by Jilly Cooper
‘The strongest winds may blow and rack, but I’ll come burning brightly back,’ wrote Georgie. The word ‘rack’ was too obscure: she’d have to think of something else. She got down the rhyming dictionary.
She could see the great lichened curve of an angel’s wing, and if she leant out of the window she could look over a fuzz of wood as soft as rabbit’s fur to the chimneys of Valhalla and Rannaldini’s grey tower beyond. Paradise lived more and more up to its name. Like quill pens plunging into inky-green spring grass, little poplar trees lined the drive. As Guy’s mowing machine paused, Georgie could hear the rattle of a woodpecker.
After the morning’s rain, the mist was rising milky blue down the valley like a thousand smoke signals. Dreamily she imagined herself sending a message to Rannaldini: ‘Guy’s home. His lunch in Bath’s been cancelled. We can’t meet today.’
On the mantelpiece was an unsigned good luck card from Tancredi who’d been the lead guitarist in her first famous group of the sixties. Georgie and Tancredi had been the most passionate and fatal of lovers, and when the group split up, she had settled for Guy and stability, and Tancredi had kicked his cocaine habit and married a homespun middle-American girl and made good in Los Angeles. But they still telephoned each other occasionally, and met up and made love when Tancredi came over to England, agreeing that, although they were far better off with their present partners, there was still an undeniable bond between them. Tancredi was due back in May. Perhaps he could come down to Angel’s Reach when Guy was in London. There were plainly advantages to being alone in the country mid-week, particularly if Rannaldini was around.
Then Georgie looked up at the corkboard where she’d pinned cuttings from the Rock Star launch. Guy – square jawed, clear-eyed, sternly handsome – stared down at her. She must get a copy of the photograph from the Express and have it framed.
Guy was the one who mattered, but it was lovely to be fancied. Feeling dreadfully self-indulgent, she slotted in the tape of Rock Star, glorying in the smoky beauty of her own voice and picked up her pen.
Flora had only agreed to wait at the table, because Boris was coming to dinner. Now she had further enraged Guy by messing up the guest bathroom and annexing his Free Foresters’ cricket sweater. Hearing shouting from downstairs, Georgie wondered if Guy was uptight because he’d picked up the vibes between her and Rannaldini. She felt very excited as she wandered downstairs reeking of Giorgio, in a clinging velvet midi-dress, the same luminous grey as the sky on a moonlit night, which streamlined her opulent body and showed off her tousled red hair.
‘No Spring, nor Summer beauty has such grace, As I have seen in one Autumnal face.’ She could imagine Rannaldini murmuring in that wonderful throbbing basso profundo.
The house certainly looked lovely. The huge rooms, although hell to heat, were a marvellous showcase for Guy’s paintings. Rannaldini and Larry, and to a lesser extent, Bob were collectors, Guy even had hopes of Rupert Campbell-Black, who despite not knowing the difference between a Titian and a Tretchikoff, had one of the finest collections of paintings in the country.
Drifting into the drawing room, however, Georgie found that all their own paintings had been taken down and the stark white walls covered with vast oils of the same copulating couple, a rapacious naked girl coiled round a faceless man in a pin-stripe suit.
Flora, who was still wearing Guy’s cricket sweater, and looking as trampishly sexy as her mother looked voluptuous and replete, was gazing at them in horror.
‘What’s this shit?’ she demanded.
‘Don’t swear.’ Guy’s lips tightened, as he adjusted a picture light. ‘And don’t make comments on things about which you know nothing. These are original Armstrongs.’
‘You’d need strong arms to hoist up a dog like that girl. They’re absolutely gross.’
‘It’s a moving and original interpretation of the Kama Sutra.’
‘Pin-stripe suitra more like,’ drawled Flora. ‘Who’s coming to this bash anyway?’
Guy looked even more bootfaced, but was not prepared to risk a row that might leave him waitressless.
‘Well, I decided in for a penny in for a pound. There’s Julia Armstrong and her husband Ben.’ Going into the kitchen, he gave his raspberry purée, to go with the lobster mousseline, a stir.
‘Who’s she?’ asked Georgie.
