Cents and Sensibility

by Maggie Alderson

  ‘Not as much as they like you. My dad is the world’s biggest petrolhead and you could not have made a better move than arriving in that mad car. What is it anyway?’

  ‘It’s a Ferrari Enzo,’ he said casually.

  ‘Aren’t Ferraris always red?’

  ‘They are mostly. But this one’s black. I don’t like red cars.’ He smiled at me. ‘Now show me the garden. Preferably some bits that are well out of sight of the house.’

  I led him through the rose garden and down the steps into the bamboo thickets, over the stream via the Chinese bridge into the wilder wooded area, and finally to Ham’s shell grotto.

  ‘Wow,’ said Jay when we got inside. ‘This is really wild.’

  It was. Ham had found a small natural cave in the side of the hill when he was excavating the garden and had seen fit to have it entirely covered in shells, in mosaic designs featuring erotic scenes in the classical style. We’d found it hilarious as children. Now it was having more of the intended effect on Jay.

  He pulled me into his arms.

  ‘You left me in a terrible state last week,’ he said, kissing me gently between his words. ‘How could you do that to me?’

  I smiled at him, as I breathed in his wonderful smell again, but I couldn’t relax into his embrace. And this time I wasn’t playing games. It had all been just a little too weird having him pop up fully formed in the family part of my life, which I normally kept so firmly separated from my love life. So I was still digesting all that, plus I felt extremely inhibited by the close – and all too knowing – proximity of my father.

  Luckily, the shell grotto was not the most comfortable place for intimate encounters, so I was able to prise Jay out of it fairly easily. Then, after finishing the rest of the garden tour at high speed, we went in for tea, during which Ham managed not to embarrass me too much, although Venezia filled the gap, pouting and posing like a bunny girl, despite death-ray glares from Chloe.

  Then it finally seemed like time to start getting back to town.

  I nipped over to the guest wing to grab my things and saw that Alex had left my nightie on the bed for me. There was a note by it.

  ‘It looked better on you. A.’

  That was it. There was no kiss, and I was surprised how much I minded.

  The entire family came out to see us off, which was slightly mortifying, and then as I was about to get into the car, Ham came over and whispered in my ear, with surprising discretion.

  ‘You made me wait long enough before you brought someone home, you little minx, but it was worth it. You’ve got yourself a serious Alpha Male there, Stella. And I like him too.’ He put his hands on my cheeks and turned my head, looking right into my eyes. ‘Don’t blow it.’

  I knew exactly what he meant. Follow Daddy’s rules, if you want to hook him, that’s what he was saying. Make him wait.

  I smiled at him and kissed him on the cheek. The old goat.

  Jay and I talked all the way back to London. We were never lost for something to say and I felt really comfortable with him, except for the occasional moment when his hand strayed a little too far up my leg and I could hardly breathe, let alone form a sentence.

  But fortunately for our conversation – and Ham’s rules – Jay’s driving style required both hands on the wheel most of the time. I love fast cars, but even I was gripping the seat as he zoomed along the M23 like it was a German Autobahn.

  ‘I knew Michael Schumacher had one brother…’ I was saying, as he overtook a red Porsche, at warp-factor speed.

  ‘Red-car asshole,’ he was saying, smiling triumphantly in the rear-view mirror. ‘What did you say? Schumacher? I’d like to take him on. Do you like Formula One?’

  ‘It’s OK,’ I said. ‘I don’t find it very riveting television – although Ham adores it – but it can be quite fun in the corporate tents.’

  He turned and smiled at me warmly, all blue eyes, white teeth and suntan.

  ‘Where did you get your tan?’ I asked him.

  ‘Mustique, mainly. And a bit of skiing. Do you ski?’

  ‘No,’ I said, firmly. I’d been once, to St Moritz for a John Frieda shampoo launch and I was useless. Apart from posing around in the furry boots, I had loathed it.

  Jay looked surprised, like I’d said I couldn’t swim, or maybe read.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘We never went as kids,’ I said. ‘It’s not Ham’s scene. He’d rather go and look at museums than go downhill at high speed.’

  Jay nodded, as if it all now made sense.

