Things got stickier when Venetia summoned us to come inside and eat. She’d decided that as there was a wind getting up it was going to be too chilly to spend the whole evening out of doors. Since the back of her dress consisted of about three pieces of ribbon she had reason to be worried about breezes across her bare skin, but to someone used to an English summer the temperature outside was one that would have had back gardens from Richmond to Clapham hidden under a pall of barbecue smoke while everyone said how nice it was to eat outside, and did anyone want another cardigan?
‘Sit where you like,’ she called, waving an airy hand as she carried through plates of pâté and wicker baskets of bread and put them down on the long dining-room table. The result was we milled around uncertainly at one end of the room, everybody waiting for someone else to take the plunge and sit down until Venetia sighed theatrically and took charge. ‘Now, where shall I put you all?’ I had a nasty feeling I knew what was coming next; my ever-increasing powers of prescience were proved right when she turned to me with a broad smile and said, ‘You and Robbie must have loads to catch up on. I’m sure you’d like to sit next to each other.’
Needless to say I didn’t have the bottle to say that actually, no we wouldn’t, but at least I wasn’t as hypocritical as Robert, who murmured that nothing would give him greater pleasure. He was probably thinking in terms of wringing my neck. I shot an accusatory glance at Oscar who widened his eyes in an innocent manner to indicate that no, he hadn’t had anything to do with putting Venetia up to this. I thought I believed him. At least I had Jed on my other side, and since he talked quite enough for two, our end of the table wouldn’t be the deep pool of silence that I’d feared. The only problem was that Maggie, on his other side, was equally determined that she shouldn’t waste a burgeoning tan and a flatteringly cut dress that showed off her considerable bosom to its best advantage on Oscar, and kept laying an elegantly manicured hand on Jed’s arm to gain his attention. My own much reduced endowment simply couldn’t compete; by halfway through the pâté I gave up Jed’s attention as a bad job and decided to concentrate on my plate instead. Better everyone thought that I was greedy rather than that no one wanted to talk to me. And it was jolly good pâté too. I took another bite.
I almost choked on it as Robert turned around to me and said, ‘So, Nella, we’re supposed to be catching up on old times. We’d better do just that.’ It didn’t sound as if he was regarding the prospect with pleasure. ‘Where shall we start...? Seen the inside of any police stations recently?’
For about the first time in my life I obeyed my mother’s instructions to chew my food forty times. ‘Only when I had to go with George,’ I said, when I couldn’t put off swallowing any longer, deciding that wilful misunderstanding was the best approach.
It backfired. Robert’s eyes narrowed with real interest. ‘Who’s George? Someone else you put in chokey?’
I could feel the colour rising up my cheeks. ‘No!’ I hissed, fiercely enough to make Oscar’s head swivel around. ‘A man in another car thought George had cut him up on the A40 and tried to drag him out of the car for a fight. I had to go along as a witness, that’s all.’
‘And George let you make a statement on his behalf? He must be a brave man, foolhardy even.’ I gritted my teeth and stared straight ahead, wondering how long I could stand this before I made the sort of scene that would keep Venetia in a fund of stories for months to come. ‘And where is this George? No longer around presumably, as he’d be here otherwise, so who is there in your life these days?’ Robert went on, making it sound as if it was highly unlikely there was any idiot fool enough to take the position.
I hesitated, wondering whether to lie through my teeth or not. Sadly, even in these days of female empowerment, it still somehow goes against the female grain to admit that you’re, er, celibate. For one thing any suggestion that it’s by your own choice is usually met with a resounding raspberry and a recommendation that you go and relate it to the Marines. But, for once, in my case it really was the truth. I’d given up men for Lent - the débâcle with George the weekend before Lent began made this a much more attractive choice than the normal abstentions from alcohol or chocolate, and I was pleased to say it was the first Lenten resolution that I’d ever kept during Lent itself, let alone for the three months afterwards. Admittedly pneumonia and double doses of extra powerful antibiotics do a far better job than bromide in tea in quieting any restless hormones so it hadn’t been a particular hardship, but I was still able to take the moral high ground here. Except Robert was hardly likely to believe my single state hadn’t been forced on me, nor that I was merely taking my time about deciding which one of the hordes of eager men hankering after me I was going to pick.
