They stood together, he and Chloe, in the bar of a crowded, smoke-hazed Fleet Street pub, and read a long article about Piers, about his long and brilliant career, about the pleasure he had given to millions, the honour he had brought to his country by showing British talent – or, as the Graphic called it, Genius – to the rest of the world. It detailed his marriages, his first to Guinevere Davies, and paused briefly to say what a loss she had been to the stage, and then his second, longer one to Chloe, ‘debutante daughter of beautiful society woman, Lady Caroline Hunterton’. The beautiful society woman, the Graphic was at pains to point out, had, after a long and happy marriage, formed a ‘surprisingly swift liaison with journalist Joe Payton’, which had lasted a few years, but Lady Hunterton ‘now lived alone in her sixteenth-century stately home in Suffolk’.
Piers Windsor’s career had been long and triumphant, the Graphic said, and it seemed unfortunate that it had not yet been marked by any honour; he had been passed over for a knighthood several times.
But this oversight had been confidently expected to be corrected this summer. A source high up within the civil service revealed to the Graphic only last week that Mr Windsor had been almost certain to become Sir Piers in the birthday honours. How very tragic, therefore, that once again it seems possible that glory will be snatched from Mr Windsor’s grasp: by the publication of a much hyped book, entitled The Tinsel Underneath.
The book, which was initially seen as a straightforward biography of Piers Windsor, is the third in a series of ‘Life Portraits’ by Magnus Phillips. Essentially scandalous, the books study not only the central subject of the book, but the world he or she inhabits, his friends, acquaintances, colleagues, and ruthlessly explores relationships past and present.
The book, which is attracting huge attention in other countries as well as here, promises to be a bestseller. It promises revelations concerning society figures as well as showbiz folk, and is subtitled A Story of Hollywood.
National newspapers are vying for the serial rights of The Tinsel Underneath. The Sunday Graphic will not be amongst them. We believe everyone has a right to some privacy in their lives.
‘Which means,’ remarked Joe, ‘the Graphic can’t afford to bid for the rights. And have got in their two penn’orth anyway.’
‘Joe,’ said Chloe, her eyes wide with fear, ‘we’ve got to stop this, simply got to.’
Nicholas Marshall read the article early that morning in the kitchen of his large mock-Tudor home in Surrey; he looked across the table at Mrs Marshall who was de-pipping grapes for a fruit salad and told her he was afraid he would have to be excused from the lunch party she had planned. ‘I have to go and see Piers Windsor. This thing is getting insupportable.’
Mrs Marshall said as far as she was concerned in that case their marriage had become insupportable, and slammed out of the room. After Nicholas Marshall had phoned Stebbings and arranged to get there as soon as he could, he went to find her and told her that not only her lunch parties and her dinner and cocktail parties, but her highly expensive home, her membership of the Country Club, her children’s school fees and her large wardrobe were all funded out of his day job, and he would prefer that she remembered that and gave him her support. Then he went and got into the Jaguar XK 120 that was the light of his life and set off for Berkshire.
Caroline Hunterton saw the article, which Cook had left lying on the kitchen table and took it upstairs to read in her bedroom.
‘What a mess,’ she remarked to her reflection in the dressing-table mirror (in the absence of anyone else to talk to), ‘what a bloody awful mess.’ She wondered if she was one of the ‘society figures’, feared she was and picked up the phone to ring Chloe. Chloe sounded very upset.
‘But at least it’s finally galvanized Piers into some action. He’s agreed to go ahead with the writ. A bit late, but still. Nicholas Marshall is on his way over.’
Richard Beauman read the article in his large neo-Georgian house in St John’s Wood in a state of mounting rage. Bloody Graphic, conducting what amounted to a spoiler campaign, making the book old news before it was even finished, probably reducing his chances of getting the fifty thousand pounds he had hoped for from the Daily News; he phoned Henry Chancellor, who was lying in the bath, waiting for the call.
Henry was dismissive of his anxieties. ‘My dear Richard, it was bound to happen. It won’t make the slightest difference, merely increase the public’s appetite for the book.’
‘I doubt that,’ said Beauman. ‘And how did they get all this lowdown anyway?’
