Girl's Guide to Kissing Frogs

by Clayton, Victoria

  ‘If you’ll forgive me for making such a muff of things.’ How delightful was the calm after the storm. I felt a resurgence of … was it love or gratitude? Probably both. ‘I am constitutionally incapable, I’m afraid. But perhaps I needn’t go out much. And when I do I could take taxis.’

  ‘Oh, no, darling. You’ll find it’ll come after a while.’ He beamed at me, impervious to the message in my beseeching eyes. ‘Now what about pouring the tea?’

  I looked at Isobel.

  ‘Go ahead,’ she shrugged. ‘I’ve practically flown the coop. You’re the one who’ll assume the mantle of chestnut-basket dusting, eventually. I’m awfully glad. I should hate the responsibility.’

  ‘Oh, well … perhaps we ought to give it back to you and Conrad when … later on.’

  Isobel laughed. ‘You mean when Mummy’s dead. I hope you won’t find yourself anticipating that event too eagerly.’

  ‘Isobel!’ Rafe frowned at her.

  ‘Why shouldn’t I say what’s true? Mummy’s a fiend to live with and you know it. Marigold’ll be bossed about from first light until her head hits the pillow. And you won’t stand up for her, will you, my dearest dear?’ She looked up at her brother, her expression challenging.

  Uneasiness percolated through the room.

  ‘Please, I should like a piece of cake,’ said Fritz. ‘Ve haf a hasty lunch had at a not good restaurant.’

  ‘Oh what an excellent idea,’ I said quickly. ‘Isobel, are you going to cut it?’

  When she continued to stare at Rafe without replying, I picked up the knife and proceeded to hack it about rather in my agitation. No one could say that being with Isobel was dull. I poured the tea and handed round cups.

  ‘Marigold, you wished me to do something for you?’ said Conrad.

  ‘Oh, yes. You know the terrace below the drawing room that leads off the kitchen – the one overgrown with grass. You said you didn’t want to use chemicals to spray the weeds because of the birds, but you thought it looked untidy—’

  ‘I know the one,’ replied Conrad gravely.

  ‘Well, my poor rabbit’s been housebound for months ever since I got here and he badly needs fresh air. I bring him handfuls of grass every day but it isn’t the same as tugging it up for himself. We’ve got a fox living at the bottom of the garden so it’s no use making a pen or anything.’

  ‘You’ve got a rabbit?’ Isobel looked incredulous. ‘But Marigold, what on earth for? I had some once, do you remember? A dead loss, really. They just sat in their hutch and moped and got diarrhoea periodically from eating too much lettuce. And they needed cleaning out about every five minutes.’

  ‘Yes, I remember. The black one was called Fred and the white one was called Ginger. That puzzled me for ages but I didn’t like to ask why. I thought they were adorable, so gentle and soft.’

  ‘Adorable perhaps, but hopeless as pets. What can you do with a rabbit? You can’t ride it or train it or take it for walks. We gave them away in the end. You cried for days when I told you Jebb had wrung their necks and Mrs Capstick had put them in a pie.’

  The memory returned sharply though I had not thought of it for years – the pain of imagining those two much-loved little creatures struggling helplessly in the horny hands of Jebb, the Preston gardener in those days, a gruff-voiced tattooed ex-prisoner whom I had hated and feared … I felt tears well.

  ‘For heaven’s sake.’ Isobel was inconveniently eagle-eyed as always. ‘You’re not going to cry now? I was teasing you, you fathead. Of course Mummy wouldn’t have let Jebb wring their necks! She gave them to Mrs Capstick’s niece.’

  ‘I knew that.’ It was a lie. I hadn’t known. I felt a slight but welcome diminution of the burden of sadness I carried always with me on behalf of the vulnerable and mistreated, human and animal.

  ‘Marigold’s rabbit is not adorable in the least,’ said Conrad. ‘He is a limb of Satan who likes the sweet young flesh of infants—’

  Our eyes met and I saw in them a flash of awareness that he had put his foot in it before he turned to look out at the garden again.

  ‘How do you know?’ Isobel stared at the back of his head.

  ‘I’ve already bored Conrad with a description of Siggy’s very bad habits,’ I said.

  I was confident that Conrad would guess I intended to save him from the necessity of lying as he was always so fussed about the need to be transparent and speak pure truths and so on. My soul was already deep-dyed in deceit so a little more tinkering with the facts wouldn’t matter much.

