‘Not until I have finished this extremely delicious tiramisu you have made. I expect you remember how you first described tiramisu to me, Mariella?’
‘Of course. I said it was like making love. So let us make love, here, at the table, and then we can make love in bed.’
That was the night he asked her to marry him.
Eliza glanced at her watch. It was nearly eleven. The cars and horse trailers – no more full boxes, thank goodness – were streaming in now; Mr Horrocks, who was in charge of parking, was growing more officious by the minute. Ponies were being led round and round the field, by an army of little girls – and a small number of boys; fathers were heaving water carriers and nosebags about, mothers were unpacking picnics. Gail and her brothers were standing by various jumps, Charles was leading Gail’s donkey, bearing a seemingly endless queue of little girls up and down the far field, and an even more endless queue was forming for Mrs Horrocks’s lemonade. Sarah’s business at the tombola was booming.
Everything seemed fine; if she was quick, she could dash up and have her bath and change, before –
‘Eliza!’ A very flashy Jaguar had driven in; Jack Beckham was waving wildly at her.
‘What a day. Blimey, good thing there aren’t any of your readers here, fine fashion editor you make.’
‘Thanks, Jack. Hello, you must be Babs. I’ve heard a lot about you. And you three, lovely to meet you. Jack, if you want to park here, in front of the house, do, it’s getting very difficult over there. Come and meet my mother, she’s serving cold drinks or there’s a beer tent over there, next to the orangery—’
‘A beer tent!’ said Jack Beckham. ‘Now you’re talking. Well, this is all very nice, Eliza, come on, girls, out.’
The three girls got out, the epitome of Seventies girlhood, all long skirts and long curls and wide over-made-up smudgy eyes.
‘I love those skirts,’ Eliza said, ‘are they—’
But at that moment, Cal appeared, his curls even longer and more luxurious than the girls’, carrying two enormous bales of hay; all three of them stood stock still as if they had seen some kind of heavenly vision. Which, as they recounted later to their friends, they felt they had.
‘’Scuse me, Mrs Shaw,’ said Gail, ‘but Mum says we should start the jumpin’ right away, people are getting restive, so if we can get the judges to come to the table—’
‘Yes, of course,’ said Eliza. ‘Jack, can you sort yourselves out, sorry. Cal will show you everything …’
‘I bet he will,’ said Babs, with the dimpled giggle that had become famous from her days as a weather girl. ‘Come on, girls, after Cal.’
Eliza rounded up the judges, grabbed the mike, called the entrants for the first jumping class to come to the collecting ring – the rather grand name for a sectioned-off bit of paddock – and thought longingly of the bathroom.
At last. Upstairs … he’d be here soon … she must actually smell …
‘Eliza. Hello, my darling. Can I park here, or do I have to go to the field?’
‘Oh – Jeremy, no, of course you can park here. Mr Northcott, how lovely to see you, let me take you round to the terrace, you can sit down there and Jeremy can get you a beer or something. Mummy’s looking foward to seeing you and we’re thrilled you’re staying tonight.’
Now …
‘Eliza – hello. You look wonderful.’
‘Mark! I do not, I’m afraid, I keep trying to go up for a bath, but – where’s Scarlett?’
‘She’s run into the house, I hope that’s all right, desperate for the loo, poor darling.’
‘How is she? It’s so brave of you to come.’
‘We wouldn’t have missed it for the world. She’s fine, tired of course, look – I’ll go in and find her, don’t worry about us. See you later.’
‘OK. Thanks. Well, I will then—’
She was hardly inside the house when Scarlett appeared out of the loo, looking magnificent in a white frilled dress, and perilously high-heeled red sandals.
‘Eliza, hello.’
‘Hello, and you in there.’ She patted Scarlett’s huge stomach. ‘It’s lovely of you to come.’
‘It’s lovely to be here. Wouldn’t have missed it. Look – sorry to be a nuisance, but you haven’t got any Rennies or anything, have you? I keep getting awful indigestion.’
OK. At least she was on the right floor. Into the bathroom and—
‘Mummy, Mummy, Daddy’s here. Come and say hello to him.’
