Tom had asked the Australians back to Château du Pré for a slap-up supper and a general wallowing in the brilliance of their performance.
‘We must try to get together tomorrow, it’s our last day,’ Venetia called, leaning out of the car window as she drove off, narrowly missing an antique stone planter packed with white trailing geraniums on the edge of the drive. I saw Robert, sitting next to her in the front, wince and wondered if he was about to decide that, come what may, his knee was sufficiently recovered for him to do all the driving.
The storm hung around on the edges of the horizon, crowning all the distant hills with dark purple and grey, occasionally rumbling to let us know it was there and hadn’t actually gone away but never moving close enough to obscure the patch of blue sky above the cottage. It made for some strange light effects and Oscar, who fancies himself as a bit of a nifty photographer when he’s not earning a fortune manipulating the money markets, dashed inside the moment we got back to change into shorts and went out again with some highly expensive equipment to see if he could capture it all on film. Somewhat to my surprise, Phil elected to go with him.
‘Good,’ said Maggie as the two men left. ‘At least it means Phil will have a chance to work off some of the booze he’s consumed today before he starts all over again this evening.’
I murmured to Sally, ‘It also gives him an excuse to get out of helping with supper.’
To my horror Maggie heard. She turned around and there was a pause while I wondered if the salad bowl she was holding was about to be cracked over my head for impertinence, then to my utter amazement she laughed. ‘Phil isn’t the most shining example of a new man, is he? Here, can you chop up these herbs for the salad dressing, Nella? You always do them nice and fine.’
Was she on happy pills or something? Maybe that old holiday magic was beginning to kick in at last. Whatever, Maggie’s sunny mood set the tone for the most relaxed evening we’d had since we’d arrived. We didn’t tempt Fate by eating outside and sat around the old oak table at one end of the sitting room, staying there long after we’d all finished eating while the shadows lengthened and the sky began to darken.
The thunder was coming closer. Maggie jumped slightly at one louder rumble and I wondered if that was her one weakness, a fear of storms. But it was still some way away and we were settling down to playing poker for matchsticks with a pack of cards Sally had found at the back of a cupboard when we heard a car pulling up outside and Venetia came in, followed by Robert and Oz.
‘Janey thought you might not know how to reset the electricity if it goes off - and it usually does during thunderstorms. She didn’t come herself as she’s gone to bed - she’s not feeling very well, she says. She certainly didn’t look too good, I must say,’ Venetia added with cheerful unconcern, ‘so I thought I’d better come down and show you myself.’
‘And Oz and I decided we could do with a break from a run-by-run reprise of the greatest match since W.G. Grace first laid his mitts on a bat,’ said Robert with feeling. I wasn’t surprised Janey had strategically retired to bed.
Our visitors didn’t appear to be in a hurry to return to the château. Oz said he had a nasty feeling Tom and Carlton would have moved onto the Bodyline tour by now. At this Phil pricked up his ears - until Maggie informed him that Bodyline had nothing to do with underwear.
While Oscar found clean glasses and Phil and Charlie dealt with the serious masculine business of finding out what they were supposed to do in a power cut - this largely consisted of watching Venetia while she opened the door to the fuse box, I just hoped they took their eyes off her behind for long enough to take note of which button she was pointing to - I was sent off to the kitchen to make coffee. Even I, who fondly likes to imagine I have nerves of steel, jumped at the next crack of thunder which was so loud it felt as if the bang was about two feet above my head. I swore as the tin of coffee slipped from my fingers, bounced off the edge of the draining board and fell in the sink, though the genie in charge of kitchen mishaps must have been distracted for a moment, since the tin didn’t promptly burst open as they usually do when there’s lots of nice difficult-to-clear-up powdery stuff inside.
‘Are you all right, Nella?’ asked Charlie, poking his head around the door.
‘Fine, just dropped the coffee,’ I said, trying to dry the tin with the tea towel. The kitchen genie had made sure the sink was full of tepid washing-up water. I had a feeling my newfound accord with Maggie wouldn’t last long if she discovered that I’d given her special coffee, bought from an exclusive specialist shop in a hard-to-find backstreet, a nice bath.
