Tell the Girl

by Sandra Howard

  ‘Lives off his wife’s earnings, helps a bit with her accessories business. Daisy says he talks about doing deals the whole time, hoping for a cut in whatever, I suppose. Bet he tries it on with you. Any wheeze to get a sniff of your money – he’s bound to know a small family beer business that’s just ripe to be taken over.’

  ‘I might be tempted to string him along.’

  ‘But you don’t want to encourage him too much. He’d be constantly yapping at your ankles, sticking around.’

  ‘God, I don’t want that!’

  ‘He’ll probably show himself up for the ill-informed twit that he sounds,’ I said, wondering how Daisy would manage to handle Warren’s jealous tension.

  Being civil to Simon was going to be hard for him, and I couldn’t help finding this hurtful. In an earlier life I’d have suffered paroxysms of possessive pain. However, I was more in control now and accepted that Warren had separate, different feelings for me. Yet I, too, was going to have to cope with the tension.

  We’d spent the night before curled up in bed, watching an old Woody Allen film, and in the morning Warren had left me to sleep in, thoughtfully, yet probably needing adjustment time himself. He was smiling now, over fresh-baked croissants and coffee, watching me attentively, and clearly anxious to keep me sweet. I felt like telling him not to bother. Warren wasn’t a natural actor like Joe, whose reinventing skills had taken him far; Joe could have played the double-handed role to perfection, yet he’d never even tried. He simply hadn’t cared enough to do so. I lifted a Sunday newspaper to hide a sigh.

  ‘It’s hard to believe this weather,’ I said, lowering the paper. ‘We’ve had such a run of sunny, sultry days and soft nights. It’s heaven!’

  ‘Just as you are,’ Warren said, looking sheepish when I made a face.

  ‘Not your best effort,’ I said, grinning. ‘As corny as they come!’

  He kissed me and we moved, plus the Sunday papers, to basket chairs with footrests and settled in for an hour. I heard the faint crunch of tyres on gravel. We were dressed to go, looking the Beach Club part. I was in white cut-offs and an iris-blue shirt, Warren in coral Bermudas and well-aged loafers. He hadn’t heard the car, obviously a little deafer than he’d care to admit, and started at the sound of the front door and Daisy’s call of hello. He rose swiftly and awkwardly from the basket chair, giving me another quick kiss on the way. ‘No more perfect peace,’ he murmured and I really thought he meant it.

  Watching him size up Simon was an education. Simon looked just wrong in khaki shorts, a blue office shirt with the sleeves rolled-up and trainers. Warren’s lip curled in a superior way as introductions were made and enquiries after the journey. Simon certainly didn’t cut a prepossessing figure, but the poor guy couldn’t have brought much with him for a three-day city weekend; clothes were the least of it.

  Coming out onto the deck he stood squatly and his darting eyes held a gleam of avarice as he took in the sheer scale of the real estate, the excessive luxury. With his bullet-shaped head, thick neck, hefty chest and biceps, he looked quite alluringly thuggish. Warren was too stolidly male to have sensed the brute force of Simon’s sex appeal. I could feel it, but my dislike was a strong filter, funnelling off the fumes of sexuality like an extractor fan. Daisy could only drink them in and suffer.

  ‘Who’s for a vodka gimlet?’ Warren enquired, stiffly polite, as Martha brought out a tray of tall green glasses, chinking with ice, filled to the brim and topped with lime and a slice of cucumber. They looked enticingly cool and innocuous.

  ‘Sounds just the job,’ Simon said, taking one since she’d rested the tray on a table right beside him. ‘Looks and tastes it, too.’

  ‘Susannah? Daisy? Will you have one?’ Warren said frigidly, handing us each a glass while casting a black-mark eye at Simon to register open disapproval of his manners.

  ‘Don’t you think we should go soon,’ I said brightly, ‘or we’ll never get a table.’

  ‘I’ve seen to that,’ Warren smiled. ‘I pulled rank. They’re keeping one for us.’

  ‘That’s so clever of you,’ Daisy enthused. ‘I’ll just go and grab a bathing suit then, and freshen up a bit. I’ll leave you in good hands, Simon. Be quick as I can.’

  He’d had a second gimlet before we left, downing it in three gulps.

