Jemima Shore at the Sunny Grave

by Antonia Fraser

  “Then you, darling, will have to be a big he-man and protect me,” said my wife in her snaky voice. “I somehow don’t think Nick and Isabel would notice.”

  It was Nick who brought back the news of the party which was going to be held on the beach on the night of the full moon. He had been into the little port in the Landrover just before dinner—Isabel was washing her hair—to cash some travellers’ cheques. He came back looking white, or as near white as anyone as perfectly cared for and turned out (which means tanned) as Nick can ever look.

  “A bloody great notice!” he exploded. “In English, what’s more. Full Moon Party. On Aglaia Beach—our beach. Everyone invited. Bonfires. Dancing. Naked bathing. Come by boat! Come by moped! On the night of the full moon. All this on a notice fixed to a tree just outside the town.” He repeated, “And in English too.”

  “If it hadn’t been in English, Nick,” my wife pointed out reasonably enough, “you wouldn’t have understood it.” But Isabel, short, carefully streaked hair in a shining halo, was busy giving Nick a rewarding pat.

  “Well done, Nick. At least you’ve warned us.”

  “Warned us! I damn well have. Look, I’m going to have a whisky. Have we got any left? It’s a disgrace. Tomorrow I’m going to tell that little Greek girl in the office that I want it stopped, stopped without question.”

  “But tomorrow will be too late, Nick,” my wife continued in that same reasonable voice. “Tonight is the night of the full moon. Didn’t you notice last night? Very, very nearly full. Only one tiny sliver missing.”

  I must say that I was surprised at the time that my wife had that kind of information at her finger-tips; but then I read in one of the magazines you only read in aeroplanes that retaining the capacity to surprise your spouse is the secret of a happy marriage. I dare say that it’s Dinah’s remarkable sense of order which made her interested in something equally regulated like the phases of the moon.

  So we come to the party. I have to admit a certain reluctance in thinking about it all, even now, back in London W11, in our beautiful house, the house which some people laughingly suggest is too big for us—“too luxurious even for you two”—but is actually a wonderful monument to my wife’s exquisite, cool and above all fastidious taste. A showcase for a sense of order, somebody else said.

  If that’s true about our house, and it probably is, then you can just about imagine how my poor wife suffered during that nightmare build-up to the Full Moon Party on Aglaia Beach. The utter chaos, the noise of course, and the noise was indescribable, and let me not leave out the fear. The four of us, four sophisticated people, crouching there—I’m afraid after a while we were definitely crouching—as the car lights came towards the beach along the edge of the cliff, an army advancing on us, and the full moonlight lit up what went on below. In a way it reminded me of some medieval picture of Hell—all the couples writhing as though in torment, their white limbs gyrating. In fact they were of course dancing. Dancing and copulating. You would feel like using that word if you had seen what we saw.

  “Supposing they decide to come up here?” Nick said that, I know he did. “Just supposing?” Nick is a big man, very heavily built in spite of all the exercise he takes. We’re both of us big men, come to that, two big men with two fragile wives, that was another thing we had in common. Dinah, like Isabel, is wonderfully slender, well-preserved or whatever you call it; naturally she takes marvellous care of herself. But even Nick sounded frightened. And I was frightened too.

  It was some time after that, that it happened.

  “Supposing you went down there? Just supposing.” Who said that? Who spoke those words? It must have been my wife for who else was present when those words were spoken? Nick and Isabel had gone off to bed at last, their shutters open to the noises of the hot, inflaming night, and the light of the coldly lustful moon. We could hear that the tigress was already devouring her huge submissive prey when those words were spoken.

  The excitement comes back to me now, the secret, thrilling fear of it all, and the whispered words which went on. “Take her, you want her. She’s down there. Find her and take her. You want her, don’t you? Take her, you want her. Take her, you want her.” Take her, you want her, wanton and naked, wanton and naked, the words became like a rhythm beating in my brain. Wanton and naked: but no, these last words were never spoken, even by my wife, but they too became like a rhythm in my brain.

