The Four of Us

by Margaret Pemberton

  Later, when the mood had mellowed and a small dance band was

  playing George Gershwin tunes and she was in Francis’s arms,

  dancing barefoot on the grass, she knew she had never been happier. ‘This is a moment I’m going to remember all my life,’ she said dreamily as they swayed gently to ‘Night And Day’. ‘It’s a moment I’m going to tell our children about, and our children’s children.’

  ‘And then they will want parties in the garden with a cast of hundreds,’ he said, shooting her his dearly familiar, down-slanting smile. ‘And we’ll be middle-aged grouches like Pa, complaining about the noise and the damage done to the lawns.’

  ‘We’ll be happy,’ she said, pressing even closer to him, ‘and that’s all that matters, Francis. It’s all that ever matters.’

  Chapter Eleven

  Artemis was deliriously happy. For the first time in her life she was attracting the kind of attention she’d always longed for. The Lucie Clayton Modelling School had given her confidence and polish. Left to her own devices, when it had come to choosing her dress, she would undoubtedly have opted for a traditional taffeta ball gown, floor skimming and full skirted. Instead, having sought advice at the school, she had screwed up her courage and bought a silk dress of stunning simplicity. Aquamarines, loaned to her by her mother, danced against her neck, and her buttercup-blond hair, scooped into an elaborate chignon, shone like satin.

  Why had she never realized before that if she only lost weight – and learned how to move gracefully – she would be stunningly beautiful? Even Kiki had been gratifyingly complimentary.

  ‘You look sensational, Artemis,’ she had said before going on stage for her first set. ‘Absolutely stunning. It’s a pity Prince Charles isn’t here; you’d bowl him over!’

  Though Prince Charles wasn’t on the guest list, droves of other young men were and Geraldine was doing a brilliant job of giving her the information she wanted about them.

  ‘You’d be wasting your time there,’ she said as the devastatingly handsome young man she had been dancing with went off to get her champagne glass refilled. ‘Sam has tons of charm, but no cash and not much hope of any – unless he marries it. Now the Hooray Henry fast coming your way in order to take advantage of Sam’s absence is a very different matter. Money, breeding and – I know how important this is to you, Artemis – a title when daddy dies.’

  When Artemis danced with him, she discovered that he also had bad breath. It was a pity, because he was obviously dazzled by her, but bad breath was an unforgivable failing and she discarded him as speedily as she had discarded Sam.

  By the time dusk had merged into night, Cedar Court’s gardens and grounds were thick with dancing and champagne-drinking couples, and seeking Geraldine out in order that she could whisper vital information about whomever it was she was with was growing increasingly difficult.

  ‘Nine thousand acres in Northumberland,’ Geraldine said in her ear as they squeezed past each other in the crush. ‘Bent as a five bob note. Sorry, Artemis.’

  Soon, even Francis was in on what was going on.

  ‘Let me introduce you to Charlie Moffat,’ he said, steering a goggle-eyed young man her way and then, when the introductions were over, saying out of the side of his mouth as he walked away, ‘Heir to a baronetcy. Five thousand acres in Wiltshire. Good luck!’

  By the time fireworks were let off in a staggeringly beautiful display at the far side of the ha-ha, she was enjoying herself so much she even abandoned her search for Mr Right – Charlie had clammy hands – in order to share a bowl of strawberries with Howard Phillips.

  ‘I’m only here because Kiki introduced me to Francis a couple of weeks ago,’ he said, raising his voice in order to be heard over the whoosh of rockets, showers of golden stars cascading in their wake. ‘Who is it you’re a friend of? Francis or his fiancée?’

  The display was building to a crescendo and, in order to heighten the spectacle, Ride of the Valkyries thundered from the sound system.

  ‘I’m one of his fiancée’s best friends,’ she shouted over the music as fireworks shot and swooped and crackled and blazed. ‘But I know Francis as well. Do you know that they are cousins and that they were childhood sweethearts? It’s all very romantic, don’t you think?’

  ‘Or incestuous, depending which way you look at it,’ a voice said from behind them. Artemis turned to see who was speaking and her heart jarred. He was tall and thin and, unlike most of Francis’s friends, who were wearing velvet suits or even satin ones, he was wearing a traditional white dinner jacket. His dark hair skimmed his collar, sleek and straight, a lock falling over his forehead in a way she found so sexy she didn’t care that he didn’t look hip in the way that most of Francis’s friends did.

