‘I would like to photograph you in a sari, sitting on a great mound of cushions, with bare feet, and Nubian slaves kneeling before you holding up a bowl of fruit.’
‘Now that I have not done, yet, at least I don’t think I have. No, I haven’t, I really have not.’
Teddy had no idea what Nubian slaves would look like, but he counted on the fact that he could rush to the library and find out long before he himself was found out.
‘Continue, do. Your ideas are getting more and more interesting.’
‘I would like to stand you by the sea with the waves coming up to your bare feet, in a white towelling dressing gown, your hair quite loose, blowing in the breeze, the clouds above you scudding by, a shell necklace around your long neck, a goddess stepped out of the waves to give us a new world.’
‘Such a pity I have sold my beach house,’ she murmured. ‘But do go on.’
‘I would like to photograph you in a great black velvet opera cloak with a great gold clasp, wearing nothing at all underneath.’
‘That would be, artistically speaking of course, that would be very much to my taste—’
She was much nearer to him now, and her scent was quite exquisite. He knew that women like Beatrice had their own scents mixed for them, that not to do so would be considered vulgar, and that they disdained to wear other people’s. Now that she was so close, coming to sit beside him, Teddy was glad he knew this, because it meant that there was some excuse for his feeling so dizzy and lightheaded.
He drained his glass of champagne, far too quickly. She drained hers, at a leisurely pace. She filled both their glasses up again, and in seconds was back beside him, making him once more feel dizzy and faint.
‘Now, where were we?’
‘I was putting you in a great black cloak—’
‘That is right, you were, weren’t you? You were putting me into a great velvet opera cloak. I have just the thing, as a matter of fact. I was going to wear it this evening. For the Wagner, or is it Mozart? But instead, I am thinking we could both go upstairs together and I could try it on for you, and it would be deliciously soft against my skin, wouldn’t it?’
‘I suppose so.’
Teddy said this against her soft lips and suddenly it was behind him, this thing that he had always had about not wanting to take a woman to bed, not wanting to make love with someone until the perfect moment, because suddenly he knew that this was the perfect moment, and they were both running up some stairs, and through doors, and their clothes were not being taken off but mutually peeled off, and they were kissing and touching each other in places where he had only ever dreamed of touching and kissing a woman, until finally they were on what he imagined, indeed devoutly hoped, was her bed, a great gold-caparisoned affair with feathered eiderdowns and bolsters propping up countless pillows, and Teddy was entering the exquisite kingdom of love, and thinking that he surely would die from the pleasure of it.
Bobbie was standing by the window, for no reason that she could name feeling rather as she had done when she was a small child in hospital waiting for some pronouncement from a specialist or doctor.
‘Well?’
Teddy stared at her, and then frowned. ‘What?’
‘Well, I mean, did you do it?’
Teddy went such a colour that Bobbie knew at once what the answer to her question was, and then, which was ridiculous, she too went scarlet, and they both stared at each other, feeling idiotic, no longer friends or conspirators, just heartily embarrassed by and with each other.
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, let’s just get on without telling each other any beastly details.’
‘Yes, well, she is actually leaving England, pretty soon, I gather.’ Teddy stared at Bobbie. How could he tell her that he thought he was now passionately in love not with Bobbie, but with Bobbie’s hated guardian. How could he tell her that?
The truth was that he could not, and would not. But then, seeing her looking at him in that sudden sharp way that Bobbie sometimes had, he realized that she had arrived at something like the right conclusion. He did not have to tell her. She had already guessed.
‘Oh, Teddy!’
‘I know, I know. I didn’t mean to, but she is so beautiful, you know. And, and, she has a way of being – I mean she really listens to me, really, really listens. She is interested in everything I do and everything I say, and that is such a change.’
Bobbie snorted lightly, knowing that this was an overt criticism of Miranda and herself. ‘All older women listen to young men, Teddy.’ She managed to look both impatient and worried. As if Teddy had made himself ill, as if he was the patient and she was trying to decide which doctor to take him to, which remedy might cure him. ‘That’s their trick, that’s what older women do with younger men. They always listen to them, to take their minds off what they really want from them.’
