‘I try to be. I don’t like giving too much away.’
‘You certainly succeed. Let me take you back to my place. I have some very interesting etchings.’
‘No thank you,’ said Phaedria, ‘I really don’t want to go back to your place. I hate men’s places.’
‘That’s a very sweeping statement. My place is very nice.’
‘I’m sure, but I don’t want to go there.’
‘There’s the office.’
‘Any etchings there?’
‘Kind of. You’ve seen most of them.’
‘I suppose so.’ She looked at him with sudden interest. ‘Do you have any pictures of the stores? And the hotels? I’d really like to see those.’
‘Dear God in Heaven, I hadn’t anticipated having to compete with my own company for your attention. Come along, let’s forget the Perrier. Plenty in the office anyway.’
Pete had been waiting for two and a half hours outside Langan’s; Julian looked at the car and sighed.
‘I’d forgotten him. Poor old Pete. Ridiculous driving that short distance, but I can’t dismiss him now. And I’d so wanted to walk with you.’
‘Well, let’s get him to take us somewhere else, and then walk,’ said Phaedria.
He looked at her and smiled delightedly. ‘What a clever girl you are. How I am enjoying myself. Pete! Sorry to have kept you so long. Look, just drop us off at the Connaught, will you, we want to have a nightcap there, and then we can get taxis. Quite late enough already for you.’
‘Very good, Sir Julian.’
In the car he put his arm round her, kissed the top of her head, tipped her face up to his. ‘I find you very special.’
Phaedria smiled into his eyes. ‘I’m enjoying you too.’
‘I plan for you to enjoy more of me.’
She felt an explosion, a melting somewhere deep within her; she got most reluctantly out of the car.
They pushed in through the swing doors, waited until Pete and the Rolls had disappeared and walked out again. The doorman at the Connaught looked at them suspiciously.
‘Come on,’ said Julian loudly, taking her hand, ‘let’s go and do that bank.’
Phaedria giggled.
They walked slowly down through Berkeley Square; a pale, wintry moon spattered on to the bare trees; it was cold, dank. She shivered.
He felt it and put his arm round her shoulders. ‘Sorry. Lousy idea. I just wanted to walk with you.’
‘It wasn’t a lousy idea. And I’m not usually so feeble. But I haven’t got much of a coat.’
‘Oh, God!’ He looked stricken, pulled his own off, and put it round her. ‘There you are. And if we come to a puddle I’ll lay it over it.’
‘That would be a terrible waste of a very nice coat.’
‘I don’t agree. And I have plenty more.’
‘I suppose you would have.’
They walked up Hay Hill in silence; occasionally he drew her closer to him, kissed the top of her head. She felt absurdly happy.
‘I like the night time,’ he said suddenly. ‘You have so much more of the world to yourself.’
‘Shall I go away, and leave the two of you alone together?’
‘No. I can’t think I would ever want you to go away again.’
‘Well, I’ll stay for now.’
‘Please do.’
He unlocked the big white door, let them in, followed her into the lift. It was a small intimate space; he pulled her hard against him, turned her face up and kissed her suddenly, fiercely. At the top the doors opened abruptly, the lights on automatically; he looked down and saw her face, startled, raw with surprise and desire.
‘You look very different from this morning.’
‘I feel different.’
‘Do you really want to look at photographs of my stores?’ he asked, smiling gently, teasing her.
‘No, not now.’
‘You disappoint me.’
‘Don’t joke.’
She walked away from him with an effort, suddenly nervous, unsure of what she should do. He followed her, turned her round, looked at her and smiled. ‘Don’t be frightened.’
‘I’m not frightened,’ she said, ‘but you will have to take care of me. I am half a virgin.’
‘I promise I will.’ He smiled down at her. ‘I don’t know exactly what you mean, but you can tell me later.’
He took off the coats; first his then hers, then, his eyes never leaving her face, unbuttoned her shirt, slid it off her shoulders. Her breasts were small, firm, almost pubescent; he looked at them for a long time, then bent his head and kissed them tenderly at first, then harder, working at the nipples with his tongue; Phaedria, her head thrown back, limp, shaken, forgot everything except her need to have him, to know him utterly, to give to him, to take, take, take. She moaned; he straightened up.
