Lace II

by Shirley Conran

  “Oh, wouldn’t I?” Judy’s light tone conveyed that she still felt rejected by this impeccable man with his duties, responsibilities, obligations—and money. “I wouldn’t mind Debra’s wonderful clothes, Debra’s marvelous parties, and Debra’s ability to wave a wand and have anything she likes. Just because she happened to have inherited a fortune. After that, the rest just followed naturally—including you, Curtis.”

  “Judy, don’t be bitter. I really wish that I could help you, and you know that I would if I could. And money isn’t everything; Debra has her own problems, as you know.”

  His telephone buzzed. His car was waiting to take them to lunch. Curtis rose. “Let’s forget money and Debra for an hour, Judy,” he pleaded. “We’ve got so many more important things to discuss, haven’t we?”

  Judy gave him her most bewitching smile.

  * * *

  It was after midnight, and the servants had gone to bed, when Judy arrived at the Chateau de Chazalle. Maxine, wearing a lace-edged gray-silk peignoir, kissed her warmly, then said, “Let’s go down to the kitchen and make a cup of hot chocolate, like we did when we were schoolgirls.”

  In the cavernous kitchen of the castle, Maxine selected a small, spotless copper pan, then pushed back the sleeves of her peignoir. She laughed. “That reminds me of the evening before my wedding, when my mother gave me some advice.” She poured milk from an enameled jug. “She told me that if I cooked chocolate late at night after a party, I should always remove my fur coat, because otherwise I would singe the cuffs.” Maxine whisked the foaming chocolate, then poured it into porcelain cups. “That was the only advice she gave me about married life—not much use, in these circumstances.” Suddenly, Maxine put her head in her hands and her heavy blond hair tumbled around her face as she began to cry. Judy put an arm round her heaving shoulders and waited for the shuddering sobs to stop.

  “What am I going to do, Judy?” Maxine sobbed in despair. “Charles has moved into his dressing room. He won’t look at me and he doesn’t speak to me. I feel so humiliated, so rejected.”

  “What is she like?” Judy asked, “Blond? Beautiful? Slim?”

  “No, no. She has no style, no delicacy. She’s the sort of woman who wears a black bra under a white blouse,” Maxine sniffled.

  “She must have something that Charles wants. And she sounds determined to have him, doesn’t she?”

  Maxine sat up and looked indignant. Good, thought Judy, she won’t be able to cope with the situation from a position of complete despair—she needs to be a little angry.

  Maxine said, “I’m sure that bitch deliberately staged the whole thing. I sent a telex from the Plaza, giving Charles my flight time. She should have known that I was coming. I’m sure she never showed it to him. Charles can’t stand rows, and he’s always been absolutely discreet. I can’t think how she managed to get him into bed in our home.”

  “Maybe she bullied him into it,” Judy said softly. “It’s the classic mistress’s move. Maybe Charles likes being bullied a bit?”

  “But why would Charles…” Maxine began to protest, then she saw what Judy meant. Perhaps this awful woman appealed to Charles precisely because she was so domineering. She remembered that olive body writhing furiously on top of her husband, but Maxine could not recall the last time that she had climbed on top of Charles when they made love. She felt horribly exposed in such a position, showing the beginnings of a little double chin, looking fatter than she was, to Charles below. Placid and easily contented, Maxine suddenly realized that she had lazily allowed Charles to assume all the responsibility for whatever had happened under the blue silk canopy; it was years since he had tumbled her wickedly in any other environment, as he had loved to do before they were married.

  She pushed away her cup. “I can’t believe that he really wants to marry her—he can’t possibly, she would destroy the business within a year. Please help me, Judy.”

  “Maybe it’s Charles who needs help,” said Judy, “help to get out of a situation that he never wanted to be in. I’ve dealt with predatory women before.” She sipped her chocolate. “Why on earth did you hire her?”

  “We’d been asked to advise the Chinese government on the development of their own champagne industry—that bitch had a degree in Oriental studies.”

