by Jilly Cooper
‘Yes, Rannaldini.’
‘Then we’ll try a few jumps. Come on, bitch.’
At this moment Lysander tumbled off Ferdie’s shoulders and sent a yard broom flying.
‘Who’s there?’ called out Rannaldini.
Just in time, Ferdie and Lysander leapt behind the mounting block. At least the Ferrari was parked round the corner. As Rannaldini came out they flattened in terror. Fortunately lust drew him back again.
‘Must have been a horse,’ they heard him say, as the key turned in the lock.
‘What was going on?’ hissed Ferdie. Lysander, bright red with shock, trying not to laugh, mouth wide open in amazement, couldn’t utter, until they had hurtled to the boundaries of Rannaldini’s land, and turned into the road up to Angel’s Reach.
‘Oh, Ferd, you never saw such a thing in your life! Talk about undressage. He was schooling her and she was bollock-naked except for her boots. She’s got the most fantastic body! You can see exactly why he stays with her. She was giving excited little squeaks like Maggie when she gets on a rabbit trail. Give me a cigarette — and they were obviously about to have the most enormous bonk. God, it was gross, but seriously sexy. Wow! I’ve never seen anything like that.’
‘You must have in a porn mag.’
‘Dearie me, I’ll never get rid of this erection.’
He took a cigarette from Ferdie, gave a long drag, and gasped in horror. ‘You don’t suppose he schools poor darling Kitty, do you?’
‘She’d be a lot thinner if he did.’
Georgie looked better, really wonderful, thought Ferdie, as he and Lysander went into the kitchen at Angel’s Reach. He felt distinctly envious, when, after pecking him on the cheek, she turned to Lysander, wrapping him in a warm, voluptuous embrace and kissed him quite openly on the mouth. She was wearing a torn grey T-shirt of Flora’s and a pair of Guy’s boxer shorts covered with bonking alligators. Despite chunkier legs, she looked twice as sexy as Marigold, who was all done up in a pleated white tennis dress with her hair in a pink bow.
‘Ay’m afraid Ay always maintain the discipline of wearin’ whayte,’ she said apologetically.
Lysander wouldn’t let anyone hit a ball until they’d drunk a bottle of Muscadet and he’d relayed every detail of his adventure.
The grass court was tucked away behind the house. Marigold was a good player. Having spent her youth aspiring to join a tennis club, she had been much coached in later life and as a non-working wife played all summer. Ferdie was overweight, but he had a good eye, and got most things back. Georgie had no backhand and was out of practice but she played with Lysander who was so soaringly better than anyone else that they beat Marigold and Ferdie 6–0, 6–1.
After that they started fooling around, pretending the ball was Hermione and saying: ‘You’ve been a naughty girl, whack,’ and giving a shriek, and getting so weak with laughter, that Maggie got excited and ran off with all the balls, with Jack yapping encouragement, so they packed it in.
Georgie seemed so happy that, as they walked back to the house, Ferdie dropped back and asked Lysander if she knew anything about Guy pursuing Rachel.
‘No, I’m sure not. Why upset her?’
‘God, this weather’s bliss. If this is the greenhouse effect, long may it last,’ said Georgie, emptying a watering-can over a panting Dinsdale.
‘Don’t let Rachel hear you,’ said Marigold nervously, ‘and don’t let her see you wastin’ water laike that. She’s given me hell about Larry’s floodlaightin’ and our chandeliers in the lounge.’
It was the most perfect evening. Night-scented stock and tobacco plants mingled their sweet scents with the first autumnal waft of the poplars. A pale blue-and-cherry-red air-balloon drifted home into a rose-pink sunset passing the bright star Arcturus which had just appeared above the wood.
‘Rannaldini’s going to be livid Lysander’s so good,’
said Marigold. ‘He’s so used to being the best player by miles.’
‘You and I might beat him,’ said Georgie fondly.
‘Aren’t you going to play with Guy?’
‘No, I’m not. He gets so cross if I serve double faults.’
Lysander couldn’t get the scene in the riding school out of his mind. It was the act of a seriously depraved man.
‘Why doesn’t Kitty leave him?’
Georgie shrugged, her face in shadow. ‘Why doesn’t anyone leave anyone? Mental paralysis, a belief in fidelity? Kitty’s awfully religious. She worships the bastard, and he’s sapped her confidence. Anyway, where would she go? Her mother’s in a home.’
‘Rannaldini won’t let her go. She’s far too useful,’ said Marigold.
