Ian St James Compendium - Volume 1

by Ian St. James

  They had achieved a grudging reconciliation. He had been pleased with her decision to sell the mansion - but angry about her arrangements to put the Averdale Collection on permanent display at the Tate. Pleased with her determination to provide for herself - but angry when she denied him access to Mark's money.

  "God dammit," he had raged, "I could put that to use in Ulster. Every business we've got is starved of capital. Yet you leave all that money in the bank collecting interest. What for, if you're not going to use it?"

  "I can't use it," she pointed out, "without my trustees' permission."

  "So - Buckley and I will listen to anything reasonable. What do you want to do with it?"

  "I don't know, but maybe one day I shall."

  She wasn't being deliberately difficult. She just felt that the money had been left with her, and it should stay with her - for the time being. Besides she had a nagging doubt that Tim might not bother to see her again if she let him have the money. As things were he generally called when he was in London, about once every three months. She told herself they were growing closer - that they were brother and sister - they were the only "real family" each other had. It was still important to her - no matter how independent she became.

  Then, in the Autumn of '57, she met Sean Connors again, and suddenly independence ceased to be the biggest thing in her life.

  They met professionally. Seven Days was preparing an important series of articles on the soon-to-be-formed EEC. Kate was interested as soon as she heard - after all she represented seven large French companies by then - she had her clients' interests to think about. Seven Days was the biggest platform her clients could have. But ... and she was conscious of the but, she felt a stir of excitement at the prospect of seeing Sean Connors again. She had wanted to telephone him so often, but lacked a valid excuse. Now that she had one she didn't hesitate - she just hoped he was in London.

  "Hello," he said when he answered the phone, "this is Sean Connors speaking."

  "If I were to say this is Sean Connors, speaking from London, the heart of Great Britain, the country that now stands alone ... could you guess who was calling?"

  "Where the devil have you been?"

  He knew! He still remembered!

  They met for lunch the same day. She almost trembled when she shook hands. Then he was guiding her to a corner table and she was telling herself - "I've done this hundreds of times. It's just lunch with a newspaperman, that's all, nothing to get excited about."

  He was so staggered about her being in the PR business. "And in London," he kept saying, "why on earth didn't you call me before?"

  "You weren't running a big series on France before -"

  "But you didn't have to wait for that. I wanted to see you -"

  "What about?"

  "Well, just to make sure you were all right, to see if I could help ..."

  "Well now you can," she said, laughing, and he was laughing too, his hand reaching across the table to clasp hers. "It's just so marvellous to see you again," he said.

  He told himself it was crazy, to feel this excited, after all, I hardly know her.

  They talked and talked and talked. At half-past three every waiter in the restaurant seemed to be hovering around their table. The restaurant was closed, the staff wanted to go home.

  "Can we meet for dinner tonight?" he asked.

  She hesitated.

  "I want to hear all about your clients," he said, "maybe we could include something about them ..."

  So she said yes.

  "It's just a working dinner," she told herself as she bathed and changed for the evening, "I have at least one every week. It's not a big deal."

  He picked her up from her little house at eight o'clock. They had a drink first. He praised her taste in furnishings and paintings and just about everything. It seemed so natural for him to be there. She wore her Givenchy original, black lace, bare shoulders, bare-backed but high at the front. "It's too dressy for a working dinner" she had told herself earlier ... but the dress was on by then.

  Chapter Ten

  Kate never felt more alive, more vital, more ... joyous! She woke every morning with a smile on her face. Orange-juice tasted like champagne. The simplest things gave her pleasure. She had an insane urge to hug passers-by on the street. She was wildly extravagant, she spent a fortune on clothes - she overtipped cabbies and doormen and hairdressers.

  She was head over heels in love.

  She telephoned him all the time - at all hours, day and night. She played games, ridiculous, mad, insane games ... she lowered her voice when she called him in an absurd attempt to mimic his accent - "Hello. This is Sean Connors speaking from London, heart of Great Britain, the country that now stands alone -"

  "Kate? What's the time ... oh my God, it's three in the morning!"

