The Decision (45 page)

She had even persuaded a couple of small chic hotels in New York to come into her fold. The city had suddenly become accessible, with David Frost’s famous weekly trips, rocketing backwards and forwards across the Atlantic; going there was no longer an impossible or even distant dream.

Just very occasionally she fantasised about sending people to the Southern States, including (obviously) Charleston; now that would really frighten David, she thought …

‘Daddy’s going to help,’ said Juliet. ‘He says he can’t have me humiliated like this, and he wants to talk to you about making you a loan.’

‘Oh. Oh, I see.’ He wasn’t sure he wanted help from Geoffrey Judd, and he longed to say that it was him being humiliated, not Juliet. But beggars, he supposed, couldn’t be choosers. And a beggar was what he seemed to be. Geoffrey Judd certainly seemed to think so.

‘I have to say,’ he said, glaring at Charles. ‘You’ve let us all down, especially Juliet. Managing your money isn’t very difficult, you simply need some self-discipline.’

Charles longed to say it was Juliet who lacked the self-discipline. Instead he looked at his hands and metaphorically bit his tongue.

‘What’s more, I think we’ve all been deceived, leading us all to believe you owned that house, all of you, giving Juliet false expectations when it’s nothing of the sort.’

This was too much. ‘I’m afraid, Mr Judd, you don’t understand. The house is owned by a family trust, holding it for my mother and then for future generations.’

‘Same difference as far as I’m concerned. And a drain on any resources you may have into the bargain. Well, none of my money is going into it, I can tell you.’

‘I wouldn’t dream of suggesting such a thing,’ said Charles.

‘Maybe not, but the fact remains you’ve got yourself and Juliet into a financial mess, haven’t you? My daughter can’t have the home or the lifestyle she was very much led to expect. She shouldn’t be living in a flat at this stage of her life and nor should you, and you should be keeping her, not sending her out to work every day. She wants to have children, you know, like any young woman; she’s not going to get them the way you’re going on.’

Just stay silent, Charles, don’t rise to this, it won’t be worth it, not in the long run.

‘Anyway, I’m prepared to make you a loan, to pay off your overdraft, so you can start afresh, get a mortgage on that house Juliet’s set her heart on. I’ll want a formal repayment plan, but I’m prepared to be reasonable about it, nothing too steep while you get yourself sorted out. How does that sound?’

‘That’s – that’s very generous of you, sir.’

It really was all he could do; the alternative was quite literally bankruptcy, which would mean the end of his job on the stock exchange.

‘And I don’t want to hear that a penny of it has gone into that house in Wiltshire, do you understand. You go and talk to the trustees; tell them to find some way of putting it on the market. Right. Well, here’s a cheque. As far as I’m concerned, it’s worth it to see my daughter happy and secure and not fretting over money. In my family, that’s men’s work. Now let’s put together a schedule of repayments, shall we? What salary are you on?’

Adrian had had another fall and broken his pelvis. Sarah rang to say that she knew he would love to see Eliza, ‘It’s been quite a long time.’ Eliza lost her temper and said she would have been down quite often if they hadn’t been so hostile to Matt; Sarah said she was sorry, but it had been a terrible shock about the baby.

‘Mummy, if I’d been pregnant with Jeremy’s baby you’d have been over the moon with excitement.’

‘That’s not true.’

‘Isn’t it? Isn’t it really?’ There was a silence; then Eliza said, ‘Well anyway, of course I’ll come and see Daddy. I’d have come before if you’d asked me. I just felt so hurt. I can’t come this week; next Saturday all right?’

‘Yes, I suppose so. I had hoped Charles would be down, but he’s very much out of our lives at the moment, I don’t know what’s going on. Anyway Saturday will do. Of course. And if Matt wants to come, then he’ll be—’

‘Honestly,’ said Eliza, interrupting her, ‘I don’t think he will.’

But Matt, unpredictable to the last, insisted that he would go with her.

