Connections Page 10

“I don’t want anything,” she protested.

  He said, “I can’t handle this. If you don’t want to, you don’t want to. That’s it.”

  They mounted the steps in silence, and parted. Fleur didn’t know if she was glad or sorry to have done what she had.

  Next day she got her dress back from the dry cleaner and that evening started getting ready. Jess had been right about her hair, long now and more or less all right with her normal clothes, but scruffy looking with the formal dress. When she answered the door she found Dominic outside with a bunch of roses and a silly grin on his face, which was wiped off when he took in her appearance.

  He pushed the flowers at her and turned to go.

  “Thanks – come in,” she said.

  “Not if you’re going out,” he responded.

  “Come in,” she said. “Look. It’s a family dinner – and look at my hair.”

  “I see what you mean.”

  He retreated to his open doorway and called, “Joe! Hey, Joe! Got a minute?”

  Joe appeared and said, “What?”

  “It’s her hair,” Dominic said. “Got to go out – looks like a scruff.”

  “Yes,” said Joe, appraisingly. Pale and stringy in his jeans, his blonde hair cropped short and close to his head, he looked more like the defendant in a case involving a stolen car than a fashion adviser.

  “I can cut your hair,” he volunteered. “Ten minutes – just a tidy-up.”

  “Oh, God,” Fleur said nervously.

  “That’s what they all say,” he remarked. “But later, they thank me.”

  “Go on,” advised Dominic, “give him a go. He’s good – he knows what to do.”

  “Why not?” Fleur said recklessly. She’d told Jess she wasn’t going to make a special effort to impress so, she thought, why not get her hair cut by the man next door?

  “Better take the dress off,” Joe advised.

  Within minutes she was sitting, hair damped down, on a kitchen chair while Joe, frowning with concentration, trimmed and shaped her hair with the kitchen scissors. “I won’t do too much,” he said. “These scissors are crap.” But Fleur could see he was making an improvement.

  “Have you done much of this?” she asked.

  “A bit,” he said. “I started off in the children’s home. The girls used to be desperate to look OK, and the boys couldn’t stand the short back and sides, so I’d do it for cigarettes.”

  “His clientele grew and grew,” Dominic added. “It’s a bit like being a doctor, or a nurse. People always need you. You’d be surprised – if you live on the streets, you really mind about looking grotty.”

  “I used to do Van’s, when she’d let me,” Joe said. “She’d come up a treat. Do you reckon it’s true your hair grows after you’re dead?”

  No one answered. The funeral was on the following day.

  Fleur stood up, got dressed, and Joe did her eyes for her.

  “Recommend me to the rich and famous,” he said. “I do house calls.”

  “He does,” Dominic confirmed, “but usually in the middle of the night when they’re all asleep.”

  “That was only the once,” Joe protested.

  Nevertheless, there was an awkwardness. Dominic had evidently decided to court her with flowers only to find her dressing for a smart party, ready, he would think, to mix with smart people and find a rich boyfriend. As she hastily threw things into her evening bag, she told him, “It’s rich relations I’ve never met. I’m going to Eaton Square. You remember that man in the Rolls-Royce—”

  “Bring us back a doggy bag,” Joe said.

  Fleur picked up her coat. “Thanks, Joe,” she said. She boldly kissed Dominic on the cheek.

  She felt overdressed on the tube to Victoria and underdressed when she entered the house in Eaton Square, a mansion in an imposing terrace, where all the houses shone with paint and were decorated outside with elaborate window boxes. She walked up shallow white marble steps and rang the doorbell beside a glossy black front door. A small man in a black jacket opened the door. She said her name and went in, into a vast hall from which an imposing stairway rose.

  She surrendered her coat to the manservant and waited. The hall smelt faintly of sweet herbs and, she estimated, would have contained most of her flat.

  “Will you come this way, Miss Stockley?” said the servant and nervously she followed him. Now she was here she knew she would meet her natural father for the first time. She didn’t know what she felt. Confusion and helplessness seemed to dominate and under that she found another feeling – resentment. He hadn’t cared, for twenty-eight years, who she was. Well, she thought, she was here now and she’d better suppress her indignation. But it wouldn’t go away completely.