‘That all?’ he asked, rolling his eyes. ‘From the noise I thought you must have smashed the pot at the very least.’
‘I didn’t,’ said Robert from behind him. ‘Nella used to make a devil of a racket even when she only dropped a pencil. It’s nice to know that some things don’t change in this uncertain world.’
‘Have you two come in solely to make smart alec remarks or are you going to be some use?’ I demanded. ‘I could do with that tray being carried out for starters.’
‘She’s still bossy too,’ Robert remarked in an aside.
I might have thrown something at him, not Maggie’s precious coffee, when the darkness outside the window was lit up by a searing flash, the room seemed to shake with a simultaneous crash of thunder and the lights flickered a couple of times, then went out. I had just picked up the full pot and stood uncertainly, not daring to move too quickly in case I slopped coffee over myself or Charlie, who I could hear feeling his way into the kitchen in search of the box of matches by the cooker. ‘Have we got any candles in here?’ he asked.
‘There’s a box in one of the drawers I think, but I’m not sure which one. Maggie took most of them through to the sitting room,’ I said as I inched my way towards the table, feeling for the surface with my free hand.
‘Maggie says she’s lighting her candles and will bring one straight through for you,’ said Robert, his voice sounding unusually deep in the darkness. My fingers met wood and I set the pot down cautiously, amazed at what should be such a mundane task becoming so difficult when you literally can’t see anything.
I squeaked with surprise as my fingers brushed something warm and moving. ‘It’s only me,’ murmured Charlie, who must have been able to move with a cat-like speed and silence, not to say cat-like ability to see in the dark for I’d thought he was still over the other side of the kitchen.
‘You’re lucky you didn’t get hot coffee tipped all over you,’ I said a bit indistinctly, for in the darkness I could feel a hand, I presumed it was his, curl over mine and pull me towards him until I was near enough to feel his breath playing on my face. His other hand cupped my cheek, a circling thumb tracing little movements at the comer of my mouth and sending delicious little shivers through me. It was all so unexpected that I couldn’t move, not that I wanted to, frankly. I was enjoying this little adventure in the dark very much indeed.
There was a shout of triumph from Phil as the lights came on, flooding the kitchen with dazzling brightness. I could only hope that Robert’s eyes were still adjusting to the light as I shot backwards, but I had a nasty feeling he’d had all too good a view.
We hadn’t actually been doing anything, I told myself, though anybody who walked in would have presumed that we had from the ridiculously guilty expressions on our faces. At least I imagined that mine was mirroring Charlie’s. And of course it would have to be Maggie who appeared with a candle seconds later, though her view of the tableau was impeded by Robert, who was blocking the doorway, muttering apologies that his knee had gone into spasm and he couldn’t move for the moment.
Mustering all my acting ability, I said as calmly as I could, ‘Thanks for the candle, Maggie, I wasn’t sure where they were.’ I smiled weakly at Charlie, avoiding direct eye contact. ‘We’d better take this through while we can still see. If you’ll take the tray, I’ll bring the pot.’ Somewhat to my surprise, since a
cting isn’t my forte, Maggie’s suspicious look didn’t fade completely, but she didn’t leap in with the immediate denunciations that I feared either. Charlie picked up the tray and walked out without giving me a second glance.
I might have put the whole incident down to my over-active imagination if it hadn’t been for Robert, who said quietly as I passed, ‘Into bloodsports, Nella?’ I looked at him curiously and he added grimly, ‘Because there’ll definitely be blood spilt if you’re seen to go after another of the boyfriends in this cottage.’
‘Hey, come on,’ I protested quietly so my words didn’t carry down the passage. ‘I did not go after Phil.’
He shrugged. ‘OK. I’ll give you that,’ and whatever else he was going to say was lost as Phil, sounding very pleased with himself, shouted, ‘Those of us who bring light to the needy are thirsty. Where’s that coffee, wench?’
