“A lot of things.” He lifted the hat from her head, tossed it on to a chair. And I’ve only got fifteen minutes to shower and change, and order drinks from the bar, he thought in sudden frustration.
“Don’t you like it?”
“It gets in the way.” He bent down and planted a kiss on top of her soft smooth hair. She raised her face, still flushed and pink from her perfumed hot bath, to offer him a proper kiss on her lips. She smelled delicious, damn it. “I’ll take a two-minute shower. Would you get out my blue shirt and red tie, honey?” He was on his way to the bathroom, pulling off his clothes as he went. “And you’d better start dressing, Thea.”
“But Chuck won’t be here till seven thiry. There’s plenty of time.”
“Not as much as you think. Tony Lawton is coming up for a drink. Brad Gillon, too.”
“When?” she called in alarm, rising from the dressing-table and going into quick motion. First the shirt and tie. Tom was already in the shower, her question drowned out in a flood of water. She began pulling on panty-hose and bra. Gillon she knew well, an old friend of Tom’s, once attached to the State Department but now out of Washington and into New York publishing. Tony Lawton? She started creaming and powdering. Yes, she remembered, she had met him once before—on a quick Washington visit—English—lived in London when he wasn’t travelling around—another of Tom’s friends from abroad. Some eyebrow-pencil, lipstick, hair combed into place. She was almost ready for her little black dress, in fashion again like the hat she had bought on impulse at the end of a hard day’s shopping. Saturday wasn’t her choice, exactly, to find Christmas presents, but that was the way Tom’s schedule had been arranged, and so—she shrugged her shoulders. Tom was out of the bathroom, rubbing his hair dry. “When are they due?” she asked, dress in hand.
“At six thiry, dammit.”
“Oh, heavens!” She began stepping into her dress.
“It’s always the way—” He stopped combing his hair. “I’m getting an awful lot of grey at the sides,” he said worriedly, looking into the mirror.
“It suits you, darling.” She took a minute off dressing, and studied him. At forty-two, he was a healthy specimen: muscles firm, waistline still trim (he brooded about it, kept swearing off second helpings and desserts, but that was a vanity he shared with a million other men), dark hair plentiful even if greying at the temples, dark eyes watching her with a smile as he studied her in turn.
“Come on, blondie,” he said, “get that dress on, however much it spoils the view. Old Brad would lose the sight of his good eye if he were to see you like that.”
“Oh, Tom!” Her even eyebrows were raised, black eyelashes flickered, pink lips parted into a gentle protest.
“Yes, it’s always the way,” Tom said again, pulling on his own clothes. He had been delighted today when Tony Lawton had called him at the office, suggesting a drink this evening—and would Tom invite Brad Gillon, too? “Why didn’t I say seven o’clock?”
“Because Chuck is coming at seven thiry. You’d never have time for any of that old-boys-together talk.”
“Better order the drinks,” Tom reminded himself, moving quickly to the telephone.
“How did your day go?”
“Not too bad.” Tom waited for bar-service to answer, speculating again why Lawton had been so eager to arrange a meeting here this evening with Gillon, rather than going straight to Gillon himself. Tony’s wiles always amused Tom: they gave him good copy too, although they weren’t always immediately publishable. “Not too bad at all. I was well briefed. I’ll know where to start digging for information in Paris, get the French points-of-view about the Brussels meeting next month. They’ve got a kind of—” He broke off to tell bar-service that he needed Scotch, bourbon, spring water, soda and plenty of ice. Pronto.
“A kind of what?” Dorothea asked as he left the ’phone.
“We-are-with-you-but-not-of-you complex. Tricky to evaluate. It could mean more than we think, or less than we hope.” The French, dissociated since de Gaulle from NATO’s military problems, would attend only the diplomatic and economic sessions of the Brussels meeting, but they still held definite opinions about European defence.
“So,” she said slowly, “you’ll be covering the NATO meeting on December twelfth.” She was still hoping that he wouldn’t have to return so soon to Europe. With this Paris visit, he would miss Thanksgiving at home. He might miss Christmas with his trip to Brussels. “It’s all definite?”
