‘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,’ whispered 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.