The Women in His Life

by Barbara Taylor Bradford

  Marco, the butler, aware of Maxim’s nocturnal habits of working late, studying documents and balance sheets well into the early hours, had turned on the lamps and banked up the fire before retiring to his own quarters. The silk-shaded lamps cast a roseate glow throughout and the logs burned brightly in the grate behind the mesh fire screen, threw off welcome warming heat. Maxim seated himself at the French bureau plat, glanced at the telephone messages Marco had placed under a glass paperweight and put them to one side. None were of any great importance, could be dealt with before he left for the airport in a few hours or so. Picking up a pearl-handled paper knife, he slit the manilla envelope which John Vale had dropped off earlier and took out the sheaf of papers.

  It was with only the smallest degree of interest that he looked over the accounts of Lister Newspapers which he had fanned out on the desk in front of him. One of Maxim’s greatest assets was his ability to read a financial statement well, and to size up a company quickly with his own special brand of business acumen. This he did now, understanding at once that Lister Newspapers was indeed a good buy, by anybody’s standards. Excellent, in fact. And yet he felt no quickening of his pulse, no excitement in his veins, no thrill at the thought of going after it. Indisputably, his attitude had not changed since the meeting in Alan Trenton’s office. He simply was not interested in making a play for this company. Or was that true for any company?

  It struck Maxim, with some force, that he was not particularly interested in the Winonda Group either, and this brought him up in the chair with a small start, instantly made him scrutinise his sudden change of mind.

  He had told Graeme to go ahead earlier for a variety of reasons. It was one of her bigger deals; he knew how much it meant to her, he had no wish to disappoint or discourage her. Also, right at the outset he had recognised that Winonda would be an important acquisition for them, an enormously valuable asset to West International when it came to the overall picture of the conglomerate. But he had to admit that he much preferred her to handle the deal herself—with the help of Peter Heilbron and the financial team in the New York office. Certainly he did not want to be the chief combatant in the actual battle, had no interest in being out there on the front line. He would give advice from the trenches. His troops would have to do the hard hand-to-hand fighting.

  Maxim frowned intently, wondering about his reluctance to put himself in the middle of the action. He had always been a big part of it in the past, the pivotal point. Surely business wasn’t beginning to bore him, was it? How could that be? Business was his life, wasn’t it? Anastasia had always said so. He winced at the thought of his first wife.

  A weary sigh escaped, and he ran his hands through his hair distractedly, conscious that he had not been himself of late. He kept up the facade, of course, the facade of charm and magnetism that the world had come to expect. But inside, at the very core of his being, he felt empty. There was a bleakness in his soul, he was joyless for most of the time, and increasingly he was held in the grips of a terrible melancholia he could not fully comprehend. Nor, indeed, explain.

  A peculiar feeling began to settle over him, one of claustrophobia. No, oppression. He felt as if he was gagging, suffocating, and he had the most pressing urge to get out of the room, a compulsion to run and not stop running until he had put great distance between himself and this place. He wanted to be far, far away.

  A chill coursed through him, and he shivered; it was as though someone had walked over his grave. With this strange thought, goose flesh speckled his arms and his face and he was startled at himself, unaccustomed as he was to feelings of discomfiture, of uneasiness.

  Maxim swung his head, glanced around the study, asked himself why he wanted to escape this room. He did not understand. It was his favourite spot in the entire house, filled as it was with treasures from which he had constantly drawn enormous pleasure. Each item had been so lovingly placed here by Anastasia and himself, and he recalled the satisfaction they had derived when they were searching out the antiques, the objects of art and the paintings in England and on the Continent.

  The ancient oak boiserie that panelled the walls had been found in an old manor house in Normandy. The French writing desk where he now sat was discovered in an antiquaire’s shop in the Rue du Bac on a weekend trip to Paris. The wall sconces were picked up when they had been travelling through Tuscany, while the remarkable horse paintings by Stubbs had been bought from a peer of the realm whose country seat was in Yorkshire. Altogether it was an eclectic mixture that somehow worked, mostly because the pieces were compatible with each other and shared one important quality, that of excellence.

