Something Dangerous (Spoils of Time 02) (52 page)

‘Several times recently you’ve made some very good, commercial suggestions. The most recent being your suggestion of a Lyttons book club. And then there was the cookery book idea—’

‘Daddy really loved that!’

‘Your father usually comes round in the end. I think you have a good, hard, business head, Venetia. I’m not suggesting you should start editing. But Giles is frankly not up to much, and LM can’t go on for ever, we need more input on the commercial side. I would like you to think about it. This would be a strictly business arrangement, Venetia. If it doesn’t work out, then I would be the first to want to end it.’

‘And then I’d be worse off than ever. Everyone would know I was so stupid I couldn’t even make a job invented for me by my own parents work—’

‘Oh for heaven’s sake, Venetia. Don’t be such a coward.’

‘A coward!’

‘Yes. You can’t go on for ever not doing things in case they don’t work out. You have to take risks, be positive.’

‘I don’t feel very positive. You don’t understand. I feel dreadful, feeble and hopeless, you can’t imagine, you’ve never had to cope with anything like this.’

‘Venetia,’ said Celia, ‘I have had to cope with more than you might imagine. In what is beginning to seem like quite a long life. And in every case, having my work, having something to throw my energies into, absorb my unhappiness, has been an enormous help. Now please do consider this. For my sake as well as yours. I would love to have you at Lyttons. And I think you would love being there. Give it a trial at least. I’m sure you won’t regret it.’

Venetia looked at her in silence for a long time; Celia knew what she was doing, visibly drawing together her courage, her will power.

Finally she said, ‘Yes. Yes, all right, I will. I can’t go on like this anyway. And if you really mean it about wanting me. For your own sake, I mean.’

‘I do. I really do.’

Venetia smiled at her. ‘I hope you won’t regret it.’

‘I truly believe that neither of us will.’

‘Well – thank you anyway. Mummy—’

‘Yes?’

‘I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me what you’ve had to cope with? That I can’t imagine?’

‘No,’ said Celia, ‘no, Venetia, I’m not.’

Venetia had started nervously, and in a modest capacity, but she learned fast and proved herself faster still. She began working as LM’s assistant, writing out bills of sale and invoices to bookshops and libraries; at the end of two years she had her own office, and title: Manager, Lyttons Commercial Development. She discovered that her mother was right, that she did indeed have a sharp, shrewd brain; it not only recognised commercial opportunities but proved itself capable of creating them.

The publishing industry was becoming increasingly dependent on sales inducement; the Depression had hurt the book trade, people had less money to spend, bookshops, especially in the north, were suffering from rising rents and increased overheads. The book clubs, where people could obtain books at lower prices, and through instalment plans, the twopenny libraries, run through chains of tobacconists and stationers, the various book token schemes and the creation of the Readers Union, whereby readers were offered books in special editions at considerably reduced prices, all helped keep the public enjoying, and ultimately buying, books. It was Venetia who pushed through Lyttons’ involvement in the Union, pointing out to her father and to Giles, both firmly opposed to it, that they had enrolled 17,000 readers in the first year.

Celia was fiercely proud of her, Oliver more grudgingly so, LM quietly pleased and Jay welcomed (as he put it) another positive Lytton ‘rather than people like your father and poor old Giles who spend their lives saying no’.

But there was one person very unhappy with the set-up: Poor Old Giles.

Helena was outraged, pacing the carpet all evening when he first told her about it, proclaiming the unfairness, the injustice of it, Celia’s autocracy within the firm, the complete lack of any true claim Venetia had to the job.

‘It’s monstrous, all she’s ever done is have children and give parties, what does your mother think she’s doing?’

‘God knows,’ said Giles wearily, ‘showing me she’s boss, I suppose, and less than happy with what I do. It’s my area, it could be argued, that Venetia’s moving into. But she’s had all this trouble with Boy and—’

‘I fail to see what that’s got to do with it.’

‘Well – she’s got this wretched divorce, and I suppose Mother thought this would distract her—’

‘I had thought Lyttons was a business, not an emotional convalescent home,’ said Helena savagely.

Giles looked at her and, even in his misery, half smiled.

‘That’s awfully good,’ he said, ‘you ought to write something yourself, Helena.’

‘Oh, indeed. And what a good chance I’d have of it being published!’ said Helena.

‘You could go to another publisher.’

