Old Sins (137 page)

‘Don’t patronize me.’

‘I’m not.’

‘Do you love me?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said, uncharacteristically truthful. ‘I don’t know. I love being with you. I love having sex with you. I just don’t know if I actually love you. I’ve only ever loved Michael. What I feel for you is different from that.’

‘How did you come to marry C. J.?’ he said, unfazed by her answer. ‘He’s such a wimp. Doesn’t make sense.’

‘I don’t think I should tell you.’

‘Oh, come on. I know so much about you. Why should I care? I don’t care what anybody does. You know I don’t.’

‘OK, I’ll tell you. But it isn’t a pretty story.’

She told him. He listened carefully. When she had finished, he grinned.

‘You’re right. It isn’t entirely pretty. Jeez, the things you did for that father of yours. And that company.’

‘Yes, I know. I just feel I have to.’

‘That’s what Phaedria says.’

‘Does she?’ There was real interest in her voice, a spark of genuine empathy in her eyes. ‘I didn’t realize she felt it too.’ Then her face darkened. ‘Bitch,’ she said cheerfully.

‘You really hate her, don’t you?’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘I don’t see why you hate her so much.’

‘She’s taken everything away from me, that’s why.’

‘That’s balls,’ said Miles.

‘It is not balls. First my father. Then the company. Then Michael. I just hate her.’

‘She didn’t really take your father. He was only your father, for Christ’s sake. Surely he had a right to a wife.’

‘Yes, but not a wife as young as me.’

‘What difference does that make?’

‘I can’t explain, but it does. Anyway, obviously she didn’t love him, she couldn’t have. She just wanted his money.’

‘Why couldn’t she love him?’

‘Well, because he was old enough to be her father. Surely you can see that.’

‘No,’ he said, ‘I can’t.’

‘But Miles, you can’t want sex, for one thing, with someone old enough to be your father. It’s disgusting.’

‘I have had some absolutely great sex with women old enough to be my mother.’

She looked at him with intense curiosity.

‘You haven’t.’

‘I have.’

‘Who?’

‘Lots of them. I can hardly remember their names. Hardly knew them.’

‘Miles, tell me.’

‘You don’t want to hear,’ he said shifting his position on the couch, reaching out for the bottle of wine, refilling her glass.

‘Yes, I do.’

‘OK.’ He told her.

‘Miles, that is disgusting,’ said Roz, laughing. ‘You were a gigolo.’

‘Guess so.’

‘Aren’t you ashamed?’

‘Not in the least. I made them real happy. Improved their marriages. Learnt a lot myself. Why should I be ashamed? Got my first Cartier watch that way,’ he added proudly.

‘Did you? What happened to it?’

‘I had to sell it.’

‘Why?’

‘To pay a gambling debt.’

‘Miles! What a degenerate life you’ve led.’

‘Uh-huh. Fancy a little degeneration right now?’

‘Maybe. Tempt me.’

Miles stood up, smiling. He took off his T-shirt, unzipped
his jeans, slithered out of them. Roz looked up at him, motionless.

‘Tempted yet?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘Not yet.’

‘OK. Take your dress off.’

She took it off. She was naked underneath it. He knelt in front of her, started kissing her breasts, fondling her buttocks.

‘Now?’

‘No,’ she said, laughing, trying to control her quivering, throbbing body. ‘Not yet.’

He lifted her up against him.

‘You smell salty. You smell of the sea. Let’s go take a shower.’

In the shower he lifted her against him, thrusting himself deep into her, upwards, inwards; she felt her entire self invaded with pleasure. The water thundered down on them, confusing her, disorienting her; the only certainty was his penis inside her and the rising, shooting delight. She came swiftly, quickly, almost disappointed by the speed, felt him following her at once. He set her down, looked into her eyes, his own naked with love.

‘That was the aperitif,’ he said. ‘Now we’ll go have the meal.’

Later, much later, lying in his arms, remembering how her body had swooped and soared, remembering how he had said surfing was like sex, Roz wrestled with her conscience. It was a battle she was unfamiliar with. She had no way of knowing which of them would win.

‘There’s something I haven’t told you,’ said Phaedria. ‘Something I’d like to.’

‘What’s that?’

Doctor Friedman looked at her with the odd blend of concern and disinterest that she had come to rely on.

‘At Christmas Miles came to see me. He said he wanted to talk to me about my suggestion that I should form a trust fund for Julia and buy him out.’

‘And?’

