Old Sins

by Penny Vincenzi

  ‘Yes, I know what you mean. And yes, it’s that. It’s an engagement ring, Roz, as you call them in England. I really do want to marry you.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I love you. God knows why, but I do.’

  ‘I love you too. But things are fine as they are.’

  ‘I wouldn’t agree with that. I want them settled. I’m sick of jetting in here every other day. I want you with me.’

  ‘Where do you mean?’

  ‘New York.’

  ‘I’ve just been offered a new job. In London.’

  ‘London! Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘I didn’t know. I was only offered it yesterday.’

  ‘Well, turn it down. Or say you want to go to New York instead.’

  ‘No, I can’t.’

  ‘What do you mean, you can’t? Your father’s got offices there.’

  ‘Michael, my father isn’t slotting me in somewhere just to suit me. He’s given me a proper job to do. It’s important. It’s promotion.’

  ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, Rosamund, how important is it to get promotion in your father’s company?’

  ‘It’s terribly important, Michael. Terribly. I can’t believe you don’t understand. I really have earned it. I’m going to be marketing manager of all the Juliana colour products in the UK. It’s a terrific job.’

  ‘And I suppose the opposition was really stiff for this terrific job?’

  ‘Oh, don’t,’ said Roz angrily. ‘You don’t know my father. He wouldn’t give me any job he didn’t think I could do.’

  ‘I do know your father, and I think he would.’

  ‘Well, thanks a lot.’ Roz drained her coffee cup and called the waiter. ‘L’addition, s’il vous plait!’

  ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake get off your high horse and have some more champagne.’

  ‘No, thank you. I want to keep my head clear.’

  She was finding the conversation difficult and terrifying. She kept hearing her mother’s voice saying ‘You can’t have both’ and pushing it resolutely to somewhere at the back of her head. It wouldn’t stay there.

  ‘Rosamund, I really want you to have a career. It’s one of the things I value in you. I love the fact that you want to do well. But I want you to do well with me.’

  ‘But Michael, I can’t come to New York now. I can’t give up my job, and be a proper good wife to you. Not yet.’

  Michael picked up her left hand and slid the ring on to it.

  ‘Please wear it.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘You can wear it, for Christ’s sake. That doesn’t commit you to a life sentence of picking out shirts for me at Brooks Brothers and doing the flowers for our dinner parties, which is what you seem to imagine I want.’

  ‘No, I don’t imagine that, of course I don’t. But if I did marry you, if I was your wife, I’d want to be a proper one. I’ve seen too many wrecked marriages. And this way I’d be cheating. Well, I feel I would.’

  ‘Well look, wear the ring. And say you’ll marry me soon. I’m not insisting on next week. You can do this important job for a bit, if you really want to. I’ll wait. Please, darling.’

  ‘Michael, I’m not going to promise anything.’

  ‘Why not? What harm’s in a promise?’

  ‘You have to keep them.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, stop playing games.’

  ‘I’m not playing games. I just –’

  ‘What?’

  Roz looked at him suddenly. He was white-faced with exhaustion; he had a night’s growth of beard, his voice was shaking with rage and some other emotion, she wasn’t sure what: in a moment of rare unselfishness, she realized she should stop hitting him when he was down.

  ‘I just want time to think. Come on.’

  She stood up and held out her hand. ‘Let’s go back to my flat and you can go to bed for a couple of hours.’

  Michael’s eyes flicked over her.

  ‘You going to join me?’

  ‘If you like.’

  ‘I do like. I certainly do.’

  At one o’clock he was still asleep. Roz rolled out of bed cautiously and crept out of the room. She felt exhilarated, recharged, absolutely alive. Sex with Michael Browning did that to her. Not just her body, but her emotions and her intellect had all been absolutely engaged, focused on the taking and giving of pleasure. She was left with a surge of adrenaline coursing through her; she felt she could quite literally have flown in the air.

  She made herself a strong coffee and wandered into the bathroom, looked at her face, flushed, worked over with love, and smiled at it. Perhaps, perhaps, after all, Michael could be, would be, enough. She wished for that, at that moment, more than she had ever wished for anything in her life.

