by Jilly Cooper
Gently Lysander’s foot nudged her ankle. Ferdie’s instructions were to be totally detached and never interrogate. But Guy was distracted by a huge emerald glittering on Georgie’s newly manicured right hand.
‘Isn’t it lovely?’ agreed Georgie dreamily. ‘I liked it so much, I decided to buy it with my royalty cheque.’
Maggie the puppy wriggled to be put down. Already plumper, sleeker and gaining in confidence after a fortnight of human food and sleeping on Lysander’s bed, she pounced on a yellow leaf from the dying wych-elm and, bounding up to Dinsdale, started swinging on his ginger ears. Raising a prehensile paw Dinsdale sent her flying. Covered in dust she righted herself, then seeing Charity emerge from the long bleached grass on the side of the lawn, took off after her.
‘Magg-ee,’ shouted Lysander.
‘Named after Thatcher,’ mocked Guy, who regarded himself as a champagne socialist.
‘No, Maggie Tulliver in The Mill on the Floss,’ said Lysander with all the authority of one who has reached page four.
Guy was fazed. An Adonis who read! Georgie had always been an intellectual snob. He was dying for a pee and a change into something cooler, but he was loath to leave these two together.
‘Doing anything exciting this weekend?’ Georgie asked Lysander, removing a rose petal from his hair.
‘Playing cricket for the village on Sunday.’
‘Oh really.’ Guy perked up at a challenge. ‘We’re on opposing sides, I’m playing for Rannaldini.’
Lysander drained his glass. ‘You play a lot?’
‘Whenever work allows,’ said Guy. ‘I played for my old school and for Cambridge and the Free Foresters. What about you?’
‘I haven’t played since school. Georgie, I must go.’
‘I’ll get you a bag so you can take the Pimm’s fruit for Arthur,’ said Georgie. ‘Lysander’s horse,’ she added to Guy. ‘He’s such a duck. Lysander’s determined to get him fit for the Rutminster Gold Cup next spring.’
Standing up to hasten Lysander’s departure, Guy suddenly noticed several holes in his beloved lawn.
‘My God! Who did that?’
‘I think Dinsdale’s been trying to reach Melanie in Australia,’ said Georgie.
Next minute Maggie shot round the corner with a regale lily corm plus plant in her mouth, pursued by a panting Jack and Dinsdale.
Grinning, Lysander bent to kiss Georgie goodbye. ‘Thanks for the drink,’ then lowered his voice, ‘and remember be happy and distant and no sniping.’
‘Oh, there’s Rannaldini’s helicopter returning,’ said Georgie, as the great black crow landed on the other side of the wood.
Guy’s temper was not improved when Flora sauntered into the house twenty minutes later wearing nothing but flip-flops and a ravishing shirt in Prussian-blue silk over bikini bottoms.
‘Darling, you were going to ring from the station,’ said Georgie, hugging her.
‘I got a lift. Grania’s father was driving up to London.’
‘How was Cornwall?’ asked Guy. ‘You didn’t get brown.’
‘Too hot to sunbathe,’ said Flora, who’d spent most of last week in Rannaldini’s bedroom in his villa outside Rome.
‘Lovely shirt,’ said Georgie enviously.
‘Grania’s,’ lied Flora who, as a leaving present, had been taken to Pucci.
‘You’re always nicking people’s things,’ exploded Guy finding a genuine outlet for his irritation over Lysander. ‘Where the hell’s my Free Forester’s sweater?’
‘How should I know?’
‘You had it last at that dinner party—’ Guy stopped as he remembered the occasion.
‘When Julia Armstrong was the guest of dishonour,’ said Georgie. Oh hell, she wasn’t supposed to snipe.
‘I gave it back the next day,’ protested Flora.
‘You did not,’ spluttered Guy. ‘I’m playing cricket on Sunday, and I need it.’
‘No-one needs a sweater in this heat.’
‘After one has been making a lot of runs, or bowling, it’s easy to catch a chill.’
‘Borrow my pink shawl,’ said Flora kindly. ‘I’m not stuffy about lending things.’
Guy found that Lysander’s wide, untroubled smile like the Cheshire Cat seemed to linger unnervingly after he’d gone. He was further rattled by two dropped telephone calls which he’d no idea were Rannaldini, still in Rome, hoping to get Flora. Then he realized it would be too late for him to ring Julia. Ben would be home from London by now.
