by Jon Cleary
The guests were a mixed lot, but not too mixed; they all looked as if they came from the same bank. This was not the assortment she had seen at Jack Cruze’s weekends or his dinner parties, when ambassadors and Cabinet ministers and trade union officials and film and theatre stars had, if not rubbed shoulders, then rubbed each other up the wrong way. That was not likely to happen with this lot, she thought. There were no outsiders here, except herself, no social climbers: she might be an outsider, but she was not one of that sort. The guests, she decided, fitted together like cogs, well oiled by money and the certainty of their own position.
“This is Polly Jensen,” said Claudine and brought forward a slim blonde like a couturière introducing a new creation; Cleo had the feeling it was all so stage-managed that she would not have been surprised if Polly Jensen had pirouetted to show herself off. “An old friend of Alain’s. They went to nursery school together. This is Cleo Spearfield, a new friend. From Australia.” She made it sound like Darkest Africa before the Empire builders had switched on the lights. “You must play tennis together tomorrow.”
“You play tennis, of course?” said Polly Jensen as Claudine left them to tear each other down. “Australians are such good tennis players. We had John Newcombe staying with us for a weekend early this summer. He worked on my backhand.”
Bully for Newcombe. He’d have to give up his own career if he wanted to work on mine. “I’m afraid surfing is my sport.” There was no surf within miles, thank God. “But I’ll enjoy watching you and your backhand.”
A tall distinguished-looking man interrupted them before carnage could begin. “I’m Polly’s father, Stephen. Alain’s been telling me about you, Miss Spearfield. I remember reading your column when I was in London. Are you going to join the Courier? Between you and me, it could do with a little livening up. I say that as a stockholder.”
The name Jensen clicked. Cleo remembered that this man was one of the top bankers in the United States, one of the movers and shakers whom Washington listened to. She looked at him with interest, since he was looking at her in the same way, and wondered if he could move and shake to get her an extended visa; that would relieve her of any obligation to Claudine Roux, if the latter decided to help at all. Then she saw the deeper look in Mr. Jensen’s eye and decided against asking even the smallest favour of him. As Gus Green would have said, that was the wrong route, one she had taken before. Stephen Jensen would be almost exactly the same age as Jack Cruze.
“I’m still looking around, Mr. Jensen. I haven’t decided yet what I’ll do.”
“If I can help, please do call me. I think you should fit very well into the public relations field.”
“And into a bikini,” said Polly Jensen and walked away.
Her father looked after her with benign irritation. “My daughter thinks I should never compliment a woman younger than myself. Have you anything against older men, Miss Spearfield?”
Only their age and their possessiveness and their jealousy . . . “I get on very well with my father, Mr. Jensen.”
“Touché,” said Stephen Jensen, who knew a rapier when it nicked him. He flicked his grey moustache with one finger, like a gesture of appreciation. “I’ve been told by my colleagues who have been Down Under that Australians know how to take care of themselves.”
“It’s the aboriginal blood in us,” said Cleo and saw that Jensen was not sure whether she was joking or not. He looked at her almost-black hair before he hesitatingly smiled.
Just before dinner the last two guests arrived, saving the embarrassment of thirteen at table. Louise Brisson came in on the run and Roger marched in behind her. Oh God, Cleo thought, now the weekend really has gone down the drain!
Roger, casting a military eye over the terrain, saw Cleo at once. His face was blank for a moment and he glanced at Claudine, as if wondering what sort of joke was being played on him. Then, a soldier who believed in attack, he advanced on Cleo, all teeth blazing.
“Miss Spearfield, what a delightful surprise! Are you over from London on business?”
“I left London almost two years ago, General. I’m thinking of settling in America.”
It might have been Brezhnev telling him he had the same intention.
“Are you home on leave, General?”
“No, I’ve finished my tour of duty in Europe. I’m glad to see you’re fully recovered from your ordeal.”
The ordeal with Jack was the one from which she wasn’t fully recovered; but he wasn’t referring to that. “It seems almost like ancient history now.”
