The Four of Us

by Margaret Pemberton

  ‘Ah! But I have one!’ Dominique’s flawless-skinned face was no longer glum, but radiantly alight. ‘If you took my place, there would be no such problem. It is a perfect solution, n’est-ce pas? You simply tell him that you are me – and if he asks for you again, when I turn up I will explain to him and keep him happy.’

  ‘And if he’s disappointed that it is not me he is seeing again?’ she had asked teasingly.

  ‘Once I am with him, there will be no chance of that,’ Dominique had said smugly. ‘I am a professional – or, at least, a semi-professional. And I am French,’ she had added, as if that settled the question.

  Laughter had risen in Geraldine’s throat. Dominique was quite right in assuming herself to be streets ahead in sexual experience where numbers of partners were concerned, but she rather felt she could make quite an impression, if she so wanted – and the assumption that French women were far superior to English women in the sexual expertise stakes rankled.

  ‘Would you like to take a bet on it?’ she had said good-humouredly.

  ‘I would love to take a bet on it, chérie,’ Dominique had responded, vastly relieved that her problem was solved.

  Sheikh Abdul Mustafa was Eton educated and an erudite man and, much to her chagrin, Dominique had lost her bet.

  With the last appointment neatly pencilled in her desk diary, a corner of Geraldine’s mouth tugged into a smile as she continued responding to her many answerphone messages and reflecting on how shamelessly easily she had slipped into her new lifestyle.

  She had never been on the books of any agency. She hadn’t wanted to be. At first she had merely continued to be the sheikh’s paid companion whenever he was in Paris – which was often – and then, when her course at the Louvre came to an end and she had been faced with the prospect of finding a job, she had decided that any job would be too restrictive.

  She enjoyed her free time. She enjoyed not having to be up in the morning at seven or eight o’clock. She enjoyed being able to choose when she would work and when she would not. And she enjoyed the company of wealthy men.

  If she had been on the books of an escort agency, she would, she knew, have found herself spending most of her time with men she would never, under normal circumstances, ever want to spend time with, let alone go to bed with. Abdul had been an exception, and it was only exceptional men she was interested in. He’d had friends. There had been introductions. With nine out of ten introductions, it had never gone any further, because she’d been very, very picky as to whom she added to her client list.

  That she wasn’t reliant on the income she earned from selling her body and companionship infuriated and bewildered Dominique. ‘Then why do it, Jerraldeen?’ she had demanded. ‘Why not just find a rich boyfriend and marry and be happy?’

  Dominique had long ago given up escort work. The instant she had her qualification from the Louvre beneath her belt, she had found herself a job in a small gallery on the Left Bank and couldn’t understand why Geraldine didn’t do the same.

  ‘Because I don’t want to have to be up early every morning and be at someone else’s beck and call all day,’ she had said with blunt honesty. ‘And I’m not in the market for a husband. People only have one soulmate in a lifetime – and I’ve known the identity of mine since before I could walk. I won’t find another soulmate, Dominique. It isn’t possible.’

  Aware that Francis was beginning to fill her thoughts and not wanting him to, she pushed her diary to one side and rose to her feet.

  She had no appointments to keep. The evening was hers, to do with as she pleased. She put an LP on to her record player and, as the sound of Maria Callas singing Verdi filled the apartment, went into her bedroom to take off the cream linen suit she was wearing.

  The suit was a businesswoman’s suit and it was typical of the way she now dressed. The floaty, vintage clothes she had once loved so much were a thing of the past. They gave out the wrong image. The key to frequenting hotel lounges and bars without attracting the unwelcome attention of the management was to dress as if for an executive meeting.

  The telephone rang. She waited for the answer-phone to click on.

  ‘Chérie,’ Dominique said impatiently. ‘Pick up the phone. I need to talk to you.’

  Switching the answerphone off, she picked up the receiver and settled herself comfortably on her king-size bed.

  ‘Soir, Dominique,’ she said affectionately. ‘What is it you need to talk about?’

