Past Imperfect

by Julian Fellowes

  I last saw her, I am fairly sure, around the time of the party in Estoril, but not because she was there. In fact, she was annoyed that she had failed to secure an invitation. If only I had been so lucky. She may already have been pregnant then, but if so, none of us knew it, only that she had a plain but eager American millionaire pursuing her, divorced but not too old, whom she subsequently married in time for the baby’s birth. The millionaire’s name was Greg Something and he had been working in Eastern Europe at the time. After leaving there they had returned together to sun-drenched California where he pursued a career with Merrill Lynch and we’d lost them. I never really knew him but I liked him and, judging by our few meetings, I would have said he was far better suited to her than any of her English beaux, and if I had given it a moment’s thought, I would have hoped for many years of bliss before Abraham saw fit to part them. Unfortunately, or so the story goes, Terry, a decade further down the line, attempted to cash him in for a much richer banker from Connecticut, before the latter dumped her for a model and left her high and dry, her first husband having made his escape while the going was good and settled down in North Virginia with his second family.

  So Terry and her daughter had stayed on in Los Angeles, where she pursued a career of some kind as a television presenter, dealing, or so I have been told, in something called the infomercial, where women chat about hair products and kitchen utensils and different types of luggage in a natural, unstudied way, as if it were remotely believable that they would do so were they not trying to sell you something.

  I had rung from London, just to make sure she was still there, and she had been quite receptive to the idea we should catch up. I knew she was not one to be touched by charity, so I told her there was some interest in my latest book from a film studio and predictably that caught at her imagination. ‘But that’s wonderful!’ she trilled. ‘You must tell me all about it when we meet!’ I had done a little homework and I suggested we might dine at a restaurant on the shore in Santa Monica the night after my arrival.

  I knew her at once, when she came in and stood for a moment by the maître d’s desk, as he pointed me out to her, and I waved. She started to make her way through the tables in that old no-nonsense way of hers. She was dressed as an American, East Coast, rich woman, which is a different costume from the jeans and chains favoured by workers in the Showbiz Industry, more Park Avenue than footballer’s wife, which I found interesting. A neat, beige shirt-waister, a well-cut jacket over her shoulders, good, discreet jewellery. It was all less flashy and in better taste than I’d been expecting, but still unmistakably Terry. And yet, if I knew her, I also did not know her, this woman with the lacquered hair advancing towards me. I could see that the familiar chin was still too prominent, and the eyes and teeth too large, but other elements of her face had changed alarmingly. She appeared to have had her lips stuffed with some kind of plastic filler, in the way that American women often do now. As a practice it fascinates me, because I have yet to meet a man who doesn’t profess to find it quite repulsive. I can only suppose that some of them must be lying or the surgeons wouldn’t do such a roaring trade. Maybe American men like it more than European ones do.

  Thankfully, if Terry’s mouth had become bulbous and mildly unsettling, it was not yet actually disturbing. But it wasn’t alone in betraying the telltale signs of tamper. Her forehead was so smooth she might have been dead, since no expression or mannerism seemed to make it move above the eyebrows, and the eyes themselves had become very fixed in their orbit. Of course, more or less all this stuff, carrying with it, as it must, horrible images of the pinning and stretching and sawing and sewing of bloody skin and bruised bone, has come about in my lifetime and I can’t be alone in finding it an odd fashion to have developed alongside the supposed liberation of women. Cutting their faces about, presumably to please men, does not strike one as a convincing mark of equality. In fact, it feels uncomfortably insecure, a Western manifestation of female circumcision or facial disfigurement or some other dark and ancient method of asserting male ownership.

  Plastic surgery is better now than forty years ago, when it was largely reserved for actresses and foreign ones at that. But even now, when the results can be spectacular, there is a high and ironic price to pay, because for most men it’s a turnoff to end all. The knowledge that a woman has been sliced about diminishes to nothing one’s desire to see her without her kit. Although here I admit that women pay less high a price than men. Women who have ‘work done’ lose their sexual power over men. Men who resort to it lose everything.