‘Let’s get undressed. We aren’t giving our bodies much help.’
She lay on the carpet, shivering, watching him; she had been a little afraid that he would look less good, less youthful without his clothes, but he didn’t, he was tanned, all over, his stomach flat, his buttocks taut and firm. His penis stood out starkly; she looked at it with frank interest.
‘Now, you must have seen one of these before.’
‘Yes, but it wasn’t so big.’
‘Ah,’ he said, ‘I expect you say that to all the boys.’
And he smiled, defusing her fear, and began to stroke her, gently, insistently, first her breasts, playing with the nipples, smoothing the skin; then on her stomach, stronger, harder, and then moved his hand into the mound of her pubic hair, gentle again, unthreatening, and then, as she began to move, involuntarily, responding to him, he sought for her clitoris with his finger, probing, questing, and smiled as he felt the swelling and the wetness.
He was kneeling above her now, bending now and again to kiss her; again and again she thrust herself up towards him, her arms stretched out, her hair spread about her, looking like some strange, pre-Raphaelite painting, an embodiment of desire.
He made her wait a long time, until she was quite quite ready for him; then very very slowly and gently, he began to enter her, pushing, urging, withdrawing every time he felt her tense. She was tight and tender, despite her desire, and still afraid, deep within herself; he waited for her again and again, following her pattern, understanding her ebbing and flowing, and gradually, very gradually she abandoned herself absolutely to him, relaxed beneath him, softened, opened deeper and deeper, and then suddenly she gathered herself and it was a different movement altogether, it was hungry and grasping and greedy, and then she cried out and trembled and clung to him, and he knew she was there, and that it was safe for him to join her. And afterwards she lay and cried, sobbed endlessly in his arms, and couldn’t tell him why.
‘I’m happy,’ she kept saying, ‘I’m happy, I can’t bear it, please please don’t go away.’
‘I’m not going away,’ he said, ‘never. I shall be here with you always. Don’t cry, my dearest, dearest darling love. I’m not going away. Shush, shush, Phaedria, don’t cry.’
And in the end she stopped and turned towards him, her face all blotched and smudged with tears and exhaustion and sex, and smiled and said, ‘How wonderful you are.’
‘No,’ he said, ‘not wonderful. Not wonderful at all. I loved it. I love you.’
He had not said that for years; it frightened him, even as he spoke.
And Phaedria, who had said it only to Charles, and had been
betrayed and was frightened also, looked at him very seriously and said, ‘I love you too.’
She moved in to the house in Regent’s Park the next day.
Los Angeles, 1982
FATHER KENNEDY WAS
having serious problems with his conscience. Mrs Kelly had made it perfectly plain to him that she didn’t want anyone knowing where she and Miles were going; indeed had entrusted him with the information under pain of great secrecy. It was essential for several reasons, she had said, that nobody knew; the police might come inquiring for Miles, those no-good friends of his from the beach might want to find him; and kind as Mr Dashwood was, she didn’t really want him knowing either. If she and Miles were to make a clean start, then she didn’t want him turning up, upsetting Miles, interfering. She felt bad about it in a way; on the other hand, she did feel, as she had confided to Father Kennedy more than once, that he could have done more to help, that he was just being plain stubborn now, digging his heels in as hard and as awkwardly as Miles, only Miles was little more than a child, and Mr Dashwood was old enough to know better. It could have made all the difference in the world to Miles, and his future, had he given him a job in his company, and it wouldn’t have hurt any. Sometimes, she had said, she wondered if Miles wasn’t right, and Mr Dashwood wasn’t a little ashamed of him – and of her, as well.
Father Kennedy, having the advantage – or maybe the disadvantage – of knowing rather more about Hugo Dashwood and his relationship to Miles than Mrs Kelly, or indeed anyone else in the world, he imagined, found it very hard to understand why the man wouldn’t help his own son; he had often thought about the puzzle over the years; ever since Miles had graduated so well and then wasted himself. Obviously it would be very
damaging for the boy, even when he was grown up, to learn that his mother had had a sexual relationship with another man, and that the father he had been so fond of had not been his father at all. It would inevitably lead to the painful realization that the reason for his father’s suicide had been his mother’s adultery; the whole story was obviously much best kept untold. Especially as Miles disliked Hugo Dashwood so much. That was a sad thing, under the circumstances.
