Old Sins (48 page)

Roz had grown very skilful at such rationalization.

Freddy Branksome, financial director of Morell’s, came into Julian’s office one morning in early 1972 and shut the door firmly behind him.

‘I think we might have a problem,’ he said.

Julian, who had been studying with some pleasure the latest pictures of Araminta Jones by David Bailey for the autumn advertising campaign, and reflecting with greater pleasure still
upon the circumstances in which he had last gazed into those vast, black-lashed, purply-blue eyes, recognized the tone in Freddy’s voice that demanded his undivided attention, and set the contacts aside.

‘Yes, Freddy?’

‘I’ve been looking at the share register. I don’t like it. There’s been a lot of buying by some set-up in Zürich. Big blocks. I smell trouble.’

‘Can you check it out?’

‘I’m trying.’

‘Takeover?’

‘Not yet. But we could be heading for a bid.’

‘Christ, I wish this company was still mine.’

‘Yes, well it’s a bit late for that. You went public twenty years ago or so. You’ve still got thirty per cent. That’s not a bad stake, in a company this size.’

‘Not enough though, is it? Not when this sort of thing happens.’

‘Well, it hasn’t happened yet. I’ll keep working on it.’

A week later he was back in Julian’s office. ‘More buying. Just in dribs and drabs. Something like twenty per cent of all the shares now. I can’t make it out.’

‘But there’s nothing tangible?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Maybe it’s nothing to worry about.’

‘Maybe. You OK, Julian? You look rotten.’

‘Thanks a lot. I feel fine.’

‘OK. Sorry I spoke.’

Araminta Jones lay looking at the ceiling above Julian Morell’s huge bed in Hanover Terrace. This was the third time he hadn’t been able to deliver and it was getting very boring. Just once was all right, it was almost exciting in a way, trying and trying, working on them, using everything you had, talking dirty, porno pictures, offering every orifice; she’d suggested whips and all that stuff, but nothing had worked, and she was getting just totally frustrated. In a minute, she thought, she’d get up and go home, and ring up that nice boy who’d been in the agency today and see what he could do for her. Julian was OK,
very charming and all that, and the bracelet had been gorgeous, she’d always loved sapphires, and she loved the idea of the Bahamas. But on the other hand, with what he paid her she could afford to go herself, and take someone young and horny with her. Christ, it was hot. Why did these old guys always have to have their bedrooms like ovens? She wondered if he was still awake. If he wasn’t, she could just creep off and spin him some yarn in the morning about having an early call, and needing to get her stuff together. She shifted experimentally, turning her back to him; Julian’s hand came over her shoulder and stroked her breasts tentatively.

‘I’m sorry, Araminta. Again. I suppose I’m just worried.’

‘What about?’ (As if she didn’t know.)

‘Oh, the company. We have a few problems.’

‘Not with the new campaign, I hope. I don’t want to have to re-shoot. I’m going to New York next week.’

‘No, not the campaign. I didn’t know you were going to New York. I might come with you. Maybe then we could go down to the Bahamas. A holiday is probably exactly what I need.’

‘Maybe.’ (They all said that.)

‘Julian,’ said Freddy Branksome a week later, ‘I really don’t think you ought to go to New York for a day or two.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because of this situation with the shares. It’s still going on. Still worrying me.’

‘OK, I’ll hang on a bit.’

‘Any more news on the shares, Freddy?’

‘Well, it’s one buyer. French. I’ve established that much. I think we could be in for a rocky ride.’

‘But you still don’t know who?’

‘Well, it’s unlikely to be an institution. It could be of course, could even be a rival cosmetic company. But I don’t think so. It’s an individual, as far as we can make out. Got any particular enemies at the moment, Julian?’

‘What’s that? Oh, no, I don’t think so. No more than usual.’

‘Good.’

In the main bedruom of his chateau in the
champagne-producing area of the Loire, the Vicomte du Chene was looking tenderly at the slender, wonderfully sensuous body of his new wife. ‘My darling darling,’ he said, punctuating the words with repeated and ever-longer forays with his tongue into her genitals, and postponing in a delicious agony the moment when he could allow himself to enter her with his eager (if somewhat modestly made) member, ‘you are so lovely, so very very lovely. You have made me the happiest man in France. I cannot believe that you have consented to be’ – very long pause – ‘my wife.’

