portrait. To left and right she caught a glimpse of rooms with leafy Jacobean ceilings and vast empty fireplaces.
‘Rannaldini wanted rooms big enough for two grand pianos and sometimes entire orchestras,’ explained Kitty, hastily looking the other way, as Dinsdale hoisted a red-and-white leg on some dark blue velvet curtains.
Finally they reached the tidiest kitchen Georgie had ever seen. Apart from the corkboard with the telephone numbers of Rannaldini’s children’s schools and a large smouldering poster of Rannaldini, there was nothing on any of the surfaces at all, except the newly bleached and scrubbed kitchen table which was laid for two at one end. At the other were two neatly stacked piles of envelopes and signed photographs of Rannaldini, which Kitty had been sending out to fans while she waited.
‘How Guy would love this house,’ said Georgie, ‘everything so wonderfully ordered and lined up.’
She picked up one of the photographs in which Rannaldini was smiling slightly, a fan of wrinkles at the corner of each smouldering, dark eye.
‘Beautiful man,’ murmured Georgie, thinking how odd that she would have secretly nicked one of the photographs, had she come to lunch a couple of months ago.
Giving a deep sigh, Dinsdale lumbered on to the crocus-yellow window-seat which gave a glorious view of silver hayfields and sloping lawns, no doubt paced over the centuries by monks wrestling with temptation.
Rather gingerly Kitty poured out Georgie a large Bacardi and Coke, and made a cup of tea for Mr Brimscombe, who’d recently been poached from Larry and Paradise Towers by Rannaldini and who was now clipping a yew peacock out of the vast dark green side of the famous Valhalla Maze.
‘I daren’t face Marigold when she comes back,’ said Kitty, ‘particularly as Mr Brimscombe’s tending a cutting of the Paradise Pearl in the greenhouse.’
Listlessly picking up a photograph of Rannaldini surrounded by adorable sloe-eyed children, Georgie asked Kitty who looked after them.
‘Well, Cecilia, that’s Rannaldini’s second wife, she’s livin’ with a record producer at the moment. He’s pretty wealfy, so she’s got the kids wiv her and a couple of nannies, but if it breaks up, they might come back ’ere.’
‘How awful,’ shuddered Georgie. ‘Are they monsters?’
‘They’re sweet,’ said Kitty, ‘but very Italian. Cecilia believes kids should ’ave supper and go to bed when they want to, and do what they like. Are you hungry?’
‘A bit,’ lied Georgie as Kitty poured white sauce on two slices of breast.
‘Lovely house.’ Georgie was making heroic efforts not to talk about herself. ‘Mother Courage said something about a ghost.’
I shouldn’t have said that, she thought, as the colour drained from Kitty’s face.
‘There was a young novice, very ’andsome evidently,’ mumbled Kitty. ‘He died here. Sometimes at night I fink I hear him crying, but it’s probably the wind.’
Georgie shivered. ‘Don’t you get frightened here all by yourself?’
‘I’ve got a panic button and the burglar alarm’s wired up to the police station. Security’s very tight, Rannaldini don’t want his furniture or pictures nicked.’
‘You ought to have a dog,’ said Georgie, as Dinsdale, lured by a delectable smell of chicken, lumbered off the window-seat, and took up baleful drooling residence beside her.
‘I’d be more scared if I ’ad them,’ said Kitty, sitting down at the table. ‘I didn’t mean to be rude to Dinsdale. He’s OK, but Rannaldini’s guard dogs frighten me to deaf. Stupid livin’ in the country and being terrified of dogs.’
‘You ought to have someone living in.’
‘Rannaldini doesn’t want it. Cecilia had a living-in nanny, and when Rannaldini fired her, she went to the Press.’
Georgie was staring into space, so Kitty pushed the carrots, peas and mashed potato dishes forward so they were in a ring round her plate.
‘Shall I ’elp you?’
‘Oh, yes please.’
Georgie had finished her Bacardi and Coke, so Kitty gave her another one.
