Reckless (23 page)

‘How does that look to you, Mac?’

‘Looks pretty good, Mr President,’ said Bundy. ‘If we think we can trust him.’

‘I don’t trust him to keep his word. But I do trust him to do what’s in his interests. Ask yourself what it is Khrushchev wants. He wants to look good on the world stage. He wants his people to see him as a successful leader. Kind of like I do.’

The others laughed.

‘Except he doesn’t have to win a popularity contest every two years.’

‘So what do I tell Bolshakov?’ said Bobby.

‘Try your trade on him. Tell him if Khrushchev guarantees to lay off Berlin until after the elections, I’ll ground the U2s.’

*

The message passed back to Khrushchev through the Bolshakov channel was that Kennedy wanted Berlin put ‘on ice’. Khrushchev hadn’t met this expression before. When Troyanovsky explained it to him, he liked it a lot.

‘Let’s put their balls on ice,’ he said.

The Presidium authorised Bolshakov to tell President Kennedy that his offer was acceptable. Kennedy ordered the U2s to be grounded.

The window in the sky was closed.

The taxi pulled up outside a house in Mayfair. There was nothing to distinguish the address: the same blank house front, the same three steps rising to a front door. The tall windows either side of the front door were shuttered on the inside.

André took out a ring of keys and unlocked the door. He stood there in his perfectly tailored dove-grey suit, his silky hair brushed back on his head, his handsome high-cheeked profile towards her, and smiled as if he was about to reveal a mystery.

‘This is where it’s all going to happen.’

He opened the door and ushered Pamela in ahead of him. A wide empty hall faced her, from which rose a handsome staircase. The house seemed much bigger inside than outside. Doors to left and right stood open.

‘Go ahead. Look round.’

The rooms were immense, and entirely empty. She stood gazing at the expanse of polished boards, the high plastered walls rising to ornate cornices.

‘There’s nothing here.’

‘Almost nothing.’ He was watching her closely, expectantly, seeing if she could guess. ‘Space,’ he said. ‘The house is full of space.’

She moved from empty room to empty room, and there was nothing, not a chair, not a rug, not a lamp. And yet for all its emptiness the house didn’t feel abandoned. The paintwork on the walls was pristine. The brass door-plates and door handles gleamed. The floors had been polished to a golden glow.

‘Is this how it was when you bought it?’ she asked.

‘Lord, no!’ he exclaimed. ‘It’s taken a lot of work and a lot of money to make this emptiness. The rooms were full of junk. Most of the plasterwork has had to be stripped and replaced. There were internal walls in this room. There was a narrow passage right where you’re standing. They had four rooms in here. It was used as offices for an insurance company.’

She looked round in wonder.

‘You’ve made it so beautiful. It’s not like a house at all. It’s like a different world.’

‘All parties should happen in a different world.’

‘Yes, of course. The party.’

He led her back into the hall.

‘Go on up the stairs,’ he said.

She climbed the stairs. At the top there was a wide landing, with closed double doors facing her.

‘Open the doors.’

She opened the doors, and found herself standing on a platform or stage. Wide steps descended a short distance from this stage to a great room, a ballroom, lit by tall windows on either side. Like the rooms below, this too was empty.

‘I bought the house for this room,’ André said.

It was the width of the entire house, and deeper than it was wide. Supporting columns ran down either side, between the windows. The ceiling was arched, with a long glazed lantern down the centre through which sunlight was streaming.

How rich do you have to be, thought Pamela, to buy a house so you can hold a party?

‘This is where my guests will make their entrée,’ he said, sweeping one arm from the double doors over the raised platform.

‘Make their entrée?’

‘For a party like this, people go to a lot of trouble over their appearance. They deserve their moment.’

‘Like coming on stage.’

‘Everyone a star.’

Pamela stood just inside the entrance doors and imagined the moment.

‘How will you decorate the room?’

‘With beautiful people,’ he said, smiling.

She turned to him, about to ask a question, and then looked away again.

‘What is it?’

‘I suppose your party will be very smart,’ she said.

‘My guests are a very mixed crowd,’ he said. ‘I hope my party will be beautiful, and surprising, and joyful.’

She said nothing.

‘I think you’re concerned about what to wear.’

‘How did you know?’ she said, amazed.