‘I don’t want you driving all that way on your own. It’s not good for you to get too tired and long car journeys are probably not good for the baby, you getting all shaken about—’

‘Matt, that baby is safer right now than it will be for the whole rest of its life. It’s cushioned in God knows how much fluid, gallons by the look of me—’

‘Well, I don’t want you having a miscarriage on the side of the road.’

‘I hardly think you can prevent that just by being there,’ said Eliza, laughing.

Matt’s devotion to his unborn child continued to surprise and delight her. He insisted on attending her appointments with the doctor, to her considerable embarrassment; the doctor clearly thought he was some unemployed lunatic who had nothing better to do. He had more or less auditioned all the hospitals and insisted that he would pay for her to have the baby privately if that seemed to be the best option. However, Eliza had established that one of the most highly regarded obstetricians in London, one Professor Anthony Collins, worked at the maternity unit of the Fulham and Battersea, an NHS teaching hospital, where he had established a culture of excellent education on all aspects of pregnancy and childbirth, including one evening which fathers were encouraged to attend, close family bonding and the admission of fathers to the labour ward if both parents wanted that. This was so revolutionary a notion there had even been letters to
The Times
about it. Eliza said hopefully she was sure Matt wouldn’t want it, and that he’d faint but he said he wouldn’t miss it for the world and that he wanted a grandstand view.

‘No,’ said Matt, ‘no, no, no, no, no. That clear enough for you? I’ll repeat it, just in case. No. You are not going to work when you’ve had the baby.’

‘But—’

‘Eliza, no. I don’t know how you can even think of it. Don’t you care about the baby, don’t you think you’ll love him?’

‘Of course I bloody well care about the baby. Of course I’ll love it. Him. But I don’t see why that means I have to spend twenty-four hours a day with it – him. I love my work too, it’s so important to me, and we can get a nanny, the baby will be fine—’

He stared at her for a moment in silence. Then, ‘Oh, no. You are not sacrificing that baby in favour of your career. Do you really think photographing a few frocks is more important than bringing up your own child? I’ve never heard anything so – so disgusting, frankly.’

‘Of course it’s not disgusting. And I don’t think my work is more important than my child. But I just don’t see how being away from it – him – for a few hours a day is so terrible. And I really don’t think I’m cut out for full-time motherhood.’

‘Oh, is that so. Well, you might have thought of that before you got yourself pregnant.’

‘That’s unfair!’

‘Is it? I don’t think so. I tell you what I think, Eliza, I think you’re so fucking impressed with yourself and your life as a lady fashion editor, getting your arse licked all day long by all that fancy riff-raff you seem to like so much, you can’t face giving it up. I’ve heard them at parties, and in the office, oh, Eliza you’re so marvellous, oh, Eliza darling, what a wonderful editor you are, oh, Eliza you’re so clever. It makes me want to throw up. Well right now, I don’t think you’re marvellous or wonderful, I think you’re pathetic and self-centred and attention-seeking with a pretty rotten sense of values, and it’s not good enough. Not good enough for the baby and not good enough for me. So – is that quite clear?’

She had walked out after that, and gone to the office, where she had smoked at least five of the cigarettes Matt had ordered her to give up and sworn and cried and talked to Annunciata and rung Maddy, both of whom agreed that Matt was a monster and was not to be given in to and she said of course she wasn’t going to give in to him, it would be marital suicide, she would do what she liked with her life and she even went out for a drink with Annunciata to give herself Dutch courage for the evening’s battle.

It was a battle and it raged for days, and became very ugly. He told her she was disgraceful; she told him he was monstrous; he told her she lacked a sense of maternal duty; she told him he had no concept of the sort of person she really was; he said if he had, he certainly wouldn’t have married her.

‘I’m surprised you didn’t just get rid of the baby, I really am,’ he said, finally, ‘since it’s going to be such a burden to you. Maybe it’s not too late to do that now, Eliza. I’d investigate it if I were you.’

Eliza walked up to him and started to attack him physically, flailing at him with her fists; he stared at her then turned in silence and left.

He didn’t come back that night, spent it in the office; but as he sat at his desk, grey-faced and shaking with exhaustion the following morning, staring out of the window, and his misery so evident that even Louise was touched by it, Eliza walked through reception and into his office, shut the door behind her and told him she had decided that she would give up work when the baby was born.

