‘It is indeed. I have been following Mr Mainwaring’s work with great interest.’
‘Good, good. And we are very much in agreement with you over children’s hospitalisation, and the presence of mothers on the wards. There are considerable practical problems, but I don’t think it is beyond the ingenuity of man to solve them. My only stricture would be that you proceed with any programme slowly and with great care.’
He really was a good man, Ned thought, Mr William Curtis, MD, BSc (Hons), FRCP, FRCS (Hons) and God knew how many more such letters, this uncle of Jillie: sitting there, smiling at him across his huge desk. To work under his enlightened aegis would not only be an honour, but a pleasure. He said so.
‘The feelings are entirely mutual. Oh, Jillie did tell me, in the briefest possible terms, about the reasons for your engagement’s cessation, and I would like to assure you my only feelings on that are sympathy. Such a lovely girl,’ he added. ‘One of my favourite people, not just in the family but beyond, and extremely clever too. She’ll do very well, I’m sure.’
What he was saying, Ned knew, in the most sensitively expressed code, was that he felt no prejudice towards him for his sexuality, and moreover, given discretion, that he need have no fears of it from anyone else on the hospital staff.
Ned walked out of the hospital and over Westminster Bridge, smiling down at the water, the sun warm on his face. He could never remember feeling so happy, so fortunate. He had the job he had dreamed of, fear removed from his professional life, loneliness from his personal; he loved and was loved. It was a heady sensation.
He decided to walk down to St Luke’s, rather than get a taxi; it would only take about half an hour along the river and he had plenty of time before his afternoon clinic. He would miss his patients there, he thought. He had made friends among them, and their mothers – their fathers were rarely to be seen. It was women’s work, taking children to hospital. There was one little chap, Timmy Ford, the bravest and most cheerful nine-year-old; he had been born with one leg four inches shorter than the other, had had four operations, was in constant pain, and arthritis was already setting in. He had to wear calipers, and a heavily built-up shoe; his mother was always smiling, sometimes trailing one or more of her other four children into the clinic; and then there was Susan Mills, a cystic fibrosis case, also in leg irons, and with both bladder and bowel problems, a cheeky, curious child who called him Dr Make-me-Welles. It was a splendid name that he tried to live up to.
As he walked along Chelsea Embankment, he looked up at the extremely handsome mansion blocks, and thought how much he would like to live there, with the fantastic view of the river and the space they offered – a huge reception room, more than decent kitchen and some had three bedrooms. He could have a study and a proper guest room … And then thought, reckless with happiness, there would be room for a piano and he would be able to put his mother and other visitors up. One was for sale; he noted the name of the agent, and hurried on. It wouldn’t do to be late for his clinic.
‘Are you ready?’
Diana handed Leo Bennett a large gin and tonic, settled herself on the sofa on the opposite side of the fireplace from him, lit a cigarette. She wanted a clear head, not remotely befuddled by alcohol. ‘Go on, Leo, I’m all ears.’
It was Saturday; their assignation the previous week had been cancelled as he had been sent by the paper to Paris to attempt to interview Juliette Gréco about her affair with Miles Davis. He failed, but he did see her perform in Le Tabou, a music and poetry venue on the rue Dauphine, and wrote a rather amusing piece about the evening, the music, bohemian Paris, and hanging about for three hours hoping she would emerge, only to learn she had left quite early while he was in the gents.
‘OK. First, Celia. The one who my friends in the ladies’ lavatory said was still sobbing. It’s her speciality, sobbing. And yes, we did have a fling, not a very long one, which is why I thought it would be all right to finish it.’
‘That sounds a bit – harsh.’
‘I agree. But she’s an emotional girl, almost unstable I’d say –’
‘That sounds harsher.’
‘Sorry. I didn’t realise at the outset. Nor did I realise something else.’
‘What was that? She had some incurable disease?’
‘Diana, that’s hugely unfair. I really don’t think I deserved that. I’m doing my utmost to be honest with you. I don’t normally justify my behaviour in this rather pathetic way.’
