He left as soon as I said he could, and I gave him a warm – OK, hot – kiss, since he had been good and beautiful, and also my hero, even if I didn’t need one, and he cheered up no end.
Having every woman within eyeshot looking green did something for me, too, there’s no denying it.
There was no sign of Neville when I got home, so I hoped that was the end of that little fixation. I also hoped he was all right; he wasn’t a young man and the sea was always cold in Shrimphaven.
The harbour was thronged with tourists until the light faded, and then I had to go and pick a crop of pop cans, crisp packets and ice-cream wrappers out of my front garden.
Later, someone delivered a large lobster to me, with a note from Lady Het saying it was a ‘small appreciation of my pivotal role in the festival’ by which I assumed she meant my getting Sergei to actually turn up rather than my own library talk.
The lobster had its claws secured with elastic bands and looked cross and entirely miserable – clearly its arrival on my doorstep was the culmination of a very bad day. I like lobster well enough when it arrives on a plate, preferably halved and grilled with garlic butter, but not when I have previously made its acquaintance.
It was going dark and everyone had gone home, so I carried the crabby crustacean down to the jetty and dropped it into the water, after snipping the elastic away. If it had any sense at all, it would give Shrimphaven a wide berth from then on.
Then I penned Lady Het a polite thank-you note: the lobster was a kind, if misguided, gesture.
Twenty-One
A Girl’s Best Friend
NOVELTINA LITERARY AND CRITICAL AGENCY
Mudlark Cottage, The Harbour, Shrimphaven
Dear Glenda,
Thank you for your letter warning me that Neville was on his way down, mania unabated.
Unfortunately it came just too late and he has had a regrettable contretemps with Sergei Popov, who had arrived at my cottage to prepare to open the Shrimphaven Annual Festival of Culture, and thus not only read the note your husband pushed through the letterbox, but caught him lurking behind the seawall with his binoculars.
It was rash of Neville to call him a nancy-boy, because although Sergei might look a trifle languid and effete, he is actually amazingly strong and athletic due to still doing hours of ballet exercises and his own special yoga routines every day, and I’m sure he took Neville totally by surprise.
But hopefully the bruising will soon go down and no permanent damage to that eye has been incurred. I am assured that the water in the harbour, although cold, is not terribly polluted by anything particularly toxic. Fortunately it was too early for the little fracas to catch much attention, and someone walked down from the lifeboat house and dragged him out with one of those long hooked things and we left them to it because we had to leave for the town hall.
Sergei’s hand was a little bruised, but such is the perverse way of men that he seemed to actually enjoy the incident, and so was inclined to be in a happy and expansive mood for the rest of the day, so something good came of it, and with any luck this will be the absolute end of your husband’s interest in me and all our lives will go back to normal!
Yours sincerely,
Tina Devino
Linny told me the girl Nathan brought to dinner was a young, skinny blonde with big eyes and a little pointed chin.
‘Sounds just like the photograph I saw in his study,’ I said gloomily. ‘Did they seem friendly?’
‘She certainly looked as though she wanted to be,’ Linny said. ‘She was all over him like a wet mist.’
So we decided she must be the ex-fiancée, and it looked like she’d realized she’d made a mistake and had come to get him back, and who wouldn’t?
I said, ‘What about Nathan?’ Linny said he looked a bit hounded, but not too put out, since the girl was very pretty if you liked that bug-eyed sort of look, and is some sort of model. I knew I’d seen her in catalogues, modelling the sort of bras that attempt to make something of nothing, which thank God neither Linny nor I have ever needed.
Linny said her boobs were growing ever larger and at this rate she soon wouldn’t be able to stand upright without falling on to her face, and she didn’t know how she was going to get through the next few months unless she stayed at home in a kaftan, because without a waist she just looked globular.
I received an invitation to address the Mallard Rise week-long writers’ course in some place vaguely northern that I’d never heard of, though they told me they have been running the course for over thirty years. When I phoned Ramona she said she had heard of it but hadn’t been, so I thought I might do it, especially since the speaker the following night was a novelist I particularly wanted to hear.
But when I contacted them it turned out they were offering me no fee, and only one night’s accommodation and dinner, and if I wanted to stay longer I’d have to pay for it, so I was in two minds. Maybe I would pay for one extra night, though the arrangements seemed a little stingy of them.
Since I was starting to be in demand I vowed to try to be a bit more choosy about this kind of thing, and only do the ones where they paid me, or where the prestige is enormous, or both.
Sergei was still in masterful mode on the following Monday morning, the battle scars on his fist adorned with colourful sticking plasters. No sooner had I stepped across the threshold than he told me to close my eyes because the surprise was ready for unveiling, and I thought I could guess what it was and things might be a little tricky …
But then he led me away from the direction of the bedroom and I could feel light on my eyelids and hear a musical sort of trickling noise and when he told me to open my eyes I was standing in a tall conservatory at the back of the house, bare apart from a small spouting water feature.
‘What do you think, my Tina?’ he enquired anxiously. ‘I did it for you. I know how you love hothouses and you can order any plants you wish; I give you free rein.’
