Prudence (18 page)

‘Not too tired?’ he said.

‘I feel marvellous.’

‘We’ll stop soon for a drink.’

An hour later I sat in a happy stupor, drinking a huge dry martini.

‘Thank you for a heavenly day,’ I said.

Ace smiled. ‘It’s not over yet. The food’s good here. Would you like to stop for dinner?’

‘Oh, yes please,’ I said.

‘I’ll go and ring home.’ I was expanding like a flower. But my daydreams were rudely interrupted.

‘Afraid we’ve had dinner here,’ he said. ‘A couple of mates have turned up unexpectedly at home — arrived just after we left, and been cooling their heels waiting ever since — so we’d better go back. We can all eat out locally. I told Jack to book a table.’

We drove as fast as possible along the narrow roads, headlamps lighting up stone walls hung with rusty bracken and fern. The wireless was playing Schubert’s C Minor Symphony, and as various sections of the orchestra stalked catlike through the second movement, I tried to fight off bitter disappointment. No cosy tête-à-tête now, just Mulhollands scrapping all through dinner, with two more of Ace’s friends clamouring for his attention, and no doubt having conversations about politics ten feet above my head. Ace suddenly seemed very uptight too. The lovely intimacy we’d built up during the day was disintegrating like an iced lolly at the end of its stick. It was all the fault of that bloody magpie.

‘Look,’ Ace said.

‘Are they…?’ I began. We both started speaking at exactly the same time.

‘No, you go on,’ we both said.

There was a pause.

‘Are they nice, your friends?’ I said.

‘You may know one of them — Jimmy Batten. He’s a barrister; knows Pendle, I think.’

‘Oh, I love him,’ I said, perking up. ‘He was prosecuting in Pendle’s rape case. Who’s the other bloke?’

‘It’s a girl,’ said Ace. ‘An American called Berenice de Courcy.’

‘Sounds familiar,’ I said. ‘Doesn’t she churn out best-sellers about raising one’s consciousness? She’s a big star in the States, isn’t she?’

‘That’s right,’ said Ace, slowing down to avoid a sheep.

‘And ravishingly beautiful — “I can support the movement
and
shave my legs” sort of thing?’

‘That’s the one.’

‘Trust Jimmy Batten to have someone like that in tow. I thought he was married.’

‘Not very,’ said Ace, putting his foot on the accelerator.

I wanted to put on some make-up to compete with the formidable Berenice, but there was not much I could do careering along in the dark. I nearly gouged out my eye with my mascara wand, then slapped on the dregs of a bottle of Diorissimo and had done with it.

They were all in the drawing-room when we got back. Neither Rose nor Maggie were looking their best. Rose had obviously had too much to drink and no time to wash her hair. A three-day-old fringe separated on her forehead, showing up lines, making her look much older than usual. Maggie was sulking and wearing too much make-up. Jimmy Batten stood with his back to the fire, nursing a large gin and tonic and exuding urbanity. He looked less attractive than I remembered him. His camel-coloured casual clothes were a little too tight, and clashed with his now drink-flushed face. His sleek, dapper otter good looks went much better with a dark suit. Jack, just back from the office, already with several large whiskies under his belt, was gazing at Berenice with undisguised admiration. And well he might, because she was
ravishing,
straight out of the pages of Harpers, with a mane of black hair rippling down her back, a long lean figure, slitty dark eyes, a wide red mouth and a conker brown suntan. She was wearing a black satin shirt, grey suède Gauchos clinched by a black Hermes belt, and black cowboy boots which showed off her terrific legs. And she exuded so much glossy good health she made everyone else look like hospital cases. Goodness, I thought, J. Batten has done well for himself. The next moment she had swiftly crossed the room to us.

‘Ivan, sweetest,’ she purred, taking both his hands, ‘I know we should have warned you, but I got your letter, and you sounded so down I decided to come over myself instead of answering.’

Ace gave a slightly twisted smile, and kissed her smooth brown cheek.

‘You were always one for surprises. I thought you were in Florida.’

‘I got bored out of my mind with sunbathing. Then James phoned from New York, and persuaded me to come over.’

‘Hullo Ace,’ said Jimmy, grinning. ‘I was guarding her from hijackers, honest I was.’

Then he gave me a great hug.

‘Pru, my darling, I hear you’ve been terribly poorly. You do look a bit pulled down. Never mind, Berenice is the health freak round here. She’ll soon pump you full of mega-vitamins and have you right as rain.’