Damn. Damn, damn, damn. She would have to go down or it would seem intolerably hostile. This was a difficult day for him, and he’d been very good about it.
‘Hello Matt. Doesn’t it all look professional? Oh, Louise, how lovely of you to come. You look great. That’s one of Maddy’s cardigans, isn’t it? She’s coming later, I hope. Matt, take Louise and get her a drink, the beer tent is over there, turn right after the orangery, you know – I—’
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I know. Funny place for a beer tent, I’d have thought.’
‘Is it, it seemed quite good to me—’ She stopped. Matt was looking at her oddly, and suddenly she knew why. She stood very still, staring at him; odd, how things went on affecting you, turning your heart. Even after all that had happened, some things, some memories, good ones, survived. The orangery was one of them, Matt’s favourite place here always, special to both of them, the place they had – oh, God – actually consummated his purchase of Summercourt. She should have thought, should have kept it out of today’s arrangements.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I’m sorry, does it seem a bad place, I just thought—’
‘No, no,’ he said, ‘it’s fine. Come on, Louise. Let’s go and find Emmie. I presume someone’s looking after her?’ he added, the old edge to his voice.
‘Yes,’ she said quietly, ‘yes, she’s with Gail. In the paddock, which is now the ring, of course, you saw it last week.’
‘Yes. Fine. I’ll see you later. It all seems very much under control.’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘yes, it is. I’ll just—’ She turned to go in for the longed-for bath.
‘Mrs Shaw.’ It was Mrs Horrocks. ‘The local paper’s here, they want a picture of the three of you, you and Mr Shaw and Emmie, any hope of that?’
‘Not while I’m looking like this,’ said Eliza, ‘give me five minutes, I’ll just go and—’
But – ‘Mrs Shaw, Geoff Walters, Marlborough News, I see you’re both here, where’s the little girl?’
‘Here!’ said Emmie, breathlessly. ‘Mrs Horrocks told me to come. Are you from the paper? You can’t take a picture and not have Mouse. Come on everyone, this way, this way, and can Coral be in it too, she’s my friend, we were born the same day …’
The megaphone was crackling into life:
‘… fourteen hands and under, Number One, Hollyhock, ridden by …’
Now, at last, the bath. She could not greet her lover looking and smelling like this –
‘Mummy! Uncle Toby’s here.’
It had been a slow burn, her relationship with Toby. If they’d been in a film, she thought, they would have run into each other’s arms in slow motion in the atrium of the Law Courts and he would have told her he loved her; as it was she felt awkward, diffident with him, even as she thanked him, and when he called a few days later to say he thought they should leave a meeting for at least a couple of weeks – ‘give you a chance to recover’ – she was both touched and grateful. For she did feel very odd, and rather as if she had had a long and almost fatal illness. She was exhausted, sleeping badly, and when she did, still haunted by bad dreams; demoralised by the character assassination that Matt’s team and indeed the whole process had inflicted upon her; and deeply distressed and humiliated by the publicity, which made going into work seem an almost impossible hurdle – until Jeremy called a brainstorming meeting to discuss the re-structure of new client presentations and insisted she was there.
That set a seal on her status at the agency; she got home that night
feeling she had at least begun to heal. Just the same, at her mother’s suggestion, she had had a few sessions with Mary Miller, and over many boxes of Mrs Miller’s extra-strong tissues, began to rediscover some self-respect. But it was painful and slower than she had expected; Mrs Miller chided her for her impatience.
‘The psyche has its own timetable, Eliza; follow it, you’ll do better that way.’
The house problem had sorted itself out surprisingly easily; she was more than happy to move out, she had always hated the big Fulham house, associating it with unhappiness, and had found a place of her own, only four streets away just off Hurlingham Road, a smaller but very similar house, with a bedroom overlooking the park admirably suited to Emmie’s requirements. She fell in love with it at the very first viewing, and nearly lost it while Matt insisted on beating the price down and then down again. This resulted in their first post-divorce row, which turned out to be extraordinarily healing and saw them resolving matters quite cheerfully over a drink in the Hurlingham pub.
