Peach (44 page)

“You said
loved’, Don’t you love Harry any more?”

“Yes … No … Oh, I don’t know. I don’t know what I feel—except miserable.”

“Naturally you feel hurt,” replied Leonie, removing her pearls from the baby’s sticky hands and giving him a toy to play with instead. “And you feel jealous and insecure as well as feeling stupid for not knowing about it when apparently everyone else did. But ask yourself, Peach—is Harry behaving any differently now than he did before he married you? Didn’t you chase after Harry when he was married to Augusta—just like these women are now he’s married to you?”

Peach stared at her grandmother dumbfounded. She had come here expecting to be comforted and treated like an invalid who needed cosseting and pampering until she felt well enough to face the world again. “What are you saying, Grand-mère?” she demanded, bewildered.

“You know I never approved of you running off with Harry and I didn’t approve when you married him. You’ve had this silly obsession about him since you were fifteen; you
idolised him and now you find your idol has feet of clay. But Harry is exactly what he has always been. You were just so wrapped up in what you thought he was that you couldn’t see the truth. And now it’s too late.”

“Too late?”

“You are married and this is Harry’s child as well as yours. Harry will never let you take away his son. He’s going to come after you, Peach, and if you tell him you’re leaving him he’ll take Wil away from you.”

“He can’t do that,” cried Peach, horrified. “He can’t take Wil from me. I’m his mother!”

“And in the English courts Harry will claim that you are too young, you are immature and a foreigner, and that you were an irresponsible mother. He’ll say that the boy will be better off being brought up at Launceton Hall with his family and that he will provide a solid stable background for the child. And it’s true, Peach, he
can
provide that and you were too young to marry. If there were no child involved I’d say you should divorce Harry. But now …” she sighed. “Oh Peach, you are still all wrapped up in dreams and romance. Now you must try and make it work, for the baby’s sake.”

“Everything you’re saying is true,” admitted Peach sadly. “Harry was my idol. And I did behave badly and very selfishly. It didn’t matter to me how Augusta felt when I went off with Harry—it didn’t seem to affect anyone but us. That’s all there was in the world—the two of us.”

“And now there are three.” Leonie handed Wil to Peach and the baby laughed, kicking his legs happily. “Think carefully about what you are going to do, Peach,” she warned, “because there’s nothing sadder than not being able to be with your child. I know. It happened to me.”

Peach clutched the baby in her arms as though he would disappear in a puff of smoke. She knew that Amelie, her
mother, had been brought up by Edouard d’Aureville in Brazil but she had never known exactly why, though she suspected it was something to do with her grandfather, Gilles de Courmont.

“But that’s another story,” said Leonie, abruptly dismissing the past. “Now we must think of Wil and his future. And
your
happiness, Peach.”

“I won’t let him take Wil from me,” cried Peach angrily, “and I’ll never go back to Harry. Never. Never!”

“Peach,” said Leonie with a sigh, “when are you going to grow up?”

Harry and Nanny Launceton arrived the following week after urgent telephone calls back and forth between Harry and Jim, as Peach refused to speak to him.

“I’m sorry, Peach,” said Harry, looking at her with those moss-green eyes. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“But
Augusta!
” cried Peach, full of pain.

Harry sighed. “Augusta and I have always been friends. We had to meet to talk over some financial matters. We had dinner at the Ritz and it took longer than expected. It wasn’t what it seemed.”

Peach stared at him suspiciously. She knew that Harry had made a financial settlement with Augusta when they were divorced and they probably did have to talk, but could she believe him?

“Look,” said Harry, “let’s send Nanny back to Launceton with the baby and you and I will go off for a holiday. Just the two of us. I’ll take you to some tropical island and dress you in hibiscus leis and we’ll start over again. Or we could go to Venice and stay in a wonderful old
palazzo
and pretend you’re a Renaissance princess. You choose.”

Harry did mean it, thought Peach hopefully, she was sure
he did. But what about when the next pretty girl came along—would he think of
her
then? She looked at Wil lying on his perambulator in a shady part of the terrace and she couldn’t bear the thought of losing him.

