by Jilly Cooper
‘One of the most tragic losses to the music world,’ Kitty could hear him saying as he walked back to his study, ‘Rachel Grant had an individual talent which I personally . . .’
Guessing he would be tied up for some time, frantically brushing away the tears, Kitty took the note out of her cardigan pocket. It was full of crossings out. A demented Lysander had clearly struggled over it himself without any help from Ferdie or Rupert.
Darling kitty,
I wonnted to proove i cud do sumthing, well arthur and i allmost did. I havent got a big howse or a jetset life but i give you my hart wych feals as if its been trarnsplarnted withowt any annisetik. please wring i am dieing of missery. your luvving Lysander.
Kitty felt as though the jagged teeth of a steel trap had closed into her leg, holding her back. Darling sweet Lysander. How could she ever even respect, let alone love Rannaldini, after he’d been so monstrously insensitive about Rachel?
‘Mrs Rannaldini?’
Whatever was wrong with Miss Bates? She’d been so bossy and uppity yesterday, now she couldn’t meet Kitty’s eyes, as she handed her the second cordless telephone.
‘Mr Rannaldini’s still on the other line, it’s Natasha. She says it’s desperately urgent.’
‘’Allo,’ said Kitty, steeling herself for abuse.
‘Are you alone? Promise you won’t leave Papa.’ Natasha’s Italian-American accent was coming in gasps. ‘Wolfie won’t come back to Valhalla because Dad took Flora off him and I’m living with Ferdie now. Papa’ll be so lonely living on his own. I shouldn’t be telling you this – Papa’ll kill me. Promise you won’t tell him.’
‘I promise,’ said Kitty fearfully, ‘but be quick, he’ll be back in a second.’
‘Your baby isn’t Papa’s. It’s Lysander’s.’
‘How d’you know?’ whispered Kitty. ‘I slept with your dad the night before Lysander came out to France and the night I got back.’ She shuddered as she remembered Rannaldini’s ice-cold anger as he practically raped her. ‘I only slept wiv Lysander twice.’
‘Papa has had a vasectomy.’
‘He what? When?’
‘Just after he married you. He didn’t want any more children, what with seven of us and buckets of illegits. He was fed up with the expense and the hassle. But there’s a 28 per cent chance of reversing the operation, so you still could have babies together. Kitty, Kitty, are you still there?’
‘Yes – are you sure?’
‘Certain. He had the op in America. Not even James Benson knows.’
‘Oh my God.’ Kitty gave a sob.
‘You will go on being my friend even if you leave him,’ pleaded Natasha. ‘But try not to. He loves you in his funny way, and he needs you. You’re the best wife he’s ever had.’
‘I’ve got to go,’ mumbled Kitty, switching off the telephone and slumping back on the blue-and-yellow cushions, clutching Lassie, who stretched up, long pink tongue frantically trying to staunch her mistress’s tears. Outside, Rannaldini’s horses were lying down in a patch of sunlight close together to keep warm, folding up one after another like camels.
Kitty couldn’t stop crying as she remembered the way Rannaldini had complained so bitterly when she had all those horribly embarrassing and often painful tests – not to mention the devastating disappointment each time her period came. Now he was bullying her non-stop to have an abortion and all the time he’d made her bear the full guilt and humiliation of being the infertile one.
‘The stupid bitch drove off the road,’ she muttered, ‘an’ we’ve only recorded two movements. Oh, poor Rachel, oh dear God.’
Kitty had no idea how long she sat, her thoughts churning, but suddenly the door flew open and in bounced Hermione, smothered in leopard skin.
‘Come on, Brickie! We’re off to the bird sanctuary at Slimbridge. We’ve always vowed we’d go. Such a lovely day and what better way of celebrating Rannaldini’s wonderful new job.’
He must have rung to tell her straight away, thought Kitty dully.
‘You must wrap up warm.’
Marigold, following Hermione into the room, thought how really ill Kitty looked.
‘But what about Rachel?’ said Kitty bewildered.
‘It’s terrible. We’re all devastated,’ said Hermione briskly. ‘Bob was crying when he rang from London to tell me, but crying won’t bring her back. We’ll all have to rally round Boris and the children. Gretel’s being a tower of strength. Mind you, spare men are lucky, they get snapped up very fast.’