29
Rannaldini himself did not play cricket. An awkward ball on the hand could put him out of conducting for weeks, but he liked occasionally to distribute largesse to the village and flew in just before the match on Sunday to find that Kitty had been slaving all night preparing a magnificent tea and Bob Harefield had conjured up a formidable side consisting mostly of London Met musicians bussed down from London. These included a cellist who was a demon bowler and the horn player Rannaldini had sacked last March, who’d been hastily reinstated because he was a brilliant bat. Although the side would miss Wolfgang and his centuries, lustre had been added by Bob himself, who was a characteristically reliable wicket-keeper, Larry, who hadn’t been tested but who boasted a trial for Surrey, and Guy, who was by all accounts a class player. Other London Met musicians would spend the afternoon playing in the blue-and-white bandstand right of the pavilion.
Having wandered around finding fault with everything and ensuring none of his orchestra had more than one glass of wine at lunch, Rannaldini stalked upstairs to change.
The villagers were already streaming in by car or on foot. They liked to gawp at Valhalla, jump the Devil’s Lair, which had dropped two feet since Flora’s leap, get lost in the maze and marvel at Rannaldini’s famous all-delphinium bed whose blue spires seemed to touch the sky. Taking up position round the field, perched on car bonnets before they grew too hot, the men opened beer cans and the prettier girls stripped down to their bikinis in the hope that Rannaldini might claim droit de seigneur.
Of all the players Guy was the most anxious to make his mark. Determined to upstage Lysander, he also wanted to get on to the village cricket-club committee which would give him an excuse both to do good and to get out and ring Julia. He’d already joined the local Labour Party, the Parish Council and the Best-Kept Village committee.
His plans to ring Julia on the way to the match, however, were scuppered by Flora, who was desperate to see Rannaldini after a twenty-four hour absence, cadging a lift.
‘I’ll drive,’ she announced with all the assurance of one who had been manoeuvring Rannaldini’s Mercedes round Rome.
‘You will not!’ Guy snatched off the L-plates. ‘I’m not risking our only car. Where’s Mummy?’
‘Working. She’s coming later.’
Suddenly Guy had a feeling Georgie might be lingering to hear from Lysander. His worst fears were confirmed as he parked on the edge of the pitch and Natasha immediately joined them. Very tanned and wearing a sloppy black T-shirt and white shorts, which showed off her long slender legs, she looked unusually pretty and Guy told her so.
‘Why, thank you, Mr Seymour. How was Cornwall?’ she added to Flora.
‘Brilliant. Christ, look at that.’
Following Flora’s gaze, Natasha saw Lysander lounging against his blue Ferrari with a telephone glued to his ear and a Jack Russell and a shaggy reddy-brown puppy to each ankle. He was wearing his: SEX IS EVIL, EVIL IS SIN T-shirt.
‘We’re about to field,’ he was saying, ‘or I’d come over. Miss you too. You coming over? Or shall I nip over when he’s in the field? Right. See you later.’
He’s ringing Georgie, thought Guy furiously.
‘Blimey, who’s that?’ said Natasha in awe, as Lysander stripped off his T-shirt to show a dark bronzed back, still a little ribby from seasickness, before he plunged into his cricket shirt.
Next minute Ferdie had roared up in Lysander’s red Ferrari looking Mafiaesque in a white panama and dark glasses to over
see operations.
‘Afternoon, Lysander,’ called Guy. ‘Remember I told you about Flora? Well, here she is with her friend Natasha.’
‘Hi!’ Lysander turned round from greeting Ferdie and over the din of Jack and Maggie’s excited yapping introduced his mate.
‘Lysander’s taken Magpie Cottage just across the valley for the polo season,’ Guy told the gaping Flora and Natasha, ‘so I hope you young people get together.’
And bloody well stop pestering my wife, was the unmistakable implication as Guy strode off to the pavilion to find out the batting order.
Natasha had had a miserable few weeks. Aware of Rannaldini’s increasing neglect, she had expected to go abroad backpacking with Flora during the holidays when Flora had suddenly dropped out. Natasha’s mother was totally wrapped up in her new lover and her younger children. Bewildered, starved of affection, she gazed into Lysander’s smiling untroubled face and thought he was the best-and kindest-looking boy she had ever seen. For the first time in weeks she removed her sloppy black T-shirt to reveal an orange camisole top which left her splendid suntanned breasts to their own devices.
‘Can I look after this adorable puppy?’ she said, scooping up a startled Maggie.