Guy sighed. ‘Oh Panda, I’ve told you a hundred times. She’s having an exhibition at the gallery next month. I thought people might enjoy a preview tonight. Ben and Julia live in Islington, but they’ve rented a weekend cottage in Eldercombe. They’ve got young children. Ben’s in computers. I like him a lot. Leave those grapes alone, Flora,’ he said sharply. ‘And you were going to wash a couple of lettuces, Georgie, I’ve done the dressing. And for goodness’ sake, do the placement before everyone arrives.’
Oh God, placement was more taxing than A level maths! There was Julia and Ben, Rannaldini and Kitty, Annabel Hardman, another friend of Georgie’s who lived in Paradise, and Valentine, her brilliant beast of a lawyer husband, who might not turn up. Boris and Rachel, Marigold and Lysander or Larry, and for Miss Bottomley Georgie had invited Meredith Whalen, an extremely expensive, gay interior designer, who was nicknamed the Ideal Homo, because he was so often asked to make up numbers at Paradise dinner parties.
‘I’ll need log tables to work out this one,’ grumbled Georgie.
‘Bottomley’d better go on your right, Mum,’ advised Flora. ‘She’ll need two chairs.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ giggled Georgie. ‘She goes on Daddy’s right and Hermione on his left.’
But Guy, who was spooning caviar on to each plate beside the lobster mousseline, was not in the mood for frivolity.
‘Put Julia Armstrong on my left. She won’t know anyone, and I’ve got to talk shop to her, and put Ben on your left.’
With alarm Georgie suddenly noticed a dozen bottles of Dom Perignon, a battalion of Nuits St George as well as the vat of caviar and four bottles of Barsac in the fridge. They were horrendously overdrawn at the moment, but she didn’t feel she could remonstrate with Guy when he’d done all the cooking and her new grey velvet dress had cost a fortune.
Following him into the drawing room she found him putting on a record. Next moment Mozart flooded the house from every speaker.
‘Oh, lovely,’ sighed Georgie, ‘Rannaldini’s Così.’
‘It’s Mozart’s Così,’ snapped Guy.
He is uptight about Rannaldini, thought Georgie.
Guy was wearing neither tie nor jacket, which was unusual. A cornflower-blue shirt which she hadn’t seen before was tucked into very dark grey cords held up with a leather belt. He looked glowingly handsome, and Georgie told him so. ‘And you’re in great shape,’ she added, putting her arms round his broad athletic back, and feeling his flat taut midriff.
‘Must be humping all that furniture.’
‘You’ve worked so hard,’ murmured Georgie, ‘particularly today. I am lucky. Love you, darling.’
‘Love you, Panda,’ said Guy. ‘Now do the placement, so you can relax and enjoy yourself.’
The evening, in fact, was far from relaxed. By nine o’clock only Miss Bottomley had arrived, roaring up on a motor bike and in a foul mood because she’d got lost.
Then at a quarter-past nine Boris rang full of tearful and mostly incomprehensible contrition. Rachel had found out that he’d been seeing his old mistress, Chloe, and issued an ultimatum. As a point of honour Boris felt he must resign from the marriage, so he couldn’t make dinner, nor understandably could Rachel, which meant a frantic resetting of the table, and a rewrite of the placement – not easy when one was three Bacardis up.
Even worse, Flora, on learning Boris wasn’t coming, retired to her bedroom with a bottle of Barsac and the cordless telephone, and flatly refused to do any waitressing. Bob then arrived with Hermione, looking radiant in an olive-green Chanel suit braided with rose pink. Bringing up the rear, was Meredith, the Ideal Homo.
&nb
sp; ‘We’re late because Rannaldini sacked two soloists this afternoon and Bob’s got to find replacements by Monday,’ said Hermione, handing her mink to Guy. ‘Gracious, it looks different since the Jennings’ day.’
She then proceeded to go into ecstasies over the dark green wallpaper in the downstairs lavatory which they hadn’t changed, and on peering into the study which had been papered in dark mulberry to set off Guy’s Victorian paintings, said: ‘What colour are you going to paint this dreadfully dark room?’
Meredith, who looked like Christopher Robin with Shirley Temple’s blond curls, and who was tiny, beautifully dressed, and a great giggler, made no comment, on the principle that any praise might do him out of a possible job.
‘I think it looks wonderful,’ said Bob Harefield, hugging a disconsolate Georgie.
