The Marrying Game (11 page)

‘But I’ve got loads of bloody bras,’ Nancy complained.

‘Yes, Wonderbras and balconettes, and nylon whatsits that squash those lavish breasts of yours right under your chin. Real ladies sling them lower.’

She laughed. ‘Aren’t I meant to look sexy?’

‘Only up to a point,’ Roshan said. ‘You need less sex. And Rufa, frankly, could do with a bit more – what
are
you wearing under that hideous guernsey?’

‘Nothing, actually –’

‘And your chest looks like an ironing board. You mustn’t hide your assets.’ Taking her hand, looking
deep
into her eyes, he added, ‘Trust me.’

Roshan had liked Nancy on sight, and they were already soulmates. Rufa was different, however. He loved Rufa with the sexless passion of a medieval knight, and had vowed to himself that she should be launched into society dressed like a princess. He dragged them from shop to shop, until they were laden with gilded bags and boxes. The short January day was darkening by the time he hailed a taxi.

‘Not that we’ve finished – we need at least another week to sort out some evening dresses.’

Rufa could not bring herself to think about the evening dresses. Her stomach clenched with anxiety every time she remembered the money she had spent, and where it had come from. Her deep pleasure in the beautiful clothes – the dull sheen of thick silk, the buttery softness of fine leather – made it seem worse. Luxury and frivolity on this scale were wickedly intoxicating. She had met the White Witch, and eaten her enchanted Turkish delight – now all she wanted in the world was more. Edward would have been horrified.

There’s no going back, she thought; we have to succeed.

Nancy wanted to sit down with a cup of tea when they got home, but no-one else would hear of it. Roshan marched the sisters straight upstairs, to transform the two country girls into blue-blooded belles destined to make dazzling marriages.

Wendy and Max were the audience, waiting in the kitchen. Wendy was a little surprised that Max was taking this much interest. The arrival of Nancy and Rufa
had
made him irritable and abstracted, but he was more absolutely there than he had ever been. Usually, he made a great show of treating Wendy’s house as the temporary stopping place of a rising genius. Today, however, he had come home early, and every time Wendy had emerged from her consulting room, she found him prowling.

‘The suspense is killing me,’ he said. ‘Do you fancy a cup of tea, Wend?’

She was on her guard. ‘Are you offering to make one?’

‘No. I just thought, if you were having some anyway –’

‘Well, you can think again,’ Wendy said. ‘I’m not a servant.’

‘OK, OK.’ He grabbed the kettle aggressively. ‘I suppose it’ll give me something to do.’

‘You really are in suspense, aren’t you?’ Wendy watched her handsome lodger thoughtfully. ‘It’s Nancy, isn’t it? I might have known you’d fancy her.’

Max was nettled, but did his best to laugh it off. ‘She’s ravishing. So’s Rufa. I had noticed, actually.’

‘Don’t you go spoiling things.’

‘For God’s sake, Wendy, give me a break,’ Max snapped. ‘What do you expect, when you bring two flame-haired goddesses into the house? Are you going to evict me for drooling?’

‘You know what I mean. They’re here to marry money.’

‘Am I stopping them?’

Wendy smiled. The effortless strength of Max’s sexuality reminded her of the atmosphere around the Man. ‘It wouldn’t be a problem, if Nancy didn’t like you so much.’

He grinned. ‘You reckon?’

‘She only needs a tiny bit of encouragement to fall madly in love with you.’

‘A tiny bit, eh? Thanks, Wendy.’

Reluctantly, she laughed. ‘You’re terrible. I was only trying to say, don’t go distracting her if you’re not – you know – serious.’

Max handed her a cup of grey, inadequately squeezed tea, and threw himself into a chair. It creaked alarmingly. He was not a particularly large man, but seemed too big for any room he was in. ‘Are they serious about this marrying thing?’

Wendy sipped her tea. ‘They are, and I can’t say I like it. The whole family’s desperate for money. But I’d far rather see them marrying for love.’

