AN Outrageous Affair

by Penny Vincenzi

  ‘What? Oh, yes, I’m fine. But, Perkins, I need a spot of information.’

  ‘What sort of information?’

  ‘Oh – let’s say, geographical.’

  ‘Oh, really?’

  ‘Really. Mr Perkins, where is Mr Silk having dinner tonight?’

  ‘Now why on earth should I tell you that?’

  ‘Mr Perkins, I need to know.’

  ‘What for? You’re not – he’s not –’

  ‘No, of course not. I just need to know. Badly.’

  ‘I can’t tell you that, Miss FitzPatrick. More than my job’s worth.’

  ‘It looks to me as if your job might be on the line anyway, Mr Perkins. If Mr Silk knew you were looking for a new one. No reference, either. Oh dear, oh dear . . .’

  ‘Miss FitzPatrick, what did I ever do to you?’

  ‘Nothing except be very kind to me. Of course I wouldn’t tell him.’ She paused. ‘Unless I had to. Go on, Mr Perkins, please tell me.’

  He looked at her. She put on her tragic face, willing misery into her eyes.

  ‘Mr Perkins, let me say this. The reason I want to know has nothing actually to do with Mr Silk. Or Mrs Silk. It’s the gentleman they’re having dinner with. I just need to see him. I swear I am not going to make a scene, or embarrass the Silks, they won’t even know I’m there, probably. They certainly won’t know why. But I need to know. It’s so important to me, Mr Perkins, desperately important.’

  ‘Well . . .’ He hesitated. ‘No. No, I can’t.’

  She reached forward, tweaked the paper off his knee. ‘Mr Perkins. Come on. You don’t even like Nigel Silk.’

  ‘Well – you’re trouble, you are, Miss FitzPatrick. All right. Four Seasons. Eight o’clock.’

  ‘Mr Perkins, I love you. Here’s your paper back.’

  ‘Reuben, don’t argue. You don’t have to pay even for a glass of water. Just be there, OK? In a suit. I know you have one. See you there. Eight thirty. All right? Table in your name.’

  She spent two hours getting ready. She showered, she washed her hair, she shaved her legs; she drenched herself in Joy, she got out every single dress she possessed (all three) and tried each on, finally settling on a black crepe shift, slit up the side, a Norell copy she had blued over half a week’s salary on, telling herself it would be worth it. ‘And it was,’ she said aloud, through teeth that were chattering slightly with nerves. She did her hair, scooping it up in a pony-tail, with her new fake fall tumbling down her back and great dark kiss curls on either cheek. She made up her face, palely dramatic, her eyes elaborately shadowed, with false lashes top and bottom; she clipped great shimmering dangling Paco Rabanne-style earrings on, with twin bracelets to match; and then she put on her coat, a rainbow-dyed fun fur, gave herself a last spray of Joy, put her money (all she had had left in her bank account) in a small beaded bag she had bought in the flea market and went out to catch a cab and capture her prey.

  She arrived at the restaurant at eight twenty; perfect time, they would be settled, at the table, Reuben would not be there. She paid off the cab, took six deep breaths and walked into the restaurant, the rainbow fur over her arm. She stood there in the entrance, looking round the room: and at first it was all a blur, a fast-beating, heart-thudding blur, she would have recognized nobody there, nobody at all: and then through the noise, the hum, the careful, ordered dance of the waiters, moving around from table to table, the maître d’ gliding round the room, through the chatter, the interested glances of the women at her, the admiring, intrigued looks of the men, she saw them, saw the Silks, Nigel leaning back in his chair, gracefully attentive to the woman next to him, and next to her, a man she did not know, and next to him, Serena Silk, exquisite blonde hair dressed high, set with pearl drops, shimmering bead-encrusted dress, small perfect chin resting on small elegant hand, pale blue eyes fixed on – fixed on, yes, dear God, on him. On Piers Windsor, who was looking at her, smiling at her, saying something.

  As if propelled by a force entirely out of her control, Fleur walked forward, smiling, towards them all, towards the table and said, and was amazed at the calm, the levelness of her voice, ‘Nigel! How nice to see you. And Mrs Silk, what a lovely dress. No, no, don’t get up,’ as Nigel and the other men moved as if to stand for her, and one of them did, he did, Piers Windsor stood up for her, a tall, slender figure.

