The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous trc-4

by Jilly Cooper

  ‘Look this way, Georgie,’ shouted the photographers, ‘To me, Georgie.’ ‘Smile, Georgie.’ ‘Climb on the rock; show us your legs,’ which was the one thing Georgie was not prepared to do.

  Shoved rudely aside, as so often happened, by people anxious to get to his wife, Guy Seymour moved round the room, slipping cards with the gallery’s address on to anyone rich and famous who might be interested in buying paintings.

  ‘Is Georgie Maguire here in person?’ asked a pale girl from the Independent.

  ‘Of course she is,’ answered Guy quite sharply.

  ‘I went to a launch at lunchtime,’ said the girl huffily, ‘where the pop star didn’t show. The record company didn’t feel it was relevant and they didn’t play any of her records,’ she shouted over the boom of Rock Star. ‘Of course hype and hard sell are very unfashionable at the moment.’

  ‘That’s why we’re in the middle of a recession,’ snapped Guy.

  ‘She’s not bad for forty-six,’ admitted the girl, consulting her hand-out. ‘Which is her famous husband?’

  ‘I am,’ said Guy.

  ‘Oh, right. D’you manage Georgie?’

  ‘No-one manages Georgie.’

  The room was filling up with record distributors, disc jockeys, Catchitune employees, musicians produced by Catchitune and the general freeloaders of the music business.

  Through a fog of cigarette smoke, people drifted up and down: men in overcoats, T-shirts, designer gymshoes and baseball caps., clutching beer bottles like grenades, or in leather jackets with their shirts hanging out like Larry. Girls with scarlet lips, tangled hair, wandering eyes and pale faces like Brides of Dracula, who never saw the daylight, crunched over the sea shells, restlessly searching for celebrities or at least familiar faces.

  Everyone pretended not to stare at Georgie, but they all agreed that the album was great and that, in the down light, she looked terrific. But they ignored her because big stars don’t like to be pestered and it wouldn’t be cool to go up to her.

  The Press were getting restless.

  ‘That’s great, thank you.’ One by one they closed their notebooks, switched off their tape recorders and looked around for Rannaldini.

  Georgie, however, having been out of fashion a long time, desperately needed reassurance. Like a bride at her own wedding whom everyone thinks is too important to waylay, she was suddenly deserted and sought Guy out in panic.

  ‘It’s going to be a mega-flop. Everyone’s leaving.’

  ‘Don’t be so bloody wet, Panda.’

  ‘Judging by celebrity head-counts, this party is a complete wash-out,’ said the girl from the Independent.

  Then in walked Dancer Maitland, thin as a rake with his long tousled mane and black-lined eyes, one of the biggest rock stars on both sides of the Atlantic.

  ‘Hi, darling.’ He came straight up to Georgie, hugging her cautiously so as not to disturb either of their hair or make-up.

  ‘Great album. Wish I’d written it. Bloody nice of me to be here, when you’ve just pushed me off Number One in the States and no doubt you’ll do the same in England. I hear you’re moving to Rutshire. I’ll be there in April when practice chukkas start. You must come and ’ave dinner.’

  ‘Oh, we’d love to,’ said Georgie ecstatically. ‘Oh, Dancer, thank you for coming, and making the party. Have you met Guy?’

  Dancer looked at Guy’s strong stern face, whose classical good looks were only marred by a nose broken when he was boxing for Cambridge. The warmth of the reddy-brown complexion and the friendly smile showing excellent teeth were tempered by eyes which despite laughter lines were the cold pale azure of Basildon Bond writing-paper.

  A battered, gold corduroy suit, a blue-and-gold paisley silk-tie and beautifully cut, straight, white-blond hair falling on the collar of his dark blue shirt, gave him an arty look. But the overwhelming impression was of some high churchman: a man of passion but strong-willed enough to resist the overtures of the most wantonly ravishing parishioner.

  Sexy but tough as shit, thought Dancer, wincing at Guy’s firm handshake.

  ‘Georgie gives you a good press,’ he said. ‘But I thought I was the only rock star livin’ in Rutshire.’

  And the photographers got their picture, because Dancer came to launching parties even less often than Rannaldini.

  Dancer was followed by Andrew Lloyd Webber, Rod Stewart, Simon Bates, Steve Wright, Cilia Black, Simon Le Bon and a host of other celebs, so Rannaldini wasn’t missed nearly as much as he would have liked. Hermione, on the other hand, made a deliberately late entrance with her devoted, balding husband Bob who, as the orchestra manager of the London Met, had had a punishing day dealing with Rannaldini and the Press.

