The Man Who Understood Women (12 page)

I checked my watch. Twelve noon. That was the time arranged for the interview.

He opened the door and left me cooling my heels in the hall while he disappeared into the bowels of the house.

When he returned the manservant motioned me to follow him and I did so through film-set decor – long low sofas,
everything
white and hi-fi everywhere – out on to the terrace.

He left me blinded momentarily by the midday sun and for the moment I could see nothing. I blinked, then looked around.

At the far end of the not inconsiderable terrace Clint McGowan lay spread-eagled, half naked on a sun lounger. A blonde, falling out of a bikini, was spread-eagled almost on top of him.

He wore dark glasses so I was unable to see whether or not he saw me although his head was turned in my direction.

I waited, not knowing quite what to do.

‘Don’t be frightened, Ginger,’ he said finally. ‘Come closer. I don’t bite. She does.’ He put a finger into the blonde’s mouth.

I walked the length of the terrace on legs suddenly become fragile and took out my notebook and pencil. There was a trolley of drinks with ice in a flask.

‘It’s very kind of you to allow me to interview you for the
Echo
,’ I said. ‘I hope you don’t mind if I ask you a few
questions
about your overnight success.’

‘I dare say I can tolerate it.’

‘How does it feel, Mr McGowan,’ I asked, ‘to jump so
suddenly
from rags to riches – to wake up and find yourself a star?’

He stroked the long hair of the blonde, no longer looking at me. ‘Fabulous, doesn’t it, darling?’

‘Perhaps you could expand a little. I mean mentally, how has it affected your life, your view of the world, your philosophy?’

He smiled and raised the blonde’s chin, kissing her long on the lips.

‘I like it.’

‘What about material things? I understand you have
several
cars, a yacht, a villa in Sardinia. Do these things mean
anything
to you, never having had them?’

He put a hand down the top of her bikini. ‘I like it.’

‘Have you found it difficult to adapt yourself to being a star, recognised in the street, followed by fans wherever you go?’

He gazed into the eyes of the blonde and I’d written it in shorthand before he could get the words out. ‘I like it.’

I decided to change my tack. ‘Could you tell me a little about your childhood, Mr McGowan, your background?’

He was stroking her nose. I thought perhaps he hadn’t heard the question.

‘I was born very young,’ he said finally and I could feel my redhead’s easy blush envelop me. I was almost in tears, this
interview
was important. I decided to throw myself upon his mercy.

‘Mr McGowan,’ I said, ‘I haven’t had this job very long; actually I’m still on probation. I want to make a success of this social column and you aren’t being terribly cooperative.’

They were still gazing at each other. ‘Would you say I wasn’t cooperative?’ he said to her. I waited patiently until they had disentangled themselves.

‘Would you tell me something of your tastes in food, drink; have you any hobbies …’

‘Hobbies? Sure!’ He patted her behind. ‘Drink, never touch it.’ There was whisky in a glass by his side. ‘Food.’ He looked at his watch. ‘In precisely forty minutes we shall make our leisurely way through shrimp bisque, cold baked ham in champagne, Russian salad, raspberry mousse …’

My mouth was watering.

‘… so if you would be kind enough to excuse us, Ginger, we have to go and prepare ourselves for luncheon.’

They rolled themselves into an oblivious embrace and I stood wondering what my editor was going to say to a
luncheon
menu, in which I hadn’t even been invited to join, as the sole outcome of my journey to Sussex and the interview with God’s gift to women, Clint McGowan.

I cried with humiliation all the way back to London. At the office my editor went berserk and had to take tranquillisers, and it took Mike all night to console me.

Because of his intervention they gave me another chance on the paper, but the name Clint McGowan and the image of the splendid torso and the insolent voice were etched for all time in my memory.

Ten years later the memory hadn’t faded, neither had the emotions it evoked.

In ten years much had happened to both of us. I was
Martha Munroe of the ‘Martha Munroe column’, the most sought-after and influential name-dropper in town, and Clint McGowan, after a brief moment of glory, was all but forgotten by most people.

His stay at the top was good while it lasted, but after a while his type ceased to appeal. He descended to B pictures, then television, then nothing. Not in this country at any rate. I’d heard he was drinking himself into premature middle age in the States, bumming around and living on the past.

