by Rosie Thomas
What else was there?
The meeting was over. Harriet gathered up her papers and replaced them in her briefcase. James Hamilton and his number two shook her hand, followed by the two men from McGovern Cowper.
‘Until Tuesday morning,’ Hamilton murmured. ‘At eight a.m., for breakfast?’
‘Of course,’ Harriet smiled at him. ‘I’m looking forward to it.’
Harriet rode down in the lift, through the intestinal tracts of the bank, with Piers and Jeremy. In the daylight outside she saw that Piers’s round face ws flushed with excitement, and that even the accountant’s marble complexion was tinged with colour.
‘Good?’ Harriet demanded, ready to dance on the city pavement.
‘So far,’ and ‘Tuesday will tell us for sure,’ they answered, with professional circumspection. Jeremy flagged down a taxi.
‘Are you coming back to the office?’
Harriet shook her head. ‘I’m going to Landwiths first. Then I’ll go on to do the press release. I’ll be in the office after six-thirty, if you want me.’
Harriet hadn’t been home very much, lately. She had found the capacity to work harder, and longer, than she had ever done before. But she did it with pleasure, finding that work increased her appetite for work, until even busy Robin complained.
She took a taxi to Landwith Associates. Robin had been working at his desk in his blue and white shirtsleeves, but he was putting his jacket on when his secretary showed Harriet in. He came round the desk to greet her. It was part of their agreement, their unwritten contract, that formality was preserved between them in everything to do with business.
Harriet sat down and after one look at her face Robin ordered, ‘Wait. Martin will want to hear too.’ Harriet folded her hands in her lap. While they waited, Robin asked for tea to be brought in.
Martin came, his habitual suavity masking his eagerness for the news. Harriet looked at them, father and son with their lean, dark, clever faces, waiting to hear what she had brought home for them. The word home triggered another thought. She realised that for what must be the first time she did feel at home in here. She had crossed some divide, and landed on the same side as Robin and his father.
The secretary brought in the tea, and laid it out on a low table. Harriet crossed her legs while she waited, and then saw that both the men were looking at them. She smiled, inwardly. She was stimulated by the feel of her own muscles, knitting smoothly under her skin, the strong sheet across her stomach and the tiny wings at the corners of her eyelids. Her shakes in the Allardyce boardroom were forgotten. Now her body was powerful enough to contain her bursting excitement, holding her in repose as calm as Martin’s while the teacups made their tiny, civilised clinking.
The secretary went away again and Robin poured from the silver teapot into white-and-gold cups. Harriet was too taut to think of eating any of the decorative morsels of bread or sponge, but she drank China tea, thirstily.
‘And are our friends at Allardyce prepared to do Peacocks justice?’ Martin drawled.
Harriet put her cup down slowly, loving the moment.
‘I think so,’ she said. ‘I hope you’ll agree.’
She took her notes out of her briefcase and set them in order. And then without referring to them she told her backers what she had done for them.
Landwiths were offering for sale fourteen per cent of their equity, taking their holding back to the original thirty-five per cent.
Harriet did not need to spell out what Tuesday’s flotation would net for them, or what their remaining equity would be worth in a healthy aftermarket. Their investments in Peacocks had been a flyer; now it was coming triumphantly home to roost, on golden wings.
She saw, as she talked, an identical light kindle in their eyes. They did not smile, either of them, nor did they rub their hands, but she knew that she had set their juices flowing just the same. This, then, was their private and mutual buzz. It was not the money that excited them, because they did not need more money. It was simply hearing the numbers, and calculating the power, yes, and the glory, that the additions made.
Watching them, Harriet wondered whether she really liked these men at all. But she also knew that, like them or not, she belonged with them. She had crossed over to their side. And she felt the charge, too. She felt it in her toes, and fingers, and in the centre of herself.
‘There it is,’ Harriet concluded softly. ‘Robin, may I have another cup of tea?’ Martin took her cup, and refilled it. When he stood in front of her again he held out his hand, and Harriet took it.