  ‘Your dad is so great,’ he was saying. ‘He’s awesome, but tell me about the rest of your family. Who were all those kids?’

  So I explained about the six wives and the six children who were my half-brothers and sisters, plus the various exstepsiblings and semi-steps.

  ‘Whooah,’ said Jay. ‘That is seriously complicated. Do you all get along?’

  ‘Mostly,’ I said and then I told him about Venezia’s little outrage of the weekend.

  ‘That is seriously nasty,’ said Jay. ‘Why is she so bad?’

  ‘I think it’s a combination of nature and nurture. Her mother, Kristy, is a total witch – the only real gold-digger Ham has ever been sucked in by…’

  Jay’s head turned suddenly to look at me.

  ‘Hmmm,’ I added. ‘That was an unfortunate turn of phrase in the context, wasn’t it? Although I’m sure it was entirely her skill in the “love arts” which lured Ham into her clutches. She was his mistress on and off for years, before they got married.

  ‘Venezia was conceived and born while he was still married to Rose – the twins’ mum – two years before they came along. So that must be a bit weird for Venezia. She was Ham’s secret daughter for quite a long time. The rest of us may be a mixed-up bunch, but at least we were legitimate. Then on top of that, she’s really bright – she definitely got that from Ham – and the combination is pretty lethal.’

  Jay was shaking his head.

  ‘Phewee. You’ll have to draw me a diagram to understand all this. I thought my family was messy, but you guys really take the prize.’

  ‘Why is your family messy?’ I asked innocently.

  His head shot round and then just as quickly back.

  ‘Oh, the usual stuff, divorce shit, half-siblings – but only one in my case.’

  I could sense him shutting down as he spoke, but I wanted to know. He knew about my mad family, in all our gory detail, I felt I had a right to ask about his.

  ‘Where did you grow up?’ I pushed him.

  ‘Oh, mainly in New York, although we had a place in Rhode Island too. Partly over here. My grandmother was English… Hey, don’t you want to know how I got your number?’

  As subject changers went, it was a good one. I’d been puzzling about that, but had decided not to ask him.

  ‘Yes. How did you get my number?’

  ‘Well, no thanks to you, little Miss Mystery. I rang the Journal repeatedly and they’d never heard of you. Do you really work there? I was seriously starting to wonder. They kept saying we don’t have a Stella Montecourt, we have a Stella something else, but not a Stella Montecourt. I was getting really pissed off in the end. I knew your name was Montecourt, because of your dad, so what was that all about?’

  ‘Oh, no, I forgot to tell you,’ I said, my hand flying up to my mouth, and it was the truth. I had forgotten. ‘I don’t use that name at work. My byline is Stella Fain. The full family name is Montecourt-Fain, but it’s so pompous we don’t use it much, and I don’t want people to immediately connect me with my dad by just using Montecourt, because it’s so identifiable, so I just use the Fain part.’

  ‘Well, it was one way to get rid of some lame guy you didn’t want to see again,’ he said, turning to smile at me. ‘Did you get my flowers?’

  I thought quickly.

  ‘What flowers?’

  ‘OΚ, I guess you didn’t get them then, because I put the wrong name on them too. Shame, they were nice flow
ers. Roses. I chose them myself. I put my cell number on the card – I was nearly put off when you didn’t call me. But only nearly.’

  I quickly reviewed the flowers situation. Jeanette must have recognized Montecourt on the card. Funny she hadn’t mentioned it.

  ‘So do you want to know how I got your number, or not?’ he said.

  ‘Yes. And I also want to know how you found Willow Barn without directions.’

  ‘Oh, that was easy. I had the post code. I just tapped it in here…’ He gestured at the satellite navigation thing on the dashboard. ‘And Miss Bossy Boots delivered me to your door.’

  He pressed a button and an incredibly officious woman’s voice said: ‘After five hundred metres, take the next exit.’

  ‘Did she tell you my mobile number too?’ I asked him, cheekily.

  ‘No. That wasn’t so easy. I tried to get it from Jericho’s PA, but she pretended she’d never heard of you, so I swallowed my pride and called Amy. Which was really humiliating, thank you, Stella.’

  He pretended to punch me on the arm.