‘Oh, Pierre, you’re so sweet. It’s me that is fortunate. And the happiest woman in France. And thank you for the marvellous – wedding present. We can have such fun with it. It was so terribly generous of you.’

‘My darling, a few shares. It was nothing. In return for your love. And perhaps –’

‘Yes?’

‘Well, the little matter of course of an heir. To the vineyards. My only unsatisfied ambition now.’

‘I know. Of course. And I’m sure we can fulfil it. Together. Like this . . .’

‘Indeed, my darling. Just a matter of time. And – such pleasantly, wonderfully spent time. If it took all eternity it would be too short.’

His bride stretched herself out beneath him, opening her legs, encasing his penis lovingly in her hands, guiding it, urging it into her body. ‘Yes, my darling,’ she murmured, raising her hips, pushing herself against him, trying with all the skill she had been born with and learnt, to help him to maintain his erection for a few moments at least, to bring him just a little more slowly to orgasm. ‘It would. Now – now – no, my darling wait, please – aah,’ and she relaxed suddenly, clenching and unclenching her vagina in a fiercely faked orgasm, as the hapless Vicomte’s little problem of premature ejaculation once again came between her and her pleasure.

‘Ah,’ he said, ‘how was it for you?’

‘Marvellous. Quite marvellous.’

‘My darling. My own darling,’ he said, kissing her repeatedly in a gush of gratitude. ‘How fortunate I am. How very very fortunate.’

Eliza du Chene, looking up at the ceiling, a yearning void somewhere deep inside her, hoped fervently that the price of revenge and becoming a major shareholder in her ex-husband’s company was not going to become unbearably high.

‘Roz darling, hallo, it’s Mummy.’

‘Oh, hallo.’

‘How are you, darling?’

‘Fine. Quite busy. Mummy, they really don’t like us having personal calls. Unless it’s an emergency. They asked me to tell you.’

‘Oh, well I’m sorry. It’s not an emergency exactly, but I did need to speak to you. I’ve just got married again.’

‘How nice.’

‘Roz, you could be a bit more enthusiastic for me.’

‘Sorry. Of course I’m pleased. If you are. Will I like him?’

‘I hope so, darling. He’s French. He has the most divine chateau in the Loire Valley, and absolutely acres of vineyards, champagne mostly.’

‘Well, that’ll be convenient.’

‘Yes.’

‘So what’s his name, my new stepfather?’

‘Pierre. Pierre du Chene. He’s a vicomte.’

‘Oh, I see.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Oh, nothing.’

‘Well anyway, darling, of course I would have liked you to be at the wedding, but – well, I hardly had time to get there myself.’

‘I see. It does seem a bit sudden. Couldn’t you have told me before?’

‘Not really, darling. I’ve been swept off my feet, as you might say. He was just desperate to get it settled.’

‘How romantic. Oh well, never mind.’

‘Roz, don’t sound like that. I want you to be happy for me.’

‘Mummy, I’m trying. It’s just a bit of a shock, that’s all. OK, here goes. Let’s see if I can find the proper words. Mummy, that is absolutely marvellous, thrilling news, how wonderful, I hope you’ll be very very happy. Will that do? Now I must go. Have a good honeymoon. Does Daddy know?’

‘Not yet. Roz, darling, you mustn’t be upset. We want you to come and stay here very very soon. Next holidays. I know you’re going to love him. Goodbye, Roz.’

‘I hope so. Goodbye, Mummy.’

Roz put the phone down and waited for the familiar bleak, shut-out feeling to engulf her. It didn’t take very long.

‘There’s a Vicomtesse du Chene on the phone, Mr Morell.’ Sarah Brownsmith, Julian’s new secretary, spoke nervously. Julian’s temper had been extremely uncertain over the past few weeks.

‘Who? Never heard of her. Ask her what she wants.’

The line went blank for a while. ‘She says she’s one of your shareholders. One of your major shareholders. She wants to ask you some questions about the company.’

‘Tell her she can’t. Tell her it’s nothing to do with me.’

The line went blank again. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Morell, but she’s very insistent. She says when you speak to her you’ll know what it’s about.’

‘What? Oh, all right. Put her on. But tell her I’ve only got one minute. Tell her I’ve got to catch a plane.’

‘Really, Julian. You can do better than that. Surely everyone knows by now you’ve got your own plane.’

It was Eliza’s voice. Julian knocked over his coffee.

‘Eliza. What on earth are you doing on the phone? I was expecting some damn fool Frenchwoman.’

