The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous trc-4

by Jilly Cooper

  ‘She’s a treasure,’ agreed Bob, forking radicchio and cèpes shining with tarragon dressing on to Lysander’s side plate, ‘but she’ll never leave Rannaldini. He terrorizes her and appeals to her conscience. A lethal combination. He’s got her mother into an expensive home which Kitty couldn’t afford on her own. As it is she sends her money every week.’

  ‘I could pay for that,’ said Lysander quickly. ‘Kitty’s mother could live with us, then it wouldn’t be so expensive.’

  ‘Well, you’d better abandon this gigolo lark and win her properly.’

  ‘I find it mystifying,’ said Meredith, gobbling up the untouched three-quarters of Lysander’s pancake as he loaded up the machine. ‘What’s Kitty got that we haven’t?’

  ‘She’s touched his heart,’ said Bob. ‘Lysander’s quite uncomplicated despite those wondrous looks. Like Papageno all he wants is enough to eat and the woman of his choice. Fighting’s not his business.’

  Natasha had been so distraught she had fled Valhalla, while Ferdie was showing Rudolpho over Paradise Grange, and sought sanctuary with a girlfriend’s parents in Pimlico. She left her address with Kitty just in case Lysander asked for it.

  The worst part of the nightmare for Natasha was that her own father had actually been drooling over Lysander and Hermione in bed together.

  ‘Papa knew I was crazy about Lysander,’ she sobbed to Kitty. ‘How could he do that to me and get a buzz out of it? And how could Lysander bonk that gross old wrinkly?’

  Deranged with grief herself, Kitty had comforted Natasha as best she could and, although neither Rannaldini nor Lysander had shown the slightest interest in Natasha’s whereabouts, the fifth time Ferdie rang Valhalla Kitty had given him the Pimlico address.

  Two days later, having bored the girlfriend and her parents rigid with her obsessive monologue, Natasha was forced to return to Valhalla as she was due back at Bagley Hall that evening. She and Flora would be like war casualties. At least Kitty would have packed her trunk. Since the orgy, Natasha had decided there was something definitely to be said for her stepmother. Arriving at Paddington, she bought Kitty a box of Black Magic and a book on tapestry. But as she slouched miserably along the platform, thinking of Mocks in two weeks and all the holiday work she hadn’t done and how unbearable Bagley Hall would be if she couldn’t while away lessons dreaming of Lysander, she felt a hand picking up her suitcase. Swinging round she found herself looking into the square, blushing face of Ferdie.

  ‘Oh, go away. You remind me of Lysander. I’m sorry, Ferdie, that was bitchy, but the bottom’s fallen out of my world.’

  ‘The world’s fallen out of my bottom,’ grumbled Ferdie. ‘I should never have eaten that curry last night.’

  A slight smile lifted Natasha’s big mournful red mouth. ‘You’re a dickhead. What are you doing here anyway?’

  ‘I’ve been put on commission only. I thought I’d come and see you off.’

  ‘You better find yourself a rich girlfriend.’

  ‘I’ve got one in my sights,’ said Ferdie, taking her arm. ‘Now let’s find you a seat.’

  For reasons best known to themselves British Rail had scrapped the normal open-plan express and replaced it with an old-fashioned train with small carriages and, even worse, no bar or heating. Somehow, with a fat tip, Ferdie managed to inveigle a large brandy out of a dining-car waiter on the next-door train.

  ‘This’ll warm you up,’ he told Natasha, emptying the bottle into a paper cup, ‘and here’s Tatier and Hello!.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Natasha listlessly.

  ‘I’ll come and take you out from school.’

  ‘If you like.’

  ‘And I’ll write.’

  Natasha felt so low and was so determined not to break down that she didn’t even look up and wave to Ferdie as the train pulled out. Slumped in her seat to avoid the low-angled sun she noticed the train had the same hoot as the first notes of the last movement of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto. Next door to her a pale girl was writing an essay on The Future of Marriage. Opposite, a fat woman seemed to be deriving far more enjoyment from Maeve Binchy and the rest of the carriage was occupied by three lawyers in black and white on their way to the court at Swindon, talking most indiscreetly about their cases.

  Natasha tried to read Hello! but on page twelve found a big piece on Bob’s and Hermione’s marriage, so she put it away. Gazing out of the window at the cheerless landscape and the leafless trees she started to cry and found she couldn’t stop, even when the door slid open and a voice said: ‘Tickets, please.’