  ‘That’s a horrid thing to say,’ she said, aware that her voice sounded very odd and high.

  He shrugged. ‘They’re first cousins.’ There was a drawl in his voice that reeked of class. ‘It’s a blood relationship too close for comfort in my book.’

  ‘Knock it off, whoever you are.’ Howard, annoyed at having his tête-à-tête with Artemis interrupted, allowed Lancashire vowels to show. ‘It’s their engagement party and as you’re presumably here because you’re a friend, the least you can do is to act like one.’

  ‘Oh, I’m a friend all right.’ A winged eyebrow quirked slightly. ‘But are you? I rather think not. You’re certainly not a fellow Oxonian.’

  Howard, who had attended a secondary modern, flushed. ‘You’re an offensive sod,’ he said tightly, and then, turning to Artemis, ‘Another glass of champagne, Artemis?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, wanting him to go away as quickly as possible. ‘Thank you, Howard.’

  As a discomfited Howard saved face by stalking off in search of champagne, Mr Satanically-Handsome lifted a finger and a young girl from the caterers, bearing a tray of glasses and Bollinger, was instantly at their side.

  ‘Francis tells me you’re a fashion model,’ he said as Artemis wondered how many more points, in just a few minutes, he could possibly score.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, sending silent thanks Francis’s way and not letting on that she was still at Lucie Clayton’s and had yet to brave a catwalk professionally.

  ‘I saw David Bailey a minute or so ago. You’re not with him, by any chance?’

  She had just been about to place her empty strawberry dish on to the waitress’s tray, but that he might seriously think she was with David Bailey so disconcerted her that she dropped it. Disconcerted even further and allowing her new-found poise to go to the winds, she was about to bend down and retrieve it when he caught her wrist, his eyes meeting hers.

  ‘Allow me.’

  As he scooped up the dish she was aware that his eyes were green – not cat-green, like Kiki’s, but water-deep green. Feverishly she looked round, desperate for a glimpse of Geraldine. She needed information and she needed it fast, before another look straight into her eyes made her heedless of whether or not he met the requirements she was determined any boyfriend – and potential future husband – must have.

  ‘I take it no response means that you’re not,’ he said, placing her strawberry dish on the waitress’s tray and handing her a brimming flute of champagne. ‘It was out of order to think that because you’re one of his favourite models you might also be officially with him this evening.’

  She tried to speak, but nothing came.

  He didn’t seem to notice her difficulty. ‘I’m Rupert Gower,’ he said, not bothering to take a glass of champagne for himself. ‘I’ve known Francis ever since we went to Ludgrove together.’

  ‘Ludgrove?’

  ‘Ludgrove Prep. It has a tradition of sending pupils to Eton. Without it, I doubt Francis would have made the grade.’

  ‘Artemis Lowther,’ she managed in a cracked voice, her heart racing so fast she could hardly breathe, knowing that Francis would only have spun him the line about her being a favourite of David Bailey’s if he’d wanted to attract
him to her side – and that he wouldn’t have done so unless Rupert met requirements. ‘I’ve been one of Geraldine’s best friends ever since I was eleven.’

  ‘One of them?’ The winged eyebrow quirked again. ‘How many best friends does Geraldine have?’

  ‘Three,’ she said, hiding sudden, crippling shyness behind the barely discernible, aloof smile all would-be models at Lucie Clayton practised. ‘Primmie, Kiki and me.’

  ‘Kiki Lane, the lead singer with The Atoms? The singer Francis is going to manage?’

  She nodded, aware, for the first time, that the firework display had come to an end and that the crush of guests, who had come down to the ha-ha to see it, was now thinning. Fairy lights still twinkled, though, and the night sky was thick with stars.

  ‘I believe she’s about to do another set,’ he said, glancing down at an expensive-looking wristwatch. ‘What would you like to do? Listen to her or have supper?’

  ‘Have supper,’ she said, knowing that Kiki wouldn’t notice that she wasn’t in the crowd round the stage and wanting to be alone with Rupert Gower – or as alone with him as it was possible to be at such a huge party.