‘No. A damn fool Englishwoman. With a French husband.’

‘What?’

‘The Vicomtesse du Chene.
C’est moi.
It’s me.’

Roz loathed Pierre du Chene. She thought he was disgusting. He was physically disgusting, short and dark and with an awful smell, a nauseating blend of garlic and strong aftershave, and in spite of that a kind of lingering fragrance of BO as well. And he had those awful sleazy eyes, which were always on her, watching her, half smiling, and often if she caught him unawares, she found them fixed not on her face but on her breasts, or her stomach. He had a little squashed monkey’s face with a kind of snub nose, and a moustache, and his breath smelt horrible too, and when he kissed her, which he did at every
possible opportunity it seemed to her, she thought she would be sick. And his personality was also disgusting, smarmy and ingratiating, chatting her up, telling her how clever she was, how pretty, pretending a great interest in her school, her friends, anything at all that he thought would win her over. Roz thought if she told him she collected dog turds, he would have exclaimed at her originality and offered to go and find her a few interesting specimens.

She just hadn’t been able to believe her eyes when he came out on to the terrace of the chateau when she had first gone there in the Easter holidays; her mother had met her at Tours in the most beautiful white Rolls Corniche with a chauffeur who was very handsome indeed; Roz had thought for a wild moment that he had been the Vicomte but then they had driven back along the wide straight roads up towards Saumur, Eliza talking endlessly and over-brightly about how perfectly wonderful everything was, and what fun they were all going to have, and how much Roz would love Pierre, and there was a horse she could ride, and Pierre was dying to ride with her, he was a superb horseman, and the chateau, well – the chateau was just the most beautiful place Roz could ever imagine, exactly like the Sleeping Beauty’s castle, and Pierre was just the best fun in the world, terribly cultured, and amusing, and she had never been so happy in her life.

Roz, looking at her, thinking she looked rather thin, and pale even, was a little surprised at this, but she had long since given up trying to understand her mother. Then: ‘There is just one thing, darling, I’d better tell you, in case he mentions it, well that is, he will mention it. Pierre is fearfully keen for us to have children, or at least an heir, well, you’ll understand when you see the estate, and of course I would love that too, and I hope it will happen, but – well, just don’t be surprised, that’s all. You probably think I’m much too old to have babies, but of course I’m not, I’m only thirty-six, that’s nothing really, I just thought I’d better tell you, as I don’t suppose you thought it was something your old mother might ever do again. All right?’

‘All right,’ said Roz, extremely confused by this, not sure what she was meant to do or say, but whenever she looked at the awful monkey-like form of du Chene now, smelt his breath, saw his awful furtive eyes, she shuddered – and more than that,
shuddered for her mother having to go to bed with him, never mind carry his child.

Du Chene didn’t actually start on her until the summer. Even then at first, like all comparatively innocent young girls in the hands (literally) of their elders, she thought she must be mistaken. It began with just a pressure on her leg under the table, a squeeze of her hand when she passed him in the corridor; progressed unmistakably to the patting of her bottom, the massaging of her shoulder as he passed her chair, his hand lingering, straying down towards her breast; then one evening after supper, when her mother had pleaded a headache, and they were sitting alone in the small drawing room, she reading, he studying papers, he looked up at her and said, ‘You’re looking very lovely, my dear Rosamund.’

‘Thank you, Pierre. I expect it’s the French air.’

‘Oh, no,’ he said, ‘no, it is your own lovely look, your eyes and your skin, and of course your legs, your legs are so tanned now. You should wear shorter skirts so that they can be admired.’

‘Thank you, Pierre, but I don’t like short skirts. I’m a little tired now, I think I might go up to bed.’

‘Very well, my dear, of course you must if you are tired. We cannot have you missing your beauty sleep. Come and kiss me good night.’

‘No, Pierre, I won’t, if you don’t mind.’

‘And why not? I am after all your step-papa. Come, my dear, a little daughterly kiss.’

‘No, really, Pierre. Good night.’

She got up, but she had to walk past him; he shot his little brown hand out, and caught hers. ‘Such a – what do you say – a tease. It only makes me more excited, my dear.’

Roz shook her hand free. ‘Leave me alone.’

She walked swiftly past him, but he still managed, as his hand released hers, to stroke her bottom, then he jumped up, and with an unbelievably swift dart was in the doorway, barring her way. ‘Just a little kiss. A
petit petit
kiss.’