The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous

32

Georgie’s mood did not improve the following week when Marigold kept borrowing Lysander to pick up stuff for the fête and then roping him in to set up stalls. Why the hell should she pay Lysander to give Marigold kudos?

Having savagely prayed for rain on the day, Georgie was ashamed to find her hopes fulfilled. But the rain only chucked down for a couple of hours, leaving puddles all over the rock-hard ground and the weather hotter and closer than ever.

Georgie found opening the fête even more frightening than her own launching party. Embarrassed to show the world such a diminished version of the abandoned beauty on the Rock Star album, she was also desperate to shine in front of Hermione, Marigold, Joy Hillary and, most of all, Guy — particularly as she had repeatedly refused both his and the vicar’s offers to rehearse in front of them. If by some miracle she did it well, she didn’t want them taking the credit.

Guy spent Saturday morning commuting between Angel’s Reach and the vicarage. Every vegetable had been dug up in the garden to find longer carrots and larger marrows than Rannaldini’s, Larry’s and Bob’s. He’d even tried his hand at some elderflower wine. But competition was at its fiercest in the class for the best chocolate cake made by a man. Guy had baked four cakes last night before he was satisfied. Larry was rumoured to have enlisted the help of Anton Mosimann and to be flying the cake down from London. Rannaldini had made his cake last weekend and Kitty, having removed it from the deep freeze, had just delivered it to the flower-tent wondering if she should leave Tabloid on guard.

She now despondently surveyed her bric-à-brac and was wondering how she was going to sell cracked 78s, single book-ends, cake knives, jigsaw puzzles of Norwegian fjords, purple plastic roses and a flowered vase she had given Hermione last Christmas, when Lysander came rushing up.

‘Kitty, Kitty, help, help. Ferdie’s going to murder me. He stayed up all night making me the perfect chocolate cake and I’ve just dropped it in a puddle.’

Kitty giggled. They decided against pinching a cake from Joy Hillary’s stall next door in case the cook responsible recognized it. But by the time Kitty had found a clean plate and a white lacy paper mat, squeezed out the cake, shoved it together, disguised the cracks with Cadbury’s flake sprinkled on top, and written a new card, Lysander’s offering looked quite presentable.

‘God, you’re a star,’ he hugged her. ‘I don’t know how you made all those cakes for that cricket tea. It took Ferdie and me till four in the morning.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Now, Georgie’s opening the fête at two-fifteen. That gives us ages to have a bet on the one-thirty and a quick one or three in The Pearly Gates. Come on.’

‘I can’t,’ said Kitty sadly. ‘I promised Marigold and Joy I’d watch their stalls.’

She refused all Lysander’s entreaties so he was reduced to boosting her turn-over by buying an old fox fur as a present for Jack and Maggie and insisting she kept the change from twenty pounds.

‘It’s for the spire. Oh Jesus, here comes Marigold. I don’t want to blow up any more balloons.’ And with that he shot into The Pearly Gates.

Back at Angel’s Reach, Georgie was livid with Guy for insisting she wear a dress. Her only presentable one had disappeared with Flora. Why the hell Flora needed a pistachio-green silk tunic to go backpacking, Georgie couldn’t imagine. And she’d have to shave her legs and put Clinique on her varicose veins.

‘I’ll just ring Marigold to check everything’s on target. We must leave by five to two,’ said Guy as Georgie switched on her hair dryer.

Switching it off a second later to spray on some mousse, she heard Guy say, ‘Hi, it’s me.’

‘Marigold OK?’ Georgie asked later, as she ringed her eyes with dark brown pencil.

‘Couldn’t be bothered to ring her.’

‘I heard you saying: “Hi, it’s me.” ’ Then, as Guy put on his mental-nurse face, ‘I did, Guy.’

‘You must be going mad. I didn’t ring anyone. Promise to go and see Dr Benson on Monday.’

Unearthed from a black dustbin bag in the attic, Georgie’s grey denim midi was wrinkled like a rhino.

If I composed classical music it wouldn’t matter, she thought savagely, everyone would say I looked charmingly eccentric.

