AN Outrageous Affair

by Penny Vincenzi

  When she got there, Wally, the doorman, said they were running very late, and why didn’t she slip round and watch. She said Piers would be furious and Wally said what Piers didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him, and to go up to the dress circle and watch from there. So she went round to the front of the theatre and up to the circle and sat down, very quietly, behind a pillar and looked down at the stage. And saw the Piers she had fallen in love with all over again.

  She had never been to anything but a dress rehearsal: had never sat in a half-lit empty theatre, with all its attendant flatness and drabness. Piers wouldn’t allow it. He liked her to see what the public saw, the brilliance, the polish, the magic. There were several people sitting in the stalls, about five rows back, but the house lights were out and she couldn’t see who they were: the producer, she supposed, and the director, maybe the set designer, the costume designer. The stage was empty: empty and dusty. There were a great many cigarette ends on it. No scenery, no props, except one extremely ugly chair. Piers sat on the edge of the stage, calling out to the row of people in the stalls.

  ‘I know, I know,’ he was saying, ‘but I just think it would work. Let me try it. Please.’

  ‘OK. But it won’t work. And we don’t have Desdemona. She’ll be at least another ten minutes. She’s gone to get her fucking cleaning. And we’re running out of time,’ said one of them. A woman. Chloe wasn’t sure who she was.

  Piers walked off into the wings, and there was a long silence. Then he came on again, and he wasn’t really Piers any more. He was dressed the same, in the baggy flannels and checked shirt he always wore for rehearsals, and he carried no props, but he was someone else altogether, someone tortured, someone wretched, someone in horror. He stood, his back turned to the audience, bowed his head, raised his hands, and pushed them, with a kind of gentle, frantic desperation, through his hair. And then dropped them, heavily, to his sides. And then, without moving again, he spoke, wonderfully, resonantly, every note, every syllable clear, and the voice she knew so well, the marvellous, musical, confident voice was changed, charged with pain, with uncertainty, with terror, and as he spoke, suddenly Desdemona was there, despite her absence, despite the empty stage, dead, murdered, smothered by this tortured creature who spoke, slowly as in sleep, nightmared sleep: ‘No more moving? Still as the grave. Shall she come in? Were’t good? I think she stirs again. No . . .’ And then, as the great voice roared and shook into the climax of the speech, ‘my wife! my wife! I have no wife,’ she found tears pouring down her cheeks, and she knew that whatever he had done, whatever he might do, she had married and loved an extraordinary and most gifted man, and she wept as much for the death of that love as for the emotion he had evoked in her with his speech.

  She slipped down as the speech ended, as the long debate began about whether his back should be turned entirely or just three-quarters to the audience, the position of the bed, of Desdemona on it (Desdemona having now returned), of the lighting, of the timing of Emilia’s entrance, and made her way back to the stage door, where she stood, waiting patiently, still entranced, still shocked by the beauty and the sheer power of what she had witnessed.

  ‘I should go in, my love,’ said Wally, ‘they’ll be talking till daybreak, unless you do.’

  ‘All right,’ said Chloe, and went down towards the dressing room, but Wally had been wrong: Piers was alone in his dressing room, and he was very pale, shaking slightly, and was lighting a cigarette.

  ‘Piers, don’t,’ said Chloe, too anxious, too altogether disturbed by what she had witnessed to be tactful, careful, ‘don’t do that, you’ve got to stop smoking at once.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ he said, ‘not you as well. Don’t nanny me, Chloe, please.’

  ‘I’m not nannying you, it’s Roger Bannerman. He’s just phoned through your test results, and you’re what he calls minutes away from bronchitis, possibly pleurisy. He says you need immediate antibiotic treatment, some sunshine and a complete break, and I’ve booked us a week in Antigua. Don’t look at me like that, Piers, if you don’t go, Dr Bannerman says there’ll be no Othello anyway.’

  Piers agreed to go.

  Two nights before they were due to leave, Ned started to run a temperature and to cry with pain; later he was very sick.

  ‘Appendicitis,’ said Bannerman briefly, and had him admitted to St Thomas’s.

