‘Yes, well I’m going to sound even more myself now. I have to get back. Cameo is about to foal, I don’t want to miss it.’
‘Dear God,’ he said, ‘I spend my life coming second to a horse. That’s what was wrong with our relationship, Caroline. Not Magnus Phillips.’
‘That’s untrue. And unfair. You just weren’t prepared to spend time in the country.’
‘And you weren’t prepared to spend time in London.’
‘That’s different.’
‘Why?’
‘Well –’ She laughed suddenly, put her arm through his. ‘I was going to say because the country is nice and London is horrible. But that’s not very fair, is it?’
‘No.’ They were walking towards her car which was parked in a car park near Tottenham Court Road. He looked at her suddenly, stood still, turned her to him, pushed back her red hair. ‘You’re still so beautiful, you know. More beautiful than either of those daughters of yours.’
‘Oh Joe, don’t. Of course I’m not.’
‘You are to me,’ he said, ‘and that’s saying a lot because I fancy both of them.’
‘You don’t.’
‘I most certainly do. Especially –’
‘Especially who?’
‘I was going to say Fleur, but that’s not true. Since she grew up, Chloe is gorgeous.’
‘Do you know,’ said Caroline, staring at him, ‘I never even thought of that. I can’t imagine why. How stupid, how naïve of me. You had Chloe living in your flat, Fleur in a hotel room in Los Angeles. Dear God, how dangerous.’
‘Not really,’ he said. ‘After all, I always had you, waiting at home. You seemed a better bet to me.’
Caroline was silent for a moment, looking at him, exploring his eyes. ‘And then I wasn’t there. God, I’m a bitch.’
‘Well,’ he said lightly, ‘I’ve always had a penchant for bitches. They turn me on. In fact I’m having a little trouble with a certain portion of my anatomy even now.’
Caroline looked at him; then she leant forward very gently, so that her body was against his. She opened his raincoat, and moved herself inside it. She moved tentatively again, frowning with concentration. Then she smiled; the old glorious, confident, sensuous grin.
‘Joe,’ she said, ‘Joe, I can’t leave you like this. Can I come back to your place? Straight away now?’
‘What about the foal?’ he said.
‘Oh, Jack can look after the foal,’ she said.
‘Caroline, this has to be love. Or something.’
‘Not something,’ she said, reaching up, kissing him, pushing her hands through his untidy hair. ‘But there is one condition.’
‘Yes?’
‘In the morning, we go shopping. Together. And buy you a new raincoat, this one is truly disgusting. And some new shirts. And right now, we stop off at Heals and get some new sheets. I’m not sleeping in your old ones.’
‘Who said anything about sleeping?’ said Joe.
Chloe invited Fleur and Reuben to supper in Montpelier Square that night. They were flying back to New York in the morning.
She cooked a meal herself, and they ate in the kitchen very late: Rosemary was out with her architectural student, taking a long-overdue break, and Pandora had taken a long time to settle.
‘Now I have to get on with my life,’ she said, as they sat drinking coffee, ‘whatever that might mean.’
‘Whatever you want,’ said Reuben.
‘That’s what I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I’ve never really known. I thought I wanted love and marriage and a family, but –’
‘You got that,’ said Fleur, ‘you got all of that.’
‘Not really a marriage.’
‘What’s a marriage?’ said Reuben.
Chloe stared at him. ‘What do you mean?’
He shrugged, fiddling with his wine glass. ‘It doesn’t have to be what everyone thinks.’
‘Reuben, don’t start on all that,’ said Fleur sharply. ‘We shall be hearing what Dorothy thinks in a minute.’
Reuben looked hurt.
‘Who’s Dorothy?’ said Chloe. ‘Is she your girlfriend?’
‘My therapist,’ said Reuben.
‘Ah. And what would she say about marriage?’
‘She’d say,’ he said, ‘that it should be a support system. That’s all. I think.’
‘I see. Well – that’s a very good definition. And if –’ she stopped.
