‘And for which publication?’
‘The
Bristol Echo.
’
‘How nice. And has my son given you some good copy?’
‘Not yet,’ said Phaedria. ‘I’m hoping it will improve.’
Letitia sparkled at her. ‘It probably won’t. He can be very dull when he wants to be. And he lies a lot. Look out for that. What would you like to drink?’
‘Oh, goodness, I’m not sure.’
‘Well, if you’re not sure, you’d better have champagne. Such a catholic drink, I always think. Julian, go and get a bottle, will you?’
She looked at Phaedria. ‘How pretty you are. Now, Miss Blenheim, sit down by the fire, and let me look at you. She doesn’t look like a journalist, does she, Julian? Too pretty.’
‘Oh, some of them are,’ said Julian. ‘But not too many, I suppose. You’re looking fairly pretty yourself today, Mother.’
Phaedria, startled by this word applied to a woman she knew to be over eighty, looked at her hostess with fresh eyes and realized he was right. Letitia Morell’s skin was soft and glowing, even though a little wrinkled; her eyes were a clear violet blue; her pure white hair was thick and styled in a soft bob; she was wearing a scarlet crepe dress that Phaedria recognized as indisputably Jasper Conran; she wore low-heeled cream court shoes on her tiny feet and cream stockings on legs that were as shapely and slender as they had been when she had so famously danced the Charleston with the Prince of Wales on the glass dance floor of the Silver Slipper Nightclub in the twenties.
‘Oh,’ said Julian suddenly to Phaedria, ‘I know where we should have dinner: Langan’s. Mother, can I use the phone?’
‘Oh, you won’t get a table now,’ said Letitia, getting up and walking briskly over to the phone. ‘I’ll ring and get you mine. What time?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. Nineish, I suppose.’
She stood there tapping her foot as the phone rang and rang
at Langan’s, looking shrewdly at Phaedria and fearing for her and her young, vulnerable beauty in her son’s hands. What next? Schoolchildren?
‘There now,’ she said, ‘that’s done. Nine. You can have my table. It’s over in the corner. Well away from the window, excellent. I envy you.’
‘Come with us,’ said Julian, knowing how the invitation would please her, knowing that she would not come; and she, knowing in her turn exactly both those things, said no, really, she was tired; they chatted for a while, about company affairs, about Julian’s growing ambition and continuing failure to find a site for Circe in London, and in deference to Phaedria’s presence, about the opening of the Bristol plant, about Bristol and the lovely countryside surrounding it, about journalists they knew and she might, but did not, the beauty editors, Felicity Clark from
Vogue
, Leslie Kenton from
Harpers & Queen
, and the editors, Tina Brown, creator of the delicious new
Tatler
, Deirdre McSharry, already-legendary First Lady of
Cosmopolitan.
‘You must meet them all,’ said Letitia firmly. ‘You ought to be working in London, after all. I shall give a little dinner party for you.’
‘Mother, don’t frighten the poor girl,’ said Julian. ‘Come on, Phaedria, time to go, it’s getting late.’
‘I am not a poor girl, and I’m not frightened,’ said Phaedria, firmly cool. ‘And I don’t need to be protected, by you or anybody. I would love to meet all those people, Mrs Morell, please don’t forget.’
‘I won’t,’ said Letitia, kissing her. ‘You must learn not to be so bossy, Julian. Now good night, darling. Good night, Phaedria, may I call you that? Such a lovely name.’
‘It’s from
The Faerie Queen
,’ said Julian.
‘Well of course it is, I know that,’ said Letitia briskly. ‘Wantonness, wasn’t she, Phaedria? You must get so tired of being asked if it suits you.’
‘I do,’ said Phaedria. She wasn’t quite sure about the form her relationship with Julian Morell was going to take, but she was certainly in love with his mother.
Brought strangely closer by the interlude with Letitia, they sat
in Langan’s, yet another bottle of champagne in the ice bucket beside them; Phaedria, half drunk, totally relaxed, sat with her elbows on the table, her chin resting on her hands, smiling at Julian.
‘What a lovely lady.’
‘She is. Although not always.’
‘Isn’t she? I can’t believe that.’
‘Oh, come now,’ he said, ‘nobody is lovely all the time. Or are you?’
‘Me? I’m hardly ever lovely. Horrid most of the time.’
