‘Oh shut up,’ said Kirsten irritably. ‘I don’t. I keep telling you, Toby, it isn’t like that. I’m never late in – well, hardly ever, and I work hard and I don’t pull rank.’
‘Sorry, sorry, sorry. In that case I won’t suggest what I was going to suggest.’
‘What?’
‘That you ask for next week off. I’m going to New York, heard yesterday, some hiccup over there. I’d really love you to come.’
‘Oh Toby, I’d really love me to come too. But I can’t, it’s too short notice and anyway, I – oh shit, I could ask. Couldn’t I? Or could I? Oh God, I’d love to go to New York, I haven’t been for at least a year.’
‘Poor little soul,’ said Toby, ‘my heart bleeds. Sorry, Kirsten, sorry.’
He climbed out of bed, walked towards the bathoom. She lay and looked at him, at the body that gave her so much pleasure, that she wanted so much, was so jealous about; then got up, put on a robe and went into the kitchen and poured them each a huge glass of orange juice. Toby reappeared in his towel, kissed her rather absently and drained the glass.
‘I needed that. Thirsty work, sex. Especially with you. Now listen, darling, forget the insults, just see if you can’t get a week off. Or even do something over there for your dad. He has an office there, doesn’t he?’
‘Well, not a real one. The bulk of his business is most definitely here. But yeah, OK. I will ask. It would be so wonderful. I’d love it. Thank you for asking me.’
‘Darling,’ said Toby, ‘the pleasure will be entirely mine. Or at any rate, a great deal of it. I assure you.’
Kirsten arrived at Channing House in a good mood. It was a combination of the sex, the fact that the sky was blue (she was deeply affected by the weather) and the sun beginning to feel warm, and the thought that this time next week she might be in New York. The best time in the whole year for it too: you could keep Paris, Florence, London even; spring belonged in New York, with the sun playing on the fountains and the wide streets great warm avenues of light, and the park filled with blossom and bright new green, and the shop windows absurdly over-stacked with flowers and flowery clothes and even the cab drivers better tempered. Oh, it would be lovely. She had to go.
‘I’m not sure,’ said Sam, carefully. ‘We’re quite busy at the moment, with the purchase of that new site in Glasgow and all this nonsense about Docklands – ’
Kirsten looked at her; she knew exactly what Sam was thinking: that there was no more reason why she should not go than that she should, they were not especially busy, it was only for a week, previous holiday arrangements were always honoured (and who was to know this was not previous, after all): except, except that she was the boss’s daughter, and carried explicit instructions with her that there should be no privileges, no special deals, no special treatment of any kind. Positive discrimination, that’s what it is, she thought; indeed had she been a new recruit fresh from typing school there would have been no question but that she should go. She saw Sam’s eyes waver for a moment and drove hard home.
‘Oh Sam, please! I’ll work twice as hard today and twice as hard when I get back. I promise. And I’d so like to go. And maybe I could do something useful over there, I don’t know what – ’
‘I don’t know either,’ said Sam, and laughed. ‘Oh hell, why not,’ she said suddenly. ‘But it will mean you working your tail off when you get back.’
‘I will, I will,’ said Kirsten fervently, thinking that it would be worked off in rather more pleasant fashion next week. ‘Thank you, Sam, thank you so much.’
She called Toby. ‘I can come, I can come.’
‘I know that,’ he said, laughing. ‘I’ll fix your ticket,’ and put the phone down again.
She worked right through her lunch hour to show her gratitude, wrote a lot of letters about the Manchester shopping mall – quasi releases really, but each one a bit different, Sam said it always helped – to the provincial press that she had been putting off for days, even did a load of photocopying that the temporary junior had done all wrong, even rang Granny Jess and invited herself to dinner for when she got back. Then at four, Sam came in looking uneasy.
‘I’m sorry, Kirsten. You have to go and see Mr Channing. Right away.’
She knew what it meant, and so did Sam; she sighed and walked slowly down the stairs to the first floor, her heart heavy.
Bard was sitting behind his great desk, scowling; he looked like some great heavy pugnacious bird, thought Kirsten, a crow or a vulture. God, she disliked him sometimes. Most of the time.
