Old Sins (88 page)

‘Roz, you can’t do that. Absolutely not.’

‘I can.’

‘No, you can’t.’

‘How will you stop me?’

‘If you do,’ he said, his face smooth, ‘if you even suggest such a thing, I shall give the stores to Phaedria. All of them.’

Roz felt as if she had just fallen from a great height. She felt light-headed, dizzy, distant; he seemed a long way away.

‘You couldn’t.’

‘I would. She has great talent. She’s original.’

‘And I’m not?’

‘Not specially.’

‘God,’ she said, ‘you really are a bastard. A manipulative, evil bastard. Well, do that. Give them to her. I don’t care. I shall go and work for Michael. That’s just fine.’

‘Oh, excellent,’ he said. ‘You can redesign By Now for him. That would be a good project for you. You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Rosamund?’

‘I could do anything for Michael. He has enough money. I could start a new line of stores myself.’

‘You could. You wouldn’t have much expertise behind you, though. Not in him, would you? Not much flair. It would be very difficult. I have all the best people in retailing tied up. And if you found any brilliant new people, I should probably find I needed them more. And what do you think people would say? They would compare what you were doing very unfavourably, I would imagine. Poor Roz, they’d say, you see, she didn’t have it in her, really, it was all just handed her on a plate, she’s nothing without her father. You wouldn’t like that, would you? You need success and admiration and power. I think you would be making a huge mistake.’

Roz suddenly hit him, sharply across the face; then she stood back, frozen into stillness, stunned by her own courage.

Julian stood looking at her, equally motionless. He was breathing heavily. There was an odd expression on his face, almost one of puzzlement.

‘Why are you doing this?’ cried Roz, almost in anguish. ‘Why? Why can’t you leave me alone?’ Tears had filled her eyes; she was very white.

‘Roz, Roz, don’t. Please don’t be so hostile. I’m trying to help you. Trying to save your marriage.’

‘I feel hostile. I hate you. I hate you more than I would have believed possible. And on the subject of marriage, maybe you should take a look at your own.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Where is that original, beautiful wife of yours right now?’

‘She’s in Los Angeles. I told her to go.’

‘She is indeed. And do you know who’s there with her?’

‘What do you mean? Nobody’s with her.’

‘Oh, yes they are. At this very minute David Sassoon is there. You didn’t know that, did you?’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘You don’t have to. You can ring the Beverly Hills Hotel yourself and check. Like I just did. They’re both there, for another two days. Together.’

Phaedria was lying by the pool at the Beverly Hills Hotel, when she was paged. ‘Call for Lady Morell. Call for Lady Morell.’

She sighed. She was half asleep, sun-soaked, happy. She had been working for almost twenty hours and she wanted to stay where she was, not moving, for a little longer.

She had enjoyed the last few days. She had been well aware of the personal risk she was running, calling in David; but when she had got to LA, had seen the way the designer there been very slightly over-extravagant with the open space, just minimally too cautious with colour, how the windows were just a fraction too close in feel to all the other windows up and down Rodeo Drive, she had, without any thought for anything at all except Circe, put in a call to Washington, where she knew he and C. J. were. She had expected only to talk to him, to describe the problems, maybe to put him in touch with the other designer; when he had said he was free and would come over, her spirit lifted at the thought of defying Julian, of showing him, if necessary, that she was not to be told what to do.

Whatever the sexual and marital considerations involved,
David’s arrival had solved her professional problems. He had stayed forty-eight hours, at least forty of which they had been awake and working, or eating and talking shop. They had both, oddly but tacitly conscious of their slightly compromising situation, avoided lengthy dinners or even any but the briefest sojourns by the pool, and the one time he had attempted to probe her feelings on her situation and her marriage she had closed the slightly forbidding shell of reserve she wore around herself and made it very clear that he was not to try to open it. It had been tempting, she longed for a confidant, yearned to talk not only about Julian, but Roz; but David was the least likely candidate for such a role and certainly not in the dangerous situation they were in, and she knew it.

So now he was gone; she had driven him to the airport in a hire car, he had kissed her goodbye in a brotherly – or would it be fatherly – fashion, she wondered, and she returned to the Beverly Hills and its pool and its pampering power, to recover for a day or two.

