Carnforth's Creation (13 page)

‘The kind of piss-awful melodrama where someone scares shit out of everyone with a gun that turns out to be a cigarette-lighter.’ Gemma’s voice shrill but wobbling back to normal.

Eleanor inclined her head, thinking about it. ‘You mean like in a bad West End play?’

Next moment, Roy leapt clean out of his chair as the gun blasted off; Paul was on the ground; Gemma screaming; and a large art nouveau vase had flown apart like a bomb had detonated inside. Silence that would make a morgue seem noisy. Roy didn’t catch the precise moment Paul got hold of the gun; but he saw him kick it away and dive on Eleanor’s handbag.

‘Curtain,’ murmured Eleanor. Nobody else could speak. As Paul moved away with the bag, she said gently, ‘Nothing in there, my dear, not even a cartridge … only brought the one.’ He flung it across the room; took a step towards her; stopped. The very second Roy was sure he’d lay her out cold, she turned to Gemma. ‘Normally I leave the happenings to
you and Paul.’ No answer. Gemma was shuddering so hard, Roy could hear her teeth chattering. Eleanor smiled at him. ‘No funny remarks, Roy?’

‘Just … not a bad twist,’ he sighed.

‘Sodding bitch,’ choked Gemma, hands jerking like a puppet’s.

‘I know it was mean, but … frankly I’ve had enough of you.’ She scrumped up the brown paper into a ball. ‘Not that I’d touch you with a pair of tongs, you understand.’

Paul put the gun back in its case and crossed the room to pick up Eleanor’s bag. He walked like he was having trouble, all stiff, but he seemed over the blind-fury phase. He dropped the bag on the sofa and said, ‘In future when you’re angry with me, I’d rather you took it out on the one person who actually deserves it.’

Eleanor looked back; very solemn. ‘How noble, darling. I’m sure Gemma’s entranced by your stiff upper-lip.’

If Paul was a cool customer, when he said why didn’t they go home and talk about it, Eleanor was the ultimate. She told him nicely, ‘no’ because it concerned the four of them. He and she would definitely be through unless he lopped Gemma off the Exodus pay-list. ‘I suppose a divorce might force you to sell those shares … which could affect
his
chances?’ She jerked her head in Roy’s direction. ‘And I don’t suppose the film would go ahead if we were wrangling in court … Bad news for Matthew?’ She sat back gracefully.

Paul had been rooting about in the drinks cabinet, and handed a glass of brandy to Gemma. He said, ‘Let’s see how we feel tomorrow.’

At last his cool seemed to catch her somewhere painful. ‘Did you know the gutter press went to Daddy about you and her?’

‘I’m sure he dealt with them very efficiently.’

‘Oh yes, he’s had plenty of practice … isn’t that what was on the tip of your tongue?’ Her voice all choked and furry.

Paul said he was sorry and went on saying it. Then, ‘Best for both of us to sleep on it and see where we are tomorrow.’

‘You come back with me
now,
Paul … or that’s the end.’
A deep sob bursting out. ‘And never see that nymphomaniac again.’

‘You’ll let her say that?’ cried Gemma.

‘Any suggestions for stopping her?’ Paul sounded just about at the end of his chain.

Gemma rounded on Eleanor. ‘I’ve only known him since my teens.’

‘I can’t help that.’

Gemma seemed to think of answering, but then did a tottery turn and stumbled to the door. As Paul took a step, Eleanor caught his arm. Paul seemed ready to sprint; then did a slow turn so he didn’t have to see Gemma going.

Next thing, Roy was the one running after Gemma. She sure as hell shouldn’t get near her Lotus till she’d taken a breather.

Alone together, Eleanor said gently to Paul, ‘You’re going to have to share more with me.’ He did not answer. After several seconds, Eleanor’s expression changed from severity to troubled tenderness. ‘How could you have thought so little of me … to know me … and expect me to come
grovelling
?’

His voice hardly audible, ‘I didn’t expect that.’

She met his eyes. ‘We’re staying married Paul. You do understand that?’

‘Yes, Elly,’ he murmured with a ghost of a smile. ‘I understand perfectly.’

