The Kissing Garden

by Charlotte Bingham

  ‘I thought I was the only fey one round here.’ Amelia turned round, teasing him, as she put another log on the fire.

  ‘Fey,’ Ralph mused. ‘Isn’t that akin to being a pagan?’

  ‘No, anyone can be fey. It’s a sort of second sight, or seeing things before they happen, or being aware of the spirit world – that’s what it is, really.’

  Ralph took his packet of Turkish cigarettes out of his pocket and lit one, pulling on it with great satisfaction.

  ‘I still don’t know what to think,’ Amelia said, putting distance between them by going round behind a sofa to rearrange some flowers in a vase, plucking out the dead ones almost frantically.

  ‘You mean about what happened to Walker? Why should you have to think anything?’ Ralph asked in genuine surprise. ‘It isn’t on your conscience.’

  ‘Why should I have to think anything?’ an astonished Amelia repeated. ‘George is my husband, Ralph. Do you know what George has suffered since – since you shot this man?’

  It was Ralph’s turn to look astonished. ‘I don’t understand what you mean by suffered. I always thought George was rather phlegmatic – I mean that’s the impression he’s always given. Something happens, he deals with it, rationalizes it – and that’s that. Over ball.’

  ‘George couldn’t sleep for a year. He would shout and call out in his sleep – often begging this unknown person not to shoot. Phlegmatic? Ralph – we very nearly had no marriage because of that rape incident alone.’

  ‘I really didn’t know. I suppose because he went to hospital, and we lost touch.’

  ‘He was in hospital because of his mental state, Ralph.’

  ‘For his mental state?’

  ‘Yes, Ralph. For his mental state. He had a breakdown.’

  ‘George! Good God. I’m so sorry. I really had no idea.’

  ‘Yet you seem to have walked away with no more marks on you than you’d get during a game of cricket.’

  ‘No more visible mark.’ He paused. ‘I shouldn’t have told you.’

  ‘No, I don’t think you should,’ Amelia agreed, staring at an earwig which was emerging from the yellow dahlia she was holding in her hand.

  ‘I wonder why I did tell you?’ he said, half to himself.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Amelia sighed. ‘Not only why you should wonder about telling me, but why you’re here.’ She glanced over to him, then, as soon as she saw how intently he was staring at her, she busied herself once more with her flowers.

  ‘But I suppose I shouldn’t wonder why you’re here,’ she went on. ‘You’re George’s best friend. You know you are welcome here any time. You were passing the gate--’

  ‘But you see I wasn’t passing the gate. I wasn’t anywhere near here – I wasn’t even in the neighbourhood.’

  ‘I don’t understand. You said you were on your way to Bath and when you saw exactly where you were--’

  ‘It wasn’t true.’ Ralph stopped her, now kneeling on the sofa and facing her directly. ‘I was in London. And when I heard from a mutual friend that George was up in London as well, solo – the next thing I knew I found myself down here.’

  ‘No, Ralph,’ Amelia told him quietly. ‘That won’t do. People don’t just find themselves somewhere. You came down here. You came down here deliberately.’

  Ralph tipped his head a long way back. ‘All right,’ he finally agreed in the way people do when they are making a compromise. ‘I came down here deliberately.’

  ‘Your motor bike could hardly drive itself down, could it?’

  ‘All right – I drove down here deliberately.’

  ‘Because you knew George wasn’t here,’ Amelia persisted.

  ‘I don’t know why!’ Ralph replied in exasperation. ‘Yes – all right! I knew George wasn’t here – but that wasn’t the reason I drove down!’

  ‘It was just in answer to some blind whim, is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘It was because I had to,’ Ralph said, bending forward and dramatically lowering his forehead onto the back of the sofa. ‘It was as if I had no choice in the matter.’

  ‘You came down here because you knew George was away and that I would be all alone, and because you are a womanizer.’

  ‘George is my best friend,’ Ralph muttered, with his head still bowed on the sofa. ‘I am his fidus Achates, his best friend.’

  ‘Then you have no right to be here,’ Amelia decided, taking a deep breath. ‘So if you’ll excuse me I have a mass of things to attend to in the garden.’

