The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous

28

A heavy dew silvered the parched fields. Invisible larks carolled joyously in a sky as blue as Mary’s robes. However, as Lysander drew up at Angel’s Reach the following morning, Georgie Maguire greeted him in a dressing gown and tears.

‘I thought Guy’d left me a little love note on the kitchen table,’ she sobbed, ‘but when I looked it just said: Don’t forget the dustbins. And even worse he’s written Julia’s number, without her name of course, on the inside of his Parish Council file.’

She waved a buff folder. ‘I felt so miserable I’ve written Cuckoo beside it in biro, and now I can’t rub it out.’

‘Pas de problème.’ Taking the folder, Lysander tore off the corner with Julia’s number and chucked it in the bin.

‘Guy will notice that even more,’ said Georgie aghast.

‘Say it’s mice, or better still, moths. The waitress at The Heavenly Host says there is a plague of moths because of the drought.’

‘There aren’t any clothes for them to eat because they’ve all gone to Marigold’s Nearly New Stall,’ said Georgie, but she stopped crying.

‘Go and have a nice long bath and get dressed,’ said Lysander, dumping several carrier bags on the kitchen table. ‘I’m going to make you porridge for breakfast. No, I promise it’s delicious, with cream and treacle, and then croissants with black-cherry jam.’

‘D’you know how to make porridge?’ asked Georgie.

‘I’ve made enough bran mashes in my life. You just read the directions. Then I’m going to take you to meet Arthur and then we’ll have lunch at The Pearly Gates to get people gossiping and then go shopping for lots of glamorous clothes. Bath’s better than Rutminster. Oh look, there’s a little green van going up Marigold’s drive.’

‘That van goes to all the big houses in Paradise every Monday,’ said Georgie sadly. ‘It takes away old plants and replaces them with shiny new ones with flowers. They ought to do the same with wives.’

‘Now, now,’ reproved Lysander. ‘You’ve got to stop sniping and cheer up.’

The ice was broken by Lysander reading all the directions wrong and making porridge so thick the spoon set in it like cement — so they had three croissants each and gave the porridge to Arthur. When they returned much later in the day they discovered that the video that Lysander’d thought was a jolly musical turned out to be an incredibly blue movie about rent boys.

As a result Lysander sat through the entire video in mounting horror with his T-shirt neck pulled up over his eyes, only lowering it occasionally when Georgie, in fits of laughter, said it was safe to look or when he wanted another drag at his joint.

‘I really like gays,’ he kept saying in bewilderment. ‘Who would have thought my friend Gregor could do things like that? I’m sorry, Georgie.’

He’s still only a child, thought Georgie, but certainly a very endearing one.

When Guy returned on Friday he was relieved to find the house a lot tidier and flowers in the downstairs rooms — but no little posy to welcome him in his dressing room. Nor any whisky, nor dinner on, nor any sign of Georgie. Usually the sniping started as he crossed the threshold. When she drifted down the backstairs from her study half an hour later she looked noticeably better, as though an iron had smoothed out her face.

‘What are you doing here?’ she asked in amazement.

‘I usually come home on Friday,’ said Guy nettled.

‘Is it Friday? I didn’t realize. O God, I haven’t done anything for supper.’

‘Work must be going well!’ Guy was nonplussed. Coming home had recently been like being parachuted into an effing mine field.

Next morning Georgie rose early insisting she must walk a surprised and intensely irritated Dinsdale before it grew too hot. She put on a new and becoming T-shirt, and lots of lipstick and scent before she left, then stayed away for two hours reading Billboard and The Face under a chestnut tree. On the way home she carefully removed her lipstick with a Kleenex and rubbed into Dinsdale’s fur some of Lysander’s Eau Sauvage, which they’d hidden in an oak tree on the edge of the wood. This made her giggle so much she walked into the house looking happy for the first time in months.

Returning from a Sunday afternoon trip to get more petrol for the mower and ring Julia, Guy was disconcerted to find a note from Georgie: ‘Just popped down to The Apple Tree to get some milk.’

‘You’ve lived here for over four months,’ reproved Guy when she returned an hour later, ‘and you hadn’t realized The Apple Tree is shut on Sunday afternoon. They have to have some time off.’

‘Aren’t I stupid?’ said Georgie blithely.

‘And we’ve got plenty of milk.’ Opening the fridge door, Guy confronted her with a regiment of white bottles.

‘I must be going senile.’

On Sunday night Guy, who was getting edgy, heard Georgie singing ‘Stranger in Paradise’ in her bath. Christ, the whole village must be able to hear that raw, thrilling, yelping voice ringing round the valley. Georgie hadn’t sung in her bath since Julia came down.

One of the great set-backs to Guy’s amorous career had been having to sell the BMW to appease the bank and other creditors. Going to the station in a battered Golf which had no air-conditioning didn’t have the same kudos and the loss of his car telephone had really clipped Cupid’s wings. At least he’d got a phone card with his own personal number so he could put any calls made from telephone boxes or from home on the gallery number. The new monitoring of calls was an awful bore.

