Stephanie (11 page)

‘Well, he's older, isn't he. And takes himself seriously.'

‘Right. D'you like him?'

‘He's quite pleasant.'

‘He seems to have lots of money. Some of these orientals have, of course. Tell me, Steff,' Anne said, ‘talking of money, do people try to borrow from you?'

‘Here? Sometimes. Not often.'

‘There's this girl Charlotte Harris. Shares with me and Penny at Mrs Asher's. She's always in money trouble; she's borrowed from me three times – not big money, but I'm not all that well-heeled – swears she'll repay next week, never does. I think it a bit thick.'

‘Have you asked her?'

‘More than once. But I don't like to be too hard. Of course she says it'll be all right in a week or two, I give you my oath, et cetera. You know. Oh, is that coffee? Thanks.'

Stephanie said: ‘I think you've got to write it off as a bad debt. Put it down to experience.'

‘Right. Yep, I suppose so. Hell, I wish I didn't take sugar, I know it's bad for the complexion. It's one reason I'd like to get away from Mrs Asher's.'

‘What, the sugar?'

‘Oh, Steff. No, you know.' Anne wafted the steam delicately away with her hand. ‘What used to be called morality has gone out of the window long since, of course. You sleep as you want and with anyone you fancy. Penny spent the night at Magdalen last week! … But borrowing money without any real, serious intention of returning it – that's still morally wrong, isn't it?'

‘It is in my book,' Stephanie said.

‘Right. But it really is disagreeable. My parents lash out cash to enable me to live like a lady, not to subsidise some wet, feeble girl who lets her own grant dribble through her fingers.'

The coffee was helping. For once she began to feel like work. Just as soon as Anne could be edged out … She might even be able to concentrate.

Anne fidgeted with the bandage then let her skirt slip down. She glanced at the mantelpiece.

‘Talking of Tony Maidment, you must be going to his twenty-first, aren't you? You know him so much better than I do.'

‘Well, yes. I accepted but it's been so frantic since I came back that I've forgotten to put the card up. Is it next Sunday?'

‘Right. I expect it'll be quite a do. His mother's rolling, and he's the third baronet or something.'

‘Or something.'

‘I confess I was scared witless that I might not get an invite, me being only in my first year and really only knowing him through you. But it came. I'm thrilled. What are you going to wear?'

‘I haven't thought. Anne, I don't want to sound blasé, but things really have been rather wild since we flew back from Delhi. I had to see my beloved parent. As you know he's more or less confined to a wheelchair, and I've been neglectful. Then other things crowded in – not least the fact that I've been skipping work and Finals are only a few weeks away …'

She hoped Anne would take the hint.

She did at last. She was eased off the corner of the desk and towards the door, where she turned and said: ‘Is Errol going with you to Tony's party?'

Stephanie was suddenly unreasoningly angry. She swallowed down her first reply and made an effort to speak in a controlled way.

‘Darling, does it matter to you?'

‘No, but –'

‘Look, you don't go
with
people to a birthday party. You don't make up a group to go together the way you do for a college ball or a commem. ball. I've been invited and I shall go. You've been invited and I imagine you'll go. I don't even know whether Errol has been invited, but I don't think he'll be there because he will probably be in Holland. That satisfy?'

Anne blinked. ‘Oh, yes. Oh, right. I only asked.' The bite in Stephanie's voice had not been altogether disguised.

Stephanie said: ‘ Because I'm having an affair with Errol doesn't mean we have to live in each other's pockets. Get that?'

‘Right. Oh, right.'

The anger was blowing itself out as quickly as it had come. She was startled by it herself, as if only now consciously realising the degree of the tensions within her. ‘Let's see, what time is it on Sunday?'

‘Eight. Shall I pick you up?'

‘No, thanks. Thanks all the same, Anne. Let's go under our own steam. If the party tends to drag I might come home early – I've so much work to do.' ‘Right,' said Anne for the twelfth time as she was ushered out.

