Victoria Clayton - Moonshine

‘Not for you, perhaps,’ I said cautiously. ‘I do think that for some men—’

‘Oh, darling Bobbie, you’re always so cynical. I wish Teddy had an identical twin so you could know what it was like to be adored by someone truly wonderful.’ I remembered Teddy’s pasty face and crooked teeth in his rat-like mouth and felt nauseated. ‘If I could I’d share him with you,’ Jazzy went on. ‘You’ve been the most marvellous friend to me through all the bad times and I’m so grateful.’ I immediately felt guilty. ‘Are things still awful at home? How’s your mother?’

‘Everything’s the same except I’ve met some people who live nearby who’ve become good friends and I don’t mind being here nearly so much.’

‘Not a nice, handsome, eligible man with a vast bank balance?’

‘No.’

‘Ah well, darling. It’ll happen one day. I’d better go and see what’s happened to Teddy. I want our first night together as a proper couple to be sublime. I left him having a drink in the bar. The poor sweetie’s had so much to worry him recently, he sometimes doesn’t know quite when to stop.’ This was the first time Teddy’s obvious drink problem had been openly referred to by Jazzy. ‘I’ll ring you very soon. Try to be happy, dearest Bobbie.’

‘You too.’

‘Oh, I shall be in paradise, never fear.’

Five minutes after Jazzy had hung up the telephone rang again. It was Sarah, my other ex-housemate.

‘Bobbie! Have you heard about Jazzy? She’s gone off with that swine Bayliss. I tremble for her. A pig of pigs. An emperor of hogs.’ Sarah was a bolder, more forthright person than I. She had been so outspoken about her dislike of Teddy that she and Jazzy had had a serious falling out from which their relationship had never quite recovered.

‘She called me from the Isle of Wight just now.’

‘How is the poor deluded girl?’

‘Still deluded. But deliriously happy.’

‘Silly fool!’

‘I’m afraid so. But I keep hoping against hope that perhaps the benign influence of Jazzy will make Teddy a little less repulsive.’

‘No chance. The man would have to have a complete personality refit to be tolerable. When I think of the tears she’s shed over that worm, the crises, the sleepless nights, the chronic headaches and colds, the times she couldn’t eat … She’s like a walking bundle of sticks. God preserve us from married men.’

‘Indeed,’ I said. ‘But even if he were single I don’t think I’d like him.’

‘He’s an ignorant, talentless, priapic little runt.’ Sarah was clever and found most people irritatingly slow and feeble-minded but I knew she was genuinely fond of Jazzy. ‘But being married gives a man an excuse to behave badly with a convenient let-out clause. He can be as selfish as he likes and blame family commitments. A single man can hardly rush round at midnight, poke you senseless, then bugger off without so much as a snack at the local caff or a decent conversation. I mean, when did Stinker Bayliss last take Jazzy out for a good hot dinner? Of course he says it’s because he’s afraid they’ll be seen but I reckon he’s as mean as hell.’

‘Well, they’re making up for it now.’

‘I bet it’s the cheapest place he could get a booking.’

‘She did say it wasn’t a particularly good hotel,’ I admitted.

‘There you are. I hope at least she’ll tuck in now she’s got the chance and get some ballast to withstand the next let-down.’ Sarah was generously proportioned herself and scornful of delicate appetites.

‘Perhaps it really will be all right. Who could know Jazzy and not love her?’

‘Of course it isn’t going to be all right! Honestly, Bobbie, have you been at the absinthe? There’s nothing wrong with Jazzy. Except perhaps too few brain cells. But a skunk like Bayliss is incapable of loving anyone but himself. You know perfectly well there’s nothing ahead but disaster.’

Lying in bed that night, trying to read by a bulb so dim that even the moths ignored its puny rays and instead crawled over the pages of my book, I thought of Teddy. I remembered his satisfied pig-like eyes and the way he stared at my bust when Jazzy’s back was turned and wondered at the mysterious thing called love. And then, of course, I thought of Burgo who had hovered like a persistent phantom haunting my brain the entire day as I cooked, cleaned, fetched library books and ironed. His face had been on each of those forty-two napkins, swimming in the pea-pod soup, staring up from the cover of Fear not, my Lovely in place of the beetle-browed Lord Lucifer Twynge. I had rubbed Burgo’s reflection from every dusty inch of the dining table.

Each time the doorbell rang I anticipated the florist’s van and an insulting bunch of hybridized hothouse blooms to thank me for my readiness to accommodate his sexual needs. I had already decided to pass them on immediately to Mrs Treadgold. When another day passed without a bouquet to spurn or even the briefest note of thanks to rip to pieces I began to feel angry.

On the third day after the tennis party I opened the front door in response to a sustained imperative ring to find a strange man on the doorstop, flowerless but carrying a small black leather bag. He was lean and rangy with dark oiled hair swept straight back from a cliff-like brow and sharp aristocratic features.

‘Miss Norton?’ He handed me a card on which was written Frederick Newmarch , followed by a string of letters, among which I recognized FRCS. ‘Burgo Latimer asked me to call. I’ve come to see your mother.’ I opened my mouth but before I could think what I ought to say he was in the hall. He looked at me expectantly, impatience in his glittering grey eye. ‘Just lead the way, Miss Norton. I’m sorry to hurry you but I’m operating in London at twelve.’

‘Yes, of course.’ I walked rapidly down the corridor that led from the hall to the morning room with the sensation that Frederick Newmarch was snapping at my heels. ‘I hope … You mustn’t mind if she isn’t co-operative—’

‘How old is your mother?’

‘Fifty-one. But she looks much—’

‘How long has she been unwell?’

‘Oh, I suppose about three months. She broke her hip in April—’

‘How’s her appetite?’

‘Poor, really, though she hasn’t lost any weight. If anything she’s put it on. But she does eat a lot of sweets.’

‘Bowels?’

‘A little constipated.’

‘Does she complain of pain?’

‘She says her arms and legs hurt sometimes.’

‘But not specifically the hip?’

I paused by the door of the morning room. ‘Not now, no. It seems to be a general all-over discomfort.’

‘Is this her room? You needn’t come in. I’ll introduce myself.’

I was doubtful about his reception but Frederick Newmarch was evidently a man of steel and I was disinclined to argue with him. ‘You mustn’t mind if she’s rather disagreeable. I think she’s depressed—’

‘Wait for me in the hall. I’ll be ten to fifteen minutes.’

I sat on the chair by the telephone, wondering at a different kind of world in which one asked enormous favours from demi-gods and presumably returned them in kind. Burgo had not forgotten me. I was aware of a feeling of exultation that I could hardly account for. When I heard Mr Newmarch’s approaching footsteps echoing authoritatively from the encaustic tiles I leaped to attention.

‘How did she—’ I began.

‘I’ve checked her over. I’ll get a nurse to come this afternoon and take bloods to confirm my diagnosis. But it seems pretty straightforward. Her heart’s slow and there’s severe myxoedema. She’s had the problem some time, I imagine. The hospital ought to have picked it up.’