Old Sins
Page 29
‘Didn’t you?’ she said.
‘No. You have to believe me.’
She had learnt that when her father said that he was invariably lying; she pulled herself out of his arms and went over to the window. She couldn’t ever remember feeling so bad. She wondered how they could possibly go on and on being so cruel to her. It was interesting that her father at least realized it.
She suddenly remembered a request she had been storing up for several weeks. This was clearly a good time.
‘Daddy,’ she said, ‘can I have a new horse? A hunter?’
‘Of course you can,’ he said. ‘We’ll go to some sales this holiday.’
Once again she had been bought off.
They decided on Cheltenham Ladies’ College for her; Roz loathed it. She loathed everything about it from the very first day; the awful dreary green uniform, the way they were all scattered round the town in houses, and marched through it in crocodiles, the endless games, the misery of communal bathing and dressing, the aching horror of homesickness, the hearty jolly staff, the way everyone acted as if they were terribly lucky to be there, the awful food and most of all the feeling of dreadful isolation from the real world. She wasn’t popular because she didn’t conform; she wasn’t friendly and jolly and eager to get on with, she was aloof and patently miserable and refused to join any clubs or societies or even do any extra lessons. She did what she was required to do; she went there and she stayed there and she worked very hard, because it was the only thing that seemed to make it bearable, and she was always top or nearly top of everything, but beyond that she wouldn’t cooperate. She would go, but she was not going to be happy. That was asking too much.
Camilla had interceded on Roz’s behalf over the matter of boarding school; she told Julian that if there was one thing a rejected child didn’t need it was to be sent away from the rejecting parents and that she should be allowed to stay at home and go to day school; Julian told her that he wished she would keep her damn fool psychology to herself. Camilla had an uneasy feeling she had probably made poor Roz more and not less likely to be sent away.
After Roz had actually started at Cheltenham her hostility to Camilla became greater. She was illogically afraid that in her absence they might suddenly decide they were able to get married and have a baby.
Camilla, sensing at least some of this, decided she should talk to Roz, bring some of her fears into the open (knowing that honesty and openness were crucial in these matters). She felt that if Roz realized there was no likelihood of her ever marrying her father, she would be more friendly, and open up a little, come out of her hostile little shell. During the Christmas holidays, when Camilla was in London, working over and anglicizing the advertising campaign, she invited Roz to tea with her and told her she would like to hear about her new school. She made little progress; Roz sat in a sullen silence, pushing her teacake round her plate in a manner very reminiscent of her father. Camilla suddenly took a deep breath and said, ‘Roz dear, there’s something I would like to discuss with you.’
‘What?’ said Roz rudely.
‘Well, I have always imagined that you felt rather as if I was trying to come between you and your father.’
‘No,’ said Roz, ‘not at all. Nobody could do that.’
‘Well perhaps not come between you. But that you thought that if I was going to marry your father, then I might be – well – a threat.’
Roz was silent.
‘Well, the thing is, dear, that I have no intention of marrying him. Not because I am not very fond of him, but because neither of us really wants that kind of commitment.’
‘Why not? Isn’t he good enough for you?’
‘Of course he is. Too good in lots of ways. But you see, some women, and I am one, feel that there is much more to our lives than marriage. We are people in our own right, we may want to have relationships with people, but we don’t want those relationships to take our lives over. We want other things. My career has always been terribly important to me, and I would never combine it with marriage, I would feel I had to neglect either the career or the husband. That doesn’t mean, of course, that we can’t feel very lovingly towards people and enjoy their company. So you see, Roz, there is absolutely no danger of my ever becoming your stepmother, and moving into your home on a permanent basis. I thought that might make you feel more friendly towards me.’
Roz’s sullen, pinched face told Camilla that friendship was not forthcoming.
The other large thorn in Camilla’s side at this time was Letitia. Camilla loathed Letitia. Whenever she allowed herself to consider, however briefly, whether she might, after all, like to be the second Mrs Julian Morell, she reflected upon the reality of becoming Letitia’s daughter-in-law and quite literally shuddered.
