by Jilly Cooper
‘You make a killing,’ he went on, ‘selling a house here to a couple. Then, when the marriage breaks up in a few years, you make another killing finding them two separate houses and, if you’re lucky, flogging the old one for them.’
Paradise, which had been voted Best-Kept Village in Rutshire for the last ten years, lived up to its name. Even on the bleakest day it was sheltered by the towering tree-covered hills. The churchyard and the gardens that lined the main street were already crowded with aconites, snowdrops and early crocuses. Winter jasmine and evergreen honeysuckle climbed to the roofs of the cottages, from whose chimneys, opal-blue smoke rose straight up, hardly ruffled by the wind. Although the duck pond was frozen, there were fat ruby buds on the black spiky branches of the lime trees which framed the village green.
Next to the church behind ancient stone walls hung with tuffets of mauve aubrietia lurked a charming rectory. As well as an excellent village shop called The Apple Tree, which stocked everything from videos to vine leaves, Paradise boasted a garden centre called Adam’s Pleasure which sold petrol, and a restaurant, called The Heavenly Host, with its duck-egg-blue shutters drawn, which opened only in the evenings.
Ferdie and Lysander, however, shot with indecent haste into the saloon bar of The Pearly Gates Public House.
‘Morning, Ferdie,’ said the landlord who had tipped him off about local houses on several previous visits.
Sustained by a couple of large whiskies and a plate of very hot steak-and-kidney pie and chips in front of a roaring fire, Lysander began to feel slightly more cheerful.
Apart from a couple of pensioners gazing at half-pints of beer, the place was deserted except for the vicar, who, in between drinking large glasses of red wine and writing Sunday’s sermon, gazed surreptitiously at Lysander.
‘They ought to invent a killer cocktail called the Holy Spirit,’ murmured Ferdie, whose pink cheeks had turned bright scarlet in the warmth.
On the walls, dominating the coaching scenes, village cricket elevens and gleaming horse brasses, were two framed photographs. One was of a haughty-looking, grey-haired man with his eyes shut waving a stick, the other of a strikingly handsome woman with dark, curly hair and her mouth so wide open that Lysander was tempted to toss her the piece of the pastry he was feeding to Jack.
‘Who are they?’ he asked Ferdie.
‘Rannaldini conducting Mahler and Hermione Harefield, his mistress, singing it. That’s her house on the left.’
Out of the window, Lysander could see tall yellow chimneys, beckoning like fingers between two great black yew trees.
‘She’s a world-famous diva,’ continued Ferdie mopping up gravy with a third piece of bread. ‘She met Rannaldini when he was conducting Rigoletto in Milan ten years ago. It’s been a staggeringly successful partnership in and out of bed. You must have heard of Harefield and Rannaldini — no, perhaps not.’ He shook his head. ‘They almost outsell Nigel Kennedy.
‘Hermione’s incredibly beautiful and a pain in the ass, which Rannaldini probably enjoys because he’s rumoured to go both ways. Hermione’s husband, Bob, is the orchestra manager of the London Met. He’s a seriously nice guy with the flattest stomach in Rutshire. He should have the narrowest shoulders, shrunk by so many musicians sobbing on them as a result of Rannaldini’s tantrums.’
Ignoring Lysander’s reproachful glances at his empty glass, Ferdie picked up the car keys.
‘Come on, I haven’t finished the tour.’
Outside, the sun had gone in. The cottages along the High Street huddled together for warmth. As they drove out of the village up the south side of the valley, they passed a cottage with a waterfall and a swing hanging from a bent apple tree.
‘That’s Jasmine Cottage,’ said Ferdie slowing down, ‘which also belongs to Hermione and Bob Harefield. Last year they rented it out to your pianist friend Rachel and her Russian husband Boris. Then Rachel went abroad on a concert tour, and Boris was left behind, babysitting and writing incomprehensible music no-one wanted, so he started looking around sexually. In the autumn they moved back to London hoping it might be easier to find work, but it doesn’t seem to have helped the marriage, if yesterday’s eye-gel incident is anything to go by.
‘And that ravishing house, hidden in the willows on the left belongs to Valentine Hardman. He’s a top lawyer with a mistress up in London, so his wife Annabel threatens daily to throw herself into the River Fleet.
