by Jilly Cooper
‘Poor Mr B’s tended this garden for nearly forty years. Look at the poor old chap.’ Marigold pointed out of the window at an ancient gardener morosely clipping a yew hedge. ‘Ay can’t lay him off, it’d break his ’eart. Even more than mine’s broke.’
‘Marigold,’ interrupted Ferdie, ‘this is Lysander Hawkley.’
‘Pleased to meet you,’ said Marigold unenthusiastically, then pulling herself together, ‘I suppose you want a noggin.’
‘Please,’ said Ferdie, then, seeing Lysander’s appalled face, whispered, ‘Hang about, I promise you it’s worth it.’
‘She’s gross,’ hissed Lysander. ‘I’d need serious beer goggles to get within a hundred yards.’
‘Lovely view,’ enthused Ferdie loudly, squeezing between a large harp and a wind-up gramophone to look out of the huge window stretching the length of the room. ‘You can see Valhalla and Angel’s Reach from here, and Rachel’s cottage behind those Wellingtonias.’
‘I don’t care,’ grumbled Lysander, ‘I want to go home.’
Despite several bright Persian rugs tossed over a pink wall-to-wall carpet, a matching pink dog basket, a superabundance of silk cushions on their points like a Kirov line-up and enough tartan chairs and sofas to do the Highland fling, the room was as cosy as the furniture department of an Oxford Street store. There were too many dark cumbersome pieces, too many chandeliers, too much gilt on the mirrors and too few logs bravely burning in the vast stone cave of a fireplace.
On the walls, equally disparate, were several gold discs won by Catchitune, a lugubrious Stubbs spaniel, a Hogarth etching of a musical evening, a framed manuscript of the first page of a Beethoven Sonata, and a Picasso of grapes and a violin. The grand piano was weighed down with various recording awards and photographs of Larry Lockton fratting with the famous – mostly Mrs Thatcher. All round the room, busts of the great composers looked dourly down from their pedestals at such a visual mishmash.
Poor Marigold was in a frightful state. First she forgot the water for the whisky, then going back to fetch it, she forgot what she wanted it for, and proceeded to water a bowl of lurid pink hyacinths, not even noticing when it overflowed.
‘At least you’ve got lots of flowers,’ said Lysander looking around at the massed bunches of salmon-pink gladioli.
‘Ay sent them to myself,’ confessed Marigold, and burst into tears.
While Ferdie shot off to refill the jug and collect some kitchen roll, Lysander, who was beginning to feel really sorry for Marigold, asked her how she had found out about Larry’s bimbo.
‘It was at the office party in December. Ay always used to be the prettiest girl at office parties.’ Grabbing a piece of kitchen roll, she thrust it into her eyes. ‘All the bosses chased after me when we were first married, now Ay’m the old trout, what everyone has to suck up to because Ay’m the boss’s waife.’
She blew her nose noisily and took a slug of the replenished vodka and tonic.
‘May word, that’s strong, Ferdie. Anyway, I was chattin’ to the company secretary’s wife when I looked across the room and there was Nikki – she’s Larry’s PA – sitting on a leather sofa. Larry was standin’ besaide her chattin’ to the financial director and she was rubbin’ his . . . er – the front of his trousers.’
‘Perhaps she was brushing off a bit of fluff,’ said Lysander.
‘She’s the bit of fluff,’ said Marigold disdainfully. ‘Then Larry saw Ay was looking and kicked her on the shins. When Ay tackled him, he shouted that Ay was imaginin’ things and should get some glasses. Next day Ay was so distraught, Ay’d just set off to the Distressed Gentlefolks AGM.’
Coals to Newcastle, thought Ferdie.
‘Lady Chisleden was in the chair, I recall,’ went on Marigold, ‘and I got all the way to Rutminster before I realized I’d forgotten the minutes. I always type them, I used to be a secretary, so I rushed home. Patch came running down the stairs, which is unusual, she always stays in her basket in the kitchen if we go out, so I ran upstairs. I’d just had the guest bedroom redecorated in peach Draylon, with peach damask curtains, and Ay thought Ay’d take another peek, it looked so lovely, and Ay caught them at it.’
‘How awful,’ said Lysander, appalled. ‘What did you do?’
