Wicked Pleasures (120 page)

He put down the phone and smiled at her, exhaustedly triumphant. ‘Right. Jake’s going to offer her a job as a trainee dealer. On his desk. He says he’ll probably get fired, and I said that was fine, he could come to Praegers.’

‘Max, you’re in no position to offer people jobs at Praegers.’

‘I
will
be able to,’ said Max, ‘after this.’

‘And who does your friend, Mr Joseph – who I have to say I found rather nice – want to have dinner with?’

‘Georgina,’ said Max.

‘Georgina! Surely not!’

‘Yeah. He says she’s the sexiest girl he’s ever met. He says he only has to think about her and he gets an erection.’

‘Oh,’ said Charlotte. She suddenly felt rather bleak.

When Max told Shireen he had fixed for her to have a job at Mortons, and that he’d like her to go and see his grandfather with him in New York, by way of showing her gratitude, she looked at him rather shrewdly beneath her spiky black eyelashes and said she didn’t see why she should, and that if he wanted her to start betraying Chuck’s confidence she wasn’t going to.

Max told her that if she didn’t, the job at Mortons would probably not materialize, and Shireen said that was blackmail. Max said it was nothing of the sort, it was a trade, and he hoped she wasn’t about to miss out on her very first one. Shireen said she’d think about it.

‘She’ll come,’ said Max to Charlotte.

The three of them went to New York next day. Fred III refused to see them at Pine Street, and told them to get straight back to London, but when he got home to East 80th Street that night, they were all sitting in the upstairs living room, with Betsey. Betsey had her most formidable expression on, and told him that if he didn’t listen to what Max and Charlotte and their perfectly darling friend had to tell him, she was moving out.

Fred roared at her that she had no business interfering in what she didn’t know about, and Betsey said she knew about people, and when push came to shove, she’d put her faith in Max and Charlotte rather than Chuck Drew and Freddy.

‘All you have to do,’ she said, ‘is listen to them.’

‘Wrong,’ said Max. ‘All you have to do is ask Shireen a few questions. But I’ll tell you what the questions are.’

‘I really don’t know quite what all this is about, Mr Praeger,’ said Shireen, standing up, holding out her hand, tugging her skirt down over her small bottom with the other, ‘but it’s certainly very nice to meet you.’

Fred looked at her, and it was perfectly obvious that he believed her. He sat down, lit a cigar, and said to Max, ‘OK. Tell me the first question. I’ll take it from there.’

‘Ask Shireen,’ said Max, ‘where the money came from that Chuck put back in the bank after the crash.’

Fred asked Shireen; and Shireen told him.

Angie, November 1987

It was absolute madness of course. Absolute bloody madness. Angie lay in bed, staring into the darkness and contemplating her madness. She could not in her wildest dreams have imagined anything crazier, more counter to any of the cool logic that usually governed her actions.

Max had asked her to marry him and she had not said no. She hadn’t said yes either, but she certainly wanted to.

It was ridiculous. She couldn’t imagine what she was doing. OK, so she loved him. She really did. She’d been fighting it for a long time, that love. She’d managed to convince herself for a while that it had just been sex; she’d wanted him, and there had been no more to it than that. But then she had had him, over and over again, and it had been really very good indeed, and it had gone on getting better moreover, and she had had to admit to herself that there was more to it. She loved him. Spoilt, arrogant, difficult, demanding as he was, she loved him. She thought about him all the time. She wanted to be with him all the time. She had fought that too; she had told him right from the beginning, made it very clear after that first night, the night of the party, that there was no way he was going to move in with her, no way he was going to spend more than a couple of evenings a week with her, and then, for God’s sake, that hadn’t been enough for her either. She worked so hard at the other evenings, seeing other men, entertaining her clients, playing with her sons (whose company she was actually beginning quite to like, now that they were something just slightly more than wailing, whining parasites). And they had been all right, the other evenings, but she had found herself thinking, at the end of every one, that it would be nice when tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow or the day after that, she would be seeing Max again.

