Pandora

by Jilly Cooper

  ‘Put them on the side,’ hissed Mrs Robens. ‘Mr Belvedon’s given me that wretched dishwasher. Can’t get to grips with it at all. I’m not risking coffee cups worth five hundred pounds. After he’s gone, I’ll wash everything by hand.’

  ‘I’ll show you how to work it later,’ hissed back David.

  After Raymond had finally dragged himself away and Robens had gone to skittles, David despatched the furious boys to bed and dined on macaroni cheese and summer pudding in the kitchen with Mrs Robens. Immediately he steered the conversation onto Jupiter.

  ‘The little bastard deliberately serves balls into Alizarin’s back, and yesterday hit him on the ankle with a croquet ball.’

  ‘Jupiter, being the first son, was the apple of everyone’s eye,’ said Mrs Robens as she filled up their glasses with cider. ‘Then Al comes along, sickly, not nearly so bonny, but his mother loved him to death. And he’s such a dear little fellow – like his dad. Raymond gave me that dishwasher because he says I work too hard.’

  ‘You do, it’s a brilliantly run house. Such wonderful sugar biscuits, such a shine on the furniture, I’ve never stayed in such a well-appointed spare room.’ No need to point out he’d never stayed in a spare room at all.

  Mrs Robens turned pink.

  ‘Robbie and I came here when we first married. Old Mrs Belvedon trained me. Like Raymond she was only interested in seeing her guests were comfortable and happy. “Look after my Raymond,” she pleaded, when she and Raymond’s dad moved to France. Galena’s not a cherisher.’

  After a third glass of cider, Mrs Robens confessed she only stayed because of Raymond and the boys.

  Here we go, thought David happily.

  ‘Isn’t Galena a good wife?’

  ‘Not for me to say,’ said Mrs Robens and did. ‘All those letters marked Private piling up for her?’

  ‘Let’s get out the kettle and steam them open.’

  ‘Get on with you.’

  They both jumped guiltily as the telephone rang.

  David took it in the hall.

  ‘May I speak to Mrs Belvedon?’ It was a toff’s voice, clipped, light, yet curiously arrogant.

  ‘I’m afraid she’s away.’

  ‘When’s she back?’

  ‘We don’t know.’

  ‘Tell her Rupert rang.’

  ‘That must be Rupert Campbell-Black.’ Mrs Robens puffed out her cheeks, going even redder in the face. ‘He was at the Bath and West Show earlier this summer, phoned once or twice – trouble if you ask me.’

  Not yet twenty-one, Rupert Campbell-Black was the enfant terrible of British showjumping, as beautiful as he was bloody minded.

  ‘Mrs Belvedon’s old enough to be his grandmother,’ said David, appalled.

  ‘Never stopped her in the past. He’s Jupiter’s hero.’

  ‘That figures, monsters attract little monsters.’

  ‘Would you like some coffee?’ said Mrs Robens.

  Both felt they had gone too far.

  ‘I wish I could help,’ sighed David.

  ‘You have already. The boys are much happier, and Raymond’s more relaxed and staying home more. He’s such a good kind man.’

  Raymond might be the ‘parfit gentil knight’, thought David disapprovingly, but, like the knight in chess, he slid to one side to avoid confrontation. He should have beaten the hell out of Jupiter for terrorizing Alizarin, and out of Galena for neglecting both the boys and himself.

  Gradually, David set about making himself indispensable to his new boss, opening bottles, collecting newspapers, helping him with research for an Old Masters exhibition, boosting Raymond’s shattered self-esteem by asking his advice.

  ‘How does one get rid of girls without hurting them?’

  He also took charge of the telephone, fending off collectors, artists and hostesses who, avid for a handsome spare man now Galena was away, were equally demanding.

  ‘Mr Belvedon’s been overworking, he needs peace,’ David told all of them.

  He also saved Raymond hurt, fielding calls from Galena’s admirers, trying to distinguish the different accents: French, German, Cornish and clipped upper-class: ‘Where the fuck is she?’ which he assumed was Rupert Campbell-Black again.

  Filled out with Mrs Robens’s good food, David drifted round in shorts, his smooth skin warming to the colour of butterscotch.

  ‘Let me run you a bath, Raymond,’ he would suggest, or, having persuaded Raymond to take off his shirt, ‘Let me oil you,’ and feel Raymond quivering with longing beneath his languid tender caresses.