What did I think? Well, my first thought was that it was just as well it wasn’t already hot, steamy and full of foliage or I might have weakened … in fact, since my mind’s eye immediately presented me with an image of what it would look like when finished and furnished, I felt distinctly softened already.
‘Oh, Sergei, it will be lovely – thank you!’ I said, kissing him. ‘But how on earth did you get permission for such a big conservatory? Didn’t the upstairs tenants object?’
‘No, for I have bought the rest of the house,’ he said simply. ‘Did I not mention that?’
‘No!’
He shrugged. ‘I thought I had. It was some time ago, for the investment.’
‘Well, I’m sure it was a good idea,’ I said, revising my previous estimate of how much he was actually worth in an upwards direction. Then I got back to the engrossing matter of what to have in the new conservatory. ‘I think we should go tropical, don’t you? Warm and lush and exotic …’
A bit like Sergei himself really.
My evident delight with his surprise made him even more pleased with himself than he was when I arrived, but instead of trying to lure me into the bedroom, which I expected, he swept me off by taxi to shower me with yet more expensive diamonds in the form of earrings to match my pendant, so his book advance was clearly rather larger than mine have ever been, though, actually, it was Sergei’s unpredictability that had always formed a major part of his attraction for me.
He bought himself another ring, although his hands sounded like clashing cymbals already if he clapped, and then we had lunch at the Café Royal, so I was glad I was looking quite smart, because you never knew where you would end up with Sergei when he was in this sort of mood.
Over coffee I wrote him out a list of all the plants and palm trees and so on that I thought he should have in the conservatory. He said he had seen a wicker daybed and matching reclining chairs that would complete the look, he thought, if the cushions were re-covered in the fabric of his choice (and just imagine the sort of th
ing his taste runs to – bizarre isn’t in it). It was all great fun.
On the way back he stopped the taxi long enough to get out and buy the most enormous bouquet of roses, which was romantic even if they did unfortunately remind me of Valentine’s Day. Then he held my hand and said he must have been insane not to have asked me to marry him before I found out his true nature, though actually we’d both have been insane soon after the ceremony if we’d done anything so stupid. But I do love him really, and he loves me and I did know what he was like right from the start.
We were both exhausted with shopping and emotion by the time we got back to his flat, and so retired to the baroque splendour of Sergei’s bed to recuperate; and while he soon seemed fully recovered I felt even more exhausted and it was getting terribly late, and the thought of going inside my quiet little cottage and shutting the door on the world (and even Sergei) was exerting its usual magnetic pull, so I left him sitting sipping tea from a gilded green glass among his heaped-up silken pillows like a pasha, and headed home.
Walking along the street my legs suddenly went rubbery, and the very idea of hopping on tubes and trains seemed impossible, especially with a fortune in diamonds glittering in my ears, so I decided to stop at Linny’s and call a taxi.
If Tershie wasn’t about I could tell her that Sergei and I had made it up, and if Tershie was about maybe he would have one of his generous impulses and offer to pay for my taxi home with his own generous, if hairy, hands.
But despite feeling as limp as a wet lettuce I was very, very happy and … well, content, and full of anticipation – though I expect that was simply due to the many happy hours I looked forward to spending in a specialist garden centre with carte blanche to buy what I liked.
Twenty-Two
The Butterfly Ball
It had entirely slipped my mind that Linny had told me she was going out with Tertius until I walked into the hall through the half-open front door and found her dressed as a butterfly for a fancy-dress charity ball, which was a big mistake in more ways than one, because pregnant butterflies are thin on the ground, let alone in the air – and how could we ever have mistaken that little round bump for fat?
But Tertius, in a toga, was looking so adoringly at her that I swallowed any sarcastic comments, even when she put her blue-feathered Venetian butterfly mask on and headed out to the taxi that had just arrived to whisk them away and … and …
Blue butterfly mask? Big buxom brunette? It couldn’t possibly be, could it? Could it?
The Penny of Enlightenment might have taken some time to drop, but when it did it ricocheted around the echoing well of my intellect like nobody’s business: Linny’s concern over what Sergei had said about the other woman, her urging us to get back together … even her relief, which I’d thought was for me, when I told her he’d named no lovers in his book!
Lost in my epiphany, I stood on the doorstep looking after them. ‘Et tu, Linny?’ I said, and her feathered face looked back at me over her shoulder in an all at once horribly memorable way … And if this baby has pointy ears, a wicked grin and Slavic cheekbones then she is in big, big trouble with more than just Tertius.
Oh my God!
‘I’ve called you a taxi, Tina,’ Tertius said kindly, emerging from the house. ‘It’ll be here shortly – just pull the door closed after you when you leave, won’t you?’ And with a pat on my shoulder he jumped into the waiting cab and they vanished.
I was still standing there when my taxi arrived, but I did remember to turn and slam the door at the last minute – after the driver pointed it out to me.
And why do I always get a chatty taxi driver when I’m too upset to string words together and just want to be left alone? I mean, do I inflict endless boring stories about my childhood holidays by the seaside on hapless, distraught strangers? No, I do not!
The moment I got home I phoned Sergei and told him I knew all about his and Linny’s affair because I’d just seen her in the blue butterfly mask, although this time mercifully clothed, and how could he possibly do that to me with my best friend?