She loathed Letitia on two counts: personal and professional. She found it quite extraordinary that this old lady (Letitia was now sixty-nine) should still hold a position of considerable power in the company, and she could not help but feel that Julian was being less than professionally fastidious to allow it. Although Letitia was no longer involved on a day-to-day basis, having retired with a stupendously extravagant party at the age of sixty-five, at which she had danced the Charleston into the small hours at the Savoy, she was still a director of the company, with a most formidable grasp of its workings, a sure steady instinct for financial complexities, and an equally strong feeling for the cosmetic industry in general. The new financial director, Freddy Branksome, said that the day he was no longer able to consult her on company matters, he would take an early pension and go; to an extent he was being diplomatic, but the fact remained that he did give considerable credence to her views, and liked to have her at all major financial review meetings. Camilla found this incomprehensible, and was perfectly certain that both Julian and Freddy must simply be flattering a vain and difficult old lady. It simply did not make sense so far as she could see, that a woman with no formal education, no training in business affairs or company management, could possibly be of any value to a multi-million-pound company. She had tried to say as much to Julian, but he had become extremely angry, told her to keep her business-school nonsense to herself, and that Letitia had more nous and flair in her little finger than the entire staff of the Harvard Business School.
‘When I need your opinion on company structure, Camilla, I will ask for it. Otherwise I would be intensely grateful if you would keep your elegant nose out of things which have nothing whatever to do with you.’
Camilla had said nothing more. She never minded when Julian attacked her views on management and policy. She knew perfectly well his touchiness on the subject and his suspicion of any formal scientific approach sprang from insecurity, but she did think it was a pity he refused to study modern business theory with a sightly more open mind. She supposed it all came from the well-known English passion for the amateur; in time, no doubt, Julian would come to see his methods were simply not professional enough for the hugely competitive business environment of the sixties.
But if she found Letitia’s professional relationship with Julian difficult to cope with, his personal one was almost impossible. He seemed to regard her more as a mistress than a mother; whenever he got back to London he seemed more eager to see Letitia even than his daughter (‘I am,’ he said cheerfully, when she taxed him with this quite early on in their relationship, ‘she’s better tempered.’) And would take her out to dinner, to lunch, and quite often away for the weekend, down to Marriotts, leaving Camilla (should she have accompanied him on a trip) fuming alone in London, rather than face the disagreeable prospect of spending forty-eight hours alone with them, listening to their silly jokes, their convoluted conversations, their detailed accounts of how each of them had spent the intervening few weeks. She knew Letitia found her tiresome; what enraged her was that she made so little effort to disguise the fact.
Camilla had tried terribly hard at first, she had been courteous, patient and polite; she had talked about Julian at great l
ength (knowing this to be the key to a mother’s heart), she had been very careful not to imply any suggestion that she might be trying to encroach on their relationship in any way; and she had made it as clear as she could, without being actually rude or crass, that she had no intention of marrying Julian, that she saw herself purely as a professional colleague.
On her trip to London in the summer of 1967 she decided once again to try to form an adult, working relationship with Letitia; she phoned her and invited her to lunch at the Savoy, which she knew was her favourite place. But Letitia said no, she was on a strict diet and why didn’t they meet in the Juliana salon, for a fruit juice and a salad; Camilla, always grateful to be able to avoid gastronomic temptation and for an opportunity to indulge her body in some therapy or another, agreed and booked herself into the salon for a massage and a sauna for the hour before lunch.
She was now thirty, and against the atmosphere of frenetic pursuit of youth that was taking place in that year, she felt old. London was full of girls who looked just past their seventeenth birthdays, with silky straight hair tumbling down their backs, bambi-wide eyes, and skirts that just skimmed their bottoms. Jean Shrimpton’s face, photographed by David Bailey, gazed with a sexy tenderness from every magazine cover, every hoarding; Marianne Faithfull, Sandie Shaw, Cathy McGowan lookalikes stalked the streets, rangy, self-confident; and through the open window of every car in the capital the Beatles and the Stones sang ‘Yesterday’ and ‘Ruby Tuesday’ and ‘Penny Lane’. It was no time to be over twenty-five.
