Old Sins (13 page)

‘I bet. Are you – is anyone going with you?’

‘What, Mum do you mean? No, just the three of us.’

He hadn’t meant Mum, but he was strangely relieved that nobody else was going either.

‘Also, could I have a week off in October?’

‘Good God, woman, your life is one long holiday. What on earth for?’

‘Well, it’s the Labour Party Conference, and I want to go.’

‘What, up to Blackpool?’

‘Yes.’

‘What an extraordinary girl you are.’

‘Not at all. You’d be surprised how many perfectly ordinary people go to party conferences. More than go hunting, I would say.’

‘OK. Yes, of course you can have the week off. Can anyone go? I might come with you.’

‘Of course you can’t come. They wouldn’t let you over the
threshold. And anyway, you have to be a delegate from the Management Committee of your Ward.’

‘And are you?’

‘Yes. I’m not doing very much, but I would really like to get involved with the women’s side of it. They’re a very strong force in the Labour Party, you know.’

‘Indeed?’

She flushed. ‘I didn’t mean to bore you.’

‘You didn’t,’ he said, ‘not in the least. I like listening to you talk. I like trying to understand you. The only thing I don’t like is the thought of you getting too involved with the Labour Party and having no time left for me. For us.’

‘I don’t think there’s a serious danger of that.’

‘Good,’ he said, ‘because I should miss you more than I could say. Now then,’ he went on, deliberately moving the mood away from the sudden tension he had created, ‘what do you want to eat?’

Susan took another sip of Bucks Fizz, partly to please him, and partly because it was making her feel pleasantly relaxed, and picked up the menu. ‘A lot.’

She ate her way through a plate of parma ham and melon, and then some whitebait, before turning her attention to the main course; they shared a chateaubriand, and she ate all of Julian’s vegetables as well as her own and worked her way through three bread rolls and a packet of bread sticks.

‘You really have got the most extraordinary appetite,’ said Julian, looking at her in admiration. ‘Have you always eaten that much?’

‘Always.’

‘And never got fat?’

‘Never.’

‘Strange.’

‘I sometimes wish I could be a bit more – well, round,’ she said, ‘men like it better that way.’

‘I don’t,’ he said, ‘I like thin ladies. Preferably with very small bosoms.’

‘Then I should please you,’ she said, laughing.

‘Yes, you would.’

There was a silence.

‘And what else do you like in your ladies?’

‘Oh, all sorts of things. Long legs. Nice hair. And minds of their own.’

‘Husbands of their own, as well, from what I hear.’ She meant it lightly, but he scowled. ‘I’m sorry, Julian, I didn’t mean to be rude. I shouldn’t have said that.’

‘Well,’ he said, pouring himself another glass of wine, ‘I daresay I deserved it. It certainly used to be true. I don’t have time for any kind of ladies these days, married or otherwise. Except my mother. And you of course.’

‘Tell me why you like married ladies.’

‘More fun,’ said Julian lightly. ‘Less of a threat.’

‘To what?’

‘My bachelor status.’

‘And what’s so great about that?’

‘Not a lot,’ he said with a sudden, small sigh. ‘It gets bloody lonely at times. Don’t you find that? Don’t you still miss Brian?’

She looked at him, very directly. ‘Actually, no. I know that sounds awful. He was very sweet, but we never had a life together. I don’t even know what it might have been like. Living with him, I mean.’

‘And since then? Anybody?’

‘Nobody. No time. No inclination either.’

‘None at all?’

She looked at him sharply, knowing what he meant. ‘Not a lot.’

‘I see.’

‘I don’t think you do. But never mind.’

She wondered if he would think she was frigid, devoid of desire, and if it mattered that he did; whether she should try to explain, make him understand that the only way she could cope with her aloneness, the stark emptiness of her most private, personal life and her fear that she would forget altogether how to feel, how to want, how to take and be taken, was simply to ignore it, negate it, deny its existence; and decided it was better left unexplored as a subject between them, that she did not trust either herself or him sufficiently to take the risk.

‘What I’d really like now,’ she said briskly, ‘is some pudding.’

He called the waiter over. ‘Pavlova, please,’ she said, and upset the waiter visibly by ordering ice cream with it. ‘And could I have another Bucks Fizz, please? I’m thirsty.’