  ‘I’m so glad you like animals, darling,’ said Rafe as we took Buster for a run in the garden after tea. ‘It’s another thing we have in common. I couldn’t imagine life without dogs and horses.’

  A soft mist was rising from the damp lawns and paths as the air grew moist with impending rain. Sweeping down to the elaborate stone fountain in the rose garden was a hedge of double pink hawthorn, the tiny flowers like iced gems, a kind of biscuit Isobel and I had once had a passion for but which Evelyn had disapproved of. She considered all cakes, biscuits and jams bought from a shop to be vulgar.

  ‘I do like animals but I don’t know much about them. I’ve always been too busy to have a cat or a dog.’

  ‘Well, that’s going to change now. You’ll have plenty of time to look after them. When you aren’t looking after our children, that is.’ He took my hand and tucked it under his arm. ‘I hope we’ll have six, at least.’

  ‘Six!’ I expect I sounded as horrified as I felt. My response was automatic. Babies were nearly always bad news for dancers.

  He said, with a little pique in his tone, ‘You want children, surely?’

  ‘Well, I suppose … eventually.’

  ‘Darling.’ He stopped, put one arm round me and lifted my chin so I had to look straight into his eyes. ‘You’re not having second thoughts, are you?’

  Speak! I urged myself. Tell him you’re fonder of him than of any man on earth but even that isn’t enough. Tell him you want to dance. I looked into his face, saw his forehead pleated in perplexity, remembered his fragile self-confidence, Dimpsie’s happiness, Evelyn’s happiness.

  ‘I thought perhaps you were. Having second thoughts,’ was the best I could do, and hated myself for my weakness. ‘I’m so stupid about so many things. I’ll never be able to run the house as well as Evelyn does. The garden will go to pot, I’ll offend all the local big cheeses, my flower arrangements will give rise to scandal and my dress sense will be the subject of letters to the Northumbrian Gazette. And I shall never learn to drive.’

  ‘Oh, sweetheart, you make me feel so guilty! Tomorrow I’ll book you some lessons with a qualified driving instructor. I’m thoroughly ashamed of myself for losing my temper. You’re such a sweet forgiving soul that I’m inclined to take advantage of you. Oh darling,’ he held me tighter until my nose was buried in his jersey, which smelt deliciously of Roger et Gallet and Buster. ‘I don’t deserve you, I know. If you did have second thoughts I’d have no grounds for complaint. I’m taking your marvellous youth and adorable innocence and spoiling it with a second-hand love—’

  I fought my way out of the jersey. ‘Second-hand? What do you mean?’

  ‘Oh, ah! … what do I mean?’ He gazed into the mid-distance over my head. ‘I suppose, the fact is that you aren’t my first love … and you ought to be—’

  ‘Oh, never mind about that!’ I said quickly, with a rush of guilt as I remembered that I still had not told him about Sebastian and all those others who had cynically availed themselves of my adorable innocence.

  Experience had taught me that the hearts of men (Sebastian’s excepted) were softened immediately after sex, so I had decided to undeceive Rafe the next time we were in bed together. But here circumstances had conspired against me, as they seemed only too ready to do. Rafe did not feel relaxed about making love at Shottestone, which I completely understood. Kingsley had taken to wandering all over the house at odd hours in order to make sure none of the rooms
was missing. If any of the doors was locked he rattled the handle and bellowed in distress. He had already upset Mrs Capstick by getting into bed with her at two in the morning.

  I don’t think Dimpsie would have minded in the least if we had slept together at Dumbola Lodge, but neither my little boat bed nor Kate’s bus would have accommodated Rafe’s large frame. A few days ago he had booked a room for the night at the only decent hotel within twenty miles, to find that the receptionist was the wife of one of the tenant farmers. Our waitress, the daughter of Banks the builder, had practically curtsied when Rafe walked into the dining room. Rafe and I had had what was nearly a row over the soup and roast lamb. I had said I did not mind anyone knowing that we had slept together before getting married and that most people would assume we had anyway. Rafe said that it was important that the estate workers looked up to me. I had said I’d prefer them to like me. Rafe had said I was being childish and I had become indignant. The unpleasantness was not helped by having to pretend, each time the waitress brought the breadbasket or topped up our glasses, that we were having a lovely time.

  I hate rows so I had given in before pudding and apologized. After dinner we had tried to find another hotel. Rafe, who was miles fussier than me, had rejected them all as being ‘impossible’, so we had ended up having what would pass for sex in anatomical terms in the back of the car. The experience had been cold and uncomfortable and thoroughly unromantic, good only for taking the edge from the frustration Rafe said he was feeling. It had not seemed the right moment to tell him that I had bartered my body for my career.