‘That’s really kind, as long as you keep her in the shade,’ said Lysander. ‘Keep an eye on Jack,’ he added to Ferdie. ‘He’s rabbit-mad and they’re moving so slowly — must be myxomatosis — he keeps catching the poor little things.’
‘Some things like to be caught.’ Natasha threw Lysander a trapping look, then, smiling at Ferdie, who was getting a picnic basket out of the Ferrari, ‘Do come and watch with us.’
She had already noticed that Ferdie was red faced and sweaty beneath his dark glasses and panama and that, beneath his loose Hawaiian shirt, spare tyres billowed over his straining jeans, but she had enough of her father’s manipulative nature to realize that a way to Lysander would be through his friend.
‘Five minutes, Lysander,’ shouted Paradise’s captain, Michael Prescott. Landlord of The Pearly Gates and predictably nicknamed ‘Archangel Mike’, he had become great buddies with Lysander since he moved into Paradise.
‘How did you and Lysander meet?’ Natasha asked Ferdie.
‘At school.’ Kneeling down to lace up Lysander’s other cricket boot, Ferdie murmured, ‘How’s it going?’
‘OK. Guy’s uptight, but Georgie keeps blowing it by showing how hurt she is.’
‘Here comes another of your enemies,’ said Ferdie as a large purple and yellow striped helicopter caused a ripple of interest as it landed by the pitch and out jumped Larry Lockton, jewellery flashing in the increasingly hot sun.
‘If you come at me hostile I’ll fight you all the way,’ he was yelling into his mobile.
‘Get padded up, Larry,’ called Bob, who was opening the batting with the reinstated horn player. ‘I’ve put you at number four.’
On his way to the pavilion, Larry bumped into Rannaldini who’d just emerged from the house.
‘Who’s that boy by the blue Ferrari?’ asked Rannaldini, who knew perfectly well — his spies were everywhere — but who wanted to goad Larry.
Seeing Lysander for the first time, Larry snarled with rage.
‘Got some poncy name like Alexander Harley. For some reason Marigold’s let Magpie Cottage to him.’
In the old days Larry would never have allowed such a thing, but since his affair with Nikki he had less clout.
‘Extremely glamorous,’ remarked Rannaldini. No wonder Larry had been rattled.
Nodding to acquaintances, but not stopping, Rannaldini wandered over to the group round the Ferraris, which now included a slavering Ideal Homo wearing pale blue shorts and a little white sunhat.
‘Papa,’ Natasha hugged him joyfully, ‘you must meet Lysander.’
While Flora had slept off their sexual excesses in Rome, Rannaldini had studied scores, dictated letters and even held auditions on the balcony of his Roman villa. A tan as dark as treacle toffee was now enhanced by a white suit of such impeccable cut and panache that it instantly set him apart from the crowd both as host and warlord of the manor. Lysander gave a sigh of pure wonder. Prepared to detest Rannaldini, he hadn’t counted on such charisma or blazing vitality. He’d never met anyone as smooth or as sexy.
‘That is the sharpest suit,’ he stammered, ‘where did you get it?’
‘Some back street in Singapore,’ said Rannaldini with a smile which softened the glittering, deadly nightshade eyes.
God, the boy was heartbreaking close up. With a competitive surge of excitement, Rannaldini wondered if Flora had fallen under Lysander’s spell and ignored her, nodding on the other hand to Ferdie and the Ideal Homo, who said: ‘I agree with Lysander. That suit is to die for.’
‘Better watch out you’re not run over by a snowplough,’ mocked Flora, determined to disguise her longing.
‘Where’s Kitty?’ asked Lysander.
‘Organizing tea.’
‘Doesn’t she get to watch?’ demanded Flora disapprovingly.
‘Kitty doesn’t understand cricket,’ said Rannaldini.
‘Didn’t go to that kind of school,’ added Natasha bitchily.
The umpires, Mr Brimscombe and Rannaldini’s dog handler, Clive, neither of whom were paid to be impartial, were leading the players on to the field when Lysander was sent flying by two blond bullets, Marigold’s sons. Jason was wearing a T-shirt saying: I’m afraid of no-one in the world except my Dad. Markie was carrying a cricket bat almost bigger than himself.
‘We’ve got Rocky IV at home. Will you come and watch it after the match and will you bowl to us?’ asked Jason.
‘Wait till the tea interval.’ Lysander tucked his billowing shirt into his white trousers. ‘I’ve got to field. How was going back last term?’
