Like a massive electric shock he realized something was dreadfully wrong. Kitty’s bush had been shaved in France and would now only be sprouting stubble. Dragging his eyes laboriously up over billowing breasts he reached Hermione’s smug satisfied face, a fat tabby who had just wolfed a side of smoked salmon.
‘What in hell happened?’
‘We made love,’ Hermione stroked his forehead, ‘and it was wonderful.’
‘It couldn’t have been. You must have spiked my drink. I’ve never wanted to go to bed with you. I like Bob too much anyway.’
‘How ungallant!’ Hermione still smiled, but her nails raked savagely across Lysander’s scalp.
‘Ouch, don’t. I love Kitty.’
‘Oh, come, we all know you were being paid.’
‘The love was real, damn you.’
‘And did she say afterwards: “That was ubsolutely mudgic, Lysunder”?’
‘Whadyamean?’ Lysander, totally awake now, leant up on his elbow, glaring into Hermione’s lovely spiteful face.
‘That’s what Kitty always says; ‘Thut was mudgic, Rannaldini.’ You’ve been putting a lot of marriages asunder, Lysunder.’
Suddenly frightened, she waved a hand in front of his murderous, bloodshot eyes.
‘D’you mean Rannaldini tells you about him and Kitty in bed?’
The bastard. How horrible that Kitty should say Rannaldini was ‘mudgic’ too.
‘Oh, come. Pillow talk. Rannaldini doesn’t pretend to be a gentleman. He loves stories and he adored watching you and me through the two-way mirror last night.’ She gave her deadly little laugh. ‘So did Kitty.’
‘Kitty!’ Lysander froze. ‘Kitty. The poor angel. What did she say?’
‘She’ll be OK,’ said Hermione, irritated by his sudden desperate concern. ‘The working-classes don’t feel pain like we do. I can’t think why you’re making such a fuss, you must have made a fortune out of the whole thing. Come on,’ she patted the red silk sheets enticingly. ‘Let’s try again now you’re sober. You’ll soon forget Kitty.’
Revolted, Lysander leapt out of bed, clutching his head as waves of nausea almost floored him, and, tugging on his jeans, ripped them even further. Hermione lost her temper.
‘Why should Kitty leave Rannaldini?’ she hissed. ‘Look at this beautiful house and all this beautiful land.’
Out of the narrow windows Lysander could see snow-covered chimneys soaring to a brilliant blue sky. Across the valley, like a Brueghel, people were already skiing and tobogganing in the sloping fields below Paradise Grange, hurtling downhill with dogs barking joyously after them — a scene so reminiscent of Monthaut and Kitty that Lysander had to cling on to the window-ledge.
‘Think of her thrilling lifestyle, married to a man of genius.’ Hermione’s voice was now tolling like the punishment bell. ‘Think of her future in New York. What the hell have you got to offer her?’
‘Only my heart.’
With Hermione’s mocking laughter ringing in his ears, he went in search of Kitty. The landing was deserted except for the odd bra and pair of knickers. Downstairs, wading through sandals, daggers, laurel wreaths, fallen fig-leaves, place cards, cigarette ends, condoms and burst balloons, Lysander breathed in a stench of sex, stale tobacco and half-full glasses.
Not wishing to wake the vicar, who was stretched out on a sofa with a bunch of dried poppies in his arms, Lysander finally stumbled on a cheerful, bleary-eyed group having a post-mortem round the kitchen table.
‘I never knew Gwendolyn Chisleden had had a tummy tuck,’ said Georgie, who was actually holding hands with Guy.
‘And the first decent bonk in forty years,’ said Meredith. Then, noticing Lysander. ‘Hallo, duckie. How are you?’
Seeing Bob at the end of the table deep in the music pages of the Observer, Lysander went scarlet and mumbled: ‘Where’s Kitty?’
‘Not herself, poor lamb. She put salt in all our coffee. Then, when I asked her very politely for some butter for our croissants, she got two pounds out of the freezer and chucked them down on the table like bullion.’
‘I should think you, Larry and I are the only people who didn’t catch Aids last night,’ said Marigold, pushing Kitty into a chair against the Aga and handing her a cup of black coffee to warm her numb frozen hands. Her teeth were rattling between blue lips. She was wearing an old sheepskin coat over her torn vestal virgin dress.
The few maiden ladies, waiting in vain in All Saints, Paradise, for the vicar to take Matins, had been electrified instead by the sight of poor little Mrs Rannaldini, always so quiet and retiring, wandering in in a white ball dress with bleeding feet and collapsing in a back pew, piteously sobbing, ‘Oh, please God, help me, help me.’
Miss Cricklade had run out to ring Marigold from the telephone box, much used by Paradise adulterers, begging her to come and collect Kitty.
‘I think the poor little soul’s finally gone off her head.’
Now Marigold was half-tidying up, as Rudolpho the tenor was due to see over Paradise Grange in a minute. It did look beautiful with the big rooms lit up by the snow. If only all the pictures hadn’t gone off to Sotheby’s. Larry was fast asleep upstairs. They both agreed they hadn’t enjoyed a party so much in ages. Relieved that Kitty seemed calmer, Marigold was now being very practical.
‘Ay know Lysander went to bed with you, Kitty dear. He laikes you very much, but he also went to bed with Georgie and me, yes Ay’m afraid he did, he just can’t resist a bonk, and yes he’s a genius in bed. He makes you feel so desirable and funny and, well, beautiful.’
Aware that Kitty was flinching at every adjective, Marigold felt one had to be cruel to be kind: ‘And he was about to go to bed with Rachel and he did with Martha in Palm Beach and God knows who else when working away from Paradise, and now Hermione. I know it’s a shock, but let’s face it, he’s a playboy, out for what he can get and whom he can bonk.’
Kitty took a gulp of coffee so scalding her eyes watered.
‘I fort he’d changed.’
‘Men don’t change,’ said Marigold, ‘except their partners. Lysander wouldn’t be any more faithful than Rannaldini, but at least if you stay put, you live in luxury.’
Kitty started to cry. ‘But I love him, Marigold.’
‘Because he was so kaind. That’s another thing. He gets ladies not just by the saize of his winkle, but by his ears, because he’s so good at listening.’
Restored to Rannaldini’s arms later in the day, Kitty was allowed one incoming telephone call. It was all she needed.
‘Go away,’ she screamed, cutting through Lysander’s hysterical pleadings. ‘You’re worse than all the uvvers. All you fink about is sex. Leave me in peace. I never want to see you no more.’
Half an hour later Lysander’s hopes flared for a second as he heard steps coming up the path of Magpie Cottage, but when he ran to the door he found only a note in the porch from Bob, summoning him to lunch in London the following day: ‘You and I have to do some serious talking about Hermione.’
55
Sick with terror Lysander rolled up at Radnor Walk the following day. Was Bob going to cite him as co-respondent or to call him out for bonking Hermione? The house was absolutely beautiful inside and seemed far too subtly decorated to be Hermione’s taste. The drawing room had burnt-orange curtains, a big white carpet strewn with blue flowers and drained blue walls covered with musical books, scores, Hermione’s records and tapes, a mournful Picasso clown, not unlike Bob, and a Cotman of a soft gold wood in autumn.
A huge portrait of Hermione as Donna Elvira was reflected in the big gilt mirror over the fireplace. Lysander turned his back on both of her, but couldn’t avoid photographs of the awful old bitch everywhere. Delicious smells of wine and herbs drifted from the kitchen. Despite the bitter cold of the day, the house inside was warm enough for Bob to be wearing a grey striped shirt tucked into jeans showing off the flattest stomach and neatest hips in Gloucestershire.