‘I could tell you that whatever you wear you will be the most beautiful of all. But instead I will make myself useful. Will you allow me the pleasure of buying a dress for you?’

Even as he spoke in this quaintly formal way, his gaze was moving over her like a caress. He combined perfect manners with something quite different: the wordless impression that he was used to getting what he wanted. Because he never raised his voice, and because his face habitually wore an expression of sadness, as if he lived with the memory of some great loss, she had at first taken him to be weak-willed. Then she had come to realise that he was simply lazy, with the golden laziness of the privileged. Great wealth and natural beauty had made exertion unnecessary.

‘Please let me. You know I can afford it.’

‘Have you always been rich?’

‘Yes, always.’ Then as they descended the stairs, ‘Never be born rich. Desire puts down roots in stony soil.’

Did that mean he desired her, or that he wanted to desire her and couldn’t? As yet she had no idea how to respond to him. She didn’t believe herself to be in love with him. All she knew was that everything in her life was transformed by his attentions, and she didn’t want them to stop.

She was also a little frightened. She was afraid he would discover her ignorance, and so spoke very little. She was afraid he would grow bored with her, and so cultivated an air of being bored with him.

‘Don’t you find shopping rather tiresome?’ she said.

‘Shopping for oneself is a melancholy business, like eating alone. But shopping for someone else is joyful.’

It was the second time he’d used this word. Joyful.

*

The following day they met by arrangement at the showroom of a designer Pamela had never heard of. It was in a smartly converted stable-block on Pavilion Road, just off Sloane Street, and was called Bellville Sassoon. The main floor was a cross between a shop and a dressmaker’s, with ready-to-wear gowns on display, and dressmaker’s dummies wearing half-made garments that bristled with pins.

A small intense-looking man greeted André as an old friend.

‘André! It’s been too long!’

‘Hello, David. How’s Belinda?’

‘Very well, very well.’ He stood back to scrutinise Pamela. ‘Who do we have here?’

André introduced them.

‘David Sassoon. A magician.’

‘So what do we have in mind?’ said Sassoon, diplomatically
including both in his gaze.

‘An evening gown,’ said Pamela. ‘André’s having a grand party.’

‘Long, simple, pure,’ said André. ‘None of your Oscar de la Renta feathers and frills.’

David Sassoon pulled a face that said, But of course.

‘Have you seen the new line from Valentino Garavani?’

‘Too much red,’ said André.

Sassoon now turned his full attention to Pamela. She felt that he was seeing through her clothes to her naked body beneath.

‘What would you like, Miss Pamela?’

Pamela had an answer, but she wasn’t sure if it was the right kind of thing to say.

‘Just a suggestion,’ she said.

‘Please.’

‘I’d like to look like Audrey Hepburn at the beginning of
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
.’

‘Just so,’ said André, approving. ‘Long and black.’

‘Hubert de Givenchy,’ said Sassoon. ‘But what I do for you will be better.’

He drew out a tape measure and flicked it round her with quick practised movements.

‘I don’t want to look like anyone else at the party,’ said Pamela.

‘Every one of my dresses is unique,’ said Sassoon.

He finished measuring, and stood back to appraise her as he might a model.

‘You have an excellent figure,’ he said. ‘Are you shy?’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Pamela.

Sassoon went to the rails and drew out a long black sleeveless gown. On the hanger it was impossible to judge. He held it up.

‘High neck. Close-fitted waist. Full skirt. You would wear it with black gloves above the elbow, black patent leather shoes, high heels.’

‘High neck?’ said André.

‘Ah, but do you see the material?’

Sassoon slid his hand inside the dress.

‘Silk chiffon.’

It was transparent.

‘And underneath?’ said André.

‘Here. A black silk slip. Low neckline, high hem. Two inches above the knee.’

André turned to Pamela.

‘What do you think?’

‘How does she know?’ said Sassoon. ‘Try it on. If she likes it, I can alter it to fit.’

He took the dress and the slip to a small changing room at the back. Pamela undressed. The slip fitted well. She drew it up until the straps were over her bare shoulders. Then she stepped carefully into the chiffon dress.

Sassoon was waiting outside to button up the back.

‘Not so far off, actually,’ he said, pinching the fabric.