  ‘I honestly don’t mind about the women in your past,’ I said, ‘as long as they stay past. I don’t think I’d like to share.’

  ‘Coo-ee!’ Isobel was standing on the terrace, calling down to us. ‘Conrad, Fritz and I are going to the Castle for dinner. Want to come?’

  ‘No, thanks,’ Rafe shouted back. ‘Marigold’s had enough of cars for today. We’ll have something here.’

  ‘All right. Tootle-pip.’ She blew a kiss and went indoors.

  ‘With them it’s a hectic round of gaiety,’ he said, staring after her. ‘It makes one wonder if they actually enjoy just being together.’ He glanced down at me. ‘I’m glad you’re not the sort of girl who wants to go out every evening.’ I smiled agreement, though in fact I had just been thinking that I would have liked to have gone to the Castle with them. ‘You’re looking cold. We must go in.’ He fastened the buttons of my coat protectively and we began to walk back to the house. ‘What were we talking about?’

  ‘I can’t remember.’

  ‘I can. I was telling you that you’re a wonderful girl and you make me the happiest of men.’ He kissed me again and looked at me expectantly.

  ‘Mm. You make me happy too.’

  So there we were, our love affirmed, our troth replighted with renewed exchanges of confidence, yet not two hours ago I had decided that, whatever the cost to our mothers and to ourselves, I must break off our engagement. Life among sensible, properly grown-up people was utterly baffling, I decided. It was evident that I was unfit to dwell among them.

  ‘Am I allowed to see what you’re painting?’ I asked as he held open the conservatory door.

  ‘If you like.’ He turned the easel round. ‘Yet another view of the hills, I’m afraid. I’ve taken a leaf out of Monet’s book and I’m doing a series of the same prospect to explore the effect of light and shadow from dawn to dusk. This morning the sun was sending shafts through the clouds like beams of enlightenment from on high.’

  I examined the watercolour. It was lovely but bleak: blues, greys, browns and shades of white. It struck me as odd that the brilliant fresh greens in which the countryside was clothed these days had made no appearance. Was this because Rafe’s inner landscape was bleak? Was he telling the truth when he said I made him the happiest of men? Was I in fact not the only practised liar within our small circle?

  31

  ‘Hello. Lovely day, isn’t it?’ I said briskly, when Jode came into the kitchen the following morning.

  I was not surprised to see him at Dumbola Lodge at this early hour. I had been kept awake long into the night by shrill cries and moans from Dimpsie and the occasional bass groan of ecstasy. Finally I had tied two pillows to my head with a scarf, but poor Siggy, whose grey velvet ears were of the upright variety, had been condemned to eavesdrop.

  ‘Can I help you find anything?’ I asked, seeing him looking around in a vague embarrassed way.

  ‘’Tis a bottle for Harrison Ford I’m after making. He’s in bed with Dimpsie.’ Then a slow purple tide rose from inside his shirt collar to his eyebrows.

  ‘I’ll put the kettle on. Can I make you some breakfast? Bacon and eggs?’

  ‘Thank ye but I don’t eat meat.’ Tis my intention not to cause pain to any living creature so long as I may live.’ He looked severe.

  ‘I do agree! But it’s so hard to live in the way you know you ought,’ I said, perhaps a little gushingly. ‘I always find myself weakly giving in to temptation, don’t you?’

  ‘No. I can’t say that I do.’

  * * *

  ‘He made this solemn vow while he was in prison,’ explained Dimpsie. She, Harrison Ford and I were enjoying the warmth of the kitchen while, outside in the driving rain, Jode double-dug the last segment of the garden that had not already been subject to his excavations. Now and again, through the misted panes, I saw clumps of earth fly past as he prepared the brassica bed. He had explained the importance of crop rotation and I had hung onto his every word for fear that this scarred giant might take it into his head to beat it into me. There was about him an aura of violence that made me fearful for my mother.

  ‘He was in prison?’

  ‘He nearly strangled his wife’s lover. Luckily when he saw the man’s face turn blue he came to his senses and let go. Jode has terrifically high principles but he was goaded beyond bearing. Also in those days he drank. The boyfriend pressed charges and Jode spent eighteen months inside for assault. His wife put Nan into care and ran away to Spain with her lover. That was ten years ago. He left Ireland and came to live here. Since then he hasn’t touched alcohol, tobacco or animal flesh, or raised his voice in anger.’