  We drove to the Club. Warren being the polite host sat in front with Jackson, swivelled round permanently, checking on bodily proximity – Simon’s chunky thighs and hairy forearms pressed against Daisy’s lithe tanned limbs – but with looks of such anguish on his face that I wondered if he’d put his neck out in the process.

  ‘Daisy’s filled me in on the Beach Club,’ Simon remarked, ‘and the South-Sider cocktails.’

  ‘They’re worth trying, first on the list,’ I said. ‘We’re here now – just listen to that great ocean roar. Walking in and seeing the breakers is quite something.’

  Lunch had its moments. Simon clearly hadn’t expected a help-yourself canteen; it showed in his expression like someone anticipating fine claret and being offered a glass of plonk. But he was mellowed by South-Siders that ‘did slip down’, as he’d said on his third, and gamely piled his plate with lobster, shrimp and beef. Back at the table, nodding vigorously to Warren’s suggestion of a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc, he looked ready for the conversational fray.

  ‘You came over on business, Simon?’ I said, trying to coat him in a little modesty.

  ‘Your wife has accessories shops, doesn’t she?’ Warren put in, taking his chance of a well-aimed bitch.

  ‘I have my own consultancy too,’ Simon said, hardly hearing the jibe, ‘helping people make connections, acquire new companies, that sort of thing. In fact, trundling out here today on that smart bus I thought of a small family beer business in Northumberland, one that’s struggling, but basically sound – just in case it’s of interest.’

  He smiled at his host while I tweaked at Warren’s calf with my toe and strove to keep a straight face.

  ‘Oh yes?’ Warren gazed at him blandly. ‘I have a European division, of course. You can look us up online for a contact.’

  Simon was unperturbed. ‘Will do,’ he said, slapping his hairy thigh, which caused Daisy to cast her eyes down. He went off to the gents’, stopping to engage with a leggy young mum, who seemed to size him up and like what she saw. Daisy, with her well-tuned antennae, looked up at just the moment to clock what was going on, the young mum pointing out her table, inviting Simon over. Daisy watched in deep distress. In the bright sunlight she looked tired and I saw small finger bruises on her arms. She was being pulled in two directions, torn and confused, and I felt for her.

  None of us was relaxed, unsurprisingly. I minded Warren’s inability to hide his feelings, and Daisy’s efforts not to catch his eye were counter-productive. I knew she wanted to. Simon, however, was immune to the Warren-Daisy dynamics. Such was his sexual self-confidence he couldn’t imagine her shacking up with an aged tycoon, that was clear, yet he had his own small area of tension; he was a married man, as Warren had pointed out with satisfaction, and had to rely on the anonymity of distance.

  Warren was a catch, a honeypot for Southampton’s queen-belle singles; they sought him out and stayed. Our table grew. Simon flirted drunkenly and told blatantly tall tales.

  Taking advantage of a moment’s pause in the chat I touched Daisy’s arm. ‘Come for a little stroll? I need a breather.’ She gave me a pleading look as if to say how could I expect her to risk leaving her men to their own devices, but I was the boss and she rose and came with me.

  We wandered down the wide, windswept beach, both of us silenced by the force of the breakers thundering to the shore. We walked on past the occasional vast clapboard properties fronting onto the ocean, weatherbeaten to silver grey; faded grasses beyond peeling-paint picket fences adding to the air of majestic desolation. It was a place to think and be alone.

  I shook myself free of a longing for solitude and smiled at Daisy. She could hardly
meet my eyes. ‘I’m probably prying too much, but how’s it been, seeing Simon again?’

  ‘It’s difficult. Before coming here, Simon was my world. I was nothing; I made time for him, dressed for him, cooked for him and blanked out the non-Simon hours, which was ninety-eight per cent of the week. I was terrified of not lasting out here, losing him or letting you down.’

  ‘But you’ve lasted.’

  ‘More than that! I was even quite worried that this time of seeing Simon I’d find it hard being with him for three whole days.’

  ‘It hasn’t been like that, though, has it? You haven’t been able to break it off and send him packing.’

  ‘He’s so dominating, Susannah! I do what he asks; I can’t help it. The pull is there and despite what my head tells me I just can’t cut loose, can’t quite bring myself to stand up to him and say no.’

  ‘You’re in a better place now, though,’ I said. ‘You’ve seen beyond. There’ll be others.’

