‘How are you?’
‘Pretty well, thanks.’
‘And your parents?’
‘Mother’s fine. Father needs round-the-clock care now.’
‘I’m sorry.’
He was silent.
‘Well, I’ll be brief. I wondered if I could have Jamie to stay for half term, rather than him coming up to you. There’s a new production of Over the Rainbow, which I wanted him to see, and some lovely children’s concerts at the Festival Hall.’
‘I’m afraid that’s out of the question.’
‘Why?’
‘Catherine and I are getting married that week.’
‘Goodness. Well – congratulations.’
‘Thank you. I’m surprised you haven’t seen the announcement or Jamie didn’t mention it.’
‘No, he said nothing. Obviously he didn’t think it was very important,’ she added, her voice edged with malice.
‘I doubt it. He’s very excited about it and playing a big part in the ceremony.’
‘How nice. Well, it’s been a long time coming, we’ve been divorced for quite some time.’
‘Yes, indeed. But Catherine’s mother’s been very ill, and we wanted to wait until that was resolved. Fortunately she’s much better. And now we want to be married as soon as possible, as Catherine desperately wants to have children.’
‘How delightful. Well, congratulations, Johnathan. I hope it all goes very well.’
‘Thank you. And I’m sorry I can’t oblige over Jamie.’
‘Oh, it doesn’t matter.’
But it did.
She went for a walk, made for the Bayswater Road, and down to Selfridges. She didn’t quite have the heart for buying clothes, but she needed some cosmetics, and she could have lunch there. That should cheer her up. She bought a copy of the Daily Mail to read over lunch and then, having purchased rather more Coty powder, Elizabeth Arden lipsticks and Revlon eyeliner than she would get through in a year, settled down to a chicken salad, and opened the paper.
It was predictably full of election news; Mr Eden was putting into his busy schedule three live television broadcasts, where members of the press would question him. It was, the Daily Mail informed her, the first election to be fought on television. She studied the picture of Eden; he was an extraordinarily good-looking man. He left poor Attlee looking like an elderly hobgoblin. She wondered idly if Josh would be one of the press; then decided he was clearly too junior. But his boss, Clive Bedford, might. She would watch the programme, see what he was like. It was a good paper, the Daily News; she liked it. It treated you as if you were intelligent. The leader they had run about homosexuals had been very good; Josh said they were considering turning it into a campaign now. That reminded her of Ned; he was a good dinner companion, she would phone him and see if he was free tonight. That would be fun. Better than an election broadcast.
There was a paper boy outside Selfridges; on an impulse, to see if Josh had any stories in it, she bought a copy of the Daily News and caught a taxi home to Knightsbridge.
Ned’s secretary at his private rooms said she wasn’t expecting him back that day as he was operating. She would leave a message for him to ring Diana back. ‘But he’s got a very long list, Miss Southcott, I doubt if he’ll be able to ring you before eight.’
Diana sighed. This wasn’t her day. She made herself a cup of coffee, and leafed through the Daily News; more of the election. She was about to close it when an item intruded on her consciousness.
LABOUR CANDIDATE RESISTS PRESSURE TO SWITCH CONSTITUENCIES, page 5.
Very slowly, very carefully, as if it was some priceless silk blouse she was dealing with, Diana opened the paper at page 5. There, occupying almost a quarter of the page, was the story, byline Josh Curtis.
Labour Party hopeful, Tom Knelston, considered by many insiders to have a bright future in politics, has shown that all too rare quality in the business, loyalty. Offered what is known as a safe seat to contest in the imminent election, he has refused, in order to remain with Purbridge, a Tory-held seat, where he was selected as Labour candidate some time ago.
‘I feel I belong in Purbridge,’ he said. ‘I have made many good friends there with whom I share values and enjoy working. And we will continue to work together for the better, fairer future that only Labour can bring this country.’
Mr Knelston is well known for his admiration of Aneurin Bevan and is passionate about the National Health Service and its ideals. He is very much a family man, and his wife Alice recently gave birth to their third child.
