Pandora (15 page)

When he didn’t look like Etienne, nor Rupert, nor Casey Andrews, nor even Joan Bideford, as Somerford Keynes, the
Daily Post
critic, bitchily observed, the art world charitably assumed he must be Raymond’s – particularly when Raymond seemed even more besotted with this little chap than either of the others.

The art world was even more excited that autumn when David came down from Cambridge and joined the Belvedon, enviously assuming David was Raymond’s boyfriend, and the old dear had finally come out.

Envy quadrupled when they realized the Boy David, as he was known, was not just a pretty face. He had a cool head, and didn’t get carried away at auctions. He also had huge energy. At weekends, when he wasn’t at Foxes Court, bouncing baby Jonathan on his knee, or dispatching Jupiter and Alizarin to match autumn leaves to colour charts, he toured the provincial galleries and art schools ever searching for new talent.

Raymond was exhausted by hard work and ten years not sleeping over Galena. David on the other hand could whoop it up all night, discussing ideas with these new artists or with collectors, and still be bright and alert at his desk the following morning.

A delighted Raymond fed off the boy’s daring and youthful enthusiasm, took advantage of his fresh eye and occasionally boxed David’s ears when he got too big for his new hand-made ankle boots.

Early on David discovered Raymond wasn’t perfect. He might spend hours mopping up the tears of an old duchess worried about selling a family painting, but, having acquired the painting, he had no scruples about disposing of it profitably.

‘Always remember,’ he told David, ‘that a thing of beauty is infinitely more of a joy for ever if you can sell it for four times as much.’

David approved of the gallery making money and enjoyed spending it even more. From the moment he arrived, there was never any petty cash in the till. Fiona, Raymond’s assistant, a glamorous well-bred half-wit, spent her time cashing cheques at the pub round the corner.

David had a hill sheep’s ability to climb socially, aping Raymond’s every mannerism, his pronunciation, his wonderful Trumper’s aftershave: West Indian Extract of Lime, his style of dressing. The man-made fibres were chucked in the bin. A snob with expensive tastes, David was unable to resist the siren call of tailors in Savile Row, shirts in Jermyn Street, restaurants in Soho, Fortnum’s, Hatchards and Burlington Arcade, teeming with expensive little presents for the impossibly chic and beautiful girls gliding up and down nearby Bond Street. It was soon clear David was not going to be able to live on his salary. Petra, his still unpaid-back tutor’s wife, was threatening to sue him. The bank manager’s letters grew nastier.

One April afternoon at Foxes Court, when Raymond was proudly wheeling a year-old Jonathan in his pushchair round the village, David discussed the problem with Galena. He was immensely flattered because she had asked him to sit for her. He was now perched on the window seat in the drawing room, with Shrimpy, the Jack Russell which Rupert had given Galena for her birthday, perched on his knee.

‘You need a vife,’ said Galena.

‘If I married someone as sexy as you,’ grumbled David, ‘I’d be too worried to concentrate on work.’

‘You vant someone plain, rich, capable and kind,’ said Galena, ‘then you have safety net to come home to.

‘Jealousy is stupid. Shrimpy,’ she went on, blowing a kiss at her little dog, ‘screw everything. Every bitch he meet, table leg, ankle of vicar, but he love me best and always come back to me. What do I care what he gets up to?’

Although David had made himself useful putting Galena’s ill-gotten gains into Swiss bank accounts when he went abroad, she was getting tired of picking up bills for him, suspecting Raymond did the same.

‘Why don’t you marry Rosemary Newton?’

‘The thought had crossed my mind.’

David had been very impressed the summer before last by her calm resourcefulness, and her father’s dry-cleaning fortune. He had taken her to a couple of concerts, but had ducked out when she asked him to a ball. You didn’t dance the last waltz with St George’s horse.

‘She’s a nice girl,’ said Galena with rare enthusiasm. ‘She sent me large bottle of scent and a Tiffany christening mug when Jonathan was born. She often drop in. Alizarin and Jupiter adore her. You must not appear gold-digger.’ Mixing terra rosa with burnt sienna, she began painting Shrimpy’s red patches.

