AN Outrageous Affair

by Penny Vincenzi

  ‘Joe, it’s black tie. For heaven’s sake.’

  ‘Caroline,’ said Joe, all the old pain, the jealousy coming back, ‘Caroline, don’t boss me about. I’ll wear what I like.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ said Caroline, and put the phone down.

  Joe rang her back.

  ‘Sorry, Caroline. Of course I’ll wear black tie. And I’d like to come with you.’

  But his voice still sounded odd and he knew it.

  Chloe bought herself a dress from Saint Laurent for the investiture, in navy blue gabardine, with a white and navy straw hat: very simple, very elegant. She felt increasingly as if she was not herself at all, but some actress playing her part. Piers had had a new black morning coat made at Hawes and Curtis; he was also wearing a wing-collar shirt rather than a turn-down, and a silk top hat, more than half a century old, that he had managed to acquire from Herbert Johnson. He was very worried about the whole thing, and spent a great deal of time fretting over whether the trousers looked too loose, made him look too painfully thin, whether the morning coat was just a shade too long, whether the top hat was just too much of an affectation. Chloe, half amused, half irritated, told him at the frequent trying-on sessions that he looked marvellous, and wondered what life would be like if she was as vain as he.

  Dream Street did not win the Derby. He came in sixth. Piers was bitterly disappointed and told Chloe it was more frustrating than if he had come in sixteenth. He nevertheless hosted a lavish celebration at the Savoy, made an extravagant speech extolling the brilliance of his trainer, Bill Peterson, and said he knew that next year they would go on to win. The press, who loved the juxtaposition of horsey and theatrical society, took endless photographs of Piers with Dream Street and Pandora, dressed for the Derby in a dress in her father’s colours. Chloe told Ned, who was upset not to be included in the fuss, that horses were horrible animals and best stayed away from.

  A week later, the birthday honours list was published and a week after that Dream Street won twice at Ascot.

  ‘At last,’ said Piers, smiling beatifically at his guests, waving a champagne glass slightly hazily, ‘at last my luck has turned.’

  In New York, Fleur FitzPatrick heard, over lunch at the Four Seasons with Baby Praeger and Nigel Silk, that Serena Silk’s friend, the actor Piers Windsor (‘Didn’t you meet him once with us, Fleur, I seem to have some recollection’) was to be knighted in Queen Elizabeth’s birthday honours. Fleur excused herself and went to the Rest Room; the men agreed that she had looked very pale all of a sudden.

  ‘Women’s things, I expect,’ said Baby Praeger authoritatively, indicating to the wine waiter to pour some more of the Château Lafitte they were so greatly enjoying and to bring a second bottle.

  Nigel Silk nodded sagely. ‘Probably. So are you going to be able to help her, Baby? She’s very talented, you know, and an early protégée of mine.’

  ‘Oh really?’ said Praeger. ‘I had suspected something of the sort. I wouldn’t mind having her as a protégée myself, I have to say.’

  ‘You misunderstand me,’ said Nigel pompously.

  ‘I’m quite sure I don’t,’ said Baby with his radiant grin.

  Fleur was very upset that night and cried angrily, furiously on Reuben’s shoulder. He held her and soothed her and listened to her and told her she was right to be angry; he suggested she might like to see Dorothy too.

  Fleur told him she thought she was probably all right on her own.

  A week before the investiture, Magnus Phillips was riding his motorbike up the M1 and had just passed the turn-off for Luton when a Mercedes veered over from the inside lane, and cut sharply in front of him; there was a three-car pile-up, from which Magnus emerged extremely badly cut and bruised, and with an arm fractured in two places, the bone actually protruding through the flesh just below the elbow, and a broken front tooth, which, as he remarked, did nothing for his sex appeal, but otherwise miraculously unscathed. The Mercedes did not stop; witnesses reported it accelerating at at least a hundred and ten up the motorway. An hour later, a London businessman reported his Mercedes stolen from outside his house; the car was found abandoned in a small wood just outside Leicester.

