Laura drew in her breath sharply. ‘Well, that just proves it’s a lie,’ she sighed. ‘Anyway, I don’t even fancy Patrick Melrose,’ she added, digging her nails into Johnny’s arms.
‘Oh, well, you know better than me whether you’re having an affair with him or not,’ China concluded. ‘I’m glad you’re not, because personally I find him really tricky…’
Laura held the phone in the air so Johnny could hear. ‘And,’ continued China, ‘I can’t stand the way he treated Debbie.’
Laura put the phone back to her ear. ‘It was disgusting, wasn’t it?’ she said, grinning at Johnny, who leaned down to bite her neck. ‘But who are you going to the party with?’ she asked, knowing that China was going alone.
‘I’m not going with anybody, but there’s someone called Morgan Ballantine,’ China put on an unconvincing American accent to pronounce his name, ‘who is going to be there, and I’m quite keen on him. He’s supposed to have just inherited two hundred and forty million dollars and an amazing gun collection,’ she added casually, ‘but that’s not really the point, I mean, he’s really sweet.’
‘He may be worth two hundred and forty million dollars, but is he going to spend it?’ asked Laura, who had bitter experience of how misleading these figures could be. ‘That’s the real question,’ she said, propping herself up on one elbow and effortlessly ignoring the caresses she had found so breathtaking moments before. Johnny stopped and leaned over, partly from curiosity, but also to disguise the fact that his sexual efforts could not compete with the mention of such a large sum of money.
‘He did say something rather sinister the other day,’ China admitted.
‘What?’ asked Laura eagerly.
‘Well, he said, “I’m too rich to lend money.” A friend of his had gone bankrupt, or something.’
‘Don’t touch him,’ said Laura, in her special serious voice. ‘That’s the kind of thing Angus says. You think it’s all going to be private planes, and the next thing you know he’s asking for a doggy bag in a restaurant, or implying that you ought to be doing the cooking. It’s a complete nightmare.’
‘That reminds me,’ said China, rather annoyed that she had given so much away. ‘We played a wonderful game after you left last night. Everybody had to think of the things people were least likely to say, and someone came up with one for Angus: “Are you sure you won’t have the lobster?”’
‘Very funny,’ said Laura drily.
‘By the way, where are you staying?’ asked China.
‘With some people called Bossington-Lane.’
‘Me too,’ exclaimed China. ‘Can I have a lift?’
‘Of course. Come here about twelve thirty and we can go out to lunch.’
‘Perfect,’ said China. ‘See you later.’
‘Bye, darling,’ Laura trilled. ‘Stupid cow,’ she said, putting the phone down.
* * *
All her life men had rushed around Cindy, like the citizens of Lilliput with their balls of string, trying to tie her down so she wouldn’t wreck their little lives, but now she was thinking of tying herself down voluntarily.
‘Hello?’ she purred in her soft Californian accent. ‘Can I speak with David Windfall, please?’
‘Speaking,’ said David.
‘Hi there, I’m Cindy Smith. I guess Sonny already talked to you about tonight.’
‘He certainly did,’ said David, flushing to a deeper shade of raspberry than usual.
‘I hope you’ve got your Sonny and Bridget invitation, ’cause I sure don’t have one,’ said Cindy with disarming candour.
‘I’ve got mine in the bank,’ said David. ‘One can’t be too careful.’
‘I know,’ said Cindy, ‘that’s a valuable item.’
‘You realize you’ll have to pretend to be my wife,’ said David.
‘How far am I meant to go?’
David, quivering, sweating, and blushing at the same time, took refuge in the bluffness for which he was well known. ‘Only until we get past the security people,’ he said.
‘Anything you say,’ Cindy replied meekly. ‘You’re the boss.’
‘Where shall we meet?’ asked David.
‘I’ve got a suite in the Little Soddington House Hotel. That’s in Gloucestershire, right?’
‘I certainly hope so, unless it’s moved,’ said David, more pompously than he’d intended.
Cindy giggled. ‘Sonny didn’t tell me you were so funny,’ she said. ‘We could have dinner together at my hotel, if you’d like.’
