Girl's Guide to Kissing Frogs (46 page)

Spendlove placed an apple dumpling before her.

‘You’d be a fool not to grab this chance with both hands.’ Golly poured a generous swoosh of cream over the golden pastry, collected the drips from the spout with a blue finger and licked it. She plunged her spoon into the steaming apple and brought out a fudge-like mixture of sultanas and sugar. ‘It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity. Oh, this is good! I must congratulate the creator of this magnum opus.’

‘I know.’ I registered a goatee of cream on Golly’s chin before returning my eyes to my dumpling. ‘But I haven’t danced for nearly three months. It’ll take me more than six weeks just to get back into shape. I’m afraid it isn’t possible.’

‘Of course it isn’t,’ said Rafe fiercely. ‘I suppose I’m entitled to have an opinion?’

‘Besides,’ said Evelyn, ‘there’s the wedding. You’d be fagged to death dancing in every hole-in-corner theatre of England and be barely able to drag yourself up the aisle. The idea is ridiculous.’

‘Oh no, dear,’ Golly said thickly, displaying a mixture of half-masticated cream and sultanas. ‘Nothing hole-in-corner about it. We’re talking to the Met and La Scala.’

I felt frantic as conflicting ideas whirled in my head. If, as was likely, my dancing failed to reach the heights of sublimity worthy of such an artistically significant premiere, I would have let Golly down and the singers and the LBC and everyone else concerned with the production. Didelot would make mincemeat of me and my career would be as good as over. I felt sick as I imagined what my own disappointment would be. And I owed it to Rafe and Evelyn to take their wishes into account. The decision, probably the most important of my life, could not be
taken on the spur of the moment. I needed at least twenty-four hours of cool reflection to reach a sensible verdict that would be fair to everyone, including myself.

‘Well?’ asked Golly.

‘I’ll do it.’

‘Hang on to your hat!’ screamed Golly above the snarl of the exhaust as the little yellow car shot away from the front door of Shottestone.

I wasn’t wearing a hat, an oversight I soon regretted. Golly liked to drive with the windscreen folded down because the rush of air on her face made it more exciting. We flew down the drive with the needle quivering on forty. When we came to the road she applied the brakes with a sharp stamp of her foot, so I was almost cut in half by my seat belt, which was made of two pieces of rope knotted across my chest. I drew up my knees to keep my feet out of the several pints of water, presumably the morning’s rain, which sloshed around in the passenger foot-well.

Behind us we left a slough of despond. When I had told Golly that I would dance the role of Kayoko, Golly had clapped her hands together and said, ‘That’s my girl!’

Evelyn had said in a voice like a glass shard, ‘Marigold, I don’t think you’ve given this matter proper thought. You already have a full programme of commitments.’

Rafe’s face had been as white as the napkin he threw down. ‘Marigold, come into the hall, would you, for a moment?’ Then he had walked out.

‘You may as well go and dance since you’re obviously too selfish to be any good to him,’ Isobel had said. ‘It’ll serve you right if you break your sodding foot again.’

‘Isobel! I will not have such language at the lunch table!’

‘Oh, fuck off, Mummy! It’s a piece of mahogany, not a delicately nurtured maiden.’

I went to join Rafe in the hall. He was pacing the stone flags, his hands clasped behind his back. He came up to put his face close to mine. ‘What the hell do you mean by saying you’ll take the part? I thought the whole point of you giving up those jobs was so we could spend more time together. You’re completely irresponsible!’

The contempt in his eyes emboldened me to say, with an assumption of calm, ‘That’s not true. I gave them up because you thought my lowly employment reflected badly on you.’

‘Naturally you’d rather believe that.’ His tone was scornful. ‘You twist everything to suit your own ideas.’

‘Do I?’ I was genuinely surprised. ‘But then … doesn’t everyone? Am I particularly dishonest?’

‘Yes, dishonest is a good word for what you are! You slept with that shit Lenoir and you told Isobel, didn’t you! But you couldn’t own up to
me!
Yes! Dishonest and deceitful and …’ He stopped. His mouth was working as though a string was tied to one corner and someone was jerking it rhythmically. ‘God knows, I’ve asked little enough in return for being prepared to share my life with you.’

‘I’m so sorry … I did sleep with Sebastian but I didn’t tell Isobel I had. She was just guessing … unless Conrad told her …’

‘
Conrad
knows you were Lenoir’s mistress?’ His face became suffused with blood. I was about to protest that mistress was too elevated a description, but realized this would hardly improve his opinion of me. ‘You told my sister’s fiancé about your sordid little affair? A man you’ve exchanged barely half a dozen sentences with?’

