September Page 2

  “Yes, I do. If you have the energy and the wherewithal, I think it’s a wonderful and generous idea. It will give us all something splendid to look forward to.”

  “Don’t say anything until I’ve bearded Angus.”

  “Not a word.”

  Verena smiled with satisfaction. And then another happy thought occurred to her. “I shall have a good excuse,” she said, “to go and find myself a new dress.”

  But Violet had no such problem. “I,” she told Verena, “shall wear my black velvet.”

  2

  Thursday the Twelfth

  The night was short and he did not sleep. Soon it would be dawn.

  He had imagined that, for once, he might sleep, since he was tired, exhausted. Drained by three days of an unseasonably hot New York; days filled to the brim with breakfast meetings, business lunches, long afternoons of argument and discussion; too much Coca-Cola and black coffee, too many receptions and late nights, and a miserable dearth of either exercise or fresh air.

  Finally, successfully, it had been achieved, though not easily. Harvey Klein was a tough nut, and some persuasion was necessary to convince him that this was the very best, and indeed the only, way to hook the English market. The creative campaign that Noel had brought with him to New York, complete with a time-schedule, layouts and photographs, had been approved and agreed upon. With the contract under his belt, Noel could return to London. Pack his bag, make a last-minute telephone call, stuff his briefcase with documents and calculator, take another telephone call (Harvey Klein to say safe journey), get himself downstairs, check out, flag down a yellow cab and head for Kennedy.

  In the evening light Manhattan, as always, looked miraculous — towers of light thrusting upwards into the suffused glow of the sky, and the freeways moving rivers of headlights. Here was a city that offered, in its brash and open-handed way, every conceivable form of delight.

  Before, on previous visits, he had taken full advantage of all the fun, but there had been no opportunity, this time, to accept any of the offered hospitality, and he knew a pang of regret at leaving unfulfilled, as though he were being hustled away from a stupendous party long before he had even started to enjoy it.

  At Kennedy the cab dropped him at the BA terminal. He duly queued, checked in, rid himself of his holdall, queued again for Security, and at last made his way to the departure lounge. He bought a bottle of Scotch in the duty-free, a Newsweek and Advertising Age from the newsstand. Finding a chair he sat, slumped with tiredness, waiting for his flight to be called.

  By courtesy of Wenborn & Weinburg, he was travelling Club Class, so at least there was space for his long legs, and he had asked for a seat by the window. He took off his jacket, settled himself, longed for a drink. It occurred to him that it would be fortuitous if no one came to sit beside him, but this faint hope died almost at once as a well-upholstered individual in a navy-blue chalk-stripe suit claimed the seat, stowed various bags and bundles in the overhead locker, and at last collapsed, in an overflowing fashion, alongside.

  The man took up a great deal of space. The interior of the aircraft was cool, but this man was hot. He pulled out a silk handkerchief and dabbed his brow, heaved and humped, searched for his seat belt, and managed to jab Noel, quite painfully, with his elbow.

  “Sorry about that. Seems we’re a full load this evening.”

  Noel did not wish to talk. He smiled and nodded, and pointedly opened his Newsweek.

  They took off. Cocktails were served, and then dinner. He was not hungry, but ate it, because it passed the time and there was nothing else to do. The huge 747 droned on, out over the Atlantic. Dinner was cleared and the movie came on. Noel had already seen it in London, so he asked the flight attendant to bring him a whisky and soda and drank it slowly, cradling it in his hand, making it last. Cabin lights were extinguished and passengers reached for pillows and blankets. The fat man folded his hands over his stomach and snored momentously. Noel closed his eyes, but this made them feel as though they were filled with grit, so he opened them again. His mind raced; it had been working full throttle for three days and refused to slow down. The possibility of oblivion faded.

  He wondered why he was not feeling triumphant, because he had won the precious account and was returning home with the whole thing safely sewn up. A suitable metaphor for Saddlebags. Saddlebags. It was one of those words which, the more times you said it, the more ridiculous it sounded. But it wasn’t ridiculous. It was immensely important not only to Noel Keeling, but to Wenborn & Weinburg as well.