  ‘I have an old school friend who wants to do escort work, but doesn’t want the hassle of doing it via an agency – and who hasn’t the connections to sort it for herself,’ Dominique said, not beating about the bush. ‘Would you take her under your wing, Jerraldeen? Make some introductions for her? She’s only interested in the “if you have to ask the price, you can’t afford it” end of the market – and she’s happy to pay you a hefty commission.’

  Geraldine’s lips twitched in amusement. ‘I thought you were upset that I was still doing escort work myself, Dominique? Don’t you think beginning to pimp is even worse?’

  ‘Non.’ Dominique’s voice was quite decisive. ‘Pimping is the way you should go, chérie. You are a great organizer and you know many, many rich men – especially rich Englishmen.’

  Geraldine’s mouth twitched again. When Dominique had first realized the kind of social background she came from she had been over the moon with delight. ‘But these men – these polo players and these friends of your father’s and your uncle’s – they will love to be introduced to beautiful, upmarket French escort girls whenever they are in Paris!’ she had said when she had realized Geraldine’s connections. ‘You have contacts too good to ignore!’ Aware that Dominique was still waiting for a response from her, she said, ‘Does your friend have her baccalauréat?’

  ‘Merde!’ Dominique’s voice rose several decibels. ‘Yes! But what does it matter? She wants to earn money as a call-girl, not as a brain surgeon!’

  ‘Because the kind of clients I cultivate are the kind who expect intelligent company as well as glamorous company. I’ve got my own reputation to consider here, Dominique.’

  ‘Then you will do it? Merveilleux! I will get Veronique to ring you.’

  Later, relaxing in a deep, foam-filled, scented bath, Geraldine reflected on how easy it would be for her to run her own escort business. The girls would have to be very carefully selected, but as she knew from her client list, she was good at careful selection.

  The sound of Callas singing ‘O Don Fatale’, from Verdi’s Don Carlos permeated the lamp-lit apartment and she closed her eyes, enjoying Callas’s interpretation of the imperious and strong-willed Princess Eboli, about to be banished from court for betraying the Queen. As Callas’s stupendous voice expressed passionate anguish, Geraldine reflected that if she were to run an escort agency she was going to have to expand her client list dramatically.

  She didn’t envisage it being a problem. She had, as Dominique had previously pointed out, plenty of excellent contacts, all of which could be quarried hard. She slid a little lower beneath the scented bubbles. And she could run classified ads in the International Herald Tribune. As long as the ads were worded in such a way that glamorous ‘company’ was all that was being offered, she wouldn’t run foul of the law.

  The more she thought about the idea, the better she liked it. The building up of a successful agency would be a challenge. It would satisfy her well-developed business instincts and would keep huge amounts of money flowing effortlessly into her bank account.

  As ‘O Don Fatale’ended, she opened her eyes, her decision made.

  She was going to move from the shop floor into management.

  She was going to become a madam.

  Chapter Nineteen

  September 1978

  Artemis sat back on her heels in front of the opened suitcase. On either side of her were piles of clothes, all neatly folded, all waiting to be packed.

  ‘Me, Mummy. Me.’ From a nearby drawer Destiny
was dragging underwear Artemis had no intention of taking with them to Spain.

  ‘That’s lovely, darling, but Mummy only wants the clothes that are here, on the floor in piles,’ she said lovingly.

  Destiny beamed at her seraphically, hoisted the clothes across to the suitcase and dropped them in it. ‘Me, please,’ she said, giving Artemis a sticky kiss on the cheek. ‘Me please, Mummy.’

  Artemis felt as if her heart were being squeezed. Destiny’s speech and understanding were those of a three-year-old and yet she was now five. Why, when she was able to accept that Destiny was a little slow for her age, couldn’t Rupert accept it? Why had he to be so nasty about it and make so many difficulties?

  ‘She isn’t just slow, Artemis. She’s backward!’ he had shouted at her the previous evening when she had told him that she’d offered the use of their home to the local Women’s Institute for their annual Autumn Fair. ‘Do you want everyone to know our daughter is never going to be able to keep up in a normal school? Nearly all of those silly women you make jam with are married to men I socialize with! I’m not going to have everyone speculating about whose side of the family her mental slowness comes from! I still have some pride, even if you don’t!’