Errol Colton came back from one of his meetings in London and parked his BMW in the drive. He slammed the door and went into the house and immediately up the stairs to his study on the first floor. It was a room covered with his photographs. Every wall was full. On the desk in a rack were letters which had arrived and were waiting for him – among them one from Stephanie, whose distinctive handwriting it was easy to recognise. In happier times he had likened it to a succession of telegraph poles striding across the page.

At first he did not look at any of the letters but with unsteady sweaty hands unlocked a drawer and took out a snuffbox, a small mirror, a straw and a razor blade. He put some white powder from the box on the surface of the mirror and assembled it in a thin line with the razor blade. He put the straw into each nostril in turn and sniffed until all the powder was gone. Then he put the things away and began to read the letters, though he could not concentrate on anything. Stephanie's was only a single sheet of paper and he had barely glanced at the contents when his wife came in.

She was an elegant young woman with raven-black hair and a slightly hooked nose which did not seem to detract from her good looks. Her expression was not welcoming.

‘You didn't let me know when to expect you.'

‘What? Oh, I wasn't sure.'

‘Are you going to use the car again?'

He poured himself a brandy. ‘The car? I don't think so.'

‘Don't you usually put it away?'

‘Later.'

He was down around the mouth, and a bad colour.

‘There's something to eat if you want it,' she said coldly.

‘Er – no thanks.' He sipped at his glass.

‘You look green. What's wrong? Is it one of your headaches?'

‘I'm okay.'

‘Well, you don't look it.'

Conversation had been no more fluent than this over the last week. It spouted and died, with no common interest in keeping it going.

She said: ‘The men haven't been about the pool. We want it for the Perrys on Sunday.'

‘Have you rung them?'

‘Of course. But you'd better ring again.'

‘Remind me in the morning.' He put down Stephanie's letter and went to the window. Following a heavy shower, the declining sun, so pale after India's, was glistening on the wet gravel drive and the leaves of the laurels which screened the house from the road. He waited for the white powder to steady his nerves. ‘Polly get away all right?'

‘I drove her back.'

‘She seems to be settling down.'

‘Yes, she's settling down.'

He glanced at Suzanne, trying to concentrate on the normal. ‘Megson's have agreed the date of the exhibition.'

‘What exhibition?'

‘Of my photographs. It's June the eleventh.'

‘Good.'

‘We'll probably give a party afterwards. My club's a lot cheaper than Claridge's and just as pleasant. It'll be my first West End show.'

‘I know,' she said with the same lack of enthusiasm.

Five years ago he had taken a great fancy to her and had charmed her into living with him and then marrying him. She had not been slow to be charmed, being an actress with dark good looks and a fine body but an awareness that none of the managers thought her talented. Her ambition to become a second Janet Suzman was rapidly failing, and Errol Colton had an engaging manner, a prosperous lifestyle and potential in plenty.

She could not complain that the potential had not been realised. Two years ago they had moved into this Georgian country house; they had built an indoor swimming pool, a tennis court and a croquet lawn and there were parties every other weekend. They had cars enough and more than their fair share of help; his daughter was a weekly boarder at Westonbirt; they had a pied-à-terre in London, they went frequently to first nights, and she could go as often as she wanted – though not accompanied by him – to the opera. It was very much of a success story.

Fairly soon Suzanne had discovered that she had married two men. One was Errol fronting himself to the world, or in pursuit of a woman, or entertaining guests, or joking with his daughter; the other was the man at home, where he was untalkative, indrawn, buried in his photography, moroseness never far away. The life he
wanted
to live was clearly that in which he promoted and projected himself, but this could only be maintained part of the time: then the batteries switched off. In spite of his muscularity, his maleness, his craggy good looks and volatile energy, she sometimes thought of him as a weak man. Underneath the macho image was someone who could turn and waver as the wind blew.

