Wicked Pleasures (19 page)

‘But Alexander, I want to get to know your mother. It’s absurd.’ She was near tears. ‘Please.’

‘Virginia, I know you do, but it isn’t possible. She has this very strong antipathy towards you, and I don’t think – well, I know – there’s anything we can do about it. I’m sorry. You’ll be all right, surely, with your family?’

‘Yes. Yes of course I will. I’m – just upset about it. That’s all. And I’d have thought she’d at least want to see Max, if not the girls.’

‘Virginia, please. Can we leave it?’

‘Yes, all right, Alexander. Let’s leave it.’

They had a wonderful Easter. Virginia and the children arrived the week before, and everyone seemed miraculously happy and relaxed, even Mary Rose who came out on Thursday for the long weekend with the children; Baby, she said, was following her on Saturday, he had an important business dinner on Thursday night and wanted to catch up on paperwork in the peace of the Friday. She looked very smug as she said this.

She had looked less smug on her arrival; Charlotte was practising her swing on the front lawn with her grandfather.

‘I don’t know,’ she said to Fred III, as he kissed her hallo, ‘why you don’t buy that child her own car to drive around in. I’m sure she’d like it.’

‘Yes she would,’ he said, deliberately ignoring the real meaning of her remark, ‘and I’m sure she’d drive it very well.’

‘How is her golf game?’

‘Oh, it’s coming along nicely.’

‘You know, Freddy sometimes feels a little hurt that he doesn’t get included in all this activity you share with Charlotte, Dad. Why don’t you ask him along sometimes when you go to the movies, or to tea at the Plaza?’

A friend of Mary Rose’s had observed Charlotte and her grandfather guzzling, as she put it, cream cakes in the Palm Court one afternoon earlier in the week. Mary Rose had had indigestion herself all night at the thought of it.

Fred III looked at her. Much as he admired her, and what she had done for Baby and the bank, he still found it hard to like her personally, and she had certainly lost a lot of her early beauty; the slender, cool girl was turning into a gaunt rather chilly woman. Mary Rose was now thirty-four; elegant, still striking, but somehow a little forbidding. She was dressed that day in a rust tweed trouser suit; it accentuated her long legs, her rangy graceful stride, but it also showed off her almost painfully narrow hips, her overly tiny breasts. And her face was thin, her eyes hungry; Fred contemplated her personal relationship with Baby, and for the first time his sympathies wandered towards his son. Then he remembered the brilliant dinner Mary Rose had given for Baby’s birthday, the charity ball she had co-chaired, bringing ever more useful contacts into Baby’s path, and he beamed at her, as warmly as he could.

‘I’m sorry, my dear. I guess I’m just an old-fashioned guy. I prefer girls. Tell you what, next week I’ll take Freddy and Charlotte to the circus. How’d that be?’

Mary Rose opened her mouth to say she thought Freddy would prefer a solo outing and then shut it again. She smiled at Fred III. ‘It’d be marvellous. Come on, Freddy, Kendrick, get out and say hallo to Grandpa.’

Kendrick got out first; he was a handsome little boy, with thick floppy dark gold hair and very dark blue eyes. People never stopped remarking on how exactly like Baby he was. But there was something about him that was not Baby, that was less engaging; he was quieter, slightly withdrawn, and his smile was not Baby’s wide, generous grin, it was a more reluctant, polite smile. He came forward to his grandfather now, holding his mother’s hand, a model child in his pale blue coat with the velvet collar, his white socks, his button shoes; Fred bent down and gave him a hug: ‘How are you doing?’ he said. Kendrick smiled at him politely and said nothing. Freddy followed, dressed perfectly in long trousers and polo shirt, sweater knotted on his shoulders; he was holding out his hand graciously to his grandfather. ‘How do you do, Grandpa?’ he said. His smile was not Baby’s either, it was his mother’s, taut, self-conscious, but his looks were not hers, he had the dark hair and more solid build that was a legacy from the Bradley side of the family.

Fred III shook his hand good-naturedly and then cuffed him gently round the head. ‘Coming riding with Charlotte and me? We can easily hire you a pony from Toppings.’

The boy looked round at his mother, panic in his eyes.

‘Er – Freddy has a slight cold,’ said Mary Rose quickly, ‘I think he should stay indoors today.’

