Golden Boy

by Rosemary Friedman

Jane was putting the remains of Freddie’s birthday cake into the freezer – it would do nicely for her next committee meeting – when Gordon Sitwell rang.

  ‘I just wanted to apologise, on behalf of Margaret and myself…’ Gordon said. ‘I hear the dinner party was a great success. I understand Freddie was in good form.’

  ‘Freddie is always in good form.’

  ‘I’m extremely glad to hear he’s coping so well.’ Gordon sounded surprised.

  ‘He did have something to celebrate,’ Jane said.

  ‘Celebrate?’

  ‘Successfully defending Corinthian meant a lot to Freddie. And then of course there was his birthday. I’m afraid Freddie’s still in bed. He appears to be taking the day off.’

  ‘Taking the day off!’

  ‘I think he had a little too much to drink…’

  ‘I rather think that you had better have a word with Freddie.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About… Look, Jane. Actually I’m in a meeting. I’m afraid I have to go.’

  After Gordon had hung up, Jane went over the conversation carefully – in case she had missed anything – in her head. When Lavender enquired what she should do with the last of the grilled peppers, she did not hear. She was on her way up the stairs.

  ‘That was Gordon on the phone.’

  Freddie closed his eyes. Sliding his hand from beneath the covers he located his worry beads.

  ‘He said I should have a word with you.’ Jane sat down on the bed. ‘Freddie, what’s going on?’

  He wanted to tell her. He had to tell her.

  ‘Leave me alone, darling.’

  ‘If that’s what you want. I’ll be downstairs if you need anything.’

  ‘Jane…’

  How could he tell her that he no longer existed? That the man she saw before her was a facsimile only? That the real Freddie Lomax was dead?

  ‘I’ll tell Lavender to hold the hoovering,’ Jane said.

  Freddie slept on and off all day. Each time he opened his eyes he met the glassy stare of the teddy bear which seemed deliberately to mock him. He could not bring himself to get up. There was nothing to get up for.

  When Jane, who was becoming increasingly worried, came into the bedroom to announce that it was six o’clock, and remind him that it was Tuesday and that he was due at his mother’s, Freddie was in the bathroom. His worry beads were on his pillow.

  Picking them up, still warm from his grasp, she slid the amber stones through her fingers, their hypnotic click-click taking her back to the poppy-strewn island of Crete where they had spent ten blissful days.

  Leaving the baby Tristan with Lilli, they had rented a lamp-lit room in a whitewashed villa set amongst lemon and eucalyptus trees, figs and oleanders which grew untended in the red soil of a sloping garden. While, in the mornings, Jane lay like a lizard on the rocks, her straw hat over her eyes, her delicate skin protected from the sun, listening to the drone of the giant bumblebees, Freddie swam, with his rhythmical crawl, through the tideless waters of the Mediterranean. When he grew restless, which did not take long, Jane took him sightseeing. The Palace of King Minos, the Archaeological Museum – with its ancient ‘deads’ buried in the embryonic position – where they tried not to laugh at the fractured English of the guide. The afternoons, in the cool of the flagstoned bedroom, with its old Dutch maps and hand-woven rugs, were spent sleeping and making love.

  But it was only at night, in the taverna, that Freddie had really come alive. After selecting their meal – taraba and pilaf – from saucepans simmering away in the kitchen, they would sit over thimbles of dark sweet coffee while they waited for the sound of the first guitar, the signal for Freddie to lead Jane onto the floor. They both loved dancing. Carried away by the rough Santa Laura, or the Demestica with which they had washed down their dinner, shoulder to shoulder with the black-booted, moustachioed men of the village – Freddie towering above them – they would dance the night away, until, with the bouzouki music at full, exuberant throttle, cheered on by the noisy Cretans, the striking English couple revolved expertly and alone to the crescendo of the increasingly frenetic tempo in the raucous midst of a stomping and wildly enthusiastic applauding circle.

