‘Uh-huh.’
‘In Florence between the wars.’
‘And how long’s he been writing it?’
‘Um … d’you know, I think it’s been all his life? Well, since he left university.’
‘Which was?’
‘Umm … nineteen sixty-seven, I think.’
I start to laugh too.
‘He has to go on a lot of research trips,’ he says.
‘I’ll bet he does.’
‘And he advises rich ladies on their art collections.’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘And sources antiques for them.’
‘That go with their complexions.’
‘Don’t talk about it to Mummy like that.’
‘Wouldn’t dream of it. Does he help her with her shopping?’
‘Takes her to smart hotel bars and buys her cocktails.’
‘Tells her she’s divine.’
‘Well, she is, darling.’
‘Of course she is.’
‘Hilary’s Mummy’s best friend.’
‘Oh, good. We’ll be best friends too, then.’
His body language has improved. He turns in to face me, slips an arm over my torso.
‘Who were all those people, anyways?’
‘Just friends.’
‘You’ve got that many friends?’
‘Oh, those are just the close ones.’ After about ten seconds, he says: ‘Joke.’
‘Oh, right.’
‘Anyway,’ he says, ‘Hilary is my godfather. He’s also one of Granny’s godchildren’s children. Like me. Only a generation older.’
‘Your dad’s his own mother’s godchild?’
‘D’oh. No. Mummy.’
‘Strewth. You guys don’t half like your incestuous relationships.’
‘It’s an effective weapon in the build-up and maintenance of wealth.’
‘Yada yada yada,’ I say. ‘Your grandmother seems like an entertaining old stick.’
‘Well, she’s still got some of her marbles,’ he says.
‘Those diamonds she was wearing tonight: were they for real?’ Against her wrinkled décolletage they looked like dewdrops on a basket of walnuts, but they were impressive none the less.
‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Family ones. Her family.’
‘Must be worth a few bob.’
‘That’s right. Bring it back to the venal. Don’t you believe in sentimental value?’
‘Oh, yeah, sentimental value. I’ll believe in that when insurance companies start doing policies on the kiddies’ drawings on the people’s fridges. I’ve always noticed that the sentimental value of jewellery always seems to go up in direct correlation to its fiscal value. Wears a lot of plastic beads, ever, does she?’
‘We don’t usually let her out in the diamonds, truth be told,’ Refus says. ‘Everyone’s always a bit nervous when she wears them. She’s got a bit of a track record for losing things. I’ve grown up on the family legend of the Callington Emerald.’
‘The Callington Emerald?’
‘Gigantic thing, came down through the distaff side. Size of a pigeon’s egg, set in gold with a string of diamonds.’
‘Tasteful. Bet that’s got some sentimental value.’
‘Had. Plenty, I think, if she hadn’t let it fall off the last time she wore it. Nicked from some Rajah in the eighteenth century. Massively underinsured, of course. Could’ve got a couple of Lear jets and change out of it. People have been looking for it ever since but she doesn’t even remember which part of the house she was in at the time. Just says she doesn’t remember. And she was only sixty-odd at the time.’
‘She lost an emerald the size of a pigeon’s egg?’
Rufus shrugs. ‘It’s a big house.’ Then suddenly, in a clunky change of subject, he blurts: ‘Tilly’s husband’s done a bunk.’
I sit up. Think better of it. Lie back down again. ‘No!’
‘Seems like it. Gone off somewhere with his secretary.’
‘But she’s pregnant!’
‘Is she? I hadn’t noticed. That puts a whole new complexion on the matter.’
‘Well, I’ll be stuffed.’
‘Bastard. And do you know what? It happened eight weeks ago and Mummy didn’t say a thing.’
‘That’s weird.’
‘Yuh.’
‘What do you think she’s playing at?’
‘I don’t know. I haven’t had a chance to talk to her yet. I guess perhaps she’s clinging on to some fantasy that he’ll reappear and no-one will be any the wiser.’
‘Pfff,’ I say.
‘That’s sort of what I said. Especially when it turns out that not only has he cleared out the bank accounts, but he remortgaged the house and ran off with that as well. He transferred the documents into Tilly’s name a few months ago, so she’s liable for the lot. The house is on the market and she’s going to be lucky if she gets out of it all with nothing.’
