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The food arrived and they ate contentedly for a while, listening to the music coming from the dance floor. Julia had to remind herself to take it easy when the wine waiter approached to refill her glass. It wasn’t every night she got to sample ’66 Mouton-Rothschild.
‘Your father must have been proud of you,’ she said.
Brand shook his head. ‘He died before I really got started. When I was twenty-one he gave me a large sum of money. I had a penthouse on Park Avenue, a butler, a chauffeur-driven car. And I was desperately unhappy.’ He paused. ‘Then I got a real kick in the stomach. My best friend killed himself with a shotgun. You know why? He was bored with life. He was twenty-five years old and he was bored with life. That jolted me to my senses. I decided to try my hand at business. Then my father died and left me his fortune. I used it well.’
‘You make it sound so easy.’
‘It is easy – if you have some capital and are prepared to take chances. Most people don’t try to make money with all the risks that entails; they just want to have money. I take risks all the time; speculate in currencies. Ten years ago I bought heavily into Deutschmarks. A month later the Deutschmark rose five per cent in one day against the dollar. I made $50 million overnight.’
‘Fifty million?’
‘Thereabouts,’ Brand said. He smiled at her astonishment. ‘I don’t say that to brag. Just to make the point about taking chances.’ He picked up his wine glass and then, having second thoughts, put it down again. ‘Incidentally, I bought the Canaletto.’
‘You did?’
‘A million and a half,’ Brand said. ‘A steal. That man Delevingne doesn’t know as much about art as he thinks.’
‘From what you told me,’ Julia said, ‘nobody does.’
Brand turned to her. ‘What painters do you like, Julia?’
‘Oh, Utrillo, I suppose. Cézanne. Monet.’
‘You’ve been to Giverny?’
‘A long time ago.’
‘When I was very young my father wanted me to be a painter,’ Brand said. ‘I had a tutor to teach me the basics but I had no eye for perspective; no talent at all. I went to Giverny too, and sat in that garden of Monet’s, looking at the water lilies, trying to absorb something of what he must have felt. When I got home I painted a couple of water lilies. They looked exactly like fried eggs. I gave up.’
‘So now you collect. The next best thing.’
‘I suppose so. I get a lot of pleasure from my collection. When you come to New York you’ll see it’
‘When I come … ?’
He leaned forward. ‘I want you to join my team at the Raleigh.’
She laughed. ‘You know nothing about me. How do you know I’m any good?’
‘I know.’
‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘I can’t do that. I have a contract.’
‘I’m sure if I talk to George we can work something out.’
‘George?’
‘The Sultan of Malacca.’
‘His name isn’t George.’
‘We call him that. Nobody can pronounce his real name. We do business together.’
She looked around the dark, elegant room, listening to the murmur of voices from other tables. Incredible, she thought. A job interview in Annabel’s.
‘Well?’ Brand was looking at her intently. She felt suddenly adrift; unsure of herself. Life had always seemed to her just moving from one set of problems to another, never getting ahead, never actually arriving at the point where she could say: I’m ready to start living. Was Brand offering her the chance?
‘What exactly would joining your team entail?’
‘You’d be doing just what you do now.’
‘Tim Perrin would have something to say about that.’
‘Julia,’ Brand sounded exasperated, ‘I own the damn hotel.’
‘I understand that. But I know Tim and I like him. I won’t be forced on him.’
‘What on earth are you talking about?’
‘If Tim wants me he must ask for me. It shouldn’t come from you.’
Brand looked at her hard. ‘But it was George Malacca who arranged your contract.’
‘That’s true. But it was Andrew Lattimer who hired me. The Sultan arranged my contract only because he wanted me to work for the Royal Malaysian in Kuala Lumpur, which he’d bought at the same time.’
‘You didn’t like the idea?’
‘Not just then.’
The music from the dance floor at the far end of the room was getting louder. Julia wondered if he would ask her to dance.
‘Will you think about it?’ he asked.
‘Of course.’
‘You’d be such an asset,’ Brand said. ‘Bobby Koenig says you speak Italian. Was that from school?’
‘I spent six months in Italy when I was seventeen. My mother’s idea.’
‘Rome?’
‘With a family. Then I took a summer job at a hotel on Como.’
She noticed that some of the juice from her rack of lamb had spilled onto the tablecloth. Glancing at Brand’s still almost full plate she felt guilty that she had enjoyed her meal so much.
Brand held up his hand and ordered coffees. ‘I have to fly to Scotland tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Something’s come up. You know where Silicon Glen is?’
‘Somewhere near Edinburgh?’