  Those were the words which continued to turn and tumble in my mind as I went down alone, down the myrtle path to the Aglaia Beach. It wasn’t difficult to find her—Brigitte, the brown goddess of the beach. She wasn’t even dancing with the others round the fire; she was sitting by the upturned boat, alone in the dark shadow cast by the boat; she was smoking one of her cigarettes and looking out to sea. Perhaps she was thinking about Rome and St. Peter’s. I rather hope so. I really rather hope she was thinking about something nice. Even by the boat the noise of all the others was incredible, confusing, and they had transistors now, belting out their dance music across the moonlit sea, desecrating the moonlight, desecrating the whole Aglaia Beach.

  I took her quite easily. I grabbed her, grabbed that round brown wobbly body. She was quite little really in my arms, in spite of her fullness. Much smaller than I thought she would be. So I took her and held her tight. She couldn’t shout either—not that it would have mattered much if she had, the noise was so loud, the other people so busy round the bonfire—all the same I put my hand across her mouth.

  “Now show me you’re a man after all, a real man. Take her.” But she didn’t say “take” this time, but used something far rougher, cruder. That was my wife’s voice again, she must have followed me down the myrtle path, but it was a voice so avid, so ferocious, that for a moment it might even have been the tigress Isabel. And besides I’d never heard my wife use a word like that in all our married life.

  And I did take her. Didn’t I? I would have taken her. If only she’d cooperated just a little, practised a little of that love and friendship she talked about to me on the beach. Instead she struggled: struggled rather a lot. I mean, why flaunt yourself like that, half-naked, sometimes wholly naked, if you’re not prepared to cooperate just a little …

  As to what happened after that, there’s really no point in recounting it all. Sad and rather squalid really, but a complete accident. Even a misunderstanding, you could say. If it hadn’t happened with me, it would have happened sooner or later with any of the other men she led on and didn’t satisfy, I can tell you that.

  Afterwards I hardly remembered the details of it all, isn’t that odd? Just coming back so carefully and silently up the myrtle path, my wife’s eyes gleaming like a cat’s as we felt our way. Afterwards holding her in bed, and my wife, usually so fastidious, holding me too. Nick and Isabel were silent by then. That night, very late, it was my wife who was the tigress at the Villa Aglaia.

  There’s not much more to tell. As I said, the police didn’t really bother us much, just a great many questions and all that, naturally; but mostly the obvious questions about the party and the noise and then the tragedy—had we heard anything, seen anything, that sort of thing, it all went on for hours.

  Heard anything! Nick really snorted at that one, I can tell you. For a moment I thought he was going to start up all over again about the noise and the camping being illegal and why didn’t the police stop it? Which under the circumstances wouldn’t have been quite appropriate. But as a matter of fact, Nick’s pretty good with the police, officials generally, knows the value of politeness and all that. He also cut quite an impressive figure, all washed and shaved and tidy.

  We all were—washed and shaved and tidy. And the villa looked immaculate. As any place with my cool, collected wife at the helm invariably does.

  As to Nick being so good with the police and officials generally, my wife did murmur afterwards, “Well, he’s had a certain amount of practice, hasn’t he?” But then as I already mentioned my wife has always been a little t
art—one can’t say more than that—about Nick’s sharp business practices. As usual, there’s a good deal to be said for her point of view. The conversation with Nick and Isabel after the police left really rather proved her point.

  First of all Isabel said, yawning slightly, “Listen, folks, we’ve been thinking it over; we’re really getting a little old for this sort of thing, holidays à quatre, I mean. It’s been great of course. No need to say that. But it’s a hotel for us next year. Villas on the sea can be so noisy. You can hear everything. That’s a fact. The most peculiar things. The later at night, the more peculiar. So a luxury hotel à deux, in future.”

  Isabel didn’t seem to expect an answer to what she had just announced and I suppose there wasn’t much we could say. She didn’t look at either of us as she spoke. I do remember that.

