The Marrying Game (46 page)

‘Look,’ Ran said, ‘it’s Rufa.’

She was on the other side of the road, almost running. Her car keys were in one hand. She carried a round wicker basket full of cut flowers and bottles of wine. Polly resolved to get herself an identical round basket, then realized this was not the key to Rufa’s air of glamour.

‘She looks wonderful,’ Polly said critically. She had not seen Rufa since the fateful day of her wedding. ‘What has she done to herself? Marriage suits her, obviously.’ This was a small hint for Ran, who was curiously reluctant to set a date.

‘She’s happy, that’s all,’ Ran said, his dark eyes following her sadly. ‘You don’t have to get married to be happy.’

Tristan rolled on to his back, with a long sigh. ‘Sorry, that was quicker than I intended. If you want me to last, you shouldn’t be so bloody beautiful.’

‘You’re utterly depraved,’ Rufa said. ‘You’ll get us both arrested.’

They were lying in a patch of cowslips, at the edge of a flat field full of stubble. The Renault clung crazily to a sloping grass verge at the roadside.

He propped himself on one elbow, leaning over to kiss her nipples. ‘I can’t help it. I want to fuck you all day and all night. I want to make you come till you cry. I want to worship you with my body.’

Rufa’s purple silk dress was bunched around her waist, and unbuttoned down to her navel, exposing her breasts to the warm sky. Her dishevelment was more wanton than nakedness. She felt replete and tender, unwilling to cover herself. Tristan had begged her to stop the car. He had threatened to have a loud and conspicuous orgasm in the middle of the concert if she did not. She loved the urgency of his demands. Since the day of the car crash, they had been making love continually. They had shut themselves away at the farm, resisting all callers, ignoring time. Tristan was a sublime lover, young enough to come again and again, and sleep like the dead in her arms afterwards. He did not know that she watched him while he slept, dripping tears into his hair. The happiness was painful, because it was bought with the pain of others, and could not last. It
was
hard to convey this to Tristan. His emotional vocabulary simply did not contain the concept of betrayal. She needed a lover who would understand her, and empathize with her pain. Tristan had not matured into this tower of strength. He had to be entertained and distracted, like a child. Anything too heavy made him fretful. There was no question of leaning on him.

‘We ought to go,’ she murmured, not moving.

Tristan asked, ‘Did you catch Edward?’

Rufa tensed, and tried to push the memory away. Yes, she had caught Edward. For the first time, she had not been available for his daily call – she had allowed Tristan to lure her into making love standing up, in the shower. She had felt terrible when she found Edward’s message on the machine. He had sounded particularly distant and disapproving when she called him back – though he might simply have been in a hurry. Their conversations were rarely intimate, in any case. Edward’s telephone manner, though affectionate, was laconic in the extreme. He tended to confine their talk to farm business, and the work at Melismate. There was never an opening through which she could fling a confession, a plea to be rescued.

She said, ‘Yes, just briefly.’

Aware that the subject upset her, Tristan made his voice mild and neutral. ‘Did he say anything?’

‘He doesn’t know when he’s coming back, if that’s what you mean.’

‘Good.’

‘Don’t, Tristan – it makes me feel so evil.’

‘You’re not evil. You’re an angel.’ He sat up, fastening his trousers. ‘I’m not, and I can’t feel as guilty about Edward as you do. He’s across the sea. That means I have more time in paradise.’

Rufa sighed. ‘I wish we could live like this for ever – properly together, so we don’t have to hide. I can’t bear to think of you going away.’

‘Stop talking about it,’ Tristan said. ‘It hasn’t happened yet.’

‘Term will be starting soon.’

‘Forget about it. Concentrate on the eternal now.’

