‘You’re up early, Chloe. Happy New Year.’
‘Happy New Year,’ said Chloe and burst into tears.
‘Oh now, this won’t do,’ he said, smiling at her and producing a large spotlessly clean hanky from the pocket of his rather dirty breeches. ‘What’s the matter, fallen out with the boyfriend?’
‘I haven’t got a boyfriend,’ said Chloe, sniffing and trying to smile at the same time, ‘to fall out with.’
‘Just as well. Load of trouble, boyfriends.’
‘Are they?’
He looked at her, at the smudged brown eyes, the drawn white face, the helpless droop of the mouth, and wondered what was wrong. She could hardly be missing her mother: Caroline gave her less love and attention than a cat its kittens. ‘Is your papa all right?’ he asked sharply, for Sir William’s health had been giving cause for concerned gossip all over the county.
‘Yes, I think so. Yes, he’s fine.’
‘Your brothers been torturing you? Little buggers,’ he added conversationally.
‘No worse than usual.’
‘Would you like a cup of tea? I’ve one in the flask.’
‘Oh yes, Jack. I’d love one.’
‘Come on then. Into the office. I’ve some biscuits too.’
‘I’m not hungry.’
‘Please yourself. Well now,’ he went on as she settled herself into the tattered leather chair in front of his desk, ‘are you going to tell me what’s the matter or not?’
‘I – I don’t think I can.’
‘Is it something to do with your mother?’ he asked carefully.
‘Yes. No. Oh, Jack, I don’t think I ought to talk about it. It’s – well, it’s family.’
‘Why not talk to your papa?’
‘Oh, no!’ She looked at him, horror filling her eyes. ‘No, I couldn’t. He’d be so – well, no, I couldn’t. It would upset him even more than me.’
She looked at Jack and his grey eyes were very tender, very thoughtful, and there was a long silence before he spoke. Then he said, ‘Chloe, this may seem strange to you, but I’ve known your mother for a very long time. Since she was a lot smaller than you. We’re – well, we’re as close as two people could be, coming from different classes and backgrounds, and me working for her. And when she’s needed a friend – which she has from time to time, especially when she was younger, your grandmother not being much use to her, and before she was married to Sir William – I’ve tried to be that friend. I even made a speech at her wedding. I’m very fond of her, and I think she is of me.’
Chloe was sitting speechless, staring at him.
‘There hasn’t been much happened to her over the years that I haven’t known about. I’ve never told a soul, of course. I wouldn’t dream of it, you don’t have to worry. Now you don’t have to say anything, anything at all, and certainly not now. But if you do need someone to talk to, or have any questions, you could try me. It would never go any further. All right?’
Chloe nodded. She still didn’t say anything.
‘Well now,’ he said more briskly, ‘I’ve work to do. Your brothers are hunting today and there’ll be trouble if their horses aren’t ready. Your grandfather used to make your mother tack her own horses up. Much better really. But they can do no wrong, those boys, not in your mother’s eyes, can they?’
Chloe shook her head.
‘So if you’ll excuse me now, I must get on. I should go and get some breakfast if I were you. I’ll be here later on if you need anything.’
‘Thank you, Jack.’
By mid morning the rain had stopped and a watery silvery sunshine was washing over the drenched fields; Jack was just getting Caroline’s horse ready to take him out and exercise him before he kicked the entire loose-box to bits when Chloe arrived in the yard, very pale and composed, with a determined look in her eyes.
‘Jack,’ she said, rather quickly, as if fearing she might change her mind before she had finished speaking, ‘Jack, do you know who Brendan is, and is it him my mother’s gone to see in New York?’
1963
‘You’re fired. As of now. Just get your coat and go. OK?’
‘But –’
‘But nothing. You were rude to that lady, and nobody in this diner is rude to anyone. OK. Now go. Scram.’
