Wicked Pleasures (108 page)

She sank to the floor, then; he was kneeling and, clumsy with greed and desire still, she slithered onto him, fast, urgently, savouring the joy, the great leaping pleasure remembered of his penis in her, sat there astride him, moving slowly, gently, still alight with pleasure from her climax, and he moved with her, pushing, thrusting, up, and she began to climb again and felt him rising too, heard his breathing become heavier, faster, felt his hands holding her, urging her to him, and then it happened, and he climaxed too, on and on, throbbing, breaking in her, and she caught it and came with him again, more gently, more tenderly this time, echoing his own, and then at last it was over, and they stayed there very quietly on the nursery floor, for a long time, while their son slept, just smiling at one another and unable to find anything at all to say.

She slept late and deeply; she had many strange dreams, heavy, almost sombre dreams, labyrinthine in their depth. In the last one, as she surfaced towards morning, she was fighting, fighting to get to the light, it was so dark, so dark and she had been alone in the darkness and Kendrick was out there, in the light; something was happening, there was a shouting in her ears getting louder as she came to the surface, and then she heard someone screaming, screaming her name, and she awoke and shot out of bed, and to the window; it was Nanny, and she was next door, leaning out of the window herself, and below her, she could see the pram, George’s pram, on its side, just below the terrace, and running into the house, with the baby in his arms, white-faced, shouting her name also, was Alexander.

The baby was fine: he had an egg on his head, where he had fallen out of the pram, but Dr Rogers had checked him over and sent him into Swindon to have him X-rayed, and there was nothing wrong, no concussion, nothing at all. In fact George had celebrated the day by cutting a tooth; as Georgina had fed him his apple sauce for tea, she had felt something hard under the spoon and there it had been, a tiny white jagged edge. It had made them all feel better, that tooth; restored the day to normality. When George had finally gone to sleep and Georgina and Kendrick were sitting, weak with reaction, in the library, Alexander had come in and shut the door, and offered them both a brandy, and she had finally managed to ask him to tell her again, in proper detail (for it had all been so confused before), what had actually happened, what he had seen.

He had been walking up from the stables, he said; one of the dogs was snuffling round on the terrace. ‘He found some interesting smell under the pram; maybe George had had a rusk or something, I don’t know. Anyway, he
must have nudged it; and I saw it very slowly, at first, begin to move. The terrace is level, of course; but towards that end it does slope a bit, and then of course there are the steps. It was a nightmare, all in such slow motion, as these things always are. I ran and ran, but I couldn’t get there in time; just saw it turn and start to tumble down the steps. It was a miracle, a miracle, it wasn’t worse.’

‘Oh God,’ said Georgina, ‘and I was asleep, how could I have slept so late –’ She looked at Kendrick, confused, reminded forcibly of the night, of how she could indeed have slept so late and so deeply – ‘I suppose Nanny must have put him out there. That’s when babies sleep, of course, in their prams, after the ten o’clock feed. Oh God.’

‘Yes,’ said Alexander, ‘yes, I’m afraid it was Nanny.’

‘Daddy, what do you mean, you’re afraid?’

‘Georgina, she – oh, dear, this is so difficult to say, to face, but she is getting very old, I’m afraid.’

‘So?’ Georgina stared at him.

‘Darling, when I got to the pram, I’m afraid – very much afraid – the brake was off. Nanny had failed to make it safe. She really is not to be trusted any more.’

Alexander, July 1987

It had been unlucky, that. So unlucky. If he had been a little longer reaching the pram, perhaps, a little slower – but no, the baby had been thrown out, thrown out onto the soft earth. He should have left him strapped in, perhaps. That might have been better.

Well, he had tried. And he had failed.

It had been such a clever plan. The biscuit under the pram, the dog, deprived of its breakfast, hungry, the brake off, the pram positioned so carefully, pointing towards the steps. Nanny, safely up in the nursery, Georgina asleep – asleep after her disgusting behaviour the night before, did she really think she had not been heard, those cries, those awful, raw cries; talking on the landing to Kendrick, waking him up, and then – then.