‘We can’t go on a jaunt,’ said Kitty in horror, ‘not when she’s just passed away.’
‘Rachel was mad about conservation,’ said Marigold gently. ‘It’s a sort of memorial to her if we go. Come on, Kitty, it’ll do you good.’
64
So off they went in two cars: Marigold and Larry, Georgie and Guy rode in the first. Hermione, reluctantly accompanied by Meredith, because Bob was still in London coping with the ramifications of Rachel’s death, drove with Kitty and Rannaldini, who was resplendent in a new, long pale-fawn cashmere coat from Ralph Lauren.
The clouds had rolled away. Primroses, violets and blue hazes of speedwell crowded the hedgerows from which the first green flames of hawthorn and wild rose were flickering brightly.
‘Dark glasses and head scarves, chaps,’ said Hermione, tying a rust silk square over her dark hair. ‘We don’t want to be mobbed by autograph hunters.’
There was hassle even before they got inside Slimbridge when, ignoring a sign saying NO ENTRY FOR FURS MADE FROM SPOTTED CATS OR TIGERS, Hermione tried to force her way through the turnstile.
‘Is that coat fake leopardskin?’ asked the girl on the till.
‘Certainly not,’ said Hermione in outrage.
‘I’m afraid you can’t come in.’
So Hermione threw a moody and as Rannaldini showed no signs of relinquishing his splendid new cashmere, kind Guy had to lend her his old army greatcoat.
‘It looks better on a man,’ joked Guy as he did up the brass buttons. ‘D’you remember that advertisement, Brickie?’
Kitty didn’t. She was thinking of the contrast between the noisy, self-confident sophistication of the Paradise party – excluding herself of course – and the scruffy excited crowds, mostly parents and children in anoraks, retired couples or earnest men in shorts and hung with cameras and binoculars.
‘Dreadfully suburban,’ shuddered Meredith, as he whisked Kitty past bright pink double cherries, weeping willows, little concrete ponds and pebble-dash islands crowded with birds.
‘I fink it’s beautiful,’ said Kitty, admiring the little teals with their glossy blue, green and chestnut heads and the black swans whose necks unfurled like ferns.
‘’Ooo, ’ow sweet.’ She bent down to stroke the little brown striped Hawaiian geese who wandered round soliciting bread and rubbing against people’s legs, tame as Lassie.
‘That bird with a white collar looks just like Percy,’ said Meredith.
‘It’s called the common shoveller.’ Marigold was eager to show off her ornithological knowledge.
Guy, who’d been a keen birdwatcher during the walking tours of his youth, was equally eager.
‘The courtship of the ruddy duck is absolutely fascinating,’ he was telling Larry.
Seeing a notice which said GO QUIETLY, TREAD GENTLY, Kitty thought it sounded like a prayer. There must be a god to produce such a marvellous variety of different coloured birds, and what a wonderful quacking and honking and hooting they make. From every bush came scuffling like a teenage party.
‘Interior designers could pick up a few tips.’ Meredith was studying the black, rust and white plumage of a passing eider duck.
‘Listen to what it says about the courtship pattern of the great whistler,’ cried Marigold putting on her spectacles to read another notice: ‘The male arches his body and neck, flinging up droplets followed by head up, tail up. Usually several males frantically display before one female.’
‘Sounds like the husbands of Paradise showing off to Rachel,’ said Georgie sourly. ‘Oh my God, I forgot she was dead.’
Noticing Kitty’s glazed eyes suddenly spilling over with tears, Meredith mouthed to Marigold, ‘Is she OK?’
‘I don’t think so,’ mouthed back Marigold.
Picking up this exchange, Hermione turned to Rannaldini: ‘Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Kitty could adopt a Canada goose? They’ve got a scheme here. It would give her an interest. I’ll go and jolly her up.’
Showing off her deeply caring nature and her charmingly curved legs, she moved forward putting her arm through Kitty’s.
‘I’m so delighted about Rannaldini’s new job. I know he’s been a naughty boy, but when you think of stags, stallions and male dogs, and how much more glamorously the male birds are kitted out than the females, it’s no wonder men are different. Bitches, does and female birds are gentle, sit on their nests and stay at home. Sex really isn’t that important.’