  They strolled over the grass in the direction of the refreshments marquee. The flower-decked tables were candle lit and, with Kiki and The Atoms now the main focus of attention, the earlier crowd of people dining had dwindled to a handful.

  The food hadn’t dwindled, though. There was clear soup in cups, mousse of chicken, mayonnaise of turbot, lobster patties, quenelles of pheasant, rose cake, biscotins of pears, compôte of fruit, meringues, trifle, apricot choux.

  ‘And knowing Geraldine’s mother, there’ll be another soup served just before everyone begins leaving,’ Rupert said, as, their plates full, he led the way to a small table for two. ‘She used to hostess balls for the local hunt for Francis’s father, after Francis’s mother died, but then Francis’s father got iffy at having a hundred or so people milling about the house and garden and we had to go back to holding them at our previous venue. Hopefully, when Francis inherits, we’ll return to having our hunt ball here.’

  ‘I didn’t know Francis hunted.’ Artemis felt a little queasy.

  ‘Of course he hunts. We’re in the middle of excellent hunting country. Didn’t you know that?’

  She took refuge in the aloof expression she’d been taught to adopt when sweeping down a catwalk. ‘No,’ she said, terrified that things were about to go wrong between them; that he was going to realize she wasn’t true county set, but the daughter of a man who had started life in a Docklands terrace house.

  ‘I’m a town girl, not a country girl,’ she said as uncaringly as she could manage, wondering if when Geraldine was at Cedar Court, she, too, hunted. If she did, she’d never made any mention of it – which wasn’t too surprising considering what Primmie’s reaction to such an activity would have been. She, too, felt quite ill at the thought of a fox being torn apart by a pack of hounds.

  The situation was saved by the muted sound of Kiki launching into ‘White Dress, Silver Slippers’.

  ‘She’s good, isn’t she?’ Rupert speared a piece of chicken. ‘What is it she’s singing now? I don’t recognize it.’

  Vastly relieved that the subject had turned to something non-controversial that she knew something about, she laid down her fork and said, ‘It’s a song she and Geraldine co-wrote. She’s going to record it. Francis thinks it will launch her as a solo artist.’

  ‘Does he, indeed?’

  There was wry scepticism in Rupert Gower’s voice and she blinked, not knowing quite how to respond.

  ‘Francis knows sod all about the music business – or any kind of business. Managing Kiki is just something he’s amusing himself with. It’s merely a whimsical lark. Proper commitment to anything would bore him rigid.’

  ‘Would it?’ she said faintly, wondering just how Francis’s desire to marry Geraldine fitted into the picture Rupert was painting. It was hardly something she could ask about and she said instead, ‘And what about you, Rupert? What is it you do?’

  ‘I’m a merchant banker in a bank founded by my father. Would you like some dessert now? Meringues with another bottle of champagne? Or perhaps the apricot choux?’

  ‘Meringues, please,’ she said, mindful of her diet, relief at the information he had imparted flooding through her. A banker. A merchant banker. And in a bank founded by his father! It was enough. He might, or might not, be heir to a title, but even if he wasn’t, everything she now knew about him was enough. She had attended the party with every intention of finding herself a suitable boyfriend, a boyfriend who would, hopefully, become the husband of her dreams, and Rupert Gower – who had gone to Eton with Francis and who was tall, dark and handsome – fulfilled her criteria perfectly.

  There came the sound of a storm of applause and then Kiki launched into the Martha Reeves and the Vandellas 1966 hit, ‘I’m Ready for Love’.

  ‘So am I, Kiki,’ she whispered beneath her breath as Rupert strolled across to the vast buffet table for the meringues. ‘Oh, so am I!’

  ‘You do realize that your south London accent is now very fashionable, don’t you, Primmie?’ Kiki said.

  It was Monday evening three weeks later and they were all four of them at home.

  ‘I’d give anything to have a legit “sarf” London accent,’ Kiki continued, sprawled on the sofa in a scruffy dressing gown, a mud pack on her face and cucumber slices over her eyes. ‘It’s practically obligatory in the music industry – either that or a Liverpudlian accent.’

  Artemis, in a white towelling robe, an equally pristine white towel wound turban-style over wet hair, shuddered. ‘Well, I wouldn’t adopt a south London accent,’ she said emphatically, filing her nails. ‘Rupert would hate it.’

