The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous

26

Outside night had fallen. The wood steamed like a tropical jungle. The rain had bowed the trees into a dripping green tunnel and pestled a rank sexy smell out of elder, nettles and the last yellow leaves of the wild garlic. As they emerged the maze reared up, a great jet-black wave waiting to topple over them. An owl hooted warningly, a bat swooped.

‘Duck — it’s the Count,’ said Flora, through desperately chattering teeth.

‘Go into the maze,’ whispered Rannaldini.

‘Give me a ball of thread, Ariadne. Although you’re more like the Minotaur.’

‘Keep your hand on the wall and you’ll reach the centre.’ Rannaldini buried his lips briefly in her neck. ‘I geeve you a minute’s start.’

Never one to resist a challenge Flora plunged into the maze feeling her way between drenched lowering yew cliffs. With a scream she ducked in terror as a sinister dark figure reared up ahead like a black cowled monk about to pounce on her. Then she gasped with relief: it was only one of Mr Brimscombe’s yew peacocks. Shivering, yet pouring with sweat as her feet crunched on the wet, cold, pebble floor, she felt she was walking down an endless beach into a sea of no return.

Turning, twisting, falling to her knees, losing both her espadrilles in her panic, she could hear Rannaldini behind her like the Hound of Heaven (should be hell), his footsteps deliberate but relentless, stealthily drawing closer.

Oh Christ, she could hear breathing in front now — someone else was in the maze, or was it the way it twisted back on itself? Terrified, she started to run, piercing herself as she crashed from one massed wall of sharp twigs to another. Twenty feet above, a thin strip of dun, starless sky gave her no direction.

Her breath was coming in such gasps she would have none left to scream for help. She’d never get out. Meeting a dead end she stumbled to the left, hands desperately searching. Rannaldini was going to murder her, the maze was a trick, there was no centre. She gave a sob as an owl hooted overhead.

Then suddenly she breathed in the headiest smell. The path seemed to widen. Her feet must have touched a pressure point because soft light suddenly flooded a bower of bliss in which an ancient stone bench was fantastically garlanded by great clumps of rain-soaked philadelphus and jasmine with white rambler roses clambering to the top of the yew ramparts, all wafting their sweetness. Flora gave a moan of relief and joy.

Next moment Rannaldini’s arms were around her. She could feel the burning heat of his body, Don Giovanni in the flames.

‘You made it, leetle wild thing.’

‘I’m waiting for Mr Rite of Spring to come along.’

‘You must not mock.’

This time he kissed her with real passion, quivering with tension, his tongue stabbing and probing her mouth, his hands untying the black knot of Wolfie’s shirt. Laying bare her dove-soft white breasts, he covered them with kisses, murmuring endearments in Italian.

Then he seemed to gain control of himself and pushed her gently away.

‘Now we play games,’ he said softly. ‘You must do what I say. You are leetle village girl who wishes to enter the great Convent of Paradise. But first the all-powerful Abbot of Valhalla must inspect you to make sure of your purity and innocence. It ees his privilege.’

His face was totally impassive.

‘Are you some kind of nutter?’ stammered Flora backing away.

‘Take off your clothes,’ said Rannaldini sharply.

Furiously Flora stepped out of her rain-soaked blue skirt and pink and white striped pants.

‘Sit down.’ He pushed her on to the stone bench. ‘Now the Abbot will examine the leetle girl fully. He touches her breasts,’ Rannaldini’s warm hands were stroking, squeezing, searching, ‘and he theenks what a tragedy that two such lovely theengs should be hidden for ever under a nun’s black robes.

‘The little girl is frightened now,’ he went on, sensing Flora’s apprehension, ‘but just when she think the touching has gone on too long for decency the Abbot moves downwards. He is delighted to find her a little plump. Her puppy fat will protect her from the bitter cold of the convent.’

In time to the deep, husky, caressing voice Rannaldini’s hands roved over her belly and thighs, slowly, meticulously, assessing and examining.

Once again Flora was appalled to find herself revolted but wildly, hopelessly excited.

‘Sturdy legs, too,’ murmured Rannaldini. ‘Good for kneeling for hours on a cold chapel floor.’

Then, as he pushed her back on the bench, ‘Now she must lie down and put her knees up to her breasts for the crucial examination to begin. The test of her virginity.’