From the beginning she had resented his infidelities, but she saw it was part of the image he had created for himself. But this girl from St Martin's had seemed more serious. She had seen Stephanie once, and thought her a high-living, high-flying, care-for-nothing sort of girl, just the type to hold a special fascination for Errol; but the most scaring thing about her was her
youth
. Suzanne was only thirty-four and was well aware of her own good looks and elegance. But she was also aware that in the prosperous ambiance she was living in she had allowed herself to put on a bit too much weight. This girl Stephanie had not yet reached the age when she even had to
think
about it. Thin as a wand, leggy, high-breasted, she was prancing through life like a mettlesome colt, unbridled, undisciplined. What a woman to lasso and bring kicking to the ground!

This trip to India had brought it all out into the open, made it in this strange inversion of modern morals curiously more ‘respectable'. Stephanie's father, it seemed, was quite well off, but Stephanie herself might not be averse to marriage to a property tycoon. It was a good life he could offer her. Nor could one write down his own physical magnetism when he laid it on the line.

Last weekend had produced a bitter quarrel. In the quarrel Errol had dropped some hint that he might be breaking up with Stephanie, but with him you could never tell truth from lies. Now he had been away two nights and had come home in no conciliatory mood. He looked as if he had been in a road accident. Leave him alone now. Get out and say no more.

She stayed and said more.

‘I need money. Last weekend was expensive.'

‘You must have saved while I've been away.'

‘Can you give me any reason why I should have?'

‘How much d'you want?'

‘Five hundred would about cover it.'

‘What're you doing, feeding the staff on caviar?'

She glanced at the letter lying on his desk. ‘ Has the girl been with you in London?'

‘Of course not.'

‘Does she write to you every night?'

‘I've said all I want to say about that. There is nothing new to add.'

‘Is she still playing hard to get or hard to get rid of?'

He turned on her angrily and then controlled his anger. The coke was helping. She watched his face change, saw the cocked eyebrow, the mouth guarding itself just in time.

‘Want a drink?'

‘I've had one.'

‘Well, have another.'

In the silence he went across and poured her a gin, splashed it with tonic, handed it to her. ‘There's no ice here.'

She took it without speaking.

‘What did you say you wanted?'

‘Five hundred.'

He took out his cheque book and sat at the table, wrote in it. The chair creaked as he tore off the cheque and turned.

‘I've made it seven fifty.'

‘Thanks,' she said.

He frowned wryly. ‘You look like Helen of Troy in a sulk.'

Her face did not change. ‘It wasn't Helen of Troy who was let down. You ought to know with your Greek connections.'

‘Ah, yes. Ah, yes.' He was feeling better every minute, a little more confident of his ability to find a way through the horrifying mess he was in. ‘I think I will have something to eat, now you suggest it. What have we got?'

‘Cold chicken. Smoked salmon. Or Janice can make you an omelette before she goes.'

‘The salmon will do. And see the bread's cut thin; with plenty of butter. Is there any Vouvray?'

‘I'll see.'

She turned to the door, holding the cheque between thumb and forefinger as if wet. She had not touched her drink.

‘Suzanne.'

‘Yes?'

‘Maybe there is something more I should say. I was going to leave it for a while.' He hesitated. ‘ One makes mistakes. It's not always easy to admit them.'

‘Such as?'

‘Such as my affair with Stephanie. It's coming to an end. But it's not going to be easy for either of us.'

‘You dropped a few guarded hints on Sunday. Is there any reason I should believe them?'

He shrugged. ‘ I'm more than ever sure.'

‘Is she?'

‘I think so.'

‘Have you seen her?'

‘Not this week. I'm seeing her on Sunday. At least, I expect to.'

‘How nice for you both. Is this to be the great parting or the great reconciliation?'

They stood for a moment in another silence. Again he turned to the photographs, as if they were the one comforting and preoccupying diversion from reality. They all had to be sorted, chosen, before being mounted for the exhibition. He had to choose about seventy from more than a thousand, covering several years of his life. He thought to consult Suzanne about some of those of her that he wanted to show, but this was not the time.