‘Ay was so shocked, Ay said, “I’ve just had this room redecorated.” And Nikki asked why didn’t Ay have the walls dragged. Ay said, “Ay don’t care for draggin’ it always looks as though it should have another coat.” Then Ay said, “How long have you been sleepin’ with may husband?” She said, “Ay must just look it up in may faylo-fax,” the cheeky cow.’
‘What’s she like?’ asked Lysander. Seeing Marigold was shivering he got up and put more logs on the fire.
‘Nikki? Spelt with a double K for Kleptomania, only she lifts husbands rather than shops,’ Marigold sniffed. ‘She looks like one of those girls who guides folk towards wheels of fortune in game shows. Very, very pretty, in fact she’s so pretty Ay never suspected she’d be interested in may Larry. Ay thought the only woman Larry admired was Margaret Thatcher. Nikki asked me why Ay didn’t have the walls dragged.’
‘You told us that,’ said Ferdie, who was anxious to get down to business.
‘Ay’m sorry, I keep repeatin’ myself. I trayed so hard to be a good wife. I got lonely in the country, but I kept busy with may committees, and Ay always washed may hair on Frayday and had a candlelit dinner waitin’ for Larry when he got back from town.’ She started to cry again.
‘I wish someone would do that for me.’ Lysander reached for more kitchen roll.
‘I worked so hard in the early years, darnin’ his socks, studying cheap cuts and going without lunch. We were so happy then.’
‘Can we see your wedding photographs?’ interrupted Ferdie briskly. ‘And some when you were first married.’
Collapsing heavily between him and Lysander on the sofa, Marigold opened a red photograph album.
‘You look terrific,’ said Lysander gazing in amazement at a sixties snapshot of Marigold in Hyde Park. ‘Great legs, and that chain belt’s very sexy.’
‘I gave up lunch for a whole fortnight to pay for that dress,’ sighed Marigold. ‘I had a handspan waist then.’
‘Well, you better give up a few more lunches,’ reproved Ferdie. ‘You’ve hardly got a legspan waist now, and your skin’s awful.’
Lysander winced, and wished he could go next door and watch the 3.15. Outside a gaudy pheasant with a red face and staring eyes, trailing awkwardly round the frozen lawn looking for refuge, reminded him of Marigold.
‘It’s nothing personal,’ said Ferdie kindly. ‘It’s exactly like getting a horse fit for a big race. You need a month on the road and two on the gallops. Lysander’ll take you jogging and when it gets lighter in the evenings and you’re frantic for that forbidden first drink of the day, you can both play tennis.’
‘It’ll never work,’ moaned Marigold. ‘If it weren’t for Patch, I’d kill myself.’
Patch stared balefully at them through the strings of the harp.
When Ferdie started to discuss money, Lysander was so embarrassed Ferdie had to take him off to Larry’s den, where he was very excited to find a bar in the corner with every drink known to man hanging upside down with rightway-up labels.
‘Oh, can I play with it?’
‘Of course, and watch the end of Lingfield on the big screen. If you get bored with that, Larry’s got all Donald Duck’s cartoons up on the right,’ said Ferdie, shutting the door firmly.
‘It’s going to cost you,’ he told Marigold, going back into the sitting room.
‘Ay haven’t got any money. Larry’s keepin’ me so short.’
‘Well, you’ll have to pawn a few rings.’
‘He’s charmin’ Lysander.’
‘Charming,’ agreed Ferdie. ‘But very expensive. We’ll have to find a cottage for him to rent down here. Not too near Paradise to preserve his air of mystery. He needs a couple of paddocks and stabling for his
horses and a really sharp, fuck-off car, a Porsche or better still a red Ferrari.’
Then, ignoring Marigold’s gasp of horror, ‘And access to a helicopter – we can’t have Larry thinking he’s some tinpot gigolo – and some decent clothes: a few suits and Gucci shoes. He needs decent shoes because he has a tendency to ingrowing toenails. And you must arrange an account at The Apple Tree, and the nearest off-licence and install satellite television, so he doesn’t get bored down here. Then there’s the little matter of his debts.’
‘How much are they?’ said Marigold faintly.
‘Ten grand should cover it,’ said Ferdie airily. ‘He’ll need pocket money of course to send you flowers and take you out on the tiles. If Larry comes back to you that’s a further ten grand, and a retainer for the next year to keep Larry on his toes.’
