The psychology of middle-aged women was something he understood much more profoundly. He took Ellen Hamilton's hand with just a hint of a bow, and saw a twinkle in her eye. That, and the fact that her husband was gross while she remained beautiful, was enough to tell him that she would respond to flirtation. A woman like her was sure to spend a great deal of time wondering whether she could still excite a man's lust. She might also be wondering whether she would ever know sexual pleasure again.
Laski proceeded to play the European charmer like an outrageous old ham. He fetched chairs for her, summoned waiters to top up her glass, and touched her discreetly but frequently: her hand, her arm, her shoulders, her hip. There was no point in subtlety, he felt: if she wanted to be seduced, he might as well give the message of his availability as clearly as possible; and if she did not want to be seduced, nothing he could do would change her mind.
When she had finished her strawberries-he ate none: to refuse mouthwatering food was a mark of class-he began to guide her away from the house. They moved from group to group, lingering where the conversation interested them, passing on quickly from social gossip. She introduced him to several people, and he was able to introduce her to two stockbrokers he knew slightly. They watched the children splashing around, and Laski said in her ear: "Did you bring your bikini?" She giggled. They sat in the shade of a mature oak and looked at the tennis players, who were boringly professional. They walked along a gravel path which wound through a small landscaped wood; and when they were out of sight, he took her face in his hands and kissed her. She opened her mouth to him, and ran her hands up inside his jacket, and dug her fingers into his chest with a force that surprised him; then she pulled away and looked furtively up and down the path.
Quickly he said: "Have dinner with me? Soon?"
"Soon," she said.
Then they walked back to the party and split up. She left without saying good-bye to him. The next day he took a suite at a hotel in Park Lane, and there he gave her dinner and champagne; then he took her to bed. It was in the bedroom that he discovered how wrong he had been about her. He expected her to be hungry, but easily satisfied. Instead, he found that her sexual tastes were at least as bizarre as his own. Over the next few weeks they did everything that two people can do to one another, and when they ran out of ideas Laski made a phone call and another woman arrived to open up a whole new series of permutations. Ellen did everything with the delighted thoroughness of a child in a fairground where all the rides are suddenly free.
He looked at her, sitting beside him on the couch in his office, as he remembered; and he felt suffused with a sentiment which he thought people would probably call love.
He said to her: "What do you like about me?"
"What an egocentric question!"
"I told you what I like about you. Come on, satisfy my ego. What is it?"
She looked down at his lap. "I give you three guesses."
He laughed. "Would you like coffee?"
"No, thank you. I'm going shopping. I just came in for a quick feel."
"You're a shameless old baggage."
"What a funny thing to say."
"How is Derek?"
"Another funny thing to say. He's depressed. Why do you ask?"
Laski shrugged. "The man interests me. How could he possess a prize like Ellen Hamilton, then let her slip through his fingers?"
She looked away. "Talk about something else."
"All right. Are you happy?"
She smiled again. "Yes. I only hope it will last."
"Why shouldn't it?" he said lightly.
"I don't know. I meet you, and I fuck like… like…"
"Like a bunny."
"What?"
"Fuck like a bunny. This is the correct English expression."
She opened her mouth and laughed. "You old fool. I love you when you're being all Prussian and correct. I know you only do it to amuse me."
"So: we meet, and we fuck like bunnies, and you don't think it can last."
"You can't deny the whole thing has an air of impermanence."
"Would you have it otherwise?" he asked carefully.
"I don't know."
It was the only answer she could give, he realized.
She added: "Would you?"
He chose his words. "This is the first time I have had occasion to reflect upon the permanence or otherwise of our relationship."
"Stop talking like the Chairman's Annual Report."
"If you will stop talking like the heroine of a romantic novelette. Speaking of Chairmen's Reports, I suppose that is what Derek is depressed about."
"Yes. He thinks it's his ulcer that makes him feel bad, but I know better."
"Would he sell the company, do you think?"
"I wish he would." She looked at Laski sharply. "Would you buy it?"
"I might."
She stared at him for a long moment. He knew that she was evaluating what he had said, weighing possibilities, considering his motives. She was a clever woman.
She decided to let it pass. "I must go," she said. "I want to be home for lunch,"
They stood up. He kissed her mouth, and ran his hands all over her body with sensual familiarity. She put a finger into his mouth, and he sucked it.
"Good-bye," she said.
"I'll call you," Laski told her.
Then she was gone. Laski went to the bookcase and stared unseeingly at the spine of The Directory of Directors. She had said, I only hope it can last, and he needed to think about that. She had a way of saying things that made him think. She was a subtle woman. What did she want, then-marriage? She had said she did not know what she wanted, and although she could hardly have said anything else, he had a feeling she was sincere. So, what do I want? he thought. Do I want to marry her?
He sat down behind his desk. He had a lot to do. He pressed the intercom and spoke to Carol. "Ring the Department of Energy for me, and find out exactly when-I mean what time-they plan to announce the name of the company that won the license for the Shield oil field."
"Certainly," she said.
"Then ring Fett and Co. for me. I want Nathaniel Fett, the boss."
"Right."
He flipped the switch up. He thought again: do I want to marry Ellen Hamilton?
Suddenly he knew the answer, and it astonished him.
TEN A.M.
13
The editor of the Evening Post was under the illusion that he belonged to the ruling class. The son of a railway clerk, he had climbed the social ladder very fast in the twenty years since he left school. When he needed reassurance, he would remind himself that he was a director of Evening Post Ltd., and an opinion former, and that his income placed him in the top nine percent of heads of households. It did not occur to him that he would never have become an opinion former were it not that his opinions coincided exactly with those of the newspaper's proprietor; nor that his directorship was in the proprietor's gift; nor that the ruling class is defined by wealth, rather than income. And he had no idea that his ready-to-wear suit by Cardin, his shaky plum-in-the-mouth accent, and his four-bedroom executive home in Chislehurst marked him plainly, in the jaundiced eyes of cynics like Arthur Cole, as a poor boy made good: more plainly than if he had worn a cloth cap and cycle clips.