‘Congratulations,’ Martin said. ‘I’m sure you know that I was less convinced by your proposal than Robin was. I’m sure that Tuesday will prove me wrong, and I’m pleased. Well done, Harriet.’
‘Tuesday will tell whether congratulations are in order,’ Harriet answered.
She knew there were other things that would not be said. From the way he looked at her, and from the touch of his hand, Harriet knew that Martin wanted her. She had speculated in the past: now she knew for sure. She also knew that his desire for her was as clear-cut and as measurable as a closing price, and equally that tomorrow would bring another hot issue to displace her.
She accepted the tribute and looked past him to Robin.
Martin said cheerfully, ‘Annunziata’s expecting me to take her to hear Pavarotti this evening. I’d better think about going to change. Good-night, both of you.’
The door closed behind him.
Robin stood up at once, and came to Harriet. She read the satisfaction in his face; it was for the fact that she was here with him and Martin had gone as much as for Peacocks, as much as for Harriet herself. She accepted that also.
‘How do you feel?’ Robin asked.
Harriet smiled, meeting his eyes, then let her head drop forward so that her forehead rested against him.
‘Hot,’ she whispered.
Robin drew her closer. ‘Hot, like this?’ With one hand he undid the buttons of her linen suit, and dropped the jacket on the floor at their feet. He undid the smaller pearl buttons at the front of her blouse, and opened it. His hand touched her breast.
‘Cooler?’
Harriet shook her head. ‘No. Just the opposite. But this is the office, Robin. This is business.’
‘You think too much about the bloody business.’ His face had darkened. She saw that he wasn’t playing any more. ‘Now, take it off.’ He twisted her silk blouse and she heard the sound of a tiny tear.
Harriet looked around her, at the desk and the screens with their closing prices, and the row of telephones, waiting to ring. ‘Here?’ she murmured.
‘Here. And now,’ Robin commanded. He pressed a button. ‘No more calls. No interruptions.’
Then he went swiftly to the door and locked it.
Harriet might have laughed but she was aroused. She took off her blouse and let her skirt fall in another heap. Then, with Robin watching her, she peeled off her underclothes. When she was naked she turned slowly on the balls of her feet, stretching, feeling the cool air on her skin. It was erotic to find herself standing here, under the good pictures, with the nice rugs under her bare feet, while the London closing prices danced on Robin’s screens in front of her eyes.
‘Come here,’ Robin said softly.
He stroked her arms, and her thighs, and closed his hands around her waist. When he touched her, Harriet felt herself catch fire. She loosened the knot of his tie and undid the buttons of his shirt, feeling the crisp cotton under her fingers. Her hand moved down, found the zipper of his trousers, and deftly released him. Driven by a sudden imperative, Harriet knelt down and took his cock into her mouth. Her tongue moved along the shaft and her lips closed over the smooth head.
As she moved, lifting and lowering her bent head, Harriet became quite sure of what she wanted.
She wanted to fuck Robin and Martin and Landwith Associates all together, taking them into herself, taking them up and using them for her own pleasure, as a tribut
e to her power and her success. She felt the power; it stirred her own response more deeply than Robin alone had ever done. Robin filled her mouth and her throat, she wanted to swallow him, consuming him. Above her he murmured, ‘Harriet, I shall come.’
She raised her head and then stood up. Robin leaned back against the corner of his desk. His eyes were fixed on her, greedy, his appetite matching her own. With one movement Harriet lifted herself, and then with delicate concentration fitted herself over him. She wrapped her legs around his waist and he drove up into her, filling her with a wash of warmth and light that spread upwards, into her heart and head.
Fiercely, Harriet took what she wanted – not just Robin, but everything he stood for. It was intensely, profoundly exciting.
She wanted to bury her teeth in Robin’s throat, to dig her fingers deep into the muscles of his back. They were solid, both of them, but they were also abstract and floating, practice and theory coming together. Harriet closed her eyes on the walls and the picture and saw equations instead, the intricate formulae that linked sex, and power, and money. She thought in that instant that she saw the world clearly, and read its secrets. She was also blind, and helpless, a bewildered witness to her own longing. Harriet’s head fell back.