‘The rich detest freeloaders. Take her to nice restaurants, buy her pretty undervear, write her charming notes, flatter her, cherish her. It vork with my husband,’ Galena added slyly. ‘He vas eating out of your hand in a few days that first summer.’

‘Oh come on,’ David flushed, ‘I love the bloke.’

‘But you don’t vant to be roped to his apron for ever.’

Shrimpy was getting bored, bristling after the vicar’s tabby who was padding through the daffodils, trying to wriggle out of David’s clutches.

‘Can’t we have a break?’

‘Two more minutes.’

David supposed it was worth it. Galena was beginning to stockpile pictures for her exhibition in October. A handsome portrait of himself would do his reputation no harm. He could see Somerford Keynes’s definitive biography: ‘The greatest influence on Borochova’s painting was undoubtedly David Pulborough, seen here with her beloved Jack Russell, Shrimpy.’

If he were going to woo Rosemary seriously, he needed an advance.

‘Can you lend me fifteen hundred? Ouch, you little bugger.’ Seeing Raymond, Maud and baby Jonathan returning from their walk, Shrimpy had plunged his claws into David’s thighs and shot out of the room.

‘It’s OK. I’ve finished.’

Preparing a charming compliment, that only goddesses could confer immortality on mere mortals, David crossed the room to admire his portrait. Bloody hell! The bitch had only painted Shrimpy and left him out altogether. He’d have shouted at her, if he hadn’t needed the money.

Galena gave it to him in cash: ‘Be careful, it needs laundering.’

‘Perhaps Sir Mervyn will dry clean it,’ said David sourly.

The IRA were incredibly active in London that summer. Most of the restaurants were boarded up with sandbags. On their third date, for a more relaxed atmosphere, David drove Rosemary out to a very smart expensive restaurant overlooking the Thames.

He had written her wonderful letters, liberally spiced with Lamartine and Catullus. He had also given her Ma Griffe, pretty underwear, a pale blue Hermès scarf covered in butterflies, and a navy blue cashmere jumper from Burlington Arcade, all of which Rosemary was wearing that evening.

Attempting to be fashionable, she had bought a pair of flared trousers, which unfortunately emphasized her cobby thighs. Catching sight of them in a nearby mirror, she had hastily covered her lap with her table napkin.

Rosemary had been at a very low ebb when David had called her. On the eve of her thirty-first birthday, she had discovered the impoverished young charmer who’d been wooing her had been simultaneously sleeping with two of her girlfriends. David had picked up the pieces, making her laugh by writing ‘Ban Fortune-Hunting’ on a sticker in large letters to put in her rear window.

David’s jokes made Rosemary laugh anyway, because she was already curly head over flat heels in love with him. Used to attracting women easily, David recognized the terror of betraying this longing in her round, normally merry little eyes, and was touched.

The menu was colossally expensive; he’d have to wrap this courtship up soon. He hadn’t made a pass yet, because he had no desire to, and because he wanted her to think his intentions were honourable. He ordered a bottle of Moët et Chandon. Rosemary, so churned up with nerves she could hardly eat, asked for Dover sole off the bone. David chose duck à l’orange. Restaurants had ceased to frighten him: he had mastered gulls’ eggs, artichokes, asparagus, avocado pears. He no longer asked for vichyssoise and steak tartare to be heated up.

He had just taken delivery of his first bespoke suit, pinstripe and single breasted; it made him look taller, and older, as did the spectacles he put on to read the menu.

Perhaps a nine-year gap wasn’t too impossible, thought Rosemary. David was so good looking, she tried not to stare; such a sweet sensitive face, and his big dark eyes so full of sincerity.

They had lots to talk about: the Belvedons, ghastly Casey Andrews, Rupert Campbell-Black’s latest atrocity, and Fiona, Raymond’s ravishing assistant, who had been in the Upper Fourth at boarding school when Rosemary had been head girl.

‘Every Friday, Fiona leaves at lunchtime,’ grumbled David, ‘having phoned home and said: “Mummy, can you arrange to have the train stopped?” Evidently the Carlisle Express runs across her parents’ estate, so she just jumps down from her first-class carriage and scampers across the fields to some mansion.’ David tried to keep the envy and antagonism out of his voice. Fiona had recently repelled his advances.

