Old Sins (83 page)

‘Because I can’t marry Julian. I can’t live with him. He doesn’t love me and he doesn’t need me, and I can’t deal with another day of this dreadful, demanding, tyrant of a life of his.’

‘He loves you,’ said David. ‘He does, you know.’

And how did he know, she said, irritated out of her grief, how could he possibly know, he scarcely knew Julian at all, it was ridiculous to make such a statement, and he said, oh, no he could tell, she was wrong, he had worked with Julian for a very long time, and that he had indeed changed astonishingly, greatly, that he had seen him with many relationships with many women and never before had he known him so unsure of himself, so softened, so happy.

And Eliza said yes, it was true: ‘He never loved me, you know, he was fond of me, and I amused him, but he didn’t love me. I see him with you, and he does love you. He is behaving quite quite differently; the way he gave up Camilla like that, so decisively, so irrevocably, the very next day, that was extraordinary. She has had such a hold on him for so many years, and it was ended, just like that, just because of you. Leave if you must, if you feel you can’t stay, but in the knowledge that he does love you, and he does need you.’

Phaedria looked at her, silent, very still.

‘Do you really think so?’

‘I know so.’

She sighed. ‘I hope so. I do hope so. Because I really do love him. Most of the time, anyway. When I can get near him for five minutes.’

‘That life must be terrible,’ said David, holding out not one but two handkerchiefs. ‘Go on, use them, I always carry at least three, don’t I, Eliza? I couldn’t stand it, all that powerful machinery, endlessly turning, pushing you on to the next project, the next company, the next country.’

Phaedria looked at him, blowing her nose, her eyes at last
dry, swollen and sore. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘that’s exactly what it’s like. I feel as if I’m some poor helpless creature, a little bird, being crushed in it, dragged relentlessly, all broken, on and on.’

‘Yes,’ said Eliza, ‘I remember that feeling. But you’ve done something I never did, you’ve become part of the machinery. The crucial bit, that drives the rest. You’re finding out how it works, and you may in time find out how to control it. Remember that.’

‘It’s not making me very popular with your daughter,’ said Phaedria with a weak smile, ‘becoming part of it all.’

‘Oh, Roz is impossible. I apologize for her. But I do have to say in her defence, Phaedria, that it must be difficult for her. She does adore Julian. Always has. She’s bound to be jealous of you.’

‘I suppose so,’ said Phaedria with a sigh, ‘and I do try so hard, but I just don’t seem to be getting anywhere. It’s very hard to cope with.’

‘Roz is very difficult,’ said David, ‘but I’m very fond of her. I was her first fan, wasn’t I, Eliza?’

‘Oh, you were,’ said Eliza. You did a lot for her. I don’t think she ever realised how much.’

‘She had a schoolgirl crush on me,’ said David to Phaedria, asked me to take her out to dinner one night, and kissed me in the car. It was very sweet. Goodness knows what might have happened if that old – if your fiancé hadn’t shipped me off to New York . . .’

‘Yes, well, let’s not talk about that,’ said Eliza. ‘You know it upsets me. And it’s got nothing to do with the matter in hand. Roz will come round, Phaedria, really she will.’

‘I hope so,’ said Phaedria. ‘Apart from anything else, I know we’d get on. I’d like her if she’d let me. She’s exactly the sort of woman I admire: self confident and terribly positive, and – well, gutsy.’

‘I would have thought you possessed plenty of those qualities yourself,’ said Eliza, patting her hand. ‘You wouldn’t have taken Julian on if you didn’t. Anyway,’ she went on more briskly, ‘I don’t wonder you’re sitting here weeping. Whoever you were marrying. The organization of this circus tomorrow, absolutely amazing. And you’ve done it all virtually single-handed. Honestly, Phaedria, I’d back you against the whole of
the Morell empire any day. Is Julian impressed? He ought to be.’

‘Oh, I think so,’ said Phaedria with a sigh, ‘but he doesn’t say so.’

‘No.’

David looked at her thoughtfully. ‘What you ought to do really,’ he said, ‘is go up to London now and see the old bugger. Beard him in his den. Tell him how you feel. No wonder you got stage fright, here all on your own. Why don’t you do that?’

‘I’d quite like to in a way,’ said Phaedria, ‘and you’re right, it is being alone here that’s made me feel so bad, but I’m just too tired.’

‘I’ll drive you. Eliza can tell everyone we’ve just run off together. That’ll get the rumours going.’

‘Don’t be silly, David,’ said Eliza tartly, ‘why should Phaedria want rumours flying about on the eve of her wedding? What good would that do?’

‘I do like the idea though,’ said Phaedria with a weak giggle, ‘everyone would think we’d eloped.’

‘Phaedria,’ said Eliza, very serious, ‘there are a few rumours about you and David already, as you very possibly know.’

