by Jilly Cooper
‘Hi,’ he said, chucking the Evening Standard on the hall table, ‘I was expecting you.’
Ferdinand Fitzgerald was a fixer, as fly and commercially orientated as Lysander was ingenuous and unmaterialistic. A schoolfriend of Lysander’s, he was also an estate agent who, despite the recession, was doing very well. In addition to selling houses, he charged for dinner parties and for friends to stay the night in Fountain Street and let out properties on his firm’s books by the afternoon for chums visiting London to bonk in. Ferdie’s Achilles’ heel was Lysander, whom he adored and had protected both from the bullying and the advances of older boys at school and beyond and whom he let get away with murder.
Very plump with a double chin and pink cheeks hiding an excellent bone structure, Ferdie looked like a clean-shaven Laughing Cavalier who’d slicked back his hair in an attempt to pass as a Roundhead. Cheerfulness, however, kept breaking in. He and Lysander were known to their friends as Mr Fixit and Mr Fucksit.
Today as he hung up his long navy-blue coat in the hall, the Roundhead mood predominated, particularly when Lysander, who always poured out everything at once, immediately told him he had lost both the Palm Beach and the Ballenstein jobs.
‘Pretty stinking, getting fired before I’ve even got there,’ grumbled Lysander, feeding Scotch eggs to a slavering Jack.
‘You should have signed the contract before you left,’ reproved Ferdie. ‘It’s still on the kitchen table.’
‘There must be some party to go to,’ said Lysander, ‘I feel very depressed. How am I going to support Jack and the horses?’
As Ferdie read the Ballenstein letter looking for loopholes, Lysander opened the bottle of champagne from the fridge and threw the cork on to the floor. Ferdie picked it up.
‘You live in a cork-lined room, Lysander. Sadly you lack Proust’s application. This house has been tidy since you’ve been away. Annunciata took two days to muck out your room. No self-respecting pig would have dossed down in it. And you’ll have to sleep on the sofa tonight. I’ve rented it to Matt Gibson and that’s his Moët and his Scotch eggs you’re feeding to that seriously spoilt dog. Look at the way he’s scratched every door. And that is disgusting.’ Ferdie removed two strips of ham fat from the gas logs with a shudder. ‘How many times do I have to tell you? This is not a real fire.’
‘Don’t you want to hear about Palm Beach?’
‘Not particularly. I’ve read most of it in the Standard. Look, we’ve got to talk about dosh.’
‘I’ve just got in.’ Lysander was now feeding Jack Toblerone and trying to read Ferdie’s Evening Standard, which was a later edition, upside down.
‘EastEnders is on in a minute.’ He got up to turn on the television. ‘Then let’s go clubbing later, Ferd. My overdraft’s so big I might as well make it bigger. I must just check my horoscope,’ he added, switching over to Ceefax and Patric Walker.
‘It’ll tell you the debtors’ prison is looming,’ said Ferdie.
Turning off the television, he sat Lysander down and made him open the brown envelopes. The bills were horrific.
‘Barclaycard, Ladbroke’s, Foxtrot Oscar, Tramps, British Telecom,’ intoned Ferdie. ‘Christ, your telephone bill’s longer than your telephone number.’
‘It’s not all me.’
‘The long-distance calls are itemized and all to Dolly. And how in hell did you spend seven hundred pounds at Janet Reger?’
‘That was Dolly’s Christmas present.’
‘Not to mention bills for bootmakers, saddlers, vets, feed bills, livery fees, blacksmith, Interflora; and here’s a letter from the off-licence complaining your cheque bounced. How did you manage to run up a bill for five hundred pounds at an off-licence?’
‘The girl with the big boobs lets me have it on tick. It’s useful when we have parties.’ Having filled up his glass, Lysander filled up Jack’s water-bowl. ‘I watched satellite in Palm Beach. You can watch racing twenty-four hours a day. Turn on the telly. It’ll be The Bill in a minute.’
‘You are not going to watch anything,’ snapped Ferdie, stacking the bills tidily and chucking the brown envelopes in the waste-paper basket. ‘You owe me four months’ rent and you can at least sign on tomorrow.’
Lysander shuddered. ‘They might find me a job. Basically, I need a holiday.’
‘Matt Gibson saved his dole money for six months and went skiing,’ said Ferdie sternly.