He and Julia had made plans to travel up to London together the following morning, but it would mean him getting a later train than usual because Julia’s babysitter couldn’t reach her until half-past eight. Terrified of rousing suspicion he waited until Georgie emerged pink and reeking of Floris from her bath before announcing that he intended catching the nine o’clock train instead of the seven.

After a perceptible pause, Georgie said: ‘I wouldn’t. At least you’ll get a seat on the seven. The nine’s packed out on a Monday.’

‘At least it gives me another hour in bed with you,’ said Guy gallantly.

Thinking how much better Georgie looked as she slithered into her cream satin nightdress and climbed into bed, Guy edged up and slid a hand round her left breast. Feeling his cock stiffening, drowsy from a Mogadon taken half an hour ago, Georgie curled up like an armadillo, elbows on her hip bones, knees up to her wrists, shutting him out.

‘Night, darling,’ she murmured and was asleep.

Going into the bathroom next morning, after a sweatily sleepless night trying to suppress that churning guilty excitement which overwhelmed him whenever he was going to see Julia, Guy was brought up by a rim of fox-brown hairs round the bath. Why the hell was Georgie shaving her legs to write songs up in her turret? After bathing and dressing at lightning speed, a skill learnt through adultery, Guy tracked Georgie down in another bathroom. Thinking how vulnerable she looked with her water-darkened hair streaming away from her thin white neck and far-too-bumpy backbone, he asked her what on earth she was washing her hair for.

‘Radio Paradise are coming to interview me at eleven.’

‘Their two hundred listeners aren’t going to see you.’

‘No, but the interviewer will. I hate having dirty hair.’ Not for me, you don’t, thought Guy. ‘Well, I’d better go.’

‘OK, see you Friday,’ said Georgie, aiming the shower at her right temple to shift all the scurf.

Bewildered not to be clung to and exhorted to ring soon, or even made a cup of coffee, Guy had just gone into the utility room to get some Fairy Liquid soap and toothpaste for the flat over the gallery when the telephone rang in the kitchen. But when he picked it up and said, ‘Hallo’, it was promptly dropped at the other end. Having no idea that it was actually a dripping Georgie ringing him from her private line up in her study, Guy was even more rattled, which was what she had intended. Whoever had rung must have expected him to have left for the seven o’clock by now and meant to catch Georgie.

After an irksome week when he could hardly get Georgie on the telephone, he decided to catch her out by getting back earlier and was rewarded by having to stand all the way down in appalling heat, crushed against a woman who’d bought kippers for tea. Reaching home, sticky and bad-tempered, he found a dark blue soft-top Ferrari with A DOG IS FOR LIFE… NOT JUST FOR CHRISTMAS sticker on the windscreen parked outside the front door, at a contemptuous angle as though the owner had been in a frantic hurry to get inside. Despite its sleek exterior the car inside was a tip of tapes, race cards, chewed trainers, old copies of the Sun, cigarette ash, Coke cans and polo balls.

On the terrace Guy found a very suntanned, incredibly good-looking youth who looked vaguely familiar. Light brown curls clung to his smooth brown forehead and a black shirt to his marvellously elongated body. Georgie, who was totally transformed in a clinging leotard, which had just come into fashion and which flowed emerald-green into white-and-green flared trousers, was gazing into his eyes as though she’d like to be clinging to him as well. Her white ankles had turned a lovely gold and her toenails were painted softest coral. A shaggy, reddy-brown puppy lay between her thighs, and a half-full jug of Pimm’s stood between her and the beautiful youth. Dinsdale thumped his tail but didn’t rise; only a beady-looking Jack Russell went into a possessive frenzy of yapping.

It is my fucking house, thought Guy as Larry had done six months before.

‘Hi, darling,’ said Georgie happily. ‘D’you remember Marigold’s friend Lysander Hawkley? He came to the launching of “Rock Star”.’

Resisting kicking Jack in the ribs, Guy became extremely hearty and, after discovering Lysander had moved into the area, said: ‘You must meet my daughter, our daughter, Flora. You’re about the same age. She’s coming home this evening, isn’t she?’ he added to Georgie. ‘She’s been staying in Cornwall.’

‘I’m expecting her to ring from the station any minute,’ said Georgie.

‘D’you want a drink — er — sir?’ Lysander got to his feet. ‘Shall I get another glass?’

Guy was not amused, by the slightly piss-taking ‘sir’, nor by the strength of the Pimm’s when Lysander filled all their glasses.

‘Been playing at the Rutshire?’ asked Guy, looking at his dirty white breeches and bare feet.

Lysander nodded.

‘Got any ponies?’

