An Absolute Scandal Read online

  Another ten minutes later, he came into the kitchen; he was looking very serious.

  “You busy? I need to talk to you.”

  “Richard! Can’t it be later, please? I really could do with some help.” She was hurling spaghetti bolognese onto the children’s plates; Emma was tapping her arm, asking her to test her spellings…

  “OK. Sorry. Can I do anything?”

  “You could fetch Alex. That’d be great.”

  “Debs, I can’t do that. I don’t have that sort of time, I’ve got a heap of marking to do and I’ve already lost half an hour. Sorry.”

  “You seemed to have plenty of time to talk to your mother,” she said, driven beyond endurance.

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” he said, and went out, slamming the door. She looked after him, surprised. He had many faults, but a bad temper wasn’t usually among them.

  Later, as she was changing, he came into their bedroom.

  “Sorry about that,” he said. “I was a bit worried. Look, do we have to go to this thing?”

  “We do really, yes. I’m off to get the babysitter in about three minutes and I’ve cooked a lasagna for our table. We can’t not go now.”

  “I really do need to talk to you,” he said. “It’s quite important.”

  “And so is this evening to me. I helped organise it, I have to go.”

  “Oh, all right,” he said wearily, “but let’s get away as soon as we can, maybe go for a drink?”

  She looked at him; he did look drawn and rather pale. She felt a pang of concern, and put her arms round him.

  “Whatever it is, it can’t be that bad. And of course we’ll leave the minute it’s over. Promise. I’ll duck out of the clearing up.”

  Flora had a problem, Richard said, settling uneasily into a chair in the corner of the pub. “Which could affect us. She’s—well, she’s made a loss at Lloyd’s this year. Not much, but enough to worry her.”

  “Oh dear. And—what’s not much?”

  “About six grand.”

  “Six grand? My God, Richard. I’d call that quite much. But, well, I suppose she can afford it.”

  “She can. But she says it could leave her a bit short.”

  “Short?” Debbie thought of the big house, the Rolls, the new horse Flora had just bought, the portfolio of shares she was always wanting to discuss with Richard. “Can’t she sell some shares or something?”

  “She could. But the market’s not good at the moment; she feels it would be shortsighted.”

  “Oh. Well, that’s her decision. Obviously.”

  “Well, it is. And it isn’t.”

  Debbie began to feel uneasy.

  “How isn’t it? Richard, you’d better get this over. You’re not suggesting it might affect us, I hope?”

  “Yes. It might. Not badly, but she wonders if we could take on the school fees, just for this year. It’s almost exactly that sum. Six thousand, for the two lots.”

  “Well, we can’t,” she said. “We don’t have six thousand to spare. Do we?”

  “Well, we do,” he said. “Actually. There’s the money my father left me.”

  “The—Richard, I cannot believe I’m hearing this. We agreed that was for the future, our security, in case something awful happened, or we wanted to do something really special with it, put the children through university or—”

  “Yes, well Mother says she’ll pay us back when she can.”

  “Which is very kind of her, of course,” said Debbie, thinking, If they’d consulted me, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. “But, Richard, it feels dangerous. Not what we thought that money was for.”

  “I know. But don’t forget Father left the children some money in trust for things like their further education.”

  “Well I know. But don’t forget our dream, to take the children out of school for a term, and travel with them. I think that would be much more valuable, actually. I’m sorry, Richard, but I’m just not going to give in on this. I mean, your mother undertook to pay the school fees. I never wanted her to, I was never asked about it.”

  “I seem to remember you being fairly articulate on the subject. At the time.”

  “Very briefly,” she said, feeling her temper beginning to surge. “It was made clear my views were of no interest to either of you. And now, she’s asking us to use up our precious savings, to do it instead. Well, I’m not going to. Sorry. They can leave those bloody schools if she’s not going to pay for them, and go somewhere sensible, like St. Luke’s, instead.”