‘Giles, I don’t want to write a book. Thank you. The very thought sickens me. Have you told your father how unhappy you are about Venetia’s arrival?’

‘Of course,’ said Giles, ‘and he simply said that he thought I had too much on my plate and that the educational side, which I am at least fully responsible for, needs developing further. He has a point, there’s a fearfully nice woman called Una Dillon who’s opening a bookshop for university students and lecturers in Bloomsbury. I think we can do a lot with her – providing it lasts, of course.’

Helena made the sound that meant she could stand the conversation no longer and went upstairs to the small room where increasingly these days she slept alone.

Not again . . . oh, no, not again.

Adele heaved herself out of bed and made the bathroom just in time. Five minutes later, she got wearily back into bed and collapsed on to the pillows. Three mornings running now: it had to be quite conclusive. God, it wasn’t fair. Just when everything was getting a bit better, when she was managing to do a little freelance work for Cedric and other photographers, leaving Noni with kind Mme André the concierge. It helped pay the bills and she enjoyed it, the release from the near drudgery of caring for a baby as well as Luc, on a budget in a small third-floor apartment that didn’t have central heating. Sometimes she looked back on her life at Cheyne Walk, with servants to attend to her every need, meals served in the dining room without any effort whatsoever, a chauffeur to drive her about if she didn’t want to use her own car, her own maid to see to her clothes, and found it hard to believe in any of it. Of course she wouldn’t have admitted it to anyone, that she found it so hard, and Luc thought she ought to be perfectly happy and of course she was, but he was out all day, doing his glamorous job for Constantine, lunching authors, meeting with editors, coming home exhausted to his
très chère famille
as he called them. While she had spent the day cleaning the apartment, shopping, cooking on the tiny stove, and of course caring for the small Oenone, washing her nappies with the help, or rather hindrance, of the evil geyser, sieving her food through the
mouli légumes
, pushing her in her perambulator through the Luxembourg Gardens.

‘Of course I’m madly happy,’ she said to Venetia firmly on a flying visit to London, the month-old Noni in a raffia carrycot, ‘and Luc is quite marvellous, but it is – hard. Very hard. I do get terribly tired. And a bit of help would be awfully welcome.’

‘I cannot imagine how you can possibly manage,’ said Venetia, ‘I remember needing a nanny and a maternity nurse even with Henry—’

‘Yes, well, I suppose you need what you can have,’ said Adele wearily. ‘Luckily Noni is very good, otherwise I’d go mad. At least I get some sleep at night.’

‘Poor angel. Come and stay with me for a few days, let Nanny take her over.’

‘I can’t this time. I might later on. I’ve come to cadge some stuff, some old cot sheets and things. I tell you, Venetia, my life now doesn’t seem to have much to do with
le grand amour
Luc was always talking about.’

‘Are you really hard up?’ She didn’t really need to ask this; she had seen the apartment, and even before Noni it had seemed unimaginably small.

‘Quite. Well you see, he still has to support his wife so there isn’t much over and—’

‘What about your allowance?’

‘Luc won’t let me touch it. We had quite a row about it.’

‘Bit old-fashioned. Especially if he can’t provide you with what you need.’

‘He can provide me with what I need,’ said Adele, ‘just not what I’d like. But I do sympathise really. He’s very proud and he wants to feel he’s supporting me and Noni.’

‘That’s such a sweet name.’

‘Isn’t it? He wanted French, I wanted English, so we compromised on Greek. Only of course then I found out there’s a character in
Phedre
, the nurse, called Oenone, so it’s more French than I’d hoped. Sometimes I wish I was a bit better read. Barty would have known that, wouldn’t she? Now I must fly, I promised Mummy I’d be at the house by six and she’s gone home specially. I’m longing to see her, she was really marvellous, you know, when Noni was born, shouted at the French doctors at the Clinique Sainte Félicité, made them let her stay with me, and then made them give me gas. They said it wasn’t necessary, that in France it was not the thing, and she said she didn’t care about France, in England it was very much the thing, and that I was to have it. You do have to admit that when you really need her, she’s always there.’

‘True,’ said Venetia.

But it was on that visit that Adele quarrelled, almost fatally, with her mother.

‘Tell me, how is Luc, and how is his career? I believe Constantine are very pleased with him.’

‘They are, he should be promoted to the board soon. He is extremely clever, you know.’

