Tonight’s guest of honour appeared to be master of the situation. He opened with the traditional light-hearted, self-deprecating anecdote. Encouraged by the warmth with which this was greeted, he released his hold on the table, took a step back and, on a more serious note, exposed for the benefit of his peers his particular tricks of the trade.
Topher, who had read and enjoyed many of the speaker’s books, was fascinated to discover how they were written. All the research was undertaken personally. Characters were allowed down no street the author had not trodden. The action took place in no country with which he was not familiar. De nihilo nihil. Nothing comes from nothing. A true professional, he earned every one of the megabucks with which he was reputed to have been rewarded. Half an hour – to the minute – after he had started speaking the speaker took his seat (and his well earned drink of water from the carafe on the table) to deafening and extended acclamation.
“Did you enjoy it?” Sally asked on the way home.
Topher could not think when he had last been so taken out of himself.
“I had a splendid evening,” he said. “Thank you so much for taking me.”
Driving amicably through the night silence with Sally by his side, Topher had the momentary illusion that they belonged together. He had almost forgotten that he must take her back to Jeffrey’s Street. He wasn’t at all surprised when Sally said: “Independence is all very well but sometimes one gets fed up with going to places on one’s own.”
It was not a question.
“I’m having a few people over on Saturday night,” Sally went on. “Will you come?”
Topher was about to say yes, when he remembered Lucille, and how much he wanted to see her.
“Is it Lucille or Jo?”
He was trying to think of a tactful reply when she said: “You can let me know.”
In Jeffrey’s Street Topher followed her into the flat. As a matter of course.
Sally brought a bottle of Armagnac from the kitchen.
“I want to explain,” Topher said. “About Lucille…”
“You don’t have to.”
“Why are you so understanding?”
Sally, ostensibly absorbed with dispensing the correct amount of Armagnac into the glasses, was kneeling on the rug in front of the table.
“You want the truth, Your Honour, and nothing but the truth?”
Topher noticed with pleasure how the lamplight caught the contours of her cheek, as if in a Rubens’ painting.
Clutching the bottle, Sally looked up from her task.
“I love you, Christopher.” She sat back on her heels. “So help me God.”
I love you, Christopher. So help me God. The words had haunted Topher for the remainder of the week. They danced and jigged before his eyes as he lay naked in the king-sized bed in the Mount Royal next to a similarly exposed Lucille.
“Penny for them?” Lucille lit a cigarette.
Saturday night had, in the end, offered four possibilities. Apart from Sally Maddox’s soirée, Jo Henderson had invited him to a film première, and Chelsea and David – with an unexpectedly spare ticket for Parsifal – had asked him to join them. Topher had opted for Lucille. By way of preparation for the evening he had paid a visit to Boots. Standing before the counter – on which the contraceptives were brazenly displayed between the vitamin capsules and the vapour rubs – he was not surprised to find that there was, as with mustard and marmalade, a plethora of choice. In his youth, a word in the barber’s ear as he put away his clippers had been all that was necessary. He vacillated between heavy duty and gossamer. The thought struck him that Caroline would have known immediately just what would suit him. Avoiding the eye of a school-leaver behind the counter, he picked up an envelope (Lifestyles) and extended his purchase to a grey-haired woman in a white overall.
In bed with Lucille he could scarcely reveal the fact that his mind was on Sally. Her declaration of her feelings for him had been followed by a treatise on the nature of love. Following the traumatic break-up of her marriage, Sally had resolved never to have anything to do with love again.
“I was doing very nicely, or so I thought…” She looked at Topher. “Until Marcus and April’s.”
“When you publicly molested me.”
“I couldn’t keep my hands off you.”
“That much was obvious.”
“Since that night, Christopher, I haven’t been able to think clearly.” She glanced across at her typewriter. “I have written nothing but crap.”
When he had kissed Sally goodnight, on her front step, Topher had experienced an overwhelming desire to shut the door, with himself on the inside, and to take her, without more ado, to bed. That he did not do so was due more to Sally’s comment, whispered into his ear, that she had not the slightest intention of sharing him, either with Jo Henderson or with Lucille, than to his restraint.