‘Which is?’
‘Their bodies, Teddy. She just wants your body.’
‘So what?’ Teddy suddenly kicked the side of one of Bobbie’s new chairs, which made him look quite the old Teddy, spoilt and childish, which was sort of reassuring and not reassuring at all, because it meant that he was still so easily gulled.
‘Teddy.’ Bobbie walked across to him and took one of his hands. ‘Teddy, you have forgotten the real reason why you decided on this – why we both decided on your doing this. It was to rescue the Major and Mrs Saxby, make sure that the Major is not had up on these stupid charge things about bricks and gin, and heaven only knows what. That is why you went to photograph Beatrice and seduce her and all that. You weren’t meant to become besotted about her, Teddy, you were just there like – you know, like a wartime sort of spy, that sort of thing.’
‘Look, you won’t understand this, Bobbie. But she listened to me. She really listens, she’s interested in my talent. I think she really loves me, actually,’ he added dreamily.
Bobbie felt a sharp sensation and knew at once that it was jealousy – and over Teddy of all people.
‘She’s no more interested in your talent than Mrs Dingwall. She’s interested in your bo-dee. You know, the bits of you that are young and vigorous. Didn’t you know that was the older woman’s way? To listen to young men and assume soupy expressions, and then lure them into beautiful love-making? That’s all Beatrice wants, you to make love to her, because you’re young and stupid and trying to make your way, and she knows she can help you and in return she can enjoy your body.’
‘She has helped me already with my work. She has talked to Vogue. She’s thrilled with my photographs. I took her in a marvellously beautiful black velvet cloak with a great brass clasp––’
‘Brass is a very suitable material to go with Beatrice.’
‘Don’t be so utterly cynical, Bobbie! I am besotted with her. I really am, I am wild about her. I …’ Teddy was just about to say that he loved Beatrice but he stopped, frowning momentarily. ‘I – er …’
Bobbie sighed and frowned back at him. ‘What, Teddy?’
‘I – er – I think she’s beautiful.’
‘I can’t believe you are saying these things after all I have told you about how appalling this woman is, how she seduced my father, and oh, what’s the use?’ She turned away.
‘You’re right, Bobbie. What is the use? There is no use when it comes to love, it’s so utterly, utterly other, so amazing. It makes everything in life brighter and more radiant, the paint on the walls of a room, the colour of the trees outside the window. Everything becomes brighter and more brilliant when you are in love, believe me. You don’t really know, but it does.’
‘As a matter of fact – no, well, what’s the use.’
There was a long silence after that during which Bobbie managed to look fed up and furious and sad at the same time, which made Teddy feel sad and furious and fed up too, but neither of them could think of a thing to say to each other. Bobbie thought she might be bleeding inside, she hurt so much, because she knew what Teddy did not. She had truly loved Julian, but Teddy would not
understand because Teddy was in physical love.
‘Do you want to see the snaps I took of her?’
‘Oh, all right.’
Teddy brought out the contact sheets and spread them out on Bobbie’s brand new pointy-legged coffee table, and almost dutifully handed Bobbie a magnifying glass. ‘I’ve circled the ones I think are pretty good.’
‘Yes, I can see you have.’
With a great effort of will Bobbie stared through the magnifying glass at the pictures in front of her. They were, she realized, really quite good. Once she had detached herself from the fact that it was the hated Queen of Baileys Court, the cold-eyed woman of many of her nightmares, who was the subject of the photographs, even Bobbie could see just how good they were.
In fact they were not just good, they were brilliant.
‘Well, Teddy, I have to say, they are marvellous, they really are. You’ve somehow managed to make her look majestic. And her hair – that black hair with that black cloak. These photographs are really good. They are your best, I think.’
