‘I never for one moment thought it would be,’ interrupted his mother tartly, ‘and what I wonder is, if chez Dupont is as wonderful as you say, what are we going to do with Jean-Pierre when he comes here in July? He’ll be bored stiff.’
‘No he won’t, Mum. You just don’t understand. JP’s one hell of a nice guy. He takes his pleasures where he finds them — he won’t mind in the least what the place is like. But there is one thing, while we’re on the subject —’
‘When are we ever off it?’ — Bernie’s parting shot as he whizzed out of the back door on his way to give the lawn a quick once-over with the new hover. ‘Oh belt up, cretin. Have you any idea what a pain you are?’ Diz turned to his mother. ‘As I was saying, Mum, there is just one thing ... ’
‘Yes?’ Why did one have children?
‘It’s JP’s sister, Liza. I mentioned her in my postcard, she’s at the Sorbonne. I was just wondering — that is, the Duponts were wondering — whether you could possibly see your way to having her to stay too, just for JP’s first week. The Duponts would pay, of course, and she’s dead keen to visit England.’
So that’s how it was! It had to come sometime, she supposed, and she couldn’t complain, could she, when she herself ... ? She kissed him on the top of his head. ‘I’m sure that can be arranged, darling. I only hope Liza won’t be bored and the weather’s good ... ’ — But Diz had already disappeared upstairs to write to Madame Dupont assuring her that all was well, Liza could come too.
By Saturday morning Bet had still heard nothing from Simon. No news was, hopefully, good news, but she had nevertheless slept little, eaten less, and was, so everyone kept telling her, bad-tempered in the extreme. Diz was despatched to the post office to buy crisps, Bernie had collected the drink from Victoria Wine in Stotleigh, and Nell had done the much vaunted tuna fish mixture for putting in the vol-au-vent cases she’d made the night before. Unfortunately these had not turned out quite as expected, too little butter perhaps. Never mind, she told Bet optimistically, once they’d been filled no one would notice. Bet shrugged her shoulders gloomily —who cared anyway?
‘Mum,’ Nell’s voice was uncharacteristically sharp, ‘it was your idea to have this party in the first place, in fact you absolutely insisted on it. I do think you might at least try and show a little enthusiasm.’
‘I’m sorry, darling, it’s just that I haven’t been sleeping too well lately — you’ve all been wonderful, you really have.’ And hoping she sounded suitably enthusiastic, but doubting it, Bet hurried away to polish the furniture.
Later, exhausted by all their preparations, Bet, the children and Bernie were just sitting down to a late lunch of sausages and baked potatoes — Diz’s favourites, despite his views on the inadequacy of English cooking — when Pol suddenly appeared in the doorway. ‘Sorry to interrupt,’ she looked disapprovingly round the untidy kitchen, tut I’ve brought a small contribution to the party.’ Blushing a little, she plonked a large hamper on the table amongst the cooling sausages. ‘Just a few bits and pieces,’ she said, not looking at anyone. ‘Fortnum’s do a special party pack.’
They opened the box with trembling fingers. Predictably, it contained absolutely everything anyone — even Madame Dupont herself — could possibly have wished for to titillate the appetite of the most jaded party-goer.
‘What price cardboard vol-au-vents now, eh?’ said Diz, unpacking a small tin of truffles. ‘Pol, you shouldn’t have, it must have cost the earth. Mr Snately will think I’ve gone mad — truffles and caviar ... Pol, really.’ For an absurd moment Bet thought she might burst into tears — she seemed to be so emotional these days — but instead she kissed her gratified sister and patted her shoulder. ‘I’ve half a mind to keep it all for us. It’s wasted on the people coming to this party.’
The Stokes were the first to arrive, followed precisely three minutes later by the Snatelys. Bet and Diz had to cope on their own; Nell said she couldn’t come until she’d dealt with the sausages, and Bernie said he was still putting the last-minute touches to his bar, and why did people have to come so early? Not for Bernie Pete’s vague but lavish hospitality, at whose parties it was sometimes possible to find oneself consuming a glass of neat gin, the host having been distracted by something while pouring it out. Bernie’s bottles were arrayed in serried ranks, his glasses sparkled, each drink would be carefully measured according to the rules of the licensing trade.