  Then Nick chimed in. He’d been thinking overnight as well, it seemed. And what Nick had been thinking about was the next big deal—the one where there’d been a bit of an argument seeing as I had done all the work from start to finish and couldn’t see that he should have more than a very small cut. Well, on this particular deal, he simply stated that the split would be fifty-fifty. With no argument. He didn’t seem to expect an answer to that one either.

  As a matter of fact, I don’t miss our joint holidays with Nick and Isabel. She was right, we really had grown out of all that. It’s that 50 per cent which still rankles. But whenever I say so to my wife—I groan and ask: why did I agree?—she replies in her snaky voice (which generally speaking she uses a great deal less nowadays).

  “You lost your head in Bexi, that’s why.” Then she adds more softly, “It was the moon that was to blame.” There is even a voluptuous note in my wife’s voice when she asks in her turn, “Wasn’t it all worth it?”

  The Professor suddenly held up his glass and said something which sounded like “blood-red.” For a moment, in spite of the odd wording, Jemima Shore thought he was going to propose a toast although most people were still busily eating their second course. The glass was almost full. Red wine glinted in the light of the branched candlestick in the centre of the long table. A dark ruby-red: or blood-red, if the Professor preferred to put it that way.

  “The blood-red wine … Exactly what kind of wine?” he was asking. It was not a toast. Jemima Shore felt a quick pang of relief. According to the printed programme in front of her, she was due to make her own speech—proposing the toast of the college—immediately after the Queen’s health had been drunk. No toast meant no speech, or at least not yet. After-dinner speaking was not Jemima Shore’s idea of fun. She did not like public speaking very much in the first place, preferring the television screen, the medium for which, as an investigative reporter and presenter, she had after all been trained. After-dinner speaking in particular gave you the whole length of the meal to dread the moment of rising to your feet, notes in hand …

  That reminded her. Nervously Jemima checked the continued existence of those same notes in her evening bag (pretty but really much too small for this kind of thing). She had been planning her speech for weeks. It would not do to lose hold of it now.

  “Chambertin nineteen seventy-six—according to what it says here.” Claire Donahue had picked up the programme and was peering closely at it. She was an old friend of Jemima’s from Cambridge days, hence Jemima’s presence at this dinner. Claire had been a lecturer at Mallow for several years and was hoping for tenure. She had invited Jemima to speak on the dubious grounds that this would somehow advance her cause. Jemima, now regretting the weak impulse which had led her to agree—why did she always feel so sorry for Claire, for heaven’s sake?—took refuge in irritation at the way Claire simply would not wear her spectacles in public. Ludicrous vanity: it could be nothing else. Surely academics were more or less expected to wear spectacles.

  Look at Claire with that programme barely a centimetre from her pretty, pudgy little nose! Remembering the old days, Jemima decided that Claire must fancy someone or other at the dinner table. Paddy Mayall? He was a handsome hunk all right. Not quite what you expected to find at an academic dinner. The woman next but one, pale with long auburn Pre-Raphaelite hair, appeared from the seating plan to be Mrs. Mayall. Was it Jemima’s imagination or was she gazing at Claire with active dislike? If Jemima’s hunch was correct, no wonder. Sweet little Claire could be surprisingly predatory on occasion.

  Marie Mayall … what did she know about her? She had received a preliminary gossipy briefing. Ah yes, money, that was it. Her Laura Ashley dress hardly indicated an enormous income. On the other hand, a plain or plainish woman with an exceptionally handsome husband did sometimes indicate the presence of money in the contract … Professor Alec Redding, seated on Jemima’s right, interrupted these uncharitable thoughts.

  “You do realize, my dear Claire, that I am this year’s President of the Wine Committee? So that I am well aware not only that this is a Chambertin but also of its precise year since I chose it myself. I hardly need reminding …” Pompous beast, thought Jemima, transferring her irritation to the Professor. She remembered Claire telling her that he had a reputation as a womanizer, students included, since his wife’s death a few years back. That and an ostentatious taste for the good things of life, wine, even rather improbably fast cars, no, wait a minute, vintage cars. Long-delayed adolescence! Well, he would have to do better than that to fascinate her.

