Spearfield's Daughter (35 page)

“M'sieu, when you have finished walking your daughter, may I take over?”

Cleo knew it was a joke, an insulting one; she could see the other four expensively-dressed louts grinning in the background. It was probably a routine with them, each one of them dared to take his turn at taking the mickey out of the older men. It had been going on since humans had come out of the caves and started promenading.

Then she saw Jack boil up and she knew he was going to hit the youth. She stepped in front of him and looked directly into the dark mocking face and the mouthful of teeth inviting someone to smash them. She could feel the itch in her own fist.

“Piss off, smart-arse,” she said in the best lady-like accent she could manage. “When I want to play with little boys, I'll let you know. Now go back to playing with yourself, if you can find it.”

She took Jack's arm, feeling the violence still trembling in him, and without being too apparent steered him on their way along the quay. The buck was standing where they had left him, the smile still on his face but looking now like a boxer's slipped mouthguard; some passers-by, those who spoke English, had heard Cleo and were laughing at him. At their table his four companions were also laughing: there is no team loyalty amongst
boulevardiers.
He had just been castrated, if only for the moment, and they were laughing at him as someone laughs at a comic who slips on a banana skin, glad that it hadn't happened to them.

“I'd have killed the young bugger!” But Jack was subsiding as she discreetly pressed his arm. “Who do those young shits think they are?”

“Watch your language.”

“What about yours?” Then he laughed and she felt all the violence go out of him as if he had
been
flushed of it. He even tried to joke against himself: “I don't think I'd like a daughter of mine using language like that.”

She squeezed his arm, had the sense and sensitivity not to say,
Righto, Dad.

They had declared a truce in the bedroom; so they fought each other in the love act each night. A week of it, every night, sometimes twice a day, began to wear Cleo more than Jack. She now had to pretend she enjoyed going to bed with him. Sometimes she did enjoy it; but more often than not it was now a concession, as if she had become a bored but dutiful wife. She despised herself, felt she was now doing it only for the favours he bestowed on her. Which, since she had a conscience, made it harder for her to be ardent. Meanwhile, during the day she wore dark glasses to hide her tired eyes and Jack was as clear-eyed as any Indian scout in
The Covered Wagon.

If he noticed her faked ardour, he made no mention of it. He could not cut his losses with her; he would be bankrupt if he let her go. So he made love with all the vigour he could muster, as if, trying to avoid misery, he might die on top of her. Sometimes, after she had reversed their positions and ridden him, he would lie in the dim room and be content to die there and then.

They went back to London after two weeks. The world had gone on while they were away, not missing either of them. Cleo went back to writing her column. She went through the last fortnight's papers looking for items that might be worth commenting on, but saw nothing that would make a column. The Australian cricket team was in England again; there had been a break-in at Democratic Party headquarters at a complex called Watergate in Washington; Evonne Goolagong was preparing to defend her Wimbledon title. So, stuck for want of a subject, she wrote a satirical piece on St. Tropez and got some complimentary fan mail from a Tass correspondent. It was the doldrums season and she began to wish she had stayed longer in St. Tropez or even gone to the Dodecanese. She even thought of a quick trip home to Australia, but that would probably only cause another argument with Jack.

He now wanted to see her every night. Since the death of Massey-Folkes he had felt a loneliness that, despite his attempts to fight it, persisted like a stubborn cold. He had a hundred acquaintances, but, since the death of Quentin, no friends. He had never totally unburdened himself to Quentin, but he realized now that, obliquely but deliberately, he had taken most of his problems to the cynical, amiable editor. Quentin had listened and, also obliquely, given advice. Their friendship had been deeper than Jack realized
till
Quentin was gone.

The second week in July he went off to Charleston, South Carolina, on business. He tried to persuade Cleo to go with him and she was tempted; then she said no, deciding that a week alone to think about him would be more productive than a week with him. She went to the airport with him and they kissed goodbye like loving husband and wife.

