The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous

by Jilly Cooper

  ‘Oh please God,’ he moaned, ‘I’m sorry I screwed Martha, but you’d have done the same, God, she was so beautiful.’ As he hurled himself against the door it caved in and he was out in the dripping garden, darker now because the moon had vanished behind a big black cloud.

  The smell of orange blossom was suffocating. Venus blazed above the ficus rampart. As Lysander bolted, white and leggy as a unicorn, across the perfect lawn he triggered off the underground sensors. Suddenly 1000-watt lamps lit up the garden brighter than day and closed-circuit television cameras swung round to trap him on a dozen monitors in the house and at the gate. Elmer’s guards had simply to pick him off. Hearing the blood-curdling barking as the pack of dogs was unleashed, Lysander ducked behind a traveller’s palm to avoid a hail of bullets.

  The ficus hedge topped by razor wire was twenty yards away. Streaming as he was with rain and sweat, it would electrocute him instantly. Ahead loomed a vast individual ficus tree, Falstaffian in girth and so old that its lower branches rested their elbows on the ground. Scuttling up the nearest branch like a squirrel, Lysander managed to wriggle round the trunk just as the dogs began leaping for his feet with gnashing teeth. Swinging out on to another branch, he dropped into the street.

  Heart hammering, legs trembling and giving way, sobbing with terror, Lysander collapsed against the huge hedge wondering what the hell to do next. The practical answer was to put as much distance between himself and Elmer as possible, but, bollock-naked with no identification except bruises, he’d probably get arrested and slapped into a loony bin and get his brains sawn open like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

  The streets were deserted, but the sky was lightening. Loping eastwards he was overtaken by yet another open stretch and, as he cringed into the nearest hedge, feeling the clipped twigs scraping his bare back, the driver stopped and reversed.

  A blonde in a black strapless dress with huge sapphires hanging from her ears and circling her neck and wrists, she was a good deal older than Martha but almost as stunning.

  ‘What happened to you?’ she asked, looking him up and down in amusement.

  ‘The husband came home.’

  ‘Well, at least you’re not armed. You’d better get in.’

  Lysander shot into the car.

  Seeing the Wall Street Journal lying on the back seat, Lysander covered himself with the front page like a car rug.

  ‘Phew – it’s really kind of you.’

  ‘I figured I heard shots, or was that Elmer Winterton cracking his knee joints?’

  ‘He tried to kill me,’ said Lysander, perking up.

  ‘The guy’s an animal.’

  ‘No animal is that nasty. Christ!’ Glancing down at the Wall Street Journal Lysander saw Elmer’s photograph glaring up at him. ‘He’s following me. I could tear him out, then my cock would stick through.’

  ‘Feel free,’ said the blonde.

  ‘Martha said he was a clinical Nazi.’

  ‘I thought he was Dutch.’

  ‘Good thing that tree I shinned up didn’t have Dutch Elmer disease or the branch would have given way.’ Having started giggling, Lysander found he couldn’t stop. ‘I’m sorry. It’s nervous hysteria. Have you got a cigarette?’

  ‘Sure, in my purse. The name’s Sherry by the way, Sherry Macarthy.’

  Protected back and front by more pages of the Wall Street Journal, Lysander slid into Sherry’s house which was bigger and more lushly decorated than Elmer’s with a back garden falling straight into the ocean.

  ‘I guess you’d like some breakfast and a pair of my husband’s shorts?’

  ‘You got a husband?’ Lysander shot into reverse.

  ‘He’s in San Francisco,’ said Sherry soothingly.

  Lysander crept back. ‘Could I possibly have a shower? After all that sex and fear I must stink like a polecat.’

  Upstairs he admired another vast four-poster, this time swathed in primrose-yellow silk and topped at its four corners by gilded cherubs, none of whom was protected by the Wall Street Journal.

  ‘Amazing room.’

  ‘It’s Franco’s, my husband’s,’ said Sherry, who was turning on the gold taps of a vast marble bath next door. ‘Help yourself.’

  The doors of a fitted cupboard which took up a whole wall, and which had been lavishly handpainted with pale yellow and coral-pink roses, slid back to reveal hundreds of shirts. There were more scent bottles massed on the bathroom shelves than a duty-free shop. Franco also must have the snakiest of hips. Lysander had the greatest difficulty finding a pair of shorts he could zip up.