‘Shut the door,’ he said without even greeting her.
Kirsten shut the door, then walked slowly back and faced him. She knew what was coming, and she knew the form it would come in.
‘You disgust me,’ he said quietly. ‘You really do.’
‘Why?’
‘You come in here, begging for a job, promising the moon, telling me you’ll work your arse off, that you won’t ask for favours, or special treatment, that you’ll behave yourself, do what you’re told – ’
‘I have done all those things. I have worked my arse off, I have behaved, I have done what I was told, and I haven’t – ’
‘Oh, is that so. You haven’t what? Asked for favours? What do you think asking for a week off at a day’s notice is, after working here for precisely, what – just over a month? It’s a bloody big favour, Kirsten, by any standards, and if you had any experience of the real world, you’d know it. And if you didn’t happen to work for someone as nice, as good natured, as reasonable as Sam it would never have been granted at all. What do you think everyone will be saying, how do you think this makes me look? They’ll be saying I’m allowing you to use me and abuse this company, so that you can pass your time however you like and get paid into the bargain. I’m ashamed of you, Kirsten, deeply ashamed. Of course you can’t go.’
‘That’s all you care about, isn’t it?’ said Kirsten. ‘How it makes you look. You don’t give a fuck – ’
‘Don’t swear.’
‘You swear. You don’t give a fuck whether I’m actually working, actually being useful, actually learning anything, as long as from where you’re sitting on your lousy, over-large throne it all looks all right.’
‘Oh for God’s sake,’ he said, ‘get out of here. You’re beginning to sound like a small spoilt child rather than a large one. Just get out. You are not going to New York and that’s the end of it. If Sam hadn’t said a lot of very nice things about you, I’d kick you right out of the front door.’
‘I might prefer that.’
He shrugged. ‘Suit yourself.’
She was about to tell him what to do with his job when she had a rather vivid picture of her week’s mail – demands for money from Harrods, Harvey Nichols, Barclaycard, Amex, Christ knew who else. She needed the money he paid her: it was generous. And he certainly wouldn’t reinstate her allowance. Which had been pathetic anyway. And besides, she also knew it would afford him more satisfaction if she left, if she stalked out of his office and told him she was never coming back. He’d say he always knew she hadn’t got the guts to stick it out, that she was lazy as well as spoilt, that – oh God, it made her want to spew just thinking about it. No, she’d stay, and work, and prove him wrong, and get her own back some other way.
She nodded at him rather formally. ‘Very well. I do hope you have a nice weekend.’
‘Thank you,’ he said, his mood suddenly changing as it so easily did, becoming communicative and almost friendly. ‘Francesca is very tired, she’s had a lot of worries lately. We’re going down to Stylings. We’ve just bought Jack a pony …’
‘How very nice for him,’ said Kirsten. ‘Do give Francesca my best wishes. I’m sorry she’s worried.’
She couldn’t help it; there was an edge to her voice. Bard looked at her.
‘Don’t be so bloody childish,’ he said. ‘One day, when you’ve grown up a bit and have some genuine worries of your own, not just where you’re going to get
your next frock from, I hope you’ll remember that remark and feel ashamed of yourself.’
‘Sorry.’
She was so blinded by her own tears that she walked into Marcia on her way out and trod on her foot. She apologised briefly, hoping fervently that she had managed to hurt the old bag.
She went back to her own small office and sat down; she was still crying. She was crying for many reasons, and not being able to go to New York was not the major one.
Her phone rang; she sniffed loudly and picked it up.
‘Kirsten?’ It was her mother; she sounded low.
‘Oh, hi Mum. You OK?’ said Kirsten, putting as much sympathy into her voice as she could.
‘I suppose so. A bit – tired. Depressed. This is always a bad time, you know. When I’ve got used to being home, and I feel rather alone. Not quite picked up the pieces. Father Bryant has been round and he’s been marvellous but – what I really need is a little holiday, of course. But I can’t really afford it and anyway I’ve no-one really to go with. You couldn’t … ?’
‘No,’ said Kirsten sharply. ‘I know I couldn’t. I just asked Dad for – well, some time off.’
‘And?’
