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‘And you think I’m so hard up that I need to marry money. Thanks!’
‘Money should marry money. It doesn’t pay to spread it around too thin.’
‘Gracie, darling—’
‘And don’t call me, Gracie. It’s vulgar.’
‘We are vulgar. You talk as though we were heirs to an ancestral fortune, but Grandpa Nick made just enough to get by. Dad worked himself into the grave to make more than he needed, and, heaven help me, I’m going the same way. I’ll swear I’m getting grey hairs.’
‘Where?’
‘Here at the side. Can you see?’
‘No, I can’t,’ she said, giving me the fond smile that reminded me that I did actually like her a lot. ‘You’re too handsome for your own good, and you know it.’
‘I’m still going grey from the treadmill I’m on. If I knew a way to jump off it I would, but I won’t manage that by marrying Selina Janson.’
‘I didn’t mean to make too much of her money,’ Grace said in a relenting tone. ‘It’s simply that she has all the right qualities.’
With difficulty I refrained from tearing my hair.
‘No, Grace, she has only one of the right qualities, and that’s the fact that I have nothing against her. It needs a lot more than that.’
She eyed me suspiciously.
‘You haven’t become entangled with some floozie, have you?’
‘Why floozie?’ I growled. ‘I might have met a nice girl.’
‘Then I’d know about her. Who is she?’
I was about to say that she didn’t exist when some instinct for self-preservation stopped me.
‘I don’t think I ought to tell you any more just now,’ I said, choosing my words carefully. ‘I don’t want you investigating her to find out if she’s “suitable”.’
‘Meaning that she isn’t?’
‘She’s suitable for me,’ I said.
I accompanied the words with a smile which was meant to be knowing, but I had a horrible feeling I just looked foolish. I don’t think Grace noticed. She was seething at my mad dash for independence.
‘Surely you can tell me something about her?’ she demanded. ‘What does she look like?’
‘She’s beautiful.’
‘What else?’
‘She has a perfect figure and she’s very sexy,’ I improvised wildly.
‘Where did you meet her?’
‘Around.’
‘Really, this is very unsatisfactory.’
‘Not to me,’ I said.
‘Well, I’ve made arrangements for the summer now, and it’s too late to change them.’
The hairs began to stand up on the back of my neck. ‘What arrangements?’
‘Oh, don’t pretend not to know. We talked about chartering a yacht and you agreed.’
‘You vaguely mentioned a yacht,’ I said, frantically searching my memory, ‘but I don’t think we actually agreed—’
‘I said we should charter a yacht to cruise the Mediterranean and you said, ‘Sure.’ Which is what you always say. Raymond Keller is eager to join us. You said yourself he’s bound to be the next president of Consolidated, and you can get him tied up while we’re out at sea.’
‘You’ve actually invited—?’
‘Only in a vague sort of way. And there are one or two other contacts I’m working on—’
She rattled off a list of names and I had to admit they were well-chosen. All of them useful, all people I’d feel easy with and could make money out of. Grace knew her stuff, which was how she got away with being a bossy-boots.
I was beginning to feel almost relaxed about it when she said, ‘And of course Selena will be there.’
‘What do you mean, of course?’
‘Well, the others will be couples, so naturally—’
I’ll spare you the rest. Enough to say that I made a ritual protest, but gave in when I realised how I’d been backed into a corner. There wasn’t a damned thing I could do about it without offending someone that it would be inconvenient to offend.
I just wish that some of the financial journalists could have been there to see. According to them I am Master of the Game, he whose will is law. Minions go in fear and trembling of my lightest word.
Hah!
They should have seen ‘Bully Jack’ cave in to Grace, that’s all I can say.
Before I knew it everyone had accepted the invitations I’d never given, including Selina and her parents.
To protect myself, I issued a few invitations of my own. First there was Harry Oxton, who’d been trying to make an impression on Grace for a couple of years. He was a widower, a kindly man who put up with the way my sister used him when she needed an escort and forgot him at other times.
Then there were the newlyweds, Charles and Jenny Stover. I’d been their best man six months ago. When I explained to them that I needed their help, and exactly what kind of help I needed, they laughed and said fine!
Grace looked askance, though whether because Jenny was an old flame of mine or Charles was an old flame of Selina’s I wouldn’t like to say.
But I told her I’d invited them now and it was too late to go back on it. She’s not the only one who can do bland innocence.
But the one that really made her mad was Derek Lamming. His heart was set on Selina, and I think they’d have been married by now if Grace hadn’t stuck her oar in, trying to secure Selina for me.
‘You needn’t think I don’t know what you’re up to,’ Grace fumed to me.
‘I’m sure you do,’ I told her, grinning. ‘But I learned deviousness from you, so naturally I’m good at it.’
‘You do realise we don’t have room for all the extra people you’ve invited, don’t you?’
‘Then we’ll need a bigger yacht.’
That was how we exchanged the modestly luxurious vessel that Grace had chartered for the much larger Hawk.
What can I say about The Hawk? Think Onassis with knobs on. Other yachts had one swimming pool, The Hawk had two. It slept forty in over-the-top decadence.
Every cabin was done in a different style—French Second Empire, Roman villa, Egyptian splendour, Renaissance—all of them with solid gold accessories.