‘I’ve never saved anything in my life. OK, I’ll go and tap Dad tomorrow.’
Knowing how Lysander loathed going to see his father, Ferdie relented. Ringing a head-hunting friend called Roger Westwood, he arranged for Lysander to see him the following day.
‘There’s a PR job going,’ said Ferdie switching off the telephone. ‘The firm’s got two bloodstock agencies and a polo club. At least you know something about horses.’
But turning round, he found Lysander had fallen asleep with Jack clutched in his arms like a teddy bear. He looked about twelve. He could sleep anywhere, curling up in patches of sunlight like a cat. Sighing, Ferdie removed his shoes and covered him with his own duvet.
Ferdie had a rotten morning taking some Arabs (who had no idea what they were looking for and who hardly spoke any English) round a big block of luxury flats in Chelsea Harbour. The weather was even meaner than yesterday. There were no meters and Ferdie had to put his BMW convertible in a car-park, forcing the Arabs to walk two hundred yards with a bitter east wind whipping up their robes. They were then so picky that Ferdie’s good nature ran out. Shoving them into a taxi instead of driving them back to Claridge’s, he returned to bung the porter, who often tipped him off if people were moving out, about new flats coming on to the market.
Ringing the office from his car, he learnt that a Greek couple had ratted on a deal on a half a million pound Radnor Walk house.
Twelve thousand pounds the poorer, Ferdie abandoned his perennial diet and mindlessly devoured two bacon rolls. Ringing Lysander to check he was on course for the interview with Roger Westwood he got no answer. Ferdie cursed. Roger was a vital contact because people he placed in jobs were often moving and needed to sell houses and buy new ones. Ferdie was putting his own reputation on the line, sending Lysander to see him. He’d better go back to Fountain Street to see what was going on.
Lysander appeared compliant but ended up doing exactly what he chose. Ferdie was reminded of an English Setter his family had once owned, who was beautiful, sweet natured, thick but also cunning, with a nose on elastic for bitches, and virtually untrainable.
He found the place in chaos. Lysander shed possessions like leaves in autumn. Records, tapes, telephone books, glasses, the remains of breakfast, over-flowing ashtrays, the racing pages of the Sun and several discarded ties littered the sitting room. Lysander, already dressed for the interview, was ringing Ladbroke’s.
‘Why the hell can’t you shut my bedroom door?’ Ferdie retrieved a Gucci loafer from Jack’s ravening jaws. ‘And what do you look like?’
Lysander glanced down at the crumpled grey suit and the blue and white striped shirt.
‘Basically I put on the thing that least needed ironing,’ he said apologetically.
He’d have pinched one of my shirts if they hadn’t been too big, thought Ferdie darkly, then caught sight of an empty bottle of Moët in the waste-paper basket.
‘You’ve been drinking.’
‘Only half the bottle.’
‘You can’t fucking afford champagne.’
‘I didn’t,’ said Lysander smugly. ‘An incredibly nice girl turned up with it from The Scorpion. She left me her card.’
Examining it, Ferdie gave a groan.
‘Beattie Johnson! Are you crazy? She’s the most bent journalist in England.’
‘Well, she was sweet to me. Said she’d read all the Palm Beach stuff and wanted me to have the chance to tell my side of the story, and if I told her all about Martha and Sherry, The Scorpion might give me a Ferrari.’
Ferdie went white. ‘You didn’t?�
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‘Course not.’ Lysander assumed an air of great virtue. ‘I couldn’t do that to Martha. Besides, Dolly would do her nut. Off the record I did tell her how funny it was escaping from Elmer’s and being picked up by Sherry. She took some pictures. She said she could get me some modelling work.’
‘Christ, when will you learn?’ Ferdie was in despair, but there was no time for reproaches.
Sighing, he straightened Lysander’s tie, gave his shoes a last polish and brushed Jack’s white hairs off his suit. He then put a couple of Roger Westwood’s cards in both Lysander’s breast and inside pockets and turned down the A–Z with the relevant road ringed. Finally he gave Lysander an Extra Strong mint to hide the champagne fumes and his last twenty-pound note in case he needed some cash.
‘Now, don’t forget to steer Roger on to racing. That’s the only thing you know anything about, and try and look interested. No, you haven’t got time to watch Neighbours. Move it.’