  She did not realize it but on her way out to the garden she walked right past him. He was leaning with his back to the wall, his hands clasped as if in prayer and smiling the smile of an angel. ‘I love you,’ he whispered to her as she passed him by. ‘I have always loved you. And you will love me too.’ With that he touched thumb to finger and sent a mist of stardust along the breeze after her.

  Twenty-Two

  Amelia could not remember when she had heard the telephone ring so frequently. Long before George returned home it seemed to jingle incessantly, keeping Amelia busy writing down the list of messages and calls which must be returned, some from people vaguely known to her, some not, and a few anonymous calls from people who refused to leave a return number. Amelia discreetly fielded all these calls in the telephone room off the hall.

  ‘Your household seem inordinately popular all of a sudden, Mrs Rafferty,’ Ralph remarked, looking up from his book as Amelia entered the room. ‘I thought you were trying to eschew société.’

  ‘They are all for George. He is very much the man of the moment.’

  ‘Judging from your tone you are unhappy about this.’

  ‘It’s difficult to be happy or unhappy about something concerning which you’re totally in the dark.’

  ‘Politics are most dreadfully boring, Amelia,’ Ralph said, using a Noël Coward sort of voice.

  ‘As long as it’s just politics, Ralphie,’ Amelia replied as a Bright Young Thing. ‘Who on earth cares a fig anyway?’

  On George’s return Amelia dutifully handed her husband the list of calls and messages, watching and waiting in vain for any sort of reaction. George kissed her on the cheek, folded the list in two and slipped it in the top pocket of his jacket, and took himself off to his study. An hour later he disappeared upstairs with a large whisky to run himself a hot bath, where he lay for half an hour soaking away the fatigue generated by his visit to London. When he finally reappeared downstairs he could not wait to open a bottle of champagne to celebrate Ralph’s visit.

  After joining in and drinking a toast to the general well-being, Amelia left them alone together to catch up, going in search of Clara to help her prepare the dinner.

  ‘We’re just about up to date,’ Ralph told her when she rejoined them for drinks. ‘We’ve done Edward and Mrs Simpson, and the abdication. Although I have to say it might have been quite fun to have had a divorcée on the throne. Might have jazzed up old Britannia no end.’

  ‘I think George might well agree with you,’ Amelia said, poker-faced. ‘George was a bit of an admirer of the Duchesse de Windsor. Maybe still is.’

  As he helped them all to more champagne George gave her a quick look, but when he saw she was teasing him he smiled and refused to take the bait.

  ‘Actually George rather likes both the Windsors, because they think the same as he does. That Mr Hitler’s not such a bad egg after all.’

  ‘Now you’ve stopped being funny.’

  ‘Really?’ Amelia said, widening her big eyes. ‘Didn’t I hear you saying – or certainly agreeing with people – recently that Mr Hitler’s not someone we have to take seriously after all? That he’s really more other people’s problem than ours?’

  ‘That’s over-simplifying the issue, Amelia. As well you know.’

  ‘Then educate me, George.’

  ‘I’d rather eat,’ George replied deliberately, staring at Amelia. ‘I don’t know about you, Ralph, but I’m starving.’

&n
bsp; ‘There I go again,’ Amelia sighed, getting to her feet. ‘Forgetting where a woman’s place is.’ As she made her way out she smiled privately at Ralph. At the same time George was looking wide-eyed to Ralph to denote his present bemusement with his wife.

  ‘You’re not really on the side of the so-called appeasers, are you, George?’ Ralph asked him as they finished their drinks. ‘Surely not. Not you.’

  ‘It’s not a question of sides,’ George replied, putting out his cigarette. ‘It’s a matter of finding the correct solution.’

  ‘Yes, but not appeasement, surely. Look what’s happening--’

  ‘I’ve been looking, Ralph. Quite hard.’ ‘The Nazis are assassinating anyone who disagrees with them--’

  ‘You’re being over-simplistic, Ralph. But then politics never was your strong point. Come on – there’s the gong.’

  ‘You don’t have to be a politician to see what’s happening over the water, dear boy,’ Ralph sighed as they made their way to the dining room.