And he said he hadn’t had a relationship with anyone other than me, especially with Linny, who clearly didn’t understand the artistic temperament, and I was his only beloved, as he’d shown me today, and he couldn’t live without me.
‘And so we should put the past all behind us, Tsarina, because these little incidents mean nothing to me compared to our so-great love.’
Obviously, he saw a clear distinction between our love affair and recreational sex, which I couldn’t, especially when it was with my best friend.
However, he wouldn’t straight-out admit it, so I said I was going to see Linny next morning and get the truth from her if he wouldn’t tell me. I put the phone down on him while he was still being persuasive in his wonderfully sexy voice.
Some diehard little piece of me still hoped that Linny would convince me that it wasn’t her, but the rest of me was shell-shocked, cold and shaking, and if this was a nightmare I’d like to wake up from it.
Early the next morning I penned a wonderful chapter of The Orchid Huntress, full of love, betrayal and very organic sex, after which I caught the train into London and burst in upon an unsuspecting Linny.
Her smile of welcome wavered when she saw my face, and then vanished completely, to be replaced with one of absolute horror when I said without any preamble: ‘I know you were the butterfly-masked lover in Sergei’s flat that time. I realized it when I saw you wearing that blue mask again last night, and how could you? My best friend with my lover!’
She burst into a Niagara of tears and denied it between sobs rather incoherently, and told me she didn’t like him anyway, and would she do that to her best friend? And I said, well, would she?
Then she completely broke down and wailed, ‘I only wanted to show him my Venetian mask. I’d seen his collection hanging on the wall that time I took the note round for you, and I thought he’d be interested.’
‘Yes, but did you have to show him the mask in the nude?’
She said she wished she hadn’t, it had all been a big mistake and hideously embarrassing and she was terribly sorry, and clearly it didn’t mean a thing to Sergei, and I wouldn’t tell Tershie, would I?
So I said what did she take me for? I, at least, was loyal to my friends – or ex-friends, perhaps I should say – and she’d better think up some Russian ancestry for herself in case the baby proved to be a cuckoo in the nest. Then she cried even more and said it was definitely Tershie’s, she’d worked the dates out and she was sure.
I didn’t know why the thought of Linny having Sergei’s baby should hurt me, since I’d never wanted to have a baby at all, but it did, so I said I was going now and I never wanted to see her ever again and left her to it … and I hoped she remembered to drink something because at that rate of tears she would be totally dehydrated and her basement would be flooded.
On the way home (by tube and train this time) I felt in a cold state of shock, especially realizing that I would never see Linny again – or not intentionally, anyway – or have my handy base in London, or someone to tell all my secrets to, or giggle with over the clientele at Lemonia, or discuss my love life – or lack of – with, or help her spend Tershie’s money …
I mean, I’d got other friends, but only one Linny.
How could she do this to me?
And how could Sergei do that with my best friend and think it didn’t matter any more than his flings with the other passing playmates? I knew that Linny hadn’t got any common sense whatsoever, but why on earth didn’t Sergei think to take precautions? Or was I wrong about that, at least, and the baby was Tershie’s?
Dear Tony,
Here is some news that will gladden your heart: I am no longer having any kind of relationship with Sergei Popov. All is at an end between us.
From now on I intend living a virtuous single life down here in Shrimphaven, where I will decline into a state of embittered and probably eccentric spinsterhood,
so I hope you, at least, are happy.
Tina
It being one of his days for teaching at the Royal Ballet School, I rang up and had Sergei urgently summoned to the phone so I could tell him Linny had admitted everything, to which he replied dismissively that there was nothing of any importance to admit.
Then I asked him if he knew she was pregnant, and there was a short pause before he said no, but if she was it was nothing to do with him, he was careful and had learned that lesson early in life. ‘Besides, Tsarina,’ he added tenderly, ‘you know I would never do anything that might hurt you.’
‘What did you think sleeping with my best friend would do, make me happy?’ I demanded. ‘Sergei, this is the absolute end and I never want to see or hear from you again!’
Then I slammed the phone down, and I think I spent the entire night crying because the next morning my red eyes made me look like the advance party from a Martian invasion and my throat felt husky.
It seemed like half my life had suddenly been cut off, which it had actually, but it focused me on the book wonderfully well, and I threw myself into it over the next few days and didn’t answer the telephone at all, just played back my messages from time to time.
There were several tearful and remorseful ones from Linny, and one from Tershie saying although he knew we’d had a little tiff, it was upsetting Linny just at a time when she shouldn’t be upset, so couldn’t I make it up with her? But there was no way I felt I could speak to him just then, or in fact to anyone. I just felt too raw and betrayed.
Anyway, what sort of explanation could I possibly have given him? However awful Linny’s betrayal, telling him the truth was not an option.
So I deleted all of the messages, including the ones from Sergei, which were mostly deeply grieved, not to mention put out by my attitude and, latterly, suggesting that I would be sorry when I realized to what lengths my cold heart had driven him. But I was not worried, because unless you can overdose on Russian tea he was unlikely to do his beautiful body any harm.
Written From the Heart Page 14