An insanely fast driver, Lysander reached Roger’s office near Holborn ten minutes early and pulled up his battered dark green Golf outside a television shop to watch the end of Neighbours and the runners going down to the start for the 2.15. He’d been right to back that dark brown mare, she looked really well. Neighbours ended on a clinch, which reminded Lysander that Dolly was due back this evening. Worried about the side-effects of being on the Pill since she was fourteen, Dolly had recently come off it, so he had better nip into the next door chemist’s shop to buy some condoms. He was just waiting at the counter wondering if rainbow ones would improve his performance – Dolly was very demanding – when a girl swept into the shop sending a rack of bath caps flying.
She was very tall and thin, with fine pale hair drawn back from a long, beautiful unmade-up face into a tortoiseshell clip. Very inadequately dressed in a grey wool midi-dress, she had the gangling panicky air of a giraffe who’d escaped from the zoo into rush-hour traffic.
‘I want some eye-gel,’ she announced in a high, trembling voice. ‘No, not that one, it’s tested on animals. In fact I want three tubes. I’m going to be doing a lot of crying in the next few days. My husband’s just left me.’ And she burst into tears.
The pharmacist forced to serve her, because his assistant was late back from lunch, was totally thrown. His scrubbed face turned dark crimson, as his little eyes darted round looking for a way of escape. Lysander showed no such reticence. Leaping forwards, knocking over a rack of tweezers, he put an arm round the girl’s shuddering shoulders. Gently steering her towards the chair kept for pensioners awaiting prescriptions, he broke into a nearby box of pale blue Kleenex and started to blot up the tears. Unlike Martha, there was no mascara to run.
‘You poor thing, what a bastard. He’ll come back.’
‘Never, never,’ gulped the girl.
‘Go and make a cup of tea, Diane,’ snapped the chemist to his assistant who, buckling beneath carrier bags, had tried to sidle in undetected and was now gazing at Lysander in wonder.
Gradually between sobs and sniffs, Lysander elicited the information that the distressed beauty’s name was Rachel and that her husband Boris was a Russian dissident and an assistant conductor of the London Metropolitan Orchestra.
‘But he never gets to conduct in public because that bastard Rannaldini – he’s the London Met’s musical director – never gives him the chance. Boris’s compositions are wonderful, too, but no-one will programme them because they’re rather difficult.’
‘Dropped saucepan sort of stuff?’ asked Lysander helpfully.
‘If you mean atonal,’ said the girl bridling slightly, ‘yes, it is. Rannaldini could help; but he’s jealous of Boris’s genius. He actually told Boris, Boris’s compositions emptied concert halls. Thank you,’ she added as Diane, the assistant, now in a white coat, returned newly made-up and reeking of scent, and handed her a cup of pallid tea.
‘You’re all being so kind. Boris is kind really,’ she went on despairingly, ‘but being Russian he gets frustrated trying to communicate and we’ve got young children and they get on his nerves in a small flat.’
‘That’s no reason to walk out,’ said Lysander indignantly. ‘Have a slug of that tea, although you really need something stronger.’
Lifting the cup, Rachel’s shaking hand spilled so much, she put it down again.
‘Boris is in love with a mezzo called Chloe,’ she announced miserably. ‘The London Met’s recording Otello at the moment. She’s singing Emilia, so he sees her all the time and Rannaldini’s positively encouraging it.’
‘What a shit.’ Lysander tugged out another wadge of blue Kleenex.
‘I was so desperate,’ continued Rachel with a sob, ‘I went to see Rannaldini this morning, just barged past his secretary. Rannaldini had the temerity to offer me a gin and tonic, saying he couldn’t understand why I was making a fuss. He feels the “affaire”,’ Rachel choked on the word, ‘has added a new depth to Boris’s compositions, and Chloe has never sung so well. He’s a fiend, Rannaldini, he corrupts everyone.’ She broke into noisier sobs.
Having exhausted one box of Kleenex, Lysander broke into another. Due to the slow service of Diane, who was not the only one transfixed with interest by this beautiful couple, a long queue had formed – many of whom were beginning to chunter. The pharmacist also noticed that several regulars, who were too embarrassed to ask so publicly for cures for piles or chronic constipation, had sidled out again. He cleared his throat, then when Lysander took no notice, told him and Rachel they couldn’t stay indefinitely.