  He looked down at her, smiling at her and said, without moving his eyes from her face, ‘Nigel, can we be introduced to this lovely friend of yours?’

  Her first thought, her first instinct, was that he was homosexual; it was not so much the looks, not even the slightly intense charm, it was something else, very subtle, a sense of delicacy, of perception, impossible to determine, to define; and then, seeing the expression in his eyes, moving over her face, she was less sure, and Nigel, his face tense with nerves and embarrassment and probably, Fleur thought, rage, said, ‘Yes, of course, this is Fleur FitzPatrick, she works for us, and Fleur, this is Piers Windsor, who of course you will have heard of, and this is Henry and Sybil Fletcher, friends of ours, and you’ve met my wife, have you not, Fleur?’

  Fleur said yes, indeed, she had and held out her hand to Serena who touched it unbearably briefly, as if it might burn her, and then to the Fletchers and then turned again to Piers Windsor and said, ‘I can’t tell you how excited I am to meet you, I’ve dreamed of it ever since I was quite a little girl.’ Then Reuben arrived, looking remarkably civilized and neat in a suit, but didn’t see her and was shown to their table which was mercifully quite far from the Silks so she said, ‘Oh, there is my boyfriend now, I have to go. So nice to meet you, Mr Windsor, and Mr and Mrs Fletcher, Nigel, Mrs Silk. Good evening, enjoy your dinner.’ She backed away gracefully from the table with a final all-encompassing smile and turned and walked towards Reuben, her arms held out, and bent and kissed him on the cheek, aware that the eyes of every man in the restaurant were fixed upon her, but most especially the grey ones of Piers Windsor which had been, ever since he heard her name, dark with shock.

  As she sat down, smiling at Reuben, taking the menu, staring at the menu, while quite unable to see it, her mind raced, whirled round the memory of those eyes staring at her, shocked, almost scared eyes, in a face that had turned white, the lips taut and drawn, and she tried and tried to make sense of it and she couldn’t even begin. She only knew that she must clearly pursue Piers Windsor, to find out more about him and his reaction to her; and that given only the merest breath of a following wind, it was perfectly within her power to do so.

  Nigel Silk was very cold with her in the morning. She had known he would be and she had also known that there would be absolutely nothing he could say to her. She had been in the restaurant with her boyfriend, and it had been the purest chance that he had been there too. She had every right to eat in the Four Seasons, and it would have been discourteous of her not to have spoken to him. And Serena and his guests.

  What she wanted to do now was talk to Piers Windsor. Face to face, one to one, woman to man. That would be fun. As well as investigating him, his reaction to her name – and it had been her name, not her, he had reacted to, it meant something to him, that name, it had more than surprised him, it had frightened him. So – was it possible – could he have known her father? Surely, surely not. It was too unlikely, too almost laughably unlikely. And yet – well, there was something there. Something very strange. She had to get to know him, find out for herself. It was too important to leave. As well as that, his sexual proclivities intrigued her. The more she had thought about him as she lay awake through the long night, the more she had felt there was something at the very least ambivalent there. Well, that would be causing Chloe a few little problems. Oh, this was fun. She was enjoying this. She was not hurt, not even angry any more; just high on excitement and triumph and intrigue. She could see the danger of what she was doing and it filled her with pleas
ure; it was almost sexual in its intensity.

  She went down to see Mr Perkins, a bottle of Scotch whisky in her hand – this was expensive this revenge business – and said, ‘Tiny present. Thank you for your help. You see I didn’t cause any trouble, did I?’

  ‘Not as far as I know,’ said Perkins darkly.

  ‘Mr Perkins, after you took Mr Windsor back to the Pierre the other night –’

  ‘Plaza,’ said Perkins automatically as she had known he would, and then looked at her sharply. ‘What’s it to you?’

  ‘Nothing, nothing at all,’ said Fleur, smiling at him with particular sweetness.

  ‘May I speak to Mr Windsor please? Mr Piers Windsor? Thank you.’

  There was a long silence Then: ‘May I ask who’s calling, please?’

