The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous

23

Georgie couldn’t work. There had been no rain in Paradise for weeks, and as the springs that had hurtled past her study window when they moved in had dried up, so had her inspiration. Trailing through St Peter’s churchyard with Dinsdale towards the end of May, she noticed Queen Anne was losing her lace and the wild garlic its flowers. There were white petals everywhere, and yellowing leaves flattened probably by lovers, but not by her. Georgie’s eyes were so full of tears she didn’t see Kitty Rannaldini approaching with her arms full of huge scented pink peonies to decorate the church.

‘Ow are you, Georgie?’ Seeing she was plainly not all right and not knowing what to say, Kitty added, ‘Come and ’ave dinner on Monday, about one o’clock.’

Arriving at Angel’s Reach on Monday morning, Mother Courage persuaded Georgie not to cry off.

‘Nice girl that Kitty. Rattledicky gives her the run around. She’ll have cooked you something nice. Do you good to fatten yourself up.’

‘Seven stone twelve on the scales this morning,’ said Georgie.

Getting thin was the only good this terminally ill wind seemed to blow her.

‘Make a nice day out for you,’ encouraged Mother Courage. With Georgie gone she could help herself to the gin and slope off early. ‘Be a tonic.’

‘Only if she adds vodka,’ said Georgie gloomily. ‘However, I’d quite like to see inside Valhalla.’

‘It’s ’aunted,’ said Mother Courage, getting a black dustbin bag out of the cupboard. ‘I don’t know ’ow Kitty can sleep there on her own. She ought to get the vicar in to circumcise the ghost. Mind you that Rattledicky’s pretty spooky. In his watch tower he’s got one of them Ju-Jitzu baths.’

Had Guy ever had a Ju Ju-Jitzu bath with Julia? wondered Georgie.

At twenty-three Kitty Rannaldini was exactly half her husband’s age (and his better half according to most people who knew them). Brought up in the suburbs of London, she had had a strict but happy childhood. Her father had been nearing retirement as a station master when she was born, and her mother, who took in ironing and minded other people’s children, had been in her forties. Every Sunday, Kitty had been taken to St Augustine’s Church round the corner, which her mother had cleaned for nothing. Nowhere else had brass gleamed more brightly. An industrious rather than a bright pupil, Kitty had left school with eight O levels at sixteen and taught herself to type. The family were staunch Tories — the only time Kitty remembered a bottle of wine being opened at home was when Mrs Thatcher first became Prime Minister. So it was natural that, as well as the Guides and the Youth Club, Kitty should have joined the Young Conservatives where she met a local bank clerk called Keith to whom she was engaged when she went to work as a temp for Rannaldini.

It took Rannaldini less than a week to realize Kitty’s genius as a secretary. He was in the middle of a production of Rigoletto, everyone was walking out, writs were flying around like Valhalla bats at dusk. In twenty-four hours, Kitty somehow restored order. She was not only meticulous, conscientious, unobtrusive, worked till she dropped and exuded an air of absolute calm, but somehow, by listening patiently to everyone from soloists to scene shifters and sympathizing with their problems, she diffused the all-out warfare.

Exceptionally kind by nature, she was very shy and cautious. Decisions took a lot of thought. It had, therefore, taken Rannaldini a long time to persuade her to work for him permanently, involving as it did a long journey into London every day, and leaving her mother to nurse a sick father. One of the few impulsive acts of Kitty’s life, and she never stopped feeling guilty about it, was to chuck Keith and all the plans for setting up house with him and her now-widowed mother, and run off with Rannaldini a week before the wedding.

But it was not until Rannaldini promised that her mother would at least be financially provided for that Kitty had agreed to leave home. In fact the financial provision was never enough, and Kitty had to scrimp constantly on the housekeeping and take in typing Rannaldini didn’t know about to help her mother out.

