Lace II

by Shirley Conran

  Today, Kate’s green eyes flicked over her agenda, as she tried to work up the necessary enthusiasm to motivate her staff. Thank heaven, next week she’d be away from the highly polished, shallow world, where, at the end of the day, nothing could happen without the lipstick advertisements. It had been eleven years since her last best seller, eleven years since she’d done something worthwhile on her own, and now she was itching for the end of the month, when she was to start her first sabbatical—a year on her own.

  Suddenly, Kate was startled to hear Judy ask, “What do we think about working mothers?” She picked up a stick of celery and nipped off the end. “I’m concerned that our feature coverage is getting too heavy on emotional and sexual issues; we didn’t get two million readers by treating them as if they had nothing more important to think about than multiple orgasms. I want some solid feature ideas about the basics of our readers’ lives.”

  The team couldn’t believe it. Family life was a no-no on the magazine. Few principles were written on tablets of stone in that office, but one of the unbreakable commandments was that children should never be mentioned between those assertive, glossy covers. Both Judy and Kate were childless.

  The youngest assistant editor tentatively said, “The last readership survey showed that the majority of VERVE! readers planned on working again after they had started their families.” She picked up a celery stick with the same gesture as Judy; she was editing an article on body-language-in-the-workplace, which advised that mirroring a superior’s movements was a good way to establish subliminal empathy.

  “Let’s have a breakdown of those figures.” Judy snapped the celery stick. “I want to know everything we can find out about our readers’ attitudes toward children, childcare, stepparents—that whole important area.”

  There was an astounded silence as Judy continued, “And I’d like to see us become a little less parochial, a little more international. How about a regular feature on successful European women? Starting, of course, with internationally known actresses.”

  “Our readers don’t relate to these European stars.” Judy’s business partner, Tom Schwartz, raised his eyes from the hot dog he’d had sent up. He winked across the table at his wife, Kate, and Kate knew that the idea was about to get firmly kicked at, as Tom continued. “My instinct is that our readers are interested in the new identity that women are creating for themselves and these sexy actresses from over the ocean merely represent everything they want to reject. They aren’t relevant to a girl who’s focused on getting her qualifications and her business skills in shape.”

  Judy was about to protest when she realized she was overreacting. Twenty-four hours ago, she, too, had also considered Lili a glamorous, irrelevant, continental pain in the ass.

  Kate wished that Tom hadn’t taken a stand on European stars, since she was about to do as Judy asked and propose the feature on Lili, without telling the magazine staff the full significance of the story. Now she was forced to override her husband’s opinion in public and, despite Tom’s unsinkable self-esteem, she felt ungracious as she announced, “There’s always an element of risk when we’re trying a new idea. But I’ve decided that we’re going to run a major interview with Lili in the December issue.”

  The production editor looked as if she’d swallowed a toad instead of a caviar canapé. “It’s already too late. Unless we put it in the Hither and Yon section, it’ll cost us a fortune. The printers will probably need to replate.”

  “It’ll be the cover story, so whatever it costs we’re going to do it,” said Kate. “I want it run over two spreads and we’re getting a special cover picture from Avedon. Tomorrow.” Kate raised her eyebrows at Judy, who nodded behind her tortoise-shell spectacles. The rest of the staff, who respected Kate’s sure judgment and professionalism, were irritated, but not surprised. Kate’s background in newspapers had given her what the staff called a “hold-the-front-page, I’m-changing-the-comic-strip” mentality. Correctly, they felt that she rather enjoyed wrecking editorial plans at the last moment, for the sake of squeezing in the most up-to-the-minute material.

  “We’re going to tell Lili’s story right from the beginning,” Kate went on. “She’s agreed to tell us everything about her early days, even that blue-movie stuff when she was thirteen. Things she’s never talked about before.”

  “Small wonder,” somebody muttered (but very quietly). “Can we dig up one of those classic tire-calendar shots of her?” the art director wondered, from the far end of the table. “Maybe that one with a sunflower in the navel?”

