Clouds among the Stars
Page 27
‘It’s marzipan. Don’t prod it if you aren’t going to eat it. I happen to like it.’
‘You eat this stuff voluntarily? What depraved tastes you have. I thought it was a pregnant woman’s thing to fancy a nibble at outlandish grub like coal and dog biscuits.’ His eyes narrowed suspiciously. ‘You haven’t let Frensham put a pudding in the oven, I hope?’ He looked at Rupert and waggled his eyebrows. ‘You have no idea what a responsibility sisters are.’
‘Honestly, Bron!’ I was very cross with him, though of course it never did any good. ‘I think you do it on purpose.’
‘What?’ he looked injured.
‘Oh, never mind!’
Bron looked at the assembled company and spread his hands wide as if to say that I had proved his point.
‘Hat and I are going to be all by ourselves at Christmas.’ Cordelia’s tone was heavy with reproof. ‘It’ll be the worst Christmas anyone my age has ever had, in the whole history of the world. Even the Cratchits had people to pull crackers with.’
‘We’ll have Dirk,’ I said. ‘And Mark Antony. Remember, when Rupert brought him back you said you’d never be unhappy about anything ever again.’
‘But I didn’t mean being left all alone at Christmas! Can’t we come with you to Edinburgh or Sussex?’ She knew it would be useless to appeal to her brother’s tenderness of heart.
‘I shall be busy,’ said Portia. ‘Besides it won’t be a suitable thing for children. You wouldn’t enjoy it. And we couldn’t afford the extra train fares.’
‘No,’ said Ophelia.
Rupert put down his glass and stood up. ‘Has the electricity bill come? And what about that insurance premium?’
‘I’ll go and get them,’ I said.
Cordelia began to sob. Though I knew she was adept at weeping by design, I was sympathetic. My parents had always invited friends for Christmas and at least twenty of us sat down for lunch. Maria-Alba made the most wonderful things to eat and Pa organised games, like charades, in which everyone but me was able to show off their acting ability. We had enormous fun playing childish things like sardines and murder-in-the-dark, which are good with lots of people. We would never be able to play the latter again.
I felt profoundly miserable as I went through the papers on Pa’s desk. Even thinking the M-word made my stomach hurt. This part of my anatomy had taken on an independent existence since my father’s arrest. An imp of grief and carking care had taken up residence within and when I moved the tin painted to look like the Globe Theatre in which Pa kept his stamps, the unpleasant creature nipped and gnawed to let me know it was there. Christmas for the unhappy is worse than having one’s liver torn out by eagles, like poor old Prometheus. How was I to get my little sister cheerfully through the long days of celebration without giving way to gloom myself? When I returned to the drawing room Cordelia was gleeful.
‘Rupert says we can spend Christmas with him and Archie in – where did you say?’
‘Derbyshire.’
‘In Derbyshire. It’s miles out in the country but there’ll be lots of people and parties.’
‘Do you mean it?’ I asked. ‘But won’t we be terribly in the way? Whose house is it?’
‘Taking your questions in order: yes, I mean it – no, you won’t be in the way. It belongs to a distant cousin of mine,’ said Rupert. ‘There’s a daughter of Cordelia’s age. And a son of twenty or so. You’ll fit in very well. Maggie will be delighted.’
‘Maggie?’
‘Lady Pye. My cousin’s wife.’
I tried to imagine myself in the setting of a country house party and failed altogether. ‘It seems so inconsiderate to land ourselves on complete strangers at Christmas. Cordelia and I can manage on our own perfectly well –’
‘No, we can’t.’ Cordelia spoke decidedly. ‘I shall go anyway. Is this girl who’s my age at all beautiful?’
Rupert looked down at Cordelia, his expression serious. ‘I believe Annabel is considered to be pretty.’ Cordelia’s face fell. ‘But not at all in your style. Don’t worry, she won’t cast you into the shade.’ Cordelia smiled complacently.
‘An added inducement,’ Archie clasped his hands behind his back and looked at me impressively, ‘is that Pye Place is said to be one of the most haunted houses in England.’
‘No kidding? Really?’ Cordelia and I spoke together.
‘Of course that’s all nonsense,’ said Rupert. ‘A lot of silly fairy tales. But you might get an article out of them.’
