Girl's Guide to Kissing Frogs

by Clayton, Victoria

  The accompanying grin, as he ran the side of his hand along his parting to smooth his pale, crinkly hair, was annoying. I felt nothing but the purest sympathy for Bunty as she said goodbye with a brave smile that quivered at the corners of her mouth.

  ‘I’d have thought it quite a good match,’ said Rafe. ‘Neither’s a candidate for Mensa and she’s got enough money to keep the Dunderave property from falling down for another generation or two, besides adding her own property to the pile.’

  ‘She’s so sweet-natured,’ I protested, ‘and he’s quite horrible. She deserves much better.’

  ‘She isn’t pretty, she dresses like a governess, and her only accomplishments are riding to hounds and delivering pups. Ronald’s about as high as she ought to look.’

  I felt for Bunty when I heard this cold appraisal. ‘Doesn’t goodness, kindness of heart, sincerity, that sort of thing … count for anything?’

  ‘You can’t make a decent marriage out of a warm bath of sentiment.’

  I liked Rafe least when he was in one of his realistic moods. Doubts about my own qualifications for marriage, never far away, resurfaced. ‘I don’t see why Bunty’s so much to be despised. I’m incapable of even getting onto a horse and I don’t give much for the pups’ chances. Most self-respecting governesses would turn up their noses at my clothes and I haven’t even got any money to make up. Only an overdraft of five hundred pounds.’

  ‘I’ll tell Armstrong to get rid of your overdraft. No, it’s all right, don’t fuss,’ as I started to protest, ‘there’s no point in you paying interest on it. And you can stop fishing for compliments. You know quite well you’re an extremely beautiful girl. No man in his senses would require anything more. And particularly tonight in that charming dress. Is it new?’

  ‘I’ve worn it once before.’ Actually it was the cream silk dress I had bought with his money for our engagement party, but I wasn’t offended. I knew all men, unless they were gay, were hopeless about remembering one’s clothes.

  ‘Well, I’d very much like to take it off you. Damn! We ought to have stayed the night at the Majestic. Why didn’t I think of it?’

  ‘When we tried it before you said you couldn’t stand pokey windowless bathrooms made out of corners of bedrooms. Or butter in packets at breakfast …’

  ‘I remember. It was appalling. All right then, let’s slip up to my room. My mother’s out somewhere.’

  ‘Ought we to? Evelyn wouldn’t like it … and there’s your father …’

  ‘I’m thirty-two and I don’t need my mother’s approval. Besides, she’ll never know. As for my father, we’ve started sedating him at night. I don’t like to do it, but it’s the only way any of us can get any sleep. Don’t you want me to make love to you?’

  ‘Oh, yes, of course I do.’

  The hall at Shottestone was peaceful, the lights turned low. It smelt deliciously of beeswax polish and flowers. On the table beside a bowl of white freesias was a tray laid with glasses, a decanter of brandy, a soda siphon and a plate of tiny sandwiches. Rafe went to get Buster from the kitchen while I took the tray into the morning room where the fire was still smouldering behind a guard. Buster greeted me as though he had been marooned for several years on a desert island with only a coconut for company. Rafe stirred the embers into flames and poured us both a drink. I sipped mine dutifully. I did not like brandy but I hoped it might get me in the mood.

  Sex with Rafe was quite different from my previous carnal assignments. Past lovers had been intent on their own satisfaction and I could have been a warmed corpse without lessening what pleasure they got out of it, but Rafe required full participation. He was talkative, asking me what I liked and where I liked it and I had to keep my mind alert to prevent any slip-up that might indicate prior hands-on experience. This was not conducive to ‘letting myself go’, which was what Rafe was always telling me to do. He was a very managing lover. Once he reached the peak of excitement he fairly barked out instructions. You could tell he must have been an excellent officer. Luckily I had once been taken to see a pornographic film in Paris when we were dancing at the Opéra Garnier. I had taken note of the actress’s tortuous writhings and shrieks as she enjoyed wave upon wave of stratospheric orgasms, so I felt reasonably confident about my performance.

  ‘Darling, put that sandwich down and come and sit next to me.’