‘But Ay haven’t got that kind of money,’ whimpered Marigold. ‘Ay shall be destitute.’
‘No, you won’t.’ Ferdie topped up her glass. ‘Insist Larry buys you that house in Tregunter, and I’ll pretend it cost one hundred and fifty thousand pounds more than it does, which gives us lots of leeway.’
Marigold was so distraught, and by this time so awash with vodka, that she accepted all Ferdie’s conditions.
‘Life is about taking chances,’ said Ferdie, cosily pocketing a vast advance cheque. ‘It’s going to be a lark, I promise you.’
‘You ’ave terrific control over Lysander,’ said Marigold shaking her head.
‘I’m his mind and his minder,’ Ferdie reassured her. ‘I’ll be overseeing things all the way.’
Watching the 3.15 on Larry’s ten-foot screen made the race ten times more exciting, but Lysander felt ten times more depressed when the horse he’d backed fell at the last fence.
He thought of Arthur in his last race, donkey ears flapping, big feet splaying out in all directions, but with so much heart in his great grey girth that he ran on and on, just tipping the last fence in his tiredness. He’d got to get Arthur sound again. He had no job, no money, no prospects, no mother. The snowdrops outside, like the ones on her grave, reminded him he’d never see her again. The fish-ponds under the trees were turning ruby red in the setting sun.
He was roused from his black gloom by Ferdie, quite unable to keep the smirk off his broad pink face.
‘Well, you got the job.’
‘What job?’
‘Being Marigold’s toy boy.’
‘Don’t be an asshole. I can’t bonk for money.’
‘You only get paid if you don’t bonk her. We don’t want you involved in a messy divorce case.’
‘What about Arthur and Tiny?’
‘They can move in, too.’
All Lysander’s scruples were overcome when he saw his first pay cheque. On the way back to London he and Ferdie stopped to order a red Ferrari. Arriving at Fountain Street, they found the telephone ringing. It was the police.
‘I think we’ve found your Golf GTi, Mr Hawkley. Does it have a NCDL sticker in the back saying, “A Dog is for Life . . . Not Just for Christmas”?’
‘That’s the one.’
‘It wasn’t in Drake Street where you thought you’d left it, but in Kempton Street.’
‘Thanks awfully,’ said Lysander, ‘that’s really, really kind of you, but basically I don’t need it any more, because I’ve just got another one.’
‘Lysander!’ Ferdie grabbed the telephone in exasperation. ‘We’ll be over to pick it up at once,’ he told the policeman.
9
Lysander, Arthur, Tiny, Jack and a red Ferrari with a top speed of 200 m.p.h. moved into a charming cottage seven miles from Paradise, and Lysander lost no time in getting Marigold into training. As they both jogged in track suits along punishingly steep footpaths, watching the first celandine and coltsfoot pushing their way through the leaf mould and the winter barley slowly turning the brown fields pale green, Lysander wished it was Arthur he was getting fit for the Rutminster Gold Cup rather than Marigold, but they made terrific progress.
Marigold was still desperately low and Lysander got bored as she endlessly bent his ear about Larry, but he began to realize the extent of her hurt and desolation, and how hard she had supported Larry in his rocket-like rise to the top.
‘Ay really trayed to be a social asset,’ she told Lysander one morning as they pounded up Paradise Hill. ‘For years Ay struggled with those dreadful elocution lessons.’ Pink from her exertions, Marigold went even pinker. ‘Ay was taught by a disgustin’ old Lezzie who kept touchin’ may bosom to make me project from the chest.’
‘How dreadful,’ Lysander shuddered.
‘Let’s stop and look at the vista,’ gasped Marigold, who was panting more from non-stop chatter than the one-in-five gradient.
Across the valley, softened by a pale sun, morning mist and the thickening buds of its army of trees, Paradise Grange rose like a fairy-tale castle.
‘Ay can’t bear to leave it,’ she sighed. ‘You should see it in summer when the Paradise Pearl is out. That’s a pinky-whaite wisteria Mr Brimscombe planted thirty years ago. We floodlaight it in the evenings. And that’s Lady Chisleden’s home to the left. Ay trayed so hard to dress laike Lady Chisleden.’