  * * *

  Maxine sat at her gold-columned dressing table, which had once belonged to the Empress Josephine. The light of the raw February morning, intensified by the crisp crust of snow on the gray parapet of the chateau, was harsh on her drawn face. The antique mirror reflected, with a dead-gray radiance, the face of an opulently beautiful, but very anxious woman. She thought, I used to be a decorator, why ever did I design a gray bedroom? Why did I let good taste take the place of sensuality? What did my Aunt Hortense say? That no woman over thirty should wear gray.

  A cheap office duplicate book was always near Maxine, so that she could immediately make notes and distribute them to her staff through Mademoiselle Janine, her secretary. Now she pulled a book from the dressing-table drawer and, by the time her maid came in, she had completed a new decoration scheme for the bedroom.

  “Not sables this morning, Honorine, they’re so heavy and dark,” she said as the elderly woman in black moved toward the fur closet. “It’s a long time since I wore the red fox. And for this evening, please lay out my pink St. Laurent with the red petticoat.”

  With only ten guests to consider, Maxine had organized a simple program; partridge shooting on the estate, riding through the vineyards, cards and conversation for those who preferred to stay warm indoors and on Sunday, a stag hunt on the neighboring estate.

  Charles was the first down to breakfast in the yellow Chinese morning room.

  Diffident and modest, Charles was attractive in his sheer helplessness; it was the sweet, absent-minded Cary Grant bit that the girls fell for, Maxine had explained to Judy. Now, looking guilty, he stood in his favorite position, feet astride, back to the crackling logs in the fireplace.

  Next to enter was Guy St. Simon, yawning in his navy foulard dressing gown. “The Louis Quinze bed needs a new mattress, Maxine.”

  Guy was getting chubby, Maxine thought, and his hempcolored hair was starting to recede from his forehead, but the slightly hooked Roman nose and the wide sensual mouth were unchanged. She was still amazed that her childhood friend had metamorphosed into one of the top fashion designers of France, with his own chain of boutiques, “Limited Editions.”

  Guy pulled his square-framed black spectacles out of his breast pocket, stuck them on his nose and picked up Le Monde. Slowly, all Maxine’s guests entered, chose their food from the heated silver chafing dishes on the mahogany sideboard, and sat down at the breakfast table.

  A tall man beamed good morning at Maxine as he sat down next to her. “Maxine, you defy time.”

  “So do you, Pierre,” Maxine replied, thinking that it was indeed almost true. Living in the fierce Alpine climate had tanned her first lover’s face a deep, leathery brown; the etched straight lines around his eyes were white against the tan, but his tightly curled blond hair was as thick as ever and his body looked hard and strong.

  Judy was the last to appear in the morning room. Her first reaction upon waking had been to telephone an old friend, now the head of Time’s Paris Bureau. “I can’t tell you why I’m asking,” she began confidently, “but I need to find a job for a girl with a degree in Oriental studies—something that involves a lot of travel, or even a posting abroad.”

  That afternoon, while the other guests were shooting, Judy won four hands of piquet from Guy before he threw the cards at her, yelling, “You haven’t changed a bit in twenty years. A game is never a game with you. You Americans are obsessed by winning. You always want to be first. Here in France, we know it’s much more important to be first class.” In spite of his careless pose of witty decadence, Judy knew that the secret of Guy’s success was an obsession with quality and the ability to work like a dog.

  Judy picke
d up a purple paperweight and pretended to throw it at Guy, who laughingly held his hand up to ward it off, saying, “I know you won’t throw that hunk of amethyst at me. Kate gave it to Maxine as a wedding present.” Suddenly he stopped laughing. “It was such a pretty wedding. I can’t bear to see Maxine looking so unhappy today. I always know when Charles is fooling around because Maxine dresses so badly. Lugubrious colors and no jewelry. She really ought to give Charles a dose of his own medicine, instead of letting him walk all over her.”

  The butler appeared. “A telephone call for Mademoiselle Jordan in the library.” Judy followed him to the paneled library where, in the rich atmosphere of hush, dust and old leather she learned that Montpellier University had just acquired an important bequest of ancient Chinese jade and ceramics and was searching for a properly qualified curator to identify and catalogue the pieces, working in liaison with the People’s Museum in Peking. Back home, a good networker can get to anyone in three moves, thought Judy, and asked Maxine if she knew anyone who knew anyone at Montpellier University. After a few minutes spent with her nose stuck in her maroon address book, Maxine said, “The best I can do is Ghislaine, my cousin, who is married to the Rector of Grenoble.”

