by Jilly Cooper
Elmer’s eyes were popping like a garrotted Pekinese. The orange T-shirt, once he had wriggled into it, clashed with his port-wine face but in no way doused his lust.
‘I see your picture every time I pick up the Wall Street Journal,’ Bonny was now telling him. ‘But you are so much cuter in the flesh.’
‘The flesh is weak where lovely young women like you are concerned,’ said Elmer thickly.
The logo on Lysander’s faded grey T-shirt read:
Sex is evil,
Evil is sin,
Sin’s forgiven
So get stuck in.
He was getting drunker by the minute and had now been cornered by two stunning but interchangeable suntanned blondes.
‘Did you fly commercial?’ asked the first.
Lysander looked blank.
‘She’s trying to figure if you came over by private jet, preferably your own,’ explained the second.
‘Oh, right,’ said Lysander. ‘No, I flew Virgin. The air hostesses were really sweet.’
‘Surprised they were still intacta with you on board,’ said the first.
Glancing round for a waitress with a bottle, Lysander caught sight of Martha Winterton. Shaded by a vast yucca, she was chatting mindlessly to a senator’s wife and trying not to watch Elmer. Her desolation was tangible.
‘You’re not really a good friend of George Bush?’ Bonny was growing more raucous. ‘I would just love to meet him.’
‘It could be arranged.’ Elmer’s pudgy right hand was surreptitiously stroking her left buttock as they leant side by side against a dragged yellow wall.
The senator’s wife had drifted off to talk to Butch Murdoch. Martha was gazing despairingly into her empty glass. Oblivious of Seb’s stern warning that trespassers would be put on the next plane, Lysander crossed the room.
‘Have you dried off?’
Martha jumped. Her huge eyes, the clear brown of Tio Pepe held up to the light, were swimming with tears. It was a second before she recognized him.
‘Oh sure — it was so dear of you to bring me that blanket.’
She had a husky, hesitant voice. Her creased white shirt still clung to her body. Her dark hair, which had dried all fluffy, was pulled back in a bandeau making her freckled face look even thinner.
‘You needed a lifeboat,’ said Lysander.
‘I could use one now.’
‘Have a drink first.’
As Lysander grabbed a bottle from a passing waitress, Martha noticed a badge saying: ‘Birthday Boy’ pinned to his grey T-shirt. Clutching her glass of champagne as though it was boiling tea and she a shipwreck victim, she took a great gulp.
‘There’s a nice fire in the garden,’ said Lysander seeing the goose-flesh on her thin freckled arms.
Outside, the dull aquamarine of the swimming-pool reflected a few faint stars. Rain had bowed down the hibiscus and the oleander bushes, but their flowers, pink, red, amethyst and yellow, glistened jewel-like in the floodlighting. Great drenched pelts of purple and magenta bougainvillaea clung to the house and the garden fences.
To an almost overpowering scent of orange and lemon blossom was added a tempting smell of roast pork, garlic and rosemary as half a dozen sucking pigs jerked above the glowing coals of the barbecue. Apart from an inscrutable Mexican houseboy who occasionally plunged a skewer into their shining gold sides, the place was deserted.
Caressed by the warm night air Lysander gave a sigh of pure joy.
‘Such bliss to go outside and not shiver, but I expect it’s cold for you.’ Solicitously, he edged her towards the fire.
‘Poor little things,’ Martha looked sadly at the sucking pigs, then, pulling herself together, ‘You’re kind a tanned for someone just arrived from England.’
‘It’s fake,’ confessed Lysander, lifting the light brown hair flopping over his forehead. ‘Look how it’s streaked on the hairline and turned my eyebrows orange. I borrowed the stuff from Dolly, my girlfriend. She’s a model and always having to turn herself strange colours. I wanted to terrorize everyone into thinking I’d got brown playing in Argentina all winter. But I was pissed when I put it on last night.’
She’s so sweet when she smiles, he thought. To hell with Seb and Dommie.
‘And it’s your birthday?’ she asked.
‘No,’ Lysander glanced down at his birthday-boy badge, ‘but it gets me lots of free drinks.’ He opened his blue-green eyes very wide and then roared with such infectious laughter that people standing in doorways and sitting in windows and even the inscrutable Mexican houseboy looked up and smiled.