‘Why are you spraying scent on the back of your knees to open a village fête?’ asked Guy.

‘I might meet a ravishing dwarf,’ snarled Georgie.

‘You are not bringing Dinsdale.’

‘No Dinsdale, no me. You can open the fucking fête yourself.’

Yellow leaves dislodged by the rain tumbled out of the limes around the village green. The high street was hung with red-and-white bunting. Parked cars glittered like shingle in the newly cut barley field next to the vicarage. Sheltered by high walls, seldom exposed to the winds which swept up from the Bristol Channel, the Hillarys’ garden was a top-coat warmer than Valhalla or Paradise Grange. It boasted a yellow catalpa covered in big creamy white flowers and two massive horse chestnuts, whose leaves, touching the ground like cardinal’s robes, added a suitable ecclesiastical note. A rainbow of different coloured clematis rose out of a bed of lavender against the ancient lichened walls of the house.

The crowds already milling round the stalls agreed on Joy Hillary’s green fingers, but chuntered that the vicar must have been sprinkling illicitly to produce such a perfect lawn.

‘Turning all that wine he drinks back into water,’ suggested Bob Harefield, whose bald head had tanned as brown and freckled as a farm egg and who, in his quiet, steadily efficient way, had achieved far more than anyone else. Having set up most of the stalls, priced the goods and refereed squawking matches he was now taking money at the gate.

‘You two ought to get in free,’ he told Georgie and Guy, who insisted on paying.

‘How good of you to come,’ chorused the vicar’s wife, Marigold and Lady Chisleden. As they all surged forward to ‘receive the personality’, the recently drenched grass pegged their high-heeled advance.

‘We don’t really allow dogs,’ said Joy Hillary, remembering Dinsdale without enthusiasm.

‘Well, at least keep him on a lead,’ said Marigold.

‘A quick whisk round the stalls to thank our caring helpers,’ said Lady Chisleden, ‘and then we’d better proceed with the opening.’

Poor Kitty was running bric-à-brac single-handed because last year’s Miss Paradise, who was supposed to be helping her, hadn’t turned up.

‘What’s this?’ said Meredith, waving a cardboard disk.

‘You put it at the bottom of your pans to stop fings boiling over.’

‘Pity you can’t stand Rannaldini on it. I’ve just bought a first edition of a book called The Autobiography of a Cad for 10p.’

‘Written by every husband in Paradise,’ said Georgie, pausing in front of them.

Joy Hillary shot her an alarmed look. Marigold had promised that Georgie could be relied on to behave, but she had a wild look about her and she must have slept in that dress.

‘I think you know Kitty Rannaldini,’ said Lady Chisleden, ‘a tower of strength.’

‘An absolute bric-à-brac,’ giggled Meredith. Grubbing around in a cardboard box he discovered the purple plastic tulips and handed them to Georgie. ‘Just in case Marigold forgets your bouquet, dear.’

‘Don’t be silly, Meredith,’ snapped Joy Hillary, bustling Georgie on to the plant stall where Marigold was urging people to buy plants to enhance their Best-Kept gardens.

‘We’ve got some lovely heartsease,’ she told Georgie.

‘Take more than a plant to ease mine.’

‘Come and guess the weight of the pig,’ interrupted Joy Hillary hastily, ‘and then I think we’ll have your opening.’

‘’Allo, Georgie,’ yelled Mother Courage.’

’Ot isn’t it? People are passing out like ’ot cakes.’

After the rain, the wasps were beginning to dive-bomb fruit and the jam tarts on the cake stall.

‘I had a coffee cake in here a minute ago,’ announced Lady Chisleden, gazing into a carrier bag in bewilderment.

On the way to the platform, Georgie caught sight of Ferdie who was having a ghastly afternoon giving pony rides on Tiny, who, maddened by flies and general ill-temper, had bitten him three times and lashed out at several small children.

‘Where’s your bloody little friend?’ hissed Georgie. ‘He promised never to leave my side.’

