by Jilly Cooper
‘You’re always grumbling I never have any. And shut up about Kitty.’
‘I’ll ring you when you’re in a better mood.’
Outside it had started to snow, whitely blurring the gold lamps and windows lighting the town square, wrapping the church spire in cotton wool. Realizing he hadn’t been to sleep for forty-eight hours and in need of Kitty’s cheerful company, Lysander wandered off to the vast President de Gaulle suite which Rannaldini had taken for his holiday. He found her plumping the cushions of a huge dark green velvet sofa and in floods of tears. He was appalled. The only time he’d seen Kitty cry was after the tennis tournament when she’d discovered she wasn’t pregnant. Perhaps she’d just got the curse again. Hell! He’d been hoping to get her into bed that evening. Then he felt furious with himself for being selfish.
‘Oh, Lysander, I’m in such a muddle.’
Lysander was about to take her in his arms when the telephone rang. It was Rannaldini in a rage because Kitty hadn’t cancelled the President de Gaulle suite. Why, after he’d left, should she live in the style befitting a great maestro?
‘I’m sorry, Rannaldini. We’ll move into other rooms first fing.’
Lysander was so angry that Kitty was being so placatory that he retreated to the vast bathroom next door, gazing stonily at the dewy bank of ferns and the red velvet steps leading up to a raspberry-pink Jacuzzi big enough to accommodate an entire string quartet. And the bastard wanted to move Kitty into some pokey little hole! He was tempted to pick up the telephone and join in the row. Instead, despite Kitty’s frantic waving, he pulled the chain noisily and then turned up the television – some French rock band – far too loud.
‘What’s that noise?’ asked Rannaldini sharply.
‘Nothing, one of the children,’ stammered Kitty over the din.
‘They should be in bed.’
Lysander had sulkily eaten all the strawberries in the fruit bowl and was starting on the nectarines when Kitty put down the receiver.
‘How dare you make all that noise,’ she said furiously.
Lysander looked up in amazement.
‘Kitty, you can actually be cross!’
And like a bullet between the eyes he realized that he was in love with her.
‘I just hate you being so nice to him,’ he mumbled.
Wiping his hands on his jeans, he pulled her towards him. Despite her wriggling away like a piglet, he kissed her and she tasted so clean and sweet and her young skin smelt so like a wild rose that he went on kissing her until the wriggling stopped.
‘I haven’t got any knees left.’ Catching her off balance, he pulled her down on to the green velvet sofa and, kissing her again, began to explore her body.
Beneath a dress drenched by the children’s bath water, he discovered wonderfully full, bouncy breasts and a waist no longer belted by spare tyres.
‘Oh Kitty, I’m mad about you.’
Then the wriggling started again.
‘You don’t have to be nice to me,’ sobbed Kitty. ‘Just to rattle Rannaldini and give me a sheen.’
‘This had nothing to do with Rannaldini.’ It was Lysander’s turn to be outraged.
Trapping her face between his hands, he forced her to look at him, ‘I’m doing this because I can’t not. I love you, Kitty. It crept up on me in Brazil. I was Kitty-sick, not homesick. From now on, you’re where I belong.’
Then seeing her utter amazement. ‘You’re as irresistible as Cambozola, you’re’ – he snapped his fingers trying to be really poetic – ‘as comforting as a baked potato full of butter on Sunday night. As-as-as welcome as a glass of cold water in the middle of the night when the ham’s been too salty. Oh, Kitty, I can’t say clever things but I want to be the hot-water bottle that melts your frozen heart.’
‘Oh, blimey!’ Kitty was fighting back the tears as she gazed up at him. ‘You’re so ’andsome, you oughta be on every Mills and Boon jacket but the girls the ’eroes gaze at don’t look anyfink like me.’
Now it was Lysander’s turn to grit his jaw.
‘Of course they don’t. They’re pretty.’ He ran his hand wonderingly over her blushing, squashed little face. ‘But you’re beautiful. And you’re beautiful inside, too, like Arthur.’
Realizing how huge a compliment this was, Kitty managed not to laugh.
Encouraged, Lysander suggested they romp in the Jacuzzi. But Kitty’s face clouded over.
‘We shouldn’t. I’m married.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ Lysander only just stopped himself cataloguing Rannaldini’s women.