‘Oh, Richard, for heaven’s sake. Fleet Street gossip. It was bound to happen.’
‘Have you spoken to Magnus? Got his reaction? Found out who he’s been talking to?’
‘No, of course not. He keeps his phone off the hook to all intents and purposes, at the moment, and anyway, he’ll have nothing to say,’ said Henry Chancellor, who had spent most of the morning trying to raise Magnus in a state of mounting panic himself.
‘Well, there’s only one thing for it,’ said Beauman. ‘We’ll have to bring forward the publication of the book. Otherwise the whole thing is going to go stale. So you’d better get hold of your client at once, and tell him to pull his fucking finger out and get the fucking thing finished.’
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ said Henry Chancellor coolly.
Magnus Phillips read the article sitting on his motorbike on the seafront in Brighton. He had ridden down that morning, at a hundred miles an hour in a desperate bid to get away from The Tinsel Underneath, the telephone, and thoughts of Fleur FitzPatrick. So far he had only succeeded in avoiding the telephone.
Richard Beauman got into his office early next morning. He had a lot of work to do. He needed to talk to the lawyers about the legal aspects of Tinsel, he needed to write a stiff letter to the editor of the Graphic, he needed to get hold of Magnus Phillips. He called Marilyn Chapman at her home in Pinner and told her to get in as soon as she could. Marilyn said she had toothache and was hoping to go to the dentist, and Beauman said it could surely wait until the next day. Marilyn sighed and said all right, she would come in. She appeared an hour later, just before eight thirty, looking tired; her face was swollen. Richard felt something close to remorse, which faded as she slopped his coffee into his saucer, dropped the telephone when she answered it, and kept asking him what he had said as he gave her dictation.
Just after nine thirty, Mandy, the girl from reception, buzzed up to Richard; there was a lady who wanted to see him. She said her name was Lady Hunterton.
‘I don’t want to see her,’ said Richard and put the phone down. The chapter about Lady Hunterton in Tinsel was hugely interesting; if she had heard anything about it, she could be trouble. And he was not in the mood for trouble.
Mandy rang up again; Lady Hunterton wouldn’t go away, said she’d wait, ‘all day if necessary. She seems a little upset.’
‘Mandy,’ said Richard, struggling to keep his voice controlled, ‘I don’t care how upset Lady Hunterton is, just get rid of her.’
Marilyn was just thinking how unpleasant a man he was, and how she really must change jobs, and wondering how much longer she could stand her tooth, when the door burst open and a woman walked in very fast, followed by a breathless, flushed Mandy.
‘I’m so sorry, Mr Beauman, I couldn’t stop her.’
‘It’s all right, Mandy, don’t worry. Lady Hunterton, I’m afraid I’m very busy and can’t see you now. Perhaps you should have had the courtesy to make an appointment.’
‘Oh, really,’ said the woman, who was tall, slim, impeccably dressed and possessed of the inbuilt, unshakeable assurance Marilyn so admired and envied (even while she did not quite approve of it) inherent in the English upper class. ‘I think we should not discuss courtesy, Mr Beauman, because I don’t think you’d know it if it came and settled itself on your very elegant
desk. Very elegant, Mr Beauman, rosewood, eighteenth century, is it not? That must have cost a great deal of money. I wonder if it was financed by the last sordid, libellous book you published.’
‘Lady Hunterton, please –’
Marilyn Chapman sat back, enthralled. She forgot her toothache, forgot Richard Beauman’s rage; this was worth missing the dentist, missing breakfast for.
‘Mr Beauman, please be quiet. I know you plan to publish this book about my son-in-law, Piers Windsor, and I really can’t imagine that you could even begin to care how many people it hurts, how many lives are ruined. I can’t imagine you’d care about anything very much except perhaps your own ego which must greatly resemble a very large heap of excrement. I have just one thing to say to you, Mr Beauman. If you do publish it, then you can be quite sure that you are going to regret it, and cease to sleep quite so soundly in what I am sure is also a very expensive bed. Because I intend to hire private detectives and see if I can’t somehow, somewhere, find something in your past that you won’t feel entirely happy everyone knowing about, and then I intend to make sure they do. I shall talk about it on the radio and the television – because thanks to you, Mr Beauman, I fancy I am about to become a celebrity briefly, albeit a rather dubious one, and I shall tell my son-in-law and my daughter to do the same. And I shall visit your mother and tell her about it, and your wife and your children, if you have any, if you’re capable of the act of procreation which I have to say I rather doubt. Now that’s all I have to say to you. Is there anything you have to say to me, Mr Beauman?’