‘Splendid,’ said David, already scheming to get out of the dinner party Bridget had put him in. ‘About eight?’
* * *
Tom Charles had ordered a car to take him down to the country. It was extravagant, but he was too old to fool around with trains and suitcases. He was staying at Claridge’s, as usual, and one of the nicest things about it was the wood fire that was subsiding brightly in the grate while he finished his frugal breakfast of tea and grapefruit juice.
He was on his way to stay with Harold Greene, an old friend from the IMF days. Harold had said to bring a dinner jacket because they were going to a neighbour’s birthday party. He’d got the low-down on the neighbour, but all Tom could remember was that he was one of those Englishmen with plenty of ‘background’ and not a hell of a lot going on in the foreground. If you weren’t unduly impressed by these ‘background’ types they said you were ‘chippy’, but in fact nothing could make you feel less ‘chippy’ than contemplating a lifetime wasted in gossip, booze, and sexual intrigue.
Harold was not like that at all; he was a mover and shaker. He was on the Christmas-card lists of grateful presidents and friendly senators – as was Tom – but like everybody else on this rainy island he liked the ‘background’ types too much.
Tom picked up the phone to ring Anne Eisen. Anne was an old friend and he was looking forward to driving down with her to Harold’s, but he had to know what time to send the car to collect her. Her number was engaged and so Tom hung up crisply and continued reading the pile of English and American newspapers he’d ordered with his breakfast.
3
TONY FOWLES WAS WHAT Bridget called an ‘absolute genius’ when it came to colours and fabrics. He confessed to ‘having a crush on ash colours at the moment,’ and she had agreed to have the interior of the tent done in grey. Her initial misgivings about this bold idea were swept aside by Tony’s remark that Jacqueline d’Alantour, the French Ambassador’s wife, was ‘so correct that she’s never really right’.
Bridget wondered how far one could be incorrect without being wrong, and it was in this grey area that Tony had become her guide, increasing her dependency on him until she could hardly light a cigarette without his assistance, and had already had a row with Sonny about wanting to have him at her side during dinner.
‘That appalling little man shouldn’t be coming at all,’ said Sonny, ‘let alone sitting next to you. I need hardly remind you that we’re having Princess Margaret for dinner and that every one of the men has a better claim to be by your side than that…’ Sonny spluttered, ‘that popinjay.’
What was a popinjay anyway? Whatever it was, it was so unfair, because Tony was her guru and her jester. People who knew how funny he was – and one only had to hear his story about hurrying through the streets of Lima clutching bolts of fabric during a bread riot to practically die laughing – didn’t perhaps realize how wise he was also.
But where was Tony? He was supposed to meet her at eleven o’clock. One could worship him for all sorts of things, but punctuality wasn’t one of them. Bridget looked around at the wastes of grey velvet that lined the inside of the tent; without Tony, her confidence faltered. One end of the tent was dominated by a hideous white stage on which a forty-piece band, flown over from America, would later play the ‘traditional New Orleans jazz’ favoured by Sonny. The industrial heaters that roared in every corner still left the atmosphere numbingly cold.
‘Obviously, I’d rather that my birthday was
in June instead of gloomy old February,’ Sonny was fond of saying, ‘but one can’t choose when one’s born.’
The shock of not having planned his own birth had given Sonny a fanatical desire to plan everything else. Bridget had tried to keep him out of the tent on the grounds that it should be a ‘surprise’, but since this word was for him roughly equivalent to ‘terrorist outrage’, she had failed. She had, on the other hand, managed to keep secret the astonishing cost of the velvet, communicated to her by a honking Sloane with a laugh like a death rattle, who had said that it came to ‘forty thousand, plus the dreaded’. Bridget had thought ‘the dreaded’ was a technical decorating term until Tony explained that it was VAT.
He had also said that the orange lilies would make a ‘riot of colour’ against the soft grey background, but now that they were being arranged by a team of busy ladies in chequered blue overalls, Bridget could not help thinking they looked more like dying embers in a huge heap of ash.