“Yes, I suppose so much happens in today’s world that history becomes ancient much quicker.” He took a gamble: “It seems only a year ago that we were so concerned with Vietnam. Now it’s Watergate and President Nixon and his tapes.”
“I wouldn’t comment on that, General. America’s dirty linen is its own business.”
“I agree. But the rest of the world is hanging over the back fence in malicious delight . . . Oh, you haven’t met my wife, have you? Louise, this is Miss Spearfield. You know, the Luneburg business—”
He said it as if it was something he had just taken out of a military file. Louise nodded briskly and Cleo wondered if all senior officers’ wives had their husbands’ careers neatly docketed. But Louise’s smile was genuine and Cleo at once liked her.
“I’m in your debt, Miss Spearfield. Roger and I owe you a great deal. You and that other reporter, what’s-his-name, should never have been put in such a situation. But if they hadn’t taken you and what’s-his-name, they might have persisted with trying to kill Roger.”
“Well, we’re all safe in America now.” Cleo hadn’t meant to sound sarcastic; she saw Roger’s face tighten. “All’s well that ends well, as they say.”
“Shakespeare,” said Louise.
That’s right, what’s-his-name. Then Cleo realized she should not be so critical of Louise Brisson. The woman was on edge, was so highly strung that at any moment something in her might snap. Had there been a husband-and-wife argument on the way here to Souillac?
But Louise had learned the lessons of military discipline, she would not break down in public. She smiled again, but now Cleo could see that it was forced. “I must have a quick shower. Claudine hates to have dinner kept waiting. We’ll talk later, Miss Spearfield.”
The two of them left her and Alain limped across to her. “I’d forgotten you’d met Uncle Roger. He hasn’t changed. I noticed he made a bee-line for the best-looking woman in the room as soon as he came in.”
“I think he’s too much of a gentleman to flirt in front of your aunt.”
“He used to be. The gossip now is that he’s not as discreet as he used to be. These older guys—” Then he thumped his stick on the floor. “Sorry. That wasn’t very discreet, was it?”
She put her hand on his arm; after all, he looked like being the only friend she might have all weekend. “Stick by me and I’ll forget you said that.”
“I’ve spoken to Mother about you coming to work for the paper.”
“What did she say?”
“That it would be a decision for the editor—that’s Jake Lintas. We don’t have the sort of set-up they have at The Times, where there seem to be editors for everything—they practise federalism over there. Jake Lintas is editor and what he says goes.”
“Could he get me the necessary visa?”
“He might have to come back to Mother for that. Jake ran a series last year criticizing the Immigration Service for not doing its job down on the Mexican border. Jake’s an isolationist racist, he’d close the doors to all immigrants, especially anyone who isn’t a WASP.”
“Well, I’m white,” said Cleo ruefully. “So you may have to ask your mother to help me?”
He laughed. “Don’t look so glum. They don’t call her The Empress for nothing.”
Maybe not, but that didn’t mean she would go out of her way to help an Australian serf.
Despite feeling that she was very much the outsi
der, Cleo enjoyed dinner. For one thing, the food was excellent. It was neither the bland tasteless American food that was served in most restaurants nor was it the good sensible food that Mrs. Cromwell had foisted on the Cruze dinner parties; there was a French flair to it and the wines were French. The conversation was as interesting as the food, though purely American: Watergate and the White House Praetorian Guard were the subjects. Both items were now history and the real subject was how long Richard Nixon would continue to hold on to the Presidency; the House Judiciary Committee had just passed its first article of impeachment. Cleo had very early caught on that she was amongst dyed-in-the-sable Republicans, Old Guard conservatives who had little if any time for the upstart President from California and his home state henchmen. There was no sympathy at all for Nixon, only well-bred fury that the Presidency itself had been tainted.
“It’s worse than the Harding days,” said a lawyer named Halstead, a tall square-faced man who reminded Cleo of pictures of George Washington. He had a deep sonorous voice and sounded as if he were relaying an opinion from the Supreme Court. “Even Truman—” he got the name out as if it made his tongue bleed to pronounce it “—even he wasn’t as bad as this.”