  ‘I don’t know where mine is,’ sobbed Natasha.

  ‘In your coat pocket on top of the rack,’ said the voice.

  ‘Oh, Ferdie,’ howled Natasha, ‘go away.’

  Charmingly relentless, Ferdie ordered everyone out of the carriage, getting down the fat woman’s suitcase, explaining that there had been a death in the family. Then, sitting beside Natasha, he emptied another bottle of brandy into her paper cup.

  ‘I’m such a bitch, how can you possibly still love me?’

  ‘The torch I carry for you has a rechargeable battery. I’m thinking of signing up for the Gulf.’

  Natasha looked up suddenly. ‘Oh, please don’t.’

  ‘Would you mind?’ Ferdie started to wipe away her tears with a British Rail napkin.

  ‘I would,’ said Natasha in amazement. ‘Actually I seriously would.’

  Ferdie got out his wallet and handed her two hundred pounds in cash.

  ‘What’s that for?’

  ‘It says: PENALTY FOR IMPROPER USE: £200, and I want to use you improperly! Oh Natasha, my darling,’ said Ferdie, taking her in his arms.

  By the time Lysander returned to Magpie Cottage the rosy dreams of winning Kitty, induced largely by Bob’s Dom Perignon, had faded and he collapsed into a deep despairing sleep. Woken by his alarm clock set for two in the afternoon so he could back Hannah’s Uncle in the 2.30, he was outraged to find his Ladbroke’s account had been suspended. Transferred to the accounts department, he learned that his December cheque had bounced. Only utter disbelief induced him to open one of the numerous letters from his bank, whereupon he nearly died of shock. He was on to Ferdie in a trice.

  ‘Does OD at the bottom of the page always mean one’s overdrawn.’

  ‘Or over-dosing. It certainly does.’

  ‘By twenty thousand pounds?’

  ‘Jesus! Did you buy Paradise Grange or something? You had a hundred grand in there in November. Look at your cheques.’

  Laboriously Lysander started to decipher them.

  ‘Well, there’s fifty thousand to Georgie.’

  ‘Georgie? She was supposed to be paying you.’

  ‘I hate her so much I paid her back. I didn’t want to be be — whatever it is — to her. Anyway I didn’t get her husband back.’

  ‘Sale and no return,’ sighed Ferdie. ‘Carry on.’

  ‘And thirty grand back to Marigold. No, she’s honestly on her uppers, and I had to pay my return fare from Brazil, and give Gina a diamond bracelet because I’d walked out on her.’

  ‘Oh, Lysander,’ said Ferdie wearily.

  ‘And ten thousand for the Hotel de Versailles. Christ, that’s steep.’

  ‘You were only there three days.’

  ‘I know, but Rannaldini wanted Kitty to move into a pokey little room so I picked up the tab for her suite. The Jacuzzi was sensational. Hang on, I’ll ring you back. There’s someone at the door.’

  In fact quite a crowd had gathered, stamping their feet on the snowy doorstep, including the owner of The Heavenly Host who hadn’t been paid for four months, a man in a dufflecoat with a drop on the end of his red nose and Marigold, swollen with indignation and a blue Puffa, who was accompanied by a disdainful camel-faced couple in Barbours.

  ‘Oh, Marigold,’ Lysander pulled her like a lifebelt into the cottage. ‘Is Kitty OK? Please put in a good word for me.’

  ‘You keep away from Kitty,’ whisper
ed Marigold furiously. ‘You’ll only upset her and Ay don’t think this is funny.’ She thrust a large sign saying BOTTLE BANK, which Ferdie had put in the porch, into his hand. ‘Ay left a note sayin’ Ay was bringing Gwendolyn Chisleden’s nephew and his fiancée to see over the cottage. They’re getting married in April. You mayte have shaved and got dressed.’

  Then she gave a gasp of horror as she took in the chaos behind him: overflowing ashtrays, glasses on every table, a floor littered with clothes, chewsticks and newspapers turned to the racing pages and washing-up rising out of the sink and along the window-sill to meet an army of mouldy green milk bottles.

  Worst of all, poor Jack, unable to contain himself after a long night’s confinement, had crapped extensively in the kitchen doorway.

  ‘You promised to keep the place taydy.’

  ‘It wasn’t Jack’s fault. You know how good—’

  ‘It’s your fault, you aydle lad, for oversleeping.’

