The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous

30

London Met was all out for 160 followed by tea in the great hall which was blissfully cool. White tablecloths had been laid over big oak tables. Huge vasefuls of red-hot pokers and early scarlet dahlias flamed like beacons in each corner. Kitty had provided a wonderful tea. Her sandwiches, made of smoked salmon, prawns swimming in real mayonnaise, scrambled eggs filled with herbs and the most delicate turkey breast, contained more filling than bread. There were also home-made scones to eat with mulberry jam and clotted cream, walnut, lemon and chocolate cakes, beautifully decorated on top and groaning with butter icing inside and a huge rainbow cake on whose white icing she had piped in blue: LONDON MET V. PARADISE 1990. Everything had been done to please Rannaldini. It was a pity that because of the heat more praising went on than eating.

‘I can’t go in there,’ whimpered Georgie, who’d already been mobbed by autograph hunters, as she saw the crowds milling in the great hall. ‘Guy’s about to murder me for disappearing.’

‘I’ll stay with you the whole time,’ said Lysander soothingly. ‘Actually, I’m bloody hungry. Very Gothic this house, isn’t it?’

Nor could the heat of hellfire put Percival Hillary, the vicar of All Saints, Paradise, off his grub. A consummate cadger of other people’s food and drink, with a fish face redder than Ferdie’s Ferrari and breath that could crack a safe at fifty yards, he was now piling his plate with sandwiches and crying in a fluting voice: ‘What a wonderful, wonderful spread.’

‘What a feast,’ cried his wife Joy, who was always described as a ‘tower of strength’. A bosomless chatterbox with a ringing laugh, she spent her time bullying the unwilling into charity work and hovering round Paradise flushing out lapses of behaviour like Milton’s God.

‘I always feel I should wear my fig-leaf outside my shorts when Joy’s about,’ grumbled Meredith.

It was a running battle between Joy, Marigold and Lady Chisleden who actually ran Paradise. Despite her high moral tone, however, Joy Hillary shared her husband’s weakness for good-looking men and was potty about Guy. Guy was only prepared to be buttonholed by her for so long. Yanking Georgie from Lysander’s side, hissing, ‘How dare you show me up in front of the whole of Paradise,’ he shoved her at Joy Hillary.

‘Joyful, my dear, I’d like you to meet my wife, Georgie.’

A staunch vegetarian, who was systematically opening and casting aside sandwiches which contained meat, eggs or fish, Joy told Georgie that she’d just been saying to Guy that she couldn’t understand why there were so many wild oats about this year.

‘Symbolic of the times,’ said Georgie bleakly and, when Joy Hillary looked blank, ‘Men can’t resist sowing them.’

‘No-one sowed them,’ said Joy patiently. ‘The field behind us has been sprayed for twenty years, but we’ve still got wild oats.’

‘At least it’s better than that ghastly rape,’ said her husband Percival, coming over on the pretext of introducing himself, but actually to cut a huge slice out of Kitty’s utterly delectable chocolate cake. Alas, he was just about to plunge in the knife when Dinsdale lifted his big mournful face on to the table, and sucked in the entire cake.

Georgie burst out laughing. Then, seeing their horrified deprived faces: ‘I better absent myself from the scene of the crime and go and congratulate Kitty.’

Even in her current state of self-absorption, Georgie was appalled by Kitty’s appearance. She’d put on weight and her reddened eyes gazed into space as she filled cup after cup from a huge brown teapot. She was always quiet when Rannaldini was around, but she seemed to have lost all her warmth and her interest in other people. She didn’t even smile over the story of Dinsdale’s pilfering the chocolate cake and when Georgie ducked under the table to stand beside her and thank her for letting Flora spend so much time at Valhalla, Kitty said nothing, just lowered her eyes.

‘You OK, Kitty? You’re shaking.’

‘I’m fine.’

How could she tell Georgie that her daughter was having a raging affaire with Rannaldini? A month ago, when poor Wolfie had sobbed all night like the Paradise Lad, Kitty had steeled herself to tell Rannaldini that he shouldn’t pinch his son’s girlfriend, particularly when she was thirty years his junior and still an impressionable child. Whereupon Rannaldini had launched into one of his petrifying tirades, screaming that Wolfie was an insanely jealous, paranoid fantasist who had to make up stories to justify Flora falling out of love with him and how dare Kitty virtually accuse him of child molesting.