Camilla sank gratefully on to the massage couch, accepted the sycophantic exclamations over her slenderness from the beauty therapist, and then feeling just pleasantly traumatized from the massage and the attentions of the G 5 machine to her buttocks, walked into the sauna, removed her towel and lay flat on her back with her eyes closed.
She was feeling just slightly sleepy when the door opened; Letitia’s voice greeting her made her sit up startled, looking frantically round for her towel, and in its absence, wrap her arms round her breasts. Quite why she didn’t want Letitia to see her naked she wasn’t sure; but it seemed in some way an intrusion into her relationship with Julian; she felt Letitia was not looking merely at her body, but at what it might offer her son, and that she would find the sight immensely interesting; and she didn’t like the feeling at all. Letitia was dressed in a towelling robe, with a turban wrapped round her head; she did not remove either, merely sat down on the wooden seat opposite Camilla and smiled at her graciously, her eyes skimming amusedly and slightly contemptuously over her body. Camilla, with a great effort of will, removed her arms and met Letitia’s eyes.
‘Good morning, Letitia,’ she said. ‘How nice to see you. I am so looking forward to our lunch.’
‘I too,’ said Letitia. ‘And now we shall have even longer together. How well you look, Camilla.’ And her gaze rested again, lingering, interestedly on Camilla’s breasts and travelled down towards her stomach and her pubic hair.
Camilla swallowed hard, closed her eyes, did a relaxation exercise briefly, and said, ‘Maybe I should go and get dressed, Letitia, I’ve been here ages already.’
‘Really?’ said Letitia. ‘They must have been mistaken, they told me you had only just arrived. Don’t mind me, dear, I have plenty to think about, just relax.’
‘Well,’ said Camilla, ‘perhaps I will stay a little longer. Have you been shopping, Letitia?’ she added in a desperate attempt to get the conversation on to a comfortingly mundane level.
‘No, dear. I don’t often shop these days. The shops come to me. No, I’ve been to see Julian. To discuss next year’s budgets and so on. So nice the company is doing so extremely well, don’t you think?’
‘Marvellous,’ said Camilla.
‘Such a clever man, my son, isn’t he?’
‘Very clever.’
‘And you, Camilla, you have done a great deal for the company. I hope he gives you sufficient credit for it.’
‘Oh yes,’ said Camilla, startled by this sudden rush of friendliness and the unexpected tribute, ‘yes, he does.’
‘Good. You are unusually fortunate in that case. And in other cases as well, of course.’
‘Er – yes.’
‘You seem to enjoy a very special relationship with Julian.’ Her gaze again travelled down to Camilla’s breasts. Camilla made a superhuman effort not to cover them up again.
‘Well, yes. Well, that is to say – I thought . . .’
‘Yes, my dear?’ Letitia’s voice was treacly sweet.
‘Well, that was one of the things I wanted to talk to you about.’
‘Really? What exactly do you mean?’ A wasp was buzzing languidly now near the treacly tones.
‘Well, you know, Mrs Morell, I have always hoped we could be friends. But I imagined you thought that I might be in some way becoming very involved with Julian personally, and that you might find that difficult to handle.’
‘What a strange expression,’ said Letitia sweetly. ‘No, I don’t think so, Camilla dear, I very rarely find things difficult to handle, as you put it. It is one of the advantages of growing older, I suppose. Now what exactly do you mean? That I would be jealous of you?’ And her gaze flicked down again.
‘Oh, no, of course not,’ said Camilla earnestly, ‘and that is exactly what I want you to understand. There is nothing to be jealous of, in that my relationship with Julian is really very much more professional than personal. I see him primarily as a colleague, an employer, rather than a man.’