‘But that’s illegal, surely?’
Rufus shrugs. ‘Don’t think so. She signed the papers. She’s quite unworldly, I suppose. I don’t know. No. He was her husband and he said it was something to do with tax breaks, and she didn’t have any reason not to believe him.’
‘She can chase him for it.’
‘I’m sure she would, if anybody knew where he’d gone. Last heard of catching a plane to Addis Ababa, with a gal pal in a powder-blue power suit. No sign of him since.’
‘Jesus.’
‘Mmm.’
‘Poor cow.’
‘Mmm.’
‘What are we going to do?’
‘I like that “we”,’ he says, and smiles. ‘Thanks for that. We’ll work something out.’
‘Christ. It makes what Andrew did to me look like chickenfeed. At least I didn’t get bankrupted.’
‘And you met me.’
‘Yip. That’s true. Rufus?’
‘Yes, my love and helpmeet?’
‘I overheard some people.’
‘Ah. I’d been wondering.’
‘They seem to think I’m some sort of hard-as-nails fortune-hunting divorcee.’
‘Better get you a manicure and a big bottle of fake tan, then.’
‘Not something to joke about.’
‘Joking is the only possible way to react.’
‘They think you’re obsessed. Sexually, you know? That I’ve trapped you with my womanly wiles?’
He laughs. ‘Well, they could have a point.’
He puts a hand on my breast.
‘Do they really think that sort of thing?’
‘Of course they do, darling. The older generation are completely obsessed with sex.’
‘Not like us,’ I say.
‘No,’ he says, ‘not like us at all.’
‘I love you, you know,’ I say.
‘Good. I love you. A lot. Almost as much as I love my dogs.’
‘Glad you’ve got your priorities sorted.’
And then we’re not talking for a bit.
I say: ‘Rufus?’
He says: ‘Mmm?’
‘What’s the Cleopatra Grip?’
‘Where on earth did you hear that from?’
‘Something to do with the Duchess of Windsor.’
‘Ah,’ he says.
‘Well?’
He tells me.
‘Oh, right,’ I say. ‘Sort of like this, you mean …?’ Rufus heaves a gratifying sigh.
‘If I’d known you could do that,’ he says, ‘I’d have married you days earlier.’
Chapter Eighteen
The Earth Moves
I dream that we’re on a rollercoaster and we’ve reached the top of a very high ascent, are looking down into the maw of hell, when the structure shudders underneath us. Lurches, first to one side, then the other. The car we’re in lurches in response, throws me first one way, then the other. The metal holding bar clicks, flies open, and I find myself clinging on for life as the car tips once more, leans out over the edge.
I
thrash back to consciousness, barely hold back a shout of terror. The bedroom is shaking around us. Creak of beams, crack of floorboards, a low drum-roll of shaking; even the air outside our high-piled blankets seems to be trembling. I think for a moment that I’ve brought the dream with me, that what I’m experiencing is a vestigial hallucination, but I hear something small rattle and fall from the bedside table to my left, and realise that it’s the room that has brought the dream about.
Rufus is still asleep. How can he be? I’m clutching the nearest four-poster upright as though I’m going to fall out of bed altogether if I let go. The roof’s about to cave in, and he’s snoring as though nothing is happening at all.
Gradually, the movement subsides. With a couple of groans, the house goes quiet. Rufus grunts, smacks his lips on some tasty morsel, pulls the covers back up around his neck.
‘What the hell was that?’ I ask. He doesn’t reply. I shake him.
‘Nuuh?’
‘Rufus, what the hell was that?’
‘What?’
‘Didn’t you feel it? The whole bloody house was shaking!’
‘Go’sleep,’ he says.
‘Rufus!’
‘Whaaa’?’
‘For Pete’s sake! Didn’t you notice anything?’
‘Does that sometimes,’ he mumbles. ‘’S a’ old house.’
He’s obviously still half asleep. I push gently at his shoulder. ‘Rufus, that felt like an earthquake.’
He comes slightly closer to the surface. ‘No. Don’t worry about it. Old houses. They move. Settle on their foundations. ‘’Snothing.’
