hadn’t changed, and on peering into the study which had been papered in dark mulberry to set off Guy’s Victorian paintings, said: ‘What colour are you going to paint this dreadfully dark room?’
Meredith, who looked like Christopher Robin with Shirley Temple’s blond curls, and who was tiny, beautifully dressed, and a great giggler, made no comment, on the principle that any praise might do him out of a possible job.
‘I think it looks wonderful,’ said Bob Harefield, hugging a disconsolate Georgie.
By nine-thirty, they were still light on Rannaldini and Kitty, Julia and Ben Armstrong, Annabel and Valentine Hardman and Marigold and whoever. Georgie was so nervous and belted upstairs so often to check her face that Bob wondered if she was on something. Rannaldini’s
‘You better put on the broccoli,’ muttered Guy as he opened another bottle of champagne. ‘I can’t do everything.’
Not waiting for the water to boil, Georgie was returning from the kitchen when through the door came a girl with long hair, the red of springtime copper beeches, and a lot of dark make-up round her fox-brown eyes. She was wearing a cream midi-dress, which enhanced her very pale skin, as falling snowflakes whiten the sky. Her slender neck seemed almost too delicate to support a heavy metal scorpion which hung between unexpectedly full breasts.
Lovely, thought Georgie with pleasure. Not unlike me twenty years ago, I must go on a diet.
‘Panda, this is Julia Armstrong,’ said Guy, ‘and this,’ he added even more warmly, ‘is Ben.’
Ben in computers was bald with protruding eyes, full red lips emphasized by a straggling black beard, and a little frill of black hair flowing over his white collar like a draught extractor. Seeing Guy in a shirt, he promptly removed his jacket to show off a small waist and hips as wide as his shoulders. He then proceeded to explain, in his nasal, very common voice, that they were late because he’d been kept at the office on extremely important business.
‘What a lovely spot, Guy,’ he went on, accepting a drink. ‘How did you find it?’
‘With great difficulty if you had Georgie’s directions,’ boomed Sabine Bottomley, who was gazing in admiration at Julia.
It is sod’s law, thought Georgie irritably, as Julia clapped her hands in joy as she saw her paintings on the walls, that such an enchanting girl should be on Guy’s left and I should be landed with her gh-a-a-stly husband.
But next moment the balance was redressed by the arrival of Rannaldini, who’d been kept on even more important business, some multi-billion Yen record deal with the Japs, and who was livid not to be the last to arrive. Heart-stopping in a dark blue velvet smoking-jacket, he was followed by poor Kitty looking unbelievably plain in burgundy polyester, with just the wrong gathers over the hips for her bean-bag figure.
As Ben was nearest the door and shamefully because they were the two most unattractive people in the room, Georgie introduced him to Kitty.
‘Do you play an instrument?’ asked Ben.
‘She plays the word processor,’ called out Rannaldini bitchily. ‘Don’t give her any other ideas.’
Introduced to Julia, who, in her nervousness, Georgie called Juliet, Rannaldini was all-purring amiability, but grew less so on learning that Flora had pushed off upstairs.
‘Go and get your daughter,’ Guy hissed at Georgie.
Always
‘Darling, please come out and be nice. Rannaldini’s bought you tickets for the
‘I don’t care,’ sobbed Flora who’d drunk nearly a whole bottle of Barsac. ‘The only passion I have is for Boris Levitsky and he’s buggered off with that slag Chloe. My life is over.’
Charging downstairs, Georgie found Guy pointing out the merits of one of Julia’s enmeshed couples to Rannaldini, Bob and Meredith, the Ideal Homo.
‘They’re very strong,’ Guy said warmly. ‘I’m certain Armstrong is going to be very big.’
Meredith, who inveigled vast fees out of his clients with the innocence of a schoolboy touting for pocket money, raised his little grey flannel leg three inches off the ground in imitation of the Pin-stripe Lover.
‘I couldn’t get myself into that position in a thousand years,’ he giggled. ‘He must be awfully fit.’
Irritated he wasn’t taking the painting seriously enough, Guy turned on Georgie. ‘Annabel Hardman has just rung and bottled out,’ he whispered furiously. ‘Valentine’s stuck in London.’
‘And in some blonde, oh, poor Annabel,’ said Georgie.
‘Says she can’t face it on her own,’ snarled Guy. ‘And where’s your friend Marigold? The quails will be totally ruined.’
Next moment a disgusting smell of burnt rubber drifted in from the kitchen.
‘Oh God, I forgot the broccoli,’ wailed Georgie.
Guy’s face tightened. Even worse, Dinsdale, fed up with being tripped over, had hoisted himself on to the big dark gold corduroy sofa in front of the fire and angrily refused to be evicted when Hermione wanted to sit down.
‘No, I won’t have any more champagne. I’m looking forward to a glass of wine at dinner.’ Hermione looked at her Cartier watch pointedly.
She was fed up with fascinating Miss Bottomley who had even more beard than Julia’s husband, with whom Kitty was making very heavy weather.
‘I’m starving,’ muttered Meredith to Georgie. ‘I had lunch with Bob and Hermione, and the old bat just served up stale bread and mousetrap, which would have been turned down by any self-respecting rat. “Hermione,” I told her, “this mousetrap’s been in your larder longer than Dame Agatha’s play.” She wasn’t amused.’
In panic, feeling as if all her guests were set in gelatine, Georgie had another drink. It was plain from the bored expression on Rannaldini’s face that he wasn’t remotely interested in her, and if Marigold didn’t show they’d need speaking trumpets to hear each other at dinner. Her heart lifted as lights came up the drive, but they went round to the back of the house. It was Mrs Piggott, Georgie’s cleaner, whom Flora had nicknamed Mother Courage, because she drank so much beer and who had already arrived to wash up.
We should never have moved to the country and got embroiled in such grandiose entertaining, thought Georgie. But just as they were seated round the kitchen table, and Ben, to his horror, found himself next to dowdy Kitty yet again, the curtain less windows were filled with flashing lights and a helicopter landed on the lawn spewing out Larry and Marigold who was looking stunning in a scarlet satin suit. Clasping hands, they ran across the lawn, nearly tripping over a molehill.
‘Fraightfully sorry we’re late,’ said Marigold as Georgie hastily wrote Larry’s name on a place card instead of Lysander’s. ‘Larry was closing a deal.’
‘Anyone we know?’ asked Bob Harefield.
After some coaxing, Larry admitted that he’d just bought 28 per cent of a vast Japanese record company.
‘He also found taime to make love to me on the office carpet,’ whispered Marigold to Georgie.
19
The dinner party perked up a bit after this as Larry and Marigold affected everyone with their high spirits. Idly flipping over the piece of paper on which Georgie had worked out the placement, Rannaldini found his cv, which Georgie had had faxed down from the London Met Press Office, so she would be able to talk knowledgeably about his career at dinner. Rannaldini smirked. If Georgie had the hots for him, he’d gain access to her house and Flora more easily. A gaze-hound who hunted by sight rather than scent, having once seen Flora, he wouldn’t rest until he