  ‘Look, I’m really sorry. Have a drink, everyone,’

  Lysander called over Marigold’s shoulder. ‘No, actually I haven’t got any. Why don’t you all go down to The Pearly Gates and chalk up a stiff one on my account while I get dressed and clean the place up?’

  ‘No thanks, I’m driving,’ said the man in the dufflecoat. ‘I’ve come to repossess your TV and video machine.’

  ‘I’m about to watch the 2.30,’ said Lysander furiously. ‘And there’s EastEnders and The Bill this evening. Look, if you’re popping down to The Pearly Gates you can put twenty quid on Hannah’s Uncle,’ he yelled after the camel-faced couple who were belting down the path to their car.

  After they’d all departed, Lysander was reduced to listening to the race over the telephone, which cost a bomb because Hannah’s Uncle wouldn’t go into the starting gates for ages, before storming home, five lengths clear at 25-1. Lysander was about to ring up Ladbroke’s and shout at them that he could practically have settled his account if he’d been allowed his bet, when he was distracted by a photograph of Arthur on the mantelpiece.

  He’d been so miserable about Kitty that he’d forgotten to ring Rupert to find out how poor dear Arthur and utterly bloody Tiny were getting on.

  56

  As Lysander drove through Penscombe past grey-blond houses, and a little Norman church where generations of Campbell-Blacks were buried, he noticed a betting shop. Rare in such a tiny village, it was no doubt patronized by all the locals putting their shirts on Rupert’s horses. In the village-store window was a poster advertising a British Legion cheese-and-wine party to raise money for the Gulf. Lysander knew he ought to take an interest. The radio banged on and on about the liberation of Kuwait, but he was only interested in liberating Kitty.

  Below Rupert’s beautiful blond house, with its halo of magnificent beech trees, a long lake like mother of pearl in the falling sunshine was freezing at the edges. Across his rolling fields patches of snow lay like the spilt milk over which there was no use crying. All the birds were singing, trying to disguise the dull constant roar high above the clouds of B52s carrying bombs south from RAF Fairford.

  Rupert was not surviving the recession and alarming set-backs at Lloyd’s by altruism alone. Although beguiled by Lysander in Monthaut, he had noticed the boy’s effortless extravagance. By smiling at the receptionist at the Hotel Versailles, Rupert had also ascertained that Lysander was picking up the massive bill for the President de Gaulle suite. The reason, therefore, that Rupert had offered to get Arthur sound was because he regarded Lysander as an engaging dolt awash with cash, who could easily be coaxed into buying other much younger horses for Rupert to train.

  Rupert loathed droppers-in. Even the richest owners disturbed the horses’ routine. He was not running a Harley Street nursing home. But when Lysander rolled up shivering uncontrollably with Donald Duck glaring out between the lapels of his long, dark blue, dog-fur-matted overcoat, Rupert actually stopped placating Mr Pandopoulos, whose horse hadn’t been placed last week either. Leaving the apoplectic Greek to Dizzy, his extremely glamorous head girl, Rupert bore Lysander off to the yard kitchen for a cup of tea.

  ‘Put him down,’ said Rupert, as a pack of dogs swarmed round trying to reach a bristling Jack. ‘They’re quite safe, and the two Jack Russells are bitches.’

  Enviously Lysander examined the photographs which crowded the walls of Rupert and his daughters, Perdita and Tabitha, winning world championships at show jumping, brandishing polo cups and leading in winners on the flat and over fences.

  ‘I’m really sorry not to ring first,’ he mumbled, ‘but my telephone’s stopped working.’

  ‘Hug the Aga,’ said Rupert, putting on the kettle. ‘You look frozen.’

  You could tell when a horse was in pain by its eyes; Lysander’s were bright red, but the pupils and the irises were drab and lifeless. He was as pale as the Christmas roses Taggie had arranged in a dark green vase on the table. Jeans, skin-tight when he was skiing, were really baggy now.

  ‘How’s Arthur?’ asked Lysander.

  ‘King Arthur of the round belly,’ said Rupert. ‘God, he was cross when I cut down his rations. He ate every blade of straw, so I’ve put him on shredded newspaper. I expect he and Tiny are busily piecing together lurid stories about you and Mrs Rannaldini. How is she?’

  ‘Oh, Rupert!’ Once more, with all the egotism of heartbreak, Lysander launched into his tale of woe.

