Emily (6 page)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

    I FOUND Coco lying in bed looking beautiful as always, but very tired. Someone had brought her some lilies, and she’d buried her face in them. Her nose was bright yellow with pollen. She was obviously in considerable pain, but greeted me with her usual zest.

    ‘Help yourself to a drink, chéri, and get me one. Buster has gone shooting. Every day now he shoot, pop, pop, bang, bang. I find it very boring. I ‘ave live in Scotland nearly thirty years, and still I do not find the plus-four sexy. Admittedly, Buster ‘ave very good legs. A seagull excruciated on his coat just as he was leaving He was very angry.’

    I giggled. Coco could always cheer me up. We gossiped for half an hour, then I reverted to the subject I could never ignore for long, even though it crucified me to talk about it.

    ‘Have you seen Marina?’ I asked.

    Coco raised her eyes to heaven.

    ‘Yes I ‘ave. That’s a marriage going on the rocks. We had dinner with them the other night, she and Hamish. I gave her a lecture. I said "You are not making Hamish happy like Emily is making my Rory happy". (I winced at that bit.) And Marina laugh in my face. Sometimes I think she is a bit touchy in her head. She is so different from her brother, Finn. He’s so kind and down-to-earth, and such a wonderful doctor.’

    That moment a maid banged on the door.

    ‘Dr. Maclean’s here, madam,’ she said.

    ‘Show him in,’ said Coco, excitedly.

    ‘Oh Clod, he was as mad as a boiled squirrel last time I saw him,’ I said.

    But Coco wasn’t listening, she was too busy combing her hair and spraying on scent.

    In marched Finn Maclean.

    ‘Talk of the devil,’ said Coco in delight.

    ‘I was just singing your praises to Emily, telling her what a wonderful doctor you were - so kind and understanding. I shouldn’t think anything rattles you, does it, Finn?’

    ‘No,’ I said acidly, ‘I should think it’s always Dr. Maclean who does the rattling.’

    Finn turned round and saw me. His face hardened slightly. ‘Oh it’s you,’ he said.

    ‘I didn’t know you knew Emily,’ said Coco. ‘Isn’t she pretty? And so good for Rory.’

    ‘I’m sure they’re ideally matched,’ said Finn.

    The sarcasm was entirely lost on Coco, who beamed at us both.

    ‘Let’s have a look at your ankle,’ Finn said.

    Coco stretched out one of her beautiful, smooth, brown legs. The ankle was very black and swollen. Although Finn handled it with amazing delicacy, she drew her breath in.

    ‘Sore is it?’ he said gently.

    She nodded, catching her lip.

    ‘Poor old thing. Never mind, you’ve still got one perfect ankle,’ he said, getting up. ‘No reason why the other shouldn’t be as right as rain in a few weeks.’

    ‘What’s right about rain?’ I said gloomily, looking out of the window.

    ‘Still, I’d like to X-ray it,’ Finn went on, ignoring me. ‘I’ll send an ambulance to pick you up later. It’ll jolt you less than a car.’

    ‘I must go,’ I said. ‘I’ve got to cook Rory’s supper.’

    ‘Finn will give you a lift,’ said Coco.

    ‘I’ve got a car,’ I said quickly.

    It was very cold outside and I shivered: I didn’t want to leave the cosy warmth of the castle for one of Rory’s black moods. Finn Maclean got something out of the pocket of his overcoat..

    ‘I should have thought it was a bit early on in your marriage to escape into tripe like this,’ he said, handing it to me. It was the romantic novel I’d intended to give Coco.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

    Coco’s ankle was X-rayed, bound up and she was ordered to rest it. Just before Christmas, however, Maisie Downleesh (one of Coco’s friends) decided to give a ball to celebrate her daughter Diney’s engagement. We were all invited.

    There is something about the idea of a ball that lifts the spirits, however low one is. I suppose it’s the excitement; buying a new dress, new make-up, a new hairstyle and settling down in front of the mirror in an attempt to magic oneself into the most glamorous girl in the room. In the past, a ball had offered all the excitement of the unknown, opportunity knocking. This time, I hoped, it would be a chance to make myself beautiful enough to win back Rory.

