Wicked Pleasures

by Penny Vincenzi

  Virginia was not there; she had gone out early, Angie said, to see some prospective clients. She had actually given Angie a list and some telephone numbers. But she was not seeing any clients, she was driving extremely fast down the M4 and when the police stopped her she was so drunk she could hardly stand up to get out of the car.

  She finally saw a psychiatrist. He sent her to hospital for detoxification. He told her it wasn’t a permanent solution, that was in her hands, but it was the first step; he told her that alcoholism was a form of self-destruction, and that she must try to analyse why she was following such a course. He told Alexander afterwards that he was baffled by her case, but that the one thing that had emerged was that Virginia found the thought of being at Hartest almost unendurable. ‘Presumably because of the child, and the fact that it’s buried there. She wants to stay in London for a while. I would advise that very strongly.’

  It was the third day, the third day without a drink. It was awful, but not as bad as she had expected. The worst thing was the fear; the fear. The nameless fear, the sense of impending doom that hung over her. And then there was another fear, even worse, not nameless at all, that of having to live without alcohol. That was terrible.

  Virginia sat in her small room at the clinic and tried not to think about life without alcohol. But she couldn’t. She was supposed to be reading, but she couldn’t concentrate. She had a box of chocolates to eat, but she didn’t want them. All she could think about was what her life was going to be like in the future, if she achieved what now at last seemed just possible. No lovely, heady buzz as the champagne hit her bloodstream; no slipping into unselfconscious confidence at parties and at the dinner table; no swift numbing of the headaches and backaches that plagued her; no instant easing of her pain as she thought, more fiercely, more agonizingly every day, of her tiny dead baby. And good food without wine; and sunbathing without wine; and chatting easily with friends over an endless lunch without wine; and not having a glass of whisky; and coping with a rude, difficult client and not rewarding herself with a martini. The whole thing looked intolerable.

  And then she had hurt. She had hurt all over. Her head hurt, her eyes hurt, even her teeth ached. A drink would ease all of that. The doctor said it was temporary, that sort of pain; but it didn’t feel temporary. She remembered something Scott Fitzgerald had said: that he had never managed to be sober long enough to enjoy it. She knew what he meant. It was hard to imagine enjoying this condition. And harder to visualize it becoming normal.

  But whatever she was going through, she seemed to be at least managing. It wasn’t so bad, she kept saying to herself fiercely, desperately trying to force her concentration on her book. It wasn’t so bad.

  That night it got really bad. She felt terrible. She couldn’t stand it. Terror gripped her. She looked at the clock. Three. Three a.m. They had said insomnia would probably trouble her. Trouble her! This wasn’t trouble, it was a screaming agony. Terror. Physical pain. She had to do something, anything. Otherwise she would run away, find an off-licence, smash a window, anything to get a drink.

  What had he said, her therapist? Think of ten minutes. You can survive anything for ten minutes. Ten minutes will do it. OK, she’d do it. She fixed her eyes on her clock. Five minutes. No better. Eight. Ten. Ten minutes more of it she had survived. And it was worse. Far worse. They’d lied. Christ, what could she do?

  The phone! That was it, they had said always phone. Phone her therapist. He would be on call. Night and day. He would help her through it. She lifted the phone, pressed his extension.

  ‘Yes,’ said an instantly alert voice.

  ‘It’s Virginia here. Please come. I can’t stand it.’

  ‘Virginia,’ said the voice, soothing, tolerant, almost amused. ‘You can stand it. You’ve done so well. Of course you can.’

  ‘I can’t. I need you.’

  ‘I’ll come in the morning.’

  ‘I can’t wait until then,’ she said, her voice cracking with pain.

  ‘Yes you can. Think hourself through it. Remember hitting rock bottom. Remember what it was like. You don’t want to go back there. Do you, Virginia? Remember the ten minutes. You can hang on for ten minutes. Ten minutes at a time.’

  ‘I just did.’

  ‘Good. Well there you are. You can do another ten. And another. Make yourself some herb tea. Do you have plenty?’

  ‘I don’t want herb tea,’ she cried in agony, ‘I want a drink. Please, please come.’

  His voice changed. ‘All right. I’ll come.’