She didn’t see the almost identical scene from a different perspective, the door of Leo’s studio. Nor was there a wife to appear, silent and accusing in the doorway. The door was locked, and Robin’s secretary stood unconscious guard beyond it. Harriet was oblivious. She had never given herself up so completely, nor had she ever taken what she needed so ruthlessly. It was like being shaken awake, and set free. She whispered, ‘Robin’, but it was much more than Robin that she was really calling on. Her mouth opened in a long, silent cry.
Afterwards they clung together, breathing in the same short gasps. Harriet’s head lay on Robin’s shoulder. She saw, close up to her eyes, the red marks that her fingers had made.
Robin lifted her up and then lowered her into a chair. She felt as limp as a rag-doll, and as inarticulate. Robin opened a drawer and took out a shirt in rustling laundry wrapping. He tore the bag open, discarded the paper stiffening and undid the buttons. Then he handed the shirt to her.
Harriet wrapped herself in it, looking around the room again. She felt surprised, now that she was in possession of herself again, and faintly embarrassed.
Robin went into the bathroom that led out of his office, and came out again dressed, with his hair smoothly brushed. Harriet drew the cool cotton shirt more closely to her and tucked up her legs beneath her. Robin came closer, then knelt down in front of her, looking into her face. Harriet met his eyes. She knew that her hair stood up in a ruffled crest, and that her mouth was bruised.
‘Harriet?’ Robin said. ‘Look, here, it’s me. It was me just then, too. Are you there, Harriet?’
She shook herself out of her silence. ‘I know it was you. I’m here.’
‘Will you marry me?’
She studied his face, familiar and separate from her. She didn’t know if it was Robin who had lit the flame, or if she had done it herself. But the feeling of having crossed some divide, of belonging here, remained with her. She reached out to touch the corner of his mouth with her fingertips.
‘Ask me after Tuesday,’ she answered.
Robin smiled. ‘How does it feel to be a millionairess?’
‘A paper one, only.’
He bent his head to her curled-up thigh and kissed it. ‘Flesh and blood,’ he contradicted her.
‘It feels fine.’ Harriet knotted her fingers in his dark hair, dishevelling it again.
‘Robin, I have to go and see the PR people now.’
He lifted his head. ‘Go on then, witch.’
In the bathroom, Harriet studied herself in the mirror. There was no difference to see, for having become rich. She put on her clothes again, linen suit and silk blouse, and repaired her face. She emerged once more, the corporate executive. Robin was installed behind his desk. But there was a feeling of complicity that made her want to stay a little longer, to play truant.
‘Goodbye, Mr Landwith,’ she said firmly.
‘Goodbye, Miss Peacock.’
Harriet closed his door behind her, nodded to the secretary in the adjoining office, and went blithely on to the meeting with her publicity agents. There ws plenty to do, before Tuesday.
Five days to impact, then four, then three.
Harriet woke up, already looking at the digital clockface beside her bed. She had been getting up at six, to be in the office by seven-thirty. Preparing for the stockmarket float had taken up so much of her time the routine work had been shelved. Now she was trying to catch up on it.
The red digits told her that it was eight o’clock. Confusedly she reached out for her watch and then remembered that it was Saturday. She had deliberately not set her alarm the night before, to allow herself some extra sleep. Now she lay quietly, still curled up, enjoying the sense of waking to a special day, like a child in the week before Christmas, that had been with her since the pricing meeting. The brokers at McGovern Cowper were canvassing prospective investors by telephone, and reporting considerable enthusiasm. Press reports were encouraging. Harriet could look forward to impact with confidence, still pleasantly flavoured with uncertainty.
But as soon as she was fully awake, she couldn’t be still any longer. She had never been able to enjoy languishing in bed. Now she got up, put on her bathrobe and went upstairs.
