Girl's Guide to Kissing Frogs

by Clayton, Victoria

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said eventually, taking his hand from my arm. ‘Forgive my appalling language. And I shouldn’t have been angry with you. I apologize, darling.’

  ‘Never mind. I was angry too.’

  He rubbed one hand over his face. ‘I won’t come in now. I couldn’t face meeting that man … though if what you say is true he’s evidently not quite as bad as I thought … but all the same Dimpsie shouldn’t … well, anyway, I’m suddenly awfully tired. Let’s call it a day and I’ll ring you in the morning.’

  I opened the car door and started to get out. ‘Don’t bother. I’ll be at Shottestone by ten. My gardening lesson, remember?’

  I must have sounded rather bleak because he leaned across and caught hold of my coat. ‘Sweetheart, I’m ashamed of myself. It’s my wretched nerves. I can’t seem to control my temper. Can’t you forgive a poor old crock?’ He hesitated. ‘I do love you so.’

  ‘I was just as much to blame.’

  ‘Kiss me then.’ I leaned back in and kissed his cheek. He caught my hair and kissed my lips before I pulled away. ‘Say you love me, Marigold.’

  But did I? How could anyone know whether they loved anyone else?

  ‘Marigold?’ He was looking up at me. The interior light was on and showed me his face clearly. It was anxious, pleading. ‘I shan’t sleep if you don’t forgive me. When things look black and I wonder whether I’m going crazy, your love is the only thing that seems to matter. I spent eight weeks in the psychiatric unit and all they did was give me drugs and talk to me in a half-baked way about minds healing. One chap wanted to blame my attacks of nerves on a distant relationship with my father. The padre thought a programme of Bible study might do the trick. No one wanted to admit that the horror of seeing one’s friends dying around one was an experience that couldn’t be tidied away under a Freudian heading. But you’ve given me hope. Your love reassures me that, when I look up from the bottom of this deep dark well I’m in, I can see stars at the top. Won’t you be merciful to the penitent? Say you love me.’

  ‘I love you,’ I replied, a few weak tears falling, which because my face was in shadow he didn’t see.

  In the hall, which these days, thanks to Jode, smelt strongly of Ajax and Mr Sheen, I looked at the face of the clock. The moon was nearly full, only a sliver concealed by the brass clouds. Its face looked disillusioned, the smile weary. I tried to imagine Rafe and Nan together at the pele tower. He had met her when he was horribly depressed and she had been pretty, innocent, admiring and, perhaps most persuasive of all, willing. I thought I could understand it. I could certainly forgive it.

  He was guilty of seducing a schoolgirl and giving rise to false hopes, but nothing worse. This was perhaps bad enough, but probably he had not realized that to Nan the encounters had meant more than casual sex. The important thing was that he had not known she was expecting a baby. She thought she had told him but he must have misunderstood. In fact, the only aspect of the entanglement I could not find excuses for was his adoption of horribly corny pseudonyms, which just showed how superficial I was.

  But what was to be done now? For one moment, seeing myself at the centre of the drama and getting some bittersweet satisfaction from the consciousness of my own nobility, I considered renouncing my claim in favour of Nan’s but immediately gave up that idea. A marriage between Nan and Rafe was out of the question. They had not a single thought in common. And Evelyn would probably kill herself.

  Siggy hopped downstairs towards me. I picked him up, pressed my mouth against the soft fur between his beautiful ears and stroked his bony paws. ‘Dear Siggy. Shall we run away and leave everyone to sort things out for themselves? Would you like to go back to London?’ Siggy wriggled in protest. He was happy now that Fritz fetched him two or three times a week to run around the terrace at Hindleep, nibbling grass in his metier as a live lawnmower. I put him down and he scampered under the hall table.

  I opened my bag and took out a piece of folded paper. As we were filing out along the front row of the grand tier I had pretended I had lost an earring and held everyone up while I searched under the seats for it. Another lie, but this one was partly Conrad’s fault. The paper was ingeniously folded into the shape of a bird with a long tail which, like the wings, was torn into pretty feathery shreds. A bird of paradise. Perhaps he had learned how to do this during his stay in the lunatic asylum. I glanced up at the clock. Half past twelve. I must get to bed. I noticed that the moon face had assumed a hypocritical smile.

