Prudence

by Jilly Cooper

That wasn’t much of a success either, because Berenice had done up the knots so beautifully no one could undo them. So we played musical bumps. But so many children had perfected the lightning descent, they kept dead-heating, and the ones already out, who included Damian and Midas, got bored and started a punch-up.

  A diversion was created by the doorbell, and the arrival of Jason, a sickly looking child in a green velvet suit, who turned out to be the sworn enemy of Damian and Midas.

  ‘Oh bugger,’ said Lucasta, tearing open Jason’s present, ‘another boring flower press.’

  At that moment, Berenice chose to make her entrance, wearing a rust shirt, tan boots, and a black skirt with a slit up the front. Her newly washed hair gleamed — no wonder there wasn’t any hot water left for me. She looked a million dollars and extremely irritated.

  ‘You haven’t seen my Hermes belt have you, Prudence?’

  ‘Who wants to stick the tail on the donkey?’ I shouted.

  The fun became more fast and furious. Rose arrived with Professor Copeland. Several fathers rolled up, and a man to deliver some garden furniture.

  ‘It’s my special offer,’ said Rose excitedly. ‘We must hide it in the cellar before Ace arrives.’ Berenice had decided to give up grumbling about her belt and had found a soulmate in Delphinium.

  ‘It’s hard to keep your mind alive when you spend your time with people three feet high,’ she was saying.

  I looked at my watch. It was five o’clock and the conjuror was quarter of an hour late. I mopped my brow; we’d have to eat soon.

  There was a howl as Damian, whose blindfold seemed to have slipped, plunged the donkey’s tail into Professor Copeland’s bottom. Midas was hitting Jason over the head with a tennis racket still in its press.

  ‘I shouldn’t engage in that form of activity if I were you, Midas,’ said Delphinium.

  ‘It’s amazing,’ said Berenice, ‘the way children work out their hostility if you don’t interfere with their natural instincts.’

  Five-fifteen, still no conjuror. I shepherded all the children into the kitchen for tea.

  ‘What’s this crap?’ said Damian, picking up a piece of carrot cake and hurling it at Jason.

  ‘Crap,’ said Midas, picking up a soya bean canapé and hurling it at Antonia Fraser.

  Two of the Pollys or Emilies or Sophies started to cry.

  ‘Aren’t they a nightmare?’ said Maggie, putting her head round the door.

  ‘Why doesn’t Delphinium do anything to control them?’ I said in desperation.

  ‘She lives in a commune on the other side of Windermere. I don’t think she’s very into discipline. Their father commutes to London in a Ferrari,’ said Maggie.

  The conjuror, a pouf with brushed forward hair, finally arrived gibbering with guilt and ill temper at 5.30. Talk about the panic stations of the extremely cross. ‘The roads are simply atrocious. I’d like to get started straight away,’ he said.

  And by some miracle, five minutes later he had all the children sitting spellbound at his feet in the study, and pigeons coming out of his sleeve.

  Phew: Blissful relief! The grown-ups were having a rip-roaring party in the drawing-room; everyone was well away. I was just pouring myself and Mrs Braddock a drink when the doorbell rang yet again.

  ‘I always read Rod McKuen to my potted plants,’ Berenice was saying.

  As no one was obviously going to move, I went to answer the door.

  It was another mother. She had bruised eyes, ash blonde hair and the startled look of a race horse. She was also vaguely familiar.

  ‘Hullo,’ she said nervously. ‘Is it all right if I come in?’

  ‘Of course,’ I said. ‘If you’ve come to collect, I’m afraid we’re running behind schedule. The conjuror arrived late, but the grown-ups are having a terrific party in the drawing-room. You know what the Mulhollands are like!’

  She smiled. ‘Only too well! I’m Fay.’

  I swallowed. ‘Oh, my goodness. I’m Pru.’ What on earth was Maggie going to say?

  ‘Lucasta’s talked about you on the telephone,’ she said. ‘You’ve been so kind to her. Are you sure it’s all right my coming?’

  She was so friendly, you couldn’t not like her.

  ‘Of course it is. How was the play?’

  ‘It was good,’ she said, taking off a rather worn fur coat. ‘I had a nice director, I think he’ll give me more work. Has Lucasta had a nice birthday?’

  ‘Sensational,’ I shouted over the party roar as we passed at the drawing-room door.