  Then she looked at the great ring on her finger, where he had put it, and she thought about her father, about London, about her new job and the passion of excitement she had felt when he had phoned her about it: telling her she had earned it, that he was impressed with her work, that he knew she could do it, and do it well, and she knew that she could not, would not, give it up. Not for all the rings, all the money, all the sex, all the love in the world. It was difficult, because she wanted love, and she needed it; but the choice had to be made.

  A milksop of a man, she thought sadly, hearing yet again her mother’s voice. That’s what I shall have to find.

  In the event it wasn’t really very difficult.

  C. J. Emerson arrived at Harvard just as Roz was leaving, a charming, gentle young man whose only real ambition in life had been to study archaeology. His father, however, had rather different ones for him. He was only moderately successful himself, lacking the necessary drive and ruthlessness to head up empires and make fortunes; but he had had moments of inspired vision, and backed some brilliant investments: Scott Emerson’s reputation on Wall Street was front rank.

  None had been more brilliant than the one he had pushed through in 1957 when Julian Morell had come to him with his proposals for Circe; and the friendship forged then had remained through the years. They lunched, dined, talked and at times still worked together, they had visited each other’s houses, become involved in each other’s children.

  Scott was impressed by Julian’s immense success and fortune, he admired it, but he did not envy it. He had watched his personal unhappiness grow, seen his uncertainties and his agonies, observed his straightforward optimism become something darker and more complex; and he found himself (somewhat to his own surprise) increasingly content with his own more mediocre achievements, and his extraordinarily happy family life.

  Scott Emerson in 1980, then, found himself viewing the thirty years to come in the same sanguine spirit as he had viewed the thirty that had so pleasantly passed. His daughters were all doing well; only his son was causing Scott the odd moment’s anxiety. Or more than a moment, as he confided to his friend Julian Morell over lunch at the Oyster Bar at Grand Central station one spring day. The two of them sat and looked (each from their own standpoint) at the pretty girls around them, shedding like so many fluttering butterflies their coats, their boots, their scarves, their gloves and emerging in the delicious, slightly self-conscious sexiness of lighter, clingy dresses, of neatly cut, figure-hugging skirts and jackets, of higher heels and silky stockings. Scott looked and regretted, just perhaps for a fleeting moment, that such pleasures were purely visual; Julian enjoyed, for perhaps just a little longer, the reflection that the pleasures might be extended.

  Settled into their martinis, their oysters ordered, the room surveyed, however, they turned their mind to more important matters: to the present, and the future of their families.

  ‘C. J.’s a dreamer,’ said Scott, gazing a trifle morosely into his martini. ‘He’s gone to Harvard, but his heart’s not in it. Not really. He wants to be an archaeologist. I ask you, Julian, what kind of a job is that?’

  ‘A fascinating pursuit,’ said Julian, ‘but I don’t think I’d actually call it a job. Mor
e of a recreation. I didn’t know you had such things in your country anyway, Scott. I didn’t think there was anything to dig up.’

  ‘Well, hell, of course there isn’t, that’s why it’s such a crazy idea. He wants to travel, spend years on sites here, there and everywhere; do a postgraduate course at Oxford. That’s no life for a young man, I told him so. Where’s your ambition, I asked him, where are you aiming for in the world? I said he could have a job any time at the bank, but he wouldn’t hear of it. It worries me, Julian, because I think he’ll drift his life away if he’s given the chance. And I won’t have that.’

  ‘No, you shouldn’t,’ said Julian. ‘Young men should have proper jobs. I quite agree with you. Make their way in the world. Take life on. Plenty of time for dreaming when they’re older. Nothing makes me angrier than this modern tendency to put the pursuit of happiness and self-fulfilment and some bloody silly ideals before the real stuff of life. I wouldn’t have it if it was my son.’

  He spoke with surprising passion; Scott looked at him sharply. He wouldn’t have expected a man with no son, and no experience of such matters, to feel so strongly, to have given the subject so much thought.

  ‘What about Roz?’ he asked tentatively, wondering if she was failing her father in this matter, as she had in so many others. ‘Is she frittering her life away, buying frocks and so on? How’s she doing?’