Pamela presented herself for André’s inspection; then turned to look into a long mirror on the side wall. The gauzy chiffon clung close to her upper body, and then fell away in full gathers to the floor. It was revealing, showing her upper chest and her legs from the knees down, but it shadowed what it revealed. The result was simultaneously formal and sexy.

‘Is it all right?’ she said, turning nervously to André.

‘Of course it’s all right,’ said Sassoon. ‘You can see for yourself.’

‘Yes,’ said Pamela. ‘It’s beautiful.’

‘I told you,’ said André. ‘He’s a magician.’

‘Work still to be done,’ said Sassoon, taking out his pins. ‘Stand still, my dear.’

He proceeded to tuck and pin the fabric.

‘Of course someone will have to see to her hair,’ he said, his mouth full of pins. ‘Take her to Annette.’

Pamela said nothing. She wanted to cry with happiness.

‘When can you have it, David?’ said André.

‘Tomorrow.’

As they came out onto Pavilion Road André said, ‘Will that do?’

‘Oh, André. I don’t know how to thank you.’

‘I’ll be well repaid,’ he said, ‘when I see you enter my party. Now where can I drop you?’

‘Take me to Stephen’s,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to go home yet.’

He drove her to Wimpole Mews, where Stephen Ward had his flat. She offered André her cheek.

‘You’ve been such a darling,’ she said.

‘Entirely selfish,’ he replied.

She rang the bell on the flat door, and no one answered. She rang again. At last she heard a patter on the stairs within, and the door opened to reveal a sleepy Christine in pyjamas.

‘You can’t still be asleep,’ said Pamela.

‘I’m not, am I?’ said Christine.

Stephen was out, in his consulting rooms, as Pamela had assumed. It was Christine she wanted to see.

‘André’s buying me a dress for his party.’

Christine’s eyes opened wide.

‘Good work, Pammy!’

‘It’s going to be so amazing!’

Now she allowed all the accumulated excitement to pour out of her. She described the new dress in detail. Christine listened with sleepy pleasure.

‘Looks like you hit the jackpot there, girl.’

‘He’s so polite, Christine. And he knows so much. He knows exactly what I’m thinking. It’s almost scary.’

‘But you like him?’

‘Oh, yes! Don’t you think he’s beautiful?’

‘So have you slept with him yet?’

‘No,’ said Pamela, trying to sound nonchalant, as if this was merely a tactical decision.

‘Good for you,’ said Christine. ‘Make them wait. They’re much nicer to you before than after.’

‘What are you going to wear on Saturday, Christine?’

‘I’ll show you if you like.’

Christine went into the room that was still known as ‘Christine’s room’, even though she had her own flat in Dolphin Square. She brought out a garment on a hanger that looked like a bright red plastic bag. Pamela stared in disbelief.

‘What is it?’

‘It’s a mac. I got it from Bazaar, in the King’s Road. Cost a bloody fortune.’

‘What do you wear it with?’

‘Not a lot,’ said Christine. ‘It comes down to here.’

She indicated a point about halfway down her thigh.

‘You’ll look as if you’re undressed!’

‘André’s parties are like that,’ said Christine. ‘Anything goes.’

Pamela pictured Christine making her entrée in the shiny short red mac, her shapely legs bare beneath. She would be the sensation of the party. Her own elegant floor-length black chiffon would look middle-aged by comparison. Unless – she had a sudden idea that made her laugh out loud.

Do I dare?

They heard the sound of a key in the front door, and hastily put away the party clothes. It was Stephen, returning with Eugene.

‘Lovely ladies!’ cried Eugene, and kissed their hands.

‘Pamela’s been to a dressmaker with André,’ said Christine. ‘He’s buying her the most gorgeous frock for his party.’

‘These parties of André’s,’ said Eugene to Pamela, ‘they are without rules. You must be prepared.’

‘He’s shown me where it’s happening,’ said Pamela. ‘He’s got an empty house in Mayfair.’

‘You and I, Stephen,’ said Ivanov, ‘we must protect little Pamela, on Saturday.’

‘Do I need protection?’ said Pamela.

‘It is the gentleman’s duty to protect the ladies,’ said Ivanov.

‘Do shut up, Eugene,’ said Christine. ‘Since when did you have gentlemen in Russia?’

‘You must be kind to Eugene,’ said Stephen. ‘He’s in despair over Berlin.’