An Excellent Wife?. CHARLOTTE LAMB
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back down the long tunnel of those years, he couldn’t remember what he would have liked to do instead. Drive a train, maybe? Or be an explorer? He certainly had not wanted to work in a bank. It was his destiny, his father had told him. Doom would have been a more accurate word.
When his father died, four years ago, James’s first act as managing director and chairman had been to begin making changes to the structure of the bank in an effort to create a more pleasant working environment for the staff and customers. The work had cost millions, but every time he looked around the light-filled reception area, the glass and greenery, he was satisfied that it had been well worth it.
The dark and gloomy building he remembered from his childhood had been buried for ever in his memory.
He hurried out through the revolving doors and across the pavement to where his chauffeur was holding open the door of the white Daimler. James shot into the back and gave a sigh of relief as Barny closed the door on him and walked round to get behind the wheel.
‘Lock the doors!’ James ordered, and with a glance of surprise Barny obeyed.
‘Something wrong, Mr James?’
‘No, just taking precautions,’ James enigmatically said, deciding not to mention Patience Kirby’s visit.
A man in his mid-fifties, with iron-grey hair sliding back from his forehead, leaving his scalp shiny and smooth, Barny King had been working for the Ormond family for years. He had driven James to boarding school, aged ten, with a set, pale face and very cold hands, had ferried him and all his luggage to Cambridge when he went off to university, trying to look thirty when he was actually only eighteen, and he had driven old Mr Ormond back and forth to the City from the exquisite house in Regent’s Park, where Barny and his wife had a private apartment over the garage.
Barny and Enid were an important part of James’s life, as important to him as Miss Roper but even closer because they had known him as a child and been kind to him when he needed kindness, comforting when he was lonely. When he remembered his childhood from the age of ten he remembered Barny and Enid, rarely his father. They had almost been parents to him; he had happy memories of sitting in the kitchen with them eating buttered crumpets and home-made jam sandwiches, neither of which were permitted on the table if he ate with his father.
James stared out of the window as they drove off. Patience Kirby must have given up and gone away. He suddenly remembered those tiny, soft warm hands clutching at him and felt a strange stab of undefined feeling in his chest.
Angry with himself, he frowned, pushed the memory of her away, got the financial report out of his briefcase and began skimming it through again. He wanted all the details fresh in his mind when he met Charles.
Traffic along Piccadilly was as heavy as usual, but Barny fought his way through to drop James at the side entrance of the Ritz.
‘I’ll ring for you in a couple of hours,’ James told him, getting out.
He found Charles in the Palm Court, drinking a champagne cocktail. Waving cheerfully, Charles summoned the waiter to bring another for James.
‘Lovely day, isn’t it?’
James looked blank. ‘Is it? I hadn’t noticed.’
Charles roared with laughter. ‘All work and no play, Jimmy.’
He had always called him Jimmy, indifferent to the fact that James hated it. James sipped his cocktail and studied the menu, choosing in the end to have rocket and anchovy salad sprinkled with grated parmesan followed by a Dover sole with asparagus and new potatoes.
‘Grilled, served off the bone,’ he instructed, and the head waiter nodded.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Sometimes I get déjà vu, lunching with you, Jimmy,’ Charles said. ‘You’re the image of your old dad. Time whizzes back for me, listening to you.’
‘I’m flattered,’ James said, knowing Charles had not intended to flatter him, was being sarcastic. ‘I was very attached to my father.’
Charles made a face. ‘Really? I hated mine. Never stopped lecturing me, tedious old Victorian of a chap.’
They ate in the beautiful dining room looking over Green Park. Their table was in a comer by the windows, which were slightly open to let mild spring air into the room, setting the gilded metal chains on the elaborately painted ceiling swinging and tinkling softly.
They talked business throughout the meal, but occasionally James looked out into the park at the daffodils, golden and swaying, under the trees which were just breaking into tiny, bright green leaf.
Noticing his occasional abstraction, Charles grinned at him. ‘How’s Fiona, Jimmy?’
How James hated that nickname, but he suppressed a shudder. ‘She’s fine, thanks.’
‘Ravishing girl, you lucky boy! I’d swap places with you any day. You’ve been seeing her for months, haven’t you? We going to hear the ringing of wedding bells before long?’
James gave him a cool look. Charles was not that close a friend and James had no intention of discussing Fiona or his personal life with him.
When he didn’t answer, Charles said cynically, ‘In no hurry to tie yourself down, eh? I wish I’d been as wise as you. Well, I’ve learnt my lesson now. No more marriages for me. In future I’ll just have affairs.’
In his early fifties, elegant, willowy, always smoothly tailored, with silvering at his temples among the smooth raven-black hair, Charles had been married four times so far and was currently in the middle of his latest divorce from a much younger woman, a ravishing TV star with her own series.
Coming home late after a business dinner, Charles had caught her in bed with her co-star. He might not have minded so much if it had not been the matrimonial bed, his own bed in his own bedroom, and if the other man had not been her age and something of a sexual athlete.
The divorce was to have been discreet, on grounds of breakdown of the marriage. Charles had not wanted the whole world to know his wife had been cheating on him with a much younger man. But his wife had not been so silent; she had given exclusive interviews to several daily newspapers and Charles had had the chagrin of reading intimate details of his sex life printed for everyone to see.
As they began to eat, James produced the report he had spent the morning studying and asked a series of shrewd questions. Charles might be a fool where women were concerned but he had a good business mind and was able to tell James everything he needed to know.
The bottle of good white wine they were drinking had vanished long before they finished their main course, but James had consumed very little of it. He disliked drinking too much over lunch; it always meant you got very little done during the rest of the day.
He refused a pudding, ordering a pot of coffee; Charles, however, asked for spotted dick with custard and ate it when it came with half-closed, delighted eyes.
‘Delicious, just like school pud. You should have had some.’
‘I never eat puddings, especially heavy ones.’
‘Puritan! Your problem is you were never taught to enjoy life. That gloomy old father of yours had a very bad influence on you.’
James could have said that his father had taught him not to keep marrying women who cost a fortune and were always unfaithful, not to drink like a fish and wake up late every morning with a hangover, and not to spend his days hanging around bars and going to wild parties. But where was the point in offending Charles by telling him the truth?
He looked at his watch. ‘Sorry, Charles, I have to rush off. I have an appointment at three. Thanks for all your help.’ He pulled his mobile out of his briefcase and called Barny, told him to come at once, then called the waiter over, asked for the bill, signed it, dropped a tip on the plate and stood up.
‘I think I’ll have a little brandy before I go,’ Charles said,