I was very pleased to hear that you were going to get a job. I always felt you had such potential and a great future. I have several connections in banking in Miami and I would of course be delighted to put your name forward. I think New York or Washington might be better for you than Miami, although of course if you want to stay near your grandmother, I quite understand.
How is she? Please give her my regards.
With reference to your request for a loan for $5,000, I am of course happy to consider it, but I would like to know a little more behind the reason. I know this may annoy you, but I cannot help worrying about your past record with drugs, and I want to be assured that you have completely cut yourself off from all that sort of thing. I have given a lot of thought to your situation, and it seems to me that you are very much alone in the world. I realize you are twenty-six, but that is not a great age, and I feel you need some support and help, on perhaps a more formal basis.
I would very much like to see you. I feel we have a great deal to talk about both on a business and personal basis, and there is something that I have decided it is important you should know. I shall be coming to Nassau towards the middle of next month, and we can perhaps have a long talk then. Providing I am satisfied that the $5,000 is to be put to good use, I will give you a cheque then, and have my lawyers drawn up the papers in connection with your allowance.
Thank you again for writing.
Yours ever,
Hugo Dashwood
‘Miles,’ said Mrs Galbraith, ‘it’s just about four weeks now. I wonder if you’ve made that arrangement yet?’
‘Nearly, Mrs Galbraith. The cheque is on its-way.’
‘It had better be. My lawyer has already drafted a letter to your bank.’
‘What do I do?’ he said to Candy frantically. ‘What do I do now?’
She was still in Nassau; Dolly had found a new toyboy on the beach, and Mason was discovering the joy of shooting craps in the casino.
‘Didn’t the old guy deliver?’
‘Sort of. I told you he was no good.’
‘What’d he say?’
‘Here, read the letter.’
She read it. ‘He sounds pretty generous really.’
‘Oh, sure.’
‘Well, would you shell out five thousand dollars just like that?’
‘I guess not.’
‘And he’s going to make you an allowance.’
‘Big deal.’
‘Well, it is.’
‘Maybe. But Candy, I need the money now. I had a letter from the bank this morning, asking me to go and see them. I’m in real trouble.’
‘You’ll just have to tell your grandmother.’
‘Candy, I can’t. It’s hard to explain, but I just won’t do that to her. I think it might really break her. Tip her over the top. She’s pretty nuts already. She needs to think well of me.’
‘She won’t think well of you if you get done for fraud.’
‘I know. But I’m going to hang on as long as I possibly can.’
‘Couldn’t you tell this Dashwood guy it’s urgent?’
‘I’d have to tell him why, and I don’t think that would be a good beginning.’
‘Well, what are you going to tell him?’
‘Oh, I think ordinary debts would be safer. Just cost of living, you know? Overdraft. More respectable, somehow. Only that could obviously wait three weeks.’
She looked at him.
‘Listen, we’re going to New York next week. Why don’t I go and look this old guy up?’
‘What good would that do?’
‘It might help. I could explain you were in a bit of trouble. Old gentlemen like me.’
‘I expect they do,’ he said, smiling in spite of himself.
‘Go on, Miles. Let me. Give me the address.’
‘All right,’ he said. ‘I guess it can’t do any harm. Meanwhile I’ll just have to stall. You can’t lend me a hundred dollars, can you? Just so I can go for this interview in Miami?’
‘I’ll ask Dolly. I’ll say I want a dress. She’ll do anything to try and make me like her.’
‘You’re an angel, Candy.’
‘Yeah, well let’s have a bit of earthly pleasure. Just for now.’
Candy phoned him from New York a few days later.
‘Miles, it was really weird. I went to the address. It’s a really funny place on the lower East Side. But it wasn’t a place at all. Not really.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, it was just a kind of scruffy room, in the most awful building, with a lot of pigeon holes for letters. And a weird woman, who said she was in charge. I said where could I find Mr Dashwood and she said she wasn’t allowed to give his address, and that it was just a forwarding house.’
