Girl's Guide to Kissing Frogs

by Clayton, Victoria

  ‘It isn’t funny! Poor little Harrison Ford is a darling and he deserves a father who’s going to love him and look after him.’

  ‘You’re quite right,’ he said soothingly, continuing to smile.

  ‘Any child deserves that. Sweetheart, I don’t know what absurd romantic fantasy has been going on in your pretty little head, but I can assure you the baby isn’t mine.’

  ‘You’ve already admitted it!’

  ‘I certainly have not!’ He was looking more and more amused. ‘As far as I know I’ve never even met the unfortunate girl.’

  ‘But when I told you about the baby, you asked me how old he was and you stopped being angry – don’t you remember? You were very upset. That’s why Jode shot at you when we were by the pele tower, isn’t it?’

  ‘Oh dear!’ Rafe laughed heartily. ‘All this time you’ve been accusing me in your mind of being some kind of heartless monster, exercising droit de seigneur and littering the countryside with bastards! I’m sorry, but I can’t help finding it funny.’ Seeing my face he stopped laughing. ‘Darling, you’re quite wrong. Just listen to me for a minute. Several months ago, Ronald Dunderave asked me to lend him some money. He’d got this girl pregnant and he was in a blue funk because she was under sixteen and he was afraid of being taken to court. Also, the girl’s father was a gipsy with a violent temper who’d been in prison for GBH. I explained that I never lent money to friends on principle, but I’d give him what he needed. When you told me about the baby, I realized it had to be Ronald’s. Perhaps the girl refused to have an abortion or Ronald didn’t give her the chance. Whatever the truth of it, one of them kept my three hundred pounds for their own purposes which is dishonest. If I was upset it was because I was envisaging a pretty unpleasant scene, confronting him.’

  ‘But if you aren’t the father, why did Jode try to shoot you? At the pele tower, I mean.’

  ‘It wasn’t Jode.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Naturally I informed the police the next day about what had happened. You can’t have hooligans going round taking pot shots at people. They found a lot of televisions and microwaves in those old cart sheds behind the tower. One of the tinkers had been storing stolen goods there. He wanted to frighten us off, that’s all. At this very minute he’s being detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure. Anyway, you know, darling,’ Rafe patted my cheek, ‘if the baby’s two months old the evil deed must have taken place last July or August, and I didn’t leave the army until the end of September.’

  I grew hot with mortification. I had convinced myself of Rafe’s guilt on the minimum of evidence, despite everything I knew of his character, which was truthful and honourable and practically stainless. ‘Oh! Rafe! I’m so very sorry. I got it all hopelessly wrong. Why didn’t you tell me about the stolen goods at the pele tower?’

  ‘I’d made an ass of myself that day. I behaved like a pathetic coward. I didn’t want to remind you.’

  ‘Of course you weren’t a coward …’

  ‘It doesn’t matter, darling.’ He put his arms round me. ‘I’m only surprised that if you believed me capable of such shoddy behaviour – getting a schoolgirl pregnant, then washing my hands of her – you consented to marry me. What a brute you must have thought me!’

  ‘I suppose I thought, though it seemed wrong to me, don’t men often do that kind of thing? I really only know dancers and I don’t think they’re typical—’

  ‘I expect plenty do. But it encourages me to think that you could love me in spite of that. If there are any more skeletons in cupboards in your lively imagination, perhaps you’ll let me know now so I can clear them out?’

  ‘I’m so awfully sorry.’

  ‘Let’s kiss and make up.’

  His face hovered close to mine. A door opened behind me.

  ‘Sorry to interrupt anything sickly and inflaming,’ said Isobel in her most sarcastic voice. ‘Are you going up to Hindleep? If so you might give me a lift.’

  * * * We went first to the Singing Swan. Isobel elected to wait in the car but Rafe insisted on coming in with me. The customers all seemed to be enjoying themselves, and no wonder as it was probably the cleanest, jolliest café in the North of England. Several cuckoo clocks ticked on the sunflower yellow walls and Dimpsie had stencilled teapots, cupcakes and knickerbocker glories round them. Nan waved her notebook at me. Dimpsie was washing up in the kitchen.

  ‘Hello, Dimpsie.’ Rafe kissed her. ‘My goodness, it’s so bright in there you could get a retinal burn.’