  ‘Gosh, I’m nervous of going in there,’ said Fay.

  She needn’t have been. Rose gave a shriek of excitement and fell on her neck.

  ‘Darling, darling Fay,’ she cried. ‘How lovely to see you! You shouldn’t have stayed away so long, and how ravishing you look. You’ve lost so much weight. How lovely. James! Berenice! Delphinium! This is Fay, Jack’s first wife, and Lucasta’s mother.’

  Everyone crowded round Fay, saying how nice it was to see her again.

  ‘I’m Ivan’s permanent commitment,’ I heard Berenice saying.

  Suddenly I caught a glimpse of Maggie’s face through the throng. I felt sick; she looked absolutely crucified. I was about to fight my way through to her when I heard a scream. In the hall I found the conjuror in floods of tears.

  ‘They’re the worst lot of kids I’ve ever had to deal with. They’re little monsters. That Damian tried to send one of my pigeons up the chimney with a message for Santa Claus and singed all its feathers.’ He wiped his eyes. ‘I can’t go on.’

  ‘Oh please,’ I said. ‘You were booked for an hour. Have a strong drink and another go.’

  ‘I don’t drink,’ sobbed the conjuror, ‘and you need a bodyguard for that lot. Leave that rabbit alone, you little sod,’ he screamed, rushing back into the study.

  Jack was next to arrive. He was in a good temper. He’d pulled off a terrific deal with the Americans.

  ‘Maggie and I can spend Christmas in Bermuda if we want to.’

  ‘I’m not sure she’ll want to,’ I said, ‘Fay’s in the drawing-room, being fêted by everyone.’

  Jack’s face lit up: ‘Fay is? Isn’t she great? I must go and say hullo.’

  Damian burst out of the study and ran yelling down the passage towards the kitchen.

  ‘Beautiful child, isn’t he?’ I said sourly.

  ‘Probably mine,’ said Jack.

  ‘He’s a monster,’ I protested. ‘He belongs to someone called Delphinium.’

  Jack laughed. ‘Then he’s definitely mine.’

  He smoothed his hair in the hall mirror, straightened his tie, and fought his way into the drawing-room.

  ‘Look who’s here, Jack darling,’ I heard Rose shriek. ‘It’s darling Fay. Doesn’t she look beautiful?’

  The next moment Maggie came out of the room. I caught a glimpse of her white stricken face as she fled upstairs.

  After that the party got completely out of hand. The children came screaming out of the study, followed by the conjuror still in tears.

  ‘I want my money,’ he said, ‘and I’m going.’

  No one of course had any cash. Jack had an Irish 50p, and Berenice had travellers’ cheques, and the conjuror wouldn’t take an ordinary cheque.

  ‘I want cash on delivery,’ he said, firmly sitting down on his trunk of magic. ‘I don’t trust that lot in there not to bounce cheques, and I’m going to wait until I get it.’

  I could just have paid him myself but I wanted to keep enough cash for my fare back to London — just in case.

  In the drawing-room Jack was chatting to Fay, one hand holding a drink, the other lying along the sofa behind her head. He looked the picture of handsome relaxed contentment.

  Berenice surprisingly was nose to nose with Professor Copeland. ‘I think it’s so terrific,’ she was saying, ‘how you’re able to plug into yourself and find this conduit into your unconscious and be able to tap all that energy.’

  Ro
se was suddenly looking a little disconsolate.

  Jason ran screaming through the crowd, followed by Damian and Midas, each carrying one of Jack’s Masai spears. The Professor and Berenice followed their progress fondly.

  ‘If I’d been able to act out what I felt like that, I’m sure I wouldn’t have had to spend all those years in analysis,’ said the Professor. ‘I mean my father’s a case-book example of an anal retentive.’

  ‘You’re working too hard. Come and sit down and talk to Fay,’ Jack shouted across at me.

  ‘I will in a minute,’ I said.

  In the kitchen I found Coleridge and Wordsworth and Antonia Fraser and the kitten demolishing the food. But even they drew the line at lentil loaf and carrot cake. Upstairs I found Maggie a sodden, heaving lump on her bed.

  ‘I can’t bear it, I can’t bear it. I expected her to look like an old frump,’ she sobbed, ‘and she turns up looking gorgeous, and Jack’s obviously mad about her. She must have been on a diet for days. I never thought she’d be that thin. And everyone’s w-watching and saying how much prettier she is than me.’

