‘But wouldn’t the scandal affect his business?’
‘Property people won’t care. They’re all wide boys anyway. It’s not like he’s a banker or an MP or something.’
Besides which, most of Henry’s business associates had ‘traded the old banger in for a newer model’, as one of them put it. Not Ollie, obviously. Angela still didn’t seem to understand Ollie but, fortunately for her, nor did anyone else.
The only thing Henry had to worry about (and there was no need for Janey to know this) was the promised knighthood (services to the building trade) which would need to be put on hold for a year or two. Not a word about that to a soul. Penelope would have liked to have been Lady Swan and she’d do anything she could to spoil another woman’s chances.
‘So. Will Henry be moving in here then?’
‘Don’t be daft. No. He’s going to rent a nice little flat in Mount Street while the divorce goes through.’
Suzy, who already had her own nice little flat in Mayfair in the bag, was prepared to be patient about the divorce.
‘God knows how long it will all take but the wife won’t care so long as she can carry on as normal in her Virginia Watery way. He’s told her she can have an extra twenty grand if she does as she’s told. That ought to do the trick.’
She tried to imagine Suzy in an apron, Suzy shopping for groceries, Suzy pushing a pram. What she forgot to imagine was Suzy discussing menus with the cook; Suzy planning drinks parties; Suzy arranging flowers by the French windows in the drawing room or Suzy playing the grand piano – all the things Suzy imagined. Almost the identical fantasy Penelope had had when she married Henry twenty-five years earlier. Suzy couldn’t really play the piano but she’d had lessons when she was very small and years ago a friend of her father’s had taught her to bash out ‘Liebestraum’ and ‘Sweet Georgia Brown’ which seemed to cover most situations.
‘I didn’t think you wanted to get married.’
‘Whatever gave you that idea? Of course I want to get married. I told you, darling. You can’t live on Nice Little Presents all your life.’
‘I’ll have to find another flat.’ Aha. So it wasn’t about marriage at all. It was about somewhere for Jane to sleep. Still, you couldn’t really blame her.
‘You’ll be all right here for a while. Divorces take for ever. And you’ll be good cover.’ Oh thanks a lot. Two years listening to the pink velour bedhead banging just so Henry and Suzy could have ‘good cover’.
‘Anyway, you might change your mind and marry the lovely Johnny.’
Lovely, was he?
‘You fancy him, don’t you? You’ve always had a soft spot for Johnny.’
That put the wind up her. She was avoiding Jane’s eyes.
‘Not enough to do any damage, darling.’ She selected a violet cream from the box on the table and tried to look casual. ‘You haven’t slept with him, have you?’ Like she didn’t want her to.
‘No. I was in two minds but I decided not to risk it. It didn’t do the fiancée any good.’
‘Didn’t you ever just want to?’
Suzy wanted to. You could tell. Maybe she really did like it. But did she like it with Henry? Heavy, jowly, cigar-smelly Henry?
‘Do you love Henry? Do you actually fancy Henry?’
Suzy looked very posh all of a sudden. As if Jane had left a dead mouse on her breakfast tray. A girl who arranged abortions through the personal columns getting on her high horse because someone had the brass neck to ask her a personal question.
‘He loves me and I’m going to make him a wonderful wife.’ She turned on Jane. ‘And what about Johnny? Do you love him? Do you even like him? What colour eyes does he have, Janey?’
What? What was she talking about?
‘Ties?’ Ties she could do. He’d been wearing a nice navy silk motif tie last time she saw him. Tiny pink elephants on it.
‘Eyes. What colour are his eyes? You don’t know, do you? You’re too busy checking what he thinks about you to actually look at him.’
Suzy, sweet, soft little Suzy, seemed to have gone on the turn all of a sudden. Maybe Jane would be better off living somewhere else. Maybe Sergio could sort something out. Jane pulled a grape from the bunch. What colour were his eyes? She could picture them looking at her: amusement; desire; disappointment sometimes. All kinds of looks, but she could only remember them in black and white. Proposing a toast with a saucer of champagne; admiring her work in the cigarette-lighting routine; swallowing a smile when she used one of Suzy’s lines. Laughing eyes, sad eyes but what bloody colour were they?
‘They’re blue,’ Suzy answered her own question, ‘Dior blue.’ And the silly bitch started to cry.
Chapter 23
A single unguarded moment and all
may be lost. Serve a slovenly lunch-
tray, bolt your food, neglect to use
a napkin and you undermine the
certainty of behaving perfectly when
dining under the scrutiny of others.
The lease on Henry’s flat in Mount Street didn’t start until the first of April so a handsome monogrammed suitcase had arrived with two Savile Row suits, a dozen Jermyn Street shirts and ties, a beautiful Sulka dressing gown and no pyjamas (dirty old bugger). He was in the pink bathroom, shaving. He always shaved (or had himself shaved) twice a day. Either he was very considerate (so Suzy said) or he just liked shaving. Suzy was using the blue bathroom while Jane began to get ready. Jane had dug out the red velvet – he liked it last time – but Suzy advised against.
‘None of my business, obviously darling, but he’ll never propose to you in that.’ (Men might whistle at the girl with the plunging scarlet neckline but it’s the demure little miss in blue that they ask for a date.)
Jane didn’t say a word but she put the dress back on its padded hanger. No sense burning her bridges. There was a blob of icing on the bodice anyway. She’d been having dinner in Sergio’s suite and he wanted to eat petits fours from her cleavage. Fortunately it was bang in the middle so she could put a diamanté brooch over it.
‘Is the navy grosgrain fixed?’
‘Yes. Annie got it back from the cleaner’s yesterday. That stain came out completely. Do you have to wear that one?’
‘Not if you want to wear it.’
‘No but I was thinking of wearing the old blue velvet.’ Suzy had gone very debby and demure since Henry’s proposal – still didn’t wear any drawers, mind you.
‘So? Does it matter?’
‘No. No. That’ll be fine. We haven’t pulled that stunt for ages.’
Suzy secretly quite liked the double-act routine because Henry always used to play spot-the-difference afterwards: how much prettier Suzy was; how much funnier; how much sexier; how much classier. Henry was actually getting a bit fed up with Janey. The girl had absolutely nothing to say for herself. She could talk, he’d heard her do it, with the various men he’d found for her. Pale copies of Suzy’s witty chatter but Henry was already spoken for and so she made no effort at all at normal conversation – as if she’d taken her batteries out to save power. Henry would have called her a tart – only what would that have made him?
Suzy was sat in state in midnight-blue velvet on the sitting-room sofa flicking through a copy of Architectural Review – just as Penelope Swan used to do when she first met Henry. Suzy was obviously in training for the bloody Grand National. You could bet your life she’d have Annie serving tea all week so she could practise being mother.
Suzy slipped her magazine down the back of the sofa before a dinner-jacketed Henry came in brandishing a bottle of Moët and a fistful of champagne glasses.