effect and Marcus was looking so waiflike that Helen accepted James Benson’s recommendation that he should have his tonsils out at once.
“They’re as big as billiard balls. Marcus’ll be much better shot of them. It won’t cure the asthma, but all the illnesses he’s having as a result of the infected tonsils are pulling him down. There’s a very good man at the Motcliffe in Oxford. He’ll only be in hospital for four or five days.”
“Can I go in with him?”
“I honestly don’t recommend it. You’ve been under a lot of strain recently.” Privately Benson thought he’d never seen her look so wretched. “Leave him with experts who see this operation fifty times a week.”
“You’re saying I’m no good as a mother,” said Helen, beginning to shake.
“No, no,” said Benson reassuringly. “I’m saying you’re too good.”
“It’s certainly been a stressful year. D’you think that’s making his asthma worse?”
Benson shrugged. “Probably. Children are like radars; Marcus must realize how unhappy Rupert’s making you.”
Thank God we didn’t take the kids to Kenya, thought Helen, with a shudder.
“Rupert wouldn’t want me to go in with him.”
“Well, don’t. By all means visit him during the day, but go home and get a good night’s sleep every night.”
The night before Marcus was due to have his tonsils out, at the beginning of March, Helen and Rupert went to a big ball in London to raise funds for the Tory Party. It was the sort of invitation that Rupert would normally have refused; but, surprisingly, he was rather a fan of Mrs. Thatcher, the new prime minister, and felt she needed every bit of help if the Tories were to stay in power.
“You wouldn’t be able to afford to have Marcus’s tonsils out privately if the Socialists brought in a wealth tax.”
They went very grandly to the ball with several ministers and their wives. Helen found the evening a nightmare. Hollow-eyed, thinner than ever, her black ball dress had had to be taken in yet again. She knew she was being a damper on the evening, but all she could think about was Marcus in his white hospital bed and the surgeon’s knife going into his little throat in the morning. All around her, every table seemed filled with ravishing, chattering women flirting with bland smooth-haired men. At the same table a be-diamonded brunette with a roving eye, who’d already had a long amorous dance with Rupert, was surreptitiously holding hands with one Tory minister and, at the same time, making animated conversation to his wife.
The whole world’s at it, thought Helen, in despair.
There was Rupert coming off the dance floor, looking around for fresh talent. Goodness, he was going up to Amanda Hamilton, the much-admired wife of the minister for foreign affairs. Now she was smiling up at him and he was taking her onto the floor. She must be forty, but very attractive in a determined sort of way — driving her husband Rollo on from success to success, knowing everyone, rigidly governed by the social calendar.
Rupert had actually met Amanda Hamilton before, at a party last June, and had promptly asked her out to lunch.
“No, I can’t,” she had replied in her shrill, piercing voice. “Next week’s Ascot.”
“The week after then.”
“No, that’s tennis.”
Rupert was slightly taken aback, until she explained that Wimbledon went on for a fortnight and she had to be in her seat on the center court by two o’clock every day.
After that, she explained patiently, there would be a trip to America with Rollo, then Goodwood, and then Scotland.
Now, holding her in his arms in the twilight gloom, as the band played “This Guy’s in Love with You,” Rupert admired her rounded, magnolia-white shoulders. A side door suddenly opened to admit a couple to the dance floor, and Amanda Hamilton’s Scotch-mist-soft complexion was briefly illuminated. She didn’t duck her head, for her unwrinkled, untroubled beauty had no need of dimmer light.
“How was Wimbledon?” asked Rupert.
“Very exciting. He’s spoilt, that American who nearly won, but my goodness he can play tennis. I rather admire that kind of drive. It seems odd that no one minds painters or musicians or actors having tantrums, but tennis players, who are, after all, kind of artists, are expected to behave themselves. He’s rather like you, in fact. You’ve had a bad press recently, haven’t you?”
“You noticed?” said Rupert.
“Fighting with judges, frolicking with starlets, beating up your horses.”
Rupert shrugged.
“D’you beat your wife, too? Is that why she looks so miserable?”
Rupert glanced at Helen, who was still sitting frozen, gazing into space.
“What do you think?” he said.
“She looks as though the dentist is filling her back teeth, having forgotten to give her an injection.”
Rupert grinned.
“I don’t think it’s funny. Why are you consistently so foul to her when she’s so beautiful?”
“She’s given me up for Lent.”
“Don’t blame her, with you running after everything in skirts — or trousers — these days. Girls don’t seem to wear skirts anymore.”
“You seem to have been taking a great interest in my career.” His hand was beginning to rotate very gently on her back.
“It amazes me that someone with such dazzling qualities should be quite happy about presenting such an appalling image to the outside world.”
“I know what my friends think. Other people don’t matter.”
Amanda Hamilton shook her head so the pearl combs gleamed in her dark hair.
“One day you might get bored with riding horses and want to try your hand at something more serious.”
“Like taking you to Paris.”
“Rollo was saying the other day that one felt rather insulted if Rupert C-B
Rupert tightened his grip, his hand moving upwards until he encountered bare flesh.
“I’d hate to insult Rollo,” he said softly.
“He could do you a lot of good. Have you ever thought of going into politics?”
“No.”
“You’d be very good. You’ve got the looks, the force of personality, the magnetism, the wit.”
Rupert laughed. “But not the intellect. My wife says I’m a dolt.”
“You’ve got common sense, and I’ve heard you’re a very good after-dinner speaker.”
“I speak much better during dinner — and to one person, preferably you. When are you going to dine with me?”
“We’re off to Gstaad tomorrow. Oh, listen, the music’s stopped.” She clapped vaguely and turned towards her table.
Rupert grabbed her arm. “Wait. It’ll start up again in a second.”
“No,” said Amanda, with gentle firmness. “We’ve danced quite long enough. Go back and look after your poor little wife. You must both come and dine with us when Rollo gets back from Moscow next month.”
“No, thank you. I’ve got absolutely no desire to get better acquainted with your husband.”
Amanda smiled and patted his cheek.
“Think about politics as a career. I mean it seriously.”
Rupert stared at her unsmilingly.
Two days later, Jake Lovell walked down the long corridors of the Motcliffe Hospital to say hello to the matron and in the hope of catching a glimpse of the angelic Sister Wutherspoon. By some stupid Freudian misreading of the diary, or perhaps because he was so anxious to get the go-ahead to ride again, he had arrived for his appointment with Mr. Buchannan five hours early. Mr. Buchannan was operating, said the secretary, and couldn’t