  Saddlebags. A company with its roots in Colorado, where the business had started up some years ago, manufacturing high-class leather goods for the ranching fraternity. Saddles, bridles, straps, reins, and riding boots, all branded with the prestigious trademark of a hoof-print enclosing the letter S.

  From this modest beginning, the company’s reputation and sales had grown nationwide, outstripping all rivals. They moved into the manufacture of other commodities. Luggage, handbags, fashion accessories, shoes and boots. All constructed from the finest of hide, hand-stitched and hand-finished. The Saddlebag logo became a status symbol, vying with Gucci or Ferragamo, and with a price-tag to match. Their reputation spread, so that visitors to the United States, wishing to return home with a truly impressive piece of loot, chose a Saddlebag satchel, or a hand-tooled, gold-buckled belt.

  And then came the rumour that Saddlebags were moving into the British market, retailing through one or two carefully chosen London stores. Charles Weinburg, Noel’s chairman, got wind of this by means of a chance remark dropped at a London dinner party. The next morning Noel, as Senior Vice-President and Creative Director, was called for his briefing.

  “I want this account, Noel. At the moment only a handful of people in this country have ever heard of Saddlebags, and they’re going to need a top-gear campaign. We’ve got the headstart and if we land it we can handle it, so I put through a call to New York late last night, and spoke to Saddlebag’s president, Harvey Klein. He’s agreeable to a meeting but he wants a total presentation…layouts, media coverage, slogans, the lot. Top-level stuff, full-page colour spreads. You’ve got two weeks. Get busy with the Art Department and try to work something out. And for God’s sake find a photographer who can make a male model look like a man, not like a shop-window dummy. If necessary, get hold of a genuine polo-player. If he’ll do the job, I don’t care what we have to pay him…”

  It was nine years since Noel Keeling had gone to work or Wenborn & Weinburg. Nine years is a long time in the advertising business for a man to stay with the same firm, and from time to time he found himself astonished by his own uninterrupted progress. Others, his own contemporaries, who had started with him, had moved on – to other companies, or even to set up their own agencies. But Noel had stayed.

  The reasons for Noel’s constancy were basically rooted in his personal life. Indeed, after a year or two with the firm, he had considered quite seriously the possibility of leaving. He was restless, unsatisfied, and not even particularly interested in the job. He dreamed of greener fields: setting up on his own, abandoning advertising altogether and moving into property or commodities. With plans for making a million, he knew that it was simply lack of the necessary capital that was holding him back. But he had no capital, and the frustration of lost opportunities and missed chances drove him nearly to distraction.

  And then, four years ago, things had changed dramatically. He was thirty, a bachelor, and still resolutely working his way through a string of girlfriends, with no inkling that this irresponsible state of affairs would not last for ever. But his mother quite suddenly died, and for the first time in his life Noel had found himself a man of some means.

  Her death had been so totally unexpected that for a little while he was shocked into a state where he found it almost impossible to come to terms with the cold fact that she had gone for ever. He had always been fond of her, in a detached and unsentimental manner, but basically he’d thought of her
as his constant source of food, drink, clean clothes, warm beds, and, when he asked for it, moral support. As well, he had respected both her independence of spirit and the fact that she had never interfered, in any way, with Noel’s own adult and private life. At the same time, much of her dotty behaviour had maddened him. Worst was her habit of surrounding herself by the most down-at-heel and needy of hangers-on. Everybody was her friend. She called them all her friends. Noel called them a lot of bloody spongers. She disregarded his cynical attitude, and bereaved spinsters, lonely widows, penniless artists, and unemployed actors were drawn to her side as moths seek a candle flame. Her generosity to all and sundry he had considered both mindless and selfish, for there never seemed to be any money to spare for the things in life that Noel believed to be of primary importance.