‘Fine,’ said Markie. ‘Mummy cried so much, I felt I should cry too, but only to make her feel better. How’s Arfur?’
‘Come and see him. He likes your father’s grazing.’
‘Come on, Lysander,’ yelled the Archangel Mike.
He’s sweet with kids as well, thought Natasha as Lysander loped on to a pitch as emerald-green due to illicit sprinkling as Georgie’s new leotard which Flora was now wearing.
In the bandstand, sweating members of the London Met sawed their way through the Trout Quintet, wishing they, too, were under water. The group round the Ferrari were now joined by Marigold, who’d been working the crowd touting for the church fête.
She was feeling low because the jeans she and Lysander had bought in February were now within three inches of doing up. Telling herself they would have been too hot was no help at all.
‘How’s it going?’ she whispered, accepting a glass of Ferdie’s champagne.
‘Not as well as you and Larry,’ whispered Ferdie, ‘but watch out for fireworks this afternoon.’
‘I hope you girls are going to help at the church fête,’ said Marigold.
‘I’ll be abroad,’ said Flora hastily.
‘So will I,’ said Natasha.
‘Shame. And I thought you could decorate a room for free, Meredith.’ Marigold turned to the Ideal Homo. ‘It would make a lovely raffle prize.’
‘It would not,’ said Meredith huffily. ‘There’s a recession on, dearie, if you hadn’t noticed.’
Having met Lysander, he was not going to forgive Marigold for not calling him in to redecorate Magpie Cottage. ‘Talk about the reincarnation of the Paradise Lad,’ he muttered to Flora as he parked his small bottom beside hers on the bonnet of Ferdie’s Ferrari.
The wine waiter of The Heavenly Host opened the bowling. Squaring his shoulders Bob hit him for four.
‘Oh, well clouted,’ said Marigold, who got very hearty on such occasions. ‘Don’t eat all Ferdie’s Jaffa cakes, boys.’
‘Is Hermione here?’ asked Flora, who wanted to suss out the opposition.
‘No, thank God,’ shuddered Meredith. ‘She’s playing Salome in New York. When she gets to the
seventh veil the entire audience rears up and yells: ‘“No, no, keep it on!”’
As Rannaldini was now well out of earshot, everyone howled with laughter.
‘Must be bliss for Bob having her away,’ said Marigold.
‘Bliss! Bobby’s got a good body, hasn’t he? Oh, well hit, that’ll be a six.’
‘Bob is nice looking actually,’ admitted Flora. ‘Pity he’s losing his hair.’
‘He’s just receding to match the recession. Bobby’s always been trendy,’ giggled Meredith. ‘Oh, good shot,’ as Bob snaked a single past first slip. ‘This is going to be a rout. Poor Paradise, more like Inferno in this weather.’
It was getting hotter. A silver haze writhed above the pitch. A sweep of mauve willow herb wilted beneath the smouldering ash-grey woods which bordered the ground. Birds, exhausted with feeding their young, were mute. Ferdie, running with sweat, wished he was thin enough to remove his shirt and get brown like all the other blokes. He couldn’t take his eyes off Natasha — he’d never seen anyone so pretty. Full of patter normally, he was suddenly so shy he could only fill her glass and ply her with cherries as dark red and shiny as her lips.
A hundred for no wicket. The village were getting tetchy. They’d hoped for a glimpse of Georgie, who’d been singularly elusive since she’d moved in. Rumours of marriage problems, spread by Mother Courage, were circulating faster than greyhounds on a track. Guy, however, was much in evidence, looking very cheerful. Batting only at number seven, rather to his irritation, he was now being sweet to the wives of the fielding Paradise players, admiring their tans and their babies, making a manly show of reluctance when asked to sign autographs, intimating that he hoped to be playing for Paradise this time next year.
By contrast, Larry, who was going in at number three, was sitting in the shade furiously shaking The Sunday Times Business section. He’d run out of people to shout at on the telephone and it didn’t look as though this stupid opening partnership would ever get out. He was livid to see Mr Brimscombe umpiring — the Judas. After the massacre of the honeysuckle round Flora’s bedroom, Mr Brimscombe had been tempted to return to his old boss, but had decided that Larry was a bad-tempered bugger. The Paradise Pearl cutting had taken in Rannaldini’s conservatory and the promise of a fat rise and an even taller mower from which he could look over the hedge at Natasha sunbathing topless by the pool had persuaded him to stay on.