‘What sort of fucking pervert are you?’ hissed Flora, but, powerless to resist, she lay back, raising her legs and giving a wail of pleasure as his fingers slid inside her.

‘They go in too easily,’ purred Rannaldini, ‘the leetle girl try to tighten up to pretend she is still intacta but she is far too excited. As the Abbot explore probing her most secret places she cannot stop herself gripping his fingers. She is embarrassed how wet she is getting. She knows the Abbot is excited, too. He no longer care eef she is virgin.’

Rannaldini’s iron-hard thigh was rigid against Flora’s bare leg. She began to gasp with helpless pleasure as his finger moved up to her clitoris.

‘See the hood is back. From this tiny pink bud blossoms all female joy. It is so pretty. The Abbot will cure all her tensions, all her fears and geeve her such a lovely feeling.’

‘Oh, you bastard!’ Flora arched her back, went rigid and came.

‘That was nice?’ crooned Rannaldini, delightedly gathering her against his chest and stroking her hair.

‘Bliss but utterly bent.’

‘Is only the beginning. Tomorrow you can be little nun who has been caught in some wickedness.’

‘And you’ll be the Abbot of Valhalla ordering me to be flogged. Not bloody likely.’

Desperate to regain the upper hand, Flora dropped to her knees, unzipping his fly, lowering the blue silk boxer shorts and burying her face in the scented powdered hair flattened by the tight trousers, as the thick powerful cock flew up like a jack in the box.

‘Oh, wow,’ sighed Flora.

But, feeling her tongue, Rannaldini pulled away.

‘I weesh to come inside you.’

‘Pity, I wanted to have my cock and eat it.’

For a second she thought he was going to hit her.

‘Stop taking the pees.’

Lifting her back on to the stone bench he roughly parted her labia and shoved his cock deep inside her.

‘Aaaaaaah, lovely,’ cried Flora, starting to move.

She was used to over-excited schoolboys who came in an instant. Rannaldini now totally in control, could have been a metronone for The Rite of Spring. His rhythm was so exact and so relentless.

‘Keep your eyes open,’ he ordered, his face satanical above hers, ‘I want to see you come. Are you bored now?’

‘Not as much as I was. Twelve bored more likely.’ Ah, those deep slow thrusts, Flora was battling not to abdicate herself completely. ‘For a pervert you’re seriously good at straight fucking. Although this bench is even harder than you — oh my God, on second thoughts perhaps it isn’t… Oh, Rannaldini, oh, Rannaldini.’

At the end of a week’s suspension Flora was allowed back for the Leaver’s Ball, because Wolfie Rannaldini, who’d won every cup and prize going, interceded with Sabine Bottomley.

Two days before the ball Flora, who was supposed to be practising ‘Who is Sylvia?’ with Rannaldini in his tower, was actually perched on his huge treble bed rubbing baby oil into him while he finished the crossword.

‘Ah that’s good. Deeper, deeper. You learn fast.’ Later he combed back the hair between her legs.

‘You are very charming, like a rose called Felicia. I cannot wait to shave you.’

‘Do you shave all your women?’

‘Usually. Cecilia ’ave a brush like Bernard Shaw’s beard so I ’ad to.’

‘You are decadent. You should publish a coffee table book of all your ladies and call it Clitoris Allsorts. Anyway you can’t shave me until after the Leavers’ Ball. Think of the raised eyebrows if we all go skinny dipping.’

‘You are not going to Leavers’ Ball.’

‘I must. I feel so dreadful about Wolfie. I promised I’d go with him two months ago. I’m not letting him down in front of all his friends. I’m off backpacking soon, so he and I will just peter out without his knowing about you.’

‘Eef you go to that ball, do not come back to me.’

It was her first experience of Rannaldini’s intransigence. She knew she mustn’t give in. She was horrified how difficult she found it.

Having persuaded Georgie to buy a slinky black dress covered in sequins for The Clive Anderson Show so she could borrow it for the ball, Flora discovered it was too tight on the hips. Resorting to half a packet of Ex-Lax she spent the day of the ball on the 100 groaning that she was dying.

That makes two of us, thought Georgie.