  ‘Of course not,’ George agreed, settling himself into his place at the table. ‘Although if you’re not, it’s all too easy to misread the signs and start warmongering. For a long time Hitler has been maintaining that all he needs is what the Germans call Lebensraum. In other words—’

  ‘In other words,’ Ralph interrupted, ‘plenty of brrrrown bbrrrread unt butter for their piple.’

  ‘In a way, yes,’ George admitted. ‘And they’ll only get that by obtaining more farmland. Germany’s a big nation, you know. It’s a growing nation again, and with all the land which was taken away from her by the Treaty of Versailles—’ ‘She cannot grow enuff brrrrown bbrrrread unt butter for her piple.’

  ‘I don’t know why you find this a subject for such mirth,’ George said, observing both Amelia and Ralph with a school-masterly frown.

  ‘Probably because it isn’t funny, George,’ Amelia replied, handing him a bowl of their home grown carrots. ‘Especially hearing you defending Hitler.’

  ‘I am not defending Hitler.’

  ‘And as for warmongering, for heaven’s sake, George, according to you Winston Churchill was trying to warn everyone about the Nazis’ growing power years ago.’

  ‘The young lady’s right, captain,’ Ralph said, nodding. ‘Things are not looking good. The Italians have invaded Abyssinia--’

  ‘Be careful what you say about Il Duce,’ Amelia interrupted once again. ‘Another of George’s pinups.’

  ‘George admires Mussolini ?’

  ‘Amelia’s being dreadfully funny again,’ George assured Ralph.

  ‘You said you liked Little Benito,’ Amelia insisted. ‘You did.’

  ‘I said I admired some of the things he had done. Some of the things.’

  ‘Not invading Abyssinia, surely?’ Ralph protested. ‘And what about the rest of the mess of pottage? The Spanish are fighting a civil war, the Chinese are fighting the Japs and the Poles are refusing everything, which they nearly always do. We have to face it. There’s hardly time to look the other way until the bogeymen pass by.’

  ‘I don’t think either of you understands the position,’ George said defensively. ‘More than anything situations like this require foresight.’

  ‘And if ever a government needed spectacles it’s this lot.’

  ‘You really don’t know what you’re talking about, Amelia.’

  ‘I may not know as much as you do, George--’

  ‘No, you certainly don’t,’ George interrupted before she could get any further. ‘It’s part of my job to keep my ears open. To keep a finger on the pulse.’

  ‘I’ve heard sharing a bed called some pretty funny things,’ Amelia said in all innocence. ‘But a job?’

  ‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘What do you think it means?’ Amelia retorted. ‘Namely that you are sharing your bed with a lot of rather suspicious people.’

  ‘The point is, George,’ Ralph put in quickly, seeing the glint in Amelia’s eye. ‘The point is that we all realize that there is going to be a war, and no-one seems to be preparing us for it.’

  ‘There is not going to be a war,’ George replied.

  ‘I think there is, George,’ Ralph countered. ‘Or there certainly should be. If there’s a shred of decency left in this country we can’t just stand by while Czechoslovakia is tamely surrendered to Hitler.’

  ‘There is not going to be a war,’ George said quietly, eyeing them both. ‘Not if I have anything to do with it.’

  ‘What are you going to do, George? Wave a magic wand and it will all disappear?’

  ‘Ever heard of diplomacy, Amelia?’

  ‘Is that what all this appeasement is, George? Diplomacy? Because if it is, I would colour that sort of diplomacy yellow.’

  George stroked his chin thoughtfully as he looked at his wife, the way he did on the rare occasions he was about to lose his temper.

  ‘Have you thought about the consequences of another war, Amelia?’ he asked carefully, still well in control of himself. ‘You have – I take it – thought a matter like this through quite thoroughly?’

  ‘I don’t want to lose my son,’ Amelia replied hotly. ‘If that’s what all this is about, George, of course I don’t want to lose my son! No mother wants to lose her son!’

