Brett tried again to take an intelligent part in the conversation. “You don’t think they might back off? You’re sure we’re offering enough protection payment for the concession agreements?”
As soon as he spoke, Brett knew that he’d again said something wrong.
For an exasperated moment, Arthur wished his mother could have heard her protégé make this double gaffe. Why couldn’t the family lame duck have stayed with that marketing firm. Because Brett’s mother wanted him in a firm that wouldn’t fire him. Because of his disability, god dammit …
“We never make protection payments,” Arthur said sharply. “Although special arrangements are sometimes necessary. Please also remember that the phrase ’concession agreement’ is most offensive to developing countries. We refer to ’heads of agreement,’ or ‘basic agreement’ or ‘intent to treat,’ which is an unusual term, but one that Ed likes to use. If you have a spare hour he’ll tell you why.”
Brett flushed.
To cover the awkward pause, Jerry said quickly, “Brett, this situation is not unusual or unreasonable. It’s simply that they don’t want a foreign company to mine their metals and minerals—even though Paui hasn’t got the money, the machinery or the know-how to do it for themselves.”
Ed nodded. “Fifty years ago those islanders were Stone Age savages, they’d never seen a wheel, let alone a Jeep. The first college-educated citizens of Paui are the ones who’ve just taken over. So we should be patient.”
Arthur grunted in agreement. “It’s merely unfortunate for us that they didn’t take over two years later, then we’d have been doing this deal with Raki. There’s a lot to be said for a predictable, reasonable crook. Now let’s stop talking shop and circulate, it’s nearly time to eat.”
* * *
Flushed-faced, Carey was telling Annie about her private game, the one that kept her awake at Nexus parties. She imagined each man present as a plundering Viking, complete with horned helmet, leather jerkin and thonged leggings. Carey giggled. “It’s even more hilarious if the guy’s wearing glasses.” Annie laughed politely.
As Carey accepted another glass of champagne from a passing waiter, Ed appeared behind her shoulder.
“Carey, I thought you said you weren’t going to drink before dinner. You know how you get.”
Carey twisted around to face him. “No, darling, you said I wasn’t going to drink before dinner.” As she spoke, she lost her balance. She staggered and fell against Annie, spilling her champagne down Annie’s blue gown. Ed looked thunderous.
Annie said, “Look, it doesn’t matter.”
Carey said, “It’s very hot in here. I don’t feel well.”
“Pie-eyed,” Ed said grimly.
Annie put her glass on a side table. “Maybe you’d like to come upstairs and help me sponge this off, Carey?”
Carey mumbled, “I think I’m going to be … Oh, dear.”
Annie took Carey by the arm. She hurried her through the hall, up the massive oak staircase, along the minstrel’s gallery and past the bathrooms that the other guests were using. They turned into the passage that led to Lorenza’s apartment, where they wouldn’t be disturbed.
Annie led Carey into the bathroom, held her head over the washbasin, grabbed a washcloth and slapped cold water over the back of her neck.
Carey gasped, “Okay, okay. Will you please let up, Annie?”
“I’ve been with you since you got here, Carey. You haven’t drunk much. When did you last eat?”
“Yesterday evening. I didn’t have any breakfast.”
“Well, what can you expect?” Annie led Carey into the bedroom. “Lie down on the couch. I’ll get you something to eat. Look, there’s a jar of cookies beside the bed.”
“Granola. Yuck.”
“Eat them.”
Annie sponged her dress, then sat with Carey until remorse had replaced nausea.
Carey sat up on the couch and wailed, “I just made a fool of myself in front of Ed’s colleagues!”
“No, you didn’t. Nobody noticed. And it doesn’t matter. You’re among friends.”
Still tipsy and verbose, Carey said, “Oh, Annie, we’re none of us friends; we’re line-toeing, loyal, pushed-around company wives. Not real friends. We’re just polite and agreeable … why, we never disagree.” Then she giggled. “Gee, I’m looking forward to the trip to Paui.”
* * *
Outside the ladies’ bathroom, Suzy leaned over the banister and watched the guests below as they moved toward the ballroom, where supper was laid out. She’d wait until they were all seated before she went down.