The Stokes and Snatelys knew one another, of course, but that was about as far as it went. Mr Snately disapproved of meditation, and Mrs Snately, a huge woman with blue hair and a mean mouth, was saving her energy for the next arrivals, rightly concluding that she hadn’t been forced to turn out on a chilly evening like this simply to meet the Stokes.
‘Caviar, Mrs Snately?’ Diz, the son of the house, smiled boyishly. ‘Good gracious, Desmond — it is Desmond, isn’t it, such an unusual name — I haven’t eaten caviar since the bishop’s daughter married young Quentin Merrivale. Of course she’s married to someone else now, but I never can remember her second husband’s name. What’s Ophelia Merrivale’s new husband called, Horace?’ she roared at the vicar, who was standing in front of the fire, glass in hand, opening and shutting his eyes like an owl blinded in sudden daylight.
‘What’s that, dear?’
‘Ophelia Merrivale, what’s her new name?’
‘Ophelia who?’
Bet hovered uncertainly in the background. She longed to escape; this was not the party she had visualised. What in hell’s name was Nell up to, it couldn’t take that long to cook a few sausages. Where were the Redfords? She took a gulp at her gin and tonic.
‘What beautiful things you have here, Betty. I appreciate beautiful possessions as much as the next man, but beauty of the spirit is what I’m really after.’ Ron Stokes put his hand on her shoulder, smiling roguishly. ‘It’s no use having good furniture out East,’ said Emmie Stokes, her newly lacquered, deep auburn perm sparkling in the lamplight, her floral two-piece hung about with beads, ‘the ants eat it.’
‘Oh dear, what a frightful nuisance. Would you like some caviar?’
‘Not for me, dear, if you don’t mind. Fish roes disagree with me. It’s been the same ever since a holiday we spent in Bognor years ago. We stayed in a boarding-house behind the station — of course, it’s been pulled down now — and the landlady gave us cod’s roe for every meal. Do you remember, dear?’ Bet was pleased to see a spasm of annoyance flicker across Ron’s face. However, no doubt used to such deflationary tactics on the part of his wife, he quickly rose to the occasion. ‘Emmie, my dear,’ he sounded as though he were talking to a wayward infant, ‘this is caviar, the food of kings and princes, it’s not the same thing at all. I can see our Betty here must have friends in high place — ‘
‘Can I press you to one of Bernie’s specials, sir?’ Sir? ‘It helps to wash down the caviar.’
‘My dear young man — Damien, isn’t it? I’ve been so looking forward to meeting you, your mother has ... ‘
Bet fled. Would Simon never come?
But the caviar was all but eaten and they were on to the vol-au-vents and chipolatas before Bet, stuck with Emmie Stokes — ‘I don’t care what people say, I do like a bit of colour in my garden, don’t you, dear?’ — heard the front door bell and knew, all her other guests having arrived, that this time it must be Simon. Feeling the beginning-to-be-familiar lurch in her stomach, and mumbling an excuse to Emmie, she made a dash for the hall, only to find Pete had forestalled her. ‘Ah, Bet, here’s Morris at last, says he’s walked all the way from the Manor. I’ve told him he’s missed the caviar, but he says no problem, he doesn’t like the stuff anyway.’
‘Can’t “Morris” speak for himself?’ Suddenly Bet felt in command — or almost. At least he’d come, and to walk all the way from the Manor showed a certain determination.
‘Sorry to be late, Titania, but on such a night one really had to walk. Actually, it was rather a case of needs must, my car’s pl
aying up again. I used the short cut through the wood so I’m afraid my shoes are in a bit of a mess.’
‘Nature-lover, are you?’ Pete was still hovering. While Simon bent down to get the mud off his shoes, Bet gave Pete a quick kick on the shins. ‘In case you’ve forgotten, Pete, this happens to be my party.’
‘No need to be like that, ducky, I was just standing in until you arrived. I must say you arrived pretty quickly — not gone on the chap, are you?’ Drink always made Pete reckless. ‘And why does he call you Titania?’
‘Because we met in a wood, Redford, does that satisfy you?’ Simon had given up trying to clean his shoes. ‘And in anticipation of your next question, no, I haven’t yet worked out what my role is. When I do, I’ll be sure to let you know.’
Pete looked at him, his mouth slightly open. ‘Whisky do you?’
‘Admirably, how did you guess?’ Pete went.
