Into Temptation (Spoils of Time 03) (17 page)

‘No. He’s not.’

‘Well – ’

He was silent; there were two boys in the study. The small one, Forrester, was sitting by the fire behind him; he gave Lucas a sharp kick on his backside.

‘Answer when you’re spoken to you little squirt. You little Jewish squirt.’

‘I did answer,’ said Lucas steadily.

‘You did not. We want to know how he died.’

‘Why should you want to know that? It’s nothing to do with you.’

‘Oh but it is Jew-boy,’ said Armitage, the other boy. His back was to the window and it was a brilliantly sunny day, Lucas couldn’t see his face clearly. It was unnerving. ‘We want to know if he was a traitor, if he collaborated with the Nazis.’

‘Of course he didn’t.’

‘Well if he didn’t die in one of the camps, what happened to him? How did he escape? Must have collaborated, it seems to us.’

‘It’s nothing to do with you,’ said Lucas steadily.

‘Yes it is. We don’t want some filthy Nazi sympathiser’s son fagging for us. Come on, tell us.’

‘No,’ said Lucas.

He could still remember his mother telling him what had happened to his father; still remember the small, sad service she had held in the chapel at Ashingham, and being bidden always to remember how brave his father had been.

‘Nazi!’ said Forrester. ‘Jewish Nazi-boy.’

‘Shut up,’ said Lucas suddenly. ‘Shut up, shut up!’

‘Now then,’ said Armitage, ‘don’t lose your temper. We just want to know, Jew-boy, that’s all.’

‘I’ll tell you, then,’ said Lucas. He stood up from where he had been tending the fire, slowly faced Armitage. He felt very odd, everything seemed to be in slow motion. ‘My father was shot by the Nazis. Not in a concentration camp, but on the streets in Paris. He’d been hiding for years. They’d just found him, were rounding people up early one morning.’

‘And – do go on, Jew-boy. This is very interesting. A history lesson. A Jewish history lesson.’

He seemed to be at the end of a very long, bright tunnel; Lucas fixed his eyes on the sneering face.

‘And there was a little girl, hiding in the doorway, her parents had been dragged out. My father saw her, tried to grab her, hide her in a cart. The Nazis saw him and shot him, then and there on the street. That’s how he died. All right? Is that clear enough for you?’

‘Pretty clear.’ Armitage walked towards him. ‘If it’s true.’ He grinned at Lucas, his blue eyes hard and mocking. ‘It’s a pretty good story certainly, Lieberman. A hero, then, for a father. A Jewish hero. Bit unlikely, I’d have thought. Not many of them, I believe. Most of them came to heel snivelling.’

And then it happened; the white heat in Lucas’s head exploded into something so violent and so strong he had no idea what he was doing. He seized Armitage by the throat and punched him in the face twice, saw him reeling backwards, yelling, felt Forrester grab him from behind, knee him so hard in the buttocks that he shouted with pain, and then Armitage came at him again, punching him in the mouth once, twice—

‘Boys, what on earth is going on in here? What are you doing? Lieberman, Armitage—’

‘He hit me first, Sir,’ Armitage wiped his hand across the bloody nose that was evidence.

‘And Forrester, let him go. Let him go at once.’

‘I was only trying to save Armitage, Sir. Lieberman went berserk Sir.’

‘And why exactly did he go berserk? Would you like to enlighten me?’

‘I don’t know Sir. He just got upset. He was talking about his father and how he died. Maybe he felt we weren’t sympathetic enough Sir. We were, Sir, really, it was a tragic story.’

‘Yes, all right Forrester. Lieberman, go and get cleaned up and report to your housemaster. And you two, I’d like some more details from you.’

An hour later, Lucas was doing his prep in solitary confinement, sentenced to two hours’ extra defaulters. His housemaster had said that while he was sympathetic to his distress, there was never any excuse for violence. Lucas’s reputation for surly, aggressive behaviour with everyone, staff and boys alike, did not help him; there was no one with a good word to say for him. Everyone agreed he was difficult, ill-mannered, hostile to the school and all its efforts to integrate him. His housemaster looked at him sternly.

‘While I can see it was very tragic how your father died, Lieberman, you were a very small child. The memory can hardly be a fresh one. Nor can I see why Armitage and Forrester could possibly have wanted to torment you over something like that. It was heroic behaviour, there was surely nothing derogatory they could possibly find to say. I think you must have over-reacted to whatever it was they said. For which they have been quite severely chastised, I do assure you. We do not tolerate bullying or any kind of abuse in this school.’

