The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous

He was still smarting over Ferdie’s amusement. How was he to know George Eliot was a woman? Down below he could see Rannaldini’s horses seeking shade beneath a huge oak tree. He must get Arthur sound. Box rest had done no good. He’d turn him out when he’d got him back to Paradise.

‘I can’t afford that,’ an aghast Georgie was saying as she rotated her leather bracelet. ‘Marigold never said it’d be that much.’

‘Inflation’s gone up three per cent since we sorted her out,’ said Ferdie, ‘and Lysander must have a soft-top Ferrari.’

‘I am due a big royalty cheque,’ said Georgie. ‘If it arrives when Guy’s not here I suppose I could stash it away and pay you with that.’

‘No sweat. The important thing is to get Guy back. He’s away Monday to Friday, I presume.’

Georgie nodded. ‘But the coast isn’t always clear. Guy keeps telling his lady friends that I’m lonely. Last night bloody Hermione dropped in, had three whiskies and scrambled eggs, and I had to miss EastEnders, The Bill, After Henry and Capital City.’

Lysander turned even paler. ‘How dreadful. Couldn’t you have taped them?’

‘I was buggered if I’d show her I’m hooked on soaps. She thinks I’m an utter philistine as it is. Then she had the cheek to tell me I wasn’t unhappy, just suffering from rejection and hurt pride, the smug cow.’

‘Well, if the lady friends roll up it doesn’t matter.’ Ferdie was anxious to get down to basics. ‘It’ll be no bad thing if they tell Guy Lysander was here.’

‘But Guy’s always been turned on by my having other men,’ said Georgie, bursting into tears. ‘When we were first married and I went on tour and had the occasional one-night stand he used to love hearing about it when I came home — although he made me promise never to see them again. I often made things up to excite him, so he thinks I’m far more promiscuous than I was.’

‘But he’s never faced serious competition on his own doorstep,’ interrupted Ferdie. ‘The first thing to do is to start eating, cut out the booze and get some sleeping pills.’

‘I won’t be able to work. They make me so uncoordinated in the morning,’ said Georgie in panic.

‘You’re not working anyway. When he starts next week, Lysander will take you shopping. Don’t buy anything strapless or sleeveless. You’re too thin at the moment. And no minis, either, it looks too feverish. And,’ Ferdie added sternly, ‘you must do something about that scurf.’

‘It isn’t scurf.’ Georgie frantically brushed her shoulders. ‘It’s sand from burying my head like an ostrich for so many years.’

Back at Marigold’s house, Lysander sank into the blackest gloom. Even Marigold taping EastEnders and The Bill didn’t raise his spirits. He’d last seen Marigold six months ago, when she’d been down to eight stone, looking terrific and was giving off sexual vibes like a mare in season. She had also provided him with comfort and a home when he desperately needed it. He had therefore carried an idealized picture of her in his head, which had sometimes merged with that of his mother. The reality was a let-down. Marigold was more matronly, bossier — all that fuss because they’d forgotten to ask Georgie about the Nearly New Stall — and much commoner than he’d remembered her.

She was now having a double chinwag with Ferdie as she painted bluebells on a pink chair.

‘Gay, Ay’m afraid, has been rather a swayne to Georgie,’ she was saying.

Part of Lysander’s buzz at taking on Georgie had been that it would give him the chance to bonk Marigold again. Now he wasn’t sure he wanted to. And Georgie had been harrowing. He was fed up with self-obsessed, desperately unhappy, married women. He wanted some fun. Clutching Jack, as he always did in moments of stress, he announced: ‘I can’t take Georgie on. She’s too old and too far gone. She ought to be in the funny farm.’

‘Oh, please,’ said Marigold, who was secretly relieved Lysander didn’t fancy Georgie. ‘She’s so low and you were so wonderful at bringing Larry back.’

Ferdie noticed the Picasso and the Stubbs had vanished from the drawing-room wall. He’d always suspected Larry was over-leveraged. It must have cost a bomb getting rid of Nikki, or keeping her quiet if he’d perhaps weakened and seen her again. Marigold might well need Lysander’s services.

