‘Oh, no,’ she said, ‘I’m not tired at all. I don’t get tired easily. I do feel a bit under-dressed, though. Everybody here looks so wonderful.’
‘You don’t look in the least under-dressed. I would say you look quite as good as anyone in this room. Do you like clothes?’
‘Very much.’
‘Good. I don’t like women who aren’t interested in clothes. It shows a lack of sensuality.’
This time the warmth was not something remote, or distant; it was a stab of fire. Phaedria drained her glass.
‘And after the oysters?’
She looked at the menu. ‘Steak tartare, please.’
‘This is a very cold meal for November. Is that really what you want?’
‘Yes.’
‘Very well. We can have a big bowl of frites to warm you. And some – let me see, beaune. That would be nice.’ He looked up. Peter Langan had lurched unsteadily over to their table.
‘Evening.’
‘Good evening, Mr Langan. How are you?’
‘Fucking awful.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that. It’s very nice to be here.’
‘I won’t say it’s nice to have you here, because I’d much rather have your mother. Have you ordered yet?’
‘Not yet.’
‘I’ll send someone over. You look like you need some help. Nice shirt,’ he added to Phaedria, and stumbled off.
‘He’s being exceptionally polite this evening,’ she said, munching hungrily at the crudités the waiter had brought.
Julian looked at her in amused pleasure. ‘I’m enjoying you,’ he said.
‘Good.’
‘Now then, can we get back to you?’
‘If you like. There isn’t a great deal to tell. And of course, contrary to what you said, I don’t know anything at all about you really.’
‘Don’t you?’
‘I don’t think so, no.’
‘That’s a nice necklace,’ he said.
‘Oh,’ she said, and there was a shadow on her face that belied her bright tone. ‘I’ve hardly ever worn it. It was a present from someone – ages ago.’
‘Someone important?’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘someone very important. But it’s over now.’
‘How old are you, Phaedria?’
‘Twenty-four.’ She shook back her great mane of hair and looked at him very directly. ‘How old are you?’
‘Sixty-two.’
‘Older than my father.’ It was an oddly intimate statement.
‘Does it matter?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘Yes,’ said Phaedria. ‘Yes, I do.’
He took her hand suddenly. ‘I find you very beautiful. I find the way I am feeling very surprising. Please tell me about yourself.’
‘All right. But you must talk as well.’
‘Very well. We shall swop story for story, and see how we get along.’
He put out his hand and stroked her cheek, very gently; she turned her head and rested it in his hand. She smiled. ‘I think I shall run out of stories first.’
‘We shall see.’
They talked for hours. Warmed, relaxed by the wine, the strangely delicious sensations invading her body, his beguiling interest in everything she had to say, she talked of her childhood, her love for her father, their strangely intense relationship, her fear that her mother might return and invade it; of her days at Oxford, of her unwillingness to become involved with anybody, of her love for Charles. But she stopped there; she was not ready to betray him yet. She talked of her work, of the people she had interviewed – ‘Everybody must ask you this,’ he said, ‘did you ever fall in love with any of them, have an affair?’ and no, she said, never, you did not regard them as people at all, they were objects, part of the job – her ambitions, the delight she took in her work – and her occasional anxiety for the future and where her rather singular approach to life might lead her.
‘It seems to me,’ he said, ‘that you have led a most blameless life.’
‘Fairly. And you? You haven’t done much swopping yet. Come along, tell me about you.’
‘Well, not blameless,’ he said, ‘not blameless at all,’ and he began to talk, as he had not talked for years, freely, easily, about Eliza, about Peter Thetford, about Roz, about the years in New York, about Camilla, about – very briefly – Susan. But, as for Phaedria, there were boundaries to the confidences, he was not prepared to go beyond the ones he had set.
He told her of his years in France during the war, of the early days in the company, he talked about his mother and the fun and the pleasure they had had in London in the early days, and how in fact it had never stopped.