  Hermione was looking radiant in a rich, red Chanel suit embroidered with roses and with a built-in bra to boost her splendid breasts. To boost her sales, she carried a large crocodile bag, rattling with tapes of Blow the wind southerly to thrust on unsuspecting journalists.

  ‘I thought you’d like to hear some real music,’ she murmured to the music critic of The Times.

  Although she smiled graciously round, she was pained by the fog of cigarette smoke and the photographers still clustering round Georgie and Dancer.

  ‘Who’s that striking woman in the swansdown bolero and red leather shorts? Didn’t she play Susannah at the ENO?’ she asked Bob. ‘Her face is so familiar.’

  ‘She’s the Catchitune receptionist,’ said Bob not unkindly. ‘You see her each time you go into the building.’

  Hermione, having spent the morning in bed with Rannaldini, was shored up in the knowledge that he had blacked the party not because he wanted to avoid the Press, but because he loathed the idea of Georgie Maguire and was violently opposed to her stealing his thunder in Paradise. He was furious that Georgie, as a pop star, would probably earn twice as much as he and Hermione put together, and he detested Georgie’s mawkish celebration of marriage. Everywhere he went in LA last week, he’d heard ‘Rock Star’ being sung and whistled, as it raced up the charts.

  Accepting, however, that this was the quickest way to get her picture in the papers, Hemione glided up to Guy whom she’d already met with Larry.

  ‘Hallo, Mr Wonderful,’ she said archly, kissing him on his firm, handsome mouth, then carefully choosing a lull in the music turned to Georgie: ‘I’m simply livid with Rannaldini for crying off. I said, “Georgie Maguire’s music gives pleasure to so many people.” I kept telling him, “You’ll love Georgie when you meet her, Maestro,” but he’s such an intellectual snob, and he does feel “Rock Star” is a rip-off of “Lady in Red”.’

  ‘It’ll be Lady in the red by the time we’ve paid for Angel’s Reach,’ said Georgie lightly, but her happiness evaporated and when Hello magazine asked them both to turn and smile, the photographer caught Georgie looking miserable, and Hermione, who instantly composed her features, eyes open, brows raised, dazzling white teeth flashing, looking gorgeous.

  ‘I’ve bought you a present,’ Hermione handed Georgie Blow the wind southerly, ‘because I wanted to cheer you up about that beastly piece in the Guardian.’

  ‘I hid it from Georgie, so shut up,’ hissed Guy, adding, ‘You look fabulous, love your hair,’ because women were always distracted by flattery, and briskly led Georgie off to meet the new music editor of Billboard.

  ‘What Rannaldini actually said,’ stage-whispered Hermione to Dancer Maitland, ‘was that he didn’t want to meet an ageing sex symbol.’

  ‘Because he does that in the mirror every morning,’ snapped Dancer.

  People were dancing in corners, falling on food. Tables were filling up with glasses. Catchitune, cashing in on having the Press present, were playing records by other artistes on their books. Nikki, in her pie-frilled collared blue velvet dress and determined to prove she was a better Chief Executive’s wife than Marigold, was working the room, pressing her new London address on disc jockeys and important retailers, hinting that she and Larry were together now, a
nd would soon be throwing a lovenest warming party in Paradise.

  Emerging from the Gents after yet another rewrite, desperate for a cigarette, Larry scooped up a handful of prawn vol-au-vents.

  ‘We have given up canapés for Lent, or we won’t be able to get into our new jeans,’ said Nikki reprovingly as she glided up and removed the plate.

  What in hell’s got into her? thought Larry. She looks like a complete frump. In fact the only person in the room looking more matronly than Nikki was Kitty Rannaldini, who, like many women much younger than their husbands, tried to dress older than she was. Exhausted from spring cleaning for Rannaldini’s return, she had belted up the motorway because she’d promised to support Marigold and because she longed to see her errant husband even for a couple of hours.

  Kitty dreaded parties. In friends’ houses, she could escape to the kitchen to help, or take round bottles and gather up dirty glasses — but these matelots in their striped jerseys looked as though they’d down tools if she picked up a plate. Being a wonderful listener, she survived socially on a one-to-one basis, or in the office where people got to know and love her. The only way to communicate over one of Catchitune’s heavy rock bands, however, was with your eyes or your swaying body, which in Kitty’s case were concealed by hopelessly strong spectacles and a beetroot-pink crimplene tent-dress, which she’d bought by mail order because she was too ashamed of her bulges to go into clothes shops.

