‘Sure,’ Hilary said calmly, and could see her daughter looking at her, waiting for the caveat ‘when you’ve finished cleaning’. But she said nothing, squeezing ketchup onto her plate and taking a sip of coffee, for all the world like she hadn’t a care. Sophie flounced into the kitchen, glowering at her. Hilary ignored her and ate some white pudding and mushrooms.
‘Dad, we’ve decided we’re going to go to see The Talented Mr Ripley. Will you give us a lift to the cinema?’ she wheedled. Jude Law was her new pin-up. All her class thought he was ‘to die for’, and they were longing to see his new film.
Ha! thought Hilary. Glad I got out of that one.
‘How can I refuse the birthday girl, even though it was your birthday last Monday?’ Niall smiled at Sophie, handing his daughters their plates and taking his own and sitting down at the table beside Hilary. ‘Breakfast OK?’ he asked warily a while later, unused to her uncharacteristic silence.
‘Lovely,’ she said with faux breeziness, taking another slug of her coffee and finishing off the last of her sausage. She stood up and went over to the counter and poured herself a refill. ‘Anyone else want some?’ she asked, waving the percolator.
‘No thanks.’ Niall wolfed into his fry.
‘Uhhh . . .’ grunted Sophie.
‘Can I have more OJ, please?’ Millie asked, scrolling down through her texts. Hilary handed her the carton.
‘Excuse me, all,’ Hilary said politely, removing her plate from the table and putting it in the dishwasher.
‘Where are you going?’ Niall looked at her, surprised. The Saturday morning fry-up was traditionally a long leisurely meal when the family caught up with each other’s various goings on.
‘Back to bed.’
‘Are you sick?’ he asked, perplexed, because she had just eaten everything on her plate.
‘Nope, just tired,’ Hilary responded coolly. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the girls look at each other, clearly incredulous. What about the cleaning? she half expected them to ask. She didn’t give anyone the chance to say anything else. She took her mug of coffee from the counter and walked briskly from the room. She opened the front door, lifted the morning paper from the mat in the porch and tucked it under her arm and went upstairs. She felt a giddy sense of liberation when she put her mug on her bedside locker and plumped up her pillows.
Niall’s shirt was on the floor. She picked it up and brought it to his laundry basket in their en suite. It was almost full. She had planned to do a wash today and leave his shirts at the laundry for ironing. But her plans had changed, Hilary thought grimly. She was taking the day off. Time out. Let them all manage without her for a day.
She gave herself a quick freshen-up, patted some moisturizer onto her face and padded back to the bedroom. The rain was hammering on the roof, an angry impatient beat. A low growl of thunder echoed from the east. Perfect day for a duvet day, Hilary thought sliding into bed. Paper or book?
She dithered. Flick through the headlines and then settle down with the Anita Shreve, Hilary decided, snuggling down against the pillows and giving a luxurious stretch, watching the steely melancholy sky continue to unleash its volley of rain. It was strangely soothing to watch, snug beneath her downy quilt, and now that she had decided to step back and let the household get on without her she felt the tension she had been holding in every atom begin to float away.
‘Er . . . will I start hoovering?’ Sophie poked her head round the door ten minutes later.
‘Suit yourself,’ Hilary said, looking out over the top of her glasses.
Sophie looked so gobsmacked Hilary nearly laughed.
‘Em . . . what time are you getting up?’
‘I’m not.’ Hilary bent her head to her book.
‘But what about my sleepover?’ her daughter bleated plaintively.
‘Dad’s here, he can make up the salads to go with the pizza. I’m taking your advice, Sophie. I’m chilling. Now close the door like a good girl, I’m at a really terrific part in my book.’ Hilary repositioned her glasses and began to read with studied interest, much to Sophie’s consternation.
‘The door, pet,’ Hilary reminded her sweetly, grinning when her daughter shut it with a decisive bang.
‘You’re not getting up at all?’ Niall demanded five minutes later after Sophie relayed the news to him.
‘Nope,’ she said equably. ‘Duvet day!’