  Judy shook her head. “No early shots. Only the Avedon portrait.” Kate threw a warning glance at Judy, catching the protective, emotional tone of her voice.

  “What about the men in Lili’s life?” Tom reached for another prawn, wondering what his wife was up to. This morning over breakfast, Kate had been oddly reticent about her meeting with Lili.

  “All of them,” Kate explained, “the photographer who put her in dirty movies and ripped her off until…”

  “Until she had a nervous breakdown on the promotional tour I managed for her first straight film. I’ll never forget that.” Judy found that the memory of that television tour—previously nominated as the worst fuckup of Judy’s career—now seemed less painful; but she tried to sound correctly resentful in front of the staff.

  “We all know about her relationships. What we’re dying to know is more about some of them. That Greek shipping millionaire, Jo Stiarkoz and then after he died, King Abdullah. And what’s it like with Simon Pont. And are they going to marry?”

  Kate gave her tight smile. “If they are, she’ll tell us. Lili’s promised to tell us the whole truth and I think you’ll find it’s quite a story.”

  * * *

  After lunch, as they all left Judy’s pretty cream-and-green office, Kate felt a hand on her shoulder. “Wait a minute, Kate,” said Judy, “I want a word with you.…”

  Kate threw herself onto the cream art deco sofa. “It’s no use. You can’t stop me. I’m off,” she said, her British accent still distinct in the clipped short “o” sound. “It’s been terrific, Judy, but I feel smothered under equal opportunities programs and contraceptive sponges. I want to get back to hard news”

  “Kate, for heaven’s sake—the goddamn magazine was your idea in the first place.”

  “You can run it with Pat Rogers for a year—she should have been promoted long ago. I’m going to Chittagong.”

  “But Kate, who needs a book about settlement wars in the Hill Tracts of Chittagong. It won’t sell two thousand copies.”

  “That’s not the point. And anyway, I’ve a feeling that the situation’s going to escalate.”

  “Where the hell is Chittagong anyway?” Judy’s new maternal euphoria started to disperse. Sure, Judy and Kate’s deputy could run the magazine while she took a sabbatical, but Judy’s plans for 1979 had included launching a new magazine, aimed at the generation of readers who had grown up with VERVE! and now had mature lifestyles, families and spending power to match. Unless she made a last-ditch attempt to stop Kate leaving, she’d have to postpone the new magazine.

  “Bangladesh, east of the Ganges delta. It hasn’t changed location since I told you about it last month, Judy. The Bengalis have been fighting the hill tribes there ever since the state of Bangladesh was created seven years ago, and it virtually amounts to jungle genocide. Thousands of people have died, but because the war area is so remote, nobody knows what’s going on.” Kate was becoming irritated. “It’s a terrific assignment, Judy. You bullied me into becoming a writer. I wouldn’t have written my first book if you hadn’t pushed me into it. Now be a pal and let me bug out.”

  After leaving Judy’s office, Kate poked her head back around the door. “There’s an enormous Tarzan figure out here waiting to see you. Who’s he?”

  “Our new exercise instructor,” said Judy. “I’ve decided we can all work out for an hour.”

  Kate laughed. “It’s the mean Irish i
n you. You don’t want the staff to even leave for lunch.”

  * * *

  Under their continental quilt, Tom’s elbow gently prodded Kate. “Sure you want to go?”

  “Sure. Judy won’t really miss me, once I’m gone; she’s more identified than I am with the magazine. That’s one of the reasons I want to get out and do something on my own.” Kate turned on her back and watched a little wink of light from a passing 747 travel from one corner of the window to the other. “I’ll be on that shooting star next week.”

  “How do you know I’ll be here when you come back?”

  Kate gently prodded Tom. “You’d better be.” The reason she hadn’t gone off earlier was that she couldn’t bear to leave this wonderful man, who loved her without wanting to own her, encouraged her without patronizing her, and admired her talent without exploiting it. “I’ll miss you, too. Be careful.”

  “Come over here, woman.”

  “What’s on your side of the bed that isn’t on my side?”

