Old Sins (86 page)

Circe, London, opened on 1 May 1984, in a blaze of publicity, and a party that lasted for eighteen hours, beginning with a charity lunch and fashion show (entailing a panic of nightmare proportions, with half the clothes from New York held in customs until the actual morning of the day, culminating in a drive down the M4 by Lady Morell herself and an endorsement for speeding, but at least a fully clothed set of models) and ending with a champagne breakfast the following dawn. It was widely acknowledged by the press, the trade and its customers to be the most exciting, original and beautiful environment for shopping that London had seen for decades.

Nigel Dempster gave it his lead story under the headline ‘All in the Family’:

The beautiful new young Lady Morell, wife of billionaire Sir Julian, has proved her worth with a dazzling coup. She has taken the distinctly ropy Windsor Hotel, Piccadilly and turned it into a pleasure dome, a store called Circe, which will undoubtedly prove the happiest of stamping grounds for London’s rich and style-obsessed. Although there are other Circes, in Europe and the United States, Phaedria Morell assures me that hers is quite unique. Phaedria (her name is that of a character in Spenser’s
The Faerie Queen
, the personification of wantonness) has been working very closely with David Sassoon, head of corporate design in Sir Julian’s company; a rare empathy is reported between the two. Mr Sassoon has strong connections with the Morell family; he was once romantically involved with Sir Julian’s first wife, Eliza, now Countess of Garrylaig. With Mr Sassoon, the Countess was at the opening of Circe, looking very much younger than her forty-eight years, and apparently the best of friends with her ex-husband’s new wife.

Lady Morell, who was once a journalist and met her husband when she went to interview him, says she is now hoping to turn her attention to some of the other Circe stores.

This could cause fireworks in the family; Rosamund (Roz) Emerson, Sir Julian’s daughter, who is president of Circe Stores worldwide, guards her empire jealously. Roz, who is married to Christopher (C. J.) Emerson, and has a baby daughter, Miranda, has been seen several times in recent months dining with New Yorker Michael (ByNow Supermarkets) Browning; ‘He is an old friend of the family,’ she told me.

‘Well,’ said Phaedria to Janet Foot, passing her the
Daily Mail
over the desk twenty-four hours after the launch, ‘that will put a few cats among some very ruffled pigeons. Good old Nigel. I don’t know whether to thank him or give him a piece of my mind.’

‘I shouldn’t do either,’ said Janet, who had worked as PA to the night editor of the
Daily Mirror
before she had joined Phaedria. ‘You know that as well as I do. Look, lovely little piece in
The Times
, from Suzy Menkes.’

Fashion and style, not always the best of friends, meet in bewitching compatibility in Circe, the new highly exclusive store in Piccadilly, only a few elegant steps away from Fortnum’s. Phaedria Morell, who has masterminded the store, has a true understanding of her customers and their sartorial needs, and has created an ambience for them that is chic, beautiful and witty.

‘That’s nice,’ said Phaedria.

‘The
Sunday Times
want to interview you this afternoon. For a piece this Sunday in the Look pages. She’s a brilliant writer, Catherine Bennett, she’ll do a really good piece. Is that all right?’

‘Fine.’

‘And how would you feel about
Woman’s Hour
? They rang just now and said could you do an interview about the new feel in retailing?’

‘I’d love it.’

Janet grinned at her. ‘You’re really enjoying all this, aren’t you?’

‘I really am.’

Pat Drummond, Phaedria’s new assistant, head-hunted for her inevitably not by Roz, but by one of the fashion buyers Phaedria had hired for Circe, put her head round the door. ‘Heavenly piece in the
Standard
, Phaedria. Have you seen it?’

‘No.’

‘I’ve got it here. But basically, it says Circe is the first store for years, either here or in New York, that acknowledges the new woman and her new needs. Isn’t that great?’

‘It’s wonderful,’ said Phaedria. ‘I just can’t believe any of it. I tell you what, though,’ she added, ‘Roz isn’t going to be in a terribly good mood for the rest of the day.’

Roz wasn’t. She was having a late breakfast at home and trying to summon the necessary courage to go to the office. What was worst about all this (apart from the stuff in Dempster about her and Michael) was that she knew the thinly disguised brickbats were actually not deserved. Phaedria had had some new ideas, and the store looked beautiful, but the implication that all the other Circes were old hat, somehow burnt out, was monstrous. Oh, well, the storm would undoubtedly pass. The good news was the innuendoes in the story about Phaedria and David. If there was one man her father was ferociously jealous of it was David Sassoon. Any suggestion, however unfounded, that Phaedria might be involved with him should affect him very satisfactorily. She still presumed it was unfounded; maybe it wasn’t. The rows reverberating across Regent’s Park and the Sussex Downs these days, and indeed by telephone across several continents, were reportedly growing in noise and frequency. Interesting.