Lucas said nothing; just clenched his fists and tried to concentrate on the pain in his jaw and eye which was considerable. It was preferable to the agony of listening properly to this claptrap.

‘Now, do you have anything to add to your defence?’

Silence.

‘Lieberman?’

‘No.’

‘No Sir.’

‘No Sir.’

That night he locked himself in one of the lavatories and cried like a child; somehow respectful of what was clearly genuine grief, the others left him alone. And in the morning, waking after a very few hours with a throbbing head and an aching jaw, he had decided what he would do.

‘Izzie? You all right?’

‘What? Oh yes, I’m fine.’

She smiled at Noni across the supper table; they were spending the evening at the house in Montpelier Street as they did most weeks. Noni was having trouble with her maths and was coming up to her School Certificate; Izzie, who had a rather surprising facility for the subject, had offered to help her. Afterwards she would stay on for supper and they would chat; sometimes Adele would join them, sometimes Geordie, increasingly rarely both of them.

‘Good. You seem a bit – distracted.’

‘Oh – not really. Few problems at work.’

‘Like what? Tell me.’

‘Oh, nothing, Noni. You wouldn’t understand.’

‘I might,’ said Noni.

‘No you wouldn’t,’ said Izzie. She sounded quite sharp. Noni sighed. Another grown-up out of sorts. Life was much less nice these days.

‘Isabella, are you all right?’

‘Of course I’m all right, Father. Why shouldn’t I be?’

‘You’re very quiet.’

‘I’m quite a quiet person, really. Father, I’m fine, please don’t fuss. I’m just tired.’

‘Is that job too much for you? Because I—’

‘No Father, it’s not too much for me. Can we talk about something else, please?’

‘Sebastian says you’re tired.’

‘Kit, I’m fine.’

‘You don’t sound fine. You sound awful.’

‘I’m fine. Stop fussing and leave me alone. If I’m tired there’s nothing you can do about it, anyway.’

‘Izzie, Henry and Clarissa have named the day. And of course she wants us all to be bridesmaids. Won’t that be fun?’

‘What? Oh, yes, great fun.’

‘You don’t sound very excited.’

‘Amy I’m trying to do some work. All right?’

‘Sorry.’

‘If you try to make me go back this time,’ said Lucas, fixing his large dark eyes on his mother, ‘I shall kill myself. I mean it. Other boys kill themselves at school—’

‘Darling, surely not.’

‘They do. A boy whose brother was at St James’s did. He hanged himself in his study. And I shall do the same.’

‘Lucas, this is nonsense. Of course you won’t kill yourself. Now let’s talk about it all some more and then—’

‘I don’t want to talk about it any more. I can’t stand it. I’m going to kill myself if you send me back. I would rather be dead.’

‘Lucas—’

‘Mother, don’t say any more. Just believe me.’

‘Geordie, we have to let him leave. He’s desperate. He says he’s going to kill himself.’

‘Melodramatic nonsense,’ said Geordie, quite cheerfully. ‘I said something very similar when I was sent back to my prep school. What I meant was I wanted more tuck.’

‘Geordie!’ said Adele, staring at him, her face white and quite shocked. ‘Geordie, I can’t believe you just said that. Made a joke about Lucas’s misery. I really believe him. I don’t like the way he looks at all.’

‘I haven’t liked the way he’s looked for a long time,’ said Geordie, ‘since you mention it.’

‘Don’t diminish what he’s going through, please.’

‘And what about what you and I have had to go through? Before he went and now when he’s home. It’s absurd, the whole thing. Of course he won’t kill himself, people who say they will never do, it’s a bid for attention, a cry for help and—’ he stopped suddenly, as if realising what he had said. Adele pounced.

‘Exactly. A cry for help. Which you’re denying him. Geordie, please, please let him come home. Please. I will make him behave better, I promise. I can’t bear seeing him suffering like this, I really can’t.’

‘No,’ said Geordie, and his face was absolutely serious, rigid in its determination. ‘If we give in now, he’ll know that next time there’s something he doesn’t like, he can do exactly what he wants. You don’t seem to understand, this is the only way we can help him in the long run. He’s his own worst enemy. He can’t go through life being rude and disruptive. Look at his last report, it said, over and over again, that he was uncooperative, aggressive, insolent—’

Adele walked out of the room without even looking at him.

Izzie was trying to concentrate on her book that evening when she heard the phone ringing.

‘Isabella! It’s Noni.’

Oh God. More problems with the maths.

‘Hallo Noni. Look I’m—’

‘Izzie, can I come and see you? Please please, I’ll get a taxi, or could you come down here?’