‘Why can’t they just fall in love? Why does it have to be bloody marriage?’

‘The Man was a big fan of marriage.’

Max snorted. ‘By the sound of it, because it gave him a fine excuse not to commit to any of his girlfriends.’

She had to admit there was an element of truth in this. She could not allow Max to think it was the whole picture. ‘No, he truly believed in a lifelong commitment to one person. And Rose was that person. I always knew that.’

‘Then what was in it for you?’ Max demanded. ‘How could you go and fall in love with him, knowing he’d end up dumping you?’

‘The Man never dumped me,’ Wendy said. Her lips curved around the rim of her cup, in a dreamy, wistful smile. ‘He didn’t do that to anyone. He just had such a wonderful take on life.’

She knew this sounded inadequate; knew she could
never
make Max understand. In her mind she conjured up one of the sealed memories she had never shared with anyone.

The Man lay on his back in the water meadow, beside the little river at Melismate, on a balmy afternoon in late spring. If she half-closed her eyes, she could absolutely see him – arms behind his head, his beautiful profile tilted towards the smiling blue sky.

He said, ‘You have a longing for the poetic, Wendy. You’ll never be happy, unless you keep that scrap of poetry alive.’

She was sitting beside him in the long grass. ‘What do you mean? How do I do it?’

‘Just settle as near as possible to the place where you really want to be.’

‘Oh.’ This was where she wanted to be, for all time, in this bubble of sun and serenity.

The Man said, ‘I mean it, darling. People are wrong to be disappointed with life when they feel they haven’t had enough of something. Even twenty-five per cent of what you really want is better than one hundred per cent of what you never wanted in the first place.’

It was a difficult philosophy to explain – something along the lines of being better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. People did not always agree with that. Wendy, however, had found it sustaining. If she had been given a choice between marriage to an ordinary man, or her fraction of the ultimate Man, she would have chosen the fraction every time. Loving the Man had burnt her wings, but it was better to be a middle-aged reflexologist with burnt wings than an ordinary wife with no wings at all.

She turned her attention back to Max. ‘I don’t know
what
you’ve got against marriage. Don’t you want to get married some day?’

He shrugged. ‘Some day. I won’t be in any danger until I meet someone Jewish.’

‘Why?’

‘Have a little think,’ Max suggested testily.

‘Oh, of course. Because you’re Jewish yourself.’

Yes, Einstein. And if I marry out, my mother will have a nervous breakdown.’ He smiled sourly. ‘So you don’t have to worry that I’ll ruin the Marrying Game of the Waspy Hastys. All right?’

‘I’m only trying to look after them.’ Wendy wondered why he was so cross.

‘Quiet in the cheap seats!’ Roshan sprang dramatically into the room. ‘It’s time for you to gasp at my artistry.’ He stood aside for Nancy and Rufa.

They were smiling, laughing whenever they met each other’s eyes, exulting in their transformation.

Max and Wendy stared in silence.

Wendy exhaled tremulously. ‘You’re both fabulous. Oh, if the Man could only see you now – his silk princesses –’

Rufa wore a loosely cut black suit, over a thin cream silk jersey. Her hair was unbound. She looked flawlessly beautiful, breathtakingly expensive and somehow softer all over – less scrubbed and angular, more gentle and seraphic. The real revelation, however, was Nancy. She wore a fitted taupe jacket and long black skirt. No more tits and tresses – the new Nancy had breasts that did not move, and her shameless riot of red hair was neatly contained in a French plait. She was still vivid and voluptuous, but no longer had ‘strumpet’ tattooed all over her. Incredibly, she was a perfect lady.

Max, staring at her with faint indignation, stood up. ‘God, what’s he done to you?’

‘Don’t you like it?’ Nancy asked.

‘Of course he does.’ Rufa was beaming, almost reconciled to the chasm in her bank account. ‘You’re sensational. Princes and dukes will fall over each other to marry you.’