  ‘God, this is great! I haven’t eaten for forty-eight hours.’

  Having downed three glasses of orange juice, Lysander was tucking into a huge plate of bacon, eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms and hashbrowns, while Sherry filled yellow-and-white cups with very black coffee.

  They were sitting beside a beautiful blue pool guarded by four big blue china dragons. White geraniums spilled over the faded terracotta pots and little waves gambolled idly on the pale sand below them. Above, the palm trees rattled in their diffident fashion.

  Sherry had also showered and had swapped her black taffeta and her sapphires for a flamingo-pink sarong which left bare her almost too brown shoulders. Her still-wet, short blond hair was slicked back Rudolph Valentino style, but was softened by a pink hibiscus behind her left ear. There were crow’s feet round her warmly smiling eyes and the skin was beginning to crêpe on her breast bones and her arms, but she was in great shape and a terrific listener.

  ‘You can kiss goodbye to that job with Elmer,’ she said when Lysander had finished his account of the night’s escapades.

  ‘I wouldn’t mind if I hadn’t got Jack, Arthur and Tiny to support,’ sighed Lysander as he spread black-cherry jam on a croissant.

  ‘You’ve got three kids?’

  ‘Jack’s my Jack Russell.’

  ‘Original name.’

  The irony was lost on Lysander.

  ‘Arthur’s my horse. He’s a steeplechaser. He won a lot of races but he’s having a year off with leg trouble. I’m hoping to ride him next season. He’s such a character. Tiny’s a shetland. She’s Arthur’s stable-mate.’

  ‘They must miss you.’ Sherry edged nearer Lysander.

  ‘Not as much as I miss them. I’ve got another job to go to,’ he went on gloomily, ‘with Ballensteins, the merchant bank, but that doesn’t start till the first of March. Playing polo for Elmer would have paid off my overdraft and a few bills – and I wanted a suntan to wow the Ballenstein typing pool on the first day.’

  ‘You’ll wow them anyway,’ murmured Sherry. The boy was positively edible. ‘At least you can get brown round the pool today.’

  ‘I won’t be in the way?’

  ‘Have you looked in the mirror recently? But you mustn’t burn.’

  The climbing sun had already given a pink glow to his white shoulders. Surreptitiously he undid the top button of Franco’s shorts; they’d castrate him in a minute. Having cleared away breakfast the maid returned with bottles of champagne and Ambre Solaire. Sherry patted the blue-and-white pool-lounger.

  ‘After such a disturbed night, you must be pooped. Lie down and I’ll oil you.’

  Sherry had been trained as a masseuse and her provocative smiling eyes made Lysander even hotter than the sun as she kneeded and stroked his body. As her braceleted hands moved downwards, her sarong seemed to work loose so he could see straight down her deep brown cleavage and feel her bare thighs against his hip bone.

  Only the constricting tightness of Franco’s shorts had hidden a large erection.

  ‘Do my back.’ Embarrassed, he rolled over.

  Sherry laughed softly. ‘The maid’s going shopping in a minute, then you can get brown all over.’

  Sticky with oil, her hand slid down his backbone and disappeared under Franco’s shorts. Lysander moaned. God, her fingers were going everywhere. She was doing such magical things any moment his cock would lift him into the ai
r like a one-handed press-up. Then, as the sarong fell apart, he felt soft fur caressing his thighs and realized she was wearing no knickers.

  Lysander never got a suntan. He and Sherry spent a lazy, boozy day, making love, watching racing on satellite, having outlandish bets and feeding each other spoonfuls of caviar and strawberries dipped in Dom Perignon.

  Around five o’clock Lysander had given himself enough Dutch courage to go back to Elmer’s barn and collect his luggage and polo sticks. Hopefully, Elmer would be safely in Washington drinking vodka and electronics with George and Barbara. As Lysander could only pull up Franco’s jeans mid-thigh, Sherry drove him to Worth Avenue and, despite his protests, kitted him out in boxer shorts, Lacoste polo shirts, chinos, several pairs of loafers and a dark blue baseball cap with SAINTS on the front. She tried to buy him half a dozen suits.

  ‘You shouldn’t. I’ve had a really good time,’ he told her as she drove him back to Elmer’s.