  ‘Just as well you feel like that, Artemis,’ Kiki said dryly, ‘because you’d never get the hang of it.’

  Artemis drew in her breath, about to make an indignant response. Not wanting a squabble, Geraldine intervened.

  ‘How are things going between you and Rupert?’ she asked, tossing the Private Eye she’d been reading aside. ‘He’s taken you night-clubbing twice this week – things must be going well.’

  ‘They are.’ Her happiness was so obvious it glowed.

  ‘Which clubs did you go to?’ Kiki took the cucumber slices off her eyes and dropped them into a cup of coffee that had gone cold.

  ‘Annabel’s.’ Artemis was unable to keep the satisfaction out of her voice. Annabel’s was the most aristocratic of nightclubs – Prince Charles had been there on one of the nights they’d gone.

  Kiki snorted and sat upright, her legs crossed Buddha-style. ‘Trust it to have been Annabel’s! Why don’t you go somewhere kinky and uninhibited for a change?’

  ‘Because I don’t want to – and besides, all Rupert’s friends go to Annabel’s. It’s fashionable.’

  ‘It’s elitist – packed full of debs, aristos and Guards officers. You’d have much more fun at the Flamingo where the music is blues and black soul.’

  Artemis was caught, and knew it. If she said she didn’t like blues and black soul Kiki would go off on a rant that could last all evening.

  ‘Talking of bluesy stuff,’ Geraldine said, coming to her rescue, ‘let’s play some Billie Holiday and open a bottle of Chablis to celebrate our all being home together.’ Wearing wine-red velvet trousers and a loose silk shirt she crossed the room barefoot, heading for the kitchen and the fridge.

  Kiki looked across at Primmie, who was trying to read Boris Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago. ‘You’re nearest the gramophone, Primmie. Put Billie on, will you?’

  Primmie, ever accommodating, put her book down and obliged.

  Artemis stopped filing her nails and watched her. There was something odd about Primmie lately. Usually she chattered away ten to the dozen, but almost from the moment she’d moved into the flat she’d become oddly reticent. Finding out what her colleagues at BBDO were like – colleagues she now spent a lot of her free t
ime with – was like getting blood out of a stone.

  ‘Where do your BBDO friends hang out, Primmie?’ she asked as Billie’s ‘Long Gone Blues’filled the room.

  Primmie flushed slightly. ‘A local wine bar.’

  ‘What? Every night?’ Geraldine asked, walking back into the room with the bottle of Chablis and glasses.

  ‘I’m not out every night. I stayed in and did my laundry last night – and Kiki’s laundry, because she lets it pile up till I can hardly see the bedroom floor – and Saturday night I visited my mum and dad.’

  ‘Oh, well, if you were in glorious downtown Rotherhithe on a Saturday night, I, for one, am not envious.’ Kiki rose to her feet. ‘Do you think this mud pack should come off now? My face is beginning to sting.’

  ‘You have a mud pack on?’ Geraldine said in mock surprise, beginning to pour out the wine.

  Kiki threw a cushion at her head. Billie’s inimitable voice continued to magically dip and glide and Artemis continued to regard Primmie thoughtfully.

  Primmie was still slightly flushed and it wasn’t because she was annoyed at Kiki’s meant-to-be-funny dig about Rotherhithe, it was more as if she were embarrassed and uncomfortable because she was concealing something. Though she may have been speaking the truth about visiting Rotherhithe on Saturday night, the bit about her evenings being spent with her work colleagues in a wine bar local to Hanover Square was definitely not the entire truth. With a flash of intuition, it occurred to her that Primmie might have a boyfriend – a boyfriend she didn’t want them to know about.

  She took a glass of wine from Geraldine, wondering if Primmie was being reticent because her boyfriend was a workman, not a colleague. Perhaps he was a carpenter who was refurbishing the offices, or an electrician. Or – her eyes flew wide at the thought – perhaps he was a colleague, but was married!

  ‘Primmie, you’re not involved with a mar—’ she began, perturbed.

  Kiki, who cut across people’s conversations all the time, said, ‘Hasn’t anyone been checking the time for me? Half an hour this face pack had to be on for. I was relying on someone to tell me when the time was up.’