‘Anyway, it was so lovely, kissin’ you,’ sighed Kitty. ‘I couldn’t stop.’
‘That’s the general idea.’ Lysander began to unbutton her dress then, seeing her apprehension, ‘Let’s discuss it over dinner. Go and change.’ He yawned. ‘I love you, Kitty.’
But when she came out, jet lag had overtaken him. He was slumped, fast asleep, on the sofa, red juice running down his chin, a half-eaten pomegranate on the floor.
‘Good night, Suite Prince,’ murmured Kitty, who had done Hamlet at school, wrapping her duvet round him. She was going to allow herself the luxury of watching him all night.
At dawn she drifted into a heavy sleep in her armchair and was woken by the telephone. She remembered the clipped, contemptuous drawl from Rannaldini’s answering machine.
‘I thought Lysander was coming off-piste with me,’ said Rupert.
The fact that Lysander was apologizing sleepily on the same telephone a few seconds later did nothing to assuage Rupert’s suspicions. Lysander could use the money Kitty paid him as a gigolo to run after Taggie.
‘Where are you going?’ asked Kitty, feeding Lysander croissant spread with apricot jam as he groggily tugged on his yellow ski pants.
‘Somewhere he called Chute des Fantômes, Shoot to Kill, I dunno. I’ll ski down as fast as I can. At least I can bend Rupert’s ear about Arthur.’
It had snowed heavily in the night, blotting out yesterday’s footprints and ski tracks, putting five inches on the parked cars and President de Gaulle’s cap in the town square. Glancing out of the window, Kitty saw Rupert’s dark blue Mercedes draw up. Getting out, he looked as chill and menacing as the day. Suddenly Kitty was frightened.
‘Please be careful,’ she said, brushing crumbs off Lysander’s chin and handing him his sweat band.
Gazing down a cliff face steep as a lift shaft, three-quarters of an hour later, Lysander wondered why the hell he’d come.
Deliberately sitting two seats away from Lysander in the helicopter on the way up, Rupert hadn’t spoken a word. The putty-grey skies, liverishly tinged with yellow, presaged further heavy snow. A howling blizzard chucked glass splinters in their faces. Below, the skein of ski runs and the fir trees herring-boning the side of the valley blurred as the visibility grew worse. Far, far down, the houses of the village, one of them containing darling Kitty, lay like ants on the snow. Lysander’s yellow ski clothes were the only note of colour in the black-and-white magpie landscape. Rupert’s slit eyes through his dark glasses were anything but friendly.
‘OK?’ he asked Lysander.
Lysander nodded, teeth chattering far more from terror than the bitter cold.
‘I’ll lead the way,’ and Rupert was off, hissing down the valley like a falling meteor, hidden in a permanent spray of snow.
‘I love you, Kitty,’ shouted Lysander to the whirling snowflakes. ‘Dear God, take me back safe to her.’
And he was off, careering after Rupert, crouched like a jockey so low over his skis that his hands were higher than his face, furiously stabbing with his poles as he tried to recapture his old skill and adjust to the rhythm.
Within seconds, as Lysander streaked past him, Rupert realized he was outclassed. Although once almost Olympic standard, he was now nearly twenty years older and lacked the boy’s suppleness, extreme fitness and split-second timing. Rupert really had to force himself to keep up and all the time was aware of going far
too fast as trees rushed to meet him and crevasses loomed below. Only by straining every muscle did he avoid catapulting to his death. Almost more goading was that, once in his stride, Lysander started enjoying himself, showing off his miraculous control by going into a series of long, bounding jumps like a lurcher trying to see over the barley, each time landing perfectly. Going so fast round the final bend, he lost a ski and carried on with one, shooting straight into the bar three-quarters of the way down the mountain.
He was waiting when Rupert arrived, giggling with nervous hysteria, his cheeks flushed, his hands round a glass of Kir.
‘Jesus, that was hairy. I thought the wind was going to pound me to bits. Thank Christ we’re in one piece. I got you a whisky.’
Rupert was absolutely furious with himself. He might never have seen Taggie, the children or his dogs again – just because he wanted to scare the daffodil-yellow pants out of this cocky little sod.
‘You come down the Ghost Valley today?’ asked the barman incredulously, putting a bowl of pretzels between them. ‘Mad Englishmen and dogs! You know why eet called that?’
