Old Sins (77 page)

‘Are you – you must be Roz? I’m Phaedria.’ She was holding out her hand. Roz with enormous self-control took it.

‘How formal! How do you do?’

‘It feels a bit formal. How are you? Are you sure you’re all right? How is the baby? I’m so looking forward to tonight.’

‘I’m perfectly all right, thank you. So is the baby.’

There was a silence. Phaedria was looking at her uncertainly, searching for something else to say.

‘I’m just going to have lunch with – with –’

‘My father? How nice. Do give him my love.’

‘Why don’t you join us? It would be fun.’

‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ said Roz, managing to smile now, graciously, sensing Phaedria’s discomfiture. ‘Thank you,’ she added. There was a long silence.

‘Well,’ said Phaedria, ‘I’d better go. He doesn’t like to be kept waiting, does he?’ She was floundering now.

‘Perhaps not,’ said Roz. ‘He’s never seemed particularly to mind waiting for me.’ She smiled again. ‘We’ll see you tonight.’

‘Yes. I hear you’re bringing the baby. That will be lovely, I shall look forward to meeting her.’

‘No, I’m not bringing her,’ said Roz. ‘I think after all it would be better if I didn’t.’

She managed to imply it would be seriously bad for Miranda’s health if Phaedria met her.

‘Oh,’ said Phaedria, ‘oh, all right. Well, goodbye Roz. Nice meeting you.’

‘Goodbye,’ said Roz.

She watched Phaedria walk out of the cloakroom rather quickly, and smiled at herself in the mirror. It might be a long war, but she had certainly won the first skirmish.

The dinner was dreadful just the same. Roz had dressed to kill, fearing to look disadvantaged beside this paragon; she wore a black silk jersey dress from Chloe with the newly fashionable wide shoulders, and an above the knee skirt, which showed off her endlessly long, slender legs to their very best advantage. It did her very little good. Nothing, nothing at all could have prepared her for, or helped her through the agony of watching her father looking at Phaedria in adoration, asking her opinion on everything, encouraging her to talk, praising the way she had
adjusted to her new life, organized the dinner that evening, charmed the housekeeper, done the flowers herself; dear God, thought Roz, any moment now he’ll start saying how exquisitely she goes to the lavatory.

Roz knew her own performance was superb; she talked as charmingly as she knew how, questioned Phaedria graciously about her life as a journalist, admired the food and Phaedria’s dress (another Conran, black crepe this time), teased her father (but only very gently) about his wicked past, and asked Phaedria most politely if she would forgive her if she and Julian talked shop very briefly after dinner. ‘Literally shops. You know, I expect, that I’m president of Circe,’ she said, smiling across the candlelight; and ‘Of course,’ said Phaedria, ‘I do know. Yes, you withdraw, and I’ll stay here and C. J. and I can tell dirty stories over the port.’

It was the first sign of retaliation; Roz looked at her sharply, startled, then smiled again.

‘Do be careful,’ she said. ‘C. J. has a terribly weak stomach.’

The only thing she was quite unable to say was anything at all about when the wedding might be, or even to congratulate them; she tried, several times, but the words literally stuck in her throat, a hard, dry lump, and each time she had had to take a huge draught of the superb claret her father had brought out for the occasion, swallowing it desperately as if it was beer or water, and change the subject. However, she felt, as she kissed him lovingly on the steps of the house, and proffered her cheek to Phaedria, she had got through it all extremely well; but C. J., lying awake in the bedroom next to hers, that he now permanently occupied, thinking about her and the performance she had put on, heard her weeping for a long time, and wished, for all their sakes, there was something he could do to help.

‘Phaedria, we have to think about the wedding.’

‘Oh, good.’

‘No, I’m serious.’

‘So am I. I like weddings.’

‘Now, we can play it two ways. We can sneak off and go to a registry office, and not really tell anybody. Or we can do it in style. Ask everybody. And it would have to be everybody. What do you think?’

‘What do you want to do?’

‘I don’t mind. I want you to do what you want. I suppose I have a marginal preference for the sneaking off.’

‘Let’s do it in style.’

He was surprised. ‘All right. If that’s what you want.’

‘When shall we do it?’

‘Too late before Christmas now. If we’re to do it in style. January. Here or in the country?’

‘Oh, let’s do it in the country. That would be much nicer. Then we can involve the horses.’

