Old Sins (113 page)

Oh, surely it wouldn’t come to that! It couldn’t! C. J. would never leave London. He loved it like a mistress. But even if he stayed, he still might want Miranda. Oh, God. What a mess.

Roz decided she needed a drink. Franco was out, and wouldn’t be back for an hour or so before dinner. She wandered into the gleaming stage set of a kitchen and found a glass, went to the fridge and took out the ice box. While she was cracking some cubes into her glass, she noticed the basket of book matches which Michael kept on the top of the fridge; he had been collecting them for years. They told better than anything where he had been, eaten, stayed.

She glanced idly into it as she poured some scotch into her glass; suddenly she froze, rigid with shock and fear. Right on the top, the very latest addition, was one of the small cream boxes with silvery lettering in which the Bel Air Hotel packed its matches.

The Bel Air! Phaedria was at the Bel Air. Had Michael been there? Seen her? Was it possible? Surely not, surely surely not. It wasn’t, it couldn’t be. He couldn’t, wouldn’t even look at that bitch, wouldn’t betray her; it would be the utmost, infinite treachery. No, it must be a mistake. Anyway, maybe Phaedria was gone by now. No, she wasn’t. She was leaving next week. Well, maybe Michael had had the matches some time. Maybe he had been rummaging through them, and it had just come out on top. There had to be a better explanation. There had to
be. He couldn’t betray her like this, not with Phaedria. Roz drank a very large whisky and poured herself another. Then she crossed over to the phone and, holding the matches, dialled the hotel.

‘Bel Air Hotel,’ said a smoothly purring voice. ‘May I help you?’

‘Yes,’ said Roz, carefully turning her voice into something slick and efficient, not remotely like the high-pitched hysterical wail she felt struggling to escape from her. ‘This is Mr Browning’s secretary. Mr Michael Browning. I believe Mr Browning was staying there at the weekend. He has lost a raincoat. I wonder if he left it at the hotel?’

‘One moment, ma’am. Just let me check with the housekeeper.’

There was an endless, endless pause while the phone was silent, occasionally crackling gently; Roz had to bite her fist to stop herself from screaming. ‘Ma’am? No, Mr Browning didn’t leave a raincoat behind. We don’t have much call for raincoats here, of course.’ The voice was politely amused, obviously hoping Roz would share the joke.

‘I see. But he – he was there? I haven’t made a mistake and confused hotels?’

‘Oh, no, ma’am. He was here all right. Friday and Saturday night. But no raincoat. I’m sorry.’

The voice was filled with the genuine slightly hyped-up charm that is essentially Californian. Roz just heard that and then no more. She had a rushing in her ears; she closed her eyes and put down the phone.

She sat drinking her second whisky and then her third, wondering how she could possibly survive the agony she was enduring.

Phaedria was packing her things together. She had been living at the Bel Air for so long she couldn’t imagine having to return to reality. To organizing her own household, to being in the office every day, above all, to looking after the baby all by herself. It felt very frightening.

While Julia had been at the hospital, cared for by the nurses, although she had longed to have her with her all the time, she had felt safe. No harm could come to her; if the baby got a cold
or colic, or wouldn’t suck for a feed, the nurse would sort her out. If there was a real anxiety, the paediatrician was on hand. Now the safety net was about to be removed from underneath her, and she was extremely nervous. It was all very well everyone reassuring her that the baby was now a normal weight, that she was, if anything, more robust than a full-term baby leaving hospital, that she knew as well as anybody how to care for her: Phaedria still didn’t want to have to take on the responsibility.

Besides, she was taking Julia away from the warmth and sunshine of California into the raw dank hazards of an English November; how would she possibly be able to adapt to that?

Just fine, said the paediatrician. ‘I presume you’re not actually going to be living out of doors. That your house has some form of central heating? That your child will have a crib of some kind to sleep in?’ His lips twitched slightly.