There was a photograph of the family man and his wife and children sitting on a sofa. Diana, feeling oddly calm, studied it closely. Alice was pretty, she noticed, with blonde – albeit extremely badly cut – curly hair, and a wide smile; she was cradling the baby, while the two older children sat between their parents, their father’s arm around them. It was a charming photograph.
Slowly, the calm left Diana, to be replaced by a twisting fury of rage and jealousy. Loyal, was he? A family man? She had a very clear vision suddenly of Tom, standing naked in front of her in her bedroom, grinning joyfully post-sex, holding the bottle of champagne she had just sent him to fetch from the kitchen. Very loyal. She wondered what the paper would make of that side of his story – his many friends in his constituency might well feel differently about his values – and, as she sat there, a conviction began to grow in her that they really did deserve to know.
Ned had indeed had a long list; had it not been so long, had he not been so tired, things might all have been very different. He would have simply walked home, had a large whisky and fallen asleep in his chair to the strains of La Bohème, the eight-record version of which Persephone had just given him.
However, he was very tired; his judgement was thus slightly impaired and his temper short. As he removed his scrubs and dressed, he realised that he could hear loud crying coming from the direction of the children’s ward, urgent, desperate, terrified crying. Disturbed, Ned hurried to the entrance of the ward, where he found a young child, the source of the screaming, clinging to his mother; a hapless nurse, clearly responsible for him, was trying to calm him, while Sister endeavoured to prise him away.
‘What on earth is going on here?’ he said, more sharply than he would normally have done. ‘You’ll have the whole ward awake at this rate.’ Indeed, several small people were already sitting up in bed, clearly fascinated by the ruckus.
Sister turned to Ned and said impatiently, ‘It’s nothing serious, Mr Welles. Billy’s in pain, and he keeps being sick, he’s been sent up from casualty, and he won’t let his mother go and she more or less refuses to go. He’ll settle in a while if we all leave him alone.’
‘Of course you can’t leave him alone,’ said Ned, the word ‘settle’ unsettling him almost to violence. ‘Poor little chap. He’s obviously frightened out of his wits. God Almighty, I would be. What’s he been brought in for?’
‘Acute appendicitis. Appendectomy first thing in the morning. Mr Sharp’s seen him and said to have him ready first on the list.’
Graham Sharp was perfectly competent, in Ned’s view, although at the age of forty had probably reached the peak of his career.
‘He doesn’t consider it necessary to do it tonight?’
‘No, Mr Welles, he does not,’ said Sister firmly. ‘Now, Billy, you’re much too big a boy for that silly crying. Say goodbye to your mother and come with me, and we’ll get you into bed.’
Billy peered into the darkened ward with its long row of beds, and screamed even louder. Sister recommenced her prising, yet more children sat up in bed, and Billy’s mother said, fresh tears flowing, ‘I don’t know what to do.’
Ned lost his temper. ‘Sister, can we stop this nonsense at once. Would you please allow Billy’s mother to get him into bed and stay with him until he’s asleep, or certainly calmer. And you,’ he said, turning to the nurse. ‘You get all those other children tucked up again. I’m sorry, Mrs – sorry, I don’
t know your name –’
‘Johns,’ said the mother, wiping her eyes on the back of her hand. ‘I’m ever so sorry, sir, he doesn’t usually behave like this, but –’
‘But he’s in a very frightening situation. Of course. Now, Billy –’ and he squatted down in front of the little boy and took one of his hands – ‘you do have to stay here, I’m afraid – we have to make your poor tummy better – but Mummy will be with you for as long as you want her to be. Which is his bed, Sister?’
Sister, beyond speech, pointed at an empty bed at the end of the ward; Ned led Billy and his mother to it, pulled the curtains round them and said in little more than a whisper, ‘Do you have any pyjamas with you?’
Billy shook his head.
‘We didn’t know he’d be staying,’ said Mrs Johns. ‘I’m very sorry.’
‘Of course you didn’t. We have some he can borrow, I’m sure. What about a teddy or something?’
‘Well, there’s his dumdum as he calls it,’ said Mrs Johns, producing a distinctly grubby muslin nappy from her bag, ‘but the nurse said he couldn’t bring it, said it’s dirty.’