‘How can you call that nothing? I thought the whole bloody lot was going to come down on top of us.’
Rufus heaves a sleepy sigh. ‘Said. Happens. Been happening all my life. You’ll get used to it. Stop worrying.’
‘You have got to be kidding me! You call that nothing? That was the sort of thing you get just before a tower block collapses.’
Rufus sits up. ‘Tower blocks,’ he says, ‘are poorly constructed things built in concrete in the past century. This house has been standing for many hundreds of years. Stop fussing, woman. It does that from time to time. It’s like it’s turning over in its sleep. Stop it getting bedsores.’
I shake my head. It’s bloody freezing in here. I pull the bedclothes up around me.
‘Seriously,’ he says. ‘You’re just not used to it. Go back to sleep. It’s nothing.’
Reluctantly, I slide back down into the warmth of the bed. ‘Seriously?’
‘Seriously.’
‘I’m not sure I believe you.’
He snuggles in, puts his arms round me, kisses me on the temple. ‘Mel, Bourton Allhallows has been around for a thousand years. I don’t think it’ll fall down just like that.’
Chapter Nineteen
Meet the Family
From behind the door, the clink of cutlery on china, female voices murmuring, and a single one, my mother-in-law’s, raised in proclamation.
‘… don’t really know how she’ll fit in,’ she is saying. ‘I mean, it was fairly obvious how out of it she was last night.’
Rufus opens the door. ‘Now, Mummy, don’t be beastly,’ he says. I wonder if I’ll ever get over the way they talk, like an Enid Blyton book.
Mary gets to her feet, showing no sign of discombobulation, smiles that warm, treacherous smile. ‘I wasn’t being beastly,’ she says smoothly. ‘I was worrying. We so want you to feel at home.’ She approaches me and lands a cool cheek against mine. ‘Good morning, Melody, darling. I do hope you managed to get a decent night’s sleep. It’s still rather bachelor-pad in there, I’m afraid.’
Instantly, and against my will, I feel the blood creep to my cheeks. Because, of course, we didn’t spend a lot of time sleeping last night, and I don’t suppose for a moment that she assumes we did. Or maybe she does. Yet again, I feel like the scarlet-taloned predator. That, or the fifteen-year-old who got caught going at it in Danny Rogers’s pool house.
‘Fine, thanks, Mary,’ I tell her, in an effort to cover my discomfort. ‘I found his old Subbuteo set in a cupboard, and we had a fine old time.’
‘Of course, being foreign, she insisted on being Manchester United,’ says Rufus. ‘Which at least meant that I got to be Liverpool.’
‘Still gave him a good old thrashing,’ I declare, and my blush races up to the roots of my hair.
Tilly, wielding a huge silver teapot, says: ‘Excuse me not getting up, Melody. I’m afraid it takes me about half an hour. Would you like a cup of tea? Come and sit down.’
Relieved, I obey. She fills an oversized china cup with something the colour of cat piss, adds milk without asking me and pushes it towards me.
‘Earl Grey,’ she says. ‘I hope that’s OK.’
Even their beverages have titles.
‘Great,’ I tell her. ‘How are you feeling today?’
Tilly pats her distended abdomen with one hand, puts the other in front of her mouth and stifles a tiny burp. ‘I’m ready to explode, to tell the truth. I feel like it’s about to claw its way through my stomach like that monster in Alien.’
‘When are you due?’
‘Another two months, amazingly. I’m thinking of hiring a trampoline just to hurry it up.’
‘Do you know what it is yet?’
‘I am very much hoping,’ she replies, ‘that it’ll be a baby. Sugar?’
Rufus takes a seat opposite me. ‘What’s for breakfast?’ he asks.
‘Sausages,’ says Mary.
‘Wow.’ He seems disproportionately thrilled by this piece of news.
‘And scrambled eggs,’ says Tilly.
‘What day is it? I thought it was Tuesday?’
Mary says to me: ‘Melody, you’ll find that my son orients much of his diary around his stomach. A habit he picked up from his father.’
‘No, but –’ says Rufus – ‘we always have sausages on a Saturday.’
‘… If you see what I mean,’ says Mary. Then, to Rufus: ‘We’re having a proper breakfast in honour of Melody’s first day. We also –’ she addresses this to me – ‘don’t usually eat this formally in the daytime. We have a proper family dinner in the dining room, of course.’
