The Four of Us

by Margaret Pemberton

  ‘If they’re high on dope, the ha-ha will be the best place for ’em,’ her uncle had retorted, unfazed at the thought of marijuana, worried only that his ancient lawn should remain unsullied.

  With the dogs at her heels Geraldine walked down the shallow steps and turned to the left on the pathway that skirted the lawns’ perfect edges. There were going to be three hundred guests that evening and, no doubt, several gate-crashers. There was a mass of things to do and for the next half an hour or so she was going to do none of them. She was simply going to enjoy her delicious sense of anticipation. The coming evening was, after all, one she had looked forward to ever since she was a little girl.

  Though other childish daydreams had come and gone – becoming a nun, a trapeze artiste, a vet – the dream of becoming engaged to Francis and of celebrating their engagement at Cedar Court in the blissful knowledge that she would one day become mistress of it was one that had never wavered.

  It was, she had once told Artemis, her destiny. Artemis hadn’t hooted with laughter as Kiki would probably have done if she’d said the same thing to her, nor had she looked faintly troubled as Primmie tended to do whenever she told her she couldn‘t possibly contemplate falling in love with anyone other than her cousin. Unexpectedly, Artemis had suddenly become her closest confidante – and she had every intention, at the party, of making her idyllically happy by introducing her to as many eligible young men as possible.

  Mature yew-hedging framed the south-facing borders, and the path, now flanked by carnations, led her beneath an archway draped with a waterfall of white roses. The fevered activity down by the ha-ha was now lost to view, the sound of the hammering so muffled by the high hedging that it could scarcely be heard.

  She continued thinking about Artemis, and how nice it was that Artemis was finally beginning to lose the puppy fat that had plagued her for so long. With her barley-gold hair and cornflower-blue eyes, she was fast becoming a classic English beauty.

  Primmie, too, seemed, in the space of just a couple of weeks, to have a lustre about her. Ever since the four of them had made friends, Primmie, months older than both Kiki and Artemis, had always looked the youngest by at least a couple of years. Now, for some reason she couldn’t fathom, Primmie no longer looked as if she was someone’s younger sister. There was a glow about her that was almost palpable.

  As she walked past a Greek-inspired fountain into the grey and white garden that opened on to the parkland, she wondered if the change in Primmie was due to her having started work as a junior account handler at BBDO, an advertising agency in Hanover Square. From her first pay packet she’d bought herself a plum velvet waistcoat and matching skirt from Biba, the waistcoat edged with the same flower-patterned braid that trimmed the hem of the skirt. Though she wore her new outfit with a puritanically high-collared white blouse, the overall effect was still exotic-looking enough to be almost hip.

  The thought of Primmie being hip brought a smile to her lips. Primmie simply didn’t have it in her to be unconventional. When she’d told her that she and Francis intended hitting the hippie trail she’d been more appalled than envious. ‘But I thought we were all going to be living together in London for a year?’ she’d said, looking stricken. ‘Wasn’t that the plan, Geraldine? Please say you’re not going off to India until I go to university.’

  Because of Francis’s sudden enthusiasm for entering the music business, which, if it lasted as long as previous enthusiasms, would take approximately eight or nine months to get out of his system, she’d been able to reassure Primmie that their year together in the Kensington flat was still on.

  She was out of the garden now and walking across the parkland towards a giant oak. How old it actually was was impossible to tell, but she liked to think it had been planted by the Francis Sheringham who, having found favour and riches under Elizabeth I, had, in 1603, built Cedar Court.

  As the two Labradors raced ahead of her, she reflected wryly that at least she would be kept busy during Francis’s latest enthusiasm. ‘Kit Armstrong is keen on recording Kiki singing the songs the two of you have written,’ he’d said when telling her that Kiki was on the verge of going solo and that he was going to manage her. ‘So we need more songs, Geraldine sweetheart. It won’t be a problem, will it?’

  As, hampered by her skirt, she climbed up into the tree towards the gigantic branch that was her favourite perch, she fought down a stab of impatience. Without his latest enthusiasm they could have set off any time they wanted for India – enjoying lots of other places en route.