  It had been a hideous scene. An absolute nightmare.

  Their shouting had woken Destiny who had then gone into a distressed crying jag. By the time she’d soothed her it had been midnight and, when she’d finally slid into bed beside Rupert, she’d lain awake for hours.

  He hadn’t reached out to her, to take her in his arms, to whisper that he was sorry, and to comfort her. Being a comfort, at any time, was not Rupert’s forte.

  She placed a pile of sarongs and a clutch of swimsuits into a corner of the suitcase. Married life was not the bowl of cherries she had expected it to be.

  One of her first actions as Mrs Gower had been to give up working as a model and, instead, to channel her energies into being a supportive wife and, as they entertained on a large scale, an excellent hostess.

  To her amazement, it had been a decision Rupert had hated, not because there was any great loss of income – she’d never been the kind of fashion model who’d earned squillions every time she stepped on to a catwalk, but because he felt she was robbing him of the kudos of having a fashion model for a wife. That he felt like this – that he had been living in the unrealistic belief that she would one day be a Twiggy or a Jerry Hall – had shocked her inexpressibly, because it had shown how little he really knew about her.

  And he had certainly married her without realizing that his father-in-law was not a man he could socialize with without embarrassment.

  She picked up a pile of brilliantly coloured T-shirts and held them close against her chest. Why couldn’t he be more tolerant about things? Her father now lived in the Cayman Islands and they hardly ever saw him. And Destiny wasn’t seriously handicapped. The educational psychologist they had seen had said that she had a slight learning disability and that, though there was a possibility it might grow worse as she grew older, necessitating her attending a special needs school, there was also the chance that with time there might be improvement.

  ‘What kind of improvement?’ Rupert had asked tightly as Destiny had played happily on the floor with different coloured spoons. ‘Improvement enabling her to become well educated? To go to university?’

  ‘I think those aims would be overly ambitious, Mr Gower. Destiny is never going to be a high academic achiever. What you can be grateful for is that she doesn’t also have a specific learning difficulty, such as dyslexia. She doesn’t have a hearing impairment. She isn’t autistic. She doesn’t have excessive emotional and behavioural difficulties.’

  ‘But she may well need to go to a special school?’ A pulse had begun beating at Rupert’s jaw.

  ‘It’s a possibility. A lot will depend on the yearly assessments that are made over the next three or four years. Certainly I see no reason why she shouldn’t attend a local primary school. However, by the time she is eight, there may be a case, for her own happiness, of her attending the kind of school where her obvious ability difference will not put her at risk of being bullied. And we wouldn’t want that, would we?’

  Parting Destiny from the spoons, Artemis had lifted her on to her knee. ‘No,’ she had said fervently, hugging her close. ‘We want her to go to schools where she can realize her full potential and be happy. We want what is best for her, don’t we, Rupert?’

  He hadn’t even looked towards her. His handsome face had been taut with barely controlled emotion. ‘People will know, won’t they?’ he had said. ‘When we take her out with us, people will guess she’s retarded.’

  ‘The word retarded is totally inapplicable, Mr Gower,’ the psychologist had said icily. ‘You have a daughter who is, and probably always will be, a slow learner. You also have a daughter who is beautiful, emotionally responsive and loving. The majority of parents who step into this room would consider you an exceedingly lucky man.’

  It was then that Rupert had catapulted to his feet, his nostrils white, the pulse at his jaw line pounding. ‘The majority of parents who step into this room didn’t adopt the child they brought with them, did they?’ he’d shouted with such unleashed passion Artemis had thought she was going to faint. ‘When you adopt a child, you expect a healthy child, an intelligent child!’

  He’d marched towards the door and yanked it open.

  ‘What I didn’t expect,’ he’d stormed at the appalled psychologist, ‘was a child who would not be able to go to the school her name has been down for since she was born. And so you’ll forgive me if I don’t count myself lucky – if what I count myself is bloody, bloody, unlucky!’