He had been gone three days when Alain Roux turned up on her doorstep, literally. Bligh, the hall porter, called from downstairs on the Saturday morning. “Miss Spearfield, there is a Mr. Alain—” he paused, as if he were reading from a visiting card, “Roux, R-o-u-x, down here to see you.”

She was still in a robe, but she had already bathed and her face and hair were done. She looked in the mirror beside the phone, then said, “Please ask him to come up.” Then she wondered why she had looked in the mirror.

She opened the door to him and even in the first few moments saw how he had changed in the two and a half years since she had seen him last. The college boy had gone; in his place was an older man, though still young. But the restlessness had disappeared; he walked now to a different pace. Then she saw the silver-topped walking stick.

“You have an unlisted number, otherwise I'd have called you. But I'm staying over the road at the Stafford. They know I'm from the
Courier
and I happen to have the same waiter serving me who serves you and Lord Cruze. He mentioned that the famous Miss Spearfield often dines there. So . . .”

“I'll have to speak to him. Sending strange men to pound on my door. Come in, Alain. Can I take your stick?”

“I better keep it. I get a bit shaky in the leg when I'm walking on a surface I'm not used to.”

“Oh. Stupid—” She chided herself. “Was that from Vietnam? Tom Border did mention you'd been wounded—”

He had noticed her discomfiture. “Don't let it bother you, Cleo. I've got used to it. Mother thinks it makes me look distinguished. I'm the only distinguished-looking junior sub-editor on the
New York Courier
.” There was no bitter self-pity in his voice. He sat down and looked around. “A very nice place. From what Mother said, I always thought the English lived rather tattily. But Mother's a snob.”

“So were you.”

“
I've got worse.” He smiled and for the first time she saw the lines in his face. Pain had left its mark on him and she saw that the wound in his leg had spread: his hopes had been irreparably damaged, his soul scarred. He saw the concern on her face and the quick second glance at the leg stuck straight out in front of him. He tapped it with the stick. “Please ignore it, Cleo. I've got over it. There are a lot of things I wanted to do that I'll never be able to do—I was aiming some day to climb Everest, did I tell you that? I was also a very good fancy skater, not Olympic class but still pretty good. No skating now, no mountain-climbing. I got pretty sour about losing all that. Then I looked at guys in wheelchairs, paraplegics and quadriplegics—”

“I know someone like that, a paraplegic.”

“Yes, well, they have it far worse than I've got it.
I complained because I had no shoes, till I met a man who had no feet.
So please don't let's mention it again, okay? Now get dressed. I have tickets for the Centre Court at Wimbledon, we'll see the women's final.”

“I have a press ticket—” She had intended going to Wimbledon. She was no tennis fan, no sports fan at all; the fervour of crowds for their team or favourite to win only amused her; sport for her was something one did for exercise. But Evonne Goolagong was playing Billie Jean King and, feeling a welling of nationalism, as if someone had waved a bunch of gum-leaves under her nose, she had decided to go and wish the best of Aussie luck to the young Australian girl.

“Forget work,” Alain said, misunderstanding her. “You're my guest for the day. I was your guest in New York, remember? Get dressed while I order a car. We'll go down to Maidenhead for lunch first.”

Jack had left her the Rolls-Royce and Sid Cromwell, but she decided she would give Sid the day off and rang him in the penthouse flat to tell him so. It was partly goodwill, a
de facto
employer being generous to the worker; but she knew that it was also circumspection, that she did not want Sid wondering why she was going out with another man, a young man at that, while the boss was away. There would be no harm in what she was doing, but it was better that no harm might be suspected.

So she let Alain order a chauffeur-driven car while she got ready. She didn't dress hurriedly but took her time, telling herself that she was not going to rush and give him the impression that she was eager to go out with him. She also, however, took her time about making the most of her face and hair and choosing her wardrobe. She wore a Givenchy silk suit that was both casual and dressy, open-toed Italian
sandals
and a handbag to match with a Givenchy silk scarf tied to the handle. Just what any girl would throw on for a rushed invitation to lunch at a Wimpy bar and a run round the roller-skating rink afterwards.

