The Dilemma

by Penny Vincenzi

  ‘You’re an angel. Thank you. Well, I’ll hope to hear from you. Do you want to come for a drink here first on Friday? With your wickedly attractive husband?’

  ‘More wicked than attractive as far as I’m concerned at the moment,’ said Francesca briskly. ‘I’ll have to ask him, Miranda, the way things are going at the moment he could be coming to the dinner via Bahrain. Or not coming at all.’

  ‘Oh don’t say that. I couldn’t bear it.’

  Sam was very helpful about coverage for the dinner; she said she’d have a think. ‘Presumably you want someone very respectable. Not a tabloid.’

  ‘Absolutely not. And don’t tell Bard, whatever you do. He thinks all journalists should be target practice for firing squads at the moment.’

  Sam laughed. ‘I have a sneaking tendency to agree with him. And I promise I won’t. I’ll get back to you.’

  ‘Thanks, Sam. Can you have me put through to Marcia now, please?’

  Marcia sounded more condescending even than usual. ‘Good morning, Mrs Channing. I’m afraid I can’t possibly put you through to Mr Channing at the moment, he’s – ’

  ‘No, Marcia, I don’t want to speak to my husband, I want to speak to you. It’s his birthday in July, the twelfth, as of course you know, and I want to whisk him off to Ireland. To the Dromoland Castle, I thought, for just forty-eight hours – ’

  ‘How nice,’ said Marcia. Her tone implied the darkest foreboding about the plan, as if Francesca had proposed a brief stay in Alcatraz.

  ‘So I just wanted to know if he was free that day, and if not if you could manage to clear it for him.’

  There was a long silence. Marcia was obviously anxious to impress upon her that what she had asked was far too difficult to accomplish by a quick glance at Bard’s diary.

  ‘No,’ she said finally, ‘most unusually, Mrs Channing, there is nothing in the diary that day – oh, except for a query on a lunch with Mr Booth. I could speak to Mr Booth about that if you like. He’s coming in later.’

  ‘No, it’s all right, Marcia. I’ll do that. I want to speak to him myself. Thank you.’

  ‘Francesca! How nice. How are you, darling? Sorry about young Liam, we sent some flowers and a little something.’

  ‘That was very kind of you, Duggie,’ said Francesca. ‘He’s going to be all right, apparently. I went to see him briefly yesterday and – ’

  ‘That was very nice of you,’ he said, ‘very nice.’

  ‘Oh – I don’t know. Anyway, Duggie, I’m glad I caught you, I thought you might be in the meeting this morning.’

  ‘Oh – no.’ He sounded wary and something else – hurt? Had he been kept out of it deliberately? She knew Bard was inclined to be contemptuous of his negotiating skills. ‘His only value is in pulling in contacts,’ he’d once said, ‘and in that he’s worth his weight a hundred times over in gold.’

  It was true, she knew. She’d watched Duggie at work, at parties, dinners, even on holiday. He could spot a potential client, a source of finance, at a hundred yards. Especially on a golf course. And then draw them into his warm, welcoming web. Dear Duggie; she missed him, they didn’t see nearly so much of him these days, with the arrival of Teresa. They had had such fun together when Suzanne had been alive, she had mothered her, had mothered them all. It was all very different now, she thought sadly; Terri was about as motherly as Boadicea.

  ‘Heard the baby hadn’t been too well. How is she? Dear little thing. It was lovely seeing her at Easter, you must bring her down here.’ He sounded wistful; Francesca felt guilty.

  ‘She seems better. And I keep telling myself the doctors must know what they’re talking about. Yes, Duggie, you must come and stay at Stylings one weekend. With Terri of course. Er – how is she?’

  ‘Oh, she’s fine. Very occupied with her business this week. Some big trade fair. Up in Birmingham. That’s where her head office is, you know.’

  ‘No I didn’t.’

  ‘She’s a very high-powered girl. Big turnover, that company.’ He said this proudly. ‘I don’t see as much of her as I’d like. Spends a lot of time in Birmingham. Working on her company, you know?’

  ‘Oh – yes, of course.’ And then she said – purely to make conversation, of course, not to check up on Bard, of course not – ‘I understand Channings have put some money into her company. She must be pleased.’