  When she died, her will reflected this thoughtless bounty. A hefty bequest was left to a young man…nothing to do with the family…whom she had taken under her sheltering wing, and whom, for some reason, she wished to help.

  For Noel, it was a bitter blow. His feelings — and pocket — deeply hurt, he was consumed by a resentment that was totally impotent. It was no use raging, because she was gone. He could not have it out with her, accuse her of disloyalty and demand to know what the bloody hell she thought she was doing. His mother had moved beyond his reach. He imagined her, safe from his wrath, across some chasm or uncrossable river, surrounded by sunshine, fields, trees, whatever constituted her own personal conception of Heaven. She was probably, in her mild way, laughing at her son, her dark eyes bright with mischievous amusement, unperturbed as always by his demands and reproaches.

  With only his two sisters to make miserable, he turned his back on his family and concentrated instead on the one stable element left in his life — his job. Somewhat to his surprise, and to the astonishment of his superiors, he discovered, just in time, that he was not only interested in advertising but extremely good at it. By the time his mother’s estate was cleared, and his share of the loot was safely deposited in the bank, youthful fantasies of enormous gambles and fast profits had faded for ever. Noel had come to realise that making money with some other person’s hypothetical fortune was actually very different from parting with your own. He felt protective about his bank balance, as though it were a child, and was not about to risk its safety. Instead, in modest fashion, he bought himself a new car and began, tentatively, to put out feelers for some place new to live…

  Life moved on. But youth was over, and it was a difficult life. Gradually Noel came to terms with this and, at the same time, discovered that he was incapable of sustaining his final grievance against his mother. Nourishing useless resentment was far too exhausting. And at the end of the day he had to admit that he hadn’t come out of it all too badly. Besides, he missed her. During the last years he had seen little of her, closeted as she was in the depths of Gloucestershire, but still she was always there — at the end of a telephone, or at the end of a long drive when you felt you couldn’t stand the hot summer streets of London a moment longer. It didn’t matter if you went alone or took half a dozen friends for the weekend. There was always space, a relaxed welcome, delicious food, everything or nothing to do. Fires flickering, fragrant flowers, hot baths; warm comfortable beds, fine wines and easy conversation.

  All gone. The house and garden sold to strangers. The warm smell of her kitchen and the good feeling that somebody else was in charge and you didn’t have to make a single decision. And gone was the only person in the world with whom you never had to put on an act or pretend. Life without her, maddening and capricious as she had been, was like living a life with a ragged hole in the middle of it, and had taken, he recalled wryly, some getting used to.

  He sighed. It all seemed a long time ago. Another world. He had finished his whisky and sat staring out into the darkness. He remembered being four years old and having measles and how the nights of illness had seemed long as a lifetime, each minute lasting an hour, and the dawn an eternity away.

  Now, thirty years later, he watched the dawn. The sky lightened and the sun slid up from beneath the false horizon of cloud, and everything turned pink and the light was dazzling to the eye. He watched the dawn through the aircraft window and was grateful, because it had chased away the night, and now it was the next day and he did not have to try to sleep. Around him, people stirred. The cabin crew came round with orange juice and scalding face towels. He wiped his face and felt the stubble on his chin. Others collected themselves, found wash-bags, went to the lavatory for a shave. Noel stayed where he was. He could shave when he reached home.

  Which three hours later, he did. Weary, dirty, and dishevelled, he clambered out of the taxi and paid the driver off. The morning air was cool, blessedly cool after New York, and it was raining lightly, a dampening drizzle. In Pembroke Gardens the trees were greening the pavements wet. He smelled the freshness and, as the taxi drove away, stood for a moment and thought of spending this day on his own, recovering. Having a nap, taking a long walk. But this was not to be. There was work to be done. The office and his chairman waited. Noel picked up his bag and his briefcase, went down the area steps and opened his own front door.

  It was called a garden flat because, at the back of it, french windows opened out on to a tiny patio, his share of the larger garden of the tall house. In the evening the sun fell upon it, but at this early hour it lay in shadow and the upstairs cat was comfortably ensconced in one of his canvas chairs, having apparently spent the night there.