The puppy, who was stretched out beside Lysander on the sofa, gave a whimper and flexed her toes in her sleep. Her skin drooped between each rib. Ferdie knew how to touch Lysander’s heart.

‘Georgie’s like that little dog,’ he said gently. ‘She may not have cigarette burns on her back, but she’s in just as bad a way. Give it a try for a week.’

There was a long pause. Safe from the banging clays, pigeons cooed contentedly in Marigold’s wood.

‘Oh, OK,’ said Lysander crossly.

‘Come and have a look at the cottage I’ve found for you,’ said Marigold, ‘and then we’ll have some dinner.’

Magpie Cottage stood in the far side of dense woods on the edge of Larry’s land. Approached from the road by a rough cart-track, its front garden consisted of neat squares of lawn bordered by iceberg roses. Pink rambler roses and purple clematis swarmed over the door. Inside there was a kitchen, a dining room and drawing room knocked through and two bedrooms upstairs. Out at the back was another little lawn, a scented flower-bed filled with white stocks, pinks and tobacco plants, a pond and a white bench under a walnut tree. A four-acre field filled with dog daisies and red sorrel curved round the house and garden like a magnet.

‘It’s seriously nice. Arthur’ll love it,’ said Lysander, who had cheered up. ‘He’s so nosy he’ll be able to put his head in through all the downstairs windows.’

‘It’ll need a few pennies spending on it,’ admitted Marigold.

‘Judging by the smell a few pennies have been spent in it already,’ said Ferdie.

‘A keeper had it,’ explained Marigold, ‘hence the pong of ferret. Ay’ll get it painted and cleaned up and you’ll need a cooker. Would you prefer gas or electricity?’

‘Basically I don’t cook,’ said Lysander, ‘but gas is better for lighting cigarettes.’

‘You will keep the garden taydy, won’t you, Lysander? Paradayse has won the Best-Kept Village award ten years runnin’.’

Marigold worked fast furnishing the cottage with, among other things, a large brass four-poster, blue-ticking sofas and chairs and a big wooden bishop’s chair she’d found in a jumble sale. Eight days later, Lysander, Arthur, Jack, Tiny and little Maggie moved in. Loot from grateful wives now included six polo ponies which Lysander was keeping over at Ricky France-Lynch’s yard at Eldercombe and Mrs Gunn’s promised yacht which Ferdie had already swapped for a new soft-top dark blue Ferrari. He felt it was important for people to be able to see Lysander driving round Paradise and, besides, he wanted to appropriate the red Ferrari himself.

After moving in, he and Lysander went out to The Heavenly Host where they dined outside under the stars in the buddleia-scented dusk. Taking off his jacket Ferdie noticed Lysander’s post which he’d left in his inside pocket.

‘I forgot to give you these. Fan mail still coming in for Arthur and three letters from your father.’

‘I don’t want to see Dad. He was so horrible last time.’

‘Well, at least open the one from your bank.’ Ferdie chucked a thick white envelope across the red-check tablecloth.

‘Are you determined to ruin my dinner? Gregor and I lost a hell of a lot of money in the casino at Palma. If only you’d let me come home straight away.’

‘Open it,’ said Ferdie, ‘I promise you’ll be pleasantly surprised.’

With shaking hands Lysander tore open the envelope and holding up a candle scanned the contents for a long time, his lips moving as he read, growing paler and paler.

‘My God,’ he whispered, ‘I’m ?102,000 overdrawn and I’ve got to pay ?750 interest. What am I going to do? The Ferrari’ll have to go and the ponies and what about Arthur’s vet bill? Oh Christ.’

‘It’s in credit, you jerk,’ said Ferdie. ‘And you made ?750 in interest just last month. So you can bloody well buy me dinner.’

It took him several minutes to convince Lysander, who promptly suggested they went out later and blew some of it at the nearest casino.

‘We will not,’ said Ferdie tartly. ‘I’ll be fired if I don’t put in some work at the office and you’ve got to move in first thing on Georgie. Here’s the way I suggest you play it.’