‘Hi, Prudence,’ said Berenice, flashing her great white teeth at me. ‘James hasn’t stopped talking about you since we met.’

She turned back to Ace.

‘How was Venezuela, darling? I read your piece on Sunday. It was terrific. Boy, can you empathize with the under-privileged! And I’ve got finished copies of
Brave Nutritional World
,’ she went on, picking up a book with a large photograph of herself on the front. ‘They’re already reprinting. My British publishers really zapped out when they heard I was coming. The BBC and Border have already been on, and I’m going to Granada in Manchester tomorrow.’

Ace laughed. ‘You’ve certainly been busy.’

‘Rose-Mary has been so gracious letting me use the phone,’ said Berenice, smiling at Rose. ‘You’re quite right about your family, Ivan. I recognized Margaret and Rose-Mary, and of course Jack, immediately without being introduced. We’ve been verbalizing non-stop since we arrived.’

For a second I caught Jack’s eye and started to giggle, then hastily turned it into a cough.

‘I’ll get you a drink,’ said Jack, who wanted an excuse to refill his own. ‘Sure you won’t change your mind, Berenice? She refuses to drink anything but tomato juice,’ he added to Ace.

Berenice smiled and said she didn’t need alcohol, she was ‘bombed out of her skull just meeting Ivan’s folks’. She didn’t seem quite so keen on the animals, giving Coleridge and Wordsworth vertical pats to keep them away whenever they approached her, and fussily brushing Antonia Fraser’s ginger fur off the sofa — and her shirt.

‘I don’t mean to sound pressing,’ said Jimmy Batten, as his glass was filled up, ‘but I for one ought to mop up some alcohol soon.’

‘I’ve booked a table at Dorothy’s at 9.30,’ said Jack.

Rose peered at her face in her powder compact, then calmly got a pair of pants out of her bag and cleaned the glass with them. Berenice determinedly didn’t look shocked.

‘You can count me out,’ said Rose, putting pants and mirror away and getting to her feet. ‘I’m going to wash my hair and go to bed early.’

‘I’m going to change,’ I said.

‘Are they staying the night?’ I said to Rose as we went upstairs.

‘Yes. Mrs Braddock’s made up a bed.’

‘Hadn’t they better have my room,’ I said, ‘It’s got a double bed.’

‘Oh no sweetie, it’s not worth shifting your things just for one night. Jimmy’s going early tomorrow morning. He can have Linn’s room, and Berenice’ll be sleeping with Ace.’

I clutched the banisters for support.

‘I thought she was Jimmy’s girlfriend,’ I whispered.

‘Oh no, darling. She and Ace have been living together in New York for the past six months.’

‘Are you sure?’ I said.

‘Of course I am,’ said Rose rather acidly. ‘She’s spent all afternoon, when she wasn’t on the telephone, telling us what a “warm beautiful human being” Ace is. I hope she’s tough enough to cope with him.’

Once in my room, despair overwhelmed me. To be
so
unprepared. To have no idea I had fallen so totally in love, only to find it was hopeless. And to think I’d been presumptuous enough to imagine that a man in Ace’s class could possibly fancy someone as young and unsophisticated as me. It was ludicrous.

I didn’t cry. It’s funny, you don’t when something really cataclysmic happens. I sat on the bed trembling and dry eyed, clutching the kitten who purred noisily, and grooved the side of its face against my chin.

Desperately I cast around for some kind of comfort, but there was none. No lifebelts, no driftwood, no passing ships.

‘Oh no,’ I whispered. ‘No, no, no.’

There was a knock on the door. My heart leapt. Perhaps it was Ace come to say it was all some horrible mistake. But it was Lucasta in tears.

‘I can’t find my foxy,’ she sobbed. ‘I’ve looked for him everywhere.’

‘He’s in the hot cupboard,’ I said. ‘We put him there after he fell in the bath yesterday.’

‘Oh, so we did. Please don’t go away again. I’ve been left with Mrs Braddock all day. I wasn’t allowed in the drawing-room because Bare Knees is there. She said she just loved children; then she kept telling me to go away. Granny says she’s going to marry Ace. I hope she doesn’t. At twelve o’clock tonight, I can say tomorrow’s my birthday. You will stay for my party, won’t you?’

Would I? I was tempted to bolt straight back to London, but couldn’t bear to tear myself away quite yet.

‘Oh look,’ said Lucasta, running to the window.

Snow was beginning to fall. A glistening, crumbling drift had formed on the window ledge. Now a storm of big flakes swept giddily by.