The weekends were so much better when he was around as well. Weekends in London, or even at Watersfoot, weren’t up to much otherwise. Friends tended to be with their families. Men tended to be with their wives. Divorced men were tied up with their children. And the men who were available were somehow not quite right. And they needed to be right, for a weekend. Or even a whole day. They didn’t like the country. Or they didn’t like London. Or they didn’t like her children. Max liked London and the country, and he seemed to like her children. So weekends with him were fun.

Max was fun. Fun as Baby had once been. Uninhibited and imaginative and fun. They just had a good time together. With the boys, or without the boys. He thought nothing of putting the boys in the car and driving to Alton Towers and spending the day on the rides. Or driving round Windsor Safari Park three times, and making faces at the monkeys with equal enthusiasm each time. Or sitting watching the same cartoon videos over and over again, on a diet of Big
Macs and strawberry milk shakes. On the other hand, neither did he think anything much of bribing the nanny (with the loan of his Porsche) to work a whole weekend and taking Angie to Paris. Or Milan. Or spending twenty-four hours in bed, watching blue movies and drinking too much champagne and occasionally doing the odd drug, and seeing how many times they could both come. He enjoyed both kinds of pleasures equally. Some of them innocent, a few of them wicked. She remembered Alexander talking about that, the two different kinds of pleasures, all those years ago. He had been more of a pleasure-seeker himself in those days.

Well, Max was certainly young enough to be a pleasure-seeker. He was still only twenty-one. God. Twenty-one. What was she doing? She was thirty-nine, and she was having a wild and a very serious affair with a boy who was indisputably young enough to be her son. But then that was the whole point: it wasn’t just an affair. She could have coped with an affair, it would have been fine, very suitable, very fashionable even. She loved walking into restaurants and clubs with Max, loved people talking about them, staring at them, loved informing fellow guests at parties how old she was and how old he was. No problems, no ties, just fun. Fun and sex. Great.

Only she had to go and get involved. Had to realize how much she missed him when he wasn’t with her. Had to face that she was jealous if he was with someone else. Had to say that she looked forward to seeing him with an intensity that startled her; had to recognize that when he walked into the house, into the room, into someone else’s room, joined her at a party, and smiled at her, that lazy, sexy smile, she felt her heart lurch with a mixture of pleasure and desire.

OK. Well that was all right. She loved him. She could admit that. She loved him. She’d been in love before. Well, hadn’t she? OK, not very often. With her first boyfriend. Well, she’d been very young then. With Baby. For years and years. And – who else? The photographer? No. That banker guy? God, no. She was not given to falling in love. She didn’t actually like it very much. It removed her from control. Probably the nearest she’d ever been to loving any man, apart from Baby and the first boyfriend, had been Alexander. Dear old Alexander, she’d been so fond of him. Well, she’d blown that one. To say things had never been the same was an understatement. He was so clearly embarrassed by her now, avoided her, hated being in the same room as she was. She wondered if he had ever thought she might talk. Tell his ghastly shameful secret. She never had. She never would. Not to anyone, not to Max, not to Tommy, not to anyone. It was best left, buried, safe, with Virginia.

Poor Virginia. Poor woman. God, why had she stayed with him?

She sometimes wondered if it might not be better if the children knew. Rather than regarding their mother as some kind of a whore. But then – how would they regard their father? If they knew? Some kind of a nut case? Or worse? No, it was better to leave things as they were. Not that she had any choice in the matter. And besides they seemed to have survived it. They were all a bit damaged, of course – but then who wasn’t? Everyone had something they had to learn to live with. And this lot had certainly had plenty of compensation.

God, they were spoilt. She had very nearly lost her temper with them when they had all been moaning about their problems. They quite literally believed they had a right to all of it: money, beautiful houses, powerful jobs. It was pathetic really. She was beginning to sort Max out a bit; but the others, the girls, they were a lost cause. Georgina particularly: so she was an unmarried mother. Big deal. Everyone was always saying how marvellous she was, coping all on her own. She had a vast house, staff, a loving supportive family. Angie could have told them all a few things about coping on your own. Maybe this relationship with Max’s sharp little friend Jake would develop. Jake was besotted with Georgina. He had set her on a pedestal, and stood below it worshipping her. It didn’t seem to be doing him a great deal of good. Georgina remained graciously, gently distant from him. Angie was quite sure he hadn’t been to bed with her yet. She must tell Max to tell Jake to knock her off the pedestal. Drag her off somewhere and screw her rigid. He was exactly what Georgina needed. Funny, down to earth, sexy: far better for her than dreamy old Kendrick. Who had actually seen some sense himself and chosen his tough New York girlfriend, to steer him through life. What Alexander would make of Jake as a partner for his beloved, his favourite child, she couldn’t imagine. But he needed shaking up a bit too. He was the worst culprit when it came to living in a dream world.