Beneath her calm exterior, Kitty was not only a worrier but an incurable romantic. She admired people who were wild and free-spirited and stood up for themselves. Although her temperament and looks conditioned her to hold back, the moment her gentle heart was moved, she was the softest touch in the world. She didn’t resent all she did for Rannaldini, but her greatest pleasures were the occasional hours snatched in church or in reading another chapter of Danielle Steel when she went to bed, which was often long after midnight.

Kitty had been desperately upset by the rumours about Guy and Georgie. Their apparent happiness had briefly restored her faith in marriage which had been shattered by the examples around her in Paradise, particularly her own.

Guy was so kind, thoughtful and thoroughly boy-scout decent. Seeing how he protected Georgie and did so much both at the Rock Star launch and at the Angel’s Reach dinner party had convinced her he was an exceptional husband. Being married to Rannaldini, Kitty knew about living in someone’s shadow. Happier in the shade herself, she felt it must have been difficult for a man as forceful and as charismatic as Guy. Although shocked to hear he was having an affaire with Julia, she could see he might need the boost to his morale, and working with someone was so seductive. She had only to remember the way she had given in to Rannaldini.

Guy had looked so wretched in church recently, and when he stayed praying long after the service, she had noticed there were holes in the soles of both his shoes. She felt he longed to talk, but thought it was a weakness to dump. Kitty didn’t judge, but she felt Georgie didn’t look after Guy as well as she might, and knew whose side she was on. Then she met Georgie trailing through the churchyard in tears and she felt so sorry for her that she asked her to lunch.

The boiled chicken in white sauce and the roast potatoes were now in the oven, the mint lying on top of the new peas, and the apple tart waiting to be warmed up. Kitty was a good, plain cook. Plain in all senses of the word, she thought, wiping her steamed-up glasses before glancing ruefully at her round, sweating face in the mirror.

The telephone rang and she guessed it was Georgie cancelling. But it was Guy.

‘Darling Kitty!’ Oh, that deep commanding voice. ‘You’re such a brick for having Georgie to lunch, I’m going to call you “Brickie”. She’s bound to be late. She’s so unhappy and got everything so out of proportion. Please try and calm her down.’

Even on a hot, brilliantly sunny day, with white hawthorns exploding everywhere like grenades and cow-parsley still foaming up to touch the foliage of great trees, nurtured over the centuries, Valhalla looked sinister. Pigeon-grey, hidden from the road by a great conspirator’s cloak of woodland, mostly evergreens, the house itself had originally been built as a medieval monastery, but had been considerably enlarged during the Restoration. The result was H-shaped, with rooms of all sizes on different levels, and low beams and doorways, which concussed every visiting male except Rannaldini.

Hurtling up the long drive because she was late and disappearing into the protective cloak of dark woodland, Georgie was shivering as she emerged. Ahead, through rusty iron gates, lay a mossy courtyard leading to the back of the house. Following the drive round the north side of the house, Georgie parked outside more ancient gates, with Omnia vincit amor written in rusty iron lettering across the top. Despite such an optimistic message, and a charming paved path up to the front door, which was overgrown with thrift, moss and saxifrage, and bordered by scented pale pink roses rising out of drifts of green lavender, the house gazed suspicious and unwelcoming out of its narrow mullioned windows.

Before Georgie had time to tug the ancient doorbell, Kitty came rushing out, looking comfortingly modern in a Ninja Turtle T-shirt and an overstretched grass-green skirt.

Although she kissed Georgie shyly, she actually put her lips to her guest’s cheek, rather than merely clanking jaw-bones like the rest of Paradise. She also hid the fact that she wasn’t wild about Dinsdale joining the party.

Not in a noticing mood, Georgie was only aware of a trek down scrubbed, winding flagstoned passages, past panelling dark and shiny as treacle toffee and hung with tapestries, crossed swords and the occasional family portrait. To left and right she caught a glimpse of rooms with leafy Jacobean ceilings and vast empty fireplaces.

