‘But Jeremy, where are we? Is this some kind of a night club?’
‘It is not,’ he said, sounding mildly indignant. ‘It’s my – workroom.’
The door opened into a small lobby; he pushed it open without switching on the light. Charlotte gasped aloud. She seemed to be standing in the middle of the night sky. She was in a large room, two walls of which were windows; presumably they were on the extreme outside edge of the building, and it had some complex, geometric structure. The view was breathtaking; she could see the graceful lace-like shape of the Chrysler, the great pointing needle of the Empire State and a hundred others, the lights shining starrily at her against the dark sky. The room had a marble floor and marble walls, and was almost entirely unfurnished apart from a couple of large couches in the window. She realized there were some very dim lights set in the walls; Jeremy turned a switch by the door and they brightened slowly. There was a discreet cough; Charlotte turned and saw a waiter in full white-tied splendour standing in the doorway.
‘Shall I serve the champagne, sir?’
‘Yes, Dawson, do. Thank you.’
Dawson withdrew; Charlotte looked at Jeremy, her eyes wide and sparkling.
‘Jeremy, whatever is going on?’
‘Dinner. In a minute. First a drink. Thank you, Dawson.’
‘But where are we?’
‘I told you. In my workroom. This is where I work. Where I think, and have ideas. There’s what you might call a studio through there. And when it gets very late, I don’t go home. Hence the kitchen. Oh, and there is also a bed.’
‘I just thought there might be,’ said Charlotte tartly.
Jeremy looked hurt. ‘You just thought wrong. It’s a single bed.’
‘Yes, I know the New Yorker’s idea of a single bed,’ said Charlotte. ‘It would contain a whole English family. Let me see this studio.’
Jeremy handed her a glass of champagne, and took her hand.
‘It’s here,’ he said, leading her through the lobby again. The studio was parallel to the first room, and almost as big; it did indeed have a huge artist’s desk in it, completely empty of pencils, paints or paper. There were two plan chests, a table with a computer terminal on it, and some architectural drawings hung round the wall. It did not look as if it was very frequently used.
‘Very nice,’ said Charlotte. ‘I can see you burn the midnight oil here a lot.’
‘Come and eat,’ said Jeremy, ‘you must be starving.’
Dawson served dinner with extreme formality at a table which he produced from the kitchen and set up in the wall-windowed room. It was a superb meal – ‘Very light,’ said Jeremy, ‘as it’s a little late’ – asparagus, salmon in filo pastry, and summer pudding. ‘I know it’s only spring, but I like to look forward.’
Charlotte wasn’t really hungry, but Jeremy was so pleased with the meal he had orchestrated, so eager to give her pleasure, it seemed churlish not to eat. She drank as little as she could, aware of the dangers of getting even mildly muddle-headed, but the champagne in the car and the second helping on arrival had shot into her bloodstream dangerously fast. By the time she had finished her summer pudding, she was pleasantly confused about exactly where she was, precisely why she was there, and certainly about how she was going to get home.
If Jeremy had set out to disarm her, she thought, he was going the right way about it. He had made no attempt to seduce her, had not even tried to flatter her; he had simply talked, charmingly and amusingly, about himself, and had led her, equally charmingly, to talk about her own life; Charlotte, who had thought she was too tired to speak at all, heard herself talking easily and happily about her childhood, her schooldays, Hartest, her family, her relationship with her grandfather, and then less happily about her hopes and fears for herself at the bank. ‘It’s so horribly complex. It sounds so wonderful, doesn’t it, just to inherit this huge golden egg, and it is, I suppose, but it’s a nightmare as well. So many people resenting me, jealous of me; I still have to take a deep breath before I walk into the restaurant at lunchtime, even though at last I have some friends. But they’re outnumbered by the enemies.’
‘You poor kid,’ said Jeremy, looking at her, sympathy liquid in his light brown eyes. ‘Did you ever think it would be so bad?’
‘Stupidly, no. I suppose I realized Freddy would be upset, but I didn’t bargain on the remaining ninety-nine per cent of the bank.’
‘I don’t really see it, I must say,’ he said, reaching to refill her glass. Dawson had disappeared into some discreet back room. ‘I mean, Praegers have always inherited the bank. It’s been passed on for – what – four, five generations. Nobody resented Baby or even Freddy.’
