The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous trc-4

by Jilly Cooper

  After smoked salmon, Moët, Mars bar ice-cream and a languorous, sweaty afternoon’s lovemaking at Magpie Cottage rather than Angel’s Reach, in case Guy or Flora, who was due home any time from backpacking, rolled up unexpectedly, Lysander was roused by the telephone. It was Rachel fulminating that Hermione had cancelled due to some mega-crisis and asking ungraciously if she and the children could come to supper after all. Lysander, who would rather have gone back to sleep or out on the bat with his Pearly Gates cronies, said: ‘Of course.’ He’d come and fetch her; only to be told: ‘What’s wrong with walking? It’s only half a mile.’

  ‘That was Rachel,’ sighed Lysander.

  ‘Isn’t she fantastically young and pretty?’ asked Georgie, jumping out of bed and scuttling into the bathroom so Lysander shouldn’t get too long a sight of her droopy bottom.

  ‘Used to be, but she’s got seriously fierce. Oh dear, it didn’t even seem a good idea this morning. Friday’s my worst night of the week, knowing I won’t see you until Monday.’

  Following Georgie into the bathroom, he slid his arms round her waist, nuzzling at her shoulder.

  ‘Promise to ring me every moment you can, and try and persuade the Ace Carer to play cricket on Sunday.’ Then, turning on the taps, ‘I’d better have first bath so I can nip down to The Apple Tree and get some supper and a video for the kids before they close.’

  Suddenly Georgie realized why the mention of Rachel upset her.

  ‘She was coming to dinner the night she and Boris split up. That was the night Guy fed Julia in,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t think about Julia.’ Lysander took Georgie back in his arms, stroking her hair.

  ‘You won’t fall in love with her, will you?’ Georgie clung to him. One of the lovely things about Lysander was that she never had to try and be cool.

  The day that had started so beautifully deteriorated. Returning from The Apple Tree, Lysander passed Rachel trailing two tired, fretful children, Vanya and Masha, aged four and three, who were only too pleased to jump into such a glamorous car and shrieked with excitement when Lysander drove at his usual reckless pace. Rachel was less amused.

  ‘Any speed over 55 m.p.h. wastes energy.’

  She then proceeded to castigate him for not using unleaded petrol, and for not having a catalytic converter to exclude carbon monoxide.

  Lysander’s hayfield of a front garden, however, temporarily cheered her up.

  ‘How brave of you to flout the Best-Kept Village committee and grow your lawn. Those nettles attract the peacock butterfly and the thistles are a wonderful magnet for goldfinch, and, look, kids, lots of dandelions so we can make a salad for supper.’

  The inside of the cottage was less of a success. There were plates, glasses and overflowing ashtrays everywhere, and a bowl of uneaten dog food, black with flies. When Jack and Maggie rushed to meet them, both children knocked their heads together burying their faces in their mother’s skirt. Seeing Rachel wrinkling her long elegant nose at the smell of dog and game-keeper’s ferret, which always surfaced on hot days, Lysander let rip with air freshener and fly spray and got a bollocking for using aerosols.

  ‘This place is a bottle bank in itself,’ Rachel went on in horror.

  ‘I keep forgetting it’s dustbin day. Basically, the dustmen come before I get up,’ said Lysander apologetically. ‘Let’s have a drink.’

  For a second, as Lysander took out some cans of Coke and a bottle of Muscadet, the children’s eyes-sloe-black like their father’s — lit up.

  ‘They’re not allowed Coke — sugar rots their teeth,’ said Rachel. ‘Water will do. Where are the mugs kept?’

  ‘In the machine. It’s just finished.’

  ‘But it’s only half-full,’ said Rachel, opening the door. ‘Can’t you appreciate what a waste of energy this is?’

  Masha and Vanya weren’t allowed crisps either nor little chocolate nests filled with eggs.

  ‘I’ll have to re-educate you completely,’ sighed Rachel. ‘Those chocolate nests are at least eight hundred calories and when you think of the pesticides used on the cocoa bean. You must have some carrots and apples I can chop up.’

  The fridge nearly finished her off. By not defrosting it, Lysander was completely responsible for global warming. Everything was past its sell-by date and he’d get listeria from the three half-full tins of pâté.