  “Me.”

  * * *

  Judy handed Griffin his vodka martini with olive on-the-rocks and sat down in her living room, which had just been restyled by David Laurance in soft turquoise, an excellent background color for blondes. Judy drove her decorator crazy by decorating one room at a time instead of having the whole apartment done over.

  Griffin said, “So when are we doing it?”

  “I’m not sure, Griffin.”

  “Not sure about what?” He ate his olive. “Tell me about it while you get dressed. We’re due at the Sherry Netherland in twenty-five minutes.”

  Judy hurried to her dressing room, not because she was late but because she wanted to put off the discussion. But, as she started to select her clothes, Griffin followed her, and leaning against the door he repeated, “Have you decided when you want to get married?”

  “Not yet.” She turned away from him and selected a black sequinned jacket, then thought, better get it over with and gently said, “Maybe not ever, Griffin. I don’t really want to share the whole of my life with you or anyone.” She carefully avoided looking at him. “I think we should face the fact that we’re both independent people—and that’s why I suited you as a lover. I didn’t pester you to get divorced and marry me.…”

  “But we’ve waited so long! I always thought…”

  “I’ve waited so long, is what you mean, Griffin. I’ve waited too long. It’s become a way of life with me. I’ve had to make too many excuses for you; I’ve had to spend too many Thanksgivings without you, too many Christmases, too many holidays and too many Sundays—they’re the loneliest days of the week, Griffin.”

  She looked at Griffin and a hundred tall, dark, astounded Griffins looked back. The entire dressing room, including the ceiling, was covered in mirror glass. Judy could stand in the middle of the room and see herself from every angle without craning her neck. She could also, in a playful mood, give a high kick and see herself reflected to infinity, like a onewoman Busby Berkeley chorus.

  “Do you really mean you don’t want to marry me?” Didn’t all women want to get married? Was she really turning down one of the most successful publishers in the country, whose empire included some of the best magazines in America? Was she turning down the maroon Rolls Royce, the money, the servants, the old-English manor house in Scarsdale, the social position, the sensational times in bed? Griffin’s forehead wrinkled in perplexity. “What’s got into you tonight? Is it the wrong time of the month?”

  “Griffin, it isn’t premenstrual tension, it’s common sense.” Judy thought she’d better be firm or she’d duck out. “After all, what do I really know about you except that you’re in the habit of cheating on your wife? How do I know that when I’m your wife you won’t want the same surreptitious excitement?”

  Carefully, Griffin put his drink on one of the glass shelves that lined a complete mirror wall but did not interrupt the reflected perspective into infinity. “That’s a cheap shot after all these years. You didn’t complain when you were getting your share.”

  Judy looked at him. He thinks he’s a great lover and he’s right, she thought. But, for him, the satisfaction is being seen to be a great lover, not simply enjoying himself with me. His constant craving for admiration will always make him flirt with other women, because his ego is insatiable.

  Griffin rubbed the scar on his left hand, a sure sign of irritation. “So where do we go from here?”

  “How about the Sherry Netherland? What’s wrong with business as usual, Griffin? Can’t we continue as we are? You keep that mansion in Scarsdale, I’ll stay here, and we’ll be together three or four times a week. And maybe Sunday.”

  What Judy really meant to say was, “This relationship will stand or fall on how we feel for each other, moment by moment. I do not want you to take me for granted, Griffin. I do not want cozy warmth and domestic security. Or even domestic insecurity, which would be more likely.” Griffin wasn’t used to earning a woman’s affection. He wanted his mate dependent, tied, safe and always there—waiting. Workaholic Griffin needed a steady partner because his kind of insecurity meant that he needed to know that there was always someone waiting at home for him, no matter what he did or where he went.

  Suddenly, Judy realized that she didn’t like having a man watch her while she got dressed. She opened the walk-in shoe closet, newly covered in jet black moiré, to match the carpet. “Griffin, I’ve got something really important to tell you.” She picked a pair of silver sandals. “Yesterday, my past caught up with me.”