  Now she was being chewed out by Larry, who needed some ass to kick and who broke the news to her that Rannaldini had done a runner, as though it were her fault.

  ‘Did he say when he was coming back to England?’ stammered Kitty, trying to hide her desperate disappointment.

  ‘No,’ snapped Larry, ‘and where the fuck’s Marigold?’

  ‘She’s definitely coming.’

  ‘Sorry, love.’ Larry patted her arm. ‘I’ve given up smoking. Nikki sent me to a hypnotist last week and I haven’t had a fag since.’

  ‘But that’s brilliant,’ said Kitty, who knew Larry had been on sixty a day. ‘How d’you feel?’

  ‘Fine, except every ten minutes I climb up the curtains and throttle the cat.’ Larry was about to quiz Kitty about Marigold’s bit of rough trade, but seeing Nikki bearing down, he bolted back into the Gents.

  Who the hell can I talk to? thought Kitty in panic. Seeing Georgie still talking to the languid new music editor of Billboard, she took a deep breath and went over.

  ‘I just come to say ’ow much we’re all lookin’ forward to you moving into Angel’s Reach.’

  Georgie looked blank. This frump, with her fuzzy hair drawn into a pony-tail and a big spot on her forehead, must have emerged from the Catchitune accounts department.

  ‘I’m Kitty Rannaldini,’ said Kitty, amused to see Georgie’s wary half-smile widen into one of incredulous excitement.

  ‘Has Rannaldini come after all?’

  ‘He can’t make it, some drama wiv Don Giovanni. He was ever so upset.’

  The cross round Kitty’s neck glittered in the moving spotlight, then, as it moved on, darkness hid her blushes at such a thumping lie.

  ‘Oh, I’m so pleased.’ Georgie sighed with relief. ‘Hermione said Rannaldini blacked it deliberately.’

  ‘Really,’ said the man from Billboard suddenly interested.

  ‘I’m a triffic fan of yours, Georgie,’ said Kitty hastily. ‘Could I have your autograph?’

  The Billboard man was appalled at such lack of cool, but Georgie delightedly signed a page of Kitty’s autograph book. Seeing Georgie wasting valuable time on some dowdy groupie, Guy whizzed over.

  ‘May I borrow Georgie for a minute?’ he asked, and frogmarched her off to charm the manager of Tower Records, Piccadilly.

  As the Billboard man promptly disappeared in search of more exciting prey, Kitty overheard a Scorpion reporter saying: ‘Let’s call it a day. Rannaldini’s obviously not coming.’

  ‘I gather the wife’s here,’ said the Mirror. ‘Might get something out of her. Let’s try the mistress first.’

  Retreating hastily into the darkness, sitting on a lobster pot, poor Kitty miserably ate her way through a large plate of paella, trying to ignore the great phallic lighthouse flashing on the opposite wall. If only she could escape in her little car down the motorway to a cup of cocoa and her Danielle Steel, but she’d promised to give Marigold support. Through the darkness she caught a whiff of Chanel No. 5, and peppermint breath.

  ‘Hi, Kitty,’ said a caressing, rather common, voice, which she’d heard so often over the telephone discussing Rannaldini’s contracts and recording dates.

  Unlike Georgie, Kitty immediately recognized Nikki — less glamorous than she expected, but as the lighthouse beam flashed on to the vulpine features, far more predatory. What chance had poor Marigold got?

  ‘So pleased to meet you at last.’ Nikki plonked herself on an adjoining lobster pot. ‘And I was looking forward to meeting Rannaldini. I’ve heard such nice things about you.’

  Kitty, who hadn’t heard anything nice about Nikki, stared at the pieces of squid round the rim of her plate and felt sorry for them because they’d been rejected, too.

  ‘We must have lunch,’ urged Nikki.

  ‘I don’t come to town very often.’

  ‘Then we’ll meet in the country. I’ll be moving into Paradise Grange very shortly.’ Nikki’s forked tongue was loosened by drink. ‘Larry and I are getting married.’

  Kitty was aghast. ‘Oh, poor Marigold, and wot about the poor kids?’

  ‘It didn’t deter you that Rannaldini was a married man with children,’ said Nikki sharply.

