An Absolute Scandal Read online

  “It’s pronounced Cooper,” she said briskly, “the w’s silent.”

  “Yeah, I see,” he said looking mildly amused, and then, his dark eyes moving over her. “Are you really called Lucinda?”

  “Yes, of course. Is that so unusual?”

  “Well, where I come from it is. I mean, that is a posh name, isn’t it? Seriously posh.”

  “I—I don’t know,” she said.

  “I don’t s’pose you would. Don’t s’pose you know anyone who isn’t posh, do you?”

  “Well, of course I do,” she said, rather helplessly.

  “Oh, OK. What, like Daddy’s chauffeur and Mummy’s cleaner?”

  “I think you’re being rather rude,” said Lucinda, “if you don’t mind my saying so. Now if you’ll excuse me, I—”

  “Sorry,” he said, putting out an arm, stopping her. “I was out of order. Sorry. It interests me, all that Eton-and-ponies stuff, not sure I know why. Probably because I can’t understand how they—you’ve—done it.”

  “What do you mean?” she said, reluctantly interested.

  “How you’ve survived so long. I mean, most dinosaurs die out, don’t they? Oh, shit. Now I’ve been rude again, haven’t I?”

  “Yes. Very,” she said coolly, unable to laugh it off; she looked for Nigel, went over and refilled his glass.

  “You all right?” she said. “Got enough people to talk to?”

  “Oh yes, of course. Jolly good party, Lucinda, well done.” He smiled at her; it was one of his more endearing characteristics, that he enjoyed life enormously; his work, his social life—although he got a bit irritated with her more giggly friends—his tennis, his shooting. He was seldom out of sorts, always cheerful, almost always good-tempered. He was quite a bit older than she was, forty-two to her twenty-four, but it had never been a problem. She rather liked it; it made her feel safe.

  She was in earnest conversation with one of the other editors when Blue Horton appeared at her side again.

  “Look,” he said, waiting patiently until the editor moved away, “I just wanted to apologise. I’ve got a real gift for saying the wrong thing. Can’t help it, really.”

  “It’s all right,” she said. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I really have to go and talk to some more—what did you call them?—oh yes, dinosaurs.”

  “No, don’t go,” he said, putting his hand on her arm, “please. One of the reasons I got carried away was because I felt—I don’t know—thrown by you.”

  “Thrown? Why?”

  “Well, because you’re so bloody gorgeous,” he said. “I just totally forgot myself. Looking at you.”

  Lucinda felt a blush rising up her throat.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said.

  “I’m not being ridiculous. I’m a shy, retiring sort of a fellow.”

  “Now you are really being ridiculous.” She smiled in spite of herself. “You’re about as shy as—as”—she struggled to think of someone suitably self-confident—“Mrs. Thatcher.”

  “Ah, now there’s a lady I admire,” he said, surprising her. “She’s responsible for all this”—he waved his arm round the room—“all this enterprise; she’s freed up the market, she’s made it possible to do whatever you want, given enough ambition and energy and that. It’s getting more like the States every day here, and I like it. I think that’s what I was really trying to say,” he added with a grin, “when I said your lot were dinosaurs. I meant, everything’s changed and you’ve managed not to. And still done well. Very admirable.”

  “Well, all right. I’ll try to accept that.”

  “Good. So how long you been married then?”

  “Three and a half years.”

  “And kids? Got any kids?”

  “No. Not yet,”

  “OK. And where’d you live? Don’t tell me, somewhere not too far away from Sloane Square.”

  “Well, yes. Actually. In dinosaur country.”

  “You’re not going to let me forget that, are you?”

  “No, I’m not. Now I really do have to circulate a bit more.”

  “I’ll come with you.”

  “Blue—” She stopped suddenly. “Why Blue, when you were christened Gary?”