  I heard a key turn in the front door lock. A cold wind gusted through the hall. The hexagonal lenses of my father’s spectacles winked in the light from the lantern. He took off his coat and flung it on the hall chair. ‘Where’s your mother?’

  ‘She’s in bed.’ My heart beat fast though, given my father’s appalling behaviour, there was no reason why Dimpsie should not at this moment be lying in the arms of another man.

  ‘Run up and tell her I’m here. I’d like something to eat.’

  My alarm turned to indignation. ‘You’ve got a cheek! After leaving us to practically starve so you could run after that hateful woman, how dare you walk in and demand food at this hour as if nothing had happened? It’s after midnight!’

  ‘Dimpsie won’t mind.’ Tom smiled. ‘She’ll be glad to see me. You can tell her I’ve come home.’

  35

  ‘I was afraid they were going to fight each other.’ I took a sip of coffee and a bite of something called Zwetschgen Kuchen, a sponge cake marbled with the purple juice of delicious little blue plums.

  ‘Is it considered polite in England to eat and drink in the same mouthful?’ asked Conrad, quite mildly for him. He was busy with his trowel making places to plant more ferns. ‘If they had come to blows, who do you think would have won?’

  ‘My father’s quite fit and wiry, but Jode’s practically a giant. His head is knitted together with scars. And his eyes have a sort of scorched look as though he’s witnessed all the sins of the world.’

  ‘I wish I had been there to see the meeting.’

  ‘You’d have thought it was funny, of course.’

  ‘I dare say. There is little more ridiculous than the passions provoked by jealousy. And one’s consciousness of appearing absurd only adds to the anguish.’

  ‘Have you ever been jealous?’

  ‘When I was eighteen, I fell violently in love with a beautiful actress. For three months we had an affair and then she threw me aside for another man. She said I was too young. I was hurt in my pride so badly that I followed one night as she walked on the arm of her new lover and I punched him and knocked out a tooth. The most terrible thing was that I could not prevent myself from weeping in front of him. That humiliation was worse to bear than my disappointed love.’

  I was touched by the idea of a youthful, vulnerable Conrad. ‘How old was she?’

  ‘Forty-eight. Have you ever been jealous yourself?’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘Then you know nothing of love. In that state of madness when the beloved looks up to heaven and smiles, one is jealous of the man in the moon.’

  ‘Have you forgotten I’m engaged to be married?’

  ‘I had not forgotten.’

  ‘Nor had I. I love Rafe. He just doesn’t happen to have given me cause for jealousy, that’s all.’

  ‘Not so far as you know.’

  ‘Conrad! If you’re trying to make trouble I think it’s very wicked of you! And anyway,’ I attempted to sound dignified, ‘as it happens, I do know all about it.’

  ‘Oh, you do?’ Conrad turned to look at me, his eyebrows lifted enquiringly.

  ‘Yes, and I quite forgive him. There can’t be many men who wouldn’t have taken advantage of a pretty young girl who was willing to go to bed with him. It’s very bad but that’s the way men are. Rafe had no idea about the baby until yesterday. And he broke it off with Nan before I came back to Northumberland so I’ve no reason to be jealous.’

  ‘None at all, I should say.
’ Conrad dabbed at the cement then stood back to admire his workmanship. ‘Who is Nan?’

  ‘You mean you didn’t know? But I thought … I assumed Isobel had told you. Oh, damn! Rafe will be furious with me. You must forget everything I said.’

  Conrad shrugged. ‘I can hardly do that but I can be silent. Isobel has told me nothing about Rafe’s sexual pleasuring. Perhaps she does not know.’

  I sighed. ‘They’ve always told each other everything. As it happens, Nan is Jode’s daughter, which does make it rather awkward, but so far he and Rafe have managed to avoid each other.’

  Conrad paused in his handiwork and said in a reflective manner, almost as though talking to himself, ‘Rafe has had an affair with a Zigeunerin? Nun wohl! Ich glaube es nicht.’ He took up a chisel and attacked the rock face. ‘So there is a Preston by-blow in the neighbourhood. Neither the first nor the last, I am certain.’

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t call him that. It sounds so cold and he’s the sweetest baby.’