  ‘How can I convince her that I’m serious?’ he pleaded finally, as he dipped a fifth piece of shortbread into his tea before handing it to a slavering Jack. ‘I’d like to get a medal in the Gulf to show her I’m not just a cheap gigolo. The Yanks are paying people a thousand pounds a week just to put up tents.’

  ‘I thought you were paid ten times as much as that for erections in England,’ said Rupert, who’d been doing the entries for next week’s races and working out who was going to ride out which horse tomorrow morning as he listened. ‘All right, joke, joke,’ he added, as Lysander’s face blackened. ‘Anyway, I’ve got news for you. Bunny, the vet, and I think we’ve sussed Arthur’s problem.’

  Rupert half-rose to look out of the window. ‘That’s her now.’

  Arthur as usual was lying flat out snoring with his eyes wide open to get attention.

  ‘I ought to move Penscombe Pride from the next-door box,’ said Rupert as he opened the half-door. ‘He isn’t getting any sleep with that racket going on, but he’s got a bit of a crush on Arthur.’

  Arthur lurched to his feet in delight when he heard his master’s voice. Whickering like Vesuvius, he nudged Lysander in the belly, grumbling about the dreadful starvation diet to which he’d been subjected. As usual he looked like nothing on earth, his face, back and quarters smeared with green, his mane and tail strewn with pieces of pink Financial Times like confetti. Having tried to eat Donald Duck, he went sharply into reverse and shook ostentatiously when he saw Bunny the vet.

  ‘He’s a terrible drip,’ said Lysander apologetically. ‘A programme seller in a white coat has him all of a tremble.’

  Rounded, sweet and smiling, with long, soft brown hair and a gentle comforting voice, Bunny reminded Lysander for a fleeting agonizing moment of Kitty.

  ‘We’ve discounted navicular,’ she told Lysander. ‘It’s easy to make a mistake on an X-ray, but those lesions are actually normal synovial recesses.’

  ‘Oh, right,’ said Lysander, not knowing if that was good, and hanging tightly on to Arthur’s headcollar as he kept trying to edge away.

  ‘Will you trot him up now,’ asked Bunny.

  Even Arthur’s delight at putting as many yards as possible between himself and Bunny soon disappeared as pain overwhelmed him. Miserably, he stumbled across the yard. Lysander could hardly bear to look. Arthur seemed worse than ever.

  ‘He’s certainly lame on both front legs,’ said Bunny, when they had both returned. ‘But I think the pain’s coming from his coffin joints. Arthur,’ she added, picking up his near-fore, ‘has abnormally shaped feet
with very long toes.’

  ‘Sounds like Lady Chisleden,’ said Lysander, giggling out of nerves.

  Bunny raised her eyes to heaven.

  ‘I have the misfortune to look after her lunatic Arabs,’ she sighed.

  Having clipped back the hair and scrubbed both Arthur’s front feet, she filled a syringe with local anaesthetic: ‘I’m going to do a nerve block in the near-fore coffin joint,’ she explained as she plunged the needle into the front of a wincing Arthur’s foot.

  In his brief stay at Penscombe, Arthur had endeared himself to everyone. Now all Rupert’s grooms left their charges, stopped sweeping up and cleaning tack to gather round. They were soon joined by farm workers, gardeners, the estate carpenter, a man delivering feed and Mr and Mrs Bodkin, the ancient couple who seemed to have always looked after Rupert.

  Snow was drifting down as though it had all the time in the world. Even when Lysander lit a cigarette, which was strictly forbidden in the yard, the autocratic Rupert didn’t snap at him.

  ‘OK. It should be dead now. Trot him up,’ said Bunny.

  Tail whisking, pleased to have an audience, Arthur once again shambled off up the yard after Lysander, who was running backwards in order to look down at his legs.

  ‘He’s only lame on the off-fore now,’ said Rupert. ‘Trot him back.’

  It took all Lysander’s strength to stop Arthur taking off towards the house. He’d had enough of vets and his disapproval turned to megasulks when Bunny plunged another needle into his off-fore coffin joint.

  ‘If he trots out sound now,’ she told Lysander, ‘it means all the pain’s inside the joints and we can cure him with a combination of intra-articular injections and corrective shoeing.’

  It seemed the longest ten minutes of Lysander’s life. Penscombe was very high up. In winter, Rupert’s horses wore dark blue hoods at night and often three rugs against the cold. Now, sensing something was up, like medieval chargers waiting for the start of Agincourt, they leant over their half-doors.