‘Well, stop doing it then. I don’t mind. It was your idea. We can go our separate ways right now. Doesn’t matter to me.’
‘Fine.’ He stood up and walked towards the door. Diana looked after him. Even from the back he was attractive, slim, quite broad shouldered, his thick blonde hair beautifully cut, exactly the right length; his Saturday clothes – dark blue jeans, brown Chelsea boots, open-necked white shirt, navy tweed jacket – exactly the style she most liked, and he had a very sexy walk. She suddenly very much wanted him to stay. And –
‘I was being unfair,’ she said. ‘Hugely unfair. I’m sorry.’
She surprised herself with the thoroughness of her apology. She must really like him, she thought.
He turned; he still wasn’t smiling, as she had thought he would be, but he looked less angry.
‘Come back and at least finish your drink. I think I’ll join you.’
He walked back rather slowly and sat down; while she was making her drink, the phone rang. It was Ned.
‘Hello, Ned, darling. Lovely to hear from you. But I’ve got someone here right now, can I ring you back? Um – no, not this afternoon, sorry. Why? Oh, I see. Oh, Ned, what a good idea, they’re lovely those flats, and you are terribly squashed in your cottage, pretty as it is. Right. Well, see if you can arrange something for tomorrow or Monday and let me know.’
She put the phone down, went back to the sofa.
‘Sorry.’
‘Friend of yours?’
‘Yes. Ned Welles, he’s a doctor. You could say he’s my best friend,’ she added, determinedly banishing Tom Knelston from her thoughts.
‘I see. And – is he married?’
‘No. Couple of near-misses, but – no. Not yet.’
‘Oh – hang on a minute. Isn’t he a friend of the Bellingers? And Ludo Manners? I covered some wedding they all went to. And Michael Southcott and the delectable Betsey.’
‘Michael’s my brother.’
‘Really? Nice chap.’
‘Yes, well, I think so. Goodness, what a memory you’ve got.’
‘Fearfully good-looking, your friend,’ said Leo. ‘I always thought he was probably queer. Or certainly swung both ways.’
‘Ned! Heavens, no. I almost married him myself.’
‘And why didn’t you?’
‘Because I met my husband.’
‘From whom you’re now divorced? Tell me, Diana, do you have a vast past?’
‘Not really. Look, I thought we were going to discuss yours.’
‘OK. What was next on the agenda? Oh, yes, Baba.’
‘To whom you’re still married?’
‘Correct.’
‘Why did you tell me you weren’t?’
‘I tell everyone that. It saves a lot of tedious explanations.’
‘All right. Why do you deny your wife’s existence? It’s not the nicest thing to do.’
‘She’s not the nicest person.’
‘Leo –’ Diana was growing irritable now; she took a rather unladylike slug of her gin and tonic.
‘It suits her to be married to me. It goes like this. Marriage a big mistake. Soon dawned on us both. Anyway, we had no children, thank God, we agreed to divorce, and I was living in London anyway. She stayed in a house in the country we’d bought until it all went through. Only it didn’t. She discovered she was very happy in the country without me; there wasn’t anyone else, she just dug her heels in and wouldn’t get on with it. And I had no grounds for divorcing her. I wouldn’t anyway. Bad form.’
‘Leo! Honestly.’
‘Well, it is. No gentleman would divorce his wife.’ Clearly he meant what he said. She was surprised and amused in equal measure.
‘Anyway, the good news is she’s met someone, who’s rich, much richer than me, and good-looking and all the things that matter to her. So now she wants a divorce and quickly. I shall do the decent thing and provide grounds, you know, weekend in Brighton, and that will be that.’
‘Goodness,’ said Diana. She would have laid every kind of bad behaviour at Leo’s door, but not this rather upright gentlemanly stuff. ‘I didn’t like the lying, Leo. Well, actually I don’t mind lying when there’s a reason for it, but that all seemed so pointless.’
‘Like yours about Ned Welles?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘My darling Diana, you’re a rather bad liar. Ned Welles is as queer as a nine-bob note – I always thought so and just now you confirmed it.’