‘You can’t have a duvet day today. Sophie’s having a sleepover,’ he protested.
‘And?’ She arched an eyebrow at him.
‘Well . . . well . . . things have to be done, the food. The house needs hoovering,’ he blustered.
‘Sophie’s fifteen. I don’t need to hold her hand. Hoover if you want. It’s entirely up to you. Oh and here.’ She rooted in the drawer in her locker. ‘Give this to Millie for her shoes.’ She handed him some euro notes. ‘Can I get back to my book now, please?’
‘Do what you like,’ her husband said exasperatedly.
‘I certainly will,’ Hilary said.
‘Have you got PMT?’ he demanded, completely thrown by her totally uncharacteristic behaviour. She almost laughed watching him stand, legs planted apart, hands on his hips, jaw thrust out aggressively.
‘No, I feel perfectly fine. Please close the door when you go out,’ she said, rolling over onto her side towards the window, with her back to him, precluding any further conversation. There was silence for a moment and then she heard him leave the room. She felt as she’d felt the one and only time she’d mitched off school with a friend one wintry December day, when they had gone to see the first Star Trek movie on a weekday afternoon, so desperately infatuated with Mr Spock and Captain Kirk they couldn’t wait until the weekend. The movie had been disappointing, she remembered, with none of the humour and panache of the TV series; nevertheless it had been beyond exciting sitting in the darkened cinema with all the other devoted Trekkies, watching a shot of the USS Enterprise fill the huge wide screen of the Savoy. A sense of decadent exhilaration had filled her then, as she thought of her fellow classmates stuck at their desks studying geometry, and a similar feeling of decadent self-indulgence enveloped her today, lying in bed after midday on a Saturday when there was so much to be done. Let them at it, Hilary thought languorously as the words blurred on the page. She was stepping away from life’s daily grind for once, and if they weren’t careful she’d take tomorrow off as well.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Colette stretched cat-like on the luxurious emerald-green cushions on her lounger and gazed at the fine white silky sands and the translucent turquoise waters of the Caribbean. She was alone. Delightfully, desirably solitary at last. Jazzy was at boarding school. Her husband and, most thankfully, their house guests had flown back to New York on the private jet Des had hired to fly them all down to Turks and Caicos for the weekend. She’d had a stress headache since the previous night that had only begun to ease when the limos had pulled away from the villa and disappeared round the curve of road on Grace Bay that led to Providenciales Airport.
She glanced at her diamond-encrusted Baby Graff watch. The plane should be taking off in the next few minutes and the relief she felt at not being on it couldn’t be described. She was taking a scheduled flight in two days’ time to JFK via Miami, first-class of course. ‘I need that time to myself, Des,’ she’d insisted when he’d pointed out how expensive it was to hire a private jet, and a luxury villa in TCI, and then have to pay for a first-class flight back to New York when there was no need.
‘I don’t care, I’ll pay it out of my own money,’ she retorted. ‘And that’s rich to say that to me, considering you were talking about hiring the Gulf Stream, which is way, way more expensive than the Bombadier,’ she snapped. ‘That’s crazy money you’re spending on those stuck-up Wasps.’
‘Look you have to spend money to get money. You know what these people are like. It’s all about the image. Don’t forget Chuck Freemont knows Bernie Madoff and Steve Cohen persona
lly. These are the biggest big cheeses in wealth and hedge fund management you could meet and I want an introduction. If you think we’re doing OK now, babes, we will be on the pig’s back when we start investing with these guys.’ Her husband’s eyes gleamed with anticipation.
‘I know who they are,’ she retorted. ‘I read the Journal of Finance and the Wall Street Journal too,’ she added tartly, irritated that Des sometimes forgot that she wasn’t some ditzy blonde airhead who was only interested in lunching with the ‘girls’.
‘Well then you know that Cohen’s SAC had 70 per cent returns riding the high-tech wave last year and the year before. 70 per cent, Colette. The guy’s a financial genius! I want to work with him! Madoff’s another one; the returns on his investments are high, high, high! Hell, some of my clients can retire because of the fortunes his company has made for them,’ Des retorted. ‘I’ve worked my butt off for the last ten years and climbed higher than I ever thought we would over here, and now it’s time to make a killing and if your pa had any sense he’d listen to me and invest a million with Madoff.’
