Old Sins (125 page)

‘Come along, little one,’ she said aloud. ‘You can’t go to sleep yet. I have to change your nappy. And I have some news for you. Mummy has had an idea . . .’

She was so engrossed in her thoughts and her task that it took her a long time to realize the phone was ringing. She picked up the nursery extension, a safety pin still in her mouth.’

‘Yes?’ she said, her voice muffled.

‘Phaedria?’ Michael Browning’s voice came at her, disturbing her, delighting her, across the Atlantic, rough, angry, as she had never heard it. ‘Phaedria, I have phoned to say three things. One is that I love you. Two is that I intend that you should marry me. And three is that you are never, ever to put the phone down on me again.’

London, New York, Los Angeles, Nassau, 1985

IT WAS CANDY
who voiced the nightmare: Candy who took the dark, ugly shape from the recesses of all their minds, shook it, held it up to the light, and ultimately managed to dispel it for all of them. Candy, who was the only person sufficiently detached from it all to be able to face it and to wonder that they could not.

Miles had flown into Nassau ten days after he had left, and Candy had met him, radiant with relief and delight to have him back.

‘Hey,’ she said, ‘you look wonderful. Kind of tired and a bit old, but wonderful.’

Miles put his arm round her, looking down at her pretty, freckled little face, and moved his hand appreciatively down over her small firm backside. ‘You feel wonderful,’ he said.

‘Thanks. I missed you.’

‘I missed you too. Do I really look tired and old?’

‘Yeah but –’ she looked at him consideringly – ‘it kind of suits you. You look grown up. I love the clothes.’

‘Candy, I tell you the shops in London are just something else. You have to come and see them.’

‘Well, they certainly look it. Where’d you get that jacket?’

‘In Harrods. It’s by this guy called Armani. I got a whole load of stuff of his.’

‘What’d you get for me?’

‘Oh, baby, just you wait and see what I got for you. Well, apart from this. This is the most important present –’ he looked round to make sure no one was looking, then took her small hand and pressed it over his erect penis, bulging at the fly of his (mercifully baggy) linen trousers – ‘this is what I really can’t wait to give you.’

‘Well, I think I want the other things first,’ said Candy, smiling up at him. ‘Come on, let’s get back to the hotel. Daddy’s out till tonight and Dolly has a new boyfriend, I really think she might take off with him.’

Later, lying blissfully sated beside him, her head cradled on his chest, the floor beside the bed covered with packages and bags from Harrods and Harvey Nichols and St Laurent and Chanel, spilling silk shirts and satin lingerie and belts and bags and earrings and chains, she said, ‘Why did you come back so soon?’

‘For this,’ he said, stroking her pubic mound, smiling as she squirmed against his hand, kissing the top of her golden head. ‘I couldn’t stand not having you any longer.’

‘And?’

‘And what?’

‘Well, what was the other reason? This was a pretty expensive screw.’

‘Worth it, though.’

‘Well, I guess you can afford it now.’

‘Not really,’ he said, ‘I don’t have any cash at all, until I sell my share. But, well, Henry Winterbourne arranged with the bank to make me a loan against the capital. So I do in a way.’

‘Good.’

‘So why did you come back? There must be women in London.’

‘There are,’ he said, ‘but not like you. No, I needed to get away. It’s pretty rarefied air over there. I needed time to think. I said originally I’d stay till I’d decided, but it was all really getting to me.’

‘Tell me about them. Maybe I can help.’

He sighed. ‘It would be nice if you could. It’s a real cesspit of emotions. I mean first there’s Roz, she’s really nice, uptight as hell, incredibly frustrated . . .’

‘Hey,’ said Candy. ‘I don’t know that I like the sound of this. What does she look like?’

‘Oh, she’s pretty sexy,’ he said, patting her bottom fondly. ‘Not beautiful exactly, well not at all, but the most amazing figure, very very tall, she’s really hot stuff.’

‘Uh-huh . . .’

‘Yeah, I could do a lot with her. Well anyway, then you should see her mother. She’s nearly fifty, and she really is a hot pants. Knockout looking, too. She’s married to this really neat old guy, he’s a lord, and he has a castle . . .’

‘A real castle?’

‘Well, it sure as hell isn’t made of cardboard. But anyway, it’s Roz who has one share. And then there’s Phaedria, who was married to the Creep, as we now know – Jesus, what a pantomime.’

‘That’s a wild name. What’s she like?’

‘I’m not sure. She seems real nice, but you can’t tell. She’s very beautiful too, she has the most incredible hair. And she has this little baby –’

‘Is that the Creep’s baby?’