‘If what?’ said Fleur.
‘If I married – someone else, I’d certainly be looking for support. So far I’ve done all the supporting.’
‘That’s tough,’ said Reuben.
‘Yes it is.’ She was silent.
Then he said, ‘Don’t rush anything. That’s important.’
Chloe looked at him and smiled, a small scared smile. ‘Is that also what Dorothy would say?’
‘Yes, it is.’
‘I’m sure she’s right. I’ll – try not to.’
‘Good.’
During the evening, Jean Potts phoned. ‘I forgot to tell you, Chloe. That man rang. Magnus Phillips.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ said Chloe. ‘Why can’t he just leave us alone? Bastard.’
‘He wanted Miss FitzPatrick.’
‘Tough shit,’ said Miss FitzPatrick. ‘What did you tell him?’
‘I told him I’d tell you he’d called, and that you and Mr Blake were flying back to New York in the morning. I have a number for him. If you want it.’
‘I don’t,’ said Fleur.
They left soon after that. Chloe saw them off with mixed feelings. She was still uneasy with Fleur, wary of her; the emotional conditioning of ten years was very strong. And she was still angry with her, without being sure why: she supposed for collaborating with Magnus Phillips. For seducing Piers. And for simply existing, being the daughter her mother had wanted, cared about, loved. But there was something else there, something growing with a kind of tentative determination: a liking. She just couldn’t help liking her. She liked her honesty, her toughness, her courage; and she trusted her. It was a very strange thing to feel about someone who had done to her what Fleur had done, but feel it she did. She knew that from now on, Fleur was absolutely on her side, with her all the way. And she was a powerful person to have on your side. There was no doubt about that. A bad enemy: but a very good friend.
And Reuben; she would miss Reuben. Several times during the past awful week, she had actually thought it would have been a lot more awful if he hadn’t been there. Which was ridiculous, for someone she had only just met, who knew nothing of her, of her marriage, of her problems. But every so often, through those terrible days, he would say something, make an observation, which was so straightforward, so true, so absolutely right, she could hardly believe she hadn’t thought of it herself; and yet she hadn’t, and it had needed saying, needed thinking, and she would feel immediately better for it.
She thought suddenly, sharply, of Ludovic; he had been so wonderful ever since, loving, caring, supporting, there when she needed him, understanding when she didn’t. She should have asked him this evening; he had wanted to be with her, and she had wanted him, of course she had. But it was Fleur and Reuben’s last evening, and she had needed to be on her own with them. Which he would probably have understood. It had just been simpler to pretend that she was going to be quite alone. That was all.
She went and looked at Pandora; she was sleeping, but she was restless. Poor little girl. She had been so wonderfully brave and good. God knows how far into her future the tentacles of this were going to reach. Probably until she died. Chloe shivered for her, went and checked on the other two. They were absolutely fine. Ned was still of an age when death was an excitement, something dramatic, something temporary, lifti
ng life out of its everyday dullness. In due course, he would expect his father to return, and then slowly, surely, grief would strike him; meanwhile he was comparatively cheerful. And Kitty understood almost none of it, only knew that Daddy had gone away; he had hardly touched on her small life, and his passing from it hardly touched her either.
Chloe got into bed, picked up a magazine and flicked through it, her head aching. She was still completely unsure of how she felt: how unhappy, how bereft, how frightened of what lay ahead. Only guilt stalked her, relentlessly, cruelly; like some great dark bird of prey. The more she thought of Piers’s problems and difficulties, of whatever it was that had driven him to kill himself, the greater the guilt became.
The cancer, Magnus Phillips’s book, her affair with Ludovic: on and on it went, wearing a groove in her weary brain. Tomorrow she had to have a meeting with Jim Prendergast; God knew what that would reveal. More problems, no doubt: debts that Piers was unable to tell her about, difficult decisions that he had felt unable to share with her. She had been a useless, lousy, selfish wife; and she had to live with the fact for the rest of her life.
