Flappy loved Kenneth. Well, she thought she must do because they’d been married for forty years and been perfectly content. Flappy had never looked at another man and Kenneth had only ever looked at his golf clubs. Kenneth had always given Flappy everything she wanted and, at times, she’d asked for quite a lot. He’d never said no. In fact, now that she thought about it, she didn’t think he’d ever said no in all the years they’d been married. It helped that he was enormously rich, of course. Buying Flappy a new car or the house in the Algarve, or indulging her desire to redecorate rooms that didn’t need redecorating, was nothing for him, but it did not detract from the fact that he was generous. Very generous. Flappy didn’t know whether Charles was generous or acquiescent so they were incomparable in that department. The bottom line was, Kenneth was easy to live with. He was uncomplicated, jovial and liked everyone – and everyone liked him. There was no doubt about it, Flappy acknowledged, Kenneth was a very nice man.
But Kenneth had never lit Flappy’s internal wick. Until Charles appeared at church on Sunday Flappy wasn’t sure she even had a wick. She’d devoured Charity Chance’s novels – and plenty of other romantic books besides – and assumed that these women with raging internal flames of passion were not like her. She’d assumed, and had been quite certain about it, that she was simply a more spiritual woman. A woman so enlightened that she was above the primitive desires of more earthly women. Many years ago, she’d had a chat with a priest she’d met in Ireland who told her that sexual abstinence was not meant to be the struggle so many men of the cloth find it to be, for a truly spiritual person is of a higher consciousness and feels no sexual urges at all; he is quite simply above it. Flappy had had an epiphany. She’d accepted that her lack of sexual drive was not a failing on her part but a massive blessing. It merely meant that she was closer to God.
The fact that she had discovered that she did have a wick, after all, and that the wick had been lit and blazed with a flame far brighter than any of Charity Chance’s heroines’, was a trifle alarming. She’d rather celebrated her elevated spiritual status. But she realized now that she wasn’t an enlightened soul with a higher consciousness than other women, she was a sexual creature with sexual desires, just like everyone else. It made her ordinary, and if there was one thing Flappy did not like, it was being ordinary.
She wouldn’t do it again.
She would resist Charles’s advances, there would obviously be more, because hadn’t he said himself that he had fallen in love with her? Well, she couldn’t blame him for that, a man’s heart was what it was, but she could take the moral high ground. She shouldn’t have done it in the first place, but it wasn’t too late to put it right. They hadn’t been caught. No one knew but them. It could remain a secret, a delicious secret, that would put a smile on her face whenever she thought about it, and perhaps allow them to enjoy the odd knowing glance every now and then, which would be exciting. But it couldn’t happen again. Perhaps, she thought with rising excitement, God had put this temptation in her path to teach her a lesson in resistance. So, she had slipped up the first time, but the opportunity would soon arise for her to show that she could follow Jesus’s example and resist temptation when temptation presented itself.
Satisfied that she hadn’t fallen from Grace, and a little excited that she was, after all, a woman with a capacity for sexual pleasure, Flappy climbed off the bed and skipped breezily downstairs to see if Persephone was back with the wine.
Persephone was in the kitchen talking to Kenneth. The bottles of wine were standing in a neat row on the island and the two of them were looking at them. Indeed, Kenneth was holding a bottle and reading the label. ‘Ah, there you are, darling,’ he said when he saw Flappy. ‘I thought you were having a rest.’
‘A rest! Me? Goodness, no. I haven’t time for a rest.’ She sighed. ‘How I would adore to have time for a rest.’
‘Here are the bottles for your wine-tasting, Mrs Scott-Booth,’ said Persephone. ‘I managed to get six of the finest vintages.’
‘You clever girl,’ said Flappy. She watched the two of them carefully to see if they had observed a change in her that she hadn’t spotted in the mirror, but neither seemed to have noticed anything.
‘Genius idea to have a wine-tasting,’ said Kenneth.
‘I thought so too,’ said Flappy.
‘It was very kind of you to allow Charles to use the pool,’ he added, giving his wife a grateful smile.