  It took four more contacts, six telephone calls and the rest of the afternoon to discover that Montpellier University had unsuccessfully advertised the curator’s post for three months and were delighted by Maxine’s recommendation.

  At dinner, Judy caught Maxine’s eye between the silver trumpets of the flower-laden epergnes. Unobtrusively, she gave the thumbs-up sign.

  * * *

  “I can’t thank you enough,” said Maxine later, as she slipped off her coral velvet dinner dress and reached into one of her closets for a pale-turquoise satin peignoir.

  “Other people’s problems are always easier to solve than your own,” Judy grinned at Maxine in the mirror. “Especially their amorous problems. And we all have them.”

  “Do you have them with this new young man of yours? Twenty-nine years old, isn’t he?” Maxine tied her sash and looked up under her lashes. “What is love like, Judy, with a much younger man?”

  “Maxine, you sound like a soap opera. There is a difference and it is important, but not in the way you think. What’s important isn’t that women are starting to go to bed with younger men; what’s important is that age no longer smacks of terror to a woman. Women often fail to develop a strong sense of personal identity until they’re into their thirties or forties; it’s then that they start to find out who they really are and what sort of man they really want.” There was a thoughtful pause, then Judy added, “Anyhow, age doesn’t come into our relationship; Mark and I suit each other because we’re both independent and we respect each other’s freedom. What he gets is a woman who admires his talent, respects his commitment, and doesn’t want to cling to him for status or affection. And what I get out of it is a wonderful lover who doesn’t demand hot dinners every night.”

  “As I never cook, that would be no advantage.”

  “A younger man’s demands and expectations are different from those of men who can remember the second World War, as well as the sexual revolution.”

  “In what way?” Maxine fluffed up her maribou collar.

  “Older men don’t like a woman to spread her wings, in case that might get in the way of their wings. But a younger man is adventurous, and interested in having a woman who isn’t only going to boost his ego but develop her own personality; that’s what they like in an older woman and that’s what they respect.”

  “But aren’t you afraid of the future, Judy, of looking an old hag, of being abandoned, of being humiliated?”

  “There’s the possibility of that at any age. With any relationship, you can expect suffering when it ends, plus a kick in the pants to your pride.”

  Maxine said, “Men can get away with so much more than a woman.”

  “The world has always known that a man can be fascinating at any age. Now we’re finding out that a woman can be as well. Women have always been exterior-oriented, but we all know beautiful women who are dull. Fascination has nothing to do with the tortoise-like state of your neck, but the unwrinkled state of your mind.”

  Maxine rushed to the mirror. “You think my neck is like a tortoise’s?”

  Judy grinned. “Maxine, I’m never sure whether you’re into vanity or self-improvement.”

  * * *

  “Take care of Lili for me, Mark,” were Judy’s parting words to her lover before she left New York. He had been dismayed. While Judy was present in his life and his bed, Mark could control the way that he was growing to feel about Lili but, without Judy, he was alone and at the mercy of the violent desire that Lili aroused in him. Hating to be out of control of himself, Mark found himself transferring the dislike of his own weakness on to the cause of it. Irritably, he complained to Lili that she was making his apartment untidy, and pointed to the makeup and magazines that were scattered over the living room floor in front of the fire.

  “I can’t help it,” Lili looked surprised. “I’m stuck here all day. I can’t go outside, because of the photographers.”

  “Oh, don’t be so dramatic, there’s no reason not to go out. If you avoid the smart parts of town and stick to the places where nobody would expect to see a film star, you won’t have any trouble.”

  Lili looked sulkily defiant.

  “Come on,” said Mark, “I’ll show you.”

  He took her for lunch on Saturday to a tiny Oriental restaurant and listened patiently while Lili talked about the Mistinguett part that she had been offered. “I’m not sure that I want to do it. I may be an international star but I think the part needs a brilliant dancer. There’s more singing and dancing than I’ve ever done before, and I’m not sure I’m good enough. I’m afraid of making a fool of myself. Do you think I should do it?”