He had been very upset, very disturbed by the conversation with Mary Rose. The thought of that boy, living at Hartest, with Georgina, with the child: what did they all think Hartest was, some kind of hotel, to be broken up and shared out? He had been working for so long, all these years, struggling to keep it, keep it safe, keep it whole, keep it his, keep it for Max, and now that cretin calmly proposing it should be divided up, equating it in some crazed way to the bank. It was obscene, disgusting. It made him feel physically sick.

So much the worse that he had failed; if the child had been no more, then there would have been no question of a marriage. She could not possibly consider it. But could he, should he try again? Not for a long time, a long long time. And then it might be too late.

Max, August–September 1987

Max looked into the policeman’s face. It was the worst sort: young, pale, supercilious, a suggestion of spotty.

‘Good morning, sir. Would you care to tell me how fast you thought you were driving just then, sir?’

‘Oh –’ said Max carefully. ‘Oh, I’m afraid a little too fast, Officer. I’m sorry.’

‘How much too fast, sir, would you say?’

‘Well – maybe twenty mph too fast?’

‘I think a little more than that, sir. We recorded it at between ninety-four and ninety-eight. Over quite a long distance, sir.’

‘Good Lord,’ said Max.

‘Yes, sir. Could I see your licence, sir?’

Well, that had done it, he thought, released finally and driving at a very sober sixty-nine on towards London. He’d get a huge fine. Certainly have to spend an inordinate amount of money on a solicitor. Maybe he should get rid of the Porsche. The police did look out for them. Bloody silly idea really, staying at Hartest overnight, and then trying to beat the rush into town. God knows why he’d done it. Well, God might know, but he didn’t. He just wasn’t thinking too straight at the moment. And he knew why that was. He was worried. Properly, seriously, sleep-disturbingly worried. About rather too many things.

There was Praegers. That was the least of his worries, he supposed. On a scale of one to ten, it only rated about a five. But it was difficult there, uncomfortable, the atmosphere increasingly unpleasant. It didn’t greatly affect the trading floor, but it was horrible for Charlotte. Her nice boss gone, her job increasingly difficult, and that little tick Freddy breathing down her neck as well. But none of that was a gut-eating, mind-warping worry. Not like the business about Georgina and Kendrick and this insane nonsense about Kendrick living at Hartest. Of course it was nothing more than a demonic gleam in that crazed woman’s eye; and Kendrick was still farting about in that dreamy, half-arsed way of his, saying he wasn’t sure if he did want to marry Georgina or not. God, if he’d been Georgina, he’d have kicked him hard where it hurt. There she was, poor kid, dying of love and misery in front of their eyes, coping with the baby all on her own, and Kendrick didn’t even have the decency to come to some kind of a decision about the whole thing. She kept on defending him too; she’d tried to explain to Max only last night, tears in those great eyes of hers. Max often wondered if Georgina had ever passed more than twenty-four hours without crying.

‘It’s so hard for him, Max. He can’t decide what’s right, you see. He can’t make up his mind if he loves me or – or her. And whether it would be dishonest to marry me, in that case. He’s such an honourable person, you see, that’s the trouble.’

Max took a very clear-sighted view of Kendrick’s honour; and from where he was sitting it took a pretty flexible form. He seemed to have the very best of both worlds, a girlfriend in New York (who was also standing patiently by, waiting for him to make up his mind: what did the guy have going for him, for fuck’s sake?) and another one in England, who was bringing up his baby, uncomplainingly asking for no more than a kind word whenever he condescended to come over and visit her. Max would have been very tempted to help Kendrick towards a decision with a few well-chosen words, had he not promised Georgina faithfully to keep out of it, and had he also not been afraid that pushing Kendrick in one direction might be counterproductive and propel him very fast in the other. And in the direction of Hartest, and his taking up residence there. Of course in fact that would never, could never happen; it was out of the question, anybody could see that, Kendrick kept on insisting that his home was in New York, that he would not dream of settling in England, and Max was quite sure that even if he changed his mind, even if (to please Georgina, who was more English than the Union Jack) he agreed to live in England, then they would not, they most definitely would not be living at Hartest with their baby. Hartest was not a commune, for Christ’s sake; it was a house, a family house, part of the estate, to be preserved against all costs, and it was his, as the future Earl of Caterham, to do as he liked with. There was no way a whole flotsam and jetsam of assorted relatives and their children were going to move in on it, and that was the end of the matter. He would not allow it, and in the short term Alexander would never allow it. Except that – and this was where the worry took on an edge, a painful, stomach-knotting edge – Alexander did adore Georgina, and he adored the baby these days, and he kept on and on about how wonderful it was to have a grandchild, and to feel immortal, and to see the continuation of the Caterham line. Every time he said that Max felt as if he was going to puke. Stupid, sentimental claptrap; the old fool was going gaga. It was a strange kind of immortality; if his wife hadn’t whored around, there would have been no continuation of any line. Thank Christ, thank Christ, Kendrick didn’t know about all that. Georgina might be naïve and unworldly, but at least she hadn’t been so stupid as to tell Kendrick. He’d asked her a few weeks ago, after they’d had a bit of a barney about the whole thing, and he had said what a crazy, totally unthinkable idea it was, that she should live at Hartest with Kendrick.