Ferdie was tempted to snap back that his bloody little friend had promised to be there to control Tiny, but, as there was so much money at stake, he murmured soothingly that Lysander would be here any second.

Guy, like his father the bishop, always whisked hither and thither at church occasions, big hand on bare elbows, telling willing helpers how splendid they were being. Now he was manning the loud speaker, his strong voice ringing round Paradise: ‘Pray silence for our vicar.’

Everyone milled around patting Dinsdale, who was thoughtfully licking coffee cake off his whiskers. Percival Hillary then went into an orgy of platitudes about Georgie needing absolutely no introduction and how she and her husband Guy had been a most acceptable addition to our little community and how grateful they were to Georgie for taking time out from her busy schedule.

‘Ladies and Gentlemen,’ began Georgie.

The microphone let out an eldritch screech.

‘Speak up,’ yelled old Miss Cricklade who’d been home-made wine champion for ten years running.

‘Thank you for making us so welcome.’ Georgie sounded as though she was coming from outer space. ‘It all looks absolutely lovely, but I know events of this kind do not spring up over-night like mushrooms. They take months of hard work and organization and I’d specially like to thank—’

She was interrupted by the doodle-bug chug of Larry’s helicopter which landed in the next-door field blowing chaff over everyone. Miss Cricklade, who had been a fire watcher during the war, took refuge under a trestle table.

‘As our opener was saying,’ prompted Percival.

But Georgie had lost her place and couldn’t remember whom she’d thanked. She could see that Mother Courage, her wisteria-mauve hair piled on top, her over-made-up face flushed from the I pub, was holding Dinsdale and egging her on.

‘I’d like to thank the Reverend and Mrs Hillary for lending us their lovely garden,’ stammered Georgie, and was about to urge everyone to dig deeply into their pockets and spend, spend, spend and tell a little joke at the end when she realized she’d lost her audience. Looking down, she saw that Lysander’s Jack had rolled up and was vigorously fornicating with Dinsdale’s back leg.

‘Don’t, Debenham, that’s rude,’ squawked Mother Courage as her white plastic boot sent Jack for six.

‘And I declare this fête open,’ mumbled Georgie to very muted applause.

‘I am going to murder Jack and Lysander,’ vowed Georgie furiously. ‘And Larry,’ she added as she saw him scuttling into the flower-tent to get his chocolate cake in on time.

But there was no time for brooding.

Hissing, ‘If only you’d allowed Percy and I to rehearse you,’ Guy whisked her off to judge the fancy dress.

‘She never thanked Produce, Nearly New or Coconuts,’ Miss Cricklade was grumbling to Marigold.

‘Well done. You’ll need a bullet-proof vest,’ murmured Bob as he ushered Georgie into a ring full of shepherdesses, gypsies, clowns and pop stars.

Georgie liked children and ear-marked Marigold’s boys dressed as Margaret and Dennis Thatcher and Archangel Mike’s two daughters sweating inside a white pantomime horse as Desert Orchid, as the likely winners, when a diversion was caused by Hermione, looking wonderfully cool in a cream Chanel suit and a big straw hat.

‘I do hope we’re not too late,’ she was saying in her deep thrilling voice as she posted an angelic little boy in a sailor suit with a sailor hat on his dark curls into the ring. This must be Cosmo, Hermione and Bob’s ‘treasure’.

‘Hallo, darling, you only made it just in time. Let’s have a look at you.’ Crouching down beside him, Georgie nearly dropped the clipboard with her markings on. For, looking out of a tiny version of Hermione’s face, were the shiny black, deadly nightshade eyes of Rannaldini.

Next moment she gave a shriek as Cosmo kicked her sharply on the shin and then laid about Denis Thatcher with his telescope. This speedily concentrated Georgie’s mind. She put Marigold’s boys first, Desert Orchid a close second, Miss Muffet’s spider third, Cosmo nowhere.

‘Little Cosmo is very sensitive. He won’t like that decision,’ said Hermione ominously as she retrieved her bawling child.

‘You’re going to need that bullet-proof vest more than ever,’ whispered Bob.

