“He’s being weird,” said Caroline, restored to complete normality with the blinding resilience of children. “Can I go and play with Katy, Mummy?”
Catherine had managed to stay calm, to get him to have a bath; he was surprisingly dirty, considering he had spent four days virtually in a swimming pool. She offered to read to him—he still liked that even now—to take them both to the zoo next day. But Freddie remained silent, uncommunicative, and had taken himself to bed early. When she looked in, terrified he would have run away again, he was sucking his thumb as she had not seen him do for years, and fast asleep.
And by Monday, he was still not saying anything.
“Look, Nigel…” Douglas Wilson’s voice was quite indignant. “I’ve had a letter from your wife’s solicitor about the divorce. And I must say it’s really rather extraordinary, what’s being suggested by way of a settlement. But he says that you and your wife have agreed to it, in broad terms. Is that right?”
“It is, yes.”
“I can see why she’s agreed to it, but are you really happy with all of this? It’s extraordinarily generous. You were only married for four years or so, she made virtually no financial contribution, and you have no children.”
“I know all that, and yes, I’m perfectly happy. I…I want her to be well provided for.”
“But—look, my dear chap, she left you. With no provocation whatsoever, as far as I can make out. I mean, you were a most generous husband. I presume you weren’t knocking her about—”
“Of course not!” said Nigel.
“Sorry, I have to ask. Or, forgive me, playing away.”
“Playing away?”
“Well yes. I mean, of—of any adultery on your part?”
“Absolutely not.”
“And as far as you were concerned, the marriage was perfectly happy.”
“Yes,” said Nigel, and his voice was very sad.
“Then why this absurdly generous offer? You really don’t have to do this.” Douglas Wilson sounded almost impatient. “You don’t have to give her anything like this. Certainly not the money in that trust fund and most certainly not the house. It’s ridiculous.”
“It’s not ridiculous. I want her to be well provided for.”
“But she is well provided for. And what’s all this about the gallery in New York—is that right?”
“Oh yes. Absolutely right. Yes. She was very—very cut up about it. I’d like to make it up to her.”
“To the tune of a hundred thousand quid? It’s sheer madness!”
“I—suppose you could say that, yes. But she might be a rich woman now in her own right, if it hadn’t been for me—look at it that way.”
“Well, it’s your money. But I’m still not happy about it. I’m going to write to her solicitor as a matter of principle—with your agreement, that is—pointing out, as I said, that it was a short marriage, and she is now living with and is pregnant by a wealthy lover. And I don’t think she has any claim on the house at the very least. Certainly not its full value. And the cash settlement over the New York gallery is simply absurd. I don’t think we should just lie down and take it.”
“But—”
“Trust me, please. I do know what I’m doing. A good divorce settlement is a compromise. I don’t see much evidence of that on their side. In fact, none at all. So let’s at least make a bit of an effort.”
“Yes, all right. If you think we should.”
“I do.”
Nigel put the phone down; he didn’t like this one bit. It went against everything he saw as right. And he couldn’t really believe they were going to get away with it. But—all the alternative routes seemed closed. And if it only saved Grandfather Cowper’s cuff links it would be better than nothing.
As the early-July dawn broke, Catherine couldn’t take it any longer. She knew he was awake, she’d heard him moving around. She knocked very gently on the door.
“Freddie! Darling, it’s Mummy, please let me in.”
Silence.
“Freddie. Please. I so want to talk to you. Please let me in. Tell me what’s wrong, I need to know, so I can try to put it right.”
Another shorter silence, then very reluctantly: “OK.” He opened the door and let her in; he was very pale and there were deep shadows under his eyes. He looked at her solemnly, didn’t smile, didn’t speak.
“Sweetie. Please. I want so much to find out what’s wrong. I love you so much, Freddie, you’ve got to believe me.”
He shrugged. “Why do you want to get rid of us then?” he said, and with each word his voice got louder, until he was screaming, high spots of colour on his face, the eyes still huge and strained.