  “It’s a nickname,” he said. “We all have them and they all got some sort of reason. I mean, there’s Luft, short for Luftwaffe, he’s got blond hair and blue eyes and very, very right-wing views. And Croydon, because his surname is Sutton, and Harry, he’s one of your coloured gentlemen, so Harry as in Belafonte, and Kermit who looks like a frog, and Blue Buttons were the runaround boys on the old stock-exchange floor. Looked after the brokers, kept them supplied with tea and coffee—and info, of course. You’d hear people shouting for them: ‘Where’s the Blue? Hey, Blue, over here!’ I was one of them, before Big Bang. In fact, I got to be the head Blue Button. So the name stuck. I quite like it. Don’t you?”

  “I…well, yes, I think so,” she said doubtfully.

  “Good. Come on, let’s do some of this circulating then. You introduce me to some of these people. And your husband, if you like.”

  She hadn’t introduced him to Nigel; it didn’t seem a very good idea, she wasn’t sure why. For the next half hour he followed her round the room, carrying a bottle of champagne himself to assist with the glass refilling. And then, somehow, she had found herself alone with him in the little kitchen; a lot of people had gone, the catering people were packing up glasses, and he said suddenly, “Would you have lunch with me one day?”

  “No,” she said, staring at him, quite shocked, “of course not.”

  “Why of course?”

  “Well, isn’t it obvious?”

  “Not really, no.”

  “Mr. Horton,” she said firmly, sorting empty bottles from full, “I’m, well, I’m married, you know that.”

  “And married ladies never have lunch with gentlemen? Is that right?”

  “Not—well, not like that.”

  “Like what?”

  “You know—” She stopped. “You know perfectly well what I mean. Perfectly.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Yes, you do. Oh, this is silly.”

  “Yes, it is,” he said, “just a bit.”

  And then he leaned forward and kissed her. On the mouth. Only very briefly, but it was enough; enough to create the most extraordinary sensations, somewhere deep inside her. She pulled away, stared at him; he smiled at her. He had, she noticed, even in her confusion, extraordinarily nice teeth. He wasn’t very tall, only a little taller than she was in her heels; his dark hair was close-cropped, his eyes a deep, deep brown. He had long, almost girly eyelashes, a very straight nose, and quite a wide mouth (showing the very nice teeth). He wasn’t fat, but he was very solidly built, broad-shouldered, with rather large hands and feet, and he seemed to emit a lot of energy; he was restless, permanently fidgeting. It was oddly attractive.

  He leaned forward and kissed her again, for a fraction longer. She could feel herself responding to him, feel her lips parting, moving just a little; it was terrible, scary—

  “Please stop it,” she said, “I really must go.”

  “OK,” he said, “that’s fine. I’ll call you in a day or so, see if you’ve changed your mind. I don’t give up easy. Bye, Lucinda.” And he was gone.

  Thinking about him now, about how he had disturbed her, how funny he had been—how really rather nice—she completely forgot about the letter from Lloyd’s.

  In the trading room at McArthur’s Bank, Blue Horton was telling his best mate, Charlie, over a bacon butty that he had met the girl he wanted to marry.

  “Oh yeah? What’s she do then?”

  “Works for a publisher. And her husband’s a—”

  “Her husband? Blue, don’t be daft, mate. You don’t want to get mixed up with a married woman.”

  “Charlie, she was just sensational. Posh, dead posh, you know how I like all that, and beautiful. Really beautiful. Blond, blue eyes, legs like a racehorse, and really
sweet. No idea how sexy she was. I reckon she’s never had a good fuck, and I reckon I could give her one. Correction, I’m going to.”

  “You’re crazy,” said Charlie, “you go down that road. And if she’s got any sense, she won’t let you.”

  “She hasn’t got a lot, I’d say,” said Blue, “that’s what I’m banking on. And she fancied me. I know she did.”