  Harrison Ford was in a laundry basket on the kitchen table. While Rafe and my mother talked, I picked him up. He seized a strand of my hair in his fist and tried to cram it into his mouth. His was a beauty that not even petrol-blue leggings and a turnip-coloured matinee jacket could dim. He had inherited Nan’s large smoke-coloured eyes and there was no sign so far of Ronald’s horrid complacent little chin.

  ‘You make a charming picture, darling,’ said Rafe. ‘This is the little chap we were talking about earlier, I take it.’ He gave me a meaningful look as he stroked Harrison Ford’s cheek with a forefinger. ‘Handsome little beggar!’

  ‘He is gorgeous, isn’t he? Do look at his little hands. They’re so dimpled. And his darling little nose. And he’s got particularly nice ears, so pink and perfect and they don’t stick out … what’s funny?’

  ‘I diagnose a bad case of broodiness.’ He gave me another expressive glance. ‘But I think I know what to prescribe.’

  Immediately I stopped doting and handed Harrison Ford to Dimpsie, who took her arms out of a sink of suds and sundae dishes to receive him.

  ‘We’d better go,’ I said, ‘Isobel may be getting cold.’

  ‘Goodbye, Dimpsie,’ said Rafe. ‘I congratulate you on disproving the proverb that you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. You ought to get a dishwasher, though.’

  ‘I know. But they’re a hundred and fifty pounds. Jode and I are investing all our money in shares in the Singing Swan, so we can eventually buy Mrs Peevis out. She wants to buy a house to share with Dale and Nan.’

  Though it had been inevitable, I was very sorry indeed to hear that Nan had succumbed to Dale’s overtures and that Mrs Peevis was about to be fleeced of her last shillings.

  ‘What about the craft shop?’

  ‘I’m putting it up for sale. And good riddance to it. I’ve rarely done more than break even all the years I’ve had it. And it was lonely sitting in there day after day selling one bookmark a week. This is much more fun.’

  ‘I’d like to make a donation to the cause.’ Rafe put his arm round Dimpsie’s shoulder. ‘I’ll buy you a dishwasher.’

  ‘Oh, no!’ I said.

  ‘It’s angelically kind of you but I couldn’t accept it,’ said Dimpsie.

  ‘Nonsense! You’re my mother-in-law, or very soon will be, and if I want to give you a present I jolly well can. You don’t want to offend me by refusing, surely?’

  ‘No … well, in that case, if you really mean it …’ Dimpsie kissed him. ‘It’s so generous of you! I’m so lucky to have such a wonderful son-in-law.’

  ‘I’ve turned into the abominable snowman,’ complained Isobel when we got back into the car. ‘I thought you were never coming.’

  ‘Sorry—’ I broke off with a scream. Someone was bending down to look through the window. A white face was glaring at me through the glass. ‘Drive off!’ I shouted. I hung on to the inside handle with all my strength.

  ‘But, darling, your father, shouldn’t we—?’

  ‘Drive!’

  42

  ‘Darling, this is all nonsense,’ said Rafe.

  The calm way in which he said this was proof of his determination to keep a brake on his temper. He had been so distracted by my screaming at him to drive away that he had pulled out from the kerb in front of a lorry. The lorry driver had retaliated by taking up a position about six inches from our bumper and following us through the town all the way to the foot of Hindleep Hil
l, continuously flashing his lights and beeping his horn. I could see by the tilt of Rafe’s chin that the indignity of being thus made an exhibition of was searing his soul, but he refrained from uttering a syllable of reproach.

  ‘He had the knife in his hand! If I hadn’t run out of the house and hidden in the bushes he’d have probably killed me! He stood on the front doorstep for ages, yelling my name. Luckily it was pitch dark and the porch lamp is pretty feeble. Honestly, he meant to kill me!’

  ‘Tom may be a cold-blooded philanderer, but he’s not capable of killing anyone. You were upset, quite understandably, and your imagination carried you away.’

  ‘If it was as easy as that to tell who’s capable of murder and who isn’t, we’d be able to lock them all up and then there wouldn’t be any murders,’ I said in a tone that was regrettably sulky.

  ‘All right, darling, don’t let’s argue.’

  ‘I think you’re so unfair to Tom,’ said Isobel quite crossly.

  I did not reply. When we reached the courtyard, Isobel got out at once.

