by Jilly Cooper
Fortunately Oo-ah! had been diverted from such lewd behaviour and were busy photographing a beaming Visitor in Anthea’s £3,000 wedding hat.
‘No-one’s really disciplined the Belvedons,’ went on Barney, forking up Emerald’s untouched sea trout mousse. ‘Raymond is used to artists and thinks their behaviour is quite normal. But they’ve been brought up rather as a cat brings up its food, vomited into the world by Galena’s neglect. Yet her charm has somehow extended down the years, enslaving them.’
These are my brothers and sisters, thought Emerald. She had never encountered people so outrageous nor so glamorous. Nor could she take her eyes off Anthea. With the Bishop on one side and the Lord-Lieutenant on the other, their flushed balding heads were bent so far over her, they seemed about to clash like shiny red billiard balls.
‘Lady Belvedon is so beautiful,’ sighed Emerald.
Loyalty to his mother, Rosemary, was Barney’s only decent emotion.
‘And an absolute bitch,’ he said.
‘Surely not.’ Emerald longed to defend Anthea, but was scared of giving the game away.
‘She’s the most ghastly snob,’ said Barney flatly. ‘Anyone who’s not going to advance her socially, or feather Raymond’s nest, is ruthlessly rejected.’
Like she rejected me, thought Emerald darkly.
As they were between courses, Anthea had bidden au revoir to the doting Bishop and Lord-Lieutenant and was wandering round the tables, air-kissing and charming.
‘Watch her doing a number only on the really important,’ said Barney savagely. ‘Look at her drooling over that guy with the strange eyes. Must say, he’s seriously gorgeous.’
‘He’s my boyfriend,’ said Emerald.
Because of the stifling heat, men were taking off their jackets, and a side of the marquee had been opened up to the garden. Beneath the sweet heady scent of clematis and lilac lurked the rank sexy smell of wild garlic, as though some courtesan too lazy to have a bath had drenched herself in expensive scent.
Black fluffy clouds with pearly grey linings were advancing on a primrose-yellow moon. In the distance beyond dark shrubberies gleamed the River Fleet. Emerald longed to race down the hill and swim across the moonlit water to freedom. She shouldn’t have come. But, glancing up, she saw Anthea had moved on and Zac, smiling across at her, was making a thumbs-up sign.
After dinner, Jupiter made a smooth speech.
‘Practising for when he takes over the Tory Party,’ said Barney sourly.
‘There are ordinary marriages and delicious marriages,’ began Jupiter. ‘This is a delicious marriage.’
He then praised Raymond, which he found difficult because he despised his father, then Anthea, which he found easy.
‘Anthea’s been a wonderful wife to Dad, for whom she planned this entire day, and she’s been a wonderful stepmother, compensating so much for the tragic loss of our own mother. I cannot thank her enough.’
‘We can,’ shouted Jonathan and Sienna.
‘Shut up,’ snapped Alizarin. ‘Let her have her hour of glory.’
For a while they did, even when Anthea, smiling into the Oo-ah! camera lens, brimming with tears but not enough to dislodge her blue mascara, rose to her feet. Having prettily thanked her dearest stepson Jupiter, who had always been such ‘a tower of strength’, she launched into a eulogy to her husband.
‘Round the walls are all the Old Masters Sir Raymond has Saved for the Nation.’
‘And made a pretty penny for himself,’ shouted Somerford Keynes, whose mother-of-pearl binoculars were trained on Zac.
‘Unkind, Somerford!’ Anthea threw him a reproachful glance. ‘Let us all drink to Sir Raymond.’
‘She can hardly see over the table,’ spat Sienna.
‘Thank your lucky stars she isn’t genetically modified,’ said Jonathan, drawing a giant Anthea on the tablecloth. ‘Think of the nightmare if she were six foot two, and no bug could kill her.’
‘My one regret,’ wound up Anthea in a ringing voice, ‘is that Mummy and Daddy are not alaive to witness this wonderful occasion.’
‘Bollocks,’ thundered Aunt Lily, to the horror of Green Jean, ‘Anthea never let them over the threshold.’
‘Boo,’ yelled Sienna, a lone voice amidst the storm of cheering as Anthea sat down. ‘Support me,’ she wailed to Jonathan.
