Into Temptation (Spoils of Time 03) (23 page)

And he appeared quite untroubled by their continued separation, by the vast distance between them. Sometimes, much as she loved him, she wondered if it was worth it. There were other men she met these days, easier, more charming, more – well, more like herself. Men she could see fitting into her life, men who worked in publishing, in advertising, the arts. Men who were impressed by her, men who invited her out to dinner, told her how clever she was. When Keir came down to London, he either cooked himself, which took all evening, or expected her to do it. He never wanted to go out. Not even to the theatre or the cinema. He was too tired, he said, by the journey, by his week, by his wretched, wretched job, or rather the lack of it. She resigned herself now to a miserable weekend and decided she would tell him she had to leave first thing on Sunday. He didn’t even seem to care.

Three weeks later he came down to London on the coach to stay in her flat. She had thought it would be better, but he was still truculent, dissatisfied with his job, tired by the long journey.

‘You should have come on the train.’

‘I couldn’t afford the bloody train.’

‘I would have – ’ she stopped.

‘For God’s sake, Elspeth, I’ve told you before, I will not take your charity.’

‘It’s not charity, I love you. I want to help you.’

‘Well, you don’t help me by reminding me how bloody hard up I am. And what a lot of fucking money you’ve got.’

‘Don’t swear like that at me.’

‘Sorry.’

She tried to change the subject.

‘Would you like to go to the cinema?’

‘No,’ he said briefly.

‘Well, I would.
The Seven Year Itch
is on, you know how you love Marilyn—’

‘I said no. I want to stay in with you.’

‘And talk about you,’ she said bitterly. ‘You, and how you haven’t got a job and absolutely nothing else. I’m really, really sick of it.’

He stared at her, clearly shocked.

‘That’s not like you.’

‘Maybe it is. Maybe you don’t know what I’m like any more. You don’t exactly try to find out, do you?’

There was a silence; he saw she was close to tears.

‘Oh have it your own way,’ he said irritably. ‘All right, we’ll go to the bloody cinema.’

‘Keir, I don’t want to go to the bloody cinema as you put it. I want to enjoy things with you. Not drag you somewhere against your will.’

‘Well why suggest it?’ he said with supreme logic.

‘Because I want to stop you being so miserable.’

He was silent suddenly, studying her with his dark eyes and then, as he could do at will, changed his mood, smiled at her, the old raw, arrogant smile. ‘I know what the matter with you is, Miss Elspeth Warwick. Not enough sex. Now there’s a good way to spend the evening. I’ll open a bottle of wine and—’

‘No you won’t,’ she said, her voice quite harsh. ‘I don’t want to go to bed now, any more than you want to go to the cinema. Sorry. We seem to be rather out of sync. Why don’t you just carry on telling me about your career, or rather the lack of it, and I’ll cook the dinner. That’s what you really want, isn’t it?’

‘No,’ he said, coming over to her, kissing her cheek, her neck, her ear. ‘No, of course it’s not. What I really want is to make love to you. I miss you so much. You have to make allowances for me, Elspeth, it isn’t easy for me. I’m sorry. Look – let’s go to bed now and then maybe later we can go to the cinema. How would that be?’

‘Well – ’

She knew she was beaten. And they never got to the cinema.

‘I have some interesting news,’ said Sebastian to Celia.

‘Oh yes?’

They were lunching together; had taken to doing so once a week. Always at his house in Primrose Hill, always followed by a walk on the Heath. Sebastian was convinced that nobody knew about it, or hardly anybody, and if they did, they didn’t care. Celia, who saw things rather more clearly, knew that it was the talk of literary, and indeed social London. She also saw no point in telling Sebastian so.

‘Kit has been talking to Clementine Hartley. About the possibility of her going to Wesley.’

‘What?’

‘Yes, I thought that would stop you in your tracks. Apparently she’s very seriously considering it. She’s so impressed with what they’ve done for him, with their fresh approach to everything—’

‘Perhaps you’d like to tell me precisely what is so fresh about their approach?’ said Celia icily.

‘Oh – the way they promote their books. And distribute them. They can get them out to the shops so much faster, they have their own fleet of vans. And they’re talking about doing their own paperback imprint.’

‘Oh really?’