In the powder room of the hotel where he was throwing the party I looked at my mirror image. ‘Ginger!’ My hair was still as red, I hadn’t changed much, just matured, acquired
confidence
and was at the top of my profession; a very nice spot to be when it had been your life’s ambition. I smoothed my white gown and put on my mental boxing gloves ready for Clint.

The noise in the Starlight Room hit me. I stood at the door for a moment to adjust. I thought of the first of these
stardusted
parties I had attended for my paper and how I’d looked with envy on the older columnists who’d thrown their arms round the lion’s neck cooing ‘daaah-ling!’ while I stood
nervously
hidden behind the canapés.

He saw me before I saw him. I had made my way to the centre of the room and had been greeted effusively by at least half-a-dozen celebrities, who would open their newspapers anxiously in the morning seeking for my column and their names, when Clint took my hand in both his.

‘Darling!’ he said. ‘Long time no see. You simply haven’t aged an inch.’

It was more than I could say for him. His chin was slack, the sandy hair had thinned and I guessed that the body beneath the frilled shirt would not now be quite so fine.

He turned to everybody. ‘Ginger!’ he said. He touched my hair. ‘Have you ever seen such a fabulous colour, and it doesn’t come out of a bottle either? Martha and I have known each other for years.’

‘Ten,’ I said, knowing my hair, which I wore in a chignon tonight, looked good.

He gave me a whiskied, double-sided kiss and halted a waiter with a tray of champagne cocktails. ‘See that this lady has
everything
she wants. It should be your party, darling, not mine.’

He put a glass in my hand and drew me into a corner.

‘This part,’ he said, ‘my agent fixed me a try-out. It’s just a question of convincing Rosensweig. He’s a simple guy, hasn’t heard my name just lately. I’ve been busy, investments, real estate, you know, maybe he never saw my early movies. You knew me then; you know I went down big: I’ve got the
know-how
. Rosensweig don’t like small people. If he likes you, all right. If he don’t, ruthless.

‘He’s got so much money he don’t give you a good
morning
. I don’t like guys who don’t like you when you’re down on your luck. You know how much this part’s worth? You’ll never get to see that many dollars. I get that part, I’m made. I just need a little build-up, see, public image and all that, a handful of publicity, Martha …’ He was sweating. ‘Name your price.’

‘That’s not how I work.’ I sipped the champagne. ‘Nobody buys space in my column. It just depends how I feel.’

He put an arm round my shoulders. ‘Darling,’ he said, ‘drink that little drink, there’s another where it came from and another after that. By the time you leave this room you’ll feel like a million dollars. I’ll see you home myself.’

There were plenty of people I knew and even more who wanted to know me. I circulated, making idle talk. Clint was never far away. Watching me like a lynx.

At eleven-thirty he put a hand beneath my elbow. ‘I’ll take you home,’ he said into my ear. ‘I know you have your column to write. Say goodnight to all these lovely people.’

The lovely people who had come to eat Clint’s food and drink his drink – who was paying, I wondered? – said goodnight.

I collected my coat and he led me to a waiting Rolls, hired, I assumed, for the evening.

As we skimmed down Park Lane through the night-lit
traffic
he explained, desperately and at speed, sitting on the edge of the seat and talking right at me, how exactly right he was for the part he was after and all he needed was a little public acclaim.

He handed me a list of all the well-known names at the party, aware, as I was, that nothing appears to succeed like success.

As we drew near my beautiful house in its beautiful square he signalled the chauffeur who slid back the glass partition.

‘Number seventeen for Mrs Munroe,’ he said. The tone slipped back ten years to when tired, and hungry, I had stood nervously on the Sussex terrace.

‘Not Mrs Munroe,’ I said.

He raised his eyebrows.

‘Mike and I were divorced four years ago. I just use the name for the column.’

The car purred to a halt.

‘You’re not married then?’ I saw a calculating look in his eye.

‘I married again.’

His face fell but only for a moment as he snapped, his
fingers
. ‘Pipped at the post again!’

The chauffeur held open the car door. We stood on the pavement.

‘You kept it all very quiet.’

‘There was nothing to make a noise about.’

I smiled charmingly and thanked him for a lovely evening.