‘Coming!’ I called as with perfect timing the lights went out again.
CHAPTER 15
Robert, Venetia and Oz had been pulled into the poker game and ended up by not leaving until the small hours of the morning, by which time nearly everyone around the table had lost millions in matchstick currency, the biggest losses being mine. I was told kindly by Oscar as he was raking in the last of my ‘cash’ that I didn’t have the right sort of face for poker. Maybe I am a little transparent but I suspected he could see my cards as well; he was doing a suspicious amount of leaning back in his chair. I then had immense satisfaction in seeing him wiped out by Charlie, an intense player who took the most outrageous risks and was always teetering either on the brink of enormous matchstick riches or bankruptcy, but the biggest surprise of all was Venetia whose instinct of when to raise or throw in was uncanny. She merely smiled when we complimented her and said, ‘Do you remember Jack who had the private gambling club, Nella? I worked for him as a croupier for a while.’ Aha, we all nodded wisely. Inside knowledge - that explained it.
The storm blew itself out with much crashing and banging during the night. Fortunately the electricity was back on again when I got up, otherwise the Dunkirk spirit so much in evidence last night might have failed miserably if everyone had got up to find the kettle wasn’t working. It was such a beautiful morning that I decided to duck out of bread-buying duty and go for a walk while it was still cool enough to be a real pleasure.
However it wasn’t nearly so cool out in the middle of the vineyard as it had seemed in the shade of the kitchen, and after about ten minutes I discovered an annoying hedge, just too wide to climb over, blocking my way down to the little river in the valley where I’d been planning to go. I sat down under a tree to rest when a whirling mass of spotted energy burst into view and started cavorting around me smiling and sneezing, followed closely by Solomon who had his nose so intently to the ground that he ran right into my outstretched legs.
I patted both dogs, hoping it wasn’t the smell of my feet Solomon had been tracking so keenly. My plimsolls might be old but I had washed them twice before I packed them.
Janey appeared at the end of a row of vines a couple of seconds later, head sunk low on her shoulders, hands stuck in the pockets of her shorts, feet scuffing up little clouds of dirt as she went. The only resemblance she bore to the person who had been having such fun at the cricket match dreaming up naughty little tricks to put the opposing team off their swing was in hair colour and a certain similarity in feature, though everything else seemed to have sagged and aged infinitely overnight. She was so lost in what were obviously deeply gloomy thoughts that she visibly jumped when I said hello.
‘Sorry,’ she said, forcing a smile. ‘I wasn’t concentrating. You’re up early.’
‘I couldn’t sleep.’
‘No, neither could I,’ she said. That was evident to anyone from her waxy pallor and the deep shadows under her eyes. For a moment it seemed as if she was going to plod on by then she flopped down alongside me under the tree and put her arms around her knees. ‘What was your problem?’ she asked in an uninterested voice, so unlike her normal curious self that I began to feel alarmed. Had she received some bad news when she got home? But surely Venetia, the arch gossip and information gatherer, would have known if she had, and would certainly have passed on some hint, not just said she’d gone to bed early.
‘Are you feeling any better this morning?’ I asked as she returned to staring blankly into the distance.
‘No,’ she said flatly, pushing Lily’s head away as she tried to lick her ear. ‘That business about you’ll feel much better after a good night’s rest is utter balls.’
‘I think you’re supposed to sleep, not just go to bed,’ I offered, fending Lily off my ear this time.
‘Mm, perhaps. But how the hell do you go to sleep when your whole life has fallen apart?’ Slow tears started to well out of her eyes, rolling down her cheeks. She made no movement to wipe them away, just sat motionless as they dripped one by one into her lap. I didn’t have anything practical on me like a clean tissue, or even a dirty one for that matter, and I wasn’t sure if I spoke whether it would be an unwelcome intrusion into whatever was troubling her so deeply or even if she’d rather I left her alone. My uncertainty was mirrored by the dog who looked at her mistress anxiously, whined and then when that got no response put a paw firmly on Janey’s bare arm.