  He sat and talked to her for an hour, sharing a pot of herb tea. The pain eased, the panic passed. At six she was asleep. He looked at her thoughtfully. She had not been such a heavy drinker, and yet her withdrawal was so bad. Why? She was an interesting case.

  Remember your rock bottom, they had said. It was important to recognize that. Hers had come when she had come to herself, vomiting and half clutching a bottle of whisky and scrabbling at the baby’s grave. That was when she had known she had to give in and go to the clinic. Listen to Alexander, do what the doctors said. In a way it was a good thing it had been so bad, such a terrible rock bottom, so utterly, dreadfully ugly and humiliating. Stabbing Alexander in the neck, getting charged with drink-driving, they hadn’t been real rock-bottom things. But lying on the grave, that was. She had to come back from there. She had to.

  She was a difficult patient. She didn’t really participate in the group discussions, and in her one-to-one sessions with the psychiatrist, she was reserved too. You must talk, they said, you must try to realize what first triggered off your dependence. Oh, she would say vaguely one day, it was the postnatal depression. Another it would be her low self-esteem because of her childhood, always feeling Baby was doing better than her. Then it would be her dead baby. Never consistent, never letting go.

  She showed the anger, the ‘reservoir of rage’ that therapists all know in alcoholics, but she never revealed the real reason for that either. Once she almost did; she said, ‘All right I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you, are you ready for it, because I’m going to tell you,’ and then she didn’t, she said no, she wouldn’t, she couldn’t, she hardly knew herself any more, and retreated once again into her shell of solitary pain.

  But she didn’t drink. She had stopped drinking.

  She was totally resistant to going back to Hartest. She said she could manage in the clinic, she could probably cope with London, even with New York if necessary, but not Hartest. It was asking too much. Nobody understood why. They asked her, but she couldn’t tell them. Or wouldn’t.

  After three weeks in the clinic she went home to the house in Eaton Place. She was terribly frightened, she clung to Alexander’s hand, and as the car pulled up in front of the house she looked at him, stricken, and said, ‘What will they all think, how am I going to face them?’

  ‘They will all think you are brave and strong and they will be pleased to have you home,’ he said, kissing her gently. ‘Angie’s in there, she’s dying to see you, she needs your help and opinion on so many things. Lady Price Somebody or other is driving her mad. Come in, Virginia, don’t be frightened. And I’ll be with you.’

  She tried to work, because she knew it would help, but it was very hard. She was emotionally and physically weak. She was aware of what a strain she was putting on Angie, even to insist on trying, but she couldn’t help it. In fact things were very bad; they had scarcely any clients left. Perversely she didn’t mind; she told Angie they could start again, that it would be fun.

  It wasn’t much fun though; it took weeks to get even one client. Then she found it hard to concentrate, to care even, and lost her again. Which upset her horribly, sent her into paroxysms first of weeping, then of rage.

  She was sitting at her desk, next morning, staring out of the window, wondering if life was ever going to be anything remotely the same again, when Angie came in. She looked tense, oddly defiant.

  ‘I have to talk to you,’ she said.

 
; ‘Yes? What about?’

  ‘I’ve decided to leave.’

  Virginia stared at her, trying to make sense of what she had heard. ‘I don’t understand,’ she said.

  ‘It isn’t very difficult,’ said Angie, and there was a degree of impatience and something else – scorn? – in her voice that hurt Virginia almost more than anything else. ‘I’m leaving. I’m sorry, when you’re so down, but I am.’

  ‘Angie, you can’t,’ said Virginia, ‘I need you so much at the moment.’

  ‘Well I’m sorry,’ said Angie again, ‘but I really have tried very hard, Virginia, to be a support and everything. But it’s been – well, never mind what it’s been. The thing is, I want to move on. M. Wetherly has offered me a job in America. It’s a big opportunity, and I really want to go.’

  ‘But Angie –’Virginia stopped suddenly. There was no future in crying, or arguing. She could see very clearly, in Angie’s green, clear-sighted eyes, what she was actually saying. That she had had enough. More than enough. And hurt as she was, she did not feel she could entirely blame her.

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘of course you must go. I can’t expect you to stay here looking after me for ever.’

  ‘No,’ said Angie. ‘I’m afraid you can’t.’

