The Flirt (28 page)

H
enry was waiting outside Graff when Hughie arrived.

“I’d nearly given up on you!” Henry said, slapping him on the back. “Where have you been?”

Hughie sighed. “To be honest, there’s no point even going in. I’m not going to buy the earrings now.”

“Why? What’s happened?”

“She doesn’t love me,” he confessed, miserably.

“Nonsense! You’ve had a tiff, that’s all. Nothing an expensive gift can’t fix.” He steered Hughie toward the door. “Besides, we’re here now and I suppose I’d better price a few engagement rings myself.”

“Really?” Had it gone that far, that quickly? “How is the widow Finegold?”

(Henry had recently been assigned to flirt with a ridiculously wealthy, hopelessly frail older widow, Eleanor Finegold of Kensington Park West, who fulfilled all his requirements for a future wife, i.e. that she should be rich and on her deathbed. He was pursuing the matter with a great deal of diligence, if not gusto.)

“Oh, she’s all right, I suppose.” He stared bleakly into the middle distance. “If only she weren’t so fond of chopped-egg-and-onion sandwiches.”

Hughie knew it pained Henry to do what he was doing. But
at least Eleanor Finegold existed and had enough money to keep Henry outfitted in expensive face creams, Savile Row suits and nonsurgical procedures.

“Shall we?” asked Henry, rallying. He pushed the door open.

There was Percy’s assistant, Deirdre, poised with champagne glasses on a tray.

She smiled her ingenuous smile. “Good afternoon, gentlemen.”

Percival Bryce bounced into the room, dressed in a particularly dashing ensemble of a dark gray suit, blue shirt and raspberry-colored tie. A diamond tie pin sparkled in its silk folds, gold cufflinks gleamed at his wrists. He’d had his hair cut and smelled of lemons and lavender—a combination that reminded Hughie of lavatory-cleaning fluid but which was in fact a very expensive purchase from Penhaligon’s the day before.

“Mr. Venables-Smythe!” he beamed, pumping Hughie’s hand vigorously. “The day has come! The day has come! I’m thrilled! I hope you are too! Everything is ready for your mother’s arrival. I hope she’s still imminent?” he asked eagerly.

Hughie nodded. “On her way this very minute. Thing is—”

“Splendid! Splendid! A toast!” he cried, taking a glass from Deirdre’s tray. “To love, gentlemen!”

“To love!” Henry took a large gulp.

“Yes,” Hughie hesitated, “speaking of which—”

“Nice place you have here.” Henry stepped forward. “Please, allow me to introduce myself. Henry Montifore. My young friend’s asked me to help him choose a gift for his girlfriend and I assured him that, being men of the world, we could work out a deal.” A golden shaft of sunlight sliced through the window, bathing Henry and his smile of newly whitened teeth in its warm glow.

“Mr. Venables-Smythe and I have already come to an arrangement,” Mr. Bryce informed him, straightening his pink tie.

“Yes, about that,” Hughie began, “see the thing is—”

“Ah, but there are arrangements and then there are deals!” Henry persisted. “See, I myself am in the market for an engagement ring. A ring of considerable size, I might add.”

“I see…”

“When diamonds are purchased en masse, so to speak, surely prices become a bit more flexible. Now,” Henry strolled casually in front of the display case, “my only question is, if I should need to return the ring for any reason, for example, sudden death, is there a policy regarding that?”

The shop bell rang.

Percy stiffened.

“It’s your mother!” he hissed, to no one in particular. “How do I look?” he demanded.

“You look fine! What’s all this? A bit of a soft spot for someone?” Henry winked at Percy, who came over quite flustered. And, sensing the chance to build what is known in the business as a “rapport” with the man in charge of the diamonds, Henry strutted over to the door. “Wait there,” he advised. “Allow me!” He pulled the door open, froze. “Good God!”

He and Hughie’s mother both just stood there.

Percival Bryce frowned. He pushed past Henry and smiled at Rowena.

“Mrs. Venables-Smythe! Come in! Please!” He pulled her in from the street. “No need to linger on the doorstep!”

“Hey, Mum!” Hughie nodded.

