Moonshine

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‘No. I tried to forget about it. I suppose I didn’t want to discover anything that made me trust him less. I wanted so badly to see him as perfect … and perfectly irresistible. In order to justify what we were doing I had to make myself believe he was the love of my life. And that I was of his.’

‘And despite everything you still believe that.’

I did not answer. I was no longer capable of interpreting my own feelings.

‘We’ve only ten miles to go until Kilmuree,’ said Kit. ‘Just tell me a little about the good times and I’ll pretend the tale’s been nicely rounded off. A sort of happy ever after that fades into oblivion. That’s what we all want from a story. Physical consummation isn’t enough. It wouldn’t be enough for Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy to climb between the sheets and indulge in erotic acts before going their separate ways. Or for Mr Rochester to take Jane Eyre through the Kama Sutra. The climax of a narrative is actually the moment when two people reveal themselves to each other by declaring a deeply felt, highly significant attachment.’

‘It’s strange that we get such vicarious pleasure from imagining other, wholly fictitious people falling in love. Is it just because we identify with one of them?’

‘I don’t see myself as Burgo Latimer. A public man, an orator, a manipulator of minds. Sorry if that sounds slanderous. Of course I’m jealous. In my mind he’s as fantastical a being as the Minotaur. He’s made you unhappy and left you to defend yourself.’

‘I quite agree with you about happy endings. We want to leave them suspended in blissful communion. We don’t want to be told afterwards how Jane and Mr Rochester remodelled Thornfield Hall in the style of William Burges. Or that Lady Catherine de Bourgh was catty about Elizabeth’s taste in bedding begonias.’

‘And I also want to know what happened to the lovely, feckless Jasmine. I realize her relationship with Teddy is a leitmotif of textbook adultery that runs parallel with your own love affair. Your audience is eager in anticipation.’

After Burgo and I became lovers, after those ten, perhaps fifteen minutes of intense physical pleasure, we lay in each other’s arms waiting for our hearts to slow and for our minds to begin working.

Then I said, ‘Dickie’s coming back any minute.’

‘I asked him to ring Simon for me, to tell him to bring the car round in half an hour. But he must have done that by now.’ There was a brief silence, during which I tried to calm my breathing and focus my eyes. Burgo said, ‘I’d better go.’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ll always remember the way you look now.’ He kissed me. ‘All my life.’

We pulled our clothes on quickly, not speaking. I was terribly afraid now that someone would catch us in a state of undress, though only minutes before I would not have cared if the combined teams of the Ladyfield Lawn Tennis Club and the Tideswell Tigers had crowded into the China House to cheer us on.

‘Goodbye, Roberta.’ Burgo lifted my hand to kiss it.

‘Goodbye.’

I watched him walk to the door and cross the little garden. I tried to tidy myself and the daybed. He must have met Dickie on the way. I did my best to enthuse about the new silk for the daybed to please Dickie but I don’t suppose I made much sense. I was trying to decide exactly what had happened, how it had happened and what the consequences would be. And I could not suppress a thrill of happiness. I wanted to grin with pleasure. Walking back through the garden I had forborne, with difficulty, to skip.

Dickie had politely pretended not to notice anything but had taken me into the cool, deserted drawing room and asked if I wouldn’t like a little rest after my heroic performance on court. Through the window I could see the back of Burgo’s head above the group that thronged about him on the lawn. When I insisted that I had to get back to Cutham Dickie had made me drink several cups of strong black coffee before conducting me to my car. Tipsy septuagenarians were packing their cars with tennis equipment and driving unsteadily away with two wheels in Dickie’s penstemon border. I was astonished that the world managed to go on in its ordinary insipid way.

I had flown through the countryside on a super-powered cloud, survived dinner somehow, washed up and gone upstairs at the first possible moment so that I could be alone. Naturally after drinking so much coffee I had lain awake for hours, reliving the excitement of being in Burgo’s arms, the protesting voices of sanity and prudence drowned by the singing of my effervescing blood.

The following day the weather conspired with a serious hangover to rub something of the bloom from my joy. Continuous drizzle cast a depressing grey light through all the rooms. The walls and floors seemed to sweat with damp. What was there, exactly, to be joyful about? I had had too much to drink and had made love in Dickie’s garden with his brother-in-law, a man I hardly knew and might never see again. Perhaps Burgo took it for granted that he would bed a provincial voter or two whenever he ventured out of the capital. Probably these fleeting intimacies were the perks of a politician’s life, a compensation for having to be charming to old ladies and committee bores. It could hardly matter that I always voted Labour.

He might tell his secretary to send the usual douceur of an expensive bunch of flowers, and she would know that he had once again been successful. She would be either indifferent to his behaviour or disapproving of it, but she would certainly despise me. Perhaps, the next time they were alone, Burgo would boast of his conquest to Dickie who, being a tolerant man, would smile and shake his head and mentally adjust his view of me, to my detriment. By the time Jazzy telephoned me from the Isle of Wight late the same afternoon, my mood had sunk from euphoria to bitter reproach, mostly directed towards myself.

‘Bobbie? I’ve been dying to talk to you! You’re the only person I can tell …’ Jazzy’s voice was tremulous. I pictured her face twisted with misery. ‘You’ll never guess … the most glorious thing.’ My mental picture changed – with difficulty. It had been months since she had been anything like happy. ‘He’s left her!’

I did not need to ask who he and her were. I had once glimpsed Teddy Bayliss’s wife, Lydia, at a party. She had hard eyes and a chin you could have struck a match on. Jazzy and I had invented a character for her so bad that between suffocating babies and experimenting on animals she would have had no time for Teddy’s sexual requirements or his dry-cleaning.