  The light breeze blowing across the parkland was lifting her hair and it was getting caught on the twigs and leaves of the branch above her. Deftly she swirled it round her hand and wound it into a sleek knot in the nape of her neck, seeing, as she did so, that a car was turning off the little-used road that flanked the far edge of the parkland.

  It was a red E-type Jaguar and her heart gave a lurch of joy. It was Francis and he would know exactly where to find her. As the dogs finally gave up hope of a walk and settled down on the grass, she thought how odd it was that Cedar Court seemed to be hers already and that it was as if Francis was the one who was visiting.

  Ever since coming down from Oxford he’d had a bachelor pad in town, not far from the flat she, Kiki, Primmie and Artemis had just moved into. In three years’ time, when they married, they would have to find somewhere much bigger, but whatever they found it wouldn’t be their main home. Her uncle had already told them that from the day of their marriage they would be able to regard Cedar Court as their marital home.

  ‘That’s because he wants to offload all the hassle of looking after it,’ Francis had said dryly.

  ‘I’ll be doing the looking after,’ she had said, knowing full well that was the situation her uncle intended and that he was looking forward to it, just as she was.

  For the moment, though, she was without any kind of routine, unlike her three friends. Primmie left their Kensington flat at eight thirty in order to reach Hanover Square by bus for nine o’clock. Some nights she would then return by six thirty, other nights it would be ten thirty or eleven o’clock before they saw her again – presumably because she was busy socializing with her new work colleagues at the agency. Artemis left at nine fifteen for the Lucie Clayton Modelling School, which was just a short walk away, and invariably came straight home for a long, lingering bath, before going out somewhere with her and, if Kiki was around, Kiki. Kiki rarely surfaced until eleven o’clock and then always had somewhere important to her career to go, or someone it was important she see, seldom returning until whatever gig she and The Atoms were playing was over. Of the four of them, only she, Geraldine, had no kind of structure to her day.

  She turned on the branch she was straddling in order to be able to catch the first glimpse of Francis as he emerged on to the parkland from the high-hedged grey and white garden. The last couple of weeks, of course, ever since they’d moved into the flat, she’d been kept busy arranging the party taking place that evening. Once the party was over, though, and with Francis haring around Tin Pan Alley making contacts, time was going to hang heavy on her hands unless she got herself a job of some kind.

  The problem was, it was hard to be enthused about a job when she didn’t need one financially and when she wasn’t remotely ambitious – and she certainly didn’t want a job that would interfere with Francis’s and her social life. Idly she wondered about becoming a photographer’s rep or assistant – Bailey was coming to the party that evening and he’d be bound to know someone who would be happy to employ her. Or maybe she could do as lots of debutantes did and get herself an undemanding job as a receptionist in an advertising agency.

  Francis strolled unhurriedly out of the grey and white garden and, as the dogs sprang to their feet and bounded to meet him, she shelved all thoughts of how she was going to occupy her time until they went to India.

  ‘Hi! I’m here!’ she called out unnecessarily as he walked over the grass towards the tree. His
hands were in the pockets of crushed velvet, ruby-red trousers. His shirt was equally magnificent – purple, with pink paisley motifs – and his fair hair hung in rippling waves to his shoulders, as glossy as a girl’s.

  The tree had been a regular meeting place since their childhood and he usually swung himself up into its branches, making himself as comfortable as he could beside her. Today he remained at its foot as the dogs circled him, barking furiously in fresh hope of a walk. ‘The trousers are new,’ he said explanatively. ‘Ossie Clark made them for me. I’m not risking them clambering up to you. You’ll have to clamber down.’

  ‘Is Ossie coming tonight?’ she asked, adjusting her position so that, instead of climbing down, she could jump and let him catch her.

  ‘He is, and so is Celia and so is Alice.’

  Ossie was haute couturier to the swinging elite. Celia was his wife, and Alice Pollock his business partner. If they were definitely coming, it meant their close friend David Hockney would also show – and if he did she was going to ask him if he would do a portrait of her and Francis.

  ‘That’s good,’ she said and, without a word of warning, slid off the branch.

  It was an action he hadn’t been expecting, and though he successfully broke her fall he didn’t do so without reeling and toppling backwards, taking her with him.

