Wicked Pleasures (118 page)

‘OK. It’s about your house, Max. Or rather your – your father’s house.’

Max felt a thud of alarm. What on earth did Hartest have to do with all this? ‘Yes?’

‘He’s very fond of it. Isn’t he?’

‘Of course he is,’ said Max irritably. ‘It’s a beautiful house and it’s the family seat.’

‘Er – yes. That means it actually belongs to the family and all that?’

‘Yes of course.’

Chuck shook his head, regret oozing out of his brown eyes. ‘Sorry. It doesn’t.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ Max was too shocked, too caught off guard to respond in a way that was at all clever.

‘I said it doesn’t.’ Chuck smiled at him, sat down on one of the arms of the great carver chair that stood at the head of the table. ‘I’m sorry, but you’re wrong. While I was over there, I did quite a lot of investigation into the bank’s affairs. Very complex, some of them. Your grandfather has some very interesting assets. The ranch, for instance, in Venezuela, worth billions now. A fortune in Swiss francs. And then, this English property.’

‘What?’ said Max. He felt very sick suddenly. Freddy was standing by the window looking at him, smiling his dreadful chill smile.

‘Hartest House,’ said Chuck ‘– is that its correct name? – belongs to Praegers. Of course it’s small beer, as you say over here. But every little is going to help at the moment. Unless of course you can let me have – let me see, what was it? – oh yes, six million pounds right away, I shall have to put it on the market. I’m calling in the loan.’

Alexander sat, his head in his hands, at the table in the gun room.

‘It was years ago,’ he said, ‘years and years. Your mother was still alive. Fred let me have the money; there was dry rot, right through the structure, and the house needed a new roof. It was a formal arrangement; I wouldn’t have agreed to anything else.’

‘Nor would Grandpa,’ said Max grimly.

‘Possibly not. Anyway, things have been difficult lately. The estate hasn’t entirely been paying its way. I got – behind with the repayments.’

‘How far behind?’ Charlotte’s voice was oddly harsh.

‘Oh – I haven’t paid for – well, for about three years.’

‘Three years! Daddy, that’s a long time.’

‘Yes, I know. I’m sorry. Darling, don’t look at me like that.’

‘I’m sorry. I wish we’d known, that’s all.’

‘Yes, well. I didn’t want to worry you. I went to see Fred, last year. He was – quite good about it. Really. Told me to sort it out as and when.’

‘That doesn’t sound quite like Grandpa,’ said Charlotte. ‘And –?’

‘Well – I had planned to. Of course. At such time as I got straight.’

‘And things are looking pretty crooked still?’

‘Yes. I’m afraid so.’

‘Was there anything in writing then? Last year I mean. From Grandpa?’

‘Er – no. Not exactly. At the time he wasn’t too well.’

‘Shit,’ said Max.

‘Daddy,’ said Charlotte, feeling rather cold, ‘Daddy, do you have a copy of the mortgage document? That I can show my lawyer friend?’

Alexander’s face had taken on its helplessly distant look. Charlotte felt her heart begin to sink.

‘No. Yes. Oh, I don’t know. Does it matter?’

‘Yes, Daddy. Yes, I think it does. But I’m sure it can be sorted. I mean there’s no way Grandpa is going to allow them to call in that loan. It’s ridiculous. We’re family.’

‘Grandpa’s away,’ said Max, ‘on his second honeymoon. Remember?’

‘Max, don’t be absurd. This is 1987. People are contactable, even on the high seas.’

‘I suppose so.’ Max sounded gloomy.

They started going through his files. They were a nightmare, as disorderly as Virginia’s had been orderly. Vets’ bills were mixed up with instructions to his bank, accounts from his stockbroker with letters to the children’s schools. Finally, after a long weekend of searching, they found the relevant document. Charlotte took it to Charles St Mullin.

‘Have you read it?’ he said.

‘Yes I have. I’m just hoping I’ve misunderstood.’

‘I’m afraid you haven’t.’