‘When is your birthday?’ asked Martha.
‘25 February, I shall be twenty-three.’
‘You’re a Pisces.’
Lysander nodded. ‘Friendly, warm, considerate, easygoing, but cross me and you’ll see how tough I can be. My father who’s a classical scholar pronounces it, “Piss-ces”.’
‘What does your daddy do?’
‘He’s a headmaster. Supposed to be a great teacher, but he spends most of his time raising funds and wowing mothers.’
‘Does your mother wow the fathers?’
For a second an expression of utter anguish spilled over the boy’s sunny, innocent, charming face. Shutting his eyes he took a couple of deep breaths as though trying to survive some horrific torture without crying out.
‘She just died,’ he mumbled, ‘last October.’
‘Ohmigod!’ Martha put a hand on his arm which was clenched like cast iron, ‘Whatever happened?’
‘She had a fall on the road. The horse went up. She wasn’t wearing a hard hat.’
As the Mexican plunged in another skewer the boiling fat dripped on to the red coals which hissed and flared up, lighting Lysander’s face like a soul in hell.
‘You poor little guy,’ said Martha. ‘Were you very close?’
Lysander nodded. ‘She was more like my sister. All my friends were in love with her.’
‘Your father must have been devastated.’
Lysander’s face hardened. ‘Dad doesn’t show his feelings. Basically we don’t talk. He prefers my brothers, Hector and Alexander. They’re better at things.’
From inside the house the band struck up. ‘I get no kick from champagne,’ crooned a mellow tenor.
‘I do,’ said Lysander, emptying the bottle into Martha’s glass.
‘What d’you do?’ asked Martha.
‘Estate agent.’
‘Not much fun with the recession.’
‘Best thing that ever happened to him.’
Gliding up, Seb Carlisle topped up both their glasses. ‘Recession enables Rip-Off Van Winkle here to sleep and sober up all day in the office when he’s not ringing Ladbroke’s or sloping off home to watch Neighbours. He couldn’t do any of that if he had to sell houses.’
‘Oh shut up, Seb,’ said Lysander. ‘Now guard Martha for a minute.’
Turning, he was nearly sent flying by the predatory blonde in the fire-engine-red dress.
‘If you’ve finished with your toy boy,’ she said pointedly to Martha, ‘I’d love to dance with him.’
‘You’re sweet,’ said Lysander, ‘but I must have a slash.’
‘He’s just adorable.’ Martha watched Lysander drifting gracefully as smoke across the lawn.
‘Isn’t he?’ agreed Seb. ‘Unfortunately his boss put him on commission only and as he’s not selling any houses he’s running up terrible debts, betting and going out clubbing every night.’
‘He ought to do something else.’
‘He’s about to go to a new job working in the City for some merchant bank which specializes in pretty, personable young men; but he’ll never last. He’s not cut out for the City. He ought to be a jump jockey or a polo player. You saw what a beautiful horseman he was this afternoon, but it took him four chukkas to get his act together.’
‘He’s very upset about his mother.’
‘Devastated,’ agreed Seb. ‘Completely lost his base, drinking
himself stupid; can’t settle to anything. Unlike his pompous achieving brothers, he’s pretty dyslexic and he left school without an O level. His mother spoilt him rotten — the worse the prank the more she laughed, but she always bailed him out when he ran out of money. Pity Elmer can’t sign him up for the whole season. Pedro Cavanali broke his leg falling on the boards this afternoon. He plays medium goal with Elmer.’
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ said Martha.
The Mexican had carved two of the sucking pigs. Maids were carrying bowls of salad and baked potatoes through to the dining room as Lysander bounded through the french windows brandishing another bottle.
‘Clear the lawn for ballet,’ he shouted, then standing on one leg executed a pirouette, spilling a lot of champagne and only just avoided collapsing on the grass.
‘You need an early night,’ said Seb pointedly.
Inside the house, Lysander could see Elmer bending over Bonny, playing with the ends of her hair, no doubt boasting that Mrs Ex’s equine ancestors had come over in the Mayflower.
‘I’ll stick around,’ said Lysander.
‘Well, at least behave yourself,’ warned Seb.
