Into Temptation (Spoils of Time 03) (34 page)

It was only the arrival of Venetia, worried by a phone call, that saved both of them.

‘Darling, what she needs is a bottle. I’m going out to buy one now and lots of lovely Cow and Gate, and then I’ll feed her while you have a bath, and wash your hair, you look quite frightful.’

‘Well, thank you for that,’ said Elspeth, but she was too relieved to properly protest; an hour later, while Cecilia slept peacefully for the first time in weeks, and she was dozing on her bed, she heard her mother talking to Keir.

‘I really think I should take her home for a bit, she’s awfully down and absolutely exhausted, and you obviously can’t work here. She can come back in a week or two, when she’s properly recovered, it’s impossible for her at the moment.’

Elspeth waited for him to fly into a temper and say that he wouldn’t allow any such thing; then thought she must be still asleep and dreaming when he said yes, perhaps that might be a good idea.

‘Here you are, my dearest. Anniversary present.’

‘Anniversary? I don’t know what you mean, it’s not—’

‘And I thought you were a romantic. It’s three months since we were married. A whole season. A happy, happy season. For me anyway. And I do so hope for you.’

‘Of course. Of course it has been. And – thank you. For my present.’

‘You don’t look very excited. Open it, go on, I’ve been longing for you to come home all day. And I’ve booked us a table at the Four Seasons this evening. You know why, of course.’

‘No—’

‘Barty! It’s where you said you’d marry me. How could you forget that?’

‘I haven’t forgotten,’ she said, ‘of course. It’s – it’s a lovely idea.’

‘Go on – open your present.’

She tried to be generous about it; not to check the cost mentally as she undid it, undid the unmistakable white ribbon round the unmistakable blue Tiffany box. To express delight as well as surprise at the contents (comparatively modest, a gold bracelet with a swinging heart set with a diamond, but still – several hundred dollars), to smile, to kiss him, to thank him as effusively as she could.

‘Here, let me put it on. It suits you. Suits your little wrist. If you don’t like it you can change it—’

‘Charlie, I love it. Really. Thank you.’

‘Good.’ He kissed her. ‘It’s me who should be thanking you, really. For making me so happy.’

She was silent.

‘Now then. You go and have your bath and change.’

‘Where are the girls?’

‘Oh – at the movies. They’ll be back any minute.’

‘The movies! But Charlie—’

‘What?’ His expression was innocent, his smile easy. ‘It is the holidays.’

‘I know but – Jenna has a piano exam tomorrow.’

‘Yes, and she was practising half the morning. Cathy, here you are. How was the movie?’

‘Great.’

Cathy was looking rather grown up, Barty thought, something was different.

‘Cathy have you changed your hair?’

‘Yes, do you like it?’

‘Yes it’s – very nice.’

‘I love it. I had it done today. Early birthday present from Daddy.’

Another present.

‘Where – where did you have it done?’

‘Kenneth.’

Kenneth! Kenneth, one of Manhattan’s top hairdressers. He did Jackie Kennedy’s hair and all the other society ladies, what was Charlie doing taking a little girl there?

‘It’s – it’s very grown-up looking. You look – ’ she struggled to be generous, ‘ – you look like Grace Kelly.’

‘You think so? Oh thanks Barty. That’s exactly what Kenneth said.’

She did too, with her ice-blonde hair, cut just above the shoulders, the front shorter than the back, waving softly back from her face. She was such a pretty girl, but – well, she was only twelve. Too young to have hair like a film star.

‘You wait till you see Jenna’s.’

‘Jenna’s? Jenna’s had her hair cut?’

‘She sure has. It’s gorgeous. Jen! Your mom’s home, come and show her your hair.’

Jenna came in slowly, her eyes apprehensive on her mother’s face. Her hair, her glorious red-gold hair, Laurence’s hair, which had been hanging past her shoulders that morning was cropped short, short as a boy’s, with a gamine fringe, high on her forehead. Barty sat down abruptly; she felt quite sick.

‘Jenna, what on earth have you done?’

‘Don’t you like it?’

‘Like it? Of course I don’t like it. I hate it. And I hate that you’ve had it done without asking me, I—’ she felt tears absurdly in her eyes.