  ‘Just a minute, darling.’ Rafe put a restraining hand on my arm as I attempted to follow her. ‘I must talk to you. I’m so unhappy, darling. I can’t believe you don’t care enough not to want to help me.’

  ‘Of course I care but—’

  ‘Marigold, you must believe me when I tell you that … that I want to marry you. I love you. I know I’ve been guilty of a lack of self-control. Perhaps you think I ought to be more of a man and pull myself together. You think I ought to have more backbone, stiffen my upper lip—’

  ‘Oh, of course, I don’t think that. I’d be a complete hypocrite if I took that thick-skinned, heartless sort of attitude. I’m more cowardly than anyone I know.’

  ‘I wish I could believe you don’t despise me.’

  ‘I don’t despise you.’

  ‘Do you love me, just a little bit?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘More than a little bit?’

  ‘Yes. But not enough to marry you.’

  Though he screwed up his eyes he could not hide a look of pain. He said, very low, ‘Is that final?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  ‘Then … then it’s all up with me.’ To my horror he buried his face in his hands and dropped his head forward onto the steering wheel.

  ‘Oh, Rafe, don’t be upset! Please!’ I leaned across to put my arm round him. ‘You’ll meet someone else. Of course you will. Someone much more suitable. I’m not nearly good enough. Women will be queuing up to marry you.’ I stroked his hair.

  ‘Besides, don’t you think marriage is awfully overrated? I realize now I’m just not suited to it. I’m going to devote my life to dancing.’

  I said this partly to reassure him that it was not a case of preferring someone else and partly because it was what I truly believed.

  ‘I can’t try to make myself pleasing to another woman,’ he groaned. ‘I can’t … bring myself … to … do it!’

  ‘Everyone feels like that when a relationship breaks up.’ I knew this because I had so often extended a salt-soaked shoulder to members of the company. ‘Everyone’s convinced they’ll never be able to fall in love again. But broken hearts can mend in the time it takes to exchange a look.’ I regretted the unsophisticated nature of this speech, but love is difficult to talk about without sounding embarrassingly trite. ‘I wanted it to work but dancing is my first love. The truth is, you can’t just chuck away something you feel passionately about because it would be convenient. Can’t you understand that?’

  ‘Yes. I can understand it.’ He was silent for a while, then he lifted his head and looked at me with an expression that was fierce. ‘But it doesn’t help. If you won’t marry me then I’ll … I’ll … never mind.’

  ‘What? What will you do?’ Rafe assumed an expression of fainéant nobility but remained silent. ‘You don’t mean …’ I clutched at his hand but he snatched it away, so I clung to his sleeve. ‘Rafe, promise me you won’t do anything silly.’

  ‘Why should I promise you anything?’ He continued to look at me as though I were a complete stranger to whom he had taken an unaccountable dislike. ‘You won’t help me.’ He made it sound as though marrying him was the equivalent of lending him fifty pounds.

  ‘I’ll be your friend for ever and ever if that’s any good. I’ll … I’ll … get you free tickets for anything I’m in and …’

  It demonstrated with painful clarity how selfish a dancer’s life was – had to be – that I couldn’t think of anything else I could do for him. I would be too busy and too far away to take his books back to the library or wash his socks. Besides, the Prestons bought all the books they wanted and they had a perfectly good washing machine.

  He looked down at the steering wheel and sucked his upper lip, thinking. ‘There is something you could do.’ He gave a bitter laugh. ‘If it’s not asking too much.’

  ‘Oh, just ask it!’ I cried. At that moment, provided it didn’t interfere with rehearsals and performances, I would have willingly made myself his slave.

  ‘Will you agree not to tell anyone that you’ve broken off our engagement until I’ve had a chance to tell Evelyn it’s all over?’

  ‘Is that all? Of course!’ I felt heady with relief. ‘I quite agree she ought to be the first to be told.’

  ‘Promise me then that you won’t tell a soul.’

  ‘All right, I promise. Cross my heart and hope to die. But I wouldn’t have, anyway.’

  I had the feeling I had got off lightly. I took a sneaky look at Rafe. There was an expression on his face that was best described as a steely smile, as though he was resolved to go through fire with as little wincing as possible. I was not reassured.