  It was their last carefree holiday. As Freddie struggled to climb the banking ladder, any vacation since had been spent within easy reach not of figs or flame trees, but of English language newspapers and of the telephone, which kept him in touch with the world markets and with his affairs. The odd-numbered komboloi, such as was carried by every self-respecting man on the island, which Jane had bought for Freddie on their last day (Freddie had sneaked into the village and bought her a crocheted dress and a gold mask of Agamemnon), had become his sine qua non. The worry beads were slid surreptitiously from his pocket in moments of stress, and the reassuring touch of them both helped him to relax and eased the tensions of the day.

  Swinging the komboloi from her fingers, Jane tapped on the dressing-room door.

  ‘Freddie?’

  The door opened. Freddie was in his bathrobe. She thought that he looked pale.

  ‘Jane…’

  ‘Freddie, what is the matter with you?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Stepping out of the dressing-room he pulled her roughly to him. ‘Come to bed.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Any reason why not?’

  ‘It’s six o’clock, Freddie. Your mother…’

  ‘Tell Rosina to go. Tell her to say I’m sick. Tell her to take a taxi. And, Jane…’

  Jane thought there was desperation in Freddie’s voice. She turned at the door.

  ‘…don’t be long.’

  When Jane came back into the bedroom Freddie was standing by the window, twirling the worry beads and staring out across the park.

  ‘It’s okay. Rosina’s going to Lilli’s.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about Rosina. I don’t want to talk.’

  Slipping out of her clothes, Jane opened Freddie’s bathrobe and leaned her white body with its fine alabaster skin against him. When he dropped the bathrobe and took her in his arms, bending to put his open mouth over hers, he held her so tightly, so intensely that she was afraid he would crush the breath out of her. She remembered, as in another country, hearing the slam of the front door as Rosina left the house, then turned her attention to Freddie and the next half-hour which was to become etched like some recurring nightmare on her memory.

  Rosina got on well with Lilli and visited her as often as possible. She liked to listen, on her grandmother’s more lucid days, to her stories of how she had played the piano for concerts – before Rosina’s father was born – and for Old Time Dancing and her description of the dresses, and the movies she had made, and the film stars she had met, and of the time she had accompanied Harry Secombe and Tommy Steele.

  Tonight, not in the least bothered that it was Rosina who had appeared on the doorstep rather than Freddie – she rather thought that she had missed Tuesday – Lilli’s thoughts were concentrated on her own demise. She liked talking to Rosina. Only with Rosina, who did not discourage her ‘when I’m gone’ conversations which made Freddie uncomfortable, who did not deny her feelings about death and tell her not to be so silly, did Lilli open up.

  They were sharing a large bag of liquorice allsorts which Rosina was unable to resist but which she knew would not only spoil her appetite for the shepherd’s pie Mrs Williams was preparing, but would play havoc with her spots.

  ‘It must be nice not to have to worry about spots.’

  ‘It must be nice to be of an age to have to worry.’

  ‘What’s it feel like to be old?’

  Lilli rummaged in the allsorts bag searching for a round black one with a white middle.

  ‘The same as it feels to be young. Until you look in the mirror.’

  ‘I mean being at the end of your life?’

  ‘I’d like to see Hugh again. I wonder what he looks like. I’ve been a widow for a very long time.’

  ‘Do y
ou believe in all that?’

  ‘All what?’

  ‘Seeing Grandpa again and all that stuff?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Can you cope with that?’

  ‘You don’t have to cope with it. You just have to accept it. Sometimes I think that the world is too complicated. That it can’t really exist if there’s nothing else. Then I don’t know. I shall find out before very long.’

  ‘If you want to know what I think,’ Rosina said, ‘I think we just fall off the tree. Like leaves. You can’t get all worked up over a dead leaf. Do you believe in God?’

  ‘We were not allowed not to believe when I was a child. Not any more.’

  ‘Funny.’ Rosina helped herself to a pink and white rectangle. She nibbled at the sugar until she was left with a liquorice square. ‘One minute you’re here, and the next minute you’re not. Spooky.’

  ‘One does get extremely tired at my age, Rosina. Sometimes I quite look forward to it. Sometimes I think it will be quite a relief…’

  Rosina took Lilli’s ruby engagement ring from her deformed finger and put it on the fourth finger of her left hand, twisting and turning the facets to catch the light.

  ‘I’d like to see you married before I go.’

  ‘No way! Did you know I have a boyfriend? His name’s Henry Dove.’