  "So? Why aren't you here in my bed?"

  "I only just left it -"

  "And drove straight home and went to sleep. Humph!" She tossed her head, "I don't think much of that. Why aren't you pacing the floor, saying over and over again 'I love that woman, that marvellous, fantastic’...

  “Crazy -”

  "- adorable woman -"

  "I did, I swear, before I rolled into bed. I said all those things -"

  "To yourself? That's no good! Tell me ... I'm listening ... Sean, tell me!"

  They tried to be discreet, but it happened so quickly. They had no time to lay down ground rules, no time to invent alibis. It just exploded. Seventy-five hours after their first lunch together. The second time he took her out to dinner. He took her home and they were barely inside the door when she was in his arms. They were both trembling so violently, undressing took ages.

  But after ... when he left at five in the morning... the names she called herself ? She wept. She could hardly believe it. Her of all people. All the clever ploys she had invented for fending men off, for keeping them at bay, all the strategies, she hadn't used one of them, nor had she wanted to.

  "Tim was right. I'm a whore, a tramp. Oh what must he think of me!"

  But then he telephoned - "Kate, darling, I must see you again, lunch today, dinner tonight..."

  Her heart soared. She gloried at the sound of his voice. When she opened the door to him she was vibrant and happy and smiling ...

  He took her to the country that weekend, and the next, and the one after.

  She kept telling herself - "He's married. He has a wife and child in America. Pull yourself together!" She told herself that a hundred times. But it made no difference. When he telephoned, smiled, made love to her, nothing else mattered ...

  Until the misery of that first awful Christmas when he went to New York. Fourteen entire days and nights without seeing him. Fourteen days and nights when he was with his wife and child and smart American friends. Three hundred and thirty-six hours when she went out of her mind, twenty-three thousand minutes of torment...

  But he loved her!

  Oh the joy, the delirious, heart-bursting, blood-bubbling intoxication of hearing him say over and over again - "Kate, I love you."

  Sean was just as afflicted. Gourmet meals were tasteless unless Kate was there to share them. Days were grey unless he saw her. He rarely laughed outside of her company. Even business was less exciting - long negotiations were almost impossible to sustain, concentration proved difficult, his attention kept wandering. He told himself he was behaving like a schoolboy ...

  But she loved him.

  It took them months to come to their senses. The Spring of '58 passed in a blur of apple-blossom and candle-lit suppers, of holding hands in the moonlight, of small country hotels nestled in the folds of the Hampshire hills ...

  Sean had known love before, with Val. He had never felt for Gloria in the same way - not even at the outset. He thought the difference was that he had grown up - that he could cope with relationships without losing his head. He told himself that about his marriage and affaires with half a dozen women. "I'm a man-of-the-world - of course I don't
react like a kid any more." But he did with Kate. She made his pulse race and his eyes sparkle, and turned every day into a holiday.

  But Kate had never been in love. For the first time all the corny, hackneyed, banal expressions overheard at Glossops made sense. She did "go weak at the knees" ... she really did "melt in his arms" ... and most certainly she "longed for his kiss".

  As spring turned into summer the pattern of their lives changed completely. Most weekends were spent together, generally out of town to lessen the risk of meeting people they knew. During the week they met for lunch or dinner when they could, and Sean often spent most of the night at Kate's place. She never set foot in Hill Street. She refused to stop by even for a drink, despite the convenience it offered at times. Hill Street belonged to Sean's wife in Kate's eyes ... which was not a subject she liked thinking about.

  By the autumn of '58 they had been lovers for a whole year.

  "It doesn't seem possible," she sighed, "a year ago I thought I was happy. I had everything I wanted. Dammit I was happy. My life was under control, uncomplicated ..."

  He kissed her.

  "And empty," she said a long time later.