The morning after, Paul was sitting in his Wilton Crescent house, absent-mindedly watching television. The
programme
(addressed to ‘colleges and schools’) was a
member
of that increasingly popular family of socio-biological hybrids sired by
The
Naked
Ape.
The night before, he and Eleanor had made no serious attempt to navigate the murky
waters now separating them. For his part, Paul was still reluctant to set out, in case a misjudged word or sentiment raised an emotional gale, too fierce to give any raft of reason the slightest chance of survival. Eleanor might have felt the same; since, after breakfast, she had taken herself off to wash her hair.

Being resolutely determined not to lose her, Paul
considered
a measure of appeasement inescapable. So what could he offer Eleanor without humiliation? To stop seeing Gemma? To abandon Roy? To have nothing to do with the film from now on? Plainly, in order to salvage anything, he would have to agree to part company with Gemma; so agree he would, reluctantly, and under threat (but knowing, that short of twenty-four hour surveillance, enforcement would be impossible). On Roy’s behalf, he would definitely make a stand. With the film, he would agree, if pressed, to try to persuade Matthew to cut him out. Believing it most unlikely that Matthew would agree, he felt relatively safe.

On the television screen, a bald professorial type was standing outside a gorilla’s cage, making much ado of the fact that a life of eating and dozing would be intolerably dull to most humans. ‘By contrast,’ he claimed, over pictures of a children’s party, ‘humans are innately curious, driven in infancy to seek constant stimulation.’

‘Some of us keep seeking,’ Paul heard from Eleanor, who had just come in with a towel knotted turban-wise around her head. He was glad to laugh, and gladder still when she joined in. Nevertheless, there was much tension in the silence that followed her switching off the set.

She was gazing at him with the blend of compassion and eagerness, he had long since learned to connect with
impending
exhortations. ‘Can’t you see how sad it is, my love? Clinging to old friendships … hoping they’ll give you back what’s over; when all they really do is take away the trust you and I could …’ She broke off, and took his hand.

He looked away. ‘Isn’t that “nanny’s logic”, Elly? “If you play hide-and-seek before nursery tea, you can’t play
Happy
Families
afterwards.”’

On the brink of an angry rejoinder, Eleanor left the room. She returned with a hair-dryer. After working on her hair in silence for some moments, she asked Paul how he would keep in touch with Roy’s career without constantly bumping into Gemma. Paul explained she would give up her ‘
consultancy
’ at Exodus. His tone seemed to irritate her, since she said with asperity, ‘It can’t be unusual for wives to object to their husbands working with their mistresses.’

‘I’m sure not,’ he agreed. ‘Of course she’ll play no further part in the film.’

‘I was coming to that.’

‘Before you do,’ he murmured, determined to deal with Roy before tangling with the trickier business of the film, ‘I’d like to enter a plea for Roy … Don’t you think it’d be pretty putrid if I ditched him, just when things are starting to go his way?’

‘You mean
your
way … Oh, I’m sure he’s making pots, but I can’t say
I’d
like to have to sing songs as nasty as
Getting
Clever.’

Paul reproved her gently for being ‘just a little
self-righteous
’. She turned on the dryer again, and gave him a blast of hot air, playfully, but painfully close to his face. ‘You know perfectly well,’ he told her sharply, ‘that most people in our social niche think rules were only made for other people … Take tax evasion, drunken driving, politicians doing more in Parliament for companies retaining them than for their constituents … and yet the same people are endlessly ratting on about waiters short-changing them, or …’

‘And all you’re interested in is showing-up hypocrisy?’

‘I was merely suggesting that
Getting
Clever
’
s
no nastier than the private attitudes of half the people we know.’

‘I can’t accept that, Paul.’

As she went on with her drying, Eleanor’s hair streamed out like a carefree girl’s in the wind; a sight made poignant by her unhappy face. ‘Won’t you
ever
see I’m trying to help you? All right … you’ll think it far-fetched, ridiculous … I don’t care. You’re like one of those silly experts who live with
savages, and think because they’re only taking notes, they can’t be harmed by what’s happening under their noses … leaving sick children to die, eating corpses. Well it’s
nonsense
, Paul. Nobody’s that special.’

‘But nothing’s
happening
to
me,
Elly,’ he insisted, touched in spite of himself.

‘It’s just happening to Roy, is it? Poor, innocent, silly Roy.’