‘I do know. I was always most impressed with him professionally. Is he getting on with the divorce yet?’

‘He can’t divorce his wife, Mummy, she’s a Catholic.’

‘Of course, I always forget, extraordinary really.’

‘What?’

‘Well, that someone so passionately Jewish should marry a Catholic.’

‘I suppose it is a bit. But in a way the two religions work rather well, both very strict in their teaching, you’d be surprised. I like the Jewish faith, I must say, what I know of it, and their way of life, I’ve sometimes thought of converting.’

‘Oh darling, I shouldn’t do that. I believe it’s horribly complicated and you have to do all sorts of unpleasant things like fasting and not using electric light on Fridays.’

‘Mummy, you don’t know anything about it,’ said Adele laughing. ‘Luc isn’t an Orthodox Jew. But he does want Noni brought up one. He says one of the most important things about Judaism is that it exists, centres even, you could say, around the family.’

‘Most religions do that,’ said Celia, ‘the Church of England is very family-oriented.’

‘Mummy, it isn’t. The Friday meal, the shabbat dinner, when everyone gathers together and says prayers, that’s very special. I’ve been to Luc’s mother’s house for it, it’s wonderful. And there’s a special bond between all Jews, Luc says it’s the shared history of persecution—’

‘Oh no, not that again,’ said Celia with a sigh. ‘I hope he’s not still obsessed with the Germans and their persecution of the Jews—’

‘He’s not obsessed with it, it’s a fact,’ said Adele. She could feel herself growing hot. ‘I don’t see how you can deny it. It’s there, the facts are there.’

‘Adele, you forget, friends of mine went to the Olympic Games in Berlin. They said there was no sign whatsoever of any anti-semitism. Sixteen Jewish athletes won medals, in fact. It’s an absurd distortion of things. I do wish you would listen to me.’

‘I am listening and I can’t believe I’m hearing it,’ said Adele. ‘That was a very clever piece of propaganda on Hitler’s part—’

‘You’re not listening, Adele. The German people are very grateful to Hitler. I do not believe he intends anyone any harm. He has a huge following from decent, normal people who want their country to return to its pre-war glory. He’s a superb orator—’

‘Have you heard him?’ said Adele incredulously.

‘I have, yes,’ said Celia briefly.

‘You didn’t say—’

‘I – that is, your father would have been very unhappy about it. I would still prefer that he didn’t know of it. But yes, I was honoured to be invited once. It was marvellous, Adele, there were vast numbers of people there, and I cannot tell you how impressed I was with him. He speaks with passion about the love of their country living in the hearts of the people. What’s wrong with that?’

‘A lot,’ said Adele, ‘an awful lot. Haven’t you heard the things he says about the Jews? That they are a disease. That disabled and mentally ill people should be – well, murdered is the only word for it. Can’t you see what those floodlit rallies are that you admire so much, they’re mass-brainwashing. People carried away on a tide of emotion. It’s hideous.’

‘Of course it’s not,’ said Celia. ‘Tom Mosley says—’

‘Oh, spare me Tom Mosley. What about that fight in London at the end of last year, with the blackshirts and the police at each other’s throats—’

‘You’ve been listening to the wrong people as usual. It was the Jews and the Communists who created the disorder—’

‘The Jews! Mummy, there you go again. I can’t listen to this any longer, I’m sorry. In fact I don’t think I can stay here. Your granddaughter is half Jewish, I would remind you of that. When you extol Herr Hitler and his hideous carrying on, you’re extolling the man who would have your granddaughter removed.’

She was crying now; Celia went over to her.

‘Adele—’

‘No, don’t. I really mean it, I find all this truly offensive. I think I’ll go back to Venetia for the night. Goodbye, Mummy. Please let me know when you change your mind about all this.’

But that was a long way in the future.

And now she was pregnant again.

They were to have a rare treat that night: Mme André was babysitting, and they were going to a ballet at l’Opera, and then out to supper. It didn’t happen very often: Luc, who was out a great deal, taking authors to restaurants and cafés and even to the opera, liked to be quiet in the evening, couldn’t understand her desire to go out and see people. But tonight he had acquired some tickets to see Serge Lifar and Solange Schwarz dance
La Sylphide
; she had been longing for it for weeks. It was a pity she’d be feeling sick, of course but . . . and Luc would be in a good mood, he should take the news well . . .