As though a torch had suddenly been turned on in the
labyrinthine obscurity that was my subconscious, I admitted to myself that I had been guilty of more than forgetfulness in failing to tell Rafe about the early morning conversations in the hermit’s grotto. I had known that he, in common with most men, would dislike the idea of the girl he was engaged to marry breakfasting in highly romantic surroundings with someone else, particularly when that someone was handsome, clever and fascinating. Impossible to explain that my relationship with Conrad was based on nothing more than my liking to hear him talk and his pleasure in telling me how hopelessly ignorant and naïve I was. Who in this cynical, mistrustful world would have believed it?

‘You told
him
but you let me go on in ignorance, you little—’ Rafe pressed his lips together until his mouth turned white, either to suppress the jerking or to stifle a dreadful insult. ‘You’ve made me look a complete fool! I shall never be able to forgive you!’

‘I’m so sorry! I wanted to tell you about Sebastian, truly I did. But it was never the right moment and it seemed to matter so much to you! I didn’t mind that
you’d
had affairs before we met.’

‘It’s quite different for a man.’

‘How is it different?’

He snorted. ‘Don’t be disingenuous. You know perfectly well that a man can make love to a woman without it meaning anything to him at all. Whereas a woman is always emotionally involved—’

I started to feel angry myself. ‘Frankly I don’t think heartless, mindless bonking is very attractive in either sex. I’m ashamed of my affair with Sebastian because I hated him and I only wanted to get good parts, but I refuse to admit it was worse than you sleeping with girls you didn’t care tuppence about, just because they were willing.’

‘You don’t know what you’re talking about! You’re heartless, ungrateful, vain, promiscuous …!’

Though I stood perfectly still as the insults broke over my
head like waves, I seemed in my mind to take a huge bound away from him. Despite my attachment to my juvenile dream of love and my abiding affection for his family, I understood that he and I were not the same kinds of people and that we could never be a help to one another. We could not protect each other from loneliness or fear nor add substantially to each other’s happiness. We could not share worlds of ideas and imagination. Anger was replaced by remorse.

‘Please … Rafe darling,’ I said when he paused for breath, ‘don’t let’s go on torturing each other. I’m sorry, so sorry … it would never have worked – our marriage – but I’ll always be so fond of you—’

‘What blood and thunder have we here!’ Golly was pulling on her coat as she came into the hall. ‘Tristan and Isolde on a wet day at an out-of-season funfair. Cheer up you two! Tragedy purges the emotions. Come along, Marigold. I’ll take you up to Hindleep to see Orlando. Toodle-oo, Rafe. Splendid lunch.’

Timidly I put my hand on his arm but Rafe jerked away. He turned his back to me and leaned against the chimneypiece, staring into the fire.

Even as I was clambering into the little yellow car, I had misgivings.

‘Hold tight for the humpbacked bridge,’ yelled Golly above the rushing of the wind.

We took off from the top and sailed several feet through the air before landing with a teeth-jarring crash, which shot the water from the foot-well into my lap.

‘Oh, Golly,’ I cried, ‘I’m a very nervous passenger. Do you think you could go a fraction slower?’

‘Bloody ass!’ Golly sounded her horn and shook her fist at the fish-and-chip van which was being driven at a sedate pace on its allotted side of the road. ‘Don’t worry, my dear, I’m in just that state of intoxication when driving becomes an art form. Watch this handbrake turn!’

We reached the bottom of the hill on which Hindleep was
built. I shut my eyes, feeling tears freeze on my cheeks, tears of grief and terror in equal proportion. As we screeched and squealed and roared our way up the precipitous road, I thought I was probably about to die and I found I had only one regret. I wanted to dance again, to hear a flood of music in my ears, spurring me to turn faster, leap higher, to become an indissoluble part of that exquisitely beautiful world of moonlight and death in which I was not myself but something much better, nearer to perfection, to the divine … There was a squeal from the brakes as we reached the bridge and I was almost garrotted by my seat belt. As we bounced over the potholes beneath the accusing eyes of the Virtues and the triumphant looks of the Vices, my past life flashed before my eyes: some of it glorious – the dancing bits, some of it reprehensible …

‘Marigold.
Marigold!’

It was Conrad’s voice. I opened my eyes and unblocked my ears. His face and Golly’s were side by side, looking down at me. We were in the courtyard at Hindleep.

‘Thank the Lord,’ said Golly. ‘For a moment I thought I was going to have to find another Kayoko. I never saw anyone look so bloodless, almost corpse-like, did you, Conrad?’

‘Certainly she is pale. But being driven by you, Golly, is enough to make the bravest person ashen.’

‘Oh, rubbish! I’m a very careful driver. Is Orlando here?’

‘He has this moment arrived.’

‘I’m going to talk to him.’ Golly departed for the front door.

Conrad leaned inside the car and switched off the engine. ‘Come in and take the English panacea. Or you can have brandy.’

‘Thank you.’ I got out, grateful for his hand under my arm.

He gave me his handkerchief. I dried my stinging face, the effect of the wind on salty tears.