  The appendix had almost ruptured; Ned was quite ill. Not dangerously, but wretchedly, feverishly, painfully ill. There was no way Chloe could leave him.

  ‘We’ll forget this trip then,’ said Piers and she could hear the relief, the triumph in his voice; but Bannerman said he was not to forget it, that he needed the break and the sunshine, that Piers really must not underestimate the danger of ignoring the infection in his chest, that he would be joining Ned in hospital if he did.

  ‘Go out alone,’ he said, ‘Chloe can join you in a day or two.’

  Piers hesitated; then he said, ‘I hate travelling alone.’

  ‘Well, take the other woman in your life,’ said Bannerman. ‘Take Pandora. She’ll love it.’

  Piers thought for a moment and then said he would love it too.

  On the third day after he had gone, Chloe returned from the hospital at midday; she was sleeping there and indeed spending most of her time there, but Ned was better and she needed a break. She could see a considerable miracle had been worked on her behalf, that she was not going to have to go to Antigua; and almost as the plane had taken off, she had stopped being sick and in fact had begun to feel much better. Piers had phoned once to say he and Pandora were having a wonderful time and that she had been snorkelling on the reef and they had both been waterskiing and they had been dancing together after dinner. Chloe had tried to keep the disapproval out of her voice, and said she was very glad it was such a success. Kitty had been missing her badly; Chloe was sitting on the nursery floor, playing with her, and wondering if she might phone Ludovic and suggest dinner, when the nanny came in and said there was a call for her.

  ‘I’ll take it in my room,’ said Chloe.

  It was Mr Lewis from the bank.

  ‘Mrs Windsor?’ He sounded apologetic. ‘I’m sorry to trouble you, I really wanted to speak to Mr Windsor.’

  ‘I’m afraid he’s away, Mr Lewis. He’s in Antigua, with our small daughter. He hasn’t been at all well.’

  ‘Oh. Oh, I see. Well, in that case . . .’ His voice tailed off.

  ‘Mr Lewis,’ said Chloe, ‘my husband and I have no secrets from one another.’ (God, if only that were true.) ‘If there’s a problem, you can tell me.’

  ‘Yes, well – it could wait, I suppose,’ said Mr Lewis. ‘It’s simply that I’ve just been presented with a cheque, made out to a racing stable.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Chloe, ‘yes, of course. Piers has just bought a new horse. So?’

  Mr Lewis sounded more embarrassed still. ‘Well, to be blunt, Mrs Windsor, I really don’t think I can pay it. Unless I receive some monies or certainly unless I am reassured that there are some in the pipeline.’

  ‘What?’ said Chloe. ‘Mr Lewis, I don’t understand.’

  ‘Well, you see, Mrs Windsor, the account is considerably overdrawn. Very considerably. Now I have always allowed Mr Windsor a great deal of latitude, naturally, he is a very important and valued customer of this bank, and it is an honour to have him with us. But the overdraft is at a very high level at the moment, and frankly, I don’t have the authority to sanction any further borrowing. I’m so sorry, Mrs Windsor. You obviously had no idea.’

  ‘No,’ said Chloe, ‘no, I didn’t. Er – what is this high level, Mr Lewis?’

  There was a pause; then Mr Lewis said with enormous reluctance, ‘Ten thousand pounds. On current account. Plus – well, plus some more on a loan account.’

  ‘How much more, Mr Lewis?’

  A long painful
silence. Then: ‘Another ten thousand pounds.’

  Chloe felt as if she was falling from a huge height; she actually put out a hand to the wall, requiring physical steadying. Then she said, ‘Well, clearly there is some mistake. I mean, some transfer or whatever has not been made. I will speak to my husband as soon as possible, and ring you. Thank you so much, Mr Lewis.’

  When she put the receiver down, she noticed it was wet, where her hand had been sweating.

  Piers was mildly indignant but mostly amused about the state of the account.

  ‘I’m sorry, darling. There’s a series of payments coming through from the States; in fact the first one should have arrived by now, and it can go straight into the account. If it hasn’t, ring Jim Prendergast and get him to chase it up; he’ll make you an advance in any case if it hasn’t come.’

