The Marrying Game (48 page)

‘Well, I suppose so.’

‘It’s rather intrusive of me, but it’s been bothering me for ages – how did you propose to Polly?’

Berry was startled. ‘Sorry?’

‘You know. Going down on one knee, or over a romantic dinner. How did you do it?’

‘I don’t know. The same way everyone does. How did you propose to Lydia?’

‘Oh, I’ll never forget that,’ Ran said wistfully. ‘We were lying naked under a hedge.’

‘Hmm. How romantic. But if you’re thinking of
trying
that with Polly, I don’t hold out much hope.’ Berry gave up the struggle, and resigned himself to the ungentlemanly act of talking about his former fiancée.

‘It would make her angry, wouldn’t it?’

‘Definitely.’

‘It’s really awful when she’s angry, isn’t it?’

‘I’ll say.’ Berry could not tell a lie. By God, it was awful. She had a way of ripping off all your self-esteem, to leave you shivering and whimpering. Deflecting Polly’s anger took years of study. He was moved to sympathy. ‘Look, I’ll be honest. I don’t actually remember the moment I proposed. There was never a point at which I uttered the words “Will you marry me?” I knew I loved her, and wanted to be with her, and all that. I’d just got my first job after Oxford, and her parents had given her a flat for her twenty-first birthday –’

‘So it was natural for you to move in with her,’ Ran suggested.

Berry nodded. ‘That’s it – completely natural. And that’s when Polly simply began talking about our wedding. Jokily, at first. It only gradually got serious.’

Ran was listening with all his attention. ‘And when did you realize there was no going back?’

‘Oh, that’s easy. She mentioned our wedding in front of my mother. So I couldn’t very well say I knew nothing about it. Though I was very pleased, of course. Delighted.’ Berry cleared his throat. ‘Anyway, the hints went on. If I wanted her to be happy, all I had to do was pay attention. She kept showing me pictures of rings, and leaving her rings lying about so I’d know the size. So I went to her favourite jewellers, and bought her a ring.’ He could not help adding, ‘A bloody expensive one, too.’

‘And that was it?’

‘More or less. I took it home and gave it to her. And for some reason, she was incredibly surprised. She told all her friends I was very impetuous and impulsive.’

‘Were you?’

Berry sighed. ‘Come on, you know me. I’m the least impulsive man on earth.’

‘You’re lucky.’ Ran was gloomy. ‘I’m always leaping into things head first. That’s how it all ended up like this. She’s going on about our wedding as if it was all arranged. That means I’m going to end up married to her, doesn’t it?’

‘I thought that’s what you wanted.’

‘Everyone thinks that. Nobody bothers to ask me what I think.’ Ran’s arched eyebrows, black as Indian ink against his parchment skin, drew together in a frown. ‘The walls are closing in on me. I nearly had hysterics at that fucking tailor’s.’

‘Sorry?’

‘She sent me to be measured for a suit,’ Ran said bitterly. ‘I had to stand still for ages, with some old queen feeling up my inside leg – and at the end of it, he let slip she’d ordered a morning suit. I felt as if I’d been measured for my coffin.’

A waiter arrived, with Ran’s soup and Berry’s smoked salmon.

‘It’s difficult,’ Berry said. ‘Other people tend not to understand about Polly. My sister used to think I was pathetic for not speaking to her plainly – laying down the law, if you like. But the few times I tried it, Polly always managed to get the wrong end of the stick, and I ended up begging forgiveness for some awful thing I didn’t know I’d done.’ He shook black pepper over his
salmon
. ‘I’ll be frank with you, Ran. If you don’t want to marry her, the suit doesn’t bode well.’

Ran stirred his soup, as if searching for something in its red depths. ‘I’ve let it go too far. I can’t turn back.’ He laid the spoon down in the bowl. ‘What the hell am I going to do?’

‘What do you want to do?’

‘Would I be asking if I knew? God, I’ve made a mess of my life. I’ve alienated all the people who loved me, I’ve thrown away everything I hold dear –’ His eyes flooded. Rich tears dripped from his lashes. ‘I wish I was dead sometimes.’

Berry froze, with smoked salmon on his tongue. Please, not tears. Not here. If he kept still and said nothing, Ran might pull himself together.