Physically, his mother looked the way she always did: dark, shoulder-length hair swept back by a thick black velvet hair-band, surrounding an elfin face with rather sad brown eyes; a longish gray wool skirt, red cashmere jumper, the dreaded driving shoes and a very old Chanel quilted bag, kept because it was only just recognizably a Chanel handbag. But there was something terribly
wrong about her; as though she’d been dismantled from the inside. She walked in, staring at Henry.

He, in turn, gaped in a manner Hughie wasn’t entirely sure was polite.

All this was lost on Percy Bryce. “You and I haven’t met in a long time,” he gushed. “I don’t expect you’d remember me. My name is—”

“You’re Hughie’s mother?” Henry cut in.

For the first time in many years, Hughie saw his mother blush. Her face went not just red, but deep violet. She fiddled nervously with the frayed strap of her handbag.

“Hughie…how…how do you know this man?” Her voice was accusatory.

“We work together. Henry’s my, well, sort of like a boss.”

“You’re Hughie’s mother!” Henry repeated.

“You knew,” she said quietly, “about the children.”

“I knew about the girl.”

“Have you met before?” Hughie asked.

They both turned to him with stricken looks.

“Is that a yes?” he ventured.

It was an awkward moment.

And a long one at that.

“Yes, well, be that as it may! How about a glass of champagne?” Percy offered, nudging Deirdre forward.

Rowena took a glass, downed it in one. Her hands were shaking.

Aspects of Percy’s romantic projection were definitely being challenged. Still, he forged on. “Yes, as I was saying, my name is Percival Bryce and believe it or not, Rowena, I remember you from when you used to cycle into Tiffany’s across the street!”

“Rowena!” Henry echoed, in heart-wrenching tones.

She looked at him with terrible sadness. “Yes.”

“Yes, Rowena!” Percival broke in, ushering her toward a seat in front of his desk. “You’ve come all this way. I expect you want to see these diamond earrings. If I remember correctly, you always had such exquisite taste and your son has apparently inherited it from you!”

He took out the black velvet cloth. The diamond heart earrings sparkled and flashed.

Hughie sighed. They were just as perfect as he remembered them.

Rowena Venables-Smythe sat in front of the diamonds. But her eyes were unseeing. The shapes and colors blurred, melting and separating as she blinked back the tears. The terrible tension that had kept her buoyed, bouncing bravely on the choppy sea of life, was suddenly dispelled. She was visibly sinking, right before their eyes.

“Henry,” she whispered, reaching out a small hand.

Henry grasped it and fell, quite dramatically, to his knees. “My darling!” He pressed her fingers to his lips. “My darling, darling girl!”

This was shocking.

Hughie was stunned, Percy was appalled. Even Deirdre was vaguely amused.

“Rowena! How many years have I waited to know your name! I could never have guessed it would be so beautiful!”

And it dawned, very slowly on Hughie, as all things must, that there was only one woman whose name interested Henry.

“Good God, Henry! You’ve been doing my mum!”

“What?” Percy shrieked, hitting a note not many grown men could reach.

“Hughie!” his mother reprimanded.

But Hughie was beyond recall. An unholy rage exploded from him. He grabbed Henry by the collar, dragged him to his feet.

“I thought you were my friend! But all the while you were deceiving me!”

It was a betrayal that hurt more than he could have anticipated. In truth, Henry had been so much more to him. And for this reason, Hughie punched him extra hard.

“Oh, my goodness!” Percy Bryce squealed. “Fisiticuffs in Graff! This will never do! Stop it now!” He pressed a buzzer.

Henry put up no resistance and rolled, like a well-heeled rugby ball, into the feet of the security men who had vaulted up to the showroom floor.

“Stop it, Hughie!” his mother screamed. “Stop it right now! I won’t have you hitting your father!”

Everyone stopped, jaws dangling wide.

“My…my…my father?”

Even Henry looked surprised. He sat, rubbing his chin, gawping at both of them.

Rowena straightened defiantly. Years of anxious guilt and worry fell away from her as she spoke. “Yes, Hughie, your father. The truth is, Henry and I met one fateful summer’s day in the linen department of Peter Jones.” She gazed at Henry adoringly. “Our love was like a lightning bolt: instant and uncontrollable. Despite all efforts to restrain ourselves, we succumbed.”