  Terry had reached my table. ‘My God! You look-’ She hesitated. I think she had been planning to say ‘exactly the same!’ but, having come nearer and actually seen me, it was obvious that my appearance had altered so completely that I should carry a passport to prove my identity to anyone who has not met me since the Sixties. ‘Fantastic!’ she said instead, which did the work perfectly acceptably. I smiled. I had already got to my feet so I leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. ‘Now, you do look fantastic,’ I said and we sat, jovial and comfortable in our generous dishonesty.

  A bland and pleasant-looking waiter stepped in briskly to tell us that his name was Gary and he very much hoped we were going to have an enjoyable evening, a hope I shared, even if I can never really see why it should matter much to the Garys of this world either way. He poured out two glasses of ice cubes, with a little water, and explained the specials, which all seemed to be frightening and hitherto unknown kinds of fish, and then, after promising to bring us some Chardonnay, he left us to our own devices. ‘So, how is life in California?’ This wasn’t a very original opener, but I had by this stage of the Damian Mission, acquired the habit of going in gently, knowing that I would be investigating the paternity of their young before the night was out.

  She gave a bright, generalised smile. ‘Great!’ she said, which was what I expected. I knew that with Californians this first act of any conversation is obligatory, where all decisions they have ever made are the right ones. Later, in some cases, the truth level may improve, but even for those rare individuals who long to unburden themselves of their pain they must still observe this ritual. Rather like having to eat the bread and butter before Nanny will give you cake.

  ‘You never felt the need to go back to Cincinnati?’

  She shook her head. ‘It wasn’t what I wanted. Not really. Greg’s business was here.’ She smiled and waved her hand towards the window. We could just hear the sounds of the sea under the restaurant hubbub. ‘And there are no complaints about the weather.’

  I nodded, mainly because one is always supposed to agree with this, but I can’t be the only Englishman who finds those endlessly sunny days rather dull. I like our weather. I like the soft light of its grey days and the smell of the air after rain. Most of all I like the sudden changeability. ‘If you’re tired of the weather in England,’ goes the old adage, ‘just wait for five minutes.’ I know it makes it hard to arrange outdoor events and no hostess with a brain would plan anything that was completely weather dependent, but even so… Anyway, I let it go.

  Nice Gary had returned and poured out some wine, while we took a final glance at the menu. ‘Is it possible to have the seafood salad but without the shrimp or the calamari?’ Terry had begun the dismemberment of the official suggestions that is part of eating out with a West Coast resident. ‘And what exactly is in the dressing?’ Gary answered as best he could, but he did not achieve a sale. ‘Is there chicken stock in the artichoke soup?’ He thought not. But did he know? No, he wasn’t completely sure. So he went to the kitchen and returned with the happy news that the stock was vegetarian friendly, but while he was away, Terry had moved on. ‘Is there any flour in the tempura batter?’ I looked at her. She smiled. ‘I’m allergic to gluten.’ It was something that obviously pleased her. Gary, of course, was used to this. He was probably a West Coast boy himself and had grown up in the certain knowledge that only people of low status order off the menu as it
is printed. However, I think we were all coming to realise that Terry was approaching the moment when, even in Santa Monica, a decision might be required. ‘I think I’ll start with some asparagus, but no butter or dressing, just olive oil. Then scallops, but hold the mixed salad. I’ll take hearts of lettuce, plain.’ Gary managed to write all this down, relieved no doubt that his release was on the horizon. He turned to me. Too soon. ‘Can I get some spinach?’ Why do Americans say ‘get’ in this context? They are not presumably planning to go into the kitchen and fetch it themselves. ‘Mashed but not creamed. Absolutely no cream.’

  She turned to me, but I spoke first. ‘You’re allergic to dairy.’

  She nodded happily. Meanwhile, Gary had noted every detail on his little pad. She still hadn’t finished. ‘Is the spinach cooked with salt?’ With infinite and, I thought, admirable patience, Gary ventured that yes, the spinach was cooked with a little salt. Terry shook her head, as if it were hard to believe in this day and age, ‘no salt when they cook it.’ I could not imagine how, even under this provocation, Patient Gary kept his cool. He hoped that would be possible. ‘It’s possible,’ said Terry. ‘No salt.’ By now I could see that even Gary, that laid-back boy from sunny California, was ready to sink his pencil deep into Terry’s neck and stand by, watching, as the blood oozed out around its tip. But he nodded, not trusting himself to give a vocal response.