‘I wasn’t properly alive till I found you,’ Rufa said. ‘How can I go back to being half-dead?’ The colours of the real world were hard and painful. She knew that the place she inhabited with Tristan was only a pastel-shaded dream, and she did not care. For the first time, she began to understand why the Man had committed adultery on such a scale. He had been chasing the same magic realm; the weightless land of newborn sexual passion. Reality had hurt him – just as it was hurting her now – and he had only been trying to escape. She could not bear to think from what.

This was a dangerous train of thought. She forced herself to smile at Tristan.

He bent down to kiss her forehead. ‘You’re having one of your dreaded attacks of post-coital heaviness.’

‘Sorry. I’ll lighten up, or the concert will be too turgid for words.’ I talk too much about myself and my dreary feelings, she thought. Tristan was not good with intensity. He thought that when people were depressed about romance they were only striking a pose, like people in a play. She sat up, to button her dress. They brushed crumbs of earth from each other, laughing as they checked for grass stains. This was the sealed bubble of now, and he was right not to fret about the future. Being together was all that mattered.

Rufa no longer cared about appearances. Lydia was
singing
the Mozart
Requiem
with the Cotswold Chorus tonight. She could not miss it, and she could not leave Tristan behind. She had brazenly ordered two tickets in Edward’s name, at the special rate for CC life patrons. Many of the other life patrons had attended her wedding, and there would be a lot of tiresome and unconvincing explaining to do, but it was better than being without Tristan.

Fortunately, they would be part of a group – there was safety in numbers. In the large church at which the concert was being held, Rufa quickly found Rose, Roger and Linnet among the milling crowd of people at the back.

Rose greeted Tristan with a resounding kiss. ‘Lovely to see you.’

Linnet wrapped her arms around Rufa’s legs. ‘I’m not letting go of you - you’ll have to come home with me.’

‘I’ve stayed away for far too long, haven’t I? But I’ll come to see you tomorrow.’ Rufa stroked the dark head, despising herself for neglecting the little girl. ‘It’s the last day before you go back to school, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, and I’m in a new class, and guess what, the two girls I hate are in Miss Shaw’s.’

‘Oh, good.’

‘They can still chase me at playtime, but they can’t sit at my table and say things to me in quiet, mean voices.’

‘Oh, I am glad,’ Rufa said. ‘Now you can just concentrate on the girls you like.’

Linnet’s attention had darted to the main door of the church. ‘Daddy! It’s Daddy! HI, DADDY!’

Ran had come in, with Polly and two well-dressed, well-pressed strangers. His rather careworn face lit up. He rushed towards Linnet and swept her into his arms.

‘Ye gods,’ Rose muttered, ‘what has she done to his hair? Eaten it?’

Oblivious to the expression of dismay on the face of Polly, Ran swung Linnet back down to the floor. She perched her dusty pink trainers on top of his new loafers, giggling as he danced her through the crowd. People stood back to make way for them, smiling indulgently at the exuberant young father and his gleeful little girl.

Rose kissed him warmly. ‘Fancy seeing you. I wouldn’t have put you down as a friend of the Cotswold Chorus.’ She made it sound like a sexual perversion.

His face clouded. ‘I respond at a very deep level to all types of music, Rose. I thought you knew that. What are you lot doing here?’

‘Mummy’s singing in the choir,’ Linnet said, swinging on his hand. ‘This is her very first concert.’

‘What? What?’ Ran was startled. ‘You’re joking.’

‘You’ve got short hair,’ Linnet noticed, at last. ‘You look rather silly.’

‘I know. Sorry. When I come to fetch you from school, I’ll wear one of my hats.’

‘I expect Smelly made you cut it.’

‘Yes, it was all Smelly’s doing.’

‘Ran!’ Rose protested. She was laughing. ‘Don’t encourage her.’

‘You match Mummy now,’ Linnet said. ‘She’s cut all her hair off too.’

‘
What
?’

Polly approached, with her friends, in time to see the pained indignation on Ran’s face.

‘Liddy can’t cut her hair!’ he exclaimed. ‘It’s her best feature! Who made her do it?’