  “I’m not the right person to ask, Lili. Surely your agent knows if you can do it, why not talk to him?” As Mark passed Lili a bamboo steamer, he thought that Judy never asked him to make her business decisions. He was desperately looking for traits to criticize in Lili and praise in Judy.

  Later Mark took her to see the Rembrandts in the Metropolitan Museum and afterward they walked through the dirty slush of Central Park. The snow howled down again in the evening, so they struggled no further than the Italian restaurant on the corner.

  “Do you know,” Mark asked, “how to get a free bottle of wine in an Italian restaurant? No? I thought not.” So he told the waiter that it was Lili’s birthday, whereupon the rotund padrone rushed out of the kitchen, kissed her wetly on both cheeks and presented them with a bottle of Italian sparkling wine—on the house.

  “Have you ever tried that with Judy?” Lili asked.

  “No, I haven’t done it since I was a kid.” Mark poured the wine. “Don’t worry. I’ll pay for it in with the tip. Happy Birthday! Judy doesn’t like Italian restaurants. She says the food’s too tempting. She’s very disciplined, as you know. It’s one of the things I admire about her.”

  “What are the others?” Lili crunched a slice of fennel.

  “Lots of things, not just a couple. Apart from the fact that Judy’s clever and fun, I like her professionalism and her energy, her poise and her experience.…”

  “And her status, her position and her influential, interesting friends?” asked Lili cynically.

  “Of course, why not? Like I said, lots of things. Some of the things I like about her are things that other people might not like. She can be sharp and tart. But that’s part of being a straight-shooter. Women never understand that a man doesn’t fall for this or that in a woman. He doesn’t like the breasts but not the hips, like the eyes but not the nose. He doesn’t like the wit but not the criticism. A man falls for the whole package, whatever it is. But women don’t seem to view themselves that way. They’re always worrying about the few things in themselves that they wish were different. But Judy doesn’t waste time that way. And I like the way she�
��s prepared to help me.”

  “How?” Lili was astonished.

  “She made me feel self-confident. A long time before I met Judy, I lived with a model, but eventually I got tired of feeling like somebody else’s supporting cast.” He refilled Lili’s glass. “However self-confident a young guy looks, he’s probably uncertain of what he can do. It’s good to get reassurance from someone whose opinion and experience he can respect—and who isn’t his mother. He knows his mother thinks he’s wonderful.” He laughed. “Judy used to worry because she thought she had some sort of maternal attraction for me, but it isn’t a bit like that. I already have a wonderful mother, so I don’t need another one.”

  “Isn’t she lonely, though, when you’re away?” Lili asked.

  “I don’t know.” It had never occurred to him that shiny, confident, poised Judy might ever feel lonely. In spite of himself, he again compared the two women. Lili ate lustily, Judy picked at food. Lili bored him with her indecision over the Mistinguett film, Judy never talked about her business when she was with him.

  On Sunday morning Mark taught Lili to make popcorn, but it worried Mark to stand in the tiny kitchen right up against Lili and her animal magnetism. On Sunday afternoon they went to a scruffy little Chinese puppet theater off Lower Broadway. The narrow benches were filled with noisy families. The owner welcomed Mark to his own bench and sat them between a moon-faced baby and his grandmother. In such surroundings, free from her crushing public image, Lili’s natural grace flowered. Mark watched her take the baby on her knee, to look at the dragons and the gods fight it out for the lily-footed maidens. The rest of the family chattered, smiled and nodded their approval, as the baby threw handfuls of cookie crumbs on Lili’s pink suede suit and tugged her hair over her face. So much, thought Mark, for the world’s best known sex symbol.

  * * *

  Maxine shivered on the high seat, as the antique racing carriage followed the stag hunt through the forest. Cheeks stung scarlet with the bracing cold, she was feeling a little apprehensive. Shortly after they entered the humid forest, three heavy lumbering red deer had splashed across the muddy track ahead of the hunt. The tufters immediately leaped forward, baying with excitement. The mounted huntsmen, resplendent in gold-collared jackets, tore after the shaggy deerhounds, and the musical calls of their antique brass horns echoed plaintively through the forest.