The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous

the black bars of the wood listening to the Top Twenty on Radio I, apprehensive almost to the end, until they heard the opening bars of Dancer Maitland’s ‘Recession Blues’ at Number Two, and knew it hadn’t knocked Georgie off the Number One spot. When ‘Rock Star’ came on, Guy turned up the wireless, so it blared round Paradise.

‘I’m so proud of you, Panda,’ he said opening the only bottle of Dom Perignon left from the dinner party.

‘I wish I could really tell you how much I love you,’ said Georgie.

Then, in a brief twilight wander round the garden, Guy outlined his long-term plans for the house and garden.

‘A new heaven and a new earth,’ murmured Georgie.

She must get on with Ant and Cleo tomorrow to pay for it.

Guy was in amorous mood again at bedtime.

‘Don’t be too long,’ he urged Georgie.

But Georgie got stuck into the Penguin Book of Narrative Poetry in the bath, and by the time she’d finished The Pied Piper, marvelling at Browning’s gift for rhyme, particularly as there were no rhyming dictionaries in those days, Guy was snoring with the light on.

Next morning he set off for London in his new BMW looking splendid. His blue-striped shirt and indigo tie brought out the light Messianic-blue of his eyes, as if he was some explorer setting out to discover new continents. Noticing his beautifully brushed pin-stripe jacket and his cases in the back and breathing in his English Fern aftershave as she hugged him goodbye, Georgie felt utterly desolate at being left on her own for five days. Flora was away staying with friends. But it would be nice to watch what she wanted on television, not tidy up and work all night if she felt like it.

It had rained heavily in the night, and where the valley was drying off, mist the same blue as Guy’s eyes drifted upwards. Georgie wondered how far away Julia Armstrong lived and if she sent up smoke signals to some lover. She couldn’t be in love with that fearful Ben.

Georgie was just looking at The Scorpion headline: ‘CARING GUY, THE HUNKY HUBBY’, when she realized he’d forgotten to take the little Hockney drawing to be framed for Flora’s birthday which was on Sunday. Ringing him, she found his car telephone engaged. He must hardly have reached the outskirts of Paradise, but it remained engaged for the next thirty minutes.

Georgie was distracted by her agent ringing, saying the Gas Board were definitely firming up the offer for her and Guy to do a commercial, and that a champagne firm had rung to check out Georgie’s availability.

‘Better pay us in kind after Friday night,’ said Georgie.

Remembering it was dustbin day, and Mother Courage wasn’t due for half an hour, Georgie started to empty the waste-paper baskets. In the basket in Guy’s study she found a pink envelope, torn up into pieces smaller than confetti. Was it practising for this that one did so many jigsaws as a child? thought Georgie. Having laboriously pieced the envelope together, she saw it was addressed to: GUY SEYMOUR, private, at the gallery.

‘I must not let it put me off my work,’ she told herself sternly. ‘Women have always had crushes on Guy. Look at the way Kitty Rannaldini goes scarlet every time he speaks to her.’

All the same, she jumped as though she’d been caught snooping when the telephone rang. It was London Weekend asking how she was getting on with Ant and Cleo and whether there was anything they could see.

‘It’s going really well, but it’s still in draft form,’ Georgie told them airily, but starting to shake.

After they’d rung off, she decided to look for Act One. Perhaps Guy had picked it up. His study was so tidy, she was frightened of disrupting anything. Opening a desk drawer, searching for a sheaf of manuscript paper, she stumbled on the most charming nude drawing of a girl in a primrose-yellow bath cap with, except for the full breasts, a long slim, almost childish, body. It was a second before Georgie realized it was Julia. The drawing was unsigned, but it didn’t have the narrow-eyed, scowling intense look of a self-portrait.

It was perfectly normal for Guy to buy drawings of artists he exhibited; but Georgie nevertheless felt her happiness seep away like water out of a crooked plughole.

There was the bloody telephone. How was she getting on in the country, asked the girl from the Daily Mail. Was she meeting lots of interesting people?

‘I don’t meet people down here, I meet fucking deadlines,’ snarled Georgie, then had to apologize to the reporter, who knew what hell deadlines were, and who congratulated her on Guy being voted Hubby of the Year, and asked if she could do a telephone interview with her about Guy.

Feeling guilty that she’d been harbouring jealous thoughts about pink envelopes and nudes, Georgie was even more glowing about her husband than usual.

The rest of the week was punctuated by thank-you letters for the dinner party praising Guy’s cooking. Not to be outdone, Georgie wasted a whole workday making a fish pie for Guy’s return on Friday night. Putting the first bluebells in his study and his dressing room, she welcomed him with clean hair and a rust angora jersey which he loved because it made her feel all soft and cuddly. As he came out on to the terrace after unpacking, he handed her the Evening Standard.

‘They’ve given Julia’s exhibition a terrific advance plug, I brought it down to show you. God, it’s beautiful here.’

A week of sun had brought out the wild cherries and palest gold criss-cross leaves like kisses on the willows.

‘From you have I been absent in the spring,’ murmured Guy, sliding his hands up under the rust angora. ‘Will that deliciously smelling fish pie keep for half an hour?’

Next day was just as beautiful, and Georgie decided to walk down to Paradise with Dinsdale, trying out the new path that had been hacked out through the wood. On either side, trees soared tall and gangling from being planted too close. Many of them were smothered to the top in ivy. Georgie noticed how many of the trunks had been daubed with silver paint, which meant they would soon be cut down to make more room for the others. Georgie felt really sad. Some of the condemned were really splendid trees, happily putting out palest green leaves, unaware of their fate. Would that make a theme for a song? She was about to scribble the idea on the back of her shopping list when she realized she’d left it behind, and calling to Dinsdale, who was baying in the woods after rabbits, ran back home.

Climbing back in through the low kitchen window, she found Guy on the telephone.

‘All alone in a huge house,’ he was sighing, ‘God, if only you were here.’ Then, seeing Georgie, without missing a beat, he said, ‘I’m sorry, you must have got the wrong number. This is 284 not 285. OK, no problem,’ and hanging up, ‘Hallo, Panda, what did you forget?’

Georgie collapsed astride the window because her trembling legs wouldn’t hold her up.

‘Who were you talking to?’

‘Wrong number.’

‘But I heard you saying you were alone in a huge house, and if only whoever it was, was here.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ Guy’s mouth gave a little pop of incredulity as he pronounced the ‘B’ of beg. His eyes were as innocent as a kitten’s.

‘Guy, I heard you.’

‘Are you out of your mind? If I get a wrong number, you accuse me of having other women. You’re spending too much time on your own. Ask Kitty over to supper next week, or get some pills from the local doctor. Benson he’s called. Everyone swears by him.’

Such was his assurance that Georgie felt she was the one in the wrong. She ought to have left well alone, but she was badly frightened.

‘Who were you spending thirty minutes talking to on the telephone within seconds of leaving the house on Monday then?’

‘Harry,’ replied Guy calmly. ‘I was bringing him up to date about selling all those Armstrongs, and talking about a couple of British Impressionists Rannaldini’s after. He is my partner and we had a lot to catch up on. I had a week off moving you, and a Friday off to organize your dinner party.’

‘You asked Julia and Ben. No, stay outside, darling, I’ll be with you in a sec,’ Georgie added as Dinsdale’s lugubrious face appeared at the window.

‘And who sent that pink envelope marked “Private” which you tore up and threw in your waste-paper