  ‘Very well,’ said Julian, more warmly than he had spoken of Roz since she had been a little girl. ‘She’s working for me and she’s working very hard. She’s got brains and she’s got push. She’s very, very ambitious.’

  ‘What a waste,’ said Scott, half humorous, half genuinely envious. ‘How ironic that you should have one daughter with all the traditional male virtues, and I should have one son with apparently none of them.’

  ‘Well, work on him,’ said Julian briskly. ‘Don’t let him throw his life away. Tell him there’s plenty of time for archaeology when he’s retired, in his vacations. Ideal sort of occupation then.’

  ‘Oh, I have. I’ve tried that one. And he does try to see it my way. He’s a good boy. And he’s working quite hard at Harvard. But I worry about him long term.’

  ‘Harvard might well sort him out. Roz loved it. Did her the world of good. I shouldn’t worry too soon, Scott. Have another martini. Ah, here are the oysters.’

  But six months later Scott was still worrying. C. J. had scraped his way through Harvard and was now sitting at home in Oyster Bay writing endless applications for jobs he didn’t want. He was a tall, slender young man, with a pale softly freckled face and large dreamy brown eyes. He wore his clothes casual, his hair long, and he never seemed to be entirely present at any occasion.

  He could be witty and entertaining, when he felt relaxed and appreciated, but his charm was low-key and diffident. At twenty-five he felt as confused about life and his future as he had at eighteen; and he could work up no feelings at all for money and business, profits and power. The prospect of having to find a job and work amongst such things, his father’s assumption that he would change his mind and grow to like the idea, depressed him utterly; he loved his parents deeply and he wanted to please them, but it seemed to him this was too much for them to ask and for him to give.

  He knew, deep in his gentle bones, that there was no real question of him actually being permitted to spend his life on the great digs of the ancient world, but he kept hoping against increasingly forlorn hope that a more pleasing occupation than wheeling and dealing on Wall Street might come his way. Publishing perhaps, he thought, or antiques; but he had made little headway with applications in that direction. You needed contacts in that world, as much as any other, he had discovered.

  Nevertheless, he did finally get an offer of a job as junior editor with Doubleday at a modest salary. He looked up from the letter at the breakfast table, his brown eyes shining.

  ‘I’ve been offered a job, Dad.’

  ‘Have you now, son?’ said Scott, putting down his coffee and beaming benevolently at him. ‘What is it? Did that opening at Citicorp I gave you lead to anything?’

  ‘Er – no, not exactly,’ said C. J., who had kept that particular letter of rejection to himself for several days, bracing himself to tell his parents (he had had several and each one had upset them more than the last).

  ‘No, actually, it’s not banking, it’s publishing.’

  ‘Publishing,’ said Scott. ‘I didn’t know you knew anything about it.’

  ‘Well, I don’t much,’ said C. J., ‘but I don’t know anything about banking either. And I think I’d like publishing better. And this is a wonderful offer. I’m going to be an assistant editor at Doubleday’s. It’s a terrific opportunity. I’d really like to take it, Dad.’

  Scott looked at him, and bit back the words of discouragement and disappointment that were struggling to get out. The boy had shown some initiative, after all, and Doubleday’s were a good firm. He smiled at him.

  ‘That’s great, C. J. Well done. When do you start?’

  ‘In a month, Dad. So you don’t mind?’

  ‘No, no son, not at all. I’m proud of you, you’ve got there on your own initiative, and that’s a hell of a good thing to do. Write and accept it. Now here’s a letter from Julian; what’s he got to say, I wonder.’

  He started to read and then drew in his breath sharply.

  ‘C. J., listen to this. Julian Morell says he has an opening for you in his London office. He wants you to join the management team of the hotels division. He’s hell bent on opening more of them, God knows why, and he’s got guys working on it night and day. He needs people to do feasibility studies of various sites worldwide. You’d be working on that side. It’s a hell of an opportunity, C. J. You’d do well. He says you could stay with him in London for a few weeks while you’re finding somewhere to live. He’ll pay you handsomely too. It says here, “. . . Tell C. J. he can have five grand and a BMW for starters.” Now that really is great, C. J., isn’t it? Listen, it would make me so happy to think that Julian and I could really put our friendship to work.’

