Lace II

by Shirley Conran

  “Charles has something to tell you, Madame la Comtesse.” Charles’s assistant looked Maxine straight in the eyes. “Go ahead, Charles, don’t let your wife push you around.”

  For an instant, husband and wife looked silently at each other, then Charles cleared his throat and said, “Maxine, I want a divorce.”

  Maxine could not believe her ears. “Never,” she said softly, sounding far more resolute than she felt. Then her voice rose. “Get her out of this bed! Get her out of this room! Immediately!” Maxine’s legs shook and she felt as if she were running in slow motion across the treacherous surface of the moon as she ran into her bathroom and slammed the door against those two naked bodies on the wrecked bed.

  * * *

  By the following morning, Charles’s assistant had disappeared and a frosty silence had settled on the Chateau de Chazalle. Maxine was still in a shocked trance, but she plunged into a frenzy of work to distract her mind from her grief and pain; she attacked her accumulated mail, demanded to check the china and linen lists, and sent servants scurrying on different errands all over the chateau. Maxine’s secretary left her office with enough work for a month; without being told, Mademoiselle Janine, who had been with Maxine for twenty-two years, knew the reason for Maxine’s frantic activity, and silently sympathized with her mistress for being faced, yet again, with one of the Count’s regrettable indiscretions.

  By midday, Maxine’s competent mind had worked out that her charming, correct husband would never have acknowledged the existence of his mistress to her—let alone have asked for a divorce—had Maxine not surprised them together, had that bitch not forced Charles to speak. Too late, Maxine realized that the cleverest action would have been quickly to close the bedroom door and walk away, then later to have tackled Charles on his own, when, Maxine knew, he would have agreed to whatever she demanded. But now, it was too late.

  It was not the first time Maxine had felt her marriage to be in danger. By tradition, aristrocratic French couples often lived discreetly separate sex lives, but they never allowed anything to threaten the sanctity of their family, their home and—most important—their inheritance. But Charles was too easily seduced, and Maxine too romantic, to follow this civilized way of life, and their friends considered the mixture of Charles’s déclassée mistresses and Maxine’s perfect fidelity to be an immature invitation to trouble.

  After Charles’s first serious affair, what had brought them together again had been Judy’s intervention. A little of her Yankee common sense had made Charles realize what he stood to lose. So if Maxine couldn’t handle this situation by herself, she thought, she’d send an SOS to Judy in New York.

  * * *

  Lili yawned as she answered the telephone. “Who? Paul Kroll? For Simon?” Damned directors thought they could phone an actor at any time of the day or night. “Paul, can’t it wait until tomorrow? It’s eleven o’clock in New York and Simon’s in the shower.”

  “Simon never minds what time I call him.”

  “Well, I mind. Are you in London or Paris? I’ll get him to call you tomorrow when we wake up.”

  “Why not wake up now, Lili?” Paul’s voice was slurred and backed by party noise.

  “What do you mean? I am awake.”

  “No, dear, you’re in Dreamland.” The silky, bitter note in his voice reminded her that Kroll was gay.

  “What the hell do you mean?”

  “What I mean, lil ole Lili, is that you won’t face what we all know.” Now his words were running into each other, but there was a triumphant note in Kroll’s voice.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that no matter how hard Simon tries to pretend he’s straight … he’s only pretending. We’ve been at it together for years, darling. We all know that any actor will do anything for a good part, but Simon does it because he likes it. He loves it, darling. He hates to admit it, but that long tongue gets in the strangest places, don’t you find? When you were shooting Cherie, Simon and I were in Marrakesh. When you were making The Sun King, Simon and I were in Tangiers. When you…”

  Unable to speak, and unable to put down the telephone, hypnotized by Paul’s disgusting, detailed story of lust and treachery, Lili listened with tears falling down her face until Simon’s wet forearm reached over her shoulder and snatched the telephone from her. Without saying a word, he, too, listened. Then he shouted, “Shut up, Paul, you’re drunk … because I can tell … you’ve wrecked everything, you stupid idiot.” Simon slammed the phone down and stared defiantly at Lili. “Paul doesn’t mean anything to me.”

  Lili knew that Simon was lying.