I took a swig of wine and made a dismissive gesture, trying to look the epitome of cool without, I feared, an enormous amount of success. ‘Oh well, you never know. George and I might get back together again,’ I said, hoping mightily that Oscar’s long ears hadn’t caught that particular statement. ‘It’s been mentioned a few times.’ Not by me, but that wasn’t the point. In any case the thought of George was growing steadily more attractive by the moment; we might have had the odd difference of opinion over such subjects as my unreasonable addiction to feminism, aka not agreeing with George, but it had been peaceful going out with him. He was steady, reliable and I hadn’t been constantly on tenterhooks about what verbal shaft he might be about to aim at me. I usually knew what he was going to say next. And he’d been faithful too, I thought with a dark glance at my tormentor who looked as if he was preparing to launch another volley.
Luckily for my overstretched nerves, Venetia got up to check the oven and asked if someone would be kind enough to begin collecting plates. I leaped to my feet and started to clear my end of the table with a speed that would have done justice to a waitress in a fast food restaurant. I even offered to put them in the dishwasher once I’d staggered through with my heavy load. As I’d hoped, by the time I’d returned with the next course Robert’s attention had been thoroughly claimed by Sally who was absolutely determined not to let it go. She looked up at him with wide eyes, just as good in her own way of playing on her femininity as Maggie was, and asked how he’d got involved in the gallery business. I sat down with my ears flapping, delighted at this opportunity to gain information without actually being seen to ask for it. He cheerfully admitted it was by chance; after he’d dropped out he’d taken any old job that came along if it paid enough to cover the rent, and had taken a temporary post with a small gallery in Chiswick. He’d discovered he had a knack for selling pictures, and more importantly a good eye, had moved on to something bigger until he was now, as he said, mortgaged up to the hilt to provide his share of the business. ‘It’s hardly the cutting edge of modem art. We leave “statements” to other galleries, and deal mainly in the sort of picture that won’t actually frighten your auntie, even if she doesn’t particularly like it. But we do, which is the important thing, even if it doesn’t exactly earn us a packet.’
I wondered how long he’d be allowed to go on like this before Venetia started chipping in. Mortgaged up to the hilt wasn’t her style. I expect she enjoyed ‘statements’ too; especially the profitable sort that got written up in the papers. It would be an interesting clash of wills. I couldn’t see Robert giving up easily, yet she had the water-dripping-on-a-stone sort of persistence.
I came back into the conversation to hear Sally, who though she didn’t have the obvious pazazz and forceful personality of her friend, was equally tenacious, telling Robert that what he needed to send the gallery stratospheric was a proper campaign educating the public about the long-term value of works of art. After all, the average person would happily spend £1000 on a holiday that lasted two weeks but grudged £500 on a picture that was going to last for life...
I thought she was making several good points, but as I knew any contribution by me would be neither sought nor welcomed by either party, I kept quiet. After five minut
es or so he put up his hands in a gesture of laughing surrender and promised to speak to her about it when they were both back in London, but like any well-trained terrier with a bone she continued to keep him too occupied for him to be able to aim any more of his needle-like comments at me. I talked to Jed, or rather he talked to me, but that didn’t matter. I’m quite capable of eating and listening and the chicken was delicious. I didn’t remember Venetia being interested in cooking and said as much when I was clearing plates again at the end of the main course.
‘I’m not,’ she said blithely. ‘I got it out of the freezer. Was it any good? I barely tasted it, much too fatty for me. Food like that goes straight to the hips, and frankly once you start approaching thirty you can’t afford even a few ounces of extra weight. It’s much harder to get rid of and you’ve got to remember that everything starts to sag unless you’re very careful,’ she ended on a note of complete doom.