But he was gazing at Emerald, who was smiling because everyone seemed so delighted with her mother.
‘One praised her ankles, one her eyes,’ murmured Jonathan:
‘One her dark hair and lovesome mien.
So sweet a face, such angel grace,
In all that land had never been.’
‘Christ,’ he went on dreamily, ‘she’s incredible.’
‘Another demon Barbie,’ snarled Sienna. ‘What’s happened to her Nicolas Cage boyfriend?’
Jupiter, who’d recently flushed Keithie the burglar out of the dining room with an even more bulging handbag, was not amused to discover Zac prowling around upstairs.
‘Just looking for the john,’ said Zac blandly, ‘easy to get lost in these old places.’
‘There are portaloos in the garden,’ said Jupiter icily. He’d better get Robens to frisk every guest on the way out.
Raymond, who felt guilty he’d been so foul to Alizarin over the tennis match earlier, had spent much of dinner trying to convince Geraldine Paxton from the Arts Council that his second son was a neglected genius.
‘If only he’d use a lighter palette or accept a commission we might have some suitable pictures to hang, but he insists on going his own road.’
‘It might help if he and his brother stopped thumping critics,’ said Geraldine crisply.
Jupiter was very much looking forward later to showing Geraldine, an expert on being an expert, the head sculpted by his new protégée Emerald Cartwright. Now the official part of the evening was over, he could also ask Emerald to dance.
Raymond and Anthea opened the ball to ‘This Guy’s in Love with You’, which they’d discovered was their favourite tune, the year they met. Raymond was a competent but rather straight dancer, and very stiff from too much tennis. Anthea however was dying to show off.
As she and Raymond came off the floor, they bumped into Zac, so tall, lithe and strong. Next moment he and Anthea had exchanged a smouldering glance, and Zac had swept her off to dance. Lighter than an elf in his arms, Anthea was soon telling him she would have taken up ballet, if she hadn’t been so tiny.
‘Ay made the other principals and the corps seem like hippos. And where do you come from, Zachary? You dance so beautifully.’
‘Well, originally I guess from Vienna.’
‘So you must love to waltz,’ cried Anthea. ‘Oh, so do I, whirling around held tightly in your partner’s strong arms, so much more romantic than this modern stuff.’
‘Where did you get the idea for that fabulous dress?’ Zac touched the rainbow-woven silk, letting his fingers linger, pressing the little breast beneath.
‘It’s a character from a painting,’ murmured Anthea, ‘but my lips are sealed.’
‘Your lips’ – Zac glanced down at them – ‘are far too soft and pretty to be sealed.’
Jupiter, having fortified himself with a large brandy, ignoring the reproachful blue eyes of his wife, was poised to ask Emerald to dance, when Jonathan preempted him.
‘I must get your telephone number before I get too hammered. You’ve got to sit for me.’
Having scribbled Emerald’s number on the inside of his wrist, he led her onto the dance floor, opening his arms like the Angel of the North, then enfolding her against his body.
‘I can’t bear it,’ groaned Sienna as Jonathan dropped a kiss on Emerald’s dark head, then, tilting up her face, gazed into it with such intensity, fingering it in bewilderment.
‘You’ve got to let him go, lovey,’ muttered Alizarin, who was also watching the anguish on Hanna’s face as she clocked her seething husband.
Jupiter could hear
David Pulborough saying, ‘I am appalled Raymond didn’t sell out. People prepared to pay twice as much keep asking me if I can find them a Casey Andrews. You’re being robbed, Casey.’
There would be time to strangle David later. For the moment, Jupiter decided, it was more important to break up Emerald and Jonathan.
The ever courteous Raymond was back in his seat, beside a restless Geraldine Paxton.
‘Did your wife ballroom dance professionally?’ she asked him sourly, then she thought: Oh good, David’s stopped propositioning that dreadful Casey Andrews and is coming to ask me to dance.
David was just about to twirl his fingers at Geraldine when he suddenly saw little Dora Belvedon in her lilac bridesmaid’s dress and asked her instead, letting her ride round on his toes, so that Oo-ah! might take their picture, and everyone think what a caring charmer he was.