Charlotte did it as well. She had grown up with that bloody silver spoon in her mouth, or two of them, really: the Caterham inheritance and the Praeger one. OK, so she worked hard, and at least had some grasp of commercial realities. But she had been outraged when she had thought she was going to lose it all. And now of course she hadn’t had to. Everything was looking pretty good for her. Restored to her throne: back in New York: the old king’s favourite. Forty per cent share of the bank hers in the fullness of time. But she seemed to have lost Gabe.

He had promptly resigned from Praegers, when he’d heard about Charlotte. He said he couldn’t even think of staying, with her in a more senior position. He was setting up a hot shop, and no doubt it would do extremely well. He had an awesome reputation, Max said. Thirty-two years old and a star. A serious star. Charlotte was a silly bitch if she let him go.

There’d been talk of Max going to New York. There still was. For now he was to stay in London. Fred, with a great deal of smoke-blowing, had asked him how he felt about the bank and his role in it. Max had told him he loved dealing and hadn’t thought about anything as serious as a role. Ultimately, his role was that of the Earl of Caterham, but it seemed a pretty long way off. But he’d told Angie that she was wrong about Hartest. Thinking he was going to lose it had been pretty seriously scary. It was his, safely his – Fred had written off the loan, and he was going to have it. Greedy little sod, Angie said; but she smiled tolerantly as she said it.

Freddy had been seriously disgraced: not fired, but cast out into the wilderness of the trading floor. Told he must earn his place in the sun again – and it was going to be a long haul. That had been Fred’s solution, and it had been a clever one. But he’d be forgiven. The old buzzard was a great one for family. He was already saying Freddy had just been led astray, that he was young, impressionable, ambitious. Meanwhile, Pete Hoffman had been made
chairman. He was certainly one of the good guys. Chris Hill and Chuck Drew fired. That had been good.

She looked at her clock. It was nearly six. She must have been awake for hours. She was sleeping very badly these days. Very badly. It was adding to her tiredness, her entirely unaccustomed lack of stamina. Oh, God, thought Angie wearily, switching on her light, picking up the latest copy of
Tatler
, what on earth was she going to do?

Over breakfast she called Tommy. She had to talk to someone; she couldn’t stand it any longer. Tommy was the most pragmatic person in the world; he made her look like a romantic.

‘Tommy? I need help.’

‘Darling! What an irresistible thought. I’ll come right round.’

He arrived, looking concerned, with a rather small bunch of roses.

‘I couldn’t afford any more,’ he said. ‘If you want a bigger bouquet, you’ll have to give me the money.’

‘No, really, Tommy,’ said Angie. ‘You’re much too kind. But I couldn’t think of it.’

She made him some coffee. ‘Aren’t you having any?’ he said.

‘No. I’m off coffee. I’ll just have some tea.’

‘Whatever’s the matter with you?’ said Tommy. ‘You normally take it intravenously.’

Angie told him.

Max arrived at the house that night looking wary. He was carrying a much bigger bunch of roses. Angie looked at him suspiciously.

‘What’s this about?’

‘I’m very sorry,’ he said, ‘but the pigeon has come home to roost.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Promise you won’t be too angry. It’s just that I’ve been thinking about it all day, and I can see I’ve got to bite the bullet, and tell you.’

Angie’s heart thumped very painfully and very hard. It seemed to have shifted to somewhere up in her throat. She sat down suddenly. He was leaving her. He’d found someone young and fallen in love with her. Well, at least it would resolve matters. She wouldn’t spend any more nights racked with indecision.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘come on, Max, don’t faff about. What is it? What do you want to tell me?’