Old Sins (71 page)

‘On behalf of us all I apologize,’ he said, and smiled his dancing smile. ‘Or perhaps I am being presumptuous. Perhaps I don’t qualify as famous in your book.’

‘No,’ she said, ‘honestly you don’t. Famous is – well, you know, really famous. Instantly recognised. Peter Cook. Clive James. Joanna Lumley.’

‘I feel very humbled. But you’re right.’

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude again.’

‘You weren’t. I was being arrogant. Have you interviewed all those people?’

‘Yes.’

‘And were they really boring?’

‘Actually, those three weren’t. Not at all. But they were exceptions.’ She looked at him and smiled. ‘I think you are probably another.’

‘But I thought I wasn’t famous.’

‘Well, maybe you are a bit. But you aren’t boring. So far.’

‘Good.’

The car was swinging up Whitehall; the traffic, as it so often and inexplicably does in London, had cleared. Pete Praeger, Julian’s chauffeur, bodyguard and probably the most discreet man in London, half turned his head. ‘Straight to the office, Sir Julian? You don’t want to stop anywhere for lunch?’

‘No, thank you, Pete. Sarah has something waiting for me in the office. Sarah is my secretary,’ he said to Phaedria. ‘Terrifyingly efficient. We are all frightened of her. Aren’t we, Pete? And do what she says.’

‘We certainly do, sir. Will you need me any more today? You don’t want me to bring you anything from the house?’

‘No, I don’t think so. But I have a dinner engagement. Can you come at seven to the office?’

‘Yes, Sir Julian. Would that be in London, or out of town at all?’

‘The Meridiana, Pete. And I won’t be late.’

‘Fine. Right, then here we are, sir.’

Phaedria, climbing out of the car, looked up at the offices with interest. She had expected some modern block; she found one of the original grey eighteenth-century buildings, with large white admittedly fake Palladian doors, and the original windows.

Julian pushed one of the doors open himself, standing aside to let her pass, taking his briefcase from Pete. ‘In you go, Miss Blenheim. The lift’s over there. Just a moment.’

He went and spoke briefly to the girl at the reception desk and then came over to her. They got in the lift. ‘Top floor. My office is in what is known as a penthouse suite.’

‘It sounds rather debauched.’

‘I’m afraid it isn’t. A great deal of very hard work goes on there, and that’s all.’

‘I see.’

Nevertheless, she was not surprised to find the suite, his personal offices, so stylish, so unbusinesslike: the lobby, with its sofas, its plants, its Tiffany-style lamps on low tables; the small rather more impersonal office beyond that where sat the terrifying Miss Brownsmith (who nodded briefly as they went through, skimming a thoughtful eye over Phaedria), and beyond that again, Julian’s own office. Phaedria looked round it in delight, drinking in the white and chrome, the Symonds and Lutyens desk, the curving bookshelves, the lacquered standard lamps. ‘What a beautiful room.’

‘I’m glad you like it. Many people don’t.’

‘I’m amazed.’

‘No, it’s a little subtle, I find, for general consumption. People expect either very grand eighteenth-century style, a sort of cross between a boardroom and a brothel, or pure Conran. They can’t cope with this at all.’

‘Well I think it’s marvellous.’

‘I’m glad you like it. I am very fond of the art deco era. Probably because I was born in it. Although I fear it’s beginning to be more historic than nostalgic.’ He buzzed for Sarah Brownsmith. ‘Ah, Sarah, could we have that lunch I hope you have been keeping for me. We’re very hungry. Is there enough for two?’

‘I think so, Sir Julian. Would you like wine, or just Perrier?’

‘Oh, I think this is an occasion, I think we would like wine. No, more than that, champagne. Bring in a bottle of the Cristalle, will you, Sarah? And some Perrier as well, we have work to do. Miss Blenheim, I presume you would like a drink? Sarah, this is Phaedria Blenheim, a journalist from the
Bristol Echo.
She has come up to interview me. Now is there anything I
need to know urgently, because I’ll deal with it now, straight away, and then I want to be left alone for an hour or so. No calls or anything. This is an important interview.’

Phaedria met Sarah Brownsmith’s politely amused gaze, resisted an almost overpowering urge to wink at her, and moved over to look out of the window down at Dover Street.

‘Do you want lunch first, Sir Julian, or the messages?’

