Girl's Guide to Kissing Frogs (37 page)

‘Sorry, dear.’ She let go. ‘That made the hairs on my neck bristle and my sphincter contract. Hell when you’ve got piles.’

‘I never saw anything so terrifying in all my life.’ Isobel turned to Sebastian and leaned against him as though for protection.

He stood up, letting her overbalance sideways and began to walk round the room, picking up cushions and looking under chairs. ‘There’s a projector somewhere. There must be.’ I noticed he kept a distance between himself and the window.

Rafe was trying to open the door that led onto the balcony.

‘You will find it locked.’ Something about the set of Conrad’s mouth, an exaggerated gravity as he pretended to be indifferent to the universal excitement, banished my lingering fears.

‘Aha!’ said Rafe. ‘I insist on being allowed to inspect the territory.’

‘It would be a brief inspection only. Yesterday the workmen removed the floor of the balcony as it has been found to be unsafe.’

‘Here,
meine lieben
, is ze boiley.’ Fritz came in with the tray, his eyes slyly merry in their beds of flesh. ‘Vat ve call
Äpfel in
Weingelee
. Ze traditional boiley of Bavaria is
apfelstrudel
but
I have no courage to try in the kitchen still a little desiring. You must ze paste roll so fine zat you can read ze
Berliner Morgenpost
zrough it.’

I gave a cursory glance to the dish of pink translucent jelly in which were set whole peeled apples, their cores filled with dark red jam. ‘It was you, Fritz, wasn’t it, pretending to be Orson Ratcliffe?’

Fritz looked at Conrad.

‘Oh, Conrad, tell me it was,’ cried Isobel. ‘I shall never get a wink of sleep again if you don’t.’

‘Don’t be silly, Isobel,’ Rafe said in an admonishing tone. ‘It was a trick. A clever one, I’ll admit.’ Then he looked at Conrad. ‘Was it kind to frighten the girls like that?’

‘I don’t think they will have come to harm. According to Aristotle, a person incapable of feeling fear would not be able to develop the virtue of courage. He recommends we make moral exercise as important as physical exercise. You are not upset, Marigold?’

‘Oh no!’ I shook my head. ‘I wouldn’t have missed it for anything. If I’d been on my own it would have been horrible. And if I hadn’t been expecting it. But I knew you were going to do something, so though I
was
frightened it was thrilling more than anything. But you
must
tell us how you did it.’

‘I’ll never forgive you if you don’t,’ said Isobel with feeling.

‘Very well.’ Conrad poured himself another glass of wine and took a sip while we waited impatiently. ‘It is an illusion so well-known that I feared that none of you would be taken in. It is called Pepper’s ghost, named for an English showman in the reign of Queen Victoria. It is as simple as it is effective. You require a black background and a sheet of glass placed at forty-five degrees to the horizontal, which the audience cannot see as they sit in a more brightly lit area. At the outer edge of the terrace below I have put up one of the workmen’s spotlights with a wide beam which runs off a small generator. When Fritz in suitable disguise – a bed sheet and his sun hat – walks below
through the arc of the spotlight, his image is reflected onto the glass and the reflection is displaced so that you think you see it on the balcony itself. A fortuitous collection of circumstances – the large sheet of glass that had just been delivered for the new balcony window, the removal of the balcony floor, the starless night for a background – these ingredients conspired to make the attempt to stage it irresistible.’

‘It was marvellous!’ cried Golly. ‘Properly cathartic. My adrenal glands have had a thorough spring clean. I wonder … supposing we made my three witches transparent, appearing and disappearing as if by magic! Think of it! It would be a sensation!’

Conrad again made that little shrug of his lips. ‘It would be impractical. You would have to construct a special arena below and in front of the stage for the witches which would interfere with the orchestra. Also the plate glass will obscure the actors’ voices so you must have microphones—’

‘Oh, don’t be such a wet blanket! What do you think, Sebastian?’

Sebastian rested his chin on his linked fingers while he considered it. ‘It could be effective. But you’d have to make sure it was a large stage so it didn’t interfere with the dancers.’

‘I’d be prepared to cut down on the dancers,’ mused Golly. ‘A pas de quatre instead of a corps?’

Sebastian’s nose became knife-like with displeasure.

After supper we regrouped round the fire with coffee, brandy and
kastanienkugeln
– little balls made from chestnuts, almonds and chocolate, rolled in cocoa powder. I made up my mind to get up half an hour earlier to run them off.