“It shows the dangers of too much ambition,” said a man named Kirkland. He was short and spry and reminded Cleo of the grooms she had seen at horse shows in England; but if he spent his time around horses it was certainly not curry-combing them or sweeping up their manure. He had the air of a man who would never need ambition, who had been born to a position that totally satisfied him. “As Shakespeare said, By that sin fell the angels. And Nixon has never been an angel.”
“Do you have political corruption in Australia, Miss Spearfield?” The woman across from Cleo had the look of a lesser monarch, the sort one found on the edges of group photographs of British royal weddings. In her own home she might be queen, but here she played second viola to Claudine. Cleo knew she had a husband somewhere along the table, but she was one of those women who can look unrelated to their husbands even in a bridge four. “Or are you like the British?”
Everyone craned forward to look at Cleo. This is how Bennilong must have felt, she thought, the first aborigine taken to England in 1792. But what could she tell them about tribal customs in Canberra? “We have it at State level, but not at Federal level. The letters I get from my father—”
“Her father is a Senator,” Claudine interposed as if trying to give Cleo some semblance of respectability.
“—one would think that Canberra is all angels and none of them will ever fall. But then Dad is a member of the Labour government.”
“Are you a socialist?” said Alain, grinning widely; but everyone at the table held their breath.
“Only on May Day. We run up the Red Flag on the front lawn.”
Everyone relaxed; she was only joking, of course. Cleo looked towards the bottom of the table and saw Roger smiling quietly at her. He winked and she almost bit her dessert spoon in surprise. Then she became aware of Louise watching her; she hazarded a tentative smile across the table, like a peace offering. Louise remained hard-faced for a moment, then her features relaxed and she smiled. I pity her, Cleo thought. Louise Brisson would never hate anyone, not her husband nor his women. She would always resort to hope and the blind eye, the marriage counsellors of the desperate.
After dinner, in a drawing-room that made the one in the penthouse flat in St. James’s Place look like an ante-room, Cleo did her best to stay away from Roger Brisson. The room was so big that she could take evasive action and she kept on the move. At last Alain caught up with her.
“Stand still a while,” he said, leaning on his stick. “I can’t chase women the way I used to.”
“I’m trying to stay ahead of your uncle. He has a look in his eye.”
“You’re okay now. He’s looking at Polly. He really is getting beyond a joke. I don’t know how Aunt Louise puts up with him.”
“That’s because you’re not a woman in love.”
“I’m a man in love.” He smiled as he said it, but he was deadly serious.
“Don’t rush me, Alain. It could be a long weekend.”
“Okay.” He was prepared to take his time; or anyway a day or two. He looked over his shoulder as the other guests began to drift out of the room. “Well, we better join them.”
“Where are we going?”
“To the billiards room. Mother is an expert pool player.”
“You’re pulling my leg.”
“I wish I were stroking it,” he said, showing that his college days were not so far in the past. “No, Mother really is very good at pool. She thinks that it and croquet are the only two ball games a woman of her age can play with dignity.”
“You can be pretty undignified bending over a billiard-table for a shot down the side cushion.”
He glanced at her in surprise. “You sound as if you know something about it.”
“I used to play it with my father when I was a schoolgirl. My mother had a pianola, a player-piano, and Dad his billiard-table. It was his only relaxation, that and surfing.”
“Are you any good?”
“I was the Brigidine Convent champion three years running.” No other girls at school played billiards.
Alain grinned. “Don’t say anything. We’ll do some hustling. I’ll back you to beat Mother.”
“No!” She had no idea how good Claudine might be; and she had not played a game herself in ten years. The billiard-table back home had been sold, along with the pianola, when her mother had died. If she were lucky enough to beat Claudine, she could imagine Claudine’s revenge. A call would be made to Washington and Cleo Spearfield, pool hustler, would be deported as an undesirable.