He had punished her ever since by withdrawing all affection and Kitty was nearly at breaking-point. Almost worst of all, she had previously hero-worshipped Flora for sticking up for her so often, but in the end Flora had not just taken her part but her husband from her as well.

And now Kitty had spilt tea all over the snow-white tablecloth because Rannaldini and Flora were approaching. Flora, in fact, was starving. Georgie didn’t feed her family much and it was a long time since breakfast.

‘Hi, Kitty,’ she said in delight. ‘How are you?’

‘OK.’ Kitty spilled even more tea.

‘Here, let me take that, Brickie.’ Guy seized the teapot as though it was a large fractious baby Kitty couldn’t quiet. ‘I’ll fill the cups. You chat to Flora.’

‘I’ll just get more ’ot water.’ Frantically, Kitty seized a big silver jug. ‘’Ave a sandwich.’ She shoved a plate at Flora.

‘Oh yum, I’m so hungry,’ cried Flora, then found that suddenly she wasn’t, because fat, hopeless, red-eyed defeated Kitty looked absolutely wretched and couldn’t even meet her eyes.

She knows about us, thought Flora in horror. And Kitty had been so sweet to her. But as she felt Rannaldini just behind her, surreptitiously caressing the bare sweating insides of her thighs, such was her longing, she couldn’t stop herself pressing back against him.

‘Rannaldini’s little wife’s done so well,’ said Joy Hillary, taking a third piece of walnut cake. ‘We must utilize her properly at the fête. Perhaps we should take her off bric-à-brac and put her in charge of teas.’

As Kitty bolted down the dark passages to the kitchen, Lysander, leaning nonchalantly on a suit of armour, blocked her path.

‘D’you remember me? We met at Marigold’s and at the Rock Star party. Here, let me take that jug. Stunning tea. I’ve stuffed myself so much I won’t be able to bat. My mother hated doing cricket teas. She never produced more than a bought cake and curling Marmite sandwiches.’

He found it a relief to mention Pippa, even in a faintly derogatory fashion, and to find that it didn’t hurt so much.

Kitty raised her eyes. The terribly strong spectacles magnified the inflamed lids and the red-threaded eyes grotesquely. God, she looked unhappy.

‘Marigold told me about your muvver,’ she stammered. ‘She was so young. You must miss her somefink awful.’

Lysander, who often picked up vibes others missed, had noticed Rannaldini touching up Georgie’s sexy-looking daughter. What chance did Kitty have? Rannaldini was a shit, after all, he decided, as he carried the jug of boiling water back to the hall.

Natasha, who couldn’t imagine what Lysander could have to say to her boring stepmother, charged up with Ferdie, whom Lysander introduced to Kitty. Ferdie and Kitty might do rather well together, decided Lysander. Before they had time to find out, Guy had butted in with a plate of sliced rainbow cake.

‘You must eat something yourself, Brickie.’

‘Why d’you call her that?’ asked Natasha.

‘Because she’s an absolute brick,’ said Guy warmly.

‘How many bricks are there in a tower of strength?’ asked Georgie, earning herself a dirty look from Guy as she joined the group.

‘We’ll be eating this stuff for weeks,’ Rannaldini told his wife as he glared at the still-loaded tables. People were lighting cigarettes and drifting back to the pitch. ‘You’ve over-catered as usual, Kitty.’

‘It’ll all go,’ snapped Lysander. ‘I’ll come and help you wash up, Kitty. It’s nice and cool in here.’

‘Lysander,’ called out Marigold, ‘you were going to bowl to the boys.’

‘You’re bloody not,’ hissed Ferdie. ‘You’re being paid to rattle Guy. Stick to Georgie.’

But as soon as Lysander had sat down beside Georgie on a bench under a chestnut tree, the Archangel Mike ordered him to pad up and open the batting. Instantly his seat was taken by Larry whom Georgie had been avoiding all afternoon.

‘How’s the album coming on?’

‘OK.’

‘Guy said it was going really well and you might deliver early.’

‘Pigs might fly,’ snapped Georgie.

‘My guess is that things are rough at the gallery,’ said Larry, ‘and you should help out by finishing as soon as possible. Guy’s always looked after you in the past, Georgie.’

