Girl's Guide to Kissing Frogs

by Clayton, Victoria

  ‘Aber, Conrad, wir haben keine Betten,’ said Fritz in a low voice.

  ‘Er kann mein Bett haben. Ich gehe zurück nach Deutschland für ein paar Wochen.’

  ‘Wirklich? Aber warum?’ Then remembering his manners, for they were both in general punctilious about not speaking German in front of us monoglots he said, ‘Never mind. Ve talk later. Vill you eat zomezing?’

  ‘I had lunch with Golly.’ Conrad frowned. I could tell it had not been a good lunch.

  ‘I shall the dishes vash.’

  ‘And I shall help you.’ Orlando leaped onto his toes from a nearly prone position, his muscles rippling in a fine demonstration of tensile strength. ‘It’s the very least I can do.’

  Conrad took the chair Orlando had vacated, poured himself a glass of wine and took a sip, looking thoroughly at ease with himself and the world. He met my eye and smiled.

  I grasped the nettle. ‘I’m sorry about last night. I never normally drink so much. I must have bored and embarrassed you terribly. I’ve certainly embarrassed myself.’

  ‘I intended that you should be drunk. You were traumatized by what you had seen. Now, after a good night’s sleep, you feel better.’

  Conrad spoke with an air of satisfaction. He could afford to be complacent. His behaviour had been as sober and dignified as an archbishop’s on Good Friday, while I had made a complete idiot of myself. But he was right about one thing. Last night Vanessa’s death had made life seem unbearably tragic and frightening. A long sleep and several hours of dancing had done much to remedy this. The image of her jumping from the bridge was deeply upsetting when it recurred, but I had to live with that. Now I felt more confident that I could. ‘Yes. Thank you. I do.’

  Conrad made a gesture with his hand as though to wave away my disquiet. ‘Then that is all that matters.’

  ‘Well, not quite. I can’t exactly remember … but I think I said … I got carried away … you must think I’m a dreadful flirt.’ I laughed uneasily. ‘It was shocking of me to say … to suggest … whatever I did … of course I didn’t mean it.’

  Conrad smiled more broadly and helped himself to a cherry. I could see he was amused by my mortification and I thought it very mean of him. ‘Hu! These are insipid. I wonder what did Goethe mean when he said one should ask children and birds how cherries and strawberries taste? That one’s palate dulls as one gets older, or that children and birds get the first picking?’

  He was being tactful, changing the subject. I was as anxious as he to bury the whole ghastly incident but I had to be clear about one thing. ‘You won’t tell Isobel, will you?’

  He laughed, displaying his excellent teeth. ‘I shall have no opportunity. I leave today for Germany. I shall be away for some time.’

  ‘Oh.’ An extraordinarily disagreeable sensation, which I preferred not to analyse, made me speak more sharply than I might otherwise have done. ‘You needn’t think I’m in love with you or anything ridiculous like that.’

  Conrad leaned across the table and, before I had any idea what he intended, took possession of my hand. ‘Listen to me, Marigold, there is something I want very much to—’

  He released my hand as Fritz came onto the balcony. ‘Excuse me please. Two policemen vish to speak vith you.’

  ‘All right. Keep them in the hall. I’ll come.’

  ‘You won’t tell them anything about my father?’ I whispered back, suddenly alarmed.

  Conrad pulled a face of exasperation. ‘Dummkopf! What do you think?’

  I was left to my own thoughts for five minutes, and very uncomfortable they were, until Orlando came up to resume work. For three hours we slaved nonstop. At five Golly arrived with the librettist, a small man with a bald pointed head, a large grey moustache and a fiery temper. His expression when he was not shouting with rage was lugubrious. His name was Joseph Stern, which seemed to suit him.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ he said when we were introduced. ‘How are you to be made to look like an Eskimo I’d like to know? They’re brown-skinned, dark-eyed and black-haired with flat faces.’

  ‘Don’t be such a grouch,’ said Golly. ‘It would have been just as hard to make her look Japanese. Anyway, it’s practically a tradition in opera that all princesses of fabulous beauty should be played by fat middle-aged women with teeth like cowcatchers. And it’ll be the designer’s problem, not yours.’