‘Mother!’ There was a touch of hostility in Jenna’s voice, ‘I’m twelve now. I’m not a baby. I don’t have to get your permission to get a haircut, for God’s sake – ’

That was not Jenna talking; it was Cathy. Jenna might rant and rave and fall off horses and out of trees, she might take boats out against orders, she might tell Barty she hated her and wished she was dead, but she didn’t look at her in that wall-eyed way and tell her she didn’t need permission to get a haircut.

Only – maybe she did. Maybe she did now. She was twelve, it was true, and twelve these days was like fourteen, fifteen when Barty had been a child. Just the same . . .

‘You shouldn’t have let her do that,’ she said to Charlie, ‘not without asking me.’

‘Asking you! I have to ask you if I can take your daughter to the hairdresser? Barty, you’re always so busy. I wouldn’t dream of interrupting one of your high-powered meetings to ask you about Jenna’s hair. It’s my job to look after the girls while you’re at work and—’

‘Yes, and looking after them doesn’t mean taking them to an adult hairdresser and completely changing the way they look. It must have cost so much money, what’s wrong with taking them to Bloomingdales, where they’ve always gone—’

‘Barty, you’re not begrudging them a few extra dollars I hope. That would be mean. What do you spend on your hair, for heaven’s sake?’

‘That’s not the point,’ she said and discovered she was shaking, shaking with rage. ‘The point is—’

‘The point is they’re not children any more. They’re growing up. They’re interested in their appearance and so they should be. The other point is that you were not here, you were working as always, and so I took them to have their hair cut. It’s only been cut for God’s sake—’

‘Yes, and it will grow again.’ Jenna was upset now by her mother’s distress, went over to her and put her arm round her. ‘I thought you’d like it. It’s meant to look like Audrey Hepburn’s—’

‘Jenna, you’re a little girl. I don’t want you looking like a film star—’

Charlie met her eyes over Jenna’s head.

‘Darling, if you want to supervise everything Jenna does, you should stay home and look after her. I’m just doing my best in your absence.’

This was so untrue, Barty couldn’t even be bothered to argue with him. She stood up, set the Tiffany box aside.

‘I’m sorry, Charlie, I don’t feel like going out tonight. I have a terrible headache.’

‘Oh darling, I’m so sorry. So very sorry. Can I get you anything, some painkillers, a cup of good old-fashioned English tea—’

‘No, thank you, nothing. I’ll just go and lie down and try and get to sleep.’

‘It seems such a shame, to waste the table. You don’t think you’ll feel better later—’

‘No, I don’t. Why don’t you take the girls instead as you’re so keen for them to grow up?’

She hadn’t expected him to respond as he did. But he smiled at her, a smile of pure triumph, and then said, ‘Hey, that’s not such a bad idea. How’d you like that, girls, show off your new hairstyles at the Four Seasons tonight?’

‘Oh wow,’ they said in unison.

This was how he did it, how he was coping – if that was the right word – with the money. With being permanently placed in a subservient position, of having to ask, to be permanently grateful . . . not that he did a lot of asking. He just took. Whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted it. New suits, a new car, something for the house, clothes for Cathy . . . He always presented it as being for Barty, of course. ‘Honey, I thought you’d be thrilled, you said you were so tired of the Studebaker, you wanted something more exciting . . . darling you told me I should get myself smartened up . . . sweetheart, Cathy needed new clothes for the school skiing trip, Jenna is so perfectly kitted out, I knew you wouldn’t want her to feel like the poor relation.’

A particularly clever one that: who could begrudge a child new clothes when her stepsister had wardrobes packed with them?

The first row over money had been dreadful, had absorbed two days of their honeymoon. She had confronted him with the used book of cheques, had asked him, reasonably, she thought, why it had been necessary to write so many, without recourse to her. He had been at first defensive, saying he had not expected to be cross-questioned over it, that she had suggested they should have a joint account, that he would financially run the household, and surely she didn’t expect him to come to her with every bill that came in, the whole idea was to spare her such detail.

Of course not, she had said, but so many, and so quickly; and then the stubs that were blank, what were they for, and for what amounts? She would need to know when she was checking the account.