‘Ow!’ Janey exclaimed, pushing the paw away, then ruffled Lily’s ears. Lily’s nails were obviously enough to break through any degree of abstraction. ‘Sorry about that,’ she said, wiping the tears away with the flat of her hand. ‘I’m not fond of thunderstorms at the best of times and I had a bad go of middle-of-the-night fears. I let them get on top of me which was silly because things are always better in the daylight. It’s been a bit difficult to shake them off this time, but they’ll go soon.’ The words were brave but it didn’t look as if she believed them.
Rather belatedly I put two and two together and for once managed to add up correctly. ‘Oh, someone told you about Solange’s lunch, didn’t they?’
‘So you know too,’ she said in an accusatory tone.
I shrugged. ‘George told me, he was there. But why on earth do you think it might be Tom she was dining off?’ I asked, ignoring the doubts I’d had on the same subject myself.
‘It stands to reason,’ she said. ‘You know ignorance really is bliss. I’d never have known anything about it if Raoul the bottlemaker hadn’t rung on Thursday saying he needed to get in touch with Tom urgently and that his mobile was turned off. Tom told me he had a meeting in Bordeaux but when I checked his diary to get his number there wasn’t anything written down. He always notes his appointments. I asked him about it when he got back, and he hummed and haa-ed, then said he’d been looking for my birthday present.’
She smiled sadly. ‘My birthday isn’t for three weeks and every year up to now he’s started looking for a present for me about an hour before the shops close on the evening before, so why should he alter a well-established habit? But then I thought maybe he was actually getting me something that needed a little planning in advance. I thought it was rather sweet of him that is, until Oz mentioned in passing how it was common gossip that Solange had been seen sharing a lot more than asparagus with a man who definitely wasn’t her husband on the very day that my husband hadn’t been where he said he was going to be.’ She laughed, a horrid grating sound, completely devoid of any humour. ‘Funny how clichés always turn out to be true, isn’t it? The one about the wife being the last to know. Husband too in this case, I should think.’
This sounded bad. ‘You know, Janey, things aren’t always the way they appear to be,’ I said eventually. ‘Look at me and Robert. I was convinced he was sleeping with Natasha, and he wasn’t. Well, not then anyway. That’s what he says, and I believe him.’
‘But you still broke up,’ Janey said dismally. ‘And anyway, I doubt Tom is actually having an affair with Solange.’
I gaped at her, wondering what the problem was then.
‘Even at the height of
my besottedness I did retain enough sense to wonder about the wisdom of marrying a man who had had quite so many ladyfriends, but he swore he’d never be unfaithful,’ she went on. ‘Venetia’s mother had a serious problem keeping her knickers up so Tom knows well what it does to you to always be wondering whose bed your spouse is in.’
She rested her chin on her knees, deep in thought, then said, ‘I’m sure that as far as Tom is concerned, he really thinks he’s a loving, faithful father and husband, and he is in the literal sense, since he doesn’t break his promises. I expect he also thinks that it won’t matter if he wants to go to bed with Solange, providing he doesn’t actually do it. But it does matter - to me,’ she whispered. ‘It shrivels something inside me to know that he’s so restless that he’s got to go out for risky lunches with other women, and play with fire, even if he draws back from actually putting his hand in it.’
Except that wanting to go to bed with a woman and actually doing it if she gave you the green light was the normal procedure as far as most men were concerned. Was Tom so very different?
‘I daresay Venetia’s already told you Tom only married me because I was pregnant,’ Janey went on, looking at me. I nodded, feeling embarrassed. ‘Oh don’t worry, it’s perfectly true, except that contrary to what Venetia thinks, I didn’t deliberately trap him into marriage. I wasn’t capable of being so calculating. All I could think of was if and when I was going to see him next. Everything else went to the wall - work, social life, commonsense - and taking my pills at the proper time. I doubt he’d even thought of our fling going beyond the summer and he’d certainly not contemplated becoming a father again at over fifty, but the moment he knew I was keeping the baby he insisted on marrying me. He even said it was what he’d wanted all along but thought it was too soon to say so...’
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