of her bedroom nursing an attack of bronchitis.

To avoid her grandmother’s eye, Clare looked around the pretty room. The walls were cream, the curtains buttercup, to match the brocade hangings of the fourposter bed. Upon the faded yellows of the Bessarabian rug stood a Regency sofa with tiger-skin cushions. Piles of books and fragrant pots of narcissi filled the room.

“Kindly look at me, Clare.” Elinor sneezed.

“I’m waiting to hear what you have to say for yourself,” she added crossly as she gazed at Clare, who stood before her in a pink sweater and tweed skirt, a furtive expression on her face.

Again Elinor wondered anxiously whether Clare had a lover: this was what all the mothers worried about, although none of the debutantes more innocent than their mothers realized ever knew it. She wondered if the man was married, if he made some business excuse to his wife on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, when Clare was clearly not doing what she said she was doing.

I’ll have to lie again, Clare thought miserably. She remembered being puzzled as a child because grown-ups taught children not to lie, but then they looked you in the eye and lied about where babies came from. So from adults, Clare learned to tell ‘fibs” to avoid hurting people’s feelings, to protect somebody else, or to avoid adult wrath.

“I’m waiting,” wheezed Elinor, furious. She sneezed again, and one of her letters slid to the floor. Clare could see the Swithin, Timmins and Grant address flowing across the top of the page.

Looking away again, Clare said without thinking, “I was with Adam Grant.” Twice a week? And always home by ten? Exactly what were you doing with Ada mT e was teaching me to play bridge. I want to be really Well, that’s easy enough to check.” Elinor reached for the cream telephone.

Clare, never a facile liar, felt helpless.

“Good morning, Adam. Have you seen Clare recently?” Clare’s heart sank. She had hoped that Adam might not be in his office. 0 n il to u understand why you can’t give me a straight answer,” Eli nor said, “but you may talk to her if you wish.” She motioned to Clare to pick up the telephone.

Adam’s voice in Clare’s ear said: “Listen, Clare, I can’t he to my client. If you’re in trouble, I’ll try to help you, but tell me the truth or I can’t help … Are you seeing some man secretly? … No? Good! Are you doing anything illegal? … No? Then tell Elinor where you’ve been! Tell her straight away. Whatever you’ve been concealing from her can’t be nearly as bad as her fears, so you may be forgiven immediately. And next week, I will take you out to dinner so that will be something to look forward to.” Clare replaced the receiver and, in a low voice, said to Elinor, “I go to night school.”

“Night school! But that’s for people who haven’t ..2 Elinor, remembering the impoverished students at her polytechnic classes, was puzzled. She said, “You’ve had a good education, Clare.”

“I don’t think so. I didn’t learn much at Hazlehurst Park. I only got two 0 levels before you whisked me off to that stupid finishing school.”

“What ingratitude! No man wants a bluestocking for a wife a man wants someone who will grace his drawing room, in a ladylike manner.”

“I don’t intend to sit in a drawing room for the rest of my life! We’re

living in the twentieth century, not in the old days at Larkwood!” All three sisters knew that Elinor still smarted from the hurt feelings of inferiority inflicted upon her by Billy’s family. Clare added, “I want to do something useful with my LIFE!”

“Aren’t wives useful? Aren’t mothers useful?” “There can be more to life than being a wife and mother!”

“Well, what exactly are you studying to make you more useful?” “Sociology,” Clare said defiantly.

Elinor looked astonished and alarmed.

“My dear child, surely you’re not going to be a social worker?” “I don’t see why I shouldn’t be,” Clare replied defensively.

“It’s a very useful job.”

“Of course it is. That’s all very well for other people. But not you, Clare. Not traipsing around slums.”

““y not? Gran, what have you got against sociology?.” Elinor sighed.

“What exactly is sociology?”

“It tells you how society developed and how it functions or doesn’t function sometimes,” Clare said.

“But, darling, your studies at school never reached the level required for these subjects, so…” “Exactly! I’ll also be studying anthropology, psychology, and philosophy.”

“Surely not in only two evenings a week?”

“Since you now know about it, I’d like to be a full-time student. If I have enough basic qualifications. And if not, I’d like to get them.”

“To what purpose, dear child? Nice men don’t want to marry a sociologist or a philosopher. Why can’t you study something less highbrow and a bit mare useful? How about a cookery course at the Cordon Bleu school? It’s always an asset to know how to plan menus.”

“Gran, can’t you understand that I’m interested in the world beyond my kitchen?” Clare spluttered angrily.

