Pandora (16 page)

‘I couldn’t help myself. Raymond gives me a small commission. I sold a drawing by Ingres last week.’

‘That’s why you’ve lost weight, you can’t afford to eat. I’m not poor,’ she went on tearfully. ‘I’ve got enough for both of us and your parents, I’m an only child, so one day all Daddy’s money . . .’

‘I’ll make a fortune one day.’

‘Of course you will.’

David rather wanted another feel of those wonderful breasts, but thought now was the right cut-off moment.

‘I can’t expect you to wait for me. You must have lots of kids and a big house.’

‘I don’t want—’

But David had leapt out of the car and, belting round, opened the door; then, as she stumbled out, cried dramatically: ‘Goodbye, Rosemary darling, I love you too much to pull you down to my level.’

As he roared off, instantly switching to Radio One, in his driving mirror, he could see she was crying. She’d also forgotten her duck doggie bag, which he could eat when he got home.

David sang ‘Who wants to be a millionaire?’ at the top of his voice all the way back to his bedsitter in Bayswater.

Rosemary dolefully clanked her tin in Gloucester Road. She’d been too dispirited to accost anyone and after half an hour had only collected half a crown and an Irish penny for the Cats Protection League. How would the poor strays survive? Catching sight of her, shoppers scuttled past, not wanting to be nabbed, clutching their fares as they plunged into the womb of the tube station. It gave her a dreadful feeling of déjà vu: young men at deb parties had long ago shot into darkened discos with the same averted eyes.

She jumped at a screech of brakes.

‘“Oh Rosemar-ee, I love you,”’ sang a wonderfully familiar tenor.

Rosemary started to cry. Slowly, through her tears, she became aware of a heavenly vision, a young Apollo framed in the window of Raymond’s dark blue E-Type. The boot was full of canvasses.

‘Jump in,’ yelled David.

Rosemary blushed furiously, aware of astonished passers-by.

‘I’m on duty till two o’clock.’

‘Fuck duty. Get in.’

Rosemary did, straight into David’s arms, to be kissed on and on, until every outraged motorist in London seemed to be hooting to the drumming accompaniment of her heart.

‘I must go back,’ she gasped as a grinning David finally drove off, making V signs to left and to right.

‘You must
not
.’ Fumbling in the dashboard, David handed her a wad of Galena’s unlaundered greenbacks. ‘That should protect a few pussies.’

‘You can’t give me all that money.’

‘I’ve booked us into the Royal Garden for a quicky, but only if you promise to marry me to make it respectable.’

‘Yes, please,’ gasped Rosemary, as he pulled up in front of the hotel and, throwing his car keys to the door man, seized Rosemary’s hand and belted inside.

‘I’ve only been to bed with one and a half men,’ mumbled Rosemary as he wrestled with the endless buttons of her flowered Laura Ashley.

‘What didn’t the half one do?’

‘Couldn’t get it up.’ Rosemary hung her curly head. ‘Probably didn’t find me exciting enough.’

‘Unlike me,’ sighed David, as white breasts flew like doves out of an even whiter bra, ‘I find you wildly exciting.’ Then, dropping to his knees: ‘This is definitely one pussy I want to protect.’

St George’s horse, he reflected afterwards, gave him one of the nicest rides he’d ever had.

‘But you mustn’t tell anyone,’ he begged, ‘until I’ve asked your father’s permission.’

He was simply dreading breaking the news to Raymond.

Having made his pile and married very far up, Sir Mervyn Newton approved of young men on the make. He had adored sponsoring Rupert Campbell-Black and seeing the ‘Good as Newton’ slogan emblazoned across Rupert’s showjumping lorry, but he had sadly recognized that Rupert was not going to offer for Rosemary. It looked likely the poor lass might never get a husband. Sir Mervyn was so disappointed there would be no grandson to carry on the line that he had, as a means of acquiring immortality, become obsessed with his art collection.

The morning after David and Rosemary’s lunchtime romp in the Royal Garden, Mervyn dropped into the Belvedon. Having just acquired a Romney from a somewhat dodgy gallery, he wanted Raymond’s opinion that it was ‘right’. As Raymond was out at Trumper’s having his hair cut, David hastily shoved another foul letter from his bank manager into his top drawer and, after one look, told Mervyn he must take the picture straight back.

‘You can still smell the turpentine, sir, probably painted in 1972 rather than 1772,’ then, subtly applauding Mervyn’s taste, ‘but it’s an extraordinarily good copy.’

‘How can you tell it’s a copy?’

‘It’s like asking a farmer the difference between Guernseys and Friesians.’

Mervyn was most impressed. Why didn’t he buy David lunch, while his chauffeur took the Romney plus a flea in the ear back to the rogue gallery?

‘Only if you’ll let me pay, sir.’

‘We’ll argue about that later.’

Raymond in fact had double dated, and David had been just about to ring the Ritz and cancel his boss’s favourite table overlooking Green Park, but decided to hang on to it for himself and Mervyn.

Not only did David remember he drank gin and tonic but never had Mervyn met anyone who found the dry-cleaning business quite so fascinating. Gazing at Mervyn’s gleaming, pinky-brown pate and face, David decided he had never met anyone so like a baked bean. And I won’t have to eat you on toast any more if I marry your daughter, he thought resolutely. His landlady in Bayswater was hectoring him for last month’s rent.

Staring into a cup of coffee, black as Galena’s eyes, David took a gulp of Pouilly-Fumé.

‘I must pay for lunch, sir, because I’m about to ask you a huge favour.’

An interview for his cousin, thought Mervyn in disappointment. A biro mark his mother can’t get off her new coat. For a second, he didn’t take in the words: ‘daughter’s hand in marriage’.