  That stung badly; Virginia stared back at her, hoping the pain didn’t show.

  ‘Well,’ she said again, forcing herself to sound bright, ‘you’ll be able to meet Baby at last. I’ll tell him you’re coming, and that he must take care of you.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t need taking care of,’ said Angie. ‘I’ll be fine, just fine.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Virginia, and she was aware of the edge in her voice as she spoke, ‘yes, I think you probably will.’

  Angie left for America a month later, flew into Kennedy at dusk on a cold, windy evening, and as she struggled wearily out of what seemed like hours in Immigration, her luggage on a trolley, thinking how foolish she had been not to wait until M. Wetherly had come back from a trip to the Bahamas before embarking on her new life, the most beautiful man she had ever seen in her life stepped forward, smiling at her, taking her trolley. He was broadly built, and very tall, and dressed in an extremely well-cut grey suit with a cream button-down-collar shirt and a red tie. His teeth were almost unnaturally white and even, his skin almost too perfectly tanned, his eyes almost unbelievably blue, and as she stood there staring at him, literally weak at the knees, he said, ‘You are Angie, aren’t you? I’m Baby Praeger. Virgy told me to be sure to meet you, and I can tell you now I’ve seen you, I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.’

  Chapter 6

  Baby, 1967–8

  Tidings of Joy The Countess of Caterham, the beautiful American-born wife of Alexander, Earl of Caterham, has finally given birth to a longed-for boy, heir to the title and to Hartest, the exquisite family seat in Wiltshire. The baby, whose name has still not been confirmed, and who will be styled Viscount Hadleigh, was born in the London Clinic two weeks ago. Lord Caterham, speaking from the family’s London house in Eaton Place last night, said that the baby was extremely strong and healthy, and that his wife is recovering fast and is overjoyed. ‘This is a marvellous early Christmas present,’ he said. The Earl said that his two daughters, the Lady Charlotte and the Lady Georgina Welles (pictured here at the annual Midsummer Garden Party at Hartest), were thrilled with their new brother, and were busy choosing names for him.

  Viscount Hadleigh’s christening will be held in the chapel at Hartest.

  Conspicuously absent from the christenings of the two girls was the Dowager Lady Caterham, who lives as a virtual recluse in her home in the Scottish Highlands. There is much speculation as to whether she may now make the journey to England in order to meet her grandson; a source close to the family told me last night that she strongly disapproved of her son marrying an American and that she has refused to meet her daughter-in-law on those grounds. The Earl, who is still close to his mother, denies this, and says it is simply her increasingly frail health that has kept her from meeting Lady Caterham. Neighbours in the Trossachs report frequent sightings of the Dowager Countess fishing in her thigh-high waders.

  ‘Bloody Dempster,’ said Alexander, flinging the Daily Mail across the room. ‘Why can’t he leave us all alone? God knows the trouble this will cause.’

  ‘Because he’s paid not to leave us all alone,’ said Virginia, who was fond of Nigel Dempster and had benefited from time to time from publicity in his column. ‘Digging dirt is his job. He always says that if there’s no story he can’t write it. We should all keep our noses cleaner. And if you’re talking about your mother, I hope it makes her feel at least a little uncomfortable.’

  ‘It won’t,’ said Alexander shortly.

  Nanny came in. ‘Your ladyship, the baby is crying,’ she said. ‘I suppose you’ll want to feed him.’

  ‘I suppose I will, Nanny,’ said Virginia. ‘I’ll come up.’

  ‘You do realize that it’s a quarter past nine,’ said Nanny with a wealth of meaning in her voice.

  ‘Yes I do, Nanny. Thank you.’

  ‘I’ll get him up then,’ said Nanny with a heavy sigh. ‘I hope we won’t regret it later. As he’s a boy.’ She left the room, her back rigid with disapproval. Virginia winked at Alexander and stood up.

  ‘What on earth was that about?’ said Alexander.

  ‘Babies don’t get fed at a quarter past nine,’ said Virginia. ‘They get fed at ten. And two. And six. And ten again. The most dreadful things happen otherwise. Everybody knows that.’

  ‘I seem to remember Charlotte and Georgina being fed more or less when they wanted it.’