‘I don’t think,’ he said, ‘that I can believe that. You seem a consistently nice person to me.’
‘Not at all. Look how stroppy and rude I was this morning.’
‘That was just doing your job.’
‘Doesn’t that count?’
He seemed surprised. ‘Of course not.’
‘So you can be thoroughly unpleasant in the course of duty, and it doesn’t really matter?’
‘No, I don’t think it does.’
She looked at him thoughtfully. ‘I don’t think I’d like to work for you.’
‘Working was not what I had in mind for you.’
The warmth again; she looked down, confused, flushed.
‘I was very impressed,’ he said, ‘by the way you summoned up all those names for my mother.’
‘What names?’
‘The Captains of Industry you are supposed to be interviewing.’
‘Oh,’ she said, smiling. ‘I’m a good liar. When I have to be. Are you?’
‘Not very.’
‘Why did you have to tell her that story anyway?’
‘Oh,’ he said lightly, ‘I thought it best for her to think our relationship was purely professional.’
‘Why?’
‘She doesn’t trust me with young ladies. With any ladies. I didn’t want a lecture in the morning.’
‘Why not? I mean, why doesn’t she trust you?’
‘With good reason, I’m afraid. I have a bad reputation with women. Your research must have told you that.’
‘A little.’
‘Does it bother you?’
She looked at him very directly. ‘Not really.’
‘Good.’
‘Now then, since you know so much about me, can I find a little out about you? And what would you like to eat? Shall we have oysters?’
‘That would be lovely. Can I have a dozen?’
‘You certainly can. Do you always have such a hearty appetite?’
‘Fairly. But this has been a very long day.’
‘Of course. I’m sorry, I didn’t think. You must be tired.’
‘Oh, no,’ she said, ‘I’m not tired at all. I don’t get tired easily. I do feel a bit under-dressed, though. Everybody here looks so wonderful.’
‘You don’t look in the least under-dressed. I would say you look quite as good as anyone in this room. Do you like clothes?’
‘Very much.’
‘Good. I don’t like women who aren’t interested in clothes. It shows a lack of sensuality.’
This time the warmth was not something remote, or distant; it was a stab of fire. Phaedria drained her glass.
‘And after the oysters?’
She looked at the menu. ‘Steak tartare, please.’
‘This is a very cold meal for November. Is that really what you want?’
‘Yes.’
‘Very well. We can have a big bowl of frites to warm you. And some – let me see, beaune. That would be nice.’ He looked up. Peter Langan had lurched unsteadily over to their table.
‘Evening.’
‘Good evening, Mr Langan. How are you?’
‘Fucking awful.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that. It’s very nice to be here.’
‘I won’t say it’s nice to have you here, because I’d much rather have your mother. Have you ordered yet?’
‘Not yet.’
‘I’ll send someone over. You look like you need some help. Nice shirt,’ he added to Phaedria, and stumbled off.
‘He’s being exceptionally polite this evening,’ she said, munching hungrily at the crudités the waiter had brought.
Julian looked at her in amused pleasure. ‘I’m enjoying you,’ he said.
‘Good.’
‘Now then, can we get back to you?’
‘If you like. There isn’t a great deal to tell. And of course, contrary to what you said, I don’t know anything at all about you really.’
‘Don’t you?’
‘I don’t think so, no.’
‘That’s a nice necklace,’ he said.
‘Oh,’ she said, and there was a shadow on her face that belied her bright tone. ‘I’ve hardly ever worn it. It was a present from someone – ages ago.’
‘Someone important?’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘someone very important. But it’s over now.’
‘How old are you, Phaedria?’
‘Twenty-four.’ She shook back her great mane of hair and looked at him very directly. ‘How old are you?’
‘Sixty-two.’
‘Older than my father.’ It was an oddly intimate statement.
‘Does it matter?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘Yes,’ said Phaedria. ‘Yes, I do.’
He took her hand suddenly. ‘I find you very beautiful. I find the way I am feeling very surprising. Please tell me about yourself.’
‘All right. But you must talk as well.’
‘Very well. We shall swop story for story, and see how we get along.’
He put out his hand and stroked her cheek, very gently; she turned her head and rested it in his hand. She smiled. ‘I think I shall run out of stories first.’
‘We shall see.’
