The Decision (115 page)

So she had everything she wanted except Matt; and she spent a lot of time persuading herself she didn’t really want him, and certainly not as a permanent fixture in her life; love him she might, but the thought of living with him was another thing altogether.

She was told constantly by all her friends (none of whom knew of her feelings for Matt) that she had been unlucky, that Mr Right would eventually come along; she was sure he wouldn’t. The only thing that really annoyed her was people asking her if she wasn’t unhappy, or lonely or frustrated.

‘You wouldn’t be saying that to a man,’ she would say with varying degrees of irritation, ‘why me? I like being single; I have a great life.’

To which they would all nod sagely and say when Mr Right did come along, she would realise what she had been missing; in her darker moments, when she was particularly cross with Matt, she would reflect that even if the unimaginable did happen and he declared some great and undying passion for her, she would have to sacrifice a great deal for it.

Riffling through her wardrobe on that glorious July morning, looking for exactly the right thing to wear to a gymkhana – jeans, a white shirt, cowboy boots and one of Maddy Brown’s thick cotton cardigans in scarlet slung over her shoulders seemed pretty exact – she reflected that given last night’s altercation with Matt, when he had accused her of being incapable of grasping even half the implications of the developing oil crisis on the property business – she was a great deal better off on her own.

It was just that – he was Matt. God damn him.

‘Mummy! Coral’s here and her mummy—’

Eliza was halfway up the stairs to have her bath; she sighed and turned round again. She had to greet her best friend in the whole world, as Emmie had christened Heather, probably correctly.

‘Heather, hello, it’s so lovely to see you. Hello, Coral, hello, Bobby. Goodness, he’s grown up. How was the journey?’

‘Fine. Alan’s just parking down in the village.’

‘Look, come on in, let me get you a coffee or something. And Emmie, you take Coral off and look after her, mind.’

‘Can I give her a riding lesson?’

‘No, Emmie, you cannot, not today, and if I see either of you sitting on that pony even if he is tied up to the fence, the whole thing is cancelled. Come in, Heather. Oh, and hello, Alan, lovely to see you—’

Alan appeared, red in the face, a rather thick tweed jacket buttoned round him, a cap clamped on his clearly perspiring head, his check shirt fastened to the neck and a tie with horses on it clipped to his shirt.

‘Nice place you’ve got here, Eliza. Very nice. Lovely day, too, you’re lucky, forecast was terrible, how those people keep their jobs I’ll never know.’

‘I agree. Look, come inside and have a coffee – or would you rather have a beer, Alan, there’s masses?’

‘Oh – not beer, not before lunch, thanks. Might have a lager to wash down the picnic, which reminds me, Heather, I noticed you had forgotten the salt, so I don’t know if Eliza could lend us some—’

One day, Eliza thought, she must get both herself and Heather drunk enough to ask her why she had married Alan …

‘Well,’ she said, having served them their coffee, ‘if you’ll excuse me, I must really go and have a bath and change, I’ve been on the go since six and—’

‘Mummy, Mummy, it’s Uncle Charles and a lady, Uncle Charles, hello, come and see everything, come and see—’

‘Take them round to Granny, darling, I’ll be out in a minute—’

She risked a quick peek at Charles’s lady from the hall window; she was quite pretty, in a fresh-faced, very young way, holding his hand and looking up at him adoringly. Perfect. Just what he needed.

‘Eliza,’ called Sarah, running into the house, ‘darling, could you go and see the roundabout man, he’s having trouble with his generator, it won’t start or something …’

‘Darling, I’m off, as instructed,’ said Jeremy, kissing the top of Mariella’s head as she lay in the bath. ‘I’ll see you later. You sure you can find your way from here?’

‘Of course. I am not absolutely stupid—’

‘Darling, I know that, but you’ve only been there once before, and you know map-reading isn’t your forte—’

‘Jeremy, I shall be all right. Now go please, I have a great deal to do.’

Jeremy went. He had learnt not to argue with Mariella unless it was in a very good cause.

