For if Julius was no longer with Nell, why had he not at least contacted her? The last time they’d spoken, which was not more than a very few weeks ago, he had told her he had to see her, had to talk to her, that he could not stop thinking about her and she had put the phone down on him. How could he not therefore, now that he was free, at least have told her?
It hurt so much she could scarcely breathe; she sat down on the bed, her arms folded across her stomach, rocking backwards and forwards. How was she to bear it, this new betrayal, this fresh rejection?
There was a knock on the door – it was her mother, was she all right?
And she said, ‘I’m all right. Well, not really, I’ve just been sick. Sorry, Mummy, I’m going to have to go to bed, you get back to your party.’ Then she crawled into bed, pulled the eiderdown over her head and cried until the last guest had gone and the house was quiet again, and when her mother came up again to see how she was, she pretended to be asleep.
‘Look,’ said Freddie, ‘I’m sorry to hassle you, but we need to make a decision soon. Very soon. By the end of this weekend, actually. Ottilie’s on the phone to me hourly.’
‘Freddie!’
They were having tea in the Soda Fountain at Fortnum’s; it was very crowded, and half the customers were Freddie’s compatriots. Diana, who had loved the American accent at first, wondered how she would feel about living with it twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Freddie’s was all right, but then he was from the East Coast and a good family (which in America meant rich). But the Southern drawl, or worse the Midwestern roll, drove her mad.
‘All right. She rings me daily. No, honestly, more than that, twice daily.’
‘Well – gives her something to do,’ said Diana.
‘Diana! That wasn’t worthy of you. We’re talking serious business here.’
‘Sorry. I don’t know. I do want to go, it’d be heaven working with you all the time, we can do such amazing things –’
‘I know. Did I tell you about my Schwarz idea?’
‘No’
‘F.A.O. Schwarz, that hugely famous toy shop at the top of Fifth. I thought we could do a shot in all the major departments, with you dressed to match. So something floaty and Ginger and Fred-ish on the piano floor and we’ll have a Fred for you to dance with; sharpest suit we can find for the Lego room; something v v sporty for the lifesize animals, I thought you could actually sit on one of the giraffes –’
‘Oh, Freddie.’ Diana set down her teacup, her face dreamy. Thinking about working with Freddie particularly, but really, simply work, creating photographs, always excited her, focused her mind. ‘Maybe a picnic with the teddy bears, so a country afternoon dress, shirtwaister, I should think.’
‘Marvellous. But I can’t get them all worked up till you’ve made up your mind properly.’
‘Miss Dickens and Ottilie worked up! I don’t think so. I never saw a cooler pair in my life.’
‘Not so sure. Remember them looking at the transparencies. Miss Dickens practically having an orgasm.’
‘She wouldn’t know an orgasm if she got hit in the eye with one.’
‘Now there’s an interesting thought. Flying orgasms. Like it.’
‘Well, look, I’ll let you know definitely on Monday. I mean, I’m sure I will come but –’
‘But what?’
‘Oh, nothing.’
‘You’ve got your silly face on – you in love?’
‘Of course not. No! No, I’m not –’
But she was.
‘OK. Nearly there. Diana, wake up, you’re not being very amusing.’
‘Sorry. You shouldn’t keep me awake all night. This is an amazing car. So comfortable.’
‘It’s been called many things, but not comfortable. Not sure the designers would approve.’
‘Well, it’s beautiful too, of course. I love it.’
She leaned back in her seat and smiled at Leo. It was hard to believe she could love anyone like this. She realised now she had never known love before. Ned had been a crush; Johnathan, at best, a fondness; Tom – well, who would believe her, but what he had been, and always would be, she hoped, was a friend, an odd, often awkward, truthful friend, the sex a very nice by-product. She was quite fond of Freddie, but she didn’t love him. She hadn’t loved any of them, hadn’t been invaded by them, not found her entire being possessed by them, heart, head, soul, self. Taken, shaken, shocked: seeing differently, thinking differently; made to laugh, to cry, to fear, to hope; to be changed, absolutely, and yet to feel more herself than she had ever been.
How could she have suspected for one moment as she walked into that restaurant, her knees weakening, that this man, a journalist, for God’s sake, and not even a respected kind of journalist, not a war correspondent, an arts critic, an essayist, a political pundit, but a gossip columnist; a lightweight, flighty creature, spinning and weaving gossip and scandal. This was what he did, all day and much of the night, this man she loved. But then she thought what was she, her career, but flighty and lightweight herself, so what could be more appropriate?
And he said he loved her. ‘I have seldom said that,’ he said, looking at her almost in awe one night, in bed, and she was consumed with jealousy, asking, demanding to know, to whom he had said it and why. ‘No point in telling you, you’ll be angry or upset, or both, and what does it matter, I love you now, more than I can ever remember loving anyone,’ he’d said.
It was crazy really, it was only a week since that shining, dazzling Saturday, when they had gone to bed at lunchtime and not got up till morning when he had had to go to work, and returned a few hours later with champagne, a pot of caviar, and a bouquet of white roses so huge she could hardly see him behind it. And every night, and as much of every day as he could spare, they spent together, talking, laughing, she sometimes crying, he sometimes sad, telling stories, laying out their lives thus far for one another.
Diana told him everything. Her passion for Ned, her marriage on the rebound, her misery in Yorkshire, her adoration of Jamie, her hatred of her mother-in-law. She didn’t tell him of her affair with Tom, for it was not her secret to tell, but she did tell him of her fling with Freddie, even of the baby, the lost baby, and what Johnathan had done.
‘That is truly terrible behaviour,’ said Leo, shocked for the first time.
‘I know,’ she said, ‘but I did some terrible things to him, and besides, he’s quite nice to me now he’s happy with his plain, plump wife.’
Leo laughed. ‘I love your malicious little asides.’
He talked too: of his disastrous schooling, of his tough war – first in Italy, then France. ‘I did D-Day, the horrors will never leave me.’ Of his first wife: ‘She was only nineteen, madness it was, but so beautiful, I only love beautiful women –’ he paused and kissed her – ‘and I liked the idea of taking her virginity, of teaching her pleasure, it satisfied my vanity. But I was unfaithful to her in our first year, left her in the second – she had a lover of her own by then, a charming chap, professional soldier in the Hussars.’ And then of Baba, and all the women before and after.
They drove up to the visitors’ car park at Headleigh House, where Leo’s brother was working.
A rather snooty girl said they might find him in the studio.