‘Yeah.’

‘That’s sad for her.’

‘Yeah, it is. Well anyway, she lives all on her own in this great house in London, with God knows how many servants, and she has a few more scattered about the globe. And she’s been having an affair, well I think she might have been, with Roz’s bloke.’

‘My God, Miles, this is worse than Dallas.’

‘I know. And then there’s Letitia. Roz’s grandmother. Mother of the Creep. How she managed that I’ll never know.
She is a really fun old lady. She’s eighty-seven, and she is just wild. She was nearly Queen of England,’ he added.

‘Queen of England? What, instead of this one?’

‘No, instead of her mom. She had this huge affair with that old guy who used to live here, you know, the Duke of Windsor, and she would have married him if he hadn’t met Mrs Simpson.’

‘Oh my God,’ said Candy. ‘This is really amazing. Can you imagine what the de Launays would say if they knew? So anyway, you have to choose between these two women? The sexy one and the one with the funny name?’

‘Yup. It’s awesome, Candy, it really is. I just can’t begin to make up my mind.’

‘Do you absolutely have to?’

‘Well, there are options. I could not sell at all, but then we wouldn’t have any of the money. I could sell to someone else, which is quite an attractive notion, because then I wouldn’t have to decide. But God knows where I’d find someone with x zillion pounds who’d take this lot on.’

‘Er, how many zillion is it, Miles?’

‘Don’t ask.’

‘I have to ask.’

‘About eighty million.’

‘Shee-it.’

‘I know. Well anyway, I could sell one per cent to one of them, and keep the other. But then I’d still have to choose, so it wouldn’t help me. God, it’s awful. What do you think?’

Candy was silent, contemplating what eighty million dollars could do for her. Then she said, ‘I don’t know, Miles, I really don’t. Which of them do you think needs it more?’

‘I guess Roz, in a way. She’s more desperate. But the old lady, Letitia, the Queen you know, she said I should think real hard about it, because Phaedria has the little baby, and so that makes a difference. I mean maybe she has more of a right to it. The other thing is that Roz hates Phaedria so much I think she’d kill her if she did get hold of it. I really do.’

‘Jesus,’ said Candy. ‘What a mess.’

‘I know. And it’s all such a mystery. I mean, why did it all have to happen at all? Why did I have to be involved?’

She turned in the bed and looked up at him.’

‘Seems pretty obvious to me.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Oh, Miles, I can’t believe you haven’t worked it out. You’re not that dumb.’

He looked at her, dreading what she was going to say, longing to confront it, to get it over with.

‘Maybe I am. You tell me.’

‘Well, it seems absolutely clear to me.’

‘What does?’

‘Well, that you were Mr Dashwood’s son.’

Miles was silent. Hearing it spoken, acknowledged as a possibility, made it feel just a little less dreadful, a lot more unlikely. He stared at Candy, smiling rather uncertainly.

‘Oh, no. No, that is just dumb.’

‘It’s not dumb, Miles. Why else should he have done such a thing?’

‘I don’t know about that. I just know my mom wouldn’t have – couldn’t have – anyway, he would have said, she would have said –’

‘What? When?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. But what I do know is, that is just absolutely impossible.’

‘OK.’ She shrugged. ‘Have it your own way. Seems quite possible to me. Shouldn’t you at least – talk to them all about it?’

‘Candy, I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. They’re upset about it enough as it is.’

‘I bet they’ve thought of it. I bet you one of those eighty million they did. I think you should ask them.’

‘Well, maybe.’ He was silent, meditating on what she had just said. ‘Jesus, I can’t think of anything more awful. Being the Creep’s son. My mom and him. Jeez, Candy, you just have to be wrong.’

‘And you never thought of it? Really?’

‘Well,’ he said, with a rather shaky smile, ‘actually, I sort of did. And then wouldn’t let myself think any further.’

‘I bet you they all did the same. I really think you should talk to them about it.’

‘Oh well, maybe I will. When I get back.’

She looked at him. She had never seen him so strained, so
unhappy. She decided to try and change the subject a little, distract him.

‘I do have one kind of an idea.’

‘What’s that?’

‘If you went and worked for this company, you’d have some money, wouldn’t you?’

‘I guess so. But I don’t intend to.’

‘Hang on. I mean, you’d be a pretty rich guy that way too. And you could keep your shares, and then you wouldn’t have to choose.’

‘Candy, that is really dumb. I don’t want to work for the company. It’s awful in there. Believe me. Anyway, I don’t want to work for any company.’