  Jim Prendergast was Piers’s accountant; yes, he said, that was quite correct, there was a cheque for twenty thousand dollars arrived that morning, and he would send it round to the bank by messenger immediately.

  It all seemed slightly hand to mouth, but Chloe felt for the most part reassured. She phoned Mr Lewis and told him a payment would be with him by the end of the next day, and that he should clear the cheque to the stables.

  ‘Well, Mrs Windsor, I’m so sorry to have worried you. But I’m sure you will understand my predicament.’

  ‘Yes, of course, Mr Lewis.’

  ‘Er – there is just one other thing.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Lewis?’

  ‘The cheque he writes each month in dollars: to the company in Santa Barbara, California. I presume you are familiar with this one?’

  ‘What? Oh – yes, of course,’ said Chloe hastily. Probably some theatrical workshop Piers was on the board of and contributed to. There were dozens of them, all of them sent money to succour the ventures and his vanity. ‘Well now, this has also just been presented to me for clearance. It is, as of course you will know, quite a large sum. Presumably you would like me to go ahead and pay this one at the same time?’

  ‘Well, I suppose so. Is it really such a large amount?’

  This was getting out of hand; Piers must clearly be stopped from making donations he couldn’t afford.

  ‘Well – quite large. You didn’t know?’

  ‘Not the precise amount,’ said Chloe carefully.

  ‘Ah. Well perhaps I shouldn’t –’

  ‘Mr Lewis. My husband is away. He hasn’t been well. He expects me to take care of things. Is this the – let me see, the hundred-dollar payment?’ She had pulled the figure out of the air. It seemed to come into the category of quite large.

  Mr Lewis sounded once again guarded and exasperated. ‘No, Mrs Windsor. Not a hundred dollars.’

  ‘Then –’

  ‘Mrs Windsor, I really don’t think –’

  ‘Mr Lewis, please. Look, I have access to all my husband’s bank accounts. As you know.’ This was absolutely true; Piers’s generosity did not end with extravagant gifts.

  ‘Indeed. Well, the amount is, as I said, quite considerable. One thousand dollars per calendar month.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Chloe, and she was astounded at her calm, her icy control, ‘yes, of course. That one. Well, Mr Lewis, I think provided funds are available, you should pay the cheque. What was the name of the company?’

  ‘Zwirn, Mrs Windsor. Gerard Zwirn.’

  ‘Oh, Zwirn, yes of course. No, that’s absolutely right, Mr Lewis. Zwirn of Santa Barbara, fine, put it through.’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Windsor.’

  Fleur was finding it increasingly hard to think clearly. She had felt like this for two weeks now, ever since she had left Los Angeles. Well, no, before she had left Los Angeles; ever since that horrible day when Magnus and Rose had driven off on the motorbike, and come back hours later, laughing, excited, had found her by the pool, and begged her to join them for dinner.

  ‘No, really,’ she had said, ‘I feel lousy, I must have some bug, please forgive me,’ and had watched wretchedly as they disappeared into the house for quite a long time before Magnus emerged and said he was going back to the hotel to change and just to call him if she changed her mind.

  ‘I won’t,’ she said, trying to sound normal, not like some spoilt, thwarted child, ‘I really do feel terrible, I keep throwing up. And somehow I have to get back to New York tomorrow; my boss called, there’s a huge meeting with a difficult client, who’s just trying to trash a whole campaign. So –’

  ‘OK, OK,’ he said, putting his hands up, grinning down at her; but his eyes were kind, concerned almost. ‘You do what you have to do. I hope you feel better.’

  He bent to kiss her on the cheek; she smiled up at him with a huge effort.

  ‘Have a good dinner. She’s so nice, isn’t she?’

  ‘She is indeed. A remarkable lady. Disappointing in some ways, but most certainly not in others.’

  ‘Magnus –’

  ‘Yes, Fleur?’

  ‘I – oh, it doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I’m coming to New York before I go home to England. I’ll see you there. We can talk then.’

  ‘How long will you be?’

  ‘I don’t know. A few days.’

  ‘Oh.’ She was silent, feeling the pain as she contemplated the few days and how he might be filling them, and then, angry with herself for caring so much, she said, ‘Do you always get so close to your interviewees?’