‘There is a possible connection,’ said Julian, laughing, ‘between the fact you’ve now had three of them, and your thirst. But never mind.’ He raised his glass to her. ‘It’s been a lovely evening. Thank you.’

‘It’s me that should be doing the thanking. As usual. I wish I could do more for you.’

‘My darling girl, you do a monumental amount for me. That company runs entirely on your efficiency. We would all be absolutely lost without you. I am deeply indebted to you. I mean it.’

A very strange feeling was running through Susan. It was partly being called Julian’s darling girl, and partly the effect of the Bucks Fizz; but more than anything, she realized it was simply a sort of tender intimacy that was enfolding both of them, a mixture of friendliness and sexual awareness, and a feeling of being properly close to him and knowing him and liking what she knew. The big low-ceilinged room was full now, there was a low hum of conversation and laughter surrounding them, candlelight danced from table to table, an entirely unnecessary fire flickered in the corner, and outside the sky was only just giving up its blue. She felt important, privileged, and strangely confident and safe; able to be witty, interesting, challenging.

This, she suddenly realized, was much of what having money was about; not just the rich smell of food, your glass constantly refilled; a waiter to bring you everything you wished. It was warmth, and relaxation; a shameless, conscienceless pursuit of pleasure; and it was having time to talk, to laugh, to contemplate, to pronounce, and all of it smoothed and eased by a mood of self-indulgence and the suspension of any kind of critical faculty for yourself and what you might say or do.

She looked across the table at Julian, graceful, relaxed, leaning back in his seat, smiling at her, his dark eyes dancing, moving over her face, utterly relaxed himself, his charm almost a tangible thing that she could reach out for and she felt an overwhelming urge to kiss him; not in a sexual way, not even flirtatiously, but rather as a happy child might, to express its pleasure and its gratitude at some particularly nice treat. She smiled at the thought.

‘What are you smiling at?’

‘I was thinking,’ she said with perfect truth, ‘that I’d like to kiss you.’

‘Oh?’ he said, smiling back, ‘well do go ahead.’

‘I can’t. Not here.’

‘Why not?’

‘The waiters wouldn’t like it.’

‘The waiters,’ he said, and they chanted together enjoying their old joke, ‘aren’t going to get it.’

‘Am I?’ he said, suddenly serious, pushing the thought of Letitia firmly from his mind.

‘Oh, Julian, don’t spoil a lovely evening.’ She spoke simply, from her heart; she was suddenly very young again, very vulnerable.

‘Well,’ said Julian, his eyes dancing, ‘I’ve had some put-downs in my time, but most of them were a bit more tactfully expressed than that.’

‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous,’ said Susan irritably, upset at the fracture of her magic mood, ‘as if you cared what I said to you.’

‘Susan,’ said Julian, suddenly taking her hand, ‘I care very very much what you say to me. Probably more than anything anyone else says to me. Didn’t you realize that?’

‘No,’ she said, ‘no I didn’t,’ and an extraordinary charge of feeling shot through her, a shock of pleasure and hunger at the same time, confusing and delicious, turning her heart over, and leaving her helpless and raw with desire.

She looked at him, and he saw it all in her eyes; and for a moment he wanted her more than he had ever wanted anyone. He looked at her eyes, soft and tender in the candlelight, at the frail, slender, sensuous body, the tough, brave, hungry mouth; he contemplated having her, taking her, loving her; and he remembered the promise he had made to her so long ago, and in one of the very few unselfish acts of his life he put it all aside.

‘Come along, Mrs Johns,’ he said lightly, ‘we must get you home. It’s late, and we both have a long day tomorrow. I’ll get the bill.’

Susan stared at him, staggering almost physically from the pain of the rejection, and what she saw as the reason for it. Her eyes filled with tears; the golden room blurred.

‘Excuse me,’ she said, standing up, ‘I must go to the toilet.
The lavatory as you would say. I’d never get it right, would I, Julian?’

‘Probably not,’ he said with a sigh, ‘and it wouldn’t matter in the very least. Not to me. Maybe to you. You’ve got it all wrong, Susan, but you’d never believe me.’

‘I’d be a fool if I did,’ she said. ‘Let’s go.’

It was weeks before she would talk to him alone; months before their friendship was restored. But finally, she came to understand. And she was grateful for what he had not done.