  Getting some carrots out of the vegetable compartment she started ferociously chopping on a wooden board. Arthur, who always hung around touting for snacks when he saw people in the kitchen, frightened the life out of her by sticking his great face, half of it stained olive-green from rolling, in through the window. His wall eye lit up at the sight of the carrots. Really he was the muckiest horse.

  ‘Arthur’s joined the Green Party,’ giggled Lysander.

  ‘Must you trivialize everything? I hope to stand for the Rutminster Greens at the next election.’

  ‘Oh, right,’ said Lysander, ‘or rather left.’

  ‘Greens are not automatically left-wing.’ Rachel put a plate of carrot matchsticks in front of her unenthusiastic children.

  ‘Go and explore,’ Lysander told them. ‘There’s a nice pond outside.’

  ‘Who furnished this place?’ Rachel’s eyes roved over the ticking sofas and chairs and the bishop’s throne.

  ‘Marigold.’ Lysander handed Rachel a glass of Muscadet. ‘She’s getting me a microwave, thank God,’ he removed a dandy brush, a curry comb and a chewed trainer from the sofa, ‘which’ll help because I get bored and forget to eat waiting for things to heat up.’

  ‘Trust Marigold!’ Rachel was appalled. ‘Microwaves are not only toxic to the liver but they kill off the brain cells.’

  ‘My liver came out waving a white flag years ago,’ said Lysander draining half his glass, ‘and I’ve never had a brain cell to kill. Hallo, kids, I’ve got you a good video.’

  Again the children’s faces lit up, then faded as their mother said she didn’t allow them to watch television, then getting some 100 rolls and egg boxes out of her basket urged them to make a castle.

  ‘Want to watch television,’ grumbled Vanya.

  ‘Well, you can’t. I’ll start you off,’ said Rachel, getting out a bottle of glue. ‘This place is a tip. Don’t you ever clean it?’

  ‘Mother Courage comes once a week but we seem to spend our time gossiping. She says she doesn’t like to move things, so she doesn’t.’

  There was a pause. It was terribly hot.

  ‘Perhaps you’d like a swim in the river,’ suggested Lysander. ‘I wouldn’t mind one.’

  ‘Polluted,’ snapped Rachel.

  ‘Well, we’d better have some supper.’

  ‘Oh God,’ Rachel clutched her head. ‘White baps are the worst thing you could give them, and haven’t you realized beef burgers are made from the pancreas, lungs and testicles of animals?’

  Lysander looked at her meditatively. Easygoing to a fault, he was about to tell her he could see exactly why Boris had walked out. Then he caught sight of Masha and Vanya. They were like children on newsreels, so often photographed beside bomb craters and the dusty rubble of houses in foreign wars, children displaced because they’d been fought over.

  ‘There are plenty of eggs,’ he said gently. ‘Your mother can make us something she considers suitable for supper and we can play football with Jack, and then I’ll give you a ride on Arthur.’

  This was a huge success. Jack could dribble a ball for hours and Arthur loved children. Sent to wash their hands before supper, Masha and Vanya came out shrieking with giggles.

  ‘Rachel, Rachel, come and see the willies.’

  Storming into the downstairs lavatory, Rachel found the artistic fruits of Lysander’s drunken despair after the church fête when he had taken a can of red paint and sprayed cocks, balls and a vast nude lady with enormous tits and crossed eyes over the walls and then written I LOVE GORGY in huge letters.

  ‘Oh God, I forgot about that!’ Lysander tried no
t to laugh with the children.

  ‘Not only are you damaging the ozone layer and adding to global warming,’ stormed Rachel, ‘but you’re ejecting tiny particles of toxic paint into the environment.’

  ‘And you make the worst scrambled egg I’ve ever tasted,’ Lysander wanted to tell her as he emptied half a bottle of tomato ketchup, Rannaldini fashion, over the loose, tasteless mass. The only way Rachel used salt was to rub it into people’s wounds.

  The dandelion salad was even more disgusting. Lysander found the only answer was to drink as much as possible and even Rachel mellowed a bit after two glasses and allowed the children to watch a Donald Duck video.

  ‘I identified with Donald like mad,’ Lysander told Rachel as he loaded the machine. ‘When I was a child no-one could understand what I said, like him.’