  * * *

  The massed narcissi and pink rosebuds of La Grenouille defied the November mist outside; the cheery buzz of the lunchers—mostly elegant women, was a counterpoint to the white strained face of Lili, as she leaned across the restaurant table to Pagan and said, “I never meant to tell you about Simon, but I’m so miserable that I haven’t been able to think about anything else for the last few days. I didn’t want to tell Judy because … it would just make our situation more complicated, when I want it to be simplified.”

  “Lili, your reactions are understandable,” Pagan soothed her. “That would have been a devastating experience for anyone. It was a rotten way to learn the news, and Simon did a rotten thing in walking out on you.”

  “I suppose he was forced to choose. I suppose he was being honest with himself at last. We didn’t have a row, you know. We both just sat on the bed crying. But after the things that Kroll had told me, I couldn’t bear for Simon to touch me. And as well as his homosexuality, there’s his deception; the thought that I would have been used as camouflage; that we would have had children—just to make Simon look normal.…”

  “Be fair, Lili, he may really want children.”

  “I can’t be fair. I feel so … humiliated.”

  There was a pause, then Pagan leaned across and pressed Lili’s hand. “There is life after humiliation, Lili, I promise you. As you get older, you’ll find out. You have to learn to overcome humiliation, to live through it. And although you never want anyone to know about it, it’s always much easier for you if you tell somebody, because everybody has known the bitterness of humiliation at some time; everyone’s experienced it, and that’s why any sensitive person sympathizes with someone who’s been humiliated.”

  “I certainly know about humiliation, but I don’t believe that any of you four rich, successful women really know the meaning of the word.”

  After another pause, Pagan said, “Yes, I do.” Even after all these years, Pagan still felt a twinge of jealousy as she remembered the nineteen-year-old Prince Abdullah and the happy intimacy they had shared, until he had contracted a political marriage at the command of his grandfather, then assumed the role of Sydon’s ruler and embarked on his philandering career as the Playboy Prince of the Western World.

  When his father died, Abdullah’s time was fully taken up with the political problems of his country, and the gynecological problems of his wife, who had a series of miscarriages, a stillborn child and a son who died two weeks after birth. King Abdullah, as a Moslem, could have four wives. Four childless years later, he was on the point of taking a second wife to provide him with heirs, when his son Mustapha was born and, from the moment his father held the tiny body in his arms, Mustapha was the only person in the world that he loved.

  In 1972, Abdullah, piloting his own helicopter, was flying his wife and ten-year-old Mustapha to their hunting lodge in the eastern, mountains of Sydon. Because of faulty servicing, the engine failed, the helicopter had crashed, and the 150-pound propeller blade roughly slashed the Queen’s head from her body; then the helicopter had exploded, throwing Abdullah through the air and across the desert sand, where, severely injured but not unconscious, he watched the helicopter turn into a roaring ball of fire that reduced his son, Mustapha, to a twisted black crisp.

  During the following three years, Abdullah, racked by grief and guilt, had ra
rely appeared in public, until he met Lili. For the next year, Pagan remembered, Lili and Abdullah had been inseparable, until Lili had suddenly returned to Paris and her career.

  Pagan looked across the narcissi and rosebuds on the restaurant table to Lili, the only white woman that Abdullah had ever openly taken to Sydon. Suddenly, Pagan remembered Abdullah’s arrogance and the commanding voice which masked his apprehension and, sometimes, fear. Lili had had what Pagan had never been allowed—and Lili had turned it down; she had walked out on Abdullah.

  Pagan couldn’t resist mentioning it. She said, “If we’re talking of humiliation, we must remember that you humiliated King Abdullah.”

  “No, I didn’t,” said Lili, “he didn’t feel humiliated when his Western Whore went back to the West.”

  Again, Pagan couldn’t resist asking, “Why did you leave him?”

  “I was kept in a gilded cage, his courtiers spied on me, they didn’t trust me. I was an infidel and there was no possibility of his marrying me, because Abdullah needs a wife—perferably a Moslem wife—to provide him with heirs, and my … shall we say my ‘exotic’ past rendered me unsuitable wife material. In a word, Pagan, I was not respectable enough for the job.”

  “But immediately after you left, he adopted his only blood kin, his nephew, Hassan, as his heir, so it doesn’t look as if he intends to marry again. Haven’t seen a word about him in the gossip columns lately.”