‘I’ll stay up till the paper comes out,’ he said. He kissed me on the cheek. ‘You’ll give me a break, won’t you?’

I looked him directly in the eyes. ‘A very even one.’

‘I knew I could rely on you, Ginger,’ he said.

He kissed me once more and climbed back into the car. ‘Take it easy,’ he said, as the chauffeur was about to close the door. ‘We don’t want to waken the lady’s husband, do we? Who’s the lucky guy by the way?’

‘You don’t know?’ Surprised, my key remained half-turned in the lock.

‘Nobody told me.’

All at once I felt sorry for him, then I remembered Sussex, the blonde, my laddered stocking, the hot sun and the tray
with the ice-cold drinks. I looked at him, handsome still I had to admit, across ten years and the wide London pavement.

He had grown small but had I grown big?

‘Is it a name I should know?’

I turned the key fully and firmly in the lock.

‘Rosensweig!’ I said from the doorway. ‘Goodnight.’

The Inner Resources of Mrs Prendergast

1967

The moment Mrs Prendergast opened her eyes she knew it had arrived. They had warned her about it, pestered her with it, cajoled and pleaded, all to no avail. The day with all its incipient and disturbing innuendoes was upon her. She had already glanced at the front page of the daily newspaper and noted that there had been no air disaster reported. That was one worry off her mind.

Warmed by the spring sun, she decided before rising to allow herself a little wallow in the events of yesterday. Not that there would not be days in which to wallow; days, weeks, months, years, in fact. She would probably spend her time in the past, and that was exactly what they did not want her to do.

She was not interested, however, in what they wanted her to do. Thirty years had been spent at their beck and call. Today belonged to Laura Prendergast.

They had predicted she would cry and she had indulged,
it was true, in a little weep. They had assured her that her feet would ache. In this too, they had been correct. Her feet felt like two balloons at the end of her legs.

‘Wonder what it’s like in Majorca?’ Mr Prendergast called from the bathroom where he was shaving.

‘I doubt if they’ve seen much of it yet.’

‘Wassat?’

It was one of his more irritating habits. He would ask you something against the noisy buzzing of the electric shaver and expect to hear the answer.

Mrs Prendergast raised her voice. ‘I said I doubt if they’ve seen much of it yet!’

She was just able to see him, slightly pot-bellied, through the open door of the bathroom. He was concentrating on the hard-to-reach part beneath his chin and was not listening. The sight of him carried her back to her own honeymoon, spent in Brighton, a not un-smart place at the time, where she had watched fascinated as he deftly wielded a cut-throat razor at the old-fashioned washstand.

She had returned to this scene – the carpet had roses on, she remembered – on each occasion. When Michael got
married
, very correctly, choral and floral, to Lydia, so perfect in every aspect that Laura felt secretly that if she fell down a drain she would emerge smelling of violets; when Richard had appeared one unexpected weekend from Cambridge with an ever-so-slightly pregnant sandal-footed Olivia and confessed shiftily to a register office ‘quickie’; when Diana, all golden and dumb, had plighted her troth to Glint and flown away
to California, which was a wonderful place, so they said, for the golden and dumb; when Nicky, creeping his way
steadily
up the medical ladder, had predictably married the
theatre
sister whose task it was to hand him scalpel and retractor while making love to him with her beautiful green eyes over the top of her mask; when Elizabeth (was it only yesterday?) had finally emptied the nest and given herself – for what Mrs Prendergast suspected was not the first time – to something that called itself Nigel and wore mauve button-down crepon shirts and yachting caps, whom she had privately christened Goldilocks (his hair was longer than Lizzie’s) and who was said to be an up-and-coming Society photographer, a member of the new elite who, together with the up-and-coming, or already up-and-come, hairdressers, filled the discothèques by night and the Mayfair salons by day.

They were now, Mrs Prendergast assumed, safely in Majorca where later Lizzie, she guessed, would rub her spouse’s
delicate
skin with suntan oil.

It was a long way from Brighton, in every respect.
Geographically
it was a fair distance; in terms of change it was a million miles. When she had sat on the beach with Jack, rugs cosily round their knees, holding hands demurely and now and again throwing pebbles into the Brighton waves, neither of them had heard of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Korea or Vietnam.