Just as this heretical thought was entering her mind, Tony swept into the tent dressed in a baggy earth, ash, and grape sweater, a pair of beautifully ironed jeans, white socks, and brown moccasins with surprisingly thick soles. He had wrapped a white silk scarf around his throat after he felt, or thought he felt, a tickle. ‘Tony! At last,’ Bridget dared to point out.
‘I’m sorry,’ croaked Tony, laying his hand on his chest and frowning pathetically. ‘I think I’m coming down with something.’
‘Oh, dear,’ said Bridget, ‘I hope you won’t be too ill for tonight.’
‘Even if they had to wheel me in on a life-support machine,’ he replied, ‘I wouldn’t miss it for the world. I know the artist is supposed to stand outside his creation, paring his fingernails,’ he said, looking down at his fingernails with affected indifference, ‘but I don’t feel my creation is finished until it’s filled with living fabric.’
He paused and stared at Bridget with hypnotic intensity, like Rasputin about to inform the Tsarina of his latest inspiration. ‘Now, I know what you’re thinking,’ he assured her. ‘Not enough colour!’
Bridget felt a searchlight shining into the recesses of her soul. ‘The flowers haven’t changed it as much as I thought they would,’ she confessed.
‘And that’s why I’ve brought you these,’ said Tony, pointing to a group of assistants who had been waiting meekly until they were called forward. They were surrounded by large cardboard boxes.
‘What are they?’ asked Bridget, apprehensive.
The assistants started to open the tops of the boxes. ‘I thought tents, I thought poles, I thought ribbons,’ said Tony, who was always ready to explain his imaginative processes. ‘And so I had these specially made. It’s a sort of regimental-maypole theme,’ he explained, no longer able to contain his excitement. ‘It’ll look stunning against the pearly texture of the ash.’
Bridget knew that ‘specially made’ meant extremely expensive. ‘They look like ties,’ she said, peering into a box.
‘Exactly,’ said Tony triumphantly. ‘I saw Sonny wearing a rather thrilling green and orange tie. He told me it was a regimental tie and I thought, that’s it: the orange will pick up the lilies and lift the whole room.’ Tony’s hands flowed upward and outward. ‘We’ll tie the ribbons to the top of the pole and bring them over to the sides of the tent.’ This time his hands flowed outwards and downward.
These graceful balletic gestures were enough to convince Bridget that she had no choice.
‘It sounds wonderful,’ she said. ‘But put them up quickly, we haven’t much time.’
‘Leave it to me,’ said Tony serenely.
A maid came to tell Bridget that there was a phone call for her. Bridget waved goodbye to Tony, and hurried out of the tent through the red-carpeted tunnel that led back to the house. Smiling florists arranged wreaths of ivy around the green metal hoops that supported the canvas.
It was strange, in February, not to give the party in the house, but Sonny was convinced that his ‘things’ would be imperilled by what he called ‘Bridget’s London friends’. He was haunted by his grandfather’s complaint that his grandmother had filled the house with ‘spongers, buggers, and Jews’, and, while he recognized the impossibility of giving an amusing party without samples from all these categories, he wasn’t about to trust them with his ‘things’.
Bridget walked across the denuded drawing room, and picked up the phone.
‘Hello?’
‘Darling, how are you?’
‘Aurora! Thank God it’s you. I was dreading another virtual stranger begging to bring their entire family to the party.’
‘Aren’t people awful?’ said Aurora Donne in that condescending voice for which she was famous. Her large liquid eyes and creamy complexion gave her the soft beauty of a Charolais cow, but her sniggering laughter, reserved for her own remarks, was more reminiscent of a hyena. She had become Bridget’s best friend, instilling her with a grim and precarious confidence in exchange for Bridget’s lavish hospitality.
‘It’s been a nightmare,’ said Bridget, settling down in the spindly caterer’s chair that had replaced one of Sonny’s things. ‘I can’t believe the cheek of some of these people.’
‘You don’t have to tell me,’ said Aurora. ‘I hope you’ve got good security.’
‘Yes,’ said Bridget. ‘Sonny’s got the police, who were supposed to be at a football match this afternoon, to come here instead and check everything. It makes a nice change for them. They’re going to form a ring around the house. Plus, we’ve got the usual people at the door, in fact, someone called “Gresham Security” has left his walkie-talkie by the phone.’