‘Obviously lunch, Sarah, it’s nearly half past three, and I have a guest. Just have it brought in, please, and then give me the messages quickly.’

Sarah Brownsmith’s revenge for this small piece of arrogance was swift and heady. ‘I’ll give you all the messages,’ she said, as Julian poured two glasses of champagne and held one out to Phaedria, ‘then you can decide for yourself which are important. Miss North wants to know why you haven’t rung her about tonight. She said to impress upon you that you were to be at the restaurant by seven sharp. Susan Johns says if you don’t call her this afternoon about the marketing plans for next year she will resign immediately from – now what was it –’ she consulted her notebook – ‘ah yes, your bloody ego trip of a company. She said it was very important I gave you that message exactly.’

‘Thank you, Sarah. Anything else?’

‘Freddy Branksome said it was crucial you signed the audited accounts today, otherwise we should all be in jail by Christmas.’

‘Yes?’

‘Richard Brookes wants to know if you actually want to guarantee a lawsuit from Mrs Lauder, or if you would like to just consider renaming your new range. He must have a definite answer today.’

‘Fine.’

‘And your mother says if she doesn’t hear from you by four she will be extremely displeased with you.’

‘Thank you, Sarah. I hope you haven’t forgotten anything.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Good. Get my mother on the phone, will you?’

‘Yes. And Miss North?’

‘I will ring Miss North later,’ said Julian lightly. He pushed his hair back. ‘Thank you. Now, then, I don’t want to be disturbed.’

‘What about the accounts?’

‘The accounts will have to wait. I believe the jails are very full towards Christmas. I doubt if they will have room for us.’

‘Yes, Sir Julian.’

She closed the door behind her. Julian smiled at Phaedria. ‘She is an excellent nanny. She likes to remind me I am imperfect and in need of discipline.’

‘So I see.’

‘And you also see what an extremely important person and how high-powered I am, and how my staff tremble at the sound of my name.’

‘Yes. I do.’

The phone rang. ‘Mother? Hallo. What? Yes, I know I didn’t ring you last night, and I’m truly sorry. I was working with Freddy on the accounts. What? Well, we had a little supper later. No, Camilla was not with us. Well, your spies are lying. Now darling, I promise to come and see you tonight. Without fail. How are you? Good. I may have a friend with me. What? No, it won’t be Camilla. I know she’s bad for your health. Poor girl, I never can see what harm she does you.’

Phaedria, watching him closely, saw his face darken suddenly. ‘Mother, I can’t get into that now. I’ve got somebody with me. Yes, I have sent Roz some flowers. I know it’s dreadful waiting for a late baby, but she’ll survive. Other women do. She was a fortnight late herself. Serves her right. Bye, darling, I must go now. See you later. What? Oh, about seven.’ He put down the phone, walked over to Phaedria and refilled her glass.

‘Now then, Miss Phaedria Blenheim. What do you want to know about me?’

She had just finished telephoning her story through to the
Echo
from Sarah’s desk when Julian appeared in the doorway.

‘Was that all right? Was he pleased?’

‘Very.’

‘Good. My extremely valuable, moderately famous time has not been wasted, then?’

‘Of course not,’ she said, pushing the certain knowledge that she had done a lousy job to the bottom of her consciousness. She looked at Julian, about whom she knew so little more, and she did not wonder for a moment when she had not pushed him
in the very least for information about himself beyond his companies, his money, his houses, his tastes. There was much she wanted to know about Julian Morell, much that she needed to know; about his first and only wife, and why he had never married again; about his daughter, and how, if at all, he rationalized having both her and his son-in-law holding significant positions in the company; about his very long association with Susan Johns and the closeness with him that gave her the right to insult him considerably and publicly through his secretary; about the demanding Camilla North, who was clearly not going to be met at seven o’clock sharp or indeed at any time during the evening; about his mother, who had worked in the company from its founding and was still, by all accounts, an active constituent; but it was not to be shared, any of it, either with her editor or her readers.

As for herself, she had time on her side; she could wait.

‘I would like to buy you a drink,’ he said, ‘preferably several. But I have a slight problem.’

‘I think you’ve already given me several drinks.’

‘Maybe. But that was work. I would like to move you into the pleasure category now.’

There it was again; that gentle insistent pressure into intimacy. Phaedria started putting papers into her fishing bag, her head bent, glad to have a reason not to look at him, wondering confusedly at the warmth stirring somewhere in the depths of her body.