‘Marilyn,’ said Richard, with, Marilyn had to admit, commendable calm, ‘could you show Lady Hunterton out, please?’
‘I don’t need showing out of this rather vulgar office,’ said Caroline. ‘I can find my own way, thank you,’ but Marilyn, driven by a piece of almost maniacal courage, a plan forming with almost shocking speed in her head, stood up and took Caroline by the arm, and led her very firmly and fast out of the office, into her own small one beyond.
‘Let go of me, please,’ said Caroline, icy cold, shaking herself free, and Marilyn said, very quietly, ‘Please just let me come to the street with you, I want to say something to you.’
Caroline stared at her, and then followed her down the stairs and out on to the street; Marilyn, her heart almost stopping with terror, but still going on, on, in search of her own revenge and some sort of justice at last for the things she had seen Richard Beauman do to people, said, ‘Ring me at home tonight. After eight. Here’s my number. I think I can help.’
And then she ran back inside and up the stairs and settled in front of Richard Beauman’s desk again, and said, a demure smile on her swollen face, ‘Now where were you, when we were so rudely interrupted?’
‘Piers,’ said Caroline. ‘Piers, I’ve got to talk to you.’
‘Who’s that? Caroline? What on earth is the matter?’
Piers’s voice sounded exhausted, hoarse. He was in his hotel room, in bed; it had been his Iago night, which he found even more exhausting than Othello, for some reason he did not fully understand.
‘Nothing is the matter, Piers.’ Caroline’s voice was coolly amused. ‘But I think I have the answer. How we can stop this book. Really. Or have an extremely good try. But only you can do it.’
‘All right, Caroline,’ said Piers, his voice resigned, ‘all right. I’m listening.’
It was mid morning in Santa Barbara. Michelle Zwirn was sitting with her brother in the garden of their small house on Voluntario Street, wondering if she really had the energy after all to get her hair done, even for something as important as the concert up at the Mission that evening, when the phone rang.
‘Santa Barbara 730–4175986. Yes, sure. I’ll hold. Long distance, must be Piers,’ she called out into the garden, covering the phone with her hand. ‘Yes, Piers, yes, it’s me. I’m well, thank you. Oh, he’s pretty good too. And how are you? Good, that’s really good. Did Othello go well? Oh, Piers, I’m so pleased, and Gerard will be so terribly pleased too. Yes, and mind you send the reviews. What? Oh, Piers, I don’t think I’ve slept since I talked to that man. I could not be more sorry, you know? But he was such a charmer, and so kind, and – well, I guess I made a bad decision. Well, I know, but – yes, of course. Anything, anything. Listen, Piers, I won’t ever speak to anyone ever again, if you don’t want me to. Of course. Yes. I understand completely. No, no, I’m listening. Sure. Yes, absolutely. Goodbye, Piers, and be sure you send those reviews. All right? God bless, dear, goodbye.’
She went back out into the garden, beaming.
‘It was Piers. Listen, you know I’ve been so worried about talking to Mr Phillips about – well, about Piers. Apparently there’s some legal battle going on, and they won’t publish unless you or I give a signed statement to the effect that everything we said to Mr Phillips was true. Piers has asked us not to do that, not to give the statement, and of course I said we wouldn’t. I can tell you, Gerard Zwirn, I shall sleep easy in my bed tonight and every night if I know that book isn’t going to come out. I feel quite as if a great load has been lifted off my back. Do you want a little orange juice, dear, or are you happy with the ice tea?’
‘Mummy, you really have become the heroine of the hour,’ said Chloe, laughing with pleasure as Caroline related the story of her visit to Beaumans. ‘That is just wonderful. You are clever.’