He still ached for Caroline, was infatuated (however temporarily) with Lucille, and was becoming more than slightly attracted to Jo Henderson. He wondered was he turning, in his dotage, into some kind of satyr.
“Tina showed me a photograph of you.” Lucille’s voice broke into his thoughts. “In your army uniform. You were a handsome young man. You’re not bad-looking now.”
“I could do with a bit more up here.” Topher smoothed the hair which had become ruffled during the evening’s exertions.
“I don’t set too much store on appearances,” Lucille said.
“Fronte nulla fides.”
“What’s that?”
“You shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.”
“Or a sausage by its skin.”
Topher believed what Lucille had said. That she was indifferent to appearances. She seemed not to need constant reassurance from a mirror. She was at ease with herself, bien dans sa peau.
She lay back on the pillow and pulled the sheet up to her chin. “If my mother – God rest her poor soul – could see me now. She would not believe her eyes. In bed with a judge!”
“What’s so special?”
“You have to be ever so clever, for a start.”
“With a copy of Everybody’s Guide to the Criminal Law – plus sufficient common sense to tell the difference between an honest man and a rogue – anyone could do it.”
“I was in court once. In Leeds. It was pouring with rain and I’d forgotten my umbrella. This poor little fellow, he didn’t look as if he could hurt a fly, was accused of exposing his person. His person!”
“It’s the jargon which holds the legal charade together,” Topher laughed. “Until we hold our courts in the shopping precincts so that people can just drop in on their way to the supermarket, the language is not going to be such that the layman will understand.”
“I used to think judges were stuffy.” Lucille stroked Topher’s nose. “You’re not stuffy.”
“When judges didn’t have so many cases to deal with, they could afford to be stuffy. These days we indulge ourselves less.”
“I wouldn’t mind if you were, stuffy.” Lucille sat up, leaning on her elbow. “Can I ask you something?”
Despite the grey roots at the base of her multicoloured blonde hair, despite the network of finely traced wrinkles about her eyes, Topher had a clear vision of Lucille as a young girl. He thought how pretty she must have been.
“They sent round this letter,” Lucille said, “about how I’d won two hundred pounds, a fortnight in an English hotel, a set of cut glasses, or a video recorder. All I had to do was go to Leeds and watch a film about holiday properties – ‘Holiday Paradise’ they called it. I go into Leeds every so often to get my highlights done. There’s this wonderful man, I’d follow him to the ends of the earth. So I thought why not? I sat through this film, two hours and a bit, and – you know me – I got carried away. Before you could say ‘knife’ I’d got my prize – the video recorder – and I’d signed on the dotted line. I was the proud owner of a Timeshare Apartment. On the Costa del Sol. ‘Everything about it says Welcom
e.’ They kept very quiet about the annual maintenance fee, of course. Anyway, what I wanted to ask you, Topher, what I wondered is, love… My seven days is coming up at the end of the month. How would you like to spend a week on ‘beaches of ever-changing texture…in the natural charm of the Andalucian countryside…where the Atlantic is tamed by the Mediterranean and the sun shines for over 320 days a year’?”
Twenty-one
Topher was convinced that he was dying. He particularly wanted to be in Knightsbridge early, because he was in the midst of an indecency case, but he had woken up with a sore throat, the sensation that his body was on fire, and the realisation that it was only with the greatest difficulty that he could lift his head from the pillow. Marcus, having received his panicked telephone call, looked in on his way to the hospital.
“You look awful,” he said, from the end of Topher’s bed.
“I feel awful. What’s the matter with me?”
“I can’t really say… I’m not that sort of a doctor. I don’t even have a stethoscope.”
“You could feel my pulse.”
“I make it a rule never to touch the patients. I suggest you call your GP.”
“Do you think it could be pleurisy?”
“Hard to say.” Marcus picked up Topher’s Times and turned to the city pages. He ran a finger down the stock market prices. “Bloody marvellous!”
“Or pneumonia?”
“You’re not coughing, are you? I only have to look at a share for it to go down.”
“Don’t change the subject.”
