‘Oh God, 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 Downleeshes’ 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 drove 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 Downleeshes’.
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 chinless 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 to 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 both 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 l0p 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.