  ‘But Dad, I already have a job. I don’t want handouts. It’s very kind of Mr Morell, but I really would rather not take it. You just said it was very good that I’d got the job at Doubleday on my own initiative. And I don’t want to go to London.’

  ‘Why on earth not?’ said Scott. ‘I’d have thought it would be just the greatest. All those old buildings, and you could go do your digging at the weekends. I don’t understand you, C. J., I really don’t.’

  ‘Dad, I know you don’t and I’m sorry. But my life is here, and my work is here, and I want to stay. I don’t want to work for Julian Morell.’

  He was quite pale; he was so naturally conciliatory that every word pitted against his father felt like a self-inflicted wound.

  ‘Well, think about it at least,’ said Scott, disappointment and deflation echoing in his voice. ‘Don’t write to Doubleday’s for a day or two, and I won’t write to Julian.’

  ‘OK,’ said C. J. with a sigh.

  ‘There’s my boy. Now I have to go. I have a medical check this morning, this crazy ulcer is getting worse. Say goodbye to your mother for me when she comes down. See you later, C. J.’

  ‘Yes Dad,’ said C. J. absently. He sat reading and re-reading the letter from Doubleday for a long time. He was determined not to go to work for Julian Morell. But he trembled at the battles that lay ahead.

  In the event there were no battles. Scott’s ulcer proved to be cancer and C. J. could clearly not deprive him of the pleasure in the last year of his life of seeing his son go to work for his oldest and dearest friend.

  But having put his shoulder to the wheel, C. J. did push at it with a vengeance. He worked hard at his new job, and put thoughts of archaeology and publishing resolutely behind him; hotels were clearly what Fate had had in mind for him and he went along with her as graciously as he knew how. And in actual fact he didn’t mind it as much as he had expected. His father had been
right in one respect; he found London wonderful. He began a love affair with the city that summer, that lasted for the rest of his life; it consumed his heart as well as his intellect. Where other young men pursued girls or worldly success in their spare time, C. J. pursued London. Every weekend he walked, exploring, looking, learning the place, familiarizing himself with every twist and turn of his beloved’s form. He began with the centre, as it seemed to him, the City, and roamed the small lanes as well as the high, winding streets; wandering down tiny alleys, discovering shops, churches, workshops, that stood as if in a time warp. He walked by the river, under the bridges, explored the docklands; he went to all the markets in Whitechapel and Leather Lane and the Caledonian Road, buying, bargaining, being inevitably and hopelessly (but quite happily) cheated. He watched the newly opened hyper-chic Covent Garden taking shape, and mourned for the one he remembered from visits in his childhood, when the streets had been littered with vegetables and lorries piled high with flowers had held up the impotent traffic. He visited a strange pot pourri of places: the Museum of Childhood, the Battersea Dogs’ Home, Pollock’s Toy Museum. He spent a whole weekend in Fleet Street and its environs, absorbing the smell and feel of the place, watching its twenty-four-hour day pass from one early dawn as the lorries thundered out of the bays with their load of newspapers to the next. He could have written a thesis on the churches and cathedrals of the city, from the sweeping majesty of St Paul’s and Westminster Abbey, to the high self-conscious fashionableness of Chelsea Old Church and St James’s Spanish Place, which made him feel strangely at home and homesick for New York. He walked the residential areas: Belgravia, Chelsea, Knightsbridge, Fulham; he knew the layout of every big store and small smart shop in the city. He ate in every kind of restaurant, from the chic eateries of Fulham and Knightsbridge to the more physically satisfying all-night cafes of Fleet Street and thence to the great English establishments, to Simpson’s in the Strand and Rules. He learnt the layout of the parks by heart: he visited Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, the Orangery in Holland Park, spent days in Hyde Park, rowed along the Serpentine; he sat in St James’s Park, and marvelled at the way it managed somehow to contain the English countryside, and he walked across Regent’s Park, and spent a dizzy, happy day at the zoo.