by Jon Cleary
Claudine called the meeting to order as soon as the door closed. Cleo looked up the table at Roger, but he avoided her gaze.
“The first point,” said Claudine, looking down the table at Cleo, “is to repeat my offer to buy your stock.”
“It is not for sale,” said Cleo. “None of the forty-two per cent I now own.”
Jerry Kibler said nothing. He had told her that the sale of the Galloway stock had gone through; only the papers had to be exchanged. She had then told him she would do all her own talking, that she would look to him for advice only when she needed it. He had not demurred, seeing at once a far more determined woman than he had spoken to this morning. He wondered what had happened to her in the meantime.
Claudine nodded. “I understand you persuaded the Galloway trustees to sell to you. So it’s stalemate as far as the stock situation goes. However, I am still the majority stockholder and I have Roger’s support.”
“There’s just one point,” said Stephen Jensen, dressed for business and not for sport. “None of us who has sold his stock has been formally dismissed from the board. We are still directors of the company.”
“Without voting rights,” said Claudine.
“I think I’ll stay, anyway,” said Jensen and settled back in his chair. “As a spectator.”
Beaton, Stabler and Warburg looked at each other; Warburg half rose, then flopped back as the other two remained seated. He looked across the table at Kibler and shook his head as if to say, This isn’t going to be civilized. Jerry grinned and nodded encouragingly.
“Then I take it there is really only one item of business,” said Cleo, carrying the attack up the table. “You mentioned some changes, Claudine. I expect that’s the item.”
Claudine took her time. All at once she had doubts, something as foreign to her as humility. She could be destroying the Courier for the sake of her family pride. Her dignity had been dented by the success of the girl (well, woman) at the far end of the table; the Courier had indeed become Cleo Springfield’s paper. But that had been her own fault; she had neglected her duties as publisher. If it was to be her paper again, she would have to move in full-time to the office next door. The Courier could be Alain’s when she was dead. She dispelled her doubts and took out her axe.
“I propose that Cleo Spearfield be asked for her resignation as editor of the Courier, effective immediately.” She looked at Roger, who had sat gazing at the blank pad on the table in front of him as if nothing being said interested him. Then she looked down the table, past the spectators, at Cleo and Jerry.
“The voting, obviously, will be even, two against two. So I further propose that voting will be decided on the stock held by the respective parties.”
“Highly irregular,” said Stephen Jensen. “Of course that’s only a spectator’s opinion.”
“I have never taken any notice of spectators,” said Claudine and looked once more at Cleo. “Do you?”
“No,” said Cleo. “We’ll vote according to stock held.”
“All those in favour of the motion?” said Claudine and raised a regal finger. Then she looked at Roger, who had not moved. “Roger, the motion is that Cleo’s resignation as editor be asked for.”
Roger looked up, his face pale and strained. He did not look down towards Cleo nor even at Claudine. He just stared straight ahead. “I vote against the motion. I believe that gives Miss Spearfield a majority of fifty-two per cent to forty-eight.”
21
“HAVE YOU been down to the White House since President Reagan moved in?”
Claudine had been there once and decided she would not go again. She had found it all so middle class, all new mink and old quips. She had not found, God forgive her for saying so, the style that had been there in the Kennedy days. Camelot was preferable to Hollywood.
“I’m happy enough here in New York,” said Sylvester. “I leave all the diplomacy to the embassy in Washington.”
“Aren’t consuls-general supposed to be diplomatic?” said Tom.
“Not this one,” grinned Sylvester. “But so far Mal Fraser hasn’t recalled me.”
I’m glad of that, Tom thought. He and Cleo’s old man, whom he never thought of as old, had become the firmest of friends; and, God knows, he further thought, I need a friend or two. He looked at Claudine and wished for a moment that he had her impregnability; she seemed as if she needed no one but herself. Then he wondered why she was here at Cleo’s party.
It was a party for Emma Cruze, who had come over on her first visit to New York. He did not know, and had not asked, what had gone on after Cleo had won the battle of the Courier’s boardroom; but he did know Claudine had sold all her stock and Emma Cruze, courted by Jerry Kibler, had been one of the buyers. Roger was the only Brisson still holding stock, but he had retired from the board, content to be just a stockholder. There was a whole new board these days, but Tom, still a Times man, no longer asked questions about the Courier.
Emma sat in her wheelchair at the far end of the room by the window that looked out on to Central Park; Cleo sat on a low slipper chair beside. Their heads were close together and they looked what they were: friends. Cleo had invited Emma to New York and she had confessed to Tom that she was not sure if she had done the right thing, that Emma would want to come. But come she had and the two of them had embraced like loving sisters. He, too, liked Emma; but he had left them alone. He did not want to hear them talk of Jack Cruze.
Claudine sat with her arm resting on Sylvester’s; she knew they made a handsome couple, though she did not want anyone linking their names. She had brought her own escort, a retired French banker who had handled the Brisson finances in France; he came to New York each year to see the Broadway shows and always called on her. He was a good-looking man, but dull as old pewter in personality. She should have anticipated that Sylvester would be alone at the party. He was better company and, unlike the banker, he did not trail after the young pretty girls like a senile poodle.
She was glad of almost any company these days; that was why she had accepted Cleo’s invitation. She had gone off to France, determined to cut all ties with New York; but six months there had shown her she was cutting off her nose to spite a face that the local peasantry didn’t pay much heed to. New York was her proper domain, even though she was no longer The Empress. Victory would have been sweet, but she didn’t have to make a meal of defeat. She had come home and when Cleo had called her two days ago she had recognized the younger woman’s graciousness. Hatchets rusted as much in the open as buried. At her age (the phrase dismayed her) everything should be buried except herself.
