Sheer Abandon (81 page)

Whatever else it had done for her, that afternoon, it had made her realise she couldn’t go back to Gideon. Sex with Gideon was, well, dull. It was fine, it could be very good in fact, at worst it was extremely pleasant and, obviously, bonding—but it was always the same. She felt terrible comparing him with Nick in bed, it made her feel dreadfully disloyal, and even a bit of a trollop, but she couldn’t help it.

She had expected thunder and lightning, given his intensity and his experience and his dangerously seductive tongue, and she had got only a sunlit afternoon. A very nice sunlit afternoon, to be sure, but one that just went on and on. In fact—and she would never have believed this possible of herself—she had come to be quite grateful for the nights he fell asleep, while she sat beside him reading. Or even—on some truly awful occasions—carrying on and on reading until he went to sleep. She had heard girls, usually ones in long-established relationships, saying things like that and been quite shocked. And very sorry for them. Now she understood.

Sex with Nick had always been good; always, always. Not necessarily extraordinary, but good. Sometimes fun, sometimes more serious, occasionally really quick, now and again very, very long—Sunday sex, as she thought of it—when she came and came and wanted it never to end. But never dull. And they were absolutely honest: that had to be important. If she didn’t want it, she said so and he never minded; if he was too tired, he said so and she understood. They told each other if they didn’t like something, or if there was something they thought they might try, which often led to giggling failures and an agreement that the missionary position had a lot to be said for it. She couldn’t imagine that sort of honesty with Gideon.

And then they had it in all sorts of places, some more unlikely than others, sitting in the bath, standing in the hall, on the beach, in the woods, even occasionally, and rather riskily, in Nick’s car. The point was it was an integral part of them being together, as much a part of their lives as eating or drinking or working; she could no more imagine a sexless life with Nick than one without conversation. She could very easily imagine a sexless life with Gideon.

Well, life with him just wasn’t going to happen: sexless or otherwise. She had written to him now, telling him that she thought they should get a divorce as soon as possible, that she could see no hope of their ever being able to live together happily, and that prolonging matters was just making them worse. She gave him the name and address of her solicitor, and said she would hope to hear from him shortly. She supposed she should feel sad, but she didn’t; apart from being lonely, her only emotion was still anger.

Maybe she should write to Nick, but saying—what? That she missed him, that she still loved him, that she wanted to see him? No. That was out of the question. He would think she had come back to him on the rebound, or that she was whining again. She had to get his respect back; she had to be strong. If, in the fullness of time, he heard that she had left Gideon, that would be quite different, but he mustn’t think it was anything to do with him. That would be emotional blackmail; it wouldn’t be fair.

Gideon read her letter and then tore it up and threw it in the wastepaper basket. If she thought he was going to make things easy for her, so that she could marry Nick sooner, she was very wrong. He had managed to convince himself that she had left him because she had gone back to Nick. His vanity would not allow him to consider any alternative. A young rival was better than an intrinsic fault in himself.

Beatrice had been absolutely wonderful. Josh had called her from his office at midday, unable to stand it any longer, and asked if they could meet after work for a drink.

“What on earth for, Josh? Why not at home?”

“Because I’ve got something I want to talk about and I don’t want the girls around. Or anyone, come to that.”

They met in the American bar at the Connaught. Beatrice arrived, looking rather pale. She clearly thought Josh was going to tell her he had some new girlfriend.

“Which I suppose, in a way, he had,” she said to Jocasta, brightly.

The news had been so extraordinary and shocking that she had found it difficult to find an appropriate reaction at all. What exactly did you say, when your husband told you he had just discovered he had a sixteen-year-old daughter? “How nice,” or “I can’t wait to meet her”? Or “How could you?” Or “How dare you?” Or “Never darken my doors again”?

None of them seemed right. Beatrice sat and looked at him, at this person she really did love, who had hurt her and humiliated her a great deal, who had vowed never to do so again, this charming, good-looking, troublesome person, and found that her overwhelming emotion was sympathy. She waited for this to be replaced by something less noble, like rage, or outrage, or jealousy—and it wasn’t. Sympathy remained: and she said so.

“For heaven’s sake, Josh,” she said quite sternly, “a lot of seventeen-year-old boys sleep around. That was just incredibly unfortunate.”

“Yes,” he said, “I suppose it was.”

“And certainly Martha was. Poor Martha.”

“Yes,” he said, “poor Martha.”

“I can’t imagine why she didn’t tell you. Or her parents. I suppose she just felt she couldn’t.”

“I suppose.”

“What a sad, sad story.”

“Absolutely. I feel bad,” he said suddenly, “that she had to cope with it all, and I just got away scot-free. It seems so terrible.”

“Yes, well,” said Beatrice, slightly brisker, “you have a certain talent for getting away scot-free, Josh.”

The sympathy was waning now—just a little. She looked ahead and saw enormous problems. Did they tell Kate? What did they tell Kate? Did they tell the girls?
What
would they tell the girls? How would they understand? Josh and Beatrice had only just begun to broach the subject of babies in mummies’ tummies growing from little seeds.

What about the media, did they need to know? And most problematic of all, how did she fit into this new relationship? Not very comfortably. People would talk, laugh even: she would appear foolish, naïve, cuckolded all over again. Josh might have been only seventeen at the time of Kate’s conception, but the fact remained that he had been caught with his trousers down. Very far down. People would remember the last time. And the time before that. And would they believe that he had known nothing about it? Probably not.

“I think I need some time on my own,” Beatrice said, “just for a while. I’ll see you at home.”