‘Yes, but I’m not a Praeger. I’m a stuck-up English debutante with a very dubious claim to my position, apart from being my grandfather’s favourite. Poised to throw my weight about, cash in on a lot of unearned benefits, all that sort of thing.’
‘Whose words are those? Gabe’s?’
‘Yes. And everybody else’s. Gabe is the only person who speaks them, that’s all.’
‘He clearly is a very charming young man,’ said Jeremy lightly. ‘Does your grandfather know about all this?’
‘No,’ said Charlotte, looking at him with alarm in her eyes, ‘and he is not to, either. He already practically killed me for what he called whingeing to a client.’
‘Tell me about that.’
She told him; in her exhausted over-emotional state, remembering that day, her hurt at being excluded so brutally from the Christmas lunch, her eyes suddenly filled with tears. Jeremy looked at her and his expression was very tender.
‘Poor darling,’ he said, covering her hand with his. ‘How vile. I wish I’d been there.’
‘It would have been worse if you had,’ said Charlotte, smiling at him weakly, and withdrawing her hand rather too hastily. ‘I’d have cried all over you too.’
‘And I should have taken you off for a most extravagant and wonderful lunch and dried your tears.’
‘Well,’ she said, smiling at him slightly shakily, ‘you weren’t.’
‘Do you ever think of giving up? Going back to England and doing something else?’
‘Never,’ said Charlotte simply. ‘Never for a single instant.’
‘Well you’re a brave girl. Why not?’
‘Firstly,’ she said simply, ‘because I love it. And secondly because I’m not going to let them beat me.’
Later, much later, he began to talk about himself. Charlotte had no idea what the time was; everything had lost any sense of perspective, she seemed to be inhabiting some strange world with no conventional areas of time and space. She was no longer tired, but in an oddly calm, slightly distant state. They had moved to one of the couches; Dawson had brought in, at Jeremy’s request, a large pot of coffee. Charlotte had looked at it, and asked if she could possibly have tea. ‘How very English. Of course you can. Can’t she, Dawson?’
‘Of course, sir.’ He reappeared five minutes later with a silver tray laid with cup, milk, sugar, hot water, and a huge variety of tea bags, Indian, China, fruit and herb of every possible description, and withdrew again with a slight bow.
Charlotte giggled. ‘I’m sure if I’d asked for Horlicks, he’d have delivered it.’
‘Of course he would. That’s what he’s there for.’
‘Not to act as chaperon for hapless young girls?’
‘I don’t think you’re hapless at all,’ he said, looking at her very seriously. ‘And no, not at all. He has a very efficient blind eye which he can turn when required.’
‘I see.’ She looked at him thoughtfully. ‘How extremely spoilt you are. How does it feel, Mr Foster, to be the man who has everything?’
‘I wouldn’t know,’ he said, ‘I am nothing of the sort, you see.’ And he set out to disabuse her of any notion that he did indeed have everything and was therefore happy. He had everything certainly, he said, that money could buy, but that was most assuredly not enough.
Charlotte, who had grown up on the fringes of great wealth, while not actually possessing it, was nevertheless intrigued by the stories: the private jets to take him to wherever he wanted on a whim, the island bought for a house party, and used only two days a year, the house in Jamaica built and never occupied, the fleet of servants in every house, the bodyguards, the helicopters, the yachts, the endless trail of parties, of beautiful women, of the quest for pleasure. He talked of it not boastfully, but casually, almost sadly.
‘All I ever wanted,’ he said, ‘was love.’
‘But you’ve been married to Isabella for eight years,’ said Charlotte. ‘That must mean something.’
‘It means we suit one another very well,’ he said. ‘I don’t make demands on her, nor she on me, except socially. Our secretaries put our diaries together, once a week, and the result of that liaison is a mass of parties, dinners, benefits, trips. But we are two lonely people. Or certainly one lonely person.’
‘And what are you looking for?’ said Charlotte interestedly.
‘Oh,’ he said, reaching out and stroking her cheek, ‘I am looking most tirelessly for love.’ There was a long silence; her head was spinning very slowly and gently.