‘She is so thick,’ he went on, ‘but Raymond likes her contacts.’

‘She’s a duck,’ said Rosemary, very relieved that David wasn’t smitten.

‘And talking of duck, here’s mine,’ said David.

God, it looked divine, pity he was supposed to be off his food with love, he must remember not to eat too much.

‘This is fun,’ said Rosemary as the waiter placed her sole in front of her.

The word ‘macho’ was beginning to be bandied around in London. David took one look at Rosemary’s Dover sole, and summoning the head waiter loudly ticked him off for not taking it off the bone.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ mumbled Rosemary.

‘Yes it does, I do not expect restaurants of your calibre to make mistakes.’

The head waiter, who didn’t like upstarts, let David run, by which time the entire restaurant was listening; then, as David drew breath, said: ‘Sir, you have paid me the greatest compliment.’

‘Don’t be bloody rude.’

In answer the head waiter lifted the top half of the sole. ‘My chef removed the bone, without you noticing it.’

David was hugely and furiously embarrassed, a little boy being laughed at in the playground again. It took all Rosemary’s tact and sweetness to calm him down.

‘I just want everything to be perfect for you,’ he mumbled.

It was a warm evening, and the cashmere jersey had turned her face scarlet. They were both relieved to retreat for coffee outside. As a peace-offering, the head waiter offered them a liqueur on the house with their After Eights. The river reminded David of Foxes Court: lights on the opposite side sending gold snakes writhing across the river, the water birds calling to each other sleepily, the dip of the oars of a late-night rower, the smell of wet vegetation.

‘Shall we have lunch tomorrow?’

‘I can’t,’ wailed Rosemary, ‘I’ve got to collect for the Cats Protection League outside Gloucester Road Station.’ She could have wept with disappointment, particularly when he didn’t suggest another date.

‘It’s been such a lovely evening.’ Rosemary pointed to the new moon disentangling itself from the black branches of the alders on the opposite bank. ‘Did you book her to appear too?’

‘I’m learning a huge amount from Raymond,’ said David idly, ‘but one day I’d like my own gallery.’

David was so thoughtful, he made the waiter pack up all the duck he hadn’t been able to eat in foil for Elspeth, Rosemary’s mother’s Pekinese.

In the car going home, he sang along to a tape of Schubert songs. In one about a beautiful wild rose in the hedgerow, he changed ‘Röslein’ to ‘Rosemary’. Rosemary’s little house in Chelsea had lift gates on the window to keep out burglars. Embarrassed he might think she expected him to kiss her, Rosemary opened the door quickly, but David grabbed her right hand.

‘Don’t g-g-go,’ he stepped up his stammer. ‘I can’t bear it, I know I’ve had a lot of girls in the past but you are so lovely.’

‘Don’t be silly,’ squeaked Rosemary.

‘Beauty is in the eye of the b-b-beholder, and I’ve got a good eye, Raymond tells me. You’re the most beautiful girl I have ever seen. I’ve met my Waterloo, Rosemary, I know you’re going to break my heart.’

‘Don’t be a clot.’

‘Yes, you will.’ David put his head in his hands. ‘Because I’ve fallen in love with you. It’s utterly presumptuous, the desire of the moth for the star. Your family are wealthy, so far above me.’

‘We’re not grand.’ Rosemary cast around desperately: ‘I like boneless soles much better than chinless wonders.’

‘Don’t mock me,’ said David in anguish. ‘I love you. The first moment at Foxes Court, I thought: “She was a phantom of delight When first she gleamed upon my sight.”’

‘That’s so lovely,’ sobbed Rosemary. ‘I’ve loved you too, ever since we cooked that sea trout together.’

‘You love me?’ said David incredulously. ‘I don’t believe it. Oh darling.’

She tasted of brandy and After Eights. He was touched by her clumsy enthusiasm and lack of experience. Under the cashmere, he discovered firm, delightfully full breasts, and was just getting her really worked up, when he pushed her away.

‘I still can’t ask you to marry me. I’m only twenty-two. My salary all goes on supporting Mum and Dad.’

‘Oh, poor you.’ Rosemary was mortified. ‘You shouldn’t have bought me that lovely dinner and all those presents.’