Phaedria said no, of course they would not be out of doors, they would be living in a large and very comfortable house. That the house was often hotter than she would personally have chosen. That there was a fully equipped nursery, arranged by her at long distance in collaboration with Letitia and Mrs Hamlyn, filled with cribs and cots and soft, downy quilts, and warm flanellette sheets, and snowy soft cashmere woven blankets; and endless piles of Viyella nightdresses, and soft, finest wool booties and mittens, and bonnets and shawls. That mobiles and musical boxes and pictures were there in abundant supply to keep Julia occupied and stimulated while she was awake; that something over a hundred soft toys were piled up on the nursery sofa awaiting the day when she could hold them and cuddle them; that a doll’s house, a doll’s pram, a bookcase full of children’s classics, even a small bicycle waited in the room next door to the nursery designated as a playroom; that there was a shortlist of five Norland nannies awaiting their final interview with her when she got home; that she had no intention of working full time in the office until at least Christmas so that Julia could adapt to her new life and environment; that their own doctor would be waiting at the house on the afternoon they arrived home, to meet Julia and check her over. Did Mr Welch genuinely think it was really all right to take the baby home?

Mr Welch looked at her very directly and seriously. ‘Of course we do have to be extremely cautious in these cases. But I honestly think, Lady Morell, that under the circumstances –’ he paused – ‘keeping this baby here any longer is bordering on the ludicrous.’

Phaedria smiled. ‘All right. We’ll go.’

So now they were going, and it was a long journey. At least twelve hours door to door, even with Pete meeting her at Heathrow, and it would seem much longer with the time change. She would have to feed Julia at least three times on the plane, change her, wash her; it wouldn’t be easy. Phaedria was terrified.

British Airways, who were flying her home, were very reassuring. There were excellent facilities for mothers and babies on their planes, especially for first-class passengers. All the hostesses had some nursing knowledge. Was the baby in any way unwell? No? Then there really was nothing for her to worry about.

Supposing though, said Phaedria, the baby became ill on the plane. Then what? Was there a resident doctor?

Not exactly on the plane, said the spokesperson carefully, grateful that her caller could not see her face. Of course there very often was a doctor amongst the passengers.

Could she tell yet if that was a certainty?

No, she couldn’t. Was Lady Morell’s doctor aware that the baby was coming on the flight? He was. And he was quite happy about it? Then really there seemed no cause for alarm.

In the end Phaedria had to accept everybody’s judgement and prepare to take Julia home.

She had spent most of the week thinking about Michael Browning. She found it rather alarming how much she had focused on him. He filled her head and her heart, and she had hardly a thought that had not contained him. What was that Quaker expression that had always charmed her? Thee pleasures me. Yes, that was what Michael did to her, he pleasured her, made her feel joyful and warmed and safe and almost physically cared for, he induced a kind of charm and delight into everything, life was heightened and lightened when he was there, and bleaker and darker when he was not. She
liked too the fact that she clearly amused and delighted him; that he made her feel interesting, and important, and – and oh, God, yes, and something else too. He made her think with quite appalling relentlessness and vividness of sex. She was not sure quite how; it was partly the way he looked at her, the way his eyes flicked over her body sometimes, the way he smiled, not just into her eyes, her face, but suddenly disarmingly as his eyes were resting on her breasts, her legs, her stomach as though these places inspired such thoughts of joy and delight that he could not contain himself, could not remain solemn; partly the blatant sensuality contained in his eyes, in the way he moved, even the way he spoke, certainly the way he laughed; partly the sudden amused comment, the half serious observation that revealed a strong sexual focus; but if she had tried to explain it to anyone who had never met Michael Browning she would have failed utterly. Other women had tried in the past and failed also.

Well, it was not to be. Her sadness, her regret, the physical ache he had induced in her for him paled into insignificance at the thought of Roz and what she would do to her if she discovered that she and Michael were lovers. Had even thought of being lovers.

She had been afraid of Roz, even when she had been married to Julian. Now she was, quite literally, physically terrified, and she set the concept aside as determinedly, as irrevocably as if it had been some food, some substance that would injure her, damage her fatally.

She was also terrified at the thought of returning to the minefield that was the company. She dreaded to think what Roz might have engineered in her absence, whose confidence she had gained, who she had persuaded to regard Phaedria as a half-witted usurper into the company’s power structure. The temptation to sell out, to let her have it all, to go, was fierce; and yet she never allowed herself seriously to consider it. Julian had left her half the company, and he had left her Julia, although he had not known it, and she had to safeguard the one for the other. She could not betray what limited trust he had had in her. She owed him that at least.