‘That is weird.’
‘I said it was really urgent and she said, well, that didn’t make any difference, she could only pass messages on. I tell you what, Miles, I really don’t think he can be as rich as you say. I mean I was expecting a real impressive place.’
‘Me too. Well, thanks for trying.’
‘That’s OK. Sorry. Did you get the job?’
‘Haven’t heard. Even if I do, they won’t give me five thousand dollars on my first day, will they?’
‘I guess not. Well, in two weeks now the old guy will be down. So you should be OK.’
‘Yeah. Well, I hope so. When are you back?’
‘Next week. Love you.’
‘Love you too.’
In despair, with very little hope, he wrote to Bill Wilburn, asking him for a loan. All he could do now was wait. And hope the bank and the lawyers would drag their feet.
Chapter Eighteen
London, Los Angeles, New York, 1985
THERE WAS ONLY one person in the world who could really give Julian Morell a hard time. It was Letitia, and she was working very hard at it. She had summoned him to First Street early one spring evening on the pretext of not feeling very well (knowing otherwise he would guess the real reason, avoid coming) and now that she had him there, she was not going to let him go until she had achieved her purpose.
‘Ah, Julian,’ she said, dangerously sweet. ‘How nice. What would you like? A drink? Tea?’
‘A drink please, Mother. Whisky if that’s all right.’
‘Perfectly, you must have whatever you want, Julian, that’s your philosophy in life, isn’t it, and who am I to argue with that?’
‘What on earth are you talking about?’
‘I think you know.’
‘I don’t. I don’t know at all. I came here because I thought you were unwell.’
‘I am not in the least unwell. I think you may be, though. Mentally. Emotionally.’
‘Mother, I am totally baffled by all this.’
‘Really? I’m surprised. Let me clarify things a little.’
He smiled at her, taking a sip of his whisky. ‘I’m sure you will. You have a far clearer mind than mine.’
‘I do indeed. Julian, what the hell do you think you’re doing?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Seeing Camilla. When your marriage to that – child is less than two years old.’
‘Phaedria is not a child. That’s a mistake that everybody makes. She is a tough, clever woman. It’s one of the reasons I love her.’
‘Really. You have a strange way of demonstrating love. And don’t try to change the subject.’
‘Mother –’ His face was white, his mouth working. ‘I don’t think I like this very much. I am not prepared to be talked to as if I was a small boy.’
‘You’re behaving as if you were a small boy. A greedy, spoilt, small boy. And I shall talk to you how I wish. Nobody else seems to do anything but agree with your every utterance, pander to your every whim.’
‘I do assure you you’re mistaken there. My wife and my daughter persist in giving me a very hard time, for a start.’ He was smiling again, trying to lighten the mood of the conversation.
; Letitia looked at him, her eyes icy, her face still with rage.
‘Well, I’m pleased to hear it. Evidently not hard enough. Julian, for God’s sake, answer my question.’
‘You haven’t actually asked one yet.’
‘Are you or are you not seeing Camilla North?’
‘It’s no business of yours, but yes I am. Seeing.’
‘It is my business, and what precisely does seeing mean?’
‘Seeing. Talking to. Lunching with.’
‘Why?’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, because she was in Paris, and I was in Paris, and she was doing some work for Annick.’
‘And you expect me to believe that?’
‘No, I don’t expect it,’ he said, ‘I don’t ask you to and I don’t care. But it’s the truth.’
‘Julian,’ said Letitia, ‘you wouldn’t recognize the truth if it came up behind you and tapped you on the shoulder. I have heard from several sources that you have been seeing quite a lot of Camilla North –’
‘I really don’t think I like having your spies reporting on me all over the world.’ He was so white now, so angry his face was hardly recognizable. ‘How dare you listen to gossip about me?’
‘I dare. I’ve always dared to do a lot of things, Julian. I’m not easily frightened. And there’s been a lot of gossip. So much, it has been hard to ignore. Eliza had heard it, and so for that matter had Susan.’
