by Jilly Cooper
‘Thank you,’ said David, thinking how Pippa had loathed chrysanthemums.
‘Mrs Harefield’s favourite flowers,’ said Mustard reverently, who was the most awful star-fucker. ‘You haven’t forgotten she and her son Cosmo are due in five minutes?’
David had not. He even looked forward to Hermione’s visit. Her exquisite voice had comforted him through many a long night of insomnia. Strange that even in the blackest despair, one searched for love.
Hermione was searching for a public school for little Cosmo. Having witnessed the dreadful rudeness of Flora and Natasha, she had no intention of subjecting her Wunderkind to the co-educational anarchy of Bagley Hall. Fleetley had been top of her list because of its high academic record and David Hawkley’s reputation as a disciplinarian.
Having been ushered into his study by a fawning Mustard, Hermione decided it would be extremely exciting to be disciplined by ‘Hatchet’ Hawkley, and that he was decidedly attractive in a brilliant, implacable High Tory way. Rannaldini had been neglecting her again. He never answered her calls. Hermione was consequently casting around for a new beau. This stern handsome widower would fit the bill perfectly — and might even allow little Cosmo in cheap.
One look at Cosmo, who was bursting out of his sailor suit like Tom Kitten, with his sailor hat atop his flowing black curls, and his evil black eyes rolling in search of diversion, convinced David that this vile child must never enter his school.
‘Most of our boys are put down at birth,’ he said truthfully, then less so, ‘I’m afraid we’re booked solid until AD 2000.’
‘Come, come,’ said Hermione skittishly. ‘I know that powerful headmasters can always waive the rule for friends, and I know you and I are going to be very special friends.’
David knew no such thing as little Cosmo proceeded to lay waste to his office, overturning files, putting sticky fingers on first editions, scattering sweet papers, and finally pulling a penknife on Hesiod, the school cat, who was sleeping peacefully in a patch of sunlight. When chided fondly by his mother, Cosmo ordered her to piss off.
‘Cosmo,’ went on Hermione, ‘is severely gifted, so he needs to be stretched.’
On the rack preferably, thought David, wondering how a woman so beautiful and so gloriously talented could be quite so awful.
As little Cosmo was now applying his penknife to the big oak table, David suggested a look round the school.
‘That would be fun, wouldn’t it, Cosmo?’
Cosmo said it wouldn’t, and raising his mother’s skirt, asked her why she wasn’t wearing any knickers. Hermione was undeterred.
In the music room, where the choir was rehearsing ‘How Lovely Are Thy Dwellings’, she leapt up on the stage and sang along for a page or two, before telling the cringing music master he looked just like Paul Newman.
‘You will be teaching my Cosmo.’ She drew her wunderkind forward. ‘Music is Cosmo’s life.’
‘Your flies are undone,’ said little Cosmo loudly.
Instantly the hands of both headmaster and music master flew to their zips.
‘April fool,’ said little Cosmo, giving a maniacal cackle.
‘Little Cosmo has such a sense of humour,’ said a beaming Hermione.
Back in David’s study, Mustard was waiting to pour.
‘Camomile tea and honey or Earl Grey, Mrs Harefield?’
‘How very caring,’ Hermione clapped her hands. ‘And flapjacks, too, my favourite. You have done your homework.’
She turned to David. ‘You were going to show me your Oxbridge results, Headmaster.’
Mustard had just gone to find the file, when little Cosmo let out another maniacal cackle. Having discovered the porn magazines in David Hawkley’s top drawer, he was now leering at the colossal breasts of a blonde in thigh boots and a cowboy hat.
‘Confiscated at lunchtime,’ spluttered David, snatching back the magazine, as Cosmo gave him a pull-the-other-leg smile.
‘Mrs Colman,’ yelled David, ‘could you amuse Cosmo for a minute or two?’
‘Ah sons, sons,’ sighed Hermione, leaning forward in her pink Chanel suit to reveal a bosom just as splendid as the blonde in the porn mag.
‘It must be difficult, with your exacting career, to spend enough time with Cosmo,’ observed David.
‘Quality time, I give him quality time,’ murmured Hermione. ‘I’ve been meaning to ask you — are you any relation of Lysander Hawkley?’
‘My youngest son,’ said David warily.