  But Rachel was gazing across at Valhalla.

  ‘There’s that bastard Rannaldini’s place. He was the one who wrecked our marriage, persuading Boris it was de rigueur to have something on the side. He introduced Boris to Chloe.’

  ‘How does she get on with the children?’

  ‘Chloe? They adore her. Not surprising. She’s filthy rich and fills them up with sweets and junk food and battery-operated toys every time they visit her and Boris. How can they ever learn to reject consumerism with that going on? And she lets them watch television all day.’

  ‘They’re sweet children.’

  ‘I know. I just go crackers not being able to practise.’

  To distract Rachel from the fact that both Jack and Maggie had climbed on to the children’s laps, Lysander took her outside. The sun was setting; tobacco plants and stocks, fighting a losing battle with nettles, scented the evening. Owls were hooting in the wood. Not daring to risk mosquito spray, Lysander lit a cigarette.

  After a long pause, Rachel stammered: ‘I’m sorry. I’ve been bloody all evening. I’ve had to nag and nag Boris for maintenance. This morning a cheque arrived for the right money but signed by Chloe. It’s so humiliating but I can’t afford to tear it up.’

  Lysander was shocked. ‘You poor thing. I’ll give you the money, then you can. I’m quite flush at the moment.’

  But Rachel was too proud. ‘I’ve got teaching jobs, and Hermione pays when she’s around. God, she’s awful! She never opens her mouth except for dollars and all her conversation is about money.’

  ‘What’s the point of those balls outside her house?’

  ‘Self-aggrandizement,’ said Rachel sourly. ‘Rannaldini has griffins, Georgie Maguire has angels, Marigold has lions. Now Hermione has balls — probably Bob’s. She emasculates him enough.’

  ‘He’s a seriously nice guy,’ said Lysander. ‘Good cricketer, too.’

  ‘He’s the most attractive man in Paradise,’ said Rachel.

  She looks beautiful again now, thought Lysander, with her sad foxy face warmed by the falling sun and her beautiful fox’s ankles beneath that shapeless dress.

  ‘By the way,’ he said, ‘I discovered what Hermione’s mega-crisis was.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘From Gretel, her hairy-legged nanny.’

  ‘Why on earth should she shave her legs?’

  ‘No reason at all, but if she wants me to be her Hansel, she better start waxing. Anyway, she told me that Rannaldini is making this film called Fidelio — should be called Infidelio — about some woman called Nora who dresses up as a boy and springs her husband from jug.’

  ‘She’s called Leonore — I know the story,’ said Rachel crushingly.

  ‘Of course you would. Sorry. Anyway, Hermione automatically expected to get the part, but Rannaldini told her: “You could hardly pass for a faithful wife, my dear, and with those outsize boobs no self-respecting gaoler would ever mistake you for a boy,” so he’s given the part to Cecilia.’

  Rachel whistled. ‘But I suppose it figures. Rannaldini would far rather put Catchitune’s vast fee into the pocket of Cecilia, who’s always pestering him for more alimony, than into Hermione’s. No wonder Hermione’s livid.’

  ‘D’you think he’ll make Cecilia strip off again?’

  ‘Fidelio’s quite a different opera,’ said Rachel patronizingly. ‘On the one hand it’s about an individual living in chains being rescued by a loving woman, but Beethoven raises the story to a universal level in which the human race is saved by the female sex.’

  ‘Oh, right,’ said Lysander. ‘Rannaldini should love it. He’s turned on by chains. Pity some loving man can’t rescue poor darling Kitty.’

  ‘Kitty could walk out if she wanted to,’ said Rachel dismissively.

  Yawning, surreptitiously looking at his watch, Lysander wondered how soon he could take her home. He looked longingly across at Angel’s Reach, blank now the sun had set, straining his eyes to see Georgie and Guy sitting on the terrace and Dinsdale snapping at flies.

  ‘If you never got to that interview,’ asked Rachel, ‘what are you doing for a living now?’

  ‘Playing a lot of polo,’ said Lysander evasively, ‘and hoping to get Arthur fit for the Rutminster next year.’

  ‘Lucky to have a private income. Are you in a relationship?’