They talked for hours. Warmed, relaxed by the wine, the strangely delicious sensations invading her body, his beguiling interest in everything she had to say, she talked of her childhood, her love for her father, their strangely intense relationship, her fear that her mother might return and invade it; of her days at Oxford, of her unwillingness to become
involved with anybody, of her love for Charles. But she stopped there; she was not ready to betray him yet. She talked of her work, of the people she had interviewed – ‘Everybody must ask you this,’ he said, ‘did you ever fall in love with any of them, have an affair?’ and no, she said, never, you did not regard them as people at all, they were objects, part of the job – her ambitions, the delight she took in her work – and her occasional anxiety for the future and where her rather singular approach to life might lead her.
‘It seems to me,’ he said, ‘that you have led a most blameless life.’
‘Fairly. And you? You haven’t done much swopping yet. Come along, tell me about you.’
‘Well, not blameless,’ he said, ‘not blameless at all,’ and he began to talk, as he had not talked for years, freely, easily, about Eliza, about Peter Thetford, about Roz, about the years in New York, about Camilla, about – very briefly – Susan. But, as for Phaedria, there were boundaries to the confidences, he was not prepared to go beyond the ones he had set.
He told her of his years in France during the war, of the early days in the company, he talked about his mother and the fun and the pleasure they had had in London in the early days, and how in fact it had never stopped.
And Phaedria listened, as she so skilfully did in her work, silently for the most part, attentively, occasionally asking a quiet, thoughtful question, and learnt more in two hours than most people did in two months, two years.
Suddenly he stopped, looked at her slightly warily, and smiled. ‘You are a very dangerous person to talk to,’ he said. ‘You tempt one to say too much.’
‘Can one say too much?’
‘One certainly can.’
He was silent; then he reached out again and touched her face. ‘What do you think?’
She knew what he meant.
‘I’m not sure.’
‘Ah.’
‘Perhaps I should go.’
‘Where?’
‘Home.’
‘Oh,’ he said, ‘don’t go. Not yet.’
‘Well in any case,’ she said briskly, ‘I have to go to the loo.’
‘Very well, off you go, and I shall try and think of something to delay you before you return.’
Phaedria sat in the rather palatial Ladies’ of Langan’s, with its slight air of the boudoir, which had, as usual, a party of its own going on, the air thick with conflicting perfumes and the mirrors crowded with half made-up faces; girls sitting on the sofa gossiping, giggling. She sat apart from them, and brushed her hair, looking at herself in the mirror for a long long time. She felt excited, disturbed, alarmed; but happy. She was taking strange turnings, but she did not feel afraid; nor foolish; nor even surprised at herself. She could see quite well where this evening would very probably end, and despite a considerable sense of trepidation, she liked the prospect. How or why she liked it lay for the most part in the past, she supposed; in her odd childhood, her love for her father, her betrayal by Charles, but it also lay in the present, in the growing urgency of what she could quite clearly see was physical desire at its most beguiling, its most delicious, its most indiscreet. The centre of herself seemed to have shifted; she was thinking, talking, responding, feeling from somewhere deep within her newly restless, hungry body; for the first time in her whole life she felt she understood what a fearsome, reckless force sexuality could be. And she felt something else too, something tender, something happy, something loving; she liked this man, she liked his mind, she liked his voice, she liked his smile and his tenderness towards her, she liked the way he looked, the way he laughed, the way he sat, and walked and moved, the way he looked at her, the way he made her feel she mattered; she wanted to stay with him, to learn more of him, to be with him. He had given her courage; she wasn’t afraid. She smiled at herself in the mirror, stood up and walked purposefully back down the stairs.
He was waiting for her at the table, looking almost anxious.
‘I wondered if you’d run away.’
‘No. I didn’t want to.’
‘I’m glad. What next?’
‘You say.’
‘Brandy?’
‘No, thank you. I’d like some Perrier, though.’
‘You shall have it.’ He took her hand again, looked at her intensely with his dark, questing eyes, searching, half smiling, disturbing her.
Phaedria closed her eyes briefly and swallowed; she felt faint.
‘Now, I have to ask you something. Something important. Something I have to know.’
‘What?’
‘Have you been to bed with many men?’
‘No.’
‘Ah. Any men?’
‘Yes and no.’
‘Are you a virgin?’
‘Yes and no.’
‘My God,’ said Julian, dropping her hand and laughing, signalling to the waiter, ‘you’re hard work. Are you always so mysterious?’