The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous

64

So off they went in two cars: Marigold and Larry, Georgie and Guy rode in the first. Hermione, reluctantly accompanied by Meredith, because Bob was still in London coping with the ramifications of Rachel’s death, drove with Kitty and Rannaldini, who was resplendent in a new, long pale-fawn cashmere coat from Ralph Lauren.

The clouds had rolled away. Primroses, violets and blue hazes of speedwell crowded the hedgerows from which the first green flames of hawthorn and wild rose were flickering brightly.

‘Dark glasses and head scarves, chaps,’ said Hermione, tying a rust silk square over her dark hair. ‘We don’t want to be mobbed by autograph hunters.’

There was hassle even before they got inside Slimbridge when, ignoring a sign saying NO ENTRY FOR FURS MADE FROM SPOTTED CATS OR TIGERS, Hermione tried to force her way through the turnstile.

‘Is that coat fake leopardskin?’ asked the girl on the till.

‘Certainly not,’ said Hermione in outrage.

‘I’m afraid you can’t come in.’

So Hermione threw a moody and as Rannaldini showed no signs of relinquishing his splendid new cashmere, kind Guy had to lend her his old army greatcoat.

‘It looks better on a man,’ joked Guy as he did up the brass buttons. ‘D’you remember that advertisement, Brickie?’

Kitty didn’t. She was thinking of the contrast between the noisy, self-confident sophistication of the Paradise party — excluding herself of course — and the scruffy excited crowds, mostly parents and children in anoraks, retired couples or earnest men in shorts and hung with cameras and binoculars.

‘Dreadfully suburban,’ shuddered Meredith, as he whisked Kitty past bright pink double cherries, weeping willows, little concrete ponds and pebble-dash islands crowded with birds.

‘I fink it’s beautiful,’ said Kitty, admiring the little teals with their glossy blue, green and chestnut heads and the black swans whose necks unfurled like ferns.

‘’Ooo, ’ow sweet.’ She bent down to stroke the little brown striped Hawaiian geese who wandered round soliciting bread and rubbing against people’s legs, tame as Lassie.

‘That bird with a white collar looks just like Percy,’ said Meredith.

‘It’s called the common shoveller.’ Marigold was eager to show off her ornithological knowledge.

Guy, who’d been a keen birdwatcher during the walking tours of his youth, was equally eager.

‘The courtship of the ruddy duck is absolutely fascinating,’ he was telling Larry.

Seeing a notice which said GO QUIETLY, TREAD GENTLY, Kitty thought it sounded like a prayer. There must be a god to produce such a marvellous variety of different coloured birds, and what a wonderful quacking and honking and hooting they make. From every bush came scuffling like a teenage party.

‘Interior designers could pick up a few tips.’ Meredith was studying the black, rust and white plumage of a passing eider duck.

‘Listen to what it says about the courtship pattern of the great whistler,’ cried Marigold putting on her spectacles to read another notice: ‘The male arches his body and neck, flinging up droplets followed by head up, tail up. Usually several males frantically display before one female.’

‘Sounds like the husbands of Paradise showing off to Rachel,’ said Georgie sourly. ‘Oh my God, I forgot she was dead.’

Noticing Kitty’s glazed eyes suddenly spilling over with tears, Meredith mouthed to Marigold, ‘Is she OK?’

‘I don’t think so,’ mouthed back Marigold.

Picking up this exchange, Hermione turned to Rannaldini: ‘Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Kitty could adopt a Canada goose? They’ve got a scheme here. It would give her an interest. I’ll go and jolly her up.’

Showing off her deeply caring nature and her charmingly curved legs, she moved forward putting her arm through Kitty’s.

‘I’m so delighted about Rannaldini’s new job. I know he’s been a naughty boy, but when you think of stags, stallions and male dogs, and how much more glamorously the male birds are kitted out than the females, it’s no wonder men are different. Bitches, does and female birds are gentle, sit on their nests and stay at home. Sex really isn’t that important.’

It is with Lysander, thought Kitty sulkily.

She noticed a mallard, his emerald head gleaming in the sunshine as his tabby wife nestled beside him in married contentment.

Like Lysander and me, thought Kitty, I’m plain and tabby, he’s beautiful and resplendent, but he loves me.

‘I know you’ve still got a crush on Lysander.’ Marigold took Kitty’s other arm. ‘He’s so sweet. We all had one on him once, just like the flu.’

‘Some of us still do,’ sighed Meredith, admiring the blond hairy legs of a hulking German tourist.

‘Don’t be silly, Meredith,’ reproved Marigold. ‘And don’t be rash, Kitty. Valhalla’s a beautiful place and Rannaldini’ll buy some gorgeous apartment for you in New York. It’s no fun lowering one’s standard of living.’ Marigold sighed even more deeply. ‘And think of the travelling you’ll do.’

And the packing, thought Kitty wearily.

‘He will not always say what you would have him say,’ sung Hermione warmly, so crowds turned and gawped at her, ‘But now and then he’ll say something wonderful. They’re holding an Infertility Workshop in Rutminster next week,’ she went on. ‘Why don’t you go along, Kitty? A problem shared is a problem solved.’

Surging ahead Larry, Guy and Rannaldini turned off to look at the flamingos. Soft orange and Barbara Cartland-pink they stood about on one leg making a very unmelodic, jangling din.

‘Sounds like one of Boris’s symphonies,’ said Rannaldini bitchily.

‘Poor bastard,’ said Larry.

But Rannaldini was deep in thought, anticipating the wonderful tussle he would have, knocking those bolshie but stunningly talented New York musicians into shape. The concert at which he’d raised so much money for the Gulf had been good for his image. Before he left he might do the same for the Royal Society for the Preservation of Birds. They could do an ornithological programme. There were so many composers — Delius, Respighi, Sibelius — to choose from. In the tower was a serenade to the lost birds of Italy which he’d written in his youth. He’d get it out and have a look this evening.

‘Guy is such a pig,’ Georgie was now whispering to Marigold. ‘A girlfriend rang me yesterday to say I must read Love in The Time of Cholera because its whole premise is that you can only keep a wife happy by lying and lying to her. And that was the bloody book Julia gave Guy for his birthday.’

At least, she comforted herself, Guy was being really sweet to her at the moment and David had rung while Guy was out getting the papers and presumably ringing Julia this morning, and she and David were having dinner on Monday.

‘I’m so lucky with darling Bob,’ said Hemione smugly as they moved towards a small wood. ‘He is so devoted. Oh, aren’t those coots sweet — I wonder if coots really are queer.’

‘I want to go to the Wild Goose Hide-away,’ giggled Meredith, bounding up some steps into a wooden hut. ‘Well, perhaps I don’t,’ he said shooting out on discovering a lot of bearded men with knobbly knees peering through binoculars.

But the Paradise party, who’d already started up the steps, pushed him jovially back into the hide-away. Inside, wide windows looked on to the Severn estuary which stretched out like a great white luminous STOP sign. In front little lakes were dotted with birds. To the right on the far shore, pylons and cranes rose out of a smoky haze.

‘Look at the Canada geese,’ cried Marigold.