‘Can we have all animals in the ring for the Best Pet shown by a child?’ shouted Guy.

‘Pity Rannaldini’s in Geneva or we could have entered him,’ said Meredith.

‘Judged by our very own Hermione Harefield,’ added Guy to loud cheers which temporarily assuaged Hermione’s ire.

‘I must have tubes of Smarties for everyone,’ she was now insisting. ‘I will not have any little one disappointed.’

‘Hermione’s so caring,’ said Joy Hillary.

Seeing Ferdie give Tiny a great kick, Miss Cricklade reported him to the RSPCA who had a tent by the exit. Numbly Georgie signed autographs, still dazed by the fact that little Cosmo was Rannaldini’s son. How did Bob and Kitty put up with such a constant public reminder? Finally, over the loud speaker, Guy announced that judging had finished in the flower-show tent and the public would be admitted shortly to see who’d won. Where the hell’s Lysander? thought Ferdie and Georgie in murderous unison.

The hero of Paradise after last Sunday’s cricket match had, in fact, fallen among thieves in The Pearly Gates. Everyone wanted to buy him drinks and, being Lysander, he promptly bought them back. Then Crooked Mouse, his hot tip for the 1.30, came in first and as he had told everyone to back her it was more drinks all round to celebrate, then at his suggestion they backed Georgie’s Day for obvious reasons in the 2.15 and it came last so they had loads more drinks to cheer themselves up. By two-thirty Lysander was out of his skull. Hazily remembering he had to meet Georgie somewhere he staggered out wearing his fox fur and eventually found himself behind the vicarage. Hearing noise, he shinned over the wall, landing in a guelder rose bush at the back of a large tent. Wriggling through a side flap, he stumbled upon the home-made wine section on a nearby table with all the bottles open after the judging.

The winner had once again been Miss Cricklade. Last year after a couple of glasses of her elderflower wine the Archangel Michael, who normally drank for England, had driven straight through The Apple Tree’s shop window after leaving her house.

Having finished the remaining half of this year’s winning bottle, Lysander, who hadn’t eaten since the previous evening and then only uncooked cake mixture, suddenly decided he was hungry and polished off an excellent spinach quiche and a plate of sausage rolls before starting on Miss Cricklade’s prizewinning elderberry red.

By now people were flooding into the tent, shaking him by the hand and congratulating him. Really, thought Lysander, this is the nicest wedding reception I’ve ever been to. He must have another drink.

Outside, the RSPCA inspector, who had rolled up to prosecute Ferdie, having been bitten sharply by Tiny, was tempted to prosecute the pony instead.

The shadow of the spire fell over the vicar’s garden as the sun started its descent. Disconsolate exhibitors were pouring out of the flower-tent. Rannaldini and Mr Brimscombe seemed to have won everything.

Having thrust cups of tea on willing stall holders and remembering that Hermione liked hers camomile and flavoured with honey, Guy led Marigold, who’d been up since six, off to the beer tent for something stronger. Now Georgie could see them laughing together. Traitor, thought Georgie, wishing someone would hurl a coconut at Guy.

Guy was less amused, as were Larry, the vicar and Meredith when they discovered that the still-absent Lysander had won first prize for his chocolate cake.

‘It had a lovely damp texture and a delicious flavour we can’t pin-point,’ was the judge’s comment.

It was time for Larry to run the auction and regain the ascendancy after not winning a single prize. He’d show who could drive a hard bargain and kicked off by getting eighty pounds for a signed copy of Rock Star.

Guy then impressed everyone by bidding an unheard of forty pounds for Hermione’s posy of wildflowers. Consisting of marjoram, thyme, scabious and light and dark purple bell-flowers, they had been picked and arranged by little Cosmo’s Nanny, Gretel. Hermione was in heaven.

‘Guy Seymour is the most generous man in Rutshire,’ she told everyone after kissing Guy several times full on the mouth.