Fleur, lying awake as usual, reliving the day, thought about Chloe: considered the swift reversal of hatred into liking, of suspicion into trust, of envy into sympathy. It was very strange, all of it. She would never have believed it possible. Maybe it was true, all that stuff about blood being thicker than water. If only Caroline had been a little more skilful, a little less – what – scared? they could have met, come together, discovered one another years earlier. Or could they? Thinking about it, with her usual fierce honesty, Fleur decided that actually they couldn’t. It wouldn’t have worked. Their situation had been so tortuous, so complex as to need a crisis of the proportion they had just been through to overcome it, to draw them along.
Well, it was a terrible thing to say, to think even, but if Piers had had to die, then enormous good had come of it. She tried to stifle the thought, and then thought maybe she shouldn’t. She wasn’t good at stifling thoughts anyway. Better to be honest, even with yourself.
She was sure that was what Dorothy would have said.
She was getting more than a little tired of Dorothy, and she hadn’t even met her. But it had been very nice, having Reuben there through it all. And Chloe had obviously liked him. He could hardly be more different from that boyfriend of hers, the beautiful barrister. He was nice; very nice. But – Fleur decided she really didn’t want to get into that particular but, and thought instead of the very last thing Reuben had said to her that night before they finally went into their rooms.
‘Chloe’s beautiful,’ he had said.
Fleur had looked at him with some foreboding; she knew what that meant, and it could mean trouble.
Well, she was going back now. Back to New York, back to real life, back to her consultancy, back to work. Leaving Chloe and Caroline and the mystery of Piers’s death – and it was still a mystery, she was sure of it, she was sure none of them really knew why he had done it – behind. There was still a lot of unfinished business to resolve: the burglaries, the motor accident, Magnus’s fears for her; all the reasons she had come to London, all faded into unimportance suddenly, somehow, just for a while. All no nearer resolution. Piers’s death, taking with him so many sad, terrible secrets, had increased her need to know, to understand, to solve her father’s own mystery, his own sad secrets. Only Magnus could tell her, only Magnus could help. She had to see him, had to confront him: and yet she shrank from it, from what it would do to her. She would get back to New York, back in control of her life, and then she would see him. Over there, on her own ground. She could deal with it better over there. Fleur wrenched her mind away from Magnus with immense effort. It was over, it had never begun, it was nothing: and in time, she would learn to accept that and the thought of him would cease to filter into everything she did and thought and felt and knew. He was a lousy, two-timing bastard, and she hated him. She had to get over him, forget his occupation of her body, and her heart and her head, and get on with her life.
There was nothing else she could possibly do.
In the bedroom of his friend’s house in Brighton, Magnus Phillips lay awake and thought about Fleur. Seeing her on television that day had shocked him: the strength of what he felt for her. He wanted to see her now more than he had ever wanted anything: to be with her, near her; to touch her, feel her, tell her he loved her.
But – it was much better that he didn’t. If anything was not to be it was him and her. She was in love with someone else, and he had no right to disturb that. He loved her so much he could do that for her at least. She was probably even married already; he had come over here with her, after all. All he could do was stay away, and learn to stop thinking about her. It was going to take all his concentration, all his powerful energies; but he was going to have to do it, drive her out of his head. Somehow. For her sake.
Magnus wasn’t used to unselfish thoughts, unselfish emotions; so alien were they to him, he managed to find them quite interesting. Examining them, he finally fell asleep.
August – October 1972
‘Well, now what do we do?’ Richard Beauman looked at Magnus across his desk.
Magnus shrugged. ‘We can publish if we want to. You can’t libel the dead.’
‘True. There’s the other matter of course.’
‘Yes, but we have the affidavit there. No problem. And no injunction to worry about either.’
‘Sure. On the other hand –’
‘I know what you’re going to say. On the other hand, it would be a terrible thing to do. To publish now. With the tragedy. The young widow. The tiny children –’
‘Magnus, really! You sound not entirely sincere.’