An owl hooted, pigeons cooed. Across the valley they were shooting clays. Georgie topped up everyone’s glass and took another bottle out of the ice bucket for Lysander to open.
‘I’ve had a brainwave,’ she said patronizingly. ‘Kitty’s got a birthday this month. She’s a Virgo, wouldn’t you know. Why don’t we club together and give Lysander to her as a present?’
She turned to Lysander. Her sludge-green eyes dark brown and mocking in the half-light. ‘You’re always talking about the need for a real challenge. Forget the Rutminster, try Kitty.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Lysander with rare ill temper. ‘It’d be a farce. There’s no way I could get Rannaldini back for Kitty. He was never hers in the first place. For Marigold, for you, for Hermione, not that she needs it, for Rachel even, no problem. But not poor little Kitty, for Christ’s sake.’
With her sad, round, formless face, Kitty reminded him of the huge white moon hanging like a plate above Larry’s woods, hardly discernible in the pale azure sky of the first dusk.
‘Go on,’ urged Ferdie, scenting more cash. ‘Give it a try.’
If Lysander was refusing to leave Paradise and Georgie, this seemed a good way to supplement his income.
Lysander scooped up Maggie who was trembling at the bangs of the clay shoot, cuddling her to his chest.
‘You just collect the ten per cent,’ he said crossly. ‘You get Rannaldini back if you feel so strongly. I’m having none of it.’
The others proceeded to get drunk and noisy. Lysander sat in silence, watching the moon rising, turning from a pale pinky-orange to butter-gold like one of Miss Cricklade’s sunflowers, to incandescent mother-of-pearl, and then flooding the whole valley while the sky deepened from smoky-blue to sapphire as the doomed, menacing notes of Rachmaninov’s third and most difficult piano concerto floated up from Jasmine Cottage.
‘Rachel plays wonderfully well,’ said Marigold. ‘Larry says she’s going to be a big star.’
‘Might cheer her up,’ said Georgie. ‘Better than grumbling about junk food and fending off passes from Rannaldini.’
‘You’d be a true knaight in shining armour if you rattled Rannaldini and made him naicer to Kitty,’ said Marigold.
38
At six o’clock the following morning, Kitty was woken by the hiss of illicit sprinklers defying the hose-pipe ban. The floodlights of Paradise Grange across the valley had been switched off, which would delight Rachel, but to the left Venus blazed golden, and as Orion, followed by his yawning dogs, pulled on his boots and climbed up the sky, Kitty could see Mr Brimscombe wearily picking up discarded underclothes round the pool. Natasha and a crowd of friends had gone skinny-dipping in the middle of the night. Their shrieks must have roused the whole neighbourhood.
Glancing in the mirror, Kitty gave a wail. Desperate at the lankness of her hair, in her tiredness she had misread the home-perm directions and left the mix on too long. The result was a scorched, frizzy mass. If only she could hide behind the tea urn this afternoon, but, at the last moment, Rannaldini had asked the vicar, whose wife was away, and would expect Kitty to make up the numbers.
Falling to her knees, Kitty prayed to God to make her less vain.
‘And let me not let my partner down too badly this afternoon and please don’t let anyone find out
it’s my birthday or they’ll be embarrassed.’
It was already hot and airless as she crept downstairs. Amid the chaos of dirty glasses, mugs, beer cans and overflowing ashtrays, there was a note from Natasha about not singeing her tennis dress. Kitty wanted to scream, but at least she hadn’t got the curse and Mrs Brimscombe was coming to help with tea.
Matters were not improved by Cecilia wandering down at lunchtime wanting three exquisite tennis dresses she’d bought in Rome ironed, and Rannaldini arriving from a morning on the Fidelio set, finding fault with everything, and insisting she repack his suitcase should he decide to push off back to Germany tonight instead of early tomorrow.
Now, in accompaniment to Richard Strauss’s Arabella, Kitty could hear the buzz of three hairdriers upstairs, as, fearful of Rachel arriving early and bollocking her for using aerosols, she gave a closet squirt of Mr Sheen to the dining-room tables before laying out the tea things.