  She was ushered into a small drawing-room with pale walls and gilded mouldings. The furniture was white, there were paintings on the walls and two vast arrangements of flowers stood on pedestals on either side of long windows. There were no signs of human activity taking place or ever having taken place there, and she couldn’t help reflecting that it reminded her of a public room in a very expensive hotel.

  Five people were present, three men and two women. One of the men was Valentine Keith, who moved towards her and said, “Fleur – welcome. Come and meet your father.”

  Fleur had instantly guessed that the man standing before a vast, ornate white marble fireplace was Dickie Jethro. He was a thick-set man of average height, with short greying hair. He stood, dinner-jacketed and straight-backed, every inch the proprietor and man in charge. His face was square, nose a blunt triangle, mouth a colourless straight firm line. Arched brown eyebrows lay below a wide brow crossed by two deep lines. And below the eyebrows were the wide, hazel eyes, so like Fleur’s own.

  She knew from the press he’d come from a lower middle-class family in Gravesend, but now bore no trace of his ordinary start in life. He might have been a peer, a senior politician – anything. What he was not was a man who took orders from anyone.

  As Fleur moved towards him, he smiled warmly and his face lit up. He advanced, took each of her hands in his and kissed her on the cheek. His hands were quite large, muscular and reassuring. He exuded the faint, dry smell of some expensive lotion – an aftershave, perhaps. He pulled back and put his hands on her shoulders, studying her face, then said, “It’s been a long wait, but well worth while. Look, Sophia: my eyes, my eyebrows …”

  The woman in a rose-coloured, bead-encrusted dress who moved to stand beside him was only two or three years older than Fleur. She had an oval, ivory face, much glossy black hair piled on her head in elaborate coils and round her neck a string of very large pearls, like marbles. She wore matching earrings in an old gold setting. In spite of the modernity of her dress she had the air of a woman in a painting of Charles IPs time: lush, bedecked with jewellery, shrewed and intelligent. Fleur got the instant impression that, in spite of the age difference and her father’s several divorces, Dickie Jethro and his wife were a well-matched couple.

  “My wife, Sophia,” he said. She put her hand out formally and, as if meeting the Queen, Fleur lightly shook it. “I’m so glad you came,” Sophia said with apparent sincerity. “It’s a pleasure to meet you at last.” She added, “Now, you know Valentine. And here are my mother and father, George and Zoe Andriades.”

  George, a broad man with a black moustache, smiled, as did his wife, a dark, heavily made-up woman, good looking and beautifully dressed in a slim red chiffon dress and jacket. Fleur went over to where she sat. She put out her hand and Fleur bent over to shake it. Zoe held her hand for too long, while gazing searchingly into Fleur’s eyes. Fleur, bent over and conscious of her own rough paw in Zoe’s soft and manicured hand, endured the examination without pleasure.

  “So, Fleur, how’s your life?” her father enquired cheerfully.

  An impossible question from a total stranger, thought Fleur. It didn’t seem worth going into details, since if he’d taken the trouble to track her down she assumed he’d pro
bably run a check on her. She said, “I was in the film business, but it’s very volatile. So now I have a little flat and a little job.” She realised, in spite of her resentment, that she liked his energy, his apparent openness, his air of generosity.

  “What sort of films?” asked her father.

  “Documentaries,” she told him, suppressing memories of the hour-long unflattering portrait of City traders after a big stock market crash. “There was one on city statuary,” she mentioned. Her idea, thank goodness. “One on drugs,” she added weakly. “The twenty most commonly prescribed, where they come from and the benefits and dangers involved.”

  “I saw that,” Zoe said promptly. “I rang my doctor next day in a panic. I think your approach might have been a little alarmist.”

  “Film is a very powerful medium,” George Andriades remarked, soothingly.

  Fleur was grateful for his tact. Two more guests – Henry and Fiona Jones – were announced. Henry was tall, balding, a mild-looking man who wore spectacles; his wife, like a female counterpart, was slightly stooped, with piled-up straying grey-blonde hair and a rather baggy brown knitted skirt with a matching top. It was like the entry of two starlings into a cage of exotic birds.

