The Rich Are Different (86 page)

‘Cornelius, I’ve come to a decision.’

I immediately thought she was about to announce her return to Foxworth. ‘Don’t be silly, darling,’ she said quickly as she saw my petrified expression, ‘nothing could possibly come between us, you must know that. No, my decision is that I can’t go through this experience a second time. I know I could get temporary custody of the baby till he’s weaned but I don’t want it. I couldn’t bear to give him up when he’s six months old with a little personality all his own. I’d end up in a strait-jacket at Bellevue.’

‘Maybe we
could work out some long-term arrangement with Ralph.’

‘Never. He’ll want custody and he’ll get it. It’ll be his way of paying me back for leaving him so publicly.’ She paused to light a cigarette with a shaking hand before adding in that same cold voice which failed to mask her grief: ‘I don’t want to see the baby after he’s born. I’ll be like a mother who gives up her child for adoption. It’s the only way.’

‘Let me go and see Ralph. I’m sure—’

‘There’s nothing you can do, Cornelius. I’ve just spent forty-eight hours thinking about this, and I’ve explored every possibility. I’m twenty years old and I’ve made the most dreadful mess of my private life and my only hope now is to face up to it and make decisions which will cause the minimum amount of pain to all concerned. In fact my main worry is not myself but you. I don’t want you becoming buried in the wreckage of my first marriage. I don’t want you having to endure my nervous breakdown. I don’t want you becoming involved in endless courtroom battles with Ralph. I’ve been bad enough for your career as it is, and yet you’ve never given me one single word of reproach. You deserve more from me than endless scenes and constant anxieties. I’ve lost Sebastian. It’s dreadful but I must accept it. I’ve lost the baby. That’s equally dreadful but I must accept that too. But I’ve gained you and you’re the most important person in the world and I couldn’t live without you. I’ve got to look to the future now and I know it’ll all come right, Cornelius, when we’re married and have children of our own.’

Our drinks stood untasted on the table. The butler came in but withdrew halfway through announcing a telephone call.

Later when I had had my shower and Alicia was watching me as I dressed for dinner we began to plan our family.

‘I want at least seven children,’ said Alicia. ‘I like being pregnant and giving birth. It gives me a feeling of power. I often feel sorry for men, never being able to experience it.’

I smiled at her in the mirror as I adjusted my tie. ‘We’ll found a dynasty!’ I said, my smile broadening. ‘Five sons at least—’

‘Six,’ she said. ‘One more than the Rockefellers.’

A little colour had crept into her pale skin and her dark-ringed eyes had brightened. I saw that the thought of our future children was her way of coping with her loss, and so I encouraged her to elaborate on her dynastic dreams. Soon we had named all six sons and were planning their careers.

‘I love you,’ she said hugging me after we had decided that Cornelius Junior had to manage the Fine Arts Foundation if Paul was to be the leading light at the bank. Then she said wistfully: ‘if only our dreams weren’t all so far away.’

‘I’ll bring them nearer. I’ve had just about enough of Ralph acting as if “divorce” was the dirtiest word in the English language.’

‘But I have no grounds for divorcing him! And how are you ever going to get him to divorce me?’

‘Relax,’ I said. ‘I’ll fix him.’

[2]

Since he
had married for money I reckoned he would divorce for money.

I wasn’t disappointed.

It cost me a million dollars. I never told Alicia. It wasn’t that I was ashamed for myself, but I was ashamed for him, selling her like that. I made a mental note to ensure his political career never got off the ground in Washington. He really was the most contemptible character.

‘I’ll pay you another million for Sebastian and the new baby,’ I said, not bothering to hide my disgust, but to my surprise he refused.

‘You can have my wife,’ he said. ‘Since she’s been acting like a high-class whore there’s no reason why you shouldn’t pay for her. But no money on earth can ever buy my children, and you can tell her I’ll never under any circumstances let them go.’

Of course I never told her. She was so thrilled that he had agreed to a divorce, and I didn’t want to cast a blight on her new happiness. Instead I took her to the West Coast where I had business in Los Angeles, and the gaudy glamour of California provided a welcome relief to those long tense grey days in New York.