‘Yes, interesting, isn’t it? I don’t think it’ll happen yet, but it’s a measure of how forward their thinking is. And their advertising is interesting. They actually gave a hint as to what Kit’s new book was about in the last poster, didn’t just say, “The new Christopher Lytton”. Izzie would approve of that.’

‘Sebastian, I hope you’re not thinking of defecting.’

‘Of course I’m not. You know I never would. Or could. I tried once but – well, I don’t need to remind you about that.’ ‘No,’ she said, smiling at him, her eyes soft suddenly. Thinking of a time when Sebastian had saved Lyttons by his own loyalty. So very long ago – and yet . . .

‘But I seriously think Miss Hartley might go. I thought you ought to know. She’s planning her new book and hasn’t signed a contract yet.’

‘No, I knew that. But I thought it was a formality. Very stupid of me,’ she said. ‘I think I should take Miss Hartley out to lunch. Now Sebastian, I want to talk to you about something quite different . . .’

A week later Jay was sitting reading the manuscript of a new novel and trying to convince himself the author was the new Graham Greene, when Celia walked into his office and shut the door.

‘Jay. We have a serious problem.’

‘Oh really?’ He smiled at her. He was tired; the new baby had proved difficult and noisy and he couldn’t quite afford the under-nursemaid that Tory felt to be necessary.

‘Yes. It’s Clementine Hartley. She’s on the brink of signing with Wesley.’

‘Oh, what nonsense. She wouldn’t dream of it. I have the draft contract right here. What’s more, it’s very generous.’

‘I dare say it is. She’s actually not interested in money, Jay. I’ve been talking to her. She has quite a lot of her own. She’s much more concerned about promotional opportunities, about cover design – she hated the way her views weren’t taken into account last time – and about editing.’

‘Editing! For God’s sake, Celia,
I
edit her.’

‘Precisely.’

‘Well I’m the Editorial Director, for God’s sake. What more does she want? She gets every consideration, if she doesn’t want to change something, we don’t force her, she writes exactly what she likes, she’s spoilt to death. God preserve me from successful authors.’ He smiled at her.

‘A more immediate force than God may do that, Jay, if you’re not careful. The point is, she needs, in my opinion, a woman editor. A young one.’ She smiled at him. ‘You’re a brilliant editor, Jay, but you must seem extremely old to her. And you’re a man. It really doesn’t make sense, your editing her. I blame myself, I should have thought of it before.’

She watched him struggling with his own pride, saw him acknowledging the sense of what she said. He managed a rather rueful smile.

‘Well, the view of this old man is that even if you’re right, Celia, who? We don’t have any senior women editors. Except you.’

‘We have young women editors, Jay.’

‘Well that’s absurd. Clementine can’t be entrusted to one of them. Young women editors don’t have the experience, they don’t—’

‘They have a gut instinct for what’s going on. A sympathy with their authors and their readers. You’re falling into the middle-age trap, Jay. You mustn’t do it.’

‘Oh Celia, really.’ He smiled at her again, his most charming smile. ‘I’m the first to be aware of new trends, of what the young are doing.’

‘Good. Then you’ll sympathise with Clementine’s request for her new editor.’

‘And who is that?’

‘Elspeth.’

‘What? That’s absurd. Elspeth is a child, she’s only been here a year or so—’

‘She’s very talented. She has a real feel for fiction.’

‘Are you saying you go along with this ridiculous idea?’

‘Yes. I do. Obviously with some reservations. I think we have to. Otherwise Clementine will go to Wesley.’

‘Well she’d better go,’ said Jay after a pause. ‘I’m not being held to ransom by some girl of twenty-seven.’

‘A very important girl of twenty-seven. She outsold almost everyone last year with her novel. She’s pretty and charming and very well connected, She also gets a lot of publicity. We can’t afford to lose her, Jay. We really can’t.’

‘But Elspeth will have no idea what she’s doing.’

‘I think she will. It transpires she even came up with the theme of Clementine’s latest book. And the title.’

‘What,
Oxford in Aspic
? Clementine told me it was her idea.’

Celia shrugged. ‘Whatever she told you, she wants to work with Elspeth. I think we have to go along with it. We can keep an eye on things. Make sure they don’t run away with themselves.’