She was, he had discovered, in the difficult, heady months after Giovanni’s death, the opposite of malleable. However sweet her nature, however genuinely kind and generous her heart, the fact remained she had been extremely spoilt for all the years she had been married to Giovanni: petted, pampered, and over-praised, the subject of hundreds of adulatory articles, painted, photographed, quoted, exclaimed over; no one had crossed her, no one had disobeyed her – except Giovanni. He had kept her in check, had curbed her will, and indeed inflicted his own on her, brooking no argument, deaf to her tantrums, blind to her and her tears. And Giovanni was gone.

In the first rush of her grief, and her remorse, and her loneliness, she was subdued, biddable, grateful for understanding, for kindness; as time passed, as she found herself free, untamed, immensely rich in her own right, she became impossible.

Jeremy, confused and angered by the apparent monster he thought he had loved, struggling to be patient, to understand her, finally cracked one night in October, after a series of rows when she had demanded his presence at the villa, and then demanded he left again when he did not do things entirely to her liking; he told her it was all over between them.

‘I’m shocked by you,’ he had said, as he waited for the car to be brought round to the front door, to take him to the airport, ‘shocked and horrified. I did love you, I quite possibly still do, but your behaviour is intolerable—’

‘Don’t speak to me like that,’ she shouted, her great eyes blazing, her fists clenched at her sides, ‘and in front of the servants.’

‘You have spoken to me in the most abusive language I have ever heard, in front of your servants,’ said Jeremy, ‘and you won’t do it again, Mariella, I assure you. I am very sad to have to end our relationship, but I have to. I won’t be humiliated like this. I know you are very unhappy and grieving for Giovanni and I’m sorry—’

‘If you were sorry, you would not treat me like this,’ cried Mariella, ‘you are harsh and cruel, and you have no understanding of me—’

‘I have rather too much, I’m afraid,’ said Jeremy. ‘Now, there is the car. Goodbye, Mariella, I’m sorry it must end like this.’

And he left without a glance at her.

A week later, she turned up in London, pale and remorseful, promising to be ‘as you would want’; he forgave her, of course, and the entire scenario was repeated a few weeks later; and then again after Christmas. But that was the last time; they had had rows, to be sure – and Jeremy, whose charmed life had known little conflict, was surprised to find himself more than able to engage in them – but her behaviour and her attitude towards him became reasonable, and, as she put it, respectful.

‘Would you like me to make a curtsey to you, when I come into the room?’ she said one evening, as they ate dinner at his flat (she had revealed herself an excellent cook) and, ‘Very much, yes,’ he said, smiling at her, ‘not every time, perhaps, just once or twice a day, when my dinner is ready, or I am proposing to exercise my
droit du seigneur
.’

‘Oh, no, no, not then, that would be the last time I would do it, at such times I expect you to prostrate yourself before me … would you like to do that now, Gentleman Jeremy?’

‘Not until I have finished this extremely delicious tiramisu you have made. I expect you remember how you first described tiramisu to me, Mariella?’

‘Of course. I said it was like making love. So let us make love, here, at the table, and then we can make love in bed.’

That was the night he asked her to marry him.

Eliza glanced at her watch. It was nearly eleven. The cars and horse trailers – no more full boxes, thank goodness – were streaming in now; Mr Horrocks, who was in charge of parking, was growing more officious by the minute. Ponies were being led round and round the field, by an army of little girls – and a small number of boys; fathers were heaving water carriers and nosebags about, mothers were unpacking picnics. Gail and her brothers were standing by various jumps, Charles was leading Gail’s donkey, bearing a seemingly endless queue of little girls up and down the far field, and an even more endless queue was forming for Mrs Horrocks’s lemonade. Sarah’s business at the tombola was booming.

Everything seemed fine; if she was quick, she could dash up and have her bath and change, before –

‘Eliza!’ A very flashy Jaguar had driven in; Jack Beckham was waving wildly at her.

‘What a day. Blimey, good thing there aren’t any of your readers here, fine fashion editor you make.’