‘Six,’ said Lysander. ‘I’m keeping them at Ricky France-Lynch’s at Eldercombe. I’ve just been playing practice chukkas there.’

Guy flickered. Ricky France-Lynch’s wife was a painter and a friend of Julia’s. They pushed prams together. It was the sort of connection that might suddenly push Georgie into orbit.

‘How was dinner with Larry?’ asked Georgie idly, thinking how hot, middle-aged and crumpled Guy looked beside Lysander.

Guy flickered again. ‘He cancelled.’

‘What did you do instead?’ demanded Georgie, suddenly feeling desperately insecure.

Gently Lysander’s foot nudged her ankle. Ferdie’s instructions were to be totally detached and never interrogate. But Guy was distracted by a huge emerald glittering on Georgie’s newly manicured right hand.

‘Isn’t it lovely?’ agreed Georgie dreamily. ‘I liked it so much, I decided to buy it with my royalty cheque.’

Maggie the puppy wriggled to be put down. Already plumper, sleeker and gaining in confidence after a fortnight of human food and sleeping on Lysander’s bed, she pounced on a yellow leaf from the dying wych-elm and, bounding up to Dinsdale, started swinging on his ginger ears. Raising a prehensile paw Dinsdale sent her flying. Covered in dust she righted herself, then seeing Charity emerge from the long bleached grass on the side of the lawn, took off after her.

‘Magg-ee,’ shouted Lysander.

‘Named after Thatcher,’ mocked Guy, who regarded himself as a champagne socialist.

‘No, Maggie Tulliver in The Mill on the Floss,’ said Lysander with all the authority of one who has reached page four.

Guy was fazed. An Adonis who read! Georgie had always been an intellectual snob. He was dying for a pee and a change into something cooler, but he was loath to leave these two together.

‘Doing anything exciting this weekend?’ Georgie asked Lysander, removing a rose petal from his hair.

‘Playing cricket for the village on Sunday.’

‘Oh really.’ Guy perked up at a challenge. ‘We’re on opposing sides, I’m playing for Rannaldini.’

Lysander drained his glass. ‘You play a lot?’

‘Whenever work allows,’ said Guy. ‘I played for my old school and for Cambridge and the Free Foresters. What about you?’

‘I haven’t played since school. Georgie, I must go.’

‘I’ll get you a bag so you can take the Pimm’s fruit for Arthur,’ said Georgie. ‘Lysander’s horse,’ she added to Guy. ‘He’s such a duck. Lysander’s determined to get him fit for the Rutminster Gold Cup next spring.’

Standing up to hasten Lysander’s departure, Guy suddenly noticed several holes in his beloved lawn.

‘My God! Who did that?’

‘I think Dinsdale’s been trying to reach Melanie in Australia,’ said Georgie.

Next minute Maggie shot round the corner with a regale lily corm plus plant in her mouth, pursued by a panting Jack and Dinsdale.

Grinning, Lysander bent to kiss Georgie goodbye. ‘Thanks for the drink,’ then lowered his voice, ‘and remember be happy and distant and no sniping.’

‘Oh, there’s Rannaldini’s helicopter returning,’ said Georgie, as the great black crow landed on the other side of the wood.

Guy’s temper was not improved when Flora sauntered into the house twenty minutes later wearing nothing but flip-flops and a ravishing shirt in Prussian-blue silk over bikini bottoms.

‘Darling, you were going to ring from the station,’ said Georgie, hugging her.

‘I got a lift. Grania’s father was driving up to London.’

‘How was Cornwall?’ asked Guy. ‘You didn’t get brown.’

‘Too hot to sunbathe,’ said Flora, who’d spent most of last week in Rannaldini’s bedroom in his villa outside Rome.

‘Lovely shirt,’ said Georgie enviously.

‘Grania’s,’ lied Flora who, as a leaving present, had been taken to Pucci.

‘You’re always nicking people’s things,’ exploded Guy finding a genuine outlet for his irritation over Lysander. ‘Where the hell’s my Free Forester’s sweater?’

‘How should I know?’

‘You had it last at that dinner party—’ Guy stopped as he remembered the occasion.

‘When Julia Armstrong was the guest of dishonour,’ said Georgie. Oh hell, she wasn’t supposed to snipe.

‘I gave it back the next day,’ protested Flora.

‘You did not,’ spluttered Guy. ‘I’m playing cricket on Sunday, and I need it.’

‘No-one needs a sweater in this heat.’

‘After one has been making a lot of runs, or bowling, it’s easy to catch a chill.’

‘Borrow my pink shawl,’ said Flora kindly. ‘I’m not stuffy about lending things.’

Guy found that Lysander’s wide, untroubled smile like the Cheshire Cat seemed to linger unnervingly after he’d gone. He was further rattled by two dropped telephone calls which he’d no idea were Rannaldini, still in Rome, hoping to get Flora. Then he realized it would be too late for him to ring Julia. Ben would be home from London by now.