  ‘I need to be able to visualize the action to produce my best work,’ Mr Stern complained. ‘How are we to produce the effect of mutilated hands?’

  ‘What’s that?’ said Orlando.

  ‘It’s the legend of Sedna, the goddess of the sea. During the storm her father throws her into the water to save himself, but she clings to the side so her father chops off her fingers with his hatchet. Dramatic, don’t you think? I’ve been writing screams all morning.’

  ‘Is it too much to ask,’ Orlando spoke with heavy sarcasm, ‘if at some point soon we might have a moratorium on last-minute alterations to the plot?’

  A row broke out during which I went downstairs to help Fritz peel potatoes. That was the last time I had anything like a grasp of the story of Ilina and the Scarlet Riband, for there were so many more excisions and additions that I gave up attempting to follow it. It didn’t matter. I knew who Ilina was and how she felt. Orlando and I resumed dancing, while Golly and Mr Stern fought it out. It was not until we sat down for supper that I discovered Conrad had left for Germany without saying goodbye.

  Some days after Rafe’s departure I received a postcard. Darling, Good journey but have arrived to find chaos. George is pretty much bed-bound and Billa is arthritic means she can only walk with sticks so there’s a lot to see to since the staff are either mad or drunk. Plus ça change … I miss you terribly, my sweet. Fondest love, Rafe. P.S. Could not speak to E. because she’s gone to Austria with her old – in both senses of the word – boyfriend!

  A few days later I had a card from Isobel. Darling Marigold, You would adore this place, so romantic and broken down.

  Buckets and rat-traps in every room. Thirty miles to the next house of any size, so no society but our own. Bliss. We exercise the horses every day. Fabulous scenery. George yells all day long for whisky. Billa says he has made her life hell with booze and beastliness (?!). Too Wuthering Heights. Love Isobel. P.S. The picture on the front of this makes me think of you. I turned the card over to see a photograph of a Highland calf covered in long red hair.

  The next day I received a letter from my father. Marigold. I’ve bought a partnership in a practice in Wimpole Street and I’m leaving this evening for London. Dumbola Lodge is on the market and Flagstaffe’s, the estate agent, will handle everything. He needs your front door key ASAP. I’ve put the furniture into store. You can haggle over it with your mother and Kate. I don’t want any reminders of twenty-five wasted years of bucolic boredom. As to what happened the other day, the less said the better. I shall come back for the inquest on the 24th. Fortunately, I know the coroner pretty well. I’ve given him the letter V.T. left me and he agrees it’s clear evidence of an unsound mind. My new address and telephone number are below. Do NOT (underlined three times), pass these on to anyone. If Marcia Dane asks, say I’ve gone to the Outer Hebrides. Tom.

  No suggestion of meeting, no advice for my future, no message of love. I did not expect them, but still that chilly little note seemed to freeze another layer of ice over our relationship. I intended to throw it away as a gesture of independence, but instead it found its way into my album of press cuttings. The postcards I put in my bedside drawer.

  By the end of one week, our days had settled into a pattern of work. Every morning Orlando and I took class for one hour, had a break for refreshments, then worked until lunchtime on Ilina and the Scarlet Riband. In the afternoon we did another hour of class then choreographed until tea time. There were some fiendishly difficult enchaînements and sometimes I despaired of being able to do them, but Orlando, so capricious and flighty in ordinary life, was a dedicated teacher an
d he stuck at it doggedly, never behaving worse than slightly unreasonably.

  One of the most taxing sections was the game of Atrakcheak. I had to jump from a standing position to kick with both feet a piece of whalebone suspended above my head. I pleaded for a little run at it. What difference, I asked, could a couple of hops and a skip make to the audience who would know nothing of the rules of the game? Orlando informed me gravely that he was making a ballet not a gymnastic display, and that even one hop would ruin the beauty of the line. There was nothing beautiful about my falling flat on my back, I countered, displaying a fine collection of bruises, but Orlando was adamant.