She had just poured herself another coffee when the phone rang.

‘Roz? Hi, it’s Michael. I love you. Will you marry me?’

He made this call most mornings at about seven, quite undeterred by the twin facts that it was two a.m. in New York and that C. J. might well be sitting beside her.

‘Hallo, Michael. I just might, today. Life is bad here.’

‘Is Hubby there?’

‘No, he’s gone to the office.’

‘Can I come round?’

‘Where are you?’

‘At Heathrow.’

‘You’re not.’

‘I am.’

‘How long will you be here?’

‘Couple of days.’

‘Why are you here this time?’

‘To twist your arm.’

‘Oh, God. I have enough problems. Look at the
Daily Mail.
Nigel Dempster’s column.’

‘I’ve already seen it. I was pleased.’

‘Why?’

‘That arm’s been twisted halfway round already. Can I come?’

‘No. I’m going to the office. I’ll meet you tonight. Will you be at the Connaught?’

‘Yup.’

‘Oh, I’m glad you’re here. Problems notwithstanding. Bye.’

‘Bye, darling.’

The past three months had been difficult for Roz. Having allowed herself back in Michael’s thrall, she found herself completely helpless to escape. He had taken hold of her and her life, in his self-confident, amusedly sexy way, invading her thinking, her feeling, and not least – oh, certainly not least! – her body, and made her unequivocally his again. She tried to be discreet, but it was a half-hearted attempt. C. J. had been interestingly uninterested. Julian had been furious.

He had said very little, but she could tell from his coldness, his increasing interference in her work, that he was not prepared to accept it. Well, she was twenty-eight years old, and she was not about to do everything Daddy told her.

She felt alive, happy for the first time for two years. It was a novel sensation and she allowed herself to enjoy it, to luxuriate in it, rather as she might a glorious holiday, knowing that it had a time limit, that it could not continue, that sooner or later she had to go home, sort out her luggage and get back to real life.

And (rather as so often happens on holiday) she felt utterly removed from the pressures of reality, they had very little substance and she found herself more concerned with where she and Michael might go or eat or stay than whether she was losing ground or credibility in the company or that C. J. might divorce her and remove himself from the country, taking Miranda with him.

But it could not go on, and she knew it could not; something had to be resolved, and she herself would have to resolve it. As both options – life without Michael, and giving up her succession – both seemed impossible, she postponed her decision day by day, week by week. She felt almost two headed; when she was with him she was one person, thinking and talking and planning for him, and when she was at home or in the office, she was another. For some reason, the two people managed to co-exist quite well.

When she got into her office her father was at her desk. He had the
Daily Mail
in his hand.

‘Have you seen this?’

‘Of course.’

‘Don’t you care?’

She shrugged. ‘Not terribly.’

‘Why not? For God’s sake, Roz, why not?’

‘I’m not sure. Maybe because it doesn’t seem to make much difference. Michael and I are having an affair. Everybody knows, anyway.’

‘Roz, this can’t go on.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘This affair. You’re married, you have a child.’

She looked at him, amused. ‘Forgive me for saying so, Daddy, but such old-fashioned morality does not become you.’

He looked at her, his eyes dark with anger.

‘What are you intending to do?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Are you thinking of divorcing C. J.?’

‘I told you, I don’t know.’

‘I won’t allow it, Roz. You both have important positions in this company. It wouldn’t work.’

‘Daddy,’ said Roz, walking round to the back of her desk,
reaching across him for some files, looking at him very directly. ‘You can’t not allow me to do anything. I’m an adult. Stop playing games with me. With all of us.’

‘You’re not behaving like an adult,’ he said, ‘and I am not playing games.’

He got up, pushed past her and walked out of the office. She suddenly felt as she had when she had been a little girl and had told him she wouldn’t go to boarding school. She had done everything she could to defeat him, but she had ended up at Cheltenham just the same.

Phaedria was working on her follow-up advertising campaign for the summer for Circe when Julian walked into her office. She looked at him warily. He had been charm personified during the endless party at the launch, smiling at her indulgently, telling everyone how clever she was, how proud of her he was, how marvellous he thought the store was. Then they had got home and he had been distant, withdrawn.

