by Jilly Cooper
‘She ought to meet Nikki,’ said Marigold with a sniff. ‘Nikki said—’
‘Basically I only keep Tiny,’ interrupted Lysander hastily, before Marigold could get into her stride, ‘because Arthur’s so bats about her. She henpecks him dreadfully, and she’s tried to kill Jack several times.’
Scooping Jack up, Lysander held him so he could lick Arthur’s nose, then plonked the little dog between the horse’s huge flopping ears. Immediately Jack tightroped down Arthur’s straggly mane and settled down into the small of his back.
‘How adorable,’ sighed Marigold, giving Tiny a very wide berth, as she stroked Arthur. ‘He’s ’uge, isn’t he?’
‘Eighteen hands,’ said Lysander proudly. ‘He was the biggest horse in training. The public still send him fan mail and Twix bars, because they know he loves them.’
Arthur was pure white except for his grey nose and dark eyes which were fringed with long, straight, white eyelashes and edged with white on the inside corners, as though some make-up artist had wanted to widen them.
‘Arthur looks as though he’s been around,’ said Marigold.
‘Basically he has,’ said Lysander. ‘He’s lived in back gardens in Fulham and on Dolly’s parents’ lawn; there was a row about that, and he spent three days in the orchard of a woman whose house I was – er – trying to sell.’
Not anxious to expand on that, Lysander pointed to the traffic cones and rubber tyres he’d hung over Arthur’s door to give him something to biff around and amuse himself with.
‘He’s so good about being inside.’ Lysander pulled Arthur’s ears. ‘He just adores being petted. He never bites Tiny back and if Jack attacks his ankles, he just looks down in amazement. If he were a human, he’d put on a smoking jacket and velvet-crested slippers every night. He’s such a gent.’
‘Like his master,’ said Marigold warmly.
‘I wish Dolly thought so,’ sighed Lysander. ‘She’s just sent me a really sarky card: CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR RETIREMENT. Now watch this.’
As he produced a tin of Fanta out of his Barbour pocket, Arthur gave a deep Vesuvius whicker. Pulling back the tab, Lysander put the tin between Arthur’s big yellow teeth and, with gurgles of ecstasy, Arthur tipped back his head and drained the lot.
‘He can’t get up in the morning without his bowl of coffee,’ said Lysander retrieving the tin, ‘but only if it has two spoonfuls of sugar.’
February 13th was a day for celebration. Marigold weighed in a stone lighter at nine stone four, and even Patch had shed five pounds and could wriggle through the cat door again. After a frugal lunch of clear soup, fennel-and-kiwi-fruit salad, Marigold was virtuously stuffing invitations to a Save the Children Bring and Buy into envelopes, instead of white chocolates into herself, and Lysander was sitting with his muddy booted legs up on the table, trying to compose a Valentine poem to Dolly who still hadn’t forgiven him for his exploits in Palm Beach.
‘Ferdie’s brilliant at writing poems, but he’s out and I must get it in the post. What rhymes with green?’
‘Keen, mean, been, my queen, sheen,’ suggested Marigold. ‘Did you know birds choose their mates on Valentine’s Day?’ She peered out at the crowded bird-table. ‘And that in the spring the chaffinch gets a pinker breast and the blackbird a more golden beak and look at that starlin’ his feathers are all purple and green in the sunshine.’
But Lysander was looking at Marigold. Her skin was glowing pink, not dead white laced with hectic red. Her eyes, no longer bloodshot, were the same hazel as the catkins dropping their pollen on the kitchen table. There was no resemblance now to a Beryl Cook lady.
‘Sod the birds! You’re the one looking terrific,’ he said, tipping back his chair.
‘Oh, get on with you,’ said Marigold, putting two invitations into the same envelope, and blushing crimson. ‘Look at those sweet little great tits, swingin’ on that coconut.’ Then her happiness evaporated. ‘That was the coconut Larry won at the village fête last year.’
‘How d’you know so much about birds?’ asked Lysander, anxious to distract her.
‘Ay thought Ay should study wildlaife when we moved to the country. Unfortunately Larry got interested in another kaind of bird.’ That’s a sort of joke, if a very weak one, Marigold thought in surprise. Perhaps I’m beginning to laugh again.
‘How are you getting on with your poem?’ she asked. Proudly Lysander handed it across the table.