‘Not clever, just firm,’ said Caroline. ‘I don’t like being bullied.’
‘Well, let’s hope it works.’
‘That nice Mrs Chapman is sure it will.’ She sat back, drained the glass of the large whisky Chloe had given her, and smiled complacently. ‘I greatly enjoyed it, as a matter of fact. This is very nice whisky, Chloe, I’d love another.’ She picked up The Times, started reading it absently. ‘Oh, how absurd, there’s an article here that says Margaret Thatcher, you know that terrible woman who’s making such a mess of education, should stand for leadership of the Tory Party. Well, that’ll never happen, the sky will fall first.’
‘Mummy, don’t try to change the subject. I think you’re wonderful, we all do. Ludovic told me to tell you you’re a real star and that if you ever want a job, he’ll employ you in his chambers.’
‘I can’t imagine as what,’ said Caroline. ‘I must be the most uneducated woman in England. How is Ludovic, Chloe?’
‘Oh, he’s fine, marvellous,’ said Chloe, and stopped. A faint ‘but’ hung in the air; Caroline seized upon it.
‘But?’
‘No buts,’ said Chloe firmly, ‘no buts at all. It’s obviously difficult for us at the moment, that’s all.’ She smiled brightly at her mother.
There was one though, a ‘but’, and she hardly dared even begin to look in its direction: she loved Ludovic, she adored him, and she knew he loved and adored her. But sometimes, just occasionally, the adoration seemed to be not a plus, but a minus in her life, so consuming, so demanding, so all-encompassing was it.
‘I love you more than I can tell you,’ he said, kissing her goodbye one evening, after a briefer than usual meeting in his flat, no time for more than a drink, a talk, a slightly wretched look at their situation, ‘but I do wish we could put a time limit on this thing. I can see it’s all very tough for Piers and hard on you, but I’m not made of iron, you know. I need you, Chloe, and I need to be with you. All the time. I want you to be Mrs Ingram, not Mrs Windsor. I can’t wait for ever.’
‘I know, I know,’ said Chloe, ‘I understand, Ludovic, I really do. But I just can’t do anything about it at the moment. Please, please, understand.’
‘I do understand,’ he said, releasing her, ‘I do. Just. But it isn’t easy for me. That’s all I’m saying. I want you, Chloe. I want you to myself, for myself. All of you.’
‘I know,’ said Chloe, ‘I know you do. I must go, Ludo, I’m sorry.’
Looking back over her life,
it seemed to her she had never had a time, not a week, not a day, not an hour, when she had not belonged to someone. She wondered, and scared herself by wondering it, what it would be like to belong to herself.
‘Chloe, there’s a call for you. It’s Mr Payton.’
‘Thank you, Rosemary. Joe, hallo. How are you?’
‘I’m OK, honeybunch. But I’ve got some bad news, I’m afraid.’
‘What, Joe? Not the book?’
‘Not the book. Haven’t heard a word, one way or another.’
‘Well, what then?’
‘Well – and you have to remember, this is only rumour. But it’s very informed rumour, I’m afraid.’
‘About?’
‘About the birthday honours.’
‘He’s not there?’
‘He’s not there. I’m sorry. My mole said he’d keep digging. But he thought it wasn’t hopeful. I’m afraid scandal and Honour, with a capital H, just don’t go together.’
‘Shit,’ said Chloe, the hot tears stinging behind her eyes. ‘Shit. Fucking, fucking Magnus Phillips.’
‘Chloe!’ said Joe. ‘You sound like Fleur.’
‘Good!’ said Chloe.
‘Look, Magnus,’ said Richard Beauman, ‘I don’t quite know what to do here. You say the Zwirns won’t talk. Won’t give the affidavit.’
‘That’s what I said.’
‘But why? For God’s sake? Why?’
‘I don’t know. I just don’t know. They talked before. Well, the sister did.’
‘Well, you know what the lawyers said. They had to have this. They advise strongly against publication without it.’
‘I’ve got you the other one.’
‘I know. But that’s not quite the point.’
‘Well, I’m sorry,’ said Magnus. ‘But I can’t force them.’
AN Outrageous Affair Page 83