  How could he ever have thought David’s Yorkshire accent boorish? wondered Raymond. It was such a long time since he’d been stroked by anyone. Did he imagine it, or during tennis games, did David bend over a fraction too long retrieving a ball, to show off white jutting buttocks above tanned thighs? Aesthetically offended by David’s cheap wardrobe, Raymond threw out a lot of old Harvie & Hudson shirts, which had gone in the collar.

  Flush with his new salary David bought Raymond the latest recording of Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune, with its haunting theme of emerging sexuality on a hot summer afternoon.

  Unfaithful to Parsifal, Raymond played the LP repeatedly, dreaming of David joining the gallery when he came down from Cambridge in a year’s time. What a joy and asset he’d be.

  At the beginning of the third week, deciding he couldn’t justify any more time at home, Raymond flew to Aberdeenshire, where some bachelor laird had died, leaving a large collection of pictures. The boys were spending the day with friends. The Robenses had the day off. David decided to snoop. He was irked to find the door to the Blue Tower was locked.

  Thwarted, he explored Galena’s dressing room below, removing the stopper of a big bottle of Mitsouko, breathing in its sweet, musky, disturbing smell. He opened Galena’s wardrobe, billowing with brilliantly coloured silks and taffetas, then jumped out of his sweating skin, as the telephone rang.

  ‘Dear boy’ – it was Raymond calling from Scotland – ‘if only you were here, such marvellous watercolours, I’ll be home around seven, but in case I forget, can you put a date in the diary? Sir Mervyn Newton and his daughter Rosemary are driving up from Cornwall on Thursday week to buy a picture for his wife’s sixtieth birthday. He’s bought Casey Andrews and Etienne de Montigny before, so we must remember to hang a few on the walls. But he might go for an Old Master this time. I’ve invited them to supper.’

  Just as David was writing ‘Supper Sir Mervyn Newton’ on the wall calendar in the study, Raymond telephoned again in complete panic.

  ‘Galena’s just rung, she’s landing at Heathrow at four o’clock. It’s an Air France flight from Paris. I don’t get into Birmingham until six. Can you meet her? Is Mrs Robbie there?’

  ‘It’s her day off, but she’s left a cold supper,’ said David soothingly. ‘The boys won’t be back till after seven.’

  ‘Take the Rover.’

  Wanting something more flash, David took the E-Type.

  The country had reached the stage when it needed a good haircut. Blond grasses rusted with docks collapsed in the fields, awaiting the tractors which were in other fields sailing across bleached stubble, piling up bales like tower blocks. As the temperature soared into the nineties, the smell of new-mown hay drifted through the window each time David slowed down, which was not often. The E-Type was superb once he got the hang of it.

  He was excited, yet nervous of meeting Galena. At least on the drive home he intended to give her a piece of his muddled mind – he felt she treated Raymond so appallingly. Having parked the car at Heathrow, he dived into the Gents to wash off the sweat and comb his hair. Thank God it had grown a bit and he had a great tan. Perhaps he should have worn trousers instead of frayed denim shorts, but Raymond had begged him to hurry. Out in the arrivals lounge, all the women eyed him up.

  ‘“In the summertime, you can reach up and touch the sky,”’ sang David happily.

  Next moment he was spitting
. Why hadn’t anyone told him Galena was at least eight months pregnant? She came striding through the barrier, trailing men, who were buckling under easels, canvasses, suitcases, and pushing trolleys groaning with duty free. A French army officer was even carrying her handbag.

  David would have recognized her instantly, such was the force of her personality, and the wafts of the same sweet heavy Mitsouko that had hung around her dressing room this afternoon. Instead of a wedding ring on her left hand, a huge ruby glowed. A scarlet cheesecloth smock clung to her breasts and swollen belly. She looked about to pop. But unlike most heavily pregnant women, she didn’t waddle, she prowled like a huntress.

  ‘Mrs Belvedon?’ David approached her cautiously.

  Galena looked him up and down, taking in the streaked blond hair flopping over the freckled forehead and Raymond’s blue-striped shirt, with the collar cut off, unbuttoned to reveal a smooth gold chest, and promptly bid farewell to her fleet of porters.

  ‘It is good being pregnant,’ she told David, ‘I was given first-class seat, champagne, and all those men carry my things.’