But on the other hand, that should not keep the man from giving Miles a job; he was clearly fond of him, proud of him, and besides, a man did not put a boy through college if he was ashamed of him, didn’t like him. He was as good as the boy’s guardian; why should he persist in this strange, stubborn attitude?
Father Kennedy could see all too clearly why the poor souls at his refuge should behave badly, refuse to help themselves, let alone others, but he could not see why a man who clearly had more than his fair share of the world’s bounty in the palm of his hand should not pass a little of it on to his own flesh and blood. It wasn’t as if Miles was an unattractive young man; quite the reverse, he would be a credit to anyone.
Well, as Father Kennedy had learnt as a very young priest, there was no accounting for human nature, and it was not for him to try; his duty as God’s extremely humble servant was merely to accept it, and do for it what he could, within his own earthly limitations.
And now, here he was, confronted by Hugo Dashwood, just flown in from New York, clearly agitated, and demanding to know where Miles and Mrs Kelly had gone. And he really did not know what to do. This was always the difficult one: when knowledge came into your possession not through the confessional – when it was sacred, and not, on pain of death, to be released – but from conversation, confidences, when it could be argued it was yours to make a judgement on, to do with what you thought best.
And what would be best now? Did he respect the confidence of an old friend and do what she had asked, or did he use his knowledge of her whereabouts to rescue her grandson from a life of shocking idleness at best, and at worst, from the very serious danger of mortal sin?
‘I need to find them,’ Hugo Dashwood had said, sitting down
earnestly in front of him, and looking the very picture of remorse and anxiety. ‘I have decided I have been terribly wrong, and I want to make amends, I want to offer Miles a job after all, before it’s too late.’
‘Well, I’m sure that is very heartening news,’ said Father Kennedy, playing for time while his old mind roamed around his dilemma, ‘and Mrs Kelly would be wonderfully pleased to hear it. I am not altogether certain how Miles himself would take to the idea now, though. It’s a while now since he graduated, and I fear he has got rather seriously used to a life of idleness. If you will forgive me saying so, Mr Dashwood, I fear your change of heart may be a trifle late.’
‘Well, you may be right, Father, but we shall never know unless I can find Miles and put it to him. If I don’t then there is certainly no chance at all that my change of heart, as you put it, will benefit him.’
‘And would it be too terribly inquisitive of me to ask whereabouts you would be offering him this job? Would you be taking him back to England with you, or to New York? Or would it be somewhere here in California?’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t take him to England. I think that would be too much of a culture shock for him. No, I have a small wholesale business in New York, supplying toiletries to the drugstores, soaps, toothpaste, that sort of thing, and I could fit him in there quite easily. I need some more younger salesmen, I think he would do well.’
‘And do you think he would settle there? Do you think he would be happy?’
Hugo sounded impatient.
‘It would be a marvellous opportunity. I think he would settle down quite quickly. It’s what he wanted, after all.’
‘It’s what he wanted once. He was hurt not to get it at the time.’
‘Father Kennedy, he is not a child. He has to learn the ways of the world. Things do not necessarily drop into our laps at precisely the moment we want them. They did not for me, and I am sure they have not always done so for you.’
Father Kennedy reflected, not for the first time, that the English had an unfortunate way of sounding pompous and distant when they probably meant to be neither.
‘Indeed they have not. Nor for most of the people I have worked with all my life. And it does people very little good when things do drop into their laps. Struggle is spiritually enhancing, would you not agree, Mr Dashwood?’
‘Oh, I would, Father.’
‘You are not a Catholic, I think?’
‘I am not.’
The old man was silent for a while, looking at him shrewdly, thinking. ‘And what would become of Mrs Kelly if Miles were to go to New York?’
‘I don’t quite know. I would certainly try to look after her. She has been very good to Miles.’
‘She has indeed. And she is anxious to protect him.’
‘Father, I hope you are not implying Miles needs protection from me?’
‘Not from you, Mr Dashwood. From unhappiness. From idleness, from falling into unfortunate ways.’