  The Professor boomed on. “But then, how could you be expected to remember a little detail like the name of the President of the Wine Committee? Matters of greater import on your mind, no doubt.” Greater import—what did that mean? It sounded like a swipe at Claire’s private life. Perhaps she had at some point turned down the bouncy Professor. Or was it just heavy-handed academic teasing? Jemima was aware that Alec Redding was still holding up his ruby-red—or blood-red—glass. Time to catch up with Claire’s amours later when the dreaded speech was over; Jemima was to be the guest of the college for the night. Now what was he saying?

  “What kind of wine did the King serve? That is my precise question which I have at last happily been able to express.” The Professor paused and then intoned in a suitably sonorous voice with more than a trace of a Scottish accent:

  “The King sat in Dunfermline town

  Drinking the blude-red wine …”

  The Professor was a smallish man—if his reputation was correct, perhaps he had a short man’s compensatory desire to act the lady-killer—but his head at least was impressively leonine. Now he gazed about him as though in triumph at having at last secured an audience. He proceeded to recite the next lines of the ballad, his Scottish accent becoming progressively broader:

  “O where will I get a gude sailor

  That’ll sail the ships o’ mine …”

  “The tragedy of Sir Patrick Spens,” commented Jemima politely. She was aware of some kind of awkwardness in the atmosphere without knowing exactly where it was focused; knowing and loving the ballad from childhood, she was happy to intervene.

  “To Noroway, to Noroway

  To Noroway o’er the foam,”

  recited Jemima (but without attempting a Scots accent),

  “The King’s daughter of Noroway

  Tis thou must bring her home.”

  “Exactly!” Professor Redding beamed at her; for a moment Jemima did glimpse his charm. There was indeed something quite boyish about him, now that he had dropped his pomposity on the subject of the Wine Committee. “Sir Patrick Spens it is. And what a tragic tale, eh? A lesson for us all. One moment there he was drinking the blude-red wine in Dunfermline town with the King and all. The next moment he had foolishly set off: to bring back his master’s bride. Only to bump into a spot of bad weather on the way home. Weather rather like tonight, I fancy!”

  It had been an unusually storm-tossed October; persistent rain had made it virtually impossible for Jemima to glimpse anything of the university town as she drove through. The setting of Mallow was said to resemble that of Stratford, with its medie
val bridge under which flowed another rather less famous river Avon. If the weather cleared up, Jemima might inspect the charms of Mallow properly in the morning. She knew that Claire, ever-generous where her belongings were concerned, would lend her the car. In the meantime the Professor was intoning once more:

  “They hadna been a league, a league,

  A league but barely three

  When loud and boisterous grew the wind

  And gurly grew the sea.”

  The Professor gave due Scottish relish to the whole passage, but the word “gurly” in particular caused him to roll his tongue round it with zest. “And so they all drowned,” he finished with a flourish. “That’s for setting off after a glass or two of red wine.”

  “What is your point exactly, Alec?” The middle-aged, rather plump lady in the black crêpe evening dress had a formidable air; her spectacles at least were firmly on her nose. Jemima consulted her seating plan. Ah yes, formidable indeed. This was the celebrated Dr. Elena Kirkus: the mere sight of her name at the head of a review was enough to send aspiring young scholars’ hearts into their boots. “Apart from letting us all admire your Scottish accent, an unsuspected talent, I must admit.”

  “Elena! Now you think I’m trespassing on your literary territory, I can see. Would I do that? Far too frightened; look what happened to poor Paddy here. But enough of that. What is my point, you ask. No point. No point at all.” The Professor lowered his glass at long last. “I was merely seeking instruction. What kind of wine would they have been drinking in fourteenth-century Scotland? As a wine buff, I am always full of curiosity on these arcane matters.”