‘When was Catullus supposed to be handed in?’
‘January.’
‘That does make me feel better.’
‘D’you read poetry?’
‘Not since I picked up Herrick the other day, and found Guy had marked all the poems to Julia. I’m sure Herrick praised Julia’s leg for being white and hairless because it meant she wasn’t always pinching his razor.’
‘D’you mind coming upstairs a minute?’ asked David as they left the restaurant.
For a second, when he produced a pair of scissors from the dressing table, she backed away in terror thinking he was some kind of maniac, but he laughed and said he only wanted to cut half an inch off her fringe so he could see her eyes.
David had had a wretched year of insomnia, apathy, exhaustion and terrible migraines from bottling up his emotions. He was a man who liked to have control of himself and other people; he shrank from physical displays of affection; was often brusque and offhand to hide his feelings, but, once smitten, he went truly overboard.
Half an hour after Georgie got home, the telephone rang.
‘I’m not
‘Poisonous worm, you’ll end my term. Goddit,’ said Georgie. ‘You are marvellous.’
‘I hope I see you before the end of term.’
‘It’s half-term next weekend,’ said Georgie.
44
The streams came back to Paradise and so did Guy Seymour. He was photographed looking handsome and suntanned at Heathrow and repeated his vows to stand by his errant wife, adding with a manly, slightly crooked smile, that as a Christian and father, he didn’t believe in divorce. In fact he couldn’t afford to be anything but magnanimous. His French trip had cost a bomb. Half the galleries in the West End were going belly-up, and he needed financial help from Georgie to keep going. And, utterly perversely, Georgie had suddenly started looking fantastic, and he found himself fancying her rotten once again. As Lysander was in Australia, he felt less threatened and that Georgie was genuinely trying to save the marriage. They got on better than they had in months and the Press, increasingly preoccupied with the Gulf War, drifted away.
As autumn gave way to winter, Georgie found she was looking at her own and David’s horoscope long before Guy’s, Julia’s, Lysander’s or even Rachel’s. Guy was delighted Georgie was burying herself in work. Marvellous tunes floated from her turret room like banners, and she sang even more beautiful versions in her bath.
Lysander, however, was stuck in the outback, rattling a sheep farmer who’d been cheating on his wife and playing a lot of polo. Missing Georgie constantly, he grew increasingly frustrated when she never answered his letters which admittedly were pretty short, and always seemed out when he rang. If he didn’t get her, as Rannaldini was still away, he’d ring Valhalla.
‘Kitty, Kitty, Kitty. It sounds as though I’m calling a cat in the dark. Did I wake you? What time is it? Five- thirty? Oh shit, I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be. It’s the nicest wake-up call I’ve ever ’ad. Now I can read.’
‘What are you reading?’
‘A book called
‘Tell me what it’s about. I’ve got to page twenty-five of
‘Probably pulled the phone out. She’s working ever so ’ard.’
‘Will you call round and beg her to ring me, please, Kitty? I miss her so much. Have you heard from Ferdie?’
‘Only that Maggie’s in season, and ’alf the dogs in Fulham are baying outside the door.’
‘Oh God, poor Ferd. I’ll ring him. Jack’ll be in there. He’s such an operator. They’ll have gorgeous puppies. I’ll give you one. How much d’you weigh now?’
‘Eight stone eleven, but it’s ’ard to diet when the wevver’s cold. Wasn’t it sad about Mrs Fatcher?’
‘I know. I really cried when I saw her leaving Downing Street in her crimson suit.’
‘Awful ’aving to move ’ouse in three days.’
‘I sent her a good-luck card.’
‘That was kind. John Major seems nice.’
‘Are you sure Georgie’s OK? Is she missing me?’
‘I’m sure she is.’
‘Well, I’ll be home for Christmas. I’ve got you a present to make up for Dinsdale chewing up your boomerang. Bye, Kitty darling.’
Putting back the telephone, Kitty thought how empty Paradise seemed without Lysander. Out in the night, a sharp frost was bringing down the last leaves. She felt sad there was no-one to witness their fall, like soldiers dying alone on the battlefield. How awful if Lysander or Wolfie or Ferdie got sent to the Gulf.
Australia grew hotter and Lysander, missing Arthur and his dogs, and having restored the errant sheep farmer to his lovely wife, decided to fly home and surprise Georgie whom he missed most of all. He spent the twenty-four-hour flight gazing at her photograph, which had grown cracked and faded in his wallet and landed on a bitterly cold morning in the first week in December. Collecting an ecstatic Jack and Maggie, who seemed to have put on a lot of weight, from Fulham, he found Ferdie leaving for work and extremely disapproving.
‘You can’t go back to Paradise. The Press are still sniffing around. Everything’ll blow up again.’
‘I must check if Arthur and Tiny are OK. My stuff’s all at Magpie Cottage, and I’m frantic to see Georgie.’
‘Well, for God’s sake, ring first. You don’t want to bump into Guy.’
Lysander left a message on Georgie’s ansaphone, and then played Georgie’s sixties tape, which he’d nearly scrambled, all the way down. He was so tired, the drive seemed longer than the flight. He remembered how, after any time apart, his mother used to race out of the house, arms open wide, eyes wet with tears of joy, and tug him into a warm, scented embrace. If he had Georgie, Christmas wouldn’t be so bleak.
Stripped of its green leaves, Paradise was as he remembered it on his first visit. Crows cawed morosely, the stone of the houses had lost its lustre, everything was blanketed in mist. Grey and sullen, Valhalla had retreated into its trees like a murderer with a gang of retainers. The only colour came from the last saffron of the larches and the faded red of the Turkey oaks. Georgie’s soaring angels looked in need of thermal underwear.
Anxious to get into the house out of the vicious wind, Lysander parked the Ferrari across the drive and loaded himself up with a koala bear, a huge bottle of Giorgio, a pearl necklace and twelve bunches of pale pink roses he’d bought on the way. Dinsdale welcomed him and the dogs with great delight. The Rover outside, as highly polished as an elderly army officer’s shoes, looked vaguely familiar, but Lysander was in too much of a rush.
‘Georgie, it’s me,’ he yelled, letting himself into the house.
His heart was hammering with excitement, he was so dying to hold her in his arms.
‘Georgie, where are you?’
After too long a pause, she came downstairs, wrapped in a dark brown towel. She looked so terrified that Lysander thought for a ghastly second that Guy might be at home. There was a faint smell of fish. She must be cooking Charity’s cod.
She wore no make-up, except mascara smudged under her eyes, and, although her hair was tousled, she was growing her fringe out and wearing it brushed sideways off her forehead. Having gazed at a very glamorous photograph of her for two months, Lysander thought she looked much older.
‘I was having a bath,’ she stammered.
Clutching his presents, his curls flopping over his bruised eyes, his chin resting on massed pink roses,