The main tennis court at Valhalla lay some three hundred yards from the house beyond the swimming-pool. It was ringed by a thick high hornbeam hedge, which also encompassed grassy banks, where spectators could lie out, and a charming duck-egg-blue pavilion. Opposite this, a spyhole had been cut out of the hornbeam, giving a delightful view of the valley and Magpie Cottage. Although Valhalla was greener than anywhere else in Paradise on this stiflingly hot day, Rannaldini couldn’t entirely stem the approach of autumn. Despite Mr Brimscombe’s incessant sweeping, the lawn was strewn with gold leaves and chattering swallows lined up on the grey roof of the house. On the table in the pavilion Kitty had put a big blue bowl of greengages and plums from Rannaldini’s orchard, a matching blue vase of yellow snapdragons and red dahlias and two big jugs of lemon barley water — but no alcohol. Tennis was taken deadly seriously at Valhalla. Pained by such a hideous colour combination, Rannaldini removed the red dahlias from the vase, chucking them on the grass to be trodden underfoot by the first arrivals.
As beautiful as the peacock butterflies crowding the Michaelmas daisies round the pavilion gathered the ladies of Paradise, their limbs as smooth and shiningly brown as the conkers hanging in their prickly cases on the great golden chestnuts on the edge of Rannaldini’s woods. Cecilia wore the palest pink dress, with huge cut-outs at the waist, Natasha a zip-up white mini with her dark hair in a long plait tied with a scarlet ribbon. Marigold had covered her bulges with a broderie-anglaise shift and flaunted her lovely legs in the tiniest of white shorts. She was kicking herself for lending an adorable white cotton-jersey dress with a lace neckline to Rachel, which clung to Rachel’s figure and showed off her even lovelier, long, lily-white legs, which Rachel loathed herself for shaving. Nor had being gratuitously rude about the monstrous expense of the dress deterred Rachel from wearing it.
Arriving late, Georgie instantly cursed herself for not making more effort. Touched because Guy had brought her breakfast in bed, exhausted but happy after a long, successful morning’s work, she hadn’t bothered to wash her hair. Unable to find the new white shirt and flowered Bermudas she’d specially hidden from Flora, she’d been forced to wear yesterday’s grey T-shirt and a pair of cycling shorts which had looked fine in the bedroom mirror. Only outside did she realize how pallid the backs of her legs were. Flora looked her usual truculent sexy self in the baggiest of white T-shirts.
The male players on the whole looked less glamorous. The vicar, sporting a NAZARETH CARPENTER SEEKS JOINERS sticker in the back of his ancient Ford, rolled up in baggy greying shorts of just the wrong length.
‘Tepid rather than hot pants,’ murmured Georgie.
‘Do I look like a bender?’ asked Ferdie as he trained his normally slicked-back hair forward to cover a large red spot.
‘Yes,’ said Lysander, turning the Ferrari into Rannaldini’s drive.
Feeling horrendously overweight, having eaten last night most of the large curry he and Lysander had ordered, Ferdie had kitted himself out at Lillywhites before leaving London. He was now appalled to discover he was wearing the same jokey orange shorts and white T-shirt covered with orange, red and mauve squiggles and orange-and-mauve sweat band as Larry. The only difference was that Larry had dressed up his outfit with a great deal of gold jewellery and was weighed down by six black Hammer Wilson racquets.
Guy was in stitches.
‘I’ve got a non-figurative exhibition coming up next month,’ he told Ferdie and Larry. ‘I’ll have to hang you both in the gallery.’
‘Ferdie’s certainly got a non-figure,’ said Natasha, poking his beer gut with her tennis racquet.
‘Ferdie’s brilliant at figures,’ said Lysander sharply, seeing the hurt in Ferdie’s eyes.
Aware how white flattered his powerful body and ruddy, suntanned face, Guy was pleased with his appearance until he saw Rannaldini in a ten times more expensive cream polo shirt, shorts showing off his chunky, walnut-brown legs and a cream bomber jacket with terracotta piping flung over his muscular shoulders. No heat was ever too hot for Rannaldini. Getting into training for hell-fires, thought Guy sourly. At least that fucker Lysander looked hungover to the teeth, and had only taken the trouble to tug on a pair of trainers and frayed denim shorts.
Unlike Georgie, Lysander was dreading the afternoon. Not being married, he got no buzz out of situations where he had to conceal his feelings. He hated not being able to kiss Georgie and tell her how much he adored her, and she had warned him to be particularly careful today, because she didn’t want Flora to suspect anything. Lysander’s dogs showed no such reserve. Leaping out of the Ferrari, they threw themselves noisily on Dinsdale, Maggie swinging on his ginger ears, Jack chiding him for being away from them for at least eighteen hours, until they all took off into the wood.