‘Oh, all right.’ She sighed. ‘It just seemed a kind of a solution. And I’d quite like to live in London for a bit.’

‘We could do that anyway, if you want to. But I am not going to go and work in that hellhole.’

‘Not even for a while? I’d kind of like being shacked up with a tycoon.’

‘Candy, I’m getting jacked off with this. Just shut up, will you? I’m not going to work there, OK?’

‘OK.’ She looked up at him, and smiled and then slithered slowly down in the bed, kissing, licking his chest, his stomach, and then with exquisite slowness and delicacy, began lapping at his penis with her tongue. She would change his mind. She always did. And this was one of the ways she did it.

Roz was riding in the park when she had the idea. She had taken to riding early in the morning recently; it cleared her head for the day, made her feel better, and in any case she loved horses: she had forgotten quite how much until she cantered along the Row the first morning, savouring the uniquely satisfying pleasure of feeling a powerful, well-schooled horse beneath her; she resolved to make the time to find a house in the country for the weekend, and take possession of the horses her father had left her. It would be lovely for Miranda, too, who was nearly old enough to ride, and was proving a tough, courageous little person (more me than her father there, Roz thought with satisfaction).

Then she sighed and her heart dropped leaden-like to the
bottom of her new riding boots. Any thought of the future led her to thoughts of Michael, and thence into depression; she had not heard from him again, and she knew she would not, that this time she had gone too far, abused their relationship, doubted his word, humiliated him publicly. She had decided with hindsight that probably he and Phaedria had been telling the literal truth; it would have been unlike him to have started what amounted to an adulterous affair without at least some kind of an early warning to her; and it would have been so crass, so insensitive to have started it with Phaedria of all people at this particular time in all their lives, that it really didn’t bear too close scrutiny.

And here it was, two weeks before Christmas, and they were in the middle of this nightmare and no immediate hope of it being resolved in any way. If ever. The more she thought about it, the more she got to know Miles, the more hopeless a prospect that seemed to be. He was so transparently nice and guileless, he wasn’t going to be able to bear to do the dirty, as he saw it, on either of them. What he really wanted was a small sum of money, nothing like the eighty million he was going to inherit, and to be left alone. Roz would gladly have given it to him anyway, just handed it over to put him out of his misery, but that wasn’t going to solve anything for Phaedria and herself. Someone, somehow, had to break this deadlock before they all went mad: but how?

A thought suddenly came to Roz that was so petrifyingly obvious that she froze rigidly on her horse. He sensed her withdrawal, her sudden lack of empathy with him, and tossed his head, pulling at the bit. ‘Sorry, old thing,’ said Roz absently, reining him in, leaning down, patting his neck. ‘Sorry.’

She walked him very slowly along the Row, thinking, her mind racing furiously. Suppose, just suppose, that someone else offered to buy Miles’ share. An outside bidder. Someone nobody knew. Well, it was possible. Why shouldn’t they? Nobody really knew about it at the moment, but someone could have got to hear. Miles would sell gladly. He couldn’t wait to get back to California and shake the dust of the whole thing off his feet. And he wouldn’t have to make any decision. He would be spared all the trauma and he would simply get the money. It would be marvellous for him. Roz suddenly saw, very vividly,
Miles’ glorious heartbreaking smile, and smiled herself. She also found herself dwelling briefly on Miles as a man. She did find him horribly disturbing. It was his sexual self-confidence that really got to her, more than his charm or his looks, the way he so overtly put himself on the line, told her, quite frequently (with a look, a smile, a remark, a touch) that he could, should she wish it, take her, please her, delight her. And the slight regret he always managed to convey each time she turned down his tacit, delicious invitations. Probably, she thought, if she had in fact accepted them or even one of them, he would be horrified, would close up, turn away, hurry home to Candy, and in her present state with her own self-confidence at a low ebb, she was not about to put it to the test. Nevertheless, he remained there, in her subconscious and her sub-senses, a source of turbulence and odd pleasure. Keeping company with her fear . . . So: present him with an escape route, in the form of a buyer for his share of the company, and he would breathe a sigh of relief and escape. And the escape route could be so extremely anonymous, and probably very formal, a small merchant bank or consortium of people, that he would never dream of looking into it, behind it, he would simply, gratefully sell. At a very good price: Roz had no intention of depriving Miles of a cent of his due. And then, in the fullness of time, the small merchant bank or consortium would be persuaded to sell its share back – for an even better price – to its rightful owner. The person who should have had it in the first place. Who was the true heir to the company? Who could run it with more skill, more understanding, more creativity, than anyone? The daughter of the founder. Rosamund Emerson. Née Morell.