“It’s a beautiful apartment.” She meant it; she had no reason to be insincere with this pleasant, rough-edged man. “And Cleo looks at home in it.”
“She does, doesn’t she?” Sylvester looked at his daughter, who had left Lady Cruze and was moving amongst the glittering guests. They did glitter: they reminded him of diamonds, hard and expensive. But maybe that was New York at this level. “But sometimes I feel I’m a bit out of my depth with her. Do you feel like that with your boy Alain?”
“No,” said Claudine, misunderstanding him. “He’s never got out of the shallows.”
Alain and Simone also had gone back to France and, if one was to believe them, they were gloriously happy there. Simone would be, she could believe that; but Alain? They were expecting their first child; soon she would be a grandmother. She would put the thought out of her mind till she was confronted by the child.
On the far side of the room Tom wandered on the edge of the guests, like a limpet looking for an interesting berth. But the talk, smart and empty, repelled him. He and Cleo had moved into the apartment six months ago and once a month Cleo had one of these, by now, famous, parties. The apartment was big enough for such gatherings, God knew. (He had taken to invoking God a lot lately; he would have to watch himself or he might finish up as religious editor of the Times.) So far Cleo had not committed them to buying it, but they would have to
make a decision on it soon. Jerry Kibler had told them he would have no trouble financing the purchase for them: Cleo was always good for a million with any bank in town. Tom had insisted they use his money to furnish the apartment and Cleo had agreed without demur. Then she had gone out and hired an interior designer, who now came to all the parties to admire his own handiwork, and the sleek, henna-haired young man had spent Tom’s money with gay abandon. Tom had christened the apartment Fag’s Revenge and, perversely, had been annoyed when Cleo had thought the joke was funny.
He passed close by the designer now and heard him say, “As the intellectual eunuch said, it’s mind over matter.”
He drifted on before he lost his temper and redesigned the smart-talking offspring-of-a-bitch. Jesus, he thought, what’s happened to me? Where had easy-going Ole Tom Border, the farm boy from Friendship, disappeared to?
“Why so unhappy, Tom?” Roger, age (or was it just disappointment?) beginning to blur the edges of his handsomeness, lifted two glasses from a passing tray and handed one to Tom. “Things not too good at the Times? I thought that piece you did on Haig was superb.”
“Tongue in cheek. I borrowed some of Cleo’s style from her old London column.”
“He deserved every word you wrote.” He felt no call to be discreet about an ex-fellow officer. Generals, he knew, were usually more complimentary about the enemy brass than their own kind. “He’s out of his element.”
“You might have been too,” said Tom gently. “You’re lucky you missed out. I wouldn’t want to be Secretary of State, not now.”
“Maybe,” said Roger, but commonsense could never dim the dream. He knew he would have made a good Secretary, one of the best. Cleo had kept her part of the bargain and, because she had, he had forgiven her her blackmail. The Courier had run his articles, dropped hints in its columns what he might do at State if Ronald Reagan was elected and chose him. But it had all been to no avail, the other general had moved back into the White House as if he had never been part of the retreat from it back in Nixon’s day. Military history, Roger knew, was full of generals who had come back.
Louise joined them, kissed Tom on the cheek and took Roger’s arm. “Come and talk to Lady Cruze. She asked me who that handsome man was and, reluctantly, I had to confess you were my husband.”
Roger smiled at Tom and shrugged. Tom looked after them as they moved through the crowd. They looked happy and, after thirty years or so of marriage, to look happy is in itself an achievement. She was his aide-de-camp and, God knows, he probably needed her. Jesus, why am I so sour?
“Why so sour-looking?” Cleo kissed him, pressed his upper arm.
He hadn’t seen her coming towards him and he turned, so highly pleased to have her beside him that one might have thought she had just come into the room after a week or a month or a year away from him. He would never lose the feeling: he loved her, in the same obsessive way that Jack Cruze had. But he did not make the comparison himself.
“There are too many people here. They keep getting in the way, stopping me from looking at you.”
She squeezed his arm again, loving him as much as ever. She was on top of the world; but he was there beside her. She felt a sense of triumph, but it was in her happiness with him as much as anything else she had achieved.
“I love you,” he said.
She kissed him again, wanting to weep with love for him. He was still not handsome, not in the way that Roger was, but there was a growing craggy dignity to him. His thick hair was turning grey along the temples; his slow smile still could charm women; occasionally his eyes still had the old withdrawn look, but it no longer worried her. If he had secrets, so did she.
“I have to go and mingle.”
“Don’t mingle. Clear a path and swagger. Nobody does it better than you.”
She smiled and left him, giving an exaggerated swagger to her hips as she did so. She went back across the room to where Sylvester had now joined Emma Cruze. She passed behind Claudine and her French banker without their seeing her. Then she heard the banker say: “Who is that tall man over there by the door?”
She stopped and, it seemed to her, that her heart stopped too.
Claudine, sowing seeds for the future, said, “He’s Cleo Spearfield’s husband.”
THE END
Enjoy these Jon Cleary’s novels, as both Ebooks and Audiobooks!
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Scobie Malone Series
Dragons at the Party
Now and Then, Amen
Babylon South
Murder Song
Pride’s Harvest
Dark Summer
Bleak Spring
Autumn Maze
Winter Chill
Five-Ring Circus
Dilemma
The Bear Pit
Yesterday’s Shadow
The Easy Sin
Standalone Novels
The City of Fading Light
Spearfield’s Daughter
The Faraway Drums