He laughed. ‘They’ll like that.’

The following weekend he took her to Marriotts for the first time. She fell in love with it. She wandered through its beautiful rooms, looking for a long time out of each window, so as to imprint each individual view on her mind; she insisted they eat lunch sitting at either end of the huge table in the dining room; she explored the attics, she investigated the cellars; she walked round the gardens, she exclaimed with delight at the stables, and she rode with him across the downs in the falling dusk, laughing, exultant.

‘We must bring Grettisaga here. She would love it. Can I go and fetch her myself?’

‘If you want to. Take Tony with you.’

‘Who’s Tony?’

‘My groom. You can’t manage on your own.’

‘Yes, I can,’ she said, and for the very first time he heard a tinge of irritation in her voice. ‘Of course I can. I can drive a horse box. I’ve done it hundreds of times.’

‘Phaedria, it really isn’t very wise. It’s a long way. Suppose you had a breakdown or a puncture?’

‘I’d fix it.’

He sighed. ‘Wait till next weekend, and I’ll come with you.’

‘No. I want her here sooner than that. Stop fussing.’

Later that night, as they lay in the big bed upstairs, with the shutters open, the ghostly moon falling across the pillow, she said, ‘Julian?’

‘Yes, darling?’

‘What am I going to do about Roz?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘She hates me.’

‘Phaedria! It’s not like you to be hysterical.’

‘Julian, I am not being hysterical.’

‘Forgive me, darling, but I think you are. Those are very strong words. You’ve only met Roz twice. How can you possibly claim she hates you? It’s nonsense.’

‘Julian, I am capable of making a judgement. I can tell when people don’t like me. And Roz doesn’t. Well, she more than doesn’t like me. Like I said, she hates me. She won’t speak to me unless she has to. She won’t even look at me. I’ve suggested lunch, I’ve asked if I can come to see her in the office, I’ve really tried. She won’t meet me even a quarter of the way. And I find it very difficult.’

‘She came to dinner with C. J.’

‘That was to please you.’

He picked up her hand and kissed her fingertips. ‘I think you’re merely not having quite the success with Roz you’ve had with most other people. Which is natural really, in a way. She has a rather – intense attitude towards me, and she’s bound to be a little wary. Now look, my mother adores you, Richard and Freddy are both dying of love for you, all the staff in Hanover Terrace dote on you, even Eliza wants to be your best friend. I haven’t been on such good terms with Eliza for years. Can’t you be content with that, and let Roz come round in her own time? She will. She likes you very much, she told me so.’

‘Did she?’ said Phaedria. ‘How nice. Julian, please stop patronizing me. I am not a child, even if I seem like one to you.’

‘Phaedria,’ said Julian, dropping her hand and drawing slightly away from her. ‘I think this is a little absurd.’

‘Really? You call my objecting to a total animosity from Roz absurd? I’m disappointed in you, Julian.’

‘I think,’ he said, and she could hear the ice in his voice, ‘we have enough real problems to confront without you manufacturing one over a non-existent hostility from my daughter.’

‘It is not non-existent.’

‘I happen to believe it is.’

‘Then you should open your eyes a little wider. And perhaps you would like to tell me what real problems we have?’

‘A great many. I’m amazed you have to have them spelt out. We have an age difference of nearly forty years. However much
we may both deny it, there are awkwardnesses in that. I have a very large company to run which, if I may say so, you have not made much of an attempt to acquaint yourself with. I also have several households to maintain, and there are serious practical problems in that. You need to understand each one and its own particular system, you need to know the staff and to win their trust. You’ve made very little effort in that direction. You haven’t bothered to buy yourself many decent clothes. You haven’t suggested we do any entertaining. Your main concerns seem to be whether or not you can get a job on
Vogue
, and being reunited with your horse.’

Phaedria was silent for a while; then she got out of the bed.

‘You bastard,’ she said, ‘you lousy bastard. I’ve known you just over three weeks and you throw that pile of garbage at me. How dare you?’

She walked over to the door, pulling her robe on.

‘Where are you going?’

‘Back to London.’

‘Don’t be absurd.’

She slammed the door.