  Although the possessions in his study were beautiful, not all of the items were of great value. Yet they had always meant a lot to him. Now, seemingly, they no longer mattered, since, for some reason he could not understand, he was regarding them through jaundiced eyes.

  Irritated with himself, and also baffled, Maxim rose, walked over to the handsome William and Mary inlaid chest under the window, opened a bottle of carbonated water and poured himself a glass. He took a long swallow, carried the glass back to a chair in front of the fire, and sat staring into the flames, a look of abstraction settling on his face.

  After a while, as if his mind had been flooded by bright light, he began to see things as they actually were. With a rush of clarity he understood the change in himself, understood his dilemma.

  He was a man in crisis.

  This sudden self-knowledge came from the deepest, innermost part of his psyche and it gave him a bitter jolt. He sat up straighter, his eyes flaring, and then he closed them convulsively, momentarily stunned.

  But it was true. There was no point in denying it anymore, as he had been doing for so long. He was at the most critical point in his life… he could not go on any longer… could not live the way he had been living… and yet he did not know what to do about himself… or about his life.

  He was immobilised by uncertainty. Rendered helpless by indecision. Hamstrung by the situations he himself had created. Held in limbo by the people who populated his life.

  Placing the crystal tumbler of water he was clutching on the small table next to the chair, Maxim dropped his head into his hands. He was brimming with dismay, completely at a loss. For once he had no solutions for his problems. After a few minutes he lifted his head, smoothed back his hair with one hand, forced himself to relax. And he began to ruminate on his life.

  His dear old friend Stubby truly believed he had everything. The world believed he had everything. In reality he had nothing. Oh yes he had immense success, immense power, fame of a kind, money to burn and houses galore and a luxury yacht and a slick private jet and the other grand accoutrements of privilege and great wealth. And he hobnobbed with those who were as rich and renowned as he was. There was his knighthood, a great honour bestowed on him by the highest in the land, an honour he had never sought, nor tried to buy, but which had come to him through his own merit. And whilst he would never belittle its importance to him, was proud of it, in fact it did not fill the terrible void in his life.

  He was alone. And lonely.

  He was estranged from the women he was involved with, who no longer brought him the remotest bit of joy. His children were lost to him: perhaps only temporarily, but nevertheless they were lost at this moment. And now he was facing the possibility that his work, the most enduring of all his passions, and his greatest pleasure, was beginning to pall on him. The idea was insupportable. He balked at the mere thought of it. In all truth, it frightened the hell out of him.

  And when he added up all of these points, the bottom line was very telling indeed. Dismal. He was in the red on every personal level… emotionally bankrupt.

  He was an unhappy man, flailing around in an overabundance of misery. That was the crux of it. But then had not happiness been an elusive stranger for the best part of his life, transient at best?

  A cynical laugh rose in Maxim’s throat and he choked it back, thought:
What an overworked word it is, happiness. And who the hell is happy? At least for very long, anyway? Some fortunate people did know contentment, others gained a certain peace. But that was about it. Unluckily he was not blessed with either state of mind.

  Rising, he began to pace the floor restlessly, his mind careening around in dizzying circles.

  Eventually he was able to calm himself sufficiently in order to look at things as clearly as he possibly could. He regrouped his thoughts and redirected his focus, concentrated on the women in his life.

  Two women to be exact.

  Adriana. His wife. Blair. His mistress.

  Blair was pushing for marriage. Adriana would not acknowledge that such a word as divorce even existed. And he was caught between the two of them, like a fly trapped in amber.