  ‘This is Fleur FitzPatrick. Mr Silk’s friend.’

  Another long silence. ‘Mr Windsor is out at the moment, Miss FitzPatrick. Can I take a message?’

  ‘Sure. Tell him I called, and say could he call me. At my office, that’s 212–765–7657. Oh, and could you just say I just wanted to tell him something, and it won’t take a minute.’

  Fleur settled back in her chair and waited for her phone to ring. There was no way he wouldn’t call. It would look too bad.

  Twenty minutes later her phone went. ‘Miss FitzPatrick? Piers Windsor here. I got a message to call you.’

  ‘Oh, Mr Windsor, that is so kind of you. Thank you. I just wanted to tell you that – oh, dear, it’s a little embarrassing. You don’t want to hear it.’

  A very long silence. Then: ‘Well it’s a little hard for me to make a judgement. I might.’ The voice was amused, light; he didn’t sound awkward or worried. Well, don’t forget, Fleur, this is one of the finest actors of his generation.

  ‘It’s just that – oh dear. Well, all right. The thing is, Mr Windsor, and this is really naughty of me, but having met you, I kind of thought you’d understand; my aunt has a most terrific crush on you. I mean seriously terrific. She’s seen every single one of your films, and she saw you in Hamlet, when you did it here, queued for hours and hours. And she isn’t very well, and I mean long term not very well, you know? It would mean so much to her if you could sign a photograph for her, with a message. Would that be the most terrible thing to ask?’

  She could actually hear the relief, hear it spilling, oozing down the phone. ‘Well, of course not, Miss FitzPatrick, it would be a great pleasure. I’ll have my secretary put it in the post.’

  ‘Oh – well, that is really kind, but you see she’s off tomorrow, into hospital for – well, for some tests. And I’d really like to give it to her, to take in with her. It would make all the difference. So I wondered if I could possibly call by your hotel, and pick it up?’

  ‘Of course. I’ll leave it in reception.’

  ‘That is so kind of you. I can’t thank you enough. You are very understanding and – and sweet. Er – could it be in the next hour or so?’

  ‘Well . . .’ He hesitated, the sweetness and patience easing off slightly, removed, she thought, like greasepaint at the end of a performance. Then, ‘Yes, I don’t see why not.’

  ‘Thank you. Thank you so much. It’ll mean such a lot to her. Will you be there? So I can thank you personally?’

  There was a silence. Go on, go on, you bastard, say yes. Give in. What harm would it do? You could get another look at me. See if you think I really might be who you think I might be. Fleur. Brendan’s daughter. That’s what you’re afraid of, isn’t it? Isn’t it? And anyway, you liked me. Admired me. I know you did. Go on, Piers Windsor, say yes. Say yes, say yes.

  ‘Well – yes. All right. I’ll be in the lobby at five. All right? But I’ll be very much on the wing.’

  ‘Oh, that’s wonderful. Thank you again.’

  She was sitting in the lobby when he came down. He looked very slightly – what? Not nervous. Tense, perhaps. But he smiled as he came towards her, holding an envelope. She stood up, and held out her hand.

  ‘This is so kind of you.’

  ‘Miss FitzPatrick. How nice to see you again. Now I could only find this picture, and it’s a little old, or perhaps I should say a little young, but I don’t travel with a huge store of them, I’m afraid.’ He smiled a rueful, slightly bashful smile. ‘Anyway, it occurred to me that I don’t know your aunt’s name, and it would make it nicer for her if I could put that in.’

  ‘Oh, how thoughtful,’ said Fleur. ‘It’s Edna.’

  ‘Right.’

  He sat down, and she sat down again beside him; she had worn her shortest skirt, and she could feel his eyes on her legs. He certainly liked them. But then homos often liked her. She got on with them, she had the kind of body, of psyche they appreciated, felt at ease with. And she was at ease with them. Oh well, what the hell. It really didn’t matter. Except that Chloe must be even more of a fool than she had thought. She intercepted his gaze, smiled at him; slightly confused, responding to the signal, he smiled back.

  ‘Right then. To Edna. With very best wishes for a speedy recovery, Piers Windsor. How’s that?’