‘The rose is red, the grarse is green,’ read Marigold. ‘Open your legs and i’le turn you to creem.’
‘Oh, Laysander!’ Marigold was shocked rigid. ‘Ay don’t think that’s in the raight spirit. Why don’t you pop down to The Apple Tree? They’ve got some beautiful floral cards, with such lovely sentiments inside, or even left blank to record your message. Ay weakened,’ Marigold hung her head, ‘and sent one with primroses on to Larry. Ay trayed to get it back, and nearly got my hand stuck in the letter-box. Anyway, Ay don’t think Nikki’ll let it through, she gets the kettle out for anythin’ marked prayvate and confidential.’
Lysander was so worried Marigold would get no Valentines that he rushed off to The Apple Tree and bought her the largest card in the shop, which he handed to her with a huge bunch of daffodils the next morning, so she wouldn’t get all excited and think it was from Larry.
‘Oh, that’s beautiful,’ said Marigold, deeply touched.
Inside Lysander had written: ‘To Marrygold who gets prittier eech day. love Lysander.’
I didn’t marry gold, she thought sadly. It’s Nikki that’s going to do that, as soon as Larry divorces me.
Seeing her face cloud over, Lysander handed her another present. More Sellotape than gift wrap, thought Marigold fondly as she broke her way in, and found a size ten pair of black-velvet shorts.
‘They’re lovely,’ she squeaked, ‘but you must be jokin’.’
‘Give it three weeks,’ said Lysander, ‘and we’ll be there.’
‘We,’ mumbled Marigold. How very nice.
‘As we can’t celebrate your great weight loss by getting pissed this evening,’ added Lysander, ‘I bought some magic mushrooms in Rutminster.’
‘Ay can’t take drugs,’ said Marigold, appalled. ‘Ay’m hoping to become a JP.’
‘It’s just a natural product,’ said Lysander airily. ‘We can make tea out of them, you’ll love it and you won’t put on an ounce.’
‘Ay’m supposed to be going to a Best-Kept Village committee.’
‘Cancel it. Crocodile Dundee’s on television.’
‘Ay really shouldn’t,’ said Marigold. That was the third committee meeting she’d cancelled that week.
What a very sweet boy, thought Marigold. When they were jogging he helped her over stiles and caught her elbow if she slipped in the mud or on the icy roads, and he always opened doors and helped her on with her coat. He was probably doing it because he thought of her as a pathetic old wrinkly, she told herself sternly, but Larry had never done any of these things in eighteen years. And Lysander never got cross.
She loved the elegant way he draped himself over sofas and window seats, and suddenly dropped off to sleep like a puppy. And he was so appreciative of her cooking even if it was clear soup, fennel and kiwi fruit.
‘I got a tip-off about some seriously good dope, in Cathedral Lane in Rutminster of all unlikely places,’ Lysander told Marigold as they jogged up the north side of Paradise a fortnight later, ‘and this nutter pressed his face against the car window and said “Are you looking for Jesus?” I said, “No, I’m looking for No. 37.” Anyway, they’re offering an eighth of an ounce for the price of a sixteenth. If they’re discounting drugs, the recession must be biting.’
He was trying to cheer up Marigold, who, despite the beauty and incredible mildness of the day, had been thrown into black gloom by the display of crocuses on the lawn below the house. Specially planted by herself and Mr Brimscombe, it spelled out the word: CATCHITUNE in the record company’s purple-and-yellow colours.
&nbs
p; ‘It was the sort of gesture Larry adored. Ay was going to floodlight them as a surpraise, so he could see them from his helicopter when he landed on Frayday neight.’
And now bees were humming in the crocuses which were arching back their petals and thrusting forward their orange stamens to welcome the sun, if not a returning Larry.
‘Where’s Rannaldini?’ asked Lysander, as they pounded past the secretive grey abbey shrouded in its conspirator’s cowl of woods.
‘Whizzin’ round the world avoiding ex-waives and tax,’ said Marigold sourly. ‘Rannaldini plays on people’s weaknesses. He realized Larry was socially insecure. He made us go ex-directory for a start, said bein’ unlisted was the done thing. Just meant that no-one could phone us. Then he told Larry it was common to put up the name of one’s house. Ay’d just had a board carved in poker work for Larry’s birthday. Larry put it in the attic. So no-one can faind the house to drop in. Then he encouraged Larry to ’ave electric gates to keep out the public, so if people could faind the house, they couldn’t get in anyway. Phew, it’s hot.’