    The ball was being held at the Downleesh’s castle on the mainland. Coco, Buster, Rory and I were all to stay there. In the morning I took the car across the ferry and ove to Edinburgh to buy a new dress. In the afternoon I had to pick up a couple who were coming to the dance from London, then drive back and pick up Rory from the Irasa Ferry, and then drive on to the Downleesh’s.

    I was determined that a new me was going to emerge, so gorgeous that every Laird would be mad with desire for me. I spent a frenzied morning rushing from shop to shop. Eventually in a back street I tracked down a gloriously tarty, pale pink dress, skin tight over the bottom, slashed at the front and plunging back and front.

    It had been reduced in a sale because there was a slight mark on the navel, and because, the assistant said with a sniff, there was no call for that sort of garment in Edinburgh.

    I tried it on; it was wildly sexy.

    ‘A little tight over the barkside, don’t ye thenk,’ said the assistant, who was keen to steer me into black velvet at three times the price.

    ‘That’s just how I like it,’ I said.

    It was a bit long too, so I went and bought new six-inch high shoes, and then went to the hairdressers and had a pink rinse put on my hair. I never do things by three-quarters. All in all it was a bit of a rush getting to the airport.

    The Frayns were waiting when I arrived - I recognized them a mile off. He was one of those braying chin- less telegraph poles in a dung-coloured tweed jacket. She was a typical ex-deb, with flat ears from permanently wearing a headscarf, and a very long right arm from lugging suitcases to Paddington every weekend to go home to Mummy. She had blue eyes, mouse hair and one of those pink and white complexions that nothing, not rough winds nor drinking and dancing till dawn, can destroy. They were also nauseatingly besotted with one another. Every sentence began ‘Charles thinks’ or

    ‘Fiona thinks’. And they kept roaring with laughter at each other’s jokes, like hyenas. She also had that terrible complacency that often overtakes newly married women and stems from relief at having hooked a man, and being uncritically adored by him.

    She was quite nice about me being late, but there was a lot of talk about stopping at a telephone box on the dot of 6.30 tö ring up Nanny and find out how little Caroline was getting on; and did I think we’d get there in time to change?

    ‘It’s the first time I’ve been separated from Caroline,’ she said. ‘I do hope Nanny can cope.’

    She sat in the front beside me, he sat in the back; they held hands all the time. Why didn’t they get in the back and neck?

    It was a bitterly cold day. Stripped, black trees were etched on the skyline. The heavy brown sky was full of snow. Shaggy forelocked heads of the cows tossed in the gloom as they cropped the sparse turf. Just before we reached the ferry to pick up Rory and Walter Scott, it started snowing in earnest. I had hoped Rory and I could have a truce for the evening - but I was an hour late which didn’t improve his temper.

    Fiona, who had evidently known Rory as a child, went into a flurry of what’s happened to old so and so, and who did so and so marry.

    Rory answered her in monosyllables; he had snow melting in his hair and paint on his hands.

    ‘Too awful,’ she went on. Did you know Annie Richmond’s father threw himself under a taxi in the rush hour in Knightsbridge?’

    ‘Lucky to find one at that hour,’ said Rory, looking broodingly at the snowflakes swarming like great bees on the windscreen.

    I giggled. Rory looked at me, and then noticed my hair.

    ‘Jesus,’ he said under his breath.

    ‘Do you like it?’ I said nervously.

    ‘No,’ he said and turned up the wireless full blast to drown Fiona’s chatter.

    Suddenly she gave a scream.

    ‘Oh look, there’s a telephone box. Could you stop a minute, Rory, so I can telephone Nanny.’

    Rory raised his eyes to heaven.

    She got out of the car and, giving little shrieks, ran through the snow. Through the glass of the telephone box I could see her smiling fatuously, forcing lop pieces into the telephone box. Rory didn’t reply to Charles’ desultory questions about shooting. His nails were so bitten that his drumming fingers made little sound on the dashboard.

    A quarter of an hour later, Fiona returned.

    ‘Well?’ said Charles.

    ‘She’s fine, but she’s missing us,’ she said. ‘She brought up most of her lunch but she’s just had two rusks and finished all her bottle, so Nanny thinks she’s recovered.

    Rory scurled off through the snow, his hands clenched on the wheel.

