Victoria Clayton - Moonshine

‘Then it’s nothing to do with her hip?’

‘That seems to have healed all right although obviously I can’t say for certain without an X-ray.’ He looked at his watch. ‘I must run.’

‘What ought I to—’

‘They’ll put her on medication straight away and you should see a rapid improvement.’

‘Really? Oh, this is so kind of you. I can’t tell you how grateful—’

‘You’ve got my number. Ring my secretary if you’re worried about anything.’

He glared at the front door impeding his progress. I flung it open before he resorted to battering it down and called to his departing back, ‘Thank you so much for coming …’

He jumped into his car and shot away. I opened the door of the morning room, expecting to have a book hurled at my head. My mother was lying back on her pillows, staring out of the window. She was a bad colour and, despite the jars of cream I rubbed in morning, noon and night, her skin was dry and flaky. Slowly she turned her head to look at me.

‘I wish you’d wash my hair, Roberta.’

‘Oh, certainly. With pleasure.’ I had been trying for weeks to persuade her to let me but she had always said she was too tired. ‘What did you think of Mr Newmarch?’

‘It’s exhausting to be pulled around.’ Her gooseberry eyes were reproachful. It may have been my imagination but they seemed brighter already, such is the power of a good doctor who can inspire confidence. ‘However, it was a relief to have a gentleman to consult. The working classes have such coarse responses. They don’t understand how one feels .’

‘He seems to think he knows what’s wrong.’

‘He was quite intelligent, I thought.’

‘I couldn’t tell. He didn’t waste many words on me. He’s amazingly bossy.’

‘Bossy, would you say? I’d call him … masterful.’

As I bent to rearrange the bedclothes my attention was caught by the jacket of the book on the bedside table and I was immediately struck by the resemblance of Mr Frederick Newmarch to Lord Lucifer Twynge.

The following afternoon as I was boiling sugar and water for a crème caramel Oliver put a tousled head round the kitchen door.

‘Telephone for you.’

‘Damn! I can’t leave this. Ask them to ring back—No, wait a minute, it might be Jazzy. I’d better speak to her.’

‘It’s a bloke.’

I hesitated. Possibly it was Mr Newmarch, telephoning to know the result of the tests, in which case it would be ungrateful to put him to the trouble of calling back. ‘Will you come and watch this like a hawk and take it off the heat the minute it goes brown?’

Oliver shambled across the kitchen, yawning. Even as I handed him the wooden spoon I made a mental note that his dressing-gown could do with a wash.

‘Hello?’

‘Roberta.’

It did not occur to me to pretend I did not recognize Burgo’s voice. An odd sensation, something like pins and needles, spread to my extremities. ‘Oh, hello! I must tell you, he was wonderful! It was so good of you to remember.’

‘Who?’

‘Mr Newmarch. He came to see my mother yesterday and sent someone to do a blood test. They telephoned me with the results today. Usually one waits a week only to find they’ve lost them. I’m astonished at the power of the Word. She’s suffering from hypothyroidism. Apparently there’s something called thyroxin which will make her better. I’m picking some pills up from the surgery this evening.’

‘Good. He’s a strange man. A cross between Rudolf Rassendyll and Alice’s white rabbit. I bet he wakes regularly during the night just to see what time it is.’

‘I don’t know how you can speak so disrespectfully. To me he’s the eighth wonder of the world and I’m ready to subscribe to a bust in marble. Who’s Rudolf Rassendyll?’

‘Don’t you remember The Prisoner of Zenda ? He was the gallant hero.’

‘Oh yes. But it was kind of you to send him.’

‘It’s nice to be the recipient of so much gratitude, but that’s not why I rang. I’ve been touring the North since I last saw you, making speeches and playing bingo with our senior citizens. I got back to London last night. I want to see you.’

‘Well …’ I tried to hang on to my determination to finish the affair before it had properly begun but from the moment I heard his voice the conviction had begun to weaken. ‘I don’t know. It would be lovely to see you but—’

‘Come on, then. I’m in the call-box down the road. I’ll find a suitable bush by the gate at the bottom of your drive and try to make myself invisible.’

My blood began to seethe as violently as the caramel. ‘You’re in Cutham Down?’

‘Didn’t I just say so?’

‘Yes, but …’

‘Hurry up.’

There was a buzzing sound. He had put down the receiver. I tore off my apron, dragged my fingers through my hair in front of the hall mirror and let myself out of the front door. I ran through the wood, which was quicker than following the curves of the drive, and then slowed as I drew near the gate. It would not do to arrive actually panting. I looked around but could see no one. For a moment I wondered if it might have been a cruel joke. Then a hand grabbed my arm and drew me into a stout laurel.

‘You nearly made me scr—’ The rest of what I had to say was lost as he kissed me long and hard.

‘That’s better,’ he said as he let go at last. ‘I’ve been longing for that. Not only that, of course.’ He looked at my face. ‘Just as I remembered it. Come here.’ He held me tightly against him and then began to kiss me again, more gently. ‘Oh dear! I was afraid it wouldn’t be enough. Cold shower urgently required.’ Obediently, the rain, which had held off for the last hour, began to fall and at once became a downpour, buffeting the leaves and releasing the scent of earth and mildew. ‘But I told myself it would be better than nothing.’ He kissed the top of my head as drops trickled down my face and tried to shelter me beneath his coat. ‘And it is. We’ve got ten minutes before I have to drive back to London. This afternoon’s meeting was cancelled so I seized the moment and leaped on a train. Simon’s parked discreetly up the road. He’s driving me straight back to town so I can be in the House by eight.’

‘You don’t mean you came all the way here just to … just to …?’

‘Just to kiss you? Yes. Even my impatient ardour is deterred by the thought of making love in this benighted wood. Besides, there isn’t time. Tell me, my love … are you my love?’

He looked at me intently.

I was, at that moment, incapable of lying. ‘Yes. For good or ill, and I suppose it must be for ill.’

‘Don’t!’ He held me tightly. ‘I won’t let anything hurt you. Trust me.’

So I did.

‘I admit the man has talent,’ said Kit. ‘Despite my natural antipathy, I have to hand it to him. He knew you’d need a romantic gesture rather than a postcard and a box of chocolates.’

‘You needn’t tell me I was a gullible fool,’ I said. ‘I know it.’

‘I didn’t mean that. The thing is, you were already in love with him. He just had to break down your resistance. So there you were. At the beginning of an incandescent love affair. The die was cast.’

‘Yes. Before then we were just playing. Although it was heady with romance, everything that occurred before that declaration in the laurels meant comparatively little. Afterwards it seemed to me that everything important – that is to say, my ideas about myself and other people, my presumptions about the future – was substantially changed. And pain was ever present, heightening the pleasure, a sort of fixative of experience.’

‘You mean you felt guilty?’