They had always had this professional thing, that when they worked together, they were honest and straight. The other bit of them could be as crooked and dangerous as it liked – the relationship bit – but the professional bit was always straight, and now Teddy was grateful for it, because he knew that Bobbie always told the truth. He also knew that telling the truth about these particular pictures was very difficult for her.
‘I wanted to snap her by the sea, but it wasn’t possible. So many beaches are not back to what they should be still, and the bit of beach that she used to own, apparently, in Sussex, where you were, she’s sold that.’
‘She’s sold Baileys Court?’
‘Yes, to some rich family who are going to restore it all. She never liked it, she said, which was why she agreed to drop the charges, or rather made the local authorities drop the charges against the Major and his wife. She was fed up with the whole Sussex bit anyway, and really, as she said, who cares what the wretched Major did, or you for that matter.’
‘Well, I must say, that is Beatrice Harper all over. I mean to say, what price––’
Bobbie had continued talking for a few more seconds before she realized that the Saxbys were going to be all right after all. The Major was not going to have to go to prison with a lot of men who would not understand his calling them ‘old bean’, and their life would go back to being normal and nice and they could resume their roles as a couple of old Chelsea-ites pottering down the King’s Road in their funny clothes and not caring too much how many old beans, or any other kind of bean for that matter, made five.
‘Oh, Teddy, you are such an idiot! Why didn’t you tell me they were going to drop the charges?’ Bobbie stopped suddenly, and her eyes narrowed. ‘Hang on. No, tell me. No. Did you get it in writing?’
‘Better than writing. I saw her telephone to the appropriate people. It only took seven telephone calls and that was that. She was very good at it, really, I mean the telephone calls and influencing people, and all that, and she was fine about knowing that you wanted it, and so on. It just took a few telephone calls and it was all done, really.’
He stopped, remembering how Beatrice had stood there in her sumptuous bedroom in front of Teddy, looking so alluring with hardly a stitch on, and yet managing to laugh and saying, ‘You little devil, so that is why you came here to make love to me, is it? So that I would let the Saxbys out of their cage, to fly free? Well, very well, I will do as you wish, but on one condition only – that you repay me, in every way, every day, for my great compassion and sweetness – agreed?’
Of course Teddy had willingly agreed, and of course he had repaid Beatrice in the way that she understood and enjoyed most, but he could not tell Bobbie that, and certainly not at that moment, not when she was so thrilled about the Saxbys.
Once Bobbie had finished celebrating with the Saxbys, she had actually woken up the next day not with just a colossal headache, but with that particular feeling of dull, gloomy cloudiness that comes from the start of a cold, or too much to drink the night before, because she now knew that she had not only lost Teddy, she had lost Baileys Court, and with it Julian.
‘You’re looking rather down in the mouth, Bobbie dear.’ Mrs Saxby smiled.
‘I am not just looking it, Mrs Saxby, I am down in the mouth. Teddy told me yesterday that Baileys Court has been sold, so that means we will never be able to go there again. Not that I particularly wanted to go back, but in another way I did really want to, you know. I mean I never thought Mrs Harper would sell it, just like that.’
Mrs Saxby shuddered. ‘You are quite alone in wanting to go back, Roberta, I am afraid, for I am sure neither the Major nor I ever, ever want to return to that place, nor see anyone at Baileys Green or the Court again.’
Bobbie nodded. She could see Mrs Saxby’s point, and of course it was true. None of them should want to go back to Baileys Court, not with the kind of understandable but nevertheless undeniable treachery that had occurred. Mrs Duddy, the landlord, everyone had finally given in to Beatrice Harper and her power, Beatrice and her money. And yet, Bobbie still could not help longing to return, in some secret way, somehow thinking that everything would be just as it had been.
Of course she realized that her particular longing at that moment was not based on anything except a resentment of Teddy. The moment Teddy had said that Bobbie would never understand love she had known that he was wrong. It was not true. She had understood love, that summer – great love – with Julian. And more than that, she had been, for once in her life, blissfully happy too.