  There was a long silence: very long. For some reason she felt unnerved by it. Then he said, carefully, ‘I – hadn’t quite realised that.’

  ‘You hadn’t? Oh, I see – well – ’ She was confused, embarrassed. ‘Well, Bard just mentioned it. Maybe I misunderstood. Yes, that must have been it. It’s very easy to misunderstand Bard, isn’t it? He probably just said he was thinking about it. In fact, now I come to think about it, that was what he said. Sorry, Duggie.’

  ‘That’s all right, darling.’

  And now she was not just embarrassed, but something else: lost again in the swirling mist of half-knowledge, of unease. Damn. Why had she said anything? Why couldn’t she have left things alone? And why had Bard told her something that was untrue?

  She switched to the real purpose of her call, trying to distract herself, to distract Duggie. ‘Now look, Duggie, I need your help. I’m planning to whisk Bard off on his birthday this year. For a little forty-eight-hour idyll, probably to Ireland.’ She felt rather less keen on the idea suddenly, but she felt compelled to go on with it, for now at least. ‘And he has a query in his diary on lunch with you. Can I quietly cancel it? And could you keep quiet? Say you’ve got to do something else?’

  ‘Yes of course. No problem. Forgotten it was his birthday. Only a possibility, that one, anyway. Take that as read, Francesca my dear. And mum’s the world.’

  ‘Thank you, Duggie. And you’re all right, are you?’

  ‘Who, me? Good Lord, I’m absolutely tickety-boo.’

  Dear Duggie; walking time-warp that he was. She felt terrible about upsetting him, worrying him. And yet, she still wanted to go on; she had to go on …

  ‘Good. Um – Duggie – ’

  ‘Yes?’

  Suddenly it seemed silly not to try and find out why Teresa might have been at Channing House that night; surely Duggie would know. ‘I – I just wondered, Duggie. Does – does Terri go into Channing House much?’

  ‘Channing House?’ The carefully bluff voice sounded guarded suddenly. ‘No, of course not. Not unless I’m there. Why do you ask, darling?’

  ‘Oh – well, she was there the other night. I popped in with something for Bard and she was there. I was surprised, that’s all.’

  ‘Which night? When was she there?’ Different again, the voice: not even guarded, but edgy, irritable.

  ‘Oh – it was last Friday, actually. Just after Bard got back from Stockholm. Honestly Duggie, it doesn’t matter, I just thought – ’

  ‘Didn’t she say? I mean, how could I know? Didn’t you ask her yourself?’ The irritability had extended towards her now; he didn’t like this, didn’t like the situation.

  ‘Well – well, no, not really. The thing is, Bard was in a frightful bait, just for a change, and I was rushing and – ’ God, she had got herself into a tangle now; silly to have started it. It was obvious she was suspicious, that she was trying to pry. Inspiration hit her. ‘Probably she was discussing her company with him, don’t you think?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, of course.’ He sounded grateful himself for the suggestion. ‘Yes, that’d be it. I think, now I come to think of it, she did mention something. Yes, that would be the explanation. Definitely.’

  ‘Yes.’ All she wanted now was to get off the phone. ‘Anyway, Duggie, you take care, and don’t forget about the twelfth, will you?’

  ‘Of course not.’ He sounded abstracted still. ‘The twelfth. That’d be fine. Absolutely fine.’

  ‘Thank you. Bye, Duggie. Lovely to talk to you.’

  ‘What’s that? Oh, yes, very nice. Yes. Goodbye, my dear.’ He hauled himself back into the prese
nt with an almost audible effort. ‘Yes, I won’t forget. And bring that little darling to see us. And the young chap. Terri would love it. She’s wonderful with children, as you know … Wonderful girl altogether. Given me a new lease of life.’

  ‘Good,’ said Francesca, ‘that’s marvellous. Bye, Duggie.’

  She put down the phone and sat looking at it, telling herself everything was fine. Of course it was. Terri obviously hadn’t wanted Duggie to know she had asked Bard to put money into her company. That was all. Well, if she’d made things awkward for her, that was fine by her, thought Francesca. Although she was sorry if she’d upset Duggie. Dear Duggie. She got up, made herself a cup of coffee, and made a call to the Dromoland Castle. And then looked at her watch and thought she might just have time to go and visit Liam again before lunch.