‘Fa niente, darling. It’s the least I can do to make Hedda and Charles feel welcome. And we are so so lucky to have a pool.’
* * *
The following morning Gerald came round to have a look at the cottage and to talk to Persephone about the decoration for the Harvest Festival tea. ‘You’re glowing,’ he said to Flappy as the three of them walked across the croquet lawn, through the arboretum and round the lily pond to the pretty white cottage with the thatched roof that was partially hidden behind a tall beech hedge.
‘It’s adorable,’ exclaimed Persephone when she saw it. ‘It’s like something out of a fairy tale.’
‘ “Hansel and Gretel”, I always think,’ said Flappy.
‘Without the witch,’ added Gerald.
‘Oh, she’s in the oven!’ laughed Flappy. Gerald grinned. He was good at making Flappy laugh – as well as spending money.
Flappy opened the gate and they walked down the gravel path to the front door, which was painted a tasteful blue-grey. ‘I’m going to use this as a meditation room. A place where I can come for peace and quiet because, as you know, my life is so busy.’ She opened the door. ‘What do you think, Gerald?’
Gerald stepped into the middle of the sitting room, put his hands on his hips and looked around. The room was larger than one would imagine from the outside with a pretty fireplace and a low ceiling supported by old beams. ‘It has a wonderful energy, Flappy,’ he said. ‘We can really work with this.’
‘Good. I was thinking a statue of Buddha, a little fountain perhaps, lots of candles…’
‘A shrine,’ said Gerald. ‘If you’re going to have a statue of Buddha, you must have a shrine.’
‘Of course,’ Flappy agreed. ‘One can’t have a meditation room without a shrine. Persephone, can you find me some music, you know, something soothing to listen to as I’m meditating. One always needs music, don’t you think, Gerald.’
‘I like the sound of rain and birds,’ said Gerald.
‘See if you can find some music with rain and birds, Persephone,’ said Flappy.
‘Yes, Mrs Scott-Booth,’ she replied and dutifully wrote it down on her pad.
Flappy showed them upstairs. The bedrooms were pretty with beds so high you had to climb onto them. Flappy’s busy mind stilled for a moment and an image floated before her eyes. She and Charles, in that bed, making love to the sound of cooing pigeons and roosting songbirds. She caught her breath.
‘It looks a little tired in here,’ said Gerald, scrunching up his nose. ‘How about we give it a lift, Flappy?’
Flappy was brought sharply back to the present. ‘What did you say, Gerald?’
He laughed. ‘You were miles away.’
‘I was wondering what we could do with this room,’ she lied.
‘That’s what I’m thinking. It could do with a little facelift.’
‘Yes, let’s freshen it up. I always assumed that at least one of my daughters might want the cottage as a weekend house or a holiday home, but then both of them married and went to live on the other side of the world. Imagine that? Out of all four children, not one of them lives in this country.’
‘Such a shame,’ said Gerald.
‘But I have a wonderful relationship with them. I’m so so lucky to get on well with them all. Every year Kenneth flies them to the Caribbean for Christmas, husbands and wives and children – you can imagine what an exhausting enterprise it is – not to mention expensive. I’m so spoilt. They adore me. I’m so so lucky to be adored by my children. I know plenty of
parents who never see their offspring, or are ignored and discarded like unwanted furniture. Non, mine are very attentive.’
‘I’ll put together a board for each room, Flappy,’ said Gerald. He clapped his hands. ‘What fun. We love a project, don’t we!’
‘We do,’ said Flappy, wondering why she suddenly felt a little sad.
‘Did you ever think of renting it out?’ asked Persephone.
Flappy was appalled. The idea was an abhorrence. ‘Goodness, no,’ she exclaimed, forgetting her sadness and feeling only repellence. ‘I can’t think of anything worse than having strangers living at the bottom of my garden.’ She inhaled through dilated nostrils. A deep, cleansing breath. ‘Find me a guru, Persephone,’ she added. ‘There must be a spiritual teacher around somewhere who can come and teach me to meditate.’
Persephone wrote it in her pad. ‘I’m sure I can find someone,’ she said.