‘He said no. In his own inimitable way.’
‘Oh dear. What a pity.’
‘What about your nice friend Anne? Couldn’t she go with you? Or even Gerald?’
‘Anne doesn’t have the money, dear, and Gerald is so busy with his new company. I hardly seem to see him these days either.’
‘What’s he doing?’ said Kirsten, nudged out of her self-centred misery for a while.
‘Oh, just working with some new people. They really appreciate him, have him under contract. But they’re based in Guildford, so he’s always down there.’
Gerald was her mother’s boyfriend, a rather under-employed lighting consultant. Kirsten couldn’t stand him, but at least he was kind to her mother and kept her company. The first time she had met him, he had told her how impressed he was by Pattie, and what a wonderfully brave woman she was. ‘She really does meet this thing head on, doesn’t she?’
Kirsten, who mostly observed her mother meeting this thing by running away from it, managed a slightly frosty smile and held out her hand to say goodbye; but he said (rather shaming her), ‘I think she’s very lonely. I’ve heard her story and it’s very sad. I would like to be her friend, if that’s all right with you.’
Kirsten had said briskly that it was perfectly all right by her and then felt ashamed of her hostility; it had been nice of him to ask her, and he clearly did feel a genuine concern for her mother. That had been two years ago, and he had remained constant to Pattie even through the one very nasty lapse (as she called it) that had put her back in the nursing home; he tried to see she went to her AA meetings, that she ate, that she didn’t get too low.
Kirsten’s attitude towards her mother generally remained what it had been right through her childhood: a mixture of sympathy, exasperated despair, and a degree of guilt that she was unable to help her more, did not do more for her, give her more time; but tonight she felt simply sorry for her, her life seemed so particularly lonely and difficult. Not only was there the constant battle against her alcoholism, but she had to endure being kept on a fairly tight spending budget by Bard (although most generously provided for in other ways: flat in Fulham, car run on the company, accounts for her clothes at Harrods and Peter Jones, anything in fact she could not easily convert into alcohol). But Kirsten contrasted her that evening, in her sadness, with bloody Francesca, sitting in that pair of mansions, with those two little brats, and Bard dancing attendance on her, and fussing because she was tired. Tired! What had she got to be tired about, with her nanny and her housekeepers and Horton to take her everywhere? And endless holidays – no way Francesca wasn’t going to get to New York if she fancied it – eternally photographed and written about as if she were something special, someone important, when all she’d done was snap up her father in a weak moment. Stupid bitch.
Kirsten lit a cigarette: she was trying to give it up but this was one of the times when even another moment without one looked like bloody torture. Toby had been vile as well, told her she shouldn’t have told him she was coming without checking properly, now he’d got to unbook the ticket and it had been done through his firm, there’d be hell to pay.
‘I’m really sorry, Mum,’ she said. ‘Sorry you’re down, sorry I can’t go away with you. Listen, I’ll come over some time this weekend. When are you free?’
‘Oh will you, darling?’ Pattie’s voice was suddenly less tired, genuinely warm with pleasure. ‘That would be so lovely. Come on Sunday morning. Maybe we could even go to Mass together.’
‘Maybe,’ said Kirsten. ‘Anyway, I’ll be over. I’ll ring you. Bye, Mum.’
Her phone rang again almost at once. ‘Miss Channing? Kirsten Channing?’
‘Yes.’
‘Kirsten, I don’t know if you’ll remember me. Judy Wyatt, Daily Graphic. We met at that super reception Sam Illingworth organised to tell us all about the exciting new venture of your father’s. In the North of England.’
‘Oh – yes, of course,’ said Kirsten warily. She had no idea who Judy Wyatt was; just one of the female journalist clones with ginny pseudo-posh voices and flashy clothes reeking of cigarette smoke (she must give it up, she must, she must), and drinking hard at eleven in the morning. Or perhaps one of the older, cosier, more pathetic ones, with gushy faces and cloying handshakes, drinking even harder, even earlier.
‘I certainly remember you. What an intriguing project that is, isn’t it? Of your father’s?’
