Simply Heaven (15 page)

And there’s a four poster. Not the sort of cast-iron-and-mosquito-net construction I’m used to from Pacific resorts, but the real McCoy: the sort of bed people get born in and die in, and probably spend their lives playing card games and drinking toddies in as well. My marital bed: the huge screen of carved oak, and giant posts made to look like tree trunks, complete with vines and flowers and assorted wildlife. I approach for a closer look, duck in behind heavy curtains and spot a snake, a couple of birds and what looks surprisingly like a possum.

I’m not sure what I’ve got in my bag that’s even remotely appropriate for this situation. All my formal gear – my wedding dress and two crumple-silk shifts designed for no-iron travelling joy – are unsuitable for the temperature both here and downstairs, and my less formal gear isn’t a lot better. I resort to tipping my backpack out on the carpet to see what I’ve got, settle, in the end, on a pair of black cotton drawstring trousers from Thailand, a strappy black vest top and a dusty blue Mao jacket. At least I won’t look like a feral, and if they think I’m a commie, then tough titty. I replait my hair, slap on a bit of mascara and eyeliner and lippy, and then I feel better.

Out in the corridor, you’d never tell there were a hundred people bellowing downstairs. The silence is unique: even my footfalls, the rustle of my jacket, are muffled, as if soaked up by the ancient air. Dust motes spiral in the shard of light falling from a window at the end of the corridor. Somewhere, a clock ticks self-importantly.

I turn right. Come almost immediately to a narrow passageway that leads to a flight of stairs. Follow it down – there are only half a dozen of them – and hook another right into a stepped corridor lined with hunting prints. Here, a set of small bedrooms leads off to either side. I can’t quite work out how they can fit beneath what must be our bedroom, but somehow they do. Five doors along, the corridor is bisected by a wider, grander one, all rosewood and Benares Ware pots. I cross over it, take the next left, pause at the top of some stairs, because I can hear voices below me, just round the next bend.

Two women, in the process of greeting each other. The sort of accents you can only get through spending your formative years talking more to animals than to human beings.

‘Well!’ says one.

‘Well indeed!’

‘Did you bring a present?’

‘No. You?’

‘Always think there needs to be a
wedding
to give a present. I’ll tell you what I
will
give them, though.’

‘What?’

‘About six months.’

A peal of laughter rings up the stairs.

They always say eavesdroppers never hear good of themselves. Being your old-fashioned masochist, I lean on the banister to listen.

‘Have you met her yet?’

‘Didn’t get a chance. I haven’t even seen her.’

‘Quite a sight, darling. Not what you’d expect it all. Especially given his normal taste. Quite a scarecrow, really.’

‘No! Rufus? I don’t believe it. He’s always had such … elegant taste.’

‘I know. I could barely believe my eyes. Six foot tall and, well – swarthy is the only way of putting it. Hair like a bird’s nest and dressed in the sort of clothes you wouldn’t let your groom out in. Mary’s devastated, of course.’

‘Poor thing. What a shock.’

‘I know. There he was with a lovely girl like Madeleine Christie all lined up and ready to go, and he gets his head turned by some Australasian masseuse.’

‘No!’

‘So I hear.’

‘You’re not serious. He wasn’t …?’

‘No, nothing quite as sordid as that. Picked him up on a beach, apparently. But all the same. I should think she’s picked up a trick or two.’

I feel myself go red in the face. I mean, yes, I have picked up a trick or two, but so have most women my age.

‘No!’

‘Divorcee, I gather.’

‘Well!’

‘Mmm,’ says the voice significantly. ‘Hence the hole-in-the-wall nature of the wedding.’

My God, what is this? The 1930s?

The voice drops confidentially, continues at a murmur. ‘… Duchess of Windsor …’ it says. ‘… Cleopatra Grip …’

Once more the voice expresses scandalised denial.

‘Well, you know what men are like …’

‘I must say, though, I’m surprised. I wouldn’t have said that Master Wattestone gave the impression that he might … need …’

‘Oh, Patsy, they’re all so spoiled these days. And obsessed with sex. Any kind of exotica’s a thrill, whether they need it or not. And besides, she’s been working her way round South East Asia with her … skills, apparently.’