‘I know I’m nine years younger than R-r-r-r-r-rosemary’ – there were tears in the boy’s eyes – ‘I know she’s had a rough time with other chaps. But I truly love, admire and long to cherish her and I’m certain, with her by my side, I could do really well in the art world.’ Impatiently he shook his head at a hovering waiter: ‘Unless you’d like a brandy, sir?’

‘I would indeed,’ cried Sir Mervyn joyfully.

Margaret, his wife, had been seven years older and much better bred than he. He had never been faithful to her, but she had her garden (which was opened more often than her legs these days), and her Pekes, and last year the title (which his hard work had bestowed on her), and they rubbed along very well. David seemed so genuine when he outlined his plans for the future.

‘I like Yorkshire folk,’ said Mervyn. ‘They call a spade a spade.’

All the better to gold-dig with. David fought a hysterical desire to laugh.

He insisted on paying the bill with the last of Galena’s money.

Cash, noted Mervyn.

‘Sometimes we do deals on paintings,’ murmured David. ‘People are happy to accept considerably less for cash. If you were interested . . . I know you’re in a hurry, sir, but if you really feel it’s OK for me to marry Rosemary, I did go ahead and buy her a ring, just as a present.’

‘What does Rosebud feel?’ asked Mervyn fondly. ‘Old girl keeps her feelings reined in.’

Horses should, thought David.

‘She admits she cares for me, enough to marry me. I know I can make her happy, but I wouldn’t dream of putting this on her finger until I knew you and Lady Newton had agreed.’

On a bed of dark blue velvet lay a huge heart-shaped diamond also paid for by Galena.

‘Lovely setting.’ Mervyn examined it. ‘Couldn’t have chosen anything nicer myself. I’m sure Lady N. will be just as pleased. Where are you planning to live?’

‘Well, Rosie’s got her little house, and I’ve got plans to rent one of the cottages down at Foxes Court. I imagine Rosie’ll want kids very soon, and I’d like to get her out of the way of the IRA.’

And I could visit them, reflected Sir Mervyn, and take that sexy Galena out to lunch.

Having tipped the waiter exactly ten per cent, David said he ought to get back to the gallery.

Good conscientious lad, thought Mervyn approvingly.

‘I’ll come with you,’ he said. ‘Chauffeur can drive us. What are you showing?’

‘Marvellous Pre-Raphaelites downstairs, Casey Andrews drawings upstairs.’

‘Loved it when Rupert hit him across the lawn,’ admitted Mervyn. ‘Presumptuous oaf, thinking a lovely woman like Galena could fancy him.’

‘I’m the luckiest, happiest man in the world,’ said David, realizing as they glided up Old Bond Street that he could now afford all the ravishing girls they were passing.

Hey diddly dee, a fat cat’s life for me, sang David under his breath.

Raymond, who was examining a Rossetti of a redhead in a green silk dress, turned pale and dropped his eyeglass when David broke the news. But true to form, he immediately pulled himself together, congratulated David warmly, and, having sent him off to open a bottle of champagne, told Mervyn what a charming, kind, trustworthy, clever husband he would make.

‘Galena, I and the boys are devoted to him.’

Fiona, Raymond’s fair assistant, got the giggles.

‘Just like winning the pools, David.’

Later, more bottles were opened, Rosemary came over and was given her ring, and Mervyn bought the Rossetti.

‘We must tell Mummy,’ sighed a starry-eyed Rosemary, ‘she hates being left out.

‘We’re to go over to drinks later,’ she said, putting down the telephone. ‘Mummy sounds pleased. Are you the Tadcaster Pulboroughs?’ she asked.

‘No, he’s the Pull-everything-in-sightborough,’ muttered Eddie the packer, who’d just returned from a delivery.

‘Hush,’ giggled Fiona, ‘and have some fizz.’

Passers-by, seeing the merry-making and assuming it was a private view, came in from the street, and Raymond ended up selling a Millais and two of Casey’s drawings.

‘Do you really love her?’ he asked David.

‘Not as you love Galena, but I think I can make her happy. She looks happy.’ David glanced across the gallery at a flushed Rosemary, who was shrieking with laughter with Fiona as she whispered about the wad of greenbacks for the Cats Protection League.

‘Quite frankly,’ he went on, putting a hand on Raymond’s arm, ‘I gave my heart away two years ago. Being with you, working with you, is the most important thing in my life, and there’s no way R-R-R-Rosebud’s going to change that. Anyway, she adores you. First day I met her at Foxes Court, she said you were the most smashing chap she’d ever met.’

‘I hope she thinks you’ve taken over that role,’ said Raymond drily, but he felt happier.

‘Fallen on his fucking feet, hasn’t he, Guv,’ grumbled Eddie as a half-cut David was led off to meet Lady Newton.

‘I hope so,’ mused Raymond. ‘He’s spurned Aphrodite in favour of Mammon. Reject the Goddess at your peril.’

‘There you go, rabbiting on like Fiona about people I’ve never ’eard of,’ grumbled Eddie. ‘Let’s open another bottle.’

Margaret Newton, who, with her lack of chin and bulging eyes, resembled a well-upholstered turbot, was less of a pushover than her husband. Dom Pérignon was opened, toasts drunk, futures discussed, the exciting art collection admired, by which time David was plastered and terrified of letting his accent slip. Instead his glass slipped out of his hand, splashing the polished floor with champagne, which David proceeded absentmindedly to wipe up with Elspeth, his future mother-in-law’s Pekinese. Thank God, Mervyn, not a fan of his wife’s dog, thought this extremely funny.