‘It’s a conspiracy. I’m being forced to rush things,’ cried Georgie hysterically. ‘Guy put you up to this over dinner.’

‘Guy cancelled,’ announced Larry. ‘He had too much on.’

Georgie started to shake. In a sentence Larry had chucked her into the pits.

‘You’re psyching yourself into this block,’ he went on bullyingly. ‘All we want is something warm, sincere and happy, that kids and older folk can relate to. Just like “Rock Star”.’

‘I wrote “Rock Star” when I was happy,’ hissed Georgie. ‘How can I be warm, loving and sincere when my heart’s breaking and my world’s fallen apart?’

Taking the field, Guy noticed Georgie leaping up and sending a deck-chair flying as she stumbled away from Larry. Christ, he hoped Larry hadn’t mentioned his cancelling dinner. He should have warned him, but, as a bishop’s son, he found it tacky saying: ‘Could you possibly tell Georgie it was you who ducked out?’

‘Could you possibly donate half a dozen signed copies of Rock Star to the fête as prizes?’ Joy Hillary met Georgie head on.

‘No, I fucking can’t,’ screamed Georgie. ‘Contrary to what you might think, I don’t get my own albums free and I don’t get the full whack every time a record is sold. Remind me to ask your husband to hand over the entire church collection to the Musicians’ Benevolent Society next Christmas. Oh look, Lysander’s batting. Excuse me.’ And she walked off, leaving Joy unjoyfully mouthing.

Guy’s lied to me yet again, thought Georgie. What’s the point of finishing an album to appease their joint bank manager when he won’t give Julia up. Sod Angel’s Reach, she’d rather live in a council flat with Lysander.

It was a second before she registered that the field had changed over and Guy was bowling, holding the ball in that strong right hand that had given her so much pleasure, pounding up to the crease on those strong muscular legs that had once been nightly wrapped round her. Georgie gave a wail of misery.

A moment later, as if to avenge her, Lysander had hit the ball in the air, soaring like a lark into the rippling gold wheat fields, sending the London Met Players searching among the wild oats.

Paradise were in heaven. They’d never made a decent showing against the London Met before. Soon the London Met musicians, who relied on their hands, too, for their livelihood, had moved to the outfield and Guy, Larry, Bob and the big-hitting tenor were nervously surrounding the wicket. But to no avail. Whack, whack, whack went the ball over the boundary, and each time Lysander scored runs the cheers increased until even the London Met Players abandoned themselves to the voluptuous pleasure of watching a mortal become a God.

Having played ‘See the Conquering Hero Comes’, the band swung into ‘The British Grenadiers’.

‘Some talk of Alexander and some of Hercules.

Of Hector and Lysander

And such brave men as these,’ sang the hard-hitting tenor, and all the crowd, particularly the vicar, joined in the chorus.

After fifty-five minutes Paradise were 130 for no wicket. Lysander had made a century, shaken hands with the opposition players and the two umpires and waved his bat at the ecstatic crowd. Then, almost contemptuously, as though he was saying: ‘Now I’m off to romp with your wife,’ he hit the easiest catch in the world to a crimson-faced, dripping Guy and sauntered, grinning, back to the pavilion before Mr Brimscombe had even given him out.

The local reporter was so busy racing back to the office to re-set the huge headline: PARADISE LOST, that he forgot to ring Dempster. Guy then had to field impotently in the deep for the next forty minutes, while Paradise somewhat laboriously made the remaining runs and Lysander wandered off into the woods with Georgie, trailing dogs. Both Georgie and Guy were far too preoccupied to notice that Flora had disappeared with Rannaldini.

‘I wish Georgie Maguire hadn’t left so early. I was hoping to brief her about opening the fête,’ complained Percival Hillary, who was actually much more interested in getting a closer look at Lysander.

‘The sun must have unhinged her,’ said Joy. ‘First she rudely refused to give me any Rock Star albums; then I approached her again and asked her most politely for some very personal item that she doesn’t want any more that we could raffle and she said: “How about my husband?” and flounced off.’

‘I’m sure she was joking.’

‘I’m not — and when you think what a tower of strength Guy has been. I didn’t take to her — and as for that dreadful thieving dog—’