  The sandwich was potted shrimp and watercress and perfectly delicious, but obediently I laid it aside and went to sit beside him on the sofa. ‘God, I want you!’ he murmured, pulling me towards him and kissing each eye and then my nose. We kissed for some time and I tried, not entirely successfully, to forget my half-eaten sandwich. Probably I would be able to cram it in on my way upstairs …

  ‘Darling!’ Rafe was attempting to undo the tiny silk-covered buttons that ran from my neck to my waist. ‘How frustrating these are—’

  ‘No, no! Those are just for decoration. There’s a zip at the back. But Evelyn might come in.’

  ‘All right. I must just kiss those gorgeous warm little breasts and then we’ll go up and drown ourselves in lust.’

  He had just pulled the zip far enough down to insert a hand through the gap and undo my bra when the door opened and in came Kingsley.

  ‘Hello, hello, hello!’ he said with a return of his bluff manner that had been notably absent during these last weeks.

  ‘Christ!’ said Rafe.

  Kingsley was wearing one of Evelyn’s dressing gowns – I assumed it was hers because it was pale pink satin with lace ruffles – and on his head was one of those old-fashioned bathing caps covered with rubber flowers.

  ‘So sorry to keep you waiting.’ He strode over to me, hand extended. ‘How do you do? I’m Kingsley Preston. And you must be Miss Julie Andrews. I can’t tell you how much I’ve enjoyed your work. My Fair Lady, what a show!’

  ‘Thank you.’ It was inexpressibly painful to see Kingsley like this. I knew it must be much worse for Rafe and I tried desperately to think of something to say that might show him that I felt for both of them in this awful situation.

  ‘Father.’ Rafe stood up and grasped his arm. ‘You’re not well. You must go back to bed.’

  ‘Nonsense, my boy. Never felt better, never felt better! Besides, Miss Andrews has come all this way just to see me.’ He put his hands on his hips and stood, legs apart, smiling at me. The dressing gown fell slightly open to reveal a wrinkled yellowish stomach and something purplish below, from which I averted my eyes. ‘But you’re smaller than I expected. And not as hairy. I don’t know why you English girls have to strip every hair from your body. Underarm hair, dark and springy and smelling a little of sweat, that’s what I like. Those Egyptian women, great forest of black hair all the way down to their knees some of ’em—’

  ‘Kingsley!’ Evelyn stood in the doorway, stripping off her gloves. She looked thoroughly self-possessed. ‘You’re making an exhibition of yourself.’

  At the sound of her voice, Kingsley straightened his back and gave her a fairly snappy salute which made the rubber flowers on his hat wobble. ‘Preston, Major, Northumberland Fusiliers.’

  Evelyn went to the fireplace and pulled the bell rope. ‘You must go to bed at once.’

  ‘Bed? But I’m having fun! I request to be set at liberty on parole according to the terms of the Geneva Convention.’

  ‘You’re not in the army now. You’re at home. Go upstairs and I’ll send Spendlove up to put you to bed.’

  ‘Home?’ Kingsley looked around him. ‘Am I?’ His face fell into the lines of troubled bewilderment that had become habitual with him. ‘Then who are you? And where’s Nanny Sparkles?’

  ‘Nanny Sparkles would be cross if she knew you were refusing to go to bed.’

  ‘Oh, all right. I suppose I’d better then.’ He gave me a faltering smile, then shuffled slowly out of the room.

  ‘Go and see to him, would you?’ Evelyn said to Rafe. ‘Give him another dose of Somnolenza. And find out what’s happened to that old
fool Spendlove. So sorry you had to see that, darling,’ Evelyn said to me when Rafe had gone. ‘Poor Kingsley. So tragic …’ She gave me a brittle smile that failed to transmit to her eyes. ‘We must all be very, very patient and try to remember the man he was.’

  ‘Of course,’ I said. ‘I don’t mind for me at all. Only for him.’

  ‘There’s a sweet girl. It’s such a comfort that you’re a member of the family now.’ She took off her coat and flung it over the arm of a chair. ‘I confess, darling, it wasn’t what I’d planned, but when I realized Rafe’s mind was quite made up … We’ve always understood each other, Marigold, haven’t we? You know I’ve always thought of you as my own daughter, practically.’

  ‘You’ve always been tremendously kind to me and I’m very grateful.’

  ‘That’s all right then. Pour me a large drink, will you? I’m fagged. Such a dull party.’