  By the end of that year each knew the other's life history. Kate made him laugh with tales of Glossops and accounts of Pygmalion ... and of Aunt Alison in Washington and Jenny in Omaha. But mostly, when she talked of the past, it was the immediate past - dear Yvette and her friends in Paris, her work in France as a model, and her public relations career in London.

  Sean talked of Tubby and the property company, and how he and Freddie had put Seven Days together. He told her about Transatlantic Television, his contacts with show business, the Kennedy’s, his interest in politics ... he told her so much about his life.

  They never lied to each other, not once.

  And yet ... some aspects of the past were brushed over lightly. For example Sean often talked of his boyhood in Dublin but made no reference to the Widow O'Flynn. And when he talked of his early days in London it was Freddie this and Freddie that ... almost as if Val Hamilton had never existed. It was hard. Sometimes he wanted to talk about Val - it was so long ago, a different world - he longed to describe his life as it had been. But he remembered Kate's expression when Gloria's name cropped up, he had seen the pain in her eyes. To admit to Gloria was bad enough, to reveal his feelings for Val would be a thousand times worse. So no mention of Val passed Sean's lips.

  Kate did the same. When she learned that Sean's father had been an IRA hero, she "adjusted" her account of the death of her parents. It was easily done. After all she had no clear idea ... during her childhood she believed they had died in an accident. It was only at Glossops that Tim told her otherwise, and she had been so horrified that even that memory was garbled. She had a vague picture of her father marching into battle against the IRA, but that was all. If Sean's father had fought on the other side it seemed insensitive to mention it. So she simply said her parents had died in an accident. Besides, she was more worried about explaining what happened after she became Mark Averdale's ward. She was worried sick about that. She had become Sean's mistress so easily that he might think she made a habit of it. She was terrified it would reduce her in his eyes, petrified he would change his opinion of her. Sean's opinion was the most important thing in her life. So she emphasised how hard she had worked for Lord and Lady Averdale. She talked of her contacts with Ziggy, how much she admired Ziggy ... and of Mark's long absences in Nairobi, and his obvious affection for his wife ...

  Sean told Kate the truth - in the main Kate told Sean the truth certainly neither told a lie, but they held some things back for fear of hurting the other - and in that they were no different from lovers the world over. Ghosts belong to the past, not the sunlit, brightly coloured world of people in love.

  But for the most part their conversation was of other things. Kate's work in public relations had given her many friends in Fleet Street. She and Sean knew some of the same people ... they shared interests in common ... there was too much to talk about in the present to spend time on the past.

  They did try to be discreet, at least to begin with - but it was not long before most of their friends knew. Not everyone approved. Michael O'Hara was captivated by Kate, but his own Catholicism filled him with reservations and his wife Deirdre filled him with more. The Hamiltons worried, and even Freddie fretted when he came face to face with the relationship on a visit to London - "It can only lead to trouble," he muttered, expressing the concern of Sean's friends.

  But the lovers were blinded by the stars in their eyes.

  For eighteen months just being in love was enough. They dove-tailed their busy working schedules to fit each other's plans. When Sean went to New York, Kate went to Paris. If she was taking a party of journalists around the vineyards of Bordeaux, Sean used the opportunity to go to Manchester to negotiate on some property. But wherever they were not a day passed without them telephoning each other - and not a month passed without them celebrating some anniversary - "our first trip to Scotland" - "that weekend in Wales."

  When they were together they were ecstatically happy. When they were apart they counted the hours.

  But they suffered. Pain. Moments of doubt. And fear. Kate was stricken every time Sean went to New York. She agonised about her "mistress" status. Always a mistress, never a wife. Old childhood insecurities returned to haunt her. All the days of her life she had longed for clear-cut, unequivocal relationships. She had hated being an orphan. Countless times she had longed to introduce the Johnstones not as "my Aunt and Uncle" but as "my mother and father". And how wonderful it would be to introduce Sean as "my husband". How proud she would be ... and how secure she would feel.

