No Angel (Spoils of Time 01) (39 page)

‘You seemed to enjoy that.’ Celia smiled at Oliver across the dining table.

‘Yes. I really did. I’m a little weary of fish, but that was particularly nice. The new cook is very good. Although I notice Jack is out more and more frequently. In search of good red meat, I daresay. I can’t say I’m sorry. It’s nice having the house to ourselves. Does it bother you, him living here?’

‘Not at all. I like it. Honestly. But he must be awfully bored.’

‘I’m sure he’ll find something to do soon. I must say I’m absolutely astonished he’s so determined to leave the army. It always seemed his natural habitat.’

‘I think he’s just totally disillusioned with it,’ said Celia. ‘It was coming on during the war. He told me when he was home on leave that time.’

And was silent, remembering that night, when she had been so tempted, the first time, indeed, she had ever properly felt desire for any man other than Oliver. And now – well now, of course he was home, so she wouldn’t. Couldn’t. Wouldn’t even consider it. She looked at Oliver and smiled quickly.

‘Anyway, how do you feel generally?’

‘Oh, pretty good. Yes. Thank you. In fact, you know, I was thinking today that I really would like to start reading some manuscripts. And even look at some publishing schedules. There. How’s that?’

‘Oliver, it’s wonderful.’ She was genuinely pleased, at the thought, not only that he must be feeling so much stronger, but also of having him even half way back with her at Lyttons.

‘Yes. So obviously I’m properly on the mend at last. I’d better start with Mr Brooke’s work, I suppose since it is clearly so important to our Christmas schedule.’

‘Oh – yes.’ She was still nervous about that: about the amount of time and money invested in it. ‘But there are other, more pressing works for you to give your attention to, Oliver. A new collection of detective stories, and—’

‘I’ll read those too. How’s that? No, I’ve definitely been getting bored. So it’s a very good sign. I’m sorry, my darling, you’ve had to wait so long for me. But I did feel dreadfully ill and weak.’

‘There’s no need to apologise. I’ve managed. Goodness, you earned a rest. And you did nearly die, after all.’

This had only really emerged during the months he had been home; he had lost an enormous amount of blood, and had actually developed septicaemia and been given the last rites by an over-zealous Catholic padre. It was something of a miracle he had survived. His stomach was permanently damaged, would never completely recover.

‘Yes,’ he said now, ‘yes, I did. And I often wished I had.’

‘I know,’ she said. She smiled at him, hoping disloyally that he wouldn’t start on the reminiscences which were so painful to hear, but obviously so important to his emotional recovery. At first she had felt proud that he would tell her, infinitely glad that at last he was talking. More recently, their constant repetition had made them harder to bear.

‘But just lately I’ve felt more – grateful. That I didn’t die, I mean. Grateful to be alive, even.’

She was surprised; this was the most positive thing he had said since he came home. Obviously something had shifted in him, had made him feel differently. ‘Oliver, that’s marvellous. I’m so glad.’

‘Yes.’ He smiled at her again. ‘So, before you know where you are, I may be back at Lyttons, being an absolute pest.’

‘Of course you won’t be a pest,’ she said. ‘It’ll be marvellous to have you back again. Helping me—’

‘Helping you! Darling, I hope I’ll be doing rather more than help you.’ His voice was quite suddenly stronger, and just tinged with a warning note. She remembered Sebastian’s words and smiled involuntarily.

‘Of course you will,’ she said, ‘Of course. But you know what I mean. It’s been a very lonely struggle.’

‘You had LM.’

‘I did have LM, Oliver, we had each other. I don’t know how either of us would have coped without the other. But our areas of expertise are so different, we both had to make decisions on our own. She about financial matters, I about editorial—’

‘Yes, yes of course,’ he said, She was losing him again; he looked exhausted. ‘I think I’ve done enough work for one evening.’ He managed a smile. ‘But it’s been a beginning. I look forward to a great deal more. Now I think I might go up to bed, If you don’t mind. Good night, my darling.’

‘Good night, Oliver.’

She went to the foot of the stairs with him, kissed him, watched him go slowly up.

They had slept in separate rooms ever since he came home; he was often awake and in pain during the night and liked to read. It was sensible, they had agreed, the only thing to do really. But he had not once suggested he might want to lie with her, hold her in his arms. Let alone make love to her.