They drove out into the country in the hired Daimler and from the moment they had turned out of St. James's Place Cleo felt no guilt: it was as if while in her flat she had been aware of Jack jealously watching her. Even as they were driving down Piccadilly, still within sight of the western side of the apartment building, she was relaxed. By the time they were on the M4 motorway she hadn't a care or another beau in the world. Alain, though she didn't tell him so, was her boy friend for the day.

Ah, but there
was
another beau . . . Over lunch at the restaurant on the river Alain said, “Did you know Tom Border has written a novel?”

“I never hear from Tom.” She said it non-committally, as if Tom were no more than another journalist she had met on their working rounds.

“Oh. I thought after that experience you two had—” But if he suspected there might have been more between them, he gave no further hint of it. “Well, he's written a novel based on that.”

“Am I in it?” she asked cautiously, as if afraid of libel. Or worse: like having Tom tell the world he loved her.

“I don't know, I haven't read it. But it's been accepted by Exeter House—that's the publishing house we own. They've given him a twenty-five-thousand-dollar advance, which is pretty good for a first novel. Farquhars are doing it over here. It'll be out next spring. The chief editor at Exeter told me they expect big things of it. The paperback rights are going up for auction and the book clubs and Hollywood are already asking to look at it.”

“Good for Tom. I hope success doesn't spoil him.”

“I don't think so.” He gave her a quick glance, then went back to his Dover sole. “I've never met anyone so laid back as Tom. As if he really doesn't care about the world or what it thinks of him!”

“Does that sort of attitude suit a stuffy newspaper like the
Courier
?”

He put a hand to his breast. “You've just stabbed the Brisson family pride. Mother thinks the
Courier
is the only honest paper in America.”

“It may well be. But it's still stuffy, isn't it?”

“Stuffy as hell.”

“
Why don't you do something about it?”

“I'm still too far down the totem-pole. But some day .
.
.” Then he lifted his wine glass. “You're the best-looking woman in this restaurant, do you know that? Maybe not the most beautiful, but easily the best-looking.”

“Is there a difference?”

“In a man's eyes, yes.”

He put his hand on hers and she lifted her glass and poured a little cold wine on it. “Cool down, sport.”

He grinned, licking the wine from the back of his hand. “You're laid back, too, aren't you?”

Not really, not when Tom was mentioned. “Laid back, but not to be laid.”

“Oh, clev-
er
. You've been saving that up for someone like me.”

But he was not put out, he was enjoying being with her too much. He had gone across to her flat this morning looking for no more than a good-looking girl, one he remembered with some good feeling, to take out for the day. Now he was falling in love; or at least he had stumbled and had yet to regain his balance. The walking stick would be no help to him.

They drove back up to Wimbledon, took their seats, excellent ones, amongst the crowd on the Centre Court. The two women players came out, the champion looking relaxed and carefree, the challenger looking determined and tense. Cleo, ambitious in everything except sport felt her sympathy go out for Goolagong, not because she was an Australian but because she seemed as if she had put the match in its proper perspective: it was only a game, it was not the end of the world. Of course if she lost there would be people back home who would hint that you could never rely on an aboriginal, he or she could never be expected to respect the things that counted. Whereas King, coming from the United States which had a proper sense of values, knew that achievement was everything. All at once Cleo thought that Tom had an aboriginal's approach to life: he would rather go walkabout than climb the ladder . . .

Goolagong tried hard, laughed and shook her head at her own mistakes; but on the day King was the better player, knew she was going to win. Australians in the crowd groaned and grew morose as their heroine went down; but Cleo felt only sympathy for the aboriginal girl of whom too much was expected. Goolagong would be disappointed at losing, but tomorrow she would be laughing again, while on the other
side
of the world Australia would go into another of its depressions at losing a sporting event. King, meanwhile, would already be practising for the next tournament.