Fleur scrammed. She walked along the road, furiously swinging her bag. It just wasn’t fair. No one was nice to her, no one would help her. Aunt Kate treated her like she was six, her teachers at high school all hated her and criticized her constantly, her own mother was refusing to send her any more money. And now just because some old woman had complained when she slopped just a tiny bit of coffee in her saucer, and she had answered her back, quite mildly really, she’d been fired from her night job at the diner, which was her only hope of getting together enough money to go to Los Angeles.
Over a year she’d been waiting now; it was driving her mad. And she had to go, had to know what had happened.
She didn’t believe one word of the letter her mother had written. Well, she believed it, but it just wasn’t sufficient explanation. Her father had been a sensible, strong person; he just wouldn’t have got so drunk he didn’t know what he was doing and wandered on to the freeway and been run down. She’d written back saying as much, and saying she could remember Miss duGrath herself saying it was the story that had killed him, the story and the system, and she wanted to know what story and what system. If Caroline wouldn’t tell her, she would find out some other way. If it meant going to Los Angeles, she would go. Perhaps Caroline would send her the money for her fare.
Caroline then wrote back (desperately playing for time), and said Fleur was not to go on her own, and that there was no question of her sending her the money; if she was really determined to go, then she would go with her. She said in any case they had only just begun to get to know each other and needed more time together. Fleur had got terribly excited about this, and had even drafted a letter to Miss duGrath, telling her they were coming but then Caroline had written again (and this had made Fleur really angry,) and said she couldn’t come just now because her husband was ill. Not merely ill, he was dying, he had a brain tumour, and because of the nature of his illness, he was subject to very violent mood swings, and she knew that not only would he not be able to cope with her absence, but the family would not either. Fleur wrote back as politely as she could and said that of course her mother must stay with her husband, she could wait. Unless Caroline would send her the money for her trip and she could go on her own.
Caroline had then replied to say that she was not prepared to send Fleur the money to go to Hollywood on her own (although she would on the other hand very much like to make available the money to send her to college) and she would just have to wait, for a great many reasons, not least of which was that she wanted to be with her when and if she began to make some discoveries. Whereupon Fleur decided that if she was ever to get to Hollywood, she would have to forget about Caroline and raise the money herself.
She had got the job at the diner quite easily; she was pretty and personable and had seemed an ideal waitress. Which she was in some ways: she was quick and neat, could run the bills up in her head, and never forgot a side order or whether or not a coffee was to be white or regular. The only problem was the customers. Fleur was finding everybody pretty enraging these days, she couldn’t get along with anybody, not even her friends; all her teachers and her aunts had a down on her, and she spent a large part of every day in a furious bate. But the customers were something else: demanding, stupid, ungrateful, mean with their thanks, meaner with their tips. She found it harder and harder to smile, and almost impossible to be polite. And this evening she hadn’t managed it, and now she’d got the sack; and only seventeen dollars saved towards her fare.
It just wasn’t fair; why did she have to have such a hard ti
me? Other girls had mothers who looked after them and cared for them; she had no one except scratchedy old Aunt Kate, who got worse-tempered every day. She missed her grandmother horribly; although Kathleen had been old, she had been much younger at heart than her daughters, always ready to hear about what Fleur was doing, the clothes she wanted to buy, the films she went to, the music she liked. Living with Kate was awful; and there was no hope of college, no hope at all. There was no money. Caroline had offered to send her, but she didn’t believe anything Caroline said any more. No doubt she would need all her money sending her crappy daughter to some expensive school or other. Anyway, she didn’t want any of Caroline’s money. She was still only a very little way down the road of forgiving her; the last thing she wanted was to be any more beholden to her than she already was. One day, when she was a person in her own right, when she could meet her mother on equal terms, then perhaps they could become friends. But not before.
Although how on earth she was to be a person in her own right, Fleur had no idea. Without college, without a proper education. She was just going to have to be a stenographer somewhere, for some crabby old man, her brains wasted, and would probably die an old maid. Life was awful. She wished she was dead.