I backed up against the wirefronted dresser so that my own, no doubt heavily sagging, posterior was decently hidden and tried to smother the guilty memory of my second helping, but then I hadn’t had very much the first time round. I hoped that Venetia hadn’t seen either portion, or how much pâté I’d eaten before. I was prepared to bet she hadn’t allowed more than a morsel of that to have passed her lips either. No wonder she had such a wonderful figure. ‘It was still very good,’ I said as I was stacking the plates. ‘Did Janey make it?’
‘I expect so. She’s keen on cooking - usually things loaded with calories and cholesterol.’ She sniffed slightly. ‘Well, you can see from her figure that she’s not exactly addicted to Slimfast, can’t you?’
I turned around and looked at her, startled by the amount of naked venom in her voice. ‘You really don’t like her, do you?’ I asked unnecessarily.
Venetia stared at me over the rim of her glass before saying in an offhand way, ‘How would you like it if your father was cavorting around with someone who’s only three years older than you are?’
I blinked and tried hard for a moment to consider the unlikely prospect of my staid and somewhat rotund parent cavorting with anyone, let alone a woman the age of my sister, but gave up the task as hopeless. However I could see that having such a young stepmother wouldn’t be easy and said so, which mollified Venetia a bit. Unfortunately I then blew it by adding, ‘But your father was alone for so long after your mother died. It must be nice for him to have company.’
Venetia laughed in a very theatrical way, and had another glug of wine. ‘Come on, Nella, how naïve are you?’ she asked in a pitying voice. ‘Daddy’s never lacked for company; he’s always had loads of women running after him. And it’s not just because he’s rich and has a nice house.’ Yes, I agreed with her that there were a lot of very attractive things about Tom Morrison other than his bank balance. ‘There’s no way he’d have married someone like Janey if she hadn’t trapped him into it.’
‘Trap him?’ I repeated. ‘How do you trap someone into marriage these days?’
‘With the oldest trick in the book, of course,’ she said contemptuously. ‘She got pregnant. Daddy’s the old-fashioned sort, if a girlfriend gets into trouble a man’s honour bound to marry her. Janey isn’t stupid, she must have cottoned on to what type of person he is and knew she wasn’t going to get another chance at landing someone like him. So she flings herself at him, of course he succumbs - she’s not unattractive if you like them like that - and bingo! She conveniently “forgets” to take her pill.’
‘It was probably just an accident,’ I said in a soothing voice. I’d already realised Venetia didn’t like Janey; only someone who never looked further than their own navel could have failed to notice that, but this was something else. Was it the fallout from what presumably had been a fairly charged encounter about the gate being left open again, or the amount Venetia had drunk this evening responsible for this outburst?
‘Oh come on! Don’t you swallow that line too,’ she said sharply. ‘Women don’t have contraception accidents these days.’ She swung around to face me. ‘Have you ever had one?’
‘Um, no,’ I said.
‘Me neither,’ she said as if that proved it. ‘Of course the moment Janey told Daddy she was pregnant and keeping the baby, he said he’d marry her. And they didn’t even do it quietly; they insisted on having a big do and by that time Janey was five months’ gone. You should see the wedding photographs - she’s absolutely enormous! It was so embarrassing. I don’t know what people must have thought.’
The masculine viewpoint had probably been that Tom must be some sort of super-stud to have scored so obviously with a pretty woman twenty years younger than himself, and what had he got that they hadn’t? Except this wasn’t something I could say to his daughter. I shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot and wished I could think of a nice innocuous change of subject that wouldn’t be too obvious when the door swung open and Robert came in, saying we’d been ages and did we need any help?
‘Just coming, we’ve been waiting for the sorbets to soften up,’ said Venetia airily, picking them up from the side. ‘We got to gossiping about... cooking, didn’t we, Nella?’
I nodded and she smiled in relief, though Robert looked surprised. She walked through to the dining room carrying the sorbets and putting one foot in front of the other with enormous care. I noticed that she stuck to water for the rest of the evening.
We were on the point of leaving, hanging around in the hall with the dogs milling about our feet, waiting for Sally who’d gone to the loo. Everyone was looking at the ornaments and photographs on the huge oak table along one wall and eyeing up the pictures on the walls.