‘Well, we went for a walk. He was just talking. I started telling him things. He has that effect on you.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, you tell him everything. Anything. He just makes you
talk. I’m not sure why. He’s the most non-judgemental person I’ve ever met. Apart from you,’ she added with a smile.

‘Go on. Try me.’

‘Well, suddenly he asked me if I’d slept with Michael. Michael Browning.’

‘And?’

‘I got terribly angry.’

‘That isn’t surprising.’

‘No, I know. But – well, suddenly I was screaming at him, really yelling and – well –’

‘Go on.’

‘Well, then I wanted to – to go to bed with him more than I’d ever wanted anything. In my whole life. It was awful. At the same time as being so angry.’

‘Yes?’

‘Don’t you think that’s odd?’

‘Not in the least. Do you? Really? Anger and sex make very good bedfellows.’

‘Maybe. Well, anyway. That’s only part of the story.’

‘So what happened?’

‘Well, I kissed him. Really kissed him.’

‘Was that all?’

‘Yes. But I didn’t want it to be all. I wanted to go on, there and then. It was awful.’

‘So what did you do?’

‘I said something like, oh, shit, leave me alone. And I ran back to the house. And I felt so ashamed.’

‘Why?’

Phaedria stared at her. ‘Well, because I was supposed to be in love with Michael. Grieving for Julian. And here I was just dying for sex, like some awful slut, that’s what Roz called me once, with Miles.

‘Well, that’s not very surprising.’

‘Isn’t it?’

‘Well, do you really think so?’

‘Well, yes, I do.’

‘Why?’

‘Well, because it was so animal somehow. I mean, all Miles is is beautiful. He is amazingly beautiful, but that’s all. I mean I’m not in the least in love with him.’

‘Don’t you think that might have something to do with it?’

‘What?’

‘That he is so beautiful?’

‘I don’t know. Should it?’

‘Well, of course.’ Margaret Friedman’s face was calmly surprised. ‘Here you are, a normally sexed young woman, lonely, frustrated, waiting to go and be with your new lover, in a state of some – what shall we say – excitement. Tension? And here is Miles, quite exceptionally attractive, as far as I can make out, making you angry, talking about sex, well of course you’re going to feel excited about him. To want him. I don’t think you have to worry about that at all.’

‘Don’t you?’

‘No. Think about it. Do you?’

Phaedria thought. Then she shook her head. ‘I’m afraid I can’t let myself off the hook that lightly. It was so strong, so violent, what I felt.’

‘Well,’ said Margaret Friedman, ‘judge yourself harshly if you want to. It’s your prerogative. Why do you think it was so violent?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Phaedria slowly. ‘I really don’t know. It was more violent than anything I’ve ever felt for Michael, even. I don’t – well, I don’t often have sexual feelings as strongly as that. Not really. It was – well, strange. Comparable with what I’d felt once for Julian.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes. That was the strange thing. One night, quite early, long before we were married, we had a terrible fight, Julian and I. I left, in one of his priceless antique cars. He followed. He was so angry. I thought he would kill me. And I was terribly angry too. And – well, we – we had sex, right in the middle of this fight, in the back of his car, in some lane at three o’clock in the morning, or whatever it was. It was wonderful, but it was very violent. What I felt then was exactly how I felt for Miles that day. That violent. Strange. I couldn’t stop thinking about it.’

‘How was Miles afterwards?’

‘Terrific. Really terrific. He just came and talked to me, told me not to worry, not to get upset. Said he was sorry for making me so angry. Completely defused the situation. He is such a
nice person.’ She was silent for a while, then she said, ‘There is something about Miles that gives me the strangest feeling.’

‘Yes? Can you analyse it?’

‘I don’t know. Let’s see. He makes me feel warm, relaxed, kind of settled. He makes me laugh. He makes me see things kind of straight. But it’s not just that. It’s –’ She was silent for a moment.

‘Yes,’ said Doctor Friedman patiently, watching her carefully.

‘It’s like being desperate for a drink. You know? Or – well, I’ve never taken any drugs, except a bit of pot at Oxford, but I imagine it’s like being desperate for a fix. Something you’ve known and liked, needed, and then been deprived of.’

‘Yes?’

‘And well, Miles is like that. Like a drink. A fix. A sort of familiar, predictable pleasure. Can you begin to understand what I mean?’

‘Yes,’ said Doctor Friedman. ‘Yes, I can. Indeed I can.’

Candy was weeping copiously in the suite at Claridge’s. Her father sat helplessly, passing her Kleenex, trying to mop her up, staunch the flow.