Marcus shut the paper.
“You’re keeping something from me.” Topher groaned.
“Such as?”
Topher was silent. He wished his head would stop banging.
“I suppose you think you have AIDS?”
“It had crossed my mind.”
“Absolute rubbish.”
“How can you be so sure? You just said you weren’t that sort of a doctor.”
“It’s highly unlikely… By the way, how is Lucille?”
“You see, he admits the possibility.”
“Anything is possible. I suspect that what you’re suffering from is a nasty dose of flu. I hope I don’t catch it. Tell me the number of your GP and I’ll give him a bell for you. Then I must be off. I expect April will look in later.”
Topher directed Marcus to Caroline’s bureau and the well-thumbed leather telephone book which Chelsea had given her mother for her fortieth birthday.
“McCormack, isn’t it?” Marcus said. “Would that be under M or C?”
“Hard to say.” Topher felt too ill to explain the idiosyncracies of his late wife’s filing system.
Dr McCormack, whom they had known for years but rarely troubled, was as likely to be under D (doctor), G (GP), P (practice) or T (Ted, his Christian name) as it was under either M or C. By the same token Mr Plant, who had made the curtains and cushion covers when they had last redecorated the sitting room, could be found under U (for upholsterer), although he never actually touched upholstery, and the telephone number of Caroline’s Bird-Watching society – known impiously as Twitchers – was listed between the Thames Valley Water Board and that of Mr Farquarson, who had been Penge’s piano tutor.
Marcus, more by luck than good management, had found the number he was looking for. He spoke to the receptionist of what was now a group practice.
“McCormack’s on holiday,” he told Topher, when he’d hung up. “A Doctor Harrington will call.”
“Never heard of him,” Topher rasped.
“I’m quite sure he’s capable of prescribing an antibiotic,” Marcus said, “which is probably all you need.” He looked at his watch. “My first patient is at eight.”
“Second.”
“A case of primary erectile impotence.”
“At least he won’t get AIDS!”
Waiting for April, Topher fell into the febrile half-sleep of sickness and thought about Lucille.
It was three months since he had turned down her invitation to southern Spain. Deeply tanned (“boobs and all”, as she had put it), Lucille – bearing a bottle of Marques de Cacères and a bag of shellfish – had come straight to Hampstead from Gatwick to cook Topher a paella. The next morning Mrs Sweetlove had recoiled in horror from the smell of garlic on his breath.
It seemed natural that on Lucille’s visits to London she should take charge in Topher’s kitchen. His rechaufée dishes gave way to daubes and stir-frys, in accordance with Lucille’s moods. He looked forward to her visits. He liked to watch her, bracelets jangling, saucepan or plate held unconsciously in mid-air, as she chattered away and waltzed between stove and larder in his kitchen where she seemed so much at home. Sometimes he wondered…
Lucille had thrown out hints: “I’m up to here with Bingley, it’s time I made a break.” Or “It must be ever so nice living in London. There’s always something going on.” Lucille never stayed the night. Their love life took place in the king-sized bed at the Mount Royal where Topher rejoiced at the renaissance of his virility. There was nothing feminist or militant about Lucille. She liked men. She didn’t think that there was anything either demeaning or degrading about pleasing them. Whatever made Topher happy made her happy. He was in danger of drowning in Lucille’s attentions.
Lucille had found an ally in Penge. She had wheeled her bicycle in one night when Lucille was putting a shepherd’s pie in the oven.
“Sorry,” Penge said pointedly to Topher, appraising Lucille in her black halter-neck top and violet satin skirt. She prepared to wheel her bicycle out again. “I didn’t know you were entertaining.”
“I’m not entertaining,” Lucille said, laughing. “I’m Lucille Moss from Bingley, I’m making your father a shepherd’s pie – you really shouldn’t be riding that bicycle in your condition, love – there’s more than enough for three.”
Penge, her hunger overcoming her disapproval, had stayed for dinner. Over the washing up Topher heard them discussing epidurals and breast-feeding (Lucille had a daughter in Canada), with animation.