‘Not poor; not innocent; and anything but silly,’
murmured
Paul, pacing over to the window and absently picking up a silver card case from a table.

‘What slays me,’ she declared, ‘is knowing you could do anything if you chose to … wonderful things.’

He threw up the cardcase and snatched at it nervily. All
that
again … Suddenly she was on her feet; not touching any more; not tender; just very angry.

‘You humiliated me with that woman … and you’re going to make it up to me. Oh, put that bloody thing down,’ she shouted, as he tossed the cardcase from hand to hand. ‘Don’t you know what jealousy is? Have you never felt sick with it? Forsaken … now there’s an old-fashioned word … something for the Gemmas of this world to wet
themselves
over.’

Paul said, ‘I don’t suppose she’s laughing today.’

‘I’m delighted to hear it … yes.’ She slapped the marble pier table hard enough to hurt her hand. ‘So what are you going to do for me?’ Paul remained silent. ‘Something to please me … show you still care?’ She looked at him expectantly.

Though reluctant to mention the film at an emotional moment, Paul feared that not to do so straight away would be to risk having her attack it later, in circumstances of still greater tension. ‘You’re asking for a gesture of good faith,’ he murmured. ‘All right … I’ll try to talk Matthew into cutting me out.’

‘For God’s sake,’ she exploded, ‘given your importance in it, how could he? The only answer’s to stop the whole thing.’

‘I don’t think …’

‘I’d like to finish.’ She moved closer; over-wrought, but appealing too. ‘You know how much I dread your telling millions of people what you did, and why. You’ll come out looking a cheat, however clever you are …’ A trembling whisper, ‘Please stop it … for both of us. If it’s going to mean paying the company a lot, just pay it.’

Paul did his best to explain that no television company could allow it to be known that they’d abandoned a project after accepting payments. Think of the implications; the possible misunderstandings. They owned the material already shot and were entitled to use it.

‘But Matthew could say you’d refused to co-operate, and without you the thing wouldn’t be worth going on with.’ She gazed at him eagerly. ‘Well couldn’t he? In his shoes that’s what I’d do.’

Paul sighed heavily. ‘You want me to say, “Cut me out”, and, “Whether you do or don’t, I’ll have nothing else to do with it”?’

She nodded urgently, ‘It would mean the world to me.’

‘Then I’ll try.’

She embraced and held him for a time. ‘Would you mind dreadfully, darling, if I was with you when you talked to Matthew?’

Assuming he would have time to talk to Matthew on the telephone before this threesome, Paul saw no danger in agreeing. This earned him more hugs; even a kiss.
Afterwards
Eleanor became solemn.

‘This is what I’d like, dearest,’ she murmured, ‘Matthew’s in America till next Thursday.’ She smiled winningly. ‘Let’s meet him at the airport.’

Paul did his best to hide his shock with a chuckle. ‘Afraid I might phone him first?’

Eleanor shook her head. ‘His secretary doesn’t know his number … he’s moving about too much.’

‘You seem to have done your homework,’ he replied flatly. ‘How come they could give you details of his return flight?’

‘They booked it for him before he went.’

Paul sank down on the ottoman to the left of the window. ‘Fairly embarrassing if Bridget’s going to meet him too.’

Eleanor looked bewildered. ‘I don’t see why.’

When she sat down next to him, and leant her head against his shoulder, Paul did not move away. The knowledge that he had been out-manoeuvred did not upset him for long. Matthew wouldn’t agree and that would be that.

A little later, when Eleanor kissed him on the lips, Paul responded warmly. She had made things hard for him, but had been intelligent and dignified; as he should have known she would be. A great shame she mistrusted the film so much; but there too it was impossible to blame her. Probably the only chance of converting her lay in completing it. To stick to his guns would therefore be in her interest too in the long run.

She gazed at him tenderly. ‘If you only knew how relieved I am we came through without a ghastly scene.’

‘I do know,’ he murmured, meaning it. ‘It’s what I feel.’

*

Matthew’s plane was already half-an-hour overdue; but so far Bridget had not appeared (a fact which did not surprise Paul, since he had telephoned to ask her to give himself and Eleanor a wide berth till Matthew arrived). Sitting beside his wife on a plastic sofa, outside the customs area, Paul watched several processions of suitcases, jerking along on conveyor belts, pursued by their owners.