  ‘Me, too. Franco’s gay, as you probably gathered,’ said Sherry. ‘He’d die of jealousy if he knew who I’d spent the day with.’

  Lysander, who’d drunk a lot of Dom Perignon, had tears in his eyes. ‘But that’s awful. A beautiful woman like you wasted on some shirtlifter. Why don’t you leave him?’

  Sherry shook her head. ‘Guys are like gold dust after you’re forty,’ she said, drawing up outside Elmer’s barn. ‘At least Franco’s a husband and as a couple you get asked out so you get the chance to meet new guys. The wages of single life is social death, I promise you.’

  Flinging his arms round her bare neck, Lysander collapsed on her warm, gold, scented breasts. ‘As soon as I’ve sorted out things here, I’ll get a taxi back to your place.’

  If she hadn’t dropped him at the bottom of the long white rose colonnade leading up to Elmer’s barn, he would have bolted straight back into her car.

  Reluctant to admit he’d been cuckolded and that his impregnable security system had been violated, Elmer had tried to hush up last night’s escapade. But he’d reckoned without the Press, particularly when one of the maids, seeing such a stunning streaker, had leaked the story.

  As Lysander weaved into the yard, a dozen camera lenses were turned on him and an immigration officer grabbed him, pinning his arms behind his back. ‘You’re going back to the UK, Lover Boy.’

  ‘I can’t,’ protested Lysander, ‘I’m going to Disneyland tomorrow. I’ve got to get Donald Duck’s autograph. Hallo, Mrs Ex.’ He waved at the long yellow face peering out of a nearby box.

  ‘You’re not going anywhere. Now walk.’

  ‘I’ll run if you like,’ said Lysander as a gun jabbed his spine.

  ‘Don’t smart ass me, Pretty Boy.’

  ‘What about my polo sticks?’

  ‘All your gear’s packed.’

  ‘But I haven’t said goodbye to Martha or Sherry. Talk about coming down to earth without a bang. Oh, Mr Deporter, whatever shall I do?’ sang Lysander tunelessly as he danced a few steps. ‘I wanted to go to Disneyland and you sent me back to—’

  ‘Walk,’ howled the immigration officer and all Elmer’s security guards.

  In the end they locked him up for the night to sober up in order to smuggle him on to the first plane the next morning. Just as he was leaving, the twins came racing up with a large envelope. Inside was a silver pen from Tiffany’s with a clip in the shape of a polo stick, ten thousand dollars and a scrawled note from Martha:

  ‘Darling Lysander, I’m sorry it’s all over the papers, but at least Elmer’s been all over me since you left. You sure know how to make husbands jealous. I’ll call you when I’m coming to the UK, probably for Ascot. Love, Martha.’

  Feeling like a billionaire with hundred-dollar bills spilling out of his pockets, Lysander boarded first class. He tried to concentrate on the air hostess’s pep-talk about exits and life-jackets. If the plane crashed he wouldn’t have Martha’s swipe card to help him.

  Then, glancing down at the paper another hostess had handed him with a distinct smirk, only his seat-belt stopped him hitting the plane roof. For there was Martha smiling up at him. The photograph had been taken before she lost weight. She looked gorgeous and there was Elmer looking absolutely repulsive and there was Elmer’s pink palace with a large caption: FORT KNOCKS-UP, and there, oh Christ, was Lysander himself, surrounded by immigration officers and giggling and waving like the village idiot.

  Being dyslexic it took him some time to wade through the copy. There was a lot of guff about Safus security system being violated and national secrets being in jeopardy. Elmer was quoted as saying: ‘It was just a lover’s tiff, Martha and I are now reconciled.’

  Lysander shook his head in bewilderment. Then, as the plane started taxiing down the runway, jumped out of his skin again, for across the gangway a glamorous blonde was reading another newspaper with a front-page headline: MARTHA’S TOY BOY DEPORTED AT GUNPOINT and a huge picture of him looking mercifully less asinine. What the hell were Dolly and his father going to say? Perhaps the story wouldn’t reach England. No-one knew Elmer over there. He did hope the bastard wasn’t being beastly to Martha.

  The only answer when the champagne started to flow after take-off was to get drunk again. One of the freebies handed out by the airline was a pack of cards. Getting into conversation with a foxy smiling Irishman beside him, Lysander discovered a fellow drinker and poker player.