‘They make such a fuss about royalty,’ said Aurora.
‘Don’t,’ groaned Bridget. ‘We’ve had to give up two of our precious rooms to the private detective and the lady-in-waiting. It’s such a waste of space.’
Bridget was interrupted by the sound of screaming in the hall.
‘You’re a filthy little girl! And nothing but a burden to your parents!’ shouted a woman with a strong Scottish accent. ‘What would the Princess say if she knew that you dirtied your dress? You filthy child!’
‘Oh dear,’ said Bridget to Aurora, ‘I do wish Nanny wasn’t quite so horrid to Belinda. It’s rather terrible, but I never dare say anything to her.’
‘I know,’ said Aurora sympathetically, ‘I’m absolutely terrified of Lucy’s nanny. I think it’s because she reminds one of one’s own nanny.’
Bridget, who had not had a ‘proper’ nanny, wasn’t about to reveal this fact by disagreeing. She had made a special effort, by way of compensation, to get a proper old-fashioned nanny for seven-year-old Belinda. The agency had been delighted when they found such a good position for the vicious old bag who’d been on their books for years.
‘The other thing I dread is my mother coming tonight,’ said Bridget.
‘Mothers can be so critical, can’t they?’ said Aurora.
‘Exactly,’ said Bridget, who in fact found her mother tiresomely eager to please. ‘I suppose I ought to go off and be nice to Belinda,’ she added with a dutiful sigh.
‘Sweet!’ cooed Aurora.
‘I’ll see you tonight, darling.’ Bridget was grateful to get rid of Aurora. She had a million and one things to do and besides, instead of giving her those transfusions of self-confidence for which she was, well, almost employed (she didn’t have a bean), Aurora had recently taken to implying that she would have handled the arrangements for the party better than Bridget.
Given that she had no intention of going up to see Belinda it was quite naughty to have used her as an excuse to end the conversation. Bridget seldom found the time to see her daughter. She could not forgive her for being a girl and burdening Sonny with the anxiety of having no heir. After spending her early twenties having abortions, Bridget had spent the next ten years having miscarriages. Successfully giving birth had been complicated enough without having a child of the wrong gender. The doctor had told her that
it would be dangerous to try again, and at forty-two she was becoming resigned to having one child, especially in view of Sonny’s reluctance to go to bed with her.
Her looks had certainly deteriorated over the last sixteen years of marriage. The clear blue eyes had clouded over, the candlelit glow of her skin had sputtered out and could only be partially rekindled with tinted creams, and the lines of her body, which had shaped so many obsessions in their time, were now deformed by accumulations of stubborn fat. Unwilling to betray Sonny, and unable to attract him, Bridget had allowed herself to go into a mawkish physical decline, spending more and more time thinking of other ways to please her husband – or rather not to displease him, since he took her efforts for granted but lavished his attention on the slightest failure.
She ought to get on with the arrangements, which, in her case, meant worrying, since all the work had been delegated to somebody else. The first thing she decided to worry about was the walkie-talkie on the table beside her. It had clearly been lost by some hopeless security man. Bridget picked the machine up and, curious, switched it on. There was a loud hissing sound and then the whinings of an untuned radio.
Interested to see if she could make anything intelligible emerge from this melee of sound, Bridget got up and walked around the room. The noises grew louder and fainter, and sometimes intensified into squeals, but as she moved towards the windows, darkened by the side of the marquee that reared up wet and white under the dull winter sky, she heard, or thought she heard, a voice. Pressing her ear close to the walkie-talkie she could make out a crackling, whispering conversation.
‘The thing is, I haven’t had conjugal relations with Bridget for some time…’ said the voice at the other end, and faded again. Bridget shook the walkie-talkie desperately, and moved closer to the window. She couldn’t understand what was going on. How could it be Sonny she was listening to? But who else could claim that he hadn’t had ‘conjugal relations’ with her for some time?
She could make out words again, and pressed the walkie-talkie to her ear with renewed curiosity and dread.
The Patrick Melrose Novels Page 30
