Simply Heaven (16 page)

‘Don’t be a bitch, Melody. They’re simple country folk. That’s what they talk about. What do you talk about in Brisbane, then? International current affairs?’

I think about the nights I’ve spent listening to detailed dissections of the day’s play at Catch-me-fuck-me and decide not to pursue it. ‘Fair dos,’ I say. Then: ‘Stop it, you sod.’

‘Well, cheer up, then,’ he says, and stops tickling me.

‘Give it a rest. Who said I wasn’t cheerful?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. I suppose I’m psychic.’

I don’t say anything.

‘That,’ he says, ‘and the fact that you’ve had a face like a slapped arse since half-past six.’

‘You’re turning into a right little ocker,’ I tell him. ‘Who’s that guy Hilary, anyway?’

‘Hilary? Mummy’s walker.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Her walker. Takes her to art galleries and things. Meets her in London for lunch during the hunting season when Daddy’s too busy. Everyone’s got one.’

‘Is he gay, then?’

‘We prefer to call it ‘safe in taxis’,’ he informs me. ‘Hilary’s got the flat in Chelsea. The basement. Keeps an eye on the house when there’s no-one there.’

‘You have a house in Chelsea?’

‘
We
do. Not a very big one.’

‘Mmm. Got any others?’

‘Not that I can think of.’

‘Apart from a few dozen derelict ones up in the village.’

‘Well,
you’re
observant.’

‘What’s with that, anyway?’

He rolls away from me, throws a hand behind his head on the pillow and says: ‘Can we not talk about that stuff tonight?’

‘Why?’

‘Because I’ve had a skinful of it already. I’ve had my ear bent by everybody today.’

‘So, what? Don’t want to worry the little woman?’

‘Can it, Mel. You’ll find out all about all of it. I just
really
don’t want to spend the night going over the estate accounts.’

‘OK.’ I decide to change the subject. ‘So, like, this Hilary geezer. It’s some kind of work creation thing for otherwise useless benders, yeah? A sort of upper-class charitable scheme?’

‘Hilary works.’

‘What at?’

‘He has – his work.’

I raise an eyebrow.

‘OK. He’s writing a book.’

I raise the other one.

Rufus starts sniggering. ‘On great British art collectors.’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘In Florence between the wars.’

‘And how long’s he been writing it?’

‘Um … d’you know, I think it’s been all his life? Well, since he left university.’

‘Which was?’

‘Umm … nineteen sixty-seven, I think.’

I start to laugh too.

‘He has to go on a lot of research trips,’ he says.

‘I’ll bet he does.’

‘And he advises rich ladies on their art collections.’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘And sources antiques for them.’

‘That go with their complexions.’

‘Don’t talk about it to Mummy like that.’

‘Wouldn’t dream of it. Does he help her with her shopping?’

‘Takes her to smart hotel bars and buys her cocktails.’

‘Tells her she’s divine.’

‘Well, she is, darling.’

‘Of course she is.’

‘Hilary’s Mummy’s best friend.’

‘Oh, good. We’ll be best friends too, then.’

His body language has improved. He turns in to face me, slips an arm over my torso.

‘Who were all those people, anyways?’

‘Just friends.’

‘You’ve got that many friends?’

‘Oh, those are just the
close
ones.’ After about ten seconds, he says: ‘Joke.’

‘Oh, right.’

‘Anyway,’ he says, ‘Hilary is my godfather. He’s also one of Granny’s godchildren’s children. Like me. Only a generation older.’

‘Your dad’s his own mother’s godchild?’

‘D’oh. No. Mummy.’

‘Strewth. You guys don’t half like your incestuous relationships.’

‘It’s an effective weapon in the build-up and maintenance of wealth.’

‘Yada yada yada,’ I say. ‘Your grandmother seems like an entertaining old stick.’

‘Well, she’s still got
some
of her marbles,’ he says.

‘Those diamonds she was wearing tonight: were they for real?’ Against her wrinkled
décolletage
they looked like dewdrops on a basket of walnuts, but they were impressive none the less.

‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Family ones. Her family.’

‘Must be worth a few bob.’

‘That’s right. Bring it back to the venal. Don’t you believe in sentimental value?’

‘Oh, yeah, sentimental value. I’ll believe in that when insurance companies start doing policies on the kiddies’ drawings on the people’s fridges. I’ve always noticed that the sentimental value of jewellery always seems to go up in direct correlation to its fiscal value. Wears a lot of plastic beads, ever, does she?’