  By the time they reached Heathrow Lysander had managed to lose the Tiffany pen and most of Martha’s ten thousand dollars, but he had enough left to buy a slab of Toblerone for Jack the dog, Fracas for Dolly and a bottle of whisky for Ferdie, his flatmate.

  Before landing, the blonde across the gangway vanished into the lavatory for ages and emerged looking even more stunning – obviously tarting herself up for someone meeting her. Then, as she passed, Lysander’s pleasure turned to pain. For a second he couldn’t locate it. Then he recognized her scent: Diorissimo. His mother had never worn anything else.

  When he’d first gone away to prep school he was so distraught she had drenched a handkerchief with it to comfort him at night. Now he leant back in his seat trying to handle the appalling feeling of desolation. Instinctively on landing he would have nipped into a telephone box to reassure her he was safe.

  ‘I’m only happy when all my children are back in England,’ she used to say, but he’d always known that his return made her happiest of all.

  The post-champagne downer, plus a dank, dark, cold January evening did nothing to improve his spirits. As he slid through customs out into the airport, there was a firework display of camera bulbs exploding and cries of: ‘That’s him’, ‘Over here, Sandy’.

  Fortunately Lysander was fitter than any of the paparazzi. Escaping them was a doddle compared to shaking off Elmer’s guard-dogs.

  ‘Can you drive like hell to Fountain Street in Fulham,’ he gasped to a taxi driver, ‘and can I possibly borrow your Evening Standard?’

  Only when he’d finished the racing pages did Lysander turn to the front of the paper to find another vast picture of himself and the headline: MYSTERY STREAKER A BRIT. SENATE CALL FOR PUBLIC INQUIRY.

  Digesting the details, Lysander had to leave the back-seat light on all the way into London.

  ‘You better charge me extra for electricity,’ he said, handing back the Standard.

  ‘Worf it for a fantastic bird like that,’ said the driver, as the taxi jolted over discarded vegetables littering the North End Road.

  Thank Christ Dolly was still in Paris. London was at its most tatty. Most of the shops had sales on, the bitter east wind was rattling frozen litter along pavements and gutters.

  ‘Fink we’ve lost them,’ said the driver as he turned into Fountain Street.

  5

  Fountain Street was a charming Victorian terrace lined with cherry trees. Number 10 had been taken by Ferdie for a low rent because it was on the market and would sell better if lived in. Ferdie had repainted the bottle-green door and tied back the red rose whi
ch swarmed up the pink-washed front of the house. Ignoring the empty dustbins by the gate and the frantic waving of the two gays opposite, Lysander let himself in. Among the leaflets for decorators, window cleaners and minicabs was a postcard from Dolly saying she missed him and would be home tomorrow. There was also a mountain of brown envelopes which he didn’t open. Thank goodness he was starting his new job with Ballensteins in March. His father had fiddled it for him as a quid pro quo for taking Rodney Ballenstein’s son into his smart public school. The good-luck cards from all Lysander’s old office cronies were still up in the drawing room.

  The house looked awfully tidy – and it wasn’t even the Filipino cleaner’s day. Lysander switched on the simulated log fire which sent shadows flickering over the dark red wallpaper. In the fridge next door he found Bio Yoghurt and pink grapefruit juice (Ferdie must be on one of his endless diets), ham, Scotch eggs and a bottle of Moët.

  He’d just helped himself to most of the ham and the last of Ferdie’s whisky when a white envelope thudded through the letter-box. Addressed to him it was marked: URGENT AND CONFIDENTIAL.

  ‘Dear Hawkley,’ read Lysander with a giggle, again it took him several seconds to take in the fact that Ballensteins was an old-established firm who prided themselves on their utter discretion. In view of Lysander’s recent very unfortunate publicity, the job was no longer open.

  The truth was that Rodney Ballenstein was not only a business friend of Elmer’s but also had a new bimbo wife, whom he didn’t entirely trust, and an equally glamorous PA on whom he had long-range designs. There was no way Rodney was going to have Lysander lounging round his office causing havoc.

  ‘Fucking hell!’ Lysander screwed up the letter and threw it on the gas logs.

  At that moment the front door opened, there was a frantic scampering of paws and Jack the Jack Russell hurtled in like a bullet, yapping and jumping with all four feet off the ground, to greet his master.

  Jack was followed by Ferdie bringing in the emptied dustbins.