‘Tomorrow we can make a snowman. Oh, I wish I had a sledge.’

I looked at myself in the mirror. My reflection stared back pale and hollow-eyed, with the exhausted gritted-teeth look of a candidate who’s just lost his seat. What the hell could I wear tonight? Ace had seen everything I’d brought. All my seductive clothes were in London, anyway, except for my green culotte dress, which was much too naked, and went too well with my little green face.

In the end I kept my jeans on, and put on a white slightly see-through shirt. Not that there’s much to see any more, I thought gloomily. Then I discovered I’d left my only decent eye-shadow behind in the pub at lunchtime. It seemed centuries ago, when I was happy.

Ace was waiting in the hall.

He’d changed into a suit and a pink shirt. Oh the beauty of those broad pinstriped shoulders, and long, long legs. I could smell his aftershave. I felt faint with longing.

‘Are you sure you’re up to going out?’ he said.

I could read the compassion in his eyes.

‘I’m fine,’ I snapped, absolutely terrified of betraying myself.

Dorothy’s restaurant was named after Dorothy Wordsworth. It had soft lighting, black beams, framed photostats of pages from Dorothy Wordsworth’s diary on the whitewashed walls, and forced daffodils on every table. It was pretty but a bit twee. Berenice, however, absolutely freaked out, standing in the doorway of the dining-room in her huge wolf coat, shrieking,

‘My God, I am not ready for this! I am simply not ready for this!’

‘Well if you’re not, I am,’ said Jimmy Batten briskly. ‘Come on, Pru. You go in first. I’ll sit next to you.’

Maggie sat on the other side, with Jack opposite me, and Berenice next to him, and then Ace. So at least I didn’t have to spend all dinner directly avoiding his eyes. Berenice made a great deal of palaver about removing her coat and entrusting it to the waiter, until everyone in the restaurant was staring at us.

‘Isn’t this place just darling?’ she went on, glancing round at the couples in the alcoves. ‘We
must
come here on our own one evening, Ivan darling.’

She was slightly less amused when she consulted the menu, which took up the whole table, and discovered there were no vegetarian dishes.

‘I forgot you were all on this carnivore trip over here,’ she said. ‘Can you have a word with the waiter, Ivan? They might have some egg plant lasagne or some lentils.’

‘They’re not into all that macrobiotic crap over here,’ said Ace. ‘This is England.’

‘Oh well,’ said Berenice, looking martyred, ‘I’ll just settle for veggies and sour cream this evening.’

‘I’d like an enormous steak, very rare, and chips,’ Jack said to the waiter. ‘And tell the wine waiter to step on it.’

‘We’re not into gourmet tripping any more in the States,’ said Berenice. ‘I just ask people to drop around and take pot luck.’

‘And then dump another quart of water in the lentil soup,’ said Jimmy Batten, spreading butter thickly on a roll.

Berenice looked at him in disapproval. ‘You don’t realize what white flour does to you, James. It amazes me the garbage you British eat. Ivan was living on hamburgers when I met him. No wonder he nearly had an ulcer.’

‘When’s your new book coming out?’ said Jack.

‘In January. It’s being translated into fifteen languages.’

‘It ought to be translated into English first,’ said Ace.

‘Oh starp, sweetest, starp,’ said Berenice, laughing. ‘He’s so vile about my literary style. Being an academic, I’m afraid I’m used to writing for an optimum intellectual readership. You know I can’t believe I’m in Ivan’s home town at last.’

‘We can’t quite believe you’re here either,’ said Jack. ‘We’re going to need at least four bottles, Ace.’

‘Such a relief going into a restaurant where I’m not known,’ said Berenice. ‘In the States I can’t cross the street without being mobbed.’

She’s utterly poisonous, I thought.

‘Cheer up, darling,’ whispered Jimmy Batten in my ear. ‘How’s Pendle?’

‘He’s coming up on Saturday to collect me,’ I said.

‘Not going very well?’

I shook my head.

‘Thought as much.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Still after Maggie? Poor old you. I should have warned you when we met in London. Maggie looks terrible too. I’ve never seen such a deterioration in anyone. She used to be
so
pretty.’

The dinner seemed to go on for ever. I had to force myself to get any food down, taking frequent gulps of wine. Ace was talking to Jimmy Batten about delinquency in New York. Berenice was going on and on about Jack’s unimaginative life style. ‘You ought to cut out that nine to five shit,’ she said, waving a cauliflower floweret in the air, ‘and get in touch with the universe.’