  He’d slammed the door after him with such force it had rocked on its hinges.

  Destiny, alarmed by the noise, had let out a distressed wail. Artemis had lowered her to the floor and, holding her hand tightly, had stumbled to her feet. ‘I’m sorry …’ she had said, her voice so wobbly it hadn’t even sounded like hers. ‘My husband is upset … he expressed himself badly … he didn’t mean …’

  She hadn’t been able to continue. She’d been crying too much.

  She felt like crying now as she continued packing her suitcase for Spain. Destiny’s suitcase was already packed, as was Rupert’s. Destiny loved their holiday home in Marbella. She loved the pool and being able to spend all day every day in a swimming costume. At Marbella, she had a friend, the gardener’s six-year-old son, who regarded her as his best buddy.

  Because Destiny was always so happy in Spain, she, Artemis, had always looked forward to the times they spent there. She wasn’t looking forward to it this time, though – not when Rupert was being so viciously unreasonable.

  The Women’s Institute Autumn Fair, for instance. Why shouldn’t it be held at their home? What difference did it make if a wider circle of people met Destiny and realized that she had learning difficulties? It wasn’t as if they could keep the fact that she was slow for her age a secret. And she didn’t understand why Rupert should want to try to keep it a secret. Destiny was, after all, an enchanting child. She wouldn’t ever gain a place at Oxford, but so what? And anyway she, herself, had never been overly bright academically. Yet Rupert had fallen in love with her. So, if he loved her, why couldn’t he love Destiny?

  Destiny, tired of ferrying clothes from drawers, had curled up on the sheepskin rug by the side of the bed and gone to sleep, her thumb in her mouth.

  Looking at her, tears burned the backs of Artemis’s eyes. More than anything else in the world she wanted Rupert to love Destiny in the same way that she did. To have a daddy that loved her and was proud of her was what every little girl deserved. Her own father had many faults and his nouveau riche brashness had often mortified her, but he’d always loved her, just as she’d always loved him.

  She closed the lid of the case, passionately wishing that she could talk to Primmie – knowing that if she gave in to the temptation Rupert would never forgive her.

&nb
sp; Careful not to disturb Destiny, she walked across to the window. Primmie didn’t know that Destiny wasn’t as bright as she should be for her age. In the early days, before Rupert had absolutely forbidden contact between the two of them, she had sometimes mentioned to Primmie that Destiny was being a little slow in learning to talk or to walk or to potty-train. Way back then, it had never occurred to her that it was something that would develop into a cause for concern – and Primmie had never seemed to think it a cause for concern, either. The anxieties had come later and she’d been quite unable to talk to Primmie about them.

  ‘Your husband is quite correct in his view that maintaining contact between yourselves and the birth mother is undesirable,’ a woman from the Adoption Advice Service had said forcefully.

  And so, because persisting would have put her marriage in danger, she had ended her frequent contact with Primmie. It hadn’t stopped her constantly thinking about Primmie, though, for Destiny looked so like her.

  Occasionally – just occasionally – usually when Destiny was throwing one of her rare temper tantrums – she also saw glimpses of Kiki. The reminder that Destiny was Kiki’s half-sister always came as a slam of shock.

  ‘Kiki doesn’t know,’ Primmie had said at the time of the adoption. ‘And if she did know, it would complicate matters dreadfully.’

  Her telling Kiki that Destiny was adopted had never been remotely likely. She’d had one telephone call from Kiki, shortly after Kiki had run off with Francis, and she had made it clear to Kiki then that she never wanted to speak to her again. Nor, apart from their parents, did she and Rupert tell anyone else. Only when Rupert had realized that Destiny wasn’t progressing as she should had he begun mentioning to friends and extended family that she was adopted.

  She knew why he’d begun telling people, of course. It was because her limited vocabulary embarrassed him.

  She gazed broodingly down at her magnificent, rain-sodden garden. ‘Embarrassed’was too coy an expression for what Rupert really felt. The bottom line was that he was ashamed of Destiny. She knew it. The psychologist had known it. And one day Destiny would probably know it, too.