  Excellent, I thought. Result.

  ‘So,’ said Jay. ‘Now I’ve finally found you, what are we going to do? Dinner? Where do you like to go? What do you feel like?’

  ‘I feel like going somewhere I’ve never been before.’

  Jay grinned wickedly. ‘How about my apartment?’

  Then, just as I was wondering how to play things from there, my phone rang. This time it really was the news desk. Brilliant.

  ‘Stella?’ said the gruff voice of Eric, the deputy news editor. ‘Something’s coming over the wires from Australia about a designer from there getting the big gig at Gucci. Is that a story for you?’

  ‘It certainly is,’ I said, trying not to sound as thrilled as I really was to have a valid excuse to torture Jay a little more. ‘I’ve been tracking that rumour for a couple of weeks, it’s a huge story. I’ll come straight in.’

  I snapped my phone shut and looked at my watch.

  ‘I’m really sorry, Jay,’ I said. ‘But that was the news desk. I’ve got a big story breaking and they want it for tomorrow’s paper. I do work there, really, and I’ll have to go in to the office right away.’

  I didn’t have to at all. I could have done the story perfectly easily from home and emailed it in, but I wasn’t going to tell him that.

  He looked quite crestfallen.

  ‘I’m really sorry,’ I added. ‘After you’ve driven all this way and everything…’

  ‘I’ll take you to your office,’ he said, recovering quickly. ‘Where is it?’

  ‘So far east it’s practically in the North Sea. Are you sure you want to? You can just drop me anywhere in town and I’ll get a cab.’

  ‘I like driving,’ he said. ‘And I like being with you. I want to spend a little longer in your company.’

  He gave me a look I would come to know well in the months ahead. It was the real Jay, at his most open and appealing. He may have been like a clam about his family, but in any other context, he could be amazingly, touchingly honest about his feelings, and it was probably the thing I liked most about him.

  ‘If you’re only offering me crumbs,’ he said, ‘that’s what I’ll take. I like you enough to accept crumbs.’ Then he grinned, wickedly. ‘But you’ll have to give me a down payment on the full cake.’

  And he pulled over into the next lay-by and kissed me until my head was spinning.

  By the time we drew up in front of the docklands skyscraper which housed the Journal’s offices, I really was getting worried about meeting my deadline, which made getting out of the car a lot easier.

  I had just opened the door and swung my legs out, when Jay put his hand gently on my arm.

  ‘Not so fast, cub reporter,’ he said. ‘You’re not leaving this automobile until I have your home, work and cell-phone numbers. And your email address and preferably your IRS number. I’m not going through that again.’

  ‘I never answer the work phone,’ I said. ‘So don’t bother with that, but here are the rest.’

  I scribbled my home and mobile numbers on the back of my business card and handed it to him. But I didn’t ask for his.

  ‘Hey, Stella Fain,’ he called out to me as I walked up the steps towards the building. ‘I’ll be looking for your story in tomorrow’s paper. OK?’

  When I made it up to the thirty-first floor, where my desk was, I could hear a phone ringing, which was quite unusual late on a Sunday afternoon. When I got nearer to my work station, I realized it was my phone.

  For once I broke my rule and answered it, because I thought it might be someone ringing me with an important lead about the Gucci story.

  ‘Stella Fain,’ I said in my most professional voice.

  ‘Just checking,’ said Jay, laughing, and put the phone down.

  I sat at my desk and smiled. I liked his style. I liked it a lot.

  7

  I liked it even more the next day, when another – bigger – bouquet of Moyses Stevens roses arrived on my desk, five minutes after I had sat down at it, and this time delivered without Jeanette’s help.

  I was just reading the card for about the twenty-fifth time – ‘Nice story this morning. Dinner tonight? J xxx, I was up to three kisses, excellent – when I became aware of a commotion going on over on the other side of the office.

  ‘Is this your name?’ a voice was asking in raised tones. An unmistakable voice, with a strong Scottish accent, punctuated by the sound of a fist hitting a newspaper. ‘Is this your bloody name? Did you write this? Did you put this filth in my paper?’

  It was Doughnut and he wasn’t happy.