She had taken a bottle of champagne from the fridge and gone up to him, putting her arms round his neck, trying to kiss him. ‘Shall we celebrate? Aren’t you pleased?’

‘Oh, yes, delighted,’ he said, almost coldly. ‘But I’m very tired. I think I’ll go straight up, if you don’t mind. You do what you like.’

‘Julian, I can hardly celebrate by myself.’

He looked at her, his eyes hard. ‘I would have thought you’d have done enough celebrating for now, Phaedria. With a great many people. Good night. I’m going to bed.’

She had stared after him, shocked, hurt. For the first time since their marriage, they slept separately, and she had lain tossing and turning for what was left of the night, trying to understand, trying to remember Letitia’s words, to see him as threatened and in need of support and understanding, and only succeeded in perceiving a small-minded, jealous man, in serious need of a brisk kick up the arse.

So far she had had no opportunity to administer it; he had left before her for the office, without a word.

He looked at her now with hostility in his eyes, and threw the
Daily Mail
down on her desk. She smiled, determinedly bright. ‘Aren’t you pleased with it all?’

‘Not all of it, no.’

‘What do you mean? It’s a huge success.’

‘Yes it is. And I fully acknowledge it. What I am not pleased with is this report in Dempster today. About you and Sassoon.’

‘Oh, Julian, don’t be ridiculous. It’s only a bit of nonsense.’

‘I happen not to like nonsense. Especially when it makes me look foolish and denigrates my wife.’

She stared at him. ‘That’s a very interesting viewpoint.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Interestingly feudal. It’s me that’s denigrated, Julian, if anyone is, me, the person, not your wife.’

‘Don’t be absurd.’

‘I’m not being absurd. Anyway, I don’t feel in the least denigrated. I see this for what it is, a way of filling a column inch.’

‘Yes, well, I suppose you would regard it in that way. You are still a reporter at heart.’

‘Sometimes,’ she said, ‘I wish it wasn’t only at heart.’

‘Well, unfortunately perhaps, things have changed. Now can I make it quite clear that I do not want you working with Sassoon on anything, ever again, and I don’t want to read this kind of thing ever again. All right?’

Phaedria’s eyes met his, amused, slightly contemptuous.

‘I’m awfully busy,’ she said, ‘I really don’t have time for this. There’s a journalist from the
Sunday Times
waiting to see me. Sorry, Julian. Please excuse me.’ She pressed her buzzer. ‘Janet, could you ask Catherine Bennett to come in now.’

London, Sussex, New York, Los Angeles, Paris, Nice, 1984–5

THE PARADOX OF
the virgin bride is that she is potentially more promiscuous than her experienced sisters. If her bridegroom proves a disappointment, she will inevitably be seeking the long-awaited, much vaunted pleasure elsewhere and if he
proves a delight she will almost equally inevitably wonder if other bodies in other beds might not be more delightful still.

Phaedria Morell had, to all intents and purposes, been a virgin bride; and her bridegroom had shown her considerable delights; nevertheless, over a year having passed since he had led her to her somewhat unconventional marriage bed on his office floor, she found herself restless, excited, disturbed. Her earlier anxieties about her own sexual capacity had been shifted, if not entirely removed, by a new and even rather dangerous self-confidence; she had begun to change more than she realized.

Her success, her new-found power and her pleasure in it, the gloss and sleekness Julian’s money had bestowed upon her, had all conspired to make her greatly sought after; she had none of the problems experienced by Eliza thirty years earlier, of having to fit in with Julian’s circle, of having no status, no life of her own. She found herself at the centre of a fashionable world, of designers, photographers, journalists; she could pick her friends, her social circle, from a group of people with whom she felt entirely at ease, who pleased and amused her, and who she seemed to please and amuse. Wherever she went, and whatever she did, she found attention. She was photographed, interviewed, sought after; scarcely a day passed for a while when her picture or her pronouncements, and very frequently both, did not appear in the press, she was a frequent guest on chat shows, labelled by
Tatler
leader of the ‘Chat Pack: Cafe Society 1980 Style’, she was recognized everywhere she went, she was stared at, remarked upon, exclaimed over. And she became increasingly pleased by it. She would scarcely have been human had she not; from the near obscurity of a two-bit job on a provincial paper, she had become seriously famous, sought after by stylish society in New York as well as London, flattered and praised everywhere she went. And when the flattery and praise fell from the eyes and lips of attractive men, and attractive young men in particular, she found it and them quite irresistible.