Deathly pale, buckling at the knees, Flora managed to gird her ransacked loins to get ready. At least the dress fitted perfectly. Georgie was just fastening her own jade pendant round Flora’s neck when Flora asked her point blank if she’d ever been unfaithful to Guy.

‘No, of course not.’

As Georgie crossed her fingers the jade pendant slithered between Flora’s breasts.

‘And has Daddy ever been unfaithful to you?’

This time, as she crossed her fingers, Georgie held on to the pendant with her thumb.

‘Of course not.’

‘How very boring,’ said Flora. ‘Marriage must be like a prison.’

Next moment her mother had burst into tears, but denied there was anything the matter, just saying work was going badly.

As Wolfie was playing cricket against the fathers and going to be pushed for time, Guy — the ever-willing chauffeur — dropped Flora off at Valhalla where the roses were scattering pale petals all over the lawns.

Rannaldini, who’d just flown in from a wonderfully successful performance of Shostakovich’s Tenth, was delighted to see Flora looking so wan. But she had the wonderful skin of youth where sleepless nights only put darker blue shadows under the eyes and made her look more appealing. He had never wanted anyone more, but icily he ignored her.

Before she left with Wolfie and Natasha, they paraded before the grown-ups in their finery.

Oh, I’d love to be beautiful and thin and go to a ball, thought Kitty longingly.

Wolfie asked his father to tie his tie. He had made another century this afternoon and looked bullish, very brown and handsome.

‘None of our generation can tie bow-ties,’ said Natasha.

‘Family ties are more important,’ said Flora pointedly.

For a second, as his father had to stand on tiptoe to see over his shoulder into the mirror and flick and slot the yellow Paisley tie in and out, Wolfie had a spookie feeling Rannaldini wanted to throttle him.

‘You all look be-yootiful,’ called out Kitty as they drove off.

As Kitty sorted through the mountains of washing from her stepchildren’s trunks the following afternoon she felt really depressed — not only had she got the curse, which meant yet again she wasn’t pregnant, but also because she’d just switched on Wimbledon and seen Hermione and Rannaldini sitting together on Centre Court.

She’d just removed the clothes which Natasha, who was flying to New York the next day, might need, when Wolfie tottered in still wearing his dinner-jacket. At first she thought he was drunk, then, as he collapsed at the kitchen table, she realized he was crying.

‘Christ, I hate my father.’

Kitty went cold. Mindlessly she filled the kettle.

‘Flora was impossible all evening,’ said Wolfie, furiously wiping his desperately bloodshot eyes. ‘Then she vanished and came back all lit up. I thought she was on something. She refused to dance, the sides of the marquee were up because it was so hot, she kept looking up at the stars. Then she gives this shriek of excitement and runs across the pitch leaving her bag, her shoes and her green jacket behind as my father’s helicopter lands on the pitch.’

Wolfie couldn’t go on. The wind from Rannaldini’s blades had blown Flora’s skirt over her head, and his last memory had been of her black legs and suspenders and her red bikini pants.

‘She was so crazy about Boris,’ he said despairingly, ‘and Marcus Campbell-Black, but I thought I’d seen off the competition. But how can I compete when my father comes out of the sky like Close Encounters?’

Wolfie was a kind boy but so deranged with grief he’d forgotten who he was talking to.

‘My mother’s still in love with him and they’ve been divorced for years,’ he went on bitterly. ‘When we were in Salzburg Papa swanned up and put his hand on her shoulders: “You’re looking lovely, Gisela,” and Mum started shaking and shaking. He can have anyone. Why does he have to take Flora as well?’

Suddenly Wolfie realized the cup Kitty was putting down in front of him was spilling tea all over the table.

‘Oh Jesus, Kitty, I’m sorry. I don’t know what I’m saying. You must have known what a bastard he was when you married him.’

When his father returned, even browner, from Wimbledon, having been denied the satisfaction of seeing Boris Becker winning, Wolfie asked for five minutes alone. Expecting trouble Rannaldini was surprised when Wolfie bleakly announced that instead of an eighteenth birthday party he’d like the money to go round the world. Relieved to see the broad back of his son, Rannaldini wrote him a surprisingly generous cheque.

‘I feel terrible,’ said Flora, when Rannaldini telephoned to tell her, ‘and I doubt if he’ll ever forgive you.’

‘Course he will. Sooner or later he’ll need money or a leg-up in his career so bad he have to forgive a leg-over.’