Venice was as beautiful as everyone had always told her it was, even in the rain. They drifted down misty canals in wonderful high-powered gondolas peeking into the windows of old palaces and admiring the Canaletto vistas, and they stood in St Mark’s Square and watched the flood waters lapping at its corners as though they would devour it for ever, and they drank Bellinis in the bar that bore Harry’s name. Harry carried his notebook everywhere, jotting down images and scenes and snatches of conversations he overheard that caught his imagination and he made love to her every afternoon in their palatial room at the Cipriani, but he never wrote about her in his notebook, the way he used to when they first met.

Lying next to Harry, Peach studied his sleeping face, remembering how she had watched him on their first night together, only now she was looking for the truth. Harry wasn’t a cruel man. Behind that handsome façade he was just self-indulgent and weak. Tomorrow or next week or next month, whenever the next pretty girl smiled at him invitingly, he would forget his promises. Harry would never change.

Peach pressed her face into the cool pillows, listening to the sound of the water lapping at the jetty outside the hotel. She knew now she didn’t love Harry. She had been young and silly and obsessed with a dream. But she must stay for Wil’s sake. The thought of an endless succession of lonely days at Launceton stretched before her with Harry locked away in his study, remote again in his own world, and she felt the tears spring to her eyes.

“Merde
,” she said to herself angrily. “This is no time for tears. I’ve cried enough for Harry and me. It’s time I did something with
my
life.” She remembered herself standing in front of her grandfather de Courmont’s portrait, full of young ideals and ambitions, promising him she would try to put the de Courmont name back on top with Rolls-Royce and Bentley and Mercedes. Well, now was the time to do something about it.

Peach wiped her eyes on a corner of the pillow. There would be no more tears. Grand-mère was right. It was time she grew up.

Noel celebrated his promotion to Great Lakes Motor Corporation’s youngest divisional manager by buying Scott Harrison’s old apartment. He drove past the building every day on his way to work in his brand new white Great Lakes coupé with the beige velour interior and Blaupunkt radio that was a step up from the Chevrolet he’d had before, and on an impulse he stopped to take a look. The building was a touch less glossy than when he’d last been there twelve years before and there were signs of neglect in the worn grey carpet and the unpolished brass plates in the elevator, but when he heard that there were apartments for sale, he knew he wanted to live there. And one of them was Scott’s. Noel walked the empty anonymous rooms with the view of Detroit’s towers from their wide windows, filling them with
images of his hungry, frightened fourteen-year-old self wearing Scott’s soft striped cashmere robe and drinking his first Martini and almost getting himself seduced. Smiling, he called the real estate office and checked the price, offering them $5,000 less than the $20,000 they were asking. They compromised at $18,500 and he had a deal.

Noel never had any trouble in claiming that he was thirty years old. Quite the contrary, people often took him for older. The fact that he’d added a few years in order to get his first job had carried through until now even his social security forms set his age at thirty. He wondered whether the Great Lakes Motor Corporation would have given him the job if they knew he were really only twenty-six. He was getting $30,000 a year plus profit bonuses. And in a good year that could mean an extra $40,000. And he was damned good at his job. He’d been moved up from the design studio, where he had been personally responsible for the team restyling their low-priced model, giving it a sporty new look that offered the young market exactly what it wanted—a “sporty” car without the sports car limitations and high price. And it had meant big sales and
high
profits for the company.

It was the company’s president himself who’d congratulated Noel when the mock-up car had first been displayed for top executive approval. And when the orders flowed in after the unanimous enthusiasm of the dealers at a special unveiling preview, he had summoned Noel to his office.

Paul Lawrence had been born to money and power in the automobile industry. His father had been a former president of Great Lakes Motors and, like Noel, Paul had an MIT degree in engineering. After MIT Paul had worked in a variety of departments gaining experience in production on the shop floor, and then he’d taken a job at Ford, working his way across the glittering names of the auto industry until
he was president of Great Lakes Motors. Paul’s own rise to the top had been meteoric and he recognised Noel’s unusual talent right away. And he wasn’t the sort who kept a man down just because he was considered too young.