‘God, I look like the wild man of Borneo.’ Simon peered at himself in the hall mirror. ‘You haven’t a comb on you, Titania?’
‘No, but you can borrow the dog’s comb if you like,’ Bet said, searching the face’s reflection for something, she didn’t quite know what — knew only that the something, whatever it was, wasn’t there. ‘You could have rung.’
‘I fully intended to, I really did.’ The eyes, meeting Bet’s in the mirror, were veiled, the wary eyes of a practised lover, looking her over, giving nothing away. ‘But what with one thing and another this week’s been an absolute pig. Things got rather on top of me and —’
‘They have a habit of doing that? Things — getting on top of you?’ She was surprised at the acid in her voice. This was not how she’d visualised their meeting.
‘Touché!’ Simon gave a bark of laughter and the brown eyes looking into hers widened in surprise, vulnerable, acknowledging a hit, seeing her, perhaps for the first time, as an equal. ‘I deserved that.’ Somewhere, something deep down in Bet breathed a sigh of relief. ‘I only thought —’
‘And you were right, my love, you were right.’ He turned away from the mirror and put his hands on her shoulders. ‘Now tell me frankly, without resorting to the dog’s comb, am I tidy enough to meet your guests?’
And then, for no particular reason, they started to giggle. They were still doing this when Diz appeared at Bet’s elbow; suspicious, not really wanting to be friendly, but determined to be correct — so like his father. ‘Hullo, sir, can I get you a drink or is my mother looking after you?’
Your uncle is, or so he promised, but thanks for the offer. Incidentally, the name’s Simon. Being addressed as ‘sir’ by a member of the younger generation makes me feel a hundred.’
‘I’ve no desire to do that, sir ... I mean, Simon. It’s just that we were rather strictly brought up, I suppose, but I’ll try to remember in future. Did your car break down?’
‘No, I walked — took the short cut through the wood, but it turned out to be further than I remembered.’
Bet watched the hostility flicker between them, it both frightened and excited her. Was this what power felt like? ‘Come on, Simon, now you’re here at last, let me introduce you to a few people, we can’t spend the evening standing in the hall, it’s too cold.’
‘Mum, the Snatelys are about to leave. Mrs Snately’s looking for you to say goodbye.’ Diz, who’d been chewing an olive stone, took the stone out of his mouth, tossed it into a nearby ash-tray and turned to Simon. ‘Nice to have met you ... er ... Simon, but I must dash. I promised Bern I’d get some more ice from the Redford fridge. See you later, perhaps.’
Simon looked after him. ‘What a very well-behaved boy, Titania, he surely does you credit. You —’ But before he could continue he was engulfed by Kitty Cornwall. ‘Si, how are you? We never had a chance to talk the other night, and I so wanted to ask you about the dog in that chocolates commercial of yours. How on earth did they manage to make it do that?’
‘All a trick, Kitty, you gullible old thing. And it’s not my commercial, I simply had one small hand in it. You see ... ’ Bet left them to it.
And after that, somewhat to her surprise and, she had to admit, her slight disappointment — she’d expected at least some small display of fireworks from him — Simon’s party behaviour was exemplary. With the exception of her own family, who remained obstinately and inexplicably impervious to his particular brand of upper-crust charm, he was plainly considered by her ill-assorted guests to be the evening’s star attraction — members of the Westover family were seldom seen at village gatherings of this sort, and Simon never. However, from her own little orbit — it was extraordinary how easy it was to switch to automatic pilot on these occasions, at one point she’d even agreed to let the garden be used for this year’s village fête — Bet watched his antics with irritation. Admittedly, he did wink at her once over the top of Angie Snately’s hat — she’d stayed on, of course — but that was the only contact between them until he suddenly came up behind her in the old pantry, where she’d fled to fetch a floor-cloth. Tib, having pinched a plate of Nell’s tuna fish vol-au-vents, had regurgitated the whole lot all over the sitting-room carpet.
‘“And greasy Joan doth keel the pot”! Are you trying to avoid me?’
‘No, of course I’m not,’ Bet, unnerved, went on ringing out the floorcloth.