  Elizabeth Beaumont was becoming obsessed with her upper arms. It was an absurd obsession, she could see that; she had far more important things to be obsessed about, like her career and her relationship with her husband, and her eldest daughter, but she still found herself returning to the arms. They were the one bit of her body that she didn’t seem able to get the better of. She could work the rest of it into submission, with the help of her personal trainer, the gym, and her own self-discipline, could make sure her stomach was flat—who would think now it had submitted to three pregnancies—and her bum taut, and her thighs cellulite-free, although several of her friends had told her that was luck rather than anything more scientific. And her bust was mercifully small and therefore pretty firm still. But her arms—above the elbows—were beginning to sag. She had worn a sleeveless top this morning, a black one under her red suit, and as she dressed after her workout in the gym, she realised it had been a mistake, that she wouldn’t really want to remove her jacket during the meeting. Which was a pain, as the meeting room was always too hot, and the suit, in thick ribbed silk, was quite heavy…

  Oh, for goodness’ sake, Elizabeth, she thought, reaching for her bag, you shouldn’t even be thinking about your arms, you should be thinking about the meeting. Which was going to be tricky; it was with one of the agency account directors who was anxious about a forthcoming presentation to one of their major clients, Hunter, a big-spending over-the-counter medicinal and toiletries brand. She walked out of the building, got into the cab waiting for her outside the door, and turned the full force of her formidable brain onto what lay ahead of her that morning.

  Elizabeth had a very big job. She was managing director of one of London’s leading advertising agencies, Hargreaves, Harris and Osborne, known in the business as H2O. Her boss had once called her the embodiment of the eighties have-it-all woman: with her gilt-edged life, her three perfect children, her handsome charming husband, her high-profile career; the compliment had pleased her immensely. She adored her work, loved urging and coercing her staff into the better-than-best work she knew they were capable of, even enjoyed the schmoozing as the essential tool it was in getting what she wanted. She appreciated her large salary, not only for what it could buy her but for what it represented: success and on a major scale in the part of the industry that traditionally had been male dominated.

  Viewed from the outside, indeed, she was an absolute success; admired and feted, self-assured, in complete command of herself and her life. From the inside, a diffident, almost anxious Elizabeth looked out. From the inside, she very well knew, she was rather less of a success. And her upper arms seemed to symbolise the whole thing.

  Simon Beaumont had never been remotely jealous of his wife’s success; indeed, he was extremely proud of it. It helped, of course, that he was a success himself, a board director of Graburn and French, merchant bankers, and spent his days in the heady world of global stock markets, managing portfolios for private clients. He combined an ease of manner with a brilliant mind and a sharp financial instinct, and was a well-known figure in the City, much in demand for after-dinner speaking. Colleagues at a comparable level would not have dreamed of doing what he was doing that morning, which was getting his eldest daughter back to school for the summer term. Or what he had done on a hundred occasions, attending (on his own) school plays and carol concerts, parents’ evenings, and, even once or twice, sitting by sickbeds when, for various reasons, neither the nanny nor the housekeeper were available and Elizabeth had a crucial meeting. For which he enjoyed, it had to be said, a great deal of cooing from various other wives of their acquaintanceship who told Elizabeth she had no idea how lucky she was. And Simon was rather afraid she did not.

  He enjoyed the cooing, though. He enjoyed women altogether; they were as essential to his happiness and sense of well-being as his excellent health, his work, the fine wines with which he had filled his cellars, his two beautiful houses—one in London, one in Sussex—the long days sailing his boat, and his children, with all of whom he was besotted. He flirted with women and charmed them, and even gossiped with them—it was well known that Simon Beaumont was a fine keeper of secrets—and basked in their admiration. He enjoyed Elizabeth too: when she would allow it.

  And that morning he was seeing his eldest daughter, Annabel, off to boarding school. Which he was happy to do; it provided an opportunity to admire both the girls and their mothers.

  He really was a father to be proud of, Annabel thought, looking at him as he appeared in her bedroom doorway. He was very good-looking, tall and slim, with loads of hair still, even if it was going a bit grey; and he did dress well. He was wearing a great suit this morning, light grey, and really, really nice shoes.

  She looked at some of her friends’ fathers, paunchy and balding, and wearing really naff things sometimes, specially at weekend exeats, and wondered how they could bear it.

  Her mother always looked good too; her clothes were great. Annabel thought it must be because she worked, knew what was what. Annabel was proud of her too: intensely so. When she had been little, she had wished that her mother could be at home, of course, but that had passed and their relationship was far better, she knew, more genuinely friendly and mature than those a lot of her friends had with their mothers.