‘I’ve always wanted to see a ghost,’ said Cordelia, which was exactly what I was thinking myself.
‘You’re doomed to disappointment, then.’ He spoke blightingly.
‘It really is so good of you,’ I said as I took Rupert and Archie to the front door. ‘Promise you’ll say if they don’t like the idea.’
‘Of course they’ll love it,’ said Archie. ‘They’re immensely hospitable. And Maggie will do anything to please Rupert. We shall have a very jolly time.’ He pinched my cheek. ‘And we shall allow you to have a teeny little moon every day, just for five minutes or so, to keep your hand in.’
I blushed. ‘It’s all nonsense about Max.’
The telephone rang. ‘I’ll get it, shouted Portia. ‘I’m expecting Suke to ring. Hello, it’s Portia.’ She listened for a moment then held it out to me. ‘Surprise, surprise, Hat. It’s Max.’
EIGHTEEN
‘I’m not feeling sick any more,’ said Cordelia, whose cheeks were now white instead of luminously green. ‘You can close the windows. After the first hour I get my car legs.’
Archie pressed a button and the windows slid slowly shut. Despite the intense cold that prevented me from feeling my hands and feet and had undoubtedly made my nose scarlet, my mood was buoyant. The countryside is always even more beautiful than I remember it. We were driving through Northamptonshire now and the large brown fields of Bedfordshire had given way to smaller green fields with sheep. The flatness had softened into little hills broken by woods.
Rupert’s car – I presumed it was his though Archie drove it – was so spacious and comfortable I could happily have lived in it for a week. Archie drove fast with an air of reckless excitement as though our suitcases were filled with bootleg liquor and the police were in pursuit. He crouched over the wheel, accelerated with a roar and braked with screeching tyres. When he came up behind another car he clung to its bumper, weaving about in the middle of the road to try to pass it. He would shake his fist and toot the horn. Several motorists, their nerves jangled to breaking point, drew into lay-bys to let him go by.
‘Slow down, for God’s sake,’ protested Rupert. ‘You’ll kill us all.’
‘Just putting her through her paces. We haven’t had her on the open road for a while. Goes like a dream, doesn’t she?’ He sounded the horn at a herd of cows that were staring over a fence and sent them stampeding in terror.
‘That was quite unnecessary,’ said Rupert crossly. ‘Toad had nothing on you.’
‘Poop! Poop!’ cried Archie. ‘You, my dear Rupert, can be Ratty. It will suit you very well in your present mood.’ He began to sing Madame Butterfly’s famous aria about waiting for the Pinkerton, in a trilling falsetto.
I watched flocks of birds sweeping in circles in a sky that was daffodil-coloured, just as in Tennyson’s Maud poems, and wished the journey could go on for ever. I shifted my feet on the case in the foot-well and smiled inwardly, imagining its delectable contents.
‘You’re mooning again,’ said Cordelia.
It had pleased my family to continue the teasing about Max. In the absence of the others Cordelia had appointed herself guardian of the joke. I was too elated to mind.
‘I was just thinking of my clothes.’
I looked down at the tobacco wool coat I was wearing and turned my head so I could feel with my chin the softness of the fur collar. Behind my seat on the back windowsill was a fur hat to match.
Archie had said, ‘We can’t take Harriet away with us look
ing like a character from a play about the Irish potato famine.’
‘Certainly not,’ Rupert had replied. ‘She must do us credit.’
Archie and I had gone to Bond Street where the shops were hot and scented. He had become autocratic and single-minded. He snatched things from rails and sent me into the changing room to try them on. I emerged, feeling self-conscious, and walked up and down while he appraised. Usually he shook his head but occasionally he nodded. I soon realised he was an excellent judge. My new wardrobe, though far more glamorous than anything I would have chosen for myself, had none of the outré flamboyance of his own apparel. The clothes seemed to me immensely elegant and stylish and they transformed my appearance.
Archie’s enthusiasm for the task added to the pleasure of the experience. Indifferent to the curious glances of shoppers, he screwed up his eyes, sucked in his cheeks and supported his chin on the point of his finger to consider the effect, then waved it in a circle to get me to revolve slowly on the spot. ‘Marvellous!’ he would enthuse. ‘Perfect! Now look at the swing of the skirt. Don’t you adore the cut of the shoulder?’ Or, ‘Perfectly horrible. It makes you look like a tart who’s married well. Expensive vulgarity. Take it off at once.’