Neither of them guessed that in years to come terms such as atom bomb, napalm, escalation, mescalin, psychedelic, astronaut, computer, inter-uterine coils, the Pill, Oxfam and Billy Graham would become everyday coinage. In those days,
people were neither square nor switched on, gear nor camp, grotty nor fantastic, and neither one of them had been to an all-night rave-up. Times, Mrs Prendergast observed, had changed.

She was fully aware that in the palmy Brighton era those women who found themselves, after a varying number of years, with their families married and gone, settled happily into middle-aged atrophy or preoccupied themselves with their roles as grandmothers. At this last thought she allowed herself a smile. It was a role she neither wanted nor was
prepared
to play.

The nursery at Lowndes Square was rigidly and admirably administered at all times by Nannie Prendergast with whom the good Lord in his mercy had seen fit to endow Michael and Lydia in the early days of their marriage; in Cambridge – where Richard was now a don – Goneril, Regan and Cordelia born, Laura swore, with less than nine months between each, romped happily, grubbily and usually knickerless around a household whose vocabulary did not contain such philistine words as nursery and where Olivia, again merrily pregnant, knew
nothing
of nannies, nylon-trimmed cradles (the babies went straight into the bottom drawer of the chest in their bedroom), nor of the necessity, now and again at least, of wiping noses.

In California – according to the photographs usually taken round the pool – Joanna was growing as beautiful and as
goldenly
dumb as her mother, and Hank as broad, razor-cropped and all-American as his father.

From the deepest wilds of Chislehurst, from which he
commuted to his hospitals daily, Nicky had produced so far nothing but articles for various eminent medical journals, and his green-eyed goddess, who always for one reason or another made Laura feel terribly inferior, was still as far as she knew sterilely handing over scalpels and retractors to augment the family budget.

As a grandmother Laura was redundant; a fact in which, to the horror of her various offspring who declared she had no inner resources, she inwardly rejoiced.

‘Enough is enough!’ she said firmly, wriggling her aching toes.

‘Wassat?’ The shaver was still buzzing.

‘I said “Enough is enough!”’ Laura yelled.

Jack extracted the plug from the socket. ‘I’m not deaf, yet. What are you talking about anyway?’

‘Just thinking aloud.’

She watched him dress, as she had for thirty years, sure that he was the only man in the world who fastened his cufflinks then made his hand very small in order to get it through the aperture. He brushed what was left of his hair, selected a tie and tied it with care, chose a matching spotted handkerchief for the pocket of his city suit and smiled at his reflection in the mirror.

She hoped he would leave the bedroom with the
affectionate
peck on the cheek that had become so familiar, the warm reliable hand resting for a moment on her shoulder. She knew he wouldn’t. He didn’t. He sat on the bed. He was as bad as the rest of them.

‘They’ve all gone.’ It was a statement rather than a question. ‘Would you like me to stay at home?’

‘The Bank Rate would fall at once!’

‘What will you do?’

‘Mind your own business,’ Laura Prendergast said.

She saw the hurt in his eyes and that he was about to repeat the question.

‘Mind your own business!’ she said firmly.

‘Would you like me to call Dr Littleton-Cooper?’

‘Why, Jack? Aren’t you feeling well?’

‘It’s you, you’re overwrought. The excitement of the
wedding
has been too much for you!’

‘I’m nothing of the sort,’ Laura said. ‘Now off you go and I’ll see you tonight.’

He looked at his watch. ‘Are you sure?’

She laid a reassuring hand on his. ‘You’ll be late.’

‘You looked beautiful yesterday.’

‘Thank you,’ Laura said. ‘My swan song.’

His hand was on the door. ‘What did you mean, “Enough is enough”?’

‘I was talking to myself,’ Laura said, ‘and it would take me all day to tell you.’

‘In that case I’ll be off. I’ll ring you at lunchtime.’

‘Don’t bother,’ said Laura, ‘I shan’t be in.’

‘Lunching with Lydia?’

‘With Laura Prendergast.’

‘Dr Littleton-Cooper wouldn’t mind, I’m sure …’

She twiddled two fingers at him. ‘Bye!’

The door closed gently and opened again a moment later to admit Jack’s head.

‘What did you think I’d be doing,’ Laura said from her
pillow
. ‘Dancing
The Firebird
in my birthday suit?’