Toby had entered her life again tentatively; it seemed rather odd, having shared that astonishing night with him, to be re-cast as lunch companion and a rather bashful one at that. Even dinner, the next step, ended in an almost dutiful snog in his car and she had begun to think they would never get any further, when Fate took over in its usual rather determined way.
She was coming out of the Ritz quite late one night towards the end of September with Rob Brigstocke; Jeremy had thrown a big client cocktail party and then invited a chosen few to stay for dinner. Rob had his arm round her, and as she got into a taxi, she turned to give him a kiss. Next day Toby called her, to say, in his most brusque tones, that he was sorry, he would have to cancel their dinner that evening, as he was probably having to work late.
‘And quite possibly tomorrow as well. In fact, best not to schedule anything for a bit. I’ll – I’ll call you in a week or so.’
Hurt beyond anything, Eliza acquiesced; she had agreed to meet Jack Beckham for a drink that evening, to discuss some possible freelance articles, and was walking along the Strand, jerked into some painful reminiscences, and was trying to tell herself that Toby was indeed very often very busy, and very, very often worked late, when she saw him leaving the Courts of Justice and walking in his swift impatient way away from her – in the company of a very pretty girl. She stared after them, trying neither to care nor to cry, continued to walk after them, and then found herself almost walking straight into him when he stopped dead in his tracks and turned round suddenly as the girl walked on.
‘Oh,’ he said, ‘oh, hello.’
‘Hello, Toby.’
And what she should have done, she knew, was walk away coolly, maintaining her dignity: instead of saying, as she seemed compelled to do, ‘I thought you were working late.’
‘As I am,’ he said, his voice very cold, ‘I’m taking Verity to a client meeting, she’s gone on ahead, I’ve forgotten something crucial.’
‘Oh,’ she said, less cool and dignified still, ‘is that what you call it, a client meeting?’
‘Verity,’ he said, ‘is my new assistant.’
‘Yes, and I’m the Queen of Sheba.’ (Oh, really cool, Eliza, really dignified.)
‘For Christ’s sake,’ he said (slightly less cool and dignified himself now), ‘you’re a fine one to talk. Perhaps you’d like to tell me who you were leaving the Ritz with last night? Some work colleague of your own, I suppose.’
‘Toby,’ she said (cool beginning to return), ‘that was Rob Brigstocke. I’m surprised you didn’t recognise him.’
‘Ah, yes, of course. The one you smoke dope with. That’s a very formal relationship you obviously have.’
And then she said, staring at him, with a sort of incredulity, ‘You really mind, don’t you?’
‘Well, I do, as a matter of fact.’
‘And as a matter of fact I really mind that you’re walking along with your new assistant.’
‘That’s absurd. Quite different.’
Eliza began to smile: very tentatively. ‘OK, it is quite different. This being the Strand and that being Piccadilly. And Verity being your assistant and Rob being my boss. And if we’re both speaking the truth, then we’re both being extremely stupid.’
‘I’m certainly speaking the truth.’
‘And so am I, and nothing but it, so help me God. I’m surprised at you, Toby Gilmour, relying on circumstantial evidence.’
‘Oh Christ,’ he said after a long silence. ‘Oh – this is – awful.’
‘Why? It seems rather good to me.’
‘Well – actually not, because I really am going to a client meeting. And all I want to do is take you home with me.’
‘Well,’ she said, her heart and indeed her body lurching most pleasurably, ‘that’s all I want too, funnily enough, what a coincidence, but I’m going to see Jack Beckham. It’ll take about an hour.’
‘My meeting likewise.’
‘So we could meet after that?’
‘Yes, we could. Your place or mine?’
‘Yours would be – sort of more appropriate, I think. And I know where it is.’
‘Here,’ he said, bumbling in his pocket, ‘here’s a key. In case I’m late.’
‘You’d better not be.’
In the event, he was home before her; two glasses by the bed, champagne on ice in the kitchen.
‘I sort of think I can’t wait to drink that,’ said Eliza.’
‘OK. We’ll have it afterwards. Oh, and I’ve got some very good news.’