‘Well, it won’t do him any harm tonight,’ said Ned, taking it. ‘Tomorrow we’ll have to get it washed, I’m afraid, but that’s no problem. Now I’m going to find you some pyjamas, young man. You wait here with your mummy.’
He walked out to the nurses’ desk, where three goggled-eyed nurses were clustered, whispering and giggling, and asked one of them to find Billy some pyjamas and take them to him. ‘And let him keep that grubby bit of cloth until he goes down for surgery in the morning. Mrs Johns is going to stay with him until he goes to sleep. Is that quite clear?’
‘Yes, Mr Welles,’ they said in chorus.
Ned nodded and went into Sister’s office. She was white with rage.
‘Mr Welles, I cannot have this sort of thing in my ward. The disruption is dreadful. What’s more, you have totally undermined my authority and I shall make a formal complaint in the morning.’
‘That is absolutely your prerogative,’ said Ned. ‘I’m sorry if you feel undermined, but I would like to point out that it is not your ward, it’s the children’s. The disruption has entirely ceased, if you notice, and Billy himself is quiet and as happy as can be expected for a child who has undergone such a significant trauma as he has today and who indeed is undoubtedly still in pain. Goodnight, Sister. I shall be in my room for another half-hour, should there be any further problems.’
Sister was silent; Ned, who had longed only to get home in the shortest possible time, walked to his room and sat down wearily at his desk. Where he found, finally, among other messages tucked under his blotter, the one from Diana; he decided to ignore it until the morning.
Chapter 50
‘Hello? Is that the Dispatch? Would you put me through to the diary editor? Sorry, I don’t have his name. Oh, yes, please, that would be most helpful. Let me just write that down. Leo, is that right? Leo Bennett? Could you transfer me, please? Yes, to him personally. Thank you.’
Diana had woken up feeling almost excited at her plan. Oh, this was going to be fun. Tom’s last day as upright family man and principled politician. Diana thought of him, safely in his family-man bubble, canvassing on doorsteps, addressing meetings, people smiling at him approvingly – and how efficiently and swiftly that bubble was going to be burst. Sorry, dear Friend Tom. Nothing can save you now.
It would be nice to talk to Diana, Ned thought, about his troubles at the hospital. She was, in spite of certain absurdities, possessed of a large degree of common sense and her reactions to his dilemma would almost certainly be helpful. She was the only person he could have this particular conversation with. His mother was back in Cornwall, and besides, was rather lacking in common sense. He would ring Diana, apologise for not getting back to her sooner, and invite her to dinner that night.
Her phone was engaged. Well, he’d go to the canteen, get a sandwich, then try her again.
‘Hello? Is that Leo Bennett? Oh, I see. Well, when will he be out of conference? No, I really do want to speak to him myself. Yes, if you could ask him to ring me, that would be very kind. My number is SLOANE six two four. Sorry? Oh, my name is Southcott. Diana Southcott. Thank you so much.’
Back in his room, Ned rang Diana’s number again. It was still engaged. God, women talked a lot. He’d try her once more and then it would have to wait. By which time she’d almost certainly be fixed for the evening. Well, there was always tomorrow …
Diana had decided on the Dispatch (rather than the Daily News) after some consideration. It was, apart from being high Tory, widely acknowledged to have the best diary in Fleet Street, and certainly the best diarist. Good-looking, charming and witty, Leo Bennett inveigled himself into the lives of not only his subjects, but also their underlings, and managed to extract their stories with an almost chilling ease. His rivals regarded his success with irritation and resentment, but the reason was simple. People liked him; indeed it was hard not to. Moreover, within the constraints of his calling, and his frequent statement of the old Fleet Street adage that a good journalist would sell his own grandmother for a story, he was a nice man. He was kind, considerate and particularly fond of children; he had famously remonstrated, and ultimately come to blows, with a father in a children’s playground who had been hitting his small son about the head. He was also a brilliant mimic, and could assume any accent on demand; his default mode was fairly classless BBC, spiced up with a slight northern twang, but for professional purposes it was Old Etonian which had certainly not been acquired at Eton. He had spent a couple of years at a minor public school whence he was expelled for climbing up the fire escape of the local girls’ school where he would meet and exchange fairly chaste embraces with one of the prefects.