‘Honey, it’s probably only a tiff. A silly lovers’ quarrel.’

‘No, Daddy, it’s not, you don’t understand. It’s awful. It’s serious. He’s left me. He’s gone.’

‘Gone where?’

‘Gone to California.’

‘How long for?’

‘I don’t know. And he didn’t even ask me if I wanted to go with him.’

‘He needs whipping,’ said Mason, with the look that fathers of jilted daughters have worn since time immemorial. ‘Whipping. I’ll do it myself if I get the chance. Young good-for-nothing. Nobody pushes my little girl around like that and gets away with it. You come on home with me, honey, and I’ll find him and give him a very nasty dose of his own medicine. You packed?’

‘Yes, Daddy. Well, no. Mostly. I have a few new things. I need a new suitcase.’

‘I’ll buy you one, honey.’ Mason McCall looked around him,
looked at the heap of Candy’s shopping, the huge bed, the implications of it all. He pushed them aside, looking frantically for an escape route, back into the safe harbour of an only daughter’s unsullied innocence.

‘Honey, if you’ve been sleeping here, where did Miles sleep? Did he – ?’

Candy snapped out of her crying jag like a stripper out of a G string and with about as much subtlety and panache.

‘Miles didn’t stay here,’ she said, sniffling, dabbing her eyes with a tissue, hiccupping gently, tremulously, in tones that implied she might have had the vapours had her father even entertained such a thought, ‘he stayed with the family.’

‘Well anyway,’ said Mason, taking her back into his arms, choosing to be reassured by this slightly unlikely story, ‘it’s time you came home, honey, we should go home together, I guess to Chicago, and you could go to college there next fall. Would you like that?’

‘No,’ said Candy, bursting into fresh sobs. ‘I want Miles.’

‘He’ll be back, honey,’ said Mason, drawing her head on to his shoulder, stroking her golden hair. ‘He’ll be back. You mark my words. There, there Candy. Daddy knows.’

Next day, Miles took Roz all around the Los Angeles he knew and had grown up in. They drove along the Coast Highway into Santa Monica, and walked out on to the pier. ‘I learnt to skate board down there,’ he said, pointing to the boardwalk, ‘and look, there, see, that’s Big Dean’s Muscle Inn. Muscle Beach was here then, not in Venice. We used to come here on Sundays. Have lunch sometimes and ride the dodgems. They had the best swordfish steaks ever.

‘Our house was down there,’ he said, ‘there was a road through there, just along from the pier, it was called Appian Way, it’s all gone now, in the name of progress. Come on, I’ll show you where my school was.’

They walked up to the car and drove up towards Santa Monica High.

‘This place has a terrific pedigree,’ he said, ‘did you know James Dean lived in Santa Monica with his aunt?’

Roz laughed and said she did not.

‘There it is,’ he said pointing up at the big brick building,
‘that’s Samo High. I was so happy there, and I had this really great girlfriend called Donna, Donna Palladini, she had the most amazing legs you ever saw –’

‘Better than mine?’ said Roz jealously.

‘Yup. Better than yours. She was the first girl I ever screwed, and it was just wonderful. Even the very first time. Probably now she’s married with six kids. Her husband’s a lucky guy.’

‘I don’t know if you actually want to spoil my day,’ said Roz, ‘but you’re doing a great job.’

‘I’m sorry. Come on, let’s go have lunch on the beach at Venice.’

They drove down to Venice, bought Cokes and hot dogs and sat in the sun.

‘Good God,’ said Roz, looking at the hippies, ‘it’s still 1960 here.’

‘Yeah,’ said Miles, ‘I kind of like that.’

‘What, peace and love and all that?’ she said, mocking him.

‘Yup.’ He turned and looked at her. ‘It’s better than all the things you guys get up to,’ he said very seriously.

They stayed there all afternoon, not saying very much; Roz dozed in the hot sun and woke to find Miles hauling her to her feet.

‘Now,’ he said, ‘highlight of the tour. Mulholland Drive at sunset.’

They drove up Santa Monica Boulevard, with the hood of the T-Bird down, looking at the tightly shuttered Rolls and Mercedes that passed them, the women in their dark glasses and shoulder pads, the men in suits, chewing on cigars, the rollerskaters, the joggers, all moving in a graceful, co-ordinated pattern beneath the palm trees and the bright hot sky.

‘Great place,’ said Miles happily. ‘Great place.’

They turned left and up towards the hills; he took a few swift turns and drove into a high twisty road. ‘This is it,’ he said, ‘you wait. Just you wait.’