‘Susan? For God’s sake, Mother, how could you discuss my affairs with Susan of all people?’
Letitia looked at him. ‘Unfortunately for Susan, she is rather over-familiar with your affairs, or was. Particularly the one with Camilla. There is little love lost between her and Phaedria, but even she was concerned. Anyway, that is beside the point. I am extremely fond of Phaedria, and I –’
‘Yes,’ he said, and his face was savage, ‘I know you are. Too bloody fond of her. You none of you really know very much about her, though. Do you? She isn’t the gentle, innocent baby everyone likes to imagine. She has great ambition, and she works night and day to realize it.’
‘And is that a crime? If so you are deeply guilty of it.’
‘In her case, I think it is a little. I feel she’s cheating on me. She has less and less time and energy for me, and more and more for her work. Not to mention all these wretched designers and photographers and so on she’s always fooling around with.’
‘So that gives you the right to go and fool around with Camilla North? Oh, Julian, don’t be such a child. Why do you think Phaedria is working so hard at fighting you? Because you’ve taught her to do it, you’re forty years older than her, although very little wiser apparently, you’ve encouraged her – pushed her, many would say – into something extremely difficult, and a monstrous situation incidentally, with Roz fighting her every inch of the way, you’ve asked her to succeed, and adapt to your very demanding lifestyle at the same time, and then you complain that she’s squeezing you out of her life. You make me very very angry.’
‘Well, I’m sorry. You’re making me rather angry too, Mother, I think I’d better go.’
Camilla North knew perfectly well what had brought Julian back to her; it was not love for her, or desire, or even his terminal tendency to philander; it did not necessarily mean that the marriage had been the disaster that she had prophesied, nor that it had simply signified the male menopause at its most acute. It was fear, and Camilla could offer the unique gift of sexual reassurance that Julian needed.
She found that was enough.
In offering her gift, and in having it received, she received much herself: gratitude, tenderness and trust. Through the long nights, between her linen sheets, Camilla learnt of Julian’s marriage: of his disappointment, disillusion and despair. He was, she found, extremely fond of Phaedria, but he had found himself in the position of a man who had imagined he was buying a toy pistol when actually he had obtained a high-calibre, deadly revolver. He hadn’t acquired a wife, he had acquired a clever business partner and a highly visible personality, and he didn’t like it. Camilla wondered at the girl’s foolishness; she was by all reports intelligent, surely quite intelligent enough to realize that any male ego was a fragile thing, and the ego of the middle-aged male was poised to fracture into a thousand pieces at the first threat of rivalry – in whatever field.
Camilla smiled to herself as she sat in her executive office on Madison, just opposite Brooks Brothers, remembering with fierce vividness the pleasure of her reunion with Julian in bed. Uncertain, fearful he might be with Phaedria, or in his abortive attempt to seduce Regency, but with her he was as powerful, as skilful as she could ever remember. And since she had grown, greatly to her own surprise, more sensual in her middle age, was less inhibited, more imaginative, greedier – largely, she was sure, as a result of some very intensive and lengthy sessions from a new, highly aggressive female therapist – their love-making was very satisfactory indeed.
‘And just who exactly have you been doing this sort of thing with for the past two years?’ he had asked with surprise and pleasure, and a gratifying tinge of jealousy, and no one, she had assured him, with her usual, painstaking honesty, no one at all.
‘I have learnt to communicate with myself, be in touch with myself, that’s all.’
‘Well,’ he said, settling his head gratefully on her magnificent breasts, ‘that must be extremely nice for yourself. Oh, Camilla, what is it about you, that I cannot live for very long without?’
‘I’m not sure,’ she said, ‘I feel the same, you know. My analyst says it’s probably because our ego instincts and our sex instincts are very deeply compatible. Both in ourselves, and with each other.’