It is with Lysander, thought Kitty sulkily.
She noticed a mallard, his emerald head gleaming in the sunshine as his tabby wife nestled beside him in married contentment.
Like Lysander and me, thought Kitty, I’m plain and tabby, he’s beautiful and resplendent, but he loves me.
‘I know you’ve still got a crush on Lysander.’ Marigold took Kitty’s other arm. ‘He’s so sweet. We all had one on him once, just like the flu.’
‘Some of us still do,’ sighed Meredith, admiring the blond hairy legs of a hulking German tourist.
‘Don’t be silly, Meredith,’ reproved Marigold. ‘And don’t be rash, Kitty. Valhalla’s a beautiful place and Rannaldini’ll buy some gorgeous apartment for you in New York. It’s no fun lowering one’s standard of living.’ Marigold sighed even more deeply. ‘And think of the travelling you’ll do.’
And the packing, thought Kitty wearily.
‘He will not always say what you would have him say,’ sung Hermione warmly, so crowds turned and gawped at her, ‘But now and then he’ll say something wonderful. They’re holding an Infertility Workshop in Rutminster next week,’ she went on. ‘Why don’t you go along, Kitty? A problem shared is a problem solved.’
Surging ahead Larry, Guy and Rannaldini turned off to look at the flamingos. Soft orange and Barbara Cartland-pink they stood about on one leg making a very unmelodic, jangling din.
‘Sounds like one of Boris’s symphonies,’ said Rannaldini bitchily.
‘Poor bastard,’ said Larry.
But Rannaldini was deep in thought, anticipating the wonderful tussle he would have, knocking those bolshie but stunningly talented New York musicians into shape. The concert at which he’d raised so much money for the Gulf had been good for his image. Before he left he might do the same for the Royal Society for the Preservation of Birds. They could do an ornithological programme. There were so many composers – Delius, Respighi, Sibelius – to choose from. In the tower was a serenade to the lost birds of Italy which he’d written in his youth. He’d get it out and have a look this evening.
‘Guy is such a pig,’ Georgie was now whispering to Marigold. ‘A girlfriend rang me yesterday to say I must read Love in The Time of Cholera because its whole premise is that you can only keep a wife happy by lying and lying to her. And that was the bloody book Julia gave Guy for his birthday.’
At least, she comforted herself, Guy was being really sweet to her at the moment and David had rung while Guy was out getting the papers and presumably ringing Julia this morning, and she and David were having dinner on Monday.
‘I’m so lucky with darling Bob,’ said Hemione smugly as they moved towards a small wood. ‘He is so devoted. Oh, aren’t those coots sweet – I wonder if coots really are queer.’
‘I want to go to the Wild Goose Hide-away,’ giggled Meredith, bounding up some steps into a wooden hut. ‘Well, perhaps I don’t,’ he said shooting out on discovering a lot of bearded men with knobbly knees peering through binoculars.
But the Paradise party, who’d already started up the steps, pushed him jovially back into the hide-away. Inside, wide windows looked on to the Severn estuary which stretched out like a great white luminous STOP sign. In front little lakes were dotted with birds. To the right on the far shore, pylons and cranes rose out of a smoky haze.
‘Look at the Canada geese,’ cried Marigold.
‘There’s a beautiful Bewick swan,’ observed Guy, then raising his voice for the benefit of the cognoscenti. ‘The Bewick’s call during flight is “tong, tong, tong, bong, bong, ongong, ongong”.’
‘Jourdain describes the call as a “varied din of honking notes”,’ volunteered one of the men with knobbly knees.
Kitty caught Meredith’s eye and, in order not to laugh, turned to examine a wall chart listing sightings, together with descriptions of the species and the numbers seen.
Running her eyes down the list which included great-crested grebes, all kinds of swans, ducks and geese, herons and even a kingfisher, she suddenly started to shake with helpless laughter, until she was gasping and clutching her sides.
‘Whatever’s the matter?’ asked Marigold alarmed.
‘Look.’ Kitty pointed to halfway down the list where in a very round hand someone had written DONALD DUCK. As a description they had put: Blue coat, yellow beak, and under the number recorded they had written, Sadly none.
‘That’s not really funny, Brickie,’ reproved Guy. ‘People take birdwatching very seriously.’