She went for a walk. It was a perfect evening, golden and warm, the buildings all touched by the late sunlight, the streets, if you caught them at the right angle, did indeed seem paved with gold. She walked through Berkeley Square and into Bond Street, wandered up and down it, looking in the shop windows, in Aspreys, and Chanel and Tiffany and Ralph Lauren, finding them strangely distracting from Josh’s clumsy, painful story, and even managed to admire a coat here, a bracelet there.

And then through into Regent Street, where she contemplated, as she always did, the perfection of its architecture, and marvelled that she could do so, crossed it and went beyond, into the seediness of Soho. As she walked among the strip joints and the blaring music and the pimps and the throbbing motorbikes and the shop windows filled with underwear and studded leather and impossibly high-heeled feather-trimmed shoes, all serving as half distraction, half background, she saw a girl, no older than Kate, her face horribly childlike, despite its heavy lipstick and fake eyelashes, hanging around a doorway with a man dressed in a flashy suit and a lot of gold jewellery, clearly old enough to be her father, clearly her pimp. And she thought what an obscenity that was, and that it should be stopped, somehow, that children should be children, should be safe from adult life and its ugliness. And that brought her rather tortuously to Kate, where her emotions somehow settled, shook down into some sort of order, and she discovered, above all, a concern for Kate. Her childhood might have been happy, but it had its ugly, dark side—a mother who had abandoned her, and a father vanished, no one wanting her, coming to claim her. That was ugly.

Of them all, Kate had had the worst of it and she deserved the best now. She was a child and they were adults; if Josh found the situation distressing and she found it painful and Kate’s adoptive parents found it difficult, that was their problem. Kate must come first, and they should all do what was best for her. It was perfectly simple.

She called Josh and said she was coming home.

It was Jocasta’s suggestion that she and Josh go together to see Kate.

“I know it seems I keep muscling in on these occasions, but she does know me best. I don’t even know that we should tell her, not straightaway. I think we should take her out for a drink or something, and just chat and she can get used to Josh—not that anyone ever could, but she obviously liked him a lot the other day, after the funeral—and relax her a bit and then we can decide whether we should even tell her then, or wait till another time altogether. Not another great solemn sit-down, like when we told her about Martha. What do you think, Beatrice?”

Beatrice said she thought that was probably rather a good idea, and hopefully less shocking for Kate. “God,” said Jocasta, “you are being stunningly wonderful, Beatrice. I’m totally filled with admiration.” Beatrice felt she didn’t have much option, but she smiled politely and said she’d go for a little walk while Jocasta called Helen.

Helen had taken the news with remarkable calm; so much had happened to her over the past few weeks that she would hardly have been surprised if Jocasta had told her Prince Charles was Kate’s father. Or Brad Pitt. Or David Beckham.

It actually seemed a fairly happy option. At least it was someone they had all met and who Kate liked.

“I suppose that explains the similarity between you and Kate,” she said to Jocasta.

She agreed that Jocasta and Josh should tell Kate together. “It will come much better from you. And he can answer lots of her questions. Including hopefully about—about Martha.” She still found it difficult to refer to Martha as Kate’s mother.

She told Jim, who was less pleased.

“Public school, I suppose,” he said irritably. “Like his sister.”

“Well, yes.”

“Any idea which one?”

“Eton, I think.”

“Well, that’s all I need.”

Helen opened her mouth to tell him not to be so silly and shut it again. She knew what this was about: what she had been through a few weeks earlier. When Jim had done his best to comfort her, but not really understood at all. He did now. Fearing rejection, criticism, comparison. Most of all comparison.

She also knew that despite his passionate socialism, his total commitment to the comprehensive ideal, and his hostility to the public-school culture, Jim felt threatened by the innate confidence which an expensive education provided. The thought of his beloved Kate being the offspring of an old Etonian made him feel physically ill.

“Did we meet him? At the party?”

“No, I don’t think so. But I did see him. Jocasta pointed him out to me.”

“Oh yes. What did he look like?”

“Well, he looked—you know. Tall. Blond. Slightly overweight. He was dancing the Charleston, rather well actually, with some girl.”

“His wife?”

“Oh no, I don’t think so. She’s a barrister. This girl looked about eighteen.”

“Dear God,” said Jim, “a lecher. That’s all I need.”

“Don’t be silly, dear,” said Helen.

“I’m not being silly. What sort of man makes a fool of himself with young girls?”

“Jim, he wasn’t making a fool of himself. He was just dancing.”

“I would call that one and the same thing. Well, I don’t think that’s going to impress Kate at all. She’s far too sensible. I don’t want him coming here,” he added abruptly.

“Jim! He’s bound to come here, if Kate likes him. Be sensible,” she said gently, “whatever he’s like, and however much or little Kate likes him, you really don’t have to worry. She’s much too sensible and she knows where she belongs. She knows who her father is and it’s not him. Not really.”

“Yes, it is,” he said and walked out of the room.

They took Kate out for a meal: to the Bluebird. “She loves it there,” Jocasta said. “It’s become our place, hers and mine.”

She had walked in looking stunning, not, for once, in jeans, but a long, bias-cut floral skirt and a white T under a denim jacket, her hair hanging loose over her shoulders. Heads had turned.

“Oh, God,” said Josh.

Jocasta patted his arm encouragingly. “It’ll be fine.”

They both stood up as Kate reached the table, kissed her. “This is so nice of you,” she said. “I’ve been looking forward to it all day.”

“So have we.”

“I thought I’d bring you those cameras I was talking about,” said Josh, “show you how they worked, maybe later.”

“Cool.”

She smiled at him. Jocasta had told her that he knew about Martha being her mother. “But if you don’t want to talk about her, that’s fine. It’s up to you.”

“It’s really very kind of you,” she said now, “to lend them to me.”