  It was not a large flat but the rooms were spacious. A living room and a bedroom, a small kitchen and a bathroom. Overnight guests had to sleep on the sofa, a tricky piece of equipment which, if resolutely approached, folded down into a second double bed. Mrs Muspratt, who did for him, had been in while he was away and so all was neat and clean, but airless and stuffy.

  He opened the french windows and chased the cat away. In his bedroom, he unzipped his suitcase and took out his wash-bag. He undressed and dropped his soiled and crumpled clothes on to the floor. In the bathroom he cleaned his teeth, took a scalding shower, shaved. By now he needed, more than anything, black coffee. In his towel robe and barefooted, he padded into the kitchen, filled the kettle and switched it on, spooned coffee into his French coffee-pot. The smell of this was heartening and delicious. While the coffee filtered, he collected his mail, sat at the kitchen table and leafed through the envelopes. Nothing looked too urgent. There was, however, a garish picture postcard of Gibraltar. He turned it over. It had been posted in London and was from the wife of Hugh Pennington, an old school friend of Noel’s, who lived in Chelsea.

  Noel, I’ve been trying to ring you, but no reply. Unless we hear to the contrary, we’ll expect you for dinner the thirteenth. Seven-thirty for eight. No black tie. Love, Delia.

  He sighed. This evening. Unless we hear to the contrary. Oh well, by then he’d probably have got his second wind. And it would be more amusing than watching television. He dropped the postcard on to the table, heaved himself to his feet, and went to pour his coffee.

  Shut in the office, in conference for most of the day, Noel lost track and sight of what was happening out of doors. Finally emerging and driving home through rush-hour traffic that did not rush but moved at the pace of an arthritic snail, he saw that the rain of the morning had been blown away by the breeze and it was a perfect May evening. By now he had reached that state beyond exhaustion when all is light and clear and strangely disembodied, and the prospect of sleep seemed as far away as death. Instead, another shower, a change of clothes, and a drink. And then he would not take his car but walk to Chelsea. The fresh air and exercise would whet his appetite for the excellent meal that he hoped was waiting for him. He could scarcely remember when he had last sat at a table and eaten something that was not a sandwich.

  The walk was a good idea. He went by leafy back-streets, residential terraces, and gardens where magnolias opened and wistaria clung to the faces of expensive London houses. Coming out into
the Brompton Road, he crossed over by the Michelin Building and turned down into Walton Street. Here his steps slowed as he paused to look in at the delectable shop windows, the interior decorators and the art gallery that sold sporting prints, hunting scenes, and oil paintings of faithful Labradors bounding through the snow with pheasants in their mouths. There was a Thorburn that he craved. He stood longer than he intended, simply looking at it. Perhaps tomorrow he would ring the gallery and discover its price. After a little, he walked on.

  By the time he reached Ovington Street, it was twenty-five to eight. The pavements were lined with the cars of the residents, and some older children were riding their bicycles up and down the middle of the road. The Penningtons’ house was halfway down the terrace. As he approached it, a girl came along the pavement towards him. She had with her, on a lead, a small white Highland terrier and was apparently on her way to the post box, for she carried a letter in her hand. He looked at her. She wore jeans and a grey sweatshirt and had hair the colour of the very best sort of marmalade, and she was neither tall nor particularly slender. In fact, not Noel’s type at all. And yet, as she passed him, he gave her a second glance because there was something vaguely familiar about her, and it was difficult to think where they might once have met. Some party, perhaps. The hair was distinctive…

  The walk had tired him and he found himself sorely in need of a drink. With better things to think about, he put the girl out of his mind, went up the steps and gave the bell a token push. He turned the handle to open the door, with a greeting ready and waiting. Hi. Delia, it’s me. I’ve arrived.

  But nothing happened. The door remained firmly closed, which was odd and out of character. Knowing that he was on his way, Delia should surely have left it on the latch. He rang the bell again. And waited.