  He was not so sure he wanted to continue living with Adriana. On the other hand, did he really want to divorce her? What were his true feelings about Blair? And would marrying her solve his problems? He remembered something, and it made him laugh out loud. A famous wit had once said that when a man married his mistress he created a job vacancy. If he married Blair would he then be tempted to fill the vacancy? Find himself a new mistress to replace the one who had become his wife?

  What a cynical thought that was. He laughed again, but still without a trace of mirth. Was he the kind of man who would always need a mistress whatever the circumstances in the marriage? Perish the thought, he added under his breath.

  In his mind’s eye, Maxim pictured the people who occupied his life, who were important to him. How did they view him? He did not have to ponder that for more than a split second.

  To Adriana I am the faithless husband wanting to escape the marital bonds.

  To Blair I am the lover grown ambivalent, distracted, less caring, in my preoccupation with my business.

  To Anastasia I am her best friend, but only a friend, nothing else.

  To my children I am the busy tycoon who has no time for them. I have been cast in the role of the heavy. I am important because I pay their bills, but in their eyes I am no longer the loving father they once adored.

  To my mother I am the son she is the most proud of, her favourite perhaps, and yet half the time she is disapproving of me because she cannot condone my private life, my personal behaviour.

  But I am not the person they think I am, he said to himself. None of their perceptions of me is accurate. They don’t really know me. On the other hand, I don’t know myself. Not anymore. I have no sense of my own identity. I don’t know who I am, why I’m here, what my purpose is on this planet, or what it’s all about in the last analysis. I’m confused, lost, adrift, floundering.

  These admissions were so staggering, so unacceptable to Maxim that they made him catch his breath in surprise, and he paused in his pacing, endeavouring to squash them. He had no wish to validate them by giving them any kind of credence whatsoever.

  Ultimately, though, he was unable to banish these unprecedented and shattering self-revelations. All were inescapable truths. And no matter which way he twisted and turned everything around in his head he finally had to admit to himself that he would have to face up to them, tackle them head-on sooner or later.

  ***

  It was three o’clock by the time Maxim went to bed.

  He did not really sleep, merely dozed fitfully on and off for several hours. Finally, around six, he got up, went into the bathroom to shower and shave. Once he was dressed, Marco brought him a pot of coffee and toast, and whilst he had his light breakfast he wrote a detailed memo to Graeme, explained what he wanted done in London, and outlined strategy for the meeting she was to have with Montague Reston.

  At exactly eight-thirty he left the house carrying his black trenchcoat and a briefcase, his only piece of luggage, and was driven off to Heathrow in one of West International’s limousines. At the airport he was swiftly checked in, and went immediately to the Concorde departure lounge, where he sat reading the morning newspapers until he and the other passengers were boarded at ten o’clock.

  Fastening his seat belt and settling down, Maxim glanced around and was relieved to see the plane was not as jam-packed as it had been on the last few occasions he had flown it. He had chosen to go on to New York by Concorde rather than travel on his personal Grumman Gulf stream jet because it was much faster, only three hours and forty-five minutes, even less time if there were no strong headwinds.

  Maxim opened his briefcase, took out a sheaf of papers and buried his head in them for the first hour of the flight. He accepted a cup of tea, refused all other drinks and snacks, and gave his entire attention to his business papers, hardly glancing up, so intense was his concentration. When he had done as much work as he could, he locked the folders in his briefcase, pushed this under the seat, made himself comfortable and closed his eyes. He found it impossible to sleep, but did manage to relax sufficiently enough to rest his tired body. Half an hour later Maxim roused himself, sat up, looked out of the window.

  They were floating through a vast stretch of cumulus clouds, soaring higher and higher above the Atlantic. He stared into the infinite space, contemplated Alix, his daughter. She was the reason he had decided to return to New York a few days earlier than he had originally planned. He wanted to see her, to talk to her, to spend the weekend with her. He desperately needed to put things right with his first-born child. They were both at fault, she more than he in so many ways. Nevertheless, he was quite prepared to take full blame for the rift that had developed between them. He would apologise, ask her forgiveness, if necessary. In fact, he would do just about anything to win her trust again, to have her back in his life.