  ‘It’s wonderful. You must have to sign so many hundreds, it must be so boring.’

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘not so much these days. But in any case it certainly isn’t boring. It’s so delightful that people are interested, like one that much. And that one can give them pleasure.’

  Shall I throw up here, wondered Fleur, or should I try and hold it? ‘Well, even still. It’s very kind. May I buy you a drink or something, to say thank you?’

  ‘Oh dear,’ he said, ‘you are obviously one of these liberated women. The kind I can’t really handle.’ He was obviously relaxing; feeling that whatever it was that had frightened him she knew nothing about.

  She felt his eyes on her again, moved her legs, so that there was just slightly more thigh, looked at him very levelly and smiled. ‘I’m sure you can. We’re really nothing to be afraid of, you know. We’re no different from the other sort, except that we say and do what seems right at the time. Anyway, this is nonsense, you must meet hundreds of extremely liberated women in your business. And what about your wife, she’s young, isn’t she? I’m sure she’s not an old-fashioned girl.’ God, this was unreal: talking to Piers about his wife. Her sister. She felt scared suddenly; she mustn’t let this get out of hand.

  ‘Oh, but she is. A really old-fashioned girl. That’s why I married her.’

  ‘Well – that must be very nice for you.’ She bit her lip. ‘You won’t tell Nigel, will you? That I’ve done this? He’d probably fire me.’

  ‘Surely not. He seems charming. What do you do for him? Are you his Girl Friday or something?’

  Shit, he was a nightmare. What on God’s earth was Chloe doing with him? She must be a thousand times worse than she had even imagined. And a thousand times more stupid.

  ‘I am not,’ she said and she couldn’t keep the indignation out of her voice. ‘I’m a copywriter.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry. Now I’ve really put my foot in it. Look – maybe I’d better buy you a drink. Just to make amends.’ His confidence was growing; she could feel it. The fear had almost gone. He thought he was safe, and now he just wanted to have a flirtation with her. Creep. What a creep. With a wife and two tiny children.

  ‘Oh, but –’

  ‘Come on.’ He stood up, smiling down at her. ‘And I promise to try not to say anything more unfortunate.’

  ‘Well – all right. Thank you. Thank you very much.’

  She had done it. She was on her way.

  1968

  Chloe was driving up from Stebbings early in the morning when she heard the news: the terrible, almost unbelievable news, causing her to slam on the brakes and pull into the side of the road and sit there, shaking, tearful, almost frightened. She had been engaged upon the weighty problem
of whether she should ask Ludovic Ingram to be godfather to her new son, Edmund (named after the actor): Piers was very set upon that course, but Chloe felt Ludovic would see the invitation as an incitement to pursue still more ardently what could only be described as his courtship of her, when the music she was enjoying suddenly ceased. ‘. . . bring you a news bulletin,’ said the male voice, shaken itself. ‘Senator Robert Kennedy, brother of the late President, remains in a condition described by doctors as extremely critical as to life. Senator Kennedy, who was gunned down in the corridor of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles last night, has undergone three hours of neural surgery at the Good Samaritan Hospital, Los Angeles. He had just arrived to make his victory speech after defeating Senator McCarthy in the Californian Democratic primary elections. Mrs Ethel Kennedy is at the hospital and –’

  Chloe switched off the radio: Piers was in Los Angeles. Somehow it made the news more sickening, more shocking. Not because she felt he was in any danger, but because it personalized the news, brought it nearer to home. What a violent, frightening country America was: only two months since Martin Luther King had been shot, five years since Jack Kennedy. It was horrible, obscene: the world was going mad.

  She sat there for a while, pulling herself together, and then drove slowly on to London and sat staring at the television, watching the scene run and rerun, watching Bobby, the white hope of the Kennedys, cut down, lost to the world he had seemed genuinely to want to change, lying in a pool of blood, a rosary pushed into his hands, on the floor of the Ambassador Hotel. When at lunch-time the announcement came that the Senator had died, she wept as bitterly as if it had been her own family; wept for Ethel and all the Kennedy children; for Jackie, forced to relive the nightmare of Jack Kennedy’s death; for Rose, called upon to bear the murder of two sons, wondering even as she did so why she felt it so keenly.