‘Celia, no.’

‘Jay, yes. Or it’s say goodbye to Miss Hartley. For good.’

CHAPTER 12

‘I’ve got a job! I just can’t believe it. And not just any job, but the job of my dreams. Oh, I could fly, I’m so happy—’

‘Well before you take right off, would you like to tell me what it is? You look as if you’re about to burst.’

‘I
am
about to burst. It’s a job writing advertising copy, Barty. For an agency in New York, an agency specialising in books. I absolutely cannot believe it. Anyway, I didn’t tell you until I’d had the interview and that was today, and I got it, I got it, oh Barty, can I buy you dinner to celebrate?’

‘You certainly can. I’m longing to hear every single little detail.’

‘Don’t worry, you will. My only worry is Father. It means I’ll be here much longer and—’

‘I don’t think you should worry too much about your father, Izzie. From what I hear, Celia and Sebastian have made up friends, as Jenna would say, and are spending quite a lot of time together. And he’s cheered right up.’

‘Really! He never said anything to me in his letters. What on earth could have brought that about? And what does poor nice Lord Ardent have to say about it?’

‘I have no idea. Anyway, you can sound him out when he gets out here next week. Now, talking about Lord Ardent, that reminds me of Geordie. It was Geordie who called him that originally, you know. Anyway, Geordie’s coming out just before Christmas to promote his new book. And staying for a while.’

‘Did Adele tell you that?’ asked Izzie, her face suddenly sober.

‘No, I had a wire from Geordie this morning. He hadn’t been too sure, he didn’t want to leave Clio. But he’s decided he has to and rightly, I think. It’s a brilliant book.’

‘You said. What’s it called? I’m still waiting for my copy.’

‘
Growing Down
. Very, very clever. One of his best. We need something good,’ she added. ‘I’m extremely tired of seeing
Peyton Place
on the best-seller list.’

‘Maybe I can write the copy for Geordie’s book,’ said Izzie.

‘Maybe,’ said Barty carefully.

Izzie’s job sounded a great deal more glamorous and exciting than it really was. The agency, Neill & Parker was situated in an unfashionable area of Manhattan, on the edge of Chelsea, where property was extremely cheap.

It was headed up by two men called Nick Neill and Mike Parker who ran it on a shoestring; the idea had come from Nick Neill himself, when he was working as a clerk for
Harpers
. He had been called up to a meeting with some proofs one day and heard one of the executives saying to the other, ‘I cannot believe the crap the advertising department turns out. It’s always the same. We need some fresh thinking and where’s it going to come from?’

Twelve months later, Nick had a bank loan, an enthusiastic colleague and a tiny office in one of the old wood-framed houses in the meat district. The address on their mail was a box number; since they always went to their clients or met them in hotels, nobody had to know where the sharp, often original copy they turned out was written. Their agency was a fairly new concept, and what they turned out were new concepts too; they did modestly well. Only modestly; most of the big publishers still used their own departments, but they still got enough work to finance the move to Chelsea in 1955 – and now to take on Izzie in 1956.

‘What you’ll be doing mostly,’ said Nick Neill, ‘is going to sales conferences, hearing what the editors have to say about the books to the reps and trying to pick up on something new. Not too new mind you, these guys are not Coca-Cola.’

Coca-Cola was already leading a whole new style of Manhattan advertising. Izzie said she realised that.

‘Oh and you’ll be quoting from reviews, good and bad. You’d be surprised the good things you can pick out of a bad review.’

‘Like what?’

‘Well, some smart guy writes in the literary pages that such and such a novel is perfect for the small-minded shop girl. Or that the characterisation is unbelievably two-dimensional. So you pull out “Perfect” and “Unbelievable characterisation” and add the name of the reviewer. Believe me, there is no review so bad you can’t write a real good ad out of it.’

Izzie laughed; and then thought rather soberly of what her father and indeed Michael Joseph might have to say about such a practice. She liked both the boys, as everyone referred to them; they were in their late twenties, born and bred in Brooklyn with accents as thick as treacle, Jewish, sharp, sexy, and absolutely focussed on their task. Nick Neill was tall and extremely skinny, with a way of waving his hands about theatrically when he got excited; Mike Parker was shorter and already stout, with a mournful face and a penchant for dirty jokes which he rather touchingly felt Izzie would not understand. Neither of them was married or even had a serious girlfriend, which puzzled Izzie, as they both seemed rather sexy to her; they said they couldn’t afford either the money or the time. They lived together in a one-bedroom apartment in SoHo.

