by Jilly Cooper
‘Oh, darling, I’m sorry I’ve neglected you. I’ve been so worried about work and everything. It’s not your fault. Let’s go home.’
Utterly appalled that she’d been too locked in over Guy’s philandering and the loss of David Hawkley to notice what was going on, she started to cry.
‘It’s all your fault, you bastard,’ she sobbed at Rannaldini.
Guy was longing to castigate Rannaldini, too, but didn’t dare in case Rannaldini shopped him about Julia. Instead he proceeded to vent his fury on Flora.
‘Look how you’ve upset your mother.’
‘Not nearly as much as you’ve upset her,’ screamed back Flora. ‘She’d never have gone to bed with Lysander if you hadn’t been carrying on with Julia all this time.’
‘Dear, dear,’ said Meredith, looking from a speechless Georgie to a flabbergasted Guy. ‘Turnbull & Asser are going to do a roaring trade in hair shirts this Christmas.’
Very, very reluctantly and only because Rannaldini threatened to close all the electric gates and doors and imprison them, Venturer signed a hastily typed-out agreement that they would cut Flora’s outburst.
‘If Rupert hadn’t fucked off skiing, we could’ve made a fight for it,’ said Cameron furiously.
‘The Kings just mounting their horses make a shitty ending.’
‘Very shitty in The Prince of Darkness’ case,’ giggled Meredith.
‘Who’s talking of endings?’ said Rannaldini, admiring Cameron’s snarling sexy face. ‘Let’s have dinner in the New Year. Now bugger off everyone.’
If anyone was more distraught than poor Flora that evening it was Marigold, who didn’t seem to have taken in any of the dramas. All that mattered was that Larry hadn’t turned up. She refused to join Meredith, his friends, various euphoric members of the London Met, most of the crew and Ferdie and Lysander in The Pearly Gates for a pissed mortem.
As he first had to box Arthur back and feed him, Lysander insisted Ferdie drive Marigold home.
‘Ay wish they made husbands laike you, Arthur,’ Marigold said, having sobbed off most of her stage make-up into his grey shoulder.
As they trooped out into the snow they passed Hermione. Completely oblivious that Little Cosmo, who’d been at Kitty’s sweet sherry, was systematically removing tenners from her bag, she was screeching, ‘How dare Flora call my arms hulking?’
‘I think the Virgin Mary’s suffering from post-natal depression,’ muttered Ferdie.
‘And what happened to Rupert Campbell-Black?’ demanded Hermione.
‘I’d forgotten about him,’ said Lysander in dismay as he helped Marigold into the car. ‘I so wanted him to meet Arthur. Look after her,’ he urged in an undertone as he shut the door against the swirling snow. ‘She’s worried sick.’
‘Not as worried sick as I am,’ said Ferdie, scooping up a ball of snow from the top of the car and hurling it at a departing harpist. ‘Larry, or rather Marigold, owes us thirty thousand pounds.’
‘Forget it,’ said Lysander. ‘You don’t think Rannaldini will take it out on Kitty, do you? I didn’t get a chance to say goodnight to her. Promise to go into the house with Marigold and see she’s OK.’
Even Ferdie couldn’t bring himself to talk finance to such a shuddering, desolate wreck. Ahead, through a snowy tunnel of bowed trees, Paradise Grange reared up darkly, its great battlements and turrets lit by the wannest of moons.
‘Since Rachel moved in, the laights have been goin’ out all over Paradise,’ said Marigold sadly. ‘Ay’m sure Larry gave her that lovely cashmere jumper.’
‘Rachel’s being bonked by Rannaldini,’ said Ferdie gently. ‘Your husband’s far too deeply into filthy consumerism to appeal to Rachel. Aren’t you going to ask me in for a drink?’ he added. ‘You shouldn’t be on your own.’
‘I’ve obviously got to get used to it,’ said Marigold.
She had got through the performance. All she wanted to do was crash out in her lonely bed and sob out her broken heart.
She was amazed to find the front door open. She was so off the wall, she must have forgotten to put on the burglar alarm when she left that morning.
As she put down her costume in its carrier bag, her gold crown fell on to the floor, a symbol that her Ritzy life had gone for ever.
Catching sight of her blackened, red-eyed, miner’s face, she went into the downstairs 100 and washed away the streaked mascara and the remains of her cork moustache. Now, wanner than the moon itself, she switched on the drawing-room light, and gave a scream for there, slumped on the sofa, was Larry. He looked utterly wretched. He was neatly dressed in a white shirt and a pin-striped suit. Only his face was unironed and rumpled.