“Definite,” he said, and hoped there would be no more argument about that. “I’ll be back before Christmas. All the NATO meetings will be over well before then.”
But, she wondered, will your business be over, my sweet? Emergencies could stretch an assignment, as she well knew. She ought to be grateful, she reflected, that Tom wasn’t staying on for extra weeks in Paris while he waited for the Brussels meetings to begin—a lot of men would have done just that.
“You look like a girl who needs help with a zipper,” said Tom, and fixed her dress. “Perfect,” he decided, swinging her round to look at the total effect, and it was no diplomatic lie. He kissed her gently.
“So are you. I like that dark red tie.”
“Matches my eyes,” he told her, and let her go, to hurry into the sitting-room as a waiter arrived with the tray of drinks. He heard her laugh. But his eyes were tired, he had to admit. As well as listening today, there had been a lot of reading and note-taking; and a head now filled with a collection of odd facts that kept swimming around. All he wanted was a relaxed evening, a pleasant dinner, and early to bed with his beautiful blonde. “Any message from Chuck?” he called to her.
“Not so far.” Dorothea was selecting the right earrings. Tom’s voice had sharpened. She could imagine the frown on his face. “Chuck will be here. Even if he didn’t get my message, he’ll turn up.”
And there came the old twinge of guilt, whenever she mentioned Chuck: her fault, probably, that he had drifted away from Tom in these last five years. Before her day, they had enjoyed a fairly comfortable set-up from Chuck’s point of view. Until she had entered the scene. Then, he had left Washington behind him for a job at Shandon House and a life of his own in New York.
About time, too, she had believed: Chuck, except for college and army service, had been on Tom’s back since he was eight and Tom eighteen. At that ripe age, Tom had become father and mother combined, and found a cub-reporter’s job to pay the bills (their parents’ life insurance could scarcely meet the rent of the New York apartment). As soon as Chuck was safely into college, Tom seized the chance to be a war correspondent in Korea. With that over, he was back at the dutiful-brother bit, seeing Chuck through a youthful and disastrous marriage, remaining a bachelor himself—partly because he was into international politics and the new excitement of travel, partly because there was his move to Washington, but mostly because being a bachelor had become a habit hard to break. (After all, if the boy of eighteen was loaded down with family responsibilities, the man he became had already had enough of them for a while.)
And then Tom and she had met.
In a television studio. (She was arranging interviews on the Bud Wells Talk Talk Talk Show, and Tom was one of the victims that day.) Ten minutes, no more than that, ten minutes together, and there it was, bingo. “The hard-case bachelor of thirty-seven, the career girl of twenty-six—goodbye to all set plans and determined ideas; hello to a future of whatever it took to make it work.
She smiled at the memory, and carefully fastened her earrings into place. They dangled brightly. The rope of mock pearls was discarded. Enough was enough. Looking critically at her image in the mirror, she wondered what kind of woman Chuck had imagined for a suitable sister-in-law: plump and speechless, or grey-haired and motherly? He resented her; she could feel it, although he hid it well. Just as she resented the way Tom still worried about him. But one rule she had made right from the beginning: never criticise Chuck, that delightful, brilliant, and forgetful young man.
Why didn’t he call? Tom hadn’t seen him in almost two months. And it hurt Tom: of course it must.
Dorothea went into the sitting-room. “You know, darling, he may never have got my message.”
“Chuck? You worry too much, my pet.” Tom’s voice was carefully casual.
Do I? she wondered. Then she smiled in relief as the telephone rang. But it wasn’t Chuck. It was the desk-clerk announcing Mr. Bradford Gillon.
Brad connected in her mind with another thought. “He is going to publish your book, isn’t he?”
“Hasn’t backed out so far.”
“If only you could get some time to yourself and finish it. Just six months—”
“Would you settle for three?” He was laughing at the surprise he had given her. “Meant to keep the news for dinner, but you really coax things out of a man. You’d be a good reporter.”