“Quite a few times, as I recall,” Henry mumbled.

Hughie shot him a look.

“And, although I did my best to forget Henry and return to your father as a faithful wife, you were already conceived. You see, my dear Hughie, you are the son of Henry Montifore, the only man I ever really loved.”

“But…but what about Dad?”

“I have every reason to believe that the man whom you think of as your father, who is, in fact, only Clara’s father, is not dead at all but ran off with that cheap-looking secretary of his and is living
a bigamous life in Australia. I’m sorry to break the news to you like this, darling. I had intended to lie to you for the rest of my life. I must say, the strain on my nerves over the years has been tremendous. Actually,” she looked up at Deirdre, “I wouldn’t mind another glass of that champagne.”

Hughie slumped against a marble pillar.

Henry was his father! And his father was not his father at all but just some man in Australia. Clara had been right all these years; they weren’t from the same gene pool at all. The faded photo he’d carried with him most of his life, poring over, dreaming on, mourning, was of little more than a stranger.

Henry looked across at him. “I’m sorry, Hughie. You must believe me when I say, I had no idea.”

Hughie tried to swallow, but his mouth was dry. He tried to speak, no words came out.

Henry crawled over to him.

Suddenly Hughie could see a thousand likenesses: the same blue eyes, the same dimpled cheeks, the rich abundant hair…

They stared at one another in wonder.

“Forgive me.” Henry touched Hughie’s cheek tenderly, his voice rough with feeling, “But all my life I’ve wanted a son.”

Hughie closed his eyes, feeling for the first time the warm hollow of his father’s hand.

“Forget about it, Dad.”

After quite a few manly embraces and tears, and much to Percival Bryce’s extreme horror, Henry chose to cement his utter happiness and the future of his new family by crawling over to where Rowena sat and taking her hand in his.

“Now that I’ve found you again, we must never be parted. Rowena Venables-Smythe, will you marry me?”

She sighed wearily. “Oh, all right.”

“Percy, my dear man! I need to buy an engagement ring!”
Henry beamed, rising from the floor. “Show us something vulgar! And Hughie,” he offered Hughie a hand, pulling him up to his feet, “now, I need your advice!”

And so it happened that Hughie found a father, Henry a son and wife, Rowena a husband and a very good-quality ring, while Percival Bryce found himself selling diamonds to the one man in London who had robbed him of the great love of his life, giving him a fifteen percent discount to boot.

B
e careful!” Arnaud snapped to his valet, Kipps. “Not too short! I want body and movement, do you understand? Body and movement!”

Kipps nodded.

He’d heard the body-and-movement speech before—many times before. It was a great challenge to work for a man who wanted you to cut his hair every day; a challenge that Kipps didn’t have the energy or desire to meet. Most of the time all he did was pull the hair a bit at the back, jostle the scissors around and pretend he was cutting it. (Pulling Mr. Bourgalt du Coudray’s hair was the only perk of the job.) So he frowned as if he were engaged in a bit of precision styling and gave Mr. Bourgalt du Coudray’s hair a good yank.

“Ow!”

“You need to be still, sir,” Kipps instructed, holding the razor-sharp blades dangerously close to his ear. “I don’t want my hand to slip,” he added smoothly.

Arnaud froze, a victim of his own vanity, while Kipps yanked away.

It was important that he looked good today. Hundreds of reporters would be gathered for the launch of the Nemesis All-Pro Sport 2000 tennis shoe this afternoon. The presence of Men’s Top
Seed Ivaldos Ivaldovaldovich meant that they were already foaming at the mouth for the Hyde Park event. And Svetlana had prepared a special treat for him afterward, involving herself and two girlfriends.

But even more importantly, today was the day he would put Olivia back in her proper place and domestic peace would be restored. Jonathan Mortimer had provided him with all the information he needed to shame her into compliance. And even though the Dorchester was reasonably comfortable, he was looking forward to spending the night in his own home; firmly king of his castle once more. After all, it was the principle of the thing.