‘OK, so people think we’re a couple of nancy boys,’ said Nick cheerfully, ‘so let them. It saves the rent.’

No job was too small for them, too dull, too painstaking; they would cheerfully work through the night in order to meet a deadline (usually as a result of one of their rivals having turned in copy so dull they were resorted to in desperation). They put up with the most appalling treatment from their clients and warned Izzie she must do the same. ‘They’ll treat you like shit, honey; just remember that’s what you’re there for. Everybody needs someone to shit on.’

Izzie said she would remember and again wondered what Michael Joseph might have to say to such a philosophy.

She was under no illusion as to why they had taken her on; even in downtown Manhattan they had heard of her father, they could boast about her. And she was prepared to work for a salary so small it was derisory.

‘But I tell you what,’ said Nick Neill, ‘you can look up at the stars. You know that quotation?’

Izzie said she didn’t.

‘I’d have thought you would. Don’t they teach you anything at Oxford any more? How’s it go, Mike?’

‘It goes, “we are all in the gutter”,’ said Mike Parker, ‘ “but some of us are looking at the stars.” It’s our company motto. When we’re big and famous, we’re going to put it on all our stationery.’

‘I think maybe you should do it now,’ said Izzie. ‘Who wrote it, anyway?’

‘No, everyone would laugh. You’ve got to be big to show sentiment. It’s Oscar Wilde. You like his stuff?’

‘Very much,’ said Izzie carefully.

They constantly surprised her.

The other reason they had taken her on, but which she failed to appreciate at first, was because she patently had class. Not just literary class but social class. They might be clever, they might be hard-working, but neither of the boys would ever seem anything but what they were: working-class Jewish. And a lot of their would-be clients in the big houses, they explained, were WASPs, ‘what you’d call posh, I guess. People like Harcourt, Brace, Scribners, Doubleday, they’re all still owned by the people who founded them. Publishing is an occupation for gentlemen, who’ve all been to the same schools and summered together in the same places and dine in one another’s clubs and—’

‘Same in London,’ said Izzie.

‘So we hear. And twenty years ago even, we wouldn’t have stood a chance. But times are changing. Simon & Schuster, Random House, Viking, they’re all mainstream Jewish firms. Pretty gentlemanly Jewish, but still. And they think different, faster, more interesting. In some of these places it’s even kind of smart to use Yiddish words.’

‘Yes, I see,’ said Izzie.

‘You can talk about chutzpah at Simon & Schuster, they know what you’re talking about. But then again, we do need a bit of class, and a bit of old-fashioned English class would be best of all. You ever met Queen Elizabeth? Or the Prince?’

Izzie said she was afraid not. They were clearly disappointed.

‘But I do know some people I think you’d call upper class,’ she said, anxious to restore their faith in her.

‘What, like earls and stuff like that?’

Yes, she said, a couple of earls, a countess, stuff like that. ‘I knew it,’ said Mike Parker in tones of great satisfaction.

She introduced them to Barty, who was enchanted by them, promised to give them some work.

‘We need some new ideas,’ she said, and she also promised to introduce them to Kit when he came over the following month.

‘What about Sebastian Brooke, your dad? You think he’d like to meet us?’ asked Nick hopefully.

‘I know he would,’ said Izzie.

There was a ring at the door; Lucas opened it. Geordie was standing there. Sometimes Lucas found he had almost forgotten how much he hated Geordie; he had only to see him at close proximity to be reminded.

‘Oh,’ he said, ‘it’s you.’

‘Yes, Lucas, it’s me,’ said Geordie, his face a cold blank. ‘How are you?’ Lucas said nothing, gave a shrug.

‘Are you going to invite me in?’

‘Please do come in.’

He wasn’t going to be rude to him today; he was not.

‘I wondered if you and I might have a talk,’ said Geordie. ‘I hear you are much happier at school and it seems to me that the two of us might be able to communicate a little better as a result.’