‘Lysander could have been here.’ Kitty wiped her eyes on her sleeve. Having started laughing, she found she couldn’t stop.
‘Better take her home,’ whispered Marigold.
‘Come on, old girl.’ Larry put his arm round her shoulders, ‘Don’t want to overdo it.’
‘Off her trolley,’ mouthed Guy to Meredith.
‘Wouldn’t you be,’ said Meredith with unusual sharpness, ‘if you were married to that?’ He nodded at Rannaldini and Hermione who were straightening their clothes and smirking as they emerged from the Goose Observation Tower next door.
The birds look so happy, thought Kitty, meekly allowing Larry to lead her back. They’ve done their bonking and now they’ve got their little families. She watched a drake and a duck striking out from the shore, proudly leading a convoy of tiny fluffy ducklings.
They had sanctuary here at Slimbridge but they could leave when they want to. Suddenly she remembered the cow loose in the barley during the drought last summer who had rolled its way over the cattle-grid. It had looked so carefree. Anyone could get out if they wanted to enough.
‘Tong, tong, tong, bong, bong, ongong, ongong,’ muttered Kitty.
Larry glanced at her nervously.
‘I’ll take over,’ whispered Georgie, taking Kitty’s arm. ‘David Hawkley is so attractive,’ she told Kitty, lowering her voice. ‘If you can imagine a macho, intellectual Lysander.’
‘Lysander’s perfect as he is,’ said Kitty indignantly.
A sharp breeze was already scattering pink cherry blossom over the dark water like confetti.
‘You know I really love Guy,’ admitted Georgie. ‘The most important thing in marriage is companionship and a huge bit on the side to cheer one through the bad patches. Divorce is so damaging for children.’
They were passing the Slimbridge shop which still had a Mothering Sunday sticker in the window.
I don’t want no bits on the side and I’ll never even have children to damage if I stay married to Rannaldini, thought Kitty numbly, and a Canada goose that flies in and out of a bird sanctuary isn’t enough.
A pretty young mother was coming out of the shop. She had a sweet child who was trailing a black toy pig by the hand.
Over the hills and far away she danced with Pigling Bland, thought Kitty, biting her lip to stop herself crying.
‘The most important thing,’ Hermione came up on the left, ‘is that Rannaldini needs you. It’s wonderful to feel you are indispensable to a genius.’
&n
bsp; ‘Bob must find it a huge comfort,’ snapped Georgie.
Hermione bowed her head. ‘He does, he does.’
I’m not their age, thought Kitty. I don’t remember advertisements about things looking better on a man. I’m still young and I love Lysander.
Rannaldini, Guy, Georgie and Hermione, bored with anonymity, were not displeased when a big party of foreign tourists stopped them for autographs. Where foreigners had rushed in the shy English were not slow to follow.
‘We really must go,’ laughed Hermione five minutes later.
I love Lysander, he is the father of my child, thought Kitty. Rannaldini had lied and cheated and betrayed her and been utterly, utterly reprehensible. Now he was asking a busty Swedish girl her name so he could personally inscribe her autograph book.
‘We’re having our sixteenth anniversary in October,’ Marigold was saying. ‘Ay suppose we should be awfully grateful to Lysander. We maight not be havin’ it at all if he hadn’t made Larry so jealous.’
‘Home for tea at Valhalla,’ said Rannaldini, putting a warm caressing hand on the back of Kitty’s neck as they walked towards the cars.
‘What a lovely afternoon,’ cried Hermione, smirking as he stroked her bottom with the other hand. ‘Let’s make a regular thing of it.’
Georgie shivered. ‘It’s getting cold.’
‘How d’you think I feel with no coat,’ murmured Guy, then smiling at Kitty. ‘The best part is going home to crumpets and Brickie’s chocolate cake.’
They were all smiling at her now, some of them realizing the extent of her unhappiness and trying to boost her spirits.
‘You look tired, Kitty,’ said Rannaldini when they got back to Valhalla. ‘Miss Bates will get tea. You sit by the fire. Come and see my new toy,’ he added to the others.
65
They all trooped off to admire Rannaldini’s new helicopter. As Kitty went wearily into the house, Lassie danced towards her, striped body weaving and snaking, black-rimmed eyes full of love, peeing on the flagstones in her delight.