CHAPTER 16

‘No decision from Segal, then?’ said Robert casually.

‘No,’ said John, equally casually. They smiled at one another: careful, slightly awkward smiles. They were waiting for a decision on a contract to build a department store for Jerome Segal on Sixth Avenue to rival Saks and Henry Bendel in size and splendour. All had been going well, and they had been given several nods and winks from Segal to suggest that the contract would be theirs, had indeed spent many hours with him, enduring a series of over-detailed briefings, knew exactly where the ladies’ lingerie would be sold, and the soft furnishings and even where the restrooms might be found, when a sudden silence had fallen.

The day when Jerome Segal had assured them contracts would be exchanged had passed, and a tactful telephone call was met first with, ‘Sorry Robert, just a hiccup from one of my directors,’ and then a certain evasiveness, a failure to return calls, a polite note asking for a week’s grace, ‘Just to get the last i’s dotted and t’s crossed.’

The week was up that day, and the day had already reached afternoon; neither Robert nor John would have admitted it, but they were nervous. They had invested a great deal of time and money in the project.

‘I think after this we’ll go back to purely speculative development,’ John said lightly, ‘simpler.’

When Robert’s secretary finally put through a call from Jerome Segal, it was not to give them the go ahead but to ask for a more detailed breakdown of costings:

‘Mr Segal,’ John said, struggling to keep exasperation out of his voice,

‘the breakdown could hardly be more detailed. If you remember, I even quoted for flower holders in the ladies’ powder room.’

There was a silence: then, ‘Yes, I realise that, John. But I’ve had some questions asked by our backers on the cost of the raw materials – the overall cost of the cement for example – perhaps you could break that down further for me.’

‘I don’t like this at all,’ John said to Robert, reaching for the Segal file, ‘not one bit. Nit-picking at this stage. I sense trouble. Even if we do get the contract.’

‘Well if we don’t, we can console ourselves with the thought,’ said Robert, ‘that we’ve escaped a difficult client. Now, let me have another look at those figures for the steel. Yes – it is a little high. We could probably pare that down.’

‘You’re so bloody optimistic, Robert,’ said John, ‘your mother should have called you Pollyanna.’

‘I don’t think it had been written then,’ said Robert. He grinned at John; it was true, optimism was one of his outstanding – and valuable – characteristics.

However, in this instance, it was unfounded; the contract to build Segal’s department store went to another company, by the name of Hagman Betts which no one had ever heard of.

‘New,’ said Robert, ‘hungry. Probably running at a loss. Don’t despair, John. It’s only one development, for God’s sake. Three more dead certs in the pipeline. Let’s go out for a drink, forget about it.’

However, one of the three dead certs also went to Hagman Betts, and a second to another young firm called Stern Rubin.

‘Don’t worry,’ Robert said to John, ‘they can’t keep this up. Can’t afford it. They’ll have to start charging more realistically soon. Then we’ll be all right. We’re hardly on the breadline now. Got enough to see us through a lean few months. Cheer up.’

But, as he drove home to Sutton Place, he didn’t feel particularly cheerful himself. In fact he felt – what? Uneasy best described it. Without being quite sure why: it was true what he had said, they had plenty of reserves to drawn on, plenty of other clients. He was probably just tired.

‘You look gloomy,’ said Maud, as he walked into the snug. She was drawing.

‘Oh, I’m all right. What are you drawing?’

‘A house. Look.’

He looked. ‘More of a skyscraper, I’d say.’

‘Maybe.’

‘We’ll have you running Brewer Lytton yet,’ said Robert.

‘I’d like that.’

‘So would I.’

He often fantasised about it; she loved nothing better than playing with her dolls’ houses, building with her bricks, and all her best drawings were of the Manhattan skyline.

‘Specially my daddy’s areas,’ she said solemnly to her teacher, when she had admired them.

She was seven now, still enchanting, astonishingly unspoilt; she went to a girls’ day school in Manhattan, where her favourite lesson, by far, was arithmetic. ‘Very suitable for an architect,’ her doting father would say. She was still small for her age, and very striking with her mass of red-gold die-straight hair, and her large green eyes.