  Jethro introduced Henry and Fiona Jones. “My right-hand man and his wife, Fiona. Henry, you’re so late I’m going to punish you by not offering you a drink. We’ll go straight in.”

  Valentine Keith was at Fleur’s side as they crossed a corridor into the dining-room, where a circular table was laid for dinner with three small silver filigree bowls full of tiny snowdrops and pansies in the centre. The walls were covered with what looked like very old pale green wallpaper, decorated with curling darker green and gold flowers. Two jardinières beside the drawn curtains covering French windows were full of plants.

  “There are placements,” Sophia said, “because it’s easier, really.” Fleur found herself on one side of the table opposite Valentine Keith, with the solid bulk of George Andriades on one side and the unassuming Fiona Jones on the other. Richard Jethro sat with his back to the windows, his wife opposite him. Wine was poured into the first of the three glasses set in front of each guest.

  Dickie Jethro stood up, knocked on an empty glass with his knife to command attention, then said, “I know you’re all aware that tonight we welcome Fleur to the house. Not just my daughter, but my long-lost daughter who is very beautiful, too. I’m sure you all agree having met her that I’ve been too slow to find her. So – I propose a toast – to Fleur.” At which the others raised their glasses and repeated, “Fleur.”

  Although this event took only seconds, those seconds seemed long ones to Fleur, as the smile on her face became rigid and seemed to set itself in concrete. As she said, “Thank you,” to her father and smiled her frozen smile at the others, a maid began to serve the hors-d’oeuvres.

  Zoe Andriades, who was sitting opposite Fleur next to Valentine Keith, said to her, “How charming of Dickie to do that. I’m so pleased you didn’t jump to your feet and reply, like a Russian.” This left Fleur wondering if she should not have jumped to her feet and made a short but graceful speech of thanks, though she thought on the whole she shouldn’t have. The fact was that she was in a world where she didn’t understand the rules. She wondered what on earth she was doing here, being fêted by a father she’d never met. What would Grace, or Robin – the man who’d helped her with her homework and mended her bicycle punctures – think if they knew? What was she going to tell them?

  Valentine Keith broke into her thoughts, “Tell me what you’d do if you were back in films,” he said.

  Fleur’s mind was empty. She said, “A series about men who had to bring up babies on their own. It would be very successful.”

  “No social conscience?” he asked.

  “It didn’t work too well for me,” she said lightly. “What do you do?”

  “My dear,” he said, “I am a legislator and representative of the people.”

  “Do you mean an MP?” Fleur asked in embarrassment. “I’m sorry. I ought to have known.”

  “I’m just a humble toiler in the vineyards of Westminster,” he told her. “It’s been proved only ten per cent of people know the names of more than twenty Members of Parliament. Half the population don’t know the name of their own member.”

  “Admit it, Val,” said Dickie from his end of the table, “politics doesn’t make any difference to anyone’s life.”

  “Unless you worry about who makes your laws and spends your taxes,” Valentine said.

  “No, I’m talking about where it counts. Where you live, who you love, where you work, and who with. Be honest. That’s ninety-nine per cent of people’s lives, isn’t it?”

  Valentine looked uncomfortable and was about to reply when Jethro went on, “We buy and sell them, don’t we, George?”

  George had been talking to Zoe. He looked down the table enquiringly. “Politicians,” explained Dickie. “Bought and sold – just get the price right and you’re on.”

  “Definitely,” George Andriades affirmed, smiling.

  “Ten a penny,” added Dickie. He said to Valentine, who was hiding his annoyance badly, “Only joking, Val. Sophia tells me I go too far sometimes. Husbands do. Aren’t I right, Henry?”

  Henry Jones, a man who did not look as if he ordinarily went too far, nodded agreeably. “Absolutely,” he confirmed.

  “It’s the privilege you get for paying all the couturier’s bills. If only I’d been born a woman.”