‘And that vulgar pile up on the left,’ Ferdie nearly ran over a pheasant as he peered through vast electric gates up a long drive, ‘is Paradise Grange. It belongs to Larry Lockton, chief executive of Catchitune Records who make a fortune out of Rannaldini and Harefield. Larry keeps buying companies, but I suspect he’s hopelessly overleveraged and riding for a fall.
‘Now Larry’s another bloke Rannaldini’s led astray,’ added Ferdie, driving on. ‘Larry used to be a fat little man who never smiled because he had bad teeth. But he was so jealous of all Rannaldini’s mistresses, he wanted one, too. So he had his teeth fixed, lost three stone and got a new haircut like Mel Gibson and started bonking his secretary. He’s even bought her a bonkerie in Pelham Crescent. I sold it to him,’ explained Ferdie, not without complacency. ‘Ground floor with a nice garden and fitted cupboards for all the skeletons. Larry’s wife, Marigold, used to be very pretty. She was his childhood sweetheart, but once he started to make his pile and began climbing socially, she got Weybridged and dressed like the Queen, eating too many white chocolates, and throwing herself into charity work like a rugger ball with a difficult bounce.’
‘Why are you telling me all this?’
‘Hang on — there is a reason.’
Driving on up the hill Ferdie pulled into a gap. Through the trees across the valley half a mile to the right of Valhalla they could see a Georgian house, smaller than Fleetley, but exquisitely proportioned, with soaring stone angels on each corner of the roof.
‘That house, Angel’s Reach, was totally unmodernized with a fantastic wild garden,’ said Ferdie. ‘It’s been bought by Georgie Maguire and her husband, Guy Seymour, who are spending an absolute fortune on it.’
Lysander opened a bloodshot eye. ‘Even I’ve heard of her. Wasn’t she a pop singer in the sixties? Mum had all her records.’
‘That’s right. Now she writes songs as well.’
‘I’ve always thought she was seriously attractive,’ said Lysander.
‘Georgie and Guy paid a million five.’ Ferdie edged the car on until they could see a long lake glinting gold in the falling sun below the house.
‘My guess is they can’t afford it, but they’re gambling on her new album, which is produced by Larry Lockton and Catchitune, being a massive hit.’
‘Aren’t Georgie and Guy supposed to be the happiest couple in show business?’ sighed Lysander enviously.
‘Which probably means they’re both screwing around,’ said Ferdie cynically.
Lysander shook his head in bewilderment. ‘It’s quite awful. What’s the point of getting married if you spend your time bonking other people?’
‘This monstrous regiment of womanizers,’ said Ferdie with a shrug. ‘Paradise husbands ring up from London on Thursdays to remind the housekeepers to get their wives out of the freezer so they’ll be unfrosted by the time the master returns on Friday night.’
‘Why the hell do the wives put up with it?’ asked Lysander with a shudder. ‘At least Dad didn’t bonk other women.’
‘When your husband’s as rich as Croesus, you get used to a certain lifestyle and you can’t bear to give it up.’
‘I’ve got Croesus in my face,’ said Lysander, peering gloomily in the driving mirror. ‘Let’s go home, Ferd, I want to see Dolly and explain about The Scorpion before she goes into orbit. This place is seriously depressing.’
‘It is,’ said Ferdie, swinging the car round, ‘particularly for someone like Marigold Lockton. She loves that shit Larry to distraction, and that’s where you come in. You’re going to be h
er toy boy.’
‘How old is she?’
‘About thirty-eight.’
‘I can’t bonk an old wrinkly like that,’ said Lysander in outrage.
‘You’re not going to bonk her, just hang about and rattle her husband, and make him so jealous he’ll come roaring back. It worked with Boris Levitsky and Elmer Winterton. This time you’re going to get paid.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ snapped Lysander. ‘I can’t get a husband back if the marriage is dead. You can’t reheat baked potatoes.’
‘First you’ve got to look at the wife,’ said Ferdie. ‘If she’s gone to seed, you unseed her, and make her look like a mistress. Put back the gleam in her eye, let her taunt her husband with a scented body that’s quivering with lust for someone else.’ Ferdie rubbed the windscreen which was steaming up. ‘Get the weight off, get her some decent clothes (I bet there’s a raver lurking beneath Marigold’s polyester V-necks). Above all, make her stop nagging and act detached. No more flying leaps to catch the telephone on the first ring.’
‘You’ve really studied this.’ Lysander looked at Ferdie with new respect as they drew up outside the big electric gates of Paradise Grange.