She needed to recover; she was not only tired from the strain of the last forty-eight hours, but the previous few months. She was beginning to find Julian seriously dispiriting. His jealousy, his constant criticism, his arrogance were very destructive. She had tried to be tolerant, to remember Letitia’s words, but she was too busy fighting for her own survival most of the time to have any emotional energy left for him. What she would not do was give in, when she was quite convinced he was wrong. She was prepared to listen carefully to his point of view, to consider his criticisms, to take note of his experience, but after that she would, if it seemed necessary, come out fighting. And Julian didn’t like it.

She fought him for the most part privately; and when necessary she fought him publicly, and fiercely; but she always fought fair. She never hit him below the belt. She never traded on her position, never carried some personal slight or quarrel into their professional life. As a result, long and bloody as the fights were, they usually ended in truce; Julian would be angry, outraged, but he respected what she had to say and think, and in the end he would not give in, but he would concede at least something.

But it was difficult: difficult to hang on to her self-respect,
difficult to work effectively and efficiently, difficult above all to nurture and enjoy what was after all a very young and delicate marriage. She felt increasingly alone in her struggle; she could not talk to Julian, he totally discouraged any attempt to confront their difficulties, and she was far too reticent and too loyal to discuss them with anyone else, even with Eliza, who clearly wanted to help her, and was always attempting to probe her feelings and her life. The only thing she could do, she felt, was move from day to day, feeling her way, trying to cope with it all, and hope that time would carry them into some calmer, less dangerous territory.

So for all those reasons, she was tired, she had been enjoying her brief rest, and she didn’t want it to end. She remained motionless, merely raised a slender, sunbrowned arm; one of the small swarm of waiters who hovered permanently watchful near the pool appeared instantly in front of her.

‘There’s a call for me,’ she said, ‘would you bring me a phone, please?’

‘Certainly, Lady Morell.’

‘Hallo?’ she said, picking it up on his return. ‘Yes?’

‘Phaedria?’

‘Yes? Hallo, Julian. Where on earth are you?’

‘In Reception.’

‘In Reception where?’

‘In Reception here.’

‘Good God. Well, you certainly are full of surprises.’

‘I try to be.’

‘I’ll be right out.’

She walked into the foyer of the hotel, carelessly graceful, dressed only in a minute blue bikini, a white towelling robe swinging loosely round her shoulders, her feet bare, her hair loose and slightly damp from swimming. In a place well used to beautiful women, she still attracted great attention.

She kissed him lightly. He looked at her.

‘You look tired.’

‘Yes, I was working most of the night.’

‘Indeed? On what?’

‘The merchandise. I’ve found a marvellous new designer.’

‘A new one? How nice.’

She looked at him, puzzled. ‘Julian, why are you here?’

‘I wanted to see you.’

‘Why didn’t you ring first?’

‘Then I wouldn’t have surprised you.’

‘No. Well, shall we go up to the suite? I expect you’d like to change.’

‘You have a suite, not a bungalow?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why? I keep a bungalow here.’

‘I know. But I don’t like them particularly. I feel – oh, I don’t know, vulnerable.’

‘I see.’

‘Well, let’s go up. Would you like a drink?’

‘No thank you.’

‘All right.’

She followed him into the lift, into the suite, wary, baffled. The boy brought in Julian’s case; when the door was closed he took her by the shoulders and turned her to him.

‘Where is he?’

‘Where is who?’

‘Sassoon?’

‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous.’

‘Phaedria, I know he’s here.’

‘He is not here.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘Would you like to search the hotel?’

He looked at her closely, then released her and sat down heavily on the bed. Phaedria walked over to the window, looked out at the brilliant sunshine, the blue carefree sky, so poignantly contrasting to the dark mood in the room; then she turned.

‘He has been here, though. Until this morning.’

‘I see. In this room, or did you share another suite?’

‘Julian, I really feel desperately sorry for you. You just can’t go on in this ridiculous, melodramatic fashion. I am not having an affair with David Sassoon, neither of us has the slightest inclination to do anything of the sort. If he is in love with anyone, it’s Eliza, still. I like him very much. I think he’s fun, I love working with him, and I think he’s very attractive. But I am not in the business of having affairs, unlike yourself –’

‘Phaedria, be careful!’