‘And if you found love,’ she said, ‘would things change? Would you and Isabella cease to suit one another?’
‘I can’t tell you that,’ he said, picking up her hand and kissing it. ‘I have never quite discovered it. I have come near, but not near enough.’
‘Well,’ said Charlotte, helping herself to some more tea in an attempt to become sober, ‘speaking for myself, the order would have to be a little different. I would have no wish to start helping you to find love, and then be relegated to a subclause in a weekly meeting between two secretaries.’
Jeremy looked at her, and his eyes were very dark, very searching. ‘I think I can promise you,’ he said, ‘that if we were to find love, you and I, then I should want to change things very quickly. Very quickly indeed.’
‘Well,’ said Charlotte, confused, almost frightened by the turn the conversation, their evening, was taking, telling herself he was a master at such pretty speeches, even while she enjoyed it, ‘well Jeremy, I don’t imagine it’s going to happen.’ She stood up rather purposefully. ‘It’s been lovely. Really really lovely. But it’s –’ she looked at her watch – ‘five o’clock. I have to be in the office by seven. Will you have your very discreet driver take me home?’
He looked at her and sighed. ‘Dear me,’ he said, ‘the English schoolgirl again. So sensible.’
Charlotte felt stung, horribly hurt, thinking how this quality she projected hung about her, how often Gabe had taunted her about it, and her brother too. She flushed, and felt tears rising behind her eyes. Her head cleared suddenly. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Sorry to be so English, so sensible.’ She turned away. ‘I don’t always mean to be.’
‘Charlotte,’ said Jeremy, and his voice was very soft, ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. I like the Englishness, really I do. I think it’s very – sweet.’
‘Do you?’ said Charlotte with a sigh. ‘Most people don’t. Most people think it’s awful.’
‘Well I don’t. And I’d like to say thank you for listening to me. Being with me. It’s been a wonderful – evening. Will you join me here again? Some time?’
‘Well – perhaps,’ she said, ‘I’m not sure that it’s entirely a good idea.’
‘You’re very sure of yourself, aren’t you?’ he said, standing up, looking down at her rather sadly. ‘Very self-confident. I envy you.’
‘Oh, Jeremy,’ said Charlotte, smiling at him in a genuine disbelief, ‘how can you say such a thing? You aren’t exactly a poor shy blushing violet yourself. As we say in England,’ she added.
‘Well, now there you’re wrong,’ said Jeremy, and the dark sadness was behind his eyes again. ‘Very wrong. I would give the world to be self-confident, to know what I really want to say and do. As you so clearly do. That’s very difficult, you know, when you have a father like mine. Even when he’s dead.’
‘You must miss him,’ said Charlotte suddenly.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘yes, I do. Very much. He might have been domineering and demanding, but he was the kindest person I ever knew. I feel – very tired, very weighed down without him. And it’s such a special relationship, isn’t it, with one’s father?’
Charlotte stared at him, and felt an overwhelming sadness herself, not just at his loneliness, his clearly genuine grief, but at her own sad half-father, whom she loved so much, lost to her also for so much of her life these days; and she thought of her other father, and all the years they had spent without one another’s company, and her eyes filled with tears again, and Jeremy stood up, and took her quite quietly and gently in his arms, and said, ‘Charlotte, poor sweet Charlotte, don’t cry, don’t,’ and the sadness, combined with her exhaustion and with the strangeness and excitement of the situation she found herself in, and her earlier, disturbing exchange with Gabe, all suddenly blended, transformed into something intense and overwhelming, and before she could even begin to analyse it, she felt it, felt it in her body, warm, liquid, almost shocking, and Jeremy recognized it, felt it too, and he drew her more strongly against him, and said her name just once, again, very quietly and then he started to kiss her, tenderly, sweetly, and Charlotte, afraid suddenly, cautious, anxious, drew back. Whatever happened, however hurt, however angry he was, she must not, could not let this thing go any further. It was wilfully, stupidly dangerous, and she had to get away, quickly, at once, before any harm was done.
‘There you go again,’ he whispered, very quietly, his hands in her hair, ‘the cool, self-contained little English girl,’ and a shock of anger and of pain shot through Charlotte, in some strange way increasing her hunger, and in that moment she forgot everything, all sense, all caution, and as much to rid herself of that label, that awful, bossy, schoolgirly label, as to satisfy her aching need, she drew herself against him again, her own mouth searching, soft, not in the least self-contained.