“What do you mean? Of course I don’t want to get rid of you.”
“You do. You wish we weren’t here. You said it yourself, I heard you. That’s why I went—I thought it was what you wanted. I thought it would make things easier.”
“I don’t understand,” said Catherine slowly, “I really don’t. Of course I didn’t say that. I would never have said it. You and Caroline are the only things that make my life worthwhile. Honestly.”
“I heard you myself with my own ears. On the phone to someone.”
“Freddie, please tell me exactly what I said. I need to know.”
“You said, and I don’t know who it was to, ‘If it wasn’t for the children, especially Freddie, I wouldn’t mind. Without them, I could cope with it easily.’ Don’t tell me that doesn’t mean you wish we weren’t here. I’m not that stupid.”
“Oh my darling,” said Catherine, and she was crying herself now. She picked up her son’s hand and he pulled it away. “I was talking to some old friend of Daddy’s. We were talking about, you know, this awful business that’s taken all our money away—”
“Lloyd’s?”
“Yes, Lloyd’s. And—I did say that, and what I meant was that all I cared about was you two having to go through such a horrible time. I don’t mind one bit. It’s you who get the worst of it, having to keep changing schools and you two who can’t go on school trips and who have the wrong games kit. I do have to worry about it all, of course, and I don’t like living in this funny little flat, although I think we’ve been quite happy here at times. But it doesn’t matter to me one bit. What matters to me is you being unhappy and not having all the things you should have, and having to look after Caroline for me if I’m late. Don’t you see? Oh Freddie, you silly old thing. Is that why you went? Because you thought it was what I wanted?”
He nodded; his eyes fixed on her face as if he would never look away from it again.
“Oh darling. I’m so sorry you thought that. Because if it wasn’t for you and Caroline, I would just…well, I really wouldn’t be able to bear it. Including being without Daddy. You’re all I care about; and if you’d listened a bit longer to that conversation you’d have heard me say that too. Do you believe me?”
Gradually, very slowly, the stony little face softened; and he smiled, a small, quavery smile; and then he moved nearer her, and let her put her arm round him; and then suddenly, in a huge rush, he hurled himself at her, threw his arms round her neck so tightly she could hardly breathe, and said, his voice muffled against her, “I love you, Mummy. I’m sorry you were worried. So sorry. I thought—I thought I was being helpful.”
He started to cry then; she felt his skinny little body heaving, felt his tears trickling down her neck, felt his breath warm as he sobbed, on and on, and she sat there stroking his hair, kissing his head, and thought of all the times she had thought she would never know any of this again, that she would never be able to hold him again, never comfort him again, never laugh with him again—and she felt so weak with the relief of having him close to her, safe and sweetly loving, that she began to cry again as well.
Annabel was so excited she could hardly breathe. In just three days’ time she would be on the flight to Boston; Jamie was going to meet her at Logan Airport and take her into Boston by the water shuttle: �
�It’s the scenic route, really the best way into Boston for the first time.” They were all so pleased she was coming, he said, and it sounded wonderful, what had been arranged for her. Every day there was something special: a tour of Boston, a party so she could meet all Jamie’s friends, a concert by the Boston Pops (“They’re amazing”), a shopping trip with his mother and sister (“We have the equivalent of your Bond Street here”), and then for the second week, a trip down to Cape Cod to the family house there (“It’s by the ocean, you’ll just love it”).
Carol had done her hair beautifully, highlighted it and cut it just a bit into really long layers; and Annabel had treated herself to a manicure and pedicure and a sun-bed session. Jamie was about to see the whole of her, and she didn’t want his ardour dimmed by a lot of pallid skin. She could hardly remember what he looked like now; she knew he had wonderful blue eyes and floppy blond hair and a really, really good mouth and that he was tall and quite athletic-looking—but she couldn’t quite remember how he smiled and what his eyes went like when he was gazing into hers, and all that sort of thing. Florian had been teasing her a bit inevitably, singing “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” very loudly whenever she came into the staff room; but also advising on the exact right length for her hair, and on her last day he gave her a present—an absolutely beautiful tortoiseshell-and-silver comb for her hair. “Well, darling, we want you looking classy. I can’t have you letting the salon down, and those scrunchie things you’ve taken to wearing are just too suburban for words.” She was so touched, tears filled her eyes. “Now, darling, no sex on the first night, remember.”
