Destiny (130 page)

He was one and a half hours late, but before he left, as they came back downstairs, Helene, with a smile, retrieved the copy of the Financial Times from the dining room and pushed it into his hands.

"You should read that." She attempted to look at him sternly. "I won't be put off". You were going to bid once for the Rolfson Hotels Group, weren't you? I remember your saying. Well, you should bid again now."

Edouard groaned. "So that's the kind of woman you are. That's what you were thinking about just then, when I . . ."

Helene kissed him. Her eyes danced.

"No. Not then. As you know very well. But I am now. And so should you."

DESTINY • 789

The bid was made, in the summer of 1970, and was successful. It had two direct repercussions. Edouard, tied down by the negotiations for weeks, finally admitted to himself that when Helene had said he needed a deputy, she was right. As soon as he acknowledged that to himself, he placed a call to the only man he was certain had all the qualifications he needed: Simon Scher.

He put his proposals clearly and concisely, without preamble. From Texas, all the way across the Atlantic, he could hear the smile, and the surge of elation in Scher's voice.

"Well, now, Edouard. It's been a long transfer. I guess Drew might be persuaded to let me go. And you do get very tired of grilled steer. . . ." He paused. "When might you want me?"

Edouard also smiled. He knew perfectly well that the negotiations would hardly be straightforward, and Drew Johnson might well oppose the move.

"Tomorrow," he said carefully.

There was a small silence, then Scher laughed.

"I don't believe it," he said. "It must be marriage. You've become a patient man."

Scher finally returned to de Chavigny at the end of 1970, in the same month that Edouard and Helene celebrated the birth of their third child, another boy, whom they named Alexandre.

"He ought perhaps to have had Rolfson among his names," Edouard said as he cradled the baby in his arms. He looked at Helene dryly. "Considering the time and place and circumstances when he was conceived."

"What nonsense," she said. "Considering the circumstances, you can't possibly be certain."

"Oh, yes, I can." Edouard lifted Alexandre in his arms and looked at him solemnly. "You came into this world because of the Financial Times. There now. What do you think of that?"

Alexandre gurgled obligingly, and they both laughed.

There was one third repercussion, but it was very small, and in the elation surrounding the successful bid, the arrival of Simon Scher, and the birth of his second son, Edouard hardly noted it at all. It puzzled him for the space of a few hours—then, dismissing it, he allowed it to slip from his mind. It came in the form of a telegram, delivered to his offices on the day the Rolfson Hotels Group takeover was completed.

It read: Congratulations on the bid — belatedly. It had been sent from Portugal, and it was unsigned.

790 • SALLY BEAUMAN

In the spring of the next year, shortly before Cat's eleventh birthday, Thaddeus Angelini came back into their lives. He did so without warning. There was no letter, no telephone call, there was merely an invitation, sent not by Thad himself, but by the public relations company that was organizing the premiere of his latest film, an epic about the American Civil War, which was called Gettysburg.

Helene looked at the invitation, and at first assumed that she and Edouard had been invited because the premiere was in aid of a charity for which they had both worked in the past. Then she wondered: was that the reason—or had the invitation been made at the request of Thad?

She glanced down at the date: May 19, two days after Cat's birthday, and also precisely six years since she had last seen Thad. Could that be right? It seemed to her very much longer, and the days when she had worked in Hollywood very remote. But no: she calculated the years, and saw that she was correct. Six years ago to that day, she had visited Thad's house, and he had taken her down to that room with its insane collection of photographs. Once she was sure of the coincidence, she was also sure that Thad had arranged the invitation, and her first instinct was to refuse it; but she hesitated, and eventually changed her mind.

Partly, and she knew this, it was curiosity. In the six years that had passed, Thad had never contacted her once. Even when Lewis died, there had been no call, and no letter. What Helene knew of him she learned from newspapers, and it was not a great deal. He had made a string of films, first for Joe Stein at Artists International, and then for a succession of other studios: two of them had been modest successes with the critics, but none had succeeded at the box office. In interviews, Thad blamed the studio system for this. With Sphere, he had enjoyed a measure of independence. Now, he claimed, his work was thwarted from first to last by constant and philistine interference.