  He lay, winded, his arms still around her, making no move to get to his feet. Geraldine, in exactly the position she wanted to be, made no move to get to her feet either.

  ‘I love you, Francis,’ she said as the Labradors nuzzled at them, anxious to know they weren’t hurt.

  ‘I know,’ he said, pushing one of the dogs away, a smile spreading to his eyes. ‘I love you too.’

  As the dogs mooched off a few yards and settled down to sleep, he rolled her on to her back, kissing her long and deeply.

  When he finally raised his head she smiled up at him. ‘How long have we been meeting beneath this tree?’ she asked, her mouth still only millimetres from his.

  He frowned, pretending to think. ‘Twelve years? Thirteen years?’

  ‘And have we ever made love beneath it?’

  He chuckled. ‘No – and thirteen years ago that was because you were five and I was eight.’

  ‘Ah,’ she said on a long sigh. ‘But that was then – and making love beneath our very special tree, on our engagement day, would be wonderfully symbolic, Francis, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘It would indeed,’ he said, and the next moment his hair was coarse beneath her fingers, his hands were hard upon her body and his mouth was dry as her tongue slipped past his lips.

  The official moment of their engagement – the moment when he slid what was always known in the family as ‘the Sheringham rock’ on to her finger, was not completely private.

  ‘It fits quite nicely, doesn’t it?’ her uncle said, regarding the thirty-two-carat pink diamond with satisfaction. ‘Amazing that it hasn’t had to be altered. Francis’s mother had to have the shank made smaller and I remember my grandmother telling me that when she was first given it she had to have it altered to fit as well.’

  ‘And it hasn’t been remodelled since your great-grandmother’s day,’ her mother said, putting her champagne flute down so that she could take a closer look. ‘I did suggest to Francis that perhaps it might be an idea to have it re-fashioned in a modern setting, but he said you didn’t want him to.’

  ‘And I didn’t – and don’t,’ Geraldine said, one arm linked through Francis’s, a glass of champagne in her free hand. ‘I love the idea that the ring looked just like this when Francis’s mother wore it, and my grandmother and great-grandmother before her.’

  ‘It was uncut when John Francis Sheringham brought it back from India in 1858.’ Her uncle looked round the vast drawing room in order to locate John Francis’s portrait. ‘And which Indian prince he filched it from, no one knows.’ Through the open windows, on the early evening air, there came the sound of heavy rock music. Piers Sheringham flinched as if he had been struck. ‘What, in the name of Creation, is that?’

  ‘The band,’ Francis said, grinning. ‘They’ll be tuning up or whatever it is rock bands do pre a concert. Guests are already

  arriving and it’s time we put in an appearance and greeted them.’

  Geraldine was well aware that she looked sensational. Her hair hung waist length, as shiny as black silk, held away from her face by two heavy tortoiseshell combs. Her dress was starkly simple. A white velvet gown, the top cut halter-fashion, the skirt falling to her white, satin-clad feet, in a pure straight line. What she wasn’t quite prepared for was just how sensational Artemis and Primmie looked. They had travelled down to Sussex together in Artemis’s father’s chauffeur-driven Rolls because, though Artemis had passed her driving test and was the proud possessor of an MG sports car, she had no intention of ruining her hair – or her dress – by driving it.

  ‘You look absolutely gorgeous, Artemis,’ she said, meaning every word, ‘and thin.’

  For months past, knowing she would soon be going to the Lucie Clayton Modelling School, Artemis had worked ferociously hard to lose weight and they’d all known that she’d successfully lost her chubbiness. What Geraldine hadn’t realized, though, until she saw Artemis in a dress that was, for once, both appropriate to the occasion and stunningly beautiful, was that she had become catwalk model slender.

  The dress was ice-blue silk and skimmed her body voluptuously, the neckline daringly low, a deeply cut V at the back reaching to her waist. Instead of looking anxious or flustered, as she had so often done in the past whenever the occasion had been special, she looked nervously exultant. ‘I am thin, aren’t I?’ she said, her gold hair coiled into an elaborate chignon, her eyes alight with happiness. ‘And you are going to introduce me to hordes of blue-blooded young men, aren’t you?’