  An unexpected turn of events kept Rafe and Isobel in Scotland. Uncle George was found dead in bed one morning of a final stroke. Aunt Billa, after fifty years of revolt against the drunken tyranny of her spouse, was inconsolable. She refused to leave the haunts of her married life, so the old house must be sold and a suitable bungalow found. It would not be easy to find a buyer for a remote mansion with twenty bedrooms, one bathroom, and fireplaces that smoked so badly that all the windows had to be left permanently open so the occupants could breathe. Rafe needed to stay in Scotland to oversee the sale and Isobel was remaining to keep him company.

  As the days and weeks went by, the five of us became more and more inward-looking as we concentrated on the making of the opera. Every evening after supper we read or listened to music, too exhausted to talk much. I was getting on famously with Nicholas Nickleby and longed to discuss it with Conrad. Every day I hoped for his return but he never came. I usually went to bed quite early and read until my eyelids felt heavy. I got into the habit of putting the feather he had given me carefully in my place before turning to the front page on which he had written Conrad Wolfgang Lerner in black ink. I would stare at it long enough to be able to see a ghost image in reverse, white on black, when I closed my eyes. Lying in the dark I tried to imagine what he might be doing, who he might be with and in what part of the world he might be.

  Conrad was the only person who had thought it worthwhile to try to educate me. He was a kind and generous friend and several times he had come to my rescue. That was why I liked to go to sleep thinking of him. I knew that whether he married Isobel or not, his restlessness would soon take him away for good. I expected a letter to arrive any day, instructing Fritz to sell Hindleep and join him in Krakow or Kathmandu. Dancing was the most important thing in my life so I had no pressing need of friends. The growing feeling I had that the future might be a little grey, a little sad, a little hollow was nothing to be afraid of. That was the meaning of sacrificing oneself for one’s art. When poor Smike died I went onto the balcony, pretending to admire the view while I had a thoroughly good howl.

  With Fritz looking after us we did very well. Orlando and I struggled to keep off the pounds, not allowing ourselves cakes or puddings. Golly and Mr Stern began to get double chins, and his shirt buttons strained at their buttonholes. Luckily the boiler suit had built-in expansion.

  ‘It’s so kind of you to cook such lovely things,’ I said to Fritz one morning during our coffee break. We were alone on the balcony. Golly and Mr Stern were drawing up new battle lines in the study. Orlando had taken the Bentley into Gaythwaite to ring up his shoemaker. The day was foggy but warm. ‘I hope Conrad doesn’t mind paying.’

  ‘I send him bills to check. Really ve spend so little. You and Orlando,’ he blushed as he said his name, ‘eat like little flies and ve haf only ze simple food.’

  ‘How is he?’

  ‘Orlando?’

  ‘Conrad.’ I had seen letters in Conrad’s handwriting, written in German of course, lying about the kitchen. I had glanced sneakily at one or two hoping vainly – in both senses of the word – to see my name. ‘I expect he’s awfully busy.’

  ‘Yes, I zink zo. I hope Orlando vill manage ze bends. He has not drive ze car before.’

  ‘Really he’s much more capable than he likes to make out. All his neuroses … really he’s as strong as a horse. I suppose Conrad has lots of friends in Germany?’

  ‘Oh, many, many. But supposing he miss zem? He is so artistic zat he may be distrait.’

  ‘Conrad?’

  ‘Orlando.’

  I perceived that our minds were travelling in different directions. ‘Please don’t worry. I’ve known Orlando a good few years and I have complete faith in him. You have to be really tough to survive in our world.’

  ‘Tough, yes. The marvellous muscling. But he is so – how do you say it? – full of great promises.’

  ‘Talented, you mean?’

  ‘Yes! I am awed in his presence.’ Fritz screwed up his eyes as the sun broke from the mist and bathed the balcony in strong light. ‘It is difficult for me to haf confidence in love.’

  I registered the note of enquiry, but I felt ill-qualified to give anyone advice about matters of the heart. ‘The only thing I know for certain is that nothing that happens to you in life is ever anything like you imagine it’s going to be, so there isn’t much point in shivering in the wings. When you get your cue you’d better just get on and do it.’

  I thought Fritz looked rather pleased.

  The next day I found myself sitting in the same chair on the balcony, only this time it was late afternoon and I was alone with Orlando. The mist had cleared and it was hot. We had already towelled ourselves down so as not to present too revolting a sight, but still our brows glistened and our bodies steamed. Fritz had taken the tea things away to wash them up, refusing all offers of help. I heard a bellow from the study.