Until then, Suzy would play her own, private party game, which was sorting out the new-rich from the old-rich. Old money didn’t wear jewelry in the daytime, and when they did wear their rocks, they didn’t go for plunging necklines. Old money were always beautifully groomed and wore beautifully finished, dull-colored clothes. They never wore very high heels and their shoes were never scuffed, although their purses often were. But they were always really good quality, even when they were beat-up; if you wanted to look like old money, the thing to do was to buy some cracked, old crocodile purse from a Palm Beach thrift shop. Old money always had good posture, because they had been endlessly told to sit up straight by their governesses and British nannies. Sometimes Suzy felt like asking Mrs. Graham what year she’d been at West Point.
Suzy studied the people in the lovely hall below; she always picked up a few good tips from a visit to this house. Brett would never have this sort of money, damnit. He wasn’t a Graham, he was Arthur’s mother’s childless sister’s husband’s nephew. That was another thing about old money, they always expected you to be able to follow immediately when they came up with the family tree bit about their relations—whom they called relatives.
Suddenly, to her annoyance, Suzy saw her husband hurrying toward the staircase. How dare Brett come to get her!
Then she noticed that Brett was hanging on to the banister as he slowly climbed the stairs. Jeez, what a time to choose for one of his attacks. Especially since he hated people to notice them. They had to have latex pillows and synthetic bedcovers because Brett was allergic to feathers and lint; they couldn’t have pets, because of animal dander; the house had to be spotlessly clean, not a speck of dust; and the mattress had to be cleaned once a week to avoid fluff. When Brett felt a bronchial asthma attack coming on, he’d suddenly feel a tightness in his chest and start wheezing. Breathing out was especially difficult; Suzy had to reassure him that he wasn’t suffocating, it merely felt as if he were. But the Ventolin spray made all the difference, provided Brett used it at the first sign of an attack.
In her tight dress, Suzy hobbled quickly to the top of the stairs. “Brett, where’s your spray?”
“I left it in my coat pocket,” he gasped, holding up a blue ticket.
Suzy snatched it. “You sit here. I’ll go get it.”
Brett staggered to a fragile, carved oaken chair, which wasn’t supposed to be sat on. Suzy kicked her shoes off, and awkwardly wiggled to the men’s coat room. She grabbed Brett’s coat from the maid and located his asthma spray, which was the size of a large cigarette lighter. She ran back to Brett as fast as she could, in her constricting dress.
Brett breathed out, held the spray to his mouth, breathed in and held it for ten seconds.
A manservant came up to them, but Suzy waved him away. “He’ll be okay, this happens all the time. The spray always fixes it … Hey, could you get me a drink? It usually takes him about twenty minutes to get over these attacks. I’d like some champagne.”
BOOK TWO
PARADISE
3
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 1984
“Well, now, isn’t that thoughtful of them.” Roddy inspected the orchid corsage that had arrived on his breakfast tray with the compliments of the Regent Hotel, Sydney. He picked up a large envelope. “This entitles me to a free facial and hairdo, plus a mudpack and a massage in the hotel beauty parlor! A special tr
eat because it’s the last day of the conference.”
Sitting up against the pillows, studying her papers, Isabel looked over the tops of her horn-rimmed glasses and laughed. “I got a free necktie last time I traveled on the Concorde.”
Roddy had noticed that Isabel didn’t receive any of these daily breakfast-tray gifts. He also noticed that she kept aloof from the other women in their party; she was a top Nexus executive and wasn’t going to risk being treated like a wife. On the other hand, she wore jackets that were too large for her and big glasses that were always slipping off her little nose, which somehow made a guy feel protective. Isabel liked to have it both ways. She wasn’t averse to feminine luxury. She enjoyed the pale flowers that were massed in every room (even the bathroom), the courtesy makeup and toilet articles supplied by the hotel, the wicker basket of assorted bath fragrances and shell-shaped soaps in different colors, the small sewing kit and the thick white terry-cloth robe in her bathroom.