  Longman and Drew, the firm of chartered accountants sent in by Methuens to examine the affairs of the Channing Corporation, had made an interim and most reassuring report to Desmond North at Methuens. They had done an extensive survey of the accounts and held exhaustive discussion with both Mr Channing and Mr Barbour, and found everything absolutely in order; a full report would follow within a few days. Desmond North breathed a sigh of relief, realised he had been more anxious than he had admitted even to himself, and booked a two-day break in Florence with his mistress on the strength of it.

  Gray sat in his office, feeling raw with misery. Tricia had made him some tea which he had drunk almost without noticing the taste; it was only as he set the cup down on his desk that he realised it was so dark in colour that it had stained the cup. Perversely he promptly felt sick. He had felt sick quite a lot that day: morning sickness, he thought to himself, and tried to find it funny. He didn’t. He tried to concentrate on work; it didn’t seem very important. In any case, it was Monday, there was no pressure, nothing to set the adrenalin flowing. The only thing on his desk was a note from the editor saying could he think about doing an update on his piece about the EMU, which was hardly going to distract him very much from his misery. That was unfortunate; usually it was the greatest solace, his work: a second wife, his mistress Briony had often said, exciting and revitalising, intriguing and interesting, soothing pain, lifting depression, quite often replacing, or certainly running alongside, physical desire. He really loved it. He was always telling people he would do it for nothing (something of a lie, but they knew what he meant and so did he). He could never quite imagine how anyone could want to do anything else, felt against all logic that every other job had to come second to it, that everyone would wish to do it if they could; and he saw it as the greatest piece of good fortune to possess the kind of talent that made it possible. Briony had always said – God, how long, how painfully, horribly long was he going to go on thinking that? – that it was because he was such a show-off, such an egotist, that it was simply seeing his name in print every week on the top of his column, and of course she was right, but there was more to it than that. It was the sheer satisfaction of taking a starting point, an idea, a personality, a situation, and building a story on it, of talking to people, listening to people, probing, thinking, sorting: nothing necessarily exciting, but nonetheless genuinely creative, colouring in, fleshing out, bringing into focus.

  He felt sick again suddenly, violently so, and got up and went to the gents’; sat there for a long time, his head in his hands, wondering (yet again) why, how, he could have done what he had, wondering what Briony was doing, wondering if she was all right, if she felt as bad as he did, hoping, praying almost he had not made a mistake, taken hold of happiness and hurled it away, thrown the baby (God, why did he keep coming up with these images?) out with the bathwater.

  And then he began to think again of Teresa Booth: and that led him back to thoughts of Duggie and Channings and Sam Illingworth and the story he was so convinced was there; and a tiny, sweet seam of excitement, of interest, entered his consciousness. He got out Saturday’s Financial Times, examined the Channings share price; it had been drifting downwards just slightly. Friday had seen more than a drift: seven points. He pulled himself together and went back to his desk and dialled Sam’s number.

  ‘Sam Illingworth.’

  ‘Sam, hi. It’s Gray Townsend. I wondered if you were free for lunch today. We could discuss trends in property, or your unsinkable share price, or the servant problem, anything you’d like really.’

  ‘ ’Fraid not, Gray. I’d love to, but – bit hectic here. Heavy meetings going on all day.’

  ‘OK,’ he said, disproportionately disappointed. ‘Another day maybe. It is unsinkable, isn’t it?’

  ‘What? Oh, the share price. Yes of course.’

  ‘Although not quite so good on Friday.’

  ‘Not quite. Better today though.’

  ‘Oh really? Anything to do with the heavy meetings?’

  ‘No of course not. Gray, don’t pump me, you know it’s pointless. But it’s funny you should ring. I wanted to ask you a favour. Nothing very exciting and I don’t suppose you’ll be interested, but I’ll have done my duty – ’

  ‘I know. Bard Channing wants me to go and stay for a few days.’

  ‘No-o. But you’re warm in one respect. Mrs Channing phoned me this morning, asked me if I knew some nice friendly journalist who might be able to cover a charity do. This Friday.’