  ‘This is a bit of all right,’ said Orlando, abandoning his character of neurasthenic aesthete. When you work with someone as closely as we had done, all pretences seem irrelevant. We were now so intimate we might be sharing the same heart, muscles and skin. ‘Wonderful place, scrumptious grub always on tap. Everything done for one, nothing to worry about but work. Reality’s going to hit hard when we move to Newcastle. I shall have withdrawal symptoms going back to apples and yoghurt. Fritz is the most fabulous cook.’

  ‘Isn’t he?’ I agreed. ‘And a darling. It’s extremely generous of Conrad to let us stay here.’

  ‘Oh yes.’ Orlando examined his own hands, lean and strong still but with veins like pale blue worms, and sighed. ‘He is, as you say, a darling.’

  ‘Quite.’ A silence while we both brooded. ‘You always feel when you’re with Conrad,’ I went on, ‘that nothing could ever go too badly wrong. And that seems to have got into the house. I feel so safe here, which is odd really when you remember it’s perched right on the edge of a cliff. Conrad’s so clever that he always seems to be able to look round and through things. Though when you consider that he lost both his parents at such an early age and now he’s lost most of his money, he’s got as much right to be mixed up as anyone.’

  ‘No, really? Both parents? I hope he wasn’t fond of them.’ Orlando interlaced his fingers and stretched out his arms in front of him. After a brief pause he said, ‘So much of a darling in fact that, do you know, I feel absurdly afraid of spoiling things?’

  He fixed me with a beady eye and I gave in gracefully. ‘I think Fritz is ready for a little adventure.’

  ‘Yes?’ His expression became eager. ‘Do you think he likes me? Just a little bit?’

  ‘I’m sure of it.’

  Orlando’s face lit then clouded immediately. ‘But whenever I try to show him I care about him, he seems to draw away. I get the feeling if I pursued it any further it would be like clomping over a field of virgin snow with muddy boots on. Or smashing a butterfly against a pane of glass.’

  ‘Are you sure that’s what you’re showing him? That you actually care about him? From what I’ve observed he could be forgiven for thinking that you don’t.’

  ‘Oh, that’s nonsense. Every day I demonstrate my feelings. If I hired a plane to write “Orlando loves Fritz” in the sky it couldn’t be clearer.’

  ‘That’s what I mean. Fritz isn’t a show-off like all of us. He’s
gentle and sensitive.’

  ‘You think I ought to be more subtle?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m making it too obvious that I want to powder his cheeks, do you mean?’

  I frowned. ‘Honestly, Orlando, don’t you see how hopelessly crude your wooing is? If you love Fritz, you ought to tell him so. The cheek-powdering ought to be a result of that.’

  ‘Love him? But of course I do. I worship his youth and beauty and his intelligence. He’s a princeling, a saint, a sage. By comparison with him I know I’m an old ham. A show-off, as you say, soiled by pan stick and fake glitter and too much sex with all the wrong people. But what can I do but stay on the merry-goround until I’m flung off? I don’t know about anything much but dancing, and dancing’s such a fickle beast she’ll bugger off and leave me old and lonely and flabby …’ Orlando’s eyes swam. ‘No one will love me because all my friends are just like me, selfish and ambitious and jealous and vain …’

  A tear ran down his cheek. I would have put my arms around him but we were still so sweaty it would have been unpleasant for both of us.

  ‘You’re at the peak of your profession as a choreographer. You’re handsome and virile and glamorous and Fritz is hugely attracted to you, I’m certain.’ Orlando stopped crying. ‘You know what?’ I continued my homily. ‘I think you ought to be truthful. Tell him how you love him and worship him but tell him you’re sometimes afraid. How can he love you if you don’t let him see the real you? All that other stuff you and the boys get up to, that’s just bravado, really, isn’t it? Like peacocks spreading their tails. If you want to be really loved you have to take risks and let yourself be vulnerable to hurt.’

  I don’t know how I knew this. In fact I hadn’t properly known it until that moment, but the minute I said it I was certain it was true.