Putting down his cigar, Rupert wrote ‘Hermione’. Handing his turned-over piece of paper to Tabitha, he touched her hand. The rows over The Engineer had upset him very much, he’d probably buy her the damn horse in the end.
Eddie and Lysander were so drunk they couldn’t remember whose move it was.
‘Think I should marry her?’ Eddie nodded in Hermione’s direction.
‘God, no,’ Lysander turned pale. ‘She’s awful.’
‘Damn fine looking, damn rich, sort out my Lloyd’s lorses.’
‘Not worth it, anyway she’s got a husband.’
‘Must be loopy to leave a beautiful woman like that at Christmas.’
‘He’s gay.’
‘Whaddja mean?’
‘Queer.’
‘Good God.’ Eddie’s teeth nearly fell out.
Lysander giggled. ‘Don’t let her get her Santa Claws into you.’
‘Ha, ha, ha, ha, Santa Claws, that’s good,’ Eddie choked on his third glass of port.
I cannot stand it, thought Helen, who was perched on the arm of Marcus’s chair. I’ve seen King Wensceslas’ statue on the Charles Bridge, she wanted to shout, and he wasn’t good at all, and the stupid story about St Agnes’ fountain and the pine logs is garbage. But none of these drunken philistines would be remotely interested unless she told them she had been on the bridge with Rannaldini.
Sensing her anguish, Marcus reached back to retrieve Boris’s present.
‘Please open it, Mum, it’s really nice.’
‘Do have a drink,’ pleaded Taggie.
Helen shook her head violently, sending tears flying out of her eyes.
The group round the fire had finished the first round of their consequences.
‘You start, Tabitha,’ said Flora. Tabitha unrolled her piece of paper. ‘Penscombe Pride,’ she began, in her flat little voice, then starting to smile, ‘met Hermione — on top of the muck heap, Pridie said: Give us a blow job. Hermione said to Pridie: I am about to have my period. Pridie gave her the clap, Hermione gave him a great kick up the ass, and the consequence was…’ Tabitha burst out laughing.
‘Tabitha,’ protested Taggie, ‘that’s enough.’
‘Why must you spoil everything?’ Tabitha turned on her stepmother like a viper.
About to send her to bed, Rupert heard a clip-clop on the flagstones, and cheers and shouts of laughter greeted a grinning Xav, riding into the drawing-room on Tiny, Lysander’s delinquent Shetland pony. Xav had got Tiny’s measure completely and punched her on the nose if she ever tried to bite him, but he couldn’t stop her lashing out at Hermione, sending the discomfited diva scrambling like a camel to her feet. Having vented her spleen, Tiny proceeded to hoover up the straw from Helen’s Body Shop basket, until she encountered a pearl bath drop and curled up her lip.
‘Quick, get a camera,’ Rupert told Marcus.
But Tabitha had flipped.
‘You never let me ride ponies into the house,’ she screamed. ‘That child is spoilt rotten, he got far more presents than Marcus and I put together. It’s bloody unfair, you love him far more than you do us.’
‘Bloody, bloody unfair,’ beamed Bianca, appearing in the doorway with her telephone. ‘Hallo, I’m afraid Tabiffa’s in the bath.’
‘And she’s revoltingly spoilt, too,’ yelled Tab. ‘I was never allowed down at this hour.’ And storming out, she slammed the door shaking every piece of china.
Helen burst into tears.
‘Why is everyone always fighting in this house?’ she sobbed. ‘Why can’t you all be nice to each other?’
You could start off by controlling your daughter, thought Flora mouthing, ‘Don’t worry’ at Marcus.
‘They should bring back National Service, particularly for women,’ said Eddie. ‘Checkmate.’
Appalled that Xav and Bianca could have caused such a terrible row, Taggie leapt forward to comfort Helen who was now wailing: ‘I can’t go on, I can’t go on, oh Malise.’
‘Take that pony back to the stable at once, Xav,’ ordered Rupert.
‘Telephone for Mrs Gordon.’
‘Talk about the ungay Gordon,’ grumbled Flora, as Helen shot out of the room, sending Boris’s present flying, ‘And that’s five hundred pounds down the drain, poor Boris. She’s a frightful drip,’ she added.
Rupert agreed. ‘God, I hope you marry Marcus.’
Looking into her eyes, which were the light emerald of the winter barley rampaging over his fields, he picked up the sadness and remembered the gossip.
‘Still hung up on Rannaldini.’
‘I guess so, he recurs like malaria.’
‘You could do better.’
‘And I have to say that when I was at Bagley Hall, you were voted the man to whom we most wanted to lose our virginity.’
Rupert smiled.
‘If I wasn’t bespoke,’ he jerked his head towards Taggie, who was anxiously pouring a glass of Armagnac for Hermione, ‘I couldn’t think of anything nicer.’
‘You
But Rupert had been distracted by the return of Helen suddenly looking radiant, tears dried like raindrops in a heatwave. Bewildered by her mood swings, Marcus sloped off to check with Mrs Bodkin who had telephoned.
‘He wouldn’t give his name, but it was a foreign-sounding gentleman.’
Marcus so hoped it was Boris, who had been screwing up courage to ask Helen out. But when she finally opened his present, the beautiful porcelain nightingale had shattered into a hundred pieces.
Alone in the kitchen Taggie cried and cried. An exhausted Marcus had finally got Helen to bed. Arthur, woken by the din, had been taken home by Lysander and Kitty, who had annexed Flora as well. Tab wasn’t in her room and had probably taken refuge with the grooms over the stables. Eddie had passed out on the sofa, leaving his teeth in one of Hermione’s crystallized greengages. Taggie had put a duvet over him. Hermione’s limo had borne her away to an early flight in the morning.
The dogs had collapsed on their bean bags. The dish-washer swished and swirled round the last consignment of rare glasses and coffee cups. Helen would have been appalled that Taggie hadn’t washed them by hand.
Only Rupert and Gertrude, the mongrel, who had taken umbrage over the new puppy and the crackers, and escaped through the cat door, were missing. Nimrod, the lurcher, brought out a rubber cutlet he had been given for Christmas and squeaked it to make Taggie laugh. But she went on crying so he slunk back to his basket.
‘I’ve lost my dog, my husband and the present list. No-one will know what anyone’s given anybody,’ sobbed Taggie.
She jumped at the crash of the cat door. There was a scampering of claws and in charged Gertrude, wearing Rupert’s black tie, and hurled herself on Taggie.
She was followed by Rupert squinting worse than ever. A blond lock of hair had fallen over his forehead, an empty brandy bottle swung between his fingers.
‘Gertrude and I have been hiding, we don’t want Mrs Fat Bum as a stepmother.’
‘She’s gone,’ sobbed Taggie.
‘Angel, what’s the matter?’
‘I wanted to show I was a better wife than Helen.’
‘Oh, darling,’ Rupert folded her in his arms. ‘I’m sorry I’ve been such a shit, but I can’t stand my first wife, and I loathe Hermione and Marcus gets on my tits and Tabitha’s impossible, and all I want to do is screw you stupid.’
‘I’m stupid anyway,’ said Taggie, but she stopped crying.