Diana stood up. Her eyes were blazing. ‘Get out,’ she said. ‘Just get out. How dare you insult and – and slander – my best friend.’
‘Hey, did I say I disapproved in any way? Did I display any animosity, or prejudice? Of course I didn’t. My little brother is homosexual. I love him most dearly. Together with our mother we conspire to keep it from our father. Who would treat it in the time-honoured way of a daily thrashing.’
‘What does he do?’
‘He’s a landscape designer. He’s currently working on a huge scheme at some pile in Warwickshire. Living in digs in Stratford. We could go up and see him, you’d love him, take in something at the RSC maybe. I’m a huge fan of the Bard. You?’
‘Um – not really,’ said Diana cautiously. Actually, there was nothing she hated more than an evening of the stuff.
‘I shall convert you. I shall make that my Diana mission. I like to have a mission with every woman.’
Diana wasn’t sure about being lumped together with the rest of womankind.
‘Now, you can pour me another G and T, and then we can decide what to do about lunch. And then after lunch. I can think of a few things, but –’
All Diana could think of, and before rather than after lunch, was going to bed with him. She felt quite consumed by the idea, every part of her hungry, greedy, desire working at her like some restless animal, rampaging through her emotions.
‘So,’ he said, reading some of this in her dark eyes as she looked at him, in her shaking hand as she took his glass, in the smile trying to be cool as she handed it back again. ‘So, would you like to go out to lunch or would you rather stay in? And you might as well be truthful, not fuss about being ladylike. Because –’
‘I’d rather stay in,’ she said.
Chapter 65
Ned lay in bed, staring into the darkness. It was already half past two and he hadn’t slept. He was worried, not seriously so, but enough to keep him awake. He had been so wonderfully, so joyfully happy, to have found love, and to feel so brave about it. But he was disappointed in being constantly held back from telling at least the people he loved about it – properly about it; in finding still a reluctance to go even to the theatre, or a restaurant, together, for fear of recognition, of reprisals. He understood, of course he did, he had felt like that himself for so long: but then he hadn’t been in love. Perhaps this wasn’t love, wasn’t strong enough. It was a very frightening thought.
He decided to make himself a cup of tea and play some music; that would at least calm him down. And sitting, listening to Mahler, he began to feel better. He must be patient; he must understand. The judgement of society was a harsh one – despite the slow easing – and the fear of that judgement was hard to shake off. It would happen – with love and encouragement. That was all that was needed on his part: patience. He went back to bed and slept.
Jillie was working very hard at being in love with Patrick; without a great deal of success. She couldn’t deceive herself (knowing so well what love felt like) and there were simply none of the essential ingredients. Her heart didn’t lift at the sound of his voice on the phone, indeed it was more likely to turn irritably and then sink down again, and she didn’t count the hours until they were to meet; she contemplated them calmly, often wondering why on earth she had agreed to see him at all when she could have done with some time to herself, to work, or to look for the little house that she was sure was waiting for her somewhere and which she now regarded as a near-necessity.
When she was actually with Patrick, she enjoyed herself; there was no doubt that he was more interesting than she had at first thought, and much funnier. They went to a lot of theatres and concerts, discussed their work with great enthusiasm – she couldn’t imagine Julius sitting fascinated as she described a Caesarean section delivering non-identical twin boys. ‘It was the two placentas, you see, it made it terribly complicated and then the second baby was a breech, not usually a problem with a C-section, but he was all tangled in the cord and I couldn’t get a grip on him – and then the stupid nurse had given me the wrong clamps, and –’
‘Nightmare,’ said Patrick. ‘Whatever did you do?’
‘Well, just had to dig in deeper and turn him and –’
At this moment, they both realised the people at the next table were looking distinctly unhappy and had put their knives and forks down.