  Daisy laughed, surprisingly. ‘I need them,’ she grinned. ‘The more the merrier – a large cast, I think, so that Simon has to take his place in the queue.’

  We turned back for the clubhouse, both laughing. I knew why we got on: she was fun to be with, had energy and creative ideas and, aside from her weakness over Simon, she had a gutsy streak.

  We calmed down and walked slowly onwards, wrapped in our private worlds. In my head I could hear distant bells; Daisy had set them off. I remembered the slow separation from Joe, my wild search for solace, morals suspended, safety in numbers, experimenting, plunging in – into another marriage as well. Daisy had time on her side, time to make the right decisions. I wanted that for her. I hoped she would sort herself out sooner and more painlessly than I had ever managed.

  Chapter 19

  October 1962

  Bella was six weeks old and I was back at work. I’d found a nanny for her, after much searching of agencies and soul. I’d been house-hunting as well, and agreed a price of £6,500 on a three-bedroom late-Victorian cottage off Parson’s Green – Fulham, but it felt like Chelsea – with a pocket-handkerchief garden and plenty of turn-of-century charm. It was short on floorspace and the front door opened onto the pavement, but it was freehold; and thanks to my saviour at United Friendly, my mortgage was going through.

  I had a three-week trip to New York coming up. The flight was booked and I hoped to sign the contract on the house before leaving, the completion taking place on my return, all being well. I should have been high on a sense of achievement, but instead felt wobbly and insecure, like stepping on bracken over a bog. It was a filthy night, rain slap-slapping against the windowpanes of our Kensington flat. I’d had a long day, working for Woman magazine, and the thought of leaving Bella for three weeks was a painful wrench and covering me in guilt.

  It was time for bed. Joe couldn’t still be on the film set, surely, at eleven at night? There was no point in waiting up for him. I felt so out of tune with Joe. As with a violin, so much depended on the hand holding the bow, and we seemed doomed not to make music. I tried to understand. It was a bad time for him, after all. He was in a bitter sulk – about the move, my bid for a little bit of independence, and also deeply frustrated by his first venture into filming, which was over-running and threatening to cut into his time in New York.

  But not into mine. I tried not to allow my sense of freedom and release to take flight. To have the city to myself for ten days, staying with the Ferrones, of whom I’d grown really fond, seeing Gil . . . I shivered internally, fighting an attack of nerves. Gil was a huge heavy decision waiting to be taken; somehow I had to find the will and guts to end the relationship. It seemed impossible, knowing in my heart that determination only took me so far. I had to sort out my life, though – and do it soon, before events, exposure or some other cruel comeuppance took over.

  I carried my coffee cup through to the kitchen, hoping Frankie’s squawks wouldn’t wake Bella, feeling multiple agonies, even worrying whether Gil would still book me. That was an irrelevant, petty thought, I reproached myself. I had a marriage to mend – or end. Or did I go on muddling through?

  I sighed and turned off lights, leaving one on in the hall for Joe, and called good night softly to Nanny Hadley. She was shuffling about in the little back room that she shared with Bella. We were slowly finding our feet, but I wasn’t allowed much of a look-in with my baby daughter. When Bella toddled up a stage, I decided, it might be time to think again. Miss Hadley, as she wanted to be called, was fearsomely prim and snobbish. Matronly with tightly permed hair of an indeterminate colour, trained in the old school, set in her ways, yet she loved Bella like her own already and I felt safely able to leave her in charge.

  She resented me slightly – all her mothers, probably; we were an encumbrance, amateurs in the baby business while she, Miss Hadley, was the professional. I was also too middle-class. She’d have felt her standards were slipping but for Joe. He was the apple of her eye. He’d picked up the speech and mannerisms of his upper-crust friends and fitted her image of a proper gent perfectly. She couldn’t resist the thickly spread butter of his charm. Joe must have been about the only man ever to make Miss Hadley blush.

  I sensed her disapproval of my trip – ‘gadding off ’, she’d call it – but the counterbalance was having Bella to herself for three weeks and, as I’d reminded her, Joe would be on hand for part of the time. He was hopeless at looking after himself, I said with practical guile. If she could just see her way to mollycoddling him a little . . . Miss Hadley had inclined her head with a sort of arms-akimbo look of satisfaction.