‘Gosh. And when you think about what those Thai girls have to offer …’

A significant ‘Exactly.’ I can just see the pursing of the lips that goes with it. ‘It makes your toes curl. I wouldn’t have thought he was the type.’

‘Oh, come on, Lavinia, they’re all the type. Men are frightful beasts. It won’t last, of course. Sex never does. And they’ve nothing in common. It’s an age-old story.’

I’ve worked out in a flash that ‘nothing in common’ is a euphemism.

‘I dare say she’ll do the same. I don’t suppose she thought what marrying into somewhere like Bourton Allhallows was going to involve. Probably thought she’d scored herself a life of unstinting luxury.’

‘Can she even ride?’

‘Not that I know of.’

A sigh. ‘Well,’ says Lavinia. ‘All Mary can do is hope he comes to his senses reasonably quickly.’

‘She’ll be trying to get herself
enceinte
, of course,’ says Patsy. ‘Girls like that always do. Better settlement that way.’

‘Heavens! Can you imagine? I do hope Mary’s given him a good talking-to about that sort of thing.’

‘I know. Too awful. The thought of dear old Bourton being broken up for the sake of … well …’

‘I know. Got away with it by the skin of their teeth with Edmund, and now the son’s following the old man’s example.’

‘Appalling. Why on earth couldn’t he just keep her as a mistress or something?’

This is too much. I barrel down the stairs to confront them, a hundred stinging put-downs ringing in my ears.

There’s no-one there. The half-landing – white plaster walls and waist-high dado – is silent as a cloister. A floor down, I stop, perplexed, and hang over the banister in search of my slanderers. Not a sign: not below, not above. Just me and my burning cheeks. There’s no door, not an opening, until the stone-flagged ground floor two storeys down.

Perplexed, I retreat back to where I first heard them. They’re there, all right; have been joined by a man and have changed the subject.

‘Didn’t see you out last week,’ Lavinia is saying.

‘No,’ he replies. ‘Had to go to London. Ghastly. Went out on Thursday instead.’

I retreat a couple more steps. The voices disappear. Return, and there they are, clear as foghorns. Descend a couple of steps, and they vanish again.

I feel sick. This is one of those otic illusions you come across in cathedrals and suchlike, but whatever, the voices themselves were real. I’ve got to go downstairs now, face all those people, and I’ll never know which of them it is that’s just been talking about me in this way.

If it matters. After all, they were probably simply voicing what the rest of them think.

I wish I hadn’t told Rufus to go on ahead of me. I take a couple of steps; realise that I am, actually, shaking. Feel my way down the rest of the stairs like an old person whose sight is failing. And when I get there, I realise that my distress has made me forget which way to turn.

It can’t be too far. I must, by now, be at least on a level with the great hall. But I can’t hear anything. Not a dicky bird. Eventually I just head for the nearest door, which leads into a room that looks like a scullery. Every surface is piled with more of the glassy-eyed game birds that accompanied us on our trip here from Moreton-in-Marsh. They’ve obviously been lying here for some time, because the place smells rank, like old sweatsocks and fear.

I back out, go in the opposite direction. The next room contains shelf after shelf of assorted silverware; the stuff at waist height – knives, forks, spoons, a set of claret jugs and a couple of dozen chargers – white and shiny and buffed to gleaming, the rest showing various degrees of tarnish and decrepitude. I work my way along the corridor. Small room after small room containing, in one, stacked plates, in many patterns and coats of dust, in another, wine glasses, in another, water glasses. Who needs separate cupboards for different types of glass? It’s madness. Crazy. And here’s another one that contains nothing but soup bowls.

I reach the end of the corridor, push open the door and find myself in another. And now, at last, I can hear the
obbleobbleobble
. Feel relief, tempered by the dread of all those googling eyes following me in judgement.
She’s learned a trick or two … Cleopatra Grip … Girls like that always do
. My God, what have I got myself in to?

The sound gets louder. The party is obviously on the other side of the wall to my left. I can hear them in there, baying like a lynch mob, waiting for my return so they can set on me with their horsewhips.

Cleopatra Grip. What in God’s name is the Cleopatra Grip?

I try a door. Vases. On shelves. Try the next. Spare armour, as if they don’t have enough. Suppose they might need some extra siege equipment come the revolution, and they’re keeping it to hand.