Penge had grudgingly admitted later that she liked Lucille, and that Topher had to have some social life. She was unwilling to be drawn further.
Topher surprised himself at the ease with which he managed to juggle his engagements. His diary, which in the months following Caroline’s death had been a monochrome of empty pages, was now so full of permanent-blue entries that he was hard put to find an evening when he was free. He had temporarily abandoned Pushkin (halfway through Mozart and Salieri) and sometimes had to stay up into the small hours to write his judgements. Lucille usually came down on a Monday or a Thursday. If she was also in town at the weekend, his Saturday night spilled over into Sunday.
It was an unusual week when he did not see Jo at least twice. They dined out (Jo cheerfully confessed to her inability to boil the proverbial egg, the veracity of which statement Topher doubted), or went to the opera. Sometimes they did both. He was now greeted by name at Wiltons and Langan’s. When he had escorted Jo to her goddaughter’s wedding, their picture had been in Harpers & Queen. “She’s out to get you,” Chelsea had muttered. It was of course true. Jo Henderson made no secret of it. At Badger’s she seated him at the head of her table and tried to involve him in decisions concerning both the cottage and the estate.
Sometimes, as he negotiated the long drive, he made believe that Badger’s Cottage was his. He knew that he had only to say the word. Jo had not been to Topher’s house. She was interested only in Topher. Sometimes he caught her watching him and had the distinct impression that the green ice of her eyes was melting. It was no trouble to convince himself that a life spent between Lowndes Square, the Royal Opera House, Badger’s Cottage, the Palace Hotel at Gstaad, and Round Hill, Jamaica, was not too daunting a proposition. Returning, when he had a moment, to Mozart and Salieri, he wondered whether he had gone completely mad.
With Sally Maddox, Topher felt, there was a proper measure in things. Est modus in reb
us. Although all that Sally got was what was left of the blank pages in his diary (what she referred to as the “shitty end of the stick”), he was more at ease in her company than he was with either Jo Henderson or Lucille. Whether he was listening to Sally hold forth upon the novel, or he was attempting to unravel the spaghetti which featured frequently in her culinary repertoire (she did not pretend to be much of a cook), Topher was conscious of an almost marital familiarity, a lack of restraint, which made him look forward to his visits to Jeffrey’s Street. Sally demanded nothing. He wondered sometimes if he did not give her very little in return.
His confused and semi-conscious thoughts were interrupted by the front door bell. It was over two hours since Marcus had left. Wondering why April hadn’t used her key, he got out of bed and held aside the curtain. A young girl, her frizzy blonde hair tied with a pink ribbon, stood on the doorstep. Shivering, Topher opened the window.
“Yes?”
“Mr Osgood.”
“What is it you want. I’m ill.”
“I know you are. I’m Doctor Harrington.”
Ridiculous! Topher pondered the desirability of letting her into the house. Taking the line of least resistance – his throat was not up to doorstep dialectic – he threw down the key.
Face to face, Dr Harrington looked even less promising than she had from above. She seemed to patronise the same second-hand clothes shop as Penge, and not to have heard about stockings.
“How old are you?” Topher asked, rudely.
“Old enough.”
“That may be a very good answer,” Topher said, “but it is not the answer to my question.”
He realised suddenly and with horror that he was not in court. Dr Harrington had reddened slightly.
“Forgive me. I’m accustomed to Dr McCormack and I am not feeling myself.”
“We’ll start again if you like.” Taking her stethoscope out of her case she approached the bed.
Topher was impressed at the seriousness and extent of the examination which followed. Dr Harrington took the history – during which he considered, and rejected, the advisability of telling her about his relationship with Lucille – and investigated him with an expertise which, after he had got over his first qualms, could only command respect. Palpating his abdomen she was firm but gentle. When she made a leisurely exploration of his testicles he tried to keep his mind on the Director of Public Prosecutions v Rogers 1953, apropos of the case he was in the midst of hearing. When the tips of her fingers encountered glands in his neck he tried not to flinch. At the young lady’s request Topher coughed, then coughed again. He opened and shut his mouth in accordance with her instructions.
An Eligible Man Page 18