trying to find one who would help. At last,
'He's at the House, I'm afraid.'
'When will he be back?'
'The thing is, he's most frightfully busy at the moment. Can I help?'
No, thought Edith. You cannot and you would not. 'Not really,' she said lightly. 'I don't want to be a bother. Just say I telephoned.'
'Of course I will.' It was obvious from her flat tone of voice that Arabella intended to say nothing but, in the event, she felt discomfort at the thought of being discovered in a lie so she did pass on the message while predictably urging her husband to ignore it. Edith had already played out this scenario or something like it in her brain so it was quite a surprise that evening when she picked up the receiver to hear Tommy speaking.
'I want to see Charles and everyone's stopping me,' she said after the usual pleasantries.
'Why?'
'Because they're frightened of Googie, because they want to stay in with the family. I don't know why.'
There was a short silence. The request may not have been articulated but it had nevertheless been made. 'I don't want to land him in it.'
'Nor do I,' said Edith firmly. 'I just want to see him.'
Another silence. Then with something like a sigh, Tommy spoke. 'He's coming here for a drink on Wednesday at about seven. You could always drop in then.'
'I will never forget this.' Edith's voice was sonorous with significance and from it Tommy could easily gauge the treatment she had been receiving elsewhere from her erstwhile world.
'Don't get your hopes up too much,' he said. He was after all fully aware of the powers she was ranging herself against.
===OO=OOO=OO===
I was already in the Wainwright drawing room when Edith arrived. It wasn't a large party, roughly twenty or thirty souls who had nothing better to do. They had dutifully assembled in the cramped mews house near Queen Anne Street to start their evening with a few smoked salmon whirls from Marks & Spencer and some bottles of Majestic champagne. The gathering was already past its zenith and the guests had begun to peel away, heeding the call of dinner reservations and theatres and baby-sitters, when Edith came through the door. She was smiling with anticipation but I could see her face shrink with disappointment as she surveyed the room. I went up to her.
'Don't tell me Charles has gone. I got stuck in traffic and I left too late anyway.'
It was easy to see why. She had taken immense trouble with her appearance and I could not remember seeing her in better fettle, her lovely face flawless, her hair shining and an alluring evening outfit encasing her already desirable form.
'Stop worrying,' I murmured reassuringly. 'He hasn't arrived yet.'
'But he is coming?'
'I suppose so. Tommy said he was.'
'That's what he said to me but where is he?'
She bit her lip in annoyance as a couple of her former friends grudgingly decided to acknowledge her presence and draw her into conversation. Adela came up to me.
'What's she doing here?' she said. 'I thought this was the other camp.'
'Not really. I gather Tommy was trying to bring them together.'
'You amaze me. Two days ago, I ran into Arabella at Harvey Nicks and she was saying the break-up was the best thing that could have happened.'
'I don't doubt it but even married couples can on occasion disagree. Or don't you believe such a thing possible?'
'I believe it,' said Adela sourly, 'but I still don't see how Arabella could have allowed the invitation in the first place.'
The answer, of course, which I could not give then but I was able to supply later, was that Arabella had given no such agreement.
The party was on its last legs. A few of us had been invited to stay on for dinner and we were in that uncomfortable, if familiar, period when almost everyone who is not invited to remain has gone but there is always a couple who do not realise that they are delaying the launch of the next stage of the evening. Usually, the hostess weakens and says to the obdurate, 'Do stay for something to eat if you'd like to.' To the trained ear, this translates as, 'Please go. We are hungry and you are not invited.' The old hand on the cocktail party circuit will then look around, blush and scuttle away, muttering about having to be somewhere else. But there is always the risk that the stayer will be uninitiated in these rituals or stubborn or simply stupid — in which case they may accept the unmeant offer of hospitality. In this instance, Arabella Wainwright was clearly not prepared to take a chance on having to entertain Edith for the rest of the evening and so she said nothing. But still Edith would not leave. I strolled over to her.
'I suppose you're having dinner here?' she said.
'We are. And so I imagine is more or less everyone else in the room.'
She looked around. When she spoke her voice had a bleakness that almost brought tears to my eyes. 'I was all geared up.