  ‘Yes they were. But as Nanny says, this baby is a boy. He has to be brought up properly right from the beginning. No newfangled demand feeding for him. He’s got to go to Eton, after all.’ She smiled at Alexander’s slightly bemused expression and went over and kissed him. ‘Don’t worry, darling. He’ll survive it.’

  The baby was christened Maximilian Frederick Alexander six weeks later. He was a most engaging child, blond and blue-eyed like Alexander, and smiled squintily at anyone who came into his rather hazy orbit. He was a quiet and peaceful baby, needing a feed only every five hours; Nanny, who might have been expected to be pleased by this, said it was confusing and she never knew where she was, one night she had to get up at three to give him his bottle and the next night at four. When Max, as everyone called him, obliged her by sleeping right through the night from ten till seven in the morning when he was only six weeks old, she was very put out, and said she had always known that this kind of thing would lead to trouble later.

  Sitting gazing out at the endless wastes of the Arctic below him, Baby, who as godfather had attended the christening, ordered a double bourbon. He always needed something strong before he faced the combination of Mary Rose and his father. They were a formidable team.

  Initially he knew Fred III had not especially liked Mary Rose; what Baby had seen then as a tantalizing coolness, Fred had interpreted (correctly, Baby reflected gloomily, gulping gratefully at the bourbon) as coldness, distance, lack of any sense of fun. But as time went by, it became borne in upon Fred that Mary Rose was a brilliantly successful company wife. Fred lost no opportunity to point this out to Baby. Not only did she entertain tirelessly for the bank, she associated herself very publicly with causes and charities which would benefit it. And if there was one thing Fred cared about more than his wife and children it was Praegers. He had grown up watching his father managing the bank less than brilliantly, had heard tales from the older members of staff how near it had come to being entirely lost, and he had a morbid fear of this happening again, and of his own son being a less than perfect guardian for Praegers. Baby knew this; and he realized as the years went by that he was not the natural instinctive banker his father was. He lacked his flair, his vision, his sense of timing. The knowledge made him nervous; and so did Fred’s highly visible monitoring of his increasingly weak performance. And the further real
ization that Fred and Mary Rose seemed to be joined in a critical conspiracy was undermining Baby’s confidence seriously. As the criticism mounted, he took refuge in other things, other pursuits, mainly that of fun. He sought out old friends from his bachelor days, spent weekends sailing with them, evenings playing poker, going to old haunts, getting drunk. And being who he was, high profile, word go around. And Fred had been very displeased and Mary Rose had been very displeased; and the two of them had formed an alliance which as far as Baby was concerned was painful.

  But over the past few months he had been working very hard to redeem himself. Partly because he knew he had to if he was to take over Praegers before reaching his own retirement age, and partly for another reason altogether: a very different, happier, but equally powerful reason for becoming his own man, in command of his own destiny. He had shunned the poker games and the drinking clubs; had worked late and worked hard, had joined Mary Rose on her charity committees, had spent long hours discussing Praegers’ future and the way it should go with Fred.

  And it was beginning to work; winning him back Fred’s respect, increasing his self-confidence, improving his own performance as a result. Nevertheless, he still frequently felt like a naughty child on probation; and after an absence, an escape from the surveillance, such as he had just enjoyed, going back oppressed him.

  There was of course another, happier aspect to the situation …

  That spring Fred III and Betsey suggested Virginia brought all the children to stay for the Easter vacation. Fred’s love affair with Charlotte had burgeoned during her long stay with her grandparents while Virginia had been ill; he had spoilt her outrageously, and had even taken the unprecedented move of taking an afternoon out from the bank (‘He certainly never did that for me,’ Betsey had remarked tartly) and escorted her to the theatre or the movies; they had seen Mame and Cabaret and the all-black version of Hello Dolly which was the great rage on Broadway, and he had taken her to Radio City which she adored, and the Beatles’ all-cartoon movie, Yellow Submarine. He also took her to Lord and Taylor’s and Saks and Bonwits and bought her stacks of clothes, anything she fancied; Betsey said, half amused, half shocked, that Charlotte was the only child she had ever actually known who had her own Chanel bag, and she had stopped Fred III from buying Charlotte a fur coat with great difficulty.