Since I was supposedly the big cheese of the outfit, I had a suite with a sunken bathroom, and a bed that could have slept ten.
Grandpa Nick would have laughed himself to stitches.
At the last minute Grace said worriedly, ‘You won’t do anything to offend Selina, will you?’
‘Grace, I will be the perfect gentleman with Selina,’ I vowed. ‘I won’t try to entice her into the moonlight, I won’t ogle her in a swimsuit, in fact I won’t even look at her in a swimsuit. I won’t try to kiss her, or hold hands with her. I won’t do one single thing that could compromise me into marriage with her. You can count on that.’
‘All right, be difficult if you have to be. You know what I mean. I don’t want to hear any more about this other woman—Cindy, or whatever her name is.’
‘I never told you her name, and I’m not telling you now.’
‘But you won’t invite her to come along with us, will you?’
‘No, I promise I’ll confine my meetings with her to fleeting assignations wherever we drop anchor.’
Grace gave a scream, chiefly because she couldn’t decide if I was serious or not. I decided to leave it that way. ‘Cindy’ might be useful.
I had no idea, then, just how useful.
We set off from Southampton and went across to Cherbourg on the first day, then across the Bay of Biscay and down the coast of Portugal to the Mediterranean.
We had a good time, with plenty of dinner and dancing, card-playing, wheeling and dealing—and flirting. I solved that problem by flirting madly with almost every woman aboard. Especially Jenny.
She was safe. I could romance her without fear of being hog-tied. But then Charles got a bit tense—actually said I was overdoing it. He responded by dancing smoochily with Selina for a whole evening. Then it was Jenny’s turn to get tense.
They mended matters by vanishing into their cabin for three days, and emerging wreathed in smiles.
That was how I wanted to look when I found ‘her’. It wasn’t going to happen with Selina. I was beginning to wonder if it would happen with anyone.
In Gibraltar Charles and I managed to jump ship for a few hours, returning with the dawn. He spread tipsy hints about a lady I was supposed to have met ashore, then clapped his hand over his mouth as if realising that he’d said too much.
Grace gave me a look that would have shrivelled a lesser man.
We pulled the same stunt in Naples and Venice. Then it was time to start back down the Adriatic coast, with Grace snapping at me and demanding to know just how stupid I thought she was.
‘If I thought you were stupid I’d be less scared,’ I told her truthfully.
‘Does this young woman really exist?’ she demanded.
‘My lips are sealed,’ I replied solemnly.
‘Then I think it’s time we met her.’
‘Is that the royal “we”?’
‘No, it includes Selina, since you’re playing fast and loose with the poor girl’s feelings.’
‘Grace, for the last time, I will not marry Selina. Is that understood?’
‘We were talking about your lady-friend. Do tell me when you mean to produce her. Perhaps she’ll be at the next port. You can bring her on board and we’ll all have such a jolly time together.’
A master stroke. Game, set and match to Grace.
I had to produce a girl soon.
And Grace knew that I had nobody to produce.
Palermo, Naples, Genoa: all the way up the coast I ducked and dived, with Grace asking, with unbearable sweetness, when she would have the pleasure of meeting my ‘friend’.
When we anchored at Monte Carlo there were still several days left to go, which filled me with gloom. I was wondering how I could arrange an urgent call home and high-tail it out of there.
The day after we arrived I received an unexpected gift. It was a set of solid gold diamond-studded cufflinks, and they came from a man called Hugh Vanner, on The Silverado, anchored just next door.
I couldn’t wait to get rid of them. I’d vaguely heard of Vanner. He was the kind of shifty character who hung around on the fringe of the legitimate business world, picking up what he could get. His methods were those of a slimeball. I sent the cufflinks back with a note saying that I didn’t accept gifts from strange men. It was a safe bet that he wouldn’t get the joke.
We all went to the casino. It was a sedate visit, during which we all behaved sedately and lost sedate amounts of money, then returned to the ship consoling each other for losses that we would barely notice.
Once back on board we all went to our cabins, prior to congregating for a nightcap. I was feeling a bit tense, because Selina had been making significant remarks all evening and I could feel the noose tightening.
The last straw came when a steward informed me that Vanner had called the ship while I was away.
Now I was really paranoid. Looking out, I saw lights on The Silverado, and I had sudden visions of him coming over. I’d been hunted as much as I could stand, and suddenly I went mad.
‘Tell the Captain to have the boat ready to take me ashore again,’ I said. ‘And keep quiet about it.’
Before leaving I changed my cufflinks. It was a chance to test a theory. I’d worn platinum cufflinks for the first visit to the casino, and lost. Now I was wearing Grandpa’s old tatty ones.
My luck turned the moment I went in. I won until I got bored with winning, then strolled out into the gardens. At once I knew I was being stalked.
My boredom with money doesn’t extend to giving it to people who are trying to pilfer it, so I made my move first, pouncing on whoever was crouching in the bushes.
Suddenly I was grappling with a whirling dervish who thumped and kicked with alarming force and precision. The last one caught me straight in the midriff and almost winded me. It was sheer desperation that made me toss the other party to the ground and dive on top.
And there was approximately ninety pounds of slender female writhing beneath me. If I hadn’t been gasping already I had plenty to gasp about now. In self-defence I got to my feet.