“Oh, Tom—did the Times tell you today, actually promise—?”
“They’ll consider a three months’ leave.” He caught her, held her close. “But that will depend on how the world news breaks,” he added to keep their excitement in check.
“Oh, Tom—” she said again, her arms flung around his shoulders. “I’ve got plans too. I’m taking a year off. Oh, I know, I may never get that job back again, but—”
“A year?” He looked at her quickly.
“Two, if necessary. There’s more to life than having my name painted on my office door. Besides, I saw Dr. Travis first thing this morning. She says I’m in great shape now. No further risks. She sounded definite about that. Everything’s fine. All systems go.”
“Thea—”
A quiet knock sounded on the door. Tom released her and went to answer it. “Hello, Brad. Isn’t Tony coming?”
“Sure. I saw him circling around the lobby.” Brad’s usually serious face was showing definite amusement. “He’ll be arriving by himself any minute.”
“By the stairs?” Tom asked with a grin. He left the door ajar.
Brad was now wholly absorbed with Dorothea. “You look wonderful.” He gave her a brotherly hug and a warm kiss on the cheek.
“So do you.” A little heavy, perhaps, but he was a tall big-boned man, so he carried his weight well. Strong features, hawk nose, heavy eyebrows, almost sombre in repose. White hair waving back from a large brow—plenty of brains inside that massive head. Gentle eyes, blue and quietly observant. “How is Mona?” Dorothea asked, minding her manners.
“Just recovering from her third attack of ’flu this fall.”
“It’s a hint to make you take her to Florida sunshine for ten days.”
“Wish I could. Haven’t had a week off the chain since last Christmas.”
Recently he had been in France and Germany, Dorothea remembered, to discover some new authors and round up a belated manuscript or two. (Brad had reverted to his early interest in French and German literature—he had a degree from Harvard, way back in the early 1940s—which provided a pleasant niche for him in the publishing field.) “Why not take Mona with you on your next trip abroad?”
“Children,” said Brad briefly. As a man of fifty-two who had married young, he now had all the problems of two divorced daughters and four grandchildren. “Why people can’t stay married!” He shook his head. It seemed to him that after bringing up two strong-minded females, it was a bit much to have their offspring dumped on Mona. “Never own a house with five bedrooms,” he said. “Should have got rid of it years ago.”
“Well,” said Tom, pouring bourbon for Brad and Scotch for Thea and himself, “when home becomes unbearable there’s always the office.”
“Is Brad long-suffering, again?” Tony Lawton asked, as he stepped into the room and closed the door firmly. His voice and smile were amiable, and they all responded with a laugh, even a small one from Brad, who knew his own weaknesses better than most men. “Don’t you believe him. He’s addicted to work. Take that away, and he’d really be miserable.”
“Overwork was never your complaint, Tony,” Brad reminded him. But the indirect compliment pleased him.
“Wouldn’t dream of allowing it to interfere with my pleasures. Yes, I’ll have bourbon, Tom. And how are you, old boy? Mrs. Kelso—” Tony turned all his easy charm on her, and it was considerable—“how very nice it is to see you again. Or don’t you remember me?”
He wasn’t a particularly memorable man: nondescript features; brownish hair; grey eyes level with hers; no more than five foot seven. Age? Late thirties, early forties? His voice was attractive. He was dressed in grey, the suit well cut; his tie was subdued, his shoes gleaming. Clothes definitely made the man in this case, Dorothea decided: without that cut of suit and those polished shoes, she never would have identified him so quickly. Unless, of course, he retained that warm smile and gentle humour in his talk. “I remember,” she said. “The wine-merchant who likes to drink bourbon and branch-water.”
“Split personality,” Tony agreed, and didn’t even flinch at “wine-merchant.” He rather liked that description of his wine-shipping firm, headquarters in London, branches all around the world.