  When the police asked Magnus if he had any idea who the driver might have been, he said he hadn’t; they asked him if anyone had a grudge against him and he said there were so many it would take a week to list them. The police cautioned him with being flippant and he said he was very sorry, and no, he really couldn’t think of anyone in particular.

  Three days later, Richard Beauman was phoned in the middle of the night, and told it was the police and he should get down to his office urgently, it was on fire. When he got there, the entire building had gone; mercifully most of the records, manuscripts, and files were stored in a metal safe and survived intact.

  Later that day Beauman went to see Magnus Phillips who was still in considerable pain from his arm and said enough was enough and he didn’t care about any fucking writ, he was going to publish The Tinsel Underneath.

  ‘Only we’ll keep that out of the papers. For the time being. I’ve found a printer who’s willing to play ball and who’s already at work setting – what was it? Oh, yes.’ He smiled. ‘A History of Fleet Street. I really don’t think we’re going to have any trouble with the distributors after all this. And get the lawyers on the phone, straight away,’ he said to the new, very pretty but rather dim new secretary he had hired after Marilyn Chapman had so inconveniently resigned, with no good reason at all that he could see.

  Joe Payton heard about the fire, and Magnus’s accident, at El Vino’s where he was having lunch. He rang Chloe straight away; she asked him to go to the house; Ludovic was there.

  ‘It’s horrendous,’ she said, looking distraught, ‘everyone will think it’s something to do with Piers. I don’t know what to do.’

  ‘Absolutely nothing,’ said Ludovic. ‘And if anyone asks you, just keep saying you don’t know anything about any of it. Don’t elaborate on anything. Thank Christ it’s too late to affect Piers’s little do.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Chloe, ‘but it’s very nice timing, isn’t it? I can see the headlines now.’

  ‘So can I,’ said Joe gloomily. ‘Have you told Piers, Chloe?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Chloe. ‘Yes, of course. I have to say,’ she added, ‘that he seemed extremely uninterested. He’s just totally in another world at the moment. And Nicholas says there’s still a chance we can stop it. He’s hanging on to that.’

  ‘It’s not a lot to hang on to,’ said Ludovic, ‘I’m afraid.’

  Three days before the investiture, Fleur FitzPatrick was sitting in reception at Morton’s, waiting for Sol Morton to see her, and flicking through the previous day’s edition of the London Times which Sol always had in the office, together with a lot of other British newspapers and magazines. She was just about to put it down when she saw a small item at the bottom of the third page of Home News about a fire at the offices of Beaumans the successful publishers. Fortunately, most of the manuscripts had survived. By coincidence (The Times said) one of Beauman’s top authors, Magnus Phillips, had himself been badly injured in a motorbike accident a few days previously.

  ‘Fuck!’ said Fleur. ‘Holy shit. Fuck me.’

  ‘Now?’ said Sol Morton hopefully.

  She went home and put in a call to Magnus; an operator said the number was unobtainable, and she had no record of a new one.

  ‘Shit,’ said Fleur. She was beginning to sweat. Who else could help her? Beaumans? What was their number? She found it, tried that; after a long delay she was put through.

  ‘May I speak to Mr Beauman, please?’

  ‘Who’s calling?’ The voice was clipped, rather drawly, a bit like Caroline’s.

  ‘My name is Fleur FitzPatrick.’

  ‘Please hold the line, Miss FitzPatrick.
’

  A male voice came on the line, quicker, clipped, impatient. ‘Richard Beauman.’

  ‘Oh, Mr Beauman, you don’t know me, but –’

  ‘I’ve heard a great deal about you.’

  ‘You have?’

  ‘Of course. From Magnus.’ He sounded amused; she didn’t like him. Arrogant bastard.

  ‘Mr Beauman, how is Magnus?’ She struggled to keep her voice calm, heard it, to her irritation, shake slightly.

  ‘He’s – just about OK. Shaken, and in a lot of pain, but all right.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘He was riding that ridiculous motorbike of his and he got knocked off it. On the M1.’

  ‘Who by?’

  ‘I wish we knew.’

  ‘Was it deliberate?’

  ‘Who could say?’

  God she didn’t like this man. ‘Mr Beauman, where is Magnus?’