  “He’s too busy with his civil war.”

  “No, Lili, it isn’t a civil war. Abdullah’s army is fighting the communist-backed guerrillas in the Eastern Hills of Sydon.”

  Lili gave Pagan a sharp look. “I know that, but most people don’t realize how complicated the political situation is in Sydon at the moment. You seem to know a lot about Abdullah.”

  “We were all at school in the same little town in Switzerland. Abdullah and I used to be pretty good chums.” Pagan thought she needn’t tell Lili more than that.

  Lili threw a quick look of reassessment at Pagan; she noticed the Englishwoman’s long legs, tucked awkwardly around the table legs, the mahogany-colored hair that fell carelessly around her pale blue eyes, and the beautifully cut tweed jacket, with a man’s cream-silk handkerchief flopping out of the breast pocket. Lili asked, “What happened to you after Switzerland, Pagan?”

  “Something nasty happened to me. I married Mr. Wrong and then found out that he didn’t really love me, he was just after me for my money. Funny thing was, I didn’t have any money. I’d inherited my grandfather’s estate in Cornwall, but it was mortgaged to the hilt. Robert never forgave me for not being rich. I cheered myself up with vodka, which blotted out the reality of Robert, and eventually ended up a drunk most of the time.” She raised her glass of Perrier. “You see before you a card-carrying member of Alcoholics Anonymous. I can assure you that I know about humiliation, because I was responsible for my own humiliation.” She took a sip of water. “Kate saved me. Kate’s always been my best friend since we were at school together. She took me over and wouldn’t let me give up. I’ll never forget what she did for me.”

  Lili, who hadn’t touched her avocado and salmon salad, said wistfully, “There’s something about the four of you that I can’t put my finger on, something warm and protective. I could almost feel it when we were in the room together.”

  Pagan finished her last forkful of mushrooms. “That’s friendship. Since we were in Switzerland together, we’ve helped each other through thick and thin—or sick and sin as Maxine calls it.” Like most French people, she pronounces ‘th’ as ‘s.’ ”

  “Don’t tell me that Maxine knows about sin!”

  “Maxine may be a bit of a prig, but she certainly knows about sin—and humiliation. Her husband, Charles, finds other women … difficult to resist. Maxine felt humiliated for years until one day she couldn’t take it any longer. Crunch point. Separation. Judy flew over to France and had a colossal stand-up fight with Charles, pointing out that he was going to lose if he was idiot enough to let Maxine walk out on him. Since then, he seems too have toed the line. Judy can be a fierce little thing, when she believes she’s fighting for the right.”

  “What was my mother like when she was young?”

  “Brave, like a little drummer boy marching into war. Her father had gone bust in the depression and that made her determined to be successful. She always worked very hard. Unlike the rest of us, she had an iron discipline. The poor girl never even had time to learn to ski.”

  “And my father? What was he like?” Lili’s innocent question was the reason that she had invited Pagan to lunch. “What did he look like?”

  Damn, Pagan thought, I’m hopeless at fibbing, but I must make this sound good for Judy’s sake. She said, “He was—um—was very good-looking. He had black hair and aquamarine eyes, and beautiful manners. He was terribly shy, like most English boys.

  “Judy met him first, because he was a waiter learning hotel management at the Imperial, where Judy worked. He was like a brother to us and we all adored him—but he had eyes for nobody but Judy.” Pagan didn’t add that, although Judy liked him, she simply didn’t feel sexually attracted to Nick. And if a girl doesn’t, she doesn’t. No matter how handsome, rich and eligible a boy was, if the chemistry wasn’t present, there was no use trying to force it. Poor darling Nick had been potty about Judy—when he left, he’d given her those two carved rosebud rings from Cartier, but, although Judy liked him, she had drawn away from a physical relationship.

  “Judy said he was an orphan.”

  I’ll bet she did, thought Pagan. That meant that Judy would have no further questions from Lili to answer. “He charmed us all,” Pagan said. “Then he went to do his National Service as a soldier in Malaya, and the next thing we heard was that he’d been killed. We were heartbroken.”