This prompted me to examine some of the price tickets. At first I thought must have mistaken the number of noughts. I ran out of the cubicle. ‘I can’t possibly accept these clothes. It’ll take me absolutely years to pay Rupert back.’
‘Don’t argue, Harriet. This is for our sakes as much as yours. We don’t want to blush for our protégée. Rupert hates the sight of badly dressed women.’ I was perfectly sure that Rupert was indifferent to my or anyone else’s appearance. ‘Now try on that primrose crêpe de Chine. I thought it was rather you.’
I knew that no pleasure of theirs could possibly match my own exultation as the assistant took away an armful of beautiful skirts, shirts, coats and dresses to enfold them in layers of tissue paper and shiny cardboard boxes.
‘But you hate shopping!’ said Portia, as I laid out the clothes on my bed for her to see.
‘It’s because I don’t know what I really look like. In the mirror I see eyes and nose and mouth and the odd spot or untidy eyebrow or hair that needs washing but I can’t get an overall view. It’s like examining a picture through a small hole in a piece of paper that shifts about. When I see a rack of clothes I panic or feel depressed because they all look equally impossible. I’ve no idea how I want to look, even if I knew how to achieve it. Having Archie decide was like being a child again. Blissful!’
‘I didn’t specially enjoy being a child.’ Portia stroked the sleeve of my new raspberry-coloured cashmere jersey. ‘I don’t like having to please other people. Except Suke. She has such high standards. When she approves of me it’s like being given a million pounds. These glacé kid boots are heaven. They feel just like glass. Won’t Ophelia be jealous when she sees these things!’
‘I’m not going to show her. I don’t want her to crush my new-found confidence. Not about the clothes – no one could think they were anything but wonderful – but about me in them. Her ideas of what’s right are impossibly high. Even more than Ma’s.’
‘Poor Hat!’ Portia looked superior. ‘You’ve never been able to stand up for yourself, have you? You’ve let them squash you practically out of existence. I decided I wasn’t going to let Ma and Ophelia boss me about as soon as I was physically capable of stamping my foot.’
I could not deny it, remembering the row there had been when, at the age of four, Portia had put her deeply hated velvet-collared tweed coat and matching velvet hat, which had cost twenty pounds from Harrods, into Loveday’s incinerator.
‘I suppose I’ve always had a contemptible longing for praise,’ I admitted.
‘But surely it has to be praise from someone who matters. Of course I love Ma and Pa no end but they aren’t interested enough in me to make it worth while to try and win their approval. I’ve always thought we were lucky that they were so relaxed as parents, so eccentric and unmindful of us. I really felt sorry for the girls at school whose parents nagged them about working for exams, sucking up to teachers and being home by half-past ten. Of course I still think that’s all crap. But now – since I met Suke – I’m beginning to see things differently. I wish I’d been made to see that some things do matter.’ She held up an ivory silk shirt, piped in grey to match a cutaway jacket and pencil skirt in softest vicuna wool. ‘You’re going to look fabulous, Hat. I almost wish I was going to be there to see it.’
‘What do you think?’ While we were talking I had been busy at the mirror, applying the new wine-red lipstick Archie had chosen to go with my beautiful brown coat.
‘Who’d have believed it! Harriet wearing makeup! After all you’ve said about cosmetics being a decadent tool of seduction for the idle rich!’ I felt a little colour come into my cheeks at this reminder of the prig I had so recently been, but luckily this didn’t show beneath the new Charles of the Ritz blusher. Archie had spent ages selecting exactly the right shade and we had had a lovely time choosing glittery eye shadow for each other. ‘You look really beautiful,’ Portia continued. ‘It shows off the creaminess of your skin and somehow your eyes look darker and shinier.’
‘I’m wearing mascara as well.’
‘Brothers, the revolution is here! Max is going to do a triple toe-loop when he sees you.’
On the night before we left for Derbyshire a large parcel had arrived by Special Delivery, addressed to me. It contained a beautiful dark-red leather suitcase and a vanity case to match. Archie had enclosed a note: ‘Dear Harriet,’ it said. ‘Had a frightful dream last night that you had IMITATION leather luggage. Love R. and A.’
