walls dragged. Ay said, “Ay don’t care for draggin’ it always looks as though it should have another coat.” Then Ay said, “How long have you been sleepin’ with may husband?” She said, “Ay must just look it up in may faylo-fax,” the cheeky cow.’
‘What’s she like?’ asked Lysander. Seeing Marigold was shivering he got up and put more logs on the fire.
‘Nikki? Spelt with a double K for Kleptomania, only she lifts husbands rather than shops,’ Marigold sniffed. ‘She looks like one of those girls who guides folk towards wheels of fortune in game shows. Very, very pretty, in fact she’s so pretty Ay never suspected she’d be interested in may Larry. Ay thought the only woman Larry admired was Margaret Thatcher. Nikki asked me why Ay didn’t have the walls dragged.’
‘You told us that,’ said Ferdie, who was anxious to get down to business.
‘Ay’m sorry, I keep repeatin’ myself. I trayed so hard to be a good wife. I got lonely in the country, but I kept busy with may committees, and Ay always washed may hair on Frayday and had a candlelit dinner waitin’ for Larry when he got back from town.’ She started to cry again.
‘I wish someone would do that for me.’ Lysander reached for more kitchen roll.
‘I worked so hard in the early years, darnin’ his socks, studying cheap cuts and going without lunch. We were so happy then.’
‘Can we see your wedding photographs?’ interrupted Ferdie briskly. ‘And some when you were first married.’
Collapsing heavily between him and Lysander on the sofa, Marigold opened a red photograph album.
‘You look terrific,’ said Lysander gazing in amazement at a sixties snapshot of Marigold in Hyde Park. ‘Great legs, and that chain belt’s very sexy.’
‘I gave up lunch for a whole fortnight to pay for that dress,’ sighed Marigold. ‘I had a handspan waist then.’
‘Well, you better give up a few more lunches,’ reproved Ferdie. ‘You’ve hardly got a legspan waist now, and your skin’s awful.’
Lysander winced, and wished he could go next door and watch the 3.15. Outside a gaudy pheasant with a red face and staring eyes, trailing awkwardly round the frozen lawn looking for refuge, reminded him of Marigold.
‘It’s nothing personal,’ said Ferdie kindly. ‘It’s exactly like getting a horse fit for a big race. You need a month on the road and two on the gallops. Lysander’ll take you jogging and when it gets lighter in the evenings and you’re frantic for that forbidden first drink of the day, you can both play tennis.’
‘It’ll never work,’ moaned Marigold. ‘If it weren’t for Patch, I’d kill myself.’
Patch stared balefully at them through the strings of the harp.
When Ferdie started to discuss money, Lysander was so embarrassed Ferdie had to take him off to Larry’s den, where he was very excited to find a bar in the corner with every drink known to man hanging upside down with rightway-up labels.
‘Oh, can I play with it?’
‘Of course, and watch the end of Lingfield on the big screen. If you get bored with that, Larry’s got all Donald Duck’s cartoons up on the right,’ said Ferdie, shutting the door firmly.
‘It’s going to cost you,’ he told Marigold, going back into the sitting room.
‘Ay haven’t got any money. Larry’s keepin’ me so short.’
‘Well, you’ll have to pawn a few rings.’
‘He’s charmin’ Lysander.’
‘Charming,’ agreed Ferdie. ‘But very expensive. We’ll have to find a cottage for him to rent down here. Not too near Paradise to preserve his air of mystery. He needs a couple of paddocks and stabling for his horses and a really sharp, fuck-off car, a Porsche or better still a red Ferrari.’
Then, ignoring Marigold’s gasp of horror, ‘And access to a helicopter — we can’t have Larry thinking he’s some tinpot gigolo — and some decent clothes: a few suits and Gucci shoes. He needs decent shoes because he has a tendency to ingrowing toenails. And you must arrange an account at The Apple Tree, and the nearest off- licence and install satellite television, so he doesn’t get bored down here. Then there’s the little matter of his debts.’
‘How much are they?’ said Marigold faintly.
‘Ten grand should cover it,’ said Ferdie airily. ‘He’ll need pocket money of course to send you flowers and take you out on the tiles. If Larry comes back to you that’s a further ten grand, and a retainer for the next year to keep Larry on his toes.’
‘But Ay haven’t got that kind of money,’ whimpered Marigold. ‘Ay shall be destitute.’
‘No, you won’t.’ Ferdie topped up her glass. ‘Insist Larry buys you that house in Tregunter, and I’ll pretend it cost one hundred and fifty thousand pounds more than it does, which gives us lots of leeway.’
Marigold was so distraught, and by this time so awash with vodka, that she accepted all Ferdie’s conditions.
‘Life is about taking chances,’ said Ferdie, cosily pocketing a vast advance cheque. ‘It’s going to be a lark, I promise you.’
‘You ’ave terrific control over Lysander,’ said Marigold shaking her head.
‘I’m his mind and his minder,’ Ferdie reassured her. ‘I’ll be overseeing things all the way.’
Watching the 3.15 on Larry’s ten-foot screen made the race ten times more exciting, but Lysander felt ten times more depressed when the horse he’d backed fell at the last fence.
He thought of Arthur in his last race, donkey ears flapping, big feet splaying out in all directions, but with so much heart in his great grey girth that he ran on and on, just tipping the last fence in his tiredness. He’d got to get Arthur sound again. He had no job, no money, no prospects, no mother. The snowdrops outside, like the ones on her grave, reminded him he’d never see her again. The fish-ponds under the trees were turning ruby red in the setting sun.
He was roused from his black gloom by Ferdie, quite unable to keep the smirk off his broad pink face.
‘Well, you got the job.’
‘What job?’
‘Being Marigold’s toy boy.’
‘Don’t be an asshole. I can’t bonk for money.’
‘You only get paid if you don’t bonk her. We don’t want you involved in a messy divorce case.’
‘What about Arthur and Tiny?’
‘They can move in, too.’
All Lysander’s scruples were overcome when he saw his first pay cheque. On the way back to London he and Ferdie stopped to order a red Ferrari. Arriving at Fountain Street, they found the telephone ringing. It was the police.
‘I think we’ve found your Golf GTi, Mr Hawkley. Does it have a NCDL sticker in the back saying, “A Dog is for Life… Not Just for Christmas”?’
‘That’s the one.’
‘It wasn’t in Drake Street where you thought you’d left it, but in Kempton Street.’
‘Thanks awfully,’ said Lysander, ‘that’s really, really kind of you, but basically I don’t need it any more, because I’ve just got another one.’
‘Lys
9
Lysander, Arthur, Tiny, Jack and a red Ferrari with a top speed of 200 m.p.h. moved into a charming cottage seven miles from Paradise, and Lysander lost no time in getting Marigold into training. As they both jogged in track