‘Mrs Roberts cooks that,’ says Tilly, and helps herself to a piece of toast. ‘Oh, Ruf, there’s marmalade!’
‘Marmalade?’ cries Rufus. ‘Wow!’
‘Every night?’ I ask, heart sinking. I’d sort of hoped that last night’s horror had been something of a special occasion.
‘Every,’ she says firmly, ‘night. It’s a family tradition. It’s right to gather the whole family in one place. You’ll soon get used to it.’
‘No sense in fighting tradition,’ says Tilly, and I detect a tiny note of irony. I attempt to throw frantic glances in Rufus’s direction, but he seems to be engrossed in the construction of a marmalade and sausage sanger, and doesn’t notice. So much for the king of chivalry.
Rufus’s grandmother, despite the early hour, is already wearing a hat. It’s a cloche constructed of feathers that have been dyed to match the baby blue of her coat-dress. She has been looking at me in silence since I came in, a dimpled smile of consummate sweetness clamped to her face. I have a feeling that she’s already forgotten me from yesterday.
‘Good morning, Mrs Wattestone,’ I say. I figure you don’t call someone of her antiquity by their first name until you’re invited.
She bats her eyelashes. Beatrice has tiny little circular eyes set in creamy white skin, like raisins dropped carelessly in a snowdrift. The face has obviously been heart-shaped in the past: that soft, round look with the calcified points at the chin and jaw which was the feminine ideal in the 1920s and which modern medics associate with bulimia. Dame gravity has, over the years, pulled the skin downward so it hangs, like a washrag, half a centimetre from the bones.
‘Is she my new nurse?’ she asks.
Then she parts orange-painted lips and smiles at me with teeth of pur
est plastic.
‘No, Granny,’ says Tilly. ‘She’s Rufus’s new wife. Your nurse will be in at ten, like normal.’
‘But she’s Australian,’ says Beatrice. ‘She must be a nurse.’
‘Shall I get you some eggs?’ asks Mary. ‘You like eggs, don’t you?’
Beatrice waves an imperious hand in acceptance.
‘Morning, Granny.’ Rufus puts down his sandwich in mid-bite and kisses the old trout above her shaven eyebrows. ‘How are you?’
The head wobbles coquettishly, and the lashes bat once more. ‘I’m vurr-uh well, thank you,’ she lilts. ‘Isn’t it a beautiful day?’
Showering crumbs, he replies: ‘Not really, Granny. Bucketing down.’
‘But so good for the daffodils,’ she says. Now, even I know that daffs don’t usually appear in November.
‘I’d better get up to the roof once I’m finished here,’ he says.
‘Oh, thank you, darling,’ says Mary. ‘Daddy will be so glad you’re back.’
‘Where is he, anyway?’
‘Doing some lopping.’
‘God, I wish he wouldn’t do that,’ says Rufus. ‘Surely Martin Slatter could be doing that?’
‘Martin’s gone to the dentist,’ says Mary, ‘in Cheltenham.’
‘Poor sod,’ says Rufus.
‘We’re obviously paying him too much if he can afford Cheltenham prices,’ says Mary disapprovingly.
‘Absolutely,’ says Rufus. ‘Estate workers need estate worker teeth. I’ll cut his wages immediately.’
I’m quite impressed by the way Rufus just ignores it when his family say something outrageous. I’ll have to learn to follow suit.
‘Sausages?’ asks Tilly. I snag one on the end of a fork.
‘Have more than that,’ she says. I shake my head. Normally, with a breakfast like this, I’d be bogging in like nobody’s business, but I seem to have lost my appetite.
Beatrice turns her attention back to me. ‘Have you come far?’ she asks.
‘Yes, Granny,’ says Rufus. ‘We came from Gozo yesterday.’
A small frown, and a pout that doesn’t go too well with bleeding lipstick. ‘Gozo? I could have sworn she was Awstralian. Do they have nurses on Gozo?’
‘She’s not a nurse, Beatrice,’ says Mary. ‘She’s a chiropodist. She can probably do something about those bunions of yours.’
Simply Heaven Page 13