Flappy envisaged the sitting room full of her friends, sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the Buddha, chanting ‘Om’. Then she saw Charles taking her hand and leading her upstairs. If she was going to resist him she needed to be strong. ‘Find someone quickly,’ she said to Persephone. ‘There’s no time to lose.’
* * *
It was early evening when the portable telephone rang. Flappy was in the garden, lying on a reclining chair, reading a magazine. She waited for it to ring eight times, then picked it up. ‘Darnley Manor, Flappy Scott-Booth speaking.’
‘Flappy, it’s Mabel. I have news.’
‘I’m all ears,’ said Flappy, putting down the magazine.
‘Hedda is the one in the marriage with money.’
Flappy sat up and took off her reading glasses. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, Big Mary told John that Hedda and Harry’s father was very rich. As rich as Croesus, apparently. Charles was an actor when Hedda met him. He had nothing. Not two pennies to rub together, she said. Hedda’s money bought Compton Court. Isn’t that interesting? I thought you’d like to know.’
‘Well, that’s just what I thought,’ said Flappy, who didn’t like to appear ignorant of anything. ‘Her uncle was a marquess, you know, Lady Micklethwaite told me herself, so her father must have been a lord, if I’m not wrong, which I rarely am. You can tell by the way Hedda conducts herself that she comes from a rich and important family. However, I didn’t imagine Charles to have been an actor,’ she conceded, giving Mabel the chance to feel very pleased with herself for telling Flappy something she didn’t know. ‘Very interesting indeed, Mabel.’ Flappy imagined Charles as Sean Connery, chasing baddies in a James Bond film. He’d have been very good at that, she thought.
‘John also found out that Hedda and Harry were only half-siblings.’
‘That’s just what I thought,’ said Flappy again. ‘There’s such a big age difference between them.’
‘Apparently, Hedda’s father was in his seventies when Hedda was born, with a new wife forty years his junior.’
‘Disgusting,’ said Flappy.
‘I agree,’ said Mabel, who always did. ‘Disgusting.’
‘John’s picked up some interesting facts,’ Flappy continued, wondering what else Big Mary had told him.
‘He’s in her café at least twice a day, for his morning coffee and afternoon tea. As you know, it’s the place where you hear all the gossip.’
‘Did Big Mary say what films Charles acted in?’ Again the image of Sean Connery with a gun floated before her eyes.
‘She just mentioned an advert for Daks in the seventies.’
‘Daks?’ said Flappy.
‘You know, the clothing company.’
Flappy laughed. ‘No, no, I’m sure that’s not right. Charles would never do a commercial for a clothing company. Tell John to go back and find out what films he’s been in. I imagine he was a bit of a Roger Moore or a Sean Connery in his day.’ She sighed with satisfaction. ‘Yes, that’s much more like Charles.’
When she put down the telephone the image of Charles in a pair of beige flares and a brown shirt came out of nowhere and settled in her mind. The more she tried to get rid of it the more it refused to budge.
There was only one thing for it. She’d have to ask him herself.
Chapter 7
Flappy had worked tirelessly all day, telling Persephone and Karen what to do. It was imperative that Darnley was shown off to its best advantage so that Hedda and Charles could appreciate its splendour. It didn’t matter about the vicar and his wife because they’d seen it so many times before; their appreciation was a given.
The round table was laid in the dining room with Flappy’s best blue-and-white place mats which she’d bought in Florence, fine crystal glasses, heavy silver cutlery and bone china plates. There was a striking display of blue hydrangeas in the centre, candles in silver tumblers and indigo linen napkins laid neatly beside each place. The effect was quite stunning, Flappy thought, as she swept a critical eye over the room, making sure Persephone and Karen had carried out her orders to the letter. Blue and white was so tasteful. Indeed, Darnley itself was a study in good taste and class, Flappy thought, straightening the odd knife here and the odd napkin there.