He lost his temper then, raged at her, as she could never have believed possible, asking her if she was accusing him of stealing her money, saying that he could not live with her on that basis, having to account for every dollar he spent. It was outrageous, ugly, he felt diminished, insulted . . .

Remorseful at first, genuinely shocked by the violence of his reaction, she apologised; and then in the aftermath of the row, when he was still cool, still morose, she thought again about it, thought how unfair of him to react in that way, that it was unreasonable, that anyone would have expected to account for money they were spending. She thought of Celia, warning her to sort things out financially, wondered what she could do now to inject some order into the whole thing. Perhaps she should make Charlie an allowance, had suggested that, even. It had been worse; another row followed, more accusations of meanness, a lack of generosity not only materially, but of spirit.

‘I simply cannot believe this of you,’ he said finally, before withdrawing from her again. ‘I thought this was what you reassured me would never happen, that your money was unimportant to you . . .’

She would have remained angry herself, but much later in the day he came to her, had clearly been weeping, begged her forgiveness, said he had to explain.

He had had terrible debts, he said; he had been struggling with them for some time.

‘But why didn’t you simply tell me? I would have done anything to help you, paid them off, made you a loan, whatever you wanted. You know I would. The only thing that’s upset me is – well I felt you were deceiving me.’

‘I know, I know, I can see that now. But given our financial situation, mine and yours, think about how difficult that would have been for me. Here I was in one breath telling you I loved you, that I wanted to marry you, and in the next that I needed some money – quite a lot of money – desperately. I am so, so sorry, my darling. Please forgive me.’

As always he had expressed things exactly as she would have wished, showing an almost uncanny understanding of her feelings. Remorse flooded her; she took him in her arms, apologised, asked him to forgive her, to promise never to keep anything from her again. He promised.

The cheques when they were presented were large, several thousand dollars; he offered to pay her back ‘slowly’, she told him not to be absurd, that she was happy to be able to do this for him. After that any attempt to make a formal arrangement, a separation of their finances, seemed clumsy and ugly.

He had a chequebook on the joint account; and although there were no more of his own debts, he used it mercilessly.

But he had never quite forgiven her; and one of the ways he got at her was through the children: spoiling them, taking them to places she disapproved of, sophisticated restaurants and adult movies, encouraging them to look older than they were so they could deceive the box-office attendant, letting them off their homework, their piano practice, buying them jewellery and clothes which were too old for them, buying their affection.

It was horrible. She had worked so hard on Jenna, never letting her think she could coast through life on money, telling her that everything had to be earned. The work of the past eight, ten years was being unravelled before her eyes.

What upset her most was that Jenna fell for it; Barty knew it was unreasonable to expect her to say no, Charlie, I won’t come to the movies, I have to do my homework, but a tiny part of her hoped that she would. And she was losing Jenna; she could feel her slipping away, week by week.

‘It’s so much more fun now, with Charlie,’ Jenna said one day, slipping her arm through her mother’s as they walked in Central Park, alone for once. ‘It used to be really boring after school, on my own with Maria, Charlie works so hard at taking care of us, giving us a good time.’

What could she say to that?

And this was another thing; something she hadn’t thought of, she and Jenna were never alone together any more. They had been so close, always, despite the fights, had talked about everything from Jenna’s lessons to Barty’s best-seller lists, from Jenna’s ambitions to be a mountaineer or bareback rider to Barty’s to take over Doubleday. They had planned vacations together – not that there had been many, Barty had to admit – worked out what they were going to do about Christmas – always tricky for small family units – and savoured dozens of small pleasures like eating Chinese takeaways out of boxes in the den, giggling over TV comedy shows, cycling round Central Park. And Barty had talked to her, more and more as she grew up, about her father, knowing how important it was that she should get a strong sense of what he had been like. She tried to be honest, to tell Jenna that as well as being loving and generous and clever and talented, he could also be difficult, bad-tempered and hugely possessive.

‘No one is perfect: that’s what love is,’ she had said to her one night, as they cuddled in the den, listening to Beethoven’s Fifth (she had decided it was time Jenna was introduced to classical music), ‘it’s still loving people in spite of knowing the bad things. Never forget it, Jenna, ever.’