Finally Kipps stopped pulling his hair. He got up, flicking the flowing mane he imagined from side to side.

“Body and movement,” Kipps observed.

Arnaud couldn’t see any difference, but he was damned if his valet was going to get the better of him. “Yes, much better. Well done.” And he gave Kipps a fifty-pound note, just to show him who was boss, which Kipps acknowledged with a slight pursing of the lips.

It was important that he looked good today; in so many ways, it was bound to be memorable.

Jonathan Mortimer was slacking. He was meant to be wrestling the older boys into their school uniforms, and force feeding them cornflakes, but instead he sneaked into his study, looking up an online property service instead.

Increasingly this was his overriding obsession. How far out of London would they have to move if he wanted to leave his job and start again, some place new?

The answer wasn’t promising. Would Amy and the boys be happy in Surbiton?

Was anyone happy in Surbiton?

And yet the fantasy persisted. Again and again he played out the scenario in his head—striding up to Arnaud Bourgalt du Coudray, quitting his job and then indulging in a detailed catalogue of Arnaud’s failings as a human being. By now he could practically do the speech in iambic pentameter. But the painful truth was, he was trapped. Trapped into doing all sorts of unpalatable things for a man he abhorred, day after day, week after week, month after month—for as long as it would take him to pay off the mortgage, send the children to school, pay for their holidays…

He ran his fingers through his thinning hair. Maybe if he played the lottery.

“Surbiton, eh? I hear it’s nice this time of year.”

He looked up.

Amy was in the doorway, wearing a fitted blue nightdress, arms crossed. She looked fresh and pretty. Somewhere at the top of the house, the boys could be heard causing untold damage to themselves and their surroundings.

“Sorry. I’m on my way.” He stood up, closing the laptop guiltily. “On my way.”

But Amy stepped inside, closed the door and sat down. She looked at him; her eyes were very clear, still.

“This isn’t working, is it?”

Jonathan sat down again. “We’re tired. This is a bad time. We should have this conversation when we’re rested.”

“There’s never a good time. We have years before we’ll be rested.”

“The boys…”

“Yes, they can wait. They can be late to school. Believe me, their teachers will be delighted. And we need to talk.”

All she was doing was stating a fact; a simple, self-evident fact. It wasn’t working. It hadn’t worked in a while. A long while. They
both knew that. But it was her demeanor that unnerved him. No tears, no shouting; she was calm, undramatic.

“It isn’t working,” she said again, folding her hands into her lap. “Is it?”

And in that moment, everything Jonathan had ever loved about Amy came into sharp focus. Her courage, her clarity, her resourcefulness. The way her hands were so small, and her smile lopsided.

He reached out, touched her arm.

“Don’t leave me. I don’t want you to leave me.”

This didn’t have quite the effect he expected. Not that it was calculated; it was immediate and sincere. But whenever he’d come clean like that in the past, something had changed, shifted. Normally that something was Amy.

Instead she tilted her head to one side.

“We are neither of us happy, Jonathan. That’s no big deal. But we don’t even have the hope of future happiness. And that matters a lot.”

It was a wrecking ball, swinging out of control. The fragile balance of their life was being leveled by his wife’s ruthless, accurate assessment. Jonathan floundered, grasping for a rebuttal of equal impact to stem the devastation.

“But I love you,” he pleaded.

It had once been the answer to all their problems, packing equal if not more weight against any unpleasant truth. Now it floated, irrelevant, a footnote buried at the end of a long, complicated passage.

By the way, they loved each other.

The plot lurched on regardless.

“Something has to change. And the answer isn’t Surbiton,” she said.

“OK, great.” He was sweating. He always sweated when he was nervous. “We can go anywhere you want.”

This had no effect either.

“Or nowhere. We can stay here. I can take on more hours.”

She shook her head. There was something of the Sphinx about her today; about her self-possession and containment. He was guessing at riddles when she already knew the answers.

“Do you like my nightdress?”

He blinked. “Pardon me?”

“This nightdress, do you like it?”

“Yes. Yes, it’s very pretty.”

“Good. Because I’ve been offered some work, helping to market these new designs. And my question to you is this: Would you be willing to cut down your hours and spend more time with the boys?”