‘We don’t usually let her out in the diamonds, truth be told,’ Refus says. ‘Everyone’s always a bit nervous when she wears them. She’s got a bit of a track record for losing things. I’ve grown up on the family legend of the Callington Emerald.’

‘The Callington Emerald?’

‘Gigantic thing, came down through the distaff side. Size of a pigeon’s egg, set in gold with a string of diamonds.’

‘Tasteful. Bet
that’s
got some sentimental value.’

‘
Had
. Plenty, I think, if she hadn’t let it fall off the last time she wore it. Nicked from some Rajah in the eighteenth century. Massively underinsured, of course. Could’ve got a couple of Lear jets and change out of it. People have been looking for it ever since but she doesn’t even remember which part of the house she was in at the time. Just says she doesn’t remember. And she was only sixty-odd at the time.’

‘She
lost
an emerald the size of a pigeon’s egg?’

Rufus shrugs. ‘It’s a big house.’ Then suddenly, in a clunky change of subject, he blurts: ‘Tilly’s husband’s done a bunk.’

I sit up. Think better of it. Lie back down again. ‘No!’

‘Seems like it. Gone off somewhere with his secretary.’

‘But she’s pregnant!’

‘Is she? I hadn’t noticed. That puts a whole new complexion on the matter.’

‘Well, I’ll be stuffed.’

‘Bastard. And do you know what? It happened eight weeks ago and Mummy didn’t say a thing.’

‘That’s weird.’

‘Yuh.’

‘What do you think she’s playing at?’

‘I don’t know. I haven’t had a chance to talk to her yet. I guess perhaps she’s clinging on to some fantasy that he’ll reappear and no-one will be any the wiser.’

‘Pfff,’ I say.

‘That’s sort of what I said. Especially when it turns out that not only has he cleared out the bank accounts, but he remortgaged the house and ran off with that as well. He transferred the documents into Tilly’s name a few months ago, so she’s liable for the lot. The house is on the market and she’s going to be lucky if she gets out of it all with nothing.’

‘But that’s illegal, surely?’

Rufus shrugs. ‘Don’t think so. She signed the papers. She’s quite unworldly, I suppose. I don’t know. No. He was her husband and he said it was something to do with tax breaks, and she didn’t have any reason not to believe him.’

‘She can chase him for it.’

‘I’m sure she would, if anybody knew where he’d gone. Last heard of catching a plane to Addis Ababa, with a gal pal in a powder-blue power suit. No sign of him since.’

‘Jesus.’

‘Mmm.’

‘Poor cow.’

‘Mmm.’

‘What are we going to do?’

‘I like that “we”,’ he says, and smiles. ‘Thanks for that. We’ll work something out.’

‘Christ. It makes what Andrew did to me look like chickenfeed. At least I didn’t get bankrupted.’

‘And you met me.’

‘Yip. That’s true. Rufus?’

‘Yes, my love and helpmeet?’

‘I overheard some people.’

‘Ah. I’d been wondering.’

‘They seem to think I’m some sort of hard-as-nails fortune-hunting divorcee.’

‘Better get you a manicure and a big bottle of fake tan, then.’

‘Not something to joke about.’

‘Joking is the only possible way to react.’

‘They think you’re obsessed. Sexually, you know? That I’ve trapped you with my womanly wiles?’

He laughs. ‘Well, they could have a point.’

He puts a hand on my breast.

‘Do they really think that sort of thing?’

‘Of course they do, darling. The older generation are completely obsessed with sex.’

‘Not like us,’ I say.

‘No,’ he says, ‘not like us at all.’

‘I love you, you know,’ I say.

‘Good. I love you. A lot. Almost as much as I love my dogs.’

‘Glad you’ve got your priorities sorted.’

And then we’re not talking for a bit.

I say: ‘Rufus?’

He says: ‘Mmm?’

‘What’s the Cleopatra Grip?’

‘Where on earth did you hear
that
from?’

‘Something to do with the Duchess of Windsor.’

‘Ah,’ he says.

‘Well?’

He tells me.

‘Oh, right,’ I say. ‘Sort of like this, you mean …?’ Rufus heaves a gratifying sigh.

‘If I’d known you could do that,’ he says, ‘I’d have married you
days
earlier.’

I dream that we’re on a rollercoaster and we’ve reached the top of a very high ascent, are looking down into the maw of hell, when the structure shudders underneath us. Lurches, first to one side, then the other. The car we’re in lurches in response, throws me first one way, then the other. The metal holding bar clicks, flies open, and I find myself clinging on for life as the car tips once more, leans out over the edge.