  ‘Shall you marry him?’

  ‘Marry! People don’t get married.’

  ‘A good marriage, Rosina. A good marriage is like a beautiful piece of music. All that carrying-on on television under those vulgar duvets! Settled down then. A nice young man…’

  ‘I shan’t settle down for yonks.’

  ‘I shall be kicking up the daisies.’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘I’ve left you my engagement ring…’ Lilli’s eyes glazed over. ‘A shop near Piccadilly. Bond Street. Or Chancery Lane. I remember he had a glass eye. They had a necklace in the window. Something to do with Queen Mary. She wore a toque, you know. Toque. Not a word one comes across these days. I asked the little girl in the Indian shop for doilies. She had no idea what I was talking about. It was the same when Mrs Thingamajig wanted capers. For her mutton. It’s not really mutton. We used to have proper butchers’ shops. Offal. Hugh loved offal. They told her to try household. I don’t suppose you’ve ever seen a lump of coal…’

  Rosina put the ring back on Lilli’s finger.

  ‘Aren’t you afraid of dying, Grandma? I wonder what it’s like.’

  ‘Much the same as being born, I expect. I dare say one won’t even know.’

  Freddie lay in the king-sized bed, his eyes fixed on the wall, his back turned to Jane. His inability to make love to her – not even once – for the first time in his life, outdid the ignominy of his dismissal.

  ‘Freddie, it doesn’t matter.’ Jane tried to comfort him.

  ‘Doesn’t matter!’ Hid body no longer belonged to him. Like his life, it was no longer under his control.

  ‘Would you like me to bring you some dinner? You’ve had nothing to eat all day.’

  ‘I don’t want any dinner. There’s something we have to discuss.’

  ‘I thought there might be.’

  ‘What’s the worst scenario you can imagine…?’ The worry beads were working overtime.

  ‘You mean like…fraud?’ Jane was frightened. There had been a recent spate of scandals amongst the higher echelons in the City. The newspapers had been full of it.

  ‘Worse.’

  ‘Insider dealing?’

  Freddie wished that it was.

  Jane sat up. She took a deep breath. ‘Another woman?’

  ‘I am no longer vice-chairman of Sitwell Hunt International.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘It’s simple enough. I have been “handed my apron”. I do not have a job. I am redundant. Unemployed.’

  ‘You mean that Gordon…? I don’t understand, Freddie. What happened? What went wrong?’

  ‘Nothing went wrong. Put it down to the recession. Gordon didn’t give a reason. He doesn’t have to give a reason.’

  ‘I can’t believe I’m hearing this…’ Her conversation with Gordon suddenly became clear to her. She reached for Freddie’s hand. Freddie withdrew it. He did not want her to touch him.

  ‘I owe £600,000 on this house, which is now worth only £600,000. I have a £100,000 plus overdraft. I have not paid the school fees – I was waiting for the Corinthian bonus. I presume you’re overdrawn as usual on the housekeeping. I have a least £25,000 worth of bills outstanding. We will be completely wiped out.’

  ‘They can’t do this to you, Freddie!’

  ‘I’m sorry, Jane. They have.’

  Twelve

  Jane’s disbelief had given way to a rare anger. It was directed at Gordon.

  ‘What right has he got’, she said, over a dinner of leftovers from the party for which she had persuaded Freddie to come down to the kitchen, ‘to pull the rug from someone who has not only given five loyal, faithful, committed, years to Sitwell Hunt International, but who has been personally responsible for introducing so many valuable clients to the bank? What right has he got to use you,’ she removed Freddie’s plate and scraped the untouched food into the waste disposal, ‘and then have the effrontery to ring up and speak to me as if nothing had happened, as if firing you was the most natural thing in the world? I’ve a good mind to drive out to Tall Trees and rip up his precious roses. Give him a piece of my mind.’

  ‘What good would that do?’

  ‘Me. Not Gordon. You’ll get another job.’

  ‘Let’s hope so.’ Freddie’s voice was flat.

  Although he was still reeling, he had no doubt that within the next few weeks, with a bit of judicious networking amongst senior executives, he would be snapped up by the banking industry or some other suitable organisation eager to benefit from his knowledge and expertise.