His father was an extremely rich industrialist from Manchester, now resident in the Surrey Hills, who had been determined his two sons and his daughter should grow up Gentlemen and a Lady; the daughter, Teresa, had obliged by doing very well at her convent school, and then proceeding to a finishing school in Paris, where she learned to speak French, cook, arrange flowers and get in and out of a car keeping her knees neatly together. Marcus, the younger son, had been a model student at his prep school and was about to go to Charterhouse, from where he was most unlikely to be expelled.
Michael Bennett had refused to spend a penny more on Leo’s education and sent him at fifteen to the local secondary modern, where he made a host of friends. One of them, Ronald Tims, became a very successful burglar and introduced him to all sorts of useful skills, most notably lock-picking, and to his sister Janette, who worked at the local Boots store and relieved Leo of his virginity. Leo still bought Ronald dinner twice a year, partly because he liked him and partly because of his wide range of talents and intimate knowledge of many of the large houses in London – and its families.
At sixteen, feeling that school could teach him little more, Leo told his father he wanted to be a journalist; one of Michael Bennett’s friends, met at Masonic dinners, was Mark Drummond, the proprietor of the Dispatch, and he hosted a lunch for the three of them. Drummond, quietly impressed, arranged for Leo to start work immediately in the post room.
Post rooms were famously the launch pads for many a successful career, providing daily contact with the great and good of a company and the chance to impress them; Leo was hard-working, cheerful and efficient and, after a year, Drummond made it known that he should be promoted, either to the showbiz pages or the diary. The diary editor, a shrewd Fleet Street veteran, looked at Leo’s background and track record and claimed him instantly, and there he typed copy, read proofs, ran errands and fed scandalous stories to the diary reporters which often proved to have sufficient substance to warrant publication.
After a year, he was promoted to reporter himself and by the age of thirty was deputy editor; five years later he became diary editor, his handsome face smiling from the sides of buses and posters for the Dispatch as well as above his page every
day.
He was hurrying out of morning conference, late for lunch at the Connaught with a Rank starlet, secretly engaged (or so she said) to a young peer of the realm, when he met Stuart his assistant hovering in the corridor.
‘Some woman says she has a really important story for you. She’s waiting for you to ring soon, otherwise she’s going to the Mail …’
‘Original. What’s her name?’
‘Diana Southcott. I looked her up, she’s a model. Up there in the top ten, it seems. And very well connected – mostly with the fashion riff-raff, but divorced from the son of a baronet.’
‘Perhaps I should ring her before I go. Janey,’ he said to his secretary, ‘could you get Diana Southcott on the phone for me? Stuart has the number. Straight away … oh, and tell the Connaught to have some champagne on ice for Miss Brown – such an original pseudonym – when she arrives.’
‘I will. She just rang, though, to say she’s arriving early, and can’t be there for more than an hour …’
‘Oh, fuck. Well, I’ll call Miss Southcott when I get back. Ring her and keep her sweet, would you?’
‘Diana? It’s Freddie. Listen, I’ve been to American Fashion and they’ve bought the New York feature idea, want us to do it. I know, isn’t that thrilling?’
‘Truly thrilling,’ said Diana, her voice genuinely awed. American Fashion was a post-war, brilliantly packaged, glossy, high-fashion magazine, but quirkier than Vogue or Bazaar, with a social section which covered all the smartest parties, first nights and benefits, guaranteeing a sizeable sale to all those featured, as well as their friends and relations, before it even began on its fashion circulation. ‘You’re a genius, Freddie …’
‘I know it. Only problem, timing. Do you have your case packed?’
‘Well, my model bag, obviously, because it always is.’
‘Excellent. It’s all you’ll need. Apart from a few clean pairs of knickers.’
‘Oh, don’t be silly –’
‘I’m not. They only want the one feature this time round, and they’re in a hell of a rush for it – we got lucky and coincided with four blank pages to fill, some feature rejected by the editor, so it’ll be a flying visit, literally. Our plane leaves tomorrow afternoon. I’ll meet you at the Cromwell Road Terminal at three, OK? They’re flying us first class but they’re booking us in for three nights – at the Pierre!’
A Question of Trust Page 46