  Despite living in England for nearly nine years, her Slav accent was still very strong, her voice deep and husky. David was worried there wouldn’t be room for all her luggage; as it was he had to make three journeys to the car park.

  Only when they were safely on the motorway did he steal a second glance. Close up, she wasn’t beautiful. Her make-up was old fashioned, too much eyeliner on the heavy lids, too much blood-red lipstick. Her broad nose was too low in her face, her dark hair streaked with grey and needing washing. As well as Mitsouko, he could smell BO and brandy fumes. She’d clearly had more than champagne on the flight.

  His mother would have been appalled. She didn’t approve of pregnant women drinking or wearing such short dresses. Galena had wonderful ankles although a few black hairs were sprouting on them. His cousin Denise had had hippopotamus’s ankles when she was pregnant.

  Galena was now slotting a fag into her drooping red mouth, not offering him one, demanding a light, sending him fumbling round the unfamiliar dashboard.

  ‘Good trip?’ he asked.

  ‘I was vorking.’

  ‘When’s your baby due?’

  ‘In one hour.’

  David went green. What happened if her waters broke all over Raymond’s beloved car? Would they be flooded out? Might he have to deliver the baby in a lay-by? He speeded up, then slowed down as the car bumped over a dead rabbit. He didn’t want to jolt her into giving birth any quicker. Raymond and Mrs Robens should have bloody well told him.

  Deciding to soothe her with flattery, he told her her pictures, all over the house, were wonderful.

  ‘Too accessible.’

  ‘But so beautiful.’

  ‘Great art should never seem beautiful on first acquaintance. I hate my first dry Martini, and my first blow job.’ Seeing the shock on David’s face, she burst out laughing.

  ‘How are my boys?’

  ‘Fine – sweet.’

  ‘Sveet! Jupiter!’ Galena’s unplucked ebony eyebrows vanished under her fringe.

  ‘He’s highly intelligent,’ said David firmly. ‘Yesterday he nearly strangled a boy in the village for bullying Alizarin.’

  ‘Hates anyone taking over his job.’ Galena shrugged. ‘Perhaps he learn. And Alizarin?’ Her voice softened.

  ‘A genius, I can’t teach him anything,’ said David, reaching into the dashboard. ‘This is a drawing he did of me.’

  ‘Alizarin has third eye, sees vot other people don’t.’

  Galena was pleased with the sketch, but soon distracted.

  ‘I met Picasso in Paris.’

  ‘My God.’ David nearly rammed the car in front. ‘What was he like?’

  ‘Very old, but still attractive; he give me the hot eye.’

  Coals to Newcastle, thought David, Galena’s eyes could scorch the blond hairs off his chest.

  ‘Raymond tell me you were spitting image of Raphael’s St John Evangelista.’

  ‘He did?’

  ‘Patron saint of virgins.’

  David wished she wouldn’t make such risqué remarks.

  ‘When’s your next exhibition?’ he asked.

  ‘Too soon. How’s my husband?’

  ‘Wonderful, the nicest person I’ve ever met.’

  ‘And I’m the nastiest.’ Laughing uproariously, Galena lit one cigarette from another, dropping the first on the floor.

  If the car catches fire, perhaps her waters will break and put it out, thought David sourly.

  As they came off the motorway, nature seemed to be putting on a huge banquet to welcome Galena. Every elderbush was covered in lacy tablemats. Hogweed, like plates borne aloft by waiters, crowded every verge.

  ‘Raymond and I have huge row when he announce you are coming,’ said Galena. ‘I vas furious that he provide dull youth to bore me in evenings, but’ – she glanced at David under her eyelashes – ‘maybe you vill do.’

  Here’s to you, Mrs Robinson, thought David smugly.

  ‘But perhaps’ – Galena gave her deep throaty laugh again – ‘Raymond provide himself with little catamite?’

  ‘Certainly not,’ exploded David, going crimson, ‘that’s the last thing.’

  Desperate to change the subject, he asked her what presents she had bought for the boys.

  ‘Nothing, I forget. Raymond can have brandy, I only drink little from bottle.’ Then, seeing David’s look of disapproval: ‘Children are given too much in England.

  As a child I was lucky to get present at Christmas.’

  David’s disapproval cost him. Galena borrowed his last fiver to buy a box of Quality Street for the boys in Cirencester and kept the change, which meant he couldn’t escape to the Goat in Boots this evening if she and Raymond had a row. Arriving at Foxes Court, she bounded into the house.