‘Rannaldini wanted rooms big enough for two grand pianos and sometimes entire orchestras,’ explained Kitty, hastily looking the other way, as Dinsdale hoisted a red-and-white leg on some dark blue velvet curtains.

Finally they reached the tidiest kitchen Georgie had ever seen. Apart from the corkboard with the telephone numbers of Rannaldini’s children’s schools and a large smouldering poster of Rannaldini, there was nothing on any of the surfaces at all, except the newly bleached and scrubbed kitchen table which was laid for two at one end. At the other were two neatly stacked piles of envelopes and signed photographs of Rannaldini, which Kitty had been sending out to fans while she waited.

‘How Guy would love this house,’ said Georgie, ‘everything so wonderfully ordered and lined up.’

She picked up one of the photographs in which Rannaldini was smiling slightly, a fan of wrinkles at the corner of each smouldering, dark eye.

‘Beautiful man,’ murmured Georgie, thinking how odd that she would have secretly nicked one of the photographs, had she come to lunch a couple of months ago.

Giving a deep sigh, Dinsdale lumbered on to the crocus-yellow window-seat which gave a glorious view of silver hayfields and sloping lawns, no doubt paced over the centuries by monks wrestling with temptation.

Rather gingerly Kitty poured out Georgie a large Bacardi and Coke, and made a cup of tea for Mr Brimscombe, who’d recently been poached from Larry and Paradise Towers by Rannaldini and who was now clipping a yew peacock out of the vast dark green side of the famous Valhalla Maze.

‘I daren’t face Marigold when she comes back,’ said Kitty, ‘particularly as Mr Brimscombe’s tending a cutting of the Paradise Pearl in the greenhouse.’

Listlessly picking up a photograph of Rannaldini surrounded by adorable sloe-eyed children, Georgie asked Kitty who looked after them.

‘Well, Cecilia, that’s Rannaldini’s second wife, she’s livin’ with a record producer at the moment. He’s pretty wealfy, so she’s got the kids wiv her and a couple of nannies, but if it breaks up, they might come back ’ere.’

‘How awful,’ shuddered Georgie. ‘Are they monsters?’

‘They’re sweet,’ said Kitty, ‘but very Italian. Cecilia believes kids should ’ave supper and go to bed when they want to, and do what they like. Are you hungry?’

‘A bit,’ lied Georgie as Kitty poured white sauce on two slices of breast.

‘Lovely house.’ Georgie was making heroic efforts not to talk about herself. ‘Mother Courage said something about a ghost.’

I shouldn’t have said that, she thought, as the colour drained from Kitty’s face.

‘There was a young novice, very ’andsome evidently,’ mumbled Kitty. ‘He died here. Sometimes at night I fink I hear him crying, but it’s probably the wind.’

Georgie shivered. ‘Don’t you get frightened here all by yourself?’

‘I’ve got a panic button and the burglar alarm’s wired up to the police station. Security’s very tight, Rannaldini don’t want his furniture or pictures nicked.’

‘You ought to have a dog,’ said Georgie, as Dinsdale, lured by a delectable smell of chicken, lumbered off the window-seat, and took up baleful drooling residence beside her.

‘I’d be more scared if I ’ad them,’ said Kitty, sitting down at the table. ‘I didn’t mean to be rude to Dinsdale. He’s OK, but Rannaldini’s guard dogs frighten me to deaf. Stupid livin’ in the country and being terrified of dogs.’

‘You ought to have someone living in.’

‘Rannaldini doesn’t want it. Cecilia had a living-in nanny, and when Rannaldini fired her, she went to the Press.’

Georgie was staring into space, so Kitty pushed the carrots, peas and mashed potato dishes forward so they were in a ring round her plate.

‘Shall I ’elp you?’

‘Oh, yes please.’

Georgie had finished her Bacardi and Coke, so Kitty gave her another one.

‘Nice kitchen,’ said Georgie, admiring the walls, covered with exotic brilliantly coloured flowers, snakes, humming birds and monkeys like a Malaysian jungle. ‘I’d never have dreamt of having wallpaper like this in a kitchen.’