  ‘Of course they’re not,’ I said firmly. ‘You’re much prettier than she is, and much younger.’

  ‘Look how they’re all over her, Jack, Berenice, Copeland, Rose, even Ace I expect when he gets back. They’re so fickle.’

  ‘They want to make things easier for Lucasta,’ I said. ‘And I expect Jack feels guilty because he left her for you, and he wants to make things up to her, not to go back at all, just to say he’s sorry.’

  ‘I hate them; I hate them both,’ sobbed Maggie.

  More screams downstairs, and a volley of loud explosions. ‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ I said.

  Damian and Midas were standing on the stairs. They had found a packet of cigarettes, and had lit up and were systematically bursting balloons.

  ‘Stop it,’ I screamed. They took no notice. They really ought to join some paramilitary operation like the Scouts.

  More dads arrived in second cars to collect children and mums who were not sober enough to drive, and they all stayed for the party, and had to be got drinks as well.

  Lucasta was sitting on Jack’s knee now, playing with Fay’s charm bracelet. They all looked so happy. Jesus, I thought, what a bloody lot of unhappiness divorce makes.

  Professor Copeland and Berenice were still having a great rap. ‘I found I couldn’t write about it,’ she was saying. ‘My life with Aaron was too painful to be transformed into enduring art.’

  ‘Don’t pull Antonia Fraser’s tail like that, Damian,’ said Delphinium. ‘Physical violence is not the answer.’

  ‘Perhaps I will have a drink after all,’ said the conjuror.

  Somewhere in the distance I heard the back door slam. It was seven o’clock now. I was worried about Ace. The roads must be like glass.

  ‘When we give a children’s party,’ said Berenice, ‘we just write the scenario as we go along.’

  In the hall, Damian and Midas were writing their own scenario in red lipstick all over the walls.

  ‘Stop it!’ I screamed at them. ‘Stop it, you little monsters!’

  Once again neither of them took any notice. Then Damian raised two fingers at me.

  The next moment Jason came out of the kitchen brandishing a kitchen knife.

  ‘No,’ I shrieked.

  A key turned in the door and Ace walked in. Oh the blissful, blissful relief to see him.

  ‘Oh, thank God you’ve come,’ I said.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘They are.’ I pointed to Damian and Midas, and Jason who was now deciding which to carve up.

  Ace was across the room in a flash.

  ‘Stop it,’ he said firmly, removing Jason’s knife, and picking both Damian and Midas up by the scruff of the neck, ‘or I’ll bash all your heads together. There’s a television in the study. Go and watch it.’

  To my amazement they went quietly.

  ‘What else is the matter?’

  ‘The conjuror’s in hysterics. He couldn’t handle the children, and no one’s got enough money to pay him, so he’s joined the party and started drinking, and he doesn’t drink.’

  ‘Go and get him,’ said Ace, getting a wad of tenners out of his notecase.

  ‘What else?’ he said, after the conjuror had been dispatched into the night.

  ‘Fay’s here,’ I said miserably. ‘Rose is all over her, and Jack’s flirting like mad with her.’

  ‘And Maggie?’ he said swiftly. He always got the point at once.

  ‘She’s in absolute floods upstairs.’

  He went towards the stairs. ‘I’ll go up and talk to her. Be an angel and mix me a very stiff whisky.’

  ‘Was it all right today?’ I said. ‘Not too awful?’

  He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Pretty bloody, but at least it’s done.’

  I went into the drawing-room to get the whisky. The party showed no signs of abating at all.

  ‘Where’s Ivan?’ said Berenice. ‘He should be back by now.’

  ‘He’s back,’ I said. ‘He’s upstairs with Maggie.’

  Berenice’s eyes narrowed till they seemed one black slit across her face.

  ‘She’s upset,’ I explained.

  ‘Whatever for?’

  ‘She’s unhappy because Fay’s here.’

  ‘She’s so old-fashioned,’ said Berenice scornfully. ‘Everyone’s loose about exes these days; it’s healthy; you’ve got to stay loose. I can’t understand jealousy, it’s something I’ve never suffered from.’

  ‘Oh I’m sure you’re above that sort of thing,’ I snapped.

  I put some ice in the whisky and shot out of the room.