‘Thanks, Jack. Hello, you must be Babs. I’ve heard a lot about you. And you three, lovely to meet you. Jack, if you want to park here, in front of the house, do, it’s getting very difficult over there. Come and meet my mother, she’s serving cold drinks or there’s a beer tent over there, next to the orangery—’

‘A beer tent!’ said Jack Beckham. ‘Now you’re talking. Well, this is all very nice, Eliza, come on, girls, out.’

The three girls got out, the epitome of Seventies girlhood, all long skirts and long curls and wide over-made-up smudgy eyes.

‘I love those skirts,’ Eliza said, ‘are they—’

But at that moment, Cal appeared, his curls even longer and more luxurious than the girls’, carrying two enormous bales of hay; all three of them stood stock still as if they had seen some kind of heavenly vision. Which, as they recounted later to their friends, they felt they had.

‘’Scuse me, Mrs Shaw,’ said Gail, ‘but Mum says we should start the jumpin’ right away, people are getting restive, so if we can get the judges to come to the table—’

‘Yes, of course,’ said Eliza. ‘Jack, can you sort yourselves out, sorry. Cal will show you everything …’

‘I bet he will,’ said Babs, with the dimpled giggle that had become famous from her days as a weather girl. ‘Come on, girls, after Cal.’

Eliza rounded up the judges, grabbed the mike, called the entrants for the first jumping class to come to the collecting ring – the rather grand name for a sectioned-off bit of paddock – and thought longingly of the bathroom.

At last. Upstairs … he’d be here soon … she must actually smell …

‘Eliza. Hello, my darling. Can I park here, or do I have to go to the field?’

‘Oh – Jeremy, no, of course you can park here. Mr Northcott, how lovely to see you, let me take you round to the terrace, you can sit down there and Jeremy can get you a beer or something. Mummy’s looking foward to seeing you and we’re thrilled you’re staying tonight.’

Now …

‘Eliza – hello. You look wonderful.’

‘Mark! I do not, I’m afraid, I keep trying to go up for a bath, but – where’s Scarlett?’

‘She’s run into the house, I hope that’s all right, desperate for the loo, poor darling.’

‘How is she? It’s so brave of you to come.’

‘We wouldn’t have missed it for the world. She’s fine, tired of course, look – I’ll go in and find her, don’t worry about us. See you later.’

‘OK. Thanks. Well, I will then—’

She was hardly inside the house when Scarlett appeared out of the loo, looking magnificent in a white frilled dress, and perilously high-heeled red sandals.

‘Eliza, hello.’

‘Hello, and you in there.’ She patted Scarlett’s huge stomach. ‘It’s lovely of you to come.’

‘It’s lovely to be here. Wouldn’t have missed it. Look – sorry to be a nuisance, but you haven’t got any Rennies or anything, have you? I keep getting awful indigestion.’

OK. At least she was on the right floor. Into the bathroom and—

‘Mummy, Mummy, Daddy’s here. Come and say hello to him.’

Damn. Damn, damn, damn. She would have to go down or it would seem intolerably hostile. This was a difficult day for him, and he’d been very good about it.

‘Hello Matt. Doesn’t it all look professional? Oh, Louise, how lovely of you to come. You look great. That’s one of Maddy’s cardigans, isn’t it? She’s coming later, I hope. Matt, take Louise and get her a drink, the beer tent is over there, turn right after the orangery, you know – I—’

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I know. Funny place for a beer tent, I’d have thought.’

‘Is it, it seemed quite good to me—’ She stopped. Matt was looking at her oddly, and suddenly she knew why. She stood very still, staring at him; odd, how things went on affecting you, turning your heart. Even after all that had happened, some things, some memories, good ones, survived. The orangery was one of them, Matt’s favourite place here always, special to both of them, the place they had – oh, God – actually consummated his purchase of Summercourt. She should have thought, should have kept it out of today’s arrangements.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I’m sorry, does it seem a bad place, I just thought—’

‘No, no,’ he said, ‘it’s fine. Come on, Louise. Let’s go and find Emmie. I presume someone’s looking after her?’ he added, the old edge to his voice.

‘Yes,’ she said quietly, ‘yes, she’s with Gail. In the paddock, which is now the ring, of course, you saw it last week.’