  Conrad looked unrepentant. ‘You like babies.’

  ‘Of course. Doesn’t everyone. Not for me though … I mean, I hadn’t thought of having any. Dancing and babies don’t mix.’

  ‘You perhaps could adopt Nan’s baby. And any other little babies that Rafe has fathered along the way.’

  ‘You really are trying to make mischief. I would adopt him if I thought I had the smallest chance of prising him away from Dimpsie and Jode.’

  ‘Ah, yes, Jode. You were going to tell me about your father and the lover.’

  ‘Well, Jode came downstairs, his grey hair loose and his tame magpie sitting on one shoulder, like Samson on his way to pull down a temple.’

  ‘Perhaps Elijah and the ravens?’

  ‘Who’s telling this story? Anyway, luckily Jode’s pledged to non-violence and if my father had ideas of hitting him he sensibly gave them up. But what struck me as odd was that I could see my father really minded finding himself supplanted. I mean, after all those years of tossing my mother aside like an old glove—’

  Conrad made a sound like tst! ‘A cliché. And a particularly tired one.’

  ‘All right, not appreciating her in the least bit. I mean what’s sauce for the goose—’ Conrad held up a cement-smeared hand in protest. ‘Okay, but you’d think he’d be pleased not to have to feel so guilty about his own behaviour, wouldn’t you? He called Jode a thieving beggar and a pox-ridden tramp among other things. Jode simply folded his arms and stared down at him with reproachful eyes. After a while my father ran out of insults, so he turned his attention back to Dimpsie. He said couldn’t she see what a fool she was making of herself? Dimpsie said, “Why should I care about making a fool of myself when you’ve done it for me so successfully all these years?” Rather neat, I thought. Then she asked me if I’d take some of her clothes and Jode’s that were in the washing machine to the Singing Swan in the morning. I hadn’t properly realized until then that I was going to have to be alone in the house with my father. I didn’t at all like the idea because we’ve never got on but I’d have felt awfully de trop in the caravan so I said I would. They went into the kitchen and my father swore and kicked the hall table a couple of times. Then I saw he was thinking about kicking me.’

  ‘He was?’ Conrad stopped plastering and gave me his full attention. ‘What a maverick is your father!’ He sounded quite admiring.

  ‘Oh, yes, but to be fair he’s not often violent. Though I remember when I was little he whipped my legs so hard with his stethoscope I had red marks for two days.’

  ‘What had you done to deserve this beating?’

  ‘I set his armchair alight while he was asleep in it. I put a match to the fringe. He didn’t wake up until it was burning quite well.’

  I was pleased to see that I had managed to shock Conrad. ‘You hated him so much?’

  ‘I did it because Isobel said I must. It was the first of a long list of tasks I had to accomplish that lasted nearly all one summer holidays. Very much like the Faerie Queene now I come to think of it. Isobel said she’d got a puppy locked in a secret cupboard and if I didn’t do exactly what she told me she wouldn’t feed it or give it any water. Of course I couldn’t take the risk that she really had.’

  ‘That was ingenious of her. What else did she make you do?’

  ‘The worse thing was spending ten minutes submerged in the lily pond breathing through two drinking straws. That was horrible because I couldn’t really get enough air and whenever I put my head up she hit it with the rake. Also the bottom was thick mud and seemed to be full of wriggling things, or perhaps that was my imagination.’

  Conrad laughed. ‘It seems that it was Isobel who had the imagination.’

  ‘Oh, she was inventive, all right. It was only when Spendlove caught me gulping down Mrs Capstick’s opium-laced Collis-Browne tincture – I was supposed to drink a whole bottle – that she was found out. My father was called and there was such a fuss that Isobel got scared and confessed.’

  ‘What were your punishments?’

  ‘Isobel wasn’t allowed to go to see Peter Pan in London, which was hard because she’d been looking forward to seeing him fly around the stage more than anything. My punishment was that I didn’t enjoy it nearly so much without her. Evelyn was very kind and took me round the house and showed me the insides of all the cupboards to reassure me that there wasn’t a puppy.’

  Conrad could hardly speak for laughing. ‘Did you ever exact revenge?’