  “You would be less amused if you had been,” Zoe Andriades said to her son-in-law. “Now tell me, Dickie, is it true you want to sell the house in Jamaica? Please don’t do it. It’s so lovely. The view – it’s unique. There’s nothing like it in the Caribbean. What more could anyone want than that view over the ocean at sunset?”

  “It’s too small. Four bedrooms isn’t enough,” Dickie said, “and I don’t like the neighbours.”

  “You could build on it to make more space,” Zoe insisted. “And as for the neighbours, they’re miles away. You’ll regret it if you sell it.”

  “Too late,” Dickie said. “I already have. I’m planning to buy a house on Mustique.” He named the owner, a film star.

  “You’re mad. It’s terribly depressing. The last owner committed suicide.”

  “Mustique has fewer problems than Jamaica,” Dickie said. “However, in the meanwhile I’m afraid we’ll have to come to you at Braganza House.”

  “Of course,” she said.

  “You see,” he went on, “people like me are rootless, not like you two. You’ll always know, really, where you come from. I’m always looking for the ideal, getting bored and restless and moving on. A trial, isn’t it, Sophia?” His wife smiled. “And you – did you inherit my restlessness, Fleur, always looking round the next corner?”

  Fleur shook her head. “I don’t think so. I’d have been a miserable nomad.”

  Fleur’s father then, without any apparent embarrassment, went into a monologue concerning his career. “As you all know I started with nothing, and nobody behind me. When I joined the Midland Bank as a management trainee my mother thought her wildest dreams had come true. Her family thought she’d married beneath her. Her father and his brother – Val’s father – owned a chain of retail grocery shops. That’s why Val went to a public school and I went to the local comprehensive. I worked like a dog, eighteen hours a day, to get my accountancy exams and banking qualifications while holding down a job. I was manager at twenty-five, youngest bank manager in Britain. Which was when I decided to switch to investment banking and joined Devere Hatton – at the bottom, as usual. And a couple of years later there I was brokering an eighty-million-dollar deal between a US company and the government of Nicaragua – that’d be a billion in today’s terms. I was just thirty, Val, and you were in short trousers. At the last moment the South Americans decided to back out and I had to find another million in five days to keep the US guys in place. I didn’t sleep for three nights.
In the end I got another million from Switzerland and readjusted the percentages with the Nicaraguans to keep everybody sweet. The night the deal was concluded I got up to go home. They found me next morning, asleep on the floor of the lift.” He addressed Valentine directly. “So don’t talk to me about the pleasures of choice. A man makes his choices, makes his luck and that’s all there is to it.”

  This speech silenced the table. Valentine looked at his plate and then looked up. “I’d never quarrel with that,” he agreed.

  Fleur worked out it must have been just as her father was beginning his career in merchant banking that Grace had told him about her unwanted pregnancy. To be fair to him, he’d probably never asked to be a father but, to be fair to herself, she couldn’t be expected to have a lot of sympathy for the man who’d tried to have her aborted and then fled to become a big City banker.

  “You’re an example to us all, darling,” Sophia said, then got to her feet, ready to lead the ladies from the table. “Tell each other some jokes,” she instructed, “but do not leave us too long.”

  She, Zoe, Fiona Jones and Fleur went back to the drawing-room, which had been tidied in their absence. There was coffee on a table.

  Fleur asked where the lavatory was and was led by the maid across the vast hall to a princely bathroom about the size of her bedroom. There were swagged curtains at the window, a thick carpet, a lavatory, a basin, and a dressing-table on which stood tortoiseshell brushes and combs, cotton wool, tissues, a bottle of French lavender water and a cut-glass bowl full of face powder.

  She felt as stunned as if she’d gone abroad on holiday to a remote, strange spot. Great wealth seemed as strange to her as a foreign country.

  Slowly she combed her hair and reapplied her make-up, trying out the powder in the bowl. She wondered how soon it would be possible to leave. Perhaps it was like Hollywood where everyone had to get up early to start filming, only in this case it would be to catch the Asian markets. Meanwhile, the questions she had asked herself on the journey to Eaton Square remained unanswered. Why had she been invited in the first place? What about her half-brother and half-sister?