  I did as I was told, keeping my unzipped back turned away from her, hoping she wouldn’t notice the odd shape the unhooked bra gave my frontage. But it seemed her preoccupying emotion that night was irritation. She lit a cigarette and sipped the brandy and soda while describing her hostess’s house, newly acquired and just decorated. ‘Everything gilded like Versailles … one needed dark glasses and an aspirin … really Margot ought to know better. Her first husband was a drunken bore with a taste for little boys, but he had a marvellous collection of Paul de Lamarie …’ and so on until she had picked the evening to pieces and got herself into a better mood.

  ‘Evelyn …’ I plucked up the courage to interrupt an account of Margot’s simply horrible bathroom, ‘I wonder if Isobel and Conrad are quite right for each other?’

  Evelyn stared at me, jolted out of the pleasant feeling of expansion that a really good session of unfettered bitchy truth-telling can give one. ‘What do you mean? I’ve been thinking recently that, despite everything, he’s probably the perfect choice for her. Of course a synagogue takes some swallowing, but I’m willing to count my blessings and, as your dear mother doesn’t mind me butting in with your wedding—’

  ‘Yes, but Evelyn, I’m talking about after the wedding. Do they really love each other, do you think?’

  ‘Conrad’s a man of taste and education. And he’s extremely good looking. And rich. Most women have to put up with much less. He’s self-assured without being egocentric and he doesn’t put up with any nonsense from her. If I weren’t her mother and absolutely devoted to her, I should say Isobel was selfish and destructive.’ For a moment Evelyn’s expression hardened and I saw she was pretty angry with her daughter. ‘No, I admit at first I disapproved of Conrad, but now I know him I think Isobel’s extraordinarily lucky.’ I tried not to think that the chestnut basket was responsible for this change of heart. ‘What has she said to make you think she’s having second thoughts?’

  ‘Oh, nothing. It’s just that when they’re together they don’t seem very—’

  ‘I’ve put him to bed.’ Rafe came in, looking weary. ‘Spendlove was fast asleep on the stool in Father’s bathroom. He’s too old to look after him. We’re going to have to get a nurse.’

  ‘Oh, Lord!’ Evelyn turned down the corners of her mouth. ‘It’s so difficult to find staff to live in who aren’t perfect nuisances. These days they have peculiar ideas about being treated as one of the family. I detest the way the lower classes get into a tizz about the tiniest thing … no self control … but you’re right, of course. We’ll have to have someone.’ Evelyn sipped her brandy, looking thoughtful. ‘I’ll get on to it tomorrow after lunch and before the rural council meeting. Harriet Buchanan mentioned a new agency she’d heard of where they vet the people extremely carefully … I’ll call her in the morning. She can sleep in Kingsley’s dressing room.’

  Rafe pretended to look surprised. ‘Lady Buchanan?’

  Evelyn smiled at him. ‘The nurse, darling, as you know quite well.’ She put on her brisk face and seemed to recover her aplomb. Often, I thought, she hovered perilously close to boredom, and any turn of events that demanded lots of telephoning and decision-making cheered her up. ‘Now I think of it, perhaps you’d better take my place on the council.’ To my dismay I found she was looking at me. ‘They’re agonizingly dull but pretty capable, and it’ll be a good way for you to dip a toe into committee work. You’ll find it’s quite different from charity committees where the other members are of similar social standing. Or think they are.’

  ‘Don’t you have to be elected on to the rural district council?’ asked Rafe.

  ‘Yes. But I’ll see to that.’

  He looked amused but I was horrified by the idea of finding myself in a group of madly efficient people who had had Evelyn’s daughter-in-law undemocratically foisted upon them; moreover a daughter-in-law who knew absolutely nothing about districts or ruralities.

  ‘I’d better take you home,’ Rafe said to me.

  ‘Goodnight, Evelyn.’ Leaning down to kiss her, I felt my dress begin to slide from my shoulders, so I had to bend my knees in a sort of curtsey, then walk backwards to the door as though she were royalty. But she seemed not to find this odd.

  ‘Don’t forget, sweet girl,’ she blew me a kiss, ‘tomorrow, ten o’clock sharp. Your first gardening lesson. You’ll love it once you know what you’re doing. It’s the most marvellous therapy. Whatever my mood, by the time I’ve weeded or pruned for an hour or two I’m at peace with the world.’