  They were sitting silently at the table – Freddie’s plate of green fruit salad pushed to one side – when Rosina, returning from Lilli’s, slammed the front door. Coming into the kitchen, she looked from Freddie to Jane.

  ‘What’s up with you two? It’s like a morgue in here.’ She put her arms round Freddie’s neck. ‘You know the Gaultier leggings I was telling you about this morning? Well, there’s a shrink-wrap body-hugger that goes with them. Azzedine Alaïa. You get them at Browns. Please, Daddy?’

  ‘Forget it.’

  ‘Daddy…’

  ‘I said forget it!’ Freddie spoke more forcefully than he had intended.

  With his daughter gawping at him in amazement, he went upstairs, leaving Jane to break the news.

  He was in his dressing-room, playing, but not listening to, Stiffelio, when Rosina knocked on the door.

  ‘Daddy…?’

  Freddie looked through her. She might have been a stranger. ‘About the Azzedine Alaïa…’ Rosina said.

  Freddie held out his arms. He hadn’t meant to shout at her.

  ‘…don’t even think about it.’ There were tears in Rosina’s eyes as she flung herself against him, presenting Freddie with a mouthful of hair. ‘I don’t even want a body-hugger, Daddy. I’ve completely changed my mind.’

  Jane’s insomnia matched Freddie’s. Restless, they turned this way and that all night, unable to comfort each other. When Freddie got out of bed at 6.00 a.m. and put on his jogging gear, Jane knew it was to keep up appearances. She pretended to be asleep.

  George, the postman, was waiting outside the house as Freddie, on automatic pilot, completed his circuit.

  ‘Everything all right then, Mr Lomax?’ Not waiting for an answer, he handed Freddie his letters.

  ‘Mustn’t grumble.’

  It was the understatement of the year.

  Freddie broke the news to Tristan himself, waiting for ten minutes for his son, who was at breakfast, to come to the school telephone.

  ‘Dad?’ Tristan groaned. ‘I’m really sorry. I completely forgot. Well, I didn’t actually forget because Mummy remi
nded me. I even bought a card. An angler in waders. I know you don’t fish. It was that or mice. Then with all the fuss about Robert’s trainer I forgot to post it. Well, actually I didn’t have a stamp.’

  ‘That’s par for the course.’

  ‘I didn’t forget on purpose, Dad.’

  ‘Naturally, Tristan. You never do. In any case I didn’t phone about the birthday card.’

  ‘Then it is about Robert’s trainer. Jeremy promised not to tell.’

  Freddie was mystified. Jeremy was the headmaster.

  ‘Tell what?’

  ‘About Robert’s trainer,’ Tristan said patiently.

  ‘What about Robert’s trainer?’

  ‘I shot it with an air gun. It sort of collapsed. It wasn’t my fault. It was a dare. They were new this term. Robert’s father is doing his number. They cost a hundred nicker –’

  ‘I know nothing whatever about Robert’s trainer,’ Freddie said. ‘I’m not the slightest bit interested in Robert’s trainer, Tristan. I rang you because…I wanted to tell you. I thought you ought to know… Just in case you happen to hear… It’s about Sitwell Hunt, Tristan. About the bank. I am no longer vice- chairman.’

  ‘Oh!’ Tristan sounded relieved.

  ‘I have been made redundant.’

  ‘Jesus! Does that mean I have to leave school?’ Tristan’s voice rose expectantly at the prospect.

  ‘Not at the moment.’

  There was a long silence as Freddie’s announcement sank in.

  ‘I’m sorry, Dad. I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘You don’t have to say anything. I didn’t want you to hear it on the grapevine.’

  ‘Is that it then? Someone wants to use the phone.’

  ‘I’ll be in touch, Tristan.’

  ‘Cheers then, Dad.’

  The full truth of what had happened was brought home to Jane by Leonard who stood uncomfortably on the doorstep with Freddie’s briefcases, two supermarket carriers, a desk lamp, and his gold umbrella. Taking off his cap, Leonard followed her into the kitchen and put the things down reverently on the table. It was like a wake.

  ‘I found them in the boot.’

  Jane stowed Freddie’s things in the cleaning cupboard. She thought it the most tactful thing to do.