‘Do leave that wretched thing alone, Titania, and look at me.’ He spun her round so she was facing him. Obviously a little drunk — not too drunk, just a little — he looked, Bet thought, like a dissipated Italian film star. ‘The Cornwalls are giving me a lift back to the Manor, so I must go. We can’t talk here, anyway, with all this riff-raff about. What about lunch on Monday?’
What indeed? But lunch on Monday didn’t mean just lunch on Monday, did it? Oh, to hell with it! Why shouldn’t she have some fun sometimes, everyone else did. Besides, he was looking at her in that way again; the way that made it more or less impossible not to accept.
She let out a long sigh. ‘All right then,’ she said, noticing he wore gold cuff-links and that they had a crest on them. ‘Your place or mine?’
‘That’s my girl!’ Simon took the hand that wasn’t holding the floorcloth and gently kissed it. ‘I thought perhaps yours, if that’s OK by you, then we could finish the leftovers.’
And that was when it really started.
*
‘Seems a nice enough chap, if you like that type,’ Pete said to his wife over a tough steak at The George. ‘Can’t understand what all the fuss has been about. He and Bet hardly spoke all evening.’
‘It’s no good, Pete, I simply cannot eat this steak. It’ll have to be sent back to the kitchens; these people mustn’t be allowed to get away with such slipshod cooking ...’
*
‘And what did you think of Mum’s boyfriend, then?’ Nell to Bernie, as they bounced about in their brand new Heals bed.
‘Not a lot, if you really want to know.’ They were trying a new position and Bernie needed all his concentration for the job in hand.
*
‘I do hope Si Morris isn’t after that nice Brandon woman,’ said Kitty Cornwall, putting the finishing touches to her rollers and preparing to climb between the sheets, ‘because if he is ... ‘
But old Monty Cornwall was already asleep.
Chapter Ten
Sunday was got through somehow, with everyone, as usual after a party, thoroughly bad-tempered. Bet was much the same. Odd, this; surely she ought to be full of effervescence, prancing about metaphorically speaking, on cloud nine? Wasn’t that how one was supposed to feel at the start of an affair? Well, she didn’t, and there it was, although she did admit to a sort of ice-cold shivering excitement whenever she thought about Monday. Things weren’t helped by the fact that she and Nell had a row. Rows with Nell were fairly rare these days, but they did still happen occasionally.
This one was over washing-powder, or rather the lack of it. Deciding to do the weekly wash on Sunday — this particular Monday promising to be altogether too fr
aught for such a mundane domestic chore — Bet found her plan frustrated by the infuriating discovery that although she had bought a new packet of soap powder, jumbo sized, only three days before, they were already out of it. The fact that this was always happening, because of Nell’s scarcely credible prodigality with the stuff — Bet sometimes wondered if she didn’t supplement Bernie’s diet with it — only added fuel to the flames of her wrath. And Nell’s excuse, that perhaps Bet’s generation wasn’t quite so hot on hygiene as Nell’s, because of being brought up during the war and having to learn to do without, merely added insult to injury.
Why, she wondered as she turned the roast potatoes and burned her fingers on the baking tin, when one was going through the vast emotional changes one was going through, did one have to be so continually bogged down by irritating trivia?
Mercifully the Redfords were out all day, having lunch with some of their posh friends, and she only saw Pol for a quick sisterly peck on the cheek before they left for London in the evening. No one mentioned Simon — whether by design or otherwise, Bet wasn’t sure. She couldn’t help wishing they had mentioned him, even thought any remark they made would almost certainly have infuriated her.
Sunday came to an end at last, and then it was Monday. Thank God she’d told Simon not to arrive before twelve-thirty! Christine Barnet always stayed until twelve-fifteen on Mondays, later if she spent too much time gossiping with Bet. And this morning, what with the party, there did happen to be an awful lot to gossip about, so that by the time Christine said, ‘Gracious, I must go, I said I’d be home early and give Dad his dinner, it’s Mum’s day for the hospital’, Simon was due to arrive at any minute, and Bet had to dash round like a maniac, getting everything ready.
She needn’t have bothered; by the time he did arrive, nearly an hour late, she’d consumed an entire packet of salted peanuts, drunk two glasses of sherry, and decided he’d got cold feet and wasn’t coming after all. She was out in the vegetable garden, checking whether any more broad beans had emerged — she had to do something — when he appeared at last, a bottle of wine under one arm and a rather tired-looking fern in a pot under the other.
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