‘Des, we’ve had this conversation before. None of the major Wall Street firms invest with him, none of the major derivatives firms trade with him. They think his numbers don’t add up and he’s not legit. I’m warning you, don’t risk our money and all we’ve worked for on a gamble with him.’
‘For crying out loud, he’s a former non-executive chairman of NASDAQ . He runs a multibillion-dollar operation. Of course he’s legit. You’re dad’s a wuss not to take an opportunity if it comes his way and so would I be,’ Des scoffed.
‘Whatever, Des, just play it safe,’ Colette said wearily.
‘Colette, did you ever think we would be living in a swanky apartment on the Upper East Side, or own a condo in Aspen, and three villas to let in Florida, or have a house in Nantucket, or a share portfolio that would make your pa’s eyes water? Have I not managed our investments very well over the years?’
‘I suppose so,’ she conceded. ‘And we’re doing fine, so why do we need to be inviting these’ – she was tempted to call them freeloaders, but he would go ballistic – ‘these acquaintances, on a weekend trip that’s costing a fortune? I mean spending over a hundred thou for a weekend’s entertaining is way over the top.’
‘Contacts, honey, contacts. Money is no object to them – we must let them see it’s no object to us. Perception is everything. It’s time to take it up to the next level. This weekend will pay for itself one hundred times over, for the contacts we will make, trust me,’ he said expansively.
Her husband was right: contacts were everything, Colette admitted. Mixing in the right circles opened doors that led to opportunities that they had taken every advantage of. The first few years of their life in New York had been an absolute whirlwind as she and Des had, with a forensic determination, climbed the career and society ladder for all they were worth. Her background in fine art, her judicious name-dropping of British artists, film stars, jet-setters, and even royalty, ‘clients she’d had dealings with’ in Dickon and Austen’s, lent her authenticity and had impressed some of the people she had begun to socialize with.
It amazed Colette how the Americans adored the Royal Family and she had put that awe to impressive use when she had showed society matrons photos of Kensington Palace and the Orangery and formal gardens, and more or less implied that she had met Princess Diana and other royals who ‘lived just down the road from her in Kensington’, and who ‘dropped into’ Dickon and Austen’s to buy paintings and sculptures.
When the shocking news broke that the Princess had died in a car crash in Paris, she had received many calls from her American acquaintances and friends expressing their shock, dismay and grief. Indeed, Colette had been, like millions, stunned at the news. She had held a discreet ‘memorial lunch’ on the day of the funeral to which she had invited the guests she and Des had decided were most useful and influential. Gratifyingly when word got out that she was hosting such a lunch an invite became quite the prize.
Dressed in a Chanel LBD and her highest Louboutins, and wearing a single piece of jewellery – a gold Paloma Picasso necklace – she had welcomed her guests to view the funeral on their enormous TV. Her maid had served Cristal champagne with beluga caviar, and Perugian white truffles, and, for afters, delectable petits fours from Duane Park Patisserie in Tribeca, an occasion of sin Colette had happened upon when she had first moved to New York that served the most exquisite hand-made French delicacies.
That little social gathering had led to Des meeting the husband of one of her guests at a soirée they had been invited to, and a job offer at JPMorgan that had increased his earnings eventually to the seven-figure sum he was now on. She had been over the moon when they had finally moved into a rental apartment on the Upper East Side. That was when Colette and Des knew they had it made.
‘Sherman McCoy and Gordon Gekko have nothing on you, Des,’ his father-in-law had commented sardonically, walking under the elegant long green canopy at the entrance to their building, to be admitted by Ryland, one of their liveried doormen, into the foyer of their posh new residence.
‘Hell, don’t say that,’ Des exclaimed as they glided silently upwards in the sparkling mirrored elevator. ‘Look what happened to them! Those “Masters of the Universe” went belly up and I know people the likes of whom those characters were based upon, Frank, and I’m not one of them.’