‘Balls,’ he said, lifting his head, smiling at her, lazily moving his hands over her flat stomach, her beautiful, slender thighs, and then seeing the slightly pompous, outraged expression she wore whenever he questioned her psycho fixation, as he called it, he added hastily, ‘I mean, balls are part of it. And bosoms. And this. And this. And this . . .’
Camilla was now highly successful. She had her own advertising agency, called simply North Creative; her clients numbered some of the richest and glossiest in town, in fashion, beauty, drinks and interiors; she had a small penthouse on the newly fashionable upper West Side, and a house in Connecticut, where she kept a fine string of horses, rode with the Fairfield Hunt Club and gave the most brilliantly orchestrated house parties to which she invited a careful blend of clients and friends.
She was happier, more relaxed than she had ever been in her life. She had long given up any idea of marriage; her new analyst had taught her to respect herself, what she had and what she wanted – ‘I have learnt to give myself permission to experience pleasure for its own sake,’ she explained to Julian – rather than desperately seeking to justify it, or to claim new territory. If she wanted to have an affair, then she now knew she should have it and enjoy it. As a result she was perfectly content to continue as mistress to Julian Morell for as long as they both wished without making any further demands on him. It seemed a very amicable and satisfactory arrangement.
Julian returned to London from Paris (via New York) early in March, looking fit and happy. Phaedria looked at him warily. She had learnt to trust none of his moods; the good ones could change swiftly, and the bad ones stayed stubbornly the same. But he seemed genuinely pleased to see her; he avoided sleeping with her the first night he came home, saying he was tired, that his jet lag would wake him at two; she accepted it resignedly, prepared for more to come, but in the morning she woke to find him sitting on the bed, looking at her, his eyes warm and tender.
‘I think we should begin again,’ he said, sliding into bed beside her, ‘I have missed you very much.’
And Phaedria, feeling she should be cool, controlled, distant, but finding herself hungry, eager for him for the first time for months, turned to him and smiled, and said, ‘I missed you too.’
Later he said he would stay at home, and would like her to do the same; th
ey lunched together and then went back to bed. He gave her some presents: a Hockney swimming pool painting which he said would remind her of the Los Angeles she had fallen in love with, a deco diamond clip, an edition of the New York Times from the day she was born.
‘Oh Julian,’ she said, ‘what have I done to deserve this?’
‘A lot,’ he said, ‘but I want to ask you for more.’
‘What?’ she said, smiling still, but cautious, wary. ‘What do you want?’
‘I want you to give up Circe,’ he said. ‘It’s taking up too much of your time, of your attention, it’s causing many of our troubles. I think you – we – would be better without it.’
‘Give up Circe? Julian, I can’t. Two years of my life have gone into that. I love it, it’s too important to me. Don’t ask for that.’
‘Two years of my life have gone into you. I love you too, you’re too important to me. I have to ask. Please, Phaedria, please. For me. Because I love you.’
‘I can’t. If you loved me you wouldn’t ask. Besides, the me that you love is not a passive nobody of a wife.’
‘You don’t have to be a nobody to be a wife. Most women see it as quite a rigorous job.’
‘Well, I don’t.’ She sat up and looked at him, flushed, angry. ‘I couldn’t.’
‘No,’ he said, sitting up himself, drawing away from her in the bed, ‘you couldn’t. That ego of yours wouldn’t let you. It’s yourself you’re in love with, Phaedria, not me, and that great heap of hype you’ve built around yourself, and that’s what you can’t give up, not Circe, not the job. Being a star, featuring in all the glossy magazines, being sought after, interviewed on chat shows, that’s what you really want, not the work, not the store at all.’
‘It’s not true!’ she said. ‘You’re lying.’ But she spoke without conviction.
‘And even if it wasn’t true, if it was just the work, if you were doing the most important job in the world, would you really sacrifice our marriage, our happiness to it? Don’t you think that is something worth subjugating yourself to, Phaedria? Probably not. I’m afraid the person I fell in love with doesn’t exist any more. It makes me very sad.’
Old Sins Page 75