This also gave him the chance to examine close up the incredibly beautiful girl dancing with Jonathan. Half the men in the room – the rest were gay – seemed to have taken the floor for the same reason. Then David twigged: she was the girl in the leather mini who’d been sculpting Jupiter’s head last week. She kept glancing out into the garden, and for once Jonathan looked like the stable boy trying to cling on to the bolting thoroughbred.
As the band crashed to a halt, Jonathan put his hands on either side of her face and, dropping his dark head, buried his lips in hers, kissing her on and on. Everyone whooped, the men somewhat reluctantly. Jupiter’s going to kill Jonathan, thought David in delight. But maybe Emerald would perform the task first.
‘What a bloody irrelevant stupid thing to do,’ she screamed.
Thrusting Jonathan away, she practically knocked him over as she whacked him viciously across the face before running off into the garden.
She’s a southpaw, thought Alizarin irrationally. Where the hell had he seen her before?
The heterosexual male half of the party might have followed Emerald out of the marquee if the leader of the orchestra, who’d been taken aside by Zac, hadn’t launched into the languorous violin solo which introduces Weber’s ‘Invitation to the Dance’. Then suddenly the whole band launched into the main tune, the most glorious dancing music, conjuring up Vienna, excitement, beautiful bejewelled women in ball dresses, glittering chandeliers and handsome men swirling around in tails.
Zac just came up, clicked his heels in front of Anthea, and swept her onto the floor. And the room stopped because they were both such wonderful dancers, circling to this amazingly powerful swooping beat. Everyone clapped and Visitor the Labrador, seeing proper dancing, galumphed onto the floor with Dicky and Dora. As Visitor bounced about, Zac reached down and took Dicky’s and then Dora’s hands and they joined up with Anthea and all whirled around.
Anthea, iridescent as a dragonfly as the rainbows of her dress caught the light, looked so deliriously happy there was a feeling round the room that Zac might be about to waltz off with a ready-made family.
‘I’m amazed he’s not teaching her the goose step: vun, two, vun, two,’ said Jonathan, ruefully rubbing his reddened cheek. ‘Vy don’t you elope with Hopey, Herr Ansteig, and leave divine Emerald viz me.’
As the band paused, there were shouts for an encore! The music started up again. This time, leaving Dicky and Dora gambolling with Visitor, Zac whisked Anthea once round the floor, before dancing her out into the perfumed garden. Across the lawn they went, under rose-garlanded arches and pergolas, past floodlit marble nymphs and bronze gods, down shaven lawns between dark yew ramparts, in and out of the apple trees, beneath a ceiling of blossom, their speed pegged by rough grass. But still Zac carried on, driving her with the heat and force of his body, until they reached the boathouse and the silver river.
Laughing, protesting, Anthea tried halfheartedly to escape. ‘Ay must go back to my guests, you’re so macho, Zachary, what a glorious dance!’
But Zac held on tight, thrusting her into the boathouse. Pressed against his taut hard muscular body, Anthea’s knees gave way. He’s going to kiss me, she thought in ecstasy.
‘We mustn’t upset Emma,’ she said playfully.
Then her pounding heart jerked to a standstill; her blood froze. Her gasp of horror would have soared to a scream if Zac hadn’t clapped his hand over her mouth, as she realized there was someone else in the boathouse. Against the moonlit cobwebbed window, a black silhouette quivered.
‘Don’t you think you’ve upset “Emma” enough?’ said a breathless, rasping voice. Then, when Anthea didn’t react: ‘Hi, Mum, I’m your daughter Charlene, why the hell did you give me up?’
‘Ay don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Anthea tried to bolt in panic, but Zac, leaning against the door, black and menacing as Emerald’s shadow, barred the way.
Then Emerald flipped.
‘How dare you give me away,’ she screamed, ‘you could have got me back after you married Raymond.’
‘You’ve got the wrong person,’ whimpered Anthea.
‘Oh no, I haven’t. Remember the musical box you gave me?’ Emerald swung it in front of Anthea’s terrified face. ‘One two three four five, once I caught a fish alive. Remember the hippo and your white cardigan to help me sleep because it smelled of you?’
Suddenly Anthea caved in. ‘I didn’t know where you were, my parents chucked me out. I was at my wit’s end, I was only nineteen, I had no money, I tried and tried to find a way to keep you.’