‘Excellent,’ said his father-in-law wryly. ‘That’s good to hear. Colette and Jasmine are in safe hands.’
Frank and Jacqueline had flown over to New York to spend a long weekend with them in their new fifteenth-floor eyrie, with its parquet floors, Italian marble bathrooms, ‘European’-style kitchen and a view in the lounge, from a corner window, of ‘the Park’! It was still a view, corner window or not, Des had assured her proudly.
It was hard to believe that was almost five years ago, Colette sighed, as a boat drifted by on the aquamarine sea, red sails billowing in the trade winds. She reached out to take a sip of her G&T, luxuriating in her solitude. She had been as ambitious and eager for success as Des in those early years. She had revelled in their glitzy lifestyle that often saw her change her outfit five times a day to cover a coffee morning, lunch, launch, cocktail party and dinner she was regularly invited to.
But in the last year or so she had begun to weary of the constant treadmill their lifestyle subjected them to. Des worked practically seven days a week and was expected to be contactable by his boss 24/7. The more money he made the more he wanted. Last year’s bonus always had to be topped.
She was constantly entertaining his clients or potential clients as well as their social set – at home, or in Nantucket during the summer months. Or co-hosting gala events with some of her peers for this charity or that one. Colette exhaled deeply. The charity circuit was not for the faint-hearted. The events she’d attended or organized in Dublin and London had not prepared her for the cut-throat viciousness that was a fundamental trait of the immaculately coiffed, face-lifted, plastic-surgery-enhanced, designer-dressed socialites who frequently reduced each other to tears of fury and jealousy – in private of course – despite the air kisses and gushy greetings of endearment. The patrons of the New York charity scene made piranhas look tame, Colette reflected glumly, taking a rather large slug of her cool, refreshing drink.
The breeze whispered against her face and she felt some of the tension flow out of her limbs. She hadn’t realized just how stressed she was until she was alone. Wilted, that was how she felt, completely wilted from making small talk to people she hardly knew, and being constantly on the lookout to see that their every need was being met.
Chuck Freemont and his fat-thighed wife Dorothy had guzzled champagne from the minute they’d arrived on Friday evening, and had eaten their way through every expensive titbit put their way, as well as polishing off an entire box of hand-made chocolate liqueurs that had been placed in their guest suite.
Shirley, stick-thin wife
of Brandon van der Graffe, Des’s boss, had eaten nothing, except a few birdlike nibbles of lettuce and a couple of flakes of organic Irish salmon. She was constantly disappearing into their suite and looked suspiciously glassy-eyed throughout the weekend. She was edgy, anxious and deeply unhappy, and it was well known that coke was her only comfort. It was well known also that Brandon maintained an ultra glamorous young mistress in a pied-à-terre in Chelsea.
Des had looked a tad glassy-eyed, too, before the men had headed off to play golf and the women had settled to be massaged and beautified in their suites by a bevy of therapists Colette had employed on the Saturday afternoon. That had gone down very well, she thought, satisfied. And tomorrow she was going to have one of the therapists come over and massage her from head to toe, and give her a de luxe facial and to hell with the cost. She had worked her ass off this weekend being the perfect hostess. She deserved it.
Her taut, flat stomach gave a delicate little rumble and she realized she was hungry. She had had hardly any appetite for the rich food served by the chef who came with the villa, being far too stressed to actually enjoy a meal. That was no bad thing. She had to keep a strict watch on her calorie intake, she was determined to maintain her superb figure. Despite her spinning and cardiovascular workouts, and her jogs around the reservoir in Central Park, her tush was not as high and pert as it had once been.
There was some salmon and lobster left; she could have that with a salad but she’d have to get it herself. She had sent the staff home when they had cleaned up after the delicious lunch they had served to her departing guests. She’d eat soon and this time she’d enjoy every morsel of her food. How liberating not to have to talk to anyone, or keep an eagle eye out to make sure glasses were replenished with champers, costly wines and brandies. No one to worry about but herself. A rare and prized occurrence. Bliss!
A Time for Friends Page 23