  ‘Never. Not because I was too good natured, but because I’ve always been afraid a deliberately nasty action would backfire on me.’

  Conrad continued to look amused and I guessed he was thinking what a bold-spirited girl Isobel had been. ‘So … did your father kick you?’

  ‘Not quite. Dimpsie came back into the hall with the baby followed by Jode staggering beneath the mountains of equipment a small baby needs to sustain life, and with Nell – that’s his sheepdog and she’s adorable – at his heels. My father said, “Ha! A gipsy bastard! So this sordid little affair has been going on longer than I thought.” Though he only said that to be spiteful because he must have guessed this was the baby he’d delivered a couple of months ago.

  ‘“He is a gipsy bastard,” said my mother, “but unfortunately not mine. I forgive you, Tom. Goodbye.” Then they sailed out through the front door, barefoot, locks flowing, Dimpsie in her nightdress and Jode in one of her kaftans because all his clothes were still wet, heads held high with ecstatic faces like Israelites departing for the Promised Land … oh, sorry …’

  Conrad smiled. ‘You need not worry. For me neither the term Israelite nor Jew is problematic.’

  ‘Oh no, of course not … Anyway, they drove off, leaving me to bear the brunt of my father’s rage. We’ve already had a blazing row. Siggy ran out from under the hall table to see what all the noise was about and my father tried to stamp on him. He said he thought he was a rat but no one could really mistake my beautiful Siggy for one. He said if I didn’t get rid of him by tonight he’d put down poison and he will too. So I’m at my wits’ end.’ I looked at Conrad hopefully.

  Conrad correctly interpreted my look. ‘Very well. He can stay here. But I take no responsibility for him should he fall from the parapet or be eaten. I saw a marsh harrier yesterday.’ I could tell by the way Conrad’s eyes flashed that this had excited him.

  ‘Really? How absolutely thrilling!’ When Conrad continued to stuff cement into cracks without troubling to enlighten me I asked, ‘What is it?’

  ‘It is a large bird of prey that particularly enjoys rabbits.’

  ‘Oh, how impossibly difficult life is! I wish I had the courage to run away.’

  Conrad lifted an eyebrow. ‘Is it so bad? Surely he will not kick you in cold blood?’

  ‘I hope not.’

  ‘Why don’t you go to live at Shottestone Manor? You are very much a favourite with Evelyn, I have observed.’

  I shook my head. ‘I don’t think that would be a good ide
a …’ I had been going to say that these days I found it rather a strain being there when I realized Conrad, who was always quick to ferret out unwelcome inferences from everything I said, would immediately ask me why. I couldn’t tell him that when I was with Rafe I seemed always to be treading on eggshells. Besides, he would have grumbled about the cliché.

  ‘At least I can go for runs during the day. But it’s so hard to know what to do with yourself in the country if you don’t have a job.’

  ‘You do not mean to say you have been dismissed from the café?’

  I explained about my promise to Rafe to give up my two insufficiently glamorous jobs.

  ‘I have something that will help to pass the hours.’ Conrad picked up a book which had been lying on the table next to the thermos flasks. I had already seen that it was called The Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby and that the author was Charles Dickens. ‘Dickens was a moralist as you are but he writes with passion. You will like it better than Joyce or Bunyan.’

  ‘Am I a moralist?’

  ‘In your own slightly confused way, yes.’

  A shifting of cloud cast a soft beam on the hand that held the book towards me. His hand was narrow palmed with long fingers and well-shaped nails, not brown or pink or freckled like English hands but a subtle shade between ivory and gold. The sound of the waterfall became very loud, as though its volume had mysteriously trebled. I looked up and saw reflected in his black eyes segments of light that trembled as it pierced the wall of water.

  I took the book. ‘Anyway, no one can accuse you of flattery.’ I frowned to hide an obscure feeling of pleasure.

  ‘Ich höre wohl der Genien Gelächter; Doch trennet mich von jeglichem Besinnen Sonettenwut und Raserei der Liebe,’* said Conrad softly.

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It means …’ He paused and turned his head to gaze at the sheep on the far hillside who were trotting busily about, baaing bossily to their black-legged lambs. ‘It means you must learn German if you wish to consider yourself well-educated. French and Italian, too, of course.’