To my surprise Isobel moved to sit next to me. ‘I’m sorry I was a bitch,’ she said in a low voice. ‘About the fairy wand and the tinsel crown.’

She lit a cigarette and poured herself another brandy.

‘That’s all right. I didn’t mind.’ Which was nearly true. I was used to Isobel’s moods. I reminded myself that I no longer had to keep my body in racehorse condition and tried a sip of brandy
myself. It was like drinking fire. I imagined flames licking the rapidly blackening lining of my stomach. I picked up her cigarette lighter to examine it. It was green and enamelled with fish. ‘This is charming.’

‘Conrad gave it to me. It’s sweet of you to be forgiving but you oughtn’t to let me get away with it.’

‘I don’t like rows. And if I did protest you’d just get angrier and say something that’d hurt me more.’

Isobel made a face expressive of contrition. ‘Marigold, I want to tell you something. I’m mean to you sometimes because I’m jealous.’

‘Really? But what of?’ I asked, astonished.

‘Oh, let’s just say, one of the things I envy is your ability to lose yourself in another world. I saw you dance once. It was
The Nutcracker
and you were the Sugar Plum fairy. You were glittering, immortal. I could see that while you were on the stage you were actually
in
that enchanted world.’

I allowed my mind to drift back into remembering the old life. ‘Yes, that’s how it was. It’s a three-sided world but, because you can’t see the audience until the house lights go up for the curtain calls, it’s easy to pretend it’s real. Even though the other dancers’ faces are dripping with sweat and all that fake snow they blow about the stage is filthy by the end of a run – they sweep it up after each performance and use it again and you get showered with dust and hair and sequins and bits from other performances; I once had an apple core bounce off my arm – you do believe it’s all really happening just for that moment. Or rather, that seems to be all there is. You forget about pain and poverty and trouble with the other girls and –’ I looked across at Sebastian – ‘whatever problems there are. I didn’t know you’d seen me dance. Why didn’t you come backstage?’

She shook her head. ‘I meant to. But afterwards I went away feeling sick with envy because you had this great gift.’ She drew in a lungful of smoke and closed her eyes. ‘I’m always
me
and I can’t escape myself. Things go round and round in my head,
torturing me, and I can’t get away from them except in sleep and even then I dream the same dreams …’ She put her free hand up to her forehead and stroked it as though to ease a pain.

‘Isobel!’ I was moved from my usual slightly cynical attitude to Isobel’s freaks to genuine concern. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Oh,’ she stubbed out her cigarette and attempted to laugh, ‘I can’t have what I really want: the one thing that makes me forgetful of myself, that makes me better than I am. It isn’t my fault. It isn’t anyone’s fault. You have it and sometimes I can’t forgive you, that’s all.’

Isobel seemed to have forgotten that I had given up dancing and self-forgetfulness to marry her brother. But it was not the moment to talk about me. ‘Are you sure? What is it?’ I was mystified. I assumed something must have happened during those years in London which had jolted Isobel out of her usual devil-may-care attitude. ‘I’d do anything to help you if I only knew what.’

‘All you can do for me is to remember that when I’m beastly to you it’s because I’m jealous, and that I can’t help it. You know me so well, better perhaps than anyone.’ She looked at Rafe, who was sitting on the other side of the fire, flicking through the book he had tried to read before dinner. ‘We were like sisters once, weren’t we? We share the past. And we’ll go on sharing it.’

I kissed her, surprised and touched. I had always believed Isobel to be unsentimental. I wondered if she was a little drunk. I was fairly sure I was.

I heard Conrad say, ‘I’m sorry I’m not in a position to invest in
The Fishcake
, or whatever it is to be called. There has been a tornado in the Mid West and Lerner Charitable Foundation has underwritten many of the losses. We are liable for substantial sums and must draw in our horns.’

‘My dear chap,’ said Golly, her moon-like face wrinkling sympathetically, ‘I’m very sorry to hear it.’

I looked at Isobel. She seemed not to have heard.

Rafe put aside the book. ‘My O-level German isn’t up to Schiller, I’m afraid. What are you girls talking about? You both look very serious.’

‘We were talking about you, of course,’ Isobel said teasingly, with one of her lightning changes of mood. ‘That’s what everyone secretly hopes, isn’t it?’

Rafe lobbed a cushion at her which she caught and threw back.