Shortly after the announcement that Matthew’s plane had touched down, Eleanor turned to him matter-of-factly. ‘Darling, why didn’t you tell me about “The Mill at
Haastrecht
”?’ He looked back with apparent mystification; though knowing at once she meant the Hobbema, and cursing himself for reassuring Bridget to the extent he had done. Eleanor said patiently, ‘Lot 36 in Sotheby’s next auction of Old Masters … no seller named.’

Wanting to race across the customs hall and scream at Bridget for not waiting till the film had been made, Paul shrugged. ‘So I’m selling it.’ He smiled sheepishly. ‘You never told me you get their catalogues.’

‘Not me. Uncle Bruno does.’ She paused while two flight arrivals were announced. ‘“Wasn’t it one of ours?” Bruno asked. So I looked it up … same name and description.’

‘Then what did you do?’

‘Rang Sotheby’s of course. Told them who I was … said it was a very strange thing … perhaps there’d been some mistake.’ A tight smile. ‘Anyway there was a lot of muttering at the other end, and I was passed from person to person … and the final upshot was a man telling me everything was in order; no mistake, and the vendor had requested anonymity, which they meant to respect. End of conversation.’

A most unpleasant presentiment led Paul to ask, ‘Why leave mentioning it till now?’

Very simple, she’d said. She’d only discovered three days after their reconciliation, and hadn’t wanted to leap straight in without finding out what she could first. Much kissing and greeting was going on around them as passengers off a flight from Vienna cleared customs and were reunited with friends and relatives. Eleanor added bleakly, ‘I don’t mind
admitting
I was angry enough to ring Wentworth and ask if I could stop the sale.’

Paul gaped. ‘You took legal advice without a word to me?’

‘You weren’t at Delvaux, and I couldn’t get you in town.’ She drummed her fingers on her bag. ‘Anyway, a fat lot of good it did me. He bleated on about no community of property in marriage, but if I’d been petitioning for a divorce I could … I can’t remember the phrase …’ She broke off, her face creasing. ‘Oh really, Paul, it’s intolerable.’

‘I should have told you,’ he murmured, ‘but I wanted the money to buy the rights in Roy’s songs, and I knew what you’d …’

‘But why a picture?’ she cried. ‘Why not shares?’

‘Pictures don’t yield anything.’

A man with a luggage trolley knocked against Paul’s leg, making him swear.

‘Then tell me why
that
picture?’ she demanded.

‘I hardly ever look at it,’ he replied, rubbing his bruised shin.

‘Which goes for dozens of others.’

‘Yes, but it was obviously one of the better ones hidden away so to speak.’

‘But only
one
of them,’ she insisted fiercely. ‘You know what Bruno said to me? That he’d always thought it a crime to bury it in a bedroom.’

‘People stay in there,’ Paul pointed out. ‘Bruno himself for one.’

‘That room’s never used unless we’ve got quite large numbers staying.’

Wondering what he could say to calm her, Paul caught sight of Matthew at the far end of the vast hall, peering anxiously at the conveyor-belts, in search of his case. The next second Paul was aware of Bridget coming towards him.

Eleanor felt overwhelmed. She had expected guilt over the picture to bind Paul more closely to her at this important moment. Instead the timing of her revelation seemed to have done the reverse. Her fists were tightly clenched, when she heard Bridget’s precise little voice, ‘What on earth are you two doing here?’ Then Paul, cheerful and unembarrassed, ‘Only what you’re doing … meeting Matty.’ Surprise from Bridget; good-natured explanation from Paul. He’d been having a hard think about the film, and the more he’d gone into it, the more certain he’d become that the line he was taking would damage Roy’s career. Amazement on Bridget’s side: Matthew had been talking about the project
so
enthusiastically
before he went away, and considering all the doubts he’d had to begin with. She did not finish because, after speeding through customs, Matthew was approaching.

‘Hell’s bells,’ he gasped, ‘everyone except the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary.’

With her heart thumping hard, Eleanor waited for Paul to begin his delicate task. But first he asked Matthew questions about his trip; what had he achieved, and so forth. In the end it was Bridget who broke the news about Paul’s change of heart.