But Alain had already limped ahead into the big billiards room. “Mother, I have a contender for the championship. I have a hundred dollars that says my protégée, the Down Under Ladies Champ-een, can give you a licking at pool.” He turned back to Cleo, who stood in the doorway wishing she were in Manhattan or, better still, Coogee. “I have to tell you, Cleo, that Mother was offered the Paul Newman part in The Hustler, but refused because it would have ruined her amateur status. However, like all good amateurs, she does take under the table payments and bets on the side.”
“Are you an amateur, Cleo?” said Claudine, chalking the end of a cue as if she were sharpening a pikestaff.
“In everything,” said Cleo, deciding she was on her way out and she might as well go out with a swagger.
“I’ll bet,” said Polly Jensen and offered her a cue held up like a one-fingered salute.
Dear God, Cleo prayed, do you help pool hustlers? Let me be a champ-een just for tonight, another Walter or Horace Lindrum or that American, Willie what’s-his-name. Hoppe. She took the cue and began to chalk it. She looked across at Claudine and somehow managed a smile.
“I haven’t played in years. I had to sell my table to buy my barge.”
The others missed the joke, but Claudine didn’t. Cleo realized all at once that Claudine enjoyed opponents more than she did her friends; if things did not get nasty, she might even be invited back to Souillac. She decided that she would play as well as she possibly could, that Claudine would dismiss her as not worth bothering about if she gave Claudine a walk-over victory.
“You never played with Lord Cruze?” It was the first time Claudine had mentioned him. “But no, I don’t think Jack would have the patience for this. Shall we play snooker or pool? Perhaps we better play snooker, you’ll feel more at home with that.”
The other guests had come out of the drawing-room looking like the embers of a dinner party that had died; they would rather go to bed than indulge their hostess by playing her favourite game. But now they glowed again and some of the men even made small side bets amongst themselves; the women bet on Claudine, if only to show Cleo that, in more ways than one, she was a long-shot. Roger set up the fifteen coloured balls and smiled down the table at Cleo.
“I have ten dollars on
you, Cleo.”
Cleo didn’t look at Louise or Claudine, but added more chalk to her cue. She had worn the wrong dress for leaning over a billiard-table; it was low-cut and she was wearing no brassiere. Even as she bent over to take the first shot and split the pyramid of balls she could see that Roger, facing her, was smiling as if he had already got back fifty cents of his ten dollars.
Claudine had a moderate-sized bust, but it was properly supported and she was wearing a dress with a turtle-neck, as if she had dressed for billiards and not dinner. She played with brisk, decorous skill, an empress hustler, despatching the balls as if she were ordering them to fall into the pockets. Cleo, troubled by her extruding bosom, still trying to narrow her concentration on to the table and the balls, played a mixture of poor and brilliant shots. The game, however, was close and at last came down to the point where Cleo was left with the pink and the black to be sunk if she was to win. It was a difficult shot, the pink almost hidden behind the black. If she did not hit it properly, there was a fifty-fifty chance that neither of the balls would go into a pocket and Claudine would be left with a choice of shot to win.
Cleo looked at the angle, then across at Claudine on the other side of the table. The older woman was watching her unsmilingly: I’m being tested in some way, Cleo thought. She knew now that Claudine was a far better player than she would ever be; it was only luck that had enabled her to make such a close game of it. Claudine was waiting for her to play safe.
She bent over the table, ignoring her exposed bosom; her breasts could fall out on the table so long as they didn’t get in the way of her cue. She lined up the shot, focused on the cue ball, then hit it cleanly and crisply. It shot across the green baize, caromed off the side cushion, feathered the black ball and knocked the pink smartly into an end pocket.
“Great shot!”
Everyone round the table clapped, but Cleo looked neither at them nor at Claudine. She moved round, saw that the cue ball and the black were lined up perfectly for a simple hit into a side pocket. She made the shot with all the authority of the Lindrums or Willie Hoppe polishing off a game. She straightened up, feeling her breasts settling comfortably back into her dress like two spectators who had been on tenterhooks, and looked at Claudine.