No one knew Alicia as I did. Everyone thought she was so cold, never betraying emotion, and so haughty, looking down her pale perfect aristocratic nose at everyone she met. Women were jealous of her; they criticized her clothes as too austere and called her dislike of make-up an affectation, but they would never admit she was too beautiful to need either cosmetics or fussy fashions. Men admired her but were intimidated by her reserve. They found her carefully cultivated air of boredom unnerving and were repelled by her studied lack of vivacity, but it never occurred to them that this social manner was a shell protecting someone who had suffered greatly. Alicia had learnt early in life that if one expected nothing one could not be disappointed so in her eyes enthusiasm was a trap leading to disillusionment and intelligent interest a blind alley resulting in frustration. Her father, cold and distant, had always been absorbed in his business. Her mother had died young and her stepmother had regarded her as a burden. In childhood Alicia had been either incarcerated in boarding schools or exiled to Europe with a succession of governesses, and once she was old enough for marriage her stepmother had encouraged her to marry the first man who proposed to her. Alicia’s father approved of Ralph who had already spent ten years in the banking house of Blaise, Bailey, Ludlow and Adams, and Alicia soon decided he was the saviour who would rescue her from her unhappy home and carry her off to paradise on his white horse.

She married him.

Yet after the honeymoon she saw little of her saviour and still less of paradise. At first she did not mind for she became pregnant and had the baby to occupy her, but eventually it became clear that Ralph’s absorbing interest was not in her but in politics. She grew lonely, marooned in Albany, and Ralph’s solution of a second pregnancy only made her feel more isolated. She was
sure his solution was a mere expediency to keep her quiet, but it wasn’t until she arrived in New York for the annual visit to her parents and overheard a telephone conversation between Ralph and her stepmother that she discovered exactly how far she had been manipulated and used.

Alicia’s father was a millionaire and she was his only child. Her mother had left her a fortune in excess of three million dollars. Ralph’s political ambitions were expensive and the stepmother’s desire to be rid of Alicia had been intense. It had been a cruel and sordid conspiracy.

‘You were the first person who ever loved me,’ Alicia said, and I thought how terrible such a confession was from someone who should have been cherished from the day she entered the world. For I saw past all her defences, the coldness, the disdain and the ennui; I had used them so often myself when I was growing up that I could push them aside as if they were old friends. Alicia was shy, as I was; she wanted desperately to be loved for herself and not for her money; and beneath her icy composure she was intense, passionate and sensual.

‘… and you’re the only person who’s ever understood me,’ she added as we lay snugly in the vast circular bed of our garish hotel suite. ‘I feel so comfortable with you – I even feel at ease when we’re silent. I love our silences.’

We had been in Los Angeles only three days when Vivienne obtained her divorce from me and as if in celebration of her enormous settlement gave birth to our child. It was Christmas Eve, and when Emily telephoned I assumed she merely wanted to offer us seasonal greetings.

We were lounging on the decadent circular bed when the phone rang. Alicia was reading
True-Story
magazine, I was doing a crossword puzzle and we were sharing a bag of peanuts. We didn’t answer the phone but seconds later my secretary tapped on my door to tell me my sister was calling from New York.

‘Emily?’ I said, picking up the extension.

‘Cornelius, lovely news! A Christmas present for you!’

‘Oh? What’s that?’ I said, pencilling in a clue. I had forgotten all about Vivienne. My first marriage seemed as remote as a tribal rite among South American Indians.

‘Good heavens, can’t you guess? How unintelligent men are sometimes!’ exclaimed Emily, and told me I had a daughter called Victoria Anne.

I made the appropriate noises. Emily prattled on happily about how nice it was to think there would be another Vicky in the family, and then announced she herself was expecting a baby in June. I made more appropriate noises. Eventually Emily remembered to ask about Alicia. I said Alicia was fine.

‘I’m so glad,’ said Emily, trying and failing not to sound chilly. ‘Well, dearest, I won’t hold you up any longer – I’m sure you’ll want to rush off and drink Vicky’s health.’

She said goodbye. I said goodbye. We hung up. I sat looking at the phone.

Alicia’s fingers
stroked the short hair at the back of my neck. ‘Are you sorry it’s not a boy?’

‘I wasn’t expecting a boy.’ I turned to kiss her. ‘No, I’m glad it’s a girl – I want you to give me my first son … Let me send someone out to buy some champagne.’

‘Lovely!’ She wiggled her bare toes and adjusted her stomach so that she could sit up. When I had returned to the bedroom after dispatching an aide to the nearest illegal liquor store she said in her best neutral voice, ‘Darling, why are you upset?’