“Of course you are. You’re an intelligent young woman and you must follow what the men are talking about.” want the men to follow what I’m talking about will “never again be cocktail party chitchat!” Clare shoutea. ow can you say that tome?” ran, I don’t understand why I can’t! Why do I have to be furtive? Why don’t you understand what I want to do, and why”

“But sociology … how will that help you?” I’m interested in helping other people. Every4 see li I look, I inequa ty.” philosophy … isn’t that flying a bit high? And has philosophy got to do with slum child renT “Philosophy is concerned with ideas, and ideas are what democracy is based on,” Clare said, exasperated.

“I don’t understand how the world got into this state, but I’m going to try to find out and then do something about it.”

“One young woman can’t do anything to right the wrongs of the world,” Elinor said, equally exasperated.

“I’ll never do anything if I don’t try.” Clare was wearing her stubborn look.

“Why can’t you leave such things to politicians, who’ve been trained to do their job?” Elinor cried.

“Your generation is going to be the last one to have blind faith in politicians!”

“My generation seemed to manage without your intellectual pretensions,” Elinor said acidly.

“Your generation was the one that got us into the Second World War!”

TUESDAY, 18 DECEMBER 1956 As she handed her green satin cloak to the butler, Clare once again felt the butterflies rise in her stomach the wish-l-could-turn-around-and-run-out-of-here feeling that she always experienced when she arrived at a party. Everyone else seemed so

self-assured. When she know nobody, Clare liked to slink to the cloakroom as fast as possible and stay there as long as possible, before facing a throng of people who all seemed to know each other.

Tonight Clare felt doubly nervous, because Adam had taken her, for the first time, to one of the illegal gambling games that were fast becoming fashionable in London. These parties were always held after dinner, from ten o’clock to dawn; no charge was made for the abundant and delicious food and drink, or the traditional English breakfast of bacon and eggs, sausages, kidneys, and kedgeree that was served from two a.m.

Clare knew that tonight’s party had been organized by Michael Grant. Good-looking, presentable, an old Etonian and ex-Guards officer although only national service, he was the perfect sort of person to organize a chic but illegal game.

All invitations were issued on the telephone nothing was ever put on paper to people who had plenty of money and enjoyed a little naughty excitement and glamour. It was reminiscent of America during Prohibition.

Merely to know the venue meant one was chic; no one considered the danger. Michael Grant’s guests had been brought up to consider the police as people who got you out of trouble, not into trouble. Besides, the possibility of a police raid added to the thrill, and to be caught on such a raid was considered proof of sophistication and daring.

For the fashionable young people who flocked to the gambling parties, there was also the added thrill of rubbing shoulders with genuine criminals, whom they were unlikely to encounter in any other way. Tough bouncers were hired to protect the organizer; they saw that no drunk tore the place apart, and that losers paid up promptly. The protective services were paid for with a cut of the house take, and one of the mob was always present in order to check on it. Thus, rich young society gamblers were now on first-name with some of the toughest hoods in London’s East “End; this, too, was considered chic. As Clare and Adam walked into a well-furnished Belgravia drawing room, Michael Grant stepped forward.

“Here you are at last! We’ve got an interesting crowd tonight nearly all the Eton gambling mafia’s here …” Michael looked at Clare as her eyes played around the roomful of people in evening dress talking quietly over drinks.” This is Clare O’Dare?”

It had been almost four years since their holiday in St Tropez No longer small and skinny, Clare was now gracefully slim, pale, and elusive, with the flashing blue-eyed stare and enigmatic allure of a mermaid. Tonight her fey quality was emphasized by a blue-green chiffon gown.

Clare said shyly, “You look exactly the same, Mike but you seem somehow … different.” She sensed recklessness in this wide-shouldered, well-groomed man in the beautifully cut dinner jacket; and Mike’s slow smile did not contradict a feeling of menace. Clare felt uneasy with him, whereas she felt completely safe with Adam.

Adam rourmured something to his brother that Clare couldn’t hear; they seemed to be very close, she thought, as they laughed together. Adam looked around the room and laughed again.

“It looks as if you’ve lived here for years, Mike!”

In order to avoid the police, these illegal games took place at a different address each night. Mike persuaded socially acceptable people, for a huge fee, to rent out their London home for twenty-four hours; sometimes this was done by a son or daughter while the unknowing parents were abroad or in the country. On the morning following a party, the furniture removal van that Mike kept permanently employed would arrive to shift the furniture, china, linen, and cutlery to the next house. Mike always used the same firm of firstclass,

professional caterers, the normal Sj,vaA0,-of the house not being considered trustworthy on these occasions.