Karen had been cooking for most of the afternoon. Flappy had been very specific. She’d requested a starter from Spain, a main course from France and a dessert from Italy – and please, niente di tiramisu. Tiramisu, in Flappy’s opinion, was very common. When Karen had come up with her suggestions, Flappy was dissatisfied. The trouble was, she told her, Italians just weren’t dessert people. They might boast the best language, one of the most ancient cultures, the most beautiful buildings, the sunniest climate, the prettiest countryside and the most delicious food, but they fell short on desserts. There was no denying it: Italian desserts were sparse. So, Flappy changed the order to a Spanish starter, an Italian main course and a French dessert, followed by cheese – French again, they had a wonderful nose for cheese. The result was very pleasing indeed.
Flappy had invited her guests for eight o’clock. It did not surprise her when Graham and Joan arrived on the dot of eight. Joan was aware of Flappy’s interpretation of the word ‘informal’, and was suitably dressed in a yellow floral dress and yellow jacket, a pair of sensible pumps on her feet. Joan was a sweet-looking woman with short brown hair, bright hazel eyes and the crinkly skin of a woman who believed that anything more than Pears soap was an unnecessary extravagance. Graham was more animated than his mousey wife. His face was always winning with a smile, a twinkle in his pale blue eyes and a rosy glow on his cheeks. But then he was the spiritual leader of his community, Flappy reasoned. It would not do to have a dull vicar or the church would be empty.
Flappy, who had taken a great deal of trouble over her outfit, which reflected a touch of France, swept into the hall to greet them. ‘Bonsoir, Graham,’ she trilled, shaking his hand (it was not done to kiss the vicar). ‘You’re wonderfully punctual, as always.’
‘We have no reason to be late,’ he replied in his calm, vicarish voice. ‘We only live five minutes away, after all.’
‘Joan,’ said Flappy, kissing her on the cheek and smelling talcum powder and violets. ‘How lovely to see you.’
‘Thank you for inviting us, Flappy,’ said Joan, who found Flappy rather terrifying and therefore never dared speak beyond the usual platitudes.
‘Do come through to the drawing room. We’re having a wine-tasting evening tonight. Such fun to compare wines from different parts of the world.’
‘How lovely,’ said Joan.
‘Inspired,’ said Graham, which coming from the vicar was high praise indeed.
Kenneth was in the drawing room. ‘Hello,’ he said in a jolly tone of voice, for Kenneth loved people and was always happy to see them. ‘Now, I have a very good wine here. It’s Italian. Would you like a glass?’
‘Thank you, I’d love one. How lovely,’ said Joan, who was not afraid of Kenneth.
‘How nice, thank you,’ echoed the vicar.
Flappy did not bother to show off her knowledge about wine to Graham and Joan. There was no point. She did not need to impress them. She’d wait until Hedda and Charles arrived and then she’d repeat what she’d learned by heart that afternoon. ‘May we look around the garden?’ asked Joan, keen to please her hostess, who she knew was deeply proud of her garden. Flappy, however, was not as pleased as Joan had hoped. She’d rather have waited for Hedda and Charles. Fortunately, just as they were about to set off, the sound of wheels crunching on gravel alerted them to the arrival of their other, more important guests. ‘I’ll go,’ said Kenneth, heading for the door.
‘We’ll be outside,’ Flappy called, now stepping through the French doors with enthusiasm.
A few minutes later Charles and Hedda were striding across the lawn, wine glasses in hand, followed by Kenneth. Hedda had not dressed up. She was wearing a pair of ordinary trousers and a shirt. However, Flappy’s disapproval was immediately softened by the pleasant sight of Charles, in a pale green cashmere V-neck that matched his beautiful eyes. ‘Delicious wine,’ said Hedda, after Flappy had introduced them to Graham and Joan.
‘Si chiama Bardolino Chiaretto Corte Giardini,’ she said in what she believed was perfect Italian. ‘The estate where it’s produced is on the south side of Lake Garda, which is so beautiful. It’s a little fruity, with floral nuances and a crisp finish. Light but tasty, no?’
‘It hits the spot,’ said Kenneth, taking a swig.
‘Certainly does,’ agreed Charles, his gaze lingering heavily upon Flappy, who was grateful for the vicar’s presence, for temptation was easier to resist in the presence of God’s emissary.
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