Having only had the courage to open the joint bank statement that morning and seen the abyss of their overdraft, Georgie’s smile fell heavily among the bric-à-brac. She knew she ought to roll up her sleeves and help Marigold or Kitty, but somehow she felt paralysed in her high heels and too shy to talk to people who were too shy of her fame to talk to her. She found Ferdie sitting on a haybale eating a choc-ice. All his bounce had left him.

‘I’m sorry, Georgie. I’d go and look for him if he hadn’t lumbered me with this fucking pony. I thought I’d cured him of bunking off.’

The fortune-teller was hidden in a little white tent under the taller of the chestnut trees. As Georgie’s nails were clean after washing her hair and the queue had almost dried up, she decided to test her fate.

Outside, a sweet-faced woman with long dark hair was trying to quiet an adorable, but fretful, baby, and telling two pretty little red-headed girls, ‘Mummy won’t be long, then we’ll go back to Robinsgrove and swim in the pool.’

Next moment a red-headed girl stumbled out of the tent, tears pouring down her cheeks.

‘Oh Daisy, I can’t bear it,’ she wailed to the dark woman. ‘He’s not going to leave her.’

Georgie realized to her horror that it was Julia. There was no way of avoiding her. She was wearing a white shirt, blue schoolboy shorts and black pumps and the combination of tawny freckled skin and russet hair was absolutely stunning. She doesn’t need to Clinique out her varicose veins, thought Georgie wearily.

‘Oh Georgie — I’m so sorry. I tried to keep away today,’ sobbed Julia, ‘but I couldn’t help myself. He’s not going to leave you. You’re so lucky to have him.’

‘Come on, Julia.’ Daisy put an arm round her heaving shoulders. ‘Let’s go home. I’m so sorry,’ she turned to Georgie, ‘I do hope you’re OK.’

Georgie was not. Kicking off her beastly high heels she ran off to find Guy who was surrounded by eager helpers including Joy Hillary and Lady Chisleden, and having his photograph taken for the local paper as he pinned a tail on the donkey.

‘Got a tenner?’ he called out to Georgie.

‘No, I have not,’ hissed Georgie. ‘If you’re not worth a fortune, you’re certainly worth a fortune-teller. I’ve just bumped into Julia and Daisy France-Lynch.’

‘Julia and Daisy?’ Guy didn’t miss a beat. ‘How good of them to look in. Perhaps they could sell some of their paintings here next year, Joy, and give you a percentage. D’you know Daisy? She’s so sweet. There’s so much local talent.’ Then, turning to Lady Chisleden, ‘I think cocoa gives a better flavour actually, Gwendolyn. My mistake this year was to use drinking chocolate.’

‘I do not believe I am hearing this,’ said Georgie. ‘Guy, did you know Julia was coming?’

‘Of course not, I haven’t spoken to her for months. Settle down, Georgie.’ Guy drew her aside. ‘Think of other people rather than yourself for a change.’

‘Time for you to draw the raffle,’ interrupted Joy Hillary, whose eyes were on stalks.

‘I’ll make an announcement,’ said Guy striding off.

‘I do hope I win the Copenhagen dinner service,’ said Joy. ‘It’s so good of Hermione to donate it.’

‘Gives her another excuse not to invite anyone to dinner,’ muttered Meredith to an exhausted Kitty. ‘She’s already got three sets in the attic. She gets one every time she sings “Wonderful Copenhagen” as an encore in the Danish Opera House.’

Among other raffle presents were a basket of fruit from The Apple Tree, a set of crystal glass donated by the local antique shop, dinner for two from The Heavenly Host and an array of bottles from The Pearly Gates.

Georgie was mindlessly scuffling round in the drum praying that she wouldn’t pull out Julia’s ticket when everyone was distracted by a piercing shriek from the flower-tent. Ancient Miss Cricklade, who had only just left her post at the Nearly New Stall to check how many prizes she’d won, came scuttling up to Marigold.

‘All my wine’s been drunk,’ she screamed. ‘That’s three bottles and it’s him what’s done it.’

On cue out of the flower-tent, supported by Miss Paradise ’89 and ’90 with their crowns askew, came Lysander with his legs running away in every direction and his eyes crossing.