“Why on earth not?” she said, laughing.
“Oh, overenthusiasm is just so common. His mother won’t like it.”
“His mother won’t know.”
“I know her type. She’ll be listening, you mark my words, and examining the sheets in the morning.”
“Florian!” said Annabel. “You are just so awful.” But she had been wondering about precisely what sleeping arrangements the daunting Mrs. Cartwright might have made, and how easy it might be to breach them if they were unfriendly.
“Sweetie, it’s true. She’ll be less foxy after that. So—just lie there, OK?”
“OK,” said Annabel.
On the very day he was going to meet Joel Strickland again, it happened.
“Quick word, Simon,” the chairman had said to him in the lift, as he came back from lunch—a ridiculously expensive lunch—and, “Of course,” he had said, “I’ll be right up, give me five minutes,” and five minutes later exactly he had walked into the large, wood-panelled cliché of an office with its leather chairs and sofas and portraits of William Graburn and Theodore French; he was slightly surprised to see two of his fellow board members in the room, but presumably they were going to discuss some important deal. He smiled at them, said, “Hi,” and they half smiled back and said nothing. It was…slightly odd.
“Drink, Simon?” Martin Dudley said, and Simon shook his head, saying, “Got work to do,” and sat down comfortably in one of the leather chairs, smiling expectantly at the three of them, thinking that when Dudley had said whatever he wanted to say, then he must talk to them about Lloyd’s too…And Dudley did actually say, “Tell me about this Lloyd’s business,” and he had begun to tell him, said, yes, it wasn’t very funny—in fact, it was perfectly awful, but he was pretty confident that he could survive at least another year, and he was going to law and—
“Yes, but what are your debts? That’s what I’d like to know.”
“Oh, about…about half a million,” Simon said, feeling just slightly less sure of himself.
“Half a million? You have personal debts of half a million?”
“Well, yes, give or take a few thousand.”
“And—do you have half a million pounds? That you can put your hands on?” The other two seemed to be finding the carpet particularly interesting.
“Well, not precisely, no.” Why were his guts lurching in this unpleasant way? “In fact, I’m putting our house on the market. Although I’ve actually decided to take Lloyd’s to court. With a few other like-minded people.”
“You’re taking Lloyd’s to court? Yes, I thought that was what you said.”
“I am, yes. Our solicitor thinks we have a case.”
“And does this mean you won’t be paying your debt to them?”
“Well, I suppose it does, yes. If we regard them as debts. Which actually we don’t. We think they’ve acted fraudulently, and—”
“You consider Lloyd’s have acted fraudulently?”
“Yes, we do. As a matter of fact.”
Martin Dudley sighed, then said, “I see. I find that extraordinarily hard to believe.”
“I’m sure you do,” said Simon, trying to keep his voice light. “We all did at first. But if you look at the facts—I could take you through them if you like…”
“I think not. Certainly not at present. You say others are taking this route?”
“Oh yes. There are scores of lawsuits being prepared. We’re a small group, but growing in number as people gain confidence in what we feel certain is a case. And—”
“Simon. Simon, I’m extremely sorry, but I simply cannot contemplate having one of our main board directors involved in litigation against Lloyd’s. It’s out of the question.”
There was a complete silence in the room. A pin dropping would have been an appalling intrusion.
“Lloyd’s is one of the prime institutions in the City of London. Many of our clients have connections with them; some are managing agents there.” Dudley paused, then said, “Tell me, if you met your debt this year, by selling your house, would you then be in the clear?”
