Indiscretions (10 page)

Venetia and India seemed convinced that it was an accident, but was that really the truth? Weren’t there reasons that might have driven their mother to suicide? The Hollywood dream had died early in Jenny Haven. She had lived it, she was it. It had earned her millions of dollars but she knew it was all a lie. What had success brought her? No husbands, no loving family life, no man in her middle years who cared for her. The only reality was her children, and she had needed to send them miles away from a way of life she had achieved but no longer believed in.

I’m the one who is most like her, thought Paris, and the one who physically was always the farthest away. The eldest daughter, the one kept secret from the world for years because the scandal could have broken Jenny Haven’s career. In those hazy childhood years Jenny had been a dazzlingly beautiful secret visitor who came to see her at the villa in France where Paris lived with her “family.” Until India had come along, and then Jenny
had just shrugged and said to hell with it, let them accept me as I am or not at all. And the public had accepted her liaisons and indiscretions—and her children—as part of the myth. Jenny Haven could do no wrong.

A fleeting thought of her father crossed Paris’s mind. What of him? He must have read the papers, seen on television the reports of Jenny’s accident … or suicide. What did he feel, and did he still remember? How could he forget? Jenny had been at the peak of her success and beauty when she had met him, and he had been a young avant-garde French movie director just on his way up in the world. It hadn’t lasted long, Jenny had told her; it had been one of those white-hot passionate affairs where for three whole months they couldn’t bear to be out of each other’s sight, and the need for physical contact had been so overwhelming that even on the movie set Jenny would break in the middle of a scene, pretending to need direction just to take his hand and hold it to her lips, just to feel his breath against her cheek, and where there had been no time for sleep because the warm evenings and the soft nights and the gray Parisian dawns were spent making love in that vast suite at the Ritz.

No, her father couldn’t have forgotten Jenny Haven, though their passion had died as quickly as it had flowered, and when Jenny had known that she was pregnant she had decided that her child had nothing to do with what she had felt for its father. It was hers and she would bring it up alone.

Paris could see Jenny now as the two of them had walked, arms linked, by Lake Lucerne on a bright Swiss autumn day that had gilded her mother’s beautiful hair with lemony gold lights as Jenny told her the story of her father. Paris was eighteen years old and it was the first time she had known his name. The sudden knowledge that her father was an international celebrity, famous not just for his work in films but also his reputation as a
maker of “stars” from a succession of nubile and beautiful young girls cast in the same mold of pouting lips and pert breasts, tumbling manes of hair and challenging eyes, a man whose picture she and her friends in school had pinned to their walls as someone to dream over in hazy and erotic teenage sexual fantasies, had shocked her into silence. Jenny had looked at her worriedly.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have told you his name,” she’d said despondently, “but you’re eighteen now, Paris. You’ve never asked me about him since you were seven, but one day you would have wanted to know who he was and I wanted to be the one to tell you. You were a child of passion, Paris, and he could never have been a father to you. Having to be both parents made me be a better mother, don’t you think so?” Her eyes had been wistful. Jenny had always wanted so much love—from her friends, from her lovers, and from her daughters.

Paris tossed restlessly, stretched across the velour plane seats, covering her eyes with a soft brown vicuña blanket. Her father was married now to a girl younger than Vennie, the fifth wife in line of succession of the nubile “stars.” Paris had never seen any reason to seek him out and let him know of her existence. And now that Jenny was dead he would never know. It would be her secret forever.

Amadeo Vitrazzi slithered again through her mind, his bronzed body thrust against hers, the gray silk in a heap on the floor. “Oh, Jenny, Jenny,” moaned Paris as the tears finally came, “I betrayed you. You didn’t bring up your daughters to do what you had to do to gain success.” And yet the same need was there, the same tense belief in her own talent, the same burning drive to succeed … the same sexuality. “Never again, Jenny,” vowed Paris. “I’ll use every means fair or unfair to succeed—but never again will I trade myself for success.”

The thought came to her suddenly, taking her by surprise.
But of course there was no need ever to be in that position again. Jenny’s millions belonged to them now. Paris began to cry again.