Marigold’s green track suit was dark with sweat.
‘Is he attractive, Rannaldini?’
‘In a horrid sort of way,’ said Marigold disapprovingly. ‘Not may taype, far too edgy makin’. Doesn’t Angel’s Reach look lovely in the sunshine?’
Stopping to rest on a mossy stile, they gazed down at the big Georgian house which was to be the future home of pop star Georgie Maguire. As well as the stone angels guarding the roof and the gates at the bottom of the drive, more angels had been clipped out of the lowering yew battlements which protected the house from the east wind. And, tossing their yellow locks, a row of weeping willows seemed about to tumble into the lake like glorious Swedish blondes racing down to bathe.
‘It’ll be lovely having another celeb in the village to vie with Hermione and Rannaldini,’ said Marigold. ‘I must make sure Georgie opens the church fête this summer to irritate Hermione. Georgie’s my best friend,’ she went on proudly. ‘She and Guy bought the house so she’d know someone near by in the country. Ay don’t know what she’ll say when she comes back from the States and fainds out Larry’s trying to chuck me out.
‘People are so competitive round here,’ sighed Marigold, breathing in the faint sweet heady smell of damp earth, burgeoning leaves and violets. ‘Rannaldini was jealous of Larry’s executive jet, so he got a bigger one. Then Larry got a Land-Rover with three telephones, so Rannaldini got a Range Rover with four.’
Below them the River Fleet lay like mother of pearl along the bottom of the valley. Black-headed gulls congregated on its banks.
‘Our grounds extend to the river,’ said Marigold, ‘so Rannaldini bought another twenty acres so he could have a mooring, too. Then Rannaldini had Hermione and God knows who else so Larry had to have Nikki.’
‘Who’s Rannaldini married to at the moment?’ asked Lysander, watching the gulls rising and resettling on the opposite bank like a snowstorm.
‘Well, his second wife, Cecilia, was an incredibly glamorous Italian soprano, but she made scenes rather than beds, and Rannaldini likes an ordered life. And not meanin’ to boast, I think he was a bit jealous that Larry’s home ran more smoothly than his did.’
‘I bet he was.’ Lysander squeezed Marigold’s shoulder. ‘Basically you know how to make a man happy.’
‘Well, Ay don’t know, but anyway, Rannaldini divorced Cecilia and married Kitty, his PA. In her case it stands for permanently available. She’s a poppet, an absolute gem, runs Rannaldini’s houses, sorts out his finances, checks his contracts, protects him from importunate fans and ex-mistresses, looks after his hoards of fraightful kiddies, and whisks up supper whenever he invaites entire orchestras home without any warning.’
‘I could do with someone like that,’ said Lysander. ‘I don’t understand the poll tax at all.’
‘And she puts up with Hermione treating her laike a housemaid. Oh sugar, talk of the devil.’
There was a whirl and chug like the last spin of a huge washing-machine, as a helicopter appeared over the woods.
‘That’s Hermione coming home,’ said Marigold furiously. ‘She’s also been on tour. No doubt she’ll be over in a flash, boastin’ what a success she’s been and how many men have fallen madly in love with her – “One can never have too many men in love with one, Marigold” – and bringing me her latest tape to cheer me up, which my husband has already produced in its thousands, and saying, “How are you? How are you?” when she doesn’t give a shit. Whoops, penny in the swear box. Hermione must be the most irritating person since the nurse in Romeo and Juliet.’
Next moment, the helicopter landed on the lawn of the big yellow house with beckoning chimneys, which lay between Valhalla and Paradise Village. They could see a tiny figure getting out and people running across the lawn to meet her and could hear voices and laughter echoing round the wood.
‘Let’s stop off at The Apple Tree and get some Mars bars,’ said Marigold, through gritted teeth.
‘Better not. Ferdie’s coming down to weigh you tomorrow.’
Back home, Marigold changed out of her track suit and had a long, comforting bath. When she came very apprehensively into the kitchen, wearing some new jeans, Lysander gave a Tarzan howl of joy.
‘My God, they’re great. You’ve got such a terrific ass – I mean figure.’
‘Not so good with all this flesh spillin’ over like uncooked pastry,’ said Marigold, raising her dark blue cardigan above the waistband.