London, 1953–7

JULIAN MORELL HAD
just banked his first million (having floated his company on the stock exchange a year earlier), when he met Eliza Grahame Black.

He was then thirty-three years old, and besides being extremely rich and hugely successful, was acknowledged one of the most charming and desirable men in London. Eliza was seventeen, and acknowledged the most beautiful and witty debutante of her year. Julian needed a wife, and Eliza needed a fortune. It was a case of natural selection.

Julian needed a wife for many reasons. He was beginning to find that having mistresses, whether short or long-term, married or single, was time-consuming and demeaning; he wanted to establish himself in a home and a household of his own; he wanted a decorative and agreeable companion; he wanted a hostess; he wanted an heir. What he was not too concerned about was love.

Eliza needed a fortune because everything in life she craved for was expensive and she had no money of her own. Being a conventionally raised upper-class girl of the fifties, she was anticipating earning it in the only way she knew how: by marrying a rich (and preferably personable) man. She was not too concerned about love either.

Eliza’s father, Sir Nigel Grahame Black, was a farmer; he had five hundred acres in Wiltshire and a modest private income, one of his sons was training to be a doctor and the other a lawyer. Eliza came a long way down on the list of demands on his purse, and indeed financing her London season had been largely made possible by her godmother, Lady Ethne Powers, an erstwhile girlfriend of Sir Nigel, who had looked at the potential for investment in her charge (sixteen years old, slender, silvery haired and fine featured, with pretty manners and huge sense of fun) and handed him a cheque for a thousand pounds along with a cup of tea and a cucumber sandwich in her garden the previous September. ‘Give that child a really good Season and she’ll be off your hands by this time next year,’ she said.

She was right. Dressed charmingly, in clothes made for her by Ethne’s dressmaker, Eliza danced, chattered and charmed her way through the Season, and found her way into every society column, every important party and dance. She adored it all; she felt she had gone straight to Heaven. She was a huge success with the young men she met; but then that had been something of a foregone conclusion. What surprised everybody, not least Eliza herself, was that she also got on extremely well with the other girls, and even succeeded in charming their mothers, something of an achievement given the fact that she was considerably prettier and more amusing than a great many of their daughters.

This had a lot to do with the fact that she was simply not in the least spoilt. She might have been the youngest in her family, the only girl, and enchantingly pretty, but her mother put a high value on practical accomplishment and a low one on personal appearance; consequently Eliza found herself more sighed than exclaimed over, as her total lack of ability to cook, sew, pluck pheasants, grade eggs, hand rear lambs and indeed perform any of the basic countrywomen’s skills became increasingly apparent. She did not even ride particularly well; nobody looked more wonderful hunting, but it was noticeable that she was invariably near the back of the field. Such virtues as she possessed – her beauty, her wit, and a stylishness which was apparent when at the age of twelve she took to wearing her school hat tipped slightly forward on her head, and lengthening
all her dirndl skirts in deference to M. Dior and his New Look – her family put no value on whatsoever.

Consequently, Eliza grew up with an interestingly low opinion of herself; she did not lack confidence exactly, she knew she looked nice, and that she had a talent to amuse, but she did not expect other people to admire or appreciate her; and when she suddenly found herself that year so much sought after, regarded as an ornament at a party, an asset at a dinner table, it seemed to her entirely surprising and unexpected, a kind of delightful mistake on everybody’s part, and it did not go to her head.

Everything to do with the Season enchanted her in that Coronation year, when the whole country was in party mood; day after dizzy day whirled past, she was drunk with it, she could not have enough.

Strangely, her presentation at Court was the least clear of her memories; it was a blur. She could remember the long long queue in the taxi in the Mall, being ushered into the palace, into the anteroom even, but she could never even recall what she wore, nor what Lady Powers wore; who sat next to her on the long wait, whether she talked, whether she giggled, whether she was nervous. She remembered the Queen, looking so very much smaller than she had expected in the throne room, and the Duke of Edinburgh trying not to look bored beside her; and she did always remember making her curtsy because she slightly overdid it, and sank just a little too low, and then it was hard to get up gracefully and she wobbled and was terrified she was going to fall over; but apart from that she could recall very little, apart from an achingly full bladder throughout the entire procedure. ‘Such a waste,’ she would often say to her friends, years later, ‘being in the presence of the Queen of England, and just longing for it to be over so I could go and have a pee.’