Jack opened his mouth to speak.

‘Yes, darling,’ Laura said, ‘I know all about Dr
Littleton-Cooper.
Have a good day.’ He closed the door. ‘And don’t
forget
to take the things back to Moss Bros!’ she shouted after him.

She waited, as she had every day, except of course for the unmentionable period of the war, for the front door to slam, then lay back to allow herself one more retrospective and enjoyable glimpse of her baby, Elizabeth, walking up the aisle in the wedding dress which did not, Laura was ashamed almost to think, cover her knees.

‘Finished,’ she said to herself firmly, and then wondered how many days there were in thirty years. She was not going to work it out but confident that there must be several millions if not more, Laura put one aching foot (she should have ordered the satin shoes a size larger) out of bed when the telephone rang, and after that seemed unable to stop.

First it was Anne to say at extraordinary lengths what a marvellous wedding it had been and that Laura was not to brood and must come to lunch; after Anne it was Clara to vow she had shed tears and that Laura must not let herself go to pieces; Muriel thought the mini-dress delightful (she had always told lies easily and transparently) and Laura must join them for bridge to take her mind off things; Poppy said what
a charming couple (Laura noticed they all skated delicately round Nigel) and that Laura should go to evening classes, in the afternoons of course, and make pots or arrange flowers, just to keep herself occupied.

When Poppy had finished organising her life for her, she left the handset next to the telephone where it burped rudely and again put a foot out of bed. This time it was a knock on the door. Doris, who had worked for Mrs Prendergast for
twenty-five
of the thirty years she had been married and whose second name she could never remember, wept tears in recollection of her ‘baby’s’ wedding down her nylon overall, and said that on Mr Prendergast’s instructions Laura was on no account to be left alone. She picked up the breakfast tray and said she would be up immediately with another cup of coffee.

‘No more coffee,’ Mrs Prendergast said firmly, this time putting both feet out of bed and replacing the handset on the telephone.

‘If anyone calls, I am not at home. I am going to take a bath and afterwards you can bring up a bottle of champagne if we have any over.’

The tray rattled in Doris’s hands. Mrs Prendergast
pretended
not to notice and went into the bathroom. An hour later she was ready to go out.

In the morning room, into which she peeped from habit to see everything was tidy and the flowers fresh, she found Dr Littleton-Cooper. Her face tightened.

‘Good morning, Mrs Prendergast.’

‘Good morning, Dr Littleton-Cooper.’ She wondered, as
she often did, where he had picked up that ridiculous name. He was no more than a youth and it added nothing to his
stature
. Dr Smith, whose practice he had inherited, was ten times the man of this one, for all his fancy waistcoat.

‘I suppose my husband sent for you?’

‘As a matter of fact, it was the maid.’

‘Housekeeper. Maids went out with mob caps. Doris would be most insulted.’

‘She was worried about you.’

‘I can’t help that.’ Mrs Prendergast pressed the bell. ‘You’ll join me in a glass of champagne?’

This one needs treating carefully, his eyes said. ‘No, thank you, really …’

Doris came in with the tray and two glasses. Mrs
Prendergast
handed Dr Littleton-Cooper the bottle to open and sat in the easy chair. ‘Since you have come, you may as well earn the ridiculous and exorbitant fee Jack is fool enough to pay when we have a perfectly adequate National Health Service.’

The cork hit the ceiling and the white bubbling foam of champagne trickled down Dr Littleton-Cooper’s immaculate trousers.

‘Perhaps I will …’

‘Of course you will.’ Mrs Prendergast filled the two glasses.

‘To Freedom!’ Mrs Prendergast said, raising hers.

‘As you wish.’ Dr Littleton-Cooper stopped mopping at his trousers and raised his. ‘I really shouldn’t, when I’m working.’

‘You’ll need it by the time I have finished with you,’ Mrs Prendergast said. ‘Now just sit there and listen. How old are
you? Twenty-eight? Thirty?’ She answered her own question. ‘Practically since you were born I, Laura Prendergast, have been occupied with my family. I have endured six
pregnancies
, two with unpleasant complications, three with extended and painful labours, and the last resulting in the easy birth of a blond angel who survived for an hour.