I told her about Paul and our parallel lives.

‘And Paul’s second marriage ended in divorce? Is that what’s worrying you? But Cornelius, you know that couldn’t happen to us! This is where your life is going to diverge from Paul’s.’

‘Yes. Yes, I’m sure you’re right.’ I tried to define my shadowy uneasiness. ‘It’s not that I don’t want to be like Paul,’ I said. ‘It’s just that I want to feel I have some control over the likeness. I’m bothered because it’s as if I’m locked into some pattern which I have no power to change. I do nothing except live my life as best as I can yet my life mirrors Paul’s at every turn.’

‘That’s just a coincidence.’

‘I guess it must be since the only alternative is demonic possession.’

We laughed, and in an effort to change the subject I began to speculate about my daughter. It was only later when we had each finished a glass of champagne and consigned the rest of the bottle to my aides that I remembered to tell her Emily was pregnant.

‘Cornelius, I thought you’d got over Emily’s marriage?’

‘I have. Maybe I’m jealous of Steve being able to see the baby as soon as it’s born instead of having to fight a legal battle for access. I don’t suppose that’ll mean anything to him, though. He must be so used to fathering children all over the place.’

Alicia wrinkled her nose fastidiously. ‘Steve Sullivan’s brand of ape-like sex appeal leaves me colder than an ice-flow from Alaska,’ she said, cheering me up, and opened a new bag of salted peanuts.

The Foxworth divorce flashed through the courts so fast the press barely saw it for dust, but although the speed cost me more money I reckoned it was worth it. On 29 January 1931, Alicia and I were married in New York in a very private, very brief and very plain civil ceremony. For obvious reasons we decided to postpone the honeymoon so I went back to work after the ceremony while Alicia retired for her afternoon rest. She was more than eight months pregnant by that time and had to take care not to overtax her strength.

I spent my wedding night figuring out how I could get to see my daughter whom Vivienne had spirited away to Florida before my return from Los Angeles. I already had all my lawyers roaring at her lawyers, but as anyone who’s ever footed a legal bill knows, lawyers love a stalemate and I couldn’t see them making any rapid progress. Finally I decided to hire private detectives to track Vivienne down, and to my fury I was told that she was hiding
out in the little nest I had feathered for Greg Da Costa in Key West. In addition to buying a yacht to keep him quiet I had also given him a ranch-house a mile out of town.

That was the last straw. Picking up the phone I called the head of the Washington Bureau responsible for enforcing the Eighteenth Amendment, and three days later Greg’s yacht was intercepted by the Revenue men. In the ensuing scuffle some zealous agent, intoxicated by the sight of so much smuggled rum, became too free with his gun and Greg was shot in the stomach. He died in hospital after an eight-hour coma.

After debating whether to send Vivienne flowers I decided a sympathy note would be more appropriate, and I was just working on my sixth draft when she sent me a cable which read:
"DON’T THINK I DON’T REALIZE WHO SPILLED THE BEANS I’LL NEVER FORGIVE YOU NEVER YOU CHEAP SONOFABITCH I NEVER WANT TO SPEAK TO YOU AGAIN.

I tore up the sympathy note and sent a cable which read:
DEEPEST SYMPATHY STOP I DISCLAIM ALL RESPONSIBILITY STOP I MAY BE A SONOFABITCH BUT AS YOU SHOULD KNOW FROM YOUR MONTHLY ALIMONY CHEQUE I AM NOT CHEAP STOP WHEN MAY I SEE OUR DAUGHTER STOP REGARDS CORNELIUS.

Vivienne promptly replied:
WHEN HELL FREEZES OVER
, and that was the end of my attempt to communicate with her by cable.

I had not envisioned death for Greg Da Costa, only a judicious prison sentence, but when I considered the situation I saw the mills of God had, as usual, ground suitably small. Greg had been an accessory before the fact of Paul’s murder. During my infatuation with Vivienne I had turned a blind eye to this by pretending his role in the conspiracy had been negligible, but in law accessories before the fact invariably meet the same fate as the principal participants in the crime.

Having faced this truth squarely I shed no tears for Greg Da Costa. I even went so far as to hope he was rotting in hell, and I was still trying to beat back this highly un-Christian attitude when I arrived home from the office to discover that Alicia had gone to hospital.