Paul listened to Noel’s carefully edited history, sizing up the man in front of him. “Obviously hard work is not your problem,” he commented, “in fact it’s been your whole life. Tell me, Noel, what do you do in your spare time?”

Paul had taken him by surprise and Noel stared at him blankly. “Well,” said Noel finally, “I don’t know that I have much spare time. I work late as often as I can—you see that’s what I really like.”

“Come on now,” said Paul, “what about Saturday nights? And Sundays—everybody enjoys a Sunday off—even the presidents of large companies.”

“I like music,” admitted Noel. “I have a good collection of records and I like to go to the symphony when I can. And the galleries. I enjoy paintings and sculpture.”

“You’re not married?”

“No sir.”

“You haven’t been standing still long enough for anyone to catch you yet according to this,” said Paul indicating Noel’s c.v. The young man in the badly cut dark suit and the blue button-down collar waited for what he had to say, looking like a greyhound on the leash. A very interesting face and an interesting personality. “Well, Mr Maddox,” he said with a smile, “
Noel
. How’d you like to be GL Motors division manager in charge of our mid-range cars?”

Noel’s face lit like a beacon on Bunker Hill.

“Let me give you a word of advice,” said Paul Lawrence as they shook hands on the deal, “take a little time to enjoy yourself. A man can get too involved in the small details working day and night. Sometimes you need to be able to stand back and get things into perspective. Take up golf,
Noel—you’d be surprised what a help it can be. Keeps the blood pressure down, too, take it from me.”

Like a kid in a candy shop Noel wandered through the big department stores choosing carpets and furniture and lighting fixtures. He wanted instant “home” and anything that couldn’t be delivered that week, he rejected and chose something else. He gave instructions and paid his money and he went to work one morning and when he came back, there it was.

Velvety smooth black carpet and two glossy black leather chesterfield sofas. A big glass coffee table and, sitting on top of it, an enormous yellow ceramic ashtray advertising a French liquor, “Ricard,” that he’d bought on impulse. A pair of chrome lamps on polished black fake-marble end-tables and the Kandinsky and the Mondrian still propped up against the wall where he had left them. Noel surveyed his kingdom, feeling strange, as though he were walking through a window display. He inspected the rest of the apartment cautiously. A king-size bed, draped in a black Spanish-looking velvet quilt, dominated the bedroom. The curved brass headboard with its smiling angels, their hands and wings neatly folded, was antique, discovered on a prowl through the smart little boutiques that made Noel nervous. “Of course, it wasn’t originally a headboard,” the effeminate young man had told him. “It’s French, turn of the century, and was first used to decorate the entrance to a children’s orphanage.” Despite its exorbitant price Noel had felt compelled to buy it. With him it had found its true home. Unpacking a beautifully wrapped parcel bearing the logo of an expensive shop, Noel, took out the striped cashmere robe and hung it behind the bathroom door. Then with a sigh he lay down on his bed. He felt so tired, more tired than he could ever remember in his whole life. He was asleep within minutes.

*  *  *

Claire Anthony’s husband was vice-president in charge of the car and truck division at Chrysler. That’s why it was particularly galling that the damned great lump of a station wagon wouldn’t start. She’d wanted a nice sporty little Jaguar, or even a little MG—something imported and with style—to suit her personality, she thought with a smile. Instead she was stuck with the company’s top-of-the-line station wagon that was so long and with her nearsight it was hell to back up and even worse hell to find a parking space big enough.

Sighing, Claire climbed from the car and stared at it dolefully. Her foot shot out suddenly and she gave it a hefty kick. “Goddamn it,” she said viciously.

“Having trouble?” Noel laughed as he said it and she laughed too.

“Caught in the act,” she said. “My husband would never forgive me.”

“Then he can’t be a very understanding man,” replied Noel. “After all, you only kicked the tyres. You could have driven it into a wall.”

“I might have,” Claire admitted, “but it won’t start.”

“That’s probably because you left your lights on.” Noel pointed to the headlamps glowing brightly in the evening sun. “It was dark and rainy this morning and when the sun came out you forgot they were on.”