Jon Cleary - The Beaufort Sisters

‘You’d never need to rape any woman. You’re too good a salesman.’

‘No more flattery. It’s going to my head. Yes, I think I’ll have some more baked custard. I’ll probably get nothing like this out in Abu Sadar. Unless you’ll send me food parcels?’

Lucas smiled, knowing he had won. ‘I’ll see if Sears Roebuck send food parcels.’

Nina came back, face made up, spirit repaired. Before she even sat down she knew that everything had been decided, that her father, this time with the acquiescence of her husband, had claimed her back into the family. She was angry at Tim for his surrender, but her anger at herself was only slightly less. She would be glad to be returning home.

‘I think I’ll have some dessert, after all. No, not baked custard. I’ll have a couple of éclairs. I always over-eat when I’m unhappy. When do you leave for Abu Sadar?’

‘He goes as soon as possible,’ said Lucas. ‘I’ll stay on until you’re ready to leave, then you and Michael can come home with me. The Queen Mary is sailing next week.’

‘How appropriate. Just like old times.’

‘There was nothing wrong with old times.’

‘There is if you persist in trying to hang on to them. I see you’re ready for your coffee. I’ll have a double brandy with mine.’

‘The good life,’ said Tim, trying to salvage something out of the lunch, the past and the future. ‘I thought we had said goodbye to it, but it seems I was wrong.’

It was another two months before Tim and Nina got away to their respective destinations. Lucas, an army of staff always standing by to do his bidding, had little idea what faced a man in a one-man business. The boat-yard could not be disposed of by just walking away from it; over the two months Tim gained an education in the failure of a business if in nothing else. Steve Hamill stayed on till the final winding-up.

He protested in strong terms when Tim said he and Eileen and the two children were to stay on at the hotel in Henley with the Davorens. ‘I can’t fork out that sort of money! I’ll spend the rest of my life paying you back.’

‘It comes out of business expenses. You won’t have to pay it back. No argument, Steve.’

On the last day Tim gave him a cheque for a thousand pounds. It was Nina who insisted that the Hamills be given that much and the money came from her own account. ‘Two years’ wages!’ said Steve. ‘What’s going on? I don’t want charity, mate. I know who Nina is now. The wife did a bit of looking up – she got in touch with the American embassy, they told her who Old Man Beaufort was – ’

‘It’s not charity. It’s a down payment on your first painting that has a thousand pounds price tag on it.’

‘You want your head read. If ever I get more than two hundred and fifty quid for a painting of mine – ’ He looked at the cheque and Tim saw the temptation in his face. ‘Money. It drugs you, doesn’t it?’

The question was too much on target, though he was sure Steve had not meant it to be personal.

They said goodbye to the Hamills and went up to London by train. The Jaguar SS had been disposed of and a property developer had bought the boat-yard site, wreckage and all. They checked into the Savoy again and Nina went shopping while Tim spent a week in the London office of Beaufort Oil. Nights they spent making love.

‘I’ll be worn out by the time I get to Abu Sadar.’

‘That’s the idea.’ He was highly sexed, something that had never troubled her in the past. But now there was just the lurking doubt. ‘Then you won’t be chasing the Arab girls up the date palms.’

‘I’d never think of doing it up a date palm. I’m going to miss you. I don’t mean just this . But you, just being with you.’

She could only answer him with tears, clinging to him as if she were losing him forever. They had not discussed her father; all they talked about was what they would do when the six months’ separation was up. When it came time for them to say goodbye down at Southampton, where Nina was to board the ship for New York, she was surprised at how emotional Tim became when he held Michael for the last time. There were tears in his eyes as he kissed the child.

‘Don’t let your father take him over. He’s our son and that’s what he’s going to stay. He’s not going to be known as Lucas’ grandson. Promise me?’

‘I promise. If he has to have a surrogate father, how about George Biff?’

‘Couldn’t be better. Goodbye, darling heart. Don’t look at any other chaps.’

‘Let’s make love as a final reminder.’

‘Here? I don’t think the sports deck was meant for that sort of sport.’

The ship sailed and Tim went back to London and two days later flew out to the Middle East. He hated the place: the desert, the discomfort, the tightly enclosed living among the small oil community. But he hid his feelings from those he worked with and was popular with them. He became acquainted with some of the American-educated young men and idly wondered if, as Lucas had predicted, they would provide trouble in the future.

He had been there three months when he flew up to Beirut with one of the engineers. The engineer, who had a girl friend, left him to his own devices. He met an English dancer from one of the night clubs, took her home and went to bed with her. In the morning she asked him for fifty pounds.

‘I don’t do it for love, love. When my legs have gone and my bosom’s drooping, I want to live in as much luxury as I can afford. I’m the original whore with a heart of gold. Only I have it in a bank and I keep adding to it every week.’

He handed her the money. ‘That’s penance, not payment.’

She kissed him. ‘You married men. Your conscience stands up as your cock goes down. Shall I see you again?’

‘I think not. Take care of your bullion.’

He went back to Abu Sadar, wondering how many people in Kansas City would think of him as a male whore when he went back there.

Nina had arrived home with mixed feelings that stayed with her like a dull fever for a month after her return. She missed Tim and she hated her father for what he had done to them. But she welcomed the security and warmth of being back home with her sisters.

‘How’s your love life?’ she asked Margaret.

‘She’s going out with an ancient man.’ Prue was now seven, bright and observant; she still had the innocence of childhood but was looking forward to losing it. ‘He’s a professor.’

‘He’s not a full professor and he’s only twenty-eight, for God’s sake.’ Margaret, trying to please her father, had elected to go to the University of Missouri instead of Vassar; but Lucas, disappointing her again, had taken her decision for granted. ‘He’s teaching me politics.’

‘Hah-hah,’ said Sally, who was beginning to show some of the beauty of her older sisters. She was still a tomboy, still mad about cars, but Nina noticed that when a boy called on Saturday evening to take her out she was as feminine as any of them. She had begun to learn that boys didn’t like kissing a grease-stained cheek, no matter how mechanical-minded they were. ‘That Frank Minett is more interested in Daddy than he is in you.’

‘What about you? Who’s your regular boy-friend?’

‘She’s got dozens,’ said Prue, the gossip columnist. ‘She goes out with anyone who’s got a sports car. She’s going to get into trouble some day, that’s what I heard Daddy tell Mother.’

‘Not in a sports car,’ said Nina, winking at Margaret and Sally. ‘Where does this child get her education?’

‘Reading books. She reads everything she can find. She brought home Forever Amber the other day from school. God knows where she got it.’