She did like being able to wander around her kitchen, without the pressure of having to get to work. It seemed a very long time since she had had a Saturday morning like this.
She took a handful of coffee beans from a tin and ground them, enjoying the rich smell. While the coffee brewed she made brown toast and spread it with honey, then stood at the window eating it and looking down at the rose-bushes in the garden that had survived her regime of neglect to produce blooms. The sun was shining. Harriet wondered whether later on she might walk up to Chic, in Hampstead village, to find something suitably powerful to wear to the sponsors’ breakfast on Tuesday, or whether she might just spend the morning sitting in the garden with the newspapers. She realised with a little shock that the second option, nowadays, would be the more luxurious.
It was not that she didn’t take pleasure in having money to spend, of course. It was still a luxury to walk into expensive shops and to look critically along the rails at the whispery silks and crisp linens and melting tweeds, choosing or rejecting amongst the designer labels. She had not forgotten how it had been when she had only been able to admire, before going elsewhere to search out cheaper lookalikes. It was just that now, so quickly, the prospect of a few hours doing nothing was even more beguiling than the hunt for the most covetable outfit in the world.
Harriet heard the rattle of the front-door letterbox. She let herself out of her own flat door to collect the morning’s mail.
Most of her post came to the Peacocks’ office. This morning there was only a bill, a credit card statement, a circular and a bright yellow envelope addressed in a child’s handwriting. Harriet took the little sheaf back into the kitchen and poured a cup of coffee. Then she sat down at the table and opened the yellow envelope, neatly, with a table knife.
The top left-hand corner of the single sheet of yellow paper was decorated with a dancing Snoopy. On the right hand there was the address of a school near Ascot that Harriet had never heard of. Frowning, she turned the sheet over to see the signature. It read, Love, Linda.
Harriet took a mouthful of coffee, then started at the beginning again.
Dear Harriet,
Linda Jensen had written, more or less; her spelling and handwriting were like a seven-year-old’s:
You never came to see me did you? And you said you woud so you havent been very nice. I am as good as a prisonner heer in this school, I reelly hate it, reelly, reelly hate it, the girls and the teachers are so stupid and boring. Daddy and my Mom said I would love it, but they were wrong werent
they!
I found your adress which was quite clever and I even called you but all I got was your machine and I hate those, so I hung up.
Will you come and see me now? Pleese? I think you should stick close with your friends. Harriet, I woud come and see you if you were in jail.
Ronny say’s I must join in and make friends but who wants to be friends with these assholls. Mom is busy in LA and Daddy is filming abroad as usuall so I am COUNTING ON YOU, Harriet, to have a plan.
Love, Linda
Harriet read the letter through, twice, with some difficulty. Its imperious, unhappy demands touched her. She also felt faintly guilty. She should have made some effort to stay in contact with the child.
‘Poor Linda,’ she said aloud.
She vaguely remembered having read somewhere that Clare Mellen was stormily involved with a new actor, younger than herself. She didn’t know what Caspar Jensen was doing, but she could guess. And so Linda had been put into – Harriet glanced at the address next to Snoopy again – a good, safe, conventional English boarding preparatory school. Harriet supposed that it had become Ronny’s responsibility to drive over from Little Shelley at weekends to take her out to tea, or whatever it was that the school permitted.
‘Poor Linda,’ Harriet said again.
She went through to her desk in the next room and, after a few moments’ thought, wrote an answer to Linda’s plea.
Dear Linda,
You are quite right, I should have come to see you, and I promise that I will. I won’t make excuses for not having been before, because I’m about to make another excuse, and one at a time is quite enough.
I can’t come to St Brigid’s this week, because it is going to be the busiest and most important week of my life. I’ll explain why, and tell you all about it, when I see you. If all goes well and if school and Ronny will allow me, I will come two weeks today and take you out to tea.
Harriet couldn’t check her diary because it was at the office. If there was something else, she decided, she would have to cancel it for Linda’s sake.