‘No, of course not.’ Rachel rubbed her forehead in bewilderment. ‘My God, I should have picked up the children.’
‘Where are they?’ asked Lysander, who’d been squatting down beside her, rising stiffly to his feet.
‘With a girlfriend.’
‘Well, we’ll find a pub and ring her. Then I’ll run you over there.’
Ferdie’s afternoon had been no more rewarding than his morning. A mega-rich German, for whom he’d been searching for months, had suddenly been found a two million pound property by a rival agent and an appalling survey had scuppered a deal that looked certain. Returning home that evening frozen and exhausted, Ferdie caught the telephone on its last ring.
It was Roger Westwood in a rage. He’d lunched with the Chief Executive of the PR firm and asked him back to the office to meet Lysander.
‘And the little fucker never showed. Didn’t even bother to call. Christ – what kind of idiot did that make me look?’
Ferdie had to crawl. ‘He left here at half-past one, Roger. I don’t see how he could have lost the address.’
‘Well, he’s lost the fucking job. After all the business I’ve put your way, Ferdie, you could have come up with someone better.’
‘Look, I’m really sorry.’
But Roger had hung up.
I am too young to have a coronary, thought Ferdie. How the hell could Lysander do this to me?
Fumbling to turn on the lamp by the fire, he once more surveyed the chaos. Jack, fed up with being alone, had chewed several tapes. Ferdie put the rest back in their box.
In the kitchen, nothing had been returned to the fridge. The milk had gone off, the pink grapefruit juice was tepid. Lysander had polished off his whisky last night. In a fury Ferdie ate quarter of a pound of cheese and the last of the Scotch eggs. His brooding was interrupted by Jack leaping on to the sofa, bristling with rage and wagging his stumpy tail as he peered out of the window.
Wearily joining him, Ferdie swore in disbelief. There, staggering down the street, was Lysander, arm in arm with a blind man, both of them being led by a resigned-looking guide-dog. Ferdie threw up the window.
‘We are two little lambs that have gone astray, Baa, Baa, Baa,’ sang the blind man and Lysander tunelessly as they tottered across the road.
Windows were going up all along the street. The gays opposite were nearly falling off their balcony. Passers-by stopped and stared as Lysander paused, swaying, outside the front
door. Breaking a bar of chocolate into pieces he gave it to the drooling guide-dog, then handed Ferdie’s last fiver to the blind man. He took so long getting his key into the latch that Ferdie let him in. Lysander’s hair was flopping all over his face. The faded orange tan had a blue tinge.
‘Christ, it’s cold!’ Bending down to gather up an ecstatically yapping Jack, Lysander had great difficulty getting up again.
‘Where the fuck have you been?’ yelled Ferdie.
‘In The Goat and Boots,’ said Lysander with a hiccup.
‘Why didn’t you go to that interview?’
‘Ohmigod!’ Lysander’s palm smote his wide-open mouth. ‘I completely forgot. I’m really sorry. I’ll ring and explain. Basically I just nipped into the chemist to get some condoms, when this poor, poor girl rushed in to buy some eye-gel. Can you beat it? Her husband had just left her.’
‘Oh no,’ moaned Ferdie.
‘Well, I had to look after her.’ Gently putting Jack down Lysander wandered into the kitchen fretfully upending the empty whisky bottle. ‘Honestly, she was so sad and so beautiful, and she had adorable children – God, I love kids – and her husband’s a Russian diffident. We went back to the flat. We got a bottle on the way and she was just telling me all about this bastard Rannaldini, who’s led her husband astray. She said he was legendary.’
‘Legendarily difficult,’ snapped Ferdie.
With mounting anger he watched Lysander get a tin of Pedigree Chum out of the fridge, fork it into a blue bowl of Bristol glass which normally lived in the sitting room, and scatter dog biscuits all over the floor.
‘Who is he?’ asked Lysander.
‘Rannaldini. About the greatest conductor in the world. Jesus, you’re a philistine.’
‘Well, he’s Boris’s boss. Rachel played some of Boris’s music. It sounded quite awful – like a lot of buffaloes in a labour ward. But it reminded her of him so she started crying, and I was comforting her when Boris walked in. He’d decided not to leave her. He wasn’t at all diffident when he saw me, and he’s a big bugger so I legged it before he blacked my eye.’