‘You’ve no fucking heart and I’m worried about Mum. If she’s writing a musical called Ant and Cleo, why is she reading Othello?’

Returning to Paradise from her second honeymoon in Jamaica in late July, Marigold rang Georgie and suggested they went for a cheering-up lunch at The Heavenly Host.

‘I can’t face the outside world at the moment,’ mumbled Georgie.

‘Ay’ll bring some smoked salmon and several bottles straight round. We’ve got to talk.’

Half an hour later Marigold rolled up at Angel’s Reach looking gloriously suntanned but a bit plump with an apricot-pink shirt worn outside her shorts to cover the bulges.

‘Ay’m so sorry,’ she hugged Georgie. ‘Kitty filled me in. Ay didn’t realize how awful it’d been.’

She was horrified by Georgie’s appearance. The magnolia complexion which men used to write songs about was all blotchy. She was desperately thin, her skin hanging like loose clothes on a skeleton. She couldn’t stop shaking.

‘Poor Dinsdale’s aged more than I have. He’s been walked so much as an excuse to get out of the house that he hides behind the sofa whenever his lead’s rattled. Oh God, another single magpie.’ Frantically Georgie crossed herself. ‘I keep seeing them.’

‘They’re always single in July because the females are feeding their babies and protecting their nests,’ said Marigold. ‘Now where’s the corkscrew? We both need a noggin.’

‘He’s still seeing Julia.’ Georgie couldn’t keep off the subject. ‘I ought to get out, but I’m like a hotel coat-hanger, useless when detached from my moorings.’

‘I was like that,’ said Marigold. ‘How are you and Guy when you’re together?’

‘Terrified. We never stop apologizing like British Rail. I bitched about him so much to Annabel Hardman the other day with the answering machine on that I had to record Dire Straits over the whole tape.’

‘There.’ Marigold put a huge blue-green glass of Chardonnay in front of Georgie.

‘Thanks. Larry was so hellish to you I’d never have signed that Catchitune contract if I’d known about Nikki, but you look so stunning now. How did you ever get him back?’

‘Promise, promise not to tell?’ whispered Marigold. ‘Ay paid Laysander.’

‘You what!’

‘Ferdie, Laysander’s flatmate, orchestrated everythin’. They put me on an awful diet, took me joggin’ and made me act totally unconcerned whenever Larry rolled up. Ay gave Laysander some lovely clothes and a Ferrari and we hired jewels for him to give me. Larry was so mad with jealousy he came roaring back.’

‘It really worked!’ Georgie showed the faint flicker of animation of the dying castaway hearing the chug of a helicopter.

‘Far better than before,’ said Marigold, taking the smoked salmon out of its transparent paper and laying it on a blue plate from the Reject Shop, which had presumably replaced her plates Georgie had smashed.

‘You know how hopelessly undomesticated Larry was,’ she went on, searching among the spice shelf for red pepper. ‘Now he brings down his washing and even loads and unloads the dishwasher. Ay’m thinkin’ of writing Nikki a thank-you letter. And he’s become so marvellous in other ways.’ Marigold unearthed a tired-looking lemon from the bottom of the fridge. ‘Not just terribly loving and not being able to keep his hands off me, but he doesn’t rev up any more or shout at me if Ay map-read wrong and he gives me the remote control when we watch TV and smothers me in YSL. That’s why I’m looking so good and best of all I don’t have to go to Masonic dinners any more.’

‘Golly.’ Georgie found herself peeling off a bit of smoked salmon. ‘I wonder if it would work with Guy? How much did you pay Lysander?’ she asked. Then, bleating in horror when Marigold told her, ‘I can’t afford that!’

‘It’s worth it,’ urged Marigold. ‘You’ll never be able to pay back the Ant and Cleo money and Larry’s hell-bent on having your album by Christmas. He’s mean about deadlines. It’ll be such fun having Laysander back in Paradise and he’ll keep Larry on his toes,’ she added dreamily.

‘Did you sleep with him?’

‘May word, no,’ Marigold crossed her fingers. ‘He’s just there to rattle one’s hubby. Do give it a go. He was in Cheshire bringing some drain billionaire to heel and now he’s in Mayorca on some rescue mission. Ay promise he and Ferdie are brilliant.’