  He turned to me and we exchanged eye contact, recognising our alliance in that strange way that one can befriend a total stranger who has been a co-witness to impossible behaviour. ‘I’ll have the artichoke soup, a steak, medium rare and a green salad.’ He seemed almost bewildered that the process had been so speedy.

  ‘That’s it?’

  ‘That’s it.’

  With the hint of a sigh, he was just moving away, when Terry spoke again. ‘Is there mayonnaise in your coleslaw?’

  Gary paused. When he spoke again his voice had acquired the super-softness of a doctor’s when dealing with a potentially dangerous patient. ‘Yes, madam,’ he said. ‘There is mayonnaise in our coleslaw.’

  ‘Oh. Then forget it.’ She dismissed him with a slight, insulting flick of her hand and picked up her glass for another drink.

  In justice, having been a silent witness for so long, I felt the need to intervene. ‘Terry.’ She turned, surprised perhaps that I should have an opinion. ‘There’s always mayonnaise in coleslaw.’

  Again that little shake of the head in wondering disbelief. ‘Not in our house,’ she said and Gary made his escape.

  Obviously, what this little vignette had told me was that Terry’s life in California was not Great! These bids to be different, this insistence on the power to change, to inflict absolute governance in the captive situation of a restaurant, are the recourse of those who feel no power to change anything elsewhere. Los Angeles is a town where status is all and status is only given to success. Dukes and millionaires and playboys by the dozen may arrive and be glad-handed for a time, but they are unwise if they choose to live there, because the town is, perhaps even creditably, committed to recognising only professional success, and nothing else, to be of lasting value. The burdensome obligation imposed on all its inhabitants is therefore to present themselves as successes, because otherwise they forfeit their right to respect in that environment. How’s the family? Great! The new job? Best decision I ever made! The house? Terrific! All this, when the man in question is bankrupt, facing repossession, his children are on drugs and he is teetering on the brink of a divorce. There is no place in that town for the ‘interesting failure,’ or for anyone who is not determined on a life that will be shaped in an upward-heading curve.

  ‘So, what happened to Greg? I heard you split up.’

  This seemed to buck her up. ‘They talk about me, then? Over there?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ I said, although it had in fact been thirty years since anyone I knew had mentioned her name – before Damian, that is.

  ‘I guess they still remember my party.’

  They didn’t, but even I could see they might have. ‘Did you ever find out who did it?’

  ‘Not until a long time later. Then someone said it was that guy who married Lucy Somebody. Your friend. He knew the girl who was making the brownies and he mixed it in when she wasn’t looking. That was her story, anyway.’

  Philip Rawnsley-Price. Much good did it do him.

  She was back on track. ‘Greg’s OK. I don’t really see him now.’ She shrugged and poured another glass. We were nearly through the bottle and the first course hadn’t arrived. I wondered if she’d like to change to red. She would. My old pal Gary arrived with some food and scuttled away to fetch more wine before Terry could question him about the contents of her plate. She moved some items around disdainfully with her fork. ‘Jesus, I hope they don’t use cornflour on these.’

  ‘Why would they?’

  ‘Sometimes they do. The next morning I look like a racoon.’ How tiring it must be to live in an atmosphere of permanent danger. She started to eat with a certain amount of gusto, despite the risks. ‘Greg’s done pretty well, actually. He saw what was coming with the whole silicone thing and left Merrill Lynch to get into it. He understood the potential before most people did. Really. I should have stayed with him.’ She laughed wryly with, I detected, a certain amount of real feeling.

  ‘Why didn’t you?’ I was curious to know if she would tell me about the flighty millionaire who had tempted her from her vows.

  ‘Oh, you know.’ She gave me an inclusively immoral grin. ‘I met a guy.’

  ‘And what happened?’

  Terry shrugged. ‘It didn’t work out.’ She shook her hair back with a soft, mirthless laugh. ‘Lordie, lordie, was I lucky to be rid of him!’