The agreement Fred III had entered into with Alexander was not quite a standard mortgage. It stipulated that in the event of Alexander defaulting on the payments, the house became the property of the bank. ‘In other words, Chuck Drew was justified in making his threat. Making up the arrears would not be sufficient. But you do have twenty-eight days,’ said Charles. ‘That’s how long it would take them to get a possession order. All is not completely lost.’

‘Grandfather is an old bastard,’ said Charlotte. ‘I can’t believe he would have done this.’

She was very upset.

They sent Fred a fax on the liner currently off the coast of Fiji – at least he was unlikely to have seen the English papers there, thought Charlotte – asking him to call them on the subject of the mortgage on Hartest. After twenty-four hours, when there was no reply, Charlotte sent a second one, marked urgent.

An hour later, Betsey called. The line was surprisingly good.

‘Grandma, how lovely to hear from you. Are you having a good time?’

‘Wonderful, darling. I feel seventeen again.’

‘Oh, that’s great. And Grandpa?’

‘Grandpa is having the time of his life. He’s organized a poker school, and he’s also absolutely determined to win the quoits championship.’

‘Well that’s great too. Er – Grandma, is it possible to speak to Grandpa?’

‘No, dear, I’m sorry.’ Betsey sounded embarrassed. ‘He was – a little annoyed at your letter. He had left the strictest instructions that he was only to be contacted in a real emergency. He’s spent hours, you know, talking to them all about the crash, and he says enough is enough, and he wants to be allowed to have the rest of his holiday in peace.’

‘But Grandma, this is a real emergency. We could lose Hartest.’

‘Oh darling, surely not.’

‘Grandma, we could. Please please tell him. It’s very involved, and I’ll explain if you like, but we could.’

‘Well – maybe you’d better talk to him. I’ll try and get him to call you.’

They waited for a call from Fred; none came.

After another twenty-four hours, Charlotte looked at Max. ‘What do we do? We can’t force him to talk to us.’

‘Send another fax?’

‘We could try. Spell it out.’

Charlotte and Max spent hours on the letter (to be signed by Charlotte), struggling to sound urgent without being peremptory, concerned but not hysterical, reproachful (towards Freddy and Chuck) but not recriminatory. They finished by saying they knew Fred would not want his grandchildren to lose Hartest through what was clearly an administrative hiccup.

‘I hope that’ll be all right,’ Charlotte said nervously to Max as they sent the fax.

‘Of course it will be,’ he said.

It wasn’t all right. Fred sent her a furious fax back accusing Charlotte of paranoia, Alexander of gross inefficiency – ‘I told him to get the thing sorted when he came over’ – and the lot of them of whining hypocrisy. ‘If you’re so concerned about saving your house, I suggest you do what should have been done years ago and make it pay its way. Turn it over to the public. I’ve told Chris Hill and the board to deal with it in my absence. I’m sure they won’t see you on the streets. Please allow me to finish my holiday in peace.’

‘Oh God,’ said Charlotte.

‘Shit,’ said Max.

Georgina burst into tears.

‘What I can’t understand,’ said Charlotte, ‘is why Grandpa is being so Machiavellian. What’s it to him, for God’s sake? Why does he want to see Hartest go down the pan?’

‘I think,’ said Angie slowly, ‘that he just doesn’t like Alexander. I think he suspects Virginia wasn’t happy with him, and I also think the whole thing about Hartest, you know, Alexander refusing to turn it over to the public when he can’t actually afford to run it, and insisting it stays a family house, just enrages him. Baby told me he was furious with Alexander when he asked him for the money for the roof and the rebuilding. He told him he ought to give it up then. Alexander refused, point blank, and there was a big scene. Why Grandpa gave in in the end was something of a mystery.’

‘I wish I’d known,’ said Max, punching the air furiously with his fist. ‘I wish I’d known the bloody place was mortgaged. I never dreamt, never for a moment.’

‘Well, nobody did,’ said Angie. ‘Even Baby thought Fred had just given Alexander the money. Because of Virginia. Apparently the worry had driven her to drinking again.’

‘Evil old bastard,’ said Max.