‘She’s come between me and Linnet,’ Ran said. ‘She doesn’t understand Linnet, she doesn’t like talking to her. She doesn’t like it when I pop round to Melismate to see her. Now my baby thinks I love Polly more than I love her. It’s like a knife in my heart.’ A loud sob shook him.

Berry hissed, ‘Ran, for God’s sake –’ The men at the table on either side were flicking doubtful glances.

‘Yesterday I went to fetch her from school, and she came running out to meet me. And when she saw I had Poll with me, she just stopped short, and all the light went out of her. I can’t describe the expression on her face.’ He drew his linen sleeve angrily across his streaming eyes. ‘I’ve blown it. I’ve lost my daughter. She’ll be living with that lecherous choir bloke.’

‘Choir bloke?’ Berry echoed. The adjacent tables were now listening openly. One man had put down his fork, to watch.

‘He runs this posh choir Liddy’s joined, and you should have seen him, he was all over her. Normally, when men get amorous with her, she runs away. This time, she was smiling, and hanging on his every bloody word – yes Phil, no Phil, you’re so fucking talented, Phil – I couldn’t bear it!’

‘But you’re not married to her any more.’ Despite the glare of publicity, Berry felt he should point this out.

Ran was beyond reason. ‘She’s having private rehearsals with that slavering old goat – for her line in “Spem in Alium”, which is a very challenging forty-part motet. And it had better not be subtitled “Sperm in Lydia” – or I’ll kill myself!’ He buried his face in his napkin.

Berry leaned across the table towards him. Very quietly, but very clearly, he said, ‘You’re making a complete arse of yourself. Get a grip.’

He sat bolt upright, and ate his smoked salmon.

Ran sniffed loudly, mopping at his face. He finished off by blowing his nose on the napkin. ‘Sorry. God, that was quite cathartic.’ He blew his nose again, and attacked his soup, almost cheerfully.

‘Seriously,’ Berry said, ‘nobody can force you to get married. Do talk to Polly – she’s not such a bad old stick.’

‘Polly’s wonderful. It’s disloyal of me to complain. But I’m looking back at things I did in the past. I don’t think Liddy and I achieved closure.’ Ran slurped the last of his soup, wiped his mouth with the remains of his napkin, and sighed. ‘That family, eh? If you’re doomed to fall in love with one of them, she’ll be in your hair for ever.’

Chapter Eight

LINNET CHARGED INTO
the Melismate kitchen, clutching a battered piece of sugar paper. ‘H’lo, Granny.’

Rose bent down, trapping the little girl long enough to plant a kiss on her head. ‘One of your paintings? How lovely. This kitchen needs some good paintings.’

‘It’s some apples and a banana. It’s called a Still Life, because there aren’t any things that move in it. Can I watch
The Worst Witch
?’ Not waiting for a reply, Linnet shrugged off her Pikachu rucksack and her pink cardigan, dropped them on the floor, grabbed the Ressany Brothers from the dresser and dashed out of the room. Over her shoulder, she called, ‘Juice please – not with bits in!’

Rose picked up the rucksack and cardigan, glancing round warily as Rufa came in. She knew her oldest daughter had strong views about videos straight after school. When Rufa lived at Melismate, she had worked hard to establish a proper routine for Linnet. Even when up to her eyes in jam-making, she had religiously observed bedtimes, mealtimes, basic good manners and healthful food. But Rufa had not been here for weeks, and, Rose was the first to admit, things had got rather lax. She was fully prepared to defend herself, with a detailed speech about routines smashed by a summer of upheaval.

Rufa, however, did not appear to have noticed the video, nor the rudely dumped belongings. She hovered near the door, clutching her car keys in one hand. She was smiling – but miles away, Rose decided; bathed in the light of some other planet.

Rose moved to put the kettle on. ‘Thanks so much for fetching her, lovey.’

‘Oh, I don’t mind.’ Finally, Rufa met her mother’s eyes. ‘I love picking her up from school. She comes out so full of her own world.’

‘Well, it got us out of a hole, what with the car languishing at the garage, and Ran off at the races.’

‘Off where?’

‘He’s eating mini sausage rolls in a box at Cheltenham. Polly wanted him to meet some friends of hers. So, of course, that took precedent over picking his daughter up from school.’