By nine-thirty, they were still light on Rannaldini and Kitty, Julia and Ben Armstrong, Annabel and Valentine Hardman and Marigold and whoever. Georgie was so nervous and belted upstairs so often to check her face that Bob wondered if she was on something. Rannaldini’s Der Rosenkavalier was now surging out of the speakers, and Hermione had started to sing along.
‘You better put on the broccoli,’ muttered Guy as he opened another bottle of champagne. ‘I can’t do everything.’
Not waiting for the water to boil, Georgie was returning from the kitchen when through the door came a girl with long hair, the red of springtime copper beeches, and a lot of dark make-up round her fox-brown eyes. She was wearing a cream midi-dress, which enhanced her very pale skin, as falling snowflakes whiten the sky. Her slender neck seemed almost too delicate to support a heavy metal scorpion which hung between unexpectedly full breasts.
Lovely, thought Georgie with pleasure. Not unlike me twenty years ago, I must go on a diet.
‘Panda, this is Julia Armstrong,’ said Guy, ‘and this,’ he added even more warmly, ‘is Ben.’
Ben in computers was bald with protruding eyes, full red lips emphasized by a straggling black beard, and a little frill of black hair flowing over his white collar like a draught extractor. Seeing Guy in a shirt, he promptly removed his jacket to show off a small waist and hips as wide as his shoulders. He then proceeded to explain, in his nasal, very common voice, that they were late because he’d been kept at the office on extremely important business.
‘What a lovely spot, Guy,’ he went on, accepting a drink. ‘How did you find it?’
‘With great difficulty if you had Georgie’s directions,’ boomed Sabine Bottomley, who was gazing in admiration at Julia.
It is sod’s law, thought Georgie irritably, as Julia clapped her hands in joy as she saw her paintings on the walls, that such an enchanting girl should be on Guy’s left and I should be landed with her gh-a-a-stly husband.
But next moment the balance was redressed by the arrival of Rannaldini, who’d been kept on even more important business, some multi-billion Yen record deal with the Japs, and who was livid not to be the last to arrive. Heart-stopping in a dark blue velvet smoking-jacket, he was followed by poor Kitty looking unbelievably plain in burgundy polyester, with just the wrong gathers over the hips for her bean-bag figure.
As Ben was nearest the door and shamefully because they were the two most unattractive people in the room, Georgie introduced him to Kitty.
‘Do you play an instrument?’ asked Ben.
‘She plays the word processor,’ called out Rannaldini bitchily. ‘Don’t give her any other ideas.’
Introduced to Julia, who, in her nervousness, Georgie called Juliet, Rannaldini was all-purring amiability, but grew less so on learning that Flora had pushed off upstairs.
‘Go and get your daughter,’ Guy hissed at Georgie.
Always my daughter, when she’s acting up, thought Georgie, applying another layer of Clinique, and a squirt of Giorgio before banging on Flora’s door.
‘Darling, please come out and be nice. Rannaldini’s bought you tickets for the St Matthew Passion.’
‘I don’t care,’ sobbed Flora who’d drunk nearly a whole bottle of Barsac. ‘The only passion I have is for Boris Levitsky and he’s buggered off with that slag Chloe. My life is over.’
Charging downstairs, Georgie found Guy pointing out the merits of one of Julia’s enmeshed couples to Rannaldini, Bob and Meredith, the Ideal Homo.
‘They’re very strong,’ Guy said warmly. ‘I’m certain Armstrong is going to be very big.’
Meredith, who inveigled vast fees out of his clients with the innocence of a schoolboy touting for pocket money, raised his little grey flannel leg three inches off the ground in imitation of the Pin-stripe Lover.
‘I couldn’t get myself into that position in a thousand years,’ he giggled. ‘He must be awfully fit.’
Irritated he wasn’t taking the painting seriously enough, Guy turned on Georgie. ‘Annabel Hardman has just rung and bottled out,’ he whispered furiously. ‘Valentine’s stuck in London.’
‘And in some blonde, oh, poor Annabel,’ said Georgie.
‘Says she can’t face it on her own,’ snarled Guy. ‘And where’s your friend Marigold? The quails will be totally ruined.’
Next moment a disgusting smell of burnt rubber drifted in from the kitchen.
‘Oh God, I forgot the broccoli,’ wailed Georgie.