    ‘What b-awful weather,’ said Fiona, looking out of the window. ‘You really must start a family very soon, Emily,’ she went on. It gives a completely new dimension to one’s life. I think one’s awfully selfish really until one has children.’

    ‘Parents,’ said Rory, ‘should always be seen and not heard.’

    Punctuated by giggles and murmurs of ‘Oh Charles’ from the back, we finally reached the turrets and gables and great blackened keep of Downleesh Castle. The windows threw shafts of light on to the snow which was gathering thickly on the surrounding fir trees and yews. The usual cavalcade of terriers and labradors came pounding out of the house to welcome us. Walter Scott was dragged off protesting by a footman to be given his dinner in the kitchen.

    In the dark panelled hall, great banks of holly were piled round the suits of armour, the spears and the banners. We had a drink before going upstairs. Diney, Lady Downleesh’s daughter, who’d just got engaged, fell on Fiona’s neck and they both started yapping about weddings and babies.

    We were taken to our bedroom down long, draughty passages to the West Tower. In spite of a fire in the grate, it was bitterly cold.

    I found when I got there that my suitcase had been unpacked and all my clothes laid out neatly on the mildewed fourposter, including an old bone of Walter Scott’s and a half-eaten bar of chocolate I had stuffed into my suitcase at the last moment. On the walls were pictures of gun-dogs coming out of the bracken, their mouths full of feathers.

    I missed Walter. Sometimes in those awful long silences I had with Rory I found it a relief to jabber away to him.

    ‘Can he come upstairs?’ I said.

    ‘No,’ said Rory.

    In the bookshelves was a book called
A Modern Guide to Pig Husbandry.
‘Perhaps I should read it,’ I said, ‘it might give me some advice about being married to a pig.’

    Across the passage were the unspeakable Frayns. They had already hogged the bathroom, and judging from the sound of splashing and giggling, it wasn’t just abath they were having. I realized I was jealous of their happiness and involvement. I wanted Rory to start every sentence ‘Emily says’ and roar with laughter at my jokes.

    I took ages over dressing, painting my face as carefully as Rory painted any of his pictures. My pink dress looked pretty sensational; I put a ruby brooch Coco had given me over the mark on the navel. It was certainly tight, too, everyone would be able to see my goose-pimples, but on the whole I was pleased with the result - it was definitely one of my on days. The only problem was that when I put on my new tights, the crotch only came up to the middle of my thighs. I gave them a tug and they split irrevocably, leaving a large hole, so I had to make do with bare legs.

    I was just trying to give myself a better cleavage with Sellotape when Rory announced that he was ready. Even I, though, was unprepared for his beauty, dressed up in a dark green velvet doublet with white lace at the throat and wrists and the dark green and blue kilt of the Balniels. Pale and haughty, his eyes glittering with bad temper, he looked like something out of
Kidnapped;
Alan Breck Stuart or young Lochinvar coming out of the West.

    ‘Oh,’ I sighed, ‘You do look lovely.’

    Rory grimaced and tugged at the frills at his neck. ‘I feel like Kenneth McKellar,’ he said.

    ‘Never mind, you’ve got exactly the right hips to wear a pleated skirt,’ I said.

    Rory put a long tartan muffler thing on the dressing-table. ‘This is for you,’ he said.

    ‘I’m not thinking of going out in this weather,’ I said.

    ‘You wear it indoors,’ he said, draping it diagonally across my shoulders, ‘like this, and pin it here.’

    ‘But whatever for?’ I moaned.

    ‘It’s the Balniel tartan,’ he said evenly. ‘Married women are supposed to wear their husband’s tartan.’

    ‘But it completely covers up my cleavage.’

    ‘Just as well, you’re not at some orgy in Chelsea now,’ said Rory.

    ‘Do I really have to, it’s a bit Hooray for me.’

    Very sulkily I arranged it; somehow tartan didn’t go with skintight pink satin, and brooches on the navel.

    I wanted to fiddle with my hair and make-up a few minutes longer, but Rory was sitting on the bed, staring at me coldly, making me nervous.

    ‘Why don’t you go on down?’ I said.

    ‘I’ll wait here,’ he said.