Marigold wanted to yell at him for not showing up, for humiliating her, for being unfaithful like everyone else in Paradise, but the words withered on her white lips.
‘I tried to grapple back up the tree,’ said Larry, as though they were in the middle of a conversation, ‘but it was like using fungi as ’andholds. They kept givin’ way.’
As he put his head in his hands she noticed all his gold rings and the bracelets had gone and how grey his dark hair had become.
‘I don’t know ’ow to tell you, Princess, but I’m finished, up the spout,’ he croaked. ‘I guaranteed a big electronics project, borrowed a ’uge amount of money, used some of Catchitune’s assets as well, an’ it bombed. The bank’s pulled the plug. I’m ruined, skint.’ He tugged his empty pockets out of his trousers like a conjurer.
‘I didn’t want to worry you.’ He gave a groan. ‘I’ve been trying to raise the dough from everywhere, but there isn’t any about.’
As Marigold opened her mouth to speak, he put up his hand.
‘But I can’t blame the recession. I was greedy. An’ this afternoon they voted me off the Board.’
‘They can’t have,’ said Marigold aghast.
‘So I’m broke, belly-up. I’ve got nuffink.’
Marigold couldn’t speak the lump in her throat was so huge, the tidal wave of tears ready to smash the lock gates, as Larry hung his head.
‘I understand if you want to leave me, Princess.’
‘Oh Larry, Larry, Ay thought you’d gone back to Nikki.’
Incredulously, Larry looked up.
‘All those phone calls,’ sobbed Marigold. ‘An’ you’ve lost so much weight and never turning up to rehearsals.’
She moved towards him with her arms open.
‘Ay don’t mind where Ay live so long as it’s with you. Ay never really läiked this mansion. It’s a naightmare to clean, and Ay’ve never felt comfortable with servants and the boys will be delaighted to leave boarding-school and we’ve got enough food in the freezer to live on for ever.’
‘You don’t mean it? You’ll stand by me? Ow, Princess, ow, Princess.’
‘Oh Larry, Larry,’ said Marigold crying and laughing all at once as she flung herself into his arms. ‘Ay love you so much, Ay’d follow you to the hend of the earth.’
49
As President Gorbachov kept going abroad to distance himself from the growing domestic crises in Russia, so Rannaldini abandoned all thought of Christmas at Valhalla. He knew Venturer still had the clip of ‘Once in Royal David’s City’ and that he couldn’t silence blabbermouths like Mother Courage and Lady Chisleden. Harassed by enraged mistresses and a baying Press, Rannaldini decided, as a gesture of family solidarity, to take Kitty and his many children skiing and made sure that a delightful photograph of them all arriving at the airport was circulated worldwide.
Lysander felt sick when he saw it reproduced on the front of the Sun. He had been appalled, the morning after the play, to find Valhalla deserted except for Mrs Brimscombe who was sourly freezing boeuf bourgignon and who handed him a Christmas present from Kitty beautifully wrapped in red paper covered in polo ponies. Inside were chewsticks for the dogs, Twix bars for Arthur and Tiny and a dark blue jersey with Donald Duck on the front which Kitty had knitted for him. A card enclosed said: ‘Dea
r Lysander. This is to thank you for your many kindnesses. I hope you don’t miss your Mum and Georgie too much over Xmas, yours sincerely, Kitty Rannaldini.’
Lysander was utterly desolate. Earlier in December, Kitty had given him an Advent Calendar. Now he felt all the doors were closing on him. Returning to Magpie Cottage, he found Ferdie bemoaning his excesses the night before in The Pearly Gates and examining a green tongue in the mirror. On the strength of his success as the innkeeper he had managed to score with Miss Paradise ’90, the barmaid.
‘I told her I was off to the Gulf, too.’
‘That’s bloody dishonest. She’s a nice girl.’
‘What’s bitten you?’ said Ferdie in amazement.
‘Rannaldini’s taken Kitty skiing.’
‘That is terrific,’ said Ferdie. ‘I have to congratulate you. I never dreamt you’d get Kitty looking that good, almost attractive, in that green dress the other night — and to get Rannaldini back as well. He’s never taken her on holiday before. I’m going to give you a massive Christmas bonus,’ he added as Lysander’s face blackened. ‘You’re off to Brazil. Bastard coffee billionaire giving his ravishing young wife the run-around. Here’s the ticket.’ Ferdie reached for his brief case.
