There was much more about Sir Julian’s other business interests, his pharmaceutical work and its vast benefits to mankind in general, and those in the Third World in particular, the drugs he had launched (most notably one of the first low-dosage oral contraceptives ten years earlier) and his various extraordinarily well-deserved awards for services to industry. Phaedria read the release stony-faced and looked at Barry.
‘Still can’t see it. It sounds totally boring. I’m going hunting.’
‘Phaedria, you are not going hunting. You’re going to get an interview with Julian Morell.’
‘Barry, for Christ’s sake, it’s a press conference. Every half-assed reporter for miles around will be there asking him the same half-assed questions.’
‘I know that, darling. You’re going to get an exclusive.’
‘And what will be so big about that?’
‘Phaedria, you ought to read the papers a bit more as well as the press releases. Julian Morell is a great character. And a great womanizer,’ he added, ‘and he hasn’t given an interview for ten years. He’s developed a phobia about the press.’
For the first time Phaedria’s expression sharpened. She slithered down against the wall and sat on the floor, taking another can of beer from Barry.
‘OK. Tell me about him.’
‘More or less self-made. Impoverished second son of the upper classes. Well upper middle. Started with a tiny range of medicines, just after the war. Went into cosmetics. Then plastics, pharmaceuticals, paper. Department stores. That’s probably the big one. Never heard of Circe?’
‘Never.’
‘Well, there isn’t one in London – yet. But there’s one in Paris and Milan and New York. And Beverly Hills, I expect. Very very expensive. Makes Harrods look like Marks and Spencer, that sort of thing. Oh, and there’s a chain of hotels.’
‘Called?’
‘Called just Morell. Like – well, like – just Hilton. Anyway, he’s made a billion or two.’
‘And what about the women?’
‘Well, he’s only been married once. Can’t remember who to. But there’s been a lot of mistresses, all beautiful, and a lot of scandal. He’s always in the gossip columns.’
‘Barry, I didn’t think you read the gossip columns,’ said Phaedria, laughing.
‘A good journalist reads everything in the other papers,’ said Barry slightly pompously. ‘You have to. You need to know what’s going on. I’m always telling you that, Phaedria.’
‘I know,’ said Phaedria, ‘I know I’m bad. I just can’t be bothered half the time. I’m not really a journalist at all, I’m afraid. Not like you,’ she added, getting up and patting his hand fondly. ‘All right, you’ve intrigued me. I’ll go. I shall continue to complain, but I’ll go. Now, have you fixed the interview?’
‘No. They turned it down. That’s precisely why I want you to go. I reckon you’ll get one.’
‘Why?’
‘You know damned well why. Don’t play games with me. Now go home and get some beauty sleep. You’re going to need it.’
‘Thanks,’ said Phaedria. ‘All right, I’ll try. But I want another day off instead. And you can send Jane to the Mayor’s Banquet, OK?’
‘OK.’
‘Don’t forget.’
‘All right, Phaedria,’ said Barry wearily, ‘I won’t forget.’
‘You probably will. But I’m not going to do it anyway. Night, Barry.’
‘Good night, Phaedria. See you tomorrow.’
‘Perhaps. I might elope with Sir Julian and never come back.’
‘OK, that’s fine by me, you can elope with him if you like, but get the copy in first. Bye, darling.’
‘Bye, Barry.’
Barry looked after her thoughtfully as she walked out through the newsroom. She had been with him two and a half years now on the Bristol Echo, and she drove him to distraction. She was everything he disapproved of in a woman and a reporter and yet he lived in dread of her leaving. She was a talented writer and a clever interviewer; she could persuade new thoughts and pronouncements out of anybody. The most over-done, rent-a-quote actor, the most cliché-ridden, party-lined politician suddenly, under the scrutiny and influence of Phaedria Blenheim, found an original line, an unpredictable view, which they read themselves with surprise and pleasure – and refreshed and invigorated their own tired battery of quotes with it for months to come.
She was also extremely beautiful, which was clearly another asset; she could persuade any man to talk to her and pour his heart out, and she had little compunction about publishing all kinds of intimate little confidences and details which had been made to her ‘strictly off the record this, darling,’ taking the view that any public figure who was fool enough to trust a journalist deserved absolutely anything he got.
On the other hand she was quite right when she said she wasn’t really a journalist. Her knowledge of the world was extremely scanty; she scarcely knew who the Home Secretary was, and certainly not who ran Russia or China, or even Ireland, and more unusually in a woman, who Prince Andrew’s latest girlfriend was, or whether Elizabeth Taylor was marrying for the fifth or sixth time. She was actually far more interested in horses and hunting than seeing her name in ever-bigger bylines; her job financed her horse and her riding (just); Barry knew, and was alternately irritated and amused by the knowledge that she also capitalized on his rather indulgent attitude towards her to get days off when she wanted to hunt or attend a race meeting.
But she filled her pages (he had made her woman’s editor a year ago) with original and charming ideas, and always delivered the goods every week (even if they were dangerously close to deadline) and he knew it would be a hundred years before anyone as talented came the way of his paper again. And Barry Morgan would do anything, go through fire and water, endure death by a million cuts, if it was to benefit his beloved Echo. The paper gave him back a hundredfold all the work and heartache and care he put into it, and every week, as the first one came off the presses, he would take it and unfold it and look at it with a sense of pride and wonder and something else that was strongly akin to love.