  FOUR

  A female voice he did not recognise answered the telephone. ‘Alix West’s office. Can I help you?’

  ‘I’d like to speak to Miss West, please,’ Maxim said.

  ‘I’m sorry, but Ms West isn’t in today,’ the young breathy voice went on to inform him. ‘May I ask who’s calling?’

  ‘This is her father. To whom am I speaking?’

  ‘Oh good morning, Sir Maximilian,’ the voice said in a tone that now sounded a little awed. ‘This is Geraldine Bonnay, her new assistant. Alix flew to California this morning. On business.’

  ‘I see. When will she be returning to New York?’

  ‘Hopefully on Monday, Sir Maximilian. It’s a quick trip. She has a meeting with a client in Beverly Hills tomorrow and is flying right out again on Sunday. Unless there are unexpected problems, of course. She will be calling me sometime tomorrow. Can I give her a message?’

  ‘No, not really,’ Maxim began, and paused, thought quickly. ‘As a matter of fact, Miss Bonnay, I’d rather you didn’t say I telephoned today. I have something special for her… a surprise,’ he improvised. ‘So please, not a word, it would only spoil everything.’

  ‘Of course I won’t tell her!’ Geraldine Bonnay assured him, her genuine sincerity echoing down the wire, ‘and just in case you do change your mind and want to talk to her tonight, or on Saturday, Alix is staying at the Bel-Air Hotel.’

  ‘I think not… the surprise, you know. But thank you for the information anyway.’

  ‘Oh it’s my pleasure, and it’s been lovely talking to you, Sir Maximilian.’

  ‘Likewise, Miss Bonnay. My thanks again. Goodbye.’

  ‘Goodbye.’

  Maxim let his hand rest on the phone for a moment, fighting back his disappointment that Alix had left New York the very same day he had arrived. He had so wanted to see her, to spend time with her. He ought to have checked with her about her plans, he supposed, made sure she was going to be in the city for the weekend. Obviously that would have been the most intelligent and sensible thing to do. On the other hand, if he had phoned from London he would have alerted her to his arrival and she, more than likely, would have fled. Or found innumerable reasons why she was not able to see him. Surprise was always the most successful technique to use with her he had discovered long ago.

  He sighe
d under his breath. There was no doubt in his mind that Alix still harboured all manner of grudges, even though she persisted in denying this. He was equally convinced that her smouldering dissatisfaction with him was more than likely being fanned into a roaring bush fire by her brother. Michael had always had enormous influence over her, ever since their childhood, more so than anyone else and in an infinite number of ways. Furthermore, his son had his own axe to grind these days, filled with grievances and resentment as he was, and not a little anger. Maxim was patently aware of that anger, and the frustration in Michael, even though he, too, denied there was anything wrong just as his sister did. Children, Maxim muttered to himself. Why do they want to make things so difficult? As if life isn’t hard enough without having them inventing problems and blowing things out of all proportion.

  Shifting slightly in the chair behind his desk, Maxim turned his head, allowed his gaze to rest on the photograph of Alix that stood framed in silver on the ebony table near the window along with other family portraits. This had been taken six years ago to commemorate her twenty-first birthday, and it struck him yet again what a lovely young woman the tomboy of a child had grown up to be, so fair and creamy of skin, with delicate bone structure in a face whose expression was invariably so serene, so calm it made him catch his breath. But most beautiful and striking were her eyes. Widely spaced and enormous, they were an unusual pale grey-green and filled with pellucid light. Alix was tall, as he was, and lissome, with a fine athletic body, and she moved with considerable grace and elegance. Aside from her great looks, his daughter had a quick, intelligent mind, and was extremely clever, most especially when it came to business and finance. In fact, she was as smart as her brother, perhaps even a fraction more astute than he, which was saying a great deal for her since Michael was brilliant.