Rufa smiled. ‘She’s not the sort of woman you disagree with. Where’s Lydia, anyway? Isn’t she here?’

Rose took a clean mug from the new dishwasher. ‘No, she’s rehearsing with Phil Harding, and I wouldn’t make her miss it for the world. Phil’s choir has brought her back to life. She hasn’t been this unzombified since she left Ran. Do sit down, darling.’

‘Oh, I’m not staying, thanks.’

Rose turned to face her squarely, hands on hips. ‘Rubbish. We haven’t seen you in ages. I absolutely forbid you to leave without having a cup of tea.’

Rufa laughed. ‘All right. A quick one.’ She moved away from the door and sat down at the table, still clutching her keys.

Like a visitor, Rose thought. As if this house, and the people in it, no longer concerned her – and this was the
girl
who had offered herself as a sacrifice, to preserve them all. She studied Rufa covertly while she made two mugs of tea-bag tea. There was definitely something different about her: something glassy-eyed and unconvincing in her air of serenity.

‘Tell me how you are. Give me details of your every waking thought and act.’ Rose joined her at the table. ‘I’ve missed you. We all have.’

‘I’ve been busy,’ Rufa said. ‘There’s such a lot to do.’

‘Such as what?’

‘At the moment, I’m making tomato chutney.’

‘Oh, good – Roger adores your chutney. May we have a couple of jars?’

Rufa laughed. ‘You can have a caseful. I’ve made tons of the stuff. The jars are crowding me out of house and home. I thought I might sell a few dozen to that shop in Bourton.’

‘Darling, I thought you’d given up flogging your wares round the tourist traps. You don’t have to slave over a hot stove any more, so why on earth do you do it?’

‘Just for fun,’ Rufa said. ‘We have a ridiculous glut of tomatoes, and I’ve run out of ways to use them up.’ She laughed suddenly – a lightning flash of animation. ‘Tristan picks the bloody things faster than I can bottle them.’

Rose sighed. ‘Listen to us. A year ago, your cooking activities made a real difference. I’m ashamed to remember how I relied on your jam.’

‘You were extremely good at finding bargain sacks of fruit.’

‘Yes, but I thought you’d finished with all that. Edward will have a fit.’

‘No he won’t.’ The light dulled. Rufa’s face became
tense
and still, as she put the shutters up against the pain, or the guilt – or whatever else it was that made her, for a moment, visibly anguished. ‘He likes me to be enterprising.’

Rose thought how transparent she was – you could always tell exactly what she was feeling, because it was written in those great, serious, radiant eyes. Watching narrowly, she asked, ‘How is he, by the way? Any nearer getting home?’

‘There’s a good chance he’ll be called next week. Once he’s actually in the witness box, it shouldn’t take long. He’s not the only witness.’

‘Why the delay?’

‘Oh, apparently the man on trial keeps claiming to have terrible illnesses.’

‘I never thought I’d hear myself saying it, but I miss Edward,’ Rose declared. ‘Apart from anything else, we had to call a plumber about the downstairs lav. Edward would have fixed it in a second.’

‘Yes, poor you.’ Rufa picked up her mug of tea, blowing on the surface to cool it.

‘It was only the ballcock. The man gave it one little jiggle, and charged me about a million pounds. So I refuse to call anyone about the drain, till Edward’s had a look.’ Rose waited for Rufa to protest that Edward was not the family’s unpaid handyman. But Rufa had crossed back into the blessed safety of her secret realm, and only smiled.

Rose recognized her daughter’s blank terror of facing the unfaceable. She remembered how Rufa had been in the weeks after the Man’s death – frantically building a shell of sensible coping, to hide her deep loopiness. Rose blamed herself, for not fighting through her own grief to
reach
her daughter. Edward seemed to understand, and she wished to God he would come home.

The front door banged.

‘Anyway, here’s Roger,’ Rose said. ‘Which must mean the car has lived to fight another day.’

It was not Roger. The kitchen door opened. Selena, thin as a wishbone in baggy jeans and a cropped T-shirt, dragged in a bursting rucksack.

‘Hi, Mum. Hi, Ru.’ She grinned at them shyly. ‘Can you give me a hand with my bags?’