And Phaedria listened, as she so skilfully did in her work, silently for the most part, attentively, occasionally asking a quiet, thoughtful question, and learnt more in two hours than most people did in two months, two years.
Suddenly he stopped, looked at her slightly warily, and smiled. ‘You are a very dangerous person to talk to,’ he said. ‘You tempt one to say too much.’
‘Can one say too much?’
‘One certainly can.’
He was silent; then he reached out again and touched her face. ‘What do you think?’
She knew what he meant.
‘I’m not sure.’
‘Ah.’
‘Perhaps I should go.’
‘Where?’
‘Home.’
‘Oh,’ he said, ‘don’t go. Not yet.’
‘Well in any case,’ she said briskly, ‘I have to go to the loo.’
‘Very well, off you go, and I shall try and think of something to delay you before you return.’
Phaedria sat in the rather palatial Ladies’ of Langan’s, with its slight air of the boudoir, which had, as usual, a party of its own going on, the air thick with conflicting perfumes and the mirrors crowded with half made-up faces; girls sitting on the sofa gossiping, giggling. She sat apart from them, and brushed her hair, looking at herself in the mirror for a long long time. She felt excited, disturbed, alarmed; but happy. She was taking strange turnings, but she did not feel afraid; nor foolish; nor even surprised at herself. She could see quite well where this evening would very probably end, and despite a considerable sense of trepidation, she liked the prospect. How or why she liked it lay for the most part in the past, she supposed; in her odd childhood, her love for her father, her betrayal by Charles, but it also lay in the present, in the growing urgency of what she could quite clearly see was physical desire at its most beguiling, its most delicious, its most indiscreet. The centre of herself seemed to have shifted; she was thinking, talking, responding, feeling from somewhere deep within her newly restless, hungry body; for the first time in her whole life she felt she understood what a fearsome, reckless force sexuality could be. And she felt something else too, something tender, something happy, something loving; she liked this man, she liked his mind, she liked his voice, she liked his smile and his tenderness towards her, she liked the way he looked, the way he laughed, the way he sat, and walked and moved, the way he looked at her, the way he made her feel she mattered; she wanted to stay with him, to learn more of him, to be with him. He had given her courage; she wasn’t afraid. She smiled at herself in the mirror, stood up and walked purposefully back down the stairs.
He was waiting for her at the table, looking almost anxious.
‘I wondered if you’d run away.’
‘No. I didn’t want to.’
‘I’m glad. What next?’
‘You say.’
‘Brandy?’
‘No, thank you. I’d like some Perrier, though.’
‘You shall have it.’ He took her hand again, looked at her intensely with his dark, questing eyes, searching, half smiling, disturbing her.
Phaedria closed her eyes briefly and swallowed; she felt faint.
‘Now, I have to ask you something. Something important. Something
I have to know.’
‘What?’
‘Have you been to bed with many men?’
‘No.’
‘Ah. Any men?’
‘Yes and no.’
‘Are you a virgin?’
‘Yes and no.’
‘My God,’ said Julian, dropping her hand and laughing, signalling to the waiter, ‘you’re hard work. Are you always so mysterious?’
‘I try to be. I don’t like giving too much away.’
‘You certainly succeed. Let me take you back to my place. I have some very interesting etchings.’
‘No thank you,’ said Phaedria, ‘I really don’t want to go back to your place. I hate men’s places.’
‘That’s a very sweeping statement. My place is very nice.’
‘I’m sure, but I don’t want to go there.’
‘There’s the office.’
‘Any etchings there?’
‘Kind of. You’ve seen most of them.’
‘I suppose so.’ She looked at him with sudden interest. ‘Do you have any pictures of the stores? And the hotels? I’d really like to see those.’
‘Dear God in Heaven, I hadn’t anticipated having to compete with my own company for your attention. Come along, let’s forget the Perrier. Plenty in the office anyway.’
Pete had been waiting for two and a half hours outside Langan’s; Julian looked at the car and sighed.