  “You’re so hostile to her, aren’t you?” he said. “You don’t like her, you’re jealous of her, you don’t understand her. Or appreciate what she does for us. For the children.”

  Debbie stared at him. “That is so unfair,” she said.

  “No, it isn’t. And I happen to know she finds it very hurtful, your hostility.”

  “My hostility! What about hers?”

  “She is not hostile to you,” he said flatly.

  “Well, I don’t know what else you’d call it. I feel like some sort of intruder half the time. Or the hired help. And how do you know it’s hurtful? Has she told you? Pretty bloody shitty of her if she has. Emotional blackmail, I’d call it. Driving a wedge between us.”

  “Oh, don’t be absurd,” he said. “She hasn’t said anything. She’s very loyal to you, as a matter of fact. I can just…just see it. For myself. And I want to help her.”

  “Well, I don’t. Not in the way you suggest, anyway. We can go down there, talk to her about it, help her sort things out, of course. Hold her hand. But I will not agree to use that money to pay the school fees. And that’s all there is to it.”

  “I’m afraid we have to,” he said, and he looked very drawn, “some of it anyway. Or get a bank loan. Or re-mortgage.”

  “But why?” There seemed to be a grip on her lungs, squeezing them, making her breathless.

  “Debbie, you can’t just not pay the school fees at the beginning of term, take the children away. You have to give a term’s notice in writing. It’s a legal requirement. So at the very worst, we have to find two grand.”

  She digested this. “And she won’t even do that?”

  “No. She says she can’t. She’s very, very upset about it. Have you any idea,” he said, his voice shaking, “how humiliating this is for me? To have my mother know that after all they did for me, all my fine education, I can’t even afford to pay my own children’s school fees, give them what I know they need? It’s pretty bloody hard, Debbie, I can tell you.”

  Shocked out of her anger, her heart suddenly aching for him, for the lack of confidence that consumed him—and why, why, she often wondered, when he was so clever—and often thought too that Flora was responsible for it. And she heard herself saying that she was sorry, that of course, if that was really the only way, they would take on the school fees for the year. “But it is only the year, isn’t it? You’re not suggesting we do more than that?”

  “Only the year,” he said. “We can’t do more anyway, unless I get some amazing new job. Which is—”

  “Absolutely possible,” she said, “in fact, quite probable. The only thing that’s keeping you from an amazing new job, Richard, is that you’ve stopped applying for them, OK? Now I know you love St. Luke’s, but if it’s not really what you want, you must—we must rethink. You’re a brilliant head, and there are lots of schools which would be just desperate for you. You start buying the Guardian on Wednesdays again, OK? And I’ll do some applying for you, if you won’t do it yourself.”

  “Oh, all right. Maybe.” He smiled at her. He had a wonderful smile; brilliant and sudden. And irresistible.

  “I love you, Debs,” he said. “I’m so lucky to have you. I still think that, you know, every day of my life. And I’m sorry I said that about Mother and you. I do understand—she is quite bossy and overbearing; I can see it, you know.”

  “You can?” she said, astonished. She had always assumed Flora was perfect in his eyes, tha
t the fault was all hers. She felt a rush of gratitude, and of affection for him, suddenly wanted desperately to make him feel better. She leaned forward and kissed him. “All right, ring her in the morning and tell her we’ll do it. But like I said, it must only be this year, OK?”

  “OK,” he said. “It will be. Bless you, Debbie. Let’s go home, I want to show you how much I love you.”

  Elizabeth was talking to Peter Hargreaves in her office, dissecting the presentation of the morning—the successful presentation—when Simon rang.

  “Hello. It’s me. I wondered if we could have dinner tonight?” he said.

  “Any particular reason?”

  “Does there have to be?”

  “No, not really. But I’d sort of thought I’d work on for a couple of hours. I’ve got a lot on—”

  “Elizabeth, please. I want to talk to you.” About what, she wondered with a stab of fear: surely not that again, surely—“And we might as well do it over a good dinner. It can be late if you like. Around nine.”