Girls like that always do
.

Trays. Several dozen of them. I wonder if there is a cupboard somewhere that contains a selection of everything, all in one place. Somehow doubt it.

Things for opening wine with.

Coasters.

Hunting horns.

Guns.

There are no doors leading out the other side.

Cracked and desiccated leather boots.

Two dozen waxed raincoats.

I reach the end of the passage. The roar of chit-chat is as deafening as if I were actually in the room, but all I see is blank, peeling white wall. I put my hand on it. It vibrates with the noise. Press an ear against it.

They’re all like that when it comes down to it
.

Is Rufus? Is Rufus like that? Has he married me because he’s mesmerised by my siren skills and can’t think straight? Gozo is the island where Calypso trapped Odysseus for seven years, after all, and wouldn’t let him go. Is that how they see me? Some longhaired sea nymph who’s keeping him trapped while he weeps for home?

I tap on the wall, then thump with closed fist. I can’t see how to get through. A couple of voices raise in bellows of laughter and I’m tempted to start shouting.

A toilet flushes behind me. Turning, I see a man in a tweed jacket emerge from one of the doors on the right, doing up his flies as he goes. He stops, gives me an amiable grin.

‘Lost?’

I nod. ‘I don’t get it. I can’t find a door that—’

‘Ne’mind,’ he says. ‘First time, is it?’

I recognise his voice as belonging to the man who fell into conversation with Patsy and Lavinia. They must have been down in this corridor when I heard them, and have returned to the party from it. I guess it’ll be years before I identify them now.

‘Yeah. Yeah.’

‘Always catches people out. Funny acoustics. Come on. Chin up. It’s through here.’

To my surprise, he backs up the corridor and puts a hand on the handle of a door to the right.

‘But—’ I begin.

‘Told you,’ he says, ‘funny acoustics. Catches everybody out.’

The door opens and the roar is suddenly all around me. My saviour, grinning the grin of the Cheshire cat, ushers me through with a grandiose sweep of the arm.

We’ve come through a door in the panelling to the left of the fireplace. No-one seems to have noticed our entrance. They’re intent on their wine and their backslapping, complexions rosier than when I left, decibel level up another notch. I step through, look around. Rufus is over by the front door, deep in what looks like intense conversation with the pregnant lady. He’s frowning, has a hand on her shoulder. She leans in to him intimately, almost resting on him. This had better be his sister, or I’m going to want to know what’s going on.

Mary stands with Hilary, watching me. She catches me catching sight of her, smiles a sparkly smile and raises her glass in my direction. Hilary just looks inscrutable: a little dimple at the side of his mouth, hair so shiny it has to be synthetic.

I force a cheery smile and a wave in their direction, and plough my way through the crowd to Rufus’s side.

‘Darling.’

He puts his spare arm round my neck and hugs me. ‘I was just about to send out a search party. Have you met Tilly yet?’

The pregnant lady takes my hand and squeezes it firmly.

‘Heavens,’ she says. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

I’m feeling pretty sick by the time we get to bed. It’s turned out that those birds I came across in the cupboard, the ones I thought were rotting because they’d been forgotten, were actually what they call well-hung around here. The phrase means something else entirely in Australia. Whatever, it seems they eat them like that. Leave them lying around for a week, ten days, with their innards swelling up and fermenting inside, then they rip the feathers off and sling them in an oven and serve them with jam. The smell of decaying flesh was almost as stifling as the conversation, which mostly consisted of a blow-by-blow of a day out with the local foxhounds.

I am exhausted. Exhausted, but as wakeful as a soldier in the trenches. It’s nearly midnight by the time Rufus and I break away from a debate about puppy walking, which is, apparently, a big deal in local society, and make for our own quarters and to the deep, damp warmth of the four-poster bed with its six layers of blankets and quilts and heavyweight covers. Every one of which is essential. Now darkness has fallen, the castle is shrouded in the sort of cold that makes your bones brittle. Rufus doesn’t seem to notice. I’ve got undressed under the covers and pulled on two T-shirts to keep me warm.

‘Wow,’ I say, ‘is it always that scintillating?’

Rufus laughs. ‘I think they were a bit overtired tonight.’

‘You think? I hope so.’