    I combed a few pink tendrils over my shoulders. ‘What made you go crazy with the cochineal?’ said Rory.

    ‘I thought I ought to change my image,’ I said, sourly. ‘My old one didn’t seem to be getting me very far.’

    Downstairs in the huge drawing-room people were having drinks. The host and hostess stood near the door repeating the same words of welcome to new arrivals. Looking round I realized I looked better than most of the women but infinitely more tarty. Most of them were big, raw-boned deb types in very covered-up clothes, the occasional mottled purple arms were the nearest they got to
décolletage.
Very tall, aristocratic men in kilts stood talking in haw haw voices about getting their lochs drained and burning their grouse moors. Fishes in glass cases, and mounted stags’ heads stared glassily down from the walls.

    Fiona and Charles were standing near the door. She was wearing a blue dress and absolutely no eye makeup.’What a pretty dress,’ I said, with desperate insincerity.

    ‘Yes, everyone likes it,’ she said, ‘blue is Charles’ favourite colour.’

    Charles was gaping at my pink hair, his mouth even more open than usual. Fiona started trying to bring Rory out about his painting.

    ‘Do you do all that funny abstract stuff?’ she said. ‘No,’ said Rory.

    ‘Some young man - he had a beard actually - painted my sister Sarah. She sat for two hours and all he had drawn after all that time were three figs and a milk bottle.’

    She gave a tinkle of laughter, Rory looked at her stonily.

    ‘Charles paints quite beautifully too, I feel it’s such a shame his job in the City is so demanding he doesn’t have time to take painting up as a hobby - like you, Rory.’

    ‘Rory
does not paint
as a hobby,’ I said furiously, ‘it’s his profession.’ But I spoke to deaf ears, Rory had turned on his heel and gone off to get himself a drink. Charles and Fiona were suddenly shrieking at a couple who had just come into the room.

    I was extremely pleased therefore that the next moment Calen Macdonald bore down on me and kissed first my hand, then my cheek, then both my bare shoulders.

    ‘I was just saying to Buster I wished I could see more of you,’ he said, pulling down my tartan sash and peering at my cleavage, ‘and now I have. I must say that dress is very fetching, pink looks like bare flesh if one shuts one’s eyes.’

    ‘Where’s Deidre?’ I said.

    ‘Oh, she’s stalking in Inverness.’

    I giggled.

    ‘So I’ve got the whole evening off and I’m going to devote it entirely to you.’

    Two matrons with red-veined faces stopped discussing herbaceous borders and looked at us frostily.

    At that moment a voice shouted ‘Emily!’ and there was Coco, dripping with sapphires as big as gull’s eggs, wearing a glorious midnight blue dress. She was lying like Madame Recamiers on a red brocade sofa, surrounded by admirers.

    Rory sat at her feet.

    ‘I didn’t see you,’ I said, going over and kissing her. ‘You look very nice, doesn’t she, Rory,’ said Coco. ‘A bit prawn cocktail,’ said Rory.

    I bit my lip.

    ‘I think she looks tremendous,’ said Buster giving me a warm look. ‘In the pink, I might say,’ he laughed heartily.

    The room was filling up, Buster and Calen were joined by some ancient general, and they were soon busy recounting to each other the number of creatures they had slaughtered in the last week.

    ‘Grouses, and twelve bores, and twenty bores, and million bores, that’s all men can think about up here,’ said Coco. She began talking to me about shoes.

    There was a sudden stir and a whisper ran through the room. The old general straightened his tie and smoothed his moustache.

    ‘What a beautiful girl,’ he said.

    A swift flush mounted to Rory’s pale cheeks. With a sinking heart, without turning my head, I knew it must be Marina.

    ‘Hello, everyone,’ she said, coming over and kissing Coco, ‘how’s your poor leg, darling.’

    She was wearing a pale grey chiffon dress, smotheredin two huge pale grey feather boas. With her flaming red hair it made one think of beech woods in autumn against a cloudy sky. I noticed she had no truck with Hamish’s tartan across her bosom. I supposed it was Rory’s tartan she was after. Sadly I realized that if I spent a million years on my face and clothes, I would never be as beautiful as Marina. Hamish, all done up in black velvet and frills, looked awful.