She and her father were all the world to one another; they dined together each night, took it in turns to wake one another with a glass of orange juice in the morning, discussed their respective days solemnly over breakfast. Robert whose social life had never recovered from Jeanette’s death, led a quiet life; most evenings he was at home.

At the weekends they went to the house he had built in Montauk, Long Island, a dazzling white creation called Overview, right on the beach; the site carefully picked to be not too near Laurence’s mansion. He had written to Robert when he had heard he was looking for a property, suggesting that it might be more comfortable for them both if they were not close neighbours; Robert did not reply to the letter, but worried about its spirit, and the unpleasantness that might ensue for Maud. Just the same he loved Long Island and wanted for her the pleasures it could offer: the sailing, the riding, the walks along the shore. In the event, they very seldom met Laurence, and then only at an occasional luncheon party, where they exchanged distantly courteous greetings and moved on.

Jamie was a frequent visitor; now that he was older, he found it easier to ignore the psychological pressures Laurence put on him, and to be openly friendly towards his stepfather. He was eighteen, at last free of his spots, tall and athletic, he was a fine tennis and soccer player, and although less academic than Laurence, he was going to Harvard in September to read history. He was teaching Maud to play tennis on the court at Overview; she still absolutely adored him, would do anything for him, looked for no greater happiness than to spend time with him at the weekends, often sitting on the deck at the front of the house in silence, simply watching him as he read the paper, of dozed in the sun. He was very fond of her too: had been grateful for her uncomplicated love over the years, her refusal to be distressed by Laurence’s behaviour. Often, now, he came to stay at Sutton Place as well, ashamed of his early refusal to move in, and occupied the small suite Robert had planned for him so carefully when he had built the house.

‘I wish we could be married, Jamie,’ Maud had said and he had laughed and said he thought she was going to marry Kyle Brewer.

‘I was, but Daddy says he’s got a girlfriend. Anyway, I think I’d rather marry you. I know you better.’

‘Well, I’d like it too, but I don’t think it’s possible, we’re brother and sister and that’s that.’

‘Well, I shall be very jealous of whoever you do marry,’ she said, ‘very jealous indeed,’ Jamie said he had no intention of marrying for a long time and when he did, Maud could certainly have a hand in choosing the girl.

‘This flu’s a nightmare,’ said Celia to LM.

It was a brilliant May morning; she was standing at her office window, looking at the extraordinary sight of people walking about the streets of London in the sunshine, wearing masks.

‘I just can’t believe it. And the worst thing, according to Dr Perring is that, it mostly affects healthy young adults. What the war didn’t take, the influenza will. I’m wondering if we shouldn’t send the children out of London again. I’m really frightened about it. Oliver says I’m overreacting, but there have already been a lot of deaths.’

‘Well Jay would like that,’ said LM with a sigh, ‘going out of London again, I mean. He’s so bored and miserable, misses the other children dreadfully. He doesn’t look nearly so well, and he’s wearing Dorothy out.’

‘When can he go to school?’

‘Oh, not for another nine months. Even then, only in the mornings. He’s terribly lonely, and he’s being extremely difficult. And the bedwetting is worse than ever. I don’t know what to do with him.’

‘Poor little chap. If I had one that age, I’d suggest they joined up for lessons in the morning or something. But, I don’t.’

‘No.’ LM was silent; they were both thinking of the lost baby girl.

‘Anyway,’ said Celia, with a quick, over-bright smile, ‘I’m sure Jay will settle down soon. He’s been through a big upheaval I know, but children are so adaptable. What does Dorothy think about it?’

‘I think she’s quite worried. He’s started saying he’s going to run away. I suppose I could spend more time with him, but – well, what use is a rather over-aged mother to a four-year-old?’

‘A lot,’ said Celia firmly, ‘but maybe not for fun and games. He’ll be fine once he’s at school, LM. Try not to worry. Anyway, I’ll ask Mama what she thinks about having the children down there, at least for the summer holidays, away from the germs. We can send the nannies. That would cheer Jay up, wouldn’t it?’

‘Short-term, yes,’ said LM.

‘LM, I’ve learned to think short-term. So should you. Anything else is too complicated. I can’t bear to look more than a day ahead at the moment. Everything seems to have got worse rather than better since Oliver came home, I don’t know why—’

‘Is he being very difficult?’

