Wicked Pleasures (104 page)

‘I’m so please you came back to Hartest too,’ he said, ‘it’s lovely for all of us. I was so afraid I was going to lose you.’

Over the next few weeks they grew closer. They walked together, they sat and chatted sometimes in the house while Martin was waiting to see Alexander or when he had left him; she took George down to the house to visit both him and Catriona. Once or twice, greatly daring, she met him in Marlborough and he took her to lunch in a pub. ‘It’s a great treat for me to be able to spoil you,’ he said. He absolutely accepted and supported her decision to have George, and moreover not to tell Kendrick about him. ‘If the relationship wasn’t working, then it’s far better to be on your own.’

She wondered at first how he equated that philosophy with the condition of
his own marriage, but she came to see that against all the odds, that was a relationship that did work, in its own way, that was perfectly happy.

She discovered that he liked, cared about many of the same things as she did: music, paintings, beautiful houses: ‘Even thought ours is so ugly. I had a little trouble coming to terms with that when we first moved in; but Catriona liked it and I’ve grown accustomed to its face.’

He told her things she had never known about her mother and which it was good for her to hear: about how fiercely loving she was towards them all, how loyal to Alexander (‘She never would hear a word, not a word of criticism about him’), how courageous. He defended her when Georgina said she was always going away, leaving them all: saying her work was important to her, that she had a great talent, that it gave her the strength to go on fighting her alcoholism, her sense of failure, her feeling that her father was always disappointed in her.

He told her charming anecdotes about her mother, illustrating her charm, her talent for the small, thoughtful gesture (‘Catriona once confided in her that she loved Scottish dancing, and every year on her birthday your mother would give a small party and after supper we would all dance, you were always away at school’), her beauty (‘People just used to stare at her, Georgina, people who didn’t know her well, she really was lovely’).

She never asked quite how and why it had all happened, and she never told him about Charles St Mullin and Tommy or discussed Charlotte and Max in any way. Partly because she was too shy, too fastidious to do so, and partly because neither of them saw a need to transgress the shadowy but strong boundaries they had set up. Within those boundaries she felt safe, reassured, happy, they contained everything she felt she needed to know, and they neither damaged nor threatened Alexander in any way. She could see that it was odd of her to be able to accept them, accept the boundaries, that most people would have been obsessed with curiosity, but she was grateful that she was able to do it. Beyond them was danger: and she had no wish to court it.

And the best thing of all, perhaps, was that Alexander had absolutely no idea that she had found her other father, solved her own mystery – or how extremely happy it had made her.

Max, April 1987

The sun was streaming in through the chapel windows. Gemma’s veil swept almost the length of the aisle. Her dress by Anouska Hempel was in cream silk, hung with a thousand drop pearls. She carried only a white prayer book, with a trailing garland of lily of the valley; her eyes were cast modestly downwards.

‘You’ll have to liven up a bit, darling, you look like a fucking nun.’ Nige Nelson was scowling at the polaroid he had just taken. ‘And those shoes are all wrong. Too high. Got any others?’

The fashion editor, who was young and terrified of Nige, rummaged through the heap of plastic bags. ‘These?’ she said. ‘But they’re still high.’

‘Useless. Why don’t you girls ever learn? Gemma, have you got any, darling?’

‘No,’ said Gemma loftily. She sounded cross. ‘Max, there wouldn’t be any in the house, would there?’

‘I shouldn’t think so. Not really Georgina’s thing, white satin high heels.’

‘What about your mother’s things? There are lots of her clothes still there, aren’t there? I saw them the other day.’

Max felt a bolt of rage. God, she was insensitive. ‘I’m sorry, Gemma, but I’m not about to go rifling through my mother’s clothes, just to provide accessories for some lousy fashion shoot.’

‘Oh shit, let’s just go with it,’ said Nige wearily. ‘It’s getting late, the light’s going. Come on, Gemma, nice smile at your bridegroom, darling.’

Gemma gazed adoringly into the eyes of the Moss Bros clothes horse beside her.

‘Too virginal,’ said Nige. ‘Come on, darling, work at it a bit. Now where’s the fucking crimper gone? Outside having a joint, I suppose. Oh there you are. Can we have a bit more hair? And the eye shadow’s too bright. Tone it down, will you? Quickly, for Christ’s sake. Otherwise I’ll have to use artificial light, and my turd of an assistant’s forgotten a cable.’

