Victoria Clayton - Moonshine

‘Oh yes.’ Burgo ignored the lantern.

‘Don’t you think Fleur’s looking well?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m so grateful to you for introducing me to them. I’m feeling enormously cheered up.’

‘Good.’ I thought I saw a suspicion of a smile.

‘It must have been marvellous in Provence. I haven’t been for ages. I once spent a month in a villa near St Rémy. We were students so we could barely afford to eat.’

‘Really.’

‘We had fish soup every day at a little café. I can still remember the taste of the rouille – you know, the hot peppery sauce that goes with it.’

‘I know what rouille is.’

‘Of course.’ I felt a complete fool. A silence fell which I felt I must break at the cost of making more of an idiot of myself. ‘Your wife must have been so pleased to have you to herself for a while.’

‘We had people staying all the time.’

‘Oh. Oh, how sad.’

‘Why?’

‘Well … because … I mean, you must miss each other and … and you know that saying about absence – La Rochefoucauld, wasn’t it?’ I laughed unnaturally. ‘It usually is.’

‘What did he say?’

‘Oh, something about absence extinguishing little passions and increasing great ones, like the wind that blows out a candle but blows up a fire.’ Another pause. ‘So obviously, in your case, absence must be a good thing …’ What on earth was I doing, talking about his marriage? It was an extraordinary impertinence.

‘A good thing for us to live apart?’

‘Yes … no … I don’t know.’

I stared at him in hopeless confusion. He did nothing to help me. If he’d made the least attempt to flirt I could have made it quite clear that there was no possibility of anything between us. As it was, he was entirely cool and collected while I stammered and stuttered like a schoolgirl.

After a pause, Burgo said with a solemnity that might have concealed annoyance, or possibly amusement, ‘It’s kind of you to be concerned.’

‘It’s late. I’d better go home.’

‘I’ll see you to your car.’

‘Don’t bother, really. It’d be a bore for you. I can manage. Goodnight.’

In a moment I was through the door and the gap in the hedge and running along the path that led back to the house. Tricked by fitful beams of moonlight, I stumbled into flowerbeds, twisting my ankles and scratching myself on thorns and twigs. When I arrived, panting, within the area that was lit by the lamps each side of the garden door, I wondered what on earth I was doing, behaving like a child frightened by my own imagination. I walked round to the Wolseley, feeling indescribably foolish, and drove back to Cutham, thoroughly out of humour with myself.

The silent house welcomed me into its chill embrace with an exudation of floor-polish and damp. By the light of the dim bulb in the hall I saw there was a message by the telephone in Oliver’s hand.

Jasmine rang. She says to call her the minute you get in no matter how late as she won’t be able to sleep a wink until she has spoken to you. Is she as pretty as she is crazy ?

‘You mean he had you for a second time all to himself in that seductive little Chinese grot and he didn’t make love to you? Or at least attempt it? Can he be flesh and blood?’

‘Not every married man behaves like a fourth-former let out of school the minute he’s alone with a girl not his wife.’

‘That’s just what you’d like to believe, my dear Bobbie. And now he’s one of the powers in the land. It bodes ill for the country, that’s all I can say.’

The telephone rang for a long time and I began to feel worried. Eventually someone lifted the receiver and I heard the sound of snuffling and rustling.

‘Jasmine? Is that you? It’s Bobbie.’

Several yawns and groans. ‘What … Who … Oh, hello, darling. I was asleep …’

‘I’m sorry. The message said to ring you at once. I’ll telephone you in the morning.’

More yawning and sighing. ‘No. Don’t ring off. I’m dying to talk to you. Just let me gather my wits …’ A long pause.

‘Jazz? Are you still there?’

‘Sorry. I’m awake now. You know how hopeless I am first thing in the morning.’

‘Actually it’s last thing at night. It’s just after twelve.’

‘No, really? Well, anyway, what the hell, it’s all the same to me now. Teddy’s left me!’ She began to cry. I had a vision of tears shining in her coal-black eyes and spilling down her golden cheeks.

‘Oh dear! Poor Jazz! I’m so sorry. You must feel wretched!’

‘I’m going to kill myself. I just thought I’d say goodbye as you are my very best friend in all the world.’

‘Thank you, but for God’s sake don’t do anything rash. Teddy isn’t worth it. I understand how you feel but, believe me, this despair will pass.’

‘You don’t understand! You’ve never been agonizingly, sickmakingly in love with anyone ever, have you? You were a tiny bit fond of David and perhaps that Russian, whatever his name was, for a week or two, and that man with the Daimler Dart who had that collection of dreary old books.’

‘Incunabula.’

‘What?’

‘That’s what you call books that are pre fifteen hundred … Oh, never mind. I expect you’re right. I’ve never been properly in love and I don’t know what you’re going through. But, dear Jazz, Teddy’s made you so miserable so often. There are other men in the world. Nicer, more intelligent, more amusing men who aren’t married. Better-looking men.’

‘Teddy’s the only man I’ll ever love. No one else interests me in the slightest. I can’t live without him. He only has to touch me and I feel faint with desire.’

I saw in my imagination Teddy’s porcine eyes in which there was always a leer, heard his self-satisfied laugh, remembered his damp hands that found excuses to clutch at any girl young enough to be his daughter. The paunch and the shining scalp were perhaps just a question of taste.

‘You think that now, but if you could only get through the first few miserable days you’d begin to see that he wasn’t so perfect. Don’t you think it’s rather mean of him to treat the two women he’s supposed to love, you and his wife, so badly and make you both so unhappy?’

‘Lydia isn’t unhappy a bit ! She still doesn’t know about me.’

‘Hang on, I thought you’d insisted that he tell her. You said how much better you felt now the affair was out in the open.’

‘Apparently he only said he’d told her to please me. He couldn’t face telling her. That’s why he’s left me. Because he’s afraid she won’t let him see the children ever again. That’s the sort of woman she is! She’s bullied my poor darling Teddy, playing on his paternal feelings until he’d rather stay in a loveless, sexless marriage than desert his children. He’s got such a strong sense of duty. It’s one of the things I love about him.’

‘Either that or he’s a lying, two-timing bastard.’

This provoked such a wail of misery that I repented at once.

‘It’s a difficult situation for everyone,’ I temporized. ‘But remember that you’re a beautiful, kind, funny, delightful girl whom any man would be lucky to have. They’ll be falling over themselves to take you out once they know Teddy’s off the scene and you won’t have time to mourn the end of that particular affair.’

‘What do you mean, funny?’

‘Well, entertaining. You know, good to be with.’

‘You mean I’m not brainy like you and Sarah.’

‘No, not at all … I didn’t …’

‘Oh, don’t worry. I know it’s true. Sarah said her little brother’s stick insect is more intelligent than I am.’ Sarah could be extremely forthright. ‘She says Teddy has the charisma of a senile skunk.’ She wept again.