‘Well – I could—’

‘It’s Geordie. He’s moving back to New York. I heard him shouting at Mummy.’

‘But why, what’s wrong? To – oh, Noni, that can’t be right. Geordie would never leave your mother and Clio. Or you, for that matter.’

‘Well he is, he is. Mummy phoned Fletton and told them Lucas wasn’t coming back, he’s been horribly bullied about – about being Jewish, I don’t understand. And then she told Geordie and they had the most terrible awful row, screaming at each other, and finally he said, “Well I told you, Adele, it was him or me. You’ve made your decision. Now you’ll have to live with it.” And she said, “Where are you going?” and he said, “Back to New York,” and she started screaming at him, and then I heard the door of his study slam and I couldn’t hear any more. Oh, Izzie, it’s so horrible and it’s all Lucas’s fault. I hate him, I hate him so much. And he came into my room and said, “There, you’ve got your dear brother back,” and he looked so pleased and almost proud of himself. I do know he has had the most horrible time, but I love Geordie so much and—’

‘He probably doesn’t mean it,’ said Izzie soothingly. ‘They were just having a row.’

But it seemed that Geordie did.

CHAPTER 9

It was only physical pain. Nothing else. It was only happening to her. Nobody else. It didn’t matter. It was worth it. Of course it was. It meant that it would soon be over, very soon now, and no one else need ever know. Or be troubled by it.

No shock, no shame, no conflict; just a nice clean ending. Her father would never have to know, Kit would never have to know, perhaps most important, Henry would never have to know. Of all her terrors, that had been the greatest. That Henry would find out, and feel bound to offer to marry her. To break off his engagement to Clarissa, and marry her instead. He would, she knew, if he suspected. He was too much of a gentleman not to. Far too much. He . . .

‘Quiet,’ said the woman sharply. ‘I said no noise. And keep still.’

Izzie shut her eyes more tightly; she could feel the sweat on her forehead, cold and clammy, feared she was going to be sick. Half of her wanted to sit up, push her away, this horrible ghastly woman. Get off the bed, run. But she couldn’t. She was held there anyway, with her legs in the straps, and besides, she lacked the strength and nothing would then be solved. She would still have the baby . . .

From the very beginning, when the vague drifting worry had become something huge and terrifying that dominated her life, when she had dreamed every night that she was bleeding and woken with a dreadful dullness to the reality of her stubbornly white pants and sheets, when she had become obsessed with her own stupidity and a sense of panic so great that she could hardly think, as she sat over her diary for hours, fretting, counting, she had tried not to think of it as a baby. It was a non-event, something that hadn’t happened: no more than that. It was nothing real, there, in the depths of her treacherous body, not something alive and growing, looking for nurture from her. It was simply a lateness, a refusal to bleed. That was all.

She tried everything of course; hot baths, gin, quinine – she had heard somewhere that quinine worked very efficiently. But it didn’t. Nothing did. Days passed into weeks, and absolutely nothing happened. She went to her diary over and over again, praying that she had somehow miscalculated; over and over again it only served to show her that she had been in bed with Henry on what she knew to be the most fertile part of her cycle. How could she have been so stupid and irresponsible? How, how? It never occurred to her to think that Henry had been stupid and irresponsible too, and far more so than she . . .

Her greatest dread, after Henry finding out, was that her father would somehow get to know of it. Imagining his rage and grief made her feel so frightened that she physically shook. There had not been many times in Izzie’s life when she had longed for a mother; she had no experience of what such a being might do for her. But now, in this all-absorbing, intensely female predicament, endured by women from the beginning of time, she longed for her. She even thought – very briefly – of telling Adele, to whom she was closest in the family; but she didn’t dare. Adele was incapable of keeping anything from Venetia, and Venetia was Henry’s mother. Izzie simply had to manage alone. There was nothing else for it.

She dreaded seeing Henry, dreaded that he might in some way guess. But she had only seen him once, at a party, when he had given her an embarrassed kiss and hug, expressed an over-hearty hope that she was all right. She was spared that at least.

She knew abortions could be carried out discreetly and painlessly in sterile conditions in clinics – usually abroad. A girl from school had disappeared for a week to Switzerland, sent by her parents; the official reason had been appendicitis, but she told several of her friends the real reason. But the parents were rich; such places were terribly expensive and Izzie had no money. To give this woman what she asked – £150 – she had had to sell one of her most precious possessions, a gold and pearl necklace left her by her grandmother. She took it to a jeweller in Hatton Garden; he offered her £200 for it. It was worth twice that she knew, but she didn’t argue with him; it provided her with enough, and that was all she cared about.