‘I don’t want to go to Brazil,’ said Lysander mutinously.
‘You’ll get some seriously good polo.’
After Christmas in the extremely fashionable French ski resort of Monthaut acquiring a suntan and being photographed on every piste surrounded by children, Rannaldini was bored rigid and decided to fly home. Christmas, like the snow, had temporarily blotted out all gossip. Natasha left with him. To shake her out of her shock at his affaire with Flora, he despatched her to Barbados for a holiday.
Kitty got no such compensation. She was to stay on in Monthaut over the New Year to keep an eye on Rannaldini’s children and the au pair, who was very pretty and expected to go out skiing and clubbing in the evenings, leaving Kitty in charge. At no time had Rannaldini apologized in any way for Flora’s revelations.
Wearily, Kitty drove back from dropping him off at the airport. Rannaldini had been particularly ratty over Christmas. In her distress at not being able to say goodbye to Lysander, Kitty had left several scores and clothes that he needed in Valhalla, although she felt he would have complained whatever she had picked. She was desperately short of clothes herself. She hadn’t brought anything for the evening, no ski clothes and no boots for walking on the polished ice, so, as Rannaldini loathed her spending money, the drive to the airport was her first outing. Even with chains on the wheels, she had been terrified of the winding, treacherous roads.
She felt safer when she reached Monthaut. Horses with bells jangling on their bridles, which reminded her of Arthur, were pulling sledgefuls of tourists along the High Street. Beautiful girls with vivid brown faces and enviably narrow hips strode purposefully over the frozen pavements. The Hotel Versailles, where Rannaldini always stayed, was the best in Monthaut. South-facing, yellow-stoned, overlooking the village square with its statue of President de Gaulle and a wonderful view of the mountains, it was two minutes’ walk from the main ski lifts. Snow and icicles glittering from the gables were melting slightly in the sunshine.
As Kitty crept in through the swing doors, every table in the foyer was occupied by glamorous, chattering, sunburnt people. It was several seconds before she recognized the most glamorous of them all. He was wearing a Donald Duck jersey and knocked over his glass of Kir as he jumped to his feet.
‘Lysander,’ whispered Kitty.
Her delight was so unmistakable that Lysander nearly kissed her properly, but, as she ducked her head in embarrassment, he made do with hugging her.
‘I fort you was in Brazil.’
‘I got bored and I missed you. I’m going to teach you to ski.’
‘I ’aven’t got any gear.’
‘I’ll buy you some. I haven’t given you a Christmas present. Thank you for the Donald Duck,’ he looked down, ‘he’s the best present I’ve ever had. I hope he doesn’t have to go into quarantine when we go back to England.’
Tucking his arm through hers as he led her towards the lift, he asked her if she had been given anything nice.
‘Rannaldini gave me a filing cabinet and Hermione some chopstick ’olders,’ Kitty giggled, ‘an’ a red sloppy jumper big enough for a helephant. “I know you like them baggy, Kitty.” Ooo, I am ’appy to see you, Lysander.’
Feeling dreadfully guilty about abandoning Rannaldini’s children to the sulky au pair and feeling embarrassingly ostentatious in a lime-green, violet, harebell-blue and shocking pink ski suit, ‘I look like a rinebow ’ippo,’ Kitty took to the slopes.
‘You must have lots of protection,’ said Lysander, rubbing Ambre Solaire into her pink cheeks and painting her mouth with mauve lipsalve before dropping a kiss on her squashed nose.
He was looking very flash in a tight daffodil-yellow bomber jacket and ski pants, and a kingfisher-blue sweat band keeping his curls out of his eyes, which were covered with black wrap-around glasses. He’d streaked his face and his beautiful big mouth with different coloured lipsalves like an Apache. Behind him, dazzling white peaks reared up against a sapphire sky. Chalet girls, PAs from Knightsbridge, glamorous divorcées on the prowl, au pairs who’d escaped, gazed at him in wonder.
‘I feel like a new-born foal wiv a banana skin attached to each hoof,’ protested Kitty. ‘Ooooh — I’m going to fall over again.’
‘No, you’re not,’ encouraged Lysander. ‘Stand on the edge of your skis, that’s right, now lean forward, sticks behind, sticks behind! Don’t cross them! Well done, Kitty.’