  For the first time it occurred to me that Rafe might have some kind of mental affliction that had nothing to do with his experiences as a soldier. Might there be a streak of emotional instability in the Preston family? Kingsley was presumably suffering from some kind of dementia to do with old age, but there was also Kingsley’s father, nuttier than Fritz’s macaroons according to Rafe. Isobel’s contradictory behaviour might be the result of a split personality. At what point could people be classified as mad? I thought about the people I knew well. Confusingly, they all had behavioural traits that seemed eccentric if not downright peculiar. I thought about me. Obsessive about dancing, neurotic about being in cars, possibly sexually frigid, a ready liar, a coward, a compulsive people-pleaser. I was probably madder than anybody.

  ‘You vill haf supper vith us?’ Fritz asked Rafe genially as we stood on the balcony drinking a delicious flowery wine and eating Zwiebelkuchen, little onion tarts flavoured with bacon and caraway seeds. The late sun had banished the clouds, and we had a splendid view of the lake shining like crumpled tinfoil, while stealthy shadows of the hills crept over the treetops.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Rafe, ‘but we’ve got an early start tomorrow. Isobel and I are going to stay with our uncle and aunt who live in Caithness. It takes the best part of a day to get up there.’

  This was a surprise. ‘How long will you be away?’ I asked.

  ‘About a week. Maybe two. I know it’s very sudden, darling. We only decided this afternoon to make the trip.’

  Conrad was leaning with folded arms on the parapet, looking at the view. Isobel put her hand on his shoulder. ‘I hope you won’t miss me too much.’

  Conrad turned his head. ‘I shall try to distract myself with work.’ He appeared to take the news of her unexpected departure with tranquillity. But you could never tell what Conrad was thinking. He had been sitting on the balcony, reading, when we arrived, and had confined his greeting to a brief ‘hello’ before going downstairs to fetch a bottle of wine. He had hardly glanced in my direction during the hour or so we had been drinking and talking. Orlando had made up for this cool reception by squeezing me vigorously as though I were a bath sponge.

  ‘We had a postcard from Aunt Billa this morning,’ Rafe continued. ‘Uncle George is conva
lescing from a stroke and she’s in need of cheering up. We used to stay in their house on the edge of Loch Dubh when we were children. Rains without stopping, of course, but the scenery’s unbeatable.’ Rafe drained his glass and put it down. ‘We’d better go.’

  ‘Goodbye, Conrad, darling,’ said Isobel.

  He turned towards her and put his hands on her shoulders as she lifted her face to kiss him.

  Rafe wrapped his arms round my waist. ‘I’ll jot down my uncle’s telephone number on a postcard as soon as I get there. Goodbye, sweetheart. Don’t bother to see us to the car.’ He pulled me close and kissed me lingeringly on the mouth.

  ‘You’ll speak to Evelyn before you go?’ I said as soon as I had regained control of my lips.

  ‘Of course. Needless to say I shall miss you every minute.’ He flicked his thumb and finger under my chin hard enough to hurt. ‘Don’t work too hard.’

  Then they were gone.

  I risked a glance at Conrad. His brows were contracted, his upper lip fractionally lifted and he was staring at me as though contemplating something thoroughly unpleasant. It must have looked to an outsider as though I had gone back on everything I had said yesterday about being relieved that the engagement was off, about knowing that it had been wrong from the beginning. I must appear weak and vacillating, incapable of knowing my own mind. Conrad held my gaze for a moment and then turned to resume his observation of the view. It was a snub … at least I felt it as such. I tried to shrug it off. What business was it of Conrad’s what I did, I asked myself defiantly? I took comfort in the knowledge that as soon as Evelyn knew the truth I should be able to tell Conrad that he was mistaken.

  During supper Orlando flirted extravagantly with each of us in turn. I guessed he wanted to make headway with Fritz without frightening him or making him feel conspicuous. Kräutlsuppe, a soup made from potatoes and chervil, was followed by Lamperl, lamb cooked with thyme and rosemary, accompanied by potato noodles and comfrey roots, boiled and dressed with oil and vinegar. Fritz was the only one of us to do justice to his cooking. Conrad’s thoughts were evidently elsewhere and he appeared not to notice what was on his plate. Orlando and I were obliged to be abstemious. I felt unhappy. I had done Rafe a serious injustice in accusing him of being Nan’s seducer and I had made him miserable when my intention had been to do good. It seemed I was not a very good judge of character – or of anything else. I only needed to make a mess of Golly’s opera to prove finally to the world, and myself, that I was nothing but a liability.