‘I’d forgotten him. Poor old Pete. Ridiculous driving that short distance, but I can’t dismiss him now. And I’d so wanted to walk with you.’
‘Well, let’s get him to take us somewhere else, and then walk,’ said Phaedria.
He looked at her and smiled delightedly. ‘What a clever girl you are. How I am enjoying myself. Pete! Sorry to have kept you so long. Look, just drop us off at the Connaught, will you, we want to have a nightcap there, and then we can get taxis. Quite late enough already for you.’
‘Very good, Sir Julian.’
In the car he put his arm round her, kissed the top of her head, tipped her face up to his. ‘I find you very special.’
Phaedria smiled into his eyes. ‘I’m enjoying you too.’
‘I plan for you to enjoy more of me.’
She felt an explosion, a melting somewhere deep within her; she got most reluctantly out of the car.
They pushed in through the swing doors, waited until Pete and the Rolls had disappeared and walked out again. The doorman at the Connaught looked at them suspiciously.
‘Come on,’ said Julian loudly, taking her hand, ‘let’s go and do that bank.’
Phaedria giggled.
They walked slowly down through Berkeley Square; a pale, wintry moon spattered on to the bare trees; it was cold, dank. She shivered.
He felt it and put his arm round her shoulders. ‘Sorry. Lousy idea. I just wanted to walk with you.’
‘It wasn’t a lousy idea. And I’m not usually so feeble. But I haven’t got much of a coat.’
‘Oh, God!’ He looked stricken, pulled his own off, and put it round her. ‘There you are. And if we come to a puddle I’ll lay it over it.’
‘That would be a terrible waste of a very nice coat.’
‘I don’t agree. And I have plenty more.’
‘I suppose you would have.’
They walked up Hay Hill in silence; occasionally he drew her closer to him, kissed the top of her head. She felt absurdly happy.
‘I like the night time,’ he said suddenly. ‘You have so much more of the world to yourself.’
‘Shall I go away, and leave the two of you alone together?’
‘No. I can’t think I would ever want you to go away again.’
‘Well, I’ll stay for now.’
‘Please do.’
He unlocked the big white door, let them in, followed her into the lift. It was a small intimate space; he pulled her hard against him, turned her face up and kissed her suddenly, fiercely. At the top the doors opened abruptly, the lights on automatically; he looked down and saw her face, startled, raw with surprise and desire.
‘You look very different from this morning.’
‘I feel different.’
‘Do you really want to look at photographs of my stores?’ he asked, smiling gently, teasing her.
‘No, not now.’
‘You disappoint me.’
‘Don’t joke.’
She walked away from him with an effort, suddenly nervous, unsure of what she should do. He followed her, turned her round, looked at her and smiled. ‘Don’t be frightened.’
‘I’m not frightened,’ she said, ‘but you will have to take care of me. I am half a virgin.’
‘I promise I will.’ He smiled down at her. ‘I don’t know exactly what you mean, but you can tell me later.’
He took off the coats; first his then hers, then, his eyes never leaving her face, unbuttoned her shirt, slid it off her shoulders. Her breasts were small, firm, almost pubescent; he looked at them for a long time, then bent his head and kissed them tenderly at first, then harder, working at the nipples with his tongue; Phaedria, her head thrown back, limp, shaken, forgot everything except her need to have him, to know him utterly, to give to him, to take, take, take. She moaned; he straightened up.
‘Let’s get undressed. We aren’t giving our bodies much help.’
She lay on the carpet, shivering, watching him; she had been a little afraid that he would look less good, less youthful without his clothes, but he didn’t, he was tanned, all over, his stomach flat, his buttocks taut and firm. His penis stood out starkly; she looked at it with frank interest.
‘Now, you must have seen one of these before.’
‘Yes, but it wasn’t so big.’
‘Ah,’ he said, ‘I expect you say that to all the boys.’