As she ate her croissant, Isabel studied her typewritten notes for the speech she was going to make that morning to two hundred senior managers. She had been hard at it ever since she stepped off the plane. When everyone else flopped with jet lag, Isabel, crisp and efficient, had a long meeting with Harry Scott, the boss of Nexus, Australia. Isabel avoided jet lag because on the plane she never drank alcohol, which dehydrates you even more than the air conditioning. As soon as she stepped into the cabin, she switched to arrival time. She ate only three small high-protein snacks (at arrival mealtimes), she slipped a mask over her eyes and took a sleeping pill at 10 P.M. by her wristwatch, so she woke up (at arrival wake-up time) fresh and ready to go, whereas most of the other passengers were feeling as crumpled as they looked.
Early in life, Isabel had learned to be economical with time and money. Her mother had been a legal secretary before marrying a Navy petty officer, who died when Isabel was seven. Her mother stretched a sailor’s pay by dressmaking for her neighbors. Most of Isabel’s clothes had been made by her, and she used to be lulled to sleep at night by the whirr of her mother’s old-fashioned, pedal-driven sewing machine. Her mother had died of pneumonia the week after Isabel’s tenth birthday. Ever since, Isabel had been slightly afraid of totally loving anything, in case it was taken away from her.
Isabel put her notes aside and poured a second cup of coffee. She picked up The Australian and leaned back against the pillows.
Roddy nuzzled her bare shoulder. “What’s on your agenda today?”
“A lecture on media communication by the editor-in-chief of the Sydney Daily Telegraph. She’s a glamorous blonde called Ita Buttrose.”
“Isn’t Brett speaking today?”
“Yes, on Nexus being a Caring Company. After that, we have Ed on the exhaustion of nonrenewable resources. You’ll be glad to hear that the world isn’t going to run short of any major elements before the year 2050. But this afternoon is free, for all the delegates.”
Roddy’s fingertips crept tentatively up her arm, in a little dance which they both recognized as his invitation. “How about exhausting a nonrenewable husband before leaping along to the conference theater?” He kissed the hollow of her neck.
“Honey, I haven’t put my diaphragm in. And there isn’t time.”
“Okay, okay. I’ll give myself a mudpack instead.”
Naked, Roddy slid from the sheets and ambled to the luxurious bathroom. Almost immediately, he returned to the bedroom and pulled open the doors to the balcony, which overlooked the spectacular view of Sydney Harbor twenty stories below.
“Isabel, darling.” Roddy held something up in the air.
Isabel looked up. “Hey, is that my diaphragm?”
“It was.” Roddy flung it off the balcony high into the air.
“How dare you!”
“Oh, it was easy. You’re going to have a baby whether you like it or not, Isabel, and we’re going to start practicing right now.”
* * *
Lying in bed, Brett watched Suzy in her red lace bra and string bikini. As she danced to the radio he felt lust rise again. He could watch her brush her teeth and it would excite him—and she knew it. He didn’t give a damn whether his friends or family accepted Suzy, all he cared about was whether any other man liked her too much. He had observed that when other men were present—whether it was a ten-year-old kid or an eighty-year-old grandfather—Suzy’s actions were subtly different from when she was alone with him. He’d come to the conclusion that she was unaware of the electricity she was creating; it must be unconscious, because she never seemed interested in any man other than Brett. He had been mesmerized by Suzy since the moment he first set eyes on her, and he was terrified that one day she might get bored and just walk out. Brett knew there would be another guy at her side before she’d walked ten steps. Brett couldn’t very well lock his wife out of sight, but that’s what he felt like doing.
Paradoxically, he also loved to see Suzy admired, and he loved to see Suzy enjoying herself, as she was on this trip. She always liked traveling, especially by air; she liked being the one who was bent over, instead of doing the bending.
Now, in the pale-gray hush of the hotel suite, Suzy, with one leg up behind her and arms extended like a skater, cheerily asked, “Hey, Brett, d’you think I’m fucking Arthur?”
It was this tough, unexpected, straightforward quality in her that Brett found irresistible. He said, “I must admit that it had crossed my mind.” In fact, he couldn’t figure out why else a relatively junior exec had been included on the exclusive Paui trip.
“Well, I’m not.”
