The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous

11

This and subsequent glorious couplings cheered Marigold up immensely, particularly when her two sons came home from prep school for the weekend, and fell almost more in love with Lysander than she had. Not only did he play endless billiards and darts with them, and took them to the amusement arcades in Rutminster and to the stables to mess around with Arthur and Tiny, but he also initiated them into the more dubious pleasures of poker, chemmy and betting.

Jason’s shriek of delight when he won £120 on an each-way bet at Chepstow was only equalled by Mark’s quiet satisfaction that, by the end of the weekend, Lysander owed him £5,225 at poker.

Marigold was wryly aware that Lysander was far nearer to the boys in age and behaviour than he was to her. But she was overjoyed to see her sons emerge from pale monosyllabic shell-shock, no doubt induced as much by two terms at an English prep school as by the collapse of their parents’ marriage. She was also gratified that whenever the boys were absorbed with anything, Lysander sloped out to the kitchen for a surreptitious, but no less passionate, embrace. He couldn’t keep his hands off her.

She had lost a further seven pounds a week later when she got a telephone call on her private line. Knowing it could only be Larry, she was only just stopped by Lysander from snatching up the receiver on the first ring. The warmth of his hand over hers gave her strength.

‘Make him wait ten rings, and play it cool.’

Larry was telephoning to say he’d be in the area that evening, could he drop in for a very quick drink. Marigold was thrown into total panic.

‘We’d better ask Ferdie’s advice on this one,’ said Lysander.

Ferdie, bored of not selling houses in London and wanting to suss out properties in Paradise, said he would be straight down to orchestrate the whole thing.

Larry Lockton was a bully with a mega-ego and no small talk, who was used to ordering around thousands at work. Having lost weight, found a decent dentist and coaxed his coarse black hair forward to hide a receding hairline, he had developed sex appeal late in life. Huge success at work and a decent tailor had accelerated the process. When addressing his social superiors, he talked with an orchard of plums in his mouth.

Landing the helicopter, he saw a blur of yellow and purple. What the hell was Marigold doing spoiling his perfect lawn with crocuses? It would take ten grand off the asking price. He must remember to remove his gold discs, the Picasso, the Stubbs and the framed Beethoven sonata, before Marigold got too grasping over the spoils. Letting himself in, Larry was surprised not to be welcomed by Marigold. Only Patch greeted him, and then with reservation. Larry meant fewer chewsticks and banishment from her mistress’s bed at night. Going into the kitchen, he found a table with pink candles laid for two, pink freesias and hyacinths everywhere and two bottles of Moët in the fridge.

Oh Christ, he hoped Marigold wasn’t planning to lure him into staying for dinner. Nikki was expecting him back. They were going to a party to meet Kiri Te Kanawa and Marigold’s attempted candle-lit lobster thermidor last month had ended in total hysterics and both lobsters being hurled at him. He’d better watch out for flying sauceboats.

He could hear noises overhead. Finding a navy-blue overcoat covered in dog hairs hanging over the banisters, Larry went slowly up to his former bedroom where he was shocked to discover his naked wife blow-drying her hair. Seeing him, she jumped only slightly, then languidly wrapped round herself a fluffy yellow towel which matched her eyes.

‘Larry! Ay didn’t hear you arrive. Let me finish my hair. You know it drays crinkly if Ay stop in the middle.’

Marigold then kept him waiting half an hour, giving him time to absorb all Lysander’s clutter of drying boots, breeches, Sporting Lifes, and a pile of beautifully ironed Harvie & Hudson shirts on the hall table. When she wandered down, still in the yellow towel, Marigold was delighted to see Larry’s shirt was crumpled and missing a button.

She also noticed how old he looked — compared with Lysander — and that, with hair long enough for a pony-tail, a new black moustache, bags under his eyes and designer stubble flecked with grey (all no doubt Nikki’s work), he looked seedy rather than sexy. He was also dressed uncharacteristically butchly in a studded leather jacket, and black jeans belted with a large silver buckle.

‘Where’s your motor bike?’ she said teasingly. ‘I thought you’d have got fat gobblin’ up all those poor little companies, but you seem to have lost even more weight. Have a glass of bubbly. Ay’m going to.’

It’s my fucking champagne, thought Larry, noticing that as she took the bottle out of the fridge, she replaced it with another, and that her hair was streaked very blond and her toenails had been newly painted scarlet. The towel was showing a great expanse of stunning, recently waxed, Duo-tanned legs. Marigold, in fact, was looking fantastic, as though she’d been restored and a picture light shone over her.

Larry then asked her if she’d mind coming to the party next week to launch Georgie Maguire’s new album, Rock Star.