By the time she got home she was actually crying; great tears of self-pity and rage rolling down her cheeks. She went in, ignored Kate, poured herself a cup of coffee from the pot on the stove, and went up to her room. She hardly heard the phone ringing.
‘Fleur, you don’t know me, but my name is Joe Payton. I’m a friend of your mother’s. I’m in New York and she’s asked me to see you.’
‘You don’t have to see me.’
‘I know I don’t have to. But I want to. I’m very fond of your mother and I think you ought to know you’re causing her a lot of anxiety.’
‘Oh, is that right? Well, why doesn’t she just cut me out of her life again? Then she wouldn’t have to experience any anxiety at all.’
‘You,’ said the English, slightly drawly voice, ‘need your bottom smacked.’
Fleur put the phone down. It rang again immediately.
‘I don’t know who’s brought you up, but they should have told you that was an extremely unpleasant and alienating thing to do. Not to mention the height of rudeness. I had planned to try and help you. Even tell you a few things which might make you feel better. I really don’t think I can be bothered. Now if you feel like apologizing, and making an appointment to see me, you can ring me at the St Regis. Otherwise, you can climb back into your self-pitying little shell and stay there.’
Fleur sat, looking at the phone, tears of self-pity and outrage stinging at her eyes. What did he know, sitting there in his ritzy hotel, what did he know about being lonely and scared and needing money and no way, it seemed, of getting any, and how dared he slag her off as if he had some claim over her? Stupid bastard. God, she hated them all. All of them. Well, there was no way she was going to apologize. No way. She didn’t need his help. And no doubt now he’d report back to Caroline that she had rejected him and been rude into the bargain and they would compare her with the mealy-mouthed Chloe and that would be the last she’d hear from any of them. Well, good. She didn’t need them. She didn’t need anyone. She was managing perfectly well on her own, and . . .
‘No, you’re not, you silly bitch,’ she said aloud, ‘you’re not managing at all.’
‘What was that, Fleur?’ said Kate who was passing through the hall.
Fleur said, ‘Nothing,’ and went and sat on the stairs and reflected how badly she was managing, how much she did need help and that it had been really kind of Joe Payton, whoever he was, to offer it, and she certainly needed it, could probably use him if she put her mind to it. After a strong cup of coffee and several false starts she managed to psych herself up to pick up the phone and ring the St Regis.
‘Is this Mr Payton? This is Fleur FitzPatrick. I’m very sorry I was rude. I guess it was pretty inexcusable. I – I got fired today, from my job. I was upset. But I’d really like to see you. Please?’
There was a long silence. Then Joe Payton said, ‘OK. I’m sorry about the job.’
‘Yeah, well, I guess it wasn’t much of one. At a diner.’
‘A job’s a job. Never mind, I’m sure you’ll get another. How about lunch tomorrow?’
‘Sure. That’d be good. Where shall I come?’
‘To the hotel. You know where it is?’
‘Yes, I do. Thanks.’
Joe was sitting waiting for her in the lobby. Fleur looked at him, long and lanky and somehow too big for himself, holding The Times in large bony hands, unmistakably English, with his slightly shabby sports jacket, extraordinarily long legs crossed in well-worn grey flannels, a large hole in the sole of one of his brown brogue shoes, a button hanging perilously at the end of a long thread on a very frayed cuff, his blond-streaked brown hair flopping untidily over his forehead, and all her hostility, her suspiciousness had gone: she fell in love with him, just like that. She was not properly familiar with the emotion at the time, had only known pale shadows of it before, crushes on masters, on boys at school, but she recognized it none the less for what it was, strong, tender, sweeping, afflicting her mind, her body and her heart in equal intensities.
‘Mr Payton? Fleur FitzPatrick,’ she said.