Phaedria had been a complete novice, not a journalist at all, when she came to work for him as a temporary copy typist. He had been very taken with her straight away (apart from her ridiculous name, but she couldn’t help that after all); he found her attractive, she had a lot of dark hair and large brown eyes, and a rather stylishly severe way of dressing, and she worked hard and late if necessary; but the day she really won his heart was when she came into his office one evening with a piece of copy in her hand and a determined look on her face.
‘Mr Morgan, I was just wondering if you’d let me have a go at re-writing this.’
‘And what makes you think it needs re-writing?’
‘It’s awful,’ said Phaedria simply.
‘And why should you be able to make it less awful?’
‘I’m good at writing.’
‘Oh, yes?’
‘Yes.’
He met her eyes with a grudging respect and took the piece of paper from her hand. It was an account of a production of The Mikado and she was right. It was awful. He grinned at her.
‘All right, Miss Blenheim. Have a go at it.’
She came back half an hour later with the copy re-written.
‘It’s a bit better now, I think. Here you are.’
It was actually a lot better. It brought the entire evening – the production, the music, the audience, absolutely to life. Barry looked at her thoughtfully.
‘Have you got a job lined up after you leave here?’
‘No.’
‘What are you thinking of doing?’
‘I don’t know. My degree’s in English. There’s a lot of us about.’
‘Where did you get it?’
‘The degree? Somerville.’
‘Ah.’
He had a deep mistrust of graduates, and of Oxbridge ones deeper than most. They weren’t merely self-confident,
they were arrogant. They generally expected to come in and start writing an arts column immediately, and to take a deputy editorship as an encore three months later. But Phaedria didn’t seem too much like that. She was very self-confident, but it was the confidence of her background (upper to middle, he’d put it at) rather than the intellectual variety.
‘Where did you go to school?’
‘In London.’
‘St Paul’s, I suppose.’
‘Well, yes.’
He liked the way she played it down.
‘Why did you come here then?’
‘Oh, I like newspapers and magazines. I was a reporter for the university paper. I edited my school magazine. But I’m not sure if it’s what I want to do for the rest of my life.’
‘What else are you interested in?’
‘Fashion. I wondered about buying.’
‘While you’re wondering, how would you like to try a stint here?’
‘What as? A typist?’
‘Well, typist, cum dogsbody, cum very occasional junior reporter.’
‘I certainly would. I’d love it. Thank you very much, Mr Morgan.’
‘You won’t earn much.’
‘I don’t care.’
‘Good.’
She had very quickly stopped being a typist and a dogsbody, forgot about fashion buying and became a full-time reporter. She worked very hard, she didn’t mind what she did, and she was nice to have around. She was a touch abrasive, and she knew her value, but it did not make her arrogant, she mixed in with the others, she learnt to drink and swear and swop filthy jokes, she became in short one of the blokes. And she was extremely happy.
Barry grew very fond of her; often, when everyone else had gone home, they would go to the pub and talk. She was a good listener; almost without realizing it he had told her everything about his marriage, his career, his love for the Echo, and his one great terror in life, which was retirement.
It was a long time before he found out much about her. It came out gradually in bits and pieces, tiny pieces of confidences spilled over just one too many beers, or in the intimacy born of working closely together long and late. She was an only child and she had looked after her father ever since she was ten years old, when her mother had run away to South America with his best friend and had never properly communicated with either her husband or her child again.
Augustus Blenheim was an academic, and earned his living lecturing in literature and writing biographies of virtually unknown writers; it was him that Phaedria had to thank for her name. ‘No it isn’t Phaedra,’ she would say patiently, a hundred, a thousand times over the years, ‘it’s Phaedria. Different lady.’
And then she would explain (or perhaps not explain, according to her audience) that Phaedria was one of the characters in Spenser’s Faerie Queen, and the personification of Wantonness; why any father, most people would wonder, while keeping their wonderings to themselves, should inflict upon his daughter so strong an association with such a quality was a considerable mystery. But Phaedria did not seem to have held it against him; it was a pretty name, and she liked it, and besides she loved him so much she would have forgiven him far more, and much worse.
They had lived together, father and daughter, in the same small house in Chelsea all their lives; and Phaedria had come home from school every day with a mountain of homework and had shopped and cooked for him before settling down to it. At the weekends they did the housework together, went to the cinema, visited friends (mostly academic or literary colleagues of Augustus’s), experimented with recipes, played chess and talked interminably. They were all the world to one another; it was a perfect marriage. Phaedria had few friends of her own age, and she was perfectly happy with her father’s. Occasionally one of the less reticent women in their circle would tax Augustus with Phaedria’s rather unconventional social life, or suggest to her that she went to more parties and perhaps even on holiday with her contemporaries, but they would both politely say that things were perfectly satisfactory as they were, and ignore any attempts to change anything. Nobody ever managed, or even tried, to come between them.