‘You must be so proud,’ said Hermione, who actually disliked Lysander intensely. ‘I haven’t discovered what Lysander does, but such a good-looking, clearly gifted boy. He gets all that from you, of course, but he’s lucky to have such a generous father.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘He must have a massive private income to run a Ferrari,’ said Hermione with her little laugh, ‘and all those polo ponies, and he’s always buying diamonds for his numerous ladies. What delicious flapjacks! I just assumed Fleetley was doing so well, you were able to give him a huge allowance, or perhaps he’d made a killing on the horses.’
David choked on his Earl Grey, turned purple, but made no comment.
The moment Hermione left, Mustard, unaware that little Cosmo had emptied his Ribena into her word processor, came bustling in.
‘What a lovely lady. She wanted the recipe for my flapjacks. And what a dear little lad. Didn’t he look sweet in his sailor hat?’
‘Only if he wore it over his face,’ snapped David.
‘You know I never read the tabloids,’ went on Mustard, in almost orgasmic excitement, because of her pathological jealousy of Pippa Hawkley, ‘but Matron just showed me this.’ She handed David the Evening Scorpion. With a deep sigh, he put on his bifocals.
Across pages four and five were slightly blurred photographs of Lysander kissing Georgie on the dance floor at last night’s party and of Georgie showing a lot of leg as she straddled the wall at the bottom of the garden. There were clearer photographs of Martha Winterton and Guy and Georgie together.
‘FALL GUY,’ said the huge headline. ‘Hunky Hubby of the Year Guy Seymour,’ ran the copy, ‘is such a tolerant husband he allows wife, singer-songwriter Georgie Maguire to kiss and cuddle in candle-lit restaurants night after night with Lysander Hawkley, the man who makes husbands jealous. Last night they were spotted escaping from a Fulham rave-up during a drugs raid.
‘Fun-loving Lysander is the youngest son of “Hatchet Hawkley”, headmaster of snooty Fleetley (fees £14,000 a year with extras).’
With a bellow of rage, David scrumpled up the paper. Lysander must be pushing drugs to make the kind of money Hermione was talking about. Degenerate rock stars like Georgie Maguire were always into that kind of thing.
Picking up the telephone, he dialled the deputy head.
‘I’m desperately sorry, Headmaster. I’ve seen the article.’
‘I better take twenty-four hours’ leave and try and sort things out.’
‘Absolutely. We’ll hold the fort till you get back.’
Alone at Valhalla, Kitty welcomed the prospect of a free evening. She had missed Lysander a lot — he was so lovely to have around — but he’d be pleased she’d lost another eight pounds, and had cheek-bones, ribs, ankles and flapping waistbands for the first time in her life. She must keep busy and not weaken. She had contracts to go through for Hermione, Rannaldini, and now Rachel; and darling Wolfie, having sent her a boomerang and a furry duck-billed platypus for her birthday, deserved a long chatty letter.
Yesterday, in a fit of despair, she’d taken the scissors to her fiendish perm. Shorn of its frizzy halo, her face looked even thinner, and all her features, the wide grey eyes still slightly inflamed by the contact lenses, the squashed nose and the sweet and generous mouth, much bigger. Peering in the mirror, she tugged tendrils of hair over her forehead and down her neck. It was dreadfully short, what would Rannaldini say? Probably wouldn’t notice. Someone was leaning on the bel
l. On the doorstep stood a distinctly attractive man.
‘For you,’ he said, handing her a bunch of carrots.
‘Ferdie,’ squealed Kitty in delight. ‘’Oo my goodness, you look terrific.’
The prospect of winning a bet had concentrated Ferdie’s mind and will-power amazingly. He had lost so much weight he was almost unrecognizable. He was also black-brown from the Algarve sun, with his dark hair streaked blond, and his bone structure re-appeared. The Laughing Cavalier was slowly turning into Mel Gibson.
‘Oh, Ferdie,’ sighed Kitty.
‘You don’t look so bad yourself.’ Ferdie whistled in amazement, as he walked round her. ‘Your hair’s so much better, and you’ve got your contact lenses in. Oh, Kittywake, we’re on our way. Let’s have a huge drink to celebrate.’
‘Lysander’d be ever so shocked,’ said Kitty.
‘I’ll take care of Lysander.’
Neither of them had touched alcohol for a month, but Ferdie persuaded Kitty to bring up a bottle of champagne already chilled by the dungeons.