‘Meredith did it,’ said Kitty, ‘but Rannaldini told him what to do.’

‘Ouch, that hurt!’ screamed Georgie, as Dinsdale scraped her skinny thigh with his paw, leaving great white tracks.

‘Guy’ll probably employ Meredith to wallpaper over the cracks in our marriage,’ she went on bitterly. ‘Nice wife, nice family, nice house in the country, nice BMW, nice mistress. He believes in the united front for the outside world.’ She was twisting her napkin round and round.

‘Try and eat, Georgie,’ said Kitty gently. ‘I don’t mean to pry, but you looked so very unhappy in the churchyard.’

And like a burst water main, Georgie’s misery came flooding out. Kitty was appalled when she’d finished.

‘I can’t believe Julia showing you her diary and telling you all those fings.’

‘She was distraught. On balance, she probably loves Guy almost more than I do, but nothing’s ever hurt me so much in my life.’

‘It must have been a sort of fatal attraction.’

‘Fatal distraction,’ said Georgie in despair. ‘I can’t work, and we sink more and more in debt. I’ll have to pay back the advance on Ant and Cleo. I thought I might re-title it Octavia and write it from the angle of the cuckolded wife.

‘Every morning,’ Georgie dripped white sauce all over the floor, as she gave a piece of breast to Dinsdale, ‘I read Julia’s horoscope, then Guy’s and then mine. I bet Julia does the same thing. Then I feel sick. Guy and I are so terrified of touching each other, we keep bumping into the furniture. I know I should be sweet and loving with my legs permanently open, or he’ll go back to her, but I can’t stop sniping.’

Georgie was eating nothing because she was talking so much, and Kitty was reduced to giving herself second and third helpings. No wonder listeners got fat.

‘I don’t know what’s got into men,’ said Georgie despairingly. ‘They’re all at it, they ought to change the name of London on the map, and call it Bloody Adventure Playground. Doesn’t Rannaldini hurt you?’ she asked. ‘Hermione must. She’s such a cow.’

‘Yes,’ admitted Kitty, ‘but I knew what he was like before I married him. I love him so much, Georgie, even a bit of him is better than nuffink. An’ he’s forty-six, he might settle down one day.’

‘If only we could find nice lovers down here,’ sighed Georgie, as Kitty removed her untouched plate. ‘But men are so dire at the moment. Annabel Hardman went out with a quantity surveyor the other night, he just lay back on the sofa, said he wanted to hear all about her life from the age of two, and then fell asleep. Then he was terrible in bed, and expected her to drive him home afterwards.’

Kitty giggled, and put the kettle on. There didn’t seem any point offering Georgie apple tart, but she cut a slice for a lurking Mr Brimscombe who was weeding the flower-bed outside.

‘What are you going to do?’ she asked Georgie.

‘It’s the duty of all prisoners of war to escape,’ said Georgie, ‘so I’d better start vaulting over a wooden horse. My problem is I can’t stop telling people — ancient marinading I call it — I think I’ve gone a bit mad. It’s such a comfort to dump, but you feel so disloyal afterwards, and it’s bound to reach the Press soon.’

Kitty’s wide-set eyes behind the thick spectacles were full of tears.

‘I’m so sorry, Georgie. You and Guy are such lovely people, I can’t bear you both being so unhappy. I’m sure you’ll work it out.’

‘You are nice,’ Georgie hugged her. ‘I’m awfully worried about you being lonely in this huge place.’

‘I’m OK. Natasha and Wolfie come ’ome at weekends, bringing lots of friends. And you know Flora’s coming to stay on Sunday. I’m so looking forward to meeting her.’

‘Are you sure?’ said Georgie. ‘She always cheers me up, but it’s a bit of a strain having to pretend everything is OK in front of her.’

‘Wolfie adores her,’ said Kitty, ‘and Rannaldini says she’s got a wonderful voice.’