  “Come on, we’re going to be late.” Her father’s voice was less tolerant than usual.

  “Well, we’ll have to be late. I can’t find one of my essays. I know I brought it home, and now it’s just vanished.”

  “Have you been working on it? What about your desk?” he said, carefully patient, obviously stressing. God, he stressed. They both stressed.

  “I’ve looked there, Daddy. Obviously. And yes, I have been working on it, actually.”

  She hadn’t, of course; she’d been much too busy seeing her friends, having fun.

  “Shall I have a search? Often a fresh eye—”

  “No,” she said sharply. She didn’t want him rummaging in her desk. She kept her pills there; of course, she’d got the current pack in her bag, but there were a couple of empty ones that she kept meaning to throw away. They weren’t the sort of thing you could just chuck in the wastepaper basket.

  “Well, all right. But if you can’t find it, we’ll have to go or you’ll miss the train. I’ll have a good look when you’ve gone and send it on to you.”

  “Daddy, I know it’s here. Just give me five minutes. And I can always get a later train.”

  “Sweetheart, you have to get the school train. I’ve got a big meeting later this morning and—”

  “I can perfectly well get myself back to school. I’m sixteen, for God’s sake, I can get a cab across London and buy another ticket and read a timetable all by myself.”

  “You’re not actually sixteen yet, Annabel. Not for another three weeks. And I want to see you safely onto that train. It’s ridiculous, you should have got everything ready last night.”

  “Yes, all right. Sorry.” She went over to him, gave him a kiss. “I was busy last night.”

  “Busy?” He smiled down at her, unable as she had known he would be, to stay cross with her. “Hmm. Partying until after midnight.”

  “Well, it was the last chance before we all go back to prison.”

  “All right, all right. So what do we do?”

  “You wait, I’ll go on looking. If I haven’t found it in five minutes, we can go. Promise. Just leave me in peace, Daddy, please. I’m much more effective on my own.”

  She was right, of course; as soon as he had gone out of the room, she did remember where the essay was: in her bathroom, in the magazine rack. She’d
been glancing at it two days earlier, as she waited for the bath to run, thinking she really must do something about it. As, of course, she hadn’t. She retrieved it, pushed it into her leather Gladstone bag and rushed out into the hall.

  “I’m ready.”

  “Good. Well, off we go then. Any more luggage?”

  “No. I travel light. Apart from my trunk, and that’s in the car.”

  “And you’ve rung Mum?”

  “Yes, I’ve rung Mum. Come on then, let’s go.”

  There was a pile of letters on the hall table, placed there by Josie, the Portuguese housekeeper.

  “Want those?” said Annabel.

  “What? Oh, maybe. Grab them for me, darling, will you. I’ll look at them in the car.” Simon pulled the door shut behind them, ran down the steps in front of her.

  “Morning, Carter. Paddington Station, please, here’s Annabel’s bag, and then I’m going on to the office.”

  Annabel sank into the corner of the car, looking back at the house briefly, then at her father as he sorted through the letters. It had been a very good holiday; they’d all had fun. Even dinner, the whole family number, had been all right. Bit of a waste of a Saturday night, but Toby had been on great form, he was an OK brother really, and Tilly was so sweet and so pretty.

  “You all right, Daddy?” she said. A subdued “Fuck!” had escaped him in a tone that was half exasperation, half groan. He looked at her rather oddly, then managed a weak smile.

  “Sorry, darling. Yes, I’m fine.”

  He didn’t look fine; he looked a bit flushed.

  “You sure?”

  “Yes, yes, fine, just—just remembered something I should have done, that’s all.”

  “Oh, good.”

  He was pushing a letter back into its envelope. She couldn’t see what it said; the only words she recognised were Lloyd’s of London at the top. She didn’t know much about them, except that they were something to do with the City. Well, if it was only business it couldn’t be that serious. She had complete faith in her father and his ability to run the world, or at least the City of London.