  “Oh, OK. Yes.” She paused then said, almost as if prompted, “It’d be nice anyway, of course.”

  “Right, I’ll book at Langan’s. See you there.”

  Elizabeth was late. She often was. Simon sat waiting for her, his patience slowly fading. Why did she do this to him? When she knew he wanted to talk to her, that a table had been booked, that he might be hungry? Was it deliberate, to make her point, that she had her own life, that she was not at his beck and call—and given the events of the past two years, was that actually justified, did he deserve it? Or was it that in her hectic, high-powered schedule, time simply disappeared?

  And then he saw her, walking across the restaurant, kissing him briefly before slithering into the chair the waiter had pulled out for her. She was immaculate as always, in a red short-skirted suit, with the ubiquitous padded shoulders, not a dark hair out of place in her gleaming lacquered bob, carrying the unmistakable aura of success and power.

  And he remembered fiercely, briefly, the other Elizabeth, the one he had fallen in love with, so beautiful his heart had turned over the very first time he had seen her, neither successful nor powerful, a secretary indeed, at the advertising agency his bank was considering at the time; her dark eyes serious as she greeted him in reception, shook his hand, asked him to follow her to the boardroom. Even then, she had dressed the part: no seventies flowing skirts for her, but a narrow black calf-length dress and high-heeled boots, her dark hair clipped into a neat pageboy. He had liked her voice—rather low and calm, a well-educated voice—and her thoughtful good manners, taking his overcoat, offering him, as they went into the boardroom, coffee and orange juice. She said that he was the first to arrive—Simon was incapable of not being early.

  “Will you be at the meeting?” he asked hopefully, and yes, she said, but in a very menial capacity, purely to take notes. “And refill coffee cups,” she added with a quick smile.

  “Very important,” he said, “and you’ll be refilling mine a lot. I run on caffeine.”

  “Me too,” she said. “They say it’s very bad for you.”

  “Oh, I have a lot of bad habits,” he had said. “I’m awfully good at them. I like drinking and smoking too,” and immediately she had offered him the cigarette box that was on the table.

  The others had arrived then, and all through the meeting, he had been aware of her.

  After the third meeting—for the agency had won the account—he had asked her out; she had given him the same serious look and waited for a few moments before saying, “That would be very nice, but I don’t think my boyfriend would like it.”

  And he had said he would hate to upset her boyfriend, and that might have been that, had not Simon and his colleagues been invited to an advertising awards ceremony where their campaign was on the short list, and there she was, smiling at him across the pre-dinner drinks party.

  “How nice to see you again,” he said, taking a glass of champagne. “And how is the new firm? H2O, good name.”

  “Very good, thank you,” she said, “and I’m now a junior account executive there, which is very exciting.”

  “Indeed it must be. We miss you a lot, though. Can I get you a drink afterwards,” he said, “at the bar? Or would your boyfriend not like that either?”

  “I don’t think he’d mind at all,” she said, “since he’s not my boyfriend anymore. I’d like that very much, thank you.”

  The very next night they had dinner at L’Escargot in Greek Street, and after that, it was simple; they were together all the time and fell mutually and very passionately in love.

  Elizabeth was only just twenty and in the style of those days, there was no question of their living together; she shared a flat with two other girls in Earl’s Court, and Simon, only twenty-five himself, lived in appalling and expensive squalor with three other young men just off the Brompton Road.

  He had wanted to marry her, quite badly, quite soon. “I know we’re very young,” he said to her, when he asked her, “but I like the idea of being married to you so much. It’d be fun. And we could buy one of those houses you were admiring the other night in the Boltons.”

  “Simon, you know that’s nonsense. They cost about a quarter of a million.”

  “OK. I’m an up-and-coming young man. We’ll get one next year. Or when we have our first baby.”

  “I don’t want to have a baby,” she said, “you know that, Simon, not for quite a long time. I’ve got my career to take care of, no time for babies.”

