“Mrs. C-B won’t like it.”
“She’ll have to lump it.”
Podge opened the front door. Helen could see a flurry of snowflakes and she was gone.
“You can’t, Rupert,” said Janey, half laughing. “Don’t be a sod, not on Helen’s new carpet. It’s taken quite enough punishment as it is.”
Helen went back and turned off Marcus’s light. What could they be talking about? She powdered her nose and combed her hair. Oh God, she was tired. If only she could go to bed and read
“What the hell are you doing?” she screamed. Over the laughter, no one heard.
“Twenty-five pounds you can’t jump that sofa,” said Count Guy.
“Done,” said Rupert and the next moment he’d cleared it, narrowly missing the chandelier.
“Rupert!” screamed Helen. “What are you doing on that horse?”
Everyone suddenly went quiet.
“No party’s complete without Revenge,” said Rupert, and popped him back over the sofa.
“Get him out of here,” she screamed hysterically. “Out, out, out!”
“All right,” said Rupert, but as Revenge came into the hall, unnerved no doubt by the occasion, he crapped extensively, which was greeted by howls of mirth.
“I think he’s trying to say he doesn’t like your new carpet,” said Rupert. Helen gave a scream of horror and fled upstairs, throwing herself down on her bed, sobbing her heart out. How could he do this to her, how could he, how could he?
Malise met Hilary at the bottom of the stairs. They had already had a long discussion about the Campbell- Black marriage and knew whose side they were on.
“Go to her,” said Malise. “At once. I’ll see someone clears up this mess.”
Hilary found Helen a sodden heap on the bed. “I can’t bear it, I can’t bear it. Why does he humiliate me like that?”
“I don’t know, dear.” Hilary stroked her hair. “He’s a monster, as I keep telling you. You’re exhausted. Take a couple of pills and go to sleep. I’ll help you get undressed.”
Just as she had got a still sobbing Helen out of her clothes and was fetching her nightgown from under the pillow, Rupert walked in.
“Get out,” he said to Hilary. “I might have guessed you’d be here.”
“I’ve just given your wife a couple of sleeping pills. Now leave her alone.”
“She can’t go to sleep. She’s the hostess.”
“You stop being a hostess after something like that. How could you do that to her? You’re the most uncaring man I’ve ever met.”
“It was a joke and for a bet,” said Rupert tonelessly. “All the mess has been cleared up. There’s not a mark on the carpet. Now get out.”
“Please stay,” sobbed Helen.
“I’m not leaving till you fall asleep, dear,” said Hilary.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” exploded Rupert, storming out of the room.
Helen, surprisingly, was so exhausted she fell asleep almost immediately. Hilary stayed a few minutes, folding up her clothes and tidying the room and her own appearance. Switching off the light, she quietly closed the door, then, moving down the landing, checked first Marcus and then Kate. Out on the landing she found Rupert, waiting with a glass in his hand. His hatred was almost palpable.
“They’re all asleep, no thanks to you,” she said.
Downstairs they could hear a tantivy. The band was playing the “Post Horn gallop.” Rupert stooped to pat Badger, who was trembling. He hated rows and was rising like a soufflee out of one of the Jack Russells’ baskets.
“Why do you drool over that dog and neglect Helen? What’s she ever done to you?”
Rupert stood up. “She was perfectly happy before you came along and started breast-feeding her this feminist crap.”
“That’s not true. She was nearly dying when I first met her, and you weren’t even there.”
“I happened to be trapped in one of the worst blizzards of the winter; not much I could do about it.”
“You grumble that she has no friends, and then when she finds one, you insult her. You always treat me as if I don’t exist.”
“Perhaps you don’t. I detest women that come on like Super-girl, and you detest me,” he said coming towards her, breathing in the hot feral sweat of her body, “because your pratt of a husband couldn’t even satisfy a hamster.”
“Don’t you dare say anything against Crispin!” screamed Hilary.
“You have to go round poisoning other people’s marriages,” Rupert went on. “Well, bloody well stay away from Helen.”
“She needs a few allies.”
“Not like you, she doesn’t.” He was taunting her now. “I know what your game is. You liked undressing her, didn’t you? She’s beautiful, isn’t she? And you’ve been running after her as fast as your unshaven legs can carry you, you bloody dyke. Well, she won’t enjoy it, she’s not very keen on that sort of thing.”
Next minute Hilary had slapped him very hard across the face. Without a thought, Rupert hit her back, even harder. She burst into tears and, somehow, a second later she was in his arms and he was kissing her, forcing her mouth open. Frantically she struggled, flailing her fists against his back, so much broader and more muscled than Crispin’s. Suddenly she relaxed, mouth separating, and was kissing him back even more fiercely.
“I hate you,” she sobbed.
“You don’t. You want me like hell. You’ve wanted me ever since you saw me at Gloucester Hospital. That’s why you’ve been smarming over Helen all this time.”
“You’re a brute.”
“Of course.” He took her hair and yanked her head back so he could kiss her again. Fingers splayed on her back, his thumbs caressed her shaven armpits. “That’s a great improvement,” he said softly. “It was getting so long, you could have plaited it.”
He drew back the landing curtain. The snow was three inches thick on the window ledge and still coming down.
“We mustn’t,” she said, pulling away from him. “It’s so unsupportive.”
“Not nearly as unsupportive as you’re going to be,” he whispered evilly. “I’m going hunting tomorrow. Get rid of Crispin after lunch. He can take Germaine tobogganing for an hour or so.”
27
Unable to face the hassle of a big wedding, Billy married Janey in Gloucester Registry Office at the beginning of January, thus forfeiting the large number of wedding presents which are so useful to a couple setting up house. Rupert was best man. Helen was disappointed that they didn’t even bother to have the marriage blessed in Penscombe church, but Billy felt, that first year with Janey, that the gods were blessing him anyway. Never had he been so happy.
Just before they married, Janey negotiated a fat deal with her paper that she would write a series of racy interviews around the world, which enabled her to travel with Billy on the circuit, all expenses paid. From Antwerp, to Paris, to Madrid, to Athens, to New York her portable typewriter gathered airline stickers, as she talked to presidents, rock stars, and distinguished tax exiles.
Often there were tensions when she had to file her weekly piece. A sweating, tearful, teeth-gritting Janey,