  ‘Were you?’

  The glance I received in answer to this told me that she was, in fact, very unlucky to have been rid of the man in question and that in all probability he represented the Big Plan which would never now reach fruition. ‘Let’s not talk about him.’

  Of course, I probably shouldn’t have probed this bit of her story. It was, after all, the failed part and therefore anti-Californian. I wondered how often she had regretted leaving Greg, now clearly as rich as Croesus. ‘How’s your daughter?’

  ‘Susie?’ She seemed quite interested that I had this information. ‘You remember Susie?’

  ‘Well, I remember you got married and had a baby straight away. And all much sooner than most of the rest of us.’

  She was drunk enough by this time to grimace at the memory. ‘Damn right she was born straight away. Boy, I took a gamble there and, I may tell you, I very nearly lost.’ This was rather intriguing, so I said nothing and hoped for more. Which I got. ‘Greg was a big mixture back then. His growing up was completely Troy Donahue and Sandra Dee, going to the prom, dancing to the Beach Boys, you know the kind of thing.’

  ‘I do.’ In fact, the Americanism of my youth was powerfully evocative of a cleaner, more innocent world, when in Hollywood movies the whole world wanted to be American and the big issue, not only for Greg but for everyone, was who wore your pin. Yes, it was blinkered, but it was also charming in its fathomless self-belief.

  Terry continued, ‘His parents were religious, very Midwest, and that was their existence. But Greg was also a Sixties boy, talking the talk, walking the walk. Smoking the dope. You know how it was.’ Of course I knew how it was. A whole generation waiting to see which side of the wall the world was going to jump. And half at least of them pretending that things were no longer important to them, when of course they were. ‘Anyway, he kept saying he was too young to settle down and couldn’t we just have fun…’

  And couldn’t you?’

  Her eye narrowed for a moment. ‘I needed a life. I needed to move on.’ The alcohol was making her honest. ‘I needed money.’

  ‘Your father had money.’

  ‘My father had a salary.’ The distinction, as we know, was not lost on me. ‘And I liked Greg. I thought we’d b
e happy. And I knew he’d never let his parents find out he had an illegitimate child.’ She paused.

  ‘That was the gamble.’

  ‘As I said. We’d been living together for a few months, which was, if you remember, pretty wild at the time. Then Greg’s bank posted him to Poland and he asked me to go with him. So I did. And he still couldn’t make up his mind. So I got pregnant.’

  ‘While you were there?’

  ‘Sure. We married and she was born out there. In Warsaw.’

  ‘How romantic.’

  ‘It wasn’t as romantic then as it might be now. Believe me.’ I did.

  ‘What did your parents think about it?’

  ‘They were glad. They liked Greg.’ She thought for a moment. ‘They split up, you know.’

  ‘No, I didn’t know. I’m sorry.’

  ‘It worked out. They’re both fine. Mom got married again.’

  ‘Give her my love.’ She nodded. ‘What happened to your father? Did he marry?’

  She shook her head. ‘Not yet. He’s decided he’s gay. Of course, he could still marry, I guess. These days. But he hasn’t.’

  ‘Is he happy?’

  ‘I’m not sure. He hasn’t got anyone… special. But then he hasn’t got my mom yelling at him either.’

  We both smiled at our joint recollection of the formidable Verena. But I was struck, for the millionth time, by the personal convolutions required by our new century. Would it have occurred to Jeff Vitkov, nice, boring, old Jeff, the brilliant entrepreneur and family man, to question his sexuality when he had got well into his fifties, in any other period but our own? If he had been born even twenty years earlier, he would just have taken up golf, seen a bit more of the chaps at the club and not given the matter another thought. Would he have been any worse off? I doubt it. Although this is not a topic that supports nostalgia. Even if I am not a fan of change for change’s sake, nor indeed of most change if it comes to that, I am fairly sure that in the end we will all be better off for living in a world where any kind of sexuality is compatible with the twin notions of decency and commitment. But I suppose I just wish the whole subject could drop into the background again where it used to be, and not be compulsorily worn around society’s neck day in, day out.