I thrash back to consciousness, barely hold back a shout of terror. The bedroom is shaking around us. Creak of beams, crack of floorboards, a low drum-roll of shaking; even the air outside our high-piled blankets seems to be trembling. I think for a moment that I’ve brought the dream with me, that what I’m experiencing is a vestigial hallucination, but I hear something small rattle and fall from the bedside table to my left, and realise that it’s the room that has brought the dream about.

Rufus is still asleep. How can he be? I’m clutching the nearest four-poster upright as though I’m going to fall out of bed altogether if I let go. The roof’s about to cave in, and he’s snoring as though nothing is happening at all.

Gradually, the movement subsides. With a couple of groans, the house goes quiet. Rufus grunts, smacks his lips on some tasty morsel, pulls the covers back up around his neck.

‘What the hell was that?’ I ask. He doesn’t reply. I shake him.

‘Nuuh?’

‘Rufus, what the hell was that?’

‘What?’

‘Didn’t you feel it? The whole bloody house was shaking!’

‘Go’sleep,’ he says.

‘Rufus!’

‘
Whaaa
’?’

‘For Pete’s sake! Didn’t you notice
anything?
’

‘Does that sometimes,’ he mumbles. ‘’S a’ old house.’

He’s obviously still half asleep. I push gently at his shoulder. ‘Rufus, that felt like an earthquake.’

He comes slightly closer to the surface. ‘No. Don’t worry about it. Old houses. They move. Settle on their foundations. ‘’Snothing.’

‘How can you call that
nothing
? I thought the whole bloody lot was going to come down on top of us.’

Rufus heaves a sleepy sigh. ‘Said. Happens. Been happening all my life. You’ll get used to it. Stop worrying.’

‘You have got to be
kidding
me! You call that nothing? That was the sort of thing you get just before a tower block collapses.’

Rufus sits up. ‘Tower blocks,’ he says, ‘are poorly constructed things built in concrete in the past century. This house has been standing for many hundreds of years. Stop fussing, woman. It does that from time to time. It’s like it’s turning over in its sleep. Stop it getting bedsores.’

I shake my head. It’s bloody freezing in here. I pull the bedclothes up around me.

‘Seriously,’ he says. ‘You’re just not used to it. Go back to sleep. It’s nothing.’

Reluctantly, I slide back down into the warmth of the bed. ‘Seriously?’

‘Seriously.’

‘I’m not sure I believe you.’

He snuggles in, puts his arms round me, kisses me on the temple. ‘Mel, Bourton Allhallows has been around for a thousand years. I don’t think it’ll fall down just like that.’

From behind the door, the clink of cutlery on china, female voices murmuring, and a single one, my mother-in-law’s, raised in proclamation.

‘… don’t really know how she’ll fit in,’ she is saying. ‘I mean, it was fairly obvious how out of it she was last night.’

Rufus opens the door. ‘Now, Mummy, don’t be beastly,’ he says. I wonder if I’ll ever get over the way they talk, like an Enid Blyton book.

Mary gets to her feet, showing no sign of discombobulation, smiles that warm, treacherous smile. ‘I wasn’t being beastly,’ she says smoothly. ‘I was worrying. We so want you to feel at home.’ She approaches me and lands a cool cheek against mine. ‘Good morning, Melody, darling. I do hope you managed to get a decent night’s sleep. It’s still rather bachelor-pad in there, I’m afraid.’

Instantly, and against my will, I feel the blood creep to my cheeks. Because, of course, we didn’t spend a lot of time sleeping last night, and I don’t suppose for a moment that she assumes we did. Or maybe she does. Yet again, I feel like the scarlet-taloned predator. That, or the fifteen-year-old who got caught going at it in Danny Rogers’s pool house.

‘Fine, thanks, Mary,’ I tell her, in an effort to cover my discomfort. ‘I found his old Subbuteo set in a cupboard, and we had a fine old time.’

‘Of course, being foreign, she insisted on being Manchester United,’ says Rufus. ‘Which at least meant that I got to be Liverpool.’

‘Still gave him a good old thrashing,’ I declare, and my blush races up to the roots of my hair.

Tilly, wielding a huge silver teapot, says: ‘Excuse me not getting up, Melody. I’m afraid it takes me about half an hour. Would you like a cup of tea? Come and sit down.’

Relieved, I obey. She fills an oversized china cup with something the colour of cat piss, adds milk without asking me and pushes it towards me.