‘Biggest concentration of electronic manufacturing plants in Europe. We have a factory there making microprocessors.’
The idea that this hugely wealthy man should actually be visiting one of his factories astonished her. Surely he had people to do that sort of thing? ‘Will you be there long?’
‘A few days.’
‘Do you need help at Heathrow? We have someone on duty …’
‘Thanks,’ Brand said. ‘I’m leaving from Luton. The plane’s there.’
Of course. He didn’t fly like other people. There would be no lining up for him, no search of hand baggage. He would drive straight out to his private plane, climb aboard and be airborne.
‘A real luxury,’ she said. ‘A private plane …’
Brand nodded. ‘It makes life easier when you move around a lot.’
‘You have a yacht too?’
He glanced at her, amused. ‘You’re interviewing me?’
‘I’m sorry. I’m just interested. I don’t usually meet people with private planes and yachts.’
‘I’m sure that’s your choice,’ Brand said. ‘An attractive woman like you …’
The insinuation annoyed her. ‘Some women do use their looks to meet wealthy men,’ she said. ‘I’m not one of them.’
Brand leaned forward. ‘Forgive me,’ he said. ‘I put that badly.’ He laid his hand briefly on hers, then withdrew it. ‘May I call you when I return from Scotland?’
‘I won’t walk out on the Burlington.’
‘Don’t be too sure.’
He finished his wine and glanced towards the dance floor. ‘I have a mediocre sense of rhythm,’ he said, ‘but perhaps I can persuade you to take a whirl around the floor with me?’
Julia smiled. ‘I’d love to.’
He held her close, in the old-fashioned way, so that their bodies locked together and she could react to the slightest pressure from him. He was not a great dancer but he was more than competent. As they moved around the edge of the floor he executed a few elaborate dance steps that she did her best to follow.
‘Well,’ she said when they returned to the table, ‘that was something.’
‘A pitiful attempt to convince you I’m more lively than I look,’ he said.
‘You’re a much better dancer than you admit.’
‘But no Baryshnikov.’
‘Few men are.’ She sipped her coffee. ‘May I ask a personal question?’
‘Of course.’
‘What’s she like, your wife?’
‘Ah yes,’ he said, ‘back to reality. Well, you’re probably right. Mustn’t get carried away.’ He paused, almost as if he had not been asked the question before and was unsure how to reply. ‘She’s very attractive,’ he said at last. ‘In my estimation, at least. She is not what you might call, well, affectionate, but perhaps that is my fault. She has not been entirely well for some time, unfortunately.’
‘I’m sorry.’
Remembering a friend’s claim that all married men, intent on seduction, had stories ready about their wives – how unkind they were, how lacking in understanding, how frigid – Julia was relieved that Brand, at least, did not fit the pattern.
‘How long have you been married?’
‘Thirty-five years. We met when I was just starting out. I was not a sophisticated young man. Grace was a photographer for National Geographic at that time, widely travelled. She had been down the Yangtze, gone overland to Lhasa in Tibet, driven through the Khyber Pass from Afghanistan to Pakistan. I had done nothing but spend money. It was she who gave me ambition.’
‘You have no children?’
‘We decided against it. We were both wrapped up in our careers. And, indeed, in each other. A mistake, perhaps.’
‘You said she spends most of her time in Acapulco?’
‘She likes it there. She has many friends.’
‘And you?’
‘There are a couple whose company I enjoy. One is a fisherman; the other a Polish sculptor, a great bear of a man: Voytek Konopka. He’s quite well known there. You’d like him, I sense. When is that conference in Acapulco? The one you’re invited to?’
‘The end of next month.’
‘I might arrange to be there. Show you around. What’s the organization called?’
‘The International Travel and Tourism Research Association.’
‘Let me see what I can do.’
‘I’m still not sure I can leave things here.’
‘I’ll pencil it in anyway.’
Taking a slim memo pad from his pocket he scribbled something on it and handed the note to Julia. ‘That’s Jill Bannister’s address and phone number. If you ever want to get in touch with me you can do it through her.’
‘She sounds very efficient, your Miss Bannister.’
‘She is. I’m lucky to have her.’
By the time they had finished their second cups of coffee it was after midnight, the club was crowded and the dance floor was packed. Brand called for the bill, signed it and, taking Julia’s arm, led her out to the waiting car.
As he dropped her off at her home he said, ‘I’ll tell Tim Perrin to expect you sometime soon.’
‘You can’t do that,’ she said, laughing.
‘That’s where you’re wrong,’ Brand said. He closed the door and the car slid away down the street.