Jenny was having what she called a turnout. This mostly meant taking everything out of every cupboard and drawer in the office and putting ninety-nine per cent of it back again, all to a running commentary on her own progress. She was just debating with herself whether she should keep the envelopes with the windows, probably not, as she very rarely used them these days, ever since Mr Shaw had said they looked tacky, but then they could come in very handy if she ran out of the others, when the phone rang. It was Barry Floyd.

‘Is that the lovely Jenny?’

‘It’s Jenny, Mr Floyd, yes. I don’t know if—’

‘And is the equally lovely Louise there?’

‘I’ll just enquire, Mr Floyd, would you mind holding?’

‘I wouldn’t mind holding anything at all, and certainly not you, my darling, no.’

‘It’s Mr Floyd, Miss Mullan,’ said Jenny. ‘He sounds very cheerful. Do you want to speak to him?’

‘Well, since he’s cheerful, yes, Jenny, I will. Put him through. Barry, hello.’

‘Good morning, my darling Louise. And how are you this beautiful morning?’

‘I’m fine, thank you,’ said Louise, ‘but I don’t know where you are. It’s pouring with rain in London.’

‘I’m in London and it looks beautiful to me. Now then. Could I interest you in a tenant today?’

‘I daresay you could, yes. What sort of tenant and for where? That building in Holborn?’

‘No, not Holborn. This is about Slough. Someone who just might be moving in … that direction, just so long as he can find premises.’

‘Oh, my God. Barry, that’s amazing. Who is he?’

‘It’s a little outfit – you may not even have heard of them—’

‘Oh,’ Louise’s voice echoed her disappointment. They needed a big one for Slough: a really big one. They would be losing thousands a year in interest alone once the final payments had all been made.

‘Still – worth pursuing, I think. Could you see him for a meeting this afternoon on site, do you think? At around 3 p.m. And bring those two boys of yours with you.’

He always referred to Matt and Jimbo as Louise’s boys; she liked it, it diminished them rather satisfactorily.

‘I’ll try. But it’s quite a trek out to Slough. And – well, if he’s really small, is he the sort of tenant we want anyway?’

‘Oh, I think so. Could be. You know how one thing leads to another in this game.’

‘Well – all right then. I’ll be there.’

‘Good girl. You’ll like him, he’s a real charmer.’

‘That always helps,’ said Louise.

She asked Matt and Jimbo if they wanted to come; they both said they had far more important things to do, and that a small tenant for Slough would be worse than useless.

‘Barry said he was worth pursuing. And it is very important to us, that site.’

‘Yes, all right,’ said Matt irritably, ‘I think I know that without being told, Louise. And of course someone should go, but that’s fine, you’ll do.’

‘Well, thanks for that vote of confidence. And you can jolly well wait till I get back, so we can discuss his feasibility. Barry said he’d want a quick decision if he liked the place.’

‘Barry always talks like that. There’s no way I’m going to be rushed into letting some wanker take half that space or less, and you can tell Barry that first off.’

‘Yes, all right,’ said Louise. She went into her own office and slammed the door, saying she didn’t want to be disturbed; and got into her car after lunch and set off on the long crawl to Slough.

She had still not returned by half past six; Matt and Jimbo were beginning to grow irritable. Jimbo was expected at his fiancée’s home for a family conference about the wedding, now rivalling the D-Day landings in its complexity, as Louise had remarked, and Matt wanted to go and look at a car-park site in the City.

‘Give her another half an hour, then we’ll lock up and she can tell us about it in the morning.’

At 6.59 precisely they heard the reception door open and Louise came in.

She had what they both called her look on. It was a look that transformed her from sexy, sassy girl to sleek, successful woman; and it settled on her whenever she had pulled off some deal, made some new contact, embarked on some new project. It was hard to define exactly, but it was partly the way she moved, rather more slowly than usual, partly the expression in her eyes, partly a just-supercilious curve to her mouth.