‘That’ll be gone in a week,’ said Lysander, thinking what a lovely mouth Marigold had when it was laughing and not hidden in a hard line brooding about Larry. She looked ever less like a Beryl Cook lady now the regimented curls had been straightened and streaked and fell in a shiny blond bob over one eye. The hot bath had unleashed the Arpège she had splashed all over her body.
‘If Ferdie’s comin’ tomorrow, I better take a ton of Ex-Lax tonaight,’ said Marigold.
Heavens, who would have thought she’d ever discuss laxatives with a man? But having ridden races, Lysander knew all about getting weight off. He really was a very sweet boy.
10
Half an hour later Lysander and Marigold were in Larry’s study, smoking like mad to dull their appetites, and watching the runners in the 3.00 at Wincanton circling in the paddock.
‘I’ve backed Rupert Campbell-Black’s horse, Penscombe Pride,’ said Lysander. ‘That bay in the dark blue rug, doesn’t he look well? He won both the Rutminster and the Cotchester Gold Cups last year.’
‘Even I know that,’ said Marigold.
‘He’s favourite, but he’s carrying so much weight.’
Next moment Jack flew out of the basket he now shared with Patch and went into a frenzy of yapping as Hermione Harefield swept in.
‘What’s the point of electric gates,’ muttered Marigold, ‘when Mrs Brimscombe lets in the horrors?’
Hermione was fortunate to have looks that needed little maintenance. Her strong, glossy, dark brown curls fell naturally into shape. Her big eyes the colour of After Eights were fringed with thick lashes that never needed mascara. No spot nor red vein ever marred a complexion as smooth and creamy as Carnation Milk. Her splendid bosom soared above an enviously slim waist and she never wore trousers, because they would have emphasized a rather large bottom and hidden long, charmingly curved legs. She could easily have passed for the much admired younger sister of Michelangelo’s David, but in Hermione’s case, beauty was only rhinocerous-hide deep.
Embracing Marigold regally, she said: ‘How are you, how are you?’ in her deep, thrillingly rich voice, and presented her with a tape of herself singing sea shanties, including ‘Blow the wind southerly’. She then insisted on pressing the mute button of the television, and playing the tape fortissimo, while recounting details of her wildly successful tour.
‘Such love, such love, one could feel it reaching out to one,’ cried Hermione. ‘But it’s a responsibility to be so
beloved. I must take my voice increasingly into the open air and bring music to the people. So I’ve decided to do Hyde Park and Wembley this summer.
‘But when I felt Paradise beneath my feet and little Cosmo rushed across the lawn crying, “Mummy, Mummy”, I knew that here was the real world.’ She smiled at Lysander, who, having risen when she came in, was now back with his feet on the table, listening to her non-stop flow with his mouth open.
Finally Marigold butted in: ‘Hermione, may I introduce Lysander Hawkley, my personal exercise trainer.’
‘But you never take any exercise,’ said Hermione in disbelief, which turned to disapproval when Marigold despatched Lysander to get a bottle of wine and some Perrier for herself.
‘You shouldn’t encourage workmen to watch television and drink in the middle of the afternoon, Marigold. What’s he doing here?’
‘Mending my heart.’
But Hermione wasn’t listening. ‘I need to get in touch with Larry. I’m recording Dido next week, and I want to know who’s singing Aeneas and which recording studio’s been booked.’
‘Ay haven’t a clue,’ snapped Marigold. ‘Ring Nikki’s new apartment. You’ll find Larry in bed there.’
‘Don’t be bitter, Marigold, it’s so ageing,’ chided Hermione, who loathed her friends having marriage problems because it gave them an excuse to talk about themselves rather than her.
‘I refuse to take sides,’ she went on. ‘I’m sure poor Larry’s as confused as you are.’
‘And sells millions of your records,’ said Marigold furiously.
‘Oh Marigold, you silly billy,’ sighed Hermione, looking at Marigold properly for the first time. ‘You’ve dyed your hair.’
‘I thought I needed a change.’
Hermione put her head on one side. ‘Well, if you like it that’s the main thing, and I’ve never seen you in jeans before. We are jazzing ourselves up.’
With a trembling hand Marigold reached for a Silk Cut. Hermione, who had a singer’s pathological horror of smoking, was about to reproach her when she was distracted by the tape reaching ‘Blow the wind southerly’.