  I hoped I would love it. The sum of my gardening experience to date was growing cress on bits of flannel when I was a child. The end result had not been particularly attractive.

  ‘Any chance Dimpsie will be in bed, asleep?’ Rafe asked as he turned into the drive of Dumbola Lodge.

  ‘Oh, yes, I should think so. In bed anyway. But perhaps not asleep.’

  ‘Would she mind, do you think, if we slipped up to your room? I’m desperate to finish what we started. We could be terribly discreet.’

  ‘She wouldn’t mind at all but my bed isn’t really—’

  ‘Don’t tell me he’s gardening at a quarter past midnight!’ Jode’s Land Rover, parked by the front door, had appeared in our headlights. ‘He’s got a cheek! I suppose he thinks your mother’s fair game. I loathe men who prey on helpless women.’

  ‘Dimpsie likes him. He really is a nice man—’

  ‘A nice man!’ Rafe almost shouted. ‘Marigold, sometimes I think you deliberately say ridiculous things just to be exotic.’

  This was so annoying that I forgot he must not be upset. ‘I’d rather be ridiculous than pompous and prejudiced!’

  ‘Forgive me,’ his voice became icy as he attempted to control it, ‘but I think I know rather better than you what sort of man he is. He’s been in prison for half killing someone.’

  ‘I know. It was his wife’s lover.’

  ‘As though that excuses it! If everyone behaved like that, the population of this country would be halved in a matter of days.’

  ‘Yes, but Jode didn’t kill him. He stopped when he realized what he was doing and he hasn’t taken a drop since.’

  ‘Hasn’t taken a drop? Really, Marigold! You’re even talking like an Irish tinker. He’s leading you and your mother – who’s every bit as harebrained as you are – up the garden path. He’s been before the bench twice in the last year.’

  ‘Oh.’ I had a sinking feeling, hearing this. ‘What for?’

  ‘Behaviour likely to cause a breach of the peace. He’s a hunt saboteur.’

  ‘Oh!’ I said again, this time with relief. ‘Well, you might not approve of that, but Dimpsie certainly does and surely that’s all that matters?’

  Rafe’s voice trembled with rage and I felt the hand that was on my arm begin to shake. ‘Do you mean to say you see nothing wrong in your own mother having a sexual relationship with an ex-jailbird who has a record of violence and civil disobedience and no visible means of support? A man who has to sign his name with a cross, who lives in a filthy trailer with a herd of gypsies who spend their time stealing an
d cheating and fornicating!’

  ‘You don’t know anything about him! His trailer isn’t filthy – in fact he’s much fussier and cleaner than we are, and he’s hardworking and brilliant with his hands. And he looks after his grandson beautifully!’

  ‘Really, Marigold! I suppose his grandson’s another reprobate with light fingers and a taste for his social superiors.’

  I had got into a lower-class sort of tizz, which Evelyn would have disapproved of, but I couldn’t help it. ‘Don’t keep saying “Really Marigold!” as though I’m a naughty little girl who’s behaving badly! He isn’t a reprobate! He’s a darling little baby.’ Here my voice started to break as fury and sorrow welled up within. ‘And Jode feeds him and changes his nappy, and washes his clothes and gets up to him in the night, because his daughter’s too young to look after him and the baby’s father didn’t bother to stay around because he’s what she calls a gentleman and too good for her – but I think it was cruel and cowardly and mean … !’ I stopped, afraid I was going to cry.

  ‘What’s the girl’s name?’ asked Rafe, some of the heat going out of his voice.

  I couldn’t see his face clearly because the porch lantern was flickering. ‘Nan. But he called her Scarlett.’

  Rafe was silent for a moment. Then he said, ‘How old is it? The baby?’

  ‘About two months.’

  I could hear him breathing heavily and I saw him tighten the hand that rested on the steering wheel to stop it shaking.

  ‘Oh, fuck!’ he said at last. ‘And double fuck!’

  I knew why he was upset. But the confirmation of my suspicions, which I had so dreaded, brought unexpected consolation. It was quite obvious that until this moment Rafe had had no inkling of Harrison Ford’s existence. He had not been guilty of dastardly behaviour, of refusing to help Nan and abandoning a helpless baby to an inhospitable world. There might be some tarnishing to the sheen of my beau idéal – I needed time to think about that – but his light had not been altogether put out.