The plane swooped over the dusty urban sprawl, skimming palm trees and azure swimming pools, hovering like some predatory bird over the traffic-packed freeway as it completed its final approach and touched down with a gentle bounce onto the runway at Los Angeles International Airport. With a final backthrust of powerful engines it slowed to a taxiing speed and rolled smoothly toward the cluster of buildings on the perimeter.

They were home.

Paris gripped the arms of her chair, nervously anticipating the events of the next few days. There would be the inquest. And then the funeral. Afterward they would have to sort out Jenny’s affairs, business as well as personal, and as the eldest she would have to take charge.

India smiled wearily at her from the seat in front. The bright sweater emphasized her pallor and fatigue-smudged eyes. Her hair seemed to have lost its natural buoyancy and the curls lay like crushed velvet against her skull, reminding Paris of the way she had looked when they were children.

Unfastening her seat belt she looked with concern at Venetia across the aisle. Her blond hair was rumpled and her eyelids swollen and red. She had washed her face, and without makeup she looked about fifteen years old, and very vulnerable.

“Vennie.” Paris slid into the seat next to her, putting a comforting arm around her shoulders. “I know it’s not going to be easy, but we’ll get through. At least we’re all together. Just hold on, darling, we’ll soon be home.” Even as she said it she realized it was wrong. They weren’t going home. They were going to Fitz McBain’s house. Venetia’s blue, tear-washed eyes met hers despairingly.
“It’ll be all right, you’ll see.” Paris hoped her voice sounded more reassuring than she felt.

She fished hurriedly in the bottom of her bag for the dark glasses—the ultimate piece of Hollywood equipment. For the first time she understood why. At least if no one can see into your eyes you retain a little of your privacy.

None of them had any luggage, just hand baggage with a few necessities thrown in at the last moment, and the formalities of customs and immigration were made easy. It left them totally unprepared for the battery of lights, cameras, and microphones waiting in the hall, the babble of voices calling their names, demanding they “Look this way” and “Could you tell the viewers what you think of Miss Haven’s possible suicide?” They shrank back into the doorway, blinded by the lights and bewildered by the sudden commotion—and the shocking questions.

“Barbarians,” hissed Paris.
“Quelles sauvages!”

“We’re gonna make a run for it, miss.” Their two burly guards were joined by two more who placed themselves between them and the cameras. Grabbing their arms, they ran, followed by the horde of newsmen, down the alleyways and across the sidewalk into a waiting limousine. From behind its darkened windows Paris could still make out the curious faces and flashing cameras as the enormous Mercedes pulled smoothly away from the curb.

“I’m afraid they’ll follow us, miss,” said the guard apologetically, “and there’ll be more near the house. But there’s a high wall and it’s electronically protected. We’ll make sure no one intrudes on your privacy. Mr. McBain was most insistent about that.”

“Thank heavens for your Mr. McBain, Vennie,” said India shakily. “He was the only one who anticipated something like this—I certainly never thought about it. If we hadn’t had our escorts we would have been trapped.”

Venetia thought of Morgan McBain. His blond sun-bronzed
face and last night’s dinner party seemed lost in some distant past. She stared out of the tinted windows at the familiar blur of burger stands, drive-ins, and cheap motels, and the surprising scatter of roadside oil wells that she always thought of as being like giant pecking grasshoppers. The evening that had started out so promisingly had turned into a nightmare with the telephone call. Lydia and Roger Lancaster had wanted to come with her, but somehow it hadn’t seemed right to bring such loved substitute parents to her real mother’s funeral. She was Jenny Haven’s daughter—and this would be the last time they would be together.

The limousine with its silent occupants took the hill at the top of La Cienega Boulevard easily, slid through the light on yellow, and turned west on Sunset past the billboards advertising the latest rock success, the newest movie, and the current stars of Las Vegas. India averted her eyes as they passed the leisured lawns of Beverly Hills, where Jenny had lived. Though they had never spent much time there, it was still a sort of home. She’d had birthday parties there as a kid, she’d come “home” on the yellow school bus clutching her paintings and Jenny had pinned them on her kitchen wall, she’d had kids over to swim. And then, too, there had been the long summer weeks spent out at the beach house at Malibu. She supposed the properties would both have to be sold now.