“Well, of course not,” said Simon. “The whole point about the Lloyd’s liability is that it’s unlimited. It’s there until death, quite literally, if you get involved with a long-tailed syndicate—that’s one where claims may arise long after the period of cover has expired—and they can be coming after you for fifty years. It’s hideous.”
“Nevertheless, you signed up to this arrangement, I imagine?”
“Well, of course I did. Yes.”
“Without a great deal of thought, it seems. And there were good years, I believe. So let’s just go over this again. You owe them half a million at the present time.”
“Yes. That’s correct.”
“What about next year? What will you do then?”
“Well, as I say, I would hope we’d have won our lawsuit.”
One of the others cleared his throat then said, “Leaving that aside for the moment, it does seem to us, Simon, that there’s a possibility of serious financial embarrassment here.”
Looking back afterwards, he could define that as the moment when he stopped hoping. He knew what they were doing now; acting as a team.
“Right,” said Dudley. “Now, I’ve been looking at your contract. There are some very clear references in that to your being subject to a bankruptcy order. Which seems to me a possibility. Or that you are unable to compound with your creditors. Equally so. Or indeed that you are acting in a way that brings discredit to the bank. Any of those would necessarily result in your offering your resignation.”
Simon felt as if he was going to vomit. “Surely nothing we’ve been discussing this afternoon would justify such a thing,” he said, struggling to keep his voice level and composed.
“I’m afraid it would. Certainly taking legal action against Lloyd’s would qualify. Your financial embarrassment likewise. And I’m sure you are aware of clause twelve, point three in the contract.”
“Not precisely, no.”
“Then I think I should read it to you.” He opened a drawer and pulled out a document. It had clearly been placed there for the purpose, for this moment. The whole thing was like a bad play. Dudley was reading aloud. “‘Nothing in these terms and conditions of employment shall prevent the Bank from terminating your employment without notice, or salary in lieu of notice in th
e event of gross misconduct’—well, of course, no one is suggesting that, Simon,” he gave him a sweaty smile, “‘or if you are subject to a bankruptcy order…’”
“But I’m not.”
“Well, I think we are agreed you are in grave danger of it, or have a receiving order made against you. And then of course there is clause twelve, point seven, which states that the same conditions apply ‘if you conduct yourself in a manner prejudicial to the Bank.’”
Simon was silent.
“Well, look, Simon, I’m sure we can work something out here. Dropping your lawsuit would be a start. I would like to suggest that the bank makes you some kind of loan—”
A lurch, of a more pleasant type. A hopeful lurch.
“But I’m afraid it would be completely against company rules. Perhaps you have sources who could do that for you personally?”
“I don’t,” said Simon simply.
“Right. Pity. Well—look. Give it some thought. I would hate to lose you, Simon. You’ve been a marvellous asset to the bank—and over many years. But I’m sure you must see I can’t fly in the face of bank regulations. It would simply be unfair to the other directors. Most unfair. Now look, I’m sorry, but it’s getting late and I’ve actually got to see someone at four. Have to prepare for it. Thank you for your honesty, Simon, much appreciated. I’m sure we can work something out. Perhaps you could come back to me in, what shall we say, ten days? That seem fair to you?”
“Oh yes,” said Simon, “after twenty-five years’ service and bringing countless millions into your wretched coffers. Perfectly fair. I mean, if that’s what the contract says, you must abide by it. Of course. Certainly not try to find a way of working round it. You bastard—you miserable, mean, cowardly bastard.”
Then he turned and walked out of the room, shutting the door very carefully after him.
Everything seemed very quiet; except for a heavy thudding noise. It took a while for him to realise it was his heart. He leaned against the wall for a moment and closed his eyes, then walked towards his office. He had been fired as if he was the meanest office boy, told he was no longer of any use, his nose rubbed in the dirt as he went. In response to a non-crime, a trumped-up felony. He felt at once outraged and completely vulnerable, and if he had been asked to say his name, or where he lived, he would have been hard-pressed to do so.
An Absolute Scandal Page 30