  Even then she was ferociously ambitious, determined to do not just well but superbly in the profession she loved. “I want to do the sort of thing women don’t usually do in advertising, I don’t want to be some dappy creative. I want to run things, have them done my way. I shall be miserable if I fail.” And it was the reason she hadn’t gone to university in spite of some very impressive A levels; she regarded it as a waste of time when she could have been starting on her journey in the real world.

  But they did get married, six months later, when she was just twenty-one. Her father was delighted with the charming, handsome, successful young man who wanted to be his son-in-law, and they moved into a very pretty little mews house in Kensington.

  Annabel was born just the same, eighteen months after they were married. There had been a scare about the pill, Simon had ordered her off it—she had done everything he wanted in those days, trusted him absolutely—and, “That seems to be that,” she said to him, half happy, half tearful when she got the result of her pregnancy test.

  He had been overjoyed; he loved children, loved the idea of being a father. She was less certain.

  “I can’t give up work,” she said, “you know that. I’ve just got this new job.”

  “I do know it. We’ll get a nanny, don’t worry. We’ll have to move, maybe not into the Boltons this time, maybe next—”

  “And you’ll have to help, have to support me.”

  “I will, I promise. I’ll be the most supportive husband in London. In the world. I love you, Elizabeth, very, very much. And I’m so proud of you.”

  That had been the beginning of the glory years, of dizzy success for both of them. He was made a director of Graburn and French at an extraordinarily young age, her new job was at H2O, as an account executive—and account director two years later. They bought first a bigger house in Kensington and moved finally into Bolton Place just before Tilly was born. They were successful, rich, good-looking, high profile, with far more than their fair share of life’s goodies. They had fun together too; wonderful extravagant holidays, sometimes with the children, but sneaking off too for long weekends on their own to Paris, Rome, the south of France—happy pleasure-drenched times, free from everything except each other, the early sexy days brought back to life.

  They entertained lavishly in the splendid Boltons house, bought another in the country, gave parties that were legendary; they were sought after, admired, on every smart guest list. And he had adored her: absolutely.
And she had adored him. So where—and why—had things gone so dreadfully wrong?

  “Sorry, Simon.” She kissed him briefly. “Had a crisis, it went on all day, and then I wanted to debrief Peter Hargreaves tonight—”

  “What sort of crisis?”

  “Never mind.”

  “I’ve ordered a Sancerre, all right for you?”

  “Fine.” She smiled up at the waiter as he poured it and then at him. “Good day?”

  “Not very, no.”

  “I’m sorry. Annabel get off all right?”

  “Yes, of course. Anyway, she should have rung you from school, I told her to.”

  “Well she didn’t. Oh, Tilly’s been made house captain, bless her. And Toby rang. I can’t believe he’s in his second year,” she said. “He does love it.”

  “Just as well,” said Simon shortly, “given the cost.”

  She looked at him curiously. “Simon! That’s not like you.”

  “Well, I don’t feel quite like me. Actually.”

  “Is that why you invited me to dinner?”

  “Well—I wanted to have dinner with you, of course. But yes, so we could talk.”

  “We could have talked just as well at home.”

  “Except that you probably would have been about three hours late, rather than nearly one. With no table booking to put pressure on you and—” He stopped suddenly, looked at her very sadly, then said, “Oh Elizabeth. What’s happened to us, why do we have to quarrel about everything?”

  “I would have thought,” she said, the pain hitting afresh, as it still did sometimes, “you should know that very well.”

  “Yes,” he said quietly, “I do. But—Oh God,” he said, and looked away from her. She felt alarmed.

  “Simon, for heaven’s sake, what on earth is it?”

  “I’ve had a bit of bad news,” he said, looking up, and his face was very bleak. “It’s Lloyd’s. They’ve made a loss on several of my syndicates this year. Including the major one.”

  “Oh,” she said. “And—what’s the damage?”

  “About—about fifteen thousand pounds.”

  “God. God, Simon, that’s a lot.”