‘When? How? What’s happened?’

‘He says he’s not going to be dictated to by anyone. She said he had to spend more time at home with her and the children. He says the children do nothing but squabble and leave wet towels on the bathroom floor. And they play pop music and have scruffy monosyllabic friends. She’s a terrible cook and is always giving him takeaways. And she refuses to take his shirts to the laundry.’ We were almost right then, about some things. ‘And he hates her mother.’

‘Jazzy—Of course I’m not defending her, but surely there must be something more than that? I mean, isn’t that just family life? It doesn’t sound quite enough to justify ending a marriage.’

‘I thought you’d be the one person who’d understand.’ Jazzy sounded hurt. ‘I know you’re terribly anti having affairs with married men but I thought you said you’d always be on my side, whatever.’

‘Oh, I am. I am! But, Jazz, you have to be so sure that you and Teddy will be happy together.’

‘We will be. Teddy says that no one in his whole life has understood him as I do. He says it’s uncanny how alike we are, how we feel the same about everything that’s important, how we can communicate without words. Honestly, it’s true. Don’t you remember, it all began when we met at that ghastly ball and discovered we both hated Latin-American music but loved Gershwin. And then we found that our favourite film was Breakfast at Tiffany’s and our favourite place to stay was Raffles Hotel. Then we went on talking practically the whole evening, agreeing about absolutely everything. It was amazing.’

Poor darling Jazzy. So beautiful and so trusting. When I had once suggested that Teddy had simply had his eye on getting her into bed she had been wounded by my misanthropy.

‘Well, if you’re quite sure …’

‘I’m utterly, totally, completely sure. As sure as anyone in the history of the world has ever been about anything. It’s a synthingummy of minds and souls. And he says that making love to me is like eating pâté de foie gras to the sound of trumpets. Isn’t that brilliant?’

‘Perhaps it was when Sydney Smith said it.’

‘Sydney who?

‘Smith. A nineteenth-century cleric. He was describing heaven.’

‘Oh.’ A pause. ‘Of course Teddy’s so well read.’ It would have been unkind to say that the metaphor was so well known that it had become almost hackneyed. Jazzy had been to dozens of expensive schools all over the world and learned little in any of them. ‘And he says making love to Lydia is like waving an arm in a barn.’

I was repelled. ‘If you give a woman four children you can hardly complain if there’s some falling off from physical perfection.’

‘No. I agree. It was naughty of him. I’ve decided I’m not going to say mean things about her any more or even think them if I can help. I’m desperately sorry for her, actually, and I feel quite haunted by the idea that at this moment she’s going about her life unaware of the sword of Damo-what’s-it that’s about to fall. And the children … when I think of them …’ For a moment the excitement went out of Jazzy’s voice.

‘What do you mean, “unaware”?’

‘Teddy decided the best thing would be to avoid a confrontation when things might be said that couldn’t be taken back. You know, to allow her to save face. He’s doing his best to make it as easy for her as possible, which I agree with, one hundred per cent. I couldn’t love him if he wasn’t a good person. He’s madly considerate of her feelings.’

‘Oh, madly,’ I said, with a sarcasm I instantly regretted. ‘Of course it’s a dreadful situation for everyone.’

‘Dreadful. So he’s left her a note. She’s been away all week with the children visiting her mother. That was what prompted the row about him not doing enough with the family. But his mother-in-law is a complete bitch and is foul to Teddy. Lydia’s getting back tomorrow.’

I imagined her arriving home exhausted after a long journey with squabbling children, planning what she would give them for supper, anticipating a hot bath and a glass of wine for herself after putting a load of dirty clothes into the washing machine. Pausing by the hall table to take Teddy’s letter from the pile that would have accumulated during a week’s absence. She would open it, expecting a reminder that the man was coming to service the boiler, only to discover that she was now a single parent and had become solely responsible for household maintenance.

‘It’s such heaven being alone with him,’ sighed Jasmine. ‘Knowing we don’t have to hurry into bed to make the most of a few measly hours. I feel as though I’ve been given pure oxygen to breathe. I’m in love with the world and with everything in it: the island, the village, the spaghetti bolognese we had for lunch. It isn’t a very good hotel but Teddy says we must economize now he’s got two women to support and naturally I don’t mind a bit. I’m even in love with the rather nasty cow-pat-green pillow-cases on the bed because we’re together at last and can luxuriate in each other.’

‘It’s marvellous to hear you so happy. How long do you expect to stay?’

‘Oh, it’s rather open-ended. Teddy’s taken the whole week off. I never want to see London again. I wish we could hire a gypsy caravan and let the horse take us wherever it wanted to.’

‘Mm, that does sound fun. But one of you’d need to know something about horses. Feeding, tacking up, grooming …’

‘Oh, Bobbie, how typical of you to think of depressing, practical things.’

‘Sorry. So what happens now? When she’s finished snipping their wedding album into confetti and making a bonfire of his golf-clubs, what does she do next?’

‘Teddy’s going to ring her tomorrow to find out how she’s taken it. I’m glad he’s so thoughtful. It’s one of the things I love about him.’

A quip about Teddy’s extraordinary solicitude in abandoning his wife and children to abscond with a girl half his age darted into my mind but I suppressed it. ‘I hope it goes all right,’ I said. ‘And that he deserves you.’

‘I’m certainly going to do my best to deserve him. When I think of everything he’s given up for me, it’s really humbling. I’ve got to try and make it up to him somehow. I mean, sex isn’t everything, is it?’

‘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.’

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