Letitia leant forward, an expression of acute puzzlement on her face. ‘Camilla, are you trying to tell me that you do not find my son sexually attractive?’
Camilla was so shocked that she did something she had not done for years, and blushed; furious with herself, desperate to escape from the claustrophobia of the sauna and Letitia’s amused, insolent eyes, she stood up and reached for the towel which had fallen on the floor, bracing herself for the full frontal confrontation.
‘How thin you are, dear. Perhaps you should eat a little more. Now I can assure you,’ the silvery, flute-like voice went on, ‘you are very much alone, if that is the case. Most women can’t wait to get into bed with him.’
Camilla rallied. ‘I do find him attractive,’ she said, wrapping herself thankfully in her towel, ‘but I happen to think that some relationships can transcend the physical.’
‘Balls,’ said Letitia. She smiled at Camilla sweetly.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I said “balls”, dear. An old Anglo-Saxon expression. It means rubbish. Balderdash. Poppycock. Oh dear, you won’t know what those words mean either. Your country’s vernacular is, if I may say so, extremely limited.’
‘I do understand you, Mrs Morell. But I really can’t agree with you.’
‘Really? Then what do you do when you are over here, staying at my son’s house? Talk to him all night long? Hold animated discussions about sales psychology and corporate identity, and the design ethic, and all those other things you take so seriously over there? I find that very hard to believe.’
Camilla struggled not to lose her temper.
‘No. Of course we have a – a physical relationship.’
‘I see. But you don’t enjoy it. Is that what you are trying to say?’
Camilla flushed again; she pulled her towel more closely round her.
‘No. It’s not what I am trying to say.’
‘Then try harder, my dear. I am only a very simple old woman. I can’t quite follow your articulate Americanisms.’
‘What I am trying to say,’ said Camilla, ‘is that although I do, since you force me to express it, enjoy my personal – physical – relationship with Julian, what is really important to me is our professional one. I can’t imagine my life without that. However much I might admire and enjoy him as a person.’
‘I see,’ said Letitia, ‘how very interesting.’
‘Why is it so particularly interesting?’ asked Camilla boldly.
‘Not at all. I worked for Julian for quite a long time before we – I – he –’
‘Had sexual intercourse with you? How charming,’ said Letitia.
Camilla had had enough. ‘Mrs Morell, forgive me, but I am finding this a little embarrassing. Perhaps you would excuse me, I have a lot of work to do.’
‘Oh, my dear, I am so sorry!’ cried Letitia, an expression of great distress on her face. ‘How thoughtless of me. Of course I have no right to talk to you like this. It is absolutely no business of mine. It’s just that Eliza and I were so very close, still are, and I find it hard to be formal when I talk about my son. Now, why don’t we both get dressed and move out to the juice bar and you can tell me exactly which aspect of the company you are currently engaged in, to keep you so busy, and over here so much.’
‘Well,’ said Camilla carefully, determined not to lose her temper. ‘As you may not know, Julian has put me in overall charge of the advertising, both here and in New York. Not the creative concept, of course, although he likes me to be heavily involved in that, but I have a major responsibility, reporting only to him, on campaign planning, budgets, media schedules, and of course, overseeing the advertising, in all its aspects here. The campaigns don’t alter very much, but they need to be carefully anglicized, and we are always ready to consider creative concepts this end. So I have a lot to do this week. I – we – have also to get to know the people at the new agency, and see how we are going to work with them.’
‘I see,’ said Letitia thoughtfully. ‘Tell me, is Julian no longer able to afford to employ an advertising manager in New York?’
Camilla looked at her, her eyes wary.
‘Of course there is an advertising manager. But he reports to me. He is not on the main board. I’m surprised you didn’t realize that, Mrs Morell. But I suppose Julian finds it difficult to keep you informed on every detail of the company these days. It must be so different from the old days when he ran it virtually single handed, and you helped him.’