‘I see.’

‘Are you busy this evening? Do you want me to send you back? Because I will. You have only to say.’

‘No,’ she said, as he had known, as they had both known she would, looking up suddenly and meeting his eyes. ‘No, I don’t. I can stay in London.’

‘Good. Now, then, I wonder how you’d feel about coming to see my mother before we go on for – what? Dinner perhaps?’

Sarah Brownsmith, working on the small computer on the other side of her office, wondered if Phaedria had any idea at all quite how much that invitation meant.

‘You’ll like my mother,’ said Julian as the car made its slow, painful journey along St James’s.

‘Good. Will she like me?’

‘I think so. I think definitely yes.’

‘Then I shall like her.’

‘And then, after that, I thought we would go out to dinner. If you have time. Where would you like to go?’

‘I have time. Why not the Meridiana?’

‘Why the Meridiana?’

‘I imagine you have a table booked. You said you were going there this evening.’

‘Oh, now here we have the journalist at work, do we not?’ He sounded faintly irritated. ‘Not missing a single thing. No, I don’t have a table booked. I cancelled it.’

‘Pity,’ said Phaedria, undismayed by his change of mood.

‘Why?’

‘Because I like it.’

‘Well, that is a pity, but anyway, we can’t go there, because several people I know are going, and I don’t want to see any of them. Where else do you like?’

‘I love Chez Solange. I like Bentley’s Oyster Bar. And I love Inigo Jones. In Covent Garden. Do you know it?’

‘I do. How is it that you are so au fait with London restaurants? I thought you were a provincial girl.’

‘Absolutely not,’ said Phaedria firmly. ‘I grew up in London, and my father is a great gourmet.’

‘Are you a great gourmet too?’

‘A small one.’

‘Good. Then let us go to Inigo Jones. It’s certainly an imaginative menu. I’ll book a table from my mother’s house. Tell me more about your father. Tell me about your mother. What does she do, if anything?’

‘I haven’t the faintest idea,’ said Phaedria, and there was no bitterness, no emotion of any kind in her voice, just a blank indifference. ‘She left us when I was ten. She wrote at Christmas for a few years. I think I last heard from her on my twenty-first birthday. She sent me a card.’

He looked at her with great interest. ‘How appalling.’

‘Not really. I had my father. We were perfectly happy.’

‘You don’t seem at all damaged by the experience.’

‘Who knows? It’s hard to assess, isn’t it, that kind of thing? I might have been greatly damaged. But I don’t think so.’

‘I find that encouraging,’ he said.

‘Why?’

‘Well, my own daughter has had – well, a difficult life. My wife and I divorced when she was very small. I have always worried about the effect on her. But perhaps she may prove as undamaged as you.’

‘Perhaps.’

‘She’s about to have a baby,’ he added.

‘Yes, I know.’

‘Dear God,’ he said, half amused, half irritated. ‘Is there anything about me you don’t know?’

She met his gaze steadily, the warmth inside her stirring again. ‘I think a lot.’

He smiled. ‘Good.’ Then he looked at her more seriously. ‘This is very odd, what we are doing, you know. It has only just dawned on me how odd it is.’

‘What?’

‘Well, that you should be coming to meet my mother, and then agree to have dinner with me, when you should be safely back home in Bristol, typing your articles, or whatever you do in the evening. Is there nobody to worry about you?’

‘Nobody.’

‘Don’t you have any friends?’

‘Of course I do. But they don’t monitor my every movement. Some evenings I see them, some I don’t.’

‘I see. So you live alone?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you not have a boyfriend?’

‘No.’

‘Don’t you think it might be a little rash, spending the evening with me? I might prove to be a lecher, or a miser or a bore.’

‘You might. In each case, I could just go home.’

‘To Bristol?’

‘Of course not. To my father’s house in Chelsea.’

‘Then,’ he said, smiling, his eyes dancing, ‘I shall relax.’

‘Mother, this is Phaedria. Phaedria Blenheim. She is writing a series of articles on leading Captains of Industry. She’s started with me.’

‘Really. How interesting. Which of the other Captains are you interviewing, Miss Blenheim?’

‘Oh, Clive Sinclair. Richard Branson. Alan Sugar. John Bentley.’

She saw Julian looking at her with intense admiration.