‘Yes, I did.’

‘Totally unfounded, unfortunately,’ said David with a sigh.

‘Be quiet, David. Phaedria, do be careful, be very careful. Julian has a fearsome jealousy. And he does dreadful things in revenge. As David and I know to our cost.’

‘Yes. Letitia told me. And you weren’t even married to him any more.’

Eliza laughed. ‘No, I had another husband in between, even. Darling Letitia. She really doesn’t mind blackening Julian’s name one bit, does she? Don’t you adore her though?’

‘Oh, I think she’s wonderful.’

‘Well look,’ said David, ‘are we eloping or not? I honestly don’t mind driving you to London. Or alternatively I’ll drive you somewhere else altogether. In the opposite direction. Just say the word.’

‘No,’ said Phaedria. ‘No, I feel much better now. I’ll come back. I haven’t really got much choice.’

‘You have, Phaedria, you have,’ said Eliza, taking her hand again. ‘Exercise it if you want to. Don’t stay because of us.’

‘I’m not. Truly. But thank you. Both of you. For helping me see.’

‘Right,’ said David briskly, ‘well, we were just going to crack a bottle, weren’t we Eliza, to toast the bride. How much nicer to do it with her. Come on, Phaedria, let me at least drive you back to the house, and then you can join us in the kitchen.’

‘Thank you. I’d like that. Where’s – I mean should we find – ?’

‘Peveril?’ said Eliza, ‘don’t worry, I’m not running away from him either. He sleeps so soundly, dear old darling, and he snores so loudly, I just get desperate sometimes. And I’m a night owl. I knew David was coming down late tonight, so I waited up to see him. Old friends. Nothing more, are we, my angel?’

‘Nothing more.’

Phaedria looked at them, so strangely close, so relaxed with one another, and wondered whether or not they were telling the truth. Well, it really didn’t matter, and they had been good friends to her that night. She relaxed suddenly, feeling just rather sweetly and pleasantly tired, and said, ‘Come on, then, let’s go. I’ll get the champagne. There’s enough in the cellars to incapacitate the whole of Sussex.’

‘I think she’ll be all right now,’ said Eliza to David, while Phaedria disappeared into the kitchen for the glasses. ‘Thank God we found her. Although why we should do the old bastard any favours I really don’t know.’

‘I think we’ve done her one, actually,’ said David. ‘I think she likes it all, really. I think it suits her.’

And the next day, when Phaedria Morell drifted across the lawns of her beautiful house, greeting her guests with charm and grace, sparkling and radiant in her wild silk, lace-strewn dress, with fresh white roses woven into the massing clouds of her dark hair, very few people would have disagreed with him.

Eleuthera, London and Los Angeles, 1983–4

JULIAN TOOK PHAEDRIA
to the house on Eleuthera in the Bahamas for their honeymoon. It was a low, white mansion, set just above a small curving bay, the palm trees hanging gently over the silvery white of the beach; she fell instantly in love with it.

Julian flew them in himself to the villagey airfield at Marsh Harbour in the small plane he kept at Nassau; she had sat gazing spellbound for the entire flight at the fairy tale sea beneath her, the strange variations in the colour of the water, the mystical, uninhabited, almost swamplike green islands, the dark dark blue swathes of the deep waters, the pink etching round the small white patches of land set in the blue-green sea.

‘That’s the coral,’ he said, ‘that you can see. Tomorrow we’ll go snorkelling on the reef near the house. Then you can meet the fish.’

That evening, they wandered along the beach, picking up coconuts and conch shells, looking at the slick of moonlight on the sea; Phaedria sank down suddenly, laughing, on the warm white sand and said, ‘This is a cliché of a honeymoon, Julian Morell.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be. I love clichés. I’m a journalist, remember?’

He lay down beside her. ‘I do. Could we add to the clichés, do you think, and make love in the moonlight?’

She looked at him thoughtfully. ‘Bit corny. But I like that too.’

‘Come on, then,’ he said, reaching for her, kissing her on her forehead, her nose, her neck.

‘Oh, Julian,’ she said, ‘I will, I will.’

Early next morning the houseboy took them out in the small motor boat and anchored on the reef while they swam and Phaedria marvelled at the peaceful, enchanted world she found beneath the sea, the filigree coral, the clear clear water and the rainbow-coloured, friendly, quaintly smiling fish.

‘Oh, I love it, I love it,’ she said as they sat later on the veranda of the house, drinking fresh iced lemonade, sinking her teeth into a pawpaw. ‘Why didn’t you bring me here before?’

‘You were too busy wanting to go to LA and New York and opening your own store and organizing a wedding, if you remember. We shouldn’t really be here now, it’s much too hot, I never usually come until the winter. But I wanted you to see it, I thought you just might like it.’

