The Rich Are Different (65 page)

‘Don’t be dense, Steven!’ said my wife crossly when I confessed my fears to her. ‘You’ve missed the whole point. I’m not frustrated. You satisfy me absolutely, so why should I go to bed with anyone else?’

Why indeed, I
thought, much reassured, and thought how great it was to be married to a modern sexually enlightened woman. All those old dodderers who complained that true womanhood had been wrecked by the war, jazz, cosmetics and a dozen other godless disasters just didn’t know what they were missing. I wouldn’t have left Caroline for the world. Each time I had a fling it was such a relief to go home to my smart competent wife who managed our marriage in such a splendidly understanding fashion, and I often thought how lucky I was to be married to the right woman.

Now I wasn’t at all sure I wanted to sleep with Dinah Slade, but it was nice to know that if I did I didn’t have to feel guilty about it. I vaguely thought I might make a play for her if she was nice enough, but I knew nothing serious would come of it. Paul’s taste in women wasn’t mine and I could no more imagine myself falling heavily for Dinah than I could imagine myself going crazy over Sylvia. Dinah would be my introduction to the free-and-easy side of London social life and possibly – though by no means probably – a partner in an amusing Charleston or two between the sheets. But that was all.

When my second drink was finished I went for a walk, cutting through Green Park to the Mall, and took a closer look at the English. God, what a race! I’ll never forget the shock I had when I first came to Europe and saw them at close range. I felt just how a big bold lobster must feel when he’s flung into a pot of boiling water. After all, I’d grown up on the Eastern Seaboard and my parents were society people – I know the Irish name gave people the chance to be snobbish, but my mother was descended from a Singer and we all knew Great-great-grandfather Sullivan had been named in dispatches by General Washington himself. I came to England thinking I’d muscle into every old castle in sight but all I got were glacial looks, as if I were a footman who’d got so big for his breeches he’d burst his backside seam. I was never so shocked in all my life – and hurt too. I’d only wanted to be friendly.

Paul took me in hand. Paul had an English personality which he could pull on like a glove and a pedigree receding to the seventeenth century, and the English, as Caroline remarked, thought he was ‘just darling’. He taught me how to behave, how to be tolerant, how to turn the other cheek whenever the English looked at me as if I were an exotic animal who would definitely be better off running wild on the other side of the globe.

‘But the English love animals!’ protested Paul when I complained. ‘When you’ve proved you’re tame they’ll lavish affection on you!’

He was right. I became ‘a pretty decent sort of chap for a foreigner’ which is the English equivalent of ‘he’s a nice guy – for a Negro’. Later I graduated to: ‘He’s a sporting sort of fellow for an American’, a great improvement because the English love sportsmen and think Americans are the smartest kind of foreigner because they can speak English. At the end of my two-year stay came the crowning triumph. There were no official test matches in 1919 but the Australian Imperial Forces team played England at cricket, and one day in London I met someone who asked me if I knew
what the score was. Of course I had no idea but before I could speak the guy gasped thunderstruck: ‘My dear chap, forgive me! I quite forgot you were an American!’

I sailed home in a cloud of glory.

However, now that I had returned to England I had no illusions about the difficulties which were waiting to depress me. If I wanted all the social doors to be flung wide open it was no good crashing around like a New York bull in a china-shop. It was not enough either just to tone myself down and make sure I knew who was winning the Test Match. Someone English had to vouch for me. Someone English had to take me by the hand and tell everyone how civilized and domesticated I was. And that someone was going to be Dinah Slade.

Crossing the Mall into St James’s Park I wandered over the lawns and paused on the bridge to watch the towers and minarets of Horseguards. Suddenly my exuberance returned with a bang. To hell with the English, I thought as I had so often thought before, England’s a great country! Later, crossing Piccadilly, I savoured the narrow twisty little streets of Mayfair, the sedate rows of town-houses and the old-fashioned horse-carts still mingling with the tiny trucks and automobiles. It was just like a giant movie set out of Hollywood. I liked all the funny English accents too, and the English newspapers with their old-world spelling and the Union Jack flying everywhere instead of the Stars and Stripes. In fact it was really a great little place and I was more convinced than ever that Americans who turn up their noses at Europe are missing a wonderful experience. Of course America’s the best country in the world, we all know that, but I don’t believe it’s unpatriotic to admire a country other than one’s own.