Lysander shook his head.
‘Because so many people been keeled. At night their ghosts ski down mountain. Local people no go near it.’
The sun was hot now, melting the snow which splodged every fir tree like soap suds. Rupert clutched his glass of whisky to stop his hand shaking. The boy’s languid beauty, his rumpled brown curls, his big, generous mouth emphasized by white lipsalve, his endless legs up on the wooden table, only increased Rupert’s dislike and jealousy.
Not understanding why Rupert was looking marginally less friendly than a rattlesnake with a hangover, but desperate to placate him, Lysander said: ‘I thought Taggie, I mean Mrs Campbell-Black, was seriously beautiful.’
‘Which is more than can be said for Mrs Rannaldini.’
Refusing to be goaded, Lysander gazed into his glass. Mistaking stillness for passivity, Rupert became almost chatty.
‘Your hotel’s dripping with gigolo fodder. Surely you could have found someone more glamorous than that cow to pick up your bills. I appreciate there’s a recession on and you have to take what you can get.’ Draining his glass, Rupert waved to the barman to refill their glasses, adding to Lysander, ‘It’s OK, the rest of the run’s a doddle. I’m amazed Rannaldini’s married,’ the drawl was becoming slower and bitchier, ‘to such a boot. Did her face get stuck in a lift door? No wonder he doesn’t let her out before sunset. Still I suppose there’s no accounting for lack of taste.’
Next minute, Rupert found himself on his back on the floor of the bar.
‘Don’t ever speak about Kitty like that again,’ yelled Lysander. ‘She’s the nicest, sweetest, loveliest woman I’ve ever met.’
As Rupert fingered his jaw and pondered whether to throw Lysander out of the window down the precipice, he decided there was no way Lysander could be after Taggie if he leapt to Kitty’s defence like that.
After that, Rupert and Lysander skiied down the rest of the mountain and, in the course of getting rather drunk together, Rupert even confessed to his reservations about being a grandfather and cramping Taggie’s style.
‘I feel I’ve stolen her youth, but I hate any man that looks at her. I wanted to kill you this morning.’
‘That’s OK,’ said Lysander. ‘I’d have killed you if you’d gone on bitching about Kitty or tried to take her off me. Did you really think I was after Taggie?’
‘You couldn’t stop staring at her last night.’
‘I was staring at you.’ Lysander blushed furiously. ‘I’ve always hero-worshipped you – even more than Donald Duck. Look what Kitty made me.’ Proudly he unzipped his yellow jacket to show off his jersey.
‘Anyway, to go back to you, my parents had a terrible row because my father thought I was too young to be allowed to stay up and watch you win your bronze in the middle of the night at Colombia.’
‘How old were you?’
‘Seven.’
‘Gee, thanks.’ said Rupert wryly.
Swearing Rupert to secrecy, Lysander explained, in his confiding way, how he had amassed quite a fortune, admittedly totally masterminded by Ferdie, making husbands jealous.
‘But now I’m in love with Kitty I’ve got to find a proper job so I can support her.’
‘You could be a presenter at Venturer,’ said Rupert. ‘All you have to do is to read an autocue.’
Lysander shook his head. ‘You’re really kind, but I’m dyslexic. It takes me all morning to read the runners in the Sun, or DO NOT DISTURB notices on hotel bedrooms.’
Rupert was touched. Taggie was dyslexic and he knew what heroic efforts she had made to overcome it.
‘What I really want to do is work with horses,’ went on Lysander. ‘I’m going to get Arthur sound, and have one more crack at the Rutminster.’
‘Penscombe Pride’s going to win that,’ said Rupert. ‘But Arthur was a good horse, I remember him winning in Ireland.’
‘He still gets fan mail and Twix bars in the post.’
The sun was setting as Rupert dropped Lysander off at the Hotel Versailles. The next moment he was knocked sideways by Kitty, blue with cold and hysterical with worry, shooting across the icy pavements into his arms.
‘I was so worried. You was so long. I fort you might have been killed. Fousands of people ’ave died in Ghost Valley.’ And she kissed him over and over again. ‘I was so worried Rupert took you there deliberately.’
‘No, no, he’s been wonderful and so are you.’