‘Fine,’ said Fred, irritability blending with visible relief. He knew the slight cold was in fact fear of riding, and he had no patience with the child, and could hardly contain himself whenever Freddy did ride with him, insisting on walking his pony for most of the time, tense and pale with nerves, hauling at the animal’s mouth whenever it quickened its pace. Charlotte on the other hand was fearless and cantered beside him on her little barrel of a pony, laughing with pleasure as the wind caught her hair.

‘Charlotte honey, come over here and say hallo to your cousins, and then you and I’ll go riding.’

Charlotte came running over; she was wearing jeans and a big sweater, her long dark hair was tangled and falling around her shoulders, her golden eyes, Virginia’s eyes, sparkling with pleasure. Fred looked at her adoringly; the look was not lost on Mary Rose. Charlotte slipped her hand into Fred’s. ‘Hallo, Freddy. Hallo, Kendrick. It’s nice to see you.’ Her English intonation, her slightly formal phraseology, sounded charming. ‘Freddy, do come riding, we’re going to have such fun.’

‘Er, no, I have this slightly strep throat,’ said Freddy self-consciously. ‘My mother thinks I really should stay inside today. I’ll just go and see Grandma.’

‘Freddy, take Kendrick. And mind he doesn’t trip on the step.’

‘Yes, Mother.’

Charlotte’s and Fred III’s eyes met in a moment of totally pleasurable and malicious understanding; then she looked up at Fred. ‘I’ll go and put on my riding things. See you later, Aunt Mary Rose.’

‘She seems to be putting on a little weight,’ said Mary Rose sweetly, looking after Charlotte as she ran indoors.

‘Oh, she looks lovely. I don’t like these scrawny children. And of course Virgy was a chubby child. But she’s a wonderful kid. Plucky! And by God she’s bright,’ he added, punishing Mary Rose for aiding and abetting Freddy’s cowardice. ‘She can add up a row of figures in her head faster than I ever could. And read the credit and debit sides of a balance sheet. Extraordinary. I can see a woman president of Praegers yet. I really can.’

Mary Rose walked straight past him and into the house.

Baby drove out on the Saturday morning in his new car, a white Mustang, which he referred to as his new mistress, and which he said was making him feel young again. He enjoyed this joke; he had always enjoyed sailing close to the wind; it was a faster trip to the Hamptons, now that the new Expressway had been built, and besides he enjoyed the drive. As always as he found himself in the wide, oddly graceful streets of the Hamptons, with their endless white colonial-style buildings, picked up the leisured pace and breathed in the fresh salty air, he felt, city creature though he was, strangely at home; and as he turned into Waterlily Drive, cruising along the wide, grass-edged road, with its tall hedges, waving at various familiar faces dressed in the singular way of smart people pretending to be scruffy, he felt a warm wave of well-being engulf him, a sense of being absolutely happy and at home.

He turned in along the endless gravel drive, and up the sharp bend to where Beaches stood high above the shore, and met a torrential welcome; Charlotte hurled herself into his arms, Georgina clutched his legs, Virginia simply stood and smiled at him. She was looking great, he noticed with pleasure; well, smiling, relaxed.

‘It’s so lovely to see you,’ she said, taking his arm as the family gradually released him, ‘I miss you, you know. And you look wonderful.’

Baby smiled at her, and told her he felt wonderful too.

‘What have you been doing, Baby? Is it some new wonder diet?’

Baby had a sudden brief vision of the new wonder diet and switched his thoughts with an effort.

‘I’ve taken a leaf out of your book,’ he said. ‘I’ve given up alcohol. I feel terrific.’

The entire family paid lip-service to the fiction that Virginia’s teetotalism was voluntary. It amused her; she was perfectly relaxed herself about her problem, but she knew it made her parents feel better about it, so she went along with it.

‘Good for you. You’re certainly a whole lot slimmer. No more hangovers then?’

‘No more hangovers. Now that is something I miss.’

Virginia laughed. ‘And Mary Rose looks better too. More relaxed. You’re obviously doing her good as well.’

‘Yup.’ He changed the subject quickly. ‘How’s Alexander?’

‘He’s fine.’

‘Pleased with his son and heir?’

‘Yes. Over the moon.’ She smiled at him. ‘And at last I can relax. Now Hartest has an heir.’

‘No more babies?’

‘No more babies.’

‘What about work?’

‘Work’s all right. Alexander doesn’t like me living in London during the week any more, which makes things awkward. Well, he doesn’t mind me being there too much, but he won’t let me take the children. He says they have to learn that Hartest is their home.’

‘Well, he could be right.’

‘Oh God, Baby, how you chaps do stick together.’

