Susan Howatch - Scandalous Risks

At the Aysgarths’ lunch that day everyone talked animatedly, Dido inflicting her usual outrageous monologues on her defenceless cousins – with occasional asides to Eddie Hoffenberg who took seriously his Christian obligation to be charitable – Norman commenting on some judge named Denning (this was just before the Profumo affair made Denning famous), Cynthia describing the work of some besotted artist who yearned to paint her portrait, James saying: ‘Realty? How splendid!’ at intervals, Sandy and Boodle arguing over the finer points of Plato’s Dialogue on the Soul, Elizabeth throwing out the information that actually she was an Aristotelian and that Plato simply rang no bells for her at all, Primrose arguing that the whole trouble with the Roman Church was that St Thomas Aquinas had based his Summa on Aristotle’s philosophy, and my Mr Dean chipping in to observe that the world was always divided into Aristotelians and Platonists, and wasn’t the treacle tart absolutely first-class. In the midst of all these stimulating verbal fireworks, little Pip, who was sitting thoughtfully on my left, turned to me and said: ‘Do you like the Beatles, Venetia?’

‘They’re a little young for me, Pip, but I liked “Love Me Do”.’

‘I think they’re fab,’ said Pip. ‘Much better than Plato or Aristotle.’

One of the most attractive aspects of life with the Aysgarths was the wide range of the topics discussed. I doubt if my parents and siblings had heard of the Beatles in the spring of ’sixty-three.

Later in the drawing-room I had an interesting talk about politics with Norman but Cynthia became jealous and winkled him away from me. By this time the Dean had shut himself in his study for his post-prandial snooze, but Eddie Hoffenberg was still hovering as if eager to tell me about his osteopath, so I slipped away to take refuge in Primrose’s flat. Primrose herself had departed after lunch with her boyfriend Maurice Tait, one of the vicars-choral who sang tenor in the Cathedral choir and taught at the Choir School. In fact she cared little for Tait (a damp, limp individual whose hobbies were stamp-collecting and supporting the Bible Reading Fellowship) but she liked to keep him around so that she could talk about ‘my boyfriend’ and look worldly. I didn’t despise her for this. I wouldn’t have minded a neutral escort myself, if only to silence the fiends who muttered: ‘Poor old Venetia!’ behind my back, but no limp, damp individual had presented himself for acquisition. I didn’t count Eddie, of course. Not only was his Wagnerian gloom intolerable but he was so ugly that if I had accepted him as an escort the fiends would merely have gone on muttering: ‘Poor old Venetia!’

I also had to face the fact – an unpalatable one for my ego – that Eddie had never actually tried to do more than trap me in corners and talk about his health. He had never invited me to his house on my own or suggested a visit to the cinema – or even invited me for a walk on a Sunday afternoon. Tait always took Primrose for a walk down by the water-meadows after he had lunched with his mother. Primrose would sigh beforehand and say what a bore these walks were, but I suspected that if Tait had failed to appear one Sunday she would have been very cross indeed.

The rest of the day passed most agreeably, providing a tantalising glimpse of what fun life could be when one was accepted by a group of congenial people; at least at the Aysgarths’ house I was never left out in the cold. After tea we all played croquet and I beat everyone except Boodle. There was much laughter as we languished on the lawn. Then having completed my odyssey among the croquet hoops I ate baked beans on toast with Primrose in her flat and we discussed Life, a ritual which involved reviewing the day’s events, pulling everyone to pieces, putting a few favoured individuals together again and tossing the rest on the scrap-heap. This was fun. Primrose had her faults (priggishness, intolerance, intellectual snobbishness) but she was witty and seldom bored me. I only became bored when she was either talking soppily about her father or droning drearily about her work at the diocesan office on Eternity Street. Every time she began a sentence with the words The Archdeacon and F, my teeth automatically gritted themselves, so when at ten o’clock that evening the dread words tripped off her tongue I waited until she had finished her sentence and then immediately asked if I could have a bath. Half an hour later I was stretched out on the Put-U-Up sofa, now transformed into a bed, and tuning into Radio Luxemburg on my transistor.

‘Good heavens, Vinnie!’ exclaimed Primrose, appearing crossly in curlers as I was smoking a final cigarette and wriggling my toes in time to Elvis Presley. ‘You’re not still listening to that drivel, are you? I can’t understand why you’re so keen on pop music!’

‘No, you wouldn’t. You’re not fundamentally interested in sex.’

‘Honestly, Venetia! What a thing to say!’ She flounced back to her bedroom.

Elvis quivered on vibrantly. As I stubbed out my cigarette I wondered – not for the first time – if anyone would ever invite me to have sexual intercourse, but it seemed like a forlorn hope. Switching off the transistor I pulled the bed-clothes over my head and allowed myself to shed a single furious tear of despair.

Easter was the following weekend. In the interval I loafed, smoked and vegetated, unwilling to think deeply about the future and telling myself I needed a few days of absolute rest in order to recuperate from the horrors of London life. I did toy with the idea of reading Honest to God but the desire to escape from my problems by being intellectually mindless was so strong that I could only reread Primrose’s childhood collection of Chalet School books.

Finally I was roused from my torpor by the spectacle of Easter in a great cathedral. I avoided the Good Friday services but attended matins on Sunday morning and was rewarded when Aysgarth preached a most interesting sermon about how Christianity was all set to undergo a dynamic resurrection, recast and restated for the modern age. The Bishop, who was ensconced in his cathedra at one end of the choir, spent much time gazing up at the east window as if he were wondering how it could possibly be cleaned.

The next day Aysgarth was obliged to supervise the conclusion of the special services, but on Tuesday he was free to depart for the Hebrides; he and Eddie planned to drive to Heathrow airport and leave the car in the long-term car-park. At half-past eight that morning after Primrose had departed for her office I wandered across the courtyard of the stables to say goodbye to him, but no sooner had I entered the house by the side-door than I heard Dido’s voice, throbbing with emotion, in the hall. Automatically I stopped dead. I was still well out of sight beyond the stairs.

‘… I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I absolutely swore I wouldn’t break down like this, but I do so wish you were coming to Leicestershire – I know horses bore you, but you could read quietly in the library and –’

‘Darling –’

‘– and at least you’d be there. I just think it’s so sad for Elizabeth and Pip that we’re never together on our own as a family –’

‘But that’s not true!’

‘Not on our own , Stephen – there’s always someone from your first marriage there – all right, we won’t talk of Primrose, but it just seems so wrong that we’re not going to be together –’

‘But when Lord Starmouth offered me the lodge the first thing I did was ask you to come with me!’

‘How could I when I’m ill every time I try to go in a plane?’

‘I was quite prepared to go overland, but since you were adamant that nothing would induce you to go to the Hebrides –’