Max was beginning to seriously regret offering the chapel at Hartest to
Brides Magazine
for the day.

He drove Gemma back to London in a sulky silence. She was animated, overexcited. ‘That went well, didn’t it? It was so lovely, standing there, thinking of our wedding. I think when I marry I might get my dress from Anouska, what do you think?’

‘I really don’t know,’ said Max.

‘Nige is a pig, but he’s a brilliant photographer. I’m sure they’ll be really great. Your father might like to have some, don’t you think?’

‘I don’t think, no,’ said Max. ‘I think he’d hate it.’

‘Why?’

‘Oh, forget it. If you don’t know, there’s no point my trying to explain.’

‘You’re in a nice mood,’ said Gemma. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘The matter,’ said Max, ‘is that I found I didn’t actually like having the chapel filled up with a load of creeps and perverts, and –’

‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ said Gemma, ‘you gave your permission. And they’re not creeps and perverts. They’re good fun. Which is more than I can say you were today.’

‘Well I’m extremely sorry. I hadn’t realized my role was anything other than janitor.’

‘I’m going to go to sleep,’ said Gemma, curling up in the corner of her seat. ‘There’s no point talking to you. But let’s hurry. That party starts in an hour. We’ll miss the whole thing if we’re not careful.’

‘Good,’ said Max.

Max had been with Praegers just over three weeks now; he had a salary that was roughly half as big again, a very generous bonus package and a 1 per cent share in the bank, which Fred had made an extremely vague commitment to increase at some unspecified time in the future. Nevertheless he wasn’t altogether happy; he missed Jake and the other lads at Mortons, and he missed something else as well, something indefinable. Gabe Hoffman, over on a short trip, told him what he thought it probably was as they talked briefly one night, waiting for Charlotte to finish work: ‘You have to know you’re on a solid base. Old Fred is a megalomaniac tyrant, but he knows how to run a company. I guess Gemma’s dad is the same. Praeger UK is a bit of a leaky vessel, I’d say, and now you’ve got a dodgy crew moving in. It’ll probably get fixed up in time, though. Don’t worry.’

Max tried not to worry. The dodgy crew had arrived: Chuck Drew in late March, with a couple of associates, and in April Freddy joined them.

‘Grandpa wants me to get a good footing with the clients this end,’ he said to Max loftily. ‘It’s only a year’s posting, but it will ensure everybody knows me personally. I think it’s an excellent idea.’

Max nodded.

‘Oh, and by the way,’ said Freddy, looking at him, his blue eyes icy with dislike, ‘you do understand, don’t you, that you are to remain on the trading side? There is absolutely no question of your taking up a true executive position. No client contact, except at the most rudimentary level. Grandfather explained that to you, I’m sure.’

‘No,’ said Max, ‘not that I recall.’

‘Ah. Well he certainly stressed that to me,’ said Freddy.

‘Well in that case I’ll certainly try to remember,’ said Max.

The atmosphere in Praegers UK was not merely less happy than it had been; it was uneasy. Peter Donaldson was still nominally heading it up, but Chuck Drew was doing a good job of demoralizing him, and denuding him of status
and responsibility, countermanding his instructions, negating his decisions, muscling in on his meetings, undermining his relationship with his staff. Charlotte, who liked Donaldson, was upset and said as much to Freddy. Freddy turned eyes on her that were dark with dislike and told her not to interfere in matters that did not concern her.

‘But it does concern me. He’s my boss.’

‘Then I suggest you concentrate on working for him,’ said Freddy. He was almost as angry at Charlotte’s prospective move to New York as he had been about Max’s arrival in the London office.

‘He feels threatened,’ said Max. ‘He thought he’d got rid of you.’

‘According to Gabe, he still could,’ said Charlotte. ‘He and Chris Hill and Chuck have a majority shareholding now. Well not now, but when – if Grandpa goes.’

‘He’ll never go,’ said Max easily. ‘He’s immortal.’

Chuck Drew was a masterly tactician. He was an exceptionally good-looking man, tall, slim, with brown hair and blue eyes, superbly dressed and very charming; he was a generous host, both in the finest restaurants in London, and at his home in Sloane Street, a fine tennis player, a good raconteur. It was extremely difficult to see him as a villain; even Charlotte found herself laughing at his jokes, enjoying his overt appreciation of her work. It was only when he had been in the St James’s offices for two months that she realized that what she was doing became less responsible and interesting every day, that her client contact had been dramatically reduced, and that somehow whenever a mistake had been made, her department seemed to have made it. And then Chuck would put his arm round her, tell her she was usually such a clever girl, that everyone made mistakes, that he even made them himself at times, and that of course no one was going to hold it against her.