She looked at him, unafraid.

‘I am married to you, I care about you, and I am much too busy and too sensible to risk losing you.’

‘Me and all that goes with me.’

‘That was vile.’

‘The truth often is.’

‘I didn’t think you were very well acquainted with the truth, Julian. Anyway, who told you David was here? Roz, I suppose?’

‘Can we leave the ridiculous vendetta between you and Roz out of this?’

‘It’s very difficult, when most of the unhappinesses between us can be laid directly at her door.’

‘Phaedria, grow up, for God’s sake.’

She looked at him, her eyes full of a strange pain.

‘I’m trying to, Julian, believe me. I’m not getting a great deal of help from you. Are you going to accept what I said about David or not?’

‘Phaedria, even if I accepted it, even if I believed you, which I don’t know that I do, how could you ask Sassoon down here, to stay in the same hotel, when I had expressly forbidden you to have any more to do with him?’

‘That was precisely the reason. Or one of them. That you’d forbidden me. If you’d asked me, sensitively, I might have felt different, might have been prepared to try and understand. The other was of course that he was the only person who could do what I wanted.’

‘Indeed. Where? In bed?’

She crossed to the lobby, pulled her suitcase out. ‘This is ridiculous. I’m going.’

‘Don’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I am going. Immediately. That will save you the trouble of packing.’

‘You’re mad.’

‘I think not. If anyone is mad, I think it is you.’

He left immediately, without another word. While he was waiting for his plane at Los Angeles airport, he phoned his lawyer.

Phaedria arrived home at Regent’s Park forty-eight hours later. It was very late; the house was in darkness, utterly quiet. She put down her bags, and moved silently upstairs. She was not sure what she might find; that Julian was not there at all, that he would be in bed with someone else, that he would be alone and hostile, refusing to speak to her. She pushed open the bedroom door. He was in bed, alone, asleep, completely still; he did not stir. For a horrific moment she thought he was dead, had taken an overdose and it would be her fault; then he suddenly moved, turned over, still asleep; she looked at him; for the very first time, she noticed, remorseful, almost afraid, he looked older. His hair was greyer, his face relaxed in sleep was suddenly more lined, looser. He appeared very vulnerable.

She sat down on the bed beside him and looked at him for a long time. Then she put out her hand and rested it gently on his shoulder, and bent and kissed his forehead. He woke, quite easily then, not startled, just slowly moved into consciousness, opened his eyes and looked at her in silence.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I was quite quite wrong. Cruel and arrogant and wrong. Please forgive me.’

‘Oh, Phaedria,’ he said. ‘I’m glad you’re back. I thought I might not see you again.’

‘You don’t know me very well, do you?’ she said, pulling off her clothes, climbing into bed thankfully beside him.

‘Not very. But I’m beginning to learn.’

She didn’t challenge Roz on the subject of whether or not she had sent Julian down to LA. It didn’t seem worth the emotional effort. She would have denied it, or argued in that curious convoluted, noncommittal way she had inherited from her father, and either way it would be fruitless. They tried not to speak to one another at all these days, except when pressures of business forced them; it was better that way. Phaedria was sometimes frightened by the force of Roz’s hatred for her; in her darkest moments, when she lay awake in the small hours of the morning, as she often did these days, watching for the light to filter through the curtains of her bedroom, she sometimes feared that Roz might resort to physical violence, even try to kill her. Then the morning would come and she would be caught up in the maelstrom of her own frantic life, and she would smile
tolerantly at her own foolishness. But deep within her the fear remained and could not be acknowledged to anyone. She thought that probably David might have understood – he had known Roz for so long, indeed was fond of her, and had worked closely with Julian for fifteen years. But he was lost to her now. She had had one last conversation with him, risking the most appalling reprisals from both Julian and Roz, should they have found out (she actually insisted, laughing at herself even as she did it, that they met in a Motorway Stop on the M4, which seemed as safe as anywhere could possibly be from the eyes of anyone who worked for Julian), when she had explained exactly what had happened, and that they must in future only meet in the most public situations.