Back at the Ritz I splashed around in the bath and dressed for dinner. In an effort to look English I removed my diamond ring, wore my plainest set of cuff-links, and flattening my curly hair with water I brushed it until it gave up trying to do anything except lie down. To my relief I saw I could almost pass for an investment banker, and feeling pleased with myself I ran downstairs, grabbed a cab and sailed off down Piccadilly to Dinah’s address in Belgravia.

[3]

She had the quaintest little mews house. The mews reminded me of MacDougal Alley in New York but the Alley was probably a couple of hundred years younger. The narrow street was cobbled. Dinah’s house was painted white with black trim and there were geraniums planted in every window-box. The eight other houses in the row were just as smart and after paying off the cab-driver I paused again to admire the scene before I rang the bell.

The door was opened by a small thin boy with a chocolate moustache.

‘Hullo Alan!’ I said to Paul’s son. ‘Remember me?’ And suddenly Paul’s memory was reaching far across my mind.

‘Of course
I remember you!’ said the little kid peevishly, speaking with a snooty English accent which would have tickled Paul pink. ‘I remember everything!’ He offered me a sticky hand to shake and added in his high adult little voice: ‘Please come in, Mr Sullivan.’

I stepped directly into the living-room where a couch and armchairs were grouped around a fine fireplace. Flanking the mantel on either side were a bookcase and dresser, both antiques, and a bowl of daffodils glowed on a highly polished table. A print of a knight hung on the wall by the staircase at the far end of the room. Having expected to find Dinah in some grand town-house sumptuously furnished by the best decorator in London I was greatly surprised by this cosy little
pied-à-terre.
I wondered where she gave her cocktail parties and big dinners. Perhaps she had rooms set aside above the salon on Grafton Street.

‘Mummy’ll be down in a minute,’ Alan explained. ‘She’s late because she’s been working so hard. My mother,’ he added, ‘thinks it’s bourgeois for women to lead idle unproductive lives. Tell me, Mr Sullivan, do you think the bourgeoisie are more of a threat than the aristocracy to the development of true socialism?’

I saw the smugness in his eyes and knew he was showing off. The precocious little kid! He was barely six years old, the same age as my younger son Tony who had the good sense to talk about trains, cowboys and baseball.

‘Sonny,’ I drawled, ‘we don’t have that kind of problem where I come from.’ I wandered over to take a look at the knight. ‘Who’s this guy?’ I demanded as I heard the patter of his feet behind me.

‘Do you like him? I do!’ His voice became eager as he forgot the bourgeoisie. ‘That’s a brass-rubbing from an old church and the knight’s called Sir Roger de Trumpington.’

He was looking up at me enthusiastically with Paul’s bright dark eyes. A lump formed in my throat. I could almost hear Paul say: ‘You’re too damned sentimental, Steve!’ but that only made the lump more painful. In the end I just said: ‘Your daddy would have been so pleased with you.’

A stillness smoothed all expression from his face. He backed away. ‘Mummy!’ he called frantically. ‘Where are you? Why don’t you come down?’ And he dashed up the stairs as if I’d turned into a monster who’d tried to gobble him up.

I sighed. I’d forgotten the English hate any display of sentiment, and I was still staring ruefully at the stern face of Sir Roger de Trumpington when a slight sound made me look up.

Dinah was at the head of the stairs.

I sucked in my breath with a rasp. She’d lost a lot of weight but instead of making her look flat the loss only emphasized the curves that hadn’t disappeared, and those curves were now all in the right places. Her silvery dress rippled as she walked. She wore silver high-heeled slippers, a silverish circlet around her sleek dark hair and a huge diamond ring on the highly manicured fourth finger of her right hand. Her long diamond earrings swayed
languidly, and smoke from her diamond-studded cigarette-holder curled upwards with style. Her lips were moistly scarlet, her eyes heavily shadowed, her long lashes jungle-thick. When she smiled I thought my welcome was going to be formal and cool but when she spoke her voice – ah, that seductive English accent! – was as warm and winning as it had been on the phone.

‘Steve! Handsome as ever!’

