More Than You Know (15 page)

“Right,” Jeremy said as they walked in, “you go and sit down. I’ll get us a drink.”

He had been totally silent as he drove to Sloane Street; she wondered whether she had upset him in some way; it was so unlike him.

Eliza went into the snuggery—the drawing room seemed rather overwhelming for the occasion—and waited for him rather nervously. He walked in finally with a bottle of champagne and two glasses.

“Goodness,” she said, “is it really a champagne moment?”

“It could be,” he said, and sat down beside her. “What would you say to champagne in bed?”

Silence, while the shock of it thudded into her head; and then, “I’d say, ‘Hallo, champagne in bed,’ ” she said, and laughed, and he laughed too, and he kissed her, and she stood up and reached for his hand and they went into the bedroom, his sumptuously grand bedroom, and sat in bed drinking the champagne and not saying very much more really and … well, then …

It was, well, it was very nice. Yes. Very nice indeed. And definitely better than anything she’d known yet. Which wasn’t much, of course. Just one other chap after the first. Another drunken country-house occasion. She’d felt terribly depressed after that one, cheap and tarty, and also beginning to think maybe it was her. Being frigid or something. Her friends all claimed to like it, to find it wonderful, even. Maddy said she had what she described as gorgeous sex with her boyfriend, Esmond, who was a hatter and very pale and thin, and if Eliza hadn’t been told otherwise, she would have thought he was queer.

Anyway, sex with Jeremy was honestly not gorgeous. But it was very, very pleasurable—of course it was—and thank God, she thought, she’d found that wonderful lady gynaecologist who’d put her on the wonderful pill. She just kept waiting for the wonderful, fireworky stuff to happen—and it never did. And that really was a bit of a shock: that sophisticated, experienced, man-about-town Jeremy Northcott should not be able to do better for her than that.

She pretended a bit—she had to, really—and the worst thing of all, she felt, was that he seemed to believe her.

Matt never forgot November twenty-second either. It was the day he took delivery, as the salesman put it, of his new car. His first car. His own car.

He picked it up first thing in the morning: a racing-green Triumph Herald, with wire wheels and go-faster stripes, and a twin exhaust that roared most satisfyingly every time he put his foot down.

Driving it into work, he felt completely different: smoother, more confident, no longer an inexperienced boy, but a successful young man going to work, carving his way through the traffic rather than waiting
to cross the road, warm and comfortable, not standing at the bus stop in the rain.

The day seemed to go on forever; he longed for it to end so he could drive home and show it to his parents and the boys. Take them for a spin.

He was halfway along Oxford Street at half past six, changing gear unnecessarily frequently, revving furiously every time he was held up in the traffic, when an announcement cut into the music he was listening to on
The Light Programme
.

“We have just received news that President Kennedy has been shot as his motorcade drove through Dallas, Texas. He was taken to hospital, where doctors fought to save his life, but he was pronounced dead at one p.m. Texas time. Mrs. Kennedy is still at the hospital. It is not yet known who was the assassin, but we will bring you further news as it unfolds.”

Matt stopped revving his engine; he felt seriously upset. Shocked, even. President Kennedy had seemed a symbol of a new age, where power didn’t have to be in the hands of old men. It seemed totally wrong that he should have been wiped out just like that. How and why would anyone do that?

It was very sad: those two little kids with no dad. And Jackie, that lovely Jackie, so classy, always so well dressed; she reminded him in a way of Eliza, with her dark hair and eyes and her long legs.

He wondered if Eliza knew, and what she was doing now … And then wondered why he was thinking of her at all.

Scarlett was sitting in her flat, staring at the television. She felt very upset. Absurdly so. She remembered David talking about Kennedy, his exact words: “We need him. He gives our nation a kind of grace.”

Well, if Johnson took over—and he would, of course; it was in the Constitution—there wouldn’t be much grace there.

She had sat on the BEA bus coming into London, tired from a flight to Munich and back, staring out into the crowded streets, looking at the people, all visibly moved, at the queues to buy newspapers, at the placards, all reading the same thing, “JFK Assassinated,” feeling rather as if she were watching a film.

When Matt rang her and asked if he could come round, she said she’d love it.

“It’s not a night to be alone,” she said. “Silly, isn’t it, to be so upset?”

“I don’t think so, no,” he said. She wasn’t surprised; he could be quite soppy, Matt could; he was a real romantic under his tough-guy exterior. When he fell in love it would be pretty major; that was for sure.