  By morning, the drumming rain had magically given way to a clear bright day, calm and mild. I dressed in a suede-fabric top and charcoal skirt feeling more cheered, grabbed a fast bit of toast and gave Bella her bottle with Miss Hadley keeping a critical eye.

  I was working for another weekly, Woman’s Realm, and had to run, but I looked in on Joe just to see all was well. He’d been in a leaden sleep earlier, when I slipped out of bed, his stillness and pallor causing a moment’s panic, but it was only from an excess of booze, I felt sure.

  He was sitting on the side of the bed, trying to come to. ‘Heavy night?’ I smiled.

  ‘Don’t ask.’ Joe sounded friendlier at least, in a better place. He yawned. ‘I was at a party with a few film wallahs and they were all on about the Bond film, Dr No. It’s being premièred at the Palladium on Friday. I really want to see it over the weekend. No one wanted to make it, apparently, and I can’t think why; bet it breaks records and proves the doom-merchants wrong.’ He was hooked on James Bond – the books were up there, along with Sinatra – yet I suspected something more than Dr No was lifting Joe’s spirits.

  ‘Great idea, be a thrill to see it.’ I was keen to sound positive and hang onto the mood, I lived in hope of turning corners. ‘If we can get in, that is.’

  Joe never considered such practicalities and didn’t now. He chatted on about Bond. ‘Ian Fleming was at the first-night party for Old Love, remember, with his wife, Ann, and he was just like I imagine Bond to be. Handsome in a hard-edged kind of way, refined, big on the languid chat – but I’m not sure about this Sean Connery, playing the part. He’s a Scot.’

  ‘Hardly a disqualification, surely.’ I looked at my watch; I’d be late.

  ‘Sylvia Ormsby-Gore has been in touch,’ Joe said neutrally, getting to the nub of it. ‘She’s firmed up on the Washington invite, third weekend of October.’

  ‘But you’re filming till the twentieth. Couldn’t it be the one after?’

  ‘That’s the only weekend on offer, which is a stinky bugger. I’ll move hell to get out of the last day’s filming, but may have to fly direct to Washington.’

  ‘So I’d go alone from New York?’

  ‘You don’t have to come,’ Joe said, too quickly. ‘It’s not really your thing, old wifey, diplomats and stuffy dinners, all the political chat.’

  He wanted to play it solo and he was putting me down. I fumed insid
e. ‘Of course it’s my thing, I really got on with them – and with JFK.’ I glared at Joe. ‘I can easily book out Friday afternoon and get the shuttle.’ I looked at my watch again and back at Joe, struck by a thought. ‘Shouldn’t you be at the studios, love, like about two hours ago?’

  ‘I’m going to phone – go in later. I’m sick as a dog, my tongue feels like an old Brillo pad. I’m sick of this whole farting film business too, all the boring hanging loose. I can sort the tickets for Dr No,’ he added. ‘I’ll go in person and try for Saturday night.’

  ‘I’m sure you’ll have the ticket girl eating out of your palm,’ I said, wishing it didn’t take an invitation to the British Embassy Residence in Washington for Joe even to talk to me.

  I left for New York the following Tuesday, missing Bella painfully before I’d even arrived. Was it madness to be going? I had bookings to honour, though, bills to pay; it wasn’t only for need of Gil and a breather from Joe. He’d certainly perked up. The Dr No film had really hit the spot. Joe had drooled over Ursula Andress rising out of the sea like a Botticelli Venus, and he was full of The Beatles, too, whose first disc, ‘Love Me Do’, was selling fast and causing a stir.

  ‘I heard them live, wifey, remember? A year ago at the Blue Gardenia in Soho. I told you about that guy in the music business, who’d said they were hot. He knew his stuff.’

  ‘You sound like you think they could be up there with Sinatra.’

  Joe snorted. ‘That’s so typically asinine of you. They’re a group; Sinatra’s a voice, incomparable, irreplaceable. The way he finds the peak of a song like it’s a woman he loves . . . Nelson Riddle said when I interviewed him that music was sex, finding the rhythm of the heartbeat, and he’d done his finest work, arranging for Frank; they knew what they were doing with a song. The Beatles are very sexy, new and now, but four talents, way different. They’ve got the tempo though, the rhythm of the heartbeat.’