  I had to look. I might have been the fluff correspondent, but I was still a newspaper reporter – and needing to know what is going on, when it is absolutely none of our business, is a trait that unites us all. I raised myself gingerly from my seat and peeped over the partition.

  ‘Uh-oh,’ said Peter, the writer who had the desk nearest me. ‘Someone is seriously in the soup. Can you see who it is, Stella dear? Your eyes are younger than mine and so much more acute.’

  ‘Oh, sod off, Peter,’ I said. ‘You just don’t want to get caught rubbernecking. I can’t see from here actually. I’ll make a tactical trip to the loo and report back.’

  I strolled casually over to that side of the office, just in time to see Doughnut, alarmingly red in the face, shredding a copy of the Journal in front of someone’s head. The object of his fury had his back to me, so I couldn’t see who it was, but it was male and youngish.

  ‘If you want to write excrement like that,’ Doughnut was saying, ‘I suggest you go and work on The Daily Tits, because you don’t belong on my paper.’

  I dodged into the loo as he stomped past me, his ginger eyebrows meeting above his nose in a chevron of fury. I was followed in by Rita, one of the features subs and a fabulous gossip.

  ‘Hooeee,’ she was saying. ‘That was a scorcher. Poor bugger.’

  ‘What was the problem?’ I asked, continuing our conversation over the partition between the cubicles.

  ‘Did you read that story in features today about Essex girls who are into customizing cars?’ said Rita. ‘That guy Ned wrote it and he used the word “tits” in it – and not in a quote. Somehow it got through subs, and Doughnut read it this morning and nearly had a fit over his croissant.’

  ‘Ouch,’ I said. ‘Is he new? This Ned?’

  He had to be. Anyone who had worked on the paper for any time at all, knew that while his own language was richly peppered with obscenities and profanities, Doughnut was obsessive about keeping up what he called ‘Empire standards’ in the paper. He was a stickler for grammar and correct usage, and manically against the use of ‘vulgarities’. ‘Tits’ was a major vulgarity misdemeanour.

  He didn’t have a problem with maverick creative flair – Doughnut was a great champion of originality and had nurtured some of the brightest writing talents in British journalism – but he felt that being amusi
ng without resorting to base language was part of the challenge.

  ‘He’s been here a couple of weeks, but I don’t reckon he’ll be asked to stay after his trial period now, do you?’ said Rita, who loved office dramas more than anything. ‘He’ll be just another notch on Doughnut’s sacking sword.’

  I nipped back to my desk to tell Peter the news.

  ‘Poor fellow,’ he said. ‘And a shame, because I think he’s got promise, that young man. I liked that piece, it was an insight into a subculture I didn’t know about, although I did baulk at the word in question myself when I read it this morning.

  ‘Although, of course,’ he continued, leaning back in his chair and fixing me with a gimlet stare over his bifocals and down his bony nose, ‘the person Duncan should really be telling off is not the young writer, but our dear features editor, is it not? Did she not read the piece in question? Is it not her job to do so, when it is to appear in the section which she allegedly edits? It is, indeed. But no, she did not read it and she has allowed someone else entirely to take the blame – and that is business as usual round here these days, is it not, my dear girl?’

  I smiled indulgently at Peter. He went on like a pompous vicar, but I loved him dearly. It was a privilege to sit next to him. He’d worked for the paper for over four decades, from when it was still on Fleet Street and the type was set each day by hand in hot metal, on printing presses housed in the basement below the editorial offices – another age, really.

  He had a block of old metal type spelling out his byline – all back to front, of course – on his desk, next to his manual typewriter.

  He still did all his writing on that old thing – with multiple carbon copies – and then had one of the editorial assistants type it into the computer for him. It was against all the rules and the clattering of that old Olivetti had driven me nuts at first, until it became part of the general hum of my working day, but everyone made allowances for Peter.

  He was a legend on the paper. He’d actually been editor of it at one point, and news editor and letters editor and obituaries editor and features editor, as well as doing practically every kind of reporting; he could still do shorthand at 150 words a minute. And after all that, he had earned his current privileged position quietly turning out just one perfectly written opinion column a week and the odd feature, as it took his fancy.