‘We’ve got to weigh ourselves in a minute, so it’s only fair if you drink with me,’ said Ferdie, thinking how sweet she looked, not pretty at all, but appealing like his mother’s Boston Terrier.
By the time Kitty had filled him in with local gossip and Ferdie had produced his holiday snaps, they’d had another glass, and Kitty, who hadn’t eaten since breakfast, had become incredibly giggly. As they danced upstairs for the great weigh-in, they started squabbling over how much their clothes weighed.
‘Men’s clothes are heavier than women’s,’ said Ferdie, removing his shoes.
‘Not that much,’ said Kitty, kicking off her white high heels.
Ferdie took off his shirt to reveal a suntanned chest, solid as a bull terrier’s.
‘Oh, Ferdie, you look like Arnie Swart’s what’s it. ’Ave you been working out?’
Ferdie nodded. ‘Nearly killed me, I’ve still got love handles,’ he seized two chunks of flesh above his waist, ‘but they’re going.’ He filled both their glasses. ‘That dress must weigh a lot. Let’s have it off. Gosh,’ he gasped, as, after a little persuading, Kitty pulled her blue shirtwaister over her head, ‘you’re very voluptuous.’
‘That’s a nice way of saying I’m fat,’ came a muffled voice.
‘It’s a way of saying you’ve got gorgeous boobs.’
‘Have I?’ Kitty emerged scarlet.
‘Sure you haven’t hidden tangerines in your bra?’ Ferdie squeezed the ends. ‘No, blimey, it’s all you.’
Kitty screamed with laughter.
‘Tangerines would make me ’eavier, you dope, I want to be lighter than you.’
It was thus giggling hysterically with Ferdie down to his Ninja Turtle boxer shorts and Kitty in a very white bra and knickers that Lysander, dropping in after his jaunt with Georgie to check on Kitty’s weight loss, found them.
‘You’ve got a fantastic body,’ Ferdie was saying admiringly. ‘Take off your bra, it must weigh at least seven pounds.’
Lysander was absolutely livid. Ferdie had always been so stuffy about not bonking clients, and here he was almost at first base with Kitty. Only just managing to control his temper, he supervised the weigh-in. Kitty had lost a stone and a half, Ferdie a stone and five and a half pounds.
‘Bloody good,’ Ferdie conceded. ‘Rannaldini will have to eat his words.’
‘I wonder how many calories there are in them,’ said Kitty shrieking with laughter. ‘I’ve won the be-het, I won the be-het.’
‘You are both plastered,’ said Lysander icily, as Ferdie, forgetting what day it was, wasted three cheques, giving Kitty her hundred pounds. Having no intention of leaving them alone together in this state, Lysander insisted they come over to Magpie Cottage for supper.
‘I’m only allowed half a grapefruit and a boiled egg,’ said Kitty.
‘Georgie was thinking of doing a barbecue,’ said Lysander.
Knowing Georgie would get no further than thinking about it, Kitty put her blue shirtwaister back on, and returning to the kitchen, was loading cold chicken, tomatoes, baking potatoes and a big bag of peaches into a cardboard box, when an explosion shook the corridor outside.
‘Ferdie’s shot himself for losing the bet,’ cackled Kitty.
But he was only opening another bottle of Rannaldini’s champagne.
‘That’s more than I’ve eaten in a month,’ he said, peering into the cardboard box, then burst into song.’ ‘Join me dancing naked in the rain… cover me in ecstasy,’ and started bopping round the kitchen table.
‘I love that song,’ said Kitty. ‘D’you think it will ever rain again?’
Outside it was even hotter, with finches fluttering over the burnt stubble, like fleas crawling on a lion’s pelt. For the first time in her life, Kitty felt thin enough to sit on someone’s knee.
I’m under ten stone, she told herself hazily.
‘Rest your whole weight,’ encouraged Ferdie, taking a slug out of his bottle. ‘You’re as light as a fairy. Although, talking of fairies, the vicar must be over seventeen stone.’
Why the hell was Kitty suddenly finding Ferdie so funny? thought Lysander furiously. They were both being too silly and plastered for words. It must be tiredness and hangover that made him so down, and guilt about not putting flowers on his mother’s grave today.