He was evil; but he was hard to hate.

There were some very unpleasant sharp practices going on at Praegers as well. It hadn’t taken Max long to discover them. Jake had given him a crash course in what to look out for in his first week at Mortons.

‘There’s piggy-backing. Big favourite. You meet someone at a party who says I’m thinking of putting half a million into ready-mixed concrete. Can you give me a ring tomorrow? So you go in with the lark, buy half a million worth yourself, see the price go up, and then sell them to your client. You make your profit and your commission. And watch for the rings. Five guys from one of the big institutions. Agree on a stock over lunch, ring five different market makers and order fifty thousand from each one. Zoom goes the price. Easy peasy. Any client in the know can have lots of fun and games. And then there’s the contract-note dodge. Very neat. Very neat indeed. You’re a bit short of money, so you make up a client. Buy and sell shares for him. Get lots of lovely commission.’

Within a month of Drew’s arrival at Praegers, Max had either observed for himself, or heard of, both contract-note dodges and piggy-backing. It was only
on a small scale, but it was certainly going on. He told Charlotte, who told Donaldson; Donaldson said short of telling Fred III, there was nothing he could do. ‘Those are Chuck Drew’s men, and he’ll neither believe it nor care.’ He sighed. ‘I don’t care too much myself, Charlotte, to be honest. I think I’m about to be sent on holiday.’

‘Oh, that’ll be nice,’ said Charlotte, misunderstanding. Donaldson smiled grimly.

‘You don’t understand. It’s the old joke about the holiday, you know? “He has two holidays a year and they’re both six months.”’

‘Oh God,’ said Charlotte. ‘This is a seriously bad mess. What do we do, Max?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Max. ‘Sit it out, I guess. I wish I’d stayed at Mortons.’

‘I don’t,’ said Charlotte. ‘I need all the help I can get.’

‘There’s not much I can do,’ said Max.

‘No, but at least you’re here.’

‘Yes, and you’re going back to New York.’

‘Not yet. Grandpa keeps putting it off. I don’t know what he’s playing at.’

Fred III, against his doctor’s advice, was back at work almost every day – playing at lots of things, and hugely enjoying them. He had adopted in the New York office the practice Bobby Lehman had instigated at Lehman Brothers, when he was choosing a successor: he put all the top executives in a committee and rotated their functions every month. It was a most effective way of confusing and demoralizing all the partners.

‘Well, at least Chuck Drew isn’t in that league,’ said Charlotte to Max.

‘No, but he’s doing a lot of damage here. I wonder –’ He looked at Charlotte. ‘I just wonder if that isn’t part of a game.’

Charlotte shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. Grandad must have decided he trusts him. And of course he’s completely blind about Freddy. I must talk to Angie some more about Chuck. She knows something more than she’s said.’

Charlotte seemed to be part of another game: one day Fred would say he wanted her over in New York in a matter of weeks; another he would talk vaguely about the autumn.

‘It’s so frustrating,’ she wailed to Max. ‘I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing.’

‘I expect it’s quite frustrating for poor old Gabe as well,’ said Max.

‘Oh do shut up,’ said Charlotte.

There were other disreputable things going on. Chuck Drew had imported several Arab clients: everyone was instructed to respect their still Croesan wealth and to do everything they asked. This was fine as long as it extended only to meeting them with ever more lush limos at the airports, using the bank’s cars to take the wives shopping, escorting them to polo games, keeping bank clerks behind sometimes for two hours checking and changing up to fifty thousand pounds’ worth of dollars which they were handed in grubby plastic bags five minutes before closing time, and meeting their immense gambling debts – sometimes for weeks at a time until they settled. It was not unknown for a single client to run up debts of a million a week at the casinos. But when
Peter Donaldson was asked to organize whores to accompany the men to the polo matches, he said enough was enough and finally resigned. Fred III was told by Chuck Drew that he had resigned on health grounds; Donaldson, who knew when he was beaten, didn’t argue. Charlotte cried the day he left, and said she couldn’t believe how quickly things had gone downhill, and she and Max and all the other traders took him out and got him extremely drunk.