  ‘Staying with friends.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I can’t tell you that, I’m afraid.’

  ‘I see.’ The lousy bastard was probably with Rose somewhere.

  ‘Oh. Well. Well, I was just wanting to make sure he was OK. I read about it in the papers.’

  ‘It’s reached the American papers?’

  ‘No. No, my boss takes the London Times.’

  ‘How very civilized.’

  ‘Er – could you just tell me, Mr Beauman, if you’re going ahead with publishing The Tinsel Underneath?’

  ‘I’m afraid I just couldn’t. I don’t know myself. At the moment.’

  ‘Mr Beauman, I really need to talk to Magnus. Could you tell me at least his phone number?’

  ‘I couldn’t. He – well, he needs complete peace and quiet. But I will pass your message on. Does he have your number? In case he wants to get back to you?’

  ‘Yes, he does,’ said Fleur. ‘Thanks.’ She slammed the phone down and because she didn’t know what else to do, she rang Joe.

  ‘I’m going to London,’ she said to Sol. ‘To see my sister.’

  ‘You don’t have a sister.’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ said Fleur. ‘I most certainly do.’

  Without knowing quite why, she rang Reuben and told him, and told him why. He said fine and rang off; ten minutes later he rang back and said he was going to come with her.

  ‘Reuben, you can’t,’ said Fleur, thinking how nice it would be if he did come, to have his silent, soothing presence with her.

  ‘I can. It’s OK, Fleur, I called Dorothy and she said it was all right. She said it could be very valuable therapy for me.’

  ‘God bless Dorothy,’ said Fleur. ‘Reuben, I –’ she was going to say ‘love you’ and said, ‘really do appreciate it’ instead.

  ‘That’s OK,’ said Reuben.

  The day before the investiture, Piers disappeared after breakfast saying rather vaguely he had appointments all morning including getting his hair, which he wore wildly long for Othello, at least tidied up. Othello had not been on the night before; but he was returning to Stratford that night to appear in it for the last time. His driver would bring him home straight after the performance. Chloe feared for his survival, both physically and emotionally, and had visions about his bursting into tears or collapsing in front of the Queen, but he seemed fairly calm.

  Halfway through the morning Jean Potts rang and said she needed to get hold of him urgently; Chloe told her he should be at Truefitt and Hill at some point during the morning. Jean rang back and said Truefitt’s had had no appointment with Piers booked at all that morning, and did Chloe have any other ideas. Chloe said more than slightly irritably that she didn’t, but that if Piers called, she would tell him to ring Jean immediately. Later, feeling remorseful at her treatment of nice Jean Potts, she rang her back and Jean said, her voice sweet and reasonable as ever, not to worry, and that she had finally tracked him down at Jim Prendergast’s office.

  ‘Some very big meeting going on there,’ she said. ‘They were very reluctant to put me through, but I got him in the end. So it was fine.’

  ‘Good,’ said Chloe, slightly surprised that Piers had not told her he was going to see Prendergast. It was not normally the kind of thing he would have kept from her. ‘Er – who was it looking for him, Jean?’

  ‘Oh, some big noise in Hollywood,’ said Jean. ‘About a contract.’ She sounded just a little strained, and something seemed wrong about the answer, but Chloe couldn’t quite work out what. Much later, she realized what it was: that at eleven in the morning in London, it was three a.m. in Los Angeles, and even in that city perhaps an unusual time to be worrying about an urgent contract: but she shrugged it off and went out to fetch Ned from nursery school. She still liked to do such things if she possibly could.

  When she got back at lunch-time, Rosemary said Piers had been home and gone out again. ‘He won’t be back now until after the performance tonight,’ she said. ‘He said to tell you to make sure his shoes had arrived from Lobbs. I told him they already had.’

  ‘Good,’ said Chloe.

  ‘And Mr Payton rang. Could you ring him at the flat. He said it was very urgent.’

  ‘Oh, God,’ said Chloe, and ran up to the bedroom.

  But Joe was out, and his answering machine told her he was not to be reached until after seven, when he would get back to her.

  ‘Damn,’ she said and rang the Sunday Times, who told her he was out on an interview with Annunciata Fallon.