The guard on duty at the West Gate of Bel-Air waved them through and the big limousine purred its way up the hillside to the pillared, white-brick mansion that was part of Fitz McBain’s private world. A young man waited on the broad front steps. “Good afternoon,” he called. “My name is Bob Ronson. Mr. McBain wished me to welcome you to his home. I shall be here to look after things for you, so if there is anything you need, anything at all, you just let me know.”

Ronson was one of several young men in Fitz McBain’s employ, a combination of secretary, personal assistant, and majordomo, intent on working his way up through the strata of the multilayered McBain companies. The position was one McBain allotted only to the most promising and ambitious. He had no time for yes-men, and while he acknowledged that there were those who by choice and natural limitation would remain forever in the middle reaches of his complex operations, there was no place for mediocrity in his personal entourage.

The white house was peaceful and sunlit and Venetia thought it very European. Faded Isfahan rugs covered the polished boards in the hall, and a single priceless English landscape dreamed immortally on this Californian wall. A fine pair of carved Hepplewhite mirrors reflected bowls of flowers on the matching hall tables, and instinctively Venetia bent her head to the peach-colored roses, breathing in their familiar fragrance.

“How lovely,” she murmured, wondering whether Fitz McBain chose scented English roses for all his homes, or whether this was the severely suited young Mr. Ronson’s taste.

India’s eyes gleamed with a professional curiosity as she gazed around the drawing room that spread across the full width of the house, noting a Dufy depicting the Baie des Anges at Nice, an early Pissarro, and two lilied Monets on the walls. In her opinion, without them this room would have fallen into the category of “luxury interior decorator style,” though she did admire the color scheme of cream and butter-yellow with touches of a dark teal blue. “I should introduce Mr. McBain to Fabrizio Paroli,” she remarked, sauntering through arched glass doors onto the terrace. A swath of green lawn ended at an azure pool, where a silent youth in white T-shirt and shorts wielded a pole, vacuuming the
always flawless depths. It was a Hockney painting come to life.

Ronson led them across to a white-porticoed summerhouse that contained changing rooms and a small but well-equipped gymnasium as well as what he told them was Fitz McBain’s favorite room. Venetia knew why instantly. It was a room to relax in; you could curl up on the huge black sofas with a book from one of the shelves that lined the room. Or you could just lie back and listen to music on that wonderful hi-fi, blasting it as loud as you wished over the powerful speakers. “What is Mr. McBain’s favorite?” she asked Ronson, running her finger across titles that ranged from Bach to George Benson, Vivaldi to Roxy Music, and Mozart to Motown.

Bob Ronson looked surprised. “Mr. McBain usually plays the music he thinks his guests would like to hear. I don’t know what he plays when he is alone.”

Venetia wondered about that. Morgan had said that there were many women eager for a place in his father’s life. Could Fitz McBain often be alone? It was odd being in the home of a man you merely knew about but didn’t even know the appearance of. She couldn’t recall having seen pictures of him in the newspapers, but then Morgan had said he was a very private man. He must look a bit like the older men on
Dallas
, she decided, sort of burly and middle aged, a ranch hand in a business suit.

India picked up a cue and potted a red on the snooker table, admiring the Victorian fringed lampshades. “This is a terrific room,” she announced. “Let’s make it our headquarters while we’re here.”

“I agree.” Paris flopped onto a sofa. “It feels more like home.”

“Please treat it as if it were your home,” said Ronson. “No one will disturb you here. Now, if you’re ready, I’ll show you your rooms. I’m sure you’d like to rest.”

A burly man from the Bel-Air Patrol was waiting for
them in the hall. But for the gun at his hip, he could have been the twin of the guards who had accompanied them earlier. Did they breed them specially for the job? wondered Paris, as the man, serious-faced and respectful, informed them that the patrol was on alert and the house would be completely protected at all times. They would have no need to worry about photographers with telephoto lenses climbing trees to snatch a photograph, nor of TV cameras and gossip writers lurking at the gates. His men would see to that.