  “What happened?” Was that why she was acting so strangely tonight?

  “You know I was a scholarship student in Switzerland. I got pregnant while I was there. The baby was adopted.”

  “Well, that was a long time ago.” Now that Griffin understood, he knew when to be magnanimous. “That shouldn’t come between us. Don’t let it upset you.”

  Suddenly the love affair, which had seemed overwhelmingly important to Judy for ten years, looked very insignificant beside the new fact that she had a daughter. “Griffin, will you listen? My child is alive and she’s tracked me down.”

  “Huh?” He was suddenly all attention. “I’ll get the lawyers onto it first thing tomorrow. Boy, has she picked the wrong lady to touch for a few bucks!”

  “Griffin, she isn’t short of a few bucks. She’s Lili—the actress, the Lili.”

  “Tiger-Lili?” That was what she was called by the press

  “Yes.”

  Griffin thought for a moment. “There must be a reason for it. She’s after the publicity.”

  “Griffin, she can get all the publicity she needs by simply appearing in public.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll fix it. She’s bound to be after something.”

  Judy gave up.

  * * *

  Maxine leaned forward and sighed with pleasure, as the navy-blue Peugeot crested the gentle hill and she saw her vineyards spread below her. She always enjoyed flying Concorde on a Sunday, when it was never crowded. The car cruised quietly out of the snow-speckled forest and began the gentle descent toward the Chateau de Chazalle. Maxine’s mind was already running down the list of arrangements she needed to make for the forthcoming week, when she and Charles were to meet a rider from the French Olympic equestrian team, and Maxine’s first boyfriend, Pierre Boursal, now the trainer of an exciting young skier who had already won the European women’s slalom. Since Maxine had decided that Chazalle was going into sponsorship, they had entertained more suitors than a fairy-tale princess, she reflected with satisfaction.

  The car scattered a flock of white doves on the crescentshaped gravel drive and the cooing birds bustled out of Maxine’s way as she walked happily up the wide stone steps to the imposing doorway, where the butler waited, with a footman behind him.

  Eagerly, Maxine ran upstairs to her bedroom. “Honorine, have all my bags put in the dressing room,” she called over her shoulder to her maid, as she pulled off gray kid gloves. “Send the je
wel box to the strong room and please run me a bath.…”

  She was fully inside the bedroom before she realized that the room was not as it should have been. Instead of being smooth and perfectly in place, on the enormous boat-shaped Empire bed, the pale-blue silk bedcover was crumpled on the floor. On tousled sheets, her husband Charles lay naked on his back, and astride him sat a big, dark woman wearing the shreds of a green silk camisole. Charles clutched her breasts so tightly that flesh bulged between his fingers as, with one arm, the woman held up her mass of dark hair; her other hand was busy between her legs, helping herself to climax.

  Like a stunned animal in an abattoir, Maxine buckled at the knees. Her first instinct was to step back and swing the doors shut, to blot out the sight of her bed, her husband and his mistress. She leaned against the wall of the wide corridor, shaking with shock, but then her tactician’s mind told her what to do.

  Maxine pulled on her gloves, then she flung open the double doors of her bedroom and strode furiously up to the disordered bed. She grabbed the writhing woman by the hair and pulled her away from her husband’s body. “Charles, how dare you?” Maxine demanded in fury. “In our bed! Why couldn’t you keep this whore in Paris, with all your other divertissements?”

  2

  October 17, 1978

  UNHAPPILY FOR MAXINE, the dark woman was no cheap jupon; after the hallucinatory flash of the first few seconds, Maxine realized that the girl making love to her husband was Simone, his impressively qualified personal assistant.

  “We thought you were coming back tomorrow.” His explanation was hardly an excuse, thought Charles, and his habitual expression of mild astonishment changed to frantic alarm. The girl in the shredded green slip shook herself free of Maxine, then calmly sat on the side of the bed, grabbed Charles’s limp hand, and twitched the sheet over his long, thin, naked body with a gesture of possession.