  ‘He’s a model of good behaviour. I feel the terrible burden of my wickedness in his presence.’

  Dimpsie beamed. ‘It’s inspiring, isn’t it? He’s so hard-working and self-disciplined and responsible. And kind. Last night he insisted on washing up the supper things while I rested on the sofa in the sitting room because he thought I looked a little tired. After a bit I came and dried up because I was getting bored on my own. It was as I was reaching up to put away some plates and he took them from me that we kissed for the first time.’ Twinkly stars appeared in Dimpsie’s eyes as she recalled the scene. ‘Then we couldn’t stop and I dragged him upstairs to my room and into my bed.’

  I began to get a little fearful at this point, for Dimpsie enjoyed talking about the details of sex more than I did. ‘How lovely for you both. Look, Harrison Ford’s falling asleep.’ Dimpsie removed the rubber teat from the baby’s milky lips and shifted her arm slightly so that his head could flop back against her shoulder. Tiny veins like navy silk threads straggled lids that drooped over eyes as blue as the sea on a summer’s day. His head was covered with pale yellow down.

  ‘He’s such a darling,’ Dimpsie said fondly.

  ‘And very handsome.’ This was true. Not every baby would look good dressed in woollen coat and leggings of a hideous shade of salmon trimmed with ox-blood red crochet.

  ‘Jode is so gentle with him. He has the most wonderfully sensitive hands.’ Dimpsie took a deep breath and let it out slowly as she looked reflective. ‘When he touches you it’s like being brushed by swansdown. Every nerve-ending comes alive. I can feel my skin rippling beneath his fingers. Every part of me sings with pleasure—’

  ‘Oh, good.’ I stood up. ‘That’s excellent. Perhaps I ought to wash up the breakfast things.
“He that is filthy, let him be filthy still,” as it says in the Bible, apparently. The rector quoted it in his sermon last week. I’ve no idea what he was talking about as my brain had pretty well shut down by then and I was wondering what we were going to have for lunch, but that little sentence struck my ear unkindly.’

  ‘I never knew before what a sensuous organ the ear is.’ Dimpsie’s eyes became dewy. ‘Your father has never once in twenty-five years of marriage licked my ears.’

  ‘I’ll just give Siggy these crusts. I don’t like the way he’s eyeing Harrison Ford’s toes.’

  ‘It just shows that fidelity isn’t everything it’s cracked up to be. I always believed Tom was a good lover because he told me he was. But actually it isn’t true. I had simply no idea what I was missing.’

  ‘Oh, you’re such a fussy rabbit! All right, I’ll put a little Marmite on them.’

  ‘Do you realize last night was my first proper orgasm? I used to get excited with your father but he’d always had his before mine came to anything.’

  ‘He doesn’t seem to like Marmite this morning. I know, there’s some fish-paste in the fridge.’

  ‘I must have been a worm-hearted fool to put up with being treated so badly for all those years. All that misery, the loneliness, my self-confidence shrinking to non-existence … the tortures of jealousy … Well, I’ve seen the light. Last night was the most wonderful experience I’ve ever had – apart from you children, of course but that’s quite different – and I shall expect nothing less from now on. No more taps on the shoulder just as I’m drifting off to sleep, hauling up of nightdresses, plunging straight in without so much as a kiss, a few thrusts before dropping like a ton weight—’

  ‘No!’ I may have spoken rather sharply. I turned from the open fridge door with a jar of Porter’s Pilchard Pâté ‘Paradise in a Pot’ in my hand to see Dimpsie’s eyebrows raised in surprise. ‘Absolutely not. That is … you mustn’t swap one kind of slavery for another. Sex isn’t everything.’ I warmed to my theme as Dimpsie looked disbelieving. ‘I really do believe it’s rubbish that women need a man to be happy. Women need a proper job to do which gives them a sense of self-worth and achievement – the freedom to make mistakes and learn from them and do it better next time, whether it’s being a ballerina or a fishmonger.’ Absent-mindedly I stuck my finger in the jar and licked it, then shuddered. If this was Paradise in a Pot give me Purgatory in a Pitcher, Hell in a … I couldn’t think of a vessel that began with H. Luckily I was not a slogan writer. ‘Much more important than sex, there’s thinking and experimenting and creating and achieving. We’ve got the vote and equality in the workplace and all that but still women are doing most of the housework and laundry and looking after the children. I do agree Jode is an exception, but the majority of men would rather live in a slum and let the children tumble up anyhow than take the trouble. I say to hell with men!’