  ‘No, well yes.’ Suddenly he desperately needed to tell someone. ‘Basically I’m mad about Georgie Maguire, she and I, well, we’re sort of an item.’

  Rachel went rigid with disapproval.

  ‘But what about her wildly uxorious husband?’

  ‘He’s been screwing around.’

  ‘So, all that “Rock Star” rubbish is for commercial profit. United front for the world, screw like rabbits in private. I always thought Georgie was phoney.’

  ‘She didn’t know about the screwing around when she wrote “Rock Star”. She was devastated,’ said Lysander icily. ‘She’s the loveliest woman I’ve ever met.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. She’s old enough to be your mother!’

  ‘That’s probably why I love her. The video’s finished.’ Lysander picked up his car keys. ‘I’ll take you home.’

  Rachel was horrified. Why had she been such an utter bitch? How could she explain that she’d been celibate for six months, that she felt like a fun-fair in winter, endlessly wondering if summer would ever come again, that it was desire that made her so cantankerous and the only thing she wanted was for Lysander to take her to bed?

  35

  Hermione’s hysterics echoed round Paradise. She wasn’t placated by the letters — fanny mail the Ideal Homo called it — that poured in after the release of Don Giovanni, nor even by offers to star in a musical of Lady Chatterley’s Lover.

  Being Hermione, however, within twenty-four hours she was telling everyone, including Kitty, that the only thing that shocked her was Rannaldini’s appalling in-sensitivity to Kitty in casting an ex-wife as Leonore. Hermione had not forgiven Kitty for being the recipient of Georgie’s and Marigold’s confidences about their marriage problems. She might put down Georgie by praising Brickie’s dignity, but she still wanted to exceed Kitty in everything, even in being more of a brick.

  But she was not prepared to concede defeat. As Rannaldini had inconveniently buzzed off to Madrid and Flora, Hermione’s first chance to confront him would be at the camera rehearsal for the Verdi Requiem which was already being trailed as the prom of the year.

  Knowing Rannaldini would be stymied if she refused to go on, Hermione was determined to use this as a bargaining point to get herself the part of Leonore.

  As usual Rannaldini rolled up at the Albert Hall when the rehearsal was nearly over, having left it to Heinz, the colourless Swiss, who didn’t even have one variety, who had replaced Boris Levitsky as assistant conductor. Three of the soloists, a tenor, a bass and Monalisa Wilson, a vast black mezzo-soprano with a vast voice, were well into the ‘Lux Aeterna’, exhorting the Lord to let eternal light shine on them. Hermione, who was not needed in this penultimate section, had retreated to her dressing room venting her rage at Rannaldini’s tardiness on her dressmaker. The poor woman had stayed up nig
ht after night finishing a ravishing low-cut dress made of panels of lavender and willow-herb-pink silk, specially for the occasion. Alas, she had not allowed for Hermione’s misery bingeing over the weekend and the zip wouldn’t do up.

  ‘You’ve skimped on the material!’ Hermione’s screeches rose above the orchestra and other soloists. ‘You cut it too small deliberately, so you’d have some spare for yourself. Those silks cost two hundred pounds a metre. Ouch! That pin stuck into me.’

  Trying to appear not to be listening, the television crew wandered about looking for places to put their lights and cameras the following night. The London Met, used to Hermione’s tantrums, were fed up. It was a blistering hot afternoon; outside in the park one could hardly breathe. They’d just returned from an exhausting tour of the Eastern Bloc with Oswaldo. Rannaldini earned three hundred thousand a year as their musical director. They hadn’t seen him for three months and now he’d swanned in to impose his usual rule of divine right and brute force. They had vowed that they’d stand up to him, but now once more they were reduced to quivering jelly.

  ‘Lux Aeterna’ over, Rannaldini insisted on taking the orchestra without Hermione and the chorus through the final ‘Dies Irae’, with its deafening thunderclaps that came before the skirling descending flashes of lightning. The London Met knew the Requiem backwards, they had made the definitive recording with Rannaldini and Hermione in 1986, but he was determined to show even the oldest hand that their playing had become fuzzy and inaccurate. As he raised his baton, some of the orchestra started and some didn’t and they started to laugh out of nerves, and were yelled at for inattention. But soon the brass fanfares were ringing thrillingly round the hall.