Delighted with her response, Lysander pulled Kitty through the revolving doors, kissing her on and on until the porters, the receptionists and all the glamorous people grouped round the tables stopped chattering and drinking and gave them a round of applause.
‘I should have rung.’ Oblivious of the attention they were causing, Lysander led her towards the lift. ‘I didn’t mean to frighten you. Let’s go and try out that Jacuzzi before I stiffen up.’
‘In a place that won’t let us feel,
in a life where nothing seems real
I have found you, I have found you,’ sang Lysander tunelessly as he lay in eighteen inches of warm, scented, churning water soaping Kitty’s breasts as they gently juddered above the surface. At first she had been desperately embarrassed because Rannaldini had shaved off her pubic hair.
‘I was the only person ’ere for ’im to sleep wiv,’ she confessed. ‘The au pair’s father works for Le Monde so he couldn’t risk it.’
Lysander hid his anger by saying she looked adorable and more like a little piglet than ever and Rannaldini was obviously obsessed with strimming paths to exciting places. Kitty then said Rachel would disapprove of such deforestation, and laughed and felt better. Glancing in the darkened mirrors lining the wall, she felt almost beautiful for the first time in her life and put her hand under the water.
‘It’s no good, I have stiffened up,’ admitted Lysander as his rampant cock reared above the surface.
‘It’s like a periscope,’ said Kitty, stroking it.
‘Looking for its target. Come on.’
Rising out of the bath, he carried her, dripping, next door, drenching the pink chintz roses as he dropped her gently on to the counterpane of the huge four-poster.
They didn’t bother to draw the curtains. Outside, duck-egg-green shadows lay on the snow, the stars were brilliant in the clear, frosty night. The ring of silent, blue mountains beyond seemed to protect them.
‘I love you,’ murmured Lysander as he slowly stroked her pink wet body into a state of ecstasy. Then, as he sat up and drew her between his thighs and slithered inside her, ‘A-a-a-ah, ooo – it’s heaven. Like the soft, pink fingers of a milkmaid squeezing me. Oh help,’ he wailed, ‘I can never hold out if I really fancy someone and I want you more than anyone ever. Oh God, oh help, I’m sorry, Kitty darling.’
The difference between Rannaldini and Lysander, reflected Kitty, was that although Rannaldini played with her and
kept going for hours, she always felt he was like a pianist polishing his technique for a big concert which wouldn’t be with her. With Lysander she felt she was the big occasion he had practised for all his life.
‘Oh, Kitty,’ he echoed her thoughts, ‘I’ve fucked so many times in my life, but this is truly the first time I’ve ever made love. Now it’s my turn to give you pleasure. Promise to tell me exactly what you like.’ Then, when she was embarrassed, he said, ‘I always wanted to be a Brickie-layer when I grew up,’ and collapsed with such laughter that she joined in too, and started to relax.
Afterwards, she said truthfully, ‘That was ubsolutely mudgic, Lysunder.’
‘Let’s do it all over again at the gallop,’ he said, kissing her, ‘but if we’re not going to die of rheumatism we better sleep in one of the other beds. I’m just going to have a pee.’
Tottering, dizzy with love, into the bathroom five minutes later, Kitty saw that Lysander had taken the hideous crimson lipstick Cecilia had given her for Christmas and scrawled across the mirror: KITTY IS FOR LYFE NOT JUST FOR KRISTMASS.
Next door a five-eighth moon with a white, wistful nun’s face was peering in through the window at the sprawled naked beauty of a waiting Lysander. Running into the room, Kitty flung herself on him, burying her face in his silvery chest.
‘All my life,’ she whispered, ‘I’ve longed to have moonlight and someone I loved at the same time.’
‘I keep wanting to ring Mum and tell her how wonderful you are,’ said Lysander.
51
But as Shakespeare’s Lysander pointed out four hundred years before, ‘the course of true love never did run smooth’. The Press, trailing Rupert and clocking everyone who spent time with him, took photographs of Lysander kissing Kitty in the foyer. Plied with a fat bribe the hotel porter revealed that the President de Gaulle suite was now being paid for by a Mr L. Hawkley. The picture-desk promptly identified Lysander as the man making husbands jealous and Kitty, from her brief appearance at the airport, as Rannaldini’s wife.