‘Leave that, you old
Hausfrau
,’ called Golly to Fritz, who was spitting on his handkerchief and rubbing at marks on the dining table. ‘Let’s have some music.’

‘Good idea.’ Sebastian put down a marble figure of a naked woman, which he had been examining closely.

‘Sing to us, dear boy,’ said Golly to Fritz, ‘and Conrad shall accompany you. Your guests clamour for it.’

‘Yes, do,’ we all said, except Rafe who confined his enthusiasm to a half smile.

Conrad went to the piano and began to play a series of descending scales. It took me several seconds to identify Schubert’s
Winterreise
. Orlando Silverbridge had choreographed a not-very-successful ballet to an orchestrated version of it. Freddie had been the suicidal lover and Mariana the faithless girlfriend. I had danced the crow and Alex had been the hurdy-gurdy man. The critics had been enthusiastic. Even Didelot had given it lukewarm praise, but the piece had been too gloomy to appeal to audiences.

‘Move up, Marigold,’ whispered Golly. ‘I want to sit next to you, you ducky little thing.’ She squeezed her ample bottom onto the divan and put her arm round my shoulder. This, of course, was for Sebastian’s benefit.

Fritz leaned against the piano and began to sing, in a wonderfully expressive light baritone, the song of farewell to his love which begins the cycle. Fritz’s expression became anguished as he bemoaned his youthfulness and the bouncing health that kept him from the grave. I thought how good looking he was if one
ignored the prevailing fashion for thinness. His hair was a rich butter yellow, his eyes sapphire blue, his alabaster skin tinted with pink like the jelly we had just eaten. From time to time, Conrad looked up as he played, gazing at us with unseeing eyes, evidently in another world, of racing clouds, swirling snow and frozen rivers. I thought of Isobel, of her longing to be able to forget herself. Now she was sitting very still, her eyes half-closed, her mouth drooping. She seemed to have abandoned her flirtation with Sebastian. It had failed in its purpose – to arouse Conrad’s jealousy.

Through the window I saw that the clouds had thinned enough to let one or two stars shine through. They seemed to swirl as I gazed, or perhaps it was the brandy. I was moved by the music, the beauty of the room, affection for my companions, the extraordinary turn my life had taken … being loved by Rafe … Golly’s arm felt heavy on my shoulder, a great weight bearing down on my spine …

‘Conrad plays the piano marvellously, doesn’t he?’ said Isobel as we drove home.

‘He certainly does,’ said Rafe. ‘I’m not in the least musical, but I found I was actually quite enjoying it, though I’ve no idea what it was all about.
Sturm und Drang
, I suppose.’

‘You were full of
Sturm und Drang
when you arrived, weren’t you? I thought you were going to burst into tears just because someone scratched this awful old banger. I don’t know why you don’t buy a new car.’

‘It goes. My self-consequence doesn’t require me to drive around in something flashy. I know you like swanning about in Conrad’s Bentley.’

‘Scrooge!’

‘Show off!’

These insults were exchanged with good humour.

‘What annoys me most is having to do without the car for a day while they fix it. And I admit my self-image isn’t resilient enough to withstand the dirty-white three-wheeler they lent me
last time. Not only did I have to go to court in it, but I was going to dinner with the Howell-Joneses afterwards.’

Isobel giggled. ‘And they really
are
snobs.’

‘What’s more,’ he began to chuckle, ‘it had
Ramsbottom’s
to
the Rescue
emblazoned on the side.’

Brother and sister howled with laughter all the way down the hill.

‘Are you all right, Marigold?’ asked Rafe as we drove into Gaythwaite to catch the pub before it closed because Isobel wanted more cigarettes. ‘You and Buster have been so quiet I forgot you were there.’

‘I’m fine.’

‘You had a lot to put up with this evening. I hadn’t twigged before that Dame Gloria is a lesbian. If she’d been a man, of course, I’d have intervened to protect you, but somehow I didn’t feel I could … It explains her clothes and her manners, anyway.’

‘What a prejudiced old thing you are sometimes,’ said Isobel. ‘I’ve met some extremely pretty and well-dressed lesbians. High femmes aren’t they called? Did you know there’s a hanky code among lesbians? A pink hanky worn on the left means you like to wear a dildo – or is it the other way …? Look! Isn’t that Tom?’ It was indeed my father, walking fast, as he always did, along the dimly lit pavement. ‘Shall we say hello?’ Isobel began to wind down her window.