And he smiled, defusing her fear, and began to stroke her, gently, insistently, first her breasts, playing with the nipples, smoothing the skin; then on her stomach, stronger, harder, and then moved his hand into the mound of her pubic hair, gentle again, unthreatening, and then, as she began to move, involuntarily, responding to him, he sought for her clitoris with his finger, probing, questing, and smiled as he felt the swelling and the wetness.
He was kneeling above her now, bending now and again to kiss her; again and again she thrust herself up towards him, her arms stretched out, her hair spread about her, looking like some strange, pre-Raphaelite painting, an embodiment of desire.
He made her wait a long time, until she was quite quite ready for him; then very very slowly and gently, he began to enter her, pushing, urging, withdrawing every time he felt her tense. She was tight and tender, despite her desire, and still afraid, deep within herself; he waited for her again and again, following her pattern, understanding her ebbing and flowing, and gradually, very gradually she abandoned herself absolutely to him, relaxed beneath him, softened, opened deeper and deeper, and then suddenly she gathered herself and it was a different movement altogether, it was hungry and grasping and greedy, and then she cried out and trembled and clung to him, and he knew she was there, and that it was safe for him to join her. And afterwards she lay and cried, sobbed endlessly in his arms, and couldn’t tell him why.
‘I’m happy,’ she kept saying, ‘I’m happy, I can’t bear it, please please don’t go away.’
‘I’m not going away,’ he said, ‘never. I shall be here with you always. Don’t cry, my dearest, dearest darling love. I’m not going away. Shush, shush, Phaedria, don’t cry.’
And in the end she stopped and turned towards him, her face all blotched and smudged with tears and exhaustion and sex, and smiled and said, ‘How wonderful you are.’
‘No,’ he said, ‘not wonderful. Not wonderful at all. I loved it. I love you.’
He had not said that for years; it frightened him, even as he spoke.
And Phaedria, who had said it only to Charles, and had been betrayed and was frightened also, looked at him very seriously and said, ‘I love you too.’
The Connection Nine
Los Angeles, 1982
FATHER KENNEDY WAS having serious problems with his conscience. Mrs Kelly had made it perfectly plain to him that she didn’t want anyone knowing where she and Miles were going; indeed had entrusted him with the information under pain of great secrecy. It was essential for several reasons, she had said, that nobody knew; the police might come inquiring for Miles, those no-good friends of his from the beach might want to find him; and kind as Mr Dashwood was, she didn’t really want him knowing either. If she and Miles were to make a clean start, then she didn’t want him turning up, upsetting Miles, interfering. She felt bad about it in a way; on the other hand, she did feel, as she had confided to Father Kennedy more than once, that he could have done more to help, that he was just being plain stubborn now, digging his heels in as hard and as awkwardly as Miles, only Miles was little more than a child, and Mr Dashwood was old enough to know better. It could have made all the difference in the world to Miles, and his future, had he given him a job in his company, and it wouldn’t have hurt any. Sometimes, she had said, she wondered if Miles wasn’t right, and Mr Dashwood wasn’t a little ashamed of him – and of her, as well.
Father Kennedy, having the advantage – or maybe the disadvantage – of knowing rather more about Hugo Dashwood and his relationship to Miles than Mrs Kelly, or indeed anyone else in the world, he imagined, found it very hard to understand why the man wouldn’t help his own son; he had often thought about the puzzle over the years; ever since Miles had graduated so well and then wasted himself. Obviously it would be very damaging for the boy, even when he was grown up, to learn that his mother had had a sexual relationship with another man, and that the father he had been so fond of had not been his father at all. It would inevitably lead to the painful realization that the reason for his father’s suicide had been his mother’s adultery; the whole story was obviously much best kept untold. Especially as Miles disliked Hugo Dashwood so much. That was a sad thing, under the circumstances.
But on the other hand, that should not keep the man from giving Miles a job; he was clearly fond of him, proud of him, and besides, a man did not put a boy through college if he was ashamed of him, didn’t like him. He was as good as the boy’s guardian; why should he persist in this strange, stubborn attitude?
Old Sins Page 58