‘We are about to repackage and remarket a product,’ said Ferdie. ‘Let’s go see Marigold.’
8
Up a long drive through splendid parkland dotted with noble trees, Paradise Grange reared up, a sprawling bulk of grey stone topped by turrets and battlements. On the perfect lawns still-frozen patches merged with great sheets of snowdrops and on the roof a flag flying the famous yellow-and-purple Catchitune colours was fretted by the bitter wind. Although it was still early afternoon, carriage lamps blazed on either side of the great oak front door. There was no answer when Ferdie rang the bell which played the Hallelujah Chorus. But as he pushed open the door he bumped into Marigold Lockton, deliriously excited that he might be a returning Larry and followed by an overweight, furiously barking, spaniel.
There’s no way I’m going to get Larry Lockton back for that, thought Lysander. Marigold looked absolutely dreadful, rather like a Beryl Cook lady masquerading as Mrs Thatcher. She was twenty pounds overweight, with red eyes and red veins criss-crossing her unhealthily white cheeks. An Alice band on her mousy permed hair emphasized a corrugated forehead. A V-necked polyester dress in overcooked-sprouts-green showed off a neck and arms as opaque and pudgy as the white chocolates with which she constantly stuffed herself. She had clearly also been stuck into the vodka for several hours.
Her first carefully elocuted words to Ferdie were that he could forget about the house he was finding her in Tregunter Road.
‘Even if Larry’s plannin’ to put Paradise Grange on the market, Ay’m not movin’. The kiddies love their ’ome; whay should they lose it and whay should Ay after all the work Ay’ve put into redecoratin’ it?’ She pointed to the oak panelling in the hall which had been painted a rather startling flamingo pink.
‘Larry wanted the kiddies brought up in the country.’ Her voice rattled like a sliver of bone in the Hoover as she led them into a vast drawing room. ‘So he stuck me down ’ere, mayles away from the shops. Now he’s packed them off to boardin’ school to get a posh accent and some smart friends, and he’s given may daily help and Mr and Mrs Brimscombe, our couple what live at the bottom of the drayve, a month’s notice to force me out.
‘Poor Mr B’s tended this garden for nearly forty years. Look at the poor old chap.’ Marigold pointed out of the window at an ancient gardener morosely clipping a yew hedge. ‘Ay can’t lay him off, it’d break his ’eart. Even more than mine’s broke.’
‘Marigold,’ interrupted Ferdie, ‘this is Lysander Hawkley.’
‘Pleased to meet you,’ said Marigold unenthusiastically, then pulling herself together, ‘I suppose you want a noggin.’
‘Please,’ said Ferdie, then, seeing Lysander’s appalled face, whispered, ‘Hang about, I promise you it’s worth it.’
‘She’s gross,’ hissed Lysander. ‘I’d need serious beer goggles to get within a hundred yards.’
‘Lovely view,’ enthused Ferdie loudly, squeezing between a large harp and a wind-up gramophone to look out of the huge window stretching the length of the room. ‘You can see Valhalla and Angel’s Reach from here, and Rachel’s cottage behind those Wellingtonias.’
‘I don’t care,’ grumbled Lysander, ‘I want to go home.’
Despite several bright Persian rugs tossed over a pink wall-to-wall carpet, a matching pink dog basket, a superabundance of silk cushions on their points like a Kirov line-up and enough tartan chairs and sofas to do the Highland fling, the room was as cosy as the furniture department of an Oxford Street store. There were too many dark cumbersome pieces, too many chandeliers, too much gilt on the mirrors and too few logs bravely burning in the vast stone cave of a fireplace.
On the walls, equally disparate, were several gold discs won by Catchitune, a lugubrious Stubbs spaniel, a Hogarth etching of a musical evening, a framed manuscript of the first page of a Beethoven Sonata, and a Picasso of grapes and a violin. The grand piano was weighed down with various recording awards and photographs of Larry Lockton fratting with the famous — mostly Mrs Thatcher. All round the room, busts of the great composers looked dourly down from their pedestals at such a visual mishmash.
Poor Marigold was in a frightful state. First she forgot the water for the whisky, then going back to fetch it, she forgot what she wanted it for, and proceeded to water a bowl of lurid pink hyacinths, not even noticing when it overflowed.
‘At least you’ve got lots of flowers,’ said Lysander looking around at the massed bunches of salmon-pink gladioli.
‘Ay sent them to myself,’ confessed Marigold, and burst into tears.