She had no clothes to put on; she wasn’t going to go back into the bedroom. She went into one of the spare rooms and found some jodhpurs – presumably belonging to Roz, she thought, dragging them on with vicious rage, or one of Julian’s other unfortunate mistresses. She couldn’t find a sweater, but downstairs she took one of the Barbours hanging on the utility room door, and a pair of Hunter wellington boots. She let herself out of the door. She was too excited now, too amused by her own adventure to feel upset.

They had driven down in the Corniche; the keys to that were on the table next to Julian. She walked over to the garage where he kept the cars; it was unlocked. There were five inside; three very early models: an open 1903 Fiat, a first edition Chevrolet, its name written elegantly right along its bonnet, and a Cunard-bodied Napier. Even in her rage, she did not quite dare to consider taking one of them. But nearest the door was the Bugatti; ravishingly elegant and low slung, with its sloping running board and majestically curved mudguards. That would do. Unbelievably, it had the keys in it; Julian had been
playing with it that morning. Thank God it did have a key: the only model that did, he had told her.

Phaedria got in and, trembling slightly, tried to start it; it roared obligingly at the second attempt.

She smiled triumphantly, and eased it forward; it was deliciously easy to drive. Safely out of the garage, she let in the throttle and cautiously put her foot down; clear of the house, and halfway along the drive, she increased her speed. This was fun . . .

She could remember the way – just; the night was clear, which made things easier. Down the lane for two miles, then right at the turning to Steyning and then it was signposted to the A24. She had a bit of trouble making the lights work, and she had to stop twice and wipe the windscreen with her hand, but otherwise it was easy. She hoped the petrol would last; she wasn’t going to find a garage open here in the middle of the night. Her mind was blank now, except for rage; pain, she supposed, would come later. She found it almost impossible to believe that a man as charming, as gentle, as civilized, as loving as Julian had been to her, could convert so swiftly into an arrogant, manipulative monster. All at a breath of criticism of his daughter. She shuddered; she felt outraged, blindly, furiously angry. She put her foot down harder.

Suddenly in the rear view mirror she saw headlights. It might be someone else, anyone, but it was certainly a great deal more likely to be Julian. The lights flashed; she drove on. It was Julian, in the Corniche; the lane was so narrow he couldn’t overtake her. He was driving quite hard behind her now, hooting and flashing; Phaedria suddenly started to laugh. This was revenge, however brief, and it was extremely sweet. There was nothing he could do, just for a short heady while; he was impotent, he couldn’t touch her. She hoped the sensation was painful. It would almost certainly be novel.

At the end of the lane, her triumph swiftly ended; the road widened, she tried to go faster, but the Bugatti suddenly began to slow down; its petrol had gone. The Corniche swung wide of her then pulled in tight in front of her; she had to stop. Julian leapt out, dragged her out of the driving seat and slapped her hard across the face.

‘How dare you! How dare you take that car? Have you any idea how valuable it is?’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Phaedria coolly, ‘I have. C. J. was telling me about it at dinner. Well, Julian, you seem to want me to become more familiar with all the precious and important things in your life; I thought I’d start with the cars. Now if you could just give me a lift to the next garage, I can get a can of petrol and carry on.’

She was breathing heavily, her eyes huge and brilliant with anger; as she stood there, confronting him, contemptuous, unafraid, the Barbour swung slowly open and revealed her bare breasts. Julian looked at her, and slowly his expression totally altered; rage became hunger, hostility tenderness, and he reached out and tried to take her in his arms.

‘Don’t touch me,’ said Phaedria, pulling the coat angrily round her. ‘Just don’t. I want nothing more to do with you. Ever. Just leave me alone.’

‘No,’ he said, ‘I can’t do that,’ and he half pushed her, half dragged her into the back seat of the Corniche, slamming the door behind them.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, pushing the coat down off her shoulders, kissing her frantically on her lips, her neck, her breasts. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, and I love you so much. Please, Phaedria, please forgive me.’

And she, stunned by the swift conversion from anger to desire that she felt in her own body as well, kissed him back, fiercely, greedily, reaching for him, tearing at his clothes, ripping open his trousers, pushing down her jodhpurs, and flung herself back on to the seat, pulling him on to her, thrusting herself desperately against him, frantic for the feel of him inside her, filling her, moving her, leading her into her sweet, hot explosion of pleasure. It was over in minutes; they lay, breathing heavily, silent, looking at each other warily. Then Phaedria suddenly smiled. ‘You bastard,’ she said, and kissed him very tenderly on the mouth.