‘Some hope,’ said Dommie, who wandered over tearing the flesh off the leg of a sucking pig with very white teeth. ‘Grub’s up. It’s very good, although,’ he dropped his voice so only Seb could hear, ‘our patron seems to have started already. He’s eating that slag alive.’
Going towards the house, Martha caught sight of Elmer and went into reverse.
‘That Bonny’s a bucket,’ said Lysander in outrage. ‘You’re much, much prettier.’
‘She’s newer.’ Martha took out a cigarette with a trembling hand. ‘Have you got a light?’
Lysander hadn’t, but, before Martha could stop him he’d plunged a twenty-dollar bill into the coals of the barbecue.
‘You’re crazy but awful sweet,’ reproached Martha, as he almost burnt his fingers getting the charred paper to her cigarette in time, but she was too immersed in her own misery.
‘It’s my fault,’ she confessed. ‘My last husband was faithful and dull and I was bored out of my skull, so I ran off with Elmer, who had a roving eye and I haven’t slept since.’
‘Elmer’s a shit,’ said Lysander with such disapproval that Martha looked up. ‘Dad was a shit to my mother and he’s already found someone else, a Mrs Colman, an army widow. She’s got veiny ankles and wears shirts with pie-frill collars,’ he went on in disgust. ‘The boys call her “Mustard” because she’s so keen on Dad. She helps him fund-raise. They’re turning the stables where Mum kept her horses into a new music school.’
‘The speed with which Mrs Ex carted you this afternoon,’ said Martha bitterly, ‘is only equalled by the haste with which men shack up if they’re divorced or widowed, or bored with their wives. Oh God, no!’
Following her gaze, Lysander saw Bonny run off shrieking excitedly into the wet depths of the shrubbery followed by Elmer.
‘Could you bear to take me home?’
‘Oh wow, that’s like offering me a ride in the National,’ said Lysander. ‘Could I bear? I certainly could.’ Then, seeing Seb beadily advancing on them with two platefuls of food, ‘Look, I don’t want the twins getting heavy. Let’s escape through the garden.’
3
The full moon was rising rose-coloured like the inside of a pink grapefruit. Martha’s limo was apple green, open and very long with the number plate: MARTHA 30.
‘Elmer gave it me for my thirtieth birthday. That was when he was doing everything to prise me away from my ex. Hardly the ideal gift to hide under one’s mattress!’
In her distress Martha grazed an incoming Cadillac as she stormed out of the car-park. Lysander slumped beside her, gazing at the stars, which seemed to be shooting around a lot, tunelessly singing: ‘A Groovy Kind of Love’.
Elmer’s house in the heart of smart Palm Beach was surrounded by a thick, impenetrable ficus hedge. Two scowling security guards, restraining snarling Dobermanns, gave Lysander a malevolent once-over as they opened massive electric gates.
‘Friendly fellows,’ observed Lysander as they glided through a huge shadowy garden filled with darkly dipping trees. ‘What are those dishes on those big black poles?’
‘Microwave units to pick up on any intruder. There are also sensors under the lawn. Not a rabbit or a racoon goes undetected. Inside the ficus hedge is hidden a chain-link fence topped with razor wire and an electronic intrusion detector.’
‘I’d guard someone like you,’ said Lysander.
‘Not me, himself,’ said Martha flatly. ‘Safus screens high-risk computers, Elmer’s sewn up most of the Government contracts. As only he holds the password to all the computer installations, he needs protection twenty-four hours a day. No-one breaks in here.’
Ahead, ghostly in the moonlight, rose Elmer’s pale pink fortress, so like nougat that Lysander felt he ought to take a large bite out of it to sober himself up.
‘Amazing place.’
‘Was,’ said Martha bitterly. ‘One of the oldest houses in Palm Beach stood on this site. Elmer razed it and built another. He’s not into longevity.’
Going into the living room, Lysander found himself gazing into the mouth of a cannon and ducked.
‘That thing was fired in the Civil War,’ said Martha.
‘Nearly as old as Elmer. Why the hell did you marry him?’
‘I was called in to redecorate his office. Underneath a big desk you don’t see a guy’s clay feet.’