I smiled as I read it. Most of the decent suitcases the family possessed were already in Cornwall with my mother, and Ophelia had bagged the remaining one that was fit to be seen. A practical and prescient godmother had given Cordelia a respectable plain brown case for her last birthday, to her great disgust at the time. I had been about to pack my beautiful clothes in plastic carrier bags.
As Cordelia insisted on unwrapping the new luggage in the hall, Ophelia saw it. She spent some time examining it, stroking the leather outsides and the suede insides and fingering the glass bottles held in place by bands of elasticised satin before saying, ‘I hope you’re not going to be mean about lending these when the occasion arises?’ It was praise indeed. I assured her eagerly that she could borrow them whenever she pleased. She smiled. Then her eyes fell on my jersey, which had a hole where the polo neck was departing from the rest. She sighed. ‘It does seem a fearful waste.’
It was on the vanity case that I rested my frozen feet – stockinged, naturally, for fear of scratching it.
‘I think my hands may be returning to life,’ said Archie. ‘I know what it feels like to be a laboratory assistant handling plutonium with electronic arms. Only Dirk’s hot breath on the back of my head has forestalled frostbite and subsequent gangrene of the ears.’
‘In that case it’s mean of you to keep complaining you can’t see in your rear-view mirror because of his head,’ Cordelia reminded him.
‘Like Mr Darcy, I have a resentful temper. I cannot justify my failings. You must take me as I am. Which at the moment is glacial.’
‘You wouldn’t want me to be sick?’
‘I take it you are using Socratic irony?’
‘What’s that?’
‘A famous old man called Socrates used to ask questions to which he pretended ignorance of the answer. It’s a device for revealing to others their own faulty reasoning and innate stupidity.’
There was silence for some time as Cordelia worked this out. Dirk, made drowsy by the rapidly rising temperature inside the car, decided to roll over into his favourite sleeping position, on his back with his feet in the air. Rupert and Archie had been very good about his inclusion into the party. I had telephoned Rupert the day after the invitation to Derbyshire had been given, in something of a panic.
There had been a short pause and then Rupert had said, ‘Bring him.’
‘What about Lady Pye? Won’t she think it ill-mannered of us to turn up with a large dog?’
‘The house has two of its own. As long as Dirk doesn’t fight with them it won’t matter. I’ll telephone to let them know to expect him.’
I had given Dirk a talking-to about the absolute necessity of not barking at other dogs, as he was inclined to do when he met them in the street. So that he would not disgrace Rupert and Archie, I invested in a smart blue collar and lead to replace the string and choke chain.
Rupert had been firm about Mark Antony, though. ‘He will be much happier in his own house.’
I had to admit this was true. Luckily Loveday, who preferred animals to people, was very willing to feed him and as they voluntarily spent part of the day in each other’s company, I thought it would be all right.
I had explained to Seamus and Joe, two of the journalists who frequently dropped in to have a cup of tea and a chat, that we would all be away for Christmas. Mindful of the ground I had to make up with various members of my family because of previous indiscretions, I told them all about Bron being whizzed over to Milan to help a leading couturier put together an important new summer collection and they seemed mildly interested. They jotted down everything I said about Ophelia being an internationally renowned interior decorator about to perform a multi-million-pound transformation on a client’s house. I concluded my press briefing with the publication date of Jessica Delavine’s new novel. I hoped this might make amends.
There remained only a last visit to my father to tell him where we were going and to assure him that he would remain uppermost in our thoughts. Pa accepted our desertion in a cheerful spirit. Apparently Fleur Kirkpatrick had arranged for a special Christmas lunch to be prepared by the head chef of Le Pain Perdu. She had ordered oysters, turbot, grouse, iles flottantes and Dom Pérignon. The prison governor, much in awe of my father’s celebrity and keen to curry favour, had placed his job on the line by giving permission, off the record, for this feast to be consumed à deux in his office. A deux with Fleur, that is – the governor would be celebrating in the bosom of his family. I had to acknowledge that though my feelings for Fleur Kirkpatrick were painfully ambivalent, she had done wonderful things for my father’s morale.