  Sean's absences in the States were not the only cause of Kate's insecurity. Her brother Tim was a nightmare. She still loved him, after all he was the only real family she had ... and yet. He would no more understand about Sean than he had about Mark. He would call her a whore. He might even ... if he ever met Sean ... reveal her past relationship with Mark! That was a terrifying prospect. Kate would do anything to avoid that. Thankfully Tim was rarely in London so the chance of him meeting Sean was remote, but the possibility that he might played on Kate's mind. Tim, she decided, was a matter best left for the future ... for when she felt more able to cope.

  Few doubted that Sean would cope. His breezy self-confidence surmounted most problems. But in one matter he was helpless. His Catholic marriage to Gloria. Divorce was out of the question - not only did the Church make dissolving the union impossible, but Gloria had no wish to change her status. Why should she? She had all she wanted - a smart house in Scarsdale, money, the cache of marriage (wife of an international tycoon) ... and most important of all, her niche as the local Queen Bee. Contentment was reflected in her figure which plumped out to matronly size. She was safe and secure, a good Catholic wife protected by a good Catholic marriage.

  Sean told her there was "another woman" early in 1959. His trips to New York had become more frequent, because he stayed for shorter periods and hence was compelled to go more often. If Gloria realised that more than his schedule had changed, she said nothing - perhaps she was pleased by his absences. But she was certainly not pleased by his announcement.

  "There have been women before," she said, "but you've never chosen to tell me about them."

  Her cold reminder of past betrayals tugged at Sean's conscience. Guilt made him defensive. He wanted to say the failure of the marriage was as much her fault as his - he even started to frame the words, then stopped himself, aware of the futility. "It's different this time," he said, "I want this relationship to last."

  "How sweet - and how tiresome for you to be encumbered by a wife and child."

  Her tone was only slightly malicious, just as her eyes were cool, not cold with temper or outrage. The impersonal interest echoed in her voice when she asked - "What's she like? Young I suppose, and passionate in bed."

  Sean remained silent. How could he explain that Ka
te made him laugh, made him feel young - that sometimes just talking to her, answering her quick questions, seeing the love in her eyes, was like coming in from the cold to be warmed by a fire.

  Afterwards, dozing through the long flight to London, he wondered why he had even bothered to tell Gloria. It had accomplished nothing. In fact she had cut the conversation short to go to a bridge-party. They hadn't even had a row. Her parting comment summed up her attitude - "How you behave in London is your business. I only hope you don't make a fool of yourself in public, that's all. It might make the papers back here."

  Sean was reminded of his father's rules. "If you make a mistake," the Da had said, "always be ready to pay for it." Sean was, but other people would pay too. Kate mostly, of course, but also Patrick his son. Sean remembered his own upbringing with Brigid and Tomas, Maureen and Michael ... and always the Da. How close they had been. How much closer than Sean was to Patrick.

  In London Kate listened quietly to an account of his conversation with Gloria.

  "Don't look so sad," she said, "nothing matters as long as we are together."

  But it did. The Permissive Society was more catch-phrase than reality in 1960. Attitudes had changed by the end of the decade, but to begin with eyebrows were raised when a married man on the edge of public life was so often seen with the same vivacious redhead. Sean and Kate were careful not to flaunt their relationship, but concealing it was impossible. Most of the gossip-columnists knew but - thankfully perhaps - professionals have a way of looking after their own, so when Kate's face appeared in the Express or the Mail she was never noticeably accompanied by Sean Connors.

  "I sometimes think we live in a goldfish bowl," Kate once said sadly.

  But they escaped at weekends. Sean bought a cottage near Cookham and most Friday evenings found the lovers fleeing from London for two days of blissful anonymity. Kate cooked and kept house and pretended she was married - while Sean mended the roof and even raised vegetables. They ate and drank, lazed and talked - and fell ever deeper in love. Weekends were a magical interlude in their very busy lives, for from Monday to Friday the world moved on - and Sean's businesses moved with it.