‘Oh, isn’t this pretty!’ exclaimed Maggie, pointing to a small oil painting of two children playing on a beach under a sky so brilliantly blue that it couldn’t have been England. A small boy in the background was examining something in the sand closely; to the front, an exquisitely pretty girl in the white pinafore of a well-brought-up Edwardian child was holding up a delicately whorled shell in triumph. Her broad-brimmed hat had been pushed right back and from underneath it, her hair, a distinctive light red, streamed down her back in windblown disarray. ‘The girl - it could almost be Venetia.’
‘It’s her grandmother, I think. I remember her telling me about this,’ I said and called her over.
‘Actually, it’s Great Granny and her brother on the beach near Le Touquet. Fancy you remembering,’ Venetia said, looking pleased.
She had banged on about it at some length, on more than one occasion, so it was hardly surprising actually. ‘It’s lovely,’ I said, taking another look. ‘No wonder you’re so fond of it. It’s a... Sydney, isn’t it?’
Venetia nodded earnestly. ‘You’ll have heard of Willard Sydney, of course,’ she said to Charlie and Phil who had wandered over to join us. They both tried to look as if they had, but she told them anyway. ‘He was one of the leading English Post-Impressionists, a member of the Camden Town Group for a while,’ everybody nodded knowledgeably, ‘and his pictures are very sought after. But there aren’t many, as he had consumption and was too ill to paint a lot.’ She pointed at the picture proudly. ‘This is one of the few left in private hands. He was on holiday and supposed to be having a complete rest, and used to see two children playing on the beach when he went there in his invalid chair for a breath of sea air. He never spoke to them or found out their names, but he thought he’d never seen such an enchanting child as Great Granny.’ Venetia looked slightly self-conscious, well aware how much of a dead ringer she was for her granny. ‘Anyway, he did a whole series of sketches of her and Great Uncle Ozzie in secret; his wife didn’t even know he’d got his sketchbook with him. He painted this picture from memory when he got home and exhibited it at the Summer Exhibition, where Great Granny’s aunt saw it and recognised the children. Once he was introduced to Great Granny he gave her the picture and promised he’d paint her again when she was presented at court.’ Venetia made a face. ‘But he died before he could do it.’
‘What a tragic story,’ said Maggie. ‘No wonder you treasure it so much.’
‘Are you leaving it here until you have a proper place of your own for it?’ I asked, and when Maggie turned to look at me as if I was completely mad, I explained: ‘Venetia’s grandmother gave it to her ages ago because she’s so like the little girl.’
‘No, she didn’t,’ Venetia said shortly, her face setting like stone. ‘She always said it was mine, but when she died two years ago it turned out that she’d left everything outright to Daddy, though I’m sure she still intended he should pass it on to me. But Daddy said it wouldn’t be fair to Janey, it’s too valuable.’
Oops. Nil points to Tom for tactfulness there. How to make your daughter loathe your new wife in one easy step. No doubt Venetia thought it had been Janey’s idea to hang onto the picture and if it had been left up to her doting father, he would have handed it over calmly as anything.
‘Mm, too pretty-pretty for my taste, but I can see it suits Venetia perfectly,’ Charlie muttered in my ear and said out loud, ‘Shouldn’t a Willard Sydney be in a gallery somewhere, guarded by a seriously sophisticated security system? Isn’t it an enormous risk having it hanging in a private house?’
‘Daddy says it’s one of the advantages of living in France,’ Venetia said lightly. ‘French burglars don’t rate English Post-Impressionists very highly - same sort of snobbishness about our art as they have about our food. Besides, our alarm system is pretty good and it even works most of the time, though it goes a bit funny if there are too many powercuts and then someone from Bordeaux has to come out and fix it. And the dogs bark like mad whenever someone they don’t know comes to the house. They had the alarm engineer trapped in his van for about half an hour last time he came, so all in all they’re probably a much more effective security system than the alarm.’
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