  ‘I think all mothers should go to war with their sons,’ Ralph said, earning an amazed look from both George and Amelia. ‘I think it should be compulsory. If they were made to, if every mother was conscripted with her son, they’d soon talk governments out of fighting, believe you me. From the lowliest private to the starriest general – accompanied by their mothers, end of war. QED.’

  ‘You’re not doing this because of Peter, are you?’ Amelia said, turning to George and ignoring Ralph’s surreal suggestion. ‘You’re not taking sides with these people--’

  ‘Which people?’ George wondered deliberately. ‘Who said I was taking any side? I simply argued that at times like this, diplomacy plays a very important part.’

  ‘Diplomacy, yes, maybe,’ Amelia allowed. ‘But not appeasement.’

  There was a silence while George considered whether or not it was worth continuing. But then, sensing both Amelia’s aggression and Ralph’s apparent facetiousness, he decided against it, politely excusing himself from table by reason of the amount of telephone calls he still had left to make.

  ‘Is there any pud?’ Ralph enquired after a moment. ‘I think we could do with some after that.’

  By the following morning all seemed forgiven and forgotten. George had slept in, Amelia had brought him breakfast in bed, and after the two men had spent most of the day walking up on White Sheet Downs, Ralph appeared to have teased George back to his normal genial self.

  All this had been effected by the time Amelia came down from getting dressed for the dinner party they were due to attend that evening, which meant that she found the two men in the library drinking and talking nineteen to the dozen. She had chosen to wear the silver lamé dress she had worn so famously at Riverdean. It happened to be one of George’s favourites, but he was so busy talking to Ralph he did not seem to notice either her or it.

  Not that Amelia minded. She was already dreading the evening ahead of them, since at George’s request on his return from London she had been forced to cancel her acceptance of the Hanleys’ invitation for dinner that evening and agree to attend a large party at the house of someone known to her by name only, Sir Cedric Wareham.

  ‘I am not surprised, dearest girl,’ Mae had said when Amelia had telephoned her to tender her regrets. ‘Not in the very least surprised. A friend who has friends at court, dearest one, tells us that George is rumoured to be some sort of éminence grise – a power behind if not the throne itself, then the chair which sustaineth the seat of power.’

  ‘I don’t really know what’s going on any more, Mae.’

  ‘Then, my darling – fear not. For like all great dramas, very soon all will be revealed.’

  At least
two dozen people were gathered at the Wareham household for dinner, most of whom were totally unknown to Amelia except a handful who again she knew by name only.

  ‘Are you as lost as I am?’ she asked Ralph as they stood with their pre-dinner drinks in the corner of the vast drawing room. ‘I don’t know one person here.’

  ‘Well, you wouldn’t. They’re not your sort of people.’

  ‘It’s as if they’ve had some of their senses removed.’

  ‘I knew a very rich woman once,’ Ralph replied, changing the subject. ‘In fact I knew her pretty well. She said the richer she became, the less easy it was for her to – to make love.’

  ‘Really?’ Amelia said in surprise. ‘I always thought power was meant to be some sort of aphrodisiac.’

  ‘Power maybe. But not money. At least not to this particular lady. She said gilt creates guilt. As a consequence she was forever washing herself. She used to take at least three baths a day.’

  ‘And did – did she always have difficulty for ever more? With – with making love?’

  ‘No,’ Ralph said, looking directly at her. ‘She got better. Much better, I am happy to say. She just needed someone to rationalize it for her. Now I think we’re being called to the table.’

  Amelia was quite silent after that for it was really rather obvious who it might have been who had helped the lady in question to ‘rationalize’ her love life.

  As it turned out that was the last interesting exchange Amelia had for the rest of the evening, consigned as she was to sit between two men who were both apparently high financiers, neither of whom from the outset had the slightest interest in talking to her. Ralph was well down the other end of the table between two glamorous women who were obviously well on the way to falling for his charms, while George – somewhat to Amelia’s surprise – had been accorded the place of honour on the right of his hostess.

  Inevitably the conversation moved to the present economic climate, first in America where according to the experts either side of Amelia the current Wall Street stock market decline signalled serious financial strife, and then in Europe, a situation which also appeared extremely bleak and led Sir Cedric to declare that this alone was the best reason why there should be no war.