‘Very. He’s like a spoilt, bored child, kicking the furniture. Demanding I play with him – well talk to him – and then, when I do, not wanting to hear anything I say. Oh, I shouldn’t criticise him behind his back. I know he’s had a horrible time. But I could so do with some support, and instead of him being the life-raft I was longing for, he’s—’

‘Making an ever bigger hole in the bottom of the ship?’

‘Bit harsh,’ said Celia laughing, ‘but – well – yes, something like that. Anyway, he’s going to start coming in regularly, two days a week, starting next week. I’m sure that’ll be better.’

‘It might,’ said LM, ‘on the other hand it might be worse. To begin with, at any rate.’

‘Yes, that’s what Sebastian said. Funnily enough.’

‘Did he? That’s a very astute observation. For an outsider.’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Celia quickly. ‘It’s fairly obvious really, isn’t it?’ She started rustling through some papers on her desk. ‘I mean, goodness, LM, you should see all those letters and diaries that have come in for
New Lives for Old
. One of the most interesting things is how angry and upset so many of these women are now, with the men coming back, and assuming they’ll just step aside. It’s an outrage.’

‘I don’t suppose the men see it quite like that,’ said LM.

The men didn’t of course: it was a new conflict facing the nation. The country fit for heroes, promised by Lloyd George, was actually seething with repressed rage, and social and sexual injustice. Women were expected to vacate the positions they had occupied so successfully during the war, and return meekly to their homes and their husbands. The fact that those aged over twenty-nine had at last been given the vote did not go all the way towards placating them. And men, who returned from the front severely disabled, found themselves being given pensions which were at best modest, and at worst an outrage.

There was a degree of racial tension and hostility, largely directed at the West Indian troops recruited during the war; the demobilisation programme was ill-planned; the Ministry of Reconstruction, set up to oversee a return to peace in all its complexity, was disbanded early in the summer of 1919 when the need for it was at its peak. Rocketing prices, the direct result of ending government controls, combined with an absence of any real rise in wages, led to serious industrial unrest; including, perhaps most seriously, in the police force in Liverpool. This led to looting, violence and at least one death. Added to that mixture was the hugely increased strength of the Labour movement, which had grown so strongly during the war, and made England socially a rather unstable place.

In Line Street, Sylvia Miller was struggling against ill health, and trying to manage on her widow’s pension, with one son back from the war embittered and unemployed, and another employed but seriously disabled, was just one among millions who had sacrificed almost everything and now were asking themselves what it had all been for.

Oliver and Sebastian sat facing one another on the leather sofas in Celia’s office: the sofas which, despite Oliver’s remonstrances, she had put in place expressly for the purpose of entertaining authors in her first week at Lyttons so long ago. She had moved to another office since then, something rather grander, next door to Oliver’s in fact; but the sofas were the same, their gleaming glossy surface turned rather dull and dark, scuffed and scratched in places, but still infinitely comfortable and making the office pleasingly club-like. They were part of Lyttons’ history now, those sofas. This was where Celia sat far into the night, reading manuscripts, where she and LM had slept occasionally during the war, where she encouraged her staff to sit when she had news for them, good or bad, where authors and agents discussed terms, publication, or editing decisions, where manuscripts were sometimes piled so high that they towered over the sofa backs.

They were part of Celia’s personal history, too: Jago had sat on one of those sofas the first and last time she had met him, the night he had come to her for help. Here too, she had comforted LM on the few occasions she had seen her weaken, here LM had done the same for her; here she herself had shed tears of loneliness and fear during the long years of Oliver’s absence. Here she and Sebastian had sat on that magical day when he came in with
Meridian
, and in his beautiful, musical voice, quite literally, she often thought now, bewitched her; and this was where she had been when the call came through from her mother, telling her that Oliver was alive and safe.

She looked at the pair of them now, at Oliver and Sebastian. Oliver, leafing through the promotional plans for
Meridian
, was frail, thin, strangely colourless, palpably weary; Sebastian, strong, vivid was pushing his hands occasionally through his hair in the impatient way he had, glancing up at her with his extraordinary eyes from time to time, smiling at her encouragingly. She struggled hard, so hard, not to compare them: Neither them nor her feelings for them. Oliver whom she loved so very much; Sebastian who was – was just unsettling her, disturbing her equilibrium.