  Lili did not miss the hesitancy in Pagan’s description, or the overcarefulness of her speech, so unlike Pagan’s normal careless frankness. So there is something more to find out, Lili thought, mechanically brushing toast crumbs off her white leather trousers. “Was Judy … er … popular with boys when she was a student?”

  “Judy? She worked so hard that she hardly had time for dates. Why do you ask, Lili?” Attack is the best method of defense, Pagan thought, returning Lili’s velvet-brown gaze.

  She’s challenged me, Lili thought, sensing the bond between the four women, so strong it was almost tangible, an invisible wall between her and the last shreds of the mystery of her identity.

  “I suppose there was no doubt that Nick was my father?”

  There, I’ve said it, Lili congratulated herself.

  “I should think not.” Pagan’s tone was firm with a scandalized edge. Lili realized that she would get no further, as Pagan continued, “What happened to Judy could have happened to any one of us. We were all experimenting with life, we all had our first love affairs in Switzerland and we shared everything, so it seemed natural to us to share the responsibility for you, until Judy could afford to give you a home. But she was only earning a secretary’s salary when you disappeared.”

  “How did she start her business?”

  “She worked in public relations, and then Maxine pushed her into starting her own business. In fact, Chazalle was Judy’s first client. It was rough for Judy with no experience, no reputation, and no money. She keeps quiet about it now, but she was twice evicted because she couldn’t pay the rent. She was almost as broke as the Research Institute is today.” Pagan thought she might as well do what she’d come to New York to do. “My husband was so excited when I told him you were considering a donation to the Anglo-American Cancer Research Institute. He desperately needs a new electron microscope.”

  Lili wriggled, feeling guilty. She had certainly lured Pagan to that meeting at the Pierre with the promise of money for cancer research. “I could ask my agent if we could open my new film with a benefit première in New York. Or a gala in London.”

  “Or both?” Pagan had come a long way since, quiveri
ng with fear and shame, she had first asked for a charity donation.

  “I’ll do my best,” Lili said, then added, “I wish that Maxine hadn’t had to return to France. I wanted so much to get to know you all properly.”

  “You will, in time. We don’t see that much of each other these days, not that it matters.”

  “Why doesn’t it matter?” asked Lili, as the waiter served their lobsters.

  “A real friend is someone you don’t have to be with. These days, a friendship between two women can last longer than their marriages.” Pagan picked up her lobster crackers. “If both women accept that there will be tough times as well as good ones,” she sucked the juicy flesh from the claw, “and that sometimes you’ll want to strangle your friend and somtimes she’ll want to strangle you. A true friendship isn’t static, it comes and goes.”

  “Then what pulls friends back together?” Lili wondered.

  “You just feel more comfortable, more at home, with certain people than with anyone else.”

  “But why?” Lili persisted.

  “Oh—shared experience, understanding, tolerance and trust, that sort of thing.” Pagan gestured with a red lobster claw. “A good friendship is like a marriage is supposed to be, but very rarely is. Today, the men seem to come and go in a woman’s life, but our female friendships are often more enduring. In fact, as marriages crash and the generation gap widens, female friendship seems to be the only growth area in relationships.”

  “What do you mean?” Lili was fascinated.

  “Lots of relationships are now being questioned and rethought, because it’s clear that the old relationships aren’t working as we had been led to expect, when we were young.”

  “So what were you led to expect?” Lili licked a scrap of pink carcass.

  “We were all taught that our purpose in life was to get a man,” said Pagan. “So we all hung around, waiting for Prince Charming to turn up.” She separated shreds of flesh from shell. “After I married, I thought that I’d live in pink bliss forever; I never imagined that my Prince Charming husband would be unkind or unfaithful. We’ve turned out to be pioneers, just as much as those women in covered wagons.” Pagan wiped her fingers on her pink napkin. “But we are pioneers of the emotions, and one of our problems is that we don’t realize this.” Lili had hardly touched her lobster, Pagan noticed as she continued. “Those pioneers knew when they were traveling through hostile territory; they could hear the war whoops, see the Indians and feel the arrows. Today, some of us are under fire, some of us are walking wounded and some of us on crutches; but our scars are invisible, and often you don’t even realize that you’ve been in battle.” Pagan paused as they ordered coffee, then continued. “The pioneers end up scalped, of course; it’s the next generation that reaps the benefit, and enjoys the promised land.”