“It’s safer drinking bourbon than Bordeaux nowadays,” Brad suggested, and that launched Tony into a hilarious version of the “Winegate” scandal in France. He had just come from there, seemingly. He does get around, thought Dorothea, and sat quietly watching the three men absorbed in one another. The talk was veering from French wine to French politics, then over to Algiers (wine as the lead-in to politics again) and next to Italy (Chianti troubles and—yes, there it was once more—political problems). It wasn’t that the men had forgotten about her: there were smiles in her direction to keep her in touch, as it were. And she was fascinated. Free-flowing conversation like this seemed to bring out each man’s character. Tom was the journalist, pouncing on a statement, questioning. Brad still retained much of his reserved and thoughtful State Department manner—everything weighed, and often found wanting. And Tony, eyes now alert and interested, tongue quick and explicit, must be a most capable business-man. In some ways, a strange trio; but friends, most definitely. She had a sudden vision of getting all three of them on to the Bud Wells talk show—they’d take it over. That would really freeze Bud’s platitudes into astonished silence. She laughed. They stopped discussing Yugoslavia after Tito’s death, and looked at her in surprise.
The telephone rang. Saved by the bell, she thought as Tom went to answer the call and attention switched away from her. Gentlemen don’t listen to other gentlemen’s phone-calls, she reminded herself, amused now by the low-voiced conversation that Brad and Tony had begun. But I’m no gentleman. It was Chuck on the ’phone. She could tell from Tom’s face as he listened. Her heart sank.
Tom stopped beside her chair. “He forgot all about this evening,” he said quietly, and managed a smile.
“Did he actually say—” she began, indignation showing in spite of all her resolutions.
“No, no. Pressure of work. He’s dropping in here for a quick drink. Needs to borrow my typewriter.”
“I’ll get it ready for him.” The portable’s travelling-case was in the bedroom closet with Tom’s bags. She left Tom explaining his brother’s visit, and when she came back they were on the topic of Shandon House—old Simon’s brainchild, Tony called it. Simon Shandon would have been astonished to see how big it had become.
“Not in numbers,” said Brad. “They’ve held that down. But in impact—yes. Your brother must be a whiz-kid, Tom, to get in there.”
“He’s got most of the family brains.”
Not true, not true, Dorothea thought in quick defence; but she let Tom have his moment of modesty. Damn it all, why did he always downgrade himself with Chuck? A long-standing habit, meant to encourage the young and bolster their confidence?
“What is Shandon going to do with its new property?” Tony asked. “Expand into Europe?”
I’m at sea again, thought Dorothea: what new property?
Brad noted her expression, began to explain. Simo
n Shandon’s widow had never liked New Jersey, never even liked living in America. She preferred their villa on the Riviera. So, under the terms of old Simon’s will, that was what she had been left—the villa, and a yearly allowance for the extent of her lifetime. When she died—no children, no near relatives to complicate Simon’s wishes—the Riviera estate would become the property of Shandon House. She had obliged them by dying three weeks ago at the age of ninety-two, still fuming against her husband’s will and all the wealth he had invested in New Jersey.
“Probably that’s why she stayed alive so long—out of sheer pique,” Tony said. “So now Shandon has a place near Menton. How very snazzy! Will it be a Rest and Recreation centre for tired intellects?”
“They could treat it in the way Harvard dealt with the Berenson villa near Florence,” said Brad.
“A sort of Shandon-By-The-Sea?”
“Without computers. Just a gathering of brains, American and European, setting themselves problems to solve. A series of evening seminars after a day of solitary meditation.” Brad’s smile widened.
Tony said, “Each man with a private office and his feet up on his desk, thinking great thoughts as he stares out at the blue Mediterranean? It’s a marvellous racket, this Institute business. Cosy little set-up, and tax-free.”
“They do justify their existence,” Tom reminded him.
“Every now and again. But—” Tony sighed—“it can be a dangerous situation, too. Get it under political control, and where will we all be? Listening to advice that will leave us more bewildered than ever.” He smiled for Dorothea. “I bewilder very easily,” he told her. She wondered about that.