  She rang Annunciata. She had gone out, said her machine, and wouldn’t be back till ‘late, late, late’.

  ‘Silly bitch,’ said Chloe and slammed the phone down.

  She went back downstairs and into the kitchen, where Rosemary was feeding the children. Ned was wolfing his fish fingers, but Kitty was pushing hers across her plate. It was very unlike her; she was normally greedy, her small mind revolving a great deal around her food. Chloe, worried that she would be a tubby teenager as she had been, fretted disproportionately about it.

  ‘Kitty, are you all right?’

  ‘Got a tummyache,’ said Kitty, and promptly threw up all over the kitchen table.

  ‘Oh, God,’ said Chloe wearily. ‘All I need tomorrow is a sick child. Rosemary, ring Dr Bannerman, would you, ask him to come, just in case. She’s very hot.’

  Bannerman came in half an hour and said Kitty was fine, had probably picked up a bug at playschool.

  ‘You shouldn’t worry so much,’ he said.

  ‘I wouldn’t normally,’ said Chloe untruthfully, ‘it’s just that – well, tomorrow and everything. I don’t want any more anxiety.’

  ‘Oh yes, of course, it’s the big day. Piers very nervous?’

  ‘Yes, very.’

  ‘How does he seem?’ asked Bannerman. His voice was very casual; he was looking down at his stethoscope, packing it away.

  ‘Oh – better,’ said Chloe quickly.

  ‘Good. Well, Faraday’s a good chap. Very sound. He’ll take good care of him.’

  ‘I suppose he will,’ said Chloe. ‘Roger, I didn’t know he was –’ ‘still seeing Faraday’ she was about to say, when Kitty threw up again all over the bed and Bannerman said, laughing, that he would leave her to it. She and Rosemary spent most of the afternoon changing sheets; at six Kitty fell into a pale, clammy sleep, and Chloe had a long luxurious bath, while reflecting upon the fact that motherhood seemed to consist rather more of clearing up vomit and wringing out smelly nappies than moulding young minds and forging emotional bonds.

  She remembered Joe at seven thirty and rang him; he was still not back. She left a message to ring her, ate supper with Rosemary in the kitchen and then, so tired she could hardly move, and with a suspiciously raw-feeling throat, went to bed with a hot toddy and The Female Eunuch, and told Rosemary not to disturb her unle
ss Joe called. She switched off the phone by her bed, and thought she heard it ringing once, far below her, but Rosemary did not come up. Probably her boyfriend, an intense young man who was studying architecture at night school. So far it had taken him three years to get through his first-year exams.

  In her small self-contained flat on the top floor of the house, Rosemary had just settled Kitty for the third time and for the third time had hauled off her Laura Ashley nightdress and exposed her rather plump limbs to the architectural student, smuggled in under cover of all the excitement, when she heard the phone ringing.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ she said, ‘I am entitled to some rest. I’m not going to answer that.’

  ‘Good,’ said the architectural student.

  ‘No reply,’ said Joe. ‘Now what do we do?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Caroline. ‘I don’t know what you thought you would have said to her anyway.’

  ‘We could have warned her.’

  ‘Of what? That Fleur was just possibly on her inexorable way? It would terrify her, I should think. No, it’s far better she doesn’t know. She’ll have enough to worry about tomorrow, without that. Time enough when it’s all over.’

  ‘Will it ever be all over?’ said Joe.

  ‘Of course. Well, I’d better be getting down to my hotel. Would you call me a taxi, Joe?’

  ‘Why don’t I drive you?’

  ‘Because you’ve had far too much to drink,’ said Caroline briskly.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Joe humbly and dialled for a taxi.

  ‘Oh, Joe,’ said Caroline, ‘it’s me that should be sorry. I get bossier and bossier, don’t I? It’s living alone, I’m afraid.’

  ‘No, it isn’t,’ said Joe. ‘I live alone. I’m not bossy.’

  ‘No, you’re not,’ said Caroline, looking at him fondly.

  ‘But you’ve always been bossy. I never really minded. There were plenty of other good things.’