Fred III was in tremendous form. He said he was busy planning his retirement party (Fred often talked about retiring, then found some reason not to), which was to be the following Christmas. He was almost sixty-five, and Baby was performing at absolutely 100 per cent capacity. The bank would be in good hands. Whenever he said that, Mary Rose looked exactly as if, Virginia thought to herself, she was about to have an orgasm. She wished there was someone she could share the thought with.

On the Monday afternoon Baby was just beginning to allow his thoughts to stray rather pleasurably towards New York City, when Virginia asked him to go
for a walk with her on the shore. He went, slightly wary; he could see she was in heart-to-heart mood, and he was afraid, knowing how well she knew him, of how close his heart might come to being read.

‘I meant it about missing you,’ she said, taking his hand, as they walked close to the water’s edge, the salty air and wind catching their hair, ‘there really isn’t anyone like you in England I can talk to.’

‘I can’t believe that,’ said Baby easily.

‘No really, it’s true. Well, except for my friend Catriona, and she isn’t quite a kindred spirit.’

‘No, I can see that,’ said Baby, thinking of the gangly, gushing Catriona, puzzling as a friend for Virginia at all, let alone a close one.

‘And it’s worse since Angie left. I miss her horribly for all her naughty ways. I was so disappointed she couldn’t come to the christening. She came to stay here a couple of times, apparently. Mother really likes her. Do you get to see her ever, Baby?’

‘Occasionally,’ said Baby.

There was a silence.

‘Is anything the matter, Baby?’ said Virginia suddenly. ‘You don’t seem quite yourself.’

‘No. No, of course not. Sorry, Virgy, I’ve got a lot on my mind. Business, you know. I’m back in full harness, these days, being the Golden Boy, delivering the goods. I wouldn’t go so far as to say Dad’s pleased with me, but he’s not as displeased as he was.’

‘Well,’ said Virginia, laughing, ‘you certainly seem to be delivering the goods to Mary Rose. She looks a hundred times better.’

Baby felt a desire to confide in her so strong that it was like a physical hunger. ‘Virgy –’he said.

‘Yes, Baby?’

‘Virgy I – well –’ He stopped with an immense effort of will. He had promised himself not to tell anyone; it was a kind of pact he had made with himself. If nobody knew, then nobody could tell; and love her as he did, he was aware that even Virginia might tell someone. He couldn’t think quite who, but she might. ‘Oh, nothing,’ he said finally, ‘it isn’t important. Tell me some more about life in England. How’s that nice lanky guy, Martin or whatever his name is? The one married to your friend Catriona. I like him, he’s a good egg.’

‘As we say over there.’

‘As you say over there.’ He noticed that she was looking at him rather oddly.

Later that day, as he was helping Mary Rose load the luggage into the wagon, Virginia said, ‘Shall we lunch one day this week, Baby?’

‘Sure,’ he said, ‘love to. If I have a day. I’ll call you from the office.’ He was uncomfortably aware he sounded slightly evasive, and that Mary Rose was listening.

‘Well, if not this week, next. I’m here for nearly a month. I’m planning on building up my business here again. There are a couple of people I want to see.’

‘Well –I –’

‘Virginia,’ said Mary Rose, her voice taking up its most schoolmistressy intonation, ‘Baby is usually very busy at lunchtime. He has business lunches every day.’

Baby had never expected to feel grateful to Mary Rose. ‘It’s true, Virgy,’ he said. Then he looked at her hurt face and felt remorseful. ‘I promise I’ll ring you, try and make a date. Anyway, what’s all this about you working in New York? I thought Alexander wanted you to spend more time at Hartest.’

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘he does.’

She wore the expression she often did these days, one he could never quite read, but which set the conversation as clearly off limits.

Virginia drove herself into New York two days later. She was working from the house on East 80th, and she had planned to stay there for twenty-four hours. Betsey, who was having a wonderful time with the children, practically pushed her out of Beaches. Fred III wasn’t going back to the office for the rest of the week. He would help her with the children. He had bought Charlotte a pocket calculator as an Easter present, and he was dying to show her how it worked.

It was one of those bright, windy, blue and gold days New York is made for, the streets flooded suddenly with sunshine, the buildings lightened, less oppressive than in the winter dark; Virginia walked up Madison after a highly satisfactory meeting with a new client on Beekman Place, and a subsequent visit to the D. & D. building. Her heart lifted as it always did on such a day, at the pleasure and energy the city was charged with.