‘I’ve brought the whole package.’ Larry threw the tape, the single and the album down on the kitchen table. The sleeve showed Georgie Maguire clinging wetly to a rock, with her head thrown back, eyes closed, nostrils flaring, long, drenched red hair snaking down her back. ‘I think it looks terrific.’

‘Hermione was barefoot on the sleeve of Blow the wind southerly,’ said Marigold, who knew Nikki had worked on the design. ‘Are you trying to tell folk your artistes can’t afford shoes?’

Larry refused to rise. ‘Album’s going to be a massive hit. It’s storming up the American charts, so the party’ll be a celebration. Loads of names accepted already. Hermione and Rannaldini are coming.’

‘And presumably Nikki to add glamour,’ said Marigold sweetly.

‘She might look in,’ admitted Larry. ‘Should be a terrific bash.’

I’ll bash her, thought Marigold, narrowly missing Larry as the champagne cork flew out.

Larry adjusted his leather jacket, bought new that morning, wondering if it were over the top. He felt more at home in pin-stripe.

‘Pop in for half an hour,’ he said gruffly, ‘just to show Georgie there’s no hard feelings.’

‘Because she won’t sign another contract with you, if she has an inkling what an absolute shit you’ve been to me,’ said Marigold flaring up.

‘Chill out,’ said Larry, which irritated Marigold more than ever. ‘It’s in your interest. You’ll be able to screw far more maintenance out of me if Georgie signs that contract,’ he added heartily. ‘Besides it’s her first big break in twenty years. She wants her best friend there.’

Weighing up the options, Marigold let the towel slip a fraction.

‘And I’d like you to be there,’ Larry was shocked to hear himself saying.

‘All right, Ay’ll show,’ Marigold agreed flatly, ‘and tray and behave.’ Then, glancing at the kitchen clock, ‘I must get ready. Don’t hurry, finish your drink.’

Utterly thrown, expecting either abuse or pleading to stay, Larry drained his whisky, and was then even more flabbergasted when Marigold said: ‘Ay’ve decided Ay’ve been horribly selfish over the kids. One must be civilized for their sakes. And they must get to know Nikki, she’s so near them in age.’ Let Larry experience some of the same guilt she felt about cradle-snatching. ‘In fact, you can have them next weekend. I’m goin’ away.’

‘To your mother?’ asked Larry.

‘No, to Paris.’ Marigold smiled beautifully. ‘And Mummy would be decaydedly de trop.’

If Larry had looked round he would have seen the tears in his wife’s eyes. Instead, trampling crocuses underfoot as he strode furiously out to his helicopter, he was incensed to see a red Ferrari, unleashed by a signal from Ferdie, storming up the drive. Larry had refused to listen to Hermione’s hints about an over-familiar workman. Workmen in his experience did not drive Ferraris. Only when he looked back from his helicopter did he read: CATCHITUNE in yellow and purple on the lawn and almost weep.

Five days later Lysander drove Marigold up to London for Georgie Maguire’s launching party. A huge sixties star, Georgie was now in her late forties. But from the posters plastered all over the walls of Hammersmith and Fulham: GEORGIE MAGUIRE — LIVE IN CONCERT, which showed her clinging to the same wet rock as on the CD sleeve, she was still seductive in a slightly blousy way.

‘How can one be dead in concert?’ asked Lysander, dodging and diving through end-of-rush-hour traffic.

‘She’ll be dead on her feet from touring and jet lag,’ said Marigold.

Georgie’s new album was already Number Two in America, because of the leading track, the actual ‘Rock Star’ of the title. The song, in fact, was not about a rock star, but a celebration of Georgie’s abiding love for her husband Guy, who was not only the rock on which she built her life, but the star who guided her. The sentiment would have been mawkish had not the lyrics and melody, written and sung by Georgie herself in her husky, mezzo-soprano voice, been so beautiful. With so many marriages breaking up, such a simple public confession of love had driven the Americans wild. The young in particular adored the song, because they craved the example of a happy lasting union in the same way they had loved ‘Lady in Red’, which Chris de Burgh had written about his wife.

To distract herself from the terrors of Lysander’s driving, and the party ahead, Marigold played the advance Rock Star tape all the way up to London. It still made her cry.

‘What’s Georgie’s husband like?’ asked Lysander, overtaking a startled chauffeur in a limo on the inside, as he stormed up the Lillie Road.

‘Oh, very attractive, rather stern, but incredibly kaind. Georgie used to be terribly wild before she married and for quite a whayle afterward. Guy got an honours degree at Cambridge and a boxing blue. His father was a bishop in some hot African country, so Guy’s used to givin’ orders. His family were horrifayed when he married Georgie, but he stuck bay her. He calmed her down, understood her need for freedom, yet yanked in the reins when she went too far. He was also big enough to handle her success and her failures. He was there when she went out of fashion in the late-seventies, and stopped her drinking heavily when she had one flop after another. Ay’ve never forgotten her last big launch in the early eighties. They hired the Hippodrome and none of the media turned up, just Georgie dancing by herself to her own music, then collapsin’ in a sozzled heap. It was terrible.’