  ‘No, I know.’ Kitty hung her head. There didn’t seem any point adding that Rannaldini was separated from Cecilia by the time she’d gone to work for him.

  ‘Anyway,’ went on Nikki, fishing, ‘Marigold’s got some rough trade in tow, hasn’t she?’

  Nikki, in fact, was iffy about this development. The boys had banged on and on about Lysander all weekend and, having written off Marigold as a sexless old bag, Nikki disliked any proof that she might be able to attract even rough trade. On the other hand, if she did find someone, it would save Larry a great deal of guilt and alimony. Nikki had been so certain Larry was going for a quicky divorce — she’d even planned her dress, cream silk, for the Registry Office.

  And there he was scowling and clutching his speech, his hair all tousled. No-one would think he was worth billions.

  ‘See you in a bit,’ murmured Nikki, and sliding over to Larry, taking his hand in the darkness, she placed it under her gathered velvet skirt straight on to her damp pubic hair.

  ‘Come on, make me come, I dare you,’ she whispered.

  That should obliterate all thoughts of Marigold.

  13

  ‘D’you think we should arraive together?’ said Marigold, overcome by a sudden fit of respectability as she signed her name in the visitors’ book. ‘Ay mean Ay am Larry’s wife. All his staff will be there. What’s everyone goin’ to say?’

  ‘They’ll say, “Hallo, Marigold, Hallo, Lysander,”’ giggled Lysander, who’d been smoking a joint in the car.

  As they entered the party, the room went still.

  ‘Hallo, Marigold, Hallo, Lysarnder,’ said Hermione loudly.

  Larry whipped his hand from Nikki’s bush as if it were a wasps’ nest, for across the room was the Marigold he’d first fallen in love with, but ten times more beautiful.

  Who is he? Who is he? Shaken out of their cool, everyone in the room was frantically trying to identify Lysander.

  ‘Kerist,’ exploded the Catchitune Sales Director. ‘It’s the boss’s wife.’

  ‘Lucky thing,’ said Denise the receptionist.

  A favourite has no friends. Nikki, since she had taken up with Larry, had snubbed senior and junior secretaries alike and banned executives from Larry’s presence. Marigold, on the other hand, had always been kind. She had written to Larry’s staff when they married or had babies, and b
een sweet even to the lowest packer at office parties. With the increasingly dark cloud of recession, they felt Marigold would not have let them starve. So they now converged on her joyfully telling her how marvellous she looked, and having a really good butcher’s at Lysander. It therefore took Marigold several minutes to reach Geòrgie. Ignoring a hovering Larry, resisting the temptation to tuck in his shirt and throttle him with his silly gold necklace, she flung herself on her great friend, telling her how wonderful she looked and how much she adored the album.

  ‘Oh Georgie, Ay’m so proud of you and for Guy, too. It’s such a wonderful celebration of your love for each other.’

  ‘Great party,’ said Lysander, who managed to have eyes for no-one but Marigold, but also on stalks for all the famous people he wanted to meet. ‘There’s Dancer Maitland, and Steve Wright and Simon Bates, and all the cast of EastEnders, and that lovely girl from Brookside. Oh my,’ he looked at Georgie, ‘and you, too. The album’s fantastic. Can I have your autograph?’

  Rootling round in Marigold’s bag in a gesture of casual intimacy, he found a pen and Marigold’s diary, out of which he tore a page and handed it to Georgie.

  ‘Why are they playing this junk instead of Rock Star?’

  ‘It’s evidently uncool to play one’s own music,’ sighed Georgie.

  ‘Bollocks! It’s your party.’

  Georgie turned to Marigold. ‘You look amazing, twenty years younger. Whatever happened?’

  ‘He did,’ said Marigold, taking Lysander’s arm.

  ‘Lucky thing,’ Georgie laughed as though this was a huge joke.

  ‘How are the children?’ asked Marigold.

  ‘Well, Flora’s been at Bagley Hall since January,’ said Georgie, ‘so she’ll be near by when we move to Paradise. It’s co-ed, so I hope she’s managing to do some work. Melanie’s in Australia bankrupting us with reverse-charged calls. And your two?’ asked Georgie, who never remembered names.

  ‘Both at prep school,’ said Marigold.

  Hermione was having a bad party. None of the pop music press were remotely interested that she was doing Dido and Aeneas. Once again she had to approach Georgie to get her picture taken.