Only marred by too many photographs of Elmer fraternizing with the famous, the room was charmingly decorated in pale golds as though Midas had idly trailed his fingers over sofas, carpets, walls and huge bunches of deeply scented yellow roses. On an easel was a half-finished portrait of Elmer looking virile. The two ponies he was riding and leading were only roughly sketched in.
‘God, you’ve flattered him,’ grumbled Lysander.
‘It’s not finished. He can’t decide which pony he wants to ride.’
‘Cut out holes; then he can ride a different one each day. Did you do that?’ Lysander turned to the waving corn field above the fireplace.
‘No, that’s by Van Gogh.’
‘Yours is better. And much better than that one.’
‘That’s Paul Klee,’ said Martha in gentle reproof. ‘It cost several million dollars.’
‘Really.’ Astounded, Lysander peered at it again. ‘Perhaps I should take up painting.’
They were interrupted by another huge Dobermann hurtling into the room, fangs bared, growling horribly.
‘Stay, Tyson,’ screamed Martha. ‘Don’t touch him.’
But Lysander went straight up to the dog, hand outstretched.
‘Hallo boy, aren’t you beautiful?’
Disarmed by such genuine admiration, Tyson, after a few dubious growls, started wagging his stubby tail and writhing his shiny solid black body against Lysander.
‘That dog is a serial killer,’ said Martha in amazement. ‘Elmer and Nancy, his ex, have endless legal tussles over him. Nancy has custody and Elmer visitation rights on weekends, but he’s always playing polo so the dog goes crazy. Now Nancy’s threatening to take it to a dog shrink in New York so that’s another two thousand dollars a month. She should pay you instead,’ she added as Tyson collapsed in an ecstatic heap at Lysander’s feet.
After a very disapproving butler had opened a bottle of Dom Perignon for them, Martha, who was still shivering uncontrollably, went off to change, leaving Lysander with the telephone. Instinctively he started to dial the number at home, then stopped with a moan of pain, remembering that the only person in the world he really wanted to talk to would never pick up a telephone again.
The only changing Martha had done when she returned twenty minutes later was to put on an old olive-green cardigan with the buttons done up all wrong. Lysander was encouraged that she smelled of toothpaste, but her eyes were very red.
‘Did you get through?’ she asked.
‘I did. I rang Ferdie my flatmate in Fulham to see if my dog Jack was OK. He is, and Dolly, my girlfriend, is modelling in Paris.’ Lysander looked cast down. ‘Neither of them was remotely pleased.’
‘Hardly surprising. It’s four o’clock in the morning in Europe.’
‘That must be it,’ said Lysander, cheering up. ‘Anyway Ferdie did read out Mystic Meg — she does the horoscopes in the News of the World and she’s seriously on the crystal ball. She says Pisces will find happiness with someone with freckles.’
Martha didn’t register. Chain-smoking, she jumped every time the telephone rang, then, because the butler answered, bit her lip when it wasn’t Elmer and slumped back on the yellow and crimson striped sofa.
‘All husbands have mistresses these days like they have faxes and mobiles and they can’t think how they ever existed without them.’ The drink was really getting to her now, her soft husky voice was shrill, with the words rattling out like machine-gun fire.
‘D’you know what’s really causing the recession?’ she demanded. ‘Pandemic adultery — Tom Wolfe’s “tidal wave of concupiscence”. A guy is so busy deceiving his wife and his PA, who’s probably another mistress anyway, he can’t concentrate. How can you put your back into work when you’re sticking your dick into some bimbo all the time?’
Although his hands were busy stroking an ecstatic Tyson, Lysander found his knees edging towards Martha’s.
‘I’d never have taken up with Elmer,’ she went on hysterically, ‘if he hadn’t painted such a dire picture of his marriage; how Nancy neglected him and never slept with him. Then after Elmer and I were married Nancy dumped in Vanity Fair and I realized she’d adored him and been absolutely wiped out. She called me one evening when she was drunk, to tell me he was a clinical narcissist and I’d never satisfy him. All her friends were there this evening. They’ll be on to her first thing: “You held him for twenty-five years, Nancy, Martha couldn’t hold him for as many weeks”.’ She gave a sob.
‘What’s pandemic?’ asked Lysander.