‘Weeee, I can do it.’ Kitty got so carried away, she skiied several yards. ‘Ow, my legs are going, ’elp, ’elp.’
Soon her suit of many colours was covered with snow. It was true what they said about the mountains making you feel all tingly and excited. All her tiredness had vanished.
Lysander had taken her to a comparatively deserted slope, and such was his total preoccupation with teaching her and his growing awareness of the delicious curves of her body since she’d lost all that weight that neither of them realized that the snow around them had been invaded by photographers and reporters, sliding all over the place, gabbling into telephones and tape recorders. For a horrific moment, Kitty thought they were on to her and Lysander, but they were all gazing up the mountain.
‘He’s on his way down,’ announced a reporter from the Daily Mail, switching off his telephone.
‘James Whittaker says the kid’s got a strong American accent, so Rupert must have got it from Texas,’ said a predatory blonde.
‘I thought he and Taggie were going to adopt from Bogota.’
‘Probably decided he wanted something more Aryan.’
‘Evidently the kid’s the spitting image of Rupert. It’s amazing how these adoption societies match them up.’
‘They must have got it very quickly. Taggie’s miscarriage was only a few weeks ago,’ said the Sun photographer.
‘Could be an illegit of Rupert’s he’s trying to palm off on Taggie,’ suggested the predatory blonde.
‘Oh, Beattie, you would think that.’
‘Taggie looked miserable last night and she hasn’t skiied since she’s been out here,’ said Beattie Johnson of The Scorpion shirtily.
‘She’s just lost a baby, stupid.’
‘If it is Rupert’s,’ Beattie was not to be deflected, ‘it means that he has been unfaithful to Taggie, because Nigel says the kid can’t be a day over three and he’s been married to Taggie nearly six years.’
‘Hush, here they come.’ The world’s Press adjusted their long lenses and switched on their tape recorders as a very blond child in huge dark glasses and a striped blue and white ski suit came whistling down the slope. For a second, it looked as though he was going slap into an elderly American in fuschia-pink who was gingerly picking herself up.
‘Move your ass, grandma,’ yelled the child as he shot
past.
‘Come back, Eddie, for Christ’s sake,’ yelled a voice loud enough to start an avalanche and over the white brow of the slope like a shiver of lightning came a tall man in faded jeans and a thick dark grey jersey. Slithering to a spectacular halt beside the child, he hid them both for a moment in a fountain of snow. As they emerged, Lysander took in the smooth brown forehead, the thick gleaming blond hair, the beautiful Greek nose thrown into relief by the dark glasses, and the curling mouth now set like a trap.
‘Rupert Campbell-Black,’ he whispered to Kitty in wonder. ‘Just think, I come here to see you and he’s here as well. Oh, Kitty, isn’t he handsome?’
‘I fort Taggie’d just had a miscarriage.’
‘They must have adopted this one. Isn’t he sweet?’
‘Don’t you run away from me like that, you little sod,’ yelled Rupert. ‘And you can all fuck off,’ he added as the Press closed in with a frenzied clicking of cameras.
‘Where you get him from, Rupe?’ demanded the Express.
‘What’s your name, darling?’ asked Beattie Johnson.
‘Edward Bartholomew Alderton,’ said the child politely. Then, turning to Rupert, ‘Move your ass, Grandpa, I’m starved.’
As the howls of laughter subsided and Rupert disappeared in a towering rage, Beattie Johnson could be heard saying: ‘Of course, he’s Perdita’s child.’
‘Who’s she?’ asked Paris Match.
‘Where’ve you been for the last four years?’ said Beattie as they trooped back to their hotels to file copy. ‘One of Rupert’s illegits. That’s why her kid’s the spittin’ image of him. She married an American polo player called Luke Alderton.’
‘Fancy Rupert being a grandad,’ said the Mirror.
‘Not very good for his super-stud image,’ said Beattie in amusement. ‘I wonder if I can get Grandfather Cock into the copy?’
Sitting in the bar at the Hotel Versailles watching the mountains turn from rose-pink to glittering electric-blue as the gold lights came on in the village square, Rupert ignored his beautiful wife Taggie, drank whisky as brown as his face, in a mood as black as his name. He was trying not to lose his temper with Mr Pandopoulos, the rich Greek owner, who’d flown in specially to complain that his best horse hadn’t even been placed in a big race that afternoon.