‘Nice kitchen,’ said Georgie, admiring the walls, covered with exotic brilliantly coloured flowers, snakes, humming birds and monkeys like a Malaysian jungle. ‘I’d never have dreamt of having wallpaper like this in a kitchen.’
‘Meredith did it,’ said Kitty, ‘but Rannaldini told him what to do.’
‘Ouch, that hurt!’ screamed Georgie, as Dinsdale scraped her skinny thigh with his paw, leaving great white tracks.
‘Guy’ll probably employ Meredith to wallpaper over the cracks in our marriage,’ she went on bitterly. ‘Nice wife, nice family, nice house in the country, nice BMW, nice mistress. He believes in the united front for the outside world.’ She was twisting her napkin round and round.
‘Try and eat, Georgie,’ said Kitty gently. ‘I don’t mean to pry, but you looked so very unhappy in the churchyard.’
And like a burst water main, Georgie’s misery came flooding out. Kitty was appalled when she’d finished.
‘I can’t believe Julia showing you her diary and telling you all those fings.’
‘She was distraught. On balance, she probably loves Guy almost more than I do, but nothing’s ever hurt me so much in my life.’
‘It must have been a sort of fatal attraction.’
‘Fatal distraction,’ said Georgie in despair. ‘I can’t work, and we sink more and more in debt. I’ll have to pay back the advance on
‘Every morning,’ Georgie dripped white sauce all over the floor, as she gave a piece of breast to Dinsdale, ‘I read Julia’s horoscope, then Guy’s and then mine. I bet Julia does the same thing. Then I feel sick. Guy and I are so terrified of touching each other, we keep bumping into the furniture. I know I should be sweet and loving with my legs permanently open, or he’ll go back to her, but I can’t stop sniping.’
Georgie was eating nothing because she was talking so much, and Kitty was reduced to giving herself second and third helpings. No wonder listeners got fat.
‘I don’t know what’s got into men,’ said Georgie despairingly. ‘They’re all at it, they ought to change the name of London on the map, and call it Bloody Adventure Playground. Doesn’t Rannaldini hurt you?’ she asked. ‘Hermione must. She’s such a cow.’
‘Yes,’ admitted Kitty, ‘but I knew what he was like before I married him. I love him so much, Georgie, even a bit of him is better than nuffink. An’ he’s forty-six, he might settle down one day.’
‘If only we could find nice lovers down here,’ sighed Georgie, as Kitty removed her untouched plate. ‘But men are so dire at the moment. Annabel Hardman went out with a quantity surveyor the other night, he just lay back on the sofa, said he wanted to hear all about her life from the age of two, and then fell asleep. Then he was terrible in bed, and expected her to drive him home afterwards.’
Kitty giggled, and put the kettle on. There didn’t seem any point offering Georgie apple tart, but she cut a slice for a lurking Mr Brimscombe who was weeding the flower-bed outside.
‘What are you going to do?’ she asked Georgie.
‘It’s the duty of all prisoners of war to escape,’ said Georgie, ‘so I’d better start vaulting over a wooden horse. My problem is I can’t stop telling people — ancient marinading I call it — I think I’ve gone a bit mad. It’s such a comfort to dump, but you feel so disloyal afterwards, and it’s bound to reach the Press soon.’
Kitty’s wide-set eyes behind the thick spectacles were full of tears.
‘I’m so sorry, Georgie. You and Guy are such lovely people, I can’t bear you both being so unhappy. I’m sure you’ll work it out.’
‘You are nice,’ Georgie hugged her. ‘I’m awfully worried about you being lonely in this huge place.’
‘I’m OK. Natasha and Wolfie come ’ome at weekends, bringing lots of friends. And you know Flora’s coming to stay on Sunday. I’m so looking forward to meeting her.’
‘Are you sure?’ said Georgie. ‘She always cheers me up, but it’s a bit of a strain having to pretend everything is OK in front of her.’