At least now she felt well; strong, ready for battle. On the other hand, she knew she would never again be able to fight
with the same total commitment. She would have Julia to worry about, to get home to, to be with; she wasn’t going to have her growing up wondering who she was. However good the nanny, however efficient her staff, Julia needed her; and she was going to have her. Delegation was the key; she must find it and put it in the lock.

She had done a lot of thinking in the long often tedious days in the hospital and in the quiet evenings in her bungalow. If this nonsense was ever to be resolved, simply trying to pull everything in two pieces was not the answer. There had to be some lateral input of thought: the trouble was that on this subject at least, Roz only thought vertically.

It seemed hopeless; unless one or the other of them managed to find Miles and manipulate him into cooperation. And that seemed increasingly unlikely.

Towards six o’clock, Roz suddenly remembered, through the haze of misery and rage, and several extremely large whiskies, that she was supposed to be meeting Michael at the Algonquin. Well, that was all right. She could talk to him there as well as anywhere. It might enliven things a little for the other people there. It was a pretty dull place a lot of the time. She called out to Franco who had come in and was working in the kitchen, and told him to get her a cab.

‘You won’t get one now, Mrs Emerson. It’s rush hour.’

‘Well, I have to get to the Algonquin. And I’m not going to walk.’

‘Would you like me to drive you? I can get the car round in five minutes.’

Roz looked at him, thinking. Walking might not be a bad idea. It was only ten blocks, and she needed a clear head. The traffic would be appalling, and she would have to sit and listen to Franco’s running commentary on the deteriorating condition of New York all the way.

‘No, it’s all right, Franco, I think after all I’ll walk. The traffic will be terrible.’

‘All right, Mrs Emerson. Will you and Mr Browning be coming back here for dinner?’

‘I’m afraid I don’t have the faintest idea,’ she said, making it plain that the decision was hers, rather than Michael’s, where
they dined. ‘I haven’t decided what I want to do this evening yet.’

She liked putting Franco down; he was so bloody devoted to Michael, so eager to impress upon her the democratic nature of their relationship. Roz thought there was only one place for servants and that they should know precisely where it was.

Michael was sitting at a table in the Blue Bar and drinking bourbon when she arrived. He saw her standing in the doorway and his heart lurched. She was difficult, she was overbearing and monstrously selfish and unreasonable, but she was very very sexy. And she was plainly in feisty mood. Her eyes were brilliant and snapping, her face was alive, her entire body spelt out energy, power, resolution. He smiled to himself.

‘Hi, darling! Come and sit down. What would you like to drink?’

‘A scotch whisky on the rocks,’ said Roz to the waiter, ‘a large one.’

Michael looked at her quickly. She didn’t usually drink spirits, and certainly not in large quantities. He noticed suddenly that she was flushed, and that her voice was slightly odd.

‘Are you OK?’

‘Oh, yes,’ she said and her voice was just a little too loud and harsh. ‘I’m absolutely fine. Never better. But then I always did enjoy good health. As you know. I’m not someone to cave under at the least strain. Would you say, Michael?’

‘No,’ he said, and there was puzzlement in his voice. ‘No, I wouldn’t. It’s that good British stock you come from, I guess.

‘Not necessarily,’ she said. ‘Not at all. I could name a few examples of British stock who are pretty damn feeble. Who take almost two bloody months recovering from having a baby. Who sit about whingeing and whining and expecting the world to come running to them, from thousands of miles away if need be.’ She drained her glass, leant back in her chair and called to the waiter. ‘Bring me another of these, will you?’ Then she turned back to Michael. ‘So how was my dear stepmother last weekend, Michael? Sitting up and taking notice yet? Or still lying back on her pillows like some pathetic Victorian heroine, trawling sympathy from anyone in sight?’

‘Ah,’ he said quietly. ‘So that’s it.’

‘Yes,’ said Roz. ‘That is it. And how was it, Michael? How did you find her? Pretty damn ready for you, I would say. I bet she’s like a bitch on heat underneath that fey, little-girl charm of hers. She pulled my father into her bed fairly fast. Well, there’s no fool like an old fool, they say. You, I would have thought, might have been expected to be a little more sensible. I was obviously woefully wrong.’