As he hurled himself out of bed toward her Suzy thought, Not yet. She had no intention of being screwed by anyone she wasn’t married to. Temptation was the ace up her sleeve. She’d landed Brett with that old-fashioned weapon, but her next marriage was going to be, if not to Arthur, to somebody with Arthur’s money and power—the boss.
* * *
Although Silvana was accustomed to luxury, she was enjoying the quiet peace of the Royal Suite in one of the most elegant hotels in the world. The restful pale color scheme, the discreet lighting, the personal butler—all contributed to the feeling of calm order and remoteness from the world. Silvana murmured, “I think I’ll stay up here and read quietly today.”
“You read too much,” Arthur said. “It’s not healthy to shut yourself away all the time with a book. I suppose you’re feeling all right? Do you need anything?”
Had Silvana said, “No, I’m not all right, I’ve been emotionally lonely for years and what I need is a mate,” Arthur would simply have stared in astonishment and told her to get a medical checkup when they returned to Pittsburgh.
Restlessly, Arthur paced their suite. It was not divided into rooms but consisted of one big interior, in which different areas were grouped: the dining area, the two desk areas and the huge central seating area, where four beige leather sofas were arranged around a low marble table. They had arrived to find champagne, vodka, Beluga caviar and exotic fruits awaiting them on that table.
In such surroundings, Silvana had decided to enjoy a cocooned day of service, and the luxury of not being responsible for the smooth functioning of this cushioned ease.
* * *
Ed was reading his speech in front of the mirror. Carey, wearing an orange nightshirt, sat cross-legged on the bed and listened carefully.
“‘… so the world can continue to supply mankind with all the resources needed by industry, if we assume reasonably stable political conditions, absence of energy crises, sufficient capital and the successful location of new sources of material.’”
Carey thought that was a lot to assume, but she didn’t say so.
Ed continued, “‘… and providing that no other cartels are formed—such as that which produced the oil crises—to hold the world to ransom for materials which come mainly from one country.’”
Carey clapped encouragingly as Ed went on, “‘I’m thinking of materials such as platinum, gold and chromite from South Af
rica, cobalt from Zaïre and Zambia. We all know that after the 1978 rebel invasion of Zaïre, cobalt prices went quickly from eleven dollars a kilogram to over one hundred and twenty, although this was mainly as a result of panic buying. Should South Africa ever withhold its chromite from the rest of the world …’”
Carey sat up. “Ed, can’t scientists find substitutes for those sorts of raw materials?”
“Carey, can’t you wait until I’ve finished? I lose my train of thought if you interrupt.”
“Sorry. But can’t they?”
“No, we can’t produce substitutes in adequate supply. That’s why the one-source countries might be able to hold up the rest of the world for ransom one day. Now for Crissake, let me finish. I’m supposed to deliver this speech to two hundred people in an hour.”
Ten minutes later, Ed looked earnestly into the mirror as he summed up. “‘My main theme today has been what’s going to happen to world natural resources, which of them are likely to run out and what strategy should be adopted, considering the projected variations of demand against increases of supply through successful exploration, sufficient research and development, and improved technology.’”
“Ed, I really think that last sentence is a bit of a mouthful.”
“SHUT … UP!”
“Sorry.”
* * *
In the early morning sun, the lone figure of Arthur reclined on a lounge chair at the side of the rooftop swimming pool. Arthur wrongly believed that you always got complete security by the pool. Whereas you never knew who could hear you in a restaurant. Arthur was talking to Pittsburgh on two telephones. There was a fifteen-hour time difference; conveniently, 8 A.M. on Friday morning in Sydney was 5 P.M. on Thursday in Pittsburgh, just before the working day ended. On one of his poolside tables stood ham and eggs, orange juice and coffee. His maroon Cartier Le Must briefcase lay on the other table.
Arthur slid a hand under his turquoise swimming trunks and scratched. “Okay, Joe, I’ll take two thousand shares at twenty-three ten. G’bye … Delia, you still there? … Okay, put him on.” All Arthur’s calls were routed through his confidential secretary, Delia, using the Pittsburgh office switchboard. Arthur liked lying by the pool and scratching his belly in the sun while he made people jump through hoops in their offices, and Delia recorded every conversation.
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