His reputation as a director had declined, Helene was aware of that. He had recently been compared, unfavorably, with other directors, including Gregory Gertz, and a whole generation of new names, who were being called the coming men. The two films she had seen had only served to confirm the reactions of the critics: she had liked neither, and had been surprised that Thad, whose work had always been so precise and assured, should demonstrate such uncertainty of touch.

Some of the younger European critics, she had noted with a smile, had begun to date the decline in Thad's work from the ending of her own partnership with him, and one particularly excitable French critic had

DESTINY • 791

proclaimed that, in losing Helene, Angelini had lost his muse. This she did not take seriously, though she noticed once or twice that, when the idea was put to Thad in interviews, he responded very irritably.

The truth of the matter was, she thought, as she looked at the square of pasteboard, she had almost forgotten Thad. She was so occupied with her family, and with her work at de Chavigny, that all memories of Thad had receded. Like Hollywood, he had been relegated to the past.

But still, she was a httle curious, and she also felt a certain lingering loyalty to Thad. It gave her no satisfaction to see critics who had once fawned over him now turn on the attack, often dismissing, in the process, earlier work they had once praised. Gettysburg, she had noted, with pleasure, seemed to have been a major success in America, reversing the tide of Thad's critical fortunes. It was breaking box office records; it had been acclaimed by Susan Jerome—yes, Helene thought, she owed it to Thad at least to go to the premiere.

When she put the idea to Edouard, he agreed, but unwillingly. Helene assumed that the reluctance was due to Edouard's dislike of Thad, but this was not entirely the case.

When she showed him the invitation, Edouard looked at it, then tossed it back. He stood up. "Very well," he said shortly. "You're probably right. We'll go."

He turned away—angrily, Helene thought—and Edouard was angry, but not with her. He was angry with himself. Simon Scher had now been working with him for over six months: Edouard was perfectly well aware of the fact that Scher's arrival had been the moment, if ever there was one, to tell Helene of his own previous involvement with Partex, and with Sphere. He had, in fact, decided to do so, resolved to do so: he had had the necessary sentences framed in his mind. But whenever he came to say them, he deferred.

He had—and this was in some ways worse—told her part of the truth. He had told her that Simon Scher had a previous association with his own companies, going back many years. He had even told her that both he and his mother held stock in Partex Petrochemicals. And there, abruptly, he had stopped, finding himself quite unable to go on. On the first occasion he had tried to tell her, Helene had been nursing Alexandre. She had lifted her face, and looked up at him, quite obviously unsuspecting, and delighted by the news of Scher's appointment.

"I had no idea you even knew him. And you're sure he's the right man? Oh, Edouard, I'm so glad."

Edouard had been dismayed. He kept hoping that Helene would question him further, because he knew that though he might lie to her by evasion and omission, he could never lie to her directly. If only she had

792 • SALLY BEAUMAN

asked him—But Edouard, did you never know he was working with Sphere?—then, he knew, he would have told her. But she never asked, never cross-examined him. This complete trust was, more than anything else, the one thing which made him unable to speak. To have kept silent on the question in the first place was one thing, but to have kept silent for six years—what would Helene's reaction be once she knew that?

Edouard felt it would undermine their shared past, undermine her trust in him. Try as he would, time and time again, he could not bring himself to speak. When the moment of Helene's first meeting with Simon Scher in Paris came and went, and still no questions arose, Edouard knew himself to be trapped. Scher was inclined to dismiss the matter.

"Edouard, it's ancient history now. Forget it," he said. But Edouard could not forget it. The lie diminished him in his own eyes: he could not believe that it would not diminish him in Helene's.

He was not familiar with the guilt that comes from deceit, and so, when he experienced it, it made him angry. He found himself constantly on edge, whenever Simon Scher and Helene met, which they did with increasing frequency; whenever some article about Partex appeared in the newspapers; whenever the question of his or Louise's continuing investment in that company came up—as it did, on various occasions when, in front of Helene, Louise might take it into her head to discuss the management of her portfolio, over which she had, in the past year, become increasingly fretful.