And then without knowing quite how, she was lying on a bed, in the room beyond the studio, and Jeremy was very tenderly, very carefully, in between kissing her with increasing urgency, removing her clothes with a swift, clearly highly practised skill, and again without analysing how, she was naked, quite quite naked, and so was he, kneeling above her, smiling at her, and her body was crying out for him, longing to feel him, to have him there, there in her; she could feel her hunger for him growing, burgeoning, like some slowly opening flower, she was soft, warm, liquid for him, longing to be filled, she could no more have denied him and herself than leapt out of the great window into the night sky. She opened her arms, and he came into them, and lay above her, gently, carefully; she could feel his penis growing now, pressing against her, towards her, beginning to be in her, and she moved gently, thrusting at him, and he began to kiss her breasts, very lightly, carefully, slowly, teasing the nipples with his tongue, drawing back, looking at her, and then down again, kissing, warm, languorous, infinitely tender, and each time the hunger darted down, down through her body, trailing heat and something that was almost pain in its wake; and she opened to him, on and on, drawing him into her, insistently, urgently, and she could feel the great depths of her desire lighten into something nearer pleasure, a rising, a reaching to him and for him. He was kissing her mouth now, his own slow, gentle, and his hands were beneath her, holding, moulding her buttocks; she was quite quite lost to everything, everything but a fierce concentration that was not just physical, but emotional as well, a longing, a desperation for release. She was sweating, thrusting at him frantically, in a swift, almost jerking rhythm, her body arched, her head thrown back, careless of everything but her own need; her entire physical existence concentrated into the approach of her climax, and she saw it as a brilliance before her, heard it as a thunder in her ears, and she cried out again, and again, and thrust frantically on and on, and it was there, there, granted
to her, a sweet, fierce, nearly painful thing, tumbling, falling endlessly, spreading out and out in great circles of pleasure within her, and finally finally it was over, fading into quiescence, and she opened her eyes, and saw Jeremy above her, smiling at her, tender, but strangely triumphant; and with a pang that abruptly and hideously removed all the pleasure, at a single stroke, in a single moment, she realized exactly, precisely, what a dangerous thing she had done.
Chapter 33
Baby, early spring 1985
Baby was sweating slightly. The doctor seemed to be taking a phenomenally long time over his examination. He was peering into his eyes now, first one then the other, grunting and hmm-ing. Baby felt a strong desire to make a silly face at him.
‘Yes well. Nothing too serious – hopefully. You’re probably just tired. You work too hard. And we mustn’t forget you did have that coronary – what? – two years ago. Look, I’ll arrange for you to see a neurologist later this week, and he can check you over. Now when did you first notice this numbness? A couple of months ago, did you say?’
After he left the consulting rooms Baby wandered down Harley Street, feeling marginally better. The guy had to know what he was talking about. If it was something really serious that he suspected he would have had him into hospital that day. Doctors worked like that. The more time they took over doing things, the less serious the things were. And really he had no serious symptoms. He wouldn’t have been able to leave seeing anyone this long if he’d been worse. It was several months now, and it certainly hadn’t got any worse. Well it was maybe a little worse. Just a little numbness in his right hand sometimes, a difficulty in handling his keys. The coronary had made him a hypochondriac, that was his real problem. And he was working very hard, with Praegers’ London launch coming up in April. Very hard. Life wasn’t easy at the moment. He hailed a cab and went to his office in St James’s.
Thinking about the launch reminded Baby about Angie, and the fight they had had the night before. Baby had complained that she wasn’t giving him the support he needed, and he felt her work could go at least on the back burner. She had security now, she didn’t need it, it wasn’t so much to ask. Angie had said it was a great deal to ask, she loved her work, it was as important to her as his lousy bank, which (she would like to remind him) he had only inherited rather than created himself, and she would like to know what security she had. Mary Rose was flatly refusing to give Baby a divorce, and she was no nearer being Mrs Praeger than she had been ten years earlier. She had the twins to consider, and she was absolutely not going to put herself in a vulnerable position by becoming totally dependent on some man.
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