  I met Ace coming down the stairs; he looked very bleak; he was holding a letter.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ I said.

  ‘Maggie’s walked out.’

  ‘To Pendle?’ I whispered.

  ‘So she says in this note to Jack.’ He put his hand on my arm. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Oh God, how awful. But she can’t have got far; she was here twenty minutes ago.’

  He opened the front door and looked out — snow was eddying and whirling and a shower of hard tiny frozen flakes swept inside.

  ‘Jack’s car’s gone. She must have taken it. Must be trying for the 7.45. She could kill herself on these roads.’

  Suddenly he looked ashen beneath his suntan. He must be remembering Elizabeth driving too fast on icy roads in her excitement to meet him at the airport. He took the whisky from me and drained it in one gulp.

  ‘I’m going to see if I can stop her. Don’t say anything until I’ve got back — say I’ve gone to get some cigarettes.’

  He was back in three-quarters of an hour.

  ‘I just missed her. She left the car parked across the road — as a final gesture of defiance, I suppose. I’d better go and break up the party.’

  We went into the drawing-room.

  ‘Ivan, sweetest.’ Berenice extracted herself from Professor Copeland and a ring of fathers and, crossing the room, put her arms round Ace’s neck and kissed him tenderly. ‘Where have you been?’

  The nannies perked up and pulled down their sweaters, the mothers patted their hair. Even pale and travel-worn, Ace was still a knockout. I wondered why I hadn’t noticed it when I first met him.

  He went over and kissed Fay who was still thigh to thigh with Jack on the sofa.

  ‘Hullo, my love, you’re looking very beautiful,’ he said. ‘I’m glad about the play.’

  Her eyes lit up. ‘Goodness, it’s lovely to see you. How was America? Very successful obviously. I’m so pleased about you and Berenice.’ She lowered her voice. ‘I meant to write about Elizabeth, but I wasn’t very together at the time.’

  It must have been just after Jack left her. Perhaps, now Maggie had gone, they might get together again.

  Ace, however, had other ideas.

  ‘I thought you might like a lift home.’

  �
��She’s staying for supper,’ said Jack quickly.

  ‘Anyway, the party’s not over,’ cried Rose.

  ‘It’d be better if she came another day,’ said Ace firmly. ‘Lucasta’s tired. And it’s high time these children went home.’

  Over by the window Damian and Midas were systematically cramming a plate of meringues down Jason’s velvet suit.

  Somehow Ace managed to empty the room in ten minutes. I went upstairs with Fay and helped pack Lucasta’s things and gather up her presents.

  ‘I’ve got a tummy egg,’ wailed Lucasta.

  ‘You’ve been eating too many sweets,’ said Fay.

  As we went downstairs Jack was saying angrily to Ace, ‘What the bloody hell’s going on? Why can’t Fay stay for supper? We can’t throw her out on a night like this.’

  Ace got Maggie’s letter out of his pocket. ‘I think you’d better read this,’ he said grimly.

  As he and Jack went into the drawing-room, he turned to me: ‘Can you say goodbye to Fay and Lucasta for us?’

  Outside Lucasta hugged me tightly.

  ‘Can I come and stay with you in London? Will you take me to see the knife guards at Buckingham Palace?’

  ‘Of course I will,’ I said, clinging to her. I couldn’t bear to let her go.

  ‘Was Ace shocked that I was here?’ whispered Fay anxiously.

  ‘No, it was Maggie. She was a bit jealous.’

  ‘She was jealous?’ said Fay with sudden bitterness. ‘It was she who took him away from me in the first place. I suppose it was tactless of me to stay. I was so pleased to see them all again,’ she added wistfully. ‘They’re so lovely.’

  ‘I know they are,’ I said.

  I went back into the house, pausing to look at my pale reflection in the looking glass in the hall. I still only had one eye made up. The drawing-room door was open.

  ‘Pru,’ Rose called, ‘we’re all in here.’

  Jack was sitting on the window seat, surrounded by a debris of crisps, coloured streamers and burst balloons. Upon his face was a desolation so haggard I hardly recognized him. Berenice had her supportive face on. Ace handed me a stiff gin and tonic. Rose was revelling in the situation.

  ‘Isn’t it dreadful?’ she said to me. ‘Maggie and I were playing bridge tomorrow, and she’s taken Professor Copeland’s hat with her.’