Linnet tugged energetically at his back pocket, slightly ripping one seam. ‘Can I cut my hair too?’

He shuddered. ‘Heaven forbid.’

Polly, with a blazing social smile, moved forward to embrace Rufa. It was the first time they had met since the wedding. ‘You look simply marvellous, I do hope you had a wonderful time in Italy.’ She giggled softly. ‘Oh God, people are staring at the Scarlet Woman.’

Rufa flinched, then realized Polly meant herself. ‘You certainly surprised us all.’

‘We must have lunch, so I can tell you the whole, incredible story. My life – well, I’ve been living on an absolute roller coaster. This is Justine D’Alambert, and her husband, Hugo.’

‘How do you do.’ Rufa shook hands with Justine and Hugo.

‘This is Rufa Reculver, indirectly responsible for my fit of madness. What a shame Edward can’t be here.’ Polly took hold of Ran’s sleeve. ‘Come along, darling, or all the good pews will be gone.’ With one more conspiratorial smile at Rufa, she marched her party away up the aisle.

‘We ought to bag a place near the front,’ Rose said. ‘Liddy’s so nervous, I don’t want her to have to search for us.’

Rufa hung back, so that she could take Tristan’s hand without her mother seeing. She needed to touch him, to hold on to him. He was looking a little bored. She pulled his hand against her thigh.

A tall, grey-haired woman jostled against them. Rufa turned, and met the outraged gaze of Lady Bute. Her cold eyes travelled from Rufa to Tristan, filling with contempt when they went back to Rufa.

‘Excuse me.’ She moved away from them, exuding distaste.

The encounter, which lasted only a couple of seconds, left Rufa wanting to cry. The Abominable Lady Phibes had forced her to see herself as she must look from the outside – a new bride, openly nestling up to another man. Behaving like a foolish teenager. Behaving, in particular, like a true daughter of the Man.

Tristan gently pulled his hand away, to stop the two of them blocking the aisle. He moved a step or two in front of her. Rufa stared at his back, suddenly frightened. She had loaded everything on to the shoulders of this boy – betrayed Edward, sacrificed her family. If he could not carry the load, she had nobody left in the world.

He turned, and smiled into her eyes with special intimacy. Rufa did not care that Rose’s head was bobbing curiously behind him. She smiled back, and they both reconnected with the blissful memory of making love less than an hour before. She must not doubt their love now, or she would drive them both crazy. Tristan tended to distance himself if she wanted too many assurances of eternity. Unlike Edward, he could only live in the present. She sat down close to him, feeling the warmth striking off his body, smelling her own scent mingled with his.

The members of the orchestra had taken their places in the nave. There was applause, and a general settling down, as the choir filed into the chancel. The tenors and basses wore dinner jackets and black ties. The women wore long black skirts and white blouses. Lydia had managed to give this unpromising uniform a miraculous appeal. Her short curls were deep gold under the lights.
She
was wearing make-up, and looked altogether as elegant and finished as a china figurine. Clutching her score, she looked round anxiously, saw Linnet, and shot her a sudden, enchanting smile.

On the other side of the aisle, Polly felt a frisson of alarm. She had not taken in that Lydia was singing – if she had known, she would never have come to this blasted concert. She searched the ranks of white blouses for the droopy creature, trembling under a bushel of hair, who had dementedly screamed at her that she would never marry Ran. It was a considerable shock to find Lydia transformed into what she could only count as a rival. She felt Ran tensing beside her, evidently as surprised as she was. He was quite silly enough to be smitten by his ex-wife’s unexpected loveliness, as if they had not spent years together making each other miserable. Proprietorially, she hooked her arm through his.

The applause rose to a crescendo, filling the church up to its fan-vaulted ceiling. The soloists entered, followed by the conductor. He was a tall, thin man, with a fresh face and a balding head. The coughs and rustles died away into silence. The first chords sounded.

Polly hissed, ‘Stop fidgeting!’ and nudged Ran hard in the ribs.