‘I must send to the haberdasher’s if you become a two-handkerchief-a-day girl.’

‘Oh, I won’t be. I was frightened, and Rafe and I have had a row. It’s all over. The engagement, I mean.’

We walked towards the steps that led up to the front door.

‘So you are distraught? Your heart is forever broken?’

‘Well, if I’m truthful, a part of me feels relieved. I’ve been afraid for some time it wasn’t going to be any good. In fact, even from the beginning I had doubts I refused to admit to myself. Why does one always make the same mistakes? I always think it’ll be better to go along with things rather than make a stand and upset everyone, but afterwards I find myself in an even worse mess. Now I’ve badly hurt someone I’m terribly fond of. I
know
he’ll be much happier with someone else, but I’ve wounded his pride and he’ll never forgive me. Oh dear, and Evelyn was enjoying organizing the wedding and now she’ll have to tell all her friends it’s off. And Isobel’s furious with me because I’ve hurt her beloved brother. Oh God, I feel terrible!’ I pressed his handkerchief to my eyes again. ‘I’ve known them all my life and always loved them really, even when relations were strained which they often were – but you can’t love people without feeling angry with them sometimes, can you? Now I feel quite sick with shame and pity and … the most desperate guilty longing to escape.’

‘That does sound uncomfortable, I must say.’

I paused on the top step and looked at Conrad to see if he was making fun of me. His black eyes were, as usual, difficult to read, but in general I thought the composition of his features might be intended to convey sympathy. Slowly he smiled and I was obscurely comforted, as though he possessed some mysterious power that could turn misfortune to good.

‘You are not very old. It is an inalienable trouble of youth that one is carried helplessly along by a tide of action and reaction. Eventually, after some floundering, one gets the idea that it may be better to take charge of one’s own boat and to pull for shore. At that moment is maturity. I remember very well the days when I was ruled entirely by my immediate passions – or worse, somebody else’s.’

‘I can’t imagine that. You seem so … controlled isn’t the
right word … self-aware. And you’re so reserved. I never know what you’re thinking.’

‘Do you not?’ The smile remained but became a little more inscrutable, his eyes watchful.

‘I do know you’re often secretly laughing when you look most solemn. And you pretend to be irresponsible – like jumping off the balcony, and conceited sometimes, but perhaps that’s put on too.’ I had a sudden insight. ‘Aha! I
see!
You’re afraid of showing your feelings. That’s the real reason you didn’t want to be a concert pianist – nothing to do with not having the right temperament. It’s because to play well – just like dancing – you have to show everything you feel inside with a sort of searing, soul-baring intimacy.’

‘
Autsch!
That sounds agonizing. And when, you tautologous woman, does anyone feel
out
side? Your difficulty,’ he let go of my arm to pull a strand of my hair across my face as though to shut me up, ‘is that your imagination has been stimulated by fear. You need to be calmed by food and drink before you become frenzied.’

He stood aside to let me pass before him into the hall, his expression sardonic, but I was certain I had stumbled on the key to his character. This discovery went a little way to restoring my confidence, which had been badly bruised by my failure to make anything but a hideous mess –
un joli fouillis
, as Madame would have said – of all my relationships. Conrad had a marvellous talent for putting things into perspective. Though the quarrel with Rafe had left me sore and wretched, yet I found I was not entirely without hope for the future.

‘Come on, Marigold.’ Golly rushed into the hall, seized my arm and dragged me towards the drawing room. ‘Let’s get on with it.’

Orlando, who had been draped with sinuous elegance across one of the divans, got up to plant a light kiss on both my cheeks. Despite being racked by neuroses, narcotics and starvation diets, he was still beautiful in a weak light. His greenish-blonde hair,
which hung like damp seaweed across his high knobbly forehead, and his slanting green eyes gave him the appearance of a reasonably youthful merman. He must have been forty or forty-five, but still took classes daily and often taught them, so he was terrifically fit. His arms felt like runner beans, quite stringy with little bulges of muscle along their lengths. ‘My darling,’ he said in fluting tones, ‘what an experience … that bridge … my vertigo … the journey … an overheated train … a small vomiting child: only the thought of seeing you kept me from turning back a hundred times.’

I was certain he hadn’t given me a single thought the entire way, but I was used to his specious charm and actually quite liked it. Among the bullies, prima donnas, grabbers, braggers and sex maniacs of the ballet, Orlando’s flowery, confidential manner made a refreshing change.

‘
Ach
, Marigold!’ Fritz was, as usual, carrying a tray. ‘I haf for you some cake you vill like.’

‘What fettle, Fritz?’ I kissed his soft pink and white cheek. His eyes were almost violet in the gathering gloom as the rain clouds bloomed. Though there was a good fire burning, one of the huge windows that led onto the balcony was open and the air was rich with leafy smells from the forest below.

Fritz returned my kiss with plump ruby lips. ‘Aah’s champion.’