‘I can’t take all the credit,’ Roshan said. ‘Blood will out. I only had to rub off a bit of the tarnish.’

Nancy laughed. ‘Charming.’ Her gaze was locked into Max’s, and it was obvious that he was mesmerized.

‘Well, I believe it now,’ Wendy announced. ‘I had my doubts when I first heard about it, but I really believe I’m looking at Lady Sheringham and Mrs Durward.’

Nancy grinned at Rufa. ‘Don’t worry, your ladyship. When we come to stay at your castle, I’ll make Tiger sleep out in the kennels.’

Chapter Seven

ROSHAN SWEPT STRAIGHT
into the kitchen to tell them the great news, without stopping to remove his grey herringbone Paul Smith overcoat – barely one week after the selection of the targets, he had found their opening event. The pianist Radu Lupu was giving a recital at Sheringham House, in aid of the Rheumatoid Arthritis Fellowship. Sheringham House, in Kensington, was the London residence of the Earls Sheringham. The tickets were prohibitively expensive, and had been sold out for months, to friends and relations of the committee. Roshan had managed to wangle himself a rare press pass.

‘Fortunately, I knew the PR from college,’ he said gleefully. To Max, he added, ‘It was Hermione Porter, of all the useful people.’

Max nodded. ‘Rich and thick. It figures.’

‘She’s thick, all right. She believed me when I said I was a music critic. I’m taking her out to lunch the day before the concert. I pray to heaven she doesn’t check up on me and find out I’m a hack from the Style pages – just the type of riff-raff she’s employed to keep out.’ Roshan darted out of the room, to place his valuable coat carefully on a padded hanger. He darted back in again, and exclaimed, ‘Oh God, what’s this? Can I believe my eyes? Nancy cooking?’

Max and Rufa were sitting at the table, watching the novel spectacle. Rufa looked uncomfortable, clutching but not drinking a cup of peppermint tea. Max was grinning, entranced by the way Nancy’s hips moved as she hacked an onion on the counter. She laboured under the delusion that she could cook spaghetti bolognese. With tremendous fanfare, she and Max had made a special expedition to Sainsbury’s to buy the ingredients. These mostly seemed to consist of bottles of Barolo. Nancy was treating the rest – cheap meat, tinned tomatoes, dried herbs – with a careless brutality that made Rufa wince.

‘I can’t leave Ru to make a martyr of herself,’ she said cheerfully. ‘She’s always lumbered with the cooking, and it’s just not fair.’

‘I’m not being a martyr,’ Rufa protested. ‘Honestly, I love cooking. I’m better at it than you are.’

‘You’re a famous cook, darling, but you hate competition. I think my sauce will surprise you.’

Rufa’s lips twitched. ‘It’s already astonished me, thanks.’

‘You relax, Ru. For once in your life, lie back and take it easy.’

Roshan looked into the heaving swamp on the stove, and made a gargoyle face at Rufa behind Nancy’s back. Rufa snorted with guilty laughter. ‘That’s brilliant news about the concert,’ she said quickly. ‘It’s exactly the sort of thing we need.’

‘You’ll be able to size up your future home,’ Nancy said, shaking out half a drum of dried oregano, ‘and decide where to put the new conservatory.’

‘Radu Lupu’s terrific,’ Rufa said. ‘The Man took me to Cheltenham to hear him. Do you know what he’s playing?’

Nancy said, ‘I don’t care if he plays chopsticks. What do we wear, and how do you get us in?’

Roshan, his movements neat and unhurried, uncorked one of the bottles of wine and took four glasses from the cupboard. ‘It’s black tie, so you absolutely must have really
profound
evening dresses.’

The whole question of evening dresses had been troubling Rufa. On the one hand, she yearned for a beautiful dress as ardently as Cinderella. On the other hand, there was the ever-present problem of money. Rufa lay awake every night, watching the orange lozenges of light on the ceiling from the streetlamps outside, agonizing about money, money, money. It was like living in chains.