The woman had been recommended by an old friend from Oxford, who had used her services, and who assured her she operated under fairly sterile conditions.

‘It’s not for you, is it?’ the girl had said, and ‘No,’ Izzie said. ‘No, for a – for a friend of mine. Honestly.’

‘Tell your friend it does hurt. Quite appallingly. But it doesn’t last for too terribly long, although it seems like it. Only for about two minutes. While she – well, while she dilates the cervix – ’

Even hearing this over the telephone made Izzie wince.

‘And then it hurts like hell while it all – comes away. But you know it’s ending by then.’

‘How – how much does it hurt, then? Just – just so I can tell her.’

‘Oh – quite badly. Yes. Like a very, very bad curse, I suppose. No worse than that. But it’s bearable. Quite honestly, I was so relieved, I didn’t care. I took loads of pills. Tell your friend she should have someone with her if she can.’

‘I’ll be with her,’ said Izzie.

The waiting time had been very frightening. She found herself counting the days, then the hours. She wondered how she would cope with the pain; she hadn’t ever really experienced anything serious before. But it was still better than the terror: that someone would find out, someone would guess . . .

The night before the abortion she sat looking at the money, turning it over in her hands, counting it over and over again; it was like Judas’s forty pieces of silver, she thought, money with which to betray herself. And the – no, don’t think that, Izzie, not about a baby, Izzie. It’s not a baby. It’s so small, an absolutely tiny blob, it doesn’t look like a baby, it isn’t a baby. It’s a mistake you made and you’re putting it right. That’s all it is, a mistake you’re putting right . . .

The room which the woman led her up to in her house in North London was small and cold, with a bright, unshaded light, thick curtains, and a lino-covered floor. The bed was quite high, and very hard; she was told to remove her lower garments and climb on to it. Her teeth chattered, with terror as much as cold, as she did so. There was a handle on the wall above her head, as bright and shining and hard as the instruments that lay on a small table, terrifying-looking things; she tried to keep her eyes away from them. The woman told her to hold on to the handle as she pushed Izzie’s legs apart, strapped her feet into something resembling stirrups.

‘You’ve got to keep still. Is that clear? Otherwise there’s a risk of damage.’

Damage: from those awful sharp things, the bright light. Damage. It was suddenly a more dreadful word than she had ever imagined . . .

She heard a scream; it couldn’t have been her, of course, but it had coincided with a stab, an awful, deep piercing agony, so cold and hard and deep a pain that it negated the rest.

Someone was telling her to be quiet, though; so maybe it was. Maybe—

‘Right. It’s over.’ She felt a pulling, that was almost pleasure, so mild was the pain of it; she let go of the bar, tried to turn on her side, whimpering, biting her fist.

‘You can stay there for half an hour,’ said the woman, releasing her legs, pulling the sheet over her, moving over to the wash basin, rinsing the instruments. Was that all she did to them, Izzie wondered, between one desperate patient and the next, were they just washed under the tap like teaspoons, not sterilised properly? She wondered if she had the courage to ask, knew she did not, and besides, what would be the point, what could she do about it now? She closed her eyes, tried to calm herself, to still the awful trembling that had taken possession of her.

Her fear, only ten minutes earlier, had been simply of the pain she was about to endure; now it was of something uglier, things she had read about and heard of, of haemorrhaging, of septicaemia, of sterility even. Somehow until then, getting rid of the – the blob – had been her only consideration; worth any risk. Now she was not so sure. Now it was too late.

‘Is your friend coming for you?’

Izzie nodded; there was no friend. Who could she trust, who could she burden with this horror, this vile piece of lawlessness?

‘Put this on.’ The woman handed her a sanitary towel and belt. ‘You may bleed a little.’

‘Only a little?’ She was relieved, she had heard stories of pints of blood.

‘A little today.’ The woman’s voice was impatient. ‘Tomorrow, maybe the next day, you’ll bleed a lot. Stay in bed, get plenty of towels in. Take something for the pain, and whatever happens, don’t go to hospital or to a doctor. Don’t forget you’ve broken the law, you’re liable to criminal charges.’

‘I won’t,’ whispered Izzie. ‘I promise.’

‘Good. Now take one of these pills as soon as you get home, another tomorrow and if nothing happens, take the third. If you’re lucky that won’t be necessary. They may make you vomit. I’ll leave you for now.’