‘What’s that?’
‘The bed doesn’t creak.’
And thus had begun a very gentle love affair; Eliza, initially uncertain where it might be leading, but happier than she had been for years, still unsure of herself, aware of the need for tact and care with Emmie, who was still unsettled, still testing both her parents considerably, asked for time for all of them. And Toby, cautious by nature as well as profession, was happy to give it to her.
It was well after Christmas when he announced one night over dinner in his flat that he couldn’t stand it any longer; startled, frightened even, she assumed he meant it must be over between them and said, anxious not to appear clinging or feeble, that of course she understood and she would far rather he be honest with her, she really didn’t want to hold him against his will, and if he had just been being kind all this time, then she didn’t want that either, she’d be absolutely fine, in fact she—
‘Oh, for Christ’s sake,’ he said, his voice at its most impatient, ‘you always, always get things wrong—’ and, ‘Well, I’m sorry you should see it like that,’ she said, quite briskly, ‘I don’t have your advantage of a legal training, I’m not very clear-thinking, never have been,’ and she had jumped up from the table, grabbed her bag and rushed out of the flat; and that might have been the end of it, had it not been sleeting, and the steps were slippery and, careless with misery, she had slipped and fallen and when he rushed out after her, he found her crumpled on the pavement, whimpering over a very painful wrist.
Which was broken in two places, it emerged, after a long wait in Casualty, where he insisted on staying in spite of her frequent assertions that she didn’t want to waste his time; and finally, when she emerged, white-faced and shaking, her wrist in plaster, he said she must come home with him, she couldn’t possibly be on her own. She said she wouldn’t dream of imposing on him and if he would just call a cab she’d be fine; whereupon he grabbed her good wrist, pulled her outside and, his face quite dark with anger, told her that she was a silly bitch and he wanted her to impose on him, for as much and as long as he could persuade her to do so.
‘Please don’t call me a silly bitch,’ she said, while feeling her face breaking rather unwillingly into a smile, ‘it’s not exactly what I need, under the circumstances,’ and he said all right, all right and sighed heavily, and then there was a long silence and then he said, ‘Would “I love you” be more in order? Under the circumstances?’
And so they went home together, and Toby tucked her up in his bed and said he would sleep in the other room, so as not to disturb her, and brought her a hot toddy and told her he loved her again; and then in the night, rising to go to the loo and seeing his light on under the door, she went in to find him reading ‘just some notes for the next day – sorry if it seems heartless’, and she said she had never known anyone less heartless, and that middle-of-the-night encounters with him had been rather successful in the past and that she would like to join him, painful wrist or not; adding, quite conversationally, that she had been thinking very hard and she had decided she loved him too. Whereupon, with only a little difficulty, they managed to set a seal on their greatly improved relationship and finally fell asleep so soundly that Toby was almost late in court …
It was mid-afternoon, the jumping was finished, Jack Beckham had presented the cup, and what many considered the highlight of the day was about to take place, the ‘Mounted Fancy Dress’. Essentially held before the gymkhana proper, while the ponies were still not covered in mud, it attracted a huge entry; ponies and their riders large and small, dressed as fairies, rabbits, foxes, flowers, medieval knights (and ladies) filled the paddock. Emmie had chosen to be a fairy and to wear the tutu she wore for ballet, but at the last minute, in a sudden fit of generosity, she had asked Coral if she would like to enter in her place, and was leading her round the ring. Various jolly tunes were being played over the loudspeaker and judging was about to commence when a very large and glossy horsebox appeared and pulled up beside the others. ‘That’s too bad,’ said Eliza, ‘it’s far too late, what do they think they’re playing at, I’ll have to go and—’
But at that point a rather smart-looking grey horse was led out of the box; and out of the passenger seat sprang a figure with very long blond hair, and wearing, apparently, no clothes; she jumped up on the horse with great aplomb, gathered up the reins and rode at a brisk trot, no mean feat, given the horse had no saddle, towards the ring.
‘What on earth—’ said Eliza.
And, ‘Now I’ve seen everything,’ said Jack Beckham.
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