‘Oh, I do, and of course I don’t mind the heat. I love the sun.’

‘Yes, but you must be careful. This is real sun. Very dangerous. Not to be sat in.’

She ignored him, as she so often did, and got badly burnt; for three days she lay feverish and in pain in the cool bedroom with the whirring fans, and he sat with her and bathed her skin and read to her from
Anna Karenina
, which he pronounced as suitably romantic and sad for the occasion.

‘You’re a stupid girl,’ he said to her, when she finally felt better and sat up, weak but cheerful, demanding breakfast. ‘You should do what I tell you. You’ve wasted three days of our week here, and I haven’t even been able to make love to you. What a honeymoon.’

‘I’m sorry. Can’t we stay longer?’

‘No,’ he said, mildly irritated, ‘we both have to get back. You know we do.’

‘Sorry. All right. But we have three days left, don’t we?’

‘We do.’

‘Well, let me start making amends straight away. Come into bed beside me, take those silly shorts off, and show me you’ve forgiven me.’

‘I’m afraid of hurting you.’

‘It’ll be worth it. Please.’

‘All right. I’ll be very careful.’

‘Not too careful.’

‘All right.’

‘And did you enjoy your wedding?’ he asked her suddenly as they sat eating breakfast some considerable time later. ‘Was it worth all that worry and work?’

‘I really enjoyed it. Every minute. Did you?’

‘Surprisingly I did. I spent the whole day thinking how special you were, and that I didn’t deserve you at all.’

She looked at him, tender with the aftermath of love, remorseful at the thought that she had so nearly not been there at all.

‘I do like Susan,’ she said suddenly, ‘she’s very brisk and I’m not sure that she likes me very much, but I can see why you’re so fond of her.’

‘She is a very special person,’ he said. ‘And I’m very glad she’s married Richard Brookes. He’ll make her a much better husband than I ever would have done.’

There was a silence. Phaedria smiled at him, took his hand, kissed it. ‘I love you when you’re being humble. And honest.’

‘Then you can’t love me very often,’ he said and laughed.

‘No. I don’t. Didn’t your mother look wonderful?’

‘Absolutely wonderful.’

‘How old is she?’

‘Eighty-five.’

‘She’s amazing. That was some Charleston she did with David. Imagine him being able to do that.’

‘Imagine.’ He sounded short, tetchy. Phaedria looked at him, amused.

‘Don’t you like David?’

‘Well enough.’

‘Enough for what?’

‘To work with him.’

‘Is that all?’

‘I think so, yes.’

‘Pity. I wanted to ask him down to Marriotts for the weekend when we get back.’

‘What on earth for?’

‘To work on Circe. He doesn’t have much time to spare during the week. Would you really rather I didn’t?’

‘Yes, I would. Tell him to make time.’

She sighed. ‘Pity. I thought it would have been a fun weekend as well.’

He was silent. The subject was clearly closed. As it was their honeymoon, she did not try to reopen it.

Back in London, relieved of the pressures of planning her
wedding, she began to work in earnest. David’s drawings were completed, specifications were drawn up, the work put out for tender.

Phaedria put her mind to merchandise, to her scheme for a wardrobe consultancy, to hiring buyers, to finding new designers as well as established ones, to selecting (and mostly rejecting) jewellery, fabrics, shoes, furs. She wanted, was determined at this stage to be as painstakingly and personally involved as possible; to put herself in the position of her customer and see, feel, try everything for herself. She bought collections from Sonia Rykiel, Missoni, Krizia, Valentino ready-to-wear; from the States she imported Anne Klein, Ungaro, Cerrutti, from France Dorothée Bis and Emanuelle Khanh. There were shoes from Maud Frizon, Ferragamo, Charles Jourdan, hats by Freddy Fox and Patricia Underwood, and a dazzling costume jewellery department bedecked with designs from Butler and Wilson, Chanel, Dior. She learnt to haggle not just about money but exclusivity and time; she discovered the great retailing nightmares, of hold-ups in production, in customs; a delivery of hats failed to reach her on time because the straw had not arrived from China, a set of silk dresses because a factory in Hong Kong had been closed for a fortnight by an epidemic of flu. She poached staff shamelessly from other stores: from Brown’s, Harvey Nichols, Fortnum’s. She considered new departments – gifts, pictures, interior decor – and rejected most of them as too impersonal, out of line with the Circe concept. The only one she was totally confident about was a flower room, as a part of the foyer, a small bower styled like a conservatory, set with wicker chairs and tables, stacked with every conceivable flower, with rose trees and jasmine and daisy bushes in pots, urns filled with lilies and orchids, and roses, and myriads of dried flowers, hanging from the ceiling, stacked in baskets round the walls.