Charles sat in Juliet’s small sitting room, in the Earls Court flat she shared with another ex-Roedean girl, listening to the radio in the same state of shock as much of the entire world, and occasionally asking Juliet whether she was OK. To which she gave him a wan smile, shifted the hot-water bottle she was holding on her stomach slightly, and sighing. She didn’t seem to share his sense of grief and loss. She said it was dreadful, of course, and terrible for Jackie, but beyond that she was untouched by it.

“I should be feeling better tomorrow, Charles, but if I’m not, can we leave in the afternoon? And you will tell your mother I won’t be able to go on one of her long walks, won’t you? I’ll feel a bit mean; I know how much she enjoys them …”

“Yes, darling, of course I will.”

“It’s so unfair; I’d wanted the weekend to be a success. Mummy and Daddy are looking forward to lunch so much, but of course they’re a bit nervous—”

“Why?” said Charles in genuine surprise. Carol and Geoffrey Judd seemed inordinately self-confident to him.

“Darling, don’t be silly. They’re meeting my future parents-in-law; it’s so important, and Mummy’s not sure what to wear. She’s not really a country person, as you know—”

“She should wear whatever she feels comfortable in,” said Charles. “It’s just a family lunch party, for God’s sake.”

“Charles, don’t get cross with me; you know I’m feeling rotten—Charles!”

But Charles had turned up the radio; news had come in of a man arrested in downtown Dallas.

“How amazing,” he said, “that they should find him so quickly. I—”

“Charles, I think I’ll go to bed. If you don’t mind. I’ll ring you first thing, let you know how I am.”

“Of course. Sorry. It’s just that this is so—”

“Yes, I can see, much more interesting than my curse pains. That’s fine. See you tomorrow.”

He stood up; she raised a pinched, half smile of a face to be kissed.

Charles left.

And walked rather heavily down the road, his mind wiped temporarily clean of the assassination of President Kennedy, in a new and rather more personal panic of his own: that he could just possibly have made a rather terrible mistake.

December 1963

T
HINGS REALLY WERE LOOKING PRETTY GOOD
, Matt thought. Too good, he sometimes thought. Were they just enjoying beginner’s luck? If they were, then best make the most of it. The demand for office space was insatiable. There was still very little in the way of planning restrictions, money was easy to get hold of, and there was no conservation lobby to contend with; the bomb sites were mainly all developed now, so old buildings were simply being bulldozed, and a rash of functional glass-and-concrete boxes rose in their place. There was even a serious suggestion that the Houses of Parliament be demolished and the site redeveloped.

Matt and Jimbo already had almost more clients than they could deal with; they worked increasingly long days, often arriving as early as seven and leaving twelve or even fourteen hours later.

One morning in early December, a tall, rather severe-looking woman walked in. She was about forty, Matt reckoned, wearing a suit with a pencil skirt; she had blond hair drawn back from her face in what Louise afterwards described as a French pleat, very good legs, and an extremely posh accent.

She sat down, accepted a cup of coffee, and said she was setting up a secretarial agency in London. “You’ll have heard of the Brook Street Bureau, no doubt? Our agency, which is called Status Secretaries, is very similar, although with one important difference: all our girls will have GCEs and a shorthand qualification not merely in English, but in one other language. As I’m sure you know, there is an increasingly international emphasis in London business life.”

Matt said indeed he was aware of that.

“So I need not just one but several offices, say about a thousand square feet each. I’d initially require one in the city, one in the West End, one in Chelsea, and one in Bayswater. We are extremely busy, and struggling to operate out of somewhere totally inappropriate, just down the road from here. Can you help?”

“I’m sure we can,” said Matt, buzzing for Louise. “Miss Mullen, could you bring in the small offices file? This lady—I’m sorry; I didn’t get your name—”

“I didn’t give it. Hill, Valerie Hill.”

“Yes, Miss Hill is looking for space for her secretarial agency. Several offices, in fact. In … let’s see, EC4 or maybe 2, W1, SW3, and W2. I’m sure we can help.”

“Absolutely, especially in the city area. Several very appropriate properties there. I won’t be a moment,” said Louise—she really was impressive, Matt thought, and was back well inside a minute holding several bulging files.

Valerie Hill was clearly impressed by her. “What an extremely efficient girl,” she said, “exactly the type we would be looking to employ. Not that, of course, I would dream of poaching her,” she added hastily.

“I hope not,” said Matt cheerfully. “She’s worth her weight in gold. Now, let me see … Ah, yes—what sort of rent were you looking at, Miss Hill?”

Half an hour later, they were in a taxi travelling to the city; by the end of the day he was preparing draft contracts for two of her four offices.