  ‘Where would you like these put?’ he asked sulkily, having humped all her loot into the hall.

  ‘I’d like you to open a bottle of red.’

  She was flipping through her skyscraper of post. Opening two blue envelopes marked Private, skimming the contents, she smirked, and shoved the letters into her bag. She then insisted he had a drink with her.

  ‘Bit early, the boys might want to play tennis.’

  ‘Don’t be a little prude.’

  When he had filled two glasses, she drained hers in one gulp, then groaned and clutched her belly.

  ‘My baby is due. Help! I am in labour.’

  ‘Oh my God, I’ll phone the hospital.’

  But next minute, Galena had whipped up her scarlet dress to reveal strong white thighs, a pair of knickers as red as the wine she’d just drunk, edged with curls of black pubic hair. Tied round her waist, resting on her flat belly, was a huge leather money bag. Next moment, she had unzipped it, and, roaring with laughter, was scooping out hundreds of notes and throwing them in the air so they fluttered all over the room.

  ‘This is my beautiful baby. I sell eight pictures. This vay I pay no tax.’

  As she chucked the empty money bag on the sofa, a car door slammed and the boys came racing in. Alizarin couldn’t speak, he just mouthed in ecstasy, then threw himself into Galena’s arms. Jupiter paused, casting an eye over the green carpet of money.

  ‘Mummy go a-hunting,’ crowed Galena, then scooping up a handful of notes divided them between the boys. ‘The banks will change it. David will find chocolate I buy you. He tell me you paint very well, darling.’ She smiled at Alizarin. ‘And you do everything else brilliant,’ she added vaguely to Jupiter.

  You cow, thought David. And for a woman who was alleged to have such contempt for commercialism, she’d got a very shrewd business head.

  For a moment, she bombarded the boys with questions, then the telephone rang. Galena took it in the study.

  ‘That vas Etienne,’ she announced when she emerged ten minutes later, slap into Raymond who was accompanied by Maud, who, forgetting her rheumatism, was leaping joyfully
around him.

  ‘Don’t let her tear the money,’ cried Jupiter in horror and, helped by David, he started shovelling it back into the money bag.

  Over their bowed heads and scrabbling hands, Raymond and Galena gazed at each other. Like so many high-complexioned Englishmen, Raymond quadrupled his good looks with a tan. His brushed back hair was striped black and grey like corduroy, his upper lip stiff as papier mâché, long dark lashes tipped with grey fringed the hurt, bewildered turquoise-blue eyes. As he kissed his wife, his hands were clenched to stop them trembling.

  ‘You’re very brown,’ she mocked him. ‘While I vork, you enjoy yourself. See, you are not the only person in this house who sell picture. I sell five to a friend of Etienne’s, three to a collector from Munich who wants four more.’

  ‘That’s awfully good,’ said Raymond slowly.

  ‘And you bring me St John Evangelista, who was horrified when I fooled him I vas about to give birth.’ Her eyes slid towards David. ‘Is that a hint for me to become more virginal?’

  ‘Can we stay up for supper?’ begged Alizarin.

  ‘That mean ve dine too early.’ Galena glanced at her watch. ‘I vant to paint for a couple of hours. Ve’ll have dinner at nine. You can stay up tomorrow. For now you can help David take my stuff upstairs.’

  Grabbing the bottle of red, she wandered out through the french windows.

  What a bitch, thought David, what an absolutely horrible, bloody gorgeous bitch.

  Galena didn’t return from her studio until eleven o’clock, by which time David was drunk and Raymond deathly pale and beyond eating.

  ‘Painting is like a drug to my wife,’ he told David apologetically, ‘she probably hasn’t done much while abroad, and was desperate for a fix.’

  Life changed completely after Galena came home. Meal-times were awry. Everyone fought for her attention. The household trembled when her work was going badly. Life was a series of deep glooms followed by irresistible high spirits. David was in turmoil: the more he disapproved, the more he was captivated.

  Working late, Galena slept under the stars on the flat roof of her studio, then wandered out naked into the garden to paint, dipping her brushes in the stream. As the heatwave increased its stranglehold and the earth cracked, David and Robens fought over the watering, so they could surreptitiously watch her. Her body had thickened, no longer as good as she thought it was, but David was mesmerized by the sight of her swimming naked, the mirror on the bottom of the pool reflecting her bush whisking up and down like some furry water rat.