At the same time he was worried about Partex itself, and the aggressive policy of expansion Drew Johnson was set on. Those doubts, which had begun at the time of the last Partex merger, had multiplied since, and multiplied still more, once Simon Scher returned to Paris. Scher's presence, and Edouard's influence, had, in the past, acted as a brake to Drew Johnson's impetuosity; within six months of Scher's return, it was becoming clear that the brakes were off. Johnson embarked on a program of heavy borrowing, and when Edouard and Simon Scher looked at those borrowing figures, they were both alarmed.

When, not long before the premiere of Gettysburg, Drew Johnson began to throw out hints that he was interested in strengthening his own stockholdings in Partex, Edouard therefore felt a certain relief. At another time, he might have hesitated, but now he did not. To Johnson's transparent delight, he agreed to sell.

"You think you can persuade your mother to transfer her stock?" Drew asked.

It was almost his only question, and Edouard felt a mixture of distaste, regret, and relief, at such an end to what he had once regarded as a partnership.

DESTINY • 793

The sale of his own shares was organized very swiftly. Edouard anticipated problems in persuading Louise, however, and arranged to see her, finally, on the afternoon of May 19, before the premiere of Gettysburg.

He went to his mother's house, expecting fretful inquiries and time-wasting arguments, and armed with the evidence of Partex's latest borrowing figures.

To his surprise, Louise did not argue at all. She seemed almost pleased at the suggestion.

"I did tell you, Edouard," she said with a httle smile. "I've been wanting to liquidate some of my assets for some while. ..."

"I know that, Maman," Edouard said patiently. "But this sale isn't a small matter. These are sizable holdings. You will realize a lot of money. . . ."

"Shall I?" Louise tilted her head to one side coquettishly. "Such fun . . ."

Edouard frowned. His mother was looking, that day, particularly well. She seemed relaxed and happy; there had, for once, been no complaints about her health. But her behavior worried Edouard nonetheless. Louise was now seventy-six, though this was a closely guarded secret. She had become, in the past year or so, even more unpredictable. Sometimes, as today, she dressed hke her old self, and would seem gay and Uvely; at other times, for no apparent reason, she would revert for weeks to her previous gloom, to the gray dresses, the lowered bhnds, the priests. Her temper, always uncertain, was now very volatile, and she had become very tickhsh over the most minor matters. Now she dishked Edouard to visit, as he had used to sometimes, either with no advance warning, or after a casual telephone call made as he was leaving his office.

"It fusses me so, Edouard," she would say. "I like to plan my days. I'm not young now. I don't like unexpected visits—it's so inconsiderate."

This meeting had been carefully and politely arranged three days in advance. And now, as he sat looking at her, Edouard wondered whether Louise's grip was slipping, whether she had any idea of the seriousness of the moves they were discussing. Privately, he resolved to have a word with her doctors; there and then, ignoring the odd quality of her smile, he attempted to explain that if she sold this stock, they were talking, not in hundreds of thousands, but in millions of dollars.

Louise cut him off. "I understand, Edouard," she said pettishly. "You've explained once. You don't have to do so again."

"I'm just trying to make you see, Maman, that it's not just a question of selhng the stock. I can arrange that for you very simply."

"Please do."

794 • SALLY BEAUMAN

"But you then have to decide where you want to reinvest, and I thought ..."

Louise stood up. She glanced at her wristwatch, which she still always wore fastened to her wrist by a black velvet ribbon.

"Edouard, if I need your advice, I shall ask for it. As it happens ..." She gave another little smile. "I have some ideas of my own. I do have them, you know, and it is my money. ..." Edouard also rose. It was growing late; he had to return to St. Cloud to change for the premiere; Louise's attitude was annoying him.

He was inclined, then, simply to walk out, and let her have her way. He began to move to the door, and then he had second thoughts: Louise was not young anymore. However angry she made him, he still had responsibilities to her. ... He turned back.