By the time the stable clock struck three all the guests had arrived. Natasha, black plait flying, was knocking up with Marigold, Larry and Guy, the standard terrifyingly high, as Kitty tried surreptitiously to join the party. She was foiled by Cecilia.
‘Keety, I never see you een shorts before, an’ you change your ’air. Let’s see you.’
Everyone turned to look.
‘Thunder and lightning the size of your thighs is frightening,’ sang Natasha.
Aware of Rannaldini’s irritated indifference, Kitty wanted to turn and run. Guy made everything worse by charging off the court.
‘Brickie looks terrific. We missed you at matins, didn’t we, Percy? And you missed a splendid sermon.’
‘Hell for you, Kitty darling, having Cecilia staying,’ whispered Meredith, who was looking sweet in mauve shorts and his white Christopher Robin hat, ‘worse than having the builders in,’ he went on. ‘At least you’ve got hot water and no Hermione, or rather you did have.’
‘Manaccia,’ swore Cecilia, swallowing a greengage stone.
Marigold and Georgie exchanged looks of horror.
I can’t bear it, thought Kitty.
‘Bloody hell,’ murmured Flora, ‘Rannaldini’s forgiven her and not me.’
For Hermione had emerged from the path which had once more been strimmed through the wood to her house. Trampling heavily on chucked-out red dahlias, like a goddess in search of an apple, she was ravishingly dressed in a pleated white tunic which left one big golden shoulder bare. Her shining dark curls were arranged most becomingly over a flamingo-pink sweat band, which echoed the flush in her glowing brown cheeks.
‘Hallo, Brickie,’ cried Hermione, ignoring all the other women, then turning to curtsy to Rannaldini, ‘Good afternoon, Maestro, sorry we’re late.’
‘Horsey, horsey, don’t you stop,’ whispered Lysander to Ferdie. ‘Do you think Rannaldini’s going to school her over the tennis net?’
And he had such difficulty in keeping a straight face that he had to wander off into the wood.
Following Hermione, carrying her bag and racquets as well as his own, came Bob, smiling as usual and looking elegantly old-fashioned in white flannels, braces and a panama shading his tired, deep-set eyes.
He really is handsome, th
ought Rachel.
Cecilia, who was livid to see Hermione, said: ‘We better get started, Rannaldini, I’ve got to be on the set by ten o’clock tomorrow.’ And she launched into ‘Mir ist so wunderbar’ from the first act of Fidelio to rub in that she, and not Hermione, had landed the part of Leonore.
His eyes glittering with malice, Rannaldini tapped the table with the handle of his racquet.
‘Welcome to our tournament. The procedure is seemple. There are sixteen of us here. We divide into two groups, each consisting of four couples who each play one set against each other. Group One play on this court. Group Two on a court round corner. This means six sets on each court, then we break for a quick cup of tea, followed by the finals in which the best couple in each group play against each other.
‘We then have proper tea, as much champagne as any of you feel fitting to dreenk on a Sunday night, then the couple who has lost the most matches will streep off and jump naked into the pool,’ Rannaldini smiled evilly, ‘and the punishment bell will be rung.’
‘Who plays with who?’ asked the vicar, gazing longingly at Lysander.
‘I come to that. The man who draws longest straw has first choice of partner, him with second longest, second choice, and so on.’
Natasha came round with the straws. As Lysander, who’d temporarily stopped laughing, stretched out a lazy hand, Natasha deliberately let hers touch his.
‘Lucky in love, you choose first,’ she said as he drew the longest straw.
Lysander glanced round at the charming expectant faces: Flora looking sulkily sexy; Natasha smouldering with promise; Hermione radiating certainty — of course he’ll choose me; Rachel trying to appear indifferent, but her eyes telling a different story; Marigold smiling at Larry who was ringing Japan on his mobile; Cecilia letting her pink slit-skirt fall open: ‘I will excite you more than any of the others,’ said her hot, lingering glance; and Georgie, fondly indulgent — Lysander’s dear love, and to him even lovelier because she looked tired and not her best. Then at the back, her fat legs as brick-red as the squashed dahlias she was clutching, her face topped by that frightful frizzy perm and shiny from racing around all day, cringed Kitty. Her very white aertex shirt and her pleated shorts strained over her large breasts and bottom. Dying of humiliation, she gazed down at her racquet knowing she would be the last to be chosen. Georgie, whom he longed to please, had begged him to look after her.