‘I don’t think that’s wise,’ said Lysander in alarm. ‘The old trout was blocking Paradise High Street this morning with her Bentley, bawling out Adam’s Pleasure for delivering manure that was more straw than shit. Perhaps she could give Arthur a job.’
Marigold smiled, but as they started off down the hill, she returned to the subject of Larry.
‘Talkin’ of horses, Ay always thought we had a good love laife,’ her voice trembled. ‘But one of the things Nikki screamed at me was that Larry told her Ay made love laike a dead horse, because Ay never moved.’
Although Marigold had told him this a dozen times, Lysander put his arm round her.
‘Alive horses don’t move very much,’ he said consolingly. ‘I’ve seen lots of them being covered. My Uncle Alastair ran a stud at one time, and someone always held the mare still. Anyway, men say anything to a girl when they want to get their leg over.’
To begin with Lysander used to escape to London as soon as he had supervised Marigold’s frugal supper, to party all night, returning yawning at breakfast and falling asleep in the afternoon on Larry’s sunbed. But gradually he spent more and more time at Paradise Grange. There was so much to do, working out in the gym, swimming in the heated pool, riding the hunters Larry abandoned after he’d been bucked off at the opening meet, watching all Larry’s Walt Disney tapes, playing with Larry’s bar.
‘What a pity you’re off the booze, Marigold. I could mix you some terrific cocktails.’
One of their first mutual projects was the restoration of Arthur, who’d been confined to box rest for three months by the vet. As soon as the old horse arrived, Lysander had driven Marigold over to his cottage to meet him.
It was a beautiful day after a night of heavy rain, the robins were singing their heads off, and the racing streams glittered in the sunshine. Marigold tried not to squeal with terror as Lysander stormed the red Ferrari along the winding country lanes, whose high hedges were filling up so quickly with buds and even leaves one had no idea who might be hurtling in the opposite direction. By contrast, barking his head off, and rattling back and forwards like a shaken dice, Jack seemed to be thoroughly enjoying himself.
‘How did you acquire Arthur?’ asked Marigold faintly.
‘Well, it’s an extraordinary story. Basically my cousin Titus was in the Army in the Oman and during some skirmish he found Arthur wandering on the edge of the desert, thin as a rake and desperately dehydrated. Well, Titus had nowhere to stable him that night and no headcollar, so he and his men made a corral by parking four army lorries, nose to tail. Even in his desperately weakened condition, Arthur jumped straight over one of the bonnets after a passing mare.
‘Titus thought they’d lost him, but he was back nosing around for toast and marmalade the next morning. Any
way, he was such a distinctive-looking horse that his owner, some Arab sheik whom Titus was liberating, recognized him and was so grateful he let Titus keep him. Arthur’s got quite a good pedigree.
‘Titus brought him back to England, and gave him to his father, my Uncle Alastair, who was a trainer and who won a lot of races with him. I was left some money by an aunt and Alastair was in financial trouble – he was always bad with money – so I spent the lot buying Arthur from him. I’d always loved the horse. Dad was absolutely livid.’
‘Ay’m not surprised,’ said Marigold, shocked. ‘Your uncle shouldn’t have taken all your inheritance.’
‘You haven’t met Arthur,’ said Lysander fondly. ‘Anyway, poor Uncle Alastair died of a heart attack and Arthur fell first time out last September. The vet said rest him for a year, but Mum and I were determined to get him sound by next season. Then Mum died in October.’ For a second Lysander’s hands clenched on the wheel. Then, swinging off the road and destroying any hope that Marigold might have had that he might slow down on the stony track up to the cottage, he added, ‘So, I’m going to get him sound if it kills me.’
‘Yes, Ay can see that,’ said Marigold, only thankful to be alive amid so much death, as Lysander drew up with a jerk outside the stables behind the cottage. ‘Oh, how adorable,’ she squeaked.
For the great grey horse hanging out of his box was tugging hay from a net so untidily that Tiny, his black Shetland stable-mate, who was attacking another net hung below his, had nearly vanished under a thatch of dropped hay.
‘The sweet wee thing.’ Marigold rushed forward to hug the little pony.
‘I wouldn’t,’ warned Lysander.
As Tiny lashed out with a lightning off-hind, he pulled Marigold out of the way just in time.
‘Tiny,’ he added, giving the pony a sharp boot on the rump, ‘is an absolute bitch.’