‘Not very hard,’ hissed Emerald. ‘And why did you tell Lynda Lee Potter Dicky and Dora were your first born, and what special joy it gave you to hold them in your arms?’
‘Because I could take them home!’ Anthea was hysterical. ‘It wrecked my life giving you up.’
‘Why didn’t you search for me like other mothers, why didn’t you put your name on the Adoption Contact Register, and wait desperately hoping every day for a knock on the door?’
‘I thought it was unfair to disrupt your life.’
Emerald was swaying like a cobra – about to strike.
‘Your life, you mean. Then why did you blow me out when Zac tried to contact you? You selfish bitch.’
Terrified Emerald was going to claw her face, Anthea backed into Zac and gave a shriek.
‘And who’s my father?’ screamed Emerald.
Next moment, they all jumped at a hammering and banging then Jupiter shoved open the warped door. ‘What the fuck’s going on?’
‘Anthea’s my mother,’ sobbed Emerald.
In the long pause, she could hear the surflike boom of the band, the croak of frogs, the gentle swishing flow of the river.
Jupiter’s face was as pale as a death mask, the moon shining through the cobwebs crackling and speckling it like an Old Master.
‘Is this true?’ he asked bleakly.
‘If she says so.’ Anthea sounded almost sulky.
‘I’m sorry I tricked you’ – Emerald had turned to Jupiter, quailing at the hatred in his eyes – ‘but she wouldn’t recognize me, so I had to get into your house somehow.’
Anthea took the opportunity of shooting past Jupiter out of the boathouse, racing back up the hill, losing a shoe, twice falling in the stream, covering herself in mud. All the outside entrances had been locked for security reasons, including the side door leading to the marquee. She had to scuttle past the dance floor, packed with couples swaying to Robbie Williams’s ‘Millennium’, their merriment such a contrast to her dark nightmare. As she hurtled through the front door, a worried Green Jean was hovering in the hall.
‘Are you OK, Anthea? Raymond’s been searching everywhere. Oo-ah! want to photograph you with the children and Visitor. Can I get you a drink?’ But Anthea had fled upstairs, slap into Raymond, who in horror took in her collapsing hair and mud-stained dress.
‘Whatever’s the matter, my darling?’
Pushing him out of the way, Anthea threw herself on her new cream linen counterpane and his mercy, sobbing so wildly it was some minutes before Raymond could make any sense.
‘Darling, angel, it can’t be that bad.’ A terrible thought struck him. ‘You haven’t met someone else?’
‘No, no, much worse, there’s a girl down in the boathouse who says she’s my daughter.’
‘Well, is she?’
Having set herself up as the personification of chastity and fidelity for the past twenty-five years and the antithesis of promiscuous Galena, Anthea was not prepared to tarnish this image.
‘Yes, but she’s yours too,’ she cried despairingly.
Raymond was astounded.
‘My child? Why on earth didn’t you tell me?’
‘I only discovered I was pregnant after I’d left the gallery. I knew how much you adored Galena, how desperate you were to mend your marriage. I loved you so much, we’d had our one night – or perhaps two – of love together, then Galena came back and told you she loved you, I couldn’t break up your marriage.’
Anthea’s hairpiece woven with gold leaves and rubies was all askew like a fallen halo, her face streaked with blue mascara and eyeliner. Although she shivered frantically, sweat was darkening the armpits of her dress.
‘Galena would have gone bananas if she’d found out. So I gave my baby, my little Charlene up for adoption. I wanted to keep her so badly.’ Anthea clasped her tiny trembling hands to her face. ‘The adoption society were so fierce and disapproving, they said I’d be punished by God if I changed my mind. Mummy and Daddy had chucked me out. Oh Raymond . . .’ She was sobbing so much she had again become incoherent.
‘Oh my precious child.’ Raymond was crying too.
Dragging the blue checked duvet off the bed in his dressing room next door, he wrapped it round her shuddering little body.
‘Why didn’t you tell me when we got together again? We could have gone to court.’
‘I couldn’t do it to Charlene’s replacement parents. They’d sent me such a lovely letter and a beautiful shawl. I’ve still got it. I couldn’t break their hearts. I wanted to tell you so badly. Don’t think I haven’t cried every day inside.’