  ‘Oh Sam, for God’s sake. I’m not a bloody diarist.’ His misery was making him irritable.

  ‘I know, Gray. Sorry. I did say it wasn’t very exciting. But – well, forget it. Sorry.’

  She sounded so embarrassed he felt quite sorry for her. ‘What sort of a charity do?’

  ‘An auction. Tim Kennedy’s doing it. Should be fun. If you know anyone who’d like to go, he – or she – would get a free dinner. At the Grosvenor House.’

  ‘Can’t be all bad.’ He thought of the Friday evening: alone, as all his Fridays would be from now on. The whole fundraising thing did intrigue him; the big business aspect of it. And then – ‘Would Mrs Channing herself be there?’ he said.

  ‘Oh yes, of course. I think you’d find she’d be very friendly and helpful, as well. She’s really very nice. Would you like to call me back, if you can think of anyone?’

  Gray reached a decision. ‘I’ve just thought of someone,’ he said. ‘Me.’

  Suddenly he felt better, distracted at the thought of meeting Francesca Channing.

  Alan Ferrers was a rising star on the trading floor at Jones Oldbury. He was one of that new and select breed of electronic barrow boys; he’d grown up on a council estate in Dalston, the son of a bus driver, left school on his sixteenth birthday against a background of dire warnings of unemployment and bankruptcy from his father and his headmaster, got a job within weeks, running errands on the Stock Exchange and was now making, in an average year, four times the headmaster’s salary and eight times his father’s. He was of a cheerful disposition, good looking, randy, foul mouthed and could, he often said with modest pride, smell a deal like a dog could smell a bitch on heat.

  He was just pulling up the ring of his third Diet Pepsi of the day, ripping open his second packet of cigarettes and trying to decide whether he should ask Carole Harding, who sat opposite him and had the most sensationally large tits he’d seen for a long time outside the confines of the Sun newspaper, if she’d fancy a drink after work, when his screen flickered and a few rows of numbers moved and shifted in their familiar corn-in-the-wind rippling sequence. ‘Interesting, my darling,’ he said (for he was very fond of his machine and always addressed it thus), and reached out for his telephone to speak to Graydon Townsend, of whom he was very fond and who had for the past two years, or even a little longer, paid him for the odd piece of useful information in bottles of champagne. Vintage. Obviously.

  Gray went out at lunchtime to a pub on the corner of High Holborn, drank rather nastily warm ice beer, and thought miserably that in the old days, when Fleet Street had been a place rather than a concept, there would have been a great mass of warm drunken bo
nhomie to fall into and thus forget himself. Now newspapers were scattered across London like so many isolated hotels, there was precious little of that, and a dangerous falling-off in useful gossip as well. Life generally, he thought, munching a soggy pickled onion, didn’t seem to have a lot going for it.

  There were three messages for him when he got back to the office. One was from Teresa Booth, saying she’d got his message but was now going away for a couple of days on business, ‘but thanks again for a nice time at the Ritz, if that doesn’t sound too compromising, and I hope you didn’t take too much notice of my advice. It was probably bad.’

  ‘Thanks, Mrs Booth,’ said Gray aloud.

  The second message was from Kirsten Channing; she was having a party on Saturday, would he and his girlfriend like to come? ‘Yeah,’ said Gray to the machine, ‘and feel like Methuselah. Don’t think so, thank you.’ He’d drop her a nice regretful little note; it would save having to explain, to make excuses.

  The third was from Alan Ferrers at Jones Oldbury, to say the share price of one the firms they had been discussing the previous week had just jumped up fifteen points. Gray forgot about Kirsten and Briony, forgot about everything, dialled his number.

  ‘Channings, would this be?’

  ‘It would indeed.’

  ‘And what would have done that, Alan?’

  ‘Only one thing. Someone’s bought a ton of ’em.’

  ‘What’s a ton?’

  ‘Oh – say about a million quid’s worth. At least.’

  ‘Blimey,’ said Gray. ‘Any idea who?’

  ‘Nope. But I’ve been asking around for you. If I get any news, I’ll let you know. You owe me a few drinks anyway.’

  ‘You’ll get them.’

  He rang off and sat staring at the phone; he suddenly felt quite different, excited, phsyically energised. Something was up; his instinct had been right.