Lucas looked at him.

‘I am happier at school, yes,’ he said, ‘but that’s no thanks to you, is it? It was my mother who got me out of that place. If you’d had your way I would have had to rot there for two more years. Things were so bad there I would have killed myself if it had gone on any longer. I suppose that would have solved all your problems, wouldn’t it? Got me completely out of the way.’

‘Lucas don’t be absurd. You’re exaggerating. Shall we continue this discussion in a more civilised way? In the drawing room, perhaps—’

‘There’s nothing to discuss. Not that I can see. I shall never forgive you for what you did to me, never. And nor will my mother. She said so.’

‘Lucas, I find that very hard to believe.’

He shrugged again. ‘Please yourself. It’s true.’

Adele came running up the steps of the house, and walked into the drawing room, her face alight at seeing Geordie there.

‘Geordie, hallo.’

‘Hallo Adele. I’m afraid I’m a little early.’

‘Well, that’s all right, it’s nice to see you, isn’t it Lucas?’

Lucas said nothing, turned and walked out of the room.

‘Lucas – ’ she called after him, ‘ – Lucas, come back at once.’

At the rear of the house a door slammed; Geordie looked at Adele.

‘Such a charming boy, your son. Now I want to ask you something.’

‘Yes?’

‘Did you or did you not say you would never forgive me for sending Lucas to school? Say it to him?’

She flushed, was silent. ‘Did you, Adele?’

‘I – well I don’t know. How can I remember? I’m sure I said – well, a lot of silly things. At the time. We were all upset, weren’t we, and—’

‘Lucas certainly has the impression you did. Say it, I mean. I find that rather hard to take, Adele. It seems to me a very aggressive, uncompromising thing to say. Especially to him.’

‘Geordie—’

‘No, it’s all right, I just wanted it established. And there is no future in going over it all again. What I wanted to discuss was my trip to the States. I shall be away for at least six weeks. And I want Clio to be upset as little as possible. We must handle the situation very carefully, don’t you think?’

‘Yes,’ said Adele quietly, ‘yes, very carefully. Of course.’

It was such an absurd and hopeless situation, she thought, watching him drive away with Clio; that their happy marriage should have become this absurd separation, simply because of the bad behaviour of a sixteen-year-old boy. And yet – there really did seem to be no solution. Even her mother agreed. If she was not prepared to send Lucas away again, and she couldn’t persuade him to treat Geordie with courtesy – and both seemed equally impossible – then Geordie could not be expected to return to the house. They were all in an entrenched position, and all of them, to an extent, had right on their side. That was what made everything so absolutely impossible.

Maybe in another two years, when Lucas went to university – then maybe Geordie would come home. That was the new hope, to which she clung these days.

Adele was very unhappy. She wasn’t even working much. Loneliness and a sense of injustice and resentment had made her depressed, lethargic, even; she found it almost impossible to become enthusiastic about taking photographs for anyone. It seemed a foolish, trivial occupation. Her mother was always telling her that she would feel better if she thought about something other than Lucas and Geordie, that forcing herself to work, however impossible it seemed, would create its own energy, drive some of the demons away. But Adele was less driven than her mother, less even than her sister, and the traumas of the war, her sense of absolute isolation in Paris, the terror she had lived through on the long road south, and indeed on the rest of her journey home, the shock and grief of hearing about Luc’s dreadful death, had all left her frail, vulnerable – and with an appalling sense of guilt. It was this above all, increased by the knowledge of what he had endured at school, that kept her so firmly on Lucas’s side, convinced her he was in the right, however bad his behaviour. No child should have to endure what he had endured, first as a terrified toddler, then as a wretchedly insecure teenager. And on both occasions, she had, to a large extent, been to blame. Restitution was undoubtedly due to Lucas; and Adele felt bound to pay it.

Sebastian and Kit had arrived in New York.

Kit looked wonderful, fit and tanned – he had spent most of August in a villa in the south of France belonging to the chairman of Wesley, his latest book had had rave reviews and he was visibly excited about being in New York.

Barty also noticed the name ‘Clementine’ cropped up fairly frequently in conversation.

They were both very busy for the first few days, seeing people, doing interviews, visiting bookshops; a trip out to South Lodge was planned for the weekend.