It was after evenings like that, when they got the giggles, that she thought well, maybe, after all, he was fun and so kind and generous. But it was the other evenings, like one last week when they had been to a concert, and he left his arms rather too tightly round her after helping her into her coat and she knew she should acquiesce to his hopeful suggestion that she went back to his flat for coffee and thought why not? Why not, because the thought of kissing him lengthily, and then him proceeding further simply gave her goosebumps of entirely the wrong kind – cold, crawling goosebumps.
No, it wasn’t working; she should finish with him and soon. Only he would be so upset, and she couldn’t face that either.
It was Josh who told her; Geraldine had invited him to one of her little soirées. Patrick couldn’t come, but she’d found a couple of other young unmarried men … Actually, it was a nice evening, and one of the two young men, while being very dull, was also very handsome and clearly interested in Jillie, and she was about to agree to going to the cinema with him, when Josh arrived, late, full of apologies, gave her a huge hug, filled her glass up alongside his own, told her a bit of political gossip, and then said, oh, yes, he expected she’d heard Julius and Nell were no longer together.
‘Wedding cancelled – Nell’s having an affair with her editor – Julius is talking about moving to Paris for a couple of years.’
The room emptied for Jillie: or rather, everyone receded, the conversation became a distant buzz, she felt dizzy, disorientated, and stood staring at Josh, who too seemed to have moved far from her.
‘You all right?’ he said and, ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘fine, you must excuse me a moment, Josh,’ and fled to her room, where she sat on her bed, rigid and stupefied, trying to make sense of what he had just said.
For if Julius was no longer with Nell, why had he not at least contacted her? The last time they’d spoken, which was not more than a very few weeks ago, he had told her he had to see her, had to talk to her, that he could not stop thinking about her and she had put the phone down on him. How could he not therefore, now that he was free, at least have told her?
It hurt so much she could scarcely breathe; she sat down on the bed, her arms folded across her stomach, rocking backwards and forwards. How was she to bear it, this new betrayal, this fresh rejection?
There was a knock on the door – it was her mother, was she all right?
And she said, ‘I’m all right. Well, not really, I’ve just been sick. Sorry, Mummy, I’m going to have to go to bed, you get back to your party.’ Then she crawled into bed, pulled the eiderdown over her head and cried until the last guest had gone and the house was quiet again, and when her mother came
up again to see how she was, she pretended to be asleep.
‘Look,’ said Freddie, ‘I’m sorry to hassle you, but we need to make a decision soon. Very soon. By the end of this weekend, actually. Ottilie’s on the phone to me hourly.’
‘Freddie!’
They were having tea in the Soda Fountain at Fortnum’s; it was very crowded, and half the customers were Freddie’s compatriots. Diana, who had loved the American accent at first, wondered how she would feel about living with it twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Freddie’s was all right, but then he was from the East Coast and a good family (which in America meant rich). But the Southern drawl, or worse the Midwestern roll, drove her mad.
‘All right. She rings me daily. No, honestly, more than that, twice daily.’
‘Well – gives her something to do,’ said Diana.
‘Diana! That wasn’t worthy of you. We’re talking serious business here.’
‘Sorry. I don’t know. I do want to go, it’d be heaven working with you all the time, we can do such amazing things –’
‘I know. Did I tell you about my Schwarz idea?’
‘No’
‘F.A.O. Schwarz, that hugely famous toy shop at the top of Fifth. I thought we could do a shot in all the major departments, with you dressed to match. So something floaty and Ginger and Fred-ish on the piano floor and we’ll have a Fred for you to dance with; sharpest suit we can find for the Lego room; something v v sporty for the life-size animals, I thought you could actually sit on one of the giraffes –’
‘Oh, Freddie.’ Diana set down her teacup, her face dreamy. Thinking about working with Freddie particularly, but really, simply work, creating photographs, always excited her, focused her mind. ‘Maybe a picnic with the teddy bears, so a country afternoon dress, shirtwaister, I should think.’
‘Marvellous. But I can’t get them all worked up till you’ve made up your mind properly.’
‘Miss Dickens and Ottilie worked up! I don’t think so. I never saw a cooler pair in my life.’
A Question of Trust Page 60