Her summer with Julian had made her happier than at any other time in her life. They had been soulmates. She had hoped to forget him, but the fact was that she had been quite unable to do so, simply and solely because no-one had come along to take his place. Teddy could never do that, not now anyway. He was besotted with Beatrice, and Bobbie was quite sure that she could not love someone who loved Beatrice. It was not possible. She had loved Julian, her ‘wretched boy’.
It was as a result of her honesty about this that Bobbie at once set about planning how she could visit Baileys Court again. It was winter now, and there would be no trees in leaf, but she could see the garden, and the walls that she and Julian and the Major had built. She could too, for once, be on her own with her memories, without Teddy to interrupt and trample about talking, talking, talking.
For the truth was that after all the guilt she had suffered over the Saxbys, over making Teddy seduce Beatrice, only to find that it had been really more than a pleasure for him to do so, she felt foolish, and in some ways put upon, as if she had been used, and not Beatrice. She had so hoped that Teddy would come back revolted by what he had done with Beatrice, but far from it; he had, if anything, come back elated to the point of bliss. Which was good from his point of view, she supposed, over and over again, but whether it was reasonable or not to feel as she did, the realization that Teddy was in bliss made Bobbie wish most heartily that she could get away from everyone and just be on her own.
It was difficult to find out who exactly had bought the house from Beatrice, but since, it seemed, it had changed hands some months before, Bobbie decided to take the train to Baileys Green and put up at the Dog and Duck, because, as she well knew, if you ever needed to find out anything in England all you had to do was visit the local pub, buy yourself a drink, sit on a bar stool, and soon, without any problem, whatever was new in the neighbourhood would come to light.
Just taking the journey down to Sussex, seeing the names of the stations – Crawley, Turners Green, Three Bridges, all those dear familiar stops – was like being pulled nearer and nearer to where Bobbie truly wished to be. She really, now, only wanted to be in Sussex, on her own, by the sea. To sit listening to the tide coming up the beach, or receding down it; even the memory of the sound of the waves crashing on the pebbled shore during a storm seemed to be drawing her back to her past. Drawing her away from being the Quaker Girl, an
d temporary fame, away from Teddy and his ego, his camera and his ambitions, most of all from his restless mad love for Beatrice.
Away from Miranda and Dick who were, nowadays, anyway only interested in each other. At that moment in her life, Bobbie knew absolutely that she just wanted to be on her own, quite quiet, with nothing to do but think about Julian, and how they had been together, to remember how idyllic that summer had been, and how the happiness had washed over them both, in just the same way that the waves sometimes washed over the Sheds.
The Dog and Duck was unchanged from the outside. Bobbie stared up at it as the station taxi deposited her outside its mild English exterior. As always, the village shop was shut, despite its being well past the time when a shop should be open. And as always the notice on the door declared that it was shut even for the sale of Bovril.
She was dreading seeing the landlord again, knowing that he would know that she knew all about the nearly terrible scandal concerning the Major. But, when she dragged her suitcase into the pub doorway, and banged the brass bell on the small inside desk, and he appeared, as soon as she saw him it became quite clear that it was not the same man.
Bobbie could hardly stop herself from looking relieved. It was partly that she did not have to feel embarrassed for the other man, knowing his treachery as regarded the Major, but it was also relief that she had, after what now seemed a long journey, arrived. She realized that on the journey down she had almost dreaded reaching Baileys Green, that she had wondered, over and over, if it would still be there, or if it would be so changed that she would not know it, or would not want to stay.
Having signed the book, and taken a key, Bobbie followed the landlord down a newly lino-ed corridor to a back room with its own, brand new bathroom.
The new host of the Dog and Duck was obviously very proud of both the bedroom and the bathroom, and having pointed Bobbie towards the equally new back luncheon room, which was still open for sandwiches, he brought back her suitcase, told her to let him know if she needed anything further, and left.
The Blue Note Page 37