While Ferdie shot off to refill the jug and collect some kitchen roll, Lysander, who was beginning to feel really sorry for Marigold, asked her how she had found out about Larry’s bimbo.
‘It was at the office party in December. Ay always used to be the prettiest girl at office parties.’ Grabbing a piece of kitchen roll, she thrust it into her eyes. ‘All the bosses chased after me when we were first married, now Ay’m the old trout, what everyone has to suck up to because Ay’m the boss’s waife.’
She blew her nose noisily and took a slug of the replenished vodka and tonic.
‘May word, that’s strong, Ferdie. Anyway, I was chattin’ to the company secretary’s wife when I looked across the room and there was Nikki — she’s Larry’s PA — sitting on a leather sofa. Larry was standin’ besaide her chattin’ to the financial director and she was rubbin’ his… er — the front of his trousers.’
‘Perhaps she was brushing off a bit of fluff,’ said Lysander.
‘She’s the bit of fluff,’ said Marigold disdainfully. ‘Then Larry saw Ay was looking and kicked her on the shins. When Ay tackled him, he shouted that Ay was imaginin’ things and should get some glasses. Next day Ay was so distraught, Ay’d just set off to the Distressed Gentlefolks AGM.’
Coals to Newcastle, thought Ferdie.
‘Lady Chisleden was in the chair, I recall,’ went on Marigold, ‘and I got all the way to Rutminster before I realized I’d forgotten the minutes. I always type them, I used to be a secretary, so I rushed home. Patch came running down the stairs, which is unusual, she always stays in her basket in the kitchen if we go out, so I ran upstairs. I’d just had the guest bedroom redecorated in peach Draylon, with peach damask curtains, and Ay thought Ay’d take another peek, it looked so lovely, and Ay caught them at it.’
‘How awful,’ said Lysander, appalled. ‘What did you do?’
‘Ay was so shocked, Ay said, “I’ve just had this room redecorated.” And Nikki asked why didn’t Ay have the walls dragged. Ay said, “Ay don’t care for draggin’ it always looks as though it should have another coat.” Then Ay said, “How long have you been sleepin’ with may husband?” She said, “Ay must just look it up in may faylo-fax,” the cheeky cow.’
‘What’s
she like?’ asked Lysander. Seeing Marigold was shivering he got up and put more logs on the fire.
‘Nikki? Spelt with a double K for Kleptomania, only she lifts husbands rather than shops,’ Marigold sniffed. ‘She looks like one of those girls who guides folk towards wheels of fortune in game shows. Very, very pretty, in fact she’s so pretty Ay never suspected she’d be interested in may Larry. Ay thought the only woman Larry admired was Margaret Thatcher. Nikki asked me why Ay didn’t have the walls dragged.’
‘You told us that,’ said Ferdie, who was anxious to get down to business.
‘Ay’m sorry, I keep repeatin’ myself. I trayed so hard to be a good wife. I got lonely in the country, but I kept busy with may committees, and Ay always washed may hair on Frayday and had a candlelit dinner waitin’ for Larry when he got back from town.’ She started to cry again.
‘I wish someone would do that for me.’ Lysander reached for more kitchen roll.
‘I worked so hard in the early years, darnin’ his socks, studying cheap cuts and going without lunch. We were so happy then.’
‘Can we see your wedding photographs?’ interrupted Ferdie briskly. ‘And some when you were first married.’
Collapsing heavily between him and Lysander on the sofa, Marigold opened a red photograph album.
‘You look terrific,’ said Lysander gazing in amazement at a sixties snapshot of Marigold in Hyde Park. ‘Great legs, and that chain belt’s very sexy.’
‘I gave up lunch for a whole fortnight to pay for that dress,’ sighed Marigold. ‘I had a handspan waist then.’
‘Well, you better give up a few more lunches,’ reproved Ferdie. ‘You’ve hardly got a legspan waist now, and your skin’s awful.’
Lysander winced, and wished he could go next door and watch the 3.15. Outside a gaudy pheasant with a red face and staring eyes, trailing awkwardly round the frozen lawn looking for refuge, reminded him of Marigold.
‘It’s nothing personal,’ said Ferdie kindly. ‘It’s exactly like getting a horse fit for a big race. You need a month on the road and two on the gallops. Lysander’ll take you jogging and when it gets lighter in the evenings and you’re frantic for that forbidden first drink of the day, you can both play tennis.’