‘I don’t see what difference it would make to you, Max, you always said you didn’t care about Hartest, and you hardly ever come here.’

Max said that was quite untrue, that he cared very much about Hartest, and he came there a great deal these days, and Georgina said she didn’t call lunch once a month a great deal and as far as she could see it was just showing it off to Gemma and making sure she knew what a great prize she was getting.

That had upset Max; they hardly ever argued, he and Georgina. But he had
been scared, and he had felt he had to ask her, and she had looked at him, her face very set and rather stern, and said that no, of course Kendrick didn’t know, it was family business and should be kept amongst themselves.

Nevertheless, it was a worry; and it wouldn’t quite go away.

Max’s other source of anxiety was Gemma. This was actually more of a gnawing unhappiness than a worry. He had known she was spoilt, vain, self-centred; he could match her on those qualities with ease. What he had not properly realized was that beneath the slightly vapid charm of her personality was no real warmth, no kindness, no generosity. On a good day, he felt quite fond of her; on a bad one he actually disliked her.

‘Max? Good morning, my son.’ It was Jake, calling from Mortons. ‘Good weekend? How is the young lady?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Max shortly. ‘I haven’t seen her since Friday. She and Mummy went to Paris for the weekend, shopping.’

‘Lucky Mummy. There’s something going on in the futures market, by the way. Which is not why I called. Meet me for lunch? Or after work? I have a rather interesting little story for you.’

‘Oh really? Better make it after work. I’ll come up there.’

‘OK. Champagne bar Corney and Barrow?’

‘You’re on.’

John Fisher came down to his desk looking ghostly pale. ‘What’s up?’ said Max. ‘Hangover?’

Fisher smiled at him with an obvious effort, nodded his head. ‘Yup. Sure.’

It was clear he wasn’t telling the truth. ‘Shall we have lunch?’ said Max. ‘No. No I can’t,’ said Fisher. ‘Not today. Big issue on. Sorry.’

‘Please yourself,’ said Max. ‘What’s the issue?’

‘Oh – electricals,’ said Fisher.

Max idly flipped through the company reports, looking for news of an electrical issue. There was none. He stopped worrying about it. The dollar was up, the mark was down, the pound was flying, and someone had tossed him for the first trade of the day. His worries receded; he had more important things to think about.

Jake was sitting in the corner of the champagne bar looking smug, a bottle of house champagne in front of him, three quarters empty.

‘You’re late.’

‘Sorry. Got embroiled with the dollar. Good day?’

‘Yeah.’ Jake poured him a glass of champagne; Max drained it, and poured them both another.

‘I’ll get another bottle.’ He went to the bar and ordered house champagne; a Japanese next to him was paying for a bottle of Cristal Rose at £100.

He smiled at Max. ‘Good times!’ he said.

‘Yeah,’ said Max, ‘very good. Long may they last.’

The Japanese nodded enthusiastically, and Max grinned back. One of the most agreeable things about working in the City was the sense of heady optimism in everybody. It certainly beat the neurotic anxieties of the modelling business.

‘Now then,’ he said to Jake, settling down again in the comparative peace of their corner, ‘what’s this story?’

Jake looked even more smug.

‘There’s a couple of very interesting little real-estate companies started up.’

‘Oh really?’ Max felt bored; if this was just about a tip, he wasn’t interested.