‘Er – which one?’ said Kirsten cautiously. ‘He has so many – ’
‘Yes, of course he does. But it was that new complex in Newcastle I was thinking of. Such an interesting field. But maybe there are others you could tell us about.’
‘Well – maybe. Yes.’
‘Look, I don’t know what you’d think about this. But my editor thinks it’s so interesting that you are working alongside your father. It really is a very good story. It must be wonderful for you. To get in on the ground floor, so to speak.’
‘Oh it is,’ said Kirsten fervently. ‘Absolutely wonderful.’
‘Are you the heir apparent, Kirsten? No brothers?’
‘Oh – yes, a couple,’ said Kirsten lightly.
‘Two brothers! My goodness. What a prolific man your father is. Of course one of them must be in his latest family. What beautiful children they are, I saw a picture of them with their mother in the Tatler the other day. You must be so fond of them, almost like a second mum to them in some ways I expect.’
‘Almost.’ She had gone into auto-mode now.
‘Do you see a lot of Francesca Channing? She’s so beautiful, isn’t she? Of course it can’t be an easy life, I imagine, being married to a high-profile businessman like your father. She must have to work very hard – ’
Something snapped inside Kirsten. It was the combination of hearing her mother’s tiredly quiet voice, alone and lonely, and Toby’s telling her she was a stupid little cow, and her father’s telling her she was spoilt and lazy and that he was taking Francesca away for the weekend with the children, and remembering all the weekends she had had to care for her mother, trying to keep her from finding the bottles she had hidden herself and now wanted and couldn’t find, or facing her wrath because she, Kirsten, had thrown them away, and trying to look after little Victoria too, and sometimes giving in and ringing her father who was often, so often, just not there: and realising that hardly anyone knew any of that, any of it at all and how unfair it was.
‘Oh I don’t know,’ she said to Judy Wyatt, ‘I don’t know that she works very hard. She has quite an easy time of it really. Compared to what my mother had. She did have a hard time, you know. Really hard. Bringing us three up all on her own …’
There was a short but potent silence on the other end of the line, and then Judy Wyatt said, ‘That does sound very tough. Poor
woman. She was obviously lucky to have you. Kirsten, this sounds like such an interesting story. Perhaps we could talk. It would be a very good piece for our readers. What we call a touchpoint. Something they could identify with. Could you perhaps have a drink with me so we could talk some more?’
‘Well – yes,’ said Kirsten. ‘Yes, perhaps. I’d have to ask. I’m very junior here,’ she added, trying to sound light-hearted.
‘I can’t believe that. Anyway, this isn’t official Channing business PR, is it? Just a little background for our women readers. Anyway, of course you must ask. I’ll – look, now I come to think about it, what are you doing right now? After work?’
‘Oh – well – not a lot, actually.’
Not packing to go to New York, not going out to dinner with Toby. Not going off for a restorative country weekend. Just stewing in her own juice, reflecting on her own inadequacies as a person. Thanks to her father.
‘What about now? I could meet you in no time, if you could spare half an hour. You’re in St James’s Square, aren’t you? What about the bar at the Ritz? In – what, twenty minutes?’
‘The Ritz?’ said Kirsten, surprised. She hadn’t expected that; women journalists were obviously on bigger expenses than she thought.
‘Well, it’s nice and quiet there,’ said Judy Wyatt. ‘Better for talking, I always think. But if you’d rather go somewhere trendy, Soho Soho for instance, that would be fine. Of course I am a member of the Groucho, but the world and his newspaper will be there tonight.’
‘No, the Ritz’d be fine. But I mustn’t be long. And I don’t know what I can tell you that will be interesting.’
‘Oh Kirsten, I do assure you I’m not asking you for an in-depth sob story,’ said Judy Wyatt soothingly, ‘just a little background. For our women readers. As I said.’
Chapter Seven
So it was official: no longer a fear, no longer a shadowy neurosis, but official, a long – or rather several long – words. Kitty had some long words, she had a ventricular septal defect, which meant she had a hole in that part of her heart that sent the blood circulating round her small body. And so it wasn’t very effective, and the blood wasn’t being circulated very well. And it would possibly – ‘only possibly, I must stress that’ – need surgery to correct it.
The Dilemma Page 16