‘Of course I’m sincere. People would hate it. We’d quite possibly even be blamed for being a factor in his death. There’d be a backlash – and,’ he grinned, ‘we wouldn’t sell nearly so many copies.’
‘Ah,’ said Beauman, ‘now we’re coming to it. Absolutely right. Even with the – other matter.’
‘So probably,’ said Magnus, ‘we should shelve it for six months, and then hit ’em with it. The story will then seem doubly tragic, doubly sweet. Well, Windsor’s story at any rate.’
‘Right,’ said Beauman, ‘let’s do that. I’ll put out a press release that we’re not publishing. Just to the trade of course.’
‘Of course,’ said Magnus. ‘I might even be able to rest easy on my motorbike. For a while.’
‘So now what do we do?’ Chloe sat looking at Jim Prendergast, her eyes rather wide and anxious.
‘Well, you’ll have to sell both the houses, I’m afraid. The horses. He’d already sold all his shares.’
‘It’s that bad?’
‘It’s that bad. I’m sorry, Chloe. I really thought he’d told you?’
‘He didn’t tell me anything,’ said Chloe briefly. She sighed, heavily. ‘Where’s it all gone, Jim? I don’t understand.’
‘He was immensely extravagant. That was the main thing. He lived far beyond his means. Always robbing Peter to pay Paul. Over-extended. Both houses mortgaged twice. He’d lost a lot of money in a couple of his ventures. That play The Kingdom, for instance. And he put a lot of money into the Dream.’
‘Yes, but that made a fortune.’
‘It didn’t actually, Chloe. It won three Oscars, and great critical acclaim as they say, but it didn’t do very well at the box-office. And running two large households and things like lavish parties and racehorses don’t come cheap. As I’m sure you must realize.’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘I think as long as he was up and running, he felt he could win. Next time, next film, next race, it would be all right. And of course while he was so successful, people were patient. They’d wait. He has an enormous number of unpaid bills. Stables, tailors, builders, you name it. An
d then all these good works of his, donations here, there and everywhere, he was insanely generous . . .’
‘Yes,’ said Chloe, ‘yes, I know.’
‘So now what do we do?’ Ludovic’s face was kind, concerned, but at the same time cheerful. ‘You let me help you, that’s what we do. In all kinds of ways. Financially first and foremost: I don’t want any nonsense, Chloe darling, I’m not exactly on the breadline. I can’t save Stebbings, of course, or the stables, but I would like to buy you a little house – think of it as buying us a little house – somewhere in London, and pick up the school fees for now, so you don’t have any immediate worries. I can’t bear to see you looking like that. It must be such a nightmare for you, as if you didn’t have enough to cope with, and it doesn’t bear thinking about what a nightmare it must have been for Piers, but I do think, darling, you have to face the fact that it must have been a very big factor in tipping him over the edge. It might even make you feel better. Less guilty. Because –’
‘Ludovic,’ said Chloe, ‘Ludovic, you don’t understand. It makes me feel far far worse. That he couldn’t tell me about it, share all this with me. Everything I find out, I feel more and more guilty. Every day.’
‘So what do we do now?’ Caroline looked at Joe, her eyes alarmed. ‘She seems to be close to bankruptcy. Everything has to go. The houses, the cars, the lot. God, that man –’
‘Caroline, don’t. It doesn’t help.’
‘I know. But I could – I was going to say kill him. Leaving his affairs in this mess, no will, appalling debts. Poor little Chloe. With all that grief and guilt, and now this to cope with as well. Thank God, thank God, that book isn’t going to be published now.’
‘Yes, good for God. Caroline, can’t you help? With the money.’
‘Of course I can help. I’ve offered to buy her a house, set up a trust fund for the children’s education, everything. She just keeps saying no, no, she wants to manage on her own. She seems to think she has to, that she doesn’t deserve any help, can’t take it. She looks terrible, Joe, I just don’t know what to do with her.’
AN Outrageous Affair Page 92