‘Poor Georgie,’ Lysander was appalled. ‘I’d have danced with her.’

‘She’s a bit scatty, too,’ went on Marigold, checking her reflection for the thousandth time, ‘and Guy’s always given her so much back-up domestically, changing nappies, taking the kids out. He’s a wonderful cook, too. He should give Larry lessons.’

‘And me,’ said Lysander. ‘He sounds depressingly like one of my brothers. How did you and Georgie meet?’

‘She came as a temp to the office where Ay was working, tryin’ to support herself between gigs. She could only taype with two fingers, and used to come in and collapse on the taypewriter complainin’ that she’d been trippin’ all night. I tayped most of her letters. But she was such fun. She had lots of unsuitable musician boyfriends, but Guy was always in the background. Her Guyrope, she called him. Finally they got married.’

‘What does he do?’ asked Lysander, shooting a red light at the bottom of the North End Road.

‘Well, he was thinking of going into the Church. He’d have packed them in like Billy Graham, but the thought of Georgie as a vicar’s waife probably put him off, so he went into Sotheby’s, he was always arty and had a terrific eye. Now he’s got his own gallery. He’s pretty successful, discovering obscure painters, then making a killing when they become famous.

‘Their finances have always been a bit haphazard, but hopefully Rock Star will put them on a secure financial footing. They need it for all the money they’re pourin’ into Angel’s Reach. The trouble is they’re too generous. Guy’s always helping struggling artists, and he does so much for charity.’

‘Guy, Guy with the terrific eye,’, said Lysander. ‘When they move into Paradise, he can take your place on all those “Preservation of Rural Gentlecats” committees, and you can spend all day in bed with me.’

‘Whay d’you draive so fast?’ shrieked Marigold, as, narrowly avoiding a collision with an oncoming bus, Lysander screeched off right into Fountain Street.

‘Because I’m desperate to bonk you before Ferdie gets home.’

Waving a friendly two fingers at the gays opposite, who were peering out of their curtains, Lysander whisked her into the flat.

As it was they had plenty of time. Marigold was changing and Lysander was watching EastEnders and giggling over a postcard of the Eiffel Tower, signed: PLASTERED OF PARIS, which he and Marigold had sent Ferdie, when Ferdie himself walked in, bringing a new dark blue pin-stripe suit, made by Douglas Hayward, for Lysander.

‘They’ll all be bopping around in black leather and T-shirts. You’ll stand out much better,’ added Ferdie as he straightened Lysander’s new blue silk tie.

‘Oh, Laysander,’ gasped Marigold from the darkness at the top of the stairs. ‘Ay’ve never seen you in a suit before.’

‘Everyone’ll think I’ve stolen it,’ Lysander squinted at himself in the hall mirror.

‘You look scrumptious.’

It was true. As decent tailoring hides a multitude of turns on a middle-aged body, it can also marvellously elongate a broad-shouldered, willowy figure. On Lysander, the suit seemed to dance.

‘Well, come on down, Marigold. Let’s have a look at you,’ ordered Ferdie. ‘Jesus,’ he caught his breath, ‘you have worked hard.’

For the most gorgeous legs encased in black fishnet were coming down the stairs. Above them Marigold was wearing the black shorts Lysander had given her on Valentine’s Day, a white silk shirt and a black velvet coat slung over her shoulders.

Meeting her at the bottom, Ferdie took her hand and raised it to his lips. ‘You look sensational,’ he said slowly. ‘Marilyn Monroe’s face and body on Marlene Dietrich’s legs.’

‘Whay, thank you, Ferdie.’

‘And you’ve got into my black shorts.’ Lysander gave a whoop.

‘And look what I’ve borrowed from Cartier’s for you to pretend Lysander’s just given you.’ Ferdie pinned a diamond brooch in the shape of a key on her velvet lapel. ‘Now take off your wedding-ring, and remember to look happy.’

‘It’ll be strange not being a waife,’ said Marigold, sliding off the huge diamond and putting it in her handbag. ‘Ay tried so hard to be the perfect company waife. Ay wore Jaegar shirtwaisters and never yawned or swore or smoked too much. Ay always read Billboard and The Gramophone so Ay could talk to reviewers and distributors. Ay even trayed to laike Grand Opera.’

‘Well, it’s high time,’ Ferdie undid two more buttons of her silk shirt, ‘you kicked over the Traceys, or Nikkis.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Lysander, seeing Marigold trembling at Nikki’s name. ‘I’ll stay superglued to you all evening — and so will every man in the room — you look so beautiful.’