Izzie lay on the bed, feeling the pain slowly ease. She felt very sleepy suddenly, and very cold. She pulled the thin sheet more closely round her. It was over; at least it was over.

Somehow she got herself home; hobbled to her little car, managed to drive it. A hot knife-like throbbing was invading her; she literally crawled upstairs, calling to Mrs Conley for some hot milk.

‘You all right, my dear?’

The voice was gentle through her clamouring pain as she lay in bed.

‘Yes. Yes, I’m fine. Well – bit of a tummy ache, you know.’

‘Time of the month, is it?’

‘Yes,’ said Izzie, through chattering teeth, pulling up the sheets.

‘Bless you. Always have trouble, don’t you? I’ll fetch you a hotty. Got some aspirin?’

‘Yes. Yes, thank you.’

And a bottle of her father’s whisky hidden under her bed; she would add that to the milk. It had always helped in the past, when she had had bad period pains. Why not now?

‘Just heard from Mr Brooke,’ said Mrs Conley, coming in again, smiling at her, stroking back her hair. She had known Izzie since she was a baby; had looked after Sebastian long before that. ‘He sent his love. He definitely won’t be back till Friday. Staying in Cambridge. But you know that.’

She did indeed know it; that had been the reason she had chosen today and tomorrow. She would be alone in the house; Sebastian need hear nothing, see nothing, know nothing. There would be no reason for Kit to come round. There would be no other visitors. And Mrs Conley was hard of hearing, and slept like the dead. She would be safe. Safe to get it over with. Alone. Quite alone. She was already bleeding: quite heavily. It would soon be over.

Venetia had worried about Elspeth working at Lyttons. Of course it was a family firm, that the younger generation should move in was part of its philosophy. But just the same, Elspeth was young, raw, she might prove untalented, unworthy of her opportunities. What then? Could she be fired, or worse, remain on sufferance, rather as Giles had done for many years? Would the other staff say she should not have the job, that others should have been given the opportunity, that at the very least there should have been some selection process?

She wondered if her mother had ever felt these things about her; but the firm had been smaller then, totally under family control. She had even voiced some of these fears to Celia, who had looked at her in something approaching disbelief.

‘Venetia, she’s a Lytton. Of course she should have the opportunity. Why ever not?’

‘It doesn’t seem quite – fair,’ said Venetia.

Celia looked at her, clearly baffled.

‘What an extraordinary thing to say. It would be very unfair if she wanted to work at Lyttons, having grown up with it, and then was told she couldn’t. There have to be some advantages in heredity, heaven knows they’re getting fewer all the time, with all these crippling death duties, and appalling taxation, there’s not much we can do for our children any more. Of course she must come to Lyttons. She’ll be excellent, I know it.’

And Elspeth was not disappointing them. She was efficient, she worked extremely hard, came in early, stayed late and undoubtedly had an eye for a promising theme, a latent talent. Perhaps more important still, she showed a considerable grasp of the market. It was Elspeth who pointed out to Giles that university bookselling was clearly seasonal and although there might be an increasing demand for books at the beginning of the scholastic year (due to the number of people now going on to higher education), it could not be sustained and should therefore be looked on as a one-off in the publishing cycle. And it was with Elspeth that Celia found herself most easily able to discuss the year’s most famous libel case, when Frederic Warburg himself stood for trial by jury, on publication of Stanley Kaufman’s
The Philanderer
. Celia had long said that she thought the obscure laws on obscene libel an anachronism. ‘We are moving into new, freer times, people will look for more openness in their literature.’

Elspeth spoke out vigorously for her when called into a meeting to discuss the publication of the latest novel by Clementine Hartley which was quite sexy in its theme – the decision of a young woman to leave her husband and live with another man – with passages which veered on the explicit.

‘The point is,’ she said, her brilliant dark eyes darting just slightly anxiously towards her mother, ‘we, that is our – my – generation – we’re beginning to question all the old, established standards. We really don’t think a mistake in a marriage, for instance, should be for life. And we think that – well, sex doesn’t absolutely have to belong inside marriage. And in a book like this, where the heroine is taking such a huge risk, for – well, not just holding hands with someone – then that kind of passion has got to be clearly expressed. If you see what I mean.’

‘We do. Very good,’ said Celia. ‘Then we will risk this book as it stands, Giles. No more editing. After all, as Mr Justice Stable said over
The Philanderer
, are we to take our literary standards as being the level of something suitable for – what was it – yes, the “decently brought up female of fourteen”? And as he also said, of course we are not. That judgement was deeply important to the whole of our industry. It freed not only publishers but booksellers from the fear of prosecution.’