The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous

warmth of her breast through the drenched muslin.

‘Bra-less in Gaza,’ he mocked. ‘You certainly advertise your wares.’

He couldn’t tell if her thin face was wet with tears or rain, as his hand strayed downwards. ‘No knickers either.’

‘I got up first thing to practise,’ stammered Rachel, ‘then rushed out in a hurry. I didn’t want to be late picking up the children.’

‘You left plenty of time to steal my sloes.’ Rannaldini clenched and unclenched his fingers.

With his other hand he drew her to him, kissing first her forehead, then both her unplucked eyebrows, then her mouth.

‘No!’ Suddenly aware she hadn’t cleaned her teeth, and loathing herself for minding, Rachel clamped her lips shut.

‘No?’ Rannaldini moved away slightly. ‘Do you have any choice?’

His hand slipped inside her sleeve, caressing its way up her arm, pulling at her long, silky armpit hair, before curling round to caress her breasts.

Rachel gave a moan, trying to duck her head away, as Rannaldini ruffled the slight down on her upper lip with his tongue.

‘Leetle wild thing, eet will be like making love to an animal. A goat perhaps.’

‘I hate you.’

‘No, no, you ’ate yourself for wanting me so much, Mrs Levitsky.’

Rannaldini relished calling women by the names of the husbands he was cuckolding.

‘I’m not Levitsky any more, I’m back to Grant now. Someone’s coming,’ gasped Rachel, hearing a snatch of ‘For All The Saints’ sung in a loud baritone.

Rannaldini pushed her back on to the ground, crouching beside her, holding his hand, which smelt faintly of Maestro, over her mouth, until the vicar had gone.

Then, when she tried to leap to her feet, mouth open in protest, Rannaldini plunged his tongue inside, until she forgot her uncleaned teeth and kissed him back. Rannaldini wanted to take her now, but the vicar might surprise them on his return.

‘The kids! I must pick them up!’ said Rachel, fighting to get free.

Back in his tower, it was Rannaldini who got the number of the school by ringing Kitty. Then he rang the school.

‘Mrs Levitsky is stuck in traffic jam, and will be three-quarters of an hour late. She ask me to ring, she is very, very sorry. But she is not,’ he added, switching off the telephone. ‘You ought to get out of those wet things,’ he said softly, then, sliding his hand down inside her trousers, ‘and this is the wettest thing that I should eenstantly get into.’

‘Let me undress myself, for fuck’s sake,’ snarled Rachel.

But so overjoyed was Rannaldini by the early conquest of something he thought would take him weeks, perhaps months, that his face assumed a quite uncharacteristic delight and tenderness. He also had a water diviner’s skill in testing the depth of women’s loneliness. He knew when to be kind.

‘You have been so sad and lonely,’ he crooned, drawing her into his arms and stroking her hair. ‘You deserve some happiness. This time it will be queek, because of your children, but the next time… it will be ecstatic.’

In the long mirror, as Rachel lay back white and slender as a snowdrop against his mahogany chest, they looked wonderfully exotic. Some three inches shorter than her, perched on the back of a grey silk chaise-longue, it was simplicity for him to slide his iron-hard cock slowly in and out of her as he gently caressed her in front with the artistry of a Casals playing a cello concerto.

But the moment she came Rachel’s moans of pleasure turned into wild sobs.

‘Cry, leetle darling,’ purred Rannaldini. ‘Eet is what you need.’

‘No, no,’ wept Rachel. ‘It’s the wrong person in the mirror. You should be Boris.’

41

On Monday morning after Guy and Larry had left for the London train, Marigold and Georgie had got into a habit of ringing each other to grumble about their respective husbands — their Moan-day session, they called it. As September dragged on with no break in the drought and the recession deepened, Marigold’s complaints were increasingly of Larry’s stinginess, Georgie’s increasingly of Rachel.

‘He’s stopped may account at Harvey Nicks,’ announced Marigold indignantly the first Monday in October, ‘and he’s cancelled our box at Covent Garden and he won’t let Patch have steak any more.’

‘Better than Guy who’s trying to turn poor Dinsdale into a vegan,’ said Georgie darkly. ‘And he’s rigged up a washing-line. I mean, he’s never let me hang out clothes even in our brokest days; said it was horrifically suburban. Now his Turnbull & Asser shirts are waving in the lack of wind for all at see.’

‘He could be trayin’ to save money.’

‘Rubbish, the only thing Guy is saving at the moment is the whale and the rain forests.’

‘But your marriage has been so much better since Laysander came on the scene.’ Alarmed, Marigold detected the old obsessive rattle in Georgie’s voice.

‘It was, until Guy started pursuing Rachel. I can’t cope, Marigold, it’s like going through chemotherapy, then finding another lump.’

‘Ay’m sure you’re imaginin’ things.’

‘I am not. Guy’s started using organic toothpaste, and he won’t have white 100 paper in the house, because the “bleach pollutes our waterways”, and worst of all,’ Georgie’s voice rose hysterically, ‘Dinsdale came back from a walk smelling of a quite different scent. I’m certain it comes from the Body Shop.’

‘Perhaps Guy wanted to test it on an animal.’

‘Don’t make sick jokes. I’ve lost my sense of humour, and even, even worse, because Rock Star’s selling so well overseas, your rotten husband’s marketing Guy and Georgie T-shirts and key rings, and even Guy and Georgie balloons. What happens when people rumble how bad our marriage is?’

‘They won’t unless you tell them.’

‘And to cap it all, Guy’s off to the South of France for three days to look at some private collection, and he’s picked the week of my concert so I can’t go with him. I caught him admiring himself in the mirror in his new goggles and flippers yesterday. He jumped out of his skin. “Off to save the whales,” I said. “The pollution’s awful in the Med.” He was livid and went into his “Are you mad, Panda? You must see a doctor” routine.’

Two minutes after ringing off, she rang Marigold back.

‘Oh darling, I’m sorry to bang on. I must still love Guy for him to get so much under my skin.’

Lysander was so worried about Georgie he bought her a diamond necklace, a beautiful black backless Lycra dress and a book of Fred Basset cartoons. Then, deciding she was barn sour, he tried to take her away for a jaunt to coincide with her concert and Guy’s trip to France. Kitty had lost over a stone and could be left unsupervised for a few days.

But Georgie was nervous of being recognized and only allowed Lysander to join her at the Ritz in her room overlooking Green Park where Catchitune had put her up for the night. Catchitune also sent a limo to collect her from Paradise. But, again to avoid the Press, she made Lysander drive up on his own to join her later in the day.

Having stayed with Marigold in the Ritz in Paris, Lysander promptly rediscovered the joys of room service. Georgie once again realized how young he was, as he ordered smoked salmon with gauze-wrapped half-lemons, club sandwiches and vast Bloody Marys, then played with the telephone in the bathroom and all the bottles of shampoo and bath gel before discovering a television where he could watch everything from blue movies to Donald Duck.