  ‘Everyone I put purposely across your path will have a title or be heir to one and have squil-lions of cash!’ she promised as Primmie, who had been greeted by Piers, hurried up to them, radiant in a traditional, full-skirted ball gown of pale lemon taffeta, the neckline gently scooped, the sleeves huge and puffed and old-fashioned.

  ‘Ooh, isn’t this just magic?’ she said, as acres of fairy lights that had taken weeks to put into place lit up the house and the gardens. ‘And doesn’t Artemis look simply staggering and – oh gosh – your engagement ring, Geraldine! I’ve never seen anything so beautiful. It looks like the Koh-i-noor!’

  Kiki, too, had done her best, by her own lights, to dress for the occasion. She wasn’t wearing a ball gown – that would have been too much to expect. Her silver sequinned hipsters and silver bandeau top were, however, worn with an exquisite white organdie silver-trimmed ankle-length coat that, worn unfastened, floated round her in sumptuous splendour. Her silver ankle-strap shoes sported four-inch-high, lethal-looking stainless steel heels. Her talon-like nails were painted silver and her eye shadow was silver. ‘It’s my moon-girl look,’ she said, drinking champagne with them before The Atoms’s first set. ‘Don’t you think my Cleopatra eye make-up looks even more dramatic with silver eye shadow than it did with purple eye shadow?’

  ‘It looks … mesmerizing,’ Primmie said, wondering just how many pairs of bat-wing false eyelashes Kiki was wearing. ‘But why are you wearing your hair dragged so tight to your scalp and worn in that uncomfortable-looking knot on the top of your head?’

  ‘So that I look even more extraordinary, of course. Honestly, Primmie. Sometimes you’re so dim.’

  ‘She looks totally futuristic, doesn’t she?’ Francis said as he escaped from greeting more of their guests and joined them. ‘I’m seriously considering pursuing this moon-girl image now that I’m managing her. And don’t breathe a word, but this is her swan-song with The Atoms. From now on, Kiki Lane is a solo artiste.’

  A pleased-as-Punch look flashed between him and Kiki and then Kiki began making her head-turning way down towards the ha-ha and the stage and Francis gave a whoop as he recognized Ossie Clark and
his entourage making their way towards them.

  ‘I didn’t know Francis had become Kiki’s business manager,’ Artemis said, her heart pounding as she became aware that David Bailey was making a beeline towards her and Geraldine. ‘Will they get on, do you think? You know how difficult Kiki can be.’

  ‘They’re getting on like a house on fire,’ Geraldine said, flashing the Sheringham rock in Bailey’s direction. ‘How perfectly brilliantino that you’re here, David, darling. Do let me introduce you to two of my closest, closest friends, Artemis Lowther and Primmie Surtees. The third closest, closest is going to be on stage in another few minutes. Have you heard Kiki Lane sing? She’s unbelievable. Absolutely fabulous.’

  For the next hour or two, she and Francis were so busy circulating amongst their three hundred guests that she caught only fleeting glimpses of Artemis and Primmie. She did, however, manage to steer some highly eligible young men in Artemis’s direction and, considering how mesmerizingly beautiful Artemis was looking, none of them had needed any heavy-handed persuasion. Primmie, too, was quite obviously having a wonderful time. She saw her dancing with Kit Armstrong; dancing with Wayne Clayton; dancing with a far-distant Sheringham cousin.

  When The Atoms were on stage, though, Kiki commanded all their attention. She kicked off with Connie Francis’s ‘Stupid Cupid’, followed by a whole host of other old, classic rock numbers, finishing with her favourite of favourites, ‘River Deep, Mountain High’.

  ‘She’s going to do her rhythm and blues numbers and “White Dress, Silver Slippers” in their second set,’ Francis shouted to her over a roar of applause for ‘River Deep’. ‘Have you seen the expression on Kit Armstrong’s face? Kiki’s going to be big, Geraldine. Big. Big. Big. And when she’s earning millions, I’ll be right there, taking a very healthy percentage!’

  ‘I hope so,’ she shouted back, meaning that she hoped Kiki would make it big time, clapping for all she was worth, the Sheringham rock glittering and flashing like fire.