Chuck Drew told Max he had a buyer for Hartest. ‘A cash buyer. My client, Mr Al-Fabah. He’s looking for an English property. He’s wanted one for some time, and considers Hartest would be perfect. In fact, I was going to phone your father and arrange for Mr Al-Fabah to see it this weekend. He has some very interesting plans for it.’

Max thought about Hartest. He thought about it, standing there in its small, sheltered kingdom, in the heart of the parkland. He thought of all the times he had stood at the top of the Great Drive, looking down at it, and taken it totally for granted, seeing it simply as home, somewhere to live, to be looked after, to take his friends to show off, and he felt sharply ashamed. He thought, as if he was actually seeing it for the first time, of the way it stood, as if carved out of the sky behind it, gracious, welcoming, perfectly proportioned, the curving steps, the tall windows, the pillars studding the front, the great dome of the Rotunda pushing up into the sky; he saw the parkland filled with the grazing deer, the black and white swans on the lake, the Hart a ribbon of blue winding into the woods. He thought of how, as you pushed open the great front door and went into the house, it was quiet and cool and calm; he thought of the flying staircase, soaring up from the Rotunda, and suddenly, sharply, he saw his mother coming down it, smiling at him; he thought of running up the staircase and along the corridor and up again to the nurseries and to Nanny when he came home from school; he thought of being in the gun room with Alexander, his favourite room then, small, dark, wood-panelled, smelling of leather and wood and the dogs, being there on his twelfth birthday when Alexander had given him his first gun. He thought of the parties at Hartest, huge dinner parties, garden parties, dances, shooting lunches, meets, the house providing a perfect backdrop, an endlessly gracious setting for English country life and its gentle, unchanging rhythm. And he thought of Al-Fabah in all his infinite vulgarity, his black-crow-like wives, his Chanel-clad call girls, his stretch limos, his bodyguards, his gold rings, his gleaming little dark eyes, he thought of him, getting his hands on it, moving in on it, and he felt physically sick. And for the first time he saw Hartest as Alexander did, something infinitely precious, infinitely dear to him, something to be preserved at all costs, from all comers.

‘We have to stop it,’ he said to Charlotte. ‘There must be something we can do. Someone who can help.’

Charlotte, November 1987

Everyone thought, of course, that she’d approached him. Nobody would ever, had ever believed, that she’d bumped into him as she left the Pine Street offices, after a fruitless appeal to Chris Hill for a stay of execution. Even when it was all over, they wouldn’t believe her. And why should they? It was such an extremely unlikely story. But it was true.

‘Charlotte!’ he had said. ‘Charlotte, how lovely to see you. And why are you crying? What’s the matter?’

And she had looked up at him, and instead of scowling at him, spitting in his face, as she had always vowed she would do if she ever saw him again, she had been so pleased to see him, to see someone civilized and friendly and unthreatening, that she had smiled at him, and said, ‘Oh Jeremy, it’s lovely to see you too.’

Al-Fabah wanted Hartest. He wanted it very badly. He had been to see it twice now, arriving in his limo, with Chuck Drew and a different girl each time, his bodyguards with them in a second car, waiting outside, staring up at the house, wandering round the grounds, shouting at one another, laughing, throwing stones in the lake.

Charlotte had no faith in the success of the trip to New York, but she felt it had to be made. ‘We certainly won’t persuade Chris Hill if we don’t ask him.’

Chris Hill was asked and was not persuaded.

‘I’m sorry, Charlotte,’ he said, looking at her as if she was a distasteful small insect, ‘but I can’t delay things any longer. Praegers London, as you know, took a considerable pasting in the crash, and it would be wrong of me not to take any measures which will help to restore its fortunes.’

He had called London; Chuck Drew had told him that Mr Al-Fabah had the money, and wanted to expedite matters. He was tired of living in hotels; he wanted a house.

‘The workmen would like to start in a week or so, Charlotte,’ he said. ‘I hope you’ll be able to be cooperative.’

Charlotte walked out of his office and slammed the door.

And then she went down to the street. And then she met Jeremy Foster.

‘Come along, my darling,’ he had said, ‘let me see if I can’t cheer you up. How about tea?’

Charlotte found herself nodding rather weakly (the weakness contributed to by certain rather sharp physical recollections).