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘very seldom. It’s very seldom worth it.’

  She had booked a flight into New York early next day, and sat staring out of the window for much of the five hours, fretful with disappointment and frustration, and at the sense that she had lost Rose as a friend, thinking about her father and how they seemed as far as ever from knowing what had really happened.

  She had half expected a message from Morton’s on her answering machine, but there was nothing. Well, they were still in the post-Christmas calm, the eye of the storm Mick diMaggio used to call it. God, she missed Mick, she could do with some of his inspiration right now. She was enjoying Morton’s, she supposed, but it was tough, and she found – as she had feared right from the beginning – that having one account, one client, was creatively stultifying. Shit, she should have resisted the whole idea. Apart from anything else, it meant – Fleur closed her mind to what it meant apart from anything else, and went for a long walk in Central Park, cooked herself a chilli, and wondered how she was going to fill in the rest of the week she had taken off. She finally decided to go in the next day anyway, and catch up on some admin. They wouldn’t be expecting her, she would get some peace. She certainly couldn’t face staying in the apartment any longer. And besides it was one of Tina’s days and Tina was in a state of intense excitement about Fleur’s engagement to Reuben, and talked of little else, when the wedding would be, where it would be, what she was going to wear, how many guests they would have, and whether (Tina’s voice would rise in anticipation at this point) Reuben would then be moving in permanently with her.

  ‘It’d be real nice to be running around after a man, Miss Fitz, doing his laundry and clearing up his mess. I like a man’s mess. Seems more worthwhile somehow.’

  ‘Well, I certainly don’t like it,’ said Fleur briskly. ‘Any mess around here, and I can tell you, he goes right out the door again.’

  ‘Miss Fitz, you’re talking through your face. By the way, what happened to the other one, the English one? Man, was that a sexy man.’

  ‘Tina, I told you a hundred times, he is just a work associate.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, and I only weigh a hundred pound,’ said Tina equably.

  She hardly slept, in spite of taking a sleeping pill, and got into Morton’s at seven, before anyone else was in. She sorted through the mail and memos on her desk – mostly trash – and re
read some copy she’d written on the prospective cosmetic range just before the holiday. Shit, it wasn’t good enough. There was no magic to it. The range was coming on nicely, and she was really happy with the packaging Reuben was working on, plain white cartons for the skin care, with splashes of colour to indicate skin type: stinging pink for oily skin, brilliant aquamarine for combination, and what she described as bluebell pink for dry. The cosmetic colours were great too, good strong assertive colours, nothing pastel, even the creams and beiges were sludgy; they had tested them on some volunteer customers and got rave results. But her copy just didn’t work. It was meant to be saying ‘Here it is, what you always wanted and never could find before’, and it was simply saying ‘And now here’s some Morton’s make-up’. She really must pull herself together. What was the matter with her? Six months earlier she’d have sat up all night, rather than turn in crap like this. Mediocre crap. Of all the things Fleur despised, mediocrity came top of the list. Better a good checkout girl than a mediocre copywriter, dancer, actress.

  That reminded her of her father: he had been a mediocre actor. Or so everyone said. So Rose had said. No doubt that would be reported in Magnus Phillips’s fucking book. Fucking Magnus Phillips and his fucking book. That was largely to blame. She should never have allowed herself to get so involved with him and his book. Well, it was too late now. She had better things to worry about. Like her copy. At least she could see how terrible it was. She decided to rewrite it at once, while the sense of distaste was so strong. She’d just get some coffee – she never could write so much as her own name without a mug of coffee set right by her typewriter – and do it.

  She went down the corridor towards the coffee machine – filthy stuff, but at least hot and wet – and found it was empty. She decided to go up to the boardroom kitchen and make herself a proper cup. She was just walking past the studio when she heard Reuben’s voice. He was on the phone. She was just going to push the door open and tell him she was back when she heard her name. Fleur was nothing if not pragmatic; she stood listening, holding her breath. There was no way it was going to be a long conversation. Reuben regarded a telephone call the way most people regarded a visit to the dentist.