‘There is a green-fingered Hillary far away — whoops — without a city wall,’ sang Lysander waving a half-eaten rock bun in time. Georgie had never seen anyone so drunk. Suddenly Lysander turned his head with a superhuman effort.

‘Georgie!’ He tried to focus. ‘Oh Georgie, darling, I’ve been looking everywhere for you. When are you going to make your speech?’

Then Georgie flipped.

‘Piss off,’ she screamed, advancing on him with her bouquet. ‘Just piss off you little fucker to your playpen and never come back again.’

There was an appalled silence.

‘Georgie,’ wailed Lysander.

Desperate to reach her, he lunged forward, tripping over a guy rope and lumbering into the raffle table, sending everything flying with a deafening crash. The Copenhagen dinner service was in smithereens, as were the Waterford glass and the bottles from The Pearly Gates.

‘Put not your trust in princes,’ murmured Bob.

‘Time for a natural break,’ said Meredith who was quite hysterical with laughter.

Hermione, who had hysterics of a different kind, was whisked inside the vicarage by Joy Hillary. Guy seized control of the microphone telling people to leave now to avoid broken glass, assuring them that the raffle would be drawn at a later date and all the winners would get their prizes in due course.

‘And that little shit is going to pay for them,’ he said grimly as he switched off the microphone.

After the broken glass and china had been swept up, organizers and helpers retreated to the vicarage for a well-earned drink while the money was counted. Georgie, who was shaking with mortification, only wanted to slope off home but Guy insisted she came too.

‘You’ve made a complete fool of yourself, Panda. You owe it to the committee and to me to put in an appearance and show a bit of contrition.’ The moment they entered the vicarage, he was off congratulating stall holders.

Hermione, as a result of smelling salts, two large whiskies and a vat of buttering up, was recovered enough to draw Georgie aside. Having misinterpreted Georgie’s tight lips earlier, she said: ‘I want to put your mind at rest. Guy admires me — very much indeed — it was so caring of him to buy my posy, but I’m far too much of a friend of yours to encourage him. Anyway he’s not my type.’

‘Why d’you kiss him on the fucking mouth every time you see him?’ Georgie was appalled to hear herself saying.

‘Oh Georgie.’ Hermione put her head on one side. ‘I thought by showing you everything was in the open, you’d realize nothing was going on.’

This time misreading Georgie’s stunned silence for approval, Hermione went on: ‘We all feel so sorry for Guy, he’s such a darling man, so dependable and so different when you’re not around glowering at him like a wardress. He may have lied to you, but men do lie when they’re frightened. Anyway, any man of gumption keeps a mistress,’ Hermione lowered her voice. ‘You wouldn’t want to be married to a wimp. Take a leaf out of Kitty Rannaldini’s book and accept it. Brickie knows how to behave with dignity.’

‘Because she doesn’t kick against the lack of pricks,’ snarled Georgie.

‘Oh, I’m sure Rannaldini fulfils her every need.’

Stumbling away from Hermione, Georgie searched for a friendly face, but all the stall holders, holding their glasses of cheap wine like unexploded bombs, averted their eyes. Poor Guy to be lumbered with such a liability. Did liabilities always turn men into liars?

‘I wasn’t always like this,’ Georgie wanted to plead.

‘You all right?’ It was Marigold.

‘No, I’m not. That fucking Lysander!’

‘Hush.’ Marigold drew Georgie towards the window. The ledge was covered in dust. A vase of roses was dripping petals. Joy Hillary’s thoughts had been elsewhere this week.

‘And what were you doing letting Guy buy you drinks?’

‘I was thirsty,’ said Marigold apologetically, ‘and Ay do like him. Oh, Georgie, we’ve made six thousand pounds and Ferdie’s just given us a cheque for a thousand to pay for Lysander’s breakages.’

‘Where is the little beast?’

‘Passed out in the field next door.’

‘I hope they burn the stubble with him in it.’

But Marigold wasn’t listening. ‘We’ve made six thousand and, oh, Georgie, Lady Chisleden has asked me to call her Gwendolyn.’