The effect on Phaedria of all this was complex. It made her fairly incapable of relating to any male very much under the age of her father; it matured her in some ways emotionally and retarded her in others. It made her self-reliant; it meant she was not daunted by any person, however brilliant or famous, or any situation, however difficult or challenging; it also ensured that she remained a virgin.
Even at Oxford, when she finally began to make friends with men who were her contemporaries, she found herself completely incapable of entering into a sexual relationship with any of them. Having missed out to a large degree on any kind of emotional education, having had no mother, sisters or even friends to talk to about sex or love, or how she might feel about anything very much, she grew up self-contained, and innocent. She learnt the facts about sex from school and books; she had to handle her first period, her early sensations of desire, and the transformation of her own body from child to woman, entirely alone.
She entered her third year at Oxford intacta, with a reputation for being fun, funny, clever and beautiful and absolutely not worth even trying to get into bed. Men initially saw her as a challenge, but confronted by her patent lack of interest in the matter, gave up. Nevertheless, she was popular; she had a capacity to listen and a lack of self-interest that made both sexes pleased to have her friendship. But she remained, unknown even to herself, very lonely.
And then she had met Charles Fraser-Smith, the darling of the gossip columns, blond, tall, heavily built, a superb rugger and polo player and a brilliant classics scholar; what nobody at Oxford ever knew was that he was homosexual.
From the beginning the slight aura of apartness they both carried with them, their talent for communication, their physical attractiveness, their ability to listen, drew them together. They spent more and more time with one another. They drank, danced, talked and walked together; what began as a joky, raucous evening after a particularly triumphant rugger match became the closest of friendships. They liked the same things, the same places, the same people; they enjoyed the same food, the same books, the same jokes, the same films. If one was invited to a party, the other would arrive; if one refused, the other would not attend. Phaedria introduced Charles to cooking, he introduced her to horses. He kept two polo ponies and a hunter at livery just outside Oxford and he taught her to ride. She fell in love with horses with a passion she had never felt for any man, and became a brave and skilful rider with remarkable speed. They rode out together early most mornings, initially with Phaedria on the leading rein, later cantering easily beside him; it was another factor in their relationship and the delight they took in each other’s company. Their taste, their humour, their friends, their opinions were always compatible, usually indistinguishable, and they enjoyed being with one another more than anything else in the world. To see them apart was a rarity; what nobody was quite sure about was whether they were actually lovers.
One night, in Charles’ room six months into their relationship, over a bottle of gut-rotting beaujolais left over from a party the night before, he suddenly sighed and took Phaedria’s hand. She snatched it away.
‘Don’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I don’t want to.’
‘Phaedria, I’m only trying to hold your hand.’
‘Yes, and then you’ll try and kiss me and then you’ll try and get my knickers off,’ said Phaedria with a sigh.
‘I won’t. I swear.’
‘Why not?’
‘Ah! I think I detect just a smidgen of a note of indignation.’
‘You certainly don’t.’
‘What then?’
‘Just interest.’
‘How arrogant of you! Just why should I wish to get your knickers off?’
‘Not arrogant at all. But most people do, I’m very sorry to say.’
‘Well I don’t.’
&nb
sp; ‘I can’t tell you how pleased I am, Charles, but I still find it – well, a bit interesting.’
‘That I don’t want to?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you want me to tell you? Really?’
‘Yes. Yes. I do.’
Charles took a long draught of the beaujolais, grimaced and got up. ‘I’ll have to have something a bit better to drink before I can face this, I think. Hang on a bit.’
‘Gracious!’ said Phaedria. ‘It must be serious.’
He turned to look at her, a bottle of whisky in his hand. ‘It is.’
He sat down again by the fire, handed her a glass of whisky, took her hand again. ‘Phaedria, can I really trust you? I have never told anyone before, ever. This is quite a moment.’
Phaedria looked at him, her face very composed, her dark eyes brilliant in the firelight. ‘Charles, you know you can.’
‘OK. Here we go. Phaedria, I am not as other men. I feel the love that dares not speak its name. I’m a poofter, my darling, a queer, a nancy boy. Now what do you think about that?’
‘I think it’s wonderful,’ said Phaedria simply.
‘Well,’ he said, smiling rather shakily at her, ‘oh, well, that’s all right then. Good God. What a relief.’ He was silent for a moment, gazing into his glass. ‘Oh Phaedria, if you knew how I’ve dreaded telling you and how much I’ve longed to. I’ve nearly done it a dozen times and then been too afraid.’
‘You fool!’ said Phaedria. ‘What on earth did you think I was going to do. Rush out of the room screaming? Have the vapours? Honestly, Charles, how insulting. You’re my best friend. And I really do think it’s wonderful.’
‘Oh,’ he said, taking her hand again and kissing it. ‘I do adore you. It’s you that’s wonderful.’
‘Yes,’ said Phaedria, ‘I am. Now tell me all about it.’
They sat there all night talking; he had heard of her childhood, now she heard of his; insensitive father, doting mother, beating at prep school, buggery at Eton, and finally delicious seduction by a French actor he had met on a train on his way back from the Dordogne.
Old Sins Page 54