‘Miss Theda Bara? Or is it Miss Clara Bow? How’s Hollywood these days?’

We laughed. As our hands clasped she said amused: ‘I was determined to be the juiciest steak on the slab!’

‘Pardon me?’

‘Don’t you still look at women as if they were meat in a butcher’s shop?’

‘You bet!’ I said good-naturedly, realizing I was being teased, but I couldn’t help being impressed by how much trouble she’d taken to look sizzling. In fact I thought it was damned nice of her to put on such a big production when we’d never exactly been the best of friends.

‘You’ll have a drink, of course,’ she said, and suddenly a white cloth was whipped off an ice-bucket and there was the magnum of champagne she had promised me on the day Paul died.

‘So you remembered!’ I was agog with admiration.

‘Of course! Do open it, Steve – men open champagne bottles so much better than women do.’

‘Why, sure!’ It was a long time since I’d heard that kind of remark. As I broke the seal it occurred to me that European women really did have a great deal to offer.

The champagne was the prelude to a remarkable evening. We couldn’t empty the magnum but we ate all the caviare before taking a cab to the Savoy where we continued dinner in that room overlooking the river. Dinah was obviously a regular customer because when the
maître d
’ saw her he bowed low and we were immediately ushered to the best table by the window. We ordered Scotch salmon for the fish course and then I salivated among the clarets on the wine list before choosing a Chateau Latour 1920 to accompany our roast beef. I could see Dinah was surprised I was able to discuss the wines competently with the wine-waiter. American ignorance about wine is notorious – which was why Paul made me study the subject thoroughly when I was with him in England. It was all part of the plan to kid the English I was tamed and civilized.

‘So how’s the world treating you?’ I inquired when we had dealt with the preliminaries and were free to catch up on each other’s news.

We chatted in a bright breezy fashion for some time. I had on my best European manners and she had on her best blasé English accent. She said she was making
rather
a lot of money – naturally I wasn’t so crassly American as to ask how much – and the salon was doing
frightfully
well and they’d just bought another warehouse and the pay-roll kept expanding, and it was just too
exhausting
, darling, honestly, but all rather fun. Apparently her friend Harriet had the big house where all the business entertaining was
done, but once a month there were house-parties at Mallingham – rather divine, darling, and everyone
adored
the house —but otherwise she never saw Mallingham, she was just too busy in London making all the
filthy
money, so vulgar, darling, but what could one do? One got caught up in a materialistic treadmill and one simply
couldn’t
get off. Yes, she was still a sort of socialist, but let’s be honest, darling, it was rather heaven being rich, the Webbs should have tried it some time, not to mention Lenin, Trotsky and that
horrid
man Stalin … And talking of communists, how accidental was Bruce Clayton’s accidental death, and what really did happen at One Willow Street when cool, calm, collected Terence O’Reilly suddenly decided to assassinate everyone in sight?

I had had a great deal to drink but I still had my wits about me. I fed her the story I’d told my partners and admitted O’Reilly was the arch-conspirator instead of a religious lunatic.

‘And where did Greg Da Costa fit into it all?’

I explained Greg’s passive role.

‘But if he didn’t put up the money who did?’

I put the blame squarely on the Soviet government, and was just becoming nervous when she smiled brilliantly and said in a bright voice: ‘Well, now that
that’s
all over, Steve darling, can I have my deed back?’

‘Deed?’ I said, still weak with relief that she had swallowed the foreign government theory.

‘Deed, Steve. D-E-E-D. The deed conveying Mallingham to Paul.’

‘Oh, the conveyance. Yeah … Dinah, I’m sorry but it never did turn up.’

‘What!’ Her brittle manner cracked at the seams.

‘Wait, here’s what I think happened …’ I did feel guilty that I’d forgotten all about the damned deed, so I made a valiant attempt to explain. ‘Bart Mayers, who was killed shortly after Paul, was assigned to destroy all Paul’s private correspondence which was kept among the secret files in the vaults. It seems clear to me that—’

‘He burnt the deed to Mallingham along with my correspondence with Paul.’ All affectation was gone. Suddenly she was tense, direct and natural. ‘But Steve, what the hell am I going to do? I must get this business straightened out. Perhaps if I wrote to Cornelius—’