Alone at Magpie Cottage, Georgie stepped out of the bath and, leaving cannibal footsteps, went in search of a towel. She found one curled up like a hedgehog under Lysander’s bed. Overwhelmed by another fiendish compulsion to snoop, she found herself going through the pockets of the trousers, shirts and blazer he was wearing last night. As a reward, she found dozens of cards girls must have slipped him with their telephone numbers with Home and Office written in brackets. One of them, Georgie noticed indignantly, belonged to the Catchitune publicity girl, another to the girlfriend of one of Georgie’s musicians.
She started to shake, frantically frisking his drawers and cupboards, but found nothing. I’m sick, she thought. I know Lysander isn’t the answer, but I can’t bear to think of him with someone else. But looking like he does and being so sweet, how could he not be propositioned wherever he goes? Would she always die of jealousy whoever she was with? Was that the heritage Guy had left her?
Detesting herself, she started on Lysander’s wallet and was gratified to find a nice picture of herself, and ones of Jack, Maggie and Arthur. Then she was brought up short by a photograph of a heartbreakingly pretty woman, laughing and sitting bareback on a big grey horse. She breathed again when she found Lysander had written: MUM AND ARTHUR, 1989 on the back. The leaves were turning in the photograph — it must have been taken just before she died. Oh, poor Lysander. Shoving the photograph back, Georgie, who was dry now, draped herself in a sarong covered in huge gold sunflowers, which Lysander had bought her on his way to London, and started to redo her face. How restful to return to pre-Julia days when, convinced Guy loved her for herself, she didn’t have to spend her time getting tarted up.
Thunder was rumbling round the hills, but despite the punishing heat, the smell of moulding leaves and bonfires drifted in through the dusty window. Season of mistresses, thought Georgie sadly. She could see Tiny and Arthur waiting by the gate for their master’s return. Standing head to tail, they were whisking the flies off each other’s faces and nibbling the itches out of each other’s necks. Symbol of a happy marriage, thought Georgie even more sadly.
Kitty had drunk enough champagne not to faint over Lysander’s cottage. You had to beat back the nettles to get to the front door. Inside the place was a shambles with a Snowdon of washing-up in the sink, and Maggie’s ripped-up victims — shoes, cushions and the fox fur Lysander had bought at the bric-à-brac stall — carpeting the floor. Kitty clutched on to her boomerang and her duck-billed platypus.
‘You must have the spider franchise for the West of England,’ said Ferdie, his arms full of Rannaldini’s Dom Perignon. ‘Hi, Georgie.’
/> ‘Whatever are Marigold and the Best-Kept Village committee going to say?’ wondered Kitty as she tried to find a space to unload the goodies from her cardboard box. Stretched out on the sofa, Dinsdale opened a bloodshot eye as he smelt chicken. In the almost entirely frosted — up fridge, she found the three tins of pâté Rachel had inveighed against when she came to supper.
‘Listeria leads to hysteria.’ Ferdie peered over her shoulder, thrusting bottles through the ice like an Antarctic dredger. ‘Come away from this squalor and join me dancing naked in the rain.’
‘And cover me in ecstasy,’ sang back Kitty. At least she could replace Rannaldini’s champagne with Ferdie’s cheque. ‘You haven’t got any buttons on that shirt.’
‘They popped off when I was fat,’ confessed Ferdi, ‘but I like the shirt.’
‘I’ll sew some on for you.’
Lysander was too irritated to praise them for losing all that weight, but Georgie was delighted.
‘I cannot get over how marvellous you both look.’
As the back garden was even more crowded with nettles, they dragged the garden table and chairs out into Arthur’s and Tiny’s field. The sun had set, leaving a primrose-yellow horizon, but to the east huge black clouds were gathering.
Putting an arm round Georgie’s shoulders, Lysander gazed down into Paradise.
‘If I had a line of coke, I’d fly across the valley.’
Instead Ferdie produced some really strong dope. He had also rigged up an angle-poise lamp with an equally strong bulb, which threw their shadows, like late arrivals at the cinema, on to the trees that reared up at the end of the field. Above the wood, the stars rose like a fountain. The radio was blaring out pop music. Sewing on Ferdie’s buttons between alternate swigs of Dom Perignon and puffs of Ferdie’s cigarette, Kitty found, for the first time in her life, that she wasn’t terrified when Arthur leant his great whiskery face over her shoulder.
‘It’s getting very dark,’ complained Lysander, drawing on a joint like a maiden aunt throwing up a window and breathing in the morning air.