Guy’s face tightened. Even worse, Dinsdale, fed up with being tripped over, had hoisted himself on to the big dark gold corduroy sofa in front of the fire and angrily refused to be evicted when Hermione wanted to sit down.
‘No, I won’t have any more champagne. I’m looking forward to a glass of wine at dinner.’ Hermione looked at her Cartier watch pointedly.
She was fed up with fascinating Miss Bottomley who had even more beard than Julia’s husband, with whom Kitty was making very heavy weather.
‘I’m starving,’ muttered Meredith to Georgie. ‘I had lunch with Bob and Hermione, and the old bat just served up stale bread and mousetrap, which would have been turned down by any self-respecting rat. “Hermione,” I told her, “this mousetrap’s been in your larder longer than Dame Agatha’s play.” She wasn’t amused.’
In panic, feeling as if all her guests were set in gelatine, Georgie had another drink. It was plain from the bored expression on Rannaldini’s face that he wasn’t remotely interested in her, and if Marigold didn’t show they’d need speaking trumpets to hear each other at dinner. Her heart lifted as lights came up the drive, but they went round to the back of the house. It was Mrs Piggott, Georgie’s cleaner, whom Flora had nicknamed Mother Courage, because she drank so much beer and who had already arrived to wash up.
We should never have moved to the country and got embroiled in such grandiose entertaining, thought Georgie. But just as they were seated round the kitchen table, and Ben, to his horror, found himself next to dowdy Kitty yet again, the curtain less windows were filled with flashing lights and a helicopter landed on the lawn spewing out Larry and Marigold who was looking stunning in a scarlet satin suit. Clasping hands, they ran across the lawn, nearly tripping over a molehill.
‘Fraightfully sorry we’re late,’ said Marigold as Georgie hastily wrote Larry’s name on a place card instead of Lysander’s. ‘Larry was closing a deal.’
‘Anyone we know?’ asked Bob Harefield.
After some coaxing, Larry admitted that he’d just bought 28 per cent of a vast Japanese record company.
‘He also found taime to make love to me on the office carpet,’ whispered Marigold to Georgie.
19
The dinner party perked up a bit after this as Larry and Marigold affected everyone with their high spirits. Idly flipping over the piece of paper on which Georgie had worked out the placement, Rannaldini found his cv, which Georgie had had faxed down from the London Met Press Office, so she would be able to talk knowledgeably about his career at dinner. Rannaldini smirked. If Georgie had the hots for him, he’d gain access to her house and Flora more easily. A gaze-hound who hunted by sight rather than scent, having once seen Flor
a, he wouldn’t rest until he caught her, however long the chase.
On the other hand, Georgie wasn’t unattractive. She looked much better today. It would be an added frisson to play off mother and daughter.
So he turned the charm on Georgie, praising Flora’s looks and blazing talent which could only come from her mother. He then told Georgie about his guest-conducting and filming commitments all over the world, and Georgie didn’t take in a word he said, because, from the way he was looking at her, she felt he’d already taken a degree in the geography of her body without removing a single garment. And that voice, husky, slow, reverberating like the molten depths of a volcano pondering whether to wipe out a nearby town just for the hell of it, made his tritest utterance sound significant.
‘We are both on treadmill, my dear Georgie,’ he was saying now, softly, ‘I in my Lear Jet, you in your leetie study, both making music, but we will meet from time to time in Paradise.’
‘Oh yes.’ Georgie’s heart seemed to be beating between her legs.
Hermione, who detested Rannaldini chatting up anyone else, led the shrieks of praise for Guy’s lobster mousseline, followed by quails en croute in ginger and yoghurt.
With great difficulty, Georgie wrenched her attention away from Rannaldini to talk to the horrific Ben.
‘You have a very beautiful and talented wife,’ she said.
‘Julia is also a caring mother,’ said Ben complacently.
At the end of the table, against the sooty black of the uncurtained window, Julia, her pale skin glowing like pearl, was listening to Guy’s plans for the house.
‘I’ll knock this wall through into a conservatory, leading to an indoor pool,’ he was saying. ‘I mean, when does one get a chance to swim outside in Rutshire?’
And who the hell’s going to pay for it? Only if I write another smash hit, which they’re all so dismissive of, with their fucking classical music, thought Georgie.