He stood up and a pair of green eyes in a thin, freckled face looked at her with interest and amusement, and he gave her his hand in return, a strong, very warm hand, and that first touch affected her with such strength, such force that she was to remember it for the rest of her life. ‘How do you do,’ he said and the voice was the usual English drawliness, but with a funny slightly gravelly quality.
‘I hope I’m not late,’ she said, ‘I missed the Express.’
‘No, it’s fine. I’ve been nursing a martini, which I only drink in New York, and reading yesterday’s Times. You look very smart. I’m afraid I don’t quite compete with you.’
‘Oh,’ said Fleur, pleased and surprised he had noticed: she was in her very best clothes, a short kilt over black tights, with a grey turtle-neck sweater and loafers, and Kate’s black blazer which wasn’t quite right, but better than her own kicked-about donkey jacket. ‘Oh well, I don’t go out to lunch every day.’
‘Me neither,’ he said. ‘Let’s go in.’
They ordered. Fleur, only slightly daunted by the menu, ordered steak, and avocado.
‘Shall we share a tournedos?’ said Joe. ‘They’re very good here.’
‘Yeah, OK.’
Joe smiled at her, a wide, friendly smile; her heart turned over. God, what was happening to her? This was strong stuff. She hauled herself back into line. Sexy, altogether gorgeous he might be, but he was one of them, one of the other side; she had to be careful.
‘Right. Do you drink?’ he said.
‘Yes. Of course.’
‘Sorry. Didn’t mean to insult you. Let’s have a bottle of the Sancerre. It’s delicious. Now then. Where shall we begin?’
‘I don’t know. How is my mother?’
‘She’s extremely – upset. And exhausted. With nursing her husband. You know he’s died? She’s been wonderful. She never left him for more than an hour or so. It’s a particularly horrible thing, that.’
‘Yes,’ said Fleur, carefully sober, ‘yes, I know it must have been very difficult for her. I do try and remember. It just – gets hard sometimes.’
‘I expect it does. And your – that is, Chloe, she was terribly devoted to him you know, she’s been horribly upset. That’s been hard for Caroline too.’
‘What’s she like?’ said Fleur, unable to suppress her genuine curiosity.
‘I haven’t met her. But I believe she’s sweet: an old-fashioned girl.’
‘No wonder my mother likes her so much,’ said Fleur sourly.
‘No wonder,’ s
aid Joe Payton easily. He looked at her consideringly. ‘But Fleur, she – she likes you very much too. You have to believe that.’
‘Oh, really?’
‘Yes, really. And she’d like you more if she knew you better.’
‘Yeah, well, that’s her fault isn’t it? Sending me and my dad away, for ever.’
‘She didn’t have a lot of choice,’ said Joe and his voice was gentle.
‘Yeah, she told me,’ said Fleur. She could hear her voice hardening. ‘I’m afraid I still find that a little hard to believe.’
‘And there’s something else,’ said Joe. ‘She really wants to pay for you to go to college. Why won’t you let her?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Fleur, although she did, quite clearly: she didn’t want three or four years of being beholden to Caroline, being grateful, being nice. ‘I just don’t.’ She was silent; then her natural pragmatism spoke: ‘But I might like to go to secretarial school. Get a good job that way.’
‘I’ll pass that message on,’ said Joe, smiling at her with an odd complicity.
He understands, she thought, with a thud of her heart; he really does understand. ‘Does my old-fashioned sister know about me?’ she asked, her voice more than usually truculent.
‘Yes, she does. She found out while your mother was here with you. She was very shaken. But I think she’s survived.’
‘Oh.’ She was silent, digesting this information. ‘So what’s your relationship with my mother? Platonic? Or what?’ She knew it was an impertinent question, that she was not handling this well, but it seemed desperately important. She needed to establish just where Joe stood in this complex business and how she could and should react to him.
‘I don’t know,’ he said easily, ‘that it has a great deal to do with you.’
AN Outrageous Affair Page 24